
Republican congressman turned Fox News pundit Jason Chaffetz absurdly claimed the Trumps have been transparent about their Russia contacts, while calling for further investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails.

Newly hired Fox News pundit and former Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz fit right at in the leading pro-Trump propaganda outfit by giving a pass to Trump's growing Russia scandal, and citing Hillary Clinton's emails as justification.

Chaffetz, who gave up serving in Congress to make a good salary pontificating on television, ignored the saga of the last six months while appearing on Trump's favorite show, "Fox & Friends."

"The Trumps need to actually get a lot of credit for openness and transparency," he said. "They didn’t delete their emails."

.@jasoninthehouse: "I think the Trumps need to actually get a lot of credit for openness and transparency. They didn’t delete their emails." pic.twitter.com/pJBE4F4R1r — Fox News (@FoxNews) July 24, 2017


CHAFFETZ: When I tried, as the chairman of the oversight committee, to bring in Ben Rhodes to talk about the Iran situation, nobody knows what the deal with Iran was. They claimed executive privilege. I think the Trumps need to actually get a lot of credit for openness and transparency. They didn't delete their emails, they provided their emails. When they wanted to talk to them, they said you can talk to us. And yet when we did the same thing with the Democrats, they give us the stiff-arm every single step of the way. DOOCY: Former congressman, you know there is a double standard in Washington, D.C. and the mainstream media. CHAFFETZ: Yes, and there's a double standard with the United States Senate Republicans, because they're holding them to a much higher standard with very little evidence than they ever did the Clintons. And that investigation, why did it end? Just because there was a political election.

The Trump team has misled the country and the government on their Russian contacts since the start. Several members of Trump's team claimed that they never spoke to Russians, but that was a lie.

We have since learned that several high-level members of the campaign — including Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions — spoke to Russian operatives multiple times.

And there is no way of knowing whether the email thread Trump Jr. released, when he was about to be exposed by reporters, was the full sum of his communications about working with Russia.

Nearly every week of the Trump presidency has seen another revelation about Trump contacts with Russia. That is what has generated multiple congressional investigations, the FBI investigation, and now the special counsel.

Chaffetz is also not telling the truth about Clinton. Contrary to his allegation, the FBI concluded after investigating Clinton's use of a private email server that they "found no evidence that any of the additional work-related emails were intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them."

In fact, it was the FBI's supposedly unfair mishandling of her investigation that was the first excuse offered by the White House for the firing of former Director James Comey.

In an appearance on the same episode, Chaffetz complained that there wasn't still an open investigation of Clinton's emails.

The former congressman made a name for himself in the conservative movement by politicizing the investigation of the Benghazi attack while he was the chairman of the House oversight committee.

The cynicism of his rhetoric during the investigation was exposed when he announced that he would continue investigating Clinton's emails if she won the election.

"We’ve got two years’ worth of material already lined up," he said in October. After Trump won, Chaffetz said he would refrain from oversight.

With a career marked by hypocrisy, cynicism, and obsession with Hillary Clinton, Chaffetz fits right in at Fox News.