Tag Archives: October surprise

The Ultimate October Surprise

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John Solomon at The Hill reported the following last night:

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline.

And that confession occurred 10 days before the FBI used Steele’s now-discredited dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s ties to Russia.

Steele’s client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 election, Kavalec wrote in a typed summary of her meeting with Steele and Tatyana Duran, a colleague from Steele’s Orbis Security firm. The memos were unearthed a few days ago through open-records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United.

Kavalec’s notes do not appear to have been provided to the House Intelligence Committee during its Russia probe, according to former Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). “They tried to hide a lot of documents from us during our investigation, and it usually turns out there’s a reason for it,” Nunes told me. Senate and House Judiciary investigators told me they did not know about them, even though they investigated Steele’s behavior in 2017-18.

How much money did we spend on this investigation into President Trump without investigating the source for the FISA Warrants?

The article concludes:

Documents and testimony from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr, whose wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, show he told the FBI in August 2016 that Steele was “desperate” to defeat Trump and his work had something to do with Clinton’s campaign.

Kavalec’s notes make clear the DNC was a likely client and the election was Steele’s deadline to smear Trump.

Likewise, there is little chance the FBI didn’t know that Steele, then a bureau informant, had broken protocol and gone to the State Department in an effort to make the Trump dirt public.

That makes the FBI’s failure to disclose to the FISA judges the information about Steele’s political bias and motive all the more stunning. And it makes the agents’ use of his unverified dossier to support the warrant all the more shameful.

Kavalec’s notes shed light on another mystery from the text messages between the FBI’s Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which first revealed the politically-biased nature of the Trump collusion probe.

Strzok, the lead FBI agent on the case, and Page, a lawyer working for the FBI deputy director, repeatedly messaged each other in October 2016 about efforts to pressure and speed the review of the FISA warrant.

For instance, on Oct. 11, 2016, Strzok texted Page that he was “fighting with Stu for this FISA,” an apparent reference to then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stu Evans in DOJ’s national security division.

A few days later, on Oct. 14, Strzok emailed Page he needed some “hurry the F up pressure” to get the FISA approved.

If the evidence is good and the FISA request solid, why did the FBI need to apply pressure?

The real reason may be the FBI was trying to keep a lid on the political origins, motives and Election Day deadline of its star informant Steele.

And that would be the ultimate abuse of the FBI’s FISA powers.

This (and many other things like it) are what the Mueller team should have been investigating–the abuse of the FISA Warrant. However, the team of Democrat donors Mueller assembled to handle to investigation somehow managed to look the other way during the investigation. That is so unfortunate for our country. Not only was their report totally biased in what it left out; because of those omissions, the country is further divided even after the report was released. A man who could have done his patriotic duty to America chose instead to serve crooked politicians. I suspect that decision is about to catch up with him.

An October Surprise That Continues

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Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported that Senator Rand Paul announced Wednesday that according to a high level source, former CIA Chief John Brennan insisted Hillary’s fake Russia dossier be included in the Intelligence Report.

The article reminds us of the series of events leading up to the 2016 election:

In late summer of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey was notified that former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would be sending him a letter asking him to investigate the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

Harry Reid’s letter was written a week after he met with John Brennan – raising suspicion that Brennan briefed Reid on the fake Steele dossier — Reid’s letter was then leaked to the New York Times just before election day.

John Brennan said during a February 2018 appearance on “Meet the Press” that he learned about the dossier in December of 2016 and that “it did not play any role whatsoever in the intelligence community assessment that was done that was presented to then-President Obama and then-President elect Trump.”

The article concludes:

John Brennan told the House Intelligence Committee in a May 2017 hearing that the dossier was not a part of the intelligence used to assess Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The dossier, Brennan testified, “was not in any way used as a basis for the intelligence community assessment that was done.”

Former House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes was reportedly investigating whether Brennan perjured himself during his 2017 testimony to the Committee.

Rand Paul is right — it’s time for Congress to drag Brennan in again and question him under oath ASAP.

The total lack of integrity in some of our government officials and elected officials in appalling.

 

Questionable At Best

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The October Surprise is a political tactic that has been used in the past to convince the public that a candidate is unfit for office. It is done close enough to the election so that there is not adequate time to research the the accusation before the election. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. Somehow the accusation and the accusers disappear after the election. Rarely does the accused get a chance to redeem his reputation. In the past the tactic has been used in presidential campaigns and Congressional campaigns. A form of it has also been used to attempt to block Supreme Court nominees. It worked on Robert Bork; it failed on Clarence Thomas. I have no idea what is going to happen with Judge Kavanaugh.

There are a few things to consider in the attack on Judge Kavanaugh. Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article today that revealed the following:

It looks like Brett Kavanaugh’s mother, Judge Martha Kavanaugh, ruled against the parents of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accuses Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Court documents show the losing party in a foreclosure case Martha Kavanaugh heard to be Ralph and Paula Blasey of Potomac, Maryland. They appear to be Christine Blasey Ford’s parents.

The fact that Kavanaugh’s mother ruled against Ford’s parents doesn’t prove Ford is lying about the conduct of the son. Her allegation, coming so many years after the fact and without a description of when or where the event supposedly occurred, is probably not susceptible to being ruled out conclusively. But there now seems to be a motive, beyond partisan politics, for Ford to make up or significantly embellish her story so long after the “fact.”

In any event, the fact that Ford’s story, having been presented so late and with little detail as to time and place, is probably not susceptible to being ruled out means that, if not “ruled in” conclusively, the story should not preclude Kavanaugh’s confirmation. We have statutes of limitations for a reason.

Finally, unless we accept the view that Kavanaugh truly attempted to rape this girl, I don’t believe his conduct provides a basis for rejecting his nomination. Kavanaugh was still a teenager. More than five dozen women who knew him at the time vouch for his behavior. His female law clerks consider him a gentleman and a mentor.

The American Thinker posted an article today detailing some of Ms. Ford’s student reviews. It is very obvious that Ms. Ford easily fits into the category of a radical liberal. The question is whether or not she has any foundational principles that would prevent her from making false accusations.

The article at The American Thinker concludes:

So has Kavanaugh gotten on Ford’s bad side by expressing conservative ideas?  Probably.  And even if her allegations are true, I very much doubt she’d have come forward had Kavanaugh stayed on her good side by being a leftist reprobate in the mold of Slick Willie or Chappaquiddick Ted Kennedy.  For a good example of such situational sexual mores, note that liberal reporter Nina Burleigh actually said in 1998 about B. Clinton, “I’d be happy to give him [oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.”

As for Kavanaugh, unless it’s shown that he’s like Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy and has exhibited a pattern of sexual wrongdoing, there’s nothing to see here.  Ford claims that the 36-year-old alleged incident of sexual misconduct took place in a room with only her and the two boys present.  So while 65 women who knew Kavanaugh in high school have come forward to vouch for his character as a gentleman, Ford’s lone word is the only claim against him.  Heck, there are more testimonials as to Ford’s alleged insanity than there are regarding Kavanaugh’s alleged impropriety.

This is foul play on the part of the anti-Trump crowd. The fact that Jeff Flake is using these accusations as an excuse not to vote Judge Kavanaugh out of committee and let the Senate vote is an indication of where things are. The fact that the Democrats are using this tactic to attempt to stall the nomination also illustrates their pettiness in trying to prevent the President from exercising his Constitutional right to select judges. The actions of Diane Feinstein and the other Democrats involved in this smear campaign are a disgrace to their party and to their country. These are the people who supported Bill Clinton as President when there was current evidence against him. Now they have discovered morality and can’t support a man with a questionable accusation from thirty years ago. That really does not pass the smell test.

The First Real October Surprise I Have Seen This Year

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Yes, I know it’s November, but this is truly an October surprise. How do you recognize and October surprise? First of all, you look at the source. Second, you look to see if there is any way the issue can be clearly resolved before the actual election. Third, you look to see what impact the October surprise will have on the uninformed voter, because that is the target audience. To be an effective October surprise, there must be no traceable link to the candidate who will gain by the damaging (but not generally relevant) information contained in the surprise. Here we go.

Watchdog.net has posted the following information featuring the headline “BREAKING: Mitt Romney Charged With Violating Federal Ethics Law!”:

As of November 1, Mitt Romney is one of the first presidential candidates ever to be charged with violating federal ethics law.

United Automobile Workers (UAW) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) have just charged Romney with hiding between 15.3 to 11.5 million dollars from the auto industry bailout in his wife Anne’s “blind” trust to conceal the gain and reduce taxes on it.

“The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney’s potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue,” the groups said in a statement. “It’s time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest.”

It’s time to expose just how unscrupulous Romney is about making his fortune off the misfortunes of others. Please, support UAW and CREW by calling on Romney to reveal exactly how much he made and continues to make off the auto bailout!

PETITION TO MITT ROMNEY: It’s time to come clean. We demand to know how much money you hid in your wife’s supposed blind trust, and how much you continue to make thanks to the gutting of the auto industry.

There are a few problems with this. The UAW was one of the beneficiaries of the auto bailout and is a strong supporter of President Obama. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is working hard to undo the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which Mitt Romney supports. Each group has a horse in this race. It makes sense that Mitt Romney would be invested in the auto industry–he is a ‘car guy’ from Michigan. This charge is bogus, and my hope is that it will go nowhere. I am posting this because I want people to be aware that there may be more attacks like this one in the remaining few days before the election. One of the goals here is to remind us that Mitt Romney is rich and that we should dislike him because he is rich. The other is simply to convince voters that there is something dishonest here. I rather doubt there is.

The thing to remember here is that watchdog.net is a site set up for people to start petitions and espouse causes. Any special interest group can go to watchdog.net and set up a petition. I have no idea how much traffic they get, so I don’t know how many people will be aware of this attack, but it is a true example of an October surprise.

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Whoops!!!

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There has been an October surprise in Wisconsin, in June, that has gone horribly wrong for the perpetrators. Gateway Pundit posted a story today about the Democrats latest attempt to recall Scott Walker. The Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op posted a story yesterday entitled, “Integrity: The Child Scott Walker Left Behind.” It is the story of a college co-ed who got pregnant by Scott Walker, who later ignored her, denied the child was his, and never paid child support. The Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op posted the young woman’s testimony and cited that testimony to show that Scott Walker was not a man of integrity. Well, maybe the Wisconsin Citizens Media Co-op is not a newspaper of quality investigative reporting–it was a different Scott Walker! The person who fathered the child was Scott Alan Walker–not Governor Scott Kevin Walker.

I can understand how this sort of mistake can be made, but when dealing with a fairly common name, shouldn’t a publication make sure of its facts before printing or posting a story. Usually October (or in this case June) surprises are effective because there is little time to dispute the story. All of us as voters need to take everything with a grain of salt that is said within a week of an election.

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