Evidently The Swamp Has Been Busy For A While

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article today detailing some of the history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in recent years. Evidently the ‘deep state’ has been busy for a while.

The article deals with the efforts to protect Hillary Clinton from the consequences of having a private email server and also notes the efforts to derail an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

The article reports:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may be the worst off. In addition to possible charges for lying under oath for denying that he leaked information to the Wall Street Journal (in large part dfto answer swirling rumors in the journalistic community), it’s alleged that he ordered FBI agents working on the Clinton Foundation investigation to stand down.

Now, evidence suggests he told the FBI’s Washington field office to also “stand down” from its investigation of Clinton’s private-email server. That investigation followed a New York Times piece that appeared in 2015, detailing Hillary Clinton’s possible illegal use of an unsecured, home-brew email server for her official business as secretary of state. It appears to be a clear violation of the law.

“Multiple former FBI officials, along with a Congressional official, say that while there may have been internal squabbling over the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation at the time, there was allegedly another ‘stand-down’ order by McCabe regarding the opening of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of her private email for official government business,” wrote independent journalist Sarah Carter.

On August 26, 2016, Fox News posted the following quote from Charles Krauthammer:

Charles Krauthammer said that after a year of speculation and diversion, the issue of what Hillary Clinton’s email scandal was about is finally clear.

“The issue we’ve always asked ourselves here is, why was she hiding this in the first place? Why did she have a private server? Obviously, she was concealing; what was she concealing?”

He said that the “most obvious possible answer” was the Clinton Foundation.

We need Charles to get well soon–we miss his insight. It is becoming obvious that the Clinton Foundation was a charity that simply enriched the Clintons and the donations to the Foundation influenced American foreign policy. The American people were victims of the pay-for-play, but the Haitian people were victims of the corruption. It is time that the truth come out and the appropriate people bear the consequences of that truth.

The article at Investor’s Business Daily concludes:

Ironic, isn’t it, that the real “collusion” all along seems to be among those who are themselves investigating Trump.

Fortunately, the Justice Department‘s Inspector General Michael Horowitz has a team of investigators looking into not only McCabe’s lies, but also how the FBI conducted itself in the Clinton email server scandal. Horowitz’ group already issued a report on McCabe, and referred his case for possible prosecution. Next up: In May, it’s expected Horowitz will release a report on Clinton’s email server use.

Increasingly, the supposed case of “Trump-Russia collusion” is morphing into a case of “FBI-Justice Department-Clinton collusion.” With the many elements finally coming together just as the mid-term congressional elections get underway, we could be in for a bumpy ride this summer.

Be assured that if the Democrats win Congress in November, all investigations into wrongdoing by the Department of Justice and FBI will end, and no one will be held accountable for their corruption. That is a scary thought. At that point the deep state will simply become deeper, and equal justice under the law will be permanently lost in America.

This Is The Beginning

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.

 

I’m Not Sure The Editorial Was A Good Idea

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.

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.

Washington Incest?

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 Inspector General’s Report And Real Collusion

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.

If You Ever Wondered What The Problem Was With Higher Education, This Might Be Your Answer

On Thursday, The Hill reported that on May 25th the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University was going to present Hillary Clinton an award that recognizes individuals who have had a “transformative impact” on society. I assume the award may be conditional based on whether or not she is in jail by then.

The article reports:

“Hillary Clinton’s life and career are an inspiration to people around the world,” Radcliffe Institute Dean Lizabeth Cohen, who teaches American studies at Harvard, said in the press release.

“Whether in Arkansas, Washington, D.C., New York state or traveling around the globe as secretary of State,” Cohen said in the statement. “Secretary Clinton has provided a model of what it takes to transform society, often under scrutiny — tireless effort, toughness amid the political fray, and an enduring capacity to envision a better future.”

The event in May will feature a tribute to Clinton delivered by friend, former secretary of State and fellow Radcliffe medalist Madeleine Albright, according to the release, as well as a conversation between Clinton and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey (D).

Clinton, who ran unsuccessfully against President Trump in 2016, was the first woman to secure a nomination for president from a major political party in the United States.

In the statement, Radcliffe added that Clinton was a “skilled legislator,” and “an advocate of American leadership to create a world in which states live up to their responsibilities.”

“We commend Secretary Clinton for her accomplishments in the public sphere as a champion for human rights and the welfare of all,” Cohen said.

Yes, Mrs. Clinton was the first woman to run for President. Based on what? She was elected a Senator from New York on the basis of her husband’s popularity. She rigged the Democratic primary election to become the candidate. The jury is still out on the corruption in the Clinton Foundation (although that may come to a head very soon). She obviously mishandled classified information in a way that would have put other people in prison. The list of scandals that has followed the Clintons since the 1990’s is almost endless. And this is the woman Harvard is choosing to honor.

I will admit that Hillary Clinton has been transformative in that she has transformed the meaning of the word ethical.

All The Roads Seem To Lead To The Same Place

John Solomon and Alison Spann posted an article at The Hill yesterday (updated today) about a new development in the Russia-Trump-Collusion investigation. It seems that every lead that formed the basis for the appointment of a Special Prosecutor goes back to the Clintons. Somehow that does not seem like an incredible coincidence.

The article is detailed with a lot of reference information, so I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire article. It really is chilling to see how the power of government could be abused so totally as to be turned against one man.

The article reports:

The Australian diplomat whose tip in 2016 prompted the Russia-Trump investigation previously arranged one of the largest foreign donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable efforts, documents show.

Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS is chronicled in decade-old government memos archived on the Australian foreign ministry’s website.

Downer and former President Clinton jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding in February 2006 that spread out the grant money over four years for a project to provide screening and drug treatment to AIDS patients in Asia.

We know that the dossier had ties to the Clintons. Now we know that the other basis for the investigation also had ties to the Clintons.

The Clintons handled the money with their usual level of integrity:

In the years that followed, the project won praise for helping thousands of HIV-infected patients in Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, China and Indonesia, but also garnered criticism from auditors about “management weaknesses” and inadequate budget oversight, the memos show.

The article observes:

Downer, now Australia’s ambassador to London, provided the account of a conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a London bar in 2016 that became the official reason the FBI opened the Russia counterintelligence probe.

But lawmakers say the FBI didn’t tell Congress about Downer’s prior connection to the Clinton Foundation. Republicans say they are concerned the new information means nearly all of the early evidence the FBI used to justify its election-year probe of Trump came from sources supportive of the Clintons, including the controversial Steele dossier.

“The Clintons’ tentacles go everywhere. So, that’s why it’s important,” said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) chairman of a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee that has been taking an increasingly visible role defending the Trump administration in the Russia probe. “We continue to get new information every week it seems that sort of underscores the fact that the FBI hasn’t been square with us.”

The Democrats of course replied with their usual spin:

Democrats accuse the GOP of overreaching, saying Downer’s role in trying to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS shouldn’t be used to question his assistance to the FBI.

“The effort to attack the FBI and DOJ as a way of defending the President continues,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence panel. “Not content to disparage our British allies and one of their former intelligence officers, the majority now seeks to defame our Australian partners as a way of undermining the Russia probe. It will not succeed, but may do lasting damage to our institutions and allies in the process.”

Nick Merrill, Hillary Clinton’s spokesman, said any effort to connect the 2006 grant with the current Russia investigation was “laughable.”

I guess it’s reassuring to know that the Clintons’ corruption is not merely limited to America.

The Clintons also responded to the implication that the money might not have been spent exactly as warranted:

Craig Minassian, a spokesman for the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, said the focus should be on the foundation’s success helping tens of thousands of AIDS patients.

It really is time to send Mr. Mueller packing and clean out the upper levels of the FBI and Department of Justice. They have been hopelessly compromised. Every one of the people who provided the foundation for the investigation of President Trump has ties to the Clintons. There is no way that the Special Prosecutor should ever have been appointed. Unless Robert Mueller is fired and the investigation ended, we will never see equal justice under the law in America. Note that the questionable activities of the Clinton Foundation or the various scandals of the Clintons have never been fully investigated or prosecuted.

Caught In A Boldfaced Lie

The problem with the information superhighway is that you can find anyone saying anything at any given time. If you tell the truth all the time, that is not a problem; however, if you say something untrue, what you said can come back to bite you. That just happened to former President Obama.

PJ Media posted an article today about a discrepancy between what President Obama told Chris Wallace and something that appears in one of the emails between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

The article reports:

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released additional Strzok/Page text messages  on Wednesday as part of a majority staff report titled “The Clinton Email Scandal And The FBI’s Investigation Of It.

One text causing raised eyebrows today seems to implicate the president: “potus wants to know everything we’re doing,” former FBI lawyer Lisa Page texted to her paramour, then-FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, on Sept. 2, 2016.  She said that she had just been in a meeting to discuss “TPs for D” (talking points for the director, i.e. FBI Director James Comey) to brief the president on their investigation.

The rabidly anti-Trump Strzok played a key role in the Clinton email and Russia investigations.

While it’s not clear which investigation Page was referring to in the text, it looks bad for Obama because he had forcefully claimed throughout 2016 that he does not get involved with pending investigations. “FULL STOP.”

Fox News’ Chris Wallace asked him about widespread concerns that the Clinton email case was being handled on political grounds. Obama stressed that there was “a strict line” that he never crossed. “I do not talk to the attorney general about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations,” he insisted.

“I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI — not just in this case, but in any case. FULL STOP. PERIOD. Guaranteed. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department,” he said.

It will be interesting to see what the Democratic spin is on this. Some of the Congressional oversight committees are getting very close to the truth about the government corruption during the Obama Administration.  An FBI informer testified before Congress today about the Uranium One scandal. It seems as if the noose is tightening on those involved in corruption in our nation’s capital. Voters need to keep in mind that none of this corruption would have been exposed if Hillary Clinton had been elected President. It would have been buried so deep that no one would ever find it. It is time for the voters to ask themselves what kind of government they want for America. Do they want a government that dispenses justice equally or a government that allows a corrupt cabal of crooks to use their offices for their personal enrichment?

The American Thinker Asks A Very Good Question

On January 29th, The American Thinker posted an article with the following title:

Why aren’t the Democrats horrified by the corruption at the FBI and DOJ?

That is a really good question. When the government bureaucracies can be politicized in one direction, there is nothing to say that they can’t be politicized in another direction. What has happened in our upper levels of government is a threat to all of us.

The article reports:

The public has seen only a fraction of the material that, according to those who have seen it, proves higher-ups at the DOJ and FBI colluded to clear Hillary Clinton of any responsibility for her many crimes.   These operatives knew she had ignored all the rules regarding classified material by having her own private server.  They likely all knew the Clinton Foundation was nothing but a pay-to-play outfit to enrich the Clintons (only 6% of its funds went to charity).  And this bunch still thought she was qualified to be President,  this woman with a forty-year history of lying, cheating and scheming!  

Are there no essential values among these persons privileged to wield power over the rest of us?  In collusion with the Clinton campaign,  the DNC, the FBI and DOJ worked together to produce and then use fabricated opposition research to obtain FISA warrants to spy on possibly hundreds of people connected to the Trump family and campaign.  They did this to bring him down by any means necessary.  As many people have observed, this is the stuff of the former Soviet Union and third-world dictatorships.

The article concludes:

What is so distressing is that no elected Democrat,  not one, has expressed shock or concern that these agencies have been so corrupted.  Given what we know so far, every member of Congress and every member of the press should  be equally horrified.  This level of criminality should offend everyone, every citizen and every elected official.  But to the left, it’s just another dust-up created by those rascally Republicans.   Use our law enforcement agencies to destroy a campaign and/or to bring about the impeachment of a President?   “So what” seems to be the attitude on the left.  The Constitution be damned.  

Among these culprits, who include Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok,  there is no honor, no respect for the law, the truth or the American people.   

Shouldn’t the Democrats be as angry about this as Republicans?  Has their hatred for Trump so impaired their judgment that they have sacrificed their integrity,  their respect for ethics and the law?   How else to explain their full engagement in the cover-up, fueled by their wholesale denial of the facts? 

Once DOJ IG Michael Horowitz’s report is released,  and if the FISA memo is made public, much more will be clear to everyone.  One has to wonder how the Democrats will recover their lost dignity.  Their many months-long defense of the indefensible will have done significant damage to their brand unless Democrat voters are as unscrupulous, as unconcerned about honor and ethics as their elected representatives have proven to be.

Isn’t the lack of integrity in the upper levels of government under the Obama Administration something all Americans should be concerned about?

Complex Scandals Generally Don’t Make Mainstream Media Headlines–Aside From The Politics, They Are Too Hard To Follow

The Conservative Treehouse has been an excellent source to follow the corruption that was rampant in the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Obama Administration. The mainstream media has largely ignored this story partially for political reasons and partially because it is very complex and hard to follow. The mainstream media is simply hoping that the average American voter will ignore the story rather than sort through it. Hopefully they are wrong–many of the actions taken by the FBI and DOJ under the Obama Administration were illegal and should have jail terms attached to them. Whether or not they will remains to be seen.

These are some highlights from The Conservative Treehouse:

Proving, once again, this is a well thought-out strategy, Chuck Grassley’s newest partly declassified version of the Graham-Grassley memo highlights the DOJ didn’t care about Bruce Ohr meeting with Christopher Steele until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found out.

Page #5 of the Grassley Memo (pg. 7 pdf), highlights the FBI interviewed DOJ Deputy Attorney Bruce Ohr on November 22nd, and December 12th, 2016 [FD-302 Interview Notes], yet didn’t take any action about their discoveries until Inspector General Michael Horowitz found out and revealed the interviews on December 7th, 2017.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse includes screen shots and inserts of memos and letters backing up the claims made in the article.

More highlights:

The Devin Nunes HPSCI memo revealed that Fusion-GPS employee Nellie Ohr, was funneling Clinton Opposition research to her husband Bruce Ohr for use by the DOJ in assembling the ‘Clinton-Steele dossier’; as justification to acquire a FISA “Title 1” surveillance warrant; for retroactive surveillance authority against Carter Page and the Trump Campaign.

…Obviously the ‘small group’ within the DOJ and FBI didn’t have any issue with the activity of Bruce and Nellie Ohr during 2016 until IG Horowitz found out and exposed it in 2017.

After a few feeble attempts at brush back pitches… with the release of the lesser redacted memo, Senator Chuck Grassley took a 3-1 pitch and rocked a solid double off the wall, putting him on Second Base and Devin Nunes confidently standing on Third.

With no-one out, and first base open, the Democrats are stressed.

Adam Schiff calls for a pitching change as House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte steps up to the plate.

However, they can’t pitch around Goodlatte because clean-up hitter Horowitz is on deck. Schiff needs to bring the infield in close and hope for a double-play. They’re down to their last pitcher and he doesn’t look good.

In the next few months we are going to find out if the principle of equal justice under the law still applies in America.

Please follow the link at the beginning of this post to read the entire article. It is chilling that this was going on right under the noses of the oversight committee.

The Emails Speak For Themselves

An article at The Conservative Treehouse posted today includes the following screenshot of an email from Peter Strzok:

The article reports:

Peter Strzok then goes on to say when/if the full FOIA is released, presumably post-election, Jim, Trisha, Dave and Mike are going to have to figure out how to deal with the discrepancy:

…”I’m sure Jim and Trisha and Dave and Mike are all considering how things like that will play out as they talk among themselves.”

“Jim” is likely James Baker, the Chief Legal Counsel for FBI Director James Comey.

“Trish” is likely Trisha Beth Anderson, Office of Legal Counsel for the FBI.  [Anderson was hired for the DOJ, by AG Eric Holder, from Eric Holder’s law firm.]

“Dave” and “Mike” currently remain unknown.

So it would appear, James Baker and Trisha Anderson, the legal advisers at the top of the FBI leadership apparatus, were both aware the September 2nd, 2016, FOIA release was manipulated to conceal part of Hillary Clinton’s questions and answers.

Perhaps now we can better understand the importance of this specific text message as it was released by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

This message by Strzok shows a team of FBI officials intentionally conspiring to withhold “inflammatory” Clinton investigation evidence, from congress. And the decision-making goes directly to the very top leadership within the FBI.

Congress has oversight responsibilities over the FBI and DOJ. It is time that they start making recommendations based on what they have learned. I am sure there are some junior members of both organizations who have not been involved in the chicanery that the senior members have engaged in who would be qualified for promotions. The fact that many of these people still have jobs is totally unbelievable.

Prepare For An Interesting Week

Theoretically, this is the week the infamous four-page memo detailing constitutional abuses by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Justice (DOJ) will be released. The battle over the release of that memo and what is supposedly in it continues.

On Thursday, Sharyl Attkisson posted an article at The Hill explaining some aspects of the battle over the release of the memo. Ms. Attkisson formerly worked for CBS. She resigned from CBS after her investigative reporting was getting too close to the truth. Her reporting on the Fast and Furious scandal received an Emmy Award.

The article at The Hill reports:

What happens when federal agencies accused of possible wrongdoing also control the alleged evidence against them? What happens when they’re the ones in charge of who inside their agencies — or connected to them — ultimately gets investigated and possibly charged?

…First, there’s the alleged improper use of politically funded opposition research to justify secret warrants to spy on U.S. citizens for political purposes.

Second, if corruption is ultimately identified at high levels in our intel agencies, it would necessitate a re-examination of every case and issue the officials touched over the past decade — or two — under administrations of both parties.

This is why I think the concerns transcend typical party politics.

It touches everybody. It’s potentially monumental.

It is becoming obvious that America citizens had their Fourth Amendment rights violated. The questions is whether of not anyone is going to be held accountable.

The article continues:

This week, the FBI said it was unfair for the House Intelligence Committee not to provide its memo outlining alleged FBI abuses. The committee wrote the summary memo after reviewing classified government documents in the Trump-Russia probe.

The FBI’s complaint carries a note of irony considering the agency has notoriously stonewalled Congress. Even when finally agreeing to provide requested documents, the Department of Justice uses the documents’ classified nature to severely restrict who can see them — even among members of Congress who possess the appropriate security clearance. Members who wish to view the documents must report to special locations during prescribed hours in the presence of Department of Justice minders who supervise them as they’re permitted to take handwritten notes only (you know, like the 1960s).

What most people don’t know is that the FBI and Department of Justice already know exactly what Congressional investigators have flagged in the documents they’ve reviewed, because three weeks ago the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its own summary memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The committee also referred to the Department of Justice a recommendation for possible charges against the author of the political opposition research file, the so-called Trump dossier: Christopher Steele.

Ms. Attkisson concludes here article by saying:

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has officially warned the House Intelligence Committee not to release its memo. It’s like the possible defendant in a criminal trial threatening prosecutors for having the audacity to reveal alleged evidence to the judge and jury.

This is the first time I can recall open government groups and many reporters joining in the argument to keep the information secret. They are strangely uncurious about alleged improprieties with implications of the worst kind: Stasi-like tactics used against Americans. “Don’t be irresponsible and reveal sources and methods,” they plead.

As for me? I don’t care what political stripes the alleged offenders wear or whose side they’re on. If their sources and methods are inappropriate, they should be fully exposed and stopped.

The memo is supposed to be released next week–mid week–after the President’s State of the Union speech. There have been some suggestions that he read the memo instead of giving the speech. That is not an idea I support, but I understand why some people might suggest it.

The scandals abound. Who actually authorized the sale of uranium to Russia? Who decided Hillary Clinton would not be charged with a crime? What was the basis for a FISA warrant allowing spying on the Trump campaign and transition team? At what point did the upper echelon of the FBI and DOJ become political? Are the FBI and the DOJ subject to the U.S. Constitution?

Hopefully, we will have the answers to at least some of these questions by the end of next week. If the answers are what they seem to be, some of our government needs to answer some very pointed questions.

Insight Into Some Questionable Actions By The Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today that explains what went on behind the scenes regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server. There are a lot of details in the article, so I strongly suggest that you follow the above link and read the entire article. I will try to list the highlights.

The article reports:

From the first, these columns have argued that the whitewash of the Hillary Clinton–emails caper was President Barack Obama’s call — not the FBI’s, and not the Justice Department’s. (See, e.g., here, here, and here.) The decision was inevitable. Obama, using a pseudonymous email account, had repeatedly communicated with Secretary Clinton over her private, non-secure email account.

These emails must have involved some classified information, given the nature of consultations between presidents and secretaries of state, the broad outlines of Obama’s own executive order defining classified intelligence (see EO 13526, section 1.4), and the fact that the Obama administration adamantly refused to disclose the Clinton–Obama emails. If classified information was mishandled, it was necessarily mishandled on both ends of these email exchanges.

Since President Obama was running the Justice Department during the investigation, it stands to reason that Mrs. Clinton was not going to be charged. Particularly since President Obama was also involved in the mishandling of classified information. The Obama Justice Department was not really known for its justice.

Some insight from the article:

…According to Senator Johnson, a draft dated June 30, 2016 (i.e., five days before Comey delivered the final version), contained a passage expressly referring to a troublesome email exchange between Clinton and Obama. (I note that the FBI’s report of its eventual interview of Clinton contains a cryptic reference to a July 1, 2012, email that Clinton sent from Russia to Obama’s email address. See report, page 2.) The passage in the June 30 draft stated:

We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal email domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal email extensively while outside the United States, including from the territory of sophisticated adversaries. That use included an email exchange with the President while Secretary Clinton was on the territory of such an adversary. [Emphasis added.] Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal email account.

The article explains that “according to a Strzok–Page text, a revised draft of Comey’s remarks was circulated by his chief of staff, Jim Rybicki. It replaced “the President” with “another senior government official.”

The powers that be involved in the investigation then realized that the change would not be enough–the press might ask who the senior government official was.

The article continues with what happened next:

Consequently, by the time Comey delivered his remarks on July 5, the decision had been made to avoid even a veiled allusion to Obama. Instead, all the stress was placed on Clinton (who was not going to be charged anyway) for irresponsibly sending and receiving sensitive emails that were likely to have been penetrated by hostile intelligence services. Comey made no reference to Clinton’s correspondent:

We also assess that Secretary Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail domain was both known by a large number of people and readily apparent. She also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. [Emphasis added.] Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.

So it was okay to let Hillary Clinton take the fall since she was not going to be held accountable anyway.

The article concludes:

On July 2, with the decision that she would not be indicted long since made, Mrs. Clinton sat for an interview with the FBI — something she’d never have done if there were a chance she might be charged. The farce was complete with the Justice Department and FBI permitting two subjects of the investigation — Mills and Clinton aide Heather Samuelson — to sit in on the interview as lawyers representing Clinton. That is not something law enforcement abides when it is serious about making a case. Here, however, it was clear: There would be no prosecution.

All cleaned up: no indictment, meaning no prosecution, meaning no disclosure of Clinton–Obama emails. It all worked like a charm . . . except the part where Mrs. Clinton wins the presidency and the problem is never spoken of again.

I think Congress has wasted an awful lot of money investigating the wrong people. I also think that the Mueller investigation was set up to make sure that the information that is coming out now would never see the light of day. The talking point will be that all of the corruption at the highest levels of the Obama Administration is just being brought out now to distract from the Mueller investigation. Actually, based on the evidence in each investigation, it is pretty obvious that it is the other way around. The Mueller investigation may be the insurance policy that was discussed in the emails between Ms. Page and Mr. Strzok. Time will tell.

Felonies Were Committed, What Happens Next?

The Hill posted an article yesterday about Ex-FBI Director James Comey’s original statement closing out the probe into Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server.

The article reports:

…(the statement) was edited by subordinates to remove five separate references to terms like “grossly negligent” and to delete mention of evidence supporting felony and misdemeanor violations, according to copies of the full document.

…The full draft, with edits, leaves little doubt that Comey originally wrote on May 2, 2016 that there was evidence that Clinton and top aides may have violated both felony and misdemeanor statutes, though he did not believe he could prove intent before a jury.

“Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statute proscribing gross negligence in the handling of classified information and of the statute proscribing misdemeanor mishandling, my judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case,” Comey originally penned.

That passage, however, was edited to remove the references to “gross negligence” and “misdemeanor mishandling,” leaving a much more generic reference to “potential violations of the statutes.”

The FBI has told Congress the edits were made by subordinates to Comey and then accepted by the then-director before he made his final announcement July 5, 2016 that he would not pursue criminal charges against Clinton.

This is disturbing.

The article further notes:

“The edits to Director Comey’s public statement, made months prior to the conclusion of the FBI’s investigation of Secretary Clinton’s conduct, had a significant impact on the FBI’s public evaluation of the implications of her actions,” Johnson (Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) wrote, noting recently released text messages show some senior FBI officials involved in the case harbored political hatred for Trump or preference for Clinton.

“This effort, seen in light of the personal animus toward then-candidate Trump by senior agents leading the Clinton investigation and their apparent desire to create an ‘insurance policy’ against Mr. Trump’s election, raise profound questions about the FBI’s role and possible interference in the 2016 presidential election,” Johnson wrote.

One edit that concerned Johnson was a decision to delete from Comey’s original draft a reference to the FBI working on a joint assessment with the intelligence community about possible national security damage from the classified information that passed through Clinton’s nonsecure email servers.

“We have done extensive work with the assistance of our colleagues elsewhere in the Intelligence Community to understand what indications there might be of compromise by hostile actors in connection with the private email operation,” Comey originally wrote.

The reference to the rest of the intelligence community was edited out, the memos show.

One of the main problems with this nonsecure server is the impact it may have had on the national security of the country. It is widely believed that Hillary Clinton’s private server was easily hacked by unfriendly intelligence services. That is a threat to national security. That is the true problem with the server, other than the question of what was being hidden by the destruction of evidence and the use of a private server.

As I have previously stated, I do not want to see Hillary Clinton go to jail, although I do remember that Charles Colson went to jail after Watergate. Mr. Colson’s time in jail actually had a very positive impact on his life–it changed him from a self-centered, ruthless politician to a man who genuinely cared for the well being of other people. Hmmm.

Lest We Forget

During her blame-everyone-else-for-her-loss tour, Hillary Clinton referred to the scandal regarding her private email server as a big ‘nothingburger.’ She also referred to it as all the publicity regarding her ’emails’–not her private email server. Lest we forget, I would like to remind everyone that the private server she set up was not only illegal, it was a national security risk. I realize that the following Press Release is rather long, but please read it to the end. What was going on at the State Department during the Obama Administration was criminal.

The following Press Release was posted by Judicial Watch yesterday:

Judicial Watch: New Clinton Emails Show Classified Information Sent to Clinton Foundation Employees

Emails also show Abedin providing government plane and hotel reservations to Chelsea Clinton for trip to Germany while employed at Clinton Foundation

Abedin tells Band that she has ‘hooked up’ people from the Russian American Foundation with ‘the right people’ at the State Department

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 2,078 pages of documents revealing more instances of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sending and receiving classified information via an unsecured email server. They also show Clinton’s daughter Chelsea and others involved with the Clinton Foundation receiving special favors from Huma Abedin, the former secretary’s deputy chief of staff.

The records were obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking: “All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-‘state.gov’ email address.”

The new documents included 115 Clinton email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 432 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department. These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.

On December 6, 2010, Secretary Clinton shared classified information with non-U.S. government employees Justin Cooper, then-aide to President Clinton who helped manage Hillary Clinton’s unsecure email system, and Clinton Foundation director Doug Band (neither of whom held security clearances). The email instructs her aide Oscar Flores to “print for Bill” (presumably Bill Clinton). The email exchange, which involved allegations of the theft of foreign aid by Bangladeshi banker and major Clinton Foundation donor Muhammad Yunus, started with an email from an unidentified person to State Department official Melanne Verveer, who forwarded her exchange on to Hillary Clinton, who then sent it on to Flores, Cooper and Band.

Yunus was accused of embezzling $100 million from the Grameen Bank he founded and was removed from it, although the charges were never proven, and Yunus reportedly returned the money. Subsequently, Clinton’s State Department was accused of threatening IRS action against the Bangladesh prime minister’s son in an attempt to stop a Bangladesh government investigation of Yunus.

In a similar instance on March 14, 2011, State Department official Maria Otero emailed Clinton information about the Grameen Bank/Foundation that was again deemed classified as Confidential by the State Department and redacted under FOIA exemption B1.4(D) – “Information specifically authorized by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy … Foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.” Clinton then responds to Otero using her HDR22@clintonemailcom account and copies Abedin on Abedin’s unsecure email account, huma@clintonemail.com.

In May 2010, Ben Ringel, whose donations to the Clinton Foundation Judicial Watch previously documented, asked Abedin to intervene in an employment dispute on behalf of a USAID employee. Abedin agreed, telling Ringel to forward the woman’s documents to her official State Department email account.

In a May 21, 2011, email exchange sent to Abedin’s unsecure account, then- Ambassador Princeton Lyman sent information relating to his conversation with South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit that is also redacted and classified as “Confidential.”

On July 17, 2012, Abedin forwarded to her private email account for printing a call briefing sheet for Clinton’s upcoming call with Joint Special Envoy Kofi Annan, which was classified Confidential and redacted under FOIA exemption B1.4(D).

The new Abedin emails also reveal additional instances in which Clinton’s then- scheduler Lona Valmoro forwarded the former secretary of state’s detailed daily schedule to top Clinton Foundation officials.

The new emails also reveal a number of favors that were requested and carried out.

In May 2010, Abedin tells Band that she has “hooked up” people from the Russian American Foundation with “the right people” at the State Department after Abedin received a request from Russian American Foundation Vice President Rina Kirshner, forwarded by Clinton Foundation donor Eddie Trump (no relation to President Trump).

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 9:41 PM, Huma Abedin <Huma@clintonemail.com> wrote:

Hi Rina – wanted to connect on meeting at state department. Eddie trump passed on your email. Will be in touch soon

From: Rina Kirshner

Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 11:29 AM

To: Huma Abedin

Subject: Re: Eddie Trump/Doug Band

Ms. Abedin,

Just wanted to follow up and express our gratitude. I was contacted today by Ms. Christina Miner who invited us to be part of the US-Russia Cultural Sub-Working Group meeting next week. Thank you very much for all your assistance – if there is any way we can be of assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Rina Kirshner

From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 12:19:12

To: Doug Band

Subject: FW: Eddie Trump/Doug Band

fyi – we hooked her up with the right people here

The Russia-American Foundation was staffed by Clinton political supporters and operatives, received over $260,000 in grants for “public diplomacy” from the Clinton State Department, and its leadership was supportive of Obama’s Russia policies.

In July 2011, when Chelsea Clinton, using the alias Diane Reynolds and the email address dreynolds@clintonemail.com, was planning to fly to Germany to see the U.S. women’s soccer team play, her travel agent asked Abedin to confirm that Chelsea’s travel costs could be placed on her parents’ credit card. In response, Abedin tells the agent that she can “stand down” from making arrangements to get Chelsea to Germany, as Chelsea and Bari Luri, Chelsea’s Clinton Foundation chief of staff, would be made part of the “official delegation” going to the match and she would “fly on official govt plane both ways and they will take care of hotels and all transportation.” Chelsea was a fully employed Clinton Foundation executive at this time.

In July 2011, Clinton tells Abedin that she doesn’t wish to fly on the same airplane with Michelle Obama on their way to Betty Ford’s funeral: “I’d be honored to speak. Is it ok that we and Mrs. O take two separate planes?”

A December 15, 2012, email chain shows that a committee of Clinton staffers, including Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Jake Sullivan and Philippe Reines, was required to draft a “doctors statement” as to why Hillary supposedly fainted due to “dehydration,” causing her supposedly to hit her head and suffer a “concussion” in December 2012. The same committee then prepared a “discharge statement” when Hillary was released from the hospital.

“These shocking new Clinton emails show why the Justice Department should reevaluate, reopen, or reinvigorate Clinton, Inc. investigations,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The casual violation of laws concerning classified material and noxious influence peddling show the Clinton State Department was ‘corruption central’ in the Obama administration.  No wonder Clinton’s allies in the State and Justice Departments had been slow-walking and hiding these emails.”

The Explanation You Might Not Have Heard

Hot Air posted an article today about the resignations and firings at the State Department. The article explains that State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy had planned to stay on during the Trump Administration, but then suddenly resigned. So what happened?

Rex Tillerson visited the State Department on Wednesday and met with the people there. The Washington Post reported that the Trump Administration was looking to replace the State Department’s undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Then suddenly Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned.

The article at Hot Air sheds light on a possible explanation:

Patrick Kennedy was the person working behind the scenes to downgrade classified emails found on Hillary Clinton’s private server. When the first SECRET email turned up on Clinton’s server, Kennedy intervened three different times to ask the FBI to change its mind about the classification.

As it turned out, Kennedy’s attempt to fix the problem for Hillary didn’t matter. There were 110 email chains on her server that were classified (at the time they were sent not upgraded as the State Department repeatedly claimed) so reclassifying one email would not have helped much.

In addition to his role as fixer for Clinton at the State Department, Kennedy was ultimately responsible for decisions regarding security at the Benghazi consulate. The review board did not find Kennedy responsible for the decision to cut security, but chargé d’affaires Gregory Hicks testified he believed Kennedy should have been held at least partly responsible.

The article quotes a Politico report stating that Patrick Kennedy disputed the classification of some of Hillary Clinton’s emails at least three times.

The above may explain the sudden resignation of Patrick Kennedy. Actions have consequences, and he is one example of the swamp that needs to be drained. The State Department is not supposed to be political,. Obviously it was. It would be healthy for the country to see that change.

Perspective

The National Review posted an article today about all the gnashing of teeth on the Democratic side of the aisle about the letter FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress (sent to Republicans and Democrats–not just Republicans as the Clinton campaign claimed). The article reminds us that Director Comey is not the person actually responsible for the problems of the Democratic Presidential Candidate.

The article reports:

In July, the same James Comey contorted himself into rhetorical pretzels to avoid recommending Hillary Clinton be prosecuted for exposing classified information, despite laying out a compelling case that she would be facing serious charges were she possessed of any surname besides the one she has. He settled on saying that while she was “extremely reckless,” her actions did not constitute “gross negligence,” a distinction that remains unclear.

Democrats were miffed that Comey had the audacity to go even that far, but, all in all, he was praised as a fine public servant. As my colleague Andy McCarthy has explained at length, Comey’s press conference was an extravagant departure from Justice Department protocol, but Democrats were more than comfortable pardoning Comey’s excesses then, since he had acted in the service of helpful ends. He just wanted to “stay out” of the election, they explained.

The feeling among Democrats is that when Director Comey wrote the letter to Congress, his actions aided the Trump campaign.

The article reminds us of the root of the problem:

This is the type of ends-justifies-means thinking that has guided Democrats since the beginning of this process, conveniently occluding their ability to recall that this whole problem is entirely of their own making. It was Hillary Clinton who set up a private e-mail server, almost certainly to evade federal transparency laws. It was Hillary Clinton who, in violation of the law, sent dozens of classified e-mails from the unsecured private account run through that server. It was Hillary Clinton who swore under oath that she had surrendered to investigators all work-related e-mails. It was Democrats who then went and nominated the woman under FBI investigation. And it was Loretta Lynch, a Democratic attorney general, who met with Bill Clinton behind closed doors on an airport tarmac in Phoenix and compromised any possibility of her trustworthiness when it came to this investigation.

It is already becoming obvious to those of us old enough to remember the 1990’s that a Hillary Clinton presidency would be nothing more than Hillary Clinton operating under a veil of secrecy and covering up any of her actions that Americans became aware of. That is not a recipe for a successful presidency.

 

 

Sometimes You Have To Go Across The Pond To Find Out What Is Going On Here

On Sunday, The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about the re-opening of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.

The article reports the following:

James Comey‘s decision to revive the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server and her handling of classified material came after he could no longer resist mounting pressure by mutinous agents in the FBI, including some of his top deputies, according to a source close to the embattled FBI director.

‘The atmosphere at the FBI has been toxic ever since Jim announced last July that he wouldn’t recommend an indictment against Hillary,’ said the source, a close friend who has known Comey for nearly two decades, shares family outings with him, and accompanies him to Catholic mass every week.

…According to the source, Comey fretted over the problem for months and discussed it at great length with his wife, Patrice. 

He told his wife that he was depressed by the stack of resignation letters piling up on his desk from disaffected agents. The letters reminded him every day that morale in the FBI had hit rock bottom.

There is also another theory as to why the investigation was re-opened–we are still awaiting more emails from Wikileaks. It would be embarrassing (to say the least) if the Wikileaks emails made the case for charging Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information. It seems to me that based on Director Comey’s original statement, we already have that case, but having Wikileaks confirm it would further create the appearance of a compromised FBI.

The thing to remember here is that the person ultimately responsible for this mess is Hillary Clinton. The personal server was set up to avoid scrutiny of the symbiotic relationship between the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s State Department. It has become obvious that President Obama and other officials sent emails to addresses on that server and were aware of it. The fact that the issue of the personal server was never confronted during Mrs. Clinton’s term as Secretary of State raises the question of complicity. That might explain why the Executive Branch of our government is having so much trouble getting to the truth of this matter.

Will It Make A Difference?

I don’t know whether the fact that FBI Director James Comey is reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails will matter to anyone or not. Everyone (including me) is tired of hearing about Hillary’s private server. I suspect if you took a poll you would find out that half of the people polled believe that whatever new information the FBI finds will not make a difference in her support and the other half believe that whatever new information the FBI finds will never lead to any penalty for her actions.

However, John Hinderaker at Power Line had an interesting take on this story. He posted a story today that pointed out the fact that the first instinct of the Clinton campaign when faced with this story was to lie.

The article reports:

I find it revealing that when the Clinton campaign launched its attack on Comey, it led off with a lie. In her press conference last night, Hillary Clinton accused Comey of partisanship, falsely claiming that he had sent his letter only to Congressional Republicans. In fact, Comey followed the standard protocol, addressing his letter to the chairmen of the relevant committees and sending copies to the ranking minority members of each committee:

This statement in the Power Line article is followed by a complete copy of the letter, including the people it was addressed to. Follow the link to Power Line to see the letter.

The article concludes:

But that’s not all: Hillary’s campaign manager, John Podesta, echoed Hillary’s smear:

“FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen,” Podesta said in a statement.

Note that this was a written statement, not an off the cuff characterization at a press conference. So the campaign’s lie–Comey is a partisan, he only communicated with Republicans!–was deliberate. That being the case, it is hard to take the Democrats’ indignation seriously.

It is unfortunate that this is coming up a week or so before the election, but all this could have been avoided by not using a private server or by complying with subpoena requests when they were made. The only person responsible for this scandal is Hillary Clinton. Her staff simply reflected her handling of classified material. Had she cooperated with the investigation, it would simply be an unhappy memory by now, but that is not the way the Clintons historically handle their own bad behavior. Bill Clinton, as President, rode out his numerous scandals by delaying, distracting, and lying. That seems to be a popular strategy in the Clinton family.

A Republic Or A Banana Republic?

Yesterday Kelly Riddell posted an article at The Washington Times entitled, “The Obama-Clinton banana republic” with the subtitle, “The nation’s core values would continue to suffer under a Clinton presidency.”

In the article, she describes some of the traits of a healthy republic:

A fair, balanced, and independent Justice Department. Neutral diplomats, who serve the public over politics, at the State Department. An unbiased, honest, mainstream media.

She then notes that these values have eroded during the Obama Administration.

The article then cites examples of that erosion:

Two days after The Associated Press broke the story that Mrs. Clinton was using a private server in March 2015, John Podesta sent an email to her attorney Cheryl Mills, asking if they should decline to turn over emails between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama to Congress, invoking “executive privilege.”

The email clearly implies Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton had been exchanging emails on her private server — a huge potential security threat, given everything the president sends or receives is highly classified.

FBI notes also signal Mr. Obama was indeed aware and had corresponded with Mrs. Clinton on her private server long before the news broke.

In an April 2015 interview with Huma Abedin, a longtime Clinton aide, the FBI alerted her of an exchange between Mr. Obama — using a pseudonym — and Mrs. Clinton from 2012, where she exclaimed: “How is this not classified?” the report says.

As I noted in a previous post, Ms. Abedin also asked for a copy of the email–an insurance policy?

The article continues:

The FBI’s documents expose there was a “shadow government” at the State Department that tried to protect Mrs. Clinton throughout the email probe.

“There was a powerful group of very high-ranking State officials that some referred to as ‘The 7th Floor Group’ or ‘The Shadow Government.’ This group met every Wednesday afternoon to discuss the FOIA process, Congressional records, and everything Clinton-related to FOIA/Congressional inquiries,” the FBI’s interview summary said.

…The media has responded to these scandals by largely ignoring them — they’re too concerned with Donald Trump’s rhetoric than they are with anything that would impugn Mrs. Clinton’s or Mr. Obama’s record.

Instead, Yahoo’s Katie Couric was looking to do pieces that “would showcase her [Clinton‘s] personality and has a lot of viral potential,” according an email she sent to Mr. Podesta.

Our Founding Fathers put in the U.S. Constitution the concept of equal justice under the law. Under the Obama Administration we have obviously lost that concept. Unfortunately under a Hillary Clinton Administration, it could be permanently lost.

To anyone who is reading this who is voting for Hillary Clinton because you are an upstanding citizen, remember that when justice is unequally applied, even a small mistake can be used to make war against an ordinary citizen. I remind you that the only person who went to jail because of the Benghazi attack was the filmmaker, and he was innocent. The legal action that sent Dinesh d’Souza to jail was totally extreme in relation to the crime he committed–an illegal campaign donation.

As America approaches banana republic status, any breach of any law, regardless of how minor, can be used to put any America who opposes the government agenda in jail. Are you ready for that?

 

 

Why This Story Keeps Coming Back

Even during a political campaign, most stories have a limited life-span. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Hillary Clinton’s emails and private server. Clinton supporters see this as just another unwarranted attack on this innocent person, but unfortunately the facts that are slowly leaking out tell a very different story.

Townhall posted a story tonight stating that the FBI made a side deal with some of the witnesses in the email investigation to destroy their laptop computers. That seems odd to say the least. Usually evidence in an investigation is not destroyed very quickly.

The article at Townhall points out some irregularities in the investigation:

This was just your average FBI investigation, you see, in which the same woman was: (1) a subject of the probe, (2) a key witness in the probe, (3) a dubious immunity recipient, and (4) a lawyer to the primary subject — who was allowed to sit in on her quasi-client’s interview with investigators. And if that wasn’t enough, the FBI reportedly agreed to permanently destroy two pieces of evidence after reviewing them. I’ll defer to law enforcement experts as to whether or not this sort of thing is remotely standard practice, but to a layperson, it seems like yet another peculiarity surrounding this case.

On Saturday, Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review with his comments on the investigation. Please follow the link above to read the entire article–it details some of the technicalities in the investigation that were obviously mishandled.

The article points out:

Second, though Comey says the FBI is in no position to enforce attorney ethical rules that barred Mills from representing Clinton at the interview, this was not just an FBI interview. According to the director, several Justice Department lawyers also participated. Those lawyers, too, are bound by the ethical rules. They had an obligation to object to this unseemly arrangement and to do what was in their considerable power to prevent it.
Finally, as Shannen Coffin has pointed out, Mills was not just violating an ethical rule. Her representation of Clinton runs afoul of federal law. Section 207 of the penal code makes it a crime for a former government official to attempt to influence the government on behalf of another person in a matter in which the former official was heavily involved while working for the government. It was against the law for Mills, as an attorney, to attempt to influence the Justice Department’s consideration of the case against Clinton.
The reason this scandal will not go away is that the investigation has been compromised at every turn. We don’t have a “Watergate” media that is willing to report on the obstructionism and lying that has been going on both by Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration. There are still a few Americans left who believe in the integrity of the FBI and want to know why that integrity was seemingly compromised.

 

Now I Get It

I will admit that sometimes I just don’t understand why things happen the way they do. When James Comey listed the laws Hillary Clinton broke and then said there was no reason to pursue the case, I was very confused. That made no sense to me. If she broke the law, why was the case dropped? Well, now I know.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today that explains why Hillary was not prosecuted and also explains Huma Abedin’s response when shown a copy of an email from President Obama to Hillary Clinton’s private server. I strongly suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire article. It explains a lot.

The article notes:

The FBI had just shown her (Huma Abedin) an old e-mail exchange, over Clinton’s private account, between the then-secretary of state and a second person, whose name Abedin did not recognize. The FBI then did what the FBI is never supposed to do: The agents informed their interviewee (Abedin) of the identity of the second person. It was the president of the United States, Barack Obama, using a pseudonym to conduct communications over a non-secure e-mail system — something anyone with a high-level security clearance, such as Huma Abedin, would instantly realize was a major breach.

Abedin was sufficiently stunned that, for just a moment, the bottomless capacity of Clinton insiders to keep cool in a scandal was overcome. “How is this not classified?”

She recovered quickly enough, though. The FBI records that the next thing Abedin did, after “express[ing] her amazement at the president’s use of a pseudonym,” was to “ask if she could have a copy of the email.”

Why would she want a copy of the email? Because if she were ever charged with anything, she would have proof that President Obama was also guilty. If President Obama knows she has a copy of that email, what are the chances of her being charged with anything? It’s called insurance.

Andrew McCarthy sums up the situation very well:

To summarize, we have a situation in which (a) Obama knowingly communicated with Clinton over a non-government, non-secure e-mail system; (b) Obama and Clinton almost certainly discussed matters that are automatically deemed classified under the president’s own guidelines; and (c) at least one high-ranking government official (Petraeus) has been prosecuted because he failed to maintain the security of highly sensitive intelligence that included policy-related conversations with Obama. From these facts and circumstances, we must deduce that it is possible, if not highly likely, that President Obama himself has been grossly negligent in handling classified information.

A thorough investigation into the email scandal would reveal the fact that President Obama was also negligent–therefore the Obama Administration cannot afford a thorough investigation into the email scandal. That explains the stonewalling of Congressional committees investigating the scandal and why the Justice Department and the State Department have been so uncooperative. This is a serious problem for our republic. When the corruption goes all the way to the top, who is going to hold our leaders accountable? When did we reach the point where the rule of law only applied to the ‘little people’?’

If Hillary Clinton is elected President, we will have the potential of the most corrupt administration in American history. We will, in fact, have become a banana republic–where the rules only apply to some of us. Mrs. Clinton is a danger to both our country and our Constitution.

A Very Complex Smoking Gun

The smoking gun has appeared in the Clinton email scandal. Unfortunately some aspects of it are so technical that those of us who think a megabyte is something you do at McDonald’s may struggle with it (Just for the record, I put myself in that category).

The Washington Post is reporting the story today. The headline of the story is, “Hillary Clinton‘s IT guy asked Reddit for help altering emails, a Twitter sleuth claims.”

These are the important parts of the story:

In the posts, stonetear asks for technical advice on retaining and deleting email messages that are more than 60 days old, as well as on removing the email address of an unnamed “VERY VIP” client from email archives.

“Hello all,” one of the posts begins. “I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP’s (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a PST file. Basically, they don’t want the VIP’s email address exposed to anyone. … Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?”

The screen shot of one of the requests for help altering the emails:

emailsredditThe timeline:

The timing of two of Stonetear’s Reddit posts coincides with events in the Clinton email saga. One post, dated July 24, 2014, came one day after the House Select Committee on Benghazi and the State Department reached an agreement on producing records. The second, which is dated Dec, 10, 2014, and describes a 60-day email retention policy, came the same month that a longtime Clinton aide requested that their email retention policy be shortened to 60 days.

What cover up?

If you are going to do something illegal (like destroy subpoenaed evidence), you really should make sure that everyone involved has the knowledge required to do their part. This is really sloppy criminality. No self-respecting criminal would expect an IT guy to do this unless they were sure they would never be prosecuted (even if they were caught). That alone should provide food for thought.

 

 

 

If You Haven’t Been Paying Attention This Weekend…

Oddly enough, the FBI chose the holiday weekend to release the investigation notes of Hillary Clinton’s email practices. This is traditionally a time when no one is paying much attention to the news. Whether that is by design or not, we can’t be sure–but we sure can wonder.

So what was in the notes released? The American Thinker posted a summary yesterday.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

First and foremost: Hillary has blamed her head injuries for startling memory lapses.

Julia Edwards of Reuters reported that “Hillary Clinton told federal investigators she did not recall all the briefings she received on handling government records while U.S. secretary of state because of a concussion suffered in 2012.”

A moment’s reflection reveals that Hillary Clinton has admitted that she was unable to adequately perform job functions directly related to national security because of a brain injury.  Donald Trump is already pushing this issue, but it is also critically important that a major campaign against the NFL – which is opening its pre-season now – stressing the seriousness of concussions’ effects on mental functions has been underway.  The American public, especially males, is on notice to take concussions very seriously.

Hillary Clinton has admitted to a disability due to her brain injury.

We have no way of knowing how serious that brain injury was or if it is currently impacting her intellectual capacities.

The article continues:

Second, the documents reveal that Hillary, who justified her private server on the grounds that she wanted to carry only one handheld device, actually had 13 of them in a four-year period.  What on Earth is the story there?  Almost everyone who votes carries a cell phone, and I daresay the percentage who have needed to have 13 different devices in the space of four years is well below a tenth of one percent.

…Third, if we believe the story offered by Hillary, a laptop computer full of classified documents – her email archive disappeared when mailed with the USPS:

A laptop containing a copy, or “archive,” of the emails on Hillary Clinton’s private server was apparently lost—in the postal mail—according to an FBI report released Friday. Along with it, a thumb drive that also contained an archive of Clinton’s emails has been lost and is not in the FBI’s possession.

This is stunning negligence, and absolutely striking news: that some of the nation’s highest secrets were made available to any foreign power monitoring the secretary of state and willing to snatch mail from the capable hands of the Post Office.  Who on Earth would subject national security to the tender mercies of the USPS?

Where was the nationwide alert to recapture the missing archive?  Did the Clinton campaign notify security agencies?

This is disqualifying negligence.

The negligence and lack of regard for national security on the part of Secretary of State Clinton is obvious. Would she show the same negligence if (horrors) she were elected President? I don’t know. What I do suspect is that all of this information will not make a bit of difference to her supporters. I also wonder what Mrs. Clinton is going to look like at the debates. Make-up can hide a lot of things, but mental lapses would be very obvious in a debate setting. I don’t know if all the talk of health issues is out there to lower expectations of her debate performance. I have no doubt that the only way she wins a debate with Donald Trump is to push his buttons until he loses his cool. Hopefully his handlers have coached him thoroughly enough so that will not happen. We shall see.