In exchange for granting the FBI broad power, Americans demand that it act with integrity and restraint.
But that has not happened for some time, at least according to a new report from the NY Times of all places!
In the new stunning report, even the NYT cannot hide the fact that there appears to be something very, very wrong at the FBI.
In other words…..Trump right all along?
Trump right again?
Send Nancy Pelosi a TRUCKLOAD of Bricks!
It’s looking like it.
Read this incredible article from The Federalist:
In a Friday night news dump, the New York Times revealed the FBI’s surprisingly flimsy justification for launching a retaliatory investigation into President Donald Trump, their chief adversary during their recent troubled era.
Admitting there is no actual evidence for their probe into whether Trump “worked for the Russians,” FBI officials instead cited their foreign policy differences with him, his lawful firing of bungling FBI Director James Comey, and alarm that he accurately revealed to the American public that he was told he wasn’t under investigation by the FBI, when they preferred to hide that fact.
The news was treated as a bombshell, and it was, but not for the reasons many thought. It wasn’t news that the FBI had launched the investigation. Just last month, CNN reported that top FBI officials opened an investigation into Trump after the lawful firing of Comey because Trump “needed to be reined in,” a shocking admission of abuse of power by our nation’s top law enforcement agency.
The Washington Post reported Mueller was looking into whether Trump obstructed the Russia investigation by insisting he was innocent of the outlandish charges selectively leaked by government officials to compliant media. Perhaps because such an obstruction investigation was immediately condemned as scandalous political overreach, that aspect was downplayed while Mueller engaged in a limitless “Russia” probe that has rung up countless Trump affiliates for process crimes unrelated to treasonous collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election, and spun off various investigations having nothing to do with Russia in any way.
The latest Times report does provide more detail than these earlier reports, however, and none of it makes the FBI look good. In fact, it provides evidence of a usurpation of constitutional authority to determine foreign policy that belongs not with a politically unaccountable FBI but with the citizens’ elected president. More on that in a bit.
Criminalizing Foreign Policy Differences
Using leaked information and testimony from various former governmental officials, we learn that the FBI opened its aggressive, norm-breaking, and unconstitutional investigation, supposedly into whether Trump “worked for the Russians,” after he fired Comey and revealed how the agency was playing games with their spurious “Russia” probe.
The Saturday New York Times article appeared on page one, above the fold, with the almost laughable headline “F.B.I. Investigated if Trump Worked for the Russians.” The online version of the story was headlined “F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia.” Nine paragraphs into the story, the reporters admit that there is and was literally “no evidence” to support the idea Trump worked for Russia.
The top of the article, however, immediately presented the FBI-friendly interpretation of the agency’s motivations as fact — without evidence and despite strong evidence to the contrary — saying the FBI began its investigation because they were “so concerned by the president’s behavior” rather than saying it was because they were “so concerned he’d continue to expose their behavior” or “so concerned he’d hold them accountable for their political investigations.”
The article accepts FBI spin that arguing for better relations with the nuclear-armed Russia “constituted a possible threat to national security” that could only be explained if Trump was “knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.” Because FBI officials personally opposed Trump’s foreign policy, and that of the tens of millions of Americans who voted for him, the FBI was “suspicious” of him, we’re told. The reporters admit the reckless decision by FBI officials was “an aggressive move” that disturbs many former law enforcement officials.
The FBI never had a good reason to investigate Trump, according to information in the article, but even the justifications they use are erroneous. For example, all three items mentioned here are inaccurately framed and presented:
Mr. Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.
First, Trump never called on Russia to hack Clinton, despite repeated media claims to the contrary. Clinton had already destroyed her server, along with 30,000 emails she claimed were about yoga, while she was under investigation for mishandling classified information. Trump was highlighting that tons of hackers could have already accessed her insecure server when it still existed and, if they had, those emails should be released so that Americans would know what foreign governments undoubtedly already did. It was a way to highlight her reckless handling of classified information and the global security concerns of that.
Second, having a foreign policy different from those who seek conflict with Russia is neither a problem nor any of the FBI’s business. In fact, it’s a big part of why the American people voted for Trump. The American people get to determine who sets foreign policy, and they do so through elections. The FBI does not get to set foreign policy by running criminal and counterintelligence investigations to punish those who step outside their preferred approach. They have no constitutional authority to do that.
Third, even if the Republican Party had changed its convention platform regarding Ukraine, which it had not, that is also neither a problem nor any of the FBI’s business. It’s shocking and scandalous that the FBI thinks it should criminalize foreign policy disputes.
The FBI argues, without evidence, that the president needed to be investigated as a threat to national security. Keep in mind that the FBI did not act this way during the previous administration, when many of Barack Obama’s detractors argued his foreign policy was a threat to national security. They didn’t investigation collusion with Iran, or the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to the regime. Neither did they do such things with any previous president.
Read the full story here.
And from Breitbart:
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) on Saturday accused the FBI of launching an investigation into whether President Donald Trump was an asset of the Russian government to “avenge” the firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
According to the New York Times, law enforcement officials became so concerned by President Trump’s behavior in the days after he terminated Comey that they began investigating whether he had been working for Russia against U.S. interests. The report Friday cites unnamed former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.
“This is yet more evidence that FBI leaders actually had no real evidence against the Trump team,” Nunes, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told the Washington Examiner‘s Byron York. “Instead, they were simply trying to undermine a president they didn’t like and avenge Comey’s firing.”
“By relying on the Steele dossier—a fraudulent document funded by Democrats and based on Russian sources—FBI leaders were either complicit or too oblivious to notice they were being used in a disinformation campaign,” he added.
The inquiry forced counterintelligence investigators to evaluate whether President Trump was a potential threat to national security, and they also sought to determine whether the president was deliberately working for Russia or had unintentionally been influenced by Moscow.
FBI agents and several top officials became suspicious of then-candidate Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign but didn’t launch an investigation at that time because they weren’t sure how to approach such a sensitive and important probe, according to the Times‘ sources. However, President Trump’s behavior in the days surrounding Comey’s May 2017 firing, specifically two instances in which he seemed to tie Comey’s ousting to the Russia investigation, helped trigger the counterintelligence part of the investigation, according to the newspaper.
Responding to the report, President Trump said Saturday morning that the FBI launched the probe for “no reason & with no proof” aftehis firing Comey, whom he referred to as a “total sleaze.”
The Times says it is unclear whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller is still pursuing the counterintelligence angle.
In response, Lindsey Graham has demanded answers. From BPR:
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to comment on a New York Times story that the FBI opened an investigation into whether President Trump was acting as a Russian agent after former director James Comey was fired.
Citing the source, Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was skeptical of the veracity of the report and said he was “astonished” that the FBI would open such a probe.
“Number one, that story came from somebody who leaked it with an agenda,” Graham said. “So I’d like to know who leaked it, because they have an agenda not very friendly to president Trump, and I, for one, don’t trust what I read in The New York Times.”
He was also clear that he had not heard about it.
“I’m going to ask the FBI director was there a counterintelligence investigation opened up regarding the president as being a potential agent of the Russians?” Graham said. “I find it astonishing, and to me, it tells me a lot about the people running the FBI, McCabe and that crowd.”
And while Democrats and their media allies push the narrative of the GOP undermining the bureau, we only need think of disgraced agents like Peter Strzok and his illicit lover Lisa Page to understand that the FBI’s image has been seriously tarnished under Comey.
Graham then suggested a congressional probe into how the FBI could initiate such a probe.
“If this really did happen,” he said, “Congress needs to know about it and what I want to do is make sure, how could the FBI do that? What kind of checks and balances are there?”
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