“I felt it was important to provide this explanation of my investigations because of the concerted and coordinated attacks on my efforts that I have interpreted as a ‘brush back pitch’ to deter my actions and preemptively marginalize my committee’s findings,” Ron Johnson wrote defending his probe into Joe Biden and Ukraine.
But he was just getting started, he also issued his first subpoena of his probe into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. He wants all the documents related to Crossfire Hurricane and that is not good news for Susan Rice and Barack Obama.
Ron wrote, “A Senate resolution tasks my committee with investigating, among other issues, “the possible existence of … corruption or unethical practices … [and] conflicts of interest[.]”
Our current investigations fall well within this authority and have focused on two primary areas: first, allegations of conflicts of interest within the Obama administration related to Ukraine policy and, second, allegations of corruption within the Obama administration affecting the 2016 election, the transition between administrations, and Obama administration holdovers’ sabotage of the Trump administration.
My committee began investigating corruption in the Obama administration in March 2015 when it was revealed that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was violating State Department policy, and possibly section 793(f) of the criminal code, by her extensive use of a private e-mail server for official and classified government business. We quickly uncovered information about how Secretary Clinton’s private e-mail server was stored.
Based on documents from the company hired to manage her server, we discovered that the method for storing and maintaining the server raised numerous concerns regarding security and preservation of records. Our investigation also uncovered and made public the extensive editing of then-FBI Director James Comey’s July 5, 2016, statement that exonerated Secretary Clinton.
We found that edits to Comey’s statement downplayed the seriousness of her actions in several ways. They replaced “gross negligence” with “extremely careless.” They weakened a conclusion that it was “reasonably likely” that foreign adversaries gained access to Secretary Clinton’s private e-mail account by saying instead that it was “possible.” And they removed a reference to the fact that she engaged in “an email exchange with the President [Obama] while Secretary Clinton was on the territory of such an adversary.”
It is important to note the FBI officials who were involved in the editing process: Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok and Jonathan Moffa. This was the same cast of characters that soon after initiated the investigation targeting candidate Donald Trump and his campaign. Soon after the election, President-elect Trump made it clear that he had no intention of pursuing further investigation of Clinton. Since my committee had already issued an interim report on the Clinton email scandal, and she had been held politically accountable by losing the election, I felt there was no longer any need for our investigation to continue.”
From Politico:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has issued the first subpoena of his Senate probe into the origins of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation: to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
The subpoena, which POLITICO reviewed, demands documents but not testimony. Specifically, it asks for “all documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” — the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. That probe scrutinized Americans close to then-candidate Trump for their links to Kremlin officials. Mueller took over the probe in May 2017.
It’s an unusual move, given that President Donald Trump appointed Wray to his post helming the FBI. In the two years since Wray took that role, he has positioned himself as a low-profile defender of the institution — often drawing ire from the president’s allies in conservative media and on Capitol Hill.
Johnson also released a lengthy letter detailing the origins of his probe and criticizing the reaction it has garnered from media reports and Democrats. Democrats, Johnson wrote, “have initiated a coordinated disinformation campaign and effort to personally attack” himself and Finance Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose office has worked with.
