The report, among other things, confirmed serious flaws in the so-called Steele Dossier, which the public now knows was commissioned by the Democratic National Committee and by Hillary Clinton, Trump's phone-smashing presidential opponent. The purpose of their plan was to allege a Trump-Russia link to hurt his campaign and put her in the White House.
Rather than show Trump was cozy with Moscow, or he was a "Russian asset" as Democrats claimed at the time, Durham's four-year investigation confirmed prominent Democrats created a fake story and the FBI cooperated with their lies.
“The FBI failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham judiciously summarized.
Long before the key players were outed publicly, the idea a "Deep State" was working against Trump was laughed at and mocked until it was confirmed and explained away with a fact-checking article.
So what punishment is deserving for those Deep State participants? According to the FBI, there is nothing else to be done.
“All senior executives overseeing the investigation have left the FBI as the result of termination, resignation or retirement,” FBI General Counsel Jason Jones was quoted in this Politico piece.
Many, many others are not satisfied with that, however, beginning with Trump himself. “There must be a heavy price to pay for putting our country through this," said Trump according to a Fox News Digital story.
Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington said on American Family Radio Wednesday that Trump “has already released multiple plans for how to clean up the Deep State and hold people accountable.”
'There are plenty of them'
If Trump is elected, it looks like mass firings in the Department of Justice will follow. He outlines his plan for accountability in a number of different areas at his campaign website. He writes:
We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our National Security and Intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them. The departments and agencies that have been weaponized will be completely overhauled so that faceless bureaucrats will never again be able to target and persecute conservatives, Christians, or the Left’s political enemies, which they're doing now at a level that nobody can believe even possible.
“The same people who were largely behind this hoax, the framing of President Trump, the spying on his campaign, they’re back in the Justice Department,” Harrington said. “They are still leading these witch hunts. It’s the same corrupt people pulling strings. Accountability will certainly come when President Trump returns to the White House.”
Rep. Bob Good (R-Virginia) also wants to see Justice Department reform. He has strong memories of his constituents being singled out when Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a memo instructing the FBI to look into concerned parents who spoke out at school board meetings in Loudoun County, Virginia.
“These parents showed up to school board meetings to express their concerns to the government school leadership, who they are funding with their tax dollars, about policies or curriculum or school closings, or mask mandates, or vaccine mandates, radical transgender policies, safety of their girls in schools or whatever they might be concerned about,” Good told AFR host Jenna Ellis. “Then you see this department of injustice, under the abuse of Attorney General Merrick Garland, target parents under threat of law enforcement.”
Good has since questioned Education Secretary Miquel Cardona about the blatant use of enemy-punishing political power when Cardona spoke before a House committee on Monday.
“What I really focused on during my time," Good said of his question period, "was the growing evidence of the continued weaponization of the federal government and all the power at its disposal, particularly in the executive branch, against its citizens and against those who don't agree with them politically or dare to challenge those who are running our government schools."
Cardona dodged a question on whether he would support an investigation into threats made against conservative parents from Loudoun County or parents who may have experienced similar threats elsewhere.
Good admitted that accountability is difficult to achieve but sees two paths to gain some measure of it. The first is to see that misdeeds confirmed in the Durham Report remain a topic in the House.
“What we've got to do is bring transparency at least, and accountability in terms of public exposure through hearings,” he said.
That plan remains an uphill fight. Any criminal evidence that’s uncovered would be referred to Garland, who would likely ignore it on behalf of the Democratic Party.
However, those criminal charges would not have an expiration date. So the Virginia congressman said conservatives have to vote and Republicans have to win elections.
“Come January 25 hopefully we'll have a Republican larger majority in the House and a Republican Senate,” Good said.
Trump says 'defund' corrupt DOJ
The more timely response in the quest for accountability is to limit the cash flow. That’s something a Republican-controlled House can do right now.
Trump has called on the House to “defund” the DOJ and the FBI.
Good says a less-radical response is currently in the works: Defund the "pet projects" Democrats support such as DEI training, transgender-obsessed policies, federal funding of abortion, and CRT training in military training and public education.
“Right now I have a spreadsheet of all of the 12 appropriations bills and the number of targeted cuts that my colleagues and I have put forward,” Good said.
Defunding far-left ideology won't end the Deep State, the Congressman said, but it starves it of money.
