Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff

FBI Director Christopher Wray needs to speak up and publicly give Special Counsel Robert Mueller two weeks to wrap up his year-long-plus investigation into suspected Russia/Trump campaign collusion, issue his final report and return to retirement — as a former FBI director – and get out of Wray’s FBI building.

Mueller’s overseer — U.S. Department of Justice Deputy Director Rod Rosenstein — needs to agree and get on board with ending this waste of millions in tax payer dollars that to date has produced no evidence of any Russia/Trump campaign connections that had anything to do with swaying the 2016 national election. A few underlings got caught up lying to the FBI but their misstatements had nothing to do with the Trump Campaign for President. There is no campaign COLLUSION. This Russian collusion occurred between Hillary Clinton’s aides, the Democratic National Committee and their associates — not President Trump’s campaign.

The longer this Mueller investigation goes on — the calls for a second special counsel to investigate FBI involvement before and after Campaign 2016 and Hillary Clinton’s email scandal — grow by the day.

Two high ranking Republican U.S. House Reps. Trey Gowdy (SC) and Bob Goodlatte (VA) have requested that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions appoint a new special counsel based on the now infamous ‘Nunes Memo’ that alleged FBI abuses in obtaining surveillance ‘FISA’ warrants to spy on members of the Trump campaign during and after Campaign 2016.

Gowdy is chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, while Goodlatte is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Both men have appeared this week on mainstream media stating their case why the FBI cannot investigate itself and neither can the DOJ which oversees the FBI.

“Several people at the top of this organization (FBI) have engaged in activities that are questionable,” said Goodlatte in a TV interview.
Last month Sessions announced that he was turning over any FISA abuse probe to U.S. Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who already is investigating a whole assortment of Campaign 2016 allegations of bias on the part of DOJ and FBI officials. Horowitz is due to issue his overall assessment report by April, according to news reports.

But both Gowdy and Goodlatte say Horowitz does not have sufficient jurisdiction to fully investigate suspected FISA abuses because — without a special counsel — they would not be able to question under oath by subpoena many of the key players because some have resigned while others have retired with others that never worked for either the FBI or DOJ.

“What changed for me was the knowledge there are two dozen witnesses who Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General, would not have access to,” said Gowdy. “So, your options are: DOJ investigating themselves, they can’t do that because of conflict of interest. Let the Inspector General do it. I’m a big fan of Mike Horowitz, but he has no jurisdiction over witnesses who have left the department or never worked there. So when I counted up 24 witnesses that he could not be able to access, were he to investigate it, you have only one conclusion: a special counsel.”

Sure seems like a political chess game is in progress – complete with Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights, Rooks and Pawns. There’s Mueller on one side – the only hope left for the liberal Democrats to damage President Trump and remove him from office – with the Republicans on the other acting with the same aggression in a sort of counter balance to all the political infighting going on within Washington that voters witness daily on the national news.

It’s a big deal when a government agency is duped into obtaining illegal surveillance warrants against a political opponent and private citizens like what was proven to have occurred with the Trump campaign for president.

Sessions’ failure to appoint a special counsel as requested by Gowdy and Goodlatte is a sure sign that the protection of — Hillary Clinton and her cronies — from prosecution continues.

President Trump voiced his displeasure with Sessions’ announcement that Horowitz would look into the alleged FISA abuses for he wanted a special counsel appointed as well.

All eyes will be on Horowitz and his findings due out next month. His investigations will prove to be not an end to anything, but a beginning for a whole new round of deeper investigations. The ‘Washington Merry-Go-Round’ is spinning faster and faster.

About the Author Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.