I am usually not interested in conspiracy theories but the present circumstances make me suspicious.
First, Hillary launched and persists in supporting a movement that refuses to accept the election result.
Hillary Clinton rallied the opposition Friday with a videotaped message urging “resistance plus persistence” that she delivered via President Donald Trump’s favorite form of communication — Twitter.
“The challenges we face as a party and a country are real,” a smiling Clinton said. “So now more than ever, we need to stay engaged in the field and online, reaching out to new voters, young people and everyone who wants a better, stronger, fairer America.”
This could be acceptable if it was only rallying the troops for next year. That is not all that is happening.
First, we have the Russia conspiracy theory.
Last year, before the election, a “Dossier” was assembled with the aid of a British former agent and a company formed by several former reporters called “Fusion GPS”
Russia may have been trying to undermine Trump. And it may have done so in collusion with the Democrats. The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberly Strassel noted Thursday that Fusion GPS has ties to the Democrats — and will not reveal who paid it for the dossier. Strassel asked: “What if it was the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clinton’s campaign?” The money could have passed through intermediaries, she added.
That means the real story of collusion in the 2016 election could be that Democrats were working with Russia. And that would make sense, given their long history of appeasing the Russians, under both Clinton and Barack Obama.
It appears that Fusion GPS may have paid reporters in addition to providing the ludicrous “Dossier” for their titillation with anti-Trump myths.
CNN reported the secret FISA warrant was obtained after Manafort became the subject of the FBI investigation that began as early as 2014 under then FBI Director James Comey, and centered upon work Manafort conducted consulting with Ukraine.
Now Manafort and the FBI investigation of him has nothing to do with any theory of Russian “collusion.”
However, there is also a Trump connection.
Kimberly Strassel calls coming revelations “Bombshells.”
The Fusion GPS saga isn’t over. The Clinton-DNC funding is but a first glimpse into the shady election doings concealed within that oppo-research firm’s walls. We now know where Fusion got some of its cash, but the next question is how the firm used it. With whom did it work beyond former British spy Christopher Steele ? Whom did it pay? Who else was paying it?
The answers are in Fusion’s bank records. Fusion has doggedly refused to divulge the names of its clients for months now, despite extraordinary pressure. So why did the firm suddenly insist that middleman law firm Perkins Coie release Fusion from confidentiality agreements, and spill the beans on who hired it?
Does this mean the worst is over ? No.
This week we learn that the “investigation by Mueller is no longer about “collusion.”
For all practical purposes, the collusion probe is over. While the “counterintelligence” cover will continue to be exploited so that no jurisdictional limits are placed on Special Counsel Robert Mueller, this is now an obstruction investigation. 3.) That means it is, as it has always been, an impeachment investigation.
The code word is “Obstruction: which was used by Diane Feinstein on “Meet the Press.”
NBC’s Chuck Todd pressed Feinstein as if it were obvious that the president had obstructed justice. He based his claim on a memorandum by former national security aide K. T. McFarland, who wrote during the transition that Russia “has just thrown U.S.A. election to him,” though in context it was clear she was referring, half-mockingly, to claims by the Democratic Party.
He also cited a tweet by Trump on Saturday, where the president said, “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” which Democrats cited as proof of obstruction — though there was no evidence that Trump had tried to stop the investigation into Flynn even if he knew his crime.
Feinstein, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Todd (transcript via NBC News):
I think, what we’re beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice.
We call this an attempted coup d’etat. There is no such crime and the only way this could be used is in an attempt to impeach Trump.
Special counsel Robert Mueller removed one of the FBI’s top Russian counterintelligence experts from his team of investigators after an internal investigation found messages he sent that could be interpreted as showing political bias for Hillary Clinton and against President Donald Trump, according to US officials briefed on the matter.
Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of the Hillary Clinton email server as the No. 2 official in the FBI’s counterintelligence division, left the Mueller team this past summer, multiple sources said.
Does that suggest anything ?
The messages from Strzok to another FBI expert assigned to the Mueller team were discovered in the course of that internal review. The wording of the messages sent during the 2016 campaign appeared to be making fun of then-candidate Trump, and raised concerns that they could be seen as being pro-Clinton, the sources said.
Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who was assigned to the Mueller investigation, received the messages. Page returned to the FBI earlier this summer.
She was also having a sexual relationship with Strzok although at least Strzok was married. More information here.
This is pretty dirty stuff.
Andy McCarthy has some thoughts about why this is happening.
Any powers can be abused. When executive powers are abused, Congress retains the constitutional authority to impeach and remove the president. Obstruction of an FBI investigation may not be realistically prosecutable in court, but there is congressional precedent — in the Nixon and Clinton situations — for obstruction to be a “high crime and misdemeanor” triggering impeachment. Undoubtedly, abuse of the pardon power would also be an impeachable offense, even though it is not reviewable by the courts. I continue to believe that this is the real danger for President Trump: A report by the special counsel, either through the grand jury or some other vehicle, concluding (a) that the president had obstructed the FBI’s investigation of Flynn and of Trump-campaign collusion with Russia, and (b) recommending that the matter be referred to Congress for consideration of next steps, potentially including impeachment and removal.
The Democrats seem to be banking on a possible impeachment. Even if they could not get the Senate to convict, unlikely to have a Democrat majority any time soon, a House resolution of impeachment would be sweet revenge for Bill Clinton.
That seems to be where this is going. They managed to pull it off with Richard Nixon in 1974, but Trump is an entirely different person and the times are different. The FBI was neck deep in that operation, too, of course.
Only a real suicide wish by the GOP would being such a result and that cannot be ruled out these days.
Tags: Democrats, politics, Republicans