By Mike Huckabee
May 18, 2018
|
|
As it turns out, the explosive New York Times article about “Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign, appeared just prior to the release (at last) of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, and that is no accident. What looked like a blockbuster expose was nothing of the kind –- it was obviously intended as a way to help those top-level players at the FBI stay ahead of some potentially catastrophic revelations. Stunning news about “national security letters” used to put a spy (or spies) undercover and surveil multiple members of the campaign was casually buried deep within the 4,100-word article. Their hope is that when you and I finally see the IG report --- a few weeks from now, I’m sorry to say, as the DOJ gets to have a look first and respond --- the worst of it will have blown over.
Nice try, New York Times, but it won’t work. This is not going away.
As I mentioned when first talking about the article, Andrew C. McCarthy came up with a sharp observation about the sneaky thing the FBI did: Since they wanted to investigate where there was no underlying crime, they opened a counterintelligence, rather than a criminal, investigation, in the hope of UNCOVERING a crime. McCarthy has an insightful new column in which he builds on this idea. He sees it as the most important point to be made.
According to McCarthy, using counterintelligence powers, such as spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct a criminal investigation is an abuse of power. And that’s just what they did.
The NYT piece tries to equate the Clinton and Trump investigations to further the Democratic Party narrative that being public about hers and quiet about his ended up hurting her and helping him win. McCarthy calls that “bunk.” These were two very different cases; the investigation into Hillary was indeed a criminal probe, based on tons of evidence of numerous big-time felonies, while Trump’s was based on essentially nothing, just having some business associates who happened to be Russian, and that is no crime. And since the one on Trump had to be a counterintelligence investigation, that meant it was classified and couldn’t have been made public.
McCarthy acknowledges that Comey shouldn’t have overstepped his bounds as FBI director and gone public with a sampling of the wrongdoings with which Hillary wasn’t going to be charged. But the real fault, he points out, was in not charging her! “She likes to blame Comey for her defeat,” he says, “but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her –- in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.” I would add that this is why Hillary should stop talking about “what happened” and just be glad she’s not behind bars. What SHOULD have happened was the hoosegow. Not the Oval Office, but the Rectangular Cell. That’s what a regular person would’ve gotten.
The real scandal here is that Jim Comey’s FBI –- in collaboration with John Brennan’s CIA –- lacking the evidence of a crime needed to open a criminal investigation against Trump and his campaign, opened a counterintelligence investigation instead, apparently with a complicit Obama White House and Lynch DOJ, and spied on political adversaries in the months leading up to a presidential election. If they were really so concerned about Russia-Russia-Russia, they could have just opened an investigation into Russia. But, no, that obviously wasn’t their goal. And to this day, there is no evidence of Trump’s participation in a crime.
The real crime is what the government did.
As it turns out, the explosive New York Times article about “Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign, appeared just prior to the release (at last) of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, and that is no accident. What looked like a blockbuster expose was nothing of the kind –- it was obviously intended as a way to help those top-level players at the FBI stay ahead of some potentially catastrophic revelations. Stunning news about “national security letters” used to put a spy (or spies) undercover and surveil multiple members of the campaign was casually buried deep within the 4,100-word article. Their hope is that when you and I finally see the IG report --- a few weeks from now, I’m sorry to say, as the DOJ gets to have a look first and respond --- the worst of it will have blown over.
Nice try, New York Times, but it won’t work. This is not going away.
As I mentioned when first talking about the article, Andrew C. McCarthy came up with a sharp observation about the sneaky thing the FBI did: Since they wanted to investigate where there was no underlying crime, they opened a counterintelligence, rather than a criminal, investigation, in the hope of UNCOVERING a crime. McCarthy has an insightful new column in which he builds on this idea. He sees it as the most important point to be made.
According to McCarthy, using counterintelligence powers, such as spying and electronic surveillance, to conduct a criminal investigation is an abuse of power. And that’s just what they did.
The NYT piece tries to equate the Clinton and Trump investigations to further the Democratic Party narrative that being public about hers and quiet about his ended up hurting her and helping him win. McCarthy calls that “bunk.” These were two very different cases; the investigation into Hillary was indeed a criminal probe, based on tons of evidence of numerous big-time felonies, while Trump’s was based on essentially nothing, just having some business associates who happened to be Russian, and that is no crime. And since the one on Trump had to be a counterintelligence investigation, that meant it was classified and couldn’t have been made public.
McCarthy acknowledges that Comey shouldn’t have overstepped his bounds as FBI director and gone public with a sampling of the wrongdoings with which Hillary wasn’t going to be charged. But the real fault, he points out, was in not charging her! “She likes to blame Comey for her defeat,” he says, “but she had a chance to win only because the Obama Justice Department and the FBI tanked the case against her –- in exactly the manner President Obama encouraged them to do in public commentary.” I would add that this is why Hillary should stop talking about “what happened” and just be glad she’s not behind bars. What SHOULD have happened was the hoosegow. Not the Oval Office, but the Rectangular Cell. That’s what a regular person would’ve gotten.
The real scandal here is that Jim Comey’s FBI –- in collaboration with John Brennan’s CIA –- lacking the evidence of a crime needed to open a criminal investigation against Trump and his campaign, opened a counterintelligence investigation instead, apparently with a complicit Obama White House and Lynch DOJ, and spied on political adversaries in the months leading up to a presidential election. If they were really so concerned about Russia-Russia-Russia, they could have just opened an investigation into Russia. But, no, that obviously wasn’t their goal. And to this day, there is no evidence of Trump’s participation in a crime.
The real crime is what the government did.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/crossfire-hurricane-new-york-times-report-buries-lede/
PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT. I READ THEM!
OR IF YOU WOULD PREFER TO SEND ME A MESSAGE, GO HERE.
Leave a Comment
Note: Fields marked with an * are required.