Well, pack some sandbags and brace for impact, folks. Russian collusion hysteria is about to erupt all over again. House Democrats voted to subpoena Special Counsel Robert Mueller for the full report, including all the evidence that’s been collected over the past two years. This investigation began as an FBI probe into possible Russian collusion, a counterintelligence investigation where disgraced ex-FBI Agent Peter Strzok was reportedly one of the key people to sign off on it. Strzok is known for his extramarital affair with former bureau lawyer Lisa Page. The pair exchanged tens of thousands of texts, many of them anti-Trump. Some of the most infamous texts were the ones where Strzok and Page discussed an “insurance policy” concerning Trump, with the former outright saying that they would stop a Trump presidency, whatever that meant. The two also worried that the FBI was going too hard on Hillary when the bureau was investigating whether the former first lady had mishandled classified information while serving as secretary of state via her unsecured and unauthorized homebrew server; Clinton conducted all official business through this server.
Now, Mueller’s investigators, most of them partisan Democrats, are a bit irritated that Attorney General William Barr’s summary didn’t really touch upon the severity of their findings…allegedly (via NYT):
Some of Robert S. Mueller III’s investigators have told associates that Attorney General William P. Barr failed to adequately portray the findings of their inquiry and that they were more troubling for President Trump than Mr. Barr indicated, according to government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations.
At stake in the dispute — the first evidence of tension between Mr. Barr and the special counsel’s office — is who shapes the public’s initial understanding of one of the most consequential government investigations in American history. Some members of Mr. Mueller’s team are concerned that, because Mr. Barr created the first narrative of the special counsel’s findings, Americans’ views will have hardened before the investigation’s conclusions become public.
Mr. Barr has said he will move quickly to release the nearly 400-page report but needs time to scrub out confidential information. The special counsel’s investigators had already written multiple summaries of the report, and some team members believe that Mr. Barr should have included more of their material in the four-page letter he wrote on March 24 laying out their main conclusions, according to government officials familiar with the investigation. Mr. Barr only briefly cited the special counsel’s work in his letter.
However, the special counsel’s office never asked Mr. Barr to release the summaries soon after he received the report, a person familiar with the investigation said. And the Justice Department quickly determined that the summaries contain sensitive information, like classified material, secret grand-jury testimony and information related to current federal investigations that must remain confidential, according to two government officials.
Oh, so the real beef appears to be that some partisan Democratic operatives on Mueller’ staff are mad that their two-year quest to prove collusion, despite zero evidence, was sunk…because Mueller delivered a summary they didn’t like. It’s a double-edged sword. A part of me leans toward saying, ‘yeah, these are hardened Clintonites who are still sour they lost the 2016 election.’ Of course, these folks are mad and that’s a problem Mueller picked them. Then again, I like that Mueller picked hard-core liberals because it adds credibility to the report, especially when they come up with nothing on the collusion front. The most partisan, Democratic investigators couldn’t find solid evidence of collusion. There’s no spinning that away. Either way, this case is finished and the lines are drawn. The two camps are now established and concrete. The only difference is that the side that thought all of this was a crock is starting to win the argument. I mean, the other side has zero evidence to prove their point.
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