Monday, December 9, 2019

IG: FBI Right To Investigate Trump's Campaign (UPDATED)



Today's release of  the Justice Department Inspector General report on the FBI's conduct of the investigation into the Trump campaign will blow the conspiracy advanced by Russian asset and mentally unstable con man Donald "Tovarich" Trump to shreds. Trump and his enablers had seized on flimsy and discredited arguments that the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation into his campaign's advisors and associates was based on political bias and the so-called "Steele dossier." The report, prepared under Trump appointee, Justice IG Michael Horowitz, faults the FBI for mishandling a FISA warrant application renewal, but states that matter did not corrupt the investigation.

Trump's argument from the beginning is that the actions of the FBI and its leadership,from former Director James Comey to his subordinates Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, were tainted by political bias (despite Comey and McCabe being registered Republicans), therefore negating the investigation altogether. The IG's report refutes that, saying that the counter-intelligence investigation had adequate "predication" to proceed. But of course it did, publicly from the moment his campaign manager and son met with Russian agents in Trump Tower, to when Trump stood before an audience days later and said, "Russia, if you're listening...."  Even before that, privately, the FBI was aware of contacts between Russian officials and Trump campaign hacks George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

As he did with the Mueller report, corrupt weasel Attorney General William "Low" Barr, who acts as Trump's "Roy Cohn," has already attempted to discredit his own IG's independent report in advance, in order to provide a false counter-narrative pleasing to his boss. He's every bit as guilty of violating his oath to the Constitution as Trump is.

UPDATE: A copy of the IG report is at this link (pdf).