What Did We Learn From The Hearing?

On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about the testimony of Special Counsel Robert Hur before the House Judiciary Committee.

The article lists the seven biggest takeaways from that testimony:

1. President Biden “willfully” retained classified documents

2. Hur indicated Biden was lying when he claimed in news conference he did not share classified information

3. President Biden’s motives for retaining classified documents were explored, including $8 million in book proceeds

4. Hur insisted that his report did not “exonerate” Biden

5. The Intelligence Community is completing a damage assessment on Biden’s handling of classified documents

6. Prosecutors believed there was an effort to destroy evidence

7.) Biden displayed a hazy memory, confusion during his two-day interview with Hur’s team

The article concludes:

In one line of questioning about Biden’s time after he left the vice presidency in early 2017, he struggled to remember the year of important events, like Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and the death of his son, Beau Biden, from brain cancer in 2015.

“And so what was happening, though – what month did Beau die? Oh God, May 30,” Biden said, according to the transcript reviewed by Just the News.

“2015,” a White House Counsel’s office attorney interjected.

“Was it 2015 he had died?” Biden asked.

The transcript contradicts statements President Biden made after Hur’s report was released last month. The president was publicly indignant and criticized Hur for allegedly raising the topic.

“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said to reporters, speaking about Hur. “Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.” Yet, the transcript shows it was Biden who first mentioned his son’s death.

After confirming the date of his son’s death with the lawyers, Biden still appeared to be confused about the timeline of his post-vice presidential private life.

Biden said: “And what’s happened in the meantime is that Trump gets elected in November of 2017?”

Two individuals corrected him, saying it was in “2016,” according to the transcript.

“2016. Alright, so – why do I have 2017 here?” Biden asked.

Even young people confuse dates. However, the really sleazy move was to blame Hur for bringing up Beau Biden’s death. President Biden brings that up anytime he feels it is useful to him–he even brought it up in the State of the Union address.

Changing The Rules

On Friday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at The New York Post detailing how the Democrat party has changed some of the basic rules of our Republic in recent years. It’s a long list.

Here are the highlights of the list:

1. When in control of the Senate, demand the end of the filibuster; when not, don’t.

2. Call for the end of the Electoral College — but only if it appears to recently favor the candidate of the opposition.

3. In an election year, change any state balloting laws deemed unhelpful through administrative fiat or court order to favor your political candidate.

4. Seek to flip electors from voting in accordance with the popular vote count in their states; indict as an insurrectionist any of the opposition who dare do the same.

5. Raid the home of any opposition ex-president who removed classified files; exempt any sitting president of your party who did the same.

6. Swarm the private homes of, and then bully and intimidate, any Supreme Court officials, politicians or citizens you oppose.

7. Appoint two special counsels: one to go after the current chief presidential opponent in an election year; the other to exempt and excuse the sitting president for the very crimes charged against his rival.

8. Lobby to remove any oppositional president through the 25th Amendment; smear anyone as ageist who suggests a cognitively challenged sitting resident of your party should be subject to similar invocations of the 25th Amendment.

9. Exempt thousands of arrested rioters from charges of 120 days of arson, looting, injuring 1,500 law enforcement officers, and assault — but only if they are radical supporters of your party.

10. Excuse any demonstrator or rioter for desecrating public monuments and cemeteries or shutting down bridges and freeways, or swarming and disrupting the Capitol Rotunda — but only if they agree with you and/or are pro-Hamas. Otherwise, ensure the charged face lengthy prison sentences.

That’s just the top ten. Please follow the link to the article to read the next ten. It’s amazing how far we have fallen in recent years. When you read the list of things that used to be considered out-of-bounds that have been done since 2016 or so, it is scary.

 

 

 

Red Laws And Blue Laws

On Thursday, Victor Davis Hanson posted an article at American Greatness about the use of the law as a political instrument. The contrasts how the law was applied in similar cases based on the politics of the person involved.

The article reports:

One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.

Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.

There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.

One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes. They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America—Atlanta, New York, Washington—where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.

Two, they are overtly political. Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.

The article notes:

Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

Carroll’s suit bypassed statute of limitation restrictions by prompting the intervention of a left-wing New York legislator. He passed a special bill, allowing a one-year window to waive the statute of limitations for sexual assault claims from decades past.

Until Trump, no New York prosecutor like James had ever filed a civil suit against a business for allegedly overvaluing real estate assets to obtain loans that bank auditors approved and were paid back in full, on time, and with sizable interest profits to the lending institutions.

Alvin Bragg bootstrapped a Trump private non-disclosure agreement into a federal campaign violation in a desperate effort to find something on Trump.

Smith is also charging Trump with insurrectionary activity. But Trump had never been so charged with insurrection, much less convicted of it.

Willis strained to find a way to criminalize Trump’s complaints about his loss of Georgia in the 2020 national election. She finally came up with a racketeering charge, usually more applicable to mafiosi and drug cartels.

Four, in all these cases, the charges could have been equally applicable to fellow left-wing public figures and officials.

Please follow the link to the article to read the entire article. What has  happened to our justice department in recent years reads more like Soviet justice than American justice.

What They Left Out

On Monday, Just the News posted an article about what was left out of special counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials.

The article reports:

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson on Monday asked that Attorney General Merrick Garland account for special counsel Robert Hur’s report on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified materials making no mention of a batch of materials the National Archives recovered from the president’s attorney’s office in Boston.

Hur’s report became public last week and stated that “[o]ur investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” It further declined to bring charges against the president, in part, on the basis of his poor memory.

Writing to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Hur, the GOP lawmakers asserted that “[t]here appears to be a significant factual omission in Special Counsel Hur’s report on his office’s investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.”

In March of 2023, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) confirmed that it had retrieved nine boxes from the office of Biden attorney Patrick Moore that had been taken from the Penn Biden Center in Washington. Those materials were then transferred to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. At the time, NARA had not reviewed the materials.

There are a lot of questions about the funding of the Penn Biden Center. I will just leave that there.

The article concludes:

The Republicans set a deadline of Feb. 23 for the DOJ to answer whether Hur reviewed the nine boxes in question and to document their contents.

Please follow the link to read the article. The details in this are amazing. Those boxes have done some serious traveling. One wonders if anything was subtracted from those boxes during their travels.

The Overlooked Smoking Gun

On Sunday, The Liberty Daily posted an article by Peter Roff of the Daily Caller News Foundation. The article dealt with one point in the Special Counsel’s Report of President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents that seems to have been overlooked.

The article notes:

Nonetheless, by focusing on what special counsel Robert Hur wrote about Biden’s failing memory in his report on his mishandling of confidential government files dating from his time as vice president, they missed the more significant nugget in Hur’s explanation of why there would be no indictment.

Remember, the Biden Justice Department indicted former President Donald J. Trump over the same issue. The outcomes were different, Hur explained, not just because Biden couldn’t remember things but because he cooperated with the investigation while Trump didn’t.

That should about blow the case out of the water. It all but confirms Trump was singled out for special treatment, as he claimed. The case against him is political, and it’s okay for America to move on because there’s really nothing to see.

As a former president and as a citizen, Trump has rights. He doesn’t have to turn over every document they ask for to the government. Every departing chief enters into a negotiation regarding what they can take with them when they leave. The rules are not at all clear.

They’re obviously not supposed to take any of the furniture that was there when they moved in with them (one recent first couple apparently missed that memo). As far as any documents go, the president and the National Archives are usually allowed the time necessary to work out who gets to keep what.

The former president was not afforded the same luxury as his predecessors. His suggestion the Biden Justice Department rushed the case into court to damage him politically now looks stronger.

I am not a lawyer, but there is another aspect of this that is troubling. Let’s say someone robs a bank and puts the money in an interest-bearing account hidden somewhere. After five of six years in prison, they figure they can live on the interest, so they give back the money. Are they then not charged with the crime? That’s what this sounds like (other than the obvious unequal justice under the law).

What Was Actually In Those Documents?

Putting aside the fact that a Senator or Vice-President shouldn’t have classified documents in his home or garage, let’s take a look at what some of those documents were and how they might be related to other issues.

On Friday, The Epoch Times reported:

President Joe Biden retained documents related to Ukraine that were classified as “secret” and “confidential,” according to a report by Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Hur, released on Feb. 8.

The 388-page report states that the FBI found a folder labeled “VP Personal,” containing two documents—a telephone call sheet and talking points for a call with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, which occurred on Dec. 11, 2015—marked as “secret.”

There is a handwritten note from President Biden in the upper-right corner of the sheet asking his executive assistant to “get [a] copy of this conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please.” The document was labeled “confidential” and “EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY.”

Additionally, one appendix in the report states that President Biden kept a memo with the subject line “U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine,” from September 2014. The results of the classification review indicate the memo was “confidential.”

President Biden served as vice president under the Obama administration at the time. His son, Hunter Biden, joined the board of directors of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings in May 2014.

Nothing like breaking the law to help and unqualified family member in his job.

The article concludes, reminding us:

Burisma contacted the source to seek assistance in buying a U.S. company to merge with, in the hope that it could go public in the United States.

After the disclosure of an investigation into Burisma by Ukraine’s prosecutor general Viktor Shokin in 2016, the source informed Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, that it could negatively affect the company’s prospective initial public offering.

Mr. Zlochevsky replied that Mr. Hunter Biden “will take care of all of those issues through his dad,” according to the document. Mr. Shokin resigned in March 2016.
President Biden in 2018 bragged at the Council of Foreign Relations that he got Mr. Shokin dismissed.

“‘We’re leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” he said about his interaction with Ukrainian officials, referring to a $1 billion loan guarantee he threatened to withhold. “Well, son of a [expletive]. He got fired.”

Mr. Shokin has said that the threat was cited when he was ousted. He said in a sworn statement that then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko asked him to resign because of “pressure from the U.S. presidential administration, in particular from Joe Biden.”

But as of now, there will be no consequences for President Biden ignoring the laws he should have been enforcing.

Does America Have A Justice System?

On Thursday, The Epoch Times reported that Special Counsel Robert Hur has announced that President Biden will not be charged for mishandling classified documents. I suppose it would be petty to point out that as a Senator or a private citizen he was not entitled to have those documents in his personal possession, but I guess that really doesn’t matter.

The article reports:

Among the reasons stated for not pressing charges was that Biden would present to the jury ‘as sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’

I would like to point out that this elderly man with a poor memory is President of the United States. I also question the ‘well-meaning’ part.

The article continues:

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Mr. Hur wrote in a 388-page report to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The materials, stated the report, included “marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.” The FBI collected these items during a search of President Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence last year.

This is  unbelievable. President Trump’s house gets searched, and he gets charged while President Biden (because he is essentially considered a senile old man) gets away scot free. They searched Baron Trump’s room. Shouldn’t someone have searched Hunter Biden’s room?

I don’t know how (or if) we recover from the banana republic we have become.

 

Victor Hanson’s Statement On Special Counsel Hur’s Report

Victor Davis Hanson’s Twitter statement on Special Counsel Hur’s report:
Biden is Too Demented to Be Found Guilty of Crimes,  But Not Too Demented to Be President? Special Counsel Robert Hur just found Joe Biden was guilty of violating national security laws in removing classified documents— after examining then Senator and Vice President Biden’s some 15-year habit of removing classified files to his offices and residences, where they were stored in unsecured fashion.
Period. End of story.
Hur then as a disinterested Special Counsel, not a local county prosecutor on a limited budget, logically would have indicted and prosecuted Biden.
It really is a jury’s decision to determine whether Biden was guilty or innocent, or whether he is pardoned/exempted by reason of dementia.
It is not the role of Hur, as a prosecutor and advocate for the state, to imagine how difficult his case might be to prove someone so incapacitated like Biden was guilty, as Hur’s own research and investigations had otherwise indicated that he was.) Is mindset, intention, or mental status a normal consideration of violations of national security laws, or is it the act itself?
So we are back to the James Comey defense: Hillary was guilty but in Lord and Savior Comey’s judgement no jury would likely convict a presidential candidate of such stature of violating national security laws. (NB:  After her reprieve, Hillary immediately claimed such extenuating circumstances were proof of her innocence! And Biden in a nanosecond likewise claimed he is now exonerated too, as was the administration’s plan all along).
Finally note the following:
1) The Left, Hur, and others believe that someone who has lost his faculties and who would not be allowed to drive a semi-truck, teach a class, diagnose a patient, argue a case, wire a house, or cook a hamburger is nevertheless fit enough to run the United States of America.
2) Note this same old/same old shocking but predictable asymmetry. Trump is a mere four years younger than Biden. The left fixated on the fact that he recently confused Nikki Hayley with Nancy Pelosi. Are we then to expect Jack Smith to follow the precedent of his fellow special counsel Hur, who was likewise appointed by Biden administration AG Merrick Garland and thus to conclude that although Trump violated the law by removing files, he seemed too confused to indict, given the likelihood of a sympathetic jury?
3) Hur himself tried to preemptively defend himself from the obvious conclusion that he extended special considerations not to indict Biden in a manner Jack Smith did not to Trump. Yet he omits that there were key differences in the two cases:
Biden had no putative right, as did Trump as President, to declassify files he took home.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago walled and surveilled estate was far more secure than Biden’s rickety garage.
Biden had stored files for over a decade not less than two years.
Biden’s attorneys came forward just days before Smith was appointed on November 18, 2022. So it was not altruism that prompted their confession after Biden’s years of secretly hiding such illegality, but rather fear that Trump would soon be hounded for a ”crime” of which Biden was found out to be long guilty. So they went public to preempt that charge and falsely claim civic virtue.
This is just more of a long, disgusting pattern of biased applications of the law: Jan 6 vs 2020 May to October deadlier and more violent riots; election denialism of Trump versus Stacey Abrams’s nonstop claims of being the real governor of Georgia; “insurrection” called for in Trump’s speech vs Kamala Harris’s threats that the 2020 riots (“protests”) would and should keep going; the Trump 2020 election gambit versus the 2016 Leftwing coordinated effort to leverage electors into renouncing their states’ popular vote mandates. And so on.
No Department of Justice in our history has ever done more to undermine Americans’ confidence in the fair and equitable application of justice.
This is not the America we grew up in.
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I Believe The Man Has Jumped The Shark

On Thursday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a recent comment by Special  Counsel Jack Smith. After hearing this comment, I believe that the man has been totally overcome by Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The article reports:

Special Counsel Jack Smith went completely off the rails and told a federal appeals court that Trump’s immunity argument would allow him to order his supporters to murder opposing lawmakers.

Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged ‘crimes’ committed while he served as US President.

“In 234 years of American history, no president ever faced criminal prosecution for his official acts. Until 19 days ago, no court had ever addressed whether immunity from such prosecution exists,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in last month’s filing, according to CBS News. “To this day, no appellate court has addressed it. The question stands among the most complex, intricate, and momentous issues that this Court will be called on to decide.”

No one is ordering anyone to murder anyone. No Republican is even taking a political opponent off of the ballot. The President did not commit crimes while he was in office, he did not incite a riot–he asked the people at the rally to protest peacefully and to go home. Any incitement came from undercover federal operatives who were paid to create a problem. That fact is becoming more evident as more videos are being released. The crimes that President Trump is accused of were most likely committed by some Congressmen in high places–possibly those who denied the reinforcements for the police on that day.

The article concludes”

President Trump’s attorneys on Thursday asked the Court to hold Special Counsel Jack Smith in contempt for violating Judge Chutkan’s order staying all proceedings in the January 6 case against Trump.

“President Donald J. Trump respectfully moves this Court for an order to show cause why prosecutors Jack Smith, Molly Gaston, and Thomas Windom (collectively, the “prosecutors”) should not be held in contempt for violating the Court’s order “stay[ing] any further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on Defendant.” Doc. 186 at 2 (the “Stay Order”).” Trump’s lawyer wrote in the order reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.

“The Stay Order is clear, straightforward, and unambiguous. All substantive proceedings in this Court are halted. Despite this clarity, the prosecutors began violating the Stay almost immediately. First, within five days of the Court entering the Stay Order, the prosecutors served thousands of pages of additional discovery, together with a purported draft exhibit list. Through counsel, President Trump advised that he rejected the prosecutors’ unlawful productions, that their actions violated the Stay Order, and that he would seek relief if their malicious conduct continued.” Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche wrote.

This is going to get interesting. The deep state truly fears that President Trump will be re-elected. It will be interesting to see the legal and illegal steps they take to prevent that from happening.

What Was The Basis For The Warrant?

On Tuesday, Trending Politics posted the following headline:

DOJ Ordered Sweep of Trump’s Twitter Data for Everyone Who ‘Liked, Followed or Retweeted’ Trump

The article reports:

Attorneys for the Justice Department have revealed documents connected to their search warrant for Donald Trump’s Twitter account, indicating that prosecutors collected a massive collection of data about the former President’s social media activity—including information on every account that liked, followed, or retweeted him.

The extensively redacted search warrant was revealed as a result of a judge’s ruling on November 17, which came after a consortium of media organizations filed an application in August for the warrant and other data to be made public.

…Indeed, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought, and appears to have gotten, information on all users Trump followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked, as well as all users who followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked Trump.

Smith also requested that Twitter provide information on “all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by [Trump], as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account (i.e., ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’).”

The DOJ’s request also wanted information on Trump’s geolocation, private messages, search history, and contact information. More outrageously, prosecutors allegedly wanted to know his pronouns, as reported by Headline USA in August, when court transcripts relating to the Twitter-DOJ battle became available.

The warrant’s release comes after Twitter objected to the search warrant as well as an accompanying gag order, claiming that the gag order violated the company’s First Amendment right to communicate with Trump and that Trump may have legal standing to use executive privilege to block the warrant.

The article concludes:

This is chilling: Not only did Jack Smith seek to violate Donald Trump’s reasonable expectation of privacy in search for a crime, he wanted to do it in secret.

Furthermore, Smith’s team sought to investigate everyone who interacted with Trump’s account on Twitter/X, as if they were implicated in a criminal racketeering enterprise.

The Justice Department has now devolved into a weapon for political partisans, rather than being an instrument of law enforcement.

Washington needs to be cleaned out and those who routinely violated the rights and Americans need to be sent to jail.

 

Just Amazing

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

Special counsel Robert Hur is unlikely to charge anybody at the conclusion of his investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple reports.

Hur is expected to prepare a report with harsh criticism of how Biden and his aides handled classified documents but his investigation is not expected to result in criminal charges, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) first reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Remember, these documents were related to his terms as Vice-President and as Senator. There are some valid questions as to whether or not he was entitled to even possess these documents.

The article notes:

The House Oversight Committee wrote a letter to Hur in October requesting information on whether President Biden possessed classified documents related to his son’s foreign business dealings. The classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center and Joe Biden’s Delaware residence date back to his vice presidency and decades-long senate tenure.

Kathy Chung, a Defense Department aide and former Vice President Biden aide recommended by Hunter Biden, was one of the individuals who handled classified documents, according to the Oversight Committee.

Wow. Mar-a-Lago was raided because a President who was entitled to have documents from his presidency might have had classified documents. That trial is still pending.

I guess it pays to have a corrupt justice department that is willing to ignore the law to protect you.

Working Together To Interfere In The Next Election

On  Saturday, The New York Post posted the following:

The White House counsel’s office met with a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents — raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts aimed at President Biden’s likely opponent in 2024.

Jay Bratt, who joined the special counsel team in November 2022, shortly after it was formed, took a meeting in the White House on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, White House visitor logs show.

They were joined in the 10 a.m. meeting by Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington field office.

Nine weeks later, Trump was indicted by Smith’s office on June 8, 2023.

Bratt, 63, also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump was mired in negotiations with the National Archives, who were demanding the return of presidential records from his Mar-a-Lago estate before a formal investigation had not yet been opened.

The article notes:

Bratt, a Harvard-educated attorney, is a longtime Department of Justice hand and has served as chief of its counterintelligence and export control section in the national security division since October 2018. The section focuses on investigating and prosecuting cases affecting the national security and foreign relations of the United States.

The article concludes:

In this capacity, Bratt visited Mar-a-Lago in June 2022 to inspect storage facilities at the property and personally interacted with Trump.

He later became a leading advocate for the unannounced FBI raid of the property in August of that year, the Washington Post reported.

Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Trump’s valet, Walt Nauta — who has also been charged by the special counsel’s office — accused Bratt in June of trying to coerce his client’s cooperation by floating Woodward’s past application to be a judge.

In a sealed filing obtained by The Guardian, Woodward alleged that Bratt floated his past judicial application to suggest it might be looked at more favorably if his client were to cooperate with the government against Trump.

The activities of the Biden administration and the deep state in their interference with the 2024 election is frightening. This alone should wake Americans up to what is happening. We truly are in danger of losing our republic if the weaponization of the Justice Department is allowed to continue.

Symbolism Over Substance

“Symbolism over substance” was one of Rush Limbaugh’s favorite phrases. I sorely miss his wisdom. Currently we have a situation in our Department of Justice that totally illustrates that concept.

Today, Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog posted an article reminding us of some of the background of United States Attorney David Weiss, the attorney chosen to be special counsel in the investigation of Hunter Biden.

The article reminds us:

Weiss is special. On that we can agree:

• Weiss is the “prosecutor” whose plea deal with Hunter Biden failed to pass muster with Judge Maryellen Noreika, the federal judge presiding over the case.

• “These agreements are not straightforward and they contain some atypical provisions,” Judge Noreika observed.

• Weiss is the “prosecutor” whom IRS whistleblowers have just called out for abetting the suppression of of the investigation and lying about his authority to Congress, among other things.

• Weiss is the “prosecutor” who has spent five years on the investigation and never gotten around to seeking an indictment of Hunter Biden as the clock has ticked to bar the most serious tax felonies Biden’s has committed.

• Weiss is a United States Attorney and therefore ineligible for special counsel appointment under the applicable regulations.

• Given his disqualifications, one might reasonably infer that Weiss’s appointment is a pretext to assure that the cover-up continues — that minimal harm befalls Hunter Biden and that no roads lead to Joe Biden.

• It’s good to know we have a law-abiding administration to restore regular order.

The article concludes:

The first thought that occurred to me upon learning of Weiss’s appointment was what a farce. That is also the label that Andrew McCarthy affixes to it. However, it isn’t funny and it does not promise a happy ending.

There are two reasons a political justice department appoints a special counsel. The first is to remove someone from office (as in Richard Nixon). The second is to provide the appearance of doing something while allowing the clock to run out on the statute of limitations. Don’t expect anyone ever to be held responsible for the money the Bidens made by selling influence. Also, don’t ever expect anyone to investigate any links between the money and Vice-President or President Biden’s policies.

Expect the most-used phrase in any upcoming Congressional investigations to be, “I can’t answer that–it’s part of an ongoing investigation.”

The Priorities Of The Mainstream Media

On Tuesday, Newsbusters posted an article about the priorities of the mainstream media. Anyone who relies on the mainstream media for their news at this point is either uninformed or misinformed. There is no excuse for their ignoring major stories and showing extreme bias in what they do report.

Newsbusters reports:

Back on June 8, two massive political stories broke, but ONLY one of them got covered by the broadcast networks. 

On June 8, former President Donald Trump was indicted by the Special Counsel in the classified documents case. That very same day, it was reported that President Joe Biden had allegedly received $5 million dollars from an executive of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, the same company in which his son Hunter was involved.

Over 39 days (June 8-morning of July 18) the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast networks crammed their evening, morning and Sunday roundtable shows with a total of 527 minutes of coverage dedicated to the Trump indictment.

But how much did the Biden/Burisma alleged bribery scheme receive? 

Zero seconds.

The Burisma scandal story and its ties to Joe “Big Guy” Biden has legs. 

…Back on June 12, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer claimed the FBI has additional informant documents that link then-Vice President Biden to an alleged multimillion-dollar bribery scheme. 

On June 15, Comer “teased that new bank records his panel expects to obtain will reveal that the Biden family has accepted as much as $30 million from foreign nationals.”

More evidence keeps coming out about the alleged Burisma bribery scandal as Hunter’s laptop continues to be a treasure trove of incriminating e-mails, yet the networks continue to look the other way.

The media is working very hard to portray the Biden administration and President Biden in a favorable light while enthusiastically reporting every negative story about President Trump. The media is supposed to report the news–not try to control what Americans think.

Another Special Prosecutor

On Thursday, Breitbart reported the following:

Special Counsel Robert Hur, appointed Thursday by Attorney General Merrick Garland to probe President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified information, was among those at the Justice Department who had knowledge about the Russia hoax perpetrated on former President Donald Trump.

According to a Justice Department document, Hur is a former DOJ official “who handled, participated in, or have personal knowledge of the FBI’s relationship and communications with” Christopher Steele, who authored the infamous dossier that paved the way for the Russia hoax.

Hur began his career by clerking for the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist after graduating from Harvard and Stanford. Hur was then hired as the principal associate deputy attorney general, “serving as the top aide to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general under President Donald Trump. Before that, he had also been special assistant to Christopher A. Wray, who was leading the Justice Department’s criminal division at the time and went on to become the FBI director,” according to the Washington Post.

Rosenstein announced Hur’s appointment in a press release, praising him as having “experience and judgment [that] will advance our efforts to deter crime, promote the rule of law, and ensure equal justice for everyone.”

I hope no one minds if I don’t hold my breath waiting for equal justice for everyone.

It is very possible that this is the beginning of the strategy either to remove President Biden from the White House or discourage him from running for a second term. At any rate, I can guarantee that there is a strategy behind this move and that strategy is be orchestrated by someone other than Merrick Garland.

Adding Humor To A Serious Announcement

On Sunday, Hot Air reported that Attorney Jonathan Turley announced on Twitter that he has tested positive for Covid.

This is the Tweet:

Makes sense to me.

The article notes:

Does anyone really think that Merrick Garland’s DOJ will indict Hunter Biden? The workings of grand juries are supposed to be secret but it is reported that the grand jury looked at the possibility of criminal charges for alleged influence-peddling with foreign contacts in China, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries. Hunter was very successful in cashing in on his father’s position in the government. We don’t know if the grand jury decided on any indictments. Turley points out that there is clear evidence of some crimes. “For example, Biden seems clearly to have lied on the federal form to acquire a gun by denying his drug use; he also appears to have violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act. And there are obvious tax charges that could be brought, even though he paid outstanding taxes after the investigation began.”

Perhaps he’ll be indicted over tax evasion or for lying on a federal form about that gun. Just don’t count on him being held accountable for his slimy dealings with foreign countries – unless the indictments are postponed.

The article concludes:

Turley points out that since Joe Biden isn’t on a ballot in November and Hunter isn’t a candidate, just using the excuse of not wanting to interfere in the November midterms – and potentially dragging down Democrat candidates- is politicizing the grand jury investigation. Turley makes the case for a special counsel in the Hunter Biden case. Joe Biden (a.k.a. The Big Guy) is directly referenced in Hunter’s documents found on his laptop. The U.S. Attorney is unlikely to include any of that in a report. If Hunter pleads guilty of lesser charges to make a plea deal, he’ll be protected from future congressional hearings – such as are expected when Republicans take back majority control of the House. DOJ could cut a deal with Hunter and decline further charges. On the other hand, the U.S. Attorney could present evidence to a new grand jury, since this one has now expired, but it would take months to do and the midterm elections would be over.

It does not look as though Weiss called any witnesses who could testify about influence-peddling, including the president. Joe Biden would have to be called as a witness to answer any questions about The Big Guy’s involvement. We now know that Joe met with Hunter’s business partners, though he has consistently denied knowing anything about Hunter’s business dealings.

We’ll see what happens and if indictments do come down. Just don’t get your hopes up that Hunter will ever be held to the same standard that others are in these matters. He’ll likely write a check or two if his wrist is slapped and be on his merry way.

That is not equal justice under the law.

I’m Somewhat Doubtful This Will Matter

Yesterday Townhall reported the following:

We all know the Trump-Russia collusion story was a myth. It was a media-manufactured lie that did untold damage to the country. It was done because a great deal of those in liberal America couldn’t handle the 2016 election results. So, the intelligence community, the media, and the Democratic Party all formed an unholy alliance to keep this lie going for as long as they could in the hopes that they could remove President Trump. There is a deep state. 

Well, Attorney General William Barr decided to look into this and didn’t like what he found. At the very least, the explanations he was given about certain actions during this investigation into collusion were not adding up, so he appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of this circus in April of 2019. It’s still ongoing. There have been multiple stories about when the findings of this investigation would drop. The most recent being that it will be around Labor Day. That didn’t happen. And this investigation will probably last longer. Barr has appointed Durham a special counsel to ensure his work can continue into the next administration. Now, we’re hearing that Durham is expanding his team (via Fox News):…

He can expand all he wants–most of us just want results. Even though he has been appointed as a Special Counsel, I doubt that anything will come of this investigation under a Biden administration. The deep state will be back in control under a Biden administration. Stopping any fallout for their previous misdeeds will be a high priority. Their next priority will be holding anyone who worked with President Trump accountable. A Biden administration is going to get very ugly very fast. If you doubt that, listen to his acceptance speech last night–there was no reconciliation or unity in it.

Hold on to your hats. The road may get very bumpy very quickly.

 

The Underlying Purpose Of The Mueller Investigation

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an article explaining how the Mueller investigation was used to block the release of any information that would have shown the Russian collusion charges against President Trump as a hoax.

The article explains:

Within an interesting interview conducted by Jan Jekielek of Epoch Times, former AAG Matt Whitaker confirms what CTH long suspected. The Mueller investigation was used by corrupt interests within the special counsel’s office to threaten any/all executive branch and congressional officials with “obstruction of justice” charges if they revealed any exculpatory or counter-narrative information during the Mueller probe.

Whitaker describes this as the “obstruction of justice trap.”

Essentially, this approach confirms the second-prong purpose of the Mueller investigation itself. First, use the special counsel in 2017, 2018 and into the beginning of 2019, as a shield (hide information); and secondly a weapon (threats) against any entity who would reveal the background intelligence that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

We know President Trump was threatened by Rod Rosenstein not to declassify any information in September of 2018 or the Mueller investigation would use that act as evidence of obstruction. Whitaker confirms that same approach was applied toward any executive branch officer who would reveal or release information to congress during the tenure of the special counsel; even within the DOJ and including the attorney general.

This is how the Mueller probe was weaponized to mislead the American people.

…Documents could not be released without Mueller approval; interviews with key FBI/DOJ officials could not be conducted without Mueller team approval; information could not be declassified without Mueller team approval, etc.

Any agency or individual that attempted to release any information was subject to the threat of indictment by the same corrupt prosecutors leading the investigation. It’s a self-fulfilling safety mechanism.  Even DOJ officials like Matt Whitaker were under threat. Whitaker calls it the “Obstruction of Justice Trap”.

With that in mind this is a very serious flaw in the authority of the special counsel statute that needs to be addressed by congress. Who can watch the watchers, when the watchers were specifically selected because they would knowingly contribute to the corruption.

The article includes the following video:

The article also highlights particular parts of the video:

Very disturbing (timestamps for interview):

♦03:43 On Judge Sullivan choosing not to dismiss the case against Gen. Flynn
♦06:54 On FBI director Christopher Wray calling for an internal investigation
♦08:41 What kind of accountability will we see for 2016 election surveillance?
♦15:27 The problem with the regulation creating Special Counsels
♦19:32 Obstruction of justice trap?
♦35:38 Communist China’s a greater threat than Russia

The truth needs to come out. Americans are entitled to see how their government became a political weapon used against a campaign and against a presidency. There are a number of people who need to pay a high price for what they have done to thwart the smooth transition of power in America.

As Declassification Of FISA Warrants Continues…

The Federalist posted an article today listing seven things that we have learned about Operation Crossfire Hurricane as documents are being declassified. None of these things make our intelligence-gathering communities look good. I am going to simply list the seven things. Please follow the link to the article to read the details. They are chilling:

Here is the list:

1. The FBI Always Intended to Spy on the Trump Campaign

2. FBI Failed to Brief Trump About Its Page Suspicions

3. The FBI Spied on the Trump Administration

4. Rep. Adam Schiff Is a Rotten, No-Good, Two-Faced Liar (his attacks on Devin Nunes were based on information he knew to be false).

5. FBI Relied Solely on Fake News to Support Portions of the FISA Applications

6. The Special Counsel Pushed Pathetic Intel Too

7. Oh, the Sweet Irony

As I previously stated, please follow the link to read the entire article.

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.

 

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!

Who Is Felix Satar?

On September 16th Judicial Watch posted the following:

Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking all records of communications, including FBI 302 interview reports and offer agreements between former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and Felix Sater, a former Trump organization official who was recently confirmed to be an informant for the FBI and CIA. Sater reportedly pushed a Russian real estate deal in 2016 while working at the Trump organization.

Sater reportedly “began working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1998, after he was caught in a stock-fraud scheme.” It was Andrew Weissmann who, as supervising assistant U.S. attorney, signed the agreement that brought Sater on as a government informant. Federal prosecutors wrote a letter to Sater’s sentencing judge on August 27, 2009, in an effort to get him a lighter sentence: “Sater’s cooperation was of a depth and breadth rarely seen.”

Sater also was reportedly a CIA informant in the mid-2000s for the CIA during his undercover work with Russian military and intelligence officers.

The Mueller report mentions Sater more than 100 times but fails to mention that he was an active undercover informant for the FBI/CIA for more than two decades. In 2017, Sater was the subject of two interviews conducted under a proffer agreement with Mueller’s office according to page 69, footnote 304 of Mueller’s report on his Russian collusion investigation.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia after Mueller’s office, a component of the DOJ, failed to respond to a June 12, 2019, FOIA request for FBI “302” interview reports of Sater that are referred to in the Mueller report; any offer agreements between Sater and the U.S. government; and records of communications between Sater and government employees (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02568)).

In a June 25, 2019 report, Judicial Watch chief investigative reporter Micah Morrison highlighted that:

Beginning in late 2015, Sater repeatedly tried to arrange for [Trump attorney Michael] Cohen and candidate Trump, as representatives of the Trump Organization, to travel to Russia to meet with Russian government officials and possible financing partners.

Though his proposal appears to have been rejected by the Trump campaign, Sater persisted. “Into the spring of 2016,” the Mueller Report notes, “Sater and Cohen continued to discuss a trip to Moscow.” Sater emails Cohen that he is trying to arrange a meeting between “the 2 big guys,” Putin and Trump.

Sater’s re-emergence “suggests the possibility of a more sinister counter-narrative: that someone may have been trying to lure Trump into a trap—a politically damaging entanglement with Moscow money,” Morrison wrote.

Sater reportedly testified for eight hours in a closed-door session before the Schiff-led intelligence committee on July 9, 2019. Sater previously said he believes the Trump Tower Moscow project was no different from other Trump real estate projects that were also in the works. “I have worked on probably five or six Trump Tower projects in the United States and at least that many internationally….”

“Was a Russian real estate deal being pushed on the Trump Organization part of a set-up by a FBI/CIA informant?” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The new Judicial Watch lawsuit attempts to shed light on what could be another aspect of Deep State abusive Spygate operation targeting President Trump.”

This is just ugly. As more of this information comes out, I hope there is a huge outcry from the public to put the people responsible for misusing government agencies in jail. If that does not happen, we no longer have a justice system in America.

When The Department Of Justice Forgets What It Is Supposed To Be Doing

Yesterday Judicial Watch posted an article revealing documents that had received from the Department of Justice through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request.

The article reports:

Judicial Watch today released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries centering on talks within the DOJ/FBI 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.

The records show that, following a September 21, 2018, report on Rosenstein suggesting he would wear a wire to secretly record Trump and his discussions on using the 25th Amendment, Rosenstein sought to ensure the media would have “difficulty” finding anyone in the DOJ to comment and a concerted effort within the DOJ to frame the reporting as “inaccurate” and “factually incorrect.”

The records show DOJ officials had also discussed characterizing Rosenstein’s reported offer of wearing a wire to record Trump as merely “sarcastic.”

Additionally, the records show DOJ Public Affairs officer Sarah Isgur Flores, after conferring with other top DOJ officials and Rosenstein’s office about her email exchange with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman, waited 12 hours to forward the email exchange to DOJ Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had referred to Whitaker as the president’s “eyes and ears” in the DOJ.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). The lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office.

The records obtained by Judicial Watch include a September 21, 2018, email from Assistant U.S. Attorney (DOJ/NSD) Harvey Eisenberg to Rosenstein informing the DAG that Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima had called inquiring about a New York Times report on the 25th Amendment/wire discussion, Rosenstein responds: “Thanks! Hopefully we are being successful, and the reporters are having difficulty finding anybody to comment about things. [Remainder of email redacted.]” Apparently in response to the redacted portion of Rosenstein’s reply, Eisenberg responds, “I’m aware. Besides letting you know, [redacted]. My best to you and the family.” Rosenstein replies, “I don’t mean about me. [Redacted.]”

The emails also detail the DOJ’s response to the initial story as it was being prepared by the New York Times. On September 20, 2018, the Times’ Goldman emails DOJ’s Flores that he and fellow reporter Mike Schmidt were working on a story and wanted a DOJ response to certain questions, including that at a May 16, 2017, meeting of senior federal law enforcement officials, Rosenstein offered to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with Trump. “He also said McCabe could wear a wire.”

In a second request for comment, Goldman alleges that in a separate conversation between Rosenstein and McCabe, they discussed using the 25th Amendment “to remove President Trump” and “Rosenstein said that he may be able to get (then-Attorney General Jeff) Sessions and Kelly to go along with the plan.”

In a third request for comment, Goldman said he’d learned that Rosenstein in a May 12, 2017, conversation at the DOJ Command Center “appeared ‘upset’ and ‘emotional’ over the Comey firing.”

In a fourth request for comment, Goldman said that in a May 14, 2017, conversation with McCabe, “Rosenstein asked McCabe to reach out to Comey to seek advice about appointing a special counsel. McCabe believed that was a bad idea.”

In a fifth and final request for which he sought DOJ comment, Goldman wrote, “Rosenstein considered appointing (former Deputy Attorney General) Jim Cole as the special counsel.”

On Sept 20, 2018, Flores forwarded the Goldman email to “Annie” and “Bill” — apparently White House Deputy Counsel Annie Donaldson and White House Communications Director Bill Shine — telling Donaldson, “Boss calling Don re the below – if you think appropriate, share with Don [presumably referring to White House Counsel Don McGahn]”. She tells Shine, “We’ve sent a response from the DAG that’s below and had someone in the room dispute the ‘wire’ part noting the dag was being sarcastic.” She then includes the DAG response, which reads, “The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the Department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: based on my personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

Shine thanks Flores and asks her to “share with Elliott ASAP.” Flores responds that if Shine is directing her to share with Elliott, “I don’t think I know who that is referring to.” Flores sent that response at 10:09 PM on September 20, but Flores waits until 10:00 a.m. the next day to forward the entire exchange to DOJ Chief of Staff Whitaker, saying: “Should have sent this to you last night.”

In a mostly redacted email exchange on the evening of September 20, 2018, shows the efforts of officials in the Public Affairs and DAG’s office to produce a response to the impending news article. DOJ Official Bradley Weinsheimer forwarded to Flores the “DAG response” to the allegations in the article, saying “DAG has cleared this, which is what we just discussed.” He then provides the official DAG response about the allegations over Rosenstein wanting to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump as being “inaccurate and factually incorrect.” Deputy Attorney General’s office official Ed O’Callaghan responds, “Think good.” The rest of his response is redacted under (b)(5) – deliberative process.

In the final draft of the official DAG response approved by O’Callaghan, the statement is changed from “Based on my dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment” to “Based on my personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

The article concludes with an amazing statement:

“It is remarkable that Judicial Watch has done more to investigate the DOJ/FBI’s discussions about overthrowing President Trump than the DOJ or Congress,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These documents essentially confirm the coup discussions about wearing a wire when speaking with President Trump and plans to remove him under the 25th Amendment.”

America just survived an attempted coup, and the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were part of that coup. No one has been held accountable, and that is frightening.

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?”