Indignation from the Right
Terry H. Schwadron
Feb. 14, 2022
The Right-leaning media sites are glowing with indignation over a new court filing by Special Counsel John Durham, who was named in 2019 to look into the origin of Russian collusion or coordination with Russian operatives around the 2016 election.
Donald Trump even suggested the filing, which is argument, not evidence, confirms that his campaign was illegally spied on and that “in a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death.”
That got my attention.
Three years after Durham started his work, we have only one criminal case filed by Durham, against a lawyer named Michael Sussmann — for lying to a federal agent about whether he had been working for the Hillary Clinton campaign or on his own but not about the work involved. At various times, it seems, he worked both for himself and for the Clinton campaign.
Sussman has pleaded not guilty to the still-pending charge that itself was filed just before statutory liability ran out. Sussmann was a partner at Perkins Coie, which often represents Democrats and which hired Fusion GPS to produce the Russia dossier on then-candidate Trump.
When there is a new filing in the case, MAGA world rises as one to decry anew that there never was a Russia connection with the Trump campaign, and that new evidence has found a conspiracy against Trump.
The Durham filing was about possible conflicts of interest within Sussman’s law firm but did include “factual background” assertions that Sussman paid a technology company to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower, and later the White House, to establish an “inference” and “narrative” to bring to government agencies linking Trump and Russians.
Once again, what Americans get is a sifted version of events presented as an aside for a different argument, as passed through political filters. What exactly we have here is a head-scratcher.
The Substance Unaffected
Of course, none of the hyperbolic reaction will affect the criminal case about Sussman lying about whether he was working for the Clinton when he turned information about Trump over to the Justice Department.
Durham says Sussmann repeatedly billed the Clinton campaign for his work, but also did some of his work on his own.
But for anyone wondering what three years of investigating by Durham that followed two years of investigating by Muller shows about a vast conspiracy, this filing fuels anger.
Written in court language that masks names involved, it is a slog to understand. But the spin in quite clear.
In summary, it seems to suggest that Sussmann hired a tech company with access to Trump Tower computer servers to monitor them “for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump,” according to the filing, and continued such work as Trump moved into the White House.
Remember, now, there has been no criminal charge related to this.
For Trump, this is proof of victimhood and a campaign for falsity. “This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution,” Trump said.
This is the same Trump who himself may be facing several criminal charges for events flowing from his instance that the 2020 election was rigged, for acts leading to a fatal Capitol riot that was an attempt to overthrow election results.
Trump didn’t spell out just what here deserves death as punishment.
Argument as Truth
Breitbart, Fox, Newsmax all filed pretty similar stories, highlighting Trump’s outrage and treating the filing as if it is new evidence in the case. I did not see this in The New York Times, which likely saw it as an incremental move in the case about whether other lawyers in the same firm have conflicts — the subject of the filing.
For me, it seems an encapsulation of the desire to use the media — and the subsequent social media posts — to promote opinion that goes far beyond the “fact” of the filing.
The Fox News story, for example, asserts that “(former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation found no evidence of illegal or criminal coordination between Trump or the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016.” Indeed, the Muller did lay out a lot of contact between Trump’s circle and Russians during the campaign and later, but Attorney General Bill Barr decided that none of it was prosecutable.
None of what was given over to the Justice Department, or whether it held up as justifying investigation is legally on the table here. We’re talking about process within already launched legal process.
Here’s what we want here: Media — Right-leaning media in this case, report as you will, but give us the fuller picture in which to properly place the daily development.
That this is coming up now is mind-twisting. It is arising as the same Donald Trump is promoting his return to the White House, as the same Russia is massing troops on the Ukrainian border, as Trump and MAGA acolytes are reaching out to tyrants as heroes and openly promoting chaos to the U.S. economy by trucker protesters. It arises as more reports pour in about Trump routinely ripping up government documents, using his office for personal gain and generally ducking any chance to answer criticisms.
If there was a vast anti-Trump conspiracy, why in three years is Durham talking about conflicts of interest within the law firm that pushed the Steele dossier to Justice?
##