Imagine the Left’s glass-shattering screams if a special counsel finally investigated Hillary Clinton’s collusion with the Kremlin, and these facts emerged:
If you back Hillary, and this make-believe scenario boils your blood, now you know how Trump supporters feel. We must endure facts that are precisely 180 degrees opposite the aforementioned fictions.
“Hillary Clinton is being investigated by her own fan club,” laments U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), an eloquent and increasingly visible freshman on the House Judiciary Committee. “The only way to get on Mueller’s team is to demonstrate a hatred for President Trump.”
Gaetz is hardly hyperbolic. Recent weeks have revealed the chilling extent to which special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI chief, has surrounded himself with pro-Hillary acolytes who scorn Trump and even his voters.
At worst, this is judicial corruption, rooted in bottomless affection for the subject of one inquiry and boundless disdain for the target of a different probe.
At best, this creates the appearance of corruption, whereby Mueller’s team and their FBI and DOJ colleagues seem so pro-Hillary and so anti-Trump that even their totally even-handed and perfectly honest conclusions would be attacked as either a phony exoneration of Hillary, a fake prosecution of Trump, or an over-reaction to criticism that prompted the opposite results. With Drano-like efficiency, these outcomes would corrode confidence in federal law-enforcement agencies and the rule of law.
Mueller’s inquest is terminally compromised, as these details demonstrate:
• At least nine of Mueller’s 16 prosecutors are Democrat donors:
Rush Atkinson $200
Brandon Van Grack $487
Elizabeth Prelogar $500
Michael Dreeben $1,000
Andrew Goldstein $3,300
Greg Andres $3,700
Andrew Weissman $4,300
Jeannie Rhee $16,450
James Quarles $32,800
According to CNN, only Quarles has financed Republicans ($2,500 to former Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah in 2015 and $250 to former Senator George Allen of Virginia). Quarles also maxed out to Hillary last year. Evidently, none of Mueller’s sleuths underwrote Trump.
Mueller should have avoided this entire ice patch by recruiting attorneys who financed neither candidate nor party. Each of America’s 94 U.S. attorneys supervises up to 350 assistant U.S. attorneys. The Washington, D.C. Bar boasts some 100,000 members. Among this veritable army of lawyers, Mueller could not find 16 with no record of political contributions? Really?
• Former FBI Counterintelligence Section Chief Peter Strzok was a leading member of Team Mueller. He traded some 10,000 text messages with his FBI colleague and mistress, Lisa Page, a former Mueller investigator. These two adored Hillary and found Trump repulsive.
“Trump is loathsome human,” Page texted Strzok on March 4, 2016. “OMG he’s an idiot,” Strzok replied. “He’s awful,” Page responded.
Later that day, Strzok told Page: “God Hillary should win. 100,000,00-0.”
Page wrote Strzok July 19, 2016: “Donald Trump is an enormous douche.”
Page told Strzok that August 6: “Trump should go f himself.” Strzok answered: “F TRUMP.”
That same day, Page wrote Strzok, “And maybe you’re meant to stay where you are because you’re meant to protect the country from that menace.” Strzok replied: “I can protect our country at many levels.”
“Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart,” Strzok informed Page that August 26. “I could SMELL the Trump support.” Page responded: “Yep. Out to lunch with [redacted]. We both hate everyone and everything.”
That October 6, Strzok texted: “Trump is a f***** idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.”
These two Hillary lovers and Trump haters have a right to their opinions. And if they were nailing credit-card fraudsters or drug dealers, this wouldn’t matter. However, Strzok’s beliefs became behavior.
Strzok guided the FBI’s review of Hillary’s illegal email system and abuse of classified documents. He participated in her July 2, 2016 unsworn interview. Strzok quizzed Hillary’s aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin.
Strzok massaged Comey’s exculpatory statement on Hillary, which Comey drafted in May 2016, two months before the FBI questioned Hillary and two dozen other Servergate witnesses. Comey’s document originally judged it “reasonably likely” that Hillary’s illegal, do-it-yourself computer server had been hacked by “hostile actors.” Later, the text called such a breach merely “possible.”
Strzok weakened Comey’s description of Hillary’s mishandling of state secrets. Comey originally called it “grossly negligent,” the Espionage Act of 1917’s legal standard for acts that would trigger prosecution. Strzok reportedly struck that term and, instead called Hillary’s malfeasance “extremely careless.” This novel formulation, which Comey unveiled at a July 5, 2016 press conference, humiliated Hillary, but spared her a federal indictment. So, Hillary for America hit a major speed bump, but staggered on. For Strzok: Mission accomplished.
As for Trump, Strzok signed the document that launched the FBI’s Russiagate probe of the then-candidate and his campaign’s alleged “collusion” with Russia.
Once Strzok’s anti-Trump texts surfaced, Mueller demoted him. Still, it took Mueller four months to give Congress this important news. This long delay stoked suspicions of monkey business.
Strzok now serves the FBI’s human resources department, where he presumably has access to personnel records. Where else would one assign a toxically partial supervisor who committed adultery with a fellow employee?
“Peter Strzok performed a virtual hat trick of political espionage,” wrote The American Spectator’s George Neumayr. “He went from inoculating Hillary against criminal prosecution (by convincing Comey to soften his description of her mishandling of classified information) to joining the quest to nail Trump, all while writing to his mistress, also at the FBI, that they had a mutual duty to prevent Trump from winning.”
• FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe rode shotgun during Comey’s inquest into Hillary’s lawless email system, codenamed “Midyear Exam.” McCabe’s wife, Jill, ran unsuccessfully for Virginia’s State Senate in 2015. She received $467,500 in campaign cash from Common Good VA, a PAC controlled by Governor Terry McAuliffe (D-VA), a long-time Clinton henchman and a former Clinton Foundation board member. McCabe did not disclose these donations on his FBI ethics report. And, despite these conflicts, McCabe did not recuse himself from Midyear Exam until November 1, 2016 — one week before Election Day.
• Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr was demoted due to his secret meetings with Glenn Simpson, founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition-research shop that developed a notorious, prurient, and discredited dossier on candidate Trump. Hillary for America and the Democrat National Committee paid Perkins Coie, a pro-Democrat law firm, to finance Fusion GPS’s Dumpster dive.
Ohr also met clandestinely with Christopher Steele, the former British spy whom Fusion GPS hired to write this report. Steele colluded with his Russian contacts to excavate (or fabricate) dirt on Trump.
Nellie Ohr, Bruce’s wife, conducted opposition research against Trump — as an employee of Fusion GPS!
• Justice Department Criminal Division Fraud Section Chief Andrew Weissman donated $2,300 to Obama and $2,000 to the DNC. He also attended Hillary’s Election Night 2016 cry-in at Manhattan’s Javits Center. Weissman e-mailed then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates when she defied President Trump and refused to enforce his restrictions on travel from seven terror-torn nations. “I am so proud,” Weissman wrote Yates on January 30. “And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects, Andrew Weissman.”
• Mueller investigator Jeannie Rhee maxed out to Hillary Clinton with $5,400 in donations in 2015 and ’16. She also gave Obama’s two presidential bids $7,300. As a private attorney, she represented the Clinton Foundation and Obama’s national security aide Ben Rhodes. Rhee also defended Hillary from lawsuits seeking her personal e-mails.
• Aaron Zebley, another Mueller team member, represented Justin Cooper, the computer specialist who installed the renegade server in Hillary’s Chappaqua, New York, mansion. As the walls closed in on Hillary, Cooper smashed two of her mobile devices with a hammer.
FBI agents and Justice Department officials have every right to their partisan views. But they must not let these preferences drown their objectivity and fairness as federal officials. More so, egregious bias tempts injustice, or at least creates the appearance of it.
“We are now beginning to better understand the magnitude of this insider bias on Mr. Mueller’s team,” House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) lamented at a December 13 hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Goodlatte called these prejudices “deeply troubling to all citizens who expect a system of blind and equal justice.” He added: “High-ranking FBI officials involved in the Clinton investigation were personally invested in the outcome of the election, and clearly let their strong political opinions cloud their professional judgment.”
It would be bad enough had these officials rested a thumb or two on a scale of justice. Far worse, they shoved it down with their fists.
What next?
Mueller’s examination is tainted beyond repair. He immediately should report what now seems inescapable: the allegation that Team Trump colluded with Moscow to steal the election is an evidence-free Democrat acid trip. Mueller then should disband the FBI chapter of the Hillary Clinton Fan Club. Its members in and around his team should face congressional investigators. If these Hillaryphiles broke the law, Congress should forward criminal referrals to Attorney General Jeff Sessions for prosecution. As for any unethical non-criminals in this bunch, disbarment should remain an option.
Beyond that, a final exam’s worth of questions about Hillary and Bill Clinton still demands answers — from Servergate, to Uranium One, to the bribes-for-favors exchange also known as the Clinton Foundation.
“We’ve never seen the FBI report on Hillary Clinton. We’ve just seen a synopsis of it drafted by Jim Comey,” former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Danny Coulson recently told Fox News Channel’s Eric Shawn. “An FBI report is made up of FD 302s — Reports of Investigation. Let’s see what those say.”
“I don’t want a special prosecutor. We don’t need that,” Coulson added. “Don’t do this sophomoric grand-juryless investigation. Bring a grand jury in and present the evidence.”
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
