Former president Donald Trump’s special counsel John Durham was described by a Fox News analyst as looking “about as comfortable as a Benedictine monk in a strip club” while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee.
Mr Durham was grilled for more than six hours on Wednesday over his 306-page report into the FBI’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 US election that fell very short of Mr Trump’s promise it would uncover the “crime of the century”.
Instead, the report criticised the FBI for launching a full-scale probe into election interference but offered scant new information and resulted in only one criminal conviction.
His appearance before the House Judiciary Committee saw his inquiry denounced by Democrats as the hearing descended into partisan squabbles.
Mr Durham said during the hearing: “I want to emphasize in the strongest terms possible that my colleagues and I carried out our work in good faith with integrity and in the spirit of following the facts wherever they lead without fear of favour.
“At no time and in no sense did we act with the purpose to further partisan or political ends.”
Discussing the grilling Mr Durham received during his testimony, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley said one of the best moments came when Mr Durham was accused of losing his reputation over the report.
“Well, you know, Durham has dealt with mobsters and murderers, but I don’t think anything prepared him for this moment,” Mr Turley said.
“He looks about as comfortable as a Benedictine monk in a strip club. I mean, he he has this look of disbelief on his face as he said, ‘Look, I reported the facts. You can reach your own conclusions.’ But one of the most riveting moments came when Representative [Steve] Cohen said, ‘You had a good reputation and you’re not going to get it back until you take back these things you said in your report’.
“And Durham just had had enough. And he said, I look to my reputation from my family and from my God, and that’s okay with me. I’m satisfied with my reputation as it stands.
“It was an amazing moment. It reminded some of us of the sort of Joe Welsh moment in the McCarthy hearings where Durham was finally pushing back and saying, ‘Enough’.”
However, Mr Durham was criticised from both the left and right over the findings of his report: Democrats suggested the special counsel seemed unaware of key elements of the damning Mueller Report into links between the 2016 Trump campaign and the Kremlin – such as Donald Trump’s repeated public denials of his plans to build a tower in Moscow – while Republicans like congressman Matt Gaetz and former White House aide Steve Bannon accused Mr Durham of failing to come up with evidence of an FBI conspiracy against the former president.
