Peter Strzok

House to Vote on ‘Abolish ICE’ Bill, GOP Blows Strzok Hearing, Did Trump Damage PM May?

July 13, 2018 by GregC

Listen to “House to Vote on ‘Abolish ICE’ Bill, GOP Blows Strzok Hearing, Did Trump Damage Theresa May?” on Spreaker.
Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America commend House Republicans for planning a vote on “Abolish ICE” legislation that Democrats have already begun to step away from. They also criticize tactics of some House Republicans during the Peter Strzok testimony, in which members seemed more interested in scoring a dazzling soundbite than effectively questioning the witness. And they question President Trump’s negative remarks about British Prime Minister Theresa May, noting the alternative to her government could be far worse.

Dems Feel Heat on Shutdown, FBI Loses Key Emails, Paul Attacker’s Bogus Reason

January 22, 2018 by GregC

Chatting before the much-anticipated Senate vote to end the government shutdown, Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see Democrats feeling the heat on refusing to fund the government and taking some steps to get things fully up and running, but they also warn listeners what Democrats and some Republicans really want in an immigration bill to go along with reopening the government. They also don’t believe the FBI’s explanation that it somehow lost five critical months worth of text messages from Peter Strzok, the agent fired form the Mueller special counsel team and bragged about an “insurance policy” against a Trump victory. And they also call BS on the explanation from Sen. Rand Paul’s neighbor for attacking Paul, namely that the senator was assaulted from behind and had five ribs broken because he was stacking brush close to their shared property line.

Rep. Jordan Details Pursuit of Truth on Dossier, Unmasking

December 19, 2017 by GregC

Rep. Jim Jordan says the connection between the Democrats and an anti-Trump dossier is well established and he says the big questions now are whether the dossier was the grounds for a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on the Trump campaign and whether the FBI and Justice Department used it as an “insurance policy” against a Trump presidency.

Last week, Jordan and other lawmakers grilled Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the work of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team, with a special emphasis on recently fired FBI official Peter Strzok and recently demoted Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.

Strzok was fired by Mueller, allegedly for his barrage of anti-Trump text messages to his mistress, FBI attorney Lisa Page. However, in addition to the political chatter came a Strzok text suggesting he expected Trump to lose the election but was planning to take action if the GOP nominee won.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” texted Strzok. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40,” he added in a text dated Aug. 15, 2016.

Jordan thinks there is a major story behind that text and likely explains why Mueller kicked Strzok to the curb in the Russia probe.

“Remember, Peter Strzok is Mr. Super Agent Guy at the FBI. He ran the Clinton (email) investigation, interviewed (Cheryl) Mills, (Huma) Abedin, and Sec. Clinton. He’s the guy who did the famous exoneration letter that changed the term ‘gross negligence’ – a crime – to ‘extreme carelessness.’ He’s also the guy who ran the Russia investigation and interviewed Mike Flynn.

“So he gets kicked off the Mueller team and we’re told it’s because of anti-Trump text messaging and Lisa Page. My belief is it’s got to be more than that. Because as I said in committee a couple of weeks ago, if you kicked everyone off the Mueller team who is anti-Trump, you wouldn’t have anybody left,” said Jordan.

So what might be the real reason for Strzok’s dismissal?

“It has to be something more and my contention is it goes to the dossier, the dossier that I believe was used for securing the warrants to spy on Americans, the dossier that was put into the application that was taken to the FISA court to get warrants to spy on Americans associated with the Trump campaign.

“I believe Peter Strzok, who was the deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI and ran both the Clinton and Russia investigations, probably has his fingerprints all over that application,” alleged Jordan.

While Strzok’s direct involvement with the dossier has yet to be proved, Jordan says the FBI’s connection to the dossier seems pretty clear.

“Did they pay Christopher Steele, the guy who wrote the dossier? It’s been reported that he was reimbursed by the FBI. Why are they paying the guy who was paid at the same time by the Clinton campaign. If the answer to that question is yes, I think that shows that this took place,” said Jordan.

He says the rest of the money trail is very well established.

“The Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Russians to influence the campaign. They paid the law firm, who paid Fusion GPS, who paid Christopher Steele, who took that money and paid Russians to get false information that was used to go get warrants to spy on Americans.

Jordan adds that if the FBI did pay for the dossier, the other lingering question is even more troubling.

“If that in fact happened, that definitely shows there was an effort to go after the Trump people and the Trump campaign with this ridiculous report the Clinton campaign paid for that we call a dossier,” said Jordan, who is stunned that Mueller is spending all his energies looking at possible crimes on the GOP side of this campaign.

“[The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee] paid Russians with campaign dollars to influence the election and what’s Mueller’s investigation looking at? The other campaign,” said Jordan.

When it comes to Bruce Ohr, at first blush there appears to be circumstantial evidence of impropriety, as a result of Ohr’s consultation with Fusion GPS Co-Founder Glenn Simpson and the revelation that Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the final months of the campaign.

Jordan says it goes a lot deeper than that.

“His wife not only worked there, she was hired specifically for the Russian project. Second, Bruce Ohr met with Christopher Steele during the campaign. So at the same time the DNC is paying Christopher Steele to put together this dossier, he’s also meeting with a top Justice official. That’s kind of strange,” said Jordan.

But he says the unlikely coincidences keep coming, mostly notably the post-election meeting between Ohr and Simpson.

“Did they meet to get their story straight and get their story straight and figure out, ‘We did this. What do we have to do to correct it and get our story straight.’ Or – maybe and – did they meet to say, ‘Maybe it’s time to double down. Maybe it’s time to go after President-Elect Trump,” said Jordan.

Jordan is increasingly confident his suspicions are correct given that the “unmasking” of Trump campaign officials began during the transition period.

“Never forget, it was during the transition, from Election Day until Inauguration Day, that we started to see all of this unmasking and all of these leaks from the intelligence community,” said Jordan, suggesting that timeline alone requires detailed testimony from Ohr.

Jordan says Congress will continue to pursue answers, beginning with deposing Strzok, Ohr, Page, and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He also wants to see the FISA application and what evidence was submitted to obtain warrants. He also wants all of this to take place in public so the American people can evaluate the facts for themselves.

The congressman also demands a second special counsel to look into all this since – if there’s any fire to the smoke – the Justice Department and FBI are incapable of investigating the matter.

“I don’t like special counsels. I never have. But I don’t know any other remedy,” said Jordan.

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Closer to a Tax Cut, Disney to Gobble Up Fox, Strzok’s ‘Insurance Policy’

December 14, 2017 by GregC

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are cautiously optimistic that Republicans may soon pass a tax cut and while the proposal is not perfect, it moves in the right direction on a number of fronts. They also react to Disney becoming an even more mammoth presence in entertainment with the news it is paying over $52 billion to buy most assets of Fox. And they discuss the latest hit to the credibility of the Russia investigation, as a recently fired Mueller deputy referred to pursuing an “insurance policy” just in case Trump won the election.

Mueller Team Partisanship ‘A Monster Red Flag’

December 13, 2017 by GregC

A top lawyer in Texas says the Mueller investigation appears to be nothing more than effort to charge people with crimes unrelated to Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign and he says recent revelations of rampant partisanship on the part of prosecutors on the case ought to be the death blow to this probe.

Robert Henneke served a an assistant attorney general and a top litigator for former Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. He is now general counsel and president of the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

Within recent weeks, Mueller fired Peter Strzok for highly partisan texts to his mistress. However, three other figures are also under scrutiny.

Top Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman attended Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election night party and later lavished praise on Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce President Trump’s first travel ban.

Justice Department official Bruce Ohr was severely demoted for improper contact with officials at Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to dig up opposition research on Donald Trump. This week, Fox News confirmed Ohr’s wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion GPS during the campaign.

Another Mueller prosecutor, Jeannie Rhee, represented former Obama Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes.

On Tuesday, thousands of text messages between Strzok and his paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, revealed a lot of ugly but not illegal Trump bashing. However, one other text is getting scrutiny as possible intent to use the FBI as a weapon in case Trump won the election.

Henneke is stunned.

“It’s a monster red flag. The role of the prosecutor, the role that I had when I served as a prosecutor, really gives you so much power in making choices that can put people in prison or ruin careers. It can result in serious consequences,” said Henneke.

“It is so critical in that role that you and everyone you associate with hold themselves out as being the utmost objective, impartial and strong champions of the law and of justice,” said Henneke.

“Of course people have opinions. But it’s not when people have opinions. It’s when those people are so partisan or when those opinions seem to be driving the outcomes rather than the duty to the oath that you swore in upholding the Constitution and executing the duties of your office,” said Henneke.

He says in the American system, the people grant the government certain powers, but when politics supersede the law, all Americans suffer.

“It’s a grant, not an entitlement. All of that is under the premise that the government is going to discharge its duties safely. Otherwise, if you conceded that power to parties who are going to further their own interests and their own partisan objectives, that’s when you get into tyranny,” said Henneke.

“If you can vest this much power in a special prosecutor that’s going to use agents that have more allegiance to Hillary Clinton than they do to justice and the Constitution in going about this situation, then how can we trust that government in looking at other types of citizens, maybe with less political power,” said Henneke.

It’s not the Mueller personnel that bother Henneke. He says the process Mueller is pursing also strikes him as odd.

“The overall approach is very concerning and puzzling. Unpacking the layers of this, there doesn’t seem to be anything at the core,” said Henneke.

Henneke believes the whole probe is based on a flimsy premise offered up by Obama holdovers in the intelligence community. He also blasts the Mueller team for their irresponsibility with the information they may be gathering.

“It seems that this has just been packed by innuendo, speculation and leaks and accusations that have led into a reactionary launching of this investigation when really the parameters and the need for it I don’t think were defined from the get-go,” said Henneke.

Leaks are commonplace in the Mueller investigation, and Henneke says that’s another clear sign that the prosecutors are not even-handed.

“If there is a significant issue that would require this type of special counsel outside investigation, there’s no reason that all of this should be happening in the public arena through leaks, through anonymous sources, through innuendo and so forth,” said Henneke.

“Furthermore, it just underlines what I see as a lack of integrity in this. This is all some sort of capital intrigue-type drama and not what it is supposed to be, which is a criminal investigation of supposedly serious allegations,” said Henneke.

Based on suspect prosecutors and a shaky premise, Henneke says the sooner the Mueller probe shuts down the better.

“I think that this special counsel prosecution should be shut down. I don’t think there was a sound basis for creating it. I think the reason it continues to churn is not because of having uncovered any real substance, but because of the partisanship and media perception stepping in,” said Henneke.

He also thinks the special counsel should be used much more sparingly.

“We need to be putting people in positions of government that we can trust to have the integrity to not need to create special counsels to do the job of what these positions should stand for in the first place,” said Henneke.

While he thinks the probe should be shelved, Henneke thinks the actual results will be far more damaging, both to individuals and the nation.

“I think people’s lives and careers are going to be ruined, not because of uncovering the original basis for the investigation. I think that’s already happening with some of the results,” said Henneke, who believes the damage to the U.S. will be far worse.

“The end result will be some bitterly fought partisan outcome that most of the American people will look at and see from either side of the political spectrum as untrustworthy, corrupt, and providing further evidence that the problem in our country really is in Washington, D.C.,” said Henneke.

“This is just one other example of how our government is no longer serving the interests of the people,” said Henneke.

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