This is a good time to take a good look at the texts sent by Peter Strzok, the actions of James Comey and how they dovetail with the official actions of the FBI.
Over at The Daily Caller Chuck Ross has integrated the dossier timeline with the texts, but here we will examine events from a slightly different perspective then we’ll circle back..
In one exchange from August 2016, the FBI’s Lisa Page forwarded a Donald Trump-related article to Peter Strzok, writing: “And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace.”
He responded: “Thanks. It’s absolutely true that we’re both very fortunate. And of course I’ll try and approach it that way. I just know it will be tough at times. I can protect our country at many levels, not sure if that helps.’”
This seems clear. Strzok was going to protect the country from Trump.
But an Aug. 15, 2016 message has come under more serious scrutiny.
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” Strzok wrote to Page.
Andy is believed to be Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
“It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40,” Strzok added.
The dossier was the insurance policy
Strzok was at least part of the editing of the Comey statement:
The FBI agent who was removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia — because he sent anti-Trump messages to a colleague — oversaw the bureau’s interviews with ousted National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, Fox News confirmed on Monday.
Peter Strzok, a former deputy to the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, also was confirmed to have changed former FBI Director James Comey’s early draft language about Hillary Clinton’s actions regarding her private email server from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless.”
Strzok interviewed Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson and Hillary Clinton
The FBI agent who was fired from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team for sending anti-Donald Trump text messages conducted the interviews with two Hillary Clinton aides accused of giving false statements about what they knew of the former secretary of state’s private email server.
Yet somehow they escaped prosecution for lying to the FBI because Strzok wasn’t going to jeopardize Clinton’s campaign.
The FBI agreed to destroy evidence on behalf of Clinton aides:
See the letter Rep. Bob Goodlatte sent to Loretta Lynch here.
Cheryl Mills was also granted immunity by Lynch’s DOJ.
Now for a laugh
A top counterintelligence agent, Peter Strzok, exchanged the messages with Lisa Page, a senior F.B.I. lawyer. Some messages criticized Mrs. Clinton’s team, the Obama administration, Congress and other Democrats. But the two appeared appalled at some of Mr. Trump’s comments during the campaign and feared that he would politicize the F.B.I.
They were afraid that Trump would politicize the FBI? How’s that for irony?
Now for the cherries on top of the cake
obama helps Clinton hide the bodies:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton struck a deal with the State Department while serving in the Obama administration that allowed her to take ownership of records she did not want made public, according to recently released reports.
Clinton and her then-deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin were permitted to remove electronic and physical records under a claim they were “personal” materials and “unclassified, non-record materials.”
Judicial Watch made the revelation after filing a FOIA request with the State Department and obtaining a record of the agreement.
The newly released documents show the deal allowed Clinton and Abedin to remove documents related to particular calls and schedules, and the records would not be “released to the general public under FOIA.” Abedin, for instance, was allowed to remove electronic records and five boxes of physical files, including files labeled “Muslim Engagement Documents.”
How high does this go? This high: obama declares hillary innocent in April of 2016:
In his appearance on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, President Obama told Americans not to worry, because “I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case. … Guaranteed. Full stop.”
But the reason the email affair of the Democrats’ presidential front-runner is so important is that it has already been proved that she handled classified information, after categorically denying doing so, through the private server she set up at her home in New York state. Unlike protected government communications, those emails could have been intercepted or later compromised by foreign governments like those of Russia or China, or by nongovernmental personnel tied to terrorists.
So when President Obama went on to double down on his claim last year that “I can tell that you this is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered,” he was doing, as president, exactly what he was promising not to do — interfering.
In fact, he was declaring her innocent before she has been proven guilty or not guilty.
Here is a critical portion of the Trump/Clinton timeline from Chuck Ross:
Feb. 27, 2016 — Strzok interviews Jake Sullivan, a former Clinton State Department aide and adviser to her campaign.
March 2 — Asked by Page who he planned to vote for, Strzok replied: “I suppose Hillary.”
March 4 — Strzok writes to Page of Trump: “Omg he’s an idiot.” He says that a Trump victory in the GOP primaries will be “good for Hillary.”
“God Hillary should win. 100,000,000-0,” Strzok writes.
April — The law firm for the Clinton campaign and DNC hires opposition research firm Fusion GPS to investigate Trump. Fusion would go on to hire Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the infamous dossier.
April 5 — Strzok interviews Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
April 9 — Strzok interviews Clinton aide Cheryl Mills.
May 16 — A draft of a statement that then-FBI Director James Comey was preparing to release at the conclusion of the Clinton email probe was circulated among top FBI officials, including Strzok. “Please send me any comments on this statement,” wrote FBI chief of staff James Rybicki.
Strzok has since been identified as the agent who suggested that Comey remove the legally-loaded term “grossly negligent” to describe Clinton’s email use and replace it with the term “extremely careless.”
May 24 — Strzok interviews Clinton aide Heather Samuelson.
June 12 — Strzok writes: “They fully deserve to go, and demonstrate the absolute bigoted nonsense of Trump.”
June 17 — “Now we’re talking about Clinton, and how a lot of people are holding their breath, hoping,” he tells Page, appearing to reference a meeting that is not described.
June 20 — Steele writes the first of 17 memos that make up the dossier. He alleges that the Kremlin has recruited Donald Trump as an asset and that Russian operatives had been feeding the Trump campaign negative information about Clinton.
June 27 — Then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch meets in secret with former President Bill Clinton. The meeting forces Lynch to step away from the Clinton probe.
July 2 — Strzok and Justice Department lawyer David Laufman interview Hillary Clinton.
July 5 — Comey announces that he would not refer charges against Clinton to federal prosecutors.
What makes this critical? This is the segment of time leading up to Comey’s exoneration of Clinton. Strzok’s overt political bias affected the course of events. His hatred of Trump led him to determine that Hillary Clinton would not face legal jeopardy and remain a viable candidate. He did so by changing the findings of the email investigation:
Newly released documents obtained by Fox News reveal that then-FBI Director James Comey’s draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times before his public announcement, in ways that seemed to water down the bureau’s findings considerably.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, sent a letter to the FBI on Thursday that shows the multiple edits to Comey’s highly scrutinized statement.
In an early draft, Comey said it was “reasonably likely” that “hostile actors” gained access to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email account. That was changed later to say the scenario was merely “possible.”
Another edit showed language was changed to describe the actions of Clinton and her colleagues as “extremely careless” as opposed to “grossly negligent.” This is a key legal distinction.
Johnson, writing about his concerns in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray, said the original “could be read as a finding of criminality in Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified material.”
He added, “The edited statement deleted the reference to gross negligence – a legal threshold for mishandling classified material – and instead replaced it with an exculpatory sentence.”
The edits also showed that references to specific potential violations of statutes on “gross negligence” regarding classified information and “misdemeanor handling” were removed.
Catherine Herridge of Fox News says that the term “grossly negligent” was removed from the draft twice and that it was Strzok who did the editing. Further, the investigation had assessed that it was “reasonably likely” that Clinton’s server as hacked.
The FBI is now in the midst of a crisis of confidence:
Sixty-three percent of polled voters believe that the FBI has been resisting providing information to Congress on the Clinton and Trump investigations. This is a remarkable finding for an agency whose new head said a few days ago that the agency was in fine shape. No, it isn’t.
Fifty-four percent say special counsel Robert Mueller has conflicts of interest that prevent him from doing an unbiased job, also according to this month’s Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll. So, given this finding, the silence from the special counsel on the subject has become downright deafening.
These are significant findings about an operation that was supposed to bring more objectivity and less partisanship to the Trump-Russia investigation. Clearly these numbers indicate that there is a crisis in public confidence in both the FBI and Mueller. What makes these findings important is that, with Trump’s approval rating at 41 percent, these results include large numbers of voters who don’t like Trump yet who now agree that these investigations have veered off course.
To repeat- the FBI investigation concluded that HIllary Clinton had been grossly negligent and it was likely the highly classified material on her server had been accessed.
Peter Strzok changed those findings and James Comey went along with them.
As previously stated, Strzok and Comey changed the findings to safeguard the viability of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. The dossier was the insurance policy in case Trump did win. This is a full blown conspiracy.
Had Clinton won, we would never have known any of this.
Trey Gowdy thinks Andrew McCabe will be gone from the FBI by next week. That might be just the beginning.
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Except for liberals being foolish.
A politcal soft coup from the very start, a weaponized intelligence agency.
Russia may have played these mindless fools. But it was they who tried to tamper with an election.
Does this look worse than the cover-up of a petty robbery, 18 missing minutes on a tape?
Demotions are not enough we need prosecutions of traitors, and seditionists.
Yes I believe Obama knew and approved.
Its time to turn the lights on in the room and make the demacratic cockroaches run for cover behind the walls where they hide to come out at night and steal all we have
Meaning they were afraid the liberal infiltration of the DOJ and FBI would be excised. They believe liberalism is the normal state of affairs and NOT having liberalism permeating all levels of government is “politicizing”. Kind of like disarming citizens so they are defenseless is “safety”.
@Kitt: Indeed, instead of demoting someone to HR, where they can do even MORE damage, people need to be fired and, if proper, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Otherwise, as we have seen, others will not be dissuaded from breaking the law to promote their agenda.
Trump needs to choose a team to investigate this investigation. How would you like THAT, liberals?
the problem is that everyone things anyone that works for something IS that something!!! so if some jerkoff in the FBI does this, its the FBI not some jerkoff… in fact, even if invested with jerkoffs, that isnt what the FBI is or will be or exist as either.
same with a company and a manager or CEO, they are not the company, but they represent the company and so are seen AS the company, especially when THEY choose to do something.,
would we want to live in a world where the employing company has a department of spying so as to insure that people do not do a think the totalitarian state or company wants or doesnt permit and so can halt bad CEOs before they damage a companies reputation they work for (but arent themselves the company).
oh well.
Just to be sure no one misses this message quote from 8/26/16
Strzok : “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support…” This is why I DESPISE the Swamp, all the political ingrates, those Elites that think they are superior to other citizens. Their big salaries paid for by the American public. If the economy were better many people would not be dependent on Walmart for shopping and their wonderful part time jobs available there.
If found guilty of their crimes, it would be nice to see them sentenced to work at Walmart for a year and live on that income. Walmart is the #1 employer in several states. Let these privileged people drink in the “smell” of honest hard work. Besides, I am sure there will be people with college degrees for them to talk to who just can’t find a job.
Possibly they could work as a plumber’s apprentice and crawl around under someone’s house or take out an old toilet, work using a heavy 40 lb circular saw as a carpenter, walk a high beam to do some welding, break their back pouring concrete. I am sure you all can add to the list. It takes a lot of hard physical work, natural ability & requires a whole different kind of education, years of training to do these jobs.
Chicago ha s banned Trump maybe Chicago’s mayor needs to be banned from Washington D.C. he is a outlaw anyway
@Songbird:
If these people worked there, they would jack prices up for those they suspect do not think as they do, deny their debit cards on false allegations and push spoiled goods on those they deem “inferior”. For, they believe there are different standards (which they set) for them and for others.
@Spurwing Plover: It would be too expensive for Trump to go to Chicago anyway. It would require a much larger security detail to visit that Democrat utopia.
GOP congressman demands Mueller firing: It’s time ‘to put up or shut up’
Demand all you want. If Mueller is fired, Trump will be impeached. If impeachment fails, the people will remove the GOP from power. The majority of the people are not stupid. Have you looked at Trump’s average job approval rating lately? FOX News hasn’t had much to say about their own poll results since October 25, when Trump’s approval rating hit a new low of 38 percent.
@Greg: Its time to show the Russia connection, Trump doesnt have to fire Mueller he can be removed, replaced or simply defunded.
Seems they have uncovered an attempt to pay a woman 750K to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct just before the election. Thats the second woman coming forward with the same story and you know we must believe these victims.
@Greg:
You ARE delusional! Not only do well over half the population support Trump, but the police and military LOVE him. NO ONE fears your basement-dwelling ATIFA thugs. Your little fantasies are NOT going to come to pass. Because they are fantasies.
People who get their information from the liberal media are not informed. The economy is doing better than it has been doing in 12 years and, once tax reform is passed, will be doing even better. Unemployment is down, and that is REAL unemployment, as labor participation is up and we are no longer seeing part-time jobs drive the statistics. Manufacturing jobs, which Obama promised us would never come back, are growing. Consumer confidence is up. God knows what the markets would do if the liberal media would stop issuing false stories and if these nonsensical investigations of phantoms would cease.
ISIS is being beaten, finally. After allowing them to act and we react, we are driving them from the field. Now that Obama is out of office, they are going bankrupt… for some reason. Coincidence?
Respect for the United States has grown around the world, now that Obama the Apologizer and Surrenderer is gone.
Illegal immigration is WAY down and all that took was to head-fake to enforcing laws again. Obama effected a moderate reduction in illegal immigration by tanking the economy. Trump has a growing economy AND illegal immigration is down. Once the wall is built, we will no longer have to worry that when (if) the Democrats are in office again, they cannot unleash unfettered illegal immigration again.
Yet, his poll numbers are down. Remember the polls in November, 2016? Hmmmm?
We’re talking about removal by way of democratic elections. Yapping about civil uprisings are part of the far right’s spiel. Power ultimately resides with the people in this country. Elections are how they exercise it. When they’ve had enough, they have Constitutional recourse.
Derailing the Mueller investigation because Trump thinks the track leads to his door wouldn’t be taken lightly. It wouldn’t be tolerated. It would be seen as a president putting himself above the reach of the law—at which point, he would be properly pulled back down. It would be a very stupid move, unless there’s something very serious to hide.
@Greg:
No you aren’t, because you liberals have all but given up on legitimately winning an election ever again.
The track leads nowhere because the is no track, no collusion, no crime. What there is is a desire to reverse a legitimate, legal election because your shoe-in liberal got what she deserved; to be relegated to the septic tank of history.
Mueller’s investigation will eventually reveal whether or not that statement is correct.
@Greg: What HAS been revealed is that Mueller put together a team with a political vendetta. If this was a mission to find the truth, people with a score to settle would not have been the preference.
No such thing has been “revealed.” It has only been claimed, by people who don’t want the investigation to continue until the facts actually are revealed. What’s already known is enough to indicate the sort of facts they’re worried about.
Key Russia facts hiding in plain sight
@Greg: I loved the link how the Trump campaign sought harmful information about Clinton from sources that, according to U.S. intelligence, were linked to Moscow. But perfectly fine Hillary did it. The hacked DNC server that no one can prove cause the FBI never had their hands on it.
SOME of Muellers team is pro Hillary can you name 1 that isnt?
That story has so many holes it should be in my kitchen to drain pasta.
Try to follow the facts and keep them in mind when linking to support your argument.
There’s no indication Clinton’s campaign was aided in any way by Putin’s Russian hacking teams or by their social media disinformation apparatus. Julian Assange certainly didn’t do anything on her behalf. The Clinton campaign contracted entirely conventional opposition research.
I don’t believe their personal opinions prevent them from conducting a sound investigation. They’re attempting to uncover the facts. Facts themselves aren’t dependent on politics.
@Greg: At this point after all the nosing and spying doesnt prove Putin helped Trump, if perfectly legit why didnt they just say hey that dossier was opposition research up front? That the sources had ties to the Kremlin and Moscow and bribed for dirt of little value.
So you admit there isnt 1 of Mullers handpicked impeachment mob that isnt all in for Hillary, we at least can say thats a fact.
Wikileaks is just that not from hacking but info given to it from leakers, perhaps there was someone in the DNC IT dept. that didn’t favor Hillarys take over and screwing Bernie, and took a couple of thumb drives full of stuff to pass along. Again it was never ever proven they were hacked by Russia.
Is there anything in the article I should take seriously?
@Greg:
Republicans aren’t discrediting the “investigation”; they are exposing the information provided by the “investigators” that discredits the “investigation”.
You liberals ALWAYS conveniently forget (ignore) the fact that the Hillary campaign PAID Russian operatives for information (proved false) to use against Trump. Why do you liberals always gloss over that FACT?
This is not proven. In fact, it is widely believed that a DNC insider (now deceased) stole the information and provided it to Wikileaks. However, “hacking” might not be the term to use when someone sets their security password as “password”.
This would be the same lawyer that Obama signed a waiver to allow into the country and who Democrats had as their guest at Congressional hearings, right? Or, do I have that wrong?
What is hiding in plain sight is the desperation of the Democrats and the weakness of their argument. Really, Greg, I am surprised that you would use such weak, thin, silly justification for your little anti-Trump fantasy adventure.
And, there’s no indication Trump was was aided. In fact, there’s not evidence of any of this. Leftists talk about thousands of Russian disinformation on Facebook yet we have never seen a one. However, we have PROOF and admissions that the Hillary campaign and the DNC (which the Hillary campaign was running) paid for the Russian-provided gossip.
So it would be OK if Trump picked a team to investigate the accusation of sexual harassment against him, wouldn’t it?
What does Hillary and Obama actively assisting one side in the Russian, French and Israeli elections say about them?
Since, as you frequently remind us, a majority of the population voted for Hillary, the empirical evidence tends to indicate otherwise.
Really? At what point did you lefties decide you were going to start abiding with the outcome of election results again? As long as you agree with them? As the TV commercial says ‘That’s not how this works!’
Yapping, perhaps. So far most of the actual damage and civil disobedience I’ve seen has been caused by those who lean left.
Awww. It’s so cute when you lefties try to pretend you have any respect for the Constitution. Hint, if any of you ever tried even paying lip service to the First or Second amendments, maybe a call for “Constitutional recourse” might carry a bit more weight.
@Jay:
Indeed, who is it that the violent, fascist group ANTIFA serves? Who tried desperately to shut down Republican political rallies? Who does ALL the voter fraud favor?
Yeah, all Democrats just want free and fair elections, right?
What you need to remember is that Dems constantly redefine words to mean something other than what normal (or, I guess now, what used to be considered normal) people think they mean.
‘Free and Fair Elections’ = We won!
‘Collusion and interference’ = We lost 🙁
@Jay: This is necessary because they have defined their political programs as “take it or leave it”, favoring the far leftist that hates our country, our history and our achievements. Since far more would rather leave it than take it, the lowest, dirtiest, most despicable tactics are required for them to have a chance to win.
@Bill… Deplorable Me: Its their favorite saying “Thats not who we are” Without the answer of who are you talking about?
@Kitt: Fact of the matter is, that always IS who they are.
As in there is no proof of an anti-Trump bias?
Why were the individuals removed from the team if their views didn’t affect their actions as part of the team? Why was Strozyk’s removal not announced?
Recall that this is the team that ‘edited’ the Hillary memo to remove the phrase that would have resulted in her prosecution.
Just out of curiosity, how do you think the left would be reacting if the agents in question had exchanged texts that they thought Hillary was an idiot and expressed strong pro-Trump views, then left the ‘gross negligence’ language in the findings so she would have been indicted?
What if they had started writing a memo exonerating Trump on the collusion charges and granting immunity from prosecution deals to Flynn, Manafort, et al, before anyone had even been called in to testify…
I’m fairly certain the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth would be far in excess of anything any Republican has done regarding the blatant bias on the investigation team.
This is also the team digging desperately to find (or pretend there is) evidence of Russian ‘collusion’.
But, as my kids say ‘You do you!’
Criminal investigation often tends to involve a certain degree of bias. If something of a criminal nature isn’t strongly suspected, you generally don’t mount a full-scale investigation to begin with.
I’ll readily admit that I have a strong personal bias against Donald Trump. For example, I’m almost certain that his claims that he will not personally benefit from the tax reform bill just passed is a lie. The fact that he won’t make his tax returns available like nearly every other modern president—and as he promised to do—has done nothing to reassure me on that point. I think he and his family will reap enormous rewards as a result of this legislation, and will continue to do so long after the small cuts granted to working and middle-class Americans have expired. This will be true of many or most of the members of Congress who voted for the bill. They’re voting themselves money. We’re going to run up even more debt to give unneeded and permanent tax breaks to corporate America and the wealthy. The tax reform bill is seriously biased.
@Greg: Problem is, we’ve already seen their bias affect justice.
And if you’re trying to conduct a legitimate investigation you don’t staff it with a partisan team that would love nothing better than to confirm their initial biases. Not to mention some that were involved in the ‘opposition research’ that has been the center of this controversy.
Sounds a little like the return of Joe McCarthy, smear, smear, smear.
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you! Gee, I hadn’t gotten any indication of that from you in any other posts… (sarcasm OFF)
Unlike folks on entitlement programs who vote for those like Sanders and Warren who promise more $$$ for them? Hint, pretty much every voter in the US votes for politicians who promise them what they want – sometimes money (typically other peoples), sometimes things like actually enforcing the immigration laws currently on the books. Or gun control (more of it or less of it), abortion (pro or con), $15 minimum wage, etc.
It ain’t rocket science…
BTW, Bernie Sanders only released a 2 page summary of one year of his tax returns during the primary, if the Hillary machine hadn’t cheated him out of what would have likely been the nomination, would you be worried about seeing his returns?
Small, huh? This must be some definition of the word small of which I was not previously aware…
My favorite comment on that topic was the response “No it’s not, they’re Democrats”. Too much good stuff at that link to quote it all – go read it.
And I’d bet I’m more likely to actually see some of these dollars as opposed to the $2,500 savings I was promised from Obamacare…
Yeah, sure sounds like it’s going to be terrible…
“AT&T offers $1,000 bonuses to 200,000+ “…union-represented, non-management (employees) and front-line managers” and to increase US capital spending by $1B” https://hotair.com/archives/2017/12/20/att-celebrates-tax-reform-1000-bonus-everyone-sound/
“#Boeing announces $300M employee-related and charitable investment as a result of #TaxReform legislation to support our heroes, our homes and our future.” (Boeing tweet)
“Fifth Third Bancorp announces plan “to raise its minimum hourly wage for all employees to $15, and distribute a one-time bonus of $1,000 for more than 13,500 employees” following passage of tax bill.” http://cnbc.com/id/104910079
“Wells Fargo hikes its hourly pay rate to $15 & will aim for $400M in philanthropic donations next year due to the newly-passed GOP tax bill.” http://cnbc.com/id/104910079
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the unemployment rate for black Americans is the lowest it has been since the year 2000, 17 years ago.” https://hotair.com/archives/2017/12/20/dont-look-now-black-unemployment-nearing-time-low/
Why, those dirty, filthy, racist Republicans, only providing benefits to the ultra-rich whites and corporations. None of that will ever trickle down to regular people or minorities…
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
@Jay, #29:
Don’t you? Would it be reasonable to create a team to investigate the suspected kingpin of a major criminal organization that consisted of people predisposed to find him innocent?
Criminal investigation is an inherently adversarial process. You don’t investigate with the goal of establishing a suspect’s innocence. You investigate with the goal of establishing guilt. You can only do that by finding evidence that overcomes a court of law’s presumption of innocence, and you can only get to that point by first convincing a grand jury that such convincing evidence exists.
@Greg:
That depends on if they are willing to manufacture evidence or ignore evidence proving guilt… as this team did in the Hillary/email “investigation”.
Yet, liberals today and supporters of socialism (which if one supported Obama or Hillary, they are advocates of socialism) believe “the ends justifies the means” so, just as Harry Reid did when he lied in the Senate about Romney’s income taxes, they are willing to do anything, break any law to achieve the goal of socialism. They are inherently dishonest.
Reasonable? No. But it worked (and has worked – several times) for Hillary.
You *DO* recall the part about the fact that the same people who called President Trump an idiot and declared their support for Hillary were the ones ‘investigating’ her as well…
And were drafting the memo declaring her innocent (well, kinda-sorta guilty, but not quite guilty enough to suffer any negative consequences) before they interviewed their first witness. I think that falls fairly close to the textbook definition of ‘predisposed to find her innocent’.
And, again, why were the individuals removed from the team if their pro-Hillary/anti-Trump views didn’t affect their actions as part of the team? Apparently you feel that they should be ‘predisposed to find him guilty’, so those views would be a feature, not a bug, right?
Really? I was under the impression that an investigation was undertaken to establish the FACTS about what happened.
Prosecution of the crime (once the fact that a crime occurred has been established) may be an adversarial process, but the investigation should be (in the words of Joe Friday) ‘Just the facts, ma’am’.
And, the ‘convincing evidence’ that the ‘adversarial’ investigators having ”the goal of establishing guilt” have come up with is???
@Greg:
You investigate with the goal of finding the truth.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #33:
No, that’s not how the nation’s criminal justice system works.
It’s the job of our judges and courts to review evidence and determine the truth.
It’s the job of criminal investigators to gather evidence they believe supports the existence of a crime and that establishes who’s responsible for it. It’s most definitely not their function to gather evidence proving that no crime exists or that their suspect(s) didn’t do it. They only seek evidence of that sort to narrow their search for the guilty parties.
It’s the job of a prosecutor to present the evidence so gathered to a judge and jury. In the case of serious crimes, the presentation is initially made to a grand jury, the only job of which is to decide whether the evidence is sufficient to support charges, indictment, and a subsequent trial to determine guilt or innocence.
Determining the truth happens in a courtroom.
@Greg:
So, you don’t think it is the job of investigators to find the TRUTH? So, if not the truth, what do they find? Or, fabricate? I know you relished the 8 years of the distortion of every truth, lies and obstruction of justice, but that has been interrupted. Hopefully, such soviet-style “justice” won’t be allowed to return.
Being an Obama apostle, you don’t understand that the TRUTH might be guilt or it might be innocence. But, whatever the TRUTH is, THAT is the verdict… not what is politically useful.
The TRUTH is the TRUTH. It is not determined or adjudicated. It is simply the TRUTH.
The left doesn’t want the TRUTH; you want REVENGE.
Establishing the truth is what a trial before a judge and jury is all about. Evaluating evidence and reaching a verdict is their job. Their beginning point is a presumption of innocence.
Criminal investigators look for evidence supporting criminal prosecution. That’s their function in the criminal justice system. They are not expected to presume innocence. If they become convinced you’re guilty of a crime, they will focus on finding evidence that proves it. That’s how it works.
@Greg: The truth is the TRUTH. I don’t know what is so hard to understand about that. The TRUTH was established the instant Trump colluded with the Russians… or didn’t. From that moment forward, the TRUTH cannot be changed… only revealed.
As you say, Mueller’s team is not seeking the truth… they are seeking guilt. Not finding guilt but finding TRUTH instead, they are likely to FABRICATE guilt to bury the TRUTH.
Mueller isn’t going to “fabricate” anything. He’s an honorable man, who takes his responsibility to get to the truth very seriously.
We’ll see whether or not the Trump administration can survive what he uncovers. Republicans desperately attempting to end the investigation apparently don’t think so.
I don’t think Trump could even survive so simple a thing as an examination of his tax returns. I think he’s a liar at the very least. The real questions are about the seriousness of what he’s lying about. Maybe they’re only “small” lies, like his highly questionable claim that he won’t personally benefit from the tax reform bill. Or maybe it’s something much more worrisome, like heavy involvement with Russian money, to the extent that they have leverage over him.
@Greg:
He fabricated a team of partisan cut-throats. He only started getting rid of them when he got caught stacking the deck.
Actually, we’ll see if Mueller, Obama and Hillary survive what he (inadvertently) uncovers. Who is desperate? Your Democrats are already trying to divert attention by falsely claiming Trump is about to fire Mueller. Hell, NO!! At this point, let him keep digging! He is doing nothing but confirming everyone’s (well, those who support honest government and our Constitution) worst fears. Go, Mueller, GO!!
Heck, that alone should put you on his side. You LOVE liars! The bigger the better! You support them, you defend them and you vote for them. Sounds like you are trying to create a reason to board the Trump train.
I’ll tell you who one corrupt political hack is: Devin Nunes, who has just been revealed to have organized a secret republican-only hit team to figure out how to use any evidence coming to the attention of the bipartisan House Intelligence Committee investigation to shoot down Mueller.
Having previously been caught running to Trump’s office to secretly report details of the supposedly “impartial” investigation he’s heading, and then of falsely claiming he had recused himself while not actually doing so, he’s now been discovered doing this bullshit. He’s clearly somebody trying to fix the outcome of an investigation, if anyone is. He’s a Trump tool and toady, plain and simple. These old boys are kindred spirits, in the worst possible sense.
Do you know why they hate and fear Mueller? Because Mueller is an honest man. He can’t be bought, and he can’t be intimidated. Worse still, he’s highly competent.
@Greg:
Now wait a minute; what’s wrong with that? Tell me, in light of the team of strictly anti-Trump, pro-Hillary ideologues Mueller put together, what is wrong with a team composed entirely of Republicans? You explain to me, Greg, exactly WHAT problem you have with that.
@Bill… Deplorable Me, #41:
He’s the head of an investigation into Russian election meddling, where a central question involves the Trump organization’s possible collusion with the Russians. Nunes doesn’t want an answer to that question. What he’s looking for are ways to shut down or discredit the Independent Counsel’s investigation.
The information the House Permanent Select Committee is collecting is classified. Even the 6-page document outlining the Committee’s investigative objectives is classified. Nunes has been secretly sharing details out of class for purposes of his own.
After his secret meeting on the White House grounds, and his subsequent phony recusal, I would call this his third strike.
@Greg: But we all think he is an honest and honorable guy hes not investigating Russian things hes investigating American corruption, if Mueller is as clean as you think well theres nothing to worry about riiight?
@Greg:
So, you’re argument is that Nunes, whom you say is biased in favor of Trump, is trying to shut down an investigation that is biased AGAINST Trump operated by people who were biased IN FAVOR of Hillary and Obama, but only Nunes is bad. Hell, I can’t add anything to that; it absolutely speaks for itself. Thank you, Greg.
Actually, it’s been shown that the Democrat Schiff has been leaking classified information to the media with the intent of damaging the President, the Presidency and the nation.
Your entire crybaby conspiracy is about to come crashing down around your crybaby ears, Greg.
Bill (and others) have been doing well on this thread, so I almost hate to pile on…
Oh, hell, who am I kidding…
Sure, this sounds real honorable and responsible…
I guess the saving grace is assuming there is anything substantive in there (regardless of the fact that the article also outlines how those records are outside of the limits of Mueller’s scope of authority) grabbing them without proper legal process taints any evidence obtained through them.
The problem is, Greg, you don’t even think about the level of hypocrisy when you toss about pejoratives like ‘liar’ and ‘questionable claims’ about who’s deriving a benefit from whom and ‘heavy involvement with Russian money’ while your idol, Ms. Clinton has at the very least the same (if not worse) appearance of lack of transparency, lying, personally benefitting from decisions made while in office and, last, but not least, “heavy involvement with Russian money”.
I’m sure you already have your defense of her written and ready to paste in, but it seems to me violating federal law by not disclosing a specific transaction required to be disclosed by a specific signed transparency agreement for a specific set of circumstances while holding federal office ought to be considered slightly more serious than not releasing tax returns for income made while a private citizen…
But, given your previous tutorial to us poor rubes about how investigations are supposed to be conducted, I’m sure you will have no problem with a group of Trump donors who have exchanged text messages about their antipathy towards Hillary being appointed to pursue this investigation “with the goal of establishing guilt.”
Right?
I don’t think Hillary could survive an investigation of anything that was conducted in a fair and unbiased way.
If it weren’t for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
@Greg:
I guess I just don’t understand the leader/servant nature of global politics, but why would Putin’s lackey be selling defensive weapons to the Ukrainian government so they can fight the Putin-backed insurgents? Did Trump not get the memo? Please explain.
https://www.axios.com/russia-blasts-us-arm-ukraine-2519560057.html?utm_source=sidebar