Democratic New York Rep. Daniel Goldman said Wednesday on MSNBC that the Durham report is an “abuse of power” and an “embarrassment” despite the bombshell findings.
Special counsel John Durham found the FBI used “uncorroborated intelligence” when it launched its investigation into Trump ahead of the 2016 election. The report also found agents failed to maintain “strict fidelity to the law” throughout their investigation. The FBI later made a tacit admission that the Durham report is accurate, acknowledging errors were made in 2016.
“You want to talk about a waste of time and money, the John Durham investigation is an embarrassment and it should go down as one of the biggest abuses of power and waste of money in the Department of Justice’s history,” Goldman said. “But there’s no confirmation bias here. Special Counsel Mueller did an investigation and convicted people. They pled guilty or they were convicted at trial. He established, as did the inspector general, that the initial investigation was opened justifiably. Durham doesn’t even really quibble with that. He says it should have been preliminary, not a full investigation, which is for the majority of lay people outside of the Department of Justice a distinction without a difference.”
“So it is a real abomination, and the fact that he wasted 300 pages on this, including so much about the Steele Dossier, which the inspector general had also addressed, just goes to show how political this is,” Goldman continued. (RELATED: ‘Grave Injustice’: Bill Barr Reacts To Durham Investigation)
Durham was appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr to investigate Crossfire Hurricane, which was the investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign that alleged Russian collusion.