GOP Puts FBI Chief On Spot Over D'Souza Indictment

by JASmius

Remember last month's case of Dinesh D'Souza, the alleged campaign finance miscreant and the Obama Regime's latest prospective political prisoner?  Intriguingly enough, so do four Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and they have some questions for the FBI:

Four Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have demanded that FBI Director James Comey answer specific questions regarding the "routine review" of campaign filings that led to last month's indictment of conservative commentator and best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza on campaign-finance charges.

The letter, dated Wednesday, was signed by the committee's ranking GOP member, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, along with Senators Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Mike Lee of Utah.

The letter, which was reported by the Weekly Standard and other news organizations, quotes former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz's recent column in the Wall Street Journal attacking D'Souza's indictment. "I can't help but think that [D'Souza's] politics have something to do with it. ... It smacks of selective prosecution," the letter states.

Of course, politics have something to do with it.  And it isn't just selective prosecution, it's deliberate over-prosecution.  It's taking the man who finally vetted Barack Obama's Manchurian Candidate-esque background, loudly targeting him, and going after him akin to shooting a squirrel with a neutron cannon.  Not something that tends to come up "at random," unless "gods" can conjure up their own "good luck".

Consequently, recently confirmed FBI Director James Comey is going to be getting his turn in the proverbial barrel:

"To dispel this sort of public perception that Mr. D'Souza may have been targeted because of his outspoken criticisms of the president, it is important for the FBI to be transparent regarding the precise origin of this investigation," the letter continued.

The senators then pose 12 direct questions to Comey regarding the general scope of the reviews and specifically concerning the D'Souza indictment.

"During your confirmation hearing, you pledged that you would carry the values of transparency and try to spread them as far as you could within the FBI," the senators said before listing their questions. "To explain the details of these routine reviews and provide context to those who may be skeptical of the origins of this investigation, please provide answers to the following questions regarding FBI's regular review of campaign filings."

The questions are:

1. It appears from U.S. Attorney's Office comment that the FBI conducts regular, perhaps random reviews of campaign filings. Is this correct? If so, what methodology does the FBI use to conduct these reviews?

2. Please identify and describe all methods by which a review of campaign filings may be initiated.

3. Please identify all other government entities involved in the FBI's review of campaign filings and describe their involvement.

4. How and why was this particular review initiated?

5. What criteria involved in this particular review led to the suspicion that warranted further inquiry?

6. What are the guidelines under which the FBI conducts its review of campaign filings?

7. Please describe how the FBI's reviews of campaign filings are conducted.

8. How many campaign filings has the FBI reviewed in each year from 2008 to the present?

9. On average, how long does it take to complete a review of a campaign filing?

10. How many agents are assigned, per case, to review campaign filings?

11. On average, how many man hours are spent reviewing campaign filings?

12. When did the FBI begin routinely reviewing campaign filings?

Another name for this sort of process is "drilling down," starting broadly and inexorably zeroing in on the issue at hand in such an excruciating way that sphincters tighten sufficiently to cut through carbon neutronium.

Or would if Grassley, Sessions, Cruz, and Lee had any clout, which they don't.  It'll be ten and a half months at least before the Iowa senator can gain the chairmanship of Judiciary and with it the power to issue subpoenas to compel Comey's sworn testimony.  And even then there's no reason to believe that the Regime won't simply stonewall as it's been stonewalling all these various and sundry congressional probes and investigations for over three years.  At best they'd just blame the D'Souza persecution on "overeager" FBI agents in the "New York field office," just like those "overeager" IRS agents in Cincinnati "accidentally" squashed Tea Party groups last cycle.  By the time the "Gang of Four" ever managed to extract anything resembling a confession of the Regime's day-glo obvious Gestapo tactics, D'Souza would be wasting away on death row.  And such a confession is highly unlikely.

On the bright side, the senators' letter may diminish the chances of a public show trial.  Which would make quietly "disappearing" D'Souza a more appealing option for the White House.

Much the same dynamic that is unfolding in the already-infamous FCC media crackdown:

The Federal Communications Commission said on Friday that it was scrapping a controversial study derided by critics as a threat to the First Amendment right of press freedom.

The plan to look at how news organizations choose which stories to cover "overstepped the bounds of what is required," admitted FCC spokeswoman Shannon Gilson.

"To be clear, media owners and journalists will no longer be asked to participate in the Columbia, S.C., pilot study," Gilson said in a statement posted on the agency's website.

"The pilot will not be undertaken until a new study design is final," she said. "Any subsequent market studies conducted by the FCC, if determined necessary, will not seek participation from or include questions for media owners, news directors or reporters." [emphasis added]

Translation: "We'll have to do this more quietly, under the radar" - which is my interpretation of "new study design".  And that will be considerably easier to accomplish now that the message of this week has been sent: "Toe the party line, or else."

This would have made a great next D'Souza documentary, wouldn't it?