Special counsel John Durham’s investigation proved to be a rather embarrassing failure. As The Washington Post reported, it also proved to be quite expensive.
The special counsel appointed to review the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign has so far cost taxpayers more than $6.5 million, according to a Justice Department report released Friday. … The special counsel’s work appears to be winding down, but the Justice Department has not yet announced when it will end.
In other words, the $6.5 million figure — in taxpayer money — is where things stand now. It’s difficult to say with confidence how much higher the final price tag will eventually end up.
For those who might benefit from a refresher — you’d be forgiven for thinking, “John Durham’s name sounds familiar, but I can’t remember why I’m supposed to care about him” — let’s revisit our earlier coverage and explain how we arrived at this point.
The original investigation into Donald Trump’s Russia scandal, led by then-special counsel Robert Mueller, led to a series of striking findings: The former president’s political operation in 2016 sought, embraced, capitalized on, and lied about Russian assistance — and then took steps to obstruct the investigation into the foreign interference.
The Trump White House wasn’t pleased with the conclusions, but the Justice Department’s inspector general conducted a lengthy probe of the Mueller investigation, and not surprisingly, the IG’s office found nothing improper.
This, of course, only outraged Trump further, so then-Attorney General Bill Barr tapped a federal prosecutor — U.S. Attorney John Durham — to conduct his own investigation into the investigation. That was more than three years ago.
At this point, Durham’s investigation into the Russia scandal investigation has lasted longer than Mueller’s original probe of the Russia scandal.
After an extended period of apparent inactivity, the prosecutor last year indicted cybersecurity attorney Michael Sussmann for allegedly having lied to the FBI. The case proved to be baseless; Sussmann was acquitted; and one of the jurors publicly mocked Durham’s team for having taken the case to trial.
Five months later, Durham and his team also tried to prosecute Russian analyst Igor Danchenko. That failed too, bringing the probe to an apparent, ignominious end.
The tale of the tape is brutal:
By any fair measure, this is the most misguided and inconsequential special counsel investigation in the modern history of American law enforcement. But the humiliation is not limited to the prosecutor. Every once in a while, Trump still blurts out Durham’s name, hoping the prosecutor might yet bolster some of the former president’s conspiracy theories. As regular readers may recall, the Republican — who predicted that Durham would uncover “the crime of the century” — has even suggested at times that Durham’s probe could serve as a possible vehicle for retaliating against his perceived enemies. So much for that idea. Over the summer, The New York Times’ Charlie Savage wrote a report questioning why the Durham investigation existed. He added, “Mr. Barr’s mandate to Mr. Durham appears to have been to investigate a series of conspiracy theories.” Those theories, however, lacked merit, which is why the Durham probe is ending with an expensive whimper. There is a degree of irony to the circumstances: For years, Team Trump insisted that the Russia scandal was pointless but the Durham investigation was real. It now appears these Republicans had it exactly backward: The Russia scandal was real, and the Durham investigation was pointless.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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