{"id":1933280,"date":"2023-05-18T10:32:26","date_gmt":"2023-05-18T14:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-unspoken-warning-in-the-durham-report-american-self-government-is-collapsing\/"},"modified":"2023-05-18T10:36:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-18T14:36:30","slug":"the-unspoken-warning-in-the-durham-report-american-self-government-is-collapsing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-unspoken-warning-in-the-durham-report-american-self-government-is-collapsing\/","title":{"rendered":"Durham Report warns of collapsing American self-government."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-unspoken-warning-in-the-durham-report-american-self-government-is-collapsing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1933280&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><h2>The Durham Report: A Dire Warning for the Fate of Our Republic<\/h2>\n<h3>The Most Damning Finding<\/h3>\n<p>Yesterday, Margot Cleveland noted in these pages that the most damning finding in the 306-page report from Special Counsel John Durham is not necessarily the FBI\u2019s scandalous Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016, but that the egregious abuses of power detailed in the report cannot be remedied \u201cabsent a curing of the corrupted hearts and minds of law enforcement and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/sen-johnson-impeachment-appears-to-be-distraction-from-what-democrat-leadership-knew-about-jan-6\/\" title=\"Sen. Johnson: Impeachment Appears to Be Distraction From What Democrat Leadership Knew About Jan. 6\">intelligence agencies<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For all the FBI\u2019s blatant partisanship, its disregard of exculpatory evidence, and its outright deception to secure FISA warrants on Trump campaign associates, Cleveland writes, \u201cwhat should terrify the country is not the catalog of malfeasance the special counsel recited \u2014 for mistakes and even gross failures can be corrected \u2014 but that Durham warned of corrupted hearts and minds, unfaithful to the people and their Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>The Need for Moral Virtue<\/h3>\n<p>Durham didn\u2019t recommend any changes to FBI guidelines or policies, because no amount of reform will be sufficient if the people in charge feel free to disregard guidelines and policies whenever they see fit to do so. As such, Durham wrote, \u201cthe answer is not the creation of new rules but a renewed fidelity to the old. The promulgation of additional rules and regulations to be learned in yet more training sessions would likely prove to be a fruitless exercise if the FBI\u2019s guiding principles of \u2018Fidelity, Bravery, and Integrity\u2019 are not engrained in the hearts and minds of those sworn to meet the FBI\u2019s mission of \u2018Protect[ing] the American People and uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Durham is right, as is Cleveland. The abuse of power laid out in the report is terrifying, not just because what the FBI undertook in 2016 amounted to an attempted coup, but because it\u2019s unclear how to prevent it from happening again. <\/p>\n<h3>A Mortal Threat to the Republic<\/h3>\n<p>Such abuse in our law enforcement and intelligence agencies represents a mortal threat to the republic, and we should understand the Durham report in that light. But Durham\u2019s damning indictment of the DOJ and FBI goes beyond those particular agencies, and indeed beyond the federal government. <\/p>\n<h3>The State of Our Republic<\/h3>\n<p>That people like former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey, along with the entire cast of villains and liars in the Durham report, rose to positions of such power, and then proceeded to abuse that power by arrogating to themselves the right to decide who should be president \u2014 a right that belongs solely to the American people \u2014 says something about the state of our republic.<\/p>\n<p>What it says is this: We have produced, and are still producing, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-unspoken-warning-in-the-durham-report-american-self-government-is-collapsing\/\" title=\"Durham Report warns of collapsing American self-government.\">totally corrupt elite bereft<\/a> of any sense of \u201cFidelity, Bravery, and Integrity,\u201d to say nothing of moral virtue or the common good.<\/p>\n<h3>The Need for Virtuous Citizens<\/h3>\n<p>Without a virtuous people, without citizens and leaders who believe in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/alex-mcfarland-more-than-a-motto-the-fight-between-truth-and-modern-day-values\/\" title=\"Alex McFarland: More Than a Motto \u2014 the Fight Between Truth and Modern-Day Values\">objective moral truth<\/a> and understand themselves to be bound by it, we cannot be a free people, and we cannot sustain a republic. Laws alone, to say nothing of guidelines and policies, are not enough to support and sustain self-government. You need citizens who will respect and uphold the law, and leaders who actually believe in the principle of self-government \u2014 something our current crop of leaders clearly rejects.<\/p>\n<h3>A Dire Warning<\/h3>\n<p>The corruption of the FBI, the CIA, and the entire federal intelligence community, which led to the Russia-collusion hoax and almost took down Trump\u2019s campaign, and then his presidency, cannot be fixed with new rules and policies. It\u2019s a moral failing, moral corruption, and it can only be fixed by a spiritual renewal in America, by a return to \u2014 let\u2019s be honest \u2014 a civic culture shaped and guided by Christian moral virtue.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to look at the Durham report and conclude that the problem is just with a handful of bad apples in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/media-democrats-admit-they-expect-the-fbis-trump-raid-to-bait-people-into-violence\/\" title=\"Media, Democrats Admit They Expect The FBI\u2019s Trump Raid To Bait People Into Violence\">federal intelligence agencies<\/a>. But the rot goes much deeper than that. People like Comey and Brennan and the legions of corrupt agents and bureaucrats under them were produced by an American society that has lost its way, that has become unmoored from the morality that sustains our system of government and inculcates virtue in our citizenry.<\/p>\n<p>New rules and regulations won\u2019t be enough. Nor will it be enough to defund or disband the FBI. Unless we rediscover the moral virtue necessary for self-government, we will descend, bit by bit, into tyranny. And one day we will look back at the Durham report and understand that it wasn\u2019t just an indictment of the FBI but an indictment of us all \u2014 and a harbinger of the end of our republic.<\/p>\n<h3>About the Author<\/h3>\n<p>John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, <b>@johnddavidson<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The most significant discovery in the 306-page report by Special Counsel John Durham, as noted by Margot Cleveland, is not the FBI&#8217;s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016. Instead, the report highlights the severe abuses of power that cannot be fixed without addressing the corrupt system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":1933281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[4123,12990,11773,3819,21626,3633],"class_list":["post-1933280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-american","tag-collapsing","tag-durham","tag-report","tag-self-government","tag-warns"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1933280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1933280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1933281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1933280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1933280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1933280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}