[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 88 (Monday, May 11, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2332-S2339]
EXECUTIVE SESSION
[...]
Russia
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, in the last several weeks, a lot of
information relating to the FBI's Russia investigation has been
declassified and made public. That is in large part thanks to action
taken by Attorney General Barr and action taken by Acting Director
Grenell at DNI on declassification of a lot of things that should have
been declassified a long time ago. Their acts of transparency are
finally shining a light on the dark corners of the Federal Government.
The public's business ought to be public. There is too much
overclassification in the Federal Government. Barr and Grenell are
doing what they ought to do, and I hope they keep it up.
In the last several weeks, we have also seen a lot of denial from
some quarters in the media about the information that has been
released.
Also last week, former President Obama said the rule of law is at
risk because of the Justice Department's dismissal of the Flynn case.
Contrary to what President Obama believes or the media might say, I
believe the opposite is true. The rule of law is at risk if the Federal
Government can get away with violating the Constitution to do what they
did to Lieutenant General Flynn.
When it comes to those violations and other misconduct by former
government officials, Obama and the mainstream media pundits all seem
to be silent all of a sudden. I have heard no comment from Mr. Obama
about the independent inspector general's findings that Andrew McCabe
lied under oath to Federal investigators multiple times or about how
Department of Justice prosecutors falsely told the court that they had
produced all Brady material to Flynn. I didn't hear them when the
Federal Government surveilled an American citizen connected to the
Trump campaign without probable cause and based on intelligence that
the FBI knew was questionable at best. There is too much silence on
something that now is so obvious.
Since 2017, I have aggressively pursued the Flynn investigation to
find out more about why the FBI decided to
[[Page S2335]]
interview Flynn, make him a subject of an investigation, and then why
the Justice Department eventually charged him. From the beginning, I
wanted to know the facts of the case, and from the beginning, none of
what I found looked right. Having done good government oversight for
over 40 years, I know a government foul-up when I see it.
The public knows a lot more than they did in 2017 when the news first
broke about this Flynn case. For example, we know that on January 4,
2017, the FBI wrote a closing memorandum on Flynn, who was code-named
``Crossfire Razor'' by the FBI. That memorandum said the intelligence
community could find no derogatory information on the general.
On the very same day the FBI was ready to close the Flynn case, Peter
Strzok asked another FBI agent something like this: ``Hey, if you
haven't closed Razor, don't do it yet.'' So Strzok obviously had
another agenda. The case was still open at that moment, and Strzok
asked that it be kept open ``for now.'' Strzok then quickly messaged
Lisa Page, saying that Razor still happened to be open because of some
oversight and said: ``Yeah, our utter incompetence actually helps us.
20 percent of the time . . . ''
During the course of my oversight activities of the FBI, I have
uncovered and made public large amounts of Strzok's and Page's
messages. When reviewing all the faults and disasters of the Russia
investigation, these text messages are very, very important. They are
the free expression of these top FBI employees' mindset, unencumbered
by rules or decorum. They give us a look at what the drivers of the
Russia investigation actually believed.
In August 2016, just after the FBI opened the Russia investigation,
Page said: ``Trump's not ever going to become president, right?
Right?!?'' She is the one who edited Flynn's 302 summary along with
Strzok, which contradicted the original 302. Strzok responded to the
Page quote that I just gave about whether Trump would ever become
President this way: ``No. No he won't. We'll stop it.'' Their animus
towards Trump helps to explain why they cut corners and why they didn't
follow regular protocol in running their inquiry.
On January 5, 2017, the day after Strzok moved to keep the Flynn case
open, President Obama met with Director Comey, Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates, Vice President Biden, and National Security Advisor Susan
Rice. At that meeting, they briefed President Obama on the Russia
investigation. It is unclear to what extent they discussed the details
of the investigation amongst each other, but given all that we know now
regarding the fake foundation to the inquiry, it is time we asked: What
did Obama and Biden know, and when did they know it?
During the course of my oversight, I acquired an email from Susan
Rice. She sent herself an email on Obama's last day in office, January
20, 2017. That email memorialized the alleged contents of the January
5, 2017, meeting with Obama that I previously referred to. As I noted
in 2018 when I made the email public, I found it very odd that among
her activities in the final moments of the final day of the Obama
administration, that she would write herself an email about a meeting
that happened several weeks prior about this investigation. According
to Rice, Obama wanted everything done ``by the book.''
Of course, we now know that never happened. She also said, in part:
``The President''--as in Obama--``asked Comey to inform him if anything
changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share
classified information with the incoming team.''
Then, 1 week later, on January 12, 2017, somebody in the Obama
administration leaked the Flynn-Kislyak call to the Washington Post
that, for the very first time, ignited rumors about Flynn's association
with Russians and a possible violation of the arcane Logan Act.
Now, wasn't this really a perfectly timed leak--one that would help
to create a fake foundation to interview Flynn?
Well, guess what happened. Twelve days later, on January 24, 2017,
Strzok interviewed Flynn in the White House. Prior to that interview,
Comey chose not to follow normal protocols to inform the White House
that the FBI intended to interview an employee. Now, we all know that
the FBI would normally work through the White House counsel to have
discussions for approval and who would be present at that interview.
You have seen it on television several times this weekend: Comey
bragging about getting away with skirting the rules. When he was asked
in a 2018 interview about how he did it, Comey said--and this is what
showed up in these last weekends:
I sent them--
Meaning he sent the FBI agents to interview.
I sent them. Something I probably wouldn't have done or
even gotten away with in a more organized investigation, a
more organized administration.
According to Comey's former assistant, Comey said: ``We just decided,
you know, screw it,'' in reference to their breaking protocol with the
White House.
Now, I referred to an email that said the President wanted to do this
by the book. Well, what I just described to you is hardly ``by the
book.'' Flynn was never told during this interview what he was being
secretly interrogated for, and the whole thing was done without Flynn
having an attorney present. In fact, I think I recall they even told
him he didn't need an attorney.
Now, we know that the FBI had no real investigative purpose to
interview Flynn. We also know, based upon FBI notes, that agents
apparently interviewed Flynn to trick him in a lie so that they could
prosecute him or get him fired. That prosecuting him or getting him
fired are very clear in some notes that we got from the FBI,
handwritten notes.
Keep in mind that the FBI had prepared to close this case weeks
before, except it didn't quite get closed because Strzok came in and
said: Can we keep it open--or something to that effect.
The FBI already had the transcript of the Flynn-Ambassador Kislyak
call. They knew exactly what was discussed. So what was the point of
interviewing Flynn if they already had the transcript?
Well, lucky for Strzok, the FBI had not technically closed the Flynn
case. So he figured yet they could lay a trap for Flynn, and they did
lay a trap.
In doing so, they didn't warn him that he was under investigation.
They went around the Justice Department, and I made it very clear how
they bypassed the White House on interview protocols, because Comey was
bragging on television about that.
Under Comey's leadership, the FBI abused government powers in ways
that our Founders and Framers feared most, because they had had enough
of George III. They weren't going to let it happen again in the United
States. That is why they wrote the Constitution the way they did.
The Russia investigation, in other words, is a textbook example of
what not to do. At every step of the investigation, the government
sought evidence to advance it, never got the evidence that they needed
to advance it, and advanced the investigation anyway.
That is pretty clearly an abuse of power.
Let's recall that Comey also leaked his memos of his private
discussions with President Trump to get the special counsel, Mueller,
appointed. Comey is pretty smart. He had a plan. It worked. That plan
worked to get Mueller appointed. Mueller did his work for 2 years, and
it cost the taxpayers $30 million. In the end, Mueller found no
collusion and no obstruction, which is exactly the same information
that the House Intelligence Committee's 50-plus depositions told us.
Those were done way back--not way back but a little way back--in 2017.
Mueller finished his job in 2019. That is more than $30 million just to
reinvent the wheel.
Now, with respect to Comey, I think it is monumentally important to
point out a piece of his testimony from 2017, before the House
Intelligence Committee. Comey said the following:
. . . we had an open counterintelligence investigation on
Mr. Flynn, and it had been open since the summertime, and we
were very close to closing it. In fact, I had--I think I
had authorized it to be closed at the end of December,
beginning of January.
Now, Comey leaked his memos so that the public would know the
President allegedly said to him that he
[[Page S2336]]
hoped Comey would let the whole Flynn thing go. That is what the hook
was to getting a special counsel appointed.
Not once in Comey's memos did he mention that by the time that
conversation occurred, he had already authorized the Flynn case to be
closed. Don't you think that is a material fact that would put the
proper context on his interactions with Trump?
Attorney General Barr is exactly right. What the FBI did to Flynn
cannot be justified by any angle of review. What the FBI did is to
flout the rules, the law, and the Constitution. Entrapment is
unconstitutional.
That is where the outrage ought to be--not on the dismissal of the
case but on facts that the case was brought in the first place and a
good man's life was destroyed.
Mueller had all these facts. He had documents. He had the Brady
material. He had the FBI notes and contradictory 302 summaries. He had
the emails. He had all the information that showed Flynn was set up,
targeted, and pressured to plead guilty in a secret side deal between
the Mueller team and his former lawyers, only because he was running
out of money and the government was coming after his son.
Flynn did what maybe a lot of people would do when your family is at
stake. Flynn did what he did to save his family from financial ruin and
his son from reputational ruin. He did what any father would do for his
family.
If it can happen to Flynn, it can happen to you. It can happen to any
American, and, in some ways, this also happened to a person named
Carter Page and with the illegal surveillance on Carter Page.
You know, in this business of self-government and this business of
constitutional safeguards, we still are in a constant battle between
liberty and tyranny, and we have seen some tyranny in regard to Flynn.
My fellow Americans, let's use the Russia investigation and all of its
shortcomings to forever guard against the tyranny of the Federal
Government.
On one last thing, people are constantly phoning our offices and
wanting to know when all the people who did the injustice to Flynn are
going to be prosecuted, because they think there are two standards of
justice. You know, they announced yesterday that McCabe isn't going to
be prosecuted. But Flynn was entrapped to be prosecuted, and how wrong
that is. A lot of people want justice brought to the people who did the
injustice, and I think they ought to be prosecuted.
But even more important than prosecuting him, it is about time that
these facts get out so the public knows the injustice that is going on
within our government, within the FBI, in the highest levels of the
FBI.
We aren't finding fault with the people in the FBI who are doing what
needs to be done to bring law and order to our country, but when we
have these unusual, illegal, unconstitutional, corrupt things that
happened to Flynn, it ought to wake up the American people. It ought to
wake up those of us in government to make sure it never happens again.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
