Anti-Weaponization Measure Passes House Intel Committee

The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence passed an anti-government-weaponization language Wednesday that would limit U.S. intelligence agency election-meddling.

The language, to be included in the Intelligence Authorization Act, would stop the Federal Bureau of Investigation from secretly launching investigations into federal candidates, as FBI did during the 2016 election, notes a statement from Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik’s office.

In 2016, FBI Director James Comey opened an illegal “counterintelligence investigation” into then-candidate Donald Trump, based on what Americans learned years later but the FBI knew at the time, were false smears from the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The provision that passed HPSCI Wednesday, in currently classified language, requires the FBI to notify congressional leadership of any investigations into federal candidates for office. In 2017, Stefanik pressed Comey on why he had not disclosed to congressional leadership that the FBI was investigating Trump.

“I think our decision was, it was a matter of such sensitivity that we wouldn’t include it in the quarterly briefings,” Comey responded.

Not only Congress was kept in the dark. As The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway reported at the time, Comey inaccurately told Trump three times that he was not being investigated. Since then, Stefanik has pushed for legislative reform to require such disclosure.

Stefanik’s questioning of Comey in 2017 led to the GOP investigation into the corrupt Crossfire Hurricane spy agency cooperation with Clinton, her statement notes. Those investigations resulted, years later, in fully clearing President Trump and exposing criminal acts from James Comey and the Obama administration.

We now know, from recently released intelligence reports, that former President Barack Obama’s administration was plotting to interfere with Trump’s presidency well before Trump ever took office in 2017. Obama and his spy chiefs deployed U.S. intelligence agencies to launder and give false credibility to complete lies manufactured by the Clinton campaign.

“We must prevent the illegal political weaponization of intelligence agencies in our elections as James Comey perpetrated in 2016 with the corrupt Crossfire Hurricane investigation launched against Presidential Candidate Donald Trump,” Stefanik said in a statement, adding that during her 2017 questioning, Comey admitted that he did not follow precedent when he failed to inform congressional leadership of the counterintelligence investigation into Trump. “I remain committed to fully investigating the corrupt Russiagate hoax and holding those responsible accountable, and I stand by President Trump’s efforts to further release information for the American people to see regarding this scam investigation and cover-up.”

Now that the new language in the Intelligence Authorization Act has passed out of committee, the act must be approved by a full House vote. That is expected later this year.

Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.