You may have heard some scuttlebutt about another alleged conspiracy or scandal dredged up from the Obama administration, but that story has already more or less disappeared into the void.
The story, as Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) tells it, is that President Obama asked the FBI to brief him on every detail of their investigation of Hillary Clinton's email server. Ron Johnson's report cited a text FBI agent Peter Strzok sent that read “potus wants to know everything we are doing,” but it wasn't a reference to the email investigation.
In fact, the email investigation was already closed when Strzok sent that text message. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the text message was actually about Russia's interference in the 2016 election.
Associates of the FBI employees said it refers to preparation to brief Mr. Obama about Russian interference in that year’s election. Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), who released the text Wednesday as part of a 25-page report, said it raises questions about meddling by Mr. Obama in the federal Hillary Clinton email investigation, which wasn’t an active probe at that time. [...]
The associates of Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page said that exchange referred to the president’s wanting information on Russia election meddling, which the FBI was heavily involved in over that period. That exchange occurred just days before Mr. Obama met Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit in China. Mr. Obama said in December 2016 that he had addressed the issue of tampering with the election process with Mr. Putin at that September meeting.
This is the second time in less than a month that reporters and mainstream publications have had egg land on their face because Ron Johnson said a thing and they took it at face value.
Ron Johnson also said there was some kind of "secret society" at the FBI dedicated to doing evil, or something.
In both cases, Johnson based his accusations on cherry-picked text messages plucked free of any context.
Stop listening to Ron Johnson.