ROBERT MUELLER, PARTISAN FRAUD

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN ROBERT MUELLER

Much has been written about Robert Mueller’s appearance before the press today, in which spoke briefly and nervously, repeating points that have already been made ad nauseam in his own report and elsewhere. Why did he do it? And why did he appear so nervous while he did it? Speculation has been rampant.

Scott posted a transcript of Mueller’s remarks earlier today. Much could be said about them, but I want to focus on just one aspect of Mueller’s characterization of his own investigation.

Two years ago, the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he created the special counsel’s office. The appointment order directed the office to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. This included investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign.

The key word there is “included.” What else did Mueller’s charge include? Nothing, apparently. But we actually know that there were “links” between a presidential campaign and Russians who (if they existed at all) likely were associated with Putin’s regime. The campaign was Hillary Clinton’s, and the Russians were those on whose reports Christopher Steele based his infamous dossier.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign went looking for Russians who could serve up dirt on Donald Trump. In a futile attempt to avoid illegality, the campaign told its lawyers at the Perkins Coie firm to contract with Fusion GPS, run by fervent Democrat Glenn Simpson, who in turn contracted with Christopher Steele to try to find Russians who had (or could make up) useful information on Trump. The Clinton campaign used these multiple cut-outs so it could falsely report the money it paid to Steele as “legal expenses” incurred at Perkins Coie. Maybe somewhere there is a U.S. Attorney who would like to take a look at this.

Just kidding. Christopher Steele obliged the Clinton campaign by finding several Russians who, based on the information they pretended to have, almost certainly were associated with Putin’s regime. Or maybe he didn’t find them at all; maybe he just made up all of the nonsense in the “dossier” and charged the Clinton campaign for his fantasies. Probably neither Steele nor the Clinton campaign cared one way or the other.

If we assume Steele didn’t fabricate the whole thing, then he colluded on behalf of the Clinton campaign with Russian officials or insiders who told him lies. He fed these lies back to the Clinton campaign, which, as Byron York reminds us, did its best to use these Russian fables to win the presidential election.

Here is my question. (I know it has been asked before, but it can’t be repeated too often.) If Mueller’s charge was to investigate “Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election…[including] investigating any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign,” why didn’t he look into the possibility that the false information fed by alleged Russian insiders to an agent of the Clinton campaign was a disinformation effort by the Russian government, meant to interfere in the 2016 presidential election–an effort in which the Clinton campaign colluded?

There is strong circumstantial evidence that the Steele dossier was exactly that, while there never was any evidence at all that the Trump campaign colluded in any way with Russians. So why was Mueller’s investigation confined to the wrong campaign?

The question answers itself. Mueller’s mission was the same as Christopher Steele’s mission, and Glenn Simpson’s, and Perkins Coie’s, and Hillary Clinton’s: to destroy Donald Trump, by hook or by crook. That is the only explanation for Mueller’s seeming myopia about his own failure to look for collusion where, in all likelihood, it actually existed.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/robert-mueller-partisan-fraud.php

TEARS OF THE TIMES

BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN INTELLIGENCE, LAW, LEAKS, MEDIA

I was deeply touched by the concern implicit in the Julian Barnes and David Sanger in New York Times story reporting President Trump’s authorization of Attorney General Barr to declassify the documents underlying the greatest political scandal in American political history — i.e., the Russian collusion hoax. Their concern for national security permeates the story. There it is right at the top, for example, in the lead paragraph:

President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that led to the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A. It effectively strips the agency of its most critical power: choosing which secrets it shares and which ones remain hidden.

Considering that the power of declassification resides preeminently in the president as head of the executive branch, one might think that the Times’s concern is excessive. Declassification will proceed lawfully and Attorney General Barr is in a good position to assure that no damage is done to national security. Yet, as I say, one can’t help but be touched by the Times’s concern.

Yet Barnes and Sanger somehow overlooked the many cases in which the Times itself stripped the CIA of “its most critical power,” and did so without the color of law. To say the least, previous cases reflect the Times’s casual malice toward national security. Perhaps we should pause over one or two such cases in the hope that we might catch the Times in an introspective mood.

One doesn’t have to call up the ancient history of the Times’s unauthorized disclosure of the highly classified anti-terror programs I discussed in the 2006 Weekly Standard column “Exposure” or in related Power Line posts such as “When Bush begged the Times.” More recently, with a little help from “current and former intelligence officials,” the Times’s Matthew Rosenberg and Adam Goldman called out Michael D’Andrea, the CIA officer newly appointed to run the agency’s Iran operations. The Times explained:

The C.I.A. declined to comment on Mr. D’Andrea’s role, saying it does not discuss the identities or work of clandestine officials. The [current and former intelligence] officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because Mr. D’Andrea remains undercover, as do many senior officials based at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va….The New York Times is naming Mr. D’Andrea because his identity was previously published in news reports, and he is leading an important new administration initiative against Iran.

A footnote about those “previously published” news reports. In the version of the story posted online, the Times linked to its own 2015 story by Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo, as I have it above.

A few days later the Times ran the story “Aid coordinator in Yemen had secret job overseeing U.S. commando shipments” by Adam Goldman and Eric Schmitt. With a little help from “six former and current United States officials,” Goldman and Schmitt exposed NGOs and Special Operators as well as another named individual. They seemed intent on damaging directly the very difficult and dangerous means and methods employed against the worst of the worst in the war against terrorism.

Who were the “former and current government officials” serving as the sources for this story? Goldman and Schmitt helpfully added, as usual, that they spoke to the Times “only on the condition of anonymity because the details are highly classified.”

One begins to suspect that the tears of Barnes and Sanger over the stripping of the CIA’s “most critical power” by the president are of the variety known as crocodile. For a definitive takedown of the Times on this score, see Eric Felten’s Weekly Standard column “Why Is the NYT Suddenly Opposed to Declassifying the FISA Docs?” Barnes and Sanger’s current story gives us another example of history repeating itself.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/tears-of-the-times.php

Report: Obama’s Spying On The Press Was Far More Extensive Than Previously Thought

John Merline

President Trump might be openly hostile to the mainstream media, but it was the Obama administration that was engaged in a widespread effort to thwart the media. Which do you think is more harmful to a free press?

The full extent of Obama’s actions against the press are only now coming to light.

The Columbia Journalism Review reports on a newly released government document showing that the Obama Justice Department engaged in a far more sweeping effort to spy on the Associated Press than previously believed.

“In 2013, the Justice Department launched a brazen attack on press freedom,” the CJR notes, “issuing sweeping subpoenas for the phone records of The Associated Press and several of its reporters and editors as part of a leak investigation. At the time, the subpoenas were widely seen as a massive intrusion into newsgathering operations. Last month, we learned that they told only part of the story.”

The spying came in the wake of the AP’s reporting on a thwarted Yemen-based bomb plot, which contained classified information about the CIA operation. Months later, the AP learned that the DOJ had vacuumed up two-months of phone records on 21 different lines trying to find the leaker. 

Unprecedented Intrusion

Upon learning this, the AP blasted the Obama Justice Department. AP’s President and CEO Gary Pruitt said the records collected could “reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know.”

Turns out, Pruitt should have been even more outraged. The new report, obtained by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Freedom of the Press Foundation, finds that the DOJ actually collected records on 30 phones. 

The report shows that DOJ attorneys at one point considered subpoenaing records of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and ABC News and “strongly suggests that the attorneys went so far as to obtain ‘telephone numbers and other contact information’ for reporters and editors at those organizations who had worked on articles about the Yemen bomb plot.”

The CJR goes on to say, “Disturbingly, the report does not come close to explaining why the subpoenas targeted the trunk lines of major AP offices — lines which could potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the AP’s newsgathering activities.”

Just One of Obama’s Media Attacks

Bad as this was, it was just one of several examples of the Obama administration’s efforts to bully and silence the few reporters who dared challenge his spin on events.

Obama repeatedly barred Fox reporters from events. At one point, it named Fox News reporter James Rosen as a “co-conspirator” in a leak case being pursued under the Espionage Act. Obama’s communications director Anita Dunn said the White House treated Fox News “the way we would treat an opponent.”

The administration also spent seven years trying to force New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources.

Risen, writing in The New York Times in 2016, noted bitterly how “Over the past eight years, the administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists.”

In 2013,  Leonard Downie  called Obama’s efforts to control information “the most aggressive I’ve seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post’s investigation of Watergate.”

When not harassing reporters, Obama officials refused to cooperate with them, racking up the worse record for fulfilling FOIA of any previous administration. Obama even routinely banned news photographers from official events so he could keep an iron grip on his image. Michelle Obama banned the press from her taxpayer-paid China visit.

Also around this time, the Federal Communications Commission announced plans to investigate whether newsrooms were meeting their communities’ “critical information needs.”

On Obama’s watch, the U.S. ranking for press freedom dropped to 46th place.

Yet, despite the occasional grumbling by an editor or a reporter here or there, most of these attacks went unnoticed. Whenever Obama spoke to the press, he pretended to be their champions. And the press, in turn, acted like teenagers in love rather than professionals threatened by a paranoid control freak.

In fact, when reporters tried to complain about Obama’s treatment, the reporters themselves often got attacked.

The Baltimore Sun’s David Zurawik wrote in 2014 that “I have been comparing Obama to Nixon in his disdain for the First Amendment and a free press since 2009, and mainly all I got was attacked — often from long-time colleagues in the media who couldn’t believe the object of their political affection could have such contempt for them.”

So why has the press saved all its ire for Trump, who has — despite his words — been far friendlier to the press in his deeds than Obama? One can only speculate.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/05/25/report-obamas-spying-on-the-press-was-far-more-extensive-than-previously-thought/

Mueller’s Final Statement Turns Jurisprudence On Its Head

I & I Editorial Board

Special Counsel Robert Mueller today 10 minutes publicly stating that his 448-page, two-part, $35 million and 22-months-in-the-making report speaks for itself, as he announced he was closing shop and retiring. In so doing, he said he couldn’t charge a sitting President with a crime, but if he could have exonerated him he would have said so.

This starkly politicizes presidential investigations going forward and indicts, if we may say so, the already-dubious system of weaponizing a lawyer with a blank check, no deadline, and an open-ended mandate for him to fish where he likes with minimal oversight.

“If we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime,” Mueller said. “We concluded that we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime.”

What kind of strange new standard is Mueller setting here?

Mueller had all the time and money he could want, recorded countless hours of testimony, compiled a mountain of documents, got multiple plea deals, chased down out every conceivable lead, and then says he couldn’t prove the president didn’t commit a crime.

Since when is the job of prosecutors to determine innocence beyond a reasonable doubt? And, short of that, feel free to dump all the evidence that didn’t lead to a criminal charge, but that makes the defendant look a suspect nonetheless.

How would the average American citizen like this said of him or her after a couple of years of 18 prosecutors scrutinizing his or her affairs? After reviewing all the evidence, we don’t have enough evidence to say that John Doe robbed that store. But we can’t say definitively that he didn’t rob that store, so here’s a bunch of embarrassing revelations about him that we uncovered along the way. Have fun.

When the Mueller report came out, I&I’s Tom McArdle noted “that in the United States, we don’t let prosecutors publicly blemish the reputations of law-abiding citizens for actions that fall short of criminality. At least we didn’t until special counsel Robert Mueller.”

A prosecutor’s job is — or at least used to be — to charge or not charge, not choose this or that shade of gray.

Mueller compounds this error with an equally nonsensical claim that he’s somehow protecting Trump. Mueller says the only reason he didn’t bring criminal charges against Trump for obstruction was because the President can’t be charged with a crime while serving in office.

“It would be unfair,” he said in his statement, “to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.”

But what Mueller has done is worse. He’s left the public with the impression that Trump is — nudge, nudge, wink, wink — guilty of something, even if Mueller can’t say what exactly it is. And in doing so, he’s laying the groundwork for Democrats to impeach Trump, without ever having to actually accuse Trump of anything. How exactly is that fair?

Ex-terrorism prosecutor Andrew McCarthy of National Review noted earlier this month that Mueller had options if he actually thought Trump had committed a crime. If there were a case against Trump, he says, “then it is the prosecutor’s job to recommend indictment. The question of whether the (Office of Legal Counsel) guidance should then be invoked to delay indictment should then be up to the attorney general. The guidance should not burden the prosecutor’s analysis of whether there is an indictable case. Yet Mueller chose not to see it that way.”

Mueller’s dark hints of wrongdoing will no doubt add fuel to the Democrats’ longstanding desire to start impeachment proceedings.

In the wake of what will go down as the most outrageous curtain call in the history of political Washington, it is now hard to explain his report and his concluding statement in any way other than impeachment having been Robert Mueller’s design all along.

— Written by Thomas McArdle and John Merline

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/05/29/muellers-final-statement-turns-jurisprudence-on-its-head/

OH, THE ANGST!

BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN MEDIA, RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

One can feel the anxiety pouring out of the mainstream media stories reporting President Trump’s authorization of Attorney General Barr to declassify the documents underlying the greatest political scandal in American political history — i.e., the Russian collusion hoax. The anxiety is overdetermined. Among other things, it is based in part on the media’s insane opposition to everything Trump and in part on their complicity with the perpetrators of the hoax.

Take, for example, this New York Times lead paragraph in the story by Julian Barnes and David Sanger:

President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that led to the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A. It effectively strips the agency of its most critical power: choosing which secrets it shares and which ones remain hidden.

We have covered the Times’s publication of classified information in cases too numerous to mention, but including several bearing on this scandal itself. Barnes and Sanger express the utmost respect for the CIA’s “critical power” of declassification and publication, but it is of course a power that the the CIA shares with…the Times itself! In their haste to circulate the Dems’ talking points, it’s a shame that Barnes and Sanger somehow overlook it. Perhaps modesty has overcome Barnes and Sanger.

Coincidentally, we can observe the Times stripping the CIA and other intelligence agencies of “its most critical power” in the matters I cited yesterday in “The Assange indictment.”

NBC News may have given us the most extreme version of the stories reporting the declassification order. Ken Dilanian and Mike Memoli are reporters on the verge of a nervous breakdown in “In stunning move, Trump declassifies documents related to Russia probe.”

Eric Felten teaches us how to read such stories in his valuable RealClearPolitics column “Trump-Russia: The knives are out.” Please do check it out.

Free of the anxiety informing the mainstream media stories, Tom Lifson takes a close look at current developments in “Russia hoax origins to be exposed as Trump authorizes AG Barr to declassify Russia probe documents.” And John Solomon peels off one more layer of the onion in his Hill column “Christopher Steele’s nugget of fool’s gold was easily disproven — but FBI didn’t blink an eye.”

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/oh-the-angst.php

Russia hoax origins to be exposed as Trump authorizes AG Barr to declassify Russia probe documents

By Thomas Lifson

Heads are exploding all over the beltway, as the unraveling of the biggest political scandal in American history enters a new stage. Make no mistake, there is a plan and a timetable designed for maximum dramatic impact. President Trump finally has taken the long-awaited step to lift the cloak of classification and uncover the weaponization of the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies against his candidacy and then presidency.
The timing is intriguing.

Coincidentally or not, this happened shortly after doing battle with Nancy Pelosi in a news conference where, in the words of the Wall Street Journal’s Michael C. Bender, he “ effectively carpet bombed what little remained of his relationship with congressional Democrats by mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s intelligence, ridiculing her speaking style and calling the first woman to lead the U.S. House ‘a mess.’”
Roger L. Simon thinks Pelosi’s public accusation of criminal activity (“cover-up”) forced Trump’s hand, but I think it is equally notable that the process was initiated right before a scheduled trip to Japan today, and the Memorial Day weekend, the traditional beginning of summer. This has the effect of muting the backlash from the mainstream media and other Democrats, and letting the process get underway during a period the bureaucrats planned as free time. I strongly suspect that A.G. Barr and his staff will be working through the holiday, as will those commanded in the presidential memorandum (see below) to “promptly provide” the assistance and information Barr will demand.
This order comes before the release of the DoJ Inspector General’s report.  Sundance explains:

While the purpose of the authority is to empower AG Bill Barr to collect, process and declassify intelligence product that is part of the DOJ investigative review, this does not preclude the public release of intelligence information in advance of the IG report on potential FISA abuse.

I would note that Barr almost certainly has seen or will see the IG Report before it is released. He can declassify information that the IG Report needs to reveal, even before the report is released.
Ten days from now, President Trump travels to Great Britain. In that interval, a lot can happen that could lead to some interesting conversations with the highest levels of the British government, up to and including the monarch herself.
Sarah Sanders released a White House statement explaining:

Today, at the request and recommendation of the Attorney General of the United States, President Donald J. Trump directed the intelligence community to quickly and fully cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation into surveillance activities during the 2016 Presidential election.
The Attorney General has also been delegated full and complete authority to declassify information pertaining to this investigation, in accordance with the long-established standards for handling classified information. Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election and will restore confidence in our public institutions.

The presidential memorandum (full text here) authorizing Attorney General Barr discusses declassification and is notable for several details:

The Attorney General is currently conducting a review of intelligence activities relating to the campaigns in the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters. The heads of elements of the intelligence community, as defined in 50 U.S.C. 3003(4), and the heads of each department or agency that includes an element of the intelligence community shall promptly provide such assistance and information as the Attorney General may request in connection with that review.

This puts Barr fully in charge, as the language “shall promptly provide…” requires their cooperation and information.  Barr, not the DNI, is in charge.

The memorandum goes on:
Sec. 2. Declassification and Downgrading. With respect to any matter classified under Executive Order 13526 of December 29, 2009 (Classified National Security Information), the Attorney General may, by applying the standard set forth in either section 3.1(a) or section 3.1(d) of Executive Order 13526, declassify, downgrade, or direct the declassification or downgrading of information or intelligence that relates to the Attorney General's review referred to in section 1 of this memorandum. Before exercising this authority, the Attorney General should, to the extent he deems it practicable, consult with the head of the originating intelligence community element or department.

Barr is directed to follow existing standards – meaning that his critics will have few legs to stand on. The memo continues:

This authority is not delegable and applies notwithstanding any other authorization or limitation set forth in Executive Order 13526.

This puts Barr and Barr alone in charge. Moreover, toward the end of the memorandum we see:

The authority in this memorandum shall terminate upon a vacancy in the office of Attorney General, unless expressly extended by the President.

Clearly, Trump and Barr have an understanding of where this going. Andit is going very far.  At the very top of the memorandum, the following cabinet members are addressed:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Sundance notices:

Considering the purpose of the Memorandum: “The Attorney General is currently conducting a review of intelligence activities relating to the campaigns in the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters“…  The appearance of Treasury and Energy would indicate the pre-existence of investigative evidence; that would be subject to ongoing DOJ review; and potentially be part of ongoing proceedings.
Potential target issues could include: (1) an investigation of Uranium One; (2) an investigation of the Clinton Foundation; and, (3) an investigation of matters related to payments to Iran.
Treasury would come into play with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS); which was part of the Uranium One process and also included the Dept. of Energy.  Additional related matters could include George Papadopoulos $10k (Treasury); and The Clinton Foundation.  [Obviously this is supposition, but there are not too many alternate investigative pathways for intelligence within Treasury and Energy.]

This has to be very scary for a lot of people. As a result, projection is rampant. Adam Schiff, with no sense of irony, has the gall to accuse President Trump of “weaponizing law enforcement.”



And after years of selective redactions in documents released under FOIA suits, Obama’s CIA chief of staff complains in the New York Times:

Late Thursday, Jeremy Bash, a chief of staff at the C.I.A. under President Barack Obama, said that the president’s move was “a very significant delegation of power to an attorney general who has shown he’s willing to do Donald Trump’s political bidding.”

“It’s dangerous,” he continued, “because the power to declassify is also the power to selectively declassify, and selective declassification is one of the ways the Trump White House can spin a narrative about the origins of the Russia investigation to their point of view.”

He added that confidential sources around the globe might be fearful of talking now.

Shortly after returning from Japan, President Trump will be traveling to London, June 3 to June 6, where live our good friends in MI 5 and MI 6, whose hands appear awfully heavily involved in setting up the predicates for the surveillance of a political campaign. I suspect that some very interesting conversations will be had with very senior people there, as the declassification process advances. PM Theresa May has resigned, effective June 7, and the selection of a new party leader will occur shortly after Trump leaves. The threat of exposing British interference in our election could carry a lot of weight.
I have long argued that President Trump is the master of long form reality television -- the most successful reality TV producer in the history of the medium. With the summer season beginning, it is time to lay the groundwork for a story arc that will reach a dramatic climax timed to affect voting in November next year. A new chapter in the story has just begin.

Heads are exploding all over the beltway, as the unraveling of the biggest political scandal in American history enters a new stage. Make no mistake, there is a plan and a timetable designed for maximum dramatic impact. President Trump finally has taken the long-awaited step to lift the cloak of classification and uncover the weaponization of the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies against his candidacy and then presidency.
The timing is intriguing.
Coincidentally or not, this happened shortly after doing battle with Nancy Pelosi in a news conference where, in the words of the Wall Street Journal’s Michael C. Bender, he “ effectively carpet bombed what little remained of his relationship with congressional Democrats by mocking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s intelligence, ridiculing her speaking style and calling the first woman to lead the U.S. House ‘a mess.’”
Roger L. Simon thinks Pelosi’s public accusation of criminal activity (“cover-up”) forced Trump’s hand, but I think it is equally notable that the process was initiated right before a scheduled trip to Japan today, and the Memorial Day weekend, the traditional beginning of summer. This has the effect of muting the backlash from the mainstream media and other Democrats, and letting the process get underway during a period the bureaucrats planned as free time. I strongly suspect that A.G. Barr and his staff will be working through the holiday, as will those commanded in the presidential memorandum (see below) to “promptly provide” the assistance and information Barr will demand.
This order comes before the release of the DoJ Inspector General’s report.  Sundance explains:

While the purpose of the authority is to empower AG Bill Barr to collect, process and declassify intelligence product that is part of the DOJ investigative review, this does not preclude the public release of intelligence information in advance of the IG report on potential FISA abuse.

I would note that Barr almost certainly has seen or will see the IG Report before it is released. He can declassify information that the IG Report needs to reveal, even before the report is released.
Ten days from now, President Trump travels to Great Britain. In that interval, a lot can happen that could lead to some interesting conversations with the highest levels of the British government, up to and including the monarch herself.
Sarah Sanders released a White House statement explaining:

Today, at the request and recommendation of the Attorney General of the United States, President Donald J. Trump directed the intelligence community to quickly and fully cooperate with the Attorney General’s investigation into surveillance activities during the 2016 Presidential election.
The Attorney General has also been delegated full and complete authority to declassify information pertaining to this investigation, in accordance with the long-established standards for handling classified information. Today’s action will help ensure that all Americans learn the truth about the events that occurred, and the actions that were taken, during the last Presidential election and will restore confidence in our public institutions.

The presidential memorandum (full text here) authorizing Attorney General Barr discusses declassification and is notable for several details:

The Attorney General is currently conducting a review of intelligence activities relating to the campaigns in the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters. The heads of elements of the intelligence community, as defined in 50 U.S.C. 3003(4), and the heads of each department or agency that includes an element of the intelligence community shall promptly provide such assistance and information as the Attorney General may request in connection with that review.

This puts Barr fully in charge, as the language “shall promptly provide…” requires their cooperation and information.  Barr, not the DNI, is in charge.

The memorandum goes on:
Sec. 2. Declassification and Downgrading. With respect to any matter classified under Executive Order 13526 of December 29, 2009 (Classified National Security Information), the Attorney General may, by applying the standard set forth in either section 3.1(a) or section 3.1(d) of Executive Order 13526, declassify, downgrade, or direct the declassification or downgrading of information or intelligence that relates to the Attorney General's review referred to in section 1 of this memorandum. Before exercising this authority, the Attorney General should, to the extent he deems it practicable, consult with the head of the originating intelligence community element or department.

Barr is directed to follow existing standards – meaning that his critics will have few legs to stand on. The memo continues:

This authority is not delegable and applies notwithstanding any other authorization or limitation set forth in Executive Order 13526.

This puts Barr and Barr alone in charge. Moreover, toward the end of the memorandum we see:

The authority in this memorandum shall terminate upon a vacancy in the office of Attorney General, unless expressly extended by the President.

Clearly, Trump and Barr have an understanding of where this going. Andit is going very far.  At the very top of the memorandum, the following cabinet members are addressed:

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE
THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY
THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL
THE SECRETARY OF ENERGY
THE SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY
THE DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
THE DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Sundance notices:

Considering the purpose of the Memorandum: “The Attorney General is currently conducting a review of intelligence activities relating to the campaigns in the 2016 Presidential election and certain related matters“…  The appearance of Treasury and Energy would indicate the pre-existence of investigative evidence; that would be subject to ongoing DOJ review; and potentially be part of ongoing proceedings.
Potential target issues could include: (1) an investigation of Uranium One; (2) an investigation of the Clinton Foundation; and, (3) an investigation of matters related to payments to Iran.
Treasury would come into play with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS); which was part of the Uranium One process and also included the Dept. of Energy.  Additional related matters could include George Papadopoulos $10k (Treasury); and The Clinton Foundation.  [Obviously this is supposition, but there are not too many alternate investigative pathways for intelligence within Treasury and Energy.]

This has to be very scary for a lot of people. As a result, projection is rampant. Adam Schiff, with no sense of irony, has the gall to accuse President Trump of “weaponizing law enforcement.”



And after years of selective redactions in documents released under FOIA suits, Obama’s CIA chief of staff complains in the New York Times:

Late Thursday, Jeremy Bash, a chief of staff at the C.I.A. under President Barack Obama, said that the president’s move was “a very significant delegation of power to an attorney general who has shown he’s willing to do Donald Trump’s political bidding.”

“It’s dangerous,” he continued, “because the power to declassify is also the power to selectively declassify, and selective declassification is one of the ways the Trump White House can spin a narrative about the origins of the Russia investigation to their point of view.”

He added that confidential sources around the globe might be fearful of talking now.

Shortly after returning from Japan, President Trump will be traveling to London, June 3 to June 6, where live our good friends in MI 5 and MI 6, whose hands appear awfully heavily involved in setting up the predicates for the surveillance of a political campaign. I suspect that some very interesting conversations will be had with very senior people there, as the declassification process advances. PM Theresa May has resigned, effective June 7, and the selection of a new party leader will occur shortly after Trump leaves. The threat of exposing British interference in our election could carry a lot of weight.
I have long argued that President Trump is the master of long form reality television -- the most successful reality TV producer in the history of the medium. With the summer season beginning, it is time to lay the groundwork for a story arc that will reach a dramatic climax timed to affect voting in November next year. A new chapter in the story has just begin.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/russia_hoax_origins_to_be_exposed_as_trump_authorizes_ag_barr_to_declassify_russia_probe_documents.html#ixzz5oxJlNdU6
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Foolish Pelosi Forces Trump to Declassify and Re-Elects Him

Foolish Pelosi Forces Trump to Declassify and Re-Elects Him

 

BY ROGER L. SIMON 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., conducts her weekly news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Thursday, May 23, 2019. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)

It would have happened sooner or later, but Nancy Pelosi's out-of-control behavior—accusing Trump of a cover-up before meeting with him (sheesh), demanding his family stage an intervention (double sheesh), etc.—clearly forced the president finally to issue a memo giving Attorney General Barr authority to declassify the 2016 campaign surveillance documents. (He undoubtedly had it in his hip pocket for a while.)

The memo requires all agencies to "promptly provide such assistance and information as the Attorney General may request in connection with that review." That includes the secretaries of State, Treasury, Defense, and Energy as well as, importantly, the director of national intelligence and the director of the CIA.

Result: game changer. The re-election of Donald Trump will be dated from the evening of May 23, 2019. And the supposedly politically-savvy Ms. Pelosi will be marked down as the instigator.

You almost feel sorry for her. The speaker was unable to face down the simple-minded, juvenile leftists in her own caucus and ended up being their lackey, actually even becoming one of them herself. What a sad and pathetic way to finish your career.

So we will be saying good-bye to the obstruction meme. How do you obstruct an investigation that not only came up empty (i. e. no collusion) but is certain to be revealed as a treasonous set-up from the start?

Oh, to be a fly on the wall of Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, Page, McCabe, Baker, etc., etc., not to mention, Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud and a number of self-righteous clowns in MI-6 and Australian intel. You can add on Samantha Power (wait until the "unmasking " information comes out), Susan Rice, even Mueller (his whole investigation will be revealed as farce—you can bet he'll never testify) and, needless to say, Barack Obama. Finally, we can safely predict, a whole set of new names we have never heard before will appear, straight out of the pages of The Quiet American or Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The next few months will be historic. The Democrat beehive will be going even crazier. That "distinguished legislator" Richard "The Lion-Hearted" Blumenthal was almost instantly on CNN Thursday night complaining that Trump was unfairly releasing documents (or something) to a semi-baffled and justifiably-fearful Anderson Cooper. (Perhaps Richard was there to head off accusations that the other Blumenthal—Sidney—was one of the authors of Steele dossier.)

Popcorn time for conservatives has come. But it's good to remember the old saw: It's never as good or as bad as you think it is.

Still, conservatives and libertarians should enjoy. They deserve it after the nausea of the last two years. Consider this a great dessert after a terrible meal.

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/foolish-pelosi-forces-trump-to-declassify-and-re-elects-him/

Bob Mueller Runs and Hides in Eight Minutes to Avoid Having to Answer One Key Question

Bob Mueller Runs and Hides in Eight Minutes to Avoid Having to Answer One Key Question

 

BY ROGER L. SIMON 

Special counsel Robert Muller speaks at the Department of Justice Wednesday, May 29, 2019, in Washington, about the Russia investigation. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Robert Mueller's eight- to nine-minute statement Wednesday morning at the DOJ was designed for one thing only: to avoid having to answer one key question in his testimony. When did you know there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia?

If the answer, as many, including Andrew C. McCarthy, are indicating, is somewhere in Fall 2017, what in the Sam Hill was Mueller doing putting the country through two years of prolonged agony? It's not likely he did all this to prop up CNN's faltering ratings.

Was it, just by chance, to induce obstruction from one Donald J. Trump who -- like a relatively normal person but with a shorter fuse than most, justifiable in this case -- would react like a stuck pig to being falsely charged for so long? That would have been essentially entrapment.

Further, Mueller's hiding behind the canard that he could not charge a sitting president on obstruction makes a mockery of his initial assertion that there was no collusion. Most of us can't have it both ways. But I guess Mueller can. Or has. I leave it to Jerrold Nadler to explain that to us.

Most importantly, Mueller's short speech (without questions) exists against the background of the investigation into the predicate for his entire investigation. If that comes out the way it is likely to, Muller will look like a fool or worse.  Don't think he doesn't realize that. He and Barr may have been friends once, but I suspect that's over.

Mueller  -- and/or his minions -- will undoubtedly say looking into this was not in his job description. But it's impossible to believe in all the long years of "investigation" they did not come up against this. Omitting this absolutely essential information from his report is an omission for which the word "glaring" is an understatement.

Nevertheless, in the world of unintended consequences, this latest brouhaha could well be a net positive for Trump, since it will encourage Democratic hotheads to go for impeachment. Then as the various investigations unroll, it will blow back in their faces.

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/bob-mueller-runs-and-hides-in-eight-minutes/

Political Correctness Is a Tool for Socialist Censorship and Thought Control

BY JOSHUA PHILIPP, THE EPOCH TIMES

In the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” part of the dystopian government that George Orwell imagined was its use of the language of “Newspeak,” a simplification of the English language to serve the needs of the state. Newspeak altered thoughts, so that people were rendered incapable of thinking outside Party lines.

We now see this same principle at play in political correctness, in which concepts behind words are being altered to fit political narratives, and people are censoring their thoughts to not violate the artificial morals of the state.

The effects of political correctness can be found most clearly where the concept originates: under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as Mao Zedong created the concept in 1967 to control public dissent at the start of the Cultural Revolution. The idea was simple: support the regime’s policies and you are politically correct. Oppose them, and you can be targeted and destroyed.

In its details, the CCP’s use of political correctness is different from the way it’s used in the United States and Europe, yet underneath it has the same purpose. Under the Chinese regime, it’s used as an artificial moral system to guard the policies of the CCP. In the United States, it’s used as an artificial moral system to guard socialist policies.

Under the CCP’s film censorship laws, for example, the standards are made intentionally vague so that filmmakers attempt to over-censor, in order to please authorities. Using this system, people need to consider what the regime would consider immoral, and attempt to pre-censor themselves to appease its politically correct censors.

Variety recently reported as an example the Chinese film “Last Sunrise,” about which CCP censors said it “showed too much of the darkness of humanity.” To appease the regime, the filmmakers went overboard. The director, Ren Wen, said: “The problem is they’re not specific, so we just had to cut whatever we thought they might find too dark or violent.”

Of course, while making a film less dark and violent could be a good thing, in the context of communist political correctness, this has other purposes.

Soviet defector and former propagandist Yuri Bezmenov explained in his book, “Love Letter to America,” that when a communist regime is trying to subvert a country, it attacks all of the nation’s moral and cultural foundations. These attacks take various forms, but include promotions of drug use, grassroots movements, and all forms of vices.

Yet, when the regimes take power, they will move to forbid the systems of destabilization. Bezmenov wrote that when a socialist regime is formed, it then needs to establish stability and create a “new morality.” At that point, Bezmenov explained, there will be “No more ‘grass roots’ movements. No more criticism of the State. The Press will obediently censor itself.”

In other words, during the stages of destroying morals and destabilizing society, political correctness is used to guard the systems of cultural decay. When the regime takes full power, however, it will use political correctness to guard its hold on power.

In the context of the CCP, its stage of wanting people to sense the “darkness of humanity,” has come to a close—at least when it’s related to the Chinese people. Instead, it wants people to feel happy with 12-hours a day, 6-day work weeks, and the environment of mass censorship and surveillance. They’re living the dystopian reality that Orwell envisioned, but with a shiny polish that they’re told to feel happy about. Thoughts that drift into thinking that life may be better with another political system would be dangerous to the state, and so the regime forbids imagery that could invoke such thoughts.

Meanwhile, the CCP has no problem portraying the “darkness of humanity” when it serves its interests—such as portraying life before the communist regime took power. As Chinese people began to have a fascination with China’s 5,000 years of history, the CCP took things a step further and banned portrayals of China before the CCP took power.

When the show “Yanxi Palace,” about life in imperial China, became the country’s most-watched drama, the communist regime saw public interest in the culture it destroyed as a threat to its power. In January, state media declared that the show, and other imperial dramas, were having “negative impacts,” and they were banned soon after.

The CCP has portrayed traditional Chinese history—which was heavily based in values of filial piety, propriety, and reverence for the divine—as being something dark and evil. Any portrayal of the true values and culture is seen as a threat to the state.

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https://www.theepochtimes.com/political-correctness-is-a-tool-for-socialist-censorship-and-thought-control_2925061.html