A letter from FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s attorney (presented below) outlines his client’s joyful willingness to testify before any congressional committee that invites him, and welcomes the opportunity to clear his name. According to the Washington Post:
(Via WaPo) Peter Strzok, who was singled out in a recent Justice Department inspector general report for the politically charged messages, would be willing to testify without immunity, and he would not invoke his Fifth Amendment rights in response to any question, his attorney, Aitan Goelman, said in an interview Sunday. Strzok has become a special target of President Trump, who has used the texts to question the Russia investigation.
Goelman said Strzok “wants the chance to clear his name and tell his story.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the particulars of the IG report and the upcoming week.
Bartiromo is one of the few pundits who has actually absorbed the entire landscape of the back-story, read the actual reports and invested her time into the details. As such Ms. Bartiromo is able to take a comprehensive understanding forward into her interviews:
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When we see that justice is measured, not by due process, but by compulsion; when we see that in order to invoke our fourth or sixth amendment right to privacy and due process, we need to obtain permission from men who rebuke the constitution; when we see that justice is determined by those who leverage, not in law, but in politics; when we see that men get power over individual liberty by graft and by scheme, and our representatives don’t protect us against them, but protect them against us; when we see corruption holding influence and individual liberty so easily dispatched and nullified; we may well know that our freedom is soon to perish.
Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) appears on Fox News to discuss the IG report and the upcoming appearance of Michael Horowitz to the Judiciary and Oversight committee coming this Tuesday June 19th.
On Monday June 18th both Horowitz and FBI Director Chris Wray will be appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee (Chairman Grassley). Then on Tuesday Horowitz will appear before the House Joint Judiciary/Oversight Committee.
We need Jim Jordan to ask some basic questions [SEE HERE] and gain clarity from Horowitz. Tuesday is likely the best hope for answers because we have Jim Jordan, John Ratcliffe, Ron DeSantis, Louie Gohmert, Andy Biggs, Matt Gaetz, Steve King, possibly Mark Meadows and Chairman Goodlatte asking the questions:
Representatives Matt Gaetz and Ron DeSantis appear on Fox News to discuss the DOJ inspector general report after release:
U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross discusses President Trump’s tariffs against China and the significance of America’s trade deficit.
One of the information issues with the IG report is that it’s written entirely from an insider’s perspective. Therefore without an understanding of how divisions within Main Justice related to the discussed activity within FBI main DC offices it can be very confusing to understand.
The ‘insider narration’ makes it difficult to see what happened with the Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner laptop; and how the Clinton emails were discovered. However, because the issue is so important the IG report spends three chapters on this time-frame between September 28th and October 29th, 2016; and ultimately the next day, Oct. 30th, when a search warrant was executed for the laptop content.
IG Horowitz takes this aspect of the investigation into granularity and nuance (Chapters 8, 9 and 10).
At the heart of the activity during this critical period is FBI lawyer #1 Tashina “Tash” Gauhar who was on a video conference call with the FBI New York Field Office (NYFO) as the discoveries of hundreds of thousands of Clinton emails were relayed internally to the Mid-Year-Event (MYE) team in DC on September 29th, 2016.
Almost a full month went by until October 27th, 2016, when the MYE team all gathered with James Comey to talk about the laptop issues and the emails. Within the IG review of this period, there is a bunch of ass-covering documentation that takes place in hindsight to the events. The IG is careful to point out each time his investigation is presented with documentary evidence that was clearly written long-after the events being questioned.
The central IG question is: why didn’t the FBI take immediate action to review 725,000 Clinton-centric emails on the Huma/Weiner laptop? Why did they wait a month before seeking a search warrant? Why were they doing nothing?
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the current status of the U.S. -v- China trade reset.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Ambassador Robert Lighthizer are the targeted one-two punch behind the ‘America-First’ reciprocity program. In this interview Lighthizer discusses the connectivity of tariffs within the larger trade strategy.
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We are very fortunate to have an awesome wolverine trade and economic team; stunningly so. The main reason for their effectiveness is the reality that for the first time in our lifetimes we have an economic team acting entirely without influence from Wall Street, K-Street, special interest groups and CoC lobbyists.
As unbelievable as it sounds, we actually have pro-USA administration and government officials writing the actual trade policy without any influence by corporate interests. And with trillions at stake, this is driving the multinationals -writ large- bananas.
Michael Horowitz: FBI Agent Peter Strzok walks like a biased duck… looks like a biased duck… sounds like a biased duck… has all the same characteristics of a biased duck… and took the exact action a biased duck would take; therefore “We do not have confidence” FBI Agent Peter Strzok is not a biased duck.
[…] when one senior FBI official, Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, Page, that “we’ll stop” candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects.
This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Moreover, as we describe in Chapter Nine, in assessing Strzok’s decision to prioritize the Russia investigation over following up on the Midyear-related investigative lead discovered on the Weiner laptop in October 2016, these text messages led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias. (p.420)
Christopher Wray: “I take these findings seriously, and we accept these findings and recommendations.” … “This report did not find any evidence of political bias or improper considerations actually impacting the investigation under review.”
This is the infuriating part. Think about this carefully. This is not some arbitrary irrelevant institution within the bureaucracy of government. The FBI is the “premier” law enforcement investigative apparatus within the entirety of the United States homeland security apparatus. We rely upon the FBI’s investigative skills, training and application of common sense as they carry out their official responsibilities.
In essence the FBI has the primary responsibility for ensuring the internal safety and security of Americans through a process of evaluating evidence and threats; and more importantly taking action on clear evidence of those threats to avoid public safety issues.
Yet, the most important investigative body; within the system of U.S. law and order; cannot identify, admit, accept and take action upon a clear and present threat within its own organizational ranks. A political bias that is transparently obvious to the rest of America.
Allow me to put the IG/DOJ/FBI principle, at the heart of the matter, another way…
FBI Director Christopher Wray will be holding a 5:30pn press conference to discuss the issues and fallout from the DOJ Inspector General report released earlier today.
UPDATE: Video Added
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Those reading the report will note the executive summary and conclusions were not written by the same IG officials who wrote the body of the investigative findings. The investigation doesn’t match the summary. The media is using the summary for their narrative; however the content within the IG report is entirely devastating.