92 25 Years of Lock Her Up Politics: the FBI is a Very Republican Place
25 Years of Lock Her Up Politics: the FBI is a Very Republican Place
UPDATE:
Think it’s pretty much there substantively. Does the conclusion need shoring up? Not Sure
Not really this chapter is pretty much there outside of further editting-which isn’t bad either
UPDATE 2.0: Editing pretty tight too-close to perfect other than that spacing issue glitch in like one paragraph.
CF: Bring more quotes from this chapter
https://pressbooks.pub/extremecarelessnessnexus/wp-admin/post.php?post=299&action=edit
Hillary was right as usual. And as usual no one listened to her. Like when she quite correctly pointed out the Republican party understands only strength-aka the definition of a bully. She was as usual eviscerated when she said that but was again right.
But who is this they? A lot of people-you could say the Patriarchy or you could say the Republican party but this is redundant-as the two amount to the same thing. You could also point to James Comey’s FBI-which again amounts to the same thing as the FBI is a very Republican place as are many of our nation’s top law enforcement and intelligence agencies-a la the Secret Service, etc.
In Chapter Trumpland we look at the fact that in 2016 the inside joke was that the FBI was Trumpland-in reality still is-only more so-as that chapter documents.
But you can argue in the larger historical sense, the FBI is GOPLand.
It always has been. Literally-we still have never had a Democratic FBI Director in its now 115 year history after President Joe’s first mistake-see chapter.
CF: In chapter Mesnch I related how John Schindler banned me over simply noting this fact
Pg. 362
https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillary-clinton-they-were-never-going-to-let-me-be-president
But the FBI’s Hillary Derangement Syndrome-aka Lock Her Up politics goes back to the 1992 election when Clinton committed what the GOP dominated agency thought a great crime-he beat their guy, Bush Sr.
“In September 1993, Federal Judge Louis J. Freeh walked out of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and into FBI Headquarters as its new Director. Both his youth, 43 years of age, and his background as a former FBI agent, made him an inspired choice to lead the Bureau when nominated by the new American President, Bill Clinton.”
“Freeh’s predecessor, William Sessions, had not completed his 10-year term as director before a report alleging ethical improprieties was released by President George H. W. Bush’s Attorney General William Barr (yes, the same William Barr who is today Trump’s Attorney General).”
“Sessions refused to exit his position voluntarily, so it was left to Clinton’s new attorney general, Janet Reno, to fire him.”
“Clinton may wish he had held on to Sessions. The new president and the new FBI Director would soon be at loggerheads.”
Yep. Just another case of a Democratic President’s self owning himself, negotiating against himself. Clinton had a lot of them-it was he-who against Hillary’s objections-agree to appoint the Independent Counsel. The initial IC actually was fairly honest-and didn’t find any there there in Whitewater. But then powerful GOPers raised a stink that this was proof the IC was in Clinton’s back pocket and had them replaced with Ken Starr.-
CF. Schoenblog in Chapter Why the Comey Letter
In Chapter Clinton’s Great Mistake we look at the Clinton’s fateful decision to let Iran-Contra-and all thinks Irangate drop in the interest of ‘not stopping looking to tomorrow.’ The GOP showed their gratitude by replacing the vaccum with Whitewater.
But Clinton is in auspicious company. Jimmy Carter also kicked a lot of one goals-see chapter The Iranian Jimmy Carter- and Biden as we saw above opened his term by choosing not to replace Christopher Wray-despite Wray’s clear insubordination and flouting of Congress.
UPDATE: CF Chapter President Joe’s First Mistake
The sad truth is essentially Clinton fired Sessions because Bill Barr said so. Barr wanted Sessions out of the way so as to install a GOP hack-and he got the King of all GOP Hacks-Louis Freeh.
In hiring Louis Freeh Clinton appointed a fox to guard the henhouse-and Bill was the hen. What he didn’t get was that Freeh already hated him-Freeh would falsely pretend in his book of the Clinton years that he only came to hate him slowly.
But the reality was that Freeh and the rest of the senior agents over at GOPland the FBI hated the Clintons with a crusader’s zeal. Obama would make the exact same mistake Clinton made when he appointed Comey. Comey came from this same anti Clinton world-so prevalent it was the air they breathed over there.
Comey was totally part of this Hillary Derangement Syndrome. My conjecture is this is why he indicted Martha Stewart-otherwise it made no sense, she committed no crime(of course neither did Hillary). GOPland was so heartbroken when Starr didn’t lock Hillary up that Comey locked up Martha Stewart as a consolation.
In Ken Starr’s recent book on his hyperpartisan boondoggle known as Whitewater, he felt he owed all the disappointed GOP hacks a whole chapter explaining his failure to indict Hillary Clinton in Whitewater. Again-Lock Her Up politics didn’t start in 2016 but 1992.
CF: Ken Starr’s Mea Culpa and Chapter Ken Starr if I write it…
Obama’s terrible-but completely predictable-mistake in believing Comey was “bipartisan” directly led to the defeat of his preferred successor.
FN: Comey’s reputation of being so ‘independent and principled’ goes back largely to the episode with Aschcroft and his heroism in that moment has arguably been oversold… Find link
But this Clinton hatred all goes back to Bush Sr-they never forgave Clinton for defeating him.
“Although there was still a sense of excitement in Washington over the generational shift that the 1992 election represented, the fact was the Clinton administration began as an unmitigated disaster. It seemed undisciplined and chaotic to Freeh, and its early days were consumed with FBI investigations into Filegate, Travelgate, Whitewater, Paula Jones and Jennifer Flowers, and even an investigation into China’s attempts to meddle in the 1992 elections. And, most mysteriously, there was the investigation into the shocking suicide of Bill and Hillary’s long-time friend from Arkansas, Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster.
“FBI agents walked around the halls dispirited, talking about their affection for George H.W. Bush and their disdain for the dirty campaign they felt the Clintons had waged against him. While Clinton came off cool (playing sax on The Arsenio Hall Show, for example), “The Wimp Factor” tagline stuck to George H.W. Bush—a man who had flown 50 combat missions during World War II, had been one of the Navy’s youngest aviators and was a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. ”
“Freeh, who had been appointed a federal judge by the senior Bush, had a deep affection for him. He accepted the job as FBI Director even though he believed not only that the wrong man had won the presidency, but was firmly convinced that the winner, Clinton, was dirty. In those years, the FBI’s antipathy towards the Clintons flowed from the top down—and would become ingrained in its organizational culture. ”
“For his part, had Clinton wanted an FBI Director who would do his bidding and sweep his scandals under the rug (which the current president seems to believe is part of the job description), he knew damn well it wouldn’t be Freeh. Yet, he courted Freeh. Freeh, considered tough and clean as a hound’s tooth, would give the new Clinton Administration a patina of ethical validity it desperately needed. But Freeh’s FBI was immediately immersed in investigating Clinton’s skeletons.”
Freeh gave back his White House pass that had allowed him unlimited, unrecorded, access to the White House believing it would pose a conflict of interest while the Clintons were under investigation.
FN: It goes without saying he wouldn’t have done this to a Republican President-if Bush had won reelection…
End FN
“Clinton, now realizing Freeh would be breathing down his neck, was not happy with this slap in the face. But during his entire administration, and with the endless ethical clouds that hung over him, Clinton did not dare fire Freeh.”
Typical chickenshit Democrats.
Look I love Bill Clinton-I met him once-it was a month before the election was stolen from his wife. He was everything I-and my friend who was with me-hoped he would be. That’s very unusual-usually when you meet someone you admire it’s disappointing-as they don’t see you as someone worth playing to. But Clinton has this ability to project that he cares about you…
Heck I like Joe Biden-how could you not? But there are some serious problems with the way our party has operated, has failed to use its own power, engaged in cautious “low risk” strategies a la the prevent defense that as often as not merely prevent us from winning-as great football coaches know the prevent does.
So Clinton felt he had no choice but to appoint Freeh, no choice but to appoint-what became-Ken Starr, had no choice to keep Freeh even after it became clear that Freeh-unlike what Trump later said of Mueller-really was on a witch hunt against him. True the criticism would have been through the roof had he fired him. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t the right move. Sometimes you have to say damn the torpedoes-that’s what the GOP does. But the Democrats never damn the torpedoes.
As for unprecedented animus we got your unprecedented animus right here-here being the FBI.
In 2018 the Devin Nunes House GOP put on quite a show (trial) in faux outrage over Peter Strozk’s texts.
Trey Gowdy foamed at the mouth and told Strozk ‘I don’t give a damn what you think as you had unprecedented animus towards ‘President Trump.’
“I give a damn what you appreciate, agent Strzok” Gowdy replied. “I don’t appreciate having an FBI agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations during 2016.”
And-of course-many in the MSM like Wolf Blitzer have bought this canard hook line and sinker.
He thinks those messages between Strozk and Page are “so damning.” If he thinks it damning that a few leading FBI agents had negative views-much like the rest of the country-on faux “President Trump” what would he say if he knew what many in the FBI were saying about Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election-during the email probe that they leaked so much about?
What the GOP show trials and faux outrage over Strozk’s texts have managed to wholly obsucre is that in 2016 the FBI was Trumpland-not Clintonland. Yeah, we got your “unprecedented animus” right here.
“Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.”
“Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.”
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.
“This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House.”
The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
FN: This directly contradicts Horowitz’s presumption in his-very cursory-“summary” after he tabled the actual report into the leaks of the anti Clinton rogue FBI agents… Horowitz presumed that the reason for the leaks was only merely venial. He rejected the possibility of partisanship out of hand-preemptively. Obviously you won’t find partisan motivations if you studiously avoid looking for them at the outset-see Chapter Horowitz.
Horowitz presumes the agents leaked simply for free drinks and Jets tickets from journalists-as if Jets tickets would be an enticement. Sorry couldn’t resist but you’d have to pay me to watch the Jets…
End FN
“The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected.”
A candidate whose campaign they also knew was under investigation for colluding with Russia.
Much has been made of Strozk’s private texts where he expressed strong anti Trump opinions. But this makes it clear that there were agents who openly-rather than privately-discussed their animus for Clinton and their intention to vote for Trump at work. So, based on Wolff’s outrage, how can all these folks have been trusted to run the email probe? Indeed that question remains as there is a strong sense that many in the NY FBI forced Comey’s hand into doing the Comey letter.
UPDATE: See Chapter Why the Comey Letter?
Much of Comey’s antics were an attempt to reassure these Clinton hating agents who made no secret of their animus.
Indeed, the anti Clinton bias and animus was so deep that they opened up an investigation into the Clinton Foundation based on little more than a discredited piece of Right wing oppo research like Clinton Cash.
Back to the Guardian: “At the same time, other sources dispute the depth of support for Trump within the bureau, though they uniformly stated that Clinton is viewed highly unfavorably.”
“There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt. What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician,” said a former FBI official.
In reality this hardly mitigates the picture of anti Clinton animus and bias against her: maybe some didn’t like Trump-there were plenty of anti Trump Republicans during the primary-but there was widespread agreement in disdain for Clinton. But of course this is the definition of negative partisanship-maybe some agents agreed Trump is not qualified but in their mind this was still better than the faux “corruption” of Hilary-no doubt many of these same agents are probably cool with the very real and extreme corruption of Trump rather than the faux, overblown “corruption” of Hillary; there’s no basis of fact to argue she was any more corrupt than the average pol whereas Trump is off the charts relative to the median or mean.
FN: In Chapter Barr-Durham Fiasco we see that this is indeed the case.
All of which makes us recall that with all Trump’s alternative facts about ’13 angry Democrats’ the FBI is a very Republican place. Comey is a Republican. The Deputy Director in 2016-Andy McCabe-is a Republican-though he was absurdly called a Democrat based on his wife running as a Democrat in 2016.
But it’s even worse than that as Comey didn’t allow him to sit in on his fateful decision of October 27, 2016 of doing the Comey Letter that would cinch the election for Trump based on the idea that McCabe’s wife being a Democrat made McCabe too partisan to sit in on this indefensible, damnable decision. If having your wife run as a Democrat was enough to force your recusal what about Comey’s own history as a GOPer pursuing the Clinton’s for 25 years and donating to both of President Obama’s Presidential opponents?
FN: See Chapter Why the Comey Letter and Chapter McCabe for more
UPDATE: Trump now claims there are ’18 angry Democrats’ running the investigation.
Heck, Mueller himself is a Republican as is new Director Christopher Wray. With all the talk of 13 18 angry Democrats I can’t think of one Democrat at the FBI off the top of my head. At a minimum they’re clearly in the minority. And I do think it’s legitimate to ask if the clear GOP tilt of the FBI and the very clear anti Clinton bias at the FBI had something to do with the outrageous discrepancy with how the email probe was handled-Comey’s ad hoc ‘extreme transparency’ and the Russia probe-that was handled the normal way-ie, no leaks, held very close to the vest.
FN: Technically Wray is an “independent”-but then so was James Kallstrom according to himself; Rudy Giuliani claimed that the leaking rogue agents were “independents who didn’t look at it politically”-OTOH, Christopher Wray was Chris Christie’s (successful)Bridegate lawyer-Christie didn’t go to prison while his two aides went to prison for following his order to shutdown the GWB… Maybe now you’ll forgive me if I don’t seem so impressed that Wray calls himself an “independent”; in addition as we see in Chapter Schiff, Wray-like Horowitz-continually ignored requests from Democratic Congressional members while GOP demands no matter how questionable and nakedly partisan and abusive went to the front of the line.
Indeed, as part of the IG’s investigation into the Clinton email probe they are coming up with a sequel into the issue of leaks from the NY FBI office-aka Trumplandia. Judging even by the big report the IG already put out it seems clear that something like this happened: the NY FBI had Weiner’s laptop and ‘found’ all these emails between Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton on it.
UPDATE: Horowitz went on to wait for the Biden Administration to announce it the second part of the report would never see the light of day-see Chapter Horowitz for more
I say “found” because as discussed in Chapter A I strongly suspect that there were rogue agents at the NY office who took a rather active role in this ‘finding’-like maybe they ‘found’ the emails there as they actually placed it there themselves.
UPDATE: Chapter Devlin Barrett October Surprise
Yet we continue to hear how the Deep State is biased against Trump. Exactly. I mean that’s why they said nothing about Emailgate while constantly leaked about Russiagate. Oh wait.
UPDATE: When all the faux outrage over Strozk-Page broke my gut response was: so where are the texts of the rogue anti Clinton agents? Finally some of those showed up in one of the many investigations Horowitz did for the GOPers emerged.
FN: There was also all the faux outrage over Strozk’s texts. Mueller fired Strozk over expressing private opinions he has every Constitutional right to express while pointedly not firing Trump co-conspirator favorite, William Barnett for sending out pro Trump tweets-while investigating him and his underlings-or for actually misrepresenting evidence against Flynn-that was used to get him off without accountability.