Russiagate: Did Rod Reconnoiter Sheryl for Clinton?

We're opening a new can of worms today. Sheryl Attkisson, a former CBS reporter, now with Fox, has long accused the government of conducting a surreptitious electronic surveillance program on her. Frankly, I thought it sounded ridiculous, even a bit paranoid, but apparently even paranoids have real enemies, and they may include Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller. Horrifying, if true. Nice Deb at AmGreat, New Lawsuit Claims Rod Rosenstein Led Task Force that Spied on Sharyl Attkisson’s Computers. Attkisson apparently has a source inside the FBI giving her the scoop.

In a federal lawsuit filed this week, Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein has been implicated in yet another improper government spy operation. In the new complaint, Attkisson v. Rosenstein et.al., investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson names former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein and four other Justice Department officials as the government agents who of illegally survielled her electronic devices.

According to the complaint—filed in United States District Court in Baltimore, Maryland—Rosenstein led “a multi-agency task force in Baltimore that conducted surveillance of the Attkissons’ computer systems” and “used USPS IP addresses on other occasions to conduct operations.”

The complaint states that all of the defendants “were agents and/or employees of the United States Government working with Rosenstein”  to conduct “the unlawful surveillance and hacking of the computer systems of the Plaintiffs.”
. . .
In a comprehensive summary of the case at sharylattkisson.com, the reporter alleges that the intrusions began in 2011 while she was reporting at CBS on the massive government gunwalking scandal “Fast and Furious.” The government continued to spy on her computers while she was reporting on the Benghazi scandal.

Multiple forensic exams show that numerous electronic devices used by Attkisson and her family during this time frame were hacked or remotely compromised. Unauthorized parties used government Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to access Attkisson’s computers; placed government surveillance spyware on her devices; and illegally accessed her professional and personal information over an extended period of time.

The summary states that in March of 2019, an appellate panel of three judges determined the former Attorney General Eric Holder had immunity from Attkisson’s claims.

Two of the three judges ruled Attkisson’s claims should be dismissed because she took too long, three years— and without success—to determine the names of the “John Doe” federal agents involved in the intrusions of her computers.
A third judge rightly dissented, understanding that Attkisson consistently attempted to identify the John Does but the Department of Justice continuously blocked discovery, filed protective orders and filed motions to dismiss in an attempt to obstruct. The government did not turn over a single piece of paper in response to more than a dozen subpoenas.
The dissenting judge called the government’s actions “Kafkaesque” for obstructing Attkisson and then blaming her for “taking too long.”

“We have just filed a new complaint which I hope satisfies one of the issues a judge had that we’ve not been able to name the actual names of the government agents involved in the intrusion,” Attkison announced in her video. “Of course we argued we could not name the names because the government and courts would not permit us discovery to learn the names!”

She added: “We did some additional detective work. We have five names to present to the court—names based on our information that were directly involved in the surveillance of my computers. One of them is Rod Rosenstein, then U.S. Attorney in Baltimore, a former Department of Justice official.”
. . .
Besides Rosenstein, the other defendants named in the complaint are Shawn Henry, Sean Wesley Bridges, Robert Clarke, and Ryan White.

In 2010, then FBI Director Robert Mueller named Shawn Henry as the executive assistant director (EAD) of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch (CCRSB).

Henry left the FBI in 2012 and now is president of CrowdStrike Services, the cybersecurity firm hired by Democratic National Committee to examine its computer network in 2016 after it had been hacked. Crowdstrike ultimately determined Russia had hacked the DNC emails.

"Fmr. govt. agent admits illegally spying on Attkisson, implicates Rosenstein & colleagues."
"Fmr. FBI Unit Chief confirms he initiated forensics that proved govt. computer intrusion."
More at https://t.co/3duSZQk8eO@TheJusticeDept @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/FQwxpFdkhN pic.twitter.com/dDZQDgkXFp

— Sharyl Attkisson🕵️‍♂️ (@SharylAttkisson) January 9, 2020

And Sheryl has some backing as a Republican congressman backs her up. Paula Bedard, WaEx,  Justice, FBI pressed on Obama hacking allegations against Benghazi reporter

A key Republican Senate chairman is demanding answers from the Justice Department and FBI on whether Obama-era officials secretly accessed the phones and computers of a reporter probing the “Fast and Furious” scandal and debacle in Benghazi, Libya.

In going to bat for award-winning investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson, Sen. Ron Johnson is reopening a case that prompted a federal judge to hit the government for stalling.

In his letter to Justice and the FBI, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said that “documented abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court applications” by the FBI in the Russia probe of President Trump raise new suspicions in the Attkisson case.

“I am especially concerned about these unresolved questions regarding the alleged surveillance of Ms. Attkisson,” said the Wisconsin lawmaker of the former CBS investigative reporter, now on Sinclair and host of the Full Measure show.

But don't you dare call it spying. Ace, New Sharyl Attkisson Lawsuit Over Alleged Government Spying Names Rod Rosenstein and Four Others As Involved in the Hacking

Margot Cleveland is still on the case of Stefan Halper, New Details About Meeting FBI Source Suggest Carter Page Was Set Up. She might want to get her computer checked for bugs too.

Yesterday’s exclusive at The Federalist, revealing that Carter Page first met Stefan Halper at a small dinner at Magdalene College in Cambridge, triggered an immediate response from Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian-born British citizen who sued Halper last year for defamation for branding her a Russian spy.

Magdalene College was Halper’s college, Lokhova tweeted, adding that he held a lifetime fellowship there.

This added detail raises even more questions concerning the mid-July encounter between Halper and then-Donald Trump campaign advisor Page, given what we now know from Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s investigation into the four Page Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications. We know from Horowitz’s report that the FBI tasked Halper, identified solely as Source 2, to target Page, campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, and a high-level Trump campaign member, Sam Clovis. And we know the IG’s report concluded that the FBI had not used any confidential human sources prior to the July 31, 2016, launch of Crossfire Hurricane.

These facts made Halper’s mid-July encounter with Page at a conference in the United Kingdom suspicious. The added fact that Halper met Page not during the conference proper, but at a small dinner gathering to kick off the conference, seemed even more suspect. Now that we know Halper wasn’t a mere fellow dinner guest at the gathering but was instead sitting abreast the table at his own college, it screams “set-up.”

PJ Media's Michael van der Galien calls DOJs Flynn sentencing recommendation Shameful: Prosecutors Demand Jail Time for General Mike Flynn. Trump should pardon him now and save everyone the trouble.

And the mighty Casey Huber has struck out (sundance, CTH) Report: John Huber Completes Review of Clinton Foundation and Uranium One, Finds Nothing… I think past performance indicates that even DOJ IGs and special prosecutors give government people way too much benefit of the doubt.

Hunter Biden, sigh. Ace, Judge Rules That Hunter Biden Is "Biological and Legal Father" of Stripper's Lovechild "Or, as CNN would say: Hunter Biden recognized for work with unwed mother." Stacy McCain, The Biden Legacy

When he wasn’t working tirelessly for the Ukrainian natural gas industry, Joe Biden’s son kept busy with cocaine and strippers:

Hunter Biden, the son of presidential candidate Joe Biden, is the “biological and legal father” of a child he fathered with an ex-stripper, an Arkansas judge ruled Tuesday, contradicting the younger Biden’s previous denials that he had any role in the pregnancy.
In an order establishing paternity, Independence County, Ark., Circuit Judge Holly Meyer noted that the results of DNA tests indicated Biden was the father “with near scientific certainty,” and instructed the Arkansas Department of Health to issue a birth certificate listing Biden as the father of 29-year-old Lunden Alexis Roberts‘ child.
Roberts, who The New York Post reported was a stripper at a Washington, D.C., club that Biden patronized, received “primary physical and legal custody” of the child. In previous filings, Roberts told the court that Hunter Biden “had no involvement in the child’s life since the child’s birth, never interacted with the child, never parented the child,” and “could not identify the child out of a photo lineup.”

Never name your daughter “Alexis.” Or “Crystal.” There are certain names that almost 100% guarantee a girl will end up as a stripper. But let’s get a little more background on Hunter’s baby mama:

The woman suing Hunter Biden for paternity was a stripper at a Washington, DC, club he frequented around the time he was dating his brother’s widow, sources told The Post.
Biden was repeatedly seen at the Mpire Club in the capital’s historic Dupont Circle neighborhood — where Lunden Alexis Roberts, the mother of his alleged love child, worked under the stage name “Dallas,” the sources said. . . .
Roberts worked there around the time she got pregnant — and when Hunter broke up with former sister-in-law Hallie Biden, the widow of his brother, the late Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, sources said. . . .

(You may have forgotten that Hunter banged his dead brother’s widow, but I think it’s important to remind you. The Iowa caucus is Feb. 3.)

The Mpire Club is about three blocks north of another DC strip joint, Archibald’s Gentlemen’s Club, where The Post previously revealed that workers suspected Hunter, who has a history of alcoholism and addiction, of smoking crack in a VIP room in late 2018.

(Smoking crack in a strip club — classy.)

In a New Yorker profile published on July 1, Hunter claimed he hadn’t been to a strip club in years before Page Six exclusively revealed his relationship with Hallie and details of a divorce filing against him by then-wife Kathleen Biden.
After the expose was published on March 1, 2017, Hunter said, “I went directly to a strip club. I said, ‘F–k them,’” according to the New Yorker.
That incident at Archibald’s — which came after Hunter’s most-recent admitted drug use, a crack binge during the fall of 2016 — occurred while he sat on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas-company Burisma. . . .
Robert’s former co-workers had only good things to say about the single mom, who’s a native of rural Batesville, Arkansas.
“She was really sweet,” the bartender said. . . .
Roberts graduated from Arkansas State University in 2014 and enrolled at George Washington University in DC to pursue a certificate program in Forensic Investigation.
She attended classes during the summer and fall semesters of 2015 but did not graduate, a university spokesman said.
Her mom, Kimberly Joan Roberts, was apparently unaware that her daughter had dropped out. On March 5, 2017, the mom told a friend on Facebook that her daughter “is in DC getting her masters in FBI CSI working for the FBI and CSI also.”

Getting her master’s and working for the FBI? No, ma’am, she’s shaking her money-maker naked on stage and getting knocked up by a crackhead. But there are worse crackheads in D.C. she could have gotten knocked up by, so the folks back in Batesville (population 10,268) might agree that she has done better than we’d expect of a girl named “Alexis.”

So how's that Shampeachment going Nancy? Apparently the constipation is on the verge of breaking loose. Sundance at CTH, Nancy Pelosi Says She’s Not Withholding Articles of Impeachment “Indefinitely”…, because she's getting heat from her own side, as well as Republicans. Breitbart, Feinstein Rips Pelosi for Holding Impeachment Articles: ‘I Don’t See What Good Delay Does’, AllahPundit, Hot Air, Top House Dem: It’s Time To Send Over The Articles Of Impeachment. Wait, Forget What I Just Said. Rusty Weiss and Jeff Dunetz at Da Lid, Democrats Are Starting To Defect From Pelosi Impeachment Charade "Pelosi got the idea to hold up the articles of impeachment from CNN" I thought sundance said it was the Lawfare folks. Maybe they gave it to CNN. News Thud, CNN: Pelosi “losing members of her own party” with impeachment delays



Liz Cheney says ‘Speaker Pelosi Is An Embarrassment And Unfit For Office’ (Da Caller), not that that's really unusual in Congress. Scott Jennings at CNN thinks McConnell just ate Pelosi and Schumer's lunch and from Joradain Carney on Da Hill, McConnell backs measure to change Senate rules, dismiss impeachment without articles. Threatening to go nuclear? Why not?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is backing a resolution to change the Senate’s rules to allow for lawmakers to dismiss articles of impeachment against President Trump before the House sends them over.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced on Thursday that McConnell has signed on as a co-sponsor to the resolution, which he introduced earlier this week.

Spokesmen for McConnell didn't immediately respond to a request for comment about his support.

Changing the rules would either require a two-thirds vote or for Republicans to deploy the "nuclear" option.

The resolution would give the House 25 days to send articles of impeachment over to the Senate. After that, a senator could offer a motion to dismiss "with prejudice for failure by the House of Representatives to prosecute such articles" with a simple majority vote, according to Hawley's proposal.

Nathaniel Blake at DaFed explains how ‘Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself’ Explains Why Trump’s Impeachment Is A Sham

There is a simple reason President Donald Trump should not have been impeached by the House, and the Senate should acquit him: Epstein didn’t kill himself.

In writing this, I don’t mean I am convinced that the billionaire child sex-abuser was murdered by one of his many wealthy and powerful acquaintances to keep him quiet — although I wouldn’t rule that out. Rather, I mean it in the sense in which “Epstein didn’t kill himself” has become a pervasive cultural meme, as a general assertion of cynicism regarding the incompetence and moral degeneracy of our elites, which has produced a crisis of credibility for our leaders and institutions.
. . .
There is a spectacular absence of moral authority by which to condemn Trump, whether for the specifics of the impeachment charges or for his more general failings. This impeachment seems not to be about defending morality, democratic norms, or the Constitution so much as an ordinary power struggle, a suspicion Democrats confirmed by their gamesmanship in delaying sending the charges to the Senate.

At Hot Air, AllahPundit whines Trump Hints: We’ll Stop Bolton From Testifying At The Impeachment Trial. I'd like to hear from Bolton, but at the same time, I think conversations between a President and his advisers should be sacrosanct. If not, let's demand Eric Holder show up and answer questions about "fast and furious."

Fox News reports Dr. Drew says he might challenge Adam Schiff for congressional seat.

Addiction expert and reality show star Dr. Drew Pinsky is reportedly mulling a congressional run and is considering mounting a bid against his current congressman, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.

Pinsky, who has been an outspoken commentator on homelessness and the opioid crisis, told The Hill that seeing the impeachment hearings on television increased his desire to get involved in the political process.

“I was watching all the impeachment proceedings and I was going, ‘Oh my God, our Congress is tied up and we’re dying out here in California. What are these people doing?’ ”

Pinsky, 61, lamented the lack of action from Schiff, specifically with regard to the issue of homelessness in the state of California.

“I wake up every day and drive through this town and I am morally moved where I feel like I have to do something," he said. “We have people literally dying in our streets."

He'll run as a Democrat, but at least from what I've seen on TV, he's not bat-shit insane; that would be an improvement.