On Tuesday, the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence held a hearing where the FBI’s Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence was called to testify. The main topic of the hearing was Chinese Communist Party aggression, but given the timing of the event and the senior position of the witness, the subject of the Durham report came up. Jill Murphy “stunned” the Republicans on the panel when she claimed that she “hadn’t had time” to read the report and had never even been briefed on it. Given the bombshell nature of the report and its damning critique of the Bureau, that sounds unlikely in the extreme, but she promised the members that she would “get to it.” (Daily Wire)

A senior FBI official stunned GOP members of Congress on Tuesday upon testifying that she has not read or even been briefed on special counsel John Durham‘s report.

Jill Murphy, the FBI’s deputy assistant director of counterintelligence, said during a hearing that she has not “had time” to read the report that was released early last week, though she intends to get to it.

The report, which came at the conclusion of a years-long inquiry, heavily criticized the FBI probe into alleged links between Donald Trump‘s 2016 campaign and Russia.

The chairman of the committee, Congressman August Pfluger (R-TX), took to Twitter to express his disbelief.

The FBI's Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence tells @HomelandGOP:

"I have not read the Durham report." pic.twitter.com/3EOlLHVpPG

— Rep. August Pfluger (@RepPfluger) May 23, 2023

Perhaps it’s true that Jill Murphy hasn’t physically sat down and read the entire report. But it’s inconceivable that she hadn’t even heard anything about it, particularly when it mentions her by name. When Republican Congressman Dan Bishop questioned her about it further, Murphy responded by saying, “Sir, if you’d like a brief on the Durham report from the Counterintelligence Division, I’m happy to take that back.” Bishop described her response as “contemptuous.” (It clearly was.)

Given the Bureau’s recent track record, it’s certainly possible that Murphy was lying under oath. But why would she care? Her claim would be virtually impossible to disprove unless one of her aides came forward to discredit her. And given how the Bureau has been treating whistleblowers lately, that’s not very likely. Besides, even if she were found to by lying, nobody is going to prosecute her for it under Biden’s Justice Department. She knows she’s in the clear.

The one thing she very much doesn’t want to do is add fuel to the fire over just how rotten the FBI has become and how it attempted to interfere in at least three consecutive elections. By pretending she was ignorant of the findings in the Durham report, she avoided the conversation. And that was the entire purpose of the exercise.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are still defending the FBI like guard dogs. In closing, check out what Dan Goldman of New York had to say when it was his turn to speak.

Rep. Goldman: "So why are my colleagues trying to undermine the FBI? Why are they asking to defund the FBI? … if you can undermine the investigator … then you can undermine our entire system of democracy. That is the authoritarian playbook 101." pic.twitter.com/rN1RNeZ2Nd

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 23, 2023