Analysis | Trumpworld declares Russia-probe victory, as it was always going to

<p>Analysis | Trumpworld declares Russia-probe victory, as it was always going to</p><p>Analysis: The final Durham report was incremental in its assessment of the Russia investigation. It is nonetheless being hailed as a totem of the right's vindication.</p><p>The final Durham report was incremental in its assessment of the Russia investigation. It is nonetheless being hailed as a totem of the right's vindication.</p><p>Which is the point! It was Durham’s investigation that was supposed to be the moment at which accountability was brought against those nefarious actors who ginned up the whole Russia probe. But, despite four years of looking, Durham was left only nibbling at the edges. But the visceral thrill of having a strike declared means an interest in having a fourth strike to be called. A fifth one! More and more strikes! Advertisement This idea that now is the point at which accountability should occur — a retconning of Durham’s entire effort from prosecutor to evidence-collector — was rampant on the right. Inevitably, of course: Since the entire shtick since December 2016 has been that the Russia probe was dishonest and unwarranted (rather than valid but flawed), there is an insatiable need for some sort of punitive resolution. Durham went from being the guy who’d put people in jail to the guy who provided the rationale for people to be put in jail, as though that rationale hadn’t previously been ginned up by numerous others in various ways. It’s all just a jumping-off point. House Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) released a statement that amounted to a more formal version of Greene’s tweet. “I am more committed than ever to ensuring that those involved are held accountable and face criminal prosecution,” it . How? Durham admitted in his report that “not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense” as a way of explaining his limited ability to get convictions. But Stefanik will somehow do better? Advertisement “The Durham Report reveals that Obama’s FBI had zero actual evidence of collusion when they kicked off the political witch hunt of Donald Trump,” House Republican Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) wrote on Truth Social. “We have said this all along. Now there must be consequences.” Setting aside the idea that “evidence of collusion” was lacking or necessary before the Russia investigation began, we have Scalise echoing Trump (“CONGRESS MUST DO SOMETHING”), if not Stefanik. The Republicans have a majority in the House, and Durham has already been called to offer testimony before the select committee created this year to investigate precisely the sort of investigatory overreach that Durham was unable to demonstrate. Scalise’s “We have said this all along” is important in its own right, of course. A wide range of Trump allies declared that this incremental presentation from Durham, focused heavily on ancillary aspects of the Russia probe like that Hillary Clinton triggered the investigation, proved them right all along. Advertisement It’s a very Trumpian response; the former president is very adept at reframing specific things in broad terms and, should some component of that broad rhetoric be validated, he claims that his entire response was warranted. Remember when he said they tapped the phones at Trump Tower? That then became a vague assertion about how maybe his campaign had been spied on that was then briefly</p>



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