Monday on ABC’s The View, the panel talked about the findings of the IG report released last week, revealing the anti-Trump bias in the FBI between agents Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and former Director James Comey. The hosts argued about whether the findings really were that important in influencing the election.
After briefly explaining the report, Meghan McCain called this evidence of what conservatives have been warning about.
“This is why there is distrust within our intelligence community. It starts with text messages like this, and if you want to work for the FBI and be the head of the FBI and work for the CIA, you can't have politics involved,” she gushed.
But Whoopi Goldberg didn’t find the texts that important. What was really important? Something Mitch McConnell said in 2010 about President Obama:
“This exchange was nothing, in terms of really impacting the country,” Whoopi jumped in, then rehashed her beef about Mitch McConnell saying he didn’t want Obama to win a second term, as a real example of “obstructing justice.”
Joy Behar was on Whoopi’s side. She scoffed at the idea that these texts had any impact.
“They were working for Mueller at the time, and they were sleeping together. So this was, like, pillow talk...It was like love notes,” she said. Behar added that Comey was the only one responsible for affecting the election.
“I want to point out they were removed from the Mueller investigation very quickly after that. So they really didn't have any time to do any damage to Trump,” Behar gushed. “Unlike Comey, who did a lot of damage to Hillary,” she added.
Surprisingly, lawyer Sunny Hostin didn't downplay the significance of the texts. She even argued that she would have removed them from the Clinton investigation immediately:
HOSTIN: Well, you know, I am not conflicted about this at all just because I think that fact-finding, especially FBI fact-finding is supposed to be neutral and when you have an FBI agent that is supervising the FBI's Clinton investigation saying things like, ‘Trump is not going to be president because we are going to stop it.’ If I had someone on my investigative team, an FBI agent who did that, I would remove him.
But Joy Behar continued arguing they shouldn't have faced harsher punishment than they did:
BEHAR: He was removed!
HOSTIN: He wasn't removed from the Clinton investigation. I would also immediately refer him to the IG or his supervisor. This is completely improper and he had a lot of power.
BEHAR: That was appropriate. And enough.
HOSTIN: That was after the Clinton investigation. He was also responsible for the Clinton investigation, and then he was put onto the Mueller investigation. You have someone that's pretty powerful showing political bias, and again, your fact-finding must be neutral when you work for the government.
BEHAR: But the end justifies the means and in this case, nothing happened.
[crosstalk]
BEHAR: In this case, it did. Nothing happened. They didn’t impact it.
Host Meghan McCain stepped in then to combat Behar.
“It did impact a lot. There actually is a lot. When you have Michael Horowitz saying that James Comey, quote, deviated from well-established department policy -- It's the breakdown of trust that's happening. The fish rots at the head. What Sunny’s saying is 100 percent accurate,”
After joking around about the rarity of McCain agreeing with Hostin, Behar kept denying there was anything unethical found in the IG’s report.
“When you say the fish stinks from the head, the fish in this case is Mueller,” she quipped.
McCain disagreed. “It’s Comey too!” she noted.
“Mueller did his due diligence. So the fish is still good,” Behar retorted.
