Rep. Davis calls Sen. Durbin hypocrite over Trump-Russia

Rep. Davis calls Sen. Durbin hypocrite over Trump-Russia     By Gregg Bishop | Illinois News Network

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U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, at a hearing in Washington, DC.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection

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Members of Illinois’ congressional delegation are pointing fingers back and forth on the issue of who is obstructing what in the effort to get to the bottom of whether Russia interfered with the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.

While Democrats herald allegations of possible collusion between Trump associates and Russia, Republicans are holding hearings about the anti-Trump bias of some high-ranking FBI agents involved in investigations.

The day after President Donald Trump’s widely criticized summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Springfield, blasted Republicans on the Senate floor.

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U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville

Photo courtesy of Rep. Rodney Davis' office

“Sadly the vast majority of congressional Republicans are actively working to undermine the investigation,” Durbin said Tuesday.

Durbin complained about Republicans confirming Brian Benczkowski the week before to lead the U.S. Department of Justice criminal division. Durbin said Benczkowski has ties to Alfa Bank, a financial institution with ties to Russia. He said if Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were removed, as some Republicans have called for, Benczkowski would take the oversight role of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election. Mueller’s investigation is also reportedly looking into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey.

“Enough is enough,” Durbin said. “Today is the day. I hope my colleagues, Democrat and Republican alike, will come forward and speak up.”

Some of Durbin’s Democratic colleagues have said Republicans holding hearings about anti-Trump text messages that senior FBI agent Peter Strzok sent FBI attorney Lisa Page, whom Strzok was having an affair with, is an attempt to undermine Mueller’s investigation.

Strzok was part of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s improper use of an email server to process classified materials. Strzok is also the one who allegedly changed the term “grossly negligent,” which has legal liability in the Espionage Act, to “extremely careless” in Comey’s announcement of no charges against Clinton.

Congressional investigators and the FBI’s inspector general found Strzok also withheld revelations of additional classified emails from Clinton on Anthony Weiner's laptop for weeks.

Strzok later went on to be part of Mueller’s Russia probe, but was removed from the team when his profanity laden anti-Trump texts with Page were revealed. In one of those texts, Strzok said, “We’ll stop him,” referring to Trump before the election. Another one talked about an “insurance policy,” something Republicans say refers to the fabrication of the Russia collusion story.

U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, said Durbin knows Congress needs to play its constitutional oversight role.

“When you have a senior member of the FBI texting another member of the FBI 50,000 times over a certain amount of time, that’s a work product question that needs to be asked,” Davis said.

Davis said he supports law enforcement, but oversight must take place.

While Davis said Trump should have been more forceful against Putin this week in Helsinki, he said Durbin’s criticism of Trump is typical partisan hypocrisy.

“We didn’t see many comments out of him when the President of the United States Barack Obama (in 2012) leaned over to (then Russian President) Dmitri Medvedev and said ‘tell Vladimir that if we win this election I’ll have more flexibility,’” Davis said. “That’s the hypocrisy of so many people out here in Washington.”

Trump further backtracked Wednesday, saying he holds Putin responsible for the 2016 election interference and he believe Russia remains a cyber threat.