FBI taken to task by senators
Letter raises issues of political intrigue
WASHINGTON — In the past two weeks, cable news has been consumed with the feud between Republicans and Democrats on the House intelligence committee.
The committee released a memo by Chairman Devin Nunes that questioned the “legitimacy and legality” of methods used in the FBI’S investigation into Russian mischief in the 2016 election. Now Democrats are pushing to release a 10-page rebuttal.
Still, the real action in the past week came from two Senate committees.
On Feb. 5, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-iowa, released a letter to the FBI co-signed by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., that suggested federal officials investigate Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who wrote the infamous Trump dossier, on grounds he lied to the FBI.
The letter argues that either Steele lied to the FBI about talking to the media or that the FBI knew Steele had talked to the press in violation of protocol and covered up for him.
Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said talking to the media when you are not supposed to is
“like every politician in Washington.” If Steele lied about it, to Bergmann it’s “a little bit like a jaywalking ticket.”
But as Grassley and Graham said, lying to the FBI is a crime.
If Steele did not tell the
FBI that he had talked to the media, that presents a different problem. It would mean that the FBI was not leveling with the court when it sought a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act to spy on Carter Page, a former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.
Private texts between FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page have laid bare their anti-trump views.
Strzok also worked on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
Deputy Director Andrew Mccabe recused himself in the Clinton probe not from the get-go but on Nov. 1, 2016. Recently and rather abruptly, Mccabe retired from the FBI.
Some might say Strzok was yanked from the Trump Russia probe and Mccabe is gone, so the system works. But a larger question remains: Why do the same names keep popping up in political investigations?
“It makes no sense to me at all,” Rep. Chris Stewart, R-utah, a member of the House intelligence committee, said of the choices to work on the Clinton and Trump probes.
Throw in the FBI’S applications for FISA warrants with the dubious claims about Steele not talking to the media, and Stewart sees “abuses of power by people in very powerful positions in the FBI.”
Page texted Strzok on Sept. 2, 2016, that former President Barack Obama “wants to see everything we’re doing.” The Trump corner wondered exactly what that meant.
“My understanding of that is that the president (Obama) is about to go see Vladimir Putin,” Bergmann explained, and wanted to know the latest on Russian mischief. “If we’re going to accuse a world leader, we don’t want to go in thin.”
Probably Bergmann is right. But there’s only one way to know: Release the Democrats’ rebuttal, which could still happen, then release the FISA warrant applications.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal. com or 202-662-7391. Follow @ Debrajsaunders on Twitter.