Unfortunately Justice In America Is Not Blind

The U.K. Daily Mail posted an article (updated today) about a appeal by the Biden administration’s justice department to prevent a memo about the Russian collusion charges against President Trump from being released.

The article reports:

The Biden administration said Monday that it would appeal a judge’s order directing it to release a memo explaining why Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t choose to prosecute President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice by allegedly thwarting Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. 

But it also agreed to make a brief portion of the document public, which shows that two senior Justice Department leaders advised Barr that, in their view, Mueller’s evidence could not support an obstruction conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. 

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson earlier this month ordered Biden’s DOJ to release the entire March 2019 memo as part of a public records lawsuit from a Washington-based advocacy organization. 

She said the department, under Attorney General William Barr, had misstated the purpose of the document in arguing that it was legally entitled to withhold it from the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In a motion filed late Monday, the deadline for deciding whether it would comply with the judge’s decision or appeal it, the Justice Department said that it continued to believe even that the full document should be exempt from disclosure.

It appears Biden’s DOJ took the decision to avoid setting a new precedent where more sensitive internal documents would have to be released, Politico reported. 

Presidents and administrations of both parties have constantly fought to keep these documents secret. 

The article concludes:

The department said the decision before the attorney general was not whether to prosecute Trump since the indictment of a sitting president is precluded by longstanding Justice Department policy. Rather, the question that the memo set out to address was whether the facts gathered by Mueller could warrant a criminal case. That question, the government says, was a genuine decision that had to be made.

‘The Attorney General´s determination on that point – and on what, if anything, to say to the public about that question – undoubtedly qualifies as a decision, even if it could not have resulted in an actual prosecution of the sitting President,’ Justice Department lawyers wrote.

‘There was no legal bar to determining that the evidence did or did not establish commission of a crime, a determination the Attorney General made and announced,’ they added.

In a letter to AG Merrick Garland on May 14, Senate Democrats urged him not to appeal the court’s order to ‘help rebuild the nation’s trust in independence after four years of turmoil’.

The group of Senators lead by Majority Whip Dick Durbin wrote: ‘DOJ’s actions in this case, and in another recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case seeking information about President Trump’s activities, have raised doubts about DOJ’s candor when characterizing potential evidence of President Trump’s misconduct to courts. 

‘To be clear, these misrepresentations preceded your confirmation as Attorney General, but the Department you now lead bears responsibility for redressing them.

‘In that light, and in order to help rebuild the nation’s trust in DOJ’s independence after four years of turmoil, we urge DOJ not to appeal D.C. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s May 3 decision to order the release of this OLC memo.’

One of the true successes of the Trump administration was to expose the corruption that runs rampant in Washington. It is not surprising that the cadre of people who fought so hard to keep President Trump from exposing that corruption are still fighting to keep their actions hidden. I agree with a friend who posted on Facebook that Washington is not a swamp–it’s a sewer–a swamp has some ecological value!

The Timeline Of The Coverup

As Kevin Clinesmith pays no real price for ruining Carter Page’s life and for kneecapping the Trump presidency, it is time to look at the timeline of one of the biggest scandals in American history. It’s also time to examine why those responsible are still peacefully continuing on in the Washington swamp.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article titled, “Systemic Contingencies – The Need For Bill Barr’s Positioning Revealed, 2018.” The article illustrates how the deep state managed to avoid responsibility for what they did to President Trump and many of his supporters. It’s a complex article, so I suggest that you follow the link and read it for yourselves. My summary will be woefully inadequate.

Some highlights from the article:

By mid-2018 there was a concern amid the deepest part of the deep state.  Congress was asking President Trump for declassification of key documents, the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel held control authority over those documents, and -during the prior five months- Weissmann and team had been working through a careful process to diffuse a dangerous sunlight situation…. the communication amid the players was critical.

At the same time President Trump was frustrated. Openly and publicly frustrated. The OIG, Michael Horowitz had released a report saying the FBI did nothing wrong in the Clinton investigation (no bias).  President Trump was railing against the ineffectual AG Jeff Sessions and contrasting ever increasing research by those outsiders starting to put the puzzle together. 

In the background, and unbeknownst to the public, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was working to facilitate the needs of Robert Mueller, quietly expand the scope of authorities to assist Mueller’s attack-dog Andrew Weissmann, and secretly was in direct communication with a man named Bill Barr to work the control angle against the office of the President, Donald J Trump…..

In mid 2018 it was apparent and predictable -as more information surfaced- the president would move to remove his ineffectual Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.  It wasn’t a matter of ‘if’ Sessions would be removed, it was a matter of ‘when’ Trump would pull the trigger.  Sessions recusal was a key element to the activity of the DC operation against Trump; if Sessions was removed, all of those in charge of constructing the cover-up operation would be at risk.  Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein and now Bill Barr were developing a plan of action.

The article then details some of that plan.

The article notes:

By September 2018 the pressure from legislative supporters for Trump to declassify documents controlled by the special counsel (they held authority over all documents) was at a fever pitch.  Congress was begging Trump to declassify.

When it looked like President Trump was going to take unilateral action, DAG Rod Rosenstein stepped in and told President Trump if he declassified any documents the special counsel would look upon that action as direct evidence of his interfering with their investigation.  Declassification would be weaponized against him.

Rosenstein’s threat worked…. Trump backed down (September 21st)…

The article concludes:

During the early December remembrances and private meetings, former President George “Dubya” Bush put the finishing touches on the plan.  President Bush recommended his friend Bill Barr to be the permanent replacement for Jeff Sessions.  The June 8th letter to Rod Rosenstein was referenced as a baseline to solidify the recommendation.

Once again, President Trump trusted…. The bad actors had now successfully executed the Bill Barr (insurance policy) part of the strategy against the office of the president.   Barr knew if he spoke a good game he would keep President Trump satiated… so he did.

Almost everyone fell for it and the media played their part in railing against Barr.

In addition to the hindsight timeline, one of the “tells” inside the scheme was how Bill Barr talked about the honor and integrity of Robert Mueller and DAG Rod Rosenstein.   By heaping praise upon them he was affirming their status as not being questioned.  The actions, actual behaviors by Mueller and Rosenstein, were being overlooked.

The rest, as they say, is history…

ps. Bill Barr quietly appointed John Durham on October 19th 2020, just outside the 90 day window of reversal, for the exact same reason as the appointment of Robert Mueller. A special counsel insurance policy to protect the deep state.

After watching what has gone on in Washington for the past five years, I am not optimistic about the future of our country. I am also not optimistic about the future of this blog. At some point, after censoring the big guys, the friends of the Biden administration will begin to shut down the little guys. So much has happened in this country so quickly, I won’t even hazard a guess as to how much longer conservative bloggers (even the little ones) will be free to express their ideas.

Two Systems Of Justice

Yesterday BizPac Review reported that Kevin Clinesmith, who was found guilty of falsifying a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) court document will not spend any time in jail.

The article notes:

An FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to falsifying a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) court document in an application seeking a warrant to spy on a 2016 Trump campaign adviser will not spend any time behind bars.

Rather, Kevin Clinesmith will serve 12 months of probation and perform 400 hours of community service as part of the only criminal case thus far linked to Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the origins of the so-called ‘Russiagate’ case.

In August, Clinesmith pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement within the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch and Judicial Branch of the federal government. The offense carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

But the former FBI lawyer did not receive a sentence remotely as serious.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge for the D.C. District James Boasberg, an Obama appointee, said ahead of sentencing that Clinesmith had already suffered enough from losing his job as well as his status due to intense media scrutiny.

Federal prosecutors pressed Boasberg — who, ironically, has served as a member of the secretive FISC and was named its Presiding Judge Jan. 1, 2020 — to sentence Clinesmith to at least several months in prison, Fox News reported.

Clinesmith was referred to the Justice Department for potential prosecution by the DoJ’s inspector general after the office conducted its own review of the origins of the Russiagate operation which targeted former President Trump’s 2016 campaign. A foreign policy adviser to the campaign, Carter Page, was the subject of at least four FISA court spy warrants.

Though not by name, the inspector general accused Clinesmith of changing an email about Page to say he was “not a source” for another government agency. However, Page has said he was an asset for the CIA.

This infuriates me. Contrast the way Clinesmith was treated with the way Roger Stone was treated.

In January 2019, The American Thinker noted:

After news broke of the pre-dawn raid on Roger Stone’s home Friday morning in Florida by twenty-nine heavily-armed agents in nineteen vehicles, lights flashing, CNN serendipitously on hand to film the raid, millions of us realized once and for all that we are no longer living in the America we knew and loved.

Those same millions of us have known for over two years that the Mueller “probe” is a huge and well orchestrated cover-up.  There are now at least two books, Gregg Jarrett’s and Dan Bongino’s, and well researched investigative articles that prove this beyond doubt.

Mueller was appointed by Rod Rosenstein not to investigate Trump collusion with Russia.  The principals all knew that was not remotely true.  He was appointed to conceal and obliterate the volumes of evidence of crimes committed by Hillary Clinton; her campaign; and a group of higher-ups in the FBI, DOJ, and CIA, all of whom were involved in a scheme to prevent Trump from being elected.  All of them have lied under oath and before Congress.  Mueller himself was involved in the Clinton scheme to sell 20% of U.S. uranium to Russia.

All of these felons are walking free; their homes are not being raided in the wee small hours of the morning, but their crimes are far more serious than anything Roger Stone or Paul Manafort might have committed.

That such an aggressive show of force could be visited upon a non-violent person accused of alleged verbal crimes is truly frightening.  That so many in the media are celebrating the use of such a Gestapo tactic is horrifying.  Suddenly, it is catastrophically clear that America is no longer a constitutional republic, a nation of laws and justice.  An unelected, tangential officer of the DOJ has for two years abused his position of power to destroy many lives in the cruelest of ways with impunity.  No one is stopping him and his band of legal bullies. 

The article at BizPac Review concludes:

In December, then-Attorney General William Barr appointed Durham as a special counsel so he could continue his investigation into the origins of the Russiangate operation.

In a scope order leaked to Fox News, Barr wrote that Durham “is authorized to investigate whether any federal official, employee, or any other person or entity violated the law in connection with the intelligence, counter-intelligence, or law-enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns, individuals associated with those campaigns, and individuals associated with the administration of President Donald J. Trump, including but not limited to Crossfire Hurricane and the investigation of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller, III.”

As the November election drew close, Trump grew increasingly frustrated that there would not be at least a report from the DoJ and Durham regarding his findings.

It’s not clear whether Durham is planning to charge anyone else in connection with the Russiagate scandal.

Our Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves.

Interesting Lawsuit

Yesterday One America News posted an article about Whitey Bulger. Whitey Bulger was a well-known figure to anyone who lived near Boston, Massachusetts. He was the boss of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang (aka Irish Mafia).

On March 22, 2018, The New American reported:

Whitey Bulger, as The New American detailed back in 1998 (“FBI Covering for Criminals”), was the murderous boss of Boston’s notorious Winter Hill Gang, also known as the “Irish Mafia.” For two decades (1975-1994) Bulger led a charmed existence, as his brutal gang carried out their crime rampage under the FBI’s protection! Time after time, Massachusetts state and local police had their elaborate, years-long investigations of Bulger foiled by FBI interference. FBI Special Agent John Connolly and John Morris, who was in charge of the FBI’s Boston Organized Crime Squad, were Bulger’s protectors and would tip him off to investigations and wiretaps by other police agencies. This corrupt FBI-Bulger relationship was dramatized in Martin Scorcese’s 2006 film, The Departed, starring Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon. In 1994, Bulger was tipped off by his FBI handler John Connolly that investigators were closing in on him. He went on the lam and eluded capture for 16 years. He was arrested in California in 2011 and went on trial in 2013, charged with 32 counts of racketeering, including 19 murders. The jury convicted Bulger of 31 of the 32 counts, including 11 of the 19 murders. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences plus five years.

Oddly enough, there are some connections between Whitey Bulger and Robert Mueller (as reported in The New American):

In her March 20 blog post. Sarah Carter links to a noteworthy 2011 article by Boston Globe columnist Kevin Cullen entitled, “A lingering question for the FBI Director.” The FBI Director Cullen was referring to was then-Director Robert Mueller, who had previously been one of the DOJ attorneys tasked with overseeing the FBI-Bulger criminal operation. The Cullen article introduces readers to objections raised against Mueller by Mike Albano, a former member of the Massachusetts parole board and the former mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts. He was objecting at the time to the reappointment of Mueller as FBI chief.

While on the parole board, Albano had become convinced that the FBI and DOJ had framed four men with bogus evidence for the 1965 gangland murder of a Boston hoodlum named Teddy Deegan. Albano decided to vote in favor of parole for Peter Limone, one of the four. “So in 1983, after Albano indicated he might vote to release Limone, he got a visit from a pair of FBI agents named John Connolly and John Morris,” Cullen reported. “They told Albano that the men convicted of Deegan’s murder were bad guys, made guys. ‘They told me that if I wanted to stay in public life, I shouldn’t vote to release a guy like Limone,’ Albano said. ‘They intimidated me.’’’

The FBI and DOJ framed the four scapegoats, who were then sent to prison for the Deegan murder to protect Bulger, his henchman Steve “The Rifleman” Flemmi, and Flemmi’s brother, Vincent “Jimmy” Flemmi. “After Albano was elected mayor of Springfield in 1995, he soon found the FBI hot on his tail, investigating his administration for corruption,” Cullen noted. “The FBI took down several people in his administration, and Albano is convinced that the FBI wasn’t interested in public integrity as much as in publicly humiliating him because he dared to defy them.”

In 2001, Albano was vindicated. The four men who had been wrongly convicted in the Deegan murder were exonerated. Two of them had already died in prison. As a result of this shocking government malfeasance, the two surviving victims and the families of the deceased were awarded compensation of $100 million — courtesy of the taxpayers.

“Albano was appalled that, later that same year, Mueller was appointed FBI director, because it was Mueller, first as an assistant U.S. attorney then as the acting U.S. attorney in Boston, who wrote letters to the parole and pardon boards throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies,” writes the Boston Globe’s Cullen. “Of course, Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”

Fast forward to today.

One America News reports:

The family of one of America’s most notorious crime bosses is seeking justice for his death in prison. According to reports, the family of James ‘Whitey’ Bulger recently filed a civil lawsuit against the Federal Bureau of Prisons and 30 unnamed employees.

They have alleged the prison system failed to protect Bulger who was killed within 12-hours after transferring to the U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in West Virginia. Additionally, they argued the prison knew they were putting Bulger in harms way because they failed to take precautions to protect him even though he was well known for being a “snitch.”

“They should get the answers they’ve been looking for,” said Steve Davis, brother of Bulger. “To me, I think it was all premeditated…I think it was all set from his whole move, they just waited for the write time.”

Bulger was one of America’s most wanted criminals for 16 years after fleeing Boston in late 1994. At 81-years-old, he was captured in Santa Monica, California in 2013 and later convicted for participating in 11 murders.

Bulger was sent to federal prisons in Florida and Arizona before being transferred to Hazelton. He was allegedly beaten by a lock-and-sock type weapon. His killer is still not yet known.

Oh the tales that Whitey Bulger could have told…

People In The Obama Administration Seem To Have Very Faulty Memories

The Epoch Times reported yesterday that James Comey has no memory of receiving a recently declassified CIA memo about Hillary Clinton’s plan to smear President Trump with a charge of colluding with Russia.

The article reports:

The three-page referral, released by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe to members of Congress in partly redacted form, apprised Comey and FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok that intelligence suggested that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had approved a plan concerning the Trump campaign and Russia’s alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee.

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Comey claimed not to remember ever receiving the referral.

Ratcliffe sent copies of the partly redacted, three-page referral (pdf) to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, alongside written notes (pdf) taken by CIA Director John Brennan.

Last week, Ratcliffe released a summary (pdf) of the contents of the documents, in which he alleged that Clinton approved the plan on July 26, 2016, and that Brennan’s handwritten notes concern a briefing he provided to President Barack Obama in late July. The information about the plan came from a Russian intelligence analysis obtained by U.S. authorities, according to Ratcliffe.

Please follow the link to the article to see the timeline.

The article concludes:

While a full accounting of the events is yet to be made public, the timing of the events suggests that the FBI may have pivoted its investigation of the DNC email hack into an investigation of the Trump campaign and Russia around the time Clinton allegedly approved the plan to stir up scandal around Trump and Russia.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who took over the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in May 2017, eventually indicted Russian intelligence officers for allegedly hacking the DNC. The indictment suggests that the DNC email hack was part of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Last night President Trump authorized the total declassification of all documents related to Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and Obamagate without redactions. This could be very interesting. Hopefully people who used their government positions for political purposes will be held accountable.

It Keeps Getting More Fishy

Yesterday The Epoch News reported the following:

An official who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation wrote in a recently released email that he or she was in possession of an iPhone belonging to Lisa Page three days after the former FBI lawyer’s last day on the job and at a time when the device was thought to have been lost.

The special counsel’s office (SCO) and the Justice Department previously claimed to have no documents to show who handled Page’s iPhone after she turned it in on July 14, 2017, or who improperly wiped it two weeks later, before it could be checked for records, in violation of SCO policy.

But documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sept. 11 tell a different story, with three officials certifying that Page turned over her phone and one claiming to have been in possession of it.

“I have her phone and laptop,” an administrative officer with the initials LFW wrote in a July 17, 2017, email to Christopher Greer, an assistant director at the DOJ Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO).

Beth McGarry, the executive officer at the special counsel’s office, told Greer in an email sent earlier in the day that Page “returned her mobile phone and laptop.”

The article notes:

The records officer’s log shows that Page’s iPhone wasn’t the only device to elude an examination for government records. A total of at least 22 iPhones with unique asset tags used by the Mueller team were wiped before the records officer could review the contents, according to an Epoch Times review of four inventory logs and various forms released on Sept. 11.

The Mueller team offered a number of excuses for the deletions. Two people claimed the phones wiped themselves. Others said they erased all the data by accident or had to do so because they forgot their passwords. Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor, wiped his iPhone twice.

Mueller’s team used a total of 92 iPhones, according to the documents. Four of the phones appear in the inventory logs, but not on the records officer’s log, suggesting they were either recorded without their unique asset tag or evaded the officer entirely. One of the four phones belonged to deputy special counsel Aaron Zebley. Another belonged to Zainab Ahmad, a special counsel attorney.

One phone was partially wiped. Four phones were improperly handed over to the OCIO and wiped before the records officer’s review. As many as seven phones with no asset tags noted by the records officer were either reassigned or wiped before the officer could assess the device for records.

If you or I accidentally or otherwise destroyed evidence in an investigation, we would be in jail. It bothers me that no one has faced any consequences for the illegal use of the government in an attempt to unseat President Trump. I am hoping that will change, but I am not optimistic.

When You Just Don’t Have Principles

Yesterday The Daily Wire posted an article noting that after President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of former adviser Roger Stone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she would support a bill that would limit a president’s pardoning abilities. First of all, President Trump commuted the sentence–he did not pardon.Secondly, Roger Stone is not in good heath, and a prison sentence would probably result in his death. Seems like a rather high price to pay for lying to Congress and witness tampering. Particularly since many others who lied to Congress have never been charged–James Comey, James Clapper, etc. Finally, some states are currently letting murderers and rapists out of prison because of the coronavirus. How is Roger Stone a threat to anyone?

The article notes:

Pelosi and Democrats, however, want to make sure presidents can’t pardon allies, calling Trump’s actions “an act of staggering corruption.”

“Congress will take action to prevent this type of brazen wrongdoing. Legislation is needed to ensure that no president can pardon or commute the sentence of an individual who is engaged in a cover-up campaign to shield that President from criminal prosecution,” Pelosi said, as reported by The Times-Union.

The outlet noted, however, that such a bill would never become law with a Republican-controlled Senate and White House. “The bill would also likely face legal challenges were it to become law,” the Times-Union reported.

Trump had every right to pardon Stone, even if some don’t like it. Two former prosecutors – Brett L. Tolman and Arthur Rizer – penned an op-ed for Fox News saying Stone was “a relative bit player” sentenced to justify Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

The article mentions some pardons by past Presidents:

Journalist and author Andrew McCarthy, too, defended Trump’s actions and pointed out multiple pardons from Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama that Democrats defended.

President Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the Whitewater scandal for which he and Hillary Clinton were under investigation. And three others convicted in independent counsel Ken Starr’s probe. And Marc Rich, in what was a straight-up political payoff. And his CIA director. And his HUD secretary. And eight people convicted in an investigation of his Agriculture Department,” McCarthy wrote.

Obama also commuted the sentence of a U.S. soldier who passed top-secret information to WikiLeaks. He pardoned his former Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman, who’d been convicted of making false statements about a leak of classified information to The New York Times,” McCarthy added.

Nancy Pelosi was in the House of Representatives during these pardons and never questioned them. Now, when commuting a man’s sentence could possibly save his life, she is going to attempt to pass an unconstitutional law.

This Is Really Pathetic

Yesterday Breitbart reported the following:

House Democrats told the Supreme Court on Monday they need access to secret grand jury materials because they are still investigating President Donald Trump in connection with Russia “collusion” and may want to impeach him, again.

In a legal filing published by CNN, Democrats said that they need the grand jury materials because the House Judiciary Committee’s impeachment inquiry into Trump’s alleged obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation is ongoing.

Unbelievable. The story belongs in the Babylon Bee, but unfortunately it is real. This needs to be added to the list of reasons to end Democrat control of the House of Representatives in November. I can’t believe this is what Democrat voters voted for.  What have the Democrats accomplished in the House of Representatives in the past two years other than harass the President?

The article continues:

The Democrat-run House seeks “disclosure to the House Committee on the Judiciary of a limited set of grand-jury materials for use in the Committee’s ongoing Presidential impeachment investigation,” the Supreme Court filing says.

The saga began in 2019, when Special Counsel Robert Mueller determined that there had been no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. When he released his report, however, Mueller submitted two volumes — one on the collusion investigation, and one on a separate obstruction of justice investigation. Though he made no recommendation for prosecution, Democrats seized on the latter as providing the basis for potentially impeaching Trump for obstruction.

Democrats also claimed that certain redactions in the report must have hidden relevant information — though they declined to read a less redacted version. They also demanded access to material that Mueller had shown a grand jury. Normally grand jury proceedings are secret, and so Attorney General William Barr, citing federal law, declined the Democrats’ request. They then held him in contempt of Congress, and took their case for the materials to federal court.

The case made its way through the courts, and Democrats won at the D.C. Circuit. The Department of Justice appealed to the Supreme Court on May 7, and Chief Justice Roberts put a temporary hold on the grand jury materials on May 8.

In their court filing, the Democrats complain that further delays in the release of the grand jury materials would make it impossible for them to impeach the president again before Congress’s term ends:

Maybe the Democrats should actually try to accomplish something instead of chasing partisan unicorns.

How The Russia Hoax Unraveled

John Solomon posted an article at Just The News today that details some of the research he has done over the last three years and also lists the twelve revelations that destroyed the carefully-crafted narrative that President Trump was colluding with the Russians.

This is the list. Please follow the link to the article for details and the sources:

1. Flynn’s RT visit with Putin wasn’t nefarious.

2.  (Flynn was) Not a Russian agent.

3. Case closed memo.

4. DOJ heartburn.

5. Logan Act threat wasn’t real.

6. Unequal treatment.

7. Disguising a required warning.

8. “Playing games.

9. No deception.

10. No actual denial.

11.) Interview Reports Edited.

12.) Evidence withheld.

The article also notes how John Solomon’s investigation began:

Shortly after my colleague Sara Carter and I began reporting in 2017 on the possibility that the FBI was abusing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Americans during the Russia investigation, I received a call. It was an intermediary for someone high up in the intelligence community.

The story that source told me that day — initially I feared it may have been too spectacular to be true — was that FBI line agents had actually cleared former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn of any wrongdoing with Russia only to have the bureau’s leadership hijack the process to build a case that he lied during a subsequent interview.

In fact, my notes show, the source used the words “concoct a 1001 false statements case” to describe the objections of career agents who did not believe Flynn had intended to deceive the FBI. A leak of a transcript of Flynn’s call with the Russian ambassador was just part of a campaign, the source alleged.

The tip resulted in a two-and-a-half-year journey by myself and a small group of curious and determined journalists like Carter, Catherine Herridge, Greg Jarrett, Mollie Hemingway, Lee Smith, Byron York, and Kimberly Strassel to slowly peel back the onion.

The pursuit of the truth ended Thursday when the Justice Department formally asked a court to vacate Flynn’s conviction and end the criminal case, acknowledging the former general had indeed been cleared by FBI agents and that the bureau did not have a lawful purpose when it interviewed him in January 2017.

Attorney General William Barr put it more bluntly in an interview Thursday: “They kept it open for the express purpose of trying to catch, to lay a perjury trap for General Flynn.”

To understand just how dramatic a turnaround Thursday’s action was, one has to go back to the headlines of 2017 fanned by the likes of The Washington Post, The New York Times, MSNBC, CNN and others and told by a host of former Obama administration officials and their Democratic allies in Congress.

Flynn was suspected of violating the Logan Act by talking with the Russian ambassador. He may have been compromised by a 2015 visit with Vladimir Putin at a Russia Today event. He lied to the FBI. He may have been an agent of Russia and involved in colluding to hijack the election. He betrayed his country.

All of that was alleged, it turns out, without proof. And then Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team pressured Flynn to plead guilty to falsely telling FBI agents that he did not discuss sanctions with Russia’s ambassador. It turns out that wasn’t true either.

Thank God for the honest reporters who were willing to pursue this story. They were a necessary part of finding out the truth.

There’s Always More To The Story

Yesterday President Trump fired Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson. As expected, the mainstream media was very upset. ICIG Atkinson served at the will of the President, so why do you think the media was so upset?

The Conservative Treehouse posted an article yesterday that provides some clues.

The article notes:

The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community. It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson’s office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large.

Additionally, former congressman Mark Meadows is now President Trump’s Chief-of-Staff; and Meadows has been a critic of those within the intelligence apparatus who attempted a soft-coup twice: Once by special counsel (Russia investigation) Robert Mueller; and once by impeachment (Ukraine investigation) using CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and NSC operative Alexander Vindman.

Also, in the recent FISA review by the OIG the DOJ inspector general specifically identified issues with the “accuracy reviews” conducted by DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel.  Who was that former DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel?  That would be current ICIG Michael Atkinson…

The plot thickens:

Additionally, since our original research into ICIG Atkinson revealed he was part of a corrupt deep state effort to cover his own involvement during the FBI operation against candidate Trump, there have been some rather interesting additional discoveries.

The key to understanding the corrupt endeavor behind the fraudulent “whistle-blower” complaint, doesn’t actually originate with ICIG Atkinson. The key person is the former head of the DOJ National Security Division, Mary McCord.

…McCord was the senior intelligence officer who accompanied Sally Yates to the White House in 2017 to confront then White House Counsel Don McGahn about the issues with National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and the drummed up controversy over the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak phone call.

Additionally, Mary McCord, Sally Yates and Michael Atkinson worked together to promote the narrative around the incoming Trump administration “Logan Act” violations. This silly claim (undermining Obama policy during the transition) was the heavily promoted, albeit manufactured, reason why Yates and McCord were presumably concerned about Flynn’s contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. It was nonsense.

However, McCord didn’t just disappear in 2017 when she retired from the DOJ-NSD. She resurfaced as part of the Lawfare group assembly after the mid-term election in 2018.

The article goes on to mention that Mary McCord eventually went to work for Adam Schiff to help with the impeachment efforts.

Please follow the link to The Conservative Treehouse to read the entire article. The firing of Michael Atkinson is a serious blow to the deep state, so expect the media to be totally rabid about it for at least the next week.

Gradually The Truth Emerges

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at Just The News about some new information regarding the Mueller investigation.

The article reports:

In Robert Mueller’s final report on the Russia investigation, a little-known translator named Anatoli Samochornov played a bit role, a witness sparsely quoted about the infamous Trump Tower meeting he attended in summer 2016 between Donald Trump Jr. and a mysterious Russian lawyer.

The most scintillating information Mueller’s team ascribed to Samochornov in the report was a tidbit suggesting a hint of impropriety: The translator admitted he was offered $90,000 by the Russians to pay his legal bills, if he supported the story of Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskya. He declined.

But recently released FBI memos show that Samochornov, a translator trusted by the State Department and other federal agencies, provided agents far more information than was quoted by Mueller, nearly all of it exculpatory to the president’s campaign and his eldest son.

Despite learning the translator’s information on July 12, 2017, just a few days after the media reported on the Trump Tower meeting, the FBI would eventually suggest Donald Trump Jr. was lying and that the event could be seminal to Russian election collusion.

Samochornov’s eyewitness account entirely debunks the media’s narrative, the FBI memos show.

The article continues:

The translator’s detailed account — omitted from the Mueller report — validated most aspects of Trump Jr.’s original story. And the FBI knew it from the start of the controversy.

The belated release of the FBI interview report under a Freedom of Information Act request is likely to raise serious questions among congressional oversight committees about why the information was suppressed in the Mueller report, why the FBI kept it quiet for two years while Trump Jr. was being politically pilloried, and why the news media has failed to correct its own record of misleading reporting.

“The omission from the Mueller report leaves a distorted picture that has been allowed to persist for more than two years,” a Senate staffer involved in the Russia investigation told me on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t approved to talk to the news media. “We are looking into the circumstances of the editing of that report and why DOJ allowed such investigations and false public narratives to carry on in the face of significant evidence of innocence.”

People need to go to jail over this–leaving out exculpatory information in order to feed a false narrative to the American people is inexcusable. These are the actions of a police state. If we do not hold people accountable, we can expect more of this behavior in the future.

There Are Serious Problems In Our Justice System

Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about the sentencing of Roger Stone. Frankly it seems as if Roger Stone’s biggest crime was supporting President Trump.

The article reports:

Federal prosecutors’ initial recommendation that Roger Stone serve between seven to nine years in prison was unusually excessive compared to similar sentences imposed for lying to Congress, according to an analysis by The Washington Times.

However, the Justice Department’s move to reduce the sentencing recommendation for an ally of President Trump set off a politically-charged fracas in Washington. Capitol Hill Democrats demanded an investigation into why the department overruled prosecutors’ initial request as “excessive and unwarranted.”

A Washington jury convicted Stone in November of lying to Congress, obstruction of justice and witness tampering for thwarting lawmakers’ investigation into Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

Roger Stone was arrested in a predawn raid with a S.W.A.T. team. He was not considered a danger to anyone, and his wife is deaf. Can you imagine the fear she felt. This whole scenario is over the top.

Meanwhile, do you remember Brock Allen Turner? He was a Stanford University student athlete caught in the act of raping a female student. He was sentenced to six months in the county jail and probation. What about Hillary Clinton and her secret server? How many security violations and destruction of evidence charges were overlooked there? Meanwhile a young submariner was sent to jail for taking a picture of his workspace.

Our justice system is wandering down a road that should not be traveled.

The article at The Washington Times notes:

Two other political figures ensnared in then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe also were convicted for lying to Congress:

⦁ Lobbyist W. Samuel Patten pleaded guilty and prosecutors dropped the charge. He got three years probation for illegal lobbying.

⦁ Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen received four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to lying to Congress and other crimes.

The key difference between Stone’s and other cases is he also went down for obstruction and tampering with witnesses. Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington said the added convictions demanded more prison time.

They were “piling on,” said former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy.

“A sentence of nine years is unreasonable,” he said. “The Justice Department could have brought this whole case as one count of obstruction and instead brought seven felonies.”

This sentence does need to be revised.

How Do You Undo The Damage Done By Dishonest People And A Dishonest Media?

There is a new website in town. It is called “Just The News.” One of its contributors will be investigative reporter John Solomon. Recently they posted a preview of what is to come.

Just The News recently posted an article titled, “Key witness told Team Mueller that Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine was fabricated” written by John Solomon.

The article reports:

One of Robert Mueller’s pivotal trial witnesses told the special prosecutor’s team in spring 2018 that a key piece of Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine known as the “black ledger” was fabricated, according to interviews and testimony.

The ledger document, which suddenly appeared in Kiev during the 2016 U.S. election, showed alleged cash payments from Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

“The ledger was completely made up,” cooperating witness and Manafort business partner Rick Gates told prosecutors and FBI agents, according to a written summary of an April 2018 special counsel’s interview.

In a brief interview with Just the News, Gates confirmed the information in the summary. “The black ledger was a fabrication,” Gates said. “It was never real, and this fact has since been proven true.”

Gates’ account is backed by several Ukrainian officials who stated in interviews dating to 2018 that the ledger was of suspicious origins and could not be corroborated.

If true, Gates’ account means the two key pieces of documentary evidence used by the media and FBI to drive the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative — the Steele dossier and the black ledger — were at best uncorroborated and at worst disinformation. His account also raises the possibility that someone fabricated the document in Ukraine in an effort to restart investigative efforts on Manafort’s consulting work or to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.

Much mystery has surrounded the black ledger, which was publicized by the New York Times and other U.S. news outlets in the summer of 2016 and forced Manafort out as one of Trump’s top campaign officials.

I suspect that Paul Manafort is not necessarily a saint, but there is no excuse for the way out ‘justice’ system has treated him–particularly when we know that the evidence used to start the ball rolling against him was fake. Once he knew the evidence was fake, why did Robert Mueller continue the investigation?

The article concludes:

In an interview last summer, Leschenko said he first received part of the black ledger when it was sent to him anonymously in February 2016, but it made no mention of Manafort. Months later, in August 2016, more of the ledger became public, including the alleged Manafort payments.

Leschenko said he decided to publicize the information after confirming a few of the transactions likely occurred or matched known payments.

But Leschenko told me he never believed the black ledger could be used as court evidence because it couldn’t be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it was authentic, given its mysterious appearance during the 2016 election.

“The black ledger is an unofficial document,” Leschenko told me. “And the black ledger was not used as official evidence in criminal investigations because you know in criminal investigations all proof has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. And the black ledger is not a sample of such proof because we don’t know the nature of such document.”

In the end, the black ledger did prompt the discovery of real financial transactions and real crimes by Manafort, which ultimately led to his conviction.

But its uncertain origins raise troubling questions about election meddling and what constitutes real evidence worthy of starting an American investigation.

How may people charged with financial misdeeds have been put in solitary confinement for long periods of time? His treatment was not equal justice under the law.

The Networks Are Slowly Becoming Obvious

Yesterday One America News reported the following:

New documents have exposed a former Department of Justice official’s alleged involvement in the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

According to newly released notes from a 2017 interview, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein sought out James Comey’s advice about appointing a special counsel. These notes, in addition to 300 pages of witness interviews, suggest McCabe told investigators Rosenstein asked him to get Comey’s opinion on whether a special counsel should be appointed.

Comey was stripped of his role as leader of the Russia investigation after the president determined he was unfit to to lead the bureau. Rosenstein then appointed Robert Mueller to take on the Russia probe, who’s investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The article includes a quote from Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch:

“You notice this with the Ukraine argument, they don’t want the President to investigate what went on. Its now expanded from Ukraine to the President wasn’t allowed to make entrees to his attorney general, who is investigating this spying operation on candidate Trump…it’s incredible. They want to criminalize investigations of this activity.”

— Tom Fitton, President – Judicial Watch

It is becoming more obvious every day that the ‘insurance policy’ was set up before President Trump was sworn in and planned carefully with the goal of taking him out of office. The people responsible need to face justice.

 

Presenting A Deceptive Brief

Yesterday Byron York posted an editorial at The Washington Examiner about the impeachment brief Democratic House managers have compiled. The title of the article at The Washington Examiner is, “Two deceptions at the heart of Democrats’ impeachment brief.”

The editorial notes:

Democrats insist on Trump’s immediate removal because, they argue, he was the knowing beneficiary of Russian help in the 2016 election, and if he is not thrown out of office right now, he will do it again. But in making their argument, Democrats make two critical mischaracterizations about Trump, Republicans, and 2016. One is flat-out wrong, while the other is misleading.

The one that is flat wrong is the Democrats’ assertion that Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate “a debunked conspiracy theory that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 presidential election to aid President Trump, but instead that Ukraine interfered in that election to aid President Trump’s opponent, Hillary Clinton.”

The problem is, the theory does not hold that Russia “did not interfere” in the 2016 election. There is a mountain of evidence that Russia interfered, and that has been the conclusion of every investigation into the matter, beginning with the first congressional probe, by the House Intelligence Committee under then-chairman Devin Nunes. The theory is that in addition to Russian interference, some people in Ukraine, including some government officials, also tried to influence the U.S. election. It was not a government-run effort, and it was on a far smaller scale than the Russian project, but it happened.

I don’t know if any of the available information about Ukrainian interference will ever make it out to the mainstream media, but there have been criminal trials in Ukraine that confirm that the government was involved in 2016 in support of Hillary Clinton. The information is out there, but most of the mainstream media has successfully avoided reporting it.

The editorial reports the second deception:

The other mischaracterization in the Democratic brief is the assertion that, in 2016, Trump “welcomed Russia’s election interference.” The brief quotes special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that the Trump campaign welcomed Russian help because it “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.”

That’s not wrong — Trump did, in fact, welcome Russia-based leaks — but grossly out of context. The context is this: Trump welcomed Russia-based leaks about the Clinton campaign because the media were enthusiastically embracing and repeating Russian-based leaks about the Clinton campaign. Print, internet, TV, everyone, was accepting, repeating, and amplifying the material released by WikiLeaks from the Russian hack of top Clinton campaign official John Podesta.

Perhaps people have forgotten how prominently media organizations featured the Russia-based material.

The editorial then lists a number of examples of media hysteria about Russian during the 2016 election.

The article concludes:

Of course, the Times was not the only media organization to trumpet the Russia-based leaks. They all trumpeted the Russia-based leaks. Everyone was complicit. And that is what makes the Democratic charge against Trump so misleading. He wasn’t welcoming something that everyone else was condemning. He was welcoming something that everyone else was welcoming, too. And now, in retrospect, that is a terrible offense, part of the foundation for removing the president from office?

Neither mischaracterization in the Democratic brief is a mistake; Democratic prosecutors know full well what actually happened. But the mischaracterizations are necessary to build the case against the president, to show that he had corrupt motives in the Ukraine matter. They are, of course, not the entire case, but they are important. And they are wrong.

Any Congressman who enables this farce of an impeachment to continue needs to be voted out of office as soon as possible.

The Political Impact Of The Long Fight To Remove President Trump

On Tuesday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at National Review about the impact of impeachment on President Trump.

The article includes a number of observations about the impact of the endless investigations of the President:

Quietly, the approval ratings of Trump have been rising to pre-impeachment levels and are nearing a RealClearPolitics average of 45. Support for impeaching Trump and/or removing him is not increasing as the House Democrats expected. It is essentially static, or slowly eroding, depending on how polls phrase such questions.

Apparently, an exhausted public did not see “Ukrainian” impeachment as a one-off national crisis akin to the Nixon inquiry and the Clinton impeachment and trial that merited national attention. The impeachment vote instead is being confirmed in the public mind as part of a now boring three-year impeachment psychodrama (from impeachment 1.0, the Logan Act, the emoluments clause, the 25th Amendment, and Michael Avenatti/Stormy Daniels comedies to Robert Mueller’s “dream team” and “all-stars”). The progressive logic of the current jump-the-shark monotony is to become even more monotonous, the way that a driller leans ever harder on his dull and chipping bit as his bore becomes static.

The Democrats believed that all of these efforts would be like small cuts, each one perhaps minor but all combining to bleed Trump out. But now we know, given polling data and the strong Trump economy, that the long odyssey to impeachment has had almost no effect on Trump’s popularity, other than losing him 3–4 points for a few weeks as periodic media “bombshells” went off.

The reality may be the very opposite of what Democrats planned. The more the Left tries to abort the Trump presidency before the election, the more it bleeds from each of its own inflicted nicks. As an example, Rachel Maddow’s reputation has not been enhanced by her neurotic assertions that Trump’s tax returns would soon appear, or that the Steele dossier was steadily gaining credibility, or that yet another tell-tale Russian colluder had emerged from under another American bed.

The constant drumbeat of accusations is simply not resonating. Yet, the Democrats continue with a playbook that is not working.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. It includes a lot of information that has been overlooked amidst the hype.

The article concludes:

Instead, voters are exhausted by his haters and their crazy agendas. They grow enraged over how the Mueller and Horowitz investigatory reports have disproved all the daily media, celebrity, and political assertions. And they are upset about the larger culture of the anti-Trump Left, from the fundamentals of open borders and identity politics to the trivia of transgendered athletes, Colin Kaepernickism, and the open-border, Green New Deal socialism. An auto worker who votes as a true-blue union Democrat but likes Trump’s trade policies, a no-nonsense farmer who worries about farm exports but likes deregulation, and a teacher who votes a liberal slate but has no way to control his classroom may not seem like Trump voters, but some such voters are terrified by the cultural trajectory of what the Trump-hating Left has in store for them all.

For a majority, refined and arrogant progressive mendaciousness voiced in condescending nasal tones has become far more repugnant than all-American hype in a Queens accent.

What is happening in America may be an indication that representative government may be making a comeback. We may be entering a time when elected officials will actually be required to represent the people who elected them.

Creative Editing Totally Changes The Meaning Of What Was Said

A website called The BL posted an article on Saturday that illustrates how the media can edit or take out of context a quote in order to change its meaning. The statement in question is the one being cited by Democrats to support their charge of ‘abuse of power’ leveled against President Trump.

The article reports:

As Breitbart News points out, CNN legal analyst and former Attorney General Elie Honig cited the clip edited in two special broadcasts explaining the case of the impeachment inquiry against Trump, one broadcast on Thursday and the other on Friday, Dec. 6.

In addition, MSNBC presenter and political commentator Chris Mathews played a similar video of Trump’s words on Wednesday during the “Hardball “program. And MSNBC host Joe Scarboroug again quoted the clip edited on “Morning Joe” on Thursday.

The problem is that the quote was totally taken out of context.

The article reports the context:

In the original video, the president explains, “Look, Article II, I would be allowed to fire Robert Mueller. Assuming I did all of the things, I said I want to fire him. Number one, I didn’t. He wasn’t fired.”

“Number one, very importantly but more importantly, Article II allows me to do whatever I want. Article II would allow me to fire him. I wasn’t going to fire him. You know why—because I watched Richard Nixon firing everybody and that didn’t work out too well,” the president explains in the clip, as picked up by Breitbart News.

Context matters. How many Americans have heard the fractured quote and believed it without having any idea of what was actually referenced? The press is obviously not doing its job of keeping Americans informed. Instead they are spouting propaganda to fit their own agenda.

Even Rolling Stone Has Figured It Out!

Yesterday Rolling Stone posted an article about the Inspector General’s Report. Please follow the link to read the entire article–it is well written and informative. I will try to highlight some of it, but you really do need to read the whole thing.

The article notes:

The Guardian headline reads: “DOJ Internal watchdog report clears FBI of illegal surveillance of Trump adviser.”

If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a “clearing” of the FBI, never clear me of anything. Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was.

Like the much-ballyhooed report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the Horowitz report is a Rorschach test, in which partisans will find what they want to find.

Much of the press is concentrating on Horowitz’s conclusion that there was no evidence of “political bias or improper motivation” in the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump’s Russia contacts, an investigation Horowitz says the bureau had “authorized purpose” to conduct.

Horowitz uses phrases like “serious performance failures,” describing his 416-page catalogue of errors and manipulations as incompetence rather than corruption. This throws water on the notion that the Trump investigation was a vast frame-up.

However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose “serious” procedural problems and omissions of “significant information” in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president).

The article comments on the role the news media played in this drama:

Not only did obtaining a FISA warrant allow authorities a window into other Trump figures with whom Page communicated, they led to a slew of leaked “bombshell” news stories that advanced many public misconceptions, including that a court had ruled there was “probable cause” that a Trump figure was an “agent of a foreign power.”

There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report show years of breathless headlines were wrong. Some key points:

The so-called “Steele dossier” was, actually, crucial to the FBI’s decision to seek secret surveillance of Page.

Press figures have derided the idea that Steele was crucial to the FISA application, with some insisting it was only a “small part” of the application. Horowitz is clear: 

We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.  

The report describes how, prior to receiving Steele’s reports, the FBI General Counsel (OGC) and/or the National Security Division’s Office of Intelligence (OI) wouldn’t budge on seeking FISA authority. But after getting the reports, the OGC unit chief said, “receipt of the Steele reporting changed her mind on whether they could establish probable cause.”

The article notes:

Steele in his “reports” embellished his sources’ quotes, played up nonexistent angles, invented attributions, and ignored inconsistencies. The FBI then transplanted this bad reporting in the form of a warrant application and an addendum to the Intelligence Assessment that included the Steele material, ignoring a new layer of inconsistencies and red flags its analysts uncovered in the review process.

Then, following a series of leaks, the news media essentially reported on the FBI’s wrong reporting of Steele’s wrong reporting.

The impact was greater than just securing a warrant to monitor Page. More significant were the years of headlines that grew out of this process, beginning with the leaking of the meeting with Trump about Steele’s blackmail allegations, the insertion of Steele’s conclusions in the Intelligence Assessment about Russian interference, and the leak of news about the approval of the Page FISA warrant.

As a result, a “well-developed conspiracy” theory based on a report that Comey described as “salacious and unverified material that a responsible journalist wouldn’t report without corroborating,” became the driving news story in a superpower nation for two yearsEven the New York Times, which published a lot of these stories, is in the wake of the Horowitz report noting Steele’s role in “unleashing a flood of speculation in the news media about the new president’s relationship with Russia.”

The article has a fantastic conclusion:

No matter what people think the political meaning of the Horowitz report might be, reporters who read it will know: Anybody who touched this nonsense in print should be embarrassed.

Rolling Stone doesn’t always get it right, but this time they nailed it!

While We Were Sleeping

Yesterday The Houston Chronicle reported that the Justice Department charged eight people — including a prominent political donor to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and a Lebanese-American businessman who was a witness in Robert Mueller’s investigation — with conspiring to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in donations to Clinton.

The article reports:

The 53-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Washington detailed efforts by Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja and George Nader to conceal the true source of the millions of dollars in campaign contributions, which prosecutors allege were made to gain influence with high-level political figures, including Clinton.

Khawaja, who lives in Los Angeles and is the owner of the online processing company Allied Wallet, is accused of making the donations in his name, his wife’s name and his company’s name, even though they were actually funded by another businessman, Nader.

As they arranged the payments, Nader was in touch with an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence with the prominent politicians, prosecutors charge. The government is not identified in court documents.

A 2018 investigation by The Associated Press detailed that Khawaja, Allied Wallet and top executives contributed at least $6 million to Democratic and Republican candidates and groups. The donations earned Khawaja access to Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign and a post-election Oval Office visit with Trump.

Clinton is not identified by name in the court documents made public Tuesday, but there are repeated references in the indictment identifying the candidate as a woman. Federal donor records show Khawaja gave millions of dollars to Democratic candidates, including the main political action committee supporting Clinton’s campaign. He also donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.

Nader is already in federal custody on unrelated charges accusing him of transporting a dozen images of child pornography and bestiality. He had provided grand jury testimony in the special counsel’s Russia investigation about his efforts to connect a Russian banker to members of Trump’s transition team. He had also worked to advance Saudi Arabia’s agenda to the Trump administration.

This may be only the beginning of draining the Washington swamp. Hopefully there is more to come.

An Expert Opinion

Regardless of how you may feel about him, Newt Gingrich is a brilliant political mind. He posted an article at Fox News today about the move to impeach President Trump. I recommend that you follow the link to read the entire article, but I will try to highlight it here.

The article reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats’ tunnel-vision focus on impeaching President Trump puts all of us, as Americans, at risk.

This may sound extreme, but I lay it all out in this week’s episode of “Newt’s World.”

Since the day Trump was elected president, Democrats have been formulating and executing the plot we have been watching unfold. After Trump won a massive electoral majority, Democrats started digging.

They have been determined to find something – anything – they can use to attack him. The central focus of all of this is to describe and define Trump as a corrupt president so often that people begin to accept the narrative. It’s not only the elected Democrats. Much of the intelligence community has been equally determined to “uncover” something on President Trump from the beginning.

The article continues:

As this plot against Trump has continued, the American system has been bypassed, ignored, or misused to the point where it has been put it in jeopardy. Democrats, political operatives, American intelligence officials and the media have been forcing a manufactured narrative on the American people. Specifically, a group of these intelligence officials are breaking the law by leaking secrets to the media (whose members gladly overlook these crimes so long as it lets them accuse the president of something new).

We have seen this pattern with the so-called Trump Towers in Moscow scandal, the Robert Mueller investigation, and now the Pelosi-Adam Schiff impeachment effort.

Make no mistake: This is not politics as usual. It’s a concerted effort by one political party, the Washington bureaucracy, and the media to overrule the American people.

The continuing attack on President Trump is dangerous to our Republic. This is an attempt to overthrow the results of a legitimate election. If those responsible are not brought to justice, our government will constantly be in chaos because false charges can be filed against any elected official at any time in an effort to remove him from office.

“The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”

Judicial Watch released the following Press Release yesterday:

DOJ Docs Show Rosenstein Advising Mueller ‘the Boss’ Doesn’t Know About Their Communications — Judicial Watch

Rosenstein docs also show ‘off the record’ leaks to 60 Minutes, The New York Times and The Washington Post around and on the date of Mueller’s appointment.

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch released 145 pages of Rod Rosenstein’s communications that include a one-line email from Rod Rosenstein to Robert Mueller stating, “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions” and “off the record” emails with major media outlets around the date of Mueller’s appointment.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the DOJ failed to respond to a September 21, 2018, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00481)). Judicial Watch seeks:

Any and all e-mails, text messages, or other records of communication addressed to or received by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein between May 8, 2017, and May 22, 2017.

The time period referred to in this suit is critical. On May 8, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memo to President Trump recommending that FBI Director James Comey be fired. The next day, President Trump fired Comey. Just three days later, on May 12, Rosenstein sent an email assuring Robert Mueller that “The boss and his staff do not know about our discussions.”

In a May 16, 2017 email, sent the day before Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein emailed former Bush administration Deputy Attorney General and current Kirkland & Ellis Partner, Mark Filip stating, “I am with Mueller. He shares my views. Duty Calls.  Sometimes the moment chooses us.”

And on May 17 Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Also, during the same time period, between May 8 and May 17, Rosenstein met with then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other senior Justice Department FBI officials to discuss wearing a wire and invoking the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump.

The documents also show that, again during the same time period, Rod Rosenstein was in direct communication with reporters from 60 Minutes, The New York Times and The Washington Post. In an email exchange dated May 2017, Rosenstein communicated with New York Times reporter Rebecca Ruiz to provide background for this article about himself. Ruiz emailed Rosenstein a draft of the article, and he responded with off-the-record comments and clarifications.

  • In an email exchange on May 17, 2017, the day of Mueller’s appointment, Rosenstein exchanged emails with 60 Minutes producer Katherine Davis in which he answered off-the-record questions about Mueller’s scope of authority and chain of command:

Rosenstein: “Off the record: This special counsel is a DOJ employee. His status is similar to a US Attorney.”

Davis: “Good call on Mueller. Although I obviously thought you’d be great at leading the investigation too.”

  • On May 17, 2017, in an email exchange with Washington Post journalist Sari Horwitz and the subject line “Special Counsel” Rosenstein and Horwitz exchanged:

 Rosenstein: “At some point, I owe you a long story. But this is not the right time for me to talk to anybody.”

Horwitz: “Now, I see why you couldn’t talk today! Obviously, we’re writing a big story about this. Is there any chance I could talk to you on background about your decision?”

“These astonishing emails further confirm the corruption behind Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The emails also show a shockingly cozy relationship between Mr. Rosenstein and anti-Trump media reporters.”

On September 11, Judicial Watch released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries about DOJ/FBI talks allegedly invoking the 25th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.

On September 23, Judicial Watch released a two-page memo, dated May 16, 2017, by then-Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe detailing how then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire into the Oval Office “to collect additional evidence on the president’s true intentions.” McCabe writes that Rosenstein said he thought it was possible because “he was not searched when he entered the White House.”

In case you had any doubt that this has been a planned sabotage of President Trump.

It Can Be Embarrassing When The Truth Shows Up

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article the debunks the latest attempt to accuse President Trump of questionable behavior.

The article reports:

According to a leak to the New York Times, President Trump “pushed” the Australian Prime Minister during a recent phone call to help AG Barr gather information that could potentially discredit Robert Mueller’s Russia probe.

The New York Times went on to say, “[T]he discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the extent to which Mr. Trump sees the attorney general as a critical partner in his goal to show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt and partisan origins, and the extent that Mr. Trump sees the Justice Department inquiry as a potential way to gain leverage over America’s closest allies.”

A letter from Australian Ambassador Joe Hockey written to Attorney General Bill Barr back in May of this year destroys the latest New York Times smear job on President Trump.

The article concludes with an explanation of what this is really about:

FBI informant Joseph Mifsud tried to plant dirt on Papadopoulos by telling him the Russians had Hillary Clinton’s emails. The fake news narrative claims Papadopoulos then bragged to Alexander Downer that he heard the Russians had dirt on Clinton — Downer then shared this information from Papadopoulos with fellow Australian officials.

Attorney General Bill Barr and US Attorney John Durham traveled to Italy to meet with Italian government officials on Friday, and according to a report by the Washington Post, Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham.

So the Obama Administration is allowed to unleash foreign governments to spy on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, but Trump, as president of the United States isn’t allowed to speak to foreign leaders in order to ferret out corruption.

The Inspector General’s report is due out shortly. This is an effort to blunt the impact of that report. Hopefully enough of that report will be declassified to give Americans a true picture of the corruption that was part of the 2016 election.

Please follow the link to the article to read the letter in question.

Slowly The Truth Comes To Light

On Tuesday, Sara Carter posted an article about a recent court hearing for General Flynn. It seems that in an effort to destroy General Flynn because of his association with President Trump, the Justice Department broke many of the laws put in place to protect American citizens from overzealous prosecutors.

The article reports:

A bombshell revelation was barely noticed at National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s hearing Tuesday, when his counsel revealed in court the existence of a Justice Department memo from Jan. 30, 2017 exonerating Flynn of any collusion with Russia. The memo, which has still not been made available to Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell, is part of a litany of Brady material she is demanding from prosecutors. The memo is currently under protective order and Powell is working with prosecutors to get it disclosed, SaraACarter.com has learned.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan presided over the hearing Tuesday  and set a tentative Dec. 18 sentencing date. He told the prosecution and defense that the sentencing date could be moved depending on the outcome of requests for Brady material requested by Powell and how the case will unfold in the upcoming months. Sullivan also noted during the hearing that the Brady order takes precedence over the plea agreement.

The article continues:

Powell noted the extraordinary misconduct of the government during the hearing. She also said that Flynn would have never pleaded guilty if the government had disclosed the Brady materials before the original trial that she is now demanding. There would not have been a plea if the prosecutors had met their Brady obligations, Powell argued before the court.

Powell’s discovery of the memo shatters not only the narrative that was pushed by former Obama Administration officials regarding Flynn but also the ongoing narrative that President Donald Trump’s concern over Flynn’s prosecution amounted to alleged obstruction.

The January, 2017 timeline of the DOJ memo is extremely significant. Former FBI Director James Comey said in previous interviews that he leaked his memos through a friend to be published in the New York Times with the hope of getting a special counsel appointed to investigate Trump for obstruction. In late August, Inspector General Michael Horowitz released his much anticipated report on Comey. It was scathing and revealed that he violated FBI policy when he leaked his memos that described his private conversations with  Trump. However, the DOJ declined to prosecute Comey on Horowitz’s referral.

The article concludes:

According to Comey’s memo Trump said: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Comey suggested that Trump’s request was inappropriate, accusing him of obstructing justice by asking him to drop Flynn’s case. He used this as a pretense to leak his memos and put the nation through more than two years of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel, which in the end found no evidence of a conspiracy with Russia. As for obstruction, Attorney General William Barr and then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein concluded that there was no obstruction based on the evidence gathered by Mueller’s team.

However, if Comey would have advised Trump of the Jan. 30 memo it would have cleared up any unfounded lies that Flynn had in any way colluded or conspired with Russia.

Even if the charges against Flynn are dropped, is the government going to buy him a house to replace the one he had to sell to pay the lawyers to defend him? The bill for a new house should be presented to James Comey, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, and Rod Rosenstein, and it should be a mansion.

Knowing Where The Bodies Are Buried

Insiders in Washington who are honest have a pretty good idea what went into the framing of candidate Trump (and President Trump) as a Russian agent. Many of them have remained relatively quiet for various reasons–not wanting to leak classified information, not wanting to get ahead of the story, and waiting for more information to come out. Well, it seems as if we may finally getting near some of that information.

John Solomon posted an article at The Hill yesterday listing ten items that should be declassified that will turn what we have heard from the mainstream media on its head.

This is the list:

  1. Christopher Steele’s confidential human source reports at the FBI. These documents, known in bureau parlance as 1023 reports, show exactly what transpired each time Steele and his FBI handlers met in the summer and fall of 2016 to discuss his anti-Trump dossier.
  2. The 53 House Intel interviews. House Intelligence interviewed many key players in the Russia probe and asked the DNI to declassify those interviews nearly a year ago, after sending the transcripts for review last November.
  3. The Stefan Halper documents. It has been widely reported that European-based American academic Stefan Halper and a young assistant, Azra Turk, worked as FBI sources. We know for sure that one or both had contact with targeted Trump aides like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos at the end of the election.
  4. The October 2016 FBI email chain. This is a key document identified by Rep. Nunes and his investigators. My sources say it will show exactly what concerns the FBI knew about and discussed with DOJ about using Steele’s dossier and other evidence to support a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in October 2016.
  5. Page/Papadopoulos exculpatory statements. Another of Nunes’s five buckets, these documents purport to show what the two Trump aides were recorded telling undercover assets or captured in intercepts insisting on their innocence. Papadopoulos told me he told an FBI undercover source in September 2016 that the Trump campaign was not trying to obtain hacked Clinton documents from Russia and considered doing so to be treason.
  6. The ‘Gang of Eight’ briefing materials. These were a series of classified briefings and briefing books the FBI and DOJ provided key leaders in Congress in the summer of 2018 that identify shortcomings in the Russia collusion narrative.
  7. The Steele spreadsheet. I wrote recently that the FBI kept a spreadsheet on the accuracy and reliability of every claim in the Steele dossier. According to my sources, it showed as much as 90 percent of the claims could not be corroborated, were debunked or turned out to be open-source internet rumors.
  8. The Steele interview. It has been reported, and confirmed, that the DOJ’s inspector general interviewed the former British intelligence operative for as long as 16 hours about his contacts with the FBI while working with Clinton’s opposition research firm, Fusion GPS.
  9. The redacted sections of the third FISA renewal application. This was the last of four FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign; it was renewed in June 2017 after special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe had started and signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
  10. Records of allies’ assistance. Multiple sources have said a handful of U.S. allies overseas — possibly Great Britain, Australia and Italy — were asked to assist FBI efforts to check on Trump connections to Russia. Members of Congress have searched recently for some key contact documents with British intelligence.

If what went on here were not so serious, it would be a major get-out-the-popcorn moment. However, the biggest questions is, “How much of this will the major media report when it is released?”

I Guess They Did Take Him Seriously

In June 2015, real estate mogul Donald Trump announced that he was running for President. I must admit I wasn’t impressed. There was nothing in his record to indicate he believed in anything I believed in, and he was a totally inexperienced candidate. What I didn’t realize was that experience comes in many different forms–successfully doing business in a city known for corruption, creating a television show that ordinary people enjoyed, and navigating the social waters of the elite–attending Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, etc. (I guess the political left didn’t hate him until he was a Republican and ran for President.) I really didn’t take him seriously. I suspect a lot of other people shared that opinion. The White House was supposed to go to Hillary Clinton–that was her reward for stepping out of the 2008 Democrat primary election, so it really didn’t matter who the Republicans ran. However, the economy was stuttering, unemployment was high, and Americans didn’t seem to have a lot of spending money in their pockets.

Well, around the summer of 2016 the Democrats began to take Donald Trump seriously as a candidate. So seriously in fact that they decided to use the power of government (on an international scale) to keep him from being elected and to prevent him from doing anything if he was elected.

The Guardian posted an article on July 30 about those efforts.

The article reports:

Two of the most senior intelligence officials in the US and UK privately shared concerns about “our strange situation” as the FBI launched its 2016 investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia, the Guardian has learned.

Text messages between Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI at the time, and Jeremy Fleming, his then counterpart at MI5, now the head of GCHQ, also reveal their mutual surprise at the result of the EU referendum, which some US officials regarded as a “wake-up call”, according to a person familiar with the matter.

While Russia had previously been viewed as a country that would seek to interfere in western elections, the Brexit vote was viewed by some within the FBI as a sign that Russian activities had possibly been successful, the person said.

Their exchanges offer new insights into the start of the FBI’s Russia investigation, and how British intelligence appears to have played a key role in the early stages.

In one exchange in August 2016, Fleming noted that members of the FBI and MI5 had “met on our strange situation”, a veiled reference to discussions about Russian activities, according to the source.

…The exchanges underscore a sensitive issue in the US – namely the role foreign intelligence services played in the FBI’s decision to initiate an investigation into the Trump campaign.

On 31 July 2016, the FBI opened a covert counterintelligence investigation codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane” into the then presidential candidate’s possible collusion with Russia.

The investigation was eventually taken over by the special counsel Robert Mueller, who has said there were “multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election” by Russia.

Mueller’s 448-page report did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, but it did identify incidents in which Trump attempted to obstruct justice in the investigation, and did not clear the president of wrongdoing.

US and UK intelligence agencies frequently share information, but the exchanges between McCabe and Fleming appear to reflect a desire for a direct line of communication given what was seen as a developing problem on both sides of the Atlantic.

This is the key paragraph:

In his text message about the August 2016 meeting, Fleming appeared to be making a reference to Peter Strzok, a senior FBI official who travelled to London that month to meet the Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. Downer had agreed to speak with the FBI about a Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, who had told him that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in the race. The meeting was first reported by the New York Times.

This is the context of these activities–the British ‘deep state’ wanted Brexit to fail, and the American ‘deep state’ wanted Donald Trump not to be elected. The FBI was using overseas sources to do spying on political candidates that would have been illegal if it had been done domestically. The Russians did not interfere in the 2016 election other than placing ads and fake comments on Facebook. The real interference came from the American intelligence community–something that is totally illegal. Those involved need to be held accountable.