Rachel Maddow showed no mercy on Thursday as she shredded the flimsy arguments Republicans are making with respect to the controversial memo set to be released on Friday.
While Republicans point to the memo as proof that the FBI was out to get Trump’s campaign via FISA court warrants, Maddow explained just how insane that argument is.
Video:
Rachel Maddow Shows No Mercy In Shredding The Flimsy Argument Behind The Scam GOP Memo #Maddow pic.twitter.com/HuWOnEg3kC
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— Sean Colarossi (@SeanColarossi) February 2, 2018
In less than 90 seconds, Maddow obliterated the entire GOP argument behind their phony memo:
That’s what this dumb memo is all about. This memo you’ve been hearing so much about, the memo that is apparently going to be released tomorrow over the vehement objections of the Justice Department and the FBI because it contains information about how FISA court works and how FISA court warrants are adjudicated and what kind of surveillance the government does on targets that it believes are foreign agents. That memo that has been the attention of so much media attention and so much excitement on the right over the past few weeks – what’s that memo about? That memo is a House Republican effort to try to make you believe that either the third or fourth renewal of that surveillance warrant against Carter Page is a terrible scandal. How could anybody approve that? There are multiple reports that President Trump fervently believes this memo is what he needs to end the Mueller investigation. Because this memo will make America believe that only terrible, what, Clinton stooges would support the third or fourth renewal of a surveillance warrant on the guy who’s been on the FBI counter-intelligence radar since at least 2013 when he played a starring role as the enthusiastic idiot in a convicted Russian spy ring in New York, who then later turned up multiple times in Moscow denouncing the United States, praising Vladimir Putin and trying to get Russian business deals for himself, with Russian state-run companies, while meeting with Russian government officials.
As Maddow noted, Carter Page had been on the FBI’s radar “since at least 2013.” There were several – three or four – FISA warrants renewed against him before he was even part of Trump’s campaign or inner-circle.
The idea that there is anything scandalous or pro-Clinton about a warrant to surveil Page – a man who has essentially been a Russian spy for years – is nonsense. Perhaps it’s why, just today, White House officials basically admitted that the memo will be a “dud.” Others in the administration have “internal anxiety” about the president’s decision to release it.
Overall, it reveals just how desperate Trump and his Republican allies are to distract from and potentially kill Robert Mueller’s investigation.
If this is all they’ve got – if their entire effort to undermine the FBI and derail the special counsel investigation hinges on a FISA warrant against Carter Page – then they are in big trouble.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
