Well, it’s former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s day to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Russian collusion fiasco. And it’s not going very well. Well, for starters, Rosenstein doesn’t feel that disgraced ex-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe lied to him. McCabe was fired because he lied. He, like Robert Mueller, also appeared to put the second act of this clown show on autopilot. As Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said, Rosenstein was either incompetent or complicit in this whole witch hunt.
He also said that knowing what he knows now, he would not have signed off on the FISA warrant against former Trump campaign official Carter Page. On that front, The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis noted that Rosenstein might have committed perjury. He said he read the warrant, but later when pressed by Cruz, he pretty much admitted that he didn’t “read” it per se.
Rosenstein claimed earlier today he read the Carter Page FISA application in its entirety. But under questioning from Cruz, Rosenstein said he only reviewed it and didn't technically "read" it. Under the standard he used to charge Flynn, Rosenstein should be charged with perjury.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 3, 2020
Ooof, @SenTedCruz tearing Rosenstein's performance as DAG apart.
— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) June 3, 2020
Told him he was either complicit or incompetent.
A defense perfected by Grand Master Eric Holder during the Fast and Furious scandal, when he claimed he wasn't guilty of perjury because he had no idea what anyone in the Justice Department was actually doing and he never reads his email. https://t.co/TjL0riBnn8
— John Hayward (@Doc_0) June 3, 2020
Rosenstein claimed he doesn't know who wrote the memo he signed defining the near-limitless scope of the Mueller campaign to overthrow the president.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 3, 2020
He knew. His goal today is to come across as an out-to-lunch buffoon rather than a corrupt coup plotter. https://t.co/H5kr6iYi2X
Rosenstein lied to Grassley about Michael Flynn. Rosenstein lied to the FISA court about Carter Page. And Rosenstein threatened to illegally spy on and then criminally prosecute members of Congress and their staff for doing oversigt on DOJ. https://t.co/C1GhYHY0nX
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 3, 2020
NEW: #RodRosenstein says he does "not consider" #Mueller investigation "to be corrupt, but I understand the president’s frustration given the outcome which was that there was no evidence of conspiracy between the campaign and the Russians."
— Brooke Singman (@BrookeSingman) June 3, 2020
“Under the standard, he used to charge Flynn, Rosenstein should be charged with perjury,” Davis wrote. John Hayward of Breitbart added that should Rosenstein be accused of that he has “a defense perfected by Grand Master Eric Holder during the Fast and Furious scandal when he claimed he wasn't guilty of perjury because he had no idea what anyone in the Justice Department was actually doing and he never reads his email.”
Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admits FISA was abused and manipulated to spy on the Trump campaign. pic.twitter.com/JDYa1F6Iqw
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) June 3, 2020
Rosenstein also said that he doesn’t feel the Mueller probe was corrupt, though he noted that he can see why President Trump was frustrated, given that no evidence pointing to Trump-Russia collusion was found.
Oh, but it goes beyond that. The linchpin for this entire clown show was the Trump dossier, a Democrat-funded piece of political opposition research that was unverified, loaded with errors, and later debunked. It was weaponized to go after the Trump campaign via Crossfire Hurricane, a spy operation, and secure the FISA warrants against Carter Page. And therefore, it was used as the basis to go after Michael Flynn. Flynn was targeted by the FBI despite a lack of evidence for collusion, the agents who interviewed him felt he didn’t lie, and the FBI was about to wrap up its investigation into Flynn, but through the door comes Robert Mueller as special counsel, appointed by Rosy, who then rehashed the whole collusion/Logan Act myth against him. Yes, he pleaded guilty to the politically motivated “lying to the FBI” charge, but only after the special counsel’s office (SCO) put the screws to him.
Not corrupt? Are we going to talk about how the SCO may have leaked a fake news story to the media in order to get the attorney of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chair, to testify against him on the foreign agent allegations? Yeah, CNN ran with it and it ended with a judge forcing Manafort’s attorney to testify. It was done to torpedo attorney-client privilege in order to see if there were ties between Trump, Manafort, and Russia. Talk about sleaze. One might say this is a rather corrupt way to lead an investigation and if these were the tactics that were deployed due to lack of evidence, maybe it was time to call it.
There is no Trump-Russia collusion evidence because there was no conspiracy. It’s a myth that was peddled by a Trump-deranged media complex and their allies on Capitol Hill. It engulfed the nation for two years only to end with Trump remaining president and the media’s credibility laughed off the stage. In the meantime, lives have been destroyed by nonsense. Michael Flynn remains in legal purgatory with a federal judge refusing to toss the case, despite the DOJ now filing a motion to dismiss. And Carter Page, who was viewed as some dark lord of the Sith reading Trump-Russia collusion, deserves the biggest apology of all. This was a total and complete fiasco within the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The FBI wasted time and resources chasing this collusion unicorn, even going as far as to spy on the campaign. Someone was going to find out. This is the 21st century. The DOJ of a Democratic president spied on the presidential campaign of his political rival. So, how to clean that up? Well, maybe launch a second act—the Special Counsel—top give some resemblance of credibility and legitimacy to the initial FBI counterintelligence probe in order to mask its embarrassing shortfalls and departures from department policy. This special counsel probe was a retrofit. It was a face-lift. It was recycling of parts to a government engine that had the same goal: running over Trump.