It's hard to stress how much effort the pro-Trump media has devoted over the last year-and-half to John Durham. The top federal prosecutor in Connecticut with a bushy, meme-ready goatee, Durham was appointed by Bill Barr in May 2019 to investigate the origins of the 2016 Russia probe. Or, in other words, to try to make something of what the president hears every night on Sean Hannity's show.
Durham's much-awaited report was supposed to be some kind of pre-election boost for Trump and his supporters. After revving up their audiences with claims that Trump was the victim of a "silent coup" and convincing them to obsess over people whose names mean next to nothing to the average voter — Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, for example, or Bruce and Nellie Ohr, or George Papadopoulos and Joseph Mifsud— conservative media needed a payoff.
"I have no doubt there's gonna be criminal charges with Durham," Rush Limbaugh told his audience in December, predicting some of the most villainous creatures of the "swamp" would be charged by June 2020.
Fox News got in on the act. In May, the network reported that Durham had evidence to bring criminal charges against the federal officials who investigated Michael Flynn. Fox legal analyst Gregg Jarrett kept his Durham torch lit as late as this August, promising that the cathartic arrests were just around the corner.
"I would actually expect it to be sometime around Labor Day, I would expect there to be some indictments," Jarrett declared in a Fox appearance. "Don't believe for a moment the mainstream media that says, 'oh, you can't indict 60 days before an election.' That's a canard, that's a lie."
But as the election got closer and Durham failed to indict anyone—aside from a little-known FBI lawyer—Durham-heads became a little nervous. In late September, Fox's Maria Bartiromo revealed that her sources said Durham's report wouldn't come out until after November 3.
"TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE!" moaned The Gateway Pundit.
And now, Axios reports that it's official:" Durham's report, indeed, won't be the big October surprise that Trumpland was hoping for.
With the letdown, however, comes the backlash. And now, like so many other once lovingly memed Trumpworld figures before him, Durham is coming in for his shaming.
"Barr and Durham are scared to do anything in case the dems 'win' the election... cowards," fumed a popular post on The Donald, the internet's leading pro-Trump forum.
Even the president is getting in on the act, launching tweetstorms demanding his foes' arrests and griping on Limbaugh's show Friday.
"I think it's a disgrace," Trump said. "It's an embarrassment."
And that's not even counting the disappointment from QAnon fanatics, who were convinced that Durham would kick off their much-anticipated purge and send Hillary Clinton to Guantanamo Bay.
Egged on by clues from the anonymous "Q," QAnon fans had fixated on the fact that George Washington crossed the Delaware River in a flat-bottomed "Durham" boat, attaching some significance to the fact that Barr would appoint someone who shares a name with a boat to the post.
Shockingly, it appears Barr wasn't engaging in some sort of crypto coup-signalling. Durham, in the end, was just a surname.
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