by Walter W. Murray, reporter
It was the political equivalent of a bomb doing off on live television in primetime — and it’s bad news for Democrats hoping that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation would end President Donald Trump’s administration.
The man overseeing Mueller’s probe, which Trump has labeled an “illegal investigation,” is now himself the target of an investigation, according to a source on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.
Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney under President Ronald Reagan, revealed on “Hannity” that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is FORBIDDEN from handling FISA warrants due to an ongoing investigation inside the agency.
That’s the so-called Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which — despite its name — actually allows for domestic spying.
It’s the infamous program that was used and abused under President Barack Obama for covert investigations into the Trump campaign in 2016, including the wiretap of Trump Tower.
Under FISA, investigators are supposed to get a warrant from a special judge before they can spy on an American.
But as Hannity has exposed in the past, those warrants were at times based on misleading and outright false information.
This past week, diGenova seems to have confirmed some of Hannity’s biggest suspicions.
“It’s fairly obvious that a fraud was committed on the court, all of this evidence is there, there isn’t any doubt about it,” diGenova said. “We cannot trust the department under Rosenstein.”
Then, he dropped the bomb about Rosenstein, saying “he’s got a big problem with FISA, personally.”
“He signed the last one,” Hannity pointed out.
“Yeah but it’s worse than that,” diGenova replied. “He’s now under investigation and he can’t do FISAs anymore.”
The attorney tried to continue with the initial point he was making, but Hannity – sensing the importance of the moment – cut him off.
“Whoa!” the talk show host interrupted. “He’s under investigation?”
That’s when diGenova confirmed his news: “Rosenstein is under investigation for things that involve the FISA warrants.”
Hannity, of course, has been hot on the FISA abuse story from the very beginning.
“There is no doubt that a conspiracy to commit fraud multiple times against FISA judges did take place,” he said just last week. “Everyone who signed off on this FISA request signed off on fraudulent documents, and they knew they were fraudulent.”
The diGenova report, if true, would confirm much of Hannity’s reporting.
It would also mean investigators must have some serious concerns about Rosenstein if he is in fact forbidden from handling FISAs.
Yet, again, not a PEEP from the mainstream media!
While they’ve ignored the bombshell announcement, interested insiders certainly recognized the significance of the moment.
Michael Flynn Jr., son of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, one of the first ensnared in the Mueller investigation, was stunned (but, let’s face it, probably not surprised) by the news.
He tweeted:
https://twitter.com/mflynnJR/status/1037511832779546629
Earlier this summer, diGenova said Rosenstein was the one who signed off on perhaps the most infamous FISA court renewal of all time… the one allowing the surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate.
DiGenova said Rosenstein never even read it but relied on others to tell him what’s in it.
In many ways, that was the moment that led to the Mueller investigation and the huge mess in the Justice Department right now.
“He should be ashamed of himself,” he said of Rosenstein, adding that there may be some measure of justice after all as lawmakers push for his impeachment.
“He’s getting precisely what he deserves,” diGenova said.
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”