Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway joined Fox News’ “Special Report” on Tuesday to discuss the Justice Department’s inspector general report and U.S. Attorney General William Barr’s comments on the errors and abuse found at the highest levels of the FBI.
The IG report’s scope was narrowly focused on the FBI’s surveillance of the Trump campaign and the agency’s violation of Carter Page’s civil liberties, but Barr’s recent comments were aimed at the broader, systematic failure of intelligence operations, such as the special counsel investigation, that relied on the Christopher Steele dossier.
“One of the most interesting things to come out of this report is that the FBI and the Department of Justice knew by January 2017 that the dossier was complete rubbish. Complete, unadulterated rubbish,” Hemingway said. “We learned this yesterday. For three years departments leaked out information that seemed like they were taking [the dossier] seriously.”
“This is a scandal–the greatest scandal of this generation,” she said. “Whether people want to wipe it away or not, this is serious.”
"The FBI and the Department of Justice knew by January 2017 that the dossier was complete rubbish" –@mzhemingway pic.twitter.com/0vZMBEDlCe
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) December 11, 2019
The IG report outlined the FBI’s use of electronic surveillance, wiretapping, human informants, email access, and more. To at least partially protect American civil liberties, protocol requires the FBI to obtain warrants from a FISA court to secretly spy on American citizens. Rep. Devin Nunes discovered the FBI’s abuse of the standard FISA court process and was disparaged for his findings.
“NeverTrump media and liberal media completely disparaged the Nunes memo and completely supported the [opposition Rep. Adam] Schiff memo, and they were utterly humiliated by what came out in this report yesterday,” Hemingway said. “Every single thing in the Nunes memo was shown to be true…meanwhile, things claimed by Schiff that people took seriously…were shown to be false.”
Hemingway said Hous intelligence committee Chairman Schiff and members of the media who accepted his statements uncritically should face consequences.
“The dossier was completely disputed. Remember that Adam Schiff read the dossier into the congressional record–hijacked a separate hearing in order to do so,” she said. “There should be consequences for this. And there should be consequences for media that got it wrong as well.”
“Media completely disparaged the Nunes memo and completely supported the Schiff memo, and they were utterly humiliated by what came out in this report yesterday.” –@mzhemingway pic.twitter.com/2dLoqo2aSe
— The Federalist (@FDRLST) December 11, 2019
View the full “Special Report” panel here.
