Russiagate: Sally Yates Testifies

And sundance, as usual provides the video.  Sally Yates Testifies to Senate Judiciary – Main Justice Deflects, Pointing Fingers At FBI… It's long, but I sat through, well, most of it, yesterday:



Lindsey did a pretty decent job of being polite, and making sure it wasn't all just unanswered accusations the way Jabba the Hut did to Bill Barr on the House side. She's a smart lawyer, so she wasn't thrown off her message very much:  What Flynn did was wrong (never ask why) and Bill Bar is interfering to let him off. She did pretty much lay the blame for any irregularities in the investigation of on Jim Comey. Matt Margolis,  PJ Media,  Sally Yates Says Comey Went 'Rogue' with Michael Flynn Interview

“I was upset that Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally,” Yates said in response to a question from committee chairman Senator Lindsay Graham.

“Did Comey go rogue?” Graham asked.

“You could use that term, yes,” Yates replied

Yates was also unaware that Michael Flynn was being wiretapped, only learning about it after a now-infamous January 5, 2017, briefing in the Oval Office about Russian election interference with FBI Director James Comey, Vice President Joe Biden, CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. President Obama asked Yates and Comey to “stay behind” after the briefing was over, and it was during this more private meeting that Obama spilled that he was aware of wiretapped conversations of incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, a man he previously fired from his administration, and whom Obama had personally warned Trump not to hire.

Ace, Sally Yates: Jim Comey Went "Rogue" In Setting Up the Pretext Interview With Michael Flynn and I Was Very Angry About That

Investigative reporter and Russia Hoax expert Lee Smith notes that this is the third time that Obama's partisan staffers have shifted all blame for Russiagate to Comey:

Sally Yates show is part 3 of ongoing coverup blaming anti-Trump operation on Comey—starting w/Susan Rice email, then Brennan. Not to exculpate Comey, but increasingly clear that former Obama admin officials have set up ex-FBI director as Obama's fall guy.

— Lee Smith (@LeeSmithDC) August 5, 2020

Sundance allows Devin Nunes to Discuss the Testimony of Sally Yates…



At Red State, "shipwreckedcrew", a former federal prosecutor? thinks Only Durham Indictments — Not a Report — Explain Other Investigative Decisions Made by Attorney General Barr

Attorney General Barr expects John Durham to be busy in the months ahead.

Read the whole thing.

 Ace, Fusion Ken Dilanian: Brennan Has Agreed to be Interviewed By Durham, but Clapper Has Been Told Durham Doesn't Need to Talk to Him

FusionGPS' second-favorite shill*, Ken Dilanian, tweeted:

Ken Dilanian @KenDilanianNBC Brennan has agreed to be interviewed by Durham, while Clapper has been told Durham doesn't need to talk to him.

So: Clapper did in fact leak, probably as a secondary source, the classified briefing given to Trump on January 5, 2017, a briefing given with the purpose of being leaked.

Why isn't he being interviewed, then?

Some possiblities:

1. Clapper knew he was caught out (a strong witness knew he'd leaked illegally) and has been cooperating for a while already.

2. Clapper is a target of the investigation, and I'm pretty darn sure that if you're a target of an investigation, and not a Republican, a prosecutor is required to mirandize you before an interview and alert you of your legal peril. And maybe Durham isn't ready to so alert Clapper yet.

3. Durham's covering everything up and fuck it, Nothing Matters.

John Solomon at JTN, Trump suggests DOJ has found 'breathtaking' evidence of wrongdoing in Russia probe

President Trump said Tuesday night that he believes the Justice Department has uncovered “breathtaking” evidence of misconduct during its investigation of the bungled Russia collusion probe, and he expect results to be released soon.

“I caught them, we caught them spying, using the intelligence apparatus of our country to spy on an opponent or an opposing party’s campaign both before and after the election,” Trump said when asked during an interview with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs what he expects U.S. Attorney John Durham to have found during his investigation.

Attorney General William Barr named Durham, a prosecutor from Connecticut, to be special prosecutor for reviewing the FBI and DOJ's conduct in the Russia collusion fiasco.

Trump said he didn’t want to “get overly involved” in the Durham review but expects a dramatic conclusion to the investigation of the investigators.
“I do hear it is breathtaking what they found. That’s all I can say, breathtaking. And hopefully it will come out soon. But it is beyond what anybody ever thought even possible,” the president said.

Chuck Ross at Da Caller reports Russian Bankers Seek Christopher Steele’s Testimony About His Dossier Source, Igor Danchenko

The bankers, who own Alfa Bank, asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday to submit a formal request to the British court system to compel Steele’s testimony in a defamation lawsuit against opposition research firm Fusion GPS and its co-founder, Glenn Simpson.

Lawyers for the bankers said in the court filing that information from Steele regarding Danchenko is “relevant to the reliability” of the dossier. It could also show whether Fusion GPS knew that Danchenko was Steele’s source, and whether information in the dossier regarding Alfa Bank was inaccurate before they shared it with journalists in 2016.

The Alfa Bank owners, Mikhail Fridman, Peter Aven and German Khan, are suing Fusion GPS and Simpson, over a Sept. 14, 2016 memo from the dossier that alleged the bankers had an “illicit” relationship with Vladimir Putin, and had bribed him for decades.

Lawyers for the bankers are required to submit a request for international judicial assistance because the targets are all British citizens and are not required to comply with subpoenas filed in the U.S.

 And a funny piece by George Bessemer at AmGreat, Alexander Vindman: They Aren’t Paying Me $1 Million for My Memoir for Nothing

On August 1, the Washington Post published an op-ed by the now-retired Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, of impeachment fame. The paper’s editors had to heavily revise the piece prior to publication. American Greatness has obtained the text of Vindman’s first draft.
. . .
To this day, despite everything that has happened, I continue to believe that only I, alone, held U.S. foreign policy together for three years.

I have not come, to testify...