Sean Davis

Republicans Should Do To Democrats What They Did To Trump

Published by Papa Giorgio

Remember This?

Well… hello Mabel….

Fox News host Mark Levin explains why he’ll press Donald Trump, should he be elected to the White House, to indict President Biden on ‘Life, Liberty & Levin.’

A very interesting article over at The Federalist concurs:

…. Hutchinson wasn’t alone in calling for the rigged, obviously corrupt trial and Soviet-style conviction to be “respected.” The former GOP governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, who is now running for U.S. Senate, encouraged people “to respect the verdict and legal process” and invoked the “rule of law” — a curious thing to say given how the entire trial made a mockery of the rule of law.

[….]

Put bluntly, Republicans have to make Democrats play by their own rules. They have to inflict pain ruthlessly on Democrats with endless show trials and lawfare, just as Democrats have done to Trump. The leftist radicals who run the Democrat Party only understand power, and they will only stop when they are force-fed their own medicine over and over. 

What does that messaging look like? It looks like Anthony Sabatini, a Florida Republican who said Thursday he’s running for Congress “to imprison as many Democrats as possible.”

As my Federalist colleague Sean Davis said Thursday, “If you’re a Republican running for office, you can just go ahead and throw away all of your elegant little policy proposals for this or that corporate exclusion or tax subsidy. Give me a list of which Democrat officials you’re going to put in prison, or get lost.”

What does that look like in practice? Here’s one idea. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton should immediately indict President Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland for the ongoing crisis at the border, which in every way is a criminal human-trafficking conspiracy that they have orchestrated and sustained by flouting federal immigration law.

[….]

If the Republican Party is going to be anything other than controlled opposition for the Democrats, fiddling while the republic burns, it needs to purge its ranks of snakes like McConnell and elevate those who aren’t afraid of playing by Democrats’ rules. A good way to separate the two groups would be to start asking Republican officeholders and candidates whether they’d be willing to bring criminal charges against high-ranking Democrats and, if they can, imprison them.

That’s the world Democrats have called into being with this show trial. They are the ones who have cried “no quarter” in this fight. The least Republicans can do at this point is accept their terms and enter the fight on equal footing.

Why is that so important? For two reasons. The first, mentioned above, is that Democrats will never stop unless they are made to suffer exactly what they would inflict on Republicans. If we’re going to start jailing political opponents in America, then it has to go both ways. The other reason is now that Democrats have done this, have made a mockery of our justice system, the only way to restore faith in the rule of law is to make those responsible pay for what they’ve done and bring them to justice. If Democrats get away with this, Americans will be justified in thinking the entire system is illegitimate.

So Republican officials have a choice to make. They can do what’s necessary to stop Democrats and restore faith in our justice system, or they can become Democrat slaves and let the republic burn.

John Yoo: Trump Verdict Will Cause ‘Harm’ To Our Legal System

The Atlantic’s WWI Hit Piece (Anonymously Sourced Of Course)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Four more witnesses have gone on the record to say that The Atlantic’s anonymously-sourced report claiming President Donald Trump called dead soldiers “losers” and “suckers” is false, bringing the total to 10.

(DAILY WIRE)

I combined two segments of the Larry O’Connor Show responding to THE ATLANTIC’S story. One at his opening to the show yesterday, and the other is his interview with Sean David from THE FEDERALIST. I also add at the beginning a SPECIAL REPORT excerpt regarding Bolton’s assertion from actually being in the meeting (full video @FOX). As well as ending the audio by Larry O’Connor with an excerpt of THE FIVE. The point of this is to note that if a person who is a hostile witness to Trump – substantiates Trump’s claim, that goes a long way to making the point (WESTERN JOURNAL).

MAKE NO MISTAKE, there is an issue with anonymous sources in the media that is on steroids right now. I note this in a book review series I just started on my site (R-PT). But here you have four ON-THE-RECORD sources that rebut the anonymous sources (EPOCH TIMES). Five according to the DAILY WIRE, whom 4 were present and go on the record: Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Hogan Gidley, Dan Scavino, Steven Miller, and Lt. General Keith Kellogg.

And in story-after-story you see this pattern, the Washington post or the New York Times or CNN and the like will have a breaking news story – that in the end cannot be substantiated.

What The Atlantic SHOULD DO is include with every story bashing Trump mention that it’s owner is a mega-donor to Biden’s campaign. Here is the DAILY CALLER’S bullet points:

  • Billionaire philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the majority owner of The Atlantic, has donated over $1.2 million to former Vice President Joe Biden and other Democratic candidates and groups since 2019, Federal Election Commission records show.
  • Powell Jobs owns a 70% stake in The Atlantic, and she reportedly communicates often with its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

So not only is The Atlantic apparently guided by the same bias CNN is driven by ([undercover video] BREITBART), but an ad that ran on Morning Joe’s MSNBC show was another factor in how well-orchestrated this was. The Atlantic story came out after the business day Thursday (“The story came out at night on the east coast” — video at TWITTER)”

The ad was aired 12-hours later. As the WASHINGTON EXAMINER notes:

…It is not just an ad featuring a dubbed-over voice, some scary music, and a few screenshots of the Atlantic article. This is a high-quality, sophisticated television spot featuring testimony from multiple Gold Star parents.

That is some amazing turnaround time — getting all those parents together overnight and then getting the ad into MSNBC’s hands, considering the Atlantic story had only just come out Thursday evening….

RED STATE also joins the fray:

….We’ve been reporting on this story from The Atlantic from “anonymous sources” claiming the president didn’t go to an American military cemetery in France two years ago, because he called military members “losers” and “suckers,” an obvious and transparent lie. The story has now been debunked six ways to Sunday by real people who are willing to go on the record and who were there at the time.

But this story dropped late Thursday night on the east coast. So we find it rather curious that the anti-Trump leftist group, “Vote Vets,” had this ad up early this morning, talking specifically about what was in the article, using the particular alleged terms, “losers” and “suckers.”

[….]

How were they able to find those six Goldstar families and do interviews over night? Really? And had all the production values? Then they were able to get it on Morning Joe first thing?

It even has a “secure blue” link to donate to on the video.

The Democratic Super PAC American Bridge already has another ad out on this too and launching a $4 million ad buy in Midwestern battleground states to try to pitch to the Midwest that Trump doesn’t like the military. The ad features an alleged former Trump supporter military person now claiming he’ll be voting for Biden.

But unfortunately the story doesn’t have to be true. All that the Democrats need is for any in the middle to think it might be and hold their vote from Trump. That’s what Democrats are aiming for here.

As one comment from the TWITTER thread linked above says:

  • If anyone wants to offer an explanation other than the media colluded with the Biden campaign, I’m more than happy to hear it.

Mee too.

(See more at TWITCHY)

Pelosi’s “Resolution” Light-years Away from Clinton/Nixon

Published by Papa Giorgio

The issue mentioned below about calling witnesses (supoena power by Republicans) is not granted under Pelosi’s resolution. So NOT like the majority offered rights to the minority during Nixon and during Clinton. Here is another example of Schiff’s almost Soviet style circus show. Rep. Jim Jordan is now telling us that Adam Schiff is blocking the witness from answering specific questions from Republicans (RIGHT SCOOP):

(Some more disparities are pointed out in a PREVIOUS POST)

PJ-MEDIA opines rightly:

  • If this is truly an open and fair process, both sides should be able to ask questions of the witnesses, and Adam Schiff should not be preventing witnesses from answering questions or stopping Republicans from asking questions. This is clearly not a fair process. “This has been a tainted process from the start,” Scalise said. “What happened today confirms even worse just how poorly Adam Schiff is handling this process, denying the ability for Republicans to even ask basic questions that are critical to the heart of whether or not a President of the United States is impeached.”

After showing some TWEETS by Sean Davis and Byron York, RED STATE sums up the resolution by Nancy Pelosi well:

Someone point out to me how this changes anything. The chair is Adam Schiff. The resolution gives him sole authority to release transcripts. All this does is legitimize his selective leaking. Now he can release excerpts as he sees fit without having to shovel them through CNN. If a testimony helps Donald Trump, he can simply hold it back and no doubt he will (I have a story tomorrow coming about Schiff instructing witnesses not to answer the questions of Republican members).

But maybe he’s giving subpoena power to the minority party like Republicans did during the Clinton impeachment investigation? Nope. Adam Schiff once again garners full authority to veto any requested witnesses or subpoenas and the only appeal is to the entire committee, which is majority Democrat and will always vote to back up Schiff. Again, nothing has changed.

Nearly every single anti-transparency dynamic Republicans have pointed out still exists, just with prettier language around it. This resolution is window dressing. It’s an attempt to shovel fodder to the media, knowing they will now proclaim all Republican concerns moot. The fact that some conservatives are going along with the gambit is disappointing.

Republicans aren’t asking for a lot. We simply want to see the transcripts. We want to be able to judge the contradictions, context, and any possible evidence for ourselves. Adam Schiff being the arbiter of that is not acceptable and as long as that dynamic exists, this inquiry will continue to be a sham.

Democrats should be watching the polling of Independents.

The Whistleblower Status Critique – Critiqued (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

JUMP to update

Sean Hannity had Sean Davis on his show and in two short answers responds to critics of his article over at the Federalist: “Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge“.

See also:

You can also view the document change here (Twitter):

Here are a few follow up articles discussing the admitted changes to the form…

UPDATE

The first article show that the DAILY BEAST article notes the change (EMPHASIS added):

Late yesterday the IC IG finally provided a public explanation in a news release, where they acknowledged the changes to the form instructions were made in part “in response to recent press inquiries regarding the [Ukraine] whistleblower complaint.”  Clearly the IC IG understood the potential for a public outcry if he certified a complaint as “credible” where the whistleblower stated “I was not a direct witness to most of the events described” while the instructions for his own intake form still listed a warning that “[t]he IC IG cannot transmit information via the ICPWA based on an employee’s second-hand knowledge of wrongdoing.”

[….]

Ironically, the Daily Beast article inadvertently destroys its own claim that this is a “false story.” In their zeal to dismiss the importance of the altered requirement for first-hand knowledge, the article explains that first-hand evidence is the threshold to determine what is “credible” under the statute: “Though the text is confusingly drafted—which may be why the entire preamble was canned—A CAREFUL READING SHOWS IT’S NOT ERECTING A NEW HURDLE FOR FILING A WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT, BUT RATHER DESCRIBING THE TYPE OF EVIDENCE THE IC IG HAS TO GATHER TO JUDGE THE COMPLAINT ‘CREDIBLE’ AT THE END OF ITS 14-DAY INVESTIGATION.”

(FEDERALIST)

In another article, the changes are noted from the September 30th letter from the IC IG’s office:

The Intelligence Community Inspector General released a statement admitting the office changed its forms for whistleblowers between May 2018 and August 2019, as The Federalist first reported. As The Federalist’s Sean Davis noted, “The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.”

The timing of the change is important, as it bookends the period when an anonymous person filed a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump for a phone call with the president of Ukraine. In the call, the president asked the Ukrainians to continue investigating political corruption that may implicate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

In a statement on processing whistleblower complaints, the IG admitted they changed the forms:

In June 2019, the newly hired Director for the Center for Protected Disclosures entered on duty. Thus, the Center for Protected Disclosures has been reviewing the forms provided to whistleblowers who wish to report information with respect to an urgent concern to the congressional intelligence committees. In the process of reviewing and clarifying those forms, and in response to recent press inquiries regarding the instant whistleblower complaint, the ICIG understood that certain language in those forms and, more specifically, the informational materials accompanying the forms, could be read – incorrectly – as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint with the congressional intelligence committees.

The ICIG’s Center for Protected Disclosures has developed three new forms entitled, ‘Report of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse UNCLASSIFIED Intake Form’; ‘Disclosure of Urgent Concern Form-UNCLASSIFIED’; and ‘External Review Panel (ERP) Request Form – UNCLASSIFIED.’ These three new forms are now available on the ICIG’s open website and are in the process of being added to the ICIG’s classified system. The ICIG will continue to update and clarify its forms and its websites to ensure its guidance to whistleblowers is clear and strictly complies with statutory requirements. Consistent with the law, the new forms do not require whistleblowers to possess first-hand information in order to file a complaint or information with respect to an urgent concern”

While law does not require those who file whistleblower claims to offer first-hand information of an urgent concern, federal regulations laid out in the “Background Information on ICWPA Process” state the ICIG must possess reliable, first-hand information in order to find the whistleblower credible.

Despite the form changes and the requirement for possession of first-hand information, the ICIG statement admits the Ukraine whistleblower filed an outdated report and checked that he or she had first-hand knowledge of the experience, which the complaint itself contradicts…..

(FEDERALIST)

The third article is Sean Davis explaining what the IC IG admitted to Monday, and explains again what the audio at the beginning of the post notes:

On Monday, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) admitted that it did alter its forms and policies governing whistleblower complaints, and that it did so in response to the anti-Trump complaint filed on Aug. 12, 2019. The Federalist first reported the sudden changes last Friday. While many in the media falsely claimed the ICIG’s stunning admission debunked The Federalist’s report, the admission from the ICIG completely affirmed the reporting on the secretive change to whistleblower rules following the filing of an anti-Trump complaint in August.

[….]

In its press release, the ICIG also explicitly admitted it changed its policies because of the anti-Trump complaint, raising significant questions about whether the watchdog cooked its own books to justify its treatment of the anti-Trump complaint:

In the process of reviewing and clarifying those forms, and in response to recent press inquiries regarding the instant whistleblower complaint, the ICIG understood that certain language in those forms and, more specifically, the informational materials accompanying the forms, could be read — incorrectly — as suggesting that whistleblowers must possess first-hand information in order to file an urgent concern complaint with the congressional intelligence committees.

[….]

Because the complaint did not allege wrongdoing against a member of the intelligence community (the president of the United States is an elected constitutional officer, not an employee of a statutory agency), did not allege wrongdoing with regard to an intelligence activity (a phone call between two elected world leaders is basic diplomacy, not the execution of a statutorily required intelligence activity), and relied primarily on hearsay rather than firsthand evidence, both the director of national intelligence (DNI) and the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel determined that the anti-Trump complaint was not an “urgent concern” under the law and was therefore not required to be transmitted to the relevant congressional committees. In spite of those determinations, the ICIG on its own and after revising its internal guidance and policies regarding firsthand evidence decided the complaint did qualify as an “urgent concern” and forwarded the anti-Trump complaint to Congress.

(FEDERALIST)