Footsteps

I can hear them. Can’t you?

I’ll wager there are any number of persons in DC, Brandywine, Alexandria, Silver Spring, Bethesda, Falls Church, Reston, Rockville, College Park, Great Falls, McLean, Chevy Chase, North Arlington and Georgetown — amongst many, many other locales –whose personal radar has emerged and is sounding bells and klaxons in a fashion heretofore never experienced.

I can hear them. And I think they can too: footsteps.

Furthermore, the smell of fear — sweaty, clammy, dripping rivulets of fear coursing down the small of a back, staining the armpits, moistening the crotch, invading the breath, gathering on a forehead — is becoming endemic in the northeast. It’s a sour smell, cloying, inescapable, permeating the offices of many bureaucrats in DC, male and female. It’s the abject smell of fear. And it’s also the smell of emptying bowels and a mad rush to cover up and bury evidence.

Who knows? Who knows what? And who could potentially or will likely “roll” on others in order to save themselves? Who will cut a deal? More importantly: who will cut a deal first?

Yes, it’s the “beginning of the end.” But for whom?

Attorney General William Barr is now the most dangerous man in the United States of America.

Listen to how they must denigrate him. Listen to how they must minimize him. Listen to how they must utilize every device, word, phrase, pejorative, in order to derail his future work and to absolutely destroy his credibility and destroy him as a human being.

Because here is what an actual Attorney General of the United States sounds like:

  • “I’m not going to discuss my decision, I will lay it out after the report is out.”
  • “I’m not going to characterize or discuss the contents of the report.”

This is Demorat Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland trying to get information out of AG Barr prior to the release of the report a few weeks ago. This is called sticking to your guns.

The Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots clearly recognize that AG William Barr is a DC veteran and doesn’t buy very many political narratives. He’s seen most everything and seems to be afraid of little. He appears to be primarily interested in the law, and said this three weeks ago:

And there is more that he said in the Senate Judiciary Committee:

This was sufficient to raise Demorat hackles and cause immediate concern, as in “Is this guy not going to play along?”

Three weeks ago, AG Barr caused sphincters all across DC to either slam shut or empty their watery contents when he related the following:

“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

“I think spying did occur.”

The words that loosened thousands of sets of bowels in the northeast.

And with that, the gloves were off. William Barr had to be destroyed by any means necessary or available. It was clear that he was no limp-wristed, wimpy-voiced, diaper-wearing Jeff Sessions — but an actual adult who could think for himself and recognized his duties and responsibilities as Attorney General of the United States.

He also knows what he will and will not do. And what is lawfully obligated to do or not do. AG William Barr is essentially setting behavior parameters for the children.

A single word: “No.” Then: “Why should you have them?”

Hence these unfettered, unreasonable and baseless attacks. Leftists, Demorats and the American Media Maggots know precisely what William Barr will do or is already doing. He is going to walk backwards in time to determine how the FISA warrant was acquired,

Lindsay Graham nails the primary issue here on the Sean Hannity Show. As an aside, it’s interesting how it’s the third time I’ve had to find this video you YouTube, their having shut down and eliminated two other prior videos.

What was so terrible about this video according to YouTube?

A truth too close to the bone?

Perhaps the LDAMM — Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots think that, instead of “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” they believe Attorney General William Barr said “cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war!”

Because: make no mistake, this is war. Leftists and Demorats are fighting to ensure that the entire 44th presidency doesn’t explode into the face of Barack Hussein Obama and, moreover, that those persons operating the pedals and levers — such as Hillary Clinton, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce and Nellie Ohn, John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and many, many others — aren’t themselves placed under indictment, arrest and perhaps even sentencing in a federal facility.

Because I firmly believe now as two years ago when I made this statement, that what we are seeing is a soft coup — simply not an active utilization of the US military might — against a citizen of the United States. It was a soft coup against a presidential nominee, a president-elect, and then a sitting President of the United States.

The heat is on. The persons I enumerated are hearing footsteps and the stench of fear is thick. Here are a number of revelations recently discovered involving the FBI, CIA and many other individuals in the systemic focus on removing Donald Trump by any means necessary, legal or illegal.

First, isn’t it interesting that this occurs. To me, call me wacky, the timing seems a bit suspicious:

NSA recommends dropping controversial mass surveillance program, report says

by Christopher Carbone

The National Security Agency has reportedly recommended that the White House abandon a controversial surveillance program that collects vast amounts of information about Americans’ phone calls and text messages, claiming the legal and logistical burdens of maintaining it outweigh its benefits to the intelligence community.

The recommendation, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal and involved input from NSA, the FBI and the Department of Justice, appears to represent an about-face regarding a program – long criticized by privacy advocates – that federal officials previously said was vital to finding and disrupting terrorist plots against the United States.

The once-secret program known as Stellarwind, which was revealed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and has been seen as not viable for some time now, is now seen as something that provides limited intelligence to the U.S., according to the Journal.

This emerged April 18th from the WashingtonFreeBeacon.com:

U.S. Intelligence Institutionally Politicized Toward Democrats

Former CIA analyst says agencies dominated by liberals

by Bill Gertz

The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have become bastions of political liberals and the pro-Democratic Party views of intelligence personnel have increased under President Donald Trump, according to a journal article by a former CIA analyst.

John Gentry, who spent 12 years as a CIA analyst, criticized former senior intelligence leaders, including CIA Director John Brenan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell, along with former analyst Paul Pillar, for breaking decades-long prohibitions of publicly airing their liberal political views in attacking Trump.

The institutional bias outlined in a lengthy article in the quarterly International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence risks undermining the role of intelligence in support of government leaders charged with making policy decisions.

Gentry stopped short of saying the widespread liberal bias of intelligence officials has influenced intelligence reports and products. However, he concludes that “bias may have crept into CIA analyses.”

Facts in evidence. Didn’t we all already inherently intuit this?

But wait; wasn’t it the Leftists, Demorats and American Media Maggots — to include Jimmy “The Leak” Comey, John Brennan and James Clapper — who absolutely insisted that the alphabet agencies were entirely apolitical and unbiased?

We discovered this, from TheFederalist.com:

Obama’s Campaign Paid $972,000 To Law Firm That Secretly Paid Fusion GPS In 2016

by Sean Davis

Since April of 2016, Obama’s campaign organization has paid nearly a million dollars to the law firm that funneled money to Fusion GPS to compile a dossier of unverified allegations against Donald Trump.

Former president Barack Obama’s official campaign organization has directed nearly a million dollars to the same law firm that funneled money to Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Steele dossier. Since April of 2016, Obama For America (OFA) has paid over $972,000 to Perkins Coie, records filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show.

The Washington Post reported last week that Perkins Coie, an international law firm, was directed by both the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to retain Fusion GPS in April of 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump. Fusion GPS then hired Christopher Steele, a former British spy, to compile a dossier of allegations that Trump and his campaign actively colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 election. Though many of the claims in the dossier have been directly refuted, none of the dossier’s allegations of collusion have been independently verified. Lawyers for Steele admitted in court filings last April that his work was not verified and was never meant to be made public.

We also discovered a line of email evidence leading directly into the Oval Office of Barack Hussein Obama:

FBI found Hillary Clinton’s emails in Obama White House, former top official says

by Daniel Chaitin, 4-23-19

A former top FBI official said a repository of Hillary Clinton’s emails was obtained by the Obama White House.

As part of a court-ordered discovery related to Clinton’s unauthorized email server, Bill Priestap was asked by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch to identify representatives of Clinton, her State Department staff, and government agencies from which “email repositories were obtained” by the FBI.

He divulged a nonexhaustive list, which included the Executive Office of the President.

Stop. Do you doubt for even a microsecond that Barack Obama had no idea what was being done to Trump and his campaign by a host of persons and the alphabet agencies? Can you really believe Obama was and is that ignorant of politics?

Other people mentioned were former Clinton aides Cheryl Mills, Heather Samuelson, Jacob Sullivan, and Justin Cooper, former Clinton information technology staffer Bryan Pagliano, the State Department, Secret Service, and Washington-based law firm Williams and Connolly.

Priestep answered questions in writing and under oath as part of U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth’s ruling earlier this year that discovery could commence examining the former secretary of state’s use of the server, encompassing Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers, and Clinton aides, as well as Priestap.

Even more important:

Judicial Watch shared Priestep’s recent testimony on Tuesday, at a time when Republican allies of President Trump, as well as the Justice Department and its inspector general, are looking into possible misconduct by top DOJ and FBI officials stemming back to the Obama administration to undermine Trump as a candidate and president.

“This astonishing confirmation, made under oath by the FBI, shows that the Obama FBI had to go to President Obama’s White House office to find emails that Hillary Clinton tried to destroy or hide from the American people,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement. “No wonder Hillary Clinton has thus far skated — Barack Obama is implicated in her email scheme.”

B I N G O .

We also know this, from the WashingtonExaminer.com:

DOJ inspector general ‘homing in on’ FBI’s use of unverified Steele dossier

by Jerry Dunleavy, 5-8-19

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is investigating the FBI’s reliance on the unverified dossier produced by British ex-spy Christopher Steele in the surveillance of a Trump campaign associate “despite questions about [Steele’s] credibility.”

Citing unnamed sources, the Wall Street Journal reports Horowitz “is homing in on” and “has been asking witnesses about” the FBI’s “treatment of information” provided by Steele, described as a “key source”, who was used to obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants against former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

This is part of Horowitz’s broad investigation into alleged FISA abuse and more.

Drops of sweat. Footsteps. More underarm deodorant required.

Steele’s dossier was funded in part by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign through the Perkins Coie law firm and opposition research group Fusion GPS, which had reached out to and contracted Steele. 

The new Wall Street Journal report says the inspector general’s office “has been asking why the FBI continued to cite Steele as a credible source in the renewal applications.” And a specific focus of Horowitz’s team is apparently “a news report cited extensively in the [FISA] applications that appeared to bolster Steele’s credibility… [which] said U.S. intelligence officials were investigating allegations similar to those Steele had raised.”

As you already know. See above. You clearly wouldn’t want to any of Jimmy “The Leak” Comey’s shirts these days.

James Comey is in trouble and he knows it

by Kevin R. Brock, 5-7-19

James Comey’s planet is getting noticeably warmer. Attorney General William Barr’s emissions are the suspected cause.  

Barr has made plain that he intends to examine carefully how and why Comey, as FBI director, decided that the bureau should investigate two presidential campaigns and if, in so doing, any rules or laws were broken.

In light of this, the fired former FBI director apparently has decided that photos of him on Twitter standing amid tall trees and in the middle of empty country roads, acting all metaphysical, is no longer a sufficient strategy. 

No, Comey has realized, probably too late, that he has to try to counter, more directly, the narrative being set by the unsparing attorney general whose words in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week landed in the Trump-opposition world like holy water on Linda Blair. Shrieking heads haven’t stopped spinning since.

And so we’ve seen Comey get real busy lately. First he penned a curious op-ed in The New York Times. Then a Times reporter, with whom Comey has cooperated in the past, wrote a news article exposing an early, controversial investigative technique against the Trump campaign in an attempt to get out front and excuse it. Next, Comey is scheduled to be encouraged on a friendly cable news “town hall.”  

In the op-ed, Comey trotted out his now-familiar St. James schtick, freely pronouncing on the morality of others. He sees himself as a kind of Pontiff-of-the-Potomac working his beads, but comes across more like an unraveling Captain Queeg working his ball bearings.  

Jimmy “The Leak” hears footsteps. James Clapper hears footsteps, from TheFederalist.com:

James Clapper Knew There Was No Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion In 2016

by H.A. Goodman, 4-24-19

President Obama’s top intelligence official stated categorically that no evidence existed of Trump-Russia collusion. So why did Rosenstein appoint Mueller two months later?

Long before the special counsel probe ended in confirming there was no collusion between President Trump and Russia, the U.S. government knew there was no evidence of a vast conspiracy between Trump and a foreign power.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate “ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials” on May 17, 2017. President Obama’s director of national intelligence James Clapper had access and was privy to all the “evidence” the U.S. government collected since the Russia investigation began in July 2016.

From July 2016 until Clapper’s appearance on “Meet the Press” in March 2017, not one shred of evidence linked anyone in Trump’s campaign to allegations listed in the Christopher Steele dossier or Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos’s meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. Clapper stated to Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on March 5, 2017 that the National Security Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Central Intelligence Agency had collected “no evidence” regarding “improper contacts” between Trump and Russia.

Speaking of more alphabet agencies, veteran journalist Bob Woodward is getting into the act, from DailyCaller.com:

BOB WOODWARD: FBI AND CIA HANDLING OF STEELE DOSSIER ‘NEEDS TO BE INVESTIGATED’

by Chuck Ross, 4-22-19

Legendary reporter Bob Woodward said Sunday that the FBI and CIA’s reliance on the Steele dossier “needs to be investigated” now that the Mueller report has undercut many of the salacious document’s claims.

Woodward reiterated in an interview with Fox News’s Chris Wallace his past statements that the dossier “has got a lot of garbage in it.”

Woodward said that he recently learned that the CIA included outtakes from the dossier in a draft of the January 2017 intelligence community assessment that laid out Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

“What I found out recently, which was really quite surprising, the dossier, which really has got a lot of garbage in it and Mueller found that to be the case, early in building the intelligence community assessment on Russian interference, in an early draft, they actually put the dossier on page two in kind of a breakout box.”

But wait; listen to this:

“I think it was the CIA pushing this. Real intelligence experts looked at this and said no, this is not intelligence, this is garbage and they took it out,” said Woodward.

Again, from the DailyCaller.com:

PETER STRZOK SUSPECTED CIA WAS BEHIND INACCURATE MEDIA LEAKS

by Chuck Ross, 5-6-19

Peter Strzok suspected CIA employees were behind inaccurate leaks to the press regarding possible Trump campaign contacts with Russia, according to an email the former FBI counterintelligence official sent to colleagues in April 2017.

“I’m beginning to think the agency got info a lot earlier than we thought and hasn’t shared it completely with us. Might explain all these weird/seemingly incorrect leads all these media folks have. Would also highlight agency as source of some of the leaks,” Strzok wrote in an email to FBI colleagues on April 13, 2017.

Cue Dan Bongino: (Start at 3:10 — end at 11:00).

But where do we go? Where do we start? Rep Jim Jordan nails it.

Of course, Jerry “The Hutt” Nadler held a vote in the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, May 8th which, in a completely partisan fashion of 24 to 16, found AG Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand over the unredacted version of the Mueller report.

President Trump then claimed executive privilege over said unredacted report.

Trump asserts executive privilege to keep full Mueller report SECRET from Congress as his AG Bill Barr is held in CONTEMPT for refusing to hand it over

by Emily Goodin, 5-8-19

  • House Democrats voted to find Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress for failing to hand over the material
  • The vote in the House Judiciary Committee was along partisan lines: 24 to 16
  • The final vote came after a 6 and a half hour hearing on the contempt citation
  • It now goes to the House floor for a vote by the full chamber 
  • President Donald Trump claimed executive privilege over the full, unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller 
  • ‘The President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege,’ White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said
  • House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler slammed the move, calling it ‘a clear escalation in the Trump administration’s blanket defiance’ of Congress  

President Donald Trump on Wednesday claimed executive privilege over the full, unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report and House Democrats found Attorney General Bill Barr in contempt of Congress for refusing to hand it over. 

The vote to on contempt charges, held in the House Judiciary Committee, was along partisan lines – 24 Democrats versus 16 Republican – and now goes before the full House chamber for a vote, where Democrats hold a 38-seat majority.

After the full House votes the issue is expected to end up in the courts.

But wait. This is all predicated on a falsehood. An offer was already made to the Demorats to view a much less redacted version. They adamantly refused to even to that. From Politico.com:

Dems reject Barr’s offer to view a less-redacted Mueller report

by Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio, 4-19-19

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are rejecting an offer from Attorney General William Barr to view a significantly less-redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, contending that Barr is too severely limiting the number of lawmakers who can view it.

“Given the comprehensive factual findings presented by the special counsel’s report, some of which will only be fully understood with access to the redacted material, we cannot agree to the conditions you are placing on our access to the full report,” Pelosi, Schumer and other House and Senate Democratic committee chairs wrote in a letter to Barr on Friday.

But you had the opportunity. You still have the opportunity. From NationalReview.com:

Top Dems Now Have Access to All But Two Full, Seven Partial Lines of Mueller’s Obstruction Report

by Jack Crowe, May 8, 2019

As Congressional Democrats prepare to hold attorney general William Barr in contempt over his supposed lack of transparency, its worth remembering that he has made available to top Democrats the entirety of volume II of the Mueller report, save for two full and seven partial lines, which were redacted to protect grand jury secrecy in keeping with federal law.

In order to provide lawmakers with greater transparency into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the Department of Justice placed a less-redacted version of his report in a secure room on Capitol Hill, and granted access to that room to congressional leaders of both parties, as well as the chairmen and ranking members of intelligence and judiciary committees in the House and Senate.

As of this writing, not one of the six Democrats granted access to what amounts to 99.9 percent of volume II of the Mueller report, which details the president’s behavior as it relates to obstruction of justice, have taken the opportunity to examine it. If they had, they could have viewed the entirety of Mueller’s obstruction case against Trump except for the following seven redactions, two of which are applied to footnotes.

Here is what those redactions physically look like. These black marks are to what Jerry “The Hutt” Nadler is objecting. Look very closely.

And there are two very important reasons why conditions were placed.

The Democrats say Barr’s offer, which would allow just 12 senior lawmakers and certain staffers to see the fuller version of the report, also fails to guarantee lawmakers access to grand jury material. They say they’re open to “discussing a reasonable accommodation” but that members of investigative committees — such as the Judiciary Committee and Intelligence Committee in each chamber — require access as well.

  1. Once taken out of a SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility) the contents will be leaked by Demorats, period.
  2. Grand Jury information cannot be made public. From the Criminal Resources Manual, the US Department of Justice, Rule 6(e)(2), Fed.R.Crim.P., prohibits “an attorney for the government” from disclosing matters occurring before a grand jury, except as otherwise provided in the rules.

Sebastian Gorka addresses that very issue here.

Further, Rep Jim Jordan reveals it’s all a political ploy by Jerry The Hutt and the Demorats anyway.

Can you imagine being a member of the Leftists, Demorats or American Media Maggots today?

First, you lost the presidency to Orange Man Bad. Despite the numerous illegal, corrupt tricks you pulled involving the FBI, CIA, NSA and the FISA court. Then the OMB started to do precisely what he said he was going to do. He made two SCOTUS appointments, reduced regulations, eliminated positions and brought a lot of manufacturing back to the United States. He has kept us as safe on the border as federal courts would allow. Black and Hispanic unemployment is at its lowest rate in roughly FIFTY years. The economy is doing very well.

Then you banked on Robert Mueller coming back with Kill Recommendations against Donald John Trump, the guy with the dead orange cat on his head. $25 million dollars and two years later, utilizing an attorney staff comprised of nothing but Demorats, Mueller couldn’t make that conclusion. No connection between Trump, Russia, elections and whatnot. No outright charge of obstruction.

Now it’s time to attack new Attorney General William Barr because he’s making noise like he’s going to do what any real AG would do: look into the dossier, the FISA warrant and spying in general against an American citizen. Yes. SPYING.

Harmeet Dhillon wrote:

Attorney General William Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Department of Justice’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election, and his refusal to testify before House Judiciary Thursday, both revealed much about the new attorney general and the Democrats who sought to question him.

At their heart, clownish performances aside, the hearings confirmed what we already knew: President Trump was legitimately elected, despite President Obama’s knowledge of Russian interference attempts, and Democrats still can’t come to grips with this reality, two and a half years later.

She nailed it here:

Democrats are so afraid of an attorney general – finally – manifestly willing to do his duty to expose the rot, corruption, mendacity, and betrayals in our law enforcement apparatus working hand in hand with political partisans in the media and in elected government, that they are taking ever-riskier gambles.

It’s time to ask these questions:

What if powerful people — Leftists, Demorats — fall?

What if find collusion, corruption and conspiracy between Clinton, Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, Page, the Ohrs, Steele, and many others? What if it leads as I fully believe it does, right up to and into the Oval Office of Barack Hussein Obama himself?

Isn’t it odd how we’re discovering, with each passing day, that the very things Demorats are accusing Trump of, they themselves are guilty of — and he isn’t?

How will this affect Demorats in their 2020 presidential travails?

It ain’t gonna be pretty.

There’s a Bad Moon On the Rise.

Footsteps.

BZ

** PSH = Pants Shitting Hysteria.

 

Hypocrisy and hyperbole; the aftermath of Comey’s firing

If you’d been listening to the American Media Maggots the past 24 hours, you’d think the sky had indeed fallen all across the United States of America.

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, and the world has, literally, stopped rotating on its axis.

It all started with a letter by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

May 9, 2017

MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL

FROM: ROD J. ROSENSTEIN

DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL

SUBJECT: RESTORING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE IN THE FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been regarded as our nation’s premier federal investigative agency. Over the past year, however, the FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.

The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.

The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution.

It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation’s most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.

Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.

In response to skeptical question at a congressional hearing, the Director defended his remarks by saying that his “goal was to say what is true. What did we do, what did we find, what do we think about it.” But the goal of a federal criminal investigation is not to announce our thoughts at a press conference. The goal is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a federal criminal prosecution, then allow a federal prosecutor who exercises authority delegated by the Attorney General to make a prosecutorial decision, and then – if prosecution is warranted – let the judge and jury determine the facts. We sometimes release information about closed investigations in appropriate ways, but the FBI does not do it.

Concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether he would “speak” about the decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or “conceal” it. “Conceal” is a loaded term that misstates the issue. When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context, silence is not concealment.

My perspective on these issues is shared by former Attorneys General and Deputy Attorneys General from different eras and both political parties. Judge Laurence Silberman, who served as Deputy Attorney General under President Ford, wrote that “it is not the bureau’s responsibility to opine on whether a matter should be prosecuted.” Silberman believes that the Director’s “Performance was so inappropriate for an FBI director that [he] doubt[s] the bureau will ever completely recover.” Jamie Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton, joined with Larry Thompson, Deputy Attorney General under President George W. Bush, to opine that the Director had “chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness, departing from the department’s traditions.” They concluded that the Director violated his obligation to “preserve, protect and defend” the traditions of the Department and the FBI.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served under President George W. Bush, observed the Director “stepped way outside his job in disclosing the recommendation in that fashion” because the FBI director “doesn’t make that decision.”

Alberto Gonzales, who also served as Attorney General under President George W. Bush, called the decision “an error in judgement.” Eric Holder, who served as Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton and Attorney General under President Obama, said the Director’s decision“was incorrect. It violated long-standing Justice Department policies and traditions. And it ran counter to guidance that I put in place four years ago laying out the proper way to conduct investigations during an election season.” Holder concluded that the Director “broke with these fundamental principles” and “negatively affected public trust in both the Justice Department and the FBI.”

Former Deputy Attorneys General Gorelick and Thompson described the unusual events as“real-time, raw-take transparency taken to its illogical limit, a kind of reality TV of federal criminal investigation,” that is “antithetical to the interests of justice.”

Donald Ayer, who served as Deputy Attorney General under President H.W. Bush, along with former Justice Department officials, was“astonished and perplexed” by the decision to “break[] with longstanding practices followed by officials of both parties during past elections.” Ayer’s letter noted, “Perhaps most troubling… is the precedent set by this departure from the Department’s widely-respected, non-partisan traditions.”

We should reject the departure and return to the traditions.

Although the President has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly. I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials. The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.

I set out my objections to now-former Director James Comey last year with his horribly flawed reasoning for failing to forward the Hillary Clinton case to the DOJ last year, and also in this post. I was heartened to see that the bulk of my objections were quite similar to those of the Deputy Attorney General.

We all know that President William Jefferson Clinton fired his FBI Director, William Sessions, back in 1993 for essentially political reasons. That was fine with Demorats.

Many Demorats themselves were calling for the severed head of William Comey quite recently.

Yes, two words: what changed?

We all know the answer, quite obviously. Judicial Watch’s CJ Farrell had this to say from last year.

Maxine Waters at least had the guts to come out and say what every other Demorat and Leftist is thinking about the situation.

From RealClearPolitics.com:

Maxine Waters: I Don’t Support Trump Firing Comey, I Would Support Hillary Clinton Firing Comey

by Ian Schwartz

NBC’s Peter Alexander grills Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cali.) for her displeasure at President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey after she had announced in January that he has lost all credibility after attending a classified briefing conducted by the now-former director.

In March, Waters issued a press release that read Comey “advanced Russia’s misinformation campaign.”

However, in the interview Wednesday on MSNBC, asked if she would be okay with a hypothetical President Hillary Clinton dismissing Comey from his position, Waters said yes.

“If she had won the White House, I believe that given what he did to her, and what he tried to do, she should have fired him. Yes,” the California Democrat said.

“So she should have fired him but had he shouldn’t fire him. This is why I’m confused,” Alexander said to Waters.

Honesty and clarity, for once, coming from Maxine Waters in terms of her clear bias.

But it wasn’t just politicians who became unhinged over the firing of James Comey. The so-called “celebrities” did so as well.

Steven Colbert was not amused.

Neither was our favorite moonbat, Keith Olbermann.

So what really happened in the White House? What was the final straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back? I wrote back on Tuesday that Comey’s final waffling on the number of emails found in Weiner’s laptop was the kicker. Oddly enough, Dr Sebastian Gorka highlighted that same issue.

The New York Times wrote this about the White House decision.

‘Enough was Enough’: How Festering Anger at Comey Ended in His Firing

by Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, Michael S Schmidt and Peter Baker

WASHINGTON — By the end, neither of them thought much of the other.

After President Trump accused his predecessor in March of wiretapping him, James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, was flabbergasted. The president, Mr. Comey told associates, was “outside the realm of normal,” even “crazy.”

For his part, Mr. Trump fumed when Mr. Comey publicly dismissed the sensational wiretapping claim. In the weeks that followed, he grew angrier and began talking about firing Mr. Comey. After stewing last weekend while watching Sunday talk shows at his New Jersey golf resort, Mr. Trump decided it was time. There was “something wrong with” Mr. Comey, he told aides.

The problem, you see, was that Donald Trump waited too long. As I believed and wrote numerous times, on January 20th at noon, President Trump should have demanded Comey’s resignation letter.

The collision between president and F.B.I. director that culminated with Mr. Comey’s stunning dismissal on Tuesday had been a long time coming. To a president obsessed with loyalty, Mr. Comey was a rogue operator who could not be trusted as the F.B.I. investigated Russian ties to Mr. Trump’s campaign. To a lawman obsessed with independence, Mr. Trump was the ultimate loose cannon, making irresponsible claims on Twitter and jeopardizing the bureau’s credibility.

The other problem was that Comey wasn’t obsessed with any independence other than his own, and not that of the bureau itself. The only person who jeopardized the FBI’s credibility was James Comey.

The White House, in a series of shifting and contradictory accounts, first said Mr. Trump decided to fire Mr. Comey because the attorney general and his deputy recommended it. By Wednesday, it had amended the timeline to say that the president had actually been thinking about getting rid of the F.B.I. director as far back as November, after he won the election, and then became “strongly inclined” after Mr. Comey testified before Congress last week.

Mr. Comey’s fate was sealed by his latest testimony about the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s efforts to sway the 2016 election and the Clinton email inquiry. Mr. Trump burned as he watched, convinced that Mr. Comey was grandstanding. He was particularly irked when Mr. Comey said he was “mildly nauseous” to think that his handling of the email case had influenced the election, which Mr. Trump took to demean his own role in history.

Director Comey was grandstanding.

At that point, Mr. Trump began talking about firing him. He and his aides thought they had an opening because Mr. Comey gave an incorrect account of how Huma Abedin, a top adviser to Mrs. Clinton, transferred emails to her husband’s laptop, an account the F.B.I. later corrected.

As I wrote on Tuesday, that element was the final straw. And yes, it did provide an opening.

At first, Mr. Trump, who is fond of vetting his decisions with a wide circle of staff members, advisers and friends, kept his thinking to a small circle, venting his anger to Vice President Mike Pence; the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II; and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who all told him they generally backed dismissing Mr. Comey.

Then President Trump finally did the right thing.

But wait; hold up on that car wash. Isn’t this the same New York Times that wrote in 1993:

DEFIANT F.B.I. CHIEF REMOVED FROM JOB BY THE PRESIDENT

By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: July 20, 1993

WASHINGTON, July 19— President Clinton today dismissed William S. Sessions, the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had stubbornly rejected an Administration ultimatum to resign six months after a harsh internal ethics report on his conduct.

Mr. Clinton said he would announce his nominee to replace Mr. Sessions on Tuesday. He was expected to pick Judge Louis J. Freeh of Federal District Court in Manhattan; officials said Judge Freeh had impressed Mr. Clinton favorably on Friday at their first meeting.

Mr. Clinton, explaining his reasons for removing Mr. Sessions, effective immediately, said, “We cannot have a leadership vacuum at an agency as important to the United States as the F.B.I. It is time that this difficult chapter in the agency’s history is brought to a close.”

But in a parting news conference at F.B.I. headquarters after Mr. Clinton’s announcement, a defiant Mr. Sessions — his right arm in a sling as a result of a weekend fall — railed at what he called the unfairness of his removal, which comes nearly six years into his 10-year term.

“Because of the scurrilous attacks on me and my wife of 42 years, it has been decided by others that I can no longer be as forceful as I need to be in leading the F.B.I. and carrying out my responsibilities to the bureau and the nation,” he said. “It is because I believe in the principle of an independent F.B.I. that I have refused to voluntarily resign.”

It appears, according to the New York Times, that President William Clinton, a Demorat, was perfectly well within his rights and abilities to fire Director Sessions who insisted that the FBI be independent. That same newspaper now states that President Donald Trump, a Republican, is not perfectly well within his rights and abilities to fire Director Comey who insisted that the FBI be independent.

The difference? Political parties. Simply that.

James Comey, in a letter to his office the day after his firing, said the president was within his authority to fire a sitting FBI director. From TheHill.com:

Comey farewell: ‘A president can fire an FBI director for any reason’

Former FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday sent a letter to agents and friends following President Trump firing him the previous day.

“I have long believed that a President can fire an FBI director for any reason, or for no reason at all,” he wrote, according to CNN. “I’m not going to spend time on the decision or the way it was executed.”

Leftist attorney and professor Alan Dershowitz came in on the side of President Trump. From Breitbart.com:

Dershowitz: Comey Firing ‘Appropriate,’ No Special Prosecutor

by Joel B Pollak

Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told CNN’s Don Lemon on Tuesday night that President Donald Trump was well within his rights to fire former FBI director James Comey, and that there was no need for a special prosecutor in the investigation into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Dershowitz appeared next to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was apoplectic. “The fact that he did this will disgrace his memory for as long as this presidency is remembered. There is only one date that will be remembered after Januarth 20th so far in the Trump presidency, and it is the day of the ‘Tuesday Night Massacre,’” Toobin said, referencing President Richard Nixon’s firing of Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal.

Toobin had also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper earlier that Trump would likely name a “campaign stooge” as Comey’s replacement at the FBI.

But Dershowitz disagreed.

“Should Comey be the director of the FBI? The answer to that is no,” he said, noting that he had called earlier for Comey to resign. “He lost his credibility. … A lot of this is his fault.”

When Toobin objected that Trump had fired former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as well as Comey, “all three of whom had the potential to investigate and trouble the Trump presidency,” Dershowitz argued that they were all Democrat appointees and had all been dismissed appropriately by a Republican president.

Perquisites of the job that have been replicated time and again by Demorat presidents.

Where is John McCain on this because, after all, when the story appears to be about someone else, well, it’s really about John McCain, isn’t it? From the WashingtonPost.com:

John McCain on Comey firing: ‘There will be more shoes to drop’

by Josh Rogin

President Trump’s sudden firing of FBI Director James B. Comey is bad for the country and will not be the end of the Trump-Russia affair, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told a group of foreign diplomats and experts Tuesday night.

Although McCain did not directly accuse the White House of firing Comey to thwart the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible Russia ties, he did say that if that was the intention, it would fail.

Again, news about truth isn’t news. News about specious insinuation is news.

“This scandal is going to go on. I’ve seen it before,” McCain told a meeting of the Munich Security Conference core group. “This is a centipede. I guarantee you there will be more shoes to drop, I can just guarantee it. There’s just too much information that we don’t have that will be coming out.”

He called Trump’s actions against Comey “unprecedented” and said the position of FBI director has held special meaning in American public life dating back decades.

Ooooh, scary, John, very scary.

“Probably the most respected individual in all of the American government is probably the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” McCain said. “I’m very sorry that this has happened.”

The event was off the record, but McCain gave me permission to place his comments on the record. He said that Trump had the legal basis to fire Comey but that his decision would have long-term negative consequences.

“I regret it, I think it’s unfortunate,” McCain said. “The president does have that constitutional authority. But I can’t help but think that this is not a good thing for America.”

I refer to this article solely to illustrate how terribly out-of-touch is John McCain with the law and with reality. However, even McCain isn’t yet sufficiently addled to refute the authority of a president to fire an FBI director.

Former FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom weighs in on the Comey situation and likewise concludes that President Trump acted appropriately. “I’m glad it happened.”

As I’ve said, I still have law enforcement contacts across the fruited plain and I know that the bulk of line-level agents, not necessarily supervisors or managers, were relieved to see the dismissal of William Comey. Judge Andrew Napolitano confirms this.

Newt Gingrich also weighs in on the issue with Sean Hannity.

Let us not forget the 10 major scandals that occurred on the 3.5-year watch of Director Comey.

The bottom line is this: former FBI Director James Comey made quite a number of flawed decisions based not upon the law but instead on politics. He placed himself in front of cameras frequently as he enjoyed the limelight. He did so for self-aggrandizing reasons. Having a self-righteous and poor decision-maker in charge of the FBI is not a formula for success or for ensuring confidence in the bureau.

The firing of James Comey was long overdue.

BZ

 

DOJ must be gutted: Denver S.O. fined $10K because no illegals hired

denver-sheriff-departmentLadies and gentlemen, if you harbored the slightest doubt that the US Department of Justice must be gutted through-and-through like a rotten fish, that doubt will now be completely erased.

This is not a joke. This is real. Note the phrasing of the top headline.

From the DenverPost.com:

Denver Sheriff Department penalized for wrongful hiring practices

by Noelle Phillips

The sheriff’s department will pay a $10,000 fine and will have to sort through old applications to identify people who were eliminated from consideration because they were not U.S. citizens

The Denver Sheriff Department has run afoul of the U.S. Department of Justice because it made U.S. citizenship a job requirement for its deputies during a hiring spree in 2015 and early 2016.

The sheriff’s department will pay a $10,000 fine and will have to sort through old applications to identify people who were eliminated from consideration because they were not U.S. citizens, according to a news release from the justice department.

The department must reconsider those applicants for future jobs, the justice department said.

I repeat: this is no joke. The DOJ is saying that foreign nationals must be hired for law enforcement. This is one perfect example of a 1986 federal law that should be re-examined and then scrubbed from the books for any number of reasons. Further, because of Obama and Lynch, the DOJ decided not to simply warn but to outright fine a department that is already struggling financially. That money comes out of the pockets of local taxpayers and — as James Comey pointed out with regard to HRC — the Denver Sheriff had no intention to violate.

Hillary escapes, the Denver Sheriff’s Department does not. Oh, the irony.

First and foremost, these laws should be critically examined under the new Trump Administration if for no other reasons than those of common sense and national sovereignty. Foreign nationals cannot vote in federal elections and many state/local elections, cannot sit on a jury and logically should not hold sway in any fashion over true citizens of this nation by yielding the authority to detain, arrest and possibly take lives through the application of deadly force to non-citizens. I fail to grasp that logic.

Do we really want to continue with the precedent of, essentially, hiring mercenaries as did Rome? Hessians, anyone? Please note this irony as well: the federal government will not allow foreign nationals to be federal officers and work for DHS or USCIS.

Already law enforcement agencies across the nation cannot access the USCIS database:

Sec. 274A. [8 U.S.C. 1324a]  (F) Limited use for law enforcement purposes.-The system may not be used for law enforcement purposes, other than for enforcement of this Act or sections 1001, 1028, 1546, and 1621 of title 18, United States Code.

Many will make the argument that green card holders and those with work authorization are legal under terms and pay taxes — to the extent that illegals walking into a market to purchase a pack of chicken pay taxes. To that I firmly reply: at best, at very best, they should be — in an extremely generous sense — considered last.

The Obama DOJ fined Denver SO for two reasons only: 1) to be punitive, and 2) to make a statement, an example.

This is a perfect time to re-examine most every immigration law on the books and then try to streamline a broken system so that people may become citizens lawfully and in something of a timely fashion. And until they are ultimately sworn in, they should not reap the benefits or largesse of this nation.

Let me also, finally, state the horribly unstateable. Law enforcement finds itself in a terrible bind with regard to hiring these days, due to both the public stigma and the physical crosshairs placed on LE currently. I’ve seen and experienced this situation before personally, as one of my SME venues of expertise was training. Most everything is cyclical in law enforcement and hiring practices are no different.

Because of the desperate need for law enforcement officers across the nation, many agencies are sub rosa having to lower their hiring standards. Any time you relax hiring standards you create a contingent of persons who will yield sub-standard performance. Those persons then become your department’s training officers, its detectives, Sergeants, its Lieutenants, Captains and so on.

At times like these many departments, to its and the community’s detriment, tend to forget the three major axioms of Risk Management altogether: 1) Negligence In Hiring, 2) Negligence In Training, and 3) Negligence In Retention.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you got LAPD’s Rampart scandal in the 90s. Those situations and events were corrected by tightening standards, demanding excellence, and attracting the best candidates possible via “3 At 50” and other incentives.

I’ve seen this before.

I know what I’m talking about.

Because as I’ve always said: “you get the kind of law enforcement you deserve.”

Buck up, citizens.

BZ

 

Obama/Holder Fast & Furious firearm used in ISIS attack

Democrat Jedi Mind TricksRight off the bat, from JudicialWatch.org:

Law Enforcement Sources: Gun Used in Paris Terrorist Attacks Came from Phoenix

One of the guns used in the November 13, 2015 Paris terrorist attacks came from Phoenix, Arizona where the Obama administration allowed criminals to buy thousands of weapons illegally in a deadly and futile “gun-walking” operation known as “Fast and Furious.”

A Report of Investigation (ROI) filed by a case agent in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) tracked the gun used in the Paris attacks to a Phoenix gun owner who sold it illegally, “off book,” Judicial Watch’s law enforcement sources confirm. Federal agents tracing the firearm also found the Phoenix gun owner to be in possession of an unregistered fully automatic weapon, according to law enforcement officials with firsthand knowledge of the investigation.

The investigative follow up of the Paris weapon consisted of tracking a paper trail using a 4473 form, which documents a gun’s ownership history by, among other things, using serial numbers. The Phoenix gun owner that the weapon was traced back to was found to have at least two federal firearms violations—for selling one weapon illegally and possessing an unregistered automatic—but no enforcement or prosecutorial action was taken against the individual. Instead, ATF leaders went out of their way to keep the information under the radar and ensure that the gun owner’s identity was “kept quiet,” according to law enforcement sources involved with the case. “Agents were told, in the process of taking the fully auto, not to anger the seller to prevent him from going public,” a veteran law enforcement official told Judicial Watch.

Please note this:

Judicial Watch has thoroughly investigated Fast and Furious and has sued the Obama administration for information about the once-secret operation.

Of course, this is the same operation that, under Eric Holder’s DOJ watch, ended up killing USBP Agent Brian Terry.  Which is why the seller, as mentioned above, was “kept quiet” and not sent to a festering federal prison.

There will be no information of this disseminated via the American Media Maggots this week as they will be preoccupied by bleating about Hillary Clinton having “beaten” the spurious charges leveled against her by partisan hacks regarding her home-brew email server — the one that was hacked by Russia, China and the Norks.  Nah.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

Corruption, corruption and moar corruption, thy name is Demorats.

Don’t let it bother you in the slightest.

Let’s talk about safe spaces, shall we?

BZ

 

329 new classified Clinton emails released

FBI Director James ComeyThe lack of concern about an incredible security breach by Hillary Clinton continues by the American Media Maggots — covering Hillary’s ass as is their duty, being fellow Leftists.

7800 pages of emails.

999 emails amongst those pages containing classified information.  From Hillary Clinton’s private server.  Much, much more serious than General David Petraeus’s incident with Broadwell and the emails of their affair.  We can be sure that whatever those emails contained is now privy to Russia, China, North Korea and other nation-states who are not our friends.

Clinton should be prosecuted.  No one else would get the pass that she is; the argument for Clinton is simply an AMM shibboleth.

I suspect that James Comey is assembling the most sure-and-watertight case against Hillary Clinton that he is allowed, physically and politically.  I’m sure that Comey has been subject to numerous counts of intimidation by the Obama Spite House.  He watched the Clintons go after former Director Louis Freeh and knows the power of their wrath.

Comey is the linchpin.  Will he and can he do his job?  From TheHill.com:

FBI chief is wild card for Clinton

by Bob Cusack and Ian Swanson

FBI Director James Comey is the pivotal figure in the 2016 presidential race that no one is talking about.

Comey, a Republican appointed by President Obama who enjoys a stellar reputation on both sides of the aisle, is investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State.

Clinton is the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic presidential nomination next year and is expected to be a tough candidate for any Republican to face in 2016.

Yet the controversy surrounding her private email account remains an Achilles’ heel.

The Hill still can’t fail to throw its own dig, however.

The GOP-created House Benghazi Committee flopped in October when Clinton testified for 11 hours. That hearing failed to produce anything newsworthy about her use of a private server and attracted criticism from liberals and conservatives alike.

Its failure makes it clear that the FBI will have the final say on whether Clinton did anything wrong or illegal. And whatever the verdict is, both parties will have to accept it because Comey is, in many ways, untouchable.

But has Comey been allowed to “work the case,” was he given the information he needs, and what kind of obstructions from the Obama Spite House were thrown into the mix?

One positive note.

“My folks don’t give a rip about politics,” the 6-foot-8-inch Comey said earlier this year. “We’re competent, we’re independent and we’re honest.”

Comey also has a pattern in independence.  He’s said that Syrians cannot be vetted appropriately.  He agreed (as I do) that the “Ferguson Effect” is in fact having a deleterious impact on law enforcement and stands as one reason why crime is increasing.  Comey disagreed with Obama on the Major Hasan mass killing, that it was related to Islam and not “workplace violence.”

This is the most highly politicized federal DOJ in the history of the United States.  The DOJ sits on information, refuses to prosecute anyone on the Left or involved with the Obama Administration, refuses to prosecute New Black Panthers, refuses to do its job.

The jury is out on this one.

I still remain hopeful.

BZ