April 11, 2020

"The FBI was warned sections of the controversial Steele dossier could have been part of a 'Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations'..."

"... according to newly declassified footnotes from a government watchdog report. The December report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz examined the FBI's investigation into alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as the FBI's four surveillance warrants for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.... Several footnotes in Horowitz's report were redacted, and Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson pushed for the declassification of four footnotes related to the Steele dossier... Footnote 350 in the IG report addresses the FBI's knowledge of Russian contacts with Steele and the potential for disinformation. Steele had 'frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from (redacted) indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting.'..."

Writes Catherine Herridge at CBS News.

140 comments:

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Maddow pimped the fake Russian Oligarch bullshit for a ... long... time.

iowan2 said...

I want everyone to remember. President Obama is the guilty operator in all of this.

iowan2 said...

Cathering Herridge, now of ABC, was at FOX. Doing the reporting of facts, 1000's of reporters are working overtime to bury.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

I want everyone to know - Hillary Clinton and her paid associates and flunkies are the architects of the "Poor Hillary didn't really lose, it was stolen from her... by the ..... RUSSIANS!"

dreams said...

Indictments coming after the election, William Barr says there will prosecutions not a report. I think he means it.

Mark said...

I am sure the blockbuster report was dropped during a late Friday news dump before a holiday weekend because it's such a bombshell.

lolololol

dreams said...

Cathering Herridge, CBS.

Michael K said...

We'll see of there are perp walks. I hope so and I know a few that need them.

Shouting Thomas said...

Hillary Clinton was the Russia colluder.

Talk about your woman scorned.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for those perp walks.

iowan2 said...

dreams, yes, CBS my bad

I'm Full of Soup said...

Horowitz needs to tell who redacted it and why.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Hillary is the Russian money whore.

Biden really did use our tax dollars to funnel thru a corrupt Ukrainian energy company to make his loser son Hunter, rich.

Craig Howard said...

I am sure the blockbuster report was dropped during a late Friday news dump before a holiday weekend because it's such a bombshell.

And it will be completely ignored for the daily COVID body count.

Mr. O. Possum said...

iowan2---

You are exactly right. All roads lead to Obama. As with Watergate, even if the president did not initiate action against his opponent or Hilary Clinton's opponent, it is impossible to believe that senior CIA and FBI players were not keeping him in the loop.

I do not know that any reporter has ever asked him if he had any awareness whatsoever of the skullduggery that went on against candidate Trump or president-elect Trump.

Shouting Thomas said...

This is the proof that we must believe the media about COVID-19.

Our beloved media certainly wouldn't lie about something that important.

David Begley said...

Brennan, Comey, McCabe, Power et alia never would have gone ahead with their crimes unless Obama gave them the order.

This is the biggest political scandal in US history.

Shouting Thomas said...

Howard will be along shortly to tell us why the Deep State conspiring against a presidential candidate was actually for our own good.

Wince said...

Did Hillary re-Tweet this Herridge story?

Kudos to Grassley and Johnson.

Where's Lindsey, yet again?

Owen said...

Nothing to see here, comrade. Move along.

Comrade, I ...suggested... that you go on about your ...proper... business.

Comrade, I am now actively concerned at your unhealthy obsession with a malicious fiction propagated by enemies of the state. Come with me. Now.

dreams said...

William Barr says there will be a report but prosecutions are the main thing. Some good stuff at this link.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/04/ag_barr_offers_big_reveals_on_spygate_prosecutions_.html

wendybar said...

Cathering Herridge is a REAL journalist. She actually reports news bipartisanly. I trust her reporting more than just about any of the Main Stream people out there, that have spewed the Democratic talking points for the last 12 years or more.

iowan2 said...

This is nothing new to people that know the media lies all the time. All of this has been reported for over two years.

Two years people. The media has been lying for longer that that, but this topic, more than two years.

Mr. O. Possum said...

For a trip to Alice's Wonderland, read the Wikipedia entry on Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr

"In 2018, Ohr became the subject of right-wing conspiracy theories which alleged that he played an important role in starting the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.[5][6] The conspiracy theories allege that the origins of the Russia probe were biased and were intended to undermine then-candidate Trump.[6]"

Ken B said...

Under normal conditions this would you might imagine be big news, the FBI being complicit in a political campaign, shredding laws as they go.

narciso said...

The topmen in action

bagoh20 said...

"This is the biggest political scandal in US history."

Yes it is, and nothing else is even close, but I don't think our people have the spunk to address it as such. We have devolved into sheep, chasing safety, and willing to throw anything away to live a day longer. Our angry energy seems to be redirected at each other rather than the people using us like livestock and pretending superiority of information and competence. You can't be truely free until you stop believing that our leaders and experts know a whole lot more than the rest of us. They may have access to privileged information, but it's not better information, it's just pedigreed, which means that when it's wrong, it's dangerous.

Lucid-Ideas said...

I want to bring back public hangings in the Square. Beheadings in front of Whitehall, just like they did for Charles the first. Tar and feathers.

Throw in some unpersoning al la stasi style for flavor.

bagoh20 said...

This terrible violation of trust and fairness in our democracy has been stretched out so long that nobody is surprised anymore, and surprise is what it's all about now days. If you want to get noticed, go viral, cause action, you need to surprise people, and that's getting really hard.

Shouting Thomas said...

Amen bagoh20

Now they know how sheepishly obedient we will be if they scare us, too.

Shouting Thomas said...

The media has built this myth that Trump is a crazy, wild ass outlier on the foundation of the Russia collusion hoax.

Think about that.

The first "Trump is a crazy ass loon" incident was his statement that his offices were under surveillance in 2016.

GatorNavy said...

I see some people here are hopeful that there will be perp walks of high ranking FBI, CIA and other high ranking intelligence staff. You are delusional as the fix is in. Nobody, expect possibly a sacrificial goat, will be indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned.

Shouting Thomas said...

@GatorNavy

Sadly, you are probably right.

Big Mike said...

I spent too many years living and working in and around Washington, DC. I have to agree with GatorNavy and Shouting Thomas.

Bay Area Guy said...

Black swan event!

"CATHERINE HERRIDGE" is actually an outstanding journalist - up there, but not quite, with the great Sharyl Atkisson.

Of course, she was poached from Foxnews, but let's not dwell on that.

As for "Perp Walks", the main guy who deserves one is John Brennan. Will it happen? Sadly, the odds are low.


narciso said...

the tragic aspect of this, is it lead to this pantomime impeachment, that crippled response to this outbreak, and the same knaves, continue this witchhunt, how much time, how much money, and how many lives were do to this,

rcocean said...

And the reason it was originally redacted was..??

Frankly, this whole thing is going the way these things always go in DC. The Democrats and their allies do unethical or borderline criminal crap, and the result is DOJ foot-dragging, sweat-heart deals, botched half-hearted prosecutions, and in this case, never ending "DoJ Investigations" and "IG Reports" which never amount to anything.

The DC R's never seem upset/angry at the double standard by which Stone and Flynn got sent to jail, and Trump gets lied about and investigated a hostile special prosecutor, while Hillary, McCabe, Comey, brennan, etc. lie under oath, break the law, and get away scot-free.

Barr is supposedly having Dunham do something, but I'll bet the farm it'll be a big bust. Or he'll issue a report in December, AFTER Trump loses.

Sebastian said...

Forgive the gloating, and this travesty of an outrage of an injustice is reason for dismay, but of course, in the case of the Russia collusion hoax as in the case of the Wuhan debacle, the pro-sanity deplorable commentariat here was way ahead of conventional wisdom, pegging the attack as itself supported by and relying on the Russians, at the behest of the Clinton campaign.

The notion that the Dems and deep-staters could attack Trump for doing the Russians' bidding while knowingly advancing Russian interests, with the eager support of the MSM, not to mention deepening the very political divides the Russians sought, and almost get away with it, is still flabbergasting.

rcocean said...

It looks like Sessions, who was responsible for the whole Mueller mess will get re-elected, while Rosenstein has gotten away with any repercussions. This put trump under a cloud for almost 2 years, and allowed a bunch of hostile D's to comb through everything Trump's campaign did, and set up Stone and flynn for process crimes.

Heads should roll. But this whole thing will be swept under the rug.

narciso said...

largely so, that'a why sean davis, Jordan schachtel, mollie hemingway, all those who kept their heads in the first two waves, have been solid here,

rcocean said...

BTW, next time anyone points out Andy McCarthy or John Turley as the "good guys", I'll remind people that these two were always supporting the Mueller investigation and criticizing Trump for fighting back. Its only when the evidence disproved the conspiracy theories that they back off and started to criticize Comey and the other crooks.

narciso said...

well they eventually found the nut, someone like a certain prosecutor will never catch on, he shut down comments, he drove out people like shipwrecked crew with expertise,

Michael K said...


Blogger Shouting Thomas said...

Howard will be along shortly to tell us why the Deep State conspiring against a presidential candidate was actually for our own good.


He sure loves it. I am assuming he is about a GS 15.

traditionalguy said...

Has the world changed? Covering up all evidence of the DC criminals lucrative operations is the sole purpose of the FBI and the DOJ. They occasionally do some well publicized actual law enforcement work but only for PR. But their sole purpose remains the same.

Sam L. said...

Why was this withheld this long? Seems to me that "heads must roll".

Maillard Reactionary said...

Why are people still talking about this? It's all in the past, and we have a pandemic on our hands. Mistakes may have been made, but it's time to move on. People are dying!

I thing the Republicans are going to keep picking at this to distract people from what a disaster Trump's Administration has been.

narciso said...

ask Edwin Wilson, you might have to wait a while, though he died in 2012, after being wrongfully imprisoned for 20 years, yet Mario tabraue is free and clear after a few years hawking tiger cubs, and telling tales on Netflix,

in other news, they arrested Tatiana chornovol, one of the shokin critics,

bagoh20 said...

The end result of the impeachment hoax was that Dems lied - people died. That whole charade tells you what they think the purpose of government is. They see it as sport, a game to win or lose with nice rewards for the winners. They do not see it as a responsibility, a duty, a service to perform to the best of your abilities for the people of this country. Does anyone think that even if they knew a pandemic was coming that they would have called off that piece of political theater, and let Trump do his job?

Maillard Reactionary said...

Sam L. @10:06 AM: It was classified and redacted in the original report (for reasons which are obvious at this point).

It's the way the game is played: Redact and classify everything except "and", "the",
and a few other words and make the rest of us sue their asses to find out what is going on.

cfs said...

It was FBI/CIA/HRC/DNC created "Russian" disinformation. They are the ones who created it. Don't fall for the narrative now being pushed that the FBI was incompetent and gullible. No, they were/are corrupt.

dreams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Big Mike said...

Seems to me that "heads must roll".

@Sam L., you see, that's exactly the extreme overreaction that the Deep State is trying to avoid. These people are dedicated public servants and whatever they do, at the time they do it, it is only for our own best interests.

And theirs.

robother said...

Shocking that an agency founded by J.Edgar Hoover is above the law. He must be rolling in his grave with Tolson. Wait'll they tell Deep Throat the news.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Long before they fired Trish Regan the new management at Fox declined to renew Herridge’s contract. Yet they brought back Donna Brazille and a raft of nevertrumpers. The news side is unwatchable much of the time, being so repetitive and NY-centric. If not for The Five there’s nothing produced by Fox News I care to see anymore. When I hear leftists hating on Fox I wonder if they even watch. Then I reneged they are leftists so of course they don’t watch it. Ignorance intensifies their hate. Great job Paul Ryan and the Murdoch kids are doing! By simply NOT being as bad as CNN and MSNBC they somehow have grown the ratings by providing even less news.

Michael The Magnificent said...

Dear leftists and never-Trumpers,

Who are the Russian's stooges? I'll give you two hints:
1) Not Donald Trump
2) Go look in the mirror

narciso said...

deripasks and akhmetshin must have had a wry laugh at how easy it was to fool the security services, it was much like the trust, and the xinoviev letter, which I've mentioned in the past,

narciso said...

that trial balloon they floated to josh margolin, about the ncmi is the next generation of information contagion,

Mark O said...

Will anyone go to jail? Will anyone be charged? Will anyone be tried?

Mark O said...

Will anyone go to jail? Will anyone be charged? Will anyone be tried?

narciso said...

very silly question, Marko, were sporkin or barcella disbarred, the latter went to work for bcci,

Sebastian said...

"laugh at how easy it was to fool the security services"

I propose a friendly amendment. It was easy because they didn't even have to fool them: the U.S. deep-staters were willing participants, having interests that converged with those of the Russians.

The conscious pursuit of the hoax as a way to sabotage Trump, knowing how the Russians were involved, in a deliberate effort to attack first a presidential campaign and then the presidency--that is what Barr has now laid bare. We knew it all along.

bagoh20 said...

"Will anyone go to jail? Will anyone be charged? Will anyone be tried?"

Maybe if they get caught alone in the park with a smile on their face we can get them for not looking miserable during social distancing.

JackWayne said...

Go read Sundance and not CBS if you want the context for this “reveal”.

bagoh20 said...

The performance of our security departments does not give me a feeling of being well protected from our enimies, neither foreign nor domestic. Their adversaries in nations like China or Russia, are probably having a field day playing off their petty priorities and biases.

hombre said...

DOJ Obots, Crooked from top to bottom. It started with the dismissal of the Black Panther case and worsened from there concluding with sedition.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Indictments coming after the election, William Barr says there will prosecutions not a report. I think he means it.”

Wrong reward structure. It incentivizes rampant cheating by the Deep State and their Dem enablers to make sure that Trump is defeated. The indictments of the key players notably Brennan, McCabe, and maybe Clapper, should be before the election. Then go after the miscreants in the DOJ’s NSD and FBI CID after the election.

The two I participants I think many consider must be indicted are McCabe and Brennan. McCabe was very likely the person at the top of the conspiracy in the FBI, and maybe even DOJ. HE was at the center (along with his henchpeope Strzok and Page) of everything. He knew that there was no real collusion between Trump and the Russians, because he had had knowledge of provenance of the Steele Dossier long before it got to the FBI formally. This is obvious from the Strzok/Page text messages from summer and fall of 2016. Yet, after preapproving the original Carter Page FISA warrant, causing checks to be circumvented, he signed the warrant application and the next one, on behalf of the FBI, despite having had, at the time, that the applications were intentionally incomplete and misleading. . Rosenstein and Comey can play dumb, and no doubt will. McCabe cannot he was centrally located to the entire illicit scheme, orchestrated around the $70k conference room table in his office. Moreover, he also is the one who lied to Gen Flynn, and setup the perjury trap for him, and then oversaw the revisions to the FD 302s documenting Flynn’s interview with his two agents, apparently removing exonerating evidence.

Kevin said...

Power corrupts, and the corruption leads to even more power.

It was only when the American people elected someone from outside the power structure that the deep state even became worried.

And their response only showed how deep the corruption had reached.

bagoh20 said...

If it turns out (although it's pretty obvious already) that there is in fact a biased undemocratic deep state at work influencing elections and creating false attacks for political purposes, do you think that will bother most Democrats at all? I do not. I think many welcome it, and want it to continue, no matter how illegal or unfair.

Dave Begley said...

Another reason to re-elect Trump is to get to the bottom of this. Obama is at the bottom; along with Val Jarrett and Susan Rice.

Someone should ask Biden in a debate, "You had lunch with President Obama weekly. When did he order the FBI and CIA to spy on the Trump campaign?"

tim in vermont said...

If you can’t tell for yourself whether the news that the country was sent on a wild goose chase for three years, tying up the executive and legislative branches by a Putin operation that used Hillary’s campaign is a bombshell, maybe you are not very bright.

tim in vermont said...

The fact that this came out on Good Friday during a pandemic strongly suggests that the wrong people are still in charge.

Darkisland said...

To those who ask "why now?"

It's a teaser. The cat is on the roof.

As Barr said wed, we're not looking for a report, we're looking for indictments. (paraphrased)

And I also read yesterday that grand jury subpoenas have been issued.

John Henry

n.n said...

Russian? British? American? JournoList?

Bruce Hayden said...

“ If not for The Five there’s nothing produced by Fox News I care to see anymore.”

Let e suggest Gutfeld’s weekend show. Almost always fun. Starts with his usual, usually hilarious, monologue followed by discussions with 4 of his stable of guests. He often has a conservative comic, as well as neurotic Kat Timpf and Cyrus, the (mostly) former professional wrestler bickering. As with his Red Eye, I think that Gutfeld has more comedic latitude in his own show, than he does with the Five.

tim in vermont said...

“Some of [Obama’s] aides now concede that behind the scenes Obama played a role in nudging things in Biden’s direction at the crucial moment when the Biden team was organizing former candidates to coalesce around Biden.”

So they kept Warren in long enough to deny Sanders the wins that would have carried him forward, betraying Sanders and Warren voters. This is cynical enough to have been done by Bill Clinton himself.

JAORE said...

"Mistakes may have been made, but it's time to move on. People are dying!"

At this point, what difference does it make? Right Phid?

I watch in horror as our own government shreds our basic rights for political gain. The nightmare continues as we see local, state or federal officials over react to the Covid-19 outbreak and do things like arrest a dad playing catch with his daughter in a public park or ten cops haul a guy off a bus for not wearing a mask.

Slippery slope hell! We've fallen off a cliff and many find comfort that the cliff is so very high.

Birkel said...

The defense of the conspirators will be "we were fooled by Russian disinformation" and are therefore not guilty.

It's the "we were bad at our jobs" defense.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Shouting Thomas said...

The same media that lied for three years to advance the Russia collusion hoax...

Will soon be telling you that these indictments are “political revenge” hits by Trump.

Jersey Fled said...

Remember, this didn't start in 2016. It started in 2012 when Obama weaponized the IRS to slow walk approval for conservative advocacy groups.

Obama is the chief villan here.

n.n said...

The disinformation campaign progressed when Trump confronted the Iranian deal, Chinese trade, Mexican emigration, climate Profits, Pro-Choice/reduce, reuse, recycle. A lot of plausible, probable, vectors for the sociopolitical contagion.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Trump's biggest mistake - and I don't hold him completely responsible because of the entrenched corruption that is a million pound tangle of weeds so deep, the ocean called and wants it's depth back.
but - Trump should have fired all Obama hold-overs in every department, everywhere. and he should have never hired Jeff Sessions. He should have made sure Hillary paid for her Private Server treachery.

Sebastian said...

Sundance goes a small step beyond my take, but implying that Barr is not going far enough:

"The truth is the CIA and FBI worked to plant disinformation in the Steele dossier. The CIA/FBI did not get duped by Russian Disinformation. The CIA/FBI knowingly and willfully solicited Russian disinformation to be channeled to Chris Steele.

The current DOJ, current FBI, and current political class (both parties), do not want to reveal that U.S. intelligence agencies worked with Russian actors to seed disinformation into the Steele Dossier that could then be laundered and returned to the U.S. intelligence apparatus for exploitation – via political surveillance – using FISA."

At the heart of it, as we have noted many times on this blog, with thanks to Bruce Hayden in particular, was John Brennan. Sure, Obama must have signed off in some way, but I think, in the end, all roads lead to Brennan.

narciso said...

District management

n.n said...

It started in 2012 when Obama weaponized the IRS to slow walk approval for conservative advocacy groups.

Not 16, but 32 trimesters of witch hunts, warlock trials, and establishment of Party and State. The audacity of novel democracy must have been too much to bear.

n.n said...

Deep Plunger is still uncovering and clearing the resistant muck from Water Closet.

Original Mike said...

"Under normal conditions this would you might imagine be big news, the FBI being complicit in a political campaign, shredding laws as they go."

No it wouldn't. During "normal" (I assume you mean pre-covid) the news media were just as assiduous burying anything that reflected poorly on their side. This isn't even really news, in the sense that it was unknown before now.

Jersey Fled said...

Gregg Re has an even more complete story at:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/declassified-footnotes-show-fbi-knew-christopher-steele-may-have-been-part-of-russian-disinformation-campaign

Sorry. I'm going to learn how to imbed links one of these days.

frenchy said...

Indictments coming after the election, William Barr says there will prosecutions not a report. I think he means it.

Nah. If he "meant" it it'd be an already done deal. By this point in Watergate (3-1/2 years in) at least 14 people had been tried, convicted, and sent to prison. But, then, Democrats know how to go after opposing miscreants.

narciso said...

like so

Original Mike said...

"Trump's biggest mistake - and I don't hold him completely responsible…but… he should have never hired Jeff Sessions."

That one is completely on him.

Mary Beth said...

I do not know that any reporter has ever asked him if he had any awareness whatsoever of the skullduggery that went on against candidate Trump or president-elect Trump.

It would be pointless. He would give the same answer as always - he found out about it when he saw it on the news.

M Jordan said...

Ef them all. Ef the Dems who pushed this. Ef John McCain. Ef John Brennan. Ef the media including Fox. Ef Jamal Kharshogi while we’re at it (oh wait, he was effed.)

The clandestine war on Trump and his supporters is over. It’s all out in the open now. We need Nuremberg trials.

Jersey Fled said...

Damn you're good, narciso!

narciso said...

I don't always get it right, chuck ross, lee smith, should collect their Pulitzers, and Haberman and co should return theirs

don't let a crisis go to waste, the Iraqis picked their Iranian backed spy chief, kadhimi as pm designate,

Narr said...

Morning threads like this are so much more pleasant than those all-nighters, when everybody gets cranky but nobody wants to be the first to quit.

One of the things that got me commenting regularly here about a year ago was exactly the topic of Russian collusion, and I had told my friends as early as Jan 2017 that the whole thing was a set up-- all it would take to screw with US politics would be a meeting between somebody on Trump's side with somebody from Russia.

The partisan ignoramuses at MSDNC and suchlike had only to be pointed in a certain direction and they would work like zombies on the assignment.

I can watch some Tucker and some Greg, but quite honestly too many of the guests and commentary aren't all that bright and rely too much on schtick. (It's Tyrus not Cyrus BTW.)

Narr
God Bless CSpan!

Michael K said...

"Trump's biggest mistake - and I don't hold him completely responsible…but… he should have never hired Jeff Sessions."

Yes, it turned out to be a mistake but he had few allies. The Deep State that Howard loves so much took out Flynn, lest he uncover the disasters of the CIA. Tillerson turned out to be an egomaniac. McMaster was another Deep Stater. KC McFarland was also attacked by Comey, et all and barely survived.

Who did he have ? He depends too much on family but DC is a snake pit.

Narr said...

Anybody that saw Brennan on tv after the Mueller Fizzle knows what flopsweat looks like.

Narr
Is it more difficult or less difficult to lawyer up during a pandemic?

Michael K said...

Trump should have fired all Obama hold-overs in every department, everywhere

It wasn't that easy. Obama embedded his picks as Civil Service employees, immune to firing by the next administration. Bush is the one who made that mistake when he could have cleaned out the DoJ.

narciso said...

Looking through the penguin list of relevant reads, there is a surfeit of fusion driven fan fiction, from greg miller, craig unger, phillip rucker, there's no pony down there,

Temujin said...

This was a working coup perpetrated by the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, FBI, DOJ and others, most notably the entire US media apparatus (with a handful of exceptions). This didn't pass the 'any 7 year old could tell you this was bullshit' test. (same thing applied to the Benghazi story pulled out by Obama, Hillary, Biden, and Susan Rice. that the attack was because of a 2 year old video no one ever saw. Any 7 year old could have told you that was bullshit but our media took it and rammed it up everyone's nose.

Heads need to role on this. We should not let this pass or forget about what happened here. A bright shining light needs to be laid on every cockroach involved. Let's start with those around Obama. Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, and Samatha Powell. We'll get to Comey, Clapper, and Brennan.

When this is over the US media should be mocked, ridiculed, laughed at, and otherwise ignored- until they get a heavy change of personnel.

narciso said...

they've buried the story in the warehouse where they kept the ark and the alien artefacts,

Browndog said...

*potential

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

GG weekend show is ok lately, because of course The Five gets preempted most days. But prior to Task Force TV I found Greg recycles his best Five stuff for his show. Now when Dagan or Emily or Katie or Dana join Greg and Kat then I dvr it to watch later for sure. Come to think of it Redeye and Gutfeld recruited just about all my favorites on Fox. Add Jedidiah to the above mix.

Skeptical Voter said...

Let's posit that Biden (or a committee or someone to be named by the Dems) wins in November and Trump is ousted. Durham is apparently in not all that much of a hurry to get his act and indictments together, but let's also assume some indictments do issue before year end.

Do you really think those indictments will then be pursued after January 20, 2021?


More reason than ever to work to keep Trump in office (on the one side) or toss the bum out (on the other side).

Dave Begley said...

Temujin

Funny you should mention Samantha Power (you wrote Powell). I happened to be in Austin last Fall and she was at the Texas Book Festival hawking her book. My question to her, "Why did you spy on Americans without a warrant?" SP, "Sir, I did not." DDB, "I think you are lying."

The tone of her voice was very harsh and defensive.

It is on BookTV but I was the first question and it might not be audible.

Power was ordered by Barack or Brennan to do all the unmasking. Brennan might have done it using Power's UN account, but I doubt it.

Dave Begley said...

Another thing. If Samantha Power was indicted, she'd rat everyone out. She's very weak. Also young kids at home. She won't go to jail for Obama or Brennan.

narciso said...

Good job david Begley, someone had to do it,

she was one of the Valkyries, who spilt blood from eastern Syria to equatorial Africa,

cronus titan said...

It may already be too late for indictments unless Trump is re-elected. If indictments are issued Monday, the actual process will be just underway at the election. Biden wins, and Durham's work, and any charges, gets dropped. Instead, there would be investigations of the investigators investigating the investigators. An old bureaucratic strategy is waiting out who is in office. In the government, they are called "We Be," short for "We be here before you, we be here after you."

Browndog said...

Birkel said...

The defense of the conspirators will be "we were fooled by Russian disinformation" and are therefore not guilty.


It's Durham's job to prove they did know. Too many players, incompetent at that, to cover all their tracks.

Anne-I-Am said...

What dismays and frightens me is the response of more than half of our fellow citizens to this. And not just the average, uninformed voter—who rationally tunes out most of what goes on in politics, being more consumed by the drama of daily life—but the politically-active/interested citizen. The latter group either dismisses this degradation of the rule of law as nonexistent—or even worse, celebrates it as the “by any means necessary” approach needed to rid themselves of a hated political opponent.

They are aided by the cynical manipulators, who despite knowing better, egg them on. I have one such person in mind—a guy with whom I attended high school. He served as Al Gore’s COS—also Biden’s, I believe. After the election, he was on fb, decrying the electoral college and claiming the country was robbed of its rightful leader. When I called him on his demagoguery (he is an attorney and should understand the constitution), his loyal followers attacked me.

The Deep State probably does exist—although I question its members’ competence—and if so, it flourishes in no large part because of the ignorance and/or cynicism of much of our citizenry. Phidippus is a terrific example.

Heartless Aztec said...

It's sleight of hand by the DOJ. Sundance puts the CBS report to bed without supper over at the Conservative Treehouse blog.

narayanan said...

Blogger JackWayne said...
Go read Sundance and not CBS if you want the context for this “reveal”.
_____++++++++
I go there anytime there are "revelations" !!!

CTH is correct to show that these "revelations" are carefully choreographed laser pointer dots to distract and confound at a time chosen by the Deep Staters.

Hide; make them Seek; then Show >>> keep the kiddies happy

DanTheMan said...

>>Indictments coming after the election, William Barr says there will prosecutions not a report.

Nope. No one will be arrested. You can bet the farm on it.

narciso said...

four months ago, was when this Ukraine pantomime horse was in earnest, when Schiff's puppet show was in full bore.

FullMoon said...

DanTheMan said...

>>Indictments coming after the election, William Barr says there will prosecutions not a report.

Nope. No one will be arrested. You can bet the farm on it.


Yep. I feel like Inga during Russia Probe. Keeping hope alive but disappointed every single time.

All I can do is half heartedly imagine "Nobody knows what Barr knows".

FullMoon said...

Blogger JackWayne said...
Go read Sundance and not CBS if you want the context for this “reveal”.



Footnote Declassification Highlights Ongoing DOJ Cover-Up Operations…

Yancey Ward said...

If the political affiliations had been the exact opposite, the FBI would never have done anything at all with the Steele Dossier- really, every honest person understands this, even if they try to deny it publicly.

Yancey Ward said...

No, the fallback position won't be "we were fooled by the Russians, and so aren't guilty." The fallback position will be that the Russians sowed the disinformation to help Trump discredit his political enemies.

I know, you think I am joking, don't you?

Chuck said...

Wait; so now reports fron Inspectors General are good again?

I'm so confused on this. Which IG's are we to believe, and which IG's are part of the Deep State coup against PDJT?

BUMBLE BEE said...

Thanks to narciso's links to apelbaum/wordpress this is old, (yet official), news. Six or seven posters here make the blog soar.

Drago said...

LLR-lefty "ChiCom" Chuck: "I'm so confused on this."

Just about all Biden supporters are.

Original Mike said...

"The defense of the conspirators will be "we were fooled by Russian disinformation" and are therefore not guilty."

Yeah. This new "news" is not all that exciting.

Original Mike said...

Blogger Anne said..."What dismays and frightens me is the response of more than half of our fellow citizens to this. And not just the average, uninformed voter—who rationally tunes out most of what goes on in politics, being more consumed by the drama of daily life—but the politically-active/interested citizen. The latter group either dismisses this degradation of the rule of law as nonexistent—or even worse, celebrates it as the “by any means necessary” approach needed to rid themselves of a hated political opponent."

My emotions run more toward disgust.

Otto said...

How many times has Ann blogged on the dossier compared to Trump's "weirdness"? Remember she voted for the person who paid for the dossier.

Charlie Currie said...

Sundance at TCT says this is all bs - a head fake. We're supposed to think the FBI is stupid for being faked out by Russian Intelligence - instead of evil for planting the info for the Hillary gang to regurgitate back to the CIA and Front Brake Inspectors.

Of course, when has either organization gotten anything important right.

Hey Skipper said...

Maggie Haberman of the NYT got a Pulitzer for two and a half years of collusion hoax reporting that amounted to whole lot of never mind.

Meanwhile, Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist and Kim Strassel of the WSJ had this horror show pegged for what it was right from the git-go.

You'd think the Pulitzer prize committee would find that discrepancy worthy of comment.

Bruce Hayden said...

"Mistakes may have been made, but it's time to move on. People are dying!"

Laura Ingrahim interviewing AG Barr:

LAURA: What can you tell us about the state of John Durham's investigation? People have been waiting for the final report on what happened with this. What can you tell us?

BARR: Well, I think a report may be--and probably *will* be--a byproduct of his [Durham's] activity, but his primary focus isn't to prepare a report. He is looking to bring to justice people whose abuses he can show were criminal violations, and that's what the focus is on. And, as you know, being a lawyer yourself, building these cases--especially the *sprawling* case we have between us that went on for two or three years here--it takes some time. It takes some time to build the case. So he's diligently pursuing it. My own view is that the evidence shows that we're not dealing with just mistakes or sloppiness. There's something far more troubling here and we're going to get to the bottom of it. And if people broke the law and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted.

LAURA: The President is very frustrated. I think you, obviously, you know that, about Andrew McCabe. He [Trump] believes that people like McCabe and others just were basically able to flout laws and, so far, with impunity ...

BARR: I think the President has every right to be frustrated because I think what happened to him was one of the greatest travesties in American history. Without any basis they started this investigation of his campaign. And even more concerning, actually, is what happened after the campaign--a whole pattern of events while he was president ... to sabotage the presidency ... or at least have the effect of sabotaging the presidency.


I read that as Barr saying that crimes were committed, and cases are being built. Not that there was just a lot of sloppiness, by hapless government bureaucrats, but that he believe that the actus reus and esp the mens rea of actual crimes can be proven in a court of law. Finding crimes in this case is easy.

At a minimum lying by omission to the FISC is a felony (we know that at least McCabe lied to them because he signed the first two FISA warrants, despite provably actually knowing the provenance of the Steele Dossier). But so is the intentional deprivation of civil rights (e.g. 4th Amdt) under color of law, as was done with the FISA warrants on Carter Page. The Title VII FISA abuse stopped by Flynn in late spring of 2016 probably fits under there too, and maybe even up to Begley’s target, Samantha Powers. Why did DAG Yates so greatly expand FISA data sharing? If done to spy on political enemies that also means a civil rights violation. McCabe, Strzok and another FBI agent did the same against Gen Flynn. Don’t know if they will ever get the evidence and balls for charging the conspiracy to deprive Americans of their civil rights, but there was a lot of that going around at the time. And it is a federal felony because it was done under color of law. What is going to be interesting to me is to see the extent that they go after the Mueller prosecutors who were probably the most blatant about this, every one of them having been hired for their partisan animus, instead of their eutrality.


narayanan said...

You could say my view of the American Press's desire to be free and honest has been coloured pretty much by reading how it "functions" in Fountainhead.

It is worth a revisit any time.

Night Owl said...

I'll guess that not a single Althouse reader is surprised by this news. I'm sure not even the leftists are surprised, if they are at all honest.

My 77 yr old mother believes the reason the Dems are in such a panic to get rid of Trump is because they fear that in his second term there will be a reckoning over this coup attempt, and some of the players will be going to jail.

It kinda makes sense...If he did it in his first term the sight of people led away in handcuffs might make the squishy center buy the narrative that he's a despot rounding up his enemies, which would hurt his re-election chances. But in his second term he has, as someone else put it out, more flexibility.

narciso said...

Yes his data mining preceded the ig reports even the nunez memo. They are dense like a stephenson book extract.

bagoh20 said...

" Which IG's are we to believe, and which IG's are part of the Deep State coup against PDJT?"

I would start with not believing ones who claim they are the President's wing man, or one who is the brother of the President, etc. After that, you can go after ones who happen to be Republicans.

Amadeus 48 said...

The walls are closing in.

Birkel said...

Am I wrong or is the banded, racist commenter stupid?

This was not the work of an IG but a demand by a co-equal branch of government under threat of lawsuit. This was the IG forced to act. It was unwilling compliance.

Bruce Hayden said...

" Which IG's are we to believe, and which IG's are part of the Deep State coup against PDJT?"

Agai fro the interview of AG Barr:

LAURA: John Brennan has come out *smashing* the President's firing of Inspector General Michael Atkinson.

BARR: I think the President did the right thing in removing Atkinson. From the vantage point of the Department of Justice, [Atkinson] had interpreted his statute [the law defining IG powers]--which is a fairly narrow statute--which gave him jurisdiction over wrongdoing by *intelligence* people, and tried to turn it into a commission to explore anything in the government and immediately report it to Congress without letting the Executive Branch look at it and determine whether there was any problem. He was *told* this in a letter from the Department of Justice and he is *obliged* to follow the interpretation of the Department of Justice, and he ignored it. So I think the President was correct in firing him.


That is legalese for what Atkinson did having been illegal, but probably not illegal enough to get him or his “whistleblower” accomplice locked up. The statute mentioned by Barr allowed IC whistleblowers go straight to Congress (I.e. back to Schifty’s HPSCI) if the matter is determined to be urgent enough. But importantly, this can only be done with matters that directly involve IC organizations, such as the CIA or NSA. Conveniently, of course, the same organizations that Schifty’s HPSCI has oversight jurisdiction over. But, of course, the phone call was in the White House where Congress has no oversight power or authority, and even if it did it didn’t directly involve anything directly related to the operation of an IC organization, which is what the statute requires.

What Barr is saying here is not just that Atkinson broke the law, but that he knowingly did so by deliberately ignoring the DOJ opinion that informed him that he did not have the legal power or authority to take the fake whistleblower claim directly (back) to Congress. He was also informed of this by a DNI opinion too.

To me, that stinks of Lawfare Group involvement. That is exactly how the operate, misinterpreting and stretching statutes for their political advantage then claiming that there was no controlling authority that they violated (because no one before the ever envisioned interpreting the statutes involved in such an outrageous manner, most often violating long established rules of statutory interpretation). This has smelled of Lawfare since we first found out about it. But if there was any doubt about it, it turns out that Atkinson’s previous job had been general counsel (GC) for the DOJ’s NSD (responsible for approving all FISA warrant applications). During much of his time there he worked directly for NSD AAG Mary McCord, who bailed from her position there after having been fingered for approving several FISA warrant applications for Carter Page. She jumped from DOJ NSD AAG to working for the Lawfare Group until the Democrats took control of the House, and Judiciary Committee Chair Wadler proved too inept to run an impeachment inquiry. Around that time, she was hired by Schifty and his HPSCI.

To summarize. Atkinson worked directly for McCord at FBI’s NSD. Both were required to approve of every FISA warrant application submitted to the FISC. Both personally approved several of the Carter Page FISA applications. She bails to the Lawfare Group. He nets the IC IG job. She is hired by Schifty, and he first almost immediately tweaks the WB form to allow hearsay evidence, then blatantly ignores a binding DOJ opinion that essentially informed him that he couldn’t legally take the fake WB complaint back to Schifty and his HPSCI. The President, whom he is supposed to owe a duty of loyalty to, being a Senate confirmed member of his Administration, is then impeached as a result of his illegal actions.

Of course his firing was justified. Probably drawing and quartering too.



Bruce Hayden said...

To summarize even more. Atkinson personally approved, and his immediate boss had the last approval before the formal AG/DAG signature, on several Title I FISA warrants on Carter Page, and thus Trump, and his campaign, based on what we now know to be fake evidence and significant malfeasance and misfeasance by those involved. He then went on to allow (as IC IG) a fake whistleblower to illegally submit a fake whistleblower complaint to the Democrats in Congress, which was then used as a pretext to impeach his boss, President Trump.

And Brennan is somehow scandalized by Atkinson having been fired for that?

paminwi said...

Ask yourself what changed in the timeframe since this Horowitz Report came out with all the redactions?
How long have Grassley & Johnson been asking for clean documents?
The FBI said No!
The DOJ said No!
The original DNI said No!
NOW Rick Grennell is Acting DNI and they get released unredacted.
Think he might have something to do with it?
What else is he working on to get released?
I hope lots and lots of information!

Maillard Reactionary said...

Anne: I'm sure that you are a nice person but you are far too literal-minded.

Yes, it is true that I sometimes express myself in a sarcastic or cynical way. What you seem to miss is that I do that because my heart is literally broken over the way we have allowed the usual tyrannical actors to slowly--now sometimes suddenly--steal our, if you will, "God-given" liberties, over which which our ancestors shed much blood to preserve.

Have you ever read "The Federalist Papers"? I have. You would be astonished, and possibly disheartened, to realize how jealous of their liberty people were in this country only 240 years ago (just after the Revolutionary War). All they could agree upon was a "federal", not "national" government, with carefully listed out limited powers (i.e., things that it was legal for them to do), with all other powers remaining with the "States, or the People themselves"-- as opposed to the usual scheme of enumerating list of a few things they cannot do. The notion of a completely out-of-control central government was so alien to their thinking that Madison thought that the Bill Of Rights was redundant at best, and more likely misleading (implying that the People had no other rights than those listed therein). Compare that to the respect that the First and Second Amendments get today!

I fear that this will not end well, but that it will end--initially at least--with a whimper, even a sigh of relief from some, not with the revolution that Jefferson and others would urge at this time. What a broken Nation we look to leave to our grandchildren!

It is up to us to tune out the MSM and seek the truth elsewhere, and get in the bastard's faces every chance we get, starting with the schools, the voting booth, and the occasional politically incorrect Letter To The Editor (which I am fond of writing from time to time, under my real name).

Get armed, educate your children, if any, about the truth of our history and civilization, and rage against the dying of our light, while you still can.

h said...

I want to chime in here because I've been commenting (pre-coronovirus -- doesn't that seem so long ago?) about this. This is about the only forum I've seen where people are talking about this seriously. It is (in my opinion) a very serious allegation that the Obama administration used the instruments of government action to influence the election against Trump. Will the virus story bury this? If Trump loses in November, does that mean there will never be a follow through on this? Will the journalistic establishment and academic historians never follow up on this? I've functioned for 3+ years with the belief that ultimately truth will out; but I'm now concerned that my belief is based on naivety.

wendybar said...

Phidippus said...I thing the Republicans are going to keep picking at this to distract people from what a disaster Trump's Administration has been.
4/11/20, 10:07 AM

You mean what a disaster the OBAMA administration made of things going into the Trump administration that have been lied and lied about from the compliant Main Stream Media for the last 4 years. There....I fixed it for you.


It's ABOUT TIME they go to prison, or WHY do we have justice at all???

Brian McKim and/or Traci Skene said...

"There will be no indictments" is sooo Pre-Trump. Where have you been for the last 4 years?