Hackers believed to be backed by Russia this weekend publicly released more than 2,000 documents connected to billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and his Open Society Foundations.
The documents detail the ins and outs of Soros’s groups, which have funded a slew of public health, human rights and education programs around the globe, while also mounting opposition to hard-right conservatives in the U.S.
“Soros is an oligarch sponsoring the Democratic party, Hillary Clinton, hundreds of politicians all over the world,” the hackers posted on the website DCLeaks this Saturday when they released the documents.
“This website is designed to let everyone inside George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and related organisations,” they said. “These documents shed light on one of the most influential network operating worldwide.”
The hackers, who describe themselves as “American hacktivists who respect and appreciate freedom of speech, human rights and government of the people,” have been linked to the same group that exposed emails from Democratic Party leaders in the days before that party’s national convention last month. The group this weekend also posted messages from Republican state officials and national politicians, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Cybersecurity firm ThreatConnect has called DCLeaks “another Russian-backed influence outlet” based on similarities with the previously identified Russian hackers, nicknamed Fancy Bear.
The documents released over the weekend are grouped into sections relating to the U.S., Europe, Asia, the World Bank and other topics.
The material offers a look behind the curtain of one of the nation’s preeminent nonprofit groups. Soros’s staunch focus on electoral processes around the globe has been a target of critics, and the wide net of activities is likely to inspire their outrage.
Included in the trove are drafts of fact sheets, calendars, memos, funding reports and similar materials, as one might expect from a major nonprofit group.
Some documents in particular are likely to stir ire on the right, where Soros is regarded as something of a nefarious mastermind trying to exert his influence across the globe.
A 2011 document, highlighted by The Daily Caller, details the foundations’ efforts to encourage criticism of hard-line opponents to Muslim radicalism, such as controversial personalities Frank Gaffney and Pamela Geller, who memorably organized a “Draw Muhammad” event last year.
Another document details the multiple organizations that have received millions in funding to challenge “Israeli laws and discriminatory practices against Israel’s Palestinian minority." Opponents claim those activities undermine Israel's democratic government and security.
Soros and the influence he wields among American liberal organizations have long been a target of scorn from conservatives, much as the billionaire Koch brothers are on the political left.
He has reportedly committed to giving more than $25 million to Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, and other Democrats, including a $6 million contribution to pro-Clinton super-PAC Priorities USA.
The emails on the site, known as DCLeaks, appear to be from Republicans and staffers.
thehill.com
Site connected to Russian hackers posts Republican emails
BY JOE UCHILL - 08/12/16 06:20 PM EDT
A website tied to the hacking scandal of the Democratic Party has now posted a small batch of leaked emails from Republican campaigns and state GOP staffers.
The emails on the site, known as DCLeaks, appear to be from state party officials and campaign staff, including that of former presidential candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). The messages range from June to October of 2015.
The DNC hacker or hackers known as Guccifer 2.0 used DC Leaks to promote leaks from a Clinton staffer's email to The Smoking Gun, though the hacker claimed not to have been involved with the theft of the messages.
Most of the messages coordinate campaign activities, solicit funds, or invite or RSVP to events. The archive is largely the procedural minutia of running campaigns or state parties.
The emails include a wide array of constituent email addresses. Many appear to be responses to mass-emails from concerned party supporters writing in to their delegates. One reply to a Stop Hillary PAC fundraising email targeting Democrats lack of support for the Benghazi commission reads, "Don’t the Republicans have a majority in Congress? Isn’t John Boehner a Republican? What is the problem that you need my $36 to help you fight back."
The archive appears to be incomplete, with replies to emails that don't appear to be included on their own. That could mean the emails were deleted before being retrieved, or that the leaker or site decided to scrub certain items from the record.
But that there was a leak at all runs counter to a Republican narrative that the DNC is particularly susceptible to data breaches (“What is it with Democrats that they can't maintain basic email security?” Mike Huckabee asked on Facebook).
Guccifer 2.0 is thought to be a front name for Russian intelligence, and the site has strong circumstantial ties to the Russian group believed to be behind the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
DCLeaks claims to be the work of patriotic American activists but is written in a way that suggests non-native English speakers. Much of the leaks are email archives from critics of Russia.
The site hosts a trove of leaked emails from Gen. Philip Breedlove, who was heavily in favor of fending off Russia during its Ukraine incursion, and George Soros, whose DC Leaks emails were promoted by the site on twitter as “Check George Soros's [Open Society Foundation] plans to counter Russian policy and traditional values.”
DC Leaks site was initially registered by THCServers, a company that has only been the initial registrar for 14 sites since 2013. Including DC Leaks, three of those sites have been connected to the Russian hackers believed to be behind the DNC hack, including a site identified by the German government.
The Russian hackers, nicknamed Fancy Bear, have a pattern of using domain registrars outside of United States that accept bitcoin and the Romanian THCServers fit the mold. It is registered to an email account from europe.com, which, like most of the emails connected to FancyBear, is a free web service based in Europe.
A representative from ThreatConnect, the company that linked Fancy Bear to DCLeaks, noted that the obscure Romanian THCServer and Europe.com would be abnormal for an American hacktivist collective, and believes the sum-total is a strong circumstantial case.
At publication time, the Republican National Convention was not yet able to authenticate the emails.
December 11th, 2019, 22:29
vector7
Re: The Left's War Against Trump's Administration
Cruz on spying: This wasn't Jason Bourne, this was 'Beavis and Butt-head' (11:50)
https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2....4&h=546&w=970Sarah Silbiger/Consolidated News Photos/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a new legal memo on Wednesday indicating that the Trump administration’s decision to temporarily hold military assistance to Ukraine was a “routine” practice and that the administration was reviewing whether Ukraine complied with U.S. policy.
The memo indicated that the decision to withhold the aid was not a political action to block Congress’ spending decisions.
“The office first began discussing the aid on June 19, the day President Trump learned of the aid from an article in the Washington Examiner and questioned the wisdom of the spending,” The Washington Post reported. “That move sent aides scrambling, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal conversations.”
“The Office of Management and Budget extended the temporary hold on the aid eight times in August and September, the last time being Sept. 10,” The Post added. “Almost immediately after that hold, the money was released, according to the new memo, which was reviewed by The Washington Post.”
OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta issued the memo as a response to a request for information on why the aid was withheld, a request that came from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
In the memo, Paoletta wrote: “For decades, OMB has routinely used its apportionment authority to prevent funds from being used. Often, in managing appropriations, OMB must briefly pause an agency’s legal ability to spend those funds for a number of reasons, including to ensure that the funds are being spent efficiently, that they are being spent in accordance with statutory directives, or to assess how or whether funds should be used for a particular activity.”
The memo reportedly stated that the aid was put on hold due to an administration directive “pending a policy decision,” and discussions about how to proceed with the aid were set for mid-June.
The Post added, “The memo says that ‘at no point during the pause’ did Defense Department attorneys tell OMB the Ukrainian funding would be prevented from being spent before the end of the year.”
The move to release the legal memo comes as Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee held a markup hearing on Wednesday evening to weigh introducing articles of impeachment against the president.
Politico reporter John Bresnahan noted that Democrats were appealing to American’s feelings during the hearing while Republicans stuck to hammering home the message that Democrats have never gotten over the 2016 election and have searched for any reason imaginable to impeach Trump.
“Democrats are making very personal statements during impeachment hearings. They talk about being immigrants, or the child of immigrants, or being a minority, and how Trump allegedly improper behavior impacts other Americans like them. It’s an interesting tactic,” Bresnahan wrote. “Republicans repeatedly pound this message – Democrats have never acknowledged Trump’s victory in 2016 and have searched repeatedly for a reason to impeach Trump.”
/2 Republicans repeatedly pound this message – Democrats have never acknowledged Trump's victory in 2016 and have searched repeatedly for a reason to impeach Trump
— John Bresnahan (@BresPolitico) December 12, 2019
Democrats have sought to impeach the president over a July 25 phone call that he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for allegedly engaging in a quid pro quo.
Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who is Vice President Mike Pence’s National Security Adviser, released a statement last month stating that he was on the call and nothing improper happened: “I was on the much-reported July 25 call between President Donald Trump and President Zelensky. As an exceedingly proud member of President Trump’s Administration and as a 34-year highly experienced combat veteran who retired with the rank of Lieutenant General in the Army, I heard nothing wrong or improper on the call. I had and have no concerns.”
According to reports from TIME Magazine, a top Ukraine official now disputes key claims made by Democrat witnesses in their testimony, completely blowing apart their Trump impeachment narrative.
Andriy Yermak, top aid to Ukraine's President Zelensky, says U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, did NOT inform him of a quid pro quo promise when the two spoke in Warsaw last fall (a key factor to Democrat claims of presidential corruption).
Instead, Andriy says the two men briefly met by the escalator after a meeting between President Zelensky and Vice President Mike Pence, and they both agreed the meeting between the two world leaders went very well.
Christopher Steele “meticulously” documented and recorded interactions with a key source for his infamous Trump dossier, lawyers for the former British spy said Tuesday in a lengthy response to the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe.
The report, released Monday, poked holes in the dossier, and revealed that a primary source for Steele disavowed some of the information in the salacious document.
FBI interviews with the source “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting,” according to the inspector general’s (IG) report.
The source, who is identified only as “Primary Sub-Source,” told FBI agents Steele’s dossier asserted there was evidence to support the claim that the Kremlin had blackmail video of Donald Trump in Moscow with prostitutes. But Steele’s source told the FBI that the information was based on “rumor and speculation,” and had not been verified.
https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-con...14-620x441.jpg
Carter Page, former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, speaks to the media after testifying before the House Intelligence Committee on November 2, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
The source also showed FBI agents a text message that undercut the dossier’s assertion that Page and Kremlin insider Igor Sechin discussed a bribe in order to relax U.S. sanctions against Russia. Page has vehemently denied ever meeting Sechin.
The IG report document 17 errors and omissions in the FBI’s applications to surveil Page. One of those omissions was the information that Steele’s source provided to FBI agents.
In a statement first reported by ABC News, Steele’s lawyers disputed the IG’s findings in their statement Tuesday, and suggested that Steele has evidence to back up what the source told him.
“The Primary Sub-Source’s debriefings,” Steele’s lawyers said, “were meticulously documented and recorded.”
Chris Steele’s attorneys have just released a lengthy statement responding to the IG report and the outstanding points of dispute: pic.twitter.com/53yR2ufVQ0
— Julia Macfarlane (@juliamacfarlane) December 10, 2019
The lawyers did not say what, if anything, Steele plans to do with the recordings of the source.
The lawyers lamented Steele was not given a chance to respond to some of the information in the report. They said there were “several serious errors and misstatements” in the report regarding Steele and his work.
The IG report is heavily critical of the FBI’s efforts to validate Steele’s dossier. The report also said the FBI was unable to corroborate any of its most serious claim. The IG also flatly debunked one pervasive claim of Steele’s that was not included in the Carter Page surveillance warrants. The report said it was “not true” that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen visited Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin insiders, as the dossier alleged.
The office of the inspector general did not respond to a request for comment.
By Ashe Schow
DailyWire.com
The report regarding the origins of the investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to steal the election is not the slam dunk the media is claiming.Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, certainly no fan of Trump, took the media to task for its portrayal of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report into how the FBI began its surveillance of the Trump campaign.
“If the report released Monday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz constitutes a ‘clearing’ of the FBI, never clear me of anything,” Taibbi wrote in an article published on Tuesday. “Holy God, what a clown show the Trump-Russia investigation was.”
The press, Taibbi wrote, has been focusing on Horowitz’s conclusion that “political bias or improper motivation” was not the cause of the numerous errors in the FBI’s investigation. Basically, Taibbi wrote, Horowitz blamed incompetence for the errors instead of corruption:
However, Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose “serious” procedural problems and omissions of “significant information” in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president).
Officials on the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia investigators went to extraordinary, almost comical lengths to seek surveillance authority of figures like Trump aide Carter Page. In one episode, an FBI attorney inserted the words “not a source” in an email he’d received from another government agency. This disguised the fact that Page had been an informant for that agency, and had dutifully told the government in real time about being approached by Russian intelligence. The attorney then passed on the email to an FBI supervisory special agent, who signed a FISA warrant application on Page that held those Russian contacts against Page, without disclosing his informant role.
Taibbi goes on to list how “the Horowitz report show years of breathless headlines were wrong.”
For example, many members of left-wing media outlets reported that the dossier compiled by ex-British Intelligence official Christopher Steele didn’t play much of a role in obtaining FISA warrants against one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page. The Horowitz report, however, makes it clear that this dossier “played a central and essential role” in obtaining the FISA warrant.
Media outlets also derided what has come to be known as the “Nunes memo,” which was sent about by then-House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA). Instead, the outlets favored a competing memo from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). As Taibbi points out, Horowitz’s report “ratifies the major claims” from Nunes’ memo, including that the Steele Dossier was essential to obtaining the FISA warrant and that Steele was the source for a Yahoo News article that the FBI previously claimed merely confirmed the dossier.
Finally, the Horowitz report confirmed that the Steele dossier was little more than “Internet rumor,” there was no corroboration for his claims, and Steele embellished much of what was in his report. For example, left-wing media outlets wrote numerous headlines about an alleged “pee tape” the Russians could use to blackmail Trump. In reality, Horowitz found, was based on a “conversation” one of Steele’s sources “had over beers,” and the allegations were made in “jest.”
Never forget the years of reporting on this topic from left-wing media outlets and Trump’s opponents, Some of these outlets even received Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting, which has been utterly eviscerated by Horowitz’s report.
The essence of a coup, which some might refer to as covert action, is the hidden hand. One does not announce that a foreign power is overthrowing the government and installing a new government. One pulls strings as if from behind a curtain, making events that are all part of a carefully orchestrated plan appear disconnected, spontaneous and serendipitous.
In February of 2018, Republicans and Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released separate reports after spending months looking at the FBI's conduct during the 2016 US election.
The FBI used the unverified 'Steele dossier' in October 2016 to obtain a surveillance warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
The agency concealed the fact that the Steele dossier was funded in part by the Clinton campaign, as well as the fact that the salacious document was in its "infancy" at the time of the FISA application.
Fusion GPS employee Nellie Ohr funneled her anti-Trump research to her husband Bruce, who was then the #4 at the DOJ (and since demoted for lying about his involvement with Steele - a former MI6 operative working for Fusion GPS dig up dirt on Donald Trump and his campaign).
The dossier was "only minimally corroborated" according to FBI officials, who could not verify its claims
Democrats, led by then-minority leader (and current chairman) Adam Schiff (D-CA), claimed in response:
The FBI and DOJ did not exclude information from the FISA warrant application.
The DOJ provided corroborating information in subsequent FISA renewals which backed Steele's claims.
The FBI was able to collect "valuable intelligence" from the FISA warrant on Carter Page.
The DOJ made Steele's credentials clear to the FISA court and did not omit material facts about the former UK spy.
The FBI underwent a "rigorous process" to investigate and vet Steele's claims
Steele's previous work had been used in "criminal proceedings.
Au contraire, Schiff... Monday's FISA report supports the 'Nunes memo' and debunks the 'Schiff memo' - as explained by The Federalist's Mollie Hemingway:
Horowitz found that FBI and DOJ officials did in fact omit critical material information from the FISA warrant, including several items exculpatory to Page. Material facts were not just omitted but willfully hidden through doctoring of evidence.
The warrants were based on Steele’s dossier, which was known by January 2017 to be ridiculously uncorroborated. The renewals did not find information that corroborated Steele’s reporting. The warrants clearly didn’t allow the FBI to collect valuable intelligence. And Steele’s prior reporting was not used in criminal proceedings. -The Federalist
"We found that the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele’s reporting when it relied upon his reports in the first FISA application or subsequent renewal applications," reads the executive summary of the IG report.
The media joined Department of Justice bureaucrats in bitterly opposing the release of the Nunes memo. The Justice Department released a letter to the press saying the action was “extraordinarily reckless,”would be “damaging” to “national security,” and would risk “damage to our intelligence community or the important work it does in safeguarding the American people.”
“The memo purports to show that the process by which the FBI and Justice Department obtained approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to conduct surveillance on former Trump adviser Carter Page was deeply tainted,” the Post article says. “It does this by straining every which way to suggest that the basis for the warrant was the so-called ‘Steele dossier,’ which contains Democratic-funded research by former British spy Christopher Steele.” (The IG confirmed this week that the efforts to secure a warrant to spy on Page were dropped due to lack of evidence until Steele delivered his memos.)
December 12th, 2019, 16:23
vector7
Re: The Left's War Against Trump's Administration
Hawley Congratulates The DNC and Hillary in Successfully Paying for Foreign Interference in the 2016 Election with Strategic help from the Obama Administration leadership appointees in charge of Federal Agencies to Lie to FISA Courts, Criminally Break laws to unlawfully Take Down a Duly Elected President and Administration, to further Meddle in continued Attempts to Overturn an Election by the People of the United States of America the Democrats Refuse to Accept (3:24)
https://media.townhall.com/townhall/...e1a4c6a0d1.png
Source: (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
During debate on articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday night, Chairman Jerry Nadler undermined the vote of millions of Americans and said they can't be trusted to decide who should win the White House in 2020.
"We cannot rely on an election to solve our problems when the president threatens the very integrity of that election," Nadler said during his opening statement. "Nor can we sit on our hands while the President undermines our national security—and while he allows his personal interests and the interests of our adversary Russia to advance."
Last night, Chairman Nadler said, “We cannot rely on an election to solve our problems.”
Democrats can’t seriously warn against monarchical abuses of power when they seek to overrule, delegitimize, and stack the deck against fair, democratic elections. pic.twitter.com/r1bcwdazMA
— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) December 12, 2019
For years Democrats like Nadler have accused President Trump of "undermining Democracy" and yet, that's exactly what they're doing with impeachment.
There is zero evidence to justify Nadler's statement. In fact, Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation found not a single person from the Trump campaign "colluded" with Russians to win the 2016 presidential election. Additionally, President Trump requesting investigations into corruption in Ukraine and Ukrainian efforts to bolster Hillary Clinton in 2016 is not "proof" that the 2020 election should be annulled in advance because Democrats think they'll lose.
Regardless, Democrats are moving forward and are planning in a full House vote before Christmas.
by Kristinn Taylor
December 11, 2019 1796 Comments
Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder sent a chilling message in a very public way to U.S. Attorney John Durham–the man investigating abuses by the FBI and Justice Department against President Trump and members of his administration and campaign in the Russia-election investigation–warning Durham he is risking his reputation.
Holder wrote an op-ed published Wednesday night by the Washington Post calling current Attorney General William Barr “unfit” to serve as attorney general. The threat to Durham iss buried in the op-ed, but jumps out like a dagger thrust from the dark.
…As a former line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and judge, I found it alarming to hear Barr comment on an ongoing investigation, led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, into the origins of the Russia probe. And as someone who spent six years in the office Barr now occupies, it was infuriating to watch him publicly undermine an independent inspector general report — based on an exhaustive review of the FBI’s conduct — using partisan talking points bearing no resemblance to the facts his own department has uncovered.
When appropriate and justified, it is the attorney general’s duty to support Justice Department components, ensure their integrity and insulate them from political pressures.
His or her ultimate loyalty is not to the president personally, nor even to the executive branch, but to the people — and the Constitution — of the United States.
Career public servants at every level of the Justice Department understand this — as do leaders such as FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Their fidelity to the law and their conduct under pressure are a credit to them and the institutions they serve.
Others, like Durham, are being tested by this moment. I’ve been proud to know John for at least a decade, but I was troubled by his unusual statement disputing the inspector general’s findings. Good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham’s shoes would do well to remember that, in dealing with this administration, many reputations have been irrevocably lost.
This is certainly true of Barr, who was until recently a widely respected lawyer. I and many other Justice veterans were hopeful that he would serve as a responsible steward of the department and a protector of the rule of law.
Holder closes with his statement that Barr is ‘unfit’. His case is totally based on policy differences and his claimed understanding of the nature of the job, which is odd considering Holder once called himself Obama’s “wingman” when he served as his attorney general and called Obama “my boy”: “I’m still the President’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy.”
Virtually since the moment he took office, though, Barr’s words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution. Which is why I now fear that his conduct — running political interference for an increasingly lawless president — will wreak lasting damage.
The American people deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the Justice Department with integrity and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law, even — and especially — when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. William Barr has proved he is incapable of serving as such an attorney general. He is unfit to lead the Justice Department.
Barr, 69, is serving as attorney general a second time–the first during the presidency of George H.W. Bush. Barr is at the peak of his profession and is immune to Holder’s criticism.
Durham, on the other hand, while also Barr’s age, has been a career assistant U.S. attorney who was promoted by President Trump to U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut in 2017 after 35 years of service there. Holder’s message to Durham is clear, play ball or face ruin.
“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff. However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”
Why would Holder find that statement so troubling that he would send a warning to Durham via the Washington Post? Holder knows very well what he is doing with his carefully worded threat and should know better than to warn or threaten a prosecutor–but the Deep State and its corrupt actors must be protected and “wingman” Holder has a job to do.
UPDATE: Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.) understands, “Did Eric Holder obstruct justice in this threat to US Atty Durham?
“Good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham’s shoes would do well to remember …”
Did Eric Holder obstruct justice in this threat to US Atty Durham?
“Good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham’s shoes would do well to remember …” https://t.co/VVdWQ368K5
The House Judiciary Committee released a 169-page report in the dead of the night Monday alleging President Trump committed criminal acts including bribery and wire fraud.
As Cristina Laila reported — The report will accompany the two very broad articles of impeachment that will be voted on this week, likely on Wednesday.
Of course, they made the criminal charges up this past weekend after voting in committee on two bogus charges:
1.) Abuse of power – a very broad charge that means nothing
2.) Obstruction of Congress – a made up crime. It is something they completely made up out of whole cloth
And now Democrats are adding charges to their committee proposal.
They are completely making this up as they go along from day to day!
And the liberal Fake News media is right there with them!
We are witnessing a complete meltdown of the Democrat Party.
And the far left media hacks are RIGHT THERE WITH THEM 100%!
Liberal reporter Kyle Cheney posted the latest controversial language in the Democrat Party’s sham impeachment report.
The Democrats are alleging a 20 year prison sentence for something THEY NEVER EVEN VOTED ON~~
HERE the Judiciary Committee alleges Trump committed wire fraud in his July 25 call to Zelensky and July 26 call to Sondland "in furtherance of an ongoing bribery scheme."https://t.co/NNKdxpGXRspic.twitter.com/WL4uSQ5ANX
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) December 16, 2019
When it comes to the unlawful surveillance on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the most important question is, what did President Obama know and when did he know it? If we are to believe the testimony in the Justice Department inspector general’s report on FISA abuse, Obama didn’t know anything about the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Neither did his attorney general, her deputy, or anyone in the White House. At least not that they can recall – an expression used over 200 times in the report.
Yet against this we have the Sept. 2, 2016, text message from Lisa Page to her paramour Peter Strzok saying “POTUS wants to know everything we are doing.” True to form, the IG report goes to great lengths to argue that “knowing everything” in fact meant knowing nothing at all.
The text message first appeared in Feb. 2018 when it was released by Congress, and later in the June 2018 IG report on bias in the FBI’s investigations leading up to the 2016 election. The message was critically important because it elevated the scandal to the White House level and dragged it into the Obama Oval Office. But the June 2018 IG report basically ignored the importance of this message, and the new report takes pains to explain it away.
The public debate about the issue goes back to the first revelations about the illicit spying, when President Trump tweeted that he “Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory.” The president was roundly mocked for this “baseless” claim, and pundits and politicians huffed mightily that such a spying operation was unthinkable. Of course, now we know many of the details of this sophisticated and falsely obtained surveillance operation.
And note the carefully worded denial that came from the Obama camp at that time. Spokesman Kevin Lewis said that it was “simply false” that the White House ordered surveillance against “any U.S. citizen” — but more to the point that “no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.”
So this was not a denial that spying ever happened, just that Obama had nothing to do with it. It hearkens back to Obama’s similar claim made in April 2016 regarding the Hillary Clinton email investigation, that “there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department, or the FBI, not just in this case, but in any case.”
So who knew about Crossfire Hurricane according to testimony in the new IG report? FBI Director James Comey admitted he was kept well informed on the investigation. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed it with him at regular briefings starting in August 2016.
But Comey is as far as the information went, so the report claims. Attorney General Loretta Lynch says she was not briefed, she provided no guidance, and she was completely uninvolved in the Carter Page FISA authorization request. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates was likewise out of the loop. Neither Lynch nor Yates had any knowledge of White House meetings about Crossfire Hurricane. Office of the Attorney General staff had “no recollection” of these matters, though email evidence shows thy were informed of the effort to seek a FISA warrant against Carter Page. And Lynch admitted Comey and McCabe had told her about Carter Page being a suspected Russian collaborator in the spring of 2016, before Trump was even nominated. Comey and McCabe did not recall this meeting.
Comey testified that there was “no request from the White House to investigate members of the Trump campaign” or inquiries regarding collusion. Yet Lisa Page’s infamous September 2 text was in the context of putting together talking points for a Comey meeting presumably at the White House, because “POTUS wants to know everything we are doing.” Strzok replies, “I’m sure an honest answer will come out of that meeting.” But an answer to what?
Strzok testified that these texts referred only to the generic question of Russian election meddling. Yet the report reveals that Comey told Obama and other officials at a White House Situation Room meeting around the same time that “the FBI was trying to determine whether any U.S. person had worked with the Russians” and that they were looking into “four individuals with ‘some association or connection to the Trump campaign.'”
Others present at the meeting were Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, and National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers, none of whom were interviewed for this report. Incredibly, Comey claimed that no one at the meeting “responded or followed up with any questions” (p. 110).
This revelation should have been a major headline from the IG report was buried in the media narrative that there was “no political bias” in this obviously grossly biased and ill-predicated domestic spying operation.
Former Whitewater Independent Counsel Robert Ray was “aghast to learn how little involved the attorney general and the deputy attorney general of the United States” were in Crossfire Hurricane. He said he could not believe “that there is an investigation that would take you inside a presidential campaign and four people who were targeted within that campaign and that doesn’t require some kind of supervisory review and initiation beyond simply the inner-reaches of the FBI.”
Indeed, as Attorney General William Barr said, spying on a presidential campaign is “a big deal.” People can rationalize it or explain it away, but any plain reading of the record tells us what we need to know. Obama wanted to know everything they were doing, and it looks like he did.
Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Monday on CNN that the four witnesses he wants for the Senate impeachment trial may say things that are “exculpatory” about President Donald Trump.
“These four witnesses have direct knowledge of the facts, particularly in regard to the delay in the aid to Ukraine. I don’t know what they’ll say. Maybe they’ll say something exculpatory about President Trump,” Schumer said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“But, for so many people who think that there are many Republicans who were saying, ‘Yeah, this looks pretty bad, but we need more evidence,’ this is the right evidence,” he continued.
“We want a trial to be fair, for the American people to think it should be fair, but not to be a cover-up, not to be something where there are witnesses who have direct knowledge as to what happened, do not testify. So, I am sending this letter to all of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, in the hopes that we can come together on a fair trial.”
The New York Senator further claimed that he knew of unnamed Republicans who were “troubled by what the president did.”
“I’m not going to get into any names,” Schumer told CNN. “But, some of them have said we need to see more facts. No one has given a single–let me make two points here. Of the facts the house has presented, not one has been rebutted.”
“There have been a lot of wild goose chases, and conspiracy theories, that some of our Republican friends, not too many, have talked about, but not one of these facts has been rebutted, nor has there been a single good reason why these folks can’t testify.”
Schumer sent a letter to the Senate on Sunday night asking for former national security aide John Bolton and acting chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney to be witnesses, along with Mulvaney’s adviser Robert Blair, and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey.
An impeachment trial against Trump in the Senate is all but guaranteed after House Democrats voted to move forward with impeachment Friday.
On Wednesday Democrats FINALLY launched impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. They dreamed of this day since January 2017 when he was sworn into office.
Nancy Pelosi took the House floor today and delivered a speech on articles of impeachment.
Democrats on Wednesday are voting to impeach President Donald Trump on two charges.
1.) Abuse of power — not a crime, a broad term to smear the president
2.) Obstruction of Congress — not a crime, a made-up term that has never been used ever
They have found no crimes.
The Republicans should have challenged Professor Feldman’s assertion that “abuse of office" is a constitutional basis for impeachment. These words do not appear in the Constitution and such vague criteria were rejected by the Framers.
For over THREE YEARS Democrats and their mainstream media have harassed, abused, spied on, threatened and attacked this American president.
Democrats used the full power of the US government to spy on Trump and imprison his supporters. They abused his supporters and beat them down in the streets.
Democrats screamed profanities at Trump and ostracized his supporters.
Democrats hate Donald Trump and his supporters more than they love their country.
Democrats detest Trump more than they love truth.
Their impeachment hearings today are a sham and they know it.
But that didn’t stop them from proceeding with their sham impeachment.
Their lust for power stands before all else.
They would gladly ruin any Trump supporter with the same zeal.
Never forget their hatred.
Never forget their lust for power.
This is the same hatred they have for this country and for you.
They would gladly destroy anyone who stands in their path.
Nadler's reprimand Gohmert reciting facts during the Obama Administration as spewing "Russian Propaganda" on the House Floor
After Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) accused Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 US election, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) reprimanded Gohmert for spreading Russian propaganda, prompting an angry exchange on the House floor during the impeachment debate.
President Donald Trump departs the White House for campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan prior to being impeached by Congress.
WASHINGTON - A group of House Democrats are pushing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders to withhold the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump that are expected to emerge from the House on Wednesday, potentially delaying a Senate trial for months.
The notion of impeaching Trump but holding the articles in the House has gained traction among some of the political left as a way of potentially forcing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to conduct a trial on more favorable terms for Democrats. And if no agreement is reached, some have argued, the trial could be delayed indefinitely, denying Trump an expected acquittal.
The gambit has gained some traction inside the left wing of the House Democratic Caucus this week. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said Wednesday, as his colleagues debated the impeachment articles on the House floor, that he has spoken to three dozen Democratic lawmakers who had expressed some level of enthusiasm for the idea of "rounding out the record and spending the time to do this right."
"At a minimum, there ought to be an agreement about access to witnesses, rules of the game, timing," Blumenauer said of a Senate trial.
Another Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said there is "serious concern about whether there will be a fair trial on the Senate side" and acknowledged active talks about withholding the articles.
The notion has been most prominently advocated by Laurence Tribe, a Harvard Law School professor who has advised the House Judiciary Committee on the impeachment process. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, he wrote that "the public has a right to observe a meaningful trial rather than simply learn that the result is a verdict of not guilty."
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has asked McConnell to call several Trump administration witnesses, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and former national security adviser John Bolton. McConnell has dismissed those requests and signaled that he expects to hold a relatively short trial that will end with a summary dismissal of the impeachment charges.
Republicans have scoffed at the notion of the House withholding the articles, noting it hardly counts as leverage to deny the GOP the ability to remove a president that the party wants to keep in place. Some aides further argued that withholding the articles would only fuel Republican arguments that Democrats are engaged in a partisan abuse of the Constitution.
A spokesman for McConnell, Doug Andres, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Pelosi, Drew Hammill.
But Democratic leaders may be forced to deal with the issue in the coming days. Blumenauer said he had already raised the issue with Pelosi, D-Calif.; House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and other top party leaders.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Hoyer did not rule out the idea: "It's an interesting proposal. I don't think that that's the path we will follow, but that does not mean we will immediately deliver it. There are considerations related to other legislation."
A senior Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations said the impeachment articles will not be immediately transmitted to the Senate Wednesday. Rather, they will be held until Pelosi names impeachment managers, the House members who will present the case for Trump's removal in the Senate.
"There will be a debate and vote on that resolution" naming the managers, the aide said. If a significant number of Democrats refuse to vote for that resolution, they could force the issue.
The timing of that vote is unclear; the House is expected to recess for the winter holidays as soon as Thursday and not return until Jan. 7.
Blumenauer said that if McConnell does not agree to call the Democratic witnesses and stage a fair trial, he said, Democrats could simply hold on to the articles indefinitely and continue to investigate Trump. The House is involved in multiple court cases seeking documents and testimony that have yet to be resolved.
"Who knows what would happen to augment the record? This ought to be able to play out," he said. "There's no advantage to rushing this."
But the notion of prolonging the impeachment process indefinitely is almost certain to infuriate House members from competitive districts, who have pushed Pelosi for months to keep the investigation focused and limited to Trump's Ukraine conduct.
Blumenauer declined to discuss whether members interested in the gambit would withhold their votes on naming managers to force the issue: "I'm not interested in sparking controversy in the caucus," he said.
Several Democrats joined Republicans in voting against impeachment. Rep. Van Drew (D-NJ) is expected to leave the Democratic Party and become a Republican.
Link goes to:
BREAKING: Partisan House Votes to Impeach President Trump, Some Democrats Defect
After nearly 12 hours of debate on the House floor Wednesday, Democrats voted to approve articles of impeachment against President Trump. The vote on the Article I, abuse of power, came down 230-197-1 (present). The second vote on Article II, obstruction of Congress, 229-198-1.
When Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the final vote count for Articles I and II, Democrats erupted in cheers. She attempted to scold them.
Two Democrats Jeff Van Drew (NJ) and Colin Peterson (MN) joined Republicans in voting against impeachment on Article I. Van Drew, Peterson and Jared Golden (ME) voted against Article II. Democrat Tulsi Gabbard (HI) voted present on both. Drew plans to change his party affiliation to Republican, citing unfair impeachment as the reason why.
"Today marks the culmination in the House of one of the most shameful political episodes in the history of our Nation. Without receiving a single Republican vote, and without providing any proof of wrongdoing, Democrats pushed illegitimate articles of impeachment against the President through the House of Representatives. Democrats have chosen to proceed on this partisan basis in spite of the fact that the President did absolutely nothing wrong. Indeed, weeks of hearings have proved that he did nothing wrong," White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham released in a statement about the votes. "The American people are not fooled by this disgraceful behavior. They understand fairness, due process, and substantial, reliable evidence are required before any American should be charged with wrongdoing—and certainly before impeaching a duly elected President."
"The President is confident the Senate will restore regular order, fairness, and due process, all of which were ignored in the House proceedings. He is prepared for the next steps and confident that he will be fully exonerated. President Trump will continue to work tirelessly to address the needs and priorities of the American people, as he has since the day he took office," she continued.
The articles will now go the Senate for a trial, unless Speaker Pelosi engages in a new game and holds them so President Trump cannot be acquitted. From POLITICO:
In the meantime, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is in regular contact with the White House on how impeachment will proceed. The trial will likely start on January 6 and last for one-to-two weeks.
The New York Post savaged House Speaker Pelosi on Wednesday evening calling her a “Swamp Mistress.” Democrats voted in a straight party line vote to impeach President Trump for abuse of power on Wednesday night.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wore black at her funeral Wednesday night after she walked her caucus off the cliff.
The Post’s Michael Goodwin wrote, “Pelosi’s stomach-churning impeachment charade damages America.”
Via Goodwin:
It is said there are two things you should never watch being made: sausage and government budgets.
Now we can add impeachment to the list of stomach-turning sights to avoid.
The arcane rules, phony cordiality and debates over the second sentence in paragraph G of Point Six were bad enough, but the nausea meter hit the roof when Nancy Pelosi took the microphone. Wearing a funereal black dress, she stood next to a cardboard American flag and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.
I would have counted her more honest if she had pledged her allegiance to a Democratic donkey.
As the leader of a party that has marinated its mind in unadulterated hatred of President Trump, Pelosi bears unique responsibility for this calamity. She could have stopped it.
Watching the so called debate Wednesday, I was moved by how the impeachers, desperate to inflate their base partisan passions into something noble, have cheapened our nation’s history and language.
They resembled Grade B actors performing for the cameras, their rehearsed references to oaths, prayers, the Founding Fathers, the rule of law, checks and balances and the Constitution itself all sounding contrived. Rather than reflecting an actual gravitas, the words were trotted out to create the appearance of it.
You can read Michael Goodwin’s full Post article here.
President Trump said Wednesday morning that Pelosi will go down in history as the worst Speaker.