John Durham will be resigning from his position as U.S. Attorney in a matter of days. However, he will continue in his role as Special Counsel tasked with investigating the origins of the Russia collusion probe launched under the Obama Department of Justice and FBI.
The Durham announcement comes directly from The Department of Justice.
“After serving as the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut for more than three years, and as a federal prosecutor in Connecticut for more than 38 years, John H. Durham today announced his resignation from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, effective at midnight on February 28,” the DOJ press release said.
“My career has been as fulfilling as I could ever have imagined when I graduated from law school way back in 1975,” said U.S. Attorney Durham. “Much of that fulfillment has come from all the people with whom I’ve been blessed to share this workplace, and in our partner law enforcement agencies. My love and respect for this Office and the vitally important work done here have never diminished. It has been a tremendous honor to serve as U.S. Attorney, and as a career prosecutor before that, and I will sorely miss it.”
What has been unfulfilled is a mission that was meant to bring officials who had abused the FISA process to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign to justice. It was meant to establish that will be punishment for those officials who knowingly use political opposition research to carry out surveillance and lie to secretive unaccountable courts to get warrants to spy on private civilians and presidential candidates. It was meant to show the American people that they can trust the Department of Justice and the FBI to do the right things.
It is a mission that will fail if there are no further indictments forthcoming from the Special Counsel’s investigation. The Durham probe is still on the clock, however, even as John Durham is being replaced as U.S. Attorney.
“First Assistant U.S. Attorney Leonard C Boyle will serve as Acting U.S. Attorney upon Mr. Durham’s departure,” the DOJ release states.
“The Office will be in the extraordinarily capable hands of Len and our superb supervisory team who, together, guarantee that the proper administration of justice will continue uninterrupted in our District.”
The one criminal offender that the probe recommended for indictment, a lawyer named Kevin Clinesmith who admitted to manipulating an email to get a FISA warrant on Trump adviser Carter Page, was given no jail time and a paltry $100 fine for his participation in the scheme to frame the Trump campaign for Russia collusion.
While the mainstream press is treating the resignation as of little consequence, there is concern that investigations that conflict with the Biden presidency’s politics will be prematurely ended.
“His resignation as U.S. attorney is part of the Biden administration’s process of replacing U.S. attorneys appointed by the Trump administration, a turnover that is common at the start of a new administration.,” the Hill reported.
It was reported earlier by Politico that both the investigation into the Russia probe’s origins and the Hunter Biden investigation are expected to continue.
“The Biden administration is preparing to remove nearly all the remaining federal prosecutors former President Donald Trump appointed across the country, while making accommodations to allow a couple handling highly sensitive investigations to continue with their work,” a senior Justice Department official said in February.
“U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, a Trump appointee who is overseeing a probe into the finances of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden, has been asked to ‘holdover’ in his current post despite the broader personnel overhaul,” another official said, as reported by Politico.
“In addition, U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham — who is conducting a special counsel investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe — has been asked to continue as special counsel while vacating his U.S. attorney slot, ” the unidentified senior official continued.
The Durham investigation has produced so little in the way of obtaining justice after one of the greatest scandals in political history that the question should be raised: If it had ended today, would anyone have noticed?
Correction: Based on an earlier false report that the Special Counsel is “resigning,” this article corrects the record by underscoring that Durham’s Russia probe is continuing.
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