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Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Stalin Would Be Proud of Schiff

"Stalin Would Be Proud" is the title of a very good post at The Gateway Pundit. What TGP is referring to is Adam Schiff's 6 page memo on proper decorum in a Kangaroo Court. Specifically, Schiff is obliquely demanding that Eric Ciaramella not be mentioned by name, under pain of an ethics violation complaint. Here's the relevant portion of the memo:

Whistleblower Protection and Confidentiality. The Committee has a long, proud, and bipartisan history of protecting whistleblowers—including from efforts to threaten, intimidate, retaliate against, or undermine the confidentiality of whistleblowers. 
Among other authorities, the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010 and the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act include procedures for Intelligence Community personnel to make protected disclosures to inspectors general across the Intelligence Community and to the congressional intelligence committees. Among other things, Intelligence Community personnel are shielded from any action constituting reprisal or the threat of reprisal for making disclosures in accordance with these procedures. 
The statutory framework also prevents obstruction of lawful communications by federal employees with Congress, and of congressional proceedings. And, as mentioned above, the Code of Official Conduct for Members of Congress requires that every Member “shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.” The Committee on Ethics has historically viewed this provision as “encompassing violations of law and abuses of one’s official position.”

Notice two things.

In the first paragraph Schiff attempts to put across the idea that it's somehow a bad thing to "undermine the confidentiality of whistleblowers"--on a par with threatening, intimidating, or retaliating against them.

But in the very next paragraph he, um, undermines that attempted subterfuge by plainly and accurately stating that the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2010 and the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act only shields whistleblowers from "any action constituting reprisal or the threat of reprisal for making disclosures."

Is mentioning a whistleblowers name a reprisal or threat? No. It's not. And Schiff doesn't dare make that bald assertion.

And, in fact, Eric Ciaramella isn't even a whistleblower, as defined by statute. As TGP concludes:

Stalin would sure be proud of Adam Schiff and his Soviet-style impeachment coup against Trump.

If the Republican members have even a single hair on their collective ass, each and every one of them will repeatedly mention Eric Ciaramella by name. Repeatedly and insistently. Every single one of them.

Is the USA now a banana republic or what?

17 comments:

  1. "have even a single hair on their collective ass".
    Indeed.
    Thanx to the recent conduct of Conservatism Inc., so many Deplorables have come to fear, that it's time for us to see the drift of political Realignment, away from e.g. Fortune 500 post-mods, to rapprochement with erstwhile foes.
    For recent thinking on this epistemological clash of our time, see
    https://AmericanMind.org/essays/welcome-to-Culture-War-2-0/ .

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  2. If I were a Congressma I would have sign on my office door saying "I think Eric Ciaramella is The whistleblower and Jeffery Epstein didn't kill himself." Let Schiff do something stupid like get that read into the Congressioal Record.
    Tom S.

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  3. I have reviewed Adam Schiff’s tweets over the last month or so.

    Forget innocent until proven guilty: here’s what Schiff has baldly accused Trump of. This is his written record -- verbatim:

    “Far from transparent, Trump has engaged in unprecedented obstruction.”

    “This is first-hand testimony on how the levers of government were abused to help the president politically, at the cost of our national security.”

    “[George Kent] and his colleagues recognized the impropriety of Trump’s Ukraine pressure campaign to undertake politically-motivated investigations.”

    “Our Founders understood that someday, a president might come to power who would abuse the office for personal gain and endanger our national security.”

    “Transcripts from Ambassadors Sondland and Volker show the progression of Trump's efforts to press Ukraine into the service of his own personal political goals, in what Sondland described as a continuum of insidiousness”.

    “Amb. Yovanovitch is a dedicated American diplomat who was forced from her position after a vicious smear campaign orchestrated by the president’s allies.”

    “The president continues to target public servants, including those who have served their country in combat, with baseless attacks. Efforts to intimidate or threaten witnesses will further build the case for obstruction, itself an impeachable offense.”

    “Every Member of Congress will have to answer: is soliciting foreign interference in our elections acceptable?”

    “Republicans can spuriously attack the process. While we expose the truth.”

    “Trump's Chief of Staff admitted military aid was withheld from an ally to get their help with an investigation, which could help Trump politically.”

    “It will be said of House Republicans, When they found they lacked the courage to confront the most dangerous and unethical president in American history, They consoled themselves by attacking those who did.”

    “The Office of Management and Budget, State Department and the DOD have failed to comply with Congressional subpoenas. Despite this unprecedented obstruction, we’ve uncovered significant evidence of Trump’s abuse of power. And we’ll continue to expose the truth.”

    “The text messages we’ve obtained show that the White House meeting desperately sought by Ukraine was conditioned on a “deliverable” - a sham investigation into a Trump 2020 rival. That alone is a terrible abuse of power. We intend to find out how much deeper that abuse goes.”

    “President Trump's capitulation to Erdogan over Syria is an unmitigated disaster and may lead to a resurgence of ISIS. Trump's impulsive decision to withdraw our forces and betray our Kurdish allies has done incalculable damage to our national security and standing in the world.”

    “The White House’s desperate effort to cover up and conceal won't deter Congress from exposing the facts: Trump abused his power and endangered our national security. We have the call record. We have the texts. The evidence of his grave misconduct only grows.”

    Let’s tuck this bill of particulars away and when all is said and done let’s come back and see how many of Schiff’s accusations survive scrutiny.

    Let’s also see who exactly in our government over the last four years has engaged in unprecedented obstruction, solicited foreign interference in our elections, who has abused his office for personal gain, who capitulated to which foreign leader, who has engaged in a vicious smear campaign, who has engaged in politically motivated investigations, who has threatened and intimidated witnesses, who has exposed the truth, who abused power and how deep that abuse goes, who has done incalculable damage to our national security, and who is guilty of grave misconduct.

    I’m thinking Adam Schiff might come to regret his written record.

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    Replies
    1. That's a lot of hot air from Schiff, completely evidence-free. And all of the characterizations could be said to be consistent with every politician, e.g. personal political goals, personal political gain.

      Schiff makes disagreement with his policies and prefer to be a personal affront--and impeachable event.

      Rather silly man.

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  4. If only we now could emulate the 08-09 sending of Tea Bags,
    this time with plastic Tantos, with which Schiffy etc. could "practice" committing seppuku.

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  5. This is a bit of a sidebar, but I can't resist.

    I've been trying to understand better what went down in Ukraine in 2014-2016. I can't remember, Mark, if you've posted Moon Of Alabama's timeline of events in the Ukraine, but here it is: https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/11/a-timeline-of-joe-bidens-intervention-against-the-prosecutor-general-of-ukraine.html.

    It doesn't paint a very helpful picture for Joe Biden.

    One hilarious (to me, anyway) takeaway...back in 2014 and 2015 the US was making a big, public deal out of being against widespread Ukrainian corruption... until the Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, went after the corrupt Burisma and its corrupt owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. Then the US decided it was the anti-corruption prosecutor, Shokin, who was really corrupt. Joe Biden forced him out by threatening to withhold US aid. The investigation into Burisma corruption was dropped by the new, US-backed, anti-corruption prosecutor.

    And Joe Biden and Adam Schiff and the MSM don't think this isn't all going to come out -- and be made crystal clear -- in an impeachment proceeding based on US-Ukrainian relations?

    Mind boggling...

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    Replies
    1. There's a lot of information out there, if you look. For example, just yesterday there were documented reports based off WH visitor logs that show that Ciaramella was present at, and probably arranged, the initial WH meetings with Ukrainian officials at which the US attempted to get Ukraine to back off investigating Burisma--let the US do that. Really! Yesterday also--and I've mislaid the link--there was a good article outlining the influence peddling that was going on in Ukraine.

      Here's another fairly recent article:

      https://www.unz.com/ishamir/the-plundering-of-ukraine/

      I agree with your conclusion--I can't imagine how they think Biden is a viable candidate with this stuff out there. We're talking about corruption on a truly massive scale.

      And then there's the Biden/China angle ...

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    2. And anyone who looks a bit will find Soros' fingerprints all over this. Dems support Soros' profiteering in Ukraine, Soros donates big time through various intermediaries to Dem campaigns. And Soros associates prominent among Ciaramella's invitees to WH.

      There's too much of this stuff for me to blog on, but I'm always glad to see it mentioned and linked.

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    3. I'm not sure how deeply you want to go into the Ukraine thing, but here's a link to what I consider a thoughtful somewhat big picture article of manageable length that addresses as well how US FP gets done:

      https://amgreatness.com/2019/11/10/postmodern-revolution-and-ukraine/

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    4. The amusing part about corruption in Ukraine, is that there were some gov't officials who attempted to come to the US for meetings, the purpose of which was to enlist US help in the investigation (presumably, of US persons), and the US embassy in Kiev wouldn't grant visas for travel to the US. IIRC, this is Shokin-era people working for him.

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    5. Marie Yovanavitch, or something like that, the ambassador was fired for that. And it turns out that like Taylor and a lot of the others she was rather a nut job--beyond being arrogant and partisan.

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    6. "...she was rather a nut job..."

      I assume you mean more than what would be normal for the run-of-the-mill Democrat. ;-)
      Tom S.

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    7. Right. The people at DoS had to tell her to just chill about tracking critics. That's really pretty nutty stuff for a "public servant".

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  6. "Is the USA now a banana republic or what?"

    We certainly have some elements of a banana republic. We will have better insight after the IG report, Barr and Durham's possible indictments and the 2020 election.

    If the Constitution prevails, we have a lot of cleanup and reform ahead of us. I could give you a list but you already know the candidates.

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  7. I refuse to subject myself to the Impeachment Theater today--life is just too short for that. But I gather it's been pretty farcical, with Bill Taylor droning on for 41 minutes! Good news is that apparently the GOP Reps have been on the attack.

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  8. I'm w you, Mark. I'll catch up w Tucker tonight and perhaps stay through Hannity if I can bear it...

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