Stephen
Kershnar
High-Profile Investigations Constitute a Watergate-Level
Scandal
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
January
9, 2018
The investigations of the Trump
campaign, Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, and Robert Mueller’s special counsel
investigation of Russian collusion were and are so incestuous, conflicted, and
dirty that they constitute a Watergate-level scandal.
Consider Robert Mueller’s special counsel
investigation of alleged Russian collusion. Mueller was appointed after former
FBI director James Comey leaked confidential notes about his conversation with
President Trump. The leaking is likely a crime, but he’ll get a pass. Comey
admitted that he was hoping to appoint a special counsel to investigate Trump whom
Comey admitted, under oath, he was not investigating. This makes no sense. Department
of Justice officials held over from the Obama administration (swamp creatures) chose
Mueller who was Comey’s longtime friend and co-worker. Given that Comey is a
potential witness in the case and could be, in effect, an accuser, this
conflict of interest stinks.
There
are incestuous relations between Mueller’s team, Hillary Clinton’s legal world,
and those who investigated her email scandal. The Hoover Institution’s Victor
Davis Hanson points out that at least six of Mueller’s staff of fifteen lawyers
donated to the Clinton campaign. He reports that the team includes Jeannie Rhee
who provided legal services to the Clinton Foundation and who generously donated
to the Clinton campaign.
He
also notes that it includes Aaron Zebley, who represented the IT staffer who
set up Clinton’s server and reportedly smashed Clinton’s cell phones with a
hammer to prevent them being searched.
Most
spectacularly, the Mueller team included an FBI investigator Peter Strzok who was
later thrown off the team reportedly for nasty texts about Trump with another
member of the Mueller legal team (Lisa Page) with whom he was having an affair.
Strzok was at neck deep these investigations. He was the lead investigator of
the Clinton email scandal and helped draft the memo recommending that Clinton
not be prosecuted for her server. He deleted language in the memo that said
that Clinton was “grossly negligent,” the requirement for the relevant crime.
The memo was drafted and Strzok changed it well in advance of interviewing some
of the people involved, including Hillary Clinton. Now this is an investigation
one can believe in.
Strzok
was present in all three investigations. He led the investigation of and
interviewed Hillary Clinton about the server (not under oath – a sweetheart
deal) and interviewed Trump Administration official Michael Flynn about Russia.
Flynn is now being prosecuted what he said in the interview. Strzok made suspicious
comments in a text about a plan to save the country were Trump elected. He made
these comments in response to what appears to be a meeting with Page and the
second in command at the FBI (Andrew McCabe).
Another
member of Mueller’s legal team, Andrew Weissman, has a checkered past and there
is evidence of his being incredibly biased against Trump.
A Justice Department official, Bruce
Ohr, was demoted in part because he concealed meeting with the firm (Fusion
GPS) that produced an opposition research document (Steele dossier). It is
widely reported that information from the dossier was used to get a FISA court
warrant to monitor people in the Trump campaign. This despite the fact that
Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid for the dossier and that it was quickly
discredited. Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion
GPA and, of course, Bruce Ohr failed to disclose this as well.
The investigation of Hillary
Clinton’s email was awash in sweetheart deals, conflicts of interest, and
obstruction of justice. It was overseen by Andrew McCabe, the second in command
at the FBI. He did not recuse himself until one week before the presidential
election despite the fact that his wife received almost $700,000 from the
Clintons’ longtime moneyman Terry McAuliffe (specifically, from his
organizations). The investigation involved a refusal to apply the statutory
standard (gross negligence), a
refusal to prosecute Clinton and company for what others have been prosecuted
for (see Kristian Saucier and David Petraeus), immunity deals handed out like
candy, looking past destruction of
subpoenaed evidence, failure to subpoena relevant parties, and on and on.
There is also the unmasking scandal
whereby the Obama administration monitored members of the incoming Trump
administration as part of its attempt to surveil foreign officials. Former
national security advisor Susan Rice lied about her requests to have Trump’s
people unmasked. The congressman who heads the committee looking into noted
that the unmasking had little to no intelligence value. Rice was already famous
for repeatedly lying about the Benghazi debacle.
There are several lessons to be drawn
from all of this. First, the FBI and Justice Department are conflicted,
unethical, and, at times, dirty. The place needs to be cleaned out like a
basement with a rat infestation. Swamp creatures such as Comey, McCabe, Mueller,
Strzok, Weissman, and those high level officials who recommended or tolerated
their hiring need to have their name blackened and never again allowed to hold
a government position. Making things worse, the Justice Department and FBI refuse
to hand over documents to Congress regarding the Mueller investigation.
Second, we should have no confidence
in the ability of the government to investigate itself. The failure to
prosecute former Presidents (for example, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton), their
underlings (for example, Eric Holder and Lois Lerner), and dirty members of
Congress (for example, Charley Rangel) is a mistake. This sends the message
that government officials are above the law. The shocking decision not to
charge Bill Clinton with obstruction of justice, perjury, and witness tampering
and spoke volumes. Clinton merely had to pay a fine for contempt of court and
surrender his law license.
Third, this Watergate-level scandal
needs to be investigated and evildoers punished. Using a dubious opposition
research document to get a FISA warrant (if this occurred), using the warrant
to collect information on Trump campaign members, and then using this
information to get a special counsel appointed involves naked aggression
against political enemies. This cannot be tolerated. We saw earlier instances
of this when, under the Clinton and Obama administrations, the IRS was
weaponized and the Justice Department looked the other way. The past and
holdover Obama administration officials’ actions threaten American democracy.
This threat is similar to that posed by the Nixon administration’s lawless behavior.
Unfortunately,
between the Congressional sissies and the cowardly Attorney General Jeff
Session, this will all be shoved down the memory hole.
No comments:
Post a Comment