Right Wing Granny

News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.

Right Wing Granny

Taking Advantage Of The Coronavirus

On Saturday The Epoch Times posted an article that illustrates Andrew McCabe’s lawyer’s using the coronavirus as an excuse to block McCabe from testifying before Congress.

The article reports:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe won’t be appearing before a Senate committee this week after two members of the panel tested positive for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, his lawyer said on Oct. 3.

McCabe was scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Oct. 6 to testify about the FBI’s handling of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, which later morphed into an investigation of President Donald Trump’s campaign.

An attorney for McCabe wrote to committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), informing him about the former bureau official’s decision to pull out of the hearing. The lawyer said that McCabe didn’t want to put his family at risk of catching the virus after Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who both sit on the committee, tested positive.

Congress can’t use Zoom? Does anyone actually believe that McCabe wanted to testify?

This is the attorney’s statement:

“Mr. McCabe is willing, able, and eager to testify in person about Crossfire Hurricane at any time in the future when it is safe to do so. But he is not willing to put his family’s health at risk to do so,” he continued.

“For these reasons, we are unwilling to appear in person for the October 6 hearing; and for reasons of fairness, we are unwilling to testify remotely. A fair and appropriate hearing of this kind—which is complex and contentious—simply cannot be conducted other than in person.”

Meanwhile, Americans have been working from home for months.

The article concludes:

“There’s a day of reckoning coming. Just stay tuned, and there’s more coming. There’s something else coming, more damning than this, believe it or not,” Graham told Fox News.

His comments came following revelations that the Washington-based Russian national who supplied former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele with most of the unverified claims in the infamous Russia dossier was himself investigated by the FBI on suspicions of being a spy for the Kremlin. The revelations were revealed in documents provided by Attorney General William Barr to Graham.

While aware of the counterintelligence concerns about Steele’s source, the FBI failed to disclose that to the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court as part of an application to surveil former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

“To me, failure of the FBI to inform the court that the Primary Sub-source was suspected of being a Russian agent is a breach of every duty owed by law enforcement to the judicial system,” Graham said in a statement in reaction to the revelation.

The goal here is to delay the testimony at least until after the election. If Joe Biden becomes President, the investigation will disappear and we can expect more political corruption in the future.

A Newly Declassified Summary Report Has Been Released By The Senate Judiciary Committee

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary has declassified and released its summary report in a Press Release. Please follow the link and read the entire summary.

Here are a few of the highlights:

  • The Crossfire Hurricane team knew in December 2016 that Christopher Steele’s Primary Sub-source was an individual who the FBI had indicated in 2009 “could be a threat to national security.”
  • In May 2009, Steele’s source reportedly attempted to recruit two individuals connected to an influential foreign policy advisor connected to President Obama, offering that if the two individuals “‘did get a job in the government and had access to classified information’ and wanted ‘to make a little extra money,’ [Steele’s source] knew some people to whom they could speak.”
  • FBI databases revealed Steele’s source “had contact in 2006 with the Russian Embassy and known Russian intelligence officers, [including contacting a known Russian intelligence officer] ‘so the documents can be placed in tomorrow’s diplomatic pouch.’”
  • One individual interviewed by the FBI noted that “the Primary Sub-source persistently asked about the interviewee’s knowledge of a particular military vessel.”
  • Significantly, the “record documenting the closing of the investigation [of the Primary Sub-source] stated that consideration would be given to re-opening the investigation in the event that the Primary Sub-source returned to the United States.”

The Press Release continues:

Graham on Totality of FBI Crossfire Hurricane Failures:

“In light of this newly declassified information, I will be sending the FISA Court the information provided to inform them how wide and deep the effort to conceal exculpatory information regarding the Carter Page warrant application was in 2016 and 2017.

“A small group of individuals in the Department of Justice and FBI should be held accountable for this fraud against the court.  I do not believe they represent the overwhelming majority of patriotic men and women who work at the Department of Justice and FBI.

“The now famous email Susan Rice sent to herself on Inauguration Day where she states that President Obama said that everything has to be done ‘by the book’ has become highly suspect.  If this investigation is ‘by the book,’ then the book we’re using is the Kremlin playbook.

“It is up to the committee and Congress to reform the system so it never happens again.  It’s stunning to be told that the single individual who provided information to Christopher Steele for the Russian dossier used by the FBI on four occasions to obtain a warrant on Carter Page, an American citizen, was a suspected Russian agent years before the preparation of the dossier.

“The committee will press on and get to the bottom of what happened, and we will try to work together to make sure this never happens again.”   

The misuse of the government for political purposes has been investigated and prosecuted in the past. It needs to be dealt with harshly this time. It is unbelievable that those responsible have evaded punishment for this long.

Slowly The Truth Becomes Available To The Public

Based on the information that has already come out, many Americans (at least those who don’t depend on the mainstream media for their news) believe that there was a soft coup attempt on President Trump that began immediately after he was elected. As information is made public from various investigations, this is becoming more obvious.

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about some of the latest information to come out.

The article reports:

  • The Senate Judiciary Committee released a newly declassified FBI document Friday showing that a New York Times report about contacts between Trump associates and Russian intelligence was riddled with errors. 
  • Peter Strzok, who served as FBI deputy chief of counterintelligence, spotted 14 errors in the Times story, published on Feb. 14, 2017. 
  • Strzok also critiqued Christopher Steele, saying that the dossier author was unable to judge the reliability of his network of sources.

The article continues:

An FBI document released Friday details at least 14 inaccuracies in a New York Times report from early 2017 that leveled shocking allegations of Trump associates’ contacts with Russian intelligence officers.

The document shows then-FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok’s comments on a Feb. 14, 2017 article entitled “Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence.”

Written by journalists Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, the story cited four current and former American officials who said that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies had intercepted call records showing that Trump associates had contacts with Russian intelligence in the year prior to the election.

Strzok, who was the lead investigator on the Trump investigation, spotted 14 errors in the article.

The article concludes:

Sen. Lindsey Graham, who released the FBI documents on Friday, said in a press release that Strzok’s annotations on the Times article “are devastating in that they are an admission that there was no reliable evidence that anyone from the Trump Campaign was working with Russian Intelligence Agencies in any form.”

James Comey, the former FBI director, criticized the Times report shortly after he was fired in May 2017. He told the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 7, 2017, that the story was “almost entirely” inaccurate.

The Times stood by the story despite the pushback from Comey.

“The original sources could not immediately be reached after Mr. Comey’s remarks, but in the months since the article was published, they have indicated that they believed the account was solid,” the paper said in a statement following Comey’s testimony.

The New York Times was driving the narrative that President Trump was a Russian agent. Their reporting was inaccurate from the beginning. Unfortunately, there are many Americans who still believe the fiction The New York Times was publishing. That is one of many causes for the divisiveness that we are currently seeing in America.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan once stated, “You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Leadership Matters

Just the News posted an article today about Rod Rosenstein’s testimony before Congress.

The article reports:

Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that he was unaware that an FBI field office had recommended that Gen. Michael Flynn be dropped from its Crossfire Hurricane investigation, with the former deputy attorney general agreeing that it would have “mattered” had he been aware of that directive.

Rosenstein was asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham if he knew that “in January of 2017, the FBI field office said, ‘we recommend General Flynn be removed'” from the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“I did not,” Rosenstein responded.

“Would that have mattered?” Graham asked, to which Rosenstein responded: “Yes.

Maybe I don’t understand the workings of the Department of Justice, but that seems odd to me. Shouldn’t he have known?

The article concludes:

Noting the procedural errors found within the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Rosenstein told senators in prepared remarks that the Justice Department “must take remedial action” against any misconduct it uncovers within its ranks, a bracing statement made in reference to investigative reviews that found “significant errors” in official procedures related to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Rosenstein noted that internal investigations had revealed that the FBI “was not following the written protocols” in its execution of Crossfire Hurricane.

The way I evaluate this is to look back at my husband’s days in the U.S. Navy. His squadron was being put aboard a different aircraft carrier. The carrier was being brought into its new port with great celebration. The Marine band was there, the governor was there, many important people were there. The ship ran aground on the way in and couldn’t get to the actual port. Eventually all the dignitaries simply went home. The next day, tug boats waited for high tide and brought the ship in. Keep in mind that the harbor pilot was steering the ship at the moment it ran aground. However, the captain of the ship was soon relieved of his duties. He was considered responsible. I believe Rod Rosenstein needs to be held responsible for the miscarriage of justice that occurred on his watch.

One Problem With The Relief Bill Passed By Congress

Issues & Insights posted an article today about the impact of one item that was included in the CARES Act.

The article reports:

Buried in a story about the overly generous unemployment “bonus” that Democrats added to the CARES Act is the reason why they insisted on it in the first place — and why it will drag down the recovery once the lockdown ends.

While lawmakers were hammering out the massive $2 trillion bill, a key focus of which was to keep workers connected to their jobs through a loan guarantee program — Democrats insisted on a huge increase in unemployment benefits.

The result was a $600 a week bonus. New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was right to call this “unemployment on steroids.”

Well, guess what?

“The $600 payment aligns with working full time at $15 an hour – the minimum-wage level many Democrats in Congress support,” notes the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reports that – thanks to this bonus – workers will get an average of $978 in unemployment benefits. What’s more, “Labor Department statistics show half of full-time workers earned $957 or less each week in the first quarter of 2020.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham had it exactly right when he said that: “You’re literally incentivizing taking people out of the workforce at a time when we need critical infrastructure supplied with workers. If this is not a drafting error, then it’s the worst idea I’ve seen in a long time.”

The article includes comments from an employee who states that she will not go back to work unless she gets a raise–she likes unemployment at $15 an hour.

The thing to remember here is that the Democrats are all about the November election. If they can manage to pass bills that include things that will prevent the economy from returning to a growth mode after the coronavirus is past, they believe they can win the election. President Trump’s strong point has been his handling of the economy. If the democrats can destroy the economy, they have a better change of getting elected. There is no concern here for the well being of the American people–the Democrats simply want to be back in power. That is not a good thing for America.

 

Actions Have Consequences

One American News posted an article today quoting a remark made by Senator Lindsey Graham during the Department of Justice Inspector General’s hearing today.

The article reports:

During the Department of Justice Inspector General’s hearing Wednesday, the senator said there needs to be more “checks and balances to make sure something like this never happens again.”

The Republican lawmaker also warned Inspector General Michael Horowitz against refusing to recommend charges against the bureau for mishandling the investigation.

Graham went on to say he has serious doubts the FISA court can continue working if nothing is done, adding that the court will “lose his support” if no corrective action is taken.

Meanwhile, Horowitz told senators the FBI maintained surveillance on Carter Page even when its investigation into him was winding down. While discussing his report Wednesday, Horowitz outlined 17 instances where the bureau intentionally “omitted or withheld” information in their application for FISA warrants.

People went to jail because of a third-rate burglary in the Watergate Building when they attempted to spy on an opposing political candidate. The FISA scandal involves using a government agency to accomplish what the Watergate burglars were attempting. Why is it being handled so differently by both the press and the political class? This entire situation shows the need for tighter controls on the government’s ability to spy on its citizens. There could easily come a time in the future when government surveillance is used against everyday Americans of a political party different than the one in power. That is the reason that the people who did the illegal spying need to face consequences.

I Don’t Think This Is The Right Answer

Breitbart reported yesterday that Senator Lindsey Graham has stated that he would work to end a Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump as soon as possible. That is not the right way to handle this. The American people have been bombarded with ‘impeach President Trump’ for almost three years. They have heard lie after lie and accusation after accusation about what the President is or has done. An impeachment trial in the Senate is probably the only chance the President will get to present the evidence which disputes those lies. We need a Senate trial that calls as witnesses the Ukrainian prosecutor that was fired, Hunter Biden, former Vice-President Joe Biden, Adam Schiff, Andrew Weissmann, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, etc. These people need to be forced to testify under oath about their actions from 2016 forward. FISA Warrants need to be looked at.

The article reports:

Graham said, “Here’s what I’m going to do with the trial: I’m going to try to get it over as quickly as possible, listen to the House case — let them present their case. If there’s nothing new and dramatic, I would be ready to vote, and we can do all this other stuff in congressional oversight.”

He added, “I am saying that I’m going to end this as quickly as I can for the good of the country. When 51 of us say we’ve heard enough, the trial is going to end. The president’s going to be acquitted. He may want to call Schiff. He may want to call Hunter Biden. He may want to call Joe Biden. But here’s my advice to the president: if the Senate is ready to vote and acquit you, you should celebrate that. We can look at this other stuff outside of impeachment. Impeachment is tearing the country apart. I don’t want to give it any more credibility than it deserves.”

I totally disagree. It is time for the whole truth to come out. If those responsible for the attempted coup are not held responsible, their actions will be a template for the future removal of duly-elected presidents.

Crooks Always Deny

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.

 

 

It Will Be Interesting To See If He Keeps His Word

Breitbart is reporting today that Senator Lindsey Graham made the following statement on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” Senator Graham stated, “It’s impossible to bring this case forward in my view fairly without us knowing who the whistleblower is and having a chance to cross-examine them about any advice they may have, if they don’t call the whistleblower in the House, this thing is dead on arrival on the Senate.”

Representative Adam Schiff, who has appointed himself to decide who the Republicans can have as witnesses in the impeachment hearings has already stated that he does not see the need for the whistleblower to testify.

The article at Breitbart continues quoting Lindsey Graham:

He continued, “Well, if the whistleblower comes from Brennan world would be stunning, I think if the whistleblower had connection to Democratic candidate, that would be stunning. The only way you can fairly deal with this issue for us to find out who the whistleblower. No American can be accused of a crime based on an anonymous allegation. The whistleblower is foundational to what they are doing to the House and the fact that they don’t want to call him tells you everything that you need to know how about valid the effort is to impeachment the president.”

He added, “What’s going to happen, When you find out who is the whistleblower is, I’m confident you are going to find out it’s somebody from the deep state. You are going to find out they had interactions with the Schiff, and this thing’s going to stink to high Heaven. The only reason we don’t know who the whistleblower is it hurts their cause, they are not trying to find the truth here.”

I am hoping this means that the Republicans are going to develop a backbone. I’m not entirely optimistic, but I am hoping.

When The Issue Is More Important Than The Solution

Immigration will probably be a major issue in the 2020 presidential election. Traditionally that issue works to benefit the Democrat party. Therefore it is to the Democrats’ advantage to avoid solving the immigration problem in the coming year.

Hot Air posted an article yesterday about Republican’s effort to solve the immigration problem. This is not to suggest that the Republicans are the men in white hats coming to the rescue on principle–this is to suggest that the Republicans want the problem solved so that it cannot be used against them. I really don’t care about the motives–I just want the problem solved.

The article describes the events in the House of Representatives:

“Blame me but we’re not going to stop”, he said. Senator Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee kept his promise to move a bill on asylum out of the committee today. Committee Democrats aren’t happy about that. Graham acknowledges his failure to get joint support, but that’s the breaks. He’s moving forward.

“I don’t want to separate families. I want to adjudicate families and I don’t want to release families unless they win their day. So, right now, we’re in the worst of all worlds. We can’t hold children beyond 20 days. If you don’t want to separate the family you have to let them all go because we just don’t have the capability to hold them. This is a mess, it’s a disaster and it needs to change.” He voiced disappointment that the committee couldn’t reach agreement on a broader package but noted he doesn’t want the committee to become irrelevant.

The Democrat members of the committee are not happy about the move:

“I told him it is the first immigration bill before the committee in the last six or seven years. It’s the first partisan immigration bill that we’ve ever had, that I know of,” said U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat who has worked with Graham on numerous immigration bills over the years.

“I think it’s a terrible mistake that will sharply divide our committee,” said U.S. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, another Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The article notes that the committee is already divided.

The article concludes:

The bill is introducing some pretty basic changes to asylum law, especially in handling families at the border. The proposed increase in immigration judges will help to speed up the process and move migrants more quickly.

It would increase the number of days a family can be held together from 20 days to 100 days, preventing family separations but lengthening the period children could be held in custody with their parents.

It would also require asylum claims be filed in Mexico or a home country instead of the United States, provide funding for 500 new immigration judges and allow unaccompanied minors from Central America to be sent back to their home countries, similar to unaccompanied minors from Canada or Mexico.

Today’s vote should not be controversial, nor should it have been obstructed for as long as it has been. It is Democrats trying desperately to continue to make illegal immigration and open borders a campaign issue in 2020. Democrats would rather prey on a humanitarian crisis than work on real solutions.

Stay tuned. Generally speaking, major legislation does not happen in the last eighteen months before an election. That should give you an idea of how hard Congress actually works.

Objectivity From A Surprising Source

On Monday USA Today posted an article about the Mueller investigation.

The article asks a very interesting question:

The Russian collusion story had been an article of faith for the Resistance and the press. But why were so many people so deeply convinced of something that was not true? Who was behind not only concocting this fantastic tale but also embedding it in the highest levels of the Justice Department, the intelligence community and the news media?

This question had been on hold during the Mueller investigation. Government officials could not dig into it because anything they might do publicly would have been denounced as interference or “obstruction.” But with the Mueller phase concluded, the gates have opened.

President Trump retweeted a link about a Wall Street Journal op-ed saying the Obama administration must account for “abuse of surveillance powers.” “Time to investigate the Obama officials who concocted and spread the Russian conspiracy hoax!” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tweeted. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called for the appointment of a new special counsel. And former George W. Bush administration spokesman Ari Fleischer asked what could be the ultimate question, “What did Barack Obama know and what and when did he authorize it?

The surveillance of the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team was inexcusable. It was a more blatant an abuse of federal power than anything previously seen.

This is Article I of the Impeachment Articles against Richard Nixon:

On June 17, 1972, and prior thereto, agents of the Committee for the Re-election of the President committed unlawful entry of the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, District of Columbia, for the purpose of securing political intelligence. Subsequent thereto, Richard M. Nixon, using the powers of his high office, engaged personally and through his close subordinates and agents, in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation of such illegal entry; to cover up, conceal and protect those responsible; and to conceal the existence and scope of other unlawful covert activities.

Note that the crime was breaking and entering to secure political intelligence and using the powers of government to cover up the crime. What about lying to a FISA court to be able to conduct illegal surveillance and then fabricating a crime to cover up your activities?

The article at USA Today includes the following:

Yet Obama officials also treated Trump campaign staffers as targets themselves. They used cooperative foreign intelligence services to chat them up overseas, both to put a layer of deniability between them and this questionable behavior, and to get around prohibitions against spying on American citizens. The recently released transcript of the House Committee on the Judiciary and Committee on Government Reform and Oversight interview with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos goes into great detail how this targeting was conducted. Papadopoulos claims that foreign governments are now cooperating to reveal more about these activities. 

These activities are illegal. Those involved in illegal FISA warrants, targeting innocent staff members of the campaign, and other misuses of government need to be held accountable. Unless they are held accountable, we can expect to see more of this behavior in the future.

The Letter

Below is a copy of Attorney General Barr’s summary letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Representative Doug Collins. You can view the letter on Scribd by clicking on the link.

Barr’s Letter by on Scribd

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article about the letter today.

He notes a few basic facts about the letter:

This investigation is the product of a Clinton campaign fabrication. That’s why the investigation was a witch hunt. It is also why the finding of no collusion is unsurprising to anyone who has paid attention with a modicum of impartiality and critical intelligence. The finding of no obstruction is made by Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. If there was no collusion, they suggest, there was highly likely no obstruction and in fact they find that Mueller did not identify any actions that in the judgment of Barr and Rosenstein constituted obstructive conduct. See page 3, paragraph 3.

While investigations and prosecutions will continue for the foreseeable future, we can turn out the lights on the Mueller investigation; the party’s over. Mainstream media hardest hit.

One thing to keep in mind is that a team of totally partisan Democrats looking under every rock they could find for two plus years not only could not find evidence of Russian collusion by President Trump, they somehow failed to notice the entanglement of the Clinton campaign in providing a dossier that paved the way for surveillance of a political opponent’s campaign. As the Democrats continue to investigate in the hope of turning public opinion against President Trump before the 2020 election, I hope the American voters begin to realize where the scandal was in this investigation–it wasn’t in the Trump campaign.

What Happens Next?

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.

This Says A Lot About How Things Work In Washington

Yesterday The Daily Wire reported the following:

A Democratic staffer arrested last week on charges that he revealed the personal information of several Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members was not an “intern” for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), as originally reported. The 27-year-old career staffer, Jackson Cosko, was, instead, reportedly a “fellow” paid by an “outside institution” who served as a primary adviser in Lee’s Congressional office.

This wasn’t some unpaid intern–it was an advisor in a Congressional office.

The article notes:

As the Tennessee Star points out, that raises questions: “It seems clear Cosko isn’t some unlucky and overzealous intern who got caught being a naughty boy. Rather, it seems Cosko might be a Democratic operative, paid by an outside organization, planted in an unpopular congresswoman’s office possibly so he could engage in exactly the type of behavior that just got him arrested.”

Cosko was arrested last week after federal investigators discovered he was responsible for editing a Wikipedia article revealing the personal names, addresses, and phone numbers of several Republican senators, almost immediately after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) concluded a fiery speech defending then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

This is simply another example of totally unacceptable behavior by Democrat operatives. This creates a nightmare for the security details of these Senators. The Senators are considerably safer when the crazies out there don’t know where they live. How many attacks on Senators do we need before we admit the need for absolute secrecy regarding their home addresses?

Hopefully this paid operative will spend some time in jail.

There Seems To Be A Lack Of Ethics Among Some Of Our Senators

This post is not directly related to the Senate hearings yesterday, but it may be an indication of the ethics of the people involved.

The Washington Post posted an article yesterday about something that happened to the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee as the hearings were going on.

The article reports:

Several Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had their home addresses and phone numbers released to the public on their Wikipedia pages during Thursday’s hearing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination.

The victims included Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

According to Caleb Hull, editor of the Independent Journal Review, the wife of Mr. Hatch “has been receiving calls nonstop ON HER BIRTHDAY and their home address was made public.”

The article explains what happened:

CongressEdits, a bot account that for four years automatically retweets edits to Wikipedia made anonymously from IP addresses associated with the U.S. Congress, said the information was also posted on Mr. Lee and Mr. Graham “from US House of Representatives.”

The article auto-posted screen shots supporting the edits being made and noting the inclusion of private information, a practice known as “doxxing.”

The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday:

The private information on the Republican Senators is coming from a computer from the House of Representatives!

Congress reporter for Politico Burgess Everett tweeted: “Someone is doxxing GOP senators on a computer from the House of Representatives, began shortly after the Graham speech. I’m not going to retweet the account where this is posted.”

The person who leaked this information needs to go to jail. He has put members of Congress at risk.

This is a new low in American politics, and one has to wonder what it is about. What is the threat that confirming Judge Kavanaugh represeents? Why are the Democrats willing to go to such lengths to block him?

I suspect that if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed, we will know the answers to those questions fairly quickly. We have watched the Advise and Consent process turned on its head. A strategy that failed with Anita Hill was retried. Hopefully it will fail again. The politics of personal destruction should not be a part of the confirmation process–particularly when an allegation is not able to be proved. If you are going to make a charge that has the potential of ruining a man’s career, come with evidence.

When Your ‘Moment’ Becomes A Total Disaster

Yesterday there was a litmus test to see how well informed voters are. Those who pay close attention shook their heads in disbelief at the grandstanding; those who do not pay close attention were impressed by what they thought was courage. Of course, I am talking about Corey Booker’s performance at the Kavanaugh hearings yesterday.

Today Townhall posted an article about Corey Booker’s Emily Litella moment. For any youngsters who might be reading this, Emily Litella was an early Saturday Night Live character played by Gilda Radner. She was known for saying “never mind” after totally misunderstanding and misreporting a news story.

Townhall reports:

Booker’s theatrics came at the very beginning of the hearing. He interrupted Chairman Chuck Grassley’s opening remarks to announce that he had broken Senate rules and released “committee confidential” documents about Kavanaugh’s opinions on racial profiling. He even referred to himself as “Spartacus,” as if he was some kind of martyr. 

Well, two things. First, it turns out that those “confidential” documents he was talking about had already been cleared for release. Bill Burck, the former Bush administration lawyer overseeing the production of Kavanaugh’s documents, said so in an email, adding he was surprised by Booker’s histrionics.

“Yes, we cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker’s staff asked us to,” Burck said. “I was surprised to learn about Senator Booker’s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly.”

So, his “sacrificial” heroics were all for show. Second, the document in question showed Kavanaugh was against racial profiling. So, just like that, both of his narratives were debunked.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) reacted to Booker’s display Friday morning on Fox News by giving his colleague some friendly advice.

“If you’re gonna use a document to disqualify a nominee, read it,” Graham suggested. “If you read the damn thing,” he added, you’ll see that Kavanaugh “was against racial profiling.”

Please understand that Corey Booker is planning to run for President in 2020 on the Democrat ticket. I hope he puts someone on his staff that can read. Otherwise, we can look forward to many Emily Litella moments in the coming two years.

Watching The Double Standard In Action

Before I get into the substance of this article, I would like to note that the change in Lindsey Graham since the death of John McCain is interesting. All of a sudden Graham is sounding like a conservative. He is not up for re-election until 2020, so that’s not it. It seems as if he is finally waking up to what the deep state is up to and has decided not to be part of it. He may be beginning to realize that the days of the deep state may be numbered.

At any rate, yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article detailing some of Senator Graham’s comments at the confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh.

The article reports:

Democrats bellyache that Kavanaugh worked as an attorney for the Ken Starr investigation and served in the White House of President George W. Bush. Graham could care less.

“Have you heard of Justice Breyer? Do you know him?,” Graham said in an opening statement equally rambling and passionate. “Where did he come from? He was Ted Kennedy’s Senate judiciary person. Where do you think Republicans are going to go find a judge?”

Good point. The article notes one other area where the double standard is glaring:

But Graham has another reason to be angry, and it isn’t just hypocrisy. He held up what he considered his end of the bargain during the Obama administration, voting for both Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The Republican senator certainly didn’t agree with every decision either nominee made. But Graham found both of them to be qualified and found himself “getting a lot of crap” as a result.

The same standard, Graham groused, has not been applied to Republican nominees like Neil Gorsuch and now Kavanaugh. “I would suggest you think long and hard,” he said with some bitterness to the aspiring 2020 Democrats on the committee, “if you’ve got a political ambition, of voting for this guy because it will not play well on your side.”

Graham isn’t wrong, and that is why he’s angry.

The elected President is entitled to his choice of judges and cabinet members unless there is a moral or character issue with the candidate. That is what ‘advise and consent’ is about. The Democrats seem to have forgotten that.

Insanity?

Posted at Lifezette yesterday:

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) said on Friday that if the allegations against Alabama candidate for U.S. Senate Roy Moore are true, he should step aside, and “should be dealt with severely.”

But Graham not only hasn’t called for Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.), accused of having sex with underage prostitutes, to step aside — he also went to New Jersey on his own dime two weeks ago to testify as a character witness in Menendez’s corruption trial, telling the judge that Menendez is “very honest” and “honorable.”

I’m just going to leave this here for your consideration.

Lied To Again

I don’t know how many times Senator John McCain promised to repeal ObamaCare when he was running for office. Evidently he doesn’t remember either. So it’s time to take a different approach to repeal. Understand that the Democrats will never support a bill that de-funds Planned Parenthood, something that the Graham Cassidy bill does. Every Republican should support the bill for that reason alone.

A website called The Stream posted an open letter to Senator Rand Paul yesterday. Here are some highlights from the letter:

Dear Senator Paul,

Let me start by saying “Thank you.” On issue after issue, from individual privacy to economic freedom, from constitutional war-making to criminal justice reform, you have been a light in an often murky Senate and a muddled GOP.

…Your stand on foreign policy in the 2016 election was equally brave and principled. Here at The Stream I echoed your sensible objections to the Syria policies of GOP establishment politicians. You were right in warning against Marco Rubio’s support for arming Syrian rebels. And against Chris Christie’s proposal to threaten to shoot down Russian planes in defense of jihadists. Indeed, you helped lead the fight to stop President Obama from a reckless and destructive U.S. intervention in Syria a year before.

You have been a voice of principle, of course. In the Republican party you may have the best claim to Reagan’s mantle. His optimism, his confidence that Americans would prevail if the government simply protected their rights and left them alone … there’s too little of that spirit in the GOP today, much less in the country. In an age where the competition seems to be for the label of “victim,” you carry on like the Gipper.

Here is the purpose of the letter:

I urge you to reconsider your position. To support an imperfect bill for the sake of the greater good. The Graham-Cassidy Bill is not the repeal of Obamacare that any of us hoped for. It doesn’t dismantle the huge array of perverse incentives, subsidies, and crony-capitalist tinkering that distort American medicine. However, as National Review has noted, it does make some real progress. It does restore some liberty. In fact, the bill offers some concrete benefits not to be sneezed at. Per NRO:

It abolishes the individual and employer mandates, caps per capita spending on Medicaid, blocks federal funds from going to insurance plans that cover abortion, and lets interested states attain freedom from some of Obamacare’s regulations. Some of those states could use that freedom to create markets in which people outside of Medicare, Medicaid, and employer-based coverage would finally be enabled to buy cheap, renewable catastrophic-insurance policies.

All of those are important improvements. But I’d like to focus on one. Pro-life groups have put heavy pressure on you to reverse your stand on this bill. That’s because it’s the one plausible chance to accomplish something which you’ve tried manfully to do on several occasions: to defund Planned Parenthood.

The letter concludes:

It’s crucial to keep the close attachment that evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics have had to American ideals of liberty. We don’t want the growth of a statist, nationalist party in America along the lines of France’s National Front. That’s not our GOP.

With your principled stand on life, your balanced stance on immigration, you could help anchor the party. You might well come to lead it. But if you get blamed for the failure to defund Planned Parenthood, and undo at least some of Obamacare’s damage. … I fear that will never happen.

So please, Senator Paul. The causes of life and liberty are here in perfect alignment. So is political prudence. And your own lofty ambitions, which I support. Please change your vote.

It is obvious that we cannot count on Senator McCain. Can we count of Senator Rand Paul to help end the nightmare of ObamaCare? This may be our last chance to get rid of this horrible law. I suggest that if we cannot end ObamaCare that President Trump immediately sign an executive order putting Congress under ObamaCare. If Congress if going to force the American people to live with a bad law, they should have to live with it also.

 

When Money Is More Important Than National Security

On September 6, I posted an article about the money the Iranian lobby gave to Congressmen to support the Iranian nuclear deal. This is an article showing the monetary reasons some Republicans allowed the deal to go through.

The Iranian nuclear deal is a treaty. Were it treated as a treaty, it would be defeated. Therefore, the Obama Administration needed to come up with a scheme to prevent it from being defeated. First of all, they declared it an ‘agreement’–not a treaty. Then they agreed to a deal under which it would take two-thirds of the Senate to reject it–not two-thirds of the Senate to approve it. If the Senate could not get a two-thirds rejection vote (when was the last time two-thirds of the Senate agreed on anything?), the ‘agreement’ would become law.

I wondered why the Republicans were stupid enough to agree to that deal, but I think Andrew McCarthy has the answer. On Friday Andrew McCarthy posted an article in the National Review which might explain the actions of the Republicans.

The article reports:

Based in Chicago, Boeing is the world’s largest aerospace company, with revenues expected to surge past $96 billion this year. It is a major GOP donor. It gives mountains of money to Democrats, too, but the lion’s share of its political contributions go to Republicans.

For the 2014 campaign cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, the company gave about 60 percent of its whopping $3,250,000 in donations to the GOP. Major recipients included such establishment pillars as the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee ($38,000 each), and the National Republican Senatorial Committee ($33,000). Significant contributions were also made to McConnell ($13,000), Boehner ($25,000), Senator Lindsey Graham ($39,000), and many others. And that’s apart from the nearly $17 million the company spent in 2014 on lobbyists, 80 percent of whom have transitioned to the other end of the trough after careers in government.

It just so happens that Boeing stands to reap huge money from Obama’s lifting of the sanctions.

This is an aspect of politics that most Americans hate. Congress sold its soul to the highest bidder.

The Iran deal is a real threat to America–it funds terrorists and terrorism, creates a nuclear arms race in the Middle East–an area of the world that has never been known for political stability, and pretty much assures a war between Iran and Israel. Any Senator that voted for this treaty or voted to prevent a vote should be ashamed. The purpose of government is to protect the nation. Our Senate has betrayed us.

Last Night’s Republican Debate

I am a football fan. One of the great things about football is that when you turn on a football game, you see a football game. It is played like a football game and reported like a football game. Last night I turned on the Republican debate. I am not exactly sure what I saw. I am a Hugh Hewitt fan. He was there, sitting in a special chair. I believe he had less talking time than most of the candidates. I guess that’s okay–the candidates were the ones having the debate, but why was he there? Also, why was the debate reported as if it were a football game. It’s not a football game–it’s supposed to be a serious discussion to help voters determine who they want to run for President. Or is it?

Now I am going into some tall grass. In August, The Conservative Treehouse posted an article about the establishment Republican’s strategy to make sure Jeb Bush was the party’s nominee. Basically, the strategy was to split the conservative vote in every early primary state so that Jeb Bush would win, even without a plurality of votes. If you look at the candidates, the theory cannot easily be dismissed. Marco Rubio will take Florida, Ted Cruz will take Texas, Lindsey Graham will take South Carolina, etc. Therefore, by the time you get to the more liberal Republican states, no conservative will have enough votes to challenge Jeb Bush.

In July I posted an article by Mark Jones which explained a new rule by the GOP:

Any state, other than the four exempt states already mentioned, that holds a Primary the first two weeks of the month will be forced to allocate those delegate on a proportional basis.  This means that if 5, or even 15, candidates are on the ballot, each candidate will receive a percentage of our delegates commensurate with the percentage of the vote they receive.This may sounds like a fair process on the surface, but as usual, there is more to the story.  The RNC’s penalty will mean that a number of very conservative states,with high delegate counts like Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina, that intend to hold early Primaries, will be forced to divide their delegates among multiple candidates.  In fact, 10 of 15 Southern states plan to hold their Primaries in this window. Conservative stalwarts like Colorado and Utah also plan to hold Primaries in this window.  It is highly unlikely any candidate will emerge from these conservative states with enough delegates to establish a significant lead or gain momentum in the race to be the Republican nominee before March 14.

The purpose of the debate (in the mind of the establishment GOP) is to divide the support among the conservative candidates. The media tends liberal, so they are going to play along so that the Republicans put forth a weak candidate. Unless the conservatives running for President agree among themselves on who gets out of the race and who remains in the race, we are going to have Jeb Bush as a candidate. I can assure you his candidacy will result in a Democrat President. The success of Donald Trump has thrown a bit of a wrench into the establishment plan, but I seriously doubt that a majority of Americans support a Trump presidency.

There are some good conservative Republican candidates. If nothing else, the assembled people on the state would make an amazing Presidential cabinet. The problem is finding a conservative leader. I am sure Jeb Bush is an intelligent and very nice man–I just don’t want to see him as the Republican candidate–I don’t think he can win.

The First Republican Debates

I feel obligated to share a few thoughts on the Republican debates last night. Obviously, the star of the first debate was Carly Fiorina. She obviously has the education, business experience and acumen, and leadership experience to be President. The other person in the early debate who came across very well was Bobby Jindal. Governor Jindal also has the educational background and leadership ability to be President.

The second debate was a little more convoluted. At this point I should mention that I listened to both debates rather than watching them due to cable television issues in the community where I live. The second debate sounded more like the World Wrestling Federation than Republicans, but it was instructive. After a question was asked about the ‘war on women,’ I was glad to see Lindsey Graham comment that the ‘war on women’ is happening in the Middle East in the country that President Obama is trying to make a treaty with–not in the Republican party. The concept of a ‘war on women’ has no place in a Republican debate–it is a Democrat party talking point and Democrat party fiction. I was also left with the impression that Chris Christie is definitely from New Jersey. Having spent my teenage years there, his concept of discussion was somewhat familiar. Recently I had a friend in North Carolina who had been dealing with a New Yorker ask me how to tell if a New Yorker was angry–it seemed as if they were always talking very fast and very loud.

The Republican party can do better in the coming debates. The problem was not with the candidates–I felt that the problem was in the questions. We don’t need to see candidates attack each other–we need candidates that state their positions and contrast those positions with those of the Democrat party. The voters will choose the person who expresses their ideas clearly and is most aligned with their views. I also suspect that the participants in the next major Republican debate will be slightly different.

Breaking Faith With America’s Wounded Veterans

The Washington Free Beacon is reporting today that disabled veterans will not be exempt from the pension cuts included in the budget deal currently being considered in the Senate.

The story reports:

The Free Beacon previously reported that military retirees under the age of 62 would receive 1 percentage point less in their annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in the plan crafted by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D., Wash.).

The section of the U.S. code that has been altered also applies to disabled servicemembers, many of whom have been wounded in combat.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, called the change “unthinkable.”

“It has been asserted that the controversial change to military retirees’ pensions affects those who are ‘working-age’ and ‘still in their working years,’ with the clear suggestion being that these individuals are able to work,” Sessions said in a statement. “That’s why I was deeply troubled when my staff and I discovered that even individuals who have been wounded and suffered a service-related disability could see their pensions reduced under this plan.”

“It is unthinkable that this provision would be included in a deal that spares current civilian workers from the same treatment,” he said. “An equivalent amount of savings and more can be easily found, and I hope the Senate will move to address the unbalanced treatment of our servicemembers before considering the legislation any further.”

This is simply obscene, and it really bothers me that I haven’t seen this provision commented on in any major news outlet.

The article further reports:

Rep. Ryan told the Weekly Standard that the changes are appropriate because servicemen and women who retire in their 40s after serving for two decades are still young enough to maintain a job.

“We give them a slightly smaller adjustment for inflation because they’re still in their working years and in most cases earning another paycheck,” Ryan said.

Sens. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), and Kelly Ayotte (R., N.H.) have said they are opposed to the deal because it cuts the benefits of military retirees, while not imposing equal cuts to federal civilian workers.

Paul Ryan is clearly on the wrong side of this issue. When anyone currently in the military joined the military, they were promised a certain pension if they retired after so many years of active duty or if they were retired due to injury. This is a breach of contract as well as a disgrace. The reason the cuts went to the military and not the federal civilian workers is that the federal civilian workers have unions–our military does not. This is simply wrong.

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A Story That Keeps Simmering Beneath The Surface

Forbes Magazine posted an article yesterday about the survivors of the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi in September.

The article reports:

And the number of survivors may be even larger than previously suspected. There may be more than 30 survivors, including State Department and CIA personnel as well as government contractors, according to a March 1, 2013 letter sent by Rep. Wolf and Rep. Jim Gerlach to Secretary of State John Kerry . As for those government contractors mentioned, they are believed to include former U.S Navy Seals and other former special-forces operators.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been in touch with the families of the survivors, and has stated that family members told him that the Obama Administration has asked the survivors to remain quiet and not share their stories.

Why is this important? It has become fairly obvious that the attack on the outpost was was a major al Qaeda operation. It had nothing to do with any protest about a video.

The article further relates:

The survivors could tell Congress, and the public, important new details. Libyan reports indicate that there were upwards of 100 attackers in Benghazi, that they were organized into machine-gun fire teams and mortar crews, and appeared to take orders from men wearing Afghan-style clothing. So far the Obama administration has provided few details about the attackers, their organization or their motivation.

The attack was an act of war. Because America is war-weary, President Obama ignored that fact in order to win an election. There is also the basic problem of a terrorist attack–who do we go to war with? Even if you look at terrorism as a law enforcement issue, which this administration and the Clinton Administration have tended to do, the criminals responsible for this attack are still at large.

The article also points out that no one has been held responsible for the fact that the State Department ignored the warnings that the outpost needed more security.

The attack on the Benghazi outpost needs to be investigated fully and the American public informed as to what happened. Meanwhile, the way America responded to that attack has made us look weak in the Middle East, opening the door for more unrest.

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The Statement Released After The Meeting

Yesterday Breitbart.com posted the statement released by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-AZ), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) after their meeting with UN Ambassador Susan Rice.

This is the statement:

We respectfully disagree with the White House’s statement today that ‘there are no unanswered questions’ about Ambassador Rice’s September 16 Sunday show appearances and the talking points she used. 

Around 10:00 this morning in a meeting requested by Ambassador Rice, accompanied by acting CIA Director Mike Morell, we asked Mr. Morell who changed the unclassified talking points to remove references to al-Qaeda.  In response, Mr. Morell said the FBI removed the references and did so to prevent compromising an ongoing criminal investigation.  We were surprised by this revelation and the reasoning behind it.

However, at approximately 4:00 this afternoon, CIA officials contacted us and indicated that Acting Director Morell misspoke in our earlier meeting. The CIA now says that it deleted the al-Qaeda references, not the FBI.  They were unable to give a reason as to why.

We are disturbed by the Administration’s continued inability to answer even the most basic questions about the Benghazi attack and the Administration’s response. 

Beyond Ambassador Rice’s misstatements, we continue to have questions about what happened in Benghazi before, during, and after the attack on our consulate – as well as the President’s statements regarding the attack.

Perhaps most important, we also need to understand why the U.S. military was unable to respond within seven hours to save American lives in Benghazi and why our consulate was left so unsecure despite a series of previous attacks. 

In more than a dozen letters, we and other Senators have repeatedly requested that the Administration provide answers to our questions.  Yet, today most of them remain unanswered.  We eagerly await their response.

It does seem from this statement that answers to even basic questions about Benghazi are nearly impossible to come by.  At least someone should know who actually changed the talking points or why no help was available to the Americans in Benghazi. At the rate we are going, we might have some of these answers after the 2016 election.

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