The FBI - The New Praetorians

The Praetorian Guard was an elite unit charged with safeguarding the body of the Roman Emperor and guaranteeing national security. Over time the Praetorians lost their way. They went from guarding the Emperor to deciding who would rule – even in one celebrated case auctioning off the throne to the highest bidder.

In 313 A.D. Emperor Constantine decided the time had come to take decisive action. He dissolved the Praetorian Guard and dispersed its members to the far reaches of the empire. The men whose job it had been to safeguard the empire had become a threat to its continued existence.

We may be fast approaching the time when our new Praetorians – the FBI – may have to suffer the same fate.

Special Counsel John Durham has issued its report on the infamous Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the mad Russiagate accusations leveled against Donald Trump by Hillary Clinton and her minions. Durham found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Moscow. He found a boatload of evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the FBI.

“Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

“In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and 2017 show that at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials.”

“The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign.”

“Strzok and Deputy Director McCabe's Special Assistant had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump. As explained later in this report, in text messages before and after the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the two had referred to him as "loathsome," "an idiot," someone who should lose to Clinton "100,000,000 - 0," and a person who Strzok wrote “[w]e'll stop" from becoming President. Indeed, the day before the Australian information was received at FBI Headquarters, Page sent a text message to Strzok stating, "Have we opened on him yet? [angryfaced emoji]" and referenced an article titled Trump & Putin. Yes, It's Really a Thing.”

“Our investigation determined that the Crossfire Hurricane investigators did not and could not corroborate any of the substantive allegations contained in the Steele reporting. Nor was Steele able to produce corroboration for any of the reported allegations, even after being offered $1 million or more by the FBI for such corroboration.  Further, when interviewed by the FBI in January 2017, Danchenko also was unable to corroborate any of the substantive allegations in the Reports. Rather, Danchenko characterized the information he provided to Steele as "rumor and speculation"  and the product of casual conversation.”

Durham Report, Justice.gov

Let’s be clear because, after years of lies and distortion, a little clarity is in order.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign cooked up a story about Donald Trump and Russian collusion to divert attention from the heat she was taking for having boatloads of classified material on an unsecured private server. They hired a washed-up British spy to dig up dirt on Trump, and that spy,  Christopher Steele, dutifully created his infamous “dossier” filled with rumors, innuendo, and salacious unsubstantiated garbage.  Hillary’s campaign then fed that stack of nonsense to the FBI which, instead of rejecting it out of hand, used it to start a massive investigation of Trump and attempt to destroy his campaign.

There was never any substantiation of the junk allegations Steele peddled. There was never anything even close to sufficient evidence to launch Crossfire Hurricane.  Steele and his dossier and his Clinton campaign sponsors should have been sent packing on day one.

They were not, and this was not because of FBI incompetence. This was not because the FBI needs to reevaluate its procedures or require new forms to be filled out or send everyone to a refresher course on how to conduct investigations.

This was not a mistake. It was deliberate.

The people at the heart of all this, including senior FBI officials, knew exactly what they were doing and why. They were pulling out all the stops to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President and to install Hillary Clinton on the throne.

Like the Praetorians before them, the FBI agents in this case had decided that they now had the right to decide who would rule. Having sworn oaths to defend the Constitution and serve the American people, these “guardians” of democracy now believed they were justified in subverting it.

People need to go to jail, and this must never be allowed to happen again. At a minimum, the FBI needs massive reform. We may be past that. It may be time for the new Praetorians to go the way of the old.