Crunch time for politicians, Fox News and CNN-NYT led mass media

“Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced today that, in response to requests from the Attorney General and Members of Congress, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will initiate a review that will examine the Justice Department’s and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person. As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.” 

Only one party – the Democrats or the Republicans – can emerge unscathed from Horowitz’s review. 

Horowitz has now told Congressional leaders:

“I do not now anticipate a need to prepare and issue separate classified and public versions of the report”

This promises the release of virtually all of the previously heavily-redacted four FBI FISC applications.

Horowitz’s review followed outstanding investigative reporting made public on Fox News shows hosted by Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham.  

A small band of investigators – John Solomon, Sara Carter, Tom Fitton and Greg Jarrett – painstakingly unearthed factual evidence to substantiate what they alleged was the illegal surveillance of US citizen Carter Page thereby gaining possible access to information relating to the 2016 Trump election Committee, the Trump Transition Committee and President Trump himself.

These investigators alleged that four warrants obtained by the FBI from the FISC between October 2016 and April 2017 to spy on Page were allegedly based on an unverified dossier prepared by a former British secret service agent – Christopher Steele – that had been paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton - and that this information had not been disclosed to the Court. 

BuzzFeed News published the Steele dossier on 10 January 2017 – before Trump was sworn in as President.  Fox News reporting with increasing frequency on what has been happening since then – has been virtually ignored by the mass media.

CNN headlined its report of 16 March 2019:

“Steele says he used unverified information to support details about web company in dossier”

The New York Times (NYT) reported on 19 April 2019:

“But the release on Thursday of the report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, underscored what had grown clearer for months — that while many Trump aides had welcomed contacts with the Russians, some of the most sensational claims in the [Steele] dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove. Mr. Mueller’s report contained over a dozen passing references to the document’s claims but no overall assessment of why so much did not check out. Now the dossier — financed by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and compiled by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele — is likely to face new, possibly harsh scrutiny from multiple inquiries.

The mass media may have missed out on what could possibly prove to be the biggest political scandal in America’s history.

Crunch time is coming for politicians, Fox News and the CNN-NYT led mass media.