"To me, the Durham 'investigation' can only be viewed as bad theater, unless and until it concentrates upon the motivations of many to attack Trump before, during and after his presidency," said Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel, who has been conducting a private investigation into the alleged fraud pertaining the Clinton Foundation and its associates.
"Here, I believe that elements in both established political parties do not want the public to understand how deeply false-front charities are used to launder dirty money and to purchase influence with dynastic political families. This likely occurred with Iran-Contra and certainly occurred with the Clinton Foundation as well as with Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund and Clinton Bush Haiti Fund," he continued.
Ortel argued that the Durham probe "has taken way too long and failed to uncover obvious fraud and treachery involving the Clinton and Bush families and their putative 'foundations,' not to mention foundations involving the Biden and Obama families."
On October 18, Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation Crossfire Hurricane suffered yet another setback, with a federal jury acquitting Brookings scholar Igor Danchenko on four felony false-statement charges. Danchenko was a key source for ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous dirty dossier on Donald Trump. Earlier, on May 31, Michael Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign charged by the special counsel with lying to the FBI, was also acquitted by jury.
Nonetheless, Durham probe shed light on the FBI's flaws and potential political bias and exposed Hillary Clinton campaign's role in promoting the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, some legal experts argued.
"We have learned a lot from this special counsel, including how the Hillary Clinton campaign funded the Steele dossier, denied they were funding it [and how] they hid that funding through their attorney, Marc Elias, and they ultimately got false statements into the media," Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley told the US press.
One might argue that Durham's lengthy indictments and trials exposing the Democratic establishment's anti-Trump saga and the FBI's participation has to some extent added to the growing disenchantment with the party ahead of the midterms. The DoJ and the FBI's aggressive prosecution of January Sixers, the bureau's questionable raid of Trump's Mar-a-Lago premises, and Joe Biden's calling Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement "semi-fascist" did the rest.
On July 25, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley accused FBI officials of pursuing "politically charged investigations." Two days earlier, on July 23, former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called out the Biden administration for "shamelessly weaponiz[ing]" federal law enforcement agencies as a "political hit squad." In early October, Gabbard, a former 2020 presidential hopeful, quit the Democratic Party, calling it an "elitist cabal of warmongers."
Meanwhile, some pollsters project that the Dems may lose both chambers of the US Congress in the aftermath of the November elections over galloping inflation, looming recession, soaring crime, border crisis, race-centered culture wars, botched Afghanistan withdrawal, etc. On top of this, the Democratic Party's flaws may also pave the way to the White House for a Republican presidential candidate.
GOP and Trump are Ready to Fight
The GOP's potential midterm victory might give a boost to a vast variety of congressional probes into the DoJ/FBI's supposed political bias and the Bidens' alleged corruption. Speaking to Time Magazine earlier this month, GOP Rep. James Comer from Kentucky highlighted that Republican lawmakers are investigating the US president's son Hunter Biden because they believe he’s a national security threat. But that is not all: "the Hunter Biden investigation is slowly becoming the Joe Biden investigation," Comer added.
"[S]hould the 8 November 2022 midterm election become a shocker, routing incumbents, then, perhaps, the public will demand a long overdue accounting for the many messes America finds itself in today," said Ortel. "In that event, perhaps Durham will perform and if he does not, enormous pressures will be applied to the newly configured Legislative branch to expose what has happened and to punish the many who are likely accountable."
At the same time, the Wall Street analyst has drawn attention to potential obstacles in the GOP's path.
"The first obvious problem is that the FBI and Department of Justice have too much discretion to decide who gets investigated, how they get investigated and then how aggressively they get prosecuted, if at all," Ortel said. "The second obvious problem is the revolving doors through which government officials pass, if they serve their Deep State and political donor masters, into lucrative law firm partnerships and/or executive positions. The third obvious problem is that corrupt government officials, judges and lawyers seldom, if ever, get punished, as they should be, when they break laws, and/or abuse the judicial process."
The analyst also believes that Donald Trump has a big chance of winning the Oval Office back in 2024. On October 22, Trump announced at a rally in Robstown, Texas that he would "probably" have to run for the White House again.
"Assuming that Donald remains fit and inclined to run again, he retains an historic movement that is likely more supportive now even than it was from 2015 through 2020," said Ortel. "After all, his supporters understand that the punishments being meted out (unfairly) against a billionaire will only hurt more if a precedent stands that the Deep State brooks no opposition."
The Wall Street analyst underscored that "the biggest challenge facing those who seek to destroy Trump and his movement is the plainly obvious fact that Democrat and Never Trump policies are destroying America and setting the world on fire."
"It is not, in my view, possible to fairly sell the idea that Bidenism, Obamaism, or Bushism are more sensible than Trumpism," Ortel highlighted.
In the broader sense of the internal political struggle, Durham's apparent failure to win his case does not mean that the Democratic political establishment can now sleep well at night.