Rarely in years and pages has a government report taken so long to tell the public so little as Special Counsel John Durham’s report to the Justice Department this week.

When-

attentive Gen.

Bill Barr appointed Durham to investigate the department’s investigation into links between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016. Trump and his true believers looked forward to exposing a criminal conspiracy within the FBI. Trump tweeted at the time that Durham would discover the crime of the century.

Instead, four years after Barr first instructed Durham to investigate, he produced a 316-page log that chewed endlessly on information that had long been in the public eye.

The bottom line pending the minuscule percentage of the country that has the time and patience to wade through the report is a handful of petty and already known cavils about the procedural minutiae of the FBI’s work.

Durham’s mission was always questionable. After the FBI received a tip from an Australian diplomat that the Trump campaign had inside information about the Russia-linked Democratic Party email hacking, the agency had no choice but to investigate the matter. In addition, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation proved itself by garnering an impressive string of IOUs from high-profile Trump aides.

Barr nevertheless gave Durham a long line in a dubious investigation by elevating him to special counsel. And while the relevant regulations directed the special counsel to provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or the denials made, Barr al

so focused that the report

be as suitable as possible for dissemination to the public.

The result further illustrates why prosecutors should not accompany their decisions with editorial digressions about the people they are not charging. Instead of explaining

are limited

Prosecution Orders, Durham

issues vague

criticism of officials’ behaviour, including that they lacked “analytical rigor”. Elsewhere, he holds the FBI accountable for its handling of the investigation into Trump campaign official Carter Page, which had nothing to do with the start of Crossfire Hurricane, the Russia investigation.

Most of these are mundane things that do nothing to suggest that the FBI was targeting Trump. On that central point, Durham acknowledges there is no doubt that the FBI had an affirmative obligation to scrutinize the tip that led to the investigation.

So what is Durham’s actual difference to the agency’s decision to launch an investigation? He reveals his hand on page 295 of the report, where the exhausted reader learns that he believes the FBI could have instead taken the sensitive step of

premature

investigation that could later have escalated into a full investigation.

This is a mighty thin reed to support Durham’s insinuations of FBI misconduct. It is also highly debatable. Information from an ally suggesting that our biggest foreign adversary might collaborate with a presidential campaign required an immediate and thorough response.

Durham’s conclusion directly contradicts that of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whose 2019 report on substantially overlapping cases showed that the Australian tip was enough to open a full counterintelligence investigation. Horowitz found no evidence that the FBI had improper political motives.

It’s tempting to dismiss Durham’s report as a long-winded attempt to justify his abysmal record as a special prosecutor. Durham took twice as long as Mueller to bring three small cases virtually unrelated to his central job, resulting in two acquittals and one guilty plea without jail time. In addition, his office has been beset by controversy: his respected deputy, Nora Dannehy, resigned in 2020, reportedly over concerns that Durham was politicizing the investigation.

Unfortunately, Durham’s handiwork may not be so benign as it is petty. Indeed, the report will serve, it seems designed to serve the venomous, false, far-right narrative that law enforcement agencies in the deep state were out to get Trump. It’s a time bomb of sorts, set in 2019 to go off now, as the 2024 campaign kicks off.

Immediately after the report was released Monday, Trump proclaimed that it showed the American public had been defrauded. Even his main rival for the Republican nomination, Ron DeSantis, chimed in, claiming that the report confirmed what we already knew: Armed federal agencies concocted a bogus Trump-Russia conspiracy theory. And Trump henchman Jim Jordan announced plans to hold a hearing with Durham as key witness.

All of this is reinvigorating wild-eyed theories that misinform the public, exacerbate our partisan divide, and provide fodder for Trump’s attempt to retake our most dangerous presidency.

Harry Litman is the host of the

Talking Feds podcast

.

@harrylitman