1st day of being on extended vacation from new episodes on CBS, and I love it! Looking forward to spending the summer watching DVD's of past Seasons of old shows. (and whatever good stuff PBS gets on Sundays)
Tuesday, May 23, 2023
X22, And we Know, and more- May 23
1st day of being on extended vacation from new episodes on CBS, and I love it! Looking forward to spending the summer watching DVD's of past Seasons of old shows. (and whatever good stuff PBS gets on Sundays)
Third Time’s the Charm for Trump?
Support Donald J. Trump — if you dare — but be prepared for the full range of potential consequences.
Donald Trump is on a roll. Based on the RealClearPolitics polling average, he currently has the support of 56 percent of likely voters in the Republican primaries. That puts Trump about 37 points ahead of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the only challenger who makes it into the double digits.
Of course, none of this guarantees Trump will be the nominee, but it certainly makes it likely. Ergo, it behooves Republicans and conservatives to consider the upsides and the downsides of renominating Trump.
Making Trump the GOP’s standard-bearer in 2024 would convey many advantages to the party. First, Trump has a well-developed rapport with Republican voters, who admire and trust him. No one can duplicate this visceral connection between Trump and Trumpers.
Second, Trump has a record of victory and, shall we saym near victory, against weak Democratic opponents. He shocked the world by beating Hillary Clinton in 2016, and he outperformed most polls and the expectations of pundits in 2020, very narrowly losing in three key states that, had he won them, would have pushed him over the top in the Electoral College.
Leaving aside justified qualms that Republicans and conservatives have about the fairness of the 2020 election, the fact is that Donald Trump almost prevailed in it, and he helped Republicans to narrow the Democrats’ majority in the House, setting them up to retake control of the chamber in January 2023.
Third, Trump appears to have learned a thing or two from the slings and arrows that have been hurled at him since 2015. His latest campaign for president thus far has been more disciplined and error-free than any he has run before. What’s more, should Trump ascend once more to the presidency, there is ample reason to hope he will, given the experience he’s accumulated, perform more effectively, and perhaps with greater resolve in his efforts to defang the deep state.
These various factors, as well as the weaknesses of Joe Biden, are apparently convincing Republicans that Trump is both an attractive choice in 2024 and a viable one. Nonetheless, Trump possesses numerous liabilities that ought to make Republicans and conservatives pause.
First, and perhaps most important, is the fact that Trump is widely unpopular. Again, based on RealClearPolitics polling averages, his unfavorable rating of 52.6 percent outpaces his 42 percent favorability. He is thus very slightly more unpopular than Joe Biden—not a great start for a challenger. Trump’s current position, moreover, actually represents a slight improvement from the beginning of this year, when his unfavorables were inching perilously close to 60 percent.
What does all this mean? As everyone knows, a majority of Americans don’t like Trump, and many of them despise him. In 2016, he received 46 percent of the national popular vote. In 2020, he got 47 percent. It is highly unlikely that Trump can do better than that, especially given the gradual deterioration in the percentage of the electorate that belongs to demographic categories that are favorable to Republicans. Therefore, Trump would need to hope that third-party candidates take substantial numbers of votes away from Biden or he would have to aspire to a very narrow victory, probably not in the popular vote but in the Electoral College.
Given these considerations, no Republican could afford to be confident, much less overconfident, about the outcome of a Trump-Biden rematch.
Second, all the prognostication above assumes that Trump remains, throughout the 2024 election cycle, a viable candidate. This cannot be taken for granted.
Trump has already been found liable for defamation and battery against E. Jean Carroll, and he has been charged with 34 felonies by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Of course, this is just round one of a massive, sustained, multipronged legal offensive that the Left and its willing accomplices are engineering to hobble Trump in 2024. He may be charged with various business-related crimes in New York, with election interference in Georgia, and with a host of federal offenses related to his possession of classified documents, inciting an “insurrection,” allegedly attempting to rig the results of the 2020 election, and any number of “process crimes,” including lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. What’s more, depending on the judges, prosecutors, and juries involved in these cases, it need not matter whether the evidence is weak. Personal animus alone might doom Trump.
In truth, though, whether Trump is ultimately found guilty of any of these crimes is less important, politically speaking, than the accumulated weight that a long list of active prosecutions would impose on his campaign for president. Trump may be so hamstrung by legal entanglements that he is simply incapable of waging political battle, and thus Joe Biden will win in 2024 by default (much like he did in 2020, from the comfort of his basement).
Third, and finally, Republicans and conservatives should spare a moment to consider the full consequences of a Trump victory in 2024, however unlikely that scenario may appear. If Trump, against all the odds and despite the unified opposition of almost every establishment voice and institution, wins and looks set to reoccupy the Oval Office in January 2025, we should consider the chances that Joe Biden and friends will actually permit him to do so.
Even though the Left and the establishment pooh-poohed the idea that an election could be “rigged” or illegitimate in 2020, there is a good possibility that their perspective might change if their bête noire Donald Trump won a nominal victory in 2024. I say “nominal,” because any victory can be clawed back if enough media voices, judges, politicians, and bureaucrats want it to be.
Would the Biden Administration, for instance, obey a ruling from the Supreme Court that handed the election to Trump—the same Supreme Court that Democrats and progressives are already preemptively vilifying and attempting to delegitimize? Would Biden’s purged, woke military defy orders to keep him in office or to treat Trumpers as rebels? Would the tame national news media even bother to question the overturning of an election that had gone against their favored candidate?
Along these lines, we should not forget that a great many Democrats and progressives mean it when they call Donald Trump a “fascist,” a “traitor,” and a “rapist.” They mean it, moreover, when they call for him to be imprisoned, or for his name to be stricken from the ballot because of his supposed insurrectionary transgressions. They mean it when they question the sanity, and even the humanity, of Trump supporters.
Republicans and conservatives should ask themselves, therefore, what are the chances that, even if Donald Trump won a paper victory in 2024, he would actually be permitted to take office, and, if not, what tatters of democracy would be left when the “Democrats” were done “saving” it?
In sum, we find that, while Donald Trump has many strengths as a presidential candidate, the GOP and those who support it would be assuming enormous, even existential, risks if they chose him as their standard-bearer. There is a good chance that Trump would lose, and thus Democrats would entrench their domination of federal politics, perhaps even gaining an opportunity to tip the balance in the House and the Supreme Court, effectively handing them unfettered power.
It’s also possible that Trump would “win” (the quotation marks are there to anticipate the certain reaction from the Left), and this calamity, from the perspective of Democrats and so-called progressives, would be the excuse for them to cast all norms, legal niceties, and constitutional safeguards to the wind and to seize power once and for all.
So, Republicans and conservatives, support Donald Trump—if you dare—but be prepared for the full range of potential consequences.
Marcus Aurelius once told us to live each day as though it was our last. We might want to be equally thoughtful with our vote in 2024, because every election could be our last as well.
Who Cares if You Can Have a Beer With Your Politician?
While I was writing my last article, I touched on an opinion that many people would probably disagree with me on but I feel needs to be considered at the very least.
Running for elected office usually boils down to a popularity contest and I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say about their chosen politician that they feel like they could really sit down and have a beer with the guy. I’ve said it myself a couple of times, and even now I can recognize when I feel like I could just sit and talk naturally with a man for a while without feeling like I’m just being conversated with because they feel like they have to.
While those warm fuzzy feelings are great, they shouldn’t at all make a politician the main choice. Some of the most personable people in the world can be the most sinister and least genuine. The popular kid in school wasn’t always the one you really wanted to emulate in your personal life.
The question really boils down to the ability to run a nation and define how the world will treat the nation.
Let’s take former President Donald Trump, for instance. Asking the mainstream media about Trump’s personality, you’d hear about his crudeness, his shallow diction, and his over-eagerness to mock, belittle, and anger anyone in his way. Sure enough, back in 2015, I found very little that was redeemable about Trump, as did many Republicans.
It wasn’t until he was president for a time that I, like many, learned a hard lesson; you don’t have the like the guy in office, you just have to like the fruits of his labor. Trump did a great job. Imperfect, to be sure, but a great job nonetheless. Especially when you compare it to the guy the Democrats say is the most personable and grandfatherly type to ever exist in the White House.
I’d rather have mean tweets than poor streets.
Look at it this way; during a time of economic crisis would you want a boss with a charming smile, impeccable dress, and an office that looks like something straight out of a catalog, but has all the strategic know-how and foresight of a lemming? Probably not. You’d take the socially awkward nerd with a huge bald spot on his head and looks like he hasn’t changed anything style-wise since the 1970s. That man’s there to do a job, not charm you into a false sense of security.
Being the President of the United States is one of the biggest jobs there is. He has to be able to juggle a lot of roles all at once. In order to be effective he has to balance an economy, guard a border, and play trader while moving the most incredible military the world’s ever seen against powers that threaten everyone every day. He has to be able to outmaneuver other world leaders while outmaneuvering his political opposites in the United States itself.
These are just some of the things he has to do. It’s no wonder that the job ages you significantly.
But this means that, when push comes to shove, the guy with the easy smile that can make you feel like you’re the only person in a crowded room when he speaks to you needs to be just as heavily scrutinized as the rest, if not more so. He might be able to charm the pants off you, but can he strategize a good plan for energy independence while simultaneously dealing with the encroachment of radicals both without and within? Can he devise a way to keep our border safe while working with the economic hardships of our times?
If all a politician is good for is his charm then you’ll be watching that charm struggle to make excuses for why he sucks at his job for four years.
I’d had enough of that during the Obama era.
If You Want To ‘Drain The Swamp,’ Then Drain The FBI
Americans don’t have rule of law when their institutions are corrupted against them.
Republicans aren’t “draining the swamp” unless they drain the FBI.
Special Counsel John Durham published a long-anticipated report last week chronicling severe abuses of power by deep-state FBI officials who ran a years-long campaign to frame former President Donald Trump as a Russian asset.
The 306-page report outlined how the FBI relied on baseless fabrications commissioned by the Hillary Clinton campaign to construct the entire narrative for its investigation known as “Crossfire Hurricane,” in which the Obama-era Justice Department conducted illegal surveillance on American citizens in an attempt to undermine the 2016 election. According to Durham, “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”
In other words, the incessant accusations of Trump-Russia collusion that Americans were bombarded with for all four years of the Trump administration were entirely made up.
It’s far from the first time the politicized FBI has engaged in blatant misconduct at the behest of Democrat operatives. Just last summer, more than two dozen plainclothes agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence at Attorney General Merrick Garland’s personal direction, five years after Trump thwarted Garland’s Supreme Court nomination. In addition to the bureau’s targeting of the Republican presidential frontrunner, FBI officials deployed counterterrorism resources against concerned parents who showed up at school board meetings, and began investigating Catholic parishes for “white supremacy.”
[READ: 19 Times Dems And DOJ Deliberately Politicized Law Enforcement]
The FBI has now become an emblem of the kind of swamp-style politics that play out in the nation’s capital, insulated from constituents around the country.
Rather than reprimand the Justice Department for its weaponization of law enforcement resources against political opponents, Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell wants to beef up the department’s funding. The agency remains on track to build a new multibillion-dollar FBI complex to dedicate even more resources to harassing American citizens.
After hearing from witnesses and whistleblowers who offered more evidence of FBI malfeasance, however, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, says it’s time to clean house.
“We got to limit how they spend the money,” Jordan said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Features.” “We have to exercise our authority, the power of the purse, to limit what the federal government, what the FBI and Justice Department, are doing to the American people.”
“They want millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars in their construction budget for a new facility. No way,” Jordan insisted, suggesting Congress lock up funding through the appropriations process.
“Money always gets people’s attention,” Jordan said. “So what we’re going to have to do is say, ‘Hey, FBI, you can’t use federal tax dollars, you can’t use the American tax dollars for [inappropriate] activity.'”
Defenders of federal law enforcement, on the other hand, would prefer lawmakers “reform” the agencies rather than dismantle them.
“I think defunding the FBI would be a crazy idea,” said former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday.
Gates voiced concern over Trump’s plans in particular to implement a complete overhaul of the federal bureaucracy in a second term, starting with the Department of Justice.
“Those institutions are critical to the preservation of our democracy, preservation of our economic well-being, and, frankly, our freedom,” Gates told CBS’s Margaret Brennan.
On the contrary, those institutions charged with protecting American freedom have compromised it in pursuit of political power. Americans aren’t truly governed by the rule of law when their institutions are corrupted and weaponized against them. Lawmakers who are serious about “draining the swamp” ought to go after the head of the leviathan, and that’s the FBI.
Wall Street Journal editorial board member Holman Jenkins Jr. recommended a way for Congress to abolish the agency altogether.
“One possibility is a national investigative corps that would be more directly answerable to the 93 U.S. attorneys who are charged with enforcing federal law in the 50 states,” Jenkins wrote two years ago.
The FBI’s “culture at the top seems incapable of using the powers entrusted to it with discretion and good judgment or at least without reliable expectation of embarrassment,” Jenkins wrote. “The agency should be scrapped and something new built to replace it.”
How Much Gas Does America Have Left in Her Tank?
America, I think your gas gauge is broken and I’m worried about how much fuel you have left in your tank. Even though I’m pondering this question with all due respect to Tesla I never want you to go all-electric.
Screw that.
When you are a consumer of news, whether it be political, financial, sports, or on occasion the pop culture stuff that leaks into our daily streams about the creepy royal family in Britain, you may have to ponder: Is this country finally at a tipping point, or has it already tipped over and we are just sitting listening to the band on the Titanic thinking it is a wonderful cruise?
After my piece yesterday titled The Country Is on Fire and Robert Gates Wants Us to Get Along With the Arsonists, I’m beginning to think the latter is the case — and we’re on the unsinkable ship that sunk. As I observed regarding our current state of affairs in that article: How can any country survive the onslaught of stupid when we can’t even agree on basic definitions of words and the science of biology?
This question — or actually the theme — of whether or not this country is finished was discussed on last Wednesday night’s Red State VIP gold show with the co-host of that show Scott Hounsell and myself. (If you are NOT a VIP Gold Subscriber check it out HERE and use code SAVEAMERICA to get 40% off). The discussion I have to admit was pretty grim.
We covered, among other things, the absolute debacle of our own government lying to us about the bat flu (New NIH Letter Again Confirms That Fauci Lied, Funding Went To Wuhan Lab; Cancels Funding of Grant), which so far has been swept under the rug.
Additionally, we discussed the fact that J. Edgars Hoovers’ old employer is currently engaged in some heavy-handed tactics that would make the old leaders of the Soviet Union blush (FBI Employees Allege Retaliation After They Revealed the ‘Political Rot’).
Plus, we no longer (effectively) have a southern border anymore (Afghan National on Terror List Nabbed at Border). The elected officials pretty much threw up their hands on this long ago.
I won’t even go into the debt ceiling talks or the actual debt because I think the point is made with the subjects above. This country is in a heap of trouble and the best comeback I have seen from our side is we don’t drink Bud Light anymore which was always crap anyway.
America was founded on the radical idea of rugged individualism. The simple notion that people who are not born into wealth or influence would be able to, through hard work and their own ingenuity, make a better life for themselves than what previous generations had been able to achieve.
What we have devolved into is a country that has embraced nihilism and collectivism and the ugly byproduct of that is that we no longer can agree on the definitions of words that have held fast for over a thousand years. How does a society function without that bedrock to stand on?
I know that this all sounds like I’m being a bit of a Debbie Downer and I probably am. Yet I find it hard to believe that the country of my youth led by the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, is now in this condition.
In Reagan’s letter announcing his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, he closed with a line that has always stuck with me and encapsulated his overall outlook for America. He wrote…
I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.
President Reagan had an unbridled optimism for this country and it is one of the many reasons why he is considered one of our nation’s greatest leaders. I’m currently having trouble seeing any bright dawns ahead for us now like the Gipper did and it makes me sad that the greatest republic the world has ever known may have finally run out of gas.
I pray to God that I am wrong.
Hillary's Remarks About Biden's Age Have a Lot of People Wondering
I think it’s fair to say that Joe Biden is going to have a tough time in a general election, whoever gets the nomination on the Republican side. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is already presenting a significant challenge to him, polling around 20 percent. As the Harvard Harris poll just showed, Donald Trump is up on Biden by 7 points, despite all the demonizing Democrats have done against him. A large majority of Americans don’t think Biden is mentally fit for the job, as well as have an issue with his age. Even many Democrats don’t want him to run. I’m sure that’s giving other Democrats ideas.
Enter Hillary Clinton. I’m wondering if Hillary Clinton saw that latter poll. You always see her parroting whatever is in the polls. If you listen to what she just said about Biden, she’s appearing to say nice things about him while dinting with faint praise and highlighting the big question that people have about Biden — his age. Unlike most prominent Democrats who don’t want to mention the age thing to undercut Biden, Hillary went there.
Hillary was at the “Financial Times Weekend” festival over the weekend when she was asked about Biden. Financial Times editor Edward Luce mentioned how Biden almost fell down the stairs in Japan,
“There was that heart-stopping moment when he almost fell over coming down the stairs a day or two ago,” Financial Times editor Edward Luce said. “He didn’t use a railing, and Jill wasn’t there with him.
Every time that happens, your heart is in your mouth because these things could be consequential. Is that a concern?” he asked.
Notice the “Jill wasn’t there with him” — the implicit understanding that she’s the handler. I wrote about that over the weekend. Had he fallen, he could have been badly hurt. Jill was leading him at other times during his stay in Japan.
Clinton then admitted that age was an issue for Biden.
“But his age is an issue, and people have every right to consider it,” Clinton added. “But, you know, he has this great saying – and I think he’s right – don’t judge him for running against the Almighty but against the alternative. I am of the camp that I think he’s determined to run; he has a good record that, three years ago, people would not have predicted would have gotten done.”
“He doesn’t get the credit yet for what is happening out in the country in terms of jobs and growth and planning for the future with CHIPS and other stuff,” Clinton added. “So, I obviously hope he stays very focused and able to compete in the election because I think he can be re-elected, and that’s what we should all hope for.”
That comment naturally had a lot of people thinking, “Here she goes again”: is she going to try to run and fully throw Joe under the bus? She hopes he “stays very focused and able to compete”? Does she think something’s going to happen to make him unable to compete, I mean besides the obvious incompetence and incoherence that doesn’t seem to be stopping him—and which he and his people have no shame about. Never mind that he’s destroyed the country, if she were actually truthful about what he’s done to it.
Speaking of shame, she should be hiding her head in shame and not showing her face in public after the release of the Durham Report, but she’s just as shameless as Biden. If she’s thinking anywhere in the back of that craven, power-hungry mind that she has a shot, she’s out of her mind.
Intermission – Don’t Forget to Smile, We’ll Get ‘Em
Our ally is anyone who stands beside us. Our enemy is anyone who doesn’t. The new sons and daughters of the revolution are going to look completely different.
The Green Dragon Tavern may be a bar room, a cafeteria, a church gathering, a picnic table or a tailgate. The assembly is not focused on the labels of the assembled. The mission is the purpose… The fight is wherever it surfaces…. When you doubt yourself, remember the bloodline you come from – and stand tall.
Protect the kids. Defend your family and community. Be smart. Train your brain to be smart, think like an insurgent. Never let them steal your peace and keep living your best life – they hate that. {Direct Rumble Link} WATCH:
Disgraceful NBC show plays victimhood with an assasin
The season finale of NBC’s Law & Order presents the assassin of a Senator who voted to protect the Second Amendment as the true victim.
Newsbusters.org noted that the episode centers on a teacher who survived a school shooting in which 16 students were killed.
The teacher, Derek Quinn, is also a gun control activist who shoots and kills Sen. Alan Chandler because Chandler changed his voting position from pro-gun control to against gun control.
Quinn fled the scene after shooting the Senator and is later discovered on boardwalk by law enforcement. He put a gun to his head when confronted, saying, “But that bastard Chandler got what he deserved.”
He added, “He should have never changed his vote! We need to stop all this gun craziness. How many more people have to die?”
Detective Jalen Shaw expresses sympathy for Quinn, convincing him to put down the gun and surrender.
District Attorney Jack McCoy announces charges against Quinn and While also using the opportunity to push gun control:
After considerable consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s office, we decided to prosecute this matter in state court. Gun violence is a national plague. The only way to effect real change is to move past all the political acrimony and pass strong and effective common-sense gun-control legislation. The question for all of us is– Had enough? We can’t become a place where people settle their political differences at the point of a gun or where talented and passionate men and women avoid public service out of fear for their lives.
Ironically, DA McCoy’s daughter is Quinn’s defense attorney and she is livid that her father is pursuing first degree murder charges against her client. She believes her client suffers PTSD from being in a school shooting and wants to see him go free.
DA McCoy does not express any specific gun controls when calling for “effective common-sense gun control legislation.” Rather, he simply pushes for something to be done, as so many gun controllers and Democrat office holders do in real life.
Quinn is eventually found guilty during the Law & Order season finale.
Hunter Biden Whistleblower Threatened For Internal Email Warning Of IRS Corruption
After an IRS whistleblower’s team was removed last week from the investigation into Hunter Biden, a letter to the IRS commissioner alleges threats and intimidation.
Last week, an IRS whistleblower alleging the Justice Department interfered with the Hunter Biden criminal probe was removed, along with his entire team, from participating in the ongoing investigation. The removal has raised questions about whether the Justice Department is engaged in political retaliation against the whistleblowers, in violation of whistleblower protection laws.
Now the IRS whistleblower’s attorney and the whistleblower advocacy group Empower Oversight have sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel providing further evidence of intimidation against the whistleblower’s team.
On May 18, a second IRS whistleblower sent an email to IRS leadership, including Werfel, expressing concern that he was being removed from the Hunter Biden criminal investigation after nearly five years of work on the case without an explanation. In response to the whistleblower’s letter, IRS officials responded by alleging that the whistleblower was committing a potential crime merely by asking IRS leadership why he was removed from the investigation. According to the letter:
In response to making his good faith expression of reasonable concerns—concerns shared by our client—the case agent had a right to expect that his email would be taken seriously, considered, and addressed professionally without retribution, as the law requires.
Instead, the IRS responded with accusations of criminal conduct and warnings to other agents in an apparent attempt to intimidate into silence anyone who might raise similar concerns. Specifically, the Assistant Special Agent in Charge emailed the case agent suggesting, without any basis, that he might have illegally disclosed 6(e) grand jury material in his email to you. While such a claim is utterly baseless and without support in the law or facts of this matter, the language of the response suggests the case agent may have been referred for investigation, an even more intimidating form of reprisal likely to chill anyone from expressing dissent. Furthermore, the Acting Special Agent in Charge issued a contemporaneous email to supervisors—including our client—admonishing employees to obey “the chain of command,” writing: “There should be no instances where case related activity discussions leave this field office without seeking approval from your direct report.”
The letter goes on to notify Werfel that, as IRS commissioner, he is responsible for making sure that whistleblowers are not retaliated against. In addition to being legally required to stop employees from threatening or otherwise attempting to silence whistleblowers from speaking to members of Congress about corruption, the letter specifically notes that the law is clear that agencies may not require that whistleblowers “seek[] approval from [their] direct report” before speaking out.
In fact, the whistleblower’s May 18 email to Werfel and other IRS leadership begins by explaining that he is concerned his objections are being internally silenced. [The relevant emails are attached to the letter from the whistleblower’s attorney and Empower Oversight to the IRS.] “First off, I apologize for breaking the managerial chain of command but the reason I am doing this is because I don’t think my concerns and/or words are being relayed to your respective offices,” he writes. The letter goes on to explain the difficulty the investigation has caused him personally:
There is a human impact to the decisions being made that no one in the government seems to care about or understand. I [REDACTED] have spent thousands of hours on the case, worked to complete 95% of the investigation, have sacrificed sleep / vacations / gray hairs etc., my husband and I (identifying me as the case agent) were publicly outed and ridiculed on social media due to our sexual orientation, and to ultimately be removed for always trying to do the right thing, is unacceptable in my opinion. Again, my leadership above my direct manager -who was also removed – didn’t even give me the common courtesy of a phone call, did not afford me the opportunity of understanding why this decision was made, and did not afford me an opportunity to explain my case. If this is how our leadership expects our leaders to lead, without considering the human component, that is just unacceptable and you should be ashamed of yourselves. I am continually asking myself, is this the kind of culture we want within the IRS and that I want to be a part of.
For the last couple of years, my SSA [Supervisory Special Agent] and I have tried to gain the attention of senior leadership about certain issues prevalent regarding the investigation. I have asked for countless meetings with our chief and deputy chief, often to be left out on an island and not heard from. The lack of [IRS Criminal Investigation] senior leadership involvement in this investigation is deeply troubling and unacceptable.
In response to the whistleblower’s email to IRS leadership, he received a terse reply from an Assistant Special Agent in the IRS Criminal Investigation division stating “You have been told several times that you need to follow your chain of command” and that “your email yesterday may have included potential grand jury (aka 6e material) in the subject line and the contents of the email.” What potential grand jury material was allegedly included is unclear.
The email sent by the whistleblower contains no discussion of particular details of the Hunter Biden investigation, only discussion of the whistleblower’s personal frustration at having been removed from the investigation and his inability to get IRS leadership to be responsive to his concerns.
Further, without communicating to IRS employees that the law clearly states that whistleblowers cannot be stopped from speaking to members of Congress, the second admonishment sent from the whistleblower’s supervisor declaring “there should be no instances where case related activity discussions leave this field office” is not accurate and could be viewed as an attempt to intimidate more employees from speaking out.
Why the Durham Report Matters – Part 3, Durham Did Not Touch the Julian Assange and DNC Hack Claim, More Silos
The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This DNC hack claim is the fulcrum issue structurally underpinning the Russian election interference narrative pushed by the Weissmann and Muller Special Counsel. However, this essential claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as outlined during a Dana Rohrabacher interview and by Julian Assange’s own on-the-record statements.
Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London immediately after the Weissmann/Muller report was released to Bill Barr. Despite investigating the background of the Trump-Russia nonsense, John Durham never touched the DNC hacking claim – the core of the Mueller report. Why? Because Durham knew the U.S. Government threw a bag over Assange to protect the fraudulent Trump-Russia and Russian interference claims.
Again, this reality speaks to the corruption within the John Durham investigation. Durham was protecting Weissmann, Mueller and the core of their justification for a 2-year investigation. Durham knows why Assange was arrested. Durham stayed away from it, intentionally.
The Russians HAD TO have made efforts to interfere in the election, or else the factual basis for the surveillance operation against candidate Donald Trump is naked to the world.
That’s why so much DOJ, FBI and Mueller special counsel energy was exhausted framing the predicate.
“Seventeen intelligence agencies,” The December 29th Joint Analysis Report, the expulsion of the Russian diplomats which was an outcropping of the JAR; the rushed January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment; shoving microphones in everyone’s faces and demanding they answer if they believed Russia interfered; all of it, and I do mean every bit of it, is predicated on an absolute DC need to establish that Russia Attempted to Interfere in the 2016 election.
The “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” (full pdf) is pure nonsense. It outlines nothing more than vague and disingenuous typical hacking activity that is no more substantive than any other hacking report on any other foreign actor. However, it was needed to help frame the Russian interference narrative.
There were no Russian diplomats involved; there was no Russian election interference; there was no Russian hacking of the DNC; it was all a fraud created by the intelligence community (IC), FBI and Main Justice to support Hillary Clinton’s lies and then cover their own targeting tracks.
On September 26, 2021, Yahoo News published an extensive article about the CIA targeting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017 and the extreme conversations that were taking place at the highest levels of the U.S. government about how to control him.
There is a much bigger story transparently obvious when overlapped with CTH research files on the Mueller investigation and the U.S. intelligence community. Specifically, the motive intentionally not outlined by Yahoo News.
What I am going to share is a deep dive using the resources and timeline from within that Yahoo article and the specific details we have assembled that paints a clear picture about what interests existed for the Deep State, the Intelligence apparatus and the Mueller-Weissmann special counsel.
This fully cited review is not for the faint of heart. This is a journey that could shock many; could alarm more and will likely force more than a few to reevaluate just what the purpose was for Mike Pompeo within the Donald Trump administration.
As the Yahoo News article begins, they outline how those within the Trump administration viewed Assange as a risk in 2017.
Here it is critical to accept that many people inside the Trump administration were there to control events, not to facilitate a policy agenda from a political outsider. In the example of Assange, the information he carried was a risk to those who attempted and failed to stop Trump from winning the 2016 election.
Julian Assange was not a threat to Donald Trump, but he was a threat to those who attempted to stop Donald Trump. In 2017, the DC system was reacting to a presidency they did not control. As an outcome, the Office of the President was being managed and influenced by some with ulterior motives.
Yahoo, via Michael Isikoff, puts it this way: “Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”
As we overlay the timeline, it is prudent to pause and remember some hindsight details. According to reports in November of 2019, U.S. Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. One quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state noted:
“One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that, “It is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”“. (Link)
It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official as there was extensive pre-2016 election evidence of an FBI/CIA counterintelligence operation that also involved U.K. intelligence services. There was an aspect to the FBI/CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control.
To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to FBI/CIA interests, and effectively the Mueller special counsel, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the FBI/CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok was clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.
By now, people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor generally identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the FBI/CIA to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep} John Durham ignored him.
In a similar fashion, the FBI tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent, under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos. Again, John Durham ignored it.
The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets legal and much easier. If Durham went into this intelligence rabbit hole, there would be a paper trail that leads back to Robert Mueller. Durham didn’t go there.
John Durham and IG Michael Horowitz both outlined how very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and Main Justice, yet that evidence was withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page and/or it was ignored. The FBI fabricated information in the FISA and removed evidence that Carter Page was previously working for the CIA. This is what FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was indicted and convicted for doing.
One week after the FBI and DOJ filed the second renewal for the Carter Page FISA [April 7, 2017], Yahoo News notes how Mike Pompeo delivered his first remarks as CIA Director:
[…] On April 13, 2017, wearing a U.S. flag pin on the left lapel of his dark gray suit, Pompeo strode to the podium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, to deliver to a standing-room-only crowd his first public remarks as Trump’s CIA director.
Rather than use the platform to give an overview of global challenges or to lay out any bureaucratic changes he was planning to make at the agency, Pompeo devoted much of his speech to the threat posed by WikiLeaks. (link)
Why would CIA Director Mike Pompeo be so concerned about Julian Assange and Wikileaks in April 2017?
In April of 2017 Pompeo’s boss, President Donald Trump, was under assault from the intelligence community writ large, and every deep state actor was leaking to media in a frenzied effort to continue the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.
The Trump-Russia effort was so all consuming that FBI Director James Comey was even keeping a diary of engagement with President Trump in order to support an ongoing investigation built on fraud – yet, Mike Pompeo is worried about Julian Assange.
Again, here it is important to put yourself back into the time of reference. Remember, it’s clear in the text messages between FBI Agent Strzok and Lisa Page that Peter Strzok had a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA.
♦ Former CIA Director John Brennan admitted Peter Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and it was also Peter Strzok who authored the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane.” Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Downer.
In short, Peter Strzok was a profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for 2016’s CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open-Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015; at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons. One, if not the primary extractors, has now been identified as Rodney Joffe at Neustar. “The campaign plot was outlined by Durham in a 27-page indictment charging former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false report to the FBI. The plot was also outlined in the finished Durham report. Eight individuals who allegedly conspired with Sussmann but does not identify them by name. The sources familiar with the probe confirmed that the leader of the team of contractors was Rodney L. Joffe.” {Go Deep}
It was also Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskaya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working as a double-agent for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S as part of his Trump-Russia creation.
Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting, back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan died in a helicopter crash.
Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against Republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s handler, was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where to send her. {Go Deep}
All of this context outlines the extent to which the FBI/CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit. A large international operation directed by the FBI/CIA, and domestic operations seemingly directed by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin] Durham eviscerated the predicate for all of this in his report, yet stayed away from the part that leads to Robert Mueller in 2017.
Recap: ♦Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Azra Turk, pretending to be Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI). ♦Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr (CIA, Fusion GPS). ♦Butina tasked against Trump, and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).
Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate.
All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence; and all of this intended to give a specific Russia impression. This predicate was what John Durham was reviewing in November of 2019, and then released in his final report – while whitewashing the parts that led to the Mueller silo.
The key point of all that contextual background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ and a multitude of political operatives put a hell of a lot of work into it.
We know John Durham looked at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This context is important because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks. This is where the motives of Mike Pompeo in mid/late 2017 come into play.
[…] By the summer of 2017, the CIA’s proposals were setting off alarm bells at the National Security Council. “WikiLeaks was a complete obsession of Pompeo’s,” said a former Trump administration national security official. (link)
On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:
On Tuesday April 15, 2019, more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….
The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.
Why the delay?
What exactly was the DOJ waiting for from March 2018 to April 2019?
This timeframe is the peak of the Robert Mueller/Andrew Weissmann special counsel investigation.
Here’s where it gets interesting….
The Yahoo article outlines, “there was an inappropriate level of attention to Assange“, by the CIA according to a national security council official. However, if you consider the larger ramifications of what Julian Assange represented to all of those people inside and outside government interests who created the Trump-Russia collusion/conspiracy, well, there was actually a serious risk.
Remember, in May 2017 Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann effectively took over the DOJ. The purpose of the Mueller investigation was to cover-up the illegal operation that took place in the preceding year. The people exposed in the Trump-Russia targeting operation included all of those intelligence operatives previously outlined in the CIA, FBI and DOJ operations. These are the people John Durham did not indict.
The FBI submission to the Eastern District of Virginia Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”
(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.
Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.
“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”
Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)
Dana Rohrabacher later published this account of the events:
Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative; and knowing that Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation – which included the use of Robert Mueller; it would make sense for corrupt government officials to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange.
That contact between Rohrabacher and Assange explains why those same government officials, would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.
Within three months of the grand jury seating (Nov/Dec 2017), the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018.
The EDVA then sat on the Julian Assange indictment while the Mueller/Weissman probe was ongoing.
As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).
As a person who researched this fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is not coincidental.
It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes. Again, John Durham stayed away from it!
♦ This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election.
This claim is the fulcrum underpinning the Russia election interference narrative. However, this core and essential claim is directly disputed by Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange’s on-the-record statements.
The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment (Peter Strzok); and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from another Michael Sussmann partner, Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike, yes another DNC contractor and collaborator with the Clinton campaign.
The CIA held a massive conflict of self-interest problem surrounding the Russian hacking claim as it pertained to their own activity in 2016. The FBI and DOJ always held a massive interest in maintaining the Russian hacking claim. Robert Mueller and Andrew Weismann did everything they could to support that predicate; and all of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also carried a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.
Julian Assange was/is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange claimed he has evidence it was from an inside DNC leak, not from a DNC hack.
The Russian “hacking” claim was ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K Intelligence apparatus. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public. And that is exactly what Main Justice and the U.S. intelligence community did.
This is why John Durham never touched it.
All of them know what happened.
All of them know why Julian Assange was taken from the Embassy in London. A bag had to be thrown over Assange in order to retain the justification for the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel and the larger Russian election interference claims. None of them do not know this. The all know.
Put the panel of Barr, Rosenstein, Horowitz, Mueller, Weissmann, Durham and Wray in front of congress. Ask each one: “who is Seth Rich?”
Then start asking the right questions about the timeline of Assange being arrested. Ask them about the DNC hack and Russian provenance according to Crowdstrike. Ask them key and specific questions about the FBI working with Crowdstrike and about the DOJ and EDVA case against Assange. Watch them squirm.
They all know what happened. SO DO WE!
Ask them questions about it in public. Watch them squirm.
