News
Watch: Peter Strzok Obliterates Trey Gowdy for Attacking FBI to Shield Trump’s ‘Disgusting Behavior’
“That was written late at night, off the cuff, and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero and my presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior, that the American population would not elect someone demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.” –Peter Strzok
FBI agent Peter Strzok gave a fiery speech explaining why he considered Donald Trump an unacceptable candidate for president — and denounced Republican efforts to discredit the Russia investigation.
Strzok erupted after more than 10 minutes of badgering by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) about his political biases against Trump — who the FBI agent ripped as an objectively unsuitable choice to lead the United States.
“I think it’s important when you look at those texts that you understand the context in which they were made and the things that were going on across America,” Strzok testified.
“In terms of the texts that we will stop it,” he continued, “you need to understand that that was written late at night, off the cuff, and it was in response to a series of events that included then-candidate Trump insulting the immigrant family of a fallen war hero and my presumption, based on that horrible, disgusting behavior, that the American population would not elect someone demonstrating that behavior to be president of the United States.”
“It was in no way unequivocally any suggestion that me, the FBI, would take any action whatsoever to improperly impact the electoral process for any candidate,” Strzok added. “So I take great offense and I take great disagreement to your assertion of what that was or wasn’t.”
He recognized that some Americans would vote for Trump despite what he believed was unquestionably inappropriate behavior, and he insisted that he took no action to taint the election against the Republican candidate.
“I acknowledge that is absolutely their right, that is what makes our democracy such a vibrant process that it is,” Strzok said. “But to suggest somehow we can parse down the words of shorthand, text actual conversations like they’re some contract for a car is simply not consistent with my or most people’s use of text messaging.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, at no time in any of these texts did those personal beliefs ever enter into the realm of any action I took,” he added.
Strzok told lawmakers that he was overseen by bureaucratic layers of oversight that would have stopped him from meddling in the election, even if he had wanted to do so.
“At every step, at every investigative decision, there are multiple layers of people above me, the assistant director, executive assistant director, deputy director and director of the FBI, multiple layers of people below me, section chief, supervisors, unit chiefs, case agents and analysts, all of whom were involved in all of these decisions,” he said.
“They would not tolerate any improper behavior in me any more than I would tolerate it in them,” Strzrok continued. “That’s who we are as the FBI. The suggestion that I and some dark chamber in the FBI would somehow cast aside all of these procedures, all of these safety safeguards and somehow be able to do this is astounding to me. It couldn’t happen. The proposition that is going on, it might occur anywhere in the FBI, deeply corrodes what the FBI is in American society, the effectiveness of their mission and it is deeply destructive.”
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Inside New York’s State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Donald Trump unleashed his anger on the first day of Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil fraud lawsuit that has already led to the judge ordering the ex-president’s business licenses be revoked and his businesses dissolved.
One of Trump’s rants was highly-criticized by a fascism expert who compared it to language used by authoritarian strongmen including “Mussolini, Hitler, Berlusconi, Erdogan.”
Trump told reporters Monday the New York fraud case “is a continuation of the single greatest witch hunt of all time.” He described Justice Arthur Engoron as a “rogue judge” and Attorney General James as a “racist attorney general” and a “horror show,” and the case against him “a scam” and “a sham.”
READ MORE: McCarthy ‘Could Be a Former Speaker by the End of This Week’: Report
Trump, at an NYC courthouse, attacks the judge and prosecutors involved in his fraud case pic.twitter.com/LqjNW7x5AC
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2023
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University professor of history and Italian studies, responded to Trump’s remarks, saying “the witch hunt/victimhood rhetoric is part of the authoritarian playbook and was/is used by the following corrupt leaders: Mussolini, Hitler, Berlusconi, Erdogan. If extended to the whole country being victimized, add Putin, Xi, and more.”
Fascism expert Federico Finchelstein, a historian and history department chair at New York’s New School for Social Research, responded to Trump’s comments: “Fascist lies are about the projection onto others of what fascists are/do. Trump today as usual displayed his wannabe fascist mindset.”
Sherrilyn Ifill, the former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) exclaimed, “So he’s in the courthouse calling the judge ‘rogue’ and calling the prosecutor ‘racist.’ Not on the steps outside the courthouse (bad enough) but inside the very courthouse.”
Trump also told reporters at the courthouse Monday that he’s been indicted because he’s running for president. Multiple reports have revealed he announced his White House run in an effort to avoid prosecution.
Donald Trump: “The reason I got indicted was that I ran. If I didn’t run, I would be sitting at a beach like Biden does every time even though he is supposed to be working.” pic.twitter.com/cPxrlAxJ8B
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) October 2, 2023
Watch the videos above or at this link.
At noon on Monday as the House opens for business U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) may file a motion to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy for crossing the aisle and working with Democrats to avoid a federal government shutdown just hours before midnight on Saturday.
The Florida lawmaker, who is blamed by his fellow Republicans for leading the shutdown charge, has very publicly blamed Speaker McCarthy for the crisis. On Sunday he vowed to end McCarthy’s leadership. McCarthy said he’s unafraid, but how he can keep his job without the help of House Democrats is being questioned, and if he does, how he governs his volatile GOP conference is also being questioned.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY): “There’s only one person to blame for any potential government shutdown and that’s Matt Gaetz. He’s not a conservative Republican; he’s a charlatan. As far as I’m concerned, when you’re working with Democrats to try to vacate the Speaker, you’re a joke.” pic.twitter.com/9Juy7xN8Af
— The Recount (@therecount) September 29, 2023
“Bring it on,” McCarthy said on CNN.
The Speaker also added, “let’s start governing.”
Big week for Kevin McCarthy’s Speakership: Will he keep his job?
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL): “I think we need to move on with new leadership…”
McCarthy: “If he’s upset bc he tried to push us into shutdown and I made sure government didn’t shut down, then let’s have that fight.” pic.twitter.com/zY3zNrlpSd
— The Recount (@therecount) October 2, 2023
McCarthy’s call to “start governing” followed months of news reports detailing House Republicans’ infighting.
At the end of July, Axios ran a headline that read: “Congress gets a timeout after dysfunctional summer.”
“House members finally reached their August recess this weekend after a string of unusual, and at times contentious, incidents that clouded efforts to avoid a government shutdown,” the news outlet reported, pointing also to “January’s marathon speaker election to May and June’s close call on defaulting on the federal debt — not to mention conservatives’ unprecedented tactics to grind the House floor to a halt.”
On Tuesday, September 12, the House returned from its August recess.
“With less than three weeks remaining before government funding runs out on Sept. 30,” The New York Times reported Sunday, Sept. 10, “Congress has not cleared any of its 12 annual appropriations bills, though there has been more progress than in the recent past. Given the rapidly approaching deadline, leaders of both the House and the Senate agree that a temporary stopgap funding measure will be needed to avert a government shutdown beginning Oct. 1. But that usually routine legislation is facing major obstacles in the Republican-led House, making its path to President Biden’s desk unusually fraught.”
Monday morning CNN’s Manu Raju reported, “McCarthy’s future could tested as soon as today. House opens at noon, and Gaetz could file his motion to oust him today. At that point, the speaker could try to table the motion — or kill it. That is what is expected. But if that fails, the motion to oust him would still be alive.”
The question may soon become, will Democrats save McCarthy’s speakership?
“One idea moderate Republicans are proposing to get Democrats on board with saving McCarthy is to revise the rules package that governs how the House operates – and discussing making changes to House Rules Committee,: Raju reports, adding House Democratic leaders are keeping their “powder dry,” meaning not indicating what they want their members to do.
Noting that the House is “lurching from crisis to crisis thanks to the dysfunction inside the GOP conference,” Punchbowl News Monday morning asked: “Can McCarthy survive?”
Congressman Gaetz “acknowledged his effort is likely to fail, suggesting Democrats ‘probably will’ come to McCarthy’s rescue. Gaetz then criticized McCarthy for even considering the possibility of remaining speaker with Democratic support — despite the fact that Gaetz spent weeks courting Democrats in his bid to topple McCarthy.”
“Are we convinced McCarthy will get through this? No, not at all. McCarthy very well could be a former speaker by the end of this week,” Punchbowl News added.
Meanwhile, as questionable as McCarthy’s future is as Speaker, so is Gaetz’s future as a Congressman.
The Florida lawmaker faces a re-opened House Ethics Committee investigation into possible “sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and potential public corruption,” ABC News reported in July.
“House GOP members are seeking to quickly expel Gaetz if the ethics report comes back with findings of guilt,” CNN’s Jacqui Heinrich reported Sunday. “Following threats to vacate McCarthy, one tells me ‘No one can stand him at this point. A smart guy without morals.'”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
News
‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert
The first of 19 co-defendants in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ RICO and election interference case against Donald Trump has pleaded guilty in what is being described as a “plea deal.”
“Under the terms of an agreement with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s office, Hall pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, conspiracy to commit computer trespass, conspiracy to commit computer invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state,” NBC News reports. “Under the terms of the deal, he’s being sentenced to five years probation.”
CNN previously reported “Hall, a bail bondsman and pro-Trump poll-watcher in Atlanta, spent hours inside a restricted area of the Coffee County elections office when voting systems were breached in January 2021. The breach was connected to efforts by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists to find voter fraud. Hall was captured on surveillance video at the office, on the day of the breach. He testified before the grand jury in Fulton County case and acknowledged that he gained access to a voting machine.”
Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a professor of law and frequent MSNBC contributor, says Hall “was in the thick of things with Sidney Powell on Jan 7 for the Coffee County scheme involving voting machines. If he’s cooperating, it’s a bad sign for her.”
Hall’s plea deal “spells bad news for, among others, Sidney Powell,” says former Dept. of Defense Special Counsel Ryan Goodman, an NYU Law professor of law. Goodman posted a graphic showing the overlap in charges against Hall and Powell, which he called “alleged joint actions.”
With breakthrough for Georgia DA (@TamarHallerman reporting: “SCOTT HALL has become the first co-defendant in the Fulton election interference case to take a plea deal with prosecutors.”)
That spells bad news for, among others, Sidney Powell.
Example of alleged joint actions.👇 pic.twitter.com/odMM5C7JtX
— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) September 29, 2023
See the graphic above or at this link.
‘Part of the Authoritarian Playbook’: Trump’s Courthouse Rant Slammed by Fascism Scholars
McCarthy ‘Could Be a Former Speaker by the End of This Week’: Report
‘Part of the Authoritarian Playbook’: Trump’s Courthouse Rant Slammed by Fascism Scholars
McCarthy ‘Could Be a Former Speaker by the End of This Week’: Report
‘I’m Broke’: One Day Before Shutdown and With No Plan McCarthy Says He Has ‘Nothing’ in His ‘Back Pocket’
‘Bad News’ for Sidney Powell as First Trump Co-Defendant in Georgia RICO Case Takes Plea Deal: Legal Expert
Far-Right Republicans Kill GOP Bill to Keep Government Running in ‘Embarrassing Failure’ for McCarthy: Report
COMMENTARY3 days ago‘I’m Broke’: One Day Before Shutdown and With No Plan McCarthy Says He Has ‘Nothing’ in His ‘Back Pocket’
News3 hours ago‘Part of the Authoritarian Playbook’: Trump’s Courthouse Rant Slammed by Fascism Scholars
News6 hours agoMcCarthy ‘Could Be a Former Speaker by the End of This Week’: Report