Here’s the link to the FBI Employment Agreement, which lays out rules for releasing information, to include information that is not classified, to the media or outside parties:
A pox on both your houses
Comey has done more to unify Republicans in the past 24 hours than Trump has done since he became the Republican nominee for president. Here are my observations from Comey’s testimony and the political fall-out.
Today the media is in full-throated defense of Comey. Pelosi is tweeting about #ProtectOurDemocracy from Trump & the Russians, I presume, and America’s War of Words continues (here and here).
Up for redefinition, courtesy James Comey’s testimony, are a “matter”, where Comey testified yesterday that Loretta Lynch asked him to refer to the Clinton criminal investigation as a “matter”. Comey did obey and used that Clinton spin language. Now, Team Lynch is rebutting that Comey was told to do that characterization and I saw one tweet explaining the goal was to use consistent language, not a spin effort to use the Clinton campaign language to downplay the criminal investigation:
Ari MelberVerified account @AriMelber 18 hours ago
MoreNew: A denial/clarification of Comey statement about Lynch, from a source familiar with discussion, to NBC News: pic.twitter.com/vqsAmWsidF
Comey’s double-standard problem stems from his being a willing lackey for the Dems with burying the Clinton criminal investigation and aiding in Loretta Lynch’s Clinton clean-up effort. Lynch was caught meeting privately with the spouse of a target of a criminal investigation. She refused to recuse herself from the investigation, but instead, put Comey in a compromising position, by making a public statement that she would abide by the FBI’s recommendation on the Clinton investigation. It is NOT the FBI’s job to make a recommendation on prosecution, but Comey went along with that.
Comey compromised his integrity thoroughly on July 5, 2016. He went from mischaracterizing a criminal investigation to creating an intent provision in the law, exonerating Hillary Clinton using that made-up provision and then coining a new phrase “extremely careless” to mischaracterize and downplay her grossly negligent mishandling of highly classified information. Lynch promptly closed the criminal investigation (in Clinton/mainstream media parlance, that criminal investigation was not only a “matter” it was a “right-wing witch hunt”).
Comey appeared before Congress to explain his decisions and he sounded more like Hillary’s defense attorney than the director of the FBI. Loretta Lynch, likewise testified before Congress about the investigation. Her testimony was akin to giving the Congressional Republicans questioning her the middle finger. It was a disgraceful stone-walling effort.
President Trump is an epic liar, just like the Clintons. No need to rehash the endless, ongoing partisan War of Words, but America was the big loser yesterday. There were no “winners”. Comey damaged himself in some ways, helped himself a bit in others. Trump came across as corruptly trying to influence a FBI investigation and putting political pressure on the FBI director, but he won big on some other points.
Comey admitted that he personally leaked his memos of his meetings with President Trump to the media, through a third-party, a friend. This admission made Comey appear to be out for revenge and a partisan leaker. That Comey’s friend, Preet Bharara, a Trump-fired DOJ official, was sitting in a reserved seat, courtesy of Chuck Schumer, added to the partisan political aura surrounding Comey. Today, the pundits are debating if Comey’s memos were personal notes or official FBI records and if what Comey did was “leaking” vs. whistleblowing. Anonymous Trump sources suggested that Trump’s lawyer may demand Comey’s leaking be investigated. Comey legal eagle friends are countering that such a request would be Trump abusing power… to silence a whistleblower.
Comey is not a whistleblower. His notes are not like his personal diary and per his own testimony, those notes were FBI documents at the center of several high-level FBI meetings about the ongoing investigation into Mike Flynn. If these memos were part of the official FBI decision-making process on an important investigation, that would make them official records, I believe. Jonathan Turley, Georgetown Law Professor, argues that Comey’s memos are FBI documents:
“The problem is that Comey’s description of his use of an FBI computer to create memoranda to file suggests that these are arguably government documents. Comey admitted that he thought he raised the issue with his staff and recognized that they might be needed by the Department or Congress. They read like a type of field 302 form, which are core investigatory documents.
The admission of leaking the memos is problematic given the overall controversy involving leakers undermining the Administration. Indeed, it creates a curious scene of a former director leaking material against the President after the President repeatedly asked him to crack down on leakers.”
https://jonathanturley.org/2017/06/08/did-comey-violate-laws-in-leaking-memo/
Alas we move from Bill Clinton’s server, for his foundation emails, being cast as Hillary’s server, to the contents of that server being divided into State Department records and Hillary’s personal emails, with Bill Clinton’s foundation emails disappearing literally and from any mention by the media, to now Comey’s memos are being cast as Comey’s Dear Diary entries… Psst, don’t forget that David Kendall’s office reported to the media that they had saved the entire content on that server on a thumb drive. Patrick Kennedy, the State Dept Clinton email fixer, testified to Congress that he believed the FBI had that thumb drive (along with Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson’s laptops).
From Comey’s public pronouncements exonerating Hillary Clinton, going so far as to insist she had no criminal intent, it’s not surprising that Trump, being as corrupt as the Clintons, assumed Comey would play ball and be willing to play with him too. Comey admitted to telling Trump three times that he was not under investigation and Trump became angry that Comey would not exonerate him publicly. Comey decided not to compromise his integrity for Trump as he had for Hillary Clinton.
Paul Ryan characterized Trump as being “naive” about how things work as an excuse for Trump’s highly inappropriate pressure in those private conversations with Comey. Trump isn’t “naive”, in fact, if there’s one thing Trump is an expert at it’s reading people and leveraging power. Trump expected Comey to play politics with him, just as Comey had done for Lynch/Clinton. Trump will overplay his hand, trying to fight Comey, Dems and the media and go too far attacking Comey. He was back on Twitter this morning, rallying his base by branding Comey “a leaker”.
All of this endless redefinition and spin highlights the complete dysfunction of our political parties.
Comey played the martyr:
“Maine Sen. Angus King was pressing Comey about how he interpreted phrases President Donald Trump used in a one-on-one February dinner, in which Trump urged Comey to drop the probe into just-fired national security adviser Mike Flynn.King, an independent, asked Comey if he interpreted language like “I hope” as directives from the President.“Yes. It kind of rings in my ears as, ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?'” Comey said.”
I prefer to go Shakespearean:
“A plague o’ both your houses!”
Or in the modern vernacular:
A pox on both your houses!
“Assault” on our institutions
Former DNI, James Clapper, a liar under oath, was on TV lamenting about the “assault” on our institutions with the Russian trying to interfere in our election and Trump’s attacks on the intelligence community.
The media is stuck on moral preening about the “dangers” Trump poses to our republic daily, but here’s the one truth the media and Dems completely ignore:
The Dems colluded with the mainstream media to the tune of millions of dollars in free media to aid and abet Trump’s “GOP Insurgency”. Without their CORRUPT collusion, it is very unlikely Trump could have gained traction and been taken seriously as a presidential candidate. The media SOLD Trump to the American people as a viable candidate and they also sat on negative Trump stories until Trump’s GOP insurgency had succeeded.
The Russians ability to engage in cyber attacks is a direct result of the Obama administration (of which Clapper played a vital role) failure to act aggressively against escalating Russian cyber attacks and influence operations.
All the moral preening, from those who were a part of the Obama intelligence failures and corrupt Dem mass media spin operations (EVERY Democrat in Congress included) is deflection.
The GOP failed to defend its own party from a “GOP insurgency” waged by a loudmouth, Reality TV host.
And the American people have no respect of “our institutions” or they would not have settled for two completely corrupt candidates.
Our institutions were under assault long before Trump, otherwise a scorched earth information war between two extremely corrupt candidates, like Trump and Hillary, would not have been tolerated by the American people.
The Russians took advantage of the weaknesses in “our institutions”. Clapper should be held to account for his large role in the security failures, but the political class, the media and most of all the American people will have to wake-up and face their culpability too.
Blaming the Russians for attacking our institutions won’t save America.
Only a united America can do that.
Soldiers and books
Today, being D-Day, I keep coming across interesting Army history links. Among the many things I loved about living in an Army community, Army post libraries rank high on my list. Books have always been near and dear to my heart. Growing up in a rural PA village, with no public library, my first experience with an actual library was my elementary school library.
The interesting thing about growing up in a rural area, without a public library, is despite the lack of an actual library, books circulated informally among family and friends. Along with these informal book exchanges, my childhood pastor and his wife, who lived across the road from my family, had acquired a nice-sized home library, which they freely shared with me.
One of the things I quickly noticed around the Army was books circulated in the same informal way as they did in my rural PA village, which was a part of the sense of “community”, that made me feel at home around the Army. An added bonus was Army posts, even small ones had post libraries.
Here’s a bit of Army library history:
“During World War I and World War II, camp libraries popped up everywhere at military bases in the United States and all over Europe, stretching as far east as Siberia. These camp libraries were originally established by the American Library Association (ALA), and at the end of World War I, ALA transferred control of them to the war department, which maintains them to this day. ALA worked with the YMCA, the Knights of Columbus, and the American Red Cross to provide library services to other organizations, such as hospitals and rehabilitation centers.
These libraries were nothing glamorous—usually a shed, shack, or a hut built of wood and other available materials. They were run by librarians who volunteered to travel overseas to care for the libraries. Responsibilities included circulating the collections, maintaining them, weeding out books, and acquiring new ones. More than 1,000 librarians volunteered during World War I, and that number only increased with World War II.”
– How libraries served soldiers and civilians during WWI and WWII
Filed under American History, General Interest, Military
Another shoe dropped
Another shoe dropped. Susan Rice, Samantha Power and John Brennan were mentioned a couple days ago, as being subpoenaed to provide information to the House Intelligence Committee on their unmasking Americans names from surveillance intelligence.
Trey Gowdy questioned John Brennan on unmasking at the May 23rd hearing. Gowdy asked about unmasking Americans’ names on the last day an official served in office. So, based on Gowdy’s questions and the subsequent subpoenas, it will be interesting to see which Obama hack(s) unmasked Americans’ names, who unmasked names on his or her last day in office and who has been leaking all this information to the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Gowdy’s questioning begins at 28:24 and he also has more questions for Brennan at 41:42.
Americans should be very concerned when intelligence is used for partisan political attacks on American citizens by high officials entrusted to protect The Constitution.
“Russian influence” operates the same way. The Russians excel at smear campaigns, vicious character assassinations, using ill-gotten information to advance their political agendas using mass media to disseminate their messaging. The Democrats relentless, hysterical “Russian influence” spin is as destructive as Trump’s endless spin and misdirections. And both might be more destructive than any influence operations the Russians could dream up.
Who needs foreign enemies, when domestic partisans are tearing the very fabric of our republic to shreds? Hillary has come out of the woods and with the help of much of the mainstream media, she is ready to refight the 2016 information war, in hopes of destroying Trump. Trump is rumored to be considering bringing his “GOP Insurgent” scorched earth talking points street-brawler, Corey Lewandowski, into the White House to help fight the Clinton/Obama/Dem/media machines who are colluding to destroy Trump’s presidency (the Resistance).
Putin really doesn’t have to exert much effort to destroy Americans’ trust in their own government, when we’ve got the two most vile, corrupt, narcissistic sociopaths still engaged in take no prisoners, scorched earth information warfare.
Who knows what will be left when Drumpfzilla and the Witch of Chappaqua get done fighting. It’s a safe bet that America will be worse off for enduring Trump vs. Hillary.
Still crickets from the mainstream media
The Democrats and mainstream media see Russian collusion everywhere. On Sunday, Chuck Todd, epic water-carrier of Dem. spin, went one step further than relentlessly repeating “Russian influence”, when interviewing General Kelly. Todd referred to this as Russian INFILTRATION… Seriously, he said “infiltration”…
Still crickets from Todd and the rest of the mainstream media on the Awan brothers though.
The Daily Caller has run several stories on the Pakistani IT guys that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and several other Dem Congressman used. The Awan brothers is the most underreported scandal, that the mainstream media keeps ignoring. Here’s a May 22nd report: Sources: Democratic Aide Suspected Of Major Security Breach Under Government Protection In Pakistan. Here’s the May 24th report on Wasserman-Schultz threatening the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police about “consequences”, because he won’t release equipment seized in their investigation into the Awan brothers theft and cyber security breaches: Wasserman Schultz Threatened Police Chief For Gathering Evidence On Her IT Staffer’s Alleged Crimes [VIDEO]
Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, Politics
More craft time
A second one of these “cube” cross-stitch finishes done. The pattern was a free pattern from the Snowflower Diaries website. This one is for my oldest daughter.
Decided on just a simple little pillow with this cross-stitch piece.
Reading the “Russian influence “hysterical news and other assorted looney-tunes news from the Left today and guess what, they have another stupid march planned for June 6th… Ironically, the Soros-funded propaganda group, MoveOn.org, was advertising this latest one, dubbed #MarchForTruth. The Women’s March was idiotic and pointless, the Workers March was even more idiotic and pointless, so geesh, can this one be anything, but idiotic and pointless?
Being weary of the Left’s “Russian influence” hysterics and Trump’s chaos, I decided to make some Christmas ornaments this afternoon, so we’ll see how they turn out.
Filed under General Interest
The Ben Jacobs assault “audio”
I listened to that audio clip of the Ben Jacobs/Greg Gianforte incident, from Wednesday, May 23rd, several more times. Gianforte sounds calm and polite when he tells Jacobs to “please” speak to Shane. Then there’s scuffling noises, which I assume Jacobs’ phone picked up. Then, after a few seconds, Gianforte yells that he’s sick and tired of “you guys” and yells “the last time you came in here you did the same thing” and then he tells Jacobs to “get the hell out of here”.
I wonder what Jacobs did with his cell phone and what Gianforte was referring to as “the same thing” and I wonder what those scuffling sounds are that precede Gianforte yelling.
Without a doubt Gianforte should not have body-slammed a reporter, but what bothers me is within a few hours the media generated a spin cycle on Twitter with this incident based on Jacobs’ tweets and an audio video.
Gianforte was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion based on a tweetstorm among the media. These tweetstorms are now an integral part of how journalists generate their news stories – retweeting each other’s tweets, not by hitting the pavement independently investigating stories or asking questions.
The assault charge resulted from witness statements and I wonder if Alicia Acuna is one of the key eye-witnesses. She’s now the liberal media’s only FOX News heroine, with her story the next day, May 24th, relating that Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck. In that story, it appears that FOX news used Jacobs’ audio recording. Later, that day Acuna walked back much of her account in an interview with Laura Ingraham.
Gianforte came out and apologized for his conduct.
The fall-out or perhaps partisan political fault lines were drawn in this incident, where the media and Dems sided up to condemn, not only Gianforte, but many tried to blame Trump for Gianforte’s behavior. Some floated that Gianforte should not be seated in Congress with an assault charge pending. On the right, some pundits cheered Gianforte’s body-slamming a reporter and dismissed the incident as the reporter had it coming.
My issue is I still am not sure about the facts of what exactly happened and I find that judging based on one side’s audio clip from a cell-phone, that could easily be altered, a reporter who walked back much of her lurid account and a media tweetstorm seems a poor way to do investigative journalism. And once again, Acuna recounted that she, a field producer and a photographer had arrived early to set-up, but not a single photo or video of the incident from a professional photographer???
Gianforte will probably try to settle this assault charge quickly, but this incident will follow him for his political future.
Jacobs is a now a media darling among journalists and “victim” the Left will throw out at every opportunity to paint Republicans as barbarians.
This is justice served cold via lazy journalists who make and destroy people with spin cycles they create on Twitter.
Filed under Corrupt Media Collusion, General Interest, The Media
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