Republican Devin Nunes (R-CA) slammed Robert Mueller for his slow-poke investigation into Roger Stone on Fox’s Sunday Morning Futures.
Nunes told Maria Bartiromo that Mueller must be embarrassed to ask House Republicans for transcripts of Stone’s testimony before Congress this late in the game; Republicans had them for at least a year before Mueller’s team raided the Trump adviser’s home Friday and charged him with lying to Congress and other process crimes.
Nunes slams slow-poke Mueller
A grand jury indicted Stone on Friday on seven counts, including lying about his interactions with WikiLeaks to Congress when Nunes was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Nunes said that Mueller must be “really at the bottom of the barrel” to be chasing Stone over a process charge, particularly when House Republicans already determined that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“I think the Mueller investigation is really at the bottom of the barrel when they’re looking at people like this because we already found in our report that Roger Stone wasn’t colluding with the Russians, which, that was the original intent of all this, remember?” he said.
The House Intelligence Committee released Stone’s transcripts to Mueller late last year. Nunes said that Mueller must be embarrassed to be so far behind House Republicans in his investigation of Stone and that the process of discovery will be “fascinating” to watch unfold.
“Supposedly Trump campaign operatives, so-called, were colluding with Russians,” Nunes said. “They must be embarrassed that they actually have to come to House Republicans in order to have us give them the information in the transcript so that they go and get Roger Stone on a process foul that occurred in 2017 that Roger Stone himself is going to fight. The process of discovery is going to be fascinating in this case and I can’t wait to watch it.”
Vanishing credibility, political investigation
That Mueller is a year behind House Republicans is just another reason to doubt that the special counsel is the nonpartisan expert that liberals make him out to be. Some argue that either he’s not as skilled as liberals say, or he’s deliberately dragging things out for political reasons.
Moreover, many are skeptical about the necessity and motivations for a dramatic pre-dawn raid on Stone’s home in Fort Lauderdale, FL, which some critics have connected to a pattern of reckless prosecutions by the Mueller team that have involved intimidation, “perjury traps,” and contrived process charges to pressure Trump associates to flip against the president.
Stone was indicted on several counts for process crimes: witness tampering, obstruction of justice, and lying to Congress in connection with his statements to Nunes’ committee on his interactions with WikiLeaks during the campaign as part of House Republicans’ investigation of Russian election interference. He emerged defiant from the raid, slammed Mueller’s “Gestapo tactics” and vowed to fight the “fabricated” and “politically motivated” charges against him.
He didn’t rule out cooperating with Mueller, but he swore to never bear false witness against Trump.
“I’m in for the fight of my life but I will not quit. I will not fold. I will not bend. I will not bear false witness against the president,” Stone told Tucker Carlson on Friday. “I intend to fight because this indictment is fabricated. This indictment is thin as can be.”
Corrupt, never-ending probe
Nunes joked that he was pleased that the Justice Department is finally taking lying to Congress seriously and that they should start by prosecuting corrupt alphabet agents who lied to Congress in their testimonies, starting with disgraced agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
“I’m happy that now DOJ is going to take seriously lying to Congress. They’re going to go after Roger Stone for lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation,” he said. “They need to start with themselves. They need to start with the former leadership of the Department of Justice and the FBI.”
Nunes also blasted the Mueller probe in more general terms for dragging on endlessly despite producing no evidence of collusion. Stone is just the latest Mueller target to be indicted for process crimes rather than collusion.
“It goes on and on and on, it never ends, they’re getting people on process fouls,” he said. “It’s nice story-telling, because when you read these indictments it reads like a secret spy novel of all these characters hanging out with Russians. But the truth is, they’re getting them for process fouls and there’s no evidence of collusion with Russians.”
No comments: