A Dark Day for America

 

This will come as news to nobody.  From the announcement on America First Report):

President Donald Trump has been indicted by the Department of Justice over the classified documents debacle. He posted about it on his Truth Social account:

Page 1: The corrupt Biden Administration has informed my attorneys that I have been Indicted, seemingly over the Boxes Hoax, even though Joe Biden has 1850 Boxes at the University of Delaware, additional Boxes in Chinatown, D.C., with even more Boxes at the University of Pennsylvania, and documents strewn all over his garage floor where he parks his Corvette, and which is “secured” by only a garage door that is paper thin, and open much of the time.

Page 2: I have been summoned to appear at the Federal Courthouse in Miami on Tuesday, at 3 PM. I never thought it possible that such a thing could happen to a former President of the United States, who received far more votes than any sitting President in the History of our Country, and is currently leading, by far, all Candidates, both Democrat and Republican, in Polls of the 2024 Presidential Election. I AM AN INNOCENT MAN!

Page 3: This is indeed a DARK DAY for the United States of America. We are a Country in serious and rapid Decline, but together we will Make America Great Again!

A dark day indeed.  

# # #

FISA abuse: corruption at the DOJ and FBI

 

When the DOJ’s abuse of the FISA court procedures first came to light in 2018, this blogger thought that violation of FISA rules – lying to a judge is a felony – would finally result in indictments and successful prosecutions.  It’s now 2023.  The fearless investigative reporter, Sundance, has gone through the Durham Report, footnotes and all, and exposes yet more layers of corruption.  It’s a long read, but it’s also a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the extent of the rot.  Some have commented that the FBI is in need of reform.  No, it needs to be shut down.  Here’s the opening at Conservative Treehouse:

BIG QUESTION and A BIG COVERUP –
Durham Report Brings Sunlight on Detail Never Released
by IG Michael Horowitz About FBI Targeting Trump

I’m going to go into the deep weeds on this story, because many people are missing a key facet.  The names behind the Trump targeting operation are included, along with citations for independent checks by House congressional investigators.

Inside the recently released report by John Durham [CITATION], the special counsel outlines how former FBI Director James Comey was intimately involved in the creation of the Carter Page FISA application.  Durham notes that Comey kept asking the DOJ National Security Division and FBI counterintelligence investigators, “Where’s the FISA, we need the FISA.”  However, John Durham never interviewed James Comey or Andrew McCabe.  The former FBI Director and Deputy refused to cooperate or give testimony to John Durham.  So, how did John Durham have details about the demands of Comey?

The answer is found in the footnotes.  Durham reviewed transcripts of interviews given by Andrew McCabe to the Office of the Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, who previously investigated FBI conduct in the origin of the Carter Page FISA.  Durham pulled quotes from that transcript. [Footnote #1207, page 199 – Durham Report]

[facsimile of transcript with footnote]

♦QUESTION: If Andrew McCabe gave testimony to the OIG about the motives and impetus of FBI Director James Comey in pushing for the Carter Page FISA application, why did the OIG report never outline those transcribed interviews?  Why was the interview transcript never included in the 2019 OIG report?

[NOTE to Congress.  Now that you know a transcribed interview of Andrew McCabe exists in the OIG office, request the transcription and release it to the public.]

Let me answer those questions without the customary pretending from the DC professional political class.  The short version is that OIG Michael Horowitz was trying to protect the DOJ and FBI. The longer version is a coverup that includes Rod Rosenstein, Bill Barr and yes, John Durham.  I will share that story below.

“Where’s the FISA?  We need the FISA?” ~ James Comey

The DOJ-NSD and FBI Co-Intel needed to find a safe and legal way to spy on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former FBI employee Carter Page became the fraudulent justification for that intent.  . . .

Much more here.  It’s jaw-dropping.  

# # #

Coming soon: Digital Identity for all Americans

This blog has linked to reports of increased surveillance and the globalists’ plan to digitize our currency.  Sundance recently reported on the extensive illegal surveillance already conducted by the DOJ on thousands of citizens;  click here.

Now Stefan J. Bos at Worthy News reports that Americans can expect even more surveillance:

US Nearing Digital Identity For All Americans

Legislative preparations are underway to establish a U.S. government-backed task force to create a digital identity for all Americans.

The controversial bill behind the initiative, known as the “Improving Digital Identity Act of 2023,” already passed the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

It has now been introduced to the entire U.S. Senate for debate, and critics fear the bill will be adopted soon.

Experts say some of the most intrusive aspects of the proposed technologies would allow governments and partnering agencies to track user behaviors across time and to develop “complex profiles of their identities.”

These behaviors are then “rewarded” or “punished” by the governments, like the social credit system used in Communist-run China, critics say.

Yet Senators Kyrsten Sinema, an Independent from Arizona, and Cynthia Lummis, a Republican from Wyoming, introduced the bill anyway, saying it would improve security. . . .

That’s always the excuse.  Read the full report here.

# # #

January 6 two years on

Image credit: breakingthecode.ca

Today is the two year anniversary of the January 6 protest, continually mis-reported as an “insurrection”--  in DC.  Julie Kelly has been following the plight of the victims of the “insurrection”, and today she posted:

A few weeks before Christmas, federal authorities arrested a Washington state couple for their participation in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021.

. . .

So, what exactly did these alleged “domestic terrorists” do? They entered the Capitol through open doors as police officers stood by. Carrying no weapons, the couple took photos inside the Rotunda and wandered through some hallways; surveillance video shows Holly Christensen talking to a Capitol police officer. At another point, Scott Christensen chatted with a D.C. Metro police officer, a conversation captured on a body-worn camera. Police led the pair toward an exit door about 45 minutes later without arresting them.

For that uneventful jaunt through a public building that posed a threat to no one, the Christensens will now be destroyed by the Department of Justice, the federal court system, and the news media. Although both were charged with nonviolent misdemeanors—the same four offenses that represent the overwhelming majority of charges—journalists dishonestly portrayed the couple as traitors to their country. “Washington state couple to face Jan. 6 insurrection charges,” an Associated Press headline blared on December 12.

. . .

It’s a feat of political sorcery—fueled by lies, cover-ups, and careerism, not entirely unlike the first war on terror—to transform an unruly, four-hour protest into an act of domestic terror. American families such as the Christensens are merely collateral damage along the way.

The rest of Ms. Kelly’s report at American Greatness is here.  The American justice system is utterly corrupt and broken.  And the mainstream media is complicit.

# # #

Special Counsel: sabotaging the GOP House Majority

 

Note to readers:  This report demonstrates why I so often link to Sundance at Conservative Treehouse.  Most of us could not dig into the weeds to this extent – and make sense of it – as he does.  The appointment of Jack Smith as Special Counsel is not just about Trump;  it’s about blocking the slim GOP House majority from exercising its majority.  Here’s an extract:

Sunday Talks, Democrat J6 Committee Confirms Intent
to Transfer Evidence to Special Counsel
During Lame Duck to Begin Republican Targeting Operations

If you doubted the intent of the primary function of the appointment for Special Counsel John Smith, you can put that doubt to rest now.  . . .

Primary goal, create enough of a legal mess as to obstruct any republican legislative effort against the Biden White House.  Additionally, if Smith’s DC team can pick-off a few republican House members under charges of “supporting an insurrection“, the political power will revert back to the Democrats in office.

They didn’t just think this up overnight.

This is why the January 6 committee never ended.  They are using J6 as a weapon against their losing the House to republicans.  The Democrats are now structurally targeting Republicans with the appointment of Jack Smith.  It’s actually a brilliant move.  The executive is now investigating the legislative branch; the legal structure of this eliminates the separation of powers issue.

The DOJ is not investigating republicans, they are investigating defined criminals; insurrectionists that are national security threats, that happen to be republicans.  See how that works?  

Read the rest of Sundance’s analysis here.  This “investigation” will not only neuter some of the GOP in the House, it will be the reason the Special Counsel can block any public explanations under cover of not being able to compromise the ongoing investigation.  And it gets worse:

Then you have the congressional representatives under investigation and search warrants on their phones, text messages, emails, etc…. AND the added benefit of using DOJ-NSD defined terms of “national security threat” (that’s why they emphasized insurrection) to gain FISA warrants on an entire incoming congressional delegation.

# # #

Update: the corrupt and manipulative political justice system

 

It’s just 15 days before the mid-term elections, and the DOJ is switching its story. Sundance reports:

FBI and DOJ Switch Tactics,
Now Claim 2022 Election is Vulnerable to Manipulation

With the majority of American voters now positioned to rebuke the political efforts of Joe Biden and federal Democrats, the narrative from the DOJ and FBI does a 180° reverse course.  The transparency of a corrupt and manipulative political justice system is beyond obvious.

• Old Message to support the 2020 Democrat vote initiatives (ballot harvesting, mail-in voting, precinct manipulation): The 2020 election was the most secure election in American history.
• New Message to support the Democrat 2022 vote initiatives: The 2022 election is not secure, subject to manipulation by disinformation and misinformation, and likely to encounter interference by domestic and foreign adversaries.

. . .

Read the full report at Conservative Treehouse here.

# # #

Corruption at the FBI: It’s systemic.

 

Michael Ramirez cartoon via WashingtonTimes.com

Eric Lendrum at American Greatness reports:

According to the Post Millennial, the multiple agents from the D.C. field office who could be seen kneeling before rioters on June 4th, 2022, were each given $100 gift cards by the FBI Agents Association (FBIAA). This was reported by retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent James Gagliano, who wrote in the New York Post that this revelation was “shocking and appalling on its face.”

“Looked at in a larger context,” Gagliano continued, “this disgusting decision proves the rot and decay at the FBI is not singularly the domain of some senior officials.”

The incident involved a team of armed agents wearing FBI vests, who had been designed as a “presence patrol” to guard the National Archives and Supreme Court as riots raged across D.C., with many buildings being set on fire by the rioters.

When rioters noticed the FBI agents and began reacting with hostility, at least seven of the agents took a knee – a gesture that has come to be recognized as an act of disrespect towards the United States, which has been used most often by black nationalists. In addition, a senior counterterrorism special agent hugged some of the rioters. FBI management defended this display as an act of “de-escalation,” and thus rewarded every agent with gift cards of “modest value.”

“During my 25-year career, I was privileged and honored to work alongside FBI agents who killed or captured Top Ten fugitives and violent, dangerous, murderous felons,” Gagliano wrote. “To my knowledge, not one of these actual heroes received an FBIAA gift card of ‘modest value.’”

“I have come to grips with the fact that my beloved FBI has been irreparably broken by woke activists serving amongst its senior ranks,” the former special agent added. “And with the Justice Department appearing to do this president’s bidding by targeting his political adversaries, it will take a monumental house-cleaning and seismic shift in culture at both the DOJ and the FBI to begin to restore America’s trust and confidence.” . . .

Shut it down.  And read the rest of the report here.

# # #

Text for your letter to the judiciary & RINOs

 

Yesterday, I scrolled through an article at Citizen Free Press headlined “President Trump Speaks With Ashli Babbitt’s Mother Outside J6 DC Gulag.”  And in the comments I found this:

Here’s a letter to send to your State Appeals Court, State Supreme Court, and U.S. Supreme Court. Also the last sentence isn’t appropriate if you’re sending to a FIGHTER, but it’s very appropriate if you’re sending to a RINO:

PIO@supremecourt.gov

Dear Judge [or name of RINO]

The fact that we have political prisoners being held without substantial charges, without bail, and literally starting to die like neglected animals is a stain on the Judicial System that has seared itself into the minds of the American People.

Now this is what happens when you allow people to openly steal an election. They just move on to the next outrage. We’ve got a real problem now, we’ve got people at the highest levels sick in the head with what they perceive as power.

This is going to stop, I don’t know how but I can assure you it is going to stop. The problem’s going to be how to deal with these “Socialists” while that process is taking place; because with their hearts hardened like Pharaoh’s, they won’t stop. The sooner we address this the better, that’s all we know for sure.

So do something; if you can’t uphold the Oath of Office, don’t take the job.

Sincerely concerned citizen,

Copy. Paste. Send. Share. And thanks to the commenter posting as “Action.”

# # #

Steyn: More on Our Banana Republic

 

Ben Garrison cartoon via NewsAmmo

The inimitable Mark Steyn published his “Criminalizing Opposition in a Pseudo-Republic” column yesterday about the FBI raid on Mar-A-Lago.  And as always, Mark has some historical perspective on this latest action by a corrupt DOJ & FBI:

For almost a decade and a half now, the American "republic" has been decaying to the defining condition of a one-party state - that is, the total merger of the ruling party and the state. Last night, the dirty stinking rotten corrupt US Department of Justice signed off on a raid on Mar-a-Lago, so we've now moved into hardcore banana-republic territory: the regime's cops are busting into the home of the opposition leader. We're told this is because Trump took some "classified" documents with him when he left Washington. Yeah, that's always a pretext for an armed raid: You could ask Hillary Clinton or Sandy Berger.

. . .

I see Kevin McCarthy is now threatening Merrick Garland with an "investigation" and ordering him to preserve all documents. Ooooooh! Maybe, after the coming Republican landslide, they can appoint an independent counsel; maybe John Durham or Robert Mueller is available. Why would anyone take McCarthy's threat seriously? If you don't grasp that in today's America there is no equality before the law, there is no point even discussing public affairs.

. . ..

If that's the best McCarthy can do, it's hopelessly insufficient to the moment: There ought to be total non-cooperation with the regime by the GOP with the intent of bringing it to a standstill - because this "administration has gone way beyond politics and is corrupting institutions to a degree that will make violence inevitable.

Oh, but don't worry, says McCarthy, there's that Big Red Wave coming in November.

Yeah, right. A throwaway line from The Mark Steyn Show of December 15th 2020:

By the way, when they mention Covid and 2022, that's code for: 'Yeah the US midterms are gonna get stolen too.'

Read Mark’s full column here.  Recommended.

# # #

J6 “hearing” is political theater

The January 6 / J6 Committee “hearing” will be broadcast tomorrow evening (Thurs., June 9) at 8pm on major networks (except Fox). It’s all political theater; Democrats admit it.  See also here and here.

Julie Kelly at American Greatness has been tireless in her efforts to report the corruption at DOJ, resulting in J6 prisoners (in reality just patriotic protesters at a peaceful rally) still languishing in DC jails with no due process protections as enumerated in the Constitution. Ms. Kelly previews the committee hearings to be televised:

. . . [W]ill the committee release 14,000 hours of surveillance video to show what happened inside and outside of the Capitol building on January 6? Biden’s Justice Department quickly designated the footage as “highly sensitive government material” that remains under strict protective orders in court proceedings. 

Allowing the public to view most of the video is the best way to uncover the “truth” about what happened that day. Why continue to conceal it? If January 6 is comparable to 9/11 and other deadly terror attacks, as Biden and his apparatchiks insist, Cheney and her colleagues should authorize the immediate and unedited release of all publicly-funded security video.

. . .

Where are the internal investigative reports on police misconduct on January 6? Will the committee make public the inquiry into the police killing of Ashli Babbitt? What about the three other fatalities that day? [see, e.g., here]. Democrats continually describe January 6 as a “deadly” insurrection but the only people who died were Trump supporters. Will Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill), who cried at testimony by police officers during last July’s hearing, shed similar tears for four dead Americans whose deaths were wholly or partially a result of excessive force used on January 6?

. . .

Speaking of the FBI, will the committee disclose how many undercover agents and informants were in any way involved with January 6? Reporting by the New York Times last year confirmed at least two informants infiltrated the Proud Boys months before and were among the first to “breach” the perimeter of the grounds. 

Court filings reveal that undercover federal agents were stationed around the building before the chaos unfolded; hundreds of elite FBI agents were summoned to Quantico the weekend before January 6 and deployed to downtown D.C. that morning. For what?

A top FBI official refused to say whether FBI agents or informants provoked or engaged in violent behavior that day. As the recent trial of Michael Sussmann again showed, a seamless relationship exists between Democratic Party interests and the nation’s top law enforcement agency—so much so that the FBI has a workplace at Perkins Coie, the Democrats’ powerhouse law firm.

. . .

Ms. Kelly concludes:

It’s highly unlikely, of course, that the committee will address any of those matters during this week’s hearing or in subsequent performances. Meanwhile, congenital liars such as Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) will perpetuate long-debunked narratives including the number of police officers who died as a result of January 6 (the answer is none) or that Trump loyalists brought firearms into the building (they didn’t).

A sham congressional committee working with a corrupt Justice Department boosted by a dishonest national media can only be expected to create political propaganda, not expose the truth; no matter how hard Liz Cheney pretends her vengeance mission is legitimate, most of the American public isn’t buying what she’s selling. 

Read the full column here. 

# # #

Unintended consequences or deliberate destruction?

 

At American Thinker, Patricia McCarthy published an excellent summary of the damage inflicted on America to date by the Biden administration.  Here’s some of it:

. . . The damage this progressive cult has done has crippled America in nearly every way possible.  As Steve Feinstein has written, "[t]hese Democrat policies have tangibly and dramatically degraded the quality of life in America[.]"

Inheriting a nation that was energy independent under Trump, Biden put an end to that on day one.  To say his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan was catastrophic is a gross understatement.  He left billions of dollars of state-of-the-art military equipment there and effectively handed Bagram AFB to the Chinese.  Thirteen young Americans were killed needlessly, and thousands of Americans were left stranded to the Taliban.

We do not know as yet, but Biden's folly with Putin and Ukraine could lead to nuclear war.  Biden's devastatingly poor judgment has knocked the dollar off its hundred-year run as the global currency while Putin's ruble has rebounded.  None of the above would have happened or would be happening if Trump were still in office — and everyone knows this.  In short, this administration is the most destructive in American history by any measure.  Biden's Cabinet is the most incompetent in history.  The nation may never recover and the criminal cabal that put him in office is responsible.

Thanks to investigative journalists Peter Schweizer and Miranda Devine, we know that Biden and his son Hunter are congenitally corrupt and virtually owned by the Communist Party of China.  They also used Ukraine as a financial playground, as did the Clintons.  Under the circumstances, it is not outside the realm of possibility that COVID was part of a plan to see Trump ousted from office, to make mail-in ballots seem necessary and to destroy the Trump economy in one fell swoop.  We know that Fauci and his evil pals obsessed with making viruses more dangerous have long-term ties to China, as does Biden, and as do numerous other NeverTrumps in Congress.

. . .

When Obama came to office, he liked to think he was elected to manage our decline.  It was Obama who weaponized the FBI, the CIA and the DOJ.  Obama hated America; he set back race relations at least fifty years.  With the advent of Black Lives Matter, the Democrat party lurched farther to the left; they've now gone so far left that they are aligned with the CCP.  It is as though they have adopted Orwell's dystopian novel 1984 as a handbook for the running of the United States.  Can all this damage done be chalked up to stupidity and incompetence, or is it by design?  . . .

Click here for the rest. 

# # #

Victor Davis Hanson: The Pillars of Our Civilization

 

Victor Davis Hanson is not optimistic.  He concludes his American Greatness essay “Losing Confidence in the Pillars of Our Civilization”:

In the current crime wave, brazen lawbreakers enjoy de facto immunity. Mass looting goes unpunished. Indictments are often aimed as much against those who defend themselves as against criminals who attack the innocent.

Conservatives now have lost their former traditional confidence in the administration of justice, in the intelligence and investigatory agencies, in the nation’s military leadership, in the media, and the criminal justice system. 

No one yet knows what the effect will be of half the country losing faith in the very pillars of American civilization.

His full article is here.  

# # #

Announcement from Look Ahead America: Political Persecution

 From Matt Braynard of "Look Ahead America":

Patriotic Americans became targets of the Biden Administration as the Department of Justice and the FBI have targeted, imprisoned, and persecuted non-violent American patriots.

Months have passed and our fellow citizens remain separated from their loved ones, isolated in solitary confinement, have been denied medical care, denied access to faith and worship services, and have faced financial ruin due to court costs and legal fees. This wrongful and unjust persecution must end.

Join us on Saturday, June 19th, at noon, in Washington, DC, as we Rally Against Political Persecution outside the Department of Justice, 10th Street NW, between Constitution Ave NW and Pennsylvania Ave NW.

This event is a peaceful demonstration of our First Amendment Rights.

Link:  <https://lookaheadamerica.org/rally/>   (includes RSVP option)

# # #

Journalism: RIP. Again.

 Instapundit published this today:

#JOURNALISM:

Or click here.

# # #

Handy summary of Russia Russia Russia

Via Bookwormroom:

click to embiggen or go to the Bookworm link here and scroll down.

# # #

Buckle Up

 image credit: dartmouth-hitchcock

Eric Georgatos at American Thinker thinks the battle is just beginning. His essay opens:

In four consecutive days, what a lineup of events to illustrate the upheaval America is going through.  We had the I.G. report delivered on December 9; we watched Attorney General Barr step up on December 10 with two explosive interviews with the basic message that the I.G. report is the bare minimum in terms of describing the official wrongdoing that's already fully understood by Barr and is going to be exposed by John Durham; and we watched on December 11 I.G. Michael Horowitz's extraordinarily damaging-to-the-FBI-and-DOJ testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee. 

And on the fourth day, the kicker "tell" for the turmoil that lies ahead: the Wall Street Journal — one of the last bastions of at least a whiff of objective journalism among the mainstream media — comes out with a print edition on December 12 where the front page has not one story on Horowitz's Senate testimony the previous day.

The WSJ has plenty of sophisticated writers who can patch together some erudite-sounding explanation for their front-page story selections.  But the elephant in the room stands: the events of this week demonstrate that every single element of the American ruling class — eight-plus years' worth of Deep State Obama leftists; the Uniparty Senators — like Richard Burr; Mark Warner; and yes, Lindsey Graham; the MSM; rigged-trade, anti-Trump globalists — every one of them is at risk of collapse in power and prestige, not to mention financial setbacks.  The fact that the WSJ appears to have adopted a move-along, nothing-to-see-here posture at a time when the demand for accountability should headline the news — well, it signals that the ruling class still believe they can lead on the ignorant masses with their lies, censorship, and suppression of information, and keep on keepin' on. 

So it is going to fall on the people of this country to hold the wrongdoers accountable, to refuse to "move along," to insist that this level of malfeasance must be punished.  The comeuppance must be sustained public outrage, institutional house-cleaning, and ultimately an electoral smack-down like America has never seen before.

Read the rest here.

# # #

The Plot Against the President

Some readers will not have the time to read book-length investigations into Deep State and media-fueled hoaxes. So here’s an excerpt from Scott Johnson’s review of Lee Smith’s book, The Plot Against the President, posted at Power Line:

All The President’s Men, Take 2

Lee Smith is the author of The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in US History. The book is an invaluable companion to Andrew McCarthy’s Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency; it adds to and amplifies the case McCarthy makes. I wrote about McCarthy’s book in “All the president’s men, Obama style.” Smith’s book elaborates on the theme to which I alluded in the heading of that post. I urge all readers with an interest in this incredible scandal to read both books.

Lee Smith is a great journalist. This bears on one of the book’s principal themes: the complicity of the press in peddling the hoax alleging the collusion of the Trump campaign with organs of the Russian government. In peddling the hoax, the most prominent organs of the mainstream media were the accomplices of the perpetrators. The book cites the relevant stories and relentlessly names names demonstrating the “collusion” of the press with the Clinton campaign and the government — the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Justice — in peddling the Russian hoax as news.

Within the profession there has been no reckoning for the misconduct that the book makes out. On the contrary, at the profession’s upper reaches, we have seen only the renewed commitment to carry on the campaign to remove Trump from office. 

This book may be the closest we ever get to the day of reckoning that is due the press.

Read the full column here.

# # #

Lee Smith’s The Plot Against the President

I’m on Newt Gingrich’s e-mailing list, but his column is also online here.

Lee Smith has written a book so important and so revealing that every American who cares about the future of our Republic should read it.

The Plot Against the President is a remarkable history of our times. It captures what historian Edward Luttwak called “the paper coup.”

Luttwak is a famous historian who wrote an authoritative study of governments being overturned by coups. Entitled Coup d’etat a Practical Handbook, it established Luttwak’s credentials when he analyzed the post-election war against President Trump.

As Smith reported: “The ‘anti-Trump operation,’ says Luttwak today, ‘was a very American coup, with TV denunciations by seemingly authoritative figures as a key instrument.’ The plot against Trump was a bureaucratic insurgency waged almost entirely through the printed word. It was the ‘Paper Coup.’"

Smith’s book is built around the courageous hard work of Congressman Devin Nunes and his team of Republicans at the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Living through the last four years, it has been easy to confuse what was going on and who to trust and distrust.

Smith captures it all in one clear sentence: “Without the big titles and the national security bureaucracy’s legalistic self-defense mechanisms, the story was pretty straightforward: The Clintons hired a bunch of con men who got their dirty cop friends to frame Trump. The press and a corrupt prosecutor handled the cover-up."

Throughout all the confusion, Nunes and the courageous group he assembled kept pursuing the truth through what was an ocean of lies, obstruction, and resistance. In his book, Smith describes a pattern of senior US intelligence officials systematically undermining and targeting people seeking the truth – even one of Nunes’s own investigators, who was a former Department of Justice lawyer.

At the same time, instead of upholding the law, Mueller perverted it. The clear signal Americans got from the spectacle around the Mueller investigation was that the elites in this country were determined to smear the President, even though he’d done nothing wrong.

In fact, Smith writes that the Mueller investigation in fact just became an extension of the larger effort to oust the elected president, and Mueller was a “fixer” to cover-up that the effort was happening.

Nunes understood how Mueller had perverted his role. Smith explains: “Nunes had described ...Mueller produced a perfect feedback loop: intelligence leakers spin a false story to the media, the media publishes the story, Mueller cites the story, and the media and the Democrats then fake outrage at Mueller’s findings. It was as if Nunes were guiding a tour of the underworld."

The news media was so dedicated to the anti-Trump coup attempt that it was impossible to deal with them. Smith describes how Jack Langer, Nunes’s communications director, slowly realized that talking to the mainstream media was actually hurting the truth-finding effort rather than helping inform the public. It didn’t matter what Langer would tell the press because reporters, editors, and producers had already made up their minds about the substance of the story. Talking to Republicans was just a ploy to retain a whiff of objectivity.

At the same time that much of the media was skirting its traditional role, the very nature of the FBI-intelligence community war against Trump made it even harder for legitimate news media to be neutral. In order to get scoops, reporters had to agree to protect anonymous sources – and print what they were told. If they didn’t, they would lose access.

Smith describes the cumulative effect of the bureaucratic corruption and news media collusion (the real collusion story), and it is devastating.

Sadly, we had seen this kind of bureaucratic-news media corruption before, in 2003. It involved some of the same players – including former FBI Director Jim Comey. That time, they tried to destroy Vice President Dick Cheney by framing his chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and forcing Libby to bargain for his freedom by selling out his boss.

However, Libby refused to lie about the Vice President and accepted a totally framed punishment. President George W. Bush commuted his sentence. The Washington Bar Association reinstated him for having been the victim of prosecutorial malpractice. President Donald Trump pardoned him completely.

As Smith writes: "the Libby case had been a baseless media-driven scandal, a press frenzy that had resulted in a miscarriage of justice. Mueller 2017 was a replay of Fitzgerald 2003. The latter went after Cheney, the former Trump.”

The current sickness in the Justice Department is deeply rooted. In addition to Smith’s book, informed citizens should read Sidney Powell’s Licensed to Lie. Powell is currently defending General Mike Flynn and challenging the entire case against him as an illegal frame by willfully dishonest prosecutors.

When you read The Plot Against the President, you will realize there is a lot more going on – and a lot of people may end up in jail for having attempted to destroy an elected president.

Every citizen should read it to understand how sick the system has become.

# # #

DOJ and Big Tech: antitrust probe

Nate Madden on The Hill has the story: 

DOJ announces antitrust probe into social media companies: “Without the discipline of meaningful market-based competition, digital platforms may act in ways that are not responsive to consumer demands." (Click to embiggen, or go to the link here).

What The Mueller Report will NOT report

It’s scheduled for tomorrow morning. Via Hannity:

Attorney General William Barr will hold a 9:30am press conference Thursday morning regarding Robert Mueller’s final report; setting the stage for a high-stakes showdown just moments before the DOJ is poised to release the special counsel’s conclusions to Congress.

Attorney Sidney Powell has been one of the most effective and informed critics of the abuse of power at DOJ, FBI, CIA, the DNC, etc. Yesterday, she went on record predicting what will be in the Mueller Report, what will be obscured or omitted, how it will be slanted, etc. I expect that she will be 99% correct:

The Mueller Report will try very hard to shroud the real issues–which are:  WHY, WHERE, WHEN, HOW, and BY WHOM did the spying on Mr. Trump and his associates begin?  From all information available so far, per Comey’s own admissions, there was never a legal or factual basis to begin any investigation of anyone associated with Mr. Trump, and they never verified a word of the “Steele dossier.”   The evidence so far exposes a significant group in the CIA, FBI, DOJ, DOD, and State Department, who manufactured the entire counter-intelligence operation from thin air.   It’s smoke tied with baling wire. That is a bombshell from which Mr. Mueller and Mr. Weissmann must distract.

The long-awaited Report will doubtlessly contain a lot of assertions about Russian troll farms–like the unprecedented charges in the Concord indictment that came mostly from an article in a Russian magazine–combined with claims and much jibberish that it was Russians who hacked the DNC.  It will ignore all the work of relentless reporter Luke Rosiak who has fully documented the nefarious work of the Pakistani Awan brothers -– abject criminals to whom Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and at least three dozen Congressional Democrats gave the keys to the kingdom of the DNC and our national intelligence on the Hill.  It will ignore the work of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community and the Inspector General of Congress–both of whom documented exposure of our national secrets by the Awan brothers and Mrs. Clinton, respectively.  It will also ignore the irrefutable fact that if the FBI and DNC really wanted to determine who hacked the DNC, the DNC would have turned over the servers to the FBI–or the FBI would have seized them as it does when it purports to conduct a real investigation as opposed to a sham or a cover-up.

The Truth will be found in documents the Mueller Report avoids -- the documents all the real criminals created when they thought they would never be caught and they would “stop” Trump.  We must have the original documents declassified and disclosed to the public to the maximum extent possible.  This includes, for starters, the 99-page decision of the FISA court in which Chief Judge Rosemary Collyer excoriated the FBI and the NSA for their abuses of the entire surveillance system and tools.

That’s just a start. She specifies the documentation that she recommends – and hopes – will be released with minimal redactions. Read all of her pre-analysis and predictions here.

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