“Did anyone ever ask Sen. Schumer exactly what he meant when he warned Trump that the intel community had ‘Six ways from Sunday’ to get back at him? What made Schumer think that? What ways did he have in mind? Please send article or link if this was asked and answered. Thanks.”
Sharyl Attkisson tweeted.
[Sorry, I’ve been having some computer problems this morning, and the close quotes and “Sharyl Attkisson tweeted” got cut off. That must have been confusing. The request from more info is from Attkisson, and I’m just glad to see she’s working on that.]
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134 comments:
We now know how.
And how come Joe Biden never takes questions from the Press or voters?
I have questions. We all have questions for China Joe.
Missing some punctuation that makes meaning unclear.
What do YOU think it meant. The Deep State is alive and well....
I believe he means the President is outnumbered. That all of the intelligence community is part of the coup. And they call Trymp a godfather? What’s next, a horses head in Barrons bed?
I guess the CIA hasn't been able to overthrow a government lately so are going to do the USA just to keep in practice.
Politicized U.S. intelligence agencies are as American as apple pie. They have been quite right wing or even extremely right wing organizations in the past and are now more neutral. It is a change.
Liberals have been dealing with the machinations of J. Edgar Hoover and his successors for decades and have learnt to be cautious. Now the right faces a steep learning curve. Hard to be all that sympathetic. It should be said that Trump's behavior goes beyond what anyone really views as reasonable for the commander-in-chief, when viewed in a non-partisan fashion i.e. imagine if Hillary did the same thing.
Much the same has happened with the captains of industry. In the past many were borderline fascists, now they are more neutral or even openly liberal. The right has not really assimilated these changes and acts like time has stood still.
Here’s a link https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/312605-schumer-trump-being-really-dumb-by-going-after-intelligence-community?amp
I never saw in the press that Anyone (in the press) ever questioned what he meant
I assume that they all KNEW what he meant... He meant what's happening
And, NO ONE in the press has ANY PROBLEM with that; because they all work for George Soros how works for CIA
Schumer was trying to make the CIA look so innocent that they would only run 6 operations to remove him out of jealousy and then they would just give up. But Trump knows by now they will never stop, not until the CIA owned politicians and the CIA controlled media have been slowly eliminated. That process has to go slow to keep the USA alive and running while China and friends are still active against the USA. When a patient has 100s of cancers, the surgeon only cuts out a few at a time. That is why Pelpsi, Clinton,Romney, Ryan and their minions are desperate to win in 2020, saying over and over they cannot survive 4 more years of Trump surgery.
Isn’t Adam Schiff part of the Intelligence Community?
Can we not just list the ways?
I see a lot of “this is the last straw” stuff from the left. The example I have most in mind is disingenuous because the blogger had already called for impeaching Trump in 2016, and again in 2017, 2018, and earlier in 2019. But what strikes me is that the notion of accrual just doesn’t apply to impeachment, if you are being honest. Being a turd is not grounds and neither is being a bigger turd. You need an act which constitutes the “high crime or misdemeanour”
You can lose patience with a loud neighbour but can only get him arrested if he violates a noise ordinance. 100 nights of loud but within the law won’t cut it.
Does the emerita agree on this point?
JFK
RMN
Here is the original statement by Schumer:
Schumer on Rachel Maddow Jan 7, 2017
From The Hill: Schumer - Trump “Really Dumb”
I doubt Schumer could even imagine at that time the shape the truth of his words would take.
Well we’ve already seen one, haven’t we? Prior to last month a whistleblower has to have first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing. Last month the rules were changed to permit hearsay and innuendo.
A write-up
-> links to ->
Video of Schumer making his threats.
Schumer seems to think that the revenge of the spooks is funny.
That sounds like the kind of talk that if coming from a president could get him impeached.
Yea, pretty sure this is one of the ways.
And letting the “intelligence community” do this to a sitting president is terrible for the Republic. Or what is left of it.
From The Federalist:
Schumer wasn’t alone in warning of U.S. intelligence agencies’ penchant for politicized revenge. A little over a week later, Daniel Benjamin, who had served as the principal counterterrorism advisor for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, scripted the scenario for Politico Magazine, writing:
Leakers and whistleblowers won’t hesitate. What [former Deputy CIA Director] Morell and other intelligence veterans are too decorous to mention is that Trump’s treatment of his spies will also come back to bite him in the form of leaking and whistleblowing. The intelligence community doesn’t leak as much as the Pentagon or Congress, but when its reputation is at stake, it can do so to devastating effect.
Never make threats you can't back up.
Schumer is gonna be the next Dem to fall.
Schumer knows the deep state works for the Democratics.
"What made Schumer think that?"
Of course the question wasn't asked. You are not thinking the MSM would ask a Dem a hard question, would you?
Anyway, Schumer would think that because he knew the IC had been thoroughly corrupted by Brennan et al., turned into a partisan outfit eager to trip up Trump. And we all know by now that the CIA conspired with Mifsud, Downer, Halper, and MI6 to derail Trump, and then fed the Russia hoax after the election.
The steele dossier, operation crossfire hurricane were part of it, bakaj the gossips atty was a schumer intern
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-press-doesnt-know-about-ukraine-11569620897
Are you really expecting liberal late night hosts, reporters and writers to remember a Democrat saying something stupid?
Schumer meant to say CIA is investigative wing of Democrat party.
Fitz was the tool against w, to protect joe wilson and the democrats
One might say the cavanaugh one, like laufman and mclean, was another.
Althouse asks..
"Did anyone ever ask Sen. Schumer exactly what he meant when he warned Trump that the intel community had “Six ways from Sunday’ to get back at him?"
What do you mean by that?
What do you mean by that?
What do you mean by that?
I mean in whose movie!
>This is no movie, this is real.
Which real?
>The last reel of this vintage motion picture, "High School Madness"...
Oh, I see. Alright, I guess it was me... It's all a fake... they lied to me.
>What do you mean "they"? ...
You know, them.
>Name three?
This right here is exactly what Schumer meant.
Schumer committed a Kinsley Gaffe (when one accidentally blurts out the truth). The FBI has been a nest of vipers for 90 years and the CIA for 70. Remember that when working to change a governmnet institution, the institution is working to change you (or cancel you if necessary).
I'm sorry, I was distracted.
When the coup against Nixon was run, it was by the FBI. The CiA was then pretty neutral after the Church Committee had spanked it in 1976. The CIA has now had a good run with the Plame/Wilson caper against Bush. the 9/11 attack gave it a lot more power and it has run with it.
Now is the time to shut down much of the CIA analyst corps. They are thousands who spend the day reading foreign language newspapers and plotting to get more power. They are incompetent as seen with the Iran and China failures.
The Chinese government systematically dismantled C.I.A. spying operations in the country starting in 2010, killing or imprisoning more than a dozen sources over two years and crippling intelligence gathering there for years afterward.
Current and former American officials described the intelligence breach as one of the worst in decades. It set off a scramble in Washington’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to contain the fallout, but investigators were bitterly divided over the cause. Some were convinced that a mole within the C.I.A. had betrayed the United States. Others believed that the Chinese had hacked the covert system the C.I.A. used to communicate with its foreign sources. Years later, that debate remains unresolved.
The same thing happened with Iran so the security failure was agency wide. Guess who was the Director ?
Ross Douthat said ...
I think these conservatives underestimate, as liberals did with Bill Clinton long ago, the advantages in jettisoning a corrupt leader. (An Al Gore presidency was a better timeline for Democrats, even though it would have required the horror of letting Ken Starr win.)
The Clinton's have been an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats. Character does matter in the long run.
Jeff Carlson raises an interesting question in his article Russian Spy Revelation Raises Questions on CIA Information, Potential Links to Steele Dossier
Christopher Steele wrote in his Dossier on September 14, 2016 (sixteen) ....
[quote; emphasis added]
Speaking in confidence to a trusted compatriot in mid-September 2016, a senior member of the Russian Presidential Administration (PA) commented on the political fallout from recent western media revelations about Moscow’s intervention, in favor of Donald TRUMP and against Hillary CLINTON, in the US presidential election. The PA official reported that the issue had become incredibly sensitive and that President PUTIN had issued direct orders that Kremlin and government insiders should not discuss it in public or even in private,” the memo read.
Despite this, the PA official confirmed, from direct knowledge, that the gist of the allegations was true. Putin had been receiving conflicting advice on interfering from three separate and expert groups. On one side had been the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergei KISLYAK, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, together with an independent and informal network run by presidential foreign policy advisor, Yuri USHAKOV (KISLYAK’s predecessor in Washington) who had urged caution and the potential negative impact from Russia from the operation/s.”
[end quote]
So, in September 2016, Steele seems to have obtained secret information that originated from Yuri Ushakov, a member of the Russian Presidential Administration.
By what route did this information about Putin's actions go from Ushakov to Steele?
-------
In September 2019 (nineteen), the interested public was informed that CIA Director John Brennan's super-secret source about Putin's activities was Oleg Smolenkov, who worked directly for Yuri Ushakov, who was a member of the Russian Presidential Administration.
When Brennan still was the CIA Director in the Obama Administration, he would put Smolenkov's reports into an envelope and bring them directly to the White House, to be read by President Obama and only a handful (something like five) of other officials. Smolenkov's reports were among the most closely guarded secrets of the US Government during the Obama Administration.
-----
However, now the interested public can recognize that Smolenkov's reports -- or at least summaries of Smolenkov's reports -- were provided to Christopher Steele when he was writing his dossier in September 2016.
How did Steele get this super-secret information that originated from Smolenkov and that was being hand-delivered personally by CIA Director Brennan only to President Obama?
Scratch a liberal, you'll find a fascist. Every time.
Althouse, you might want to read and post about Andrew C. McCarthy's latest piece.
The meaning is all in Schumer's tone and Maddow's aquiescience. They are OK with the intelligence services undermining a president they don't like. It's OK to be immoral if you don't like the person you are attacking. His laughter is a defense mechanism.
Time to burn down Langley? Maybe Boris Johnson can help.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/27/schumer-intelligence-agencies-have-six-ways-from-sunday-of-getting-back-at-you/
A serious set of questions, I do not know the answers to:
1. during the House proceedings on impeachment, do the Republicans have any standing to call witnesses?
2. Would they be prohibited from calling Sen. Schumer as a witness to be asked under oath what he knows about the CIA information against Trump?
3. WOuld they be prohibited from calling Cong. Schiff as a witness to be asked under oath what he knows, or what evidence he has?
4. And, finally, can only Congress bring an action for lying under oath at a COngressional hearing, or is that a crime prosecuted by the DoJ?
"It's all over now, Baby Blue"
Schumer is saying that the coup worked. It worked so well that we didn't even realize it. If you dare mention it you won't live long enough to matter.
Levi Starks said...
That sounds like the kind of talk that if coming from a president could get him impeached.
Almost "mafia-like", isn't. Somebody call Adam Schitt!
Very convenient to change whistleblower rule to allow second hand info.
Never forget. All of this is about Hillary and Strozk's failed insurance policy.
Yancey - great
How about a Bipartisan Treaty against the Criminalization of Elections?
Getting your schlong sucked in the Oval office "is just sex!", then lying about it, is just sex.
Talking on tape 10 years prior to any public office about potential pussy grabbing is a crime.
Talking about Biden's corruption is also a crime.
John Ratcliffe shoots is all down.
McCarthy
"Most of the commentary on this has been very politicized (surprise!). For dyed-in-the-wool anti-Trumpers, no technicality is too trifling to be a felony."
Joe Wilson has died at 69 years of age. There must be some sort of clean-up going on.
I thought it might be good to examine some hypotheticals to narrow down what it is exactly Trump might be impeached for in regards to the Zelensky phone call. I will focus solely on the Biden stuff, will explain where I stand and why. Here are the hypotheticals I have in mind with the questions for the readers:
(1) Consider that, instead of Biden, it had been John Brennan (the Obama CIA director) whose son had taken the Burisma money, and Brennan who had bragged about coercing the Poroshenko to fire Shokin. Would you consider it a high crime and misdemeanor for impeachment purposes if Trump had asked Zelensky to look into this matter in regards to John Brennan?
(2) Consider that, instead of Biden, it had been Obama's appointed ambassador to Ukraine who had done the arm twisting and had the son taking Burisma's money? Would you consider it a high crime and misdemeanor for impeachment purposes if Trump had asked Zelensky to look into this matter in regards to the ambassador?
(3) Consider that, instead of Biden, it had been Obama's specially appointed envoy, Mitt Romney to Ukraine who had done the arm twisting and had the son taking Burisma's money? Would you consider it a high crime and misdemeanor for impeachment purposes if Trump had asked Zelensky to look into this matter in regards to Romney?
(4) Consider that, instead of Biden, it had been President McCain's VP Sarah Palin who had done the arm twisting and had the son taking Burisma's money? Would you consider it a high crime and misdemeanor for impeachment purposes if Trump had asked Zelensky to look into this matter in regards to Sarah Palin?
() Consider that, instead of Biden, it had been Mike Pence, as today's VP, who had done the arm twisting and had the son taking Burisma's money? Would you consider it a high crime and misdemeanor for impeachment purposes if Trump had asked Zelensky to look into this matter in regards to Pence?
My answers to all five hypotheticals is, "No, none of the four are impeachable offenses." The reason is pretty simple- the requests for help in all hypotheticals identifies a very specific and troubling instance of possible and even likely, corruption.
It isn't like Trump said to Zelensky, "I want you to try to find or make up dirt on Biden." That would have crossed the line for me, and that is exactly the paraphrase that Adam Schiff tried to pass off as the transcript of the call the other day in the hearing. That is why Schiff lied about the call in the open hearing, the actual transcript didn't serve his purposes. Trump picked a specific potential crime, one that actually does deserve to be investigated- you can be certain that if it had been Mike Pence bragging about such a thing, every Democrat in the House would think it worth investigating, and all of them would have claimed that it was impeachable of Trump if Trump hadn't tried to get cooperation from the Ukrainians.
Here is my main point- someone isn't above the law just because they are a candidate for the presidency- surely, we can all agree with this statement, right? If what Trump did with his own mouth is impeachable, then it is still impeachable if Trump's appointed US Attorney for Arkansas requests the help from the Ukrainians himself. In other words, if Trump is impeachable for this, then the US Department of Justice can't actually investigate or request aid to investigate any person running for President or who might be described as a political opponent of the President.
"The Clinton's have been an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats. Character does matter in the long run."
We well remember you're principled denunciations of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.
Character doesn't matter in the slightest to the Democrats. Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, Ilhan Omar, and a host of others. Democrats celebrate corruption.
h, House rules seem to limit what the minority can do during impeachment- about all the Republicans have a right to is to vote in committee and on the House floor with time set aside in each for questioning the witnesses that have been approved by majority vote of the committee. In other words, the House Republicans need Democrat support for issuing any subpoenas of any kind, but Democrats don't need Republican support at all.
In the Senate trial, though, the defendant can call whoever he wishes with the agreement of the presiding judge (Roberts)- this includes House and Senate members.
On #4- the House has to refer a member for lying in the House under oath, even that of a witness. The DoJ can't initiate perjury prosecutions without the referral the House as voted out by majority vote- there is legislation that governs this that overcomes the normal separation of powers. I doubt any House would refer any actual member for perjury regardless of how obvious and corrupt- they protec their own at pretty much any cost.
Following up my own comment at 11:23 AM
Why does Christopher Steele's Dossier contain indications that the original source of some of his information was Yuri Ushakov, a member of the Russian Presidential Administration (and the direct supervisor of Oleg Smolenkov)?
I speculate that Steele was instructed to include such indications in his Dossier in order to convince a small inter-agency group that the Dossier was reliable.
Instead of conducting a normal National Intelligence Assessment (NIA), Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appointed a small inter-agency group to study alleged Russian interference in our elections. The group included a few members of only three Intelligence agencies -- CIA, FBI and NSA. Clapper excluded representatives of DIA and the State Department, and he avoided the normal NIA coordination and approval of all 17 Intelligence agencies.
The small inter-agency group -- which included only ambitious, anti-Trump zealots like the FBI's Peter Strzok -- certainly was informed that a super-secret CIA source was Oleg Smolenkov, a direct subordinate of Yuri Ushakov, who enjoyed frequent secret conversations with Vladimir Putin. Because of this arrangement, Smolenkov was able to report to the CIA that Putin personally was orchestrating a Russian Intelligence meddling to help Donald Trump to win the US Presidential election.
In these circumstances, the small inter-agency group studied Steele's Dossier and saw that Steele too seemed to be obtaining the same information from Smolenkov.
Therefore, Steele's Dossier was true reporting. Steele too was obtaining the same information from Smolenkov, who knew from his boss Ushakov, that Putin was meddling to help Trump win the 2016 election.
If Steele was right about that, then he was right about practically everything else that he wrote in his Dossier.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is corrupt. He is working with Schiff. Unless you believe the change in the whistle blower inquiry was changed, in August,2019 to allow whistle blower complaint to include hearsay evidence. Before last month, a whistle blower could only trigger an investigation, by relaying facts the whistle blower knows first hand.
Why was the requirement diluted to include hearsay?
Today the media is giving Dems air time to throw a handful of different Presidential interactions with foreigners into the mix, that Dems are demanding transcripts from. Special focus on records of Presidential communication, being secured much tighter and to a vastly limited number of persons. Soon expect more whistle blowers materializing with legal precise whistle blower complaints. Hitting all the legal fine points.
Hearsay whistle blower complaints is a contradiction of the purpose of the whistle blower statute. Provide legal protection of those seeing corruption the cannot take to a supervisor. Hearsay not only nullifies that need, but exposes those with first hand knowledge, because they are not recognized under the law as being protected.
From McCarthy
The Mueller report is also worth considering because the campaign-finance charge the prosecutors rejected is stronger than would be any similar charge against President Trump arising of the Zelensky call. That, no doubt, is why the Justice Department summarily declined prosecution.
To hear the media-Democrat complex tell it, DOJ declined because it is beholden to the president and Attorney General Barr is acting as Trump’s lawyer, not the government’s chief prosecutor. No one who actually took five minutes to read the relevant section of the Mueller Report would see it that way. Moreover, the fact that the president is president complicates matters not only politically but legally.
Trump detractors hyper-focus on the president’s request that President Zelensky provide Attorney General Barr with any information Ukraine might have about Biden twisting arms to quash an investigation involving his son’s cashing in on dad’s influence. I say “hyper-focus” because there was a lot more to it than that. Long before the conversation came around to the Biden topic, the “favor” that Trump asked for was Zelensky’s assistance in Barr’s ongoing investigation of the genesis of the Trump-Russia investigation.
No matter how much Democrats seek to discredit that probe and the AG overseeing it, it is a legitimate investigation conducted by the United States Department of Justice, which has prosecutors assigned and grand jury subpoena power. It is examining questionable Justice Department and FBI conduct. It is considering whether irregularities rise to the level of crimes. It will be essential to Congress’s consideration of whether laws need to be enacted or modified to insulate our election campaigns from politicized use of the government’s counterintelligence and law-enforcement powers.
...
I mention all this because it is a commonplace for the government to seek assistance from foreign counterparts for ongoing federal investigations.
Indeed, as Marc Thiessen pointed out this week in an important Washington Post column, Democratic senators pressured Ukraine to cooperate with the Mueller probe — notwithstanding the obvious potential electoral ramifications and the specter of “foreign interference in our democracy.” These requests for assistance often occur at the head-of-state level. When I was a federal prosecutor in the mid-nineties, for example, the FBI and Justice Department asked President Clinton to intervene with Saudi authorities to assist the investigation of Iranian complicity in the Khobar Towers bombing.
There is nothing wrong with our government’s requesting the assistance of foreign governments that have access to witnesses and evidence relevant to an ongoing Justice Department investigation. The president is the democratically elected, constitutionally empowered chief executive: There is nothing his subordinates may properly do that he may not do himself (it is his power that they exercise). And the president is never conflicted out of executive branch business due to his political interests. There is no legal or ethical requirement that the Justice Department be denied potentially probative evidence because obtaining it might affect the president’s political fortunes.
There was no impropriety in President Trump’s asking Ukraine’s president to assist the Justice Department’s investigation of Russiagate’s origins. Okay, you say, but what does that have to do with Biden?
Well, Biden was the Obama administration’s point man in dealing with Kyiv after Viktor Yanukovych fled in 2014. That course of dealing came to include Obama administration agencies leaning on Ukraine to assist the FBI in the investigation of Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman. So, Biden’s interaction with Ukraine is germane: The fact that he had sufficient influence to coerce the firing of a prosecutor; the fact that, while Biden was strongly influencing international economic aid for Kyiv, a significant Ukrainian energy company thought it expedient to bring Biden’s son onto its board and compensate him lavishly — although Hunter Biden had no experience in the industry.
,...
BTW - If the left get to criminalize speech - where is the Impeachment Inquiry and ongoing investigation into Chuck Schumer's threats to use the CIA against political enemies?
Apparently not:
https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/28/susan-rice-obama-put-call-transcripts-on-top-secret-server-too/
Richard Fernandez points out the coincidence that Trump, Boris and Natanyahu are all under attack at the same time.
To quote Auric Goldfinger, "once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."
What did the vaunted CIA do? They connected with a California congressperson, fed some half baked story to the New York Times. The media went nuts for 72 hours.
The net result is Biden has lost support, and Pelosi has committed to impeachment proceedings. There is a possibility that the House will swing back Republican as the result.
So who is the CIA working for again?
The global leftwing corruption machine is Hunter Biden's bank account X 10000000000000000000000
Frankly, Doc. I'm lookin' at Soros and Co. That asshole really hates freedom.
“Isn’t Adam Schiff part of the Intelligence Community?”
No one should be surprised that Pencil Neck was made aware of the “whistleblower” accusations several weeks before the “whistleblower” apparently downloaded the new form that miraculously allowed whistleblower claims based on mere hearsay. Up until sometime in 8/19, IC whistleblower complaints had to be based on first hand knowledge. This was removed that month, and the first use of the form seems to have been earlier this month, right before the “whistleblower” filed his 2nd (etc) hand Report (that was easily debunked because it named someone listening to the call, who couldn’t have been). Schiff appears to have known about it in August, and the content of the report strongly suggests that it was drafted by lawyers, or at least Congressional staff. Schiff’s staff assistance there?
How is OK for Bob Menendez D) to ask Ukraine for help, but it's not OK for Trump to ask for help?
Yancey Ward: THank you for addressing my questions.
Yancey, it would be simpler to say Obama should have been impeached for allowing the investigation into Hillary's email. She wasn't above the law as a candidate (although Comey let her off, while dropping the hammer on a submariner), and neither is Biden.
Yes indeed, carolyn glick has the particulars for netanyahu is israel hayon
In other words, the House Republicans need Democrat support for issuing any subpoenas of any kind, but Democrats don't need Republican support at all.
Yes, the railroad was built in January once Nancy had the gavel.
I suspect this will be seen as a suicide mission but it will give hope to China and Iran, both probably are funding much of this.
So who is the CIA working for again?
Themselves, of course. Covering their traces pretty well.
I'm pretty sure it's been scrubbed from the internet, but I remember Loretta Lynch bragging that Obama was embedding "his" people in the government to protect his legacy. I'm sure Brennan and Clapper know who they are and will keep using them, one at a time, until election day in 2020.
The only way to stop this is catch a few and prosecute them. I believe this faux whistleblower can be prosecuted, or at a minimum removed from government. There has to be a penalty for any whistleblower who puts forth a false accusation. This can not stand because the Democrats weaponize government enough when they have the Presidency, now they're going to weaponize it when they don't have the power? The Senate could do a lot more than they are to deal with this.
What i was referring to:
https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/israels-flailing-democracy/
> So who is the CIA working for again?
That's the CIA we all know and love, can't do anything right. Conquest's third law:
The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.
Yancey Ward said...
h, House rules seem to limit what the minority can do during impeachment-
Hmm
Congress is about 235-198 D-R with a couple of independents or open seats. I don't get wiki here but:
Political groups Majority (235) Democratic (235) Minority (198) Republican (198) Other (1) Independent (1) Vacant (1) Vacant (1)
So, rounding it, people who wished our Republic well would only have to kill about 40 D congresscritters.
But that would never happen. Political assassins are all leftists.
From Instapundit:
“The internal properties of the newly revised ‘Disclosure of Urgent Concern’ form, which the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG) requires to be submitted under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA), show that the document was uploaded on September 24, 2019, at 4:25 p.m., just days before the anti-Trump complaint was declassified and released to the public. The markings on the document state that it was revised in August 2019, but no specific date of revision is disclosed.”
O.T. I know I'm getting old, because I can remember when Jeff Flake was a Republican.
BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
How is OK for Bob Menendez D) to ask Ukraine for help, but it's not OK for Trump to ask for help?
You Can't be serious? It's the Single Standard
Bob Menendez DEMOCRAT
Trump NOT DEMOCRAT
Yancy mistakenly said...
It isn't like Trump said to Zelensky, "I want you to try to find or make up dirt on Biden."
This IS EXACTLY what he said, AND he said he'd only say it seven times.
Don't tell me he didn't say it; I HEARD Rep Shiff Read The Transcript!!!
</sarc [can you believe i have to put this on? But, i do]
Hillary deleted 30,000 emails off her illegal private server.
Nothing to see here! It's illegal to mention it.
The Clinton's global-political money grubbing is off limits!
Good link, narciso. The actions against Boris are similar and also suspect.
Mueller was no more than a figurehead to give credence the Hillary legal ream that ran the operation. Weissmann, who has the distinction of having his big Enron case reversed by the Supreme Court 9-0, was in charge. He still managed to destroy Arthur Anderson and the jobs of thousands of people. He has been less successful with Trump.
Leland wrote:
"Yancey, it would be simpler to say Obama should have been impeached for allowing the investigation into Hillary's email. She wasn't above the law as a candidate (although Comey let her off, while dropping the hammer on a submariner), and neither is Biden.
But would it actually make the point? I hope there is broad agreement that corruption doesn't get a pass just because the DoJ is run by the political opposition. That surely can't be the rule, and if that isn't the rule, then what Trump asked Zelensky in regards to Joe Biden on that specific issue can't be improper because it wouldn't be improper if Bill Barr had done it, or if Christopher Wray had done it, or if a US attorney from anywhere in the US had done- all of the latter derive all their authority from Trump himself.
Like I wrote- where it crosses the line is if Trump had just asked for an investigation with no predicate at all- in other words saying, "Go investigate to find a crime, or get me some dirt," rather than, "Investigate to determine if this is a crime."
I did the hypotheticals not expecting honest answers from everyone, but to highlight for the individual that their priors are probably politically constructed, even if they won't admit that in an open comment.
IS chuck shumer still alive? Where is he? The witness protection program?
For 2 years, Chuckie was on TV constantly. But since Nov 2018, he's nowhere to be seen. Wonder why. Probably because the D's know he's a bad face for their party. In fact, the D's overall approval rating drops every time he's on TV.
As for his CIA comment, I too man curious. Who is feeding him inside information? BTW, Comey is his big buddy.
And, just to make my own personal position clear- I haven't written, nor do I believe, that the start of Crossfire Hurricane was an impeachable crime as a matter of law or custom on its face- the initiation of the investigation, with a firm predicate can't possibly be illegal just because Trump was a candidate for president. Where I believed Crossfire Hurricane probably veered into illegality is that the people starting it and running it probably knew the predicate was false for a long time before the end of Mueller investigation, but kept going because of the politics- this is especially true for most of the Mueller investigative effort. Also, I believe the people running it liteally knew that Carter Page wasn't a foreign agent, and thus lied by implication on the FISA warrants.
Additionally, I have never written, nor do I believe, that Hillary Clinton and her staff acted illegally when hiring Christopher Steele to create the dossier. I don't even care if they knew that the dossier was full of false or fabricated lies. I only think they may have broken the law by offering it to the FBI as truthful information, from their point of view. However, it is entirely possible they didn't know the dossier was false information, in which case all they are guilty of was being gullible.
Sounds like that old threat, "Nice business you have here, would be a shame if something happened to it.".
Tangent: saw Speaker Pelosi interviewed yesterday and her focus was on the cover up and the cover up of the cover up. Didn't really talk about the accusation Trump was engaged in a quid pro quo attempt to get Ukraine to investigate Sleepy Joe. In order for the Formal Impeachment Inquiry to have any hope of legitimacy there has to be a crime. It seems dusting off Nixon's crime will suffice.
It's just amazing what you can find on Quora when you ask simple questions:
https://www.quora.com/Was-it-a-good-idea-to-allow-whistleblower-protections-for-people-who-only-heard-others-say-that-they-had-evidence-of-an-illegal-act
You find people arguing for the admission of hearsay evidence because boy it might be useful sometimes.
Schumer is either warning Trump... what a guy... or he is threatening another coup attempt.
Give Trump an additional three years in his first term. That's the only way to punish Democrats for their obvious coup attempt.
Where I believed Crossfire Hurricane probably veered into illegality is that the people starting it and running it probably knew the predicate was false for a long time before the end of Mueller investigation, but kept going because of the politics
I think FISA applications require an oath. I'll have to ask my FBI daughter as she prepared them at one time, being a lawyer and agent.
The White House made it SOP to store records of the President's conversations on a stand-alone, super-duper secret server under 24/7 visual observation because it was found that when stored on the normal, just secret, server any content that could be twisted to damage the President was promptly leaked to a hostile media reporter and became public knowledge.
Making hearsay acceptable under the "whistleblower" rules made it possible for holders of high-level security clearance who had seen the records on the stand-alone computer to still leak them without revealing their identities.
However, this must surely now be a rare thing and subject to some kind of group decision to engage in only for select opportunities approved by the group.
Fideloflake, not really, he teamed up with skagga of colorado to block alternative media to the island
i.e. imagine if Hillary did the same thing.
If Hillary did the same thing, it would have never even been made public, because the Deep State would have buried it, rather then amend the whistleblower rules to allow hearsay. If by some miracle it had somehow become public, anyone who dared publicly question the propriety of the President asking for an investigation into possible corruption by a Republican vice-president would be denounced unanimously by you, the mainstream media, and every Democrat who could find a microphone as an apologist for criminal behavior. And the transcript would have never been released; instead, it would turn out the entire archive of transcripts had been "accidentally" destroyed.
Mueller-mandelbrit-baroness hale (frustrators of the popular will.
All the good journalists are forced off of DNC fake corrupt MSM "newz"
Yancey Ward said...
On #4- the House has to refer a member for lying in the House under oath, even that of a witness
______
Scenario: Intervene Election, subject Representative wins, but House Leadership Change in Party.
Issue Moot or Live?
Allow me recommend : Memory by Lois M Bujold
my head cannon for intelligence shenanigans.
I think he was talking about his boys in the neighborhood. They don't like it when outsiders try to shake things up.
Or as they say in Japan, "The nail that sticks up gets hammered."
I'm all for Attkisson pushing on this and all the other things she covers, but doesn't the average well-informed high-school student know the intel community has six ways from Sunday to get back at a president?
FISA applications has to be sworn to.
But remember the James Rosen case? Eric Holder (on broadcast TV) only regretted that it had been necessary to swear out a false affidavit against such a fine young man.
What I would like to see is someone ask Schumer:
"Accepting what you say is true, and it probably is, how does that affect your oversight of the intelligence community?
Are you afraid, because of all the ways they have to screw you, to criticize them?
Do you, because of all the ways they have to screw you, allow them to get away with stuff you should not let them get away with?
Do they have blackmail material on you that you are afraid they would release if you went against them?
Are you doing your oversight job or are you afraid to?"
John Henry
Well sid vicious was running the looting of libya, aided by drumheller and murray.
Why did it take Atkisson four years to ask the question? Is she really that dense?
Trump was 17 in 1963. He can't be surprised by this. Or do you think he's as stupid as Atkisson?
What did he think was going to happen when he dissed the generals and CIA in public? Did the Don really think they'd just laugh it off? Unbelievable.
Hey, I had the same thoughts about that as Sharyl Attkisson. Good for me.
Darrell said...
Give Trump an additional three years in his first term. That's the only way to punish Democrats for their obvious coup attempt.
I like that kind of "looser pays" rule for impeachment.
If a president is impeached and survives, he gets to run for a third term.
well Obama accused the latter of encouraging terrorism, the wave of drone strikes were just puppies,
I really should look into that series,
http://www.dendarii.com/reviews/kelso.html
This from Reuters is why I have lost all respect for journalism and most journalists working today. From the article:
"Joe Biden, former U.S. vice president and a contender in next year’s U.S. presidential race, has denied using his influence to get Ukraine’s prosecutor general fired to prevent him investigating his son’s involvement and has said that he and his son have done nothing wrong.
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said on Friday it was investigating activity at Burisma between 2010-2012, but that it was not looking into changes to its board in 2014 when Hunter Biden joined."
Notice how that is written- the allegations haven't really been that Joe Biden used his influence to prevent the Ukrainian prosecutors from investigating his son- the allegation is that Biden used his influence to prevent Ukranian prosecutors from investigating Burisma and its owners, and that that is why Burisma paid Hunter Biden as much money as they did. Hunter Biden was never in any danger from the Ukraine- his only legal liability was ever from the US justice system which does prosecute influence peddling and bribery.
This Twitter thread from Matt Beebe is quite interesting. In addition to changing the rules regarding the admissibility of hearsay, it turns out that the scope of a whistleblower complaint by an employee of the intelligence community is restricted only to the intelligence community, and not anyone else; i.e, it is only within the scope of the Directorate of National Intelligence. A complaint against the President is not within scope. Take a read through the thread.
The bigger issue is that there are just way too many people who are allowed to be listening in on these communications or otherwise have access to records of them.
What did he think was going to happen when he dissed the generals and CIA in public?
Maybe act in an honorable way ? Just asking.
I'm reading Yancey Ward with interest, and I don't want to put words in his mouth. But here is what I think (as relevant to this discussion):
1. It it not wrong for the FBI to investigate domestic crimes, even if those crimes are carried out by a political nominee, and so the investigation could have an impact on an election.
2. It is wrong for a politically elected official to encourage (or discourage) the FBI from investigating domestic crimes that (because they were carried out by a political nominee) could have (or the investigation could have) an impact on an election.
3. it is not wrong for the CIA (or other intelligence organizations) to investigate actions by foreign nationals or nations, which actions might have the result of harming the US. Nor is it wrong for any US citizen (including elected officials) to encourage investigations by foreign nationals or nations (which investigations are) into actions which might have the result of harming the US.
4. It is wrong for for a politically elected official to encourage or discourage any investigation of the type described in point 3.
Posting as is, because I can't think through the implications for the Ukraine/Trump/Biden/etc issues. Maybe tomorrow, I'll be more able.
What if there is no "whistleblower"?
That complaint letter reads as if composed by a committee of lawyers; there is no sense of individuality there. So, is the "whistleblower" just a hypothetical being?
Well the prosecutors in nicosia:
https://www.steynonline.com/9755/hunted-biden
We were speaking of the variations on lawfare guess which twist they found against boris.
Who were thet working for:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7515729/Spanish-private-security-firm-probed-spying-Wikileaks-founder-Julian-Assange-CIA.html
h wrote:
"It is wrong for a politically elected official to encourage (or discourage) the FBI from investigating domestic crimes that (because they were carried out by a political nominee) could have (or the investigation could have) an impact on an election."
It is inadvisable for very practical reasons- this I fully agree with. However, let us suppose that one of Trump's appointed US attorneys had opened an investigation on Biden and his son in the US, and William Barr contacted the Ukraine and asked for help- do you think it would have made one iota of difference in how the Democrats reacted this week? I don't- I think they would have just added William Barr to the impeachment list along with Trump (and they may do that anyway).
All of the executive branch officials derive their own power from the President himself- what is acceptable for them to do can't be impeachable for the person from whose power they draw.
Basically, if one can answer "Yes, that is appropriate," to any of those hypotheticals I outlined, then you don't really believe Trump is impeachable for the phone conversation. And, if you answer no to all the hypotheticals, then you don't believe a candidate for presidency can be investigated by the executive branch at all, and you also probably don't believe any political opponent of any kind is open to investigation. I find the latter position perverse.
"What if there is no "whistleblower"?
Hagar, I think there is a "whistleblower", but I think he went directly to Schiff or someone outside the government who took him to Schiff, in August, and they realized that it might be more effective as a whistleblower complaint (and less illegal), and so hooked the guy up with a legal team. I think after that point, they had the cooperation of someone fairly high up to change the form to allow hearsay as a basis.
"What if there is no "whistleblower"?
I am pretty sure that there was someone who heard something. Had to be, to know that Biden was mentioned. Besides, it would be illegal, and the Lawfare people, whom I expect are involved here are lawyers first, and make sure that whatever scam they are pulling off can somehow be superficially legal.
“Hagar, I think there is a "whistleblower", but I think he went directly to Schiff or someone outside the government who took him to Schiff, in August, and they realized that it might be more effective as a whistleblower complaint (and less illegal), and so hooked the guy up with a legal team. I think after that point, they had the cooperation of someone fairly high up to change the form to allow hearsay as a basis.”
I think that sounds very plausible.
My question is what can Trump do here, besides banning the IC from the White House, or at least in transcribing discussions with foreign leader?. This scam is too well constructed, and too slick, to only be used once. If something is not done, I fully expect this to become fairly routine over the next 14 months.
My bet, right now, is that the main perp is the IC IG, who, if I remember correctly, was chief counsel for the DoJ NSD when Crossfire Hurricane was being put together, and at least the first FISA warrant application was being put together by that organization working with their FBI counterparts. Even if he wasn’t the main perp here, he had to have been involved at some level, since the revised form would require his approval at some level, and his office specifically ignored the DoJ OLC legal opinion that the President was not part of the IC, and, therefore was not subject to ICIG oversight. He should be removed, because he let this go through, and maybe even encouraged it. But that is probably politically questionable. Yes, Obama removed most of his IGs at some point, and Crooked Hillary ran the State Dept w/o IG oversight, but they are Democrats. Trump, any more, is not. It would cause a big stink. I would think that the alternative would be to attack the scheme from the DoJ - except that the IC IG apparently ran the complaint straight to Congress, instead of submitting it to the DoJ, as is supposed to be the policy. Another indication to me that this is very likely a Lawfare operation. It very much appears to being orchestrated by some very smart lawyers with extensive government experience, very likely, I think, at least somewhat in the IC.
By no "whistleblower" I mean that there are, and always have been, a number of people in and around the White House watching and reporting to the "Deep State," or whatever you want to call it. Trump has never been able to trust the fidelity of those around him.
"They" decided to work with the impeachers in Congress and invented a fictional single "whistleblower" to fit with the situation and narrative.
It will be interesting to see if they ever will produce a real person to testify in public before the committees. He or she will have to be good to bear up under the consequent scrutiny.
Some speculation it was the dismissed ambassador
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/09/adam_schiffs_impeachment_fun_playhouse.html
bbkingfish said...
What did he think was going to happen when he dissed the generals and CIA in public? Did the Don really think they'd just laugh it off?
The Donald has lived most of his life in a bubble, with a few female executives in his leadership team, and a bunch of paid flunkies. Within this bubble he has created this image of himself as an uber alpha male. In real life he is now up against real men who don't give a shit about his carefully curated image.
In real life he is now up against real men who don't give a shit about his carefully curated image.
No, they are after power and will kill if necessary. Interesting to watch the left admire this and offer fellation.
ARM - your gibberish is simple: orange Man Bad.
Meanwhile - Hillary Clinton is the top of your corrupt Democratic food chain.
"It will be interesting to see if they ever will produce a real person to testify in public before the committees. He or she will have to be good to bear up under the consequent scrutiny."
The whistleblower will have to come forward- the Democrats can't actually hope to succeed in impeaching Trump if he doesn't come forward.
The Donald has lived most of his life in a bubble, with a few female executives in his leadership team, and a bunch of paid flunkies.
Thats an extremely ignorant assessment delivered with a disturbing amount of confidence.
Another slow moderation day,
"Maybe act in an honorable way ? Just asking."
I find it hard to believe that's a serious question.
Every other post I've seen here suggests that you wouldn't expect them to act in an honorable way. I certainly expect them to act like men of power, not men of honor. Why would Trump expect them to act in an honorable way? Are you suggesting that Trump is that obtuse regarding the situation in which he's put himself? Just askin'.
This isn’t new. From The New Neo: The Deep State hatched its plot against Trump very early, and they told us so
Right after the 2016 election, I read some articles describing people in government who had decided to stay put and secretly sabotage Trump. These articles weren’t exposes written by the right; they were proud confessions from the left, part of the righteous Resistance.
We are seeing the fruit of that today.
...
Others, however, view resistance as a part of the job. “Policy dissent is in our culture,” one diplomat in Africa, who signed the letter circulating among foreign diplomats, told The New York Times. “We even have awards for it,” this person added, in reference to the State Department’s “Constructive Dissent” award. One Justice Department employee told the Post, “You’re going to see the bureaucrats using time to their advantage,” and added that “people here will resist and push back against orders they find unconscionable,” by whistle-blowing, leaking to the press, and lodging internal complaints. Others are staying in contact with officials appointed by President Obama to learn more about how they can undermine Trump’s agenda and attending workshops on how to effectively engage in civil disobedience, the Post reports.
Let me emphasize that again: whistle-blowing, leaking to the press, and lodging internal complains.
And then we have this, from the same article [emphasis added]:
“When asked how the opposition emerging at this stage compares to past administrations, Tom Malinowski, who served as Obama’s assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, sarcastically told the Post, “Is it unusual? There’s nothing unusual about the entire national security bureaucracy of the United States feeling like their commander in chief is a threat to U.S. national security. That happens all the time. It’s totally usual. Nothing to worry about.””
The “nothing unusual” part was sarcasm, of course. But the rest was deadly serious. The plan was in place from the start, and it’s not some wild conspiracy-mongering to say so. This is a clandestine conspiracy, but not a completely secret one in the sense that we were told about its general thrust in advance by the proud perpetrators themselves. An interesting detail from those quotes is that “Obama officials” were apparently in charge of orchestrating this.
Clarice Feldman: Adam Schiff's Impeachment Fun Playhouse:
Dissecting the complaint, Henry Olsen, writing in the Washington Post, sagely suggests the Democrats' best option is to stop relying on this confection (something clearly written by several people, some of whom probably are on Schiff’s committee staff):
“Democrats now have a difficult choice to make. The wisest course of action would probably be to drop the complaint as a significant piece of evidence, since it raises almost nothing new. That would be politically embarrassing since they have made so much of it, but they could claim that the whistleblower’s job has been done since it unearthed the alleged wrongdoing and placed it in the public domain.”
“The alternative course sets the Democrats on a dangerous path. If the whistleblower’s complaint is probative of impeachment, then the whistleblower must testify to find out who gave the person the information that is described. That cannot be done without Republicans present and likely means the whistleblower’s identity must be disclosed. It is one thing to keep that person’s identity secret when the matter is largely handled internally; it is quite another when it is being used to try to remove the democratically elected leader of our nation. The accused must have a chance to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him, and that right applies as much to Trump as it does to anyone accused of wrongdoing.”
“Investigation of the whistleblower’s allegations also inserts the House Democrats into the deepest workings of the administration, such as the alleged discussions among White House officials to “lock down” records of the phone call. The president would be remiss if he did not assert executive privilege over these discussions. That will inevitably present Democrats with a Hobson’s choice: Either delay the impeachment hearings to fight such assertions of privilege in court or drop the matter to proceed to a vote without having all the evidence before it. Neither will help them achieve their likely aim: the swift resolution to impeach the president before the election year starts in earnest.”
I notice I am not the only one going elsewhere to read and comment on blogs not infested with trolls. The other blogs take less care with leftist trolls, banning them quietly.
Bruce, I assume you got out of Montana before the storm.
“Bruce, I assume you got out of Montana before the storm.”
No. Rented an RV last week by Missoula. Just returned it today. Drove a bit yesterday to get back, with the snow coming in today. Didn’t really want to drive an RV in the snow. About an inch this morning, and sporadic all day. But with only about 30 miles to go (half in Missoula), the snow wasn’t an issue.
Probably won’t head in your general direction for a couple more weeks.
"I notice I am not the only one going elsewhere to read and comment on blogs not infested with trolls."
Troll = A commenter who dismantles the faulty logic of your particularly stupid comments
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