In With a Bang. Out With a Whimper?

THE LIST OF A-LIST CELEBRITIES, politicians, and other public figures involved with American financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, has been teased for a long time and was unsealed by New York judge Loretta Preska finally on Thursday. (See  her Order here.) It is a result of a defamation case, now settled, brought against Epstein’s madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now serving 20 years in prison for sex trafficking underaged girls to him. 

Epstein died by hanging in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges back in 2019. Guards performed CPR and transported him after his cardiac arrest to a downtown hospital where he was pronounced dead. It was said by the NYC medical examiner and the hallowed New York Times that Epstein committed suicide, but hardly anyone, including renowned pathologist and former medical examiner, Dr. Michael Baden, believed the story for a variety of reasons—see here and here.) Maxwell was later sued by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who is allegedly a child victim who was supplied by Epstein and Maxwell to, of all people, the Duke of York, when she was 17 in 2001. The Duke denies the charges.

This is a sordid story only of interest to the extent it exposes the depraved character of those on the list and the unspeakable damage they, along with Epstein and Maxwell, have done to innocent minors. So who are they? Names in the court filing include, among dozens of others, Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Stephen Hawking, and Michael Jackson. Also mentioned but not accused of wrongdoing are Leonardo Dicaprio, Cate Blanchett, and Bruce Willis. Mentioned in passing are Al Gore, Naomi Campbell, George Lucas, Cameron Diaz, and Kevin Spacey. 

Epstein is reported to have claimed that former president Bill Clinton “likes them young,” referring to the underaged girls. Belying other evidence, Maxwell is also claimed to have said Clinton never visited Epstein’s private island, Little Saint James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands (no pun intended), which later became known as “Paedo Island.” 

Donald Trump is named in the court documents, but it seems to be limited to conversations about going to an unnamed casino in Atlantic City in 2001. It may have been referencing a casino then owned by Trump. Trump and his then-girlfriend, Melania Knauss (now Trump), met Epstein and Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000. There does not appear to be any suggestion of wrongdoing. 

This is the eighth release of information from this case, and there will be more. I have high hopes of retiring the story once and for all, although obviously, the exploited girls will have to live with it for the rest of their lives. Most of them, thankfully, remain appropriately anonymous. 

How Many Smoking Guns Does it Take to Fire a Corrupt Pol?

IT WAS RELEASED LATE ON FRIDAY, but at least it’s out there. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) released information about bank records the committee received revealing a $200,000 direct payment via personal check from his brother James and his wife Sara to Joe Biden. It only took Comer three subpoenas to obtain the personal and business bank records…

Apparently in 2018, James received $600,000 in loans from Americore, a financially distressed and failing rural hospital organization (not to be confused with AmeriCorps, a Bill Clinton giveaway initiative, and possibly corrupt.) Bankruptcy Court documents show James received these loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.” Then on 3/1/18, Americore wired a $200,000 loan to James and Sara’s personal account. The same day, James wrote a $200,000 check from that personal account to Joe Biden. The memo section of the check said it was a ‘loan repayment.’ Some answers are called for, including the terms of this unusual transaction? Reports are, more information has been unearthed and will be released forthwith.

Comer remarked, “This summer, Joe Biden said: “Where’s the money?”Well, we found some.We’re still digging into evidence subpoenaed from bank accounts belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, and James and Sara Biden – the brother and sister-in-law of the President. A document that we’re releasing today raises new questions about how President Biden personally benefited from his family’s shady influence peddling of his name and their access  to him.”

Image of personal check obtained by Sen. Comer. Image source.

J-6 Non-Witness, Steve Bannon, Sentenced…and Martyred.

DONALD TRUMP ADVISOR STEVE BANNON WAS SENTENCED by U.S. District Court Judge Carl Nichols (a Trump appointee) this morning in a contempt of Congress charge for defying the J-6 Committee subpoena. The sentence, for four months in jail and a fine of $6,500, is deferred, pending appeal, which must be filed on or before Nov. 15th. The Justice Department had sought a six-month prison sentence. The misdemeanors could have brought just one month to up to a year for each count.

In July, Bannon had been convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to testify and another for refusing to produce documents. He had been subpoenaed in Sept. of 2021. The J-6 Committee apparently wanted to hear about allegations that Bannon was part of a Trump team monitoring the events of that day from a “command center” at the Willard Hotel on Jan. 5th and 6th and convinced Trump to delay the certification of the election (that had been rigged.).

Judge Nichols stated that Bannon had improperly defied the House select committee on a matter of significant national interest even after his objections to testifying had been remedied, i.e., Trump waived executive privilege. He added Bannon hadn’t taken responsibility for his actions, but also acknowledged Bannon had relied on advice of counsel. Probably the judge is at least partly correct.

Bannon is absolutely correct that the proper adjudication of this is to get a court decision before testimony and document production that what is being sought and provided is not subject to executive privilege. The only one who can waive that privilege is Trump. Once Trump waived it, the circumstances did change, however. This will surely be an issue of law for appeal. (The D.O.J. says the criminal contempt of Congress statute is intended to punish noncompliance, not to compel compliance, although that raises the question why one would want to punish but not compel?)

Bannon is the first of four witnesses held in contempt but this select committee. Former Trump advisor Peter Navarro faces trial next month (and meanwhile, filled in for Bannon on his widely viewed podcast, “War Room.”). Trump aides Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino have not been charged by the D.O.J. 

The all Democrat/two RINO lawmakers on the J-6 select committee have been investigating the events of Jan. 6, 2021 at the Capitol for almost that long. 

Bannon told reporters after sentencing that “[t]he Biden administration ends…on the 8th of November. Merrick Garland will be the first attorney general brought up on charges of impeachment and removed from office.” Bannon’s full comments on the sentencing can be viewed here or here. 

The J-6 committee hearings have bored the living daylights out of Americans sporatically for months and don’t even pretend to be unbiased. It now appears it has sought additional funding to continue the probe well into the future, though one supposes that will depend on what happens on Nov. 8th, and it looks like it will be a happy day for the G.O.P.  

All the J-6 people have managed to do is martyrize those from the Trump administration who have been persecuted by them. Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning had this to say:

“Today’s sentencing of Steven Bannon to four months in federal prison for a nothing process crime in a last-ditch attempt by the Jan. 6 committee to show it has relevance is pathetic and will make Mr. Bannon a martyr. Mr. Bannon, who offered to testify before the committee, after courts rejected his executive privilege claim, was then never allowed to testify as the Justice Department proceeded with the prosecution. It is obvious that House Democrats never cared about what Mr. Bannon had to say, and were more interested in triggering nothing process crimes. Now, they are visibly attempting the same garbage with a last-minute subpoena of former President Donald Trump, as their committee comes to a close. If Nancy Pelosi wants to ensure that Donald Trump becomes president on Jan. 20, 2025 at noon, she will proceed with this martyr-making tactic. It is not hard to predict that Trump will simply say, ‘Bring it on, Nancy!’”

Other thoughtful reactions and commentary can be read here. Most noteworthy is Jack Posobiec’s list of the “protected class” that have been held in contempt of Congress with impunity, including former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Nixon and Ford, Henry Kissinger; former U.S. Attorney General under Bill Clinton, Janet Reno; former White House Counsel to George W. Bush, Harriet Miers; former White House Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, Joshua Bolton; former U.S. Attorney General under Obama, Eric Holder; former Director in the I.R.S. Lois Lerner under Obama; IT specialist for the State Department and Hillary Clinton staffer Bryan Pagliano; former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr under George H. W. Bush and Trump; and then-Acting Secretary of Homeland Security under Trump, Chad Wolf. These people were not accused of simple process-crimes, either. Go figure…

But of Course! Melania’s Underwear Drawer IS More Interesting Than Bill Clinton’s Sock Drawer.

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EARLIER THIS MONTH, the Heritage Foundation issued a report that said the Oversight Project has filed lawsuits against the Department of Justice and the National Archives and Records Administration after both agencies failed to cooperate with Freedom of Information requests. The requests sought communication records between the Biden regime, the D.O.J., the F.B.I., 45th President Trump’s Bedminster, NJ staff, and NARA along with documents between NARA and Trump’s staff at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Tower.

Referring to the so-called investigation into Trump that resulted in the raid of his Palm Beach home, Mike Howell, the director of the Oversight Project, had this to say:

“The DOJ is conducting this investigation in an overtly partisan and corrupt manner. The authorized leaks and selective disclosures discredit their entire basis for withholding other information from valid requests such as ours. There is simply no valid ongoing investigation exemption for the communications we are seeking. The American people have a right to these communications, and the administration must turn them over.”

It’s generally known the D.O.J. is a highly partisan agency with an affirmative agenda to defang Trump’s putative 2024 run for president, but NARA is a bit new. Evidence of this comes from RSBN and Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch. Notably, NARA had no interest in 2015 in getting any of over 30,000 emails, some of which were classified, that were associated with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which she had bleachbitted and destroyed. Furthermore, then-F.B.I. director James Comey made an infamous major television announcement about her classified document retention and destruction. 

Nor was NARA interested in obtaining the sensitive tapes then-President Bill Clinton kept in his sock drawer and didn’t turn over. In fact, the D.O.J., NARA, and a court told Judicial Watch Clinton didn’t have to turn anything over if he didn’t want to. 

These aren’t the only examples of the double standard here, either. Barack Obama disclosed classified information or ‘lost’ records, as did George W. Bush, but they’re mainstream enough that no one seemed very concerned about it. But that Trump character? That’s different, though no one can say why.

We Came. We Saw. Albright All Dead.

March 26, 2022

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT was the first woman to be appointed as Secretary of State in 1997 under then-President Bill Clinton. She served as ambassador to the U.N. previously. In 2012, then-President Obama awarded her the Medal of Freedom. She died, age 84, from cancer on Wednesday.

The Clintons loved her, so that should tell you something about this Prague native. Among other things, she encouraged NATO to be the world’s policemen in Kosovo after the fall of the U.S.S.R. in 1999. It established a precedent for later wars of aggression, such as Bush’s invasion of Iraq, and yes, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

She was also instrumental in enforcing harsh sanctions against Iraq’s dictator Saddam Hussein through the 1990s that starved Iraqi civilians of food and killed them from lack of medicines. When asked by the CBS TV news-magazine “60 Minutes” in 1996 whether the Iraqi sanctions after the 1991 Gulf war were worth it, she replied they were, despite resultant deaths of some 500,000 Iraqi children, a figure Albright did not bother to dispute. (Eventually it was estimated up to 1.5 million Iraqis had died as a result of the sanctions, probably rising to the scale of a genocide.) Osama bin Laden later said the cruel sanctions were one of the primary reasons for al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Albright thought then, as the imposter in the White House, Joe Biden, does today, that sanctions would force the nation to capitulate and cause the population to overthrow their leader. It didn’t work any better back then than it does today, but Biden was probably too busy then beating up Corn Pop outside the gym to notice. Time will tell if the analogy stops there, or if, like the pretext of WMDs being used to rationalize the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the pretext of chemical or bio-weapons will justify a possible U.S. invasion of Russia for regime change. (There were no WMDs and hopefully there will be no chem- or bio-weapons, but one cannot trust reporting on it as a contemporaneous matter given recent history of ‘mistakes.’)

Before we venerate a woman such as Albright, perhaps we should think about how we might feel if another country, say, Russia, just for giggles, did to us what Albright did to them. Would they call us what our own call Putin: a worse-than-Hitler soulless war-criminal killer madman? The MSM is not clear on this.

Fake News Faces Reality

THE WASHINGTON POST almost seems contrite over its misreporting on 45th President Donald Trump. Sorta, kinda, almost. WaPo is retracting much of its Trump-Russia-collusion reporting, and is even going so far as to accurately point an accusing arthritic finger at the crooked Hillary Clinton: “The indictment secured by [Independent Counsel John] Durham on Nov. 4 suggests, but doesn’t explicitly assert, that [Igor] Danchenko may have gotten his information about the hotel encounter not from [Sergei] Millian but from a Democratic Party operative with long-standing ties to Hillary Clinton,” they noted on Friday. (Brackets mine.)

Also remarkable, a WaPo columnist (media critic!) Erik Wemple, criticized CNN for its reporting on the so-called “Steele Dossier,” and called on them to correct the record. Meanwhile, there appears to be a major shake-up at CNN, known to the G.O.P. as the Clinton News Network, for its adulation of the adulterer, Bill Clinton, and his accomplice, Hillary. A “good number” of CNN’s on-air talent and staff are slated to be cut. The propaganda arm of the D.N.C. claims it’s going back to being a “100% news channel.” Right. But Deadline is reporting it.

Once CNN completes its merger with WarnerMedia, Discovery chief David Zaslav is expected to take the helm, but he’s keeping mum. Still, it’s a reasonable expectation after CNN’s horrible October, where viewership was in free-fall, with all but two programs failing to average a 1 million cume, according to television ratings company, Nielsen. (It was so bad, only the 90-minute Biden Town Hall exceeded 1 million viewers, with 1.2 million (but still came in last after Fox News and MSNBC), and the half-hour follow-up to it, “Cuomo Prime Time,” with 1.1 million. In fact, CNN averaged under 1/2 million in total day viewership in October, a drop of a devastating 76%, as compared to January, before President Trump had the election almost certainly stolen from him, though surely that’s all purely coincidental.

Democracy is indeed dark with the “most trusted name in news.”

Russian Water Torture?

A PAGE WAS OPENED IN THE Trump-Russia-collusion hoax and the ongoing John Durham investigation onto it. The page was, remarkably, from The New York Times, which reported that the primary researcher behind the so-called Steele dossier was arrested by federal authorities today.

Russian citizen and Virginia resident Igor Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the F.B.I. in 2017 according to a release provided by the special counsel’s office. These statements were related to the sources he used in providing information to a U.K. investigative firm that prepared “Company Reports.” Danchenko was the head researcher of the rumors and unsubstantiated assertions that were used by ex-British spy, Christopher Steele in the “dossier.” Steele then gave the “dossier” to the F.B.I., which used it to illegally obtain FISA warrants to spy on Trump advisor Carter Page and perhaps others.

The Durham investigation has shown a sign of life after a new set of subpoenas were issued when recent charges were brought against Hillary Clinton’s former campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, alleging he lied to federal investigators in September of 2016 when he claimed there was an inappropriate connection between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. As an astute observer of events will acknowledge, all dirt on Trump leads to the dirty trickster herself, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The Washington Post reported that Danchenko attempted to distance himself from the “dossier” when questioned by the F.B.I., according to an earlier Inspector General report. One could expect a negotiated settlement with Danchenko here in exchange for dirt on…Hillary herself?

It is quite evident by now that the “dossier” was generated by the Clinton Campaign which had hired Steele for opposition research, who used Danchenko for dirt on Trump et al. Danchenko at the time worked at the Brookings Institute, a Washington think-tank whose former president named Strobe Talbott was a college friend of Bill Clinton and who worked in his State Department focusing on Russia.

The process is so agonizingly slow it is akin to Russian water torture.

Coincidence is the Exception, Not the Rule, Especially in Clintonland.

“Coincidence is the exception, not the rule.” ― Soheir Khashoggi

COINCIDENCE SEEMS LIKE SOMETHING Egyptian-born, Saudi-raised, Turkish-descended novelist Soheir Khashoggi, who now resides in New York, would know a little something about. For someone whose family name translates to “spoon-maker” in Turkish, her father coincidentally did well for himself by becoming the physician for King Abdulaziz Al-Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Her brother, Adnan Khashoggi, also coincidentally became a renowned arms dealer (think Iran-Contra) and was dubbed “The Great Gatsby of the Middle East” for his lavish lifestyle until his death in 2017. Adnan had a nephew named Jamal Khashoggi, born in Medina, who became a journalist and dissident before he was coincidentally assassinated in 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, presumably on the orders of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who was displeased with Jamal’s hopes for (small-l) liberal reforms, including freedom of expression, from the Arab Spring. Jamal received the Time “Person of the Year” award in 2018 along with the moniker, “Guardian of the Truth.” Adnan also coincidentally had a cousin named Dodi Fayad, who was Diana, Princess of Wales’ paramour until the two coincidentally killed in a car accident in Paris in 1997. (Fayad’s father, a billionaire who had, among other things, owned Harrod’s, firmly believed the two were assassinated by MI6, perhaps at royal behest, out of embarrassment of the relationship.) But back to Soheir. She has authored several novels, translated into multiple languages, none of which I’ve read. But one might suppose they have some good thriller elements…

One need not venture to such distant lands to experience coincidences in such a manner. We have our own here, à la  the Clintons. It’s now reported another coincidental accidental death of a Clinton associate has transpired. Specifically, 45-year-old reporter, Christopher Sign, who revealed the Bill Clinton/Loretta Lynch secret tarmac meeting in 2016 was found dead in his home on Saturday. Clinton and Lynch met secretly in the wake of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s scandal involving her use of a secret, unauthorized personal email server while Secretary of State under then-President Barack Obama. Police have claimed Sign committed suicide, but that is inconsistent with recent observations of the gentleman, who was a network anchor, Emmy winner, Edward Murrow Award winner, and a happy family man. Just coincidentally, the Clintons seem to have known an awful lot of people who were suicidal. A partial list is here or here.  

The Biden Crime Family Learned From the Best.

OVER A PERIOD OF YEARS, the Clintons have managed to evade justice, especially with respect to their “foundation,” which is really just a tax-free piggy bank for its founders funded with illicit foreign money, and is a nominal donor of what amounts to petty cash to certain of the family’s pet projects. They continue to ‘play’ with impunity because the U.S. has decided to emulate Third World countries with corrupt leaderships. But the paperwork will be in order.

Late last month, a U.S. Tax Court Judge, David Gustafson, remanded the Internal Revenue Service case involving the Clintons back to the I.R.S. Whistleblower Officer. Gustafson noticed the tax agency’s claim there was no criminal investigation of the Foundation was “not supported by the administrative record and thus constituted an abuse of discretion.” He was concerned about a cover up.

“There are facts and information, uniquely within the knowledge of the Whistleblower Office that need to be considered in connection with the resolution of the petitioner’s claim,” Gustafson wrote. He was referring to the claim of petitioner-whistleblowers and financial analysts Lawrence Doyle and John Moynihan that instigated the process over five years ago. At a minimum, they want to know if there was ever an investigation. Alas, no one seems to know for sure. 

Kudos to Judge Gustafson for trying to clarify the record, but he added that a trial over “dereliction of duty by the I.R.S. will not take place.” Given he doesn’t even even know if there was an investigation, which one would expect in such a case, how can he tell whether there was dereliction of duty or white-washing? 

Back in 2018, Doyle and Moynihan uncovered evidence of pay-tp-play and alleged financial crimes at the Clinton Foundation, run by the former president, former secretary of state, and their daughter.

Doyle and Moynihan testified before the House Oversight Committee that December and from their extensive forensic investigation, including, inter alia, public records, tax filings, and interviews with various officials, they determined the Foundation was illegally working on behalf of foreign governments.

Last September, the New York Times reported that John Durham was investigating the F.B.I.’s handling of the Clinton pay-for-play investigation. That was apparently white-washed in a black hole like all things Durham.

The case languished since.

And apparently, the Bidens took good notes.

Why Does the Smartest Woman in the World Open Her Mouth?

Image: Pixabay

Hillary Clinton has been dubbed “the smartest woman in the world” by her wide-eyed, empty-headed proponents. They admire her gutsy fight past the glass ceiling into the intimidating and unwelcoming world of power-brokering evil white men.

Some of us were never convinced. And we weren’t all white men, powerful or otherwise.