...The Senate Staffer Behind the Attack on the Trump-Russia Investigation

[DonViejo]

A Partisan Combatant, a Remorseful Blogger: The Senate Staffer Behind the Attack on the Trump-Russia Investigation

Jason Foster, chief investigative counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, once blogged under the handle “Extremist,” expressing worry about a Muslim takeover and whether Joe McCarthy got a bum rap. Today, as he helps lead an explosive investigation, he says the blogging was satire and asks for forgiveness.

by Robert Faturechi March 28, 4 p.m. EDT

Jason Foster, chief investigative counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, fits a classic Washington profile: A powerful, mostly unknown force at the center of some of the most consequential battles on Capitol Hill.

For the last year, Foster — empowered by his boss, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee’s chairman — has been the behind-the-scenes architect of an assault on the FBI, and most centrally its role in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to interviews with current and former congressional aides, federal law enforcement officials and others.

With Foster in charge of his oversight work, Grassley has openly speculated about whether former FBI director James Comey leaked classified information as Comey raised alarms about President Donald Trump’s possible interference in the Russia probe. Grassley and the other Republicans on the committee have questioned the impartiality of a former member of Mueller’s team, cast doubt on the credibility of the FBI’s secret court application for permission to surveil a Trump campaign associate and called for a second special counsel to investigate matters related to Hillary Clinton. A firm that conducted opposition research on Trump has made clear in court it believes Grassley’s committee, with Foster as its lead investigator, had leaked sensitive information about its business.

Most recently, many of those interviewed by ProPublica said, Foster engineered Grassley’s highly unusual public announcement asking federal authorities to consider criminal charges against Christopher Steele, the ex-British spy who compiled the dossier warning of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

For Foster’s critics, and they include Republicans as well as Democrats, his provocative work on the Trump-Russia investigation is just the latest chapter in the career of a partisan combatant willing to discard norms and indulge in conspiratorial thinking as he pursues investigations favorable to Republicans.

more
https://www.propublica.org/article/jason-foster-the-senate-staffer-behind-the-attack-on-the-trump-russia-investigation

[Me.]

1. And Now He's Being Outed

The first step in him being a goner

[poboy2]

2. Like the covert AltRight 'teacher' in Fla who was outed a few weeks ago. -nt

[gratuitous]

3. Oh, just a joke, folks!

Thousands of comedians out of work, and Sen. Grassley hires this garbanzo to be his Committee's chief investigative counsel. Will we find out somewhere down the line that this loose talk about the FBI was just more of Foster's comedic stylings? I look forward to the day of his sentencing when a federal judge expresses a rather dim view of Foster's sabotage of the processes of the government.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

4. Kick