A neat summary

I do find it totally exasperating that so many on the Right will not admit that the Trump campaign interactions with Russians was scandalous.   It is absurd to think that, if the same thing had happened on the Democrat side (let's say, Hunter Biden contacted by, and having secret meeting with,  alleged Chinese government contacts who wanted to pass on dirt on Trump) that they would shrug and say "that's nothing, what are you on about?"  like they try to do with the Trump campaign and family.  And furthermore, act as if bipartisan committee intelligence investigations confirming active Russian (secret) campaigning on line to support Trump is a big nothingburger.   

It's why MAGA types are just not worth engaging with - there is not a sensible brain cell left in their heads.

Update:   the fine print, as discussed in the Washington Post story on the Durham report:

When the inspector general, Michael Horowitz, issued his findings in 2019, Durham took the unusual step of publicly disagreeing with him on a key point — disputing Horowitz’s finding that the decision to open the investigation into Trump’s campaign was justified.

“Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened,” Durham said at the time.

Yet on Monday, he appeared to back away from that criticism, writing “there is no question that the FBI had an affirmative obligation to closely examine” allegations brought to the agency by an Australian diplomat who told them of alarming statements made over drinks by a low-level Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos.

Durham’s report suggests he thinks the FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation, rather than a full investigation, based on the Australian’s tip. The report highlights a conversation between two FBI officials at the time who appeared to bemoan the weakness of the new case.

“Damn that’s thin,” wrote one FBI official in early August 2016. “I know,” replied another, “it sucks.”

Durham’s final report comes against a backdrop of two failed prosecutions. Igor Danchenko — a private researcher who was a primary source for a dossier of allegations about Trump’s alleged ties to Russia — was acquitted in October of lying to the FBI about where he got his information. Durham personally argued much of the government’s case in that trial, in federal court in Alexandria.

Update:  I quite liked this column by Paul Waldman about the Durham report.  Here's a gift link.   

I'm quickly reading some of the huffing and puffing on the Right wing commentary side*, which is full of outrage about how no one is being prosecuted for this, and once again, it's the following familiar story.

They build themselves a house of cards on certain issues by selecting the narrowest range of facts that are spun for partisan, self promotional reasons.   (As with, of course, climate change, where they have always been welded to a mere handful of contrarian, ageing scientists and commentators, while ignoring the vast amount of work the mainstream has confirming the mainstream view.)   When an issue is somewhat complicated and some discrepancy comes to light, they leap onto it to try to boost it into a narrative that reads "Ha! Your story is now destroyed!".   In other words, they con themselves into not being able to see, or acknowledge, a "big picture".   Then, when the facts continue to accumulate against them (increasing natural climate disasters, increasing record temperatures, Durham fails at prosecutions)  their only reaction is to scream "I don't understand - the nation is about to fall because the people just can't see that I'm right."  

Truly, they gaslight themselves via continual hyper-partisan hyperbole of self serving narrative into never being able to see (or admit to) a "big picture" truth, and therefore can't understand why their view isn't having the consequences they want. 

*  The New York Times has a piece with lots of links to the cites hyperventilating about it.  As the writer says:

Mr. Trump had termed the Russia investigation “the crime of the century,” and with no one doing time for that crime, the Durham report could still prove to be Exhibit A in how the American right seems to be living in its own universe — and how Mr. Trump still dictates the parameters of that separate reality.

On his Truth Social website, Mr. Trump said the special prosecutor had concluded that “the FBI should never have launched the Trump-Russia Probe!” In fact, Mr. Durham said he agreed that the F.B.I. should have opened a preliminary investigation.

 My only quibble:  it's not that the American right "seems to be living its own universe":  they undoubtedly do.  And they just can't understand when a majority won't join them there, leading them to believe they are being "persecuted".