The Durham probe, which former President Donald Trump once said would uncover “the crime of the century”—a massive conspiracy to defame him and impede his victory in the 2016 election—ended up being a flop this week, much to the disappointment of MAGA Republicans.
The three-and-a-half-year investigation led by special counsel John Durham into the origins of the 2016 FBI Trump-Russia report ended with a second trial loss on Tuesday, as Russian analyst Igor Danchenko was acquitted of all remaining charges against him, after a federal judge dismissed the first count against him on October 14.
Republican Florida rep. Matt Gaetz was among the conservatives disappointed by the result. “Durham has been on this investigation for years, and here we are 0-2, with fewer wins than the Washington generals,” he said, repeating on Newsmax’s Prime News the claims of an anti-Trump witch hunt being debunked by the trial’s result.
“Devin Nunes sent 14 criminal referrals to Durham that laid out in technicolor how these deep-state actors used the Russian hoax to really harm our country and they broke federal law in doing so. Durham’s statement after the verdict isn’t encouraging […] he said everything but tip your waitresses on the way out.”
Sean Spicer, who was the White House communications director under Trump in 2017, told Newsmax that saying the trial’s result was disappointing doesn’t do “justice to how bad this is.”
“We’ve been waiting and waiting and told there’s more coming, just be patient,” he said. “After everything that the Right has been through […] and to see all of this go down the tube and all of the faith put in special counsel John Durham—unbelievably disappointing.”
American former television producer Lara Trump, once producer and host of Trump Production’s Real News Update, said the result of the trial was “very upsetting.”
Speaking live on Fox News, Lara Trump said asked: “Where is the accountability on any of this? It is shocking that this can happen in America and yet no one is held accountable.” The former television host said the justice department is on “shaky ground” with the American people.
Georgia’s rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is known to have embraced QAnon and right-wing conspiracy theories, commented on the trial verdict on Twitter, writing: “There’s justice—and then there’s the DC courts.”
The Durham case revolved around the so-called Steele dossier, a now discredited report presented by retired British spy Christopher Steele to the FBI looking into allegations of collusion between the 2016 Trump electoral campaign and the Kremlin.
Prosecutors accused Danchenko, the main source of the report, of lying about the information provided and his sources, an accusation he denied. A jury acquitted Danchenko of lying to the FBI on Tuesday.
The Durham case secured only one conviction, that of a low-level FBI officer who was put on probation.