Flotsam and Jetsam - Waiting on McCarthy

It's Tuesday morning, Jan. 3, and we still don't officially know who will succeed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and third in line in the Presidential succession. Kevin McCarthy has the most support, but still apparently lacks a critical mass. Capt. Ed At Haut Hair VIP, McCarthy watch: Still coming up short with a day to go. Mark Moore at NYPo sees  McCarthy likely short of votes to become speaker as 14 GOPers raise issues. Deanna Fisher at Victory Girls, McCarthy Negotiates With GOP Holdouts. Jim Antle at WaEx hears RNC chair McDaniel says Kevin McCarthy 'on track' to become House speaker, not a point in his favor. At Mediaite, GOP Rep. Bob Good Vows to Fox & Friends That ‘Swamp Cartel’ Leader Kevin McCarthy’s Speaker Bid is Toast. From Fox, Newt Gingrich blasts Republicans who oppose Kevin McCarthy as speaker: 'It's him or chaos', "Gingrich says the handful of lawmakers don't have the 'moral right' to oppose McCarthy." Capt. Ed again, Justin Amash: Hey, make me House speaker!  "I’d love to take office as one of the most consequential officers in American federal governance without being at all accountable to voters. Imagine the fun I could have!" At Am Think Paul E. Scates thinks  The House Speaker Vote is an Embarrassment, Indeed. I disagree, I think conservatives are just negotiating hard for the best deal they can get. Nothing motivates politicians (or most people for that matter) like a hard deadline. At Am Great, the redoubtable Julie Kelly takes time off the J6 beat to ask Are They Ready? "GOP voters are rightfully wary that a Republican-led Congress will fail to fulfill campaign pledges and refuse to go to the mattresses on issues that matter most." Of course that will happen, but they're still better (marginally) than the Democrats.

To wit, 'Bonchie' at Red State hears Hakeem Jeffries Makes a Very Insurrection-Like Call to Retake the House 'Immediately'. At WaEx, Former teenage boyfriend of George Santos says incoming congressman lied to him, stole his phone. Still better than a Democrat. Also, Incoming House Dem plans to 'couch surf' for first months in Congress. Bad credit means he can't find a rental. But he can vote on US spending.

Across da pond Da Mail reports the Justice Department is concealing 400 pages of 'sensitive documents' laying bare payoffs and gifts to Hunter and Jim Biden from China, Russia and Ukraine - after acknowledging the records exist - lawyer claims in suit. At Summit News, Books Claims Biden Refuses to Speak Freely Around His Secret Service Agents Because They’re White Southerners, "Paranoid they’ll leak embarrassing information."

Hope Hicks

Bob Spencer at PJ Media says What The --?? Trump Moves Left, Attacks Pro-Lifers. Blames them for losing midterms. A germ of truth there. Althouse, "This made us all unemployable. Like untouchable. God I’m so f***ing mad."

"In one day [Trump] ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local Proud Boys chapter. And all of us that didn’t have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed. I’m so mad and upset. We all look like domestic terrorists now."

Texted Hope Hicks to Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff Julie Radford, quoted in "'This made us all unemployable': Trump White House aides respond to January 6 in angry text exchange" (CNN).

She might have been overstating it. Dan Chaitin at Da Wire hears the  January 6 Panel Alerts White House About Anonymous Witnesses "Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) and Vice Chairwoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) wrote to Richard Sauber, special counsel to President Joe Biden, saying they “fully share” a “concern for the safety, security, and reputations” of its witnesses as the panel dissolves and Republicans take control of the House this week." Paybacks are hell. At WaEx a list of Five Biden administration investigations House Republicans plot to launch in 2023, no shockers there. 

At Politico, cited at Haut Hare a Study claims Early voting in key states didn't change partisan outcomes. Capt. Ed comments "Republicans will need to invest better in these strategies, even if they plan on ending them later. They can’t afford to cede that ground to Democrats any longer." Yep. 

As Kari Lake files petition to take appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court (Charlotte Hazard at JTN), Catherine Salgado at PJ Media reports Katie Hobbs Is Sworn in as Ariz. Governor Amidst Election Challenges and Scandals. Dan Chaitin at Da Wire, Hobbs Forbids Reporters When Sworn In As Arizona Governor. Not ready to answer questions? KT at Haut Hare recommends Three governors' races to watch in 2023. 

From Breitbart, California Becomes ‘Sanctuary State’ for ‘Transgender Kids’. They grow a lot of fruits and nuts. Meanwhile at JTN an Early transgender pioneer who transitioned back to male rejects today's gender ideology, "I haven't found one person that actually has gender dysphoria," Walt Heyer said. "I have found that they have generalized dysphoria."

PM, 'Fauci Files' to be released this week: Elon Musk. Matt Margolis at PJ Media, The 'Fauci Files': Musk Hints at What's to Come. At Twitchy, Dr. Robert Malone doesn’t pull a single PUNCH in thread pushing for Fauci et all to be prosecuted. Robert W Malone, MD@RWMaloneMD "“Gain-of-function” SARS-CoV virus manipulation caused the deaths of millions of people. Vast amounts of evidence suggest that Eco Health and NIAID caused those deaths. Anthony Fauci/Peter Daszak must be held accountable. An international tribunal must convene." Nick Arama at Red State thinks Elon Musk's Beautiful Dunk on a Leftist Shows Just How Hypocritical They Can Be. Matthew Peterson at Da Caller examines the Midwit Mire — The Lesson Conservatives Are Missing From The Twitter Files

The problem is that these are people who talk a good and seemingly reasonable game that studiously, rigorously obscures or avoids underlying issues of principle and purpose. They have been trained to move up the ladder in polite company by means of this kind of “thought” and action. When conflict arises, they do not start from first principles to discover what is right, but go through the motions of seeing “both sides.” They have been trained to “dialogue” as they implement procedures to find and achieve “shared goals.”

At HE,Thad McCotter  'Content Moderation' Is Radical Censorship and Hannah Nightingale, Majority of Content on Twitter Competitor Mastodon Is Child Porn, Report Finds. You might recall a lot of liberals developed a strong attachment for Mastodon in the wake of Musk's Twitter takeover.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Annalisa Greco and FMJRA 2.0: She’s Got A Face That Could Stop A Clock up at The Other McCain.

Election 2020: Hope Leaving the White House

WaEx, Trump confidante Hope Hicks to leave White House before inauguration

Hope Hicks, one of President’s Trump’s longest serving aides, will leave the White House next week, according to two administration sources, amid a general exodus of West Wing staff before Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Hicks, 32, is one of the survivors from the early days of the 2016 campaign and worked for the Trump Organization before that.

As one of the president’s most trusted confidants, insiders said they had expected her to continue working for Trump after leaving the White House.

 

A senior administration official said news of her departure triggered unfounded rumors that she was resigning in protest at the attack on the United States Capitol on Wednesday by Trump supporters but that Hicks had told colleagues that was not the case.


“The majority of staff will be out by next Friday. That’s normal,” said the official. “We have to off board, hand over computers, have an ethics debriefing, and that can’t happen just on the last day, the 19th.

“She is leaving … as is everyone else.”

Althouse,  If Trump knew there was a plan to storm the Capitol building, then his speech to the crowd was an incitement, even though he never told the crowd to commit any act of violence.

This morning, I'm seeing this at Buzzfeed:

The first glimpse of the deadly tragedy that was about to unfold came at 9 a.m. on the morning of the insurrection for one Black veteran of the US Capitol Police....
“I found out what they were planning when a friend of mine screenshot me an Instagram story from the Proud Boys saying, ‘We’re breaching the capitol today, guys. I hope y’all ready.’”

Now, that's 9 a.m. on the day of the protest, so it could be a plan that arose at the last minute. But Trump's speech did not begin until 1:11 p.m. That's 4 hours of lead time. Perhaps that Capital Police officer is lying or mistaken or perhaps he doesn't exist at all and Buzzfeed is wrong. But it's a fact that can be checked with Instagram. And I want to see all that there in social media, all the evidence of a plan, and what law enforcement knew about this plan, whether Trump was informed, and why there wasn't better protection of the Capitol.

I have held off from believing that Trump incited the crowd to breach the Capitol. You can see that in my 7 statements post. But if he was informed of a plan, then I will read all of those statements as an incitement, and I would have to say that he should resign.

If ifs and ands were pots and pans . . . And speaking of advance planning, the Wombat has rare long post on Night Of The Digital Long Knives

I don’t think anyone except the Silicon Valley oligarchs, who no doubt had this planned well in advance, and Vox Day, who had expected this for some time – expected the whole sale purging of conservative & populist accounts from social media that’s taken place this week. President Trump, Lin Wood, Sidney Powell, and General Flynn, to say nothing of such badthinkers as the #WalkAway group on Facebook, have all found their Twitter and Facebook accounts shut down. Not content with that, Apple and Google both dropped the Parler app from their app stores, and to make sure you proles get the message, Amazon Web Services is terminating Parler’s contract as of Sunday, which means they’ll be offline for at least a week while they try to find alternative hosting. I’d be willing to bet that even if they do succeed in finding/building infrastructure to replace what they had on AWS, they’re going to get the same treatment Gab got – people trying to support them with their credit and debit cards will be blocked, hosting services that agree to host them will be pressured to drop them, and every means short of actual physical violence will be used to drive them out of business. For that matter, after the Antifa/BLM riots of this past summer, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Cuban-style “divine mobs” used to destroy server farms belonging to companies hosting websites deemed guilty of “sedition”, “incitement”, or whatever excuse people like Maxine Waters want to use.

Daniel Greenfield lays out the obvious part of the problem rather clearly. Control of the Internet, which used to be a flexible network designed to automatically route information around blockages, has now fallen into the grasp of a handful of companies, all of them seemingly eager to institute a Red Chinese social credit system. Conservatives and populists have relied for too long on Section 230 to protect us from exactly the kind of hamfisted behavior that Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook are engaging in right now. We have a very limited amount of time to find and use alternatives like blogs, e-mail lists, Telegram, Signal, and Gab; we must also build alternative financing structures so the wokerati running Mastercard and Visa can’t cut off the flow of funds. People used to accuse Vox Day of being paranoid when he said these things a few years ago. What’s keeping me awake nights is that Vox might not have been paranoid enough.

Matt Margolis at PJ Media, Rush Limbaugh: The Swamp Is Really Scared of Trump, Here's Why

“I swear. The entire Washington establishment is poised. They are recoiling in fear. They are cowering in fear in the corners. They are scared to death of Donald Trump. They are scared to death of you.”

Rush then addressed Pelosi’s bizarre suggestion that she has the military on standby in case Trump wants to launch a nuclear attack. “Who are we gonna nuke?” Trump asked. “The little pot-bellied dictator, Kim Jong-un?”

Pelosi is obviously not afraid Trump will launch a nuclear attack. So what are they afraid of? According to Rush, “They’re terrified that Trump is gonna unleash classified documents. You know, he’s got a bevy of ’em, folks. He’s got classified documents about the hoax, the four-year coup […] the four-year effort to get the election results of 2016 overturned. There are all kinds of people who broke the law, all kinds of people who are quaking in their boots. They’re worried silly that Trump is gonna unleash some of these classified documents.”

 PM, Laptop stolen from Pelosi's office during breach at Capitol

"A laptop from a conference room was stolen. It was a laptop that was only used for presentations," Drew Hammill, Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, said in a tweet on Friday.

Well maybe, but now couple it with this talk  Lt. Gen Tom McInerney Must watch Everything explained!

 

The man either knows something scary, or he needs to adjust his tinfoil hat liner. 

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Julie Strain, RIP and FMJRA 2.0: Too Much Too Young ready for your digital amusement.

Russiagate: Hillary was Hacked

So, now it's official, in her sloppy computer practices, Hillary Clinton was sending all her State Dept. email correspondence straight to China. If you've followed SpyGate from the beginning - and I have - then you know that it came out months ago via anonymous sources in news reports that all of Hillary Clinton's St. Dept. emails were being automatically copied & sent to a Chinese-related email account.So what changed today?  "Documentation was released that verifies these anonymously sourced prior news accounts."

NEWS: The metadata in Hillary Clinton's emails contained a Gmail address with the name of a Chinese company: "carterheavyindustries@gmail.com" according to documents released by a Senate committee yesterday.

— Ivan Pentchoukov (@IvanPentchoukov) August 15, 2019

Ace, Oh: Intelligence Community Inspector General Tells Congress That All of Hillary Clinton's Emails Were Sent to a "Live Dropbox" Account Maintained by a Chinese Front Company

You may remember that the original report on Hillary's emails said something like "they were almost certainly captured by a hostile foreign nation or hostile foreign nations," but then Comey and Strzok worked that language out to say the emails "may" have been accessed by another country.

And now: Oh no big deal, her system seems to have had a virus implanted into it that sent each and every email, including the top secret classified ones, to a drop box controlled by a Chinese company.

The system had been infected so that every email was sent to this address of a Chinese company, no matter who you actually intended to send it to, or not send it to.

And she did all of this because she didn't want to turn over any records to anyone -- no watchdogs with legitimate FOIA requests, no disclosure in response to a subpoena.

She decided she didn't want any Americans to have her emails.

But a Chinese front company? Sure, let's roll the dice on that one.

No intent. No intent no intent no intent no intent.

And isn't it funny how No One Mentions That The Russian Trail Leads To Democratic Lobbyists (Forbes)

The media’s focus on Trump’s Russian connections ignores the much more extensive and lucrative business relationships of top Democrats with Kremlin-associated oligarchs and companies. Thanks to the Panama Papers, we know that the Podesta Group (founded by John Podesta’s brother, Tony) lobbied for Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank. “Sberbank is the Kremlin, they don’t do anything major without Putin’s go-ahead, and they don’t tell him ‘no’ either,” explained a retired senior U.S. intelligence official. According to a Reuters report, Tony Podesta was “among the high-profile lobbyists registered to represent organizations backing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich.” Among these was the European Center, which paid Podesta $900,000 for his lobbying.

And the Ohr's are still in the news, Chuck Ross at Da Caller, Bruce Ohr Gave His Wife’s Fusion GPS Research To The FBI. Here Are The Documents. Not really news except that the documents have now been released.

Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch said, “These documents show a crazed DOJ-FBI effort to use the Clinton spy ring at Fusion GPS, namely Nellie Ohr, to smear President Trump – even before he was sworn in as president.”

“Clinton campaign operative Nellie Ohr may as well as have had a desk at the Justice Department.”

They weren't crazed. They knew exactly what they were doing, and expected the evidence to be buried after Clinton won. At Flopping Aces Dan Sobieski writes of how Bruce Ohr’s FBI 302s Show Obama DOJ Led Deep State Coup Against Trump

If there was ever any doubt about the depth and extent of the deep state coup against both candidate and President Donald J. Trump and the number of deep state actors to thwart the will of the American people, it vanished with the release of partially redacted copies of former Deputy Atty. Gen. Bruce Ohr’s FBI 302 reports (interview summaries) on Thursday evening obtained by Judicial Watch.

They confirm that Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie were not merely passive conduits for the fraudulent Steele Dossier but were active participants in the plot to deny Trump the presidency. They confirm the FBI knew the Steele Dossier, paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton, was a fake when they applied to the FISA court for warrants to surveil American citizens. They detail the involvement of the State Dept. and others in the Obama administration.. As I wrote almost a year ago, Andrew Weissmann, touted as former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “pit bill” was kept in the loop by Ohr on any and all dossier and FISA developments.

Fox News, Gregg Jarrett: Comey's FBI was running a secret counterintelligence operation against Trump, new docs show

These 302s show that the FBI and DOJ were warned repeatedly by Ohr that ex-British spy Christopher Steele was virulently biased against the target of their investigation, Trump.

That bias tainted the credibility of the “dossier” Steele composed and upon which officials in the Obama administration relied when they officially launched their counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016. The “dossier” was also the basis for the surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

The FBI and DOJ ignored the warnings of bias and actively concealed it from the FISC. They never advised the judges that the information contained in the “dossier” was “unverified.”

They hid from the judges that it was all funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
. . .
To circumvent the rules they were breaking, the FBI set up an “information laundering scheme.” Steele would feed information to Ohr, who would pass it to his “handler” Joe Pienka, who would feed it to his partner Peter Strzok, who would give it to Andrew McCabe, who would deliver it to Comey.

Similar to a “money-laundering scheme,” the complex transfer cleansed the dirty information to obscure the original source –Steele. But the information, of course, was largely fabricated and/or the product of Russian disinformation.

As Don Surber notes, FBI upset over conspiracy theories? Hahaha, hypocrites

Since when does the bureau oppose baseless conspiracy theories?
Heck, it peddles them.

The FBI spied on Donald John Trump using a baseless conspiracy theory to get a FISA warrant.

It was -- in the words of its Chief of the Counterespionage Section, Peter Strzok -- an insurance policy should America elect Donald John Trump president.

America did and the FBI cashed in its insurance policy, subjecting President Trump to a $32 million investigation that threatened his business, his family members, and anyone else associated with him.

Strzok was no rogue agent. He was a major player in the bureau.

Meanwhile, the FBI destroyed evidence that implicated Hillary in her email scandal. And only now that Epstein is dead does the FBI raid his Pedo Fantasy Island.

We know this is another search-and-destroy mission for the Clintons to guard them against indictment, just as destroying Anthony Weiner's laptop was.

Rowan Scarborough, WaT,  Probe clears pro-Trump Pentagon analyst, report withheld from defense team

A confidential counterintelligence investigation cleared suspended Pentagon analyst Adam S. Lovinger on allegations of leaking data to the news media, but officials never told his defense team.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) examined Mr. Lovinger’s use of classified computer networks. In a 2018 report, the NCIS said its review “did not reveal any potential CI [counter intelligence] concerns,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Times.

Mr. Lovinger’s attorney, Sean Bigley, has now filed a complaint with the Defense Department inspector general. He accuses Pentagon officials who targeted his client of a “serious ethics violation” by withholding the exoneration.

The NCIS probe was closed September 2018, and the report signed in November. Mr. Lovinger’s administrative trial began the next month.

Mr. Bigley is trying to convince the Pentagon IG that his client is a victim of whistleblower reprisal. Mr. Lovinger’s employer, the Pentagon Office of Net Assessment, accused him of mishandling “sensitive” material, a charge his lawyer said essentially is made up since there is no such classification.

Just the Real News has Hope Hicks response to Fat Jerry, a polite, but firm, stuff it you lying piece of shit.

Steaming Through Russiagate

9 AM and it's already 86 F with 84% relative humidity here. Headed for the mid-90s again.

Are we being set up for another Charlie Brown football kick? From Da Hill, House gears up for Mueller testimony, and from the AP, something we already knew, Democrats questioning Robert Mueller to focus on obstruction, because that Russian collusion chocolate cake turned out to be shit. WaPoo,  Democrats hope Mueller testimony will put bright spotlight on Trump’s efforts to derail investigation. You mean that investigation into something that never happened? The Peacock, Mueller hearings to highlight 'shocking evidence of criminal misconduct' by Trump, Democrats say. They've been saying that a long time, and never coming up with the goods, too. But Devin Nunes (CNS News) says 'I Really Expect the Worst' When Mueller Testifies. His colleagues never disappoint to disappoint.

"Mueller, when he walked in the door, knew there was no evidence of collusion and conspiracy, and they knew the only thing they had on obstruction of justice was Comey's memos. I mean, Comey illegally leaked those memos to the press, and for what? In order to try to get a special counsel...which he admitted," Nunes said.

"So sitting with this open for two years, to me, I think people should look at this as an obstruction of justice trap, and then you can go through for the $40 million that we spent on this report, there are so many holes in this report. It was heavy on rhetoric and I'll would say it kind of read like a bad Russian spy novel."

And they didn't even get paid by the page, which by the way, comes out to roughly $100,000/per page. Not bad for government work, really. Conrad Black at AmGreat calls Shame on Robert Mueller—Again

Mueller packed his investigative team with notorious Democratic partisans. Andrew Weissman, who had cooked his share of Republicans already, and attended Hillary Clinton’s victory party the night she lost to Trump, took over the actual work. He and many of those he recruited had just finished white-washing Clinton—on to the tarring-and-feathering of her opponent. Mueller, never a martyr to the work ethic, despite the Democratic media’s wall-to-wall effort to spin him as a war hero Republican, flawless FBI director, and a rail-splitting confessant to the chopping of the cherry tree, left the direction of the investigation to Weissman and his gang, all of them desperate to destroy the president. Perish the thought of any of this pusillanimous bourgeois rubbish about impartiality! Trump was an interloper and he had to be sent packing with such finality that no one would dare interrupt the self-enriching slumbers of the political class for at least another century.

Trump managed the considerable feat of tough-talking as he resisted the depredations of a partisan witch-hunt while completely cooperating and leaving the investigators no ground to allege obstruction. This was the tactically correct response to what instantly was a difficult position. Trump had erroneously promoted an apparently qualified U.S. senator and former prosecutor, Jeff Sessions, as attorney general. Sessions immediately recused himself on all Russian matters and sat like a great eunuch-toad leaving the president whom he served practically defenseless while this rampaging lynch mob ransacked his personal, corporate, campaign, and presidential records. The Strzok-Page text messages indicate that the Mueller team ascertained quite quickly that there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and in fact, no nominee of any serious party to the presidency of the United States in its history would ever have partaken of such an evil and preposterous enterprise.

From early on, Mueller’s game was obstruction. He piled demands on the president, required sworn testimony over several days from the White House counsel (who should have immunity in respect of his chief client). The president’s tactic of talking tough while furnishing everything asked by the special counsel got him through the midterm elections.

But it's tough when your case relies on people like this, Mueller witness George Nader charged with transporting 14-year-old boy for sex, child porn. WaPoo, George Nader indicted on child sex transportation charges. Lots of innuendo about Trump in the article, zero evidence.

From 90 Miles from Tyranny, Latest Development In Flynn Case Proves Special Counsel Was A Cover For Taking Down Trump as a way of introducing Margot Cleveland's article in Da Fed, Latest Development In Flynn Case Proves Special Counsel Was A Cover For Taking Down Trump. It's a very detailed article, hard to extract a simple quote from, but well worth the read.

In what appears to be a clear case of revenge, the intelligence community handed off their supposed intel on Flynn, knowing neither Flynn nor Rafiekian could adequately counter it because it was classified, and all Rafiekian’s attorneys would likely get would be a lousy one-sentence summary of the “multiple independent pieces of information.” That one-sentence summary would be made public and implicate Flynn in a criminal conspiracy.

After receiving this notice, Rafiekian’s attorneys argued to the court that the recently disclosed evidence is quite clearly Brady evidence and that “if Mr. Rafiekian is convicted without his counsel having access to this exculpatory evidence, we believe it will go right to the heart of his due process and confrontation rights.” But, as of yet, the court has refused to provide Rafiekian access to the intel (in a classified setting, of course).

There is no good excuse for intelligence agencies to have withheld this information from the special counsel team. There was a very bad excuse for it, though: The intelligence community knew the special counsel probe was a sham designed to take down a president and any other enemies of the deep-state status quo.

Flynn clearly fit the bill. Once he agreed to plead guilty and cooperated, that was good enough for the intelligence community. Their goal was accomplished, and the fact that Mueller had also been charged with investigating Rafiekian and Alptekin was of no matter.

Breitbart,  Federal Prosecutors Won’t Bring Additional Charges in Trump Campaign Finance Probe, but

. . . Alan Dershowitz repeatedly argued there was never actually a case against President Trump. “The president doesn’t break the law if, as a candidate, he contributes to his own campaign. So if he gave $1 million to two women as hush money, there would be in crime. If he directed his lawyer to do it, and he would compensate the lawyer, he’s committed no crime,” he explained to MSNBC last year. “The only crime is if a third-party, namely, Cohen, on his own, contributed to a campaign, that would be a campaign contribution. So it is a catch-22 for the prosecution. if they claim that the president authorized him to do it or directed him to do it, it is not a crime for anybody. If Cohen did it on his own, then it is a crime for Cohen but not the president.”

But WaPoo has clearly not given up hope that they can tarnish Hope Hicks reputation in this. Hope Hicks was not involved in discussions to pay Stormy Daniels hush money, her attorney says

On Thursday, a federal judge in New York unsealed FBI documents from spring 2018, shortly before agents raided Cohen’s home, office and hotel room.

In the documents, FBI agents laid out evidence they had gathered indicating that Cohen had made an illegal campaign contribution when he arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels.

Stormy Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford

In an affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that Cohen exchanged calls, text messages and emails with an attorney for Daniels — who is also known as Stephanie Clifford — as well as executives for the National Enquirer, Trump and members of Trump’s inner circle, as he negotiated the payment in October 2016.

“Based on the timing of these calls, and the content of the text messages, I believe that at least some of these communications concerned the need to prevent Clifford from going public,” the agent wrote.

Karen McDougal

Some of the communications occurred in the immediate wake of an Oct. 7, 2016, report published by The Washington Post about a recording in which Trump could be heard referring to women in vulgar terms, which became a moment of crisis for the campaign.

According to the affidavit, phone records show that Hicks called Cohen the following evening; 16 seconds into the call, records show that Trump joined the call, which continued for an additional four minutes.

The Cohen-Trump-Hicks call was followed by calls that evening among Cohen, National Enquirer executives and Hicks.

When Hicks testified before the House Judiciary Committee last month, she said she was “never present” at a time when Cohen and Trump discussed Daniels. She also said she “had no knowledge of Stormy Daniels” during the campaign other than that she had heard her name mentioned as possibly “shopping stories around.”

So, their evidence consists of the fact that Trump, Hicks and Cohen communicated on the same day? It's not like these people don't spend all day on the phone. And besides, as Dersh noted, and SDNY reluctantly concluded, it was not illegal for Trump to do. But the USA Today tries to keep hope alive with Prosecutors weighed DOJ policy blocking indictment of a sitting president in closing Trump hush-money probe. So it wasn't a crime, but if it was a crime we would be unable to do anything about it? Sounds like a great excuse for a investigation. Besides, it only says they considered it, not that they considered it determinative. And boy is Andy Weissman pissed.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Victoria Baldessara and FMJRA 2.0: Kryptonite on time and within budget at The Other McCain.

Russiagate While We Swelter

Chuck Ross at Da Caller, Details Emerge Of Mystery FBI Spreadsheet That Kept Track Of Steele Dossier

“I’ve seen the spreadsheet,” Gowdy told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum in a May 15 interview.

“I have seen each factual assertion listed in that dossier, and then I’ve seen the FBI’s justification. And when you’re citing newspaper articles as corroboration for a factual assertion that you have made, you don’t need an FBI agent to go do a Google search.”

“When the name Sidney Blumenthal is included as part of your corroboration, and when you’re the world’s leading law enforcement agency, you have a problem.”
. . .
Investigators in both Congress and the Justice Department are trying to figure out how inaccurate information made its way into the dossier. One theory is that Russian operatives planted disinformation with Steele, a former MI6 officer, in hopes of smearing Trump.

Blumenthal and inaccurate info, go together like Clinton's and corruption.

Daniel Chaitin, WaEx, Joe diGenova shares conspiracy theory about FBI using Mueller phone to secretly record Trump. It's a conspiracy  when they really are out to get you.

Attorney Joe diGenova amplified a conspiracy theory about special counsel Robert Mueller during an interview Wednesday on Fox Business.

On Lou Dobbs Tonight, diGenova, a former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, referred to an interview Mueller had with President Trump in May 2017 about taking over as FBI director after James Comey was fired.

"Something very interesting that hasn't been written about occurred," diGenova told guest host Gregg Jarrett. "Bob Mueller went into that meeting with [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein, and it was just three of them in the Oval Office, and Bob Mueller had a telephone, a cellphone," diGenova told Jarrett.

"He left that cellphone in Oval Office after the meeting. And it is now believed by many people that cellphone was used to broadcast the meeting between the president, Rod Rosenstein, and Bob Mueller, back to FBI headquarters, where they recorded the conversation with the president," diGenova said, before adding that Mueller likely left the phone there to "record what happened after they left."

The interview via Sundance at CTH, diGenova and Toensing Discuss Possibilities of Upcoming Mueller Testimony…



Althouse, "Federal prosecutors signaled in a court document released on Thursday that it was unlikely they would file additional charges in the hush-money investigation..."

"... that ensnared members of Donald J. Trump’s inner circle and threatened to derail his presidency. In the document, the prosecutors said they had 'effectively concluded' their inquiry, which centered on payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to buy the silence of two women who said they had had affairs with Mr. Trump.... The president’s former lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, was convicted in the case. He has said he helped arrange the hush money at the direction of Mr. Trump, and prosecutors have repeated the accusation in court papers. Mr. Cohen is serving a three-year prison sentence."

The NYT reports.

ADDED: From the comments at the NYT: "Why does trump always get away with everything, every single time? he is completely immune from prosecution, let alone the very most basic of scrutiny. This is untenable and threatens the foundation of our democracy."

Capt. Ed at Hot Air, ABC: DoJ Won’t Charge Hope Hicks — Or Anyone Else — In Cohen Payoff Case

Lanny Davis is furious over the decision:

Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, however, expressed displeasure with prosecutors decision to drop the proceedings in his own statement issued Wednesday evening.
“Case closed? Why is Michael Cohen — after all his voluntary cooperation and testimony that Mr. Mueller said was credible and went to “core issues” and all the information and documents he voluntarily provided to prosecutors and to congress — the only member of the Trump company to be prosecuted and imprisoned?” Davis said in the statement. “Especially since prosecutors found that virtually all of Michael’s admitted crimes were done at the direction of and for the benefit of Donald Trump? Why?”

Why? Come on, man. We can guess at two reasons the DoJ’s walking away from this. One: Michael Cohen would have to testify to substantiate any charges. Two: Michael Cohen is serving three years at Club Fed for perjury. Not too many prosecutors would go to criminal trial over campaign-finance violations with a convicted perjurer as the main witness in the case.

 Dems Try to Undo 2016 Election By Probing Trump’s Inaugural, Tom Watson, AmGreat,

Even nearly three years later, Republicans still savor and chuckle at the video of the woman in a winter coat and glasses, howling a primordial “Nooooo!” into the cold January air as Donald Trump was inaugurated.
For Democrats, though, Inauguration Day 2017 remains a special kind of wound. As has often been said for going on three years, the Democrats have been trying—with all of the deep state and mainstream media power at their disposal—to undo the 2016 election of Donald Trump.

Democrats feel their opponents must be discredited and destroyed, and their preferred method is lawfare and media innuendo. And, as the ceaseless investigations and legal harassment of the last few years have shown, they have had the power of law enforcement and highly partisan elements of the Department of Justice with which they can exact revenge on Donald Trump and his supporters.
For the first time in memory, Democrats in the Senate have been bullying and frantically urging the Justice Department to investigate all aspects of the opposition party’s inauguration, from individuals connected to the inauguration committee to employees of the Trump Organization, high profile donors and fundraisers, and members of the post-campaign transition team.

For months, federal prosecutors in New York have been on the hunt. Hundreds of news articles breathlessly reporting the inevitable downfall of these officials were created from leaks by deep state operatives in the Justice Department.

Unsurprisingly, it always amounted to nothing.

In a late Friday night news dump last week, prosecutors sheepishly admitted there would probably be no charges filed against anyone in the Trump Organization for inauguration-related activity.

Some Hot and Sticky Russiagate

Well, it looks like we're in for a streak of hot and sticky weather. Hot news from Daniel Chaitin at WaEx, Trey Gowdy: FBI gave 'two different kinds of defensive briefings' to Trump and Clinton in 2016 and dropped another bomb

During a Sunday interview on Fox News, Gowdy referenced how the campaigns of both Clinton and then-candidate Donald Trump received counterintelligence "defensive" briefings, but claimed they were not the same. Gowdy said the FBI provided "two different kinds of defensive briefings to candidates depending on who you like and who you don't," and coupled with how the FBI withheld transcript material from the FISA court, "then your bias begins to impact the investigation."

But concerns remain. Trump's briefing was coordinated by Strzok, which raised red flags among Republicans. According to Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, it made no mention of the counterintelligence investigation into members of the Trump team that he opened less than three weeks prior.

In recent weeks Gowdy, who was chairman of the Oversight Committee until he left Congress at the beginning of this year, has spoken out about classified information he claims “has the potential to be a game changer.” Last month he discussed unreleased transcripts of recorded conversations between FBI informants and former Trump campaign associate George Papadopoulos. Gowdy said “one in particular has the potential to actually persuade people" and noted this "exculpatory evidence related to Papadopoulos was not included in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications targeting former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page."

Soon afterwards, Trump delegated Attorney General William Barr sweeping powers to declassify documents on surveillance activities into Trump campaign as part of his investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation.

In his interview with host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday, Gowdy called for the transcript to be released so the American public can view them. Gowdy, now a contributor of Fox News, said they were persuasive enough for him to change his mind after initially being "supportive" of the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to carry out the Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Sundance at CTH, Sunday Talks – Devin Nunes Notes: “Two Parallel Tracks” Used To Target Donald Trump…



Chuck Ross at Da Caller noticed how Trey Gowdy admitted Mystery FBI Transcript ‘Actually Changed My Perspective’ Of Russia Probe

Former Republican South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy said Sunday that his “perspective” of the special counsel’s investigation changed after he saw a transcript of an interaction between the FBI and a Trump campaign associate believed to be George Papadopoulos.

“I was supportive of [Robert] Mueller. I was supportive of the idea to initiate, to investigate what Russia did, but when I saw this transcript, it actually changed my perspective,” Gowdy said in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Republicans have hinted at the existence of a transcript that contains exculpatory information for Papadopoulos, who the FBI claims was the catalyst for its counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign.

Papadopoulos had encounters with several mysterious figures during his stint on the Trump campaign. He met Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer and Stefan Halper, a former Cambridge professor who was identified as an FBI informant in 2018.

Ace, Trey Gowdy: I Supported Mueller, Until I Saw the Still-Classified Papadopolous Transcript and the Exculpatory Information Therein - And withheld from the FISA court.

Courtesy of the Wombat's In The Mailbox: 06.24.19 Dan Sobieski at AmThink tells us how Clapper Hears Barr's 'Chilling' Footsteps. I hope he's losing sleep over this.

Close scrutiny of the Intelligence Community's actions should send chills up Clapper's spine. In the search for the answer as to how the whole Mueller collusion probe and spying on Team Trump originated, one does not have to look far. One needs only to revisit the interview Deep State conspirator and perjurer James Clapper gave with CNN's Anderson Cooper. He points his finger directly at Barack Hussein Obama as leader of the coup against Donald Trump:

Former Obama administration director of national intelligence James Clapper admitted that former president Barack Obama gave the order to Peter Strzok to kick off his Operation Crossfire Hurricane targeting of President Donald Trump.
Obama — who also gave a stand-down order on stopping alleged Russian hacking — was personally implicated in the plot according to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page's texts. Clapper confirms the obvious.
This is James Clapper's interview with Anderson Cooper, which confirms that Obama ordered Strzok to carry out an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), which became the basis for the entire Mueller probe.
"If it weren't for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today, notably Special Counsel Mueller's investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place," Clapper said in his Anderson Cooper interview.

That Intelligence Community assessment would have included in it the "unverified and salacious," as former FBI director James Comey described it, dossier paid for by Hillary and the DNC and compiled from Russian disinformation source by British agent Christopher Steele in the only real collusion with Russia in this whole affair.

Sundance at CTH, Devin Nunes Threatens Criminal Referrals for Chris Wray and Dana Boente….

Boente took over for former chief legal counsel James Baker, after the discoveries around Baker and McCabe could no longer be hidden. After being removed from responsibility eventually Baker resigned and went to work with the Lawfare group.  Boente’s job at FBI was/is to bury information, block congressional inquiry, and protect the crew. Boente, along with Christopher Wray, is still there.

In a Fox News interview on Sunday, Nunes said “someone at the FBI” appears to have been “determined to hide” then-Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s notes from both the FISA court and Congress.  Our research identified that “someone” as Dana Boente and crew more than a year ago. . . 

Also, President Trump on AG Jeff Sessions: “That was my biggest mistake”… It might be a high bar, but it also might be true. And Sunday Talks: Shifty Schiff Outlines Coordinated Plan With Mueller For “Testimony”…



From Axios, Massive leak of Trump transition vetting documents shows "red flags" deliberations but from Matt Maroglis at PJ Media, 15 Reasons Why No One Should Care About the Leaked Trump Transition Vetting Documents

Margot Cleveland at Da Fed has a pair of articles on Hope Hick's congressional testimony, How Hope Hicks’s Testimony Again Destroyed The Trump-Russia Collusion Narrative

Democrats on the committee nonetheless pushed the Russia collusion narrative by attempting to portray an email Hicks received from the editor-in-chief of the Russian internet newspaper Vzglyad as evidence of a Russian conspiracy. Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse flipped to the much-referenced Robert Mueller report to read the special counsel’s finding that “one day earlier the publication’s founder and former Russian parliamentarian Konstantin Rykov had registered two Russian websites, Trump2016.ru and DonaldTrump2016.ru.”

But Neguse’s attempt to implicate the Trump campaign in Russia’s online efforts to interfere in the election failed badly. “I don’t recall receiving the interview request,” Hicks noted, “I received hundreds of interview requests, sometimes daily.” Because Trump had no intention of participating in the interview, Hicks explained, she was not concerned about the identity of the outlet, and hadn’t even realized until after the fact that the email had come from a Russian.

Concerning the WikiLeaks hacks, Hicks made clear that the only discussion the campaign had was “speculation about if there would be more emails or information released, but that was prompted by things in the media,” and it wasn’t with certainty that more leaks would happen, but “with speculation and skepticism.”

“No,” Hicks stressed, Trump did not talk about WikiLeaks or the hack, nor did anybody else in the campaign, other than what was discussed in the public domain. Hicks also testified that during the campaign she had heard nothing about Roger Stone and his supposed relationship with WikiLeaks or its founder Julian Assange, or about WikiLeaks’ “divulgence of information about the emails of Hillary Clinton and Mr. Podesta,” beyond media coverage.

And  Top 8 Takeaways From Hope Hicks’s Congressional Testimony 1. It Was a Dog and Donkey Show, 2. The Media Lapped Up Democrats’ Narrative, Of Course, 3. More Proof Against Trump Collusion, 4. Much Questioning Unconnected to Congress’s Oversight, 5. Hope Wasn’t About to Jump Through Their Hoops, 6. Democrats Were Too Dense to Notice Hicks Threw Lots of Shade, 7. Hope Hicks Is Hilarious, 8. Hope Hicks For Congress.

Congress? Hell, she'll be eligible for President in 2024, just in time to succeed Ivanka. Anyway, read the whole thing. And now, after falling off the cliff and having the anvil land on their heads with Hope Hicks, Democrats plan to tackle Kelly Conway. Reuters, U.S. lawmakers threaten to subpoena Trump aide Conway

The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings, said it would vote on a potential subpoena if Conway does not testify before lawmakers at a scheduled Wednesday session focused on her alleged violations of the Hatch Act.

The 1939 law prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in some political activities.

Kellyanne and some fat dude

So, from the WaPoo, White House moves to bar counselor Kellyanne Conway from testifying to Congress about alleged violations of Hatch Act

The Hatch Act is a useful tool to keep rank and file government workers from abusing their authority, but for the inherently political jobs in the upper administration, it's just silly.

It wasn't just the FBI and DOJ who had their fingers on the scales, Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam. James O'Keeffe at Project Veritas, of course.

• Insider: Google “is bent on never letting somebody like Donald Trump come to power again.”
• Google Head of Responsible Innovation Says Elizabeth Warren “misguided” on “breaking up Google”
• Google Exec Says Don’t Break Us Up: “smaller companies don’t have the resources” to “prevent next Trump situation”
• Insider Says PragerU And Dave Rubin Content Suppressed, Targeted As “Right-Wing”

WaFreeBee: Podesta’s CAP Fuels Dark Money Group Hitting Trump with Lawsuits, Democracy Forward received $1M from Center for American Progress, marks same address on legal docs

The Democracy Forward Foundation, a D.C.-based 501(c)3 nonprofit, was founded in 2017 to "help expose the rampant corruption in the Executive Branch and fight in court on behalf of the people it hurts." The group also has a 501(c)4 "social welfare" arm that goes by Democracy Forward. The foundation has filed suit against numerous government agencies, such as the Department of Justice, Department of Treasury, and the Office of Management and Budget, and has aided other entities with similar litigation, including Baltimore's lawsuit against the Trump administration over immigration policy.

The group, which has maintained a relatively low profile despite its litigation efforts against the administration, dubs itself "nonpartisan" and is referred to as "anti-corruption" by major media outlets. The group's leadership, however, is made up of Democratic operatives, including Podesta himself.

Democracy Forward's initial tax returns, which cover a time span of just over a month from May 19 to June 30, 2017, does not disclose its donors but shows that the group received $705,000 in seed money. The group lists a P.O. Box in D.C. as its address on the forms, the same contact address that is listed on its website.

Jonathon Toobin at Da Fed, If ‘Lock Her Up’ Was An Outrage, So Is ‘Let’s Put Him In Prison’

One needn’t excuse anything Clinton, Trump, or any other Democrat or Republican has done to understand that this mindset is toxic to our political culture in ways that go far beyond the damage we think our opponents will do if they gain control of the government. The most distressing aspect of this trend is the lack of faith in the ability of our constitutional systems to survive bad presidents.

And some lightness from AllahPundit at Hot Air. Livestream: Famous Liberal Actors Gather To … Act Out The Mueller Report?

To cleanse the palate, I … guess it’s worth watching Luke Skywalker ham it up as Corey Lewandowski or whoever? There’s nothing better to do on a slow news night.

Plus, hey: It has the official John Kerry seal of approval.

And Alyssa Milano!

The live cast, as it stands now, includes, Annette Bening, Kevin Kline, John Lithgow, Frederick Weller, Ben McKenzie, Michael Shannon, Noah Emmerich, Justin Long, Jason Alexander, Gina Gershon, Wilson Cruz, Joel Grey, Alyssa Milano, Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Piper Perabo, Zachary Quinto and Aidan Quinn, with additional participation by Sigourney Weaver, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mark Hamill.

That’s a weird mix of actors whom I’d pay to see — Kline, Lithgow, Weaver, the “Seinfeld” twins — and actors whom you couldn’t pay me to see. Like Alyssa Milano. The livesteam starts below at 9 p.m. ET. Exit question: Who plays Mueller? Gotta be Kline, right?

If Alyssa Milano were to play Hope Hicks, in the nude (NSFW), It might make it worth suffering through the BS to watch....

Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Cheryl Ann Tweedy and FMJRA 2.0: Even Better Than The Real Thing working toward your amusement and education.

Russiagate: The Third Dossier or the Third Scope Memo?

How about both?  Stacy McCain finds out about the third "Manafort Dossier" in The Fake Ukrainian Ledger Angle: How the Media Colluded With the ‘Deep State’

Look at the date on that New York Times story — how did it happen that, in August 2016, Ukraine’s “newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau” took an interest in Donald Trump’s campaign manager and these reporters had no trouble finding sources in Kiev telling them all about these “ledgers”? What that just a coincidence? Or does it seem to you more likely, as Ace of Spades suggests, that this story was about protecting the interests of the U.S. political establishment?

Remember, it was critical to Hillary Clinton that the FBI have active investigations opened into the Trump campaign, because she had a high profile investigation into her own actions, and she desperately needed to be able to play the They Do It Too Card.

Do you believe in coincidences like that? A powerful politician needs to smear her opponent and — oh, what a coincidence! — sources direct reporters for the New York Times to the Ukraine, where investigators cite a “secret ledger” that appears to prove wrongdoing by the opponent’s campaign manager. Well, guess what? Three years later, we discover that (a) the “ledger” was probably a forgery, and (b) the FBI was actively engaged in feeding this stuff to the media:

In search warrant affidavits, the FBI portrayed the ledger as one reason it resurrected a criminal case against Manafort that was dropped in 2014 and needed search warrants in 2017 for bank records to prove he worked for the Russian-backed Party of Regions in Ukraine.
There’s just one problem: The FBI’s public reliance on the ledger came months after the feds were warned repeatedly that the document couldn’t be trusted and likely was a fake, according to documents and more than a dozen interviews with knowledgeable sources. . . .
[T]he FBI and Mueller’s office did not cite the actual ledger — which would require agents to discuss their assessment of the evidence — and instead cited media reports about it. The feds assisted on one of those stories as sources.
For example, agents mentioned the ledger in an affidavit supporting a July 2017 search warrant for Manafort’s house, citing it as one of the reasons the FBI resurrected the criminal case against Manafort. . . 

So, Manafort was forced to resign from the campaign after someone fed this fake “secret ledger” story to the New York Times and then, in order to justify search warrants for Manafort’s bank records, the FBI leaks more “secret ledger” stories to the media, then cites those stories as “evidence” to claim probably cause on the warrant application. I’m not a lawyer, but it seems to me the people responsible for this need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This kind of “Deep State” stuff — government bureaucrats acting improperly to exercise a corrupt political infleunce, and exploiting the news media in the process — is why every American should be glad Hillary lost. If she had won, we never would have learned what kind of shenanigans were going on at the FBI.

I'm pretty sure Manafort was a scummy guy, but he probably tried to skate as close as he could to the line without going over. Rosenstein tried to nab him unsuccessfully, and was probably grateful when Mueller/Weissman offered to take another shot at him with a FISA warrant for a free hand against Donald Trump. If this is true, that some of the evidence for the search warrants against Manafort was got by introducing the third dossier to the media, and then citing the media, knowing the dossier was false, Manafort's convictions should be thrown out for prosecutorial misconduct. It wouldn't be the first time that happened to Weissman. Matt Vespa at Town Hall also takes notice in Wait…The FBI Was Warned Key Document Used To Investigate Paul Manafort Was Probably Fake?. Meanwhile, Devin Nunes is still trying to unravel the case of the second Mueller scope memo, Nunes claims second Mueller scope memo based on Steele dossier 

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News he’d reviewed still-classified materials related to then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s memos outlining the breadth of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. He said the bulk of the information in the second scope memo came from the dossier compiled by British ex-spy Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who was hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS through funding from the Clinton campaign and the DNC during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Nunes claimed today that the allegations about Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort in the second scope memo were based on the dossier.
. . .
The congressman also addressed the report about a possible third scope memo.

“I don’t know if it’s a third scope memo,” Nunes said. “But what it looked to me like, as somebody who has read it, is it looked like a CYA [cover your ass] memo.”

So it's all pretty much a tower of lies. Sundance at CTH, Justice Dept. Allows Congress to View Rosenstein Scope Memos… I can't do it justice with a quote. Read it all. Nice Deb, from AmGreat, Rep. Meadows Preparing a Referral Asking DOJ IG to Investigate FBI and Mueller’s Handling of Manafort Warrants

Spurred by investigative journalist John Solomon’s bombshell report in the Hill Tuesday, Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC), a senior Republican on the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, is reportedly preparing a referral for Inspector General Michael Horowitz. According to Solomon on Twitter Wednesday night, Meadows is asking the IG to investigate the FBI and the special counsel’s handling of the warrants on Paul Manafort, as well as their contacts with the media and reliance on the sketchy “black ledger.”

Also from Sundance, diGenova and Toensing Discuss Scope Memos, Rosenstein and Joe Biden…



DiGenova's comments on Rod Rosenstein are particularly interesting

fighting for the US Constitution

fighting for this country we love

standing up against epic corruption by those who criminalized political differences

and yet, years of @seanhannity's private texts revealed while we've seen nothing from the journalists who perpetrated a fraud pic.twitter.com/mKJczehR5x

— Carter Page, Ph.D. (@carterwpage) June 21, 2019

Daniel Chaitin at WaEx has the details on a lover's quarrel, Emails show Strzok-Page spat after word got out grand jury used in Clinton emails investigation

On April 27, 2017, Page reacted to a Judicial Watch release that found former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was targeted the prior year by a federal grand jury in an effort to obtain further information about her private email server.

Page sent a reply email to an official in the Office of General Counsel saying, “I didn’t realize that we had said this publicly.”

She then appeared to get into an argument with Strzok. "Are you serious, dude? I sent to [redacted]. So I’ve committed some grave sin for not including you on this? My apologies, DAD Strzok, sir," Page said, referring to his role as deputy assistant director.

Strzok shot back, "You know what? Take a step back and look at this… And stop with the DAD Sir bullsh*t. That’s not the point and you know it."

Page called on Strzok to calm down.

"I think you think you should take your own advice. I didn’t look to see who was on the distribution when I sent it. Sorry, that’s on me. But this is distinctly not a big deal. And I definitely didn’t err in not including you on a two-line email to [redacted]. Get a grip," she said.

And some Hope . . .  Hicks that is. From Tim Meads at Town Hall, Sheila Jackson Lee's Bogus 'Russian Strategy' Conspiracy From The Hope Hicks Hearing

After chatter going back and forth discussing the campaign team, Rep. Jackson Lee again returns to her "Russian strategy" query. This is clearly puzzling to Hicks.

Ms. Jackson Lee. Who specifically was engaged with the Russian strategy, messaging strategy, post the convention, late summer 2016?

Ms. Hicks. I'm sorry. I don't understand the question. I'm not aware of a Russian messaging strategy.

Ms. Jackson Lee. So specifically it goes to the release of the various WikiLeaks information. Who was engaged in that?

Ms. Hicks. So, I mean, I assume you're talking about late July?

Ms. Jackson Lee. Late July, late summer, July, August 2016.

Ms. Hicks. So there were several people involved. It was -- I think a "strategy" is a wildly generous term to describe the use of that information, but --

Ms. Jackson Lee. But you were engaged in the campaign. What 44 names, what specific persons were involved in that strategy of the impact of Russia and the issuance of the WikiLeaks effort late summer?

Ms. Hicks. Again, you --

Ms. Jackson Lee. Were you involved? Were you part of the strategy? You have a communications emphasis.

Ms. Hicks. I'm sorry. I'm just not understanding the question. You're talking about a Russian strategy. The campaign didn't have a Russian strategy. There was an effort made by the campaign to use information that was publicly available, but I'm not aware of a Russian strategy, communications or otherwise.

Dan Chaitin and Jerry Dunleavy at WaEx, Hope Hicks interview fraught with objections, a Steele dossier dig, and fixation on Corey Lewandowski

By the Democrats' count, Trump’s lawyers entered 155 objections on the basis of “absolute immunity” for senior White House officials. "These interruptions are a gimmick designed to interfere with the Committee’s investigation," said a press release from the House Democrats. They also claimed Hicks "confirmed that the Trump Campaign welcomed the Russian attack on the 2016 presidential election."

The committee's top Republican, Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia, called the hearing a waste of time, accuses the Democrats of mischaracterizing Hicks' words and pushed for Nadler to subpoena Mueller to testify.

"Eight hours and 273 pages later, we’ve learned nothing new from a witness who has been cooperating with this committee for months," Collins said in a statement. "Ms. Hicks testified there was no collusion. She noted clearly when Democrats mischaracterized her words, and, ultimately, Ms. Hicks testified she doesn’t believe she provided any new information that she hadn't already provided to multiple different bodies investigating the president. If Chairman Nadler were truly interested in gathering new facts, he would issue a subpoena to Robert Mueller, since no privileges or immunities would apply to his appearance or testimony, and Congress has yet to hear from him.”

Caroline Court at DaFed,  Jerry Nadler Is A Sexist Pig Who Should Be Censured By Congress. A nice thought in vain.

Hicks is a very attractive young woman. She was a model early in her life. She is also a smart, well-educated woman, who previously worked at the Trump Organization. Indeed, she was Trump’s longest-serving aide at the time of her resignation. It’s been widely reported that not only was she was excellent at her job, she was someone Trump actually listened to. If you’ve been paying attention at all, you know that’s not an easy feat.

She earned her reputation as a loyal, hardworking White House staffer. She does not, under any circumstances, deserve some pants-up-to-his-chin congressman addressing her by the name of a man she may have dated. Dated. Not married.

Let’s be absolutely clear: Nadler knew exactly what he was doing. What he did was not only sexist, but purposeful and truly ugly. Whether or not Hicks and Lewandowski had an affair or even dated is completely beside the point. They were not a public couple posing for pictures for People Magazine. For Nadler to refer to her as Lewandowski is the lowest of the low, and entirely inappropriate.

Whether he did it to rattle her during her testimony, or to take a shot at Trump, is also irrelevant. I don’t care what his motive was. When you’re so obsessed with taking down a political opponent that you don’t care who is collateral damage, it’s really time to reassess what you’re doing with your life.

Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Cheryl Ann Tweedy and FMJRA 2.0: Even Better Than The Real Thing working toward your amusement and education.