via redstate:
Gaetz: Have you ever heard of the Washington Generals?
Durham: The Washington Generals? Yes.
Gaetz: And they’re the team that basically gets paid to show up and lose, right?
Durham: (Laughing) I’m sure that the players who exert blood, sweat, and tears don’t view it that way, but you might.
Gaetz: I think they do. I think they do because the job of the Washington Generals is to show up every night and to play the Harlem Globetrotters, and their job is to lose —
Durham: Oh, I’m thinking — I’m sorry — of a different, I was thinking of a different team.
Gaetz: Yeah, so their job is to lose, and I’m kind of wondering, and it just seems so facially obvious, that it’s not what’s in your report that’s telling, it’s the omission — it’s the lack of work you did. And for the people, like the chairman, who put trust in you, I think you let them down, I think you let the country down, and you are one of the barriers to the true accountability that we need.
Durham: Do I get to respond to that or comment on that? Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever investigated a crime —
Gaetz: I don’t know that you have. You didn’t investigate these, Mr. Durham. How about Andy McCabe? Did you charge him? Did you investigate him?
Jordan: The gentleman’s time has expired. The witness can respond, then we’ll move on to our last —
Durham: I don’t know, Sir, whether you’ve ever had occasion to try to investigate crimes under the rules and regulations, and under the Constitution that we’re bound by. We can gather evidence, in particularly lawful ways, but we can’t charge people, because we might think something —
Gaetz: It’s not just that you didn’t charge — it’s that you didn’t investigate. You didn’t investigate the Mueller team wiping their phones and you won’t tell us who gave the orders because you’re protecting those people!
As a regular observer of hearings like this, I couldn’t help but notice the pivot toward lambasting Durham from the Republican side. It seemed to occur while the committee was in brief recess to take a floor vote (regarding whether or not to move forward with censuring Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), a member of the committee who had his own tangle with Durham earlier in the day). Was that a strategic move to undercut arguments that Republicans were just glomming onto Durham to generate talking points and defend the honor of their beloved former president (as some of the Democrats on the committee insisted)? Or is something else afoot here? Was Durham indeed playing the role of Washington General? Controlled opposition to appease the calls for accountability while running cover for the “deep state”?
It’s hard to know anymore who’s playing who, and who’s running what op. I guess that’s what years of government officials acting in bad faith and refusing to be straight with the people who elect them and pay their salaries breeds.
And as for accountability, well, I hope no one’s holding their breath.
Read the whole thing.