Sessions needs to stop the misuse of intelligence for politics
In hindsight, the most important thing said this year came on Jan. 3. Chuck Schumer, leader of Senate Democrats, warned President-elect Trump he would pay a price for disputing intelligence officials’ findings of Russian meddling.
“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer declared.
Schumer was right about a vendetta, but wrong about timing. It’s now clear that intelligence officials already had started “getting back” at the next commander in chief.
They started in the summer of 2016.
In early August, Mike Morell, who was acting head of the CIA under Barack Obama, broke with agency tradition by entering the political fray to endorse Hillary Clinton.
He praised her as “highly qualified” and said Trump was “not only unqualified for the job, but he may well pose a threat to our national security.”
That same month, the FBI was also busy with its pro-Clinton, anti-Trump playbook. Peter Strzok, a top counterintelligence agent, was scathingly dismissive of Trump in text messages, but one is getting extra attention.
Writing to Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer with whom he was having an affair, and referring to a conversation that likely included Andrew McCabe, James Comey’s top deputy, Strzok said:
“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40 . . .”
Here’s the obvious question: What was “it” that’s “like an insurance policy”?
Was it the Russian dossier and its salacious, unverified accusations against Trump then being shopped around Washington?
Or was the insurance policy the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign, which was only weeks old — and which Strzok was leading?
Strzok was a busy man, working both sides of the presidential fix. Fox News reports he also was a major player in the Clinton e-mail probe and helped to soften the language so Comey could legally exonerate her.
If that were all, it would be enough. But there’s more, much more.
A ranking Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr, was secretly meeting with Fusion GPS, the firm that was paid by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to produce the dossier. He also met with Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the dossier, in part by paying Russian government sources for dirt on Trump.
And get this: Fusion GPS has confirmed that Ohr’s wife was working for the company on the anti-Trump contract.
Just before Fox News revealed those cozy arrangements, Ohr was demoted.
Similarly, special counsel Robert Mueller, whose team of prosecutors is dominated by Clinton donors, dismissed Strzok when the department’s inspector general alerted him to the damning texts, but Strzok is still working for the FBI.
Those actions are baby steps next to the monstrous facts: Leading members of the intelligence community tried to tilt the election to Clinton and, having failed, tried to undermine the Trump presidency.
How vast was this conspiracy and who else was involved? Most important, how high did it go?
Hopefully, some answers are coming as it becomes impossible to deny the stench of wrongdoing in high places. Congress is picking up the fight for facts and even Morell now confesses misgivings about the political turn he and others in the intelligence agencies took.
In a recent Politico interview, he cites his endorsement of Clinton, criticisms of Trump from John Brennan, who also headed the CIA under Obama, and Michael Hayden, former head of the NSA, and the torrent of classified leaks as reasons why Trump would be suspicious.
Morell added: “So, he must have thought, ‘Who are these guys? Are these guys out to get me? Is this a political organization? Can I think about them as a political organization when I become president?’ ”
Morell admitted that such implications were “something I didn’t think about.”
That is an astonishing admission. And one that should finally stir the somnolent Jeff Sessions.
The attorney general has gone missing when he is needed most. The emerging evidence follows earlier warning signs that include Comey’s suspicious actions, Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton during the e-mail case and the unmasking of Trump associates from intercepted phone calls.
They all fit a consistent pattern of weaponizing intelligence and law enforcement for political purposes.
In stark terms, Hillary Clinton got a free pass and Trump got sabotaged — by the same people.
Sessions — I repeat myself — is the worst hire Trump made. His decision to recuse himself from anything involving Trump’s campaign because he was a surrogate led directly to Mueller’s appointment.
But along the way, Sessions’ limited recusal mushroomed into a vow of inaction. Recalling Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” Sessions “would prefer not to” do his job.
Meanwhile, his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, looked like a deer caught in the headlights last week when House GOP members demanded to know whether the FBI paid Steele and whether the Trump dossier was used to get a surveillance warrant against Trump associates.
Rosenstein said he knew the answers, but couldn’t give them. I take that to mean the answer is yes, which would amount to compelling evidence that the Justice Department, FBI and CIA under Obama worked with the Clinton campaign to stop Trump.
Paging Jeff Sessions: History is calling. Answer the damn questions!
Yet even with Trump in the White House, the FBI and Justice Department are still stiff-arming Congress, with both agencies resisting in ways that suggest they are protecting dirty secrets.
Judicial Watch, which is doing heroic work in using the courts to pry loose critical info, is meeting the same resistance.
Americans are steadily losing faith in their government, and the CIA and FBI are not exempt. Sessions should either get to work or hit the road.
Explosive Texts Point To FBI, Not Russian, Meddling In 2016 Election
ReplyDeleteScandal: For 18 months, the FBI has been fixated on determining whether President Trump worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election. But explosive text exchanges between top FBI agents suggest it should be looking in the mirror.
The text messages sent between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, which became public on Wednesday, provide a rare and illuminating window into just how rabidly partisan putatively nonpartisan law enforcement officials can be.
In the exchanges, they called Trump an "idiot," a "loathsome human," an "enormous do-che," and said "this man cannot be president."
When not berating Trump, they were praising Hillary Clinton. In one text, Strzok said: "God Hillary should win 100,000,000-0." In another, he said that "a lot of people are holding their breath hoping" about Clinton.
When Hillary accepted the party's nomination in July, Strzok texted "Congrats on a woman nominated for President in a major party! About damn time!" During one of the presidential debates, he texted: "Oh hot damn. HRC is throwing down saying Trump in bed with Russia." In one of Page's texts, she said Hillary "just has to win now."
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DeleteOn their own, these texts might not be a big deal, even if the two are career government employees. Everyone is entitled to their opinions.
But Strzok and Page weren't just a couple of bureaucrats crunching numbers in a windowless office at the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Strzok was a key player in the FBI's investigation into whether Clinton had broken the law by using a private, unsecured email server to handle highly classified documents. He interviewed several of the people involved, including Clinton herself.
He was also the person who watered down the language in the statement used by Comey to exonerate Clinton, changing it from "gross negligence" to "extremely careless," which as we noted in this space was critical to Comey's claim that Clinton didn't break any laws.
Remember, too, that when Strzok was busy airbrushing Clinton's email crimes, he would have known that, had the FBI done the right thing and indicted her for putting national security at risk, it would have crushed her campaign, and helped elect the man Strzok clearly felt should never be president.
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DeleteIn other words, Strzok had motive, means and opportunity to sabotage that investigation.
Strzok and Page were also deeply involved in the FBI's investigation into alleged Russia meddling, which started almost immediately after Comey let Clinton off the hook, and was sparked by a dodgy Clinton-financed "dossier." In fact, according to CNN, Strzok signed the document making the Russia probe official.
So did these FBI agents act on their fervent anti-Trump beliefs in ways that might have compromised the integrity of both investigations?
The text exchanges suggest they very well may have. Consider:
Strzok texted Page saying that while he wanted to believe "that there's no way he gets elected" he was "afraid we can't take that risk," then added cryptically that "it's like an insurance policy." The text doesn't make clear what the "it" was, but does suggest the topic was discussed with the deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe.
In August, Page told Strzok he should stay where he is because "you're meant to protect the country from that menace," meaning Trump. She then sent a link to a David Brooks column in The New York Times which argued that, with Trump, "There comes a time when neutrality and laying low become dishonorable. If you're not in revolt, you're in cahoots." To which Strzok said "of course I'll try to approach it that way … I can protect our country at many levels."
Days after the election, Page texted to say she bought "All the President's Men,'' a book about Nixon's demise from the Watergate scandal, because "I needed to brush up on Watergate.''
One of the texts also suggests that both knew they should be careful when discussing Clinton. In April 2016, Page texted "you say we text on that phone when we talk about Hillary because it can't be traced."
At the very least, these messages cast still more doubt on both the Clinton email and the Russia investigations, and lend more credence to claims that both were driven primarily by a desire by federal officials to protect Clinton's election chances, and hurt Trump in any way possible.
Source: Investors
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ReplyDeleteFROM someone very familiar with corruption under Obama
(THE HILL) Former Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday warned Congressional Republicans not to make any moves to remove special counsel Robert Mueller, saying such an attempt “will not be tolerated.”
“Speaking on behalf of the vast majority of the American people, Republicans in Congress be forewarned: any attempt to remove Bob Mueller will not be tolerated,” Holder wrote on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteMarine Le Pen: "We are in opposition to the European Union because we believe it is a catastrophically disastrous organization. Migration is close to being unbearable, our respected cultures are being destroyed. We like diversity. I like the Dutch to be Dutch, I like the Czech to be Czechs, I like the French to be French, I like the Italians to be Italian."
REALITY & COMMON SENSE REVIVES:
Anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise. Nearly two-thirds of EU citizens believe immigration has a negative impact on their countries, according to a survey released last month by Fondapol, a Paris-based liberal think-tank.
In 2014, 52 per cent of Europeans believed immigration was “an economic burden” according to Pew Research Center. In Germany, the rate was 29 per cent — compared with 51 per cent now saying it has a “negative impact” in the Fondapol survey. After a series of Islamist terror attacks, 58 per cent of Europeans now view Islam as a threat. They are ambivalent about refugees: two-thirds of those polled say it is a duty to rescue them, but 54 per cent say their countries cannot afford to take more of them.
It is no surprise therefore that in a string of elections this year, voters have veered to the right. Nativism is now a generally accepted notion in countries such as the Netherlands and Austria, says Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist at the University of Georgia in the US. “Their leaders have banged on about a ‘nativism-light’ strategy to win,” he says.
The trend intensified amid the economic decline and austerity policies engendered by the eurozone debt crisis. Some wonder if it might recede now that growth has returned to the region and unemployment is falling; this is the reformist Mr Macron’s gamble. But many experts say it is here to stay. “Populism doesn’t just feed off economic insecurity, but also off cultural clashes,” says Jean Garrigues, a French historian.
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DeleteFROM SAME ARTICLE:
ReplyDeleteMs Merkel’s decision to keep Germany’s borders open at the height of the refugee crisis and the resulting backlash fuelled the rise of the AfD, particularly in eastern Germany.
Saxony, the most successful of the east German states, with the lowest unemployment and one of the best education systems in the country, did not take in that many asylum-seekers. But that was the point, says Detlev Spangenberg, one of the crop of newly elected AfD MPs from the state.
“Saxons have looked very closely at what has happened in the west of the country, and they don’t want to end up like that,” he says in his office in Radebeul. High levels of immigration have, he says, scarred Germany’s big cities, leading to “parallel societies” and “no-go” areas for police...
The majority in Italy, Austria, France and Germany see immigrant as a negative. Time is a changing.
ReplyDeleteMr Sessions is, without doubt, the most successful of all Mr Trump's appointments
Jeff Sessions truly represents Mr Trump's uncanny ability to pick "the best" people for his underlings.
That you fellas continue to assualt his job performance just another indication of your distaste for the Trump Agenda.
The battle against the MS-13 street gang is going full bore. Illegal aliens are being detained and deported..
Obviously Mr Trump's priorities for the Federal government are not shared by the host of the Elephant Bar.
Massive debt and continued corruption, the two constants that Mr Trump requires in his effort to Make America Great, Again.
Don't besmirch Mr Trump's appointtees, they are the best people, doing their best.
No one could possibly do Goverment better than Mr Trump, he told US so.
DeleteThe people he has hired "the best", if not the brightest.
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ReplyDeleteAbuse of Power? Corruption?
Not surprisingly, the Trump administration appears poised to approve the FOX/Disney merger.
Perhaps also not surprisingly, there are a number of stumbling blocks holding up the AT&T/Time Warner deal. One of the major issues is CNN which the Financial Times reports DOJ is demanding be sold before the deal goes through.
Given Trump's character and his respective relationships with FOX and CNN, none of this surprises.
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