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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 12, 2020 9:34:32 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 12, 2020 9:36:04 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 12, 2020 12:33:53 GMT -6
Interesting: A DOD investigation found that between March 2019 and September 2019 Steve Linick sent 23 confidential emails from his State Department email account to his personal Gmail account. Several of the sensitive emails he forwarded to his personal Gmail account were related to an investigation into the State Department’s top Iran official, Brian Hook. Information related to the investigation into Hook were leaked to the media, fueling speculation Linick was behind the leaks, according to the investigation. Via the Free Beacon: freebeacon.com/national-security/fired-state-department-ig-sent-confidential-info-to-his-personal-email-accounts/The State Department inspector general whose recent dismissal ignited a political firestorm sent copies detailing a sensitive investigation to his personal email account, according to a probe into his conduct run by the Defense Department’s inspector general. The inquiry report, dated March 17, confirms that fired State Department inspector general Steve Linick was the subject of a broad investigation related to the leaks of politically charged materials to journalists, specifically a draft evaluation report into Brian Hook, the State Department’s top Iran official. The report, which was provided to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, concluded that while Linick was permitted to send information to his personal email account to facilitate access while traveling, he was the only official in that office to have done so. The disclosure is likely to raise new questions about Linick’s suspected role in leaking sensitive information to the press. ....... Last month House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that President Trump’s firing of Obama holdover State Department Inspector General Steve Linick “could be unlawful.” Pelosi said Congress will be looking into the firing of Linick. Will Pelosi call for Linick to be prosecuted if it is confirmed he was behind unauthorized leaks to the media? Probably not.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 12, 2020 13:53:11 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 14, 2020 9:45:02 GMT -6
Richard Grenell: I think the Transition period is key. And once Donald Trump won the election in 2016 all the way through to inauguration… That’s when we’re supposed to have the Obama administration or the current administration begin to hand off and have a transition time. That’s why we have an election in November and an inauguration in January. It’s for a peaceful transition of power. That was blown by the Obama administration. And I just don’t think that unmasking during the transition period is appropriate. Especially at the levels they did.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 14, 2020 11:52:59 GMT -6
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures to discuss the ongoing investigation of the historic Obama Spygate scandal.
Senator Johnson: What I thought was very interesting about Rod Rosenstein’s testimony it was an astonishingly lack of curiosity and management oversight regarding an investigation into the sitting president of the United States. I mean, think about, Maria. I look at Rod Rosenstein and I think either it was willful ignorance, complete managerial incompetence, or he simply wasn’t being truthful. I want to get to the bottom of who knew what and when did they know it.
Later in the interview Senator Johnson told Maria that Senate Republicans are still looking at the multi-million dollar Biden Burisma scandal.
Senator Johnson: But the big question I have is what was the serious offense of Viktor Shokin? Why did the US government come to the conclusion that he had to be fired and that resulted in a very serious threat on the part of Vice President Biden. It doesn’t make any sense and literally we’ve been trying to get from the State Department, we actually have an oversight letter that specifically to ask that question. Why did the US government require the firing of Viktor Shokin?
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 15, 2020 7:17:00 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/06/15/michael-flynn-circus-devolves-into-court-weaponized-partisanship/ Michael Flynn Circus Devolves Into Court-Weaponized Partisanship By opening his courtroom to John Gleeson and other anti-Flynn amici, Judge Sullivan has converted the judicial branch into an emissary of the Democratic Party.By Margot Cleveland JUNE 15, 2020 Media reports following Friday’s oral argument in the Michael Flynn criminal case focused on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ apparent hesitancy to order Judge Emmet Sullivan to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. But a second and more troubling theme went unnoticed: the further politicalizing of the judicial system. The right has long condemned the unfortunate conversion of the third branch from a neutral arbiter of the law to a politically motivated policymaker. No longer do judges say what the law is; they pretend the law says what they want it to say. Last week’s oral argument exposed a further degeneration of our supposedly impartial judiciary—that judges are moving beyond policymaking to outright electioneering. Sullivan, the trial judge presiding over the Flynn criminal case, crossed that line when he appointed retired judge John Gleeson to serve as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, and direct Gleeson to oppose the government’s motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn. Flynn, who had entered into a plea agreement with the special prosecutor’s office for making false statements to FBI agents, sought to withdraw his plea and have the charge dismissed based on ineffective assistance of counsel and evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. While that motion remained pending, an independent review of the case by Missouri-based U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen revealed prosecutors had withheld material exculpatory evidence from Flynn. Based on his review and that evidence, Jensen recommended dismissal of the charge against Flynn. Following this recommendation, the acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia filed a motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn, supporting that motion with a detailed explanation of the Department of Justice’s reasoning, along with copies of the evidence improperly withheld from Flynn. Yet rather than dismiss the case, Judge Sullivan announced he would accept amicus curiae briefs from the public, then appointed Gleeson as a friend to the court to argue against dismissal. Appointing a Deeply Biased ‘Friend of the Court’Sullivan’s selection of Gleeson gave the game away because, just two days earlier, Gleeson’s co-authored anti-Flynn, anti-Trump op-ed ran in the Washington Post. In that opinion article, Gleeson argued the charge against Flynn should not be dismissed and proclaimed “the record reeks of improper political influence.” When Gleeson filed his amicus brief last week with the trial court, just days before the D.C. Circuit’s oral argument, he provided Sullivan everything he wanted and then some. In a 70-page screed, far exceeding the 25-page maximum allowed by court rules—a standard Sullivan waived for the purpose—Gleeson took America on a reunion tour of the Russia collusion hoax, before impugning the integrity of Attorney General William Barr and President Donald Trump. Flynn was once again merely collateral damage. So obvious was Gleeson’s political hit that even the soft-spoken Judge Karen Henderson branded the amicus “intemperate” and his brief “over the top” during last week’s oral argument before the D.C. Circuit. But by then the press had already presented Gleeson’s brief as conclusive evidence of malfeasance—by Flynn, Barr, and Trump—establishing Gleeson’s brief served as the judicial equivalent of the Christopher Steele dossier. Political Cronyism Endemic to This CaseUsing the law firm of Perkins and Coie as a conduit, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) funded the conspiracy claims Steele peddled to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and DOJ. The FBI and DOJ then provided the Clinton team a government assist in the 2016 election year targeting of the Trump campaign. Now we see Gleeson enlisted a cadre of lawyers to help craft the “over the top” brief he provided Sullivan as the court-appointed amicus. The handful of lawyers named on Gleeson’s brief included donors to Biden for President, as well as a former Obama administration attorney who later represented Trump-fired former DOJ official Sally Yates during her congressional testimony concerning Crossfire Hurricane. Maybe Biden and the DNC didn’t compensate these lawyers for their work, but heading into the 2020 election, the Democrat presidential candidate surely benefitted from this pro bono work. And by opening his courtroom to Gleeson and other anti-Flynn amici, Judge Sullivan has converted the judicial branch into an emissary of the Democratic Party, much as James Comey and Andrew McCabe converted the FBI into an opposition-research arm of the DNC. Government Backing of Politically Biased AttacksFurther, just as the FBI’s briefing to Trump on the “salacious and unverified dossier” created an appearance of legitimacy to the Democrat propaganda, Judge Sullivan provided a government imprimatur to the anti-Trump ramblings in Gleeson’s brief. While in the case of Steele’s dossier, someone needed to leak details of Comey’s briefing of the dossier to Trump to the media, Judge Sullivan’s public docket provides the press access to the friends of Biden brief. And the media responded predictably: “Outsider Tapped in Flynn Case Calls Justice Dept. Reversal a ‘Gross Abuse’ of Power,” The New York Times proclaimed. “A former federal judge said that the attorney general gave special treatment to a presidential ally, undermining public confidence in the rule of law,” the Times continued. The Washington Post parroted this narrative in its coverage of Gleeson’s filing, writing that “a former federal judge appointed to review the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss criminal charges against President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn said there was evidence of a ‘gross abuse’ of prosecutorial power and that the request should be denied.” Ruining a Man’s Life for Political RevengeDuring Friday’s oral argument, Flynn’s attorney Sidney Powell and the DOJ, represented by Principal Deputy Solicitor General Jeff Wall, entreated the D.C. Circuit to end the spectacle Judge Sullivan started. Powell, who had petitioned the appellate court for mandamus—legal jargon for an order directing a lower court to act as required by law—stressed the toll to her client from the unnecessary prolonging of the proceedings, calling it “irreparable harm.” “The harms are obvious to General Flynn,” Wall concurred, but further argued that the politicization of the process necessitated the appellate court to act now, rather than wait for Judge Sullivan to hold a hearing on the government’s motion to dismiss in mid-July. “We can’t ignore that it is playing out in a politicized environment that has been made worse by” the 70-page amicus curiae brief, “which alleges the president and attorney general have engaged in great misconduct,” Wall stressed. Judge Sullivan’s behavior threatens not merely “the executive and its prosecutorial discretion and its deliberative process, but frankly, threatens to do harm to the judiciary as well,” Wall added. “The court has to take account of the fact that [Judge Sullivan’s] brief and amicus impugn the motives of the attorney general of the United States,” the DOJ attorney argued, and that is going to pull the judiciary into a political fight. Obama Appointee Plays the Race CardThat clearly was what Judge Sullivan wanted when he named Gleeson as amicus mere days after Gleeson co-authored the anti-Flynn op-ed. But even more disconcerting than Sullivan’s politicization of the process was the suggestion by a second member of the appellate panel, Obama appointee Judge Robert Wilkins, that the judicial branch should engage in such a ploy. Wilkins made that suggestion with an emotive hypothetical that, had the press played along, could have triggered more of the violent protests we have seen over the last two weeks. In questioning Wall on the government’s position, Judge Wilkins asked whether a district court judge must grant the government’s motion to dismiss an excessive force case against a white police officer where “the prosecutor was dismissing the case because it did not believe that a white police officer should have to answer for using excessive force on a black defendant.” Dismissal would be required in that case, Wall explained, because the court cannot force “the executive to keep the case alive.” But in that circumstance, “for that kind of equal protection violation,” Wall continued, the remedy would be in other cases where a black defendant faced prosecution that a white accused avoided. Judge Wilkins raised the hypothetical again later, positing that where such racist motives were in play a federal judge should refuse to dismiss the case to put political pressure on the prosecutor: “So why isn’t it the case if the government makes a considered but racist decision, that it just doesn’t want to have a white officer stand trial for excessive force on a black victim, that the district court can deny the motion and then the political chips can fall where they may, and perhaps under pressure on the public or Congress or whatever, the district court may not be able itself to force the government to prosecute the case, [but] maybe from the pressures from the media, a new prosecutor is appointed and the case proceeds?” Wall reiterated the government’s position that a court cannot force the executive to keep the case alive, but also stressed that “we don’t have anything like that here.” That fact, coupled with the tinder-box atmosphere that has enveloped the country for the last two weeks, is what made Judge Wilkins’ question so shocking. Why Politicizing the Courts Is Bad for AmericaYes, judges pose difficult hypotheticals during oral argument to push the limits of a party’s position, but this case had nothing to do with race or excessive force, or even an allegedly unconstitutional motive underlying the government’s motion to dismiss the charge against Flynn. One must wonder if Judge Wilkins formulated this line of questioning for the press, envisioning politically damaging headlines of “Trump’s DOJ Say It Has Right Not to Prosecute White Police Officers.” At a minimum, Judge Wilkins acted imprudently in presenting this hypothetical, given the publicity surrounding Friday’s hearing and the ability for false narratives to speed quickly on social media. With as many as 17 people killed in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, it was irresponsible for the appellate judge to suggest—even in a hypothetical—that racism might prompt the federal government to refuse to prosecute a white police officer in an excessive force case involving a black victim. Judge Wilkins’s further suggestion that a court should refuse to dismiss criminal charges to allow the media, the public, and politicians to exert enough pressure that “a new prosecutor is appointed and the case proceeds” is troubling for a different reason: It exposes that Wilkins views the judiciary as a political creature, and not the impartial branch—blind to emotions and unmoved by the passions or pleas of the public—our Founders entrusted to interpret the law. Given Judge Wilkins’ query, he clearly intends to allow Judge Sullivan to continue the political spectacle he started with the appointment of Gleeson, and may even join in with a politically charged concurrence or dissent when the D.C. Circuit rules on Flynn’s mandamus petition, which is likely to come later this week or next. What that ruling will be, though, is anyone’s guess, because, while Judge Naomi Rao seemed inclined to grant mandamus, Judge Henderson seemed reticent to intercede until Judge Sullivan issues a decision on the motion to dismiss in the first instant. But Judge Henderson also made clear her view that the motion to dismiss should be granted. The question Judge Henderson is likely still grappling with is whether the harms Powell and Wall laid out—to Flynn, to the executive branch, and judiciary—justify ending the spectacle now. For Flynn’s sake, and for our country’s sake, hopefully she answers yes. 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 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.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 15, 2020 15:55:42 GMT -6
www.zerohedge.com/political/why-obama-intel-assessment-russia-collusion-under-investigationWhy The Obama Intel Assessment On Russia Collusion Is Under Investigation A recently declassified annex to the Obama administration’s intelligence report on Russian election interference took great pains to make clear it did not use Christopher Steele’s deeply flawed dossier to make any assessments about Moscow’s intentions. The Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) found Steele’s evidence “highly politically sensitive” and minimally corroborated and thus not worthy of including in its analysis of Russian election interference, the annex stated. “We have only limited corroboration of the source reporting in this case and did not use it to reach the analytic conclusions of the CIA/FBI/NSA assessment,” the memo added. In retrospect, the exclusion of the Steele dossier in assessing Russian intentions may have been a consequential mistake, since evidence emerged just two weeks after the assessment was made public in early January 2017 that directly conflicted with one of the ICA’s key conclusions. The outgoing Obama administration’s intelligence community leaders — FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, NSA Director Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — declared on July 5, 2017 that Moscow was specifically trying to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election and to defeat Hillary Clinton. An official with direct knowledge told Just the News that U.S. Attorney John Durham, the prosecutor named by Attorney General William Barr to investigate the investigators in the Russia collusion case, is currently reviewing the conduct of officials in the ICA and their subsequent testimony to Congress. The official said that not all intelligence community analysts felt comfortable with the conclusion about Russia’s intent to help Trump. “There was some dissent and concern that has been hidden all this time,” the official said, speaking only on condition of anonymity. One reason for that dissent may have emerged just two weeks later. Recently declassified footnotes from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report reveal U.S intelligence provided multiple warnings that some of Steele’s dossier was Russian disinformation fed by Moscow’s intelligence service. Footnote 350, for instance, revealed that the FBI received a U.S. intelligence report on Jan. 12, 2017 warning of an inaccuracy in the dossier related to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and warning that the material was “part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.” That same day, the FISA warrant against Trump adviser Carter Page was renewed for the first time. Another U.S. intelligence report on Feb. 28, 2017 contradicted another key allegation in the Steele dossier against Trump, declaring the claims were false and the product of Russian intelligence services “infiltrat[ing] a source into the network” that contributed to the dossier. By June 2017, according to footnote 342 in the Horowitz report, U.S. intelligence informed the FBI that Russian intelligence was aware of Steele’s opposition research work as early as July 2016, a fact experts say likely meant Steele was used to feed derogatory information on Trump to the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. To date, these revelations have mostly been used to call into question the FBI’s conduct in renewing the FISA warrant against Page three times without informing the court about the serious flaws in Steele’s dossier and the intelligence community’s warnings about Russian disinformation seeded within it. But the warnings to the FBI also undercut the ICA’s conclusion on intent: If Russians were intentionally feeding false dirt to Clinton about Trump, how could they be trying to help the Republican win? Congress is split on the issue. The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded the ICA’s basis for making its conclusions on Russian interference was solid. The GOP-led House Intelligence Committee came to a different conclusion in 2018, saying most of the intelligence tradecraft used in the ICA was solid but the conclusion about Russian intentions was flawed and contradicted. The evidence backing the House panel’s report remains classified, part of a long report former Chairman Devin Nunes referred to the CIA inspector general. There is growing pressure inside the Trump administration to declassify Nunes’ referral. In the meantime, former senior National Security Council official Fred Fleitz recently wrote an op-ed revealing that the nonpublic Nunes report included secret evidence suggesting that Brennan suppressed dissent inside the CIA about the conclusions on Russian intent. “Brennan suppressed facts or analysis that showed why it was not in Russia’s interests to support Trump and why Putin stood to benefit from Hillary Clinton’s election,” Fleitz wrote. “They also told me that Brennan suppressed that intelligence over the objections of CIA analysts.” Brennan has denied suppressing any dissent and hailed the Senate Intelligence Committee’s finding embracing the ICA’s conclusions. But Rogers, the former NSA chief, revealed in testimony in 2017 his agency had only “moderate confidence” that Putin actively tried to help Trump win and that his agency had “an honest difference of opinion” with the FBI and CIA. As to why the NSA was more cautious, Rogers said the conclusion about Russia helping Trump “did not have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources.” With such differences of opinion, the Justice Department is taking a second look. Barr recently disclosed that Durham is investigating the ICA, signaling that the final fate of its conclusions remains up in the air. “Durham is looking at the intelligence community’s ICA … and he’s sort of examining all the information that was based on, the basis for their conclusions,” Barr told The New York Times this spring. "So to that extent, I still have an open mind, depending on what he finds." Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have joined the chorus of those questioning the ICA’s finding after the revelations from recently declassified evidence. They said last week the newly released annex raises concerns about both the FBI’s conduct and the intelligence community’s conclusions. “Despite the apparent absence of any initial corroboration and these mounting concerns, the FBI’s investigation continued seemingly unabated. It’s also unclear what, if any, steps were taken by the Intelligence Community to update their assessment based on the warnings,” they said. Daniel Hoffman, the CIA’s former station chief in Moscow and one of the Agency’s top experts on Russian intelligence, told me recently that Russia’s real intention was to sow discord in American democracy, and he believes the Obama administration assessment got that wrong. He is calling for a new assessment to be conducted. “At the end of the day, I don't think Russia influenced the outcome of the election at all,” Hoffman told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “And whatever support that they may have appeared to have given then-candidate Trump, it was discoverable. In other words, Putin wanted us to know it. “And he knew that was the best way for Democrats and Republicans to get at each other's throats as a result, trust me. Vladimir Putin hates President Trump as much as he hates Secretary Clinton, there's no difference there."
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 15, 2020 15:57:13 GMT -6
m.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jun/12/of-course-there-is-systemic-racism-in-america-and-/?fbclid=IwAR3kKewKfbODQEiVdi2QydVh5GYxSvvVM08bmYQ_FekLxclyf4U1_ukKDmkOf course there is systemic racism in America and it's in the Democratic Party By Aubrey Shines - Friday, June 12, 2020 ANALYSIS/OPINION: These past couple of weeks have been some of the saddest I’ve seen in my lifetime as an African-American. It began with the tragic, needless, death of George Floyd, but then quickly escalated into some of the most vicious, violent rioting our country has seen in decades. The Democratic Party, true to form, never lets a crisis go to waste. It has seized on what should be a time of healing and instead made the conversation more divisive by lecturing us all about how systemic racism is supposedly rampant in the United States. The great irony here is that yes, there’s plenty of systemic racism in our country; it’s all wrapped up in the history of the Democratic Party. The rot goes deep, back to the post-Civil War era. Former slaves and their children were forced for decades to endure the cruel, wretched Jim Crow laws that kept them from advancing in the South. And who was all too happy to keep those laws in place? The Democrats. The Republican Party had planks in its party platforms addressing the rights of African-Americans in the early 20th century. The Democrats, meanwhile, used the KKK as their stormtroopers, lynching and terrorizing blacks in the South beginning just after the Civil War and continued this practice for a century. As early as 1888, the Republican platform included a plank affirming the “sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections, and to have that ballot duly counted.” In 1892, the Republican platform specifically condemned the “inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens for political reasons in certain Southern States of the Union.” The Democrats, those paragons of virtue, refused to include anti-lynching planks or planks addressing racial rights in their platform for all of the early 20th century. This was the era of Woodrow Wilson, a Democratic president who modern Democrats like to conveniently forget re-segregated different federal government agencies during his presidency. There was also a little racist movie called “Birth of a Nation.” Wilson loved it so much he thought it would be a great idea to screen it at the White House and viewed the film multiple times. A few years later, Wilson’s fellow Democrat and President Franklin Roosevelt was forward-thinking and progressive enough to express his distaste for Asian immigrants, and said that immigrants in general had brought “congestion and racial prejudices to our large cities.” He would later deny entry into the U.S. to Jews who fled from Nazi-controlled Europe during Hitler’s purges. Years earlier, while on the Harvard Board of Overseers, Roosevelt helped impose a limit on the number of Jewish students allowed admittance to the university. And of course, Roosevelt forced some 175,000 Japanese-Americans into camps throughout the desert Southwest during World War II, trampling all over their constitutional rights just because they looked different. One of Roosevelt’s staunchest supporters was U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who was nominated to the high court in 1937 by Roosevelt. FDR’s pal Justice Black was also, for what it’s worth, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. During the 1950s and the beginning of the Civil Rights era, Virginia Democratic Sen. Harry Byrd was so vehemently against the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that he took the time to write a “Southern Manifesto” that opposed desegregation in American schools. The latter half of the 20th century brought plenty more of its share of racist Democratic politicians. Lyndon Johnson, who now is lauded as a hero for passing the Civil Rights Act, was fond of using the N-word behind closed doors and even changed his pronunciation based on regional dialect. Prior to 1964, Johnson was a stalwart against civil rights legislation in Congress and was a leader in the massive Southern Resistance movement of Southern states that opposed integration in the 1950s. Jimmy Carter, who loved falsely branding anyone who disagreed with him a racist, such as Ronald Reagan, supported legislation in the Georgia State Senate that would have eviscerated the Civil Rights Act in the early 1960s as well as housing rights. And in 1976, Mr. Carter stayed with the Plains Baptist Church even as it voted against allowing blacks to join. Even in the modern era, when we’re all supposed to be above such evilness, Democrats are still stuck in their old ways. Nothing has changed for the Democratic Party. Gov. Ralph Northam, Virginia Democrat, wore blackface while in grad school in the 1980s. Or it might have been a KKK hood. We’re still not sure which. Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, also has a racist past. Why aren’t they being protested? Just this week, the congressional Democratic leadership committed the worst kind of faux pas by posing in traditional Kente cloth in an attempt to out-woke the virtue signaling rioters in our streets. Black leaders were not impressed. Systemic racism is indeed a vile problem, one that must be addressed immediately. When Democrats stop pointing fingers and look in the mirror, we can begin the conversation about where the systemic racism truly lies. • Bishop Aubrey Shines is chairman of the newly-formed Conservative Clergy of Color and founder of Glory to Glory Ministries.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 16, 2020 10:16:20 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 16, 2020 10:17:47 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/06/16/mueller-aaron-zelinsky-whistleblower-william-barr/Aaron Zelinsky, a top prosecutor on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, will testify before the House Judiciary Committee on June 24. Zelinsky will testify as a whistleblower against Attorney General William Barr, Democrats announced. He resigned in protest earlier this year as a prosecutor on the case against Roger Stone after Barr intervened to revise a recommendation for a steep prison sentence against the Trump confidante. One of the top prosecutors on the special counsel’s team is set to testify as a whistleblower against Attorney General William Barr, the House Judiciary Committee announced on Tuesday. Aaron Zelinsky will testify on June 24 regarding the Justice Department’s handling of the prosecution of Roger Stone, a longtime Trump confidante convicted on charges that he made false statements to Congress during its investigation of possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia. Another Justice Department attorney, John Elias, the acting chief of staff for the assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, will also testify as a whistleblower about what Democrats say is “improperly motivated activity” by the antitrust division. “Mr. Zelinsky can speak to the Department’s handling of the sentencing of Roger Stone and Mr. Elias can speak to improperly motivated activity by the Antitrust Division,” the Judiciary Committee announced. Democrats on the committee subpoenaed Zelinsky and Elias to compel their testimony. Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York said that both of the prosecutors are designated as whistleblowers, meaning that they will have protections against retribution for testifying to Congress. Zelinsky resigned from his position as a prosecutor on the case against Stone on Feb. 11 after the Justice Department’s main office intervened to recommend a lighter sentence against the Trump associate. Prosecutors initially recommended the maximum of nine years in prison for Stone. After Barr intervened, Timothy Shea, who then served as U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., revised the recommendation in a subsequent court filing, saying that Stone deserved a “substantial” prison sentence, but one that was “far less” than the maximum nine year sentence. WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 09: U.S. Attorney General William Barr attends a farewell ceremony for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building May 09, 2019 in Washington, DC. Rosenstein, who has worked for the federal government for more than 29 years, will be most remembered for overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2018 presidential election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) U.S. Attorney General William Barr attends a farewell ceremony for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the Robert F. Kennedy Main Justice Building May 09, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Prosecutors argued in the revised filing that the initial recommendation did not take into full account that a key government witness at Stone’s trial asked that Stone receive no jail time. Zelinsky and three other attorneys stepped down from their positions on the Stone matter after the revised filing. The special counsel’s team initially investigated whether any Trump associates conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. When that probe turned up no evidence of collusion, prosecutors set their sights on whether Stone had any contacts with WikiLeaks, the group that published emails that Russians stole from the DNC and Clinton campaign. (RELATED: Here’s What Mueller found (Or Didn’t Find) On Collusion) Prosecutors said in a report of their investigation that there was no evidence that any Trump associate — including Stone — took part in the hacks or the release of the emails. The special counsel’s team sought to find out whether Stone had prior knowledge of WikiLeaks’ activities or discussed the group’s document dumps with anyone on the Trump campaign. A jury in Washington, D.C. convicted Stone on Nov. 15 on charges that he made false statements to Congress regarding his conversations about WikiLeaks. He was also convicted on an obstruction charge and a witness tampering charge. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison on Feb. 20. He is scheduled to begin his sentence at the end of the month, though President Trump has signaled he may pardon his longtime associate. Trump supporters have asserted that the case against Stone was a far cry from the alleged conspiracy that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was initially tasked to investigate. Zelinsky, who is currently a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Baltimore, played a key role in several prosecutions of Trump associates during the special counsel’s investigation, which he joined in June 2017. He was involved in the investigation against George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign aide who served as a catalyst for the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign in July 2016. Though the FBI and Mueller team initially suspected that Papadopoulos was the key to Trump-Russia collusion, the former campaign aide ended up pleading guilty to a single charge of making false statements to the FBI regarding his contacts with a mysterious Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud. Prosecutors secured Papadopoulos’s plea deal relatively early in their investigation, on Oct. 5, 2017. By entering the plea agreement, Papadopoulos was prohibited from disclosing details of contacts he had with multiple confidential FBI sources in 2016. A Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s investigation of the Trump team said that FBI agents failed to disclose exculpatory information from Papadopoulos’s conversations with one of the FBI informants, Stefan Halper, in applications to conduct surveillance on another Trump aide, Carter Page. Like a vast majority of the prosecutors on the special counsel’s team, Zelinsky was an avowed Democrat. He wrote more than 50 articles between 2009 and 2014 for Huffington Post, the liberal news outlet. In one article in 2012 he declared his political affiliation, writing: “I’m a Democrat.” A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 17, 2020 12:12:46 GMT -6
saraacarter.com/powell-files-stunning-motion-against-gleeson-its-a-wrap-up-smear-against-flynn/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-pugSidney Powell, the defense attorney for Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, filed a scathing response in the court Wednesday against federal Judge John Gleeson’s amicus brief, which asked the court to reject the Justice Departments request to drop all charges against Flynn. Powell’s motion is powerful and contains a lengthy time-line revealing the stunning evidence discovered by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, as well as, the litany of new evidence uncovered by U.S. Attorney Jeffery Jensen, who was appointed by the Justice Department to conduct an independent review of Flynn’s case. Powell argues in her brief that the “irony and sheer duplicity” of Gleeson’s accusations “against the Justice Department now—which is finally exposing the truth—is stunning.” Powell also pointed out in her filing Wednesday that Gleeson’s filing on behalf of Sullivan is a “wrap-up smear” against Flynn. “It demonstrates the difference between a Department of Prosecutions and a Department of Justice,” Powell argues in her conclusion regarding Gleeson’s amicus. “It shows how the Department of Justice, as the government’s representative in every federal criminal case, has the power to walk into courtrooms and ask judges to remedy injustices. For these reasons and those stated in our other briefs, the only lawful action this court can take is to dismiss the case with prejudice on the Government’s motion and vacate the plea.”
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 17, 2020 12:13:40 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 17, 2020 15:58:51 GMT -6
Well, that & he purposely violated his Confidentiality Agreement as well. www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-06-17/federal-prosecutors-are-mulling-criminal-charges-against-john-boltonFederal prosecutors are weighing whether to criminally charge John Bolton with disclosing classified information in his upcoming White House memoir, and the Justice Department is expected in coming days to ramp up its legal campaign to block publication of a book that is being billed as a scathing rebuke of President Trump, according to people familiar with the matter. The Justice Department is expected to seek a temporary restraining order from a federal judge as soon as Wednesday that would block Bolton and his publisher, Simon & Schuster, from releasing the memoir as planned on June 23, the people said. It is not clear how successful such a legal fight would be.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 12:26:11 GMT -6
Attorney General Bill Barr fired Mueller attorney Geoffrey Berman on Friday.
The DOJ tweeted this out on Friday evening.
But the crooked attorney is refusing to step down. Berman released his own statement–
Berman’s office was the lead in several high profile cases assembled by Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann.
And now Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham said he will not replace Berman without the consent of Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 18:47:04 GMT -6
Update (1915ET): In a Saturday evening statement, Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman announced that he will be leaving his post "effective immediately" after Attorney General William Barr said President Trump had fired him earlier in the day - a statement Trump denied. "In light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law and have Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss become Acting U.S. Attorney, I will be leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, effective immediately," said Berman. * * *
Update (1615ET): Speaking with the press before his Tulsa, Oklahoma rally, President Trump said he's "not involved" in Berman's firing, and that it's "all up to Attorney General William Barr
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 18:51:04 GMT -6
Joe Biden -- 60 livestream viewers
Donald Trump 500,000+ livestream viewers
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 18:53:50 GMT -6
Jack Posobiec is at this rally. He’s been to many Trump rallies and posted this is the youngest crowd he’s seen. That’s great news!
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 18:54:27 GMT -6
Almost 225k watching on FOX, 100k on RSBN!
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 18:55:15 GMT -6
Well over 500,000 people livestreaming this rally.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 20, 2020 18:55:43 GMT -6
Agree with the President here:
burn flag - 1 year.
topple statue - 10 years.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 23, 2020 17:12:34 GMT -6
justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/breaking-doj-reveals-discovery-new-strzok-notes-flynnBreaking: DOJ reveals discovery of new Strzok notes in Flynn case Prosecutors reveal they recently found new notes from the lead investigator in the Russia case that are exculpatory to Flynn. In the latest twist, the Justice Department disclosed to a federal court Tuesday it has located a new page of notes from Peter Strzok, the former lead FBI agent in the Russia collusion investigation, that are exculpatory to former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In the latest twist, the Justice Department disclosed to a federal court Tuesday it has located a new page of notes from Peter Strzok, the former lead FBI agent in the Russia collusion investigation, that are exculpatory to former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin informed U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan of the discovery in a midday court filing, revealing the single page of notes were believed to have been taken by Strzok during the critical juncture of early January 2017 when FBI agents recommended shutting down their investigation of Flynn only to be overruled by FBI superiors. "This page of notes was taken by former Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok. While the page itself is undated; we believe that the notes were taken in early January 2017, possibly between January 3 and January 5," Sherwin wrote in the motion. The prosecutor said it was possible more documents may be produced to the court. The page of notes were not made public with the filing because they are currently subject to a protective order. A source directly familiar with the discovery of the document told Just the News they include one paragraph of notes believed to be taken around Jan. 4, 2017, the date Strzok relayed a request from FBI leadership to the lead agent in the Flynn case asking him not to shut down the investigation as had been planned. The notes are "highly exculpatory," the source said, declining to describe them more fully because they are under seal. Records belatedly made public earlier this year show the FBI agent running the Flynn case had concluded there was "no derogatory" information found during a five-month inquiry against Flynn suggesting that the Trump adviser had engaged in a criminal act or counterintelligence threat. The agent recommended shutting down the probe. But Strzok relayed a message from the "7th floor" leadership of the FBI to hold off closing the case, leading to a controversial decision to seek an interview with Flynn that eventually led to criminal charges and a plea deal. Flynn has asked that his conviction be reversed and DOJ has sided with him. Sullivan is considering the request.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 9:46:55 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 9:53:10 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 10:17:16 GMT -6
dailycaller.com/2020/06/24/michael-flynn-appeals-dismiss/Appeals Court Orders Judge To Dismiss Michael Flynn Case A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered a federal judge to immediately dismiss charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The three-judge panel voted 2-1 against U.S. District Court Judge Emmet J. Sullivan, who sought to force the Justice Department to defend its decision to drop its case against Flynn. Judge Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee who wrote the opinion, said the case was “about whether, after the government has explained why a prosecution is no longer in the public interest, the district judge may prolong the prosecution by appointing an amicus, encouraging public participation, and probing the government’s motives.” The Justice Department filed a motion on May 7 seeking to dismiss a false statements charge against Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to the count on Dec. 1, 2017. Prosecutors cited “newly discovered” FBI documents that they said undermined the case against Flynn. Attorney General William Barr had directed Jeffrey Jensen, the U.S. attorney in St. Louis, to review Flynn’s case. Jensen discovered several pieces of evidence that prosecutors said undermined the case against Flynn. Flynn admitted in his plea agreement that he made false statements to the FBI during a White House interview on Jan. 24, 2017 regarding his conversations weeks earlier with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. (RELATED: Michael Flynn: ‘I Regret Pleading Guilty’) Flynn retracted his admission of guilt on Jan. 29, saying that he did not lie to the FBI and that he struck a plea deal in order to protect his son from criminal charges. Sullivan sought to delay dismissal of the case by inviting a former federal judge and others to provide analysis of the Justice Department’s unusual request. The appellate court’s decision is a major victory for President Donald Trump, who has long decried the prosecution of his former national security adviser.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 10:21:22 GMT -6
thefederalist.com/2020/06/24/explosive-new-fbi-notes-confirm-obama-directed-anti-flynn-operation/Explosive New FBI Notes Confirm Obama Directed Anti-Flynn Operation Handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok show that Obama himself directed key aspects of the campaign to target Flynn during a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the Oval Office. Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway By Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway JUNE 24, 2020 Newly released notes confirm President Barack Obama’s key role in surveillance and leak operation against Michael Flynn, the incoming Trump administration national security adviser. The handwritten notes, which were first disclosed in a federal court filing made by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, show President Obama himself personally directed former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to investigate Flynn for having routine phone calls with a Russian counterpart. He also suggests they withhold information from President Trump and his key national security figures. The handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok appear to describe a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting between Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Comey, Yates, and then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice. The meeting and its substance were confirmed in a bizarre Inauguration Day email Rice wrote to herself. It was at this meeting, which was confirmed by testimony from Comey and Yates, that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration. Yates told the Special Counsel that President Obama broke the news of Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to her during the Jan. 5 meeting. Yates detailed further involvement from Obama. “President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” she wrote in her email. The new notes, which record Comey’s accounting to Strzok of the meeting’s substance, constitute definitive evidence that Obama himself was personally directing significant aspects of a criminal investigation into his political enemy’s top foreign policy advisor. NSA-D-DAG = [illegible] Other countries D-DAG: lean forward on [illegible] VP: “Logan Act” P: These are unusual times VP: I’ve been on the intel cmte for ten years and I never P: Make sure you look at things — have the right people on it P: Is there anything I shouldn’t be telling transition team? D: Flynn –> Kislyak calls but appear legit [illegible] Happy New Year. Yeah right www.scribd.com/document/466809620/Peter-Strzok-s-Notes-Confirm-Obama-Personally-Ordered-Hit-On-Michael-Flynn#from_embed“Make sure you look at things and have the right people on it,” Obama is quoted as saying. Comey’s description that the Flynn-Kislyak phone calls appear “legit,” shorthand for “legitimate,” is also in the notes. Until this week, this exculpatory information was withheld from Flynn and his defense team, multiple congressional committees, and the American public. A lengthy campaign to illegally leak selectively edited defamatory information through media accessories damaged the Trump administration and spurred the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate anyone associated with the Trump campaign. According to Strzok’s notes, Vice President Biden explicitly referenced the Logan Act, an 18th-century law that forbids certain political speech from private citizens. The law, even if it were Constitutional, would not apply to a national security adviser for the newly elected president of the United States. Biden had previously denied that he knew anything about the investigation into Flynn. “I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when George Stephanopoulos asked what he knew of the FBI’s operations in early 2017. He later admitted that statement was false. The meeting to strategize against the Trump administration included just a few key law enforcement principals. Their testimony about what transpired is sometimes in conflict. Yates claimed Comey brought up the Logan Act while Comey claims Biden cited it. Rice claimed Obama directed that the anti-Trump operation be run “by the book,” but Comey claimed Obama even directed which personnel to use. All parties agree, however, on the main substance of the meeting, which was a discussion of how to target Flynn for his “legit” phone calls and withhold vital national security information from the newly elected presidential administration. Attorney General William Barr has directed an investigation into the spying and leaking operation, led by U.S. Attorney John Durham. Durham, whose investigation is ongoing, has not yet issued any indictments or any reports of his findings thus far. Barr has repeatedly stated that if Durham finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing that can be proved in a court beyond a reasonable doubt, then those responsible for the criminal acts will be held to account. The handwritten notes from Strzok, which were included in a court filing from Justice, were filed under seal by order of Emmett Sullivan, the judge overseeing Flynn’s criminal trial. The judge has ordered the documents to be hidden and has given no indication that he will ever allow all of the evidence filed by Justice to be publicly disclosed. When Justice moved to dismiss charges against Flynn, Sullivan refused to grant their request and instead appointed a shadow prosecutor to target Flynn on Sullivan’s behalf. Following an appeal by Flynn, the top federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ordered the judge to dismiss all charges against Flynn. That court also vacated his appointment of a shadow prosecutor to target Flynn.
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 12:41:33 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 12:42:17 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 13:34:50 GMT -6
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Post by soonernvolved on Jun 24, 2020 14:46:19 GMT -6
After recusing himself like a coward and allowing Rosenstein and Mueller to hijack the Justice Department for two years – which ended in a bloodbath of Trump associates, Sessions had the nerve to weigh in on Flynn’s case Wednesday.
Sessions cited the wrong law when he recused himself from the Russia investigation and all things Hillary Clinton the first day on the job as US Attorney General.
General Mike Flynn was targeted for ruin all because Sessions was a coward and handed over the DOJ to Deep State crooks.
Sessions could have unrecused himself and taken control of the DOJ, but he sat on the sidelines and did NOTHING.
It was AG Barr’s DOJ that dropped the case against Flynn.
Now Sessions is gas-lighting General Flynn!
Thankfully Trump fired Jeff Sessions and brought on Bill Barr to be his new Attorney General. Barr took control of Mueller’s witch hunt and immediately shut it down.
Jeff Sessions previously said that Mueller’s two-year inquisition and attempted coup was “carried out vigorously and with integrity.”
Really?!
Senator Rand Paul’s Chief strategist Doug Stafford blasted Sessions.
Hopefully Tuberville replaces him in the Senate.
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