Today during Attorney General William Barr’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Josh Hawley said the counterintelligence investigation into President Trump was an attempt by unelected bureaucrats to overturn a democratic election because of their disdain for Trump voters. A video of the remarks and transcript are below:
Senator Hawley: Speaking of particular individuals who got involved, I have to say, I’ve listened to this testimony all day today, and to me, maybe the most shocking thing I’ve heard is this. The Chairman read it earlier. On August 26, 2016, this is a text message from Peter Strzok, a top counterintelligence investigator who we now know helped launch this counter-spy investigation of the President of the United States.
Peter Strzok says, ‘Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.’
Smell is capitalized. ‘Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.’
In my view, do you want to know what’s really going on here? You want to know why the counterintelligence investigation really happened? Do you want to know why we are all sitting here today? That’s why. Right there.
An unelected bureaucrat, an unelected official in this government who clearly has open disdain, if not outright hatred for Trump voters, like the people of my state for instance.
‘I could SMELL the Trump support?’
Then tried to overturn the results of a democratic election. That’s what’s really gone on here. That’s the story. That’s why we are here today.
I cannot believe that a top official of this government with the kind of power that these people had, would try to exercise their own prejudices — and that’s what this is; it’s open, blatant prejudice — would try to use that in order to overturn a democratic election. And to my mind, that’s the real crisis here. And it is a crisis. Because if there’s not accountability, if this can go on in the United States of America, well then my goodness gracious we don’t have a democracy anymore.