Posted on 05/28/2020 5:03:47 AM PDT by billorites
Amid the flurry of details about spying on Michael Flynn, lying to secret courts about Carter Page, leaking classified documents, and more, it’s easy to get lost in the muck. It’s important to stand back, identify the worst abuses, and explain why they matter for American democracy. These abuses didn’t simply follow each other; their targets, goals, and principal players overlapped. Taken together, they represent some of the gravest violations of constitutional norms and legal protections in American history. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, whether you like Donald Trump or loathe him, these violations matter.
Some call this debacle “Obamagate” since the key officials were his appointees and the White House was directly involved. But they got plenty of help. Some came from the permanent bureaucracy, especially in law enforcement and intelligence. Still more came from the mainstream media, which served as conduits for classified leaks aimed at Trump, his campaign, and then his presidency. For over three years, the media’s top story was “Trump colluded with Russia.” When that imploded after the Mueller Report, they moved on to impeachment.
The entrenched elites behind these scandals are the Swamp at its most sulfurous. They spied illegally on Americans and used powerful tools of government to damage the party-out-of-power, its outsider candidate, and then his new presidency. It’s worse than a single surveillance scandal. It’s three huge ones, intertwined. All were abuses of power. Some were crimes.
Scandal No. 1: Massive, illegal surveillance of American citizens, using the database of the National Security Agency
During the second term of President Obama, and perhaps earlier, private firms from outside the government were allowed to trawl through the massive NSA database of phone calls, emails, and text messages. Without any warrants, they spied on vast numbers of American citizens.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
Well, they mean so far that there is no justice as this has been going on for over FOUR YEARS. Americans are sitting at home waiting for justice via the broken corrupt system. What would George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson have said about what our government has become? What would they have done?
Would they have stood by while government squeezed the life out of our people?
I’m waiting for someone to lay out the timeline as a set of allegations that are easy to understand. I’m not at all sure I have it correct, but I see it like this, at a high level:
• Obama weaponized the FBI, CIA, DOJ and other agencies to spy on American citizens in ways that are illegal.
• Obama spied on the Trump campaign in order to find dirt that would help Hillary win the election.
• Obama failed to find dirt, so Hillary’s campaign invented dirt (the Steele dossier).
• The invented dirt was used to push a false claim of “Russian Collusion” but this failed to get traction.
• The Mueller investigation lasted three years and was ostensibly predicated upon the Steele dossier but they knew the whole time that this was a false basis. The Mueller investigation was in fact largely focused on forcing Trump to give testimony under oath where he could be maneuvered into a perjury trap and then impeached. But Trump avoided this trap.
• The House impeached Trump anyway, for activity which he did not do and which was not a crime.
Meanwhile, the Flynn sideshow was going on:
• Obama was afraid of Michael Flynn because Flynn could discover and blow the whistle on the illegal surveillance.
• Flynn was interviewed by the FBI which subsequently forged government documents (FBI 302 forms) in such a way that Flynn could be accused of having lied, even though they knew he had not lied.
• Flynn was put on trial, even though the FBI had exculpatory evidence.
• Flynn was pressured to plead guilty – the FBI threatened his son.
• Flynn got a new lawyer who fought back and he withdrew his guilty plea.
• The DOJ dropped all charges because they had no case against Flynn.
• The judge is now persecuting Flynn because Flynn plea bargained as do millions of Americans. Plea bargaining is not a crime.
NEVER FORGET
Watergate Casualties and Convictions
In the aftermath of Richard Nixon’s resignation, Watergate continued to claim victims.
The final toll included:
one presidential resignation
one vice-presidential resignation – although Agnew’s crimes were unrelated to Watergate
40 government officials indicted or jailed
H.R. Haldeman and John Erlichman (White House staff), resigned 30 April 1973, subsequently jailed
John Dean (White House legal counsel), sacked 30 April 1973, subsequently jailed
John Mitchell, Attorney-General and Chairman of the Committee to Re-elect the President (CREEP), jailed
Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy (ex-White House staff), planned the Watergate break-in, both jailed
Charles Colson, special counsel to the President, jailed
James McCord (Security Director of CREEP), jailed
https://watergate.info/analysis/casualties-and-convictions
Secession of many states is the only answer that seems to make sense to me.
Team obama did all that while the republicans didn’t try to stop them and the dimrat media went all in support of obama.
THANK YOU for posting this link!
The info it has is incredible, and infuriating!
God bless General Flynn, President Trump, and all those working to get the truth out about OBAMAGATE!!
Excellent summation of the story so far. Thanks for posting.
I have so many friends that would deny it all, refusing to believe their lying eyes.
Hey, Trey “Banty Rooster” Gowdy had a LOT of hearings and made a lot of noise! /S
It is a good summary of what happened. The Lee Smith piece from a week or so ago is one of the best explanations of why this happened that I have read - it is long, but well worth the read.
Your second statement is the rub. The media assault using this farce has been so long and so constant for years that there are probably many people who will have a difficult time changing their mind about what happened. We still see huge poll numbers of those who believe Trump is a Russian agent.
I think the dam has broken (finally) on this scandal. It is so widespread throughout our government that we (those on the right who support Trump) have only seen part of it and most of the coverage on the scandal has focused on specific things or people revolving around the election (Trump, Flynn, Papa D, the DNC, etc etc).
It is highly probable that it went far beyond what we now know and talk about here.
We will learn much more about what happened. The media will spin it against Trump. I want to know what happened and that is most important to me even as many focus on charges. This needs to be revealed prior to the election. Justice delayed is justice denied, but if they carry on the lie into November and Trump loses the election (in large part) because of the lie and deception they will have won and that will be the biggest injustice of all.
This was criminal. It is the biggest scandal in American history in terms of scope, size, and the number of people and agencies involved.
Sadly, I think we will never learn or know even half of what they did in the prior administration. We are seeing the tip of the iceberg and already the media is spinning this as election interference by Trump. It is going to be a wild ride to November.
Related:
Dan Bongino: The Stunning Reason Why Rod Rosenstein Will Be the First Witness Before Senate Committee
https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2020/05/27/844759/
Oops! Wrong thread but still somewhat relevant ..
I agree entirely with your #11 post.
The Deep State is Cthulu, it slumbers ancient and deep, influencing our dreams.
Waking up is hard to do.
Not only have they gotten away with it, they won back the House and got Pelosi back in charge based on all that corruption and just look at the damage has been done to the country because of that.
I’m no historian but I can imagine Revolutions have happened for less, and all this just illustrates we are American in label only
Obama’s army had a wide path to treason.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.