Tag Archives: Cleta Mitchell

The Truth Begins To Come Out

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So much of the testimony about the ‘Russian conspiracy’ during the 2016 election has been held in secret that Americans have had to rely on carefully leaked snippets of testimony illustrating whatever the leaker wanted to prove. Well it seems as if those days may be coming to an end. Sara Carter reported yesterday that Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee Georgia Representative Doug Collins unilaterally released the 268-page transcript of an August 2018 interview with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. Representative Collins released the transcript because, as he put it, his patience with the Justice Department was wearing thin.

Sara Carter lists a number of inconsistencies between the testimony of Bruce Ohr and testimony given by Glenn Simpson, founder of embattled research firm Fusion GPS and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This is not really news–the rats deserting the sinking ship are trying to save their own skins, but it is good to see the truth finally coming to light.

The article lists a number of inconsistencies:

1. Glenn Simpson suggests in his testimony to the Senate that he never spoke to anyone at the FBI about Christopher Steele, the former British spy he hired to investigate the Trump campaign during the election. However, Ohr suggest otherwise telling former Rep.Trey Gowdy under questioning “As I recall, and this is after checking with my notes, Mr. Simpson and I spoke in August of 2016. I met with him, and he provided some information on possible intermediaries between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.”

2. In another instance, Simpson’s testimony also contradicts notes taken by Ohr after a meeting they had in December, 2016. Unverified allegations were decimated among the media that the Trump campaign had a computer server that was linked to a Russian bank in Moscow: Alpha Bank. Simpson suggested to the Senate that he knew very little about the Trump -Alpha Bank server story and couldn’t provide information. But Bruce Ohr’s own handwritten notes state that when he met with Simpson in December 2016, Simpson was concerned over the Alpha Bank story in the New York Times. “The New York Times story on Oct. 31 downplaying the connection between Alfa servers and the Trump campaign was incorrect. There was communication and it wasn’t spam,” stated Ohr’s notes. This suggests that Simpson was well aware of the story, which was believed by congressional investigators to have started from his research firm.

3. Ohr testified to lawmakers that Simpson provided information to federal officials that was false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a well-known Republican campaign finance lawyer, and information regarding the National Rifle Association. Sean Davis, with the Federalist pointed this out in a tweet today.

4. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would not answer questions to lawmakers during testimony about when he learned that Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Fusion GPS. Just check this out from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s interview with Judge Jeanine on Fox News.

“Rod Rosenstein won’t tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS,” said Gaetz, in August, 2018. “So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife’s occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I’ve asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there’s a real smoking gun there.”

5. Ohr also told lawmakers in his testimony that the former British spy, Christopher Steele was being paid by the FBI at the same time he was getting paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. However, there was another player paying Steele and it was a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, a tycoon connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had well known animus toward his former friend Paul Manafort.

We need more of these testimonies made public so that voters can draw their own conclusions about what actually happened. Hopefully there is more of this to come. I am grateful for reporters like Sara Carter who have been following this story for more than two years and have not given up their search for the truth.

President Nixon Would Be Green With Envy

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On Friday the Associated Press posted an article stating that emails have been lost from five more Internal Revenue Service (IRS) workers who are being investigated in relation to the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups.

Today, Townhall.com posted the reaction of the lawyer who is representing those conservative groups.

Townhall.com quotes Attorney Mitchell’s reaction:

Attorney Cleta Mitchell, who is representing many tea party and conservative groups targeted by the IRS, isn’t impressed and not surprised about the latest round of “lost” emails.

“I have gotten to the point where this is like one of those infomercials where they say ‘wait, wait, there’s more!’ I mean just when you think you’ve heard it all, you find out more things about the IRS and frankly I think what Congressman Camp said is absolutely right that there is no way we are getting anywhere close to the truth about what happened and the DOJ has become, in my opinion has become complicit in trying to cover-up what’s been going on. I think we have to have a special prosecutor if we are ever going to get to the bottom of it,” Mitchell said in an interview with Fox News. 

Attorney Mitchell was recently interviewed on Fox News. You can watch the interview at the Townhall.com link above.

 

An Opinion From An Interesting Source

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Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article quoting Cleta Mitchell, a partner at Foley & Lardner, on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) scandal,

The article quoted Ms. Mitchell:

“This is a sea change! People need to understand — this has never happened before in my lifetime and I don’t think anybody’s lifetime, where you have the president of the United States, elected members of Congress calling on the IRS to silence their political opponents, and having the IRS management and top brass doing what the politicians wanted them to do, and essentially taking sides in a philosophical and political debate between conservatives and liberals,” said Cleta Mitchell, a partner at Foley & Lardner.

“The more we allow government to mushroom and metastasize, we become more like the former Soviet Union where you have the commissars who have laws for everybody else, the little people, that don’t apply to them, and they use the government to go after their opponents and people are afraid of the government,” Mitchell said. “I mean, this is happening. And we have to stop it.”

It has become very obvious that the Obama Administration wants to silence anyone who is opposed to their policies. If they are successful in this, it is not a stretch to think that any future administration of either party will employ similar tactics.

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Question Of The Day

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On Monday, Fox News reported on President Obama’s interview with Bill O’Reilly:

Obama addressed concerns over Benghazi, the launch of HealthCare.gov and the IRS, during the interview Sunday before the Super Bowl. He adamantly rejected the suggestion that the IRS was used for political purposes by singling out Tea Party groups seeking tax exemption.

“That’s not what happened,” he said. Rather, he said, IRS officials were confused about how to implement the law governing those kinds of tax-exempt groups.

“There were some bone-headed decisions,” Obama conceded. 

But when asked whether corruption, or mass corruption, was at play, he responded: “Not even mass corruption — not even a smidgen of corruption.”

The question of the day (and it is not an original question) is, “if there was not a smidgen of corruption, why did Lois Lerner take the fifth rather than testify before Congress?”

Yesterday Scott Johnson at Power Line posted a letter from William Henck, a man who has worked inside the IRS Office of the General Counsel as an attorney for over 26 years. I am not going to post the letter as it is very long, but I strongly suggest that you follow the link to Power Line and read the letter. It is chilling.

Scott Johnson also posted a story at Power Line today about Cleta Mitchell, who he describes as the most dangerous woman in America. Ms. Mitchell is the Washington attorney who represents several clients victimized by the criminal misconduct of the IRS over the past four years. A video of her testimony before Congress on Thursday is included in the article. She is smart and articulate–she does represent a danger to the Obama Administration. Please watch the video to see why.

The IRS scandal is dangerous to America. It means that whichever party is in power in Washington can use the IRS to target its enemies. This is an impeachable offense, and any administration that engages in this behavior should be faced with the threat of impeachment.

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Controlling The Message

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Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal posted an article on Thursday about the IRS and the 2014 election.

The article reports:

President Obama and Democrats have been at great pains to insist they knew nothing about IRS targeting of conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofits before the 2012 election. They’ve been at even greater pains this week to ensure that the same conservative groups are silenced in the 2014 midterms.

That’s the big, dirty secret of the omnibus negotiations. As one of the only bills destined to pass this year, the omnibus was—behind the scenes—a flurry of horse trading. One of the biggest fights was over GOP efforts to include language to stop the IRS from instituting a new round of 501(c)(4) targeting. The White House is so counting on the tax agency to muzzle its political opponents that it willingly sacrificed any manner of its own priorities to keep the muzzle in place.

The article explains that a new rule introduced by the Treasury Department and the IRS during Thanksgiving will recategorize as “political” many of the educational activities that 501(c)(4) social-welfare organizations currently engage in.

The article further reports:

And an IRS rule that purports to—as Mr. Werfel explained—”improve our work in the tax-exempt area” completely ignores the biggest of political players in the tax-exempt area: unions. The guidance is directed only at 501(c)(4) social-welfare groups—the tax category that has of late been flooded by conservative groups. Mr. Obama’s union foot soldiers—which file under 501(c)(5)—can continue playing in politics.

Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents targeted tea party groups, has filed a Freedom of Information Act requesting documents or correspondence with the White House or outside groups in the formulation of this rule.

The article reports the response:

Treasury sent a letter to Ms. Mitchell this week saying it wouldn’t have her documents until April—after the rule’s comment period closes. It added that if she didn’t like it, she can “file suit.” The IRS has yet to respond.

The abuse of the IRS is continuing. Unless someone in Congress stands up against it or Ms. Mitchell is successful in her quest for information or her lawsuit, the 2014 election is in danger. If the Tea Party and similar groups are silenced, there will be no one to stand for the Constitution during the 2014 campaign.

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The Foxes Continue To Investigate Recent Disappearances In The Chicken Coop

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Yesterday CNS News reported that Cleta Mitchell, an attorney representing nine tea party groups who were targeted by the IRS, told CNSNews that she has not yet heard from the FBI investigators.

The article also reports:

American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) Executive Director Jordan Sekulow, whose organization now represents 41 tea party groups in a case against the IRS, told CNSNews.com that they, too, are waiting to hear anything pertaining to the investigation.

“To date, none of our clients or any of our attorneys has been contacted by the FBI. The Director continues to assert that this is a priority for the Bureau, but at this point, there’s little evidence to suggest that this probe is on the fast track,” Mr. Sekulow wrote. “There has been no contact with any of the 41 conservative organizations we represent – the real victims of this IRS targeting scheme. Our expanded lawsuit continues to move forward.”

Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots stated that the network of Tea Party groups that were targeted by the IRS have not been contacted by the FBI either.

I wonder how much of the taxpayers’ money the FBI is spending on this investigation. The thing to remember here is the precedent. If those working at the higher levels of our government begin to target American citizens without fear of repercussions, we will soon find ourselves in a state where freedom of speech and freedom to protest are a distant memory.

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