Sen. Cruz: ‘The Obama Administration Targeted President Trump by Weaponizing and Politicizing the DOJ, FBI, and the Intelligence Community’
Questions former Deputy AG Rosenstein at Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Crossfire Hurricane
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), member of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, today questioned former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a full committee hearing examining the abuse of power committed by the Obama administration in 2016 and 2017 to weaponize the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the intelligence community against President Trump's campaign and incoming administration.
On senior Obama administration officials' grotesque abuses of power for political gain, Sen. Cruz said:
"Prior to 2016 and 2017, the worst known instance of abuse of power by an administration was Richard Nixon's abuse of his administration to target his political enemies. By any measure, what the Obama-Biden administration did in 2016 and 2017 makes everything Richard Nixon even contemplated pale in comparison. Richard Nixon rightfully faced impeachment and ultimately resigned as a consequence of his misconduct. The evidence that has been made public has made clear that the Obama administration targeted his political opponents, targeted President Trump and his campaign, unleashed, weaponized, and politicized the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the intelligence community. And that the decision making to do so went right up to the very top."
On Mr. Rosenstein's failure to shut down the unconstitutional "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation to target and entrap members of the incoming administration, Sen. Cruz asked:
"Did it strike you as strange that the FBI and the Department of Justice [were] going after a three-star General, the incoming National Security Advisor to the President? Who they already said they were going to dismiss the case against? [...] Which you know perfectly well, is an unconstitutional law that no one has ever been prosecuted under in the history of the Department of Justice, and should have been laughed out of the room.
"At any responsible Department of Justice, if someone had suggested, ‘We're going to go after the incoming National Security Advisor for violating the Logan Act, which says an American citizen can't interact with a foreign leader,' I guarantee you, today, right now, John Kerry is violating the Logan Act. Now, fortunately, it's an unconstitutional law, so who cares. Why did you not laugh this out of the room? And why didn't you get to answers on this? Why did you let this pile of partisan lies consume the country for two years?"
Sen. Cruz went on:
"On May 17 you appointed Bob Mueller to the special counsel. On June 29, you signed the third FISA application. On August 2, you signed the second scope application. You came into a profoundly politicized world. And yet, all of this was allowed to go forward under your leadership. That, unfortunately, leads to only two possible conclusions. Either that you were complicit in the wrong doing, which I don't believe was the case, or that your performance of your duties was grossly negligent."
When Mr. Rosenstein said, "I didn't know all the background," Sen. Cruz replied:
"But you didn't bother to ask. You didn't actually bother to drill in and say, ‘Show me the background, you know this may be the most important case we've got in the whole country. Let me actually do more than just rubber stamp the document put in front of me.'"
Watch Sen. Cruz's full line of questioning at today's hearing here.
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