On the October 20 edition of Life, Liberty & Levin on the Fox News Channel, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) explained what NBC's Chuck Todd didn't want to hear two weeks before about attempts to sabotage Donald Trump's election inside the federal government. Todd yelled at Johnson to stop this "Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff."
"Chuck Todd cut me off when I started talking about the December 15, 2016 text from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page," the senator recalled. Levin, by contrast, read from a text message between the two powerful Justice Department officials who hated Trump.
MARK LEVIN: December 15, 2016 text from Peter Strzok to Lisa Page, quote, "Think our sisters," that would be the CIA --"
SEN. RON JOHNSON: Intelligence agencies, right.
LEVIN: " ...have begun leaking like mad, scorned and worried and political. They're kicking into overdrive."
JOHNSON: Again, this is during the transition, a little bit more than a month after the election. Six days before that is the first story that breaks and the CIA has actually attributed this leak.
LEVIN: The story is December 9, 2016, Boston Globe -- Washington Post headline, "CIA: Russia tried to help Trump win." "The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency." Is that what you're talking about?
JOHNSON: Precisely. Now, Mark, one of the things I had my staff do -- this was I think July of 2017, we issued a report because of all these leaks. And so I had a seasoned reporter on my staff from The Washington Post, one of the few conservatives. And, you know, we looked with Alexa search, and said, let's take a look at all these news stories that are talking about a leak. And in that --
LEVIN: This document here?
JOHNSON: Yes, in just 125 days, 126 days, there were 125 leaks into the news media. Sixty two of those had to do with national security, and that compares to in the same time period, nine in the Bush administration and eight under Obama. Sixty two national security leaks.
And this is where this whole narrative began back in December with Trump, you know, the campaign being aided by Russia and then finally turning into Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election from Hillary Clinton.
And that's resulted in the Special Counsel [Mueller] and has done great damage, I would argue to this democracy.
LEVIN: You think the FBI and the CIA set up this President, don't you?
JOHNSON: I have my suspicions. Let's put it that way. And again, when you've got Peter Strzok texting Lisa Page about his sisters are leaking like mad. What are they worried about? He talks about them being political. They are kicking it overdrive.
And that's all I asked Chuck Todd. I said, hey, you've got John Brennan on your show. Why don't you ask him what he was leaking? Or what the CIA might have been leaking?What was he potentially worried about? But Chuck didn't ask John Brennan that question at all. But I'd like to ask that question to John Brennan.
A few minutes earlier, Sen. Johnson made an excellent point about the power in the media's aggressive bias by omission:
JOHNSON: I've always known the bias in the media. But what I've really -- what's been really, really reinforced to me is the bias in the media is revealed far more in what they don't report, what they're not curious about versus the very overt and real bias in what they do report.
So it really is. If they're not curious about something, if they're not reporting it, it's not a news story, and that's what drives conservatives. That's what drives me. It drives you. It drives President Trump nuts.
LEVIN: Now, you've been looking into this Ukraine matter for a long time, long before the last month or two. Was Ukraine involved in the 2016 campaign? On whose side and how?
JOHNSON: Look, and this is, according to Politico. Chuck Grassley and I have an oversight letter referring to that article. It is written by Ken Vogel, who now works for The New York Times and again, he is talking about the potential of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC involvement, working with potentially corrupt actors in Ukraine trying to dig up dirt on President Trump or candidate Trump at that point in time, Paul Manafort.
But you know, it's also very possible and people don't really realize this as well, but you know, Hillary Clinton had a primary. There was one Joe Biden, potentially getting into that race as well. Is it just possible or plausible that maybe the DNC, maybe the Hillary Clinton campaign was also trying to dig up dirt on Joe Biden back then in Ukraine?
So no, there are so many questions. I'm really not throwing out any accusations. I'm not making any allegations. I'm just saying there's so many questions that remain unanswered. And they really remain unanswered, because by and large, the press has no curiosity about trying to get the answers to these things.
One major angle in all of this is how much Biden's Democrat rivals -- in the last election cycle and in the present election cycle -- have been digging in the Ukraine angle for a silver bullet to take Biden out of the running.
