OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Republicans are looking into the possibility of restarting the investigations into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton after the Durham report was released.
Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds spoke to Fox News on Friday about the report and how he believes the investigations into Clinton were stopped for political reasons by the FBI.
“Look, the media was in on this from the beginning in my view. They are the ones that were helping to launder out Hillary Clinton’s phony made up information about Donald Trump, the same information that she used with her friends at the upper echelon of FBI to start the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” he said to host Sandra Smith on “America Reports.”
“So her media friends are not going to come out now and say we were wrong and this is damning. They are just going to laugh it off, cover it for one or two days and then ignore it. This is really dangerous for our country because what the report clearly shows is that you had rank and file in the FBI and three different offices who had serious concerns about the Clinton Foundation and what was going on around Hillary Clinton,” he said.
“And I think one of the most damning things in this report that really is not talked about is that John Brennan actually briefed Barack Obama and then Vice President Joe Biden on July 26th about what the Clinton campaign was doing and we have no idea what the reaction was from President Obama at that time. You know, he could have shut the whole thing down then and there,” the Florida representative said.
“Obviously he did not. But this is terrible for the country. When you have the political arm of the FBI and the Department of Justice choosing to go after a presidential candidate simply because he was an outsider who had no ties in Washington and because Hillary Clinton wanted to be president and by hook or by crook she was going to try to get that done. It’s a good thing for America that she failed,” he said.
Fellow host John Roberts asked if there should be Congressional investigations if the FBI and Department of Justice cannot be trusted.
“We should definitely be looking into this because you have a situation here what they had, some basis of information to start those inquiries and the report clearly shows you had, I believe it was, Peter Strozk and other people high up in the FBI who came in one meeting and shut it down with no reasoning, and then back channel text messages and emails saying look, Hillary might be president, do you think she’s going to reward you if you continue to look into this,” the representative said.
“It stinks, and the American people need to know about it. I think those investigations should be restarted into what was going on with the Clinton Foundation at the time. Because if some of the initial allegations are true, that you had foreign countries donating to the Clinton Foundation for preferential treatment in the future, I mean — ladies and gentlemen, there’s real concerns that similar situation is happening with the Biden Administration. So we should be looking into this,” he said.
Clinton, who has twice run unsuccessfully for the presidency, most recently losing to then-GOP nominee Donald Trump in 2016, made an inflammatory claim about conservatives at an event in Ottawa, Canada, this month.
During a three-day Liberal Party conference, Clinton shared the stage at one point with Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, where she claimed that, in the U.S. “forces on the right” are “undermining democracy.” She also warned against dismissing conservative media outlets as the “musing of cranks.”
“I think you have to be highly alert to this. Do not dismiss it as the musing of cranks or the very small groups that rant online or have radio stations that pump up a bunch of nonsense,” Clinton said.
Hillary Clinton said a 'small fringe minority' is undermining democracy by attacking institutions & the press.
Sorry if we're a threat to your version of democracy where you demand obedience to the state, want the power to punish dissent, trample rights & freeze bank accounts. pic.twitter.com/CAoplihq9J
— govt.exe is corrupt (@govt_corrupt) May 6, 2023
Clinton also accused American conservatives of disregarding “institutions, their dismissal of a free press,” and “their denial of minority rights” — accusations that are absurdly and demonstrably false.
