Is it cognitive dissonance or outright ignorance to believe any prosecutor (District Attorney, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc.) investigating anyone else of a crime does not sometimes speak the way Peter Strzok and Lisa Page spoke in some texts during their involvement in investigating Trump's ties to Russia? I know Trey Gowdy and Louie Gohmert are, respectively, cynical and stupid hacks, as we saw how they milked "Benghazi" for years. But for anyone outside the cynical halls of Congress, I am wondering to myself, Has there really been a widespread belief that prosecutors have no private political views which may or may not color an investigation they are conducting? Doubtful. I think it is more cognitive dissonance on the part of Trumpists, who refuse to believe there was credible evidence, even in 2016, of Trump's longstanding ties to Russian oligarchs, and who are also in Stalinist-style denial over the way Trump fawns over Putin.
The author Philip Bump's point in this article in the Washington Post strikes me as completely correct. Strzok could have easily leaked lots of stuff about Trump's campaign communications and Trump's longstanding background with the Russian oligarchs, Deutsche Bank, etc. But after all the huffing and puffing from Republican Congresspeople yesterday, no evidence exists Strzok did. I would go even further than Bump, though. Let's say there is evidence Strzok leaked information regarding the FBI investigation into Trump during the 2016 election. People at Strzok's level and higher in the FBI have leaked crap about investigations they are working on for decades, and the higher the level at the FBI or CIA, the more often they will, when confronted in Congress, lie about it. Think Richard Helms' testimony about CIA activities in 1974 and 1975, for example. Think Mark Felt, who was more upset at not being named director after Hoover died than anything else...well, maybe because Nixon's "Plumbers" were encroaching on the FBI's "bag" work.
We already know Comey went public, days before the 2016 election, with the nothing story about HRC emails on Weiner's computer because Comey knew his mostly right wing FBI officials were already leaking the information (some to the Trump camp directly) and Comey figured, wrongly as it turned out, Make the information officially public, as HRC would win anyway.
I got a kick out of the question from one dope--I mean, Republican Congressman--who was trying to get Strzok to admit the FBI agents were mostly "liberal." That is a laugher and Strzok almost snickered in answering the question, stating quite clearly the agents at the FBI have been and remain mostly "conservative." It is so easy to forget how harsh Lindsey Graham and other Establishment Republicans were about Trump throughout the fall 2016 campaign, and one may imagine some otherwise right wing FBI fellows and ladies may have felt as Graham did about Trump. It doesn't make those folks suddenly "liberal," and, again, the irony is the FBI knew far more about Trump's contacts with the Russians, but that information did not leak hardly at all into any of the major newspapers, radio talk shows or television. What did get leaked from inside the FBI concerned the hyperventilating from right wing FBI guys and gals about HRC's emails--even though no credible evidence ever surfaced that there was anything truly compromising national security arising from her loose email habits. Noise, gossip, and some embarrassing things our enemies already knew, perhaps, but nothing more.
Meanwhile, people around Trump already know how excited Trump gets when he gets a chance to meet with Putin, and, next month, Trump is going to meet privately, with no note takers or witnesses, with Putin--all while Trump continues to freeze US relations with US allies. And Trump has declared a trade war with China, but he has exempted clothing, a big item if we look on the tags of our clothes, a move which, not coincidentally, protects his daughter's clothing business ties there.
Yup. Nothing to see here folks--except that Republicans in Congress are enablers of treason and grifting. And anyone voting to retain Republican power in Congress is enabling this behavior.
