dChan
Tom ID: 42d4fe March 20, 2023, 9:04 p.m. No.159374   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Monday, January 1st, 2018

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-pakistan-idUSKBN1EQ112

 

Trump says U.S. has gotten 'nothing' from Pakistan aid(Reuters.com)

 

David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday the United States has ā€œfoolishlyā€ handed Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years while getting nothing in return, and pledged to put a stop to it.

 

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he departs the White House to visit Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, U.S., December 21, 2017. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

ā€œThey give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!ā€ Trump wrote on Twitter. ā€œThe United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools.ā€

 

A National Security Council official on Monday said the White House does not plan to send $255 million in aid to Pakistan ā€œat this timeā€ and said ā€œthe administration continues to review Pakistanā€™s level of cooperation.ā€ In August, the administration had said it was delaying the payment.

 

Pakistanā€™s foreign minister, Khawaja M. Asif, wrote on Twitter ā€œWe will respond to President Trumpā€™s tweet shortly inshallahā€¦Will let the world know the truth..difference between facts & fiction.ā€

 

It was not immediately clear what prompted Trumpā€™s criticism of Pakistan but he has long complained that Islamabad is not doing enough to tackle Islamist militants.

 

The New York Times reported on Dec. 29 that U.S. officials had sought but been denied access to a member of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network captured in Pakistan who potentially could provide information about at least one American hostage.

 

In countering U.S. criticism, Pakistan says it has launched military operations to push out militants from its soil and that 17,000 Pakistanis have died fighting militants or in bombings and other attacks since 2001.

 

Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson Center, cautioned that people should not ā€œoverstate the significance of Trumpā€™s tweet for policy.ā€

 

Kugelman noted Trump tweeted in October that relations with Pakistan were improving, when some experts suggested they were not.

 

ā€œStill, this is an administration that has repeatedly vowed to take a harder line and has strongly considered an aid cut. So was Trumpā€™s tweet meant to preview a coming shift in policy? Iā€™d certainly bet on the possibility,ā€ Kugelman said.

 

In a speech last month in Afghanistan to U.S. troops, Vice President Mike Pence said ā€œfor too long Pakistan has provided safe haven to the Taliban and many terrorist organizations, but those days are over. President Trump has put Pakistan on notice.ā€

 

Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistanā€™s ambassador in Washington, said in a Twitter posting that Trumpā€™s tweet was a ā€œpromising message to Afghans who have suffered at the hands of terrorists based in Pakistan for far too long.ā€

 

U.S. Senator Rand Paul said on Twitter he would lead the charge in the Senate to end aid to Pakistan. ā€œLetā€™s make this happen,ā€ he said.

 

The Pakistan embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.

 

Reporting by David Shepardson; Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in West Palm Beach, Florida and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish and Andrea Ricci

Tom ID: c50924 May 19, 2023, 12:13 a.m. No.162500   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Monday, January 1st, 2018

 

https://dailycaller.com/2018/01/01/abedin-forwarded-state-passwords-to-yahoo-before-it-was-hacked-by-foreign-agents/

 

Abedin Forwarded State Passwords To Yahoo Before It Was Hacked By Foreign Agents (DailyCaller.com)

Tom ID: c50924 May 19, 2023, 2:11 a.m. No.162502   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018

 

Nunes statement: "I 'believe' House Intelligence Committee has reached an agreement with teh DOJ that will prived the committee w access to all docs and witnesses we have requested."

 

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018

 

Clinton House Fire.. gee.. nothing to see here..

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/03/a-fire-reportedly-broke-out-at-hillary-and-bill-clintons-house-in-chappaqua.html

 

Fire breaks out at Hillary and Bill Clintonā€™s house in Chappaqua(CNBC.com)

A file photo of President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary's home in Chappaqua, New York.

A fire that broke out at former president and first lady Bill and Hillary Clintonā€™s home has been extinguished, WNBC reported Wednesday.

 

Firefighters arrived on the scene of the Clintonsā€™ longtime home in Chappaqua, New York to fight a fire that has since been put out, the Chappaqua Fire Department told WNBC.

 

The Town of New Castle Police Department said no injuries were sustained by the fire. An ambulance on the scene left without transport.

 

Hillary Clintonā€™s communication director Nick Merrill tweeted that the fire was in a building on the property used by the secret service, not the main residence.

 

@NickMerrill: This report is wrong, & creating much hysteria. Yes, a small fire broke out in the @SecretService facility today on Clinton property, in a building not connected to their home. Fire was put out, local FD responded. The Clintons were not home. All is ok!

 

Later, the Secret Service said in a statement that there had been a ā€œsmall fire in the ceiling of the second floor in a detached structure located behind the Clintonsā€™ residence.ā€ It also confirmed that the Clintons were not on the property at the time.

Tom ID: c50924 May 19, 2023, 2:38 a.m. No.162506   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Thursday, January 4th, 2018

 

Sen. Charles Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham refer criminal charges against Christopher Steele to the FBI for investigation.

Tom ID: c50924 May 19, 2023, 2:50 a.m. No.162508   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

VIDEO: Ex-U.S. Ambassador to USSR: Ukraine Crisis Stems Directly from Post-Cold War Push to Expand NATO (YouTube)

 

AMB Matlock knows exactly the politics, as ambassador to USSR, lived in Moscow.. and with history back to Kennedy, he knows EXACTLY what was at stake with Nukes and Russia, Terrorists.. etc. He was probably a "backchannel" to the US-USSR.

Tom ID: c50924 May 19, 2023, 3:54 a.m. No.162518   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Monday, January 8th, 2018

 

PDJT makes an on-field appearance during the National Anthem at the 2018 College Football Playoff National Championship

 

Monday, January 8th, 2018

 

AC unit on Trump Tower catches on fire. (1st of 2018, but not the last as 2 months (nearly to the day) another fire will "hit" Trump Tower (April 7th, 2018)

 

Monday, January 8th, 2018

 

-Bruce Ohr loses his second title at the agency

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 1:25 p.m. No.162521   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

 

District Judge William Alsup ruels that the DACA program must remain in place while litigation continues.

 

>>162524

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released the full transcript Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee interview with the founder of a firm behind a 2016 dossier on President Donald Trumpā€™s ties with Russia.

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 1:28 p.m. No.162522   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ruling/u-s-judge-blocks-trump-move-to-end-daca-program-for-immigrants-idUSKBN1EZ0AR

 

U.S. judge blocks Trump move to end DACA program for immigrants(Reuters)

 

 

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. judge in San Francisco temporarily barred President Donald Trumpā€™s administration on Tuesday from ending a program shielding young people brought to the United States illegally by their parents from deportation.

 

The Trump administration announced in September it would rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a decision that was challenged in multiple federal courts by a variety of Democratic state attorneys general, organizations and individuals.

 

U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled in San Francisco on Tuesday the program must remain in place while the litigation is resolved. The ruling could complicate negotiations between Trump and congressional leaders over immigration reform.

 

ā€œTodayā€™s order doesnā€™t change the Department of Justiceā€™s position on the facts,ā€ said the departmentā€™s spokesman Devin M. Oā€™Malley. The department ā€œwill continue to vigorously defend this position,ā€ he said.

 

Alsupā€™s decision follows a number of rulings by other U.S. judges seeking to rein in Trumpā€™s immigration policies, including decisions that limited administration moves against sanctuary cities and narrowed the scope of a ban against travel from some Muslim-majority counties.

 

Nearly 700,000 young people, known as Dreamers, were protected from deportation and allowed to work legally under the DACA program as of September 2017, Alsupā€™s ruling said.

 

Alsup ruled that the federal government did not have to process new applications from people who had never before received protection under the program. However, he ordered the government to continue processing renewal applications from people who had previously been covered.

 

ā€œDACA gave them a more tolerable set of choices, including joining the mainstream workforce,ā€ Alsup wrote. ā€œNow, absent an injunction, they will slide back to the pre-DACA era and associated hardship.ā€

 

The plaintiffs were likely to succeed in arguing that the governmentā€™s decision to end DACA was arbitrary, Alsup ruled.

 

POSSIBLE LEGISLATION

 

Mark Rosenbaum, an attorney for Public Counsel, which represents six DACA recipients in the case, applauded the ruling. ā€œThese young people played by all the rules. They demonstrated they are no threat,ā€ he said.

 

Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, which backs stricter immigration laws, dismissed the significance of the courtā€™s action, calling it ā€œan aberration that surely will not be allowed to stand as it is appealed.ā€

 

The ruling comes as Trump and U.S. congressional leaders are trying to hammer out immigration reforms, including whether and how to extend protections to young people who were covered by DACA.

 

Trump met lawmakers on Tuesday and said he would back a two-phased approach to overhauling U.S. immigration laws.

 

The first step would focus on protecting Dreamers from deportation, along with funding for a wall and other restrictions that Democrats have opposed.

 

Trump said he then favors moving quickly to address even more contentious issues, including a possible pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants that is opposed by many Republicans and many of his supporters.

 

A representative for the White House could not be reached immediately after the ruling.

 

Trump ran on a hardline immigration platform during the 2016 presidential election, promising to end DACA and strengthen border protections to increase jobs for U.S. workers.

 

Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us, which advocates for protections for Dreamers, lamented on Twitter the continuing uncertainty for DACA recipients if Alsupā€™s ruling is appealed.

 

ā€œThis makes it MORE urgent for Congress to act and end this chaos,ā€ he wrote.

 

Reporting by Dan Levine; Additional reporting by Mica Rosenberg and Richard Cowan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Sue Horton and Paul Tait

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 1:30 p.m. No.162523   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>3422

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

 

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/spokesman-senior-hamas-official-shot-in-the-head-533232

 

Spokesman: Senior Hamas official shot in the head(JPost.com)

 

Senior Hamas official Imad al-Alami was shot in the head on Tuesday ā€œwhile examining his personal weapon in his home,ā€ Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said.

Alami, also known as Abu Hamam, is regarded as a hard-liner and a supporter of Hamasā€™s ties with Iran.

Health Ministry spokesman in Gaza, Ashraf al-Qidra, said Alami was admitted to intensive care at Gaza Cityā€™s Al-Shifa Hospital and described his condition as ā€œcritical.ā€

On Tuesday afternoon, Senior Hamas officials, including Hamas Politburo Chairman Ismail Haniyeh and Hamas Chief in Gaza Yahya Sinwar, visited Alami in the hospital, Gaza-based media reported.

Alami, a civil engineer by training, has been a Hamas member since the late 1980s and was the first Hamas representative in Tehran.

In 2012, he returned to Gaza after spending a number of years outside of the Palestinian territories.

The following year, Alami was elected as deputy Hamas chief in Gaza, a position that he held until early 2017.

During the 2014 Gaza War, one of the senior Hamas officialā€™s feet was injured in an Israeli air raid, according to Hamasā€™s official website.

 

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

 

Q Drop 518

 

Link to January 9th, 2018 Q Drops https://qalerts.app/?q=Jan+09%2C+2018

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 1:51 p.m. No.162524   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>2521

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

 

Read the full transcript of the Senate Judiciary Committeeā€™s interview with Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS

Politics Jan 9, 2018 3:59 PM EDT

 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., released the full transcript Tuesday of a Senate Judiciary Committee interview with the founder of a firm behind a 2016 dossier on President Donald Trumpā€™s ties with Russia.

 

Glenn Simpson, one of the founders of Fusion GPS, the firm commissioned by Democrats to look into Trumpā€™s background in the runup to the 2016 elections, was subpoenaed by the committee to testify last year as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections. He spoke with the committee in August behind closed doors. Simpson has asked in recent weeks, as the investigations into the document on Capitol Hill have intensified, for the full transcript to be released.

 

The document was compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British spy who the committee referred to the Department of Justice last week for an investigation into whether he misled the FBI.

 

Feinstein said in a statement that ā€œthe innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public.ā€

 

The move drew criticism from Republicans, including committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who indicated a day earlier he would not release the 312-page transcript. In a statement he said the move ā€œundermines the integrity of the committeeā€™s oversight work and jeopardizes its ability to secure candid voluntary testimony relating to the independent recollections of future witnesses.ā€

 

Read the committeeā€™s full transcript of Simpsonā€™s testimony below. Read more about what we learned from the transcripthere. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/read-the-full-transcript-of-the-senate-judiciarys-interview-with-glenn-simpson-co-founder-of-fusion-gps

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 1:57 p.m. No.162525   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

 

PDJT blasts Dianne Feinstein as "sneaky" and a "disgrace" for putting out the fake and gay Glen Simpson report paid for by Hillary & DNC which started in 2015

 

>>162526

PRJT holds a bilateral meeting and joint press conference w/ Nordic Prime Minister Erna Solberg at the White House

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 2:06 p.m. No.162528   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

 

ā€“Lawyer Michael Cohen files defamation suit against Fusion GPS & Buzzfeed for publishing fake and gay "Steele Dossier".

Tom ID: 6f12f3 May 19, 2023, 2:26 p.m. No.162531   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Thursday, January 11th, 2018

 

Trump Administration will let states require people to work for Medicaid

 

House of Representatives approves goverment's controversial "702" wireless surveillance authority. The Senate follows suit.

Tom ID: 0e56ea May 30, 2023, 2:35 p.m. No.163181   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Saturday, January 13th, 2018

 

Missile Launch & Shoot Down of AF1, NSA alerted, Diverted to Hawaii, Defcon 1 alert/ Alert system system triggered

 

FF SHOOT DOWN ATTEMPT ON PDJT

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 10:42 p.m. No.163405   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2018

 

Biden speaking at the Council for Foreign Relations.. "Well son of a bitch..

 

https://www.youtube.com/live/Q0_AqpdwqK4?feature=share

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 10:51 p.m. No.163413   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>3414 >>6387 >>7536 >>7548

Friday, January 26th, 2018

 

First reported the Roth's BLACK FOREST estate has been sold

 

https://www-trend-at.translate.goog/wirtschaft/prinzhorn-forstwirtschaft-niederoesterreich-mio-euro-8747182?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

 

Prinzhorn buys Rothschild hunting and estates in Lower Austria(Google translate)

The Rothschilds sold vast estates in Lower Austria to Thomas Prinzhorn's family. The deal was preceded by a fierce bidding war.

Gabriela Schnabel by Gabriela Schnabel

published on 26.1.2018

Prinzhorn buys Rothschild hunting and estates in Lower Austria

The Langau forestry also includes luxurious huts with tenants such as ex-social minister Rudolf Hundstorfer and a large nature reserve.

Ā© Provided

One of the largest and best hunting areas in Austria, the 5,400 hectare forestry Langau near Gaming in Lower Austria has changed hands. Both sellers and buyers are prominent. The lands were ceded by the siblings Geoffrey R. Hoguet and Nancy Clarice Tilghman, who live in the USA and whose mother Gwendoline Hoguet was born Rothschild.

The holding company of the paper industrialist Thomas Prinzhorn and the Neuhaus forestry administration, whose managing director is Cord Prinzhorn, the CEO of the family-owned paper and packaging group, were awarded the contract for the large property for an impressive 90 million euros.

bidding competition

The deal was preceded by hard chugging. The Zillertal entrepreneur Heinz Schultz, whose Schultz Group is one of the largest cable car operators and providers of winter tourism in Austria, was also extremely interested in the attractive forest area. He narrowly lost. In the end, the purchase price was probably the deciding factor, as both the Lower Austrian governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner and her deputy Stephan Pernkopf supported the commitment of the Zillertaler to the best of their ability.

 

The Schultz Group had almost sealed the deal including the exclusive contract. Entrepreneur Heinz Schultz had undertaken to act sustainably and prevent the forest districts from being split up. The fact that this could look different under the leadership of the Prinzhorn Group is feared in neighboring circles and residents around Gaming. An assumption that Cord Prinzhorn tries to refute in relation to the trend: "We are a family business and have a long-term view of our development. A forestry company like this is closely linked to our value chain via the natural fiber wood and culturally fits in well with our group."

Prominent tenants

The huge area is not only interesting for the Prinzhorn group because of the 30,000 solid cubic meters of wood that are felled each year. The purchase package also includes the hunting grounds Neuhaus (2,029 hectares), HolzhĆ¼ttenboden (2,147 hectares) and the Alpl (1,274 hectares) with 500 red, roe deer, chamois and capercaillie. In addition, there is the "Hintere Oiswald", one of the largest natural forest reserves in Austria and part of a network for the protection and promotion of biodiversity.

In the midst of this idyll there are also pretty properties in Lunz am See and 30 luxury properties including a hunting lodge. The prominent tenants of the exquisite hunting lodges include banker Erich Hampel and the former Social Affairs Minister Rudolf Hundstorfer. The property also includes two hydroelectric power plants and the power grid for the communities of Neuhaus and HolzhĆ¼ttenboden, plus large sources of drinking water.

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 10:53 p.m. No.163414   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

FRIDAY, January 26th, 2018

 

https://www.youtube.com/live/rGfikUfwnbE?feature=share

 

President Donald Trump Delivers Special Address From Davos 2018 ā€” Friday, Jan. 26, 2018 | CNBC

 

FRIDAY, January 26th, 2018

 

Q Drops 610 - 611

 

Link to January 26th, 2018 Q Drops: https://qalerts.app/?q=Jan+26%2C+2018

 

RE: Why the Roths sold their Black Forest Mansion: PDJT signing: Executive Order Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption December 20/21, 2017 (( >>159014 2017 Timeline Bread)) (Roths sell their Black Forest Mansion: >>163413 )

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 11:01 p.m. No.163421   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7546 >>7548

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

 

President Trump speaks at his first State of the Union showed the TREASONOUS congress members (some, not all) did not applaud, or walked out even.. one female (older) was shown to be texting someone saying "someone should shoot Trump".. [EVIL, TREASON]

 

https://www.youtube.com/live/ATFwMO9CebA?feature=share

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 11:03 p.m. No.163422   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7884 >>8068

>>162523

 

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

 

https://nypost.com/2018/01/30/hamas-co-founder-dies-after-accidentally-shooting-himself-in-head/

 

Hamas co-founder dies after ā€˜accidentallyā€™ shooting himself in head(NYPost.com)

 

One of the founders of Hamas died Tuesday ā€” weeks after ā€œaccidentallyā€ shooting himself in the head, according to reports.

 

Imad al-Alami, 62, was ā€œexamining his personal weapon in his homeā€ when it inadvertently went off in his face on Jan. 9, the militant Palestinian group says.

 

He was rushed to Gaza Cityā€™s Shifa Hospital in critical condition. Al-Alami remained there ā€” on life support ā€” until his death Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post reports.

 

While rumors swirled about whether the senior Hamas official committed suicide or was murdered, a group spokesperson insisted that the shooting was an accident.

 

Al-Alamiā€™s death was first reported by the Hamas-linked website, al-Rai.

 

Tuesday, January 30th, 2018

 

Q Drops 646 (James Perry Barlow warned he was going to be taken out)

 

Link to January 29th, 2018 Q Drops: https://qalerts.app/?q=Jan+30%2C+2018

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 11:14 p.m. No.163427   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

Wednesday, January 31st, 2018

 

Adam Schiff and the hour by hour actions/replies between Q & Adam Schiff, and the Standard Hotel General Manager dying on a helicopter, Schiff Tweet, and Q drops.. by the hour.

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 11:14 p.m. No.163428   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

Wednesday, January 31st, 2018

 

Adam Schiff and the hour by hour actions/replies between Q & Adam Schiff, and the Standard Hotel General Manager dying on a helicopter, Schiff Tweet, and Q drops.. by the hour.

Tom ID: 0e56ea June 4, 2023, 11:15 p.m. No.163429   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7529

>>163424 ((Drop 651))

 

Wednesday, January 31st, 2018

 

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/31/582126343/train-carrying-gop-lawmakers-hits-garbage-truck-in-virginia

 

Train Carrying GOP Lawmakers Hits Garbage Truck In Virginia((NPR.org))

 

Brett NeelyJanuary 31, 201812:15 PM ET

 

A chartered train carrying dozens of GOP lawmakers to a Republican retreat in West Virginia struck a garbage truck near Charlottesville, Va., on Wednesday, lawmakers said. This photo provided by Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., shows the crash site on Wednesday.

Rep. Greg Walden via AP

Updated at 1:15 a.m. ET Thursday

 

An Amtrak train carrying House and Senate Republicans to their annual retreat in West Virginia struck a garbage truck Wednesday morning near Charlottesville, Va.

 

At least one person was killed, according to a statement released by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

 

The University of Virginia Medical Center had this update on the injured on Wednesday evening: "One patient is in critical condition, one patient is in good condition, three patients are being evaluated, and one patient has been discharged."

 

President Trump said he spoke with House Speaker Paul Ryan. "The train accident was a tough one, a tremendous jolt," Trump told reporters. "We don't have a full understanding yet as to what happened. But it was a train hitting a truck going at a pretty, pretty good speed. And we'll have a full report as to what it looks like the driver of the truck was killed."

 

The Associated Press reports the man who died in the crash was a passenger in the truck. The driver and another passenger were seriously injured.

 

Sponsor Message

 

In a statement, Amtrak said the train "came into contact with a truck that was on the tracks at 11:20 a.m. in Crozet, Va." It said two Amtrak crew members and three passengers were transported to a local hospital with what were described as minor injuries. It said the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

 

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN that he was on the train near the front and got off to help. He said there was a person who "was deceased" and another person who was "pretty bad off." Flake added, "I hope he survives."

 

Flake said another person wasn't as seriously injured and was able to walk to the ambulance.

 

Flake said he was not sure whether those injured or killed were in the cab of the truck or were holding onto the back.

 

 

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician, tweeted that he helped tend to the patients until emergency medical technicians showed up.

 

 

"We're fine, but our train hit a garbage truck," wrote Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon. "Members with medical training are assisting the drivers of the truck."

 

The Republican lawmakers were headed to the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., for a three-day strategy retreat focused on their policy agenda and this year's midterms. They are scheduled to hear from Vice President Pence on Wednesday evening followed by a speech from Trump on Thursday.

 

After the crash, the train returned to Charlottesville, Va., and lawmakers boarded buses to continue their journey.

 

 

Ryan, R-Wis., tweeted the accident was "a terrible tragedy," adding, "we pray for the victims and their families."

 

The Congressional Institute, which is sponsor of the retreat, said it will proceed with an adjusted program. "Our thoughts and prayers are with those impacted by today's incident."

 

The institute said the program will now include a moment of prayer for those involved in the accident and a security briefing from the sergeant-at-arms and the Capitol Police.

Tom ID: 025da2 July 14, 2023, 9:44 p.m. No.166387   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7536 >>7548

>>163413

 

Wednesday, January 31st, 2018

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-31/rothschilds-sell-austrian-hunting-estate-in-a-historic-deal#xj4y7vzkg

 

Rothschilds Sell Austrian Hunting Estate in a ā€˜Historicā€™ Deal(BLOOMBERG.COM)

Banking heirs sell 5,400-hectare property to Prinzhorn family

Broker said buyers promised to develop estateā€™s forestry

 

((NOW YOU KNOW WHY THEY ALL WENT TO SUBSCRIPTIONS AND PAYWALLS.. KEEPS THE TRUTH OUT OF THE PEOPLE'S GRASPā€¦ UNLESS YOU WANT TO PAY THEM.. [GATEKEEPERS] ))

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 8:36 p.m. No.167531   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/timeline-house-intelligence-committee-chairman-all-nunes-thats-fit-print

 

Intelligence Committee Chairman: All the Nunes Thatā€™s Fit to Print (LawFare)

 

(Photo: Flickr/Latvian Foreign Ministry)

The furor over the classified memo prepared by House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes has reached a fever pitch now that the memo has been released. The memo has become a matter of great partisan contention in recent weeksā€•as has the congressman behind it. But this is not the first time that Nunes's behavior has been called into question. Rather, this caps more than a year of unusual behavior from himā€”behavior that caused consternation from his colleagues in both parties, as well as the intelligence community.

 

We thought it would be useful to list that behavior all in one place. So we put together a timeline.

 

PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!

 

Nunes served relatively quietly on the Trump transition team, first drawing attention for comments and behavior that cast doubt on the impartiality of his committeeā€™s Russia probe. In the spring of 2017, following the president accusation that Trump had been wiretapped by the previous administration, Nunes held a series of unusual press conferences in which he expressed concern over improper ā€œunmaskingā€ of Trump transition officials. After reporters discovered that Nunes had received from the White House the ā€œunmaskingā€ information on which he claimed to have briefed the president, Democrats and watchdogs organizations raised concerns over Nunesā€™s leadership that forced him to informally recuse himself from the House intelligence committeeā€™s Russia investigation. Nunes recused himself from the HPSCI probe pending a House ethics investigation, which cleared him in December 2017.

 

Nunes returned to the public eye in mid-January 2018, when he announced that his staff had prepared a classified memo documenting alleged government abuses of surveillance authority. Pursuant to a procedure detailed in House rules, the memo was released to the public following signoff from the intelligence committee Republicans and the president. Committee Democrats, led by Ranking Member Adam Schiff, have repeatedly expressed their concerns over the memoā€™s veracity and described it as ā€œhighly distorted spin.ā€ The FBI has also expressed concern ā€œabout material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memoā€™s accuracy.ā€

 

Below is a timeline of Nunesā€™s actions regarding the Russia investigation, as well as possible abuse by law enforcement and intelligence officials in that connection. The statements come from reports in major news organizations, press conferences and releases by Nunes himself.

 

Nov. 11, 2016: Nunes announces his appointment to the Trump transition team, advising on the appointments of cabinet members and other administration leadership.

 

Feb. 27, 2017: The Guardian reports on evidence that Michael Flynn had communicated with Russian ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak. In response, Nunes gives a statement to reporters saying:

 

As of right now, I donā€™t have any evidence of any phone calls ā€¦ That doesnā€™t mean they donā€™t exist, but I donā€™t have that. And what Iā€™ve been told by many folks is that thereā€™s nothing there ā€¦ I want to be very careful that we canā€™t just go on a witch-hunt against Americans because they appear in news stories.

 

In response to Nunesā€™s statement, Schiff gives a counter-press conference criticizing Nunes for disclosing information: ā€œWhen you begin an investigation, you donā€™t begin by stating what you believe to be the conclusion.ā€

 

March 4, 2017: Trump posts a series of tweets alleging surveillance of his communications by the previous administration:

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 8:56 p.m. No.167533   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

Release of Nunes Memo reveals for first time that Fusion GPS political Opposition research (Paid for by Hillary for America/DNC) was used to justify the Carter Page wiretap along with Michael Isikoff Yahoo News article based on the same opposition research

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 9:16 p.m. No.167535   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

[THEY] cause Stock Market to tank ā€œ666ā€ points

 

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/02/582809604/dow-plummets-more-550-points#:~:text=The%20Dow%20closed%20at%2025%2C520.96,weekly%20performance%20in%20two%20years.

 

Dow Drops 666 Points In Sharp Sell-Off((NPR.ORG))

Avie Schneider3-Minute Listen

 

Traders at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 666 points amid signs that interest rates are heading higher.

Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Updated at 6:01 p.m. ET

 

Major stock indexes dropped sharply Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average tumbling 666 points amid signs that wage growth is finally picking up.

 

The 2.6 percent drop in the Dow came as the Labor Department reported that 200,000 jobs were added to the economy last month, which was stronger than expected, and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1 percent ā€” the lowest since 2000.

 

But worries about inflation grew when the report showed that average hourly wages grew 2.9 percent from a year ago ā€” the largest increase since June 2009. Yields for 10-year Treasurys hit four-year highs Friday.

 

All this sets the stage for the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates, with the next hike expected in March. That would make credit cards, car loans and mortgages more expensive.

 

The Dow closed at 25,520.96, and Friday's 666-point drop was the sixth-worst ever. The index is still up more than 3 percent since the year began. But with a loss of about more than 1,000 points since Monday, it was the blue chip index's worst weekly performance in two years.

 

Among the stocks in the Dow, Apple fell 4.3 percent Friday, Exxon Mobil lost 5.1 percent, Chevron was down nearly 6 percent and Goldman Sachs dropped 4.5 percent.

 

Other major stock indexes fell about 2 percent Friday. The broader S&P 500 slid 60 points, to 2,762.13; the Nasdaq index lost 145 points, closing at 7,240.95.

 

Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust, says Friday's employment report shows the economy continues to have a lot of energy.

 

The higher wage growth and potentially higher inflation "might then lead the Federal Reserve to raise their interest rates more rapidly than the market is comfortable with," he told NPR's John Ydstie.

 

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that the wage gains have investors wondering "are we going too fast? Are we going to see more inflation? ā€¦ Then you have these big tax cuts taking effect, which means people could be spending more. The government's going to have to borrow more ā€” what's that going to mean?"

 

But, he says, "The stock market was really due to come down anyway. We have these corrections. They're normal. You can't have stocks rising at these levels all the time."

 

Sponsor Message

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 9:37 p.m. No.167536   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

>>163413, >>166387,

 

Friday, February 2nd, 2018(Article date, having hard time finding exact date it sold..)

 

https://www.mansionglobal.com/articles/rothschild-family-sells-large-austrian-hunting-estate-87753

 

Rothschild Family Sells Large Austrian Hunting Estate(mansionglobal.com)

The wooded property, known as Langau, is nearly as large as Manhattan

 

BY BECKIE STRUM

|

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 2, 2018

|

MANSION GLOBAL

 

The hunting lodge was built in the 1970s.

KLAUS BISCHOF

 

The Rothschilds have sold an Austrian hunting estate almost the size of Manhattan that the storied European banking family has owned for 143 years.

 

The 5,412-hectare parcel, known as Langau, was part of a massive swath of mountainous, densely wooded property Baron Albert von Rothschild, of the familyā€™s Austrian line, bought in the southern part of Lower Austria in 1875. He set about restoring the forests depleted by Viennese loggers while building up his own forestry and gaming enterprises, according to the Rothschild family archive.

 

Rothschild heirs Nancy Clarice Tilghman and Geoffrey R. Hoguet, who live in the United States, sold Langauā€”which includes two power plants and a grand Tyrolean-style lodgeā€”to the owners of a paper manufacturing firm, Prinzhorn Holding, in what is being heralded as a historic European land sale, Austrian brokerage Bischof Immobilien GmbH announced on Wednesday.

 

While the brokerage has not released the final sales price, Austrian media reported the Rothschild heirs sold the property for ā‚¬90 million (US$112.35 million).

 

 

The land spans over 5,400 hectares.

Klaus Bischof

Cord Prinzhorn, chief executive of the eponymous paper and packaging company, beat out a number of other bids for the wooded property, as the family intends to hold the estate for the long-term, according to Bischof Immobilien CEO Klaus Bischof, who handled the deal. An email sent to Prinzhorn Holdings was not immediately returned.

 

More:Luxury Real Estate Runs Hot and Cold in Europe

 

Mr. Bischof told Bloomberg that it was the biggest deal heā€™d closed in his 25 years in the real estate business.

 

Over the past century, world events have buffeted Langau and its ownership. Nazis confiscated the land in Lower Austria from the Rothschilds during WWII, during which the familyā€™s homes and palaces in the area were destroyed, according to the Rothschild archives.

 

Langau, the size of which is one square mile smaller than Manhattan, was kept in the family though Russian occupation, which meant they could not access the property until 1952.

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 9:49 p.m. No.167540   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7548

Friday, February 2, 2018

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/politics/trump-fbi-memo.html?action=Click&contentCollection=BreakingNews&contentID=66460495&pgtype=Homepage

 

House Republicans Release Secret Memo Accusing Russia Investigators of Bias((NYTimes.com)

 

 

0:00/1:23

THE NUNES MEMO VS. THE SCHIFF MEMO

There are now two memos agitating Washington. One from Representative Devin Nunes and one from Representative Adam B. Schiff. Feeling confused? Youā€™re not alone.

 

Itā€™s a tale of two memos. One from Republican Representative Devin Nunes. And one from Democratic Representative Adam Schiff. First, the Nunes memo. In 2016, the F.B.I. and Justice Department applied for a warrant to wiretap a former Trump campaign adviser. The now declassified Nunes memo asserts that officials relied on information from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, without adequately explaining to the judge that Democrats had financed the research. Trumpā€™s allies say the Nunes memo shows that the F.B.I.ā€˜s Russia investigation was politically biased in its early stages. President Trump cleared the way for its release. Democrats, including Adam Schiff, have proposed their own currently classified memo at the same time so the public can judge both together. It apparently explains why various points in the Nunes memo are wrong or misleading. For example, sources say the information from Steele was only one thread in a tapestry of evidence from various sources that the Nunes memo ignored, exaggerating its relative importance. But Republicans made the Nunes memo public without simultaneously making the rebuttal Schiff memo public, too. It seems to be an attempt to shift focus away from the Russia investigation itself and toward what theyā€™re trying to argue is the real scandal: the investigators.

 

Video player loading

There are now two memos agitating Washington. One from Representative Devin Nunes and one from Representative Adam B. Schiff. Feeling confused? Youā€™re not alone.

By Nicholas Fandos, Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage

Feb. 2, 2018

WASHINGTON ā€” House Republicans released a politically charged memo on Friday that accused F.B.I. and Justice Department leaders of abusing their surveillance powers to spy on a former Trump campaign adviser suspected of being an agent of Russia.

 

The memo alarmed national security officials and outraged Democrats, who accused the Republicans of misrepresenting sensitive government information through omissions and inaccuracies. President Trump declassified it over the objections of the F.B.I., which had expressed ā€œgrave concernsā€ over its accuracy in a rare public break from the White House.

 

The three-and-a-half-page memo, written by Republican congressional aides, criticized information used by law enforcement officials in their application for a warrant to wiretap the former campaign adviser, Carter Page, and named the senior F.B.I. and Justice Department officials who approved the highly classified application.

 

But it fell well short of making the case promised by some Republicans: that the evidence it contained would cast doubt on the origins of the Russia investigation and possibly undermine the inquiry, which has been taken over by a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. The Page warrant is just one aspect of the broader investigation.

Instead, the document confirmed that contacts between a former Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, and Russian intermediaries were a primary factor in the opening of the investigation in July 2016.

 

The memo was outlined in news reports in recent days as Republicans pushed for its release. Several details show that it reflects a line of attack circulating for weeks in conservative news media outlets, which have been amplifying a narrative that the Russia investigation is the illegitimate handiwork of a cabal of senior Justice Department and F.B.I. officials who were biased against Mr. Trump and set out to sabotage him.

 

READ THE NUNES MEMO, ANNOTATED

A previously secret memo released on Friday claims that F.B.I. officials abused their authority and favored Democrats in the early stages of the Russia investigation. Read our reportersā€™ annotations.

 

Representative Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, portrayed the memo as recounting an ā€œalarming series of eventsā€ in which intelligence and law enforcement agencies were ā€œexploited to target one group on behalf of another.ā€

 

One of its chief accusations centers on the inclusion in the warrant application of material from a former British spy, Christopher Steele. Mr. Steele was researching possible connections between Russiaā€™s election interference and Trump associates, but the application to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge did not explain that he was partly financed by the Democratic National Committee and lawyers for Hillary Clintonā€™s presidential campaign, the memo says.

ā€œNeither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the D.N.C., Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steeleā€™s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior D.O.J. and F.B.I. officials,ā€ said the memo, which was written by committee staff members.

 

But a 10-page Democratic memo written to rebut the Republican document says that the F.B.I. was more forthcoming with the surveillance court than the Republicans say. The F.B.I. told the court that the information it received from Mr. Steele was politically motivated, though the agency did not say it was financed by Democrats, according to two people familiar with the Democratic memo.

 

Notably, the Republican memo does not assert that Mr. Steeleā€™s information was the fountainhead of the broader Russia investigation as many Republicans and conservative media commentators have insinuated.

 

By a party-line vote, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee voted to release their memo this week and rejected Democratsā€™ appeal to make public their own still-classified memo at the same time. Democrats have accused Republicans of suppressing evidence that would correct what they say are mischaracterizations.

Video

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

0:00/0:28

TRUMP ON MEMO: ā€˜A LOT OF PEOPLE SHOULD BE ASHAMEDā€™

President Trump declassified the highly controversial Republican memo on Friday, despite a plea from the F.B.I. not to release it.

 

The memo was sent to Congress. It was declassified, Congress will do whatever theyā€™re going to do. But I think itā€™s a disgrace whatā€™s happening in our country. And when you look at that, and you see that and so many other things, whatā€™s going on. A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. So I sent it over to Congress. They will do what they are going to do, whatever they do is fine. It was declassified. And letā€™s see what happens.

 

Video player loading

President Trump declassified the highly controversial Republican memo on Friday, despite a plea from the F.B.I. not to release it.CreditCreditā€¦Eric Thayer for The New York Times

ā€œThe sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the president,ā€ Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, said on Friday.

The Republican memo does not provide the full scope of evidence the F.B.I. and Justice Department used to obtain the warrant to surveil Mr. Page, and it is not clear to what extent the application hinges on the material provided by Mr. Steele. In December 2017, the Republican memo said, Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., told the House Intelligence Committee that no surveillance would have been sought without Mr. Steeleā€™s information.

 

But the people familiar with the Democratic memo said that Republicans had distorted what Mr. McCabe told the Intelligence Committee about the importance of the information from Mr. Steele. Mr. McCabe presented the material as part of a constellation of compelling evidence that raised serious suspicions about Mr. Page, the two people said. The evidence included contacts Mr. Page had in 2013 with a Russian intelligence operative.

 

Mr. Pageā€™s contacts with the Russian operative led to an investigation of Mr. Page that year, including a wiretap on him, another person familiar with the matter said.

 

Mr. McCabe told the committee that the decision to seek a warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was also prompted by Russiaā€™s attempts to target Mr. Papadopoulos, by a trip Mr. Page took to Moscow in July 2016 and by the Russian hacking of Democratic emails that appeared to be aimed at harming the Clinton campaign, the two people familiar with the Democratic memo said.

Among the handful of other details in the memo was that the application also cited a September 2016 article published by Yahoo News. It cited unnamed sources saying that government investigators were scrutinizing Mr. Pageā€™s links to Russia.

 

CONFUSED BY ALL THE NEWS ABOUT RUSSIA? WE ARE HERE TO HELP

Most of the news about Russia falls into one of three categories, which we break down.

 

Mr. Steele was later revealed to be a source for the article, and the memo suggests that law enforcement officialsā€™ inclusion of it in their warrant application means they were using the same source twice but presenting him as separate sources.

 

ā€œThis article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News,ā€ the memo said, underlining the assertion.

 

Mr. Schiff deemed this claim to be one of several serious mischaracterizations, saying the article was not used to corroborate Mr. Steeleā€™s material.

It was more likely to have been included ā€œto show that the investigation had become public, and that the target therefore might take steps to destroy evidence or cover his tracks,ā€ said David Kris, a FISA expert and former head of the Justice Departmentā€™s National Security Division in the first term of the Obama administration.

 

The Republican memo said the initial FISA warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page was approved by James B. Comey, then the F.B.I. director, and Sally Q. Yates, then the deputy attorney general, both of whom Mr. Trump later fired.

 

The warrant was renewed three times, which was required every 90 days, meaning Mr. Page was under surveillance for about a year. At various points in the renewals, other law enforcement officials who signed off included Dana J. Boente, now the general counsel of the F.B.I.; Mr. McCabe, the former F.B.I. deputy director who resigned under pressure this week; and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed Mr. Mueller as special counsel and has been a target of the presidentā€™s displeasure over the Russia inquiry.

 

Under Justice Department regulations, Mr. Rosenstein oversees Mr. Mueller and is the only person who can fire him ā€” and only if he finds that the special counsel has committed misconduct. Mr. Rosenstein has repeatedly said he would refuse any order to fire the special counsel without such a finding, and that he has seen no sign of misconduct.

Asked at the White House on Friday whether he would fire Mr. Rosenstein in light of the Republican memo ā€” a move that would enable him to put someone else in charge of Mr. Mueller ā€” Mr. Trump cocked his head suggestively and said, ā€œYou figure that one out.ā€

 

Pressed on whether he had confidence in Mr. Rosenstein, the president would not answer.

 

The Republican memo also highlights Bruce Ohr, then an associate deputy attorney general, who has been attacked in conservative news media outlets in recent weeks because his wife, Nellie Ohr, worked as a contractor with FusionGPS, the opposition research firm that hired Mr. Steele. Mr. Ohr also met with Mr. Steele himself. The memo says the Ohrsā€™ relationship with them ā€œwas inexplicably concealedā€ from the intelligence court.

 

The memo does not mention that Mr. Ohr worked on counternarcotics, not counterintelligence. It does not allege that he played any role in the Russia investigation or the wiretap application.

 

The document also notes that the FISA application mentions Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty last year to lying to the F.B.I. about his contacts with people connected to the Russian government. The memo said there is no evidence that Mr. Papadopoulos conspired with Mr. Page.

 

But Mr. Schiff said that the Justice Department was instead providing the court ā€œwith a comprehensive explanation of Russiaā€™s election interference, including evidence that Russian agents courted another Trump campaign finance adviserā€ as ā€œthe context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.ā€

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement on Friday that he would evaluate the Republicansā€™ criticism of the Justice Department.

 

ā€œI am determined that we will fully and fairly ascertain the truth,ā€ he said.

 

In a message to F.B.I. employees on Friday, Christopher A. Wray, the bureauā€™s director, said he stood behind the agencyā€™s employees.

 

ā€œYouā€™ve been through a lot in the past nine months, and I know itā€™s often been unsettling, to say the least,ā€ he said. ā€œAnd the past few days havenā€™t done much to calm those waters.ā€

Tom ID: 432482 July 30, 2023, 10:14 p.m. No.167547   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Monday, February 5th, 2018

 

https://archive.thinkprogress.org/internal-fbi-documents-show-white-house-lied-about-comey-firing-610c0c780dda/

 

Internal FBI documents show White House lied about Comey firing((archive.thinkprogress.org))

Comey was widely loved by the bureau rank-and-file, not the "grandstander" Trump claimed.

 

Feb 5, 2018, 11:53 am

When President Trump decided to fire former FBI director James Comey in May, the White House swiftly moved to damage-control mode.

 

ā€œHeā€™s a showboat. Heā€™s a grandstander,ā€ Trump told NBCā€™s Lester Holt at the time. ā€œThe FBI has been in turmoil. You know that, I know that, everybody knows that.ā€

 

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, attempting to buff up the presidentā€™s claims, said sheā€™d talked to more than 50 FBI officials and employees in the 48 hours following Comeyā€™s firing, all of whom, she said, were jubilant about the presidentā€™s decision.

 

ā€œThe president knew that Director Comey was not up the task,ā€ she said. ā€œHe wanted somebody that could bring credibility back to the FBI. That had been lost over these last several months.ā€

 

The rationale behind Trumpā€™s firing of Comey has since been widely debunked and ridiculed. Now, newly revealed internal documents from the FBI show just how far off the White House was in its claims.

 

I got more than 100 pages of internal FBI correspondence from the week of the Comey firing. It all shows one thing: the White House was lying. It also tells a fascinating story about the Bureauā€™s reaction. https://t.co/VBkVn1Kgiw

 

ā€” Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 5, 2018

 

A trove of emails was acquired over the weekend by Lawfare Blog, which had submitted four Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in June for ā€œcommunications to the workforce from senior FBI leadership regarding Comeyā€™s firing.ā€ The more than 100 pages of internal emails they got back showed that the FBIā€™s rank-and-file were shocked by the firing of a widely-respected director.

 

ā€œThe first reaction the documents reflect is simple shock, confusion and disbelief,ā€ Lawfareā€™s Nora Ellingsen, Quinta Jurecic, Sabrina McCubbin, Shannon Togawa Mercer, and Benjamin Wittes wrote. ā€œThe words ā€˜unprecedentedā€™, ā€˜tumultuousā€™, ā€˜shockā€™ and ā€˜surpriseā€™ appear in a great many of the emails.ā€

 

According to Lawfare, many members of various FBI field offices went out of their way to deliver gifts to the former director in the wake of his dismissal. The special agent in charge of the Minneapolis field office, Richard Thornton, shared an anecdote about how Comey made it a practice to thank his local law enforcement escort while traveling ā€” even in Los Angeles after finding out he had been fired.

 

ā€œYou could see him take the time to greet and speak to the motorcade escort policeā€¦ In spite of him just finding out he had been fired as the Director,ā€ Thornton wrote in one email. ā€œHe demonstrated his appreciation and respect for the FBIā€™s law enforcement partners.ā€

 

At the time, the bureau also released a rare statement from then-Acting Director Andrew McCabe about the Comey firing, in which he implored his staff to ā€œhang in there.ā€

 

ā€œAs men and women of the FBI, we are at our best when times are tough,ā€ he wrote. ā€œPlease stay focused on the mission, keep doing great work, be good to each other and we will get through this together.ā€

 

McCabe resigned last week, after being targeted by Trump and accused of political bias.

 

 

 

Together, these emails show an agency shocked and struggling to cope with the increasing politicization at the hands of Trump and House Republicans, rather than a bureau upset and demoralized by Comeyā€™s leadership, as both the president and the White House suggested in the immediate aftermath.

 

The politicization appears likely to continue in the wake of Rep. Devin Nunesā€™ (R-CA) supposedly ā€œshockingā€ intelligence memo, which was made public on Friday and alleges that the Justice Departmentā€™s ongoing Russia investigation has been tainted by political bias. Over the weekend, Republicans and the White House alike suggested that the memo ā€” which focuses on a surveillance warrant requested by the FBI to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page ā€” proved there was corruption at the highest levels of the department and that the Justice Departmentā€™s investigation was simply a witch hunt intended to undermine Trumpā€™s election victory.

 

As many on Capitol Hill and beyond have since noted, the memo fails to mention any of the underlying documents and research which led to the surveillance request. It also does not take into account the fact that Page was previously known to the FBI due to his many communications with Russian individuals over the years.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 4, 2023, 11:17 a.m. No.167787   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, February 6th, 2018

 

Q drops 674 - 676

 

BUILD THE TIMELINE

 

Carl Ghattas: Carl oversaw 3 terrorist attacks, oversaw, looked into, and or covered up for them. Also a right hand man to Comey w/ Jim Rybicki. >>156354 (( 2017 Timeline Bread ))

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20170502095156/https://www.fbi.gov/about/leadership-and-structure/fbi-executives/carl-ghattas

 

Link to February 6th, 2018 Q Drops: https://qalerts.app/?q=Feb+06%2C+2018&sortasc=1

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 4, 2023, 11:18 a.m. No.167788   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

https://www.dni.gov/nctc/groups/greek_domestic.html

 

GREEK DOMESTIC TERRORISM

17N / 17November

 

BACKGROUND

 

Greek domestic terrorism stems from radical leftist and anarchist ideologies that developed in reaction to the military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. Shortly after the dictatorshipā€™s collapse, radical leftist elements emerged to form Greeceā€™s two most notorious terrorist groups, Revolutionary Organization 17 November (17N) and Revolutionary Popular Struggle (ELA).

 

17Nā€™s first major operation was the assassination of CIA Chief of Station Richard Welch in 1975. For the next 27 years, 17N was Greeceā€™s most lethal terrorist group, killing at least 23 individuals, including four Americans. ELA appeared in 1975 and became Greeceā€™s most active terrorist organization, conducting approximately 250 attacks against a wide range of targets. ELA claimed its last operation in 1994. Following a botched attack, Greek authorities largely eliminated 17N in 2002 under pressure to stem terrorism prior to the 2004 Olympic Games.

 

A new generation of terrorist groups subsequently emerged, the three most prominent of which were Revolutionary Struggle (EA), Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei (SPF), and Sect of Revolutionaries (SE).

 

Sect of Revolutionaries (SE) flag

SECT OF REVOLUTIONARIES (SE) FLAG

EA, a radical leftist group, conducted a number of high-profile terrorist operations against Greek and Western interests after its emergence in 2003, including a rocket-propelled grenade attack against the US Embassy in Athens in January 2007. Greek authorities largely disrupted the groupā€™s operations in 2010. In mid-2012 the groupā€™s ringleader, Nikos Maziotis, and his girlfriend violated the terms of their release pending trial and disappeared. Maziotisā€”who was recaptured by Greek police in July 2014ā€”has since been linked to a number of bank robberies. In April 2014, EA claimed responsibility for a car-bombing outside the Bank of Greece in Athens to protest Greeceā€™s return to international markets, its first attack since 2009.

 

SPF, an anarchist group, claimed responsibility for a 2010 parcel bomb campaign that targeted international leaders and institutions outside Greece, a first for Greek domestic terrorists. A series of arrests from late 2010 through 2011 against the groupā€™s leadership temporarily crippled SPFā€™s operations. In June 2013, however, SPF claimed responsibility for a bomb attack against the car of the director of Korydallos prisonā€”where many domestic terrorists are currently heldā€”promising more attacks and declaring a common front with other like-minded groups and the international Informal Anarchist Federation/International Revolutionary Front. In April 2014, SPF claimed responsibility for a parcel bomb targeting a police station.

 

Radical leftist SE last acted in 2010 after a 13-month hiatus to assassinate a Greek journalist outside of his Athens home, having assassinated a Hellenic Police officer in 2009. SE has not claimed an attack since 2010.

 

Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei (SPF) flag

CONSPIRACY OF FIRE NUCLEI (SPF) FLAG

Largely unknown groups in 2012 claimed an attempt on the Athens metro using a crude incendiary device and an incendiary attack that severely damaged Microsoft offices in Athens. Attacks continued in 2013-14, including a spate of arson attacks against journalistsā€™ homes and government offices, a bombing at The Mall in Athens, violence between anarchists and the rising extreme-right party Golden Dawn, and gunmen firing on the residence of the German ambassador in Athens. Other groups active in the last year included the Group of Popular Rebels (OLA) and the Zero Tolerance Organization (ZTO).

 

NCTC seal

Tom ID: ad7a1d Aug. 5, 2023, 8:35 p.m. No.167884   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>7889 >>8068

Wednesday, February 7th, 2018

 

Q Drops 677 - 696

 

Link to February 7th, 2018 Q Drops: https://qalerts.app/?q=Feb+07%2C+2018&sortasc=1

 

>>163422 ( Tuesday, January 30th, 2018 Secure Drop Apache mentioned by Q, same day Hamas leader died from "self imposed gunshot wound to head, looks like this was a warning he would be killed, knew too much.. was a threat to the deep state and had to be eliminated )

Tom ID: ad7a1d Aug. 5, 2023, 8:48 p.m. No.167889   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>8068

>>167884 (Yesterday, Feb 7th, 2018 Q brought up JPB, today he is dead)

 

Thursday, February 8th, 2018

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/obituaries/john-perry-barlow-internet-champion-dies.html

 

John Perry Barlow, 70, Dies; Championed an Unfettered Internet(NYTimes.com)

Feb. 8, 2018

John Perry Barlow during a forum on the internet’s impact on society, held at New York University in 2014.

John Perry Barlow during a forum on the internetā€™s impact on society, held at New York University in 2014.Richard Drew/Associated Press

John Perry Barlow, a former cowpoke, Republican politician and lyricist for the Grateful Dead whose affinity for wide open spaces and free expression transformed him into a leading defender of an unfettered internet, died on Wednesday at his home in San Francisco. He was 70.

 

His death was confirmed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which he helped found in San Francisco in 1990. No cause was given, but the organization said he had been ailing after a heart attack in 2015.

 

At his death, Mr. Barlow was a vice chairman of the foundation, which has been in the vanguard of legal challenges to government constraints on cyberspace ā€” a term he helped popularize in 1990 to describe boundless digital telecommunications networks.

 

ā€œThere are a lot of similarities between cyberspace and open space,ā€ Mr. Barlow, who was raised on his familyā€™s 22,000-acre cattle ranch in Wyoming, told People magazine in 1995. ā€œThere is a lot of room to define yourself. You can literally make yourself up.ā€

 

His plea for an open internet was inspired, in part, by the Grateful Deadā€™s uncommon practice of welcoming audiences to record the bandā€™s concerts.

 

Lawyers recruited or supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation were instrumental in winning court rulings that granted electronic mail the same privacy protection as telephone calls, and that defined written software code as free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.

 

The foundation was formed by Mr. Barlow; Mitchell Kapor, the former president of Lotus Development Corporation; and John Gilmore, one of the first employees of Sun Microsystems.

 

In 1995, Mr. Kapor called Mr. Barlow ā€œthe uncrowned poet laureate of cyberspace.ā€

 

Cindy Cohn, the foundationā€™s executive director, said in a statement that Mr. Barlow ā€œwas sometimes held up as a straw man for a kind of naĆÆve techno-utopianism that believed that the internet could solve all of humanityā€™s problems without causing any more.ā€

 

But his ā€œlasting legacy,ā€ she said, ā€œis that he devoted his life to making the internet into ā€˜a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.ā€™ ā€

 

More than a defender of the internet, Mr. Barlow had many guises in an uneven evolution from an only child whose nearest neighbor lived four miles away to a corporate consultant and citizen of the world.

 

Mr. Barlow spoke at a 2012 rally in Manhattan against proposed internet anti-piracy legislation that opponents said would infringe on online freedom of speech. The legislation never passed.

Mr. Barlow spoke at a 2012 rally in Manhattan against proposed internet anti-piracy legislation that opponents said would infringe on online freedom of speech. The legislation never passed.Michael Appleton for The New York Times

From around 1971 until the Grateful Dead disbanded after the founding member Jerry Garciaā€™s death in 1995 (though the group periodically reunited in different configurations and under different names for many years after, and performed what were billed as its last concerts in 2015), he wrote lyrics for such well-known songs as ā€œEstimated Prophet,ā€ ā€œCassidy,ā€ ā€œThe Music Never Stopped,ā€ ā€œMexicali Bluesā€ and ā€œHell in a Bucket.ā€

 

He contributed to some 30 Grateful Dead songs in all, many with the guitarist and singer Bob Weir, a founding member, and others with the keyboardists Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick, who were later additions to the group.

 

Mr. Barlow said he had decided to try his hand at writing lyrics mostly to attract women. ā€œI thought it was a misuse of the holy gift of poetry,ā€ he said. ā€œThen I realized, this is what poetry has always been for.ā€

 

He was born on Oct. 3, 1947, in northwestern Wyoming, near Pinedale, on a ranch that a great-uncle had started in 1907. His parents were Norman Barlow, a Republican state legislator, and the former Miriam Jenkins.

 

John attended a one-room elementary school. Brought up in the Mormon faith, he was barred from watching television until he was in the sixth grade.

 

As a rambunctious teenager prone to discipline and academic lapses, he was dispatched by his parents to Fountain Valley School in Colorado. He described it as ā€œa great place for people who are intelligent and intractable.ā€

 

He forged a lifelong friendship there with Mr. Weir, a guitar-toting fellow student who would found the Grateful Dead with Mr. Garcia and others in 1965.

 

As a student at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Mr. Barlow took LSD trips with the Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary in Millbrook, N.Y., where Dr. Leary and others were living in a grand Georgian house. He graduated in 1969 with a degree in comparative religion.

 

Passing up an opportunity to attend Harvard Law School, Mr. Barlow embarked instead on a journey to India and other destinations to complete a novel, which was never published.

 

A memoir, ā€œMother American Night: My Life in Crazy Times,ā€ which Mr. Barlow wrote with Robert Greenfield, is to be published this year.

 

Mr. Barlow joined the Grateful Dead as a nonresident lyricist in the early 1970s. In 1972, after his father died, he returned to Wyoming to manage the familyā€™s debt-ridden ranch, the Bar Cross Land & Livestock Company. (Jaqueline Onassis sent John F. Kennedy Jr. to work as a wrangler there in 1978.) Mr. Barlow remained there for almost 20 years while continuing to contribute lyrics to the Grateful Dead.

 

Mr. Barlow in 1996, a year after the Grateful Dead disbanded. He wrote lyrics for about 30 of the bandā€™s songs.

Mr. Barlow in 1996, a year after the Grateful Dead disbanded. He wrote lyrics for about 30 of the bandā€™s songs.Tom LaPoint/Albany Times Union, via Associated Press

In Wyoming, he was chairman of the Sublette County Republican Party for a time and a coordinator for the 1978 congressional campaign of Dick Cheney, whose conservative politics Mr. Barlow later disavowed.

 

His 1977 marriage to Elaine Parker ended in divorce. In 1994 his fiancƩ, Dr. Cynthia Horner, died suddenly. His survivors include three daughters, Amelia, Anna and Leah, and a granddaughter.

 

When Mr. Barlow turned 30, he drew up what he called 25 ā€œPrinciples of Adult Behavior.ā€ No. 15 was ā€œAvoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.ā€

 

His preoccupation with the internet dated from the mid-1980s, when he began using a computer to manage the ranchā€™s finances. In 1986 he became a director of the WELL (the initials stand for Whole Earth ā€™Lectronic Link), an online community that drew members from the worlds of music, publishing and technology.

 

ā€œOn the WELL, he is the No. 1 digital Deadhead, equal parts beat poet and P. T. Barnum,ā€ Craig Bromberg wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 1991.

 

Mr. Barlow, an emeritus fellow of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, was also a founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation in San Francisco, which promotes adversarial reporting and internet advocacy. The foundationā€™s president is Edward Snowden, the former government intelligence analyst who leaked secret documents to journalists in 2013.

 

Yet for all Mr. Barlowā€™s internet advocacy, there were limits to his own internet use. He came to complain about feeling ā€œconstantly oppressed by all of the beeping and buzzing and whiningā€ of computers, and by ā€œdiscussion groups on the net, which I found very easy to leave once the signal-to-noise ratio deteriorated to the point where I didnā€™t dig it any more.ā€

 

Still, in 1996 he issued a declaration of independence for ā€” not from ā€” the internet.

 

It proclaimed: ā€œGovernments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone.ā€

 

He championed not only a right to speak freely on the web but also what he called ā€œa right to knowā€ all the information that it offers. And he endorsed the creation of communities through encounters in cyberspace.

 

But he warned against ā€œthe modern plague of boredom,ā€ which he attributed to societyā€™s desire to homogenize human experience, from fast food to television.

 

ā€œI remember one of the few truly Buddhist things that my very non-Buddhist Wyoming mother said to me when I was little,ā€ he told the social theorist bell hooks in 1995 on lionsroar .com, a Buddhist website. ā€œIā€™d complain about being bored and sheā€™d say, ā€˜Anyone whoā€™s bored isnā€™t paying close enough attention.ā€™ ā€

 

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 9, 2018, Section B, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: John Perry Barlow, 70, Champion of an Open Internet, Dies. Order Reprints | Todayā€™s Paper | Subscribe

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Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 6:13 p.m. No.168033   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, February 13th, 2018

 

Trump personal lawyer says he paid Stormy Daniels with his own money(Politico.com)

 

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/13/stormy-daniels-michael-cohen-407913

 

Michael Cohen is pictured. | AP Photo

He added: ā€œJust because something isnā€™t true doesnā€™t mean that it canā€™t cause you harm or damage. I will always protect Mr. Trump.ā€

 

Cohenā€™s statement was first shared with The New York Times.

 

The Wall Street Journal first reported last month that Clifford, who performs under the name Stormy Daniels, was paid before the 2016 election as part of a nondisclosure agreement to cover up an alleged affair with Trump.

 

The watch dog group Common Cause filed a complaint following the report, saying that the payment was an in-kind donation to Trumpā€™s presidential campaign that should have been publicly disclosed in its official reports.

 

ā€œThe complaint alleges that I somehow violated campaign finance laws by facilitating an excess, in-kind contribution,ā€ Cohen said. ā€œThe allegations in the complaint are factually unsupported and without legal merit, and my counsel has submitted a responseā€ to the Federal Election Commission.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 6:19 p.m. No.168038   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>9461

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

 

Threat to Durham and the Q Team/President Trump

 

17 killed in mass shooting at high school in Parkland, Florida

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n848101

 

Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, is charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

 

Feb. 14, 2018, 3:18 PM EST / Updated Feb. 15, 2018, 10:20 AM EST

Image:

The teen gunman accused of opening fire with a semi-automatic rifle at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, officials said Thursday.

 

Authorities said the suspect, identified as 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, concealed himself in the crowd fleeing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following the massacre on Wednesday afternoon. He was arrested in nearby Coral Springs.

 

Related: These are the 17 victims of the Parkland school shooting

 

Fourteen others were wounded, five with life-threatening injuries, hospital officials said.

 

Cruz had recently been expelled from Douglas for disciplinary reasons and was enrolled elsewhere in the district, the schools superintendent in Broward County, Robert Runcie, said. Cruz took an Uber to the Douglas campus on Wednesday, Runcie told NBC News.

 

What We Know:

 

17 people were killed and another 14 were wounded.

Suspect identified as Nikolas Cruz, who has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. He may appear in court Thursday.

Cruz, 19, was believed to have used an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.

Broward County Sheriff's Office set to hold a news conference at 10:30 a.m. ET Thursday.

A YouTube user named "Nikolas Cruz" reportedly posted "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" on the site.

President Donald Trump has tweeted that there were "many signs the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed." He will address the nation at 11 a.m. ET.

The gunman was believed to have been armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle and multiple magazines, said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. It was unclear whether he had any other weapons, Israel said.

 

There was no indication that the gunman had an accomplice or accomplices, federal and local authorities said.

 

Cruz was taken into custody off campus about an hour after he "committed this horrific, detestable act," said Israel, who added investigators were reviewing social media postings that he described as "very disturbing." The suspect was treated for "labored breathing" as a precaution but was later released from the hospital, according to officials.

 

"You come to the conclusion this is just absolutely pure evil," said Florida Gov. Rick Scott, his hands clutched over his chest.

 

The FBI was alerted six months ago after a YouTube user named "Nikolas Cruz" posted a comment stating "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" on the video site, BuzzFeed reported early Thursday.

 

Cruz's mother died in early November and he had been staying with a local family ā€” whose son is a junior at Douglas, the family's attorney told NBC Miami.

 

"He lived here without any concerns or issues for almost three months, and they are shocked and horrified by the allegations being made," the lawyer, Jim Lewis, said, adding that his clients are fully cooperating with investigators.

 

Related: Florida shooting leaves families distraught

 

The general store chain Dollar Tree confirmed that Cruz had worked at its Parkland branch.

 

The gunfire began outside the school and continued inside, where 12 of the victims were killed, Israel said.

 

All of those victims have been identified, he said, but no identities will be made public until the families have been notified.

 

Brandon Minoff, a senior at the school who said he had two classes with Cruz two years ago, said that while it was "surreal" to hear Cruz named as the suspect, "I wasn't surprised."

 

"I got paired with him for a project, and he started talking to me about his life ā€” how he was held back twice, expelled from two private schools. He likes to do reckless stuff," Minoff said.

 

"He had aspirations to join the military," Minoff said. "He enjoyed hunting."

 

Sebastian Toala, another senior, told NBC Miami: "I never really got close to him, because I always had a feeling there was something wrong."

 

Parkland, in north Broward County, is about 30 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale. The shooting on the sprawling campus happened despite the presence of police officers at the school.

 

Runcie, the school superintendent, said at least two police cars were typically on campus "on a daily basis."

 

While students filed out of the school with their hands up, heavily armed SWAT team members conducted a class-by-class search to make sure there were "no other shooters" ā€” and to retrieve any bodies, he said.

 

"This is a terrible day for Broward County, the state of Florida, the United States," Israel said. "There really are no words."

 

The first sign that something awful was happening Wednesday came around 2:30 p.m., not long before classes were supposed to have been dismissed, when authorities were called to respond to an active shooter.

 

For more than an hour, the school was at the mercy of a gunman on the loose.

 

"He was outside and inside the school," Israel said.

 

Just after 4 p.m., the Broward County Sheriff's Office announced on Twitter that the suspect had been apprehended. Not long after, stunned survivors began sharing their accounts of what happened.

 

Several students told NBC News that the school had gone through a fire drill earlier in the day. They said the fire alarm sounded again just before the shots were heard.

 

Relieved parents like Lisette Rozenblet, whose daughter attends the school, also said she was told that a fire alarm was pulled about the time the shots began. But her daughter's teacher, sensing that it might be a trap, told the students to stay in the classroom, she said.

 

"Her biggest fear is a school shooting," Rozenblet said of her daughter. "She is always begging me to be home-schooled because she was scared of this."

 

Joel Leffler, whose son and daughter attend the school, said both of his kids were safe ā€” but in shock.

 

"My son called me as it was unfolding, running. He had to jump a fence," Leffler said. "My son heard around eight gun shots as he was running out."

 

When he reached his daughter by phone, she was whispering, he said.

 

"My daughter, who was there in the freshman hall where the shooting took place ā€” she's in shock right now, and she's being taken out by SWAT," Leffler said. "She saw multiple dead bodies."

 

Image: Parkland, Florida, school shooting

Parents wait for news after reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday.Joel Auerbach / AP

President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday that there were "many signs the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed." He was scheduled to address the nation Thursday at 11 a.m. ET.

 

Scott, a Republican whom the National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund gave an "A+" rating, didn't directly answer reporters' questions Wednesday about how the gunman was able to obtain a semi-automatic rifle.

 

"There is a time to continue to have these conversations about how, through law enforcement, how through mental illness funding, to keep people safe, and we'll continue to do that," the governor said.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 6:30 p.m. No.168039   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

 

Q Drops 755 - 759

 

Q calls out the fact that mysteriously None of the USUAL SUSPECTS have spoken out against the shooting or for the healing of the those who were effected.

 

17 killed.. threat to Durham, which in 2 days is confirmed US Attorney by US Senate, PDJT, & Q Team

 

Link to February 14th, 2018 Q Drops: https://qalerts.app/?q=Feb+14%2C+2018+&sortasc=1

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 8:38 p.m. No.168068   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>9461

Thursday, February 15th, 2018

 

Q Drops 760 - 779

 

Hillary ReTweets someone after Q brought up that none of them had said anything after the shooting

 

James Perry Barlow warned, then taken out by Deep State, Q brings him up day later, then warns ES Eric Snowden he is next if he doesnt pull his head out of his ass >>163422, >>167884, >>167889,

 

Q talks about how shooters are scouted out, broken with big pharma drugs, from china, and through cell/social media controlled to do things (like school shootings) as they are controlled and not in control of their actions

 

Link to February 15th, 2018 Q Drops: https://qalerts.app/?q=Feb+15%2C+2018+&sortasc=1

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 9:33 p.m. No.168072   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>9461

Friday, February 16, 2018

 

The 2 days before Durham is officially confirmed as US Attorney by the US Senate, Parkland School Shooting happened.. these people ARE sick!

 

You will see Hillary finally comes out from the lower levels of Jeffery's Pedo Island, and after Q posts to the board they had been silent.. to deflect from current habbenings, mainly this FF shooting was going to be used for YEARS to change narrative. It was a way to amplify their narrative, anti-gun, anti-Trump and try to use it against their impending doom.. buy time/sneak out of the Uranium 1 scandal.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 9:46 p.m. No.168073   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>8080

Friday, February 16, 2018

 

Document: Special Counsel Indicts 13 Russian Nationals and 3 Entities on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.

 

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-russian-individuals-and-three-russian-companies-scheme-interfere

 

To kick up Muh Russia language/news feed "hype", Mueller indicts "13" Russians, and 3 Russian companies. Remember, they are fighting for their lives.. any news against Russia can be used against 45 in the media lies

 

NO ONE that Mueller indicts is anyone connected to the OG "Muh Russia" collusion witch hunt.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 9:51 p.m. No.168077   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>9461

Friday, February 16, 2018

 

WOW.. so much going on, Deep State working in overtime to kick up as much headline negativity as they could, all while Patriots march ahead, w/ Durham and Uranium 1 coming down on their heads. Notice (2) sex scandals for PDJT in same week??!? These people are stupid.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 10:02 p.m. No.168078   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Friday, February. 16, 2018

 

Karen McDougal Describes Alleged Affair With Trump in New Yorker Article(NYTimes.com)

 

 

Feb. 16, 2018

A woman who says that she and President Trump had an affair over a decade ago offered new details about the alleged relationship and an effort to buy her public silence.

 

A Friday report published by The New Yorker describes how a tabloid publisher may have moved to ā€œcatch and killā€ the story and pay off the woman, Karen McDougal, as Mr. Trumpā€™s candidacy gained momentum.

 

Ms. McDougal, a former Playboy model, wrote an eight-page note, obtained by The New Yorker, describing the relationship, which allegedly began in 2006, while Mr. Trump was married to his current wife, Melania Trump, and lasted about nine months. Ms. McDougal said she regretted signing a contract with American Media Inc., the publisher of The National Enquirer, for the rights to her story.

 

ā€œI feel let down,ā€ Ms. McDougal told The New Yorker. ā€œIā€™m the one who took it, so itā€™s my fault, too. But I didnā€™t understand the full parameters of it.ā€

The publisherā€™s $150,000 payment to Ms. McDougal was reported by The Wall Street Journal just days before the 2016 election, but the Friday report sheds new light on the deal-making process, which Ms. McDougal and those close to her described as exploitative.

 

Former American Media employees told The New Yorker that the companyā€™s chairman and chief executive, David Pecker, who is close with Mr. Trump, routinely bought stories with no intention of running them, sometimes using the pieces as leverage.

 

The company denied the practice in a statement, referring to the author of the New Yorker piece by name.

 

ā€œThe New Yorker and Ronan Farrowā€™s suggestion that AMI engages in any practice that would allow it to hold influence over the President of the United States is laughable,ā€ it said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Ms. McDougal, a Republican, told The New Yorker that she was at first reluctant to share her story with the tabloid, but that she decided to proceed in 2016 after a former friend began posting about the alleged affair on social media.

 

Through a series of contacts, Ms. McDougal reached American Media, which at first expressed little interest in her story, according to The New Yorker. But after Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination, the publisher increased its offer and encouraged Ms. McDougal to act quickly.

 

She signed the agreement on Aug. 5, 2016, giving the publisher exclusive rights to her account of any relationship with any ā€œthen-married man,ā€ with nearly half of the payment going to three men who had helped arrange the deal, according to The New Yorker.

 

ā€œI knew that I couldnā€™t talk about any alleged affair with any married man, but I didnā€™t really understand the whole content of what I gave up,ā€ she told The New Yorker.

 

The affair began after Ms. McDougal and Mr. Trump met at a party at the Playboy Mansion in June 2006, the magazine reported. The pair began talking by phone and soon met for a private dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

ā€œI was so nervous! I was into his intelligence + charm. Such a polite man,ā€ Ms. McDougal wrote in the note about the encounter. ā€œWe talked for a couple hours ā€“ then, it was ā€˜ONā€™! We got naked + had sex.ā€

 

The relationship allegedly continued until April 2007, when Ms. McDougal called it off, partly out of guilt and partly because of racially insensitive and disrespectful comments Mr. Trump had made.

 

The presidentā€™s personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, told The New York Times this week that he had used $130,000 of his own money to facilitate a payment to another woman, Stephanie Clifford, a pornographic film actress known by the stage name Stormy Daniels. In 2011, she relayed her account of an affair with Mr. Trump to a different tabloid, ā€œIn Touch,ā€ which published excerpts from the interview in January.

Tom ID: 0e0a95 Aug. 7, 2023, 10:18 p.m. No.168079   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>9461

Friday, February. 16, 2018(2:25PM)

 

In ā€œCLASSICā€ DeepState behavior, Hillary waits 1.5 days to come out talking against guns knowing Durham was just appointed US Attorney. Deflection and narrative grab, along with PANIC and trying to get as much in between 45 and [them] and their mountain of treasonous activity.

 

Clinton urges political action in response to Parkland shooting(CNN.com)

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/politics/hillary-clinton-parkland-shooting/index.html

 

Dan Merica

CNN ā€” none

Hillary Clinton urged political action Friday in response to the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, pushing her followers to ā€œremember these feelings in November, and VOTE.ā€

 

ā€œThis week we lost 17 Americans in Parkland - the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012. Since then, 438 people have been shot and 138 killed in over 230 school shootings,ā€ she wrote. ā€œNow is the time to listen to the students, teachers, and parents demanding that we end this carnage once and for all with gun safety laws that keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldnā€™t have them.ā€

 

 

Clinton tweeted about David Hogg, a student at the high school, who urged Congress to take action during an interview with CNN.

 

ā€œPlease! We are children. You guys are, likeā€¦the adults,ā€ Hogg said. ā€œTake action, work together, come over your politics, and get something done.ā€

 

Clinton retweeted the video of Hoggā€™s comments, adding: ā€œWe owe it to this young man who lost classmates.ā€

 

 

Clinton continued: ā€œMass shootings are not inevitable. The majority of Americans support common sense gun reform. Though we feel angry, heartbroken, even helpless now, we have the power to elect people who will protect lives, not gun sellersā€™ profits. Remember these feelings in November, and VOTE.ā€

 

The messages came soon after the Department of Justice announced that a federal grand jury has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Clinton, through a spokesman, declined to comment on the indictments.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 21, 2023, 11:37 p.m. No.169418   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>9427

Friday, February. 16, 2018

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/374481-sessions-on-recusal-from-russia-investigation-i-did-the-right-thing/

 

Sessions on recusal from Russia investigation: ā€˜I did the right thingā€™(TheHill.com)

 

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Sunday defended his choice to recuse himself from the Justice Departmentā€™s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

 

ā€œI believe I did the right thing, the only thing I could do. I participated in this campaign, and as such, under the explicit regulations of the Department of Justice, no one can participate in an investigation of a campaign in which they were an active participant,ā€ Sessions said on Fox Newsā€™s ā€œSunday Morning Futures.ā€

 

ā€œYou canā€™t ask other members of the department to follow the law and follow the rules if the attorney general himself refuses to do so,ā€ he added.

 

{mosads}Sessions recused himself last year from the Justice Departmentā€™s investigation, the scope of which includes possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Following his recusal, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the investigation.

 

President Trump has repeatedly complained about Sessionsā€™s decision, calling it ā€œvery unfair,ā€ and saying he would have nominated someone else for attorney general had he known Sessions would recuse himself.

 

Trump reportedly directed White House counsel Don McGahn to stop Sessions from recusing himself.

 

Meanwhile, Trump and some Republicans have in recent weeks leveled accusations of political bias at the Justice Department, citing anti-Trump messages exchanged between FBI employees and other allegations outlined in a GOP-crafted memo.

 

Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked Sessions how he would ā€œturn the ship aroundā€ at the Justice Department following claims of political bias.

 

Sessions didnā€™t directly address the specific allegations Bartiromo laid out, but said heā€™s setting a tone of professionalism in the department, and praised the work of new agency officials like FBI Director Christopher Wray.

 

ā€œWeā€™ve made other changes within this department that I think will put us on a path to fulfill my responsibility to the American people and that is to conduct our work professionally, honestly and without political bias,ā€ Sessions said.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 21, 2023, 11:43 p.m. No.169424   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, February 20th, 2018

 

Newt Gingrich ā€œThe sheer scale and size of the alleged criminal activityā€¦Every American deserves to have an answerā€

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 21, 2023, 11:47 p.m. No.169427   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

 

>>169418

 

Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/21/trump-again-attacks-attorney-general-jeff-sessions-over-russia-probe.html

 

Trump attacks Attorney General Jeff Sessions again, this time over Obama and Russian meddling

 

President Donald Trump on Wednesday slammed his attorney general again, this time calling on his 48 million Twitter followers to ā€œask Jeff Sessionsā€ why the Obama administration is not the focus of the Russia probe.

 

ā€œIf all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration ā€¦ why arenā€™t they the subject of the investigation?ā€ Trump tweeted.

 

Trump tweet: Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why arenā€™t they the subject of the investigation? Why didnā€™t Obama do something about the meddling? Why arenā€™t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!

 

The tweet was his second attempt ā€” an earlier version misspelling Sessionsā€™ name as Session was deleted. The tweet suggests that the Obama administration failed to act in response to the Russian meddling.

 

Recent court documents allege that the Kremlinā€™s efforts were being conducted largely by a Russian entity first formed in July 2013. The Obama administration was aware in 2014 of Russiaā€™s efforts to disrupt American politics, though there was no evidence at the time of a threat to influence elections, current and former officials told Politico.

 

But former President Barack Obama also personally warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against election meddling in September 2016, The New York Times reported. On Oct. 7 ā€” the day the infamous ā€œAccess Hollywoodā€ tape of Trump describing sexual assault was released ā€” the Obama administration publicly accused Russia of hacking emails from members of the Democratic National Committee.

 

And before he left office, Obama imposed sanctions on Russia specifically in response to that countryā€™s efforts to influence the election.

 

In a tweet on Tuesday, Trump said he has ā€œbeen much tougher on Russia than Obama, just look at the facts.ā€ But the Trump administration declined an opportunity to impose penalties against Russia after a new law calling for sanctions passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

 

In a briefing Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Sanders said the White House is following the correct process.

 

ā€œThat law also says that the countries have to violate something in order for those sanctions to go in place. And that hasnā€™t necessarily happened,ā€ Sanders said, even though she said the Russian election meddling was ā€œvery clearā€ just a few seconds earlier.

 

In the Wednesday morning tweet, Trump also asked, ā€œWhy arenā€™t Dem crimes under investigation?ā€ before telling his audience to ā€œAsk Jeff Sessions!ā€

 

Trump has used his Twitter account to attack Sessions before, particularly since the attorney general recused himself from investigating matters relating to the 2016 presidential campaign after he failed in testimony to disclose meetings with a Russian ambassador.

 

Trump tweet Jeff Sessions VERY weak

 

The recusal kept Sessions from overseeing special counsel Robert Muellerā€™s investigation into possible Russian involvement with the Trump campaign, ceding responsibility to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 22, 2023, 2:20 a.m. No.169450   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Thursday, Feb 22nd, 2018

 

David Kramer is who brought the Steele Dossier to NoName, who passed it off to the FBI. ALSO.. through Paul Ryan's office, shopped the Dossier to Buzzfeed. Guess there was some money that came back to FUCKING HACK-TRAITOR-PIECE OF SHIT NoName's money laundering foundation.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 23, 2023, 7:30 a.m. No.169486   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Saturday, February 24th, 2018

 

Democrat written response to the "Nunes memo" is released after redacting of course.. by the FBI.

 

Nunes memo said Fusion GPS opposition (Christopher Steele) paid for research Clinton Campaign and DNC was what was used to get the ILLEGAL FISA against Carter Page

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 26, 2023, 12:54 a.m. No.169695   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, February 27th, 2018

 

Comey tweets "lordy, this time there will be a tape" alluding to his upcoming book and accompanying audiobook.

 

Tuesday, February 27th, 2018

 

Resignations

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 26, 2023, 12:56 a.m. No.169696   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, February 27 2018

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/27/politics/sessions-fisa-fbi-justice-carter-page-nunes-memo/index.html

 

Sessions says internal watchdog looking at allegations of FISA abuse(CNN.com)

Laura Jarrett

CNN ā€” none

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday that the internal watchdog at the Justice Department is looking at whether the FBI has properly handled applications for surveillance orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

 

Sessions, appearing at a news conference announcing a new opioid task force, was asked about House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunesā€™ controversial memo outlining purported surveillance abuses and told reporters that ā€œthe inspector general will take that as one of the matters heā€™ll deal with.ā€

 

ā€œWe believe the Department of Justice must adhere to the highest standards in the FISA court, and yes, it will be investigated, and I think thatā€™s just the appropriate thing,ā€ Sessions added.

 

When the Nunes memo, which focuses on the FISA warrants on former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, was released earlier this month, Sessions signaled that any abuses of the process would be investigated.

 

Nunes vs. Schiff: Five key areas where they disagree

 

ā€œCongress has made inquiries concerning an issue of great importance for the country and concerns have been raised about the Departmentā€™s performance,ā€ Sessions said in a statement at the time. ā€œAccordingly, I will forward to appropriate DOJ components all information I receive from Congress regarding this. I am determined that we will fully and fairly ascertain the truth.ā€

 

Sessions reiterated to Fox News last week that every FISA warrant ā€œsubmitted to that court ha[s] to be accurateā€ and ā€œthat will be investigated and looked at.ā€

 

His comments Tuesday took the matter a step further by directly putting the accusations by House Republicans on the inspector generalā€™s plate.

 

A spokesperson for the inspector generalā€™s office acknowledged the referral but declined to comment further.

 

The office is currently examining how investigations were handled at the department and the FBI in advance of the 2016 presidential election, including, notably, the Hillary Clinton email server probe.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 26, 2023, 12:57 a.m. No.169699   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Grassley & Graham Request for information into 30 classified and non-classified qurestions; appointment of Special CCounsel Robert Mueller & more

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 26, 2023, 12:59 a.m. No.169700   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, February 28 2018

 

At the lying in honor of evangelical preacher Billy Graham in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, President Trump and congressional leaders praise Graham.

 

A day after being interviewed by the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, White House Communications Director Hope Hicks submits her resignation.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 26, 2023, 1:06 a.m. No.169701   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, February 28 2018

 

PDJT (Twatt) Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate poltentially massive FISA abuseā€¦

 

Wednesday, February 28 2018

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/28/politics/trump-sessions-fisa-abuse/index.html

 

Sessions pushes back on Trump after ā€˜disgracefulā€™ insult(CNN.com)

 

Washington CNN ā€” none

Attorney General Jeff Sessions pushed back against President Donald Trumpā€™s latest insult on Wednesday, prolonging an increasingly awkward public spat between the President and his top law enforcement official.

 

Trump chastised Sessions over an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses, calling his approach ā€œdisgraceful.ā€

 

ā€œWhy is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc,ā€ Trump wrote. ā€œIsnā€™t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!ā€

 

 

Responding to Trumpā€™s tweet, the attorney general said in a statement that the Justice Department ā€œinitiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against this department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary.ā€

 

ā€œAs long as I am the attorney general, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution,ā€ Sessions said.

 

Sessions had said Tuesday that the Justice Department is looking at whether the FBI has properly handled applications for surveillance orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

 

Sessions, appearing at a news conference announcing a new opioid task force, was asked about House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunesā€™ controversial memo outlining purported surveillance abuses and told reporters that ā€œthe inspector general will take that as one of the matters heā€™ll deal with.ā€

 

The Justice Departmentā€™s inspector general is Michael E. Horowitz, a longtime department official who has worked under Republican and Democrat administrations. He was confirmed for the inspector general job in 2012 under then-President Barack Obama.

 

While Trump is correct that Horowitz does not have prosecutorial powers, he can ā€“ and often does ā€“ make criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on his investigations. An investigation into improper FISA use would fall squarely onto Horowitz, too, given his charge instructs him to ā€œinvestigate alleged violations of criminal and civil laws by DOJ employee.ā€

 

Sessions chose to respond to the President because his latest jab was more ā€œin the weedsā€ and about process, said a source familiar with Sessionsā€™ thinking.

 

Previous times, Trump has insulted Sessions when calling for the investigation of Hillary Clinton, but this time he called for Sessions to go after Justice Department attorneys, which was a bridge too far, said the source.

 

ā€œThere is a process, we are following that process,ā€ the source added.

 

As Sessions left the Billy Graham event in the Capitol on Wednesday, CNN asked for his response to Trumpā€™s tweet and criticism of him.

 

ā€œIā€™m not commenting on that this morning. Thank you,ā€ he responded.

 

Asked if he has discussed the criticism directly with the President, Sessions just said, ā€œThanks.ā€

 

Latest attack on Sessions

 

Sessions under renewed scrutiny over Russia

 

02:41 - Source: CNN

Trumpā€™s scathing tweet is the latest in a long line of public rebukes the President has leveled against his attorney general, a man who broke with much of his party to endorse Trump early in his presidential run.

 

Trumpā€™s anger toward Sessions stems from his decision to recuse himself from all investigations into the 2016 campaign, including special counsel Robert Muellerā€™s expanding investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives bent on meddling in the election. Sessions made that decision after he did not fully answer questions during his confirmation hearing about his conversations with Russian diplomats during the 2016 campaign. Trump, in turn, has said he wouldnā€™t have named Sessions to lead the Justice Department had he known he would have recused himself.

 

That animosity has played out publicly ever since.

 

Trump pestered Sessions for not looking into Hillary Clintonā€™s deleted emails, slammed him for being ā€œvery weakā€ on Clintonā€™s ā€œcrimesā€ and labeled him ā€œbeleagueredā€ in July.

 

As pressure mounted on Sessions last year, his standing in the administration appeared untenable to people inside the West Wing. During the first six months of Trumpā€™s presidency, Trump asked for Sessionsā€™ resignation, called the attorney general an ā€œidiotā€ but then later declined to accept his attorney generalā€™s resignation letter.

 

Sessions has so far weathered the incessant incoming from the White House and sources close to the attorney general have told CNN that he is unlikely to go anywhere soon. But the saga between the two top Republicans has played out in public for much of Trumpā€™s first year in office and the Presidentā€™s chronic antipathy towards the top law enforcement official has defined Trumpā€™s view of the Justice Department.

 

Trumpā€™s anger boiled over in June, too, when the President pushed then-chief of staff Reince Priebus to obtain Sessionsā€™ resignation, according sources familiar with the exchange. Priebus later said that he talked Trump out of the firing.

 

The latest chapter in the saga between Trump and Sessions came just one week ago, when Trump challenged Sessions to launch an investigation into the Obama administration for failing to do enough to stop the 2016 election foreign interference.

 

ā€œQuestion: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why arenā€™t they the subject of the investigation?ā€ Trump asked. ā€œWhy didnā€™t Obama do something about the meddling? Why arenā€™t Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!ā€

 

CNNā€™s Laura Jarrett and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

Tom ID: fbfe7a Aug. 26, 2023, 1:11 a.m. No.169702   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, February 28th, 2018

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-investigation-examining-trumps-apparent-efforts-to-oust-sessions-in-july/2018/02/28/909cfa7c-1cd7-11e8-b2d9-08e748f892c0_story.html

 

Mueller investigation examining Trumpā€™s apparent efforts to oust Sessions in July(WashingtonCompost.com)

 

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been investigating a period of time last summer when President Trump seemed determined to drive Attorney General Jeff Sessions from his job, according to people familiar with the matter who said that a key area of interest for the inquiry is whether those efforts were part of a months-long pattern of attempted obstruction of justice.

 

In recent months, Muellerā€™s team has questioned witnesses in detail about Trumpā€™s private comments and state of mind in late July and early August of last year, around the time he issued a series of tweets belittling his ā€œbeleagueredā€ attorney general, these people said. The thrust of the questions was to determine whether the presidentā€™s goal was to oust Sessions in order to pick a replacement who would exercise control over the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump associates during the 2016 election, these people said.

 

The issue of Sessionsā€™s tortured relationship with the president reared up again Wednesday morning when the president tweeted: ā€œWhy is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. ā€¦ Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!ā€

 

Sessions considering second special counsel to investigate Republican concerns, letter shows

 

Sessions usually opts not to respond to such criticism, but in this case he did. Trumpā€™s criticism faulted the attorney general for not more aggressively pursuing claims that the FBI and Justice Department may have misled a foreign surveillance court on a politically sensitive case in the waning days of the Obama administration. Sessions insisted in his statement that he had reacted appropriately by referring the matter to the departmentā€™s inspector general for a possible review of how the surveillance case was handled.

 

ā€œAs long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution,ā€™ā€™ Sessions said in the statement.

 

Itā€™s no secret in Washington that the relationship between the president and the attorney general has been badly broken for months. The president has repeatedly issued public broadsides, calling Sessions ā€œweakā€ or criticizing his leadership of the Justice Department, despite the attorney generalā€™s frequent proclamations of devotion to Trumpā€™s agenda on immigration and crime.

 

Behind the scenes, Trump has derisively referred to Sessions as ā€œMr. Magoo,ā€ a cartoon character who is elderly, myopic and bumbling, according to people with whom he has spoken. Trump has told associates that he has hired the best lawyers for his entire life, but is stuck with Sessions, who is not defending him and is not sufficiently loyal.

 

With the term whirling around Washington, a former federal prosecutor explains what to know about the criminal charge of obstruction of justice. (Video: Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

While Sessions has told associates he had been wounded by the attacks, he has also insisted heā€™s not going to resign, so the cold war continues.

 

On the anniversary of Sessionsā€™s confirmation earlier this month, senior aides decided to buy Sessions a bulletproof vest with his name emblazoned on it as a gift, according to a person familiar with the matter.

 

While there is a soap-opera element to the drama between the countryā€™s chief executive and chief law enforcement officer, Mueller apparently has decided there are significant issues at stake for the probe into whether the president or others in the White House sought to obstruct justice, according to the people familiar with the matter.

 

The New York Times has previously reported that Mueller was examining Trumpā€™s efforts in the spring of 2017 to fire Sessions. People familiar with the probe said the special counsel is also examining the period in late July in which the president sought to publicly shame the attorney general into quitting.

 

Spokesmen for the Justice Department, the special counsel and the White House declined to comment.

 

In mid-July, Trump started escalating his public criticisms of Sessions, including angry tweets. Around that time, according to people familiar with internal White House discussions, the president discussed firing Sessions or forcing him out of the Justice Department. Those discussions are of particular interest to Muellerā€™s investigators, as they seek to determine the presidentā€™s intentions, according to a person familiar with the probe.

 

At the time, a White House adviser told a Washington Post reporter that Trump was ā€œstunnedā€ that Sessions had not yet quit. The president, this adviser added, had been hoping the attorney general would be so embarrassed by Trumpā€™s scathing comments that he would leave.

 

Trump in this period also ordered his then-chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to get a resignation letter from Sessions. It was not his first request for such a letter, but Priebus hesitated, declining to make the request outright. Conservatives rallied to Sessionsā€™s defense, particularly in Congress, and Trump backed down.

 

Every Cabinet official can be fired by the president at any time for any reason. If Muellerā€™s team sought to make Trumpā€™s efforts to oust the attorney general part of a pattern of attempted obstruction, it would have to offer evidence showing he had a corrupt motive in doing so ā€” such as changing the direction of the Russia probe.

 

Trumpā€™s Wednesday criticism seemed to have another intended target at the Justice Department ā€” Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz. For more than a year, his office has been investigating how the Justice Department and the FBI handled the 2016 probe of Hillary Clintonā€™s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. His findings are expected to be made public soon.

 

Trumpā€™s comments Wednesday seemed to serve a dual purpose ā€” attack Sessions, and urge Horowitz to speed up the release of his findings. The White House and some of Trumpā€™s conservative supporters in Congress have urged the appointment of a second special counsel to conduct a criminal investigation into how senior FBI and Justice Department personnel handled matters related to Clinton.

 

Justice Department veterans have long worried that Trumpā€™s repeated public attacks on the department and the FBI are undermining the legitimacy of those agencies, which could cause lasting damage to federal law enforcement.

 

Release of disputed GOP memo on FBI surveillance unleashes waves of recrimination

 

ā€œThe continued drumbeat of overheated attacks on the Justice Department and the FBI, coming from all corners of the Hill, the media, and elsewhere, canā€™t help but undermine both morale and the legitimacy of institutions themselves, but todayā€™s tweet is just another drop in an already overflowing bucket,ā€ said Jamil Jaffer, founder of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. ā€œOf course, the bigger challenge is that if the concerns arenā€™t legitimate, then we are playing right into the hands of those abroad who wish to undermine these very critical institutions of our democracy.ā€

 

Matt Zapotosky, Julie Tate and Sari Horwitz contributed to this report.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 1, 2023, 9:39 p.m. No.170185   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

March 9th-10th, 2018

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/03/harvey-weinstein-sex-rehab

 

Harvey Weinstein Reportedly Failed to Complete Inpatient Sex Rehab [Updated](VanityFair.com)

 

An inpatient program at the men-only facility where Weinstein was treated was supposed to last 45 days.

 

By Julie MillerMarch 9, 2018

Image may contain Harvey Weinstein Human Person Clothing Apparel Suit Coat Overcoat Bar Counter Pub and Fashion

By Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.

Update: A representative for Harvey Weinstein contacted Vanity Fair to claim that the producer completed the 45-day program early, and has been seeking additional therapy for ā€œanger management, nutrition, and several addiction-related behaviors.ā€ The rep also included the following statement from Weinsteinā€™s lawyer Ben Brafman: ā€œI have been assured that the filing of criminal charges against Mr. Weinstein has not been authorized and his arrest is not imminent.ā€

 

Five months after Harvey Weinstein reportedly entered an Arizona rehabilitation facility, the disgraced Hollywood producer has still not completed inpatient sex-rehab treatment, according to multiple sources who spoke to The New York Times. As of February, more than 80 women had come forward to allege that Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them.

 

The New York Times reports that Weinstein was treated, at some point, at the Gentle Path at the Meadowsā€”an inpatient rehab for men with sex-addiction issues located an hour outside of Scottsdale, Arizona. The facility website explains that the six-week timeline is necessary for treatment and ā€œto prepare each patient for the healing-continuation process with recommendations to help prevent relapse.ā€ The $58,000 price tag, for 45 days of treatment, covers equine therapy, expressive-arts therapy, deep meditation, yoga, tai chi, intensive counseling, group and individual therapy, and a mindfulness-in-recovery workshop. Cell phones and cameras are prohibited on the 38-acre compound, which has previously hosted high-profile figures like Kevin Spacey and Tiger Woods. According to The New York Times, Weinstein left the facility before completing the six-week inpatient treatment.

 

So what is Harvey Weinstein doing if he is not getting inpatient treatment for sex-addiction issues?

 

His representatives claim that the producer has, according to the N.Y.T., ā€œbeen in and out of Arizona and seeking treatment for sex addiction at various locations across the U.S.ā€ According to a Los Angeles Times report last month, Weinstein had moved into the Optima Sonoran Village luxury-apartment complex in Scottsdaleā€”which boasts an indoor lap pool, a 24-hour gym, spas, concierge service, and health-food snack store. The New York Times reports that Weinstein has been ā€œwaking up early, checking in with his East Coast lawyers, and then going down to a juice shop where he orders coffee and a green detox mix with kale and cucumber.ā€

 

While Weinstein has managed to keep a lower profile in Arizona than he could in California or New York, the producer made national headlines this past January when a stranger slapped him in a restaurant, where Weinstein was dining with his sober coach. Social-media users have published their own sightingsā€”claiming to have seen Weinstein at a Scottsdale Olive Garden. On February 26, a Twitter user named Maddie Smith wrote, ā€œHarvey Weinstein is living 2 miles from my house in the most luxurious apartments in Scottsdale, AZ, when he should be in jail. . . .ā€

 

Meanwhile, about 2,400 miles away in New York, police are investigating five sexual-assault allegations against Weinstein and reportedly preparing to arrest him for felony sexual assault. (Through representatives, Weinstein has denied allegations of assault and harassment.)

 

Late last month, Weinstein was forced to issue an apology to Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lawrence after his lawyers used the two Oscar winnersā€™ names in federal court in New York. The lawyers used quotes from Streep and Lawrence in their attempt to get a proposed class-action lawsuit filed by six women dismissed.

 

Streep and Lawrence swiftly rebuked Weinstein, with Streep saying, ā€œThe criminal actions he is accused of conducting on the bodies of these women are his responsibility, and if there is any justice left in the system he will pay for themā€”regardless of how many good movies, made by many good people, Harvey was lucky enough to have acquired or financed.ā€

 

Lawrence has said of Weinstein, ā€œWhat he did is criminal and deplorable. And when it came out and I heard about it, I wanted to kill him. The way that he destroyed so many womenā€™s livesā€”I wanna see him in jail.ā€

 

As of last month Weinstein was under criminal investigation in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, London, and New York.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 1, 2023, 9:43 p.m. No.170187   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Saturday, March 10th, 2018

 

President Trump holds a rally at Pittsburgh International Airport to support Rick Saccone in special upcoming election. Introduces "Keep America Great" slogan.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 1, 2023, 11:47 p.m. No.170195   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Monday, March 12th, 2018

 

Monday, March 12th, 2018

 

BOOOoooOOOoooOOOOom!!!

House Intelligence Committee closes the Russia-Trump investigation with NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 12:49 a.m. No.170207   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Friday, March 16th, 2018

 

Andrew McCabe FIRED

 

Andrew McCabe, former acting director of the FBI who was due to retire with benefits in two days, was fired from the FBI by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the recommendation of FBI disciplinary officials for "lack of candor"

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 2:17 a.m. No.170215   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Tuesday, March 20th, 2018

 

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/stormy-daniels-offers-proof-she-passed-polygraph-as-playboy-model-karen-mcdougal-sues-to-end-silence-on-trump

 

Stormy Daniels offers proof she passed polygraph as Playboy model Karen McDougal sues to end silence on Trump(FOXNEWS.COM)

March 20, 2018 6:00pm EDT

McDougal Trump Daniels Split

Playboy model Karen McDougal, left, sued to be released from a 2016 agreement requiring her to keep quiet about an alleged tryst she claims she had with Donald Trump, as Stormy Daniels said she passed a 2011 polygraph test.

Playboy model Karen McDougal on Tuesday sued to be released from a 2016 agreement requiring her to keep quiet about an alleged tryst she claims she had with Trump.

 

Also Tuesday, newly released records showed that porn star Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, passed a 2011 polygraph test in which she claims she had unprotected sex with President Trump in 2006.

 

Trump has strongly denied both accusations.

 

Daniels also spoke out on Twitter, telling one critic: ā€œTechnically I didn't sleep with the POTUS 12 years ago. There was no sleeping (hehe) and he was just a goofy reality TV star. But I digressā€¦People DO care that he lied about it, had me bullied, broke laws to cover it up, etc. And PSā€¦I am NOT going anywhere. xoxoxo.ā€

 

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Daniels took a polygraph test that showed she was telling the truth about her sexual encounter with Trump.

 

Lie detector test supports Stormy DanielsVideo

ā€œMs. Clifford presented herself well in outward appearance of credibility,ā€ Ronald Slay, the polygraph examiner wrote in a confidential report released Tuesday. ā€œThere were no observable indications of intent to deceive.ā€

 

In the test, Daniels was asked ā€œAround July 2006, did you have vaginal intercourse with Donald Trump?ā€ ā€œAround July 2006, did you have unprotected sex with Donald Trump?ā€ and ā€œDid Donald Trump say you would get on ā€˜The Apprentice?ā€™ā€

 

Daniels answered yes to all three of the questions.

 

stormy polygraph 320

Stormy Daniels passed a 2011 polygraph test in which she claims she had unprotected sex with President Trump in 2006, newly released records show.

ā€œIn the opinion of this examiner Ms. Clifford is truthful about having unprotected vaginal intercourse with Donald Trump in July 2006. No determinations should be derived regarding (the Apprentice answer),ā€ Slay wrote.

 

The polygraph data was analyzed in the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University.

 

Daniels is suing Trump over a non-disclosure agreement she says isnā€™t valid because Trump never signed it.

 

Daniels has offered to return the $130,000 payment she received from Trumpā€™s longtime attorney Michael Cohen in 2016 in exchange for a nullification of the non-disclosure agreement and the freedom to speak about the alleged affair.

 

The news of the passed polygraph came on the same day as McDougalā€™s court battle over her silence heated up.

 

McDougal claims she had an affair with the president and on Tuesday sued to be released from a 2016 agreement in which American Media Inc., the parent company of The National Enquirer, paid her $150,000 for her story and then did nothing with it.

 

In that case, which was first reported by The New York Times, McDougal filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming that American Media misled her about the deal. And like Daniels, claims her deal is invalid.

 

McDougalā€™s lawyer Peter K. Stris accused A.M.I. of trying to silence his client, according to an email correspondence he had with the Times.

 

ā€œThe lawsuit filed today aims to restore her right to her own voice,ā€ he told the paper. ā€œWe intend to invalidate the so-called contract that American Media Inc. imposed on Karen so she can move forward with the private life she deserves.ā€

 

Attorney claims Stormy Daniels was physically threatenedVideo

Both Daniels and McDougal have similar stories about their alleged experiences with Trump. Both say they met with Trump at a 2006 Lake Tahoe golf tournament, both claim they were promised apartments and both say Trump took them to the Beverly Hills hotel.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 2:25 a.m. No.170216   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, March 21st, 2018

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/mccabe-authorized-perjury-investigation-sessions-n858891

 

McCabe authorized perjury investigation into Sessions(N-BS "news")

 

The investigation ended without criminal charges, the attorney general's lawyer said.

 

March 21, 2018, 6:07 PM EDT / Updated March 21, 2018, 6:07 PM EDT

WASHINGTON ā€” Andrew McCabe, as the FBI's deputy director, authorized an investigation into whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied to Congress, three sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.

 

The investigation ended without criminal charges, according to Sessionsā€™s lawyer, and was not known to Sessions last week when he made the decision to fire McCabe, according to a Justice Department official.

 

ABC News was first to report that McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told lawmakers about the probe in a closed-door meeting last year. The inquiry eventually went to special counsel Robert Mueller, who was appointed to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

 

Sessionsā€™s lawyer, Chuck Cooper, said in a statement to NBC News: "The special counsel's Office has informed me that after interviewing the attorney general and conducting additional investigation, the attorney general is not under investigation for false statements or perjury in his confirmation hearing testimony and related written submissions to Congress."

 

Sessions testified during his congressional confirmation hearing in January 2017 that he had not met with Russians during his time as a Trump campaign surrogate. It later surfaced that Sessions met with the then-Russian ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, several times during the campaign, prompting Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and then-Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., to refer a perjury inquiry to the FBI, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News. After media reports about the meetings, Sessions testified before Congress that his meetings were in his capacity as a senator, or were too insignificant to remember.

 

Perjury referrals to the FBI from political parties who feel aggrieved by a witness are common, but rarely end in prosecution because they are difficult to prove, said one of the sources.

 

Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation after media reports about his meetings with Kislyak, a move he said was a result of his work on the campaign and not because of the reports. Rosenstein took over the investigation and later appointed Mueller as special counsel after James Comey was fired as FBI director.

 

Trump has repeatedly denied that his campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 2:57 a.m. No.170217   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, March 21st, 2018

 

https://www.msnbc.com/the-beat-with-ari-melber/watch/fired-fbi-official-authorized-perjury-investigation-against-sessions-1191727171576

 

Fired FBI Official authorized perjury investigation against Sessions

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 3:01 a.m. No.170218   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

 

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/read-obamas-heartfelt-letter-to-parkland-shooting-students-204535/

 

Read Obamasā€™ Heartfelt Letter to Parkland Shooting Students(RollingStone.com)

Daniel KrepsMarch 21, 2018

Former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle arrive at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, Illinois, October 31, 2017.

Barack and Michelle Obama penned a heartfelt letter to survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting earlier this month. Jim Young/AFP/Getty Imagesnone

Barack and Michelle Obama penned a heartfelt letter to survivors of the Parkland, Florida school shooting earlier this month.

 

In the March 10th handwritten letter, a copy of which was obtained by Mic, the former president and First Lady commended the teenagersā€™ ā€œresilience, resolve and solidarity that you have all shown in the wake of unspeakable tragedy.ā€

 

ā€œNot only have you supported and comforted each other, but youā€™ve helped awaken the conscience of the nation, and challenged decision-makers to make the safety of our children the countryā€™s top priority,ā€ the Obamas wrote.

 

The Obamas then championed studentsā€™ efforts to spark stricter gun control measures, which includes National Walkout Day and the March for Our Lives protest scheduled for March 24th.

 

Trending

 

ā€œThroughout our history, young people like you have led the way in making America better,ā€ the Obamas wrote. ā€œThere may be setbacks; you may sometimes feel like progress is too slow in coming. But we have no doubt you are going to make an enormous difference in the days and years to come, and we will be there for you.ā€

 

Barack Obama previously tweeted on February 22nd, eight days after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 people, ā€œYoung people have helped lead all our great movements. How inspiring to see it again in so many smart, fearless students standing up for their right to be safe; marching and organizing to remake the world as it should be. Weā€™ve been waiting for you. And weā€™ve got your backs.ā€

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 3:43 a.m. No.170238   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

Thursday, March 29th, 2018

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ecuadoran-embassy-in-london-cuts-off-julian-assanges-internet/2018/03/28/10322e9c-32ae-11e8-b6bd-0084a1666987_story.html#

 

Julian Assange loses Internet access for good.(WashingtonCompost.com)

 

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost his Internet access at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on March 27. (Video: Patrick Martin/The Washington Post)

LONDON ā€” Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks, has been barred from using the Internet at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, where he has been holed up for nearly six years, the Ecuadoran government announced.

 

In a statement on Wednesday, Ecuador said it suspended Assangeā€™s ability to communicate with the outside world because he violated an agreement he signed with his hosts at the end of 2017 not to use his communiques to interfere in the affairs of other states. It was not immediately clear whether visitors would also be stopped.

 

ā€œThe Ecuador government warns that the conduct of Assange via his messages on social media puts at risk the good relations that Ecuador maintains with the United Kingdom, the European Union and other nations,ā€ the statement said.

 

Ecuador did not cite any examples of this alleged breach.

 

Assange strongly supported separatist leaders in Spainā€™s Catalonia region who sought to secede last year. The head of that movement, Carles Puigdemont, the former regional president of Catalonia, was arrested over the weekend in Germany. Spanish authorities seek his extradition and return to Madrid, where he faces possible charges of treason and misuse of public funds.

 

Assange recently tweeted a stream of commentary about Facebookā€™s data breach, President Trumpā€™s choice of John Bolton to serve as national security adviser, and allegations that Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi helped finance French politician Nicolas Sarkozyā€™s successful 2007 presidential election campaign.

 

German hacker offers rare look inside Julian Assangeā€™s secretive world

 

Sources close to Assange revealed that the document he signed does not specifically address his tweeting and advocacy. Instead, Assange agreed to comply with Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961, which states:

 

ā€œThe premises of the mission must not be used in any manner incompatible with the functions of the mission as laid down in the present Convention or by other rules of general international law or by any special agreements in force between the sending and the receiving State.ā€

 

A WikiLeaks source, who declined to be named because communications with Assange have been cut off, said Assange signed the document when Ecuador was considering making him a diplomat, with all the protections that would imply. Such a move was not taken.

 

Instead, Wikileaks supporters say Assange sought refuge as a free-speech advocate who now finds his speech muzzled.

 

Assange, however, specifically sought refuge at the Ecuadoran Embassy, located in one of Londonā€™s most exclusive neighborhoods, in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for questioning about alleged sex crimes. Assange has denied the allegations. Swedish authorities have since shelved their investigation on grounds they could not get access to him.

 

Earlier this year, Assange lost two legal bids to quash a British arrest warrant issued after he skipped bail and fled to the embassy.

 

Assange has expressed fears that if he leaves the embassy, he will be arrested and extradited to the United States for questioning over WikiLeaksā€™s role in publishing a trove of classified U.S. documents.

 

Assange was granted Ecuadoran citizenship late last year, and the government said it has protected him. In its communique Wednesday, the South American nation seemed to be saying enough was enough.

 

Ecuador grants Assange citizenship in bid to end London embassy standoff

 

Yanis Varoufakis, a former Greek minister, and Brian Eno, a British musician and record producer, said they had ā€œgreat concernā€ when they heard Assange has lost access to the Internet and reportedly was no longer allowed to receive visitors.

 

ā€œOnly extraordinary pressure from the U.S. and the Spanish governments can explain why Ecuadorā€™s authorities should have taken such appalling steps in isolating Julian,ā€ they wrote in a statement.

 

This is not the first time his hosts have cut off his access to the Internet. In October 2016, the embassy temporarily denied Assange Internet access out of concern WikiLeaks was interfering in the U.S. presidential election. In the summer of 2016, the anti-secrecy site published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee.

 

Assange: WikiLeaks has same the mission as The Post and Times

 

The Ecuadoran government said it cut off Assangeā€™s Internet on Tuesday.

 

In his latest tweets, posted Tuesday, Assange responded to an insult by Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan. In a debate in Parliament, Duncan called Assange a ā€œmiserable little wormā€ who should hand himself over to British authorities to face justice.

 

Assange tweeted in response: ā€œAs a political prisoner detained without charge for 8 years, in violation of 2 UN rulings, I suppose I must be ā€˜miserableā€™; yet nothing wrong with being a ā€˜littleā€™ person although I'm rather tall; and better a ā€˜wormā€™, a healthy creature that invigorates the soil, than a snake.ā€

 

Todayā€™s coverage from Post correspondents around the world

 

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

 

William Booth is The Washington Postā€™s London bureau chief. He was previously bureau chief in Jerusalem, Mexico City, Los Angeles and Miami. Twitter

Karla Adam is a London correspondent for The Washington Post, which she joined in 2006. She is a former president of the Association of American Correspondents in London. Twitter

 

NewsletterWeekdays

 

Todayā€™s WorldView

 

Analysis of the most important global story of the day, top reads, interesting ideas and opinions to know.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 3:54 a.m. No.170241   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun   >>0242

>>170240

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/russia-collusion-real-story-hillary-clinton-dnc-fbi-media/

 

The Real Collusion Story(NationalReview.com)

 

Michael DoranMarch 13, 2018 6:30 AM

 

Hillary Clinton at a "Get Out the Vote" rally in Concord, N.H., February 6, 2016.(Brian Snyder/Reuters)none

Barack Obama keeps a close watch on his emotions. ā€œI loved Spock,ā€ he wrote in February 2015 in a presidential statement eulogizing Leonard Nimoy. Growing up in Hawaii, the young man who would later be called ā€œNo-Drama Obamaā€ felt a special affinity for the Vulcan first officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. ā€œLong before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy,ā€ the eulogy continued. ā€œLeonard was Spock. Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed.ā€

 

It is the rare occasion when Obama lets his Spock mask slip. But November 2, 2016, was just such a moment. Six days before the presidential election, when addressing the Congressional Black Caucus, he stressed that the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, threatened hard-won achievements of blacks: tolerance, justice, good schools, ending mass incarceration ā€” even democracy itself. ā€œThere is one candidate who will advance those things,ā€ he said, his voice swelling with emotion. ā€œAnd thereā€™s another candidate whose defining principle, the central theme of his candidacy, is opposition to all that weā€™ve done.ā€

 

The open display of emotion was new, but the theme of safeguarding his legacy was not. Two months earlier, on July 5, in Charlotte, N.C., Obama delivered his first stump speech for Hillary Clinton. He described his presidency as a leg in a relay race. Hillary Clinton had tried hard to pass affordable health care during Bill Clintonā€™s administration, but she failed ā€” and the relay baton fell to the ground. When Obama entered the White House, he picked it up. Now, his leg of the race was coming to an end. ā€œIā€™m ready to pass the baton,ā€ he said. ā€œAnd I know that Hillary Clinton is going to take it.ā€

 

But he was less certain than he was letting on. Hillary Clinton was up in the polls, to be sure, but she was vulnerable. Three weeks earlier, on June 15, a cyberattacker fashioning himself as Guccifer 2.0 had published a cache of emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee (DNC). They proved, as supporters of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders had long alleged, that the DNC had conspired with the Clinton campaign to undermine their candidate. Sanders was still withholding his endorsement of Clinton for president, even though her nomination as the Democratic candidate was now a foregone conclusion. At the very moment when Clinton had expected the Democratic party to unite behind her, its deepest chasm seemed to be growing wider. In contrast to Clinton, Obama held some sway over the Sanders insurgents. He came to Charlotte to urge them to support Clinton against their shared enemy, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump.

 

The insurgency was not the only Clinton vulnerability on Obamaā€™s mind. He had come to Charlotte, in addition, to deflect attention from the news conference that James Comey, the director of the FBI, had held that morning in Washington, D.C. The investigation into Hillary Clintonā€™s use of a private email server was complete, Comey announced. The FBI would recommend no criminal charges ā€” that was the honey. But Comey administered it with a dose of vinegar. He dwelled on Clintonā€™s mishandling of classified material in such detail that it sounded as if he was laying the foundation for an indictment. The decision not to charge Clinton, his statement signaled, was an exercise in prosecutorial restraint, not a true exoneration.

 

From the perspective of the voters, Clintonā€™s twin email travails ā€” the hack of the DNC and the investigation into her server ā€” were two faces of a single problem. Call it ā€œClinton, Inc.ā€ Sanders and Trump were painting Clinton as Wall Streetā€™s darling, the establishment candidate. She was the greatest defender and a prime beneficiary of a rigged political and financial system. Comeyā€™s statement had played directly into the hands of the Sanders insurgents. It left the distinct impression that laws are for the little people; they simply donā€™t apply to Hillary Clinton, because, well, sheā€™s Hillary Clinton.

 

Which points to Obamaā€™s third and final job at Charlotte: humanizing the queen. ā€œI saw how she treated everybody with respect, even the folks who arenā€™t, quote/unquote, ā€˜important,ā€™ā€ Obama testified. He enlarged Clintonā€™s humility before the crowd, because it was invisible to the naked eye. With his jacket and tie off, the cuffs of his sleeves turned, and a winning smile spread from ear to ear, Obama came to loan Hillary Clinton his common touch.

 

Passing the baton to her was a team effort, however. It demanded hard work from countless enablers. These included not just Democrats but also many Republicans, who shared the conviction that Trump represented an extraordinary threat to our democracy. Desperate times call for desperate measures. To block Trump, Clintonā€™s supporters bent rules and broke laws. They went to surprising lengths to strengthen her while framing him ā€” both in the sense of depicting him in a particular light and of planting evidence against him.

 

Joe Friday

 

When it comes to ongoing FBI criminal investigations, presidents typically refrain from describing their preferred outcomes. They fear the appearance of exerting undue influence over Lady Justice. But in the case of Hillary Clintonā€™s email abuses, Obama made an exception. ā€œShe would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy,ā€ he remarked in a TV interview in April 2016. She has displayed ā€œa carelessness in terms of managing emails,ā€ he allowed. ā€œBut I also think it is important to keep this in perspective.ā€

 

Well-intentioned but careless, said the commander in chief, describing Hillaryā€™s use of a private email server. Three months later, Comey, in a Vulcan mind-meld with his boss, arrived at an identical conclusion.

 

Well-intentioned but careless, said the commander in chief. Three months later, the FBI finished its investigation, and James Comey arrived at an identical conclusion. ā€œAlthough we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,ā€ he said in his July 5 statement, ā€œthere is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.ā€ Well-intentioned but careless ā€” Comey was locked in a Vulcan mind-meld with his boss.

 

As a political move, highlighting Clintonā€™s intentions was astute. It had a commonsense feel. Americans instinctively take intentions into account when determining guilt. As a strict matter of law, however, it was vapid. The mishandling of classified information falls into the category of a ā€œnon-intent crime.ā€ Itā€™s a type of objective recklessness, like running over a pedestrian while blowing through a red light. Violations of this sort trigger criminal liabilities regardless of the offenderā€™s state of mind.

 

But letā€™s assume that some clever lawyer in the Department of Justice discovered a very learned and superficially compelling rationale for applying Obamaā€™s fictive standard of intent. Even so, Hillary Clinton couldnā€™t clear the hurdle. The sheer volume of classified material the FBI recovered from her server constituted proof of intent. ā€œFifty-two email chains . . . contain classified information,ā€ Comey said.

 

Particularly damning was the form this material took. It is impossible to paste a classified document into an unclassified email accidentally, because the three computer systems (Unclassified, Confidential/Secret, and Top Secret) are physically separate networks, each feeding into an independent hard drive on the userā€™s desk. If a classified document appears in an unclassified email, then someone downloaded it onto a thumb drive and manually uploaded it to the unclassified network ā€” an intentional act if ever there was one.

 

One of Clintonā€™s emails suggests that downloading and uploading material in this fashion was a commonplace activity in her office. In June 2011, a staffer encountered difficulty transmitting a document to her by means of a classified system. An impatient Clinton instructed him to strip the classified markings from the document and send it on as an unclassified email. ā€œTurn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and send nonsecure,ā€ Clinton instructed.

 

On three separate occasions staffers got sloppy and failed to strip the ā€œnonpapersā€ of all markings that betrayed their classified origins. The FBI recovered one email, for example, that contained a ā€œCā€ in parenthesis in the margin ā€” an obvious sign that the corresponding paragraph was classified ā€œConfidential.ā€ When an agent personally interviewed Clinton, on July 2, he showed her the document and asked whether she understood what the ā€œCā€ meant. For anyone who has ever held a security clearance, ā€œCā€™sā€ in the margins are more ubiquitous than ā€œCā€™sā€ on water faucets ā€” and no more baffling. But Clinton played the ditzy grandmother. She had simply assumed, she said, that the ā€œCā€ was marking an item in an alphabetized list.

 

In the 2,500-year life of the alphabet, this was a first: a list that started with the third letter and contained but a single item. The explanation was laughable, but any sensible answer would have constituted an acknowledgement of malicious intent. Her only out was the ā€œwell-intentioned but carelessā€ script that Obama had written for her. In other words, she lied to the FBI ā€” a felony offense.

 

Before she ever told this howler, however, Comey had already prepared a draft of his statement exonerating her. The FBI let Hillary Clinton skate.

 

If Comey had followed the letter of the law, the trail of guilt may have led all the way to Obama himself.

 

But give Comey his due. If he had followed the letter of the law, the trail of guilt may have led all the way to Obama himself. As Andrew C. McCarthy has demonstrated at National Review Online, Obama used a dummy email account to communicate with Clinton via her private server. Did this make Obama complicit in Clintonā€™s malfeasance? Anyone in Comeyā€™s position would have thought twice before moving to prosecute her ā€” and not only because the case might have ensnared the president himself. The FBI must enforce the law, but it must also be seen to be enforcing it. As a rule, these two imperatives buttress each other. During the 2016 election, Comey faced extraordinary circumstances. If he had followed the law to the letter, he would have toppled the leading candidate for president and decapitated the Democratic party. Clintonā€™s supporters, more than 50 percent of the electorate, would have erupted in outrage, screaming that a politicized FBI had thrown the election to Donald Trump.

 

Guarding the bureauā€™s reputation for impartiality is a serious concern. But it is nevertheless a thoroughly political concern. Comey would have us believe that it was a unique moment in his career, the singular entry into the political arena of an otherwise apolitical servant of the law. Truth be told, Comey loves being in the thick of it, but not because he is a partisan brawler. He is not. It is the drama that he relishes ā€” the grand stage. His favorite role is that of Joe Friday, the no-nonsense lawman, the guardian of legal processes before the encroachments of dirty politicians.

 

Joe Friday, however, was a simple detective, a confirmed bachelor, content to live quietly with his mother and his parakeet. And, of course, he was a TV fiction. In real life, humble straight shooters get clobbered with a brick before they ever reach the limelight. In real life, snagging the big part often requires the equivalent of leaving a bloody horsehead in the producerā€™s bed.

 

McCabe and the Lovers

 

And it requires a supportive staff. Midyear Exam, the codename for the investigation into Hillary Clintonā€™s emails, relied on a team of men and women with the right stuff ā€” a quality that is hard to define but easy to recognize.

 

The right stuff did not require strong Democratic credentials, but they certainly helped. Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the FBI, led the team. McCabe was not your FBI gumshoe of old. He spent no time in his younger days chasing bank robbers in Des Moines. He was part of a new breed ā€” the post-9/11 FBI leadership, for whom the career fast track was counterterrorism. He came of age at the intersection of law enforcement with national security, shuttling between D.C. and New York. Along the way, he developed a valuable personal network. His wife, Jill, ran as a Democrat for a Virginia state-senate seat in 2015. The political organization of Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, one of Hillary Clintonā€™s very closest associates, gave her nearly $500,000.

 

Perhaps more important than having Democratic credentials was having a heightened understanding of the needs of senior leadership ā€” in the FBI, certainly, but also in the DOJ. Right across the street from the J. Edgar Hoover Building sat Attorney General Loretta Lynch. She would be scrutinizing Midyear Exam in every detail. And not just Lynch. Hillary Clinton herself would be watching closely ā€” and would be brought in for questioning, too. Being willing and able to treat her with kid gloves was essential. She ā€œmight be our next president,ā€ team member Lisa Page reminded Peter Strzok, the agent in charge of Midyear Exam. Referring to Clintonā€™s upcoming FBI interview, Page wrote, ā€œThe last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear.ā€

 

Like McCabe, Strzok had pursued a career at the nexus of law enforcement and counterterrorism. But he was less overtly political. A John Kasich sympathizer, he was by nature a middle-of-the-roader, and a Republican-leaning one, at that. Clinton left him cold. But Trump left him even colder ā€” and his active personal life helped concentrate his mind on that antipathy. Strzok was having an affair with Page, who was an FBI lawyer on McCabeā€™s staff. Both were married. Pageā€™s politics were typical of highly educated people in D.C.: She detested Trump and his supporters. He is ā€œa loathsome human being,ā€ she texted to Strzok, who readily agreed. After Trump captured the nomination, hostility to him quickly became part of their private idiom.

 

If ā€œthe ultimate aphrodisiac,ā€ as Henry Kissinger famously claimed, is power, then wielding it together with an illicit lover must be the pinnacle of eroticism. Together, Strzok and Page explored the power of secrets, routinely leaking to the press to shape political outcomes. ā€œStill on the phone with Devlin,ā€ Page texted to Strzok, referring to former Wall Street Journal national-security reporter Devlin Barrett. Big news about the Hillary Clinton email story was breaking when Devlin and Page were on the phone together. ā€œYou might wanna tell Devlin he should turn on CNN, thereā€™s news on,ā€ Strzok texted back.

 

Page: He knows. He just got handed a note.

 

Strzok: Ha. He asking about it now?

 

Page: Yeah. It was pretty funny.

 

Influencing the nationā€™s politics was routine. And ridiculously easy: one quick call to ā€œDevlin,ā€ and boom! The world changed.

 

McCabe and the two lovers demonstrated the very essence of the right stuff: a breezy comfort with bending the law to the demands of politics.

 

Deploying secrets for political effect ā€” deciding which to keep, which to tell, and how to tell them ā€” was a task that they approached with alacrity. The ultimate goal, of course, was not propping up Hillary Clinton so much as maximizing the power and autonomy of the FBI. In pursuing this goal, McCabe and the two lovers demonstrated the very essence of the right stuff: a breezy comfort with bending the law to the demands of politics.

 

They honed their skills on Midyear Exam. As that test ended, an even bigger one loomed before them. At the end of July, Comey and McCabe would officially open an investigation into Russian meddling in the election, including possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. On July 5, the day of Comeyā€™s press conference on Clintonā€™s emails, a former British spy, Christopher Steele, flew to Rome to meet an old FBI contact. The information he brought had weighty implications for the impending investigation. But neither the information nor the implications are what we have been led to believe.

 

The Super Spy

 

Steele ā€” a former British spy and a Russia expert ā€” was working on contract to Fusion GPS, a Washington-based public-relations firm, which, in turn, was on contract to a D.C. law firm, which, in turn, was on contract to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. Steele, that is to say, was working for Hillary Clinton. His job, among other things, was to collect opposition research on Trump from his network of Russian sources.

 

When Steele arrived in Rome, his famous ā€œdossierā€ did not exist. The dossier, as we have come to know it, is some 17 reports that he compiled between June and December 2016. In early July, Steele had been working on the Clinton account for only a few weeks and had written but one report, dated June 20. It claimed that Trump was Vladimir Putinā€™s Manchurian candidate. ā€œ[The] Russian regime has been cultivating, supporting, and assisting Trump for at least 5 years,ā€ Steele reported. Putinā€™s goal was ā€œto sow discord and disunity both within the US itself, but more especially within the Transatlantic alliance.ā€ The Russian leader supported Trump, mainly, by supplying ā€œvaluable intelligence on his opponents, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.ā€

 

Putin had offered lucrative financial contracts, but Trump had turned them down. The wily Russian, however, had managed to get his hooks into Trump due to the Americanā€™s ā€œsexual perversion.ā€ During a visit to Moscow in 2013, Trump had hired prostitutes to stay with him in the same hotel suite used by the Obamas on one of their trips. The FSB, Russiaā€™s secret police, had fitted the room with cameras and recording equipment. Trump had the prostitutes defile Obamaā€™s bed by putting on a ā€œgolden showerā€ performance for him. All of it was caught on tape.

 

Earthshaking news: Vladimir Putin was blackmailing Donald J. Trump. No doubt, Steeleā€™s FBI handler rushed this report to his superiors in Washington, D.C. They, in turn, raced it straight to Obamaā€™s desk. Sorry, wrong. According to the New York Times, Steeleā€™s explosive revelations wound their way to the J. Edgar Hoover Building only slowly. It took weeks before they appeared in Strzokā€™s in-box. Why?

 

Mike Morell, the former deputy director of the CIA, helps explain the delay. Morell did some digging into Christopher Steeleā€™s dossier and shared the results of his research at a public forum in Washington, D.C., in March 2017. Steele, according to Morell, did not have direct access to the Russians whom he labeled as his ā€œsourcesā€ ā€” people who included former officers in the FSB. He ā€œcommunicatedā€ with them, if that is the right word, through paid intermediaries, who paid the so-called sources.

 

The chances of Steele having been played were thus great. Morell explained it like this:

 

If youā€™re paying somebody, particularly former FSB officers, they are going to tell you truth and innuendo and rumor, and theyā€™re going to call you up and say, ā€œHey, letā€™s have another meeting, I have more information for you,ā€ because they want to get paid some more.

 

This process, Morell said, ā€œtakes you nowhere.ā€

 

Steeleā€™s report was, in a word, junk. And Morell, the man who expressed that opinion, was not just a seasoned intelligence professional; he was also a staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton for president. Nor did Steeleā€™s FBI handler in Rome set off an alarm in Washington, because he, presumably, was also a seasoned professional who knew junk when he saw it. And he had many additional reasons to doubt the veracity of Steeleā€™s reporting ā€” reasons that Morell refrained from broaching. How, for example, could Steele be sure that the former FSB officers in his network were fully retired? The convoluted pipeline between Moscow and London gave Russian intelligence too many opportunities to inject disinformation into the flow of reports to London.

 

And letā€™s not neglect the glaring issue of plausibility. When in the history of the rivalry between the West and Russia has it been possible for a British spy to call up sources in Moscow and gain immediate access to the deepest secrets of the Kremlin? Steele, relying only on his wits, unearthed gems the likes of which glittered only in the dreams of the CIA, Mossad, and MI6, the greatest intelligence-gathering organizations on earth. To believe that tale, we must assume that Steele, like James Bond, is no ordinary secret agent. Heā€™s a super spy.

 

Then thereā€™s the little matter of Steeleā€™s personal bias. According to one well-informed associate, Steele was ā€œpassionate aboutā€ preventing Trump from winning the election. His financial incentives, of course, oriented him in exactly the same direction. He was a paid piper ā€” and he got paid only for collecting information detrimental to Trump. Isnā€™t it possible ā€” likely, even ā€” that his shadowy paymasters in the demimonde of the Clinton campaign were calling the tune?

 

Steeleā€™s reports certainly harmonized beautifully with the campaignā€™s propaganda. On June 2, in a speech in San Diego, Hillary Clinton unveiled her main line of attack on Donald Trumpā€™s foreign policy. His ideas, she said, were ā€œdangerously incoherent.ā€ In fact, they werenā€™t ā€œeven really ideas ā€” just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds, and outright lies.ā€ Particularly mystifying was his attitude toward the Russian dictator: ā€œHe said if he were grading Vladimir Putin as a leader, heā€™d give him an A. . . . Iā€™ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants.ā€

 

But the demimonde wasnā€™t about to leave it to mental-health professionals. It hired instead a British super spy. He immediately explained that Putin was extorting Trump. Two weeks after that, he flew to Rome to share his explanation with the FBI. By the time he left Rome, his handler might not have guessed that the Clinton campaign was funding the spyā€™s work. The political nature of Steeleā€™s mission, however, would have been obvious.

 

In Rome on July 5, the FBI was beginning to acquire a new secret. But it was not the one contained in Steeleā€™s report. The Clinton campaign, the FBI would soon learn with certainty, was intent on framing Trump as Putinā€™s puppet. That secret was truly explosive ā€” and perhaps thrilling for the two lovers on McCabeā€™s staff. In time, all of them ā€”Strzok, Page, McCabe, and Comey ā€” would all mishandle it, damaging their careers irreparably. In July, however, they were not yet in a rush to ruination. The team with the right stuff cautiously watched and waited. Not until September would they take their fateful missteps.

 

Hillary Clinton greets supporters at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pa., July 28, 2016.

The Birth of the Collusion Thesis

 

On July 22, WikiLeaks released the largest cache of DNC emails. The plan behind the hack now became clear: to sabotage the Democratic National Convention, which opened in Philadelphia on July 25. While Clinton was organizing a celebration of Democratic unity, Guccifer 2.0 was working to flood the convention floor with enraged Bernie Sanders insurgents. In the event, Clinton managed to prevent the protests from ruining the convention. But they did damage her theater of power ā€” and they also handed Trump a fresh opportunity to broadcast his ā€œCrooked Hillaryā€ theme. He took obvious delight in the rage of the Sanders followers. ā€œAn analysis showed that Bernie Sanders would have won the Democratic nomination if it were not for the Super Delegates,ā€ Trump tweeted on the eve of the convention.

 

The statement hit Clinton like an iron bar to her kneecap. The thought that a malevolent foreign actor was helping Trump deliver the blow only increased the pain. Most observers assumed that Russian state-backed hackers stood behind Guccifer 2.0 (an assumption that has grown stronger with time). If Trump felt sheepish about benefiting from such people, he hid it well. ā€œI will tell you this, Russia. If youā€™re listening, I hope youā€™re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,ā€ he said on July 27, referring to Hillary Clintonā€™s messages that the FBI never recovered during its investigation of her private server.

 

In the eyes of his supporters, Trumpā€™s appeal to Putin was a stage whisper, a mock gesture ā€” and a pointed dig at Clinton. In her rush to hide emails from the FBI, Trump implied, she had delivered them up to Putin on a platter. But his brand of humor was lost on Clinton and her team. To them, the appeal to Putin was sinister. ā€œI just think thatā€™s beyond the pale,ā€ said Clinton loyalist and former CIA director Leon Panetta. To shame Trump before the voters, the campaign shifted its rhetoric perceptibly. In June, Clinton had depicted Trumpā€™s attitude toward Putin as irrational. Now the two were said to be in a partnership ā€” a ā€œbromanceā€ was how John Podesta, Clintonā€™s campaign chairman, described it. ā€œThis has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,ā€ said senior Clinton policy aide Jake Sullivan. ā€œThis has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national-security issue.ā€

 

Shaming was all well and good, but it only resonated among committed voters. Winning the election required convincing independents that Trump was more than just a passive beneficiary of the DNC hack; he had to be an accomplice. Clintonā€™s campaign thus posted five questions on its website:

 

  1. Whatā€™s behind Trumpā€™s fascination with Vladimir Putin?

 

  1. Why does Trump surround himself with advisers with links to the Kremlin?

 

  1. Why do Trumpā€™s foreign policy ideas read like a Putin wish list?

 

  1. Do Trumpā€™s still-secret tax returns show ties to Russian oligarchs?

 

  1. Why is Trump encouraging Russia to interfere in our election?

 

Each question was followed by a short answer, leading to the inevitable conclusion that Trump was actively conspiring with Putin.

 

And so, the collusion thesis was born. The website did not spell out the details of the conspiracy, but the campaignā€™s demimonde left nothing to the imagination. Christopher Steele had discovered Russian ā€œsourcesā€ who painted a vivid picture of the plot. Putin had decided against releasing the compromising videos of Trump. The Manchurian candidate was proving just too beneficial to Russia. In fact, a full-blown alliance had formed between Putin and Trump. Based on their ā€œmutual interest in defeating . . . Hillary Clinton,ā€ they struck a grand bargain: Putin would help elect Trump, who would deliver a supine American policy on Ukraine and NATO defense.

 

The super spyā€™s network was remarkable. His Russian sources were as close to Trump as they were to Putin. ā€œAn ethnic Russian close associateā€ of Trumpā€™s ā€œadmitted that there was a well-developed conspiracyā€ between him and the Russians. Another source revealed more: The DNC hack was carried out ā€œwith the full knowledge and support of Trump and senior members of his campaign team.ā€ There it was: the proof the Clinton campaign needed. The great crime against Hillary Clinton was a joint Russian-American operation, and Trump was in on it from the beginning.

 

Steeleā€™s startling discoveries hardly stopped there. But before revealing more, letā€™s pause and consider the purpose of his reports. How, precisely, did his direct employer, Fusion GPS, use them?

 

The Super Duo

 

To hear Glenn Simpson tell it, his company, Fusion GPS, is a research organization. ā€œWhat we do is provide people with factual information,ā€ he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017. ā€œOur specialty is public record information.ā€ In truth, Simpsonā€™s true specialty is not research but persuasion ā€” more specifically, persuasion of reporters. He has a talent for convincing journalists to publish stories, true or not, that benefit his clients. In short, he is a public-relations flack.

 

But Simpson is no ordinary PR man; heā€™s a super flack. In the first decade of this century, he was in his early forties and working as an investigative journalist for the Wall Street Journal. He was reaching the pinnacle of his profession just as the Internet was gutting the print media. Simpson, however, had a marketable talent. ā€œI call it journalism for rent,ā€ he said at a public forum in August 2017. Journalism as we once knew might be dead, but deep-pocketed clients still needed to get stories into the press. And they needed to block other stories from being published. Simpson knew almost every member of the Washington press corps personally, and he understood the constraints under which they worked ā€” what it took to get a story past an editor. He handed them canned articles. They got scoops; he got happy clients.

 

When pitching stories on Trump-Putin collusion, Simpson eventually discovered the great benefit of placing Christopher Steele directly in front of reporters. In September and October, he would fly the spy from London to the United States so the two of them could brief major media outlets as a team. Before that, in July and August, Simpson did not have the benefit of Steeleā€™s physical presence. But neither was he alone. He still had the super spyā€™s reports ā€” James Bond in a briefcase.

 

Con men stoke the greed of their marks by letting them catch glimpses of suitcases bulging with cash. Simpson gave his marks a sense that he was similarly loaded ā€” but with valuable information, not money. ā€œIn September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the ā€˜dossier,ā€™ ā€ wrote Jonathan Winer, in the Washington Post. A former U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state, Winer admitted passing Steeleā€™s information to his superiors. ā€œI was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department,ā€ he explained. Simpson, we infer, would let journalists catch a glimpse of the super spyā€™s ā€œraw intelligence.ā€ Then he would quickly take the document back ā€” because, you understand, it was just too sensitive to leave lying around.

 

If journalists feared that Steeleā€™s startling reports (such as, for example, the one about the golden shower) contained Russian disinformation, Simpson had a well-rehearsed spiel at the ready to reassure them. He inadvertently shared it before the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017. Steele, Simpson explained, had a ā€œstandard presentationā€ for journalists to explain how he avoided falling prey to the diabolical Russians. Sliding into the first person, he rattled off Steeleā€™s lines:

 

I was the lead Russianist at Ml6 in the final years of my career. And I was previously stationed in Moscow. And I speak Russian. And Iā€™ve done Russian intelligence/counterintelligence issues all my life. And the central problem when youā€™re a Russian intelligence expert is disinformation, and that the Russians have . . . a long history and an advanced capability in disinformation. And so . . . before we go any further, I just want you to know that . . . this is . . . the fundamental problem with my profession. And it should be assumed that in any sort of intelligence gathering . . . there will be some disinformation. And Iā€™m trained to spot that and filter it out, but . . . you should understand that . . . no oneā€™s perfect.

 

Simpson staked the credibility of the dossier on just one thing: Steeleā€™s super awesomeness.

 

Simpson then switched to the first-person plural. Perhaps, when briefing journalists, this was the point at which he would speak, in his own voice, as the leader of the talented and experienced team at Fusion GPS:

 

And so weā€™ve essentially filtered out everything that we think is disinformation, and weā€™re not going to present that to you here. Weā€™re going to present to you things that we think come from credible sources, but weā€™re not going to warrant [sic] to you . . . that this is all true.

 

Simpson staked the credibility of the dossier on just one thing: Steeleā€™s super awesomeness. On his own, Simpson would have been flacking salacious rumor, but paired with Steele, he was briefing ā€œcredible intelligence.ā€ Together, they became a super duo.

 

The purpose of the dossier would change over time. In July and August, the goal was not to get Steeleā€™s reports directly into the press. Nobody knew better than Simpson, a highly experienced reporter, that Steeleā€™s claims were unverifiable and, therefore, unprintable. The best he could achieve was an article that reinforced the main suppositions of the collusion thesis ā€” an article such as ā€œTrump and Putin: A Love Story,ā€ which David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker, wrote and published in early August. ā€œPutin,ā€ sees in Trump a grand opportunity,ā€ Remnick explained. ā€œHe sees in Trump weakness and ignorance, a confused mind. He has every hope of exploiting him.ā€

 

Remnick stopped just short of claiming that Putin was actually blackmailing Trump, but his depiction of their relations matched, in general, the story that emerged from Steeleā€™s reports. Remnick took pains, for example, to instruct readers:

 

The gathering of kompromat ā€” compromising material ā€” is a familiar tactic in Putinā€™s arsenal. For years, the Russian intelligence services have filmed political enemies in stages of sexual and/or narcotic indulgence, and have distributed the grainy images online.

 

Did Remnick personally rely on a Fusion GPS briefing? We do not know. Jane Mayer, a staff writer for the New Yorker, recently confessed that she received a briefing, in September, directly from super spy himself ā€” so the potential for communication certainly existed. Regardless of what inspired Remnick, his approach represented a win for Simpson. If, with the help of the dossier or any other tool of persuasion, he could convince journalists that Putin was blackmailing Trump with compromising videos, then it was just that much easier to convince them to report stories about, say, the danger to the Western alliance that Trump represented ā€” a story that would require nothing more than stringing together a few quotes from Trump with a few ominous warnings from foreign-policy experts. The dossier, in short, helped Simpson sell a master narrative.

 

A Diabolical Mastermind

 

By choosing to convince voters that Trump was somehow an accomplice to the DNC hack, the Clinton campaign had set itself a difficult challenge: defining the role of Putinā€™s American partners in crime. After all, the hack did not require the assistance of a Tom Cruise character. No one broke into DNC headquarters, crawled through a ventilator shaft, rappelled from a cable, and slid a disk into a hard drive. The hackers carried out the operation unilaterally, electronically, and probably from offshore. They required no accomplices on American soil.

 

Steele solved this problem by finding ā€œsourcesā€ who revealed that the crucial contributions of Trumpā€™s team came in the planning stages. As it turns out, Steele reported, the idea to hack the DNC actually originated from the American side. It was Trumpā€™s team that defined the objective of the operation: ā€œleaking the DNC e-mails to Wikileaks during the Democratic Conventionā€ in order ā€œto swing supporters of Bernie Sanders away from Hillary Clinton and across to Trump.ā€

 

This report solved half of the Clinton campaignā€™s problem: It established Trumpā€™s guilt. But a conspiracy canā€™t grab the popular imagination if it is devoid of actual conspirators. Here again, the super spyā€™s ā€œsourcesā€ came to the rescue. On the day-to-day level, the job of managing the Trump-Putin collusion fell to Paul Manafort, who, at that time, was still Trumpā€™s campaign manager. But Manafort was not the architect of the DNC hack. Fortunately, the super spy was running a mole who was able to identify that criminal genius. The plot, Steele reported, ā€œwas conceived and promoted by Trumpā€™s foreign policy adviser Carter Page.ā€

 

Here the super spyā€™s vaunted ability to filter out Russian disinformation appears to have failed him. Carter Page (who is no relation to Lisa Page on McCabeā€™s team) played a negligible role in the campaign. The Trump people had placed him on a team of foreign-policy advisers, to be sure, but they had thrown the group together in haste to counter the accusation that the campaign lacked an expert bench. Page did not know Donald Trump personally. He worked in finance, with a focus on investing in Russiaā€™s energy sector, but he had no notable achievements to his name. A former boss described him, very unkindly, as ā€œa gray spot,ā€ a man ā€œwithout any special talents or accomplishments.ā€

 

Steeleā€™s allegations against Page make sense only in a Marvel Comics universe. Carter Page: by day, a mild-mannered businessman; by night, a diabolical mastermind.

 

The role that the super spy ascribed to Page may have been absurd, but what choice did he have? The conspiracy needed a face. That person had to have plausible connections to Russia plus a certain amount of visibility. In Trumpā€™s orbit, there were only two candidates: Manafort and Page. Manafortā€™s ties, however, were to Ukraine, not Russia ā€” and he was too well known. He had been working in Washington since the Reagan era.

 

Page, by contrast, had direct connections to Russia, having lived in Moscow for some three years. The modesty of his career was actually a plus, because Clintonā€™s propagandists could present it as shadowy rather than unsuccessful. For an unknown, Page was surprisingly visible. His trip to Moscow in July 2016 had received significant press attention, not least because he had expressed opinions in favor of rapprochement with Russia and critical of American foreign policy.

 

With the aid of Fusion GPS, the Clinton campaign rolled out their master narrative on Trump-Putin collusion. A new orthodoxy immediately gripped the establishment press, which amplified the overwrought propaganda, complete with suggestions of dirty deals, dark conspiracies, and blackmail. It was Jeffrey Goldberg, the national correspondent (now editor) of The Atlantic, who first trumpeted the new line. In his aptly titled article, ā€œItā€™s Official: Hillary Clinton Is Running against Vladimir Putin,ā€ Goldberg alleged that Trump ā€œhas chosen . . . to unmask himself as a de facto agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.ā€

 

In ā€œPutinā€™s Puppet,ā€ Franklin Foer of Slate examined the matter from the Russian side: ā€œVladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the West ā€” and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump,ā€ he wrote. David Remnickā€™s article discussing Putinā€™s affinity for grainy sex videos made identical points. All three authors noted, with grave concern, the Russian ties of Paul Manafort and . . . Carter Page.

 

With the exception of Fox News, the broadcast media beat the same drum. CNN might not have accused Page of masterminding the hack of the DNC, but it recognized a dangerous man when it saw one. On August 8, for example, it devoted a long segment entirely to Page. ā€œWhatā€™s really remarkable here,ā€ Jim Sciutto, CNNā€™s chief national-security correspondent told anchorman Wolf Blitzer, is that Pageā€™s positions ā€œmatch almost word for word the positions of the Kremlin, on, for instance, alleged U.S. orchestration of pro-democracy in and around Russia. And that is sparking concern from Russia experts and former policy makers even inside the GOP.ā€

 

So Page was ā€œsparking concernā€ even among Never-Trump Republicans? How ominous! But imagine how much more ominous it would have sounded if journalists could have reported that Page was also sparking concern in the FBI! At that moment, John Brennan, the director of the CIA, was doing his damnedest to hand journalists precisely that story.

 

CIA director John Brennan testifies on Capitol Hill, June 16, 2016.

A Ventriloquist and His Dummy

 

While the establishment press was singing in harmony with the Clinton campaign, a cacophonous debate erupted inside government. At the end of July, James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence, said at a public forum that the intelligence community was not ā€œready yet to make a call on attributionā€ ā€” not ready, that is, to attribute the DNC hack to Putin. Clapper was also unready to say that the intention of the hackers was to get Trump elected. The goal, he said, may simply have been ā€œto stir up trouble.ā€ When combined with similar comments by other intelligence officials, Clapperā€™s statements undercut Hillary Clintonā€™s efforts to brand Trump as Putinā€™s active accomplice.

 

Enter John Brennan. In early August, Brennan launched a personal campaign to force a consensus in support of Clintonā€™s propaganda. Before long, Clapper became his partner in this effort. They would succeed, however, only after the election ā€” and then only by establishing an ad hoc and highly unorthodox intelligence-assessment team. To man the team, Brennan and Clapper handpicked a small number of analysts, tasking them with reaching a consensus before the inauguration of Donald Trump. The team, no surprise, did not disappoint. In January 2017, it produced the ā€œconsensusā€ that Brennan had been trying to orchestrate for the previous five months. By then, it was still useful as a propaganda tool against President Donald Trump, though it had arrived far too late to help Hillary Clinton win the election.

 

Of course, Brennan has never admitted his political motives. On the contrary, according to an in-depth Washington Post investigation (based on interviews with either Brennan himself or people very close to him), the CIA director claimed to be in possession of eye-popping intelligence reports about the DNC hack. These reports supposedly ā€œcaptured Putinā€™s specific instructions on the operationā€™s audacious objectives ā€” defeat or at least damage the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, and help elect her opponent, Donald Trump.ā€ Yet even if this intelligence trove actually did exist and truly did convince the CIA director, it obviously did not have the same persuasive impact on his colleagues, as evidenced by Brennanā€™s failure to deliver a consensus assessment of Putinā€™s motives.

 

In his mission to transform the intelligence community into an official choir of the Clinton campaign, Brennan ran up against a 6ā€™7ā€³ wall in the form of James Comey. According to the New York Times, in August 2016, ā€œa critical splitā€ emerged between ā€œthe CIA and counterparts at the FBI, where a number of senior officials continued to believe . . . that Russiaā€™s cyberattacks were aimed primarily at disrupting Americaā€™s political system, and not at getting Mr. Trump elected.ā€ As a component of this disagreement, Brennan may also have pressured Comey to investigate possible collusion with Russia by aides and associates of Trump.

 

By law, the CIA cannot spy on Americans; only the FBI has the authority to investigate citizens. But the CIA can share reports with the FBI about efforts by foreign agents to suborn individual Americans, and it can strongly urge the bureau to take action on the basis of those leads. Brennan, it would appear, did just that in July 2016.

 

That was the moment when the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to influence the Trump campaign. As we mentioned, Peter Strzok, who had been in charge of Midyear Exam, took charge of this investigation, too. The genesis and scope of it, however, is shrouded in a fog of deliberate misinformation. From the little we know, the probe seems to have centered on George Papadopoulos, a young foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign. Acting mostly on his own initiative, Papadopoulos reached out to Russians in the hopes of brokering a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. In the process, he may have bumped into Russian intelligence agents.

 

Papadopoulosā€™s activities took place, primarily, in London ā€” a part of the world where the CIA has greater reach than the FBI. How did Comey come to learn of them? The answer is unclear, but certain clues point to Brennan.

 

One of these is Brennanā€™s own testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in March 2017. The CIA, he explained, had shared certain information with the FBI ā€” an apparent reference to the Papadopoulos leads. This was information, he said, ā€œthat required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.ā€ Was Brennan taking responsibility for kick-starting the investigation into the Trump campaign? He seemed to be saying that he had dropped the Papadopoulos file on Comeyā€™s desk and said, ā€œInvestigate Trump!ā€

 

If this supposition about the origins of the investigation in July is correct, it may also help explain Brennanā€™s behavior in late August, when he grew increasingly exasperated with Comey. In an effort to gain allies, Brennan turned to friends in Congress for help. With the blessing of Obama, he organized a series of briefings for the so-called Gang of Eight ā€” the Democratic and Republican leaders in both chambers of Congress, and the chairs and ranking minority members on the Senate and the House intelligence committees. According to the New York Times, Brennan told these senior lawmakers that he ā€œhad information indicating that Russia was working to help elect Donald J. Trump president,ā€ a view that was not supported by an authoritative intelligence assessment.

 

Obama and Brennan explained the briefings as an effort to forge bipartisan unity in the face of the Russian threat. But if Brennan couldnā€™t force a consensus inside the intelligence community, how could he possibly convince Republicans and Democrats to join hands ā€” during a polarizing election, no less?

 

Democratic lawmakers became the ventriloquistā€™s dummies, moving their lips mechanically as CIA director Brennan spoke.

 

This high-minded bipartisanship was simply cover for a highly partisan move. The true motive of the briefings was to ventriloquize the Democrats on the Hill. If Brennan himself had gone public with his claims about Putin, he would have called down attacks on himself for passing off Clinton propaganda as an official intelligence assessment ā€” and for meddling, as the director of the CIA, in domestic politics. Democratic lawmakers who received his briefings, however, operated under no such constraints. They were perfectly free to pass along Brennanā€™s views to the public as their own. They became the ventriloquistā€™s dummies, moving their lips mechanically as the CIA director spoke.

 

Brennan placed one of them center stage. On August 25, he gave a briefing that differed from the others; he tailored its content especially to the bare-knuckle politics of its recipient, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. During the 2012 election, Reid had assisted President Obama by falsely claiming that his Republican presidential challenger, Mitt Romney, had paid no taxes for ten years. When later asked if spreading a false rumor wasnā€™t reminiscent of McCarthyism, Reid responded, ā€œThey can call it whatever they want. Romney didnā€™t win, did he?ā€ With the certain knowledge that Reid, who was in any case retiring after the 2016 election, would do whatever it took to win, Brennan indulged his own partisan political passions. He told Reid, according to the New York Times, ā€œthat unnamed advisers to Mr. Trump might be working with the Russians to interfere in the election.ā€

 

If Reidā€™s response is anything to go by, Brennan did much more than that: He briefed the senator on information taken directly from Steeleā€™s dossier; and he complained about the recalcitrance of the director of the FBI. Two days after the briefing, Reid wrote a letter to Comey, which he immediately shared with the press. Claiming there was mounting evidence of ā€œa direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trumpā€™s presidential campaign,ā€ Reid demanded that the FBI launch an immediate investigation. The American people, he wrote, deserve all the facts ā€œbefore they vote this November.ā€

 

The Trump campaign, Reid continued bluntly, ā€œhas employed a number of individuals with significant and disturbing ties to Russia and the Kremlin.ā€ He was particularly concerned with Trump associates who may have served as what he called ā€œcomplicit intermediariesā€ between the Russian government and hackers. ā€œThe prospect of individuals tied to Trump, Wikileaks, and the Russian government coordinating to influence our election raises concerns of the utmost gravity and merits full examination.ā€ In an unmistakable reference to Steeleā€™s reports on Carter Page, Reid informed Comey that ā€œquestions have been raisedā€ about a Trump adviser who allegedly ā€œmet with high-ranking sanctioned individuals while in Moscow.ā€

 

Serving as Brennanā€™s dummy, Reid publicized the Marvel Comics rendering of Carter Page, and he demanded that the FBI launch an investigation on the basis of it. Before long, Comey would obey.

Tom ID: 9fc60b Sept. 2, 2023, 3:57 a.m. No.170242   šŸ—„ļø.is šŸ”—kun

>>170241

 

PART 2. The Real Collusion Story(NationalReview.com)

 

President Obama and Hillary Clinton at a campaign rally in Charlotte, N.C., July 5, 2016.

The Cutout

 

Shortly after Reidā€™s letter, Obama asked the FBI for an update on its investigation of Russian tampering with the election. The president, Lisa Page texted to her lover Peter Strzok, ā€œwants to know everything weā€™re doing.ā€ The text probably refers to Obamaā€™s preparations for the G-20 meeting in China, where he personally lodged a complaint with Putin about the Russian hacking. But the request is intriguing. Obama was engaging the FBI just as it stood ready to use the allegations of the Steele dossier as a basis for broadening its investigation of Trump. When Comey informed Obama about ā€œeverything we are doing,ā€ did he discuss the Carter Page allegations? Did he note their source, Christopher Steele? And what about the president himself? Did Obama nudge Comey to comply with the demands of Brennan and Reid?

 

Whatever signals the president may have sent, McCabe and his lovebirds certainly began supporting the efforts of Brennan and Reid to paint Trump as Putinā€™s puppet. The form of support was nuanced and clandestine. If Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had contacted their favorite reporter, Devlin Barrett, and leaked the fact that a Trump adviser was coming under investigation, the leak would have implicated the FBI. Trump and his supporters would then have castigated Comey, accusing him of intervening in politics. To avoid such problems, the lovers used a pair of cutouts ā€” intermediaries who laundered the FBIā€™s information in the same way that Reid had laundered information for Brennan.

 

Who better to play this role than the super duo, Simpson and Steele? Either directly or through an intermediary, Strzok shared with Steele the news of the impending investigation of Carter Page. He did so with the certain knowledge that Steele would channel it to Simpson, who, in turn, would incorporate it into his standard press briefings. (FBI representatives would later deny having used Steele as a cutout with the press, but their self-defense, as we shall see below, is demonstrably false.)

 

The experience of the journalist Julia Ioffe demonstrates how diligent Simpson was at spreading the news that Strzok was surreptitiously feeding him. In mid September, Ioffe published a profile on Carter Page for Politico. ā€œAs I started looking into Page,ā€ she relates, ā€œI began getting calls from two separate ā€˜corporate investigatorsā€™ digging into what they claim are all kinds of shady connections Page has to all kinds of shady Russians.ā€ One of those investigators was, presumably, Simpson; the other one probably represented another dank corner of the Clinton demimonde. Both emphasized an allegation that came directly from Steeleā€™s dossier: namely, that Page, during his trip to Moscow in July, had met with Igor Sechin, who is a key Putin ally and the chairman of the Russian state oil company. The ā€œcorporate investigators,ā€ however, now had something else to push, something new and very newsworthy: ā€œThe FBI was investigating Page.ā€

 

As knowledge of the FBIā€™s interest in Carter Page spread, Steeleā€™s credibility soared. To exploit the opportunity, Simpson flew Steele to the United States to brief select media outlets in person. Thanks to the information that McCabeā€™s team was leaking to the press through Steele, Simpson could repackage the super spy. No longer just a former MI6 operative working as an ā€œindependentā€ researcher, Steele was now a trusted colleague of the FBIā€™s. He possessed unique insight into the fears of American counterintelligence officials about Trumpā€™s nefarious relations with Putin.

 

For the first time, Steele agreed to go on the record as a quoted source for journalists. This round of briefings generated an article, written by veteran Yahoo reporter Michael Isikoff. Entitled ā€œU.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties between Trump Adviser and Kremlin,ā€ it focused, naturally, on Carter Page. Isikoff reported that American officials had ā€œreceived intelligence reportsā€ that Page had met with Sechin. ā€œAt their alleged meeting,ā€ Isikoff reported, ā€œSechin raised the issue of the lifting of sanctions with Page, the Western intelligence source said.ā€ A Western intelligence source? That would be Christopher Steele. By identifying the super spy in this manner, Isikoff disguises (wittingly or unwittingly) Steeleā€™s identity as a Clinton operative and as the author and disseminator of the reports in question. The moniker had the added benefit of making Steele seem to work for a Western government, creating the illusion of transatlantic trepidation about the cunning Carter Page.

 

Confirmation of the articleā€™s central claims came from two other sources. The first was a ā€œsenior U.S. law enforcement official,ā€ who told Isikoff that Pageā€™s meetings in Moscow were ā€œbeing looked at.ā€ Would that be Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, or Lisa Page? The second confirmation came from ā€œa congressional source familiar with . . . briefingsā€ that lawmakers had received about Carter Pageā€™s meetings in Moscow. Would that be Harry Reid? Whether these were indeed the correct identities, it is obvious where Isikoff found his sources: on Glenn Simpsonā€™s Rolodex. Here was a story processed and canned in Fusion GPSā€™s information factory. All Isikoff had to do was add water and shake. His sources were all part of a single network conspiring to hoodwink the public.

 

Why did Comey participate in this fraud? Perhaps it was to get Brennan and Reid off his back. On the risk side of the ledger, the dangers were minimal. Today the Isikoff article is a fingerprint on a hot bullet casing, irrefutable proof placing the FBI at the scene of the crime. But in September 2016, the chances of anyone ever tying the bureau to it were negligible. Although the article announced with great flourish the opening of an investigation into Carter Page, itā€™s not even clear that, at this point, Page was truly an official target of the probe.

 

The important thing to Brennan and Reid was helping Hillary Clinton win the election. What they desired most from the FBI was a public statement that the Trump team was under investigation for conspiring with Putin. With the Isikoff article, Comey didnā€™t fully satisfy them, but he threw them a bone.

 

On the reward side of the ledger, he showed Hillary Clinton and her friends that he was, despite everything, a team player. And his contribution to the team effort was indeed significant. The FBIā€™s leaks were indispensable in giving super-flack Glenn Simpson a stable of seemingly independent sources willing to go on the record about the grave concern sweeping the Western world about, of all people, Carter Page.

 

FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe speaks at a press conference, July 20, 2016.

Get Carter

 

ā€œMr. Page is not an advisor and has made no contribution to the campaign,ā€ said a Trump spokesman in reaction to the media storm over the Isikoff article. If Carter Page thought this disavowal would return some normalcy to his life, he was sadly mistaken. It actually put a target on his back. So long as he was officially affiliated with the Trump campaign, Comey would no doubt hesitate to seek a surveillance warrant, for fear of laying the FBI open to the charge of engaging in politically motivated spying. After the disavowal, Comey had more room for maneuver. He therefore gave the go-ahead to seek a surveillance warrant.

 

Widening the probe to include Page carried a little additional risk for Comey, but not much. If Clinton were to win the election, as everyone expected, then she would never punish him for the move. If Trump were to win and learn about the probe, it would certainly enrage him. But the investigation could also be useful as leverage. Peter Strzok put it well in a text to Lisa Page a month earlier. On August 15, 2016, referring to the possibility of a Trump victory, Strzok wrote:

 

I want to believe the path u threw out 4 consideration in Andyā€™s [McCabeā€™s] office ā€” that thereā€™s no way he gets elected ā€” but Iā€™m afraid we canā€™t take that risk. Itā€™s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event u die be4 youā€™re 40.

 

Strzok, presumably, was saying that a counterintelligence operation against Trump and his team would give the FBI leadership a species of job insurance, similar to the job insurance that J. Edgar Hoover enjoyed in his day. Presidents dared not fire Hoover, because he kept a black book on them all.

 

Strzokā€™s team began the process of seeking a surveillance warrant on Carter Page from the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA. The FISA courtā€™s proceedings are not public, because they treat top-secret intelligence. To seek a warrant against Carter Page required the FBI to show probable cause that he was acting as an agent of Russia. In preparation for the warrant application, the FBI flew Steele to Rome for a face-to-face meeting with his main FBI contact. According to the New York Times, the handler told Steele that the FBI ā€œwould pay him $50,000ā€ if he ā€œcould get solid corroboration of his reports.ā€ It was an incriminating admission. Steeleā€™s reports on Pageā€™s Moscow trip were two months old. The U.S. government ā€” that is, the FBI and the CIA ā€” hadnā€™t produced an iota of corroboration ā€” and yet on the basis of those stale reports, it had suddenly decided to target Page as a probable agent of a foreign power.

 

Why? Because without the Carter Page who appeared in the Steele dossier ā€” without the Marvel Comics villain, there existed no credible intelligence pointing to a criminal conspiracy between Trump and Putin. If the investigation was to be sufficiently broad to dig up dirt on Trump, it had to include the fanciful allegations against Page. These, however, were impossible to corroborate ā€” because they were fictive. They did, however, include one claim that, if shorn of context, wasnā€™t as transparently silly as the others: namely, that Page had met with Sechin, the chairman of the Russian state oil company. To be sure, Steeleā€™s report of the meeting contained the outlandish claim that Page had negotiated with Sechin on lifting American sanctions against Russia. But if McCabeā€™s team were to downplay this aspect as much as possible and focus instead on whether the meeting actually took place (it didnā€™t) ā€” well, that could make it appear like a worrisome allegation calling out for a sober follow-up.

 

The super spy sprang into action. He tapped his daisy chain of paid Russian informants, and before McCabeā€™s team submitted the FISA warrant application, he produced some short reports supposedly confirming the meeting with Sechin. Steele discovered in his network another ā€œsourceā€: the friend of one of Sechinā€™s friend, who had heard from Sechin and from Sechinā€™s personal assistant that indeed Sechin had met with Page. Confirmation?! The ā€œsourceā€ also reported that Sechin offered Page, in return for Trump lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russia, a personal reward: a 19 percent stake in the Russian state-owned oil company ā€” a haul worth millions upon millions, or probably billions.

 

No mere criminal mastermind, Page was master negotiator as well! Cartoonish depictions such as this constitute the primary basis on which the FBI made the case that Page was probably a foreign agent and that, in addition, he had probably broken American law ā€” the legal standard for issuing surveillance warrants. The application for a warrant against Page is locked behind a top-secret classification. But McCabe testified before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 that without Steeleā€™s information, the FBI could not have secured a surveillance warrant. And according to Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham, who have read the original warrant application and the three renewal applications, ā€œthe bulkā€ of the material on which the FBI made its case against Page came in the Steele dossier. What is more, the application contained, in the words of the two senators, ā€œno additional information corroborating the dossier allegationsā€ ā€” no additional information, that is, except for one newspaper article: the Isikoff piece.

 

McCabeā€™s team supported an application based primarily on Steeleā€™s allegations by offering the judges an article that itself was based solely on Steeleā€™s reports.

 

Alfa Shmalfa

 

Placing Page under surveillance marked the high point of the cooperation between McCabeā€™s team and the super duo Simpson and Steele. But nefarious partnerships are prone to unravel; and when they do, they unravel quickly. Only ten short days after McCabeā€™s team pulled the wool over the eyes of the FISA-court judges, Simpson and Steele broke off relations with the FBI in a fit of anger and bitterness.

 

Relations started to fray amid an effort by the super duo to stage a repeat of their Isikoff triumph. At some point in October, Simpson brought Steele to the United States for a second round of in-person briefings with major news outlets. Unfortunately, not one of these outlets has seen fit to disclose the subject of the briefings, so their precise details are sketchy. Still serving as FBI cutouts, the super duo probably updated reporters on the FISA warrant application and other aspects of the Trump-Russia investigation. If so, they may have intended for that information to serve as filler in articles about a new scoop that Simpson was offering reporters. A journalist whom Fusion GPS briefed at that time subsequently told the Washington Times that Simpson was pushing a story about a secret computer link-up between Trump and a Russian bank.

 

According to the New York Times, news of the link-up had started to see the light of day thanks to the ā€œclassifiedā€ briefings that Brennan had organized for trusted Democrats on Capitol Hill. Intelligence officers disclosed, in the words of the Times, ā€œthe possibility of financial ties between Russians and people connected to Mr. Trump,ā€ including ā€œa mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank, which is one of Russiaā€™s biggest banks and whose owners have longstanding ties to Mr. Putin.ā€ John Brennan had designed those briefings to be leaky, so it should come as no surprise that word of the Alfa Bank investigation flowed directly to Fusion GPS.

 

Following the winning formula that had produced the Isikoff article, Simpson provided reporters with the scoop. At first, the plan proceeded flawlessly. Franklin Foer of Slate ran a breathless story about the secret communications between the servers. Do we know with certainty that Foerā€™s information came directly from Fusion GPS? No. Itā€™s certainly possible that, as we saw in the case of Julia Ioffe, some other agent emerged from the shadows of the Clinton demimonde to serve it up to him. Whatever the source of the information, Foer thought he might just have discovered the greatest piece of incriminating evidence yet ā€” and Hillary Clinton agreed.

 

The Clinton campaign called on the FBI to investigate.

 

The speed and enthusiasm of her endorsement suggest more than a measure of coordination. She immediately sent out not one, but two tweets flagging Foerā€™s piece. One of them attached a statement from her campaign, which added heart palpitations and comic-book imagery to Foerā€™s breathlessness. Slateā€™s discovery of a ā€œsecret hotline,ā€ the statement said, might unlock the mystery behind Trumpā€™s love for Putin, and it might also explain why Russia was ā€œmastermindingā€ cyber theft designed ā€œto hurt Hillary Clintonā€™s campaign.ā€ The Clinton campaign called on the FBI to investigate.

 

Clearly, this was the cue for McCabeā€™s lovers to chime in. Their role was to affirm by means of a leak that the FBI was taking very seriously this threat to national security, investigating with all the diligence that the American people expect of their premier law-enforcement agency. Foerā€™s story came out on October 31 ā€” a week and a day before the voters went to the ballot box. If McCabeā€™s team had stuck to the script, the media would have spent the final week before the election talking of nothing but the ā€œsecret hotlineā€ that connected Putin to the lair of his evil minion high atop Trump Tower.

 

But McCabeā€™s team double-crossed Steele and Simpson ā€” or so the super duo must have felt. On the same day the Slate article appeared, the New York Times reported that the FBI had investigated the link between Alfa Bank and Trump Tower. The Bureau, the Times said, had concluded ā€œthat there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts.ā€ This single sentence wiped out weeks of diligent work by Fusion GPS. As if to console Simpson and Steele, the article did reveal that the FBI, all summer long, had been conducting an investigation into the potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. And the Times even disclosed details of the probe ā€” information that came courtesy, one assumes, of briefings from Fusion GPS.

 

But to Simpson and Steele the inclusion of those details was the bitterest of consolation. The damage the Times visited on their propaganda campaign was not limited to undermining the Alfa Bank story. The article included two additional facts, each as destructive as the other: The FBIā€™s wide-ranging investigation into Trump had revealed no collusion with Putin, and the FBI did not even believe that Putin was trying to get Hillary Clinton elected. In a convulsive fit of journalistic integrity, the Times had rejected Fusion GPSā€™s master narrative ā€” and it had done so on the basis of authoritative leaks from the FBI. Someone in the J. Edgar Hoover Building had dropped a pallet of bricks on Simpson and Steele. Who?

 

FBI director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill, July 7, 2016.

The Return of Joe Friday

 

The collapse of the ā€œsecret hotlineā€ story was part of a larger falling-out between the FBI and the super duo ā€” and not by any means the most important part. The event that truly doomed their relations was an announcement, on October 28, that the FBI was reopening the Clinton email investigation. And the character standing at the center of that decision was James Comey.

 

The bureau had learned that Huma Abedin, Hillary Clintonā€™s trusted right hand, had forwarded thousands of emails to a computer in her home, which Anthony Weiner had put to personal use. Weiner was a former congressman, and he was Abedinā€™s husband. But he was also a criminal under investigation by the FBI. In her ā€œwell-intentioned but carelessā€ use of government correspondence, Abedin had streamed thousands of official emails to the laptop of a pedophile.

 

James Comeyā€™s July statement closing the Clinton email case coincided with Guccifer 2.0ā€™s release of the DNC emails, and it helped build the impression of Hillary Clinton as the entitled CEO of Clinton, Inc. This reopening of the case, coming just a week before the election, was also timed for maximum visibility and carried a similar political valence. It was the third in a string of blows that Clinton received in the final stage of the election. The first came at a September 11 memorial commemoration in New York, where she had stumbled badly and seemed to faint, raising doubts about her stamina and health. On October 7, WikiLeaks published the first trove of emails stolen, presumably by Russian intelligence, from her campaign manager John Podesta. The emails were further grist for the mill of those who argued that Bill and Hillary Clinton were running a Tammany Hall for the 21st century. With Clinton stumbling, both literally and figuratively, the director of the FBI seemed determined to knock her back down.

 

What was he thinking? Comey now claims that he assumed Hillary Clinton would win. He feared that, after the election, people would come to learn that he had hidden the issue of Abedinā€™s laptop from the public, and they would accuse him of giving unfair consideration to Clinton. That calculation may indeed have been part of his thinking. But he may also have been hedging against a Trump victory. The announcement about the laptop was a card that he could play to ingratiate himself to Trump ā€” to offset the damage of the leaks about the Russia investigation. On top of those machinations, there was the old story: Comeyā€™s love of the spotlight. Here he was again in a national drama playing the entirely principled and apolitical lawman. He was in Joe Friday heaven.

 

For their part, Clinton and her camp read the FBI directorā€™s move as treachery most vile. In a scream of rage masquerading as a letter to Comey, Harry Reid spoke for the team. Comey, he wrote, was breaking the law by engaging in partisan political activity in support of Trump. Whereas Comey never hesitated to publicize damaging ā€œinnuendoā€ against Clinton, he was protecting Trump from public humiliation. ā€œIt has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisers, and the Russian government ā€” a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity,ā€ Reid fumed. ā€œThe public has a right to know this information.ā€ To underscore that point, he published the letter immediately.

 

Glenn Simpson and Christopher Steele shared the sense of betrayal. Simpson later testified to the House intelligence committee:

 

At that point I felt like the rules had just been thrown out and that Comey had violated . . . one of the more sacrosanct policies, which is not announcing law enforcement activity in the closing days of an election. . . . We decided that if James Comey wasnā€™t going to tell people about this investigation that, you know, he had violated the rules, and [it] would only be fair if the world knew that both candidates were under FBI investigation.

 

So Simpson and Steele ā€œbegan talking to the press.ā€

 

And with that, the super duo brought about the end of their secret partnership with McCabeā€™s team. The bureau expects its cutouts to behave as cutouts: that is to say, they must launder secrets. Sensitive and classified information must never appear in the press in a form that betrays its FBI origins.

 

Comey announced the reopening of the Clinton email case on Friday, October 28. Simpson moved quickly. He arranged a Skype interview between Steele, who was now back in London, and David Corn, a veteran journalist at Mother Jones. On October 31, Corn reported that ā€œa former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligenceā€ told him ā€œthat in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on . . . Russian sources, contending that the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump ā€” and that the FBI requested more information from him.ā€ The FBI response, Steele told Corn, was ā€œshock and horror.ā€ In August, the FBI asked for more of Steeleā€™s memos. ā€œItā€™s quite clear there was or is a pretty substantial inquiry going on.ā€ To ensure that Corn understood the nature of the inquiry, Steele shared with him the text of the reports that he had given to the Bureau.

 

Steeleā€™s decision to expose his partnership with the FBI gave McCabeā€™s team no choice but to terminate the relationship. The break-up was ugly, but its very messiness would later prove useful. In late 2017, congressional investigators would begin questioning the FBIā€™s senior leaders about the role Steele had played as a cutout. The senior leaders would point to the break-up as proof of the FBIā€™s integrity. Steele, they said, had been lying all along to the Bureau about his work with journalists. McCabeā€™s team had no idea that he was funneling the FBIā€™s secrets to the media. It was the Mother Jones interview that alerted them to Steeleā€™s duplicity; the moment it became clear, they immediately terminated the relationship.

 

We have a word to describe the use of fabricated evidence to make an innocent man appear guilty: The Obama administration framed Carter Page. But not only Carter Page. The Obama administration framed Donald Trump.

 

This alibi wonā€™t wash. McCabeā€™s team was fully aware, in September, that Steele stood behind the Isikoff article. In fact, the appearance of ā€œa senior U.S. law enforcement officialā€ in the article implicates McCabeā€™s team more or less directly. In short, Steeleā€™s FBI handlers were aware of his role in leaking information at that time, and it caused them no consternation. On the contrary, after the Isikoff article, the FBI drew Steele even closer, flying him to Rome and offering him $50,000. His work as a cutout received further tacit commendation when McCabeā€™s team used the Isikoff article to dupe the FISA-court judges.

 

The troubles that eventually befell Steele and McCabeā€™s team have no bearing on the simple facts: They worked as partners in prosecuting a campaign of innuendo against Carter Page in September, and again in placing him under surveillance in October. What is more, the surveillance order went beyond McCabeā€™s team, to the highest levels in the FBI and the DOJ. James Comey had to sign off on that decision ā€” and that fact implicates him in a serious abuse of power.

 

Steeleā€™s description of Carter Pageā€™s activities in Moscow is comical. We have a word to describe the use of fabricated evidence to make an innocent man appear guilty: The Obama administration framed Carter Page. But not only Carter Page. According to Steeleā€™s dossier, Page was in Moscow to cut a deal on anotherā€™s behalf: He was an emissary ā€” the trusted agent of Donald Trump. Without Steeleā€™s allegations against Carter Page ā€” without, that is, the story of Page negotiating with Sechin to remove the sanctions ā€” there was no credible allegation of a Trump-Putin conspiracy. The FBI, therefore, carried out a campaign of innuendo against Donald Trump in September. And the Obama administration placed him under investigation in October, if not earlier. The Obama administration framed Donald Trump.

 

Second Sight

 

During the Watergate scandal, the press popularized the phrase ā€œthe non-denial denial.ā€ The Nixon White House had a special talent for issuing statements that sounded like categorical denials of allegations but that, upon close parsing, affirmed them to be true. In the matter of the Steele dossier, Obama officials, some of their allies in Congress, and senior leaders in the FBI have developed an analogous ploy: the ā€œnon-verification verification.ā€ These are statements that distance the speaker from the laughable fantasies of the Steele dossier while still affirming that the tale of collusion it weaves must be taken seriously.

 

The unrivaled master of the move is John Brennan. In a recent appearance on NBCā€™s Meet the Press, Brennan defended the FBIā€™s use of the Steele dossier in its FISA warrant application. He railed against the FBIā€™s critics, whom he depicted as partisan hacks. He played the role of sober intelligence professional. Expressing his personal appraisal of the dossier when he was still director of the CIA, he said, ā€œThere were things in that dossier that made me wonder whether or not they were, in fact, accurate and true.ā€

 

Exactly what things? Was it the dossierā€™s view of Page as the diabolical mastermind of the DNC hack that struck the CIA director as credible? Avoiding the dossierā€™s specific allegations, Brennan maintained his front and asserted, with the somber tone of a button-down national-security professional, that Steeleā€™s reports contain valuable intelligence leads. ā€œI think Jim Comey has said that it contained salacious and unverified information,ā€ Brennan continued. ā€œJust because it was unverified didnā€™t mean it wasnā€™t true.ā€

 

The non-verification verification is central to the distinctive nature of the Obama administrationā€™s abuse of power. Most of our debate has focused on how the FBI used the Steele dossier to validate the investigation of Carter Page. This issue is important, to be sure, but it must not deflect us from seeing that the reverse is also true: The administration deliberately used the investigation of Page to validate the dossier.

 

Consider, again, the coy Brennan. When questioners push him to explain what in the Steele dossier he finds compelling, he habitually takes shelter behind secret sources ā€” evidence hidden behind a classified screen, where only he, the chief intelligence professional, was permitted to see it. ā€œI was aware of intelligence . . . about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether . . . those individuals were cooperating with the Russians . . . and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred.ā€

 

Brennanā€™s somber and self-righteous appeal to hidden secrets is the oldest con in the book.

 

John Brennan sees things that we cannot see. If he indeed has access to secrets that transform stories from Marvel Comics into the stuff of everyday reality, then he has done a very poor job of explaining what they are. Moreover, no disinterested intelligence professional has supported him. Brennanā€™s somber and self-righteous appeal to hidden secrets is the oldest con in the book. Just replace his top-secret computer monitor with a crystal ball or dried chicken bones, and his scam is the same one that Gypsy fortunetellers ran on superstitious peasants in early-modern Europe, or that soothsayers were operating in Homerā€™s Greece.

 

With respect to the framing of Trump, however, the second-sight scam required elaborate orchestration, the work of many hands. The key was the double-tracking of the dossier. Hillary Clintonā€™s enablers channeled it simultaneously into the press and into the government. They then recruited people inside government to verify to the outsiders that it was a serious document, a guide to the intelligence that reporters were not allowed to see. Without this double-tracking and official or quasi-official authentication, journalists would never have believed that they were catching a glimpse of what Brennan and the FBI saw in their crystal balls ā€” pardon me, their top-secret monitors. And without leaks about investigations, journalists would have had no dossier-related news to report. Official statements that the dossier ā€œwas being looked intoā€ transformed it into a legitimate topic for reputable news outlets.

 

This con failed in its primary goal of preventing the election of Trump, but it was nevertheless a partial success. It instilled in a significant portion of the American public the conviction that Trump indeed conspired with Putin. This conviction is especially prevalent among the lofty-minded ā€” a class of people that includes Republicans as well as Democrats.

 

The bipartisan character of the delusion was the greatest factor that legitimated the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel leading the investigation into Trumpā€™s alleged relations with Russia. The lofty-minded have greeted every indictment that Mueller has handed down as confirmation of their collusion delusion. In reality, those indictments only prove that a phalanx of crack investigators armed with nearly unlimited resources, a grand jury, and an expansive mandate can draw blood almost at will. If a similar phalanx were to target Hillary Clinton and the shenanigans surrounding the Clinton Foundation, how much blood would flow? In other words, Muellerā€™s indictments are just the latest form of the non-verification verification.

 

Regardless of Muellerā€™s intentions, his probe serves as precisely the kind of ā€œinsurance policyā€ that Strzok seems to have been discussing with his lover, Lisa Page, in August 2016. Trump cannot shut down the Mueller probe and excise the rot in the DOJ and the FBI without appearing to obstruct justice. In practical terms, then, the Mueller probe is the cover-up.

 

Of course, the lofty-minded refuse to see it this way. The political damage that Muellerā€™s team is inflicting on Trump helps explain why a surprising number of people mount passionate and sincere defenses of the dossier and the super spy who compiled it. The logic of partisan politics will always lead a significant percentage of people to insist, with varying degrees of true belief, that a sowā€™s ear really is a silk purse. But partisanship is not by any means the only factor at work here. Even people with well-deserved reputations for intellectual seriousness passionately defend the integrity of Christopher Steele, a man whom the New York Times insists on calling, despite all contrary evidence, ā€œa whistleblower.ā€

 

For a complete understanding of the dossierā€™s tenacious hold on lofty minds, one must supplement conventional political analysis with psychology. What we are witnessing is nothing less than a textbook case of denial and projection ā€” the most perfect case imaginable.

 

The event that shaped the dossier more than any other was the hack of the DNC. Guccifer 2.0 first began releasing documents on June 15. A week later, Steele produced his first report. The Hillary Clinton that emerged from the DNC emails was preternaturally unsuited to a populist moment. Here she was: the Hillary Clinton who made high-priced speeches to Wall Street on the eve of the Iowa caucuses. Here was the co-executive of the international slush funds of the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative. Here was the power-hungry political boss who worked with the DNC to fix the Democratic primaries. Clintonā€™s supporters instinctively understood the size of the wound that the hack opened up, and they worked frantically to cauterize it ā€” which meant deflecting attention from the greed, entitlement, and sleaze that characterized Clinton, Inc.

 

The dossier quickly became a tool for denying the deficiencies of Bill and Hillary Clinton, projecting them onto Donald Trump. Is Bill Clinton a sexual predator? Thatā€™s nothing. Trump pays teams of prostitutes to pee on him! Did Hillary Clinton preside over the failed ā€œresetā€ with Russia? Thatā€™s nothing. Putin is blackmailing Trump, and he fears Hillary! Did Bill Clinton pocket a $500,000 fee for a speech he gave in Moscow, shortly before the sale of American uranium to Russian interests? Thatā€™s nothing. Trumpā€™s been dependent on Putin for years! Do the emails from the DNC prove that Hillary Clinton rigged the primaries? Thatā€™s nothing. Trump conspired with Putin to rig the entire election!

 

In the wake of the DNC hack, leading figures in the press and senior officials in the Obama administration faced a choice. They could depict Carter Page as he really was: an unknown man of modest accomplishments who played no role of note in the Trump organization. Or they could conspire with Fusion GPS to promote the fiction that he was a sly operative in a sinister network. In a fateful choice, they opted for dishonesty and deception over truth.

 

Once the enablers of Hillary Clinton compromised their own integrity, they internalized her program of denial and projection. Their own egos are now invested in perpetuating it. To avoid owning up to their shortcomings, they insist, in ever-shriller tones, on the personal integrity of the super spy and the credibility of his reports. The mere acknowledgement of a simple truth ā€” that the ā€œdossierā€ is junk ā€” would constitute an admission either of deep professional malfeasance or of gob-smacking gullibility.

 

Choose your poison, Hillary enablers: You duped people and thereby abetted a gross abuse of power; or you were yourself badly duped.

 

Choose your poison: You duped people and thereby abetted a gross abuse of power; or you were yourself badly duped. That is the dilemma that the lofty-minded now face. The choice is excruciating. It requires abandoning satisfying self-images and embracing painful self-truths ā€” while also handing a well-deserved victory to a hated political enemy. As a consequence, the Steele dossier has proved to be as consequential as it is asinine.

 

The Greatest Denier

 

Of course, no one is in deeper denial than Hillary Clinton herself. After she had conceded to Trump on the night of the election, Obama called her. Taking the phone, she said, ā€œMr. President, Iā€™m sorry.ā€

 

Sorry, no doubt, that the baton had fallen to the ground once again. Sorry that she would not be the first female president. Sorry that she would not hold the reins of power. But was contrition an aspect of any component of her sorrow?

 

If there is one thing Hillary Clinton does not do well, it is contrition. In an interview last September, she clung to the fiction that the election was stolen. Her belief that Trump conspired with Putin was absolute. ā€œThere certainly was communication, and there certainly was an understanding of some sort,ā€ Clinton said. She had ā€œno doubtā€ that Putin sought a Trump victory, that there was ā€œa tangle of financial relationshipsā€ between Trump and Russia, and that Trumpā€™s associates ā€œworked really hard to hide their connections with Russians.ā€ Were those, in her mind, clear signs of collusion? ā€œIā€™m convinced of it,ā€ she said.

 

She will remain convinced until the day she dies. The alternative, a rigorous examination of conscience, is too painful to contemplate. How much longer will Hillary Clintonā€™s damaged psyche hold America hostage?