FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Senator on Comey, FBI Conduct: ‘None of This Is Normal, Folks’
June 18, 2018(EIRNS)—Senators Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley tore into FBI Director Christopher Wray and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Grassley, today. Both used the text messages by FBI case agent Peter Strzok and his lover, then Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s lawyer Lisa Page, and other senior agents, to point out that it was a fallacy of composition to find no political bias in the original DOJ decision not to charge Hillary Clinton under the espionage statute for her use of a private email server to transmit classified information. That decision was made unilaterally by James Comey in July 2016 shortly before the Trump investigation was formally handed to the FBI by British intelligence.
The other hearing headline is IG Horowitz’s confirmation that former FBI Director James Comey is under investigation for leaking classified information after being fired from the FBI.
Grassley pointed out that the Clinton investigation, contrasted with the Trump investigation, more than demonstrated political bias. He documented how the Justice Department employed unheard-of softness in the Clinton investigation while adopting a “scorched-earth” policy against Trump. Contrary to repeated efforts by the Democrats to get Horowitz to say that he found no political bias whatsoever in the Clinton investigation, the Inspector General reiterated that he did find concerning bias in the decision to prioritize the Trump investigation in late September and October 2016, when the FBI in New York found huge numbers of new classified documents requiring reopening the Clinton investigation on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. The FBI’s senior management attempted to sit on this new information about Clinton while relentlessly pursuing Trump, and was only stopped when outraged FBI agents in New York exposed the perfidy in Washington.
Graham’s attack was most noteworthy and entertaining and his questioning of Horowitz is available on YouTube. The Senator began:
“I’m going to read this text from Page to Strzok on August 8, after he [Trump] got the nomination. She says, ‘Trump is not ever going to become president, right? Right?’ Strzok responded, ‘No, no, he’s not. We’ll stop it.’ I don’t know how you feel about that, that’s pretty unnerving. So the head guy looking at Clinton on August 8 says, ‘We have to stop Trump.’ Now, was that just idle talk? A week later, here’s what they say to each other. Strzok text message to Lisa Page: ‘I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration to Andy’s office, that there’s no way he gets elected, but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.’ That’s a week later. So you have the deputy director meeting with the lead investigator of the Clinton e-mail investigation and Miss Page, who is involved somehow, meeting in Andy’s office discussing taking out an insurance policy to make sure that Donald Trump doesn’t become president. Is that what you’re telling us?”
Horowitz replied that while McCabe couldn’t remember whether he was in the meeting, Strzok said he was. “So one of them is lying,” Graham interjected.
“So I want you to reopen this investigation and come back and tell us, do you believe Strzok or do you believe McCabe? ... None of this is normal, folks.”
The Inspector General will appear with Director Wray before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, June 19.
