Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.
Photo: Pool/Getty ImagesToday’s news perfectly captures our current era of media and politics. The government official who oversaw the collusion investigation acknowledged that while there was never any evidence Donald Trump colluded with Russia, there was evidence Russia helped create the pretext for our government to investigate Donald Trump. Meanwhile, another social media company has decided to suppress the President’s commentary.
As for the Trump suppression campaign, Twitter recently made the decision to get into the business of ideological gatekeeping. Unfortunately another tech company has made a similarly foolish mistake. Cecilia Kang and Kate Conger write in the New York Times:
Snap said on Wednesday that it has stopped promoting the Snapchat account of President Trump after determining that his public comments off the site could incite violence, in another hardened stance by a social media company against the president.
Snap, which makes the Snapchat app that is popular among young users, said Mr. Trump’s account will remain intact but will not be promoted on its Discover home page for news and stories. Mr. Trump’s account was previously regularly featured on Discover, along with the accounts of other high-profile users like the celebrity Kim Kardashian, the actor Kevin Hart, and New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
... Over the past week, Twitter has labeled several of the president’s tweets for misinformation on voting and glorifying violence. In contrast, Facebook has not touched Mr. Trump’s posts, arguing that they are newsworthy and should remain up in the name of free speech.
Here’s hoping that Facebook continues to stand on principle. As for Twitter, fortunately today the site was not suppressing the commentary of former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy. Mr. McCarthy was observing the Senate testimony of former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and urging senators to ask whether he had even read the renewal application for wiretapping a Trump associate before signing it.
Perhaps the McCarthy Twitter feed enlightened some lawmakers because a number of them raised the issue, which led to some awkward moments for Mr. Rosenstein.
Mr. McCarthy reported on Twitter:
If you can follow, current version is Rosenstein ‘read’ FISA app but, turns out, is not sure he read it all, and didn’t really need to read, because, you see, he’d been briefed about the Russia investigation ... which he also doesn’t seem to have known much about ...
Rosenstein to @SenMikeLee: “I’m not sure I read every page, but I was familiar with what was in it. Plus it had already been approved 3 times -- this was just a reauthorization.”
CNN adds:
Rosenstein acknowledged the problems with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants obtained on former Trump adviser Carter Page that were documented by the Justice Department inspector general. Asked if he would have signed the warrant renewal in 2017 again had he known what’s been disclosed since, Rosenstein said, “No, I would not.”
“I do not consider the investigation to be corrupt, senator, but I certainly understand the President’s frustration, given the outcome, which was in fact that there was no evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign advisers and Russians,” Rosenstein later added.
Matt Zapotosky reports in the Washington Post:
After Graham asked if Rosenstein would agree there was ultimately “no there there” to support the “concept that the campaign was colluding with the Russians in August 2017,” Rosenstein responded, “I agree with that general statement.”
Yet that very month, Mr. Rosenstein authorized a broad special counsel investigation.
And at the root of U.S. Government abuses perpetrated against Mr. Trump, do we find the very foreign power about which abusive U.S. investigators claimed to be so concerned? The infamous “Steele dossier” of unfounded smears against Mr. Trump had influences beyond simply the Hillary Clinton campaign. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley has more on the Rosenstein testimony:
He also acknowledged that there is evidence that the Steele dossier contained disinformation from Russian intelligence and that the Russians were trying to harm both Clinton and Trump... Rosenstein said that he did not know about the discrediting of the Steele dossier or the fraudulent filings of an agent or the fact that the Steele dossier was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.
As for the improper surveillance resulting from the bogus partisan dossier, Charlie Savage, Katie Benner and Nicholas Fandos report for the New York Times:
... Mr. Rosenstein blamed the F.B.I. for the problems, citing the inspector general’s findings that the F.B.I. did not follow its procedures and that blamed the bureau’s chain of command for management failures. Later he told Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, that he did not sense that the F.B.I. had been politicized when he came into office.
Under subsequent questioning by Mr. Graham, Mr. Rosenstein said that if he knew at the time what he knows now — including that in an F.B.I. interview in January 2017, a key source for some of the allegations suggesting that Mr. Page might be a Russian agent, the so-called Steele dossier, had disavowed its depiction of his information — he would not have signed the application to renew the wiretap targeting him.
Professor Turley has more on Twitter regarding the unfounded prosecution of former U.S. Army General Michael Flynn:
Rosenstein insisted that he did not know about the exculpatory evidence on Flynn and “that was news to me.”
Perhaps the most shocking news to all Americans is how easy it was for abusive officials to turn federal surveillance powers against a political candidate they opposed.
***
Remember All Those Covid Concerns?
That we all vote by mail is the ‘progressive’ urging
(They seem indifferent, at best, to the risk of fraud surging);
As to protests in person, they’ve no such disquiet:
If only a letter sufficed for a riot.
--Anonymous
***
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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web.)
***
Mr. Freeman is the co-author of “Borrowed Time,” now available from HarperBusiness.
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