Posted on 12/15/2019 4:25:57 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- A recent CNN story framed Attorney General Bill Barr's criticisms of the FBI's behavior in the Russia probe as "attacks," which could have a "chilling effect" on law enforcement. The metaphor makes it sound as if an innocent institution is getting mugged.
But the "rank behavior," as Barr put it during an interview with The Wall Street Journal, chronicled in Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report, released Monday, make clear the FBI could use a good freeze.
Yes, the IG report concluded political bias did not launch the investigation into possible coordination between the Kremlin and Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.
And yes, I've heard the argument from intelligence and law enforcement veterans who say it would have been a dereliction of duty not to investigate when they first had an inkling Russia fed dirt on Hillary Clinton to the Trump team during the 2016 campaign.
The problem is: Why didn't they wrap it up in, say, January 2017 -- after it became clear that the so-called dossier spit out by former British intelligence officer and paid Democratic opposition researcher Christopher Steele was a sham?
As the IG report made clear, officials who assessed Steele's credibility did so with "medium confidence" and found Steele's reporting was "minimally corroborated."
During a January 2017 interview to assess Steele's credibility, Steele's primary source contradicted his claim that a sensational rumor about Trump watching prostitutes urinating in a Moscow hotel had been confirmed.
Also, Steele had claimed his top source had been speaking with a former senior Russian official for a while. The source told the FBI they'd never met. Still, the Russian probe continued.
Too many journalists seem to have forgotten that the intelligence community is not supposed to spy on Americans. So, of course, CNN didn't broadcast Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham's opening statement on the IG report. It's not news.
What really angers the folks at CNN? Barr's use of the word "spying." (Too accurate.)
In this news cycle, issues have been replaced by fact-resistant narratives -- to wit, James Comey, Boy Scout.
The IG report shredded any notion of Comey as a ramrod straight lawman standing up for what is right against bully President Donald Trump.
A year after the FBI learned the "pee-tape" was fictional, Comey spoke as if it might be true. Promoting his book, "No Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership," Comey told ABC in April 2018: "Honestly, I never thought these words would come out of my mouth, but I don't know whether the current president of the United States was with prostitutes peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013. It's possible. I don't know."
While Horowitz didn't find partisan bias as the cause for the Russian probe, he found plenty of anti-Trump bias.
It's impossible to believe that the investigation would have continued if these tawdry allegations had been hurled against a member of the Washington establishment, say, an incumbent senator. Or a former secretary of state.
I would not discount the effect of arrogance among law enforcement elites or the corrosive effect of using and over-relying on confidential sources. This wouldn't be the first time the FBI picked on someone just because it could.
Think of the countless cases where nonviolent and low-level drug offenders were sentenced to draconian time because career criminals testified against them in order to win shorter terms.
Horowitz catalogued the 17 errors or omissions in applications to wiretap former Trump adviser Carter Page, who served as an operational contact for a government agency -- presumably the CIA -- for five years.
On CNN and MSNBC, one often hears -- for good reason -- about the threats faced by whistleblowers and those who testified against Trump. But you don't see a lot of tears for Page.
"From the day news of the investigation broke, I have faced threats to my life and have been forced to live like a fugitive. I still don't feel safe enough to establish a fixed residence," Page wrote in the Journal.
As Horowitz told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, "The activities we found here don't vindicate anybody who touched this."
There was so much at stake in this probe -- and still the FBI, and later special counsel Robert Mueller, continued an investigation based on dubious sources and false claims that undermined the public's faith in the 2016 election.
During the Russian probe hearings, House Democrats railed against the notion of a foreign government meddling in U.S. elections. The real horror is that our own law enforcement system did it for them.
Last evening I watched Jesse Waters hand Howard Kurtz from Media Buzz his anti Trump arse on the issue of NO BIAS by the FBI.
Here is the YouTube video clip of Jesse Watters with Howard Kurtz.. Segment starts at 35.05
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzFAJbC—VU
My arse. The FBI is corrupt from top to bottom and may be the corruptest in the entire string of un-elected bureaucrats.
Russia, my arse.
The EU was in this up to its collective armpits.
Let’s see... someone is fabricating evidence to make someone look guilty, what motivates that besides bias?
McCabe, who hates Trump and the leaders of the FBI, handpicked all Trump haters...and handpicked all the same people for all the investigations (Hillary’s Emails, Flynn, Page, Mueller’s Team), who made all the same misconduct against Trump. If that is not bias, what is?
Their righteous indignation reminds of the court scene in Animal House where Otter extrapolates the prosecution of the Delta House fraternity into an attack on America itself.
I have seen no Russian influence on the election or even meddling by the Russian Government. If there was meddling, it is trivial, insignificant when compared to the US government active attempt to actually destroy the Trump campaign and then and now, the President.
Democrat friends and relatives must be ostracized for Christmas
They have these last two weeks forfeited their right to not only co existence, but are no longer fit to be part of America.
It’s hard, but if they come to visit, they must be turned away, ostracized.
Kurtz, Schiff, Horowitz, Nadler, etc.&etc. one would think if this many Jehovah’s Witnesses started going after an elected president people would start wondering about Jehovah’s Witnesses.
It is something even worse: following illegal orders.
Perhaps on DIRTY COP law "enforcement", when it is the law, not the actual perps, getting frog-marched with manacles down the hall.
There was massive wrong-doing, but the purpose of certain members of the FBI was to make sure the blame was shifted away from the "protected class".
I cannot forget the hounding and harassment the so-called “anthrax scientist,” Dr. Bruce Ivins, received from the FBI. The harassment was profound, until Bruce ended up taking his own life to escape the stress of it.
To this day, no one who knew Bruce believes he had anything to do with the anthrax letters. I have heard colleagues of his talk about the FBI “findings” in the anthrax letter case, and follow it up with “If you believe that story.”
I knew Bruce, but our relationship never progressed past saying “Hi” whenever our paths crossed at work or at the gym. We worked in different departments.
Steven Hatfill had also been targeted by the FBI over the anthrax incident. Things turned out better for him, but still, the FBI should have never subjected him to that.
I have heard, but have not confirmed, that some of the same bad actors who hounded Bruce until his death were involved in the Russia probe. Whatever the case, it is perhaps time to dismantle the FBI—it has some deep rot.
The no bias conclusion made the entire IG Report a White Wash.
Barr needs clean up the entire Justice Department if that’s possible.
CNN’s reprehensible statements like this have a ‘chilling effect’ on justice and logical thought. Hit them with their own logic ((I know, they don’t care about logic... or reason or facts))
Civil prosecution by ordinary citizens of these apperatchik propaganda-spewing NON-journalists should be allowed to give repercussions for such blatant and destructive un-americanism.
CNN lies and commits fraud on a daily basis and should face the music.
People are not paying attention.
There were 17 listed errors or omissions in the Carter Page issue.
BUT HOW MANY ERRORS OR OMISSIONS ARE THERE IN THE WHOLE OF THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION?
I call BS!!
The FBI entered in to a Seditious Conspiracy to Overthrow the United States Presidency with a Foreign Power, they should ALL BE HANGED!
None of the 17 errors or omissions or done by accident, so they aren’t errors at all, they were deliberate. That turns mere errors into lies. The omissions weren’t accidental either.
Looks like that vid has been pulled...It must have been good!
Thus the FBI and Robert Mueller gave aid and comfort to the enemy.
If the premise was that the Steele Dossier and the Clinton machine’s attempt to cloud Donald Trump in the 2016 election is accepted, then yes, The FBI aided the Russian propaganda machine. This is a much more serious than one giant rogue FBI agent letting his ego cast a shadow over the entire agency. If Barr is serious about the direction of the Justice Department and the FBI and wants it to be the premier law enforcement agency FOR the USA, then he must go in with a sickle and separate the wheat from the chaff.
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