Senator Ted Cruz's Remarks on the Flynn Investigation (4 June 2020)

Political political posturing is not new to the Senate but even given that, this morning's protestations from the Democratic side of the aisle have been remarkable. The subpoenas at issue here are not about the Mueller Report. It's not even about Carter Page or General Flynn. The central question here is about corruption and abuse of power.

What has been made public, as we now know, is that the previous administration directed the FBI, the CIA, law enforcement and intelligence to target their political opposition. This committee has now heard testimony that not only did they authorize wiretaps of a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, not only did send in spies wearing a wire to try to monitor their opponents, not only did they intercept phone calls from a three-star general who was the incoming national security adviser to the new president, not only did they fraudulently create evidence altering emails from the CIA to the FBI — this is the FBI committing a felony of creating fake evidence because the FBI asked the CIA "was Carter Page working with you and helping the CIA?" the CIA said "yes" and the FBI lawyer fraudulently altered that email and turned "yes" into "no", which if anyone else did that any court in America they would be put in jail for a long time for fraud — but we also know that this was not authorized.

I think Senator Kennedy is right there are a lot of people that want to blame this on some low-level lawyer nine levels down. Here's the problem. We know that this went quite literally all the way to the top.

January 5th 2017 — this is after the presidential election, after the whole world is shocked that Hillary Clinton didn't win and, oh my goodness, Donald Trump is getting ready to be President. Now normally on January 5th at the end of a presidential term people are packing up and getting ready to leave. But what are they doing in this White House? January 5th, Oval Office meeting: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and what are they talking about? Surveillance directed at the incoming national security adviser. What do we know now also? Sally Yates, the acting Attorney General, was surprised. What? What do you mean what are you talking about? Michael Flynn? Well it turns out James Comey, the FBI director, was directly briefing President Obama. Sallie Yates has said she learned about it from Barack Obama.

Picture this for a second. The acting Attorney General of the United States has no idea that our law enforcement is surveilling and targeting a three-star general who is the incumbent incoming national security adviser, but the president knows. Why was Jim Comey briefing Barack Obama directly on the targeting of their political opponent? The senior senator from California asked: "Why is Jacob Lew on this list? Why is Samantha Power on this list?" Because every damn one of them unmasked Michael Flynn, put in multiple orders. These are senior political players in the White House in the Obama administration. They're on their way out the door, they get along, they get masked intercepts that protects the privacy and hide a US citizen, and they put in request after request after request — by the way Joe Biden put in that request, also — why are they trying to unmask Michael Flynn?

January 5th was the day after the FBI, on January 4th, had concluded there's no basis to investigate Michael Flynn. "We're going to close the case" and, by the way, didn't just say it. They prepared the report saying "we're closing the case because there's no evidence here" because "we interviewed everyone and there's no derogatory evidence" "there's no basis to be targeting this guy" who is the incoming national security adviser for the president. January 4th is when the FBI says to close it. January 5th there's James Comey in the Oval Office saying we're going after him. We're going after Michael Flynn.

And, by the way, 15 days later is January 20th. Look, there is in this room probably 500 years of government experience. I encourage all of you: pick up and read the Susan Rice email. Number one, it's January 20th 2017. Everyone here knows what that date means. It's the very last day of the Obama administration. There's a new guy getting sworn in on the steps of the Capitol. We were all sitting there. Apparently, while we were sitting there, anyone else in a White House — and a lot of people here have been involved in the White Houses of outgoing administrations — you're packing up your stuff, you're taking down the picture of your wife or your husband from the wall, you're putting your personal belongings in a box and you're leaving. It's not what Susan Rice is doing. She's sitting down typing an email. An email to whom? Herself! How often do you email yourself? Is that something you do a lot? "Dear me", as you're leaving a job? She emails herself and writes this memo which is, in the annals of government, is one of the funniest damn memos you'll ever read. "Dear me, the investigation of Michael Flynn is by-the-book. Let me be clear: it's by-the-book. Did I mention it's by-the-book?" Three times she uses the phrase "by-the-book". Any of you ever played poker? There's something called a tell. When someone's writing over "this is by the book", "we're not doing anything wrong" that's a big indication they're scared they're doing something wrong. The only reason she writes that email is she's sitting there going "oh crap, in about an hour these next guys are gonna arrive and they might find out that we turned the FBI into the personal research arm of the DNC."

Look, all of them thought Hillary was gonna win. Nobody would know that they had abused law enforcement and intelligence to target their political enemies. She writes this memo. By the way, ain't nothing "by the book" if on January 4th they say we're closing the investigation because there's no evidence, on January 5th the FBI director is in the Oval Office with the president saying "hey we're going after the guy". There's no book that lays that out.

And what's astonishing: there's not a single Democrat here who cares. Not a one of you is troubled, or at least you won't say it publicly. And I get it: it's an election year. Joe Biden's your nominee. For God's sakes, you don't want to encumber something that shows that Joe Biden was part of corruption. Barack Obama, I get it, you revere. You don't want to reveal that he was involved in the corruption, and you can't reveal Joe Biden was. So yesterday's hearing we got Rod Rosenstein, the number two guy at DOJ, who whenever he answers like "I didn't know" "I didn't know" "no, I didn't know that" "no I didn't know that, I didn't know that" "I didn't know what I was signing was completely false". And what was amazing about the questions from the Democrats is none of y'all cared. You're just like "oh let's ask about something else". Let's ask him to dinner, don't talk about this.

Look this committee ought to care, and let's be clear. We had a lot of talk about if the shoe were on the other foot. Pause for a second and imagine how you would feel if Donald J. Trump was doing exactly what Barack Obama and Joe Biden did. So right now you guys are copacetic with Trump putting wiretaps on the Joe Biden presidential campaign? Everything cool if Trump has the FBI send in agents wearing wires to the Joe Biden campaign? That's all good? Everything all right if they fraudulently create evidence, they doctor emails from the CIA, and send it to a court under oath? No problem there?

This is an absolute outrage and abuse of power. And by the way to be clear because I'm sure some someone on Twitter will say "Now Cruz is calling for using the FBI to go after Joe Biden." No! To the contrary, law enforcement and intelligence ought to be apolitical. We should enforce the law regardless of party and this committee ought to be deeply concerned. It's not about revisiting the Mueller Report. It's was there a partisan deliberate decision that we're going to use the machinery of government to go after and target our political opponents, because there's more and more evidence that looks like it was. And that ought to concern everyone on this committee, because I guarantee you what one administration abuses, another administration is going to abuse, and that is dangerous for this country.