Was Russiagate a Russian Op?

Rich Lowry at NYPo thinks It looks like Putin conned the FBI into the ‘Russiagate’ probe

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Russia investigation launched and conducted by James Comey’s Federal Bureau of Investigation deserves to rank as one of the agency’s great blunders — at best.

President Trump famously calls the probe a hoax, a label he uses liberally, but in this instance, it may literally be true.

We’ve spent years obsessing about Russian meddling in our politics, and now it turns out that the original FBI investigation into the Trump campaign that morphed into the Mueller probe may have been instigated, in part, by Russian disinformation.

In other words, the Kremlin may have succeeded in getting us to turn even more viciously against ourselves and conduct our politics in an atmosphere characterized by screaming headlines, dark insinuations and endless investigations — all by feeding a few lies to a private eye hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Trump.

And the people who did the most to whip up this hysteria were the same ones who professed to be most alarmed at Russia meddling.

If this was the product of a deliberate Russian intelligence operation, it has to be judged one of the most audaciously clever of all time. The operative who first conceived of it deserves high honors, indeed, is a cinch to become a Hero of the Russian Federation.

I think Comey, Brennan, Clapper and Brennan knew it was Russian BS from the get go, but didn't care because it served the end they were interested in, to get Trump. J.C. McCallum at News Thud, John Brennan Is Main Focus of Barr’s Investigation And Intel Officers Have Already Testified To Grand Jury: Report. It couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. And from Vicky Taft at PJ Media, Nunes: More Criminal Referrals Against Dems Involved in the Russia Scam May Be Coming. Faster please' time is running out. "Nunes has already made eight criminal referrals to Attorney General William Barr's office over the Trump-is-a-Russian-Secret-Agent scam."

Chuck Ross at Da Caller reports We’re Suing For A Ton Of Records From The DOJ’s FISA Abuse Report. Prepare for more delay and obfuscation. 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeks all transcripts, summaries and notes from 27 individuals interviewed as part of the inspector general’s probe, including Christopher Steele, the author of the Trump dossier, and former FBI executives like James Comey and Andrew McCabe.

Citizens United filed the lawsuit after the DOJ and IG’s office failed to provide documents within the 20-day window required under the Freedom of Information Act.

Sundance at CTH has a review article  A Common Misconception About The Origin of Spygate – Political Surveillance In The Era of President Obama…. It's older stuff, but it's worth the review to see what shenanigans the Obama administration was carrying out long before Trump was even on the horizon. No need for cast list. The players will be familiar.

Andrew Kerr at Da Caller reports Hunter Biden Still Listed As Board Member Of Chinese Company He Pledged To Resign From In October, Business Records Show. White Out supplies have apparently been affected by the Chinese Lung Aids crisis.

Hunter Biden received wall-to-wall media coverage and praise from his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, in October when he announced he would resign from the board of a Chinese private equity firm by the end of the month.
But six months after Hunter Biden pledged to relinquish his position with BHR Partners, no evidence has surfaced to prove he actually followed through on his promise.

Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in early November that his client had resigned from BHR’s board, but he did not provide any evidence of his departure from the Chinese private equity firm at the time.

Chinese business records the DCNF accessed Tuesday still name Hunter Biden as a director of BHR. He also retains a 10% equity stake in BHR through his company, Skaneateles LLC, business records for the Chinese private equity firm show.

BHR manages the equivalent of $2.1 billion in assets, according to its website. Hunter Biden has served as an unpaid member of BHR’s board since its founding in 2013, and in October 2017 he obtained his equity stake in the firm with a $420,000 investment, according to Mesires.

Hunter Biden had arranged for then-Vice President Joe Biden to shake hands with the CEO of BHR in December 2013, a meeting that caused some White House advisors to worry whether the younger Biden was exposing his father to criticism, The New Yorker reported.

From Tobias Hoohaut at NR,  Ron Johnson: Hunter Biden-Burisma Report Will Go Public ‘Sometime this Summer’

Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wisc.) revealed in an interview Monday that, despite coronavirus, his staff is working hard on a report to detail the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s investigation into Burisma and the Bidens, saying that it should be released “sometime this summer.”

“We’re in the process of writing different sections of the report that I’d like to make public sometime this summer,” Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee told Politico. “But obviously, [the coronavirus] has not been helpful and hampered our efforts.”

He added that his staff is combing over State Department documents and records from the Obama White House provided by the National Archives. “I’ve got staff that have been devoted to that and they’re working on that stuff from home,” Johnson said. “We — and I — can walk and chew gum at the same time here. This is not taking up massive amounts of staff time.”

Johnson’s probe, which has been sidelined since last month, is examining how D.C.-based consulting firm Blue Star Strategies attempted to “leverage Hunter Biden’s role as a board member of Burisma to gain access to, and potentially influence matters at, the State Department” regarding investigations into Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company whose board Hunter Biden sat on.

The investigation has been criticized by Democrats as the prduct of a partisan desire to harm Biden’s candidacy. Johnson has defended the probe on the basis of transparency, saying he intent on letting “the American people see what this possible corruption is.”

 "prduct"? WFB Jr. is rolling over in his grave.