The Strzok hearing damaged our democracy - The Washington Post Editorial Board

[DonViejo]

By Editorial Board
July 12 at 6:48 PM

TEMPERS BOILED over on Capitol Hill Thursday as Peter Strzok, the FBI official at the center of President Trump’s attempts to discredit special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, testified before a joint meeting of two House oversight committees. With all its yelling and interruptions, the hearing was a fitting coda to the hyperpartisan farce of an investigation that House Republicans have conducted into the FBI and Mr. Mueller’s Russia probe.

Republicans spent hours parsing text messages and waving documents in the air. But all of it, just like most of the broader House investigation, was a distraction from this central point about the conspiracy narratives the president and his defenders have been cooking up about the FBI: If the agency had been trying to harm Mr. Trump’s campaign, agents could have released damaging information on pro-Trump Russian interference before Election Day — and they did not.

The investigators certainly had a lot they could have spilled. “In the summer of 2016, I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign,” Mr. Strzok said. “This information had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.”

Whether you believe Mr. Strzok’s account of what he was thinking, the fact is that the FBI said little about Russian meddling before Election Day 2016. There simply was no effectuated plot to harm Mr. Trump’s electoral chances.

For his part, Mr. Strzok could not argue his way out of responsibility for his now-famous 2015 and 2016 text messages expressing strong anti-Trump views, as well as criticisms of other 2016 presidential candidates. Yet the messages are not proof of anything other than Mr. Strzok’s personal feelings — and, in committing them to writing on company equipment, his poor judgment. Republican arguments presumed that Mr. Strzok’s opinions were tantamount to corrupt behavior. As Lawfare’s Susan Hennessey, a former National Security Agency lawyer, put it, “What is actually on display here is House GOP members demonstrating that they cannot even conceive of the possibility someone could place duty and institutional integrity over base political and personal interests.”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-strzok-hearing-damaged-our-democracy/2018/07/12/fae9ef0c-860e-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html

[ck4829]

1. K&R, so when do we start saying Congress is no longer the organization described in Article I of the

US Constitution?

Sure aren't fitting into it very well these days.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I disagree with the headline.

I don't think it damaged our democracy. It further revealed the damage the GOP is doing to our democracy.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Beg to differ.

I watched the hearings for about 3 hours. I saw a resurgence of democracy.

How: Finally an opportunity and a forum for Democrats to protest in the strongest and articulate terms, to finally redefine the true issues. To stand up to Trey Gowdy and other Republicans who have abused their positions since the Obama administration to undermine not only the democratic party, but to also undermine democracy, to shift power and money to a select few. Yesterday, the Democrats could not be denied the microphone.

I was thrilled to see a strong pushback. Whether it will make a difference from hereonin remains uncertain.

[NewJeffCT]

5. And, in response

Republicans won't hold another public hearing for the rest of the year.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. I suspect we will survive this, as we survived J. Edgar, Tail-Gunner Joe...

and an entire civil war. It may not be pretty, but we should be able to survive. And much of our survival will be due to the strength of our immigrant community.

Just for shits and giggles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_from_the_United_States_Congress

And do a search for "Charles Sumner" (We ain't even close to that)

[JohnnyRingo]

6. That last line is the kicker.

That republicans are in disbelief that anyone would put country above political loyalty sums up today's GOP nicely.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Actually, it is the animus behind the GOP's convening these hearings which is damaging democracy.

You'd think the WaPo editorial board would word its lede more thoughtfully.

[Pepsidog]

8. it occurred to me that these dopes actually believe their demented rhetoric