Mueller’s Probe Is Under Internal Pressures

RED STATE does a BANG-UP job in the following list:

A comparison of the carnage at the very highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ to the complete lack of evidence of wrongdoing by President Trump following over two years of investigations should tell Robert Mueller that it’s time to extricate himself, as gracefully as possible, from this fraud. He needs to admit defeat in his attempt to undo the results of a fair election.

Seamus Bruner of The Epoch Times has just put together a list of 25 DOJ and FBI officials who have resigned in the last year. Some of them, Rachel Brand for example, have left to take positions in the private sector. Mike Kortan has said he was planning to retire anyway. But many on this list have been fired, or forced out (largely in disgrace) or demoted, because of the Trump/Russia investigation.

FBI Departures:

  1. James Comey, director (fired)
  2. Andrew McCabe, deputy director (fired)
  3. Peter Strzok, counterintelligence expert (fired)
  4. Lisa Page, attorney (demoted; resigned)
  5. James Rybicki, chief of staff (resigned)
  6. James Baker, general counsel (resigned)
  7. Mike Kortan, assistant director for public affairs (resigned)
  8. Josh Campbell, special assistant to James Comey (resigned)
  9. James Turgal, executive assistant director (resigned)
  10. Greg Bower, assistant director for office of congressional affairs (resigned)
  11. Michael Steinbach, executive assistant director (resigned)
  12. John Giacalone, executive assistant director (resigned)

DOJ Departures:

  1. Sally Yates, deputy attorney general (fired)
  2. Bruce Ohr, associate deputy attorney general (twice demoted)
  3. David Laufman, counterintelligence chief (resigned)
  4. Rachel Brand, deputy attorney general (resigned)
  5. Trisha Beth Anderson, office of legal counsel for FBI (demoted or reassigned*)
  6. John P. Carlin, assistant attorney general (resigned)
  7. Peter Kadzik, assistant attorney general, congressional liaison (resigned)
  8. Mary McCord, acting assistant attorney general (resigned)
  9. Matthew Axelrod, principal assistant to deputy attorney general (resigned)
  10. Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney, SDNY (firedalong with 45 otherS. Attorneys)
  11. Sharon McGowan, civil rights division (resigned)
  12. Diana Flynn, litigation director for LGBTQ civil rights (resigned)
  13. Vanita Gupta, civil rights division (resigned)
  14. Joel McElvain, assistant branch director of the civil division (resigned)

*Status Unclear

As I look at this list, I know it includes only a fraction of those who have risked their careers and their reputations because they simply couldn’t bear to see Donald Trump in the White House.

Before this is over, others will be added to the list. Perhaps even Rod Rosenstein. And there will likely be former top-level Obama officials caught in the net as well. Perjurers John Brennan and James Clapper come to mind.

In addition to the men and women who have been working against Trump in the DOJ and the FBI, there were/are employees in the State Department and the CIA, holdovers from the Obama administration, who are complicit.

The mainstream media has played a huge role in perpetuating this hoax. They have breathlessly distorted events to influence public opinion. Instead of reporting the news, they have worked overtime to shape it.

For an example of how the mainstream media has aided and abetted the left’s attempt to impeach Trump, we need to look no further than their outrage over the revocation of John Brennan’s security clearance….

Even contention in the ranks of the upper echelon of SPOOKS is starting to maske it’s way to the public as people “cover their asses”

THE HILL notes about the above:

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said Sunday that he thinks former CIA Director John Brennan‘s rhetoric is becoming an issue “in and of itself.”

“John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself,” Clapper said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “John is subtle like a freight train and he’s gonna say what’s on his mind.”

Clapper’s comments came in response to an op-ed penned by Brennan in The New York Times this week, in which he wrote that President Trumpcolluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Clapper said he empathized with Brennan, but voiced concerns for Brennan’s fiery rhetoric toward Trump and his administration.

“I think that the common denominator among all of us [in the intelligence community] that have been speaking up … is genuine concern about the jeopardy and threats to our institutions,” Clapper said.

Brennan’s claims drew criticism from some in the intelligence community who said the timing was suspect.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) on Thursday took aim at Brennan for “purport[ing] to know, as fact, that the Trump campaign colluded with a foreign power.”

“If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the special counsel, not The New York Times,” Burr said……..

REMEMBER, Brennan has a shoddy intelligence past and had his clearance removed due to it — among other things. See my previous post entitled: Brennan Leaked Top Secret Info That Blew A US Operation

Critics Of “Death of a Nation” Prove D’Souza Right

Ben Davies of The Rebel.Media reports: Dinesh D’Souza’s new film, Death of a Nation, examines the recurring cycles of history and the re-writing and omission of it as he seeks answers to our current turbulent political climate. But nothing he could have said proves his point more clearly than what the critics had to say about his film.

Trump “Would… Like to ‘Murder People Without Due Process'” (NYT)

HAT TIP to WEASEL ZIPPERS!

WOW — how far Podhoretz has fallen. When Mika Brezinski (on the Left) notes John Podhoretz Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)… if she see’s it it MUST be bad!

 

Brennan Leaked Top Secret Info That Blew A US Operation

John Brennan Leaked Top Secret Information That Blew A US Operation To Help Friends Make Money — Rand Paul

More from RED STATE:

Paul has written an op-ed at Breitbart (here’s the link) explaining why he thinks Brennan is a unique danger.

Clear evidence concerning the bias of multiple, high-ranking current and former intelligence community officials should make us think twice about letting retired intelligence officials keep access to classified information, especially if they become talking heads on television after leaving public service.

There is a great danger that vital, secret details may be revealed on television, even inadvertently.

John Brennan is no stranger to this problem.

Paul is referring to this incident.

White House efforts to soft-pedal the danger from a new “underwear bomb” plot emanating from Yemen may have inadvertently broken the news they needed most to contain.

[….]

And the operation that had placed a source inside terrorist headquarters in Yemen was shut down.

Disclosure of a highly classified intelligence operation in Yemen last year compromised an exceedingly rare and valuable espionage achievement: an informant who had earned the trust of hardened terrorists, according to U.S. officials.

The operation received new scrutiny this week after the Justice Department disclosed it had obtained telephone records for calls to and from more than 20 lines belonging to The Associated Press and its journalists in April and May 2012 in a high-level investigation of the alleged leak of classified information.

The informant, a British citizen born in Saudi Arabia, had been recruited by British intelligence to operate as a double agent within the group al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, one of the most dangerous franchises of the al-Qaida terrorist network.

His access led to the U.S. drone strike that killed a senior al-Qaida leader, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed Quso, on May 6, 2012. U.S. officials say Quso helped direct the terrorist attack that killed 17 sailors aboard the U.S. guided-missile destroyer Cole in a Yemeni harbor in October 2000.

The informant also convinced members of the Yemeni group that he wanted to blow up a U.S. passenger jet on the anniversary of the U.S. attack that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. They outfitted him with the latest version of an underwear bomb designed to pass metal detectors and other airport safeguards, officials say.

The informant left Yemen and delivered the device to his handlers, and it ultimately went to the FBI’s laboratory in Quantico, Va.

Intelligence officials hoped to send him back to Yemen to help track more bomb makers and planners, but the leak made that impossible, and sent al-Qaida scrambling to cover its tracks, officials said.

Now we get to the punchline:

On Wednesday, FBI director Robert Mueller, appearing before the Senate Judiciary committee, promised the bureau would “investigate thoroughly.”

Everyone knew who leaked. And, as punishment, Brennan was made Director of the CIA.

This perfectly illustrates that pulling these clearances and most other clearances of former officials is vital…..

The PRAVDA Like Actions of the Unified Press (+Flashbacks)

Trust me, I wish Trump was as clear as Newt, but with Trump we get the whole package, like with our spouse, friends, children, etc (Via RIGHTSCOOP).

I start out the following audio with a reminder of what Obama ACTUALLY DID in regard to the press. Trump has done none of this. But because a bombastic personality has said the press is the enemy of the American people (words), this is wrong when the same press compares Trump to the Third Reich, Hitler, NAZIs, fascists, bigoted, racist, etc., etc., THIS… this is somehow okay. Dumb.

All this does is fortify the idea that the media is far-left in their “news” AND “editorial;” positions. So every paper that puts forward an editorial YOU KNOW is a mouthpiece for the Democrats.

THE FEDERALIST notes the “non-scandal” of Obama’s war with the free-press:

Yet many professionals who supposedly deplore the authoritarian nature of an administration that doesn’t answer CNN’s questions were generally quiet when Obama spied on reporters. The Obama DOJ spied on the Associated Press in an attempt to crack down on internal leaks. The DOJ tapped around 20 different phone lines—including cell phone and home lines—that snared at least 100 staffers who worked for the outlet. The Justice Department spied on Fox News reporter James Rosen in 2010, collecting his telephone records, looking at his personal emails and tracking his movements.

Color me skeptical, but somehow I doubt similar Trump efforts would be framed as a “rare peek into a Justice Department leak probe,” as if we were pulling the curtains back on a fashion show. It would be, rightly, depicted as an assault on democracy.

Then again, spying was also never really given the scandal treatment during the Obama years. As Obama’s CIA director, John Brennan became aware of an operation of illegal spying of a legislative branch staffer over torture files and misled the media about it. Did the president know? Shrug. The story hardly made a dent. Likewise, Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, admitted he misled Congress about spying on American citizens. No scandal.

Today both these people are on TV chumming around with serious journalists who allow them to continue to make reckless, unsubstantiated political statements all the time. It isn’t Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” who asks Clapper tough questions, it’s Meghan McCain on “The View.”

There was unprecedented politicization of the government under Obama — most of it, I imagine, excused for being part of a good cause. The NLRB. The Justice Department. The IRS. The Office of Special Counsel, which reviews whistleblower allegations, foundthat IRS employees urged callers to vote for Obama, wore pro-Obama swag, and campaigned for Democrats in conversations with taxpayers — all of it illegal.

But far more seriously, IRS leadership, specifically Lois Lerner, aggressively targeted conservative groups before elections. The IRS admitted as much in an apology letter. Lerner was held in contempt by Congress for refusing to comply with investigators’  demands. She never answered questions for this genuine attack on democracy…..


FLASHBACK


The above UPDATE is with thanks to GayPatriot and Bruce’s Twitter page. Are people exaggerating the similarities? The only difference is the responsibility level… Nixon showed he was a man. Obama? Not so much.

The above audio is Hugh reading from the following article in the New Yorker Magazine:

The Justice Department and Fox News’s Phone Records

The Obama Justice Department has seized the phone records of numbers that are associated with White House staffers and, apparently, with Fox News reporters, according to a document filed in the case of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, on October 13, 2011. Kim is a former State Department contractor accused of violating the Espionage Act for allegedly leaking classified information to James Rosen, a Fox News reporter. Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is prosecuting the case, has seized records associated with two phone numbers at the White House, at least five numbers associated with Fox News, and one that has the same area code and exchange as Rosen’s personal-cell-phone number (the last four numbers are redacted).

In all, Machen has seized records associated with over thirty different phone numbers. In the filing that included the new information, the last four digits of each telephone line targeted by the Obama Administration are redacted. Two of the numbers begin with area code 202 and the exchange 456, which, according to current and former Administration officials, are used exclusively by the White House. (The phone number for the White House switchboard is (202) 456-1414.)

At least five other numbers targeted by the government include the area code 202 and the exchange 824. The phone number for the Fox News Washington bureau, which is publicly available, is (202) 824-0001. Rosen’s work phone number at Fox News begins with the same area code and exchange.

William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney, told The New Yorker this afternoon, “Because that information is sealed, I can’t confirm the owner or subscriber for any of those records.” Asked if the phone numbers of any reporters had been targeted in the Kim investigation, Miller said he could not comment.

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that, as part of the investigation of the Kim leak, Obama’s Department of Justice seized e-mails from Rosen’s personal Gmail account. In the search warrant for that request, the government described Rosen as “an aider, and abettor, and / or co-conspirator” in violating the Espionage Act, noting that the crime can be punished by ten years in prison. Rosen was not indicted in the case, but the suggestion in a government document that a reporter could be guilty of espionage for engaging in routine reporting is unprecedented and has alarmed many journalists and civil libertarians….

…read more…


Washington Blog does a bang-up job in showing how many liberals are saying that Obama’s “buck stops here” makes his admin waaayy worse than Nixon’s:

In the wake of the twin scandals of the IRS targeting conservative groups and the Department of Justice spying on AP reporters, the comparisons between Obama and Nixon are everywhere.

But what do experts say?

Former New York Times general counsel James Goodale – who represented the paper during its Pentagon Papers fight with the Nixon administration – said in an interview yesterday that Obama is worse than Nixon when it comes to press freedoms. And see this.

Former constitutional lawyer Glenn Greenwald noted last year:

We supposedly learned important lessons from the abuses of power of the Nixon administration, and then of the Bush administration: namely, that we don’t trust government officials to exercise power in the dark, with no judicial oversight, with no obligation to prove their accusations. Yet now we hear exactly this same mentality issuing from Obama, his officials and defenders to justify a  far more extreme power than either Nixon or Bush dreamed of asserting: he’s only killing The Bad Citizens, so there’s no reason to object!

Jonathan Turley – perhaps the top constitutional law expert in the United States (and a liberal) – writes:

The painful fact is that Barack Obama is the president that Nixon always wanted to be.

Four decades ago, Nixon was halted in his determined effort to create an “imperial presidency” with unilateral powers and privileges. In 2013, Obama wields those very same powers openly and without serious opposition. The success of Obama in acquiring the long-denied powers of Nixon is one of his most remarkable, if ignoble, accomplishments. Consider a few examples:

I will bullet point Jonathan Turley’s points that you can read his expanded thoughts on for yourself:

  • Warrantless surveillance
  • Unilateral military action
  • Kill lists
  • Attacking whistle-blowers

…More…

Nixon’s “Enemies List” is famous, and the former head of the National Security Agency’s global digital data gathering program says that Obama also has an enemies list … which has been used to take down a wide variety of people, including the head of the CIA. The Washington Post’s Ed Rogers notes:

Obama doesn’t need a traditional Nixonian enemies list. In the digital age, with the Obama machine’s much-celebrated technological capabilities, the president can sort his enemies by keywords.

You’ve heard about the AP spying scandal, and the head of the Department of Justice implies that the government has spied on many other reporters.

Reporters who criticize those in power are being smeared by the government and targeted for arrest (and see this).

Indeed, the Obama administration is treating real reporters as potential terrorists.

…read more…

Democrats Favor Socialism Over Capitalism… Sorta

Here Dennis Prager discusses a recent poll showing that Democrat are in LOVE with socialism. USA TODAY notes the following about the poll:

According to a Gallup poll published Monday, a majority of Democrats no longer hold a positive view of capitalism, while nearly 60 percent of them feel good about socialism. More than 70 percent of Republicans, on the other hand, see capitalism positively, while only 16 percent of them have a positive view of socialism.

The positive view of socialism among Democrats, and those who lean Democrat, actually dropped a point from 58 percent in 2016. But in those same two years, positive feelings about capitalism plummetted from 56 to 47 percent

At one point Prager notes that socialism hasn’t made one dime in money… which made me think of this quote from an excellent book:

  • A 2009 study by the Swedish Economic Association discovered that the Swedish economy had failed to create any new jobs on net from 1950 to 2005. Thanks to conservative reforms, however, progress was finally being made, and Sweden’s national debt went from 80 percent of GDP in 1992 to 40 percent by 2008.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Problem with Socialism (New Jersey, NJ: Regnery, 2016), 79.