Rage Against the Russiagate Machine

Jonathon Turley at the Hill thinks that If Rod Rosenstein feels conflicted, he should simply recuse himself. clearly, though, Rosenstein thinks he is too important to abide by the conflict of interest rules.

The Washington Examiner reports on how Devin Nunes refers 17 DOJ, FBI officials to Trey Gowdy, Bob Goodlatte to grill on surveillance abuse, while Breitbart notes that 10 of them are Obama Holderovers, who should have been evicted a long time ago.

The list includes a number of U.S. officials who were working at the U.S. Embassy in London, where the alleged conversation between Australian diplomat Alexander Downer and then-Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in May 2016 was reported.

Interviews with those officials could reveal whether the FBI lied when it said it began investigating the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016, after it received information from Downer after stolen Democratic National Committee emails were published on July 22, 2016.

Leaks to the New York Times and the Washington Post earlier this year revealed that an FBI and CIA informant, Stefan Halper, reached out to then-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page as early as June 2016 — revealing that the FBI may have actually started its investigation of the Trump campaign much earlier than stated.

Kathryn Blackhurst at LifeZette: Schiff and Dems ‘Have All This Blood on Their Hands,’ Nunes Says. Metaphorical blood. I agree with his point, but at this point, he might consider toning down the rhetoric.

Democrats “have all this blood on their hands” because they “completely destroyed the FBI and DOJ” by digging up dirt on President Donald Trump in 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s favor, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said Monday on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“They’re the ones that have all this blood on their hands. They’re the ones who completely destroyed the FBI and DOJ,” Nunes insisted. “How did they do that? They did that by digging up dirt — the Clinton campaign dug up dirt, put it into a dossier, fed it into the FBI. The FBI used our counterintelligence capabilities against a political campaign. That’s what happened here.”

Allahpundit: Sore loserman Romney: The Russiagate Probe Is “Totally Appropriate” And I’m Not Sure Who I’ll Vote For In 2020. It won't be Romney; he had his chance, and he was way too nice.

Adam Mill at the Federalist: A Factual Comparison Of Watergate And Russiagate Shows They’re Mirror Opposites. A series of contrasts in a history lesson.

Contrast 1: The Apprehension of the Burglars - In the Watergate scandal, the burglars were discovered by a hotel security guard and arrested by local police on the very first day of the scandal. On day 90 of the Watergate scandal, a grand jury indicted the Watergate burglars plus G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, two of the break-in organizers.

In contrast, the 2016 DNC cyber burglars, whoever they are, have never been arrested or indicted. In fact, the DNC has refused to allow law enforcement to inspect the crime scene—i.e., the server itself. The conclusion that Russians hacked the DNC server relies solely upon the opinion of DNC-funded Crowdstrike, a firm hired by Perkins Coie, which also hired Hillary Clinton- and DNC-funded Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. . . .

George Newmayr at the American Spectator on Mueller’s Kafkaesque Probe - As the Michael Cohen frenzy underscores, this is a “collusion” investigation that has nothing to do with collusion.

The chattering class’s frenzied discussion of the Mueller probe is like listening to George Carlin’s old parody advertisement in which he gushes over a product that he never bothers to identify: “Get one now! Everybody has one! They’re almost gone! They’re portable, lightweight, easy to use, collapsible, convenient and guaranteed! Get one now! The new Super Jumbo Deluxe! Handy, pre-wrapped, designer colors and available in all sizes! Get one now! They won’t rust, tarnish, blister, crack or peel but they might kill you.”

Turn on the television at any hour and the gibbering about the Mueller probe takes on that tone: endless talk about people “flipping” and so on but without any relationship to the mandate of Mueller’s probe. Mueller was supposedly completing a counterintelligence investigation. But almost everything we hear about it pertains to something else. His “collusion” probe is looking at everything but collusion.
. . .
Through ruthless, abusive, and absurdly open-ended prosecution, Mueller has grabbed people within Trump’s orbit and made them political problems. But that’s all they are. This is just power politics, and it can only work if a president slinks away. Trump won’t. He is nothing if not an effective vanquisher of political mobs. Against an unelected mandarin like Mueller, who has already worn out his welcome in the eyes of much of the public for conducting a proxy coup on behalf of official Washington, Trump just finds himself in one more political fight, perhaps trickier than the others, but one he will still win. Whatever embarrassments irrelevant to his mandate that Mueller tries to dress up as impeachable offenses in the final report, it will be seen by at least half the country for what it is: a partisan railroading straight out of a Franz Kafka novel.

ABC Exclusive by George Stuffinevnelopes: Michael Cohen says family and country, not President Trump, is his 'first loyalty'. I don't believe that country business for a moment. Family first, then money maybe. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Warning Shot From Cohen: “I Will Not Be A Punching Bag As Part Of Anyone’s Defense Strategy”

Perhaps more ominously for Trump, Cohen has stopped publicly claiming that the payment to Stormy Daniels was his idea alone. In fact, he’s stopped answering the question altogether, although he tells Stephanopoulos that “I want to answer.” His attorneys have advised him to stop talking about the case, Cohen explained, and so he’s not commenting at all. Given that the heart of any case against Cohen relates directly to this point, one can understand why his attorneys want him to keep quiet about it. If Cohen’s ready to cut a deal on this issue, it could get very unpleasant for Trump, although the failed prosecution of John Edwards for a similar set of circumstances calls into question just how unpleasant it could possibly get.

But it's different because a Republican did it! I want to know why Mueller's crowd isn't going after Stormy Daniels for blackmail, since that's exactly what she's doing. Prosecution porn: Prosecutors Now Have 1.3 Million Michael Cohen Files. They like collecting other people's dirty laundry.

Andrew Harris at Bloomberg: Paul Manafort's Lawyers Want to Know Where Jurors Get Their News. Disqualify them if they get their news from biased sources like CBS, NBC, ABC, Shep Smith, NPR, WaPo or NYT. Speaking of "fake news" Brian Ross is leaving ABC after botched Michael Flynn report

ABC News’ Brian Ross — who was suspended last year as chief investigative correspondent for a faulty report on Michael Flynn — is leaving the network, Page Six has exclusively learned.

ABC suspended Ross last December for a month without pay for a botched report on ousted White House national security adviser Flynn that reported President Trump directed Flynn to make contact with Russian officials. The mistake even sent stocks tumbling, and ABC issued an apology saying: “We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error.”

Brian Ross was also the culprit when ABC misidentified the Aurora shooter as a Tea Party member. He will not be missed.

Deborah C. Tyler at the American Thinker thinks IG Horowitz Overlooks the Improper Consideration Called Hate

Historians will note that DOJ vs. the Constitutional Presidency has had at least three sordid phases. The first was the DOJ crime wave necessary to protect and exonerate the corrupt, conspiratorial Democrat candidate while sabotaging, booby-trapping, and illegally surveilling the Republican candidate's campaign. The second was using the power of the DOJ to conspire with other departments and private actors to manufacture and plant evidence first of the non-crime of collusion, then of anything else that could possibly be used to impeach the president. The third wave, which is just heating up in its second year, is to use the unlimited, extra-constitutional powers of a special prosecutor to selectively investigate, terrorize, persecute, imprison, and destroy the family, employees, and associates of the president.

Mr. Horowitz has fulfilled the task of cataloging about 10% of the crimes and irregularities committed during phase one. His job was to waste a lot of time, run everything past his DOJ compatriots, repackage what everybody already knew: the DOJ from Attorney General Lynch on down criminally conspired to protect Hillary Clinton while trying to destroy the Trump candidacy, based in their fear and hatred. He had to do this in a manner to ensure that no one would be held criminally responsible. Then he had to play footsies under the table with Director Wray for a few afternoons.

Now I.G. Horowitz is going to take another year to investigate the open secrets of illegally obtained FISA warrants. That takes care of another maybe 3 to 5% of DOJ vs. the Constitutional Presidency. It is certain that Mr. Horowitz's next opus will again find no evidence of improper considerations. What remains to be seen is if anyone will bother to read it.

Wombat-socho was a day late with "Rule 5 Sunday: Crystal Hefner" and "FMJRA 2.0: Day Late & A Dollar Short With Astrix."