Scattered Popup Russiagate

Like our weather lately, generally hot and muggy, with occasional popup thunderstorms of varying intensity:

At Red State, "shipwreckedcrew" gives play-by-play as AG Barr Does Hand-To-Hand Combat with NPR

Two days ago he sat down with NPR Morning Edition’s Steven Inskeep for a more “skeptical” session of questions and answers. NPR has now posted a transcript online of the interview.

Two observations before I get into the substance: 1) the interview shows Barr is willing to sit down and answer questions not just from a presumably “friendly” journalist, but he’s also willing to sit down and answer questions from journalist who is going to “bait” him with questions full of false premises; and 2) from the interview you can see why the House Judiciary Committee really doesn’t want AG Barr to sit in an open Committee session and be given the opportunity to lay waste to idiotic questions they think they can ambush him with.

Near the end of the interview AG Barr identifies the problems with media coverage of DOJ and his decision-making — it’s all a pre-constructed media narrative that is impervious to actual facts. The coverage tells the story that the media wants to tell, with inconvenient facts ignored, and imaginary facts made-up when necessary. It’s the quintessential “calling out” of the making of “fake news” by the media.

The transcript shows that there were in the neighborhood of 25 substantive questions/subjects put to AG Barr by Inskeep over the course of the interview. No fewer than 12 times Inskeep’s questions explicitly stated or implied that AG Barr’s actions across a variety of subjects were 1) taken at the instruction of the President, 2) done for the purpose of benefiting the President, or 3) done in a manner that would advantage the President’s interests in some way. He are a few examples of the way he framed his questions . . .

It goes on and hits a number of specific Russiagate topics, including Michael Flynn and Roger Stone. It's sad that we must consider NPR to be a wholly owned, federally funded subsidiary of the the Democratic Party. Read it all. And speaking of Gen. Barr, Mollie Hemingway at Da Fed details how CBS Deceptively Edits Barr Interview, Leaving Out Key Details On Violent Riots, Police Oversight, in other words, standard operating procedure.

From Town Hall, Peter Marshall calls Peter Strzok: The Deep State’s Worst Nightmare

It occurred to me as I looked at the chicken-scratching notes released this week that Strzok purportedly took of a January 5, 2017 White House meeting that this guy Strzok couldn’t have done more damage to the anti-Trump coup-plotters in the Obama administration if he had tried.

Exactly how Strzok came to learn the contents of this meeting is a matter of some conjecture, and curiosity, as it appears that he either attended the meeting, listened in on it, or heard a recording of it. It’s been said that then-FBI Director James Comey relayed the contents of the meeting to Strzok, but given the disjointedness of the scrawled notes, it seems odd that they were not organized in a more legible and coherent manner if Comey really told Strzok about it later.

In any event, through these notes, Peter Strzok provided the most damning documentary evidence released to date that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice and James Comey directly participated in possibly the most outrageous known act of sedition in American history, putting in motion the investigative targeting for ostensible “Russian collusion” of Donald Trump’s National Security Advisor-designate Michael Flynn using, in Obama’s words, “the right people.” And we haven’t even seen the redacted portions of that document. One can only imagine what sins lurk among the blacked-out portions of the notes.
. . .
No, I’m not really suggesting Strzok had some cunning motive to undermine Biden and his fellow coup-plotters. Frankly, Strzok wasn’t that smart, nor that patriotic. But it would make for a neat twist in our hypothetical Hollywood political thriller.

While Larry O'Connor at Town Hall calls Strzok's notes Biden's #Obamagate Smoking Gun

The note is as clear as day and can't be ambiguously interpreted or misinterpreted to throw Joe Biden a lifeline. Disgraced FBI official Peter Strzok made the notation personally and helpfully added the quotation marks so that we all know that Mr. Biden raised the issue of the arcane, unenforced, and probably unconstitutional law that was employed as a pretext to set-up, entrap and ruin Gen. Michael Flynn.

Seth Barrett Tilman compares Liberals: Then and Now

Liberals from November 2016 until June 2020: The Department of Justice enjoys independence, both legally as well as normatively, from the White House and President. The President should only supervise investigations and prosecutions at the broad policy-making level (via statutes and regulations) and by appointments in the normal course of rotation in office, through retirements and resignations. If the President wants to know the details of ongoing investigations and prosecutions, he can read about them in the newspapers like anyone else. The unitary executive theory is alien to our legal system—a phony doctrine made up by the Federalist Society.

Liberals after June 2020 Publication of the Strzok Memorandum in the Flynn Matter: Of course, the President should be apprised of the details of all ongoing investigations—even if they involve the opposition party’s candidate and his confidantes. No one is above the law! The President is supposed to comment about how to staff those investigations. And the Vice President is supposed to put forward novel legal theories (e.g., the Logan Act) in order to help the investigation/prosecution (of his future opponent). These are not disqualifying conflicts: such conflicts are built into the Constitution. The Vice President is part of the Executive Branch and has a role in active Justice Department investigations—even if that involves the opposition. The unitary executive includes the Vice President. The Unitary Executive …

To put it another way ... the active involvement of the Attorney General and Main Justice in overriding the decisions of subordinates and career civil servants is bad, particularly if all the facts are known and when it is done in public. But the Vice President’s putting forward novel legal theories to move an investigation of the opposition forward is ... perfectly normal ... especially when done in secret. Makes complete sense.

Jenny Beth Martin at Town Hall has 8 Questions Biden Must Answer. Only eight? And she doesn't even ask one about Strzok's notes.

The AP (through the Philly Inquirer) reports A key witness in the Robert Mueller report has been sentenced to 10 years on child sex charges. George Nader. I guess his answers weren't good enough to get the President impeached, which would have surely got him immunity.

WaPoo (cited in ctpost) reports that dangerous man Roger Stone ordered to report to prison July 14, as judge denies request for two-month delay. That judge really hates him and wants him to die before his appeals can be heard or Trump can pardon him.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup and linkfest.