Hearing on FBI role in 2016 election erupts in vicious conflict between right-wing politicians
By
Patrick Martin
13 July 2018
At an all-day joint hearing by two committees of the House of Representatives, Democratic congressmen repeatedly defended the FBI and the US intelligence apparatus, while Republicans sought to discredit the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.
Both sections of the US ruling class—gripped by an increasingly violent factional frenzy—are deeply reactionary. The Republican Party upholds the authoritarian and anti-democratic drive of the Trump White House. The Democratic Party opposes Trump by aligning itself with sections of the military-intelligence apparatus that reject his foreign policy as erratic and insufficiently confrontational towards Russia.
The nominal purpose of the hearing was to interrogate FBI official Peter Strzok about his role in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the initial stages of the probe into Russian actions in 2016, including possible coordination with officials of the Trump presidential campaign.
Strzok has become a major target of the Trump White House and its media supporters at Fox News and Breitbart, because of text messages he exchanged with his then-girlfriend, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, voicing disgust with Trump during the 2016 election campaign and the initial months of the Trump administration. Strzok was removed from the Mueller investigation after the text messages came to light and transferred to administrative duties, and Page has quit the FBI. Last month, Strzok was walked out of the FBI headquarters, and his security clearance was revoked.
The House Judiciary Committee and the House…