Major update on the following story that just came out a short time after the original piece was posted.
This
major story and an excellent one, too, comes from
National Review with this headline (as if most of us didn’t already
suspect):
“No Durham Report or Indictments before Election
Day”
Introduction and Highlight:
Axios is reporting
that AG Barr has informed the White House and top Republicans that
there will be no report or indictments filed by CT U.S. attorney John Durham
prior to the November 3 election.
Durham is the prosecutor that
Barr assigned to investigate the genesis of the Trump–Russia probe launched
during the 2016 campaign by the Obama administration.
My 2 cents on this update:
Barr ordered Durham to look and find people to charge, indict, prosecute, try,
and send to prison for very long stretches, e.g., Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton, Joe Biden, and Hunter Biden just to name four top names that Trump has
been demanding that Barr pursue and in high gear.
Trouble is and this story seems
to prove is that “dawg won’t hunt” as the expression goes and their car has
only first gear and not much else.
The original post follows from here: ______________
Russian 2016 meddling kept alive by paranoid Donald J. Trump:
AP original story here. Coverage
here from the NY Times. This new update
from the AP (October 7, 2020) with this headline:
“Trump slams Russia probe; Dems cry foul”
Highlights: The
Russia probe is back in the political spotlight and as hot as ever thanks to
the paranoid delusional ranting from Trump. Case in point:
Trump ordered the declassification of all documents related
to how the FBI and U.S. Intelligence Agencies investigated Russian interference
in the 2016 presidential race. Democrats quickly called the move a political
stunt as part of Trump’s heated campaign to defeat Joe Biden in the upcoming election.
Moreover, now intelligence professionals have blasted DNI John
Ratcliffe (R-TX), a Trump loyalist, for going along with the declassification,
saying it was a flagrant example of using intelligence for political purposes
which has been a wide “no-no” for decades.
WHY IS TRUMP TALKING ABOUT THE RUSSIA PROBE?
Ratcliffe has been working
to declassify details about the Russia investigation, which culminated in the
2019 report by former special counsel Robert Mueller. *Mueller’s report (.pdf
448 pages) found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and
Russia to tip the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in Trump’s favor, but there was ample evidence of Russian
interference favoring Trump. Also, see footnote below. Trump remains
irritated by the Russia probe because he thinks it de-legitimizes his
presidency.
Just hours before the first presidential debate, it was
announced that Ratcliffe had sent a letter to Congress saying the U.S. learned
back in 2016 that Russian intelligence had information “suggesting” that Hillary
Clinton personally signed off on a campaign plan to “stir up a scandal against Trump
by linking him to the Russians who hacked into the DNC.”
The Trump campaign quickly claimed it was evidence that
Clinton “cooked up the Russia hoax.”
Mike Morell, former deputy director of the CIA, said release
of the information was the most “blatant
act of politicization by a national intelligence director that he’d ever seen.”
Other former intelligence officials said Ratcliffe was
cherry-picking information and taking it out of context. They said the
information was not the smoking gun the Trump administration was touting.
Ratcliffe’s letter was a
startling break from a long tradition, given that intelligence officials
generally are loath to publicly discuss sensitive government intelligence, particularly
when that information is unconfirmed. He pledged under oath during his
confirmation hearing that he would not politicize intelligence.
Even Ratcliffe
acknowledged in the letter that U.S. intelligence agencies did “not know the accuracy of this allegation or
the extent to which the Russian intelligence analysis may reflect exaggeration
or fabrication.”
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR)
and several other Democrats in Congress said they were shocked that Ratcliffe
would release the information, saying: “Ratcliffe
is even willing to rely on unverified Russian information to try to concoct a
political scandal, a shocking abdication of his responsibilities to the
country. It’s not clear what any of this would even amount to other than that
Hillary Clinton might have wanted to warn the country about Trump and Russia.”
Ratcliffe released the letter a day before former FBI
Director Comey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. When asked
about it, Comey said the letter contained “unverified” information. Trump
detractors dismissed it as Russian disinformation, although Ratcliffe insisted
it was not.
Ratcliffe went on to say that former CIA Director John
Brennan’s handwritten notes indicate that the information regarding Clinton had
been briefed to former President Barack Obama and other senior national
security officials.
Sen. Lindsey Graham
(R-SC), Chairman of Senate Judiciary Committee said: “Whether these allegations are accurate is not the question. The
question is did the FBI investigate the allegations against Clinton like they
did Trump? If not, why not?”
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?
On Tuesday (October 6), after Trump tweeted that he had authorized
the declassification of any and all documents pertaining to what he called the
“greatest political CRIME in American
History,” Ratcliffe sent several declassified documents to the House and
Senate intelligence committees.
John Brennan said that was a “blatant act of politicization of intelligence” and that the Senate
Judiciary Committee was engaged in a partisan effort to debunk the 2016 FBI
investigation that looked into Russian interference. Brennan also said it
reflected Trump’s disdain for his two former DNI’s, Dan Coats and Joseph Maguire, who refused to “bend to Donald Trump’s whims.”
Brennan accused both Ratcliffe and Richard Grenell, who
served in the job before Ratcliffe was confirmed — of abusing their authority
and using the national intelligence director post “to promote the very personal and partisan and craven objectives of
Donald Trump.”
Brennan also admitted that he briefed Obama and national
security officials about the intelligence involving Clinton for a couple
reasons:
(1) To give Obama and his advisers a sense of the extent of
the U.S. intelligence agency collection capabilities against the Russians —
that we “did have this insight into what
the Russians were doing, what they were saying among themselves and so on,”
and (2) To show the Obama administration that he didn’t care if intelligence
collected was favorable to Democrats or Republicans.
Brennan also insisted that he was not saying that the
intelligence referencing Clinton was accurate, but that even if it was, there was
no indication of illegality, concluding: “Let’s
say that was accurate — and I am not saying that at all, it far from it. But if
it were, there is nothing illegal about that. In contrast, Ratcliffe’s memo
implies that since it was sent to the FBI, as part of a larger report, that it
basically implies that Secretary Clinton was engaged in illegal activity, and
that is not true.”
Related to the *above note: Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed
by Trump’s own DOJ, documented in his final report that the Russian government,
at its highest levels sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and
the Trump campaign was a willing recipient of that help.
A bipartisan Senate report released in August by the
Senate Intelligence Committee again (for the second time) concluded that the
Russian government interfered in the election with the goal of electing Trump.
This related from Pence during his VP
debate with Senator Harris:
“I must tell you,
Senator, your party has spent the last three and a half years trying to
overturn the results of the last election.”
This is a reference to frequent calls by Democrats to impeach
Trump, starting with the Mueller investigation. Ultimately, Trump was impeached
by the House for seeking Ukrainian assistance to investigate Joe Biden in
exchange for security aid and a presidential visit to the White House. He was
acquitted in the Senate. If Trump had been removed from office, Pence would
have replaced him, and no matter, a Republican still would have remained as president.
Pence continued: “When
Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, the FBI actually spied on
President Trump and my campaign.”
Early in 2017, Trump falsely claimed that Obama had put a wiretap on him —
a statement disavowed in court by the DOJ. To this very day, Trump
continues to personalize those same “spy” allegations, even calling it “Obama-gate,”
as if it were a conspiracy directed by Obama himself.
There are three elements to this claim, rooted in the fact
that the FBI launched an investigation known as “Crossfire Hurricane”
after receiving a tip from a foreign diplomat that the Trump campaign may have
had advance knowledge of the WikiLeaks dump of DNC emails.
· An FBI agent attended a security briefing for
Trump in August 2016. Michael Flynn, one of Trump’s advisers, was a subject of
the “Crossfire Hurricane” probe and the agent wrote a memo on his observations of Trump’s comments:
“During the intelligence briefs, I actively listened for topics or questions regarding
the Russian Federation.”
· An FBI informant (in Europe), professor, Stefan
Halper, met in the summer of 2016 with at least three people
working on the Trump campaign (Carter Page was one).
· An FBI FISA warrant was issued in October 2016 regarding Page (a Trump foreign policy adviser), who was one of four Trump officials under scrutiny (including Michael Flynn). The warrant was approved after Page left the campaign, but Page said he remained in contact with Trump campaign officials “through the election, transition, and later during the Trump administration.” He said the FBI quizzed him on “my early 2017 text messages with Steve Bannon,” one of Trump’s top advisers.
Key Point Republicans Always Gloss Over: The DOJ IG investigated
the origins and did finds numerous errors and it found that the threshold for
starting a counterintelligence investigation was rather low, but most
importantly the IG added this crucial point in the report summary:
“We did not find documentary or
testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the
decision to open the ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ investigation.”
A lot more from Pence to Harris in that debate can be seen
at the link above or here.
My 2 cents: This is a lot of information I know, but details are
important and to lay out the facts in simple terms is always my goal, but
sometimes that is hard to do. The facts and highlights are what they are.
This final point is from
Putin and it’s very interesting to read his words vis-à-vis a Joe Biden win
over Trump here
from the AP.
Two key points from Putin:
First: Putin said Biden’s
reference to Trump in their debate that Trump was “Putin’s puppy” was in fact a
compliment to Russia and that “it actually enhances our prestige, because they
are talking about our incredible influence and power.”
Second (most critical): Putin
praised Biden for declaring his intention to extend the New START arms control
treaty that expires in February (that Trump does not want to renew). Putin said
the U.S.-Russian talks on extending the pact have produced no visible progress,
and that Russian diplomats said that chances for making a deal with the Trump
administration look slim.
Again I’m sorry this is so
long but it needs to be seen and read as very important to offset the sustained
Trump-GOP wild spins.
Thanks for stopping by.
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