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Monday, October 14, 2019

What Did Obama Know--And When?

An alternative title might have been: The Russia Hoax Lives! But I decided to go with the more or less real news.

Glenn Simpson, of Fusion GPS fame, is coming out with a book in November: Crime in Progress--The Secret History of the Trump-Russia Investigation. I doubt that it's a "tell all"--you could knock me down with a feather if it were. Nevertheless, we're being teased with something rather interesting:



Obviously, Obama had to have known that the Steele memos were Hillary funded oppo research. Aside from other considerations, knowing that the Steele guff came from Glenn Simpson, could Obama have imagined it was anything else but oppo research? As POTUS, he had an absolute obligation to get to the bottom of where this nonsense was coming from--was it true or not? Consider what the publisher, Penguin Random House says:

In the autumn of 2015, the founders of the US political research firm Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, were hired by a Republican presidential candidate to look into the records of Donald Trump. What began as a march through a mind-boggling trove of lawsuits and sketchy overseas projects soon took a darker turn, as they became the first to uncover Trump's disturbing ties to the Kremlin and the crimes that since have plagued his presidency. 
To help them decipher this alarming evidence, they engaged the services of an old acquaintance, the former British MI6 agent and Russia expert Christopher Steele. Steele would produce the notorious dossier which disclosed that the Trump team was deeply compromised by a hostile foreign power bent on disrupting the West and influencing the US presidential election. 
In Crime in Progress, the authors - and Steele - break their silence for the first time, chronicling their high-stakes investigation and their desperate efforts to warn both the American and British governments, the FBI and the media, to little avail - and no matter the costs. Yet when the dossier finally exploded onto the world stage after a leak, a ten-person research firm above a Starbucks in Washington was thrust into the centre of the biggest news story on the planet - a story that would lead to the Mueller report and disrupt Trump's secret planned rapprochement with Putin's Russia that could have re-ordered the western alliance. After four years on his trail, the authors' inescapable conclusion is that Trump is an asset of the Russian government, whether he knows it or not.

A presidential candidate an asset of the Russian government? Of course it's far fetched, but ... Wouldn't a sitting president--even one who spent major parts of his sitting time watching NBA games--have an absolute responsibility to determine whether any of this were true? To, like, defend the constitution, and all that jazz? Yet the publisher claims that Simpson's "desperate efforts to warn both the American and British governments" were "to little avail." Wow! Isn't that an indictment of Obama? No matter how far fetched it all sounded--and we know now, thanks to both the Mueller Dossier and independent research that it was very far fetched--shouldn't Obama have switched off the NBA games and devoted his last months to getting to the bottom of the allegations in the Steele dossier, to determine whether he was passing the presidential baton to a Russian asset? Kinda like Bill Barr--get his arms around it all? And yet he didn't. It's clear to me that Obama needs to be put under oath in front of a Grand Jury. Isn't that the "inescapable conclusion" of all this? It seems so to me.

And the same goes for Robert "Bob" Mueller (the Third!). The publisher tells us that Simpson amassed all this "alarming evidence", evidence that led to the "inescapable conclusion" that was at the heart of the entire Mueller Witchhunt--that Trump was a Russian asset. Surely Simpson's "desperate efforts" to warn the US government would have included bringing all this alarming evidence to Mueller's attention? After all, we know that Mueller's minder, Andrew Weissmann, was personally acquainted with Simpson--so, no problem getting the evidence to the right people? And yet Mueller and Weissmann concluded: No collusion. Something's not adding up. If the evidence led to a conclusion that was "inescapable," then how in the world did Mueller and Weissmann evade that conclusion? Were they bought off? Again, the really "inescapable conclusion" must be that we need to get Mueller and Weissmann--and several more--under oath in front of a Grand Jury. 

Or how about this? If Bill Barr drags his feet, is a bit slow in bringing Obama, Mueller, and the rest of the gang in front of a Grand Jury, maybe they should all be brought in front of Adam Schiff's Kangaroo Court. Bring Glenn Simpson in first, to present all the "alarming evidence," then demand an explanation from Obama and Mueller: How could they have failed the nation by not following the evidence to the "inescapable conclusion?" If the "inescapable conclusion is that Trump is an asset of the Russian government", surely that would be grounds for impeachment? Or are the House Dems going to drag their feet on this one, too?

It seems that Glenn Simpson has thrown down the gauntlet to the Dems. How will they respond? I can't wait!

This should keep us going until that Horowitz FISA Dossier finally, finally, sees the light of day.




9 comments:

  1. Heartbreaking news.
    If the D.S. (and its Cong. pals) can push to make the Classified section the size of a phone book, and the public part the size of an H.S. term paper, let alone if we never see anything, you can stick a fork in the Constitution.

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  2. Hubris! The other Stupid.
    Tom S.

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  3. I was going to leave it at snark, but really think their just trying to get out ahead of the DoJ wave that's coming.
    Tom S.

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    Replies
    1. I think they're stuck, trying to figure out what to do. I saw an Axios story about a focus group of independents in which 9/11 said impeachment was a distraction from what was important for the country.

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    2. Yes, the Dem's are basically a stuck record at this point (and does that idiom date me or what); but I was speaking specifically about Simpson and Steele. This book looks like some serious, self-preservation, canoe paddling to me. The question is who gets shoved overboard to 'lighten ship' because everyone knows there is no honor among thieves.
      Tom S.

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  4. Switch the name Hillary Clinton for Donald Trump and you got a story.

    Rob S.

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  5. Narcissist Comey was at it again. He said he has a fantasy where he deletes his Twitter account when the President is out of office.

    I have a dream where his Twitter account is deactivated because he is in prison.

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  6. If you read the publisher's blub closely, it's presents, yet, another version of events.
    -FusionGPS uncovers Trump's ties to the Kremlin.
    -Hires Steele to decipher the evidence.
    -The high-stakes investigation and desperate attempt to warn others required FusionGPS' silence--because, only now, Simpson and Fritch are breaking silence, for the first time, to tell their story.
    -When the Steele dossier story broke, the FusionGPS 10-person research team was thrust into the center of the biggest news story on the planet. (If true, some of the 10 would be household names by now.)

    The story doesn't comport with the timeline. Or reporting to date. Or the Mueller report. Or reality.

    The question remaining is which of the NYT or WaPo will be running excerpts as part of the pre-release publicity tour.

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