Moments from now Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has the unfortunate role of overseeing Special Counsel Mueller's Russia investigation, will take the hot seat before the House Judiciary Committee to get grilled by Republicans on what increasingly appears to be a hopelessly conflicted FBI.
As we've pointed out repeatedly over the past week (see here for the latest: "Trump Should Go F Himself" - Texts Leak From FBI Agents On Russia Probe, Hillary Emails Investigation), Mueller's lead FBI agent, Peter Strzok, was completely exposed as a political hack after anti-Trump text messages between he and his mistress were revealed. The text messages allegedly resulted in his sudden dismissal back in August even though they were not revealed to the public until recently.
Of course, like most twisted Washington D.C. scandals, Strzok's overt political bias and anti-Trump text messages were only the tip of the iceberg as it was subsequently discovered that Strzok not only held a leading role in the Hillary email investigation but potentially single-handedly saved her from prosecution by making the now-infamous change in Comey's final statement to describe her email abuses as "extremely careless" rather than the original language of "grossly negligent."
As we noted a month ago (see: First Comey Memo Concluded Hillary Was "Grossly Negligent," Punishable By Jail), the change in language was significant since federal law states that "gross negligence" in handling the nation’s intelligence can be punished criminally with prison time or fines whereas "extreme carelessness" has no such legal definition and/or ramifications.
Meanwhile, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) suggested in a hearing with FBI Director Chris Wray last week that the Peter Strzok rabbit might be far deeper than anyone imagined. To summarize, Jordan's theory is that Strzok received the controversial "Trump Dossier" from the Clinton campaign then went to the FISA courts where he passed it off as a legitimate piece of intelligence in an effort to obtain the warrants necessary to effectively spy on the Trump campaign.
"Here's what I think Director Wray. I think Peter Strzok, head of counter intelligence at the FBI, Peter Strzok the guy who ran the Clinton investigation and did all the interviews, Peter Strzok, the guy who was running the Russia investigation at the FBI, Peter Strzok, Mr. 'Super Agent' at the FBI, I think he's the guy who took the application to the FISA court...and if that happened...if you have the FBI working with the Democrats' campaign, taking opposition research, dressing it all up and turning it into an intelligence document and taking it to the FISA court so they can spy on the other campaign...if that happened...that's as wrong as it gets."
Rep. Jim Jordan questions FBI Director Chris Wray about agent Peter Strzok being removed from Mueller's special counsel for pro-Clinton bias. https://t.co/w8cOMfew9n … pic.twitter.com/QpDBoFd3i5
— Constitutional Republic News (@CRepublicNews) December 8, 2017
As The Hill notes, Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) and other Republicans are calling for the appointment of a second special counsel to investigate the handling of the FBI’s decision making in the Clinton probe and allegations of bias on the current Mueller investigation.
Of course, we wouldn't hold our breath while waiting for such an outcome.
Tune in below for the fireworks...there is sure to be a lot of entertaining grandstanding today: