BOB GARFIELD: An investigation is a, quote, “careful examination or search in order to discover facts or gain information.” Anyway, that’s what the dictionary says. The GOP seems to have an – [LAUGHS] alternate definition, “Investigation, a formalistic exercise whereby the investigators act as defense lawyers working to exonerate those testifying before the evidence is collected.” This was Republican Senator John Cornyn giving the third degree on Tuesday to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
[CLIPS]:
SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: Attorney General Sessions, former Director Comey, in his letter, letter to FBI employees when he was terminated, started this way. He said, “I have long believed that a president can fire an FBI director for any reason or no reason at all.” Do you agree with that?
ATTORNEY GENERAL SESSIONS: Yes, and I think that was good for him to say.
BOB GARFIELD: And this was Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Senator John McCain upbraiding Democratic Senator Kamala Harris for persisting in a question being avoided by the witness.
SENATOR KAMALA HARRIS: Did you not ask your staff to show you the policy that would be the basis for your refusing to answer the majority of questions that have been asked of you?
[BOTH SPEAK/OVERLAP]
SEN. JOHN McCAIN: Chairman, the witness should be allowed to answer the question.
SENATOR RICHARD BURR: Senators will allow the chair to control the hearing. Senator Harris, let him answer.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Well, sure, the politics of this for the GOP are, obviously, bad. Russians, unreleased tax returns, shadowy finances, intelligence leaks, false testimony and bizarre eruptions from Trump himself. Both houses of Congress dragged their feet for months because if Trump goes down, their grip on power could go with him. But, come on, Russian meddling in our sacred election, national security, democracy itself, they had to respond to fulfill their promise to learn the truth.
[CLIP]:
SENATOR RICHARD BURR: So it is absolutely crucial that every day we spend trying to separate fact from fiction.
HOUSE SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: And that means before rushing to judgments, we get all the pertinent information.
JOHN CORNYN: It is our responsibility to get to the bottom of what exactly happened due to Russian involvement in our elections.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Well, maybe getting to the - not quite middle of things. As news broke Wednesday night that the President himself is being investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for possible obstruction of justice, the Republican National Committee stopped even pretending. It issued a set of talking points to its army of pols and pundits to dismiss any notion of illegality and declared the President and his men victims of a witch hunt. There is no case for obstruction of justice, says one point, another, the special counsel has struck out trying to prove collusion and is shifting to obstruction in an effort to save face. Another, these leaks are inexcusable, outrageous and illegal. The leaks are the only crime here. And another, how much longer is this investigation/fishing expedition going to go on? And, in no time at all, the talking points turned into real live soundbites.
[CLIPS]:
FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: Trump isn’t holding back his fury, tweeting Thursday, “They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice.”
FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: A spokesman for the President's personal lawyer said the FBI leak of information regarding the President is outrageous, excusable and illegal.
FEMALE CORRESPONDENT: This is a fishing expedition to try and run out the clock.
[END CLIP]
BOB GARFIELD: Of course, none of these voices of derision have any idea of what the current state of the investigation is, much less what may yet be learned. Nor do they, or anyone else, know if there's evidence of collusion between Russian agents and the Trump campaign. But even if no evidence of that emerges, why would that render other possible crimes, from financial irregularities to obstruction, trivial or irrelevant? Watergate was a third-rate burglary. What mattered was what the investigation revealed.
As for the fishing expedition crack, holy moly! First of all, those are really, really effective for catching fish. But more to the point, when the subject was the fatal attack on a US diplomatic compound in Benghazi, the GOP sent out a fleet of trawlers. A nakedly-partisan House special committee spent two years and $7 million trying to find evidence of negligence and duplicity by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The fleet returned with not so much as a sardine. If only the Republican Party had been so thrifty then, think of the money and anxiety it would have saved. But now what the GOP seeks to save is its own skin.
So remember those buzz phrases: witch hunt, fishing expedition, there is no case and, of course, outrageous, inexcusable leaks. Or, actually, don’t bother because the pointed talkers are fanned out everywhere, making sure you will not be able to forget them.
