Grading the Second Trump Presidency, Six Months In

posted by Josh Hammer at Townhall 

Over the course of four years' banishment to America's political wilderness while subjected to both a would-be assassin's bullets and the humiliating and unprecedented spectacle of criminal prosecution by his political opponents, Donald Trump seems to have intuited a key life lesson: Time is of the essence. Carpe diem, seize the day. And so it has been. Like a thoroughbred bursting out of the Kentucky Derby starting gate, the second Trump administration has been racing full speed ahead ever since Trump was inaugurated once again as president of the United States. If the Derby is the "fastest two minutes in sports," then this has surely been the fastest six months in modern presidential history.

Awareness of life's ticking clock is important for any elected official, but it is particularly important for Trump. During his first term in office, much of Trump's agenda was derailed or sidetracked by forces beyond his direct control: an unexpected John McCain thumbs-down on the Obamacare repeal vote, "nationwide injunction"-happy lower-court judges, subversive administrative state actors, a bogus special counsel probe on Russian election interference, the COVID-19 pandemic, extraordinary Big Tech censorship and more. Based on these experiences and sobered from those long interregnum years, Trump adjusted his game plan this time around. And it shows.

Here, then, is a six-month Trump administration report card.

Economy: B+

There has been much in the way of genuinely great news on the economy. The stock market is considerably up since Trump resumed office, Trump's tariffs are bringing in substantial revenue to the Treasury, the president renewed his landmark 2017 tax cuts and cut taxes on tips and overtime pay, he has finalized historic trade deals with major powers, inflation has stayed relatively consistent, and blue-chip companies have announced massive domestic investments in the U.S. economy. On the other hand, inflation stubbornly remains a bit high, the tariff rollout has been bumpy at best, and the "One Big Beautiful Bill," while a net positive piece of legislation, only exacerbated America's glaring debt problem. Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, while still a great public service, also identified only a minuscule portion of federal bloat for rescission.

Domestic policy: A

The administration's broader domestic agenda has been, from a conservative perspective, extremely successful. Trump's war against the higher education establishment is long overdue and is already paying huge tangible dividends. Trump, through both court wins and crucial executive orders, has taken meaningful steps to curtail the administrative state Leviathan and consolidate executive power where it properly belongs: with the president himself. He has protected women's sports and female federal inmates from intimate exposure to biological males, protected vulnerable confused children from the irreversible depredations of transgender "medicine," and crushed the modern racism that is "diversity, equity and inclusion." He has secured numerous other decades-sought-after domestic conservative goals, such as (partially) defunding Planned Parenthood, defunding NPR and PBS, and vastly downsizing the Department of Education.

Immigration: A+

Trump has not disappointed on his longstanding signature political issue, immigration. Illegal border crossings and "gotaways" have impressively dropped to historic lows as Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and "border czar" Tom Homan have overseen the most effective border security and mass deportation operation in American history. There are no signs of slowing down, either. Perhaps even better, the administration has pursued its immigration enforcement agenda in a way that also redounds to its political interests -- from the Hamas-sympathizing former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil to the MS-13-tied "Maryland man" Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the administration's highest-profile immigration battles have been waged against unsavory and unsympathetic figures.

Law: A-

Lower-court judges have tried to nip the administration's agenda in the bud with ludicrous "nationwide injunctions," but most of those acts of judicial hubris will be brought to heel by Trump's recent Supreme Court victory in the CASA case. The administration has secured other crucial Supreme Court victories, including the Skrmetti case, which paved the way for states to protect vulnerable children from mutilating transgender "surgeries." And while judicial nominations have gotten off to a slower start than during the first Trump term, the administration's picks thus far for federal courts have invariably been top-notch. On the other hand, the administration might want to try to entice more conservative older judges to take "senior status" -- perhaps, for instance, by offering them shiny ambassadorships. Finally, the Jeffrey Epstein saga, while not the monstrous scandal-in-the-making some even on the MAGA Right make it out to be, has clearly not been handled particularly well.

Foreign policy: A

The Trump administration has reversed the Biden-era approach of rewarding geopolitical enemies and punishing geopolitical friends by returning to the more familiar approach he deployed during his first term: rewarding friends and punishing enemies. Trump's limited incursion in last month's 12-day war between Israel and Iran achieved the decades-sought-after goal of severely hampering Iran's nuclear program, while also not suffering a single American casualty or even boot on the ground. In Europe, NATO nations are already committing to spend more money on defense, thus freeing up the United States to focus first and foremost on its true rival: Communist China. Trump has brought peace to India and Pakistan and to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Russia-Ukraine peace deal remains elusive, but Trump has shown an admirable willingness to adjust in response to changing circumstances.

There is undoubtedly much work left to be done. Trump would probably be the first to say that himself. But his second administration is off to a very strong -- and fast -- start. Seize the day, indeed.

X22, And we Know, and more- July 25

 

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Revenge or Justice? — VDH

posted by Victor Davis Hanson at Townhall 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just released a trove of apparently once-classified documents -- with promises of much more to follow.

The new material describes the role of the Obama administration's intelligence and investigatory directors -- purportedly along with former President Barack Obama himself -- in undermining the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. In addition, their efforts extended to sabotaging the 2016-2017 presidential transition and, by extension, the first three years of the Trump presidency.

The released documents add some new details to what over the last decade has become accepted knowledge.

Congressional committees, special prosecutors, and the inspectors general had all previously issued reports that largely confirmed the general outlines of the skullduggery that began in 2015-16.

Hillary Clinton's campaign, later aided by the top echelon of the FBI, CIA, and the Director of National Intelligence, sought -- falsely -- to seed a narrative that Trump had colluded directly with Russia to win unfairly the 2016 election.

When that campaign gambit failed to alter the 2016 results, the Obama administration doubled down during the transition to undermine the incoming Trump presidency.

Next, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's "all-star" legal team found no evidence of direct Trump-Putin collusion to hijack the election. But his investigation did sabotage 22 months of Trump's first term, marked by constant leaks and hysterical rumors that Trump was soon to be convicted and jailed as a "Russian asset."

By 2020, the frustrated intelligence agencies and former "authorities" now absurdly further lied that Hunter Biden's incriminating laptop had "all the earmarks" -- once again -- of Russian interference.

So, what could be new about Gabbard's latest release?

One, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump but before his inauguration, Obama convened a strange meeting with his outgoing intelligence and investigatory heads -- CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and a few others.

Contrary to a four-year Democratic Party narrative that "18 intelligence agencies" had long claimed Russian collusion, the top directors apprised Obama that their expert colleagues had found no such evidence of Trump-Putin collusion.

Yet outgoing President Obama allegedly directed them to ignore such an assessment. Instead, they began spreading narratives that President-elect Trump had been colluding with the Russians.

Leaks followed. Media hysteria crested. And soon Mueller and his left-wing "dream team" of lawyers targeted President Trump.

Further new information may confirm that Brennan's CIA -- and those he briefed in the Oval Office -- had known for some time that the Russians themselves were confused about why they were falsely being accused of colluding with Trump to rig the election.

Of course, Russian operatives, like their Chinese counterparts, often seek to cause havoc in American institutions, such as hacking emails or spreading online disinformation. But they may have been nevertheless curious why Hillary Clinton was making such false accusations that they were working directly with Trump, and why the Obama administration was acting upon them.

Obama has now claimed these new charges are outrageous and beneath the dignity of the presidency.

He did not, however, flatly contradict the new information. He should have issued an unambiguous denial that he had never ordered his intelligence chiefs in December 2016 to ignore their associates' assessments and instead to assume Trump's collusion with Putin.

These sustained efforts of the Clinton campaign, Obama appointees, and ex-intelligence chiefs and their media counterparts between 2015 and 2020 severely undermined the 2016 Trump campaign.

They bushwhacked the 2017 presidential transition.

They hamstrung the Trump presidency.

And they may well have hurt Trump's 2020 election bid.

Summed up, here is the damage caused by the Trump-Putin collusion lies:

1. They emboldened "experts" in 2020 to again lie blatantly and shamelessly to the American people that the incriminating Hunter Biden laptop was yet another fake product of Russian interference to help reelect Trump.

2. The media were equally guilty. Journalists partnered with current and ex-Obama appointees by disseminating fake documents like the Steele dossier and working with giants like Twitter and Facebook. During the 2020 campaign, the FBI and social media sought to censor accurate news stories that the laptop was indeed authentic and already verified as such by the FBI.

3. These operations may have had serious consequences for U.S. foreign policy. Dictatorial Russia is an adversary of the U.S.

But by needlessly and falsely claiming that Russia had intervened in two elections directly to partner with Trump, Obama-era officials and Clinton campaign activists destroyed President Trump's own credibility to sustain a workable relationship with a nuclear Russia.

In addition, the lying and extra-legal operations of the FBI and CIA only further convinced the paranoid Russians that they could not trust the U.S. government -- given it had been engaging in the very conspiracy lies that were more akin to its own than America's.

Obama, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and others will likely never face legal consequences for the damage they've done to our institutions and foreign policy.

But that does not mean they should be exempt from an ongoing and disinterested effort to find and finally expose the whole truth.

DNI’s 100 Percent Transparent Response to Obama’s Disgusting Weak Sauce

Townhall 

There’s something deeply satisfying—like a perfect espresso shot—about watching someone caught red-handed still try to talk their way out of it with a straight face.

This week, that someone was Barack Obama.

In case you missed it (because legacy media sure hopes you did), Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard blew the lid off the most insidious political scandal in modern American history—and possibly all of it. She declassified over 100 pages of internal memos revealing what many of us already suspected: the Russia Hoax was never real, and worse—it was never believed by those peddling it.

That’s right. President Obama and his national security team—James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, and company—knew it was fake. But instead of telling the truth, they weaponized the intelligence community to frame Donald Trump and manipulate the American people. All under the noble banner of “protecting democracy.” You know, the kind of democracy where the elites decide who wins, and you just nod along and clap like trained seals.

According to the newly declassified documents, top intelligence officials before the 2016 election concluded that Russia lacked the intent or ability to meaningfully alter the outcome. But rather than going with that consensus, Obama’s team demanded a new “assessment”—one tailored to create a media firestorm, justify wiretaps, launch special counsels, and trigger three years of cable-news hysteria.

And what did Obama have to say Tuesday night when asked about this?

Brace yourself.

“Nothing in the new documents undermines the fact that Russia tried to influence the 2016 election.”

That’s it. That’s the response.

That’s the “Nothingburger with a side of deflection sauce” you get from the man who, it turns out, greenlit a political coup in a golf shirt. He didn’t deny the documents. He didn’t refute the facts. He just rolled out the same tired talking point—because if you squint hard enough and ignore every actual word in the memos, maybe you can still make it about Russia.

It’s weak. It’s cowardly. It’s beneath the dignity of the office he once held—which, frankly, is saying something.

And it gets worse.

Both DNI Gabbard and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt were crystal clear: this wasn’t some accidental intelligence misfire. This was intentional. This was coordinated. This was an inside job designed to sabotage an incoming president, undermine voters, and lie to the public with a straight face for years—all while calling you the threat to democracy.

The same people who wept about “norms” and “integrity” were gaslighting the entire country, knowing full well their narrative was hot garbage before they even printed the T-shirts.

And here’s the most infuriating part: nothing happens unless you make it happen.

The press won’t press. The Senate won’t subpoena. The House won’t hold hearings. And the DOJ won’t prosecute a single person for orchestrating the biggest political fraud in our nation’s history—unless they’re forced to.

So here’s what you do:

Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Tell your senators and representative:

“I demand full hearings and accountability over the newly declassified documents. If this scandal is as clear as the DNI says, it’s time to haul Brennan, Clapper, Rice—and yes, Obama—before Congress under oath. The American people deserve truth. And consequences.”

Because what happened here makes Watergate look like someone broke into a lemonade stand. This was a sitting president launching a campaign to keep the incoming president from taking office. He used fabricated intelligence, knowingly, to ignite a multi-year smear job, bankrupt good people, divide the nation, and poison our faith in elections.

That’s not “dirty politics.” That’s authoritarianism with a smile and a mic drop.

And don’t let anyone tell you this is old news. The cover-up just expired. The truth just hit daylight. And now the people who spent years lecturing you about democracy, rule of law, and “decency” are looking for the nearest rock to hide under.

Too late.

The declassification is done. The receipts are public. The lies are exposed.

And the only question left is: will Congress have the spine to do something about it?

Let’s find out—start dialing: 202-224-3121.

And to Barack Obama—if this is your defense, maybe sit the next scandal out. Your weak sauce just spoiled the entire kitchen.

🎭 𝐖𝟑𝐏 𝓓𝓐𝓘𝓛𝓨 𝓗𝓾𝓶𝓸𝓻, 𝓜𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓬, 𝓐𝓻𝓽, 𝓞𝓟𝓔𝓝 𝓣𝓗𝓡𝓔𝓐𝓓

 

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No politics or divisive posts on this thread. 

This feature will appear every day at 1pm mountain time. 

Cat Lady Claims the Blue Angels Killed Her Cat, So Now Seattle Hippies Want to Kill the Blue Angels

RedState 

Some people are just nuts about their pets. A few days ago, I was talking to a buddy at my home. He told me one of his employees was about to spend $14,000+ on his dog...to replace a hip. I didn’t even think that was possible. Maybe that’s why the cost is so ridiculous. I turned to my dog and announced, 

“Sorry, but if your hip goes south, so do you.” 

She looked up at me, wagging her tail. As much as we want them to understand English, they don’t. They understand commands. They understand that they are part of the “pack”. But notwithstanding lots of movies and animated films to the contrary, our pets don't speak English.  

In Seattle, a woman named Lauren Ann Lombardi has “sued” three Navy personnel, two Blue Angel pilots, and the Blue Angels' social media admin in federal court. Why? Her cat died. Lombardi dressed her cat, named Layla, in a dress and a lace choker. Maybe it died from embarrassment? Nah, she lived in Seattle. It died from a vet's shot in its hindquarters. But Lombardi claims it died from the trauma of jets flying over Lake Washington during an annual event called “Seafair.”

Layla, who suffered from congestive heart disease, allegedly became physically ill from the sound of the squadron’s low-flying F/A-18 fighter jets. 

Lombardi says the noise triggered panic attacks and dangerously elevated Layla’s heart rate, ultimately leading to her euthanasia in August 2024. 

“Layla’s final days on Earth were marred by sadistic suffering — cowering in terror beneath furniture while her ailing heart struggled against the Blue Angels' relentless noise pollution. Layla died knowing only fear when she should have known only love,” the lawsuit read. 

Yeah, okay, cat lady.  

Lombardi’s Instagram account was blocked by the Navy because she was cussing out the Blue Angels. Cat Lady (okay, ex-cat lady) wants her Instagram unblocked and for the Navy pilots to undergo “First Amendment Training,” whatever that is supposed to mean. She filed in Seattle, so who can guess what the District Court judge will do? Maybe the Navy attorney will remind her that she euthanized Layla, not the Navy. Does she have a case? In a sane city, no. But this is the land of Chaz. All bets are off. It's Seattle. 

Layla's "cat-mom" isn't the only nut on the crazy tree. Lombardi is part of a group petitioning Seattle to shut down the airshow entirely. The petition reads in part: 

We can reimagine Seafair as a sustainable event that is diverse, inclusive, non-polluting, non-threatening, and absolutely delightful. We can replace the loud gas-fueled and carbon emitting boats and planes with clean and quiet electric ones. We can introduce new events to expand the definition of the water festival. We can take the best of Seattle and modernize this event to be relevant in a new era of growing pollution impacts, and do no harm to our fellow neighbors and welcome all.

Dude...

But now, they've pulled out the big guns - they're firing from both wings. There's a billboard that reads: 

"Too Loud"

"War Trauma" 

"Pollution"

It looks like five people are under the board holding cardboard signs. Five.

The people depicted on the billboard are: A Muslim woman wearing a hijab, a black guy (because he has an Afro), another "POC" guy (I am guessing, but he likely represents the "undocumented" because he's covering his ear and closing his eyes, and a token pasty white guy. Oh, and a dog. The dog is baying at... the Blue Angels, so the billboard seemed to have covered most of the bases. No rainbow flag, so they'll get a stern talking to.  

Aedan McCall, the main designer for the billboard, lived on Mercer Island for over 10 years, where the Blue Angels fly overhead. McCall said they experienced the “fallout effects” of the show.

McCall said it’s a reason they ended up leaving Mercer Island.

“The sheer amount of carbon emissions the Blue Angels create — 670 tons in one weekend — is immense and wasteful on top of being a big display of U.S. militarism,” McCall said.

In the land of CHAZ, the nuts don't fall far from the nut tree.  

DOJ Civil Rights Div. Head Harmeet Dhillon Details Her First 100 Days Fighting DEI

RedState 

During a hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon provided compelling testimony about how the Trump administration is rapidly weeding out discriminatory policies and practices across America.

Dhillon used the "Ending Illegal DEI Discrimination & Preferences: Enforcing Our Civil Rights Laws" hearing as a report card on her tenure after the first 100 days in office, in which she said "under the leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi," they have been working diligently to "end illegal DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] for all Americans," including in education and the workplace.

Some of the highlights she shared with the committee members on ending DEI in education:

"As a result of multifaceted investigations into illegal, DEI-based discrimination, harassment, and abuse at major, so-called elite universities and colleges," the Civil Rights Division is talking with "many educational institutions" to end all of their DEI programs. She added that these include law, medical, and nursing schools.

As part of that effort, Dhillon said they are continuing to investigate 'rampant antisemitism' on campus. The division is in discussions with those schools to end "antisemitic abuse" there.

Dhillon mentioned that in addition to those efforts, in April, they opened investigations into 50 universities, "sending letters requesting any changes to admissions processes" that run counter to fair admissions standards.

Another investigation looks into "racially discriminatory admissions practices at selective public high schools," she said. And that was just the beginning, as you can see in the video at the bottom of the page.

Dhillon didn't mince words when answering a senator's question, saying what she thinks of first when she heard the initials "DEI" - "discrimination, exclusion, and intolerance":

She added that her office is depending on both the public and whistleblowers "within these organizations" to let the DOJ know when workplaces and universities are "continuing to perpetuate illegal discrimination" by hiding it under "false rebranding" of what's happening.

During questioning from Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), Dhillon gave examples of both university admissions processes and employers' hiring practices that continue to break the law:

This is what we voted for--and it doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

You can watch her full remarks at the hearing in the video below:

The Wall Street Journal’s Epstein Reports Are Kind Of Proving Trump’s Point

The Federalist 

I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not going to be taken for another Russiagate ride, particularly now that this new would-be scandal comes with the added bonus of centering on a child sex trafficking operation. No thanks!

The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday ran another story in a week’s time purporting to uncover President Trump’s attempts to conceal the extent of his past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. This time the paper reported that Trump was informed by Justice Department officials that his name turns up repeatedly in the “Epstein files,” and that the information was relayed to him before his administration announced there would be no more public disclosures on the case.

As a lot of people have already acknowledged, Trump’s name turning up in the file isn’t some shock development given that the public already knew that the two men knew each other personally. And as the Journal itself said, “Being mentioned in the records isn’t a sign of wrongdoing.”

But of course, the point here isn’t to definitively determine whether the president is guilty of wrongdoing. It’s to continue feeding a narrative that he might have and to imply that by declining to endlessly indulge each new accusation related to Epstein, he’s creating more suspicion and thus inviting more scrutiny. Agitate, rinse, and repeat. That’s what happened with Russiagate, and that’s why Trump now, as he did back then, is calling the story a hoax.

I’ve been here before, and I’m not interested. When the Journal has a documented confession or smoking gun photograph proving that Trump partook in Epstein’s misdeeds, or even that he’s trying to hide them for any reason at all, feel free to let me know. But I’m not going to spend years like we did on Russiagate, allowing the dying media to trickle out little suggestions fed to them by unnamed bureaucrats that something is afoul, while proving nothing. Nobody should tolerate it.

On top of the Journal’s report that Trump’s — gasp! — name is in the “files,” the paper also claims to have seen some typewritten letter and doodle-like drawing from Trump to Epstein for the now-dead man’s 50th birthday in 2003. Trump denies that he’s the author, and there’s no proof that he is. Next!

That’s the problem though. There will be a next “exclusive,” and then another and another, each one intended to chip away at Trump’s support and thus his political agenda and ultimately his legacy. You can follow along or skip to the end, at which point you’re likely to see you’ve been had again.

Politico Wants You To Believe The Massive Russiagate Scandal Is Just A Story About Trump’s ‘Impulses’

The Federalist 

Politico severely downplayed the latest news regarding one of the biggest presidential scandals in history as merely an “impulse” by the Trump administration on Thursday. The outlet has a long history of peddling the fully fabricated, years-long Russia collusion hoax.

Politico’s “Playbook,” which was sponsored by Planned Parenthood in April, is the “unofficial guide to official Washington” that rounds up the biggest news in D.C. Under its “Democracy” section, Politico barely alluded to the administration’s move to declassify information that could lead to Obama being investigated for “criminal implications,” suggesting instead that the Trump administration is “follow[ing] through on his angriest and most authoritarian impulses.” The quote is from a New York Times article, the only article Politico chose to highlight on the matter, which claims Trump is “seeking prosecution of his most prominent rivals — this time with aides more inclined to carry out his wishes.”

The recently declassified material makes it clear that the Obama administration “manufactured” intelligence and used shoddy information to launch the widespread lie that Russia helped Trump win the 2016 election — an action that DNI Tulsi Gabbard described as “treasonous” during a White House press briefing on Wednesday. 

In Thursday’s post, Politico deemed birthdays and random information as newsworthy, like Benjamin Franklin’s appearance on the “250th anniversary stamps from the Postal Service,” Rep. Ro Khanna recording a podcast with Barstool Sport’s “@PFTCommenter and Arian Foster,” and Pete Buttigieg “making another appearance on The Breakfast Club.”

Yet the outlet left the news about the monumental scandal as the last point in their “Democracy” section, buried under paragraphs about the “Epstein list.” Even Politico acknowledged that public information regarding the Epstein matter “does not point to a crime on Trump’s part.”

Politico was already downplaying the news on Wednesday, characterizing Tulsi Gabbard’s release of the bombshell House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence information as the “latest push to cast doubts on Russia assessment.”

Near the beginning of the Russiagate campaign of lies, Politico published an article titled “Here’s What America Needs to Know About Trump and Russia.” Citing the CIA, Politico claimed that “Russia hacked both the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, and the goal was to help Trump win.”

In a 2018 article titled “Trump Is Russia’s Weapon — Not Its End State,” Politico asserted that “Russia gave Trump a boost.” Politico also published an entire article dedicated to “debunking” Russiagate “conspiracy theories advanced by the president or his allies.” This article peddled the claim that the “the yearslong investigation into whether President Donald Trump or members of his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia” was “adequately predicated” and free from “political bias.”

In 2019, the Trump administration filed a $25 million lawsuit against Politico, including its reporter Natasha Bertrand, for “lying, deceit and unethical conduct” for stories regarding “what the president was told about the situation in Ukraine,” Fox News reported.

Bertrand built her career on consistent Russiagate lies published in Politico and even published the letter signed by 51 intelligence officials to propagate the lie that Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” was a Russian disinformation. Two former Politico reporters, Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri, said they were told, “Don’t write about the laptop,” while Politico set the premise that the laptop was merely propaganda.

Politico’s current campaign to ignore the revelations about Russiagate does not come as a surprise, because, as The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman noted of the corporate media, “Reporting honestly on the newly declassified findings would mean admitting they are indeed propagandists and were involved in peddling a hoax.”

‘This Should NOT Be Included’ — Read Intel Officials’ Objections To ‘Extremely Sketchy’ Steele Dossier

Officials warned the Steele dossier suffered from ‘POOR SOURCE TRADECRAFT’ and compared it to the National Enquirer.

The Federalist

Senior intelligence officials strenuously fought the demands of former FBI Director James Comey and other Obama intelligence chiefs to include the false and unverified Steele dossier in an official assessment of Russian activities ordered by President Barack Obama in the closing weeks of his presidency, records reviewed exclusively by The Federalist show. The records, which are related to ongoing criminal investigations into Comey and other top intelligence officials for their roles in launching the Russia collusion hoax, provide damning evidence of Obama intelligence chiefs’ malfeasance beyond the explosive information released Wednesday by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.

Previous government investigations into the Russia collusion hoax dryly described the opposition merely as officials having “expressed concern” about using the infamous Steele dossier because it was “not completely vetted.” But records reviewed by The Federalist reveal career intelligence officials expressed outright shock at the poor quality of the reporting that the FBI repeatedly insisted be included in the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) — and objected to any reference to the dodgy dossier.

“Based solely on what we DO know now, my bottom line is this – unless FBI is prepared to provide much better sourcing – I believe this should NOT be included in the paper,” one official wrote, caps and all. Noting that the document had not been formally issued as an FBI product, the official stressed it suffered from “POOR SOURCE TRADECRAFT,” had “extremely sketchy” sourcing, and “simply does not meet normal [intelligence community] standards.”

The Steele dossier, a product of the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, was a collection of salacious and unverified stories about rival presidential candidate Donald Trump supposedly colluding with Russia. Clinton secretly funded the information operation and the group she hired to create the dossier spread the false information it contained to reporters, politicians, and the FBI.

Recent disclosures from Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe revealed that Obama and his top intelligence officials coordinated an information operation against President-elect Donald Trump to falsely paint him as having colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. First, they suppressed a Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, that concluded that Russia’s election activities did not affect the election. President-elect Trump and his incoming National Security Advisor Mike Flynn would have received a copy of the PDB had the Obama administration not eighty-sixed the final report mere hours before its publication.

Then, at the direction of Obama and under the tight fist of disgraced former CIA Director John Brennan, a small cabal in the intelligence community rushed out the ICA which fraudulently concluded Russia meddled in the election to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election. (Earlier exclusive reporting by The Federalist revealed how CIA Director John Brennan overruled and disparaged top officials who complained that his claim about Russia’s preference for Trump had “no evidence” to support it.)

Former FBI Director James Comey’s demand the ICA include the Steele dossier helped Brennan develop the false but explosive narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in order to help Trump. Intelligence officials immediately pushed back on including the dossier in the ICA, with one senior official recorded as saying, in materials reviewed exclusively by The Federalist, that the fact that the source was paid at first by an “anti-Trump Republican, and later a different Democrat client” meant the author knew what his clients wanted. He “clearly had a motive to pass along info, however poorly sourced, since it generated revenue,” the official warned.

Intelligence officials also worried that Steele had relied on sub-sources whose identity and credibility were unknown to the FBI. The concern was validated in January 2017 when interviews with the primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, showed the document’s scurrilous allegations lacked credibility. Rather than admit their error, FBI officials continued to defend their use of the dossier for years and hid Danchenko’s identity from congressional scrutiny by hiring him as an informant.

FBI officials insisted to the officials working on the ICA that the information in the dossier was good. One intelligence official wondered why, if the information was as good as the FBI claimed, Democrats did not deploy it against Trump during the campaign, the records stated.

The FBI countered that Steele was a credible source whose reporting had, at least somewhat, been corroborated. The intelligence officials were skeptical.

“If, as we have been told, FBI has some corroborating material from an ongoing investigation, can that be used? I thought they never do that? If they feel this overrides the investigation, some of the corroborating reporting must be included in the paper. If not, I would argue for dropping the page,” the official said, explaining in detail “Why we should oppose inclusion of the FBI material.”

The previously unreported records reviewed by The Federalist also showed the FBI stressing that since the Steele dossier was already “out there,” it should be included in the body of the ICA.

A senior intelligence official eviscerated the argument, responding: “Just how ‘out there’ is it? All we know for sure is that much of the content of the document appeared in [Mother Jones] in October and a copy of something is in Sen. McCain’s hands.” The senior official added that including the dossier in the ICA would essentially confirm the salacious reporting, punctuating his point by comparing the Steele reporting to a December 12, 2016 National Enquirer story headlined, “MUSLIM SPIES IN OBAMA’S CIA!” That article included quotes from sources alleging that the agency had 55 double agents, so the analyst asked rhetorically if that detail should be included in an intelligence assessment as well.

Notwithstanding these many flaws, the materials reviewed exclusively by The Federalist show assistant director of the FBI Counterintelligence Division Bill Priestap, on December 22, 2016, lobbying one of the officials working on the ICA to put the dossier “in the body” of the assessment and not in a separate box or appendix. Priestap added the FBI felt “strongly” that the information be included in the text.

Disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok would also later call one of the officials working on the ICA to lobby for the inclusion of the Steele dossier in the ICA. “According to Pete, Comey does not want the text we discussed in the appendix but wants it in the main body somehow,” the recently reviewed records explained. Strzok added that the FBI “needed to have the information in the body of the paper,” with the since fired FBI agent stressing the Bureau had confidence in Steele because of his past work.

While Steele had previously served as an FBI source, a review of the quality of his reporting established it had been only “minimally corroborated.” Nonetheless, FBI officials suggested the Clinton-paid source had a track record that had withstood judicial scrutiny in cases.

“My overarching concern is that inclusion of this sensationalist data would lead to many problems,” an exasperated senior intelligence official responded to the FBI’s demand that the ICA include the dossier, apparently not realizing that the problems Steele’s claims would cause were precisely why the boosters of the dossier wanted it included in the ICA.

Comey and his cronies were able to legitimize their fraudulent Steele dossier by including it as a substantiating piece of evidence for the false claim Russia intervened in the election to help Trump win. The ICA referred to the dossier as “Russian plans and intentions” as opposed to the manufactured and uncorroborated claims of people working on a campaign project for Hillary Clinton. A lengthy two-page summary was added as an appendix. That served the deep-state’s purpose, as it gave an unwarranted heft to the narrative that Russia wanted Trump to win the 2016 election.

“By devoting nearly two pages of ICA text to summarizing the dossier in a high-profile assessment intended for the President and President-elect, the ICA misrepresented both the significance and credibility of the dossier reports,” House of Representatives overseers wrote in a a long-suppressed analysis of the flaws in the ICA.

The inclusion of the Steele dossier in the appendix to the ICA also provided an excuse for those pushing the Russia-collusion hoax to brief Obama and Trump on the unverified and salacious details. Soon after, the fact of the ICA briefing and details of the Steele dossier leaked to CNN, launching a new front in the war against Trump. Just as the senior career official predicted, the inclusion of the manufactured Steele dossier served to legitimize its allegations despite their lack of veracity.

With their complicity in peddling the Russia-collusion hoax, no wonder then that the legacy media refuse to report on the recent revelations concerning the manipulation of the ICA.