By Nancy Thorner & Ed Ingold -
A recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, "Mueller's Fruit of the Poisonous Tree", concluded that it makes no difference how honorable Mueller is, his investigation is tainted by the bias that attended its origin in 2016.
As Roger Kimball wrote on June 19, 2018 about the 568-page IG report, A Comedy of Corruption? Or a Bureaucratic Horror Show?:
If the stakes were not so high, the 568-page report issued last week by the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General (“A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election”) might be seen as a species of comedy, something out of Plautus, perhaps (starring Peter Strzok as the Miles Gloriosus and Lisa Page as Philocomasium), or Dickens’s Little Dorrit with its Office of Circumlocution . Note: The report “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed.
At PJ Media Andrew Klavan observed, not to have found any evidence of political bias is simply inspector-generalese for, “No one confessed or left a paper trail.”
Kimberly Strassel was also right in her recent column for the Wall Street Journal of June 14, 2018, "Insubordination and Bias at FBI (The inspector general report is careful in its conclusions, but damning on the facts"), when she concluded that the IG report is dripping with evidence of political bias.
Prelutsky Provides Dose of Humor
Burt Prelutsky is a CA tv screenwriter, humor columnist, movie critic, author of eight books, as well as having his own website where he posts six witty political commentaries per week though subscription at [email protected]. Here is what Burt Prelutsky had to say about the recently released IG report:
"Although I had looked forward to the Inspector General of the Justice Department, Michael Horowitz, and the Director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, being questioned by a Senate committee, I wound up disappointed, as I so often am by any activity undertaken by Washington bureaucrats.
For my part, Horowitz had already made himself a laughingstock by turning in a nearly 600-page report detailing a two-year campaign of partisan bias conducted by members of the Deep State – a group of traitors that included, but was not limited to James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page — to prevent Donald Trump from winning the election; and when that failed, resorting to a backup plan to undermine his administration and get him impeached.
But after all that, Horowitz somehow concluded that the plot had nothing to do with partisan bias. It was as if he were channeling James Comey, who, in 2016, read off a list of federal crimes that Hillary Clinton had committed before concluding that no prosecutor could possibly have grounds for indicting her.
As for Christopher Wray, he could well serve as Central Casting’s idea of the perfect bureaucratic wimp, the sort of person who wakes up every morning thinking how to best spend the day covering his ass.
When questioned about the part the FBI had played in the resistance movement, this federal toady played down the Bureau’s involvement by reminding the committee that only a small number of individuals had been engaged in the traitorous activity.
Fortunately, Sen. Orrin Hatch was there to brush aside the frivolous defense by reminding Wray that the small number happened “to include the Director of the FBI, the Deputy Director of the FBI and the lead investigator of both the Clinton investigation and the Russian collusion investigation.”
But, apparently, we are all supposed to breathe a sigh of relief now that Wray has ordered the 35,000 agents to attend classes that will explain to them why people who carry guns, badges and federal warrants, should try to make every effort to avoid exhibiting partisan bias, at least during working hours.
Best of all, once they complete the program, they’ll be able to find employment selling latte grandes at the local Starbuck."
Clinton E-mail Fiasco
As to the handling of the Clinton e-mails, the reason FBI Director Comey announced a renewed investigation of the Clinton Emails just days before the election has not been completely explained and probably never will be. The Inspector’s General report described it as a “breach of protocol,” and hubris on Comey’s part for concealing his intentions from the AG Lynch. This is an accurate assessment, but probably not the entire story. In any investigation, one of the first questions asked is “Who stands to benefit?” From this point the Clinton Email investigation twists and turns like the plot of an Agatha Christy novel, only we are still waiting for someone to confess in the penultimate scene, when all of the parties are assembled.
Clinton and the Democrats still claim that the 11th hour news conference cost them the 2016 election. It certainly didn’t help; however, the effect would have been much worse if someone else had leaked the information. There would have been a storm of reports, denials and opinions, dominating the news cycle for two weeks or more. As we know all too well, it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup, stupid!
The IG’s report makes that situation a little clearer. According to this report, the upper echelon of the FBI had a network of serial leakers and still do. The connection between the FBI and mainstream media is that unidentified individuals received emoluments from the media, including tickets to various events, to lubricate this flow of information. The discovery of thousands of emails on Huma Abedin’s computer, through the prosecution of her husband, Anthony Weiner, for sex crimes, occurred in September, a month before Comey’s fateful news release. The District Attorney of New York conveyed this information to the FBI (Peter Strzok). A month is a long time to keep a secret in Washington, and it was increasingly likely that it would be leaked to the press, either out of conscience or hubris.
While Comey’s news conference damaged Clinton’s campaign, far more damage would have occurred had it leaked. The clock was ticking. The thread on Damacles’ sword was starting to fray.
FBI Stonewalls
Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Chairman, House Oversight Committee, not only slammed the FBI based on the IG report, but he also went after the DOJ & FBI for not complying with the Committee request for the documents from Clinton Email investigation. Gowdy told "Fox News Sunday" that "the full panoply of constitutional weapons available to the people’s house" are on the table, including contempt of Congress. "I don’t want the drama; I want the documents," Gowdy added.
The FBI and Justice keep digging themselves a deeper hole in the name of a cover up. This only makes it worse as the cat is out of the bag thanks to IG Horowitz damaging report. The notion being circulated about there being no bias is pure hogwash. Read here the seven key takeaways from bombshell DOJ Watchdog Report into Hillary e-mail probe
Instead of a Trump/Russian investigation, it should have been the expansion of the Clinton server scandal that should have been front and center instead of the focus on Trump; thanks to Strzok’s animus and bias.
The bias and animus exhibited by the high- level FBI lawyers and agents are having their unwanted and unintended consequences of tainting the Mueller investigation, so carefully planned as the insurance policy and the “we will stop him” pledge. The consequence so unwanted and unexpected, places a wet blanket over the Mueller ever widening probe of Trump and related parties. Bias and animus so blinded Strzok and Page, his concubine, they lost their bearings and ignored what they learned in law school, they may have gifted Trump and those caught up in the web of the Russian investigation, by rendering Mueller’s work moot.
Time will tell, but how ironic that the prime advocate for the take down of Trump is in fact, the key player in his liberation from the Russian probe and of those around him, Flynn, Manafort, Papadopoulos, and even Cohen, is none other than Strzok himself?
Oh by the way, where is the evidence? Just asking.
