Blinding Justice

Published 05-14-2020

My little corner of Twitter erupted over the past few days with news of Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell’s declassifying of who exactly in the Obama Administration unmasked American citizens from raw intelligence gathered before the 2016 election. And while the names have yet to be released, the delivery of that information to Attorney General Bill Barr added another piece to the puzzle of ObamaGate.

More than just an eruption, news of the declassification added to the volumes of information already publicly released, and paint a further picture of the depths to with partisan politics have failed the American people. In service to those partisan politics, to harnessing the power our government wields, the Obama Administration used every facet of the government structure and apparatus against those they perceived as enemies to secure that power consolidation.

When added to the Inspector General reports covering internal operation at institutions like the Department of Justice, the FISA Courts, the FBI, the IRS… I could go on, politicization and corruption of these apparatus are the most despicable, if only because of the power they hold over American’s lives.

Taking away someone’s freedom, the ability to jail someone or to take their life as punishment, while ensuring the public trust those making the claims of wrongdoing. These cornerstones of trust, of our very social contract, have been shattered by the actions of those we asked to lead. These cornerstones have been eroded throughout decades, not just by those greedy for power but also by blindness to injustice, apathy and evil. And it started long before anyone reading this was born.

It was done by administrations chipping away, from both the left and right, in service to their ends and not our own. But it was sharpened and honed all the same, and used unmercilessly against all who challenged it. Good people were caught up, like General Michael Flynn. Also some not good people, like Paul Manafort.

And it doesn’t make any of it right.

It does no service to justice, that it can be wielded capriciously, or for one’s personal ends. A system is only as good as what you put it into it, and, well, we didn’t choose well. Not that we had great choices, and some were necessary choices, but by and large we do not look for Washington and Adams, Jefferson and Madison. Men and women who make the hard choices, speak the hard truths and follow with the hard actions. Those who serve something bigger than themselves.

We elect personalities beholden to donors who serve the interests of those interested. We elect public relations creations, and pay no attention to the men behind the curtain. We allow cheap marketing and bumper sticker slogans to create division within our friends and family, outrage over problems created by the very government pledged to fight it and then outrage again over the solutions.

I know we still create those men and women. They lead our families, our churches, our communities. They serve when asked, or not, however they can. The quiet strength of Americans always survives. We value justice, and fairness. Bigger cornerstones that government corruption can not touch as long as there is an American public.

A government so vast, to have the ability to spy on it’s political domestic enemies undeterred, can be turned on any one of us, at any time. Beyond what that meant for President Trump, Senator Cruz, Senator Sanders, Senator Rubio and Secretary Carson, among others, who all were spied on in the course of the 2016 election season. Beyond the politics of it, as a citizen it is horrifying.

Unwinding all of it won’t be an easy task, nor will it earn a lot of accolades.

In fact, in certain circles it will be downright unpopular.

Doesn’t mean it all doesn’t need to happen.

We can not have a functioning country, at least one that isn’t completely dysfunctional, with a justice system that flourishes in injustice. And sadly, at this point, I don’t even know that everyone could begin to agree on what justice even is. But I do know that recent actions are just a start. Just as I know that it will never be enough to right all the wrongs.

That’s a sad commentary on the state of things, one I hope we can improve.

••••••••

Tuesday brought the release of Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats next attempt at Corona related relief. Weighing in at $3 trillion and 1,800 pages, only the staffers know what kind of garbage we are going to find wrapped up in relief dollars if the HEROES Act makes it to President Trump’s desk.

Unlike the usual order, which if I’m completely honest went out the window around the time the Dodo went extinct, no committee hearings or town halls were necessary for the formation of this legislation. In fact, I’d bet the number of Congressmen and women to read the whole bill before they vote on it could be numbered on one hand.

It’s not that I expect more from House Democrats, no, they are being pretty true to form. Or from Senate Republicans, as they too have been pretty true to form, most responsive to corporate and big business interests, Main Street be damned. At the end of the day, the American middle class can’t expect either side to actively work for their interests or well being. And we get shown that time and again. One of these times we might actually learn.

Maybe, just maybe, we could elect a Congress that has ideas to improve America instead of throwing money we don’t have to people who have access to plenty of it already. Maybe we can elect more people like Congressmen like Tom Massie (Kentucky) who introduced the PRIME Act to streamline burdensome regulations that constrict meat producers and processors, giving US farmers and ranchers more freedom to sell their product locally. Not that the legislation has any chance of passing in the current House, but more legislation like this is necessary for the America we will be after the crisis of COVID-19 has become part of the everyday experience.

We have to look ahead, to help be part of the solutions that will make our communities better, in spite of what our leaders do and say. We have to create the climate for self sufficiency and actual prosperity, not the corrupted version of reality that we have been sold.

Three years on I’m still mad

Published 12-12-2019

I’m mad. Not annoyed, not perturbed, but absolutely pissed off.

It started back up a few weeks ago when I read Lee Smith’s book “The Plot Against the President”, which detailed Congressman Devin Nunes investigation of the Russia Investigation into President Trump, named Crossfire Hurricane.

The Republican Investigation, which Nunes’s staff called “Operation Medusa” was aptly named. In one bright spot of the political nightmare that has been the past three years, the Nunes’ memo has been proven to be correct, and right on target.

The book itself is easy to read and comprehensive in it’s coverage of the Nunes investigation. Inside details and contemporaneous interviews with Nunes’s team from the Intelligence committee lay out the scope of exactly how many people made deliberate choices contrary to their mandate as a public servant.

The release of the Inspector General’s report on the FISA procedures is already being spun to personal narratives by those involved. From upper management to “low level employees”, no one in this investigation s covered in glory.

And while no one involved in this is still employed by the federal government, the major players obfuscate and spin, minimizing the absolute cluster that they themselves wrought upon our populace.

Add to this, the rush to impeachment by the House… is it a quid pro quo, no it’s bribery, no wait, abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Yep, that’s the ticket. You get the picture.

So instead of celebrating the season of glad tidings and joy, I’m working up a good old fashioned mad.

After following the saga of Crossfire Hurricane since it entered the public conversation in the fall of 2016, I’ve spent much time reading memos, government reports and IG findings. I’ve read multitudes of news reports, and campaign autopsies. And I keep going back to the same issues that help explain why so many Americans took a chance on Donald J. Trump.

And practically daily, so many of of these government officials, whether elected or employed, give us new examples.

We have allowed the government apparatus to politicize the law and our system of justice to punish political opponents. We’ve allowed the media to become complicit in party politics. We’ve allowed a system that rewards failure for bureaucrats and advisors, dooming our leaders to make the same mistakes over and over whether in war or politics.

We’ve empowered politicians to enrich themselves at the cost of the American taxpayer, and made running our country a means to wealth and prestige, instead of sacrifice and service.

And when the people say enough, the political class doubles down to say you are not allowed.

Here’s the deal, I wasn’t a Trump enthusiast during the primaries, but had no problem supporting him in the general election. While I was unsure of how he would govern, the absolute delight his tweaking all the right people gave me. was impossible not to relish. And clearly, his stated platform was something that I could get behind.

While I know that any one politician isn’t enough to stem the tide of the direction our betters have set for our nation, the megaphone afforded a presidential candidate and later President to elevate differing solutions to the issues we face is necessary.

Contrary to the Democrat Party’s belief, there is another way of thinking beyond the platitudes of the Obama years. And short of a permanent electoral advantage that was inevitable, the American people said maybe try something different.

President Trump ran against the permanent class who on one hand calls for his impeachment because of gross misconduct, but an hour later announces an agreement with him for passage of one of the cornerstones of his campaign.

A cynical person would tell you that this wasn’t for the good of American workers and farmers, since it has been sitting in the house for months, but because said impeachment isn’t resonating with voters beyond the far left base that has demanded it since Trump’s inauguration.

Also adding fuel to the fire that is my temper… Monday brought a Washington Post story that the Pentagon’s top brass and Obama administration officials “misled” the public to what boots on the ground were saying during the Afghanistan surge. Soldiers and field Generals weren’t being listened to, and actively ignored for D.C. generals and Department of Defense managers.

Tell me again why President Trump should listen to a single one of these people?

We are supposed to look towards a city where credentials mean more than results, abhorrent behavior is rewarded by promotions to special councils, leaking of classified info is shielded by laws meant for those uncovering true government malfeasance, and a presidential candidate can buy information that is then turned into a secret federal warrant used to spy on her political rival.

Not enough for your blood to boil?

How about a known pedophile being used as a central source in that special council investigation, who has now been charged with bundling illegal foreign contributions from Saudi Arabia and Russia and reporting meetups with the candidate during the campaign to those foreign interests. Only in the world of D.C. is Hillary Clinton not mentioned in the reporting, choosing instead to report that George Nadler also gave money to the Trump inauguration after realizing that they were trying to buy the wrong politician.

Nadler never met Trump by the way, as confirmed in the indictments.

I’m absolutely incensed that while it’s wonderful the IG found no smoking gun of political bias in this FISA procedure report, the fact that at every decision point the bureaucracy doubled down in one direction with a zealousness that would make J. Edgar Hoover blush. Not just sending spies into the campaign, but taking the extraordinary step of falsifying documents and excluding exculpatory information in the files turned into the court.

Yes, we should all be thankful that these brave employees weren’t so stupid to leave an email around saying that they were investigating the Trump campaign because of his stance on immigration.

But let’s be serious, watch any of the impeachment hearings held in the Intelligence committee hearings, a parade of credentialed bureaucrats and advisors lecturing the public on Trump differing from (Obama’s) stated official U.S. Policy. This same attitude pervaded the senior staff in our intelligence agencies and federal law enforcement.

Well, that’s really not how any of this is supposed to work.

Contrary to our elite’s beliefs, what’s been happening in America for a good many decades isn’t to our liking. The norms and standards that rule their days are not shared by an America that runs on common sense and hard work.

You want to talk about braking all the norms? Well, to be perfectly honest, I hired President Trump to break every single one of them.

Continuing delusions on Capitol Hill

Tuesday morning brought Attorney General William Barr to Capitol Hill to testify before the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives. Of course, appropriations were the furthest thing from the minds of a good portion of congressional members, with the prominent lines of questioning centering on the recently concluded Mueller Special Council Investigation.

Many of those congressmen wanted to know, and were demanding the full report Robert Mueller issued, without any redactions for grand jury testimony, or other information necessary for use in prosecutions, as proscribed by federal law.

They wanted to harangue the Attorney General, trying to insinuate that his allegiance was to President Trump, and not the rule of law.

Of course, Democrats want the full report because they think there will be information embarrassing to the President and his supporters. And I am sure there is plenty there that is unsavory. My bet is nothing so unsavory that it would make me feel better about the over $35 million dollars spent on this ridiculous fishing expedition.

I hope that eventually Americans will be able to see all the information that Special Counsel Mueller found. We, as American citizens, deserve a full and honest accounting of all facets of what came from the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane, when it is legally responsible to do so. According to the law.

By the way, that full and honest accounting also includes how all this insanity began.

The unholy network of reporters and their favored sources, including those sources in federal law enforcement who felt the need to investigate the President because they did not like his stances on foreign policy, need to be aired for all of the public to see.

The cloud of the Mueller investigation has hampered President Trump at every step since taking office, and on every policy.  Now the goalposts have moved into a larger governmental conspiracy to hide and muddy the waters against Trump on the question of obstruction, designed to hamper the next two years into election season.

The Attorney General is no fool, nor is he new to the machinations of D.C.’s professional political class, commonly referred to as the Swamp. He’s been there, done that before. And it seems his patience regarding political shenanigans is more limited this time around.

Beyond the seemingly never-ending Mueller conversation, which will magically conclude the day Trump leaves office, Barr was able to cover a number of interesting topics during his testimony, as mush as the Democrats allowed him to talk about fiscal and appropriation issues regarding his testimony on Tuesday.

Human and sex trafficking, illegal immigration, and federal law enforcement funding were on the table during discussions on a $30 Billion budget for department operations.

AG Barr was not the only show on the Hill Tuesday. Nor is the Mueller report the only delusion  wildly festering in the swamp.

New immigration numbers for March were released Tuesday morning from Customs and Border Patrol. In March there were 92,000 apprehensions of 58,000 family units 30,000 single adults and almost 9,000 unaccompanied children. Over 103,000 apprehensions in one month. And it shows no signs of slowing down, but actually increasing more.

Beyond being unsustainable by just the numbers, the continuation of immigration policies that have failed repeatedly can not continue.

Congress has no need to though, nor do Republicans in the pocket of Big Business. Both for reasons that do not benefit Americans, but themselves.

Crony capitalism and electoral power outweigh American interests, and have been for longer than I have been alive.

I am encouraged by President Trump’s current shake up of the Department of Homeland Security. I liked Kirstjen Nielsen, but was not impressed with her tenure. President Trump likes staff who take charge and move forward. Nielsen was not that person at DHS. She was flatfooted in defending agency positions, or clearly stating how and why policies were started and formed.

She’s a bureaucrat, not a fighter.

On immigration, Trump has always wanted a fighter. Someone who knew how to handle the issues and Congress in an effective manner. She was not it.

There was no leadership on how things should be fixed, beyond platitudes. There is no true belief in the President’s policies or preferred actions on the border. And it showed.

The seriousness of the problem we have on our Southern Border is not going away, either as a humanitarian issue or as a campaign platform. In the mean time, everyone will suffer under policies that are not fit to today’s needs, but trying to solve problems we had 50 years ago.

My money is still on Trump. Especially now that the Russia question has been answered for what seems like the 500th time.

Published April 11, 2019

It’s a no from Mueller

So the Office of the Special Council released their final report to the Department of Justice Friday, and while it will take the for most of the report to be revealed to the public, the four page summary released Sunday by Attorney General Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein gives us a clear picture of Robert Mueller’s conclusions to whether President Trump, or his campaign, colluded with the Russian government to beat Hillary.

The answer… a resounding nyet.

For anyone paying attention over the last two years, this news is not surprising. It beggars belief that anyone actually still believes that Donald Trump actually colluded with Putin. What may come as a surprise is what will come next.

Shock and awe, or fire and fury if you prefer, will be next on the agenda if Congressman Devin Nunes and Senator Lindsay Graham have anything to say about it.

And as an aside, for those who would like to hold on Mueller not exonerating the President on the charges of obstruction, I have yet to meet a prosecutor who exonerates anyone at anytime. Common sense also tells you that if there was not collusion, how could there possibly be obstruction to protect said non-collusion.

Back to the fire and fury… because that is always where the “there” was in the Russian Collusion scandal all along, and what the Mueller Investigation was always providing cover for. Congressman Nunes has fully faced the onslaught of every sling and arrow that Establishment Washington could throw at him and refused to back down.

He stood alone in front of the microphones and told us exactly what happened. How it was orchestrated, even if the Congressman was not at liberty to tell us who exactly orchestrated.

What was the it, well, here’s what I said over a year ago… “The abuses of personal and civil liberties by national law enforcement, on a duly elected president no less, should have everyone’s head spinning – regardless of who that person is. The fact that directors and deputies of the FBI and DOJ thought nothing of lying to courts, hiding evidence continually and repeatedly from Congressional oversight and playing spy games with a complicit and willing media to ultimately impeach the new President moves this beyond a constitutional crisis.

Maybe a criminal court could help get to the bottom of it all.” 

Well, now is the chance for the Congressman to feel some sense of personal vindication. He has stated repeatedly that there will be criminal referrals from the House Intelligence Committee investigation he chaired. It is time for those referrals to be made and the DOJ to take action.

If there is any chance for America to think that there is equality under the eyes of the law and end corruption within our government an investigation into how this whole plot overtook our national sensibilities, without any pushback or questioning from the national media must happen.

And it all must be public.

We can not let one branch of government cover for another. We can not let former government officials, who most likely illegally surveilled American citizens, unmasked identities, and used our intelligence agencies not just for political purposes – but against their actual political enemies – stand without a response. We can not let presidential political aspirations and disinformation campaigns meant to cover for malfeasance stand over the rule of law.

We have a President with the backbone to see it through. He has shown the patience to wait it out. We have at least one Congressman who stood up to his own party, even after fighting baseless ethics charges to sully his reputation and sideline his efforts to bring light to what could only be considered a political coup. I am hoping Senator Graham will continue to press the DOJ, and the FBI, and where warranted file charges.

What the Hillary Clinton campaign unleashed, all while President Obama blithely ignored or tacitly encouraged irregular intelligence collection by political hires and appointments has not only divided this country, but sought to delegitimize the 2016 election and our election systems.

Russian social media trolls and hackers matter little compared to that.

It is time for actual justice and law and order, not political backbiting and insurance policies. It is time for those that wink, wink “assumed there was more there” to be called to account. These political actors have lied to the American public for two years, repeatedly and vociferously. And were paid by cable networks to do so.

Now, I want to know if they did more than just lie.

So while the politicians say they want to move on, doing so without any repercussions will not fix what is broken in our political culture.

Remember folks, if you want to take out the King, you better kill him… otherwise you just might make him stronger.

Published March 27, 2019

A Tale of Two Lawyers

President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was unceremoniously raided Monday morning, with the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI serving warrants at Cohen’s office and residence. In quite a surprising turn, the news of these raids was leaked to major news outlets by unnamed sources close to the investigation (later confirmed by Cohen’s lawyer).

Cohen, according to these sources, is being investigated for possible campaign finance violations and bank fraud related to payments made to Stormy Daniels prior to the election. Not leaked was information on the basis for the search warrants, or why this investigation was referred from the Mueller Investigation to Manhattan.

Also not surprising was the confirmation that there is still no evidence of Russian collusion. Or that anyone close to President Trump has a target on their backs in the Mueller Investigation.

What happened Monday crosses a bright line. Searching privileged communications between a lawyer and client is almost never done. No-knock raids on a witness who has cooperated with investigators is also something new, considering other recent FBI political investigations.

Take, for example, attorney Cheryl Mills. Mills served as chief of staff for Hillary Clinton at the State Department. Mills served as an attorney for Clinton after she left State. During the email investigations and Clinton Foundation inquiries, Mills was allowed to decide what questions she would or would not answer – going so far to leave the interview room when agents deviated from the agreed-upon topics. While under investigation for obstruction charges relating to destruction of physical evidence (smashing of phones, laptops and hard drives used by Clinton) Mills was even allowed to sit in on Clinton’s interviews with agents.

In no instance was Mills subjected to any kind of raid, planned or otherwise. Nor was Huma Abedin, or Hillary for that matter.

Rumors have abounded since the raid. Make no mistake, though, this raid was about sending a message. Don’t help the president or you, too, will be a target.

And it is not a far stretch to figure that documents procured under this warrant will be leaked, whether incriminating or not, especially if they are embarrassing to the president. It is apparently not a worry that any of this was before the election and has nothing to do with Russia in any way.

But what is all of this really about? Is it about a New York lawyer?

Or is it about negating the results of the 2016 election?

From here in the cheap seats all I have seen is an organized assault on Donald Trump, from the moment Michigan and Pennsylvania were called in his favor. Direct assaults like the FISA warrants used to spy on Trump Tower during the transition and career DOJ officials refusing to defend the president’s policies, to softer hits, like Russian bots on the loose on social media stumping for Trump, in an effort to undermine the legitimacy of the votes of over 120 million Americans.

Who wouldn’t trust an investigation that is stacked with lawyers and investigators who overwhelmingly donated to the opponent of the person they are investigating? The special counsel has run for over a year and netted two charges of lying to the FBI. In the case of Paul Manafort, who was only hired after the Republican Establishment threatened a proxy fight on the floor of the convention, the alleged crimes happened before Trump ran for president, or even considered hiring him and Gates.

While the Senate pretends to know what the heck is going on with Facebook, maybe some curiosity is in order as to why everyone in D.C. is so dead set against President Donald Trump and the American voters.

 

 

Published: Thursday, April 12, 2018

Another Week, Another Memo

The Democrat memo, authored by Congressman Adam Schiff and minority members of the House Intelligence Committee, finally made it to the light of day recently after two weeks of back and forth with the Department of Justice and the FBI.

The delay was necessary for redacting names and passages which would have revealed our sources or methods of intelligence collection. Which, as Congressman Schiff reminded us repeatedly in the run-up to the release of the Nunes memo, would be an absolute threat to national security.

It does seem curious then that this memo took so long to clear, and had more than a few redactions. Every page features them, and in one case a whole section was blacked out. Needless to say, it wasn’t as easy to read, or follow, as the Nunes memo, and my bet is that was by design. At 10 pages, and 33 footnotes, it definitely wasn’t my normal weekend reading!

The memo begins with assertions that the Nunes memo was a “transparent effort to undermine those agencies (the FBI and DOJ), the special counsel and congressional investigations. It also risks exposure of sensitive sources and methods for no legitimate purpose.”

Further, it includes the claims that the Steele dossier did not affect the FBI decision to start surveillance on the Trump campaign, and that the FISA renewals were based on information other than the dossier.

My first answer to this is – you better bet that Americans should be interested in what our government does, especially in the areas that most affect our Fourth Amendment rights to privacy and unreasonable searches. The fact that the Schiff and company don’t think the American people deserve this information, and instead think that we should just trust the bureaucracy is example one of why President Trump currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The memo goes on to document the “narrow use” of Steele’s sources, citing news stories and the FBI’s own investigation into Trump World that validated and encouraged further investigations and unmasking. But the real story is found deeper in the memo.

On page five is the section titled “DOJ’s Transparency about Christopher Steele” the Democrats state that the DOJ disclosed that Steele… “was approached by an identified U.S. person, who indicated to Source No. 1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. person to conduct research regarding Candidate No. 1’s ties to Russia. (The identified U.S. person and Source No. 1 have a longstanding business relationship.) The identified U.S. person hired Source No. 1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. person never advised Source  No. 1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate No. 1’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign.” (Emphasis made by source)

To make life easier – here is the same statement with the proper names inserted. “Was approached by [Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS], who indicated to [Christopher Steele] that [Perkins Coie, LLP] had hired [Glenn Simpson, Fusion GPS] to conduct research regarding [candidate Donald Trump’s] ties to Russia. ([Glenn Simpson] and [Christopher Steele] have a longstanding business relationship.) [Glenn Simpson] hired [Christopher Steele] to conduct this research. [Glenn Simpson] never advised [Christopher Steele] as to the motivation behind the research into [candidate Donald Trump’s] ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that [Glenn Simpson] was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit [candidate Donald Trump’s] campaign.”

Now ask ourselves if one additional line should have been added to that previous paragraph. Namely, that Candidate No. 2’s campaign [Hillary Clinton and the DNC] funded Perkins Coie’s endeavors with Fusion GPS in the first place. And even more curiously, the Democrats contend that this information was presented to the court in full with the application.

Again, in the footnotes of the memo it is noted that this paragraph was listed on pages 15 and 16 of the FISA warrant as “No. 8”… a footnote. I would imagine that if the DOJ and FBI felt that this information originated from legitimate sources that it wouldn’t only be referenced as an aside.

You can’t expect anyone to believe that fact was immaterial to the application or facts of the case. I would imagine the a judge at the FISA Court level of jurisprudence would like a complete picture of how the information came to be in the FBI and DOJ’s hands in the first place.

Whether Carter Page was a hapless “idiot” as described by the Russians supposedly interested in recruiting him, or tool of the Russian government and Kremlin, is at the root of this investigation. In the dossier it was stated that Page had meetings with several top level Russian operatives and Putin cronies. Page claims that he has never met them, and has submitted testimony to both the FBI and Congress attesting to this. Further, there have been no charges against Page, or anyone inside Team Trump.

Charges have been filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Paul Manafort and Richard Gates (his assistant), who stepped in before the Republican National Convention as a campaign manager of sorts. Manafort was known as an old-school vote counter who specialized in caucus type proxy fights that were prevalent in political fights of the 1970s and 1980s. The charges, centering on tax and bank fraud, all apparently occurred between 2010 and 2014 when Manafort worked with the now defunct Podesta Associates. Not surprising anyone who has been following this story, this was a full year before Trump took a ride on his golden escalator into history.

Maybe the next time Democrats want to call in a special counsel they should probably make sure they weren’t colluding with foreign agents themselves.

 

Published March 1, 2017

Absolute Power Corrupts…. Absolutely

Everyone has been talking about “the Memo” (the House Intelligence Committee Majority report on actions taken by the FBI and Department of Justice) outlining details of the beginnings of the investigation into Russian collusion on the Trump campaign. For those who have been paying attention to the whole Russian narrative most of the information was already known and reported.

The real stunner was the lengths that the FBI and Justice Department went to be able to start collecting intel from within Team Trump.

So the Clinton campaign did opposition research on Trump after he won the primary. To do this research the campaign and the Democrat National Committee hired Fusion GPS through the law firm, Perkins Coie. Fusion GPS then begins the collection of Russian information on Trump, using former MI6 spy Christopher Steele. Steele puts together a dossier of information from Russian government sources. This dossier was unverified and unvetted. Steele himself admitted this in a court case currently happening in England.

Fusion GPS then proceeds to try to shop the dossier to friendly news sources that would disseminate the information.

Steele and Fusion GPS briefed the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo News, the New Yorker, and CNN around September 2016.

Well, Yahoo News bit, and reporter Michael Isikoff published “U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin” on September 23, 2016. The subject of this article was Carter Page, alleging that Page was working with a former Russian deputy prime minister to remove sanctions. This information was all included in the dossier, in multiple locations.

These briefings to news outlets came directly from the dossier according to both Simpson and Steele, and others who were present at these meetings and testified before Congress.

Here’s where we get to the part of the story that stuns….

Fusion GPS employed the wife of an FBI Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr. Mrs. Ohr helped “in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump,” and then shared this information with her husband who passed it up his chain of command, and to high level agents within the FBI. (It is not certain if she worked on the dossier specifically though.)

This info, gained from questionable sources that have an agenda, ended up on the desks of the highest levels of national law enforcement.

So of course they were highly vetted, and the parts that could not be verified were tossed, right? Well, not so much.

The FBI ended up going to the FISA Court to open a warrant to spy on Carter Page, and associates, using the dossier as evidence of wrongdoing. The court was not happy with the level of evidence and turned down the FISA. Not to be deterred, the FBI went back to FISA after the Yahoo story was published, without telling the court that the story was based on the dossier. Well, that seemed like the magic ticket, gaining approval for spying sometime in October 2016.

This is where it all starts to get interesting. FBI Director Comey briefs President Elect Trump about the dossier after he won, even though it was “salacious and unverified” as he described it to Congress. With knowledge that it was unverified, the FBI represented it as vetted intel to the courts on three separate occasions when looking for extensions to the 90-day FISA warrant. The FBI went so far as to reimburse Steele for expenses to create a cover of legitimacy, only cutting off the funds when Steele admitted to lying to agents about leaking to the media about the dossier.

These warrants were necessary to collect intelligence within the Trump campaign at the end of the election, and well into the transition period. The collection of this intelligence was then passed through the alphabet soup of our Intelligence Community, and this is where the illegal unmasking of Trump World begins. Hundreds of unmasking requests came in, and were approved, leading the overseers of the FISA process to issue a ruling about serious abuses within the FISA system in April 2017.

Have you followed all of this? Because my head is spinning.

The abuses of personal and civil liberties by national law enforcement, on a duly elected President no less, should have everyone’s head spinning – regardless of who that person is.

The fact that directors and deputies of the FBI and DOJ thought nothing of lying to courts, hiding evidence continually and repeatedly from Congressional oversight and playing spy games with a complicit and willing media to ultimately impeach the new President moves this beyond a constitutional crisis.

Maybe a criminal court could help get to the bottom of it all.

 

Published February 8, 2017

Affirming Life, all the way to the Rose Garden

President Trump made history last week. And no, I’m not talking about the Democrats caving on the shutdown showdown, but of the Rose Garden Ceremony Friday in support of the National Right to Life March.

The ceremony was also broadcast on video screens to those rallying at the National Mall before the march. While former presidents Reagan and Bush (43) both called in to the rally in previous years (1997, 2003 and 2004 respectively) no sitting president has addressed the March live.

While the National Right to Life March attracts hundreds of thousands of pro-life activists every year, they are not the only marches happening. This Saturday local residents will be traveling to San Francisco for the Walk for Life West Coast which begins at the Civic Center Plaza. These marches are a peaceful protest against abortion, and a testament to life since the passage of Roe v. Wade in 1973. From 1970 through 2014 the CDC estimates 44 million abortions were performed in the United States.

As a mom, I am heartbroken that so many women see this as the only option for their lives. Most pro-life protestors would love to see an end to abortion all together. Coupled with a pro-choice movement that wants unfettered and unrestricted access to abortion at any time, trying to get people to even agree on the basics is next to impossible.

In the world of politics, only one side is seen as an extreme position. Many Americans though would welcome limits like the Pain Capable Child Protection Act (HR 36) which passed the House on October 5, but has yet to be taken up in the Senate during this term. This bill would ban abortions after the 20 week mark, when it has been shown that babies have nerve development capable of feeling pain and sensation. Similar bills have been passed in over a dozen states, and the United States is one of only a few developed nations that allows abortions with few limits. President Trump announced his support for the measure in his speech Friday.

Most of Europe, and “first world” countries have limits on abortions after the first trimester. This is not to say later term abortions never happen, but usually require a medical panel of doctors to agree that the procedure is necessary.

One of the biggest problems with abortion is the fact that taxpayers subsidize this procedure through monies disbursed to Planned Parenthood. In 2015 Planned Parenthood received $554 million in funding. This is under the guise of women’s health, and reimbursement for screenings and mammograms. Since 1976 it has been illegal for taxpayer dollars to directly fund abortions. But we all know that dollars saved in one column can be spent on anything else.

Beyond the death of millions of babies every year, the effect of abortion on women is not something that is discussed very readily.

The quiet testimony of pro-life activists since Roe v. Wade became law is not just about babies. Many women experience very negative emotional side effects after the procedure. Unfortunately, as long as this remains a political football, real and honest conversations about the effects of abortion on women, and society will not be had.

Maybe President Trump’s spotlight on the debate will allow conversations to happen, but somehow I doubt that.

••••••••

Purveyors of Russian conspiracies have not had a great few weeks. Every piece of information that has been leaked or gleaned from texts, emails and reports shows that the only conspiracy was one of top level intelligence and law enforcement working to thwart the will of American voters against the elected President.

From private opposition research firms searching raw intel to paid off journalists disseminating info, the news of what our government has been up to keeps getting worse. More than one reporter has been mentioned by name as a willing partner for leaking from friendly Fusion GPS sources. Funny enough, they broke a bunch of stories that, on the surface, were evidence of presidential collusion. Well, the collusion was real, but looks like they named the wrong president.

Interesting times in the swamp.

 

Published January 25, 2017