As Twitchy reported Tuesday night, Sen. Ron Johnson appeared with Bret Baier on Fox News to discuss the texts he’d read between the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, including an intriguing one mentioning a “secret society.”
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo posted the interview to Twitter, where it caught the attention of people like Howard Dean and Malcolm Nance, MSNBC contributor and author of “The Plot to Hack America: How Putin’s Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election.” (Yes, we included the complete title as a clue as to where Nance is coming from.)
On Wednesday, Nance picked up on the juicy “secret society” tidbit and called it disgraceful.
“Secret Society” Conspiracy Theory to overthrow Trump meme is straight from the KGB & 3rd world Dictators handbook. This is an American 5th column. #Disgraceful https://t.co/ul1aHtS9Ql
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 24, 2018
That tweet inspired Joe Scarborough to chime in, calling the idea of a secret society “Harry Potter nonsense.”
A secret society? This Harry Potter nonsense is actually the kind of bizarre nonsense autocrats spread to try to purge military ranks and intelligence services. Straight out of Erdogan’s plan to kill democracy. https://t.co/1Ad8SCHkym
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) January 24, 2018
Straight from the KGB handbook https://t.co/whvyxNoo39
— RKMillan (@RKMillan) January 24, 2018
So what’s he saying? Trump is the autocrat spreading the idea of a secret society in the FBI in order to purge its ranks and kill democracy? That was pretty crafty of Trump to plant those 50,000 text messages between two people having an affair, and then “lose” months’ worth of messages.
We’ll say it again: the “secret society” text might mean nothing. The “insurance policy” text might mean nothing. But speaking of Harry Potter: wasn’t there an anti-Trump group working inside the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau calling itself “Dumbledore’s Army”? Why yes, there was.
"Harry Potter nonsense" indeed — given that rebellious employees in the CFPB called themselves Dumbledore's Army, can you really dismiss this out of hand? Perhaps it's totally fabricated nuttiness. Perhaps it's not. https://t.co/o7Sn23GwWS
— Bill Harvey's Ghost (@TheGhostsGhost) January 24, 2018
No less than The New York Times reported that Dumbledore’s Army possibly broke federal law by communicating using encrypted messaging apps that couldn’t be traced. Hmm …
However this all shakes out, there certainly seems to be a rush on the left to squelch any speculation about what that text meant.
Hey Joe, we are only quoting the texts from the FBI cheater. Its in black and white. why not ask him to come on your show and explain?? clear this up? #ReleaseTheMemo
— Deplorable_Maximus (@CritchlowPaul) January 24, 2018
What makes you believe it’s not true? Granted, silly names add to the drama, but, it’s not unreasonable to suspect some shenanigans, is it?
— Tim Law (@tlaw03) January 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/Goldwater_Rules/status/956240038328786946
Except that my understanding is that the phrase comes from FBI officials themselves, and Johnson says it's being corroborated by an informant. Too soon to say whether this group of rogue FBI officials really exists, but you can bet that we will look into it. https://t.co/YwziswFV3L
— Henry (@han_del_) January 24, 2018
Would it be OK if Congress looked into it, Joe?
Why is it that liberals have such a hard time understanding FACTS?
The texts from Peter Strzok actually do talk about a "secret society".
You people are just pathetic zombies spewing out the same crap constantly.
I can only hope that eventually, you will come to know the TRUTH. https://t.co/pZl5SudL5F— Terri C ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (@TerriACarter) January 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/VirginiaStark0/status/956180779708616706
care to enlighten us to why they were texting this to each other then? https://t.co/i6MjOLndfk
— Shall_Not_Be_Infringed (@Fr3edomofSpeech) January 24, 2018
https://twitter.com/davidharsanyi/status/956177961652314113
https://twitter.com/doctormalibu/status/956235079948279809
Why wait for the evidence when CNN has already disproved any collusion?
Fmr FBI official: ‘Secret society’ in FBI is nonsense https://t.co/LrnGYljLvf @TheLeadCNN
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 24, 2018
Besides, anyone who says #ReleaseTheMemo is a traitor, remember? And Americans wouldn’t understand the memo anyway.
But just for fun, let’s release all of it and let the pundits fight it out afterward, OK?
Related:
Secret society? Congressman says texts show manifest anti-Trump bias among top FBI officials
Did Peter Strzok suspect ‘there’s no big there there in the Russian collusion investigation?
Rep. Adam Schiff tries to distract from calls to #ReleaseTheMemo with DIFFERENT memo
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