Worse Than Watergate

The Watergate scandal of the early 1970's involved the attempt by the Committee formed to help real-elect President Richard Nixon  to bug the offices of the Democrat National Committee offices that were in the Watergate office building complex in Washington, D.C.

The scandal grew as the Nixon administration attempted to cover-up its involvement in the break-in of the DNC offices.

It took several years of investigate reporting spearheaded by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, that was later chronicled in the book (later made into a movie) "All the President's Men", to uncover the truth that later led to the resignation of President Nixon and jail terms for many of his close associates for their roles in the scandal.

The release of the final Durham report this week demonstrates that something far, far worse than Watergate has been going on in Washington, D.C.

The Special Counsel's report found that there was no basis for any FBI investigation of Russian collusion by Donald Trump or the Trump campaign dating back to 2016.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

Durham further found that a number of allegations of Russia collusion could be traced back to the campaign of Hillary Clinton (referred to as "Clinton plan intelligence" ) that was created as a campaign tactic to vilify Trump. This fact was known to the CIA and shared with Obama, Biden, the Attorney General and others in the White House in August, 2016. 

Source: https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

As Donald Trump spent the ensuing years attempting to dispute the charges of Russian collusion did any of these individuals step forward to defend him based on the knowledge they possessed that the Clinton campaign was complicit in all of this?

Has anyone apologized?

The report also mentions the number of times that the media had been used to promote and amplify the claims of Russian collusion. It also cites the instances that the FBI used media reports as "evidence" for FISA warrants and justification to continue to investigate Trump and his associates.

You may recall that The New York Times and The Washington Post both received Pulitzer Prizes in 2018 for their reporting about the Trump-Russian collusion story.

Here is what the Pulitzer committee stated in announcing the prizes.

Source: https://www.nytco.com/award/national-reporting/

DEEPLY SOURCED? RELENTLESSLY REPORTED?

We now know that there was no reporting to be had. It was all built on a mountain of lies.

Shouldn't these papers now be forced to return the prizes?

Does not all of this look like this was many times worse than Watergate?

If you doubt that consider these points.

For starters, the FBI, which is supposed to be the nation's premier law enforcement agency, was apparently actively working to undermine a Presidential candidate (and later the President of the United States).

A rival political campaign was allowed to manufacture a fake collusion narrative and the FBI then spent years investigating Trump rather than the source of the false and malicious narrative.

The media, which was the people's watchdog on Watergate, became a full participant in the fake narrative and cover-up when it involved Trump.

It is almost impossible to calculate the damage done to the nation by these actions.

There is a lot of talk these days about this or that involving Trump, his supporters, white people or parents of schoolchildren being "threats to democracy".  I would suggest that there is no greater threat to democracy than when the fundamental institutions of government and the media participate in activities like those described in the Durham report.

Donald Trump spent almost the entirety of his administration fighting false allegations that undermined everything he did.

Those false accusations undoubtedly also harmed his prospects in his 2020 re-election bid.

Trump was maligned and ridiculed for stating there was nothing to the charges of Russian collusion. Those who stated that the Clinton campaign, the FBI and the media were the ones that were colluding were labeled "conspiracy theorists".

The FBI was investigating Trump when it should have been investigating Hillary Clinton and the top leadership of the FBI who set all of this in motion.

Now that we know this it makes me wonder what else we don't know?

If the FBI, the D.C. and media establishment would go to these lengths to attempt to prevent Donald Trump from being elected, how far-fetched is it to wonder what lengths they would go to in order to prevent him from being re-elected?

We know that the FBI was silent about the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop in the waning days of the 2020 campaign. 51 supposed national security experts stated that it was Russian disinformation. The FBI had been in possession of the laptop for a year and knew full well that it was not. Yet, it said nothing to correct the falsehoods from being repeated over and over.

How much were FBI undercover agents involved in January 6th?

How much did the FBI do to really investigate allegations of election fraud in 2020?

Those that have raised questions about these issues have also been called conspiracy nuts.

Are they?

What really makes this worse than Watergate is the fact that 50 years ago there was accountability.

The bad actors were held to account.

Nixon was forced to resign.

A number of Nixon's closest advisors ended up in prison.

Despite everything cited in the Durham report he suggests it would be too difficult to prove anyone violated any laws in all of this. There were just a lot of horribly bad judgments. Of course, those" bad judgements" were made by people we entrust to make good judgments.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

Durham also seems to be saying that trying to get a conviction in the District of Columbia for anyone who unjustly targeted Trump (who only got 4% of the vote in D.C.) is a fool's errand. The bad actors are actually looked at as heroes in that city for targeting Trump rather than criminals 

Source: https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

Yes, Durham also knows that injustices and misconduct have happened all over the place here but that is just the way it is.

Let me translate what the Durham report is saying below---injustice is fine when it involves Trump. It is not fine when it involves holding the D.C. Establishment to the same standard.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf

Worse than Watergate?

Watergate was mere child's play compared to all of this.

This did not involve just "All The President's Men".

We have a President, a Vice President, Director of the CIA, Director of the FBI, the media establishment and the D.C. establishment all working to subvert the will of the American people.

It is nothing less than the most brazen abuse of our Constitutional principles and subversion of our republic's democratic foundations in American history.

Yes, this is many times worse than Watergate.

However, you are not likely to see that comparison made by many other political analysts or media figures.

For example, here is former FBI Deputy Director and current CNN law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe (who was terminated from his FBI position for his role in all of this) telling the CNN audience that Durham never conducted a legitimate investigation while doubling down that he still believes he was correct in opening the investigation of Trump Russia collusion.

Even Anderson Cooper seems to be confused about that "analysis".

Link to video: https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1658418812910223360

We are living in very dark and depressing times when this is how "justice" works.

We came back from Watergate.

It is not going to be easy to come back from where we are now in the United States of America.