Adam Schiff

Again… J6 Committee Is Illegal AND Altering “Evidence”

Published by Papa Giorgio

Jim Jordan tells Maria Bartiromo the select committee are liars and they’ve been caught red-handed.

(PJ-MEDIA) The Jan. 6 Committee has a well-established credibility problem. The committee released various text messages that have actually exonerated Donald Trump, but they falsely characterized the messages as incriminating. And when the truth wasn’t incriminating, they doctored text messages to make them look so.

Now Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is calling out the committee for its deceptions, and he promised an investigation during an appearance on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo.

“I want to see all the depositions,” Rep. Jordan said. “I want to see all the documents. And ranking member Rodney Davis has already sent a preservation letter to the committee, saying, preserve all this information, so we can look at it, and the American people can get the full story, not just this one-sided, choreographed presentation we got — excuse me — we got the other night. But when you think about what this committee has done, never in the history of this country, in the history of the House of Representatives, has a minority leader not been able to put on a select committee that [sic] individuals he or she has selected.”

“We also know that this committee has altered evidence and lied to the American people about it, so much so that they had to issue a statement which says ‘we regret the error,’ which is government-speak for, we got caught lying,” Jordan continued.

[Preserve the evidence/depositions !!]

What was altered intentionally via PJ-MEDIA:

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Witchhunt) has once again been caught manipulating evidence: the House Jan. 6 committee on Wednesday admitted that Schiff had altered a text message from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, making it appear much more damning than it actually was. After THE FEDERALIST exposed the deception, the House committee claimed that Schiff’s editing was “inadvertent.” Sure, and the next time Adam Schiff appears in public, he will be wearing a MAGA hat.

But there really wasn’t much of anything else that the Jan. 6 committee could have said, short of admitting that Schiff is a hate-filled hyper-partisan fanatic with scant regard for truth or accuracy. During Monday’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, Schiff announced that he had proof that a congressman, who turned out to be Jordan, had texted Meadows, urging him to tell Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 presidential election results. It was dramatic stuff, as so many of Schiff’s past announcements have been, except for the unpleasant fact that it shared a flaw of those past announcements: it was false.

“I want to display just a few of the message[s] [Meadows] received from people in Congress,” Schiff proclaimed grandly. Then he displayed a graphic that he represented as a text from a member of Congress to Meadows. Schiff declared: “This one reads, ‘On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all.’ You can see why this is so critical to ask Mr. Meadows about. About a lawmaker suggesting that the former vice president simply throw out votes that he unilaterally deems unconstitutional in order to overturn a presidential election and subvert the will of the American people.”

Schiff did not mention, however, that he had truncated Jordan’s message, which was actually forwarded by Jordan and was written by former Defense Department Inspector General Joseph Schmitz. Schiff left out a significant part of it and added punctuation to make it appear as if nothing had been deleted. According to The Federalist, the original text “included an attachment of a four-page draft Word document drafted by Schmitz that detailed Schmitz’s legal reasoning for suggesting that Pence had the constitutional authority to object to the certification of electoral votes submitted by a handful of states. The piece that Schmitz had sent to Jordan was published at the website everylegal.vote the next day and even included the same ‘DISCUSSION DRAFT’ heading and timestamp on the document that Schmitz sent to Jordan.”

Schmitz wrote: “On January 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence, as President of the Senate, should call out all the electoral votes that he believes are unconstitutional as no electoral votes at all — in accordance with guidance from founding father Alexander Hamilton and judicial precedence.” Schiff included only what had been written up to “at all,” and added a period after that to make the message seem complete, without giving any indication that he had altered the message at all.

The Federalist also reported that “according to a source familiar with the matter, Schiff never approached Jordan to discuss the text messages prior to chopping them up and misrepresenting them during Monday night’s hearing. Had he done so or bothered asking Jordan about the text message, Schiff would have known that Jordan was merely relaying to Meadows, without comment, an attorney’s summary of that attorney’s own legal argument as to what Pence should or shouldn’t do.”………..

Mark Levin on Hannity: “I’d ask the Republicans in Congress, but any citizen can do it – with the ethics arm of the Supreme Court of California and seek the license of Adam Schiff”

The Jan. 6 panel apologized Wednesday for the “error,” which was truncating the message with a period, and Schiff presenting it to the public without full context.

Jordan’s office confirmed the congressman from Ohio did send the message to Meadows but stressed that it was a snippet of a message he “forwarded” from an attorney who was expressing a legal theory about overturning the results of the 2020 election.

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER)

Some Commentary On General Flynn (Plus: Transcripts Released)

Published by Papa Giorgio

UPDATES NEAR BOTTOM — JUMP

Michael Flynn did not commit a crime and they knew it.

Michael Flynn fiasco exposes left’s dirty tactics.

Comey’s investigation found no collusion from anyone associated with Trump.

Adam Schiff was forced to release some documents that he had hoped wouldn’t be released — because — he knew they undermined his MANY public statements that there was evidence of Russian collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia. WEASEL ZIPPERS has a good “overnight thread” which this is adapted from:

TRANSCRIPTS

  • Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta told House Intel in 2017: “I have no specific facts or information relating to conversations that may have been had between people from the Trump campaign and either Assange or representatives of the Russian Gov’t”
  • Ben Rhodes when asked whether he had evidence of collusion, conspiracy, coordination bewtween Trump campaign and Russia: “I saw indications of potential coordination, but I did not see, you know, the specific evidence of the actions of the Trump campaign”
  • Former AG Loretta Lynch was asked whether she had evidence of collusion, coordination or conspiracy. She said that she did “not recall that being briefed up to me.” “I can’t say that it existed or not”
  • Ambassador Rice when asked whether she had evidence of collusion, conspiracy, coordination: “I don’t recall intel or evidence to that effect”
  • Samantha Power, when asked if she had evidence of collusion, coordination, conspiracy between Trump campaign and & Russians: “I am not in possession of anything – I am not in possession and didn’t read or absorb information that came from out of the intelligence community”

And we shouldn’t forget James Clapper:

Yet time after time the above went on to the MSM shows and said different. The new acting DNI threatened Adam Schiff if he wasn’t going to release these interviews, he would. Schifty didn’t want them released because everyone would see they had nada as far as evidence for the Russian Collusion Hoax: https://intelligence.house.gov/russiainvestigation/

Breaking: Rick Grenell Delivers SECOND SET OF DOCUMENTS to DOJ in Satchel — may be released tomorrow:

Trey Gowdy weighs in on the FBI (ouch!):  Former congressman and Fox News contributor, Trey Gowdy, weighs in on the Department of Justice’s decision to drop Michael Flynn charges.

UPDATED FUN

The ex CIA Chief briefed the Obama White House that the “Russian Collusion” was the brain child of Hillary Clinton (NEW YORK POST):

… Ratcliffe disclosed the information in a letter published by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just hours before Trump debates Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time.

Clinton’s alleged July 2016 plot would tar Trump by “tying him to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russians’ hacking of the Democratic National Committee,” Ratcliffe wrote Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Handwritten notes by then-CIA Director John Brennan, who now is a fiery anti-Trump commentator, say that Brennan briefed Obama on “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.”

The FBI opened its investigation of possible Trump-Russia collusion on July 31, 2016 — five days after Clinton allegedly hatched the plan — premised on Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos allegedly telling an Australian diplomat that Russia had damaging information on Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee.

It’s unclear when Obama was briefed or if Biden was informed. It’s also unclear which Clinton foreign policy aide allegedly proposed the idea….

The WASHINGTON EXAMINER discusses John Brennan’s worry over Durham’s investigation:

…Brennan has sought to pin questions about the discredited dossier on the FBI, which used it to obtain a FISA to wiretap Page.

“There were things in that dossier that made me wonder whether they were, in fact, accurate and true,” he said in February 2018. He also said that “it was up to the FBI to see whether or not they could verify any of it.”

Durham is looking into how the dossier was used in the 2017 assessment, why former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, insisted on it being part of the assessment, how allegations from the dossier ended up in an appendix of the assessment, and whether Brennan made misleading assertions about the research’s use. The top federal prosecutor in Connecticut is also reportedly reviewing Brennan’s handling of a secret source said to be close to the Kremlin and working to find out what role that person’s information played in the assessment.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican, has pinned the blame on Brennan. In March of last year, he tweeted, “A high-level source tells me it was Brennan who insisted that the unverified and fake Steele dossier be included in the Intelligence Report.”

Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward, who has a book coming out next month, said in April 2019, “I think it was the CIA pushing this.”…

To that last point by Woodward I excerpted… here is a good story about the CIA head and his obsession with Trump (note: I do not support most of what Zero Hedge writes, this is just a pretty decent post on the topic): “Ex-CIA Chief and “Russian Collusion” liar John Brennan urges palace coup against Trump so he doesn’t ‘declassify everything‘”

Just two examples of what an “under oath” session can do to a person:

RHODES

“Russia attacked our democracy. Trump campaign sought its help, had many contacts with Russians, lied about it and obstructed the investigation into it. Several senior Trump associates were convicted of crimes. Trump would have been indicted if he wasn’t President. Not complicated.” – Ben Rhodes

“I saw indications of potential coordination, but I did not see, you know, the specific evidence of the actions of the Trump campaign” – Ben Rhodes

CLAPPER

“What was the Trump campaign doing the same time was essentially aiding and abetting the Russians.” Clapper stated that the Russia investigation had surpassed that of Watergate, referencing the break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in 1972 that led to the resignation of former President Richard Nixon. “I think if you compare the two that Watergate pales, really, in my view, compared to what we’re confronting now,” Clapper told reporters during a trip to Australia.

In December of 2017, Clapper was asked by CNN’s Jim Sciutto about the difference between Trump’s criticism of Russia as a rival power and his praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader foiled a terror attack using CIA intelligence. “I think that this past weekend is illustrative of what a great case officer Vladimir Putin is,” Clapper said. “He knows how to handle an asset and that’s what he’s doing with the president,” he said. Sciutto asked Clapper to reiterate his statement, to confirm whether he was indeed calling the American president an “asset” of Russia. “That’s the appearance to me,” Clapper said. “He’s a [former] KGB officer. That’s what they do. They recruit assets.”

➤ “I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/ conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election.” – James Clapper under oath

 

Rand Paul’s Question Rejected… Again

Published by Papa Giorgio

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul’s whistleblower question blocked in Senate impeachment trial by Chief Justice John Roberts. (Watch that moment HERE)

LEGAL INSURRECTION adds some thoughts to this:

So do people know the whistleblower’s identification? If not then let Paul ask his question.

Chief Justice John Roberts once again rejected a question from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) since it supposedly names the impeachment whistleblower… even though supposedly NOBODY knows the identification of the whistleblower.

He asked: “Are you aware that House intelligence committee staffer Shawn Misko had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while at the National Security Council together and are you aware and how do you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal house impeachment proceedings.”

POWERLINE continues with Rand Paul’s question rephrased (<< video at link):

  • I believe that Senator Ron Johnson rephrased the question Senator Paul submitted to Chief Justice Roberts as set forth in the adjacent post. Chief Justice Robert having declined to read the question, Senator Johnson gave it another go. The question alludes to the RCP columm by Paul Sperry that we also published last week in “Whistleblower overheard.” Not surprisingly, Chief House impeachment manager and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff declines to answer the question.

 

Trump’s Legal Team, Day One (PLUS: Footnote 565)

Published by Papa Giorgio

What follows are some strong arguments (I think) against the Democrats case against Donald J. Trump’s impeachment. However, FIRST and FOREMOST, here is the Trump Legal Team’s first day in the Senate defending Trump and responding to the House Managers for impeachment of a sitting President:

PJ-MEDIA has a must read for those interested, they explain each one succinctly… which I merely:

10. Ambassador Volker testified there was no effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens
9. Ambassador Taylor testified there was ‘no linkage’ between military aid and investigations
8. Ambassador Taylor testified Ukraine was unaware the lethal aid was being withheld
7. Ambassador Sondland testified Trump didn’t want anything from Ukraine, no quid pro quo
6. Ambassador Sondland testified he had no evidence of a quid pro quo other than his ‘own presumption’
5. Lt. Col. Vindman admitted Hunter Biden wasn’t qualified to be on Burisma’s board
4. Lt. Col. Vindman and Jennifer Williams both agreed Hunter’s position at Burisma had the potential for the appearance of a conflict of interest
3. Ambassador Taylor basically admitted Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma ‘raises questions’
2. Marie Yovanovitch confirmed that there was concern in the Obama State Department about Hunter Biden’s conflict of interest at Burisma
1. George Kent said there were legit concerns about Hunter Biden, and Burisma should be investigated

ARI MELBER

RIGHT SCOOP sets this clip with the followin: “This is pretty great. Ari Melber actually told the MSNBC panel and their audience that the Democrats did not prove their case that Trump committed obstruction of Congress, and everyone flipped out.” By “flipped out,” they mean Lefties responses to this commentary, which you should see on RS’s site:

JOHN BARRASSO

This, however, was great… via GATEWAY PUNDIT who said “Deputy White House Counsel Mike Purpura opened the White House defense of President Donald Trump with video of Adam Schiff’s fake call and transcript he read during the House impeachment proceedings. Mike Purpura played the video immediately after taking the podium on Saturday. And there Schiff was lying his face off for the whole world to see….”

PATRICK PHILBIN

LEGAL INSURRECTION discusses the first day of the Trump teams response to the House managers. In this first day they challenged the credibility of Schiff, which the above commentary shows as well. LI says this: “It seemed that almost every time I turned on the TV, he was talking and talking and talking. Schiff is the person most behind the impeachment push and the biased House proceedings. We all know that. But the Republican trial team, particularly Patrick Philbin, skewered Schiff today with Schiff’s own prior lies and deceptions. Philbin addressed Schiff’s prior claim to have knowledge of evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign with Russia, evidence that not even Mueller found, showing Schiff’s opinion’s and claims to have evidence to be unreliable…”

JONATHAN TURLEY

Professor Jonathan Turley notes WELL a major misstep by the House Managers accusing the Senate (among others) of a cover-up… bombastic presentations in the House may be the norm. But not in the Senate:

FOOTNOTE 565

And HUGH HEWITT notes footnote 565 from Trump’s legal team’s legal briefing as evidence for Trump’s concern with Ukrainian interference with our 2016 election:

Video Description:

Hugh Hewitt reads footnote 565 from Trump’s legal team’s brief (PDF can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/rjh9dst). Hewitt then brings it up with Byron York when he was on to discuss his article: “As Trial Begins, the White House Strikes Back” (https://tinyurl.com/utv35mm). As an aside, here is the full extent of Russian interference with the 2016 election, and why (rightly or wrongly) Mueller indicted 13 Russians:

  • President Donald Trump rejects the narrative that Russia wanted him to win. USA Today examined each of the 3,517 Facebook ads bought by the Russian-based Internet Research Agency, the company that employed 12 of the 13 Russians indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for interfering with the 2016 election. It turns out only about 100 of its ads explicitly endorsed Trump or opposed Hillary Clinton. Most of the fake ads focused on racial division, with many of the ads attempting to exploit what Russia perceives, or wants America to perceive, as severe racial tension between blacks and whites…. (must read the entire article at LARRY ELDER’s SITE | see my post as well: FIONA HILL’S FALSE DILEMMA)

(Click To Enlarge)

(Text with Links)

President Trump also raised concerns about corruption. He first raised these concerns in connection with reports of Ukrainian actions in the 2016 presidential election. Numerous media outlets have reported that Ukrainian officials took steps to influence and interfere in the 2016 election to undermine then-candidate Trump, and three Senate committee chairmen are currently investigating this interference.565

565 See, e.g., Sharyl Attkisson, Timeline of Alleged Ukrainian-Democrat Meddling in 2016 Presidential Election, Epoch Times (Nov. 27, 2019); Andrew E. Kramer, Ukraine Court Rules Manafort Disclosure Caused Meddling’ in U.S. Election, N.Y. Times (Dec. 12, 2018); Kenneth P. Vogel & David Stem, Ukrainian Efforts to Sabotage Trump Backfire, Politico (Jan. 11, 2017); Roman Olearchyk, Ukraine’s Leaders Campaign Against ‘Pro-Putin ‘ Trump, Financial Times (Aug. 28, 2016), [Editor’s Note: the FT article is behind a paywall… see STONE COLD TRUTH to see article]; Press Release, Senators Seek Interviews on Reported Coordination Between Ukrainian Officials, DNC Consultant to Aid Clinton in 2016 Elections (Dec. 6, 2019).

ARTEM SYTNYK

This alongside this audio where you can hear former Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (put in place by Obama/Hillary State Department), Artem Sytnyk, admitting that he “helped” Hillary during the 2016 U.S. presidential election (see more at WAYNE DUPREE) — is devastating to the House Managers case!

Whistleblower and Schiff Staffer In 2017 Coup Talks (UPDATE)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(UPDATE: I had to edit out the name of Eric Ciaramella in the description in order for YouTube to publish this audio. The monolithic thought is amazing to me, and the 1984 beginnings are unmistakable. Obviously no Federal or State law says a person’s name cannot be used… and, in fact, the “whistleblower” statute merely protects the person from on the job harassment by superiors. Not to nix his name from the public. Weird.)

Real Clear Investigations and Red State (linked below respectively) have great stories on these two colleagues (comrades?) discussing how to remove Trump from office 2-weeks after he was inaugurated — insurance policy 2.0 two-weeks after Trump was inaugurated (!):

RED STATE:

……Source 1 said, “Just days after he [Trump] was sworn in, they [Ciaramella and Misko] were already talking about trying to get rid of him. They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda. They were plotting to actually have him removed from office.”

Sources told Sperry that Misko had been the Schiff staff member whom Ciaramella had “reached out to” for “guidance” before submitting his complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson.

Sperry writes:

The coordination between the official believed to be the whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of the “patriotism” of an “apolitical civil servant.”

Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and Misko, close friends and Democrats held over from the Obama administration, discussing how to “take out,” or remove, the new president from office within days of Trump’s inauguration. These co-workers said the president’s controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking for.

[….]

Source 1 said, “They were popping off about how they were going to remove Trump from office. No joke.”

[….]

He had also heard Ciaramella tell Misko, “‘We can’t let him enact this foreign policy.’“

Source 2 said he reported what he’d overheard to his superiors. “It was so shocking that they were so blatant and outspoken about their opinion,” he recalled. “They weren’t shouting it, but they didn’t seem to feel the need to hide it.”

The co-workers, [sources 1 and 2] didn’t think much more about the incident…..

Schiff Caught Lying… AGAIN! (UPDATED!)

Published by Papa Giorgio

The below is hilarious — why!? — because Schiff called Nunes’ work lies since he put the memo out detailing the abuses of the FBI to the FISA Court. The IG Report said almost the same thing as Nunes has been saying this WHOLE TIME! In fact, on MSNBC we can see (July of 2018) Schiff knowingly lying!

UPDATES
HATRED OF NUNES

ACE OF SPADES is the author of compiling the below… read it all:

“Do you think he’ll get called on the carpet by anybody who has been following this story for two years?” Bream asked.

“Well, one of the wonders, to me, of modern media is the failure of my colleagues in this business to see through this guy Schiff,” Hume said. “He has been dishonest repeatedly. He made extravagant claims about the amount of evidence he had of Russia collusion, evidence that it turned out that not even the Mueller team with all of its investigative powers did not discover and that he, Schiff, never specified. Of course the report came out and basically blew up this whole Russia collusion theory.

“Now comes this whole question of FISA abuse and he’s still telling whoppers about that. It’s amazing that he isn’t called out. And then of course he gets tapped by Nancy Pelosi to lead the impeachment inquiry. Wow!”

Schiff isn’t the only person who owes apologies to Devin Nunes and anyone who believed his lies — many NeverTrumpers also swore up and down that Devin Nunes was a liar (and that Adam Schiff was truthful), but refuse to acknowledge this, retract prior claims, and explain what partisan fury caused them to get so many things so wrong for so long.

Below, some flashbacks of the media denouncing Devin Nunes, first in reaction to his press conference announcing FISA abuse, then in reaction to his memo documenting this abuse.

Which the NeverTrumpers all denied, along with their ally Adam Schiff.

Democrat Shenanigans (Conservative Media’s Windfall)

Published by Papa Giorgio

In a conversation on FACEBOOK I said the following for a point #2 out of three… I thought it worthwhile to pass along as a point others can use it in conversation:

More Facebook Meanderings

SECOND. This is the entire issue regarding our Intelligence agencies… They abused the FISA Court warrant process. I was told that the Steele Dossier was only a small part of the warrant. For two years by Brennan, Clapper, Comey, McCabe, Rosenstein, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NPR, etc-etc. (BTW, the names represent Intel, the CIA, and the FBI). Turns out it was literally the only thing use as John Solomon, Kimberly Strassel, Sara Carter, Sean Hannity, Mollie Hemingway, Chuck Ross, Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc — said.

The funny thing about this is for two years I have said that there will be some RICH people out of this. I have said for two years Flynn’s case will be ultimately thrown out. Carter Page is already setting up a large lawsuit.

(Here is a quick excerpt from a previous Facebook discussion)

Just a quick note here. The four U.S. citizens spied on by the government we’ll have a great case to make in court to sue set government (during the whole Russian Collusion conspiracy against Trump). So not only did the original investigation cost many millions of dollars, it is possible that many millions more is going to be doled out.

Now… Adam Schiff has himself (against proper procedure) gone and gotten metadata from phone companies and then matched it up with journalist an opposing political persons phones. Without a warrant. I assume another criminal case will start around this… And, much like the other case millions of dollars may be doled out to these individuals who had their metadata illegally seized by the government.

BY THE WAY, you can read here “Democrats” when I say government. Ultimately all the taxpayers will have to — and have paid for it. But these incurred cost come by way of Democrats alone. (As well as never Trumper’s)

(I also noted two-years ago that if police were to fraudulently come into a home using fake warrants, when the judge found out the case was based on them, would vacate the original warrants and throw the entire case before the court out…. So too Barr may descend the original warrants which would mean all the cases based on them would be overturned. So whether one thought that Manafort was a dirty SOB and deserved jail. It wouldn’t matter.)

NOW, the general public has seen Fox News as the only news org showing what the IG REPORT said, alongside the rest of the names I named. Much like the dirty warrants overturning cases (even if people are truly dirty)… So too has the Left emboldened media people they dispose as being the only truth tellers on important issues — at least in a growing segment of the public.

In other words, not only did Democrats with TDS reelect Trump. They increased the audience to sources of news they despise [who were correct in their summation of the whole “FISA/Russia” thing].

Here are some posts of mine detailing the failure of our “Intel community” (like the Intel community should be spying on an American candidate and later a President, rather than giving him defensive briefings)

Some More Commentary On IG Related Stuff

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Hat-Tip to OK BOOMER) Trey Gowdy shares his biggest takeaways from the DOJ Inspector General’s FISA abuse report on ‘The Story with Martha MacCallum.’

The next article is thanks to AMERICAN GREATNESS: “Ratcliffe: Dems Withholding Transcript That Reveals How ‘Whistleblower Got Caught With Chairman Schiff’”

…Ratcliffe pointed out that Democrats keep using the word “demand” do describe Trump’s suggestion to the Ukraine president that corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden should be looked into.

“Guess which word isn’t anywhere in the transcript?” Ratcliffe asked before informing the committee that the word is “demand.”

“Nowhere in that transcript does the president make a ‘demand,’” he declared. “Do you know where the word ‘demand’ came from? It came from the whistleblower.  That’s the first time we heard the word demand,” Ratcliffe explained.

When he notified the Inspector General for the Intelligence Community, he said President Trump made a demand! He thought he could do that because he thought no one would ever be able to prove that because what president would take the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript with a foreign leader. This president did! Something that the whistleblower never expected.

President Trump, we keep hearing, got caught. President Trump, we keep hearing, is obstructing justice. The president that took the unprecedented step of releasing a transcript so that everyone could see the truth is not obstructing congress. The president didn’t get caught. The whistleblower got caught. The whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got caught with Chairman Schiff!

Ratcliffe noted that rather than run the impeachment inquiry out of the House Judiciary where it belonged, Democrats put the highly conflicted chairman of the Intelligence Committee in charge of the case.

“The person who got caught with the whistleblower!” Ratcliffe exclaimed.

The Texas Republican recalled how Schiff had initially denied having any contact with the anti-Trump complainant identified online as Eric Ciaramella (seen below shaking hands with former president Barack Obama).

[….]

When questioned by Ratcliffe during his closed door testimony on October 4, Atkinson revealed information about a potential link between Schiff or his staff and the whistleblower.

Responding to a question about the transcript on Twitter last month, Ratcliffe said: “It’s because I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower. The transcript is classified ‘secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions.”

This article excerpt comes by way of RED STATE: “Kimberley Strassel: ‘Buried in the IG Report is a Line that Poses an Enormous Question, Central to Everything’”

On Wednesday evening, the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel noticed something peculiar in the IG report and posed a question via a twitter thread:

Buried in the IG report is a line that poses an enormous question, one that is central to everything, and really must be answered. Remember: According to all relevant players, prior to July of 2016, nobody had a Trump-Russia collusion narrative on their minds.

Indeed, the FBI says it was only the Downer tip-off at end-July that spurred the investigation. Downer for his part says it was public revelation in July of the DNC hack that caused him to finally wonder about collusion and connect his spring conversation with Papadopoulos.

Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson, meanwhile, in Senate testimony, “stress[ed]” he hired Steele in May to look at Trump’s “business activities” in Russia….By Simpson’s telling (under penalty of perjury), Steele just sort of stumbled on this much “broader” “political conspiracy.”

But here is what Steele told the IG: That in May 2016, Simpson approached Steele to “assist in determining Russia’s actions related to the 2016 election”; “whether Russia was trying to achieve a particular election outcome”; and…

“whether there were any ties between the Russian government and Trump and his campaign.” (Page 93) Seems Simpson had a pretty good bead on the “narrative” long before the govt. claims to have had it and before even his own source had reported it to him. Huh.

Let’s hope Attorney John Durham provides some answers on who exactly knew what in the spring of 2016.

The answer could be that Glenn Simpson and his wife, Mary Jacoby, wrote the script a long time ago.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) appeared on Fox News’  “Hannity” in the spring to discuss the origins of the Steele dossier. He said it should really be called the “Simpson” dossier. Although Christopher Steele likely contributed “stories” to the dossier, and his years of experience in British intelligence lent credence to the document, Nunes said he believed that Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson may actually have written the majority of it.

[….]

Simpson hired Christopher Steele in June 2016. According to Smith, Steele had been “identified as a British spy in 1999.” He had been chief of the “Russia desk when Russian assassins killed FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko in London and was hardly in a position to make discreet inquiries. Still, Simpson must have thought Steele’s name at a minimum would be useful in marketing whatever his firm pulled together. Reportedly, Steele had a good relationship with the FBI, and journalists love spies who spill secrets.”

IG Report Slams FBI and Others (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

JUMP to the FACEBOOK CONVO | JUMP to DAVID FRENCH

During that December 2018 hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy posed this question to Comey: “Late July of 2016, the FBI did, in fact, open a counterintelligence investigation into, is it fair to say the Trump campaign or Donald Trump himself?”

“It’s not fair to say either of those things, in my recollection,” Comey retorted. “We opened investigations on four Americans to see if there was any connection between those four Americans and the Russian interference efforts. And those four Americans did not include the candidate.”

[….]

So, not only did the Obama administration’s FBI target the Trump campaign in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, but they used an intelligence briefing of candidate Trump to gather “evidence,” and even memorialized Trump’s comments in official FBI documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Nonetheless, Comey lied to Americans in order to keep up the appearance that the Steele dossier was in some way legitimate or that he was unaware of it’s illegitimacy.

The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).

An example of a lie by ADAM SCHIFF, which he KNEW was a lie when he said it:

FBI and officials did not “abuse” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.

In fact, DOJ and the FBI would have been remiss in their duty to protect the country had they not sought a FISA warrant and repeated renewals to conduct temporary surveillance of Carter Page, someone the FBI assessed to be an agent of the Russian government. DOJ met the rigor, transparency, and evidentiary basis needed to meet probable cause requirement, by demonstrating: contemporaneous evidence of Russia?s election interference;

Christopher Steele’s raw intelligence reporting did not inform the decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016. In fact, the FBI’s closely-held investigative team only received Steele’s reporting in mid-September more than seven weeks later.

(DEF-CON)

An example of a JOHN BRENNAN lie… which he knew was a lie when he said it:

Mr. Gowdy: Do you know if the Bureau ever relied on the Steele dossier as any — as part of any court filings, applications, petitions, pleadings?

Mr. Brennan: I have no awareness.

Mr. Gowdy: Did the CIA rely on it?

Mr. Brennan: No.

Mr. Gowdy: Why not?

Mr. Brennan: Because we — we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community assessment that was done. It was — it was not.

[….]

Except, on Page 179 of the FISA report we find that former FBI Director James Comey told investigators that he remembers being “part of a conversation, maybe more than one conversation, where the topic was how the [Steele] reporting would be integrated, if at all, into the IC assessment.” 

Comey added that Brennan and other officials argued that the Steele dossier was found credible by intelligence community analysts, and that while they did not want to include it in the main body of the ICA, “they thought it was important enough and consistent enough that it ought to be part of the package in some way, and so they had come up with this idea to make an [appendix]. 

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General William Barr spoke to NBC News’ Pete Williams about the findings on the Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the Russia investigation and his criticisms of the FBI.

U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr sits down with the Wall Street Journal to discuss the information released within the IG report on FBI 2016 election surveillance against candidate Trump; and FISA exploitation for use therein.

FACEBOOK MEANDERINGS

As I was driving around today in slow or stopped traffic, I gave my thoughts about what I was hearing today:

Just a quick note here. The four U.S. citizens spied on by the government we’ll have a great case to make in court to sue set government (during the whole Russian Collusion conspiracy against Trump). So not only did the original investigation cost many millions of dollars, it is possible that many millions more is going to be doled out.

Now… Adam Schiff has himself (against proper procedure) gone and gotten metadata from phone companies and then matched it up with journalist an opposing political persons phones. Without a warrant. I assume another criminal case will start around this… And, much like the other case millions of dollars may be doled out to these individuals who had their metadata illegally seized by the government.

BY THE WAY, you can read here “Democrats” when I say government. Ultimately all the taxpayers will have to — and have paid for it. But these incurred cost come by way of Democrats alone. (As well as never Trumper’s)

So two articles of impeachment have been put forward. Bribery was what CNN says was the Crux of the case a few weeks ago. However, remember all the terms changed over time: quid pro quo, to extortion, to bribery, to obstruction of justice. None of these are part of the impeachment articles. One impeachment article is “obstruction of Congress” (read here Democrats). What a joke! I think a bulk of the American voters see through this sham/witch Hunt.

RESPONSE:

After another quick link of mine linked to this REASON.ORG article, a friend said this on Facebook:

IG Report, Chapter 12: Conclusions & Recommendations (p. 411)–CHS refers to “confidential human sources”:

“We did not find any documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the FBI’s decision to conduct these operations. Additionally, we found no evidence that the FBI attempted to place any CHSs within the Trump campaign, recruit members of the Trump campaign as CHSs, or task CHSs to report on the Trump campaign.”

Yes, there were problems with some aspects of FISA, but those issues were later. The investigation began earlier, based on reports from a friendly government that there might be connections between Russia and the Trump campaign. Bottom line: the Trump accusation that this was all a witch hunt with political motives has been debunked.

This was my response[s], and it is solid!

JIM G. — two things, well, three. The first is, Horowitz had no subpoena power. So, for instance, he wanted to interview Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS. Glenn simply declined. In other words, Horowitz had an incomplete picture. (Durham and Barr traveled to Italy and other places to talk to what we [not you] know were players involved in those countries.) That is number one.

Number two… and this is a common sense one. Of all the mistakes documented plus the Woods violation… Why didn’t a single one break in Trump’s favor? In other words, FBI director Wray is putting forward 40-changes to stop this from happening again. (Which wouldn’t have happened is Hillary were elected.) If Director Wray were to say, “wow, that was something from this whole thing that worked well. We should keep that.” Or if half, or even a quarter of the mistakes broke in Trump’s favor, I wouldn’t be skeptical.

And third, remember, the Steele Report (as I said in the past) was almost the exclusive bulk of the info to obtain the FISA warrants. Prior to this multiple voices in the FBI warned against Steele. The CIA warned the FBI NOT to use it. Yet:

…DOJ IG Michael Horowitz, who assumed his position during the Obama administration, and his team reported that “Steele’s handling agent” in the FBI “told us that when Steele provided him with the first election reports in July 2016 and described his engagement with Fusion GPS, it was obvious to him that the request for the research was politically motivated.”

In addition, the “supervisory intelligence analyst who supervised the analytical efforts for the Crossfire Hurricane team (Supervisory Intel Analyst) explained that he also was aware of the potential for political influences on the Steele reporting.”

The Horowitz report explained that the FBI was still able to use the Steele dossier even if it was clear that it contained opposition research connected to the Hillary Clinton campaign….

(PJ-MEDIA)

I also just found out that Horowitz wanted to speak to Comey (supporting point #1). But he couldn’t because Comey didn’t sign back up for his top secret clearance, so he couldn’t be interviewed in depth. Durham has the ability to compel testimony.

ACE OF SPADES has this great

The IG report might have falsely claimed that there was no evidence of political bias in the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, BUT IT FOUND THAT ALL OF DEVIN NUNES’ CLAIMS ABOUT LIES TOLD TO SECURE THE FISA WARRANT WERE TRUE, AND ALL OF ADAM SCHIFF’S COUNTER-CLAIMS WERE FALSE:

The memo from the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reported:

  • A salacious and unverified dossier formed an essential part of the application to secure a warrant against a Trump campaign affiliate named Carter Page. This application failed to reveal that the dossier was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
  • The application cited a Yahoo News article extensively. The story did not corroborate the dossier, and the FBI wrongly claimed Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was not a source for the story.
  • Nellie Ohr, the wife of a high-ranking Justice Department official, also worked on behalf of the Clinton campaign effort. Her husband Bruce Ohr funneled her research into the Department of Justice. Although he admitted that Steele “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” this and the Ohrs’ relationship with the Clinton campaign was concealed from the secret court that grants surveillance warrants.
  • The dossier was “only minimally corroborated” and unverified, according to FBI officials.
  • All of these things were found to be true by the Inspector General Michael Horowitz in his December 9 report. In fact, Horowitz detailed rampant abuse that went far beyond these four items.
  • The Democratic minority on the committee, then led by Rep. Adam Schiff, put out a response memo with competing claims:
  • FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.
  • The DOJ “made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016.”
  • In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information that corroborated Steele’s reporting.
  • The Page FISA warrant allowed the FBI to collect “valuable intelligence.”
  • “Far from ‘omitting’ material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.”
  • The FBI conducted a “rigorous process” to vet Steele’s allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible.
  • Steele’s prior reporting was used in “criminal proceedings.”

Each of these claims were found by Horowitz to be false….

(EMPHASIS ADDED)

DAVID FRENCH FODDER

One of the many nuggets from ACE OF SPADES is this from MSNBC: National Review Writer On Why Nunes Should Step Down (March 2017). In the video from MSNBC we see David French retroactively go down in flames! ALSO:

Suffice it to say, ACE destroys David French and Adam Schiff!

Here is more regarding the IG REPORT with thanks to FLOPPING ACES!

The DOJ Inspector General’s report disclosed a multitude of FISA violations by the FBI. As noted by John Solomon, there were 51 Woods violations and nine false statements made to the FISA Court.

To understand just how shoddy the FBI’s work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report.

Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true.

The Appendix identifies a total of 51 Woods procedure violations from the FISA application the FBI submitted to the court authorizing surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page starting in October 2016.

A whopping nine of those violations fell into the category called: “Supporting document shows that the factual assertion is
inaccurate.”

For those who don’t speak IG parlance, it means the FBI made nine false assertions to the FISA court. In short, what the bureau said was contradicted by the evidence in its official file.

More at the link.

Horowitz also identified 17 “significant errors or omissions” in the FISA application. Among them:

1. Omitted information the FBI had obtained from another U.S. government agency detailing its prior relationship with Page, including that Page had been approved as an “operational contact” for the other agency from 2008 to 2013, and that Page had provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers, one of which overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application;

2. Included a source characterization statement asserting that Steele’s prior reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,” which overstated the significance of Steele’s past reporting and was not approved by Steele’s handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures;

3. Omitted information relevant to the reliability of Person 1, a key Steele sub-source (who was attributed with providing the information in Report 95 and some of the information in Reports 80 and 102 relied upon in the application), namely that (1) Steele himself told members of the Crossfire Hurricane team that Person 1 was a “boaster” and an “egoist” and “may engage in some embellishment” and (2) INFORMATION REDACTED

4. Asserted that the FBI had assessed that Steele did not directly provide to the press information in the September 23 Yahoo News article based on the premise that Steele had told the FBI that he only shared his election-related research with the FBI and Fusion GPS, his client; this premise was incorrect and contradicted by documentation in the Woods File- Steele had told the FBI that he also gave his information to the State Department;

5. Omitted Papadopoulos’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in September 2016 denying that anyone associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia or with outside groups like Wikileaks in the release of emails;

6. Omitted Page’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in August 2016 that Page had “literally never met” or “said one word to” Paul Manafort and that Manafort had not responded to any of Page’s emails; if true, those statements were in tension with claims in Report 95 that Page was participating in a conspiracy with Russia by acting as an intermediary for Manafort on behalf of the Trump campaign; and

7. Included Page’s consensually monitored statements to an FBI CHS in October 2016 that the FBI believed supported its theory that Page was an agent of Russia but omitted other statements Page made that were inconsistent with its theory, including denying having met with Sechin and Divyekin, or even knowing who Divyekin was; if true, those statements contradicted the claims in Report 94 that Page had met secretly with Sechin and Divyekin about future cooperation with Russia and shared derogatory information about candidate Clinton.

Do read the rest. 17 major “mistakes” and not one of them goes Trump’s way.

The FBI knew that the dossier was nearly 100% without substance, but acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe demanded it be used in the ICA. The CIA was reluctant….

(READ IT ALL)

INSTAPUNDIT notes the FBI campaign against Trump is not necessarily new:

And I have noted before the same on my site:

This is the same tactic Andrew Weissmann used on Flynn (WASHINGTON TIMES | THE FEDERALIST)….

UPDATED POST by POWERLINE intros the video for us:

In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in the Wall Street Journal column “Sally Yates’s legacy of injustice at the Department of Justice.”

Howard is one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Among other things, he is a corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur, inventor, and corporate executive.

Howard faced down the government. The jury didn’t think much of the government’s case. It returned with a verdict of acquittal on all charges after a day of deliberations, and that includes the time spent electing a foreman.

Howard’s case is important in its own way. The crimes charged were bogus. The government procured testimony through serious prosecutorial misconduct. The prosecution represented fruit of the poisonous Yates Memo tree. Howard had the resources to fight the government’s case against him and his company, but it exacted an enormous toll. The case cries out for study and reform.

Howard has thus sought to engage prosecutors in discussion of the case in person before professional audiences of lawyers and businessmen for whom it holds immediate relevance. The prosecutors and their superiors in the department have sought to keep Howard from speaking to such audiences. When I wrote the Department of Justice to request its explanation for what it was doing, it declined to comment (a week after I asked the question).

Former Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCarthy was more forthcoming. He called out the Department of Justice’s behavior as “a disgrace.”

The Department of Justice declines to answer to Howard or me but it has at long last responded to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Utah Senator Mike Lee. Senators Grassley and Lee sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein seeking an update on the Justice Department’s inquiry into professional misconduct committed by prosecutors and higher-ups who brought the charges against Howard and have since sought to prevent him from being heard. I posted the Grassley/Lee letter in “Fear & loathing at the DoJ, cont’d.”

In their letter Senators Grassley and Lee noted that “reports suggest a pattern of threatened and actual retribution against defendants and witnesses borne out of the Department’s disappointment with the outcome of a particular case. This not only casts doubt on the Department’s ability to accept the results of judicial proceedings in a professional manner befitting the nation’s preeminent law enforcement agency, but it significantly undermines our confidence in its commitment to hold government attorneys accountable for questionable actions that may have occurred in the course of this case or other cases.” …..

Dems and the Media Had Their Asses Handed To Them (Day 4)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I listened to almost all of Sondland’s early testimony while out dropping deliveries off for work. I thought to myself, “wow, that sounds pretty bad.” I got back from my morning deliveries, loaded up the van, and by the time I was on the road… the earlier testimony was destroyed and the media was eating crow. Here is an example of the frothiness of the reporting via NEWSBUSTERS:

So SCHIFF ran out to the reporters and gave a “got em'” speech. Except… the Republicans hadn’t yet examined the witnesses… that was a problem — and really made my day. Here is Rep. Michael Turner’s cross examination of Gordon Sondland:

Hahahaha… what just happened!? Not only that… Ambassador Sondland told Schifty Schiff something that obliterated Schiff’s “half-time ‘book em’ Dano’” speech (GATEWAY PUNDIT):

TO BE CLEAR, here is a montage of his denials:

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=546309769481492″ width=”690″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”0″]

 

RIGHT SCOOP has these videos in a post:

…Sondland also testified that he never heard Trump link aid to the investigations:

Swallwell at least got Sondland to laugh… at the line of questioning. Damn the GOP are smart MF’ers comparatively.

JIM JORDAN

TRUMP noted the obvious!

Dems Had Their Asses Handed To Them (Day 3)

Published by Papa Giorgio

In the fight between left vs right, Democrats vs Republicans, progressives vs conservatives, the sides are clear. The motives are clear. One side will say what they believe helps them the most and hurts their opponents at the same time. It may be ugly, but it’s honest (at least in their intentions if not in substance).

On Tuesday, Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) laid out the Republican case against impeachment in his opening statement as the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. In his statement, he did as most expected and attacked the Democrats’ case, but the real meat and potatoes from his statement came in the form of attacks against mainstream media. (NOQ REPORT)

Rep. John Ratcliffe, notes that Democrats have called Trump’s conduct “bribery” and then pulls out a mountain of papers of deposition transcripts. He says at no point have witnesses described his conduct as “bribery” in the last six weeks. He says the word appears only once — and that’s in relation to former Vice President Joe Biden’s alleged conduct.

LEGAL INSURRECTION — Rep Elise Stefanik!

OTHER VIDEOS

RIGHT SCOOP:

Here’s a few notable clips from this evening’s hearing, the first of which is both Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker agreeing that Zelensky had no idea that the Ukraine ad was being held up at the time of the July 25th phone call…

Volker also testified that there was no quid pro quo or ‘bribery’, as they are now calling it:

And finally, Morrison, who was listening in on the July 25th phone call between Trump and Zelensky says nothing concerned him about the call:

RIGHT SCOOP: