The Daily Beast On How FBI Alumni Are Using Fox News To Attack Hillary Clinton

Kallstrom on Fox News

Writing at The Daily Beast, Wayne Barrett takes note of the pipeline between conservative FBI agents (both active and retired) and Fox News. Figures like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and current Donald Trump surrogate, as well as James Kallstrom, the former head of the New York City FBI office, have appeared on the network and used its air to amplify the grievances of these agents.

Barrett reports that Kallstrom has “been on an anti-Comey romp for months, most often on Fox, where he’s called the Clintons as a ‘crime family.’” Appearing on The Kelly File, Kallstrom claimed that agents involved in the Clinton investigation were “P.O.’d” that President Obama said the Clinton emails weren’t a national security issue and compared the statement to “someone driving another nail in the coffin of the criminal justice system.”

After FBI Director James Comey cleared Clinton of wrongdoing in the email investigation, Kallstrom made more appearances on Fox News and alleged that agents “both on the job and off the job” were “worried about the reputation of the agency they love.” Kallstrom again used Fox as a platform for his views, endorsing Trump on Stuart Varney’s Fox Business show, describing Clinton as a “pathological liar.”

Kallstrom responded to Comey’s letter to congressional leaders telling them that the agency would be reviewing newly discovered emails with yet another Fox appearance.

Kallstrom’s victory tour this weekend also included an appearance on Fox with former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, another close associate of Pataki’s, who complained on air that she’d been the victim in 2006 when word emerged that the U.S attorney and FBI were probing her in the midst of a race she eventually lost to Andrew Cuomo to become New York Attorney General.

Her concern about the political impact of law enforcement leaks, though, didn’t extend to Democrat Hillary Clinton. “He couldn’t hold on to this any longer,” Kallstrom said of Comey. “Who knows, maybe the locals would’ve done it,” he added, a reference to leaks that elicited glee from Pirro, who echoed: “New York City, that’s my thing!”

[…]

He declined to explain why Megyn Kelly stated as a fact that he was in contact with agents “involved” in the case. Asked in a follow up email if he suggested or encouraged any particular actions in his exchanges with active agents, Kallstrom replied: “No.”

“Now, I’m supporting Comey,” Kallstrom told me on the phone, adding that he can’t do or say anything else before election day. “He can’t characterize” what the bureau has from the Weiner emails. “The FBI can’t say anything without having all the information,” Kallstrom contends, just after telling me he supports the FBI director who’s under fire for having done just that.

[..]

It’s clear enough, though, why when Comey sent a note to FBI staff on Friday explaining his decision to inform Congress about the renewed Clinton probe, the scoop about that internal memo went to Fox News. Why Kallstrom gets booked to talked about the Clintons a “crime family.” Why Clinton Cash author Peter Schweitzer, caught in a web of Breitbart and Trump conflicts, would announce on Fox that he was asked in August to sit down with New York office FBI agents investigating the Clinton Foundation (with The New York Times reporting this week that the agents were relying largely on his discredited work when they pitched a fullscale probe).

Fox is the pipeline for the fifth column inside the bureau, a battalion that says it’s doing God’s work, chasing justice against those who are obstructing it, while, in fact, it’s doing GOP work, even on the eve of a presidential election.