Whenever you start to dig into the media conglomerate that was created in order to push the Russia collusion hoax, things can get confusing quickly. There’s a network of “journalists” (such as Politico’s Natasha Bertrand) and bloggers who proclaimed themselves to be idle observers, but who always seemed to be pushing whatever talking point the FBI wanted pushed on a given day. The idea that they have a direct line to outfits like Fusion GPS is not even really conjecture at this point.

Enter Benjamin Wittes and Lawfare Blog. As the editor of the aforementioned site, Wittes has spent years fluffing the Steele Dossier and preaching to the converted on all manner of crazy Russian conspiracy theories. His reward has been cable news hits and notoriety, because that’s basically the reward for every media personality who decides to go full #orangemanbad.

But there’s something more insidious about Wittes and his connections to the very people he claims to be reporting on. He’s admitted being friends with Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, the famed FBI lovers who batted around “insurance plan” ideas on official government phones. That’s all well and good from a personal standpoint, but it’s exactly how you get a supposed unbiased narrator making the kind of insane, ridiculous rant that he decided to throw down on Twitter this morning.

Without further ado, here it is in all its glory:

First he came for @comey, and I said nothing because I was mad at @comey because of the Clinton email investigation and I blamed him for Trump’s election.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 9, 2020

Then he came for Jim Baker and I said nothing because I had never heard of Jim Baker and the FBI director is entitled to his own leadership team anyway.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 9, 2020

Then he came for Jim Baker and I said nothing because I had never heard of Jim Baker and the FBI director is entitled to his own leadership team anyway.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 9, 2020

Then he came for Bruce Ohr and I said nothing because that one was so deep in the weeds that it made my head hurt and maybe Bruce Ohr shouldn’t have been doing what he was doing anyway.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 9, 2020

Then he came for Sir @KimDarroch, and I said nothing because he’s a British government official and I have no dog in a fight over how the UK staffs its embassies.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 9, 2020

And then he came for Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and his brother, Evgeny Vindman, and I said nothing—because I was used to it.

— Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 9, 2020

Notice he’s couching all this in a Holocaust style “and then they came for” theme. Because overpaid, insubordinate bureaucrats getting full retirements and book deals are just like Jews being gassed in Nazi Germany. Get it?

This entire screed is just crazy. On what planet are any of the people he listed victims? Andrew McCabe, who lied to the FBI? Page and Strzok, who had an affair and trafficked in coup porn on official government devices? James Comey (lol)?

Vindman and Yovanovitch are not victims either. They chose to undermine Trump’s foreign policy and they were rewarded by getting to keep their jobs. They should count themselves lucky, not oppressed. This idea that anyone is entitled to an ambassadorship or NSC appointment is insane. But it’s the kind of idiocy that passes for intelligent thought in anti-Trump ethos, where all things must be described in the most sinister manner.

A president wants people he can trust to enact his policies, which are subject to the oversight of the electorate via elections. That’s hardly new or unique to the latest inhabitant of the White House. If you cross that trust, you can go back to the Pentagon or whatever agency you came from. You’ll still be getting your fat check and pension because no one is ever really fired from a government job.

Most of the people in this thread are or have been under investigation for breaking the law. They continue to make tons of money off book deals, cable news gigs, and speaking fees. Wittes is making a fool of himself comparing corrupt government saboteurs to Holocaust victims: https://t.co/WJdB35QpPn

— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) February 9, 2020

Important to point out that Wittes gets away with this garbage because none of his stupid followers know the truth. They still think Steele is a former British spy, the dossier is legit, Russian election collusion really happened and Bob Mueller is a hero: https://t.co/zzuWD69Ibh

— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) February 9, 2020

Enough with the pretending that civil servants are actually servants. They are typically overpaid, with huge benefits packages and get more time off in a single year than most private-sector employees enjoy over half a decade. They are not martyrs, they are bureaucrats. The fact that they can’t just be outright fired with ease is bad enough, but painting them as everything that holds this country together is asinine and a false sense of grandeur that’s incredibly idiotic. If James Comey didn’t want to be fired, he shouldn’t have lied to the President and facilitated illegal warrants. If Andrew McCabe wanted to keep his job, not lying to the FBI would have been prudent. There are similar retorts to everyone Wittes lists above.

Here’s Lisa Page responding to Wittes:

What we each share, despite our differences, is a lifetime of service to our country. We are civil servants who dared to rebuke this president. https://t.co/Lq8ifGQpDz

— Lisa Page (@NatSecLisa) February 9, 2020

It wasn’t her job to “rebuke” the President. These people really think they are entitled to run the country from their unelected perches and it’s a very, very dangerous prospect. The very basis of our republic is that the voters get to hold the people running their government accountable. Yet, people like Page think they are above that. The sooner Trump cleans this entire house out, the better.