James Comey

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/brennan-lied-about-not-including-steele-dossier-in-intelligence-community-assessment-on-2016-russian-election-interference/

Brennan Lied About Not Including Steele Dossier In Intelligence Community Assessment On 2016 Russian Election Interference
DECEMBER 9, 2019 By Madeline Osburn
The new report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed former CIA Director John Brennan lied to Congress about whether the dossier authored by Christopher Steele was used in the Obama administration’s Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).

The ICA, a report conducted by intelligence officials in 2016 on Russian election interference, was used to brief President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017. According to the IG report, there was significant discussion by top intelligence officials as to whether the unverified Steele dossier should be included in the main body of the ICA report, summarized in an appendix, or even included at all.


FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said that “he felt strongly that the Steele election reporting belonged in the body of the ICA, because he feared that placing it in an appendix was ‘tacking it on’ in a way that would ‘minimiz[e]’ the information and prevent it from being properly considered.”

Ultimately, the ICA included a short summary and assessment of the dossier, which was incorporated in an appendix. “In the appendix, the intelligence agencies explained that there was ‘only limited corroboration of the source’s reporting’ and that Steele’s election reports were not used ‘to reach analytic conclusions of the CIA/FBI/NSA assessment,'” the IG report states.

A few months later, on May 23, 2017, when testifying before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Brennan categorically denied that the CIA relied on the Steele dossier for the ICA report. Here is the full exchange with former Rep. Trey Gowdy:

Mr. Gowdy: Do you know if the Bureau ever relied on the Steele dossier as any — as part of any court filings, applications, petitions, pleadings?

Mr. Brennan: I have no awareness.

Mr. Gowdy: Did the CIA rely on it?

Mr. Brennan: No.

Mr. Gowdy: Why not?

Mr. Brennan: Because we — we didn’t. It wasn’t part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had. It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community assessment that was done. It was — it was not.

Brennan claimed the unverified dossier was not “part of the corpus of intelligence information we had.” On page 179 of the IG report, IG investigators asked former FBI Director James Comey if he remembered discussions with Brennan on presenting the dossier to Obama. Comey said Brennan and other officials argued it was “important” enough to include in the ICA — clearly part of the “corpus of intelligence information” they had.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/ig-report-confirms-no-fisa-warrant-on-carter-page-without-steele-dossier/

IG Report Confirms No FISA Warrant On Carter Page Without Steele Dossier
DECEMBER 9, 2019 By Chrissy Clark
The much awaited Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) report, conducted by Inspector General Michael Horowitz, was released today. It finds that the FBI would not have had enough claimed evidence to secretly surveil former Trump aide Carter Page, and thus the Trump 2016 campaign, without using a “dossier” of opposition research funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

In 2016, after Page left the Trump campaign, the FBI asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) for a warrant to secretly surveil Page. The FBI said it was concerned that Page had ties with the Kremlin in Russia, but their only confirmation of these allegations came from former British intelligence officer Steele.


Steele authored the “dossier” that alleged ties between President Trump and Russia. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, a research group that received funding from a law firm representing Hillary Clinton’s campaign as well as the Democratic National Committee. Suspicious much?

The newly released FISA report confirms that the FBI would not have been able to spy on Page if it weren’t for Steele’s allegations.

“Nevertheless, we found that members of the [counterintelligence] team failed to meet the basic obligation to ensure that the Carter Page FISA applications were ‘scrupulously accurate,'” the report reads. This is because the counterintelligence team used unverified hearsay from Steele — and only the information from Steele — as evidence to justify eavesdropping.

In November 2017, a British top national security official warned U.S. officials in a memo that Steele should not be trusted. This information was originally published by The Hill, corroborated by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and mentioned in a filing by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s lawyers. Yet the FBI subsequently applied for two more reauthorizations of their surveillance of Page.

Despite the lack of credible information to apply for a FISA warrant at the outset, the FBI counterintelligence team went forward with their original filing anyways. They filed four total requests to the FISC to surveil Page, because when a wiretap targets a U.S. citizen, it must be renewed every 90 days as secret surveillance without evidence of a crime directly infringes on Americans’ civil liberties.

In the report, Horowitz’s team also says there were significant inaccuracies and omissions in the four FBI surveillance applications to the secret court.

“We identified significant inaccuracies and omissions in each of the four applications – 7 in the first FISA application and a total of 17 by the final renewal application,” the report says.

In April 2017, Page told the Justice Department, under oath, that his meetings in Moscow had no connection to the election. Yet the FBI filed its third and fourth FISA warrant applications after that point and continued to surveil him.

While the newly released FISA report says investigators did not find evidence of an overt political bias or improper motivation in the FBI’s decision to surveil Page, it is clear they started this investigation on false pretenses and knew long before the special counsel report or the FISA report that the grounds for surveilling Page were shaky at best.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/bill-barr-and-john-durham-criticize-conclusions-of-ig-fisa-investigation/

Bill Barr And John Durham Criticize Conclusions Of IG FISA Investigation
DECEMBER 9, 2019 By Chrissy Clark
Attorney General William Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham expressed their concern over the conclusion of the newly released FISA report, which concludes the FBI launched a surveillance investigation into former Trump aide Carter Page based on uncorroborated evidence funded by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

The FISA report concludes, while the FBI investigation was rife with errors, there is no evidence of political bias or improper motivation that influenced the FBI’s decision to spy on Page.


In remarks revealing Barr’s attitude toward the FISA report’s findings, Barr claims the IG report made clear the FBI launched an out-of-line investigation.

“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said.

Barr blasted the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane team for misleading the FISA court and noted that the Department of Justice will “follow all appropriate processes and procedures, including as to any potential disciplinary action” with personnel involved in misleading the secret court.

“FISA is an essential tool for the protection of the safety of the American people. The Department of Justice and the FBI are committed to taking whatever steps are necessary to rectify the abuses that occurred and to ensure the integrity of the FISA process going forward,” he said.

According to Fox News’s Brooke Singman, Durhman made a similar statement saying he did not agree with the report’s conclusions.

“Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the IG that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

Barr and Durham may be angered by the fact that the FISA report shows evidence of wrongdoing, yet, the IG does not recommend anyone to be held accountable in a court of law.

Republicans Senators asked Inspector General Michael Horowitz for this this report on February 28, 2018. Now, almost two years later, the IG report is finally released only to reveal there was indeed abuse at the highest levels of the U.S. intelligence community, and yet no criminal referrals.

“We found that members of the [counterintelligence] team failed to meet the basic obligation to ensure that the Carter Page FISA applications were ‘scrupulously accurate,'” the report reads. “We identified significant inaccuracies and omissions in each of the four applications – 7 in the first FISA application and a total of 17 by the final renewal application.”

Yet, the IG concluded that this improper behavior deserves no discipline or accountability.

While the IG may be the watchdog and “auditor” of the Department of Justice, it is inevitably up to the Attorney General to decide if anyone will face charges for wrongdoings. The power truly belongs in the hands of Barr and Durhman, not Horowitz.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/doj-ig-report-slams-bruce-ohrs-failure-to-report-repeated-interactions-with-steele/

DOJ IG Report Slams Bruce Ohr’s Failure To Report Repeated Interactions With Steele
DECEMBER 9, 2019 By Tristan Justice
The long-anticipated report from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz released Monday criticized department attorney Bruce Ohr at length for failing to report repeated contacts with former British spy Christopher Steele.

Steele, the author of the debunked Steele dossier that was used to justify a federal investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign, met with Ohr 12 times after Steele was terminated as a confidential human source by the bureau. As the report notes, Ohr failed to report the repeated interactions with Steele to his DOJ supervisors, depriving the department of the opportunity to request that Ohr halt communication with the fired informant. Instead, Ohr continued to feed Steele’s information to the department and FBI, circumventing Steele’s termination as a reliable source.


According to the report, Ohr acknowledged to the DOJ that it was because of the possibility he would be told to stop these meetings with Steele that he chose not to report them to his direct supervisors.

While Horowitz stopped short of recommending Ohr for a criminal referral, the DOJ inspector general spent more than 36 pages of the report singling out the bureaucrat for circumventing his supervisors and referred Ohr to the Office of Professional Responsibility. Horowitz also referred Ohr’s actions to his supervisors in the criminal justice division, leaving the door open to future criminal prosecution.

“We found that, while no Department or ODAG policy specifically prohibited Ohr’s activities, Ohr was clearly cognizant of his responsibility to inform his supervisors of his interactions with Steele, the FBI, and State Department,” the report states. “We are referring our finding to the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility for any action it deems appropriate. We are also providing our finding to Ohr’s current supervisors in CRM for any action they deem appropriate.”

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/09/fbi-knew-the-steele-dossier-was-highly-dubious-as-early-as-january-2017-but-still-relied-on-it-for-fisa-renewals/

FBI Knew The Steele Dossier Was Highly Dubious As Early As January 2017, But Still Relied On It For FISA Renewals
The FBI smelled garbage. It relied on said garbage anyway.
Erielle DavidsonBy Erielle Davidson
DECEMBER 9, 2019
According to the just-released Department of Justice Inspector General’s report, the FBI knew as early as January 2017 that the reporting contained in the “Steele Dossier,” authored by former FBI informant and once-British spy Christopher Steele, was highly questionable, if not pure junk.

The dossier contained a heap of entirely sensational, unverified allegations against President Donald Trump, which many in the media seized upon with sheer and unabated glee. Steele had assembled the dossier while contracted out by the American investigative firm Fusion GPS. During the Republican primaries, Fusion GPS’ work was financed by the Washington Free Beacon, a conservative media outlet. Once Trump became the Republican nominee, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party began footing the bill for the opposition research on then-nominee Trump.


The document catapulted to infamy when it was revealed that the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump campaign had at least partially relied on the DNC-funded dossier when investigators sought a court order to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The original application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court was filed in October 2016. When a wiretap target is a U.S. person, a FISA warrant requires renewal every 90 days. Given there were several renewals associated with Page’s wiretap after the initial application in October 2016 — in January, April, and June 2017, to be exact — at least two of the three renewal applications were made after the FBI knew the Steele dossier had serious credibility issues. The FBI filed the renewal applications anyway.

According to the IG’s report, “[T]he FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele’s reporting when it relied upon his reports in the first FISA application or subsequent renewal applications.” However, when information is obtained from a “Confidential Human Source” of the FBI, such as Steele, the agent need only to be sure the information then used in the FISA application reflects what was stated by the CHS.

However, the Office of the Inspector General “determined that Crossfire Hurricane team was unable to corroborate any of the substantive allegations regarding Carter Page listed in Steele’s election reporting which the FBI relied on in the FISA application.”


When the FBI conducted interviews with Steele’s various sources, numerous inconsistencies began appearing between source statements and the allegations in the dossier. As early as January 2017, one of Steele’s sources had made statements that raised “significant questions about the reliability of the allegations included in the FISA applications.” For instance, whereas Steele had reported Trump’s sexual encounters at the Ritz Carlton to be “‘confirmed’ by a senior, western staff member,” interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source revealed the sexual activity was merely “rumor and speculation.”

The primary sub-source also noted that the bribe Steele reported to have taken place between Page and Igor Sechin, the president of Russian energy company Rosneft, was never actually communicated to Steele by the primary sub-source. According to the report, the IG “reviewed the [source] texts [relied upon by the primary sub-source] and did not find any discussion of a bribe, whether as an interest in Rosneft itself or a ‘brokerage.’”

The primary sub-source was questioned again in March 2017, and “the Washington Field Office agent (WFO Agent 1) who conducted that interview and others after it told the OIG that the Primary Sub-source felt that the tenor of Steele’s reports was far more ‘conclusive’ than was justified.” According to the WFO, “the Primary Sub-source explained that his/ her information came from ‘word of mouth and hearsay;’ ‘conversation that [he/she] had with friends over beers;’ and that some of the information, such as allegations about Trump’s sexual activities, were statements he/she heard made in ‘jest.’” In other words, it was becoming increasingly apparent that the Steele dossier was highly problematic. Nonetheless, a FISA renewal application to continue spying on Page moved forward the next month.

The IG report notes that the renewal applications to continue wiretapping Page communicated none of these glaring inconsistencies. According to the report, “Carter Page FISA Renewal Application Nos. 2 and 3 advised the court that following the January interview with the Primary Subsource, ‘the FBI found the Russian-based sub-source to be truthful and cooperative.’” The FBI smelled garbage but did not alter its course with regard to targeting Carter Page.


According to the IG’s report, “[FBI Director James] Comey and [Deputy Attorney General Sally] Yates approved the first renewal application, Comey and then Acting Attorney General Dana Boente approved the second renewal, and then Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and then Deputy Attorney General (DAG) Rod Rosenstein approved the third renewal.”

It seems the failure to screen information used in the repeated FISA applications occurred within several rungs of the FBI. As the IG report asserts, “Information that was known to the managers, supervisors, and senior officials should have resulted in questions being raised regarding the reliability of the Steele reporting and the probable cause supporting the FISA applications, but did not.”

The IG’s report raises alarming questions regarding the level of discernment of those within the FBI. If a Democratic campaign had been the target of spying, would those in the FBI have treated the salacious (and frankly, ridiculous) dossier with more scrutiny? If they knew the allegations against Carter Page were increasingly suspect, why did they continue to file a FISA renewal, not once but THREE more times? The FBI should be forced to answer these questions.

As the mainstream media obsesses over a phone call with Ukraine wherein President Trump asked for well-founded allegations of corruption against Hunter Biden to be investigated, we have clear evidence that a DNC-funded oppo campaign was used to justify spying on the Trump campaign with the continued blessing of the FBI, despite alarming factual inconsistencies within the supposed “oppo.” It should be deeply unsettling that a figure funded by the Democratic Party was able to peddle falsities to the FBI that were then used to justify spying on their political opponents.

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GOHMERT: This is not appropriate to have a witness —

NADLER: (banging gavel) Does the gentleman have a point of order?

GOHMERT: — be a questioner of somebody —

NADLER: (banging gavel) Does the gentleman have a point of order?

GOHMERT: — that was a witness when he was!

NADLER: (banging gavel) The gentleman will suspend. The… (sputtering)

GOHMERT: It’s just wrong. There is no rule nor precedent for anybody being a witness, and then getting to —

NADLER: (banging gavel) That is not a point of order. (banging gavel)

GOHMERT: — come up and question —

NADLER: (banging gavel) I have ruled and it’s not —

GOHMERT: — and so the point of order is he’s inappropriate to be up here asking questions.

NADLER: That’s not a point of order! He’s in accordance with Rule 66, with —

GOHMERT: How much money do you have to give to get to do that? (chuckling)

NADLER: (banging gavel) The gentleman will not cast aspersions on members of the staff or the committee. Mr. Berke has the time.
....................................................................



GOLDMAN: I don’t think anyone did, sir.

COLLINS: Then how did you get them…? Okay, come on. That’s the most ridiculous item I’ve ever heard. Who ordered them to actually match from members of Congress and the press? Was it you or was it Chairman Schiff that said, “While we’re doing this, let’s see if this matches Chairman Nunes’ number”? Somebody along the way just didn’t all of a sudden have an epiphany, unless you’re getting ready to throw a low-level staffer under the bus. So who did it? Was it chairman Schiff or was it you?

GOLDMAN: Ummm. (stammering)

COLLINS: Be careful. You’re under oath.

GOLDMAN: I — I — I know I’m under oath, sir.

COLLINS: Then answer the question.

GOLDMAN: It doesn’t matter, and I will answer the question if you give me a second here. It’s not a simple answer.

COLLINS: The same second that was not afforded to my witness, by the way.

GOLDMAN: (crosstalk) the questions.

COLLINS: Who decided to leak it, by the way? And while you’re thinking about how you’re going to answer that question — who decided to leak it, the information — why did you include it in the report?

GOLDMAN: That’s not a leak, sir.

COLLINS: Who ordered it?

GOLDMAN: (silence)

COLLINS: Was it you or was it Chairman Schiff, and then why was it decided — except for nothing but smear purposes — to be included in the Schiff report?

GOLDMAN: (stammering) I — I — I’m not going to get into the deliberations of our investigation with you.

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4:40 PM: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asks Goldman if he would welcome the problem of receiving 8,000 pages of documents from the White House. Goldman says he would and says he has received no documents.

4:35 PM: Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) says the hearing has been an “outrageous violation” of due process. He says Berke was “steamrolling” over House decorum rolls and rips Nadler for not striking from the record Berke’s insinuation that Trump has been disloyal to the country. He says it is “extraordinary bizarre” that Berke was allowed to become a questioner after being a witness in the impeachment circus. Johnson says Democrats dumped thousands of pages of documents over the weekend and made it impossible for Republicans to responsibly prepare for the hearing.

4:30 PM: Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) now asking Goldman to rehash why aid to Ukraine was so important. Goldman speaks about ensuring that democracy survives in other nations.

4:25 PM: Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) asks Goldman if he is here as a partisan advocate for the Democrats. He claims he is “not a partisan.” Castor doesn’t remember if he has made any political donations. Gaetz says Goldman has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats. Gaetz wonders if he thinks he would be able to ask and answer questions if he had donated as much as Berke did. Gaetz pressures Goldman on whether he regrets his anti-Trump tweets and Goldman says he is here to answer questions about the investigation.

House Judiciary Committee
4:15 PM: Rep. Martha Roby (R-AL) calls the process “bizarre” because the committee will not hear from any fact witnesses. She says the American people, regardless of their politics, should feel cheated by this process. She says she fears this is setting a “dangerous precedent for the future of our republic.”

3:58 PM: Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA) wants to focus on the period after Trump’s call with the president of Ukraine. Bass asks if a White House meeting has been scheduled, and Goldman says no meeting has been scheduled. Goldman says once the Ukrainians decided they were not going to issue a statement about investigating the Bidens, there was no White House meeting. Bass says the president of Ukraine is in a weaker position today when meeting with Putin because of Trump.

3:55 PM: Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) making the case that Trump had a “legitimate reason” to request an investigation from Ukraine.

3:46 PM: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) ripping Democrats for making Sondland their featured witness and says Democrats published the phone records of Trump’s lawyer, a member of the press, and the opponent of the chairman of the Intelligence Committee.


3:40 PM: Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) establishing Trump as the “kingpin” of a plan to force a foreign government to interfere in an upcoming presidential election.

3:35 PM: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) rips the “absurd process” that is a “kangaroo court.” He worries that Democrats have set the bar so low that it will become “irreparable.” “I’m scared for my country,” he says. Gohmert points out that the Constitution requires two witnesses for treason and is outraged that everything has been hearsay.

3:27 PM: Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) questions Goldman and asks him if there was any evidence that any government agency wanted the Bidens investigated and makes the case that Trump/Biden cases are different.

3:22 PM: Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) says the committee is “investigating the wrong guy.” He asks Castor about Hunter Biden’s involvement in “Ukrainian corruption” and points out that concerns about Hunter Biden were first raised by the Obama administration. He says the Obama administration’s concerns didn’t end there and Ambassador Yovanovitch was coached on how to answer potential “pesky” questions about the Bidens that could come up during hearings. Chabot says Biden got testy last week with a voter and says Biden’s objections are a bunch of “malarkey.”

3:16 PM: Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) now questioning Goldman about Trump/Ukraine. She asks Goldman what Trump was referring to when he wanted a “favor.” Goldman says Trump wanted Ukraine to investigate a “debunked conspiracy theory.”

3:12 PM: Hearing resumes with Rep. Sensenbrenner (R-WI) voicing his concerns about the “beginnings of a surveillance state” that he thinks is outrageous after discussing the metadata that Schiff’s committee subpoenaed/matched. He says he met Joe McCarthy twice and Democrats have made him look like a piker. He rips Democrats for their “abuse of power.” He also says Democrats thought the Mueller Report was going to be a “smoking gun” but was just a “cap pistol.”

House Judiciary Committee
2:37 PM: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) now gets her five minutes. She tries to compare Trump to Nixon and make the case that Trump used a “foreign government to do his bidding” using aid that was approved by Congress on a bipartisan basis. Committee now in 15-minute recess.

2:33 PM: Collins is up grilling Goldman about the metadata. Collins says this committee should be having FISA hearings. He says the problem he has is the committee made a choice to put the phone records into the report. Collins says it was a “gratuitous drive-by.” He says he could have put in “Congressperson 1” and “Reporter 1” instead of naming the people whose numbers were matched. Collins says the Schiff report now reads like a partisan smear against people Democrats don’t like.

2:27 PM: Questioning begins with Nadler asking Goldman to explain the difference between Biden and Trump re: Ukraine. Goldman says when Biden pressured Ukraine to remove a corrupt official, he was doing it with international support while Trump’s ask for an investigation had nothing to do with official U.S. policy. Nadler asks Goldman to explain what happened with the phone records. Nadler doing his best to rehabilitate Goldman after Collins’ line of questioning. Goldman says it was just metadata and not the content of calls, texts, etc. He says they got call records and matched them up with important events that occurred in the “scheme.”

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www.breitbart.com/clips/2019/12/09/nbcs-pete-williams-ig-report-found-fbi-screwed-up-at-every-level/

On Monday, during NBC News breaking new following the release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report, justice correspondent Pete Williams said Horowitz found that the FBI “screwed up at every level.”

Williams said the inspector general found, “The FBI failed to document to the court assertions in the FISA application that undercut Steele’s credibility.”




He continued, “Even though the FBI got information that would raise questions about the credibility of Steele, it failed to reassess its own reliance on him, failed to tell the FISA court about these problems, and didn’t press him on the source of his information. Nonetheless, it says it found no political bias in seeking the FISA warrant on Page. What it says is the FBI basically repeatedly screwed up at every level, failing to pay enough attention to potential problems with Steele and failing to tell the Justice Department.”

He added, “The IG report says the FISA application was inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported. It says, for example, that the FBI failed to look at some of the problems in Steele’s past work, but that was never sufficiently addressed.”

He concluded, “The inspector general is so concerned about these problems that if the FBI so mishandled this application for an investigation into a candidate for president, then how is it doing it for garden variety people who are subject to these warrants? And for that reason, we learned today the inspector general is now opening a new investigation on how the FBI gets these warrants on American citizens.”

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theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/12/08/wow-oan-stunning-lutsenko-interview-outlines-marie-yovanovitch-perjury-george-kent-impeachment-motive-lindsey-graham-motive-to-bury-investigation/

WOW – OAN Stunning Lutsenko Interview – Outlines: Marie Yovanovitch Perjury, George Kent Impeachment Motive, Lindsey Graham Motive to Bury Investigation…
Posted on December 8, 2019 by sundance
In a fantastic display of true investigative journalism, One America News journalist Chanel Rion tracked down Ukrainian witnesses as part of an exclusive OAN investigative series. The evidence being discovered dismantles the baseless Adam Schiff impeachment hoax and highlights many corrupt motives for U.S. politicians.

Ms. Rion spoke with Ukrainian former Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko who outlines how former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself before Congress.



What is outlined in this interview is a problem for all DC politicians across both parties. The obviously corrupt influence efforts by U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch as outlined by Lutsenko were not done independently.

Senators from both parties participated in the influence process and part of those influence priorities was exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting Joe Biden and his family. This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch.

Imagine what would happen if all of the background information was to reach the general public? Thus the motive for Lindsey Graham currently working to bury it.



You might remember George Kent and Bill Taylor testified together.

It was evident months ago that U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, was one of the current participants in the coup effort against President Trump. It was Taylor who engaged in carefully planned text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up a narrative helpful to Adam Schiff’s political coup effort.

Bill Taylor was formerly U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (’06-’09) and later helped the Obama administration to design the laundry operation providing taxpayer financing to Ukraine in exchange for back-channel payments to U.S. politicians and their families.

In November Rudy Giuliani released a letter he sent to Senator Lindsey Graham outlining how Bill Taylor blocked VISA’s for Ukrainian ‘whistle-blowers’ who are willing to testify to the corrupt financial scheme.

Unfortunately, as we are now witnessing, Senator Lindsey Graham, along with dozens of U.S. Senators currently serving, may very well have been recipients for money through the aforementioned laundry process. The VISA’s are unlikely to get approval for congressional testimony, or Senate impeachment trial witness testimony.

U.S. senators write foreign aid policy, rules and regulations thereby creating the financing mechanisms to transmit U.S. funds. Those same senators then received a portion of the laundered funds back through their various “institutes” and business connections to the foreign government offices; in this example Ukraine. [ex. Burisma to Biden]

The U.S. State Dept. serves as a distribution network for the authorization of the money laundering by granting conflict waivers, approvals for financing (think Clinton Global Initiative), and permission slips for the payment of foreign money. The officials within the State Dept. take a cut of the overall payments through a system of “indulgence fees”, junkets, gifts and expense payments to those with political oversight.

If anyone gets too close to revealing the process, writ large, they become a target of the entire apparatus. President Trump was considered an existential threat to this entire process. Hence our current political status with the ongoing coup.



Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator John McCain meeting with corrupt Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko in December 2016.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because, well, in reality all of the U.S. Senators (both parties) are participating in the process for receiving taxpayer money and contributions from foreign governments.

A “Codel” is a congressional delegation that takes trips to work out the payments terms/conditions of any changes in graft financing. This is why Senators spend $20 million on a campaign to earn a job paying $350k/year. The “institutes” is where the real foreign money comes in; billions paid by governments like China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Ukraine, etc. etc. There are trillions at stake.

[SIDEBAR: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds the power over these members (and the members of the Senate Intel Committee), because McConnell decides who sits on what committee. As soon as a Senator starts taking the bribes lobbying funds, McConnell then has full control over that Senator. This is how the system works.]

The McCain Institute is one of the obvious examples of the financing network. And that is the primary reason why Cindy McCain is such an outspoken critic of President Trump. In essence President Trump is standing between her and her next diamond necklace; a dangerous place to be.

So when we think about a Senate Impeachment Trial; and we consider which senators will vote to impeach President Trump, it’s not just a matter of Democrats -vs- Republican. We need to look at the game of leverage, and the stand-off between those bribed Senators who would prefer President Trump did not interfere in their process.

McConnell has been advising President Trump which Senators are most likely to need their sensibilities eased. As an example President Trump met with Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in November. Senator Murkowski rakes in millions from the multinational Oil and Gas industry; and she ain’t about to allow horrible Trump to lessen her bank account any more than Cindy McCain will give up her frequent shopper discounts at Tiffanys.

Senator Lindsey Graham announcing today that he will not request or facilitate any impeachment testimony that touches on the DC laundry system for personal financial benefit (ie. Ukraine example), is specifically motivated by the need for all DC politicians to keep prying eyes away from the swamps’ financial endeavors. WATCH:



This open-secret system of “Affluence and Influence” is how the intelligence apparatus gains such power. All of the DC participants are essentially beholden to the various U.S. intelligence services who are well aware of their endeavors.

There’s a ton of exposure here (blackmail/leverage) which allows the unelected officials within the CIA, FBI and DOJ to hold power over the DC politicians. Hold this type of leverage long enough and the Intelligence Community then absorbs that power to enhance their self-belief of being more important than the system.

Perhaps this corrupt sense of grandiosity is what we are seeing play out in how the intelligence apparatus views President Donald J Trump as a risk to their importance.

FUBAR !

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The DNI and the FBI leadership team under Obama created false and fraudulent information in order to legitimize their spying on US Presidential Candidate, President-elect and President Trump. It was all a fraudulent hoax.

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amp.dailycaller.com/2019/12/09/matt-gaetz-impeachment-daniel-goldman

Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz on Monday torched Daniel Goldman, a former MSNBC contributor serving as House Democrats’ counsel in the impeachment probe, after Goldman said he’s not a partisan.

“Are you a partisan?” Gaetz asked Goldman. “I’m not a partisan,” Goldman answered. Gaetz then pressed the Democratic counsel on whether he makes political donations.

I do, sir. I think it’s very important,” Goldman began to answer, before Gaetz continued. “Matter of fact, you’ve given tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats, right?”

Gaetz also pressed Goldman on a tweet he sent defending the Trump-Russia dossier. The Florida congressman reminded Goldman that he said in a tweet that “nothing in the dossier is proven false,” even though that’s not the case. (RELATED: Impeachment Star Adam Schiff Won First Congressional Race By Campaigning Against Impeachment)

“But the dossier said there was a Russian consulate in Miami, when there isn’t. The dossier said that Michael Cohen had a meeting in Prague when he didn’t. The dossier said that Michael Cohen’s wife was Russian, she’s, in fact, Ukrainian. And so, as we sit here today, where you I guess got a tweet mentioning a pee tape, presenting yourself not as a partisan, hired by the Democrats to pursue the president, do you regret this tweet?” Gaetz asked.

Goldman dodged the question, refusing to answer whether or not he regretted the tweet.

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www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-democrats-filing-two-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump-for-separate-issues-report-says

BREAKING: Democrats Filing Two Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump, No Longer Pursuing Bribery, Report Says

House Democrats are expected to reveal two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump on Tuesday that will be voted on later this month, thus cementing their attempts to remove him from office.

The two articles of impeachment will focus on “abuse of power” and “obstructing Congress,” The Washington Post reported.

During Democrats’ impeachment hearings last week on the House Judiciary Committee, liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz noted that the idea that a president could be impeached for “abuse of power” was an absurd notion.

The Republicans should have challenged Professor Feldman’s assertion that ‘abuse of office’ is a constitutional basis for impeachment,” Dershowitz tweeted. “These words do not appear in the Constitution and such vague criteria were rejected by the Framers.”

Noticeably absent from The Post’s report on what Democrats will introduce articles of impeachment on was “bribery,” which is what their entire impeachment effort has centered around as they have claimed that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a July 25 phone call.

CNN reported that Democrats were debating adding a third article of impeachment for “obstruction of justice.”

Late last month, far-left Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA) claimed that Trump’s attempts to use the court system to resolve legal matters was “obstruction of justice.”

“So we are not going to allow the president to use obstruction of justice and obstruction of Congress to stop us by saying, well, we need to call more witnesses,” Jayapal continued. “We have had so many witnesses, including the president of the United States, the key early witness to exactly what happened.”

“So I think what Speaker Pelosi is saying is we’re not going to fall into their tactics of delay and trying to use the court system,” Jayapal added. “That is, in and of itself, obstruction of justice, and that is what the president does not seem to understand.”

Jayapal’s comments came in response to Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying, “They keep taking it to court, and, no, we’re not going to wait until the courts decide. That might be information that’s available to the Senate in terms of how far we go and when we go. But we can’t wait for that because, again, it’s a technique. It’s obstruction of justice, obstruction of Congress. So we cannot let their further obstruction of Congress be an impediment to our honoring our oath of office.”

Despite Democrats’ claims, multiple witnesses that were called on to testify in their impeachment inquiry including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Senior NSC official Tim Morrison, Ambassador Kurt Volker, and Ambassador Gordon Sondland all testified that there was no quid pro quo during Trump’s call with Zelensky.

Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg, who is Vice President Mike Pence’s National Security Adviser, later released a statement saying that was on the call and nothing improper happened: “I was on the much-reported July 25 call between President Donald Trump and President Zelensky. As an exceedingly proud member of President Trump’s Administration and as a 34-year highly experienced combat veteran who retired with the rank of Lieutenant General in the Army, I heard nothing wrong or improper on the call. I had and have no concerns.”

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According to sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity to WaPo, one article of impeachment will be on ‘abuse of power’ and the other on ‘obstruction of Congress.’

www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrats-expected-to-draft-two-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump-one-on-abuse-of-power-the-other-on-obstruction-of-congress/ar-BBY0DbE

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) met with Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and other committee chairmen Monday night after a nine-hour hearing in which a Democratic counsel laid out the party’s case against President Trump. Three officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to be frank, described the likely articles that the Judiciary Committee would vote on later this week. The officials cautioned that the plan had not been finalized.

The House Judiciary Committee led by Chairman Jerry Nadler met on Monday morning to continue their sham impeachment hearing.

Before the two lawyers and “witnesses” were able to deliver their testimony several Republican committee members interrupted the proceedings to question Chairman Nadler about the minority day to call witnesses.

On Friday GOP Ranking member Doug Collins (R-GA) sent off a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) demanding the Republican minority hearing day before the committee decides on articles of impeachment.
This is their right!

Republicans are owed a day to call in their own witnesses.
Rep. Collins called on Nadler to contact his office immediately to schedule the GOP day to call witnesses.

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The Sham Charges in the Sham Impeachment:


— Abuse of Power
— Obstruction of Congress
That’s all they could come up with.

What happened to the coercion, extortion, pay-for-play and bribery charges?
Democrats want the public to believe that if President Trump tried to defend himself from their communist show trial should be charged with obstruction.

Serial liar Adam Schiff spewed his lies again.

Rep. Adam Schiff: The remedy is impeachment. It is an extraordinary remedy and one that I’ve been reluctant to recommend. President Trump solicited a foreign nation Ukraine to publicly announce investigations into his opponent. A baseless conspiracy theory promoted by Russia to help his reelection campaign… When the president got caught he committed his second offense… Now some would argue why won’t you just wait? Why won’t you just wait until you get these witnesses the White House refuses to produce?… Why won’t you just let him cheat in just one more election?

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www.zerohedge.com/political/dems-will-reportedly-focus-least-2-articles-impeachment-push

Update: In a press conference that was about as boring as we expected, most of the Democratic leadership in the House gathered Tuesday morning to announce the articles of impeachment against President Trump. The articles will likely include 2 charges, they said.

They are: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Grandstanding was rampant, as one might expect.

“The framers of the Constitution prescribed a clear remedy for presidents who so violate their oath of office,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler. "No one, not even the president, is above the law.”



Nancy Pelosi is racing against the clock to deliver the ultimate stocking full of coal to President Trump - a holiday season impeachment. And as Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee wrangle over the size and scope of the articles of impeachment, Bloomberg's Congressional reporters (who are apparently still talking to high-level sources despite the impending demise of Bloomberg's entire Washington bureau now that their namesake founder apparently has convinced himself he can win big on Super Tuesday) have brought us an update.



It appears that the articles of impeachment, which could be finalized by the end of this week and put to a vote next week before the start of Congress's holiday recess, will include two independent articles focusing on abuse of power, and obstruction of Congress.

Committee leaders will reportedly unveil their next steps re: impeachment Tuesday morning at a 9 am press conference on Capitol Hill.

Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters and Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney will participate in the hearing, along with Pelosi.

The announcement comes after a hearing where lawyers for Republicans and Democrats presenting their dueling interpretations of witness testimony from the past few weeks (no new information was brought to light on Monday).

Here's the Democratic position, according to their lawyers...

“The evidence is overwhelming that the president abused his power” by trying to get Ukraine to help his prospects for re-election by announcing an investigation into a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden,” said Barry Berke, counsel to House Judiciary Democrats.

He and Daniel Goldman, counsel for Democrats on the Intelligence Committee, also cited numerous instances of the Trump administration withholding documents and other evidence sought by Congress in connection with the Ukraine probe.

...and the Republican position.

The panel’s Republican counsel, Steve Castor, reiterated one of the chief defenses of the president that’s been put forward by Trump allies: "The impeachment inquiry’s record is riddled with hearsay, presumptions and speculation."

He accused Democrats of pursuing an "artificial and arbitrary political deadline" to overturn the 2016 election and impeach Trump’s before the Christmas holiday.

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Goldman detailed what he called four “critical” findings from the investigation, according to Dems. All of these points will likely feature prominently in the articles.

Trump used the power of his office to pressure and induce the newly-elected president of Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential election for Trump’s personal and political benefit.
In order to increase the pressure on Ukraine to announce the politically-motivated investigations that the president wanted, he withheld a coveted Oval Office meeting and $391 million of essential military assistance from Ukraine.
Trump’s conduct undermined the U.S. election process and poses an imminent threat to our national security.
Faced with the revelation of his pressure campaign against Ukraine, Trump directed an unprecedented effort to obstruct Congress’ impeachment inquiry into his conduct.
Meanwhile, Republicans insist that the Dems' impeachment drive was a waste of time because it doesn't show abuse of power.

Castor accused Democrats of sustaining a months-long quest to find an issue on which to impeach Trump. After Mueller’s investigation didn’t deliver the results they wanted, he said Democrats now are focusing on Trump’s interactions with Ukraine, particularly his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

"The record in the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry does not show that President Trump abused the power of Congress or obstructed Congress," Castor said. "To impeach a president who 63 million people voted for over eight lines in a call transcript is baloney."

Unfortunately, the impeachment hearing blitz has done little to shift public opinion. Poll averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight and RealClear Politics show that Americans are evenly divided with roughly 47% to 48% supporting impeachment and 44% to 45% opposing. Some individual polls have found that more than eight in ten people say their minds are made up.

Though Nadler says he hasn't yet made a final decision, it looks like evidence from the Mueller probe will be left out of the articles of impeachment by Democrats (probably not a bad idea).

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www.zerohedge.com/political/fisa-report-reveals-clinton-meddled-2016-election

If Russia spending $100,000 on Facebook ads constitutes election interference, and Donald Trump asking Ukraine to investigate the Bidens is too - then Hillary Clinton takes the cake when it comes to influence campaigns designed to harm a political opponent.

Contained within Monday's FISA report by the DOJ Inspector General is the revelation that Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Clinton campaign to produce the Steele dossier, "was paying Steele to discuss his reporting with the media." (P. 369 and elsewhere)



Isikoff's article claimed that former Trump campaign aide Carter Page "has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials - including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president."

This allegaton was found by special counsel Robert Mueller report to be false. Moreover, the FBI knew about it in December, 2016, when DOJ #4 Bruce Ohr told the agency as much.



"Steele told us that in September [of 2016] her and Simpson gave an "off-the-record" briefing to a small number of journalists about his reporting," reads page 165 of the FISA report, which says that Steele "acknowledged that Yahoo News was identified in one of the court filings in the foreign litigation as being present."

Put another way, Hillary Clinton paid Christopher Steele to feed information to the MSM in order to harm Donald Trump right before the 2016 election. Granted, there were intermediaries; the Clinton campaign paid law firm Perkins Coie, which paid Fusion GPS, which paid Steele. And if asked, we're guessing Clinton would claim she had no idea this happened - which simply isn't plausible given the stakes. Whatever the case - the act of Simpson paying Steele to peddle fiction to the media for the purpose of harming Trump, by itself, constitutes blatant election meddling by every standard set by the left over the past three years.

We're sure Hillary can explain that if and when she jumps into the 2020 race.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/house-democrats-unveil-two-articles-of-impeachment-against-trump/

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over his contacts with Ukraine: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

“Today, in the service to our duty to the Constitution and to our country, the House Judiciary Committee is introducing two articles of impeachment, charging the President of the United States of committing high crimes and misdemeanors,” Nadler said, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and other House committee chairs




“It is an impeachable offense for a president to use the powers of his office to seek a personal benefit,” he added.

The charges — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — stem from second-hand allegations brought forth in a whistleblower complaint by a partisan CIA officer, who alleged President Trump attempted to pressure the leader of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, in exchange for U.S. military aid. Both President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have both vehemently denied any pressure was applied during their July 25 telephone conversation at the center of the impeachment inquiry. The White House released a transcript of the president’s call with Zelensky as evidence that no wrongdoing occurred.

Notably absent from the articles were any mention of bribery, which House Democrats accused the president of committing in his dealings with Ukraine. Also absent was an article regarding past claims that the president obstructed special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into now-debunked criminal conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

Schiff spoke after Nadler, explaining that Congress had no choice but to pursue impeachment expeditiously because the 2020 election is one year away.



Schiff said: “The argument ‘Why don’t you just wait?’ amounts to this: ‘Why don’t you just let him cheat in one more election? Why not let him cheat just one more time? Why not let him have foreign help just one more time?'”

House Democrats leaders concluded their press conference without taking any questions from reporters, nor did they provide any text or indication when it will be released.

President Trump has repeatedly denounced the impeachment process as a “hoax” being used by the Democrats to hinder his re-election prospects.

“The impeachment thing is a hoax, it has turned out to be a hoax. It is done for purely political gain, they are going to see whether or not they can do something in 2020 because otherwise they are going to lose,” the president told reporters when asked about impeachment during the NATO summit in London last week.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/10/democrats-abuse-of-power-article-revives-disastrous-johnson-impeachment/

Democrats are echoing the worst impeachment in American history — the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 — by drafting an article of impeachment that accuses President Donald Trump of “abuse of power.”

The Washington Post reported Monday evening that, barely hours after the first and last hearing in the House Judiciary Committee to consider the evidence against the president, with no fact witnesses, Democrats were preparing two articles of impeachment. The first concerned “abuse of power,” and the second concerned “obstruction of justice.” (Articles alleging “bribery” and “obstruction of justice” were apparently dropped.)




The argument for “abuse of power” is flimsy and draws on the worst possible precedent. Left-wing legal scholar Cass Sunstein, a former Obama administration official, actually argued in his 2017 book Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide that “abuse of power” is an impossibly broad standard: “Almost every American president has, on more than one occasion, passed the bounds of his power, in the sense that his administration has done something that it is not lawfully entitled to do.” The House Judiciary Committee staff andrew johnson pollak breitbart, prepared entirely by Democrats, cites Sunstein’s book but ignores that passage. Similarly, the staff report ignored liberal legal scholar Jonathan Turley, who testified before the committee last week that its “abuse of power” standard would apply to every president.

Worse, Democrats on the Judiciary Committee actually cite the impeachment of Andrew Johnson — which is widely regarded as a mistake — in arguing that Congress ought to impeach presidents on the basis of “illegitimate motives,” even if their actions are legally permissible. The report states:

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Rather than directly target President Johnson’s faithless execution of the laws, and his illegitimate motives in wielding power, the House resorted to charges based on the Tenure of Office Act. But in reality, “the shaky claims prosecuted by [the House] obscured a far more compelling basis for removal: that Johnson’s virulent use of executive power to sabotage Reconstruction posed a mortal threat to the nation—and to civil and political rights—as reconstituted after the Civil War … [T]he country was in the throes of a second founding. Yet Johnson abused the powers of his office and violated the Constitution to preserve institutions and practices that had nearly killed the Union. He could not be allowed to salt the earth as the Republic made itself anew.” Viewed from that perspective, the case for impeaching President Johnson rested on his use of power with illegitimate motives.

Johnson was impeached by the House by a runaway Republican majority and acquitted in the Senate by one vote.

The Johnson precedent has been a cautionary tale for over 150 years, a prime example of what Congress ought not to do. Yet Democrats, with their forthcoming article of impeachment on “abuse of power,” are invoking the Johnson precedent as a positive inspiration.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/ig-report-shows-comey-lied-to-congress-about-fbi-investigation-of-trump-campaign/

IG Report Shows Comey Lied To Congress About FBI Investigation Of Trump Campaign
Not only did the Obama administration’s FBI target the Trump campaign in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, but it used an intelligence briefing of Trump to gather ‘evidence’ on him.
Margot ClevelandBy Margot Cleveland
DECEMBER 10, 2019
Soon after Monday’s release of the 476-page inspector general’s report on the Carter Page FISA applications and aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation, former FBI Director James Comey took to Twitter to promote his op-ed in the Washington Post.

“So it was all lies. No treason. No spying on the campaign. No tapping Trumps [sic] wires. It was just good people trying to protect America,” Comey tweeted, with a link to his opinion article that demanded “those who attacked the FBI for two years should admit they were wrong.”



Comey’s spin is laughable. And there will be time in the days and weeks ahead to highlight the many failures of the DOJ and FBI revealed in the minutia of IG Michael Horowitz’s report. For now, though, let’s focus on a different detail exposed by Horowitz’s investigation into Crossfire Hurricane—that Comey falsely testified that the FBI had not launched an investigation into the Trump campaign.

Comey made that claim just more than a year ago, when he testified before the House Judiciary and Government Reform and Oversight committees. During that December 2018 hearing, Rep. Trey Gowdy posed this question to Comey: “Late July of 2016, the FBI did, in fact, open a counterintelligence investigation into, is it fair to say the Trump campaign or Donald Trump himself?”

“It’s not fair to say either of those things, in my recollection,” Comey retorted. “We opened investigations on four Americans to see if there was any connection between those four Americans and the Russian interference efforts. And those four Americans did not include the candidate.”


Comey later reiterated this claim, stating, “I was briefed sometime at the end of July that the FBI had opened counterintelligence investigations of four individuals to see if there was a connection between those—any of those four and the Russian effort.”

However, contrary to Comey’s claim that the FBI had not opened a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, the IG report makes clear that the FBI did just that when it launched Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016. While in August 2016 the FBI did initiate four separate investigations into individuals connected to the Trump campaign, the IG report explained that Crossfire Hurricane was an “umbrella counterintelligence investigation” that did not identify any subjects or targets. Instead, Crossfire Hurricane sought “to determine whether individual(s) associated with the Trump campaign are witting of and/or coordinating activities with the Government of Russia.”

In fact, as the IG report explained, “some of the early investigative steps taken by the Crossfire Hurricane team immediately after opening the investigation were to develop profiles on each subject; send names of, among others, individuals associated with the Trump campaign to other U.S. government intelligence agencies for any further information.” The IG report further noted that the FBI had classified Crossfire Hurricane “as a ‘sensitive investigative matter,’ or SIM,” “because it involved a campaign and ‘people associated with a campaign.’”

The details included in the IG missive on the various investigative steps taken further illustrates the targeting of the Trump campaign, and possibly even Trump himself. Horowitz reported “that in August 2016, a supervisor of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation participated on behalf of the FBI in a strategic intelligence briefing given by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to candidate Trump and his national security advisors. The FBI viewed the briefing of candidate Trump and his advisors as a possible opportunity to collect information potentially relevant to the Crossfire Hurricane and Flynn investigations.”


The IG report added that after the briefing, the FBI “supervisor memorialized the results of the briefing in an official FBI document, including instances where he was engaged by Trump and Flynn, as well as anything he considered related to the FBI or pertinent to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

So, not only did the Obama administration’s FBI target the Trump campaign in the heat of the 2016 presidential election, but they used an intelligence briefing of candidate Trump to gather “evidence,” and even memorialized Trump’s comments in official FBI documents related to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

Average Americans writhe at the idea of the FBI investigating a political opponent. But when the revelation is buried in nearly 500 pages of bureaucratic bloviation, the impact is not nearly the same as, say, the FBI director verbally acknowledging on television that his organization had launched an investigation into the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign. That might not be treason, but “not treason” isn’t exactly a standard of conduct to celebrate.

Margot Cleveland is a senior contributor to The Federalist. Cleveland served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and current adjunct instructor at the college of business at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
Photo White House / public domain

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/ig-report-confirms-schiff-fisa-memo-media-praised-was-riddled-with-lies/

IG Report Confirms Schiff FISA Memo Media Praised Was Riddled With Lies
Nearly two years later, the inspector general's report vindicates the Nunes memo while showing that the Schiff memo was riddled with lies and false statements.
Mollie HemingwayBy Mollie Hemingway
DECEMBER 10, 2019
The new inspector general report on FISA abuse settles the debate between Republicans and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Both groups put out memos about the Department of Justice’s efforts to secure a warrant to wiretap Carter Page.

At the time of their release, the media praised Democrat Adam Schiff and his memo and vilified Republican Devin Nunes and his memo. Nearly two years later, the inspector general’s report vindicates the Nunes memo while showing that the Schiff memo was riddled with lies and false statements.


The memo from the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reported:

A salacious and unverified dossier formed an essential part of the application to secure a warrant against a Trump campaign affiliate named Carter Page. This application failed to reveal that the dossier was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
The application cited a Yahoo News article extensively. The story did not corroborate the dossier, and the FBI wrongly claimed Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was not a source for the story.
Nellie Ohr, the wife of a high-ranking Justice Department official, also worked on behalf of the Clinton campaign effort. Her husband Bruce Ohr funneled her research into the Department of Justice. Although he admitted that Steele “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” this and the Ohrs’ relationship with the Clinton campaign was concealed from the secret court that grants surveillance warrants.
The dossier was “only minimally corroborated” and unverified, according to FBI officials.
All of these things were found to be true by the Inspector General Michael Horowitz in his December 9 report. In fact, Horowitz detailed rampant abuse that went far beyond these four items.

The Democratic minority on the committee, then led by Rep. Adam Schiff, put out a response memo with competing claims:

FBI and DOJ officials did not omit material information from the FISA warrant.
The DOJ “made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016.”
In subsequent FISA renewals, DOJ provided additional information that corroborated Steele’s reporting.
The Page FISA warrant allowed the FBI to collect “valuable intelligence.”
“Far from ‘omitting’ material facts about Steele, as the Majority claims, DOJ repeatedly informed the Court about Steele’s background, credibility, and potential bias.”
The FBI conducted a “rigorous process” to vet Steele’s allegations, and the Page FISA application explained the FBI’s reasonable basis for finding Steele credible.
Steele’s prior reporting was used in “criminal proceedings.”
Each of these claims were found by Horowitz to be false.


Horowitz found that FBI and DOJ officials did in fact omit critical material information from the FISA warrant, including several items exculpatory to Page. Material facts were not just omitted but willfully hidden through doctoring of evidence.

The warrants were based on Steele’s dossier, which was known by January 2017 to be ridiculously uncorroborated. The renewals did not find information that corroborated Steele’s reporting. The warrants clearly didn’t allow the FBI to collect valuable intelligence. And Steele’s prior reporting was not used in criminal proceedings.

“We found that the FBI did not have information corroborating the specific allegations against Carter Page in Steele’s reporting when it relied upon his reports in the first FISA application or subsequent renewal applications,” the executive summary of the report says.

The media joined Department of Justice bureaucrats in bitterly opposing the release of the Nunes memo. The Justice Department released a letter to the press saying the action was “extraordinarily reckless,”would be “damaging” to “national security,” and would risk “damage to our intelligence community or the important work it does in safeguarding the American people.”


Then, when the report was released, the media made a variety of contradictory claims, all of them downplaying or dismissing the memo as nothing whatsoever. “Why Were The Democrats So Worried About The Nunes Memo?” asked The New Yorker. Rachel Maddow said that, far from destroying national security, instead the memo delivered “a sad trombone for Trump.” “It’s a joke and a sham,” claimed Washington Post writers.

“The memo purports to show that the process by which the FBI and Justice Department obtained approval from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to conduct surveillance on former Trump adviser Carter Page was deeply tainted,” the Post article says. “It does this by straining every which way to suggest that the basis for the warrant was the so-called ‘Steele dossier,’ which contains Democratic-funded research by former British spy Christopher Steele.” (The IG confirmed this week that the efforts to secure a warrant to spy on Page were dropped due to lack of evidence until Steele delivered his memos.)

On the other hand, Salon called the memo “fake news.” New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, who fervently believes that Trump is a traitor who colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election, all evidence to the contrary, went even further. “The Nunes Memo Is Fake and the Russia Scandal Is Very Real,” he claimed. “While the evidence that the DOJ has been corrupt or even sloppy in its investigation has disintegrated, evidence for the seriousness of the investigation itself has grown progressively stronger,” Chait claimed.

CNN had their good buddy James Clapper, an Obama intelligence chief, say that the memo was a “blatant political act.” John Brennan, Obama’s CIA chief who was also implicated in the spying on the Trump campaign, told Politico that the memo was “exceptionally partisan.” Politico claimed the memo “makes no sense.”


“Nunes Memo Accidentally Confirms the Legitimacy of the FBI’s Investigation,” asserted The Intercept. “All Smoke, No Fire,” claimed resistance member Orin Kerr in The New York Times. “The Nunes Memo Continues To Backfire,” declared the hyperpartisan Washington Post editorial board.

A great example of the general media treatment of the issue of FISA abuse was offered up by U.S. News and World Report. “Nail in the Coffin for Nunes Memo,” declared the headline of an article that effusively praised Schiff while utterly condemning Nunes. “Nunes’ memo was a bad joke from the start,” the author writes, going on to assert that Page was a dangerous agent of Russia, multiple Trump campaign operatives were surveilled for excellent reason, and the ex-British spy secretly hired by Hillary Clinton to produce the dossier alleging Trump was a secret agent of Russia was simply beyond reproach.

“If the GOP’s defense of Page is puzzling so is its targeting of Steele, an accomplished British former spy with an expertise in Russia and Vladimir Putin,” claimed the U.S. News and World Report article. Steele’s reputation with most reporters was not based in reality and he doesn’t even claim he verified any of the information in his report, which a sprawling special counsel investigation was unable to corroborate in any of its central and major claims.

It is unclear if the media will revisit, much less apologize for, their false claims about the Nunes memo or credulous support of Schiff’s memo.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is a senior editor at The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @mzhemingway
Photo Face the Nation / YouTube

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/fbi-lied-to-fisa-court-about-christopher-steeles-credibility/

FBI Lied To FISA Court About Christopher Steele’s Credibility
The IG report shows how the FBI kept crucial information about Steele’s reliability out of its FISA application in order to spy on Carter Page.
John Daniel DavidsonBy John Daniel Davidson
DECEMBER 10, 2019
The mainstream media is anxious—desperate, even—to claim that the report issued Monday from Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz dispels once and for all the “conservative conspiracy theories” about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign ahead of the 2016 election.

The report, The New York Times assures us, “debunked President Trump’s accusations that former bureau leaders engaged in a politicized conspiracy to sabotage him.” Nothing to see here, move along.


But in fact the IG report does reveal that something is very wrong at the FBI. For one thing, it shows that the FBI lied about the credibility of Christopher Steele, a key source in the agency’s application to spy on a Trump campaign associate beginning in fall 2016. The report says the justification for spying on Carter Page, a U.S. citizen, was “based on significant omissions and inaccurate information in the initial and renewal FISA applications.”

How did that happen? The 400-page IG report shows it happened because the FBI team in charge of the investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, relied entirely on information from Steele, a former British intelligence agent and author of the discredited, Democratic National Committee-funded dossier alleging collusion between Trump and Russia. Steele’s dossier claimed, among other things, that Page was an intermediary between Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the Russian government, and that Page secretly met with Russian officials in Moscow to discuss obtaining derogatory information about Hillary Clinton.

None of that was true, nor was any of it corroborated when the FBI submitted its FISA application to wiretap Page in fall 2016, but these Steele reports were nevertheless the primary basis for establishing probable cause in that and subsequent FISA applications. In other words, Page was spied on by his own government for more than a year, all because the FBI lied about Steele’s credibility.

Why It Matters Whether Steele Is Credible
Given the lack of corroboration of the assertions in the Steele dossier, the IG reports states that “it was particularly important for the FISA applications to articulate the FBI’s knowledge of Steele’s background and its assessment of his reliability.” But rather than articulating its knowledge of Steele’s reliability, the FBI lied about it, saying Steele’s prior reporting had been “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.”


According to the IG report, the FBI “overstated” the significance of past reporting from Steele, who had been a paid FBI informant since 2013. Moreover, the conclusion that Steele could be trusted on this basis hadn’t been approved by his FBI handler, per the agency’s procedural regulations. Not only that, but the FBI omitted crucial information about the reliability of one of Steele’s key Russian sources, whom Steele himself had warned the FBI was a “boaster” who “may engage in some embellishment.”

In addition, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec met with Steele on October 11, 2016, two weeks before the DOJ and FBI used the Steele dossier to obtain a FISA surveillance warrant on Page. As Margot Cleveland noted in these pages on Monday, Kavalec’s meeting notes reveal that Steele wasn’t reliable.

He claimed “the Russians had constructed a ‘technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election’ that recruited emigres in the United States to ‘do hacking and recruiting,’” and that “payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami.” Kavalec’s notes corrected Steele’s statement: “It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami.”

The upshot of all this is that the Crossfire Hurricane team at the FBI presented Steele as a reliable source in order to obtain a warrant to wiretap Page, even though there was ample reason to doubt that he was at all reliable or trustworthy.

Was Steele a Confidential FBI Informant Or Not?

One issue raised in the report that speaks directly to Steele’s credibility is confusion over his relationship with the FBI. According to his FBI handler, Steele was enrolled as a Confidential Human Source, or CHS, in the fall of 2013. Yet Steele denies that he was ever a CHS, and told the IG’s office that he was barred from being a “clandestine source” because of his previous intelligence work for another country.

But this doesn’t add up. According to the report, Steele said he never recalls being told by the FBI that he was a CHS and that he would never accept such an arrangement, “despite the fact that he signed FBI admonishment and payment paperwork indicating that he was an FBI CHS.” Moreover, his FBI handler says Steele never told him he was barred from being a CHS, and that he “expressly informed Steele that he was a CHS.”

The clearest indication that Steele knew he was a CHS, despite his denials, is that he signed annual written acknowledgements of the FBI’s CHS rules, and he accepted a total of $95,000 from the FBI. Every time he was paid, he signed paperwork using his CHS codename. The IG report states that in the view of Steele’s FBI handler, “Steele’s contention that he was not a CHS is not credible.”

There’s of course much more in the IG report about the FBI’s dishonesty and deceit related to the Russia investigation, but the fact that the agency lied about Steele’s credibility in order to secure a wiretap on Page speaks volumes about the Russia collusion hoax and the deep state bureaucrats who cooked it up.

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thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/no-the-gop-is-not-arguing-process-instead-of-facts-on-impeachment/

No, The GOP Is Not Arguing Process Instead Of Facts On Impeachment
The notion that Republicans are arguing process and not facts is a demonstrably duplicitous Democrat lie.
David MarcusBy David Marcus
DECEMBER 10, 2019
In their pre-hearing coverage of yesterday’s impeachment testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, the CNN pundit panel that contained no pro-Trump voices made some predictions. Again and again we were told, as we have been for weeks, that we should expect Democrats to argue the facts and Republicans to argue against the process, presumably because they cannot argue the facts.

Over the next several hours in statements and under questioning, GOP counsel Stephen Castor talked about almost every aspect of the factual record of impeachment. In fact, he addressed a much wider set of facts than the cherry-picked ones addressed by his Democrat counterpart, Daniel Goldman.


Castor addressed the July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, myriad meetings, and the reasons aid to Ukraine may have been delayed and why it may have been eventually released. He addressed claims made by various officials who testified. So, clearly after this exhaustive discussion of the facts from the Republican side, the CNN panel after it (which did have one Trump supporter) would have to admit that this occurred, that contra their predictions the facts were extensively dealt with.

Of course, that did not happen. Commentator Gloria Borger, who has been repeating this absurdity for weeks, was joined by several others who just flat-out lied about the facts being dealt with. This is a persistent myth going back at least to October, when The Atlantic ran an article titled “Why Republicans Are Complaining About the Impeachment Process” which argued, “There’s a reason Republicans have been making a great fuss about the process of the impeachment inquiry over the past few days. Unwilling, or more likely unable, to mount any substantive defenses of President Donald Trump’s behavior with regard to Ukraine, members have instead assailed the way Democrats are conducting the inquiry.”

It wasn’t true then and it most certainly is not true now. If it were true, there would have been at least one instance from yesterday’s hearing in which Castor refused to engage on a factual question asked by a Democrat. That never, ever happened. Yet this talking point, which is a huge bag of nonsense, persists.

Have Republicans argued against the impeachment process as well as the facts? You bet they have. This sham inquiry has at various times denied the White House participation, denied potential witnesses administration attorneys, denied House Republicans the right to call their own witnesses, and held secret depositions that Democrats selectively leaked.


But the suggestion that these are the only arguments Republicans are making, which might at one point have been an honest mistake, is now a blatant and outright lie.

Meanwhile, here some facts that Democrats refuse to discuss or bring witnesses in to testify to. Why did a Ukrainian gas company under investigation hire an unqualified Hunter Biden? Why didn’t then Vice President Joe Biden recuse himself on Ukraine when his office found out about this potential conflict of interest? Why were Ukrainian officials writing opinion articles in newspapers against Donald Trump? If this is the party of facts, don’t we need to talk about these facts?

“Republicans won’t talk about the facts” is a talking point that needs to die a swift death. It was William F. Buckley who said, “Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.” That’s exactly what is going on here. Republicans have been talking about the facts all along. Democrats and their allies just don’t like where those facts have been leading.

That is because the facts lead to the conclusion that Trump was acting within his legitimate authority regarding every allegation made against him. It was legitimate to ask for European allies to give more aid to Ukraine, it was legitimate to ask for investigations into corruption (even if it happens to hurt Joe Biden), and it was legitimate to delay the military aid, something experts testified is a common occurrence.


The entire Democratic demand for impeachment has now boiled down to a myopic and un-provable assertion that Trump’s sole interest in Ukraine was digging up dirt on Joe Biden. In order to make this assertion, they must ignore an entire universe of facts and conditions that prove their theory laughable. Republicans know this, and while they have reasonable arguments against the impeachment process as well, their main focus remains that the facts do not show what the Democrats want them to, no matter how many times liberal TV pundits say they do.

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www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/attorney-general-john-durham-scrutinizes-how-the-trump-campaign-probe-began/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=featured-writers&utm_term=first

Attorney General John Durham Scrutinizes How the Trump Campaign Probe Began
By JIM GERAGHTY
December 10, 2019 9:42 AM

Making the click-through worthwhile: The Horowitz report isn’t quite the vindication of the FBI that James Comey wants you to think it is; the president is on the verge of two big policy wins; and some easily overlooked developments in the world of politics.

Don’t Let Anyone Fool You. Horowitz Painted an Ugly Picture of the FBI.


As those of you who read last month’s gargantuan profile know, U.S. attorney John Durham, the man attorney general William Barr appointed to probe the start of the investigation into the Trump campaign in 2016, almost never issues public statements. He never does interviews. He never writes op-eds. He has given one public speech in his career. He does just about all of his talking in the courtroom.

Thus, people sit up and take notice when the notoriously tight-lipped Durham issues a written statement like this, immediately after the release of a report from Department of Justice’s inspector general about the FBI’s earliest moves investigating the Trump campaign.

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff. However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department. Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

Some people may read the above and say, “ah-ha! He’s going to indict some people who inspector general Michael Horowitz let off the hook!” That’s not certain, but Durham certainly appears to be leaving that door open.

Horowitz seemed to want to split the baby like King Solomon yesterday, declaring that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had had an “authorized purpose” for launching the investigation known as “Operation Crossfire Hurricane” ahead of the 2016 election; Trump’s claim that the investigation was a partisan “witch hunt” was a wild exaggeration at best and an unfair smear of law enforcement at worst. But Horowitz faulted the agency for including “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in its application to the FISA court to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. (I think you can tell a great deal about someone about how quickly they can hand-wave away a law enforcement official putting wrong information in the equivalent of a warrant for wiretapping.)

FBI Director Christopher Wray also seemed eager to embrace the “we didn’t engage in any conspiracy or a partisan witch hunt, but mistakes were made, and we’re eager to take our slap on the wrist and showcase how we’ll never do it again:


The report concludes that the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and related investigations of certain individuals were opened in 2016 for an authorized purpose and with adequate factual predication. The report also details instances in which certain FBI personnel, at times during the 2016-2017 period reviewed by the OIG, did not comply with existing policies, neglected to exercise appropriate diligence, or otherwise failed to meet the standard of conduct that the FBI expects of its employees — and that our country expects of the FBI. We are vested with significant authorities, and it is our obligation as public servants to ensure that these authorities are exercised with objectivity and integrity. Anything less falls short of the FBI’s duty to the American people.

The Horowitz report instantly turned into another Rorschach test of the Trump era. If you’re on the left side of the spectrum, you’re concurring with former FBI Director James Comey who declared, “There was no illegal wiretapping, there were no informants inserted into the campaign, there was no ‘spying’ on the Trump campaign. Although it took two years, the truth is finally out.”

If you’re on the right side of the spectrum, you’re probably concurring with law professor Jonathan Turley, who concludes, “Horowitz finds a litany of false and even falsified representations used to continue the secret investigation targeting the Trump campaign and its associates.”

It would be nice if those who worried about politicization of the Department of Justice by any party could recognize the trouble indicated by the Horowitz report. Assume that the FBI hears the rumors of Trump working with Russia, determines they’re credible enough to start an investigation, and all of that is on the up-and-up, as the IG report indicates. What makes that investigation stop? What would they need to see to conclude, “okay, this is a false trail, we’re going down a rabbit hole here, we need to stop this so that we don’t look like an extension of the incumbent party digging for dirt on the opposition party”?

Stay Updated with Morning Jolt
A guided tour of the news and politics driving the day, by Jim Geraghty.


Email Address
(As I note on NR’s homepage today, one of the reasons those with authority and power are supposed to avoid situations that create the appearance of a conflict of interest is that it helps prevent actual conflicts of interest! President Trump will ask, with some justification, why it’s a problem for his children to work out deals with foreign governments and entities if Hunter Biden was allowed to serve on the Burisma board and strike deals with Chinese investors.)


Those of us with long memories will recall that on January 29, 2018, Adam Schiff and the minority members of the House Intelligence Committee issued an official memo that purportedly “corrected the record” and declared, “FBI and DOJ officials did not ‘abuse’ the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process, omit material information, or subvert this vital tool to spy on the Trump campaign.”

The Horowitz report concluded, “We identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications, and many additional errors in the Woods Procedures. These errors and omissions resulted from case agents providing wrong or incomplete information to OI and failing to flag important issues for discussion. While we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents who assisted OI in preparing the applications, or the agents and supervisors who performed the Woods Procedures, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or problems we identified.”

Schiff’s memo also concluded that “the FBI viewed Steele’s reporting and sources as reliable and verifiable.” The Horowitz investigation lays out quite a bit of evidence that the Bureau had good reasons to be more skeptical:

We determined that prior to and during the pendency of the FISAs the FBI was unable to corroborate any of the specific substantive allegations against Carter Page contained in the election reporting and relied on in the FISA applications, and was only able to confirm the accuracy of a limited number of circumstantial facts, most of which were in the public domain, such as the dates that Page traveled to Russia, the timing of events, and the occupational positions of individuals referenced in the reports.

. . . We found that the FBI’s interviews of Steele, the Primary Sub-source, and a second sub-source, and other investigative activity, revealed potentially serious problems with Steele’s description of information in his election reports.

According to the Supervisory Intel Analyst, the FBI ultimately determined that some of the allegations contained in Steele’s election reporting were inaccurate, such as the allegation that Manafort used Page as an intermediary and that Michael Cohen had traveled to Prague for meetings with representatives of the Kremlin.

As we described earlier in our analysis, the FBI failed to notify 01, which was working on the Carter Page FISA applications, of the potentially serious problems identified with Steele’s election reporting that arose as early as January 2017 through the efforts described above. As previously stated, we believe it was the obligation of the agents who were aware of this information to ensure that 01 and the decision-makers had the opportunity to consider it, both for their own assessment of probable cause and for consideration of whether to include the information in the applications so that the FISC received a complete and accurate recitation of the relevant facts.

So perhaps the investigation was opened “for an authorized purpose and with adequate factual predication,” but once it was opened, the FBI personnel working the case didn’t seem all that worried about an inability to verify what they were being told and didn’t feel any need to tell the FISA judges that they couldn’t verify it. In any other circumstance, civil libertarians would be throwing a fit. Because it involves Trump and his associates, a lot of people who ought to know better are shrugging and concluding they had it coming.

And as you see above, congressional Democrats who are usually watching like a hawk for signs of law enforcement abusing their powers or not respecting the rights of the accused turned into spin doctors for the FBI in this case. Gripe about Devin Nunes all you want; Adam Schiff is every bit the partisan and shades the truth just as much; he just does so in a calmer and smoother manner.

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Former Federal Prosecutor Robert Ray joined America’s following the Democrat Party’s announcement to impeach the president.

Robert Ray: My first reaction to that is despite what you just heard from Chairman Nadler, neither one of those is a high crime or misdemeanor. So we have not passed through an investigation over the course of the last several months where it’s not treason, it’s not bribery, it’s not extortion, it’s not a foreign an illegal foreign campaign violation it’s now whatever a majority of the House of Representatives that is controlled by the Democrats say it is, which is abuse of power, abuse of conduct and an inter-branch dispute.

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