(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Hey Weaponization Committee, This Is What Real Weaponization Looks Like [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-09 The new House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is ready to roll, and if this was actually a serious group – which it isn’t – I’ve got its first case. The New York Times recently ran an extensive piece about historically corrupt former Attorney General Bill Barr’s efforts to use his office to discredit Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election. Lying about Mueller’s report has been a feature, not a bug, when it comes to Barr and a lot of other Republicans, all in service to former President/unindicted criminal Donald Trump. In reality, Mueller’s report outlined “numerous links between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” that Russia worked to help Trump win, and that his campaign had expected to benefit from the foreign interference, the Times reported. That probe not only detailed Russia’s activities, but it also revealed multiple cases of potential obstruction of justice by Trump as he tried to stop Mueller’s work. That sure sounds like weaponization of the federal government to me. It seems a natural step for a group that its Republican backers claim will be empowered to investigate any federal agency that collects information about Americans, even in the case of an ongoing criminal investigation – such as the Department of Justice and our intelligence agencies -- to really take a hard look at this. Of course, we know better. The only goal of the Republican members of this committee is to discredit investigations into their cult leader Trump – including Mueller’s work, the Jan. 6 insurrectionist attack on the Capitol, and the former president’s theft and subsequent withholding from investigators of classified documents. That and to try to come up with a wealth of sound bite to use against Democrats in the upcoming 2024 elections. So, you can pretty much forget about it if you think this offshoot of a corrupt Republican Party is going to take a serious look at Barr’s shenanigans in support of Trump – which happen to be the definition of weaponization of the federal government. In that case, with the help of the Times, we will. To review, in 2019 Barr brought in Attorney John Durham to serve as special counsel in what was basically an investigation of the investigators. Special counsels are assigned to remove an investigation from the Department of Justice’s regular staff to prevent the appearance of political favoritism. That façade got shot to hell as Barr proceeded to jump into the mix, including taking trips with Durham to Europe to accuse investigators over there of providing information about the Trump campaign to U.S. officials, which he apparently hoped would help discredit Mueller and his team. Barr wanted desperately to prove the theory offered by Trump, his lackeys, and his cult that the investigation was the result of a conspiracy by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Now, Durham’s investigation is winding down without any evidence of the “deep state” plot that so warmed the hearts of those on the Right. Here are some of the Times’s findings: *Here’s something that shouldn’t surprise anyone: during the course of Durham’s investigation, he received a tip from Italian officials linking Trump to certain suspected financial crimes. The Times hasn’t been able to uncover the specifics of the case yet, but it was serious enough that even Trump lapdogs like Barr and Durham knew it had to be investigated. But, instead of assigning it to another prosecutor, Barr kept it quiet by having Durham investigate it, even though it really didn’t fall under the assigned scope of his probe. As the Times reported: “Mr. Durham never filed charges, and it remains unclear what level of an investigation it was, what steps he took, what he learned and whether anyone at the White House ever found out. “The extraordinary fact that Mr. Durham opened a criminal investigation that included scrutinizing Mr. Trump has remained secret.” *Durham used questionable intelligence memos to gain access to emails of an aide to George Soros, a financier, philanthropist, and frequent target of the Right. The thing is, other U.S. officials suspected these memos contained disinformation, and after a judge twice rejected his requests for the emails, Durham used grand jury powers to keep pursing them. Not surprisingly, they ended up providing no evidence ever cited by Durham. *Complicating the Barr-Durham scam was a report by the Justice Department’s independent Inspector General Michael Horowitz, whose investigation into the origins of the Russian probe concluded that there was no evidence that the FBI’s actions were politically motivated. He said the basis for the investigation came from an Australian diplomat’s tip that a Trump campaign advisor had seemed to disclose advance knowledge that Russia would release hacked Democratic emails, and that this had been sufficient to lawfully open in. Durham subsequently tried to talk Horowitz into dropping his finding that the diplomat’s tip had been sufficient for a “full” counterintelligence investigation by the FBI, and that it was at most enough for a “preliminary” probe, the Times explained. Is that like trying to thread the needle when you don’t have any tread? This led Barr to slither out from under a rock and -- just minutes before the report was released -- issue a statement contradicting Horowitz’s major finding. Barr declared the FBI opened the investigation “on the thinnest of suspicions.” He later told Fox News the investigation began “without any basis.” In technical terms, that’s called desperately lying after your con has been revealed. By the way, Durham never presented any evidence contradicting Horowitz’s findings about the FBI’s basis for opening the investigation. Are we surprised about that? *After realizing they weren’t going to find any intelligence abuses, Barr and Durham pivoted to another witch hunt. They started looking for ways to accuse the Hillary Clinton campaign of conspiring to defraud the government by manufacturing the suspicions that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia. They also investigated what the FBI and intelligence officials knew about the Clinton’s campaign’s action. In other words, after seeing their phony investigation unravel, they decided the best course of action was to start another phony investigation. I guess desperate times really do call for desperate measures. The Times’ story is a must read. You can see it here. If you’d like to learn more about the Mueller Report or just refresh your memory, here are some previous posts that might help. Five posts outlining possible acts of obstruction by Trump found in the Mueller report: This is What Obstruction Looks Like: Navigating the Maze This is What Obstruction Looks Like: Trump and Comey This is What Obstruction Looks Like: Trump and Sessions This is What Obstruction Looks Like: Trump and McGahn This is What Obstruction Looks Like: All the Presidents Men A three-post series of what the Muller report tells us about what Russia did: Lost in Obstruction: Trump’s Strategy Counts on Our Ignorance Lost in Obstruction: Russia’s Active Measures on Social Media Lost in Obstruction: Russia’s Hacking of the 2016 Election The story of Trump’s attempt to have White House Counsel Don McGahn remove Mueller and the attempted cover-up: Trump Doesn’t Want Us To Hear From McGahn; Here’s Why A look at possible witness tampering involving Michael Flynn: This is What Obstruction Looks Like: Witness Tampering An overview of Trump’s possible acts of obstruction: An Unobstructed View of a Criminal President *** Thank you for reading my post. You can see more of my writings on my blog: Musings of a Nobody. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/9/2152115/-Hey-Weaponization-Committee-This-Is-What-Real-Weaponization-Looks-Like Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/