Mainstream Media Covers Durham Report Literally; Dismisses As Nothingburger

The establishment media is being accused of “negligence” after rushing to dismiss Special Counsel John Durham’s report that confirmed one of its favourite talking points—that the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election—was false.
Durham’s 300-page report found that the Department of Justice and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity to the law” when they launched the Trump-Russia investigation that never found collusion, despite liberal pundits and the press pushing the collusion narrative for years.

DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall calls the media’s lack of interest in the Durham report “quite disturbing, but not really surprising.” “The establishment media were so fully gulled and in the tank for the Russian collusion story for so long that they now just can’t acknowledge Durham’s report without also having to eat crow at the same time, something they clearly aren’t willing to do,” McCall told Fox News Digital.

Fox News contributor Joe Concha said the media ignoring Durham’s report is “as predictable as the sun rising in the east” and shows that many MSNBC and CNN pundits have no shame.

“John Durham, who has as much credibility as anyone in Washington, concludes the FBI should’ve never launched that investigation, and that the evidence such as the Steele dossier, was limp to begin with,” Concha told Fox News Digital.

“Of course, all those who insisted the Steele dossier was so credible are the same people now saying you Durham’s conclusion is nothing burger,” Concha remarked. “These people have no shame and will never uphold the high standards we expect from journalists.”

Observers noted that many of the Russiagate conspirators wanted to downplay any examination into its origins.

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a CNN contributor, tried to dismiss Durham’s findings.

I strongly disagree with Mr. Durham’s report characterizations. “He betrays a deep misunderstanding of not only what we knew at the time, but how we make these decisions,” McCabe told Anderson Cooper.

“There is nothing new here,” McCabe added, claiming Durham never meant to conduct an honest Russia probe on Trump.

Joy Reid, who quoted disgraced ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok, called it a “predictable, sad ending to an investigation that never should have taken place.”

Fox News contributor Ben Domenech questioned McCabe and Strzok’s high-profile positions after they dismissed the article. “I don’t see how any network can employ Andrew McCabe or Peter Strzok after this report,” Domenech tweeted. “The sheer mountain of lies they’ve told… it’s incredible.”

Joe Scarborough of MSNBC dubbed it a “dud,” and CNN media writer Oliver Darcy called it a “debacle” in his emotional newsletter.

“Durham’s report concluded without sending a single person to prison, falling far short of the inflated expectations set in the Trump-friendly press,” Darcy said. “After spending millions of dollars on the years-long investigation, Durham only ultimately secured the conviction of a low-level FBI lawyer who avoided jail time.”

Former top Russia prosecutor Andrew Weissmann of MSNBC called the findings “a big fat nothing.”

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, a hardcore Democratic Party sycophant and Russiagate zealot, called the study a “rabbit-hole conspiracy” during a panel discussion with former FBI agent Frank Figliuzzi.

“Durham’s whole thing is predicated on it’s like a rabbit-hole conspiracy that suggests that the Trump-Barr paranoia infected his ability to stand back and evaluate whether the probe yielded guilty convictions of people who would have had nothing to do with any of these questions he looked at,” Wallace said. “It is a view from so far down the rabbit hole that what needs some oversight is what Mr. Durham did for four years that repelled his long-time prosecutorial partner, Nora Dannehy, and other high-level DOJ prosecutors.”

Durham “failed miserably” in his report, according to Figliuzzi, who suspected a “agenda.”

“John Durham, once highly respected by hard-nosed prosecutors and someone I worked for eons ago as an intern when I was in law school, has twisted himself into a pretzel in an attempt to deliver what he could not deliver,” Figliuzzi said.

Wallace made her comments minutes after the big study was published, suggesting she’s a speed reader or didn’t read it.

“There’s nothing there,” CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers said.

The deep state conspiracy, right? “The FBI was out to get him, they wanted to help Hillary Clinton, although apparently didn’t do it very well, because, of course, she lost,” Rodgers stated.This was it. Right? FBI leaders were going to prison. No one went to jail. Durham charged two persons. Trial acquitted them. This was pointless. They did not prove this deep state conspiracy because it never existed.”

Wolf Blitzer invited D-Texas Rep. Veronica Escobar to repeat the left-wing talking point.

“We’ve spent an awful lot of money, as an American government, on a report that essentially proves no wrongdoing,” Escobar said Blitzer.

James Carville dismissed Durham on MSNBC.

Durham is pitiful. Four years, millions of dollars, and how many pals did he hire at his office to do what? To publish a patently bogus report,” Carville told Ari Melber.

McCall criticized MSNBC and CNN for “running with a flimsy story” to promote politics.

“This is journalism at its most negligent—running with a flimsy story for months, and yet not having the decency to put things in proper perspective once a comprehensive counter –narrative emerges from Durham,” McCall said. “This continued negligence demonstrates that too many establishment media outlets were never really interested in reporting facts, but instead in activist, agenda-based ‘journalism’ designed to push political advocacy instead of serving the information needs of a democracy.”

Russiagate-promoting newspapers declared nothing to see here. Durham Report Had Few Conclusions. “The Right Drew Its Own,” blared one New York Times headline.

“[T]he Republican interpretation of the final Durham report will feed a narrative of ‘Deep State’ corruption that is fueling not only Mr. Trump’s quest for the White House in 2024 but that of many of his rivals for the Republican nomination,” reported Jonathan Weisman. “The Republican standard-bearer race was already vilifying federal bureaucracy.” Regardless of Mr. Durham’s conclusions, his paper appears to serve that trend.”

In April 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the Trump campaign and Russia did not conspire to influence the 2016 election.

“This journalistic malfeasance was bad enough when it was happening originally, but burying the Durham conclusions now means that millions of Americans will never know that the Russian collusion story was baseless, and that government actors were involved in the development of it,” McCall added.

“Today, many Americans are still misinformed and walking around with misguided notions in their heads, not knowing how the Russian collusion hoax has affected the political landscape for years,” he continued. “The journalism industry deserves its terrible credibility ratings and this kind of negligence condemns the industry to continued distrust from the public.”