Vindication is sweet, but not enough

CNN’s Jake Tapper opened his show on Monday with a monologue admitting that special counsel John Durham’s report on foreign interference in the 2016 election “might not have produced everything of what some Republicans hoped for, [but] it is regardless devastating to the FBI and to a degree, it does exonerate Donald Trump.” Durham’s final report comes at the conclusion of his multi-year investigation, and its 300-plus page wrap-up sheds light on numerous hot-button topics related to foreign interference in the 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

For many conservatives, the feeling of vindication prompted by the report is instantly followed by a strong sense of frustration that formal accountability for those involved in the scandal will never come. Durham points to malfeasance, but not meeting the threshold of criminal prosecution. That’s an important distinction.

With the release of the final report, this much seems clear: No one will get jail time for their misuse of governmental power and none of the main actors will be fired. (It’s worth noting that none of the FBI officials is still in the same job.) Moving forward there is no reason to expect anyone will lose their law license or see their Pulitzer Prize withdrawn. And that lack of justice, of accountability, for something that seems so wrong is rightly frustrating. Indeed, we are in good company, as multiple authors in the Old Testament lamented the injustices of our present life, as well as the rise to power of the unethical and undeserving.

To emphasize the point above, as Durham explains in his report, “not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense.” Or, as he writes at another point, the law “does not always make a person’s bad judgment, even horribly bad judgment, standing alone, a crime.” And similarly, not “all unseemly or unethical conduct that political campaigns might undertake for tactical advantage” is therefore illegal. As Christians, we know we are all sinners, and thankfully very few of those sins lead to criminal consequences. In this context, that means there is a limit to the criminal accountability of certain bad actors, which makes all the more important the informal accountability, as citizens and consumers second-guess longstanding institutions.

Among other conclusions to draw from the Durham report, some are not spelled out quite as clearly but are still obvious: We cannot trust federal agencies’ work on political issues, we cannot trust the mainstream news media, and we cannot trust the governments of Russia or China. What else?

First, the FBI has a serious problem with how it handles political cases. Political candidates, campaign staffers, and incumbent officeholders break laws just like everyone else, and we need law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute those offenses. But this episode fits into a disturbing pattern where the FBI and the intelligence agencies are approaching their jobs through a political lens. From Hillary Clinton’s server to the raid on Mar-a-Lago, from the targeted prosecution of pro-life protestors to the lack of prosecution of pro-choice protestors, it’s hard not to see a double standard. The FBI and DOJ must take steps, such as those outlined in the report, to restore public confidence.

Second, senior law enforcement and Obama Administration leaders were not the only ones to see only the evidence that reinforced their preconceptions, to the exclusion of anything else. The Washington, D.C., media establishment desperately wanted the Trump-Russia collusion story to be true, and they swallowed whole the tidbits leaked to them by administration sources. Indeed, the Pulitzer board awarded The Washington Post and The New York Times a joint prize for “deeply sourced, relentlessly reported coverage in the public interest that dramatically furthered the nation’s understanding of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its connections to the Trump campaign, the President-elect’s transition team and his eventual administration.” We shall see if the Durham report convinces the board to rethink its award. Somehow, I doubt it.

Third, for all of the failures of our elite institutions in this affair, we should not overlook one other fact from the report: Foreign governments like Russia and China do attempt to ensnare American politicians through influence operations. Our enemies are not hesitant to undertake intelligence efforts that can lead to access and influence if successful, and sow discord and distrust if discovered. It’s a win-win for our enemies, and campaigns and citizens should be vigilant against future attempts to attack our democracy surreptitiously.

The closing of this chapter is a national embarrassment and one the nation would do well to remember and never repeat.