Newly released documents from the Department of Justice (DOJ) may have just thrown former special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigative team into the midst of yet another scandal.
In a thread of tweets published Thursday, The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis cited “newly released DOJ records” that he says “show that multiple top members of Mueller’s investigative team claimed to have ‘accidentally wiped’ at least 15 (!) phones used during the anti-Trump investigation after the DOJ [Office of the Inspector General] asked for the [devices] to be handed over.”
Mueller was tapped in May 2017 to run an investigation into President Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign team, who had been accused of colluding with Russia. No evidence of “collusion” was ever found, as NPR noted, and now, the DOJ — namely, U.S. Attorney John Durham — is engaged in what has been dubbed an “investigation of the investigators” to find out what led to the allegations in the first place.
This latest development only adds to the scrutiny surrounding Mueller’s probe.
“This is just ridiculous”
Indeed, according to Fox News, Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn (TN) asserted Saturday that the news shows “why you have to investigate the investigators.”
“They got caught and now they are trying to execute a cover-up that nobody ever could have made this up,” she alleged, according to Fox.
Davis was the first to report on the documents, which were released as part of a lawsuit from Judicial Watch, according to Fox. Fox further reported that “at least several dozen phones were wiped of information because of forgotten passcodes, irreparable screen damage, loss of the device, intentional deletion[,] or other reasons,” all “before the DOJ’s Office of Inspector General could examine” them.
It’s a situation that Blackburn described as “implausible.”
“How do you have 29 phones were 29 people forget their passwords?” she pressed. “This is just ridiculous.”
“The pandemic of ‘wiped’ phones”
According to Breitbart, at least two of the phones that were wiped “to factory settings” belonged to disgraced ex-FBI staffers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
In a statement responding to the release of the new DOJ records, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said the news “only adds to [the] appearance of a cover-up.”
“The pandemic of ‘wiped’ phones among the Mueller team requires a criminal investigation of this destruction of evidence and potential obstruction of justice and other crimes,” Fitton said, according to Breitbart. “The DOJ and FBI hid these records for nearly two years — which only adds to [the] appearance of a cover-up.”
The post Report: New documents show Mueller team 'accidentally wiped' phones used during probe first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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