Former President Donald J. Trump on Wednesday encouraged the newly formed House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to probe aspects of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Crossfire Hurricane Investigation and the probe headed up by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into the “Russia hoax.”
“The new House Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is a rare chance to expose the breathtaking corruption of the security state, the media, and the Washington swamp,” Trump said in his latest campaign video released on Wednesday, before laying out several “questions the committee will hopefully be asking.”
WATCH:
In August of 2020, government watchdog Judicial Watch obtained records from the Justice Department through a Freedom of Information Act indicating that 27 phones used by members of Mueller’s Special Counsel team had been wiped of data, Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong reported at the time. Twenty of such wipes were categorized as “accidental,” while some of the remaining phones that were wiped allegedly were inaccessible because their passwords were forgotten and they were in airplane mode.
The phones of FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who served on the investigative team and were apparently entangled in an extramarital affair, were “restored to factory settings,” according to the records.
Trump on Wednesday alleged that the devices were wiped as a result of an order:
Who was on the Mueller witch-hunt that investigated me and ordered dozens and dozens of cell phones to be wiped clear of all data after the phones were requested by the Office of the Inspector General, who, by the way, did a fantastic report on the corrupt FBI and the corrupt Comey and all of the rest for them? But they asked that all data open their phones – never done this before – be wiped off. In some cases, they said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry it was a mistake.’ Can you imagine what we would have found with Paige and Strzok and all of them?
Trump then called on the committee to investigate “Who in the Mueller team was in charge of leaking secret information and fake news stories to dishonest journalists, of which there are many, to perpetrate the Russia Hoax.”
“It was all misinformation, it was all a horrible thing that was given to the people of our country illegally by a fake press and a corrupt press and by corrupt politicians,” Trump said.
Additionally, he suggested committee members should ask, “Why did numerous FBI and CIA analysts go out and purchase professional liability insurance the day the fake Steele Dossier was first published?”
In September 2020, text messages came to light suggesting some FBI employees involved in the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation bought professional liability insurance ahead of Trump’s 2017 inauguration, as Breitbart News’s Joel Pollack reported:
The text messages, reported by The Federalist and included in court filings by Sidney Powell, were part of a new batch of documents released as exculpatory evidence in the prosecution of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. The evidence was released after a review of the case by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Jensen, ordered by Attorney General William Barr.
In one text, an agent speculated that they would be “screwed” when a new attorney general began asking questions about the investigation, possibly after leaks to the New York Times or other media outlets.One text, dated Jan. 10, 2017, read: “we all went and purchased professional liability insurance.” Other texts discussed the rules for reimbursement of that insurance.
The Federalist’s Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway highlighted that January 10, 2017, was the same day CNN broke the story on Trump and former President Barack Obama being briefed about the unsubstantiated and discredited Steele Dossier.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.