Saturday, September 28, 2019

Sources say William Barr preparing to deliver 'evidence' of a 'deep state conspiracy'



Veteran investigative journalist Carl Bernstein said his sources are telling him that Attorney General William Barr is preparing to push a "deep state" conspiracy to protect President Trump.

During an appearance Thursday on CNN, the famed Watergate sleuth reacted to    controversy about an intelligence community whistleblower who filed a complaint alleging Trump improperly leveraged military aid to encourage Ukrainian President  Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

Trump attacking the whistleblower's sources as being "close to a spy" and alluding to capital punishment, Bernstein said, provided "real time" evidence of the president's corruption. Additionally, Bernstein said the release of the Trump-Zelensky call transcript and the whistleblower's complaint provided proof of "the president’s corruption, of his willingness to undermine the free electoral system in this country, to involve foreign powers in our election and also to try and get involved at the president’s behest there."

The complaint and the notes of the July 25 call, both released to the public this week, show Trump urged Zelensky to speak with his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Barr about investigating the matter related to Joe Biden, who is now a leading Democratic candidate for president.

The Justice Department denies Barr ever spoke to Trump about it, and the attorney general has resisted Democratic calls for him to recuse himself from Ukraine-related investigations, but Bernstein insisted that Trump's comments are proof of the attorney general's "connivance" to put out a narrative about sinister forces within the federal government bureaucracy taking aim at Trump.

The Justice Department also received a criminal referral about a potential campaign finance violation in relation to Trump's phone conversation with Zelensky but declined to take action after a review. 

Bernstein said Barr is trying to "bring about proof that there is a deep state  conspiracy that led to" special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and suggested that this is a story other journalists are chasing. "Barr is trying to deliver   — and I have this, as do other reporters from other sources — to deliver evidence that perhaps this has all been a deep state conspiracy just like Donald Trump alleges," he said. 



Bernstein appeared to be referencing the Justice Department's review of the origins of the Russia investigation being led by U.S. Attorney John Durham, examining whether there was any misconduct by Justice Department and FBI officials.

Barr said in May that Mueller did not assess the early stages of the Trump-Russia  investigation, which is what he is doing now. "We should be worried about whether government officials abused their power and put their thumb on the scale," he told Fox  News.

Democrats have expressed alarm with the DOJ inquiry, particularly after Trump granted Barr broad authority to declassify information related to the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. 


Carl Bernstein is an insufferable propagandist for the political left; but sometimes you can get a sense of where things stand by listening to his partisan protestations.  Additionally, Bernstein was at the center of the media effort to engineer the Russia narrative by pushing disinformation from the intelligence apparatus in January 2017.
(L-R) Jake Tapper, Jim Sciutto, Evan Perez and Carl Bernstein.

 Bernstein was one of the key media figures constructing and pushing the vast Russian election interference narrative.  He also worked closely with Jake Tapper, Jim Sciutto, and Evan Perez to promote the Steele Dossier as a valid intelligence product. In essence Bernstein is a part of the ‘resistance’ agenda writ large; he travels DC circles accordingly.

 In a recent CNN interview, highlighted by the Washington Examiner, Bernstein outlined how his sources are telling him Attorney General William Barr is preparing to deliver “evidence of a deep state conspiracy.”   Accepting the general premise, and culling the accompanying political spin from it, the comments by Bernstein would seem to indicate Bill Barr is indeed investigating the background of the ‘soft-coup’. 

 Obviously Bernstein is a creature of the DC cocktail circuit; as a result perhaps those who operate in/around the same circles of the administrative state are recognizing their activity in 2016 and 2017 is about to be exposed.  Perhaps this explains the apoplectic responses and sense of urgency from the far-left political class over the past week.
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Candace Owens

Candace Owens is in France to support one of our right wing politician, Marion Maréchal Le Pen .

Candace Owens


@RealCandaceO
Thank you, France! As I said on stage, America will always be your ally in the fight against globalism. Patriotism will defeat the plague of progressive idealism. 

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Fifteen million in 72 hours

It’s still more than thirteen months before Americans can go to the polls and vote. So we’re doing the next best thing and voting with our wallets.


Patriot Retort

If the Democrats had the sense God gave a goat, they would be damn nervous right now.  Since Nancy Pelosi announced her unofficial impeachment inquiry, the Trump campaign has been flooded with donations — raking in nearly fifteen million dollars in 72 hours.

More importantly, that fifteen million came from small donors.


“Including 50,000 NEW donors.”

That’s worth repeating.


Nancy and that pernicious puke Adam Schiff succeeded in motivating 50,000 people who had never donated to the Trump campaign before to crack open their checkbooks and donate now.

I call this sort of thing Operation Backfire.

Democrats push too hard and too far.  And inevitably, there is pushback.

It’s Newton’s Third Law.

You’d think the Party of ScienceTM would understand that.  But they don’t.

Fifteen million in 72 hours is the equal and opposite reaction to the Democrats’ latest attempt to undermine the consent of the governed.

Sure, it’s still more than thirteen months before Americans can go to the polls and vote.  So we’re doing the next best thing and voting with our wallets.

This should terrify the Democrats.

But they don’t care.

This push for impeachment has nothing to do with “the law” or “the Constitution” or as Nancy laughingly claimed, “patriotism.”

Nor does it have anything to do with winning in 2020. At this point the Democrats don’t care if they lose the House or the Presidency.

All that matters to them is delegitimizing our electoral process.

Daniel Greenfield pointed this out the other day in a column at Front Page Magazine that’s worth reading.

Here’s some of what Greenfield wrote:

Their real goal is to use blind hatred of Republicans to convince Democrats that elections are inherently illegitimate. All their arguments, whether about Russian Facebook bots or the Electoral College circle back to that.

 The choosing of governments, it follows, is too important an issue to be left to mere voters whose voting machines and brains are all too easily hacked by disinformation campaigns and FOX News.

 And the removal of President Trump from office is also too important to be left to those same voters.

Greenfield is right.

We know the Democrats do not trust the American people to choose their own leaders.  That’s the biggest lesson of the post-2016 ResistanceLOL.

But something tells me so far it isn’t working.






And as Greenfield points out, this impeachment push is just the latest in a never-ending strategy to undermine the “consent of the governed:”

 Impeachment is not just meant to be a trial of President Trump, but of the voters who chose him. Its outcome, whatever the composition of the Senate, is meant to be an argument for remaking the system of elections, whether by abolishing the Electoral College or tampering with the judiciary, that would take the power further out of the hands of the voters and concentrate them with the right sorts of people.

It goes without saying that they believe those of us who elected Donald Trump President are not “the right sorts of people.”

After all, we’re “deplorable” or, as Cory Booker put it this week, “despicable.”

Do you think this direct attack on We the People escapes our notice?

Of course it doesn’t.

It’s been coming at us like a hail of bullets for three-plus years.

Which is exactly why Americans are firing back in the only way we can right now – by donating to the tune of fifteen million dollars in 72 hours.

Democrats want to make us powerless.  They want to make us voiceless.

Donating to the Trump campaign is one way for us to exert power.

It’s our way of saying, “Don’t make us angry. You won’t like us when we’re angry.”
And we are livid.

Fifteen million dollars in seventy-two hours is a gigantic Screw You to these assholes.

Team Trump isn’t letting the grass grow beneath its feet.  Already they are making good use of those donations.  According to Brad Parscale, next week, they will be launching a $10 million ad campaign.

And it’s already paid for!

In the meantime, President Trump unveiled on Twitter the campaign ad they’ll be running.

And it’s brutal.






As I’ve said countless times, President Trump has never been the primary target of the Democrat Party’s attacks.

It isn’t Trump they hate; they hate us.

This impeachment push likewise is yet another attack on us.

And the Trump campaign raising fifteen million in 72 hours from small donors is a clear indication that Americans know we’re the real target of the Democrat Party.

So thanks Nancy and Adam. Team Trump couldn’t have done it without you!


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Across a divided nation, skepticism about impeachment


Washington Post

By Jenna Portnoy, Scott Wilson, Tim Craig, and Marc Fisher

They don’t ordinarily agree with each other. They watch different channels, hear different versions of the news and view neighbors across a gaping, painful political divide. But in swing districts across the country, the idea of impeaching the president has brought some Americans together: They’re wary of deploying the Constitution’s ultimate weapon — one that takes the decision about who is president out of voters’ hands.

Derek Tsao is a Republican in California who has grown tired of President Trump’s behavior. Curtis Johnson is a Democrat in Florida who could never quite fathom why his fellow Americans chose a man like Trump. Lisa Foulds is a lifelong Republican in suburban Virginia whose kids have pushed her toward the center, so much so that she voted for a Democrat for Congress last year.

They all say the president may have crossed a line when he pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate one of Trump’s main political rivals. And despite their political differences, they say the Democrats’ move this week to start impeachment proceedings against Trump is the wrong tactic at the wrong time.

Polls have shown that public opinion has shifted slightly in favor of impeachment, but many still see it as “an exercise in futility,” as Johnson put it.

The retired steelworker from Indiana, now living in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., said he’s eager for Democrats to find a candidate who can beat Trump next year, but he fears that impeaching the president will make Trump’s reelection more likely. “There’s not enough time before the election and nothing will come of it,” said Johnson, 71. “This is going to hurt the Democrats because everyone’s going to say, ‘You’re putting all your energy into this?’ ”

Tsao, 27, who is studying to be a physical therapist, has followed this week’s news only glancingly, but he’s all for investigating any credible accusations.

“If a crime has been alleged, you should find out more about it,” he said. “I fear, though, that it’s just another anti-Trump move.”

Launching an investigation and potentially putting Trump on trial in the Senate strikes Foulds, a 50-year-old who still considers herself a Republican after voting for independent Gary Johnson in 2016, as “a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”

“For something as trivial as gaining dirt on somebody? It just seems petty,” she said. “I just think it has to be much more egregious.”

As events in Washington unfolded at a breakneck pace this week, many Democrats and Republicans interviewed in swing districts across seven states were united in their exhaustion — with politics, with polarization and, even among some of his supporters, with the president. Many said they chose not to follow every twist and turn in the Ukraine story because their views about Trump had long ago solidified, pro or con.

Voters across the partisan spectrum argued that next year’s election — not impeachment — is the best way to resolve the country’s struggle.... (continued)


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Jim Jordan and Chip Roy Discuss Pelosi Rush to Complete Articles of Impeachment



Representative Jim Jordan and Representative Chip Roy discuss the urgency in the Democrats’ rush to assemble articles of impeachment. 






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Democrats’ ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Claim Against Trump Is Weak; Here’s Why


The Democrats are trying to make the case that Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a quid pro quo deal and that Trump would withhold military aid if Ukraine did not investigate Joe and Hunter Biden. That narrative has been destroyed by none other than the New York Times, hardly a conservative bastion. The NYT investigated and found out that Ukraine did not even know about the delay in military funding until a month after the phone call.

The NYT reported:

 “Mr. Trump did not discuss the delay in the military assistance on the July 25 call with Mr. Zelensky, according to people familiar with the conversation. A Ukrainian official said Mr. Zelensky’s government did not learn of the delay until about one month after the call.”

So what evidence do Democrats have that Trump actually offered a “quid pro quo” to his Ukrainian counterpart for dirt on his political rival? In a series of tweets Thursday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro looked at the evidence and found the charge of Trump’s “aid-based quid pro quo” to be “pretty weak tea.”

“There are some serious questions about the ‘quid pro quo’ story,” Shapiro wrote in a thread Thursday (tweets below). “And those questions come from both the whistleblower report and the NYT reporting AND the blown ABC story today. Let’s begin with the whistleblower report.”

Shapiro then provides the following excerpt from the whistleblower’s complaint:
On 18 July, an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official informed Departments and Agencies that the President “earlier that month” had issued instructions to suspend all U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. Neither OMB nor the NSC staff knew why this instruction had been issued. During interagency meetings on 23 July and 26 July, OMB officials again stated explicitly that the instruction to suspend this assistance had come directly from the President, but they still were unaware of a policy rationale. As of early August, I heard from U.S. officials that some Ukrainian officials were aware that U.S. aid might be in jeopardy, but I do not know how or when they learned it.
“Notice, the WHISTLEBLOWER is stating that Ukraine may not have been aware that military aid was threatened at the time of the infamous phone call (they learned in early August, apparently),” Shapiro writes. “So how can there be a quid pro quo when the target DOESN’T KNOW HE’S BEING THREATENED?”

 Shapiro then points to a report published by The New York Times earlier this week. “A Ukrainian official said that Mr. Zelensky’s government did not learn of the delay until about one month after the call,” the Times reported.

 “This confirms the whistleblower report,” Shapiro states. “Again, if the Ukrainians didn’t know that Trump was threatening aid, with what, precisely was he threatening them? More importantly, why haven’t the media been focusing on this angle? (I think we know the answer.)”
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Trump Attorney Jay Sekulow: Go Ahead and Take The Impeachment Vote



President Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow reacts to the “whistleblower” complaint and explains the impact this fraudulent construct is having on the U.S. government.


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Pelosi’s House Rule Changes are Key Part of “Articles of Impeachment”, Being Drafted Over Next Two Weeks


Back in December 2018 CTH noted the significant House rule changes constructed by Nancy Pelosi for the 116th congress seemed specifically geared toward impeachment. {Go Deep} With the House going into a scheduled calendar recess, those rules are now being used to subvert historic processes and construct the articles of impeachment.

A formal vote to initiate an “impeachment inquiry” is not technically required; however, there has always been a full house vote until now.  The reason not to have a House vote is simple: if the formal process was followed the minority (republicans) would have enforceable rights within it.  Without a vote to initiate, the articles of impeachment can be drawn up without any participation by the minority; and without any input from the executive.  This was always the plan that was visible in Pelosi’s changed House rules.


Speaker Pelosi and Douglas Letter

Keep in mind Speaker Pelosi selected former insider DOJ official Douglas Letter to be the Chief Legal Counsel for the House.  That becomes important when we get to the part about the official full house impeachment vote. The Lawfare group and DNC far-left activists were ecstatic at the selection.  Doug Letter was a deep political operative within the institution of the DOJ who worked diligently to promote the weaponized political values of former democrat administrations.

Speaker Pelosi has authorized the House committees to work together under the umbrella of an “official impeachment inquiry.”  The House Intelligence (Schiff) and Judiciary Committees (Nadler) are currently working together leading this process.

From recent events we can see the framework of Schiff compiling Trump-Ukraine articles and Nadler compiling Trump-Russia articles.  Trump-Ukraine via Schiff will likely focus on a corruption angle; Trump-Russia via Nadler will likely focus on an obstruction angle.
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How many articles of impeachment are finally assembled is unknown, but it is possible to see the background construct as described above.  Unlike historic examples of committee impeachment assembly, and in combination with the lack of an initiation vote, Pelosi’s earlier House Rule changes now appear intentionally designed to block republicans during the article assembly process.  The minority will have no voice.  This is quite a design.

Once the articles are drawn up, Schiff and Nadler will vote to approve them out of committee.  Democrats control the majority so the articles will easily pass out of committee.  Then the articles must come before a full house vote.  The current two-week recess is the period where Pelosi has instructed her team to return to their districts and sell the reasoning and purpose for the upcoming vote.  Speaker Pelosi will hold that vote.

It is more than likely the vote will pass through the House on party lines.  Once Pelosi achieves a vote of passage on any single article President Trump is considered impeached.

Back to this two-week break.  While the technical reason for the recess is to celebrate the Jewish holidays of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, it is now obvious the sequence of events has been constructed specifically toward these impeachment efforts.

There are 31 House districts currently held by Democrats which President Trump won in 2016; Pelosi is giving those members an opportunity to make their impeachment case to their constituents now, but failure to support the effort is likely not optional for all except a few of the most tenuously vulnerable.  House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip James Clyburn will assemble enough votes for impeachment.

While those house members are explaining to their constituents, back in DC the committee work on the articles will collate.  On Friday afternoon, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, issued a subpoena demanding a slew of Ukraine-related documents from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by Oct. 4th. The committees also scheduled depositions with five State Department officials between Oct. 2 and Oct. 10.


Notice that with the rule changes the minority will not be participating in these depositions.  The republicans will likely have no idea what is happening therein.

As Chad Pergram notes:
“The subpoenas are part of a two-pronged strategy by Democrats. Get the information to help tailor the articles of impeachment, or convert a refusal to comply into an impeachment article itself.” (more)
Chairman Nadler (Judiciary) almost certainly already has his Obstructionarticles assembled using prior testimony, depositions and relying heavily on the Mueller report.

However, Chairmen Schiff, Cummings and Engel will be more urgently assembling the Corruption articles based on the purposefully constructed Trump-Ukraine whistleblower leak and subsequent document production.  Hence, the depositions during the break.

The Democrats are going to act fast.  Remember, by design Speaker Pelosi has this set up so that Republicans don’t even participate in the impeachment process.  There are no republicans participating in the assembly of the articles of impeachment.  Stunningly, and as an outcome of those earlier rule changes, there is no minority voice in this process.
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When the 116th congress returns from their break on October 15th, 2019, the Articles of Impeachment will have already been assembled: [House Calendar Link]


Speaker Pelosi has to give the media some reference point to say the republicans were included in the process, so she will likely have mid to late October destined for the committee chairs to have committee debate on their pre-assembled articles.  This will give the impression of minority participation, but it will be for optics only.

Democrats are keen optical strategists and narrative engineers; and as you know they coordinate all endeavors with their media allies.  The narrative assembly and usefulness by media to drive a tactical national political message will hit heavily in this mid/late October time-frame.  This will allow the executive suites (media) to capture/stir-up maximum public interest and make the most money therein.

There will likely be more articles other than just “obstruction of justice” (Muh Rusia) and “corruption of office” (Muh Ukraine), but those two are easily visible.  Emoluments may also play a role.

The articles of impeachment will then be voted out of each committee; and after a significant dramatic pause for maximum political value, Speaker Pelosi will present days of House debate on them.
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The media will construct television sets to broadcast the house impeachment debates, and the Democrat candidates will use this time to spotlight their angelic policies and anti-corruption agenda.   Big Dollar Democrats will bring in their activist groups from around the nation to celebrate the impeachment of President Trump.

Then, once Pelosi is certain the maximum political benefit has been achieved, she will announce the date for the Full House Vote on Articles of Impeachment.  We can be certain the date will be filled with maximum drama and made-for-tv effect complete with Speaker Pelosi bringing back the big gavel for a grand presentation and a full house vote.
[Chad Pergram] As always, it’s about math. The current House breakdown is 235 Democrats, 199 Republicans, and one independent: Rep. Justin Amash, I-Mich. To pass anything in the House, 218 yeas are needed.
That means Democrats can only lose 17 votes from their side and still have enough to pass an article of impeachment. Amash has endorsed impeachment, so let’s say the magic number is actually 16. If the president is to be impeached, that means Democrats could have 15 of their own voting for articles of impeachment while representing a district which Trump carried in 2016.
A House floor vote to impeach the President is kind of like an indictment, codified in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. If the House votes to impeach, Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution sends the article(s) to the Senate for a trial presided over by Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts. (Note Roberts’ proper title. This is one of the reasons the Chief Justice is “of the United States,” and not just the “Supreme Court.”)  (more from Chad Pergram)
The same people who will stand jaw-agape as this House Impeachment process is happening are the same people who denied it was likely when CTH originally showed the rule changes, road-map, and impeachment schedule in January.

Now…. having said all that, perhaps… just perhaps…. Bill Barr is well aware of the Machiavellian scheme constructed and executed by Nancy Pelosi.

Perhaps, just perhaps, that is why the IG Horowitz report has been delayed….  As in, hold it back until Pelosi, Schiff, Nadler and Cummings fire their impeachment cannons.
Maybe…

It seems awful Trusty plan-like for me; but it’s possible.

Perhaps the ultimate counter to protect and defend the office of the presidency from this pre-planned, Lawfare assisted, impeachment effort… is to wait until the Democrats are going to launch their tactical impeachment nukes,… and then fire for effect with the declassification documents etc.!

Hey, I’m trying to provide an optimistic ending here.

 *SPEAKERS ON LOUD*





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Another Major Part Of The Whistleblower Memo Called Out As False



The whistleblower complaint imploded big time yesterday when part of it was specifically called out as false by a senior government official, according to Christina Ruffini, the State Department and Foreign Affairs Reporter for CBS News.


Another problem in the story also emerged, according to Fox. 
[A]ccording to the whistleblower complaint, by mid-May, U.S. diplomat Kurt Volker sought to “contain the damage” from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s outreach to Ukraine.
But a July 19 text message conversation from Volker to Giuliani, provided to Fox News on Thursday, showed that Volker had in fact encouraged Giuliani to reach out to Ukraine — even sending Giuliani a message reading, “connecting you here with Andrey Yermak, who is very close to President Zelensky.”
Additionally, the complaint said Trump “suggested that Mr. Zelensky might want to keep” his current prosecutor general, a claim not supported by the transcript.
There were of course other things wrong with the claim to begin with, such as the claim that there was a quid pro quo offered when there was none, as the transcript shows. Ukraine has also made it clear that they did not in any way feel pressured in the phone call, despite the whistleblower saying differently. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said it was a “normal call” and “no one pushed me.”

But now there’s even more.

The whistleblower complained that there was nothing at all sensitive in the call. So that there was no justification for thereafter secure storage system in the NSC. The argument was that Trump just didn’t want people to hear the conversation. 
As it turns out, that’s also wrong, as Undercover Huber notes in a great Twitter thread.


 


 


 



The administration also had another very legitimate reason for wanting to secure the information. Earlier in the administration, there were a lot of leaks they were trying to stop. According to ABC, more things were thus put in secure storage than previously. 

So either someone in the chain of unreliable hearsay on the whistleblower memo was mistaken or someone along the way wasn’t telling the truth. 
Again.

So when are Democrats going to throw in the towel on this?

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