Russiagate, Before the Snowstorm

It's supposed to snow here, starting later today, and through the night, with totals anywhere from 2-8 inches. As if Washington D.C. needed another excuse for dysfunction.

An alleged new "bombshell  from the NYT via MSN: F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it. That inquiry is part of Mr. Mueller’s broader examination of how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with them. It is unclear whether Mr. Mueller is still pursuing the counterintelligence matter, and some former law enforcement officials outside the investigation have questioned whether agents overstepped in opening it.

Sounds likes a load of self-serving crap from the deep state to me. They opened the investigation at the behest of the Clinton campaign and President Obama, using the excuse of the Steele Dossier, material purchased from the Kremlin, through Fusion GPS and Perkins Coie long before the election, let alone the firing of Comey. They may have gotten more serious and changed the name after he fired one of the major conspirators, though. Ann Althouse read the piece and excerpted: "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself, you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious..."

"... in order to weaken our ability, America’s ability and the West’s ability to spread our democratic ideals.... That’s the goal, to make us less of a moral authority to spread democratic values... With respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life."
Said Lisa Page, in private testimony to a joint House Judiciary and Oversight Committee, quoted in "F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia" (NYT).

Do you think it's true that Russia poses the most dangerous threat to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans — to our way of life?

I don't. I think we ourselves are the greatest threat.

Of course, we are always the worse threat to ourselves, but that doesn't change the fact that we have to deal with external threats as well. I don't think Russia is the greatest external threat, though, I think that has to go to China, which is far stronger, and patient, very patient. Lisa Page, and her buddies, though, should be ashamed of their contributions to Putin's goal "to make us less of a moral authority to spread democratic values."

Bryce Buchanan at the American Thinker, Hiding Evidence: The Continuing Cover-Up.

Joseph Stalin is quoted as saying, "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." It is also true that the actual evidence decides nothing. The people who control the evidence decide everything.

Knowledgeable liberals are starting to come to terms with the idea that the Mueller investigation is likely to be a bust as far as getting the goods on Trump. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air: Mother Jones: You Know This Mueller Report Could Be A Nothingburger, Right?

Yes indeed, and not just in the case where there’s nothing about Russia and collusion to report. David Corn reminds readers at Mother Jones that Robert Mueller’s operating under Department of Justice policies in discussing cases and investigations, which apply even when those cases and investigations conclude. The only report Mueller might produce is a recap of his indictments.
. . .
Mueller could choose to offer a broader report, though — akin to Ken Starr’s report covering the Monica Lewinsky affair. Don’t be so sure, Corn argues. The law under which Starr conducted his independent counsel probe allowed a great deal of latitude on such actions, but that law no longer exists. The statute under which Mueller’s special-counsel probe operates requires Mueller to follow DoJ policies and practices. And that means there may be little Mueller can say outside of indictments, or perhaps little that can be released by the Attorney General to the public or Congress
. . .
Mueller might still decide to emulate James Comey anyway and issue a detailed report that deviates far from DoJ practices. After all of the public abuse Trump has heaped on Mueller and his probe, he’ll certainly be tempted. If William Barr is Attorney General at that point, expect to see little to nothing of that in a public release. But it seems more likely that Mueller will diligently follow the DoJ’s practices and prove David Corn a prophet — and leave Democrats dealing with the collapse of expectations.

Streiff at Red State: Washington Post Destroys The Russia Facebook Story And Then Goes To Work On The Manafort Polling Fable

This is shocking. Not because of what it says…anyone with access to a calculator and a bit of commons sense has known this since November 2016…but because of where it is published. From the Washington Post: That sophisticated, specific Russian 2016 voter targeting effort doesn’t seem to exist. What he’s talking about here is that sophisticated operation that resulted in Robert Mueller’s merry band indicting three Russian companies and 13 Russian nationals. The operation that, at the cost of about $100,000, handed the election to Donald Trump and cheated Hillary Clinton of her turn.. . .

Most of the ads purchased by the Russians didn’t specify a geographic target smaller than the United States on the whole, according to a Post review of the ads released by the House Intelligence Committee. Those that did target specific states heavily targeted those that weren’t really considered targets of the 2016 election, such as Missouri and Maryland. And of those ads that did target specific states, most happened well before or well after the final weeks of the campaign.
…
More than half of the actual clicks on ads, in fact, came after the election.
…
The most successful of the ads that ran in those three states at the end of the campaign, it seems, was this one — which ran not only in Michigan, but also California, Illinois, New York and Texas.

. . . The article also takes aim at the story of Paul Manafort giving internal Trump campaign polling to his Russian partner for distribution to his Ukrainian pay masters (see here, here). Here they point out a detail that me, and just about everyone else missed.

If we’re talking about specific poll data being passed from the Trump campaign to Russia, though, the presumption is that the Russians would receive information that allowed very specific targeting of voters in places that would have had the biggest effect on the 2016 election.
There are a lot of ways in which even that broadly stated paragraph doesn’t match well with what’s known about the Manafort situation. According to the New York Times, the information passed from Manafort included some proprietary information but, for the most part, was public, obviating the need for much cloak and dagger. The data was passed to Manafort’s colleague Konstantin Kilimnik in the spring of 2016, before Trump had been nominated by the Republican Party. It’s data that, by Election Day, would be several months out of date.

Now that we’ve ruled out the impact of Russia media purchases on the 2016 election, what the hell is Mueller actually looking at? And why, if the Washington Post can do this analysis, hasn’t Mueller announced it, too?

Sidney Powell, Former Federal Prosecutor, at Da Caller: How Did The Wife Of A Mueller Protege End Up Hearing Mueller’s Case?

Would it surprise you to learn that the judge presiding over a case of Robert Mueller’s is married to a Mueller protege?

When Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted Concord, a Russian company that didn’t even exist, it landed on District of Columbia Judge Dabney Friedrich’s docket.

At first, it appeared as though Friedrich had a handle on the malarkey taking place. At the initial hearings, she denied the special counsel’s request to delay everything. She rightfully questioned the validity of the charges — especially the unprecedented charge of “conspiracy against the United States.”

As many noted, the Mueller squad did not anticipate that any of the Russian entities it indicted would appear to contest anything. Rather, the indictment was a publicity stunt to justify the existence of the “insurance policy” that is the entire special counsel prosecution — premised on what Comey has admitted was a big lie from its inception.
. . .
Judge Dabney Langhorne Friedrich is none other than the wife of Matthew Friedrich, one of the three villains in my book. Matthew Friedrich is a longtime friend and colleague of Andrew Weissmann and Robert Mueller. They bonded on the Enron Task Force — what one writer, Mary Jacoby, wife of Fusion GPS’ Glenn Simpson, long ago called “the glue that binds.”

Judge Dabney Langhorne Friedrich, from a Virginia blue-blood family, has been appointed to various positions by presidents Bush and Obama — the uni-party. Unfortunately, no one informed President Trump of her full background, and he appointed her to the federal bench.

Like Weissmann, Mueller had a hand in picking Matthew Friedrich for the notorious Enron Task Force, where they quickly destroyed Arthur Andersen LLP, the venerable accounting firm, and its 85,000 jobs all for nothing. The Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Andersen conviction two years later. These prosecutors were so overreaching that courts even had to allow people to withdraw guilty pleas.
. . .
Weissmann, Friedrich, Mueller are the deep state. Mueller is the “insurance policy” of which Strzok, Page and McCabe wrote.

Deep down in the corridors of power, Washington D.C. is a small, incestuous place, full of nepotism and corruption. And Jeff Sessions removed himself for conflict of interest because he met with a Russian ambassador while he was a Senator.

Debra Heine, PJ Media, Former Obama Tech Guy Was Behind 2018 Midterm Disinformation Campaign on Facebook and Fusion GPS-Linked Group Funded by Soros Worked with Tech Firm Behind Russian False Flag Against Roy Moore. See, it's a small, corrupt place. Ace: Oh, What a Surprise: The "Cybersecurity" Firm That Ran the False-Flag Fake "Russian Bots" to Interfere in the Alabama Senate Election Has Links to... Fusion GPS I think this weird feeling that I'm feeling is the feeling of "seeing a pattern."

I wonder if the new House Foreign Affairs Committee will be investigating this Interference in Our Precious Democracy, or if our democracy isn't so precious when Democrat hit-men are assassinating it.

Investigating it? Hell no, they'll be shoveling  horseshit on it to convince us there's a pony in there somewhere.