Russiagate Rattling Along

Like an old car with a lot of loose nuts. A really disappointing batch today; what can I say, I don't make the news, I only chew it up and regurgitate it.

Nice Deb on the meeting between Democratic Congressman, and head of the Intelligence Committe, Adam Schiff and Fusion GPS boss Glenn Simpson. Collusion? Rep. Adam Schiff Met with Fusion GPS Founder Glenn Simpson in Aspen Last July

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the new House Intelligence Committee chairman, is facing calls to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after photos emerged of him at an undisclosed meeting (colluding?) with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a key figure in the Russia collusion scandal.

This comes as the Democrat-led committee is massively expanding the Russia probe to include Trump's business dealings.

The photos in question were taken at a prestigious Aspen security conference last July, The Hill's John Solomon reported. They show Schiff wearing a "sport coat and open-neck dress shirt, and Simpson wearing casual attire," according to Solomon, who has seen the pics.

Fusion GPS, which was hired on behalf of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to find dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump, has a long history of smearing Republicans for profit. In 2012, for instance, Barack Obama's presidential campaign hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, as well as his donors, to literally create an enemies list.

It's hard to keep track of all your enemies if you don't keep a good list. Ask Nixon; he missed a few. Well, snakes occasionally find themselves in the same pit. "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." John Solomon at Da Hill, Adam Schiff, Glenn Simpson and their Forrest Gump-like encounter in Aspen

When confronted with the Aspen conference photos of Schiff, in sport coat and open-neck dress shirt, and Simpson, wearing casual attire, representatives for both men tried to minimize their discussion, insisting nothing substantive about the Russia case was discussed.

“In the summer of 2018, Mr. Simpson attended a media-sponsored social event where he exchanged small talk with Rep. Schiff and many other people who were in attendance,” Fusion GPS said in a statement to me. “The conversation between the two was brief and did not cover anything substantive. There has been no subsequent contact between Mr. Simpson and Rep. Schiff.”

The congressman’s response was even more vague: “The chairman did not have any pre-planned meeting with Glenn Simpson, and any conversation with him at the Aspen conference would have been brief and social in nature,” Schiff spokesman Patrick Boland said.

Translation: This was just a Forrest Gump-like moment in which the Democrats’ chief defender of the dossier and the man whose firm produced it met serendipitously.

There is nothing illegal or technically improper about a congressman meeting, intentionally or unintentionally, with a witness in an investigation. At least not under the law or the House Intelligence Committee’s rules.

But Schiff created a far higher standard two years ago when he demanded that his Republican counterpart on the committee, then-Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), be investigated for having meetings with national security council officials at the Trump White House without telling the committee. Schiff’s attacks led Nunes to temporarily recuse himself from the Russia probe.

Schiff assailed Nunes’s contacts with a source outside the committee confines as “a dead-of-night excursion” and said it called into question the impartiality of the inquiry because the committee wasn’t informed.

“I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman,” Schiff said at the time.

If only I had a dollar for every time a Congressperson was hypocritical. Hell, even a dime!

Simpson has become a Gump-like character who keeps showing up in so many different places in the Russia scandal: He’s the owner of the company that was paid by Clinton for the Steele dossier, the guy who hired Steele to create the dossier, the one who met with Ohr at the Justice Department, who pitched reporters writing Trump dirt at the end of the campaign and who met with the Russian woman and an American lobbyist at the heart of the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.

And then, he shows up with Schiff in Aspen.

“It’s interesting that Simpson is at the heart of the dossier and the dossier played a mighty role in not only going after Carter Page but in much of Adam’s and Eric Swalwell’s [D-Calif.] quest to find collusion, that [Schiff] would in fact in that exact same conversation, or time frame, be in conversation or appear to be in conversation with the guy who’s principally responsible for the dossier,” Conaway said.

Republicans pounce! Shouldn't Adam Schiff recuse himself from Russia probe now that he's been caught hobnobbing with Fusion GPS?  (Monica Showalter, American Thinker). Polizette, Democrat Adam Schiff Is ‘Interested in Undoing the 2016 Election Results,’ Says Trey Gowdy. Now where would he get an idea like that?

Something interesting from Acting AG Whittaker's testimony that I didn't see from Sundance at CTH, Jim Jordan Questions AAG Matt Whitaker on Rosenstein Scope Memo to Robert Mueller….



According to Lyin' Andy McCabe, Rosenstein did not want to write memo justifying Comey firing – new book. Unfortunately, likely true, the DOJ and FBI guys don't seem to like to go after each other, even when they deserve it.

ABC, Ivanka Trump has "zero concern" about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.

EXCLUSIVE: Ivanka Trump has "zero concern" about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. https://t.co/U2TxvVcO42 pic.twitter.com/dk7YLRxLLz

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 9, 2019

The Guardian, Do New York prosecutors pose the greatest threat to Donald Trump? Wait, see video above, they're supposed to be investigating crimes, not people. Yeah, just kidding. Related, The Stamford Advocate has an unflattering profile of Michael Cohen, The fixer's secret agenda. Hint, the not so secret agenda is himself. That same article was in this morning's WaPoo.