Is the Secret Service Being Used as a Trump Kill Switch?

HILLARY CLINTON cannot help herself. She must force herself into the spotlight because she hasn’t been relevant for a long time. A good topic on which she can opine (and project) due to her advanced Trump Derangement Syndrome. 

It manifested itself this week when she claimed, without evidence, that Trump wants to kill his opposition in a podcast interview with far-left Dem activist attorney, Marc Elias, who assisted her in manufacturing the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax. For good measure, she compared Trump to Putin, hoping it would stick this time: 

“Putin does what [Trump] would like to do. Kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive journalists into exile, rule without any check or balance. That’s what Trump really wants. And so we have to be very conscious of how he sees the world because in that world, he only sees strong men leaders. He sees Putin. He sees Xi. He sees Kim Jong Un in North Korea. Those are the people he is modeling himself after and we’ve been down this road in our, you know, world history. We sure don’t want to go down that again.”

Talk about being a ‘bitter clinger.’ 

Elias replied, “You have been right about everything. I feel like you were cheated. I think that your election was not on the up and up because Russia got involved… and Donald Trump, and all that.” 

Talk about being a so-called ‘election denier.’ 

Hillary then replied, “If he ever gets back near the White House again, it will be like having a dictator. I don’t say that lightly. Go back and read Project 2025. They’re going to fire everybody. The person in the government who knows about the next pandemic? Get rid of him.”

The podcast was a perfect segue for other news of the week. On Friday, Dems in Congress advanced a bill to remove Secret Service protection for Trump (and ostensibly any other similarly situated candidates, of which there are none) should he/they be convicted of a crime. It’s essentially a law to allow Trump to be [Jeffrey] ‘Epsteined,’ so named for the sicko pedo that got killed in a New York City prison after the security cameras accidentally-on-purpose failed, allowing him to be hanged in his cell without a culprit ever being caught. In fact, it was conveniently described as a suicide, though almost no one believes it.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Dem, introduced a resolution to terminate Trump’s protection and unveiled legislation, H.R. 8081, called the DISGRACED Act, or “Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable Former Protectees Act.” Though technically it would apply to any protectee convicted and sentenced on federal or state felony charges, it was unmistakably aimed at President Trump in light of his upcoming show trials.

Thompson had this to say:

“It is regrettable that it has come to this, but this previously unthought-of scenario could become our reality. Therefore, it is necessary for us to be prepared and update the law so the American people can be assured that protective status does not translate into special treatment —and that those who are sentenced to prison will indeed serve the time required of them.”

Chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, Byron York, synopsized the intent aptly: “Obvious subtext here is that removing USSS would make it easier for someone to kill Trump, which is arguably the goal of Thompson’s bill, H.R. 8081.” 

Indeed, Dems would have multiple bites at three gigantic Epstein apples, given Trump is facing charges in Alvin Bragg’s New York ‘hush money’ case; Fani Willis’ Georgia RICO case; and Jack Smith’s 40 federal felony charges case.

I don’t know since when Dems have been so concerned with law and order, or since when they have been concerned about the federal budget, but going out on a limb, I highly doubt Thompson has suddenly turned a new leaf here. Maybe it’s just me being cynical?

How about this? Let’s take away Bill Clinton’s Secret Service protection over his philandering and lying under oath, or Hillary’s, for her fraudulent scam against the 45th President?

Steele Skates. Trump Screwed.

ONE OF THE MORE OBSCURE legal cases of Donald Trump’s was decided unfavorably to the 45th President in the U.K. on Thursday. In an unusual role reversal, Trump was the plaintiff/claimant. The lawsuit concerned the Steele Dossier and was dismissed by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. 

Trump filed a lawsuit against Orbis Business Intelligence Ltd. (and apparently two others), the British company run by a former operative of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6), Christopher Steele. This is the company and man who in 2016 produced, at the behest and for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, a since fully debunked document alleging Trump colluded with the Russian government. Clinton was the Dem rival of Trump in 2016, and the ‘dossier’ was a ‘dirty tricks’ play against the G.O.P. frontrunner for the White House. Trump sought financial damages in the lawsuit for “personal and reputational damage and distress” due to the ‘dossier’s’ production and publishing.

The suit against Orbis was dismissed by The Honorable Mrs. Justice Steyn DBE of the High Court, who wrote, “In my view, there are no compelling reasons to allow the claim to proceed to trial. In reality, the Claimant is seeking court findings to vindicate his reputation in circumstances where [he] has not been able to formulate any viable remedy which he would have a real prospect of obtaining.” (Had this been an American court, the judge would have simply ruled that the six year statute of limitations had run, case over.) The Final Judgement (British spelling) can be read here. I’d be p!ssed at someone or another if I were Trump!

An amended complaint against Orbis was apparently submitted under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which was enacted by the E.U./U.K. in 1998 and concerns digital privacy. (Read Data Protection Act here.) For some reason, the amended complaint was dismissed on procedural grounds. How the The Daily Caller worded it was “Due to legal technicalities regarding the delivery of the amended complaint, it was denied by the court, which, upon ruling on an original claim, led to its dismissal,” which doesn’t make it any clearer. 

FISA Is a Four-Letter, Dirty ‘F’ Word.

LATE LAST WEEK, FISA §702 wiretapping authorization was expected to be extended through April 19th inside a sweeping bipartisan National Defense Authorization Act Agreement. This is obviously bad news.

Recall it was §702 surveillance that placed the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump under surveillance in 2016. It was only supposed to target Carter Page, but anyone within two ‘hops’ was also under full Title-1 electronic and physical surveillance, and that included Trump. Trump’s phone calls, text messages, emails, and any other electronic communications were intercepted by the D.O.J. and this continued after Robert Mueller extended it with a June 29, 2017 renewal. In effect, every communication inside the Trump camp was monitored, unknown to them at the time. 

FISA became a weapon used for warrantless searches by the D.O.J. against anyone it perceived to be a political enemy. So called ‘incidental collection’ was anything but.

Six years after the problem surfaced, Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified on 4/27/23 (statement here) that over 3.4 million queries into the N.S.A. database occurred between 12/1/20 and 11/30/21 using FISA, with 30% of them being ‘non-compliant searches.’ Translation: over a million searches in 2021 were illegal.

Over 10,000 federal employees had access to NSA databases containing every American’s emails, texts, social media posts, IMs, DMs, purchases by electronic funds, banking records, and every keystroke an American typed into an electronic device of any kind for any reason. It obviously should have been stopped back then as violative, at a minimum, of the Fourth Amendment. It wasn’t stopped, though. And it isn’t being stopped now.

In effect, this latest stunt would buy lawmakers time to figure out how to reauthorize §702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act which targets more than just the foreigners it was meant to. Conservatives wanted Speaker Mike Johnson to bifurcate the two issues, but he did not do so (bad boy), so anything could happened when it finally goes to the House as soon as next week.

The April 19, 2024 date was picked by House Judiciary Ranking Member Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) who knows the 2024 primary occurs Jan. through April, and Trump will have likely secured enough delegates for the G.O.P. nomination by then. Trump can therefore be surveilled throughout the primaries.

What happens after is anyone’s guess, but one supposes Dems have more tricks up their sleeves and that the G.O.P. has none. 

This Is the House McCarthy Builds.

MSM just as soon retire as old news the Hunter Biden story after his little plea deal whitewashing his very dark and disturbing past. It turns out Hunter was parading around again like a celebrity at the White House on Thursday night at a formal dinner for the visiting Indian Prime Minister. (Please tell me India isn’t compromised by the Biden family, too!)  

Friday was a new day. The U.S. House of Representatives, some in the G.O.P. anyway, have been in a productive mood since Kevin McCarthy became House Speaker. Maybe it’s coincidence; maybe not. Maybe it will continue; maybe not. But Friday yielded the release of a disturbing report that contains allegations from two whistleblowers on interference in the Hunter Biden investigation that resulted in his two extremely minor misdemeanor tax charges he is about to plead guilty to. 

While it’s true allegations against Hunter for influence peddling, unregistered foreign agency, and money laundering are far more serious offenses that Hunter has yet to be charged with, the taxes and gun matters weren’t insignificant. After all, an ordinary American without political ties quite possibly wouldn’t have received the same consideration. In Hunter’s case, though, no one wanted to dig too deep lest Joey’s name, or his ‘Big Guy’ moniker, keep resurfacing, likely requiring an unwelcome further inquiry. The hope is to push the plea deal through and get the judge to sign off on it quickly so it can just all go away. But it may not.

It turns out, the whistleblowers claim there had been an effort to charge felony tax violations instead, and that Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was shut down in his attempt to bring charges in two jurisdictions. Key searches were further allegedly abandoned. Maybe there was a legitimate and rational reason to forego felony charges and further searches. And perhaps Weiss decided himself not to charge in another jurisdiction. These prosecutorial decisions, however, should be explained beyond Merrick Garland’s flat out and incredible denials any mischief was afoot. Garland is probably lying.

The House of Representatives has been doing the deep dig into what happened since the D.O.J. and Garland refuse to. They heard closed-door testimony on Thursday that revealed, not just the mischief that was afoot, but that Joey, a/k/a “the Big Guy,” was, in fact, very involved in his son’s overseas business deals, contrary to his previous insistence to the contrary. Simply put, it appears Joey lied. More specifically, the House Ways and Means Committee took evidence that the Hunter  (then code-named “Sportsman”) IRS-based investigation, opened in November of 2018, and involved a “foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,” according to whistleblower Gary Shapley, who sat for a six-hour deposition with the committee on May 26th. Further, Weiss had wanted to bring federal changes against him in the Central District of California and in Washington, D.C. last year, but was denied by Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys Martin Estrada and Matthew Graves. 

A second whistleblower, thus far anonymous, claims the investigation, spanning 2014 to 2019, found Hunter and his ‘associates’ received about $17.3 million from Ukraine, Romania, and China. About $8.3 million was Hunter’s alone. Investigators had wanted felony charges for his having evaded $2.2 million in taxes. By the way, there is no statute of limitations on tax evasion, so it can wait, whereas the other matters have probably had the statute of limitations run. 

As for Joey Biden, a/k/a the Big Guy, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf allegedly discouraged investigators from proceeding with questioning about his involvement, averring there was “no specific criminality,” whatever that means. She also allegedly tipped off the Bidens about an impending search of Hunter’s storage facility. All the while Garland testified under oath to Congress earlier in the year that Weiss hadn’t been denied authority to bring charges outside the friendly jurisdiction of Delaware.  Weiss had also sought to be appointed special counsel in the case at least twice, according to both whistleblowers. Each time, the Biden Justice Department denied the request. 

What is perhaps most striking is communication from Hunter’s iCloud account. According to Shapley, there was a message from a Chinese businessman, constituting direct evidence of the Big Guy’s personal involvement and interest in Hunter’s overseas business ventures. Shapley recounted:

“[W]e obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: ‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,’”

The New York Post, which has consistently had the most thorough coverage of the story over the years, especially reporter Miranda Devine, explains: 

“Zhao, of Harvest Fund Management, is a Communist Party official and his fund was associated with BHR Partners, an investment fund Hunter that co-founded in 2013 12 days after he joined his Vice-President Biden aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

“Hunter held onto his 10% stake in BHR Partners through at least part of his father’s first year in office as president and the White House and Hunter’s representatives have refused any transparency into his alleged divestment.

“The BHR venture was the first of two major Biden family dealings in China. Through the second with CEFC China Energy, Hunter and first brother James Biden received $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018, according to a Washington Post review of laptop records. A May 2017 email about the CEFC deal referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy” due a 10% cut and an October 2017 document listed Joe Biden as a participant on a call about CEFC’s attempt to buy US natural gas.”

Clearly, nothing has changed at the D.O.J., despite what Durham and others have recently assured the public. The White House occupant (and family) is corrupt, enriching itself at the expense not just of taxpayers but of the national security, if reports are to be believed. The entire executive branch is therefore suspect. The legislative branch is a mixed bag, with the Senate backing the executive and the House only barely behind McCarthy. The Judiciary, too, is a gamble. But what McCarthy can do, beyond continuing the investigations aßnd illuminating hearings is to demand more testimony and document production. Keep subpoenaing and if anyone stonewalls, hold them in contempt of Congress day-after-day until they comply. The D.O.J. may not help, but hopefully a judge can if it comes to that. Contempt may be the only remedy McCarthy has at this point, and he must use it.

Durham’s “Sobering Findings”: A Cause for a Bender?

THE DURHAM REPORT DROPPED on May 12th, after four years of alleged work by independent counsel, John Durham, and his team. In fairness, though, it is difficult to drag one’s feet for so long that the statute of limitations run on all the myriad crimes and ethical transgressions committed by Hillary Clinton, her campaign, and her co-conspirators. God bless John, though, he did it! His report, called “Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns,” found that there was no predicate, reasonable or otherwise, to investigate 45th President Donald Trump, just as he proclaimed over his first term in the White House. 

Durham had been called to testify Tuesday and Wednesday before the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees with a teeny G.O.P. majority and Dems having questions to ask behind closed doors, and in the public hearing. Durham reiterated that Crossfire Hurricane had been wholly unwarranted and that there was no collusion found between Trump, his campaign, and Russia.“The FBI was too willing to accept and use politically funded and uncorroborated opposition research such as the Steele Dossier,” he said. (Clinton’s campaign funded Steele’s ‘dossier.’)

Several F.B.I. agents, Durham testified, had actually apologized to him for how the Trump investigation was run. “Our findings were sobering. I can tell you, having spent 40 years plus as a federal prosecutor, they were particularly sobering to me,” he noted. Durham also hinted that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) had some skeletons in his closet with respect to the scam perpetrated on Trump. It seems Schiff and most everyone else knew the allegations against Trump were not only false, but known by the participants to be false from the outset, but were promulgated anyway, without correction or regard for the truth. Overall Durham’s testimony wasn’t particularly illuminating, leaving independent journalist Matt Taibbi asking the following probative questions, unlikely to ever be answered, on his Substack: 

1.Why were former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, along with FBI officials Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, and Kevin Clinesmith, and others allowed to refuse cooperation? 2. Where is Mifsud? 3. Why were “omissions” or “misstatements” by FBI officials and/or their sources treated as such, and not as criminal lying, as would likely have happened in Robert Mueller’s investigation? 4. Why was Halper’s name kept out of the report? What other “informant” activity was obscured? And ‘5. Why did you punt on the hack?

Something Stinks in D.C. Might it Be the Rotten F.B.I.?

LAST WEEK, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) sent a letter to Special Counsel John Durham to clarify some issues related to his investigation into Crossfire Hurricane, according to the Washington Examiner.. It seems the good senators were quite concerned that Durham didn’t utilize his powers to compel testimony and document production and overlooked key players in the dirty trick hoax to steal an election that he admitted had no predicate from the start and everyone knew it. Compared with the Mueller investigation, Durham’s was woefully anemic in terms of producing any evidence. 

Durham’s report can be read here. The letter, here. In essence, it asks Durham about whether he subpoenaed any of the following persons (or their agencies) and when, with what results (if any), and whether he encountered any impediments from the DOJ (or its components): disgraced multiple perjurer former F.B.I. Director James Comey; unjustly rewarded double liar former F.B.I. Deputy Director (now on CNN payroll) Andrew McCabe; cheating Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division Peter Strzok and his paramour former F.B.I. agent (later MSNBC analyst) Lisa Page; retired Assistant Director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division (now security entrepreneur) Bill Priestap; convicted FISA perjurer (with no real consequences) Kevin Clinesmith; and undamaged D.C./Fusion GPS liar, Glenn Simpson. The letter asked for a reply by months’ end. The consequences these people faced for essentially participating in a coup d’etat were virtually nil. They all typically received their pensions, kept their security clearances and bar licenses, and moved on in their lives with impunity (and apparent causes of action), and for the most part, without a criminal record, or even referral. The good senators left a few names off their list, however.

Among them are Bruce and Nellie Orr, who, according to RealClearInvestigations’ Paul Sperry, played larger roles in the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax than previously known. Apparently, not only was the fake ‘dossier’ paid for by the Clinton campaign and penned by a foreign F.B.I. informant (Christopher Steele), a top Justice Department official and his wife crafted it early on: the Orrs. It was simply laundered through Steele and his ‘dossier.’ What’s up with that? And what’s up with at least four different criminal investigations–criminal!–into the Clintons that were suddenly dropped by the now-discredited F.B.I. ahead of the 2016 election? This is an F.B.I. that must be disbanded and replaced, top down, ASAP.

COUP!!!

Special Counsel John Durham caused a storm on Monday when late in the afternoon, he at last issued his report on the origins of the F.B.I.’s “Crossfire Hurricane.” It was anti-climactic, to say the least. Durham had been named Special Counsel by then A.G. Bill Barr in Oct. of 2020, only weeks before the rigged presidential election that eventually installed the illegitimate occupant of the White House, Joey Biden. History, here. The 306-page report, here.

For four full years, Durham investigated: 1. Whether there was adequate predication for the Bureau to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, 2. Whether the opening of the probe was consistent with Bureau policy, 3. Whether there was evidence that the actions of Bureau employees or third parties violated the law, and 4. Whether the Justice Dept. provided false information on FISA applications for electronic surveillance of certain American citizens.

All told, his investigation yielded a mere three indictments: two defendants were ultimately acquitted and a third, a defendant pleaded guilty to a relatively minot charge. Durham’s probe reportedly cost American taxpayers at least $6.5 million.

Durham took issue with upper ranks of the Bureau, including then-deputy director Andrew McCabe and then-deputy assistant director for counterintelligence Peter Strzok. Bother were fired from the F.B.I. in 2018. The investigatory techniques employed by the F.B.I. in CH were rife with bias, incompleteness, and departed from usual approaches. He also noted the “markedly different” treatment of the Clinton and Trump campaigns by the Bureau. The D.O.J. and F.B.I. both “failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law,” he added.

That the Clinton campaign was known to be the source of what became debunked accusations against Trump and his team was, of course, reprehensible, but despite the failings Durham concluded existed, he only recommended the institution by the Bureau of a policy to handle “politically sensitive investigations” and to make difficult decisions. Expensive advice, but I digress…

In response to the Report, the F.B.I. said, “The conduct in 2016 and 2017 that Special Counsel Durham examined was the reason that current FBI leadership already implemented dozens of corrective actions, which have now been in place for some time.” President Trump characteristically called the F.B.I.’s statement “a disgrace” and proceeded to lambast the Bureau’s lack of professionalism.

Revocation of Sec. 702 of FISA is Still Long Overdue.

ON FRIDAY, IT WAS REPORTED that more than 10,000 federal employees could access the personal data of ordinary Americans by using a secretive government surveillance program. It came under scrutiny due to alleged abuses. It was reported by U.S. inspectors general. It was reported to lawmakers. Watch. Nothing will happen. Business will go on as usual. It always does.

It was at an April 27th House Judiciary subcommittee hearing when lawmakers heard from three witnesses with the U.S. Office of the Inspector General, responsible for oversight of the likely unconstitutional Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That despicable piece of legislation gave intelligence agencies broad power to surveil foreigners suspected of spying for a foreign government or belonging to a terrorist organization. The operative word is foreign.  Unfortunately, U.S. citizens often get caught up in the crosshairs of Sec. 702 of FISA.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) asked the witnesses how many F.B.I. agents could have access to FISA-acquired data. He thought he knew the answer or else he wouldn’t have asked: about 10,000. All three witnesses agreed this figure sounded correct. 

Combined with the information from a court-ordered report released about a year ago—namely, that over 3.39 million queries of Americans were made by the F.B.I. in 2021 under FISA authority—this prompts an ongoing crisis of confidence in the Bureau’s respect for civil liberties. Worse still is that about 30 percent of those searches were done in error, urging an inquiry into competence and carefulness by those with accessing the database.

History is replete with examples of flagrant Sec. 702 FISA abuses by the intelligence community. For just one example, in 2019, Justice Dept. Inspector General Michael Horowitz randomly sampled 29 FISA cases by the F.B.I., only to discover not one of the cases were legitimate. For most, “there was unsupported, uncorroborated, or inconsistent information.” For four, the F.B.I. couldn’t even produce relevant investigative files to support their request. The I.G. found over 400 instances of noncompliance.

The F.B.I. came under renewed criticism when it surveilled a U.S. citizen, Carter Page, employed by then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Horowitz’s office found serious errors in the procedures used to obtain the surveillance requests. Page was improperly monitored by the F.B.I. shortly after he began working for Trump’s campaign, using a nebulous and unfounded pretext of Russian influence, according to a report released by the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General from Dec. 9th. 

We now know the history of the bogus “Steele dossier,” and the dishonest means used by the F.B.I. to gain FISA court approval for surveillance based on clearly false claims or withheld evidence. Adding to the idiocy of the whole thing is the fact that the F.B.I. knew that Page regularly disclosed his contacts with Russians to another government agency that Page later identified as the C.I.A. All told, I.G. Horowitz found 17 “significant errors”on FISA warrant applications for Page.Top brass was involved, including then- F.B.I. Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, making it clear, in no uncertain terms, this was no accident. The F.B.I. cannot brag about any of it.

Then-House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) expressed serious concern at that time because the Trump campaign was under investigation long before the F.B.I. opened a formal probe in late-July of 2016. Some would like to know who ordered it and why. This spurious counterintelligence investigation was what was code-named Crossfire Hurricane.

The Act is supposed to be overseen by the secretive FISA court. Law enforcement must get approval from the court prior to carrying out a FISA search of Americans. Since 2021, F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray asserts the Bureau has reduced the number of illegal queries by about 90 percent. Still…

Members of Congress were advised by Sharon Bradford Franklin, chairperson of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, that new legislation should be passed providing greater safeguards for Americans’ privacy. She suggested either a probable cause requirement or a court approval for every request to query an American. (Technically speaking, I think probable cause or a warrant is, in fact, required by the U.S. Constitution, but I may be being quarrelsome and picky.) Franklin had a sympathetic audience with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who agreed probable cause should be found, or else a simple revocation of the F.B.I.’s access to the database altogether may be the solution.  

The House Judiciary subcommittee hearing was held in advance of lawmakers’ reauthorization of FISA, set to expire at the end of 2023, if Congress fails to act. Let’s hope that, in fact, happens. The statute has been around for way too long…

A Real and Enormous Cost of a Corrupt F.B.I.

THIS IS EXHIBIT A for why the F.B.I. needs to be disbanded and replaced with a truly premiere professional federal law enforcement agency that is both transparent and nonpartisan. This is retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s lawsuit, filed this day in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida (Tampa Division), a copy of which is here. It should be a friendly forum.

The suit alleges malicious prosecution and gross abuse of power and seeks damages to the tune of $50 million from the U.S. government, and specifically, the D.O.J. and F.B.I.  I don’t blame Flynn one bit. I don’t blame myself as a taxpayer (who actually pays taxes as opposed to simply filing a return for refundable credits) for not wanting to bail said government out for these damages and for the attorney’s fees paid to defend the suit, either. It pisses me off, frankly. 

Flynn was the National Security Advisor for the first 22 days of the Trump administration, who was forced to resign in 2017 following allegations he had lied regarding conversations with a Russian diplomat named Sergey Kislyak. This was in the early days of the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax that has since been fully debunked, but it was in the Democrat playbook at the time, and Flynn was in their way. Former president Barack Obama was a Democrat who particularly loathed Flynn, who had testified before Congress that during his administration, Antifa was invading into Syria-Iraq and that Obama had no clue how to prevent it.

After his removal from the White House, Judge Emmet Sullivan tried to set up Flynn in a case that was ultimately dismissed by the D.O.J., but which Sullivan kept stalling and even tried to pursue charges against Flynn that the D.O.J. had dropped. Eventually, President Trump pardoned Flynn. And the public learned through court proceedings that the charges were bogus from the outset. It will be interesting to see this case weave its way through the federal court system, but something (common sense?) tells me that it will be promptly and quietly settled with an NDA filed and the public none the wiser, just the way it shouldn’t be.

Debunking The New York Times

COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW, itself highly progressive, has dropped a four-part, 24,000 word, review damning the media’s fake reporting on the Trump-Russia-collusion hoax. Jeff Gerth, a former New York Times investigative reporter and Pulitzer-Prize winner, wrote “The Press Versus the President” (read it all here), that CJR published, admitting, finally, that Russiagate reporting was so scandalous, it makes the entire journalism industry look bad.

Glenn Greenwald, the left-leaning reporter who previously worked at The Guardian and brought the world the Snowden revelations, has been one of only a few who has been brave enough to call out his brethren for their bogus reporting on this topic, declared that Gerth’s piece was “absolutely devastating on how casually, frequently, recklessly and eagerly the press lied on Russiagate.” RealClearInvestigations’ Tom Kuntz, Aaron Mate, and Paul Sperry were all cited as the few in media who got the story right. The New York Times, very wrong.

RealClear Wire’s Mark Hemingway, while pleased the MSM had finally acknowledged Trump-Russia-collusion and Steele ‘Dossier’ were in fact debunked, also described himself as angry. Gerth’s work was courageous, he admitted, but it has come two years after Trump left office and almost five years since special prosecutor Robert Mueller failed to find anything to substantiate the anonymously sourced and unsupported speculation that was aimed at destroying the president. 

Hemingway was also appalled that many big-name reporters (except Bob Woodward) or major publications still failed to even comment on their errors in reporting and their dubious and unethical judgments. Despite Woodward’s acknowledgment, Hemingway lamented he hadn’t been more vocal about other journalist’s failures. Finally, Hemingway conceded Gerth’s sticking to the facts in his story was understandable, but by so doing, he left out the context, which made it difficult to impute motives or learn lessons from the transgressions. In other words, Gerth’s dry writing made it appear as if well-intentioned reporters, faced with a controversial and difficult president, had to interpret Democrats’ and law enforcement officials’ comments which was so impossible, they couldn’t help but get salient facts wrong or commit sins of omission. It’s not enough, Hemingway says, that the record is corrected, but the lingering tragedy is the gaslighting of Trump supporters who can’t trust partisan press corps. Call me as the first witness!