The Mueller hearings were a huge disappointment to the Democrats, who were counting on scandal and impeachment to substitute for governing. Two leaders, Schiff and Nadler, seem unwilling to give up and try legislating. Schiff, who seems to most devoted to the Russia Hoax, has a darker side.
Schiff is the first Democrat since 1932 to represent the region.
He was an eloquent booster of McCain-Feingold campaign-finance legislation, seeking to put limits on some of the very expenditures that swamped his own race against former Rep. James Rogan, whom he beat by three percentage points.
(Limiting expenditures is a point Colbert needled him on. Colbert: “Isn’t that the equivalent of sleeping with a prostitute and then strangling her to hide your shame?” Schiff: “Well … I wouldn’t want to say it like that.”)
Rogan, of course was the target of massive Democrat fund raising to punish the House prosecutor for the Clinton impeachment.
That fawning “The Hill” tongue bath did not provide much for the “darker side.”
Nadler, another Clinton defender, has shed 60 pounds since his gastric bypass but he still looks about 100 pounds overweight. He is a little less strident than Schiff in public.
Where do they go from here ?
They get no help from Andrew McCarthy who demolishes their arguments.
Mueller’s anti-Trump staffers knew they were never going to be able to drive Trump from office by indicting him. The only plausible way to drive him from office was to prioritize, over all else, making the report public. Then, perhaps Congress would use it to impeach. At the very least, the 448 pages of uncharged conduct would wound Trump politically, helping lead to his defeat in 2020 — an enticing thought for someone who had, say, attended the Hillary Clinton “victory” party and expressed adulatory “awe” for acting AG (and fellow Obama holdover) Sally Yates when she insubordinately refused to enforce Trump’s border security order.
Of course, it wouldn’t be enough to get the report to Congress. The challenge was to get it there with the obstruction case still viable even though prosecutors knew they couldn’t get away with recommending an obstruction indictment. How to accomplish this? By pretending that the OLC guidance prevented prosecutors from even making a charging decision.
This resulted in the Ted Lieu question and Mueller’s answer which he had to retract after the break.
It is becoming more and more apparent that Mueller’s ‘assistant” prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann is the lead conspirator in the coup.
Weissmann is distinguished by his abysmal record as a corrupt prosecutor in several cases.
A lawyer representing whistleblowers referred Andrew Weissman to the Department of Justice’s Inspector General (IG) for “corrupt legal practices”.
Weissman is Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s lead investigator in the Russia-Trump probe. He is the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. That was Loretta Lynch’s territory. He rose through the ranks under Mueller’s stewardship.
In 2015, civil rights attorney David Schoen referred Weisman to the IG for his handling of a case targeting the Columbo crime family. Schoen said he is not a member of a political party and there is no political motivation.
Weissman was the lead attorney in the Persico trial and he withheld exculpatory evidence, a Brady violation. Schoen said he decided to revisit the nearly two-decade-long cases based on new witness information and “recent evidence that has come to light in the last several months.”
Weissman never told the defense that a prosecution witness, Gregory Scarpa Sr., was also working for years as an FBI informant. The underworld witness was nicknamed ‘Hannibal’ and the “Grim Reaper’ and committed over 100 murders.
The judge described AUSA Weissmann’s conduct as the “myopic withholding of information” and “reprehensible and subject, perhaps, to appropriate disciplinary measures,” according to the opinion obtained by investigative reporter Sara Carter.
He further distinguished himself with a rare Unanimous Supreme Court decision reversing his conviction of Arthur Anderson in the Enron case.
With a brief, pointed and unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned Arthur Andersen’s conviction for shredding Enron accounting documents as that company was collapsing in one of the nation’s biggest corporate scandals.
The court held that the trial judge’s instructions to the jury failed to require the necessary proof that Andersen knew its actions were wrong.
But the decision represents little more than a Pyrrhic victory for Andersen, which lost its clients after being indicted on obstruction of justice charges and has no chance of returning as a viable enterprise. The accounting firm has shrunk from 28,000 employees in the United States to a skeleton crew of 200, who are attending to the final details of closing down the partnership.
28,000 people lost their jobs. The prosecutor who hid evidence was Weissmann.
In the interview with Devin Nunes, Maria Bartiromo asks the ultimate question: “who was the mastermind” behind all of these intelligence operations?
Released FOIA documents into the special counsel team of Robert Mueller revealed the remarkable trail of the 2017 entrapment scheme conducted by prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to target George Papadopoulos.
Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by the special counsel; this is not prior to the 2016 election. The detail surrounds a series of events previously discussed {Go Deep} where George Papadopoulos was approached by a known CIA operative named Charles Tawil.
In 2017 George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona were approached in Greece by a known CIA/FBI operative, Charles Tawil. Mr. Tawil enlisted George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and invited him to Israel.
On June 8th, 2017, in Israel under very suspicious circumstances, where Papadopoulos felt very unnerved, Mr. Tawil hands him $10,000 in cash for future consultancy based on a $10k/month retainer.
This is a key part of the plot to destroy Trump. Read the whole thing. In fact, Papadopoulis’ book is a good place to start.
The Mifsud affair seems ready to boil over.
The Justice Department’s internal review of the Russia investigation is zeroing in on transcripts of recordings made by at least one government source who met with former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos overseas in 2016, specifically looking at why certain “exculpatory” material from them was not presented in subsequent applications for surveillance warrants, according to two sources familiar with the review.
The sources also said the review is taking a closer look at the actual start date of the original FBI investigation into potential collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians, as some allege the probe began earlier than thought. Both components are considered key in the review currently being led by Attorney General Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney from Connecticut John Durham — an effort sure to draw more attention in the coming weeks and months now that Robert Mueller’s testimony is in the rearview.
Now the DOJ is going after how this began. Brennan is worried. I think he is in big trouble.
Both Mifsud and Alexander Downer were working for British Intelligence according to Wikileaks. Mifsud had been spotted in London hobnobbing with Boris Johnson when the latter was Foreign Secretary. I still support Nigel Farage.
What should be next is a whole bunch of people going to prison-Brennan, Comey, Clapper, Strzok, Page, Ohr, Rice, Weissman, etc.
The Dems have to keep up the attacks to paint the response as nothing but partisan payback.
What really needs to happen is for Mike Rogers to publicly testify about the abuses he found, in gory detail. Unfortunately I suspect he and others think the system is salvageable and rules can be put in place–behind the scenes to prevent such abuse from ever happening again. That’s impossible.
Brian:”The Dems have to keep up the attacks to paint the response as nothing but partisan payback.”
ding, ding ding.
From the beginning, the whole development has had as its hidden goal defeating any kind of attack on Hillary et al/& co.
The rest is sideshow.
That I know smart, educated, aware friends who to this date do not merely tolerate but actively advance the Donk take (Orange Man bad, all evil said about him true) makes me humbly aware of human finitude, including my own. The delusion has such a level of seriousness combined with so much absurdity that I find myself wondering what stuff I might have misunderstood, gotten wrong.
And French and Italian intelligence, (the last is logical considering malta’s position) also north African hot spots, as well Saudi and Pakistani intelligence, the former as recent as the spring of 2017
Someone on Facebook responded to the change to a different DNI with: “Now who is there to protect us?”, or words to that effect.
A few hours later, at the library, I saw a book titled “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump.”
The opinion is growing among certain people that the Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies are some kind of ultimate authority.
“The opinion is growing among certain people that the Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies are some kind of ultimate authority.”
Those same people think ICE is a modern day Gestapo, as are most police. There’s no thinking involved with these people. Their brains have been consumed by OrangeManBad.
“The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump”
I had never heard of this tome. Thanks for the heads-up, David.
It was written by Andrew G. McCabe, who probably would be better off spending his time exploring opportunities in countries with no extradition treaties with the US. But the part which made me smile at the point in time when I checked it out on Amazon was the then-number of customer reviews: 666. They loved it, of course!
Oh McCabe is a legend in his own mind, he keeps rising after every mistep, Detroit boston San Bernardino Orlando (the last made deputy director)
“The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump”
I wonder if royalties are delivered to prison?
Comey seems to be the first target.
While they cautioned that the IG’s final report won’t be complete until it gets feedback from Comey’s lawyers in the next few days, it is expected to conclude that the former FBI director improperly took with him memos that were FBI property when he was fired, transmitted classified information via an insecure email account, and shared some of the memos with his private lawyers. (read more)
It sounds like the OIG report on FISA abuse is in the end-stages. What is described in the highlighted sentence above would be what is technically called “The Principal Review Phase of the OIG Final Draft”. That’s where targets are given the opportunity to review an IG report and provide feedback prior to public release.
They may not indict Comey for security violations but more may be coming. This is not the FISA abuse case.