Author Topic: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, Mueller, Durham, Mar a Lago, Spermy Daniels etc  (Read 253639 times)

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
I'm thinking this needs its own thread:


30 minute video

http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/13/scholar-unravels-the-big-lie-surrounding-the-tump-campaign-and-russian-collusion-video/

Scholar Victor Davis Hanson says there’s a “big lie” surrounding the “boogeyman of Russian collusion” that Democrats and the media rally around, according to an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Hanson’s analysis begins by reminding us of the recent massive Democratic losses, which he places at the feet of President Barack Obama’s policies and identity politics gone awry. “The blue wall crumbled,” he says, turning working people against the Democrats in droves. The party then scrambled for any alternative to explain the electoral defeats.

He mentions the financial entanglements with President Vladimir Putin’s Russia by Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton that betray the sudden growing Russiaphobia of most Democrats.
 

When “the big lie” of Russian collusion is repeated by influential Democrats, doubt is cast and suspicions are raised against President Donald Trump, even without actual evidence. Then, Trump’s approval ratings are expected to fall, ensuring greater erosion of Republican support for the president’s agenda — an agenda that threatens the progressive project that was designed to ensure continued Democratic dominance.

Hanson predicts there will be new surprising evidence of Obama malfeasance against Trump over the next six months.

The scholar then discusses the causes and ramifications of the “Trump Derangement Syndrome” unfolding politically and culturally. He gives Trump high marks for using his unpredictability to restore vital deterrence on the world stage.

Yet, for many Republican elites, he says, they focus on Trump’s appearance — his Queen’s accent, and his gaudiness. A class-driven hostility to this president is revealed, Hanson says, when he hears such charges as, “he hangs out with wrestling people; he likes Mike Tyson; he’s just uncouth.”

In a “weird way” the polarization Obama’s identity politics brought to America will largely evaporate if Trump is able to bring about economic growth, which will unify us again, Hanson says.

As for Democratic leaders, he calls them simply “geriatric.”  He sees the younger ones as “unhinged and in search of an identity.” Rather than find policies to bring working class voters back to the Democratic Party, Hanson predicts they will rally around race, class, and gender, as well as climate change and other fads thought up by Hollywood and radical elites.

This compelling video features Hanson discussing the intolerance and infantilization on display on American campuses, as well as tips for ordinary Americans living with growing intolerance and incivility.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2024, 03:00:55 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Who are Comey and Rowenstein?
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2017, 12:14:31 PM »


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
This makes sense to me
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2017, 01:54:44 PM »
The Shapiro Report for 5/11/2017

While the Democrats and media suggest that President Trump fired FBI director James Comey in order to somehow stymie an investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump team in the 2016 campaign, the more plausible theory was far less damning to Trump. I theorized on Wednesday that this was all an elaborate set-up for a bank heist. But that’s not the theory to which I’m referring. Here’s the actual
theory:

Trump fired Comey because he was angry Comey was allowing the Russia investigation to drag along, and used Comey’s ridiculous Congressional testimony as a pretext for firing him. Under this theory, Trump isn’t necessarily guilty of collusion with Russia — at least not knowingly — and he’s merely ticked off that Comey appeared to be dragging his feet while refusing to state openly that he had no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.

Essentially, Trump believes that he had nothing to do with Russia; even if his former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn and former campaign manager Paul Manafort had corrupt ties with the Kremlin, Trump doesn’t understand why that would implicate him personally, since he has never linked his fate with that of his subordinates. Trump was shocked and appalled that Comey wouldn’t simply come out and exonerate him, when he knew that Comey had no evidence of Trump’s direct involvement in anything; he was even more angry that Comey appeared to be fanning the conspiracy theory flames, even though Comey wouldn’t help him out with a bit of doubletalk on Obama administration wiretapping and leaks. So he fired him.
Unfortunately, when you
fire someone because they’re failing to clear you in a timely manner, it looks as though you’re firing them because they refuse to clear you at all. Thus the scandal.

All of which could have been avoided through some professional discretion.
Trump
could have dumped Comey ceremoniously, coordinated with his team, and ensured a suitable replacement was at hand. Instead, he decided he wanted Comey gone, told the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to write up a memo saying why Comey had to go — a hook upon which to hang Trump’s hat — and then wrote his own letter basically admitting that he was firing Comey because Comey wouldn’t publicly exonerate him.

Here’s The Washington Post reporting:

Trump had long questioned Comey’s loyalty and judgment, and was infuriated by what he viewed as the director’s lack of action in recent weeks on leaks from within the federal government. By last weekend, he had made up his mind: Comey had to go… The president already had decided to fire Comey, according to this person. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a
directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey… The president already had decided to fire Comey, according to this person. But in the meeting, several White House officials said Trump gave Sessions and Rosenstein a directive: to explain in writing the case against Comey.

Trump is used to running a business. In business, the CEO is the dictator.
He can
fire people without blowback. If employees — people who serve at the pleasure of the president — cross him, the CEO can simply drop Trump’s signature line:
“You’re
fired.” But as president, the job is a bit different. You can fire James Comey, but you’re likely to hear some outcry if the firing is perceived to be politically-motivated.

That’s what likely happened here.

Democrats have no evidence to suggest that Trump is shutting down the Russia investigation, although Trump would obviously like to do so — and he’d certainly like to expedite the process by which he can be cleared, so that the cloud hanging over his administration can dissipate. Unfortunately, with his rash and incompetent action here, he’s damned himself to months more of speculation at the very least… and if Flynn and Manafort end up in the dock, he may have done himself far more damage than that. This is just one problem with a knee-jerk reactionary with volatile emotional issues at the head of the executive branch — even if he isn’t in thrall to the Russians, his inability to see any perspective outside his own leads him to jump on a landmine he planted himself.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Kenneth Starr opines!
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2017, 02:01:16 PM »

By Kenneth W. Starr
May 14, 2017 2:08 p.m. ET
502 COMMENTS

The long knives are out. The ultimate doomsday scenario for a constitutional republic in peacetime—calls for impeachment of the president—has now been augmented by a growing chorus of voices demanding a far less dramatic but nonetheless profoundly serious step: appointment of a special prosecutor. Even for this less drastic move, the calls are way off base. At a minimum, the suggestion is premature.

The developing narrative, trumpeted on the weekend talk shows, is that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein must appoint a special prosecutor to restore his long-established reputation for integrity and professionalism. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the entire matter.

The basic complaint is that the newly appointed second-in-command at the Justice Department lost public confidence by crafting a three-page memorandum to the attorney general that severely criticized then-FBI Director James Comey, whom President Trump quickly fired. At least one senator has already mocked Mr. Rosenstein’s May 9 memorandum as “laughable.” They are wrong.

Let’s see what the Rosenstein memorandum actually says. It is titled “Restoring Public Confidence in the FBI.” Mr. Rosenstein rightly praises the bureau as “our nation’s premier investigative agency.” Mr. Rosenstein singles out Mr. Comey for high praise as “an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice.” The memorandum goes on to praise the FBI chief for his long and distinguished public service.

Mr. Rosenstein then turns to the director’s profound failures during his stewardship of the FBI. Above all, the new deputy attorney general states: “I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary [Hillary] Clinton’s emails.” In this Mr. Rosenstein echoes the vehement complaints by Democrats during the 2016 campaign, and indeed comments only last week by Mrs. Clinton herself. Even Republicans had raised an arched eyebrow at what the director did and when he chose to do it. The deputy attorney general goes on to express befuddlement that Mr. Comey still refuses “to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.”

The memorandum then identifies the fatal offense of any FBI leader—the usurpation of the authority of the Justice Department itself. In a power grab, Mr. Comey had announced the ultimate prosecutorial decision, namely that Mrs. Clinton would not be prosecuted. The FBI director had no authority to do that. That was not all. Mr. Comey, the memo went on, “compounded the error” by holding a press conference releasing “derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation.” This was all way outside the foul lines of Justice Department professionalism.

Succinctly, but with devastating effectiveness, the Rosenstein memorandum demonstrates Mr. Comey’s egregious violations of long-settled Justice Department practice and policy. Mr. Rosenstein draws from the director’s testimony before Congress and his unprecedented letter to Congress days before the election. He addresses Mr. Comey’s argument that had he failed to insert himself once again into the presidential campaign—as voting was already under way in many states—it would have constituted “concealment.”

Balderdash, the deputy attorney general concludes, albeit in more polite language. Prosecutors, to say nothing of FBI directors, are not to set out a confidence-shattering bill of particulars with respect to any potential defendant’s conduct, and certainly not a presidential candidate in the heat of a national campaign.

Finally, the Rosenstein memorandum sets forth paragraph after paragraph recounting the scathing criticism of the director’s woefully timed election interference. The deputy attorney general demonstrates that his own conclusions are shared by a wide range of respected former officials of the Justice Department in both Democratic and Republican administrations. One example: President Clinton’s deputy attorney general, Jamie Gorelick, is quoted as condemning Mr. Comey for having “chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness, departing from the department’s traditions.”

There’s nothing “laughable” about what the Rosenstein memorandum says. In setting forth undisputed and fireable offenses, the memorandum bespeaks professionalism, integrity and fidelity to Justice Department policy and practice, as befits the Harvard-trained lawyer and career prosecutor who was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate only weeks ago.

Rod Rosenstein is universally respected, a broad-based admiration founded on his long service and distinguished record in the Justice Department. Unless stepping aside represents the deputy attorney general’s considered judgment as the right thing to do, calling in a special prosecutor now would simply cause further delay, add greater cost, and disrupt the continuing work of the FBI.

The bureau’s investigation into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election is continuing, under the leadership of Acting Director Andrew McCabe. In addition, the work of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee is well under way. Regardless of the unhappy fate of one public servant, the guardrails of constitutional republic are in place. And with its 10,000-plus special agents, the world’s most respected law-enforcement agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, should be encouraged to get on with the job, and a respected deputy attorney general permitted—with accountability to Congress—to come to his considered judgment. That’s precisely the kind of structural protection that the Founders had in mind over two centuries ago.

Mr. Starr served as a federal judge, solicitor general and Whitewater independent counsel.


ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19433
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2017, 03:17:50 PM »
"Donald, you stupid fk!"

If true then drain the swamp indeed.  What to bring in a new one?   :cry: :x

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2017, 04:02:23 PM »
"Donald, you stupid fk!"

If true then drain the swamp indeed.  What to bring in a new one?   :cry: :x

Way to hand a cudgel to the other side. Brilliant!

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2017, 04:29:25 PM »
If this is so bad, then why didn't Comey report it or resign?  After all, this supposedly occurred 3 months ago.  And the investigation of Flynn has continued.  

Since Comey worked for the FBI, his memos are FBI property.  We should be able to see all of Comey's memos about all of his meetings with superiors while he was FBI Director.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2017, 05:15:49 PM by rickn »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2017, 05:38:48 PM »
WONDERFUL to see you here Rick!

Excellent points.

You would be a good man to ask a question about which I have been wondering:  What is the legal basis for asserting that Congress can subpoena Trump's alleged tapes?  Wouldn't that be a violation of separation of powers?

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #10 on: May 17, 2017, 02:07:13 AM »
Thanks, Marc.  I figured here was one place where these issues could be discussed sensibly.

On Feb 14, was there a criminal investigation of Flynn underway at the FBI?  If not, Trump cannot be obstructing justice by telling Comey that he hopes that now that Flynn has resigned that the FBI can move past this issue.  As far as we know, there is no criminal investigation of Flynn underway at the FBI.  There is a counter-intelligence investigation underway of Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.  In that context, expressing a hope that the counterintelligence investigation can move past Flynn is not obstruction. 

Under the Hillary rule, wouldn't you need to prove intent in order to charge Trump anyway?

As to subpoenas of any Trump tapes of his meetings with Comey and separation of powers, it's a good question.  The Nixon decision at the Supreme Court held that executive privilege does not shield these things from a special prosecutor when there is probable cause that a crime has been committed.  In that case, there had been a burglary and Nixon was trying to use his power to cover up the burglars' links to his own campaign. 

An argument can be made that Comey's notes of his meetings with Trump are also protected by executive privilege. 

Right now, I don't believe anything being leaked to the press because the leaks are selective, misleading and designed to advance many agendas.  E.g., some are trying to sabotage Trump's meetings with Israel and Saudi Arabia by leaking that Israel was the source of the intel that was supposedly given to the Russians.  But who leaked this?  The people who talked to WaPo and the NYT. 

If you recall, firstt there was a story floated that allowing he Russians into the Oval Office without US press there may have led them to inadvertently discover classified info sitting in the open around the office.  When that did not generate any buzz, the WaPo publishes the story based upon hearsay info.  But McMaster said in no uncertain terms that nothing inappropriate was told to the Russians at that meeting.   "I was there and it didn't happen." 

In response, the media pays its next card, NYT says that on Feb 14 Trump tells Comey that he hopes you can put the Flynn matter behind you now that Flynn has resigned.  But what criminal investigation is Trump trying to obstruct when he says that?  Nothing. 

White House says that Trump never tried to stop the Russia investigation or any criminal investigation. 


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #11 on: May 17, 2017, 04:42:11 AM »
Really glad to have you join our conversation here-- that is some clear headed analysis there.

I would nit pick this:  "Under the Hillary rule, wouldn't you need to prove intent in order to charge Trump anyway?" 

The way I understand it is that for the criminal statute(s) in question regarding the handling of Top Secret intel, the legal standard was not the usual "intent" but "gross negligence".  In my considered opinion, the factually and legally wrong application of the intent standard was the linchpin of Comey's play to get Hillary off the hook lest the  , , , ahem , , , "nauseating" Donald Trump become President.

Anyway, thus there is no "Hillary standard", only what the statute in question provides-- which most likely is the usual intent standard.

"On Feb 14, was there a criminal investigation of Flynn underway at the FBI?  If not, Trump cannot be obstructing justice by telling Comey that he hopes that now that Flynn has resigned that the FBI can move past this issue.  As far as we know, there is no criminal investigation of Flynn underway at the FBI.  There is a counter-intelligence investigation underway of Russia's attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election.  In that context, expressing a hope that the counterintelligence investigation can move past Flynn is not obstruction."

I had not thought of this!

That said, can it not still be said to be highly inappropriate to ask an employee to not continue a counter intel investigation into his friend Flynn?  If true, does not asking others to leave the room show mens rea?

"An argument can be made that Comey's notes of his meetings with Trump are also protected by executive privilege."

Wouldn't making this argument be devastating politically?

"Right now, I don't believe anything being leaked to the press because the leaks are selective, misleading and designed to advance many agendas.  E.g., some are trying to sabotage Trump's meetings with Israel and Saudi Arabia by leaking that Israel was the source of the intel that was supposedly given to the Russians.  But who leaked this?  The people who talked to WaPo and the NYT." 

I had not put that together!

"Right now, I don't believe anything being leaked to the press because the leaks are selective, misleading and designed to advance many agendas."

YES.  For example, if I have it right, the unsourced allegation that AAG Rowenstein threatened to resign has been contradicted by Rowenstein himself.  The unsourced allegation that Comey got fired after asking for more money to expand the investigation seems to have disappeared into the cyber ether as well.





G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
If Hillary were president...
« Reply #13 on: May 17, 2017, 06:37:45 AM »

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #14 on: May 17, 2017, 07:04:49 AM »

"YES.  For example, if I have it right, the unsourced allegation that AAG Rowenstein threatened to resign has been contradicted by Rowenstein himself.  The unsourced allegation that Comey got fired after asking for more money to expand the investigation seems to have disappeared into the cyber ether as well."

It's all just endless attacks meant to churn emotions and spook the cattle.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19433
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2017, 07:26:03 AM »
"until he committed suicide under suspicious circumstances"

or was out of no where, suddenly shot to death, in the back, in a totally unwitnessed "robbery attempt".

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19162
    • View Profile
Re: The alleged Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2017, 07:54:43 AM »
Rick: "If this is so bad, then why didn't Comey report it or resign?  After all, this supposedly occurred 3 months ago.  And the investigation of Flynn has continued."

   - Yes, this is a great point.  To explain it, I think: 1) either the report is false, or 2) (most likely) they removed the context that explains why no action was taken (another version of false or misleading), or 3) Comey was accumulating a J Edgar Hoover like file on his potential enemies to keep them in line.  On its face, the latest shiny news object makes no sense.  

Director Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3, including questions by Democratic Senators Leahy and Coons relating to the call for a special prosecutor, and Comey took a pass on the opportunity to bring this up then.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ImYOb0X-Ik

Rick:  "Since Comey worked for the FBI, his memos are FBI property.  We should be able to see all of Comey's memos about all of his meetings with superiors while he was FBI Director."

Ben Sasse, chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee (caught reading the forum?) said this morning that all of Comey's notes should be turned over...  http://www.hughhewitt.com/senator-ben-sasse-vanishing-american-adult-comey-memo/

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #17 on: May 17, 2017, 08:09:40 AM »
marc - why is it inappropriate for the President to tell the FBI Director how he sees the priorities in the counterintelligence investigation into Russian election interference when there is not AG and no Deputy AG?  Was it unwise?  Yes, due to the fact that Comey was part of the swamp.  But not inappropriate and not obstruction of justice.  My guess is that when we see the entire memo and hear its full context, Trump was telling Comey to investigate the leaks with as much vigor as they were investigating the Russians.  In that context, getting past Flynn now that he has resigned is a completely proper comment since Yates had presented the whole issue as a personnel problem - not a criminal investigation. 

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #18 on: May 17, 2017, 09:58:37 AM »
Asking an employee to back off with regard one's friend seems like a basis for a case, even without an AG or even a Deputy AG.  By all means encourage investigating the leaks.

"My guess is that when we see the entire memo and hear its full context, Trump was telling Comey to investigate the leaks with as much vigor as they were investigating the Russians.  In that context, getting past Flynn now that he has resigned is a completely proper comment since Yates had presented the whole issue as a personnel problem - not a criminal investigation." 

Fair enough.


rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #20 on: May 17, 2017, 12:26:27 PM »
FBI reviewed Flynn's calls with Russian ambassador and found nothing illegal.  So, I ask again.  What investigation was Trump obstructing on Feb 14? 

From the 1/23/17 Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-reviewed-flynns-calls-with-russian-ambassador-but-found-nothing-illicit/2017/01/23/aa83879a-e1ae-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.416090f64c93


"The FBI in late December reviewed intercepts of communications between the Russian ambassador to the United States and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn — national security adviser to then-President-elect Trump — but has not found any evidence of wrongdoing or illicit ties to the Russian government, U.S. officials said.

The calls were picked up as part of routine electronic surveillance of Russian officials and agents in the United States, which is one of the FBI’s responsibilities, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss counterintelligence operations.

Nonetheless, the fact that communications by a senior member of Trump’s national security team have been under scrutiny points up the challenge facing the intelligence community as it continues its wide-ranging probe of Russian government influence in the U.S. election and whether there was any improper back-channel contacts between Moscow and Trump associates and acquaintances."




rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #22 on: May 18, 2017, 03:50:58 AM »
Good choice for independent counsel.  But this will not stop the drumbeat.

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #23 on: May 18, 2017, 06:09:26 AM »
Excellent intrusion from reality Rick!

There was some good intelligent conversation last night on Tucker Carlson.

One of the key take-aways for me was "Bad idea, good choice".  While Mueller seems to be a fine choice, the fundamental question remains-- exactly what is the crime being alleged?  What, if any, are the implied subject matter limits?  If we are investigating "Russian interference" then surely we should be investigating Hillary's far more extensive and far more proven corrupt interactions with Russia (the payments to Bill, the donations to the Foundation, the money to Podesta and to his brother, etc etc etc)-- yet somehow I'm not holding my breath for this. 

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
http://thefederalist.com/2017/05/17/former-attorney-general-on-comeys-integrity-jims-loyalty-was-more-to-chuck-schumer/

Former Bush AG On Comey’s 2007 Brush With Scandal: ‘Jim’s Loyalty Was More To Chuck Schumer’
This isn't the first time James Comey placed himself at the center of a partisan attempt to oust a top Republican. He did the same thing in 2007.
Sean Davis By Sean Davis
MAY 17, 2017
The revelation by fired former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director James Comey’s close friends that he has kept meticulous records detailing President Donald Trump’s alleged attempts to improperly influence an ongoing FBI investigation has sent Washington into a tailspin. Did Trump really threaten a sitting FBI director in a private meeting? Did the former FBI director accurately record what happened? Could this be the beginning of the end of Trump?

At the moment, untangling fact from fiction is difficult, given that the event Comey allegedly describes took place only between Comey and the president. With no ability at this time to independently verify either man’s account, we are instead left with a he-said/he-said explanation of events, which means the credibility of the two men involved becomes the prime determinant of one’s view of the situation.

The narrative from the Acela corridor media establishment is that Trump is a known liar and Comey is a honest public servant above reproach, so clearly Comey’s word must be believed, the total absence of any other corroborating evidence notwithstanding. An examination of Comey’s history as the consummate Beltway operator, however, raises questions about whether the towering former U.S. attorney, deputy attorney general, and FBI director is as open and forthright as his allies would have you believe.

In fact, the current episode is not the first time Comey and his associates plotted to oust a sitting Republican official through highly orchestrated political theater and carefully crafted narratives in which Comey is the courageous hero bravely fighting to preserve the rule of law. To understand how Comey came to be FBI director in the first place, and how he operates in the political arena, it is important to review the last scandal in which Comey had a front-row seat: the 2007 U.S. attorney firings and the fight over the 2004 reauthorization of Stellar Wind, a mass National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program designed to mitigate terrorist threats in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The pivotal scene in the Comey-crafted narrative, a drama that made Comey famous and likely paved the road to his 2013 appointment by President Barack Obama to run the FBI, occurred in a Beltway hospital room in early 2004. In Comey’s view, Comey was the last honest man in Washington, the only person standing between a White House that rejected any restraints on its power, and the rule of law protecting Americans from illegal mass surveillance.

A former White House counsel and attorney general with extensive first-hand experience dealing with Comey, however, paints a very different picture of what happened in that hospital room, and disputes numerous key details. In this account, Comey’s actions showcase a duplicitous, secretive schemer whose true loyalties were not to the officials to whom he reported, but to partisan Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). To fully understand and appreciate Jim Comey’s approach to politics, the writings and testimony of Alberto Gonzales, who served as both White House counsel and attorney general during the events in question and is intimately aware of Comey’s history of political maneuvering, is absolutely essential.

Gonzales’s descriptions of his interactions with Comey, included in his 2016 book “True Faith And Allegiance,” are detailed and extensive. While his tone is measured, the language he uses to describe Comey’s actions in 2004 and 2007 leaves little doubt about the former top Bush official’s views on Comey’s character. Gonzales’s opinion is clearly colored by the fact that Comey cravenly used him to jumpstart his own political career by going public with surprise (and questionable) testimony that Gonzales had attempted to take advantage of a deathly ill man in order to ram through authorization of an illegal surveillance program.

Bush’s Attorney General John Ashcroft had taken ill and was in the hospital at a pivotal time. The legal authorization of a surveillance program meant to find and root out terrorist threats was days from expiring. What happened in Ashcroft’s hospital room in March of 2004 later became political fodder for a hearing in which Senate Democrats used Comey to dredge up the 2004 hospital meeting to tar Gonzales’ credibility and suggest he was unfit to continue serving as attorney general. As the 2004 and 2007 sagas show, Comey is clearly no stranger to using the unarguably legal dismissal of government employees as the backdrop for casting himself as the story’s protaganist standing up to the forces of corruption.

told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately. They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital,” Comey testified. “I got out of the car and ran up — literally ran up the stairs with my security detail.”

“I was concerned that, given how ill I knew the attorney general was, that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that,” Comey said.

Comey’s use of the phrase “overrule me” is especially noteworthy, given that the authority he referenced belongs not to the deputy attorney general, but to the attorney general himself. However, unbeknownst to anyone at the White House on that day, Comey had assumed for himself the authorities attendant to Ashcroft’s position. Rather than personally informing anyone at the White House, including the president, the vice president, the White House chief of staff, or the White House counsel, the Department of Justice sent a mere fax to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue noting the change in power. For some reason, the newly designated acting attorney general didn’t feel compelled to personally inform any of his superiors that he was now a cabinet official.

It’s at this point in the narrative that Comey’s testimony took a turn for the dramatic:

I sat down in an armchair by the head of the attorney general’s bed. The two other Justice Department people stood behind me. And Mrs. Ashcroft stood by the bed holding her husband’s arm. And we waited.

And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card. They came over and stood by the bed. They greeted the attorney general very briefly. And then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there — to seek his approval for a matter, and explained what the matter was — which I will not do.

And Attorney General Ashcroft then stunned me. He lifted his head off the pillow and in very strong terms expressed his view of the matter, rich in both substance and fact, which stunned me — drawn from the hour-long meeting we’d had a week earlier — and in very strong terms expressed himself, and then laid his head back down on the pillow, seemed spent, and said to them, ‘But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general.’

[…]

And as he laid back down, he said, ‘But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general,’ and he pointed to me, and I was just to his left. The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room. And within just a few moments after that, Director Mueller arrived. I told him quickly what had happened. He had a brief — a memorable brief exchange with the attorney general and then we went outside in the hallway.
Gonzales was taken aback by Comey’s appearance and testimony. It turns out that was by design. Comey kept secret his pre-hearing planning with Schumer and his staff to maximize the fallout of the bomb he planned to drop on Gonzales and the Bush administration. In a significant breach of protocol, Comey also refused to share with the White House or the Department of Justice that he had planned to testify about his work at DOJ, a move which made it impossible for the White House to consider whether it needed to assert executive privilege over portions of Comey’s planned testimony.

As fate would have it, the Schumer staffer who spearheaded the entire spectacle was none other than Preet Bharara, a former employee of Comey’s in the U.S. attorney’s office in New York. Bharara, like Comey, was fired by President Donald Trump earlier this year. And Bharara, like Comey, owes his most recent position of authority in the U.S. government to Schumer and President Barack Obama.

“When I found out from our DOJ legislative liaison that Comey was testifying, I was surprised,” Gonzales wrote after noting that Comey hadn’t worked at DOJ for years when the U.S. attorneys were fired. “It was also odd that we had received no notice at DOJ regarding the appearance of one of the former members of our leadership team at a Senate hearing.”

“I called the White House counsel Fred Fielding, and Fred confirmed that he had no prior notice of Comey’s testimony either,” Gonzales continued. “I was disappointed that the man who had been given so much in his legal career — appointed by President Bush as a U.S. attorney and then as deputy attorney general — did not even notify the White House or me in advance of his testimony.”

“It felt to me that Jim’s loyalty was more to his friend Preet Bharara and to Chuck Schumer,” he wrote.

Gonzales also questioned whether Bharara’s role in ambushing the previous Republican presidential administration was the reason Obama later appointed Bharara to Comey’s old job as U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York.

Comey’s 2007 testimony went off just as he, Bharara, and Schumer planned. It was shocking and dramatic. Comey weaved a tale that involved him being notified at the last possible second that Bush’s chief of staff and counsel planned to ambush Ashcroft in his hospital bed and force him against his will to sign a legal document authorizing an ongoing mass surveillance program that Comey and his deputy, Jack Goldsmith, had very recently decided was illegal despite multiple DOJ and National Security Agency legal opinions to the contrary. According to Gonzales, despite having been on the job for months, Comey and Goldsmith didn’t disclose their concerns to the White House counsel about the legality of the surveillance initiative until March 6, just five days before the program’s authorization expired.

The narrative Comey provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee was riveting. But according to Gonzales, it didn’t actually happen.
The narrative Comey provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee was riveting. But according to Gonzales, it didn’t actually happen the way it was presented. And the conflicting details between Comey’s and Gonzales’ account, given Comey’s current attempts to use his credibility and recollection of events witnessed only by himself to take down a Republican official, raise significant questions about the trustworthiness of Comey’s current claims.

According to Gonzales, rather than sitting directly next to Ashcroft, Comey and his two deputies, Goldsmith and Pat Philbin, never made their presence known, and neither Gonzales nor Andy Card, Bush’s chief of staff, had any clue they were there during the 10-minute meeting. To the contrary, Gonzales noted in his book that he assumed the small handful of people in the hiding in the periphery of a darkened room were actually Ashcroft’s security detail doing their best to stay out of the way.

More important, in Gonzales’ telling, Ashcroft never even mentioned Comey, let alone pointed him out to Gonzales as being physically present in the room.

“I was told this morning that I’m no longer attorney general,” Gonzales wrote was Ashcroft’s response to a request to re-authorize the Stellar Wind program, a far cry from the forceful declaration Comey attributed to Ashcroft.

“Certainly, had the vice president, Andy, or I known about the matter, we would have informed the president, and he could have simply summoned the deputy attorney general,” Gonzales wrote. “But none of us knew until John Ashcroft announced the news to us in his hospital room.”

President George W. Bush himself, in his book “Decision Points,” expressed his feeling of shock when he found out that Comey had seized the attorney general’s authority in March of 2004.

It’s unclear why Comey did not feel compelled to inform the president of the United States, his superior, that he had assumed for himself the powers of the office of attorney general.
“I was stunned,” Bush wrote. “Nobody had told me that Comey, John Ashcroft’s deputy, had taken over Ashcroft’s responsibilities when he went in for surgery. If I had known that, I never would have sent Andy and Al to John’s hospital room.”

To date, it’s unclear why Comey did not feel compelled to inform the president of the United States, his superior, that he had assumed for himself the powers of the office of attorney general. Gonzales minced no words in his characterization of the hero narrative Comey wove before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2007.

“The details later presented by Jim Comey, and facilitated by Senator Schumer’s staffer, Preet Bharara, describing flashing lights, sirens, and dashing up the hospital staircases may or may not be technically true, but they certainly do not depict what happened later in that hospital room,” Gonzales wrote. “Contrary to Hollywood-style myth, there simply was no confrontation.”

Gonzales even pointedly questioned the Comey narrative that Ashcroft’s health status had made it impossible for him to continue his duties.

“[Card and I] both agreed that Ashcroft had been competent and understood the intricacies of the disputed surveillance matter. He seemed to have been well briefed by [Comey], Goldsmith, and Philbin,” Gonzales wrote. “In an ironic twist, it is possible some or all of those briefings occurred while the attorney general was hospitalized and in a weakened condition, thus raising the question of whether his subordinates had taken advantage of him.”

This cynicism is not unwarranted, given that according to Comey’s own testimony, Ashcroft allegedly addressed Card and Gonzales in the hospital room with language that was “rich in both substance and fact…drawn from the hour-long meeting we’d had a week earlier.” If Ashcroft had such detailed command of facts he had only briefly discussed the previous week, then what exactly was the rationale for Comey continuing to assert the powers of Ashcroft’s position? Comey’s recollection of that conversation reveals an attempt to have it both ways: there was no choice but to designate Comey as acting attorney given Ashcroft’s medical state, and yet Ashcroft was competent enough to slap down Card and Gonzales in exquisite and detailed fashion. Which was it?

Gonzales’s belief, expressed in the book, that Comey and Bharara colluded in secret with Schumer in an attempt to take down a top Bush administration official is no unsupported conspiracy theory, as Bharara himself confirmed Gonzales’s suspicions about Comey’s scheme in a 2016 interview with The New Yorker‘s Jeffrey Toobin:

As Bharara recalled, ‘Jim told me the whole story on the phone, and the hair stood up on the back of my neck, because I realized what a significant story this was, and I was sworn to secrecy and nobody knew about it. I told Chuck. He was, like, ‘Whoa!’ ” In the days leading up to the hearing, Bharara and Schumer told no one about the revelation that was coming. ‘I was afraid that if the story got out of what Jim was going to say the Bush Administration would figure out a way to prevent him from testifying,’ Bharara said. ‘We needed to preserve the element of surprise.’
That Bharara, a Senate staffer for Schumer, would plot with Comey to oust a top Republican official is no real surprise. After all, Bharara owes his federal prosecutor career to Comey, for whom Bharara worked when Comey was a U.S. attorney, and to Schumer, who recommended to Obama that Bharara be appointed as the top federal prosecutor in New York. Both men owed their fame and near-universal adoration by the Washington-New York media in the late 2000’s to the political theater they orchestrated at Gonzales’s expense.

This brings us back to 2017 and an emerging drama in which Comey and his former employees Bharara and Goldsmith are once again key actors. This clearly isn’t their first rodeo, nor the first time they have worked together to present a public narrative in which Comey plays the role of the last honest man who just wants to figure out if Col. Jessup ordered the Code Red.

This clearly isn’t their first rodeo, nor the first time they have worked together to present a public narrative in which Comey plays the role of the last honest man.
Is it possible that everything they and their friends are alleging about Comey and Trump is true? Absolutely. Everything they and their associates are anonymously providing to journalists eager to promote their narrative could be true, especially given Trump’s tendency to rhetorically shoot from the hip.

But given Comey’s history of secretly colluding with Democratic officials to craft a disputed narrative that makes everyone but himself look awful in order to oust a top Republican who didn’t sufficiently kowtow to Comey, there’s little reason to assume events transpired exactly the way Comey and his friends allege, especially given that both Comey and Bharara have rather obvious axes to grind on the matter. After all, Trump is the reason neither of them currently has a job. In light of Comey’s history of twisting private conversations and events, it’s probably a good idea to take anonymous leaks from him and his friends with a grain of salt.

“Over the years, various commentators and politicians have picked up on Comey’s remark to the president [about Bush’s staff knowing about Stellar Wind’s legal problems for weeks] and expanded it to say that President Bush’s staff knew of the specific surveillance problem for months before broaching it with the president,” Gonzales wrote in his book. “That is absolutely false, and the implication that the president was ill served by individuals attempting to keep information from him about a highly sensitive matter is also disingenuous.”

Sound familiar?

Now, Gonzales has publicly raised questions about the timing and rationale of Trump’s firing of Comey and stated the American people deserve a full account of what happened. And the former attorney general has thus far stayed out of the media fray regarding the latest alleged revelations about Comey and Trump.

So Comey could be telling the truth. Or he could be disingenuously characterizing private conversations with the president to get revenge against a higher-ranking official who got in Jim Comey’s way. It wouldn’t be the first time. Just ask Alberto Gonzales.

Sean Davis is the co-founder of The Federalist.


DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19162
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, Special "Councel"
« Reply #26 on: May 18, 2017, 09:45:36 AM »
Counsel mis-spelled in the President's tweet.  https://www.rawstory.com/2017/05/furious-trump-breaks-twitter-silence-with-misspelled-tweet-complaining-about-illegal-obama-acts/

 "Bad idea, good choice"

Right.  Let an FBI Director (former) oversee the closing of this FBI inquiry for credibility while we lack a permanent and confirmed new Director - as if that will make the controversy of the Trump election go away.

NPR was talking impeachment all day yesterday.  I turned on PBS News Hour in the evening and  the first word was impeachment.  An impeachable cover up without a cover up or an underlying crime!

Appointing a Special Prosecutor where no evidence of a crime exists means the Republicans agree to be forever judged by a double standard, and forever investigated and castigated.

We know:
1) The January WaPo story Rick posted, the Flynn tapes exposed no crime or conspiracy.
2) The May 3 Comey testimony under oath,  he has never been pressured to end an investigation for political reasons.
3) Democratic Senators studying this admitted they have no evidence yet, meaning no probable cause to dig and look further, and
4) No Counsel was appointed for Fast and Furious, Benghazi or IRS targeting, Clinton-Russia-Uranium all of which did have far more than probable cause exposed.

Republicans, if we call the Trump people that, are held to a false and different standard by their own consent!

Predicting the lessons out of this.  The investigation will end without charges.  Appointing a special prosecutor will add no credibility to those who shout the loudest.  People who wanted Trump impeached will be even more energized.  Mueller's great reputation ended with acceptance of this job.  Democrats who screamed bloody murder over nothing will do it even more and get their way, even when lacking the votes in all branches of government.

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #27 on: May 18, 2017, 02:48:14 PM »
http://gotnews.com/breaking-fbi-director-james-comey-testified-oath-may-3rd-trump-administration-doesnt-obstruct-investigations/

This has the video clip of Comey testifying under oath before the Senate committee that he has never been asked to stop an investigation for political reasons by the Attorney General or DOJ.

Gregg Jarrett column on same issue.  He is also a lawyer.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/05/16/gregg-jarrett-comeys-revenge-is-gun-without-powder.html


« Last Edit: May 18, 2017, 02:53:17 PM by rickn »

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
What If There's No Scandal for the FBI to Find?
« Reply #28 on: May 18, 2017, 03:51:28 PM »
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/369822.php

May 18, 2017
Democrats and NeverTrumpers Worry:
What If There's No Scandal for the FBI to Find, After We've Staked What Remains of Our Credibility on Suggesting There are High Crimes in Play?
Whoops.

Bluffed called, assholes.

Eli Lake is right: The DOJ's appointment of widely-respected former prosecutor Robert Mueller to lead the special inquiry into the Trump campaign's potential collusion with Russia is a reprieve for a Trump Administration in crisis--a reprieve that it will almost certainly squander, but a reprieve nonetheless.
How do we know? Because the responses from Trump’s most dogged critics on the Russia question betray a kind of anxiety about the Mueller appointment--an anxiety that the no-nonsense law enforcement wise man will lower the temperature in Washington without actually uncovering enough damaging material to bring down the President.

Take, for example, Josh Marshall declaring that while he has confidence in Mueller to identify and expose any criminal activities undertaken by Trump or his associates, he won’t be able to prosecute the real Trump-Russia wrongdoing: a labyrinthian "conspiracy" which may not even involve any illegal behavior.

It is critical to understand that the most important details we need to know about the Russian disruption campaign and the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with it may not be crimes. Indeed, I would say that the crimes we’re likely to discover will likely be incidental or secondary to the broader actions and activities we're trying to uncover. Just hypothetically, what if Russia had a disruption campaign, Trump campaign officials gave winks and nods to nudge it forward but violated no laws? That’s hard to figure but by no means impossible. (Our criminal laws are not really designed for this set of facts.)...
And here’s David Frum in the Atlantic making a similar objection:

The special counsel will investigate whether people in the Trump campaign violated any laws when they gleefully leveraged the fruits of Russian espionage to advance their campaign.
By contrast, what happened in plain sight --cheering rather than condemning a Russian attack on American democracy--will be treated as a non-issue, because it was not criminal, merely anti-democratic and disloyal.

Since the summer before the election, Trump's critics have been suggesting or sometimes stating outright that Russia is involved with a criminal conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of Trump’s inner circle. But now that an unimpeachable bulldog prosecutor has been named to probe these very allegations, the critics seem to be trying to move the goalposts, saying that the real problem isn't criminality, but the sleaze and outlandish behavior of the Trump campaign more generally...

Indeed. One question I keep asking -- and which I encourage people to ask of these assholes -- is this: "What specific crime, including what specific acts, are you accusing Trump of?"

Note that in Hillary's case, critics were quite specific about what crimes she had committed: She violated the Espionage Act by transferring classified information to non-authorized users. She also set up this system precisely to avoid her FOIA obligations -- repeatedly telling people there were no responsive documents, when she was deliberately not searching for such documents on the secret serve she knew they were on.

I don't know if that last one is a crime, but I can definitely make that specific description of the bad conduct I'm alleging.

What similar specifics can these assholes offer re: Trump? They keep citing "contacts" -- but it's not a crime to have a "contact" with anybody. Literally, there is no person in the world, not even Osama bin Ladin's Satan-raped ghost, that it's illegal to have a "contact" with.

They also use the very vague word "collusion" to mask the fact they have no idea what Trump and Putin "colluded" about, or how. What quid pro quo are they alleging? How was this contract formed? Who negotiated this contract?

They have no idea, because they don't even really believe such a thing happened.

If they really believed such things happened, they would specifically say "Trump Aide X, with Trump's knowledge and permission, negotiated to trade American policy Y to Russia in exchange for Russian act Z."

They don't ever say that, because this is all bullshit. They just keep talking about the non-crime "contacts" and the deliberately vague, purposefully elusive word "collusion."


Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #30 on: May 19, 2017, 05:20:50 AM »
The current atmosphere really demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the power of the President as executive and the legislation that created the 10 year term for the FBI Director.

All executive power is vested in the President.  Congress cannot take any of that power away from the President by legislation.  The President can order the DOJ or the FBI to conduct any investigation he wants conducted.  Also, he can order the DOJ and FBI Director not to conduct any investigation that he does not want conducted.  The President can make his views about any investigation known to the FBI or DOJ.  The President is the ultimate executive power and his delegation of duties to members of his cabinet or staff does not strip the President of that constitutional power.

This is no different than the Commander-in-Chief clause.  The President can overrule any commander's decision about anything.  He is the top dog in that chain of command.  In fact, many writers applaud JFK's decision to override the Joint Chiefs during the Cuban Missile Crisis and impose a naval blockade instead of ordering air strikes.  Same with Truman and MacArthur during the Korean War.

The 10 year term for FBI Director was established to prevent another J. Edgar Hoover from recurring.  That term places a limit on how long the Director can act before his position requires a review and oversight by both the President and Congress.  This limit was not added in order to make the Director somehow independent of the President.  You would not want a national police force to be independent of oversight for 10 years. 

The constitutional issue is whether the President abused his executive power when he asked Comey to move on from Flynn now that Flynn had resigned the day before.  And whether the President abused his power when he fired Comey on May 9.  And when he asked Comey whether he (Trump) was the subject of any FBI investigation.

IMO, the answer in all 3 cases is, "No."  Looking at these issues in reverse order.

3.  Trump, as the repository of all executive power under the Constitution, has a right to know if he is the subject of any FBI investigations before he makes any decisions that could constitute an abuse of power.  That includes the decision to fire Comey.  The AG and his underlings owe any President that duty because each President is elected by the majority of votes in the Electoral College.  Those election results reflect the consent of the governed for that 4-year term.  And the duty of all federal employees and officers is to the Constitution.  An act that constitutes an abuse of power under one set of circumstances and not an abuse of power under another set should not depend upon the decision of an underling not to disclose certain facts to POTUS.  Trump had a right to know all of the facts relevant to any personnel decision before making it.

2.  Comey served at the pleasure of any President who held office during his maximum term as FBI Director.  He owed any President loyalty to the extent that the President did not violate the Constitution or was seeking not to faithfully execute the laws of the land.  If Comey did not see the current leaks from the Executive office as a priority, then Trump had every power, right and duty to fire him.  Comey had no more power to set the parameters of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia or any other investigation into anything related to the 2016 election than MacArthur had to cross the Yalu into China aganst TRuman's wishes.

1.  Any President has the power to tell any subordinate what he thinks should be done in any investigation.  Clearly Trump did not tell Comey to end any investigation into Flynn because that investigation has supposedly progressed to grand jury subpoenas.  The actions of Comey and the Bureau after the Feb 14 conversation prove that Comey was not ordered to do anything.  Thus, Trump did not abuse his executive power.

DougMacG

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19162
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #31 on: May 19, 2017, 07:15:30 AM »
Great analysis Rick!

If the NY Times original, double blind, hearsay story is true as reported ('anonymous sources' saw a memo that the 'reporters' did not see) that President Trump applied inappropriate pressure on then Director Comey in February to stop an FBI investigation for personal or political reasons that Comey denied under oath in May, Comey committed perjury.  I wonder if Mueller will prosecute his successor.  Or was the reporting, deceptive, wrong, and intended to turn the country into crisis over nothing?
---------------

Crafty: "I can picture Trump not taking a hint , , ,"

I can picture Comey putting valuable resources on a non-story and not investigating felonious, damaging leaks.

The NYT youtube of the handshake is the best evidence they have to support what they allege?  70 year old Trump pulled in "6 feet 8 inches tall" Comey against his will for a hug?  Good grief.  Sadly, I reviewed the tape a number of times.  There was no hug.  It was Comey that leaned in more so than Trump, and I'll bet no one in the room detected inappropriate touching.  )   And Biden's fondling of every appointee's wife goes unmentioned?  What has this newspaper come to, all the shiny narrative objects fit to print?



Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
NRO: When does all that evidence of collusion arrive?
« Reply #32 on: May 19, 2017, 08:47:08 AM »
Rick:

Are you saying that the President can ask the FBI Director to back off an investigation of a friend of his?

==========================================================================

When Does All That Evidence of Collusion Arrive?

Thursday, White House communications officials were eager to spotlight these comments from legislators, admitting or confirming, that they had, so far, seen no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Sam Stein, Huffington Post: “But just to be clear, there has been no actual evidence yet.”

REP. MAXINE WATERS (D-CA): “No, it has not been.”

Keep in mind, this is “Mad Maxine” Waters, who begins that interview by contending, “Lock her up, lock her up, all of that, I think that was developed strategically with people from the Kremlin, with Putin.” Right, right, there’s no way the Trump campaign could have possibly thought of that rallying cry on their own. That’s gotta be the work of Russian intelligence right there — you’ve cracked the case, Congresswoman!

Then there’s a Republican senator who hasn’t been a consistent Trump ally with the same assessment.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina: “There is no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians as of this date. I do not believe the president himself is a target or subject of any criminal investigation as of right now. So that’s what I know right now, and where this goes, I don’t know. Follow the facts where they lead.”

Perhaps the most significant comes from Senator Dianne Feinstein of California:

WOLF BLITZER, CNN: “The last time we spoke, Senator, I asked you if you had actually seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and you said to me -- and I’m quoting you now -- you said, ‘not at this time.’ Has anything changed since we spoke last?”

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): “Well, not—no, it hasn’t.”

BLITZER: “But I just want to be precise, Senator. In all of the—you’ve had access from the intelligence committee, from the Judiciary committee, all of the access you’ve had to very sensitive information, so far you’ve not seen any evidence of collusion, is that right?”

SEN. FEINSTEIN: “Well, evidence that would establish that there’s collusion. There are all kinds of rumors around. There are newspaper stories, but that’s not necessarily evidence.”

Feinstein is the most intriguing, because think about how easily she could have fudged her answer: “I’ve seen things that trouble me, Wolf” or “I’ve seen things that raise serious questions” or some other word salad that avoid the word “no.”

And then there was this Reuters article, reporting that Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and e-mails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race,

The people who described the contacts to Reuters said they had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or collusion between the campaign and Russia in the communications reviewed so far. But the disclosure could increase the pressure on Trump and his aides to provide the FBI and Congress with a full account of interactions with Russian officials and others with links to the Kremlin during and immediately after the 2016 election.

(The Reuters story cites “current and former U.S. officials” as sources. Every time we see the words “former U.S. official” we should keep in mind there’s a good chance the source would be more accurately characterized as a “former Obama-administration official.” This doesn’t mean that former official is automatically lying, just that they have a particular agenda for leaking this information, and one that is being effectively withheld from readers.)

Democrats are increasingly convinced that the seemingly endless storm of allegations around Trump will inevitably lead to his impeachment, and an impeachment that will come soon, not late in Trump’s first term. They’re convinced that evidence of Trump violating the law exists, and they’re convinced that the FBI or the investigating committees in Congress will find it.

Are any Democratic lawmakers starting to fear that they’re not going to find that evidence? The intelligence community is presumably always watching the Russian government as closely as they can. The FBI counterintelligence guys presumably track Russian agents on our soil as much as possible. You figure the NSA can track just about any electronic communication between Russians and figures in the Trump campaign.

If there was something sinister and illegal going on between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, the U.S. government as a whole had every incentive in the world to expose that as quickly as possible. They didn’t expose it before Election Day, they didn’t expose it before the Electoral College voted, they didn’t expose it before Inauguration Day… How many months have the best investigators in the United States been digging into this?

Imagine a scenario where the FBI and prosecutors eventually can prove some underling violated the law — obstruction of justice? Lying to investigators? — but not Trump. Will Democrats accept that?

Pity the FBI and intelligence community. They have to get to the bottom of this in a world where just under half of Capitol Hill, most of the media, almost all of academia, a good portion of the think-tank world and “intellectual class” etc., believe that the real mission of the investigation is to correct the “error” of the 2016 election.

If you talk to Democrats lately, they speak not as if the voters merely made a mistake, but that somehow history itself has gone wrong. They speak we’re living in an alternative timeline, experiencing events that “weren’t supposed” to happen. In their eyes, Hillary Clinton was obviously so much more appealing that Trump. She led in the polls! She had so many more campaign offices! She spent so much more money! She ran so many more ads! Surely, a result like this must be the result of someone cheating.

Because so many Democrats associate Trump with apocalyptic threats — global warming, the sudden establishment of a repressive theocracy like The Handmaid’s Tale, nuclear confrontation, race wars — they all see themselves as their own personal Kyle Reeses, on a mission to save the future.

With this desperate, all-or-nothing mindset, they will always insist that the evidence to take down Trump is waiting to be found, just around the next corner…
Whoa, Leakers, Take It Easy. You’re Starting to Embarrass the Obama Folks

Raise your hand if you expected John Brennan, who President Obama appointed to head the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013, to offer a qualified defense of Trump:
“What I have found appalling is the number of leaks that have taken place over the last several months,” former CIA Director John Brennan said at the SALT conference in Las Vegas, the annual gathering of hedge-fund managers and other financiers. “This needs to be stopped.” Brennan was CIA director during President Obama’s second term, stepping down in January, when Mike Pompeo replaced him.

Brennan said Trump made a “serious mistake” when he reportedly shared sensitive intelligence with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in an Oval Office meeting in early May. But this mistake wasn’t sharing intelligence; it was violating the protocol for doing so. “I shared intelligence with the Russians when I was the director of the CIA,” Brennan said. “But you share that through intelligence channels, and you make sure you word it in such a way as to not reveal sources and methods. President Trump didn’t do that.”

Brennan said the press coverage of Trump’s impromptu intelligence reveal was “hyperbolic” and possibly more damaging than anything Trump revealed. “The damage that was done is what was leaked in the aftermath, what was put in the media. The real damage to national security is the leaks.” He suggested, without saying so explicitly, that news accounts revealed more sensitive information than Trump did.

“The real damage to national security is the leaks,” Brennan said. “These individuals who still stay within the government and are leaking this stuff to the press need to be brought to task.”

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #33 on: May 19, 2017, 09:00:08 AM »
Could someone find the citation(s) for that Team Obama woman who let the cat out of the bag about how they left landmines for Trump, and also relevant citations about Obama expanding Super Duper Top Secret stuff from a handful of people to 17 agencies?

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #34 on: May 19, 2017, 09:18:05 AM »
Could someone find the citation(s) for that Team Obama woman who let the cat out of the bag about how they left landmines for Trump, and also relevant citations about Obama expanding Super Duper Top Secret stuff from a handful of people to 17 agencies?


http://pamelageller.com/2017/03/obama-loyalists-trump.html/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/01/obama-expands-surveillance-powers-his-way-out
« Last Edit: May 19, 2017, 09:24:13 AM by G M »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #36 on: May 19, 2017, 10:54:53 AM »
Very helpful GM--  can you find the one(s) of the Obama team woman inadvertently admitting everything in a TV interview?

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #37 on: May 19, 2017, 11:14:18 AM »
Craft Dog wrote:

Quote
Are you saying that the President can ask the FBI Director to back off an investigation of a friend of his?

IMO, yes.  He has the constitutional authority to do so. He has the constitutional authority to order the FBI to stop investigating his friend. 

The very first sentence of Article II:  "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America."

The issue is whether the request is such an abuse of that power that it constitutes an "other High Crime and Misdemeanor."  Or whether the friend bribed him for the request. Otherwise, such an order or request is a political issue that gets resolved in an election.  For example, the President can order the pardon or commutation of a friend's conviction and sentence.  He could even receive money like Bill Clinton received from the wife of Marc Rich.


G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #39 on: May 19, 2017, 12:56:56 PM »
Very helpful GM--  can you find the one(s) of the Obama team woman inadvertently admitting everything in a TV interview?


http://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2017/03/29/did-former-obama-aide-evelyn-farkas-just-admit-that-trumps-staff-was-spied-on/

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Twice, Comey declined to charge the Clintons
« Reply #40 on: May 19, 2017, 01:08:50 PM »
Papers reveal FBI's 'public corruption' probe into Bill Clinton's pardon of fugitive Marc Rich, whose wife Denise gave $450K to his presidential library – and $100K to make Hillary a senator

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3895636/papers-FBI-s-public-corruption-probe-Bill-Clinton-s-pardon-fugitive-wife-gave-450K-build-presidential-library-100K-make-Hillary-senator.html

Bill Clinton pardoned fugitive financier Marc Rich on his last day in the White House
Rich faced an indictment for racketeering, tax evasion, wire fraud, and illegally trading oil with Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis
He was in Switzerland when a federal Grand Jury indicted him, and never came back to the U.S.
His wife gave $450,000 to build Bill's presidential library, $100,000 to Hillary's U.S. Senate campaign, and far more to other Democratic causes

The FBI released 129 pages of heavily redacted documents on Monday related to the criminal investigation of the pardon – just 7 days before Hillary's big election day
By DAVID MARTOSKO, US POLITICAL EDITOR FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 20:17 EDT, 1 November 2016 | UPDATED: 11:03 EDT, 2 November 2016

SCANDAL: Fugitive financier Marc Rich was indicted for racketeering, fraud, tax evasion and illegal oil trading with Iran, but Bill Clinton pardoned him on his last day in the White House

The FBI on Monday released 129 pages of documents related to former president Bill Clinton's lame-duck pardon of a fugitive financier whose family contributed $450,000 to help build his presidential library and millions more to other Democratic Party causes.

Rich's wife Denise also contributed $100,000 to Hillary Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign as the first family prepared to clear out of the White House.

The disclosures will prove embarrassing to the former first family as Hillary Clinton tries to avoid a career-ending defeat next Tuesday at the hands of Donald Trump.

The FBI investigated the case of Marc Rich, who died in 2013, more than a decade ago, assigning it to the ominous sounding 'Public Corruption Unit.'

The documents released Monday leave much to the imagination, mostly redacted by government lawyers for privacy reasons and to preserve the secrecy of a federal Grand Jury.

But merely bringing the episode back up so close to Election Day has put an old Clinton black eye back on the front burner.




Rich, a legendary oil commodities and hedge-fund trader in his day, was charged with multiple counts of tax evasion, wire fraud, racketeering, and cutting petroleum deals with Iran during the 1979 hostage crisis.

Rich was in Switzerland when he was indicted, and never returned to the United States. He hired Jack Quinn, a former White House counsel to Clinton, as his lawyer.

His wife later renounced her U.S. citizenship and moved to Austria where she already had dual citizenship – saving herself tens of millions of dollars in taxes.

Rich passed away in 2013 and was laid to rest in  Tel Aviv.

Pardoning Rich on his last day in office turned out to be one of Bill Clinton's most controversial acts of president.

The FBI concluded that Clinton did not follow established procedures when he finalized the pardon, and only informed one person at the Department of Justice that Rich had sought the pardon: future Obama administration attorney general Eric Holder.

FBI director James Comey, then a federal prosecutor, ran the investigation into the Rich pardon. He criticized Holder's involvement in the controversy, calling the pardon 'a huge misjudgment.'

But he never recommended criminal charges against anyone embroiled in the scandal.




Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3895636/papers-FBI-s-public-corruption-probe-Bill-Clinton-s-pardon-fugitive-wife-gave-450K-build-presidential-library-100K-make-Hillary-senator.html
« Last Edit: May 19, 2017, 01:14:59 PM by G M »

G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
This Is A Coup Against Our Right To Govern Ourselves
« Reply #41 on: May 19, 2017, 01:24:14 PM »
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/05/18/this-is-a-coup-against-our-right-to-govern-ourselves-n2328059

This Is A Coup Against Our Right To Govern Ourselves
Kurt  Schlichter |Posted: May 18, 2017 12:01 AM 
This Is A Coup Against Our Right To Govern Ourselves

 

The blizzard of lies and distraction blowing through Washington is not just any routine stuffstorm, but a calculated attempt to bring down a president – our president, not the establishment’s president. And more than that, it’s an attempt to ensure that we never again have the ability to disrupt the bipartisan D.C. cabal’s permanent supremacy by inserting a chief executive who refuses to kiss their collective Reid.

This is a coup against us. It’s a coordinated campaign by liberals and their allies in the bureaucracy and media to once and for all ensure their perpetual rule over us. We need to fight it, here and now, so we don’t have to fight it down at the bottom of this slippery slope.

It’s brazen. It’s bold. It’s insulting to our intelligence. They aren’t even trying to hide their lies anymore. Truth is irrelevant; this is a choreographed dance routine and everyone has his moves. Call it Breakin’ 2: Electric Leakaroo, except instead of trying to save the community center they’re trying to save their power and prestige.

To buy the media narrative on this latest Russian nonsense, you must believe:

1. That whatever was revealed was super-secret, though we don’t know exactly what it was. When in doubt, assume it’s on par with the nuclear codes!

2. That there was no good reason to share this info with Russia, like coordinating our fight against our joint enemy or to prevent another Russian airliner massacre. Because why would we want another power fighting ISIS or civilians not to be blown out of the sky?

3. That LTG McMaster, who literally wrote the book on soldiers standing up to misbehaving civilian leaders and displayed immense personal courage in battle, turned chicken and sat there silently as Trump monologued about this unknown mystery info of doomsday-level import.

4. That LTG McMaster lied on camera. Twice. And that Secretary of State Tillerson lied too.

5. That random anonymous sources in an intelligence community that hates Trump with a burning passion must be believed without question, though we don’t know their identities or their motives.

6. That these anonymous randos must be believed, even though they were not actually in the room to, you know, actually hear what happened. The traditional bar on hearsay is apparently now just a bourgeois conceit.

7. That when the Washington Post and the rest of the media publishes classified stuff (including intelligence provided by allies) leaked by anyone not named “Donald Trump,” it’s awesome.


8. That the Washington Post and the rest of the media, which has been wrong over and over again in their reporting, are not wrong again.

9. That the Washington Post and the rest of the media are objective and have no anti-Trump bias, even though they are literally cheering the hits on the president.

10. That there are unicorns.

The latest pseudo-scandal is that Trump doesn’t think Mike Flynn did anything wrong, and told James Comey so back in February. So basically, Trump expressed the same view he had of the whole Flynn nonsense to Comey as he has expressed to every interviewer. Comey did nothing, and said nothing (even when testifying to Congress) for nearly three months, because it was nothing. The Russian snipe hunt continued throughout unabated. That off-hand comment was a pretty poor attempt at obstruction of justice since it didn’t obstruct anything – to the limited extent these Russian witch hunts can be confused with “justice” at all.


So the Menschian thinkers who usually scream “Treason!” are now screaming “Obstruction of Justice!” It’s adorable when they learn new terms and try to use them correctly; they’re so proud of themselves and their vocabulary building that you almost feel bad having to point out that they sound like idiots.

It is nice, though, to have liberals finally come out against the abuse of executive power, misuse of classified material, and Russians. Welcome to the party, except we know you’re full of Schumer.

It’s all lies, and they know it and we know it. Normal people just shake their heads and wonder why Washington is so consumed with political nonsense instead of solving problems. But then, Washington does not produce solutions. It produces only political nonsense.

This is a concentrated, coordinated effort by elite insiders to take down not this president – Trump’s not the point here – but to take down us, the normal American they seek to rule. Someone came to Washington who wasn’t part of the club, and that’s intolerable. So they are desperate to expel him, and by extension, us.


Every day will be a crisis, every action he takes will be the worst thing that has ever happened, and every step towards keeping his promises a crime.

Repeal Obamacare? TRUMP’S SENTENCING MILLIONS TO DEATH!

Talk to Russians? IT’S TREASON!

Telling Comey he wishes this nonsense would stop? OBSTRUTION OF JUSTICE EVEN THOUGH NOTHING WAS OBSTRUCTED!

Now, this campaign isn’t aimed at us. Normal people, people who don’t live in DC or NYC or LA, just tune it out. After all these years, and with the help of the web, we normals know the game. We’re woke, as the dorky leftists say.

The target of this constant barrage is the soft and the stupid, the smug and the sanctimonious, the wusses and the surrender flunkies. That’s why you get the girlish-handed likes of David Brooks writing dainty columns that give Trump such a pinch! That’s why David Frum starts using words like “courage” to impugn actual men who have done actual man-things, like LTG McMaster. That’s why Kasich spews his bilious funk of sanctimony and submission, among other funks. It’s all to appeal to the Fredocons, the soft-headed RINOs who are smart, not dumb like everyone says, who just want something for themselves – attention, approval, and media pats on their pointy little heads.

So these fussy ninnies, fresh from having some v-capped crone screeching at them that they will vote to take away her right to have taxpayers fork cash over to kill the baby no man will ever give her, wander outside into a wall of mics and cameras and pause. Then they talk, and when what they say trashes Trump sufficiently, the smiles from the press come, and the nods, and then the faux respect. Now they are no longer mean old Rethuglicans but dauntless heroes, at least in Georgetown, because they are willing to dance and caper to the tune of the establishment.

This tsunami of baloney isn’t aimed at us. It’s aimed at them, the Republicans who are foolish enough to believe their new friends when they whisper words like “honor” and “patriotism.” Some of the marks are real patriots who fall prey to these liars when they couch their bogus narrative in national defense terms. But the majority of the marks are just morons.

When targeting the dummies, the goal is simple. Draw off enough weak, attention-addicted RINOs to make it impossible for the President to govern. Then, hopefully, us normals will shrug, and slink away, having relearned our place. After all, we’re deplorable.

And when the liberal establishment retakes power, and the mavericks and goody-goodies get tossed aside, the bureaucracy, media and the Democrats will conspire to ensure that no one can ever take their power from them again. But they haven’t considered the consequences. We’ll object.

So we have to fight against this cable network coup. Because, if we don’t fight now, we all may end up fighting later.

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #42 on: May 19, 2017, 04:15:11 PM »
Given the performance of the same group of agenda-driven people after Benghazi in 2012, I distrust every alleged leak coming from unnamed sources. 

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19433
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #43 on: May 19, 2017, 04:59:57 PM »
The whereabout in the white house of Obama : a *source* told me Obama was screwing an intern during the Benghazi attack.  That is why it was hushed up.  And worse that that was after a dinner in which he had *TWO* scoops of ice cream while forcing everyone else present to suffer with only *ONE* scoop. 

So why is this not "breaking news" with power delirious news (democrat party employees) people  urinating all over themselves ranting and raving about this "scoop" 24/7?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/trump-time-magazine-ice-cream/index.html

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Spengler
« Reply #44 on: May 19, 2017, 05:52:19 PM »
https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2017/05/18/a-coup-attempt-not-a-constitutional-crisis/
A Coup Attempt, Not a Constitutional Crisis
By David P. Goldman May 18, 2017
chat 974 comments

A ranking Republican statesman this week told an off-the-record gathering that a “coup” attempt was in progress against President Donald Trump, with collusion between the largely Democratic media and Trump’s numerous enemies in the Republican Party. The object of the coup, the Republican leader added, was not impeachment, but the recruitment of a critical mass of Republican senators and congressmen to the claim that Trump was “unfit” for office and to force his resignation.

It’s helpful to fan away the psychedelic fumes of allegation and innuendo and clarify just what Trump might have done wrong. Trump will not be impeached, and he will not be harried out of office. But he faces a formidable combination of media hostility—what the president today denounced as a “witch hunt”—and a divided White House staff prone to press leaks. The likely outcome will be a prolonged dirty war of words that will delay Trump’s domestic agenda and tie down his loyalists with the chores of fire-fighting.
Sponsored

One thinks of Gulliver tied down by the Lilliputians. Trump was elected by campaigning against the Republican Establishment as well as Obama, ridiculing their policy blunders in Iraq and Afghanistan and questioning their credibility. In the flurry of personal attacks, the underlying policy issues have faded into the background, and that gives the initiative to Trump’s enemies.

Nothing that has been alleged, much less proven, about President Trump comes close to the threshold for impeachment, as Prof. Jonathan Turley of George Washington University’s law school explained in a May 17 comment in The Hill. Even if Trump asked then FBI Director James Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn, Prof. Turley notes, “Encouraging leniency or advocating for an associate is improper but not necessarily” illegal. The charge of obstruction of justice presumes that there is an issue before the bar of justice, but as Turley adds, “There is no indication of a grand jury proceeding at the time of the Valentine's Day meeting between Trump and Comey. Obstruction cases generally are built around judicial proceedings — not Oval Office meetings.”

The appointment of respected former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to look into allegations of Russian interference in the November 2016 election strongly suggests that the Trump team feels it has nothing to fear from a thorough review. In this case Trump’s detractors appear to be bluffing. Press reports of contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russian diplomats and businessmen appear to reflect the sort of conversations that every presidential campaign conducts with important foreign governments. It is not clear that Russia was responsible for the delivery of embarrassing Democratic National Committee emails to Wikileaks, moreover. Pro-Trump media report that DNC staffer Seth Rich was Wikileaks’ source. Rich was murdered on a Washington street in July 2016, and a counter-conspiracy theory is circulating about his death.

Then there is the alleged leak of highly classified intelligence on the laptop bomb threat to airliners, of which Wall Street Journal editors intoned, “Loose Lips Sink Presidencies.” Exactly what the president told the Russians is under dispute, but the salient fact in the case is that presidents and cabinet members frequently leak classified information without prompting the condemnations that piled up on Trump. Obama’s then Defense Secretary Leon Panetta leaked the role of Pakistani physician Shakil Afridi in locating Osama bin Laden’s lair, and President Obama himself revealed that Seal Team 6 had killed Osama, making the unit a subsequent  target for terrorists. Apart from inadvertent leaks, the Obama administration deliberately leaked British nuclear secrets to Russia, over bitter protests from London.
Sponsored

Why did Obama get a pass while Trump got the bum’s rush? Apart from the antipathy of the major media to a candidate who campaigned against them, there is the hostility of the intelligence agencies. That, the Wall Street Journal editors said, is Trump’s own fault: “Mr. Trump’s strife and insults with the intelligence community were also bound to invite blowback,” their May 17 editorial scolded. “In that case the public leaks about Mr. Trump’s actions, if true, will do more damage than whatever he said in private.”

The Journal editors imply that disaffection in the intelligence community is the result of Trump’s obstreperousness, but the source of the dispute is policy and accountability. Trump’s first national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, was fired by Obama as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for claiming that U.S. intelligence agencies bore some responsibility for the emergence of ISIS. The CIA funded Sunni rebels against the Assad regime including many from a branch of al-Qaeda, the al-Nusra Front, in its campaign to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump has shifted America’s priority to stopping the bloodshed in Syria rather than forcing out al-Assad, and is willing to work with Russia to achieve this—provided that the result doesn’t give undue influence to Iran, a senior administration official explained.

A shift to peacemaking and the limited possibility of a regional deal with Russia away from the covert war operations of the CIA under the Obama administration represents a major policy change. It threatens the credibility of Sen. McCain, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and the Republican Establishment, not to mention the CIA officials who made their careers on collaboration with Syria’s Sunni rebels.

During the campaign, candidate Trump delivered an effective message that he would abandon the costly and unpopular nation-building campaigns of his predecessors and focus instead on America’s own security. He attacked not only Obama but the George W. Bush administration and the Republican Establishment which had fostered a failing policy in the region.

Trump won by calling attention to the errors of his opponents and by dominating the news cycle. He played continuous offense. At the White House, by contrast, Trump has appeared cautious in stating his foreign policy goals, and defensive in responding to attacks on his performance and propriety. The policy issues that stood out clear during the campaign and helped Trump outflank the Republican Establishment have become fuzzy, especially after the firing of Gen. Flynn.

With the policy issues out of focus, Trump has lost control of the news cycle, and risks letting the news cycle control him. His opponents won’t succeed in dislodging him. But they have succeeded in distracting Trump from his policy agenda.

ccp

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 19433
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #45 on: May 19, 2017, 06:45:27 PM »
I remember when Krauthammer complimented Obama noting his "temperament" as his "greatest" asset.

For Trump one could say it is his biggest liability.

The Trump opposition will keep egging him on making every effort to keep him riled up and saying stupid unforced things, and he will keep doing what he always has -  just that.

Who was it Brennan or Clapper who said that is the way to beat him?

Repubs are already caving which is also predictable.

If he can only hold it together and focus on his policies......






G M

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 26643
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #46 on: May 19, 2017, 06:56:23 PM »
The whereabout in the white house of Obama : a *source* told me Obama was screwing an intern during the Benghazi attack.  That is why it was hushed up.  And worse that that was after a dinner in which he had *TWO* scoops of ice cream while forcing everyone else present to suffer with only *ONE* scoop. 

So why is this not "breaking news" with power delirious news (democrat party employees) people  urinating all over themselves ranting and raving about this "scoop" 24/7?

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/11/politics/trump-time-magazine-ice-cream/index.html

Any guesses what his name was? Does this mean Reggie Love was out of town?

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Jared, "person of interest"
« Reply #47 on: May 19, 2017, 08:57:12 PM »
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jared-kushner-russia-investigation-trump-song-in-law-probe-person-interest-a7745916.html

I remember there being a meeting with Flynn and the Russian ambassador at Trump Towers that very much raised my eyebrows.

rickn

  • Power User
  • ***
  • Posts: 141
    • View Profile
Dershowitz on Tucker Carlson: Where's the crime?
« Reply #48 on: May 20, 2017, 03:13:44 AM »
How come it's OK for Obama to fire Flynn for not being loyal to Obama's policies; but it is not OK for Trump to fire Comey for refusing to say that he will be loyal to Trump's policies?

The FBI works for the President.  It is not an autonomous directorate.  Or do some want another Hooveristic bureau if it acts that way to further their political goals?

Dershowitz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7WnauFiafY
« Last Edit: May 20, 2017, 04:06:42 AM by Crafty_Dog »

Crafty_Dog

  • Administrator
  • Power User
  • *****
  • Posts: 71672
    • View Profile
Re: The Russian conspiracy, Comey, related matters
« Reply #49 on: May 20, 2017, 04:07:04 AM »