Nunes, Schiff, Horowitz
Adam Schiff. Anyone might be forgiven for thinking that Adam Schiff, the Grand Inquisitor in the Dems' Impeachment Theater, played no role in the Horowitz Dossier. But you'd be very wrong if you thought that. In fact, despite the fact that Schiff is not mentioned once by name in Horowitz's dossier, he actually plays a central role. Because it is Schiff's big lies, in his supposed rebuttal of Devin Nunes' famous memo , that are utterly debunked, once and forever, by Horowitz's recital of facts.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ lays it out for us in a few short, but very sweet, tweets:
1) Key findings of Horowitz report:
--Yup, IG said FBI hit threshold for opening an investigation. But also goes out of its way to note what a "low threshold" this is. Durham's statement made clear he will provide more info for Americans to make a judgment on reasonableness.
A "low threshhold" is, of course in the eyes of the beholder. Low compared to what other threshhold? Yes a "reasonableness" standard may appear "low" compared to the "beyond a reasonable doubt" threshhold required for a criminal conviction. But consider. Is it really such an easy thing to do to present "articulable facts" that make it reasonable to believe that a given person is an agent of Russia? We're not talking here of simple allegations--some unidentified person in a "friendly foreign government" said this and such. We're talking about "articulable facts." Andy McCarthy, a highly experienced former prosecutor, previously referred to the FBI's investigation as having been opened on "false pretenses", i.e., NOT based on "articulable facts." That's been my central contention for all these months. Tellingly, John Durham was willing to publicly contradict Horowitz's conclusion. Durham obviously doesn't think even such a supposedly "low" threshhold was met. AG Bill Barr also believes Comey's FBI and the DoJ stumbled, repeatedly, over that "low" threshhold. This story isn't finished yet.
2) The report is triumph for former House Intel Chair Devin Nunes, who first blew the whistle on FISA abuse. The report confirms all the elements of the February 2018 Nunes memo, which said dossier was as an "essential" part of applications, and FBI withheld info from FISA court.
3) Conversely, report is an excoriation of Adam Schiff and his "memo" of Feb 2018. That doc stated that "FBI and DOJ officials did NOT abuse the [FISA] process" or "omit material information." Also claimed FBI didn't much rely on dossier.
4) In fact, IG report says dossier played "central and essential role" in getting FISA warrants. Schiff had access to same documents as Nunes, yet chose to misinform the public. This is the guy who just ran impeachment proceedings.
5) Report is a devastating indictment of Steele, Fusion GPS and the "dossier." Report finds that about the only thing FBI ever corroborated in that doc were publicly available times, places, title names. Ouch.
Who thinks the Republicans will ever let anyone, let alone Adam Schiff himself, forget the shamefully corrupt role Schiff has played in this historic drama of our constitutional republic?