Posted on 12/15/2017 6:05:52 PM PST by MarvinStinson
The Justice Department inspector general’s decision in January to open an investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation was met with widespread praise from Democrats.
“My reaction is that it’s entirely appropriate and very necessary but also not surprising,” Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon told MSNBC on Jan. 12, the day that inspector general Michael Horowitz announced the investigation.
“I welcome it,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said the same day. “I support what they’re doing. It’s long overdue.”
He was joined in his endorsement by Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. “It’s a troubling pattern that the FBI seems to have chosen a horse in this election, and we welcome this investigation so this doesn’t happen again,” he said back in January.
Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman who openly supports Democrats, told Chris Hayes of the watchdog investigation: “I’m glad they’re doing it.”
Neera Tanden, a former Clinton campaign adviser and president for Center for American Progress, called the investigation “absolutely the right thing to do.”
Josh Earnest, who served as Obama’s press secretary, also endorsed Horowitz’s inquiry. “Decisions that are made by inspectors general across the administration are independent,” he told reporters at a White House press briefing. Hopefully they will follow the evidence where it leads.”
But nearly a year later, Democrats are much less enthusiastic about Horowitz’s probe.
The change of heart is due to the revelation that one of the top investigators on the email investigation sent politically-charged text messages to his mistress, an FBI lawyer.
Those messages, exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, have undermined the federal investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Kremlin. That’s because in addition to being a top investigator on the Clinton email probe, Strzok supervised the Russia investigation, which began several weeks after the Clinton inquiry was closed in July 2016.
Strzok and Page both transferred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team after he inherited the investigation following the firing of James Comey as FBI director.
Horowitz, an Obama appointee, discovered the Strzok-Page texts after submitting a request to the FBI for the communications of key figures in the email probe.
After seeing the biased messages, Horowitz made two additional requests from the FBI for Strzok’s communications. He informed Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of the messages on July 27. Strzok was immediately demoted to the FBI’s human resources department.
For reasons unexplained, Mueller’s office, the FBI and DOJ refused for more than four months to explain why Strzok was removed from the investigation. The existence of the texts were revealed earlier this month. Nearly 400 of the messages were released on Tuesday.
Republicans have cited the texts to argue that the Mueller investigation now falls under the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine. Strzok’s involvement in the early stages of the Trump investigation has spoiled Mueller’s probe, GOP lawmakers have argued.
Democrats have downplayed the texts, in which Strzok refers to Trump as a “fucking idiot” while praising Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid. Many have argued that Republicans are using the fruits of Horowitz’s investigation in order to end Mueller’s investigation.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, argued on Sunday that Republican focus on the text messages and other evidence of bias on the Mueller team were intended to undercut Mueller.
“The intent here is nothing short of discrediting Mueller, then discrediting the Justice Department, then discrediting the FBI, then discrediting the judiciary,” Schiff told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Back in January, Schiff praised one of his Democratic colleagues for submitting a request that spurred the inspector general investigation.
“I say hats off to my colleague, [Maryland Rep.] Elijah Cummings, for making the request for this investigation some months ago,” Schiff said.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, argued on Sunday that Republican focus on the text messages and other evidence of bias on the Mueller team were intended to undercut Mueller.
“The intent here is nothing short of discrediting Mueller, then discrediting the Justice Department, then discrediting the FBI, then discrediting the judiciary,” Schiff told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
But back in January, Schiff praised one of his Democratic colleagues for submitting a request that spurred the inspector general investigation.
“I say hats off to my colleague, [Maryland Rep.] Elijah Cummings, for making the request for this investigation some months ago,” Schiff said then.
Democrats are just starting to see the leading edge of a whole lotta stuff they’re not going to like.
FReepers are about to get an education on what a real professional Attorney General and staff looks like.
The Democrats may be regretting their demand letter
well yea they got their money’s worth.
Ages-olf addage certainly applies here - “Beware of what you ask for, you just may receive it” or one of my personal favorites, “Caveat Emptor”
Schiff,who was she?
Lately one of Soros’ hardest working clones.
Gregg Jarrett: Did the FBI and the Justice Department, plot to clear Hillary Clinton, bring down Trump?
There is strong circumstantial evidence that an insidious plot unprecedented in American history was hatched within the FBI and the Obama Justice Department to help elect Hillary Clinton and defeat Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
And when this apparent effort to improperly influence the election did not succeed, the suspected conspirators appear to have employed a fraudulent investigation of President Trump in an attempt to undo the election results and remove him as president.
Such a Machiavellian scheme would move well beyond what is known as the “deep state,” a popular reference to government employees who organize in secret to impose their own political views on government policy in defiance of democratically elected leadership.
However, this apparent plot to keep Trump from becoming president and to weaken and potentially pave the way for his impeachment with a prolonged politically motivated investigation – if proven – would constitute something far more nefarious and dangerous.
Such a plot would show that partisans within the FBI and the Justice Department, driven by personal animus and a sense of political righteousness, surreptitiously conspired to subvert electoral democracy itself in our country.
As of now, we have no proof beyond a reasonable doubt of such a plot. But we have very strong circumstantial evidence.
And as the philosopher and writer Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal in 1850: “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”
Newly revealed text messages about the apparent anti-Trump plot are the equivalent of a trout in the milk. It smells fishy.
Excerpted go the link below for full story:
More like if you find a turd in the milk.
Carville said it best: drag a dollar bill through a trailer park..... I hope this comes back to bite them in their testicles.
“For reasons unexplained, Mueller’s office, the FBI and DOJ refused for more than four months to explain why Strzok was removed from the investigation.”
No comment!
That makes me wonder what the real reason is that Democrats have turned on Rosenstein.
Isn't it clear? The FBI and DOJ didn't want the good guys to know that they had leverage over Strzok to get him to flip.
My take is that, democrats had to call for investigations. It they had not, they would have appeared as if they had something to hide. Problem for them is that, they didn’t expect the investigations to be carried so far and so deep. I’m pretty sure that if they had thought that the investigations would go as far as they have, that they would have never “approved” or called for investigations. Schiff himself would have requested a halt to the investigations if he had suspected that they would go further than he expected.
How about discrediting Trump? No mention of that, a-hole.
> well yea they got their money’s worth.
A classic case of them believing their own lies...that Hillary was a wronged party in all of this.
Are there more Democrat Strategists or are there more cockroaches, or is there a difference?
SESSIONS A DEEP STATER! SESSIONS A SWAMP MONSTER! < /SESSIONS BASHERS >
People who are advocating gallows, martial law, etc. on FreeRepublic either disregard the 66% revulsion this would cause to the upcoming elections or are for dispensing with the Constitution all together.
Sessions is letting the OIG complete its work without interruption. He’ll then have a greater consensus and public support for the measures he uses. A few firings will not resolve this thing. Meanwhile, Trump is calm, cool, and collected in this PR nightmare which the FBI/DOJ is undergoing.
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