Posted on 08/18/2020 8:30:28 AM PDT by bitt
Growing evidence that officials involved in the Russia collusion investigation knowingly acted without cause is undermining our governing institutions
With so many big stories breaking, it’s hard to get attention even for important news about the FBI’s and CIA’s misdeeds. Still, the wrongdoing at James Comey’s FBI and John Brennan’s CIA was serious, as the news this week amply demonstrates.
On July 17, we learned that the FBI knew, just as Donald Trump’s presidency was beginning, that there was no evidence his campaign had colluded with Russia. That’s the significance of a memo written by FBI agent Peter Strzok in mid-February 2017 and just released.
The news matters for three reasons. First, almost all the public investigation and damaging narrative about “Trump-Russia collusion” came after investigators knew how little supporting evidence there was.
Second, the more we learn about the ensuing investigations, the more they look like concerted abuses of government authority. We give law-enforcement and intelligence agencies tremendous power so they can protect us; when they abuse that power, they need to be held accountable and reined in. That seldom happens to anyone in Washington’s sprawling bureaucracies, which protect their own within the gurgling ecosystem of power, profit, regulation, and rent-seeking. Just ask Lois Lerner.
Third, when the FBI, Department of Justice, and intelligence agencies act in biased, partisan, and illicit ways, they cut to the very heart of our constitutional democracy, damage our institutions, and undermine trust in them. That is exactly what happened in 2016 and afterward. Public trust was undermined by these prolonged investigations and the narrative about them. It will be undermined further as we learn how the investigators themselves likely pursued partisan goals, ignored crucial evidence, and broke laws to do it. (The counter-charge, already being made, is that exposing these violations is itself partisan.)
Collusion between a presidential campaign and a foreign enemy would be equally damaging. That’s why allegations of Trump-Russia collusion were so serious and why they needed to be investigated thoroughly, fairly, and impartially. The problem is that these probes continued for years and actually intensified after senior law enforcement officials knew there was little or no corroborating evidence. Instead of ending these investigations quickly and definitively, the investigators expanded, deepened, and continued their search despite the lack of evidence. As the investigations ground on, they took on a more sinister mien: to hobble and, if possible, actually remove a duly elected president.
This effort to take down the Trump administration went well beyond the normal bounds of standard FBI practice, prosecutorial diligence, and “loyal opposition” among elected officials. It extended far beyond law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It involved senior officials from the Obama administration (some of whom stayed on after Trump took office in 2017), their congressional allies, and a phalanx of reporters, editors, and anchors, who reported the leaks and crafted a damning narrative. They were aided by career officials across multiple agencies who stayed in close touch with their old bosses and did their best to oppose President Trump and his policies. They were led by one party and focused squarely on the leader of the opposition, first as candidate and then as president. If Trump and his campaign had actually committed serious crimes or had been credibly accused of them, that focus would have been fully justified. If not, not. If the investigations kept turning up incriminating evidence, they should have been continued. If not, not.
Now, years later, we are watching the unraveling of this carefully constructed public narrative: that Trump won the White House because of Russia’s illegal help, making him an illegitimate president. The mainstream media, which did so much to spin this troubling tale, has responded with radio silence. When they do speak, their loudest cries are directed at Attorney General William Barr. He is said to be a partisan hack for trying to uncover what happened, who was involved, and what crimes may have been committed.
Whatever motivated Comey and Brennan as well as James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann, Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, and their associates, it is clear they all wanted to destroy or at least hobble Trump’s presidency. The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, and other media outlets shared that goal. They reported any leaks that advanced that goal as they actively shaped the public discourse.
...more
a full explanation
Russia-Russia has become the great post office heist...
knowingly
Very well written.
And now, someone please do something before we become a bigger version of Cuba, Venezuela, etc.
EXCLUSIVE: The Obama Treasury Department Spied on Flynn, Manafort, and the Trump Family, Says Whistleblower
The Ohio Star ^ | 18 May 2020 | Neil W. McCabe / FR posted by Erik Latranyi
President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department regularly surveiled retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s financial records and transactions beginning in December 2015 and well into 2017, before, during and after when he served at the White House as President Donald Trump’s National Security Director, a former senior Treasury Department official, and veteran of the intelligence community, told the Star Newspapers.
“I started seeing things that were not correct, so I did my own little investigation, because I wanted to make sure what I was seeing was correct” she said. “You never want to draw attention to something if there is not anything there.”
The whistleblower said she only saw metadata, that is names and dates when the general’s financial records were accessed. “I never saw what they saw.”
By March 2016, the whistleblower said she and a colleague, who was detailed to Treasury from the intelligence community, became convinced that the surveillance of Flynn was not tied to legitimate criminal or national security concerns, but was straight-up political surveillance among other illegal activity occurring at Treasury.
“When I showed it to her, what she said, ‘Oh, sh%t!’ and I knew right then and there that I was right – this was some shady stuff,” the whistleblower said.’
“It wasn’t just him,” the whistleblower said. “They were targeting other U.S. citizens, as well.”
Only two names are listed in the whistleblower’s official paperwork, so the others must remain sealed, she said. The second name is Paul J. Manafort Jr., the one-time chairman of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The other names include: Members of Congress, the most senior staffers on the 2016 Trump campaign and members of Trump’s family, she said.(Excerpt) Read more at theohiostar.com ...
Betcha good money, Obama was spying on DEMOCRATS.
Was Obama checking to see if Democrats were holding out on his share of the graft?
And that lying traitor, a charter member of the Deep State, the god of Alabama, I recuse myself,Jeff Sessions could have prevented that.
Obama’s Government Legacy:
<><> corrupting US govt agencies,
<><> siccing L/E on innocent people,
<><> framing those who get in his way
<><> leaking propaganda pieces to favored media puppets,
<><> paying phony witnesses for unfavorable testimony,
<><> fleecing taxpayers,
<><> looting the US Treasury,
<><> monetizing US foreign policy
<><> quashing Dems’ sexual harassment scandals,
<><> finding faked-up “whistle-blowers”
<><> lying with a straight face,
<><> feigning moral outrage.
<><> pretending to have morals,
<><> acting like money and power is the last thing on his/her mind.
One of Thomas Jefferson’s indictments against the king that justified the declaration and subsequent colonial rebellion:
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”
Sounds a lot like an early American description of the Obama/Biden years
<><> siccing the IRS on innocent law-abiding citizens
<><> Obama was obsessed w/ govt wiretaps——numbers rose 71% during one year of Obama’s reign
<><> Obama used drones to shoot down Americans
<><> Obama’s state dept covered-up of sex scandals-—obstructing justice
<><> Obama nixed sex-related investigations (w/ Joe’s help?)
<><> Obama’s DOJ labeled Fox journo Rosen a criminal; charging him, spying on his family—
<><> Obama monitored the Asso Press,
<><> Obama via Verizon spied on the USSC via their blackberries
<><> Obama spied on Congress via Verizon blackberries
LESSON OF THE DAY -— don’t elect a kingpin of organized Chicago criminal politics, a cunning con artist to run the govt ...... OR his henchman.
A “cool, clean, smooth talker,” Obama ran a monstrous govt we the people forcibly lived under-— a police state capable of extraordinary crimes against its people.
Somehow, in all this treason, it has been overlooked how the Communists are masters of projection. Either they have done the deed, are doing it or plan to do it.
Case in point - Robert F. Kennedy’s 19 page screed about voter fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election (Was the 2004 Election Stolen? https://www.commondreams.org/views06/0601-34.htm) is a how-to rig an election.
thanx for that...pretty powerful...
under his “We Need to Know the Rest of the Story”
I was hoping he’d get into the non-release of the Michael Atkinson transcript...
no such luck
Knew? They invented the entire hoax. They always KNEW. All the action was to attempt to create the illusion that the obvious fact that there was nothing there was false - even though the whole think about the golden shower episode shows that it was invented by some not particularly clever pornographer.
Anything.
Assassination is not off the table.
Neither is provoking a nuclear world war. Hey, better to be the king of ashes and rubble than hanged as a traitor, especially when you can blame Orange Man Bad for the war, and hang-wring about how you tried to stop it!
now you’re scaring me, nully..
If I can’t sleep, no reason you should be able to sleep...
};^P>
Good summary. If you want the granular details go to The Conservative Tree House where Sundance has laid it out such that a newly minted Lawyer could prosecute those responsible.
“Growing evidence that officials involved in the Russia collusion investigation knowingly acted without cause is undermining our governing institutions”
So, is this a surprise? Obvious from the outset, as I recall.
After all, the whole scam rests upon the ludicrous premise that Putin would rather have Trump in the White House than Harpy O’Smarmalot.
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