TIGHTENING THE NOOSE

A few weeks ago, I wrote that there appeared to be a secret investigation of the FBI and that I suspected it was run by Devin Nunes.  That has just been confirmed by the following article.  This is not from a right-wing blog but rather from someone who despises Nunes:

https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/devin-nunes-at-it-again-running-his-own-secret-investigation-into-muellers-russia-probe.1363241/

The article reports that Republicans on the Intelligence Committee have been holding secret meetings without the knowledge of their Democratic colleges.  Clearly the Republicans do not trust the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee.  That alone should be cause for alarm.  This committee has a charter to be non-partisan.  Allegedly the goal of this secret committee was to investigate corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement.  Based on recent reports, they may have found exactly that.

Incredibly liberal Democrats still believe this is an effort to attack the FBI, to attack Robert Mueller, to undermine the investigations and the FBI to discredit them in advance of bombshell finding of Russian collusion. The problem with that theory is that there is zero evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia but there is evidence of the FBI and the Hillary Campaign colluding with Russia.

There are now reports about the hearing with Andrew McCabe.  This obviously did not go well. I saw the pictures of McCabe arriving for his hearing surrounded by a contingent of FBI lawyers. This seems clear evidence that there is still a group of very senior people in the FBI who strongly support McCabe and are desperately trying to provide cover for him.  James Rosen reported on the hearing and it is stunning:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/20/mccabe-draws-blank-on-democrats-funding-trump-dossier-new-subpoenas-planned.html

McCabe was described as friendly to the Democrats, but he was unable to help Democrats build a case for obstruction of justice regarding Donald Trump.  McCabe tied to say that the FBI stood by the anti-Trump Dossier but apparently the only thing he could verify was that Carter Page had traveled to Moscow.  The FBI did not need any dossier to obtain that information.

It is starting to look like this investigation has flipped.  The FBI is famous for asking questions for which it already knows the answer to try and lure suspects into committing perjury.  This time it may have been the Intelligence Committee who already knew the answers to the questions and it was McCabe who did not know the answers.   The following comment is extremely important:

Congressional investigators tell Fox News that Tuesday’s seven-hour interrogation of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe contained numerous conflicts with the testimony of previously witnesses.”   It is important to note the description of this as an interrogation.

This appears to have been very different from the open-door hearings where each member of the committee is given five minutes of air time, often used solely for political posturing.  Trey Gowdy led the questioning. He is a skilled prosecutor and that makes this a very dangerous interrogation for Andrew McCabe if he is less than truthful.  If this report is true, someone is lying.  McCabe appears to be suffering from a Clintonian level of selective amnesia.  He can’t seem to recall key events, including situations where there are documents that allegedly have his signature.

It would be naive to assume that Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein and Christopher Wray are unaware of the significance of this.  Perhaps they have distanced themselves from both the OIG investigation and the House Intelligence committee investigation for good reason.  They know Democrats will try and paint any criticism of people in the FBI as an attempt to distract from the Russia collusion investigation.  They are now able to take strong action if appropriate.  All three of them have said they will take appropriate action when the “investigations” are complete.  Maybe, just maybe, there are some real patriots in position ready, willing and able to take strong action to protect our democracy and the rule of law.  We better hope and pray that is true, because the alternative is unthinkable.

TDM