Steven Richards writes for Just the News about one leading congressman’s critique of FBI actions under past administrations.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday said that the decade-long era of weaponization at the FBI and Justice Department undermined the spirit of the Constitution by impeding Congress’ duty and power to conduct oversight of the federal government.
Earlier in the day, Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding evidence related to the bureau’s counterintelligence operation codenamed “Round River,” which classified President Donald Trump’s own administration officials and political allies, including congressional Republicans, as “conduits” of Russian disinformation – in an apparent effort to tamp down a Ukrainian corruption scandal engulfing the Biden family during the 2020 election.
As part of that operation, the FBI gave defensive briefings to members of Congress, arguing the lawmakers were spreading Russian disinformation by investigating corruption allegations against President Joe Biden, during his time as vice president, and son Hunter Biden in Ukraine.
“So almost half the confidential human sources say that was a concern, and yet they said, ‘No, no, no, no, we’re going to push that to the side,’ and the Justice Department said we’re going to go instead say this is a Russian information operation, and they’re using members of Congress as conduits to convey that Russian misinformation that they’re trying to get out. That is ridiculous,” Jordan told the Just the News, No Noise TV show.
“So that is how ridiculous this whole thing became, and I think it really underscores when you talk about the weaponization of government and what they were up to in trying to protect Biden and harm President Trump. They were willing to go to that length, to that extreme, saying Republican members of Congress were conduits of Russian information misinformation,” he also said.
Jordan believes the era of weaponization, and infringement on Congress’s oversight powers, began even earlier, during the 2016 election when the FBI relied on the now-discredited Steele Dossier as predicate to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
