Biden denied mental incompetence. “I know what the hell I’m doing,” he proclaimed at the event. His memory is fine. The windmills of his mind are spinning in good order. His confusion of the president of Egypt with the president of Mexico tended to belie his assertion. (POWERLINE | RED STATE | TWITCHY [Techno-Fog])
It’s not conspiracy to ask questions about Biden’s “mistakes” (more at RIGHT SCOOP):
Here is a challenge regarding this video from a comment on my site’s Facebook Page:
SUE F. SAID
Like Trump is any better, Trump has days where he believes that he beat Obama in 2016. They’re both old & mentally declining…check yourself!
I respond (with an EXTRAaddition here, at the end). For those unaware, POST MILLENNIAL’s headline and sub-title explain:
BREAKING: Biden’s DOJ says evidence shows President ‘willfully’ withheld classified docs—but he will not be prosecuted: The special counsel’s report said Biden’s memory “was significantly limited” during the 2023 interviews with Hur
SUE F.,I wish to note that the DOJ has agreed with me and not with you. What do I mean? Here is a Tweet and a pic of the official report:
they [DOJ] said he [Biden] was too old and decrepit [memory loss] in 2015 for a jury to think he could have knowingly and willingly done these actions [kept top secret documents].
Are they dropping the same charges against Trump for the same reasons? No. You want to know why? Because he [Trump] has a good grasp on reality and a good memory. Trump doesn’t “Spins Yarns That Often Unravel” – as the New York Times says of Biden. Like,
Taught Classes At The University Of Pennsylvania;
Visited Ground Zero Day After 9/11;
Half his House ‘Almost Collapsed’ After a Fire;
House Burn Down with My Wife In It — She Got Out Safely;
Claims He Convinced Strom Thurmond To Support The Civil Rights Act;
He Began Career as Civil Rights Activist;
Saw Pittsburgh Bridge Collapse;
Ended Cancer;
Appointed To The [U.S. Naval] Academy In 1965;
Son Died in Iraq;
He Formed the Quad Alliance;
Born in the Same Hospital Where His Grandfather Died;
Was ‘Involved’ in Civil Rights Movement;
Went to a Black Church as a Teen;
Biden Says He Attended HBCU;
Biden Claims He Has Cancer (“That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up [with] have cancer”);
Wrote Law Review Articles About Right to Privacy (claimed he had written “a number of law review articles” about the right to privacy referenced in the now-overturned Roe v. Wade decision)
Was A ‘Full Professor’ At The University Of Pennsylvania;
Grandfather Died In The Hospital I Was Born In Six Days Before He Was Born;
Offered A Job by An Idaho Lumber Company;
Used To Drive An 18-Wheeler;
Visited Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue After The 2018 Massacre;
Chatted With an Amtrak Conductor in His Seventh Year As Vice President, When The Guy Retired 15 Years Before;
Detained By South African Authorities While Trying To Visit Nelson Mandela In Prison In The 1970s.
Etc., Etc., Etc. I left out the many political lies because all politicians try to spin the economy, inflation, debt, etc. I chose those because they are lies that show cognitive dissonance. Even after staff telling him to zip it this stuff never happened, he told some again months down the road.
Prosecutors Decline To Charge ‘Elderly’ Biden Over ‘Poor Memory’ (FEDERALIST)
Hur’s Report: Biden Ready For Memory Care (POWERLINE)
Special Counsel Finds Biden Is Too Damn Old to Be Charged in Classified Docs Scandal (PJ-MEDIA)
Biden Lawyers Demand Revisions to Hur Report, Claim Descriptions of His ‘Limited Recall’ Are Inflammatory (RED STATE)
WH Lawyers Sent Special Counsel This Letter Asking Him to Revise the ‘Biden’s Senile’ Section (TWITCHY)
BREAKING: White House demanded Special Counsel CHANGE his report over Biden’s mental fitness (RIGHT SCOOP)
‘Well-Meaning Elderly Man’: Republicans Seize On Biden Memory Issues Detailed In Hur Report (WASHINGTON TIMES)
SUE F. COUNTERS:
I’m not part of your brainwashed propaganda group here, the weak minded grasp on to leaders like you & Trump. Trumps mind has been mentally declining due to the stress of losing his trials & millions, but he thanks people like you for paying his legal fees. A billionaire panhandling the weak for jingle… you just gotta love it! Be sure to donate to him…
I RESPOND:
Perfect ad hominem attack. I would expect no different from either an atheist activist or a progressive one.
EXTRA!
Just a little leaven to deflate SUE F.’S argument:
A cut and spliced clip. Why am I not surprised by you pathetic losers. It about the same shitty quality as the photoshopped video of Lauren Boebert.
What was actually said. He was talking about beating the Obama division by beating Hillary and even went on to say how he has changed what he calls Hillary as Joe Biden now has the “crooked” nickname. pic.twitter.com/KvpBEYQNSI
Government Agent Whose Altered Email Enabled the Russia Hoax Won’t Spend a Day in Jail or Pay Any Fine
The Russia hoax undermined a duly elected president and continues to divide the nation. But one of the key figures who abused the trust of the people will not face prison time, reports Fox News.
Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was sentenced to 12 months probation and 400 hours of community service Friday after pleading guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe.
That false statement had major consequences. The altered email cast suspicion on Page and thereby Trump, and created a false justification to wiretap Page.
[….]
What about the abuse of trust, the destruction of the FBI’s reputation, undermining the FISA court system, and the Russia hoax Clinesmith enabled and which still infects millions of American minds to this day?
“Altering the email has forever changed the course of my life,” Clinesmith said. “I have lost the means to provide for my growing family…lost the ability to give back to my nation… the shame and remorse will stay with me forever.”
The Trump presidency was not allowed to get off to anything like a normal start and was undermined by this case for most of its four years. Trump never truly overcame it despite being exonerated by the Mueller report, which found no American anywhere colluded with the Russians to impact the 2016 election.
Politico reports the prosecutors wanted Clinesmith to spend time in jail.
While prosecutors urged the judge to send Clinesmith to prison to send a message to others in government not to try something similar, Boasberg said he believed that message had already been sent.
Another message has been sent. Clinesmith will be the only Russia hoax figure prosecuted and he need not worry. Some left-wing foundation will give him a do-nothing job before long. Or CNN or MSNBC will give him an on-air analyst role.
POLITICO noted the judge saying “he believed that message had already been sent.” I doubt anyone in my own family — bedsides me and my boys and wife — knows that the Russian Collusion case has been shown to be a hoax. These are like retractions in a paper… front-page headlines splash the New York Times or the Washington Post, and then a month later a retraction is given on D3… which no one sees… so they think the headlines are still true. Trump was correct when referring to it as a witch hunt.
Recent declassified documents do not add information to the issue, they merely show that the above authors of books and columns to be 100% vindicated!
People making decisions based off of the NYTs, CNN, NPR, ABC, NBC, CBS, Washington Post, MSNBC, and the like… were LIED to for 3-years. The result?
Gallup Poll Shows 78% Of Democrats Mistakenly Believe Russia Changed Election Results
Not one intelligence agency or even Obama’s head of the Homeland Security Dept has supported that. I bet a lot of people (I would say almost all except for my sons) know the following:
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…. [RPT addition: about 50 were pro-Hillary]
Democrats and “Republicans” just continue to believe nonsense based on some late-night talk show comedians and CNN/NPR. (I say “Republicans” because many who claim to be “Reagan Republicans” would today think his favorite publication [HUMAM EVENTS] is for white supremacists.) The L.A. Times use to carry columns by Dennis Prager and other conservative thinkers. No more are they carried by the paper.
Frankly, it’s sad. And dangerous… they are ripe to believe BIG LIES about Republicans and Trump.
Poll: 61 Percent of Democrats Say Republicans Are ‘Racist,’ ‘Bigoted,’ ‘Sexist’ (2016)
49% of Democrats think Trump voters are racist…. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of self-described political liberals believe those who vote for Trump are racist. (2019)
86% of Democrats think Trump is a racist
How do you make headway with these corporate news feeders of CNN/MSNBC?? I imagine Trump gaining in almost every major demographic means nothing to them? Trump gained more in these categories than in 2016…
Male Hispanics;
Female Hispanics;
Male Blacks;
Female Blacks;
Female Whites.
The only category he lost numbers in since 2016 were white males. Like I say, Trump needs to go back to racism school. But the tactics of the Left have not changed a bit… just more people truly believe it. And they expect us to be civil, and unite — exactly when did Democrats practice the “civility” to which they wish to return?….
When Barry Goldwater accepted the 1964 Republican nomination, California’s Democratic Gov. Pat Brown said, “The stench of fascism is in the air.”
Former Rep. William Clay Sr., D-Mo., said President Ronald Reagan was “trying to replace the Bill of Rights with fascist precepts lifted verbatim from ‘Mein Kampf.'”
Coretta Scott King, in 1980, said, “I am scared that if Ronald Reagan gets into office, we are going to see more of the Ku Klux Klan and a resurgence of the Nazi Party.”
After Republicans took control of the House in the mid-’90s, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., compared the newly conservative-majority House to “the Duma and the Reichstag,” referring to the legislature set up by Czar Nicholas II of Russia and the parliament of the German Weimar Republic that brought Hitler to power.
About President George Herbert Walker Bush, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said: “I believe (Bush) is a racist for many, many reasons. … (He’s) a mean-spirited man who has no care or concern about what happens to the African American community. … I truly believe that.”
About the Republican-controlled House, longtime Harlem Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel, in 1994, said: “It’s not ‘s—-‘ or ‘n——-‘ anymore. (Republicans) say, ‘Let’s cut taxes.'” A decade later, Rangel said, “George (W.) Bush is our Bull Connor,” referring to the Birmingham, Alabama, Democrat segregationist superintendent of public safety who sicced dogs and turned fire hoses on civil rights workers.
Donna Brazile, Al Gore’s presidential campaign manager, in 1999, said: Republicans have a “white boy attitude, (which means) ‘I must exclude, denigrate and leave behind.’ They don’t see it or think about it. It’s a culture.” The following year, Brazile said: “The Republicans bring out Colin Powell and (Rep.) J.C. Watts, (R-Okla.), because they have no program, no policy. … They’d rather take pictures with Black children than feed them.”
About President George W. Bush, former Vice President Al Gore said: “(Bush’s) executive branch has made it a practice to try and control and intimidate news organizations, from PBS to CBS to Newsweek. … And every day, they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President.” Digital “brownshirts”?
About George W. Bush, George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor, said: “The Bush administration and the Nazi and communist regimes all engaged in the politics of fear. … Indeed, the Bush administration has been able to improve on the techniques used by the Nazi and communist propaganda machines.”
Former NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, in a 2006 speech at historically Black Fayetteville State University said, “The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side.”
Former Gov. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee in 2005, described the contest between Democrats and Republicans as “a struggle between good and evil. And we’re the good.” Three years later, Dean referred to the GOP as “the white party.”
After Hurricane Katrina, Democratic Missouri Senate candidate Claire McCaskill said George W. Bush “let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were Black.”
Feminist superlawyer Gloria Allred, in 2001, referred to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as “Uncle Tom types.”
Then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, in 2006, said, “The (Republican-controlled) House of Representatives … has been run like a plantation. And you know what I’m talking about.”
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic National Committee chairwoman in 2011, said “Republicans … want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.”……
I bet almost all of my family believes Trump mocked a disabled man’s handicap; think that when he said “there are fine people on both sides” he was saying there were “fine Nazis or white supremacists;” or think that racists and white supremacists have voted Republican in general; or that the bodies natural defenses in immunity are non-existent and only “vaccines” can bring immunity.
These are dangerous lies to believe.
Here is more regarding the latest declassified documents… one of the biggest lies the media has pushed in it’s life
The First Trump Declassified “Russia Document” Christopher Steele’s 2017 Confession To The FBI — Steele told FBI he leaked Russia collusion story to help Clinton and Great Britain, and was connected to his primary dossier source by former NSC staffer and impeachment witness Fiona Hill. (JUST THE NEWS)
….The FBI report of an interview agents conducted with Steele in September 2017, nearly a year after he had been terminated as an informant, provided explosive information about his motives in working simultaneously for the FBI and the opposition research firm for Clinton’s campaign. The document was obtained by Just the News and at times reads like a confession from the now-infamous former MI6 agent and author of the anti-Trump dossier.
Steele told agents that then-FBI Director James Comey’s decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation in fall of 2016 became his tipping point for leaking the anti-Trump collusion research that his company Orbis Intelligence had gathered and given to the FBI.
“STEELE explained that as the election season went on, they as a company were riding two horses — their client and the FBI — and after FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of the Hillary Clinton investigation, they had to pick one horse and chose the business client relationship over the relationship with the FBI,” the interview report stated.
“They followed what their client wanted, and they spoke to the press,” the report noted.
Steele and his partner Christopher Burrows even suggested the FBI deserved some of the blame for the decision to leak to the news media and Sen. John McCain’s office.
“STEELE and BURROWS described the overall situation as being one where it was ‘your [FBI] fault’ and ‘our fault,'” the memo reported, adding that Burrows was also upset the FBI had not paid Steele for his anti-Trump work.
The two British citizens told the FBI that concerns about the impact of a Trump presidency also motivated them…..
Mainstream Media before Trump was President and immediately when he set foot into the Oval Office was creating false stories about him. For instance, MLK’s Bust story an hour after Trump was elected: “On the evening of January 20, TIME White House correspondent Zeke Miller incorrectly reported that the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. had been removed from the Oval Office.” Most major news outlets carried it right away, and this was the beginning of 16 fake stories by early February that people ate up: Hence #FakeNews
The same people lapped up the phony Russia investigation, helping push the false narrative of Democrats for almost 3-years:
…McCabe’s own notes from the May 16, 2017 meeting don’t mention that Rosenstein had been discussing firing Comey since January. But five days later in a new meeting, McCabe quoted Rosenstein as confirming the termination had been in the works for months and was not really driven by the Russia probe…. (Obstruction Boomerang: FBI Knew DOJ Was Preparing To Fire Comey Long Before Trump Ordered It)
People who believed in this stuff and made decisions based on it ARE the problem with our body-politic. More than Trump. Spreading lies that were bigger than Obama’s Iran Deal thingy and bigger than any Trump lie. Seditious lies cooked up by Hillary in 2016.
This first video is the opening statement by Sen. Graham. And it is important because he details the bias of agents and others involved in the case against Trump and his campaign:
What followed by Lindsey Graham was an excellent Q&A, which I detail a few parts of:
Here is the transcript of a few spots:
Sen. Graham (2:58): “There are five people in that interview, right?”
IG Horowitz (3:01): “Correct”
[….]
Sen. Graham (3:09): “Did they have a duty to report to their supervisors and eventually to the court this [ex]sculpatory information?”
IG Horowitz (3:16): “Absolutely”
Sen. Graham (3:17): “They did not”
IG Horowitz (3:18): “They did not”
Sen. Graham (3:19): “Why”
IG Horowitz (3:20): “That’s the question, um, I can’t specifically answer for you”
Sen. Graham (3:25): “Can you it wasn’t because of political bias?”
IG Horowitz (3:28): “On decisions regarding those FISA matters, I do not know their state of mind at this point.”
[….]
Sen. Graham (11:33): “Would you have submitted the warrant application as a lawyer?”
IG Horowitz (11:38): “Let me put it this way, I would not have submitted the one the put in… no doubt about it it had no business going in with that…” (audio trail off, Sen. Graham continues)
Sen. Graham (11:45): “So what I want you to know is that in January 2017 the whole foundation for surveilling Carter Page collapses. Exculpatory information is ignored. They lie to the [FISA] court about what the interview was all about – is that a fair summary so far?…”
IG Horowitz (12:05): “Um… I’ll ahh… they certainly misled the… [stammering] … it was misleading to the [FISA] court.”
Sen. Graham (12:12): “Okay. Fair enough. And in January – about six months later – when they find more information that could be helpful to Mr. Page, they lie about it. You feel like MR. Page was fairly treated by the Department of Justice and the FBI?”
IG Horowitz (12:27): “Um… I don’t think the Department of Justice fairly treated these FISAs, and he was on the receiving end of them.”
Sen. Graham (12:32): “You would not want to be on the receiving end of this, would you?”
IG Horowitz (12:35): “I would not want agents or anybody failing to put forward all the information their obligated to tell the [FISA] court…”
Graham’s closing statement as well is worth while:
BOOM! Remember that Russian lawyer that had the meeting in the Trump Tower? Natalia Veselnitskaya? Well, much like Mark Levin and Dan Bongino have been saying (with examples), much of the people involved in this drama are in fact “conveniently” at the right places at the right time. Like Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, and Stefan Halper around Papadopoulos (SPYGATE via BONGINO). So too do we see Natalia Veselnitskaya being inserted into the story with prior contacts with FUSION-GPS AND THE FBI. Here is the latest on this spy novel via SEBASTIAN GORKAand SARA CARTER.
…HERE’S ANOTHER ONE. The New York Times — which considers itself a bastion of journalism but whose work of late was questioned by its former editor — wrote a story this week on the federal obstruction-of-justice indictment of Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.
The Times connected the indictment’s information about Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Kremlin and her role in a now infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with the president’s son, Donald Jr., and then-Trump presidential campaign manager Paul Manafort.
What the Times omitted, however, was that Veselnitskaya also was working at the same time with Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, the opposition-research firm that hired Steele to produce his dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
If Veselnitskaya’s ties to the Kremlin were important to mention for her Trump meeting, then why wouldn’t they be just as important to the guys who helped create the dossier that spurred the Russia probe?
Seems to me that selective editing and cherry-picking did not serve the reader well.
And there’s more paradigm-changing facts excluded from the Times story. Veselnitskaya managed to get into the U.S. because the Obama administration originally gave her a special parole visa.
Hmmm. The lawyer who sets up the Trump Tower meeting gets her original entry to the United States based on a special act by the Obama Justice Department. Seems relevant but, once again, absent from the story.
MY THIRD favorite omission of the week comes from the media’s coverage of the secret court filing made by Manafort’s lawyers. It turned out not to be so secret because its redactions were made public by a technical glitch.
Countless news organizations concentrated on the fact that Mueller believes Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with a man in his firm named Konstantin Kilimnik, whom prosecutors claim is tied to Russian intelligence.
But omitted from those stories was the fact that U.S. intelligence first learned of Kilimnik’s ties to Russia intelligence more than a decade ago and warned then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in 2005 as he prepared to run for president and was involved in a group that hired Kilimnik.
McCain dismissed the suspected Russian-tied man from the group. I know this because McCain told it to me personally in 2007 and his longtime adviser, John Weaver, re-confirmed it to me in 2017.
Here’s why that omission is relevant: If U.S. intelligence knew long ago of Kilimnik’s ties to Russia, and the George W. Bush intelligence apparatus warned a presidential contender in 2005, why didn’t the Barack Obamaintelligence community do the same in 2016 when Kilimnik’s colleague, Manafort, joined the Trump campaign as chairman?
Unfortunately, readers didn’t get to ask that question because they were kept in the dark….
And HUGH HEWITT covers the latest via John Sololmon of THE HILL.
Hugh Hewitt references and reads from the following articles to make the point clear that the FBI and DOJ (the proverbial 7th floor – top echelon) were acting politically and not legally. I will add a story from each of the authors as well):
The EPOCH TIMES has a short quick listing of firings, retirements, and “changed assignments” in the FBI and DOJ. HOWEVER, a larger ~ more in-depth ~ list that I will only post a small portion of here includes Clinton acolytes and the law firm used, Perkins Coie. GREAT STUFF via THEMARKETSWORK (also see his latest postings HERE):
Resignations/Firings – Department of Justice (Non-FBI):
John Carlin – Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division – announced resignation on September 27, 2016 after filing the Government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on September 26, 2016. The filing does not disclose known FISA Abuses. Carlin is aware NSA Rogers is conducting a compliance review which will uncover the FISA Abuse. The 2016 certifications are scheduled for Court approval on October 26, 2016. Trump surveillance originated under Carlin’s tenure.
Sally Yates – Deputy Attorney General & Acting Attorney General (replacing Loretta Lynch – 10 days) – fired January 30, 2017. Complicit in Flynn Surveillance and surveillance of Trump Campaign.
Mary McCord – Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division (replacing John Carlin) – announced resignation on April 17, 2017 – Left on May 11, 2017. Complicit in Flynn Surveillance and surveillance of Trump Campaign.
Peter Kadzik – Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs. Resigned January 2017. On May 19, 2015, Kadzik sent Podesta an email appearing to tip off Clinton Campaign about the Justice Department’s review of Clinton’s emails.
Bruce Ohr – Former Associate Deputy Attorney General. Ohr was demoted twice. Stripped of Associate Deputy Attorney General title on December 6, 2017. Removed as head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force January 8, 2018. Unofficial liaison between Fusion GPS and FBI/DOJ. Wife – Nellie Ohr – worked at Fusion. Long-standing ties to both Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS. Simpson and Bruce & Nellie Ohr have known each other since at least 2010. Ohr has been describedas a long-time friend of Steele with a relationship going back to at least 2006 (includes Ohr’s wife Nellie). Ohr texted and emailed extensively with Steele beginning in January 2016 (likely started earlier). See here, here and here. Oleg Deripaska was discussed in emails between Ohr and Steele. Ohr appears to have a significant role in Dossier creation – see here and here.
David Laufman – DOJ National Security Division, Deputy Asst. Attorney General in charge of counterintelligence – resigned on February 7, 2018. Laufman “played a leading role in the Clinton email server and Russian hacking investigations.”
Rachel Brand – Associate Attorney General – number three official behind Deputy AG Rosenstein – resigned February 9, 2018. Takes top legal position at Walmart. Brand “played a critical role in Congress’ re-authorization” of section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Matthew Axelrod – Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General. May have been individual who had phone call with Deputy FBI Director McCabe re: Clinton Foundation. From IG McCabe Report: “A senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. The Justice Department official was “very pissed off,” according to one person close to McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant…” Axelrod resigned on January 30, 2017 when AG Sally Yates was fired.
Preet Bharara – U.S. District Attorney. Involved in Prevezon Case. Used as threat by AG Lynch re: Weiner email/Clinton email case. Fired by President Trump on March 11, 2017.
Resignations/Firings – FBI:
James Comey – FBI Director – fired May 9, 2017. Oversaw all FBI operations – including exoneration of Clinton and Trump-Russia Investigation. Reported to AG Lynch.
Andrew McCabe – Deputy FBI Director – on December 23, 2017 announced retirement effective March 22, 2018. Forced to resign active position on January 29, 2018. Fired on March 16, 2018. Involved in all aspects. Subject of IG Report – will be featured in future ones. Reported to Comey.
Peter Strzok – Deputy Assistant Director of FBI’s Counterintelligence – forced off Mueller’s team – demoted August 16, 2017 to FBI’s Human Resources. IG Horowitz discovered texts July 27, 2017. Strzok involved in all facets of Clinton exoneration. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group. Strzok was fired on August 13, 2018.
Lisa Page – FBI/DOJ Lawyer – forced off Mueller’s team – demoted August 16, 2017. IG Horowitz discovered texts July 27, 2017. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group. Page resigned/fired May 4, 2018.
James Baker – FBI General Counsel – demoted and reassigned on December 20, 2017. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group. Senior-most legal counsel at FBI. Baker resigned/fired May 4, 2018. Took position at Lawfare.
James Rybicki – Chief of Staff to FBI Director James Comey & successor Chris Wray – resigned/forced out January 23, 2018. Working member of “Insurance Policy” group.
Josh Campbell – Special Assistant to James Comey – resigned on February 2, 2018. Writes op-ed in New York Times on why he is leaving but does not disclose in op-ed that he was Special Assistant to Comey – or that he had been offered lucrative CNN job. Takes job with CNN on February 5, 2018.
Michael Kortan – FBI Asst. Director Public Affairs – resigned on February 8, 2018 – effective February 15, 2018. Kortan served as assistant director for public affairs, an influential job that controlled media access.
Greg Brower (FBI) – Assistant Director for the Office of Congressional Affairs. FBI’s liaison with Congress. Listed by Devin Nunes as one of the individuals he wants to interview. Resigned suddenly on March 30, 2018.
James Turgal (FBI) – Executive Assistant Director for Information and Technology Branch. Retired from FBI sometime prior to January 9, 2018.
Michael B. Steinbach (FBI) – Executive Assistant Director for the National Security Branch. Was FBI’s top national security official. Some reports state Steinbach replaced John Giacalone who quit over frustration with Clinton Investigation. Other reports say it was McCabe who replaced Giacalone. Steinbach claims to have personally handledthe Clinton Email Investigation. Retired from FBI in February 2017.
Bill Priestap – Assistant Director – Head of FBI Counterintelligence – Holds same position. Strzok’s boss – reported directly to McCabe. More here, here and here.
FBI/DOJ Watch List:
Bruce Ohr is a former Associate Deputy Attorney General. Ohr was demoted twice. Stripped of Associate Deputy Attorney General title on December 6, 2017. Removed as head of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force January 8, 2018. Unofficial liaison between Fusion GPS and FBI/DOJ. Wife – Nellie Ohr – worked at Fusion. Long-standing ties to both Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS. Simpson and Bruce & Nellie Ohr have known each other since at least 2010. Ohr has been describedas a long-time friend of Steele with a relationship going back to at least 2006 (includes Ohr’s wife Nellie). Ohr texted and emailed extensively with Steele beginning in January 2016 (likely started earlier). See here, here and here. Oleg Deripaska was discussed in emails between Ohr and Steele. Ohr appears to have a significant role in Dossier creation – see here and here.
David Bowditch (FBI) – Replaced Andrew McCabe as Acting Deputy FBI Director. Bowditch’s name is featured in emails and Strzok texts.
Sally Moyer (FBI) – Attorney. Listed by Devin Nunes as one of the individuals he wants to interview.
Dana Boente (DOJ/FBI) – FBI General Counsel – Appointed on January 23, 2018 – replacing James Baker who was demoted and reassigned. Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division until January 23, 2018 and the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Replaced Mary McCord in NSD Role. Was briefly Acting Deputy Attorney General until Rosenstein appointed.
Edward O’Callaghan (DOJ) – became Acting Assistant Attorney General and Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division on January 27, 2018, replacing Dana Boente.
Jonathan Moffa (FBI) – Copied on Comey’s Draft Statement exonerating Clinton of Email Scandal. Mentioned in Strzok/Page texts. Surprisingly hard to find any information on Moffa.
Michael Gaeta (FBI) – Ran FBI’s Eurasian organized crime unit in New York. Has known Steele previously. Led the 2013 FBI investigation of Russian mafia boss, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov. For two years ending in 2013, the FBI had a court-approved warrant to eavesdrop on Tokhtakhounov’s money-laundering network that operated out of unit 63A in Trump Tower. Gaeta was the FBI Agent sent to London to meet with Christopher Steele and obtain first copy of Dossier. Gaeta’s trip approved by State’s Victoria Nuland. Gaeta may have given copy of Dossier to Nuland before anyone else.
Joe Pientka – FBI Agent – Counterintelligence Division. Pientka potentially identifiedby Grassley as second FBI Agent (Strzok the other) present at Flynn Interview.
George Toscas – (DOJ) – Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the National Security Division. Toscas contacted by NY Prosecutors (possibly Preet Bharara) about Weiner investigation re: HRC/Huma emails on Weiner computer. Toscas contacts FBI, forcing McCabe to tell Comey of emails.
Randy Coleman (FBI) – Executive Assistant Director, oversight of all FBI domestic and international cyber operations and investigations concerning cyber matters.
Brian Brooks (FBI) – Assistant Director of the Operational Technology Division. Recently promoted by FBI Director Chris Wray.
Tashina Guahar (DOJ) – Deputy Assistant Attorney General. National Security Division. FISA lawyer. Appears in Strzok Texts as “Tash”.
Norman “Christopher” Hardee (DOJ) – Chief Counsel for Policy, National Security Division. FISA lawyer.
Brad Wiegmann (DOJ) – Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division – Office of Law and Policy. FISA lawyer.
John T. Lynch (DOJ) – Chief, Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section – Criminal Division.
Alan Rozenshtein (DOJ) – Attorney Advisor with the Office of Law and Policy in the National Security Division. Resigned April 2017. Visiting professor. Writes for Lawfare.
Iris Lan (DOJ) – Associate Deputy Attorney General. Previously U.S. Attorney at Southern District of New York.
James Tranor (FBI) – Assistant Director of the Cyber Division. Mentioned in Strzok Texts. Retired October 2016.
Bryan Paarman (FBI) – Deputy Assistant Director of Counterterrorism. Mentioned in Strzok texts re: Clinton MYE. Extensive international experience. 2004-2007 Senior FBI representative and accredited diplomat in the US Embassies in Tbilisi, Georgia and Kyiv, Ukraine.
Robert Anderson (FBI) – Former Executive Assistant Director under Mueller. Principal at the Chertoff Group’s global Strategic Advisory Services. Mentioned in Strzok texts re: Clinton MYE.
Stephen Laycock – Special Agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the Washington Field Office. Previously Section Chief of the Eurasia Section in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters.
Charles McGonigal – Special Agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division for the New York Field Office. Previously Section Chief of the Cyber-Counterintelligence Coordination Section at FBI Headquarters.
Gerald Roberts – Special Agent in charge of the Intelligence Division of the Washington Field Office. Previously Section Chief of the Terrorist Financing Operations Section in the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters.
Charles Kable – Special Agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division at the Washington Field Office. Previously Section Chief of the Counterespionage Section at FBI Headquarters.
Louis Bladel – Special Agent in charge of the Counterintelligence Division of the New York Field Office. Previously Section Chief of the Counter-Proliferation Center at FBI Headquarters. Retired 2016.
John Solomon, Sara Carter, and Gregg Jarrett were on Hannity’s radio show yesterday and the latest news about Rod Rosenstein wearing a wire to record the President is the topic de-jure. There seems to be more-and-more damaging information coming out that lays bear just how political the FBI and DOJ have gotten. I INCLUDE the segment from FOX NEWS at the end of the audio from the radio program.
“THE LAST REFUGE” has an excellent article on the subject. Here is the latest from GATEWAY PUNDIT (and remember, those two sites aren’t necessarily my favorite… but these two posts fill in some blanks):
Last week, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC), who previously filed articles of impeachment against Rosenstein, called for the Deputy Attorney General to appear before Congress under oath this week.
But today Rosenstein notified Congress he will not turn over the subpoenaed memos and will not appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday….
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.” …..
“He will have the full authority of a federal prosecutor,” said Richard Painter, former chief ethics attorney for President George W. Bush. “If he looks at this and finds someone in the DOJ lied to a government official, he would be able to convene a grand jury, compel testimony and even prosecute them.”
“The leaks that have been coming out of the FBI and DOJ since 2016 are unconscionable,” said retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano. “There’s a difference between whistleblowing and leaking for self-serving or partisan purposes.”
“Former Obama officials and their press allies can call it a ‘conspiracy theory’ or whatever they want,” a senior U.S. official — familiar with how Obama holdovers and the media jointly targeted Trump figures — told RCI. “But they can’t say it’s not true that former Obama officials were furiously leaking to keep people close to Trump out of the White House.”
People forget that there is a Grand Jury in session and they are hearing about all this (and more) that will surely kick off a second Special Council where criminal proceedings against James Comey, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and others will filter out. AMERICAN THINKER describes the below video thus:
The former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Joe DiGenova, knows what he is talking about when it comes to legal liability, and he has the guts to lay out in straight talk what really happened with the conspiracy to swing a presidential election, cover up the effort, and take out a duly elected president.
Questions surround the work of U.S. Attorney John Huber, who is playing a key role in one of the multiple investigations surrounding President Trump and the Justice Department.
Known as a no-nonsense prosecutor whose primary experience is fighting violent crime, the U.S. attorney for Utah is an appointee of President Obama whose job was saved by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) when Trump asked state attorneys to resign so that he could field a new slate of professionals.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions quietly tapped Huber — apparently last fall — to work in tandem with the Justice Department’s inspector general to determine whether conservative allegations of abuse at the FBI and the Justice Department merit investigation.
It’s an unusual arrangement, and one that fall short of demands from the right that Sessions name a second special counsel. That idea has generated controversy, with critics saying the second appointee would inevitably impede the work of special counsel Robert Mueller….
Remember, both WOODWARD AND STARR said they have not seen COLLUSION in all the evidence and investigating they have done. Also, there is as of yet no evidence of OBSTRUCTION either. Here is CNN and Kenn Starr:
CNN: “Do you think there is a case there?”
STARR: “It’s too soon to tell. From what I’ve seen — and of course we don’t know a whole lot — the answer is no. But it is going to be investigated and so we will soon know.”
“Obstruction of justice is really a very hard crime to make out. It’s not just you want the investigation to go away, you suggest that the investigation goes away. You’ve got to take really affirmative action and Director Comey said in his testimony that even though the expression was hope, he took it as a directive.”
“But what we know is, he didn’t do anything about it, right? That is that he did not dismiss the investigation or curtail the investigation. There’s an expression of hope, so it becomes an interpretation.”
[….]
STARR: “We’re going to the intent of what is it that the President had in mind? He was expressing, his literal language was ‘hope.’ And, I think that redounds to the benefit of the President. That to me, just the language, is far removed from a directive.”
“My point is, the Director of the FBI then didn’t act on that. He rather just continued as before and reported and memorialized it. But he did not then say, ‘ok, ladies and gentlemen of the FBI, we’re getting rid of this investigation at the direction of the President.”
So, still no there “there” yet… but damning info comes out almost daily on the DOJ and FBI’s interactions with trying to throw an election. And the MANFORT plea deal is bad news for Republican and Democrat super lobbying machines. THE SWAMP IS GETTING CLEARED A BIT:
Two lobbying firms, including one owned by Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, knowingly worked with Paul Manafort at the direction of the Ukrainian government, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office.
The indictment, which was released ahead of an expected plea deal for Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, says that as a part of his “lobbying scheme,” Manafort solicited two lobbying firms in February 2012 to lobby on behalf of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.
“Various employees of Companies A and B understood that they were receiving direction from MANAFORT and President Yanukovych, not the Centre, which was not even operational when Companies A and B began lobbying for Ukraine,” reads the indictment. The Centre is a reference to the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels-based non-profit that the government says was used to support Yanukovych.
Company A has been identified as Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying shop operated by former Minnesota Republican Rep. Vin Weber. Company B has been identified as Podesta Group, the firm that Tony Podesta founded with his brother, John, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign….
I will admit, if Podesta is brought into Mueller’s grasp, my thinking about Mueller will change. BUT BACK TO the topic at hand… new text messages released show collusion between the DOJ/FBI and the media to change the outcome of an election and presidency:
SEE CONSERVATIVE TREEHOUSE’S latest post for more:
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.
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”
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……..
…Ohr’s wife Nellie worked for Fusion GPS, which hired Christopher Steele to produce the opposition research on Donald Trump. The Clinton Campaign and the Democrat National Committee paid for the Steele dossier through a law firm.
The FBI used Steele as a source for a while. And recently revealed documentsindicate that Bruce Ohr was funneling information from Christopher Steele to the FBI, even after the FBI fired Steele as a source. It appears that Ohr served as a go-between at a time when the FBI had ended its association with Steele.
Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told Fox News Monday night that he used to work at the Justice Department “doing what Bruce Ohr does now.” Both men are or were prosecutors.
“It’s unbelievable that a prosecutor would insert himself into an ongoing investigation for which he had nothing to do,” Gowdy said.
According to Gowdy, “Bruce Ohr worked for the Department of Justice. He had nothing to do with the Russia investigation other than he inserted himself by having contact with Christopher Steele.”
Ohr “even had contact with Chris Steele after the FBI terminated its relationship with Chris Steele.” Gowdy noted that one branch of the Justice Department — the FBI — decided Steele was “not even fit to be an informant,” yet a high-ranking Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, was continuing to funnel information from Steele to the FBI.
“We’re going to interview him on August 28th,” Gowdy said. “I am going to come back to Washington — I’m going to leave my beloved South Carolina and I’m going to go back, and I’m sure others will, too…we’re going to be back, and we’re going to interview Bruce Ohr — not in a public circus setting, but in a deposition with no time limits and we’re going to get to the bottom of what he did, why he did it, who he did it in concert with, whether he had the permission of the supervisors at the Department of Justice.
“I used to work doing what Bruce Ohr does now. It’s unbelievable that a prosecutor would insert himself into an on-going investigation for which he had nothing to do.”….
Jim Jordan was on Neil Cavuto’s show discussing the recent firing of Peter Strozk:
This is the main point Jim Jordan made, among the others:
Dan Bongino fills in for Mark Levin and discusses John Solomon’s recent article entitled, “Did FBI Get Bamboozled by Multiple Versions of Trump Dossier?“. Devastating information keeps coming out, and the FBI is looking worse-and-worse by the day (well, it’s leadership is):
The article is at THE WALL STREET JOURNAL and is entitled, “About That FBI ‘Source’ – Did the bureau engage in outright spying against the 2016 Trump campaign?” But it is behind a “pay wall.” I did track it down… this is YUGE NEWS! Why? Because it is Obama that is in charge of the FBI and there would have been a mole inserted into the Trump campaign BEFORE — before — the official FBI timeline that we have all seen testimony of and have read about.
The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it agreed to brief House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.
Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.
House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”
This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI.
The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.
This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting. It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough. Obama political appointees rampantly “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to monitor their conversations, while the FBI played dirty with its surveillance warrant against Carter Page, failing to tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that its supporting information came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now we find it may have also been rolling out human intelligence, John Le Carré style, to infiltrate the Trump campaign.
Which would lead to another big question for the FBI: When? The bureau has been doggedly sticking with its story that a tip in July 2016 about the drunken ramblings of George Papadopoulos launched its counterintelligence probe. Still, the players in this affair—the FBI, former Director Jim Comey, the Steele dossier authors—have been suspiciously vague on the key moments leading up to that launch date. When precisely was the Steele dossier delivered to the FBI? When precisely did the Papadopoulos information come in?
And to the point, when precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that in turn would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.
We also know that among the Justice Department’s stated reasons for not complying with the Nunes subpoena was its worry that to do so might damage international relationships. This suggests the “source” may be overseas, have ties to foreign intelligence, or both. That’s notable, given the highly suspicious role foreigners have played in this escapade. It was an Australian diplomat who reported the Papadopoulos conversation. Dossier author Christopher Steele is British, used to work for MI6, and retains ties to that spy agency as well as to a network of former spooks. It was a former British diplomat who tipped off Sen. John McCain to the dossier. How this “top secret” source fits into this puzzle could matter deeply.
I believe I know the name of the informant, but my intelligence sources did not provide it to me and refuse to confirm it. It would therefore be irresponsible to publish it. But what is clear is that we’ve barely scratched the surface of the FBI’s 2016 behavior, and the country will never get the straight story until President Trump moves to declassify everything possible. It’s time to rip off the Band-Aid.
