(Eye Still On The Ball) Congressional Oversight in the Face of Executive Branch and Media Suppression: The Case Study of Crossfire Hurricane. Two people I respect greatly:
Robert Mueller
2-Most Important Videos From The Mueller [Weissmann] Hearing
(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.
Fear of Barr (Strassel)
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.
The Washington Post Steps In It Again #FakeNewsHeadline
Larry Elder dismantles the Washington Post’s VERY misleading headline, “Mueller Complained To Barr About His Summary Of Russia Probe.” You have to read to the 13th paragraph to read this:
- “…nothing in the Attorney General’s March 24 letter was inaccurate or misleading…”
(DAILY WIRE | PJ-MEDIA)
Talk about FAKENEWS HEADLINES!
I added some video of Ted Cruz, as well as James Evans Jr. (JJ from the CBS television series Good Times) — WHY YOU ASK — because when “the Sage” acted out Bill Barr calling Mueller, it reminded me of this. I add Stewie Griffin from Family Guy for good measure in my “video ‘added emphasis’.”
Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theories Obliterated (Glenn Greenwald)
Here are the areas (plus a little more) that Larry was reading from, via GLENN GREENWALD:
THE TWO-PRONGED CONSPIRACY THEORY that has dominated U.S. political discourse for almost three years – that (1) Trump, his family and his campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, and (2) Trump is beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin — was not merely rejected today by the final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It was obliterated: in an undeniable and definitive manner.
The key fact is this: Mueller – contrary to weeks of false media claims – did not merely issue a narrow, cramped, legalistic finding that there was insufficient evidence to indict Trump associates for conspiring with Russia and then proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That would have been devastating enough to those who spent the last two years or more misleading people to believe that conspiracy convictions of Trump’s closest aides and family members were inevitable. But his mandate was much broader than that: to state what did or did not happen.
That’s precisely what he did: Mueller, in addition to concluding that evidence was insufficient to charge any American with crimes relating to Russian election interference, also stated emphatically in numerous instances that there was no evidence – not merely that there was insufficient evidence to obtain a criminal conviction – that key prongs of this three-year-old conspiracy theory actually happened. As Mueller himself put it: “in some instances, the report points out the absence of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or event.”
[….]
All criminal investigations require a determination of a person’s intent, what they are thinking and what their goal is. When the question is whether a President sought to kill an Executive Branch investigation – as Trump clearly wanted to do here – the determinative issue is whether he did so because he genuinely believed the investigation to be an unfair persecution and scam, or whether he did it to corruptly conceal evidence of criminality.
That Mueller could not and did not establish any underlying crimes strongly suggests that Trump acted with the former rather than the latter motive, making it virtually impossible to find that he criminally obstructed the investigation.
THE NATURE OF OUR POLITICAL DISCOURSE is that nobody ever needs to admit error because it is easy to confine oneself to strictly partisan precincts where people are far more interested in hearing what advances their agenda or affirms their beliefs than they are hearing the truth. For that reason, I doubt that anyone who spent the last three years pushing utterly concocted conspiracy theories will own up to it, let alone confront any accountability or consequences for it.
But certain facts will never go away no matter how much denial they embrace. The sweeping Mueller investigation ended with zero indictments of zero Americans for conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election. Both Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared Kushner – the key participants in the Trump Tower meeting – testified for hours and hours yet were never charged for perjury, lying or obstruction, even though Mueller proved how easily he would indict anyone who lied as part of the investigation. And this massive investigation simply did not establish any of the conspiracy theories that huge parts of the Democratic Party, the intelligence community and the U.S. media spent years encouraging the public to believe.
Those responsible for this can refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing. They can even claim vindication if they want and will likely be cheered for doing so.
But the contempt in which the media and political class is held by so much of the U.S. population – undoubtedly a leading factor that led to Trump’s election in the first place – will only continue to grow as a result, and deservedly so. People know they were scammed, that their politics was drowned for years by a hoax. And none of that will go away no matter how insulated media and political elites in Washington, northern Virginia, Brooklyn, and large West Coast cities keep themselves, and thus hear only in-group affirmation while blocking out all of that well-earned scorn.
Mueller Report Doesn’t Fit The Narrative
Steven Crowder breaks down exactly how the Mueller Report blew up in the Democrats’ and media’s smug faces!
Dershowitz Called It From Day One…
(See a previous post detailing some of his arguments, HERE) Mar. 25, 2019 | Former Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says Robert Mueller was wrong for not completely ruling out a case for obstruction of justice in his Russia report.
Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz weighs in on the lack of a decision on obstruction in the Mueller report.
No There, There (Andrew McCarthy)
I chose not to have the entire McCarthy interview by Sean Hannity. I have audio by him already, saying mostly the same stuff. HOWEVER, I did want to upload these two short responses by him to Hannity. Andrew McCarthy really zeros in on the center of the issue — “it didn’t happen.”
Stones Indictment Shows No Russian Collusion (Andrew McCarthy)
Dennis Prager invited Andrew McCarthy on his radio program to discuss his (McCarthy’s) article entitled, “Stone Indictment Makes Clear There Was No Trump-Russia Conspiracy”. Key to the article is this short paragraph:
- It is very simple. If the Trump campaign had been in an espionage conspiracy with Russia to hack Democratic email accounts, why would the campaign have needed Stone to try to figure out what stolen information WikiLeaks had and when it would release that information?
Yep. There you have it. Unless it’s as bad as Sidney Powell thinks it may be if Andrew Weissmann writes the report for Mueller (), McCarthy may be right that Trump will be vindicated.
NOTE: During the interview Andrew McCarthy responded, “Yes, I think…” which reminded me of a Boogie Down Productions song, “My Philosophy” — so I spliced it in.
Sean Hannity Interviews Jerome Corsi
Sean Hannity interviews Jerome Corsi. I first want to say that I am not a fan of Jerome – at all. BUT, the interview sheds a lot of light on the entire case, and he (if this is true) should win his case easily. But discussion about Roger Stone and Julian Assange add some substance to the case[s]. Good stuff, I hope it helps fill-in holes for the listener. Here is more information:
- Could Jerome Corsi’s Lawsuit Destroy The Mueller Investigation? (American Thinker)
- Judge Denies Mueller Request for Delay in Corsi Case (NewsMax)
- So The FBI Staged Quite The Show In Arresting Roger Stone (HotAir)
- Stone Indictment Follows Concerning Mueller Pattern (The Hill)
HOT AIR reports on this:
…So what were Stone’s false statements? The six counts of false testimony in the indictment allege:
- Stone lied when he claimed that he had no records pertinent to the House Intelligence Committee’s probe
- Stone lied when he claimed not to have sent or received e-mails and texts relating to the hacked e-mails
- Stone lied about the timing of his contacts with “Person 2” about Julian Assange, and had actually contacted “Person 1” rather than “Person 2”, which he did not disclose
- Stone lied when he claimed he never directed either to get more information about the hacked data, when in fact he asked both to get documents from Wikileaks
- Stone lied about never sending e-mails or texts to “Person 2”
- Stone lied about discussing all of the above with “anyone involved in the Trump campaign
It’s tough to argue that all of these are immaterial to the House’s purpose in investigating the issues surrounding the 2016 campaign, if — if — Mueller can prove these allegations in court. It’s also tough to establish forgetfulness on the first two, since there is a reasonable expectation that a subpoenaed witness would check to see if requested/demanded records exist before denying that they do. A jury is not likely to find “memory loss” as a reasonable explanation for this series of supposed senior moments.
Plus, let’s not forget (pardon the joke), that the questions of materiality and memory loss do not at all pertain to the witness-tampering charge. That charge might make it tough for Stone to sustain a memory loss defense, too:
e. On multiple occasions, including on or about December 1, 2017, STONE told Person 2 that Person 2 should do a “Frank Pentangeli” before HPSCI in order to avoid contradicting STONE’s testimony. Frank Pentangeli is a character in the film The Godfather: Part II, which both STONE and Person 2 had discussed, who testifies before a congressional committee and in that testimony claims not to know critical information that he does in fact know.
f. On or about December 1, 2017, STONE texted Person 2, “And if you turned over anything to the FBI you’re a fool.” Later that day, Person 2 texted STONE, “You need to amend your testimony before I testify on the 15th.” STONE responded, “If you testify you’re a fool. Because of tromp I could never get away with a certain [sic] my Fifth Amendment rights but you can. I guarantee you you are the one who gets indicted for perjury if you’re stupid enough to testify.”
If Mueller’s team can establish this communication as genuine, and if Stone’s attorneys can’t establish any other context for demanding that Person 2 pull a Frankie Five Angels, it shows that Stone knew full well that he’d perjured himself…..
BAM! Flynn’s Hearing Explained (Dan Bongino)
WOW! Dan Bongino explains well what I wasn’t grasping… and the key for me next time is to read the “in court transcript,” as it makes clear what the Judges actions were really about — rather than the MSM running roughshod over the happenings in the courtroom. For headlines. Judge Sullivan threw a red-flag for Flynn… I hope his legal team takes the generous offer to rethink their strategy. Bongino’s fourth point is about the Logan Act (at the 16:02 mark) – great stuff!
SARA CARTER has more:
…After giving Flynn and his attorney’s ample opportunity to change his guilty plea, Sullivan then went on a tirade against Flynn. He accused the three-star general of “treason” and excoriated him for crimes he’s never been formally accused of by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office.
“Arguably, that undermines everything that this flag over here stands for,” said Sullivan to Flynn and looking at the flag in the courtroom. “Arguably, you sold your country out.”
Shocked. That was the face of everyone in the courtroom. Whispers. Everyone was wondering what was going on – what happened to Sullivan, whose record against prosecutorial misconduct is well documented. He dismissed the ethics conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens in 2009 after he discovered government prosecutors withheld exculpatory information and possible ethical misconduct.
Why didn’t Flynn withdraw his plea, I wondered? Could it be that he’s overwhelmed with debt, his family is exhausted of the whole situation or did Mueller’s office threaten to go after his son for something we have yet to discover. Maybe, all of the above.
The government prosecutors corrected Sullivan but the damage was done. The prosecution also reiterated that Flynn was still assisting them on the case against Bijan Kian, Flynn’s former business partner with the former Flynn Intel Group. Sullivan gave Flynn’s counsel one more out before moving forward with the sentencing, suggesting it might way better in Flynn’s case to have a sentencing hearing after he finishes cooperating with the Special Counsel.
Flynn’s more relaxed demeanor at the beginning of the trial was now gone. He seemed stoic, upset and his body language reflected that fact. Sullivan then announced a 25 minute break to let Flynn discuss the matter with his attorneys. Flynn accepted the postponement of his sentencing.
When the break ended Kelner told Sullivan that they would accept the postponement. Sullivan then walked back all the inaccurate statements that Flynn was a traitor, along with the faulty statement that Flynn served as an unregistered foreign agent for Turkey, while he was at the White House.
[….]
Flynn’s case wasn’t about collusion with Russia or his work for Turkey.
But it did start with a felony. Not a felony committed by Flynn but one committed by a senior U.S. Obama official who disclosed to the public a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on then Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak and his private phone calls with Flynn in December, 2016.
The second felony committed by this former senior government official was unmasking Flynn’s name in the media reports….
Comey let’s out small snippets of his thoughts in handling the Russian Dossier. Comey AGAIN slips up. Enjoy the fun:
Rod Rosenstein Will Not Allow FBI Interrogator Joe Pientka To Testify
Gregg Jarrett: Rod Rosenstein WILL NOT ALLOW Gen. Flynn Interrogator Joe Pientka To Testify. Hmmm, I wonder why?
GATEWAY PUNDIT has some good stuff on this:
As TGP previously reported in February, according to Mike Cernovich, McCabe altered far left FBI investigator Peter Strzok’s 302 notes on his interview with General Michael Flynn.
And then McCabe destroyed the evidence.
In early May Senator Grassley demanded the FBI and DOJ produce the transcript of Flynn’s intercepted calls with Russian Ambassador Kislyak and the 302’s by May 25th.
The DOJ and FBI ignored him.
Grassley then concluded his letter by reiterating his request to schedule an interview with the second special agent who was present at Flynn’s interrogation, Joe Pientka, after push back from the DOJ….
As GATEWAY further notes… Joe Pientka’s name was redacted in the newly released 302s:
As noted above, Special Agent, Joe Pientka, who was present during the interrogation of General Flynn. He has been ready to give testimony regarding circumstances surrounding the ambush interview (GATEWAY PUNDIT | SARA CARTER). Investigative reporter, Sara Carter says Pientka, if issued a subpoena, will discuss how forthcoming Flynn was about very specific sensitive information that Flynn could not have possibly known the investigators already knew, which may give additional insight into Flynn’s veracity and willingness to tell the truth.
SARA CARTER notes that with these new revealed documents, that some internal document discrepancies are noted… and it is because of the changed 302 we know Strzok had written:
The Special Counsel’s Office released key documents related to former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn Friday. Robert Mueller’s office had until 3 p.m. to get the documents to Judge Emmet Sullivan, who demanded information Wednesday after bombshell information surfaced in a memorandum submitted by Flynn’s attorney’s that led to serious concerns regarding the FBI’s initial questioning of the retired three-star general.
The highly redacted documents included notes from former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe regarding his conversation with Flynn about arranging the interview with the FBI. The initial interview took place at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017.
The documents also include the FBI’s “302” report regarding Flynn’s interview with anti-Trump former FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka when they met with him at the White House. It is not, however, the 302 document from the actual January, 2017 interview but an August, 2017 report of Strzok’s recollections of the interview.
Flynn’s attorney’s had noted in their memorandum to the courts that the documents revealed that FBI officials made the decision not to provide Flynn with his Miranda Rights, which would’ve have warned him of penalties for making false statements.
“The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview,” the Flynn memo says. According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials “decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport.”
The July 2017 report, however, was the interview with Strzok. It described his interview with Flynn but was not the original Flynn interview.
Apparent discrepancies within the 302 documents are being questioned by may former senior FBI officials, who state that there are stringent policies in place to ensure that the documents are guarded against tampering…..
JOHN SOLOMON also is in the mix as he dropped a bombshell of information:
As the NATIONAL SENTINEL continues in their posting, we see the Judge in Flynn’s case
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Emmitt Sullivan demanded to see the FBI’s 302s — interview summaries — of agents’ ambush interview with Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017, just a few days after POTUS Trump was inaugurated.
According to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton: “Big: Judge Sullivan, who is overseeing General Flynn’s case, demands to see the infamous FBI 302 and other FBI doc about the ambush Flynn interview set up by Yates, McCabe, and Strzok.”
DAN BONGINO also joins the fun by letting us know about the destruction of key evidence to another investigation (seperate from Mueller’s of course) that hints at something damning is being hidden:
The 11-page report reveals that almost a month after Strzok was removed from Mueller’s team, his government-issued iPhone was wiped clean and restored to factory settings by another individual working in Mueller’s office. The special counsel’s Record’s Officer told investigators that “she determined it did not contain records that needed to be retained.”
“She noted in her records log about Strzok’s phone: ‘No substantive texts, notes or reminders,’” the report states.
When the OIG obtained his old cell phone in January, it had been issued to another individual within the agency and investigators were unable to recover any text messages sent or received by Strozk on that device.
Two weeks after Page departed Mueller’s team on July 15, 2017, her government-issued iPhone was also wiped and restored to factory settings and had not been reissued to another person within the agency. No one within the special counsel’s office or the Justice Management Divisions of the agency had any records as to who cleared all the data from the iPhone.
[….]
Some of their most memorable texts (there are too many to list them all) include:
- Page: “Trump’s not going to become president, right?” Strzok: “No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it.”
- Page: “God Trump is loathsome human.” Strzok: “Yet he many win.”
- Strzok: “God Hillary should win. 100,000,000-0.” Page: “I know”
- Strzok: “I am riled up. Trump is a f***ing idiot, is unable to provide a coherent answer.”
Page resigned from the FBI in May of 2018 and Strzok was fired in August.
I guess they were learning from Hillary Clinton? As Trey Gowdy noted about the HIllary:
Hillary Clinton’s lawyers used a special tool to delete emails from her personal server so that “even God can’t read them,” House Select Committee on Benghazi Chairman Trey Gowdy said on Thursday.
Gowdy (R-S.C.) said the use of BleachBit, computer software whose website advertises that it can “prevent recovery” of files, is further proof that Clinton had something to hide in deleting personal emails from the private email system she used during her tenure as secretary of state.
[….]
“She and her lawyers had those emails deleted. And they didn’t just push the delete button; they had them deleted where even God can’t read them,” Gowdy said Thursday morning during an interview on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom.” “They were using something called BleachBit. You don’t use BleachBit for yoga emails or bridemaids emails. When you’re using BleachBit, it is something you really do not want the world to see.”…
(POLITICO)
Her aid also smashed her cell phones and hard drives with a hammer. I wonder why? CONSERVATIVE TREE-HOUSE breaks down the issue well.