During breaks in MSNBC’s live coverage of Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifying before Congress on Tuesday, anchors Andrea Mitchell and Katy Tur were both aghast that congressional Republicans urged the nation’s top law enforcement official to launch an investigation into numerous scandals swirling around Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Early in the 12:00 p.m. ET hour, Mitchell sneered: “...pretty extraordinary that the President of the United States and others in the Republican Party would be pressing the Attorney General to investigate the defeated opposition candidate on charges, frankly, that we have fact checked and that don’t add up.”
Apparently there’s no need for a formal investigation because she has already cleared her buddies the Clintons of any wrongdoing.
Mitchell directed her dismissive comment to former Obama Justice Department official Matt Miller, who predictably agreed that there was nothing to see here: “Yeah, it is a completely [in]appropriate thing for the President to have been doing. It would be a lawless action for the administration to take.”
A couple hours later, Tur became exasperated as she talked to Republican Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan:
Congressman, I don’t want to get down into a rabbit hole with the Clintons, but I mean, the Republicans and Congress and the FBI have investigated the Clintons over and over and over and over and over again. You’ve got Benghazi, the e-mail server, the Lewinsky investigation, travelgate, White Water, State Department e-mails, the list goes on and on. When will there be enough investigations into the Clintons?
Jordan quipped: “Yeah, which should tell us something about the Clintons.”
MSNBC’s “journalists” not only lack any basic curiosity about the Clinton scandals but they actually get upset when anyone raises them. That’s how you tell the difference between news reporters and partisan hacks so deep in the tank for Democrats that they get offended when their liberal narrative is challenged.
Morning Joe set the tone for the left-wing cable channel as host Joe Scarborough claimed that any effort by the Trump administration to investigate the Clintons would be "what Joseph Stalin would do."
Here are transcripts of the November 14 exchanges:
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:03 PM ET(...)
ANDREA MITCHELL: And Matt Miller, from your perspective having been at the Justice Department, pretty extraordinary that the President of the United States and others in the Republican Party would be pressing the Attorney General to investigate the defeated opposition candidate on charges, frankly, that we have fact checked and that don’t add up.
MATT MILLER: Yeah, it is a completely [in]appropriate thing for the President to have been doing. It would be a lawless action for the administration to take. The letter that Jeff Sessions sent last night was a really unusual letter – I should say that the Department of Justice sent to Congress. Usually you would get a letter like the ones they sent requesting a special counsel and say, “You know, we’ll look at the concerns you’ve raised and take whatever appropriate action we feel is warranted by the circumstances.” They went a bit further by raising the possibility that he might appoint a special counsel. That’s an unusual thing for the attorney general to do. I think the letter was sent to Congress but there was one audience Jeff Sessions really had in mind, and that’s his boss, the President, Donald Trump.
(...)MSNBC Live With Katy Tur
2:08 PM ET(...)
REP. JIM JORDAN [R-OH]: But when you think about what we have discovered of late relative to the Clinton Foundation, to the Iranian deal, to what Mr. Comey did in 2016 – excuse me – and the dossier, I think it warrants a special counsel. And let’s hope that he [Attorney General Jeff Sessions] ultimately makes that decision.
KATY TUR: Jeff Sessions threw cold water on that idea when you were asking him about it. He said that’s a pretty high bar. Congressman, I don’t want to get down into a rabbit hole with the Clintons, but I mean, the Republicans and Congress and the FBI have investigated the Clintons over and over and over and over and over again. You’ve got Benghazi, the e-mail server, the Lewinsky investigation, travelgate, White Water, State Department e-mails, the list goes on and on.
JORDAN: Yeah, which should tell us something about the Clintons.
TUR: When will there be enough investigations into the Clintons?
JORDAN: Well, it’s not about the Clintons, it’s about what the FBI did. It’s about the fact that we learned in the last few that the Clinton campaign team, the Democratic National Committee actually paid, through the law firm Fusion GPS, to produce the dossier. It’s about the fact that it’s been reported that the author of the dossier was on the FBI’s payroll. It’s about the fact that that dossier was likely used as the basis for the FISA warrant to spy on Americans associated with the Trump campaign.
TUR: Congressman –
JORDAN: If in fact that all happened – and it sure seems like it did – that warrants special attention. That’s all we’re saying. And you couple that with what took place in the summer of 2016, James Comey calling the Clinton investigation a “matter,” not an investigation, attempting to mislead the American people, Loretta Lynch meeting with former President Clinton on the tarmac just days before Secretary Clinton is scheduled to be interviewed by the FBI. All those things and a host of others, I think, point us to we need a special counsel to examine this.
TUR: I don’t mean to cut you off, but we’ve got to go back into the hearing with Jeff Sessions, I know you do too. One important distinction to make, there’s a special counsel investigating Russia and the Trump campaign because Jeff Sessions recused himself from that investigation. There’s no reason, it seems at the moment right now, to have a special counsel investigation into something that Jeff Sessions has not recused himself from.
(...)
