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June 14, 2018

DoJ OIG Final Report – FBI & DoJ Interference in 2016 Election

06-14-2018 OIG Report CoverThe long-awaited US Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General’s report concerning the FBI’s and DoJ’s interference in the 2016 election was released Jkune 14, 2018.  Here is a link to the 568-page (some pages blank) report.

I’m sure some readers will disagree with my characterization “the FBI’s and DoJ’s interference.”  Read the report and come to your own conclusions.  My opinion, a conclusion, is that they interfered, and that inteference seems to be continuing even now by the FBI’s and DoJ’s unlawfully withholding information Congress needs to perform its Constitutionally-required oversight.

Spontaneous statements can be valid indicators of state of mind.

The text messages between two high-up FBI employees, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, were spontaneous, not scripted.  One (see page 402 headed August 8, 2016) that was particularly chilling.  It read:

“In a text message on August 7, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s not ever going to become president, right?  Right?!”  Strzok responded, “No.  No he’s not.  We’ll stop it.” [emphasis mine]

Keep in mind that Peter Strzok was not some hump brick agent — he is an FBI Deputy Assistant Director.  Lisa Page was the Special Counsel to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.   It’s fair to wonder just how far they would be willing to go to stop Donald J. Trump from being elected President.

And yet in a press conference Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray reiterated what was asserted in the report:  There was nothing in the FBI’s conduct of the investigation that indicated political bias.  

In preceding posts, particularly the ones on January 10, 2018, February 13, 2018, and April 10, 2018, I’ve expressed a hope that the President would appoint a Presidential Commission to examine as a connected body of events all of the issues associated with the 2016 national election.

Several important points support my hope.

  1. Hillary Clinton was expected to win the 2016 election in a landslide.  If she had won, all of the garbage that has been uncovered would have been swept under the federal rug.  If they ran out of space, Kootenai County has its own rug under which it might be persuaded to contract storage space.
  2.  When nominee Trump defeated shoo-in Clinton, some personal career advancement plans at DoJ and FBI took a very serious hit.   Deals had been cut, promises had been made based on the certainty of a President Hillary inauguration.
  3.  Scanning the report quickly, I found no reference to a formal damage assessment by the Intelligence Community.  When there is a significant compromise of national security information, the agency most affected usually initiates a damage assesssment to see what was compromised.  That assessment provides a better understanding of the damage done to national security.  I can’t see any evidence that one was completed to determine exactly how much damage Hillary Clinton and her unsecured email server did.  If one was not ordered, why not?
  4. Strzok’s words quoted above from his text with his co-adulterer Lisa Page provide sufficient probable cause to lead a reasonable person to conclude that a Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI and the FBI Deputy Director’s special  counsel were willing to do something to interfere with the outcome of a presidential election in the United States.  The obvious question is, how far were they willing to go to keep Donald J. Trump from being elected and inaugurated?  Were only a few FBI and DoJ officials involved, or was the interference more widespread?
  5. Given the animus directed by FBI officials at President Trump, how far would those officials go to ensure his impeachment, conviction, and removal from office?  Would they be willing to fabricate and plant evidence?  Worse?
  6. An  attempt to kill, assult, or kidnap the President of the United States is investigated by the FBI pursuant to 18 USC § 1751.  Given comments attributed to FBI officials in the report, Congress should wonder just how diligently the FBI would conduct any such investigtion.  More importantly, the public should wonder.

There is absolutely no indication that either the FBI or the DoJ has either the institutional will or the objectivity necessary to revamp the corruption, incompetence, and disregard for the principle of rule of law that has been growing in their respective organizations.

Both the FBI and the DoJ are necessary to the national security, but only as long as the public believes all of those agencies’ employees are genuinely worthy of the public’s trust and confidence.   None of the three branches of government can accomplish the necessary institutional rehabilitation by itself.

The most formidable challenge would be finding and nominating citizens to a Commission.   Those selected would undoubtedly come from party loyalists who have their respective party symbols tattooed on their butts.  After all, the rest of the citizens are “deplorables” or as FBI Employee stated it in the report on page 417 at 11:02:22 “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing nothing.  They probably didn’t watch the debates, aren’t fully educated on his policies, and are stupidly wrapped up in his unmerited enthusiasm.”

No one should be surprised the DoJ IG didn’t find any pro-Clinton, anti-Trump bias in the FBI and DoJ.    If you’re not really looking for something, you’re unlikely to find it.

2 Comments

  1. The media blitz is overwhelming in that the mainstream Communist/liberal media is beyond sanity. Seriously, at this point, locally and nationally, you could not get me to vote for a Democrat and my only advice to them is move to China or the Honduras to save the people and shoot up some good heroin. In other words get the hell out. They are just a bunch of Commie Pinko Bastards and pedophiles who store government classified information on their computers and Pussy Hat morons who claim their fame to thinking about blowing up the Whitehouse … and give standing applauses to Hollywood creeps that do not know any other adjective but F**@K … I could go on and on. They obviously hate America … POS … Commies. Edit this if you feel the need to.

    Comment by Stebbijo — June 21, 2018 @ 8:40 pm

  2. Stebbijo,

    No need to edit. I’ve heard from quite a few people who expressed the same opinions you did but in their own words, too.

    Regarding the skews media, the First Amendment to the US Constitution reads

    Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of … the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

    In my April 10, 2018, post entitled Renewed Request for Presidential Commission, I stated

    The efforts of the DoJ, the FBI, and the Special Counsel seem now to be a concerted effort to intentionally obstruct the performance of the duties of the President and Congress. By design, our “free press” heartily endorses and furthers that objective. The skews media are protected by the First Amendment, however as those same media are quick to point out when it serves their purposes, there can be reasonable restrictions on the freedoms guaranteed by our Bill of Rights. There needs to be a reasonable discussion about an appropriate and reasonable reaction when the supposedly untouchable skews media become co-conspirators with agencies and agents of the US Government to intentionally obstruct the lawful operation of a duly elected government. A Presidential Commission, not an overzealous Special Counsel hell-bent on taking down the President of the United States, is the proper venue for that discussion.

    It seems to me the national skews media, with only a few exceptions, have become little more than propaganda action officers for those who would by any means necessary, including unlawful means such as fabricating evidence and suborning perjury, seek to remove President Donald J. Trump from office.

    Their first echelon efforts were to mobilize the skews media to mount an all-out personal attack on not only President Trump but his staff and family members as well in hopes he would resign from office. Those efforts have failed.

    Their second echelon efforts were to make up out of whole cloth justification to appoint a Special Counsel in hopes that the Special Counsel would bring criminal charges against President Trump. The selection of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel and his band of Trump-hating staff attorneys was engineered by none other than the now-disgraced former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, and US Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

    When it became obvious that there was no basis for bringing any criminal charges against President Trump, Special Counsel Mueller passed out Plan B pills: Turn the Special Counsel’s supposedly objective investigation toward developing opposition research material that can be used in an impeachment proceeding. This effort has now failed in spite of Mueller’s efforts to administer CPR.

    The third echelon of this plan would be by far the worst: If they can’t somehow through lawfare engineer the removal of President Donald J. Trump, they may resort to illegal means. That would include fabrication or alteration of evidence and subornation of perjury by using the agencies of criminal justice to cause supposed witnesses to not just “sing” but also to “compose” as Judge Ellis III said in dictum in the Manfort hearings. And if lawfare doesn’t work, we should be concerned they may be desperate or deranged enough to try for a 25th Amendment removal due to death or incapacitation.

    My concern is that the country may be dealing with a very corrupt Department of Justice and a Congress too cowardly to perform its oversight duties on the DoJ. That has already been alleged in Congress to include FBI executives. Keep that in mind as you consider this very sobering thought: Any assassination of or attempt to assassinate the President or certain members of his staff , or to assault or kidnap them is investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as prescribed by Title 18 USC §1751. I fervently hope it never comes to this.

    It is the right of the people to peaceably assemble and to exercise our own right of free speech, co-equal with the right of a free press, to discuss under what conditions a free press may be regulated for the good of the citizens of the United States. I’d suggest that when and if it can be proven that a defined component of the “free press” has conspired with or aided and abetted others to interfere with the lawful operations of the US government or to incite or commit crimes of violence against defined public officials, then the government is not only justified but obligated to “abridge the freedom of the press” to the extent necessary to stop the unlawful actions.

    That’s just a wordy way of saying that we need to recognize that the “free press” can and should be held culpable for actions for which individuals would already be. That’s a discussion inappropriate for yet another runaway political hack Special Counsel to be involved in. A Presidential Commission of the stature of the Warren Commission would be an appropriate venue. Sadly, nominations for such a commission would be made by the same political hacks that have put us in the conditions we’re in now.

    Comment by Bill — June 22, 2018 @ 6:09 am

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