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Byron York: Nunes blows up, threatens contempt after FBI stonewalls House on Russia investigator demoted for anti-Trump bias

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"By hiding from Congress, and from the American people, documented political bias by a key FBI head investigator for both the Russia collusion probe and the Clinton email investigation, the FBI and DOJ engaged in a willful attempt to thwart Congress' constitutional oversight responsibility," Nunes said in a statement Saturday afternoon.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes has issued an angry demand to the FBI and Department of Justice to explain why they kept the committee in the dark over the reason Special Counsel Robert Mueller kicked a key supervising FBI agent off the Trump-Russia investigation.

Stories in both the Washington Post and New York Times on Saturday reported that Peter Strzok, who played a key role in the original FBI investigation into the Trump-Russia matter, and then a key role in Mueller's investigation, and who earlier had played an equally critical role in the FBI's Hillary Clinton email investigation, was reassigned out of the Mueller office because of anti-Trump texts he exchanged with a top FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was having an extramarital affair. Strzok was transferred to the FBI's human resources office — an obvious demotion -- in July.

The Post reported that Strzok and Page exchanged text messages that "expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton."

Word of the messages and the affair were news to Nunes, even though the committee had issued a subpoena that covered information about Strzok's demotion more than three months ago. The committee's broadly worded subpoena for information related to the so-called Trump dossier went to the FBI and FOJ on Aug. 24. In follow-up conversations on the scope of the subpoena, committee staff told the FBI and DOJ that it included information on the circumstances of Strzok's reassignment.

On Oct. 11, Nunes met with deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. In that meeting, Nunes specifically discussed the committee's request for information about Strzok.

In an Oct. 31 committee staff meeting with the FBI, bureau officials refused a request for information about Strzok.

On Nov. 20, the committee again requested an interview with Strzok. (Three days earlier, on November 17, Strzok met with the Senate Intelligence Committee.)

On Nov. 29, Nunes again spoke to Rosenstein, and again discussed Strzok.

On Dec. 1, the committee again requested to speak with Strzok.

After each occasion, the FBI and DOJ did nothing. Now, in what appears to be an orchestrated leak, both the Post and Times published the reason for Strzok's demotion, along with concerns that the revelation might help President Trump. "Among federal law enforcement officials, there is great concern that exposure of the texts they exchanged may be used by the president and his defenders to attack the credibility of the Mueller probe and the FBI more broadly," the Post reported. The Times reported that "the existence of the text messages is likely to fuel claims by Mr. Trump that he is the target of a witch hunt."

Well, yes. It will be of concern to Trump's defenders, and to defenders of fair investigations generally, that such an important figure in both the Clinton and Trump probes privately expressed bias. It will be important for investigators -- and the public -- to see Strzok's and Page's texts to assess the extent of the problem. But in any event, Nunes is extremely unhappy -- not only with the revelation of bias but with the FBI's resistance.

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ORIGINAL: JVoV

Were it any other President ever, I could say that he did not want to interfere with an ongoing investigation in his original tweet.

But Trump enjoys interfering with investigations, and speaking openly about things that he knows and you don't. His ego also won't let him admit that he didn't know something, because if he doesn't know it, then it's not important.

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ORIGINAL: jlf1961

There is one issue that the Trumpateers kept ignoring, or, try to point the finger at someone else, anyone else, and that is that President Trump has been caught in a number of lies concerning the Flynn investigation, and former FBI directory Comey's firing, and almost all of the 'catches' have been from the president's own mouth.

For example:

His decision to fire Comey was because the Attorney General suggested it, according to him on the day he fired Comey.

Within a week of this statement, he told NBC news he had already decided to fire Comey, based in large on the Russia/Flynn investigation.
He told Russian dignitaries at the white house that it was because of the Russia investigation.
He told yet another interviewer that it was because Comey was not a 'team player.'

And then, to really confuse things, Sessions himself told a congressional meeting that prior to Comey's firing, the president asked for him to give him good reasons to do so.

All of this was after he told Comey and went on record with various statements that he had no intentions of replacing the FBI director.

And again, if he himself had nothing to do with what Flynn talked to the Russians about, why the hell was he so upset that his attorney had to calm him down after the plea was announced along with Flynn's statement that he would cooperate fully with the special investigator and aid the investigation?

And that tidbit coming from the white house itself in response to questions about the tweet Saturday.