Two Republican Representatives call for making intelligence memo on the Russia investigation public
Earlier today the House Intelligence Committee voted to make a memo related to FISA abuses available to the entire House of Representatives and then Ron DeSantis called to make this available to the public as well.
Here is more:
DeSantis said the classified report compiled by the House Intelligence Committee is “deeply troubling” and raises serious questions as it relates to the ‘Russian collusion’ investigation.
Rep. DeSantis then called for the highly top secret report to be made public because “the American people deserve to know the truth”.
DeSantis tweeted, “The classified report compiled by House Intelligence is deeply troubling and raises serious questions about the upper echelon of the Obama DOJ and Comey FBI as it relates to the so-called collusion investigation.”
DeSantis then said, “While the report is classified as Top Secret, I believe the select committee should, pursuant to House rules, vote to make the report publicly available as soon as possible. This is a matter of national significance and the American people deserve the truth.”
He was not alone in calling for the memo to be made public; Matt Gaetz said the contents of this memo “go to the very foundations of our democracy” and called for its release to the public.
“The allegations contained in this important intelligence document go to the very foundations of our democracy, and they require an immediate release to the public in my opinion,” Gaetz said. “Unfortunately, I can not talk about the specific facts contained within this memo. I can only share my observation — that if the American people knew what was happening if they saw the contents of this memo, a lot would become clear about the information that I’ve been talking about the last several months. And so, I am calling on our leadership to hold a vote on the floor of the House to make public the key contents of this intelligence memo regarding the FBI, the Department of Justice and President Trump.”
What these men should have done was release this memo to the public on their own just as Dianne Feinstein did with Glenn Simpson’s testimony. Surely Democrats who have been praising Dianne Feinstein for her courage in releasing the testimony would not suddenly change their position if either man did the same, right…
But on a serious and non sarcastic note, I have said for awhile Democrats may rue the day they pushed the false Trump/Russia collusion scandal and just maybe now the dominoes will begin to fall. Dianne Feinstein’s decision backfired on the Democrats when we began to see what is in the testimony and now, hopefully, the floodgates will open.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony calls into question the motive behind the Russian dossier
Some interesting information is starting to come out from the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony which was leaked by Dianne Feinstein last week. First we learned that Glenn Simpson testified that they had a source close to Donald Trump who corroborated some of the information in the Russian dossier, but once the testimony was leaked Fusion GPS walked back the claim, saying Glenn Simpson “misrepresented” the facts. In other words, there was no source close to Donald Trump.
Now we are learning from this story that Glenn Simpson basically admitted that he might have let his bias cloud his thinking. Here is more:
In testimony released publicly last week, Glenn R. Simpson, the co-founder of the controversial opposition research firm Fusion GPS conceded that he opposed Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and that his negative opinions of the politician may have “entered” into his “thinking.”
Here is part of the testimony in question:
I think it’s safe to say that, you know, at some point probably early in 2016 I had reached a conclusion about Donald Trump as a businessman and his character and I was opposed to Donald Trump. I’m not going to pretend that that wouldn’t have entered into my thinking.
You know, again, I was a journalist my whole life. So we were, you know, trained not to take sides and practiced in not taking sides. So most of what I do as a research person is we try to avoid getting into situations where one’s etiology or political views would cloud your work because it’s a known hazard, but, you know, I reached an opinion about Donald Trump and his suitability to be president of the United States and I was concerned about whether he was the best person for the job.
So this sounds like he is saying as a journalist he was trained not to take sides and he admits while doing research he tries not to let a person’s political views cloud his work but in this case he might not have lived up to that expectation.
That statement in and of itself is not damning, however when his bias is combined with the portion of his testimony which led to this statement in the first place it is quite damning indeed:
“Another thing we say about our work is it’s custom information, it’s a customized product. You tell us what your problem is and we customize a research solution.”
If you pay Fusion GPS to help you with a problem the firm will provide you with a solution, and as the Russian dossier has shown us it does not necessarily have to be true. Fusion GPS will give you what you want for a price. If you can get the “solution” you want for a price it certainly seems as if Fusion GPS is just a gun for hire.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Did Robert Mueller and Andrew McCabe hide bribery probe before the Uranium One deal was approved?
You might have missed it but over the weekend it was reported that the first indictment was handed down over the Uranium One deal. If you missed it here is a little information:
Friday’s 11-count indictment of former uranium transportation company executive, Mark Lambert, was the latest in a series of DOJ prosecutions involving individuals linked to the Russian nuclear industry and the Uranium One deal.
According to the indictment, Lambert and others at Transport Logistics International (TLI) engaged in several counts of bribery, kickbacks and money laundering with Russian nuclear official Vadim Mikerin, in order to secure business advantages with TENEX – a subsidiary of Rosatom, the Kremlin’s state-owned energy company which bought Uranium One.
However, according to the same article there were actually four convictions related to the Uranium One deal which went unreported:
Four individuals were eventually prosecuted and given plea agreements after the Uranium One deal was approved. The prosecuting DOJ attorneys? Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and top Mueller investigator in the Trump-Russia probe, Andrew Weissman – who praised former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for defying Trump.
Unsurprisingly, all four indicted individuals were handed extremely light sentences, none of which made headlines.
These four individuals were given plea deals after the Uranium One deal was approved but they were being investigated by the FBI before the deal was approved and according to the article the investigation into these individuals was hidden from Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States to ensure the deal was approved.
In fact, Robert Mueller’s FBI had been investigating the scheme since at least 2008 – with retiring Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe assigned to the ongoing investigation which was hidden from the Committee on Foreign Investments in the Untid States (CFIUS). Had they known, the committee never would have approved the Uranium One deal with TENEX’s parent company, Rosatom.
If this is true this is a blockbuster revelation! But why would the FBI hide this information, could we be getting closer to Hillary Clinton? The judge who handed down the light sentences was a Barack Obama appointee and served as an adviser to Hillary Clinton during her tenure as Secretary of State…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Fusion GPS walks back claim that they had a source in the Trump camp
When Dianne Feinstein leaked the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony to the Congress the big news which came out was that the reason Fusion GPS took the dossier so seriously is because it was corroborated by somebody in Donald Trump’s circle.
Mr. Simpson testified, “Essentially what he told me was they had other intelligence about this matter from an internal Trump campaign source and that — that they — my understanding was that they believed Chris at this point — that they believed Chris’s information might be credible because they had other intelligence that indicated the same thing and one of those pieces of intelligence was a human source from inside the Trump organization.”
This is a claim he reiterated in an op-ed piece he wrote for the New York Times:
“As we told the Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated reports the bureau had received from other sources, including one inside the Trump camp,” he wrote.
Democrats immediately jumped on this as proof that the dossier is not phony and they thought they finally found the smoking gun they have been looking for for over one year. However, Glenn Simpson is now walking back that claim. Fusion GPS is now saying this was a “misrepresentation” of the facts.
“A source close to Fusion GPS tells me there was no walk-in source––that was a mischaracterization by Simpsonof the Australian diplomat tip about Papadopoulis [sic],” tweeted NBC reporter Ken Dilanian.Whether the source the FBI supposedly told Mr. Steele about could be Mr. Papadopoulos is doubtful. He has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about issues surrounding his contacts with the professor. The criminal complain says the FBI did not interview him until January 2017, three months after Mr. Steele met with the agents in Rome.The story corrections correction caught the eye of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, Iowa Republican, who on Thursday sent off a letter to Fusion attorney Joshua Levy. Mr. Grassley demanded to know why Mr. Levy did not correct the record after spending hours reviewing the transcript in October and November or contact the committee last Tuesday.” If it is true that your client’s statement to the Committee was a mischaracterization, why did you not attempt to correct your client’s statement as soon as you and/or he realized it was not accurate?” the senator wrote. Mr. Levy did not return a message seeking comment.
Charles Grassley asks a great question; why wasn’t this correction made once the error was known? The correction was only made once the transcript of the testimony was made public by Dianne Feinstein, leading one to believe the correction would not have been made if they were not caught in a lie, er I mean, “mischaracterization.”
Ironically Dianne Feinstein might have done the President a favor when she leaked the testimony…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, January 14th open thread: ‘Don’t Run Wild’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, January 14th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 5 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. I understand that all of you are busy and cannot always find the time to check the blog for updates so why not subscribe to America’s Watchtower and receive email updates whenever I write a new post? That is the easiest way to follow the blog to ensure you never miss another post.
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The Del Fuegos were a local Boston band who achieved a little bit of success in the 1980’s. I was not able to find any live videos of them back in the day so here they are performing “Don’t Run Wild” live at a much later–although undetermined–date.
frui diem
Court orders the FBI to turn over James Comey’s memos for review
As you all know, James Comey leaked memos of conversations he had with Donald Trump to a friend at Columbia University and asked him to leak the documents to the New York Times with the admitted purpose of forcing the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the allegations of Russian collusion during the 2016 election.
Last night a judge ordered the FBI to turn over the documents to the court for review. Here is what Judicial Watch had to say about this news:
The court, in seeking to review the documents, shows it doesn’t trust the FBI or Justice Department’s representations about the infamous Comey memos. We hope now that Americans are one step closer to knowing the facts about these memos, which were written and leaked for pernicious purposes to target a sitting president with a criminal investigation. It’s high time they begin to see the light of day. We’re glad the court followed up on our specific suggestion that it review the documents directly.
It has been reported that at least 4 of James Comey’s memos contained classified information and Judicial Watch has claimed all of his memos were classified. If the court decides this is true James Comey could be in some trouble here because the friend he leaked the memos to did not have the proper security clearance.
These memos were ordered to be handed over by next week to the U.S. District Court District of Columbia and we know that is one of the most liberal courts in the nation. Is this a legitimate request seeking the truth or will the 9th Circuit use this as cover for James Comey by saying move along, nothing to see here?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Newsflash! The cold snap was not caused by global warming
From Christmas right up until this week much of the United States was engulfed in frigid weather. Global warming alarmists and fear-mongerers claimed that global warning was to blame for the cold weather but the National Center for Atmospheric Research has conducted a quick study and found this was not the case.
Here is more:
Consider this cold comfort: A quick study of the brutal American cold snap found that the Arctic blast really wasn’t global warming but a freak of nature.
Frigid weather like the two-week cold spell that began around Christmas is 15 times rarer than it was a century ago, according to a team of international scientists who does real-time analyses to see if extreme weather events are natural or more likely to happen because of climate change.
The cold snap that gripped the East Coast and Midwest region was a rarity that bucks the warming trend, said researcher Claudia Tebaldi of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the private organization Climate Central.
The study, based on observations and statistics, did not find evidence for a popular scientific theory that links melting Arctic sea ice to blasts of cold air escaping the top of the world.
The theory, which is still debated by scientists but gaining credence among many, is based on pressure changes and other factors that cause the jet stream to plunge and weather systems to get stuck. But the latest analysis didn’t find such evidence.
In other words, the reason why it has been so cold since Christmas is because it is Winter and it gets cold during Wintertime. Who woulda thunk it?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Fusion GPS admits they used John McCain to pass Russian dossier to intelligence agencies
It has been widely reported that John McCain was the person who provided the United States intelligence agencies with the Russian dossier. Now it is being reported here that Fusion GPS admitted using John McCain to pass on the mostly discredited document. Here is more:
The founders of the controversial opposition research firm Fusion GPS admitted that they helped the researcher hired to compile the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump to share the document with Sen. John McCain.
The goal of providing the dossier to McCain, the Fusion GPS founders explained, was to pass the information contained in the questionable document to the U.S. intelligence community under the Obama administration.
The disclosure raises questions about whether McCain knew that the information he delivered to the intelligence community was actually an opposition document reportedly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Writing in a New York Times oped last Tuesday, Fusion GPS founders Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritch relate that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the intelligence community via an “emissary.”
“After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary,” the Fusion GPS founders related. “We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States national security community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power.”
It was not clear from their statement whether McCain knew Fusion GPS was behind the dossier. Fusion GPS paid former intelligence agent Christopher Steele to do the purported research for the document. Steele later conceded in court documents that part of his work still needed to be verified.
There really isn’t much new here, we already knew John McCain is the person who provided the FBI with the dossier, but it does show us that Fusion GPS was working behind the scenes to make sure the document ended up in the FBI’s hands and it does show us John McCain was a willing dupe. And at the time Fusion GPS knew the document was not verified, the questions are; did John McCain know it was unverified? And if he did, did he care? These are relevant questions now that we know this dossier was opposition research funded by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Peter Strzok has come under scrutiny since we learned he was removed from the Russia investigation by Robert Mueller after some anti-Trump text messages to his mistress Lisa Page were discovered. Since that time we learned the two lovers were discussing an “insurance policy” to make sure Donald Trump did not become the President. It is widely believed at this time that the “insurance policy” they were discussing was the Russian dossier.
We are now learning, according to this story, that the Congress is investigating texts between the two which might show they were leaking information to the mainstream media, here is more:
Republican-led House and Senate committees are investigating whether leaders of the Russia counterintelligence investigation had contacts with the news media that resulted in improper leaks, prompted in part by text messages amongst senior FBI officials mentioning specific reporters, news organizations and articles.
In one exchange, FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and bureau lawyer Lisa Page engaged in a series of texts shortly before Election Day 2016 suggesting they knew in advance about an article in The Wall Street Journal and would need to feign stumbling onto the story so it could be shared with colleagues.
“Article is out, but hidden behind paywall so can’t read it,” Page texted Strzok on Oct. 24, 2016.
“Wsj? Boy that was fast,” Strzok texted back, using the initials of the famed financial newspaper. “Should I ‘find’ it and tell the team?”
The text messages, which were reviewed by The Hill, show the two FBI agents discussed how they might make it appear they innocently discovered the article, such as through Google News alerts.
“I can get it like I do every other article that hits any Google News alerts, seriously,” Strzok wrote, adding he didn’t want his team hearing about the article “from someone else.”
Those are some pretty damning texts. They might not show that Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were behind leaking the information which was leaked to the Wall Street Journal but it does show they were anticipating the article so they knew information was leaked. If they did not leak the information this seems to show they were in cahoots with whomever did leak the information and they actually discussed pretending they found the article accidentally.
It might be better for Robert Mueller and the investigation at this point if Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were the leakers because if they were not it means there is still somebody within the investigation who was/is working against Donald Trump.
I think it is time for another special counsel…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Federal Judge throws out the case against Cliven Bundy
The FBI–which Donald Trump has said is in tatters–has not had a good month or so with its political bias coming to the forefront in the Russian investigation and today the agency suffered another blow when a Federal Judge threw out the case against Cliven Bundy and his family, citing “flagrant misconduct” by the FBI.
For those of you who may not be familiar with this case: the Bundy’s had been in a 20 year land dispute with the Federal Government and in 2014 the government surrounded his farm and a standoff ensued when militia members show up to defend Cliven Bundy. The Federal Government eventually backed down and returned the cattle they had been rounding up. In 2016 Cliven Bundy and two of his sons were arrested and LaVoy Finicum was killed after occupying a Federal wildlife refuge. (And by the way Harry Reid’s son Rory’s fingerprints are all over this.)
Cliven Bundy and his sons have been in jail since 2016 but today they are free because of this ruling by a Federal Judge, here is more:
A federal judge Monday threw out criminal charges against Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a co-defendant in the 2014 Bunkerville standoff, citing “flagrant misconduct” by prosecutors and the FBI in not disclosing evidence to the defense before and during trial.
“The government’s conduct in this case was indeed outrageous,” U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro ruled. “There has been flagrant misconduct, substantial prejudice and no lesser remedy is sufficient.”
The dismissal with prejudice, meaning a new trial can’t be pursued, marked an embarrassing nadir for the federal government, which now has failed to convict the Bundys in two major federal cases stemming from separate armed standoffs.
The judge found prosecutors engaged in a “deliberate attempt to mislead” and made several misrepresentations to both the defense and the court about evidence relating to a surveillance camera and snipers outside the Bundy ranch in early April 2014, as well as threat assessments made in the case.
“The court is troubled by the prosecution’s failure to look beyond the FBI file,” Navarro said.
She said she “seriously questions” that the FBI “inexplicably placed” but “perhaps hid” a tactical operations log that referred to the presence of snipers outside the Bundy residence on a “thumb drive inside a vehicle for three years,” when the government has had four years to prepare the case.
“The court has found that a universal sense of justice has been violated,” Navarro said.
The judge found it especially egregious that the prosecutors chose not to share documents that the defendants specially asked for in pretrial motions, and “grossly shocking” that the prosecutors claimed they weren’t aware the material would assist the defendants in their defense.
“The government was well aware of theories of self defense, provocation and intimidation,” Navarro said. “Here the prosecution has minimized the extent of prosecutorial misconduct.”
Here is what Cliven Bundy had to say:
“I’ve been a political prisoner for right at 700 days today,” Cliven Bundy said, his arm around his wife, Carol Bundy. “I come in this courtroom an innocent man and I’m going to leave as an innocent man. My defense is a 15-second defense. I raised my cattle only on Clark County, Nevada, land and I have no contract with the federal government. This court has no jurisdiction and authority over this matter. And I have put up with the court in America as a political prisoner for two years.”
The Federal Government might have had a legitimate case here but they blew it because they were not honest and were overzealous and it cost them. It kind of reminds me of what is going on in the Russia collusion investigation…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
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