Schiff Flaunts His Absolute Shamelessness After Durham Is Appointed Special Counsel

Bonchie reporting for RedState

If Democrats didn’t have double standards, they’d have no standards at all. We’ve certainly seen that on display the last month as the same people who proclaimed Trump an illegitimate Russian agent now say that any questioning of election results will destroy the fabric of the nation. But left-wing hypocrisy hardly stops there, and it was on full display yesterday after it was revealed that John Durham has been appointed Special Counsel by Bill Barr to continue the investigation into FBI/DOJ malfeasance against President Trump.

Adam Schiff, who has routinely claimed in the past that firing a special counsel would be obstruction of justice, was front and center to flaunt his absolute shamelessness.

Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff floated the idea that President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general could, and perhaps should, end special counsel John Durham’s inquiry into the Trump-Russia investigators just hours after Attorney General William Barr made the appointment public.

Schiff, who prioritized protecting special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by President Trump’s attorneys general, nevertheless repeatedly suggested that Biden’s yet-to-be-named chief law enforcement officer could end the Durham investigation.

“The appointment is not consistent with the language of the statute that he’s relying on and can be rescinded, I think, by the next attorney general. I would presume the next attorney general will look to see if there is any merit to the work that John Durham is doing and make a rational decision about whether that should continue at any level,” Schiff said during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC’s The Beat, later adding that “I think the next attorney general will have every opportunity to examine, to repeal, or to allow the investigation to continue if the next attorney general thinks there is anything, any part of it that has any merit.”

Schiff is citing the language that the special counsel should be appointed from outside the government, yet that’s not actually consistent with how that language has been previously applied. For this purpose, prosecutors within the DOJ have not been considered “in the government.” Other special counsels, including Durham himself back in 2008, have come from within the Justice Department. Regardless, here’s the thing about DOJ regulations. The DOJ gets to make them. They are not legally binding documents that can’t be changed by the Attorney General to fit the current situation. What Schiff thinks about such changes is wholly irrelevant, and any targeting of Durham by the House will be seen for what it is, i.e. blatantly political.

Further, Schiff has made it clear in dealing with the Mueller investigation that a special counsel should never be fired for most any reason, much less by a political opponent, of which any Democrat, including Joe Biden’s pick for Attorney General, clearly is. Why the flip-flop? The simple answer is that Schiff does not want this investigation to continue. There is no principle behind it, nor any sense of consistency. The rules always change when it comes to trying to protect Democrats.

As Chuck Grassley notes, Republicans (for better or worse) mostly capitulated to the Mueller investigation, even seeking to protect it. That same standard should apply to Durham, whose distinguished DOJ career makes him far less of a political actor than Mueller and his team were.

“Just as I said during the Mueller probe, this investigation should be allowed to continue unimpeded and without artificial timelines,” Grassley said. “Naming Durham as a special counsel ensures that a new administration can’t pull the plug on an ongoing investigation and prevent needed transparency by simply cleaning house. Durham has been appointed under the same authority that established the Mueller investigation, and he should likewise be allowed to complete his important work.”

I suspect Schiff won’t care though. We’ll likely see House “investigations” stem from this, but more likely is that we’ll see Biden have Durham fired early in the administration. At the very least, the DOJ will handcuff him, as even special counsels are still beholden to the Attorney General. There is no true independence like there used to be.

And when Durham is kneecapped, the media will cheer, no one outside of right-wing media will care, and the hypocrisy will be ignored.