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  • The Atlantic

    A Sinister Flop

    Special Counsel John Durham served up not an investigation, but an excuse for future partisan abuses.
    by David Frum May 17, 2023 7 minutes
    Source: U.S. Department of Justice / The New York Times / Redux

    Defending Donald Trump was always awkward.

    So many incidents unfolded in a familiar pattern. Somebody would accuse the ex-president of something bad. The ex-president’s supporters would spring into action to deny the charge—only to be undercut when Trump pivoted, admitted everything, and even bragged about it.

    President Trump would never try to pressure an embattled democracy by withholding military aid.

    Screech, tzzzip.

    President Trump was perfectly within his rights to pressure an embattled democracy by withholding military aid.

    Defending the indefensible wears people down. Even the most committed and tribal warrior of the right must have sometimes wished that Trump didn’t keep making the job so hard.

    Maybe if there were some way to fight for the Trump cause that circumvented Trump personally? Even better if the spotlight could be shifted from Trump entirely and focused on ideological and cultural enemies instead.

    In 2019, Trump was scorched by two massive reports detailing the assistance provided to his 2016 presidential campaign by Russian intelligence agencies. The first, by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, also evidence of obstruction of justice. The Mueller document was by the even weightier

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