It appears the obstruction of justice attack against President Trump has backfired on his enemies. In the wake of fired FBI Director James Comey’s theatrical testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee June 8, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced it will hold hearings to “examine then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s involvement in the Clinton email server investigation.”
Comey’s testimony — which has been cherry-picked by the liberal mainstream media as the basis for assumed wrongdoing by President Trump — contained some bombshells for the liberal establishment. In particular, he testified that Attorney General Loretta Lynch told him not to call the Clinton e-mail investigation an “investigation,” but to refer to it as a “matter.”
The issue of Lynch interfering in the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server was first raised when Comey was asked by Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) about whether his decision to go public with the details of that investigation was “influenced by the Attorney General’s tarmac meeting with the former president, Bill Clinton?” Comey said it was because he felt he “had to do something separately to protect the credibility of the investigation, which meant both the FBI and the Justice Department.”
Burr asked if there were “other things that contributed to that, that you can describe in an open session?” Comey answered, “Probably the only other consideration that I guess I can talk about in open setting is that at one point the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me, but that was one of the bricks in the road that led me to conclude I have to step away from the department if we’re to close this case credibly.”
He made similar statements when Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked follow-up questions on that topic, going so far as to agree with Cornyn that he believed Lynch “had an appearance of a conflict of interest on the Clinton e-mail investigation,” saying, “That’s fair. I didn’t believe she could credibly decline that investigation. At least not without grievous damage to the Department of Justice and to the FBI.”
This meshes very nicely with a report by the New York Times in April that made mention of a “document, which has been described as both a memo and an email” that came to the attention of the FBI. That document has ousted DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s digital fingerprints all over it. As the Times reported:
During Russia’s hacking campaign against the United States, intelligence agencies could peer, at times, into Russian networks and see what had been taken. Early last year, F.B.I. agents received a batch of hacked documents, and one caught their attention.
The document, which has been described as both a memo and an email, was written by a Democratic operative who expressed confidence that Ms. Lynch would keep the Clinton investigation from going too far, according to several former officials familiar with the document.
Hamstringing the investigation by ordering the FBI director to mislead the public by calling it a “matter” instead of an investigation perfectly fits the description of keeping “the Clinton investigation from going too far.” After all, an investigation might “go too far” for those who wanted to protect Clinton, but a “matter” never ran that risk. Lynch’s interference also perfectly fits the description of “obstruction of justice.”
The Times article went on to say:
Normally, when the F.B.I. recommends closing a case, the Justice Department agrees and nobody says anything. The consensus in both places was that the typical procedure would not suffice in this instance, but who would be the spokesman?
The document complicated that calculation, according to officials. If Ms. Lynch announced that the case was closed, and Russia leaked the document, Mr. Comey believed it would raise doubts about the independence of the investigation.
Shortly after the FBI became aware of the document, the question, “who would be the spokesman” in announcing the close of the Clinton investigation (with no recommendation for indictment and no grand jury convened) became clear. Comey — it appears — drew the short straw.
Again, from the Times:
Mr. Comey sought advice from someone he has trusted for many years. He dispatched his deputy to meet with David Margolis, who had served at the Justice Department since the Johnson administration and who, at 76, was dubbed the Yoda of the department.
What exactly was said is not known. Mr. Margolis died of heart problems a few months later. But some time after that meeting, Mr. Comey began talking to his advisers about announcing the end of the Clinton investigation himself, according to a former official.
Comey also testified that Lynch refused to recuse herself after Comey challenged her about the secret meeting on the tarmac between her and Hillary’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. That meeting was five days before Hillary was to be interviewed by the FBI on the “matter” of her illegal use of a private e-mail server to send and receive classified e-mails. Just over a week after that meeting, Hillary was cleared by the FBI.
These dots are not hard to connect.
With the Senate Judiciary Committee’s announcement last week that it will hold hearings, those easily-connected dots could lead to some well-placed heads rolling. Or, it could lead to more interference from friends in high places putting another “matter” to rest to protect the liberal establishment.
This much is certain: Lynch should be made to answer some very hard questions — the answers to which would (or should) almost certainly lead to charges of obstruction. Ditto Wasserman Schultz. Ditto Bill Clinton. Ditto several other high-ranking DNC operatives and insiders.
Even if the heavy players in the liberal establishment manage to avoid having anyone go to jail for this, the stink of corruption — which they have tried ad nauseam to put on the Trump administration — won’t wash off anytime soon.
Photo of Loretta Lynch: AP Images
