GOP staffer 4 Amendment passed in Judiciary to probe Comey & Clinton was crowdsourced on Reddit
The article from Wired is fascinating with lots of details.
I truly am sick that the Repugs are going to look into Hillary's emails again.
TWEET
Sarah LernerVerified account @SarahLerner 10h10 hours ago
The amendment that the GOP passed in Judiciary to look into Comey & Clinton? A staffer crowdsourced it on reddit.
Link to tweet
https://www.wired.com/story/republican-staffer-the-donald-resolution
A GOP Staffer Crowdsourced a Resolution From a Conspiracy Subreddit
https://media.wired.com/photos/597b4dbc0c694f7e411940cc/master/w_374,c_limit/Pepe-the-frog-sign-TA-RTX2R4DA.jpg
A man hides his face behind a Pepe the Frog sign after Donald Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in October.
Carlo Allegri/Reuters
This past Wednesday, a group of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee presented an amendment calling for an investigation into alleged misconduct on the parts of Hillary Clinton and James Comey. It was a way to frustrate Democrats, but, more than that, it provided an opportunity to publicly discuss their very favorite thing: the many bygone misdeeds of Crooked Hillary. The amendment may sound to some readers like it's been ripped out of a conspiracy forum, because that's exactly what happened.
Sponsored by first-term Representative Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), the amendment itself sought to hijack what began as a resolution from Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) asking for information about Comey's firing. In response to Jayapal's proposal, Gaetz and a few fellow Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee effectively replaced the Democrats' resolution with one of their own. The new amendment (which you can read in its entirety here) asks for an investigation into things like "the propriety and consequence of immunity deals given to possible Hillary Clinton co-conspirators" and "James B. Comey’s refusal to investigate then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton regarding" a number of matters, including many of which may have come directly from r/The_Donald.
Thursday night, three Twitter users discovered that a staffer for one of the resolution’s sponsors attempted to crowdsource a number of the resolution's salient points from r/The_Donald, a subreddit notorious for playing host to unfounded conspiracy theories and anti-Islam tendencies. In other words, not a conventional source of legislative inspiration.
"If the purpose of oversight investigations is to get to the truth," one longtime legislative staffer explained, "then using baseless conspiracies as your starting point is completely counterproductive to a direct investigation."
Devinm666
Three Twitter users—@regress_ceej, @espressoself, and @TrashWeightlift—first identified the possibility that a staffer was using Reddit for legislative CliffsNotes, after Reddit user and frequent r/The_Donald visitor Devinm666's unique comment history caught their attention. Though the account has since been deleted, it included threads like this one:.............................................
Replying to @SarahLerner
Rep. Steve Cohen has my fave quote on that bullshit Comey-Clinton amendment: "Common sense has left this room..." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/07/26/house-judiciary-committee-votes-to-probe-comey-and-clintons-2016-campaign/?utm_term=.37a97d0f38ee …
Link to tweet
House Judiciary Committee votes to probe Comey and Clinton’s 2016 campaign
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/07/26/house-judiciary-committee-votes-to-probe-comey-and-clintons-2016-campaign/?utm_term=.6011753bde31
By David Weigel July 26
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee voted Wednesday to request documents about former FBI director James B. Comey’s conversations with the Obama administration and journalists, amending and replacing a Democratic resolution that was designed to obtain documents about Comey’s firing by President Trump.
“In my district, my constituents say, ‘Hey, what’s going on with investigation of the crimes of the previous administration?’ ” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), one of the amendment’s sponsors. “When I hear talk that this contains right-wing conspiracies — well, I’ll tell you, my constituents think what’s going on in the other bill are left-wing conspiracy theories.”
The amendment was a surprise to Rep. Primala Jayapal (D-Wash.), the freshman who had proposed the Democratic resolution of inquiry, which had been expected to fail. In a heated markup, Jayapal and other committee Democrats expressed amazement that Republicans wanted to resurrect questions about the defeated Clinton campaign.
“There appears to be deliberate stonewalling to stop any inquiry into the questions facing us today,” she said. “You want to have another beating of the dead horse of Hillary Clinton and her emails? Fine, I’ll include it. But let’s have another opportunity to debate.”
But over several hours, the drama and farce of the 2016 campaign — and even Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment — played out again between Judiciary members. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), an impeachment manager and a senior member of the committee, chastened Democrats who said that Clinton had been impeached over a mere sex scandal.
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Republicans argued otherwise, sometimes suggesting that Jayapal’s amendment asked the committee to repeat work that special counsel Robert Mueller was already doing, and sometimes suggesting that the Mueller investigation was unfair.
“They’re not focused on things like the Clinton Foundation functionally selling access to the State Department; they’re not worried about selling uranium to the Russians; they’re not worried about unmasking,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), another amendment sponsor, referring to Democrats.
MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
= new reply since forum marked as read
Might as well just ask Hannity et all to be the only witness!!
https://www.wired.com/story/republican-staffer-the-donald-resolution
..............The amendment also asks whether Comey had any knowledge of "the role that former National Security Adviser Susan Rice played in the unmasking of these individuals" on Donald Trump’s campaign team. This would correspond to bigkr88's "susan rice unamsking [sic]." "Lynch obstruction" can be found in the amendment's first point, which asks that a special counsel investigate "then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch directing James B. Comey to mislead the American people." "Falsifying/manufacturing evidence for FISA warrants" would fall under the amendment's description of "efforts made by any Federal agency(i) to monitor communications of then-candidate Donald Trump."
Reddit
And, finally, bigkr88's ultimate suggestion: "Fusion GPS working with the Russian government to manufacture the pissgate dossier" as well as "the pissgate dossier and how it was spread in general." The amendment itself asks that a prosecutor look into Fusion GPS, the intelligence company that investigated Trump during the campaign, and the "creation of a 'dossier' of information about Mr. Donald Trump" as well as "that dossier’s commission and dissemination."
The amendment hasn't yet been scheduled for a vote, and it's unclear what kind of chance it has of passing. In the meantime, the users of r/The_Donald, at least, seem delighted by the results.
