Mueller Report

Joe Biden Agrees: “Let’s Go Brandon”

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Jump To Conversation About Video) CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported to Twitter on Friday that during a call between President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill and children who were calling into NORAD to track Santa, a dad spoke up at the end of the all and said “Let’s go Brandon,” to which the President said “Let’s go Brandon, I agree.” Video actually exists of this incredible moment when the President echoes the sentiment “Let’s go Brandon” and the First Lady laughs. (POST MILLENNIAL)

I just (12-25-2021) combined the two calls:

  • RUMBLE — Here is the Father’s call and the Presidential side combined for a real time experience. The original video of the father is HERE | And the video used of the President is HERE

JONATHAN TURLEY has written well on the phrase…. here is a partial excerpt:

Below is my column in The Hill on the growing “Let’s Go, Brandon” movement, which is a unique response to what many people view as a bias media. It is the modern equivalent of the adoption of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” by colonists in using what was a contemptuous expression as a rallying cry of defiance.

Here is the column:

Roughly 250 years ago, a political insult by British troops during the American Revolution was converted into a rallying cry by the colonials. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” was intended to mock the Continental Army as unsophisticated dandies, but the maligned militiamen turned it around to mock the British after defeats like Yorktown. The song is a lasting example of how symbols of contempt can become symbols of defiance.

In a curious way, “Let’s Go Brandon!” has become a similarly unintended political battle cry. It derives from an Oct. 2 interview with race-car driver Brandon Brown after he won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race. During the interview, NBC reporter Kelli Stavast’s questions were drowned out by loud-and-clear chants of “F*** Joe Biden.” Stavast quickly and inexplicably declared, “You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”

Stavast’s denial or misinterpretation of the obvious instantly became a symbol of what many Americans perceive as media bias in favor of the Biden administration. Indeed, some in the media immediately praised Stavast for her “smooth save” and being a “quick-thinking reporter.” But the episode was reminiscent of a reporter standing in front of burning buildings during last year’s riots and calling them peaceful protests. Indeed, even the original profane chant seemed directed as much at the media as Biden — creating an undeniable backdrop to news coverage.

The three-word slogan is now emblazoned across tee-shirts, coffee mugs and even billboards. An anti-Biden “Let’s go, Brandon!” hip-hop song hit the top of the charts on iTunes; soon, there were four such songs with the same refrain. The top song was banned on sites like YouTube and Instagram as spreading “harmful false information.” Yet the effort to bar people from listening to the song only fueled the interest and the movement.

The media’s reaction has fulfilled the underlying narrative, too, with commentators growing increasing shrill in denouncing its use. NPR denounced the chant as “vulgar,” while writers at the Washington Post and other newspapers condemned it as offensive; CNN’s John Avalon called it “not patriotic,” while CNN political analyst Joe Lockhart compared it to coded rhetoric from Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and ISIS.

The more the media has cried foul, however, the more people have picked up the chant………

FB CONVO

JIM G. started out the conversation thus:

I put a laugh emoji on his reply because JIM G. was the #1 #NeverTrumper in my feed. He was a HUGE fan (still is probably) of the Lincoln Project (Red State, TownHall, American Thinker, American Thinker, Twitchy, PowerLine, Powerline, RPT, New York Times, etc.) and spread every article from WaPo and NYT and other MSMs regarding Russian Collusion and the Steele Dossier he could (Real Clear Investigations, Yahoo News, New York Post, The Federalist, New York Post, The Federalist, Breitbart, Law Enforcement Today, Washington Examiner, Fox News, The Federalist, The Federalist, iHeart, Etc).

So, to speak to me about Roman’s 13, which he rips from it’s context to suit his immediate purpose (probably with David French in mind: Red State, Washington Times, Big League Politics, American Mind, American Spectator, Capstone Report, Got Questions, etc.) is laughable to say the least.

So now that you know a bit of the years long MSM peddling, Let’s continue…. referencing his history I ask (I correct some of our misspelling):

  • RPT: JIM G. what is wrong is spreading lies about a duly elected President and a cockamamie Russian scheme that turned out to be a lie…. as you were told for years. Your continued spreading about, say, the Trump Tower meeting, and I even think you were on board about the Trump contacts with a Russian bank. Those are lies that were a large web of you maligning a sitting President even though many (myself) showing connections to Glenn Simpson and others. Just that example is a far greater faux pas that saying, “let’s go Brandon.” All sin is not equal JIM. And your sins according to Romans 13 are the egregious ones to note.

And for spreading what was known early on to be lies spread by the media, I noted a Scripture that should concern JIM G.

  • RPT: Proverbs 25:1: “Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an ax, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow.”
  • JIM G: there was a Trump Tower meeting with Russians during the election. What the motives an intent of those representing Trump were are not clear and remain disputed. As for Trump contacts with a Russian bank, I’m not sure what it is that I said that you perceive was a lie. I never once knowingly said something about Trump that I believed was untrue. If you think you know of a specific time in which I did, I would appreciate you pointing it out so that I can apologize. I mean that sincerely Sean G.

[More on Trump Tower below, but in many conversations on my wall and his I noted much of it over the years]

  • JIM G. responds: there was clear evidence that Trump welcomed Russia’s efforts to help him get elected and I saw loads of Russian propaganda on social media aimed at helping Trump. Those are not lies.
  • I respond, RPT: you said: ” there was clear evidence that Trump welcomed Russia’s efforts to help him get elected and I saw loads of Russian propaganda on social media aimed at helping Trump. Those are not lies.”
    _______________________
    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. [About 50 endorsed Hillary and opposed Trump.] 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.
    __________________________
    This is not what the investigation (a) showed, that Trump was knowingly welcoming any illegal actions. (b) Nothing about what you just said matches any of your despicable rhetoric for years on Facebook. And (c) not a single vote was shown to have been changed. Even Obama’s own guy noted that, Jeh Johnson.

This is no small belief based on what was then known to be lies and now supported with arrests, FOIA requests, and the like. But to be clear,

  • Nothing comes close in size, scope or harm to the republic than the years-long effort to cripple Donald Trump’s presidency by claiming he conspired with an enemy state to steal the 2016 election and then do its bidding as commander-in-chief. (REAL CLEAR POLITICS)

A BREAK HERE FOR MY AUDIENCE.

Let us deal with the Trump Tower meeting. I had commented on JIM G’s Facebook wall some portions of the below as most of the information known about the meeting were public even then. JIM G. merely referenced WaPo and the NYT and CNN and other sources he posted were wrong). Here are some examples for the reader:

TRUMP TOWER

The infamous meeting at Trump Tower did not focus on Clinton dirt but on Magnitsky Act, newly released FBI memos show.

(April, 2020, JUST THE NEWS | PJ-MEDIA) …The most scintillating information Mueller’s team ascribed to [Russian translator Anatoli] Samochornov in the report was a tidbit suggesting a hint of impropriety: The translator admitted he was offered $90,000 by the Russians to pay his legal bills, if he supported the story of Moscow attorney Natalia Veselnitskya. He declined.

But recently released FBI memos show that Samochornov, a translator trusted by the State Department and other federal agencies, provided agents far more information than was quoted by Mueller, nearly all of it exculpatory to the president’s campaign and his eldest son.

Despite learning the translator’s information on July 12, 2017, just a few days after the media reported on the Trump Tower meeting, the FBI would eventually suggest Donald Trump Jr. was lying and that the event could be seminal to Russian election collusion.

Samochornov’s eyewitness account entirely debunks the media’s narrative, the FBI memos show.

“Samochornov was not particularly fond of Donald Trump Jr., but stated Donald Trump Jr.’s account with Veselnitskya as portrayed in recent media report, was accurate,” according to the FBI 302 report on its interview of the translator. “Samachornov concurred with Donald Trump Jr.’s accounts of the meeting. He added ‘they’ were telling the truth.”

[….]

Solomon notes that “the belated release of the FBI interview report under a Freedom of Information Act request is likely to raise serious questions among congressional oversight committees about why the information was suppressed in the Mueller report, why the FBI kept it quiet for two years while Trump Jr. was being politically pilloried, and why the news media has failed to correct its own record of misleading reporting.”

Similar reporting at Real Clear Investigations notes well:

(March of 2020, REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS) …..Whatever the suspicions raised by the Trump son’s emailed response, “If it’s what you say I love it,” the meeting didn’t live up to the billing, judging from what the translator told the FBI. Bureau notes show he told agents, “There was no discussion of the 2016 United States presidential election or Collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.” The agent notes also state, “There was no smoking gun according to Samochornov. There was not a discussion about ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton. Samochornov did not think Hillary Clinton was mentioned by name.” 

Samochornov told the FBI that the meeting was 20 minutes long and focused on the Magnitsky Act, which imposes financial sanctions on wealthy Russians, and related matters. He recounted that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was apparently so uninterested in the topic that he used his cellphone under the table throughout, and “five to seven minutes after it began” Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner left. FBI notes also record that “Samochornov was not particularly fond of Donald Trump Jr., but stated that Donald Trump Jr.’s account of the meeting with Veselnitskaya, as portrayed in recent media reports, was accurate.”

Fourteen of the 448 pages of the Mueller Report are devoted to laying out in great detail the chronology and circumstances of the Trump Tower meeting. There are no mentions of Samochornov’s flat denial of collusion or his corroboration of Trump Jr.’s description of the meeting as benign, even though report footnotes list the translator’s FBI interview nine times with little elaboration.

The contents of Samochornov’s “302” – the form used by the FBI to report and summarize agent interviews  – were first flagged this month by “Undercover Huber,” a pseudonymous Twitter account dedicated to following Trump-Russia news (not to be confused with Justice Department official John Huber, who was tasked with investigating potential FBI misconduct during the 2016 election). The document, with agents’ names redacted, was posted by the FBI under a federal judge’s order to release on a monthly basis 302s underpinning the Mueller Report, following a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by CNN and BuzzFeed.

Samochornov told the FBI that Veselnitskaya had dangled one piece of potentially partisan political information before the Trump officials – the claim that business associates of William Browder, the American businessman behind the passage of the Magnitsky Act, had made illicit donations to Democratic campaigns. Interview notes state that “Samochornov did not know if the donation(s) were made directly to the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, or a political action committee.”

This allegation, which was trumpeted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, was false. In November of 2017, Reuters reported that Fusion GPS – the Washington, D.C., opposition research firm paid by the Clinton campaign to compile the debunked Steele “dossier” used by the FBI to obtain warrants to spy on the Trump campaign – had provided Veselnitskaya with the bogus Browder-connected dirt before the Trump Tower meeting

Speculation about Russia collusion involving the Trump Tower meeting abounded in media accounts throughout the 2018 midterm elections, raising questions about whether the Mueller team should have disclosed the translator’s information. Mueller did speak out to correct faulty reporting on another matter that appeared damaging to the president, shutting down a BuzzFeed report  alleging Trump had directed his lawyer Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the assertions in Samochornov’s 302.

The Mueller Report contains information that supports Samochornov’s credibility. It reports that the translator was involved in civil litigation with Veselnitskaya on an unrelated matter. At one point, Samochornov said, the organization that hired him to work with Veselnitskaya on repealing the Magnitsky Act offered to pay $90,000 worth of his related legal fees – if he would corroborate certain statements made by Veselnitskaya.

 “Samochornov declined,” the Mueller Report states, “telling the Office that he did not want to perjure himself.”

The FBI’s 302 also records that he explicitly informed the FBI of his legal entanglement during his interview, and Samochornov has a long track record of working as a translator for the State Department and other government agencies on a contract basis. He has been married to Tatiana Rodzianko, a State Department employee, since 2006.

“Samochornov told the interviewing agents that he would have contacted the FBI if he thought the meeting was nefarious,” according to the 302. 

REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS laid out the connections between Glenn Simpson (GPS Fusion) and the people involved in the Trump Tower meeting.

(August 2018, POLITICAL INSIDER) ….In an explosive piece at Real Clear Politics, writer Lee Smith breaks down how the meeting was a setup from the get-go – from the very campaign Veselnitskaya pretended she wanted to help take down. As Lee Writes, ” the first line of evidence includes emails, texts, and memos recently turned over to Congress by the Department of Justice. They show how closely senior Justice Department officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with employees of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm reportedly paid $1 million by Clinton operatives to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign.”

While Fusion GPS was employing Christopher Steele to compile his anti-Trump dossier, they were also working with Veselnitskaya. In fact, Veselnitskaya met with Fusion GPS’ co-founder Glenn Simpson the day of her meeting with Trump Jr., and the night of the day before. What could they have possibly talked about, if not the meeting?

Lee notes that while Simpson has denied under Senate testimony that he and Veselnitskaya spoke about the Trump Tower meeting, “she has publicly stated that she used talking points [in the Trump Tower meeting] developed by Simpson for the Russian government in that discussion. Kremlin officials also posted the allegations on the Prosecutor General’s website, and shared them with visiting U.S. congressional delegations.” Veselnitskaya mainly talked to Trump Jr. about removing sanctions on Russia during that Trump Tower meeting, hence the talking points mentioned.

So, Fusion was working with Veselnitskaya to help her advance Russian interests – while employing Christopher Steele to claim that it was Trump conspiring with the Russians. “Simpson approached the Clinton campaign through its law firm and said he could dig up dirt on Trump and Russia,” said one congressional investigator. “The difference between the Trump and Clinton campaigns’ willingness to take dirt on its opponent is that the Clintons went through with it and paid for it. While their source, Glenn Simpson, was working for a Russian oligarch.” The oligarch referenced is Denis Katsyv, who attended the Trump Tower meeting with Veselnitskaya. 

FORBES has a good article on this as well. Again, old news refreshed:

FUSION AND VESELNITSKAYA

Veselnitskaya, a former prosecutor with ties to the Kremlin, hired BakerHostetler to help Cyprus-based, Russian-steered Prevezon Holdings in court, and the law firm hired Fusion in 2014. Businessman Bill Browder had alleged Fusion acted as an agent for Russian interests when it helped go after him as Putin tried to combat the Magnitsky Act.

Browder, head of Hermitage Capital, championed the Magnitsky Act, named for his tax lawyer and corruption whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009 after his investigation allegedly uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars of tax fraud implicating Russian officials.

The Justice Department alleged Prevezon laundered fraudulent money, and the company later settled for $5.9 million in what the department called “a $230 million Russian tax refund fraud scheme involving corrupt Russian officials.” Prevezon was owned by Denis Katsyv, whose father, Pyotr Katsyv, is a Putin ally.

The Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Veselnitskaya, now out of reach in Russia, alleging she’d obstructed justice over her “secret cooperation with a senior Russian prosecutor.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee report said the information Veselnitskaya offered during the Trump Tower meeting “was focused on U.S. sanctions against Russia under the Magnitsky Act” and “was part of a broader influence operation targeting the United States that was coordinated, at least in part, with elements of the Russian government.”

The Senate report assessed Veselnitskaya and Rinat Akhmetshin, who accompanied her, both “have significant connections to the Russian government, including the Russian intelligence services,” and Veselnitskaya’s connections “were far more extensive and concerning than what had been publicly known.”

The report noted they “found no evidence that Veselnitskaya used her ties with Fusion GPS to influence the contents of the dossier,” but the senators nevertheless “sought to understand the significance of Veselnitskaya’s relationship” with Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson “because of the timing of their interactions.”

Simpson denied any foreknowledge of the Trump Tower meeting despite seeing Veselnitskaya the day before, the day of, and the day after.

(WASHINGTON EXAMINER)

So nothing the media told us about the Trump Tower meeting ended up being legitimate. And the ties to The Clinton Foundation thickens with more evidence and indictments.

KEY POINT: I do not know of a “Russian” that was touted by the MSM at Trump Tower that wasn’t connected to Fusion GPS or the Clinton’s.

And I have pointed this out since 2017.

TO RECAP THE TOWER

  1. The meeting was arranged by a publicist (Goldstone with past ties to the Trumps) who puffed up claims of Clinton wrongdoing with the Russians in order to help the wealthy father of a Russian pop singer.. Goldstone was 100% non-political.
  2. Goldstone made up an email that stated: “The Russian attorney, he wrote, had offered to provide the Trump campaign with “official documents and information” that would incriminate Clinton [in her dealings with Russia from p. 113 of Mueller report which has full email]. “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information,” he added, and was “part of Russia and its Government’s support for Mr. Trump.” So point of meeting was not to concoct a plan to collude with Russia but to find out past Russian dirty dealings with Clinton. [if they existed]
  3. The real reason the wealthy Russian lawyer wanted a meeting was to find a way to repeal the Magnitsty Act which sought to punish Russian human rights offenders. The Russian lawyer who showed up knew zero about any Hillary corrupt activities with Russia and the meeting was simply a ruse to raise Magnitsky act claims.
  4. There was no evidence that Trump knew of the meeting or was informed of it before hand. Also, of course, there was ZERO EVIDENCE of Trump and Russian govt working together. Trump sons were told of potential wrongdoing by Clinton and wanted to know what it was. Entirely legitimate whether obtained from Russian citizens or other sources. 

EMAILS SHOW MEDIA COLLUDED:

MEDIA SHOW CLEAR SIGNS OF PRESS FAILUIRES

How high does the Russia-collusion hoax rate on the scale of U.S. political scandals? Veteran journalist and author, Lee Smith, would say it tops them all. With the Watergate scandal, the American press uncovered corruption and crimes at the highest levels of government, leading to President Richard M Nixon’s resignation. Fifty years on, we find the press fulfilling a much-altered purpose. Lee, author of ‘The Permanent Coup’ and ‘The Plot Against the President,’ joins me to explain why this event represents the darkest chapter in American politics, and the media’s complicity in this.

2-Most Important Videos From The Mueller [Weissmann] Hearing

Published by Papa Giorgio

(1) Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) admonished former special counsel Robert Mueller for not following the regulations by writing about decisions that weren’t reached.

(2) Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, pushed back on former special counsel Robert Mueller’s characterization that his investigation into whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice did not “exonerate” the president. “There is no power or authority to exonerate,” Turner said in the July 24 hearing with Mueller, pointing out that “exonerate” is not a legal term.

Greatest Hits From The Mueller [Weissmann] Report

Published by Papa Giorgio

My FACEBOOK comments:

  • Two thoughts so far in listening to Mueller testify. One is that he should not have been put in charge of any investigation with the state of mind he has. My second thought is this is why he was put in charge of the investigation… So someone else could be in charge behind the scenes. Read here Weissmann.

After watching Mueller in the hearings and learning of McCabe’s assessment that Mueller performed as he expected, it leaves one to wonder whether Mueller’s passivity and lack of engagement might have been desirable for the get-Trump team assembling to nullify the 2016 election.  Unfortunately for the get-Trump crowd, Chairmen Nadler and Schift lacked the common sense to know better than to put Mueller in front of the camera in the state we all observed.  Nobody should rejoice in the humiliation of an elderly man.  But history owes a debt to the revelation of the probe’s original sin:  the appointment of an unqualified leader who let a band of Trump-hating partisans run amok.

(THE FEDERALIST)

  • For sometime people speculated Trump had Alzheimer’s or dementia. What’s ironic is that the Democrats and the Never Trumper’s got to see it in action.
  • [Mark] Levin is right. Thank you democrats for having this. You’ve killed impeachment. And in my opinion insured a 2020 victory for Trump

Another post of mine on FACEBOOK:

So there is a lot of information that the public probably heard for the very first time at the “Mueller” [read here: Weissmann] hearing. Which is a good thing! Remember, back in March, Glenn Greenwald noted the confusion among the watchers of MSNBC (and other news outlets) to the Mueller Report (RPT):

  • You can’t blame MSNBC viewers for being confused. They largely kept dissenters from their Trump/Russia spy tale off the air for 2 years. As recently as 2 weeks ago, they had @JohnBrennan strongly suggesting Mueller would indict Trump family members on collusion as his last act (TWITTER)

Now many people have heard for the first time, and have seen what Barr was trying to prevent as an embarrassment to Mueller’s reputation. Even Michael Moore knows it:

  • MICHAEL MOORE: A frail old man, unable to remember things, stumbling, refusing to answer basic questions…I said it in 2017 and Mueller confirmed it today — All you pundits and moderates and lame Dems who told the public to put their faith in the esteemed Robert Mueller — just STFU from now on. (GATEWAY PUNDIT)

Really, a win-win for the GOP and Trump.

DAZED and CONFUSED

MEDIA HOPES DASHED

MONTAGE FLASHBACK

CONGRESS

MISC

BEN SHAPIRO

TUCKER CARLSON

LINDSEY GRAHAM

SYDNEY POWELL

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

John Dean’s “Worse Than Watergate” Game-show (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Sean Hannity Monologues, but he has Joe Concha on to discuss John Dean’s jump at monitory payoffs. Or, as the FEDERALIST puts it, “JOHN DEAN STARS IN ‘WORSE THAN WATERGATE!’“:

….It was in 1987 that Dean argued that Ronald Reagan’s Iran-contra scandal was worse than Watergate….. It was 2005, when Democrats were toying around with the idea of impeaching George W. Bush, that then-Sen. Barbara Boxer sent a letter presidential scholars, asking them about comments “by Richard Nixon’s lawyer John Dean that Bush is ‘the first president to admit to an impeachable offense’.”…….

Concha ends the interview (what little of it there is) with just how crazy the Left is.

More from the FEDERALIST:

John W. Dean likes to refer to himself as a “Nixon historian” these days, which is more or less like calling Willie Cicci the “chronicler” of the Corleone family saga.

Politico reports that House Judiciary Committee is preparing to call the “Watergate star witness and former Nixon White House counsel” to testify about the Mueller report, in “an effort to draw public attention” to the possible impeachment of President Donald Trump.

The word “star,” often used to describe Dean, is, at best, a poetic truth. His expertise on the issue of impeachment, long sought by liberals, was acquired by helping plan one of the most infamous scandals in American political history, snitching on everyone who conspired with him and then cashing in on the fallout for the next 47 years.

It’s what someone in Cicci’s line of work might call a “racket.” Good work if you can get it.

As White House counsel, Dean had known about the eavesdropping that ended the Nixon presidency even before Nixon did. He was not some innocent man swept up in the ugly currents of history. Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Silbert accused Dean of not only being “at the center of the criminality” but also withholding crucial evidence while plea bargaining his way out of trouble.

There’s no evidence that Dean agreed to be a whistleblower because of a tortured conscience or because he wanted to preserve law and order or even because he was attempting to save the Nixon presidency, as he likes to claim. There is evidence, however, that he turned to the Feds when Nixon refused to promise him immunity from prosecution.

[….]

Was Dean on Nixon’s list? Well, no doubt he was reviled by the White House once he turned on the president. Anyone who’s read about Watergate, though, is likely aware that the non-fictional Dean was sent the infamous Enemies List back in 1971.

Did he heroically run to the Justice Department? Did he leak it the news to the media?  No, his office wrote a confidential memo detailing how the list could utilize “available federal machinery,” like tax audits from the IRS, “to screw our political enemies.” It was Dean who, after Nixon suggested that if he wins a second term the White House should target the president’s enemies more aggressively, responded, “That’s an exciting prospect.”

I’ve seen Dean get away with bragging about how he warned Nixon that there was “a cancer on the presidency” on numerous occasions. As the audiotape of the incidentshows, Dean was referring to a political threat to Nixon, not an ethical one that threatened the office. Here he is, making the claim—while conspiracy mongering about the Russia investigation—to CNN’s Jake Tapper, who gets a kick out of the idea that Trump believes Dean, who was convicted of obstruction of justice and disbarred, might be the “villain” in this story. He was surely one of them.

Dean is a useful guest for a media that hasn’t been able to stop making insipid Watergate comparisons since Watergate itself. For Democrats, and only Democrats, Dean also serves much the same purpose he did in government. A consummate yes man.

It was in 1987 that Dean argued that Ronald Reagan’s Iran-contra scandal was worse than Watergate. Much much worse, in fact. “The Iran-contra inquiries involve matters of national security,” Dean explained at the time. “Watergate, on the other hand, involved the political security of Richard Nixon. These are Major League matters versus Little League.”

It was 2005, when Democrats were toying around with the idea of impeaching George W. Bush, that then-Sen. Barbara Boxer sent a letter presidential scholars, asking them about comments “by Richard Nixon’s lawyer John Dean that Bush is ‘the first president to admit to an impeachable offense.’”

Dean’s quote was heavily leaned on at time. Hey, if the “star” witness of Watergate says impeachment is on the table, aren’t we compelled to listen? Dean, in fact, had written an entire book—“Worse than Watergate”—making the case that both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should be impeached for lying to Congress…………

Rep. Devin Nunes Details Failings In The Mueller Report

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Via FOX NEWS) House Intelligence Committee holds a hearing on “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Counterintelligence Implications of Volume 1.” Robert Anderson, Stephanie Douglas, & Andrew McCarthy testify.

The reason for posting the above lengthy video is because THE EPOCH TIMES has an excellent article detailing Rep. Devin Nunes’ (R-Calif.) work on the flaws in Mueller Report. Here are some excerpts from what should be read in whole:

…As an example, Nunes brought up the Trump Tower meeting that took place on June 9, 2016, and highlighted the fact that Fusion GPS, which employed Christopher Steele, was actually working for Russians in the Prevezon case at the same time that they were working for the Clinton campaign. Nunes asked the Democrat witnesses if they were aware of this potential conflict. Notably, neither Anderson nor Douglas had knowledge of Fusion’s dual roles.

“So you have Glenn Simpson, who’s working not only for the Clinton campaign, to dirty up Trump. He’s also working for the Russians to dirty up anybody who doesn’t oppose the Magnitsky Act. He’s meeting with all those individuals. Now you, as former counterintelligence people, would that raise any flags to you at all? That a Clinton campaign operative arm is working for these same Russians – happen to be the same Russians that are meeting at Trump Tower, offering supposed dirt?”

Douglas answered, saying: “I think it’s not in a vacuum. It’s not just about President Trump’s campaign or Secretary Clinton’s campaign. It’s about the context to [inaudible] information. Regardless of whose campaign it was, if there were significant concerns or things that we thought that could raise to that, I think it absolutely would be worth looking at.”

Nunes responded saying that the Mueller report “doesn’t talk about Fusion GPS at all, even though of all their questionable contacts with the Russians.” Fusion GPS employees, including co-founder Glenn Simpson, invoked their 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination before the House Intelligence Committee when questioned about these matters.

[….]

The Epoch Times recently published an article detailing the ways in which the Mueller report appears to have been carefully worded by lawyers working under Mueller, and perhaps Mueller himself, in a manner designed to inflict political damage on the president.

Sections of the report were selectively edited to provide damaging portrayals and apparent misrepresentations. Examples include the representation of the transcript of a phone call between the president’s attorney, John Dowd, and the attorney for former national security adviser Michael Flynn; a letter from the attorney of an individual referenced in the Mueller report; and a sequence of dates concerning the meeting between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and Australian diplomat Alexander Downer.

There are also troubling and disturbing details surrounding a heavily used witness in the Mueller report, George Nader, that are only now coming forth.

More recently, it has been reported that important details regarding Konstantin Kilimnik, who worked with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, were left out of the Mueller report. Kilimnik reportedly served as a “sensitive” intelligence source for the State Department and “informed on Ukrainian and Russian matters.” The Mueller team, for reasons unknown, omitted those details from its report.

Nunes laid forth some crucial non-findings that undercut long-standing narratives and claims of collusion.

Contents of Mueller Report

Nunes, who referred to the Mueller report as “the Mueller dossier,” noted that it “either debunked many of their favorite conspiracy theories or did not even find them worth discussing.” Nunes then provided a specific list:

  • “Mueller’s finding that Michael Cohen did not travel to Prague to conspire with Russians.
  • No evidence that Carter Page conspired with Russians.
  • No mention of Paul Manafort visiting Julian Assange in London.
  • No mention of secret communications between a Trump Tower computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
  • And no mention of former NRA lawyer Cleta Mitchell or her supposed knowledge of a scheme to launder Russian money through the NRA for the Trump campaign. Insinuations against Mitchell originated with Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson and were first made public in a document published by Democrats on this committee.”

Notably, Mueller found no evidence of collusion on the part of the Trump campaign and made no conclusion regarding obstruction, leaving the matter up to Attorney General Bill Barr and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for a legal decision.

Barr recently addressed the obstruction issue, noting that Mueller took into account the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that a sitting president could not be indicted and also included “a number of other prudential judgments about fairness and other things and decided that the best course was not for him to reach a decision” on obstruction.

Notably, the DOJ and the special counsel’s office released a joint statementfollowing some public confusion on the matter resulting from Mueller’s May 29, 2019, press conference:

“The Attorney General has previously stated that the Special Counsel repeatedly affirmed that he was not saying that, but for the OLC opinion, he would have found the President obstructed justice.”

“The Special Counsel’s report and his statement today made clear that the office concluded it would not reach a determination—one way or the other—about whether the President committed a crime. There is no conflict between these statements.”

During Mueller’s somewhat confusing press conference, many interpreted Mueller’s comments to mean that the OLC opinion was the singular issue. In the joint statement, both Muller and the DOJ stated that there would be no conclusion on obstruction even without the OLC opinion.

Barr, who said he believed Mueller could have reached a conclusion on obstruction, said that both he and Rosenstein didn’t agree with much of the legal analysis contained in the report.

During a recent interview with CBS News, Barr pointed out that, in order for the determination of a crime, the DOJ would have had to prove corrupt intent, noting that “the report itself points out that one of the likely motivations here was the president’s frustration with Comey saying something publicly and saying a different thing privately, and refusing to correct the record.”

Nunes, who was far more blunt in his assessment, said that the real purpose of the Mueller report “was to help Democrats impeach the president in the absence of any evidence of collusion.” Thus, Nunes noted, the report includes:

  • “A long litany of ordinary contacts between Trump associates and Russians, as if a certain number of contacts indicate a conspiracy even if no conversations actually created or even discussed a conspiracy.
  • Excerpts from a voicemail from Trump attorney John Dowd that the Mueller team selectively edited to make it seem threatening and nefarious.
  • No comment on the close relationship between Democrat operatives at Fusion GPS and multiple Russians who participated in the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower. In fact, no comment on Fusion GPS at all.
  • No useful information on figures who played key roles in the investigation such as Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, or Christopher Steele.
  • No useful information about the many irregularities that marred the FBI’s Russia investigation.”

Nunes also observed how the Mueller report went to lengths to cite “dozens of articles from the reporters and publications that were most responsible for perpetuating the Russia hoax.” Nunes then described how this, in turn, provided a feedback loop for Democrat claims of obstruction:

“[I]ntelligence leakers spin a false story to the media, the media publishes the story, Mueller cites the story, and the media and the Democrats then fake outrage at Mueller’s findings.”

Nunes closed his prepared remarks with sharp criticism of the mainstream media, noting “the media have abandoned their traditional watchdog role and instead have become the mouthpiece of a cabal of intelligence leakers.”………

Reaction from House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Devin Nunes and House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Mark Meadows on ‘Hannity.’

Mueller vs. Starr & Barr

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder is in his prime on 870 and his growing affiliates. (If I had time I would do excerpts like this for an 870AM YouTube channel to grow their listener base.) Larry plays competing report outcomes by Robert Mueller and Ken Starr. John Eastman weighs in as well, and as usual, he is correct… I add Bill Barr at the end saying the same thing Mark Levin, John Eastman, Andy McCarthy, and others have been saying. But as usual, CNN and the MSM are way behind the curve… in fact they are off the track all together.

Fear of Barr (Strassel)

Published by Papa Giorgio

HUGH HEWITT reads Kimberly Strassel’s column, earlier today:

A little POWRLINE intro please: The Democrats’ hysteria over Attorney General William Barr is directly proportional to their fear of the damage they fear he might do, Kim Strassel explains in her Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch column HERE:

The only thing uglier than an angry Washington is a fearful Washington. And fear is what’s driving this week’s blitzkrieg of Attorney General William Barr.

Mr. Barr tolerantly sat through hours of Democratic insults at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday. His reward for his patience was to be labeled, in the space of a news cycle, a lawbreaking, dishonest, obstructing hack. Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly accused Mr. Barr of lying to Congress, which, she added, is “considered a crime.” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said he will move to hold Mr. Barr in contempt unless the attorney general acquiesces to the unprecedented demand that he submit to cross-examination by committee staff attorneys. James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lamented that Donald Trump had “eaten” Mr. Barr’s “soul.” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren demands the attorney general resign. California Rep. Eric Swalwell wants him impeached.

These attacks aren’t about special counsel Robert Mueller, his report or even the surreal debate over Mr. Barr’s first letter describing the report. The attorney general delivered the transparency Democrats demanded: He quickly released a lightly redacted report, which portrayed the president in a negative light. What do Democrats have to object to?

Some of this is frustration. Democrats foolishly invested two years of political capital in the idea that Mr. Mueller would prove President Trump had colluded with Russia, and Mr. Mueller left them empty-handed. Some of it is personal. Democrats resent that Mr. Barr won’t cower or apologize for doing his job. Some is bitterness that Mr. Barr is performing like a real attorney general, making the call against obstruction-of-justice charges rather than sitting back and letting Democrats have their fun with Mr. Mueller’s obstruction innuendo.

But most of it is likely fear. Mr. Barr made real news in that Senate hearing, and while the press didn’t notice, Democrats did. The attorney general said he’d already assigned people at the Justice Department to assist his investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. He said his review would be far-reaching—that he was obtaining details from congressional investigations, from the ongoing probe by the department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, and even from Mr. Mueller’s work. Mr. Barr said the investigation wouldn’t focus only on the fall 2016 justifications for secret surveillance warrants against Trump team members but would go back months earlier.

He also said he’d focus on the infamous “dossier” concocted by opposition-research firm Fusion GPS and British former spy Christopher Steele, on which the FBI relied so heavily in its probe. Mr. Barr acknowledged his concern that the dossier itself could be Russian disinformation, a possibility he described as not “entirely speculative.” He also revealed that the department has “multiple criminal leak investigations under way” into the disclosure of classified details about the Trump-Russia investigation.

Do not underestimate how many powerful people in Washington have something to lose from Mr. Barr’s probe. Among them: Former and current leaders of the law-enforcement and intelligence communities. The Democratic Party pooh-bahs who paid a foreign national (Mr. Steele) to collect information from Russians and deliver it to the FBI. The government officials who misused their positions to target a presidential campaign. The leakers. The media. More than reputations are at risk. Revelations could lead to lawsuits, formal disciplinary actions, lost jobs, even criminal prosecution.

The attacks on Mr. Barr are first and foremost an effort to force him out, to prevent this information from coming to light until Democrats can retake the White House in 2020. As a fallback, the coordinated campaign works as a pre-emptive smear, diminishing the credibility of his ultimate findings by priming the public to view him as a partisan.

That’s why Mr. Barr isn’t alone in getting slimed. Natasha Bertrand at Politico last month penned a hit piece on the respected Mr. Horowitz. It’s clear the inspector general is asking the right questions. The Politico article acknowledges he’s homing in on Mr. Steele’s “credibility” and the dossier’s “veracity”—then goes on to provide a defense of Mr. Steele and his dossier, while quoting unnamed sources who deride the “quality” of the Horowitz probe, and (hilariously) claim the long-tenured inspector general is not “well-versed” in core Justice Department functions.

“We have to stop using the criminal-justice process as a political weapon,” Mr. Barr said Wednesday. The line didn’t get much notice, but that worthy goal increasingly looks to be a reason Mr. Barr accepted this unpleasant job. Stopping this abuse requires understanding how it started. The liberal establishment, including journalists friendly with it, doesn’t want that to happen, and so has made it a mission to destroy Mr. Barr. The attorney general seems to know what he’s up against, and remains undeterred. That’s the sort of steely will necessary to right the ship at the Justice Department and the FBI.

“This is the end of my Presidency. I’m ‘effed'” (Trump)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder goes over the media’s portrayal of Trump saying he is fucked: “Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked.” AS IF Trump was meaning connections between he and Russia were about to be found out were the reason driving his exclamation.

Larry reads through some headlines and then dives into the full quote.

  • Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m fucked. Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won’t be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever happened to me. (WASHINGTON EXAMINER)

He then plays some Lawrence “socialist” O’Donnell to continue the point. The Sage finishes with an analogy to Trump being accused of saying “there are good Nazis and bad Nazis,” so-to-speak.