Undoing The Spin

The Gregg Jarrett website posted an article today about an attempt to set the record straight about recent events in Detroit. The mainstream media has pushed the narrative that law enforcement officers are the problem–not the solution.

The article notes the current narrative:

Unfortunately, with the contention between protesters and law enforcement in other cities such as Portland, New York City and Minneapolis, federal agencies face a public relations battle. Vandals, protesters and many Democratic leaders are painting a public image of police and federal agents as agitators.

The article reports the truth:

U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider wants the record set straight on federal agent presence in Detroit. Schneider declared anyone saying federal agents are being used to handle or interfere with protests is “irresponsible rhetoric” and they are in fact helping to combat the increase in violent crimes.

“The United States Department of Justice will not sit on the sidelines while murderers spread violence in our neighborhoods,” said Schneider. The Associated Press reported that Schneider discussed “the federal officers sent to Detroit have been assigned to capture fugitives, address illegal gun possession and break up drug trafficking, among other tasks.”

…Schneider also alluded to the nonsensical public opinion, saying,” Federal agents have been in Detroit for decades. Some of what we are doing is no different than from what I did as an assistant United States attorney years ago when my bosses were Eric Holder and President Barack Obama” said Schneider was appointed U.S. attorney by President Trump. Likely the mainstream media won’t repeat that information, furthering the false narrative that federal agents are being sent into cities to disrupt protests and heighten tensions.

These riots are not isolated incidents. Someone is financing and planning them. The ultimate solution is to find the person funding the unrest, put them in jail, and cut off the funding.

Awaiting The Inspector General’s Report

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the Inspector General‘s Report regarding the Justice Department decisions during the 2016 election campaign.

The article reports:

The comprehensive IG final draft report on the FBI handling of the Clinton investigation was circulated for principal feedback on May 16th. Following typical timelines of IG ‘draft reports’ we anticipated the Final Report release around the first week of June.

Well, Senator Chuck Grassley has just scheduled a hearing on the release for next Tuesday June 5th. So anticipate the final publication and public release any day now.

We are about to find out if we actually have the equal justice under the law that we are promised in our Constitution.

An Interesting Take on The Charges Against Michael Flynn

I think most of us have wondered how the Mueller investigation convinced Michael Flynn to make a plea deal when the recently released notes from the investigation show that no one thought he was lying. Conventional wisdom says that the FBI threatened him with action against a family member and that he had been bankrupted by the entire escapade up to that point. Career military officers do not make enough money to pay for the kind of legal help that being investigated by Mueller requires. Particularly when the FBI and members of the former administration have been illegally listening to your telephone calls.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday that might provide some clues as to exactly what happened.

The article states:

Now former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik is weighing in.

Kerik believes Mueller was pressing Michael Flynn to take a plea deal so the Special Counsel would not be caught in their lies and corruption.

But now those lies are coming out into the open!

The article includes the following tweet:

Mueller’s attempts at avoiding discovery have not been going well lately. I am hoping that continues. The discovery process may be the only way we can get to the bottom of the corruption within the Mueller investigation.

When The Evidence And The Charges Don’t Add Up

The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that Senator Chuck Grassley has written a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein requesting further information on the handling of the case against General Michael Flynn. The Senate has documents stating that the FBI did not believe that General Flynn lied, but later the FBI charged him with lying to the FBI. Senator Grassley wants to resolve the contradiction.

This is the letter:

It is time that the Department of Justice and the FBI recognized that Congress has oversight responsibilities over them and respected Congress’ authority. Hopefully this request will be promptly answered.

 

Slowly But Surely The Truth Quietly Comes Out

The Friday-night news dump is a tradition of politicians and Washington types who are forced to release information they don’t want to release and are hoping no one will actually notice it. The latest Friday-night news dump has to do with redactions made on the FBI Russia report that have more to do with protecting the mistakes of the FBI than protecting national security (as claimed by those doing the redacting).

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at The National Review today citing some of the redactions and why the reasons for them are invalid.

The article cites a number of examples:

When the House first issued its report on the Russia investigation, a heavily redacted portion (pp. 53–54) related that Trump’s original national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, had pled guilty to a false-statements charge based on misleading statements to FBI agents about his December 2016 conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

…But there was one intriguing disclosure in the redacted report: Flynn pled guilty “even though the [FBI] agents did not detect any deception during Flynn’s interview.” There was no elaboration on this point — no discussion of why Flynn was interrogated by FBI agents in the first place; no insight on deliberations within the FBI and Justice Department about whether Flynn had deceptive intent; no explanation of how he came to be charged months later by Mueller’s prosecutors even though the trained investigators who observed Flynn’s demeanor during the interview did not believe he’d lied.

This is what the unredacted Russian report reveals:

  • Elaborate on why the FBI did not believe Flynn had lied, including quotations from Comey’s testimony.
  • Reveal that for some period of time during 2016, the FBI conducted a counterintelligence (CI) investigation of Flynn.
  • Note that top Obama Justice Department and FBI officials provided the committee with “conflicting testimony” about why the FBI interviewed Flynn as if he were a criminal suspect.
  • Illustrate that the FBI and Justice Department originally insisted on concealment of facts helpful to Flynn that are already public.

Meanwhile Flynn’s reputation has been ruined, his finances wrecked, and his life turned upside down. I recently posted an article about the Special Prosecutor‘s dealings with Michael Caputo, a campaign worker for President Trump. He has also had his life ruined and his financial stability destroyed by the Mueller investigation. The Mueller investigation has now reached the point where its goal is intimidating and ruining the lives of people who hold political views different from those on the investigating team. It is long past time for this charade of an investigation to stop.

Please follow the link above to the article at The National Review to see what else the FBI really didn’t want the American public to know.

Admiral Mike Rogers Retires

The Conservative Treehouse reported yesterday that Admiral Mike Rogers has retired as National Security Agency Director. He will be replaced by Army General Paul Nakasone. Ordinarily this would not be a particularly newsworthy event, but there are some things that have been going on behind the scenes that make this noteworthy.

The article reminds us:

It does not seem coincidental that today, in the background of events, there is also a great deal of activity within the aggregate intelligence community (FBI/DOJ).  As DNI Dan Coats and NSA Director Mike Rogers are together in a formal and official capacity for the final time, the FBI was purging usurping agents (Page, Baker). Indeed with Admiral Rogers exit from service, he is now able to testify regarding his knowledge of prior FISA issues.

You might remember it was DNI Dan Coats and NSA Mike Rogers who worked together to investigate the FISA abuses and declassify the FISA court opinion presented by Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer in April 2017.  It was also Mike Rogers who went to see President Elect Donald Trump in November of 2016 and alerted him to the counterintelligence surveillance being conducted by FBI and DOJ officials within the Obama Administration.

The most important aspect of Admiral Rogers’ retirement:

Indeed with Admiral Rogers exit from service, he is now able to testify regarding his knowledge of prior FISA issues.

Stay tuned.

The Circus Continues

The National Review posted an article today by Andrew McCarthy on the subject of the questions Robert Mueller would like to ask President Trump. The article is written on the assumption that the list of leaked questions is relatively accurate.

Andrew McCarthy makes some very good points as to why the Justice Department should block any interview of President Trump by the Special Prosecutor.

Andrew McCarthy points out that there is no evidence of a crime:

A president should not be subjected to prosecutorial scrutiny over poor judgment, venality, bad taste, or policy disputes. Absent concrete evidence that the president has committed a serious crime, the checks on the president should be Congress and the ballot box — and the civil courts, to the extent that individuals are harmed by abusive executive action. Otherwise, a special-counsel investigation — especially one staffed by the president’s political opponents — is apt to become a thinly veiled political scheme, enabling the losers to relitigate the election and obstruct the president from pursuing the agenda on which he ran.

That is what we are now witnessing.

Pretextual appointment of the special counsel
Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel for two reasons: (1) ostensibly to take over a counterintelligence probe; (2) in reality, as a cave-in to (mostly) Democratic caviling over Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey — which was lawful but incompetently executed. Democrats contended that Comey’s dismissal, in conjunction with Comey’s leak of Trump’s alleged pressure to drop the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, warranted a criminal-obstruction probe. That is, the pretext of obstruction was added to “Russia-gate,” the already-existing pretext for carping about the purported need for a special counsel.

Neither of these reasons was a valid basis for a special-counsel investigation.

Andrew McCarthy also explains that the whole premise of the investigation is flawed:

As we have repeatedly noted, a counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. To the extent it has a “subject,” it is a foreign power that threatens the United States, not an American believed to have violated the law. A counterintelligence investigation aims to gather information about America’s adversaries, not build a courtroom prosecution. For these (and other reasons), such investigations are classified and the Justice Department does not assign prosecutors to them, as it does to criminal cases. Counterintelligence is not lawyer work; it is the work of trained intelligence officers and analysts. It is not enough to say that Justice Department regulations do not authorize the appointment of a special counsel for a counterintelligence probe. The point is that counterintelligence is not prosecution and is therefore not a mission for a prosecutor.

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is extremely informative. What we have going on right now is a very expensive attempt to prove that the 2016 election victory was stolen from Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t. Get over it. She was a very flawed candidate that somehow committed numerous crimes that the Justice Department chose to ignore. The innate sense of fairness of the American voter and the American voters’ belief in equal justice under the law probably had something to do with Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016. The Special Prosecutor needs to stop spending money looking for a crime and deal with the crimes that were actually committed–mishandling of classified material, pay-for-play as illustrated by Uranium One, fixing the Democratic primary, etc.

This Sums Up The Past Two Or Three Years

On Friday, a website called American Greatness posted an article about the abuses and misdeeds of the ruling class in Washington in recent years.

The article has a good summary of where we have been:

Bureaucratic Collusion
Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and their collaborators in the FBI, Department of Justice, and CIA did anything but professional law enforcement. Their contempt for the rule of law is plain. In reality, they appear to have colluded to:

The article concludes:

Andrew McCarthy sums it up: “…we have collusion all right: the executive branch’s law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus placed by the Obama administration in the service of the Clinton campaign. To find that, you don’t need to dig. You just need to open your eyes . . . After nearly two years with no corroboration, a fair-minded commentariat would . . . be asking why the FBI and Justice Department presented unverified information to a federal court in order to spy on Americans.”

A rogue ruling class has successfully undermined the constitutional foundation of America, a crime far worse than Watergate. They remain a fundamental threat to our civil liberties.

The Inspector General’s report is supposed to come out May 8. It will be interesting to see how much of it is made public. There is enough information out there already to convince most Americans that certain parts of their government are corrupt. If that corruption is not dealt with and those responsible held accountable, then America will have lost the concept of equal justice under the law.

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.

More Fallout From The Inspector General’s Report

Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about information included in the Inspector General‘s report.

The article reports:

Tucked inside the inspector general’s report on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was the story of an August 2016 phone call from a high-ranking Justice Department official who Mr. McCabethought was trying to shut down the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clintonwas running for president.

The official was “very pissed off” at the FBI, the report says, and demanded to know why the FBI was still pursuing the Clinton Foundation when the Justice Department considered the case dormant.

Former FBI officials said the fact that a call was made is even more stunning than its content.

 James Wedick, who conducted corruption investigations at the bureau, said he never fielded a call from the Justice Department about any of his cases during 35 years there. He said it suggested interference.

“It is bizarre — and that word can’t be used enough — to have the Justice Department call the FBI’s deputy director and try to influence the outcome of an active corruption investigation,” he said. “They can have some input, but they shouldn’t be operationally in control like it appears they were from this call.”

Although the inspector general’s report did not identify the caller, former FBI and Justice Departmentofficials said it was Matthew Axelrod, who was the principal associate deputy attorney general — the title the IG report did use.

The article continues with some very curious events surrounding the investigation into the Clinton Foundation. During the time of the investigation, McCabe’s wife was running for office in Virginia and received a $700,000 donation from an organization linked to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a close friend of the Clintons.

The article concludes:

Those familiar with Justice Department operations said they don’t believe the principal associate deputy attorney general would have made the McCabe call without consulting with his supervisor, which would have been Ms. Yates.

“In my experience these calls are rarely made in a vacuum,” said Bradley Schlozman, who worked as counsel to the PADAG during the Bush administration. “The notion that the principle deputy would have made such a decision and issued a directive without the knowledge and consent of the deputy attorney general is highly unlikely.”

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official who is now a legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the proper chain of command for the Justice Department to follow up on an investigation would involve the head of the Criminal Division, not the PADAG, calling the FBI.

“There is no way I would have ever called the FBI on my own unless I raised concerns with my boss or my boss told me to do so,” he said. “I have a hard time believing this guy did this without consulting with Sally Yates unless he was a complete lone ranger and off the reservation.”

The inspector general is examining the way the FBI and Justice Department handled investigations into Mrs. Clinton during the election.

The report on Mr. McCabe was a separate matter, stemming from questions about a media leak he made to try to protect his reputation, the inspector general said.

There is another Inspector General’s report due out shortly. It is my hope that the corruption that is attached to the Clintons and possibly others high up in our government will be revealed and dealt with.

The Questions I Haven’t Heard The Media Ask

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

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

Power Line listed six of these questions:

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

Works for me.

 

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

The article at The Conservative Treehouse notes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

 

The Link To The Report

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

News From The Coming Week

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

The first story deals with the recent budget fiasco.

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

Sometimes The Misdirection Just Gets Old

Remember the GoFundMe page set up by Andrew McCabe? Well, there was more to it than GoFundMe–it wasn’t really about the money.

The Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday detailing some of the people behind setting up the fund.

The article reports:

The campaign, which has raised $554,520, ceased taking donations on April 2nd.

In response to the outpour of support, McCabe issued the following statement:

“The outpouring of support on GoFundMe has been simply overwhelming and has led to contributions that have left us stunned and extraordinarily grateful. The GoFundMe campaign began organically, with generous people spontaneously giving to accounts that others had set up. I never imagined that I would need to rely on this type of assistance. The fact is that if I am going to continue taking a stand against the unfair way I have been treated, I will need the help of a talented and courageous team behind me,” the statement read.

 “Hopefully our efforts, fueled by your incredible support, will encourage others to stand up for themselves, and the truth, as well. It is not lost on me that each contribution reflects not just someone’s well wishes, but also their acknowledgement that something in this situation is not fair or just. We wish to thank every donor from the bottom of our hearts for your support.”

 The article at The Gateway Pundit cites a report from a website called Law & Crime. That website states:

 Was this apparent “grassroots effort” actually a PR campaign put together by high-priced, well-connected, and experienced PR professionals in order to take advantage of the #Resistance’s seething anger at the Trump administration? A Monday report in Slate suggested as much. Law&Crime can now confirm that some of those allegations are true, while some of them appear to oversell the issues at hand. […]

Melissa Schwartz is a crisis and communications consultant who currently works for The Bromwich Group. After previously working for then-Senator Barbara Mikulski, the Department of Justice, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (where she served under her once-and-future boss), Schwartz joined The Bromwich Group as their chief operating officer in 2012. She’s also McCabe’s present spokesperson.

The Bromwich Group is a K Street consulting and PR firm headed by Michael R. Bromwich. Immediately prior to founding the firm, Bromwich served as the first director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management under President Barack Obama.

It seems that the corruption and cover-ups always lead back to the same inner circle.

 

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.

The Information Is Finally Coming Out

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

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

An article at Power Line notes:

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

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

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

Getting Through The Establishment In Washington Is A Fight

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

The article concludes:

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

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

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

Getting Rid Of The Deep State Is A Slow Methodical Process

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 Swamp Reacts To Being Drained

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

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

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

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

The Inspector General’s Report And Real Collusion

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

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

The article at Townhall reports:

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

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

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

The article concludes:

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

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

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

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

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

Hanged On Hayman’s Gallows

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

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

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

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

The article reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Charles Krauthammer Had It Right

The following is a quote from Charles Krauthammer in October of 2016:

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: This brings us back full circle to the beginning. The question was originally: Why did she have the private server? She said convenience, obviously that was ridiculous…

It was obvious she was hiding something.

And think about it, she set it up in 2009, before becoming Secretary of State. So, she anticipated having exchanges that she would not want anyone to see. So, we’ve been asking ourselves on this set for a year almost, what exactly didn’t she want people to see?

Well, now we know.

And as we speculated, the most plausible explanation was the rank corruption of the Clinton Foundation, and its corrupt — I don’t know if it’s illegal, but corrupt relationship with the State Department.

And her only defense as we saw earlier– the Democrats are saying, well, there was nothing she did… that was corrupted by donations. You can believe that if you want, but there’s a reason that people give donations in large amounts, and that’s to influence the outcome of decisions. So, this — we are getting unfolding to us, exactly what she anticipated having to hide, and it is really dirty business.

The quote was posted at Real Clear Politics.

This is a quote from then FBI Comey’s statement about Hillary Clinton’s emails. It is taken from the Los Angeles Times:

FBI investigators have also read all of the approximately 30,000 e-mails provided by Secretary Clinton to the State Department in December 2014. Where an e-mail was assessed as possibly containing classified information, the FBI referred the e-mail to any U.S. government agency that was a likely “owner” of information in the e-mail, so that agency could make a determination as to whether the e-mail contained classified information at the time it was sent or received, or whether there was reason to classify the e-mail now, even if its content was not classified at the time it was sent (that is the process sometimes referred to as “up-classifying”).

From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time; and eight contained Confidential information, which is the lowest level of classification. Separate from those, about 2,000 additional e-mails were “up-classified” to make them Confidential; the information in those had not been classified at the time the e-mails were sent.

The FBI also discovered several thousand work-related e-mails that were not in the group of 30,000 that were returned by Secretary Clinton to State in 2014. We found those additional e-mails in a variety of ways. Some had been deleted over the years and we found traces of them on devices that supported or were connected to the private e-mail domain. Others we found by reviewing the archived government e-mail accounts of people who had been government employees at the same time as Secretary Clinton, including high-ranking officials at other agencies, people with whom a Secretary of State might naturally correspond.

This helped us recover work-related e-mails that were not among the 30,000 produced to State. Still others we recovered from the laborious review of the millions of e-mail fragments dumped into the slack space of the server decommissioned in 2013.

With respect to the thousands of e-mails we found that were not among those produced to State, agencies have concluded that three of those were classified at the time they were sent or received, one at the Secret level and two at the Confidential level. There were no additional Top Secret e-mails found. Finally, none of those we found have since been “up-classified.”

The underline is mine.

Regardless of how you feel about Hillary Clinton, mishandling classified information is a crime that ordinary people go to jail for committing. If there are not consequences for breaking laws, why do we have those laws?