Sen. Cruz on FBI Abuse: 'How High Up the Chain Did This Go?'

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) speaks to
the media with other Republicans.

by Susan Jones: "One of the worst legacies of the Obama administration is the corruption of law enforcement and the intelligence community," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told "Sunday Morning Futures."

He was talking about the Justice Department inspector-general report, which detailed 17 serious misrepresentations the FBI and the Justice Department made to the FISA court to get a warrant to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.

"Well, the inspector general report is a stunning indictment of the politicization of the Obama Department of Justice and the FBI," Cruz said.And, by the way, the big unanswered question is, how high up the chain did this go? We know that the deputy director of the FBI, McCabe, was read in and authorized this. We know the director of the FBI, James Comey, was read in and authorized this.

Did the attorney general, did Loretta Lynch sign off on spying on the Trump campaign in the middle of the -- of the election? Did the national security adviser at the White House? Did Barack Obama? Did Joe Biden?

I got to tell you, in most administrations, if you're launching an investigation a major political figure like the Republican nominee for president, your opponent, they would be read in. Nobody's asking those questions about whether Barack Obama and Joe Biden personally signed off on spying on and surveilling their political opponents.

Not a single Democrat in the House cares about the answer to any of this. It's beyond crickets. You cannot ask about abuse of power or investigation. That's wrong.(Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told Bartiromo in a separate interview he intends to call everyone who signed the misleading FISA applications.)

Sen. Cruz said the most "stunning example" uncovered by the inspector general concerns the senior lawyer at the FBI who "fabricated evidence."

"And here's what happened," Cruz said:So, Carter Page is an outside adviser to the Trump campaign. He also is periodically talking to Russians, including some sketchy Russians, and so the FBI wants to get a wiretap on him.

Now, an obvious question, if you have someone talking to sketchy Russians, is, well, are they working for the CIA? Because that's a very different inference. If someone's working for the CIA, then talking to sketchy Russians isn't that surprising. The CIA -- he's doing his job...So the FBI sends an e-mail to the CIA, says, hey, is this guy a source for you? The CIA e-mails back, and they say, yes, he's a source.

The FBI assistant general counsel takes that e-mail. And he alters it...So the CIA said, yes, he's a source. The FBI lawyer types in, no, he is not a source. A hundred and eighty degrees, exactly opposite.

He then sends that e-mail on to the Department of Justice that uses that as the basis for a sworn statement to the FISA court to get a wiretap.Cruz said he "very much hopes" someone will go to jail over this. He noted that the FBI employee who altered the CIA email has been referred for criminal prosecution.

"One of the things that's so offensive, it's clear these guys assumed Hillary would win, which would mean there'd be no accountability at all," Cruz said. "They could get away with this, because no one would check."
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Susan Jones (@SJonesCNS) writes for CNSNews a division of the Media Research Center, a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) organization.

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