The House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing Republicans peppered the Democrat’s witnesses with rapid-fire verbal flash bombs. They harassed the witnesses’ by making false allegations without letting the attorney respond, then claimed they had proof. They did not, but an unexpected source gave the witnesses their full measure of credibility.
The Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace said the Department of Justice’s long awaited Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz report indicated that there had been no spying on the president’s campaign in 2015-2016:
‘(He) didn’t find the things that Bill Barr and Donald Trump alleged.’
Wallace had this to say to Fox’s America’s Newsroom anchors Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith shortly after he IG’s report had been released:
‘Remember, this comes against the backdrop of Donald Trump talking about the investigation of him in 2016 as a political hit job. At one point, he talked about President Obama ordering the wiretapping of the Trump Tower. In one of his first hearings as attorney general, Bill Barr talked about the FBI spying on the Trump campaign and later said spying is not a pejorative word, I view it is a perfectly legitimate word and usually people talk about surveillance, not spying which would seem to have a negative connotation.’
The IG did not find a perfect deparment in the FBI, which made the report all the more credible. However, his report did find the bureau was not actiing on the basis of politics with its investigation into the Trump’s presidential campaign.
The president and company have claimed that the FBI acted improperly:
‘When you read the report, and we’re obviously all skimming through it, the headline is they didn’t find the things that Bill Barr and Donald Trump alleged. He found, [Inspector General] Michael Horowitz, found there was no political bias by [then-FBI Director] James Comey or his deputy, Andrew McCabe. It certainly does say there were a lot of misstatements, improprieties, carelessness on the part of lower level FBI people. There were some misconduct by individual people, but not by the higher-ups.’
The IG report said Horowitz:
‘[D]id not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations.’
Later, Horowitz said the Bureau had “an authorized purpose” to open its investigation:
‘obtain information about, or to protect against, a national security threat or federal crime, even though the investigation also had the potential to impact constitutionally protected activity.’
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
