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Well, well, well, on Tuesday, February 12, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded there is ‘no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia’.
NBC News intelligence and national security correspondent Reporter Ken Dilanian broke the story in his article, ‘Senate has uncovered no direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia’.
This is a bipartisan finding, by the way.
Later, MSNBC interviewed Dilanian:
NBC has a summary on Twitter:
This finding comes after the Senate Intelligence Committee spent two years on an investigation involving 200 interviews and 300,000 documents.
Their investigation has not yet concluded, but its end is nigh, according to Senator Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), the chairman. Dilanian’s article tells us:
“We know we’re getting to the bottom of the barrel because there’re not new questions that we’re searching for answers to,” Burr said.
On Tuesday, Burr doubled down, telling NBC News, “There is no factual evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
It could take the committee several more months to produce a written report of their findings, which, even with this news, could be inconclusive:
The final Senate report may not reach a conclusion on whether the contacts added up to collusion or coordination with Russia, Burr said.
Democrats told NBC News that’s a distinct possibility.
“What I’m telling you is that I’m going to present, as best we can, the facts to you and to the American people,” Burr told CBS. “And you’ll have to draw your own conclusion as to whether you think that, by whatever definition, that’s collusion.”
The Senate investigation is separate from the Mueller probe, which trundles along.
Also, the House of Representatives, now Democrat-controlled, is planning to conduct a separate investigation:
that will go beyond the 2016 election to examine whether any foreign government has undue financial influence on Trump or his family. And New York federal prosecutors are pursuing their own criminal inquiry related to hush-money payments to women. The investigations into Donald Trump, therefore, are far from over.
Nonetheless, the Senate news puts a dent in Big Media’s anti-Trump narrative.
ZeroHedge reports that when Dilanian appeared on MSNBC (see video above, bold emphases in the original, those in purple mine):
MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson and her guest panelists’ faces looked visibly confused and uncomfortable as they learned the Senate report is going in the opposite direction of everything MSNBC and other mainstream outlets have been breathlessly reporting on a near 24/7 basis.
More importantly, if this is a precursor of what the Mueller report concludes in a few weeks/months, the TV station that built its current reputation on the premise of Russian collusion, may have no option but to go on indefinite hiatus.
Watch the segment … with host Hallie Jackson appearing to grow exasperated by the 2:20 mark:“If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I am not guilty of conspiracy… he would be correct in saying that?”
Dilanian noted that while the Republican chair of the committee made what he characterized as “partisan” comments the week prior, it turned out be unanimous fact. “What I found,” he said, “is that Democrats don’t dispute that characterization.”
But perhaps sensing how “contrary” to the network’s own hysterical ‘Russiagate’ coverage his reporting was, he tried to soften the blow, saying, “But, again, no direct proof of a conspiracy. As one democratic aide said to me, ‘we never thought we were going to find a Democrat between Trump and Vladimir Putin saying let’s collude, but the question is how do we interpret all these various contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.’”
Hallie Jackson followed with further probing: “Not to put too fine a point on it, but I want to make sure I’m understanding this…” and asked “If and when the president, as he may inevitably do, points to these conclusions and says look, the Senate intelligence committee found I’m not guilty of conspiracy… he would be correct in saying that?”
Her face looking rather incredulous at this point, Dilanian responded by invoking the Meuller investigation, reassuring her his inquiry is not complete and likely could uncover more information. But then the bottom line: “That said, Trump will claim vindication through this, and he’ll be partially right,” he said.
President Trump tweeted his thanks:
Some readers might be sceptical.
However, an investigative journalist who has no ties to Trump and is not a supporter — Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept — agrees with him:
Greenwald’s readers were not happy.
On another tweet, Greenwald still had to repeat himself:
More angry readers tweeted here.
Let’s remind ourselves of what Big Media have been foisting on us since 2017: ‘bombshell’, ‘tipping point’, ‘beginning of the end’, ‘Trump will resign’:
Big Media’s narrative is ‘too big to fail’:
Trump supporters, understandably, are sick and tired of it all, because the Democrats started this narrative shortly before the 2016 election:
This chap meant ‘wielded’, but his point still stands. I hope he is correct:
Here are a few suggestions for President Trump on how to wield that hammer:
As for Robert Mueller and his team, the same day NBC’s Ken Dilanian filed his report, President Trump’s former attorney John Dowd gave an interview to ABC News (full transcript).
John Dowd does not believe the report of Mueller’s findings will be released to the public. He thinks there will simply be an announcement that the two-year investigation has ended.
Dowd says that Mueller had all the information he needed nearly a year ago (emphases mine):
In my opinion, on March 5th, we were done. He had everything. He said he had everything. He told me that no one had lied. He told me they had every document we asked for. He told me that it was nothing more. He told me that the president was not a target. That is, he did not have any exposure, that he was a witness subject, which is perfectly normal for someone’s conduct you’re looking at, but they don’t have exposure.
Dowd later said the same thing and says Mueller should have admitted that he was being pressured to find something by a ‘cabal in the FBI’:
There’s no exposure. It’s been a terrible waste of time. What’s worse is let’s get on the other side of this, how it all happened. This is one of the greatest frauds this country’s ever seen. And I’m just shocked that Bob Mueller didn’t call it that way and say, “I’m being used.” I would’ve done that. If I were in his shoes in this thing, I’d have gone to the– I’d have gone to Sessions and Rosenstein and said, “Look. This is nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the F.B.I. to get even.”
President Trump has co-operated with Mueller, responding to requests that no other president has never had to endure (source):
Note the third paragraph in that last tweet. Had Trump agreed to an interview with Mueller:
it would set a precedent that would open the current president and future presidents to this kind of interview.
Given the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings, it will be interesting to see how much longer the Mueller probe lasts.
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For my readers who do not live in the United States, Alan Dershowitz is a famous lawyer, author and the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School.
He has given countless interviews and made just as many television appearances over the past few decades and, although he is probably a Democrat deep down, he looks at legal cases from an impartial viewpoint.
Dershowitz recently wrote an article for Gatestone Institute, ‘Provoking New Crimes Rather than Uncovering Past Crimes: Mueller’s Modus Operandi’, which is well worth reading in full.
These are Dershowitz’s headlines (emphases mine):
- Even if Mueller could prove that members of the Trump team had colluded with Julian Assange to use material that Assange had unlawfully obtained, that, too, would not be a crime.
- Merely using the product of an already committed theft of information is not a crime. If you don’t believe me, ask the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and other newspapers that used material illegally obtained by Assange with full knowledge that it was illegally obtained.
- In the end, Mueller should be judged by how successful he has been in satisfying his central mission. Judged by that standard and based on what we now know, he seems to be an abysmal failure.
Dershowitz reminds us of the objective of the Mueller probe: to find evidence of Russian collaboration, not collusion, by the 2016 Trump campaign:
It was always an uphill struggle for Mueller, since collusion itself is not a crime. In other words, even if he could show that individuals in the Trump campaign had colluded with Russian agents to help elect Trump, that would be a serious political sin, but not a federal crime. Even if Mueller could prove that members of the Trump team had colluded with Julian Assange to use material that Assange had unlawfully obtained, that, too, would not be a crime. What would be a crime is something that no one claims happened: namely, that members of the Trump campaign told Assange to hack the Democratic National Committee before Assange did so. Merely using the product of an already committed theft of information is not a crime. If you don’t believe me, ask the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian and other newspapers that used material illegally obtained by Assange with full knowledge that it was illegally obtained. Not only did they use information from Assange, but also from Chelsea Manning and from the stolen Pentagon Papers. The First Amendment protects publication by the media of stolen information. It also protects use of such information by a political campaign, since political campaigns are also covered by the First Amendment.
Instead, it appears as if Mueller is trying to create new crimes. Why would he do that? To cover up his own sins over the past 20+ years, including his involvement in Uranium One while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
The new crimes Mueller is trying to create are what are known as ‘process crimes’, which could trigger counts of perjury. Here is an example:
Q: Where were you at 3:15 p.m. on January 21st 2018?
A: I was walking my dog.
Q: No, you were at your Aunt Sally’s house at that time.
A: Well, I went to see Aunt Sally after I walked my dog.
Q: Sorry, you’ve already said — under oath — that you were walking your dog. You realise, don’t you, that you could be charged with perjury.
That’s a simple example of a process crime.
Back to Dershowitz:
It is important to note that Special Counsel Robert Mueller does not have a roving commission to ferret out political sin, to provoke new crimes, or to publish non-criminal conclusions that may be embarrassing to the President. His mandate, like that of every other prosecutor, is to uncover past crimes. In Mueller’s case those crimes must relate to Russia. He also has the authority to prosecute crimes growing out of the Russia probe, but that is collateral to his central mission. In the end, Mueller should be judged by how successful he has been in satisfying his central mission. Judged by that standard and based on what we now know, he seems to be an abysmal failure.
Precisely.
Last year, just before Christmas, pundits and others supposedly ‘in the know’ said that the Mueller investigation would end early in 2018.
A year later, we are still waiting.
Just before leaving for the G20 in Buenos Aires, President Trump tweeted:
$40,000,000!
And where’s the new sheriff in town, Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker? He could do something about it:
It would be wonderful if someone or something could put an end to this. Don’t forget: American taxpayers are footing the bill for Mueller and his lawyers.
Last week, Jeff Sessions resigned as attorney general.
He left the Department of Justice (DoJ) on Wednesday, November 7, 2018.
Asking Sessions to resign was President Trump’s first action after the mid-terms on November 6.
Finally!
Now, maybe, justice can be done!
The acting attorney general (AG) was formerly Sessions’s chief of staff. His name is Matt Whitaker.
Trump was clever and did not promote Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general, to the post. Because Sessions had recused himself, Rosey had been overseeing the Mueller probe. Now that Whitaker has been given the responsibility of overseeing Mueller, the Left — Democrats and the media — have said that the United States is experiencing a ‘constitutional crisis’.
Fox News’s Howard Kurtz explains why (emphases mine):
Whitaker is a former prosecutor, as well as a conservative activist, but he is obscure. He is a Trump loyalist, once described as the president’s “eyes and ears” at DOJ.
What’s more, as a CNN contributor and at other times, he has trashed the Mueller investigation that he will now be overseeing. He’s suggesting that Justice could curtail the special counsel’s probe by cutting his funding.
“The truth is there was no collusion with the Russians and the Trump campaign,” Whitaker once said. As for the left, “the last thing they want right now is for the truth to come out, and for the fact that there’s not a single piece of evidence that demonstrates that the Trump campaign had any illegal or any improper relationships with the Russians. It’s that simple.”
So Whitaker has, to put it mildly, a rather dim view of the investigation. And his associates are telling reporters he has no intention of recusing himself. Of course not — that’s why Trump wants him.
So it’s a big deal that oversight of the Russia probe is moving from Rosenstein, who likes the job Mueller is doing, to a man who’s been so critical of the investigation. And criticism from House Democrats who’ll soon be in a position to scrutinize these matters is fueling the story.
Rumour has it that Robert Mueller might be wrapping up his investigation soon, possibly next week. If true, whether that is related to Sessions’s resignation is unclear.
As acting AG, Whitaker can stay in that position for up to 210 days. Whitaker was appointed to his former chief of staff role in 2017, therefore, he requires no Senate confirmation.
Whitaker quickly protected his Twitter account, which was all about sports, although you can see a photo of him lifting weights. He’s no pencil-necked geek. He’s a big man with a shaved head (similar to Mr Clean). One of Whitaker’s tweets featured a similar photo with the caption:
What I do in my free time. #powerclean #CrossFit…
VA Online News has an interesting article about Whitaker and how he got the AAG job. The article purports that White House aides thought Rod Rosenstein’s resignation was imminent, so they went about finding a replacement:
Convinced that the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, was ready to resign after the revelation that he suggested President Trump was unfit for the job, senior White House aides got to work last weekend installing a replacement.
Whitaker received a phone call on Saturday, November 3:
Matthew G. Whitaker, the chief of staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, would become the acting No. 2 official at the Justice Department, his White House counterpart, John F. Kelly, told him over the phone on Saturday morning, according to two people briefed on the call. To the White House, he was an obvious choice: a confident former college football player and United States attorney whom Mr. Kelly has privately described as the West Wing’s “eyes and ears” in a department the president has long considered at war with him.
By Monday, Rosenstein had decided to stay at the DoJ for the time being, therefore, Whitaker could not be moved into his slot.
Interestingly, had Whitaker become DAG, replacing Rosenstein, he would not have been able to supervise the Mueller probe:
thanks to complex department rules, Mr. Whitaker would not assume control of the inquiry if he ever replaces Mr. Rosenstein.
Some think that Whitaker could become the permanent AG if he performs well as AAG. Even if he doesn’t, there are other roles open to him:
Administration officials have also mentioned Mr. Whitaker as a possible successor to Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel who plans to leave in the fall.
Justice Department and White House spokespeople declined to comment. The back-and-forth between the White House and Justice Department were described by more than a half-dozen administration officials and others briefed on the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
President Trump is said to have an easy rapport with Whitaker, who disapproves of Mueller potentially probing the Trump family finances.
In 2016, he was critical of Hillary Clinton’s server situation:
A reasonable prosecutor may ask, if on numerous occasions, an unknown State Department employee had taken top secret information from a secured system, emailed that information on a Gmail account, and stored the information on a personal server for years, would that individual be prosecuted? I believe they would.
Eighteen US AGs have demanded that Whitaker recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller probe. On Friday, November 9, Fox News reported:
More than a dozen U.S. state attorneys general signed a document Thursday calling for Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, a role he assumed following his temporary appointment following the resignation of Jeff Sessions …
As part of Whitaker’s new role as the head official at the Justice Department, he will oversee the Russia probe and the agency’s other federal investigations, including the New York prosecutors’ look into the finances of Trump and his former aides.
In an op-ed Whitaker wrote last year, he argued that “any investigation into President Trump’s finances or the finances of his family would require Mueller to return to Rod Rosenstein for additional authority under Mueller’s appointment as special counsel.”
“It is time for Rosenstein … to order Mueller to limit the scope of his investigation to the four corners of the order appointing him special counsel,” Whitaker wrote. “If he doesn’t, then Mueller’s investigation will eventually start to look like a political fishing expedition. This would not only be out of character for a respected figure like Mueller, but also could be damaging to the President of the United States and his family — and by extension, to the country.”
And separately, in July 2017, Whitaker told CNN, “I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment, and that attorney general doesn’t fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigation grinds to almost a halt.”
Whitaker is adamant about refusing to recuse.
The Left — Democrats and the media — are in a right tizz at the moment.
Whitaker’s DoJ could look at all types of left-wing scandals from the past several years.
He could get a lot done in 210 days, especially as he has the little-known but brilliant Ezra Cohen-Watnick, 32, working at the DoJ. Cohen-Watnick formerly worked for HR McMaster, who fired him from the National Security Council. Trump fired McMaster earlier this year.
Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner think highly of Cohen-Watnick, who has an intelligence background. In April 2018, Trump personally told the DoJ he wanted Cohen-Watnick to work with Jeff Sessions. That did not sit well with the Left, either, because it was rumoured he had shown Rep. Devin Nunes classified documents relating to Nunes’s FISA investigation of the 2016 election.
With Whitaker and Cohen-Watnick working together, who knows what the near future might hold? We could well see some sunlight disinfecting the Swamp.
Election day is nearing and the Dems continue to pump out more untruths.
Before we get to those, rumour has it that Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion probe could end up being a damp squib:
Politico is left-of-centre, ergo not a Trump-supporting news site. Excerpts from their article follow, emphases mine:
That’s the word POLITICO got from defense lawyers working on the Russia probe and more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience spanning Watergate to the 2016 election case. The public, they say, shouldn’t expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump — not to mention an explanation of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller sleuths.
Perhaps most unsatisfying: Mueller’s findings may never even see the light of day.
“That’s just the way this works,” said John Q. Barrett, a former associate counsel who worked under independent counsel Lawrence Walsh during the Reagan-era investigation into secret U.S. arms sales to Iran. “Mueller is a criminal investigator. He’s not government oversight, and he’s not a historian” …
For starters, Mueller isn’t operating under the same ground rules as past high-profile government probes, including the Reagan-era investigation into Iranian arms sale and whether President Bill Clinton lied during a deposition about his extramarital affair with a White House intern. Those examinations worked under the guidelines of a post-Watergate law that expired in 1999 that required investigators to submit findings to Congress if they found impeachable offenses, a mandate that led to Starr’s salacious report that upended Clinton’s second term.
Mueller’s reporting mandate is much different. He must notify his Justice Department supervisor — currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — on his budgeting needs and all “significant events” made by his office, including indictments, guilty pleas and subpoenas.
When Mueller is finished, he must turn in a “confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions” — essentially why he chose to bring charges against some people but not others. His reasoning, according to veterans of such investigations, could be as simple as “there wasn’t enough evidence” to support a winning court case.
Then, it will be up to DOJ leaders to make the politically turbo-charged decision of whether to make Mueller’s report public.
Government officials will first get a chance to scrub the special counsel’s findings for classified details, though, involving everything from foreign intelligence sources to information gleaned during grand jury testimony that the law forbids the government from disclosing.
They’ll also have to weigh the input from a number of powerful outside forces …
Now on to the Democrats.
Not a lot of people know that Trump is more popular now than Obama was at this point in 2010, the year of his first mid-term:
Why do Democrats vote against middle class interests?
Why do they keep saying Trump is racist?
Why do they lie about Republican plans for health insurance?
Excerpts from Dr McCaughey’s New York Post article follow:
Across the country, Democratic ads are telling voters a big lie. Dems claim they’re protecting people with preexisting medical conditions but Republicans would take that protection away. The idea is that ObamaCare is the only way to safeguard people with preexisting conditions. That’s false, and the outcome of the midterm elections could turn on this falsehood.
A super PAC allied with Sen. Chuck Schumer is behind many of these ads, including one targeting Republican Josh Hawley, who’s in a tight race with Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill. If he’s elected, the ad claims, millions of Missourians could lose their protections. In another ad, McCaskill tells the camera “Two years ago, I beat breast cancer,” then says her opponent would do away with protections for preexisting conditions like cancer.
These ads blatantly mislead voters. Hawley’s on the record insisting that health-reform legislation must include these protections.
So is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has called on his state lawmakers to enact protections. But never mind the truth. The Democratic Governors Association is funding an ad with a breast-cancer patient saying she won’t be able to afford lifesaving treatments if Walker is reelected.
She says that Republicans in general are partly to blame for not explaining their position properly.
Here is the problem with Obamacare. I mention this specifically for my overseas readers who think it operates like the NHS. It doesn’t:
ObamaCare isn’t the only way to protect people with preexisting conditions. Just the most unfair way. It compels insurers to charge the healthy and the sick the same price. That’s the major reason ObamaCare premiums for 2019 are triple what they were in 2013 …
Right now, the middle class, who are ineligible for a subsidy, are getting priced out of ObamaCare. They’re hoping to enroll in so-called short-term plans that offer fewer benefits (no inpatient mental-health care, for example) and low prices. The Trump administration recently relaxed insurance regulations to help sticker-shocked consumers buy these plans.
Yet last Friday seven advocacy groups, such as the American Psychiatric Association, sued to stop these plans and slam closed this escape hatch from ObamaCare. The litigants said the plans would “draw low-risk people out of” ObamaCare. That’s exactly the point. People want choices and lower premiums.
She says a federal insurance-fallback program would address the issue. In the meantime, the Dems are perpetrating untruths:
Let voters choose based on real issues, not a phony one.
And, finally, there are the human ‘caravans’ coming in from Latin America via Mexico. The Left is organising these, just as they organised the one in June:
On that topic:
Mexico’s efforts during the week of October 15 looked good to begin with, but were ineffectual. Trump was understandably unhappy — especially with the Democrats:
So …
The Mexican president had addressed the country two days before, announcing that the government’s response would continue to be strong (possibly thanks to the American secretary of state Mike Pompeo):
Spanish-speakers might be interested in reading the supportive replies he received from his fellow Mexicans. They do not want these human caravans, either.
Regardless of what Dems and the media say — ‘Think of the children!’ — this is manufactured chaos involving a lot of clean, well-fed young men …
… who hate not only President Trump but also the United States:
The left-wing media are peddling false sob stories. They’re only on foot for photo ops:
This is the truth of the matter:
A reporter from the LA Times is in Mexico. She saw first hand that these people don’t care about law or order …
… or borders (‘We are humans’, ‘No one is illegal’):
And, who else could be among them?
I hope this Leftist — Democrat — chaos fails dismally, especially at the ballot box on November 6.
Texas
Robert O’Rourke — ‘Beto’ (pron. ‘Bay-toh’) — is running against incumbent Ted Cruz for the US Senate.
James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas was able to penetrate his campaign office and obtain jaw-dropping information. This is brand new, made around Halloween and posted online on November 1:
This is 23 minutes well spent:
The Project Veritas report says, in part:
Project Veritas Action Fund has released undercover video from current Congressman and US Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke’s campaign. The video exposes how his campaign staff appear to be illegally using campaign resources to buy supplies and help transport Honduran aliens. This is the eighth undercover video report Project Veritas has released in a series revealing secrets and lies from political campaigns in 2018.
Said James O’Keefe, founder and president of Project Veritas Action:
“Charity and helping your fellow man are things we applaud at Project Veritas Action. The problem is, you can’t break the law when you do it.”
…
A Project Veritas Action attorney reviewed the footage and assessed:
“The material Project Veritas Action Fund captured shows campaign workers covering up the true nature of spending of campaign funds and intentionally misreporting them. This violates the FEC’s rules against personal use and misreporting. It also violates Section 1001, making a false statement to the federal government. The FEC violations impose civil penalties, including fines of up to $10,000 or 200 percent of the funds involved. Violations of Section 1001 are criminal and include imprisonment of up to five years.”
The campaign found out that a group of Honduran illegals are already in the US and are stopping on their way to Missouri to be sheltered by a church. Sean Hannity has more dialogue from the video (emphases mine):
“You know that migrant caravan? A few of them got here already and they’re dropping them off like really close,” said a campaign field manager. “I’m going to get some food right now and some stuff to drop off.”
“Don’t ever repeat this stuff but like, if we just say we’re buying some food for an event, like Halloween events,” suggested another staffer.
“That’s not a horrible idea, but I didn’t hear anything,” said the manager. “I think we can use that with [prepaid campaign debit cards] to buy some food, all that sh*t can be totally masked.”
But, didn’t Dems say they weren’t going to help the illegals?
James O’Keefe followed up with Beto’s campaign manager and posted the following video on November 2:
Earlier that day Beto got an endorsement from Obama’s CIA director. Hmm:
O’Keefe has alerted the local newspaper:
Other media outlets have ignored the story, too:
I hope that any readers in Texas will circulate these videos this weekend. Apparently, this Sunday — the final before mid-terms — is when a lot of churchgoers vote.
Thank you in advance.
Bob Woodward, who, with his Washington Post colleague Carl Bernstein, exposed Watergate in the 1970s, recently completed a book on the Trump presidency.
The book is called Fear. Some of its content is dubious.
However, on Friday, September 14, 2018, Woodward gave an interview to Hugh Hewitt in which he said he spent two years looking for Trump-Russia collusion — and came up empty handed.
Real Clear Politics has the transcript of Woodward’s exchange with Hewitt about President Trump’s former White House attorney John Dowd, who, for better or worse, played it straight with special counsel Robert Mueller and his team (emphases mine):
HUGH HEWITT, HOST: Yeah, but I just think people who have been critical of you in the public, all they have to do is say hey, release my tapes, Bob, and we’ll find out whether Gary Cohn said what he said, and John Dowd said what he said, and Rob Porter said what they said. Now let’s get to the substance. I believe that if the president had actually read this book, and their team had read this book, they would not have attacked the book. They would have spun it differently, because there’s a lot complimentary in this book, the most important of which is John Dowd firmly believes, the president’s former lawyer, that the special counsel, Bob Mueller, has nothing. There’s no collusion, there’s nothing. It’s all a play to get an 18 USC 1001 perjury trap, and that POTUS should never sit down. Is that a fair assessment of what John Dowd believes?
BOB WOODWARD, ‘FEAR’ AUTHOR: Oh, well, yeah, until we end. And finally, it, the point where Dowd resigns because he is convinced the president should not testify, Dowd concludes that Mueller had played him for a sucker, got all of the cooperation of 37 witnesses, a million pages-plus of campaign documents, 20,000 pages of White House documents. So in the end, as he says to the president, he said you were right. We can’t trust Mueller.
HH: And I tell you, Bob Woodward, I read this book as a lawyer. I’m not a defense lawyer, although I was at Justice. Dowd got played badly. Do you agree?
BW: Well, but he is the one who decided on the strategy – total cooperation. We’re going to let you, we’re opening the door completely. And some of the most sensitive material was given to Mueller. He was delighted to have it. It is quite true that Dowd concluded from his own work, remember, he spent eight months on this intensely, time with Mueller, time with the White House people, time with Trump. And he didn’t see anything there until the end.
HH: So let’s set aside the Comey firing, which as a Constitutional law professor, no one will ever persuade me can be obstruction. And Rod Rosenstein has laid out reasons why even if those weren’t the president’s reasons. Set aside the Comey firing. Did you, Bob Woodward, hear anything in your research in your interviews that sounded like espionage or collusion?
BW: I did not, and of course, I looked for it, looked for it hard. And so you know, there we are. We’re going to see what Mueller has, and Dowd may be right. He has something that Dowd and the president don’t know about, a secret witness or somebody who has changed their testimony. As you know, that often happens, and that can break open or turn a case.
HH: But you’ve seen no collusion?
BW: I have not.
There’s a coup going on.
Mueller will have to find something to pin on President Trump to justify his waste of taxpayers’ money, which is probably by now into the double digits of millions of dollars right now. By last November, it was rumoured to have cost $5m already.
Mueller is all about saving his own reputation and destroying others’, which he has done throughout his career. But, that’s another topic for another day.
This week has seen more online political bloggers say that America’s attorney general Jeff Sessions must go.
President Trump has been weighing in over the past week or so with decidedly pointed tweets. Sessions supporters say that Trump really hasn’t meant what he’s tweeted, but, now, even they have had to re-examine those opinions.
Unfortunately, personal time restrictions do not permit me to fully examine Trump’s most recent tweets. Here, Trump quoted Gregg Jarrett who was discussing DOJ employee Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie, both of whom have been linked with the Russian dossier designed to bring down the American president:
The Trumpet, which has been saying for months that Sessions must go, repeated that call on August 16 (emphases mine below):
“…because the DOJ is run by BLANK Jeff Sessions.” Jeff Sessions should have stopped this at least a year ago. Jeff Sessions must resign …
What is that landscape we painted a long time ago? Back during the primary campaigns for president in 2015-2016 we wrote that American voters found themselves in a snake pit and would take any stick offered to them to fight off the vipers. That stick was candidate Donald J. Trump. Trump was a man who never before held or ran for any elective office nor was he an Eisenhower type who served in the military as a five star General. Trump was Trump, told it like it is, and he won the election.
As candidate Trump grew in strength a vast conspiracy emerged from the intelligence agencies here and abroad to prevent candidate Trump from becoming President Trump. The intelligence agencies, law enforcement departments, Big Media, the totalitarian left of Obama Dimocrats alongside Republican Party bureaucrats and officials who lost power, scoundrels from every corner of filth conspired to destroy President Donald J. Trump and his voters and vision. After the election of Trump the conspiracy against President Trump persisted in trying to remove him from office and negate the will of the American voter.
That’s the landscape we painted a long time ago. The details, shocking and disgusting as they are, are details. We now have emails and documents. We now have names of miscreants and criminals. But they are mere details.
The details don’t matter if actions is not taken to behead the conspirators.
The details don’t matter if Jeff Sessions remains Attorney General. Jeff Sessions must be forced to resign.
Jeff Sessions might appear to the naive as if he is doing something useful, but, when one compares actions to words, one is left with words.
Take the recent sentencing for Imran Awan who, for several years, managed the computer system for various Democrat legislators, principally Rep. Deborah Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida). Author Frank Miniter, who is writing a book about the Awan case, which could well have national security implications, wrote about the sentencing for Fox News on August 21:
Tuesday was a lucky day for Imran Awan, the former IT administrator for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. A federal judge sentenced him to three months of supervised release and no fine for one count of bank fraud – sparing him any jail time.
Awan could have faced much more serious charges and a long prison sentence if he had been tried and convicted on accusations that he ran a spy ring inside Congress and stole congressional computer equipment.
Yet stunningly, Awan was not charged with those crimes. Instead, federal prosecutors ignored their own compelling evidence implicating him in the spy ring and exonerated him.
This is what happens when the establishment and the mainstream media collude to cover up a Democratic scandal.
Awan, who pleaded guilty last month to a single charge of making a false statement to obtain a home equity loan, could have been sentenced to up to six months in jail on that plea at his sentencing Tuesday.
Just read the FBI affidavit used to indict Awan and you’ll plainly see that even a prosecutor working on his or her first case wouldn’t have had any trouble getting a conviction for bank fraud against him.
However, the Justice Department opted to plea the charges against Awan down to one count of making a false statement on a home equity loan application – a crime that that allowed Awan to wire $283,000 to Pakistan.
In return for that sweetheart plea deal, the Justice Department got a cover-up.
Where was Jeff Sessions?
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, August 21, Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort have been in court for tenuous reasons. With regard to Cohen and the Southern District of New York (SDNY), The Conservative Treehouse tells us:
The Michael Cohen plea agreement (full pdf here) is a total of eight counts claimed by the SDNY as unlawful activity. However, one count is entirely political and not supported by the Federal Election Commission. Guess which one the media focus on?
Yeah, let’s review.
Within the plea agreement the first five charges relate to tax avoidance, or tax evasion. Each count relates to a specific tax year: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. The sixth charge, a bank fraud charge, relates to lying on a credit application. These six charges appear valid, documented and agreed in the plea. The seventh charge, relates to structuring financial transactions through the use of a corporation. This charge is tenuous, but arguable.
However, the eighth charge is the one the media are focused on. The charge of an illegal campaign contribution …
This Count Eight transaction surrounds a payment to Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels) of $130,000 for a nuisance claim. Who says it is a campaign contribution? The SDNY does, no-one else. Not even the FEC considers this a campaign contribution.
Count eight is a political charge/plea specifically included for the purpose of pulling Donald Trump into the SDNY Cohen case. There is no FEC violation here. *Note it is not the Federal Election Commission making the claim, only the SDNY prosecutors.
Where was Jeff Sessions?
As Sundance of The Conservative Treehouse tweeted:
Also on that day, Paul Manafort’s jury in Virginia delivered a guilty verdict on eight out of 18 charges, none of which concern President Trump’s presidential campaign. These charges were brought by Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion team. From The Conservative Treehouse:
According to breaking news in the Manafort Trial, after four days of deliberations the jury has informed Judge Ellis they can only reach a verdict on eight out of eighteen counts.
The jury cannot come to a consensus on 10 counts.
A guilty verdict on five counts of fraudulent tax filings. One count for each tax filing year: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014.
Three guilty verdicts on bank fraud charges: ¹False information on a $3.4 million dollar loan application in March 2016 from Citizens Bank, Rhode Island. ²False information on a $5.5 million loan application for a building in Brooklyn. ³Hiding foreign bank accounts.
Judge Ellis declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 charges.
Now it’s up to Mueller’s team to decide what to do about said remaining 10 charges.
Where was Jeff Sessions?
To my overseas readers, the following tweet is a joke but summarises the reality of the situation:
Going back to the Cohen case:
Conclusion:
Ultimately:
I pray that Sessions, a God-fearing man, asks for divine guidance in the days and weeks to come.
I hope that he takes the right decision and resigns, as he has not served the United States well during the past year and a half.
Just time for a quick post today.
I do not know where this hoarding (billboard) is, but please note and remember the last three lines (image courtesy of 8chan):
If the Democrats hate America, chances are they hate you, too.
Even if you’ve voted for them all your life.
The US Constitution has been gradually eroded over the past century.
It’s getting worse, up to the point where the decisions of the American voters and the Electoral College are being undermined (origin of graphic unknown):
An article posted today at FrontPageMagazine explains it all.
Bruce Thornton’s ‘Dangerous Times for the Constitution and Freedom’ is well worth reading in full. Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
While We the People distract ourselves with porn stars and royal weddings, the cracks in our Constitutional order continue to multiply and widen.
Evidence continues to mount that a sitting president, Barack Obama, colluded in using the nation’s security and surveillance apparatus to subvert the campaign and then presidency of a legitimately elected candidate and president. This effort consisted of numerous illegalities: a mole planted in Donald Trump’s campaign; a FISA warrant granted on the basis of false opposition research paid for by his rival; the outgoing president’s expansion of the number of people allowed to unmask the identity of Americans mentioned in passing during surveillance; a rogue FBI director, James Comey, who illegally usurped prosecutorial powers to exonerate a felonious Hillary Clinton; and other FBI agents colluding in the plot to damage Trump. And don’t forget a Deputy Attorney General appointing the close friend of the fired and disgraced Comey as a special counsel to investigate the non-crime of “collusion,” an investigation that has gone on for a year with nothing to show but a handful of indictments resulting from dubious perjury traps.
To quote Bob Dole, “Where’s the outrage” at these attacks on the Constitution?
Outrage is surely warranted. These assaults on the rule of law and accountability to the people are akin to the catalogue of “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States,” published in the Declaration of Independence. Yet our “watch-dog” media in the main have become the publicists for this attack on the foundations of our freedom, as they flack for the political party that long has resented the limitation of power enshrined in the Constitution. Only a few Cassandras, notably FOX News’ Sean Hannity, are trying to alert the citizenry to the coming conflagration that if unchecked could leave the architecture of our freedom in smoking ruins.
In fact, what we are witnessing in the deep-state Democrats’ undermining of divided government, check and balances, and government accountability, is the culmination of a process begun over a century ago …
For a century, progressives have been undermining the Constitution as they seek to expand and concentrate government power at the cost of freedom …
… If we allow those guilty of abusing the power of the state for partisan gain to get away with it, we will embolden even more enemies of freedom to do the same as soon as they get the opportunity. It is up to we the people to demand that Mueller’s inquisition come to an end, and that the true miscreants who have abused their power be investigated, indicted, tried, and punished. Only then will the fabric of the Constitution begin to be restored, and our freedom rearmored.
The article explains how various government programmes and policies dating from the First World War era have gradually made Americans a less free people living in a less free society. Even a vote is no longer sacrosanct.
It’s time Americans reclaimed their Constitution.
Please send letters or postcards to your public servants — representatives and senators — about specific issues, urging them to vote on them in a way that restores the Great Republic.
The future of the United States — and the world — depends on it.
In December 2017 and January 2018, I wrote about the FBI/DOJ schemes to undermine Donald Trump’s campaign and subsequent presidency.
The first burst of information emerged early in December:
December 1 and 2: update on the weekend’s news
At that point, Americans discovered that an FBI investigator, Peter Strzok, had been a Hillary supporter in 2016, was part of the group investigating the ‘matter’ of her email server, then went to work as part of Robert Mueller’s investigation before he was removed from Mueller’s team in the summer of 2017. That news had only been revealed in December.
An FBI/DOJ lawyer, Lisa Page, worked for former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and was also assigned to Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation for a time. She and Strzok developed a close working relationship.
When this became public, it was thought the two were having an extra-marital affair. As time went on, this became less certain. Nevertheless, last year:
Strzok and Page exchanged upwards of 50,000 text messages, many of which have since been recovered. Before that point, however, one of the first sections of texts discovered discussed Strzok’s mention to Page of an ‘insurance policy’:
News in brief — December 12-14, 2017
The ‘insurance policy’ was meant to thwart the Trump presidency:
By January 2018, the DOJ’s inspector general Michael Horowitz had 50,000 of the texts but was missing five months’ more:
Be prepared for 2018 news: part 3 — FBI’s missing texts
I included a message from Q in that post. Q says these missing texts could cast doubt on the FBI and DOJ and put in jeopardy criminal cases from the Obama years:
Then a new batch of texts came to light, which revealed that Strzok and Page discussed an existing ‘secret society’ that would undermine Trump:
Be prepared for 2018 news: part 4 — ‘secret society’ and more on missing FBI texts
After Mueller dismissed Strzok from his team, the latter was assigned to the FBI’s HR department.
Page continued as an FBI lawyer with other, unspecified responsibilities.
On April 11, Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) discovered that, according to FBI director Christopher Wray, both Strzok and Page still had their security clearances. The Conservative Treehouse has a full report with supporting documents. Excerpts follow, emphases mine:
Senator Paul inquired with the FBI Director about whether reassigned FBI Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ/FBI Attorney Lisa Page still retained their Top Secret FBI clearances.
According to Senator Paul, the FBI director would not respond to specific agent inquiry, however, Wray did affirm that all existing FBI officials retain Top Secret clearances.
In essence, Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, despite being removed from investigative authority over their role in the political efforts to target President Trump, retain employment within the DOJ/FBI apparatus in an unknown capacity and thereby their clearances.
This information by Rand Paul dovetails into an increasingly obvious storyline where Lisa Page and Peter Strzok remain employed because they are cooperating with the internal investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz and parallel federal prosecutor John Huber.
Similarly, former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker retained his:
In addition to Page and Strzok, former FBI chief legal counsel James Baker and former DOJ-NSD Deputy Bruce Ohr have been removed from their roles yet still remain inside the FBI and DOJ respectively. Those four are joined by the FBI Asst. Director in charge of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. However, despite Priestap’s centrality to the 2015/2016 corrupt FBI activity -including the Trump operation- Priestap remains untouched.
After FBI Asst Director Andrew McCabe was fired the subsequent information revealed what happened inside the group. McCabe lied to FBI and IG investigators about his coordinating leaks to media. McCabe’s story conflicted with the account of his office attorney, Lisa Page. {Go Deep}
To validate the truthfulness of her position Lisa Page provided FBI investigators with access to her text messages which showed conversations about McCabe directing leaks by Page and FBI communications Director Michael Kortan. After the Page messages confirmed her version of the events; eventually McCabe admitted to misleading investigators.
Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, James Baker and Bruce Ohr have all been removed from responsibilities within the DOJ and FBI yet all still remain inside the organization. FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, who was Peter Strzok’s’ boss throughout the corrupt group activity, remains in his role today.
By April 20, things started to unravel at the FBI. Vox has the whole story, but this tweet summarises the situation, saying that Trump will have the best laugh:
By April 25, it was thought that more Strzok-Page texts had been uncovered, although not made public. Q sent out a message (image courtesy of Reddit’s Q research board, greatawakening):
That day, Republican congressmen Devin Nunes (California) and Mark Meadows (North Carolina) appeared on Hannity calling for the release of the texts. The summary to the video linked here says:
Rep. Devin Nunes accuses the Justice Department of slow-walking the release of documents; he and Rep. Mark Meadows speak out on ‘Hannity.’
The next day:
The Last Refuge — Sundance from The Conservative Treehouse — posted a Twitter thread which discusses the newly released, yet redacted, texts. Only Strzok’s were made public. Excerpts follow:
Sundance also posted about this text release on his site, The Conservative Treehouse. Points of interest include the following (red emphases in the original):
♦[May 17th, 2017] Lisa Page mentions reviewing Benjamin Wittes Lawfare website (James Comey BFF and leak conduit) for “arguments to chronicle” on behalf of Special counsel advocacy.
NOTE: This is interesting because Lawfare Blog also mentions the “Insurance Policy”.
Important – May 17th, 2017 is the date of the Special Counsel Mueller appointment.
♦[May 17th, 2017] Date of Mueller appointment. Discussions of team being assembled. Strzok notes “emailing with Aaron”. Well that’s Aaron Ze[ble]y former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s Chief of Staff who was selected for Special Counsel position. He’s also a partner at WilmerHale, and Strzok mentions to Page that she might find herself working at WilmerHale if she plays her cards right.
The fact that Agent Strzok was emailing with “Aaron” Ze[ble]y prior to the official appointment of the special counsel team should likely raise a few eyebrows. Of course within this time-frame of the messaging released, the redactions increase. Go figure.
Toward the end of the release a more thorough picture emerges of who was selecting Robert Mueller’s team and why. Andrew McCabe was key player along with James Baker …
Page had broken off her texting with Strzok in 2017, long before the American public was aware of either of them. The Conservative Treehouse interprets her last text as follows:
–Page’s final “never write to me again” doesn’t seem like a hostile snub. Seems more like a signal/coded message to a friend: “We’re scr*wed. Every (wo)man for himself. I’m looking out for myself. You should too.”
That day, Q posted the following message (1288). Emphases in the original:
Jim Rybicki, chief of staff and senior counselor – FIRED.
James Baker, general counsel – FIRED.
Andrew McCabe, deputy director – FIRED.
James Comey, director – FIRED.
Bill Priestap, Head of Counterintelligence and Strzok’s boss – Cooperating witness [power removed].
Peter Strzok, Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence – cooperating witness [power removed].
Lisa Page, attorney with the FBI‘s Office of the General Counsel – cooperating witness [power removed].
Conspiracy?
Think about the above.
Only the above.
Get the picture?
Q
By April 29, The Conservative Treehouse stated — wisely — that there was no romantic relationship between Page and Strzok:
There is zero evidence of a romantic relationship between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page; and no, a complete chronological review doesn’t indicate the romantic stuff was withheld. By looking at the messaging chronologically, studying the date and times, there’s nothing to indicate segments of romantic stuff was removed. What does appear obvious in many redactions, and likely some removals of messages, is an intentional effort to remove content that would be of an embarrassing professional nature to Ms. Lisa Page.
It is more than likely the “affair narrative” was likely created by investigators as part of an agreement on content control to explain withholding some information and message redactions. Investigators would not want those being investigated to know the scale of the evidence trail. Regardless, except for the useful story, the romantic angle is irrelevant.
In looking at the ensuing congressional report, Sundance offered this analysis (excerpted, emphasis in the original):
[Congressional Report – Page 18, Item #3, second paragraph] “The DOJ OIG obtained the initial batch of text messages on July 20, 2017.” It is clear that Ms. Page underwent a period of (no less than) three solid days of extensive initial questioning by FBI (INSD) and DOJ (OIG) officials. [Which ended on/around July 20th, 2017.]
♦July 20th, 2017 is a key date. A critical point-of-reference to move forward and review action. It is absolutely clear [BEYOND CERTAIN], that INSD (Inspection Division) and OIG (Inspector General) knew of every single participant in the Page-Strzok engagement team by the end of July 2017.
Along with Page and Strzok, James Baker was also involved in the leaks (emphases mine):
The officials outlined in media leaks, direct or indirect, included: Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, James Baker (FBI Chief Legal Counsel), Andrew McCabe (Deputy Director), and Michael Kortan (FBI Office of Public Affairs). There are also discussions of other people leaking.
Indeed, one of the more stunning aspects of a full review was the scale of groups’ leaks to the media and how those leaks were used to frame the continued narrative about their ongoing efforts.
The messages show media leaks from 2015 all the way past the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Their discussions with the media were so frequent that Page and Strzok referred to media publications as “that’s your story”, or “that’s your article”, and enjoyed talking about the internal and external effect of the published accounts therein.
As for James Baker:
It does not appear accidental that FBI Chief Legal Counsel James Baker was allowed, by INSD and OIG investigators, to remain in place, *until* Baker was notified of being called to testify to congress (December 21, 2017)… then INSD yanked him back; and FBI Director Christopher Wray removed Baker from responsibility.
James Baker remains inside the FBI today; in some unknown capacity. James Baker is also in the text messages as “JB”, “Jim”, “GC” (General Counsel), and “James”. He was also an interoffice mentor/role-model of sorts for DOJ assigned Special Counsel Lisa Page. Both Page and Strzok had a great deal of respect and admiration for Baker.
From the messages we can clearly see that James Baker is a key figure amid everything that was happening. Likely Baker’s cooperation with investigators is the biggest risk to James Comey and Andrew McCabe due to Baker’s knowledge of situations, decisions, non-decisions and events.
Ultimately (emphasis in the original):
Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr and James Baker have all been clearly identified by investigative releases as participating in gross misconduct at the DOJ and FBI. All four of them have been removed from their responsibilities, yet each of them remains employed within the FBI or DOJ.
It is highly likely all four of them are cooperating with INSD and OIG investigators.
Sundance surmises that those in the know who are not co-operating are as follows:
FBI Communications Director Mike Kortan (quit), DOJ-NSD Deputy Asst. Attorney General David Laufman (quit), AG Loretta Lynch (replaced), AAG Sally Yates (fired), DOJ-NSD Asst Attorney General Mary McCord (quit), FBI Director James Comey (fired), Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe (fired), FBI Chief-of-staff James Rybicki (quit).
Big news emerged on Friday, May 4. The New York Times reported (emphases mine):
WASHINGTON — Two top F.B.I. aides who worked alongside the former director James B. Comey as he navigated one of the most politically tumultuous periods in the bureau’s history resigned on Friday.
One of them, James A. Baker, was one of Mr. Comey’s closest confidants. He served as the F.B.I.’s top lawyer until December when he was reassigned as the new director, Christopher A. Wray, began installing his own advisers. Mr. Baker had been investigated by the Justice Department on suspicion of sharing classified information with reporters. He has not been charged.
The other aide, Lisa Page, advised Mr. Comey while serving directly under his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe. She was assailed by conservatives after texts that she had exchanged with the agent overseeing the investigation into links between President Trump’s campaign and Russia were made public. In the messages, they expressed anti-Trump views but took aim at Hillary Clinton and other political figures as well.
The decisions by Mr. Baker and Ms. Page to leave the bureau were unrelated. Mr. Baker said in a telephone interview that he would be joining the Brookings Institution to write for Lawfare, its blog focused on national security law.
Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse had mentioned Lawfare, as cited above. Lawfare was helpful to those in the FBI and DOJ in giving them narrative points and discussing the ‘insurance policy’.
The Daily Caller had more on the story:
The FBI attorney who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with another bureau official resigned on Friday, The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.
The FBI confirmed that the lawyer, Lisa Page, tendered her resignation.
Page has faced months of scrutiny over the text messages, which she exchanged with Peter Strzok, the former deputy chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
The exchanges show a deep hostility to President Donald Trump at a time when the two officials were working on the FBI’s investigation into possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russian government. Some of the texts show Strzok and Page cryptically discussing how to proceed with the investigation, which was opened on July 31, 2016 …
Both Strzok and Page also served on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, which began on May 17, 2017.
Page worked for several weeks on the Mueller team before returning to her position as one of McCabe’s counselors. Strzok worked on the Mueller investigation until July 28, 2017, when Michael Horowitz, the DOJ’s inspector general, notified Mueller of the scandalous text messages.
Page is also a central player in Horowitz’s investigation of McCabe. She is the FBI official who McCabe instructed to speak to The Wall Street Journal regarding an October 2016 article about the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email investigation. McCabe authorized Page to leak to The Journal “in a manner designed to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership,” Horowitz determined.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired McCabe on March 16:
based upon a recommendation from the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR).
Horowitz released his report about McCabe on April 13:
that alleged McCabe gave inaccurate and incomplete statements about his authorization of the media leaks. The report, which dinged McCabe for a “lack of candor,” said he initially denied to both the OPR and the inspector general that he authorized Page to speak with The Journal.
The Daily Caller reported that Horowitz’s next findings would focus more closely on Strzok and Page.
That day, Q posted an update to the aforementioned message (1288) in a new one (1316). Emphases in the original:
[Updated]
James Baker – FIRED [reported today – resigned [false]] / removed Jan/FIRED 4.21
Lisa Page – FIRED [reported today – resigned [false]]
Testimony received.
Tracking_y.
[Added]
Mike Kortan, FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs – FIRED [cooperating under ‘resigned’ title]
Josh Campbell, Special Assistant to James Comey – FIRED
[DOJ]
David Laufman, Chief of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section [NAT SEC – HRC email invest] – FIRED/FORCE
John Carlin, Assistant Attorney General – Head of DOJ’s National Security Division – FIRED/FORCE
Sally Yates, Deputy Attorney General & Acting Attorney General – FIRED
Mary McCord, Acting Assistant Attorney General – Acting Head of DOJ’s National Security Division – FIRED/FORCE
Bruce Ohr, Associate Deputy Attorney General – Demoted 2x – cooperating witness [power removed]
Rachel Brand, Associate Attorney General – No. 3 official behind Deputy AG Rosenstein – FIRED/FORCE
Cross against House/Senate resignations/final term announcements + CEO departures.
CONSPIRACY?
FAKE NEWS?
THE SWAMP IS BEING DRAINED.
TRUST THE PLAN.
JUSTICE.
Q
From that, it is interesting to see that, for public consumption, Page and Baker ‘resigned’, yet, both, according to Q, were actually ‘FIRED’. Q also notes: ‘Testimony received’.
Hmm.
Two of the other people — namely Mike Kortan and Rachel Brand — had reportedly ‘resigned’, too. Q’s take is that both were similarly FIRED.
The important point in Q’s message going forward are the last five lines before sign-off. What concerned Americans suspected wasn’t a conspiracy theory but actual conspiracy. Action has been taken, and the Swamp draining has begun.
Much more to follow once the next inspector general report is published.
Until then, trust the plan as the Trump administration enters the phase where it metes justice.
In the first half of 2017, Trump supporters — myself included — were enthusiastic about Jefferson Beauregard Sessions as attorney general.
On February 10, I wrote about child molesters and traffickers:
Can Jeff Sessions make pizza great again?
Although perverts and traffickers are always being arrested, under Sessions’s watch, the number began to increase exponentially. Great news!
Another big problem was MS-13. On April 10, I posted:
Attorney General Sessions sends message to MS-13: ‘We will find you’
From those two targets, we see that Sessions’s DOJ was making a move on people all of us can agree fall into the category of criminal.
However, there is another type of criminal: Washington DC politicians who work against the interests of the United States and, within that group, the subset which has been trying to bring down President Donald Trump since November 9, 2016, the day after the election. George True’s guest post of April 15, 2018 explains how serious this is:
Guest post: a reader’s perspective on the Deep State and Mueller investigation
That Jeff Sessions does not consider the DC Swamp rats to be criminals is problematic.
My other 2018 posts about him have reflected this:
Trump tweets frustration with slow investigation (February 24 – 28, 2018)
Increasing outcry for Sleepy Sessions to go (April 19)
Guest post: a reader’s perspective on Jeff Sessions’s priorities (George True, April 20 and Rosenstein’s presidential cufflinks)
Jeff Sessions began recusing himself from Swamp rat investigations early in 2017.
As a result, he has made life extremely difficult for President Trump and his associates. The coup continues apace.
January 10, 2017 — first hint of recusal
As early as January 2017, Sessions said he would recuse himself from any campaign issues involving Hillary Clinton.
On January 10, the Los Angeles Times reported (emphases mine):
Sen. Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump’s pick to be the next attorney general, testified before Congress on Tuesday that he would recuse himself from any investigations and prosecutions involving Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Sessions and Trump called during the fall campaign for Clinton to be investigated and prosecuted for her use of a private email server, despite determinations by the FBI and Justice Department that her actions did not warrant charges. Since his election, Trump has said he did not support such an investigation or prosecution.
Sessions said he had made comments during the “contentious” campaign about Clinton’s use of the email server and her family’s charitable foundation that could place his objectivity in question.
“I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Hillary Clinton,” the Alabama Republican told senators on the Judiciary Committee.
March 2, 2017 – first recusal statement
After Sessions was appointed attorney general, he formally recused himself from campaign investigations.
On March 2, he gave a statement, excerpted below:
During the course of the confirmation proceedings on my nomination to be Attorney General, I advised the Senate Judiciary Committee that ‘[i]f a specific matter arose where I believed my impartiality might reasonably be questioned, I would consult with Department ethics officials regarding the most appropriate way to proceed.’
During the course of the last several weeks, I have met with the relevant senior career Department officials to discuss whether I should recuse myself from any matters arising from the campaigns for President of the United States.
Having concluded those meetings today, I have decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matters related in any way to the campaigns for President of the United States.
Quartz provided the background:
US attorney general Jeff Sessions, responding to mounting pressure from Democrats and from his own party, announced that he is recusing himself from any current or future investigations into the 2016 US presidential campaigns. The decision followed reports that he had spoken twice last year with Russia’s ambassador to the US. Russia, of course, is widely believed by US intelligence agencies to have meddled in the election.
Sessions, a former Republican senator and an advisor to US president Donald Trump during the race, had testified during his Senate confirmation hearing in January that he had not had communications with the Russians during the campaign. At his press conference today (March 2), Sessions spoke about one of the meetings, recalling that it ending in a tense confrontation about Ukraine.
Business Insider provided more detail:
The attorney general recused himself on March 2 after reports emerged that Sessions had twice met with the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, during the course of the election, contradicting statements he made during his Senate confirmation hearing, in which he said under oath that he did not have contacts with Russians during the campaign.
Following the bombshell report, Democrats swiftly demanded Sessions’ resignation, while a growing group of Republicans called on the attorney general to recuse himself from campaign-related investigations.
During questioning by Sen. Ron Wyden later in the hearing, Sessions said that there were no classified reasons for his recusal, as former FBI Director James Comey suggested in his Senate testimony last week. Sessions also claimed that he had informally recused himself since he was confirmed to lead the Justice Department.
“I basically recused myself the first day I got into the office because I never accessed files, I never learned the names of investigators, I never met with them, I never asked for any documentation,” Sessions told Wyden. “The documentation — what little I received — was mostly already in the media.”
Months later, the Los Angeles Times noted:
In March, Sessions announced he was recusing himself from any investigation into charges that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion between Russians and Trump’s campaign. Following his announcement, reports surfaced that Trump was irate that Sessions had recused himself from any investigation.
Fake news or a grain of truth in that last sentence?
I’m writing up what happened to HR McMaster, which I will post here in due course, and found that these rumours and reports turned out to be true.
June 13, 2017 – second recusal statement
On June 13, 2017, the Los Angeles Times reported Sessions’s second formal recusal, this time into Russian collusion:
Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions insists his recusal from any investigation into Russian collusion in last year’s election was simple: It’s the law.
In an opening statement before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, Sessions cited a Department of Justice regulation that he said mandated him stepping aside …
“I recused myself not because of any asserted wrongdoing on my part during the campaign,” Sessions said. “But because a Department of Justice regulation, 28 CFR 45.2, required it.”
“That regulation states, in effect, that department employees should not participate in investigations of a campaign if they have served as a campaign advisor,” said Sessions.
Throughout much of the 2016 election, Sessions served as a senior advisor to Trump’s campaign.
July 2017 — a vexed Trump unloads
On July 19, three New York Times reporters — Peter Baker, Michael S Schmidt and Maggie Haberman — published an interview (and transcript) with President Trump at the White House.
Trump did not mince words. The article led with this:
WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Wednesday that he never would have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation that has dogged his presidency, calling the decision “very unfair to the president.”
In a remarkable public break with one of his earliest political supporters, Mr. Trump complained that Mr. Sessions’s decision ultimately led to the appointment of a special counsel that should not have happened. “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else,” Mr. Trump said.
However, the topic did not come up until later in the interview. On this and other subjects, this has to be one of the best interviews ever. On Robert Mueller, Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, Trump had this to say:
SCHMIDT: What do you understand to be the four corners of what Mueller [Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation] can look at, if he steps—— [crosstalk]
TRUMP: I don’t know. Nobody has contacted me about anything.
_________
TRUMP: Because I have done nothing wrong. A special counsel should never have been appointed in this case.
BAKER: Can we put that on the record?
TRUMP: Because so far, the only — yeah, you can put it down.
SCHMIDT: Was that [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions’s mistake or [Deputy Attorney General Rod J.] Rosenstein’s mistake?
________
TRUMP: Look, Sessions gets the job. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself.
BAKER: Was that a mistake?
TRUMP: Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.
HABERMAN: He gave you no heads up at all, in any sense?
TRUMP: Zero. So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have — which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, “Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.” It’s extremely unfair, and that’s a mild word, to the president. So he recuses himself. I then end up with a second man, who’s a deputy.
HABERMAN: Rosenstein.
TRUMP: Who is he? And Jeff hardly knew. He’s from Baltimore.
________
TRUMP: Yeah, what Jeff Sessions did was he recused himself right after, right after he became attorney general. And I said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I would have — then I said, “Who’s your deputy?” So his deputy he hardly knew, and that’s Rosenstein, Rod Rosenstein, who is from Baltimore. There are very few Republicans in Baltimore, if any. So, he’s from Baltimore. Now, he, we went through a lot of things. We were interviewing replacements at the F.B.I. Did you know Mueller was one of the people that was being interviewed?
HABERMAN: I did, actually.
TRUMP: He was sitting in that chair. We had a wonderful meeting.
HABERMAN: Day before, right?
SCHMIDT: Did he want the job?
TRUMP: The day before! Of course, he was up here, and he wanted the job.
HABERMAN: And he made that clear to you? He would have——
________
TRUMP: So, now what happens is, he leaves the office. Rosenstein leaves the office. The next day, he is appointed special counsel. I said, what the hell is this all about? Talk about conflicts? But he was interviewing for the job. There were many other conflicts that I haven’t said, but I will at some point. So Jeff Sessions, Jeff Sessions gave some bad answers.
HABERMAN: You mean at the hearing?
TRUMP: Yeah, he gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren’t. He then becomes attorney general, and he then announces he’s going to recuse himself. Why wouldn’t he have told me that before?
HABERMAN: Why do you think it was? What do you think it was?
TRUMP: I don’t know.
BAKER: What would cause you — what would be the line beyond which if Mueller went, you would say, “That’s too far, we would need to dismiss him”?
TRUMP: Look, there are so many conflicts that everybody has. Then Rosenstein becomes extremely angry because of Comey’s Wednesday press conference, where he said that he would do the same thing he did a year ago with Hillary Clinton, and Rosenstein became extremely angry at that because, as a prosecutor, he knows that Comey did the wrong thing. Totally wrong thing. And he gives me a letter, O.K., he gives me a letter about Comey. And by the way, that was a tough letter, O.K. Now, perhaps I would have fired Comey anyway, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have the letter, O.K. But he gives me a very strong letter, and now he’s involved in the case. Well, that’s a conflict of interest. Do you know how many conflicts of interests there are? But then, then Comey also says that he did something in order to get the special prose— special counsel. He leaked. The reason he leaked. So, he illegally leaked.
Trump took to Twitter to express his vexation with Sessions, who was on an MS-13 mission in El Salvador at the time (see his priorities!):
So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?
On July 27, Sessions told Tucker Carlson (Fox News) how ‘hurtful’ the President’s tweets were. Note that he defended his recusals:
He never should have taken the job!
Mueller conflicts of interest
To go into all the conflicts of interest in this investigation would take ages. Uranium One is the biggest, and it involves Russia, Mueller and Rosenstein.
That said, the public were angry at the way Big Media — especially CNN — were reporting the Mueller investigation.
On July 24, a contributor to The_Donald posted a testy thread, the title of which is:
FAKE NEWS CNN defending Sessions’ recusal while DEAD SILENT about Mueller needing to recuse for the same reasons. MUELLER IS MORE CONFLICTED THAN SESSIONS! REPORT THE TRUTH!
By way of reply, someone posted a link to a Crime and Consequences article, ‘My View: Mueller is Conflicted Out‘. The premise of the article is that Robert Mueller cannot continue to serve as Special Counsel under 28 USC Section 528 and 28 CFR Section 45.2. You can read the article for the detail.
The author provides an excellent summary of Mueller, James Comey and more. The following continues to be discussed today, particularly in light of Comey’s recent book launch and associated interviews:
Jim Comey and Bob Mueller have been friends for about 15 years …
Comey now finds himself smack-dab at the center of the Russian investigation over which Mueller presides. Questions swirl around Comey — about whether the President wanted/hinted/hoped/asked/directed/or something else the investigation of National Security Adviser Gen. Flynn to be stopped/abandoned/slowed/soft-peddled/something else. This is probably the central element of the obstruction of justice case Mr. Trump’s opponents would like to see made against him.
Questions also swirl about Comey’s notes about this conversation, why he gave them to a private individual (Prof. Dan Richman of Columbia Law) to convey to the press. Additional questions have arisen about whether this curious and seemingly devious means of putting contents of the notes in the public domain (leaking, in other words) was designed specifically to bring about the appointment of a Special Counsel outside the President’s direct reach — and, indeed, whether Comey wanted, expected or intended his friend Mueller to get the job.
There is much to be said of all this, none of it very happy-making. But one thing that can be said with considerable clarity if not comfort is that, under the governing rules (set forth above), Mueller has a long-term relationship with Comey that “may result in a personal…conflict of interest, or the appearance thereof.”
He is therefore disqualified. I hope and believe that Mueller, whom I believe to be an honest man and a partisan of the rule of law, will see this for himself. If he doesn’t, I hope Rod Rosenstein will.
As I’ve said in many other contexts, I like rule-orientation and fear self-justification, a ubiquitous flaw in even the best of men. There is no way Comey is not a central witness in this investigation (if not a subject). Even less is there a way Mueller can be expected to evaluate Comey’s credibility with the fresh neutrality, arm’s-length curiosity, and objective sharp eye his job demands.
Whether Mueller’s departure would work out well or badly for Mr. Trump is not knowable (it is also decidedly not the subject of this post). My point is about the application of stated rules to the facts at hand. Let the chips fall where they may, the application is clear: Mueller cannot remain as Special Counsel.
That article was from June 2017. Nearly one year later, nothing has changed. Mueller’s still in situ.
On September 20, Law & Crime‘s Rachel Stockman asked why Rosenstein wasn’t recusing himself from the Mueller probe. Because Sessions recused himself, Rosenstein is the DOJ’s link to Mueller (emphases in the original, those in purple mine):
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein is overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia investigation after Jeff Sessions recused himself. However, there are some concerns about his ability to adequately supervise an investigation that he has now become a part of. On Tuesday night, The Wall Street Journal broke the story that over the summer, Mueller’s investigators interviewed Rosentein about President Donald Trump‘s firing of former FBI Director James Comey.
The Journal claims the FBI’s handling of the interview “could be a sign that Mr. Mueller’s team doesn’t view Mr. Rosenstein as a central witness in its probe, as the deputy attorney general hasn’t withdrawn himself from overseeing it since that interview.” That could very well be the case, but the optics don’t look good. A spokesperson for Rosenstein said “if there comes a time when he needs to recuse, he will. However, nothing has changed.” Well, now might be the time …
Rosenstein, as a federal lawyer and a DOJ employee, is guided by both local D.C. ethics rules and Justice Department guidelines. Both would prohibit him from overseeing an investigation if he is a person of interest or a target …
However, legal experts emphasize that we don’t know yet whether Rosenstein is a target of the investigation for his role in writing that infamous memo giving Trump “justification” for firing Comey. Did Rosenstein cooperate in a lie to the public? 18 USC 1512(c)(2) says that obstruction happens when a person “corruptly… impedes [an] official proceeding or attempts to do so.”
“Creating a false narrative for firing Comey could be such an attempt. The definition of ‘official proceeding; includes “a proceeding before a Federal Government agency which is authorized by law.’ That language is broad enough to encompass the FBI and the Comey investigation,” Gillers said.
Now, the hope is that if the investigation starts honing in on Rosenstein, Mueller would advise him that he needed to recuse himself. BUT there is this added wrinkle: Mueller may have an incentive in wanting to keep Rosentein as his supervisor. Trump’s team has hinted more than once that he might fire Mueller. Federal law says that technically Trump can’t do the firing. Instead, the U.S. Attorney General (or in this case Rosenstein since Sessions recused himself) would have to do it. From all indications, Rosenstein would probably not demure to such a demand from Trump …
In the end, we must rely on Mueller’s integrity, and pray that if Rosenstein was in legal jeopardy, Mueller would do the right thing and ask him to take himself off the investigation. In the wake of James Comey’s breach in DOJ policy, asking us to trust our public officials seems like a scary thought. With so much at stake, so many unknowns, and the world watching, Mr. Rosenstein needs to think long and hard about recusing himself.
Well, Rosey’s still managing the Mueller investigation.
September 2017 – calls for unrecusal
By September, there were calls for Sessions to unrecuse himself. Here’s Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch:
By December, there was doubt as to whether Sessions should have recused at all:
On December 18, Alan Dershowitz offered the clearest rationale for an unrecusal. Emphases mine below.
He told Fox & Friends (video at the link):
Sessions could un-recuse himself, because the law allows anyone who’s recused themselves to un-recuse if there are new developments or circumstances.
And Dershowitz said the reason Sessions can do this, is because Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should recuse himself.
Rosenstein is a “key witness” after writing the memo justifying Jim Comey’s firing.
November 2017 – question over possible Uranium One recusal
On November 2, Breitbart reported that Rep. Mark Gaetz (R – Florida) told them that Sessions would recuse over Uranium One (H/T: Conservative Treehouse). Bold emphasis in the original, those in purple mine:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions told a small group of lawmakers in late September he was recused from appointing a special counsel to look into potential corruption surrounding the Uranium One deal and Fusion GPS’s work on the Trump dossier, according to one of the lawmakers present.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) told Breitbart News on Wednesday that he and other House Judiciary Committee Republicans had met with Sessions at the Justice Department on September 28 in advance of an upcoming committee hearing with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein later this month.
Gaetz said that when he asked Sessions to appoint a special counsel to investigate the 2010 Uranium One deal and Fusion GPS, the attorney general stood up, said he could not discuss the matter because he had recused himself, and walked out of the room, leaving them with a group of Rosenstein staffers “who showed no interest.”
“He said that anything that had to do with 2016 election, or Russia, or the candidates in the 2016 election, fell under the scope of his recusal, and he left the room,” Gaetz said.
“It was Sessions’ position that his recusal on the Russia matter divorced him from any oversight on Uranium One and Fusion GPS. That’s troubling. Sessions’ recusal is a function of his involvement in the Trump campaign. In no world does that impact his judgment as it relates to Fusion GPS and Uranium One. But he views the recusal more broadly. That’s troubling because that puts Rosenstein in charge,” he said.
Gaetz said Rosenstein’s staffers provided “no answers” and “no timeline for answers.”
This is why many of us have been saying that Sessions must resign or, as such time as the Senate will approve a replacement, be fired.
Yet, investigative journalist Sara Carter told Fox’s Sean Hannity that the report was not true:
I hope Sara Carter is correct.
November 2017 – Sessions critics told they are disloyal
Sleepy’s critics are constantly being told by his supporters that by being critical of him they are being critical of Trump! False!
As much as I liked Imperator_Rex — currently Vachel Lindsay — on Twitter, the logic that he and others employ with this stance is wrong. Here’s a taster from a rather long thread of his from November 3:
Who knows what’s happening with The Storm? All the people we want to see brought to justice have been going on book tours (Hillary, Comey), giving speeches overseas (Obama) and leading a normal life (e.g. John Podesta).
Re 36, no, it’s not because Trump ‘wants’ Sessions there, it’s because the only way Trump can get a replacement for him is if he (Sessions) resigns (vacancy rules apply).
The Senate told Trump in 2017 that they will not approve any new cabinet members, making it impossible for Trump to fire Sessions. Nor will the Senate allow Trump to appoint someone new when the Senate is not in session. Consequently, the Senate has not been declaring any formal recess.
Trump’s hands are tied, unless Sessions resigns.
Even then, Trump has to have a replacement in mind.
It certainly won’t be Rosenstein.
Re 37, saying that Sessions critics are disloyal to Trump is egregious. We care deeply about President Trump. That’s why we want Sessions out of the way, so that Swamp rats can be dealt with the way the Founding Fathers intended.
Again, we have only Sara Carter’s word for that.
December 2017 – Former FBI director Kallstrom says Mueller should recuse
On December 4, former FBI director James Kallstrom told Breitbart that Robert Mueller should recuse himself:
“Bob Mueller should have never been offered nor accepted the job as special counsel as he has a huge conflict of interest,” Jim Kallstrom tells Breitbart News …
Not only do observers describe Mueller and the man he recommended to replace him as FBI director, James Comey, as close or even best friends, but the special counsel pursues an investigation heavily involving the bureau he once led. How one maintains detachment in leading a team that includes numerous anti-Trump partisans in a probe involving one’s close friend and the former bureau for which Mueller served as director goes unexplained.
Other problems Kallstrom sees include the means by which investigators obtained information and what constituted probable cause to obtain it.
“The Obama administration apparently, had the advantage of using electronic surveillance, collecting information on the Trump campaign,” Kallstrom explains. “That collection, in my view, may be found to be unlawful.”
…
If the surveillance and investigatory methods prove unlawful, Kallstrom notes that this puts Mueller in an awkward position of looking into his close friend and perhaps the bureau that both men once led.
“If they used the phony dossier as the predicate for the FISA order they obtained, that could be a huge problem,” Kallstrom tells Breitbart News. “If they knew the information was phony, that is a felony. If they did not know it was phony, they were incompetent.”
January 2018 – White House tried to talk Sessions out of recusal
On January 5, 2018, Fox News reported that White House officials tried to talk Sessions out of recusing himself in 2017 (emphases mine):
President Trump instructed three senior White House officials to talk Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of recusing himself from the Justice Department’s investigation into potential ties between Russia and members of the Trump campaign, multiple sources told Fox News on Friday.
Trump called on White House counsel Don McGahn, former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former Press Secretary Sean Spicer to stop Sessions from recusing himself.
Spicer has denied the allegation.
The push to convince Sessions allegedly took place over the course of a number of telephone calls that covered a variety of other topics, the well-placed sources told Fox.
On Thursday, The New York Times first reported that Trump had directed McGahn to contact Sessions this past March. According to The Associated Press, two anonymous sources confirmed that McGahn unsuccessfully lobbied Sessions to continue to oversee the Russia investigation.
Sessions supporters will have trouble with ‘multiple sources’ and ‘anonymous sources’, but every single presidential administration has had them.
My upcoming McMaster chronicle shows that, nearly every time one of these sources spoke to the media, they were telling the truth.
March – Sessions took recusal advice from Obama lawyers
Just when the Sessions situation couldn’t seem more intolerable, the Gateway Pundit reported on March 14 that the attorney general took recusal advice from Obama adminstration lawyers (emphases in the original):
On Wednesday night FOX News contributor and legal expert Gregg Jarrett told Sean Hannity that Sessions used the WRONG LAW when announcing his recusal. He took advice from OBAMA OFFICIALS and they misled him.
Gregg Jarrett: He betrayed the president. He knew when he was sworn in that he was going to recuse himself and the very next day he put the recusal in motion. He never told the president about that. And by the way he cited the regulation in his recusal… He cited the wrong law. It didn’t apply.
Sara Carter: I think he was being advised badly at the time.
Gregg Jarrett: Yeah, by Obama’s holdovers. Who in the world would believe them?
Good grief! He cited the wrong law!
The DOJ regulation Sessions cited — 28 CFR 45.2— says “no DOJ employee may participate in a criminal investigation or prosecution if he has a personal or political relationship with any person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution, or who would be directly affected by the outcome.”
As Andrew McCarthy at National Review reported, “The regulation he cited applies to a different type of investigation.”
Once again the question must be asked: Who did deep state catch Jeff Sessions in bed with?
My thoughts exactly.
April 2018 – Congress asks Sessions to investigate Swamp
On April 18, members of Congress wrote to Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray and United States Attorney John Huber requesting that they issue a criminal referral for a long list of Swamp dwellers, including FBI Director James Comey, Hillary Clinton and others – including FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, for a laundry list of potential crimes surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
You can read the letter in full at Scribd.
ZeroHedge has more (emphases in the original):
Recall that Sessions paired special prosecutor John Huber with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz – falling short of a second Special Counsel, but empowering Horowitz to fully investigate allegations of FBI FISA abuse with subpoena power and other methods he was formerly unable to utilize.
The GOP letter’s primary focus appears to be James Comey, while the charges for all include obstruction, perjury, corruption, unauthorized removal of classified documents, contributions and donations by foreign nationals and other allegations.
The letter also demands that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “be recused from any examination of FISA abuse,” and recommends that “neither U.S. Attorney John Huber nor a special counsel (if appointed) should report to Rosenstein.”
April 2018 – possible partial recusal in Cohen investigation
Early in April, the home, office and hotel room of President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen were ransacked.
It’s possible that Sessions could recuse himself from this, too — at least partially.
On April 24, Gateway Pundit carried a news story, ‘WTH? AG Sessions Will Not Recuse Himself From Cohen Investigation — Only on Certain Issues‘ (emphases in the original):
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has decided not to recuse himself from the investigation into Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen.
Don’t get too excited because Sessions will consider stepping back on specific matters tied into the Cohen probe …
On Tuesday, GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin sent a letter to AG Sessions demanding to know his involvement in the FBI raid of Cohen.
“We would like to know if you approved, were consulted, or had any involvement in this decision by the Department of Justice,” Zeldin asked in a letter to AG Sessions about the FBI raid of Cohen on April 9th.
Gateway Pundit cited a Reuters article which says that Sessions discussed the matter at a Senate appropriations subcommittee meeting about the proposed 2019 budget for the Justice Department. Please read it, because it’s got all the classic Sessions recusal statements.
Conclusion
To date, Sessions’s recusals look increasingly like refusals to do the AG job in its entirety.
Jeff Sessions is up for the chop. It’s just a matter of time and circumstance. After the Cohen raid, Trump is even unhappier with the AG and the DOJ than he was a year ago at this time.
