The war between President Trump and his government and the Democrats is heating up.
Yesterday Diane Feinstein declassified and released the Simpson testimony transcript.
In doing so, Feinstein and her Democratic colleagues are acting at Simpson’s behest. In his recent New York Times op-ed column (written with his colleague Peter Fritsch), Simpson complained about Republicans’ leak of selected details from his testimony to various congressional committees.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Grassley has resisted the release of the transcript while the committee has yet to complete its investigation. Senator Grassley is not happy with Feinstein.
One assumption, that I think well founded, is that this was done to coach subsequent witnesses to get their stories straight.
Kim Strassel is one who has been reporting on this She has a new report.
consider an email recently disclosed by the Young Turks Network, a progressive YouTube news channel. It’s dated Dec. 19, 2017, and its author is April Doss, senior counsel for the committee’s Democrats, including Vice Chairman Mark Warner.
Ms. Doss was writing to Robert Barnes, an attorney for Charles C. Johnson, the controversial and unpleasant alt-right blogger. Mr. Johnson’s interactions with Julian Assange inspired some in the media to speculate last year that Mr. Johnson had served as a back channel between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks. There’s still no proof, but in July the Intelligence Committee sent a letter requesting Mr. Johnson submit to them any documents, emails, texts or the like related to “any communications with Russian persons” in a variety of 2016 circumstances, including those related to “the 2016 U.S. Presidential Campaign.”
Mr. Barnes seems to have wanted clarification from Ms. Doss about the definition of “Russian persons.” And this would make sense, since it’s a loose term. Russians in Russia? Russians in America? Russians with business in the country? Russians who lobby the U.S. and might be affected by the election—though not in contact with campaigns?
Ms. Doss’s response was more sweeping than any of these: “The provision we discussed narrowing was clarifying that the phrase ‘Russian persons’ in [the committee letter] may be read to refer to persons that Mr. Johnson knows or has reason to believe are of Russian nationality or descent”.
This is actually humorous. “Russian descent?” There are now jokes about ordering Russian Dressing in DC can get you investigated.
The truth is not as funny.
It looks like the surveillance of the Trump campaign was done by DOJ and the FBI without warrants at all. That is very illegal and should put some people in prison.
President Obama’s political operatives within the DOJ-NSD were using FISA 702(17) surveillance “about inquiries” that would deliver electronic mail and phone communication for U.S. people (Trump campaign). The NSD unit (John Carlin) was working in coordination with the FBI Counterintelligence Unit (Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok etc.) to look at this campaign activity. DOJ Attorney Lisa Page was the intermediary between the DOJ National Security Division and he FBI Counterintelligence Division.
In an effort to stop the FISA 702(17) activity NSA Director Mike Rogers initiated a full 702 compliance review. However, before the review was complete the DOJ-NSD had enough information for their Russian narrative; which was built upon FISA-702(17) that began in July ’16 per James Comey. Mike Rogers stopped the FISA702(17) process on October 26th 2016. As a result of his identifying the activity, Rogers became a risk; DNI James Clapper demanded he be fired.
The plot was the “insurance policy” Strzok mentioned. The story is becoming more clear every day.
On November 17th, 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers went to see President-Elect Donald Trump in Trump Tower, New York. –SEE HERE– Director Rogers never told his boss DNI, James Clapper.
♦ On November 18th, 2016, the Trump Transition Team announced they were moving all transition activity to Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. –SEE HERE– Where they interviewed and discussed the most sensitive positions to fill. Defense, State, CIA, ODNI.
The transition team was set up in Trump Tower. The very next day, November 18th 2016, Trump moves the entire transition team to Bedminister New Jersey?
Does this make more sense now?
Yes, it does.
It looks like they dd not even apply for a FISC warrant after they were turned down in July. They just “did it.”
Sort of like the scene from “Absence of Malice.”
A pretty good summary of the Simpson transcript.
And nothing will happen. Lots of it.
“consider an email recently disclosed by the Young Turks Network”
I usually don’t bother myself with the minutiae of the yahoo fringe, but naming your show Young Turks is particularly brazen and thoughtless. It’s the equivalent of naming it the Sturmabteilung or the Red Guards. The real Young Turks slaughtered millions of innocent Christians in the latter days of Ottoman Empire for the crime of not being Turkish. One of their leaders, Mehmed Talaat, was so bad that he was assassinated in broad daylight on the street with several witnesses, his killer not even bothering to run and openly admitting doing it, but he was still acquitted after a brief trial.
I believe there is a DOJ IG report due in the relatively near future that will blow this wide open. The Dems in Congress and the MSM won’t be able to keep covering it up.
Things are going to get really ugly.
Many of us are looking for ward to IG Horowitz report.
I just hope he avoids lonely streets in DC at night.
Tablet reported on this last month. Simpson knew he had the goods on Paul Manafort because he wrote a story on him a decade ago in the Wall St Journal. The Podesta brothers knew it too since they had worked with Manafort in the past, so the dossier was Simpson’s ticket to getting hired onto the Hillary campaign.
He only later brought in Steele, who was obviously not credible but still well like by the FBI, in order to give it some added intelligence cachet so the Feds would then hire him.
Manafort was a terrible hire by the Trump kids, well explained in “Let Trump be Trump” by Lewandowski and Bossie.
He wormed his way into their confidence and then began in his usual fashion by requesting a $5 million check for vague “outreach” and direct mail expenses.
Trump’s finance guy was too wise for Manafort and the check did not materialize.
He is a crook and only the media persists in linking Trump to him.
Hmm. Not even a FISA warrant. Not even any hint of a probable cause. “Meeting with someone of Russian nationality or ancestry”?? One of the people I most admire who I met used to be a Russian national, was then an American, definitely of Russian ancestry. And as an 11 year old boy was a cadet in the Tsarist Army, and fought the Communists the entire length of Russia during the Russian Civil War. And that was just the beginning of his life. One of the hardest core American Patriots I have ever met.
Everybody Federal concerned with this, from Obama on down, and including current officials and agents of our Federal LEA’s and Intel agencies who are involved should be tried for High Treason [in the English sense], and if convicted given the traditional punishment. I am a traditionalist and not a nice person.
No one is going to be punished for this. A few government employees might negotiate an early retirement but leftist organisations will put them on the payroll the next day as a reward for their service, probably at a pay increase. The idea of deep state people going to jail is laughable. The only justice that they will ever get is going to be delivered by the militia or not at all.
“No one is going to be punished for this”
Almost certainly true.
Just try talking to a lefty about this:
– “How would you feel if it comes out in 2021 that Trump ordered DOJ surveillance of the campaign of Kamala Harris or whoever the Dems nominate, and they get elected?”
– “Then Trump, Jeff Sessions, everyone involved should go to jail.”
– “OK, so why shouldn’t Obama administration officials go to jail?”
– “Because Trump was working with the Russians.”
Things are going to get very bad. I actually think the major problem is that Trump isn’t nearly radical enough. He’s not interested in actually tearing the deep state to pieces.
He probably has a lot more on his plate than the things that make news on blogs.
Been reflecting on Mike’s choice of a movie (Absence of Malice; a personal favorite) to summarize his observations.
If only! But unlike that great story we will not see a similar ending. We will not see someone like the reporter Sally Field played, suddenly realizing what she had, albeit unintentionally, done, and, determined to stop the ugliness, take a hit herself. We won’t see one like Paul Newman’s character, who has both the opportunity and the smarts to set and spring a trap. Most of all, we won’t see an official (or a political party) of Wilford Brimely’s character, who, tho he does not know all the details, sees the picture clearly enough and takes action.
“We will not see someone like the reporter Sally Field played, suddenly realizing what she had, albeit unintentionally, done, and, determined to stop the ugliness, ”
Of course not but it is nice to see the fantasy.
More depressing to me is to see what is happening to Australia, which has been a sort of libertarian Eden to me for years.
I am a fan of Neville Shute’s novels and he left England in 1950, disgusted with Labour and wrote several novels about how great the contrast was between Australia and the degenerate England he was leaving.
Now, Australia seems to be catching up. I’ve been there twice and, if it wasn’t so damned far away, might have considered moving there,. Now.
Unperturbed and donning his political salesman’s hat, Minister Josh Frydenberg endorsed the project but he would do that wouldn’t he? He claims to favour Snowy 2 partly because, like all those wind farms, it creates “up to 5,000 jobs” presumably in construction. I bet the 5000 jobs could be multiplied many times over if the crews did not use modern machinery! The Minister suggested the alternative fast start generation would entail $180 billion in Tesla power walls.
Is no place uninfected ?
The latest rumor now is that there was a warrant and the FBI used the Fusion GPS dossier to get it.
The unverified dossier alleging connections between President Trump’s campaign and the Russians was used as evidence by the FBI to gain approval from a secret court to monitor members of Trump’s team, this reporter has learned.
A large portion of the evidence presented in the salacious 35-page dossier put together by former British spy Christopher Steele, has either been proven wrong or remains unsubstantiated. However, the FBI gained approval nevertheless to surveil members of Trump’s campaign and “it’s outrageous and clearly should be thoroughly investigated,” said a senior law enforcement source, with knowledge of the process.
Multiple sources told this reporter that the dossier was used along with other evidence to obtain the warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as FISC. The sources also stressed that there will be more information in the coming week regarding systemic “FISA abuse.”
If so, this may be why the FISC judge recused himself from the General Flynn case.
It would be EXPLOSIVE if it turned out that the FISA warrants were gained by deception, misleading information, manipulated information, or fraud…. and that warrant led to the wiretapping and surveillance of General Michael Flynn was authorized by Contreras…. who would now be the judge in Flynn’s case.
Yes, the conflict of interest would be beyond stunning.
It is trickling out each week.
Flynn won’t need a pardon but some other people are going to prison.
As you said, “it is nice to see the fantasy.”
On the other hand, sometimes the fantasy helps us better see the reality, or at least helps us to long for the “if only” and work towards it.
And if you and I had not learned from life that there “is no place uninfected”, we’d learn that from history. Or maybe from authors like Shute (appreciated him for “Trustee in a Toolroom” that I read before I could understand it) and from humorous snark like that in Sgt Mom’s Luna City series.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/11/the-doj-and-fbi-worked-with-fusion-gps-on-operation-trump/
“Notice how it was an FBI “private contractor” that was conducting the unauthorized FISA-702 Queries.
We have been tipped off that the contractor in question was, unbelievably, Fusion-GPS.”
It’s difficult to comprehend the depths to which the DOJ has been corrupted.
It makes me laugh to think of all the claims of ex-military people standing ready to “take back our country” when it becomes necessary. My fantasy is that some of these patriots abduct the responsible officials and their families and get some truth by any means necessary. Their bodies can be found later. But that will never happen… so we descend into lawless tyranny.
There are 2 big problems going on with getting this stuff out there:
1. The Dem/MSM effort to cover up what happened.
2. The jaw dropping nature of what happened.
I’m really, really cynical about this stuff, and I find the notion that Fusion GPS was allowed access to raw NSA collects and the ability to unmask whoever they wanted nearly unbelievable, except for the fact that there appear to be documents that can’t be interpreted any other way.
but he called other countries shitholes
Yes, the news that Fusion GPS was actually doing 702 “About” intercepts is amazing.
I wonder if the furor about Trump calling countries sh**holes is a cover for this news ?
The first tranches of the IG report began to flow out Friday, the 12th.
This will be only the beginning and hell is coming for the Obama people involved.
Lastly, for amusement pay attention to the targets of the investigations and their surrogates in both the media and Congress. They will attack, distort, distract, and flail about in panic. Do not worry about them. They are powerless and along for the ride.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
And:
Which brings us to this action by the DOJ today.
Former President of Maryland-Based Transportation Company Indicted on 11 Counts Related to Foreign Bribery, Fraud and Money Laundering Scheme
This is the beginning of the Uranium One story and the Clinton Foundation role.
Yeah, that indictment looks like it could be related to Uranium One. There are lots of other possible interpretations, but the internet crazies have been saying that now is the time when the IG report is going to come out, and that U1 and other scandals from the past administration are being actively investigated, and they’ve been right about many things lately, so maybe they’re not so crazy after all.
Here’s the thing–who can go after the Clintons and various other bad actors from the Obama administration? Not Trump. Not Sessions. Not any politician or political appointee. Only one guy–Bob Mueller. As a special prosecutor, he can do whatever he wants, and all of that stuff–U1, illegal surveillance, etc.–is well within his remit of Russia and election related crimes. And the Dems and the MSM have been building him up as beyond reproach.
The question then is who is Bob Mueller, and what is he up to? That’s the million dollar question of 2018. The CW says one thing, the internet crazies say something very different.
” Only one guy–Bob Mueller.”
hahaha
newrouter: Sounds crazy, right? That’s what I thought several months ago too. But the internet crazies have turned out to be right in many crazy predictions since then. So, we’ve got the CW that Mueller is going to take down Trump, and the internet crazies say, well, something very different. And let’s just say that the CW generally hasn’t done too well the last few years, has it? And when someone makes crazy predictions that come true, not just once but many times, you have to start to wonder whether they’re not so crazy after all. So, let’s say that the CW has 90% chance of being right. Giving the internet crazies a 10% chance of being right is still saying that there’s a 1/10 chance that American politics is going to be upended like nothing in the past 150 years.
PS. I’m not saying Mueller WILL take down the crooks. I’m just saying that he’s the only person who COULD. It’s him or nobody. The most likely outcome, the CW, is they skate, and he either tries to take down Trump himself, or leaves it more or less as he’s done so far, and throws the rest into the political world. But you can’t put that at 100%, and maybe the internet crazies will continue to be correct…
I too have my doubts that anyone will be punished, at least meaningfully. The higher-ups will merely reincarnate into another form and still work their evil. There are never any repercussions for what happens in DC.
On the other hand, there’s all that internet buzz about 9000+ sealed indictments out there, waiting for some trigger: https://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2018/01/09/9292-sealed-indictments-and-the-last-time-hillary-podesta-and-soros-were-on-twitter/comment-page-1/
The FISA surveillance of Candidate Trump by the Obama Administration for the Hillary campaign was not limited to just Trump for Hillary’s campaign.
It was used for the entire Republican Candidate field and on Bernie too.
Most of the illegal FISA surveillance was done by Fusion GPS as a contractor for the FBI from the Summer of 2015 to April 2016, until NSA director Adm Rodger’s compliance review of the FISA system cut off Fusion GPS’s access to the FISA system.
After that Fusion GPS used insiders at the DoJ to do it’s FISA searches and tried in in June (failed) and July 2016 (successfully) to get a FISA judge warrant to ‘retroactively approve’ their illegal surveillance of Trump.
If Hillary had won, it would have worked.
She lost.
The whole Mueller special council charade after Trump was sworn in as President has been an attempt to cover up, obstruct investigation of, and provide immunity for those involved with the illegal FISA surveillance.
At this point, the odds are Obama Administration used FISA in the 2012 election cycle, and for blackmailing the SCOTUS for the Obamacare decision, as well.
“Most of the illegal FISA surveillance was done by Fusion GPS as a contractor for the FBI from the Summer of 2015 to April 2016, until NSA director Adm Rodger’s compliance review of the FISA system cut off Fusion GPS’s access to the FISA system”
If this is in fact confirmed, it is unquestionably the biggest scandal in US history.
“The whole Mueller special council charade after Trump was sworn in as President has been an attempt to cover up, obstruct investigation of, and provide immunity for those involved with the illegal FISA surveillance.”
Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll see. But unlike the Comey farcical “investigation” of HRC & her cronies, I don’t see any BS immunity agreements being handed out like candy by Mueller. The internet crazies think, and I think it is at least possible, though not entirely likely, that the real purpose is to allow for a non-political case to be made against the people who did above. Look at the reaction from the Dems to the FISA memo–if this is done by Congress, or the current Justice Department, the Dems and the MSM will paint it as pure partisan hackery. But if it comes from Mueller, who they’ve spent the last year building up as the honest white knight who will destroy Trump? Game over, man.
Brian,
Mueller is a “black hat”, and you can take that to the bank.
IMO, you will see Mueller handed out several immunity deals to Comey et al that Chairman Nunes ran into during secret testimony and put in his four page memo.
That’s the CW. It has to be the starting point to guess what’s going on, but the CW has often been very wrong the last couple years, and the internet crazies have made some crazy predictions that have turned out to be correct. It’s out of our hands, so all we can do is sit back and watch things unfold.
” and for blackmailing the SCOTUS for the Obamacare decision, as well.”
There have been rumors for years that there is an issue about Roberts’ adoption of his kids. Maybe the Obama people had him under surveillance.
Maybe they did have something on him, maybe not illegal but embarrassing.
And remember that the way they discovered the Petraeus affair was extremely shady, with many saying it seemed to suggest improper surveillance of many people involved.