[Last Refuge] The leadership of the DOJ and the FBI are intertwined in the 2016 election operation to support candidate Hillary Clinton and defeat candidate Donald Trump. However, most of the investigative discussions center around the FBI side of the equation. There’s a good reason for that.
The FBI side of the conspiracy is pretty straight forward. FBI Director James Comey, FBI Asst. Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker, FBI Counterintelligence Head Bill Priestap, and FBI Counterintelligence Agent Peter Strzok all played a participatory role in the Trump Operation.
The 2016 FBI counterintelligence operation was surveillance on the Trump Campaign and was thinly disguised under the fraudulent auspices of a FISA warrant, sold as a defense of U.S. democracy from Russia, which permitted the wiretaps and surveillance etc.
Two DOJ people (central to the FBI) relayed and acted as facilitators between the FBI side and the DOJ side: DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr and FBI/DOJ lawyer Lisa Page. Outlines of their collaborative efforts, and the trails they left behind, have filled the headlines recently.
On the Department of Justice side of the operation, specifically the DOJ leadership involvement, things are less clearly outlined. Again, there’s a reason for that.
The DOJ involvement surrounds legal arguments, processing of FISA applications, and use of the legal system to support the FBI with actionable legal framing (against Trump) mostly after their candidate, Hillary Clinton, was defeated.
In essence, in a bastardized manipulation of Law and Order, the FBI created disorder and the DOJ weaponized that manufactured disorder to launch a legal attack against their ideological political opposition, President-elect Donald Trump. Unlawfulness and Disorder.
However, to best understand the DOJ side, it’s helpful to look at a specific time, September and October 2016. That’s when the second FISA application was presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), using the information from the FBI counterintelligence operation (Steele Dossier etc.) as the basis for that application.
#1
Such loyal politicians -- naw, follow the money.
Posted by: A. Omereck6265 ||
12/29/2017 9:41 Comments ||
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#2
The fecal matter is going to hit the oscillator when the IG publishes his report.
Methinks we will have a large number of DoJ and FBI guys suddenly file for early retirement to avoid the dreaded cardboard box/security guard/HR pitbull thingee.
#4
Actually, the Trumpster and Sessions will make certain it is given all the press it deserves.
Trump isn't Zerobama and the IG report will reflect poorly on those people, not Trump. Of course it will be released in its full and final form for all to see and the media to bury in the want ads.
No reason to bury a report that is negative about the opposition now is there?
[Pirates Cove] I wonder, have the Trump haters considered that he’s just doing this to mess with them? That he knows they will lose their collective minds, and that he and the folks around him are getting a good laugh? And that his tweets cause the Credentialed #Resist Media to chase rabbits down holes while Trump and his folks go off and do things that the media misses during that time?
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up! 7:01 PM - Dec 28, 2017
This has causes all sorts of blue check mark folks to try and explain the difference between weather and climate, forgetting that they will themselves blame every weather event on ’climate change’. Many immediately put up missives at mainstream outlets, such as this front page one at the Washington Post, which includes
#5
Lets get ready to rumble!!!. Pure Trump. This is the glue that holds his supporters so cohesively to him. He is a Rick Flare, a showman that can work the crowds. No more Mr. nice guy meekly tattering off to some hiding place hoping the storm will pass over them. You deliver attacks upon him and you will surely be met with an appropriate response. Pass the popcorn the next years will be like none other in American history. Trump could have run as a Democrat and won. People of both parties have wanted a leader like him for many years. So far he has effectively demonstrated he has the ability and the drive to pursue this effort. The best days for America are yet to be.
[Boing Boing] The DNC continues to struggle to raise cash, holding only $6.3M in the bank on Dec 1, compared to the RNC's $40M. But the numbers are deceiving, because 50% of the country want the Democrats to control Congress in 2018 (compared with 39% who want the GOP to retain power) and individual Democrat candidates are having banner years fundraising, especially the progressive, "Sanders Democrats" who break with the party's coziness with the finance industry and big business.
The DNC's empty coffers are the result of a general mistrust of the party establishment: from former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile's revelations that the party "let Clinton's headquarters in Brooklyn [manage the Democratic Party] it desired so she didn't have to inform the party officers how bad the situation was," to the many misdeeds of former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman-Shultz.
During the Obama years, the DNC was starved of attention and scrutiny as the Obama team did their own fundraising and outreach, with their own systems.
Then there was the DNC's lawyers who literally told a judge that they believed they could ignore all primary votes and choose the party's candidates "in smoke filled back rooms."
I gave money to the DNC in the 2016 election cycle (I also donated to the Sanders campaign and several downticket candidates from the Sanders wing of the party) and so I get a steady stream of fundraising phone-calls and circulars from the DNC. I often tell the phone canvassers that the party's coziness with finance and its position on "smoke-filled back rooms" mean that I have no confidence in the DNC, and send my money directly to the kinds of candidates who are usually pushed out in those smoke-filled back rooms.
On several occasions, the phone canvasser has confessed that they do the same thing.
The announcement comes several days after Benjamin Wittes, a journalist and friend of former FBI Director James Comey, tweeted that he donated $1,000 to the organization in retaliation for Trump's Twitter attacks on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
"The President is impugning the integrity of the FBI by attacking two honorable public servants: Jim Baker and Andy McCabe. I just donated $1,000 to the @FBIAgentsAssoc in their names. I urge others to give as well and tweet that you did so to #thanksFBI," Wittes tweeted Saturday.
He was quickly joined by other critics of the president, including MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough.
#2
ThePresident is impugning the integrity of the FBI
It appears the senior FBI management (and DoJ) impugned itself. Remember Mike Flynn is being prosecuted for lying to the FBI, no similar actions are being taken upon the FBI senior management for lying before Congress.
#3
Typical Democrats/Socialists/Liberals - they want to donate, but with someone else's money
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2017 9:32 Comments ||
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#4
I am shocked to hear that after Hilly got through with the DNC, the bank accounts were overdrawn, the cards maxed out, and someone stole all the silverware.
Shocked, do you hear?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
12/29/2017 10:17 Comments ||
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#5
So how can candidates have a great fundraising year and the DNC is broke?
#8
I've been besieged the last couple weeks with: renewing my SRNC charter (I didn't know I had); getting a RNC tree ornament (Don't want one); daily emails to support DJT (by donating to the RNC); Carl De Maio trying to repeal the gas tax (Signed the petition, not paying $ to increase your Q, Carl)
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2017 19:45 Comments ||
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#9
The literal scum of the earth
No offense to actual algae and Cyanobacteria, of course.
Because she doesn't give a shit about her constituents and they respond by not giving a shit about it.
[Townhall] Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., once falsely accused President Ronald Reagan's CIA of all but causing urban cocaine dealing in the '80s. She claimed that Reagan, by working with Nicaraguan drug dealers to defeat the communists running that country, colluded with them to created the urban drug epidemic. Never mind that The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times all debunked Waters' claim.
At a town hall meeting about these allegations, Waters shouted, "If I never do anything else in this career as a member of Congress, I'm gonna make somebody pay for what they've done to my community and to my people!" Yet as to "Politico's" bombshell claim that in order to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, President Barack Obama allowed an Iran-funded Hezbollah terrorist/drug-dealing mastermind who worked for Russian President Putin to continue to operate. Yet Waters, who calls for President Donald Trump's impeachment, has said absolutely nothing.
How desperate was Obama to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran?
In his zeal not to offend Iran so he could complete the deal, Obama halted a George W. Bush administration investigation of drug and human trafficking by the Iran-funded terror group Hezbollah. According to "Politico," the Obama administration angered investigators by interfering with and shutting down a well-funded and resourced Drug Enforcement Agency probe known as Project Cassandra.
In "The Secret Backstory of How Obama Let Hezbollah Off the Hook," Politico senior investigator Josh Meyer wrote about the investigation the government called "Project Cassandra" and Ali Fayad, a Hezbollah operative suspected of, among other things, of using profits from drug-dealing to finance terror operations and to move weapons to Syria.
Meyer writes: "When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
"The Justice Department declined requests by Project Cassandra and other authorities to file criminal charges against major players such as Hezbollah's high-profile envoy to Iran, a Lebanese bank that allegedly laundered billions in alleged drug profits, and a central player in a U.S.-based cell of the Iranian paramilitary Quds force. And the State Department rejected requests to lure high-value targets to countries where they could be arrested. ...
"Lebanese arms dealer Ali Fayad, a suspected top Hezbollah operative whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, was arrested in Prague in the spring of 2014. But for the nearly two years Fayad was in custody, top Obama administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech government to extradite him to the United States, even as Putin was lobbying aggressively against it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2017 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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[PJ] Barack Obama will no doubt be chronicled, among other things, as the first anti-American president. No wonder; he’s the product of an educational system that has become increasingly radical and anti-American with each passing decade, and his mother was a stereotypical leftist anthropologist with a passion for the Third World.
The pattern is unmistakable. As Luis Fleischman notes, Obama wanted to make deals with our enemies, Iran being the most dramatic example. But just look at Latin America:
The Obama Administration tried to avoid confrontations with anyone it wanted to make a "historic deal" with. Most of these "historic deals" were intended to be made with enemies, as Obama desperately sought an agreement not only with Iran, but also with Cuba and reconciliation with Venezuela.
Thus, Obama failed to insist on the extradition of Venezuelan military and drug trafficker Hugo Carvajal from Aruba and the Syrian-born Venezuelan drug lord Walid Makled from Colombia. Carvajal was the chief of Venezuelan military intelligence and Makled is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere. Makled himself disclosed his own cooperation with scores of the highest officials within Chavez’s government -- including Carvajal himself, with the chiefs of the Venezuelan army and navy, as well as with dozens of Venezuelan generals.
The Obama people did not want to know the details of Venezuela’s collusion with the drug Mafiosi. If you have followed the story of the obstruction of the DEA investigation of Hezbollah, you will recognize the pattern. Indeed, it is part of the story.
#6
How he made the exact opposite of correct decisions for 8 years baffled me. To have to repair after it is a heck of a big job.
Posted by newc
Yes, it may be a very, very long time before we're fully recovered from what that Soetoro fella brought upon us. Seems like it's sometimes easier to start from scratch than try to pick up the pieces and repair what someone else has thoroughly discombobalated.
#8
Carter's horrible performance enabled enemies to overextend and allowed Reagan to outspend the Soviets. A similar dynamic between Obama and Trump is working out.
h/t Instapundit
[Townhall] As 2017 comes to a close, tumbleweeds roll down the empty Lido Deck while the Republican base answers the question, "What if Conservative, Inc., gave a cruise and nobody came?" The Democrats fled Washington under cover of darkness, desperate to keep their slobbering socialist wing from forcing them to commit ritual suicide by closing down the government over Christmas because the GOP Congress (for now) won’t hand a couple million illegal aliens citizenship. Robert Mueller’s Keystone Kop Korps started off with "unquestioned integrity" and ended the year with totally questioned integrity. The mainstream media abandoned the principle of objectivity in favor of shrill advocacy, yet it is baffled that most Americans now consider its members like just another bunch of partisan hacks.
In the White House, where everyone who was anyone told us Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit would reign, President Donald Trump finished the year by signing a tax reform bill that punished conservatives’ enemies and rewarded their friends. The Democrats get to go tell their base of blue state coastal swells, "Uh, sorry about losing those state tax deductions cuz we were too busy resisting to actually negotiate and thereby get a seat at the table." Cue the Sad Trombone. Trump plays for keeps, unlike the squish-cons who play for media hugs and invitations to the kool kidz’ parties.
He was supposed to lose the primary, but he didn’t. He was supposed to lose the general, but he didn’t. He was supposed to fall victim to the covert schemes of leftist bureaucrats and the overt obstruction of The Resistance, but he didn’t. Instead, Donald Trump has prospered as the most conservative president since Ronald Reagan. And it’s breaking the souls of his enemies. Deliciously.
The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is dumb. The elite keeps losing to the guy they tell us is a clown. The elite keeps losing to the guy who doesn’t meet their bottom line standard to be worthy of governing ‐ being one of the elite. So, what’s that make the elite?
He just refuses to lose. He just refuses to submit. He just refuses to give a damn about what they say or what they think. And that infuriates them. He won’t take a knee, but he will offer them a finger.
Brick by brick, he is disassembling the rickety edifice of Barack Obama’s transformed America. Regulations? Slashed, even as the screams of the professional expert class echo across the District of Columbia. ISIS? Dead, with our military unleashed to hunt down our enemies without hesitation or mercy. The Courts? Packed, not with squishy wimps ready to bend to the will of the WaPo and the Georgetown cocktail crew but with true conservatives determined to fight for the Constitution.
Trump’s enemies are getting tired of all the winning.
Slowly, it’s dawning on Trump’s enemies ‐ on our enemies ‐ that this isn’t just an unfortunate, temporary bump in the road to the Californiaization of America, but a U-turn. The people who elected Donald Trump were something his allegedly conservative Never Trump opponents never were: serious about being conservative. It’s easy to grift the donors with big talk about culture wars and policy initiatives when you never expect to be in a position to actually pull them off. But the Normals finally got sick of election year bomb-throwers morphing into pliable puffboys once their reps crossed into the Beltway. And that’s how you got Trump.
#1
Bill Kristol says we need Evan McMullin Egg McMuffin, naow!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2017 9:05 Comments ||
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#2
The funny thing is that some of the stuff recently put out there about Hezbollah and Uranium One and the FBI is sticking enough that the media has to report on it.
Geez guys, when they finally release the IG report on the FBI and Sessions get enough together for a grand jury on Operation Cassandra, do you think the WaPo is going to put that below the fold in the Classified Section???
Absolutely not, all of this stuff coming out now is front page stuff and they are going to have to report it as such. I do wonder how they will twist it to make it sound like something Donald did?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Pirates Cove] I wonder, have the Trump haters considered that he’s just doing this to mess with them? That he knows they will lose their collective minds, and that he and the folks around him are getting a good laugh? And that his tweets cause the Credentialed #Resist Media to chase rabbits down holes while Trump and his folks go off and do things that the media misses during that time?
[Boing Boing] The DNC continues to struggle to raise cash, holding only $6.3M in the bank on Dec 1, compared to the RNC's $40M. But the numbers are deceiving, because 50% of the country want the Democrats to control Congress in 2018 (compared with 39% who want the GOP to retain power) and individual Democrat candidates are having banner years fundraising, especially the progressive, "Sanders Democrats" who break with the party's coziness with the finance industry and big business.
