AG Barr’s “invesigate the investigators” mandate to look into the origins of the Mueller investigation has me a little bit freaked out. I see two possible outcomes, both bad:
He finds that there were indeed some shenanigans involved at the FBI in 2016. This seems unlikely – they had to go to the FISA court 3 times to get approval – but stranger things have happened.
They find nothing significant, but turn whatever they find into a massive disinformation spin campaign, with their allies at Fox News. It becomes competing narratives and “whataboutism”. They’ll find something akin to the Strzok - Page text messages, and beat it to death. Sure, we sold out the country to Russia - but somebody at the FBI used the Xerox machine for personal use! Treason!
I don’t think it is going to produce the results the Trump supporters hope it will, but the far greater danger to me is the line crossed to politicize our intelligence agencies and pervert them for partisan political gain. For example, to attempt to use the FBI to go arrest former agents and/or political opponents such as Strzok or Clinton is, dare I say, so Putinesque.
Even if it is unsuccessful in this instance, it sets a truly dangerous and frightening precedent.
It also delegitimizes our intelligence agencies in the eyes of our allies.
Further, it causes distrust among the rank and file and depresses morale. I understand recruitment is already significantly down for CIA, FBI, etc. It makes us far less safe as a nation if those who are tasked with doing dangerous things now also have to worry about if they will be persecuted and/or prosecuted by their own government for doing their jobs.
The Barr investigation: It’s about time someone impartial looked into this!
:smack:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was on Meet The Press today talking about “corruption in the FBI”. Go get 'em, idiots. Way to put the actual witch hunt into this wild goose chase!
I’m guessing that in Sept 2020, Barr will make a statement that they found evidence of corruption in the Mueller probe without releasing further details. Then win or lose in November, they’ll drop the matter entirely.
I predict that they’re selling out wholesale and will be passing along information on USIC assets in-country to Putin at some point. That’s part of what Trump is trying to get Barr access to.
They’ll indict a bunch of people (e.g. Page and Strzok) just to make them spend a shitload on defense attorneys and disrupt their lives with the threat of prison. In the end DOJ will have a crappy case and there’ll be acquittals, but that’ll be after the 2020 election.
The best answer that I can see is simply to have an ongoing investigation. So long as it doesn’t arrive at a conclusion, they can refer darkly to the “ongoing investigation”. Their supporters will be satisfied, since they already know the truth, they don’t need anything more. Indeed, they can be told that the conclusion will be a long time coming, since they don’t want to do a sloppy and corrupt investigation, like Comey et. al. did! Extra bonus satisfaction for holier-than-thou.
And they don’t actually have to find anything!
I mean, we gotta know that the original investigators knew that it was dangerous and tricky to begin with, they dotted all the "T"s and crossed all the "I"s. We know that because they took thier stuff before a judge to get the FISA warrants. Judge probably knew that he was being asked to play with career dynamite. The process is similar to porcupines mating: very carefully!
What do they get for all this? Deniability. “Well, we can’t say if any thing corrupt has been found, that’s under investigation! And we’re not going to do a sloppy job like they did, so this will take a bit longer than the two years Mueller took! Darn shame about that, but we gotta play by the rules!”
Barr is clearly compromised and partisan, but is he so far gone as to actually make shit up? Probably not, that can be very tricky. But can he stretch this out to the next election? Sure thing, no prob.
Definitely. I would even say that ordering this investigation is another grounds for impeachment, for abuse of power. So Trump is just trolling House Democrats, daring them to impeach him.
It’s probably worth pointing out that no warrant can be obtained without first getting a judge’s signature. Judges take on-call shifts to make sure they are available day or night to review a LEO’s probable cause and determine if he/she will sign the warrant.
As for FISA warrants, the process for how those are obtained is horribly misunderstood. To obtain a FISA warrant is a painfully complex, much scrutinized and reviewed process. Here (Lawfare) is a good overview of what is required and how it works. The narrative advanced by Trump supporters about how the FISA warrant process was abused to monitor Carter Page is a gross misrepresentation (what a surprise, eh?) and trivializes the enormous amount of care taken. But then, the undermining our law enforcement/national security institutions has never stopped Trump or his henchmen from doing it.
Surveillance of American citizens is a serious, very sober undertaking. It should be hard to obtain the means to do it, and it is. It’s why the proposal by the Bush Administration to bypass the FISA warrant process and conduct warrantless wiretapping was such a big deal during the Cheney/Scooter Libby years.
There’s nothing wrong with non-partisan, careful oversight. That’s not what Trump and Barr are doing. They are subverting the system for selfish political gain.
Liz Cheney, (R.) representative for Wyoming’s at-large congressional district and House Republican Conference Chair, the third-highest position in GOP House leadership (and disgusting progeny of dad Dick), is still trying to harp on the ridiculously horse-beaten Strzok/Page textings.
Fucking bogus - the nothingburgerism continues.
How did Liz Cheney, now early in her second term, get to be the third highest person in the GOP House leadership? I don’t see what she brings to the table.
Living memory. As a child, I saw the TV show* I Led Three Lives*, the story of a brave American daring to go undercover for the FBI, burrowing into the vast Communist conspiracy. The FBI that hounded MLK. Not the FBI of the documentary Mississippi Burning, the story of brave Americans who crushed the power of the KKK. The FBI that quickly recognized the treasonous intent of the anti-war movement and the Black Panthers.
The transformation of the FBI into a seething cauldron of lib/left treason? I find that incredible. In the truest sense of the word, as in not believing it for a second.
Any actions that look remotely partisan or unwarranted will be publicly released with great fanfare. Any evidence that would provide context or justify the actions will be deemed to reveal sources and methods and so will be classified. I doubt that they will indict anyone, because that would mean a trial in which both sides could present evidence, which would defeat the whole purpose of this exercise.