In a Thursday interview with Wolf Blitzer, frequent CNN guest and Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff (Calif.) inanely wondered why only anti-Donald Trump texts and no anti-Hillary Clinton texts from Robert Mueller's partisan Democrat-dominated investigative team have been presented to Congress.
Naturally, Schiff engaged in this pathetic misdirection on CNN, where he was confident he wouldn't be challenged — and he wasn't.
The California congressman also attempted to draw a false equivalence between reports that FBI agents were outraged before the presidential election at the free-pass treatment Mrs. Clinton received for her e-mail scandal and the Trump-antagonistic attitudes recently exposed among members of the Bureau's top management and Mueller's team.
Additionally, in the interview clip which follows, readers will see Schiff essentially criticizing FBI and DOJ leadership for cooperating with Congress — as if the Bureau is somehow above Congress's constitutionally mandated oversight function:
Transcript (bolds are mine throughout this post):
BLITZER: Let’s get back to the deputy attorney general rod Rosenstein, faced a lot of questions about these text messages, controversial text messages, that were sent between two FBI officials. One — First of all, you raised this earlier but I want you to elaborate. What was the impact of the Justice Department releasing those text messages?
SCHIFF: From my point of view, it violates the very injunction fact that Rod Rosenstein took such issue with, with James Comey. He’s revealing internal department of justice materials during the pendency of an investigation and providing them to the press. What is the explanation for that? [1] There’s no real good explanation for that except a self-serving one from the department. And I also think that when you look at the context of the allegations that the DoJ Inspector General is investigating, they were very selective in what they released. There were multiple reports last year that the FBI was heavily predisposed against Hillary Clinton and in favor of Donald Trump. [2] If there are text messages that run in the other direction, why have they not also been released? [3] Why only this selective release? That’s the problem with doing it this way. And —
BLITZER: Because the ones that have been released that are very anti-Trump.
SCHIFF: “The ones released are — to the degree they bear at all, as far as I can tell, are anti-Trump. Does that mean they are not investigating the same allegation running in the opposite direction? Does that mean that they have been selective in what they’re releasing to the public? I think what this does mean, Wolf, is the Deputy Attorney General and the Justice Department are feeling the pressure, and they cannot allow themselves to be bullied this way. [4] They allow themselves to be bullied by lifting the gag rule on this witness at the White House urging, that was a mistake. That violated policy, also. This is the second demonstration of the department of justice, I think, violating their own best practices because of pressure. [5] And it doesn’t lend itself to a neat ending if it they continue down this path.
Here's a few things to consider:
[1] — Schiff "pendency" argument is bogus. Based on what is known about them, the texts reveal nothing specific about matters directly germane to the Mueller team's investigation, only attitudes that are so hostile towards Trump, their primary target, they would lead any reasonable person to believe that they are unable to conduct an impartial investigation.
[2] — All that was revealed last year before the presidential election was that FBI agents on the ground were appalled at the free pass Hillary Clinton received, and that, in an usual move, those involved in the Clinton probe were placed under an investigation-specific gag order.
Based on this piece, some FBI agents believed that the investigation's conclusions were cooked from the beginning, and that the Bureau's top management and the Department of Justice did the cooking.
At the end of the day, their concerns aren't without merit. James Comey had his conclusion that Mrs. Clinton should not be charged with a crime written "months" before he interviewed her and several others involved, and Trump-hating FBI agent Peter Strzok helped him water down the related document's language to ensure that Mrs. Clinton would not be publicly accused of having committed a crime.
Contuining on with the notes:
[3] — How naive does Schiff think we are? We already knew that the Mueller team is overloaded with campaign contribution-giving Democrats. Thanks to the texts, we know that two team members were so intensely and blindly partisan that they couldn't abide the idea that Donald Trump might become President.
[4] — Translation: "You guys are on the front lines of the Resistance. You need to strengthen your resistance."
[5] — If anything, FBI and DOJ haven't been subjected to enough pressure. Exhibit A is their repeated refusal, effectively behaving like they are above the law" for over two years, to respond to congressional and even judicial requests for information and even subpoenas.
As seen in his statement in the middle of the transcript above, CNN's Wolf Blitzer either didn't know or chose to be willfully ignorant of the partisan Democrat bias that some have argued has enveloped Mueller's team. He also failed to challenge Schiff when he falsely implied that FBI resistance to Mrs. Clinton's kid-glove treatment originated in the Bureau's top management.
Viewers who can stand it can go to 23-minute mark of the video of the related full hour of Blitzer's The Situation Room and see that the host failed to follow up on Schiff's false equivalence, instead moving on to a discussion of who will be involved in planned interviews of specific witnesses.
Despite engaging in his usual dodgy performance, Schiff betrayed a demeanor that was clearly not quite the practiced calm we've been used to seeing since he's become the designated Democratic Party defender of the Mueller probe and the Russia-stole-the-election-for-Trump narrative. That's because it appears that despite their best efforts, Democrats and their media enablers may be losing control of that narrative.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
