In case you’re wondering, yes, Attorney General Merrick Garland most certainly is trying to intimidate whistleblowers. We’ll get to that, but first, here’s why he’s doing it.

The headline in The Washington Times reads “Allegations of political bias, widespread misconduct prompt FBI agents to call for Wray to step down.” Now that Timothy Thibault has had to leave the FBI over allegations that his political bias affected which investigations were pursued and which were scrapped, rank-and-file agents are having a hard time believing that FBI Director Christopher Wray is still in his position.

A Complete Leadership Vacuum at the FBI

“I’m hearing from [FBI personnel] that they feel like the director has lost control of the Bureau,” said Kurt Siuzdak, a former FBI agent and attorney who represents whistleblowers at the FBI. “They’re saying, ‘How does this guy survive? He’s leaving. He’s got to leave.’”

The FBI has issued a statement that’s just what you might expect them to say. Excerpt: “The men and women of the FBI work hard every day to protect the American people and uphold the Constitution. All employees are held to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct, and we expect them to focus on process, rigor, and objectivity in performance of their duties…”

Blah blah blah. We have two words for whoever wrote that: “Peter Strzok.”

I’m sure it’s true that many of the 37,000 employees at the FBI are highly professional, conscientious people. Some of those are the ones coming forward now. Siuzdak said the agents “have lost confidence in Wray. All Wray does is go in and say ‘we need more training and we’re doing stuff about it,’ or ‘we will not tolerate it.’”

“For Wray,” he continued, “not tolerating it means he doesn’t do anything. And that’s what I think people are reacting to because at this point you need to have leadership stepping-up and taking charge, and there’s a complete leadership vacuum.”

This seems to be the situation at the “Justice” Department as well. Recall our commentary from several days ago that cited Jonathan Turley’s column, “The Incredible Shrinking Merrick Garland.” We hypothesized that Garland’s second-in-command, Obama attorney Lisa Monaco, was actually running the DOJ.

In their disclosures to Congress, whistleblowers reportedly say that Director Wray “was often notified of the problems within the Bureau but never took action to resolve them.” You might have read here in the newsletter that one issue was the fabrication of terrorism-related cases to elevate performance statistics (and also, I would add, to make it look like domestic terrorism was a very serious problem).

Why Wray has stayed in his job is indeed a question worth looking into. One factor was that President Trump, during the investigation of the bogus Trump-Russia “collusion,” was put in a position where he couldn’t really fire anyone in the “Justice” Department without being accused of obstruction of justice. It didn’t matter that certain people richly deserved to be fired.

How Did Wray Get the Job?

And how did Wray get the job in the first place? We at “Team Huckabee” have wondered that for years. Complaints from the right about Wray invariably spark comments such as, “Well, Trump appointed him,” and, “Come on, Wray is a Republican,” as if that mattered. Do you remember that Trey Gowdy was on the short list? There were no doubt other good options as well, but no, someone who had Trump’s ear recommended Christopher Wray so highly to him that Wray got the job. We still don’t know who that was, but after doing some digging, we found what was probably the most glowing tribute to Wray at the time he was selected, and it came from Trump’s Attorney General (who recused himself from the entire [bogus] Trump-Russia investigation) Jeff Sessions. Sessions said this, which, in retrospect, just sounds bizarre:

Chris combines a brilliant legal mind, outstanding accomplishments, and a proven record of public service. We are fortunate that he is willing to make this personal commitment to serve his country at this important time, Sessions said in a statement. The President asked us to look for an FBI Director who has integrity, who understands and is committed to the rule of law, and who is dedicated to protecting the American people from crime, gangs, and terrorists. We have found our man in Chris Wray.

Wow, that Wray guy sounds like the perfect candidate for the job, doesn’t he? The rule of law couldn’t be in better hands. Thanks, Jeff Sessions!

With so many whistleblowers — disgusted by the raid on Mar-a-Lago, most likely — coming forward from the FBI and “Justice,” Garland is trying to make them think twice before talking to, say, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.

Tattlers Are Making AG Garland Nervous!

Nick Arama at RedState says all these tattlers might be making the Biden administration nervous, and AG Garland has issued a written order to all DOJ employees, including the FBI, not to talk to Congress. “…This is an appropriate time,” he wrote, “to reaffirm and remind all Department personnel of our existing policies regarding communications between the Justice Department and Congress….”

Ironically, he’s going to have to answer to Congress for writing this, considering he’s done nothing to inhibit the FBI from leaking to the media any ridiculous narrative — like the “nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago” story — that could conceivably damage Trump.

Garland does mention whistleblower protections in his letter, but Arama says,

Let’s be real, when you see this letter coming now, telling people not to talk to Congress, you know what’s being said here, whether they try to put a nice fig leaf on it to cover it or not. Why would this letter be going out now? The people talking to Congress are the FBI whistleblowers.

About That Supposedly Neutral ‘Special Master’

The Epoch Times has a report on who the supposedly neutral “special master” to go through the documents seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago might be. This is a “premium” story, subscription-only, but I’ll summarize.

As you know, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon has said she intends to appoint a special master, and a helpful group called the National Security Counselors has told her it’s identified four “uniquely qualified experts” on the matter of executive privilege. Zachary Stieber at ET has found that the head of this group, Kel McClanahan, has frequently denigrated President Trump online, as in this statement from yesterday: “I don’t want to jinx it, but seriously, only Donald Trump could singlehandedly snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory by being his arrogant, narcissistic, delusional self.”

One of the four “experts” named, Heidi Kitrosser, a professor of law at Northwestern University, has been viscerally anti-Trump on social media for years. Just this month, she called Trump “an existential threat to democracy.” She has promoted the Trump-Russia Hoax, sharing a blog post from 2018 titled “Keep in Mind that Putin Manages Trump with Carrots and Sticks.” Here are some of the things she has called him:

• spineless
• shameless
• a narcissist
• coward
• dangerously obsessed with image control
• bigoted in his immigration policy

Here are some of the people she has praised:

• Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney
• Utah Sen. Mitt Romney
• former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe
• former DOJ official Bruce Ohr

Two other “experts” on the list, Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and Mitchel Sollenberger, professor of political science at the University of Michigan — Dearborn, frequently write op-eds together, and in March, they wrote one praising Biden’s decision not to back Trump’s claim of executive privilege over documents sought by the House J6 committee.

The fourth “expert” on the list, Jonathan Shaub, assistant professor of law at the University of Kentucky Rosenberg College of Law, said recently that Trump’s claim of executive privilege over records held at Mar-a-Lago “just misconstrues what executive privilege is,” telling REUTERS, “The person who decides whether executive privilege [applies] is the President, so the special master would be [President Joe] Biden.”

I am not kidding. Why even bother with the extra step of appointing a special master? Just let BIDEN decide! Come to think of it, Biden’s probably not any more biased against Trump than these people are.

Curious thing about the National Security Counselors: We found that among their board of advisers is Mark Zaid. If that name is familiar to you, it’s because he, with co-counsel Andrew Bakaj, represented the anonymous “whistleblower” — later identified as Eric Ciaramella — who came forward with that bogus complaint about the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy during Trump’s first impeachment. Zaid claims Bakaj, formerly with the CIA, is the more political one, but still…something to ponder.

Finally, we reported yesterday that Jeremy Bash, MSNBC analyst and big-time perpetrator of the lie that the Hunter laptop was “Russian disinformation,” has been appointed by Biden to his Intelligence Advisory Board. What a joke. Here’s what law professor Jonathan Turley had to say about it.

 

Mike Huckabee is the former governor of Arkansas and longtime conservative commentator on issues in culture and current events. A New York Times best-selling author, he hosts the weekly talk show Huckabee on TBN.

Originally published at MikeHuckabee.com. Reprinted with permission.