24 February 2020
The victory of Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses has escalated the anti-Sanders hysteria of the Democratic Party establishment and Democratic-aligned media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC. This has taken the form of fabricated allegations of Russian intervention into the 2020 elections to support Sanders’ candidacy.
This fable is elaborated on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times in a lengthy article by David Sanger, the newspaper’s most reliable stenographer for whatever story the military-intelligence apparatus wants floated in the newspaper. Under the headline, “Seeking Chaos, Moscow Places Its Bets in US,” Sanger smears Sanders as the beneficiary of supposed Russian support in the 2020 elections.
Sanger has a long record of fraudulent “analyses.” Stories that appear under his byline are generally based on unnamed intelligence sources whose allegations are presented as unimpeachable. The hallmark of a typical Sanger analysis is that it lacks any identifiable factual basis. He is less a reporter than a frustrated writer of third-rate spy stories with poorly constructed plots.
Bernie Sanders speaks Friday at a campaign rally at Springs Preserve in Las Vegas [Credit: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]
In this latest thriller, Sanger does not produce a single fact in support of the contention that Russian President Vladimir Putin backs Sanders or has done anything to assist his campaign.
Besides numerous unnamed “outside experts” and “intelligence analysts,” Sanger quotes three current and former intelligence officials by name, including Angela Stent, national intelligence officer for Russia, now a professor at Georgetown University and author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, who actually says nothing about Sanders.
Victoria Nuland is also cited. Nuland is certainly an expert on foreign subversion of elections, having played, as she boasted, a central role in 2014 in the $5 billion US effort to destabilize and oust the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine.
Nuland does not present any evidence to support Sanger’s storyline, beyond asserting, “Any figures that radicalize politics and do harm to center views and unity in the United States are good for Putin’s Russia.” In other words, Sanders is functioning as a Putin stooge because his policies are to the left of the Democratic Party candidates favored by the CIA.
Sanger finds the hand of Putin in Sanders’ support for “a drastic expansion of taxes and government programs like Medicare,” claiming that this divides American society in a way favorable to Moscow.
Also named by Sanger is Christopher Krebs, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Department of Homeland Security. Sanger cites his role in “documenting how Russian operatives are becoming stealthier, learning from the mistakes they made in 2016.” These Russki agents are so devilishly clever that they successfully conceal all traces of their insidious manipulation of American elections.
In Sanger’s make-believe world, the very absence of evidence of Russian interference is proof of their subversion. His story line is a modern-day version of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist invocations of a “conspiracy so vast.”
No American is safe from Putin’s tentacles. Sanger claims that Russia is “feeding disinformation to unsuspecting Americans on Facebook and other social media." He continues: "By seeding conspiracy theories and baseless claims on the platforms, Russians hope everyday Americans will retransmit those falsehoods from their own accounts.”
He concludes, with apparent regret over the existence of freedom of speech, “It is much harder to ban the words of real Americans, who may be parroting a Russian story line, even unintentionally.”
The anti-Russia narrative has the most ominous implications for the democratic rights of the American people. The New York Times implies that any expression of social discontent in the United States, and, above all, the growing anger over mounting social inequality, can be delegitimized as “parroting a Russian story line” and outlawed.
The claims by the intelligence agencies that Sanders is the beneficiary of Russian support have been taken up by leading figures in the Democratic Party establishment. Appearing on the ABC News Sunday interview program “This Week,” former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as chief of staff in the Obama White House, said that Sanders’ rise in the Democratic presidential contest was a case of Putin and Trump picking the weakest possible opponent in order to ensure Trump’s reelection.
These reactions are not merely the expression of the virulent hatred of socialism on the part of the Democratic leadership, even in the watered-down and entirely passive version that Sanders advances under the label “democratic socialism.” A Sanders campaign, with its emphasis on economic inequality and appeals to popular hostility to billionaires and corporate America, would cut across the political agenda of the Democratic leadership.
The Democratic Party establishment has long wanted to conduct the 2020 election campaign against Trump as a continuation of the anti-Russia campaign that produced the Mueller Report and then the impeachment of Trump for delaying military aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia, which ended in his acquittal in the Senate. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi never tires of repeating, “All roads lead to Russia.”
The Democratic Party wants to center the 2020 presidential campaign on the claim that Trump is an agent or stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin and to present the Democrats as the defenders of “our” intelligence agencies and “our” diplomats and generals against the interference of Moscow in American politics.
In the event that such a campaign succeeded in ousting Trump, the result would be portrayed as a popular mandate for military escalation against Russia, as well as China, threatening the prospect of open warfare between the world’s main nuclear powers. Regardless of the outcome, however, a campaign focused on anti-Russian hysteria would serve to suppress the mounting social tensions in America and block any political expression of the seething anger in the working class.
The reaction of the party establishment to the rise of Sanders only underscores the central political reality that the Democratic Party is controlled by the intelligence agencies and the financial elites, not the millions who vote in primaries and caucuses. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party, the oldest in America, an institution the ruling class will fight to retain control of, using all the methods at its disposal, from media propaganda and dirty tricks to outright violence.
The response of the Democratic Party establishment demonstrates the bankruptcy of Sanders’ political strategy. The party Sanders identifies as a vehicle for social change is actually a political straitjacket, notorious for smothering and destroying every popular challenge from below.
As is his invariable practice, Sanders has responded to the onslaught of Russia-baiting against him by validating the baseless allegation that Russia has actually engaged in significant interference in US politics. At the same time, he is responding to his new “front-runner” status by seeking to reassure the Democratic Party establishment.
In his interview Sunday night on the CBS program “60 Minutes,” he dismissed with a mocking tone the identification of his campaign with calls for “revolution,” saying he did not want to focus on that slogan.
He went on to tell his interviewer, Anderson Cooper, that he would “absolutely” be willing to use military force if he were elected president, and boasted that “we have the best military in the world.”
Sanders is already making the concessions and adjustments that will frustrate his many supporters, who view him as an apostle of radical political change. This is the inevitable outcome of his efforts to keep popular opposition within the framework of the Democratic Party. While claiming to change the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is rapidly changing him.
The real answer to the conspiracies of the Democratic Party is the fight to mobilize the working class in opposition to both parties and the entire capitalist system. In its election campaign, the Socialist Equality Party and its candidates, Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz, are spearheading the fight to build a socialist leadership in the working class and youth.
Democratic Party deploys Russian meddling smear against Sanders
24 February 2020
The victory of Bernie Sanders in the Nevada caucuses has escalated the anti-Sanders hysteria of the Democratic Party establishment and Democratic-aligned media outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC. This has taken the form of fabricated allegations of Russian intervention into the 2020 elections to support Sanders’ candidacy.
This fable is elaborated on the front page of Sunday’s New York Times in a lengthy article by David Sanger, the newspaper’s most reliable stenographer for whatever story the military-intelligence apparatus wants floated in the newspaper. Under the headline, “Seeking Chaos, Moscow Places Its Bets in US,” Sanger smears Sanders as the beneficiary of supposed Russian support in the 2020 elections.
Sanger has a long record of fraudulent “analyses.” Stories that appear under his byline are generally based on unnamed intelligence sources whose allegations are presented as unimpeachable. The hallmark of a typical Sanger analysis is that it lacks any identifiable factual basis. He is less a reporter than a frustrated writer of third-rate spy stories with poorly constructed plots.
Bernie Sanders speaks Friday at a campaign rally at Springs Preserve in Las Vegas [Credit: AP Photo/Patrick Semansky]
In this latest thriller, Sanger does not produce a single fact in support of the contention that Russian President Vladimir Putin backs Sanders or has done anything to assist his campaign.
Besides numerous unnamed “outside experts” and “intelligence analysts,” Sanger quotes three current and former intelligence officials by name, including Angela Stent, national intelligence officer for Russia, now a professor at Georgetown University and author of Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and With the Rest, who actually says nothing about Sanders.
Victoria Nuland is also cited. Nuland is certainly an expert on foreign subversion of elections, having played, as she boasted, a central role in 2014 in the $5 billion US effort to destabilize and oust the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine.
Nuland does not present any evidence to support Sanger’s storyline, beyond asserting, “Any figures that radicalize politics and do harm to center views and unity in the United States are good for Putin’s Russia.” In other words, Sanders is functioning as a Putin stooge because his policies are to the left of the Democratic Party candidates favored by the CIA.
Sanger finds the hand of Putin in Sanders’ support for “a drastic expansion of taxes and government programs like Medicare,” claiming that this divides American society in a way favorable to Moscow.
Also named by Sanger is Christopher Krebs, head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in the Department of Homeland Security. Sanger cites his role in “documenting how Russian operatives are becoming stealthier, learning from the mistakes they made in 2016.” These Russki agents are so devilishly clever that they successfully conceal all traces of their insidious manipulation of American elections.
In Sanger’s make-believe world, the very absence of evidence of Russian interference is proof of their subversion. His story line is a modern-day version of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anticommunist invocations of a “conspiracy so vast.”
No American is safe from Putin’s tentacles. Sanger claims that Russia is “feeding disinformation to unsuspecting Americans on Facebook and other social media." He continues: "By seeding conspiracy theories and baseless claims on the platforms, Russians hope everyday Americans will retransmit those falsehoods from their own accounts.”
He concludes, with apparent regret over the existence of freedom of speech, “It is much harder to ban the words of real Americans, who may be parroting a Russian story line, even unintentionally.”
The anti-Russia narrative has the most ominous implications for the democratic rights of the American people. The New York Times implies that any expression of social discontent in the United States, and, above all, the growing anger over mounting social inequality, can be delegitimized as “parroting a Russian story line” and outlawed.
The claims by the intelligence agencies that Sanders is the beneficiary of Russian support have been taken up by leading figures in the Democratic Party establishment. Appearing on the ABC News Sunday interview program “This Week,” former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who served as chief of staff in the Obama White House, said that Sanders’ rise in the Democratic presidential contest was a case of Putin and Trump picking the weakest possible opponent in order to ensure Trump’s reelection.
These reactions are not merely the expression of the virulent hatred of socialism on the part of the Democratic leadership, even in the watered-down and entirely passive version that Sanders advances under the label “democratic socialism.” A Sanders campaign, with its emphasis on economic inequality and appeals to popular hostility to billionaires and corporate America, would cut across the political agenda of the Democratic leadership.
The Democratic Party establishment has long wanted to conduct the 2020 election campaign against Trump as a continuation of the anti-Russia campaign that produced the Mueller Report and then the impeachment of Trump for delaying military aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia, which ended in his acquittal in the Senate. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi never tires of repeating, “All roads lead to Russia.”
The Democratic Party wants to center the 2020 presidential campaign on the claim that Trump is an agent or stooge of Russian President Vladimir Putin and to present the Democrats as the defenders of “our” intelligence agencies and “our” diplomats and generals against the interference of Moscow in American politics.
In the event that such a campaign succeeded in ousting Trump, the result would be portrayed as a popular mandate for military escalation against Russia, as well as China, threatening the prospect of open warfare between the world’s main nuclear powers. Regardless of the outcome, however, a campaign focused on anti-Russian hysteria would serve to suppress the mounting social tensions in America and block any political expression of the seething anger in the working class.
The reaction of the party establishment to the rise of Sanders only underscores the central political reality that the Democratic Party is controlled by the intelligence agencies and the financial elites, not the millions who vote in primaries and caucuses. The Democratic Party is a capitalist party, the oldest in America, an institution the ruling class will fight to retain control of, using all the methods at its disposal, from media propaganda and dirty tricks to outright violence.
The response of the Democratic Party establishment demonstrates the bankruptcy of Sanders’ political strategy. The party Sanders identifies as a vehicle for social change is actually a political straitjacket, notorious for smothering and destroying every popular challenge from below.
As is his invariable practice, Sanders has responded to the onslaught of Russia-baiting against him by validating the baseless allegation that Russia has actually engaged in significant interference in US politics. At the same time, he is responding to his new “front-runner” status by seeking to reassure the Democratic Party establishment.
In his interview Sunday night on the CBS program “60 Minutes,” he dismissed with a mocking tone the identification of his campaign with calls for “revolution,” saying he did not want to focus on that slogan.
He went on to tell his interviewer, Anderson Cooper, that he would “absolutely” be willing to use military force if he were elected president, and boasted that “we have the best military in the world.”
Sanders is already making the concessions and adjustments that will frustrate his many supporters, who view him as an apostle of radical political change. This is the inevitable outcome of his efforts to keep popular opposition within the framework of the Democratic Party. While claiming to change the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party is rapidly changing him.
The real answer to the conspiracies of the Democratic Party is the fight to mobilize the working class in opposition to both parties and the entire capitalist system. In its election campaign, the Socialist Equality Party and its candidates, Joseph Kishore and Norissa Santa Cruz, are spearheading the fight to build a socialist leadership in the working class and youth.
The list of predicate crimes is
extensive and includes bribery,
embezzlement, fraud, theft,
money laundering, and obstruction of
justice.
Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Deep State: A RICO Criminal
Conspiracy
We who elected President
Trump understood our elected officials and the Deep State were
sandbagging Trump and self-dealing public funds. It was no secret that
President Trump is no angel, unpresidential, blunt, and crude, and a disruptor.
Trump was hired to drain the swamp.
I watched this kabuki theater unfold
over the last several years. Through my eyes as a shopworn gumshoe, I will
explain what is happening. My investigative curiosity was first piqued by the
ATF Fast and Furious scandal and continues through the recent House impeachment
show trial. There is a common element running through all of these cons — the
actions of an organized crime conspiracy. A group of people either
acting alone or in concert with others committed crimes with a common purpose -
a criminal enterprise as
described in "CRIMINAL RICO:
18 USC. §§1961-1968 A Manual For Federal Prosecutors."
The players acted together –
in the usurpation of power, the abuse of power by public officials, bribery,
thefts by fraud including federal funds, money laundering, perjury and the
obstruction of justice, the violations of fundamental of civil rights, aided
and abetted in the commission of these crimes and or to conceal these crimes.
Criminals will lie and can't keep their lies straight. Their methods and
behaviors are the same, whether engaging in street crimes or elaborate
white-collar financial schemes. The only difference is when more money is
involved, the perps are more adept in concealing, covering up their sins, and
hiding where the money went. Many of these scandals are well known to the American Thinker readers.
I will focus my comments on Hillary's home brew sever and the Clinton
Foundation as an example of how RICO can be used to prosecute the players.
FBI Director James Comey
indicted Hillary Clinton for her home brew server at his press conference.
Comey then egregiously concluded that there was no evidence of criminal intent
purportedly “required” to prosecute. Comey bastardized the Federal
Espionage Act in absolving Hillary Clinton. FBI's investigation of
Clinton's emails was low-balled. There was never a real search for the truth.
The outcome was preordained. My jaw dropped wide open. I knew the fix was in.
FBI Director Comey lied to the people with a straight face. Why?
The chance meeting of Bill
Clinton and AG Loretta Lynch on the airport tarmac was no mere coincidence.
This chat was not about the grandkids. Bill Clinton was there to convey a
specific message to Lynch that there would be no indictment of Hillary. Hillary
Clinton's email case must tank. This would have
constituted bribery, if AG Lynch was assured she would continue as AG in
Clinton Administration. This meeting took place only weeks before Comey's press
conference dumping Hillary Clinton's email case.
The Deep State needed
Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 presidential election, or the dike holding back
the truth would burst. Trump, the disruptor, was an immediate threat to both
the Republicans, Democrats, and the Deep State. If
the truth were laid bare, it would expose the Obama Administration, Hillary
Clinton, the Senate and House, and many executive departments for these abuses
of power, corruption, bribery, frauds, and thefts of public funds.
High-level government
officials and the Deep State committed many serious felonies either in
furtherance of or to conceal the crimes committed in the pay to play scam.
In exchange for favorable consideration by Secretary Clinton, those who
benefited would donate to
the Clinton Foundation. The FBI started and stopped investigations into the
Clinton Foundation at least twice as reported by the Washington Post.
Peter Schweizer's book, Clinton Cash, is
the most damning. Dinesh D'Souza slammed the Foundation in the National Review, as
did The Federalist.
The status of the
investigation of the Foundation by US Attorney John Huber's is unknown.
Rudy Giuliani said there was enough to pursue "Clinton
Inc" as racketeering under RICO. The Foundation and its
affiliated nonprofits require a real investigation with an in-depth forensic
audit to determine where the money went. In financial crimes investigation, the
prime rule is "follow the money, honey." Illicit nonprofits have many
ways to divert funds by inflating salaries, expenses, and money laundering.
Illegal nonprofit schemes
are difficult to prosecute without hard evidence and the testimony of insiders.
The motive of Hillary Clinton's use of the home brew server was to conceal
emails from FOIA requests that would provide the hard evidence. Hillary Clinton
destroyed the data on her server and cell phones with the knowledge of the FBI.
It took years for Judicial Watch and
others to pry and recover some of these damning emails from the foot-dragging
executive departments that were complicit and knew what was going on.
RICO initially was used to
target mob families. RICO is also a useful tool to fight white collar
conspiracies. They both have the same hierarchy of low-level crooks led by the
top players, linked together with a common purpose. RICO has tools to squeeze
the low-level operatives to gather evidence to prosecute, jail, and seize
assets of the conspirators. The critical element required is a pattern of criminal or
racketeering activity. This pattern is proved by showing two
predicate crimes were committed within ten years. The list of
predicate crimes is extensive and includes bribery, embezzlement, fraud,
theft, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. The
typical five-year statute of limitations for most federal felonies is extended
to ten years from the last criminal act or acts committed to conceal the
conspiracy, i.e., lying under oath and similar actions to obstruct justice. The
prison sentences are steep. The effect is to cut off the head of the
organization and not just the low-level players.
The criminal activity
extends back to the ATF's Fast and Furious program through the House
impeachment show trial to cover up the illegal acts of the Obama
Administration, Hillary Clinton, the Department of State, the DOJ, the FBI, and
the CIA. A telltale sign that the DOJ under US Attorney General Barr
is willing to play hardball and may use RICO, came when he spoke to the Federalist Society: "Barr accuses
liberal 'resistance' of trying to 'sabotage' Trump."
AG Barr said this, "shows FBI
launched Trump campaign investigation on the 'thinnest of suspicions."
AG Barr is the new sheriff in town, he wears a badge, has guns and will travel,
can impanel grand juries, indict and arrest people, and is not limited in his
jurisdiction, like DOJ IG Horowitz.
The collective actions of
the Deep State are and were a silent coup to delegitimize a Presidential
candidate. Once elected to impede and resist the duly elected President. The
President's law enforcement and intel agencies were corrupted at the highest
level and went rogue.
Organized crime can't exist
without corrupt law enforcement. As I wrote in a letter to President Trump
earlier this year:
. .
. I believe you understand the gravity of the situation and of its importance
to the very survival of our Country as we know it. If the people involved are
not held accountable for their actions, we will be no different than some Third
World Banana Republic.
Failure
to act will destroy our founding principle of the Rule of Law as stated by
President John Adams, "We Are a Nation of Laws, Not of Men" and we
cannot allow a two-tiered justice system to prevail.
Ron Wright is a retired
detective from Riverside PD, CA. BA in political science CSUF, M. Adm.
University of Cal, Riverside. Facebook at Ron T. Cop.
Our Russia Collusion
Nightmare: All Hillary's Fault?
The biggest political scandal in the history of the United
States. Three years of constant lies told by government agents,
political operatives, and deceitful news personalities. Thousands of
hours of criminal investigative interviews; thousands of written stories and television
segments; thousands of leaks and insinuations and threats. All to
take down the legitimately elected American president, Donald J. Trump.
Now that some light is finally revealing just how rotten this
whole nonsense has been from the very beginning, the most maddening aspect of
all is the one thing not said nearly enough: every bit of this frame-up job to
hang the American president for being a Russian agent and traitor to his nation
began as a way to inoculate Hillary Clinton from her largest political
vulnerabilities going into the 2016 campaign.
Aside from her questionable health and a lifetime of scandal,
Hillary had two sizable liabilities (of her own creation) that threatened her
ability to win the general election: (1) her use of the Clinton Foundation as a
vehicle for laundering bribes from foreign governments and moneyed interests
and (2) her decision to conduct the business of the State Department (as well
as to discuss our nation's most guarded secrets) on an unsecured private email
server that had been hacked by known and unknown foreign governments and
adverse entities. Peter Schweizer's Clinton Cash did a remarkable job
exposing the Clinton Foundation as a spectacular pay-to-play operation that had
allowed Hillary to trade the powers of her office for personal aggrandizement
(including the sale of 20% of America's uranium to Russia for, among other
things, $145 million transferred to her foundation). And even though
the Obama Justice Department was doing its best to minimize the revelation of Hillary's
gross breach of national security and slow-walk any repercussions, the American
people were discovering that life-and-death secrets had been entrusted to a
person with such disregard for our well-being that she stored them on a
personal server in a downstairs bathroom.
For a normal person with a modicum of ethical concern, sense of
shame, or patriotic duty, these crimes would have been more than sufficient to
prompt withdrawal from an election for the country's highest
office. This type of honest self-reflection and private admission of
guilt is alien to the Clintons, though, so what would have represented
immovable obstacles to anyone else became just another set of political
variables that had to be neutralized in her favor.
I can just imagine the conversation Hillary had with her most
trusted advisers — not the ones with the official titles like Robby Mook and
Brian Fallon, whose chief value lay in their expendable nature and the ease
with which Hillary could roll them up into any unexpected scandal to be
disposed with the trash at a future time of her convenience. I mean
the real group of confidants, the ones who have "the ends justify the
means" tattooed on their souls and have gotten away with more crimes than
we'll ever know. If you're Sid Blumenthal or John Podesta or Cheryl
Mills or Marc Elias or Lanny Davis and you know where some of the bodies are
buried along the spectacular trail of Clinton corruption through the years,
then the prospect of a massive pay-to-play scandal or criminal indictment for
mishandling top-secret intelligence or engaging wittingly or unwittingly in
espionage is just another bump on the long road of progressive relativism and
Clinton nihilism. If Clinton
Cash and FBI investigators come knocking, you simply accuse
all your political opponents of being the real grifters and foreign agents.
That's exactly what Team Hillary did. They leveled
allegations of criminal bribery at Jeb Bush; they questioned Marco Rubio's
loyalty to the United States; but Donald Trump was the prize. A man
who had spent a lifetime in the exotic world of luxury real estate around the
globe while mixing it up with all kinds of powerful figures in that often shady
world was the ideal mark, and he also happened to be a political novice who the
Democrats universally believed would lose in a landslide of historical
dimensions for political lore long to come. When Paul Manafort
joined his team just before the kickoff to the general election and brought
with him a lifetime of political baggage that included skullduggery around
Russia's zone of interest, it must have seemed as if Christmas had come early
for the Clinton team. (Kind of makes you wonder how coincidental
this unforced error really was.)
And so, after a lifetime in the public eye, starring in a popular
television show, and rubbing elbows with celebrities and politicians of all
stripes, Donald Trump woke up one day to find himself being generally slandered
(and libeled) as a Russian spy by the information merchants who control
America's airwaves and print media. That had to have made him laugh,
considering that the press had spent most of his foray into politics demeaning
him as a greedy capitalist playboy nationalist who selfishly placed America's
interests before those of our common world.
Yes, before John Brennan devised a global espionage ring to frame
President Trump as a national security risk and enable the FBI to open up
counterintelligence investigations into his political associates; before Jim
Comey and Andrew McCabe attested to false information with the FISA Court;
before Robert Mueller put the screws to General Flynn in order to sink a
lifetime defender of America for political purposes; before President Obama
initiated changes to security classification that opened up scurrilous
investigative records on President-Elect Trump to an exponentially greater
number of bureaucrats with partisan motivations; before Susan Rice left an
electronic CYA memorandum at 12:15 P.M. on Inauguration Day of 2017 noting that
Sally Yates and James Clapper and John Brennan and Joe Biden and Jim Comey had
all agreed in the Oval Office with President Obama to continue any
investigations "by the book"; before Samantha Power unmasked hundreds
of names picked up during the course of electronic surveillance that were
deemed to somehow implicate the new president in wrongdoing; even before the
Clinton operatives and Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele first started
composing the fan fiction now known as "the Dossier" — before all of
this and everything else we have been forced to endure for three long years,
there was Hillary Clinton, doing what she and her people know best: accusing
her political opponent of the very crimes she had committed
herself.
As awful as this orchestrated campaign against President Trump has
been, it is absolutely maddening to realize that none of it would have happened
had Hillary Clinton not engaged in one of the greatest pay-for-play operations
in American history while placing our most guarded secrets (as well as the very
lives of our soldiers and civilians) on a silver platter for those governments
and adversaries who wish us the most harm in this world. Three years
of Russian hysteria happened only because of the deep corruption of Hillary
Clinton.
This scheme of political projection and wicked treachery should go
down as a final reminder that America survives today only because President
Trump managed to prevail against the nearly insurmountable wave of our
government's intelligence agencies, the justice system, media propagandists,
and the combined wills of the Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans intending to
swamp him.
Victorious Democrats would
also end congressional investigations into the Hillary-Deep
State-DNC-Russian-Clinton Foundation collusion and corruption. All the players
in these massive, sordid affairs will be deemed “too big to jail” – and too
closely tied to the Democratic Party to be investigated further. Paul Driessen
Hillary Clinton's Russia collusion IOU: The answers she owes America
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/446736-hillary-clintons-russia-collusion-iou-the-answers-she-owes-america
BY
JOHN SOLOMON, OPINION
During the
combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had
official business pending before America’s most powerful political woman.
The pattern of
political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the State
Department even tried to execute a special agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of “pay-to-play” policy.
Still, the
money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and
Americans alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in
need of its help.
It’s time for
the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.
The reason?
Never before — until 2016 — had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate
managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival
nominee during an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated
political opposition research document.
But Clinton’s
campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law
firm, funded Christopher Steele’s unverified dossierwhich, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with Russian President
Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.
Steele went to
the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the
investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump’s presidential aspirations.
On its face, it
is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and one
of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.
It appears the
Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That’s why it
did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in
its Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.
Clinton and the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson’s research firm, Fusion GPS, which
then hired Steele — several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the
operation off the campaign’s public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible
deniability.
But Steele’s
first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI’s imagination. So the
Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr — whose wife, Nellie, also worked for
Fusion — to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI.
Nellie Ohr
likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele’s dossier
to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump
dirt at the FBI, too.
Then Steele
and, separately, longtime Clinton protégé Cody Shearer went to the
State Department to get the story out,
increasing pressure on the FBI.
In short, the
Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure — and bad intel — until an
investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the
time, James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as
then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
To finish the
mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to
the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even called the leaks a “hail Mary” that failed.
Trump won,
however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the
Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus.
But not before the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get
a total of four warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, transition and presidency from October 2016 through the
following autumn.
The Clinton
team’s dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used
house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out
its political hit job on Trump.
After two years
of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it’s
time for the house to call in its IOU.
Hillary Clinton
owes us answers — lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing
many high-profile media interviews.
I’m not the
only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said
Friday night on Fox News that it’s time for Clinton to answer what she knew and
when she knew it.
Here are 10
essential questions:
1.
In January 2018, the Senate
Judiciary Committee sent a formal investigative request for documents and
written answers from your campaign. Do you plan to comply?
2.
Please identify each person in
your campaign who was involved with, or aware of, hiring Fusion GPS, Glenn
Simpson and Christopher Steele.
3.
Please identify each person in
your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were aware that Steele
provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned it.
4.
Describe any information you and
your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before Election Day that was
derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or Perkins
Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with
Russia.
5.
Please describe all contacts
your campaign had before Election Day with or about the following individuals:
Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, former foreign policy scholar Stefan Halper and Maltese academic Joseph
Mifsud.
6.
Did you or any senior members of
your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael Sussmann, have any contact
with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director Gina Haspel,
James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe?
7.
Describe all contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump,
Russia and Ukraine.
8.
Describe all contacts you and
your campaign had with DNC contractorAlexandra
Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the United States or
the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort.
9.
Why did your campaign and the
Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as a Russian asset?
10.
Given that investigations by a
House committee, a Senate committee and a special prosecutor all have concluded
there isn’t evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret the actions by
your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded
allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?
Hillary Clinton
owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak
and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose
work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the
Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in
drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an
investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.
ALL REVOLUTIONS
START OUT MESSY AND UNFOCUSED. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
The
Party of Antifa Fascists?
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/10/20/the-party-of-antifa-fascists-n2530342?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky2
Who are
the “Antifa” mobs? What are they doing to our country? How long will we
tolerate them?
The Brett
Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were their latest excuse for tantrums and
intolerance. Dismissing fairness, propriety and due process, they screamed that
mere allegations of misconduct were enough to bar him from the Supreme Court,
despite no corroborating evidence or witnesses.
Vicious
harassment of senators and White House officials in restaurants, streets,
grocery stores, and Senate offices and elevators was matched by ambush tactics
and despicable behavior by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. If Justice
Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings were “an electronic lynching,” those hearings were an electronic assault
on a respected jurist, his wife and young daughters.
When
Kavanaugh fought back, the same Senators and their media friends said he
“lacked the proper temperament” to be on the Court. (Apparently, he should have
just tried to enjoy the experience.)
The fact
is, Democrats and their allies had said in lockstep and from the outset that
they intended to keep any Trump nominee off our highest
court. The Women’s March mistakenly released a statement saying it opposed the
“nomination of XX” to the Court. (They forgot to fill
in the blank.) They view the Court as their supreme state and national
legislature: it’s far easier to get 5 votes than 5 million or 50 million.
In
reality, this ongoing attempted rule by mob (with Portland, Oregon a prime example) goes back to
the 2016 elections that put Donald Trump in the White House. The mobs weren’t
just disappointed that Hillary Clinton had not won. They were enraged. And they’ve remained so ever
since.
In fact,
their furor goes back even further – to mounds of excrement they left behind in
North Dakota, for instance, where they tried to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, by burning and bombing bridges,
threatening local residents and killing cattle. One “peaceful protester” tried
to shoot a deputy sheriff.
In
another example, they enlisted state attorneys general, universities, wealthy
leftwing foundations and private law firms (on a contingency fee basis) to
bring RICO and other actions against scientists and think
tanks that voice skepticism about “cataclysmic manmade climate change.” On
college campuses they have banned, disinvited, mobbed, harassed or just plain
screamed over 300 conservative
speakers into
silence. Being a Republican or wearing a Trump MAGA hat can get you beaten, or
worse.
They
forget President Obama’s dictum: “Elections have consequences.” One is the
President’s right to nominate Federal judges. But from their perspective,
“consequences” must never apply when they lose – and the Electoral College must be abolished when it works
as our Founding Fathers intended: to keep populous urban areas from dominating
presidential elections and imposing a tyranny of the majority. (The fact that
85% of all US counties voted for Donald Trump illustrates this principle in
action.)
In most
of these cases, “they” are the Antifa mobs. Antifa being short for
“anti-fascist.” Don’t be conned.
The
Antifa mobs are fascists! And they have become the
ski-masked thug wing of the Democratic Party.
They (and
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kyrsten Sinema, Andrew Gillum, Bernie Sanders and
other favored candidates) certainly espouse socialism as
their vehicle for wealth redistribution. However, in almost every other
respect, their philosophies and actions reflect fascism, which
is generally defined as:
A
political system in which an authoritarian government does not own businesses
and industries, but strictly regulates and controls their actions, output and
rights – while forcibly controlling and suppressing citizens and their thought
and speech via stringent laws, intimidation and even violence.
Sadly,
the Democratic Party is slipping further into these tendencies, becoming ever
more closely aligned with these radicals. It relies on Antifa thugs to “rally
the base,” intimidate and abuse Republican voters and
candidates, and get Democrat (and “undocumented”) voters to the polls. Like too
many in the “mainstream” news media, Democrats refuse to condemn the mob
behavior – and say it’s wrong to even call them
mobs. They’re just
concerned citizens, peaceably assembling and seeking redress of their
grievances. Right. (Hint: You don’t like being called fascist mobs? Stop
behaving like fascist mobs.)
“You
cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand
for, what you care about,” Hillary Clinton said recently. So instead of civil
debates we’re to have civil war over whose vision and agenda will rule? Is
there something wrong, antiquated or “threatening” about debating issues?
Former Attorney
General Eric Holder said, when Republicans “go low” with their rhetoric,
“we kick them.” Rep. Maxine Waters (R-CA) incites Antifa
mobs by ranting, “If you see anybody from the Trump Administration in a
restaurant, in a department store, tell them they’re not welcome anymore,
anywhere.”
Now on
top of the speech codes, trigger warnings, boycotts, censorship, groupthink and
identity politics, Google, Facebook and Twitter control and restrict access to
conservative views; crowd funding sites prevent conservative groups from
raising money; and the Obama IRS prevented Tea Party groups from getting the
tax status needed to operate. When all that fails, we’re supposed to tolerate
mobs and riots.
On
campuses, LGBTQ diversity is virtuous. Diversity of viewpoints or political
affiliation is intolerable. Some say Republicans want to control what you do in
your bedroom. But Democrats want to control everything you do anywhere outside
your bedroom. And Antifa mobs will keep you quiet and in line.
Antifa
thugs fire-bombed a North Carolina Republican office and trashed another one in
New York City, where they left a note that said, “This is just the beginning.”Others knocked a 71-year-old female
congressional staffer unconscious! It even reached the point where a rabid
Bernie Sanders supporter tried to gun down Republican
legislatorsand
staffers who were practicing for a charity baseball event.
Indeed,
death on a large scale, to serve state or other “higher interests,” is another
aspect of fascism. We see that with millions of people dying every year in
Africa and Asia, because pressure groups deny them access to energy, insect control, water
purification, agricultural and other modern technologies,
in the name of protecting the environment from dangerous climate change,
chemicals and biotechnology.
There are
crazy ironies, too. Google helps the
Chinese Communist
Government prevent its citizens from accessing “forbidden” knowledge and ideas
– but then claims helping the US Defense Department with Cloud computing or
artificial intelligence surveillance would “violate its principles.”
Around
many neighborhoods, signs proclaim “Hate has no home here,” in multiple
languages, with an American flag heart logo reminiscent of the Obama campaign
logo – in liberals’ yards. The signs are part of a project that “promotes just
and inclusive communities.” Trump supporters need not apply.
Democrats
appear to be depending on all of this to counter a possible “red wave” – and
regain control of the House of Representatives and maybe even the Senate. If
they succeed even with just the House, Democrat congressional committees will
investigate, interrogate and try to impeach Trump, Kavanaugh and other
officials. They will impede and obstruct everything the Trump Administration
tries to do.
They’ll
also try to abolish ICE, block the Wall, pack the Supreme Court, take our guns,
bash Israel – and replace the fossil fuels that provide 80% of our energy with
“100% renewable energy” that is so expensive and unreliable
it will bring our industries, economy and nation to its knees, while blanketing
rural and habitat land, damaging
people’s health and property rights, and butchering birds and bats by the
millions.
Our
rebounding energy, employment, economy, markets and living standards would get
rolled back.
Victorious Democrats would
also end congressional investigations into the Hillary-Deep
State-DNC-Russian-Clinton Foundation collusion and corruption. All the players
in these massive, sordid affairs will be deemed “too big to jail” – and too closely
tied to the Democratic Party to be investigated further.
Some say
the Antifa-Schumer-Pelosi-Clinton-Holder-Waters strategy will backfire. I hope
that happens, because it would be disastrous if these people run Congress,
America and our lives. But I won’t bank on it.
If you’re
worried too (and you should be), get inspired and involved. Above all, VOTE!
Vote to preserve our democratic Republic, our freedoms, our booming economy, reliable and affordable energy for all Americans – and
equal justice for all, based on the presumption of innocence until proven
guilty.
Paul
Driessen writes books and articles on energy, environmental, human rights and
political issues.
Obama or Trump: Who's the Real Russian Stooge?
A sobering -- and telling -- look at the historical record.
December 12, 2019
Ari
Lieberman
Democrats and their socialist allies have been quick to portray
President Donald Trump as a tool of the Russians. Pejoratives like
"Putin's puppet" and "Russian asset" are terms routinely
employed by Trump's shrillest critics with banal regularity.
The Mueller Report, compiled by a team largely composed of Trump
antagonists, conclusively established that neither Trump nor members of his
campaign conspired with Russia to influence the 2016 election. That fact,
established after wasting $32 million in taxpayer funds, has not stopped
Democrats and their echo-chamber puppets in the establishment media, from
regurgitating tired tropes and talking points steeped in Alice in
Wonderland-like fantasy.
Democrats and elements within the leftist media have absurdly
attempted to portray Trump’s efforts to establish good, working relations with
Russia as an attempt to undermine the republic. However, no such criticism
was ever leveled against Barack Obama when he attempted his farcical Russia
re-set, which ended in disaster. It’s a tired double
standard that Trump and his supporters have become accustomed to.
Despite cautious efforts to foster good relations, the Trump
administration’s foreign and domestic policies have adversely impacted Russia
and its imperialistic designs. In fact, even a cursory review of Trump's record
on Russia reveals that he is anything but Russia's stooge and can more
accurately be characterized as its worst nightmare. I’ve compiled a list of
seven significant actions undertaken during the Trump administration, which
unequivocally supports this assertion.
Energy: In September 2019 the United States
exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it imported, marking the first time that the U.S. was a
net petroleum exporter since monthly records were initiated in 1973. This
startling development occurred under Trump’s watch. Trump reversed his
predecessor’s deleterious energy policies, which were viewed by the energy
industry as hostile. In fact, Obama, who nixed Dakota Access Pipeline and
Keystone XL pipeline, banned offshore drilling in the Arctic and enacted harsh
regulations on the fossil fuel industry, developed a reputation of being
anti-energy. Instead of shoring up U.S. energy interests, Obama did everything
he could to thwart the fossil fuel industry while providing taxpayer subsidies
to failed solar energy companies like Solyndra. By contrast, U.S.
fossil fuel development and production under Trump is now surging. This not
only strengthens America’s national security, it harms Russian economic
interests.
Ukraine: Despite the Democratic narrative, it was
the Trump administration and not the Obama administration that provided lethal
aid to the Ukrainian army to repel Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the Russian-backed proxy takeover of two
provinces in eastern Ukraine was met by tepid action by the Obama
administration. Ukraine had asked the United States for lethal military
assistance, but that request was rebuffed by Obama. Trump reversed Obama’s
pro-Russian policy and authorized the release of military assistance to
Ukraine, which included delivery of highly effective Javelin anti-tank guided
missiles.
Poland: Shortly after taking office, the Obama
administration announced that it would be scrapping a missile defense agreement
that the Bush administration had negotiated with Poland and the Czech Republic.
By 2013, Obama had completely dismantled the concept of a Europe-based missile
defense system, leaving the Poles and Czechs embittered. By contrast, the
Kremlin was ecstatic. Putin had to concede nothing and received a windfall. In
2012, Obama was infamously caught on hot mic telling Russian president Dmitri
Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to capitulate on missile defense
after the November presidential election. In 2017, Trump partially reversed
Obama’s Russia cave-in by signing a memorandum of
understanding with Polish president Andrzej Duda in which the U.S. agreed
to sell Poland Patriot missile defense systems. The MoU signals to both
America’s friends and foes that America does not abandon allies.
Rebuilding the military: It is no secret
that the U.S. military – which endured severe budget slashings under Obama –
was compromised during the Obama years. U.S. overseas military obligations
coupled with sequestrations put an enormous strain on the military and its
ability to perform its mission. Military personnel did not have a favorable
view of Obama, who saw climate change and not Russia as America’s main threat.
A joint poll conducted by the Military Times and the Institute for Veterans and
Military Families found that more than 50% of those polled maintained an
unfavorable view of Obama while only 36% registered approval. But the toxic
situation existing under Obama was reversed under Trump. The latest version of
the National Defense
Authorization Act, signed by Trump, ensures that the US. Military maintains its
qualitative and quantitative edge over its adversaries, which include Russia
and China. Equally important, morale among America’s military personnel
has surged under Trump.
Syria: When Bashar Assad used poison gas against
his own citizens in 2013, killing nearly 1,500 people including 400 children,
Obama declared that such use of chemical weapons crossed all red lines and
warranted a severe military response. Within a month, Obama reversed course and
allowed Putin to orchestrate a scheme compelling Assad to give up his WMDs.
Despite the deal, Assad was still able to retain some of his chemical weapons
and the means of manufacturing them. Worse yet, Obama permitted Putin, as
interlocutor, to gain a substantial foothold in Syria. Under Trump, Assad’s use
of chemical weapons was met with an overwhelming U.S. military response
signaling to both friend and foe that the U.S. would not tolerate the use of
WMDs by rogue regimes. Trump also ensured that Putin did not extend his reach
beyond the so-called de-confliction zone. In February 2018, a Syrian army
column backed by Russian mercenaries from CHVK Wagner attempted to seize an oil refinery
near the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. They were stopped cold in their tracks by
U.S. military personnel who called in air and artillery strikes. The entire
enemy force was wiped out and the Russians lost an estimated 200 to 300
men. The action signaled to Russia that the U.S. would not tolerate violations
of prior understandings.
INF Treaty: Under Obama, the Russians flagrantly
developed and deployed ground-based missiles with ranges of between 500 to
5,500 kilometers. Obama likely ignored the transgressions in a misguided effort
to get the Russians on board with the JCPOA, colloquially known as the Iran
deal. In 2019 the Trump administration formally withdrew from the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) citing blatant Russian violations
of the accord.
Venezuela: In 2009, Obama warmly greeted Venezuela’s
authoritarian leader Hugo Chavez at the opening ceremony of the Summit of the
Americas in Trinidad. A smiling Nicholas Maduro, Chavez’s successor, was
standing nearby and appeared amused by the encounter. Obama later defended his warm embrace of
one of America’s top enemies by claiming that the U.S. must engage other
countries through humanitarian gestures. During Obama’s tenure, Venezuela
became a center for nefarious Russian, Chinese, Iranian and Hezbollah activity.
Despite the presence of such pernicious actors right on America’s doorstep,
Obama actively opposed sanctions against the
Venezuelan regime even when there was wide bipartisan support for such
measures. Russia maintains a large economic stake in Venezuela to the tune of
over $15 billion. In an effort to prop up
the regime and secure its investments, it dispatched troops to Venezuela
several times this year. When Trump took office, he reversed the pusillanimous
policies of his predecessor by immediately imposing sanctions on Venezuela and
key Venezuelan officials. Trump continues to ratchet up the pressure against
Venezuela by initiating a relentless economic and diplomatic offensive against
its ruling junta. The Trump administration also sternly warned the Kremlin not to
deploy military assets in the region referring to such deployments as a direct
threat to international peace and security in the region. Thanks to Trump’s
relentless pressure campaign, Maduro’s days are almost certainly numbered and
when he inevitably falls, Moscow stands to lose a bundle.
During his tenure, Obama pandered to the Russians. He allowed them
to violate missile treaties, gave them a twenty percent interest in America’s
uranium mining capacity in the now infamous Uranium One deal,
transferred sensitive technology to Russian
companies that would later end up in the hands of the Russian military,
dismantled missile defense shields in eastern Europe, eroded the U.S. military,
prevented lethal aid from reaching Ukraine and stifled the fossil fuel
industry. If the Democrats want to find a Russian stooge, they need look no
further than Barack Obama.
Victorious Democrats would
also end congressional investigations into the Hillary-Deep
State-DNC-Russian-Clinton Foundation collusion and corruption. All the players
in these massive, sordid affairs will be deemed “too big to jail” – and too
closely tied to the Democratic Party to be investigated further. Paul Driessen
Hillary Clinton's Russia collusion IOU: The answers she owes
America
https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/446736-hillary-clintons-russia-collusion-iou-the-answers-she-owes-america
BY
JOHN SOLOMON, OPINION
During the
combined two decades she served as a U.S. senator and secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s patrons regularly donated to her family charity when they had
official business pending before America’s most powerful political woman.
The pattern of
political IOUs paid to the Clinton Foundation was so pernicious that the State
Department even tried to execute a special agreement with the charity to avoid the overt appearance of “pay-to-play” policy.
Still, the
money continued to flow by the millions of dollars, from foreigners and
Americans alike who were perceived to be indebted to the Clinton machine or in
need of its help.
It’s time for
the American public to call in their own IOU on political transparency.
The reason?
Never before — until 2016 — had the apparatus of a U.S. presidential candidate
managed to sic the weight of the FBI and U.S. intelligence community on a rival
nominee during an election, and by using a foreign-fed, uncorroborated
political opposition research document.
But Clinton’s
campaign, in concert with the Democratic Party and through their shared law
firm, funded Christopher Steele’s unverified dossierwhich, it turns out, falsely portrayed Republican Donald Trump as a treasonous asset colluding with Russian President
Vladimir Putin to hijack the U.S. election.
Steele went to
the FBI to get an investigation started and then leaked the existence of the
investigation, with the hope of sinking Trump’s presidential aspirations.
On its face, it
is arguably the most devious political dirty trick in American history and one
of the most overt intrusions of a foreigner into a U.S. election.
It appears the
Clinton machine knew that what it was doing was controversial. That’s why it
did backflips to disguise the operation from Congress and the public, and in
its Federal Election Commission (FEC) spending reports.
Clinton and the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) used the law firm of Perkins Coie to hire Glenn Simpson’s research firm, Fusion GPS, which
then hired Steele — several layers that obfuscated transparency, kept the
operation off the campaign’s public FEC reports and gave the Clintons plausible
deniability.
But Steele’s
first overture on July 5, 2016, failed to capture the FBI’s imagination. So the
Clinton machine escalated. Steele, a British national, went to senior
Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr — whose wife, Nellie, also worked for
Fusion — to push his Trump dirt to the top of the FBI.
Nellie Ohr
likewise sent some of her own anti-Trump research augmenting Steele’s dossier
to the FBI through her husband. Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann used his connection to former FBI general counsel James Baker to dump Trump
dirt at the FBI, too.
Then Steele
and, separately, longtime Clinton protégé Cody Shearer went to the
State Department to get the story out,
increasing pressure on the FBI.
In short, the
Clinton machine flooded the FBI with pressure — and bad intel — until an
investigation of Trump was started. The bureau and its hapless sheriff at the time,
James Comey, eventually acquiesced with the help of such Clinton fans as
then-FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
To finish the
mission, Simpson and Steele leaked the existence of the FBI investigation to
the news media to ensure it would hurt Trump politically. Simpson even called the leaks a “hail Mary” that failed.
Trump won,
however. And now, thanks to special counsel Robert Mueller, we know the
Russia-collusion allegations relentlessly peddled by Team Clinton were bogus.
But not before the FBI used the Clinton-funded, foreign-created research to get
a total of four warrants to spy on the Trump campaign, transition and presidency from October 2016 through the
following autumn.
The Clinton
team’s dirty trick was as diabolical as it was brilliant. It literally used
house money and a large part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to carry out
its political hit job on Trump.
After two years
of American discomfort, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, it’s
time for the house to call in its IOU.
Hillary Clinton
owes us answers — lots of them. So far, she has ducked them, even while doing
many high-profile media interviews.
I’m not the
only one who thinks this way. Longtime Clinton adviser Douglas Schoen said
Friday night on Fox News that it’s time for Clinton to answer what she knew and
when she knew it.
Here are 10
essential questions:
1.
In January 2018, the Senate
Judiciary Committee sent a formal investigative request for documents and
written answers from your campaign. Do you plan to comply?
2.
Please identify each person in
your campaign who was involved with, or aware of, hiring Fusion GPS, Glenn
Simpson and Christopher Steele.
3.
Please identify each person in
your campaign, including Perkins Coie lawyers, who were aware that Steele
provided information to the FBI or State Department, and when they learned it.
4.
Describe any information you and
your campaign staff received, or were briefed on, before Election Day that was
derived from the work of Simpson, Steele, Fusion GPS, Nellie Ohr or Perkins
Coie and that tried to connect Trump, his campaign or his business empire with
Russia.
5.
Please describe all contacts
your campaign had before Election Day with or about the following individuals:
Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Glenn Simpson, Christopher Steele, former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, former foreign policy scholar Stefan Halper and Maltese academic Joseph
Mifsud.
6.
Did you or any senior members of
your campaign, including lawyers such as Michael Sussmann, have any contact
with the CIA, its former Director John Brennan, current Director Gina Haspel,
James Baker, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page or former FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe?
7.
Describe all contacts your campaign had with Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal concerning Trump,
Russia and Ukraine.
8.
Describe all contacts you and
your campaign had with DNC contractorAlexandra
Chalupa, the Ukraine government, the Ukraine Embassy in the United States or
the U.S. Embassy in Kiev concerning Trump, Russia or former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort.
9.
Why did your campaign and the
Democratic Party make a concerted effort to portray Trump as a Russian asset?
10.
Given that investigations by a
House committee, a Senate committee and a special prosecutor all have concluded
there isn’t evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, do you regret the actions by
your campaign and by Steele, Simpson and Sussmann to inject these unfounded
allegations into the FBI, the U.S. intelligence community and the news media?
Hillary Clinton
owes us answers to each of these questions. She should skip the lawyer-speak
and answer them with the candor worthy of an elder American stateswoman.
John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose
work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the
Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in
drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an
investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill.
Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.
ALL
REVOLUTIONS START OUT MESSY AND UNFOCUSED. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
The
Party of Antifa Fascists?
https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2018/10/20/the-party-of-antifa-fascists-n2530342?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky2
Who are
the “Antifa” mobs? What are they doing to our country? How long will we
tolerate them?
The Brett
Kavanaugh confirmation hearings were their latest excuse for tantrums and
intolerance. Dismissing fairness, propriety and due process, they screamed that
mere allegations of misconduct were enough to bar him from the Supreme Court,
despite no corroborating evidence or witnesses.
Vicious
harassment of senators and White House officials in restaurants, streets,
grocery stores, and Senate offices and elevators was matched by ambush tactics
and despicable behavior by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. If Justice
Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings were “an electronic lynching,” those hearings were an electronic
assault on a respected jurist, his wife and young daughters.
When
Kavanaugh fought back, the same Senators and their media friends said he
“lacked the proper temperament” to be on the Court. (Apparently, he should have
just tried to enjoy the experience.)
The fact
is, Democrats and their allies had said in lockstep and from the outset that
they intended to keep any Trump nominee off our highest
court. The Women’s March mistakenly released a statement saying it opposed the
“nomination of XX” to the Court. (They forgot to fill
in the blank.) They view the Court as their supreme state and national
legislature: it’s far easier to get 5 votes than 5 million or 50 million.
In
reality, this ongoing attempted rule by mob (with Portland, Oregon a prime example) goes back to
the 2016 elections that put Donald Trump in the White House. The mobs weren’t
just disappointed that Hillary Clinton had not won. They were enraged. And they’ve remained so ever
since.
In fact,
their furor goes back even further – to mounds of excrement they left behind in
North Dakota, for instance, where they tried to block the Dakota Access Pipeline, by burning and bombing bridges,
threatening local residents and killing cattle. One “peaceful protester” tried
to shoot a deputy sheriff.
In
another example, they enlisted state attorneys general, universities, wealthy
leftwing foundations and private law firms (on a contingency fee basis) to
bring RICO and other actions against scientists and think
tanks that voice skepticism about “cataclysmic manmade climate change.” On
college campuses they have banned, disinvited, mobbed, harassed or just plain
screamed over 300 conservative
speakers into
silence. Being a Republican or wearing a Trump MAGA hat can get you beaten, or
worse.
They
forget President Obama’s dictum: “Elections have consequences.” One is the
President’s right to nominate Federal judges. But from their perspective,
“consequences” must never apply when they lose – and the Electoral College must be abolished when it works
as our Founding Fathers intended: to keep populous urban areas from dominating
presidential elections and imposing a tyranny of the majority. (The fact that
85% of all US counties voted for Donald Trump illustrates this principle in
action.)
In most
of these cases, “they” are the Antifa mobs. Antifa being short for
“anti-fascist.” Don’t be conned.
The
Antifa mobs are fascists! And they have become the
ski-masked thug wing of the Democratic Party.
They (and
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kyrsten Sinema, Andrew Gillum, Bernie Sanders and
other favored candidates) certainly espouse socialism as
their vehicle for wealth redistribution. However, in almost every other
respect, their philosophies and actions reflect fascism, which
is generally defined as:
A
political system in which an authoritarian government does not own businesses
and industries, but strictly regulates and controls their actions, output and
rights – while forcibly controlling and suppressing citizens and their thought
and speech via stringent laws, intimidation and even violence.
Sadly,
the Democratic Party is slipping further into these tendencies, becoming ever
more closely aligned with these radicals. It relies on Antifa thugs to “rally
the base,” intimidate and abuse Republican voters and
candidates, and get Democrat (and “undocumented”) voters to the polls. Like too
many in the “mainstream” news media, Democrats refuse to condemn the mob
behavior – and say it’s wrong to even call them
mobs. They’re just
concerned citizens, peaceably assembling and seeking redress of their
grievances. Right. (Hint: You don’t like being called fascist mobs? Stop
behaving like fascist mobs.)
“You
cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand
for, what you care about,” Hillary Clinton said recently. So instead of civil
debates we’re to have civil war over whose vision and agenda will rule? Is
there something wrong, antiquated or “threatening” about debating issues?
Former
Attorney General Eric Holder said, when Republicans “go low” with their
rhetoric, “we kick them.” Rep. Maxine Waters (R-CA) incites
Antifa mobs by ranting, “If you see anybody from the Trump Administration in a
restaurant, in a department store, tell them they’re not welcome anymore,
anywhere.”
Now on
top of the speech codes, trigger warnings, boycotts, censorship, groupthink and
identity politics, Google, Facebook and Twitter control and restrict access to
conservative views; crowd funding sites prevent conservative groups from
raising money; and the Obama IRS prevented Tea Party groups from getting the
tax status needed to operate. When all that fails, we’re supposed to tolerate
mobs and riots.
On
campuses, LGBTQ diversity is virtuous. Diversity of viewpoints or political
affiliation is intolerable. Some say Republicans want to control what you do in
your bedroom. But Democrats want to control everything you do anywhere outside
your bedroom. And Antifa mobs will keep you quiet and in line.
Antifa
thugs fire-bombed a North Carolina Republican office and trashed another one in
New York City, where they left a note that said, “This is just the beginning.”Others knocked a 71-year-old female
congressional staffer unconscious! It even reached the point where a rabid
Bernie Sanders supporter tried to gun down Republican
legislatorsand
staffers who were practicing for a charity baseball event.
Indeed,
death on a large scale, to serve state or other “higher interests,” is another
aspect of fascism. We see that with millions of people dying every year in
Africa and Asia, because pressure groups deny them access to energy, insect control, water
purification, agricultural and other modern technologies,
in the name of protecting the environment from dangerous climate change,
chemicals and biotechnology.
There are
crazy ironies, too. Google helps the
Chinese Communist
Government prevent its citizens from accessing “forbidden” knowledge and ideas
– but then claims helping the US Defense Department with Cloud computing or
artificial intelligence surveillance would “violate its principles.”
Around
many neighborhoods, signs proclaim “Hate has no home here,” in multiple
languages, with an American flag heart logo reminiscent of the Obama campaign
logo – in liberals’ yards. The signs are part of a project that “promotes just
and inclusive communities.” Trump supporters need not apply.
Democrats
appear to be depending on all of this to counter a possible “red wave” – and
regain control of the House of Representatives and maybe even the Senate. If
they succeed even with just the House, Democrat congressional committees will
investigate, interrogate and try to impeach Trump, Kavanaugh and other
officials. They will impede and obstruct everything the Trump Administration
tries to do.
They’ll
also try to abolish ICE, block the Wall, pack the Supreme Court, take our guns,
bash Israel – and replace the fossil fuels that provide 80% of our energy with
“100% renewable energy” that is so expensive and unreliable
it will bring our industries, economy and nation to its knees, while blanketing
rural and habitat land, damaging
people’s health and property rights, and butchering birds and bats by the
millions.
Our
rebounding energy, employment, economy, markets and living standards would get
rolled back.
Victorious Democrats would
also end congressional investigations into the Hillary-Deep
State-DNC-Russian-Clinton Foundation collusion and corruption. All the players
in these massive, sordid affairs will be deemed “too big to jail” – and too
closely tied to the Democratic Party to be investigated further.
Some say
the Antifa-Schumer-Pelosi-Clinton-Holder-Waters strategy will backfire. I hope
that happens, because it would be disastrous if these people run Congress,
America and our lives. But I won’t bank on it.
If you’re
worried too (and you should be), get inspired and involved. Above all, VOTE!
Vote to preserve our democratic Republic, our freedoms, our booming economy, reliable and affordable energy for all Americans – and
equal justice for all, based on the presumption of innocence until proven
guilty.
Paul
Driessen writes books and articles on energy, environmental, human rights and
political issues.
No comments:
Post a Comment