Dem Rep. Connolly: ‘So-Called Whistleblowers’ Don’t Understand How Prosecutors Make Decisions

On Thursday’s broadcast of NBC’s “MTP Now,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said that it’s “sad” that the “two so-called whistleblowers” from the IRS “just didn’t understand” how prosecutors make decisions and that they didn’t know or ignored that the U.S. attorney, attorney general, and IRS commissioner were Trump appointees.

Connolly said, “I think we had two sincere, professional IRS investigators, whose beef is that the prosecutor didn’t follow, 100%, their recommendations and appreciate their hard work. And, at a human level, you can understand that. But there is such a thing as prosecutorial discretion. And these two, I think, sincere employees of the IRS simply didn’t seem to appreciate that. There are lots of pressures and dynamics going on in any prosecutor’s office as they try to make determinations about which are viable cases, what parts of the case do we bring forward, if any, how do we gauge a jury’s reaction to the arguments, and that may be very different than what an investigator finds or believes at the investigative stage. And that was kind of painful and sad to witness. But I don’t think they’re crackpots at all. I think they were sincere, but I think they just didn’t understand the dynamic.”

Later, he added, “We’ve got to remember, they surmised that the fact that their recommendations weren’t acted on 100%, somebody must have interfered. Well, on that timeline, we had a Trump-appointed Republican U.S. attorney, a Trump-appointed Republican attorney general, a Trump-appointed Republican IRS commissioner, so if you’re looking for interference, it could have only been one of those people. And are we really supposed to believe that they wouldn’t have jumped at the chance of trying to get Hunter Biden, and, through him, Joe Biden? So, the fact that it was on that watch and that timetable, I think kind of escaped the attention of or conveniently was ignored by those two so-called whistleblowers.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett