Pot, Meet Kettle

On January 24th, The Guardian posted the following headline:

Tim Scott’s behaviour around Trump is ‘humiliating’, says the Rev Al Sharpton

Not only is the criticism undeserved, the fact that it comes from Al Sharpton is ridiculous.

Just to refresh your memory, here is part of an NPR article from August 2013:

It was 1987 when a black teenager, Tawana Brawley, said she had been raped and kidnapped by a group of white men in Dutchess County, N.Y.

Her story of being attacked, scrawled with racial slurs, smeared with feces and left beside a road wrapped in a plastic bag made front pages across the nation — especially after the Rev. Al Sharpton took up her case.

But, as The Associated Press reminds readers, “a special state grand jury later determined that Brawley had fabricated her claims, perhaps to avoid punishment for staying out late.”

In 1998, Steven Pagones, who was the county prosecutor at the time, won a defamation suit against Sharpton, Brawley and Brawley’s attorneys. They had accused Pagones of being among Brawley’s attackers.

“Sharpton has since paid off his [$65,000] debt with money raised by his supporters,” the Village Voice says. Brawley was ordered to pay $190,000.

It’s been 15 years. With interest, the judgment against the now 40-year-old Brawley has grown to more than $430,000. Finally, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports, Pagones is receiving some of the money: $3,700, or about 1 percent of what he’s now owed.

Snopes also notes:

Sharpton himself owes New York state $806,875 and has federal liens for unpaid personal income taxes against him totaling $2.6 million, records show.

The Harlem-based NAN owed $813,576 to the federal government at the end of 2012, according to the most recent filings for the group.

Sharpton’s company, Rev-Al Communications, owes $447,826 to the state. His Bo-Spanky Consulting firm has only $18.21 in outstanding debt, according to state records.

This is the person who is criticizing Tim Scott. This is also The Guardian giving credence to that criticism. Always consider the source when it comes to news.

 

Putting The Cart Before The Horse

On Monday, Townhall reported that the charges brought against President Trump in Georgia have been released before the Grand Jury is done interviewing witnesses. A two-page report was posted on the Fulton County, Georgia, website before someone realized the mistake and quickly took it down. How can the charges be released before the Grand Jury is done?

The article reports:

According to the document that was reportedly (and briefly) posted to the county’s website, it appears Trump will face a total of 39 felony counts on the following charges that the docket lists with dates ranging from November 4, 2020 through September 17, 2021:

…While officials in Fulton County have been tight-lipped on the situation so far, Monday’s events raised more questions about how the grand jury was considering charges against the 45th president — especially if charges were ready to go before the panel had finished hearing testimony from witnesses.

Trump primary opponent Vivek Ramaswamy chimed in on the matter Monday afternoon, calling the indictment “disastrous” and “downright pathetic.”

In his Street Law 101 article posted at substack, Robert DuChemin (my favorite Florida lawyer) states:

As to the forthcoming Georgia case, whatever it is, it should be easy to get dismissed because the chairman of the grand jury, some ugly wokie chick, went on national TV claiming that she told the prosecutor to bring them anything he had and they would return a decision recommending prosecution of President Trump. Not only does this give the state unclean hands because it is a felony for anybody on the jury to discuss what went on but it also demonstrates her prejudice prior to being presented with any of the facts. I do not see how Georgia can overcome such a blatant abuse of the law. That case should be easily dismissed.

Generally the state or county waits for the Grand Jury to finish before posting their findings on the county website. The lack of professionalism on the part of those out to get President Trump is amazing.

Some Wisdom From A Judge

On Monday, Townhall posted an article about a Judge’s decision in one of the cases against President Trump.

The article reports:

In an order filed Monday morning in the classified documents case against President Donald Trump, Florida District Judge Aileen Cannon questioned “the legal propriety” of prosecutors working for Special Counsel Jack Smith to use “an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate.” She also struck down the sealed filings of two prosecutors. 

“The Special Counsel’s motion for leave to file under seal [ECF No. 95] is DENIED. The Clerk is directed to STRIKE from the docket sealed entries 95 and 96. Waltine Nauta shall file a response to the Motion for a Garcia hearing [ECF No. 97] on or before August 17, 2023. Among other topics as raised in the Motion, the response shall address the legal propriety of using an out-of-district grand jury proceeding to continue to investigate and/or to seek post-indictment hearings on matters pertinent to the instant indicted matter in this district. The Special Counsel shall respond to that discussion in a Reply in Support of the Motion [ECF No. 97], due on or before August 22, 2023. The remaining Defendants may, but are not required to, file briefs of their own related to the grand jury issue referenced herein, but any such briefs are due by August 17, 2023, and may be submitted in combined or individual fashion,” Cannon wrote. 

The use of the government bureaucracy to undermine the presidential candidacy of a political opponent is probably not new, but it has definitely been in play since 2016. The first instance I remember is the Russia hoax that we supposed to prevent President Trump from winning the election and then cripple his presidency. It failed to achieve the first goal, but was somewhat successful in achieving the second goal.

I truly believe that the only way to be done with this foolishness is to put President Trump back in the White House and let him drain the swamp. Unfortunately during his first term, there were numerous swamp creatures within his administration. Many of those creatures have now revealed themselves and can be dealt with. If we want our country back, we need to elect a President who supports the people–not the swamp.

 

This Is Really Pathetic

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

House Democrats told the Supreme Court on Monday they need access to secret grand jury materials because they are still investigating President Donald Trump in connection with Russia “collusion” and may want to impeach him, again.

In a legal filing published by CNN, Democrats said that they need the grand jury materials because the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry into Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation is ongoing.

Unbelievable. The story belongs in the Babylon Bee, but unfortunately it is real. This needs to be added to the list of reasons to end Democrat control of the House of Representatives in November. I can’t believe this is what Democrat voters voted for.  What have the Democrats accomplished in the House of Representatives in the past two years other than harass the President?

The article continues:

The Democrat-run House seeks “disclosure to the House Committee on the Judiciary of a limited set of grand-jury materials for use in the Committee’s ongoing Presidential impeachment investigation,” the Supreme Court filing says.

The saga began in 2019, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined that there had been no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. When he released his report, however, Mueller submitted two volumes — one on the collusion investigation, and one on a separate obstruction of justice investigation. Though he made no recommendation for prosecution, Democrats seized on the latter as providing the basis for potentially impeaching Trump for obstruction.

Democrats also claimed that certain redactions in the report must have hidden relevant information — though they declined to read a less redacted version. They also demanded access to material that Mueller had shown a grand jury. Normally grand jury proceedings are secret, and so Attorney General William Barr, citing federal law, declined the Democrats’ request. They then held him in contempt of Congress, and took their case for the materials to federal court.

The case made its way through the courts, and Democrats won at the D.C. Circuit. The Department of Justice appealed to the Supreme Court on May 7, and Chief Justice Roberts put a temporary hold on the grand jury materials on May 8.

In their court filing, the Democrats complain that further delays in the release of the grand jury materials would make it impossible for them to impeach the president again before Congress’s term ends:

Maybe the Democrats should actually try to accomplish something instead of chasing partisan unicorns.

Waiting For The Other Shoe To Drop

The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that according to a Sean Hannity podcast, John Solomon has stated that he knows of few witnesses who have appeared before a DC grand jury.

The article reports:

John Solomon told Hannity he believes that Durham’s charges will start with Kevin Clinesmith, the lawyer who fraudulently changed a document to deceive the FISA court.

“What about all the people that signed the FISA applications knowing…none of it was verified?” Hannity asked Solomon.

John Solomon said he doesn’t believe Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, Yates and others will be prosecuted for signing the FISA applications, however they still may not be in the clear.

John Solomon did say that John Durham is focusing on false testimonies based on the grand jury subpoenas.

“It’s possible that some people who gave false representations to Congress could get prosecuted for those false representations,” he added.

The article goes on to list examples of people who perjured themselves before Congress–James Comey, Andrew McCabe and John Brennan. Please follow the link to the article to see the details of that perjury. At this point there is no indication these people will ever be held accountable for their crimes. In order to get a conviction, you would have to have a Washington, D.C., jury that was willing to convict them. I find that highly unlikely.

This Is Appropriate

Fox 32 in Chicago is reporting that actor Jussie Smollett was indicted today in Chicago by special prosecutor Dan Webb, stemming from the alleged racist and anti-gay attack on him that occurred in January of 2019.

The article reports:

Smollett is due in court February 24 at the Criminal Court Building at 26th and California. He is indicted on six counts, accused of lying to Chicago police when he reported the attack last year, special prosecutor Webb said. Smollett faces six counts of disorderly conduct.

Mr. Smollett’s story was fishy from the start. As I am sure you remember, Jussie Smollett claimed to have been attacked by two Trump supporters wearing MAGA hats and shouting racial slurs. The attackers were also accused of shouting, “This is MAGA country.” That in itself should have raised suspicions–does anyone really believe that Chicago is MAGA country?

The article reports:

“Dan K. Webb, special prosecutor for Cook County, today announced that the Office of the Special Prosecutor (“OSP”) has now completed all of its investigative steps regarding Jussie Smollett, and has made the decision to further prosecute Mr. Smollett. Based on the recommendation of the OSP, a Cook County grand jury returned a six-count indictment charging Jussie Smollett with making four separate false reports to Chicago Police Department officers related to his false claims that he was the victim of a hate crime, knowing that he was not the victim of a crime,” Webb said in a statement.

Please follow the link to the article to read the details of the case.

I Suspect There Is Much More To Come

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted the statement by US Attorney John Durham on the Inspector General’s Report conclusions.

This is the statement:

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff. However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened,” John Durham said in a rare statement.

Remember, US Attorney John Durham has the ability to seat a Grand Jury and indict people. His report will eventually be released.

This Is Frightening

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about attorney Mark Zaid, who represents the anti-Trump CIA “whistleblower” Eric Ciaramella (Ciaramella’s name was accidentally released by Adam Schiff last night, so his identity has been revealed).

The article notes:

“Coup has started. First of many steps. #rebellion. #impeachment will follow ultimately. #lawyers” Zaid tweeted on January 30, 2017, barely a week after Trump’s Inauguration Day.

The article includes screenshots of a number of Mark Zaid’s tweets:

A coup is treason. Treason is a crime. The road is going to get very bumpy in the next few weeks as the people involved in this attempted coup try to save themselves from the consequences of their actions. Remember, a Grand Jury has been convened and is investigating this. Indictments will be coming. I am totally impatient for this to be over so that President Trump can continue to undo the damage done to America by President Obama, but justice takes time, and the people involved in this are extremely powerful and well-connected. I believe justice will prevail, but I also believe it will take time.

False Statements That Create Division And Unrest

The mainstream media is not known for unbiased reporting, but every now and then even they have to correct something that is not only false but incendiary.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article on Thursday about a recent lie by two political candidates that could easily be called incendiary.

The article reports:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) doubled down on her tweet that claimed black teenager Michael Brown was “murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri,” saying Wednesday what mattered was an “unarmed man” was shot in the street.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Warren was asked about her inflammatory tweet, which received the harshest “Four-Pinocchio” rating from the Washington Post.

“What matters is that a man was shot, an unarmed man, in the middle of the street, by police officers and left to die,” Warren said. “And I think that’s where our focus should be.”

Warren and fellow presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) and Tom Steyer all used the term “murder” to describe Brown’s death in 2014 at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson. The incident set off a debate about police violence and racial injustice. Although the notion that Brown was killed with his hands up and begging Wilson not to shoot was apocryphal, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” became a mantra for protesters.

To Senator Warren and Senator Harris the narrative was more important than the truth. Rather than tell the truth, they lied in order to advance the idea that the police involved were racist.

The article concludes:

The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler said for Warren and Harris—he didn’t include Steyer in his story—to dismiss the Justice Department’s findings was “galling.”

“Harris and Warren have ignored the findings of the Justice Department to accuse Wilson of murder, even though the Justice Department found no credible evidence to support that claim,” Kessler wrote. “Instead, the Justice Department found that the popular narrative was wrong, according to witnesses deemed to be credible, some of whom testified reluctantly because of fear of reprisal. The department produced a comprehensive report to determine what happened, making the senators’ dismissal of it even more galling.”

The Massachusetts Police Union ripped Warren as well, saying she had unfairly accused police of harming society.

So what is the impact of these statements? Those Americans who are unaware of the Justice Department findings or the grand jury’s decision are left with the impression that the police in Missouri murdered a man without cause. How does that impact the opinion of law enforcement held by the people who believe this lie? How does this lie impact the amount of respect for law enforcement needed to maintain a civil society? The statements of Senators Harris and Warren are totally irresponsible. Even if they thought they were telling the truth, they owe those people who work in law enforcement an apology.

Finding The Truth In The Epstein Investigation

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that federal prosecutors have served grand jury subpoenas on Jeffrey Epstein’s personal pilots.

The article reports:

Testimony from the pilots could be used by federal investigators in their efforts to corroborate accounts from Mr. Epstein’s accusers. They could also provide detail on Mr. Epstein’s travels and his associates. Some of the pilots were responsible for keeping flight logs of passengers who flew on Mr. Epstein’s private jet, according to court filings.

Mr. Epstein, who was denied bail and will remain in federal custody pending trial, has pleaded not guilty to sex-trafficking charges stemming from what prosecutors allege was a yearslong scheme from 2002 to 2005 to recruit and sexually abuse dozens of girls.

Mr. Epstein’s lawyers didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment.

In a recent court filing, prosecutors said that entities controlled by Mr. Epstein own at least two private jets in active service, and that at least one of them is capable of traveling internationally. He frequently traveled by private jet between his homes in New York and Palm Beach, Fla., according to the indictment against him. Mr. Epstein’s lawyers said he owns one private jet and sold the other one last month.

Women in civil lawsuits have accused Mr. Epstein of conspiring with his pilots and other associates from at least 1998 to 2002 to facilitate sex abuse and avoid law-enforcement detection. One woman has said in court filings that when she was a minor in 2000, Mr. Epstein transported her regularly on his private jet to be sexually exploited by his associates and friends.

If even one tenth of what Jeffrey Epstein is accused of is true, he needs to spend the rest of his life in jail. However, even Jeffrey Epstein is innocent until proven guilty. The best outcome of this investigation is that justice will be based on truth.

Trying To Keep The Drip Going

Someone once told me that the Grand Canyon was the result of water dripping on a rock. I’m not sure if that is true, but it is an interesting thought. The Congressional Democrats are actually setting out to prove or disprove that theory.

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at The Hill titled, “Note to Team Mueller: If you don’t indict, you can’t incite.” Those are wise words that could actually do a lot of good in healing the divide in America if they were heeded.

The article states:

I’ve covered the Justice Department for three decades, and seldom have I seen a story like the one published in The New York Times this week under the headline, “Some on Mueller’s Team Say Report Was More Damaging Than Barr Revealed.”

What concerned me most is that the story’s anonymous allegations reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of the role prosecutors play, including special counsels such as Robert Mueller.

The job of prosecutors is not, as the Times headline suggested, to pen “damaging” narratives about people they couldn’t indict. And it’s not their job to air those people’s dirty laundry, or that of suspects outside of a grand jury room or a courtroom.

Mueller concluded there wasn’t evidence President Trump colluded with Russia to hijack the 2016 election, and therefore no indictment was warranted. And he punted on the question of obstruction, leaving his bosses — Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — to determine that there wasn’t enough evidence to indict the president on that charge.

And, most significantly, there were no other people charged. That means Trump legally could not be named as an unindicted co-conspirator in an obstruction plot.

Many of the Democrat Congressmen (and Congresswomen) who are calling for the full, unredacted release of the Mueller Report are lawyers. They know that the full Mueller Report includes both Grand Jury testimony and classified information. They know that Grand Jury testimony is not public information and often contains things that may be misleading or have a negative impact on an innocent person’s life. Theoretically they are also aware of the rules regarding the handling of classified information. So if they understand the law, why are they requesting that the Attorney General break the law? Actually, the subpoena for the Mueller Report is simply part of a larger strategy.

The Attorney General is compelled by law to deny the subpoena. This sends the case to the courts where it will be tied up for at least two years–through the 2020 presidential election. I am sure some of the actions of whatever court is involved will keep the story in the news through the election.

Recently someone familiar with the report noted that the summaries in the report, written by highly partisan investigators contain classified information or Grand Jury testimony. If Congress has the full report (or even the redacted version), they can selectively leak things (that might be misleading) to keep the collusion-delusion in the headlines. Victor Davis Hanson noted in a recent article that the Russian investigation was a soft coup attempted by the deep state. I have no reason to believe that the attempt is over.

In Case You Were Wondering If It Was Political…

On Monday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the Democrats’ calls to make the entire Mueller Report public, including source information, Grand Jury testimony, etc. Well, there are some pretty strict rules protecting the secrecy of Grand Jury testimony, and it is quite possible that disclosing other information could be a problem for our intelligence services (and possibly some foreign intelligence services). It should be noted that in their calls for transparency I haven’t heard them ask that the FISA warrants and background information on those warrants be made public. However, this call for transparency on the part of the Democrats is an interesting contrast to their reactions to previous Special Counsel reports.

The article reports:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is the leading Democrat demanding the release of the Mueller Report “in its entirety” without redactions.

His committee is planning to subpoena the Justice Department for the full report.

But back in 1998, as a member of the same committee, he vociferously opposed the release of the full Starr Report, saying that “as a matter of decency and protecting people’s privacy rights, people who may be totally innocent third parties, what must not be released at all.”

Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating then-President Bill Clinton, delivered his report to Congress on Sept. 9, 1998. That night, Nadler went on Charlie Rose’s show to push back against the Republican demand that the voluminous report should be made public. “It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses,” Nadler said. “Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release,”

What Nadler, 71, said in 1998 echoes what Attorney General William Barr told Congress last week. Barr, 68, wrote that he might redact grand jury testimony, information related to ongoing investigations, sensitive or classified information, and “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties” from the report that he provides to Congress and the public.

Representative Nadler does not want the entire report made public–he wants the Democrats to get the entire report so that they can leak misleading parts of the report and make the scandal last until the 2020 election. The is a political game.

The article concludes:

Special counsel Mueller declined to charge anyone associated with the Trump campaign of coordination with the Russians, but did not reach a decision on obstruction. Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that Trump had not obstructed justice.

How can you have obstruction when there was no crime?

 

Hoisted On Your Own Petard

There are many Americans who believe that Robert Mueller is engaged in a witch hunt. The indictment of thirteen Russian companies was part of that witch hunt. The plan was that the indictments would show that there really was Russian influence, the people involved in the companies indicted would never set foot in America, and Mueller would look as if he actually found evidence of Russian interference. Well, the best laid plans…

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today updating us on the status of the Russian companies who supposedly interfered in our election. Things have not gone as planned for Mr. Mueller.

The article reports:

In an effort to tie their corrupt investigation to Russia, the Mueller team indicted 13 Russians after presenting their cases to a grand jury in February of this year. Immediately, these indictments were suspect as everyone on to the corrupt Mueller team knew that these ‘Russians’ would never be brought to justice, even if they were real, because they would never come to the US to stand trial and risk being put in jail.

Unfortunately for Mueller however, this soon turned into a royal mess. Lawyers defending one of three Russian companies indicted with the 13 Russians, Concord Management, showed up for court. Mueller’s team was caught off guard and never expected this. They immediately asked the judge for more time but the judge denied their pleas noting that they were the ones who indicted the Russian company in the first place.

When the case proceeded, the Concord attorney’s noted that another of the three companies indicted by Mueller was not in existence at the time of Mueller’s indictment. They called this a case of Mueller indicting the proverbial ‘ham sandwich’.

At a following court appearance, the attorneys representing Concord stated that the corrupt Mueller team’s allegations of 13 Russian individuals impacting the 2016 election were “made up” nonsense. The individuals were not even real.

The article continues:

Concord Management’s lawyers revealed that Mueller’s team had ignored over 70 discovery requests they had made for information in the case. In response Mueller’s team offered to give Concord Management’s lawyers a massive amount of social media data from those dangerous trolls who sought to influence the US election and the majority of the data was in RUSSIAN.

Mueller’s lawyers then admitted that they didn’t even have English translations for the Russian social media posts. However, somehow Mueller’s lawyers believed Americans were influenced by these Russian language posts?

The case of the Russians has now turned into a big joke as the legitimacy of the Mueller indictment is being challenged by Concord Management.

In a hearing on October 15th, Concord Management claimed that the Special Counsel’s entire case is built around a 100 year old law that he Mueller team is trying to use in a manner it was not built for.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It is rather complex, but gives a lot of insight as to the political aspects of Mueller’s investigation, Hopefully this mess will be wrapped up shortly. It has cost American taxpayers large sums of money and is strictly the result of political maneuvering.

When Local Authorities Drop The Ball

You may remember the August 5th news story about the eleven children and five grown-ups living in squalor in a New Mexican compound where the children were allegedly being trained to commit terrorist acts. On August 29th, District Judge Emilio Chavez dismissed charges against three of the adults arrested at the compound. Townhall reported, “Charges dismissed against all five defendants due to 10-day rule regarding presenting evidence during preliminary hearings. Judge torched the district attorneys office for their incompetence, wonders if the office is overworked.” Well, it’s not over yet.

Yesterday Fox News reported that all five New Mexico compound suspects were indicted by a federal grand jury on Tuesday on firearms and conspiracy charges.

The article reports:

The indictment charged the suspects –- Jany Leveille, 35, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, Subhanah Wahhaj, 35, and Lucas Morton, 40 – “with conspiring knowingly to provide an alien illegally and unlawfully in the United States, possession of firearms and ammunition,” a news release from the District of New Mexico’s U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Leveille, a Haitian national who was in the U.S. illegally, was also accused of possession of firearms and ammunition, the news release said.

The defendants are accused of conspiring to get Leveille firearms and ammunition from at least November 2017 through August, the news release said, in addition to moving firearms and ammunition in December 2017 from across Georgia to New Mexico.

“The indictment further alleges that, between December 2017 and August 2018, the defendants established a training camp and firing range in Taos County, where they stored firearms and ammunition and engaged in firearms and tactical training as part of their common plan to prepare for violent attacks on government, military, educational, and financial institutions,” the news release said.

That is good news. The article reports that all five suspects are due back in court in New Mexico on Wednesday afternoon. Let’s hope they show up.

Under The Radar, But Part Of The Swamp

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about James Wolfe, former Director of Security for the Senate Intelligence Committee.

There are some very curious aspects of this investigation. The article provides some background information:

First, we know from overwhelming circumstantial evidence, conveniently overlooked by media, that one of Wolfe’s specific leaks involved sending his concubine Ali Watkins a copy of the 82-page FISA application used to gain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page.   {Full Backstory Here}  Some key things about this leak:

  1. It is highly likely there were no redactions in the copy Wolfe leaked to the media.
  2. It is highly likely Wolfe was caught in a leak hunt, and the copy given to him included a specific, and intentionally wrong, internal date using October 19th as the origination date for FISA application approval.  (The actual date was Oct 21st).
  3. The October 19th date then shows up in subsequent media reports which were based on the leak.  The New York Times and Washington Post used the wrong date; the concentric reporting of the NYT and WaPo spread the wrong date like a virus.
  4. However, despite overwhelming and easy to prove evidence against him, Wolfe was never charged with the Carter Page FISA leak.  The DOJ/FBI have him dead-to-rights on that leak, but he was charged with the more disingenuous crime of lying to the FBI.

The article continues:

After losing the gag order request, lawyers for Mr. Wolfe have sent letters to every Senator who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.  [As we have shared for years, the SSCI is the deepest and most corrupt part of the Deep State swamp.]

…Two things jump out to me immediately; things that could be considered heavily corrupt based on how the reader views the current DOJ institution; if ‘corrupt’:

#1) perhaps that’s why the DOJ didn’t charge Wolfe with the specific leak(s). If the DOJ had charged him with specific leaks to the media there could be Senators at risk of criminal conspiracy.

#2) perhaps these notification letters are Wolfe saying he will burn everyone if he is taken down, therefore his defense is to hide behind the Senators and make them pressure the DOJ to drop/lessen charges against him.

The article shares the timeline:

  • March 16th, 2017, SSCI requests copy of FISA application from Court
  • March 17th, 2017, a copy of the application with an intentionally adjusted date (Oct 19th) was delivered to James Wolfe, Director of Security for the SSCI.
  • March 17th, 2017, Wolfe sends reporter Ali Watkins a copy of the original FISA application via 82 picture text messages (one per page) thereby distributing the wrong date.  He may have also shared with other reporters.
  • Numerous media reports surface using the October 19th false date.
  • October 31st, 2017, FBI notifies Security Director James Wolfe of a leak investigation (hunt for leakers) looking at the Senate Intelligence Committee.
  • December 14th, 2017, Ali Watkins announces she will no longer be covering the SSCI.
  • December 15th, 2017, FBI confronts James Wolfe with evidence that he is one of the people leaking classified intelligence to journalists.
  • Before the end of December 2017, Wolfe resigns.
  • FBI gains national security search warrant against reporter Ali Watkins and all of her electronic communications.  Watkins is notified by her network provider on February 13th, 2018.
  • May 3rd, 2018, grand jury proceedings against Wolfe.  Indictment remains under seal.
  • June 7th, 2018, indictment is unsealed – James Wolfe is arrested.

Stay tuned.

Getting Rid Of The Deep State Is A Slow Methodical Process

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.

Cleaning Up Pennsylvania Politics

On Friday, The Daily Signal reported that a grand jury in Philadelphia has found two Pennsylvania legislators guilty of taking bribes.

The article reports:

A grand jury convened by Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has indicted two Democratic state legislators for accepting bribes in exchange for voting against a voter ID bill, among other legislative actions.

The grand jury findings also represent a withering rejection of the unjustifiable behavior of Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who shut down the three-year investigation that caught state Democratic legislators on video and audio tapes taking bribes. Williams stepped in and successfully prosecuted the case.

One of the bribes taken involved voting against voter identification laws.

The article reports of the fact that the previous investigation had been shut down:

Because Waters, Brown and other legislators involved in the bribery scheme are black, Democratic Attorney General Kathleen Kane shut down the investigation in March. She claimed that the investigation was “poorly conceived, badly managed and tainted by racism…[and] had targeted African-Americans.” Williams, who also is black, was particularly incensed by this claim, saying that he was “disgusted that the attorney general would bring racism into this case. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire for no reason, no reason at all.”

Equal rights involves equal justice–it does not involve shielding a person from the consequences of their actions just because of their race.

The article concludes:

As the grand jury concluded, the evidence of bribery was “unusually damning, consisting as it does not only of eyewitness accounts, but of hours of tape recordings, and of detailed admissions by the subjects of the investigation themselves.”

In light of those findings, it is difficult to come up with any reason for Kane’s actions other than a political one. Thankfully, Williams was not deterred from seeking indictments for crimes that strike at the very heart of the legislative process. Kane may not be interested in trying to clean up state politics, but Williams certainly is.

It is good to see someone working to clean up politics. We need people like Attorney General Williams in every state.

The Creeping Bureaucracy Of Washington

Andrew McCarthy posted an article today at National Review Online about the recent events involving police that have gotten so much publicity. Mr. McCarthy’s theory is that Eric Holder has inserted himself into these events not because they are civil rights issues, but because he can use these events to exert federal power over local law enforcement.

The article reports:

Civil-rights investigations in Ferguson and Staten Island? No, what denizens of St. Louis and New York City ought to be worried about right now is . . . the crime wave overtaking Seattle.

If you don’t understand why, then you probably thought Obamacare was about covering the uninsured. Like its health-care “reform” campaign, the Obama Left’s civil-rights crusade is about control — central control of state law enforcement by Washington.

The deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York are each tragic in their own way. But in neither is there a federal civil-rights case to be had. To think otherwise, you have to be getting your advice from Al Sharpton — the huckster confidant of President Obama and Attorney General Holder.

So what has happened in Seattle that should have us all concerned?

The article reports:

Seattle is another of the big cities that has been targeted by the DOJ. It has been under a consent decree since the Justice Department targeted it in 2012 for a “pattern or practice” of violations, allegedly including “subjecting individuals to excessive force” — in particular, “using excessive force against persons of color,” and “escalating situations and using excessive force when arresting individuals for minor offenses.”

…Meanwhile, Seattle has been making announcements, too. It seems crime in the Emerald City has been skyrocketing since the Justice Department came in to, er, help. Homicides up 21 percent, car theft up 44 percent, aggravated assaults up 14 percent, and so on.

Welcome to Change: produced and directed by the Obama Justice Department and coming soon to a town near you.

Although I agree with Andrew McCarthy that what is happening in Ferguson and Staten Island is about control, I also think there is another purpose. One of the characteristics of the Obama Administration has been to create division between different groups of people. The ‘war on women’ was an attempt to create division among the sexes, the so-called ‘problem of income inequality’ was to create class warfare, and the focus on the two unfortunate deaths in law-enforcement situations undermines the authority of the police and can also be used to create racial division and tension. Unless Americans wake up and realize that they are being manipulated by a Chicago thug, we are in for a really ugly next two years.

This Is Totally Unjust

Yahoo News is reporting today that Darren Wilson will be leaving the Ferguson police force with no severance package. I have no idea why the media has worked so hard to make this man a villain when he was simply defending himself. I would like to remind everyone that Michael Brown attacked Darren Wilson inside his police car.

The article reports:

Wilson, 28, won’t receive any further pay or benefits, and he and the city have severed their ties, Mayor James Knowles told reporters a day after Wilson tendered his resignation, which was effective immediately.

Wilson, who is white, had been on administrative leave since he killed Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, during an Aug. 9 confrontation. A grand jury decided Monday not to indict him, sparking days of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and other cities.

Wilson wrote in his resignation letter that his “continued employment may put the residents and police officers of the City of Ferguson at risk, which is a circumstance I cannot allow.”

His lawyer, Neil Bruntrager, told The Associated Press that Wilson decided to step aside after police Chief Tom Jackson told him about the alleged threats on Saturday.

Michael Brown was a thug who robbed a store and attacked a policeman. In his death, he  has managed to ruin the life of the man who stood for the law and order he despised. Unfortunately, the mainstream media has come down on the wrong side of this. To Americans who are screaming racism and condemning Darren Wilson, if your loved one was the police officer in danger, what would you have wanted him to do? Because the press and some of the race-baiters claiming to support civil rights have gotten involved in this situation, Darren Wilson’s life has been (at least temporarily) ruined as well as a young thug killed. Would these people have rather that the thug killed the policeman?

Some Clarity On The Ferguson Grand Jury

Yesterday Andrew McCarthy posted an article in the National Review Online about the Grand Jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson.

Mr. McCarthy sums up the story as follows:

All very reasonable, but let’s not pretend reason has anything to do with what happened in Ferguson this week. In Liberal Fascism’s focus on myth, Jonah recalls Mussolini’s assertion, “It is faith that moves mountains, not reason. Reason is a tool, but it can never be the motive force of the crowd.” The crowd in Ferguson was moved to riot on the article of a false faith that condemns America and its police forces as incorrigibly racist. It is from this condemnation that all purported “reasoning” proceeds.

Such reasoning dictates that our constitutional right not to be indicted in the absence of just cause should be subordinated to the mob’s demand for a public trial. Succeeding in that legerdemain, it next dictates that our constitutional right not to be convicted in the absence of proof beyond a reasonable doubt be subordinated to the mob’s demand for a guilty verdict.

Such a verdict that would have had only the most tangential connection to the tragedy of an 18-year-old’s death or a police officer’s well-founded fear for his life. But it would have fed the myth.

The article reminds us that the American Left has fostered the myth that white policemen kill black teenagers. There is no reference to the amount of crime committed by black teenagers, we are simply supposed to buy the myth at face value–it is useful for manipulating crowds.

The article points out that the discussion of Grand Jury rules and procedures was irrelevant:

As it turns out, there was no need to thumb the legal treatises of Blackstone or Joseph Story. If you were going to hit the books, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism would have served you better. Brilliantly illustrating modern liberalism’s roots in 20th-century progressivism — a movement as comfortable marching lockstep with Stalin as it was borrowing copiously from Mussolini — Jonah homes in on the centrality of myth. It is irrelevant whether an idea around which the Left’s avant-garde rouse the rabble is true; the point is the idea’s power to mold consciousness and rally the troops.

It is unfortunate that a young man is dead. It is also unfortunate that the young man chose to rob a store and attack a policeman. (The forensic evidence confirms the fact that Michael Brown did attack Darren Wilson.) However, it is also unfortunate that a good policeman has resigned the force and had his life negatively impacted by simply defending his own life.

The mob mentality here is right in line with Saul Alinsky‘s Rules for Radicals. The article explains:

Darren Wilson was a white cop and Michael Brown was a black teenager killed in a violent confrontation with Wilson. Therefore, Brown was the victim of a cold-blooded, racially motivated murder, Q.E.D. That is the myth, and it will be served — don’t bother us with the facts.

Once you’ve got that, none of the rest matters. In fact, at the hands of the left-leaning punditocracy, the rest was pure Alinsky: a coopting of language — in this instance, the argot of grand-jury procedure — to reason back to the ordained conclusion that “justice” demanded Wilson’s indictment for murder. And, of course, his ultimate conviction.

What the ‘protestors’ (thugs and criminals) gained from destroying their own city I don’t know. I wonder if the Nike sneakers were worth the fact that there will no longer be a place to buy sneakers in the town. Very few of the violent protestors were actually from the town, which tells us that this whole scenario was a planned show to manipulate the low-information voter by using the low-information media. The really sad part of this story was that innocent people had their businesses destroyed and their lives ruined by the actions of people driven by rage caused by misinformation they were given. They were played.

The ‘Unknown Motive’ In Ferguson

In an attempt to explain recent events in Ferguson, some of the major media sources (CNN and some of the networks) have referred to an ‘unknown motive’ on the part of Michael Brown. Yesterday World Net Daily posted an article that might provide the answer to what the ‘unknown motive’ was.

The article reports:

Reporting from the scene, Lemon (CNN’s Don Lemon) said, “Maybe a minute, two minutes ago we heard a gunshot and watched people scattering. And we’re watching people on the roofs of cars, on the tops of cars and … Obviously there’s a smell of marijuana here as well.”

“Lemon’s comments sparked fierce backlash on social media,” reported Toyin Owoseje of the International Business Times. She said “many members of the online community” accused him of “adding fire to the flames and promoting his own agenda.”

I am not saying that marijuana is to blame for the rioting–I am saying that marijuana impairs judgment and that people under the influence of the drug might do things that they might not do otherwise.

The article also points out something that I have not heard elsewhere:

Rathbone points out that Kevin Torres, a reporter for KUSA in Colorado, where marijuana is legalized, has done a balanced story on the issue, noting that researchers from Harvard and Northwestern University recently found “younger marijuana users are more likely to have learning and mental health problems.” He cited an article from the New England Journal of Medicine showing high THC use being linked to paranoia and psychosis.

Michael Brown was not only high on THC but was apparently preparing to smoke more dope when Officer Wilson caught him walking down the center of a street and asked him to move to the sidewalk. The swisher sweet cigars Brown had stolen from the convenience store are notorious for being used to make marijuana “blunts.”  (emphasis mine)

The media has attempted to paint Michael Brown as an angelic gentle giant. Clearly, that is not the case. Michael Brown was obviously as flawed an individual as the rest of us. His death was unfortunate, but was also the result of choices that he made. If you take the marijuana out of the equation, you have no theft and probably no reason to attack a policeman. Marijuana may be harmless at times, but obviously this time it was fatal.

Have We Forgotten That Actions Have Consquences?

It is a shame that Michael Brown is dead. It is also a shame that a policeman was injured when Michael Brown attacked him and that because of racism on the part of some Americans, that policeman will never be seen as justified in defending himself against Michael Brown.

Michael Brown did three things that were consequential. First, he committed a minor robbery from a store. Second, he chose to walk down the middle of the street, drawing attention to himself. Third, he attacked a policeman. (The press conference last night stated that the Grand Jury had evidence that Michael Brown attacked Darren Wilson.) All three of these actions had consequences.

The Daily Caller reported late last night that Eric Holder has stated that the Justice Department‘s investigation of the incident is not over yet. Why? What are they looking for? Does Attorney General Holder believe that it is acceptable to attack a police officer? Or rob a store? Does Attorney General Holder believe that policemen have the right to defend themselves? Would Attorney General Holder be as concerned if Michael Brown had shot Darren Wilson with Darren Wilson’s gun?

The article quotes Attorney General Holder:

“Though there will be disagreement with the grand jury’s decision not to indict, this feeling should not lead to violence,” Holder said. “It does not honor [Michael Brown’s] memory to engage in violence or looting.”

Michael Brown’s memory? One of the last acts of Michael Brown was to rob a store. He only robbed something small, but he robbed a store. I am sure Michael Brown had many positive traits, but he made some very foolish mistakes and paid a very high price for them. He should be held up as an example of what not to do–not as a helpless victim.

 

The Gosnell Movie

Indiegogo is the website for information on the Gosnell movie. The website is raising money to produce the movie. In case you are not aware, Dr. Kermit Gosnell is the most prolific serial killer in American History, but almost no one knows who he is.

Here are some excerpts from the Grand Jury testimony on the case that are posted on the site:

This case is about a doctor who killed babies … What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors …. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.   (Report of the Grand Jury)

The neonatologist testified… If a baby moves, it is alive. Equally troubling, it feels a “tremendous amount of pain” when its spinal cord is severed. So, the fact that Baby Boy A. continued to move after his spinal cord was cut with scissors means that he did not die instantly. Maybe the cord was not completely severed. In any case, his few moments of life were spent in excruciating pain.   (Report of the Grand Jury) 

The article describes the purpose of the Indiegogo website:

But here’s the catch. We’ve set the budget. But if we fail to raise our target budget, Indiegogo will return all the funds, we will received nothing and the film will never be made.

Indiegogo allows us to bypass the Hollywood studios and the usual funding sources for movies.

Hollywood never would fund a movie such as this.

We funded our last film FrackNation using crowdfunding.

Please visit the website and make whatever donation you can so that this movie will be made. Unfortunately in America, free speech is not always free.

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I Don’t Follow College Football–But This Is Disturbing

Number 12, Penn State quarterback Michael Robi...

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John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting writes a column for Sports Illustrated. His latest column was about the scandal in the Penn State football program involving Jerry Sandusky.  The article features a link to the Grand Jury report on Jerry Sandusky.

After reading the Grand Jury report, I would like to see the football program at Penn State suspended for at least ten years–that is how long the sexual abuse of young men was allowed to continue.

It is inappropriate to allow those who covered up the activities of Coach Sandusky continue in their current positions. There needs to be a total housecleaning of those who have overseen the football program for the past ten years and a suspension of the program for the next ten years.

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