Listen to this episode of the brand new “Conservative Playbook” on Apple Podcasts.
Let’s classify this particular piece of news as “hush hush” in the Republican’s political playbook. Even discussing it here runs the risk of leftist news outlets picking up on it and running with it on their own from a negative perspective, but since they’re mostly busy watching CNN or reading the Washington Post, it’s safe to give kudos to Attorney General William Barr here and now.
Yesterday, Department of Justice spokeswoman Kerri Kupec revealed to Fox News host Sean Hannity that Barr had assigned U.S. Attorney John Bash to investigate the “unmaskings” that took place before and after the 2016 election. She claimed that revelations from recently declassified materials demonstrated a need to expand the investigation of U.S. Attorney John Durham, prompting Barr to assign someone new to lead a separate investigation.
According to Kupec, “Unmasking inherently isn’t wrong, but certainly, the frequency, the motivation and the reasoning behind unmasking can be problematic, and when you’re looking at unmasking as part of a broader investigation—like John Durham’s investigation—looking specifically at who was unmasking whom, can add a lot to our understanding about motivation and big picture events.”
This, folks, is a purely political election year move. There is no chance that Bash’s investigation can lead to charges being filed against former Obama administration Deep State operatives like Peter Strzok, James Comey, or Susan Rice. This isn’t going to put Joe Biden or President Obama at risk. Instead, it will serve two important purposes. First, it will keep attention that is already relatively strong on the unmasking scandal itself. With so many previous administration officials involved in heavy-duty unmasking surrounding the Trump campaign, it’s certain that Bash’s investigation will find other questionable and politically motivated unmaskings that will make great headlines on Fox News and other right-leaning news outlets.
The second reason is even better news for fans of President Trump. By assigning a new U.S. Attorney to handle this angle of the investigation, it tells us that Durham has bigger fish to fry and seems to have them in his proverbial sights. If he didn’t, there would be no reason to separate out the investigations. But Barr is as brilliant of a political strategist as he is an Attorney General. He understands the political need to keep focus on the unmaskings but does not want Durham to waste resources on pursuing that angle himself.
For months, we’ve been skeptical that anything tangible would come from the Durham investigation. The Deep State has decades of experience with covering its tracks. But this new development from the DoJ gives us hope that they have something strong enough to keep their top attack dog chasing it while assigning someone new to pursue other angles. For the first time in a while, even the most skeptical among us should have hope that Durham and Barr are going to catch their prey.
All of this also gives us insight into how Durham is going to catch them. While the Deep State is adept at keeping a low profile, they felt the Trump presidency was important enough for them to stick their heads out of the shadows a lot further than they’re normally comfortable doing. Strzok in particular seems to be in the crosshairs based on a report by The Hill‘s Kevin Brock, who is a former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI. His report noted intriguing elements of the FBI document that launched Crossfire Hurricane—the investigation into Russian hacking of the 2016 election—that show just how partisan and corrupt it all was from the start.
According to Brock:
What this FBI document clearly establishes is that Crossfire Hurricane was an illicit, made-up investigation lacking a shred of justifying predication, sprung from the mind of someone who despised Donald Trump, and then blessed by inexperienced leadership at the highest levels who harbored their own now well-established biases.
To paraphrase a fired FBI director: No reasonable FBI counterintelligence squad supervisor in the field would have approved and opened that Strzok EC. They know the rules too well.
Instead, the nation was left with an investigation of a presidential campaign that had no legitimate predication; that spawned a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act intercept of a U.S. citizen that had no legitimate predication; that resulted in a confrontation with a new administration’s national security adviser that had no legitimate predication; and, finally, that led to an expensive special counsel investigation that had no legitimate predication. No pattern-recognition software needed here.
Hopefully, Exhibit A will be displayed in a federal courtroom soon. The rule of law, upon which the FBI rests its very purpose and being, was callously discarded by weak leaders who sought higher loyalty to their personal agendas, egos, biases and politics. Accountability is demanded by the American people. Let’s pray we see some.
AG Barr is running two plays at once. He has John Bash on the side investigation keeping focus on the unmaskings while John Durham continues to run point on the broader investigation. Finally, there’s hope that the truth will be revealed soon.
Check out the NEW NOQ Report Podcast.
