THE DURHAM REPORT AND HISTORY SYDNEY WILLIAMS
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In his 1982 story of a small Irish village, Passing the Time in Ballymenone, American historian Henry Glassie (1941-) wrote: “History is not the past but a map of the past, drawn from a particular point of view…” All histories reflect the author. But good historians account for that, differentiating between actual events and their personal opinions. The Founding Fathers were conscious of history when they selected Washington as the capital of the new United States in 1790. It was a “federal enclave,” separate from both the commercial/industrial north and the agrarian south. It was not beholden to one party or one faction.
However, over time, as its bureaucracy increased and as public sector unions took sway, Washington changed; so that today in the District, according to the Pew Research Center, Democrat registrations, among federal government employees, outnumber Republican registrations two to one. While the leaders of Washington’s agencies reflect whichever party is in power, permanent federal government employees are, on balance, sympathetic to the Democrat Party.
The purpose of the Durham Report was to shine light on nefarious attempts to affect the outcome of the 2016 election – to address the widely accepted view that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to affect the outcome of the Presidential election that year. It also offers an alternative (and more accurate) perspective on subsequent efforts to undermine Mr. Trump’s Presidency. The Report details how the nation’s premier investigatory and intelligence services, in cooperation with the Clinton campaign, falsely implicated Mr. Trump as having colluded with Vladimir Putin to sway the election.
While unsurprising to those of us skeptical of accusations of Russia collusion on the part of the Trump campaign in 2016, findings in the Report should concern all Americans. The idea that a few senior officials in Washington’s intelligence services would try to influence the outcome of a Presidential election campaign should send shivers up the spines of anyone who believes in our Constitution and the democratic process. I recognize there are those who believe Donald Trump was and is so vile a person that any means to keep him from office were and are justifiable, but that line of thinking leads to totalitarianism.
Like many at the time, I was skeptical that Mr. Putin would prefer the mercurial Mr. Trump, a man he did not know as a politician, to a woman he did know and with whom he had dealt. The accusation, on its face, seemed absurd. What we did not know, and what the Durham Report tells us, is the extent to which leaders in Washington’s intelligence bureaucracy would go to provide federal support for one Party’s candidate.
Forty years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously wrote in The Washington Post: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” But facts can be misconstrued, mislabeled, or falsified. “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes truth,” is a law of propaganda, something known to psychologists as an “illusion of truth.” The Durham Report did not include indictments, but I suspect Special Counsel John Durham was concerned first with preventing another illicit attempt to use government employees to affect an election, but also with how history would recall the 2016 election and its aftermath. The Country does not need to be divided any further than it already is.
In a recent article for the Manhattan Institute, on a different subject, Zach Goldberg and Eric Kaufman wrote as to how facts can be “framed or contextualized” to increase political polarization. Compare, for example, mainstream media’s reporting on January 6 to their reports on Russian collusion. Both January 6 and the Russian collusion were undemocratic and violated the spirit of the Constitution, if not its actual principles. But one was performed in the open, for all to see. The other was done in secret, with falsified documents and lies to Congress. The January 6 riot was an illicit, but ridiculous unarmed attack on the Capital. It was not an insurrection, as the media likes to call it. The rioters were unarmed and there were no political or military leaders. The Capital police were armed, with one policeman shooting and killing an unarmed woman as she climbed through a window. The attack had no chance of succeeding. The best barometer we have to measure any shock to the nation is the stock market, an impartial assessor. On January 5th, 2021, the Dow Jones Industrial Averages (DJIA) closed at 30,391.60. On January 6, they closed at 30,829.40, up 1.4%. On the 7th, they rose again to 31,041.13. A week later they closed at 31,060.47. In contrast, following the attacks on 9/11, markets were shuttered. When they re-opened six days later, the DJIA declined by 7.1%. On December 8, 1941, the Monday after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the DJIA closed down 3.5%.
Yet prosecution of the January 6 participants proceeds. While participants in the Russian collusion are enriching themselves, giving speeches and selling books, more than a thousand January 6 rioters have been charged, with some languishing in jail without due process. The contrast is stark between Merrick Garland who weaponized the Justice Department and Special Counsel John Durham who chose not to indict those who had misused their power and position to pursue a false story. One abetted a polarized nation; the other helped soothe differences. What will history say?
The biggest scourge that faces us is not January 6 or even the Russian collusion hoax – it is wokeness, with its attack on free speech and its confiscation of the English language. It has polarized and bifurcated our nation. We need the healing that Mr. Durham offered, not the lies and the salt-in-the-wound that is the preference of Mr. Garland and minions like Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney. In Reason and Common Sense, George Santayana wrote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Not knowing John Durham, I cannot be certain of his intent, but the consequence of his Report, as I see it, is an attempt to set the record straight as to exactly what happened and who truly colluded with Russia during the summer of 2016, and to prevent such iniquitous activities in the future. Durham did not seek retribution. He provided the nation with an honest rendering of the facts. Let history be the judge.
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