“While the liberal media is celebrating the announcement that former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, a bigger scandal was practically ignored.
On Thursday, Judicial Watch released 29 pages of FBI emails regarding the inexcusable June 27, 2016 meeting between former President Bill Clinton and then Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac of the Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, AZ.This meeting was not accidental, as Clinton purposely delayed the takeoff of his aircraft to arrange the supposedly impromptu encounter with the Attorney General.
According to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, “These new FBI documents show the FBI was more concerned about a whistle-blower who told the truth about the infamous Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting than the scandalous meeting itself.”
As noted by Fitton, the real focus of the emails was to try to locate the leaker who exposed the meeting. One unidentified FBI agent lamented that the meeting was disclosed to the press and claimed that “We need to find that guy” in order to get him fired or sanctioned by his supervisors. The emails show that the FBI believed the source was a Phoenix police officer and one agent expressed a desire to ban the officer from being involved in future security details.
This anger is very indicative of what is wrong with the FBI today…
…The FBI should be impartial, not be taking sides in political campaigns. The bureau was obviously politically comprised, much like the IRS during their unfair harassment of Tea Party groups.
In any vigorous and honest FBI investigation, agents should be outragedif the Attorney General held a secret meeting with the spouse of the subject being examined for wrongdoing.Instead agents showed only concern about identifying the police officer who caused the embarrassment.
…These disclosures lead to the distressing conclusion that the Hillary Clinton investigation was a sham from the very beginning. In fact, when Clinton was finally interviewed by the FBI on July 2, 2016, she was not under oath and there was no recording of the meeting. Several weeks earlier, before the FBI had interviewed Clinton or 17 key witnesses in the investigation, then FBI Director James Comey had already begun drafting her exoneration statement.
…A mere three days after the inadequate interview of Clinton, Comey announced that she would not be indicted despite what many legal analysts believe were her clear violations of federal law.
Evidently, the FBI, under the direction of James Comey, had no intention of EVER truly investigating Hillary Clinton and bringing charges against her. If there was ever an issue that needed a Special Counsel investigation, it is not “Russian collusion,” but the Justice Department’s collusion with Hillary Clinton.“
As regards the late-breaking item mentioned above, via Townhall.com‘s Tim Meads, The New York Times reports…
…”The agent, Peter Strzok, is considered one of the most experienced and trusted F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators. He helped lead the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information on her private email account, and then played a major role in the investigation into links between President Trump’s campaign and Russia. (No potential conflict there!)
But Mr. Strzok was reassigned this summer from Mr. Mueller’s investigation to the F.B.I.’s human resources department, where he has been stationed since. The people briefed on the case said the transfer followed the discovery of text messages in which Mr. Strzok and a colleague reacted to news events, like presidential debates, in ways that could appear critical of Mr. Trump.
…Mr. Strzok’s reassignment shows that Mr. Mueller moved swiftly in the face of what could be perceived as bias by one of his agents amid a politically charged inquiry into Mr. Trump’s campaign and administration. But the existence of the text messages is likely to fuel claims by Mr. Trump that the F.B.I. has a bias against him and that he is a target of the “deep state” — a term used to describe the notion that government intelligence agencies secretly conspire together.“
As the Times notes, Mueller’s “swift action” may help silence some critics who believe the man is working to defeat President Trump, regardless of the facts. But, given Strzok’s role in this investigation as well as others, it more likely will only increase speculation that the FBI is not acting honestly.
According to the Washington Post, Strzok’s actions may have influenced other investigations, such as the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illegal e-mail use. The “text messages with a colleague” the Times refers to is regarding messages critical of President Trump exchanged with FBI attorney Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was having an affair.
“Peter Strzok, as deputy head of counterintelligence at the FBI, was a key player in the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to do government work as secretary of state, as well as the probe into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
During the Clinton investigation, Strzok was involved in a romantic relationship with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who worked for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The extramarital affair was problematic, these people said, but of greater concern among senior law enforcement officials were text messages the two exchanged during the Clinton investigation and campaign season, in which they expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton.“
Just so we’ve got this straight: Strzok worked under Jim Comey, who determined, even though it wasn’t his decision to make, no charges were going to be brought against anyone associated with Hillary’s private email server, its patent illegality and unquestioned compromise of national security notwithstanding, weeks before even interviewing those involved.
Comey, who in the best traditions of anyone remotely connected to the Clintons has already repeatedly lied under oath, is bosom buddies with Robert Mueller, the mediocre if not inept Washington icon Jeff Sessions’ craven recusal allowed Rod Rosenstein to appoint as special counsel to investigate anything and everything but Russian collusion in the 2016 election, and whose staff might well have designed……Hillary’s 2016 campaign logo.
Meanwhile, Strzok just happened to be engaged in an extramarital affair with one Lisa Page, who just happened to be the FBI lawyer for Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, whose wife, a no-chance-of-winning candidate for the Virginia state senate just happened to receive between $750,000 and $1 million in contributions to her doomed campaign from Hillary via Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe.
Did we miss anything?
Nothing to see hear folks…please move along. Welcome to Washington:
…last time we looked, Lois Lerner is still enjoying her undeserved pension, and no one with even peripheral connections to the ongoing criminal conspiracy which was the Obama Administration has ever seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jail cell.
As The Donald so accurately noted in one of his few tweets which actually make sense:
Andy McCarthy characterizes this farce perfectly at NRO, as he notes…
“Here’s what I’d be tempted to do if I were President Trump: I’d direct the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, including any Obama-administration collusion in that enterprise.
I would make sure to call it a “counterintelligence investigation,” putting no limitations on the special counsel — just as with the investigation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been unleashed to conduct into Trump “collusion” with Russia. That is, I would not restrict the prosecutor and investigators to digging for specified criminal violations. Or, indeed, any criminal violations. I’d just tell the special counsel, “Have at it” — with unbound authority to scrutinize the negotiations surrounding the eventual Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).
Would I really expect the special counsel to find that Obama officials conspired with the mullahs to obtain nukes for Tehran? No…but hey, as the “Trump collusion with Russia” crowd says, “You never know.” Meantime, under the guise of investigating this highly unlikely “collusion,” I’d want the special counsel to scrutinize closely any variances between what Obama-administration officials were telling Congress and the public about the negotiations and what they were telling the Iranians; to probe any side deals the administration agreed to but failed to disclose to Congress;and to consider whether any laws or policies were violated in such matters as President Obama’s payment of a cash ransom in exchange for American hostages held by Iran.
Why would I do this? Well, because I disagree with Obama-administration foreign policy, of course. Under the Mueller “collusion” precedent, it is evidently now American practice to criminalize foreign-policy disputes under the pretext of conducting a counterintelligence investigation.
…The ongoing Mueller probe is not a good-faith investigation of suspected espionage or other crime. It is the exploitation of the executive’s intelligence-gathering and law-enforcement powers in order to (a) criminalize Trump political policies with which the Obama administration disagreed and (b) frame Clinton’s electoral defeat as the product of a traitorous scheme rather than a rejection of Democratic-party priorities.
We can stipulate that General Flynn is a very foolish man. He was not required to speak to the FBI when agents came to interview him on January 24. He is, moreover, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency: He had every reason to know that the FBI must have been monitoring Kislyak (and perhaps other foreign officials with whom Flynn was in contact). He had every reason to know that the Bureau must have had recordings of the conversations the agents wanted to ask him about. Astonishingly, he chose to submit to the interview anyway, and to lie.It is fair enough to say that he has no one to blame but himself, and that a person of such poor judgment should not be the president’s principal adviser on national-security matters.
We can also stipulate that the Trump administration will be badly bruised by its deceptive performance, in which ignorance was feigned about whether Flynn discussed the sanctions with Kislyak.
Trump could easily have signaled his disagreements with Obama’s actions. It is not illegal for the incoming administration to undermine the incumbent administration — the Logan Act, which purports to criminalize foreign-affairs freelancing by unauthorized citizens, is unconstitutional and absurd. If it weren’t, Mueller would have charged Flynn with violating it.
It is rightly observed that we have only one president at a time. Thus, it remains unseemly for an incoming administration to undermine the incumbent administration in such an active way — negotiating with foreign powers against the policy of a president who is still lawfully governing. Clumsily doing so ratchets up political heat on transition officials to deny their contacts with foreign officials. In matters of foreign affairs and intelligence, U.S. officials often find it expedient to say one thing in private communications with foreign diplomats and something quite different in public appearances.Just ask Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama.
All that said, what is going on here is politics, not law. No sensible person thinks the Trump campaign colluded in Russian espionage. If there were such evidence, I’d be first on line demanding the president’s impeachment and removal. Nor did Trump obstruct the investigation of this non-crime by firing the FBI director — what he did was exhibit incompetence and boorishness. Rather, Mueller’s investigation is a semblance of law-enforcement disguising the brute reality that Trump is being punished for winning the election and defying Obama policy. (Not to mention conclusive evidence of the existence of the Deep State.)
If that is the way the game is going to be played, if the purpose of a special-counsel “collusion” investigation is to humiliate the opposition party by exposing its wayward foreign-policy objectives and unsavory horse-trading, then let’s investigate Obama and Iran.“
Speaking of a total miscarriage of justice masquerading in the guise of due process, as Jim Geraghty details at his Morning Jolt, in the end, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, there was…
“Upon hearing that the illegal immigrant who shot and killed Kate Steinle was acquitted of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and assault charges, I was reminded of Robert Wuhl’s joke after the O.J. Simpson verdict: “What do you expect? It’s California. They haven’t convicted anybody since Charles Manson.”The thing is, even if you believe Jose Ines Garcia Zarate’s version of events, that he accidentally fired the gun, didn’t aim at Steinle, and that she was killed when the bullet ricocheted and struck her, I don’t quite understand how his actions wouldn’t constitute “involuntary manslaughter.”
Check out the definition of “involuntary manslaughter” under California law:
Manslaughter is the unlawful killing of a human being without malice. It is of three kinds:
(a) Voluntary—upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion.
(b) Involuntary—in the commission of an unlawful act, not amounting to a felony; or in the commission of a lawful act which might produce death, in an unlawful manner, or without due caution and circumspection.
Wouldn’t firing a gun in a crowded public place amount to an act that might produce death in an unlawful manner, without due caution and circumspection? Doesn’t Zarate’s account amount to a confession of this? You’re going to hear a lot of talk about “jury nullification” in the coming days, and it doesn’t sound all that farfetched…
…Sarah Rumpf makes the argumentthat a good portion of the blame may lie with the prosecutors, for putting so much focus and effort on a first degree murder charge that the evidence simply couldn’t support: “This seems to be a classic example of prosecutorial overreach. They pushed hard for a first degree murder verdict, which requires not only proving that the defendant killed the victim, but that he did it intentionally, and that it was premeditated (planned or thought out beforehand).”“
Which frankly, in view of the of the prevailing politics in San Francisco, may well have been intended from the start. We rarely wish ill upon anyone; but if events similar to what the Steinles suffered must occur, we hope they befall the jurors who participated in this politically-correct sham.
Moving on, in keeping with the spirit of what used to be celebrated as the season of giving, there’s this, courtesy of Ed Harvey and Deborah Caldwell writing at Aleteia:
““To borrow from a favorite Christmas story, under WMATA’s guidelines, if the ads are about packages, boxes or bags…if Christmas comes from a store…then it seems WMATA approves. But if Christmas means a little bit more, WMATA plays Grinch,” McFadden added.
In its complaint, the Archdiocese of Washington argued that even though the “Find the Perfect Gift” ad contains no explicit references to religion, it was rejected while other arguably religious ads were allowed. Ads from the openly religious Salvation Army were given the green light, for example, along with ads promoting yoga as a way to “take you on an inner journey or self-discovery” and lead to the “acknowledgment of one soul to another.”
The Archdiocese went a step further and argued that in addition to being inequitably administered, the ban on religious ads “established a regime that is hostile to religion.” Allowing ads that refer to Christmas in the “context of promoting commercialism or encouraging consumers to buy more goods and services,” in effect, establishes commercialism as an acceptable form of speech to the exclusion of speech that may reflect religious beliefs, the Archdiocese argued.
“The ban effectively silences any viewpoint that might challenge commercialism or consumerism or attempt to emphasize the religious reason for the season,” read the complaint, in a legal action that may, in the end, help establish religious speech as speech that is protected under the Constitution…”
Then there’s this item from Business Insider courtesy of Tom Bakke, which will come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the continued evisceration of America’s national defense posture:
“The Army’s Special Warfare Center and School has launched an investigation into an anonymous email that accused its leaders of “moral cowardice” for ditching training standards and allowing undeserving soldiers to become members of elite Green Beret teams.
The sharply critical message was sent earlier this week to a wide swath of the Army’s Special Forces community. The nearly 6,300-word message declared that the school’s senior officers and enlisted leaders are primarily interested in advancing their careers by meeting demands for greater numbers of Green Berets and enforcing “political agendas.”
…The email also asserts that the officers and enlisted leaders in charge of Green Beret training want to enhance their prospects for promotion by ensuring female candidates are capable of completing the punishing qualification course…”
Keep in mind, these politically-correct policies STILL HAVE NOT BEEN RESCINDED by either The Donald or Mad Dog Mattis, which brings to mind one of our favorite scenes featuring Harry Callahan:
Since we’re on the subject of wholly-unqualified candidates causing the rest of the system irreparable harm, NRO‘s David French highlights…
“My favorite Elizabeth Warren story involves a cookbook. Warren, who was at that time posing as a trailblazing Cherokee, actually contributed recipes to a recipe book with the name, I kid you not, “Pow Wow Chow.” But here’s the best part of the story. She plagiarized some of the recipes.Yes indeed, her version of “pow wow chow” came directly from a famous French chef.
My second-favorite Warren story involves breastfeeding. She once claimed to be the first “nursing mother” to take the New Jersey bar exam, making her, I suppose, the Jackie Robinson of lactating lawyers. The problem?There’s no evidence this is true. (Are we the only one beginning to detect a pattern here?!?)Women have been taking the New Jersey bar since 1895, and the New Jersey Judiciary was “not aware” whether they tracked the nursing habits of test-takers.
Warren is a bit of an academic grifter. She’s willing to fake her way to the top. When she came to Harvard Law School, she was — believe it or not — considered by some to be a “minority hire.” She listed herself as a minority on a legal directory reviewed by deans and hiring committees. The University of Pennsylvania “listed her as a minority faculty member,” and she was touted after her hire at Harvard Law School as, yes, the school’s “first woman of color.”
This was no small thing. At the time, elite universities were under immense pressure to diversify their faculties (as they still are). “More women” was one command. “More women of color” was the ideal. At Harvard the pressure was so intense that students occupied the administration building, and the open spaces of the school were often filled with screaming, chanting students. One of the law school’s leading black academics, a professor named Derek Bell, left the school to protest the lack of diversity on campus.
I remember it vividly. I was there…
…But it turns out that past ideologically convenient incompetence is a good predictor of future ideologically convenient incompetence. Her signature public achievement (aside from trash-talking Donald Trump on Twitter) is proposing and helping establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an unconstitutional monstrosity that was designed to exist above and outside our nation’s system of checks and balances.
Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the CFPB was “unconstitutionally structured.” Its opinion was not subtle. According to the Court,
The CFPB’s concentration of enormous executive power in a single, unaccountable, unchecked Director not only departs from settled historical practice, but also poses a far greater risk of arbitrary decisionmaking and abuse of power, and a far greater threat to individual liberty, than does a multi-member independent agency.
But wait, there’s more:
In short, when measured in terms of unilateral power, the Director of the CFPB is the single most powerful official in the entire U.S. Government, other than the President. Indeed, within his jurisdiction, the Director of the CFPB can be considered even more powerful than the President. It is the Director’s view of consumer protection law that prevails over all others. In essence, the Director is the President of Consumer Finance.
The Constitution doesn’t provide for bureaucratic god-kings.The CFPB’s structure was rotten from its inception — more bad fruit from Warren’s poisonous tree.
Yesterday Donald Trump made headlines when he once again called Warren “Pocahontas.” This time in front of Navajo “code talkers” — heroic veterans of World War II. Outrage abounded, but it was disproportionate to the offense. Yes, Trump was rude, but Warren is still the primary offender here. The desire to lionize the victims of Trump’s wrath should blind no one to Elizabeth Warren’s progressive fraud.“
All of which calls for a brief walk down the Fauxcahontas block of Hope n’ Change‘s Memory Lane:
Bringing us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these keepers from Balls Cotton:
Finally, we’ll call it wrap with the Shallow End of the Gene Pool, and startling new evidence the Irish may be much more closely related to the only native North American marsupial than previously believed:
“An opossum that apparently drank bourbon after breaking into a Florida liquor store sobered up at a wildlife rescue center and was released unharmed.
Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge officials say the opossum was brought in by a Fort Walton Beach, Florida, police officer on Nov. 24. A liquor store employee found the animal next to a broken and empty bottle of bourbon. “A worker there found the opossum up on a shelf next to a cracked open bottle of liquor with nothing in it,” said Michelle Pettis, a technician at the refuge. “She definitely wasn’t fully acting normal.”
Pettis told the Northwest Florida Daily News the female opossum appeared disoriented, was excessively salivating and was pale. The staff pumped the marsupial full of fluids and cared for her as she sobered up.
Pettis says the opossum did not appear to have a hangover…”
This reminds us of old Paddy O’Toole, who, while reeling home after closing with a fifth of Jameson in his back pocket, fell flat on his arse in an alley. Staggering to his feet, he felt something wet running down his leg; whereupon Paddy looked heavenward and said, “Please, Lord, let that be blood!”
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