“Disgusting”: FBI Leader Snaps at Thomas Massie Over Jan 6 Bomb Case

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino tore into Representative Thomas Massie for suggesting the government was attempting to weed out a whistleblower.

The spat started when Massie shared a “troubling” letter on X Wednesday from an attorney representing an FBI whistleblower. According to the letter, a whistleblower had made a protected disclosure related to the FBI’s ongoing investigation into pipe bombs that were placed at the Democratic and Republican national headquarters on January 5, 2021, ahead of the deadly riot at the Capitol.

The letter stated that the FBI’s Washington field office said it would hold a meeting the next day—raising alarms for the attorney, who claimed it was “obvious” the meeting was “an attempt to identify the FBI whistleblower.”

“Just a reminder to @FBIDirectorKash, in case this letter is warranted, federal law prevents retaliation against whistleblowers,” Massie wrote on X.

In his more than 2,000-character response, Bongino provided a laundry list of efforts the FBI had made in its investigation into the pipe bomb, before turning his attention to Massie.

“When I spoke with you yesterday a little after 8am ET (screenshots attached), I offered you an in-person brief on our work. We spoke for ten minutes,” he wrote, referring to two screenshots he’d sent showing his calls made to Massie. “I called you back a bit after 7:30pm ET to again make that offer. You didn’t answer and have yet to call me back.

“Despite this, you continue to imply that the Director and I are targeting investigators in the case,” Bongino wrote. “This is disgusting, even by the low standards many have for politicians. You know my number, and you’re free to call me anytime. But it’s easier to tweet and throw BS bombs.”

Massie hasn’t exactly been on the Trump administration’s good side recently, ever since putting his weight behind a petition that would force a House vote on a bill to release the government’s full files on Jeffrey Epstein. Massie claimed Wednesday that the White House’s attempts to pressure Republican lawmakers away from supporting the bill had been an effort to prevent Massie from winning.

Last month, the FBI released new footage of a suspect placing an explosive device at the DNC, inviting widespread speculation from citizen-sleuths and conspiracy theorists about who the suspect might be.

Senator Chuck Schumer reached out to leading Democratic presidential contenders to try and mute criticism of the deal to end the government shutdown.

The Senate minority leader called Governors Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and JB Pritzker of Illinois and asked them not to attack or criticize the deal eight Democratic senators made with Senate Republicans, Puck reports. His efforts had mixed results, with Pritzker still disparaging the deal, along with California Governor Gavin Newsom.

The final deal didn’t include the key demand by Democrats: for Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are expiring this year, to be extended. Instead, Republicans promised to hold a future vote on extending those subsidies, leading to backlash within the Democratic Party against the deal.

While Schumer voted against it, the eight Democrats who voted in support said that the minority leader was aware of their plan the whole time. Some Democrats thought that extending the subsidies would help Republicans in the midterms, and opted to put electoral prospects over their own constituents.

Several Democratic organizations, political candidates, and members of the House have called for Schumer’s resignation since the deal was announced Sunday. House Speaker Mike Johnson has not committed to a vote on the subsidies, and a Democratic attempt to raise the issue was voted down Tuesday by House Republicans. It seems that Schumer knew that the deal was bad, but instead of scrapping it and negotiating a better one, sought to minimize dissent.

Community organizer Katie Wilson is projected to defeat Seattle Mayor and Democratic incumbent Bruce Harrell, in another big-city victory for the progressive left against the Democratic establishment.

Local news outlets called the race for Wilson on Wednesday evening.

“We’re thrilled with the latest drop, which continues to trend in our direction. Ahead by almost 2,000 votes, we now believe that we’re in an insurmountable position,” Wilson wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday. “We’re so grateful to all the volunteers who have powered this grassroots campaign to victory. We look forward to hearing the mayor’s address to the city tomorrow.”

Wilson, 43, who has said she is fine being called a Democrat, a socialist, or both, had never run for office before but focused her campaign on affordability, proposed improvements to mass transit, and increased housing for Seattle’s homeless population.

“I think that the affordability crisis of the last few years has kind of brought that to a fever pitch where people have not felt that their elected leaders are actually fighting for them, actually fighting for affordable housing, for affordable childcare, for the things that are affecting them day to day,” Wilson told The New Republic’s Monica Potts in October. “And the failure of a certain brand of Democratic Party politics to stop Trump’s election.... It’s like, OK, now we see that the government can move fast. It can do some really bad things really fast. So why can’t it be some good things?”

Harrell, her opponent, has not conceded, although Wilson is likely to eclipse the 2,000-vote margin that triggers an automatic recount.

Jeffrey Epstein, the man who orchestrated an international child sex trafficking ring to service the sick desires of the ultra-wealthy, believed that he was morally superior to Donald Trump.

The House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents Wednesday that they had obtained from Epstein’s estate. The real estate mogul was a frequent topic in correspondence between Epstein and his pen pals, including former Treasury Secretary and ex-Harvard University President Larry Summers.

“Recall ive told you „ i have met some very bad people „ none as bad as trump. not one decent cell in his body,” Epstein emailed Summers in February 2017, affirming that Trump is “dangerous.”

In a 2018 exchange with Obama-era White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler about Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, Epstein remarked that he was well aware of “how dirty Donald is.”

That same year, Epstein began deriding his former “pal” with myriad insults, largely attacking Trump’s finances. In exchanges with Trump chronicler Michael Wolff, Epstein referred to the president as “dopey Donald” and “demented Donald.” He also claimed that Trump’s financial situation was “all a sham.”

In a December 2018 message to Summers, Epstein wrote: “Trump—borderline insane.”

When queried by Wolff in 2019 about the extent of Trump’s knowledge about Epstein’s operation abducting young girls, the imprisoned trafficker remarked: “Of course he knew about the girls he asked Ghislaine [Maxwell] to stop.”

Another detail that emerged in the recently publicized cache was an offer by Epstein circa 2015 to share pictures of Trump posing with “girls in bikinis” in Epstein’s kitchen. The recipient of the offer was New York Times reporter Landon Thomas Jr., who had written the New York magazine profile on Epstein in which Trump praised the disgraced financier as a “terrific guy.”

Thomas, who left the Times in 2019, told his former paper that Epstein never provided the images, and it was unclear whether they really existed.

One of Jeffrey Epstein’s newly released private emails implicates Tom Barrack, an old friend of President Trump and the current U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

Barrack sent an email to Epstein on March 9, 2016, saying, “Hope ur good. Let’s catch up.” Epstein’s reply is chilling in hindsight.

“Send photos of you and child.  -- make me smile,” the wealthy financier and child sex offender wrote. If anyone else wrote this email, one could say that this was an innocent request to see pictures of someone’s kids or grandkids. But knowing what we know about Epstein, it possibly takes a sinister connotation that Epstein wanted to see something disgusting and illegal.

The emails released on Wednesday by House Oversight Republicans and Democrats heavily implicate Trump in being closely associated with Epstein even while president, and are also implicating his confidants like Barrack. The president has responded by referring to the whole thing as a hoax, even as his staff and other Republicans have confirmed that the emails are real and identified one of the mentioned victims.

Now that there are 218 members of the House who have signed a discharge petition to make all of the Epstein files public, more damaging information about the president, as well as other powerful Americans, could soon come to light. Trump could be in the politically damaging position of having to veto their disclosure.