Yesterday as I watched FBI director Christopher Wray testified to the House Oversight Committee concerning the FBI’s background investigation of White House staff secretary Rob Porter, I noticed a little tidbit Wray mentioned in passing when giving the timeline. It immediately tickled my WTF response, which has been generally reliable over the years in isolating and focusing on something that’s going to be a ‘Most Important Aspect’ of whatever political ramifications are to come out of a big WH scandal. Mostly because I was around for Watergate, and never bought the bland ‘for-public-consumption’ fiction that Tricky Dick actually went down for “A Third-Rate Burglary.” Thus leading me to my long-time bottom-line adage that the MOST foolish thing a wannabe despot can possibly do to ensure their eventual ignoble downfall is to piss off their spooks.
My spidey-sense thus tickled, I also noticed the fact that none of the TV talking heads (that I tune in to) bothered to include that little tidbit in their coverage of the soap opera and Wray’s contributions to it. Except for Rachel Maddow, who DID mention it in passing. Causing me to hope it has tickled her spidey-sense too, and that she’s got at least one of her crack research/investigative team members hot on the trail.
The tidbit that caught my attention is bolded below:
But Wray, testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the FBI submitted a partial report on Porter’s clearance last March and that the investigation was completed last July. Soon after, he added, the FBI received a request for a follow-up, which the bureau completed and provided last November.
The FBI closed the file in January, and when it received additional information this month, “we passed it on as well,” Wray said.
Now, the issue went public on February 6th, when the media started reporting on Porter’s wife-abuse problem. He ‘resigned’ the next day - February 7th - when the media released the now-famous photo of his first wife’s black eye. Precisely WHY the media suddenly had a hot story about Porter’s abused wives on the 6th remains unexplained, as the wives themselves had duly reported it to the FBI way back before March of last year. If they were going to get their 15 minutes of fame for being abused ex-wives of a White House secretary, they’d have done it last year (one would think). Why all of a sudden were the talking heads onto it like bloodhounds? Doesn’t look to me like they were ‘alerted’ out of the blue by the ex-wives, but by someone else who ‘leaked’ the fact that Porter was about to be taken down hard and fast by somebody who wasn’t merely jealous of his in-the-offing promotion to a new position from which he would soon replace Kelly as COS.
To the denizens of the current White House, abusing ex-wives years ago isn’t an automatic disqualification. Nor is being unable to pass a basic FBI background check for a security clearance (or buying a handgun). Or not having a security clearance at all, in an administration where the POTUS himself is such an unabashed crook that he couldn’t get an honest security clearance in a million years. So I’m left intrigued by that little tidbit about “additional information this month.” Which was mere DAYS prior to the whole thing exploding in the media.
Was it that one of the ex-wives was planning to go public and actively blackmailing Porter to keep it quiet? If so, she failed miserably at keeping it quiet, and nobody in the media got an exclusive (so why bother?). Wife abuse isn’t a big “National Security” threat in Pussy-Grabber’s administration anyway. Besides, beaten ex-wives aren’t “new information” for the FBI or the White House, even if they are new to us.
Or is it something much worse (and a pressing national security threat), that justifies Wray giving the testimony he did to the House Oversight Committee just yesterday? A Russian connection of some sort? Hmmm… a not-too unlikely scenario, all things considered.
Anyway, I’m hoping Rachel follows up on the tidbit Wray tossed into the salad for no obvious reason, which the entire rest of the MSM ignored. Something evil is going on, and I’m still hoping for that “smoking gun” that needs to be discovered in order to dish out some just desserts for this entire cabal full of sleazy traitors who went in thoroughly determined to piss off as many spooks as possible.
We shall see...