James Comey

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Hunter Biden’s baby mama Lunden Roberts will get to grill Biden under oath on December 23 about the money he made whilst sitting on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company.

A judge in Arkansas has ordered Hunter Biden to be deposed in Roberts’ child support lawsuit and answer questions about the money he made from Burisma and his ties to foreign governments.

In a strange turn of events, a 28-year-old stripper from Arkansas was able to get Hunter Biden to answer questions under oath about Burisma — something even the most powerful US Senators have not done.

Judge Don McSpadden has changed his request from 3 years of Biden’s financial records to 5 years financial records in order for him to make a decision on child support payments.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7785627/Hunter-Bidens-baby-mama-grill-oath-financials-ties-Ukraine.html

Lunden Roberts, the mother of Hunter Biden’s baby, will get to grill Joe Biden’s scandal-ridden son under oath about his finances while he was on the board of an Ukrainian oil company, according to court papers obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com.

Biden, 49, is expected to bring all his financial records as Robert’s legal team plans to question him about his monthly earnings serving as a board member for Burisma.

The two are currently engaged in a high-profile paternity case after Roberts, 28, filed suit against Biden in May, seeking child support for their 16-month-old child.

The deposition will take place a few days before Christmas, on December 23, at 9am in Little Rock, Arkansas, according to court documents filed on Wednesday.

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www.foxnews.com/politics/house-judiciary-committee-impeachment-markup-session

“We cannot rely on an election to solve our problems, when the president threatens the very integrity of that election,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said in his opening statement, claiming Trump’s discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about Joe and Hunter Biden’s dealings in the country, and the White House’s temporary withholding of military aid to Ukraine, constituted an “urgent” threat to national security.

“This committee now owes it to the American people to give these articles careful attention,” Nadler added at the beginning of the markup for the impeachment articles, which included obstruction of Congress and abuse of power.

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www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-democrats-brace-for-some-defections-among-moderates-on-impeachment-of-trump/ar-AAK2oCK

House Democratic leaders are bracing for some defections among a group of moderate Democrats in swing districts who are concerned a vote to impeach President Trump could cost them their seats in November.

Lawmakers and senior aides are privately predicting they will lose more than the two Democrats who opposed the impeachment inquiry rules package in late September, according to multiple officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly. Two senior Democratic aides said the total could be as many as a half-dozen, while a third said the number could be higher.

Predictions about some defections come as a core group of centrists from districts Trump won in 2016 are having second thoughts. While many knew impeachment would never be popular in their GOP-leaning districts, some have been surprised that support hasn’t increased despite negative testimony about Trump from a series of blockbuster hearings last month.

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/12/fbi-lawyer-doctored-email-to-cover-up-errors-in-fisa-applications-on-carter-page/

A recently released Justice Department inspector general report revealed that then-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith doctored an email that proved that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was working with the U.S. government — not against it as a Russian agent — and may have triggered alarm bells for those approving intrusive surveillance warrants on him.

In his report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed that Clinesmith, who has since left the FBI, altered an email from the CIA to the FBI that said that Page was a source for the CIA to falsely say that Page was “not” a source for the CIA.




The report showed that after the FBI obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil Page in October 2016, Page told news outlets in April and May 2017 that he had assisted the U.S. intelligence community in the past.

As a result, one of the Supervisory Special Agents (SSAs) supervising the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign asked for additional information about whether Page was correct.

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The agent, identified as SSA 2 in the report, the affiant for two prior renewals of the FISA warrant applications on Page, asked a definitive answer before signing off on a third renewal.

His request led to Clinesmith communicating with a CIA liaison. The liaison wrote to Clinesmith that it was the liaison’s “recollection that Page had a relationship” with the CIA, and directed Clinesmith to review information the CIA gave to the FBI in August 2016 that stated that Page did, in fact, have a relationship with the CIA,

The report stated:

However, the OGC Attorney [Clinesmith] altered the liaison’s email by inserting the words “not a source” into it, thus making it appear that the liaison had said that Page was “not a source”; the OGC Attorney then sent the altered email to SSA 2. Relying upon this altered email, SSA 2 signed the third renewal application (that again failed to disclose Page’s past relationship with the other agency).

Horowitz’s report also showed that although the CIA told the FBI in August 2016 about Page’s relationship with the CIA, the FBI left that out in the initial FISA application, filed in September 2016.

The report said the first FISA application left out that Page had been approved as an “operational contact” for the CIA from 2008 to 2013 and that he had had “provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers.”



That information “overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application,” according to Horowitz’s report. The FISA warrant application on Page also left out that the CIA had given Page a “positive assessment,” the report said.

The revelation that Clinesmith doctored an email to cover up Page’s relationship with the CIA sparked fury from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a hearing on the report on Wednesday.

“This is the lawyer supervising the process — the guy that altered the CIA email, because he didn’t want the court to know that Carter Page actually was a [CIA] source,” Graham began.


“Why does that matter? Because if the court had known then there’s a lawful reason for Mr. Page to be talking to the Russian guy. He wasn’t working against his country — he was working with his country, which undercuts the idea he’s a foreign agent. That’s why Clinesmith lied — because he didn’t want to stop this investigation,” he said.

Graham also read a text message Clinesmith sent to someone else at the FBI after the election: “I’m so stressed about what I could have done differently.”

Graham read another text message Clinesmith sent the day after the election: “I’m just devastated. I can’t wait until I can leave today and just shut off the world for the next four days.”

Graham quipped, “I’m sure a lot of people felt that way after Trump got elected. Maybe you still feel that way. But you shouldn’t be in charge of supervising anything about Donald Trump if you feel that way.”

He read additional text messages: “I just can’t imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we’ve made over the past eight years … The crazies won finally.”



Graham expressed disbelief, “This is the lawyer that they put in charge of supervising the warrant process!”

He also read additional text messages that said, “This is the Tea Party on steroids,” and, “Pence is stupid.”

According to a previous report by Horowitz on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, he had found that Clinesmith also texted, “Viva le resistance” in the weeks after Trump’s win.

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During the Democrat Party’s sham impeachment hearings on Donald Trump on Thursday Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced an amendment to include proper language on Burisma Holdings into the legislation.

Then Gaetz went on to tell stories about Hunter Biden’s crack addiction… OMG!
This was not supposed to happen.

The Hunter Biden crack story at the homeless encampment was especially delicious.
Democrats wanted to hide that from the American public… Too late.

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/support-for-democrats-impeachment-efforts-hits-new-critical-point-in-polls

New national, state, and combined average polls from recent days not only suggest that public support for impeachment has stalled but that impeachment is beginning to backfire on the Democrat Party as they move forward with their attempt to remove the president from office.

“According to the Monmouth poll – which was released Wednesday – 50 percent said the president should not be impeached and removed from office, with 45 percent calling for impeachment and removal from the White House,” Fox News reported. “It’s a similar story in the Quinnipiac survey, which was released on Tuesday. By a 51-45 percent margin, Americans opposed impeaching and removing the president, little changed from the school’s late November poll.”

Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy said, “American voters signal they are slightly more inclined not to impeach than to impeach.”


However, a new Real Clear Politics average poll, which was featured by Fox News’ Chris Wallace and Bret Baier on Thursday, noted that support for impeachment is now the lowest it has ever been and the opposition to it is at the highest it’s ever been.

“Time is not their friend and there was a fascinating poll today, it’s actually the Real Clear Politics average of recent polls and it shows that support impeaching and removing the president is at its lowest since this whole thing began two months ago, Opposition to impeaching and removing the president as at its highest, it basically, the two lines have intersected at I think 46%,” Wallace said. “So, continuing to hold these hearings, continuing to make these arguments … it certainly isn’t getting any bipartisan buy in and I think more Democrats than not think, ‘Look, let’s get this over with, we’re committed to this, we’re going to do it.'”

Wallace continued, “You could argue, that’s a heck of a way to impeach a president but let’s go ahead and do it, get it off out plate and then we can do the things we need to do to campaign in 2020, like it’s USMCA, or drug prices, things we can say we are working for the American people.”

“It’s a question I’ve been asking on ‘Fox News Sunday’ for the last few weeks, which is a greater political risk: going ahead with impeachment or backing off at the last minute and going for censure or something?” Wallace concluded. “It’s unknowable, look Nancy Pelosi is a pretty smart tactician whatever you think of her policies and I think she’s made the calculation for her base, for the vast majority for her members of Congress, not those 31 in the swing districts, it would be much worse not to go ahead with impeachment because you would look foolish having climbed up this mountain and suddenly you’re within reach of the summit and you say, ‘nah, forget it.'”


A new Marquette Law Poll found that in the swing state of Wisconsin, for example, the majority of people opposed impeachment.

CBS 58 reported, “Forty percent of respondents favored impeaching and removing president Donald Trump from office, versus 52 percent who do not.”

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www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/12/report-full-house-to-vote-on-impeachment-wednesday/

The full House of Representatives is expected to vote Wednesday on whether to impeach President Donald Trump for his contacts with Ukraine, a Democrat leadership aide told NBC News.

The same aide said the House is likely to vote on legislation to fund the government on Tuesday and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USCMA) on Thursday, but the schedule is not set in stone.


A Democratic leadership aide tells NBC that next week's House floor vote schedule is shaping up to look like this:

Tuesday, 12/17: Government funding vote
Wednesday, 12/18: Impeachment vote
Thursday, 12/19: USCMA vote

*Schedule subject to change.

— Geoff Bennett (@geoffrbennett) December 12, 2019

NBC News’ report came after the House Judiciary Committee voted down a pair of Republican amendments to the articles of impeachment against the president.

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The votes came as the panel resumed debating the two articles of impeachment ahead of an expected vote on the full chamber floor.

The committee began debating the charges in a marathon session Wednesday, with panel members from both parties arguing for and against their validity. The Democratic-held committee is expected to approve both articles, along party lines, and shift them to the full House for a vote next week.



Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) introduced an amendment to strike the abuse of power charge, but the panel struck it down 23-17.

“[The charge] ignores the truth. It ignores the facts, It ignores what happened and what has been laid out for the American people over the last three weeks,” Jordan said.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) also introduced an amendment to remove a reference to former Vice President Joe Biden in the articles and instead include his son, Hunter Biden’s name and the Ukrainian company Burisma.

“This amendment strikes the reference of Joe Biden as the center of the proposed investigation and replaces it with the true topic of the investigation, Burisma and Hunter Biden,” Gaetz said. “An essential element of the Democrats’ case on abuse of power is that the Bidens did nothing wrong.”

That amendment, also, was voted down along party lines.

On Tuesday, House Democrat leaders unveiled to articles of impeachment against the president: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) launched a formal impeachment probe after a partisan CIA analyst alleged in a whistleblower complaint that President Trump pressured the leader of Ukraine to look into allegations of corruption against the Bidens in exchange for U.S. military aid. Both President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky deny any pressure was applied and the White House published a transcript of their July 25 call as evidence that no wrongdoing occurred.

Andriy Yermak, a senior Zelensky adviser, confirmed this week that the eastern European country did not believe U.S. military aid was connected to any investigations.

“We never had that feeling,” Yermak told TIME magazine in an interview released Monday. “We had a clear understanding that the aid has been frozen. We honestly said, ‘Okay, that’s bad, what’s going on here.’ We were told that they would figure it out. And after a certain amount of time the aid was unfrozen. We did not have the feeling that this aid was connected to any one specific issue.”

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/12/jerry-nadler-house-rules-impeachment/

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) offered a bizarre justification Thursday for ignoring House rules requiring him to allow Republicans to call witnesses: it did not say he had to do so on a particular day.

The existing resolution authorizing the impeachment inquiry, H. Res. 660, allows the Ranking Member of the committee to call witnesses — subject to the approval of the chair and a majority vote by the whole committee.


Failing that, Republicans invoked House of Representatives Rule XI 12(j)(1), which requires the chairs of House committees to allow the members of the minority party to hold a full day of hearings featuring their own witnesses.

The full rule reads:

Whenever a hearing is conducted by a committee on a measure or matter, the minority members of the committee shall be entitled, upon request to the chair by a majority of them before the completion of the hearing, to call witnesses selected by the minority to testify with respect to that measure or matter during at least one day of hearing thereon.

But on Thursday morning, when Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA) raised the issue as a point of order, Nadler offered several reasons for sidestepping the rule.

Reading from a prepared text, Nadler argued: “The House rule does not require me to schedule a hearing on a particular day, nor does it require me to schedule the hearing as a condition precedent to taking any specific legislative action.”

In other words, he interpreted the rule as allowing him to schedule the minority witness hearing after the articles of impeachment had already passed.

Moreover, he implied, Republicans simply wanted to invoke the rule to delay impeachment. He did not acknowledge that Democrats had rushed the impeachment process, and that the committee had not heard from any fact witnesses.

Nadler also argued that since the original purpose of the rule had been to allow the minority party to be heard, there was no need to apply the rule word-for-word, since Republicans had been represented by one witness in the hearing of legal experts — the only hearing, he said, to which the Republicans’ point of order had applied.

Moreover, he said, the only precedent on the issue was the one recently decided by the House Intelligence Committee — run by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) — in which Republican requests for a minority hearing had been voted down.

Nadler also complained about past instances in which, he said, Republicans had ignored or failed to honor the rule properly when in the majority.

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/12/fbi-lawyer-doctored-email-to-cover-up-errors-in-fisa-applications-on-carter-page/

FBI Lawyer Doctored Email to Cover Up Errors in FISA Applications on Carter Page

A recently released Justice Department inspector general report revealed that then-FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith doctored an email that proved that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was working with the U.S. government — not against it as a Russian agent — and may have triggered alarm bells for those approving intrusive surveillance warrants on him.

In his report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz revealed that Clinesmith, who has since left the FBI, altered an email from the CIA to the FBI that said that Page was a source for the CIA to falsely say that Page was “not” a source for the CIA.




The report showed that after the FBI obtained a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to surveil Page in October 2016, Page told news outlets in April and May 2017 that he had assisted the U.S. intelligence community in the past.

As a result, one of the Supervisory Special Agents (SSAs) supervising the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign asked for additional information about whether Page was correct.

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The agent, identified as SSA 2 in the report, the affiant for two prior renewals of the FISA warrant applications on Page, asked a definitive answer before signing off on a third renewal.

His request led to Clinesmith communicating with a CIA liaison. The liaison wrote to Clinesmith that it was the liaison’s “recollection that Page had a relationship” with the CIA, and directed Clinesmith to review information the CIA gave to the FBI in August 2016 that stated that Page did, in fact, have a relationship with the CIA,

The report stated:

However, the OGC Attorney [Clinesmith] altered the liaison’s email by inserting the words “not a source” into it, thus making it appear that the liaison had said that Page was “not a source”; the OGC Attorney then sent the altered email to SSA 2. Relying upon this altered email, SSA 2 signed the third renewal application (that again failed to disclose Page’s past relationship with the other agency).

Horowitz’s report also showed that although the CIA told the FBI in August 2016 about Page’s relationship with the CIA, the FBI left that out in the initial FISA application, filed in September 2016.

The report said the first FISA application left out that Page had been approved as an “operational contact” for the CIA from 2008 to 2013 and that he had had “provided information to the other agency concerning his prior contacts with certain Russian intelligence officers.”



That information “overlapped with facts asserted in the FISA application,” according to Horowitz’s report. The FISA warrant application on Page also left out that the CIA had given Page a “positive assessment,” the report said.

The revelation that Clinesmith doctored an email to cover up Page’s relationship with the CIA sparked fury from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during a hearing on the report on Wednesday.

“This is the lawyer supervising the process — the guy that altered the CIA email, because he didn’t want the court to know that Carter Page actually was a [CIA] source,” Graham began.


“Why does that matter? Because if the court had known then there’s a lawful reason for Mr. Page to be talking to the Russian guy. He wasn’t working against his country — he was working with his country, which undercuts the idea he’s a foreign agent. That’s why Clinesmith lied — because he didn’t want to stop this investigation,” he said.

Graham also read a text message Clinesmith sent to someone else at the FBI after the election: “I’m so stressed about what I could have done differently.”

Graham read another text message Clinesmith sent the day after the election: “I’m just devastated. I can’t wait until I can leave today and just shut off the world for the next four days.”

Graham quipped, “I’m sure a lot of people felt that way after Trump got elected. Maybe you still feel that way. But you shouldn’t be in charge of supervising anything about Donald Trump if you feel that way.”

He read additional text messages: “I just can’t imagine the systematic disassembly of the progress we’ve made over the past eight years … The crazies won finally.”



Graham expressed disbelief, “This is the lawyer that they put in charge of supervising the warrant process!”

He also read additional text messages that said, “This is the Tea Party on steroids,” and, “Pence is stupid.”

According to a previous report by Horowitz on the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, he had found that Clinesmith also texted, “Viva le resistance” in the weeks after Trump’s win.

[soonernvolved]

thefederalist.com/2019/12/12/the-gops-four-point-defense-of-trump-is-devastating/

The GOP’s Four-Point Defense Of Trump Is Devastating
DECEMBER 12, 2019 By David Marcus
During Thursday’s mark up of the articles of impeachment in the House Judiciary Committee, Republicans unveiled a four-point defense of President Trump that is stunning in its simplicity and blows massive holes in the Democrats allegations of abuse of power. Essentially the Democrats are accusing Trump of shaking down Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky by withholding aid and demanding announcement of investigations, including one involving Joe Biden’s son, Hunter.

To this, the central charge in the articles of impeachment, Rep. Jim Jordan and others presented four specific facts. First, both Trump and Zelensky say there was no pressure applied. Second, the transcript does not indicate Trump making any demands or setting any conditions. Third, Ukraine was not aware that the aid was delayed. And fourth, aid flowed without any announcement of investigations. Taken together, these four defenses have more than enough weight to crush the Democrats’ case, but lets look at them one by one.


The fact that Zelensky says on the record that he did not feel pressure from Trump is an important one that has been widely ignored. As Rep. Matt Gaetz argued, there can’t be a shake down if the person being shook down has no idea its happening. Unless Zelensky is lying, the entire case against Trump just disappears.

Democrats on Thursday, as they have before, but more vehemently so, said that of course Zelensky must be lying. He needs American aid so he is lying to stay on the good side of the president. Setting aside the fact that the Democrats making this claim have no evidence to support it, it also undermines the credibility of Zelensky, one of the very things they accuse Trump of doing.

As to the transcript itself, the GOP members honed in on the fact the “favor” in the conversation was not a “a favor for me,” but a “favor for us.” And later the “us” is clarified as “our country.” This also strikes at the core of a case that depends upon the claim that Trump’s only interest in Ukraine policy was getting dirt on Joe Biden to help himself politically.

When Trump says, after asking Zelensky to investigate Ukrainian interference in 2016, “our country has been through a lot.” He means the Mueller probe, and he’s not wrong. How much evidence or information about Russian interference exists in Ukraine is up for debate, but the fact that it is a legitimate subject of interest for the President is not.

One of the few facts in all of this where there is some debate is when exactly Ukraine became aware that the military aid had been delayed. But all versions place it very late in the timeline of events, certainly long after the July 25 phone call with Zelensky. That’s like trying to blackmail someone with scandalous photos of them without letting them know you have any scandalous photos of them. It’s impossible.

The delay of the aid was part of a wider set of concerns regarding how much Ukraine could be trusted with the money. Throughout the late summer and fall, through a set of meetings and phone calls with American officials Zelensky proved to Trump that he could be trusted. That is what Trump wanted to know and why he released the aid without any announcement of investigations.

And that final fact, that the aid was released without the announcements Democrats claim were the condition to release them, really puts the period on the sentence. Democrats claim the aid was only released on September 11 because the White House became aware of the whistleblower report. But this ignores the fact the aid had to release by September 30, and doing so is a two-week process.

So essentially, aid was released on or about the deadline set to release it. That is a much more plausible explanation for the timing than some whistleblower report spooking Trump. Is it possible Trump was angry at yet again being undermined by people in the federal government for exercising his legitimate powers? Sure. But there is no evidence to suggest that Trump was ever planning to ultimately kill the aid.

These four basic points will make up the core of the Republican defense of Trump on abuse of power charges. The White House should be very happy. Unlike the serpentine choose your own adventure story the Democrats have cooked up, this is a straightforward and simple defense, it can be explained quickly and it all makes perfect sense.

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2019/12/12/jerry-nadler-partisan-impeachment-tear-country-apart/

House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler repeatedly said in 2018 that bipartisan support was a prerequisite for impeaching President Donald Trump.

But the New York Democrat is now guiding through his committee two articles of impeachment that have no meaningful support from either Republicans in Congress or Republican voters.


“If you’re serious about impeaching a president, it cannot and should not be done on a partisan basis. You have to have, at least by the end of the process, buy-in from the Republicans, or at least a good number of Republicans,” Nadler said in a February 2018 MSNBC interview.

He added that “if you’re really serious about removing a president from office for high crimes and misdemeanors, you shouldn’t do that unless you get at least an appreciable fraction of the people who voted for him, of the other side, to agree, reluctantly perhaps, to agree that ‘yeah, you had to do it,’ because otherwise you’ll have 20 years of recriminations. we won the election, you stole it from us. you don’t want to divide the country that way.”

Nadler sounded a similar note in September 2018, when he warned that a one-party impeachment would be misguided.

“Impeachment should not be partisan,” the veteran congressman said at a Crain’s breakfast forum in New York. “You have to be in a situation to undertake impeachment where you believe that once all the evidence is public, not a majority but a good fraction of the opposition voters who supported the president would say, ‘Well, they had to do it. It was the right thing to do,'” he said, telling attendees he wouldn’t “tear the country apart.” (RELATED: Impeachment Star Adam Schiff Won First Congressional Race By Campaigning Against Impeachment)

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(Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Nadler in November 2018 again warned that a partisan impeachment process would “tear the country apart.”

“Because you don’t want to tear the country apart, you don’t want half the country to say to the other half for the next 30 years, ‘We won the election, you stole it from us.’ You have to be able to think at the beginning of the impeachment process that the evidence is so clear of offenses so grave that once you’ve lay out all the evidence, a good fraction of the opposition voters will reluctantly admit to themselves, ‘They had to do it.’ Otherwise you have a partisan impeachment, which will tear the country apart,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

Now, Nadler is guiding articles of impeachment through the Judiciary Committee, which is expected to hold a vote Thursday to send impeachment to the House floor. Zero Republicans in Congress have indicated they will vote to impeach the president, while moderate Democrats in the House have waffled on the issue.

Republican voters are overwhelmingly opposed to impeachment as well. A Quinnipiac poll released Tuesday found a majority of voters, including a majority of independents, oppose impeaching and removing the president from office, with just 3% of registered Republicans in support, and 12% of Democrats opposed.


Nadler spokesman Daniel Schwarz said in an email that the congressman “has gone into great detail about his 3 part [impeachment] test many times.”

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/watch-democrat-congressman-watches-golf-during-impeachment-hearing

Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond (LA) was accused of watching the President’s Cup golf tournament during the Democrats’ impeaching hearing on Thursday night in the House Judiciary Committee.

The incident, noticed by GOP Rapid Response Director Steve Guest, appears to show Richmond not taking the Democrats’ impeachment hearing seriously as he was clearly focused on the golf tournament.

Guest tweeted out a video showing Richmond watching golf, adding, “What on earth is Democrat Rep. Cedric Richmond watching on his laptop during this impeachment markup? To me, it looks like Rep. Richmond is watching the President’s Cup golf tournament. Richmond’s actions are a DISGRACE.”


In the video posted by Guest, Richmond can be seen at the bottom of the screen, right above CNN’s “BREAKING NEWS’ chyron, wearing a light gray suit.

In a second tweet, Guest zoomed in and the video clearly shows, although blurry, that Richmond was watching golf.

WATCH:

Professional golfer Bob Estes appeared to recognize the footage, writing on Twitter: “Even though he’s a Democrat, I’m gonna give Rep. Richmond a pass on this one. #PresidentsCup”

Prior to being caught watching golf, Richmond, “We have an emergency to national election going on right now.”

“Our oath to the Constitution requires us to take this drastic, solemn, and regrettable step, but it is necessary because if we don’t protect America’s precious right to vote, it is clear that the other side won’t,” Richmond continued. “Today I’m reminded of Judas because Judas for 30 pieces of silver betrayed Jesus. For 30 positive tweets for easy re-election, the other side is willing to betray the American people their precious right to vote and the future of our great country.”

[kcrufnek]

Dec 12, 2019 18:21:23 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder sent a chilling message in a very public way to U.S. Attorney John Durham–the man investigating abuses by the FBI and Justice Department against President Trump and members of his administration and campaign in the Russia-election investigation–warning Durham he is risking his reputation. Holder wrote an op-ed published Wednesday night by the Washington Post calling current Attorney General William Barr “unfit” to serve as attorney general. The threat to Durham iss buried in the op-ed, but jumps out like a dagger thrust from the dark.

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eric-holder-william-barr-is-unfit-to-be-attorney-general/2019/12/11/99882092-1c55-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

…As a former line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and judge, I found it alarming to hear Barr comment on an ongoing investigation, led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, into the origins of the Russia probe. And as someone who spent six years in the office Barr now occupies, it was infuriating to watch him publicly undermine an independent inspector general report — based on an exhaustive review of the FBI’s conduct — using partisan talking points bearing no resemblance to the facts his own department has uncovered.

When appropriate and justified, it is the attorney general’s duty to support Justice Department components, ensure their integrity and insulate them from political pressures. His or her ultimate loyalty is not to the president personally, nor even to the executive branch, but to the people — and the Constitution — of the United States.

Career public servants at every level of the Justice Department understand this — as do leaders such as FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Their fidelity to the law and their conduct under pressure are a credit to them and the institutions they serve.

Others, like Durham, are being tested by this moment. I’ve been proud to know John for at least a decade, but I was troubled by his unusual statement disputing the inspector general’s findings. Good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham’s shoes would do well to remember that, in dealing with this administration, many reputations have been irrevocably lost.

This is certainly true of Barr, who was until recently a widely respected lawyer. I and many other Justice veterans were hopeful that he would serve as a responsible steward of the department and a protector of the rule of law.

Holder closes with his statement that Barr is ‘unfit’. His case is totally based on policy differences and his claimed understanding of the nature of the job, which is odd considering Holder once called himself Obama’s “wingman” when he served as his attorney general and called Obama “my boy”: “I’m still the President’s wing-man, so I’m there with my boy.”

Virtually since the moment he took office, though, Barr’s words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution. Which is why I now fear that his conduct — running political interference for an increasingly lawless president — will wreak lasting damage.

The American people deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the Justice Department with integrity and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law, even — and especially — when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. William Barr has proved he is incapable of serving as such an attorney general. He is unfit to lead the Justice Department.

I was just going to post about the guy who wouldn't comply with Congress. That's impeachable, right? You know Holder didn't tell Congress to pound without an ok from Obama. Witness tampering. I demand all emails. Phone conversations. Memos. And, just for good measure, Malia's saving acoount printout. 

[kcrufnek]

Dec 12, 2019 21:47:20 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

This will never stop. The GOP has to win back the House.

[soonernvolved]

Ed Henry: They think inside the White House the case is falling apart. So, Nancy Pelosi and Jerry Nadler are trying to rush this through so they can pivot back to jobs or whatever issue they’re going to try to talk about. When the president and some of his advisors are saying in private, “Wait a second. Let’s let them own this thing.” So if it gets to the senate why rush it through?… The president and some of his advisors are saying no, let’s call some witnesses and drag this thing out. Make Democrats own it, number one. And, number two, get a full acquittal and not just a motion to dismiss which might be just a small potato. Go for the full acquittal.

[soonernvolved]

Dec 12, 2019 22:42:41 GMT -6 kcrufnek said:

Dec 12, 2019 21:47:20 GMT -6 soonernvolved said:

This will never stop. The GOP has to win back the House.

If the recent UK elections are any kind of indication, the left might have a rough 2020.

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2019/12/12/kimberley-strassel-impeachment-democrats-brian-kilmeade/

‘Honey We Shrunk The Impeachment’: Kimberley Strassel Explains How Dems Narrowed Charges To Protect Themselves



Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel reasoned that Democrats may have kept the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump narrow in order to protect themselves.

The two articles of impeachment introduced Tuesday against the president, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, notably did not include Democrat talking points used throughout the impeachment inquiry, most notably “quid pro quo.”


Guest-host Brian Kilmeade asked Strassel about the curious narrowing of charges on Thursday night’s edition of “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board member told Kilmeade how she and her fellow board members called the articles “honey, we shrunk the impeachment” because for months “we’ve been listening to Democrats use words like ‘extortion,’ ‘quid quo pro.'” (RELATED: Rand Paul Stands His Ground With Neil Cavuto On Impeachment, Earns A ‘Clever’ On Last Response)

She then went on to explain that Democrats may have had a reason for doing so:

“Adam Schiff spent six weeks lecturing the country on the proper definition of bribery, which was something removed from all statutes or the history of the country, but it was the way they had to define it in order to pack it in what they say Donald Trump did,” she explained. “And then suddenly it disappears and this is because someone in the Democratic Party realized, if you’re going to expand the definition the way they did and say any time any politician asks for something from another country in a way that might benefit them in some way, that their own party would be implicated.”

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www.dailywire.com/news/most-bush-league-stunt-democrats-grilled-over-how-they-ended-impeachment-hearing

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, announced an apparent change in scheduling on voting to move forward with articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump late on Thursday night and was subsequently blasted by the Republicans for not even bringing them in to discuss their schedules.

“It has been a long two days of consideration of these articles [of impeachment] and it is now very late at night,” Nadler said. “I want the members on both sides of the aisle to think about what has happened over these last two days and to search their consciousnesses before we cast our final votes.

“Therefore the committee will now stand in recess until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. at which point I will move to divide the question so that each of us may have the opportunity to cast up or down votes on each of the articles of impeachment and tell history to be our judge,” Nadler continued. The Committee is in recess.”


Ranking Member Doug Collins slammed Nadler, “Mr. Chairman, there is no consulting from the Ranking Member on your schedule for tomorrow in which you just blown up schedules for everyone? You chose not to consult the Ranking Member on a schedule issue of this magnitude? This is kangaroo court that we’re talking about.”

“It’s Stalinesque,” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) shouted. “Let’s have a dictator, it was good to hear about that.”

Another person can be heard saying loudly, “unbelievable.”

WATCH:

I’m not sure what to say at this second, I’ve been in public life now since 2006 and I have just witnessed the most bush league stunt I have ever witnessed in my professional life,” Collins said at a press conference immediately following the hearing. “In the midst of impeachment, the Chairman just ambushed the entire Committee, did not have any consultation with the Ranking Member … we’re going to have votes at 10 a.m. in the morning.”

“So tonight, without consulting the Ranking Member, without consulting anyone, schedules of anybody — we’re scheduling this at 10 a.m.,” Collins continued. “The integrity level of this Committee, the Chairman’s integrity is gone, his staff is gone, this was the most bush league I have seen forever.”


“And if the American people wondered about this impeachment anyone, they don’t have to wonder anymore, they saw what happened right here tonight,” Collins continued. “Because this committee is more concerned about getting on TV in the morning than it was finishing its job tonight and letting the members go home.”

“Words cannot describe how inappropriate this was. I have been saying for the whole year how this committee is just simply rimshotting the rules of this House and this proves it tonight. They do not care about rules. They have one thing: their hatred of Donald Trump and this showed it tonight because they want to shine in these cameras, get prettied up, and then vote. I am just beyond words. It shows their lack of integrity in this process and the lack of case that they have.”

A reporter asked Collins why did it matter whether the vote happened tonight or tomorrow, to which Collins responded, “The reason we had this tonight is we had worked this out tonight to finish up tonight [because] we have members who have flights, we have members who are getting on trains, we have members who are going home because this was going to finish up tonight. But to not even consult the Ranking Member, to not even give us a heads up, this is all we heard, and we had been consulting back and forth in the last few minutes and how we were going to end the speaking tonight … that was the most lack of integrity thing I have ever seen by a member of Congress, especially a Chairman.”

“This is why people don’t like [Congress],” Collins exclaimed. “This crap like this is why people are having such a terrible opinion of Congress … because they know it’s all about games, they know it’s all about these tv screens because they want the prime time hit.”

WATCH:

[soonernvolved]

www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/12/jerry-nadler-in-surprise-move-postpones-vote-on-articles-of-impeachment/

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) surprised his colleagues and the media by announcing late Thursday night that the votes on articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump would be postponed until 10:00 a.m. Friday morning.

Republicans exploded in outrage. Ranking Member Doug Collins (D-GA) protested angrily that the sudden schedule change had not been discussed with the opposition.




Other Republicans interjected, as Nadler gaveled the hearing closed. “Stalinist!” Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) shouted. Others said that Nadler’s move was symbolic of the arbitrary rule they had come to expect on the committee.

Reporters were also stunned. “We are genuinely surprised, all of us,” MSNBC anchor Brian Williams said. Correspondent Garrett Haake agreed, noting that there had been “genuine anger” from Republicans at being blindsided.

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Collins vented his frustration as the cameras rolled. “Chairman Nadler’s integrity is zero. His staff is zero,” Collins told the press. “That was the most Bush-league play I have ever seen in my life, because they just want to get in front of the camera.”

Everyone — Democrats, Republicans, and journalists — had expected a vote, after a debate that began at 7:00 p.m. the night before, continued well into the night, reconvened at 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, and ended at about 11:15 p.m.

“They do not care about rules. They have one thing: their hatred of Donald Trump. And this showed it.” Collins said, accusing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of controlling the schedule instead of Nadler.

It was unclear whether some members had planned to travel to Europe on Friday to attend the 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, the larges engagement in the history of the U.S. Army and a decisive moment in the Second World War.

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

Of course, these statements by McConnell OUTRAGED Democrats and their liberal fake news media.


Democrats are outraged that Republicans may play politics with their political sham impeachment.

CNN accused McConnell of coordinating with the defense counsel.

[soonernvolved]

www.cnbc.com/2019/12/13/supreme-court-will-hear-three-cases-over-trumps-financial-records.html

The Supreme Court said on Friday that it will hear three cases over President Donald Trump’s financial records next year, and scheduled arguments for its March session.

The arguments are likely to be the most high-profile of the term, and will test the court’s newly constituted conservative majority. A decision is expected by the end of June, in the midst of the 2020 presidential election.

The cases are the first in which Trump’s personal dealings have come before the top court since he became president.
Trump asked the justices to reverse three lower court rulings that would require his longtime accounting firm and two of his banks to hand over financial records to investigators.

The nine-member panel has a 5-4 conservative majority, including two Trump appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

[soonernvolved]

[soonernvolved]

dailycaller.com/2019/12/13/kendra-horn-impeachment-oklahoma/

Constituents ripped Democratic Oklahoma Rep. Kendra Horn on Sunday, saying Democrats focus too much on impeachment and too little on improving the lives of Americans.

Horn, who represents most of Oklahoma, Pottawatomie and Seminole counties, spoke at a Sunday town hall meeting where voters angrily questioned her on why she continues to focus on impeachment. President Donald Trump won Horn’s district in the 2016 presidential election, and eight Republicans announced they will run for her vulnerable seat in 2020, according to the Oklahoman.


“As an independent voter, I think you’re in a lot of trouble if you vote for this impeachment,” said Edmond, Oklahoma, resident Susan Jaslow, the Oklahoman reported. Jaslow voted for Horn in 2018, but said she is part of a group of independent voters upset about the impeachment circus.

“If she votes for impeachment, she’s screwed,” Jaslow added. (RELATED: We Asked The 31 House Democrats From Trump Districts How They Would Vote On Impeachment — Not One Was Fully Committed)

“We want Congress to get back to work for the American people, please,” said Ronda Peterson, who identified herself as a conservative. Peterson said Congress has been obsessed with impeaching Trump all year.

Horn responded to Peterson by saying, “It’s frustrating for me.” Horn has said she has not made up her mind about impeachment, and her press secretary told the Daily Caller she is “reviewing the articles of impeachment” and “has not announced a decision.”

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“Because that’s not what I’m doing on a day-to-day basis,” Horn told Peterson. “I didn’t run to impeach anybody. I ran to fight for Oklahoma, for education, for health care … and that’s where I’ve been spending my time.” (RELATED: House Judiciary Committee Votes To Move Forward With Articles Of Impeachment Against Trump)

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 29: Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK) speaks during news conference discussing the "Shutdown to End All Shutdowns (SEAS) Act" on January 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. Also pictured are Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), and Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA). (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
Rep. Kendra Horn (D-OK) speaks during news conference discussing the “Shutdown to End All Shutdowns (SEAS) Act” on January 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. Also pictured are Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN), and Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA). (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Horn’s communications director Chris MacKenzie directed the Daily Caller News Foundation towards news coverage of Horn’s town halls where constituents showed support for impeachment. He also pointed out issues that Horn supports that are not related to impeachment including a bill to lower out-of-pocket prescription drug costs and Horn’s support for the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement.

“We’ve heard from constituents on all sides of this issue,” MacKenzie told the DCNF.

Horn also said Sunday that impeachment takes up “most of the air in the room,” but partially blamed the media for it. “It’s just easier to cover those things that fire people up and divide them,” she said.


Calvin Moore, Deputy Communications Director at the Congressional Leadership Fund, criticized Horn for failing to take responsibility for “impeachment nonsense.”

“Congresswoman Kendra Horn wants to blame everyone but herself allowing this impeachment nonsense to take over Washington,” Moore said in a statement. “But Kendra Horn cast her vote with the radical left and their crazed attempts to remove President Trump from office, and no amount of spin is going to be enough to make voters forget that. Kendra Horn’s constituents are on to her game and they’re fed up — not a good sign for her chances of getting re-elected next year.”

[soonernvolved]

Ok, this is hilarious. Check out the authors who are peddling how Russia caused the left to lose in the recent UK elections:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/12/britain-mueller-report-russian-media-uk-us


Britain needs its own Mueller report on Russian ‘interference’
Conservative-leaning media in the UK and US see little mileage in exposing meddling that helped their own side

Glenn R Simpson and Peter Fritsch

Thu 12 Dec 2019 06.17 EST
............................................

Hello Fusion GPS again lol

[soonernvolved]

www.dailywire.com/news/scandal-reopens-court-papers-on-democrat-it-aide-imran-awan-make-new-revelation

Scandal Reopens? Court Papers On Democrat IT Aide Imran Awan Make New Revelation

The Department of Justice said this month that it could not release records on Democrat technology aide Imran Awan due to “technical difficulties,” but later admitted in court documents that it could not release records on him because there is a secret ongoing case related to the matter.

“Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit Nov. 7, 2018, for 7,000 pages of Capitol Police records related to the cybersecurity investigation, and Aug. 2, the DOJ agreed to begin producing records by Nov. 5,” Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter Luke Rosiak reported. “That deadline came and went with no records being produced; on a Nov. 13 phone call, the DOJ said ‘technical difficulties’ had resulted in a delay, Judicial Watch stated in a court filing.”

In a newly released court filing, the Department of Justice wrote:

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Pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan, who is presiding over a related sealed criminal matter the Government is prohibited from disclosing certain information pursuant to formal and informal information request in this matter. The Government advised Judge Chutkan of the instant FOIA matter and sought clarification from Judge Chutkan concerning the Government’s permissible response in light of her Order in the sealed matter. Defendant received the clarification December 5, 2019, the date of this filing, that permitted Defendant to say the following: The Government is prohibited from disclosing any information pursuant to an Order issued by the Honorable Tanya S. Chutkan. …

…The “difficulties” in providing responsive material was due to the unexpected and unique set of facts described above that was out of the control of the Defendant. Defendant’s only motivation was to maintain the integrity of the sealed matter as much as possible, until the issuing Court provided guidance.

The DCNF noted that the DOJ had said it closed the investigation into Awan in 2018 in which Awan entered a plea deal where he pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud.

After the DOJ closed the case, President Donald Trump weighed in on the matter, tweeting, “Our Justice Department must not let Awan & Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook. The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. They want to make a ‘plea deal’ to hide what is on their Server. Where is Server? Really bad!”

Our Justice Department must not let Awan & Debbie Wasserman Schultz off the hook. The Democrat I.T. scandal is a key to much of the corruption we see today. They want to make a “plea deal” to hide what is on their Server. Where is Server? Really bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realdonaldtrump) June 7, 2018

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U.S. Attorney Benton Peterson told U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta, who is presiding over the FOIA lawsuit that was filed by Judicial Watch, that DOJ was set to release a “cache of documents,” but that he was informed of a “sealing order” in the case and that he “couldn’t discuss the sealing order.”

Mehta reportedly responded by acknowledging that “typically when criminal cases have concluded, the materials become public and I don’t know whether there’s any relationship between the judge’s order and that case … The seal Judge Chutkan has ordered, is that itself sealed?”

“That’s under seal as well,” Peterson responded.

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“Court records that have since been erased suggest that far from prosecuting the Awans for new crimes, the ‘sealed’ matter might be because Chutkan agreed to essentially expunge records related to Awan’s wife Hina Alvi — a request that was strongly opposed by the DOJ itself as unfounded and extraordinary,” The DCNF added. “Sometime in the past few months – as the FOIA lawsuit heated up – Chutkan appears to have belatedly granted the proposed seal or something similar. The proposed motion to seal and the government’s opposition are apparently gone from the court docket, and Alvi’s name has been removed – though all 80 documents pertaining to the Imran Awan case remain.”

Rosiak, who garnered significant national attention for his reporting on the Awan case at the DCNF, wrote in a separate report a list of things to know about Awan. Here are some of the key points:

During the 2016 election, the House’s Office of Inspector General warned that Imran and his family were making “unauthorized access” to data

Shortly after the IG report came out in September 2016, the Caucus server – identified as prime evidence in the cybersecurity case – physically disappeared

Wasserman Schultz declined to fire Imran despite knowing he was suspected of cyber-security violations, even though she had just lost her job as DNC chair after its anemic handling of its data breach

After Imran was banned from the network, he left a laptop with the username RepDWS in a phone booth

A former business partner of Imran’s father says the father handed over USBs of data to a Pakistani official and that Imran claimed he [had] power to ‘change the U.S. president’

The cybersecurity investigation started after allegedly falsified invoices caught administrators’ attention, and the Awans’ lawyers blamed members

[soonernvolved]

thefederalist.com/2019/12/13/schiffs-very-serious-dossier-intel-is-now-just-a-pee-tape-joke-to-him/

Schiff’s Very Serious Dossier Intel Is Now Just A Pee Tape Joke To Him
DECEMBER 13, 2019 By Tristan Justice
After treating the Steele Dossier as serious, totally verified intelligence information for years, Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California joked about the bizarre “pee tape” rumor mentioned in the now discredited dossier on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” Thursday.

“What about Lev Parnas, did he give you tapes? I heard he gave you tapes. Lev Parnas handed over tapes to you between Giuliani and Donald Trump. Did that happen, Congressman, yes or no,” Colbert asked.


“Not the tapes you’re thinking about,” Schiff joked.

Video Player

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The tapes Schiff was referencing were the alleged “pee tapes,” cited in the Steele Dossier that accuse the Russians of having filmed Donald Trump watching prostitutes perform a “golden showers” show on the bed of a Moscow hotel room once occupied by the Obamas.

As part of the Russian collusion crusade run by Democrats, Schiff read the entire Steele Dossier into the congressional record as fact, including the unverified claims at the time such as the “pee tape” that has since been debunked as false, junk intelligence. Now, the serious evidence Schiff once roiled the country over for years is just a punch line for him.

The Steele Dossier ultimately led to a two-year investigation run by Robert Mueller that found the Russian collusion theory to be nothing more than a conspiratorial campaign launched by Democrats to reverse the results of the 2016 election.

On Monday, the Department of Justice inspector general released an explosive report detailing glaring omissions from the FBI on FISA renewal applications to spy on the Trump campaign as part of the bureau’s investigation into Russia collusion. The inspector general’s report reveals that the FBI knew as early as January of 2017 that the assertions made in the Steele Dossier were fault intelligence but still relied on the document for its applications anyway.

While the report ultimately concluded that political bias did not impact the renewal of the FBI’s warrants for undercover surveillance of the 2016 Trump campaign, its own findings fail to support that conclusion. Inspector General Michael Horowitz made clear to lawmakers before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that his report by no means vindicates anyone associated with the process, including former FBI Director James Comey.

[soonernvolved]

thefederalist.com/2019/12/13/how-the-ig-fisa-abuse-report-affects-michael-flynns-case/

How The IG FISA Abuse Report Affects Michael Flynn’s Case
‘Far too many in the FBI and DOJ are willing to hide evidence, falsify documents and make up crimes to achieve their objectives.’
Margot ClevelandBy Margot Cleveland
DECEMBER 13, 2019
Monday’s release of Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 476-page tome on the Department of Justice and FBI’s misconduct in the lead up to and aftermath of the 2016 presidential election continues to make news—and rightly so. That the DOJ and FBI obtained a surveillance order from a secret court to spy on Carter Page with a series of applications riddled with errors, fabrications, and inexcusable omissions of material fact is shocking. The shocking breadth of the government’s misconduct raises an interesting corollary question: How will Judge Emmet Sullivan react to these devastating revelations?

Sullivan has been hunkered down in his chambers for the last month contemplating (or drafting) his ruling on attorney Sidney Powell’s pending motion in the criminal case against her client, Michael Flynn. Flynn had pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI before Powell took over as his defense counsel. Flynn’s sentencing was postponed to allow Powell to get up to speed in the case. Soon after, Powell filed a motion to compel federal prosecutors to turn over Brady material and other evidence that had been withheld from Flynn’s previous attorneys.


In briefing the motion to compel, in addition to arguing that the government improperly withheld evidence from Flynn, Powell also claimed that “[t]he FBI had no factual or legal basis for a criminal investigation, nor did they have a valid basis for a counter-intelligence investigation against an American citizen, and they all knew it. The evidence the defense requests will eviscerate any factual basis for the plea and reveal conduct so outrageous—if there is not enough already—to mandate dismissal of this prosecution for egregious government misconduct.”

Before Judge Sullivan had a chance to rule on Powell’s motion, though, federal prosecutors found themselves forced to inform the long-time federal judge “that for nearly three years, they had wrongly identified the authors of the handwritten notes taken by the FBI agents during their January 24, 2017, interview of then-National Security Advisor Flynn. Prosecutors had told defense counsel (and the court) that the notes written by Peter Strozk had been compiled by FBI Agent Joe Pietka, and those taken by Pietka had been written by Strzok.”

Then two weeks ago came another surprise: After having argued for months that there was no need to delay Flynn’s sentencing, federal prosecutors contacted Powell to suggest postponing the sentencing. Powell concurred and then the government filed a joint motion asking the court to cancel the upcoming sentencing briefing and hearings.

In the motion, the government presented two rationales for the delay. First, the parties noted that until the court ruled on the pending motion to compel, briefing would be premature. Second, and more significantly, the joint motion noted “that the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is conducting an Examination of the Department’s and the FBI’s Compliance with Legal Requirements and Policies in Applications Filed with the US. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Relating to a certain US. Person,” and stated that “the parties expect that the report of this investigation will examine topics related to several matters raised by the defendant.”


Now that the report is out, the question is how it will affect Flynn’s case. While the IG report focused mainly on the DOJ and FBI’s conduct related to the four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications used to obtain an order to surveil Page, Horowitz’s investigation and findings raise two issues of import in the case against Flynn.

First and foremost is the extensive evidence of government misconduct and abuse the IG uncovered. The misconduct was so extensive and egregious that it can only remind Judge Sullivan of the prosecutorial misconduct he witnessed when he presided over the DOJ’s criminal case against the late Sen. Ted Stevens—an investigation and prosecution that Sullivan would later conclude was “permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence…”

Soon after taking over Flynn’s case, Powell had evoked the Stevens’ prosecution as a comparator, but the IG report adds gravitas to her comparison. When asked about the effect of Horowitz’s report, Powell told The Federalist, “given the stunning lies and conduct by the FBI painfully documented in the report, I would expect Judge Sullivan—at a minimum—to order the production of everything we requested. Yet again, we see the DOJ learned nothing from the Ted Stevens case. Stronger action is required to impress upon the government a rejection of its reprehensible conduct.” Powell added that “far too many in the FBI and DOJ are willing to hide evidence, falsify documents and make up crimes to achieve their objectives—regardless of their motives.”

Before the IG report, Judge Sullivan might have put Powell’s claim of egregious prosecutorial misconduct down to “zealous advocacy.” But it is impossible to contemplate the Sullivan who tossed the Stevens’ case reacting with anything less than outrage to the recent revelations of misconduct. And while the IG report may seem only tangentially related to Flynn, most of the same bad actors were involved in both the Page and Flynn investigations.


Further, besides the general take-away from the IG report—that DOJ and FBI misconduct was widespread—one specific aspect of Horowitz’s report proves especially relevant to Flynn’s case, namely the fact that the FBI had assigned “SSA 1” to provide a security briefing to then-candidate Donald Trump after learning that Flynn would be present at the briefing. SSA 1 was a lead agent in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and participated in the briefing as part of the FBI’s investigation.

While the IG report criticized the FBI for using a presidential-candidate briefing as an investigative tool, it is not that fact that proves significant. Rather, it is what SSA 1 told Horowitz’s team about his presence at this meeting. The purpose was, according to SSA 1, to take “the opportunity to gain assessment and possibly have some level of familiarity with [Flynn],” such as learning “Flynn’s overall mannerisms.”

SSA 1 added that “in this instance it actually proved useful because SSA 1 was able to compare Flynn’s ‘norms’ from the briefing with Flynn’s conduct at the interview that SSA 1 conducted on January 24, 2017, in connection with the FBI’s investigation of Flynn.” (The IG report does not identify SSA 1, but it has been reported that the second agent to interview Flynn—the first being Peter Strzok—was FBI Agent Joe Pietka.)

This revelation is significant because former FBI Director James Comey testified to the House Intelligence Committee that the agents who interviewed Flynn “discerned no physical indications of deception. They didn’t see any change in posture, in tone, in infection, in eye contact. They saw nothing that indicated to them that he knew he was lying to them.” Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe also confirmed that agents didn’t detect any deception in their interview with Flynn.


So now we know that not only did the agents not detect any signs of deception when they interviewed Flynn, but that one of the agents who interviewed Flynn had a prior baseline meeting with the retired general to assess his “norms.” That same FBI agent compared Flynn’s conduct during the January 2017 interview to Flynn’s “norms,” and at the time concluded Flynn was not lying.

These facts would have been important for Flynn and his attorneys to know before the former national security advisor pleaded guilty. Further, even though Flynn has already pleaded guilty, shortly after Judge Sullivan took over the case, he ordered the prosecutor to turn over all Brady material, whether related to guilt or punishment. Given that, two years later, Powell is still fighting the government for evidence known to exist, it seems doubtful the prosecutors shared details or documentation of Pietka’s previous spying on Trump and Flynn and his assessment of Flynn’s demeanor during the briefing.

If that’s the case and if Powell did not receive Pietka’s report on Flynn’s conduct during the intel briefing, she might just want to file a new motion to compel. That would also provide the perfect opportunity to mention Horowitz’s findings—not that Judge Sullivan is likely to need any prodding to page through the IG report.