Many media on Wednesday evening, July 23, reported a statement by Attorney General Pam Bondi that the Department of Justice was forming a “strike force” to handle the newly released documents and referrals for investigation from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Few of the reports treat the prospects for action seriously. National Review, while describing former CIA Director John Brennan strongly soliciting false intelligence conclusions after the White House meeting, cites a five-year statute of limitations which it claims would cover the “relevant offenses,” and says Gabbard’s report did not allege specific criminal conduct. Fox News, however, included the reminder that CIA Director John Ratcliffe, in early July, sent a criminal referral to the FBI for Brennan, regarding the details of how the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), demanded by Obama at the White House meeting, was actually created by five agents handpicked by Brennan, some of whom protested that what they were being told to do, had no basis. This included, eventually, incorporating the discredited Steele dossier into that ICA.
The Fox report notes: “The review [conducted under Ratcliffe this year and declassified in early July—ed.] marks the first time career CIA officials have acknowledged politicization of the process by which the ICA was written, particularly by Obama-era political appointees.”
Bondi, in the DOJ’s statement, is quoted by Axios and others that “We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully, and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.” DOJ “strike forces” are usually formed to investigate the more serious categories of fraud, such as mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, money-laundering, etc.
