Trickle-out news has been the name of reporting revelations for some time, particularly when it comes to issues involving the highest ranks of government and the intelligence community. The still-evolving saga of events that unfolded within the FBI in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump’s election, the drip-dripping of minor details about what might be in #TheMemo is akin to water torture.
In countless Tweets and many a private discoursethe same sentiment has been uttered: just release the damn four-page memo that we are being told is a must-see for the American people. The information contained in it is said to be damning to the FBI, the Obama Administration, and who knows who else, but in order for it to be truly damning, the public has to know what’s in it.
It’s not unlike the passing of Obamacare:
Dianne Feinstein was happy to release transcripts of Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson testimony despite being warned not to, but naturally she is leading the tooth-and-nail fight against the release of the four-page memo by blaming, you guessed it, Russia!
‘Dear Mr. Dorsey and Mr. Zuckerberg:
We seek your companies' urgent assistance. Public reports indicate that accounts linked to the Russian government are again exploiting Twitter and Facebook platforms in an effort to manipulate Public opinion. These recent Russian efforts are intended to influence congressional action and undermine Special Counsel Mueller's investigation...
...we seek your assistance in our efforts to counter Russia's continuing efforts to manipulate public opinion and undermine American democracy and the rule of law...’ Feinstein wrote to the respective heads of Twitter and Facebook (securingdemocracy.org)
Yes, and James Comey and Russian hackers still lost the election for Hillary Clinton, right? No argument made by the left against allowing Americans to see the truth for what it is stops short of insulting their intelligence. Surely Americans wouldn’t be interested in seeing a memo that lawmakers have hyped as the most damning evidence against FISA court abuses to date, not to mention evidence that could potentially result in jail time for some and the potential shutdown of the Mueller probe. Actually, according to the Daily Beast, it’s information-hungry Republicans, not “bots” (funny how a new buzz term for ‘not our fault, not real people, please just stop asking to see how corrupt we are’ emerges seemingly daily).
Only Russian bots would be interested in seeing that evidence, Feinstein openly says. Thank god we elected this lady to keep the Democratic system functional and transparent, not to mention to protect us from those damned Russian Twitter bots.
All of this as background, let’s consider what we do know as of now without having seen the memo itself.
The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross reported this week that a text from May 19, 2017 confirmed that the now-infamous Peter Strzok, the man picked in July of the previous year to oversee the Trump-Russia collusion investigation (read: predetermined smear job), admitted nearly a year later that there was no “there” there when it came to finding something in the course of an investigation.
The text was written to Strzok’s lover Lisa Page by Strzok, and Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee read the text, which he referred to as “jaw-dropping” during a radio interview with Ross.
Strzok wrote: “You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern that there’s no big ‘there’ there.” (Daily Caller)
This text was sent only two days after the Mueller investigation had begun, giving the apparent sense that even before the investigation was launched, the investigators – headed by Mueller – knew that they were leading a witch hunt. Based on what we now know to be true about the Fusion GPS dossier, it’s yet another damning nail in the coffin that confirms what most of us know to be true: this is, and always has been, a quest to take down Donald Trump by any means, even unethical, potentially illegal ones.
Rep. Johnson elaborated further, crystallizing what seems to be already very clear.
“In other words, Peter Strzok, who was the FBI deputy assistant director of the counterintelligence division, the man who had a plan to do something because he just couldn’t abide Donald Trump being president, is saying that his gut sense is that there’s no big there there when it comes to the Mueller special counsel investigation,” he said. (Daily Caller)
But that’s not where the most recent revelations end.
‘The FBI said it does not have text messages for Strzok and Page for the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017 — the day that Mueller was appointed.’
This would be the time in which the ‘insurance policy’ which came to light in previous text exchanges between Strzok and Page, would likely have been in the works. This could, and likely is, critical evidence of wrongdoing which conveniently now can’t be accessed. The FBI must share the same IT firm with the one that set up Hillary’s magically-deleting email server.
‘Johnson also addressed the revelation last Friday that the FBI “failed to preserve” five months worth of text messages exchanged between Strzok and Page. A Justice Department official told Johnson’s committee and five other congressional panels that a “misconfiguration” issue caused “many” FBI-issued mobile devices to not back up to the bureau’s servers.’ (DC)
“Misconfiguration”. Right.
From the texts that were preserved, there is yet another revelation that sinks the former and some of the current FBI leadership deeper into a pile of their own feces.
‘Congressional investigators learned from a new batch of text messages between anti-Trump FBI investigators that a "secret society of folks" within the Department of Justice and the FBI may have come together in the "immediate aftermath" of the 2016 election to undermine President Trump, according to Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) who has reviewed the texts.’ (ZH)
“We learned today from information that in the immediate aftermath of his election that there may have been a secret society of folks within the Department of Justice and the FBI to include Page and Strzok to be working against him,” Trey Gowdy told Fox News.
With all respect to Trey Gowdy….ya think?
Gowdy also said that they, in the course of reviewing text messages, “saw a text about not keeping texts”, a sure sign of a cover-up that we now almost certainly know to have been long underway.
There may have been people in the DOJ and FBI working against the president, we know this. If this drip-drop of salacious tidbits are the best that lawmakers including Gowdy can or will divulge – and I’m not legally versed enough to know why they can release some quotes and facts but not the entire story (perhaps classification issues) – then it’s all the more reason that they must absolutely #ReleaseTheMemo. (PS, I’m not a bot, just to be clear).
