Republicans are in a tizzy, working hard to turn text messages between two people having an affair into the key to an FBI plot to illegally overthrow Donald Trump. The central points of the Republican conspiracy theory: several months of missing text messages, and texts referring to a “secret society” and an “insurance policy.” Soooo suspicious, right?
While many congressional Republicans, to say nothing of the Alex Jones wing of the party, are convinced there’s something nefarious about the missing texts—perhaps the blueprint to a vast deep state anti-Trump conspiracy mapped out in a few months of texts that the FBI is now hiding at all costs while releasing months of texts on either side—it’s also possible that, you know, the FBI is having technical problems. Meanwhile, Republicans out to discredit the FBI in order to discredit investigations into Trump are finding plenty to scream about in the texts that have been provided … given that they’re willing to scream about some pretty thin stuff.
"The day after the election, the day after what they really, really didn't want to have happen, there's a text exchange between these two FBI agents, these supposed to be objective, fact-centric FBI agents, saying perhaps this is the first meeting of the secret society," [Rep. Trey] Gowdy said. "So, of course I'm going to want to know what secret society are you talking about because you're supposed to be investigating objectively the person who just won the electoral college."
Yes, two crack FBI agents formed a secret society to take down Trump and they alluded to it in texts on Bureau-issued phones, but just the one time. That’s the level of incriminating information Republicans have: a couple people who do not like Donald Trump making mildly cryptic comments in their personal text messages. Sen. Ron Johnson, one of the stupidest men in the Senate, went even further with the “secret society” concerns, claiming on Fox News that “we have an informant that’s talking about a group that were holding secret meetings off-site.”
Can I just say that as someone with no intelligence training whatsoever, if I’m forming a secret society, I’m probably excluding people with the prolific texting habits of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
Also, can we talk about what you might find if you looked at the personal texts of every FBI agent and lawyer? I’m thinking a few of them might have said negative things about Hillary Clinton, too. You know, the candidate whose election chances were actively damaged by the FBI while the Trump campaign’s Russia ties were kept under wraps.