INTERVIEW – TOM FITTON – President, Judicial Watch @JudicialWatch @TomFitton (IN STUDIO)

TOPICS: Strzok on the hill Wednesday / Wray & Rosenstein on the Hill Thursday,  and SCOTUS retirement

• WRAY/ROSENSTEIN HEARING: House to grill Wray, Rosenstein over IG report on Clinton email investigation (Washington Examiner) — FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will testify Thursday at a hearing called by the House Judiciary Committee that will delve into a recent Department of Justice inspector general’s report on the department’s actions taken during the 2016 election. According to a statement sent by the committee, Wray and Rosenstein will testify about the inspector general’s recent report concerning the handling of a probe of Hillary Clinton’s private email server. The report, issued earlier this month, found several top FBI agents expressed political bias against Trump but that it did not impact “investigative decisions” related to the Clinton email investigation. It’s the second trip to Congress this month for Wray. He testified about the IG report before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
• SCOTUS RETIREMENT: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announces he is retiring, effective July 31, giving President Trump another SCOTUS pick. Kennedy was nominated by President Reagan and took office in 1988
• President Trump says process to replace Kennedy on Supreme Court will ‘begin immediately’
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: “We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedy’s successor this fall”
• STRZOK: ‘Intimate’ chats: FBI’s anti-Trump texter makes case to Congress (Politico) — Peter Strzok, the FBI agent whose anti-Trump texts have spawned months of conspiracy theories about deep state plots to take down the president, sparred with lawmakers Wednesday during a “feisty” daylong interview in his first Capitol Hill appearance. Over nearly 10 hours, Strzok defended his texts as “intimate” conversations with an “intimate friend,” according to those in the room. But after multiple rounds of questioning, no one appeared to have budged. Republicans left the room raging, while Democrats left wondering what all the fuss was about. “Mad and angry,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), describing his emotions leaving the meeting. “Monumental waste of time,” countered Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). Strzok, a veteran counterintelligence agent who helped launched the FBI’s Russia probe in 2016, has become the bogeyman of the Trump universe, portrayed as the original witch hunter in the illegitimate investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials.