I Guess Everyone Doesn’t Want Transparency

On Monday, Just the News reported the following:

Forensic investigators hired by a Republican-led committee recovered more than 100 encrypted files that the Democratic-led House Jan. 6 Select Committee deleted days before the GOP took over the House majority, according to a new report released Monday.

House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chair Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., sent a letter to former Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., demanding he provide answers and passwords for the data, which was deleted against House rules, according to Fox News Digital

The Oversight Subcommittee, which is investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the former select committee, should have received four terabytes of archived data from the select committee after Republicans entered the majority in January 2023, but it obtained less than three terabytes of data.

The subcommittee hired a digital forensics team to determine what information was not handed over, and the team discovered 117 files that were encrypted and deleted on Jan. 1, 2023, two days before Republicans were sworn into the majority, according to the report. 

Loudermilk said in his letter to Thompson that the Mississippi Democrat acknowledged over the summer that the select committee “did not archive all Committee records as required by House Rules” and had “sent specific transcribed interviews and depositions to the White House and Department of Homeland Security but did not archive them with the Clerk of the House.”

One recovered file detailed an individual whose testimony was not archived, but “most of the recovered files are password-protected, preventing us from determining what they contain,” Loudermilk also said. 

It is (remotely) possible that this is totally innocent; however, people generally delete things for a reason. The fact that the deletions took place two days before the Republicans took control of the House really does not inspire confidence in the work of the January 6th Committee.

The article concludes:

“It’s obvious that Pelosi’s Select Committee went to great lengths to prevent Americans from seeing certain documents produced in their investigation,” Loudermilk (House Administration Oversight Subcommittee Chair Barry Loudermilk) told the news network. “It also appears that Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney intended to obstruct our Subcommittee by failing to preserve critical information and videos as required by House rules.”

This is not the first report of missing data from the Jan. 6 select committee. Loudermilk told the Just the News, No Noise” TV show last year that all videotapes from select committee depositions are missing. 

Destroying Evidence Again?

On Friday, a website called rsbnetwork posted the following:

Shocking new information from Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., appears to prove that President Trump was right yet again when it comes to the Jan. 6 Select Committee, which closed up shop earlier this year after an inconclusive investigation and hours of witness testimony.

During an interview on Real America’s Voice with “Just the News, No Noise,” Rep. Loudermilk stated that the Jan. 6 Committee did not preserve their deposition tapes, based on a conversation he had with Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who served as the Jan. 6 Select Committee chairman.

“That is true, I can confirm that,” Rep. Loudermilk stated when asked if the videotapes of infamous witness Cassidy Hutchinson were gone. “And all of the video tapes of all the depositions are gone.”

This story should have been easy to find in numerous sources, but this is the only source I found. Hopefully it is in other places so that Americans can be aware of the game being played.

The article notes:

Rep. Loudermilk explained on RAV, “I wrote a letter to Bennie Thompson asking for them and he confirmed that they did not preserve those tapes. He didn’t feel that they had to. But according to House rules, you have to preserve any data and information and documents that are used in an official proceeding – which they did. They actually aired portions of these tapes on their televised hearings, which means they had to keep those, but yet, he chose not to.”

He added that he believes “they exist somewhere, we’ve just got to find where all these videos are.”

The mind-blowing revelation that the Jan. 6 Committee allegedly failed to preserve their deposition tapes may come as a shock to some, but it is worth noting that President Donald Trump accused them of destroying evidence and records this past summer when Rep. Loudermilk raised a red flag on the issue.

The Republicans may think that they control the House of Representatives, but there are enough traitors in their ranks to prevent them from actually doing anything.

One Reason Transparency About The Russia Investigation Is Taking So Long

Yesterday John Solomon posted an article at Just The News about some behind-the-scenes maneuvering by Adam Schiff that made it difficult to get the truth out about the investigation into President Trump and any connections he might have had with Russia.

The article reports:

Shortly after Schiff took over from Republican Rep. Devin Nunes as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) in 2019, he sent a letter to the office of then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

The letter obtained by Just the News specifically ordered that the witness transcripts — some of which contained exculpatory evidence for President Trump’s team — not be shared with Trump or White House lawyers even if the declassification process required such sharing.

“Under no circumstances shall ODNI, or any other element of the Intelligence Community (IC), share any HPSCI transcripts with the White House, President Trump or any persons associated with the White House or the President,” Schiff wrote in a March 26, 2019 letter to then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

“Such transcripts remain the sole property of HPSCI, and were transmitted to ODNI for the limited purpose of enabling a classification review by IC elements and the Department of Justice,” Schiff added.

U.S. intelligence officials said Schiff’s request made it impossible for them to declassify 10 of the transcripts, mostly of current and former White House and National Security Council witnesses, because White House lawyers would have had to review them for what is known as “White House equities” and presidential privileges.

But 43 of the transcripts were declassified and cleared for public release and given to Schiff’s team, but they have never been made public despite the committee’s vote to do so, officials said.

One senior official said the 43 transcripts were provided to Schiff’s team some time ago, and the 10 remain in limbo. Asked how long House Intelligence Democrats have had the declassified transcripts, the official said: “You’ll have to ask Mr. Schiff.”

A spokesman for Schiff and House Intelligence Committee Democrats did not return an email Monday seeking comment.

The article concludes:

Newly declassified footnotes from the Horowitz report released last week show the FBI’s key informant in the case, the former British spy Christopher Steele, may have been the victim of Russian disinformation. More declassified evidence from that probe is expected to be released later this week.

In the meantime, Republicans who led the House Intelligence Committee probe in 2018 when the witnesses were interviewed are trying to learn what came of the transcripts.

Schiff’s letter to Coats suggests that at the time the new Democratic chairman was still interested in releasing the transcripts.

“I hope our staff can reach agreement soon on a schedule for returning the transcripts to the Committee for ultimate public release,” he wrote.

Nearly 13 months since the letter, that release has not happened.

Elections have consequences. The consequences of turning the House of Representatives over to the Democrats was three years of wasted money on an investigation that many of the Democrats knew was unwarranted from the beginning. Because the Democrats were so focused on getting President Trump, they overlooked the looming problem of the coronavirus and were not prepared to deal with it. In fact when President Trump closed our borders to China, the Democrats criticized him for it. We may find out in the coming months why the Democrats were so intent on removing President Trump. As more information comes out about the surveillance of the Trump campaign and Trump presidency, it is becoming more obvious that laws were broken. The goal may have been to take out President Trump before that was discovered.

Something To Consider As The Process Continues

On Friday, The Daily Signal posted an article noting that even before Ukraine uproar, 10 of 13 Democrats on the intelligence panel backed Trump impeachment probe. We need to remind Americans that impeachment is not supposed to be a political vehicle to overturn an election you don’t like.

The article reports:

In July, Rep. Andre Carson, a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, voted for the then-most recent resolution calling for the ouster of President Donald Trump from office. 

“I think it represents a larger, more important conversation that we need to have about … what we’re willing to tolerate as a citizenry from our commander in chief,” Politico quoted the Indiana Democrat as saying, “What responsibility the commander in chief has to the electorate in terms of not fanning the flames of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and outright hatred.”

The intelligence committee has taken the lead role in the impeachment investigation of Trump, focused on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which the two leaders discussed former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and a Democratic computer server. 

But 10 of the 13 Democrats on the committee discussed an impeachment inquiry, actual impeachment, and the removal of, or resignation by, Trump well before news broke of the controversial phone call.

The article goes on to cite multiple examples of Democrats claiming that the Mueller Report was their cue to begin impeachment despite the fact that it showed no evidence of a crime. The statement that the Mueller did not exonerate the President is somewhat misleading–investigators are to look for evidence of lawbreaking and report on whether or not they found any. They do not find people innocent–they simply find evidence of guilt. The Mueller Report found no evidence of guilt.

Will We Ever See Justice?

Townhall is reporting the following today:

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled on Thursday that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has 30 days to answer additional questions about her email scandal. The decision comes after Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit to obtain additional information from Clinton and Director of Information Resource Management of the Executive Secretariat John Bentel. The watchdog group also wanted top Clinton aides and State Department officials, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills’, deposition videos made public.

These are the two questions Mrs. Clinton will be required to answer:

1. Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com system, including who decided to create the system, the date it was decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up, and when it became operational.

2. During your October 22, 2015 appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails “were in the State’s system” and “if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do so.” Identify the basis for this statement, including all facts on which you relied in support of the statement, how and when you became aware of these facts, and, if you were made aware of these facts by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of these facts.

The treatment of Mrs. Clinton flies in the face of equal justice under the law. As anyone who has ever held a security clearance knows, you have to sign a paper saying that you understand the rules for handling classified material and that you will follow them. I don’t know if Mrs. Clinton signed that paper. I do know that she chose not to follow the rules about handling classified material. There should be some penalty for that behavior.

The Last To Know

It totally amazes me that the left-wing media believes that it has the right to classified information but does not believe that the American people have that right. One recent example is the FISA application to spy on Carter Page.

The Conservative Treehouse reported yesterday:

In preparation for explosive developments soon to reach critical mass CTH strongly urges everyone to think carefully about these recently discovered empirical truths:

#1) The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence had the full, unredacted, FISA application on Carter Page since March 17th, 2017.  Think carefully about that. Think about what every member of that committee has said since March 17, 2017.

#2) With the leak of the Top Secret FISA application, by James Wolfe to Ali Watkins, Buzzfeed, The Washington Post and New York Times have had the full, unredacted, FISA application in their possession since March 17th, 2017.  Again, think carefully about that.  Think about all of their reporting since March 17, 2017.

#3) As a direct consequence of #1 and #2 – The media have deliberately, and with specific intent, falsified their reporting and kept the truth hidden which would undermine their false reporting.  Again, think very carefully about the ramifications.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has the reputation of being the most ‘deep state’ and leakiest committee in Congress. Their actions in this matter prove that reputation to be true.

The article further notes:

Lest we forget, the IG report on how the FBI handled the Clinton investigation revealed that dozens of FBI officials were actually taking bribes from the media for information:

IG REPORT – We identified numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization and with no official reason to be in contact with the media, who were nevertheless in frequent contact with reporters. Attached to this report as Attachments E and F are two link charts that reflect the volume of communications that we identified between FBI employees and media representatives in April/May and October 2016. We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review.

[…] We do not believe the problem is with the FBI’s policy, which we found to be clear and unambiguous. Rather, we concluded that these leaks highlight the need to change what appears to be a cultural attitude among many in the organization. (link to pdf – page Xii of executive summary

I strongly suggest that Peter Strzok is probably not the only person in the FBI who deserves to be fired.

Based On What?

Yesterday Mollie Hemingway posted an article at The Federalist about some recent statements by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.).

The article reports:

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) recently suggested the FBI did nothing wrong when it used at least one government informant to secretly collect information on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Public reports indicate, however, that Gowdy never even reviewed the relevant documents on the matter subpoenaed by Congress. In fact, a spokeswoman for Gowdy told The Federalist that the congressman doesn’t even know what documents and records were subpoenaed by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

So why did he make the statement he made? If he didn’t know what documents were subpoenaed and hadn’t seen them, what was he talking about?

The article continues:

According to government sources who leaked information to The New York Times and Washington Post, the subpoena dealt with an individual who was secretly gathering information on the Trump campaign on behalf of the federal government. Media outlets had reported government officials’ claims they couldn’t comply with the subpoena because revealing any details about the individual would cause loss of life and grave threats to national security. The same media outlets then used leaks from government officials to report the individual’s personally identifying information — up to and including his name.

Along with Gowdy, HPSCI Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) received a classified briefing on the subpoenaed information. Seven other members of Congress did as well. However, multiple press reports indicate the classified briefings reportedly did not satisfy the subpoena.

The story about the spy in the Trump campaign gets stranger by the day. If the FBI was not investigating the campaign, but was investigating attempts to infiltrate the campaign, why didn’t they tell Donald Trump what they were doing? What did they do with any information they gathered? It is particularly odd that they were the ones infiltrating the campaign. Were they also watching Hillary Clinton’s campaign for attempts to infiltrate the campaign?

The article concludes:

During the CBS News interview, co-host Gayle King asked Gowdy if he had received any blowback from GOP lawmakers for his comments about the FBI’s behavior regarding the informant. Gowdy responded oddly, invoking Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), neither of whom were invited to last week’s DOJ briefing.

“The folks who have seen the information I think have the same perspective I have,” Gowdy said, referring to Rubio and Cotton. “Those who have not seen the information, I don’t know what informs their perspective.”

Just as with Gowdy, there is no evidence either Rubio or Cotton has seen all the records HPSCI subpoenaed or even the subpoena HPSCI issued.

We don’t yet know the full story, but this looks like a giant cover-up of seriously illegal political activity by law enforcement agencies that are supposed to be politically neutral.

The Next Step

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial reporting that Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia has written a letter to House Speaker John Boehner requesting the creation of a bipartisan committee to investigate what actually happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. CNS News reported yesterday that 143 House Republicans are now co-sponsoring a bill that would authorize a special committee to investigate Benghazi. So why don’t we have the committee?

The article at CNS News quotes the letter from Congressman Wolf to Speaker Boehner:

“Chairman Issa’s hearing yesterday was a positive step forward in the effort to investigate the administration for its apparent cover up of key information about the nature of the attack and its response,” Wolf told Boehner.  “I appreciate your leadership and that of the committees to advance the investigation to this point.

“However, the hearing also made clear that a thorough inquiry will require witnesses from across government–including the Defense Department, State Department, Intelligence Community, Justice Department and even the White House,” said Wolf. “Only a Select Committee would be able to bring the cross-jurisdictional expertise and subpoena authority to compel answers from these agencies.”

The hearings on Wednesday featured three whistleblowers who were willing to testify before the House committee. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Admiral Mike Mullen, who chaired the State Department Accountability Review Board that conducted the administration’s internal investigation of the Benghazi attack, have refused to testify before the committee or even talk with the committee staff informally.  Unless a Select Committee is formed, the American public will never hear their side of the story.

The article in the Wall Street Journal concludes:

Mr. Boehner said on Thursday that the Administration should release its email communications on Benghazi, but it won’t do so unless they are subpoenaed. Frank Wolf, one of the House’s most senior Members, has it right. Benghazi’s explanation deserves the best effort elected officials can give it, and the right vehicle is a Select Committee with subpoena power and deposition authority.

It would be nice to live in a world where witnesses would come forward voluntarily, but right now we don’t live there. We need to take action to encourage witnesses to give their testimony publicly.

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