Tag Archives: James Comey

Investigating The Investigators

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Get out the popcorn, this is going to get very interesting. Byron York at The Washington Examiner posted an article yesterday about the firing of an FBI investigator.

The article reports:

House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes has issued an angry demand to the FBI and Department of Justice to explain why they kept the committee in the dark over the reason Special Counsel Robert Mueller kicked a key supervising FBI agent off the Trump-Russia investigation.

Stories in both the Washington Post and New York Times on Saturday reported that Peter Strzok, who played a key role in the original FBI investigation into the Trump-Russia matter, and then a key role in Mueller’s investigation, and who earlier had played an equally critical role in the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation, was reassigned out of the Mueller office because of anti-Trump texts he exchanged with a top FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was having an extramarital affair. Strzok was transferred to the FBI’s human resources office — an obvious demotion — in July.

Note that this man was also involved in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Might that explain why no formal charges were brought after an obvious breach of the law occurred?

The FBI and the DOJ have consistently stonewalled Congress when Congress has sought to exercise its role oversight responsibility.

The article concludes:

As a result, Nunes said he has instructed committee staff to draw up a contempt of Congress citation for Rosenstein and for FBI Director Christopher Wray. The chairman promised to take action on the citation before the end of December unless the FBI and DOJ meet all the committee’s outstanding demands.

Obviously Nunes is angry that he did not know about the real reasons for Strzok’s demotion. And he is equally angry with the FBI’s and DOJ’s treatment of the committee. Contempt of Congress is a big move for lawmakers to take, especially against an agency controlled by the same party as leaders of the House. But remember, House Speaker Paul Ryan has already said the FBI and DOJ “stonewalled” the House, and he demanded that it comply immediately. That was five weeks ago. Now, after this latest episode, it seems likely that leaders in Congress are becoming increasingly frustrated with what they see as the FBI and DOJ jerking lawmakers around. At some point, they will act.

It is becoming obvious that the Washington swamp includes many agencies that until recently have avoided politics. There is an awful lot that needs to be cleaned out.

It May Be Time For A New Attorney General

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I like Jeff Sessions. I think he is a nice man, but I can’t figure out why he has not enforced some of the laws he is responsible to enforce.

On Thursday, PJ Media posted an article detailing some comments made by former Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom about James Comey, Robert Mueller, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama.

The article reports:

Appearing on Fox News’ Varney & Co., Kallstrom told the host that it “was obvious to anybody that knows anything” that former President Barack Obama was not going to let James Comey indict Clinton.

“It turns out — unfortunately — he was a political hack,” Kallstrom said flatly. “I think he maybe started out in an honorable way. His opinion of himself is sky high —  just an unbelievable guy with just an arrogance about him…. It got him in trouble because I think he thought he was Superman and he found out that he wasn’t.”

Kallstrom blamed the Clintons for Comey’s descent into hackery.

“The dogs are always going to bite your heels when you’re dealing with the Clintons,” he explained. “Look how long the public, the American people have been dealing with the crime syndicate known as the Clinton Foundation… just look at what’s in the public domain. The Clintons have been taking advantage of their stations in life for so long.”

…Kallstrom pointed out that just “the unmaskings of names alone is a major scandal.” Requests to identify Americans whose names surfaced in foreign intelligence reporting — known as unmasking — was done at a freakishly rapid rate in the final months of the Obama administration.

“We got all these major crime things bubbling – all of which were 20 times bigger than Watergate! And nothing seems to be happening… the attorney general is in a coma!” he said.

I like Jeff Sessions. I think he is an honorable man. I also think he needs to investigate some of the corruption that is swirling around the previous administration or find another job.

 

A Very Different Perspective On Yesterday’s Indictments

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Yesterday Conservative Treehouse posted a very intriguing analysis of the indictment of Paul Manafort. I strongly suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article, but I will try to highlight it here.

The article reports:

As the Special Counsel Robert Mueller indictment documents show with increasing clarity, the entire enterprise surrounding the Washington DC Russian Investigation is not about law, it’s about creating and controlling leverage.

…The 2016 election caused the balance of power to shift favorably toward political forces that are external to the DC machine, ie. President Trump and the deplorables.

The subsequent action by Robert Mueller, Democrats, the Media (writ large), and President Trump is a confrontation over political goals and objectives. The DC machine, the “swamp” per se’, is attempting to frame leverage against actions adverse to their political interest.

…Paul Manafort is being leveraged toward a political objective; his legal jeopardy is negligible. The documents, and the underlying charges, are intended to make life miserable for Mr. Manafort – not to end with some traditionally framed criminal consequence, ie. prison.

Mr. Manafort’s wealth is being held as leverage, compliance, toward his acquiescence within the game; nothing more. He’ll likely end up with some misdemeanor charge, a financial fine good enough for media optics and perhaps -at worst- some probation for not following the FARA rules. That’s it.

Conversely, on the other side of the political continuum, Tony and John Podesta are just now entering the process of being leveraged toward compliance on the Clinton side of the equation. Like Manafort, Tony Podesta most likely will not face legal jeopardy beyond a similar outcome.

In the backdrop to the Clinton dynamic you have Mueller putting the deeper part of the Deep Swamp and remaining black hat intelligence community, on notice to knock-it-off with the selling of U.S. policy toward gaining their own financial indulgences.

The article concludes:

Senator Schumer wants to keep his leverage right where it is currently; and stop ‘his side’ from feeling the effects of Mueller’s omnidirectional legal admonishments. If Mueller indicts Tony Podesta senator Schumer loses political leverage.

Nothing about the current dynamic is factually encompassing President Trump; it is all about optics, narratives and political leverage. However, everything about this dynamic is factually encompassing the existential threat that outsider Trump represents to the established way of life in the DC Swamp.

Toward the end goal of disrupting DC swamp-life, Mueller and Trump appear aligned in common cause. Robert Mueller from the perspective of trying to get the external influence agents to the U.S. stopped; and President Trump from the policy perspective of America-first, which coincidentally is in alignment with Mueller’s patriotic goals to stop influence agents.

That’s the bigger part of the BIG picture. Everything else is smoke and mirrors.

Washington is all about power (and a swamp that does not want to be drained).

Why The FBI And The Department Of Justice Would Really Rather Not Talk To Congress

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article this morning with a possible explanation as to why the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are withholding information from Congress. Evidently a lot of rather dubious actions that would have been buried had Hillary Clinton been elected President are beginning to come to light.

The explanation comes from a retired FBI agent. He explains:

As a retired FBI Special Agent with over two decades of experience in counterintelligence, I’d like to make a point that Scott and Paul are surely aware of, but which it’s useful to keep at the front of your mind.

Scott regularly refers to the Trump dossier as the “Rosetta Stone” of the “muh Russia” narrative. That’s true, but it’s helpful to go one step further. The real importance of the Trump dossier from a criminal law standpoint lies in the use it was put to for official government purposes. To understand that we need to know whether the dossier was used to justify the initiation of Full Investigations (FIs), according to the relevant AG Guidelines for National Security investigations.

The former agent explains the problem with that:

The full relevance of these considerations can be seen from Scott and Paul’s review of just how threadbare the dossier really was in terms of authentication. If it was used in applications to the FISC with the knowledge that it was “oppo research” and likely not credible, and if that knowledge was withheld from the FISC, I suspect we’re looking at the real possibility of criminal conduct. And bear in mind that such applications (for FISA coverage relating to a candidate for President or a President-elect) would have been approved only at the highest levels before submission to the FISC.

To put two names to that process: James Comey and Loretta Lynch. If they knowingly deceived the FISC–and that depends, as far as we can tell at this point, largely on how they may have used the “dossier”–they’re looking at serious criminal liability.

Here we have an example of the FBI and the DOJ being used for political purposes.

The agent concludes:

Investigations of the magnitude we’re discussing necessarily include a fair number of people and the testimony of those other people would likely shed valuable light on the true nature of the process that was followed, who made the decisions, what was known about the credibility of information that was used to justify official actions, who really believed those justifications, the nature of coordination with other government agencies, etc. This is where the investigative rubber will hit the road.

This sort of political spying is the sort of thing that happens in dictatorships where leaders are grasping to hold on to power. I guess President Obama thought that the election of Hillary Clinton would be his third term as President.

Whatever Happened To Elliot Ness?

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In case you are too young to remember, Elliot Ness was:

…the man most often recognized for destroying the multimillion-dollar breweries operated by Al Capone. Also responsible, in part, for Capone’s arrest and conviction of tax evasion, Ness was instrumental in ceasing the power Capone had over the city of Chicago.

Ness was also responsible for turning around Cleveland, Ohio, in the mid-1930s, when the city was overcome with crime and corruption. Weeding out 200 crooked police officers and bringing 15 other officials to trial for criminal behavior, Ness set many precedents. One such milestone was Ness’s efforts to correct Cleveland’s traffic problems, establishing a separate court in which all traffic cases were heard.  (quoted from biography.com)

Elliot Ness worked in law enforcement from 1927 to 1944. He was known as an corruptible example of integrity that was totally trustworthy. This was a man who successfully drained his local swamps. We need him now.

Investor’s Business Daily posted an article yesterday listing a few of the Democratic scandals in the Obama Administration that have somehow not had consequences.

Here are a few highlights:

Exonerating Clinton before the facts were in. First was the fact that former FBI director James Comey had, contrary to what he told Congress, drafted what amounted to an acquittal letter for Hillary Clinton months before he’d even interviewed her regarding her unsecured private email server.

Comey interviewed Clinton on July 2, 2016, and three days later announced that he was closing the case because “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue it.

…Setting up a liberal slush fund. Next, we learned that Justice was using settlement money as a slush fund to support liberal groups, to the explicit exclusion of any non-liberal ones. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte released what he called “smoking gun” emails to that effect.

Under Obama, the Justice department started sending money from legal settlements to third parties not involved directly in the litigation. At the time, there were lots of complaints (including in this space) that the money was being poured into left-wing groups. And Trump ended the practice when he took office.

…Papering over the Uranium One scandal. We’ve also only recently learned, thanks to intrepid reporters at The Hill, that the FBI had a substantial amount of evidence showing that Russian nuclear officials had been involved in a number of illegal schemes designed to expand its nuclear business in the U.S. — which included bribery, extortion and racketeering.

Worse, they had all this before top Obama administration officials — including Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder — signed off on a deal that gave Russia effective control of 20% of uranium in the U.S. by approving Russia’s purchase of Uranium One.

…Using Democratic-sponsored Russian dirt on Trump. Now that we know the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee — despite repeated denials — financed the so-called Trump dossier, a bigger question arises.

What did the FBI know and when did they know it?

Despite being labeled as “salacious and unverified” by former FBI director James Comey, it has served as a road map for journalists and federal investigators pushing the Trump-Russia meddling story.

The article concludes:

In the end, the FBI didn’t pay Steele, but as York notes, the question remains: “Did the FBI or other agencies use any information from the dossier as a basis for warrant requests before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court?”

House Republicans announced this week that they’ve started a probe into the FBI’s handling of both the Clinton email case and the Uranium One deal. Now they have a fresh angle on the dossier to pursue.

This is a good start. The Justice Department is supposed to be above politics. Obama tried to turn it into a political tool. The public needs to know how far he got.

Who do you trust to investigate this? Are the Justice Department’s hands clean? Are the FBI’s hands clean? Are the Special Prosecutor’s hands clean? Are Congress’ hands clean?

If you look at the cast of characters involved in or signing off on the Uranium One deal, you will see names you recognize as investigating President Trump for Russian connections. In what universe does that make sense?

The swamp is deep, and at this point we need an Elliot Ness who will go after the guilty parties in a manner showing integrity, impartiality, and honesty. This is not a political matter–this is an exercise that will determine whether or not all of us live under the same laws. If there are two sets of laws–one for the Washington elite (swamp) and one for the little people, our republic will not survive.

 

It’s Just Squirrelly!

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I have been known to make up my own words when I consider them appropriate. On Friday, The Daily Caller posted a detailed piece on the timeline and stories surrounding the Uranium One deal. It is a rather long article, and I strongly suggest that you follow the link above and read the entire piece. I will try to hit the highlights here.

The article reports:

New FBI information about corruption in a Clinton-approved uranium deal with Russia raises questions about Clinton’s actions after the FBI broke up a deep-cover Russian spy ring in 2010.

For a decade, the FBI ran an operation called Ghost Stories to monitor and rip apart a deep-cover Russian agent network. Ghost Stories tracked a ring Russian spies who lived between Boston and Washington, D.C., under false identities. It was one of the FBI’s most elaborate and successful counterintelligence operations in history.

After the FBI arrested 10 of the spies in June, 2010, Secretary of State Clinton worked feverishly to return the Russian agents to Moscow in a hastily arranged, lopsided deal with Putin.

Obviously, she did not want the spies hanging around for further questioning.

The story continues:

The day the FBI arrested the Russian agents, on June 28, 2010, the day before the secretary of state’s husband, Bill Clinton, was to give a speech in Moscow. A Kremlin-connected investment bank, Renaissance Capital, paid the former president $500,000 for the hour-long appearance.

An unnamed Hillary Clinton spokesman told ABC News that there was “no reason to think the Secretary was a target of this spy ring.”

That was a lie.

The article concludes:

So here are the key facts: The FBI found that Russian intelligence had targeted Hillary Clinton before and during her time as secretary of state. Clinton’s spokespersons denied that this was so. Clinton opposed the Magnitsky sanctions on officials tied to Putin. After her husband received a half-million dollars in Moscow from a Kremlin-connected investment bank, Clinton moved with unusual speed to whisk the ring of 10 Russian spies out of the country and back to Moscow. She had the lopsided swap take place over a long summer weekend, before the FBI was finished with the spies, and before the spies could stand trial. While the FBI was separately investigating Russians involved with buying Uranium One, she approved the sale of American uranium to Russia’s nuclear weapons agency. Principals in the sale then plowed $145 million into her family foundation and projects.

Several questions come to mind. Precisely what did the FBI know about Russia’s spy service targeting Hillary Clinton and her inner circle? Why did Clinton deny through spokespersons that she had been a Russian target? Why did she work so feverishly to get the spies out of the United States and back to Russia? Why has the FBI leadership not been more vocal in touting one of its greatest counterintelligence successes ever? And why did nobody in the FBI leadership raise this issue during the 2016 Russian election meddling controversy?

The question in my mind is whether or not anyone will be held accountable for the transfer of uranium to Russia or the very strange donations from overseas that the Clinton Foundation received before and during the time that Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. It is also illustrative to note that when Hillary Clinton lost the election for President, much of the overseas money coming into the Clinton Foundation dried up. I truly believe that the Clinton Family is today’s version of Tammany Hall. It will be difficult to hold them accountable for any of their misdeeds.

Some Things Just Don’t Add Up

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It is becoming very obvious to even the most casual observer that Washington, D.C. is truly a cesspool. And it seem as if every time someone is about to drain the cesspool, someone else comes along and throws an obstacle in the way. It looks as if that’s where we are with the Uranium One scandal investigation. For almost a year we have had a special prosecutor looking under every rock and pebble to find evidence of collusion between President Trump and any Russians available and finding nothing. Now we have Congress investigating a scandal with actual evidence, and somehow a major witness is being blocked from testifying. It doesn’t make sense.

The American Thinker posted an article today about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is blocking testimony in the Uranium One investigation.

The article reports:

Perhaps as startling as the revelation that the FBI was investigating the Hillary Clinton/Russia/Uranium One collusion  and that key figures like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe knew about it and said nothing, is the refusal by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to remove the non-disclosure agreement gag order on the FBI informant who arguably could put Bill and Hillary Clinton and a few others in federal prison.

It was said the Jeff Sessions recused himself from all things Russian because of election campaign conflicts but is it really because he thought it would insulate him from having to divulge what he knew about Uranium One and the people who at the very least knew about the deal, some who approved the deal, including past and present members of the FBI, the DOJ, and Special Counsel Robert Miller’s team? Is Jeff Sessions part of the Uranium One cover-up? If not, then he needs to explain why he is thus far refusing Sen. Chuck Grassley’s request to lift the gag order imposed by the Obama administration as part of the Uranium One cover-up.

The article concludes:

The question is now whether Jeff Sessions wants to help President Trump to drain the swamp be vacating the gag order and letting evidence come forth proving the Clintons orchestrated the greatest criminal conspiracy in U.S. history at the expense of American national security or whether he is just another swamp thing committed to clogging up the drainage pipes. Justice may be blind, but it should never be gagged.

It is getting harder and harder to tell the good guys from the bad guys in Washington. I am hoping that Jeff Sessions is one of the good guys, but I wonder about his decision on this matter.

Some Random Thoughts On Government Corruption

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These comments are loosely based on an article that appeared in The Independent Journal Review (IJR) yesterday.

It is becoming apparent that there were some very strange aspects of the deal that gave Russia control of twenty percent of America‘s uranium resources. There are also some questions as to whether or not the part of the agreement that required that the uranium in that deal not leave the country.

This is the basic summary from The Independent Journal Review article:

The FBI informant who worked undercover for years was “threatened” with prosecution by the Obama Justice Department if he told Congress about the unfolding Russia nuclear corruption case, according to his attorney.

The confidential witness, an American businessman, alleged he witnessed transactions and discussions showing the Russian nuclear industry tried to woo Bill and Hillary Clinton and attempted to influence the Obama administration.

Attorney Victoria Toensing told the Hill her client was first asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement by the FBI. When he wanted to bring troubling information to Congress, the Obama DOJ “threatened him with loss of freedom” last year, she said.

Sounds like a cover-up to me. Some of the names that have been mentioned in connection with the Justice Department withholding information from Congress are Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, and Robert Mueller. It seems that a lot of people in the FBI and Department of Justice decided that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next President and doing what was right was unnecessary and possibly not a good career move.

The IJR further reports:

Toensing says her client possesses information about claims made by Russian executives regarding how they “facilitated” the Obama administration’s controversial Uranium One deal and sent millions to an entity that assists the Clinton Foundation.

Hillary Clinton was secretary of state when the Uranium One deal was approved.

“There was corruption going on and it was never brought forward,“ Toensing told the Hill. ”And in fact, the sale of the uranium went on despite the government knowing about all of this corruption. So he’s coming forward. He wants the right thing to be done, but he cannot do it unless he is released from the NDA.”

It is time to purge the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation of everyone who was involved in this investigation. It is time to relieve Robert Mueller of his duties as Special Prosecutor–it is becoming obvious that he is a dirty cop. This is the deep state. Every day the deep state continues is a threat to the freedom and safety of Americans.

The Dangers Of Dating Your Memoranda

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Katic Pavlich posted an article at Townhall today about some rather inconvenient memos from former FBI Director James Comey that have recently appeared.

The article reports:

The FBI records vault released a series of draft statements Monday afternoon authored by former FBI Director James Comey. The drafts are about the conclusion of the criminal investigation into former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server to host and transmit top secret information.

…Unfortunately the drafts are completely redacted, but take note of the date: May 2, 2016.

…As shown by the FBI’s tweet, the final statement about the case was delivered on July 5, 2016 but was being drafted in May. This was two months before Comey made the official announcement that Clinton would not be referred to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. It was also before Comey had interviewed nearly a dozen key witnesses in the case, including Clinton herself. Clinton was interviewed on July 2, 2016 for just under four hours.

I have never been involved in police work, but it seems to me that it would be wise to finish the investigation before drawing the conclusion. These records are proof that the investigation was compromised. It is time to call James Comey back to the committee that investigated his conduct in the first place.

Please follow the link to the article which includes some of the drafts in question.

Transparency is Obviously A Lost Art

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the battle between CNN and the government about making public James Comey’s memos about his discussions with President Trump regarding the Russian investigation.

There are a few things that need to be noted here. In June, I posted an article which included the following:

In a statement delivered on the Senate floor, Grassley (Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA)) said that in March, former FBI Director James Comey had told him, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and the group of Senate and House members known as the “Gang of Eight” that the president was not under investigation.

But Schumer, who is part of the Gang of Eight, continued to tell the media Trump was under investigation, Grassley said.

Okay. So if those Senators knew in March that President Trump was not under investigation, why did Senator Schumer claim he was and why is Robert Mueller continuing to investigate something that was already known?

At any rate, the article at The Washington Examiner reports:

Government lawyers asked a judge Friday to deny CNN’s request to force the FBI to publicly disclose former FBI Director James Comey’s memos documenting his interactions with President Trump about the Russia investigation.

The news network made the case in a lawsuit filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in June that there was high public interest in Comey’s memos and that the notes were not classified, as insisted by Comey himself in testimony. CNN, along with other outlets and watchdog groups, had requested the memos under the Freedom of Information Act.

However, a report from CNN on Saturday explained that parts of Comey’s memos were determined to be classified and the government argued that to make them public would “reveal the scope and focus of the investigation and thereby harm the investigation” and possible prosecutions.

The government is also requesting that an unnamed “FBI employee” make the government’s case in secret.

Was the memo Comey leaked to Columbia University professor Daniel Richman, (who then at the request of Comey revealed the details of the notes to the New York Times to make sure a special prosecutor was appointed) a secret? if so, why hasn’t Comey been held accountable? Who is the government actually working for?

It’s time for the government to start cooperating with the citizens. I realize that might by an alien concept to some government employees, but I am sure they could get used to the idea that they work for the citizens, not the other way around. It truly is time for some transparency in government.

 

After More Than A Year Of Questions, There Are Still No Answers

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Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate ties between President Trump and Russia, possibly involved in sabotaging the election process. Historically, this was the excuse put out by the Hillary campaign when they lost, but the media liked it, James Comey played along, and we now have a special prosecutor. One of the questions in the part of the investigation that has been made public is the dossier on President Trump that was used as an excuse for the electronic surveillance on the Trump campaign staff and Trump cabinet before and after the election. Where did that file come from, how did the media get hold of it, and who authorized it? Even the Wall Street Journal is commenting on the media’s lack on interest in finding the answers to these questions. The article is behind the subscribers’ wall, but here is the link.

The Daily Caller has also taken an interest in the story. They posted an article today about the media cover up of the history of the dossier.

The article in the Daily Caller notes:

What’s significant about the newspaper’s piece is that Fusion GPS was co-founded by three former Journal reporters, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. But that relationship provides no cover for the Fusion trio.

“The Beltway media move in a pack, and that means ignoring some stories while leaping on others. Consider the pack’s lack of interest in the story of GPS Fusion [sic] and the ‘dossier’ from former spook Christopher Steele,” writes the Journal’s editorial board, which is considered right-of-center on the political spectrum.

“Americans don’t need a Justice Department coverup abetted by Glenn Simpson’s media buddies.”

The dossier, which Steele began working on after being hired by Fusion GPS last June, has become a centerpiece of the ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with Russian operatives.

Fusion was working for an ally of Hillary Clinton’s when it hired Steele to look into Trump’s activities in Russia. The result was a 35-page dossier consisting of 17 memos dated from June 20 to Dec. 13 containing a slew of salacious allegations about Trump’s personal activities in Russia. It also alleges that the Trump campaign was exchanging information with the Kremlin to help the election effort.

The article reminds us that when Republicans have attempted to investigate the origins and history of the dossier, they have been met with opposition from the Democrats. Not that opposition from the Democrats is anything new, but you would think that the Democrats might want to learn the truth about this matter.

The article concludes:

“The real question is why Democrats and Fusion seem not to want to tell the public who requested the dossier or what ties Fusion GPS boss Glenn Simpson had with the Russians in 2016,” they write.

Fusion GPS has maintained close ties to reporters at the major news outlets, not just on the Trump-Russia story but for other investigations conducted for corporate and political clients.

During the campaign last year, Fusion GPS and Simpson shared some of Steele’s reporting with reporters at The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo! News and Mother Jones. Steele has revealed in a court in London, where he is based, that Fusion GPS directed him to brief reporters on some of his findings. He has also said that Fusion directed him to provide some memos in the dossier to Arizona Sen. John McCain.

I totally understand why globalists in Washington would not want Donald Trump to become President and why they would not want his agenda to succeed. I guess I just thought that there might be a few more honest people in Washington who really wanted what was best for the country, rather than for their own personal ambitions. Obviously, the few honest people who are there are going to have to fight very hard to drain the swamp. As Harry Truman once said, “You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog.”

When A Simple Investigation Turns Into A Witch Hunt

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I have previously posted articles about the bias that seems to be part of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller‘s investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election. (You can locate these articles using the search engine at the top of the blog to locate articles about Robert Mueller.)  The list of people he hired and the strong-arm tactics used against Paul Manafort are an indication that he had decided on the verdict before he conducted the investigation–much like his friend James Comey and the investigation into Hillary Clinton‘s emails. Well, this endless and wandering investigation may be called on to provide some accountability.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported that nineteen Republican Congressmen have called for hearings on Robert Mueller’s investigation. It is definitely about time.

Following is the letter they sent:

Special Prosecutors need a deadline, a specific investigation subject, and a budget. The abuses connected with special prosecutors are numerous. If Congress is unwilling to terminate the position, they should at least limit it.

The Deep State Lives

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I am becoming discouraged about the possibility of anyone cleaning up Washington. We have a new President, but there are so many career establishment people there, cleaning up the city is definitely a slog.

On Sunday The Washington Examiner posted an article that reinforces my concern. Judicial Watch is a watchdog organization that closely watches administrations of both parties and uses Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to hold them accountable.

The article at The Washington Examiner reports:

It has now been more than a month since a House Intelligence Committee subpoena set a September 1 deadline for the FBI and the Justice Department to turn over documents related to the Trump dossier.

Not a single document has been produced. The first deadline was extended once, then again, then again, and is now on some sort of hold. But no documents have been handed over.

…Just as they have been doing with the House intelligence panel, the FBI and Justice Department tried to blow off Grassley, saying any talks with Rybicki and Ghattas might interfere with the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. Then, after Grassley threatened to subpoena the two officials, the Justice Department wrote back to Grassley on September 22 to say, “Upon further evaluation, we believe that it is appropriate to make Mr. Ghattas and Mr. Rybicki available to the committee for interviews.”

But Justice still had conditions, particularly where the Mueller investigation was concerned. So in a letter last week, Grassley reminded them that, “contrary to the implication [from the Justice Department], the committee had, in fact notified and consulted with special counsel Mueller’s office for deconfliction purposes about interviewing these two witnesses. Specifically, the committee provided ample opportunity for that office to voice any objection, and accommodated that office’s concern…” In other words, Grassley said, Mueller’s office did not voice any concern about the committee’s request.

Of course, Grassley is so far just threatening a subpoena. The House committee had already issued one. And in both cases, the FBI and Justice Department have not produced either the dossier documents or the two FBI officials (who are thought to know quite a bit about the dossier).

Who is hiding what? Since this dossier was the basis of the wiretapping of people close to Donald Trump when he was running for president, the content and the history of the dossier are important in determining whether or not those wiretaps were illegally done by the Obama Administration.

The Deep State Or The Police State?

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Sharyl Attkisson posted an article at The Hill today about the Obama Administration’s spying on Donald Trump. I don’t care which side of the political spectrum you are on, this story should disturb you.

The article reports:

According to media reports this week, the FBI did indeed “wiretap” the former head of Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort, both before and after Trump was elected. If Trump officials — or Trump himself — communicated with Manafort during the wiretaps, they would have been recorded, too.

But we’re missing the bigger story.

If these reports are accurate, it means U.S. intelligence agencies secretly surveilled at least a half dozen Trump associates. And those are just the ones we know about.

Besides Manafort, the officials include former Trump advisers Carter Page and Michael Flynn. Last week, we discovered multiple Trump “transition officials” were “incidentally” captured during government surveillance of a foreign official. We know this because former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admitted “unmasking,” or asking to know the identities of, the officials. Spying on U.S. citizens is considered so sensitive, their names are supposed to be hidden or “masked,” even inside the government, to protect their privacy.

In May, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates acknowledged they, too, reviewed communications of political figures, secretly collected under President Obama. 

The article goes on to remind us that James Clapper assured Congress in 2013 that the NSA was not collecting data on American citizens.

The article also lists many of the violations of the rights of Congressmen, reporters, and other political figures. This is illegal.

The article concludes:

Officials involved in the surveillance and unmasking of U.S. citizens have said their actions were legal and not politically motivated. And there are certainly legitimate areas of inquiry to be made by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But look at the patterns. It seems that government monitoring of journalists, members of Congress and political enemies — under multiple administrations — has become more common than anyone would have imagined two decades ago. So has the unmasking of sensitive and highly protected names by political officials.

Those deflecting with minutiae are missing the point. To me, they sound like the ones who aren’t thinking.

If we want to keep our privacy and our freedom, the people responsible for spying on us need to face the consequences of their breaking the law.

Totally Unacceptable Behavior

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Breitbart posted an article yesterday stating that CNN had reported that the Obama Administration had wire tapped Paul Manafort before and after the election.

The article reports:

The report said the secret court that handles the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act had authorized a surveillance warrant against Manafort for an investigation that began in 2014, looking into his firm, the Podesta Group, and another firm’s lobbying work for Ukraine’s pro-Russian former ruling party.

“The surveillance was discontinued at some point last year for lack of evidence,” a source told CNN.

However, the FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant that extended early into this year. The report notably does not say when the new warrant was obtained. Manafort joined the Trump campaign as its chairman in May 2016.

The article reminds us of how many times this claim was denied (sometimes under oath):

The Justice Department and the FBI denied that Trump was being wiretapped.

Comey later in March disputed Trump’s claims — in testimony that lawmakers could now find misleading.

He told the House intelligence committee, “With respect to the president’s tweets about alleged wiretapping directed at him by the prior administration, I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI.”

The New York Times also reported that Comey had said Trump’s claim was false, and that he had asked the Justice Department to publicly reject it, according to the BBC.

James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, also told Congress that intelligence agencies did not wiretap Trump, nor did the FBI obtain a court order to monitor Trump’s phones, according to the BBC report.

President Trump was mocked when he made this claim. Now we learn that he was right. Where are the apologies? Where are the people talking about the fact that the civil rights of Paul Manafort and Donald Trump were violated? Is anyone going to hold the Justice Department accountable? I guess the only positive in this is that Donald Trump won the election despite the fact that the Obama Administration interfered–it wasn’t the Russians–it was the Obama Administration!

 

The FBI Is Beginning To Look Like Tammany Hall

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On Wednesday, Circa posted an article about the current culture in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Circa is one of the few current news outlets that is actually doing investigative reporting. I don’t know how big their footprint is in the news world, but I know that I have found them to be a reliable source and a source that generally has a story before the mainstream media.

The article reports:

When the FBI launched an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, one of the bureau’s top former counterterrorism agents believed that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe would have to recuse himself from the investigation.

Former Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz was one of the bureau’s top intelligence analysts and terrorism experts but resigned from the bureau five years ago after she said she was harassed and her career was blocked by top FBI management. She filed a formal sexual discrimination complaint against the bureau in 2013 and it was Flynn, among many others, who publicly came to her aide.

In her first on-camera interview she described the retaliation from McCabe and others in the bureau as “vicious.”

…She told Circa, current senior level management, including McCabe, created a “cancer like” bureaucracy striking fear into FBI agents and causing others to resign. She eventually resigned herself, but her case is still pending.

…McCabe, who is under three separate federal inquiries, did not respond to requests for comment. (The italics are mine)

The article details some of the legal issues surrounding Deputy Director McCabe:

In June, a Circa investigation revealed that two weeks after Gritz filed her EEOC complaint, McCabe referred her for an Office of Professional Responsibility investigation for timecard irregularities.

Although the FBI claimed they had filed their OPR investigation prior to Gritz’s EEOC, McCabe’s own sworn testimony painted a much different picture. Gritz’s case, which is still pending, was required McCabe to submit to a sworn statement. In his testimony he recounted a conversation on June 19, 2012 in which he authorized the OPR investigation of Gritz after one of his deputies told him she was about to file a complaint, as reported by Circa.

And McCabe is also challenged with an Office of Special Counsel investigation.

The embattled former agent filed a complaint in April, alleging McCabe violated the Hatch Act, as reported by Circa in June.

The OSC is the government’s main whistle blower agency. The Hatch Act prohibits FBI employees from engaging “in political activity in concert with a political party, a candidate for partisan political office, or a partisan political group.” McCabe appeared to be participating in his wife’s unsuccessful bid for Virginia State Senate in 2015, according to Gritz and documents obtained by Circa.

The Justice Department Inspector General investigation is also investigating McCabe after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, alleged McCabe may not have properly disclosed the roughly $700,000 in campaign contributions to his Democratic wife on his ethics report and should have recused himself from the Clinton server case.

It seems that much of the FBI is part of the Washington swamp.

An Amazing Historical Event

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On Thursday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about the continuing attacks on President Trump. The title of the article is, “The Slow-Motion Coup d’Etat picks up steam.”

The article lists the attempts made by the political establishment to undo the results of last November’s election. Hopefully their efforts will result in a miserable failure. I did not start out as a Trump supporter, but I believe he won the election honestly (and probably by a wider margin than is reported due to illegal votes for Hillary Clinton). The attempts to find any excuse to remove him from office are shameful.

The article reminds us:

Chuck Schumer, for example, used the alleged fact of Donald Trump being under FBI investigation as an argument against confirming Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, even though Schumer (but not the public) knew from intelligence briefings that Trump was not personally under investigation.

All the while, the permanent bureaucracy, particularly in the intelligence community, started an unending and almost daily series of leaks meant to paralyze the administration.

Then FBI Director James Comey refused to tell the public what he privately told Trump on three occasions, that Trump personally was not under investigation, thereby aiding and abetting this false media attack on the administration. Comey then himself leaked non-public government information, after his termination, to manufacture an excuse to have a Special Counsel appointed. That Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, turns out to be a good friend of Comey, and is building a massive prosecutorial infrastructure in the attempt to find a crime.

At the same time, there has been unprecedented obstruction of Trump’s ability to staff his administration. Even non-controversial nominees are slow-walked by Democrats. Vast swaths of the federal bureaucracy remain under the sway of Obama holdovers and those who consider Trump illegitimate.

The purpose in all this has been to freeze and paralyze the Trump administration. If Trump could not be prevented from taking office, and cannot be physically removed from office, he will be prevented from functioning as president.

Those elected officials participating in this effort need to be removed from office.

The article lists numerous examples of career government employees working against the President and his policies. This used to be called treason.

The article concludes:

Not only is the Trump administration under unprecedented attack from outside, the foxes are inside the henhouse, and are gutting it from the inside out.

The attempt to unwind the 2016 election through paralyzing the Trump administration is a serious threat to our liberty. Our most basic of institutions, the transfer of power through elections, is under attack.

The actions of those people in government working against President Trump are not patriotic–they are treasonous and the people committing them belong in jail. It is up to the American voters to let those working to undermine a sitting President will not receive the support of the voters.

Is The Justice Department Honest?

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Evidently under President Obama, the Justice Department was more interested in political issues than honesty. According to an article posted yesterday by John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has finally finally gotten a response from the Justice Department to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding documents related to the meeting in Phoenix between former President Clinton and Loretta Lynch.

The ACLJ website reports:

We have just obtained hundreds of pages in our ongoing investigation and federal lawsuit on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with former President Bill Clinton while the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI had an ongoing criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails. The results are shocking.

First, the Comey FBI lied to us. Last July, we sent FOIA requests to both the Comey FBI and the Lynch DOJ asking for any documents related to the Clinton Lynch plane meeting. The FBI, under the then directorship of James Comey, replied that “No records responsive to your request were located.”

The documents we received today from the Department of Justice include several emails from the FBI to DOJ officials concerning the meeting.  One with the subject line “FLAG” was correspondence between FBI officials (Richard Quinn, FBI Media/Investigative Publicity, and Michael Kortan) and DOJ officials concerning “flag[ing] a story . . . about a casual, unscheduled meeting between former president Bill Clinton and the AG.” The DOJ official instructs the FBI to “let me know if you get any questions about this” and provides “[o]ur talkers [DOJ talking points] on this”. The talking points, however are redacted.

Another email to the FBI contains the subject line “security details coordinate between Loretta Lynch/Bill Clinton?”

On July 1, 2016 – just days before our FOIA request – a DOJ email chain under the subject line, “FBI just called,” indicates that the “FBI . . . is looking for guidance” in responding to media inquiries about news reports that the FBI had prevented the press from taking pictures of the Clinton Lynch meeting. The discussion then went off email to several phone calls (of which we are not able to obtain records). An hour later, Carolyn Pokomy of the Office of the Attorney General stated, “I will let Rybicki know.” Jim Rybicki was the Chief of Staff and Senior Counselor to FBI Director Jim Comey. The information that was to be provided to Rybicki is redacted.

Also of note several of the documents contain redactions that are requested “per FBI.”

It is time to ask Robert Mueller to investigate the actions of his friend James Comey when James Comey was the FBI Director. Please follow the link above to read the entire post at the ACLJ, it is disturbing that the media and the government worked together to squelch information that might have had a negative impact on the Hillary Clinton campaign for president.

 

We Need Leaders Who Respect National Security

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Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about memos written by former FBI Director James Comey. The Hill also posted a similar article yesterday.

The Hill reported:

More than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents.

This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton for in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election.

Breitbart reported:

“FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property,” the report said

Comey admitted to senators last month that he leaked at least one memo to his friend Daniel Richman, a Columbia Law School professor and former prosecutor so that he could leak them to the New York Times.

Was there anyone in the Obama Administration who believed in playing by the rules that you and I would have to follow?

 

Why The Deep State Matters

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday about the number of leaks coming out of Washington during the first 126 days of the Trump Administration.

The article reports:

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, examined media leaks between January 20, 2017, and May 25, 2017 — the first 126 days of President Trump’s administration.

The article includes the following chart:

The article further reports:

A couple observations not in Senator Johnson’s report are that many of the leaks are related to James Comey in one way or another and the former FBI Director has admitted leaking information to the press.  Another observation is that a significant amount of the so called leaks have been proven false at later dates.  This makes you wonder if they are just being made up by someone like John Podesta.

Regardless of who is creating them, leaking them or reporting them, the criminal leaks are damaging to the US Intelligence community and are clear attacks against President Trump.

Our government officials should not be working to undermine an elected President. There needs to be some action taken against the guilty parties.

There Seems To Be A Discrepancy Here

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When there is unequal justice under the law, we need to find the reason for it. It seems as if Congress may be moving in that direction regarding Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified information. The guidelines for handling classified information are clear, and the penalties for mishandling it are clear. Former FBI Director James Comey outlined the case against Mrs. Clinton, then chose not to prosecute her for breaking the law. She was not even prosecuted after classified information she had access to was found on a laptop of someone who was not cleared to view the information. So what is the kingpin that will unravel the logic behind this situation? It seems as if Congress may be about to find that out.

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about the testimony Loretta Lynch gave to Congress last year.

The article reports:

When former Attorney General Loretta Lynch testified last year about her decision not to prosecute Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, she swore she never talked to “anyone” on the Clinton campaign. That categorical denial, though made in response to a series of questions about whether she spoke with Clintonworld about remaining attorney general if Hillary won the election, could come back to haunt her.

The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.

There is also the matter of the meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton in Ms. Lynch’s airplane in Phoenix. The only reason we know about that meeting is that a reporter was doing his job and reported it. The meeting was totally inappropriate as Mrs. Clinton was under investigation at the time by Ms. Lynch.

There are a lot of people who want the investigation into the handling of Mrs. Clinton’s email scandal to go away. It has been like pulling teeth for Congress to get even as far as it has gotten. However, the thing we need to remember is that equal justice under the law is part of the foundation of our republic. When that principle is ignored, the republic is weakened.

The Web That Keeps On Growing

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Yesterday Ari Lieberman posted an article at Front Page Magazine about the latest developments in the case of Hillary Clinton’s emails. It is becoming very obvious that there were many reasons why Mrs. Clinton preferred to keep these emails from seeing the light of day.

The article reports:

But perhaps most damning for Clinton was her email scandal which dogged her campaign like a bad rash that wouldn’t go away. Clinton believed that her troubles were behind her when Comey announced in July 2016 that “no charges are appropriate in this case.” But her hopes were soon dashed when her emails once again popped up, this time on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Clinton’s emails now had the stench of Anthony Weiner all over them. She was furious but there was nothing she could do. This was a problem of her own making. 

The emails were transferred by Clinton aide and confidant, Huma Abedin to her husband’s laptop. They were inadvertently uncovered by FBI agents during their probe of Weiner for sending sexually explicit emails to a minor. The timing of the revelation could not have been worse for Clinton – just 11 days prior to the election.  

If you thought that Clinton’s loss in the general elections put her email scandal to rest, you thought wrong. Clinton’s emails continue to ricochet like exploding shrapnel, tarnishing the Democratic Party and hampering its objectives.

The two latest peripheral victims of the email scandal are Loretta Lynch and current acting FBI director, Andrew McCabe.  In open testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Comey testified that Loretta Lynch asked him to refer to the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email server as a ‘matter’, echoing the term used by the Clinton presidential campaign. In private testimony, Comey admitted confronting Loretta Lynch with a document implicating Loretta Lynch in a plan to derail the FBI investigation. There is also the matter of the meeting between Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton on the tarmac at Phoenix Airport. It doesn’t take a giant leap of faith to assume that Loretta Lynch had been assured of a place in the Clinton Administration if she could tamp down the investigation into Hillary Clinton and her emails.

Andrew McCabe has also been caught up in this web.

The article explains his connection to the scandal:

McCabe has revealed himself to be a deeply problematic figure who is currently the subject of at least three separate investigations which include massive conflicts of interest and possible violations of the Hatch act.

One of those investigations centers on his deep involvement in the Clinton email probe. According to the Wall Street Journal, McCabe “was part of the executive leadership team overseeing the Clinton email investigation.” While McCabe was ostensibly investigating Clinton, his wife Jill was accepting $500,000 for her state senate campaign from long-time Clinton ally, Terry McAuliffe. McCabe failed to disclose this critical piece of information. Insiders believe that it is likely that McCabe will be relieved of his duties in the not too distant future. 

The swamp in Washington has become so deep and so entangled that if you pull out something by the roots, you will find other things attached to those roots. The connections and cronyism run deep. Hopefully the Trump Administration can at least begin to undo some of the mess that is there.

Why Most Americans Don’t Trust Politicians

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Yesterday Breitbart posted an article which illustrates why Americans don’t trust politicians.

The article reports:

In a statement delivered on the Senate floor, Grassley (Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA)) said that in March, former FBI Director James Comey had told him, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and the group of Senate and House members known as the “Gang of Eight” that the president was not under investigation.

But Schumer, who is part of the Gang of Eight, continued to tell the media Trump was under investigation, Grassley said.

 “That helped feed the media hysteria,” he said. “The Minority Leader even tried to say that the Senate shouldn’t vote on the Supreme Court nomination because the president was under investigation. And the whole time, he knew it wasn’t true.”

In once instance, Schumer told reporters on March 21, “There is a cloud now hanging over the head of the president, and while that’s happening, to have a lifetime appointment made by this president seems very unseemly and there ought to be a delay.”

Grassley said it was not until months later that it came to light, on May 12, when Trump revealed in a letter firing Comey that the FBI director had told him three times he was not under investigation.

Grassley also said he had asked Comey to come out and tell the public Trump was not under investigation, but he had refused to do so over a hypothetical situation where he might have to correct the record.

Now, because some of our so-called leaders in Washington refused to be honest, we have a special prosecutor spending millions of taxpayer money investigating something that never happened. Worse than that, the special prosecutor has put together a team of political hacks that will pursue political interests over truth–all at taxpayers’ expense.

It truly is time to throw the bums out and replace them with people who actually care about America more than they care about political expediency.

While Congress Was Flashing A Shiny Object Over Here…

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Sleight of hand is something I used to associate with magicians and people who do card tricks. Lately I associate it with politicians in Washington.

On Tuesday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial listing the scandals that Congress is not investigating. Oddly enough, there is more concrete, obvious evidence easily visible in the scandals they are ignoring than in the scandals they choose to investigate.

Some highlights from the editorial:

“Prosecutors, Congress, and the public will want to know when the National Security Council shipped off the records about potential intelligence abuses by Susan Rice and others in the Obama White House to the memory hole of the Obama Presidential Library,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Fitton fittingly left journalists off his list of those who will want to know about this, since the latest weird twist in this story garnered precious little interest among the mainstream media.

Nor did an earlier development in this case, when the House Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas for information related to unmasking requests involving Rice as well as former CIA Director John Brennan, and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Power.

These subpoenas were, Rep. Devin Nunes said, “just further escalation in the concern we have of the unmaskings of Americans by the senior leaders of the Obama administration.”

…Loretta Lynch Scandal: Despite blanket coverage of James Comey‘s testimony about his firing by Trump, few noted the bombshell Comey dropped about Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who, Comey said, pressured him to downplay the significance of the FBI‘s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s reckless handling of classified emails on her private server. Comey said Lynch told him to call it a “matter,” not an investigation.

Comey said this gave him a “queasy” feeling, since Lynch was specifically asking him to parrot the words the Clinton campaign was using to describe the FBI probe. That, on top of the Lynch’s private meeting with Bill Clinton, as well as the unusually lenient immunity deals the Justice Department cut with key witnesses in the Clinton email case, suggest Lynch had turned the Justice Department into an arm of the Clinton campaign.

…NSA Spying Scandal: In late May, Circa News published a truly bombshell report about how the National Security Agency had been conducting illegal searches on American citizens for years, “routinely violat(ing) American privacy protections while scouring through overseas intercepts.” In addition, the administration “failed to disclose the extent of the problems until the final days before Donald Trump was elected president last fall.”

Classified documents obtained by Circa showed that “one out of every 20 searches seeking upstream internet data on Americans inside the NSA’s so-called Section 702 database violated the safeguards Obama and his intelligence chiefs vowed to follow in 2011.”

Circa also reported that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court blasted Obama administration officials, saying that the improper searches posed a “very serious Fourth Amendment issue” and the administration’s failure to disclose the violations amounted to an “institutional lack of candor.”

Media response? The three network news programs all ignored this report, and it got little attention by any of the other mainstream news outlets.

Under the Obama Administration, Americans were spied on because of their political beliefs. That is a trait of a tyrannical government–not a representative republic. Would that have continued if Hillary Clinton had been elected? I don’t know.

It is time Congress, the Democrats, and the media stop chasing unicorns and actually investigate the constitutional abuses that took place during the Obama Administration. If these unconstitutional actions go unpunished, we have lost the concept of equal justice under the law. Congress and the people who continually vote for the Congressmen and Congresswomen who choose to ignore these violations of the law are responsible for this loss of equal justice. Unfortunately, all of us will eventually pay the price.

Suspicions Confirmed

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Sharyl Attkisson posted her interview with Congressman Jason Chaffetz at the Full Measure website. Congressman Chaffetz has resigned from Congress..

Here are a few highlights from the interview:

Sharyl: After eight and a half years on an upward trajectory in Washington DC, Congressman Jason Chaffetz of Utah has suddenly and quite unexpectedly, pulled himself out of the game. Some people might think this is a great time to be a Republican Chairman of an important committee because Republicans control the House, they’re the majority in the Senate, and they hold the President’s office. That means, you would think, that federal agencies can’t stonewall investigations of spending, waste, fraud, and abuse.

Jason Chaffetz: The reality is, sadly, I don’t see much difference between the cutting to photo of their middle with no heads is a little disconcerting can you pick a different sort of move? Trump administration and the Obama administration. I thought there would be this, these floodgates would open up with all the documents we wanted from the Department of State, the Department of Justice, the Pentagon. In many ways, it’s almost worse because we’re getting nothing, and that’s terribly frustrating and with all due respect, the Attorney General has not changed at all. I find him to be worse than what I saw with Loretta Lynch in terms of releasing documents and making things available. I just, that’s my experience, and that’s not what I expected.

Sharyl: What were some of the investigations that this committee was stalled on that you hoped could be picked up now, that’s not been able to happen in terms of documents not provided by federal agencies?

Jason Chaffetz: We have everything from the Hillary Clinton email investigation, which is really one of the critical things. There was the investigation into the IRS. And one that was more than 7 years old is Fast and Furious. I mean, we have been in court trying to pry those documents out of the Department of Justice and still to this day, they will not give us those documents. And at the State Department, nothing. Stone cold silence.

…Jason Chaffetz: Congress doesn’t stand up for itself. I think it’s, it’s really lost its way. They say, oh, we’ll use the power of the purse. That doesn’t work. First of all, they never do cut funding. Even getting people to come up and testify before Congress, the Obama Administration at the end of their term, they got so brazen they stopped sending people up. They just didn’t care. And, and there was no way to enforce that, and until that changes, uh the legislative branch is going to get weaker and weaker.

The interview concludes:

Jason Chaffetz: Look, first and foremost, it really is a family decision. I, I loved being engaged in the fight, but yeah there, there does, after 9, you know, 8½, 9 years, get to be a, a degree of frustration that hey, when are we going to get serious about changing these things? Because the American people, when I first started, they had Democrats who had the House and Senate in the Presidency. And that whole pendulum swung, but I’m telling you, in the first five, six months, I haven’t seen any changes. And, and that’s, that’s very frustrating, You come to that point and say, alright, it’s, it’s time for a change.

If the swamp is not drained quickly, we will lose more good congressmen like Congressman Jason Chaffetz.