When Special Counsel John Durham released his explosive 306-page report about the Russian-collusion hoax on Monday, he merely confirmed what many of us already knew: the Obama Administration colluded with Democrats and the corporate media and weaponized the FBI to take down former President Donald Trump before he was even elected to office.
For years, the government, sworn to protect the people, created a partisan scheme to take down an American citizen because he threatened the deep state’s near-total grip on power. Durham’s report was critical because it exposed the years of corruption and “confirmation bias” fueling the “Russia Russia Russia” lies.
Uncovering and punishing, however, are two different things, and Durham, despite bringing charges against two known hoaxers, was mostly successful at establishing that the government levied a massive abuse of power against its citizens.
Now the ball is in the GOP’s court. Ever since they took back the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm election, Republicans have honed in on the corruption that plagues Democrats like President Joe Biden, the Department of Justice, and intelligence agencies like the FBI.
So far, Republican-led investigations are making good progress. Yet, at the end of the day, committee hearings, letter-writing campaigns, and press conferences are empty threats to people like former FBI Director James Comey, who repeatedly refuses to answer questions about his role in the Russia collusion hoax.
The GOP knows corruption at the DOJ and FBI is deeply rooted and, as evidenced by the FBI’s reported retaliation campaign against whistleblowers, ongoing. This is exactly why Republicans must leverage the momentum they gained from Durham to punish those who weaponized and continue to weaponize themselves against the American people.
As the 2024 election cycle rapidly approaches, it’s likely tempting for Republicans to slow their quest for truth and justice among the swampy ranks of the bureaucracy. Any balking in the face of the copious evidence Durham provided, however, is inexcusable and no better than the GOP establishment’s perfidious reaction at the beginning of this years-long scandal.
When allegations that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election were first placed in corporate media newspapers on propaganda press TV screens, few Republicans were willing to defend their party’s candidate. Even fewer agreed with Trump’s decision in early 2017 to fire FBI Director James Comey for his role in the government’s vile election interference.
Veteran Republican legislators like then-Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham, Rob Portman, Lisa Murkowski, and John Thune quite literally knew better than to trust the man suspected of leading a coup against the 2016 presidential candidate. Yet, instead of focusing their efforts on punishing the FBI for warring against the will of the American people, these GOPers said Comey was a “fine man” who didn’t deserve the wrath of the new president. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even recommended Obama-favorite Attorney General Merrick Garland, who is the current subject of multiple weaponization probes by congressional Republicans, to take over the FBI.
Even now, as corporate media outlets repeatedly spew lies about the circumstances surrounding the FBI’s decision to illegally spy on the Trump campaign, Republicans could do more.
“The FBI allowed itself to be hijacked and weaponized by political actors to target a political rival during a presidential election and administration. Restoring its integrity, if that’s even possible, will take humility, transparency and accountability,” Sen. Chuck Grassley said in a statement on Monday.
The FBI has the opportunity to, as Grassley put it, “start today” by responding to Republicans’ demands that the FBI hand over information about its lack of investigation into Biden’s family corruption.
Grassley asked, “We know the FBI relied on unverified claims to relentlessly target a Republican president. What did the FBI do to investigate claims involving a Democrat President?”
It’s a fair question since the Biden administration’s FBI and DOJ have remained unresponsive to congressional requests and inquiries related to the Biden family business. Yet, it’s a question that will presumably remain unanswered by the FBI without any promise of recourse.
In recent months, Republicans repeatedly flirted with the notion of defunding the FBI. Every time that threat rises to prominence, however, it is quietly put to bed.
Why is the GOP scared to make an example of a clearly corrupt and partisan agency? The FBI is clearly not sorry for wasting taxpayer dollars on a blatantly partisan scheme targeting the political opponents of Democrats.
Backing down from the Russia collusion hoax now just because Durham’s chapter is closed would signal an unforgivable retreat in the battle for American democracy. Any Republican that chooses the path that the establishment chose in 2017 at the beginning of one of the biggest smears in American history is, at best, a coward, at worst, an accomplice to the Democrats’ radical institutional takeover.
If Republicans want to hold the federal government accountable for waging war against its own citizens, they must act now or risk losing the chance forever.
