Tag Archives: Federal Bureau of Investigation

The Questions I Haven’t Heard The Media Ask

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today that included a portion of a Wall Street Journal article by Kimberley Strassel. The article at The Wall Street Journal is behind the subscriber wall, so I am not linking to it.

Kimberley Strassel listed a number of questions she would like to hear James Comey answer.

Power Line listed six of these questions:

  • You admit the Christopher Steele dossier was still “unverified” when the FBI used it as the basis of a surveillance warrant against Carter Page. Please explain. Also explain the decision to withhold from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the dossier was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
  • You say you knew the dossier was funded by a “Democrat-aligned” group but that you “never knew” which one. Why not? Didn’t the FBI have a duty to find out?
  • Please explain the extraordinary accommodations the FBI provided Team Clinton during the email investigation. Why was Cheryl Mills —whose emails suggest she had early knowledge of the irregular server as Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff—allowed to claim attorney-client privilege and represent Mrs. Clinton at her interview? Why did that interview happen only at the end? Especially since you say any case hung entirely on her “intent”?
  • You’ve surely now read the texts between the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. That happened on your watch. Is this appropriate FBI behavior? Should we believe such behavior is limited to them? In addition to overt political bias, the texts prove the FBI took politics into account—worrying, for instance, about how much manpower to put into investigating the woman who could be our “next president.” Why should the public have any faith in the integrity of the Clinton or Trump investigation?
  • The texts ridicule former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s decision to step aside from the Clinton probe, “since she knows no charges will be brought.” This was before the FBI even interviewed Mrs. Clinton. And it contradicts your claim at the start of your July 2016 press conference that no one at the Justice Department knew what you were about to say. Please explain.
  • You dismiss Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s memo as nothing but a “pretext” to fire you. Yet you don’t address its claims. Please point to the internal policies or regulations that gave you the authority to announce that Mrs. Clinton was being cleared and why. Please provide any examples of similar announcements by FBI directors. Please address the criticisms of the prior attorneys general and deputy attorneys general from both parties cited in the Rosenstein memo.

Works for me.

 

I Am Not Sure What This Means, But I Think That If My Name Were On The List, I Would Be Nervous

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Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall yesterday about a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions by eleven House Republicans.

The article reports:

Eleven House Republicans have sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray officially referring Hillary Clinton, fired FBI Director James Comey, fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for criminal investigation. FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who were caught sending hundreds of anti-Trump text messages during the Clinton investigation, have also been referred for criminal investigation. U.S. Attorney John Huber, who was tapped by Sessions a few weeks ago to investigate the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe, was copied on the request.

“Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately,” lawmakers wrote.

As the letter outlines, Comey is under fire for allegedly giving false testimony to Congress last summer about the FBI’s criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s repeated mishandling of classified information. Specifically, lawmakers cite Comey’s decision to draft an exoneration memo of Clinton months before FBI agents were done with their work and before Clinton and key staffers were interviewed for the probe. They’re also going after him for leaking classified information to a friend, which Comey admitted to under oath.

The Conservative Treehouse also posted an article on the letter yesterday.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse notes:

The identified reasoning for each of the referrals is outlined in the letter below.  However, the risk to James Comey is not simply contained within the letter, but also contained within the non-discussed fact that FBI chief-legal-counsel James Baker is a cooperating witness for IG Horowitz and Huber.

One of the lesser discussed aspects to the ongoing investigative overview is how a few key people, with direct and specific knowledge of the events that took place within the FBI and DOJ activity, remain inside the institutions as they are being investigated.

Those key DOJ and FBI officials have been removed from their position, yet remain inside with no identified or explained responsibility.

Peter Strzok (FBI), Lisa Page (DOJ/FBI), Bruce Ohr (DOJ) and James Baker (FBI) are still employed. Insofar as they are within the DOJ/FBI system it’s more than highly likely they are being retained for their cooperation in exchange for some form of immunity.

Other identified co-conspirators left their positions as soon as the IG discoveries began hitting the headlines in December ’17, and January ’18.

Those who quit include, but not limited to: James Comey’s chief-of-staff, James Rybicki (resigned); FBI Director of Communications Michael Kortan (resigned); DOJ-NSD Asst Attorney David Laufman (resigned). Each of those officials was named and outlined within the Page/Strzok text messages as a key participant, and quit as soon as the scope of the internal Inspection Division (INSD) investigative material was identified by media.

Prior to the IG/INSD release, other resignations were earlier: DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord (April ’17) and DOJ-NSD head John Carlin (Oct 16).

Dana Boente, the current FBI chief legal counsel was inside Main Justice and specifically inside the DOJ-NSD apparatus the entire time the 2015, 2016 and 2017 political schemes were happening. Therefore Boente has the full scope of understanding and dirt on Sally Yates, John Carlin, Mary McCord et al. Boente’s understanding obviously bolstered by DOJ-NSD Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr, who, not coincidentally, is also removed from position but still remains employed.

There are some very odd things about recent Justice Department investigations–particularly those dealing with the handling of classified material. It is well documented that Hillary Clinton mishandled classified material, yet she has suffered no consequences. The same can be said of Anthony Weiner,  Huma Abedin, and James Comey.

I have no idea where this is going, but somehow I think we need to pay attention. What happens next will tell us whether or not America still has equal justice under the law.

The Scandal Drip Continues

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A lot of the information that the mainstream media described as ‘fake news’ has been verified by the recently released Inspector General‘s report. The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about one aspect of the corruption story that was reported on shortly before the election, but ignored by the mainstream media.

The article reports:

A few days later as reported at Breitbart on November 4th, 2016, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, was on Breitbart radio and he said shocking things about Weiner’s emails –

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week.

“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.

“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said.

“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained.

“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago. That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince said.

Prince shared that the NYPD kept a copy of all the emails on Weiner’s computer, and the following –

Prince agreed, but said, “If people are willing to bend or break the law and don’t really care about the Constitution or due process – if you’re willing to use Stalinist tactics against someone – who knows what level of pressure” could be brought to bear against even the most tenacious law enforcement officials?

Prince also stated that Obama’s DOJ was trying to use the Garner investigation as leverage to shut down the investigation in New York into Weiner’s emails. Friday’s IG report confirmed that AG Lynch did discuss the Garner case with New York and McCabe and she used ‘forceful’ language.

Friday’s IG report confirms many of the statements Prince made just before the 2016 election.

This was the Department of Justice under President Obama. Thank God these people are no longer in power. We need to make sure that all of the people responsible for the corruption during the Obama Administration are held accountable for their actions.

 

This Is The Beginning

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the Inspector General‘s report that was released Friday. There are more Inspector General’s reports due out in the very near future. I would like to note that one theory on why we have Special Prosecutor Mueller is to distract from all the corruption that went on in the upper levels of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) during the Obama Administration. The activities continued with the understanding that Hillary Clinton would be elected President, and no one would ever know about them. Unfortunately, if the Democrats succeed in taking control of Congress in November, these activities will be reburied (probably never to surface again). The time to drain the swamp is limited, and it may come to an end in November.

The article lists the highlights of the report:

  • The Department of Justice Inspector General released a report Friday claiming “lack of candor” by former FBI deputy Director Andrew McCabe
  • The report also details Justice Department’s influence to close a multi-state investigation into the Clinton Foundation
  • The IG claims McCabe leaked DOJ’s pressure to end the Clinton investigation to battle claims he was partial to the Clintons

The article explains the attempted shutdown of the investigation into the Clinton Foundation:

The inspector general (IG) confirmed in its long-awaited report released Friday that in 2016 the FBI had ongoing field investigations of the Clinton Foundation in New York, Los Angeles, Little Rock, Arkansas and Washington, D.C. The multi-city investigation was launched when agents found “suspicious activity” between a foreign donor and Clinton Foundation activity in the Los Angeles area, as TheDCNF reported in August 2016.

The report, authored by Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, an Obama appointee, chronicles the Justice Department’s effort to to shut down the FBI’s investigation on Aug. 12, 2016. The pressure allegedly came in the form of a phone call to McCabe from a Justice Department principal associate deputy attorney general (PADAG) who pressed McCabe on the continuing investigation. The IG did not identify which PADAG made the call.

It was important the pressure for ending the investigation was issued in a phone call and not in a written document, former FBI assistant Director Ronald Hosko told TheDCNF.

“They did it in a phone call, which is maybe a little more difficult to serve up as evidence,” he told TheDCNF in an interview. Hosko said that by giving a verbal order, the Justice Department “chose not to document it by design.”

Other items of note detailed in the article:

McCabe was worried about an Oct. 23, 2016 Wall Street Journal article, which appeared to have damaged his reputation for impartiality because the journalist, Devlin Barrett, reported McCabe’s wife received a campaign donation of nearly a half million dollars from Clinton friend and political ally Terry McAuliffe for her run for a Virginia state seat.

The article concludes:

McCabe’s decision to leak the information about the FBI’s probe of the foundation was not an attempt to be open and transparent, but to salvage his own reputation, according to the IG report.

“Had McCabe’s primary concern actually been to reassure the public that the FBI was pursuing the CF Investigation despite the anonymous claims in the article, the way that the FBI and the Department would usually accomplish that goal is through a public statement reassuring the public that the FBI is investigating the matter,” the IG wrote. The IG stated his leak was “directed primarily at enhancing McCabe’s reputation at the expense of PADAG.”

“McCabe’s disclosure was an attempt to make himself look good by making senior department leadership, specifically the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, look bad,” the IG claimed.

The question is how much additional pressure did the Obama administration apply upon the FBI to end its investigation of the Clinton Foundation. The IG’s report is silent on this point.

The IG is expected to shortly release other reports about potential FBI misconduct.

Stay tuned–there is much more to come.

 

Principles Die When Politics Enter The Picture

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Unfortunately the idea that principles die when politics enter the picture is true on both sides of the political aisle. However, every now and then an example of this concept occurs that is so blatant you have to wonder if anyone making the statements to the press is listening to themselves.

Newsbusters posted an article on Tuesday about the shutting down of the website Backpage. This is part of the war that President Trump has been waging against human trafficking since he took office. The media hasn’t said a lot about this, but good things are happening.

The story at Newsbusters reports:

Saturday was, as Katie Yoder at NewsBusters noted Tuesday afternoon, a “sad day.” That’s when the Women’s March sprang to the defense of Backpage.com, tweeting that its Friday seizure by the Justice Department “is an absolute crisis for sex workers.” In that same tweet, the group declared that “Sex workers rights are women’s rights.” Backpage and seven associated individuals were indicted Monday on charges relating to facilitating prostitution — including child prostitution conducted by human sex traffickers. Thus far, the establishment press has been almost unanimously running cover for the Women’s March by ignoring its disgraceful position.

According to the New York Times’s coverage of the the first Women’s March in January 2017, participants reportedly were there to “Protest Trump.” On the eve of that first march, a Times op-ed writer, who hoped that it “Could Resurrect the Democratic Party,” lamented that “Sex workers have rightly raised issues with its failure to meaningfully address their concerns.”

On April 7, The Los Angeles Times reported:

In the climax of a fight that pitted foes of sex trafficking against advocates of free internet speech, the Justice Department on Friday seized the Backpage.com website and raided the home of its cofounder.

…Congress moved to strip away that shield late last month with a measure to carve out an exception in the communications law after a high-volume political battle. When signed into law by President Trump, the measure will allow states to proceed against websites that knowingly assist or support sex trafficking.

Silicon Valley trade groups and free-speech advocates such as the ACLU fought the new measure, warning that it would create havoc by forcing companies to try to get a handle on wild online speech.

Sex workers have rights, and it’s wrong to interfere with websites that assist or support sex trafficking. What? I thought feminists were against women being sex objects. I admit I am somewhat unfamiliar with exactly how this whole things works, but it seems to me that a ‘woman of the night’ might actually be considered a sex object. Also, we used to have something called ‘community standards.’ Somehow I don’t think that freedom to promote sex trafficking would be included in those standards.

Thank you, President Trump, for dealing with the issue of sex trafficking. It has been going on in America (and worldwide) for a long time, and it is time someone stepped up to the plate and begin to deal with it.

 

The Link To The Report

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This is the link to the Department of Justice Inspector General‘s Report titled, “A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations Relating to Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.” I am posting the link with no commentary–I believe readers are quite capable of drawing their own conclusions after reading the report themselves.

Do You Believe What You See Or What You Are Told

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about the contrast between what is actually happening in America regarding the economic improvement the average American is experiencing and the lens the press is looking through.

The article cited some of the questioning at the White House Press Briefing yesterday:

Q Sarah, two questions. The President said yesterday he was compliant; that he turned over a million documents. If he was compliant with these investigation, why was there a search warrant needed?

SANDERS: This doesn’t have anything to do with the President, and I would refer you to Michael Cohen and his attorney. When it comes to matters of the Special Counsel and dealings with the President, we’ve been fully cooperative.

Q Okay, and the next question. With all of this turmoil, particularly this last week, has the President at any time thought about stepping down before or now?

SANDERS: No. And I think that’s an absolutely ridiculous question.

Q No, it’s not ridiculous. It’s not ridiculous.

SANDERS: I gave you two questions, April. We’re moving on.

Jordan, go ahead.

Q [By April Ryan] It is a legitimate question. It’s not ridiculous.

I am beginning to wonder if we should just do away with the daily White House press briefing. It would be nice if the press would report some of the good things that have happened under President Trump–low unemployment, lower taxes, employee bonuses because of the changes in the tax code, fewer people on food stamps, etc. Where are the questions about these things?

The Evidence Slowly Drips Out

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The American Center for Law and Justice posted an article yesterday about the documents they have begun to receive as the result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the unmasking of Americans in wiretaps.

The article reports:

We’ve all seen the reports of the unprecedented unmasking of U.S. citizens by senior Obama official, Ambassador Samantha Power, in the final days of the of the Administration – to the tune of more than one a day.  Now, through our Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, we have unearthed evidence of significant political bias during the same time period she was unmasking Americans.

Last fall the media began reporting that among other Obama Administration officials, former Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made numerous requests seeking the “unmasking” (or unredacted identification) of names and other information about members of the Trump campaign team whose communications had been incidentally caught up in intelligence surveillance efforts. Power’s requests, reported to number in the hundreds, occurred mostly in the final days of the Obama Administration, that is between the election of President Trump in November 2016 and his inauguration in January 2017.

What the media has not reported, but the ACLJ has since discovered through one of our FOIA lawsuits, is that the clear political—and personal—bias of Power against the incoming President and the conservative agenda led her to undertake efforts aimed at undercutting support for the new Administration.

The article further reports:

We warned you about the 73 Days of Danger – the final days of the Obama Administration, and this new evidence confirmed what we said all along. The Administration was fully engaged in attempts to do whatever they could to undermine the conservative agenda and the will of the American voters.  But it was far worse than we thought.

Power goes on in this November 11th email to pitch a 60 Minutes episode to help lay a public foundation to undermine the incoming Administration. She wrote:

I am not sure exactly what I am pitching, but it seems there could be something interesting to show through USUN about this waning multilateral moment for the US, how we use these last two months, what we are trying to defend, how we are consoling other countries, etc. I wondered if there could be something in this that would hit home for viewers, even or perhaps especially those who support Trump. Let me know if you would like to brainstorm.”

The conversation continues four days later with Owens acknowledging and agreeing to help pitch the piece. He further stated, “I can only imagine the conversations you are having with some of our allies now and I would love a chance to brainstorm.”

The article concludes:

Further, and of critical importance, is that nothing in the unredacted portion of either email chain that day is responsive to our FOIA request. That means, that something in those redacted email chains – sent just 3 days before the presidential inauguration – is responsive to our FOIA request.

What is the Deep State hiding?

We will be challenging these redactions. The American people deserve to know the truth. 

In addition, we are pleased to report that late last week we secured a federal court order increasing the State Department’s required processing rate for production in this case by 33%. With nearly 9,000 pages that we know have yet to be processed, there is much more that we can and will learn about this situation.

Power’s political bias was palpable and calls into severe question any suggestion that Power’s unprecedented unmasking requests against U.S. citizens was done with anything other that political animus.  If this production is what the Deep State was willing to turn over to us, we can only imagine what remains to be turned over, litigated over, and be unredacted.

Stay tuned. The Freedom of Information Act may be the only way will be able to save our republic.

What A Democratic Victory In The Mid-Term Elections Would Look Like

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It is no secret that the Democrats would like to overturn the 2016 election. Representative Maxine Waters has been running around the country yelling, “Impeach 45″ for a while now. There are also some very uneducated Americans who believe that if President Trump were to be impeached, Hillary Clinton would become President. The ignorance of Americans regarding the U.S. Constitution is a whole other article that would take more pages than I can imagine.

At any rate, what would happen if the Democrats were to take the House and the Senate in 2018.

A Forbes article from March 2018 lists the changes the Democrats want to make in the tax plan:

Increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent.

This is not only a tax on the wealthy, but it is a tax on small business–the main creator of jobs in America. This would begin to slow down the economic growth we have seen under President Trump.

Increase the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent.

American corporations compete on the world market. Before this tax cut, America had the highest corporate tax rate in the world. The rate cut under President Trump puts us in the middle of the pack. To undo this would slow economic growth and job creation in America.

Bring back the alternative minimum tax (AMT) for 4 million families.

This is a tax that hits two-income families in states with a high cost of living–New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, etc. Oddly enough, these are the states that generally vote Democratic–these voters who vote Democratic in these states are voting against their own interests.

Cut the “death tax” standard deduction in half.

This is a tax that hits small business and family farms. Again, it hits those least likely to afford it and hurts the continuing growth of business.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *  * * * * * * * * * *

The other part of the possible Democratic takeover of Congress would be the impeachment of President Trump. This would further divide the country. It would also set the precedent that political use of government agencies against the opposing party is acceptable and can be successful. That would not bode well for the future of America.

I can guarantee that a Democratic mid-term victory would be the end of America as we know it. Political speech that does not agree with those in power will be labeled ‘hate speech.’ Those who publicly voice unacceptable opinions will be subject to harassment by an out-of-control government. We will see censorship of alternative news sources, and the American public will only have access to the news those in power want them to have access to.

A cautionary note to Democrats planning impeachment–remember what happened to the Republican party majority after they attempted to impeach President Clinton. The American people still vote, and they have a sense of fairness. It is very hard to watch the continuing attacks on President Trump and believe that the way the media treats him is fair.

 

Alan Dershowitz Is My New Hero

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted some comments by Attorney Alan Dershowitz regarding the raid on the offices of Michael Cohen, the personal attorney of President Trump.

The article reports:

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz warned Monday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s decision to raid President Trump’s personal lawyer’s office is an assault on the privileged lawyer-client relationship.

Dershowitz said on Fox News that he believes the decision to raid Michael Cohen’s office would be a sign that Mueller is trying to turn Cohen against Trump.

“This may be an attempt to squeeze Cohen,” he said. “He’s the lawyer, he’s the guy who knows all the facts about Donald Trump, and to get him to turn against his client.”

“This is a very dangerous day today for lawyer-client relations,” he added.

Dershowitz, who has drawn the ire of Democrats for defending Trump, said Mueller’s move is also dangerous because it gives the FBI the option of deciding what information seized from Cohen to pursue.

“I tell [clients] on my word of honor that what you tell me is sacrosanct,” he said. “And now they say, just based on probable cause … they can burst into the office, grab all the computers, and then give it to another FBI agent and say, ‘You’re the firewall. We want you now to read all these confidential communications, tell us which ones we can get and which ones we can’t get.'”

“If this were Hillary Clinton being investigated and they went into her lawyer’s office, the ACLU would be on every television station in America, jumping up and down,” he added.

“The deafening silence from the ACLU and civil libertarians about the intrusion into the lawyer-client confidentiality is really appalling,” Dershowitz said.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,[a] against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I firmly believe that the raids conducted in coordination with the Special Prosecutor‘s Investigation were totally unconstitutional. This sets a very bad precedence for the future. It is also a very strong indication of the total politicization of the FBI and DOJ during the past administration.

Rats Deserting A Sinking Ship…

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Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall today about an interview of Loretta Lynch by NBC’s Lester Holt. The discussion centered around James Comey‘s testimony that he was uncomfortable with being asked to call the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server a ‘matter.’

The article reports:

LESTER HOLT: But, so Comey says you want to call it, “The Clinton matter.” He wants to call it, “The Clinton investigation.” To the extent, though, that he noted it, that it bothered him did he go to you and question your credibility with regard to the Clinton case?

LORETTA LYNCH: Well, look I can tell you that, you know, it was a meeting like any other that we that we had had where we talked about the issues. And we had a full and open discussion about it.

LESTER HOLT: And he didn’t raise any concerns about?

LORETTA LYNCH: And concerns were not raised.

Note that she is not denying that she asked him to call it “The Clinton matter.” She is just saying that he was not overly concerned about calling it that.

There are also some other problems brewing in the investigation of FBI and DOJ activities under Obama:

Fired Deputy Director Andrew McCabe‘s story about leaking information to the press also conflicts with Comey’s testimony. McCabe says he had the permission of the Director to do so. 

“I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor,” McCabe said after he was fired for lack of candor. “As deputy director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter.”

Comey said under oath he was unaware of any authorized leaks to the media, besides his own of course.

I suspect the swamp is getting a little nervous right now.

Getting Closer To The Truth

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the ongoing struggle to get documents requested from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the House Judiciary Committee.

The article reports:

Tomorrow Attorney General Jeff Sessions will announce the assignment of U.S. Attorney John Lausch to facilitate the production of documents from the DOJ (Horowitz/Huber) to the House Judiciary Committee, and Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

Mr. Lausch is a Trump appointed U.S. Attorney from outside Washington DC.  John Lausch currently heads the Northern District of Illinois which includes Chicago, and this specific U.S. Attorney has extensive experience in complex cases of conspiracy and political corruption; a key skill-set given the issues within the Horowitz/Huber investigation of potential politicization of the FBI and DOJ offices.

So what does this mean? This is the next step toward the release of the Inspector General‘s (IG) report and an effort to make sure the report that comes out is free of political meddling by the FBI and DOJ.

The article explains some of the process involved in releasing the IG report:

There’s a phase in the OIG report process where statements of fact go through an exhaustive draft vetting process within agency. The “source vetting” or “reference-audit” phase is part of the target -and internal review audit- prior to final draft & ultimately publication.

The raw investigative information, used as the foundation for the report, has to be vetted, re-checked, verified and reviewed for placement and footnotes in the draft report, before ANY of that source information is released.

FBI Director Christopher Wray previously assigned 54 staff to go through the IG source draft information (investigative documents) to validate baseline facts prior to release to congress. This process also scans for classified information.

These FBI staff are vetting the underlying evidence that’s noted in Horowitz’s draft notification document. Remember, many of these elements are also potentially criminal actions individually; and quite likely, in the aggregate, also the broad outlines of a criminal conspiracy amid all of the participants.

The activities illustrated by the already released emails indicate some criminal actions. There was a group of people working within the government to unseat a duly-elected President. That is not legal activity and needs to be dealt with by the appropriate authorities.

The article describes the activities under investigation:

However, given the reality that politicization of the FBI and DOJ underpins the origination of the investigation that generated the underlying evidence, in order to ensure any internal FBI conflicts do not arise amid document selection, John Lausch will be involved.

U.S. Attorney Lausch review will ensure the FBI does not hide, or marginalize any OIG investigative findings.

You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.

This needs to be dealt with severely so that it never happens again.

News From The Coming Week

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Clarice Feldman posted an article at The American Thinker today highlighting things that will be in the news in the coming week. That’s not as much of a challenge as it sounds as many of these stories were breaking late Friday and early Saturday.

The first story deals with the recent budget fiasco.

The article reports:

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, unhampered because of the filibuster rule, which allows them to block any budget not supported by a Senate supermajority of 60, and aware of the desperate need of our military for funding, publicly rejoiced that they were able to force through Congress a ridiculously extravagant budget.  Fiscal conservatives were furious, but the president had little choice but to sign the bill into law.  “He who laughs last laughs best” is the saying, and in this case, there may be no joy in Demville.  James Freeman at the Wall Street Journal explains:

The political left is getting nervous because a virtuous and lawful reduction in federal spending is suddenly looking much more likely.  This column is told that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) is now on board.

Specifically, Mr. Ryan likes the idea of paring back the huge spending hikes in the recently enacted budget bill.  While the budget required 60 votes in the Senate and therefore Democratic support, a “rescission” bill to repeal the spending increases needs only a simple majority in each house.

If the Republicans plan to remain in the majority, they have no choice but to cut this budget. Otherwise the conservative wing of the party will happily vote them out of office for reneging on every promise they made while running for office.

The second story to watch for will be the beginning of criminally prosecuting illegal aliens as they cross the border. Crossing the border is no longer going to be taken lightly.

The third story is the end of the standoff between Congress and the FBI and DOJ.

The article reports:

Sundance at Conservative Treehouse broke the welcome news early Saturday morning.

Until today the only people allowed to review the full Title-1 FISA application were Trey Gowdy, Adam Schiff, Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte and Rep John Ratcliffe.

In an interesting development, the Department of Justice has responded to HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes notifying him the DOJ will allow all members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees full access to review the unredacted FBI/DOJ FISA application used to gain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. citizen Carter Page.

According to CNN: ‘Separately, Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior said the department on Monday will supplement its document production to the House Judiciary Committee by producing another 1,000 pages of materials in response to a subpoena issued by committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte.’

This will probably lead to the declassification of the FISA applications. That will probably tell us all we need to know about the Russian collusion investigation and its roots.

The final news article for the coming week will be information about the investigation of the Clinton Foundation.

The article reports:

The story of the Clintons’ misuse of charity solicitation, reporting, and accounting laws begins in 1997 and continues on past Clinton’s term as president where people familiar to us in the present DOJ-FBI investigations failed to prosecute the Clintons for obvious charity fraud and violation of federal and state law on charitable solicitations.  The most recent investigation of the Clinton foundation took place under Rod Rosenstein, then U.S. attorney for Baltimore.  He utterly flubbed the task, as Ortel (Charles Ortel, a retired investment banker) notes.

…At the moment, some state attorneys general are investigating Clinton foundation fraud and illegality.  So are some foreign governments whose laws were violated by the foundation.  While in the U.S. opportunities to prosecute longstanding frauds may be barred by the passage of time and the statute of limitations, this latest Clinton-Bush Haiti Fund transaction seems not to be.  If I were to speculate, I’d suggest that it is not unlikely (now that the Clintons are fairly politically neutered) that whistleblowers inside the foundation, the donors’ offices, and the government – particularly the IRS – may come forward, at long last, to expose the frauds which Rosenstein, Mueller, and Comey seem to have lacked the integrity and guts to do.

This week may be the week that some of the swamp gets drained.t

I’m Not Sure The Editorial Was A Good Idea

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Townhall.com posted an article today that sheds a little more light on the firing on Andrew McCabe. As usual, there was more to the story than we were initially told. It should also be noted that his wife, Jill, recently posted an editorial in The Washington Post stating that there was not conflict of interest on his part because of her Senate campaign.

The article reminds us of Mrs. McCabe’s claim:

His wife, Jill, a doctor, penned an op-ed in The Post about her failed 2015 Virginia Senate run and how there was no conflict of interest. There have been allegations that McCabe’s donations from pro-Clinton Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s PAC during that run, which exceeded $400,000, was a sort of down payment for political protection since soon after her campaign ended, Mr. McCabe became deputy director, where one of his tasks was to oversee the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email fiasco…

The editorial was a preemptive strike. The Townhall article cites a Judicial Watch report that states:

The documents also show repeated use of the official FBI email system in connection with Mrs. McCabe’s political campaign. For example:

On March 13, 2015, Mrs. McCabe emails to her husband’s official FBI email account a draft press release announcing her run for state Senate.

In August 2015, McCabe uses his official FBI email account to advise a redacted recipient to visit his wife’s campaign website: “Jill has been busy as hell since she decided to run for VA state senate (long story). Check her out on Facebook as Dr. Jill McCabe for Senate.”

On November 2, 2015, Mrs. McCabe forwards an email to her husband – then the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Office – that accuses her opponent of extorting local businessmen. The email was sent to her husband’s official FBI account.

The documents include an October 2016 letter from House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz to McCabe questioning a possible conflict of interest by noting that Clinton headlined a Virginia fundraiser on June 26, 2015, for Mrs. McCabe. “A significant amount was donated after the FBI had initiated its investigation and begun meeting with Secretary Clinton’s attorneys in August 2015.”

The documents also show that FBI leadership was sensitive to reports of FBI internal dissent with then-Director Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation. On October 24, 2016, Mrs. McCabe forwarded to Director McCabe a True Pundit article titled, “FBI Director Lobbied Against Criminal Charges For Hillary After Clinton Insider Paid His Wife $700,00.” The story reported that former FBI Executive Assistant Director John Giacalone resigned in the middle of the Clinton email investigation because he saw it going “sideways” and that Jill McCabe received money from a PAC headed by McAuliffe, who was under investigation by the FBI for campaign finance law violations. McCabe forwarded the article to Comey, noting “FYI. Heavyweight source.” Comey replied to McCabe, copying Chief of Staff James Rybicki, saying, “This still reads to me like someone not involved in the investigation at all, maybe somebody who heard rumors …”

“These new documents show that the FBI leadership was politicized and compromised in its handling of the Clinton email investigation,” said Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch President. “It well past time for a do-over on the Clinton emails that requires a new, honest criminal investigation of her misconduct.”

So now we know that McCabe lied to the FBI, violated the Hatch Act, and was probably totally compromised in his investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. I guess there were sufficient reasons to fire him.

The Information Is Finally Coming Out

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When Andrew McCabe was fired, there were a lot of questions as to why he was fired and why he was fired when he was fired. That information is slowly leaking out. The other information that is leaking out with that is that the alleged affair between Strzok and Page may have simply been a shiny object put in front of the public to take our attention away from what was actually happening.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about Andrew McCabe. It seems that the reason for Mr. McCabe’s firing was that he had made a number of false statements to the Inspector General, to internal federal investigators, and to James Comey. The interesting aspect of this information is that it comes from leaks at CNN.

The article reports:

Giving credence to the reason why Inspector General Horowitz and Federal Prosecutor Huber don’t want to release unredacted investigative information to a leaky congress, a report surfaces via anonymous sources to CNN.

The leaked information comes after the DOJ released the substance behind the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Previously, Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred McCabe’s false statements to the OPR; the OPR reviewed, investigated and then recommended McCabe’s termination to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions fired him.

Congress was recently provided information from within the IG referral and OPR report.  Those details are now leaked, with an accompanying narrative, to CNN.

I’m skipping most of the narrative outline because, well, it’s an editorial narrative. However, at the bottom of the CNN narrative there’s an important series of dates which highlight the larger issue with McCabe. 

The truth on what was actually going on at the FBI is coming out slowly, but it is coming out.

An article at Power Line notes:

If the report of serial lying by McCabe is accurate then he has bigger problems than his sacking by Jeff Sessions. Criminal charges may well be in his future.

McCabe has already raised $500,000 via a fundraising page for his legal defense. Smart move.

I don’t like to see anyone’s life ruined by stupid mistakes, but it seems as if some of the higher ups in the FBI were out to destroy other people’s lives. I guess poetic justice (and karma) have a way of catching up with all of us.

Getting Through The Establishment In Washington Is A Fight

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Yesterday Byron York posted an article at The Washington Examiner that shows how slowly and frustratingly things can move in Washington.

The article reports:

Last week the House Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein demanding documents from the Justice Department and the FBI “regarding charging decisions in the investigation surrounding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s private email server, potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe,” according to a committee press release.

In a letter accompanying the subpoena, Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told Rosenstein the committee had asked for the documents months ago and received little or nothing in response. “Given the department’s ongoing delays in producing these documents, I am left with no choice but to issue [a] subpoena to compel production of these documents,” Goodlatte wrote.

We have a problem right now in Washington. There is a very powerful group of people entrenched in the Washington bureaucracy that would very much like to undo the results of the 2016 election, and they are trying very hard to use any means at their disposal to do that. This group is composed of both Republicans and Democrats. Many have grown used to accepting perks from lobbyists and other groups and don’t want to give those perks up. Others simply do not believe in the principles that established America and want to undo them in favor of one-world government (with them in charge of course).

The article concludes:

In recent days Jordan and Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Oversight Committee‘s subcommittee on government operations, have been sending staff to the Justice Department to view less redacted copies of key documents in the various investigations under review. The presence of those congressional investigators sent a clear message to the Justice Department that the House was not going to give up.

Now, the Justice Department is promising to do better — and the attorney general has signaled that he is not happy with the FBI director’s performance. Now, lawmakers will wait to see what that means.

Voting according to political party is not going to work anymore–both parties have elements of corruption in them. The only real answer to the corruption in Washington is for more Americans to become informed voters and vote out those politicians who represent groups other than the voters. All of us need to pay more attention to the votes our Congressmen have cast and who is donating to their campaigns. Congress.gov and Open Secrets.org are good places to begin your research.

Getting Rid Of The Deep State Is A Slow Methodical Process

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I am sure that I am not the only person who gets discouraged and impatient about the seeming lack of speed in dealing with the corruption that seems to run rampant in Washington. However, it seems like things are happening outside the public eye that should give us all hope that the mess in the Justice Department, FBI, and other places will be cleaned up. One of the major problems is leaks to the media, which can seriously hamper an investigation. Unfortunately we have seen a lot of leaks, generally from people with a political agenda.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the investigation into Washington corruption. The article included some things that should cause the average America to be mildly optimistic.

The article reports:

Today chairman Bob Goodlatte sends a formal subpoena to the DOJ (Inspector General Michael Horowitz) for documents regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server, potential abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility recommendation to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

The article notes the response:

You can read the Goodlatte Subpoenas – HERE – along with the letter that accompanies his demand.   However, more important is the response from the DOJ as communicated by Fox News journalist Chad Pergram (emphasis mine):

So exactly what is going on here?  The article explains:

Oh, what’s that? Yes, the DOJ has to review the demand for evidence because release of those documents might conflict with ongoing Grand Jury information (evidence). Yes, that means a Grand Jury is impaneled, exactly as we expected.

Yes, that also means there are “law enforcement actions” currently ongoing as a result of the prosecutor assigned to reviewing the evidence discovered by Inspector General Horowitz.

Congress keeps asking for another Special Counsel. The author of the article at The Conservative Treehouse opines that he believes that Congress has not been informed that there is a Grand Jury investigating the corruption at the DOJ and FBI.

The article further reports:

Within this specific investigation there is a triple role. ¹A DOJ Inspector General conducting an internal investigation; ² Appropriate congressional oversight; and ³ the collection of evidence that might also be used in criminal indictments.

Within the IG collection of evidence there are two competing issues: #1) Evidence of misconduct and political bias (shared openly with congress and oversight); and #2) evidence of illegal activity (retained from congress to preserve integrity of evidence for later used in criminal proceedings); this is where the “outside DC prosecutor” comes in.

The article reminds us where this is leading and of the uproar we can expect from the media when it comes together. The article also encourages us to be patient:

You and I might be frustrated with the pace of the activity for a myriad of righteous reasons.  However, we must also remind ourselves of the scale and scope of the corruption here that is inherent within the BIG PICTURE.  All of this was done on purpose.  None of this was accidental.

The prosecutor could, likely would, be having to outline the biggest political conspiracy in the history of politics.  It is entirely possible officials within the CIA, NSA, DOJ, FBI, State Department, ODNI, and national security apparatus along with the Obama White House, Clinton campaign officials, politicians, career bureaucrats and possibly judges are all entwined and involved.

Add into this likelihood the complicit ideological media who will go absolutely bananas about any single member of their team being indicted; and a better than average chance the media will follow instructions from their leadership and send tens-of-thousands of low-info sycophants into the streets in protest, and well… you see the picture.

The left only know one narrative: “Jeff Sessions is doing Trump’s evil bidding.” That’s it. That’s the drumbeat. 24/7/365 That’s the narrative pushed over and over.

Just look at the media reaction to Andrew McCabe’s simple firing, which Trump had nothing to do with, and think about what their response would be to indictments?

Get out the popcorn.

Ever Wonder How Congressmen Become Millionaires On Less Than $200,000 A Year?

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There are strong laws on the books to prevent lawmakers in Washington from profiting from their jobs in ways that are not ethical. However, there are no laws on the books to prevent the families of lawmakers in Washington from totally taking advantage of their relative’s position. Peter Schweizer has written a book titled Secret Empire which sheds light on some of the unsavory financial activities of some of our politicians.

Yesterday Fox News posted an article about the book discussing how laws and regulations can be used to enrich friends and family.

The article lists a few specific examples:

Schweizer said the Vistria Group, run by Obama’s best friend, Marty Nesbitt, drove the for-profit school University of Phoenix into the ground and then swooped in to buy it.

 “They come in, they buy it for pennies on the dollar and low and behold, the Obama administration says, ‘You know what, we think we’re going to let GI money float again back to the University of Phoenix,’” he said.

…Schweizer said the level of corruption extended to former Vice President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State John Kerry after both leaders negotiated with China on trade issues.

“At this time the sons, or in one case, John Kerry’s close aide, are involved in businesses that involve multi-billion dollar deals with the Chinese government,” he said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight.”

Schweizer claims that 10 days after Biden flew to Beijing, his son, Hunter Biden, scored a $1.5 billion private equity deal from the Chinse government.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, current US Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, are also mentioned in the book. The book details the couples close relationship to China through Elaine Chao’s family.

The New York Post reported on March 17th:

As Schweizer tells it, the Chao family fortune derives from the Foremost Group, a shipping company that Chinese native James Chao, a classmate of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin at Jiao Tong University, founded in New York in 1964. Chao remains Foremost’s chairman today, and his daughters Angela and Christine are the company’s deputy chairwoman and general counsel, respectively. Elaine Chao worked there in the 1970s, and has been quoted as saying, “Shipping is our family tradition.”

It really is time to begin again in Washington. The only people who should be allowed to stay in Congress are people whose net worth has not increased more than 10 percent during their terms of office. (Of course then you could make the argument that they simply did not take advantage of the opportunities around them!)

At any rate, it really is time to drain the swamp (and to understand that both political parties are involved in the swamp).

Washington Incest?

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A website called THEYIG posted an article yesterday about Lisa Barsoomian. She is a lawyer who graduated from Georgetown Law School and is a protege of James Comey and Robert Muller. She and her boss R Craig Lawrence have a very interesting portfolio. They represented Bill Clinton 40 times, Robert Mueller 3 times, James Comey 5 times, Barack Obama 45 times, Hillary Clinton 17 timesand Kathleen Sebelius 56 times. She represented the FBI at least 5 times. Actually, that is a pretty impressive resume. It is also a somewhat politically biased resume, but there are no laws against that. A lawyer has every right to pick and choose who they represent.

Here’s where it gets interesting. The article reports:

Someone out there cares so much that they’ve purged all Barsoomian court documents for her Clinton representation in Hamburg vs. Clinton in 1998 and its appeal in 1999 from the DC District and Appeals court dockets

 Someone out there cares so much that the internet has been purged of all information pertaining to Barsoomian.

 Historically this indicates that the individual is a protected CIA operative.

 Additionally Lisa Barsoomian has specialized in opposing Freedom of Information Act requests on behalf of the intelligence community

 And although Barsoomian has been involved in hundreds of cases representing the DC Office of the US Attorney her email address is Lisa Barsoomian at NIH gov.

 The NIH stands for National Institutes of Health.

This is a tactic routinely used by the CIA to protect an operative by using another government organization to shield their activities.

It’s a cover, so big deal right, I mean what does one more attorney with ties to the US intelligence community really matter.

It wouldn’t under normal circumstances. However, she is Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s WIFE.

This is a blatant example of the incest that is the swamp in Washington, D.C. There is no way Rod Rosenstein should be anywhere near anything involving the Clintons, Robert Mueller or James Comey. It’s time to bring new people into the FBI, DOJ, and CIA. The ones who are there now have too many interconnections.

 

The Swamp Reacts To Being Drained

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The Washington establishment does not like the fact that the swamp is slowly being drained. The establishment has acquired wealth and power in the current swamp and does not want to give it up. How many millionaires in Congress entered ‘public service’ as middle class Americans and are now millionaires? How many have taken advantage of knowing about upcoming legislation in order to increase their stock portfolios? How many of them are engaging in activities that they do not want revealed to the public? I realize that there are a few honest men and women in Congress, but I suspect it is only a few. So what happens when they begin to see the draining of the swamp?

The Hill posted an article yesterday that included the following tweet addressed to President Trump in response to the firing of Andrew McCabe:

Can you imaging this lack of civility directed at any other President? This is a prime example of why Democrats (and establishment Republicans) need to be defeated in order for the swamp to be fully drained.

We need to remember that Andrew McCabe was fired as a result of an internal investigation at the FBI. President Trump was not responsible for the firing of Andrew McCabe, although I am sure he supported it. McCabe was guilty of lying to the FBI under oath and leaking information. Either one of these offenses is enough to get you fired from the FBI. If Representative Swalwell supports equal justice under the law, he should be supporting the firing of Andrew McCabe–not threatening President Trump.

The Inspector General’s Report And Real Collusion

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Kevin McCullough posted an article at Townhall today about the investigation into Russian collusion and the upcoming Inspector General‘s report. Anyone who is following the Russian collusion story on their own rather than listening to the mainstream media, is aware that there has been some serious wrongdoing in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ). The corruption goes back a long time. I first became aware of the corruption in the DOJ when I watched how the voter intimidation case involving the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia was handled. There was a video that showed voter intimidation, and the Justice Department dropped the charges against them (article here). The leaks coming from the FBI that undermine the presidency have been numerous, and no one seems to be held responsible. Congress is no better–one Congressman said that the House Intelligence Committee leaks like a sieve. So where do we go from here.

The firing of Andrew McCabe is the first step, but there is much more to come.

The article at Townhall reports:

Few remember, though my radio show discussed at length, the reports that surfaced in October of 2016. In reaction to the bizarre July 5th announcement by then FBI director James Comey, FBI officials revealed that members of the DOJ and FBI investigative teams that had worked the Hillary email case were “angered & disgusted” that the co-opted DOJ and FBI leadership ignored the very real analysis of evidence and decided against bringing criminal indictment against Hillary Clinton for the handling of top secret information. More than 100 FBI agents that worked the case, and more than 6 DOJ attorneys expressed their disgust, according to a source within the group. 

It was later revealed that Comey had been prepared to exonerate Clinton in February of that year when he would yet not interview her until months later. She was also granted an interview, instead of being asked to testify under oath.

The article goes on to list various misdeeds of people in the FBI regarding the handling and leaking of information to damage the President.

The article concludes:

There was collusion in the election of 2016. It involved Russians, a British ex-spy, law firms, FBI agents, DOJ attorneys, an FBI director that prejudged evidence, an Attorney General that had an unethical meeting with the spouse of a target, FISA warrants obtained on faulty information that stemmed from political sources, a Deputy Director whose wife received monetary support in an election, an FBI director who lied to Congress, an FBI Deputy Director who lied to the Justice Department’s Inspector General, loads of classified materials that were mishandled and criminally passed to those without clearances, and partisan hacks spearheading inquiries aiming for political outcomes. The scope of this collusion is overwhelming, the attempts are a damning indictment of political operatives that have lost all integrity, and sadly an administration, a major political party, and agents of a deep state that attempted in a wide sweeping number of ways to undo an election that they lost.

Former high-ranking FBI officials (like Chris Swetzer who appeared with Harris Faulkner’s FoxNews broadcast on Friday) believe that the Inspector General’s coming report will be explosive.

For the sake of justice, above all else, I hope it brings clarity to a story our modern media landscape is highly invested in keeping as convoluted as possible.

The Inspector General’s report is due out in a matter of weeks. Although the Inspector General does not have the right to prosecute crimes or to interview witnesses outside of the government. That is why many Republicans are asking for an additional Special Prosecutor to cover areas outside the areas covered by the Inspector General.

It is becoming obvious that some of the upper levels of the FBI and DOJ have become politicized. Hopefully the firing of Andrew McCabe is the beginning of solving that problem.

Hanged On Hayman’s Gallows

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In the book of Ester in the Bible, there is a character called Haman. Haman is an ambitious character who loves status, money, and power. He is honored by the king and expects all citizens of the kingdom to bow down before him. Mordecai is a Jewish man who refuses to bow down to Haman. As a result of this perceived affront, Haman plans to kill all of Mordecai’s people (the Jews) and hang Mordecai. Ester intervenes, the Jews are saved, we have the Jewish holiday of Purim, and Haman is hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai. The current situation with the Russian investigation, corruption at the highest levels of the FBI, and massive leaks to the press to undermine President Trump is beginning to look a lot like the book of Ester.

Based on the emails we have all seen, I suspect the ‘Russia’ story began officially in the office of Andrew McCabe. Hillary blamed the Russians the night she lost the election, but I have no idea if she knew what was being planned at the FBI if Donald Trump won. So some senior officers at the FBI set out to unseat a duly-elected President. Wow. It’s amazing that they have not been charged with treason, but the story isn’t over yet either.

The plan unfolds with numerous leaks to the press, use of personal connections to a judge on the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978) court, withholding information from the FISA court, and lying to Congress and the Inspector General. Remember, the plan is to remove President Trump from office before he can accomplish anything. So where are we now?

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line about the firing of Andrew McCabe as Deputy Director of the FBI. Andrew McCabe was fired yesterday. Paul Mirengoff is a lawyer, and the articles he posts at Power Line are very clear and very logically thought out. His article on the firing of Andrew McCabe is an example of that clarity and logic. The article reminds us of a few important points in this story that may get overlooked by the mainstream media.

The article reports:

McCabe promptly issued an angry statement. He claimed, among other things, that his dismissal was part of the Trump’s administration’s “ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation” and was the result of pressure from President Trump.

It seems likely that McCabe will seek legal redress. However, he may end of fighting on two legal fronts — criminal and civil. A prosecution for making false statements might well be in McCabe’s future.

As to the firing, it was recommended by the FBI office that handles discipline. The recommendation was based on findings by the DOJ’s inspector general investigation. The IG found that McCabe authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to the media about a Clinton-related case and then misled investigators about having done so.

If these findings are valid, they warrant firing. Unless McCabe can point to high level DOJ employees who were found to have engaged in similar misconduct but were not fired, I doubt he has much of a case (assuming, again, that the findings of misconduct are well-supported). That, at least, is my impression on first blush.

…But if the discharge decision has a strong factual basis, if (as is the case) it was recommended to Sessions through normal DOJ channels, and if it’s consistent with past practice, then the decision seems just and proper, whatever Trump has tweeted. In these circumstances, it ought to be upheld.

This is going to get ugly, but it is the beginning of the next phase of draining the swamp.

All Americans Are Equal Under The Law…Except Those Who Are Not

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Yesterday Tablet Magazine posted an article about the ongoing Robert Mueller investigation. The magazine has a unique take on the investigation and cites numerous events that illustrate why they drew the conclusions they did.

The article reminds us of some of Robert Mueller’s recent activities:

News that special counselor Robert Mueller has turned his attention to Erik Prince’s January 11, 2017 meeting in the Seychelles with a Russian banker, a Lebanese-American political fixer, and officials from the United Arab Emirates, helps clarify the nature of Mueller’s work. It’s not an investigation that the former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is leading—rather, it’s a cover-up.

After all, Mueller took his job not at the behest of the man who by all accounts he is likely to professionally and personally disdain, Donald Trump, but of the blue-chip Beltway elite of which he is a charter member. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed him nearly a year ago to lead an investigation without parameters. That’s because Mueller’s job is to obscure the abuses of the US surveillance apparatus that occurred under the Obama administration.

The fact that someone at the level of former FBI director was called in to sweep up the mess left by bad actors in the bureau and Central Intelligence Agency and other parts of the intelligence bureaucracy suggests that the problems are even worse than previously thought. And that means the constituency for Mueller’s political intervention is enormous.

Mueller is said to believe that the Prince meeting was to set up a back channel with the Kremlin. But that makes no sense. According to the foundational text of the collusion narrative, the dossier allegedly written by former British spy Christopher Steele, the Kremlin had cultivated Trump himself for years. So what’s the purpose of a back channel, when Vladimir Putin already had a key to the front door of Mar-a-Lago?

The group behind the goals of this investigation are counting on the American people to get bored and stop paying attention. They are also hoping that we are not asking questions about the cost and strange direction the investigation has taken.

The article also reveals that some of the information the investigation is using could have only come from illegal unmasking of the people involved:

Prince was thrown into the middle of Russiagate after an April 3, 2017 Washington Post story reported his meeting with the Russian banker. But how did anyone know about the meeting? After the story came out, Prince said he was shown “specific evidence” by sources from the intelligence community that the information was swept up in the collection of electronic communications and his identity was unmasked. The US official or officials who gave his name to the Post broke the law when they leaked classified intelligence. “Unless The Washington Post has somehow miraculously recruited the bartender of a hotel in the Seychelles,” Prince told the House Intelligence Committee in December, “the only way that’s happening is through SIGINT [signals intelligence].”

Mueller presumably knows whether Prince’s name was indeed unmasked and then leaked to the press—and that the leak was a crime. Mueller certainly knows that most of the case he has regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election was built by abuses of the foreign intelligence surveillance apparatus and other related crimes that are punishable with jail time. The identity of Trump’s short-tenured National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was swept up and leaked to the press in the same way as Prince’s. It was leaked to the same newspaper, the Washington Post.

As I explained last week, the identity of Attorney General Jeff Sessions was also unmasked from intelligence intercepts and leaked to the Washington Post. The fact that the FBI had secured a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on Carter Page was also leaked to the Post. The warrant on Page was secured on the basis of the findings in the Steele dossier, an unverified piece of opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.

One of the main conclusions in the article:

The purpose of the Mueller inquiry is therefore not to investigate the mostly ludicrous-seeming charges in the Steele dossier, but to protect the institution of the FBI, former colleagues, as well as the national security surveillance system. Therefore the inquiry has to cover up the sinful origins of the collusion narrative itself—which was born in repeated abuses of power and subsequent crimes committed by US officials in the intelligence bureaucracy and the Obama administration.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It reveals some of what President Trump is up against in trying to reclaim America for the average American.

The Names That Keep Reappearing

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Yesterday Front Page Magazine posted a story related to the Fox News “Scandalous” television series. I guess I really wasn’t paying a lot of attention during the Clinton years–I didn’t realize that in some cases, the same names keep appearing in matters related to the Clintons.

The article includes a number of names we have heard lately:

Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal has recently emerged in the DNC dossier affair. Republican James Rogan, a hawk for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, has given way to Democrat Adam Schiff, whose evidence of Russian collusion has an existential problem. Other links emerged in the 140 pardons Bill Clinton issued on his last day in office.

President Clinton pardoned his brother Roger, busted for distributing cocaine, and Whitewater crony Susan McDougal. He pardoned former HUD boss Henry Cisneros and Patty Hearst who became a partisan of the murderous Symbionese Liberation Army. Clinton also pardoned fugitive financier Mark Rich, but this was not the president’s most controversial last-day reprieve.

John Deutch had been CIA director in 1995 and 1996 and the White House said he was pardoned “for those offenses described in the information dated January 19, 2001.” The precise nature of the DOJ charges remained unclear but, as it emerged, the man in charge of the nation’s secrets had mishandled classified information.

According to ABC News, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder was unaware of the pending presidential pardon when “Attorney General Janet Reno gave the approval for investigators to make a deal with Deutch.” The former CIA boss had been “under investigation for sloppy handling of secret files.”

…As Hans A. von Spakovsky recalled in National Review, the IG did not let Deutch pick and choose what information he was going to hand over. Instead they sent in a team to grab everything and found that Deutch “continuously processed” classified data “for unclassified use.” This took place on computers that were “vulnerable to attacks by unauthorized persons,” and the information included “Top Secret communications intelligence,” and information on the “National Reconnaissance Program.”

That was a violation of 18 U.S.C. §793, which makes it a criminal offense “through gross negligence” to allow classified information “to be removed from its proper place of custody.”

As von Spakovsky notes, “no intentional misconduct is required; just gross negligence,” and offenders can be fined or imprisoned for violations.

The article continues:

Deutch duly returned to his teaching post at MIT and more than two years later was stripped of his security clearances. What classified information might have been stolen by hostile actors remained uncertain, but with the pardon from Clinton the grossly negligent Deutch would not be taking a fall. This all proved instructive to former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

She kept government information, including classified materials, on a private, unsecured server in her home, and POTUS 44 emailed her through that unsecured network. Hillary Clinton said it was all about Chelsea’s wedding, yoga classes, and no classified material was involved. When government investigators wanted to have a look, Clinton promptly destroyed more than 30,000 emails, bleached the server clean, and smashed up electronic devices.

Trump-hating James Strzok of the FBI changed “gross negligence” to “extremely careless” and FBI boss James Comey said no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges. In similar style, as a deputy attorney general, Comey cut a sweetheart deal with former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Berger, who stole and destroyed classified documents.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Comey to call whole thing a “matter” and Hillary Clinton paid no penalty. After she lost the 2016 race, her FBI-DOJ team set about framing the winner, Donald Trump, on the charge that he colluded with Russia to steal the election.

I had forgotten that James Comey had made the deal with Sandy Berger after Berger was caught with classified documents in his socks. This was attributed to sloppiness on Berger’s part!

An article at the Conservative Base posted on November 16, 2016, states the following:

Several law-enforcement officers believe the documents stolen told the true story about the LAX plot, but the Clintons sent their henchman Sandy Berger to get rid of the evidence.

“The Clintons have a history of playing by their own rules which means committing acts that would get anyone else — including Berger — convicted of malfeasance,” said former police detective sergeant Walter Fendner. “Berger fell on his sword for the Clintons and he was rewarded with probation and a slap on the wrist,” Fendner added.

As luck would have it, before the FBI or Justice Department prosecutors could talk to him, Sandy Berger died on Dec. 1, 2015. The cause of death was listed as cancer. He was 70-years-old, said a statement by his consulting firm, the Albright Stonebridge Group. 

The article at the Conservative Base includes evidence that Sandy Berger had been acting as an advisor to Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State.

The article at The Conservative Base reports:

His (Sandy Berger) email correspondence with Clinton was stored on her private server and it’s yet to be reported whether or not he — a convicted thief of classified documents — had access to emails containing classified intelligence.

The release of the Clinton/Berger email was part of a batch of email messages released by the State Department.

Again, James Comey was the person who made the deal with Sandy Berger–Berger was sentenced to community service and probation and fined $50,000 for illegally removing highly classified documents from the National Archives and intentionally destroying some of them.

Hillary Clinton wasn’t even charged for mishandling classified information. I guess she learned from the mistakes of those who came before her.

This Is Wonderful News

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The Washington Examiner posted an article today stating that President Trump has pardoned Kristian Saucier. “Who is Kristian Saucier?” you ask. He is the former Navy submariner who was sentenced to a year in prison during the 2016 campaign for taking pictures inside a nuclear submarine.

The article reports:

Saucier, now 31, was 22 years old when he took the cellphone photos in 2009. He pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information and his attorneys unsuccessfully requested the “Clinton deal,” meaning little if any punishment.

The six photos found on a cellphone Saucier discarded were deemed “confidential,” the lowest level of classification, even though some depicted the vessel’s nuclear reactor. Clinton, by contrast, sent and received highly classified information on a private email server. In pleading guilty, Saucier admitted destroying evidence after being questioned.

Saucier told the Washington Examiner earlier this year that a felony conviction made it hard to find work. He works as a garbage man to support his family. While in prison, the family’s cars were repossessed and his home is in foreclosure.

“We’re struggling,” Saucier said in January, describing frequent calls from credit card debt collectors and an electricity bill payment plan. “No one will hire me because I’m a felon … All the skills I worked so hard for in the military are useless.”

Before the pardon, Saucier had several months left of wearing an ankle monitor.

This man’s life was ruined because of pictures on a discarded cell phone. He should not have taken the pictures, but the case definitely provides a contrast to the way Hillary Clinton‘s private server was handled.