Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Mr. Collins, the Ranking Member of the US House Judiciary Committee is a danger to the USA's Constitution.

He is engaged in half-truths STILL.

The truth behind this evening's hearing regarding the impeachment of Donald J. Trump begins with patriots, men and women that have devoted their lives to this country. Those that see the truth should proceed tonight with confidence and resolve.

People like Ambassador Taylor are the Americans that take on the responsibility, they take on the danger and they provide the dignity that conveys the best of the USA. They can't be let down by the very US Congress they have provided with the truth. They matter, their testimony is important and it is in the US House meeting room to carry forward the truth and resolve.


William B. Taylor (click here)

Ambassador, UkraineTerm of Appointment: 06/05/2006 to present

Inevitably, (click here) in the days to come, Republicans will rely on their supporters in the media to present the impeachment hearings as a matter of interpretation. In the moment, though, Taylor, a West Point graduate, Vietnam veteran, and longtime diplomat, was sober and deliberate. Like his co-testifier today, George Kent, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Taylor took pains during his opening remarks to describe himself as nonpartisan. “I am not here to take one side or the other,” he said. “My sole purpose is to provide facts as I know them.” He carefully described the situation he stepped into when he became the acting Ambassador this summer. There were, he discovered, two channels of American policy toward Ukraine. There was the “regular” channel, in which he interacted with Kent and officials at the National Security Council, and there was the “irregular” channel, which included Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer; Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff; and others. It was through this “irregular” channel, Taylor said, that hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance and a White House visit were used to pressure Ukraine to provide Trump with political ammunition against the campaign of Joe Biden....

Ambassador Taylor walks the same land as President Zelenskyy and would never compromise the Ukraine president as Donald J. Trump has.


Hardly six months into his tenure as the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky has already learned to temper his expectations. He does not expect his first round of peace talks with Russia, which are scheduled to take place in Paris on Dec. 9, to end the war that has been raging along their border for the past five years. Nor does he expect too much from his Western allies going into these negotiations, Zelensky said in a wide-ranging interview on Saturday....

...But (click here) he also pushed back on Trump’s recent claims about corruption in Ukraine, and questioned the fairness of Trump’s decision to freeze American aid. “If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us,” he said. “I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo.”...

Collins owes the country an apology for his lies in the opening statement of the Ranking member. All the money legislated to Ukraine still has not been delivered.

November 20, 2019
By Shiro Tarlo

The White House (click here) is still withholding some of the congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine that President Donald Trump froze over the summer, even as impeachment investigators scrutinize whether the commander-in-chief used the funds as leverage to pressure a foreign leader to commit publicly to investigations that would benefit him politically.

More than $35 million of the nearly $400 million in military aid that Trump had halted has not been released to Ukraine, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, citing Pentagon spending documents it had obtained. Instead, the aid for Ukraine remains in U.S. accounts. The newspaper noted it is unclear why the money has not been released....
Senator Crapo needs to move on because he does not have evidence to bias beyond that of the Inspector General.

Crapo is trying to interject politics into an official document. There is no evidence beyond that of the Inspector General. If Crapo has more evidence he needs to introduce it.

THERE IS NO DEEP STATE, CRAPO!

The degree of those involved is due to the high profile of the case.

"Review of Four FISA Applications..." (click here)

Why do I get the feeling as though I have to read this? The level of political dialogue introjected into this report is hideous and contrary to the national security of the USA.

"Lisa Page is not in the FISA discussions."

Gee, what a disappointment, she is such a recognizable scapegoat.

This report was originally issued on December 9, 2019. The report was updated on December 11, 2019, with the following changes (page references are to the public version of the report):

On pages iv, xvi, 400, and 407, we changed the phrase “before and after” to “both during and after the time.” In all instances, the phrase appears in connection to the time period during which we found that the Crossfire Hurricane team used Confidential Human Sources (CHSs) to interact and consensually record conversations with Page and Papadopoulos. The corrected information appearing in this updated report reflects the accurate information concerning these time periods that previously appeared, and still appears, on pages 305 and 313 (e.g., the statement on page 305 that “the Crossfire Hurricane team tasked CHSs to interact with Page and Papadopoulos both during the time Page and Papadopoulos were advisors to the Trump campaign, and after Page and Papadopoulos were no longer affiliated with the Trump campaign”).


There are others that have conducted an assessment of all this as well.

Crossfire Hurricane: Inside Donald Trump's War on the FBI (Hardcover)

By Josh Campbell

It is January 6, 2017, (click here) two weeks before the inauguration. Only a handful of people know about the Steele dossier, and the nation is bitterly divided by the election results. As rumors begin to circulate that something might be brewing with the newly elected president and Russia, FBI special agent Josh Campbell joins the heads of the US intelligence community on a briefing visit to Trump Tower in New York City. He does not yet know that this meeting will eventually lead to the firing of his boss, James Comey, or that within weeks his former boss Robert Mueller will be appointed to investigate collusion and obstruction of justice at the highest level. He does not yet know that the FBI will come under years of sustained attacks from the commander in chief of the very nation its agents have sworn to protect. But, from his unique position within the FBI, he will watch it occur.

In this gripping fly-on-the-wall narrative, Campbell takes readers behind the scenes of the earliest days of the Russia investigation—codename: Crossfire Hurricane—up to the present...

I am quite certain a professional such as Josh Campbell makes a far more interesting and informed assessment of this examination of the FBI. "Crossfire Hurricane" is the name of the Russian investigation, not the work of the IG.

continued...

An FBI examination of Clinton's server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department.

(It is noteworthy to realize none of the emails found on the Clinton server of a former Senator and First Lady, besides Secretary of State made it into the hands of enemies.)

Hawley is a good soldier for Trump. Donald J. Trump was not the only candidate involved with the FBI during the 2016 elections.

I think he didn't pay attention to the role Comey carried out in bringing alarm to the country about EMAILS FOUND ON A LAPTOP.

August 24, 2019
By Angelo Fichera

Q: Did the FBI (click here) wait until after the 2016 election to review the Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop?

A: No. A viral story misinterprets an FBI document and ignores widely reported facts.

This is what occurs with any degree of information from official announcements made to the American people, it becomes fact when it is not. 

When James Comey announced the discovery of emails that reached the Clinton offices on a laptop owned by Anthony Weiner it was an announcement of the discovery. These were not assigned to an investigation into the Russian investigation either. That was no at issue with these emails. Not every email discovery is linked to the Russian investigation.

The Viral Story (click here)

August 4, 2018

Elder Patriot – Yesterday’s FBI release from the their “vault” files (click here) on Hillary Clinton brings us one giant step closer to uncovering the massive systemic corruption that the Clinton’s and Obama seeded throughout our government.

The newly released documents discuss the contents of Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin’s laptop.  The laptop was seized, under court warrant on September 25, 2016, by the NYPD as part of their investigation into the Weiner sexting case.

While the NYPD was conducting a forensic analysis of the Weiner/Abedin laptop, it was discovered that the hard drive contained 350,000 of Hillary Clinton’s emails and 344,000 Blackberry communications.  But, you already knew that.

Here’s what you were never told by the HRC-BHO protective media.

These were never reviewed by the FBI investigators assigned to help lead agent Peter Strzok.  Nor, was any attempt made to analyze the newly discovered files until after the election was over.  From the vault release:...

Lindsay Graham didn't pay attention. It is why Republicans are obtuse, the worse of which is in the White House.

October 14, 2016
By Dana Priest and Tom Hamburger

Former senior U.S. national security officials (click here) are dismayed at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's repeated refusal to accept the judgment of intelligence professionals that Russia stole files from the Democratic National Committee computers in an effort to influence the U.S. election.

The former officials, who have served presidents in both parties, say they were bewildered when Trump cast doubt on Russia's role after receiving a classified briefing on the subject and again after an unusually blunt statement from U.S. agencies saying they were "confident" that Moscow had orchestrated the attack....

Donald J. Trump was impossible to deal with as a candidate. He was refusing reports from the military and intelligence all during his candidacy and once elected he locke the door of the Oval Office to the intelligence agency.

November 24, 2019
By Kristen Welker, Ken Dilanian and Alexander Jaffe

President-elect Donald Trump (click here) has had only two intelligence briefings since he won the election more than two weeks ago, intelligence sources told NBC News on Wednesday — a much lower number than his predecessors had and fewer even than Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
A senior intelligence official cautioned that it was too early to gauge the significance of Trump's sparse briefing schedule, given that he is in the middle of his transition process.

But the news, first reported by The Washington Post, will likely fuel critics who've questioned Trump's knowledge of foreign affairs and national security issues....

It is frightening.

February 5, 2019
By John Walcott

In the wake of President Donald Trump’s renewed attacks (click here) on the U.S. intelligence community this week, senior intelligence briefers are breaking two years of silence to warn that the President is endangering American security with what they say is a stubborn disregard for their assessments.

Citing multiple in-person episodes, these intelligence officials say Trump displays what one called “willful ignorance” when presented with analyses generated by America’s $81 billion-a-year intelligence services. The officials, who include analysts who prepare Trump’s briefs and the briefers themselves, describe futile attempts to keep his attention by using visual aids, confining some briefing points to two or three sentences, and repeating his name and title as frequently as possible.

What is most troubling, say these officials and others in government and on Capitol Hill who have been briefed on the episodes, are Trump’s angry reactions when he is given information that contradicts positions he has taken or beliefs he holds. Two intelligence officers even reported that they have been warned to avoid giving the President intelligence assessments that contradict stances he has taken in public....

This is proof of how the Trump White House and the Senate Republicans are talking to the American people in "half-truths." Sure, Trump didn't receive briefings about important issues to USA national security BECAUSE HE REFUSED THEM AND THEN LIED ABOUT IT.

Graham has no right to grandstanding the hearing for political points to push through half-truths to the American people.

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were wrongly exploited by the Republicans for their own political purposes. I probably should have addressed this a long time ago, but, there are only so many hours in the day.

The "talk" by Strzok is STUPID. There are no complete dialogues known to the American people either and that is why there is an Inspector General. The Inspector General sorts through all the mess, including complaints about superiors and looks to where the law was broken and how it mattered. I do have to say that Peter Struck should have provided a little pride in the work before him realizing Trump could become president, hence, those under him probably saw "a threat" rather than the task of finding facts.


Peter Strzok was a horrible supervisor, that does not make him a bad FBI agent. That is also true of Lisa Page, a lover to Peter Strzok. She was a good agent, but, entertained all the STUPID "talk" by her lover. That dynamic of STUPID TALK is a culture, not the law and it is why some of those under Strzok's supervision took the investigation in wrongful directions.

December 11, 2019

Lisa Page, (click here) the former FBI lawyer who exchanged anti-Trump text messages with another FBI employee, is suing the Justice Department and FBI over the disclosure of those text messages to the media. Her attorneys argue in the suit that the revelation of her text messages violates the Privacy Act, which bars "disclosing a covered record 'about' an individual unless an exception applies or the individual who is the subject of the record consents in writing to the disclosure."

The Justice Department declined on Tuesday to comment on the lawsuit.

About 375 of Page's text messages with former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who led the FBI's probe into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was Secretary of State, were released in December 2017. In the texts, exchanged during the presidential campaign, the two often expressed distaste for Mr. Trump....

Lisa Page is absolutely correct in suing the departments that LEAKED her emails for political purposes. The Republicans had a field day with her and Strzok in the public. She should have been brought before supervisors when those in the Congress and/or White House had objected to the content and context of those emails. This is NOT NORMAL procedure and she is correct.

The Republicans discovered the word, "emails" and continued to push that "evil" content in their days after the election in any why they could. That "email" culture in the US Congress with the Republicans is still alive today as witnessed by Lindsey Graham and his grandstanding.

The American people need to hear from the Inspector General to understand the purpose and procedure for finding wrong doing in the way it matters to the country's national security.

The Inspector General is correct, in that, any and all bias (potential or actual) has to be reported to the court. That does not mean the court would rule differently. 

The Inspector General conducts these reviews to rout out corruption of the process. There is no way of turning back the clocks to redo the FISA hearings, but, going forward there will be safeguards/guardrails within the practices of the FBI when seeking FISA warrants.

There was no prosecution of Carter Page and the FBI was correct in suspecting Russian influence with Carter Page because he had/has significant connections to Russia. In fact, Carter Page was being courted by Russia to influence the Trump Campaign. To try to change that TRUTH is a danger to the USA.

The lack of disclosure and the "snowballing dynamic" of the investigation has brevity in realizing the extent Carter Page's innocense in acting against the USA within the Trump Administration was heralded by the FBI. The lack of coordination between the FBI and CIA is either comical or egotistical and it has to be addressed.

Nothing happened to the Trump Campaign and he successfully won the election WITH assistance of the Russian government. Anyone can debate whether THAT FACT has adversely effected the country and the worry by the FBI was warranted. 

The flip side of Graham's focus is the question, "Was the FBI properly authorized to end the Russian influence during the elections of 2016?"

The country has a real problem. A man running for office won the nomination of a major party in the USA and continued on to win the presidency of the USA. He did this with help by a foreign power. That is fact. The idea he wanted to repeat that dynamic is the subject of a current process of impeachment. The damage Trump has done to the USA domestically and internationally will never be fully understood or measured, but, it is immense.

The responsibility of the Inspector General is as enormous as that. His truthful facts are important and this hearing will be viewed as yet another step in containing either too much power or not enough power of the FBI in conducting the national security of the USA when it comes to foreign interference in maintaining the efficacy of the USA Constitution.

The fact that Graham has focused on Strzok and his prejudice in STUPID TALK is important to a certain extent, but, is not the entire subject of the Inspector General report. The Inspector General did not exonerate anyone in the chain of command and whether those in the chain of command see themselves as wrongfully held responsible for the FISA warrants is yet to be determined.

Lisa Page obviously believes she was wrongfully used in the public realm as a problem in the investigation. I believe she is correct and any undo and ACTUAL influence by her in the investigation should have been maintained as an internal process of the FBI. She is an American with a life to live and not a celebrity by choice that may welcome public exposure. The USA government and may I say, Donald J. Trump personally should be held responsible for adverse effects of her employ that continues in her life. She should sue Trump in his use of her identity in his politics. She can sue him personally for his exploitation of her.

The Inspector General is correct again, in that, STUPID TALK was not the issue so much as that prejudice moving into the investigation. That should not have happened and the REASON for that has to be determined. If the agents involved in the chain of command felt more threat than empowerment, that has to be explored. They took the investigation into their own hands to some extent and it may be because they were not empowered to carry forward their concerns in a way that empowered their fears for the country. That is a legitimate concern and it should be the concern of Congress and the country.