Saturday, February 16, 2019

Russiagate Coup Coup Kachoo!

Continuing the conversation on Andy McCabe's "revelation" that the whole upper echelons of the FBI and DOJ were dead set again Donald Trump from before the election, and were determined to find a quasi-legal method for evicting him from office, Stacy McCain writes McCabe’s Weird Anti-Russia Paranoia Reveals ‘Deep State’ Cult Mentality
There was a lot of weird craziness in Andrew McCabe’s 60 Minutesinterview, including the hare-brained scheme to secretly record President Trump’s conversations and invoke the 25th Amendment, but perhaps nothing was more revealing than when the fired FBI official said this:
“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and just won the election for the presidency. And who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage,” McCabe said of the meeting with President Trump. “And that was something that troubled me greatly.”
This is paranoia. However much one may loathe Vladimir Putin, Russia is not “our most formidable adversary on the world stage.” That distinction properly belongs to China, rivaled only by Iran. So we must ask, why did Russia loom so large as an enemy in McCabe’s mind?

Let’s talk a bit about geopolitical reality: China is an economic rival to the U.S., and has been making military moves in the South China Sea. In any long-term military/diplomatic strategy, protecting America’s allies and interests against Chinese aggression is a major consideration. Meanwhile, the regime in Iran is a destabilizing force in the Islamic world, sponsoring terrorism, threatening Israel, and working to obtain nuclear arms.

Given the seriousness of these geopolitical threats, why would McCabe speak of Russia as the greatest “adversary” to America?

In a word, Brussels. . .
Brussels? What, the sprouts? Read the whole thing and it makes more sense.   Michael Knowles at Fox,  McCabe plotted a coup and called it an investigation. The Daily Wire, Fired Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe Claims DOJ Discussed A COUP Against Trump. Julie Kelly at American Greatness, After the Coup is Gone
The tale we’ve been told for more than two years—that Donald Trump’s campaign team, possibly even the candidate himself, colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election—has been exposed as a lie. Various investigations into this alleged conspiracy are coming up empty and the accomplices are trying to change the subject. Even more pathetically, some still are clinging to the farce, desperate to salvage whatever still remains of their already sketchy credibility.

To describe it as a witch hunt, the president’s preferred term, is too generous. The American public has witnessed a seditious attempt by powerful interests garrisoned throughout our political complex to overthrow a sitting U.S. president. The orchestrated and failed coup has exceeded the routine combat of our two-party system, where out-of-power partisans disrupt and agitate the other side. No, this has been a full scale insurrection that has violated the boundaries of law, normalcy, and civility in an unprecedented way.

Both Democrats and Republicans have been complicit. The national news media have acted as hatchet men. Influential public officials, operating both inside and outside of government, have aided the stratagem. One of the main culprits just revealed—no, bragged—how a handful of corrupt bureaucrats plotted unlawfully to remove the president from the Oval Office based on the fantastical scheme.

It’s the kind of treachery that is supposed to animate banana republics or Soviet-style regimes—not our country.
Althouse: Want to be able to do things the easy way or not? Tweets Alan Dershowitz this morning.
It is unconstitutional to use the 25th Amendment to circumvent impeachment provisions. The 25th can be used only if POTUS is physically or psychiatrically incapacitated. Any other use is unconstitutional. I challenge anyone to argue differently'



George Neumayr at AmSpec, The Ruling Class’s Interference in Our Democracy, Andrew McCabe is their poster boy.
That politicized members of the FBI, operating like a rogue agency in a Third World country, wanted to void the election in effect doesn’t concern members of the media and the ruling class in the slightest. From the moment of Trump’s election, they have treated him as illegitimate and cheered every attempt to subvert his constitutional authority. Brennan famously called on members of the executive branch to defy the chief executive.

All of this constitutes a much more serious threat or our democracy than anything Russia might have tried. It amounts to an attempt by a self-appointed ruling class to wrest democracy away from the people. The people elected Trump with their eyes wide open. They knew his strengths and weaknesses. It should outrage the people that unelected bureaucrats at the FBI and Justice Department officials were thinking of ways to nullify their choice.

At any other time, the media would describe such discussions as the beginning of a coup attempt. In this case, it portrays McCabe and company as high-minded patriots. In reality, they were simply compromised figures — most of whom are now in trouble for leaking and other grossly unprofessional acts — who simply didn’t like the people’s choice.
More thoughts on the attempted coup by Mark Ellis at PJ Media, The Russia Collusion Thud Heard 'Round the World, and via the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 02.15.19, Hogewash: The Collusion Wasn’t With The Russians, and Joe For America: Stone Counterattacks Mueller In Court – Files Motion To Force Special Counsel To Prove No Collusion With CNN

Apparently, Mueller's case against Roger Stone is so weak it is threatened by Roger making comments about it near the courthouse in Washington DC: Judge gags Roger Stone from Mueller comments around D.C. courthouse.
Roger Stone remains free to talk about Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation, just not in and around the Washington, D.C., courthouse where the longtime Donald Trump associate is fighting the special counsel’s charges he lied to Congress and obstructed its Russia investigation.
. . .
She also lumped Stone in with all the parties in the case and potential witnesses when they are around the D.C. courthouse. In those circumstances, Jackson cautioned that any comments must not “pose a substantial likelihood of material prejudice to this case" and cannot be "intended to influence any juror, potential juror, judge, witness or court officer or interfere with the administration of justice.”

Jackson concluded her ruling on the gag order question with a warning that Stone should consider that any excessive public comments he makes may come back to bite him.

“While it is not up to the court to advise the defendant as to whether a succession of public statements would be in his best interest at this time, it notes that one factor that will be considered in the evaluation of any future request for relief based on pretrial publicity will be the extent to which the publicity was engendered by the defendant himself,” Jackson wrote.
That sounds unconstitutional to me. But then, I believe in free speech. CNN, Special counsel prosecutors say they have communications of Stone with WikiLeaks, which is not, in itself criminal. But let's see it.
During its investigation of the Russian hack of the Democrats, "the government obtained and executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release," the prosecutors wrote Friday to a federal judge.

"Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained Stone's communications with Guccifer 2.0 and with Organization 1," which is WikiLeaks.

Previously, the prosecutors had only outlined how Stone attempted to get in touch with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange through intermediaries. Stone sought to learn about what the hackers had stolen from the Democratic Party and how he hoped for its release so it could help Donald Trump's campaign, prosecutors have said.
CNN also reports WH press secretary Sarah Sanders interviewed by special counsel's office. Setting another perjury trap?
"The President urged me, like he has everyone in the administration, to fully cooperate with the special counsel. I was happy to voluntarily sit down with them," Sanders said in response to a question from CNN.

The interview is one of the final known interviews by Mueller's team. It was conducted late last year, around the same time as the special counsel interviewed then-White House chief of staff John Kelly, well after a number of other senior officials, including former White House communications director Hope Hicks and former press secretary Sean Spicer, were brought in for questioning.

The White House did not immediately agree to grant the special counsel an interview with Sanders, according to one of the sources. Similarly, as CNN reported in December, White House lawyers initially objected to Mueller's request to interview Kelly, who ultimately responded to a narrow set of questions from special counsel investigators.

While the substance of the interview with Sanders is unclear, one likely area of interest was how Sanders composed statements she made on the podium defending the President regarding the Russia investigation.

As Mueller wraps up his Russia probe, one focus of investigators has been conflicting public statements by President Donald Trump and his team that could be seen as an effort to obstruct justice, according to people familiar with the investigation.
More quasi-legal harassment, ABC, Trump inaugural receives civil subpoena from New Jersey State attorney general

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