First, some breaking news: Andrew McCabe, who was set to testify, apparently in person, before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week, won’t be appearing because he says he’s afraid of catching COVID. What?? Oh, for crying out loud, Mr. McCabe, just testify online. That’s how your colleague Jim Comey disgraced himself, so why can’t you do the same?

I know the virus is highly contagious, but if it spreads via Zoom, we’re all in big trouble. On the other hand, I guess that would give Biden an excuse to get back to his knitting and not make any more appearances during the campaign

More Details on Obama Involvement in Russian Hoax

Over the weekend, Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Sunday reviewed what we’ve learned in recent days about Hillary Clinton — and, yes, President Obama — concerning their involvement in the Russia hoax. Of course, my readers already knew about this, but Maria’s guests had additional details.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy noted what a colossal waste of time the “Russia” investigation has been, focusing on a fake story when we’ve been trying for so long to get the real story. He said that when the letter from Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to Sen. Lindsay Graham was released, leaders of Congress wanted to have a meeting about it right away. Seems in all this time no one in either the House or Senate had seen this information. “This should drive every member of Congress,” he said, “to go get the underlying information that John Ratcliffe has just made transparent to the world.”

Looking back now, the timeline of events is just tragic. In July of 2016, key people are briefed that Russian intelligence has picked up that Hillary’s campaign was creating a false narrative about Trump “colluding” with Russia to take attention off Hillary’s email scandal. Then-CIA Director John Brennan personally briefs President Obama and others of this on July 26. “Crossfire Hurricane” is conveniently (for Hillary) opened just a few days later, on July 31. When former FBI Director James Comey is asked about this briefing last Wednesday, he says it “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

We know this is a lie. Investigating a major presidential candidate for being an agent of Russia is a huge deal, the details of which are not something that would simply escape one’s memory … unless perhaps we’re talking about Joe Biden’s memory.

McCarthy calls this “the biggest news that didn’t get reported.” True, last week was a big week for news, but there was plenty of time before the report that Trump had tested positive for COVID-19 to get it out there.

How Was It Kept Secret from the Public That Obama Knew?

So, how was this information hidden from Congress (and the rest of us) for so long? Why did we appoint a special counsel when it was known even by Obama the previous year that the “Trump/Russia” story was part of Hillary’s election strategy?

Maria brought up another story we reported last week about CIA Director Gina Haspel still blocking the declassification of certain documents. Her own sources, Maria said, had told her Ratcliffe wants to see much more material declassified but that Haspel “does not want the spotlight on the CIA.” Well, that’s just too bad, CIA.

McCarthy was followed by Devin Nunes, who made a great point: When Republicans in the legislative branch tried to find out where the “Russia” story came from, Comey and his colleagues didn’t seem to know. But now we have evidence that they absolutely knew, four years ago! And there’s quite a lot more evidence that Congress still hasn’t seen.

“Here you have the media,” he said, “which is the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party … ignoring all of this for the last four years … so here they’ve been blaming Republicans having something to do with Russia when the whole damn time, they had something to do with Russia.” In other words, it was the Democrats who were hiring Russian spies, not the Republicans.

Here is where Nunes spoke for all of us, by saying,

Every Republican, senator and member of Congress, should be saying, “THIS IS OVER. WE WANT EVERY DAMN BIT OF EVIDENCE THAT EVERY INTELLIGENCE AGENCY HAS, OR IT’S MAYBE TIME TO SHUT THOSE AGENCIES DOWN. BECAUSE, AT THE END OF THE DAY, OUR LIBERTIES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE WE HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY, AND THEY HAVE BEEN STAMPEDED OVER BY THESE DIRTY COPS AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND THE MEDIA WHO FAILS TO REPORT ON IT.”

Law Enforcement Should Not Be Used as a Political Weapon

Finally, former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell also appeared with Maria. “We’ve had a scandal developing,” he said, “largely because politicians have allowed individuals to hide information to create a false narrative by one side.” He characterized what Comey said in testimony this week as “really shocking,” because Comey is blaming mid-level career FBI people for what really came from the top down.

There were voices who, early on, characterized this story as Russian propaganda, but the leadership “decided to hide those warnings,” and now Comey (protected by Democrat vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner of Virginia, Grenell alleged) is blaming those same people.

“This is what happens,” Grenell said, “when the insiders maintain control over all the information, and this is why I believe that President Trump as the outsider is being viciously attacked because he’s getting close to really changing the way that Washington works and they do not want the rules changed …” He added that this is why the insiders support Joe Biden. They know he’ll play by their rules.

As Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas lectured Comey on Wednesday, what he did “has done severe damage to the professionals and the honorable men and women at the FBI, because law enforcement should not be used as a political weapon. And that is the legacy you’ve left.”

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.