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Levin: Roy Moore Was GOP Nominee Due to ‘Not-So-Clever Shenanigans’ of ‘Not-So-Smart’ McConnell, Rove and Law

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by JEFF POOR

Wednesday on his nationally syndicated radio program, conservative talker Mark Levin said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), former Bush adviser Karl Rove and Senate Leadership Fund head Steve Law were in part to blame for Roy Moore’s defeat in Alabama on Tuesday.

Levin argued Moore’s upset loss to Democrat Doug Jones had nothing to do with President Donald Trump, saying if the presidential election were today, Trump would still win the state of Alabama by a landslide.

“Enough of this nonsense that Donald Trump lost Alabama and so forth and so on. It had nothing to do with Donald Trump – nothing, zero,” Levin explained. “But it had a lot to do with Mitch McConnell, the media, the Republican establishment, their media surrogates, their surrogates who write op-eds and columns, their editorial page surrogates.”

Levin explained how McConnell and his allies worked to get Luther Strange elected to the U.S. Senate, which began by targeting one of Strange’s primary opponents, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL).

“Mitch McConnell decided he was going to reach into the race in Alabama and try and control the outcome,” he said. “He wanted Luther Strange to win. Why did he want Luther Strange to win? Because he was a great conservative? No. Because he is a great man of incredible ethics? No. Because Luther Strange was the only one of the three, who said he would vote for Mitch McConnell to be majority leader. Mo Brooks, the conservative, said no, I won’t support him, as did Roy Moore. Then McConnell and [Karl] Rove, and a guy named Steve Law and others – they calculated that their biggest problem should there be a runoff, should there be a runoff – no candidate getting 50 percent in the Republican primary – their biggest problem would be Mo Brooks. How do I know it? They told Politico that.”

Levin cited a July Politico story that laid out how McConnell sought to advance Strange’s candidacy, a plan that ultimately failed after Moore defeated Strange in the GOP runoff last September.

“The problem is, ladies and gentlemen, Mitch McConnell was wrong,” Levin said. “He miscalculated. They took out Mo Brooks, but they didn’t defeat Roy Moore in the runoff, now did they? Roy Moore was the nominee in part as result of the not-so-clever shenanigans and efforts by the not-so-smart McConnell, Rove and Law who do this a lot from their offices in Washington, DC.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

Michelle Malkin: ‘How Many More People Have to Die’ Before Congress Ends ‘Visa Lottery?’

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by JOHN BINDER

Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends,” conservative commentator Michelle Malkin slammed Republicans and Democrats in Congress for failing to end the so-called diversity visa lottery program, an immigration policy that’s been under fire for being exploited by foreign terror suspects.

Malkin attacked the GOP-led Congress for not having already ended the visa lottery, where 50,000 visas are randomly given out to foreign nationals from a multitude of countries. Those countries include ones with known terrorist problems, such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Yemen, and Uzbekistan.

Partial transcript as follows:

There are millions of people around the world who are clamoring to get in here the right way and the fact that we still do it randomly tells you how much insanity — politically incorrect sanity — has set in. I mean, it was just seven weeks ago with the truck jihadist, who also got in here through the Diversity Visa Lottery and also benefitted from the chain migration insanity that we had people saying ‘Oh yeah, we’ve got to get rid of it! We’ve got to get rid of it!’And I’m so exasperated my friends because I’ve been calling for the end of this program for the last 15 years.

We should value citizenship and entry into this country much more than we have been and both parties have shrugged their shoulders. There have been legislative bills, stand-alone bills, to eliminate the Diversity Visa program for the last 15 years. They’ve gathered dust. The SAFE Act, before the House Judiciary Committee in 2011, just sat there doing nothing. We’ve got the RAISE Act, which is co-sponsored by Tom Cotton and David Perdue, which would have eliminated the Visa Lottery program. It’s been gathering dust. How many more people have to die or be threatened before we get rid of this stupidity?

This week it was revealed that 27-year-old Akayed Ullah, a Bangladesh national accused of injuring three individuals when he allegedly tried to detonate a suicide bomb in New York City in a planned terrorist attack, had arrived in the United States in 2011 as a “chain migrant” of his uncle who had previously come to the country through the visa lottery.

Chain migration allows new immigrants to the United States to bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives with them.

Under the visa lottery system, 14,869 Bangladeshi nationals entered the U.S. between 2007 and 2012, as Breitbart News reported.

Follow John Binder on Twitter @JxhnBinder

Tillerson’s ‘No Preconditions’ For North Korea Means Things Are Worse Than We Thought

Rex Tillerson’s startling comments signal that Pyongyang is truly on the cusp of having a nuclear-capable intercontinental missile and that a military conflict might be fast approaching.
By Megan G. Oprea

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent shockwaves through the foreign policy establishment this week when he suggested that the United States is prepared, for the first time, to come to the negotiating table with North Korea without any preconditions or promises from Pyongyang that it would halt, even if just temporarily, its nuclear program.

Tillerson’s startling comments, which mark a major departure from U.S. policy and part significantly with President Trump’s views on the North Korea crisis, signal that Pyongyang is truly on the cusp of having a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and that a military conflict might be fast approaching.

On Monday, an analysis was released by “38 North,” a U.S. website specializing in North Korea, indicating Pyongyang may be getting ready to test another nuclear weapon. The country’s last test, in early September, was estimated to have been 17 times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The September test resulted in a fresh round of international sanctions, which, apparently, have done nothing to deter the hermit kingdom from moving ahead apace with its nuclear program. North Korea is similarly catapulting forward with its ICBM program, making steady progress and demonstrating this year that it now has the capability to reach the entire continental United States.

China Is Making Contingency Plans

By all accounts, the North is far ahead of previous estimates of when it would attain nuclear capability. With Pyongyang’s rapid progress, the deployment of anti-missile systems to South Korea, Trump’s boisterous posturing, and the evident failure of international sanctions, a growing number of experts estimate that some kind of war or conflagration is possible in 2018.

China doesn’t seem all that interested in making significant efforts toward curbing North Korea’s nuclear program, despite the Trump administration’s persistence in believing that it is. Yet Beijing is forming a contingency plan in the event of the collapse of its neighboring client state, either from an outside pre-emptive strike or a self-imposed political implosion.

China is preparing for the waves of refugees that would attempt to enter China under such a scenario. According to recent reports, China has been setting up refugee camps along its border with North Korea and has conducted several military drills in that region. An even greater sign that China is fully cognizant of how fragile the situation has become is the fact that China and the United States are discussing contingency plans for North Korea’s collapse for the first time ever.

No doubt with all of this in mind, Tillerson told an audience at the Atlantic Council on Tuesday that the United States would come to the negotiating table with North Korea without any preconditions. He did, however, say this would only be possible after a “period of quiet” in which the North didn’t test any nuclear weapons or missiles.

A Shift from Nuclear Prevention to Nuclear Containment

Tillerson’s comments mark a significant change from the policy of previous U.S. administrations. More importantly, his remarks are a tacit acknowledgement that America has failed to stop Pyongyang from developing its nuclear and ICBM programs. It is, in effect, an admission that we are shifting our North Korea policy from nuclear prevention to nuclear containment.

Even so, Tillerson insists containment is not a strategic option. The secretary of state said the United States would not settle for a North Korean containment strategy, whereby American would learn to live with a nuclear North Korea while deterring it from using its nukes, with promises of a second strike that would wipe the country from the map. He argued that North Korea is different from other nuclear powers because it wouldn’t simply content itself to sit on its nuclear technology the way Russia did during the Cold War. Instead, it would “become a commercial activity for them,” selling that technology to the highest bidder.

It’s hard not to have some sympathy for Tillerson. The outbreak of hostilities on the Korean peninsula is increasingly possible and North Korea doesn’t appear interested in accepting anything less than retaining its nuclear weapons and ICBMs. Tillerson is hoping that if he can just get the North Koreans to the table then surely they can be reasoned with — surely war can be avoided without having to accept a nuclear North Korea.

But years of diplomacy have proven that Pyongyang is not persuadable on the nuclear question. That doesn’t mean diplomacy should be given up, but starting out by conceding something like preconditions sends a message of weakness and signals that the United States is desperate — which, maybe it is.

We Have No Good Options Here

Meanwhile, 58 retired American military leaders wrote to President Trump on Wednesday, urging him to seek a diplomatic resolution to the conflict and not to take military action. They wrote that “Military options must not be the preferred course of action,” and pleaded with the president to “exhaust every possible diplomatic solution.”

The retired military leaders are clearly worried that the United States is going to launch a pre-emptive strike, in part based on Trump’s penchant for posturing. However, it’s not clear what exactly they want the Trump administration to do diplomatically, unless it’s along the lines of Tillerson’s proposed negotiations without preconditions.

Or perhaps they think that the United States should give in to Pyongyang’s own preconditions for negotiating, which Beijing supports: that the North will only negotiate if the United States and South Korea desist all military drills in the region. But this would be naïveté of the highest order, leaving the America, South Korea, and Japan exposed and vulnerable to Chinese domination and North Korean brinkmanship, while weakening America’s negotiating position.

Henry Nau argues in his book, “Conservative Internationalism,” that diplomacy must be conducted hand-in-hand with the threat of force. Using armed diplomacy means not waiting to use force until negotiations have failed, but using force, and the credible threat of force, alongside negotiations, to help make diplomacy actually work.

In Nau’s words, one ought to “time diplomatic initiatives to coincide with maximum military strength.” Let’s hope Tillerson understands this as he and Kim Jong Un dance around the negotiation table.

Megan G. Oprea is a senior contributor to The Federalist and editor of the foreign policy newsletter INBOUND. She holds a PhD in French linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin. You can follow her on Twitter here.

NY Governor Mansplains Sexual Harassment To Female Reporter

JAZZ SHAW

As we’ve noted here recently, it’s been quite a while since the Governor of New York held an actual press conference to field unscripted questions from the press. (When I asked the Governor’s spokesman for a comment about that, I was told, “The governor typically has three to five events per week where he regularly takes questions.” Well… sort of…) That changed yesterday when Andrew Cuomo took questions from reporters on a range of subjects. And as a mailer from the New York GOP stated, it reminded us why he tends to “hide out” in the first place. Let’s just say things could have gone better.

After sexual harassment allegations hit members of the New York state government, reporter Karen DeWitt asked the governor what seemed like a fairly basic question: were there any new policies being put in place to eliminate the problem going forward? Any seasoned politician should have had an answer ready for that one, if only to say that they’re working on this serious problem and an announcement would be forthcoming shortly. Sadly, Cuomo opted for a different route, explaining to her why she shouldn’t be asking about sexual harassment in state government because… something, something, something. (Associated Press)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a female journalist she was doing “a disservice to women” Wednesday by asking what his administration was doing to confront sexual harassment in state government.

Public radio reporter Karen DeWitt asked the Democratic governor whether he was considering new policies in light of the national attention on sexual misconduct, as well as the recent resignation of a state economic development official who was under investigation for harassment.

Cuomo did not directly answer her question, and instead asked her and other reporters what they were doing to address harassment in their organizations.

“I think you missed the point,” he told DeWitt. “When you say ‘it’s state government’ you do a disservice to women, with all due respect, even though you’re a woman.”

Here’s the video of the uncomfortable moment, straight from Twitter.

New York NOW@NYNOW_PBS

The governor's exchange with @kdewitt7 on possible changes to the state's sexual harrassment policy in light of the surge in national stories on the issue, along with ex-aide Sam Hoyt.


So a female reporter asking about government policy regarding sexual harassment is, “doing a disservice to women.” Just by asking? And somehow this guy is expected to be easily reelected next year and is rumored to be preparing for a possible presidential bid. It’s getting to the point where I seriously hope he gets the nomination. The press conferences alone should be pay-per-view events.

We have some bonus footage from the same press conference. As you may recall, the FBI is looking into some appointments made by Cuomo, where political consultants from the Obama and Clinton teams were brought in to work for the governor, but were somehow on the payroll of other government agencies having nothing to do with running campaigns. Watch what happens when reporters ask Cuomo about that. It doesn’t go well, as Cuomo’s temper flares at the audacity of the reporter bringing up the subject.

REPORTER: “Why did you hire political people and put them in agencies whose mission has nothing to do with campaigns?”

CUOMO: “I don’t even understand what you’re talking about.”

REPORTER: “Well, you hired people from the Obama and Clinton campaigns and you put them on the state payroll. But you put them in agencies.. .the missions of the agencies have nothing to do with campaigns and politics.”

CUOMO: “Have you been in Albany? Have you covered government? Do people who have political experience get hired by government? Or is this a new fact?“

Again, a perfectly reasonable question from the press getting to the heart of precisely what the FBI is looking into. (And before this answer, Cuomo acknowledges that it’s what they’re investigating.) The answer, aside from sounding rather angry, doesn’t explain the situation at all. These are professional campaign operatives with backgrounds in planning (and presumably winning) elections. But the taxpayers are footing the bill for their salaries out of the budgets of agencies tasked with things such as maritime operations and children’s services. Seems like a logical question to ask. Sadly, there were no answers forthcoming.

Comey's Edits In Clinton Investigation Revealed!

Newly released documents reveal that then-FBI Director James Comey’s draft statement on the Hillary Clinton email probe was edited numerous times before his public announcement, in ways that seemed to considerably water down the bureau’s findings.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, released copies Thursday of the edits to Comey’s highly scrutinized statement.

One showed language was changed to describe the actions of Clinton and her colleagues as “extremely careless” as opposed to “grossly negligent.” This is a key legal distinction.

Johnson, writing about his concerns in a letter Thursday to FBI Director Christopher Wray, said the original “could be read as a finding of criminality in Secretary Clinton’s handling of classified material.”

Whoopi Goldberg on Planned Parenthood “No One is Harvesting Baby Parts”

TOM BLUMER   

In November 2015, Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar at The View rudely shut down then-presidential candidate Carly Fiorina, insisting that she was lying when she stated that Planned Parenthood had admitted to harvesting baby parts from aborted fetuses.

On Friday, in a development which is predictably failing to get the media visibility it deserves, Orange County’s district attorney announced a $7.8 million settlement with two California companies accused of “selling fetal-derived cells and tissues” obtained from fetal body parts acquired from Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. When will ABC demand that Whoopi and Joy apologize to Fiorina — and to the nation?

Here is the relevant November 6, 2015 video excerpt:

Transcript (bolds are mine throughout this post):

CARLY FIORINA: Let’s just start with abortion.

JOY BEHAR: OK.

FIORINA: I mentioned common ground. Actually, the American people have found common ground on this issue. Whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life — I’m pro-life. But whether you’re pro-choice or pro-life, the majority of Americans are horrified by the reality that we’re harvesting baby parts through late-term abortions.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Carly, I need to stop you —

FIORINA: The majority of Americans —

GOLDBERG: — because that is not — you know that’s not true.

FIORINA: You asked me a question.

GOLDBERG: Carly, no one is harvesting baby parts.

FIORINA: Well, that’s interesting. That’s interesting.

GOLDBERG: No one is harvesting baby parts.

FIORINA: That’s interesting—

GOLDBERG: Oh, Carly, come on, girl —

FIORINA: — that Planned Parenthood. It’s interesting that Planned Parenthood just announced that they were no longer going to take compensation for that —

GOLDBERG: They were not harvesting baby parts, baby. They were not harvesting — go ahead, Carly, because, yeah, you have the floor. My bad.

BEHAR: You can’t say things like that that aren’t true. That offends my sensibility to hear you say something like that when you know it’s not true.

By November 2015, 11 undercover videos had already been released by the Center for Medical Process showing that Planned Parenthood had indeed been harvesting fetal body parts, and that the abortion provider was profiting from their sale, not merely recovering its costs.

As Steven Ertelt reminded everyone at LifeNews on Saturday in his coverage of the settlement, the first two of those 11 videos released in July 2015 — almost four months before the confrontation on The View — showed that Planned Parenthood was harvesting baby parts — even to the point of modifying its abortion procedures to ensure that intact parts could be obtained — and that it was a profit-generating enterprise:

• In the first video: Dr. Deborah Nucatola of Planned Parenthood commented on baby-crushing: “We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that, so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it all intact.”
• In the second video: Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Mary Gatter joked, “I want a Lamborghini” as she negotiated the best price for baby parts.

The next nine CMP-released videos listed at the Life News link, plus other CMP footage published after a hacker stole it from a Congressional committee, further documented Planned Parenthood’s and its customers’ grisly baby-parts-for-profit practices. All of them were released before that November episode of The View.

Additionally, as Fiorina noted, by that time Planned Parenthood had already announced, as seen in an October 13, 2015 dispatch at the Associated Press, that it would “maintain programs at some of its clinics that make fetal tissue available for research, but will cover the costs itself rather than accepting any reimbursement.” In other words, the harvesting which had been occurring for years would continue, but the compensation would cease.

Ertelt’s rundown of the Orange County settlement really should be read in full, as it has many ugly details the few media outlets covering the story have avoided mentioning. Here are his three opening paragraphs:

Two Companies That Sold Aborted Baby Parts for Planned Parenthood Forced to Close Down

In what is the first successful prosecution in the scandal involving Planned Parenthood, the abortion industry, and the sale of aborted baby parts, two companies that sold aborted baby parts for the nation’s biggest abortion company have been forced to close down.

The two California-based companies reached a settlement with the Orange County District Attorney’s office of almost $8 million dollars. As a result of the settlement the two companies will close up shop over the next couple of months and will no longer be selling parts from babies killed in abortions for Planned Parenthood or anyone else.

This is huge news and the first successful result of the effort by the Center for Medical progress and leading pro-life organizations to expose the industry surrounding the sale of aborted baby parts.

A March 2016 Center for Medical Progress video demonstrated that that the two companies, Da Vinci Biosciences and DV Biologics, had “been harvesting baby parts at the local (Orange County) Planned Parenthood for sale across the county.”

The Orange County DA learned that the scope of the companies’ sales was far broader, finding, as reported by Ertelt, that they were “illegally selling parts of aborted babies’ brains for as much as $1,100 from 2009-2015 to pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions in Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, the Netherlands, Canada and the United Kingdom.”

According to a Friday story at the Los Angeles Times, which is treating the news as a local item, a complaint filed by CMP in September 2015 triggered the Orange County DA’s initial investigation. Longtime NewsBusters commenter Gary Hall has informed me that the story appeared in Monday’s print edition on Page B3 in … the business section.

The Associated Press’s unbylined Saturday story on the settlement waited until its final paragraph to tersely mention CMP’s involvement, and failed to acknowledge that CMP’s undercover videos brought Planned Parenthood’s previously secret harvesting-for-profit practices to the nation’s attention.

Neither the LA Times nor the AP published a reaction from CMP head Dale Daleiden, so I will: “@DaVinciBio admission of guilt for selling baby parts from @PPOSBC is a ringing vindication of @CtrMedProgress citizen journalism methods and accuracy.” #PPSellsBabyParts #ShutThemDown.”

A relevant Google News search done at 11 a.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday indicates that there has been very little other establishment press coverage. The stories which have appeared betray a conscious attempt to keep “baby parts” out of their headlines and content in favor of the sanitized term “fetal tissue.”

Based only on what was known two years ago, Whoopi Goldberg’s and Joy Behar’s rude, bullying treatment of GOP presidential candidate Fiorina was so completely out of line that it should have led to immediate and serious disciplinary action against the pair. But of course it didn’t. News of the Orange County, California settlement should lead to further calls for Goldberg and Behar to apologize to Fiorina and their viewers for their behavior, and for calling Fiorina a liar when they were clearly the ones who were lying.

8 Worst Defenses Of FBI Agent’s Anti-Trump ‘Insurance Policy’ Texts
How do the media handle dramatic updates that counter their narrative? This week, text messages sent by Peter Strzok, a chief investigator of the Clinton and Russia collusion probes, were released to Congress.

In investigating Donald Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia to steal the 2016 election, the media have found no story too small, no detail too minor to cover. Each leak that can be even remotely tied to the narrative of Russia harming America with the Trump campaign’s help is exploited and hyped for round-the-clock attention. To give just one example, CNN ran a report in May dramatically headlined “First on CNN: AG Sessions did not disclose Russia meetings in security clearance form, DOJ says.”

The story said Sessions failed to note at least two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on his security clearance form. CNN alleged the form requires him to list “any contact” he had with any foreign government or its representatives. “The new information from the Justice Department is the latest example of Sessions failing to disclose contacts he had with Russian officials,” the story alleged, driving the Russia-Trump collusion narrative.

Many other media outlets followed CNN’s lead, including the Washington Post, Politico, ABC News, and others.

Earlier this week, more than six months after the initial worrisome report ran, CNN ran a brief update noting that, well, it turns out Sessions never had to disclose those meetings as part of official government work, and was told that at the time he filed his clearance form. The weirdest part was that the Department of Justice told CNN that originally, but the breathless report was filed and hyped in any case.

Many media outlets have pursued the Russia-Trump collusion narrative with such wild abandon that it’s almost comical, even though more than a year into the conspiracy investigation, there remains no evidence that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. In fact, the lack of any evidence is itself becoming a story, as people try to figure out more about why the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign in the first place, and why there were so many selective leaks hinting at a broad conspiracy that has yet to materialize.

So how do the media handle dramatic updates that run counter to the narrative they’ve been pushing? This week, text messages sent by Peter Strzok, a chief investigator of both the Clinton email probe and the Russia collusion probe, were released to Congress. Some of them stood out:

In August 2016, Strzok, who played a lead-investigator role in the Hillary Clinton–emails investigation, flatly stated that the FBI could not ‘take that risk,’ referring to the possibility that Donald Trump might be elected president. He made the statement in a message to Lisa Page, a bureau lawyer with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Strzok referred to an alternative FBI ‘path’ regarding Trump’s ‘unlikely’ election that Page had proposed during a meeting they’d attended in ‘Andy’s office’ — meaning deputy director Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s number-two official, second only to then-director James Comey.

The texts, which displayed a high degree of animus toward Trump, also referred to an “insurance policy” of some kind to deal with the threat of his successful candidacy. The context of the texts remains to be learned, but there is no question that if such texts and conversations were discovered against the previous president, they would be front-page news for weeks on end.

It will surprise no one that these texts were not covered with the same obsession that leaks regarding Russia have been covered. Here are some of the weaker ways that journalists and pundits responded to the news of the FBI’s “insurance policy” texts, instead of covering them like they cover news that is negative for President Trump.

1. These Were Private Texts!

Benjamin Wittes, editor in chief of the Lawfare blog and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is a close friend and ally of former FBI Director James Comey who has helped him leak information to the press. He’s fond of tweeting out “tick-tick-tick” when leaks supporting a Russia collusion narrative are published. With this release of information, he had a much different approach:

The release of private correspondence between two Justice Department employees whose correspondence is the subject of an active inspector general investigation is not just wrong. It is cruel.

The text messages released to Congress were exchanged by FBI agents on FBI phones dealing with FBI matters. In no world is this private communication.

2. Leaks Are Suddenly, Briefly Bad

Natasha Bertrand is a reporter receptive to publishing storylines from the opposition research firm that put out the Russia narrative — Fusion GPS — as well as leaks from Democratic intelligence sources. But with the news of these texts, she became someone deeply concerned about leaks.

Her only two stories on the matter are not on the substance of the texts and what they indicate about the Russia and Clinton probes but, rather, whether the release of the texts was authorized. See, “In ‘highly unusual’ move, DOJ secretly invited reporters to view texts sent by ousted FBI agents” and “DOJ now says early release of FBI agents’ private texts to reporters was ‘not authorized’ by the department.”

Perhaps a year into a story based on nothing but a leak campaign against Trump officials is a bit late to express concern about communications between intelligence officials and reporters, particularly when in this case the emails were released to Congress.

Jonathan Chait and Max Boot also got the talking point to focus on how awful it was for the Department of Justice to release texts that were written on FBI equipment about FBI issues by FBI agents that led to a top FBI agent’s removal in a politically charged probe.

3. It’s Just Totally Normal Political Opinions

Jerry Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, said, “Peter Strzok wasn’t saying anything about Donald Trump that the majority of Americans weren’t thinking.”

It’s a cute line that was parroted by many in the media. And it’s true that FBI agents are allowed to have political opinions. But there are multiple problems with the sentiment, including that “the majority of Americans” aren’t tasked with investigating one, much less both, of the major-party candidates in a presidential election.

And if it were true that there were no problem with these totally normal political opinions, why did special counsel Mueller remove Strzok from the probe when he discovered the texts?

4. Strzok Also Lightly Critiqued Bernie Sanders, So There’s No Problem

“FBI Agent ‘Scandal’ Revealed To Be Even More Stupid Than Previously Known” wrote Chait, for similar reasons to what Boot gave above.

This wouldn’t even be a good talking point if Strzok were investigating Chelsea Clinton and Bernie Sanders. But it’s a particularly bad talking point when they’re not. And it bears repeating: If these comments were no big deal, why was Strzok removed from the probe and shuffled off to human resources? Or, as Chuck Ross put it:

5. In a Way, These Texts Prove the Russia Collusion Narrative

As the many investigations grind on in search of any evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to steal an election, some people still cling to the Russia-Trump collusion narrative. CNN analyst Asha Rangappa is representative:

Well, it’s impossible to know for sure, but at some point this claim — that evidence of Trump colluding with Russia to steal an election is just around the corner — begins to be more difficult to put faith in.

6. It Was Just Stress, Man

The Wall Street Journal‘s Del Quentin Wilber had perhaps the sweetest defense of the texts. He admits that Strzok and his paramour didn’t like Trump, but, you know, they didn’t like a lot of people. And, “They were in very high stress positions and worked many, many hours. I cannot imagine the pressure on Strzok as he led the HRC investigation.”

And “Affairs by agents and others in high-stress law enforcement jobs – I have covered everyone from cops/homicide detectives to agents to prosecutors – are fairly common.” And that “insurance policy” text was perhaps just a joke. Also, they took their jobs extremely seriously, but not so seriously that they remembered not to text messages like this on work cell phones or to have casual and wordy chit chat with the people they’re cheating on their spouses with. I was mildly surprised to not see the texts blamed on this war and that lying SOB Johnson.

Again, though, this is a sweet and charitable defense of Strzok and Lisa Page. It’s perhaps noticeable because we don’t usually see such charity extended to members of the Trump administration and campaign who have been covered as potential Russia colluders and traitors.

7. Doesn’t Matter Because Strzok Was Kicked Off the Team in July

People who are beginning to connect the dots about the ongoing leaks regarding the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, and the role the FBI played in that narrative, have a different reaction to the texts than do strident critics of the Trump administration.

The latter say there is nothing to be concerned about because Mueller removed Strzok in July. That’s true, but it doesn’t explain why Mueller waited so long to tell inquiring members of Congress about the change, and it tells us nothing about the important role Strzok played in the year prior to his departure.

He was a key investigator in the Hillary Clinton probe into her mishandling of classified information. He opened the Russia-Trump probe. He interviewed most of the key players and shaped the investigations. Did Mueller review any aspect of his handling of the Russia probe? And why did news of the circumstances surrounding his departure only leak after Mike Flynn pled guilty? These, and other questions posed here.

8. Ignore, Ignore, Ignore

Of course, the most common media response to the texts has been to downplay or even ignore them. The New York Times begrudgingly covered the story, but somehow managed not to mention the “insurance policy” text.

There were other problems with The New York Times‘ coverage as well.

As Jason Beale wrote, “The most consistently damaging manifestation of journalistic bias isn’t “Fake News”, corrections and retractions of misreported stories, or one-party leaks – it’s this insidious manipulation of the tone, tenor, and substance of straight news such as this.”

CNN’s initial story failed to even quote any of the texts.

The Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel states the obvious: “Press is focusing (deliberately) on Strzok texts expressing hostility to Trump, and noting it is OK for agents to have political opinions. Press needs to to focus on the messages suggesting he’d act on that hostility (‘insurance policy’)–which is not OK.”

Oddly enough, Drudge didn’t mention the texts and has downplayed all Strzok-related coverage. Some NeverTrump conservative media have also downplayed it.

Many media outlets have buried their reluctant mention of these texts, almost as if they feel the texts are an indictment of their own uncritical coverage of the collusion narrative put forth by partisans.

Let’s at Least Pretend to Care about Covering the News

Listen, we have much to learn about the FBI’s Trump investigations, their use of Clinton opposition research to wiretap an associate of the Trump campaign, the orchestrated leak campaign in the waning days of the Obama administration, and Strzok’s role in any of these. The texts require greater elucidation.

But journalists should seek to cover this story, not cover it up or downplay it before the American public gets answers it is counting on journalists to help them get.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway

G’ day…Ciao…
Helen and Moe Lauzier

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