Rep. Davis calls Sen. Durbin hypocrite over
Trump-Russia By Gregg Bishop |
Illinois News Network
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, at a hearing in
Washington, DC.
Photo courtesy of U.S.
Customs and Border Protection
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.
+1
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment