It’s been obvious for some that the notion that Sessions tasked Huber with investigating the weaponization of FISA warrants and government spies against the Trump campaign was merely a head fake.
In the first place, Sessions could not have appointed Huber to investigate government abuses against the Trump campaign because Sessions recused himself from anything having to do with the Trump campaign or the Hillary campaign. That is why Sessions asked Huber only to “review” not investigate certain unidentified issues raised and see if there were a reason to investigate.
But if Huber concluded that an investigation of government abuse against the Trump campaign should be started, he could only give that conclusion to Rod Rosenstein, because Sessions was recused.
Second, Weismann and Dreeben in the Special Counsel’s office were pushing a novel and expansive idea of what kind of activity could constitute ‘obstruction of justice.’ There’s no way Huber would start investigating anything until the Mueller investigation was over, so as not to be accused of trying to obstruct that with his own investigation.
And that leaves the supposed investigation of Hillary. We can be sure that Huber has NOT been investigating Hillary’s commissioning of the phony Steele dossier and using it to fraudulently get an FBI investigation going on the Trump campaign. We know that because Sessions recused himself from anything having to do with the Trump campaign or the Hillary campaign, so Sessions would have had to “unrecuse” himself before delegating that assignment to Huber.
What HAS Huber been investigating? I suggest that it is probably only the very narrow question of whether Hillary was bribed to procure the CFIUS approval for the transfer of US uranium resources.
Because of recent Supreme Court opinion in this area, you really need a smoking gun, you need to prove the quid pro quo. In other words, you need a communication evidencing the quid pro quo agreement.
Where to look? The FBI has Weiner’s laptop, with all of Hillary’s emails. There were backup servers for Hillary’s and the Clinton Foundation’s emails that don’t appear to have been seriously considered by the FBI in the original Hillary email investigation.
I’m betting Huber did nothing to try to get these. He will conclude there was no evidence of a quid pro quo in the uranium approval, put a nice bow on it and close the file.
But the whole thing is a sham.
Why on earth is a department inspector general driving the train in the case of what appears to be a widespread plot involving foreign intelligence agencies, multiple US intelligence agencies, various spies and other parties? This is far beyond his writ.
Look, if people in the DOJ were stealing staplers and going out at lunchtime and selling them on Pennsylvania Avenue, I would say, okay, let the department IG take the lead on that.
But we’re talking about something much, much bigger. Remember, if employees give statements to the IG you can’t use those statements against them in a criminal investigation. So letting the IG go first just makes it harder to later bring criminal cases.
When there is a serious criminal matter, the IG should wait. He can recommend improved policies and procedures going forward after the criminal case has been made.
There is no requirement that a criminal referral by an inspector general is necessary before the government may start an investigation. Yet the press and the swamp are trying to give that impression.
Concise, precise synopsis.
We could speculate IG and DoJ telegraphed their intentions declining prosecution of FBI DaD.
Expect sternly worded reports about how they shouldn’t have done that, its not nice. Next time do it the right way.
Great summary. I agree 100%. It’s always been obvious the IG was slow walk the “investigation” beltway theater. The GOP wants no part of prosecuting criminal Dems to the benefit of Trump. And it’s probable POTUS doesn’t even want to engage the Dems over Obama admin criminality without the full support of his own party. Hopefully, that will change after he wins in 2020.