Maxim Lott
The conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation – and its determination that no evidence supports claims of Trump-Russia collusion – has spurred calls from President Trump’s allies to closely examine the probe’s origins at the FBI.
President Trump, for his part, called to “look into” those who had created a “false narrative” sparking the investigation. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has already vowed to look into the FBI’s actions.
READ THE SUMMARY OF THE MUELLER REPORT
They’ll have plenty to sift through.
Here are just seven FBI actions and comments, covered in controversial text messages, that have raised questions about the impartiality of the probe.
FBI lead investigator texts ‘we’ll stop’ Trump
On Aug. 8, 2016, FBI lawyer Lisa Page texted her lover, Peter Strzok, who was in charge of the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton and later worked on the Russia probe: "[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"
Strzok responded on his FBI-issued work phone: "No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it."
The text was discovered by the inspector general at the U.S. Department of Justice, after the FBI failed to uncover the message on its own.
The IG report was scathing about Strzok’s text.
“It is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects,” the IG report stated.
The inspector general’s office also asked Strzok for his response.
TRUMP BLASTS MEDIA AFTER MUELLER REPORT
“When asked about this text message, Strzok stated that he did not specifically recall sending it, but that he believed that it was intended to reassure Page that Trump would not be elected, not to suggest that he would do something to impact the investigation,” the report notes.
Strzok later told the House Judiciary Committee that he meant Americans in general would stop Trump in 2016.
Strzok calls Russia investigation an ‘insurance policy’ in case Trump wins
In an August 15, 2016 text message, Strzok told Page: "I want to believe … that there’s no way Trump gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40."
Critics say the text implies Strzok wanted the investigation to hurt Trump in case he were to win.
Strzok told the IG and the House Judiciary Committee that his text meant an investigation should happen right away.
“My use of the phrase ‘insurance policy’ was simply to say, while the polls or people might think it is less likely that then-candidate Trump would be elected, that should not influence … us doing our job responsibly,” Strzok told the House Judiciary Committee.
Strzok admits in 2017 ‘there’s no big there there’ on Russian collusion
Despite having called the Russia situation an “insurance policy” and having pressed for more vigorous investigation, a text from May 17, 2017 shows Strzok had doubts.
In texts to Page, Strzok questioned whether he should join Mueller’s team investigating Trump and Russia because: "you and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there."
Asked by the inspector general about this text, Strzok said he was merely questioning whether collusion was coordinated or just involved “a bunch of opportunists.”
Strzok ultimately joined the team investigating Trump, before being removed and then fired, after the IG report revealed his texts.
FBI lawyer suggests a small team interview Clinton because ‘she might be our next president’
In February 2016, while Hillary Clinton was under investigation for improper handling of classified information, the Department of Justice wanted to send four attorneys to question Clinton.
But FBI attorney Page urged both Strzok and then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to only allow two DOJ people to be sent.
“Our best reason to hold the line at 2 and 2 is: She might be our next president,” Page explained to McCabe via text. “The last thing we need is us going in there loaded for bear, when it is not operationally necessary… This is as much about reputational protection as anything.”
The inspector general’s office asked Page about that and reported that she told them “while ‘it’s irrelevant whether or not [Clinton]…would or would not become president…if she did become president, I don’t want her left with a feeling that…the FBI marched in with an army of 50 in order to interview me.’”
Page and others did not appear to express similar concern about Trump’s feelings once his turn for investigation came.
Ultimately, all four DOJ prosecutors were allowed to interview Clinton, who brought nine of her own lawyers to the interview.
The inspector general also found several pro-Clinton texts that other FBI employees sent from work phones, from “I’m with her,” to quips about being “done interviewing the President” — even though Clinton had not won the election yet.
McCabe compares Trump to ‘Mafia’ for asking if he should give speech to FBI
McCabe, in his book and in press summaries, said that Trump asked him whether he should give a speech to FBI agents after James Comey had been fired as FBI director and when McCabe was filling in for him.
Trump asked both McCabe and his chief counsel Don McGahn if such a speech would be helpful.
While McCabe says he told Trump such a speech would be fine, he later wrote that Trump’s question really reminded him of "a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss… The same kind of thing was happening here."
“The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate,” McCabe added.
FBI employee cries when Trump won
The inspector general report found an exchange between FBI employees on their work phones from Nov. 9, just after the election.
“I can’t stop crying,” one unidentified FBI employee said.
“That makes me even more sad… I can’t stop stressing about what I could have done differently,” an unidentified FBI attorney replied.
FBI employee calls Trump supporters ‘all poor to middle class,’ ‘lazy POS’
The same FBI employee who discussed crying after the election also used an FBI-issued device to direct class-based disdain toward Trump supporters: “Trump’s supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS that think he will magically grant them jobs for doing nothing.”
Peter Strzok used similar language, saying in one text: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support….”
Maxim Lott is Executive Producer of Stossel TV and creator of ElectionBettingOdds.com. He can be reached on Twitter at @MaximLott.
Source: Fox News Politics
From left to right: Mao Zedong, Hugo Chavez, Joseph Stalin and Fidel Castro.
Socialist leaders come to power promising to equalize society.
But, in the words of George Orwell’s "Animal Farm," their followers soon learn "some are more equal than others."
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND SOCIALIST: BERNIE SANDERS HAS 3 HOUSES, MAKES MILLIONS
American democratic socialists have faced scrutiny for their own indulgences under the capitalist system — for instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders has three homes and a proclivity for private jet travel.
But American socialists’ luxuries pale in comparison to those of history’s most infamous socialist and communist leaders around the world.
Venezuela
Hugo Chavez brought socialism to Venezuela and once said that it is "bad" to be rich. Yet his family lived in opulence even as the rest of the country has in recent years descended into starvation and violence.
Chavez, despite not being wealthy when he was democratically elected as the president of Venezuela in 1998, was worth between $1 and $2 billion at his death, according to global risk analysis firm Criminal Justice International Associates.
Chavez’s daughter, Rosinés Chávez, once posted an Instagram photo of herself with celebrity Justin, and another of her posing with U.S. cash – even as ordinary Venezuelans saw their life savings wiped out by million-percent inflation caused by the government printing too much money.
Ordinary Venezuelans are angry.
“Claims of social justice and equality are ridiculous … The elites led by Chavez have stayed wealthy through corruption and theft of money,” a Venezuelan college student named Roxana told Fox News in texts translated from Spanish.
“In Venezuela, there is a very particular word to refer to family and friends who benefit from government money. They are ‘enchufado’ [‘well-connected’].”
But on her end, Roxana says she finds it hard to get decent food and she constantly fears being attacked – Venezuela now has a murder rate two times higher than Detroit’s.
‘Socialism in Venezuela loves poor people so much, it multiplies them.’
Surveys also show the average Venezuelan has lost 24 pounds due to lack of food.
GILLIBRAND SAYS ‘THERE’S NOTHING SOCIALIST’ ABOUT THE GREEN NEW DEAL
Roxana mentioned a common joke in her country about the rise in extreme poverty: "Socialism in Venezuela loves poor people so much, it multiplies them.”
Cuba
The Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, throughout his reign, claimed to live in a humble fisherman’s hut.
“The fisherman’s hut was really a luxury vacation home,” Castro’s former bodyguard, Juan Reinaldo Sanchez, writes in “The Double Life of Fidel Castro.”
According to the bodyguard, the Cuban dictator obtained more than 20 fancy properties throughout the island.
Castro also frequently relaxed on a 90-foot yacht decorated with exotic wood imported from Angola. He also had nearly endless beachfront property to himself.
Castro eventually made it to number seven on Forbes’ list of richest world leaders, which estimated his wealth at $900 million. Castro denied being so wealthy.
With all his wealth and power, Castro also had at least five mistresses, according to his bodyguard.
Soviet Union
The top leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had access to a network of palaces, cars, and delicacies. However, Soviet leaders lived up to their ideals in one way: they never officially owned any of it. Upon death, the things they used went to the next leader.
Joseph Stalin loved American-made Packard cars, and had several.
Soviet leaders and bureaucrats also had their own elite, exclusive system of grocery stores, hospitals and schools — even while ordinary Russian citizens sometimes waited for hours to buy food.
"There was not a lot of food to choose from, but in Moscow it was still edible,” Vladimir Yankov, a Soviet scientist who was born during Stalin’s reign and who later immigrated to the United States, told Fox News.
He said he never entered a special store for the political elite – but that twice in his life, he got a gift of top-quality Indian tea from well-connected friends with access to the stores.
“A party leader of a town with 100,000 [people] was paid a salary five times the national average,” Yankov recounted, “and had an apartment size five times the national average, plus a car with a driver.”
In 1985, 15 percent of Soviet households had a car. In the U.S., by contrast, households had an average of nearly two cars.
But Soviet elites’ wealth was always less ostentatious and flashy than that of American billionaires and celebrities, making things more equal in that way.
Yankov said that, to him, social democracies like Sweden struck a good balance – they reject traditional aspects of socialism such as government ownership, but also provide generous welfare.
“The problem in the Soviet Union was the leaders’ stupidity, not their consumption habits – at least for me,” Yankov said.
China
China’s constitution states that it “is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class” – yet, its leaders live far better than workers.
China suffered more deaths than any other country due to starvation caused by the government takeover of farms. Sixty-five million people were killed, per The Black Book of Communism.
“The leaders never intended for themselves to be the ones who were tightening their belts,” Marion Smith, executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, told Fox News.
“Mao [Zedong] is a great example. He had a rotating harem of underage girls,” Smith said. That is per Mao’s former personal physician, who later moved to America.
“Mao was sitting in his luxurious pool, talking to Western journalists, while millions of Chinese died of starvation,” Smith added.
Romania
Nicolae Ceaușescu, dictator of the Socialist Republic of Romania from 1965 to 1989, claimed his government would aid in "the moulding of the new man and the promotion of socialist ethics and equity."
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
But Ceaușescu himself owned 15 palaces, including one complete with gold bathroom fixtures, silk carpets, and a garden with peacocks. He owned multiple yachts, and the Guinness Book of Historical Blunders records him as having provided his pet dog, Corbu, with its own motorcade.
Maxim Lott is Executive Producer of Stossel TV and creator of ElectionBettingOdds.com. He can be reached on Twitter.
Source: Fox News Politics
Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara is still idolized around the world. But his fans might not be aware of just what their idol did and said. (Getty)
T-shirts featuring Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara have never really gone out of style. Rapper Jay-Z has worn the shirt, model Gisele Bundchen has posed in swimwear featuring Che’s face, and even Prince Harry was photographed in Che garb in his younger years.
Multiple Hollywood films glorify the Cuban revolutionary, transforming him over the decades into somewhat of a pop-culture fixture – whose face still symbolizes for many the fight against the supposed capitalist machine, at a time when socialism is picking up renewed popularity in America.
TOP 5 FAILED SOCIALIST PROMISES
But Guevara’s fans might not be aware of just what their idol did and said. Here’s a look back at the history.
Guevara said he killed people without regard to guilt or innocence
In 1962, the official Cuban newspaper Revolución reported that Guevara said, “in times of excessive tension we cannot proceed weakly. At the Sierra Maestra, we executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation; it has the obligation to triumph.”
In his own diaries, Guevara waxed poetic: “I see it printed in the night sky that I … howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or the trenches, will take my bloodstained weapon and, consumed with fury, slaughter any enemy who falls into my hands.”
He later wrote in one of his diaries about how he shot a peasant who admitted leaking information to the enemy. “He gasped for a little while and was dead,” Guevara wrote. “To execute a human being is something ugly, but [also] exemplary.”
Thousands were killed by the Cuban regime, with many killings linked to Guevara.
WHAT DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM REALLY MEANS
“He was directly responsible for at least 124 killings,” Maria Werlau, author of the book “Che Guevara’s Forgotten Victims,” who has spent years documenting the specific people killed at Guevara’s orders, told Fox News.
His defenders say he did what was necessary for a revolution.
“Yes, my father killed – but revolutions are almost always violent,” Guevara’s daughter, who lives in Cuba, said in a speech in England in 2012.
Guevara created system that put gay people in labor camps
In Guevara’s diaries, he wrote of one man who, “apart from being homosexual and a first-rate bore, had been very nice to us.”
But Guevara’s diary quip also spilled into reality.
“The regime that Che Guevara co-founded is the only one in modern history in the Western Hemisphere to have herded gays into forced labor camps,” Humberto Fontova, author of “Exposing the Real Che Guevara,” told Fox News.
1960- Portrait of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Cuban revolutionary leader, sitting at a desk. (Getty)
Guevara set up Cuba’s first forced labor camp for people viewed by the state as delinquents. One journalist who managed to see such camps reported that inmates worked 60 hours per week, guarded by men with guns, and were paid almost nothing.
Gay people were among many targeted groups. People who had other “decadent” capitalist cultural practices could also be targeted.
“You see all these rock n’ roll bands [praising Che] like Rage Against the Machine and Carlos Santana – folks, they are eulogizing the emblem of a regime that made it a criminal offense to listen their music!” Fontova said.
Guevara opposed a free press
In 1959, leftist journalist José Pardo Llada reported that Guevara told him: “We must eliminate all newspapers; we cannot make a revolution with free press. Newspapers are instruments of the oligarchy.”
Fontova says that was in line with Che’s actions.
“When Che Guevara first arrived in Havana, he moved into the biggest, most luxurious mansion in the city. A Cuban journalist, Antonio Llano Montes, wrote about it in 1959. Naturally, Che Guevara’s goons paid him a little visit,” Fontova noted.
Montes, recounting the incident from abroad in a 1984 book titled "La Dinastía," reported that Guevara’s men took him to Che, who then gave him an ominous show of signing 26 execution approvals in front of him. Montes reported that Guevara then threatened him, saying: "I can have you shot this very night, what do you think?"
Montes wrote that Guevara left it at the threat, however, and the journalist quickly fled the country.
Guevara made racist statements
In Che Guevara’s diary, he wrote of “the blacks” living in Caracas, Venezuela, calling them “those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing.”
Guevara went on to write: “the black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving.”
Fontova says Guevara’s actions – in his revolution against the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista – were worse than his remarks.
“Many of the people Che was sending to the firing squad were members of Batista’s army, and these disproportionately tended to be black and mulatto. Batista himself was mulatto.”
Batista had been considered by many Cubans to be a friend of Cuba’s black minority, and had elevated several to prominent posts in government.
“The lilly-white Che Guevara and Fidel Castro overthrew the mixed-race Batista,” Fontova said.
Guevara also at times, however, called for more blacks to be represented in institutions and had black fighters under his command.
A messiah complex
Guevara’s diaries contain grandiose wording, casting himself as a savior absolving the sins of privilege with bloodshed.
Guevara wrote of a night where, talking to a fellow communist by a lamppost, a vision came to him offering clarity.
“I now knew… that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people,” he wrote.
“I see myself … the great equalizer of individual will, proclaiming the ultimate mea culpa [apology]. I feel my nostrils dilate, savoring the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood, the enemy’s death; I steel my body, ready to do battle, and prepare myself to be a sacred space within which the bestial howl of the triumphant proletariat can resound…” Guevara went on.
“His arrogance – that is one thing that everyone agrees on,” Fontova said.
The parable that “those who live by the sword, die by the sword” also applies to Guevara.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
After helping to establish socialism in Cuba, Guevara traveled to other countries to launch more revolts. His last attempt was in Bolivia, where he surrendered to Bolivian soldiers after a battle and was then executed, without a trial, on orders from the Bolivian government.
Maxim Lott is Executive Producer of Stossel TV and creator of ElectionBettingOdds.com. He can be reached on Facebook.
Source: Fox News Politics
-
Pages
MAGA One Radio