Some Morning Russiagate

Action on the Flynn Affair is still progressing as ‘Takeover’: Michael Flynn team and DOJ clash with federal judge, asking appeals court to dismiss case (Jerry Dunleavy, WaEx):

The legal team for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and lawyers for the Justice Department clashed with the judge presiding over the case against the former Trump national security adviser, asking an appeals court to direct the lower court to drop all charges.

The Justice Department told a U.S. district court last month “that continued prosecution of this case would not serve the interests of justice” as it sought to drop the false statements charges against Flynn, but instead, Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Bill Clinton appointee who has been handling the Flynn case since December 2017, appointed retired New York federal Judge John Gleeson to serve as an amicus curiae to present arguments in opposition to the Justice Department’s motion and to explore whether Flynn should be charged with perjury.

Flynn’s attorneys were joined by the Justice Department last month in asking the D.C. Circuit for the U.S. Court of Appeals to issue a writ of mandamus instructing Sullivan to dismiss the case, but Sullivan hired an outside lawyer to argue that he is not a “rubber stamp.”

Sidney Powell, a former federal prosecutor who took over Flynn’s representation last summer, filed a 26-page brief with the appeals court on Wednesday, arguing that Sullivan “has exceeded his power now precisely because General Flynn proclaimed his innocence and pursued a vigorous defense of his constitutional rights as soon as he retained unconflicted counsel.” In a reference to Sullivan’s 2018 suggestion that Flynn had committed treason, which the judge walked back with an apology, Powell argued the judge’s “proclivity for grabbing world-wide headlines by suggesting General Flynn has committed heinous crimes that don’t exist is once again on display.”

“Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution vests the power to execute the laws solely in the Executive Branch,” Powell argued. “Accordingly, the power to prosecute — to decide who, when, where, and how someone is charged with a federal crime — rests entirely with the Department of Justice.”

Powell said the appeal’s court’s “intervention is needed now — not after Respondent and his Amicus create a circus and sentence an innocent man.” She argued that “to allow Respondent to do anything other than grant the Motion to Dismiss would erode the authority of this Court, its precedent, the Constitution, and the Article II power” of the Justice Department.

“This Court must stop him before he further jeopardizes the legitimacy of the federal judiciary,” Powell said of Sullivan. “Accordingly, mandamus should issue to dismiss this case with prejudice, vacate the plea, and order any further proceedings conducted by a different judge.”

At Town Hall Matt Vespa says The Second Act of the Flynn Case Has Begun...and It's a Total Circus, which is being kind to circuses.

I, for one, am shocked that some retired judge who is working for the law firm representing the Department of Justice’s top Trump resister, Sally Yates, said that Michael Flynn committed perjury and is a bad, bad, man (sarc.). John Gleeson laid out his case for his besieged colleague Judge Emmet Sullivan over the fiasco that has become the Michael Flynn case (via WaPo). . .

Weird how you left out that it was co-written by the defense attorney for Sally Yates, who is being investigated by federal authorities for her role in the Russia Collusion Hoax. https://t.co/s0inpjcdZN

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) June 10, 2020

"Shipwreckedcrew", the pseudonym for a legal writer at Red State  calls The Highly Anticipated Brief From Judge Gleeson on the Flynn Case — Mueller Report Redux

The brief filed by Judge Gleeson is in excess of 80 pages long. For me to write a comprehensive take-down of what he has filed would take me at last 12,000 words, and a week to research and write. That’s what I would do if I was involved in the case and preparing a response. I can’t do that here.

Instead I’m going to simply isolate a few areas in the brief that I find worthy of comment, and deal with them in separate articles.
So, in referring to what’s “worthy of comment” I should begin with my first “hot take” on Twitter this morning when I called the brief “trash” — and then got critical.

A couple observations right off the top based on my LIMITED analysis so far — which I hope to build upon in later articles.
For the “Factual Basis” Judge Gleeson includes references to 1) media reporting and accounts, 2) the Inspector General’s report on Four FISAs, and 3) the Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

As for the media, Gleenson references articles that are sourced to anonymous former government officials, which we now know were mostly former Obama Administration officials who fed the entire false fantasy “Trump-Russian” collusion narrative to gullible and willing anti-Trump media for the past nearly four years.

As for the IG Report, Gleeson never addresses the issue that the IG’s ability to collect factual information was limited by his lack of authority to compel answers from anyone not currently employed by the DOJ, and by the fact that the IG lacks subpoena or GJ authority to collect both documentary and testimonial evidence. The result is that the IG’s “window’ into events surrounding the investigation of the Trump campaign and individuals such as General Flynn was always limited — and there is absolutely NO DOUBT that DOJ has more information available to it than the information reported in the IG Report that Gleeson relies upon.

Finally, as for the IC Assessment, this was a product commissioned by former CIA Director John Brennan, hastily assembled in the closing days of the Obama Administration, which reached certain “conclusions” that have been determined to not have been factually accurate. When the Mueller Report came out finding that no Americans had assisted the Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election campaign, and there was no evidence of “collusion” between anyone in the Trump Campaign and the Russian Government, John Brennan’s reaction was as follows:

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Monday that he “suspected there was more than there actually was” in regard to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election. “I don’t know if I received bad information, but I think I suspected there was more than there actually was…. I am relieved that it’s been determined there was not a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government over our election.”

Yet the IC Assessment that he commissioned and oversaw, finding the existence of such nefarious activity, is what Judge Gleeson relies upon for some of the facts he sets forth in his briefing.

 'This is how the Left operates': Jim Jordan slams 'crazy' attempt to continue Flynn case (WaEx)

"This judge is talking about abuse of power now?" the Ohio Republican exclaimed. "The abuse of power was then. This is how the Left operates, and I think the American people see this for what it is."

Presiding Judge Emmet Sullivan, a Clinton appointee who has overseen the case since 2017, tasked Gleeson with acting as an amicus curiae to review the case and present arguments in opposition to the DOJ's motion to drop the false statement charges against the former national security adviser.

"What's rich here is Judge Gleeson using the term 'abuse of power.' Are you kidding me?" said Jordan. "First of all, a few years ago, Judge Gleeson said a prosecutor can drop the case at any time for any reason. Now, he's suddenly changed, which shows how political this is from his perspective and, I think, from Judge Sullivan's perspective."

John Solomon at JTN,  FBI knew Steele’s Russia research connected to Clinton, Dems from earliest interactions. I remember Comey, testifying before Congress claiming it was funded by Republicans. Lock Him Up!

Jerry Dunleavy at WaEx, Judge who reviewed full Mueller report asks DOJ about 'merits' of redactions

The federal judge who reviewed the full, unredacted report by special counsel Robert Mueller said he has questions about the reasoning for the Justice Department's redactions and ordered the agency to provide the court with answers.

“Having reviewed the unredacted version of the Mueller Report, the Court cannot assess the merits of certain redactions without further representations from the Department,” Judge Reggie Walton said in a court order this week.
. . .
Walton said Monday that he “must discuss the substance of the redactions” with the Justice Department, but that the conversation “cannot occur remotely due to the lack of a secure connection between the Court and the Department necessary to avoid disclosure of the redacted information” and cannot immediately occur in-person due to social-distancing guidelines issued by D.C. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell related to the coronavirus pandemic.

James Durso at RCPolicy, America Deserves a New FBI. Yep, the takeover of the top echelon by the leftists has gutted it. Transfer the workers to the US Marshalls, and kill the agency.

It would be one thing if the FBI’s behavior in l'affaire Trump was a one-off, but it’s really standard operating procedure.

Since its founding in 1908, the Bureau has regularly infringed on Americans’ civil rights or just failed to do its job, to wit: the internment of Japanese-American citizens; the harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders; the shooting of innocent citizens at Ruby Ridge and Waco; the takeover of the Boston Field Office by organized crime boss Whitey Bulger; the betrayals by FBI agent Robert Hanssen; misunderstanding the significance that persons connected to Osama bin laden were enrolled in U.S. flight schools; pursuing and publicly naming the wrong suspect in the 2001 Anthrax attacks; ignoring a Russian warning about the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing; concocting fake terror plots; and ignoring an advance tip about the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

If these abuses happened in, say, Belarus, we’d have congressional hearings, a flood of op-eds; think tank panels featuring government officials and activists with “concerns,” and sanctions galore for the miscreants.

ET, House Intel Relied on Sources Besides CrowdStrike to Conclude Russians Stole DNC Emails, Source Says. So, something is better than nothing? But it's not really all that convincing.

The information provided by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike wasn’t the most compelling piece of evidence examined by a House committee to reach the conclusion that Russian hackers stole thousands of emails from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) server in late May 2016, according to a Republican on the panel who was directly involved in the investigation.

The House Intelligence Committee reviewed multiple independent sources, all of which were more compelling than the evidence handed over by CrowdStrike, the cybersecurity firm that the DNC hired to deal with the breach of its systems. The evidence for the exfiltration of the emails from the DNC server was as convincing as the evidence for the rest of the cyberattack, the source told The Epoch Times.

“The evidence on exfiltration was not weaker than for any other parts of the hacking operation. CrowdStrike’s evidence was not the most compelling thing we had—it was the independent sources of information that also indicated Russian exfiltration. Unfortunately, those details are classified and were redacted from official reports on the hack,” the source said.

The committee disclosed the new information in response to questions that arose from the recently declassified testimony of Shawn Henry, the president of CrowdStrike Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of CrowdStrike. Henry told the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that CrowdStrike had no direct evidence that Russian hackers exfiltrated emails from the DNC email server.

According to special counsel Robert Mueller, Russian hackers breached the DNC’s Microsoft Exchange Server and stole thousands of emails sometime between May 25 and June 1, 2016, more than three weeks after the DNC hired CrowdStrike to protect itself from the hackers and oust them from its network.

Sundance,  It’s Worse Than We Thought – DNI Ratcliffe Declassifies “Annex A” The Supportive Documents For 2017 Intel Community Assessment…

DNI John Ratcliffe has declassified the Appendix to the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). [Source Document Here] The appendix known as “Annex A” was the material the FBI and CIA did not include in the body of the ICA; however, it was used to brief congress. [NOTE: the document quality/clarity is very poor as released]

There was always suspicion that “Annex A” was the ridiculous claims by FBI source Christopher Steele; those suspicions are confirmed today. The ICA was written in late December ’16 & early January 2017, and the purpose was to politicize intelligence by making outlandish claims of the Trump-Russia conspiracy the official position of the U.S intelligence apparatus (CIA, FBI, DOJ and NSA). . . .

I'm happy to see Ratcliffe following going beyond Ric Grenell's footsteps and continuing to turn over rocks to find the creepy creatures underneath: Grenell on Point – The DC Structure Will Never ‘Willingly’ Accept a People’s President…

• When Democrats won the White House in ’92 Republicans helped the transition.
• When Democrats lost the White House in ’00 they created chaos. They destroyed the telephones and computers, punched holes in the walls, spray painted and cut the furniture, and the Clinton’s even stole the furnishings down to the dishes.
• When Democrats won the White House in ’08 Republicans helped the transition.
• When Democrats lost the White House in ’16 they weaponized the intelligence apparatus to destroy the incoming administration. Leaked intelligence to the media; and unmasked incoming officials to create chaos and fabricate lies.

Notice a pattern?

And rules? They're just for us little people, WaFreeBee,  Fired State Department IG Sent Confidential Info to His Personal Email Accounts

The State Department inspector general whose recent dismissal ignited a political firestorm sent copies detailing a sensitive investigation to his personal email account, according to a probe into his conduct run by the Defense Department's inspector general.

The inquiry report, dated March 17, confirms that fired State Department inspector general Steve Linick was the subject of a broad investigation related to the leaks of politically charged materials to journalists, specifically a draft evaluation report into Brian Hook, the State Department’s top Iran official. The report, which was provided to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, concluded that while Linick was permitted to send information to his personal email account to facilitate access while traveling, he was the only official in that office to have done so. The disclosure is likely to raise new questions about Linick’s suspected role in leaking sensitive information to the press.

Linick’s firing generated harsh criticism from Democrats and many in the media, with opponents of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleging the former IG was canned for his efforts to investigate allegations of impropriety related to Pompeo and his staff. The Trump administration, however, has maintained that Linick’s firing was justified.

Details of the highly sensitive investigation into Hook—involving unsubstantiated allegations that Hook fired officials he saw as insufficiently hawkish on Iran—were leaked to the media without authorization, according to the DOD investigation.

The DOD investigation into Linick found that between March 2019 and September 2019 Linick sent 23 emails containing confidential work products from inside the State Department email system to his personal Gmail account. Eight of the emails Linick sent to himself, which were forwarded over a six-day period, contained copies of the incomplete probe into Hook. Linick was the only State Department employee from the IG’s office to email drafts of the evaluation outside the department, according to the report.

Burn out "The Resistance", root and branch!

This Morning's Russiagate News

You know, giving these things a unique name is getting tough.

From Jerry Dunleavy at the WaEx, finally some evidence that the FISA court gives a shit about the abuses that went on, and actually does something, FISA court bans officials involved in Carter Page wiretaps from seeking surveillance. Of course, since they are no longer able to do a significant part of their job, they should be reduced in rank and pay, but I'm not holding my breath. From Just the News, Trump refusing to rubber stamp FISA renewal, demands post-Russia surveillance reforms, which is why the SOBs are trying to tie it to Wuflu money.

In a recent podcast with the Cato Institute, perennial FISA reformer Senator Ron Wyden laid out the usual (and often successful) strategy of pro‐​FISA surveillance hawks, which simply stated is this: wait until the day before the authorities are about to expire, whip up a “24” style fear mongering campaign that says “Renew this or people will DIE!” and then call a vote on a bill that cannot be amended.

Capt. Ed at Hot Air,  New IG Report: FBI Still Deficient On Investigating Home-Grown Terrorists Despite Repeated Failures — And Deaths, but they had plenty of staff and money for an investigation of the Trump campaign and administration.

Oh great, now more judges involved in politics. From the WaPoo, Judge cites Barr’s ‘misleading’ statements in ordering review of Mueller report redactions

A federal judge in Washington sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr on Thursday for a “lack of candor,” questioning the truthfulness of the nation’s top law enforcement official in his handling of last year’s report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, overseeing a lawsuit brought by EPIC, a watchdog group, and BuzzFeed News, said he saw serious discrepancies between Barr’s public statements about Mueller’s findings and the public, partially redacted version of that report detailing the special counsel’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Because of those discrepancies, Walton ruled, the judge would conduct an independent review of Mueller’s full report to see whether the Justice Department’s redactions were appropriate.

Sundance explains in Federal Judge Questions AG Bill Barr Credibility, Orders Review of Unredacted Mueller Report…

For more than a decade DC Judge Walton has been skeptical of official government statements and the officials who deliver them. Going back to the early years of the Obama administration, and continuing through the IRS case(s) in Obama’s second term, Judge Walton’s suspicions have been consistent. Walton consistently wants to see the raw data, and doesn’t trust government presentations or interpretations of the underlying data.

It is against this outlook from the bench where Judge Walton tells the DOJ he wants to see the unredacted Mueller report so he can evaluate whether a FOIA lawsuit has any merit.

In the FOIA lawsuit Buzzfeed wants the unredacted Mueller report. The DOJ has refused to release the unredacted report because, despite Bill Barr’s instructions to the corrupt Mueller group, team Mueller included grand jury information in their final version.

This is the heart of the issue. The DOJ is saying all redactions were made based on DOJ policy and laws; Buzzfeed is challenging that assertion and saying they suspect the DOJ removed material from the Mueller report simply to advance a political narrative.

Judge Walton is saying he wants to see the unredacted report so he can make up his own mind on whether legally FOIA-able material exists. However, Walton is also going one big step further and actually questioning the credibility of AG Bill Barr. That’s the part where the resistance media is having a field day.
. . .
There are a couple of issues:

First, we know Team Mueller intentionally manipulated the report; including their decision to put grand jury 6(e) material into the report; specifically to contrast President Trump in the worst light possible.

Second, we know AG Bill Barr recognized the political narrative written within the corrupt outline authored by Andrew Weissmann and the Mueller team; and took action to eliminate that politicization.

Third, from looking at Judge Reggie Walton’s decisions through the years; and looking at the ruling on the part where he wants to see the raw underlying material; he’s not doing anything out of the ordinary from what he normally does. However, that said, Walton calling AG Barr’s credibility into question is quite remarkable.

Judge Walton did a good job calling the Obama administration and DOJ to task in the IRS targeting of conservative groups [SEE HERE] and [SEE HERE] ultimately resulting in the DOJ and IRS admitting what took place and settling class-action lawsuits as a result.

If AG Bill Barr did what he said he did, there shouldn’t be an issue.

From Breitbart, Sen. Ron Johnson Planning to Release Interim Findings in Burisma-Biden Probe. good.  WaPoo, Trump and allies target Hunter Biden anew as father surges in primaries. Politics ain't beanbag. But from Just the News, Romney could block subpoena in Hunter Biden probe "The Utah senator said that the investigation "appears political"". Ace, Mitt Romney: The Investigation Into Hunter Biden "Appears Political" and Therefore Must Not Be Undertaken by the Senate. And No, I'm Not Going to Explain Why I Supported the Obviously Political Investigation Into Trump in the Senate.

Pierre Delecto's alt account speaks. Via Tami.

Oh, and as you read this, keep this tidbit in mind:

Burisma faced a money-laundering investigation and questions over how it had obtained some of its licenses to drill for natural gas. In spring 2014, the company appointed Hunter Biden and a former Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, to its board. Three years later, Burisma added Cofer Black, a former CIA official and foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, to the board.
"I believe the only reason Burisma and Zlochevsky were inviting people with such names was to whitewash their reputation and to present themselves as a company doing legitimate business in Ukraine," says Daria Kaleniuk, head of the nongovernmental Anti-Corruption Action Center in Kyiv.

You might wonder why no one in the establishment media of either political orientation asks Romney about this, or wonders about Romney's own conflict of interest.

Sole Republican to join hyperpartisan Democrats in unquestionably political impeachment says that investigation of corruption related to powerful US political players and taxpayer funding of foreign entities looks "political." Even for Mitt Romney, that's pretty Mitt Romney. https://t.co/cpJtEVMoSW

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) March 5, 2020

Insty, WHATEVER THE DEMOCRATS HAVE ON MITT ROMNEY, IT MUST BE AWFULLY GOOD. Romney could block subpoena in Hunter Biden probe. Apparently, Pierre has forgotten how the Democrats reviled him as the new Hitler during his presidential run. I suspect that Romney is not doing this out of conflict, but rather his deep seated hatred of the Donald, and a bit of wishful thinking about cross party civility.

Stu CVrk at Red State, Tom Fitton Provides More Nuggets About Hillary’s Upcoming Deposition (And More)

• Hillary Clinton will be deposed in person, not via written answers, within 75 days.
• Her top aide Cheryl Mills will also be deposed under oath.
• The State Dept and Justice Dept continue to obstruct access to Hillary’s emails. They have argued that the matter is “not serious enough” to warrant depositions under oath. [To me, this is ASTOUNDING since she compromised at least 22 emails classified as Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) – and quite possibly many more among the missing emails. This is most definitely serious enough to warrant face-to-face depositions!]
• The judge will authorize subpoenas for Google in order to ascertain whether there are other emails that can be recovered.
• Senate rules preclude aggressive investigations, as consensus is required to proceed. The Republican leadership in the Senate doesn’t want to change the rules to make it easier to conduct investigations.
• Fitton (and Dobbs) support the appointment of an independent special counsel with the power necessary to thoroughly investigate the Ukraine-related corruption and election meddling.

Clinton.com Fixes Amazon Reviews.

Among other entries in today's review of bad news for Hillary:

No matter too small for the Clintons to try to fix: Author: Hillary flooded Amazon with negative reviews of my book

Dirty trickster Roger Stone seems to be the victim of dirty tricks.

The political consultant’s new book, “The Clintons’ War on Women,” is the top-rated political history seller on Amazon, but the online retailer was flooded last week with one-star reviews.

“My publisher [Skyhorse] confirmed with Amazon — they were all from the same URL, at Hillary’s HQ in Brooklyn,” Stone — whose clients have included Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump — told me. “Why are they so afraid of this book?”

According to Politico, Clinton press secretary Brian Fallon told bundlers last month: “When this Roger Stone book comes out — we’ll obtain the book. Our research team will be able to go through it . . . There will be a war room set up to deal with that.”

The problem with Amazon reviews is well known:

Amazon is separately suing more than 1,000 people it claims are posting fake reviews and selling them for a cost starting at $5. It is estimated that 15 percent of online reviews are generated by boiler-room operations.

America’s largest online retailer is demanding the defendants stop selling Amazon reviews, disclose who is buying their service and identify which reviews were paid for.

or too big:   Emails: Clinton Foundation Donor Lobbied State Department for Haiti Hotels

A donor to the Clinton Foundation reached out to Hillary Clinton’s office to promote a Haiti hotel project that later received support from the U.S. government and Bill Clinton, according to emails released by the Department of State. Richard L. Friedman, a Boston hotel developer emailed Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s chief of staff, to tout the project on May 17, 2011.

“We had a good meeting with Jean-Louis, Marriott executives, [the Overseas Private Investment Corporation], etc regarding building hotels in Haiti—I am pursuing this vigorously and hope to be able to develop 2 to 3 hotels with Marriott as manager,” wrote Friedman. “I am talking with Commerce and Export/Import Bank today.”

Friedman said he recently had a discussion with Hillary Clinton at the White House and asked Mills to forward her a note for him. It is unclear what he and Clinton discussed, and portions of his email have been redacted by the State Department due to “personal private interests.” The note he asked Mills to send to Clinton is also redacted.

“I will keep you informed about our progress in Haiti—we are going to need all the help we can get,” Friedman wrote Mills.

Mills forwarded Friedman’s full email to Clinton and her scheduler, Lona Valmoro, on June 7 with the note “See highlight—resending.” The copy released by the State Department does not indicate which portion of the email Mills highlighted.

 Lest you think that government under Hillary Clinton will be too expensive. . .

Friedman contributed between $1,000 and $5,000 to the Clinton Foundation and gave $2,300 to Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, records show.

Surprise: Cybersecurity Deteriorated Under Hillary Clinton

In an Associated Press exclusive, Ken Dilanian notes just how bad cybersecurity was during Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State. The article is primarily published in local news sites, though the NY TImes does have it as a web only piece, not in their published paper. Other national news outlets, such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Washington Post, MSNBC, for instance? Not at this time

(AP) The State Department was among the worst agencies in the federal government at protecting its computer networks while Hillary Clinton was secretary from 2009 to 2013, a situation that continued to deteriorate as John Kerry took office and Russian hackers breached the department's email system, according to independent audits and interviews.
The State Department's compliance with federal cybersecurity standards was below average when Clinton took over but grew worse in each year of her tenure, according to an annual report card compiled by the White House based on audits by agency watchdogs. Network security continued to slip after Kerry replaced Clinton in February 2013, and remains substandard, according to the State Department inspector general.
In each year from 2011 to 2014, the State Department's poor cybersecurity was identified by the inspector general as a "significant deficiency" that put the department's information at risk. The latest assessment is due to be published in a few weeks.

The State Dept is unhappy with the assessment, and yammers on about being almost 100% secure, so, a bit of CYA, rather than putting the effort in to actually resolving the issues. They had been warned numerous times by Inspector Generals of the deficiencies of the system.

When you're actively opposed to something, it's pretty easy to undermine it by neglect alone.

'Smoking gun' emails just released by UK Daily Mail prove Hillary a bigger liar than Tony Blair

The UK Daily Mail is making big headlines (at the top of the Drudge Report page as I write) with its exclusive story purporting to prove that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was committed to war with Iraq at a time he was telling the British public that he was seeking a diplomatic solution. The email it cites came from “a batch of secret emails held on the private server of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have forced her to reveal.”

I think the Daily Mail has buried the lead. For one thing, the secret memo to President Bush authored by then US secretary of State Colin Powell, rather than proving Blair was committed to war clearly states, "On Iraq, Blair will be with us should military operations be necessary." That is a contingency. If diplomacy had succeeded, then Blair would not be committed to war.

But much more important to me than this UK-centric story is what we learn about Hillary Clinton’s emails. Take a look at the memo itself, the top line in the left had column.

That’s right! It was labeled “Secret/Noforn.”

Now, look at the bottom of the memo. It reads:

This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that, as my friend Mike Nadler says, “she lied in her numerous statements that there were no classified documents on her server, even with her later qualification that none were marked classified at the time." At the time she was doing this research, the memo was still classified, only to be unclassified in 2014.

Hillary as first prisoner-in-chief

. . . But (with apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald) the Clintons are like the rich, very different from you and me. They have forged a permanent pass to do as they please, and nobody is expected to think the worse for it, since they were worse before they left Little Rock. Ol’ Bubba is a rascal, and we’ve always liked rascals, some more than others. Hillary, who is the garden-variety shrew who reminds many men of their first wives, could make like-minded friends in prison, sipping weak coffee and having a gossip with the girls.

Hillary may beat the rap. But the FBI inquiry into playing fast and loose with the country’s most sensitive secrets is by definition a criminal investigation. If she is found guilty she could be subject to 20 years in prison and required to pay a big fine. The cloud hanging over her prospects terrifies Democrats.

There’s a precedent that makes Hillary tremble, too. Gen. David Petraeus was found guilty of using smaller government secrets as thrilling pillow talk and he got 20 years, suspended for good behavior, and fined $100,000. . . 

Clinton's Southern strategy? Hillary fakes her accent for local crowd

Hillary Clinton has started faking a Southern drawl to speak to Southerners, just as she did during her last presidential run eight years ago.

The tactic drew chuckles, derision and not a little resentment when she tried it in 2007 and 2008. But she was back at it again in Alabama on Saturday, putting on a heavy twang to express her contempt for Republicans.

Some southerners were not impressed: GOP lawmaker floats impeachment for Clinton

A Republican lawmaker is floating impeachment for Hillary Clinton, should the Democratic presidential candidate lock up her party's nomination and go on to win the White House.

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) said in a phone interview with The Hill late Monday that he believes Clinton improperly handled classified information on her private email server used during her time as secretary of State.

Brooks said that Clinton "would be subject to impeachment," adding, "subject to impeachment means that should the House and Senate so choose, she could be impeached based on offenses, high crimes and misdemeanors, that she has in all probability already committed.

Overload at Clinton.com

Dang, I laid off one day, and the list is too long to deal with:

6,300 pages of Hillary's State Dept. emails released, and 215 of them had redactions for classified data. bringing the total up to around 400. At current count, Hillary was exposing classified data in about 5.5% her emails to possible interception by using substandard email.

In one of the new email revelations, Hillary was found to castigate staff for the State Depts. new policy of gender neutral passports applications, naming parents and Parent 1 and Parent 3 instead of Mother and Father. Also revealed was the fact that hench woman Huma Abedin had the means to access Hillary's accounts, and send emails from them, and actually did on at least one occasion. That answers my question about who was really running the State Department while Hillary was raising money for Clinton.com.

Hillary missed the early morning Benghazi phone call because she didn't know how to turn on the ringer on her phone. I shouldn't make fun, The ringer on one of our phones is off and we haven't tried to fix it.

The State Department, has suddenly realized it wasn't taking the problem of Hillary's Clinton seriously because they didn't think she was actually handling much of it. Would that were true.

Even Valarie Jarrett, sub rosa ruler of the United States, warned Hillary not to use her private email system and to turn over records if she did. It's not clear if she understood it was on a Clinton.com server. Clinton aide-de-camp Cheryl Mills warned Hillary about the possibility of the "special" email system being hacked, saying that someone had attempted to hack her email and that they might not want the existence of the system to become widely known.

That's funny! So funny, in fact that Hillary joked about the possibility that the Chinese might intercept her email! But the emails revealed that there were at least five rather clumsy attempt by Russian hackers to infect Hillary's system with malware. The good news, is that ordinary garden variety criminal hackers didn't appear to succeed. The bad news is that we may never find out if the Russian or Chinese intelligence services succeeded.

A former CIA employee. Tyler Drumheller working at CBS also served as one of Hillary's "secret spy network," along with Sid the Shiv Blumenthal. Not only did she have a "private" computer system, she also had a private spy nest.

Clinton.com honchos solicited money from a Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselber, known for his ties to Vladimir Putin. Hey, somebody has to pay the bills! I wonder what the proposed quo pro was?

Did Hillary really get a face lift in anticipation of running for President? If so, she may need more; she still looks old and beat.

Clinton.coms results in Haiti mixed at best. They could do more if they had a lower overhead rate.

But it's such great idea, Hillary proposes to model a National Infrastructure Bank on the Clinton.com model. More slush money!

Ho hum, another day, another Hillary campaign worker accused of breaking campaign laws.

How Long Before Hillary Garbed in a Bathrobe Starts Wandering the Streets of Chappaqua? She probably has already started, and the media knows it and is covering it up.

Clinton.com Email Back in the News

Quite a bit of activity on the "Clinton.com" front as two inspectors general ask the Justice Department to open an inquiry into Hillary's email issues. It will be instructive to see Attorney General Lynch's response. . ..

Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.

The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.

It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them.

However, see below.

But since her use of a private email account for official State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no classified information on the account.

Hillary Clinton Sent Classified Information Over Email While at State Department, Review Finds

An internal government review found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent at least four emails from her personal account containing classified information during her time heading the State Department.

In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community concluded that Mrs. Clinton’s email contains material from the intelligence community that should have been considered “secret” at the time it was sent, the second-highest level of classification. A copy of the letter to Congress was provided to The Wall Street Journal by a spokeswoman for the Inspector General.

The four emails in question “were classified when they were sent and are classified now,” said Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the inspector general. The inspector general reviewed just a small sample totaling about 40 emails in Mrs. Clinton’s inbox—meaning that many more in the trove of more than 30,000 may contain potentially confidential, secret or top-secret information.

New York Times alters Clinton email story

The New York Times made small but significant changes to an exclusive report about a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's State Department email account late Thursday night, but provided no notification of or explanation for of the changes.

The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."

That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new headline.
. . .
One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

All the democratic ass that's fit to cover.

Clinton's Conspiracy of Secrecy Worthy of Criminal Probe

When she's not blaming the media, Republicans, bureaucrats, and technology—everything and anything, except the dog who ate her email—Clinton is destroying her credibility.

"There is no classified material," she said. Wrong.

"Everything I did was permitted," she said. Wrong.

"People should and do trust me," she said. Wrong and wrong. A majority of people don't trust Clinton, because a majority of people aren't blindly loyal to her or on her payroll.

Most people can sift through the spin, the lies, and the parsing to see the bottom line: She secreted and deleted her email for reasons we may never know. And she's blaming everybody but the only person responsible for this mess, the only person who can clean it up: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Boehner to Hillary: 'Immediately' Turn Over Email Server

Speaker of the House John Boehner is calling on Hillary Clinton to turn over her private email server "immediately."

“Two inspector generals appointed by President Obama have now called on the Justice Department to investigate Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified email. If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete record," Boehner says in a statement to the press.

“What these reports demonstrate is the inherent risk of conducting our nation’s diplomacy and foreign policy on your home email and personal server. Secretary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the work-related emails on her private home server did not include classified information, but we know that is not true. She has claimed she is well-aware of what matters are classified and what are not, and yet she set up a personal email server to discuss matters of national security despite guidance to the contrary from both her State Department and the White House. Her poor judgement has undermined our national security and it is time for her to finally do the right thing.”

Will we be shocked when she turns over a few pounds of shredded server?

Has the aura of inevitability begun to dim? Poll: Clinton trails top Republicans in battleground states

Hillary Clinton trails three top Republican presidential candidates in head-to-head matchups in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, a new survey shows.

The latest Quinnipiac University swing state polling released Wednesday shows the Democratic frontrunner trailing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in each of those states.
. . .
The results offered more indications that Clinton has a problem: Voters say they don't trust her. . .

And why would they?

Dem fears over Clinton’s strength grow after new poll

Democrats are seeing warning signs after a new poll showed Hillary Clinton losing three swing states and deep in negative territory on questions of character.

One Democratic strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity described the poll results as “the canary in the coal mine.”
. . .
Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic consultant who has worked with Clinton in the past but is not involved with her current campaign, described the findings as “absolutely dangerous” for the party.

“The electorate is very volatile. They are not happy about anybody [in politics], and this is just another indication of that.”

Hillary Clinton: Of Course I'm Not Asking People To Vote For Me Because I'm a Woman. I'm Asking Them To Vote For Me On the Merits. And My Merits Are, I'm a Woman.

No really it's close enough to that that it might as well be that.

"Clearly I'm not asking people to vote for me simply because I'm a woman. I'm asking people to vote for me on the merits. And I think one of the merits is I am a woman and I can bring those views and perspectives to the White House."

You can watch this old drunken cow say these words on video at the link, if you can take it.

And of course she's defending the Planned Parenthood Organ Harvesting Combines, because of course she is.

It continues to astonish me that she continues to get such support.

And a late update via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox, 07.23.15"


Hillary’s campaign focused on bringing down Wall Street by accepting as much of their money as possible

Hypocrisy, “for the children”:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s economic agenda targets companies that focus on short-term profits and high-speed trading instead of investing in workers. The Democratic presidential candidate’s finance operation is going after their executives for another purpose — donations.
A day after proposing higher capital gains taxes on short-term investors, Clinton raised at least $450,000 Tuesday night at the Chicago home of Raj Fernando, a longtime donor. His firm, Chopper Trading, specializes in high-frequency transactions and was recently purchased by Chicago-based competitor DRW.
Clinton’s son-in-law the hedge fund manager approves of her fight against Wall Street.

Dear China . . .

I doesn't bother me too much that you probably have the results of a security clearance search the Smithsonian conducted on me about 10 years ago when I went to work for them. You'll almost certainly keep my SSN as well hidden as the federal government, not that that's a high bar.

But could you please give us copies of all of Lois Lerner's and Hillary Clinton's State Dept. emails?

Via Instapundit, an epic twitter rant from Rick Wilson.

Hillary Used Illegal Private Email for Government Business

According to this article at the Post this morning: Hillary Clinton used private e-mail for government business at State Dept.

Hillary Rodham Clinton used a private e-mail account for her official government business when she was secretary of state and did not routinely preserve and turn over those e-mails for government records collection, the State Department said Monday.

Clinton has turned over thousands of e-mails to the department from her private account, a step that was first reported by the New York Times late Monday. The private account came to light when the department sought records from Clinton and other former secretaries who have held the post during the e-mail age.

What, at this point, does it matter?

Clinton never had such an address and relied exclusively on the private account, the Times reported. The Times said Clinton’s aides took no action during her four years as secretary to ensure that the records would be preserved on department servers, as required by the Federal Records Act.

Who gets to determine which of those emails become public?

Clinton’s aides reviewed tens of thousands of pages of her personal e-mails and decided which ones to turn over to the State Department, the Times reported. In total, 55,000 pages of e-mails were turned over, the newspaper reported.

Look, it's the Mama Foxes kits who determine access to the hen house! I'm sure they turned in all building wide offers for food left over from meeting, free plants, and cast off chairs, but withheld anything tainted by politics.

What puzzles me most about this scandal is that people think, or at least pretend to think, that Hillary did any real work at the State Dept. She was appointed to the position by Barack Hussein Obama to keep her sort of out of trouble, and preserve the illusion that she was a "working" girl. She logged countless miles in pursuit of foreign dollars for the Clinton Foundations, which will somehow be turned into salaries for Chelsea, Bill, and eventually Hillary. Those houses don't clean themselves, you know. And gave Russia a fake reset button.  Actual accomplishments? Name one.

Trying to Think of Hillary's Accomplishments?

Me too! Hillary struggles to list accomplishments during tenure as Secretary of State

When you look at your time as Secretary of State, what are you most proud of? And what do you feel was unfinished, and maybe have another crack at one day?” the moderator asks.

“Well, I really see — that was good — that’s why he wins prizes. Look, I really see my role as Secretary, in fact leadership in general in a democracy, as a relay race. When you run the best race you can run, you hand off the baton. Some of what hasn’t been finished may go on to be finished, so when President Obama asked me to be Secretary of State I agreed,” Clinton responded.

She continued, “We had the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, we had two wars. We had continuing threats from all kinds of corners around the world that we had to deal with. So it was a perilous time frankly. What he said to me was, ‘Look, I have to be dealing with the economic crisis, I want you to go out and represent us around the world.’ And it was a good division of labor because we needed to make it clear to the rest of the world, that we were going to get our house in order. We were going to stimulate, and grow, and get back to positive growth and work with our friends and partners.” . . .

How about this one?  $6 Billion Goes Missing at State Department

The State Department has no idea what happened to $6 billion used to pay its contractors. In a special “management alert” made public Thursday, the State Department’s Inspector General Steve Linick warned “significant financial risk and a lack of internal control at the department has led to billions of unaccounted dollars over the last six years.

The alert was just the latest example of the federal government’s continued struggle with oversight over its outside contractors.

The lack of oversight “exposes the department to significant financial risk,” the auditor said. “It creates conditions conducive to fraud, as corrupt individuals may attempt to conceal evidence of illicit behavior by omitting key documents from the contract file. It impairs the ability of the Department to take effective and timely action to protect its interests, and, in tum, those of taxpayers.”

In the memo, the IG detailed “repeated examples of poor contract file administration.” For instance, a recent investigation of the closeout process for contracts supporting the mission in Iraq, showed that auditors couldn't find 33 of the 115 contract files totaling about $2.1 billion. Of the remaining 82 files, auditors said 48 contained insufficient documents required by federal law.

Let's see. $6,000,000,000 over 6 years in an organizations with somewhere around 40,000 employees. If Excel is correct, that's approximately $150,000 per employee or $25,000 per employee per year. Not a bad bonus.

State Department Strives to Lose Staid Image

or to cite Stacy McCain: ‘It’s for the Children!’

Next time you hear a Democrat make that kind of argument, please keep in mind this headline from Ace of Spades HQ:

Ambassador Who Ran off to Have Sex With Minor Children ID’d as Major Obama Bundler & Political Appointee; Hillary’s Lawyer Cheryl Mills Once Again Stepped In to “Fix” Matters

Or how about this for a book title?

“It Takes a Village to Rape a Child.”

Because, after all, it was Hillary Clinton’s State Department — indeed, her personal fixer — that tried to cover this up:

A [diplomatic security] agent was called off a case against US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman over claims that he solicited prostitutes, including minors.
“The agent began his investigation and had determined that the ambassador routinely ditched his protective security detail in order to solicit sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children,” says the memo.
“The ambassador’s protective detail and the embassy’s surveillance detection team . . . were well aware of the behavior.”

For the record, Gutman denies it:

“I am angered and saddened by the baseless allegations that have appeared in the press . . . at no point have I ever engaged in any improper activity.”

Translation: “You can’t prove it, hahaha!”

Exit Question: What Obama administration scandal is this Obama administration scandal supposed to distract our attention from?

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