The texts are out and once again, Republicans have misled the public.
While Republicans have accused FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page of bias against Trump, some of the texts recovered using forensic tools suggest Trump was just one of many people targeted in their routine political banter.
At times, for instance, they were also critical of Clinton.
In addition, another Strzok text also appears to contradict the notion that the FBI is out to get Trump, after he told Page he was hesitant to join Mueller’s team because of his “gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
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The U.S. Justice Department’s internal watchdog said Thursday it recovered five months of missing text messages between two Federal Bureau of Investigation officials whom Republicans have accused of bias against President Donald Trump.
It also wasn’t a big conspiracy, rather their cellphones are just two of “thousands” whose texts were not backed up and stored on the FBI’s systems between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017, according to a Justice Department official speaking to Reuters.
This episode in Republican Conspiracy Theories follows their playbook. Other episodes include “The IRS is targeting conservatives!”
The problem with Republicans using conspiracy theories to misdirect the public and the media from their own scandals is that their base believe the conspiracies. That’s not an issue for Republicans, of course, but it did lead to them getting the Conspiracy Monger In Chief as their presidential candidate and that is how we ended up with Donald Trump.
So it matters.
It also matters because it’s clear Republicans are putting a lot of effort into discrediting the FBI. The same FBI investigating Trump Russia and GOP Trump Russia.
(Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch)
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