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Report Summary: No Collusion, No Obstruction

Sunday, March 24th, 2019

The summary of the Mueller Report has been released.

No collusion, no obstruction.

Here’s the first part of the summary, with the conclusions on the two primary charges, and the footnotes omitted.

March 24, 2019

Dear Chairman Graham, Chairman Nadler, Ranking Member Feinstein, and Ranking Member Collins:

As a supplement to the notification provided on Friday, March 22, 2019, I am writing today to advise you of the principal conclusions reached by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III and to inform you about the status of my initial review of the report he has prepared.

The Special Counsel’s Report

On Friday, the Special Counsel submitted to me a “confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions” he has reached, as required by 28 C.F.R. § 600.8(c). This report is entitled “Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election.” Although my review is ongoing, I believe that it is in the public interest to describe the report and to summarize the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation.

The report explains that the Special Counsel and his staff thoroughly investigated allegations that members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, and others associated with it, conspired with the Russian government in its efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, or sought to obstruct the related federal investigations. In the report, the Special Counsel noted that, in completing his investigation, he employed 19 lawyers who were assisted by a team of approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, and other professional staff. The Special Counsel issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communication records, issued almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence, and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses.

The Special Counsel obtained a number of indictments and convictions of individuals and entities in connection with his investigation, all of which have been publicly disclosed. During the course of his investigation, the Special Counsel also referred several matters to other offices for further action. The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the Special Counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made public. Below, I summarize the principal conclusions set out in the Special Counsel’s report.

Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

The Special Counsel’s report is divided into two parts. The first describes the results of the Special Counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The report outlines the Russian effort to influence the election and documents crimes committed by persons associated with the Russian government in connection with those efforts. The report further explains that a primary consideration for the Special Counsel’s investigation was whether any Americans –including individuals associated with the Trump campaign – joined the Russian conspiracies to influence the election, which would be a federal crime. The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As the report states: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

The Special Counsel’s investigation determined that there were two main Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. The first involved attempts by a Russian organization, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), to conduct disinformation and social media operations in the United States designed to sow social discord, eventually with the aim of interfering with the election. As noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA in its efforts, although the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian nationals and entities in connection with these activities.

The second element involved the Russian government’s efforts to conduct computer hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election. But as noted above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.

Obstruction of Justice

The report’s second part addresses a number of actions by the President — most of which have been the subject of public reporting — that the Special Counsel investigated as potentially raising obstruction-of-justice concerns. After making a “thorough factual investigation” into these matters, the Special Counsel considered whether to evaluate the conduct under Department standards governing prosecution and declination decisions but ultimately determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Special Counsel therefore did not draw a conclusion — one way or the other — as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the Special Counsel views as “difficult issues” of law and fact concerning whether the President’s actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

The Special Counsel’s decision to describe the facts of his obstruction investigation without reaching any legal conclusions leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime. Over the course of the investigation, the Special Counsel’s office engaged in discussions with certain Department officials regarding many of the legal and factual matters at issue in the Special Counsel’s obstruction investigation. After reviewing the Special Counsel’s final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense. Our determination was made without regard to, and is not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.

In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction. Generally speaking, to obtain and sustain an obstruction conviction, the government would need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person, acting with corrupt intent, engaged in obstructive conduct with a sufficient nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding. In cataloguing the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view, the report identifies no actions that, in our judgment, constitute obstructive conduct, had a nexus to a pending or contemplated proceeding, and were done with corrupt intent, each of which, under the Department’s principles of federal prosecution guiding charging decisions, would need to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to establish an obstruction of ­justice offense.

Democrats and their media allies spent two years hyping an investigation into a sitting president, threw around charges of “treason” with wild abandon, all over an imaginary nothingburger. All because they couldn’t get over Trump upsetting Hillary in 2016.

Just think of all the time and effort wasted on the Russian collusion fantasy when the nation could have come together to address real issues. Imagine the countless real news stories left uncovered because of all the time wasted on this garbage.

There will come a reckoning…

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Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Clinton Corruption Update for June 19, 2018

Tuesday, June 19th, 2018

We know that Hillary Clinton, through FusionGPS, was deeply involved in the FBI/CIA/deep state/FISA abuse affair that’s come to be known as the “Scandularity.” That’s why news on that came to dominate the semi-regular Clinton Corruption updates.

The problem is that so much information is coming out on the Scandularity that I don’t have time to do the regular Clinton Corruption updates if I include the Scandularity stuff. This thing just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger, so that I never had time to finish one before another huge Scandularity revelation came down the pike. This meant the regular Clinton Corruption updates grew so large and stale that I was unable to whip them into coherent form.

So now I’m separating them out again into distinct updates for my own sanity.

Because I kept adding to that update, some of this is going to be oldish news, but this let’s me empty out the Clinton Scandal bucket so I can pour fresh new links in going forward.

First up: The Inspector General report on the Clinton Email Investigation!

  • Mollie Hemingway has read all of the report and has 11 takeaways. Like this one:

    2. FBI Agent Who Led Both The Clinton and Trump Probes Promised He’d Prevent Trump’s Election…On page 420, the IG says that the conduct of five FBI employees who were caught talking about their extreme political bias in the context of their duties “has brought discredit to themselves, sowed doubt about the FBI’s handling of the Midyear investigation, and impacted the reputation of the FBI.” The Midyear investigation was the code for the Clinton probe. Or note this blistering passage:

    [W]hen one senior FBI official, [Peter] Strzok, who was helping to lead the Russia investigation at the time, conveys in a text message to another senior FBI official, [Lisa] Page, that ‘we’ll stop’ candidate Trump from being elected—after other extensive text messages between the two disparaging candidate Trump—it is not only indicative of a biased state of mind but, even more seriously, implies a willingness to take official action to impact the presidential candidate’s electoral prospects. This is antithetical to the core values of the FBI and the Department of Justice.

    The report goes on to say that the text messages and Strzok’s decision to prioritize the counterintelligence probe of the Trump campaign over the Clinton email criminal investigation “led us to conclude that we did not have confidence that Strzok’s decision was free from bias.”

    This text is not just interesting because the FBI’s deputy head of the counterintelligence division who was investigating a major-party candidate told the woman he was cheating on his wife with that “we” would stop the candidate from becoming president. It’s also interesting because this text was hidden from congressional committees performing oversight of the FBI.

    And this:

    3. Comey Mishandled The Clinton Probe In Multiple Ways

    It’s worth re-reading Acting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s May 9, 2017, recommendation that James Comey be fired as FBI director. He cited Comey’s usurpation of the attorney general’s authority in his press conference announcing that Clinton’s case would be closed without prosecution, the release of derogatory information about Clinton despite the decision to not indict her, and Comey’s letter to Congress announcing the FBI had reopened a probe against Clinton.

    The IG backs up each and every one of those critiques, and adds much more detail to them.

    We concluded that Comey’s unilateral announcement was inconsistent with Department policy and violated long-standing Department practice and protocol by, among other things, criticizing Clinton’s uncharged conduct. We also found that Comey usurped the authority of the Attorney General, and inadequately and incompletely described the legal position of Department prosecutors.

    The IG said Comey violated longstanding department practice to avoid “trashing people we’re not charging.” He also inadequately and incompletely explained how Justice prosecutors came to make decisions. “Many of the problems with the statement resulted from Comey’s failure to coordinate with Department officials,” the IG wrote. Had he talked with them, they would have warned him about the problems his statement posed. What’s more, the prosecutors had a very different understanding of why they were declining to charge Clinton than the one Comey claimed they had in his public press conference.

    Comey also violated departmental practice in announcing publicly he reopened the probe after additional relevant emails were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Both of these decisions were controversial inside and outside the agency.

    Also this:

    7. Breathtaking Bias

    Some FBI defenders latched onto the IG’s claim that he “did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed.” All that means is that none of the politically biased texts specifically said political bias was leading them to make certain decisions. Of course, that would be a weird thing to find in any case.

    What the investigators found, however, was breathtaking anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias from five of the key employees handling the Clinton email probe. No evidence was found of pro-Trump bias. And this evidence of profound bias is only for those who were foolish enough to record their extreme views. The IG also apparently had no texts from Justice Department officials, perhaps because Justice didn’t preserve them.

    The texts range from vile insults of Trump and his supporters to fears about how awful a Trump presidency would be and the need to prevent it. One employee said Trump voters were “all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS.” One FBI lawyer discussed feeling “numb” by Trump’s November 2016 election win, later proclaiming “Viva le Resistance” when asked about Trump.

    Strzok wrote in July 2016, “Trump is a disaster. I have no idea how destabilizing his Presidency would be.” After the election, Page wrote that she’d bought “All the President’s Men,” adding, “Figure I needed to brush up on watergate.” The two openly fantasize about impeachment.

    In the preparation to interview Clinton as part of the criminal probe, Page tells a handful of her colleagues to take it easy on Clinton. “One more thing: she might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear.”

    After each text exchange, the IG report includes defenses from the agents, some even harder to believe than the previous:

    August 8, 2016: In a text message on August 8, 2016, Page stated, “[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Strzok responded, ‘No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.’ When asked about this text message, Strzok stated that he did not specifically recall sending it, but that he believed that it was intended to reassure Page that Trump would not be elected, not to suggest that he would do something to impact the investigation.

    Sure, hoss.

    All five of the FBI employees were referred back to the FBI for disciplinary action.

    Read the whole thing.

  • It appears that deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe didn’t add Lisa Page to his team despite her having an affair with FBI agent Peter Strzok, but because of it, as a way to monitor the Clinton probe:

    Then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe tasked the mistress of lead agent Peter Strzok to stay appraised of the probe into Hillary Clinton’s private server — a decision that other bureau officials took issue with at the time, according to the Department of Justice Inspector General’s bombshell report.

    McCabe was supposed to be insulated from the probe by two levels of management: Strzok worked for counterintelligence head Bill Priestap, who worked for national security head Michael Steinbach, who reported up to McCabe. However, Strzok communicated about the probe with his mistress, Lisa Page, who worked directly for McCabe and acted as a liaison for the Clinton investigation for the deputy director.

    The report says:

    Lisa Page, who was Special Counsel to McCabe, became involved in the Midyear investigation after McCabe became the Deputy Director in February 2016. Page told the OIG that part of her function was to serve as a liaison between the Midyear team and McCabe.

    Page acknowledged that her role upset senior FBI officials, but told the OIG that McCabe relied on her to ensure that he had the information he needed to make decisions, without it being filtered through multiple layers of management.

    Several witnesses told the OIG that Page circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap’s or Steinbach’s knowledge. McCabe said that he was aware of complaints about Page, and that he valued her ability to “spot issues” and bring them to his attention when others did not.

    Luke Rosiak also uses this image from the report:

  • Ironically, if Strzok hadn’t tried to sit on the Weiner laptop information discovered in September 2016, Hillary Clinton might be President now. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • I’ve asked before: Why was Strzok on both the Clinton email and Trump Russia probes? Does the FBI not have any other field agents? It appears that Strzok’s role was precisely to “to ‘stop’ Trump from being elected.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Wait, Strzok and Page weren’t the only FBI lovebirds texting each other about the case? Where the hell was this investigation being run from, The Love Boat? Bonus: “She joked to Agent 1 that Donald Trump’s supporters in Ohio were ‘retarded.’ She sneered that she didn’t know who was worse, Trump, the FBI, or ‘+o( Average American public.'” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • More love for American voters from Strzok: “Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support.”
  • And speaking of what FBI agents on the Clinton email probe thought about American voters:

  • “FBI analysts and Prosecutor 2 told us that former President Barack Obama was one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail.com account.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Which Obama blatantly lied about.
  • This Wall Street Journal piece on the fall of Tony Podesta. Is well worth reading if you can find a way around the paywall. I especially like the part how Podesta was buying expensive new artworks while laying people off…
  • And remember: the Podesta Group worked for pro-Russian Ukrainian political party “Party of Regions.”
  • “FBI Informant In Uranium One Scandal Testifies Against Obama”

    The FBI’s informant in the Uranium One scandal involving the Obama administration gave written testimony to three congressional committees this week in which he accused the Obama administration of making decisions that directly benefited the Russian government and their goals of gaining geopolitical advantages over the United States.

    The informant, Douglas Campbell, told congressional investigators on Wednesday that Moscow sent millions of dollars to the U.S. with the expectation that it would benefit the Clintons, while Hillary Clinton “quarterbacked a ‘reset’ in US-Russian relations” in her role as Secretary of State during the Obama administration, The Hill reported.

    Key facts:

  • Campbell participated in closed-door interviews with the Senate Judiciary, House Intelligence and House Oversight and Government Reform committees.

    Campbell said that Russian nuclear officials told him that Moscow hired an American lobbying firm, APCO Worldwide, because it was in a unique position to influence the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton in particular.

    Democrats are aggressively trying to discredit him but are having little success as “the FBI found Campbell’s undercover work valuable enough to reward him with a $50,000 check in 2016.”

    Campbell says that the FBI told him that his work was “briefed to President Obama as part of his daily presidential briefing,” which would mean that Obama was aware of the crimes committed by the Russian officials.

    The FBI forced him to pay $500,000 of his own money to Russian officials as bribes to facilitate his cover, and the bureau never reimbursed him despite their praise of his work and the fact that the ordeal was so stressful that he developed serious, life-threatening illnesses.

    Initially, reports indicated that Campbell was threatened by the Obama administration in an attempt to silence him before the 2016 election as they did not want this case hurting Hillary Clinton after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department learned that he filed a lawsuit in a Maryland federal court. It was not immediately clear what the lawsuit was about, however Sara Carter reports: “Campbell filed a lawsuit in Maryland federal court against the Russian nuclear entities asking for the return of the money he had to launder out of his own paychecks.”

    “Russian and American executives implicated in the Tenex bribery scheme specifically asked him to try to help get the Uranium One deal approved by the Obama administration,” The Hill noted.

    He provided documentation of the corruption and crimes taking place to help Russia to the Obama administration months before they made a series of decisions that directly benefited Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.

    He provided documentation to the Obama administration that showed that the Russian government was actively involved in trying to help Iran develop their nuclear capabilities years before the Obama administration implemented the now-infamous Iran deal.

    He said that he was told by the FBI that the politics of the Obama administration overruled justice from taking place against the criminal activity that was happening.

    “I was frustrated watching the U.S. government make numerous decisions benefiting Rosatom and Tenex while those entities were engaged in serious criminal conduct on U.S. soil,” Campbell said in his testimony, as reported by The Hill’s John Solomon. “Tenex and Rosatom were raking in billions of U.S. dollars by signing contracts with American nuclear utility clients at the same time they were indulging in extortion by using threats to get bribes and kickbacks, with a portion going to Russia for high ranking officials.”

    “I remember one response I got from an agent when I asked how it was possible CFIUS would approve the Uranium One sale when the FBI could prove Rosatom was engaged in criminal conduct,” Campbell continued. “His answer: ‘Ask your politics.'”

    Some of the key players that were engaging in the criminal racketeering case have started to face justice, albeit years later. Sara A. Carter reports:

    It wasn’t until years later in 2015 that American businessman Daren Condrey, whose company Transportation Logistics International, plead guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and conspiring to commit wire fraud, according to the DOJ.

    Russian national Vadim Mikerin, who was a top official of the Russian nuclear arms subsidiary Tenex and would later become president of Tenam the American subsidiary of Rosatom, was also sentenced in December 2015. Mikerin, who only plead guilty to money laundering, was arrested for a racketeering scheme that dated back to 2004. He was sentenced to 48 months in prison.

    Boris Rubizhevsky, another Russian national from New Jersey, who was president of the security firm NEXGEN Security, was also involved in the conspiracy and plead guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in 2015. He served as a consultant to Tenam and to Mikerin. Rubizhevsky was sentenced to prison last year along with three years of supervised release and a $26,500 fine, according to a recent Reuters report.

    And Mark Lambert, 54, a co-owner of Transportation Logistics International, was charged this month on an “11-count indictment with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and to commit wire fraud, seven counts of violating the FCPA, two counts of wire fraud and one count of international promotion money laundering,” as stated in the DOJ press release. Lambert’s charges stem from an alleged scheme to bribe Mikerin in order to secure contracts with TENEX, according to the DOJ release.

  • “The Clinton Foundation Borrowed $28.5 Million. Who Made It Disappear?”

    If we are to believe public filings submitted to the IRS under penalties of perjury, an entity known today as the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation borrowed $28.5 million on Feb. 20, 2004 — see page 30.

    Yet the foundation’s accounting firm, BKD LLP, issued on June 9, 2006, “Independent Accountants’ Report and Financial Statements” that contradict earlier IRS filings by claiming that proceeds from the $28.5 million in borrowing arrived at the Clinton Foundation by Dec. 31, 2003, or 51 days before the loans were actually secured.

    Read the whole thing for the forensic accounting details.

  • “How The Obama Justice Department Tried To Shut Down The FBI’s Investigation Into The Clinton Foundation”
  • “Top Liberal Think Tank and Clinton Adviser Accused of Sheltering Sexual Harassers and Retaliating Against Victims.”

    Leading liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP), stands accused of sheltering sexual harassers and operating a toxic culture that made victims fear retaliation for speaking out.

    A heavily-reported exposé by Buzzfeed News on Tuesday documented those allegations–made by 19 former and current employees and staffers with the organization.

    One former junior staffer, who asked to be identified as Mary, left the organization by sending an exit memo to top CAP officials. This memo detailed sexual harassment she had experienced from a manager on her team named Benton Strong. Mary alleged that Strong’s harassment was well known within CAP’s upper ranks, that they did nothing about it, and that she was retaliated against for reporting the harassment in the first place. Mary’s emailed exit memo reads, in part:

    [O]n several occasions, myself and others on the team felt as if reporting had been a mistake and that the retaliation, worsening of already tenuous team dynamics, and treatment by supervisors outweighed the seemingly positive act of reporting sexual harassment in the workplace.

    At another point in her exit memo, Mary described “lewd and inappropriate text messages” from Strong which made her “uncomfortable being in the workplace around him.” One of those text messages–confirmed by multiple other CAP staffers at the time–was sent after midnight and expressed Strong’s desire to perform oral sex on Mary. Others included discussions of blowjobs, comments about her body and frequent entreaties to meet for drinks.

    Snip.

    One former union member singled out CAP’s president Neera Tanden. In comments to Buzzfeed, they described an allegedly unproductive meeting with Tanden regarding sexual harassment at CAP:

    Neera’s approach was maybe we can start hosting brown bags with HR so people will feel more comfortable coming out and doing things. So they had almost a do-nothing approach. … They said they would think about things that [the union brought up], and that was essentially it.

    Tanden is a high-profile Twitter user, staunch supporter of Hillary Clinton and the former secretary of state’s longtime advisor.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Hillary Clinton remains consistently tone-deaf when it comes to those bitter, clinging freaks known as “voters”:

    For years, I’ve been writing that the great myth about Hillary Clinton is the notion she shared even a fraction of her husband’s political skills. There is no transitive property to marriage. If Bill Clinton could play the xylophone, Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have gained the skill when she said, “I do.” So it goes with politics. Bill Clinton would never dream of saying anything like this. Having risen in Arkansas politics — not an over-performing state GDP-wise — he understood how to talk to working-class voters in ways Hillary never learned in 40 years of standing next to him sagely nodding.

    So, what’s wrong with what she said? Well, nearly everything, starting with the fact that she probably believes all of it. It shows that she really doesn’t like large swathes of the country. She has a Manichaean view that says people who voted against her are backward, racist, sexist, and kind of dumb. I didn’t love the slogan “Make America Great Again,” and Lord knows I didn’t like Trump’s campaign style. But for millions of decent Americans, Trump’s program was optimistic. “We’re gonna make America great again” may sound unequivocally racist to the race-obsessed, but that’s not how everyone who liked it heard it. How easy and comfortable it must be to think that anyone who voted against you is against “black people getting rights.”

  • Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees have inexplicably declined by 90%. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Why does Bill Clinton get a pass on #MeToo?

    It’s 2018. One of the world’s most powerful married men had a 22-year-old intern perform oral sex on him in his office. He’s been accused of sexual assault by three other women. One claims, as is the case with so many of the men who have fallen from positions of power as a result, that he exposed himself to her (which always makes me, at least, pause and wonder why on earth so many men seem to want to do this). We know, too, that he lied about his tryst with the intern.

    So why is Bill Clinton still presiding over glamorous parties?

    When Monica Lewinsky was disinvited from a Town & Country Philanthropy Summit earlier this month where Bill Clinton was speaking, the question shouldn’t have been why was she disinvited. It should have been why is Bill Clinton is headlining events at all.

    And boy, is he ever. Clinton has a full social schedule this summer. In June he’ll be publicizing his book “The President is Missing” along with his co-author James Patterson all across the country. He’ll also make time to host the Clinton Foundation dinner, where tickets range from $2,500 to $100,000 and Shaggy and Sting are scheduled to perform.

    Again, he’s almost certainly guilty of actions that would be categorized as harassment in 2018. The fact that the Lewinsky affair happened as long ago as 1995 is no matter.

    Charlie Rose is accused of harassment by several employees dating back to the late 1990s — and he lost his job in November.

    People seem curiously willing to hold Clinton to a different standard than other men accused of sexual harassment. Many don’t seem especially bothered by his actions at all and lay the blame for the scandal squarely on Lewinsky. In a 2014 Economist/YouGov poll, 58 percent of those surveyed had a favorable opinion of Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, 48 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Lewinsky.

    As recently as 2016, the very liberal Joy Behar was dismissing the women who slept with Clinton as “tramps” on “The View.” Not that much has changed since the period in the ’90s when Maureen Dowd dismissed Lewsinky as being “nutty and slutty” and “a ditsy, predatory White House intern who might have lied under oath for a job at Revlon.”

    A Rasmussen Reports poll taken in November 2017, a month after the #MeToo movement began, found that 59 percent of people believe the accusations against Bill Clinton. But you wouldn’t know it from the way he’s being treated.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • You know that NXIVM sex cult that’s been so much in the news as of late? At least three members are “invitation-only” members of the Clinton Global Initiative:

    On March 14 and April 13, records show, more than a dozen contributions poured into Clinton’s coffers from NXIVM, an executive and group-awareness training organization led by Brooklyn-born Keith Raniere, 47.

    Most were from first-time political donors, each giving the $2,300 maximum.

    Three of the March and April Clinton pledges came from Raniere’s most high-profile followers: Seagram heiresses Clare and Sara Bronfman, and Pamela Cafritz, daughter of D.C. A-listers Buffy and Bill Cafritz.

    Hillary isn’t the only Clinton NXIVM officials are attracted to.

    At least three of them – group President Nancy Salzman and the Bronfman sisters – are members of Bill’s charitable organization, the Clinton Global Initiative. Membership is by invitation only and requires at least a $15,000 donation per person for one year.

  • “Family’s Illegal Control of Clinton Charity Violates Multiple State Laws, Regs.
  • “No Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion, But ‘Clear Links’ Between Clinton Campaign & Russians.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “Judicial Watch: At Least 18 Classified Emails Found on Weiner’s Laptop.”
  • “Hillary Clinton’s team pressured the New York Times into printing misleading corrections.”
  • So this is evidently not a Photoshop:

  • Hillary Clinton, Boozehound.
  • Not-so-coincidentally, Hillary Clinton has been trying to hide still more health problems, such as a broken wrist and…
  • …a back brace.
  • British nationals illegally campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
  • Did Chelsea Clinton help funnel $11 million in federal contacts to her best friend’s phony think tank?

    During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, more than $11 Million of federal contracts were awarded to a questionably legitimate think-tank, which is owned and operated by Chelsea Clinton’s “Best Friend”.

    Jacqueline Newmyer, who Chelsea Clinton says is her “best friend”, owns and operates Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG). Over the past 10 years, LTSG has been awarded more than $11 million from a Department of Defense think-tank known as the Office of Net Assessment (ONA).

    Long Term Strategy Group, has a virtually non-existent website and has no security clearances, yet to date they have received $11.2 Million in federal contracts according to USAspending.gov.

  • Man claiming to be Bill Clinton’s son wants another DNA test.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Media Watch, Obama Scandals | 8 Comments »

    The Memo and the Damage Done

    Saturday, February 3rd, 2018

    The Memo we’ve all been waiting for has been released. For those who have been following the scandal here, the only big surprise is that the FBI knew the Steele dossier was unreliable, used it as the basis of a FISA warrant anyway, and then lied about it to the courts.

    Here’s the text of the memo from The Atlantic, which I’m using just to avoid a half hour of stripping line returns and typos out of the ScribeD text file a lot of outlets posted:

    January 18, 2018

    To: HPSCI Majority Members

    From: HPSCI Majority Staff

    Subject: Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

    Purpose

    This memorandum provides Members an update on significant facts relating to the Committee’s ongoing investigation into the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and their use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) during the 2016 presidential election cycle. Our findings, which are detailed below, 1) raise concerns with the legitimacy and legality of certain DOJ and FBI interactions with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), and 2) represent a troubling breakdown of legal processes established to protect the American people from abuses related to the FISA process.

    Investigation Update

    On October 21, 2016, DOJ and FBI sought and received a FISA probable cause order (not under Title VII) authorizing electronic surveillance on Carter Page from the FISC. Page is a U.S. citizen who served as a volunteer advisor to the Trump presidential campaign. Consistent with requirements under FISA, the application had to be first certified by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI. It then required the approval of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General (DAG), or the Senate-confirmed Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.

    The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC. As required by statute (50 U.S.C. §,1805(d)(l)), a FISA order on an American citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days and each renewal requires a separate finding of probable cause. Then-Director James Comey signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one. Then-DAG Sally Yates, then-Acting DAG Dana Boente, and DAG Rod Rosenstein each signed one or more FISA applications on behalf of DOJ.

    Due to the sensitive nature of foreign intelligence activity, FISA submissions (including renewals) before the FISC are classified. As such, the public’s confidence in the integrity of the FISA process depends on the court’s ability to hold the government to the highest standard—particularly as it relates to surveillance of American citizens. However, the FISC’s rigor in protecting the rights of Americans, which is reinforced by 90-day renewals of surveillance orders, is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts. This should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application that is known by the government. In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts. However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.

    1) The “dossier” compiled by Christopher Steele (Steele dossier) on behalf of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign formed an essential part of the Carter Page FISA application. Steele was a longtime FBI source who was paid over $160,000 by the DNC and Clinton campaign, via the law firm Perkins Coie and research firm Fusion GPS, to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.

    a) Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.

    b) The initial FISA application notes Steele was working for a named U.S. person, but does not name Fusion GPS and principal Glenn Simpson, who was paid by a U.S. law firm (Perkins Coie) representing the DNC (even though it was known by DOJ at the time that political actors were involved with the Steele dossier). The application does not mention Steele was ultimately working on behalf of—and paid by—the DNC and Clinton campaign, or that the FBI had separately authorized payment to Steele for the same information.

    2) The Carter Page FISA application also cited extensively a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focuses on Page’s July 2016 trip to Moscow. This article does not corroborate the Steele dossier because it is derived from information leaked by Steele himself to Yahoo News. The Page FISA application incorrectly assesses that Steele did not directly provide information to Yahoo News. Steele has admitted in British court filings that he met with Yahoo News—and several other outlets—in September 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. Perkins Coie was aware of Steele’s initial media contacts because they hosted at least one meeting in Washington D.C. in 2016 with Steele and Fusion GPS where this matter was discussed.

    a) Steele was suspended and then terminated as an FBI source for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations—an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016, Mother Jones article by David Corn. Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September—before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October—but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts.

    b) Steele’s numerous encounters with the media violated the cardinal rule of source handling—maintaining confidentiality—and demonstrated that Steele had become a less than reliable source for the FBI.

    3) Before and after Steele was terminated as a source, he maintained contact with DOJ via then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official who worked closely with Deputy Attorneys General Yates and later Rosenstein. Shortly after the election, the FBI began interviewing Ohr, documenting his communications with Steele. For example, in September 2016, Steele admitted to Ohr his feelings against then-candidate Trump when Steele said he “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” This clear evidence of Steele’s bias was recorded by Ohr at the time and subsequently in official FBI files—but not reflected in any of the Page FISA applications.

    a) During this same time period, Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the FISC.

    4) According to the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, Assistant Director Bill Priestap, corroboration of the Steele dossier was in its “infancy” at the time of the initial Page FISA application. After Steele was terminated, a source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated. Yet, in early January 2017, Director Comey briefed President-elect Trump on a summary of the Steele dossier, even though it was—according to his June 2017 testimony—“salacious and unverified.” While the FISA application relied on Steele’s past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations. Furthermore, Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC without the Steele dossier information.

    5) The Page FISA application also mentions information regarding fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, but there is no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos. The Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok. Strzok was reassigned by the Special Counsel’s Office to FBI Human Resources for improper text messages with his mistress, FBI Attorney Lisa Page (no known relation to Carter Page), where they both demonstrated a clear bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton, whom Strzok had also investigated. The Strzok/Lisa Page texts also reflect extensive discussions about the investigation, orchestrating leaks to the media, and include a meeting with Deputy Director McCabe to discuss an “insurance” policy against President Trump’s election.

    Again, if you’ve been following this blog regularly, almost none of that was in dispute and very little of it should be new. But the FBI/DOJ misrepresenting the source of the dossier as reliable information, and hiding that it was partisan hackery, is new.

    Here’s Ace of Spades HQ on the issue:

    Bear in mind, when the FBI and DOJ presented the Steele Dossier to the court as their pretext to open surveillance, they would have almost certainly identified him as a “source” who has “previously proven reliable” (the quotes are just-for-example verbiage, not actual quotes) and cited, for example, his work in the FIFA investigation as well as his service in MI6.

    In short, they would have presented his inherent reliability as a reason to believe the otherwise completely unsubstantiated claims his “dossier” offered. His dossier offered no proof — the only “proof” of the dossier’s claims would Steele’s reliability, honesty, and lack of bias or material interest in this case.

    But, according to The Memo, the FBI and DOJ had reason to know that Steele wasn’t all that reliable — and they concealed each of these points from the court:

    1. They withheld from the court that Steele was working for Trump’s rival for the presidency, Hillary Clinton, and the DNC, which Hillary Clinton had contractually taken over by this point. They only said in their application that Steele was working for a “U.S. person.”

    The fact that Steele had been commissioned by Trump’s political opponent would have greatly diminished his perceived reliability — he had a material interest in this dossier “succeeding.” He had been paid $160,000 to produce it. (And note, Glenn Simpson refused to say if he was ever paid to get an investigation started.)

    As this information would have reduced Steele’s reliability in the court’s eyes, the FBI/DOJ concealed that from the court. They lied. They represented Steele as reliable, but then hid competing evidence of his unreliability.

    This sort of hearing is ex parte. Only one side gets to present evidence to a judge. No representative of Trump or Carter Page was in the room. It seems to me that the government, when seeking a warrant in an ex parte hearing, should present contrary evidence so that the judge can make an informed decision. There’s no opposing party in the room to offer that contrary evidence, and no one except the government itself to look out for the civil rights of the people it’s seeking surveillance orders on.

    The government does not seem to have offered the court such information, and seems to have concealed information they knew would be relevant to the judge’s understanding of the situation and his decision on granting the warrant.

    To the detriment of a citizen’s civil rights, note.

    2. No less an authority than Bruce Ohr communicated to his superiors that Steele was personally extremely biased in this matter. Not just paid to be biased; but personally, emotionally biased himself.

    Ohr reported that Steel personally “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.”

    Steele’s reliability depends largely on his judgment, his dispassion. Steele didn’t have any information of his own — he got his information long-distance from Russian operatives and government officials whom he might have paid. Steele has always been touted as an “MI6 agent” to prove that he is expert in separating bullshit from real intelligence — and yet, he put transparent nonsense like the Pee-Pee Party bullshit into his dossier.

    Given that he was “desperate” and “passionate” to keep Trump out of the White House, one begins to understand his failure to discriminate between plausible claims and implausible ones.

    This information would have helped the court determine if it agreed with the FBI and DOJ that Steele was reliable and a good judge of unverified gossip and rumor — so the FBI and DOJ again concealed this highly-pertinent information from the court.

    3. The FBI and DOJ had, of course, a huge reason to suspect Steele wasn’t as reliable as they were representing to the court– namely, that they stopped working with him for violating their ethical rules of confidentiality in peddling these claims to media organizations. I would say that Steele betrayed himself here, proving that he was still working for FusionGPS as a political operative trying to plant dirt against a target he was paid to undermine, and not an informant or researcher working for the FBI.

    The FBI and DOJ concealed the fact that they had terminated their relationship with Steele from the court.

    4. On that, the initial FISA application claimed that Steele’s claims were corroborated by independent reporting by Michael Isikoff — the idea being, this isn’t just Steele who’s reporting this, it’s also the completely independent reporter Michael Isikoff.

    But Michael Isikoff wasn’t an independent source at all — he was fed these claims by Steele himself.

    So there was no second source for Steele’s claims — you had Steele making these claims, and then Steele’s stenographer repeating Steele’s claims under a byline of “Totally Not Christopher Steele.”

    However, the FBI/DOJ “assessed” that Isikoff’s reporting was independent and represented it that way to the court.

    Now, it we can’t say they lied on that point — they might just have been wrong. Incompetent, as usual. Steele lied to them about, or at least concealed, his blabbing to reporters.

    Or so we’re told, anyway.

    However, after the DOJ/FBI ended its association with Steele for spreading his claims to various media organizations, in violation of FBI/DOJ confidentiality agreements, it surely must have at least occurred to them that perhaps Steele had also previously spread his tales of Urinary Olympics to Michael Isikoff.

    However, if such thoughts occurred to them, they quickly put them out of mind. Despite now having reason to suspect that they had, whether wittingly or unwittingly, misrepresented to the court that Isikoff’s article constituted independent corroboration, they seem to have taken no efforts to repair that misrepresentation and inform the court that their initial representation may have been completely false.

    The FBI knew the partisan origins of the Steele Dossier, knew that it was funded by the Clinton campaign, then omitted that very material information from the FISA warrant requests. That’s the documented and unambigious use of national security surveillance powers to spy on American citizens to further the partisan political objectives of the party controlling the Executive branch.

    That’s the abuse.

    That’s why this is bigger than Watergate.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Obama Scandals | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for October 27, 2017

    Friday, October 27th, 2017

    Let’s take a break from talking about Hillary Clinton’s scandals so we can talk about Barack Obama’s scandals. At the end of the day, though, there’s a significant chance they all tie up together in one giant knotted scandal tangle…

  • “‘Smoking gun’ email reveals Obama DOJ blocked conservative groups from settlement funds“:

    While Eric Holder was U.S. attorney general, the Justice Department allowed prosecutors to strike agreements compelling big companies to give money to outside groups not connected to their cases to meet settlement burdens. Republican lawmakers long have decried those payments as a “slush fund” that boosted liberal groups, and the Trump DOJ ended the practice earlier this year.

    But internal Justice Department emails released Tuesday by Goodlatte indicated that not only were officials involved in determining what organizations would get the money, but also Justice Department officials may have intervened to make sure the settlements didn’t go to conservative groups.

    In one such email in July 2014, a senior Justice Department official expressed “concerns” about what groups would receive settlement money from Citigroup — saying they didn’t want money going to a group that does “conservative property-rights legal services.”

  • The IRS has finally admitted that it illegally targeted conservatives:

    In an unprecedented victorious conclusion to our years-long legal battle against the IRS, the bureaucratic agency has just admitted in federal court that it wrongfully targeted Tea Party and conservative groups during the Obama Administration and issued an apology to our clients for doing so. In addition, the IRS is consenting to a court order that would prohibit it from ever engaging in this form of unconstitutional discrimination in the future.

    In a proposed Consent Order filed with the Court yesterday, the IRS has apologized for its treatment of our clients (36 Tea Party and other conservative organizations from 20 states that applied for 501(c)(3) and (c)(4) tax-exempt status with the IRS between 2009 and 2012) during the tax-exempt determinations process. Crucially, following years of denial by the IRS and blame-shifting by IRS officials, the agency now expressly admits that its treatment of our clients was wrong.

  • House Republicans manage to pass something resembling a budget. Is it a good or bad budget? “Answer cloudy, ask again later.”
  • How Democrats committed political suicide passing the assault weapons ban in 1994.

    “So mostly everybody is like jumping for joy. And I’m walking around like a zombie. But nobody really gave a damn what my feelings were. So I went back to the office and I got a call from Congressman [Jack] Brooks who is the congressman from Texas and Chairman of [the Judiciary] committee and he said, ‘Well you just lost me my seat.’ And he and I had a good relationship. I said, ‘Well, you voted against it. The president doesn’t want you to do anything going forward that would jeopardize you. And if we come back from the conference and all that stuff…’ And he was just really down, down, down… He said, ‘my seat is done.’”

    Snip.

    In all, eight Democratic Senators lost their races and 54 Democratic House members too. The list included those who opposed the assault weapons ban but reluctantly voted for it (like Speaker Tom Foley) and those who had tried to strip the crime bill of the assault weapons ban, like Brooks.

  • Left-wing heroes that treat women like garbage. In addition to Harvey and Teddy, there’s Bill Clinton, Andreas Baader, several Black Panthers, and assorted “male feminists,” though it occasionally veers into the weeds.
  • “What Harvey Weinstein tells us about the liberal world.”

    Harvey Weinstein seemed to fit right in. This is a form of liberalism that routinely blends self-righteousness with upper-class entitlement. That makes its great pronouncements from Martha’s Vineyard and the Hamptons. That routinely understands the relationship between the common people and showbiz celebrities to be one of trust and intimacy.

    Countless people who should have known better are proclaiming their surprise at Harvey Weinstein’s alleged abuses. But in truth, their blindness is even more sweeping than that. They are lost these days in a hall of moral mirrors, weeping tears of admiration for their own virtue and good taste.

    You know what’s really shocking? That piece is from liberal commentator Thomas What’s the Matter With Kansas Frank…

  • Besides Hollywood, you know what other powerful liberal establishment is full of sexual harassers? The EU Parliament.
  • Joe Bob Briggs on how illegal aliens knock Americans off the lowest rungs of the economic ladder:

    One of the cruelest things we do to prisoners is pump them up with the idea that, if they educate themselves in prison and learn a trade, they will be able to work when they get out. This is a lie. They probably won’t be able to work, because, aside from typical job-interview demerits like too many nasty facial tattoos, that felony conviction automatically eliminates them on most application forms. As late as the ’70s, in Arkansas, it was considered a badge of civic pride if you hired a couple of convicts and a couple of blind, deaf, or wheelchair-bound citizens at your business—which is why we didn’t use the term “hardcore” for any of the unemployed.

    Would it be a stretch to say all these convicts have been replaced by young able-bodied illegals? I don’t think so.

    Snip.

    “Get rid of the illegal Mexicans and see how fast that wage goes up to $15 on its own, no government intervention needed.”

  • “Tucker Carlson: If Robots Are Killing Jobs, Why Allow 1M Low-Skilled Workers To Immigrate Legally?” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Flake flakes.
  • Boston “fair wage” pizza shop dedicated to “economic justice and healthy food” fails. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Young Chinese are taking a pass on Communist propaganda.
  • Evidently actually reading the Constitution is not a requirement to be head of the DNC. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Another week, another fake hate crime. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
  • The “sexual assault” allegation against George H. W. Bush is just silly.
  • Program automatically produces Slashdot headlines. Too bad these are fake, as I would totally read “Sun Sues New Star Trek To Stop The Math.”
  • Evergreen cartoon:

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Republicans | No Comments »

    Trump Taps Sen. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General

    Saturday, November 19th, 2016

    Despite speculation that it would be Rudy Giuliani or Ted Cruz, Donald Trump has nominated Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama as his Attorney General.

    Hans A. von Spakovsky makes the case that Sessions is an excellent pick:

    President-elect Donald Trump has picked Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as the 84th Attorney General of the United States—and he couldn’t have made a better choice. Throughout his career, Sessions has demonstrated unshakable commitment and fidelity to the Constitution, the rule of law, and protecting the freedom and liberty that is our birthright as Americans.

    He has almost the perfect professional background to be the attorney general. As the former U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of Alabama under President Ronald Reagan, he gained practical experience in the most important prosecutorial work that the Justice Department is supposed to do every day: enforce the criminal and civil statutes of the United States.

    That is something that the Justice Department has neglected to do in a number of areas—such as immigration—under the leadership of Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch. In fact, Sessions’ most difficult job will be reversing the unprofessionalism and downright unethical conduct that has infected parts of the Department in recent years, the result of decision-making being driven by politics rather than a commitment to uphold the law.

    While many lawyers have the kind of practical experience Sessions gained as a prosecutor, not many have been a state attorney general. It is that experience that helps make Sessions the best choice. As the former attorney general of Alabama, Sen. Sessions won’t have a lengthy learning curve; he already has the administrative experience of running a law enforcement agency. More importantly, he has a keen appreciation of the fact that we are a federal republic, which means that state governments are independent sovereigns, not provincial subdivisions of the federal government.

    One things for sure: As a conservative Republican and a southerner, expect liberals to display more irrational loathing for Sessions than any Attorney General since Ed Meese.

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    Ted Cruz’s Name Floated as Attorney General

    Wednesday, November 16th, 2016

    Bloomberg is reporting that Ted Cruz is being considered as Trump’s Attorney General.

    Though it would suck to lose Cruz from the senate, he would make an excellent Attorney General. In addition to being Texas Solicitor General, he was also a Ninth and Tenth Amendment scholar. Cruz believes in the Second Amendment, in states rights on marijuana legalization and he could be trusted to carry out border enforcement duties, as well as going after corrupt politicians (see also: Clinton Foundation).

    Would Cruz be interested in the position? Hard to say. It would give him a higher national profile, but also make him more unpopular among non-conservatives (the Attorney General tends to be the most criticized and least liked of cabinet positions, no matter which party is in power). I think Cruz still wants to be President, and I think his willingness to take such a role (assuming it was offered) would be contingent on whether he thinks it would brig him closer to that goal or not.

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    Posted in Republicans | 1 Comment »

    This Week in Clinton Corruption for October 28, 2016

    Friday, October 28th, 2016

    A huge Clinton Corruption update this week! And who knows how much bigger next week’s will be?

  • Newly leaked memo maps cash flows between the Clinton Foundation and Bill’s for-profit activities:

    We have written frequently in recent weeks about a feud that erupted between Chelsea Clinton and Doug Band back in 2011 after Chelsea raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest between Band’s firm, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department (see here, here, here and here). The feud ultimately resulted in Band being forced to draft a memo spelling out, in vivid detail, the many entangled relationships between himself, Teneo, the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. Fortunately, today’s Wikileaks dump included that memo which reveals, for the first time, the precise financial flows between the Clinton Foundation, Band’s firm Teneo Consulting, and the Clinton family’s private business endeavors.

    The memo starts with a brief background on Teneo, which was created in June 2011, shortly after Declan Kelly resigned from his position as “United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland,” a position to which he was appointed by Secretary Clinton.

    In June 2009, DK Consulting was founded by Declan Kelley. Mr. Kelly served as COO of FTI Consulting until June 2009, when he stepped down and established DK Consulting. At that time, he also became the United States Economic Envoy to Northern Ireland. Pursuant to the terms of his exit agreement with FTI and consistent with the ethics agreement of his uncompensated special government employee appointment at the State Department, Mr. Kelly retained and continued to provide services to three paying clients (Coke, Dow, and UBS) and one pro bono client (Allstate). In late 2009, Declan retained me as a consultant to DK Consulting to help support the needs of these clients.

    Stop right there. Who takes Allstate, a Fortune 100 company, as a pro bono client?

    Here’s a copy of the document Zero Hedge is relying on (though alas, whoever put that up through some encoding bullshit to keep you from copying from it). Band goes into detail about just how much scratch is involved in scratching the Clintons’ backs:

    “Cognizant of the Foundation’s significant fundraising needs as well as my role as the primary fundraiser for the Foundation for the past 11 years, as a partner in Teneo, Mr. Kelley [sic] and I have asked and encouraged our clients to contribute to the Foundation,” Band wrote. “Through our efforts, we have brought new donors to the Foundation and garnered increased giving from existing donors.”

    And let’s look at the donors (all amounts for the period 2004-2011 except where noted):

    • The Coca-Cola Company: Total giving: $4,330,000
    • The Dow Chemical Company: Total giving: $780,000
    • UBS: Total giving: $540,000
    • The American Ireland Fund: Total giving: $350,000 (all 2010-2011)
    • The All-State [sic] Corporation: Total giving: $265,000 (with an additional $500,000 pledge)
    • Barclays Capital: Total giving: $1,100,000 (2008-2011)
    • Indo Gold: Total giving: $100,000
    • BHP Billiton Limited: Total giving: $20,000
    • Teneo: Total giving: $100,000

    There’s a further list of Teneo clients (GEMS Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Laureate International Universities) who were already donating to the Clinton Foundation.

  • Even the Washington Post was forced to notice:

    The memo, made public Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department. It describes how Band helped run what he called “Bill Clinton Inc.,” obtaining “in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”

    That’s called “quid pro quo.” Also this: “Emails show that Cheryl Mills, who at the time was serving as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, was deeply involved in the foundation’s proceedings.” Yeah, I think that’s been pretty well established at this point. (Hat tip: Powerline.)

  • And remember: Huma Abedin was working for Teneo while she was working for the State Department. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The Wall Street Journal wonders: Why isn’t the IRS investigating the Clinton Foundation?
  • More Clinton pay to play: “The head of a for-profit university that donated up to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation was rewarded with an invite to a high-profile State Department dinner at the request of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • The five most disturbing donations to the Clinton Foundation. Including the Saudis, the Russian uranium deal money, and Indonesian tobacco magnate Putera Sampoerna who “donated and worked with the foundation before he got the U.S. government to underwrite millions in loans offered by the foundation and secured high-profile support for its activities from Sec. Clinton and other senior federal officials.”
  • “Five mega-donors and their wives are responsible for one in every $17 dollars that have been spent on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Funny how right when Hillary Clinton came under FBI scrutiny:

    The political backers of a longtime Clinton crony and fixer, Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, made $675,000 in cash and in-kind contributions to the election campaign of the wife of the FBI official who later ran the investigation of Mrs. Clinton.”

    As the Wall Street Journal reports, the contributions went to the 2015 Virginia state senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of then-associate-deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe. McAuliffe had recruited Dr. McCabe to run. After her campaign ended unsuccessfully (Dr. McCabe lost to incumbent Republican Dick Black), Andrew McCabe was promoted to deputy director, a role in which he assumed oversight of the Clinton e-mail investigation.

  • And Hillary headlined a fundraiser for her. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • “The fact that Hillary Clinton’s inner circle was raising substantial funds for Gov. McAuliffe’s PAC and this same PAC gave close to a half-million dollars to the campaign of the wife of the senior FBI official involved in the Clinton investigation sure looks like a payoff – a major payoff.”
  • It’s not just the FBI. Department of Justice employees as a whole are hevaily backing Clinton:

    Employees of the Department of Justice, which investigated Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of State, gave Clinton 97 percent of their donations. Trump received $8,756 from DOJ employees compared with $286,797 for Clinton. From IRS employees, Clinton received 94 percent of donations.

    Which brings up the question: Why are federal government employees even allowed to make campaign donations?

  • Speaking of the FBI, a retired agent slams James Comey’s non-indictment of Hillary. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Watch Clinton campaign staff take an illegal $20,000 donation on camera.
  • The Clinton Foundation was set up to be corrupt. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Clinton State Department IT official John Bentel takes the Fifth Amendment 90 times. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Was EmailGate buried to protect Obama rather than Clinton?
  • Maybe that’s why the Clinton campaign coordinated with both the White House and the media on how to conduct the coverup.
  • More emails emerge of how Hillary’s secret private server was causing problems at the State Department. More emails that, yet again, Clinton failed to turn over to the FBI.
  • Despite all this, could all 33,000 emails from Hillary’s private serve still exist someplace? (Hat tip: Legal Insurrection.)
  • Yes, Donna Brazile did feed debate questions to the Clinton campaign while working for CNN. Of course, CNN is an extension of the Clinton campaign, so I don’t see how anyone can be surprised.
  • The Clinton campaign is coordinating with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
  • Maybe that’s why some Facebook employees tried to remove a Trump post on Muslims as “hate speech.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • The Clinton Clan’s hunger for foreign campaign contributions goes back to at least the 1990s. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Scott Adams endorses Trump for all the bullying Democrats carried out against him and other Americans:

    I’ve been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms.

    If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it.

    If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car.

    if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired.

    On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood.

    We know from Project Veritas that Clinton supporters tried to incite violence at Trump rallies. The media downplays it.

    We also know Clinton’s side hired paid trolls to bully online. You don’t hear much about that.

    Yesterday, by no coincidence, Huffington Post, Salon, and Daily Kos all published similar-sounding hit pieces on me, presumably to lower my influence. (That reason, plus jealousy, are the only reasons writers write about other writers.)

    Joe Biden said he wanted to take Trump behind the bleachers and beat him up. No one on Clinton’s side disavowed that call to violence because, I assume, they consider it justified hyperbole.

    Team Clinton has succeeded in perpetuating one of the greatest evils I have seen in my lifetime. Her side has branded Trump supporters (40%+ of voters) as Nazis, sexists, homophobes, racists, and a few other fighting words. Their argument is built on confirmation bias and persuasion. But facts don’t matter because facts never matter in politics. What matters is that Clinton’s framing of Trump provides moral cover for any bullying behavior online or in person. No one can be a bad person for opposing Hitler, right?

  • More from Adams: The Crook vs. the Monster.
  • Clinton campaign staffer: So, how are we going to handle all this Bill Clinton/Bill Cosby comparisons? Response: [Silence] (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Erica Garner rips Hillary for trying to make political hay out of her father’s death.
  • “Hillary Clinton campaign aides had a frantic email exchange in August 2015 over who should call the candidate to ‘sober her up some’ at around 4:30 in the afternoon.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Another story on Hillary’s health:

    Sources close to Hillary tell me that her doctors have discovered she suffers from arrhythmia (an abnormal heart beat) and a leaking heart valve. They have recommended that she consider having valve replacement surgery, but Hillary has refused because she does not want to risk the negative political fallout from stories about such a serious operation.

    In addition to the arrhythmia and leaking heart valve, Hillary suffers from chronic low blood pressure, insufficient blood flow, a tendency to form life-threatening blood clots, and troubling side effects from her medications.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine attracts all of 30 people to a rally in Florida. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

    • And just before I clicked the Publish button, Wikileaks dropped another 1,400 Podesta emails. With the Clintons, corruption never takes a holiday…

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, Obama Scandals | 3 Comments »

    Equality Under the Law: Whites Need Not Apply

    Saturday, September 25th, 2010

    I haven’t been posting on the story of the Obama Justice Department’s failure to pursue civil rights charges against the New Black Panther Party intimidating voters at the polls because: A.) it wasn’t a surprise, because Obama’s never given more than a conflicted slap on the wrist to anyone on the left (and still hasn’t had his Sister Souljah Moment, and presumably never will), B.) It was a relatively small story compared compared to all the other corruption and malfeasance surrounding the Obama administration likes flies buzzing around a dead hyena, and C.) There was no smoking gun that higher ups refused to pursue the case for political reasons.

    Well, there’s now a smoking gun in the form of Christopher Coates testimony.

    I suggest you read the entire thing. Unfortunately, the document is a “blogger hostile” secured PDF document, which makes cutting-and-pasting the text impossible (at least without cracking tools I don’t have), but the content is eye-opening.

    To summarize: Both Civil Rights Division career lawyers in general and Obama Administration appointees in specific are actively hostile to race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and refuse to bring any cases against blacks, in defiance of the specific language of the act.

    Obama’s election was supposed to usher in a “post-racial America.” Instead, his election seems to have intensified the race-mongering pathologies of the American far-left: Identity Politics, unequal protection, and government not as a neutral arbiter, but as a distributor of spoils to favored groups.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats | 1 Comment »

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