More On “Obamagate!”

Just three items.

1) Today (or yesterday late?) AG William Barr appointed yet another Special Counsel to investigate “Obamagate!” John Bash of the Texas Western District of the DOJ. He has been assigned to investigate the various unmaskings of Michael Flynn that happened between the election of 2016 and Flynn’s interrogation by the FBI after Trump became president in January, 2017. The full absurdity of this is that even Barr in making this assignment recognized that there is nothing illegal about unmasking, not even anything improper.  Nevertheless, he thinks this particular set of unmaskings needs further investigation by the Department of Justice.

2) This is really just an extension of the first.  Not only are unmaskings normal and legal, but for the particular telephone calls on Dec. 29 that Flynn lied to the FBI about on Jan. 24, he was not even masked. Those were wiretapped by the FBI itself and never masked him. This makes this whole huffing about unmasking of Flynn all the more ridiculous. But then, when all these people say Flynn was somehow pressured into a plea bargain by the FBI on Jan. 24, well, he could have avoided all of this if he had simply not lied to the FBI.  Again, for the umpteenth time, I do not get why a former DIA director did not realize his phone calls with the Russian ambassador would be tapped with the FBI and others finding out about them and listening to them. What on earth did he think he was doing when he engaged in that lying (as well as the lying to Pence that got him fired from the Trump admin).

3) I shall note that while it is no longer the top or dominating story, the Fox News propaganda machine continues to spend regular and considerable time on this matter, still calling it “Obamagate” and pushing on the idea that Obama is guilty of something awful, setting up Flynn to lie to the FBI or something.  Hannity has cut it back, but this stuff still consumes a good quarter or so of his time nightly without a hint that any of it, much less pretty much the whole thing aside from a couple of botched FISA applications, is just a giant nothingburger. It may be that the cutback represents a realization that this is not catching on more broadly, not to mention it is stupid to go after the most popular political figure in the nation, but it probably is still going as fodder for the Trump base who have been sold this bill of goods, and the sale needs to be kept from being returned to the store.

Barkley Rosser