As more of the information drips out related to the FISA court and Carter Page, the incomplete information causes Trump defenders to announce, “We have uncovered more malfeasance on the part of the deep state effort to take down the Trump campaign! Mwahahahahahahahaaaaaa!” The only thing it doesn’t come with is an animated GIF of a silent movie era villain twisting his mustache while cackling.

However, when those without a serious ax to grind, look at the information, what emerges is far less threatening. Kimberley Strassel at the Wall Street Journal, whose work I usually admire has positioned herself along with several authors of The Federalist as de facto Trump administration lackeys. They’ve become the yin to the yang of people such as Eric Garland and Louise Mensch. While the latter will believe nearly anything about Trump that makes him look bad, the former will do whatever they can to make the FBI look as if they carried out a politically motivated sham counterintelligence investigation designed only to take down Donald Trump.

Strassel tweeted this morning about the referral:

1) Why isn't the (mostly) unredacted Grassley memo front page news? Here's why: Because it confirms the Nunes memo and blows up the Schiff talking points (which the media ran with).

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) February 7, 2018

3) It is proof that the FBI did not tell the Court the extraordinarily partisan provenance of the dossier.

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) February 7, 2018

5) It provides evidence that Steele was getting information from the Clinton team itself! Via the State Department! So now, not only do we have a dossier based on unnamed shady Russians, but on Sidney Blumenthal. How much of this was engineered by the Clinton campaign from start?

— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) February 7, 2018

Someone who doesn’t look at these issues with a jaundiced eye is Gabe Malor, a DC-based attorney, and writer for various publications such as The Washington Examiner and The Federalist. He tweeted:

Sad to see people getting misled here, but I can tell you that Strassel's points 1, 2, and 3 are demonstrably false. Her point 4, which is actually two points, is still unresolved, for the first part. And her part 5 is just a rhetorical wind-up. See my prior thread on this. https://t.co/XfWP5amaIX

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018

Gabe’s original thread is well worth reading because what you come away with is a more level-headed look at what happened. Twitchy gathered up all the tweets, but there are a couple that are worth sharing here:

Conclusion: we're still where we were after Nunes' memo: what does "primarily" mean, was the application renewal (signed off on by DAG Rosenstein) appropriate, and was it approvable by the FISC?

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018

As before, the solution to the partisan he-said, he-said is disclosure of the warrant application and the committees hearing transcripts, with appropriate redactions.

We shouldn't have to take anybody's word for it, not when there are primary sources just hanging out.

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018

Noteworthy that the G/G referral and the Nunes' memo both assert that the FISA warrant application and renewals were inappropriate, but they do so in completely incompatible ways.
And both documents fail to establish that the warrant application and renewals were not approvable.

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) February 7, 2018

Notice what Malor did not do. He did not exonerate the FBI. In fact, he leaves open the possibility that yes, the FBI may have acted improperly, but no, the Grassley/Graham referral like the Nunes memo does not make the case. 

If you want to know who’s winning in all of this, naturally it is Donald Trump. Devin Nunes is an idiot. Adam Schiff is an idiot. Neither of those political tools should ever set foot inside a House Intelligence Committee meeting again. Those two, along with Trump and members of the conservative and liberal media, have turned this entire thing into a political circus. Most Republicans will be dumb enough to put their reputations on the line for a chump like Carter Page while the Democrats continue to make themselves look like imbeciles convinced Donald Trump is a puppet for Putin. No matter what happens, partisans on both sides have managed to muddy the waters so much it will never clear up.

Thankfully, some level heads remain. Look to people like Malor for an unvarnished look at things. You’ll learn more.