The Epistemology 500

We have two versions of the story and they are incompatible. First, Michael Goodwin:

During the financial crisis, the federal government bailed out banks it declared “too big to fail.” Fearing their bankruptcy might trigger economic Armageddon, the feds propped them up with taxpayer cash.

Something similar is happening now at the FBI, with the Washington wagons circling the agency to protect it from charges of corruption. This time, the appropriate tag line is “too big to believe.”

Yet each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America’s premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a “secret society” and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.

If either one is true — and I believe both probably are — it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.

Meanwhile, this cabal is trying to move in for the kill on Le Grand Orange. Politico:

Amid new signs that special counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing an obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress have intensified their own investigations of the Justice Department's and FBI's handling of inquiries into Trump’s ties to Russia.

Tuesday brought several dramatic developments in the Russia saga, including the news that Mueller recently interviewed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the first Cabinet official known to be questioned in the investigation. The New York Times also reported that former FBI Director James Comey was interviewed by Mueller last year.

Meanwhile, the Democrats have a task list for two social media giants:

Top-ranking Democrats in the House and the Senate are calling on Twitter and Facebook to launch investigations of potential Russian-linked accounts pushing for the release of a controversial congressional memo.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (Calif.), and the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey asking that they “provide a public report to Congress and the American public by January 26” on the matter.

Facebook and Twitter confirmed receipt of the letter.

Apparently, only Russian bots want the Nunes memo released, you see. Is that true? Back to the linked article from The Hill:

The memo in question was drafted by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and is believed by some Republicans to show political bias in the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) probe of potential links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Schiff and Feinstein in their letter cited data by the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, which found that Russian bots on Twitter were advocating for legislators to make the memo public.

A source familiar with Twitter’s analytics said “the hashtags appear to be organically trending,” and seem to not be the result of a Russian led influence campaign.

So what is true? I have no idea. I'm a guy in the suburbs of Minneapolis/St. Paul, sitting at his dining room table. I haven't seen the evidence. I'm not even sure what the evidence is, really. As for the larger dynamic, it could be that the Republicans are trying to undermine Mueller because he's getting close to the truth, or it could be that Mueller is moving fast because he's built his entire enterprise on a foundation of crap. We don't know. We're going to know soon, though. The race is on.