As you know, we have been covering the fallout on the Durham Report, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. But what about the man himself? What does former President Donald Trump have to say?
'TOTAL DISGRACE': Donald Trump breaks silence after Special Counsel John Durham's report found that the DOJ and FBI 'failed to uphold' mission of 'strict fidelity to the law' in the Trump-Russia probe. https://t.co/jfDDbATkN9 pic.twitter.com/EzwhMou4VT
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 15, 2023
Okay, we know Fox News is trying to spice the headline up, but ‘breaks silence?’ That’s a ridiculous description. Love him or hate him, it seems safe to say Trump is not known for suffering an injustice in silence. We have little doubt that the only thing he broke was a speed record in commenting the moment he learned about the report.
From the article:
‘I, and much more importantly, the American public have been victims of this long-running and treasonous charade started by the Democrats — started by Comey,’ Trump told Fox News Digital. ‘There must be a heavy price to pay for putting our country through this.’ …
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump said the activities surrounding the FBI’s original Trump-Russia investigation were ‘a total disgrace,’ and said ‘public anger over this report is at a level that I have not seen before.’
‘This report took a long time because John Durham is a very thorough investigator,’ Trump said. ‘But the result is unequivocal and an absolute disaster in terms of justice.’
Trump added that ‘the national security implications of what they did are very grave.’
‘It turned out to be a giant and very dangerous hoax,’ he said, adding that he would have ‘further comment in the near future.’
But of course, you can get it from the proverbial ‘horse’s mouth’ by looking over at TruthSocial. Now, TruthSocial does not make it easy for this site to embed its ‘Truths’ (what they call a post on their site), so we are going to have to use screencaps.
This next one is a (sigh) ‘ReTruth’ by Trump—basically a repost, or what you would call a Retweet on Twitter. (We can’t tell you how much we hate the terminology used by TruthSocial.) Naturally, we shouldn’t assume that a Retweet or ReTruth is automatically an endorsement, but it feels safe to assume Trump at least finds what this person said to be agreeable:
Next, he posts a screencap of a pair of Tweets, so instead we will simply post the tweets he screencapped:
The Durham report is damning. It shows the FBI operating as a disinformation shop for the Clinton campaign, ignoring its own rules, and blatantly & maliciously interfering in a presidential election. The Steele dossier was fake, and FBI knew it all along. pic.twitter.com/vGkPYloz5B
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) May 15, 2023
If there was any doubt before, there should be none now: if the FBI can't be reformed to prevent it from meddling in presidential elections, it should be disbanded.
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) May 15, 2023
Again, you can’t just assume every screencapped Tweet is an endorsement but we think it is safe to say Trump considers it agreeable to him, even if we shouldn’t assume he agrees in all the particulars.
Trump added this commentary on his own:
Now, to be fair, we are not 100% sure if all of these next posts are reactions to the Durham Report, but … come on:
Trump’s instinct didn’t kick in fast enough, in our opinion.
Jack Smith is the Special Counsel by Merrick Garland, to look into the transfer of power in 2020-21—basically, January 6 and other activities related to people challenging the 2020 election.
Trump screencaps a number of articles on the story. He also screencaps this tweet:
It was all a hoax
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 15, 2023
Presumably both Trump and Hawley are still talking about the Durham Report.
He also ReTruthed (ugh) these posts:
All of this is a reminder of the fact that many people went to prison unjustly. As you will recall, the Mueller team went after many people who served Trump in the hopes that they could use the prosecutorial pressure to ‘flip’ them and get them to testify against Trump on Russian collusion that didn’t exist. These are prosecutions that would not have happened but for this witch hunt and we believe most (if not all) of these people deserve a full pardon. Of course, they are not likely to get one under this administration, but there you go.
In any case, Trump’s TruthSocial account just goes on posting screencaps and videos of what other people said about the situation. We will let you know if any of his posts become more interesting.
We will add that the Durham Report will add to Trump’s ‘Andrew Jackson’ appeal. More than a few people have compared Trump to Andrew Jackson in the past:
The man who put Andrew Jackson in Trump’s Oval Office https://t.co/6gAl4pIXdr pic.twitter.com/yjzsSlSq0E
— POLITICO (@politico) January 23, 2018
Jackson definitely had a certain ‘uncouth populism’ similar to Trump, but with the 2020 election, Trump gained another similarity: A sense of political aggrievement.
In 1824, Jackson ran for president against John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay. Jackson got the most popular votes and the most electoral votes. However, he did not have enough electoral votes to win outright, so it was sent to the House of Representatives as the Constitution required. Clay’s and Adams’ supporters combined to give Adams the presidency through this House procedure, and shortly afterward, Clay became Adams’ Secretary of State. Jackson and his supporters claimed that the Presidency was stolen from him in a ‘corrupt bargain.’ Of course, the Constitution was pretty obviously designed to allow this kind of wheeling and dealing, so it isn’t theft … but otherwise, we would guess Jackson’s allegation was true: Adams almost certainly agreed to make Clay his Secretary of State in exchange for the Presidency. And four years later, Jackson became president in part to vindicate himself against that ‘theft.’
Trump is obviously trying a similar pitch. He will claim votes were stolen from by fraud, he will claim his presidency was hobbled by this bogus investigation and he will claim that the election was stolen because the Hunter Biden laptop story was suppressed and all of that adds up to him saying he was robbed of his rightful victory in 2020, and claiming that he is seeking to vindicate himself in 2024. Only time will tell if that will work for him, politically.
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