Kyle Rittenhouse, The Durham Investigation (and why much of the media has lost all credibility)

This post is going to be a slight departure from what I normally write about…and I’m giving myself no more than one hour to do it. But over the past week or so, I’ve been watching the unfolding news, both about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and the recent indictments coming from the Durham Investigation. As I’ve been reflecting on these things, I felt I wanted to venture out and write a post about what I see to be a deeper and very disturbing trend in our society over the past few years. Obviously, this post is not going to be a thorough and in-depth investigation about either of these two news stories, but I do want to clearly state what the recent events have been and then give my observations about each story.

Kyle Rittenhouse and the Kenosha Riots
Last summer Jacob Blake was shot and paralyzed by a police officer who had responded to a domestic disturbance call in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake resisted arrest, refused to comply with the officer’s commands, and then went into his car to grab a knife. It was at that time that he was shot. Immediately, the narrative that was plastered across social media and mainstream media alike was that this was another example of a racist, white cop shooting a black man, and that false narrative sparks violent riots in Kenosha.

It was during those riots that Kyle Rittenhouse, who lived just across the state line in Illinois, but who worked as a lifeguard in Kenosha and who was trained in first aid went to Kenosha to clean up graffiti and offer medical assistance to those injured in the riots. The AR-15 he had that night was purchased by a friend of his in Wisconsin and kept at his friend’s house in Kenosha. That means, despite false media reports, Rittenhouse did not bring a gun over state lines. That night, in the midst of the riots, he ended up shooting and killing two men and injuring a third. Immediately, throughout social media and the mainstream media alike, a certain narrative was told: Rittenhouse was a white supremacist, a domestic terrorist, and a crazed Trump supporter who went to Kenosha purposely to shoot black people…and he just flat out murdered two people and tried to kill a third. That was the narrative that news organizations, certain congressmen, senators, and even the then presidential-candidate Joe Biden repeated over and over again.

Now we are in the middle of the Rittenhouse trial. He has been accused of a variety of homicide charges, as well as being under 18 and in possession of a dangerous weapon (that is illegal in Wisconsin). Rittenhouse has claimed self-defense. After the prosecution laid out its case, this is what we’ve learned (again, this is what has come out from the prosecution’s case):

1. Rittenhouse had gone up to Kenosha during the Jacob Blake riots to scrub graffiti, offer first aid, and to put out fires. He also brought his AR-15.
2. That night in question, Joseph Rosenbaum, a white man, had already screamed at Rittenhouse earlier that night that if he found him alone, that he would “f***** kill you.”
3. Later that night, Rosenbaum chased after Rittenhouse, cornered him, and grabbed the barrel of Rittenhouse’s gun, at which time Rittenhouse shot him.
4. After that, as Rittenhouse started to run toward the police line to turn himself in, another white man, Anthony Huber, raced after him, hit Rittenhouse with his skateboard, knocked him to the ground, and lunged at him, at which time Rittenhouse shot him.
5. At that point, another white man, Gaige Grosskreutz, ran up to Rittenhouse while he was still on the ground, and pointed his own gun in Rittenhouse’s face, at which time Rittenhouse shot him in the arm.
6. Rittenhouse then went and turned himself in an hour later.

The thing is that none of that was new. From shortly after that night, numerous videos and camera angles have been available that clearly showed all of that to be true. Yes, it was illegal for Rittenhouse, then 17, to be carrying a gun in Wisconsin, and yes, we can all question his judgment for putting himself in such a dangerous situation to begin with, but no one in his right mind can look at the irrefutable facts shown on the video from that night and laid out in the prosecution’s own case and deny that Rittenhouse had acted in self-defense. Anyone who still think Rittenhouse is guilty of homicide is not living in reality.

Furthermore, given these clear facts, it should cause everyone to completely reject the politicians and news channels who pushed their false narrative about that night. That rhetoric is not simply inflammatory and irresponsible, it was demonstrably false from the get-go. Anyone in government or the media who pushed that false narrative and hurled those inflammatory accusations against Rittenhouse should be fired on the spot. They have absolutely zero credibility and should be utterly rejected.

The Durham Investigation Findings Thus Far
[I always have to preface any I say about Donald Trump with reminding everyone that I did not vote for him in 2016 and found him to be a horrible human being]

In January of 2017, immediately after Trump was inaugurated as president, Buzzfeed ran a story that pretty much became the spark to the political narrative that dominated Trump’s presidency: He colluded with Russia in order to cheat, steal the election, and become president. We all remember all that. Again, social media, the Democrat party, and the mainstream media jumped all over the story and ran with it. The infamous Steele Dossier detailed all the dirt that Putin had on Trump and showed that Trump was Putin’s puppet, was essentially a Russian asset, and was most definitely a traitor.

By that summer, the Mueller Investigation was launched to look into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, and everyone was certain that Mueller was going to find the evidence needed to prove Trump’s colluding crimes. I remember at that time, even though I was not a fan of Trump, thinking that something seemed off—it was too wild of a story, even for Trump. Still, I said that if Mueller actually found evidence of collusion, then Trump should definitely be impeached.

Well, when the Mueller Report came out in March of 2019, it was reported that they did not find any provable evidence of collusion (aka: criminal conspiracy with Russia). But then it added a second part to the report suggesting that Trump might be guilty of obstruction of justice. And when William Barr and the DOJ concluded he wasn’t, Democrats and the mainstream media howled and accused Barr of being in cahoots with Trump in order to intentionally cover up Trump’s many crimes.

Barr ordered that John Durham investigate the origins of the initial Russia probe, and Durham has been quietly doing his investigation for the past two years. You never hear much about it, though in the media. Well, slowly Durham has come forth with indictments. His investigation isn’t closed yet, but to this point:

1. Durham has indicted Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer, and Clinesmith admitted to altering an email that helped the FBI gain a search warrant from the FISA court for the surveillance of Carter Page. Basically, they lied to the FISA court to get warrant.
2. Durham has indicted cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann. He lied to the FBI in 2016 when he alerted the FBI of supposed suspicious cyber contacts between the Trump Organization and a Russian Bank. That wasn’t true. And oh, he failed to tell the FBI that he was working for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
3. Just last week, Durham indicted Igor Danchenko. He was Christopher Steele’s primary researcher for his dossier. He lied to the FBI regarding his sources for the Steele Dossier. And oh, one of his sources for the salacious dirt on Trump came from Charles Dolan, an advisor to Hillary Clinton in her 2008 campaign and a volunteer in her 2016 campaign.

We have to wait until Durham is completely done with his investigation, but what has been uncovered should be alarming. It seems it really is true that there were those connected to the Clinton campaign who worked with a Russian and a disgraced Christopher Steele to put into play the most salacious accusations against Trump to undercut him at the very beginning of his presidency. And some in the FBI were either incredibly stupid or perhaps complicit in doing this. On top of that, we also have to ask if the Mueller Investigation was tasked with investigated possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, then why did it not look into any of this?

Let’s be honest, these accusations, the Steele Dossier, and all that came with it came, literally, merely days into Trump’s presidency. It dominated American society and life for four years. From the very beginning, half the country was convinced that Trump was a Putin puppet, that conviction was all but certain, and that colored everything. More and more evidence is coming out that there are some serious falsehoods that lie at the very origins of that story. And if more evidence comes out further proving that that whole thing was rotten to its core, everyone—regardless if you love or hate Trump—should realize just how much damage has been done in our country because of it. And those who rushed headlong with the story, who screamed “Collusion!” without doing responsible investigation, or those who lied about it all along—they need to be held to account.

Conclusion
When you look back over all the chaos over the last 5 years (sure Trump is responsible for his share of inflammatory remarks and irresponsible behavior), think of all the sensationalistic stories that so many politicians and in the media pumped into the country’s bloodstream that created so much hatred and vitriol, but proved to be false: Jussie Smollet’s “attack,” Nick Sandman, the hateful Trump-supporting teen, the list can go on.

Do you want to know why hardly anyone trusts the media anymore? All this is why. These are not innocent mistakes. These are examples of intentional, deceitful propaganda, pure and simple. Those who have promulgated and pushed these stories to fever pitch have absolutely no credibility left. This should not be about supporting Democrats or Republicans, or about whether or not you like or hate Trump. This is about being able to trust those whose job it is to give the public the truth about what is going on in politics so that we can hold politicians to account. When the media becomes a partisan propaganda machine that goes out of its way to deceive, we are in big trouble.

Yes, I think eventually the truth will come out regarding Kyle Rittenhouse—in fact, I think it has. And yes, I think Durham will eventually come out with more revelations. When that happens, the question facing everyone is this: “Are you going to acknowledge the truth, or are you going to deny reality and admit that maybe the media has misled the public?”