Selective Comebacks

One of the more amazing things to happen in recent years is the rehabilitation of the image of Bill Clinton. George H.W. Bush had a lot to do with bringing Bill Clinton back into the public spotlight in a positive way. It seems as if America has forgiven President Clinton for his antics in the White House and his general weaknesses regarding the opposite sex. Now we are about to face a similar situation with General David Petraeus (although General Petraeus was not the serial adulterer that President Clinton was).

Yesterday Bloomberg News posted an article entitled, “Why Is the FBI Still Targeting Petraeus?” It is becoming very obvious that justice and criminology under President Obama has become a totally political matter.

The article reports:

Most importantly: According to current and former U.S. intelligence officials who have spoken to us, the FBI still has an open investigation into whether Petraeus improperly provided highly classified documents to Paula Broadwell, his biographer and the woman with whom he had an affair.

A little history: In the spring of 2012, the Federal Bureau of Investigation stumbled upon the Petraeus-Broadwell relationship while investigating a separate cyber-stalking matter. While the FBI has cleared Broadwell of those charges, and Obama has said Petraeus never endangered national security, the FBI’s probe remains open.

Two U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say Broadwell was never authorized to receive material that was found on her personal computer. Because this included compartmentalized intelligence that only a handful of very senior officials were approved to view, the FBI considers the breach to be a serious matter. “It was inappropriately shared and it should never have been shared,” one former senior intelligence official said.

Before we decide if this is valid, there is another series of events we need to look at (as posted at rightwinggranny). The events listed below are reported by Sharyl Attkisson:

“The intruders discovered my Skype account handle, stole the password, activated the audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably as a listening tool,” she wrote in “Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington.”

But the most shocking finding, she says, was the discovery of three classified documents that Number One told her were “buried deep in your operating system. In a place that, unless you’re a some kind of computer whiz specialist, you wouldn’t even know exists.”

“They probably planted them to be able to accuse you of having classified documents if they ever needed to do that at some point,” Number One added.

I wonder how the documents the FBI is searching for arrived in Paula Broadwell’s computer.

The article at Bloomberg further reports:

What stands out here is not just that Petraeus remains under investigation but that he remains under investigation while being reintegrated into the foreign policy establishment.

To wit: Petraeus is ostensibly being investigated for mishandling classified material and yet he retains his security clearance. What’s more, he has been casually advising the White House on Iraq, where he directed the effort to end a civil war in 2007 and 2008 and still maintains close relationships with many of its leaders.

“All of us who know him and are close to him are mystified by the fact there is still this investigation into him,” Jack Keane, a retired four-star U.S. Army General said in an interview.  Keane has been both an adviser to and mentor of Petraeus since he saved Petraeus’s life during a live-fire training exercise in 1991. 

Keane questions whether the Petraeus FBI probe lasting this long may be driven by something other than a desire to investigate a potential crime. “It makes you wonder if there is another motivation to drag an investigation out this long,” he said.

General Petraeus was an honorable man who made a mistake. I suspect that the people behind this continuing investigation are less honorable. It is time to return the White House to someone who will not abuse his power to eliminate people he considers political threats.

 

Where Did The Money Go?

Yesterday Bloomberg.com posted an article showing where some of the money that disappeared from MF Global Holding Ltd. under the guidance of Jon Corzine might have gone. There is a memo showing Jon Corzine gave direct orders to transfer money from customer accounts to JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The article reports:

Edith O’Brien, a treasurer for the firm, said in an e-mail quoted in the memo that the transfer was “Per JC’s direct instructions,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by Bloomberg News. The e-mail, dated Oct. 28, was sent three days before the company collapsed, the memo says. The memo does not indicate whether that phrase was the full text of the e-mail or an excerpt.

Jon Corzine testified before Congress in December:

“I never gave any instruction to misuse customer funds, I never intended anyone at MF Global to misuse customer funds and I don’t believe that anything I said could reasonably have been interpreted as an instruction to misuse customer funds,”

Whoops! It sounds as if Mr. Corzine has some ‘splainin’ to do.

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