Sen. Lindsey Graham took a break from banging his “chaos at the border” drum on Twitter to mark and celebrate the release of Special Counsel John Durham‘s report on “Crossfire Hurricane,” the investigation into possible collusion between Donald Trump‘s 2016 presidential campaign and malign Russian actors allegedly trying to influence the election.
[Trump himself characterized the investigation, as he characterizes much that’s unfavorable, as a “witch hunt.”]
Graham says furiously and at length that there ought be hell to pay, demanding telephoned apologies from agency heads and advising people “maligned” by “Crossfire Hurricane” to “hire a good lawyer and sue the hell out of them.”
Finally, my advice to those unfairly maligned by the bogus Crossfire Hurricane investigation would be to hire a good lawyer and sue the hell out of them. Those responsible for Crossfire Hurricane destroyed reputations and lives, all in the name of politics.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 15, 2023
Durham’s report, four years in the making, concluded that the FBI didn’t have sufficient reasons to launch the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. The FBI, as Durham sees it, was a little too eager to rock and roll.
(Crossfire Hurricane is a phrase from the Rolling Stones song “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” which starts out with: “I was born in a crossfire hurricane / And I howled at the morning drivin’ rain / But it’s all right now.”)
But it wasn’t all right, Durham’s report asserts — and Graham and Rudy Giuliani and others are loudly claiming victory and calling for retribution.
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post won journalism prizes for their coverage of the issue, and Graham is calling on these media outlets to return their Pulitzers, which shouldn’t be given for “writing a bunch of politically motivated crap.”
[Note: Graham was recently the subject of a book — The Corruption of Lindsey Graham — about how authoritarian politicians get that way.]
What have we learned from the Durham Report?
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) May 15, 2023
That the New York Times and Washington Post were given a Pulitzer Prize for writing a bunch of politically motivated crap.
When it comes to reporting on Donald Trump, the mainstream media is dead.
In Durham’s report, Graham may find more justification for Trump’s “witch hunt” claims than the report itself evinces, but the suggestion of bias — backed here by Durham in an official account — is a powerful political weapon. Graham is hurling it around social media like so many lightning bolts.
Yet not having secured any significant criminal charges during his investigation, Durham added in his report’s introduction that while he believes the FBI should have exercised better judgement, that “not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense.”
Lindsey Graham may not have read the introduction.
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