As more internal DOJ and FBI communications from the time of the 2016 elections become public, it's getting harder and harder to justify the many investigations into the president.

Slowly and under extreme compulsion, more memos, emails, and texts from within the FBI – written in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election – are being made public. The latest batch of emails between agent Peter Strzok and his lover, Lisa Page, show them desperate to get "derogatory" evidence on Trump campaign officials, rushing to get FISA warrants, and finding "pretexts" or excuses to hurry interviews. Some observers argue that the information is painting an ever-sharpening picture that ideologues high up in the FBI were working to stop and then damage a Trump presidency.

"I think it's painting a pretty sad and sorry picture for how this investigation began," says political pundit Jeff Crank. He also argues that even more incriminating are emails the day after the election in which Strzok and Page hurry to "scrub" or delete names from their records and even implicate then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in the cover-up to hide just how the Trump/Russia probe got started. Strzok is scheduled to testify publicly for the first time Thursday on Capitol Hill.

Crank

"Until we have a full and complete congressional investigation, we won't know," Crank acknowledges. "But I think when you take it in its totality – you take the texts, you take the emails, and you take the cover-up – you start losing the benefit of the doubt."

He says given the mounting evidence, the only way the alleged conspirators in the FBI and Justice Department escape justice is if the November midterms go very poorly for the GOP.

"I just think they're trying to run out the clock," he tells OneNewsNow. "I think they're hoping that the Democrats will take control of the House and all of this will go away – and it will go away, if the Democrats do take the House."

Crank hosts a weekly radio program on KVOR in the Colorado Springs-Pueblo area.