More Russian Collusion Folderol

Michael Goodwin: Did Hillary Clinton pull off the dirtiest dirty trick in US presidential history? In short, yes:

There are many more layers of the onion to peel, but here’s where we are now: It increasingly appears that the Clinton machine was the secret, original source of virtually all the allegations about Trump and Russia that led to the FBI investigation.

In addition, the campaign and its associates, including Steele, were behind the explosion of anonymously sourced media reports during the fall of 2016 about that investigation.

Thus, the Democratic nominee paid for and created allegations against her Republican opponent, gave them to law enforcement, then tipped friendly media to the investigation. And it is almost certain FBI agents supporting Clinton were among the anonymous sources. In fact, the Clinton connections are so fundamental that there probably would not have been an FBI investigation without her involvement.

That makes hers a brazen work of political genius — and perhaps the dirtiest dirty trick ever played in presidential history. Following her manipulation of the party operation to thwart Bernie Sanders in the primary, Clinton is revealed as relentlessly ruthless in her quest to be president.

The only thing that went wrong is that she lost the election. And based on what we know now, her claims about Trump were false.

Of the charges against four men brought by special counsel Robert Mueller, none involves helping Russia interfere with the election.

Also from Michael Goodwin: Peeling back the layers of Hillary Clinton’s deceit

As you might expect, Glenn Kessler, the "Fact Checker" at the WaPo is having none of it. If she's not on tape doing it, it didn't happen: Did Hillary Clinton collude with the Russians to get ‘dirt’ on Trump to feed it to the FBI?

The Clinton campaign, via a law firm, did seek “dirt” on Trump and Russia. Steele did rely on Russian sources, supposedly contacts mined from his years as a spy. Steele did actively seek to draw attention to what he had found, though virtually no reporters wrote about his allegations before the election because they could not confirm them. And the FBI did use Steele’s reports to help obtain a court order allowing surveillance of a Trump associate — but that was after Page had quit the campaign.

For some, that may seem like a lot of smoke. But it’s a huge leap to say Clinton colluded with Russians to do this. Instead, you have (a) the campaign hiring (b) a research firm that hired (c) a researcher who spoke (d) to Russian sources. Steele, for his part, has suggested he tried to alert reporters and the FBI because he was appalled by what he had discovered. The closest connection to Clinton is the fact that Steele gave to the FBI material written by Clinton associates, but it’s unclear what the FBI did with that memo.
. . .
Finally, there is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele. That’s where Nunes’s claim goes off the rails — and why he earns Four Pinocchios.

CIA Ex-Director Brennan's Perjury Peril

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes next plans to investigate the role former CIA Director John Brennan and other Obama intelligence officials played in promoting the salacious and unverified Steele dossier on Donald Trump -- including whether Brennan perjured himself in public testimony about it.

In his May 2017 testimony before the intelligence panel, Brennan emphatically denied the dossier factored into the intelligence community’s publicly released conclusion last year that Russia meddled in the 2016 election "to help Trump’s chances of victory.”

Brennan also swore that he did not know who commissioned the anti-Trump research document (excerpt here), even though senior national security and counterintelligence officials at the Justice Department and FBI knew the previous year that the dossier was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
. . .
The aide, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said Nunes will focus on Brennan as well as President Obama’s first CIA director, Leon Panetta, along with the former president’s intelligence czar, James Clapper, and national security adviser, Susan Rice, and security adviser-turned U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, among other intelligence officials.

“John Brennan did more than anyone to promulgate the dirty dossier,” the investigator said. “He politicized and effectively weaponized what was false intelligence against Trump.”

Attempts to reach Brennan for comment were unsuccessful.

Several Capitol Hill sources say Brennan, a fiercely loyal Obama appointee, talked up the dossier to Democratic leaders, as well as the press, during the campaign. They say he also fed allegations about Trump-Russia contacts directly to the FBI, while pressuring the bureau to conduct an investigation of several Trump campaign figures starting in the summer of 2016.
. . .
Brennan later swore the dossier did not “in any way” factor into the CIA's assessment that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump. However, congressional investigators suggest a still-classified version of the January 2017 intelligence report contradicts his claim. Also in his May 2017 testimony, Brennan swore he had no idea who commissioned the dossier.

Jail. It couldn't happen to a more deserving fellow.

What They Will Not Tell You About 'The Memo'

What are they not telling you:

1. We are not grown up enough to know basic facts about what is a major investigation hanging over a presidential administration from Day One. Only the insiders and their favored members of the press

2. Because the press must protect the establishment they are supposed to investigate, they will not point out the obvious: if the establishment is hyperventilating over the public reading a memo crafted by members of a congressional committee responsible for oversight, then what are they really hiding?

3. The establishment is more interested in protecting itself than protecting us. The FBI and Justice Department wanted the names (ones we already know) redacted. If they did something wrong, they must be shielded from exposure to the public they are hired to protect. They will leak names about citizens charged with crimes of which they may never be convicted, but never ever leak the name of a department employee implicated.

4. They convulse about this memo destroying the reputation of the FBI and DOJ. Contrary to that thinking, it is the people named in this memo and their cohorts who are destructive to the reputation. This is very akin to Lois Lerner and her gang of criminals at the IRS who illegally thwarted organizations from forming nonprofits. The poor IRS people in the field suffered because of budget cutbacks. These good people at the IRS had their reputations impugned and their careers harmed.Just like that, the FBI agent in Fargo chasing bank criminals will be harmed by the damage done by the people in the memo. So will the U.S. Attorney in Denver. It is not the people who wrote the memo and released the info.

5. The only people talking about firing Bob Mueller are the Democrats trying to whip up a controversy over nothing. Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA) caused this recently with a false report of Trump considering firing Mueller: the purpose of which was to create a discussion over nothingness, and many Dems fell in line with a talking point about nothing. The New York Times whipped it up again to defer from the focus on the President at Davos – a story about nothing from seven months ago that had not been acted upon and to the contrary Trump had cooperated for seven months after that with Mueller.

“Attacking” The FBI Is An Unalienable American Right Likewise, the CIA, and all the other cloak and dagger agencies. They're supposed to be serving us, not controlling us. The Ruling Class Hates You:

The Strzoks and Pages, the Clintons and Obamas have all made it abundantly clear that they don’t like the America they see around them. They don’t like where it came from or the people who live here. The ruling class makes no secret of it: they hate you.

#ReleaseTheMemo Part Deux: House Intel Committee Should Do Its Job

I wrote February 2nd the Nunes memo should be released because it could encourage political transparency. I feel the same way about the Schiff memo. There’s no doubt both memos are political documents, but it’s still extremely important for the American people to see what the intelligence community is doing, even within the lens of partisanship. There’s still a certain sense of irony/ire on my part since Schiff and Nunes both approve of #FISA702, but are now arguing for transparency. If only this discussion had happened before the #FISA702 vote, and not after, but it’s government where “transparency” is a dirty word once elections are over and done with (see Georgia where the AG claimed only 260 open records requests were made last year when a lot more were made,and not included on the list). It’s beyond frustrating, and Jazz is right in declaring this entire thing is turning into a circus, instead of being something of public interest. Politics, man.

If the Schiff memo reveals sources and methods, that's on Schiff.

CIA denies report over mystery Russian who promised Trump info. Of course they do, but why would anyone take their word for it?

Why the Porter Resignation Is a Big Scandal

The resignation of White House staff secretary Rob Porter is a big scandal because Democrats and their news media are pumping it up to distract the public from the truly enormous scandal of the Obama administration's apparent illegal spying on the Trump campaign and its apparent scuttling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. There is some reason to expect that this strategy — like many another Democrat attack on Trump — is going to blow up in the attackers' faces.