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Tag Archives: House Judiciary Committee

What Happened At The Hearing?

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On Wednesday, The Daily Caller posted a summary of Attorney General Merrick Garland’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. It’s amazing how many Democrats seem to have memory problems.

The article reports what it considers the biggest takeaways:

1. Biden-appointed prosecutors could refuse to cooperate with Weiss

Republican Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan pressed Garland on his previous testimony to Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley that Weiss had complete authority. Jordan emphasized Graves’ decision not to “partner” with Weiss on bringing charges against Hunter Biden.

2. It is unlikely the DOJ investigates the IRS whistleblowers

Republican Louisiana Rep. Mike Johnson questioned Garland on whether his office requested an investigation into the whistleblower testimony.

3. It is unclear why Weiss’ letters to Congress contradict themselves

Weiss wrote multiple letters to Congress in June and July responding to the IRS whistleblower allegations that his charging authority was limited. Weiss wrote a letter to Jordan in June where he said his charging authority was geographically limited to his home district and it was DOJ procedure to collaborate with U.S. Attorneys in their jurisdictions.

4. Garland appeared to dispute testimony from two FBI agents

Johnson questioned Garland on testimony from FBI agent Thomas Sobocinski who said Weiss had a “cumbersome” bureaucratic process for filing charges.

“There was administrative charge — or administrative process, not within DOJ, but also within tax.

5. Garland won’t talk about the details of the Hunter Biden case

The attorney general deferred to Weiss throughout his testimony when lawmakers asked specific questions on the details of the Hunter Biden case.

6. Garland did not consider appointing a special counsel from outside the Justice Department

Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel in August to continue the Hunter Biden investigation, even though DOJ regulations instruct for special counsels to be appointed from outside the government.

The article concludes:

The House Ways and Means, Judiciary and Oversight Committees are investigating the IRS whistleblower allegations alongside House Oversight’s probe into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Speaker Kevin McCarthy said on Sept. 12 that the three committees would be leading the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

Hunter Biden was indicted on Sept. 14 on three counts related to his October 2018 purchase of a Colt Cobra revolver while he was allegedly addicted to crack cocaine. His attorney said in a court filing Tuesday that Biden would plead not guilty to the gun charges.

 

How Many FBI Agents Does It Take To Create A False Flag Incident?

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On Wednesday, The Gateway Pundit reported the following:

As reported earlier on Tuesday, The House Judiciary Republicans sent a letter Tuesday that includes transcribed testimony from former Assistant Director-in-Charge of the Washington Field Office (WFO) Steven D’Antuono.

D’Antuono testified that the FBI had numerous confidential human sources (CHS) in the Trump crowd on January 6.

In fact, they had so many FBI operatives in the crowd they had no idea how many were actually there that day!

D’Antuono had quite a record of failures and lies during his time at the FBI.

D’Antuono was the head of the FBI’s Detroit field office as the bureau was investigating an alleged kidnapping attempt against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

As Just the News notes, trial testimony alleges the “plot” wasn’t just investigated but instigated by the FBI, with the jury hearing that the bureau’s informants gave drugs to those who were eventually charged in the plot before recording their conversations and sometimes outnumbered “plotters” during meetings.

The entire plot was hatched, planned, paid for, and executed by paid FBI informants.

…In the letter released on Tuesday, D’Antuono told House investigators that he did not know how many FBI agents had infiltrated the crowd on January 6.

The letter suggested that “the FBI cannot adequately track the activities and operations of its informants, and that it lost control of its CHSs present at the Capitol on January 6,” D’Antuono wrote.

Later in the interview, he told investigators that “only a handful” of FBI informants were in the crowd that day.

For over two years now, The Gateway Pundit has been reporting on the FBI informants and feds who infiltrated the Trump crowds on January 6, 2021.

And we can report – for certain – that Assistant Director-in-Charge of the Washington Field Office (WFO) Steven D’Antuono is lying about the number of FBI operatives and informants in the crowd on January 6th.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. At the bottom of the article is further information uncovered by the research team at The Gateway Pundit.

The Cover-Up Continues

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On Friday, The New York Post posted an article about FBI Special Agent Thomas Sobocinski’s closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. It seems that the Justice Department is working very hard to control what Congress finds out regarding their shielding the Biden family from any consequences regarding the incredible amount of money they received from overseas sources.

The article reports:

A transcript of FBI Special Agent Thomas Sobocinski’s closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee last week, reviewed by The Post, reveals that the Justice Department detailed what Sobocinski could and couldn’t talk about with lawmakers a day before his Sept. 7 interview.

“Specifically, the Department has authorized [Sobocinski] to discuss U.S. Attorney [David] Weiss’ authority, as well as the October 7th, 2022, meeting, subject to some constraints around the ongoing investigation issue,” Sara Zdeb, a deputy assistant attorney general, informed congressional investigators before questioning began, referencing a letter to Sobocinski signed by Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who supervised the Hunter Biden tax fraud investigation for more than three years, claimed in bombshell congressional testimony earlier this year that during the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting between senior-level managers from the IRS, the FBI and the Delaware US Attorney’s Office, Weiss declared that he was not the “deciding official on whether charges are filed” against Hunter and revealed that US Attorney Matthew Graves would not allow him to charge Hunter for tax fraud in DC and said he asked for and was denied special counsel authority from the DOJ. 

The article concludes:

House Judiciary Committee spokesman Russell Dye told The Post that Shapley and fellow IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler “have been wholly consistent throughout their disclosures to Congress, and the only people who haven’t are people like David Weiss, Merrick Garland, and their liberal cronies.”

Attorneys for Shapley said Sobocinski’s testimony was less credible than Shapley’s own contemporaneously documented notes.

“The ‘minutia’ of tax law and the impending expiration of the 2014/2015 charges are the reason the October 7, 2022 meeting was scheduled to begin with, so sounds like SAC Sobociski wasn’t paying attention—while SSA Shapley was taking notes,” tweeted Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, which represents Shapley.

Jason Foster, chairman of the pro-whistleblowing group, wrote, “The only question is how close to perjury others are willing to dance to tow the Garland/Weiss company line—while DOJ-minders watch them testify. ‘Don’t recall’ feels safe when folks are trying to keep their jobs.”

Shapley’s testimony about other aspects of an alleged cover-up in the case has been partially corroborated by Ziegler and by recently retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent Joe Gordon.

Until the swamp in Washington is drained, influence peddling, money laundering, and insider trading will continue.

About Those RICO Laws…

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RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) Laws were originally put in place to deal with organized crime. I suspect that the people who put them in place never dreamed that organized crime would make its way to the White House.

On Tuesday, Just the News reported the following:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday wrote to White House chief of staff Jeff Zients and Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding that the pair account for reports that a staffer in special counsel Jack Smith’s office repeatedly met with Biden White House officials.

Isn’t that special?

I thought that the purpose of the special counsel was to have an investigation free of interference from within the government.

The article notes:

“According to recent reporting, Jay Bratt—a Department of Justice employee and top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith—met with White House officials multiple times, just weeks before Mr. Smith indicted former President Donald Trump,” Jordan (House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan) wrote to Zients. “This new information raises serious concerns regarding the potential for a coordinated effort between the Department and the White House to investigate and prosecute President Biden’s political opponents.”

The letter then proceeds to document the various meetings between Bratt and White House officials between 2021 and 2023. It further highlighted allegations that Bratt, in particular, “improperly pressured” a lawyer representing a Trump employee to cooperate with the Department of Justice’s prosecution of the former president.

The article concludes:

“These facts reinforce the serious concern that Mr. Smith is not running an impartial and unprejudiced investigation and prosecution,” Jordan insisted. “The Committee has a significant interest in examining how the Department runs its Special Counsel investigations to inform potential legislative reforms concerning the Department’s Special Counsel practices and operations.”

Jordan demanded that Zients and Garland provide the Judiciary Committee with documents related to Bratt’s myriad visits as well as any communications between the Department of Justice and the Biden White House related to Smith’s operations.

Does anyone believe that if President Biden were a Republican, he would still be in office?

Busted!

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On Thursday, Red State posted an article about one of the latest lies that Christopher Wray’s FBI has been caught telling.

The article reports:

I love “Community Notes,” Twitter’s crowdsourced fact-checking and context-adding feature that has repeatedly busted politicians in their false or misleading claims. On Thursday, they were at it again, nailing FBI Director Chris Wray, whose agency tweeted Thursday that “The FBI is not and has never been in the business of policing or investigating speech by parents at school board meetings…”

Community Notes begs to differ, and they added a little “context” to Wray’s claim:

The FBI’s statement is misleading. On May 18, 2023, former FBI agent Steve Friend testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he and others were directed to surveil and document parents attending school board meetings.

But Notes isn’t just making wild claims—they helpfully provide a link to a C-SPAN video showing suspended FBI agent Steve Friend testifying in front of the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in May. During his testimony, he said that the bureau’s Joint Terrorism Task Force did indeed conduct surveillance of school boards. On Thursday, he flat-out called Wray a liar:

The article concludes:

The various House committees are slowly, in drip-drip fashion, revealing just how politicized this DOJ is, and it’s nice to see them get a little assist from Community Notes.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It shows how whistleblowers are being mistreated by the FBI and illustrates how badly our justice system has been perverted by the Biden administration.

 

This Really Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone

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On Monday, PJ Media posted an interesting article about the fifty-one national security officials who wrote a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop reported by The New York Post were Russian disinformation, and that there was no proof the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden. This turned out to be a rather ridiculous claim after Hunter Biden’s attorneys sued the computer repair shop owner for invasion of privacy after it released the information. Why would he do that if the information was bogus? But it gets even better.

The article reports:

For the past couple of years, we’ve been led to believe that the letter from 51 national security officials was some sort of spontaneous, grassroots effort by the intelligence community to warn us about the potential foreign influence behind Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The laptop has since been confirmed to be legitimate, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that there was no foreign disinformation campaign involved. But new information from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and congressional investigators, with the help of two Obama-era CIA officials, has revealed a new twist in the story. The investigation has uncovered evidence linking the letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation during the 2020 election to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

…Jordan revealed to Just the News that a report on government weaponization is set to be released later this month, detailing the individuals involved in the letter and the evidence linking them to the Biden campaign. Jordan suggested that the letter may have been a significant interference in the presidential election and was motivated by political considerations. Jordan declined to provide more details as further witness interviews are being conducted this week.

“It was all done with politics, and it looks like there was some real connections with the Biden campaign,” Jordan said during an interview late last week on the John Solomon Reports podcast.

The article concludes:

I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is: who in the Biden campaign was involved in this scheme? While Jordan has confirmed that evidence linking the letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop to the Biden campaign has been uncovered, he says specific ties to the Biden campaign will be disclosed in the interim report.

The corruption in our federal government never ceases to amaze me.

 

Saying The Border Is Open Is Racist!

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On Wednesday, Townhall reported the following:

House Democrats on the Judiciary Committee mainly had only one response to Republicans highlighting the disaster the U.S.-Mexico border has become under President Joe Biden’s leadership: Saying the southern border is open is racist.

Pay no attention to the thousands of people walking into America illegally.

The article continues:

After Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) outlined the record-breaking numbers of illegal immigrants encountered, those who were able to avoid apprehension, and the amount of drugs seized, meaning much more was able to get into the U.S., Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said the first hearing about the crisis is a distraction and will only expose how racist Republicans are.

Nadler added the GOP’s focus on the border “almost makes me miss the usual obsession with conspiracy theories and the FBI.”

…El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego (D), who was the Democrat’s witnessed, testified the border was not open in his county, despite recently having a massive influx of illegal immigrants in September and December.

“There is no invasion of migrants in our community. Nor are there hordes of undocumented immigrants committing crimes against citizens or causing havoc in our community,” he added.

My advice to the Democrats is simple–if you are going to lie, at least make it believable!

Is This Legal?

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As the Republicans prepare to take the majority in the House of Representatives, Democrats are preparing for the change. However, some of the preparation seems a little odd.

On Sunday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

Outgoing House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said the Jan. 6 committee will have to “scrub” some evidence from its final report before Republicans take over the house in 2023.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Schiff was asked by anchor Dana Bash about Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) becoming chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and will “go through the evidence you left out … you’re saying that there won’t be evidence that will not be made public?”

“The evidence will all be made public,” Schiff told Bash in response. “Now, we will have to make sure that we scrub that evidence for personally identifiable information, that the evidence that we provide protects people’s security, it doesn’t put them at risk. So, there are things that we’re going to have to do along those lines.”

The article also notes:

Elsewhere in his interview, Schiff declined to say whether he would comply with a House Republican subpoena when the GOP takes control.

“We’ll have to consider the validity of the subpoena,” he said. “But I would certainly view my obligation, administration’s obligation to follow the law. And the fact that they have disrespected the law is not a precedent I would hope that would be broadly followed. But we’ll have to look at the legitimacy or lack of legitimacy of what they do.”

Schiff, meanwhile, did not say when the final Jan. 6 select committee’s report would be released to the public. The panel will end with the start of the next Congress in January 2023—like all other select committees created during the current session of Congress.

So there are only consequences for not complying with a subpoena when the Democrats issue the subpoena? I am honestly beginning to wonder if our unequal system of justice has reached the point on no return.

The Real Game

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As you no doubt are aware, Senator Schumer has ‘uncovered’ documents that show that the Democrats need to call witnesses in the Senate in addition to witnesses that testified in the House of Representatives. While this is much ado about nothing, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today that explains the actual goal of all the drama. The article is very detailed (including the full arguments from the House of Representatives asking for more witnesses and the Department of Justice’s response). I suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire thing.

The article notes:

As we suspected, albeit against much criticism, House counsel Doug Letter has responded to the DC Appeals Court arguing the forced testimony of White House counsel Don McGahn is needed for evidence in impeachment trial. [Court pdf Avail Here]

This court filing today bolsters the unspoken background motive for delayed House Impeachment Managers.  The House Judiciary Committee is using impeachment as support for their ongoing effort to gain: Don McGahn deposition, and Mueller grand jury material (6e).  The goal is opposition research; impeachment is a tool to establish legal standing to obtain it.  Everything else is chaff and countermeasures.

The Democrats are looking for a legal basis to continue their fishing expedition to gather campaign fodder for 2020.

The article continues:

This court filing bolsters CTH analysis that rushed House articles are a means to an end. That is – a way for House lawyers to argue in court all of the constitutionally contended material is required as evidence for pending judicial proceedings, a trial in the Senate.

This would explain why all the prior evidence debated for inclusion and legal additions to “articles of impeachment” were dropped. Instead the House focused only on quickly framing two articles that can facilitate pending court cases.

…REMINDER: The House Judiciary Committee (HJC) led by Chairman Jerry Nadler has been seeking: (1) Mueller grand jury material; (2) a deposition by former White House counsel Don McGahn; and less importantly (3) Trump financial and tax records.  Each of these issues is currently being argued in appellate courts (6e and McGahn) and the supreme court (financials/taxes).

Looking at the legal maneuvers from that perspective means the grand jury material is the unspoken goal and impeachment is simply the enhanced means to obtain it.

The 6(e) material relates to evidence gathered by the Mueller team for grand jury proceedings in their two-year effort to construct a case against President Trump.

Remember, the Mueller evidence was gathered during a counterintelligence investigation, which means all things Trump -including his family and business interests- were subject to unbridled surveillance for two years; and a host of intelligence gathering going back in time indefinitely. A goldmine of political opposition research.

Obviously if Jerry Nadler could get his hands on this material it would quickly find its way into the DNC, and ultimately to the 2020 democrat candidate for president. This material would also be fuel for a year of leaks to DC media who could exploit rumor, supposition, and drops of information that Andrew Weissmann and team left to be discovered.

The article highlights some of the Department of Justice response:

[…] “Pursuing an interbranch suit in court while simultaneously pursuing impeachment, and then using that litigation as part of the impeachment proceedings, is “far from the model of the traditional common-law cause of action at the conceptual core of the case-or-controversy requirement.” Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 833 (1997) (Souter, J., concurring). But that is exactly what the Committee has done. The effect of that choice is
to “embroil the federal courts in a power contest nearly at the height of its political tension.” Id.

Indeed, if this Court now were to resolve the merits question in this case, it would appear to be weighing in on a contested issue in any impeachment trial. That would be of questionable propriety whether or not such a judicial resolution preceded or post-dated any impeachment trial. Cf. Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224, 232, 235-36 (1993).

The now very real possibility of this Court appearing to weigh in on an article of impeachment at a time when political tensions are at their highest levels—before, during, or after a Senate trial regarding the removal of a President—puts in stark relief why this sort of interbranch dispute is not one that has “traditionally thought to be capable of resolution through the judicial process.” Raines, 521 U.S. at 819.

This Court should decline the Committee’s request that it enter the fray and instead should dismiss this fraught suit between the political branches for lack of jurisdiction.

Stay tuned. Meanwhile, understand that the emails that Senator Schumer has discovered are not a ‘smoking gun’–they are simply a record of the way business is done in Washington.

The Deflection Involved In Impeachment

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One of the things the media became expert at during the Obama administration was deflection. They were good at it before then, but they perfected it during the Obama years. The current impeachment trial is one example of deflection.

On December 16th, The Federalist posted an article that tells a story that the Democrats in Congress have fought to avoid telling.

The article reports:

Robert Powell, the husband of Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla., reportedly took $700,000 from a Ukrainian oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky. Mucarsel-Powell sits on the House Judiciary Committee, the committee that drafted two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump for his alleged abuse of power with regards to Ukraine.

In 2018, the Daily Beast reported that a number of businesses linked to Kolomoisky hired Powell as an attorney. One of those firms paid Powell at least $700,000 over two years, according to public records.

The Miami Herald reported Powell was working for companies tied to Kolomoisky for 10 years. Powell made most of his money in the two years leading up to his wife’s election in 2018.

Kolomoisky has been accused of contract killings and embezzlement in the past. Yet, in 2018 when Mucarsel-Powell was running for her seat, she did not see her husband’s work as relevant to her campaign.

“Debbie Mucrasel-Powell is running for Congress, not her husband. To imply that Debbie has anything to do with her indirect shareholder of a parent company that once employed her husband is an enormous stretch,” said Michael Hernandez, senior communications advisor for her campaign in 2018.

While Mucrasel-Powell may have convinced her constituents that her husband’s work is unrelated, it is a clear conflict in the current impeachment of Trump. Mucarsel-Powell voted to impeach Trump.

The article concludes:

And yet, no Democrats see a problem with one of their own committee members’ spouses doing business with a Ukrainian ogliarch. There has been no check on whether Mucrasel-Powell is benefitting from her husband’s work with a foreign power that interfered in the 2016 election.

There is a double standard in Mucrasel-Powell’s ability to impeach the President for his work in Ukraine, simultaneously, allowing her husband to earn money from Kolomoisky, a thug from the same foreign power.

The alternative media still includes a number of investigative reporters. It is quite likely that more of this sort of information will be uncovered in the near future. We may be about to discover how someone can enter Congress as a member of the Middle Class and emerge ten years later as a millionaire on a salary of $174,000 while supporting a home in their district and one in Washington, D.C.

Accidental Honesty?

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article today that included a very telling quote from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

The article notes:

Pelosi admitted that the Mueller investigation was also about impeachment.

“The biggest criticism in this process has been the speed at which the House Democrats are moving,” a moderator from Politico’s “Women Rule” summit said to the Speaker this week.

Speed?” Pelosi said. “It’s been going on for 22 months, okay? Two and a half years actually.”

Pelosi continued, “But we’re not moving with speed. It was two and a half years ago that they initiated the Mueller investigation.”

When you consider the problems with the way the Mueller investigation was initiated, this is a very troubling statement. If you read the Inspector General’s Report and listen to the comments of Attorney General William Barr, you realize that the Mueller investigation did not start on solid ground. The entire Russian fiasco was based on illegal surveillance and baseless accusations. What Speaker Pelosi admitted is that the Democrats had planned to impeach President Trump as soon as he got elected. The text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok were further proof of that. That behavior is more appropriate in a banana republic than a representative republic.

Let’s back up a  minute and look at where we are. The House Judiciary Committee has approved two articles of impeachment against President Trump. Next week the full House will vote on impeachment. At that point, it goes to the Senate for trial. There are a few options–it can be dismissed because of the civil rights violations in the House investigation, it can be voted on immediately and defeated (it is unlikely any Republicans will vote for impeachment, and it needs a two-thirds majority to pass), or the Senate can hold a full trial with witnesses. The third option is where the swamp comes into play. There are very few politicians in Washington with clean hands. If you pull the loose yarn on a sweater, are you in danger of unraveling the entire sweater? Joe Biden is not the only Congressman with family ties to Ukraine and other foreign nations. The full trial with witnesses is what needs to happen, but my guess is that much of the corruption in Washington will continue to be protected by those in charge, and a quick vote will be the choice of those in power.

The Roadrunner Strikes Again

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President Trump has about a year left to serve in office. There really is no reason to impeach him when you consider that the voters will make that call in November. Evidently the Democrats don’t trust the voters. In their effort to unseat a duly-elected President, the Democrats are beginning to look like Wile E. Coyote chasing the roadrunner. Their supply of Acme rockets and dynamite are simply not working.

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article that might indicate some of the Democrat’s desperation.

The article reports:

Dozens of red state Democrat lawmakers quietly oppose impeachment because they know they will lose their jobs if they vote in favor of impeachment.

However, the radical, rabid Democrats are hoping to roll out the stale Muller report and highlight the ’10 instances of obstruction by President Trump’ — none of which Mueller decided to charge Trump with after two years of a bogus investigation.

Via The Washington Post:

Members of the House Judiciary Committee and other more liberal-minded lawmakers and congressional aides have been privately discussing the possibility of drafting articles that include obstruction of justice or other “high crimes” they believe are clearly outlined in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report — or allegations that Trump has used his office to benefit his bottom line.

The idea, however, is running into resistance from some moderate Democrats wary of impeachment blowback in their GOP-leaning districts, as well as Democratic leaders who sought to keep impeachment narrowly focused on allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate his political rivals, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk freely.

The debate is expected to play out in leadership and caucus meetings this week, as the House Intelligence Committee prepares to hand the impeachment inquiry to the House Judiciary Committee. The Intelligence Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday night on its final report on Ukraine, allowing Judiciary to then work on writing articles of impeachment based on that document.

This is called desperation. We have transcripts of conversations involved. We have a credible first-hand witness that testified under oath that there was no quid pro quo, and if you read the transcript, you find that the mention of Hunter Biden was not a major part of the conversation. This is a total waste of time and money. President Trump is one of the few Presidents in recent history that has not used his office to benefit his bottom line. He is one of the few that did not need to!

How Much Privacy Is A President Entitled To?

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Hot Air posted an article today about the ongoing court battle regarding the Congressional subpoena of former White House Counsel Don McGahn. Counsel McGahn was summoned by the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the time he worked for President Trump.

The article reports:

Whether or not he would appear was a bone of contention for a while until a federal judge issued a dramatic proclamation on Monday, stating that “Presidents are not kings” and ordering McGahn to appear.

Well, that lasted for all of three days. By Wednesday evening, that same judge had backed down, allowing a request from the Justice Department to delay the implementation of the ruling until the appeals process has played out. Of course, this doesn’t mean McGahn (and the President) are totally off the hook, but they’ve at least bought a bit of breathing room. (Daily Mail)

The article concludes:

That doesn’t mean that the final decision on McGahn won’t cast a long shadow, however. How this plays out will have consequences for the ongoing impeachment circus. At issue here is the question of whether or not aides to the President are shielded from revealing details of private conversations they’ve had with the boss or the counsel they offered. Also, whether or not that shielding lasts indefinitely even after they’ve left their positions with the White House.

That sort of privacy has long been assumed to be part of the President’s executive privilege. But does that extend to investigations of potential criminal conduct? That’s the question that will be answered when the dust settles on McGahn’s subpoena. If he’s ordered to show up and testify, that could open the gate for numerous other Trump aides to be called in to talk about all of the Ukraine events. And that’s likely not something President Trump will want to see after we’re in the thick of the final push to next year’s election.

I guess my question is whether or not the President has the same civil rights as ordinary citizens, If you are an ordinary citizen, your conversations with your lawyer are protected by law. We saw this Constitutional principle violated when Michael Cohen’s offices were raided. Now the question is whether or not we are going to continue to violate President Trump’s Constitutional rights. All of us need to remember–if the President does not have Constitutional rights, then none of us have Constitutional rights.

Trying To Track All Of The Moving Parts

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the timelines involved in the respective strategies of the Democrats and Republicans in the impeachment saga. It is a very complex article, and I suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire article. However, I will try to list a few highlights here.

The article reports:

Today we have some new background to help see the narrative race and legal race. Pelosi and Schiff are not only racing the impeachment vote against the IG report, they are also racing against the Judicial branch wiping out all prior “impeachment inquiry” validity.

Effective at the end of business today the House is now in recess for the Thanksgiving holiday.

The article explains the calendar:

On December 9th the IG report on FISA abuse and DOJ/FBI corruption will be released. On December 11th Michael Horowitz will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

So there are two races.

♦ One race within the Trump impeachment is for the narrative: Trump Impeachment -vs- DOJ/FISA corruption against Trump. This is the race everyone is discussing.

♦ The second race within the Trump impeachment is legal: Pelosi, Schiff and ultimately Nadler -vs- the Judicial branch. This is the race few are watching, but actually could be far more consequential because it could invalidate the entire HPSCI process.

The aforementioned mid-December House Impeachment Vote is not a vote to impeach President Trump. It is a vote at the end of their “inquiry”; and a vote to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to begin their “official” impeachment hearings.

The mid-December vote will be to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to begin the “official” impeachment hearings. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff need this vote fast; they need this vote before they lose any court case that could make the “impeachment inquiry” invalid.

Additionally, Nancy Pelosi and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler need this full House authorization vote to gain the authority to penetrate the constitutional firewall that protects the separation of power in the “official” impeachment investigation. And they are hoping that any loss in the three pending cases will not undermine the validity of the prior impeachment inquiry…. that’s an issue.

That’s why Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler need to get that mid-December House vote before they lose any SCOTUS ruling. There are three cases, each of them appears heading to the Supreme Court; one is already there.

Please follow the link to the article for the details on the three court cases. December is going to be a very interesting month. I suspect that the Democrats are hoping that people will be too busy with Christmas things to be paying attention. Meanwhile, we may actually get to the bottom of the Russian hoax.

 

A Major Whoops From Robert Mueller

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The Gateway Pundit has posted a number of articles today about the Mueller hearing. In case you successfully avoided watching the hearings, here is another highlight.

The article reports:

In his testimony on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, former special counsel Robert Mueller was asked repeatedly about why he didn’t indict President Trump after concluding his 22-month investigation into whether the president or his campaign colluded with Russia to alter the outcome of the 2016 election.

Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu asked the question explicitly.

“The reason you did not indict Donald Trump… is because of the OLC decision. Is that correct?” 

Mueller responded: “That is correct.”

The “OLC decision” is a ruling from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) within the Department of Justice (DOJ) — dating back to the time of Richard Nixon and Watergate — that says a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Several other Democrats asked the same question, eliciting the same response from Mueller.

But Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, cut through through the mess when she pointed out that Mueller said exactly the opposite in his 448-page report.

“That is not what you said in the report, and it’s not what you told Attorney General Barr,” Lesko said. “And in fact, in a joint statement that you released with DOJ on May 29 after your press conference, your office issued a joint statement with the Department of Justice that said: ‘The Attorney General has previously stated that the special counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying, that but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the President obstructed justice,’ ” she said.

Lesko asked Mueller if he stood by that statement.

“I would have to look at it more closely before I said I agree,” Mueller said.

So which is it? Do you stand by your report as previously stated, or are you lying in the report or by what you are saying now?

This Went Much Farther Than What We Have Been Told

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Real Clear Investigations posted an article today that reveals an aspect of the surveillance on the Trump campaign, Trump transition team, and Trump presidency that has not really been talked about much. The article deals with the surveillance by people the FBI placed (or attempted to place) within the campaign. I would just like to mention that Richard Nixon was impeached for far less than what the government was doing during the 2016 election. We have no idea how high up the shenanigans went, but I suspect we will eventually find out. That may be the reason Attorney General Barr is being attacked so fiercely.

The article reports:

Baker (former FBI general counsel James Baker being interviewed by CNN host John Berman) then seemed to switch the question from whether spying occurred to its intent, saying: “There was no intention by myself or anybody else I’m aware of to intrude or do activities with respect to the campaign.” Then he continued his sentence with a clause that significantly modified even that claim. There was no intrusion of the Trump campaign, he said, done “in order to gather political intelligence to find out what the political strategies were.” The FBI was only interested in what the campaign was up to regarding Russia.

There’s a very big difference between saying “I didn’t spy” and saying “I didn’t spy for inappropriate reasons.” The former is a denial, the latter is all but an admission. Baker asserted there was no spying done to gather information on Trump’s campaign strategies. Which could very well mean there was spying, just not any for the narrow reason given.

After a while you learn that you just have to parse some people’s statements to determine what the meaning of ‘is’ is.

The article includes testimony Trisha Anderson gave last Aug. 31 to the House Judiciary Committee and the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight:

Later in her testimony Anderson let slip another piece of information undermining claims that the FBI isn’t in the spy game. The shop where she worked at the bureau is in charge of giving legal guidance for FBI activities. She was asked about whether she or her fellow lawyers in the general counsel’s office were involved in decisions about when confidential human sources had to be let go. “I’m not aware of any such instances,” Anderson said. And then she elaborated perhaps longer than intended: “Our office might and actually routinely provided legal advice on uses, investigative uses of sources overseas, for example, on double-agent operations is a good example of a circumstance that might implicate legal considerations.”

“You mentioned double-agent operations,” said the Republican staff lawyer. “It sounds like your office might give legal advice when an issue arose from an actual operational issue?”

“Correct,” Anderson said.

So for all the denials that the FBI uses spies, the truth seems to be that the bureau not only runs secret agents, but double agents.

Given the difficulties of double agent operations, success with them should be a source of pride, not shame. As long, that is, as they are not done for political purposes.

The average person is truly at a disadvantage in trying to piece together exactly what went on during the 2016 presidential campaign. The media is very careful and very selective in what it reports. Our only hope is that when the investigations are done, those guilty of using the government for their own personal spying operations will be held accountable. I am also hoping that the results of all investigations into the investigators will be made public.

In Case You Were Wondering If It Was Political…

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On Monday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the Democrats’ calls to make the entire Mueller Report public, including source information, Grand Jury testimony, etc. Well, there are some pretty strict rules protecting the secrecy of Grand Jury testimony, and it is quite possible that disclosing other information could be a problem for our intelligence services (and possibly some foreign intelligence services). It should be noted that in their calls for transparency I haven’t heard them ask that the FISA warrants and background information on those warrants be made public. However, this call for transparency on the part of the Democrats is an interesting contrast to their reactions to previous Special Counsel reports.

The article reports:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is the leading Democrat demanding the release of the Mueller Report “in its entirety” without redactions.

His committee is planning to subpoena the Justice Department for the full report.

But back in 1998, as a member of the same committee, he vociferously opposed the release of the full Starr Report, saying that “as a matter of decency and protecting people’s privacy rights, people who may be totally innocent third parties, what must not be released at all.”

Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating then-President Bill Clinton, delivered his report to Congress on Sept. 9, 1998. That night, Nadler went on Charlie Rose’s show to push back against the Republican demand that the voluminous report should be made public. “It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses,” Nadler said. “Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release,”

What Nadler, 71, said in 1998 echoes what Attorney General William Barr told Congress last week. Barr, 68, wrote that he might redact grand jury testimony, information related to ongoing investigations, sensitive or classified information, and “information that would unduly infringe on the personal privacy and reputational interests of peripheral third parties” from the report that he provides to Congress and the public.

Representative Nadler does not want the entire report made public–he wants the Democrats to get the entire report so that they can leak misleading parts of the report and make the scandal last until the 2020 election. The is a political game.

The article concludes:

Special counsel Mueller declined to charge anyone associated with the Trump campaign of coordination with the Russians, but did not reach a decision on obstruction. Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that Trump had not obstructed justice.

How can you have obstruction when there was no crime?

 

How A Dishonest Investigation Works

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Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse reported that Congressman Doug Collins released the transcripts from the testimony of George Papadopoulos before the House Judiciary Committee. The article includes a PDF File of the 239-page transcript. Oddly enough, the transcript was released on the day that Papadopoulos released his book, “Deep State Target.”

To me, this is the most telling part:

When Robert Mueller took over the Crossfire Hurricane operation, the FBI ran an elaborate entrapment string against Papadopoulos using a CIA asset in Israel and a payment of $10,000 in cash.  FBI Agents were waiting at the airport in Washington DC for Papadopoulos to return.  However, that part of the Mueller plan failed because Papadopoulos left the money behind.  So they applied pressure another way, from his book:

It gets even more interesting–the article cites an energy deal that George Papadopoulos was a part of in the Middle East.

The article concludes:

Here’s the interesting aspect…. Do you know who was the original energy policy consultant; the person who wrote the obscure -at the time- policy paper; a plan to avoid putting an EU pipeline through Turkey; and the person who put all of these regional heads together; that ultimately ended with this announced deal?

That would be the little known, generally invisible young energy adviser, who would eventually become the central figure in the “spygate” targeting, George Papadopoulos.

Yes, for those following the granules as they expose, that 2014 energy extraction strategy; a plan from a little known energy consultant; would have put Papadopoulos in opposition to the interests of President Obama, candidate Clinton, Turkey, Qatar and ultimately Iran and Russia.

Huh… Funny that.

It’s almost as if…..

Some Democrats have long memories, nasty tempers, and are willing to wait for revenge.

What Happens Next?

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The Mueller Report cost American taxpayers just more than $25 million through December according to The Weeklyn on March 22nd. The Conservative Treehouse is reporting today that the Report has now been submitted to AG William Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. AG Barr will commission a “Principle Conclusion” summary report that he will deliver to congress.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse reports:

The summary report from AGBarr will be given to House and Senate judiciary oversight committees before wider dissemination. The Chair of the House Judiciary Committee is Jerry Nadler (ranking member Doug Collins); the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee is Lindsey Graham (Vice-Chair Dianne Feinstein). AG William Barr may also brief those committees, or he may assign DAG Rosenstein to the briefing.

Depending on conversations between the DOJ and congressional leadership, there’s also a possibility of a more extensive briefing covering details within the Mueller investigation. However, that briefing would likely be reserved for the intelligence oversight group known as the “Gang of Eight”: Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy, Adam Schiff, Devin Nunes, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Richard Burr and Mark Warner.

Due to the politics surrounding the Barr report, it is likely the White House will be given the Principle Conclusion Summary around the same time as congress. The White House (executive branch) may also be able to review the full underlying documentation behind the summary…. that’s likely where the political fight for the ‘narrative’ will take place.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse explains the next steps in the drama:

Each of the Mueller team members will be leaking information, and building innuendo narratives about their investigative activity, to the Lawfare community and media.  The ‘small group‘ effort will certainly work in concert with political allies in congress and the DNC.  This is just how they roll.

Keep in mind the larger picture and most likely political sequence:

    1. Mueller report.
    2. Chosen One.
    3. Cummings Impeachment Schedule, known as “oversight plans” (April 15)
    4. Horowitz report

#2 and #3 are not sequence specific; they may reverse.  However, the larger objective of the resistance apparatus will remain consistent.

The narrative around the Mueller investigative material will launch the chosen DNC candidate (possibly Biden).  The professional political class will work to lift this candidate by exploiting the Mueller investigative file as ammunition against President Trump.

As pre-planned within Speaker Pelosi’s rules, House Oversight Chairman has until April 15, 2019, to deliver his schedule for congressional hearings to Speaker Pelosi.  That hearing schedule is based around witnesses they can extract from the Mueller material.

Nothing happens organically.  All of the broad strokes are planned well in advance, and the democrats just fill in the details as they successfully cross pre-determined tripwires.  Once we know where the tripwires are located, their behavior becomes predictable.

…As Pelosi and Schumer wage their political battle and attempt to weaponize the Mueller report for maximum damage, Senator Graham will be exploring the DOJ and FBI corruption of the FISA court and spygate. That angle is a risk to multiple Obama-era administration officials.

President Trump and team have genuine political ammunition that includes FISA abuse, the ‘spygate’ surveillance scandal and an upcoming OIG Horowitz report.

Speaker Pelosi and team have the fabricated political ammunition of the Mueller probe to weaponize.

Both teams will now go to battle on the road to 2020.

This is a sad moment for our country–even after the investigation is concluded, the political slander of people in government continues, and a number of people have had their lives and reputations ruined for no reason.

The Game Being Played

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Yesterday I posted an article about the release of Bruce Ohr’s testimony by House Judiciary Committee Georgia Representative Doug Collins. There were some obvious differences between Bruce Ohr’s testimony and other testimonies. At some point that will have to be sorted out, but there is another interesting aspect to the story.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article today about the release of the transcript.

The article notes:

NBC News penned an article about the unorthodox release of DOJ official Bruce Ohr’s transcript.  Within the article NBC notes current DOJ officials responded to the congressional request for release by sending them an approved “redacted version”:

…Having read the Ohr transcript (also provided below), there didn’t appear to be any national security interests, sources or methods, beyond investigative embarrassment for DOJ and FBI, simply because of the sham of it all.

What parts did the current DOJ redact, and what would have been their justification? What did the current DOJ attempt to hide? …Maybe Representative Doug Collins could provide the redacted version, so we can find out.  Curiouser, and curiouser…

Can we all agree that redactions supposedly in the name of national security have become redactions in the name of keeping the misconduct of the government under President Obama out of the public eye?

The Truth Begins To Come Out

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So much of the testimony about the ‘Russian conspiracy’ during the 2016 election has been held in secret that Americans have had to rely on carefully leaked snippets of testimony illustrating whatever the leaker wanted to prove. Well it seems as if those days may be coming to an end. Sara Carter reported yesterday that Republican member of the House Judiciary Committee Georgia Representative Doug Collins unilaterally released the 268-page transcript of an August 2018 interview with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr. Representative Collins released the transcript because, as he put it, his patience with the Justice Department was wearing thin.

Sara Carter lists a number of inconsistencies between the testimony of Bruce Ohr and testimony given by Glenn Simpson, founder of embattled research firm Fusion GPS and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. This is not really news–the rats deserting the sinking ship are trying to save their own skins, but it is good to see the truth finally coming to light.

The article lists a number of inconsistencies:

1. Glenn Simpson suggests in his testimony to the Senate that he never spoke to anyone at the FBI about Christopher Steele, the former British spy he hired to investigate the Trump campaign during the election. However, Ohr suggest otherwise telling former Rep.Trey Gowdy under questioning “As I recall, and this is after checking with my notes, Mr. Simpson and I spoke in August of 2016. I met with him, and he provided some information on possible intermediaries between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.”

2. In another instance, Simpson’s testimony also contradicts notes taken by Ohr after a meeting they had in December, 2016. Unverified allegations were decimated among the media that the Trump campaign had a computer server that was linked to a Russian bank in Moscow: Alpha Bank. Simpson suggested to the Senate that he knew very little about the Trump -Alpha Bank server story and couldn’t provide information. But Bruce Ohr’s own handwritten notes state that when he met with Simpson in December 2016, Simpson was concerned over the Alpha Bank story in the New York Times. “The New York Times story on Oct. 31 downplaying the connection between Alfa servers and the Trump campaign was incorrect. There was communication and it wasn’t spam,” stated Ohr’s notes. This suggests that Simpson was well aware of the story, which was believed by congressional investigators to have started from his research firm.

3. Ohr testified to lawmakers that Simpson provided information to federal officials that was false regarding Cleta Mitchell, a well-known Republican campaign finance lawyer, and information regarding the National Rifle Association. Sean Davis, with the Federalist pointed this out in a tweet today.

4. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would not answer questions to lawmakers during testimony about when he learned that Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was working for Fusion GPS. Just check this out from Rep. Matt Gaetz’s interview with Judge Jeanine on Fox News.

“Rod Rosenstein won’t tell us when he first learned that Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS,” said Gaetz, in August, 2018. “So I want to know from Bruce Ohr, when did he tell his colleagues at the Department of Justice that in violation of law that required him to disclose his wife’s occupation his sources of income. He did not do that. So when did all of the other people at the Department of Justice find this out because Rod Rosenstein, I’ve asked him twice in open hearing and he will not give an answer. I think there’s a real smoking gun there.”

5. Ohr also told lawmakers in his testimony that the former British spy, Christopher Steele was being paid by the FBI at the same time he was getting paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. However, there was another player paying Steele and it was a Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, a tycoon connected to Russian President Vladimir Putin, had well known animus toward his former friend Paul Manafort.

We need more of these testimonies made public so that voters can draw their own conclusions about what actually happened. Hopefully there is more of this to come. I am grateful for reporters like Sara Carter who have been following this story for more than two years and have not given up their search for the truth.

The Week To Come

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Next week is shaping up to be an interesting week. On Tuesday we will hear President Trump’s State of the Union Address followed by a response given by failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

On Tuesday Townhall posted an article about the choice of Ms. Abrams.

Some highlights from the article:

Abrams, who believes illegal aliens should be able to vote in elections, refused to concede to duly elected Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and repeatedly accused him of racism.

Interestingly enough, in addition to scheduling President Trump’s address for the coming week, the Democrats have now scheduled February 7 as the date to vote on the confirmation of William Barr as Attorney General, and scheduled acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee for February 8. There is a method to their plan. Part of the method is that the President’s speech is quite likely to be about the amazing economic achievements of his two years in office and he will probably talk about some of the problems on our southern border. The Democrats are looking for a way to blunt any positive impact of the speech.

Yesterday American Greatness posted an article about some aspects of the scheduling.

The article reports:

The committee’s vote is scheduled to take place one day before acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker testifies in front of the House Judiciary Committee on a number of topics, including the Mueller probe; Trump foes claim Whitaker should have recused himself from oversight of the investigation based on some of his past comments, even though a Justice Department ethics review cleared him of any conflicts.

This one-two punch has a purpose: To taint Barr’s impartiality and discredit his office on all matters related to Trump-Russia. Why? Because during his confirmation hearing, Barr agreed—at the behest of Republican senators—to begin his own inquiry into who, why, and how the FBI launched several investigations into Trump’s presidential campaign and, eventually, into the president himself.

As indictments unrelated to Trump-Russia collusion pile up, Republican lawmakers and Trump’s base increasingly are outraged that the culprits behind perhaps the biggest political scandal in American history remain untouched. Barr signaled that the good fortune of these scoundrels could soon take a dramatic shift under his stewardship.

The article notes a very interesting aspect of this whole Russian investigation:

A few days before Barr’s hearing, the New York Times reported that in May 2017, the FBI opened an investigation into the sitting U.S. president purportedly based on suspicions he was a Russian foreign agent. Then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe—whom the Times does not mention by name at any time in the 1,800 words it took to report this information—initiated the probe immediately after Trump fired his predecessor, James Comey.

McCabe was fired last year and now is under criminal investigation for lying to federal agents.

The article concludes:

Other materials of public interest include the initiating documents for Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s investigation into four Trump campaign aides—which Comey claimed he never saw—and any details about who at the FBI started the unprecedented counterintelligence and criminal investigation into a sitting U.S. president.

And while he’s at it, and before Mueller’s team is finished, Barr should begin a formal inquiry into why the special counsel’s office scrubbed the iPhones used by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page while they worked for Mueller for a brief time in 2017. The phones and the data contained on those devices are public property. Barr needs to find out why that information was not collected and archived since both FBI officials already were under scrutiny. Destroying potential evidence is a crime.

The enormousness of Barr’s task and the devastating consequences for those involved are now coming into clear view. The timing couldn’t be worse for Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans who are desperate to defeat Trump and the GOP in 2020. That’s why we can expect both parties to whip up more criticism of Barr over the next few months. One hopes he will resist that criticism—and both Trump and Graham need to reassure the new attorney general and the American public that his investigation will receive the same amount of protection that was afforded to the Mueller team.

Get out the popcorn, the show is about to begin.

Unbelievable

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a recent statement by Representative Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the incoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Representative Nadler told CNN’s Jake Tapper that President Trump’s hush money payments to two women with his own money are “impeachable offenses.” Somehow lost in this discussion was the fact that Congress paid has paid out $17 million in the past 10 years, public records show, for unwanted sexual advances by unnamed lawmakers.

The offenses were by unnamed lawmakers. And the money came from taxpayers. So paying women to be quiet with your own money is impeachable, but paying women to be quiet using taxpayer money is acceptable. Wow. Who knew?

The article includes the following tweet:

That is an interesting question.

Is This Even Legal?

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. He has refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee and will not turn over the subpoenaed documents to the Committee.

The article reports:

According to multiple reports, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein has given a verbal resignation to Chief of Staff John Kelly following an explosive NYT report he wanted to wear a wire and oust Trump from office.

Last week, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC), who previously filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein, called for the Deputy Attorney General to appear before Congress under oath this week.

But today Rosenstein notified Congress he will not turn over the subpoenaed memos and will not appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article yesterday that included the following paragraphs:

Exposing the FBI/DOJ dirty deeds is a major priority for a contingent within congress and a multitude of Trump supporters – but for the office of the President, in the immediate future, not-so-much.

When you have this much leverage on someone, you don’t want them to quit. You want to use their damaged and tenuous position to your advantage. President Trump is in no hurry to fire Rosenstein (not yet), because the DAG is so weak and President Trump holds all the leverage in the relationship.

Rod Rosenstein knows what he did wrong; and President Trump knows what Rosenstein did wrong. Though it could change based on new discoveries of how far the DAG went along within the soft-coup process, President Trump isn’t likely to let Rosenstein go until everyone else knows what Rosenstein did wrong.

My question amid all of this palace intrigue is, “Does Congress have legal recourse to get the documents they want and to force Rosenstein to appear?” Can the Democrats run out the clock in the hopes of taking control of Congress?  If they are successful in doing that, we can expect more corruption and politicization of these agencies in the future. We can expect Republicans and conservatives to be under constant surveillance and attack. I don’t think that is what American voters want. Stay tuned, this is going to get interesting.

 

While We Were All Watching Judge Kavanaugh…

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Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that the House Judiciary Committee has issued a subpoena to Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the Steele dossier on the Trump campaign. The subpoena was issued on Friday.

The reason the Judiciary Committee wants to interview Mr. Simpson is that his testimony does not agree with the testimony of other witnesses in the investigation of the Christopher Steele dossier. Someone is lying, and the Committee needs to figure out who it is.

The article explains:

Simpson and Bruce Ohr met before and after the 2016 election to discuss dossier author Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia. Simpson, who has been interviewed by three congressional committees so far, told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November that he did not meet with Ohr until after the election.

But Ohr said in a congressional deposition on Aug. 28 that he met with Simpson in August 2016, four months before the election.

The article reports:

On Thursday, Simpson’s attorney, Josh Levy, told Goodlatte and South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, that Simpson would not appear for an interview, as the committees had requested last week.

“Part and parcel of this concerted effort by the President’s congressional allies has been a campaign of retaliation against the government’s whistleblowers, including our client Mr. Simpson, for their willingness to cooperate with US law enforcement and for their exercise of their constitutional rights to free speech and political activity as American citizens,” Levy wrote.

There is no way that Mr. Simpson is a whistleblower–he is part of a group that intended to end the presidency of a duly-elected President.