American Citizenship: Caught Between Creed and Clan

Fact is, one cannot simply make oneself an American. To some extent or another, through birth or naturalization, one becomes an American because someone else did the work.

by Jeffrey M. Vaughan for American Greatness

Our politics is currently overwhelmed with identity. Rights, votes, participation, all understanding of one’s place in the country is said to be based on one’s “identity.” The one identity that people shy away from is that of the American citizen. Who precisely is this person?

The American Constitution speaks in the voice of “We the People,” but never defines who that people might be, even if they already existed in 1787, even before the establishment of a “more perfect Union.” Who are these Americans? Who, as an individual, is an American?

On the one hand, this is a simple question to answer. There is a legal definition of citizenship based on birth or naturalization, and some people simply are Americans and others are not. It is a matter of paperwork.

On the other hand, it is not so easy to answer, as we can see from the history of this country. Whether someone is a citizen and how that might be defined has been the source of the most contentious controversies. For instance, Dred Scott appealed to his status as a citizen of Missouri to argue for his freedom from slavery. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, in his infamous decision, denied the possibility of citizenship to Scott and all those whose descendants were forcefully brought to this country – a denial Abraham Lincoln would ferociously challenge.

The Civil War resolved this question in favor of Dred Scott, who died before it started. Yet the problem of what citizenship entails continued. American women were not universally permitted to vote until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. And the question of the civil rights of former slaves and their descendants came to a head a full century after the Civil War. The “legal” citizenship of neither group was contested. American women, for instance, were American citizens, but they were citizens who could not vote in most states and were often not even issued their own passports when traveling. What makes someone a citizen?

Two competing answers to that question have been offered since the beginning of the American republic. In the first of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the opportunity before the people of the various states was “to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” In the words of G. K. Chesterton, the great English author of the early 20th century, “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.” America, Chesterton though, was a “nation with the soul of a church.”

John Jay, in Federalist 2, offered a competing idea, which we might describe as “America as a clan.” He attributed to divine providence the creation of “a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.” From this perspective, Americans are a people because of their common history.

The notion that Americans form something like a clan is there in Jay’s contribution to the Federalist Papers, and it forms the central idea of Justice Taney’s decision (although most slaves, by Dred Scott’s time, had been born here, too, because of the constitutional ban on importation). The most compelling argument that America is a clan is that most Americans were born that way. Despite falling birth rates, Americans make more Americans than anyone else does. This is one job that has not been sent offshore. For the vast majority of the population of the country, citizenship is the result of birth and nothing else. It is almost as if the country were an extended family. Yes, it has its branches, but being born to citizenship binds people to one another.

One of the finest reflections upon this idea of an inherited place in the country can be found in Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” Douglass began his remarks with praise for the leaders of the American Revolution, but carefully called them “your fathers,” as he spoke to the white audience. He referred to himself and his listeners as “fellow-citizens,” however. A different paternity did not cut him off from citizenship, but it gave Douglass, a former slave, a different lineage.

Douglass’ central charge against America was its hypocrisy: “You glory in your refinement and your universal education yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever strained the character of a nation.” On the Fourth, Americans were celebrating a rebellion inspired by “a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country.” Americans were enslaving the people they lived beside, the people who should have been—and eventually would become—members of their clan.

The problem with the clan idea of citizenship is that it is too exclusive, too familial to account for the reality of the country. Americans are not all one happy family, or even an unhappy one. At the time John Jay wrote Federalist 2, there were already deep divisions. There were already many Americans from very different backgrounds; they were not related, and they did not act like they were.

Other countries really are extended families, with most or all sharing some familial or ethnic background. Italians have always lived in Italy, Chinese in China, and so on. The only Americans whose families did not arrive within the last 500 years were here long before—and they were moved aside, often violently, by those whose descendants live here now. Most Americans do not have a legacy of living in this country longer than that. For Hamilton and many like him, the American experiment was and is a matter of “reflection and choice.”

Chesterton thought that the creed upon which America was founded was equality. It says so in the Declaration of Independence. Alexis de Tocqueville also thought that the love of equality was important to the country, and to the whole new “age of equality” he foresaw taking root everywhere. But here is the problem with the idea that a nation can be based upon an idea or creed: a creed can be accepted anywhere. Can a specific nation be defined by nothing but an aspiration to universality? Wouldn’t that nation be coextensive with the world?

Is anyone who accepts the American creed, whatever it may be, an American? Does the belief in equality make one American? That cannot be true. Millions of people believe in equality but have no connection to this country. Some even proclaimed the truths of the Declaration, however cynically or opportunistically—such as Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam—and still fought a war against America. Whole countries are as committed to equality as is America—even more committed to it—and yet, they are certainly not America. Belief itself does not and cannot make one an American.

The fact is, one cannot simply make oneself an American. To some extent or another, through birth or naturalization, one becomes an American because someone else did the work. This, more than anything else, gives durability to the clan idea of citizenship. You must be born into it or allowed in by those who already hold membership. It is an exclusive if generous club. As Abraham Lincoln put it in his First Inaugural Address, “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.”

At the same time, though, we cannot say that belief in some sort of American creed is unimportant. To begin with, tens of thousands of people who did not believe in the American Revolution left or were forced to leave. Even the idea of being “un-American,” which is based on ideas and actions rather than heritage, suggests that there really is something important about what one thinks when it comes to being American. Just ask the Boston Celtics player who changed his last name to “Freedom” after becoming an American citizen this month.

Is there something between the creed and the clan that can explain what makes someone an American? Yes: that mediating “something” is the Constitution of 1787. Elected officials and military personnel swear to protect the Constitution, not vague ideas or a particular set of human beings.

Hamilton and Jay were both right at the time they were writing. There was a unique opportunity to form a new government by a people united by heritage and experience. But that lasted only a short time and was not unanimously agreed. For instance, a referendum on ratification in Rhode Island rejected the Constitution in March of 1788; New York’s ratifying convention passed it in July of that same year by only three votes. Even as “We the People of the United States” decided to form that more perfect union, they were not all in agreement.

Once the Constitution was ratified and this new people started to live by it and under it, however, the Constitution gave meaning to the people—and to citizenship. Americans thus became a constitutional people, a self-governing people under our fundamental or foundational law.

Aristotle observed something like this process over 2,000 years ago. As he explained in the Politics, a political community is a collection of people who share in a constitution, if not necessarily a written one. And in an argument that seemed to surprise even himself, he concluded that a citizen is anyone who participated in the administration of justice and in offices. In other words, a citizen is someone who can take part in the public affairs of the state.

The Constitution of the United States is not merely an idea; it is a way to practice politics, or, to use Aristotle’s expression, to administer justice and offices. American citizens are those who participate (or can participate) in that. This is why “citizens” who cannot participate are not really citizens. The contradiction of having groups of people who were clearly citizens but who weren’t allowed to act as citizens inspired the 19th Amendment and the Civil Rights Movement, and the possible resolution of that contradiction led Frederick Douglass to conclude in his speech that “the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT.”

Douglass was right: the Constitution is a glorious liberty document, but only if people will live by its rules. Living by the Constitution means administering justice and offices, and engaging in the give and take, victory and defeat, of politics as laid out in the Constitution.

An earlier contribution to the 1776 Series makes the point this way: 

Whereas in most countries, political argument turns on what citizens demand, in the United States citizens’ demands must be filtered through the sieve of the Constitution. It is not enough to want something; it is necessary to show why that something is also constitutionally proper.

To say that something is “constitutionally proper” is more than saying the rules are being followed. The Constitution is a set of rules for the game of politics, but it is more than that. It is a set of rules built on an understanding of human nature, one that accepts that men are not angels and that angels do not govern us, as James Madison put it in Federalist 51. To be constitutionally proper, then, is to be true to our nature as Americans understand it.

Being an American is not simply admiring the Constitution as an idea; nor can it be reduced to choosing one’s parents. American identity comes from living through the political institutions of the Constitution. This should be recognized as the primary political identity of Americans—and a most gratifying and humanizing one.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more-Dec 27

 

Evening. Here's tonight's news:

Sowing Winds and Reaping Whirlwinds ~ VDH

The Left is being consumed by its own hatreds & hubris.

by Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
— Hosea 8:7

Joe Biden, first as a candidate and then in the White House, from the outset saw the COVID-19 pandemic mainly as a means of leveraging political support, from the manner in which the lockdowns allowed him to run a virtual campaign from his basement to equating Donald Trump with the COVID-19 virus.

Like many on the Left, Biden was overt in such cynicism. So were Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom, and Jane Fonda—who claimed that COVID was a “never-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste” moment. Panic and lockdowns could help achieve single-payer health care, or a recalibrated capitalism, or the end of Donald Trump himself. 

At the height of the last presidential campaign, Biden in September 2020 declared that Trump was responsible for the then-current 200,000 COVID deaths: “If the president had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive.”

Biden felt no need to list details where Trump had lethally erred or had not “done his job.” 

He did not explain how any president should be able to prevent all deaths from a plague. And in 2020, Biden certainly had no expectation that before his own first year as president was over the cumulative deaths from the pandemic would exceed 800,000. He would have found it surreal to even imagine that soon there would be far more deaths under his own tenure than during Trump’s presidency—despite being the beneficiary of ubiquitous vaccinations, new therapies, and antiviral drugs unavailable throughout most of 2020.

During the 2020 campaign, both Biden and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris also had cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of the Operation Warp Speed vaccines. They repeatedly implied that any forthcoming jabs would be tainted by Trump’s sponsorship. 

Yet, later in office, both would publicly deplore any doubt similar to their own about vaccination safety or efficacy. Indeed, they equated remaining unvaxed to being unpatriotic. In addition, when Biden was inaugurated, he claimed that no Americans had been vaccinated. In fact, on some days under Trump more than a million people were receiving vaccinations. 

Given that the new daily cases and COVID fatality rates had begun to decline shortly before Trump left office, and due to the growing ubiquity of the Warp Speed vaccinations, Biden gladly took ownership of the virus and boasted it would be essentially gone by July 4—due to his own rebranding of Trump’s vaccination programs.

Biden had assumed he could blame Trump for all 2020 COVID-19 deaths, while few would die from the pandemic in 2021, and that, again, he could take credit for the Warp Speed vaccination program. 

But fate, not Biden, was the master of our COVID-19 destinies. Soon both the Delta and Omicron variants arrived, and we are now back to a Groundhog Day of possible lockdowns and mask mandates. Certainly, Biden would not wish a political rival to do to him what he did to Trump: question the efficacy and safety of the vaccines, blame Biden for more than 400,000 deaths on his watch, and claim the continuance of the pandemic was Biden’s fault alone. 

Truth and Consequences

What’s the moral of Biden’s current troubles? From the Bible and the Greeks and throughout the Western tradition, there is a constant refrain of being wary of hubris, the lying and arrogance that are innate to it, and the divine power that ultimately levels things out. 

Biden and the Left so despised Donald Trump that they lost all sense of moderation, of proportion, of logic itself. Thus, they find themselves in the current ridiculous situation of suffering the consequences of their own unhinged rhetoric and actions. 

This madness was birthed in part because Trump’s newly calibrated populist Republican Party had the potential to permanently draw the working class away from Democrats. In part, they found Trump’s salesmanship and braggadocio repulsive and contrary to bicoastal manners. Partly his agenda had more success since any first term since Ronald Reagan. Add it up, and the result was toxic hatred and mindless rejection of the successful policies. 

Biden’s undoing was claiming not just to be antithetical to Trump, but the antithesis of all that Trump did. His hatred blinded him to the reality that Trump’s record on Afghanistan, the border, COVID-19, the economy, foreign policy, energy, and regulation was in each instance either adequate or very good. To simply nullify all of it, and to claim Trump was an ungodly disaster, meant Biden’s own one-dimensional rejectionist policies had to be winning and successful. And when they were neither, he suffered not just the wages of failure, but of hypocrisy and nemesis as well. 

This irony of blindly speeding over the cliff to one’s own destruction is not limited to COVID-19. 

How did the once omnipotent, omnipresent Hillary Clinton descend into a caricature of a shrill, mean-spirited, and pathetic has-been? Even more so than Biden, she assumed that her hatred of Trump would excuse anything. And anything not excusable could simply be fobbed onto Trump as if it was his own doing. 

Illegal to use a private, unsecured private email server to avoid government audit? When caught simply cry that Donald Trump encouraged the Russians to hack it. 

Was Clinton’s “Russian reset” a failure? Was her campaign’s opposition research via British ex-spy Christopher Steele a dud and a lie? Then simply amp up the Russian collusion hoax, accuse Trump of being a Vladimir Putin asset, and count on the “friends of Hillary” in the administrative state to seed and fuel the lie. 

Lose a supposedly sure-thing presidential election? Then blame the terrible, failed campaign on voting fraud, or on the Electoral College, and then claim the winner was illegitimate, while joining #TheResistance. 

What Hillary Clinton could not abide was that the loud Trump had outsmarted her hip campaign experts, that his agenda was more applicable to the times and the national mood, that she was a nastier and more egocentric candidate than Trump, and that dislike for her grew in proportion to her public appearances. 

Weapons of Self-Destruction

The military traditionally polls as the most popular of all major U.S. institutions. No longer. In a recent Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute survey, only 45 percent of Americans expressed trust and confidence in our armed forces. That is a stunning, almost inexplicable reversal—until we remember what has transpired over the last four years. 

Why would our most esteemed retired generals routinely violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice in smearing and slandering the commander-in-chief between 2016 and 2021?  

They did so freely and arrogantly on two assumptions. One, they were assured that the bipartisan establishment would applaud their political attacks and provide them legal and political exemptions in a way unthinkable had they compared, say, Barack Obama to a Nazi, a fascist, a Mussolini, a death camp jailer, a fraud, and a liar deserving removal “the sooner the better.” 

Second, they were so taken with their stars and epaulets, their high public profiles, and their entry into the corporate monied class upon retirement, that the public would surely listen to their supposedly sage, insider advice. 

Instead, their hubris earned them the opposition of half the country—ironically the half once most supportive of the military. 

Just as importantly, the high-ranking officer class, fairly or not, was humiliated in Afghanistan. China and Russia now assume the United States has lost much of its prior deterrence. The Pentagon was seen as reckless and wasteful: gone in a matter of days were a $1 billion embassy in Kabul, a $300 million refitted air base at Bagram, and some $80 billion in U.S. weapons and equipment. 

When the people looked for contrition, for apologies, for explanations, they got instead the opposite: generals blaming Biden off the record; Biden blaming generals on the record; the sense that China has reached parity with the U.S. military; the chairman of the joint chiefs apologizing for usually routine photo-ops with the president, unlawfully interfering in the chain of command, and claiming a pandemic of mythical “white rage”—all done with the full acquiescence of his superior, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, another retired general. 

Meanwhile, suspicion continued to grow that much of the woke agenda was fast-tracked through the military because it served the careerist trajectories of the compliant officer class. Again, those who felt their self-importance had earned them commensurate influence and power well beyond their tasks of ensuring deterrence and military preparedness, lost both influence and power—both for themselves and the military itself. 

The Rot Spreads

The Green New Dealers assumed that by the sheer force of their own superior morality that they could abruptly curtail fossil fuel use, with little if any concern that millions of the lower-middle class depend upon inexpensive natural gas and gasoline for their daily survival. 

After bragging they would end fossil fuel use in a decade, these same purists ended up begging the carbon autocracies of Russia and the Gulf Arab states to produce more of the toxic fuels they had done so much at home to curtail. The radical climate changers had little idea how unlikeable and unpopular they had become—not just because of their credo, but due also to their own hypocrisies, arrogance, and preening.

Black Lives Matter is similar. In summer 2020, it assumed the role of arbiter of all race relations. Corporations rushed to send it cash. District attorneys competed to drop charges of the arrested. Mayors stampeded to defund police departments. And criminals vied to commit crimes on the assumption that they would not be caught, or not be indicted, or not be convicted, or not be jailed—and that societies were culpable, not the criminals, for the damage wrought. 

And now? BLM is polling even lower than Joe Biden and the U.S. military. 

The lessons from these hypocrisies? There are natural, eternal laws that transcend personalities and are the ultimate adjudicators of right and wrong. 

Good leaders acknowledge the talent of those they despise. They are not so obsessed in their hatred that they mindlessly fixate on the negation of unwelcomed success. General George S. Patton found General Bernard Montgomery a poseur, affected, and condescending—but Patton also appreciated that Monty was methodical, professional, and, as a defensive tactician, admirably tough and stubborn. 

Churchill privately saw Charles De Gaulle as vain, exasperating, and narcissistic. But he publicly acknowledged that no other man of France in 1940 would have, or could have, rallied the defeated in exile, orchestrated a triumphant return, brought order to chaotic France, and restored French sovereignty, and, yes, chauvinism, to a defeated and humiliated people. 

Republicans who joined FDR on the eve of World War II knew him to be vain, duplicitous, treacherous, and an egomaniac. But also, they conceded that he had the rare talent to galvanize the nation to defeat its enemies, and to charm and cajole the capitalist classes to produce weapons and goods as no other nation in history had done. 

So, there were reasons why Socrates advised “Know thyself,” why the oracle at Delphi emblemized “Nothing too much”—and why you reap what you sow. 

Surveillance Video Show D.C. Police Beating Women on January 6

The video supports what Victoria White told Julie Kelly in a series of interviews earlier this month for American Greatness.

Julie Kelly reporting for American Greatness

Recently-released surveillance video from inside the lower west terrace tunnel at the Capitol building from last January 6 confirms what American Greatnesshas reported for months: law enforcement officers from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and U.S. Capitol Police led a brutal assault against Trump supporters trapped inside that tunnel during the Capitol protest.

The three-hour clip offers one angle of what happened between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. in the tunnel, the site of the most violent clashes between police and protesters. It also is the location where Rosanne Boyland, a Trump supporter from Georgia, died.

One clip shows the attack on Victoria White, a Minnesota mother of four who was viciously beaten by at least two D.C. Metro officers including a supervisor:

The video supports what White told me in a series of interviews earlier this month; she was repeatedly beaten on the head with a baton and punched directly in the face numerous times by police. One officer grabbed her by the hair and shook her head side to side. Government charging documents, however, claim White—who is 5’6”, weighs 155 pounds, and had no weapon—was the aggressor:

“By approximately 4:07 p.m., WHITE’s red cap had fallen off, she lost her black coat, and she can be seen inside the entranceway grabbing for one of the MPD officers standing on a ledge,” an FBI investigator wrote in a 12-page complaint. “As the video progresses, the MPD officers attempt to push WHITE back with their riot shields and fend her off with a baton. WHITE is seen in a red sweater, and it appears that she is attempting to grab a shield and uses her hand to block the baton.”

White, bleeding from the head in a photo included in the complaint, was transported to a D.C. police station and released the evening of January 6. The FBI raided her home and took her into custody on April 8; in September, a grand jury indicted White on four counts including disorderly conduct.

Darth Crypto, an anonymous Twitter account with access to the video footage, produced a separate clip showing a police officer punching another unidentified woman in the face:

An officer standing on a ledge inside the tunnel sprayed pepper spray and attacked two women within a matter of minutes, hitting one woman attempting to escape the melee with his baton and stomping another woman on the head after she fell down from the force of the crowd:

Another unidentified person—it’s hard to determine from the grainy footage whether it is a man or woman—trapped in the lower-left corner of the tunnel is beaten by other officers at the mouth of the tunnel. When someone outside of the tunnel attempts to drag the person out, an officer pulls the person back into the corner of the tunnel and traps him/her with a riot shield to endure more beatings.

Protesters witnessing the brutality confronted and attacked officers in return. Shortly before 4:30 p.m., Rosanne Boyland’s lifeless body was face-up on the ground outside the tunnel. Her friend, Justin Winchell, begged for help. “She’s dead, she’s dead!” he screamed, according to body-worn camera footage.

In April, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s office concluded Boyland died of an accidental drug overdose; her family reportedly has hired an investigator to find out the real cause of her death.

Police began attacking crowds of protesters peacefully assembled outside the Capitol building around 1:15 p.m. on January 6, shortly after President Trump finished his speech at the Ellipse. Capitol Police deployed tear gas and pepper balls into the crowd while D.C. Metro police threw flashbangs and sting balls filled with rubber bullets, which prompted many of the initial confrontations between police and protesters.

Michael Byrd, a lieutenant with Capitol police, shot Ashli Babbitt at near point-blank range, killing her just outside the Speaker’s Lobby at 2:43 p.m. on January 6.

At least two January 6 defendants charged with assaulting police officers will accuse law enforcement of excessive force that day and cite self-defense as a reason for their conduct. The Justice Department has asked a judge to prevent one January 6 defendant from presenting “any evidence that he had a reasonable belief that his actions were necessary to defend himself against the immediate use of unlawful force.” Prosecutors also want to conceal the names of officers involved in any altercations with protesters on January 6.

Defense lawyers expect the release of more surveillance videos over the next few months.

No officer on duty that day has been charged with unlawful force; three D.C. Metro and one Capitol Police officer reportedly have committed suicide since January 6.

WATCH: 'Face the Nation' Correspondent Stuns Fellow Panelists Into Silence, With Truth About COVID Policies Harming Kids

Becca Lower reporting for RedState

Most of the time, the panel or roundtable portion of any weekly Sunday political program is a lively exchange among the moderator and the panelists. But that wasn’t the case during one segment of CBS News’ “Face The Nation” this week.

As the show does once a year, it convened a panel made up entirely of the news division’s correspondents, ostensibly to review the big stories of 2021 and make some predictions about where those storylines will go in 2022 and beyond.

But at some point in the segment, the panel sat in stunned silence for over a minute-and-a-half, as one of their own spoke the truth about how damaging the lockdowns and other governmental measures have been to our nation’s children. And it’s implicit in her answer that the media is not off the hook for the blatant lack of reporting about it.

Host and moderator Margaret Brennan asked, directing the question first to Jan Crawford, CBS News chief legal correspondent.

Well, I want to get to underreported stories as well. Jan?

And Crawford was the one who spoke up. Watch and listen.

(Her words are worth quoting in full, which I have transcribed below. Curiously, the answers to this question don’t appear in the official transcript provided by CBS News.)

For me…my kids hear me rant about this every day, so I might as well tell you guys.

It’s the crushing impact that our COVID policies have had on young kids and children. By far, the least serious risk for serious illness, but — I mean even teenagers, you know, a healthy teenager has a one in a million chance of getting and dying from COVID, which is way lower than dying in a car wreck on a road trip.

But they have suffered and sacrificed the most, especially kids in underrepresented and at-risk communities. And now we have the surgeon general saying there’s a mental health crisis among our kids.

The risk of suicide attempts among girls now up 51 percent this year. Black kids nearly twice as likely as white kids to die by suicide.

School closures, lockdowns, cancelation of sports. You couldn’t even go on a playground in the D.C. area without cops scurrying, shooing the kids off.

Tremendous negative impact on kids, and it’s been an afterthought. It’s hurt their dreams, their future, learning loss, risk of abuse, their mental health.

And now, with our knowledge, our vaccines, if our policies don’t reflect a more measured and reasonable approach for our children, they will be paying for our generation’s decisions the rest of their lives.

And that, to me, is the greatest underreported story of the past year.

Notice in the video that Brennan was the only one to acknowledge any of what Crawford said, when the reporter mentioned the “mental health crisis among kids,” leading into her sharing that staggering statistic on suicide rates among girls.

RedState has reported on the ways schools have treated children, which verge on child abuse in how they’re implemented. I also previously reported about cities closing skateparks by filling them in with trucks full of sand. And I doubt anyone will soon forget the images of what Crawford described — the playgrounds across the country closed and their gates secured with locks.

Yes, as CBS News’ tweet read, the reporter outlined “the devastating impact of COVID policies on children.” But the unspoken word in that sentence is “Democrat.” It’s been mostly Democrat governors and other officials — elected and unelected — who have imposed the harshest policies during the pandemic, including the ones devastating our young people. It’s not even close.

Apparently Huma Abedin Has Written a Book About Weinergate – What About Her Laptop That He Tried to Leverage During Plea Deal

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse

Apparently Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s closest aide, has written a book describing her life experience during a time when her husband Anthony Weiner was sending pictures of his penis to various underage girls around the country.  [One of Andrew Breitbart’s Funniest Moments]

Back in 2011, Andrew triggered a series of events that long outlasted his time with us.  Very influential New York Democrat Congressman Anthony Weiner was texting pictures of his penis (amid other things) to underage girls.  Andrew was tipped off and eventually exposed the story.  It was a hot mess of DNC, MSM and the entire Clinton machine circling the wagons to protect Weiner and attack Breitbart.  Andrew won against the entire machine in epic fashion. It was just awesome.

A few years passed, and then Anthony Weiner was caught doing it again, only this time there were criminal charges.  Huma has written a book about her life in the aftermath of Weiner’s exposure and appears on CNN to talk about it.

There is a facet to the Huma Abedin story that no one in the media will discuss, including Dana Bash.   Huma’s husband, Anthony Weiner, tried to cut a deal with federal officials at the Southern District of New York (SDNY) to avoid criminal prosecution.  Weiner offered to give Huma Abedin’s laptop, which included all of Huma’s electronic communication files with Hillary Clinton, to the US Attorney’s office and FBI in return for no prosecution.

Huma’s laptop was essentially the Abedin/Weiner insurance policy against the Clintons.  The laptop contained copies of all the emails that were missing from the Clinton private servers, because Huma’s email account automatically copied the emails to her account in the cloud so she could access them from any device.  There were 350,000 emails and at least 344,000 Blackberry communications on the laptop. [FBI FILES]

The Abedin laptop had all the Clinton emails that Hillary Clinton’s lawyers said were no longer available, as the servers were destroyed and data deleted.

The Southern District of New York (SDNY) and FBI took custody of the laptop, but never made the deal with Anthony Weiner.

Despite numerous mistaken reports about the Clinton email issues at hand, it was THAT Abedin laptop that was the true purpose of Bill Clinton meeting with U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the airport tarmac, Arizona 2016.

A review of the Inspector General report about the FBI activity surrounding the Abedin laptop, an overlay of the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages around the time of the laptop, and a review of James Comey statements about the laptop, all tell a remarkable story about the coverup.

Chapter 11 of the IG Report – This issue of the handling of the Weiner/Abedin laptop screams DOJ/FBI coverup operations. Consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):

Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.

The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop, and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails, that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”

Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.”  (pg 388)

The key takeaway here is two-fold.  First, the laptop is in the custody of the FBI; that’s important moving forward (I’ll explain later).  Also, specifically important, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5]

Note: “OTD was able “to do some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop.”

OK, you got that?

Now lets look at the very next page, #389 (again, emphasis mine):

[…] The FBI determined that Abedin forwarded two of the confirmed classified emails to Weiner. The FBI reviewed 6,827 emails that were either to or from Clinton and assessed 3,077 of those emails to be “potentially work-related.”

The FBI analysis of the review noted that “[b]ecause metadata was largely absent, the emails could not be completely, automatically de-duplicated or evaluated against prior emails recovered during the investigation” and therefore the FBI could not determine how many of the potentially work-related emails were duplicative of emails previously obtained in the Midyear investigation. (pg 389)

See the problem?  See the contradiction?

Strzok is saying, due to some amazing wizardry, the FBI forensics team was able to de-duplicate the emails.  However, FBI forensics is saying they were NOT able to de-duplicate the emails.

Both of these statements cannot be true.  And therein lies the underlying evidence to support a belief the laptop content was never actually reviewed.  But it gets worse, much worse….

To show how it’s FBI Agent Peter Strzok that is lying, go back to chapter #9 and re-read what the New York case agent was saying about the content of the laptop.

The New York FBI analysis supports the FBI forensic statement in that no de-duplication was possible, because the metadata was not consistent.   The New York FBI Weiner case agent ran into this metadata issue when using extraction software on the laptop.

CHAPTER 9:    The case agent assigned to the Weiner investigation was certified as a Digital Extraction Technician and, as such, had the training and skills to extract digital evidence from electronic devices.

The case agent told the OIG that he began processing Weiner’s devices upon receipt on September 26. The case agent stated that he noticed “within hours” that there were “over 300,000 emails on the laptop.”

The case agent told us that on either the evening of September 26 or the morning of September 27, he noticed the software program on his workstation was having trouble processing the data on the laptop.  (pg 274)

The New York Case Agent then describes how inconsistent metadata, within the computer files for the emails and Blackberry communications, made it impossible for successful extraction.  The FBI NY case agent and the Quantico FBI forensics agent agree on the metadata issue, and the inability to use their software programs for extraction and layered comparison for the purposes of de-duplication.

Both NY and Quantico contradict the statement to the IG by FBI Agent Peter Strzok.  However, that contradiction, while presented in a factual assertion by the IG, is entirely overlooked and never reconciled within the inspector general report.  That irreconcilable statement also sheds more sunlight on the motives of Strzok.

Next up, there were only three FBI people undertaking the October Clinton email review.  To learn who they are we jump back to Chapter #11, page #389.

The Midyear team flagged all potentially work-related emails encountered during the review process and compared those to emails that they had previously reviewed in other datasets. Any work-related emails that were unique, meaning that they did not appear in any other dataset, were individually reviewed by the Lead Analyst, [Peter] Strzok, and FBI Attorney 1 [Tashina Gauhar] for evidentiary value.  (pg 389)

Pete Strzok, Tash Gauhar and the unknown lead analyst.  That’s it.  Three people.

This is the crew that created the “wizardry” that FBI Director James Comey says allowed him to tell congress with confidence that 1,355,980 electronic files (pg 389), containing 350,000 emails and 344,000 Blackberry communications, were reviewed between October 30th and the morning of November 6th, 2016.

Three people.

Pete, Tash and one lead analyst.  Uh huh.

Sure.

The Inspector General just presents the facts; that’s obviously what he did.  Then, it’s up to FBI and DOJ leadership to accept the facts, interpret them, and apply their meaning.

No bias?

But FBI is committed to bias training?

FUBAR.

There is an actual hero in all of this though.  It’s that unnamed FBI Case Agent in New York who wouldn’t drop the laptop issue and forced the FBI in DC to take action on the laptop.  Even the IG points this out (chapter #9, page 331):

We found that what changed between September 29 and October 27 that finally prompted the FBI to take action was not new information about what was on the Weiner laptop but rather the inquiries from the SDNY prosecutors and then from the Department. The only thing of significance that had changed was the calendar and the fact that people outside of the FBI were inquiring about the status of the Weiner laptop. (pg 331)

Those SDNY prosecutors only called Main Justice in DC, because the New York case agent went in to see them and said he wasn’t going to be the scape goat for a buried investigation (chapter #9, pg 303). “The case agent told us that he scheduled a meeting on October 19 with the two SDNY AUSAs assigned to the Weiner investigation, because he felt like he had nowhere else to turn.” … “The AUSAs both told us that the case agent appeared to be very stressed and worried that somehow he would be blamed in the end if no action was taken.”

On October 20, 2016, the AUSAs met with their supervisors at SDNY and informed them of their conversation with the Weiner case agent. The AUSAs stated that they told their supervisors the substantive information reported by the case agent, the case agent’s concerns that no one at the FBI had expressed interest in this information, and their concern that the case agent was stressed out and might act out in some way. (pg 304)

Why would the New York Case Agent be worried?

Consider Page 274, footnote #165:

fn 165:  No electronic record exists of the case agent’s initial review of the Weiner laptop. The case agent told us that at some point in mid-October 2016 the NYO ASAC instructed the case agent to wipe his work station. The case agent explained that the ASAC was concerned about the presence of potentially classified information on the case agent’s work station, which was not authorized to process classified information.

The case agent told us that he followed the ASAC’s instructions, but that this request concerned him because the audit trail of his initial processing of the laptop would no longer be available. The case agent clarified that none of the evidence on the Weiner laptop was impacted by this, explaining that the FBI retained the Weiner laptop and only the image that had been copied onto his work station was deleted. The ASAC recalled that the case agent “worked through the security department to address the concern” of classified information on an unclassified system. He told us that he did not recall how the issue was resolved.

Now watch embed tweet video:

Summary:

• There were only three people in the Mid-Year-Event team granted authority to physically do the Clinton email review.
• They were: FBI Agent Peter Strzok, FBI Attorney-1 Tashina “Tash” Gauhar, and an unnamed lead analyst.
• FBI Agent Peter Strzok says they were able to cull the number of emails through the use of “some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails.
• The New York FBI case agent assigned to the Weiner investigation, a certified Digital Extraction Technician, as well as the FBI forensics team in Quantico, say it was impossible to use the conflicted metadata to “de-duplicate” the emails.
• Someone is lying.
• FBI Director James Comey said his investigative unit used some form of “wizardry” to review the content of the Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner laptop.
• The Inspector General makes no determination as to who is telling the truth, and never asked the question of whether an actual review of the laptop emails took place.
• The FBI still has possession of the Abedin/Weiner laptop.

.

[scribd id=381806566 key=key-4WfKaOih0Xm7EA7gdK93 mode=scroll]

.

⇑ These Cannot Both Be True ⇓

Within this interview, former FBI Director James Comey is questioned about the announcement of re-opening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation on October 28th, 2016.  In his response to why there was a delay between the FBI being notified by New York on September 28th, and waiting until October 28th, James Comey revealed a very important nugget.

The New York U.S. Attorney (SDNY) called Main Justice in DC to ask about why they were not receiving authority for a search warrant. We knew that call took place on October 21st, 2016.  Now we know “why” and who New York called at DOJ HQ.

Listen closely to James Comey at 06:06 to 07:30 of the interview (prompted):

Baier: “Did you know that Andrew McCabe, your deputy, had sat on that revelation about the emails”?

Comey: “Yeah, I don’t know that, I don’t know that to be the case. I do know that New York and FBI headquarters became aware that there may be some connection between Weiner’s laptop and the Clinton investigation, weeks before it was brought to me for decision – and as I write in the book I don’t know whether they could have moved faster and why the delay”

Baier: “Was it the threat that New York Agents were going to leak that it existed really what drove you to the ‘not conceal’ part?

Comey: “I don’t think so. I think what actually drove it was the prosecutors in New York who were working the criminal case against Weiner called down to headquarters and said ‘are we getting a search warrant or not for this’?  That caused, I’m sorry, Justice Department Headquarters, to then call across the street to the FBI and poke the organization; and they start to move much more quickly. I don’t know why there was, if there was slow activity, why it was slow for those first couple of weeks.”

There’s some really sketchy stuff going on in that answer. Why would SDNY need to get authorization for a search warrant from DC, if this is about Weiner’s laptop?  Yes, you could argue it pertains to a tightly held Clinton investigation run out of DC, but the Weiner prosecution issues shouldn’t require approval from DC.

But let’s take Comey at face-value.  So there we discover it was justice officials within SDNY (Southern District of New York) who called Main Justice (DOJ in DC) and asked about a needed search warrant for “this”, presumably Weiner’s laptop by inference.  Now, let’s go look at the Page/Strzok description of what was going on.

Here are the messages from Lisa Page and Peter Strzok surrounding the original date that New York officials notified Washington DC FBI.  It’s important to note the two different entities: DOJ -vs- FBI.

According to the September 28, 2016 messages from FBI Agent Peter Strzok, it was the SDNY in New York telling Andrew McCabe in DC about the issue.  Pay close attention to the convo:

(pdf source for all messages here)

Notice: “hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s attorney to SDNY”.

Pay super close attention.  This is not an outcome of a New York Police Dept. raid on Anthony Weiner.  This is Weiner’s attorney going to the U.S. attorney and voluntarily turning over emails. The emails were not turned over to the FBI in New York, the actual emails were turned over to the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District.

Key point here: Weiner’s attorneys turned over “emails”.  Actual “emails”.

♦If the U.S. Attorney in New York has the actual physical emails on September 28th, 2016, why would they need a search warrant on October 21st, 2016? (Comey’s call explanation)

♦Why would Weiner’s attorney be handing over evidence?

Think about this carefully.  I’ll get back to the importance of it later; but what I suspect is that Weiner had physical material that was his “insurance policy” against anything done to him by Hillary Clinton.  Facing a criminal prosecution, Weiner’s lawyer went to the U.S. Attorney and attempted to exploit/leverage the content therein on his client’s behalf.

Fast forward three weeks, and we go back to FBI in DC.

On October 21, 2016, this is the call referenced by James Comey in the Bret Baier interview.  Someone from New York called “Main Justice” (the DOJ National Security Division in DC) and notified DOJ-NSD Deputy Asst. Attorney General George Toscas of the Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton emails via the “weiner investigation”.

[I would point out again, he’s not being notified of a laptop, Toscas is notified of “emails”]

George Toscas “wanted to ensure information got to Andy“, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe…. so, he called FBI Agent Peter Strzok…. who told George Toscas, “We know”.

Peter Strzok then tells Bill Priestap.

Of course, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe already knew about the emails since September 28th, 2016, more than three weeks earlier.

In his Bret Baier interview, FBI Director James Comey says this call is about a search warrant.  There is no indication the call is actually about a search warrant.  [Nor would there be a need for a search warrant if the call was actually about the emails that Wiener’s attorney dropped off on 9/21].

However, that phone call kicks off an internal debate about the previously closed Clinton email investigation; and Andrew McCabe sitting on the notification from New York for over three weeks – kicks off an internal FBI discussion about McCabe needing to recuse himself.

Now it’s October 27th, 2016, and James Comey Chief-of-Staff Jim Rybicki wants McCabe to recuse himself.  But Rybicki is alone on an island. Lisa Page is furious at such a suggestion, partly because she is McCabe’s legal counsel and if McCabe is recused, so too is she.

At the same time as they are debating how to handle the Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton emails, they are leaking to the media to frame a specific narrative.

Important to note here, that at no time is there any conversation -or hint of a conversation- that anyone is reviewing the content of the emails.  The discussions don’t mention a single word about content… every scintilla of conversation is about how to handle the issues of the emails themselves.  Actually, there’s not a single person mentioned in thousands of text messages that applies to an actual person who is looking at any content.

Quite simply: there is a glaringly transparent lack of an “investigation”.

Within this “tight group” at FBI, as Comey puts it, there is not a single mention of a person who is sitting somewhere looking through the reported “600,000” Clinton emails that was widely reported by media.  There’s absolutely ZERO evidence of anyone looking at emails or scouring through laptop data…. and FBI Agent Peter Strzok has no staff under him who he discusses assigned to such a task…. and Strzok damned sure ain’t doing it.  So what gives?

Moving on – Note to readers. Click the graphics and read the notes on them too:

It’s still October 27th, 2016, the day before James Comey announces his FBI decision to reopen the Clinton investigation.  Jim Rybicki is still saying McCabe should be recused from input; everyone else, including FBI Legal Counsel James Baker, is disagreeing with Rybicki and siding with Lisa Page.

Meanwhile the conversation has shifted slightly to “PC”, probable cause.  Read:

While Lisa Page is leaking stories to Devlin Barrett (Wall Street Journal), the internal discussion amid the “small group” is about probable cause.

The team is now saying, if there was no probable cause when Comey closed the original email investigation in July 2016 (remember the very tight boundaries of review), then there’s no probable cause in October 2016 to reopen the investigation regardless of what the email content might be.

This appears to be how the “small group” or “tight team” justify doing nothing with the content received from New York.  They received the emails September 28th, and it’s now October 27th, and they haven’t even looked at it.  Heck, they are debating if there’s even a need to look at it.

Then on October 28th, 2016, the FBI and Main Justice officials have a conference call about the entire Huma Abedin/Hillary Clinton email issue.  Here’s where it gets interesting.

George Toscas and David Laufman, from DOJ-NSD, articulate a position that something needs to happen likely, because Main Justice is concerned about the issue of FBI (McCabe) sitting on the emails for over three weeks without any feedback to SDNY (New York).

Thanks to Deputy Director McCabe, Main Justice in DC, specifically DOJ National Security Division, now looks like they are facilitating a cover-up operation being conducted by the FBI “small group”.  [Which is actually true, but they can’t let that be so glaringly obvious].

As a result of the Top-Tier officials conference call, Strzok is a grumpy agent because his opinion appears to be insignificant.  The decision is reached to announce the re-opening of the investigation.  This sends Lisa Page bananas…

In rapid response mode, Lisa Page reaches out to Devlin Barrett, again to quickly shape the media coverage.  Now that the world is aware of the need for a Clinton email investigation 2.0, the internal conversation returns to McCabe’s recusal.

Please note, that at no time in the FBI is anyone directing an actual investigation of the content of the Clinton emails.  Every single second of every effort is devoted to shaping the public perception of the need for the investigation.  Every media outlet is being watched, every article is being read, and the entire apparatus of the small group is shaping coverage therein by contacting their leak outlets.

So let’s go back to that Comey interview:

♦What exactly would SDNY need a search warrant for?

♦Anthony Weiner’s lawyer has delivered SDNY actual emails.  Why would he do that?

Now lets connect those questions to an earlier report.

According to ABC News, Comey writes in “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership,” that he became the public face of the investigation partly because of a mysterious development which he felt could cast “serious doubt” on Lynch’s independence.

“Had it become public, the unverified material would undoubtedly have been used by political opponents to cast serious doubt on the attorney general’s independence in connection with the Clinton investigation,” Comey writes, according to ABC. He calls the material a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” (ABC Link)

On page six of the IG report on Andrew McCabe (point number 4), we find a conference call between Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe and the FBI field office in New York, where the subject of the Weiner/Abedin/Clinton email findings overlap with: the Clinton Foundation (CF) investigation, the Clinton Email investigation, pressure for Asst. Director McCabe to recuse himself, and Washington DC via Loretta Lynch using DOJ Main Justice leverage from the Eric Garner case against the NY FBI office and New York Police Department.

From the OIG report:

4. The Attorney General Expresses Strong Concerns to McCabe and other FBI Officials about Leaks, and McCabe Discusses Recusing Himself from CF Investigation (October 26, 2016)

McCabe told the OIG that during the October 2016 time frame, it was his “perception that there was a lot of information coming out of likely the [FBI’s] New York Field Office” that was ending up in the news. McCabe told the OIG that he “had some heated back-and-forths” with the New York Assistant Director in Charge (“NY-ADIC”) over the issue of media leaks.

On October 26th, 2016, McCabe and NY-ADIC participated in what McCabe described as “a hastily convened conference call with the Attorney General who delivered the same message to us” about leaks, with specific focus being on leaks regarding the high-profile investigation by FBI’s New York Field Office into the death of Eric Garner. McCabe told us that he “never heard her use more forceful language.” NY-ADIC confirmed that the participants got “ripped by the AG on leaks.”

According to NY-ADIC’s testimony and an e-mail he sent to himself on October 31, McCabe indicated to NY-ADIC and a then-FBI Executive Assistant Director (“EAD”) in a conversation after Attorney General Lynch disconnected from the call that McCabe was recusing himself from the CF Investigation.

(Page #6 and #7 – IG Report Link)

What makes this explosive is the timing, and what we now know about what was going on amid the FBI “small group” in DC.

On September 28th, 2016, Andrew McCabe was made aware of emails given to New York U.S. Attorney (SDNY) directly from Anthony Weiner’s lawyer.  Again, the information relayed to DC is not about a Weiner laptop, it’s about actual emails delivered by Weiner’s lawyer.  The laptop was evidence in the Weiner “sexting” case involving a minor; however, the laptop, reportedly, also contained thousands of State Department documents from Hillary Clinton and her aide Huma Abedin, Weiner’s wife.

When Weiner’s lawyer walked into SDNY to deliver his leverage emails, Preet Bharara, a Clinton-Lynch ally, was the United States Attorney.

Again, look at the text messages between FBI Agent Peter Strzok (Inbox) and FBI Special Counsel to Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page (Outbox):

[The letter to “Congress” at the end of the text exchange relates to notification of the re-opening of the Clinton investigation – Actual date of notification 10/28/16]

According to later reporting, FBI Director James Comey was not notified of the emails until after October 21st, 2016.  However, in late October and early November, there were reports from people with contacts in New York police and New York FBI, about Washington DOJ officials interfering with the Weiner investigation.

On the same date (October 26th, 2016) as the Lynch, McCabe and NY FBI phone call, former NY Mayor Rudy Giuilani was telling Fox News that an explosive development was forthcoming.   Two days later, October 28th, 2016, Congress was notified of the additional Clinton emails.

However, a few more days later, November 4th, 2016, there was an even more explosive development, as Erik Prince appeared on radio and outlined discoveries, within the Huma Abedin/Anthony Weiner/Hillary Clinton email issues, that were being blocked by AG Lynch.

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week.

“Because of Weinergate and the sexting scandal, the NYPD started investigating it. Through a subpoena, through a warrant, they searched his laptop, and sure enough, found those 650,000 emails. They found way more stuff than just more information pertaining to the inappropriate sexting the guy was doing,” Prince claimed.

“They found State Department emails. They found a lot of other really damning criminal information, including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than 20 times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said.

“The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained.

“I believe – I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at 1PP, One Police Plaza in New York – the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department, with the Justice Department threatening to charge someone that had been unrelated in the accidental heart attack death of Eric Garner almost two years ago. That’s the level of pushback the Obama Justice Department is doing against actually seeking justice in the email and other related criminal matters,” Prince said. (Link)

An earlier Grand Jury in New York had refused to return an indictment against the NYPD in the Garner case.  As an outcome of that grand jury finding, and as an outcome of their own investigation, the local FBI office and Eastern District of New York DOJ office was not trying to pursue criminal charges against the NYPD officers involved.  This created a dispute, because federal prosecutors (EDNY) and FBI officials in New York opposed bringing charges, while prosecutors with the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department in Washington argued there was clear evidence to do so.

On October 25th, 2016, Loretta Lynch replaced the EDNY New York prosecutors:

New York Times (Oct. 25)  – The Justice Department has replaced the New York team of agents and lawyers investigating the death of Eric Garner, officials said, a highly unusual shake-up that could jump-start the long-stalled case and put the government back on track to seek criminal charges.

With that move – on Oct. 25th, 2016, AG Lynch was now in position to threaten criminal prosecutions against the NYPD, and repercussions against the NY FBI and EDNY using the Garner case as leverage, just like Erik Prince outlined in the phone interview above.

Additionally, we see confirmation from the IG report the Garner case was brought up in the next day (Oct 26, 2016) phone call to the NY FBI field office, just as Erik Prince outlined.  Obviously, Prince’s sources were close to the events as they unfolded.

The NY FBI and Eastern District of New York (EDNY) were threatened by Washington DC Main Justice and FBI, via Loretta Lynch and Andrew McCabe, to drop the Clinton/Abedin/Weiner email investigation matters, or else the Garner DOJ Civil Rights Division would be used as leverage against the NYPD.  And Loretta Lynch had SDNY U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as the enforcer waiting for her call.

And so it was…

“Had it become public, the unverified material would undoubtedly have been used by political opponents to cast serious doubt on the attorney general’s independence in connection with the Clinton investigation,” Comey writes, according to ABC. He calls the material a “development still unknown to the American public to this day.” (ABC Link)

The emails Anthony Weiner’s lawyer brought to Preet Bharara were Weiner’s leverage to escape prosecution.  Likely, those emails were exactly as Eric Prince sources outlined.  However, the SDNY responding to upper level leadership buried those emails.

In DC, the FBI (Comey and McCabe) created the appearance of a re-opening of the Clinton investigation to keep control and ensure the investigative outcomes remained out of the hands of the Eastern District (EDNY) and New York FBI field office.  They had no choice.

However, once the FBI opened the investigation October 28th, they did exactly the same thing they had done from September 28th to October 28th… they did nothing.

A few days later, they declared the second investigation closed, and that was that.

They never expected her to lose.