Tag Archives: Democratic National Committee

Not A Good Look

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The Iowa Democrat Caucuses have not gone well. As usually happens in the modern world of social media, the memes have begun.

This is one of the better memes that showed up on my Facebook feed:

However, on a more serious note…

One America News reported today:

Officials in Iowa reportedly knew there were problems with the mobile app used to tally the results in Monday’s caucus. The state’s Democrat Party released a statement late Monday to announce its decision to delay the release of the official results. They cited “inconsistencies” in the results as the reason for the postponement.

The Democrats went on to specify the delay was not because of a hack in an apparent effort to quell possible theories of election interference. On top of the supposed “inconsistencies,” however, many county chairs in Iowa have said they reported problems with the new app in the week before the caucus date. One chair from Polk County said not only were there unresolved problems with the app, but local Democrat officials weren’t provided any training on how to use it.

There were also reports of the phone lines being backed up for counties to report their results, with some reports suggesting county officials were on-hold for over an hour. Many counties were forced to switch to recording the votes on paper. Despite all this, the state’s Democrat Party has assured voters the underlying reporting was sound, but it would take time to tally the votes.

Fox News reported today:

The app that was supposed to help the Iowa Democratic Party quickly report Monday’s caucus results – but contributed to confusion and a muddled result as campaigns were in an uproar – is linked to Hillary Clinton campaign veterans.

Shadow, a tech firm that describes itself as a group that creates “a permanent advantage for progressive campaigns and causes through technology,” is the company that created the Iowa Democratic Party’s app, according to The New York Times. At least the COO, CEO, CTO and a senior product manager at Shadow all worked for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, according to LinkedIn profiles.

Shadow is associated with ACRONYM, a nonprofit dedicated to “advancing progressive causes through innovative communications, advertising and organizing programs.” Early last year, ACRONYM announced that it was acquiring an SMS tool called Groundbase and, out of Groundbase, “launching Shadow, a company focused on building the technology infrastructure needed to enable Democrats to run better, more efficient campaigns.”

The article at Fox News continues:

Groundbase co-founders Krista Davis, who is the current Shadow CTO, and Gerard Niemira, who is the current Shadow CEO, both held senior positions with the Clinton campaign.

Tara McGowan, the founder and CEO of ACRONYM, posted a statement from an ACRONYM spokesman early Tuesday morning distancing the nonprofit from Shadow, which is a for-profit company.

“ACRONYM is a nonprofit organization and not a technology company. As such, we have not provided any technology to the Iowa Democratic Party, Presidential campaigns, or the Democratic National Committee,” spokesman Kyle Tharp said in the statement. “ACRONYM is an investor in several for-profit companies across the progressive media and technology sectors. One of those independent, for-profit companies is Shadow, Inc, which also has other private investors. We are reading confirmed reports of Shadow’s word with the Iowa Democratic Party on Twitter, and we, like everyone else, are eagerly awaiting more information from the Iowa Democratic Party with respect to what happened.”

McGowan is an alumna of Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign and previously worked as a digital director for NexGen America, a progressive organization founded by presidential candidate Tom Steyer.

Remember in 2016 when the DNC took the nomination away from Bernie Sanders? Is there any reason not to believe that those in the smoke-filled rooms are doing a repeat performance? I am willing to go on the record to say that somehow, I don’t know how, Hillary Clinton will be the Democrat Presidential Candidate in 2020. Stay tuned.

The DNC Is Rigging The Results Again

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Many of the Democrat party elite do not want Bernie Sanders as their presidential candidate. He is too far left of the average voter. The millennial generation loves him, but they are not known for their voter turnout. A Bernie Sanders presidential campaign might easily end up the way the George McGovern campaign ended. The establishment Democrats want to protect their party. However, Bernie is gaining in the polls and may win the first three primary states. So how do the people who formerly congregated in smoke-filled rooms to choose candidates deal with this problem? Easy–rig the system.

The New York Post reported yesterday that the Democratic National Committee has dropped the fundraising requirements that had kept Mike Bloomberg out of the presidential debates.

The article reports:

Until now, making the debates required some minimal success both in the polls and in raising lots of donations from several states — 225,000 donors, with at least 1,000 from 20 different states, for the Feb. 7 debate.

But Bloomy refuses to spend anyone’s money but his own: “I’ve never accepted a nickel from anyone,” as he wrote in a CNN op-ed, so “I’ve always been independent of the special interests.”

He’s also not even trying to win the earliest primary states — but has still soared to fourth place in national polls of Democrats’ 2020 contest. So he should clearly be onstage in the debates. It’s only fair for him, his rivals and the voters — who deserve to see all the top contenders face off against each other.

Then again, spending some of his own $60 billion has let him lap the field when it comes to advertising–he’s shelled out an unprecendented $278 million on ads since he entered the race in November, including $11 million for a 60-second Super Bowl spot.

His investment has paid off–he has moved into fourth place.

The article concludes:

We’ve been dubious about the DNC’s rules from the start — the way gazillionaire Tom Steyer, a total vanity candidate, gamed his way into the debates was a dead giveaway of poor design, as were the unwieldy 10-candidates-at-a-time early face-offs.

Some fix may still be in: The new rules, starting with the Feb. 19 Las Vegas debate, require a candidate to either 1) pick up a pledged delegate in the first two contests or 2) reach at least 10% in four DNC-recognized polls, or 12% in two “DNC-kosher” early-state polls.

That could limit the field to Biden, Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren — which would look like the DNC rigging the game for Biden.

Stay tuned. I can’t imaging Bernie Sanders supporters putting up with having the nomination pulled out from under them twice, particularly if a brokered convention somehow winds up with Hillary Clinton as the candidate. This could be very interesting.

An Attempt At Justice

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article about lawsuits brought by Carter Page. It seems to be common knowledge that before being targeted by the Obama administration as a back door to spy on the Trump campaign, Carter Page had done a lot of work for three-letter government agencies and was regarded as a reliable source of information.

The article reports:

Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page filed a lawsuit Thursday in federal court against the Democratic National Committee, law firm Perkins Coie and its partners tied to the funding of the unverified dossier that served as the basis for highly controversial surveillance warrants against him.

…“This is a first step to ensure that the full extent of the FISA abuse that has occurred during the last few years is exposed and remedied,” attorney John Pierce said Thursday. “Defendants and those they worked with inside the federal government did not and will not succeed in making America a surveillance state.”

He added: “This is only the first salvo. We will follow the evidence wherever it leads, no matter how high. … The rule of law will prevail.”

The lawsuit will be heard in the Federal District Court in Northern Illinois.

The article concludes:

Page could sue Steele, except that Steele is in England and has made it clear that he doesn’t plan to visit the U.S., ever again. Nearly all potential defendants other than Steele–Comey, Clapper, McCabe and the like–would try to erect a firewall by denying any knowledge that the Steele dossier was a fraud.

Whether such guilty knowledge could be proved is doubtful. At a minimum, Page will have to get far enough to conduct meaningful discovery against the existing defendants. Do the DNC’s or Perkins Coie’s emails contain evidence of a conspiracy to lie about Carter Page, for the purpose of damaging Donald Trump? Who knows? If the participants were careful, they don’t; then again, those who were talking to each other in 2016 and 2017 probably didn’t foresee that their actions might one day be exposed in court. So perhaps they were careless. Maybe, too, any such communications were deleted or destroyed long ago.

There is at least one obvious exception to the above analysis–the DOJ lawyer who misrepresented a CIA email to the FISA court. The email said that Carter Page was a CIA asset. The lawyer changed it to say that Page was not a CIA asset. That guy, who has been fired and I assume will be criminally prosecuted, has no defense other than causation. He likely would argue that he was just a cog in a giant wheel of lies, and that Page would have been equally defamed, surveilled and harassed even if he hadn’t lied about the CIA email. Which undoubtedly is true, although it is questionable as a defense.

What Carter Page is doing is noble. Let’s hope he succeeds in shedding light on the biggest political scandal, by far, in American history.

Finally, a fun fact: Page is represented by the same lawyers who are representing Tulsi Gabbard in her defamation case against Hillary Clinton, who called Gabbard a Russian asset. Which, of course, is what she and her minions also called Carter Page, an equally absurd lie.

Stay tuned.

This Case Is Still Relevant

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On Tuesday The Epoch Times posted an article about the Awan scandal. In case you have forgotten, various members and friends of the Awan family were IT aides to more than 40 Democratic members of key national security and foreign policy committees in the House of Representatives. Their positions gave the aides access to all of the members’ digital communications and documents.

The article reminds us:

With the exception of Imran Awan, all of the Awan network members lost their access to the House IT network in February 2017, as a result of a report by the top House administrative officials that said the aides “are an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems and thereby members’ capacity to serve constituents.”

Imran Awan was kept on the House payroll by then-Democratic National Committee Chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Fla.) until he was arrested by federal agents while trying to leave the United States.

Awan was subsequently charged with bank fraud in connection with a loan from the Congressional Federal Credit Union.

The article reports the current activities on the case:

An apparently frustrated federal judge ordered attorneys for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to appear Jan. 15 for a “snap” hearing to explain why the government isn’t producing documents sought by Judicial Watch concerning former Democratic information technology aide Imran Awan.

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta’s unusual order followed a sealed submission by DOJ attorneys Jan. 10 in the case prompted by the nonprofit government watchdog’s November 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.

Such hastily convened hearings are extremely unusual in a federal judicial system so jammed that months can pass before cases are litigated in courtrooms.

“In a hearing last month, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta expressed frustration and ordered the Justice Department to explain its failure to produce records by January 10 and to provide Judicial Watch some details about the delay,” Judicial Watch said in a statement Jan. 14 about the snap hearing.

“Instead, the Justice Department made its filing under seal and has yet to provide Judicial Watch with any details about its failure to produce records as promised to the court,” Judicial Watch said.

Federal attorneys previously said in December 2019 that they were unable to provide the documents sought in the Judicial Watch FOIA requests because they include materials from a “related sealed criminal matter.”

Thank God for Judicial Watch.

The article concludes:

The Awan scandal was first exposed by Daily Caller investigative journalist Luke Rosiak, who subsequently published a book on his findings, titled “Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the Democrats.”

None of the Awan network members were reportedly required to undergo security background checks prior to being employed on congressional staffs.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in the nonprofit’s statement that “the DOJ’s handling of the Awan brothers case has long been an issue of concern and now we are expected to believe some secret investigation prevents the public from knowing the full truth about this scandal. We are skeptical.”

Just another example of inexplicable actions by the Justice Department.

Insanity Made Legal

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An article at New Jersey News 12 updated on December 23 reported that New Jersey birth certificates will now include a third, non-binary label come February 1.

The article reports:

Gov. Phil Murphy signed the Babs Siperstein Bill into law last July.

The new legislation gives parents the option of choosing a gender-neutral or non-binary identity on their child’s birth certificate. It also allows adults to change the gender marker on their birth and death certificates, without proof of reassignment surgery.

“Just because your sex assigned at birth is one thing, it does not necessarily mean that it is something that’s going to be consistent with your gender identity throughout your life,” says Ashley Chiappano with the group Garden State Equality.

I would like to remind Ms. Chiappano that the sex assigned at birth is not randomly assigned–it is based on visible biological, scientific information.

The article concludes:

Chiappano says that there is a difference between sex and gender.

“Sex is more like a label. When we’re talking about sex, this is assignment by a doctor,” she says. “Gender identity goes even further to say that it’s how you feel on the inside and how you express yourself. It’s how you express yourself through your clothing, your behavior, your personal appearance.”

The new law is named after Edison resident Babs Siperstein, the first elected transgender member of the Democratic National Committee in 2012.

New Jersey joins Oregon, California and Washington, which have all approved similar legislation. New York City also just changed birth certificates to be gender neutral.

I totally reject the idea that sex is assigned by a doctor. It is designated on the basis of visual evidence. It is becoming obvious that in several states the inmates have taken over the asylum.

Crooks Always Deny

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Honest people make mistakes, admit to them, and move on. Dishonest people continue to deny their mistakes even after the evidence becomes apparent. As we await the Inspector General’s report on Monday, we are watching those who know they are named in the report squirm. We are also watching facts come out that have previously been denied and that some politicians are attempting to deny even after evidence is disclosed.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about recent information that has come to light about the Democrat party’s actions during the 2016 campaign. There is now little question that the Democrats worked with Ukraine to obtain information to damage the Trump campaign. To some extent they were successful.

The article reports:

Democrat lawmakers freaked after Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Ron Johnson (WI) announced they are seeking “staff-led transcribed interviews” DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa had with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election.

Recall, Alexandra Chalupa met with Ukrainian officials at the Ukrainian embassy and was given damaging information on Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Democrat lawmakers freaked after Republican Senators Chuck Grassley (IA), Lindsey Graham (SC) and Ron Johnson (WI) announced they are seeking “staff-led transcribed interviews” DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa had with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election.

Recall, Alexandra Chalupa met with Ukrainian officials at the Ukrainian embassy and was given damaging information on Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Left-wing sites such as Politico reported on Alexandra Chalupa’s meetings with Ukrainian officials during the 2016 election in order to aid Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“The interview and records requests are a continuation of an inquiry that Grassley launched in 2017 following news reports that a Democratic National Committee consultant solicited derogatory information on the Trump campaign from Ukrainian embassy officials prior to the 2016 election  According to those reports, elements of the Ukrainian government were actively working to undermine candidate Trump’s electoral prospects in favor of Hillary Clinton,” the Senators wrote.

The Democrat response to this is predictable:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer came unhinged and accused the Republican Senators of pushing Vladimir Putin’s talking points and conspiracy theories.

We will probably hear more references to Vladimir Putin’s talking points from the Democrats in the coming days. The Democrats are counting on the American voters not to know the story of Ukraine, as the major media has pretty much ignored it. Stay tuned. There is going to be a significant amount of mud flying through the air on both sides in the coming week.

 

 

The Circus Continues

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If anyone has doubts about Hillary Clinton running for President in 2020, they need to take a look at her recent actions. Hillary went semi-silent for a while, but now she is back with a vengeance. Her latest feud is with Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard. As an aside, Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of the more sane Democrats running for President.

Breitbart posted an article today about the feud.

The article reports:

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) called former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the “queen of warmongers” on Friday, blaming Clinton for orchestrating recent smears against her in the mainstream media.

Earlier on Friday, Clinton suggested that Gabbard was being “groomed” by Russia as a potential third-party candidate. Appearing on a podcast hosted by former Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, Clinton called Gabbard “the favorite of the Russians.”

Last weekend, the New York Times made similar accusations against Gabbard, without any evidence, calling her “a potentially useful vector for Russian efforts to sow division within the Democratic Party.”

This is getting ridiculous. I guess the latest smear of any candidate the Clinton left doesn’t like (or represents competition) is that they are a Russian agent.

The article also notes:

Gabbard, who supported Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in the 2016 presidential election, resigned a leadership post in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in protest at its favoritism toward Clinton.

As I said, I think Tulsi Gabbard is probably the most reasonable Democrat candidate running for President. It’s interesting that according to Election Central, Tulsi Gabbard has not yet qualified for the November 20th Democrat Presidential Debate. I suspect that she has too much common sense to be included in the field.

Following The Money

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Lawyers are expensive. In Washington, D.C., lawyers are really expensive. Comments I am hearing suggest that the ‘whistleblower’s report’ is written as a legal brief–not by an intelligence agent. Those familiar with the verbal cadence of an intelligence report have expressed doubt that this report was written by an intelligence agent. So who hired the lawyers and where did the money come from?

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article yesterday that provides some answers to these questions.

The article reports:

Sections of a so-called whistleblower’s complaint alleging President Donald Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential race relies upon a self-described investigative journalism organization bankrolled massively by billionaire activist George Soros.

The complainer admits, “I was not a direct witness to most of the events described.” Still, the so-called whistleblower goes on to allege that Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

The transcript of the phone call authorized for release by President Trump evidences no such pressure or quid pro quo and shows the request to investigate alleged corruption involving Biden and his family was a small part of the call.

…Even though the statement was written in first person –  “multiple U.S. officials told me” – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

That footnote reads:

In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.

The so-called whistleblower’s account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does so to:

    • Write that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko “also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters.”
    • Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani “had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani.”
    • Bolster the charge that, “I also learned from a U.S. official that ‘associates’ of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team.” The so-called whistleblower then relates in another footnote, “I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above.”

The OCCRP report repeatedly referenced is actually a “joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine.”

BuzzFeed infamously also first published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.

Somehow we keep hearing the same names.

Some Insightful Thoughts On The Democrat Party Primary

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Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel posted an article at Townhall today about the Democrat Presidential Primary Campaign. The writers noted some changes in the Democrat Party that may be a problem in the 2020 presidential election.

The article reports:

This week, we were served some less-than-breaking news. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination. If you’ve never heard of him, that’s OK. Few Democrats have. He served in the Marine Corps for four tours in Iraq, but other than that, he hasn’t done much.

What’s interesting is why he’s being forced to drop out of the race. By any sane standards, Moulton is a thoroughly liberal Democrat. On every issue, he’s more left-wing than President Barack Obama was on the day he left office. Three years ago, Moulton would have been considered a liberal firebrand. But not anymore. By the lunatic standards of the modern Democratic Party, Moulton is now a flaming moderate, and that’s the kiss of death. Moderates are no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.

The article notes that when candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, encouraged the Democrats at the debate to be more practical in their platforms, his comments were not well received.

The article also notes some of Vice-President Biden’s recent statements:

Biden: “My senior semester, they (Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy) were both shot and killed. Imagine what happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would’ve happened in America?” Imagine you’re Biden’s political director, sitting offstage. All of a sudden, Biden wanders into the unscripted territory and says, “Imagine the assassination of Obama.” This is not an attack on Biden, but he’s not going to be the nominee. So the actual race comes down to Warren’s and Sanders’ competing visions of how to achieve the same socialist fantasy. Warren is promising reparations based on skin color. That’s popular. Sanders wants a government takeover of the entire energy sector. They will be working to out-crazy each other for the next six months. That is a dynamic guaranteed to produce even more extremism. And it has some Democratic leaders worried. The Democratic National Committee voted on a proposal to hold a debate focused exclusively on climate change. Why wouldn’t they? Well, because the solutions the candidates would promise live on television are insane: spend $16 trillion, ban airplanes, seize control of the entire U.S. economy.

Finally, the article concludes:

The Trustafarians love stuff like that. Normal people find it terrifying. Even the party hacks here in D.C. don’t like it, and that’s probably a compliment. Do you really think Nancy Pelosi believes climate change is an existential crisis? Of course, she doesn’t think that. Plus, she flies private. Obama can say whatever he wants about carbon emissions. He can shake his chin and be concerned, but when you’re spending 15 million of your own dollars on a beachfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard, you’re not too worried about the oceans rising. But the Democratic base doesn’t get the joke. Democratic primary voters believe the talking points. And very soon, they will be powerful enough to nominate their own presidential candidate. And when that happens, it’s going to be a very different party.

The 2020 Presidential campaign and election will require serious amounts of popcorn.

 

Still Rigging Primaries

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Evidently the Democrat Presidential candidates are being winnowed down to fit on one debate stage. However, the winnowing process is about as fair as Bernie Sanders’ primary run in 2016.

The American Thinker posted an article today with their observations:

Iconoclastic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard did the unforgiveable in the eyes of the hidebound Democratic Party establishment: She knocked down one their favorites, Kamala Harris. 

…Now, through the miracle of rule-rigging, the Democratic establishment has maneuvered to exact a price from her: No appearance at the next Democratic debate. No more taking down the next favorite.

Yesterday Real Clear Politics posted an article about the exclusion of Representative Gabbard.

The article notes:

Tulsi Gabbard is on the verge of being excluded from the next Democratic presidential debate on the basis of criteria that appear increasingly absurd.

Take, for instance, her poll standing in New Hampshire, which currently places Gabbard at 3.3% support, according to the RealClearPolitics average as of Aug. 20. One might suspect that such a figure would merit inclusion in the upcoming debates — especially considering she’s ahead of several candidates who have already been granted entry, including Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Beto O’Rourke, and Andrew Yang. But the Democratic National Committee has decreed that the polls constituting this average are not sufficiently “qualifying.”

The article at RealClear Politics continues:

The absurdity mounts. A South Carolina poll published Aug. 14 by the Post and Courier placed Gabbard at 2%. One might have again vainly assumed that the newspaper with the largest circulation in a critical early primary state would be an “approved” sponsor per the dictates of the DNC, but it is not. Curious.

To recap: Gabbard has polled at 2% or more in two polls sponsored by the two largest newspapers in two early primary states, but the DNC — through its mysteriously incoherent selection process — has determined that these surveys do not count toward her debate eligibility. Without these exclusions, Gabbard would have already qualified. She has polled at 2% or more in two polls officially deemed “qualifying,” and surpassed the 130,000 donor threshold on Aug. 2. While the latter metric would seem more indicative of “grassroots support” — a formerly obscure Hawaii congresswoman has managed to secure more than 160,000 individual contributions from all 50 states, according to the latest figures from her campaign — the DNC has declared that it will prioritize polling over donors. In polls with a sample size of just a few hundred people, this means excluding candidates based on what can literally amount to rounding errors: A poll that places a candidate at 1.4% could be considered non-qualifying, but a poll that places a candidate at 1.5% is considered qualifying. Pinning such massive decisions for the trajectory of a campaign on insignificant fractional differences seems wildly arbitrary.

In Animal Farm by George Orwell, the pigs proclaim, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” I think that is the way the Democrat party runs their presidential primary elections.

 

I Don’t Have Enough Imagination To Come Up With This

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The following appeared in The Daily Caller yesterday:

This is real. I am not kidding.

The article notes:

Hillary Clinton, who used a private email server as secretary of state, will speak at a cyber defense summit later in 2019, it was announced Thursday.

FireEye, a cybersecurity company based in California, announced Clinton will give the keynote speech at its annual summit in Washington, D.C., in October.

The article continues:

The FBI investigated Clinton for mishandling classified information, but she was not charged in the probe.

James Comey, who served as FBI director during the investigation, called Clinton’s use of the server “extremely careless.” He said it made more vulnerable to cyber attack by foreign powers, though investigators did not find evidence that the server was hacked.

Clinton has also asserted the hacks of her campaign chairman’s emails and that of the Democratic National Committee led to her defeat at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2016 election.

The Russian government allegedly hacked into the DNC’s computer systems and released nearly 20,000 emails through WikiLeaks. The same Russian intelligence operation also stole John Podesta’s emails through an unsophisticated spear-phishing attack.

I would like to note that the FBI was never allowed to examine the DNC’s computer systems to confirm how John Podesta’s emails were accessed–it was done by an organization called CrowdStrike, considered an ally of the Democrat Party. There has always been speculation that the Podesta emails were leaked by a Democrat. Julian Assange of Wikileaks has stated on numerous occasions that he did not get the emails from the Russians.

At any rate, would you attend a cyber security conference with Hillary Clinton as the featured speaker?

 

Obstruction Of Justice?

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On Thursday, Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released an email revealing that Nellie Ohr, wife of former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, informed him that she was deleting emails sent from Bruce Ohr’s DOJ email account.

From: Nellie Ohr

Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2016 12:49 PM

To: Ohr, Bruce (ODAG)

Subject: Re: Analyst Russian Organized Crime – April 2016

Thanks! I’m deleting these emails now

The full email exchange is between Bruce Ohr, Lisa Holtyn, Nellie Ohr, and Stefan Bress, a first secretary at the German Embassy, and is part of 339 pages of heavily redacted records from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a March 2018 Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond a December 2017 request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00490)).

Nellie Ohr’s email has the same subject line as an email exchange with the subject line “Analyst Russian Organized Crime – April 2016” in which Bress initiates a discussion with Bruce Ohr and his top aide, Lisa Holtyn, proffering some “Russian analysts” to discuss a variety of topics with Ohr, Holtyn, and other DOJ officials. Among those topics to be discussed is “Impact of Russian influence operations in Europe (‘PsyOps/InfoWar’).”

Holtyn responds with, “I haven’t had a chance to confer with Bruce yet, but would certainly love to meet with the ‘A Team’!” Bruce Ohr then says, “That time works for me as well.” Bress then provides the personal details/passport numbers of the German analysts who will be meeting with Holtyn and Ohr. Holtyn tells Bress that the Ohr’s would like to host the German delegation for dinner and notes that Joe Wheatley and Ivana Nizich (a husband/wife team of DOJ Organized Crime prosecutors and friends of the Ohr’s) would join them as well.

Until he was demoted for his connection to the anti-Trump dossier, Bruce Ohr was a top official at DOJ. A House Intelligence Committee memo released by Chairman Devin Nunes said that Nellie Ohr was “employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump” and that Bruce Ohr passed the results of that research, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI. The “salacious and unverified” Dossier was used to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance warrant to spy on Carter Page.

These documents are part of Nellie Ohr’s and the DOJ’s communications about Russia. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) recently wrote up a criminal referral concerning her testimony before Congress that she had no knowledge of what was going on during the Russia investigation at DOJ.

“This email is disturbing and suggests documents relevant to the improper targeting of President Trump were destroyed,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

This production of documents also revealed that Bruce Ohr remained in regular contact with former British spy and Fusion GPS contractor Christopher Steele after Steele was terminated by the FBI in November 2016 for revealing to the media his position as an FBI confidential informant.

Americans just spent upwards of $30 million and two years investigating Russian collusion and obstruction of said investigation. Why weren’t deleted emails from key players in the investigation looked at?

The investigation into the investigators has something in common with many Clinton scandals. Although the Clintons are only tangentially involved in this scandal, it bears one of their trademarks–keep the scandal in the news until people are sick of it. At that point, reveal the truth. The public will be so bored with the basic scandal that they won’t even notice or process the truth. I hope I am wrong about this–people involved in the abuse of government power need to go to jail, but I am afraid that by the time the truth comes out, no one will care.

Judicial Watch Investigates

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Judicial Watch is one of my favorite organizations. The have turned the use of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests into an art form. They are a non-biased group that is simply demanding transparency in government–from both parties.

Yesterday One America News Network posted an article about the latest FOIA request from Judicial Watch.

The article reports:

Conservative watchdog group filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the FBI in an effort to pierce the veil of the resources used in the $25 million probe.

Specifically, the organization is looking to obtain all communications and payments made to the author of the anti-Trump dossier — Christopher Steele.

The former British intelligence officer was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee in order to compile his 35 page document.

Judicial Watch is now trying to determine the FBI’s involvement.

It’s already known that the FBI made 11 payments to Steele, but the details behind those payments were heavily redacted.

Conservatives suspect rogue actors at the bureau were looking to reverse the results of the 2016 election, which is something Attorney General William Barr said he’s looking into.

I don’t think they were rogue actors–I think the operation began very high up in the FBI, but we will have to wait to see if that is where the trail leads.

The Strange Case of Julian Assange

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Yesterday NewsbustersNewsbusters posted an article reminding us that the media once loved Julian Assange. Now, not so much.

The article reminds us:

Before the hacking of the DNC during the 2016 Campaign, WikiLeaks was responsible for many document dumps that harmed American national security, the most infamous case involving a U.S. Army private then known as Bradley Manning. WikiLeaks also put at risk the lives of informants working for U.S. and allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was during that time, when WikiLeaks endangered lives and undermined U.S. war efforts, that the press sang its praises as a truth-telling and information-gathering organization.

The article lists a number of examples of news stories praising Assange for revealing ‘behind the scenes’ information on military matters. They chose to ignore the fact that American lives were put at risk by what he did. Then came the hacking of the DNC. Somehow the story changed–then Assange became a villain in the eyes of the media.

The article concludes:

Even if it wasn’t known in 2010 that WikiLeaks was an arm of Russian intelligence, Jullian Assange was enemy of the United States before, during, and after the 2016 hack into the e-mails of John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee, but the media only uniformaly came out against Assange when it appeared that his work would hurt Hillary Clinton and the Democrats, not when he was endangering lives by undermining U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There are a few things I want to remind people of as this story unfolds. Jullian Assange has repeatedly stated that the DNC leaks did not come from Russia. There is speculation that they may have come from a lost cell phone of John Podesta (with the password ‘password’) or from a leaker inside the DNC who was concerned that the primary election was being rigged for Hillary Clinton (Seth Rich?). I would also add that if you supported the leaking of the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971, then you should probably support Jullian Assange. Just for the record, Daniel Ellsberg was indicted for stealing and holding secret documents, but the judge in the case declared a mistrial and dismissed the charges.

I don’t support leaking military information, but when there are shenanigans going on in a political campaign, I am grateful when it is revealed.

 

When The Press Works Hand In Hand With A Political Party

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We have all heard examples of news articles being withheld until after an election or until the politicians involved can figure out a spin. (see article here). Well, someone blew the whistle on NBC recently. In an article posted at The Daily Wire today, investigative reporter Yashar Ali reported that the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC bullied him on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) into holding a scoop that he broke yesterday. Think about that–the managing political editor for NBC News and MSNBC was helping the DNC.

The article reports:

“Yesterday, I received a call from @DafnaLinzer who serves as managing editor of NBC/MSNBC politics,” Ali tweeted. “Dafna’s conduct during the call was highly inappropriate and unethical. So what was the purpose of her call? She called me to bully me on behalf of the DNC.”

“Dafna, who oversees the political coverage for NBC and MSNBC, was calling to bully me into delaying the publication of an innocuous scoop and at no point did she advocate for her network, it was only about the DNC,” Ali continued. “Yesterday morning I received a tip from a trusted source. The source told me the DNC would be announcing the dates of the first 2020 primary debates later that day. The source gave me the dates they would be announcing: June 26 and 27.”

This is the most interesting part of the story:

“I realized that @DafnaLinzer, the head of all political coverage for NBC News and MSNBC wasn’t calling to advocate for her network, she was calling to advocate the DNC’s position,” Ali continued. She wanted me to wait so they could call state party leaders. I thought to myself ‘this is how people think it works.’ It’s not. But Dafna was doing it. She kept pressing me. Now I acknowledged, for stuff that isn’t about serious investigative reporting, there is no problem holding something. But I knew once others got the call.”

So much for objective reporting.

Following The Money

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The Daily Caller has some of the best investigative reporting on the internet. Yesterday they posted an article detailing the source of some of the money that paid for the Fusion GPS Christopher Steele document that formed the basis for the investigation of President Trump. I know that people who actually follow the news instead of the mainstream media will not be surprised that the trail eventually leads to George Soros. Before we go into the details of the money, let’s look at some George Soros’ past actions. George Soros made a great deal of money by shorting the British pound.

In February 2019, Investopedia reported:

In Britain, Black Wednesday (Sept.16, 1992) is known as the day that speculators broke the pound. They didn’t actually break it, but they forced the British government to pull it from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Joining the ERM was part of Britain’s effort to help the unification of the European economies.

Compounding the underlying problems inherent in the pound’s inclusion into the ERM was the economic strain of reunification that Germany found itself under, which put pressure on the mark as the core currency for the ERM. The drive for European unification also hit bumps during the passage of the Maastricht Treaty, which was meant to bring about the euro. Speculators began to eye the ERM and wondered how long fixed exchange rates could fight natural market forces.

Spotting the writing on the wall, Britain upped its interest rates to the teens to attract people to the pound, but speculators, George Soros among them, began heavy shorting of the currency.

The British government gave in and withdrew from the ERM as it became clear that it was losing billions trying to buoy its currency artificially. Although it was a bitter pill to swallow, the pound came back stronger because the excess interest and high inflation were forced out of the British economy following the beating. Soros pocketed $1 billion on the deal and cemented his reputation as the premier currency speculator in the world.

The Daily Caller reports on some of his more recent activities during the 2016 campaign:

A dark money group with links to several high-profile liberal activists contributed $2 million to The Democracy Integrity Project, an organization founded by a former Dianne Feinstein staffer that has contracted with Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to investigate President Donald Trump.

Fund for a Better Future (FBF) donated $2,065,000 to The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) in 2017, according to IRS filings reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

TDIP was founded on Jan. 31, 2017, by Daniel Jones, a consultant who worked for Feinstein, a California Democrat, when she controlled the Senate Intelligence Committee. Jones has disclosed to the FBI that he hired Fusion GPS and Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier, to continue an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

He also told an associate that TDIP operated as a “shadow media organization helping the government.” Jones suggested to the associate, Adam Waldman, that his TDIP team planted several anti-Trump articles.

Little is known about the donors behind both TDIP and FBF. Both of the organizations are 501(c)(4)s, the type of public advocacy group most closely associated with “dark money” contributions. FBF has contributed to a mix of environmental organizations and politically active groups, including Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Priorities USA — the political group that backs Democrats — and the League of Conservation Voters, a progressive dark money group.

…George Soros contributed $1 million to TDIP, a spokesman for the billionaire financier told The New York Times in October. That disclosure came only after TheDCNF reported that Jones told his associate, Waldman, that Soros was one of TDIP’s funders.

…According to a report released by the House Intelligence Committee in April 2018, Jones told the FBI in March 2017 that his group would receive $50 million in funding from seven to 10 wealthy donors from New York and California. TDIP’s tax filings in 2017 show that the group received far less: $9,036,836.

Jones also said that TDIP “planned to share the information he obtained with policymakers … and with the press” and that his group “had secured the services of Steele, his associate [redacted], and Fusion GPS to continue exposing Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.” (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Cabal Of Wealthy Donors Funding $50 Million Anti-Trump Project)

Fusion GPS, which was founded by former Wall Street Journal reporter Glenn Simpson, hired Steele in June 2016. Fusion was working at the time for the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee to investigate Trump’s links to Russia.

Few details are known about the work Fusion and Steele, a former MI6 officer, have done since the 2016 election. Both have been ensnared in legal fights over publication of the dossier, which remains unverified and has been heavily disputed. But there is some evidence they have continued their efforts to bolster the dossier and to plant negative stories in the press about Trump.

In a March 17, 2017, exchange obtained by TheDCNF, Jones sent Waldman, a lawyer with ties to Steele, a text message with a link to a Reuters article about Russian investments in Trump Organization properties in Florida.

“Our team helped with this,” Jones wrote Waldman.

This is a major part of the swamp that needs to be drained. George Soros is an American citizen, but he has been working against the best interests of America for a long time. He is in favor of open borders and one-world government. His money has paid for a lot of the negative reporting you have heard about President Trump.

The Church Used To Be Part Of The Foundation Of America

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Today The Daily Caller posted an article that includes an amazing quote by Tom Perez, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The article reports:

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Tom Perez on Wednesday complained that voters are influenced by what they hear in church on Sundays.

Perez claimed that Republicans have an advantage because “people buy” what they hear at church.

…“I’ve learned this from the outreach we’ve done at the DNC. Why aren’t we penetrating, I ask? And I had someone in northwest Wisconsin tell me: ‘You know what? For most of the people I know, their principle sources of information are Fox News, the NRA newsletter and the pulpit on Sunday.’ And it should come as a surprise to no-one that our message doesn’t penetrate,” Perez continued.

“It should come as a surprise to no-one that that person has elevated the issue of courts to the top because that person on the pulpit is saying ‘ignore everything else that this person has done and is doing, we have to focus on one issue of Roe vs. Wade.’ And people buy it. Because that’s their only source,” Perez asserted.

It’s interesting to me that the Democrats love to criticize Fox News. It never occurs to them to criticize the bias of CNN, MSNBC, or any of the major outlets. I think the problem with Fox News (according to liberal thinking) is that it was the first network to present a narrative different from all of the other networks. The lead stories on the news at CNN, MSNBC, CBS, NBC, and ABC are quite likely to be the same. They may not be actually coordinated, but they will be the same. If you want a different perspective, you have to go to Fox News or alternative news sites on the media.

It is also interesting to me that a politician would be so bold as to criticize what people hear in church. This should be a wake up call to Americans that their votes matter–if people who think like Tom Perez gain full control of our government, what you hear in church may be severely censored.

When Did The FBI Become Political?

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This article is based on two articles–one at The Conservative Treehouse and one at The Hill.

The Conservative Treehouse article reports:

The DOJ-NSD and FBI are holding a press conference today at 9:30am.  The topic is unknown, but the timing coincides with a document production subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee for McCabe Memos, the “Woods File” supporting the Carter Page FISA application, and Gang-of-Eight documents on the Russia investigation.

In related news, former FBI chief legal counsel, James Baker, delivered testimony to the Joint House Committee yesterday in the ongoing investigation of corrupt FISA processes and “spy-gate”.   Fox News and The Hill both have reports.

The Hill reports:

Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump’s campaign.

Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm.

That’s the firm used by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to secretly pay research firm Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence operative, to compile a dossier of uncorroborated raw intelligence alleging Trump and Moscow were colluding to hijack the presidential election.

The dossier, though mostly unverified, was then used by the FBI as the main evidence seeking a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in the final days of the campaign.

The revelation was confirmed both in contemporaneous evidence and testimony secured by a joint investigation by Republicans on the House Judiciary and Government Oversight committees, my source tells me.

It means the FBI had good reason to suspect the dossier was connected to the DNC’s main law firm and was the product of a Democratic opposition-research effort to defeat Trump — yet failed to disclose that information to the FISA court in October 2016, when the bureau applied for a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

“This is a bombshell that unequivocally shows the real collusion was between the FBI and Donald Trump’s opposition — the DNC, Hillary and a Trump-hating British intel officer — to hijack the election, rather than some conspiracy between Putin and Trump,” a knowledgeable source told me.

Here you have the smoking gun in the Russian investigation. Unfortunately it is a smoking gun that Robert Mueller has chosen to ignore. That alone should give all of us pause. What in the world is Mueller investigating? (Or what in the world is Mueller avoiding investigating?)

The Hill further reports:

The growing body of evidence that the FBI used mostly politically-motivated, unverified intelligence from an opponent to justify spying on the GOP nominee’s campaign — just weeks before Election Day — has prompted a growing number of Republicans to ask President Trump to declassify the rest of the FBI’s main documents in the Russia collusion case.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Freedom Caucus leaders Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), veteran investigator Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and many others have urged the president to act on declassification even as FBI and Justice Department have tried to persuade the president to keep documents secret.

Ryan has said he believes the declassification will uncover potential FBI abuses of the FISA process. Jordan said he believes there is strong evidence the bureau misled the FISA court. Nunes has said the FBI intentionally hid exculpatory evidence from the judges.

And Meadows told The Hill’s new morning television show, Rising, on Wednesday that there is evidence the FBI had sources secretly record members of the Trump campaign.

“There’s a strong suggestion that confidential human sources actually taped members within the Trump campaign,” Meadows told Hill.TV hosts Krystal Ball and Ned Ryun.

I can assure you that if those responsible for the illegal spying on the opposition campaign are not brought to justice, this will happen again in the future. In the Watergate Scandal, people went to jail. In the Russiagate Scandal, people should also go to jail. Oddly enough, it seems as if the people the Special Prosecutor is investigating are not the ones who should go to jail.

This Should Make For A Very Entertaining Democratic Primary Season

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As we have all come to know (and not appreciate), the campaign for the next presidential election starts the day after the last presidential election. Members of the party that did not win begin jockeying for position, assuring voters that they can beat the incumbent in the next election. It is a good time to watch the candidates and attempt to gauge the direction of the party. All indications within the Democrat party are that the party is moving significantly left, but trying not to be obvious about it. Local Congressional candidates are calling for abolishing ICE, instituting socialism, impeaching President Trump, free college tuition for everyone, etc. Nationally, party leaders are saying those are not priorities. (Well, I can guarantee that if the Democrats take the House of Representatives, one of their first issues will be impeachment, regardless of what they are saying.) Well, the Democrat presidential primary just got more interesting.

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon reported the following:

The Democratic National Committee voted on Saturday to change the party’s supderdelegate rules for its presidential nominations.

The DNC voted to weaken the role top party officials play in nominating their presidential nominee. A superdelegate is an unelected delegate that has the ability to support any candidate and aren’t beholden to results of a primary or caucus. Most superdelegates are current or former Democratic politicians.

The fight over superdelegates was sparked over the 2016 Democratic primary where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was favored heavily by superdelegates over self-proclaimed democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.). Clinton was able to secure the nomination sooner with the help of superdelegates and thus end Sander’s campaign. Sanders and many of his supporters have criticized the use of superdelegates and characterized them as a mechanism that subverted the will of the people.

CNN reports the vote was almost unanimous.

The superdelegates were instituted after the 1972 and 1980 elections, where more Democrats participated in the primary elections, but the candidates were defeated by landslides at the polls. Evidently Democrat primary voters did not represent a majority of the country, so the Democrats rigged the system so that candidates could again be chosen in the traditional smoke-filled rooms. That has seemed to work better for them. Even when they haven’t won, they have at least been in the running.

The article concludes:

Superdelegates will no longer be able to vote on the first ballot at the convention unless the candidate has received the necessary pledged delegates, which are based off primary and caucus results, to secure the nomination.

“Today is a historic day for our party,” said DNC Chair Tom Perez. “We passed major reforms that will not only put our next presidential nominee in the strongest position possible, but will help us elect Democrats up and down the ballot, across the country. These reforms will help grow our party, unite Democrats, and restore voters’ trust by making our 2020 nominating process the most inclusive and transparent in our history.”

The fight over superdelegates has divided Democrats but it appears Saturday’s rule change was a compromise most were willing to accept.

This primary season will definitely be a get-out-the-popcorn moment as the establishment Democrats fight to keep control of their party.

Some Interesting New Information

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Sharyl Attkisson is an Emmy award winning investigative journalist. She fell out of favor with the mainstream media when she began looking behind the scenes at some of the Obama scandals. Her personal computer was hacked by the government, and other violations of her civil rights occurred. She worked for CBS for a number of years. She has continued her investigative work independently and hosts a website where the results of her investigations are posted. She is also active on Twitter.

This is a screenshot of one of her recent tweets:

Recently she posted a timeline of the collusion against Trump on her website. Here are just a few highlights from that timeline that might explain some things:

June 2013: FBI interviews U.S. businessman Carter Page, who’s lived and worked in Russia, regarding his ongoing contacts with Russians. Page reportedly tells FBI agents their time would be better spent investigating Boston Marathon bombing (which the FBI’s Andrew McCabe helped lead). Page later claims his remark prompts FBI retaliatory campaign against him. The FBI, under McCabe, will later wiretap Page after Page becomes a Donald Trump campaign adviser.

FBI secretly records suspected Russian industrial spy Evgeny Buryakov. It’s later reported that Page helped FBI build the case.

…2015

FBI opens investigation into Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, including for donations from a Chinese businessman and Clinton Foundation donor.

FBI official Andrew McCabe meets with Gov. McAuliffe, a close Clinton ally. Afterwards, “McAuliffe-aligned political groups donated about $700,000 to Mr. McCabe’s wife…for her campaign to become a Democrat state Senator in Virginia.” The fact of the McAuliffe-related donations to wife of FBI’s McCabe—while FBI was investigating McAuliffe and Clinton—later becomes the subject of conflict of interest inquiry by Inspector General.

…2016

Obama officials vastly expand their searches through NSA database for Americans and the content of their communications. In 2013, there were 9,600 searches involving 195 Americans. But in 2016, there are 30,355 searches of 5,288 Americans.

Justice Dept. associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr meets with Fusion GPS’ Christopher Steele, the Yemen-born ex-British spy leading anti-Trump political opposition research project.

January 2016: Democratic operative Ukrainian-American Chalupa tells a senior Democratic National Committee official that she feels there’s a Russia connection with Trump.

Jan. 29, 2016: FBI Director Comey promotes Andrew McCabe to FBI Deputy Director.

McCabe takes lead on Clinton probe even though his wife received nearly $700,000 in campaign donations through Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe, who’s also under FBI investigation.

March 2016: Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s email gets hacked.

…May 23, 2016: FBI probe into Virginia governor and Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe becomes public. (McAuliffe is ultimately not charged with a crime.)

Justice Department Inspector General confirms it’s looking into FBI’s Andrew McCabe for alleged conflicts of interest in handling of Clinton and Gov. McAuliffe probes in light of McAuliffe directing campaign donations to McCabe’s wife.

FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, who are reportedly having an illicit affair, text each other that Trump’s ascension in the campaign will bring “pressure…to finish” Clinton probe.

Nellie Ohr, wife of Justice Dept. associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr and former CIA worker, goes on the payroll of Fusion GPS and assists with anti-Trump political opposition research. Her husband, Bruce, reportedly fails to disclose her specific employer and work in his Justice Dept. conflict of interest disclosures.

Nellie Ohr applies for a ham radio license.

June 2016: Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson hires Yemen-born ex-British spy Christopher Steele for anti-Trump political opposition research project. Steele uses info from Russian sources “close to Putin” to compile unverified “dossier” later provided to reporters and FBI, which the FBI uses to obtain secret wiretap.

The Guardian and Heat Street report that the FBI applied for a FISA warrant in June 2016 to “monitor four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials” but that the “initial request was denied.” 

Please follow the link to the article to see the entire timeline, it is worth reviewing. Sharyl Attkisson is one of the few really reliable resources on government corruption.

If There Is An Innocent Explanation For This, I Haven’t Heard It

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As the investigations into the actions of the FBI and DOJ under President Obama continue, the information coming out of these investigations makes less and less sense. A recent bit of information makes no sense in terms of logic.

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at The Hill with the following headline: “How Comey intervened to kill WikiLeaks’ immunity deal.” The article includes the draft immunity deal the Justice Department was considering for Julian Assange. Obviously, Julian Assange would be the person who would know exactly who was behind the hacking or leaking of information from the Democratic National Committee computers.

The article tells the story:

This yarn begins in January 2017 when Assange’s legal team approached Waldman — known for his government connections — to see if the new Trump administration would negotiate with the WikiLeaks founder, holed up in Ecuador’s London embassy. They hoped Waldman, a former Clinton Justice Department official, might navigate the U.S. law enforcement bureaucracy and find the right people to engage.

…Laufman (David Laufman, an accomplished federal prosecutor and then head of Justice’s counterintelligence and export controls section) described what the government might want to achieve, and Waldman laid the groundwork for a deal to give Assange limited immunity and a one-time “safe passage” to leave the London embassy and talk with U.S. officials. Laufman played to Assange’s belief that he was a publisher, the documents show; he put an offer on the table from the intelligence community to help Assange assess how some hostile foreign powers might be infiltrating or harming WikiLeaks staff.

…Just a few days after the negotiations opened in mid-February, Waldman reached out to Sen. Warner; the lawyer wanted to see if Senate Intelligence Committee staff wanted any contact with Assange, to ask about Russia or other issues.

Warner engaged with Waldman over encrypted text messages, then reached out to Comey. A few days later, Warner contacted Waldman with an unexpected plea.

“He told me he had just talked with Comey and that, while the government was appreciative of my efforts, my instructions were to stand down, to end the discussions with Assange,” Waldman told me. Waldman offered contemporaneous documents to show he memorialized Warner’s exact words.

Waldman couldn’t believe a U.S. senator and the FBI chief were sending a different signal, so he went back to Laufman, who assured him the negotiations were still on. “What Laufman said to me after he heard I was told to ‘stand down’ by Warner and Comey was, ‘That’s bullshit. You are not standing down and neither am I,’” Waldman recalled.

A source familiar with Warner’s interactions says the senator’s contact on the Assange matter was limited and was shared with Senate Intelligence chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.). But the source acknowledges that Warner consulted Comey and passed along the “stand down” instructions to Waldman: “That did happen.”

There are some obvious conclusions that can be drawn from these events, and I will let the readers draw them on their own. Suffice it to say, there were people in very high places that did not want Assange’s sources (or information) revealed. It will be interesting to see if Julian Assange is ever offered immunity and what that immunity will include.

Please follow the link to read the entire article which includes screenshots of the various documents that back up this strange story.

 

 

Part Of The Swamp Currently Being Ignored

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted a story about Hina Alvi, wife of Imran Awan. Imran Awan and Hina Alvi were information technology staffers who worked for Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and other Democrat congressmen.

In case you have forgotten:

  1. Imran Awan was arrested on charges of bank fraud, but that is only a small part of the story.
  2. Mr. Awan and a number of members of his family were employed by multiple Congressmen. When Mr. Awan reached the salary cap for his job, he would hire another family member. This continued, evidently with little regard to the computer skills of the hired family member.
  3. Mr. Awan at one point set up an alias account that allowed him to access Congressional servers after he was denied access. At one point after he was denied access, a significant data download occurred under his alias account. Mr. Awan claimed that the data download was his elementary school child’s homework, but the download involved thousands of pages. Most elementary school homework does not involve thousands of pages. It was also noted that the size of the data breach was such that it could not have been done over the internet—it had to be done using a thumb drive or similar piece of equipment.
  4. It is quite possible that the leakage of information regarding the Democratic National Committee came from Mr. Awan. At the time Mr. Awan was employed by Representative Wasserman-Schultz, she was chairman of Democratic National Committee.

Hina Alvi was stopped at the airport on her way to Pakistan with a substantial amount of money. The FBI let her go.

The article reports:

For nearly a year since, the case has lingered despite the House Office of Inspector General (OIG) determining that the family of Pakistanis made “unauthorized access” to Congress’s data shortly before the election.

Following revelations about the FBI’s actions in the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server and Department of Justice officials’ handling of the Trump dossier, attention has turned to the agencies’ apparently lax attitude toward the congressional cyber breach case as perhaps the most jarring failure to enforce laws in cases that overlap politics.

The OIG alleged Imran Awan and his family members logged into servers of congressmen for whom they did not work, logged in using members’ personal usernames, covered their tracks, and continued to access data after they’d been fired.

Though the findings place the case squarely into the category of political cyber-crimes that have otherwise been high-profile priorities, the lead FBI agent assigned to the Awan case was a first-year agent, and not from one of the FBI’s big-guns divisions. The charges brought by prosecutors are so minor that Awan’s own lawyer speculated they could be a “placeholder” for future charges.

Server logs of government computers backed up the OIG’s findings. Yet six months after the initial charges, no additional counts have been brought, raising the question of whether the DOJ is seriously investigating the potential national security breach.

The article concludes:

Hosko (Ron Hosko, the FBI’s former assistant director) said six months in, DOJ has all the tools it needs and cannot blame the House, and inaction can only indicate a lack of desire to pursue the case.

“I would hope the Capitol Police are being forthcoming with the U.S. attorney, not just telling them a part of what’s gone on here,” Hosko said, alluding to the House’s characterization of the incident as a “theft” case. “But with these circumstances, [DOJ] can’t put their head in the sand. You can’t just say, ‘Well, someone on the Hill said it’s Speech and Debate.’ There’s certainly a way around it. This is [ Attorney General Jeff] Sessions, and there’s a new mindset in DOJ.”

(Michael Marando is the prosecutor. Since the case began, President Donald Trump appointed a new U.S. attorney, Jessie Liu.)

“I don’t see it as [members] having the opportunity to press charges — the government is the victim,” Hosko said.

If prosecutors don’t act, Hosko said, higher-level officials could consider moving the case. “It could be the Eastern District of Virginia has jurisdiction as well,” he said.

Their next court date is March 8.

There are some familiar names in this case:

Ron Hosko, the FBI’s former assistant director, said the agent on the case is “getting marginalized on the thing, he doesn’t have the bigger picture.” He said the facts in the case plainly call for the resources of both the FBI’s counterintelligence division and the public corruption unit. Peter Strzok, who sought to close down the investigation into Clinton’s emails before the intelligence community IG found classified materials, and who repeatedly voiced his support for Democrats, was deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.

It is becoming very obvious that the corruption at the top of the FBI has been there for a while and has been working against the interests of the American people. It is long past time to clean house.

Notice that we haven’t heard anything about this scandal from the mainstream media for a while.

It May Or Not Be True, But It Is Definitely Interesting

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Usually I take the time to verify things before I post them, but I have no way to verify this. I am not sure anyone can verify it. The good news here is that the rats are deserting the sinking ship that the Democratic party has become.

Politico posted an article today about Donna Brazile‘s new book, Hacks. I have no idea how much of the book is true, but the excerpts are extremely interesting. The excerpts pretty much confirm the fact that the Democratic primary was rigged in favor of Hillary long before anyone even thought of voting.

The book explains:

When the party chooses the nominee, the custom is that the candidate’s team starts to exercise more control over the party. If the party has an incumbent candidate, as was the case with Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012, this kind of arrangement is seamless because the party already is under the control of the president. When you have an open contest without an incumbent and competitive primaries, the party comes under the candidate’s control only after the nominee is certain. When I was manager of Al Gore’s campaign in 2000, we started inserting our people into the DNC in June. This victory fund agreement, however, had been signed in August 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.

I had tried to search out any other evidence of internal corruption that would show that the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary, but I could not find any in party affairs or among the staff. I had gone department by department, investigating individual conduct for evidence of skewed decisions, and I was happy to see that I had found none. Then I found this agreement.

The funding arrangement with HFA and the victory fund agreement was not illegal, but it sure looked unethical. If the fight had been fair, one campaign would not have control of the party before the voters had decided which one they wanted to lead. This was not a criminal act, but as I saw it, it compromised the party’s integrity.

The same lady talking about integrity is the person who fed the debate questions to candidate Clinton before the debates. Wow. I guess integrity depends on who you are talking about.

The book continues:

I told Bernie I had found Hillary’s Joint Fundraising Agreement. I explained that the cancer was that she had exerted this control of the party long before she became its nominee. Had I known this, I never would have accepted the interim chair position, but here we were with only weeks before the election.

Bernie took this stoically. He did not yell or express outrage. Instead he asked me what I thought Hillary’s chances were. The polls were unanimous in her winning but what, he wanted to know, was my own assessment?

I had to be frank with him. I did not trust the polls, I said. I told him I had visited states around the country and I found a lack of enthusiasm for her everywhere. I was concerned about the Obama coalition and about millennials.

I urged Bernie to work as hard as he could to bring his supporters into the fold with Hillary, and to campaign with all the heart and hope he could muster. He might find some of her positions too centrist, and her coziness with the financial elites distasteful, but he knew and I knew that the alternative was a person who would put the very future of the country in peril. I knew he heard me. I knew he agreed with me, but I never in my life had felt so tiny and powerless as I did making that call.

When I hung up the call to Bernie, I started to cry, not out of guilt, but out of anger. We would go forward. We had to.

Okay. Let’s back up a minute. Ms. Brazile is stating that the election of Donald Trump would put the very future of the country in peril, but electing someone who had to rig the system to make sure they won the primary would not? Wow.

Please follow the link above to read the entire Politico article. As I have stated, I have no idea how much of what Ms. Brazile is saying is true, but some of it confirms statements from other sources. At best the book would be very entertaining.

It Just Gets Uglier

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The Federalist is reporting today that since April President Obama has sent nearly a million dollars of his campaign money to the law group that hired Fusion GPS. This information appears in records filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The article reports:

The Washington Post reported last week that Perkins Coie, an international law firm, was directed by both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to retain Fusion GPS in April of 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy, to compile a dossier of allegations that Trump and his campaign actively colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Though many of the claims in the dossier have been directly refuted, none of the dossier’s allegations of collusion have been independently verified. Lawyers for Steele admitted in court filings last April that his work was not verified and was never meant to be made public.

OFA, Obama’s official campaign arm in 2016, paid nearly $800,000 to Perkins Coie in 2016 alone, according to FEC records. The first 2016 payments to Perkins Coie, classified only as “Legal Services,” were made April 25-26, 2016, and totaled $98,047. A second batch of payments, also classified as “Legal Services,” were disbursed to the law firm on September 29, 2016, and totaled exactly $700,000. Payments from OFA to Perkins Coie in 2017 totaled $174,725 through August 22, 2017.

The significance of this is simple. The information in the dossier put together by Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele is said to be the basis for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team. Think about that. Essentially President Obama paid to have a group gather dirt on Donald Trump and then used that dirt (even though it was questionable at best) as the basis for electronic surveillance. That sort of political spying on American citizens is exactly what those in Congress who opposed the Patriot Act were trying to prevent. It seems as if there are a lot of people in Washington who abused their power in recent years and need to be held accountable. The swamp must be drained.

What Do You Do When You Get Caught With Your Hand In The Cookie Jar?

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It’s been an interesting 24 hours.

Yesterday The Washington Post reported the following:

The Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund research that resulted in a now-famous dossier containing allegations about President Trump’s connections to Russia and possible coordination between his campaign and the Kremlin, people familiar with the matter said.

Marc E. Elias, a lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, retained Fusion GPS, a Washington firm, to conduct the research.

After that, Fusion GPS hired dossier author Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer with ties to the FBI and the U.S. intelligence community, according to those people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Elias and his law firm, Perkins Coie, retained the company in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Before that agreement, Fusion GPS’s research into Trump was funded by an unknown Republican client during the GOP primary.

It would be interesting to know who that Republican is. However, the bottom line here is that the Trump dossier was political opposition research funded by the Democratic Party.

We need to look at the history of this dossier. Fusion GPS was paid to come up with some dirt on candidate Trump. This political document was used as the basis for charges that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians and stole the election. This document was used as a basis for surveillance on the Trump campaign team and the Trump transition team before and after the election. Everyone involved in each of those decisions needs to be kicked out of Washington.

Please follow the link to The Washington Post article to see some of the other people involved and some of the other consequences of treating a paid, fabricated political hit piece as if it were reality.

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday about the Democratic National Committee’s response to all of this.

The article reports:

Within hours of The Washington Post publishing a bombshell report alleging that the DNC and the Clinton campaign funded the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, the Democratic National Committee issued a statement saying that the current head of the DNC (elected in February 2017) and the “new leadership” of the organization was not involved in any of the “decision-making” regarding the oppo research firm behind the dossier.

“Tom Perez and the new leadership of the DNC were not involved in any decision-making regarding Fusion GPS, nor were they aware that Perkins Coie was working with the organization,” reads the carefully phrased statement issued by DNC Communications Director Xochital Hinojosa Tuesday evening.

Note that the DNC is not denying the information that has come to light about the dossier–they are simply distancing the ‘new’ leadership from the actions connected to the dossier.

The Daily Wire article concludes with this reminder:

Just a few days ago, CNN’s Chris Cilizza mocked Trump for alleging that the Democratic Party was behind the dossier. While Trump’s suggestion that some sort of collusion betweeen the Democrats, the FBI and the Russians might prove to be a stretch, according to the Post, both the Democrats and the FBI were indeed involved on some level in the compilation of the “dirty dossier” that helped kickstart the Russia “collusion” narrative.

Get out the popcorn and stay tuned.