Blowing the Whistle on Russiagate

Last night, Ace reminded me of one article I gave short shrift to in yesterdays blizzard post with Judicial Watch FOIA's Documents Which May Prove That Felix Sater Was/Is an Agent Provocateur Recruited by Andrew Weisman and Tasked With Attempting to Entrap Trump Into Traveling to Russia to Make a Business Deal

If there's no evidence for a crime that Empress Hillary needs to exist, just invent the evidence.

Sater reportedly "began working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1998, after he was caught in a stock-fraud scheme." It was Andrew Weissmann who, as supervising assistant U.S. attorney, signed the agreement that brought Sater on as a government informant. Federal prosecutors wrote a letter to Sater's sentencing judge on August 27, 2009, in an effort to get him a lighter sentence: "Sater's cooperation was of a depth and breadth rarely seen."
Sater also was reportedly a CIA informant in the mid-2000s for the CIA during his undercover work with Russian military and intelligence officers.
...
The Mueller report mentions Sater more than 100 times but fails to mention that he was an active undercover informant for the FBI/CIA for more than two decades.
...
Beginning in late 2015, Sater repeatedly tried to arrange for [Trump attorney Michael] Cohen and candidate Trump, as representatives of the Trump Organization, to travel to Russia to meet with Russian government officials and possible financing partners.
Though his proposal appears to have been rejected by the Trump campaign, Sater persisted. "Into the spring of 2016," the Mueller Report notes, "Sater and Cohen continued to discuss a trip to Moscow." Sater emails Cohen that he is trying to arrange a meeting between "the 2 big guys," Putin and Trump.
Sater’s re-emergence "suggests the possibility of a more sinister counter-narrative: that someone may have been trying to lure Trump into a trap--a politically damaging entanglement with Moscow money," Morrison wrote.

Let that one sink in a minute. An active FBI/CIA asset working with Andrew Weissman long before the Special Counsel and the Russiagate scandel began, was apparently trying to push Trump into business deals with Russia and Putin in an attempt to "dirty him up."

From WaEx, Justice Dept. IG referred James Comey for criminal prosecution

Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said Wednesday that he referred former FBI Director James B. Comey for criminal prosecution this year after concluding he leaked sensitive materials to a friend. And the Justice Department watchdog told Congress he would “assess” Republican allegations of inconsistent statements in Mr. Comey’s testimony before the Senate.

Mr. Horowitz’s disclosure that he made the criminal referral marks his first public statement about the criticism lodged against Mr. Comey in a report released last summer. He told lawmakers it is standard practice to make a criminal referral when wrongdoing is suspected.

“We are required by the [Inspector General] Act to send information that we’ve identified that could plausibly be criminal to the Department of Justice,” Mr. Horowitz said.

The Justice Department ultimately decided not to prosecute Mr. Comey despite the conclusion by Mr. Horowitz’s team that he improperly leaked information to the news media. The documents leaked by Mr. Comey were sensitive but not classified.

Ace, Mark Meadows: Comey Told Conflicting Stories to Congress and the AG. We Need a Criminal Referral to Find Out Who He Lied To. But, lawyers gonna lawyer. Patterico goes apeshit over  Mark Meadows: James Comey Was Totally Trying to Hide This Thing He Testified to Under Oath!!!!11!1!

In context, Comey is being asked whether, as the Director of the FBI, he initiated an obstruction of justice investigation based on the President’s comments to the effect that he hoped that Comey would drop the investigation of his former campaign advisor and national security advisor.

And Mark Meadows is trying to say that Comey lied, because as a private citizen he leaked a memo with the hope that it would spur the appointment of a special counsel to investigate obstruction of justice. Which Comey acknowledged in testimony in December 2018.

Meadows’s accusation is reckless, it’s uninformed, and it’s also a word we don’t use in polite company that people used to use to refer to the intellectually disabled. (Some people still do, and some presidential candidates think it’s pretty darned funny.)

As a private citizen, Comey was using documents stolen from the FBI to "spur the appointment of a special counsel to investigate obstruction of justice." The ongoing investigation initiated by McCabe, under Comey as FBI director, sought to find anything and everything on Trump, and weren't above planting spies to initiate things.

And speaking of McCabe, from Capt. Ed at Hot Air, McCabe Defense: Barr Would Have To Apply Double Standard To Prosecute Me While Letting Trump Off The Hook. Basically admitting guilt, and using the "all the other kids do it too" defense.

Clever. Not entirely bulletproof legally, but politically this argument from Andrew McCabe’s legal team is brilliant. If Donald Trump didn’t get prosecuted over obstruction detailed in the Mueller report because there was no underlying crime, as Josh Gerstein reports on their coming argument, how can William Barr’s Department of Justice go after him?

Not even nerf ball proof. McCabe is accused of lying to FBI. While I agree that should not be a lie to the FBI and DOJ, it is, as Michael Flynn can attest.

Chuck Ross at Da Caller,  DOJ Inspector General Says Democrats Haven’t Reached Out About FISA Abuse Hearing. Don't turn on the lights 'cause they don't want to see.

OK, just a couple more Lewandowski articles, one from Jeff Lord at AmSpec, Corey Lewandowski’s Home Run - Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee Democrats humiliated and one from AllahPundit at Hot Air, House Dems Weighing Contempt Charge Against Corey Lewandowski Over Tuesday’s Hearing.

VDH at PJ Media, Trump's Total Culture War

In 2016 and early 2017, Barack Obama appointees in the FBI, CIA and Department of Justice tried to subvert the Trump campaign, interfere with his transition and, ultimately, abort his presidency. Now, congressional Democrats promise impeachment before the 2020 election.

The usual reason for such hatred is said to be Trump's unorthodox and combative take-no-prisoners style. Critics detest his crude and unfettered assertions, his lack of prior military or political experience, his attacks on the so-called bipartisan administrative state, and his intent to roll back the entire Obama-era effort of "fundamentally transforming" the country leftward.

Certainly, Trump's agenda of closing the border, using tariffs to overturn a half-century of Chinese mercantilism, and pulling back from optional overseas military interventions variously offends both Democrats and establishment Republicans.

Trump periodically and mercurially fires his top officials. He apparently does not care whether the departed write damning memoirs or join his opposition. He will soon appoint his fourth national security adviser within just three years.

To make things worse for his critics, Trump's economy is booming as never before in the new 21st century: near-record-low unemployment, a record number of Americans working, increases in workers' wages and family incomes, low interest rates, low inflation, steady GDP growth and a strong stock market.

Yet the real source of Trump derangement syndrome is his desire to wage a multifront pushback -- politically, socially, economically and culturally -- against what might be called the elite postmodern progressive world.

And I was preparing to dive into the scandel du jour, but Stacy McCain did it for me in The ‘Whitleblower’ Is the Deep State Interfering in Trump’s Ukraine Policy

When the Washington Post started reporting about a “whistleblower” complaint about President Trump’s conversation with an unspecified “foreign leader,” speculation ran wild as to what it meant. But as Allahpundit at Hot Air figured out, it’s about Trump’s effort to get Ukraine to investigate corruption involving Joe Biden’s son. As part of that effort, apparently, Trump played hardball, conveying that U.S. military aid to Ukraine would be dependent on their cooperation.

And the correct response is, “So?” Is it the position of Democrats and their media allies that the apparently corrupt dealings of Joe Biden’s son in Ukraine should not be investigated? And as has been noted, Russia wasn’t the only foreign government “meddling” in the 2016 election — Ukraine did it, too. So if the Biden-Ukraine scandal is connected to that “meddling,” isn’t it logical that Trump would want Ukraine to investigate it? He’s the President of the United States, after all, and this investigation involves American interests, which he is sworn to protect.

This is not a scandal:

Both The Washington Post and The New York Times report that an intelligence official who worked in the White House filed the complaint Aug. 12 after growing alarmed about the details of a phone call that President Donald Trump had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing two people familiar with the matter.
Trump and Zelensky, who took office in May, spoke by phone July 25. The Ukrainian government released a read-out of the phone call that said the two leaders spoke about corruption investigations “that have hampered interaction between Ukraine and the USA.” . . .
Details of the complaint have spilled into public view following a tense battle between House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence.
Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community inspector general (ICIG), sent Schiff letters this month making it clear that he disagreed with Maguire’s decision not to turn the whistleblower complaint over to Congress. Atkinson said he found the complaint credible and “urgent,” a threshold that requires the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to sent an intelligence community whistleblower complaint to Congress.
But Maguire, with guidance from the Justice Department, declined to turn over the complaint, saying it involved privileged communications.
Rudy Giuliani has admitted that he acted as Trump’s representative in discussions with Ukrainian officials. Again, the question is, “So?”

Only in the minds of Democrats, for whom everything Trump does is scandalous, is this considered a scandal. And it is apparent that this “whistleblower” is a Democrat operative embedded in our intelligence bureaucracy, a perfect example of the “Deep State” problem that Trump’s supporters have been talking about for three years. The bureaucrats seem to believe that they should have more influence on U.S. policy than the President himself, if the President doesn’t share their worldview.

Related links:

Acting DNI Joseph Maguire Refuses Adam Schiff's Subpoena - PJ Media

Trump’s communications with foreign leader are part of whistleblower complaint that spurred standoff between spy chief and Congress, former officials say - The Washington Post

Whistleblower complaint about President Trump involves Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter- MSN

Whistleblower complaint about President Trump involves Ukraine, according to two people familiar with the matter - The Washington Post