UPDATED: Trump: Declassification Best Used To Counterpunch

In an interview with the New York Post earlier today, President Trump directly addressed the issue of the best time to declassify Russia Hoax related documents. Recall that back on September 17, 2018, Trump had ordered the declassification of several categories of documents but then, within days, decided to withhold declassification, citing frantic phone calls from "close allies" of the United States, begging him not to declassify the documents:

The documents include Justice officials’ request to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and memos on DOJ official Bruce Ohr’s interactions with Christopher Steele, the author of a controversial dossier that alleged Trump ties with Russia.

Trump initially agreed to declassify the documents, including text messages sent by former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew G. McCabe as well as Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Ohr. Trump allies believe the revelations will show favoritism toward Hillary Clinton and a plot to take down Trump.

Trump then reversed course, citing the need for further review and concern of US allies.

In the interview Trump characterized himself as a "counter-puncher" and stated that his preferred strategy of counter punching would likely lead him to use declassification as a weapon if the Democrats decided to go down the path of harassing his administration, saying: "I’m a counter-puncher and I will hit them so hard they’d never been hit like that.” According to the Post Trump further spelled out exactly what disclosure of those documents would reveal: that the FBI, the Justice Department and the Clinton campaign had conspired to set him up.

Is The Deep State Feeling The Heat?

Bad as it may have been, the worst of the Russia Hoax was not the abuse of the FISA electronic surveillance regime for political purposes. Nor is the worst even the patent involvement of our intelligence agencies--and in particular the FBI and CIA--in electoral politics. No, the worst aspect of the Russia Hoax is that our intelligence agencies, including elements of DoJ and the State Department cooperating with the Clinton campaign, enlisted the intelligence services of foreign powers--first in their effort to defeat the candidacy of Donald Trump and, when that effort failed, turning their efforts to what can only be described as an attempted coup against the elected President of the United States. Shockingly, these later stages of the Russia Hoax have included members of the Legislative Branch who, in the face of clear evidence that the true collusion with foreign powers was that of the Clinton campaign, have worked to delay and to ultimately obstruct Congressional oversight and investigation of the entire Russia Hoax. So reckless was this conspiracy that the players have not hesitated to cynically stir up public hysteria against Russia, a foreign power which, while often hostile to US interests, had no role in colluding with the Trump campaign.

Shortly before the Midterm elections, in the face of determined stonewalling of Congressional oversight by DoJ and the FBI, the President played what has always been his trump (!) card--he ordered the declassification of most of the documents that are central to the Russia Hoax. Led by DAG Rosenstein, the forces of the Deep State were able to delay the release of the documents, but President Trump made it clear that he favors declassification--and sooner, rather than later. Two weeks later, an uneasy stalemate persists. DoJ and Team Mueller have claimed that release of the documents would constitute "obstruction"--a patently bogus claim, but Trump has extracted the resignation of Jeff Sessions and his replacement with Matthew Whitaker as the Acting AG, who also replaces Rosenstein as the supervisor of Team Mueller. The anti-Trump forces are currently attempting to stymie Trump's latest move with attacks on the Whitaker appointment, while declassification hangs fire. And Democrats, newly empowered by their capture of the House, are threatening to tie Trump up with investigations of his finances, on the pretext of the Russia Hoax.

Nevertheless, there is maneuvering going on behind the scenes, and evidence that the Deep State forces of both the US and the UK are feeling Trump's pressure. The Daily Telegraph, in a surprisingly little remarked upon article, informed the world that MI6 is battling Donald Trump to stop him from releasing documents linked to the "Russia probe".

The article itself is an interesting mix of special pleading and disinformation, clearly reflecting the views and interests of the British Deep State. For starters, it's long been clear that the "Russia probe" is really the "Trump probe"--any purported focus on Russia amounts to no more than the hope that, if enough mud (Russia Hoax material) is thrown at the wall (Trump), some of it may stick. For the rest, the article coyly offers a glimpse of what we all know to be true--the British were deeply involved in the Russia Hoax almost from the start--while attempting to maintain deniability with transparent euphemisms. For example, we read that

Fake News, Real News, Hot News

On the Fake News front we have some depressing real news--or, as real as polling gets:

John Hinderaker at Powerline, in The Ultimate Fake News, digs down into a poll run by The Economist/YouGov during the first week of November. The poll asked: Did Russia “tamper with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President?” Hinderaker points out what every sentient human person now knows for fact:

There is no evidence–I repeat, none–that Russia “tampered with vote tallies.” To my knowledge, no one has claimed that Russia tampered with vote tallies. I am not aware of any plausible theory on which a foreign power could tamper with vote tallies. To say that Russia tampered with vote tallies is as credible as asserting that the moon is made of green cheese.

Nevertheless.

The poll reveals, paraphrasing Hinderaker's summary, that

UPDATED: Call For The Dead

As reported by the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross, as recently as 9/7/18 the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was claiming that Joseph Mifsud--the shadowy Maltese professor who appears to have been instrumental in drawing George Papadopoulos into the Russia Hoax--"was missing and may be deceased." Mifsud had variously been reported to have had close ties to Russian intelligence, or to British intelligence, or to other Western intelligence services. It was Mifsud who, according to the FBI interview of Papadopoulos in January, 2017, had introduced Papadopoulos to a woman who falsely claimed to be Vladimir Putin's niece and it was Mifsud who Papadopoulos also said told him that Russia was in possession of thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails (Mifsud has denied all this).

The DNC's claim drew a quick response from Mifsud's longtime friend and lawyer, Stephan Roh. Roh appears to be as shadowy in his connections as is Mifsud. According to Wikipedia,

Roh is a Russian-speaking German lawyer and multimillionaire with close ties to Russia, has worked alongside Mifsud for years. Papadopoulos's wife, who briefly worked for Mifsud, has described Roh as Mifsud's lawyer, best friend, and funder. Roh owns multiple businesses, many headquartered in Moscow or Cyprus; he also co-owns Link University, where Mifsud taught. Roh was detained and questioned by investigators on Robert Mueller's Special Counsel team in October 2017.

Roh told reporters that, while Mifsud has not been seen since November of 2017, the DNC's claim of Mifsud's decease was "nonsense".

I got it from really good sources. They say that he is alive, that he has another identity, and that he is staying somewhere, at a nice place,” Stephan Roh told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Sunday.

“I just this morning got a message, indirectly, that he is alive and that they have provided him with another identity,” added Roh, who did not describe his sources.

Whither The Russia Hoax Witchhunt?

I had barely finished digesting the Midterm election news yesterday morning and begun wondering how the new lay of the land might affect the Russia Hoax, when events began unfolding. President Trump has never been mistaken for someone who dithers when action is called for. He quickly requested and received the resignation of AG Jeff Sessions, then inserted Sessions' Chief of Staff, Matthew G. Whitaker, as Acting AG, pending the naming of a permanent replacement (rumors are already circulating that Janice Rogers Brown is under consideration).

The move had been anticipated since at least August, when key GOP senators gave Trump public backing for the change: Key Republicans Give Trump a Path to Fire Sessions After the Election. As Bloomberg reported, both Lindsay Graham and Chuck Grassley, both of whom had previously opposed firing Sessions, publicly approved removing Sessions and even provided a time frame for action:

The pivotal message on Thursday came from Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who oscillates between criticizing many of the president’s policies and defending a president who sometimes invites him to go golfing at a Trump-branded resort.

“The president’s entitled to an attorney general he has faith in, somebody that’s qualified for the job, and I think there will come a time, sooner rather than later, where it will be time to have a new face and a fresh voice at the Department of Justice,” Graham told reporters.

But he added that forcing out Sessions before November “would create havoc” with efforts to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, as well as with the midterm elections on Nov. 6 that will determine whether Republicans keep control of Congress. 

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the Judiciary Committee’s chairman, also changed his position on Thursday, saying in an interview that he’d be able to make time for hearings for a new attorney general after saying in the past that the panel was too busy to tackle that explosive possibility.

Even at this stage, with an Acting AG, the legal landscape appears to have changed drastically. What's more, this drastic change takes effect immediately--while the Republicans still control the House.

Could Papadopoulos Blow The Russia Hoax Wide Open?

On November 2 Dan Bongino conducted a fascinating interview with George Papadopoulos. The most convenient way to digest the interview is at Jeff Carlson's blog, which has a link to the interview on Bongino's radio show as well as a full transcript of the interview. What emerges from the interview is, in my view, convincing evidence that Papadopoulos was, in Chuck Ross's words, the target of an "FBI sting." Actually, that characterization doesn't even go far enough. What seems clear at this point is that the FBI--representing the US Government and as an agency of the Department of Justice--targeted Papadopoulos and attempted to manipulate him into appearing to be a vehicle for Russian influence in the Trump campaign. The FBI had no reason to believe that Papadopoulos had any connections to Russian officials before they targeted him. The fact is, Papadopoulos' academic background and previous experience was in what could be broadly termed "Eastern Mediterranean" politics--Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel. Moreover, in his published writings he actually evinced a degree of hostility to Russian influence in that region. When the FBI's attempt at framing Papadopoulos in this manner predictably fell flat, Papadopoulos was indicted on trumped up "false statements to the FBI" charges stemming from a harmless misstatement--not a lie.

The entire interview is well worth listening to--to capture Papadopoulos' personality--and also worth reading closely for the details that emerge. Chuck Ross's digest is also useful as a summary. Bongino's tone is remarkable. He's well prepared for the interview and, as he goes into the details of how Papadopoulos was groomed to be a fall guy in the FBI's war against Trump, his tone is incredulous to the point of hilarity at times--the FBI's setup is that transparent. Bongino has difficulty throughout in restraining himself from exclaiming at Papadopoulos' only too obvious naivete. For his part, Papadopoulos is naturally reluctant to portray himself as a complete dupe, but even he at a certain point ends up quoting his wife, who exclaimed to him:

"What on earth are you pleading guilty for, when this guy [Mifsud] is obviously setting you up?"

Rather than attempt an exhaustive analysis of the many intriguing threads of information that can be found in the interview, what I'd like to focus on are two particular themes in Papadopoulos' narrative: 1) That he was the subject of a FISA, and 2) that his conversations with FBI intelligence assets such as Halper, Downer, and Mifsud were "recorded".