Raskin Calls For House ‘Weaponization’ Committee to Investigate the Durham Probe: ‘A Case Study in Dangerous Weaponization’
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) served as a hearing witness for his party on Thursday before the House’s subcommittee targeting the so-called weaponization of the federal government. Raskin used his time in front of the cameras to ridicule the committee’s purpose and declared the committee’s name to be comically ironic.
“Weaponization is the right name for this federal subcommittee. Not because weaponization of the government is targeted. But because weaponization of government is its purpose,” Raskin said.
“The odd name of the weaponization subcommittee constitutes a case of pure psychological projection,” he added.
Later in his remarks, Raskin took aim at Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation and the recent reporting showing then-Attorney General Bill Barr’s remarkable level of involvement. Barr was recently revealed to have applied pressure on four-year-long investigation to reveal flaws in the federal government investigation into Trump-Russia collusion and vindicate then-President Donald Trump.
“Consider the John Durham investigation. At the urging of Republicans, including the good chairman, the John Durham special Counsel investigation was set up in 2019 by Barr to try to find wrongdoing by intelligence or law enforcement agencies in the origins of the Mueller investigation. And we’ve heard some of the murmurings about this today,” Raskin began, adding:
After four years and millions of dollars spent. The Durham investigation closed as a total flop without unearthing anything like the deep state conspiracy that Republicans have been denouncing around here for years. It couldn’t find anything of substance to it. Yet Barr in Durham kept pressing in clearly abusive ways.
I hope your subcommittee will investigate. One former DOJ prosecutor, Robert Luskin, a defense lawyer who represented two witnesses before the Durham probe, told The New York Times he was shocked. ‘This stuff had my head spinning,’ he said. ‘What did these guys. When did these guys drink the Kool-Aid? And who served it to them?’
Amazingly, when prosecutors participating in this wild goose chase actually came into possession of evidence of a real offense from Italian government officials of a potentially major financial crime committed by Donald Trump.
“Durham was suddenly deputized to investigate it, and the whole investigation mysteriously disappeared without a trace. Trump’s enablers now want this subcommittee not to examine the Dunham, the Durham debacle.
“It is a case study in dangerous weaponization of the justice function. But rather to pick up the baton from the defeated and demoralized Durham team and to keep the wild goose chase going today,” Raskin concluded.
The New York Times published a bombshell report in late January 2023 detailing how Durham’s investigation, long hyped on the right as Trump’s saving grace, actually turned on Trump – who had publicly called for and boosted Durham’s probe into what Trump called the “Russia hoax.”
Watch the full clip above via C-SPAN
