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Wednesday, December 11, 2019

UPDATED: The Barr Effect?

Yesterday and today we were criticizing sundance and CTH--specifically regarding his juvenile smear at AG Bill Barr. This evening CTH is reporting that two DoJ officials are departing. CTH also notes that both were connected to the James Wolfe case, in which Wolfe--the security officer for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI)--leaked the Carter Page FISA to his girl friend, journalist Ali Watkins (NYT). Wolfe got off with a relative wrist slap, thanks to the intercession of his masters on the SSCI--who doubtless approved the leak. Notably, among those departures is Jesse Liu, US Attorney for DC--a hugely powerful position in the world of federal political crime. She'll be heading over to Treasury. Of course we'll have to see who takes her place, but I have to assume Barr will have a say in that. Is this clearing the decks for the empaneling of a new Russia Hoax oriented Grand Jury in DC? We'll see.

As I noted in a comment earlier today, don't expect Barr to trash current DoJ employees publicly--it's not his style, and in the case of a presidential appointee (US Attorneys like Liu are just as much presidential appointees as Barr) relatively pointless. Watch what he does and watch what happens around him. Barr couldn't cashier Liu, but he certainly had input with regard to such an important position.

UPDATE:




34 comments:

  1. So Liu is going back to Treasury from whence she came. Sounds like a maneuver to get a Barr-recommended appointee in place to empanel a grand jury. Presumably Durham has turned up volumes of evidence such that certain crimes and relationships can be handed off to another USA to run with the ball toward the goal line. Who gets named will be the "tell."

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    1. Yes, that's the bottom line. Trump never misses an opportunity of saying what a "great" AG he has now, so presumably he'll get him someone he approves.

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  2. Would you want to empanel a grand jury in DC for this affair or bring indictments in DC? Swamp central with many Swamp NPCs no?

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    1. These are pretty unsympathetic characters. A DC GJ just indicted a guy for essentially laundering money for Hillary so ...

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    2. From a law enforcement perspective, how do you indict people associated with this affair? Is this handled under a RICO?

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    3. Probably not. I think they can do it under an overall conspiracy to defraud the government of honest services as the umbrella violation that will also include false statements etc. in furtherance of the overall conspiracy.

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    4. 18 U.S. Code § 2385. Advocating overthrow of Government.?

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    5. No, I've gone through that many times. That requires advocating "force or violence". Advocating demonstrations, etc., almost certainly isn't enough for that statute, nor is use of fraud and deceit the advocacy of fraud or violence. Barr has referred to the language of resistance as the language of insurrection, but you still won't find Comey or Brennan talking about taking up arms, as some conservative commenters have obliquely suggested. Fraud is the way to go, IMO, and conspiracy is the big net.

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  3. Most of us out here in deploratopia see the 'gators merely swapping holes in the swamp as a major factor in the reptilian dominance in gov't.
    If Trump is doing one thing right it is crushing the myth of .gov experience being essential for governmental success. Better that "those people" are shown the door, or given strong motivation to seek an exit.
    Tom S.

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  4. An astute commenter at that CTH article suggested that Barr got rid of Liu from DOJ in order to prepare for a termination of the prosecution of Michael Flynn.

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    1. I think that's inevitable, no matter what.

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    2. Just to say it...I hope Judge Sullivan orders an investigation into the prosecutors...as he did in the Ted Stevens case...I can imagine Jessie Liu and her AUSAs might not fare so well in such an investigation...

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    3. Excellent point. It's possible that "ineffective supervision" was the stick that was used to shift Jessie, and the carrot was--there's a spot at Treasury for you if you play nice and we might let you keep it.

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  5. Who at DOJ is managing the prosecution of Concord Management?

    Barr might be getting rid of series of prosecutors in order to facilitate the imminent terminations of a series of bogus prosecutions (Flynn, Concord Management, etc.)

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    1. That's not being handled by DoJ, it was farmed out by Mueller to the SDNY--like the Flynn case and Manafort were farmed out to the DC USA office. They probably guessed that Sessions was on the way out and did it to prevent a new AG from controlling the case. The reason for that is that the SC reported to the AG.

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    2. Let me restate that. Team Mueller operated out of Main Justice, and so reported to the AG (who was recused, and replaced in that capacity by RR). When Team Mueller realized that Sessions would probably be replaced by an AG who wouldn't recuse and would take over management of their cases, they turned the prosecutions over to local USA offices--because the AG can't normally intervene in local prosecutions. Those cases included Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Concord.

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  6. I finally finished reading the Horowitz report this evening. I would encourage everyone interested in this story to read the entire report, but if you choose not to, you can just read the report from Chapter 11 forward (about 80 pages).

    Incidentally, I came across this essay The Hidden Hand linked through ZeroHedge. The author, Charles Faddis, has the same opinion of it all that I have- it is almost impossible to not see this entire operation as a clumsily run conspiracy that at every key point made sure certain "information" came forward to keep driving the coup attempt at every point it seemed to stall.

    Faddis makes the quite consistent point that not all the agents were corrupt, and at each critical juncture, them doing their jobs efficiently endangered Crossfire Hurricane. For example, not long after they opened Crossfire Hurricane based on the Downer "intel", they had already determined that Papadopoulos wasn't anyone that would be chosen for such an operation- he had extremely limited contacts with Russians, and the uncorrupted investigators would have quickly determined that within a week or two.

    So, whoever was instigating things looked around, and lo and behold, they settled on Carter Page who does have significant Russian contacts, and it just so happens Christopher Steele shows up with a dossier that you can use to further the investigation. However, there is a problem- uncorrupted people in the CIA quite honestly tell the CH team that Page is a CIA source of long and good standing. This inconvenient memorandum is just buried by the early CH team in preparation of the first application, but the uncorrupted CIA officer keeps bringing the memorandum back in the last renewal, and at that point, Clinesmith deliberately alters the e-mail to bury not only the fact that Page was a source for the CIA, but also to try to bury the fact that the original memorandum was buried in the first place.

    Then Steele gets fired by the FBI for the leaks to the press. In addition, the primary subsource is finally interviewed in early 2017 and basically torpedoes the entire dossier as it stood at that point- Horowitz makes this abundantly clear in the report- the dossier was trash. This, of course, is a problem, so suddent Bruce Ohr becomes more important as a route around so that Steele continue to give new dossier material to the investigative team.

    This is where Faddis stops the essay, but you can see the same sorts of clumsy actions continued right through last Spring, and then restarted in July with the Ukraine BS.

    Of course, my money has always been on John Brennan, and I see no reason to change that opinion.

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    1. I'll get to that. But I agree re Brennan.

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    2. I just finished reading The Hidden Hand. I found it enjoyable but unconvincing. When you check his facts you find that he gets things wrong. Examples.

      He claims that when it became clear in late summer that Papadopoulos couldn't be the conduit to Russia, the FBI switched to Page. But the fact is that the FBI opened an investigation on Page and was targeting him with OCONUS lures already in April.

      He claims Ohr becomes "more important" as Steele's handler in "early 2017." In fact, Ohr introduced Steele's story to McCabe and Page and was present at critical meetings throughout 2016. When Steele was "fired" in about Oct. 2016 Ohr became his debriefer for the FBI. In fact, when Team Mueller was set up Steele was kept at arms length and there's no evidence that any of his post-election "info" was used for much of anything.

      And there are other problems.

      However, I agree with the big picture--that there had to be overall direction. This couldn't have happened spontaneously.

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    3. @Mark
      @Yancey

      I look forward to reading The Hidden Hand, too. Thanks for the recommendation.

      Let me go out on a limb and say that you are both right. There was a hidden hand and the details are still obscure and complex.

      FWIW, I believe the hidden hand was a deeply corrupt and morally dead human being with over 25 years history in the Agency. He saw and oversaw plenty of dirty tricks in his day, including stupid, hopeless, multi-level dirty tricks that only a desperately compromised and superannuated spy could think is a good idea. He 'learned' a lot.

      So yes, Yancey, I would say the arrow points to Brennan.

      FWIW, I don't think the idea of 'running' (to one degree or another) both Pages, PapaD, Halper, Strzok, Svetlana, Mifsud, Steele, Comey, McCabe, Priestap, Dearlove, Downer, Lynch, Yates, Rice, Powers, Reid, McCain, Simpson, both Ohrs, Flynn, and Manafort, etc, -- in a plot to overthrow the elected President -- was beyond Brennan's imagination or contemplation.

      And, as in most complex criminal conspiracies, keeping all the details straight and hidden from investigators is proving to be a very difficult task.

      Of course, this all begs the question: who told Brennan to do it?

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    4. Thanks, Mark. I was all set to head to ZH to read that.

      There seemed to be a staged plan. If one thing didn’t work, they would move on to the next, and the next. Impeachment is just the latest stage. That’s my take.

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    5. "And, as in most complex criminal conspiracies, keeping all the details straight and hidden from investigators is proving to be a very difficult task."

      I remember watching Mission Impossible in the 60's. They always had very well-thought out plots to bring down various corrupt foreign leaders, and they escaped the corrupt police every episode!

      Maybe Brennan's plot got a little overly complicated, but he certainly did very well for quite a while.

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  7. Trump @ rally @ Hershey PA said "Lisa Page had a restraining order against Peter S.". Is this true?

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    1. President Trump made a qualified remark (paraphrased) “that’s what I heard…I don’t know if it’s true…”

      Interesting that the media have gone crazy over his commenting on hearsay when they are trying to impeach him based upon hearsay...

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  8. The replacement of the DC AUSA will be the first indication of where DOJ is headed with respect to future accountability of the coup conspirators. Trump should wait a while before making this selection and use that uncertainty as leverage against potential treachery in the GOPe. Should McConnell (or Senate RINOs) attempt to strong-arm Trump via the impeachment trial or NAFTA replacement legislation vote, he can counter that by threatening to place someone like Jim Jordon or John Radcliffe in that role. Trump is fighting fire with fire, and the Deep State underestimates him at their own risk.

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    1. While having an allied DC USA isn't absolutely essential--someplace like NVA or Baltimore (RR's old office!) would work just fine--the principle of having an ally close at hand for face to faces still applies.

      Durham is in charge and I don't see any way that will change. But this move, which may take months to accomplish, may have that "watershed" moment in view that Barr spoke of--indictments, and more than just a few, in late spring/early summer.

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    2. Not sure how this "leverage" is supposed to work since Trump needs the Republicans in the Senate to confirm his appointment.
      Tom S.

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    3. A USA is a presidential appointee. How would you propose to get a presidential appointee to vacate their position without leverage? Yes, the Senate has to confirm the new DC USA. Do you have reason to believe that McConnell would stiff Trump and Barr on this important post? Nothing would surprise me less than to learn that McConnell has had discussions (possibly including Graham) on this already.

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    4. A task force withing DOJ/FBI has been running canary traps targeting leakers for several years now and that effort has borne fruit. These prosecutions have been bottled up by Jessie Liu because most of the suspects are well connected Democrats. That bottleneck is now gone and Barr will have some discretion with respect to untethering those investigations.

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    5. Any source for that? It's interesting and plausible. As we've discussed, don't expect public ranting from Barr, but do expect results.

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  9. Not by Lisa Page, but by Strozk's wife. She found the text messages on his phone revealing the affair with Lisa Page and has been fighting on behalf of her children and marriage ever since.

    It would appear that the relationship between Strozk and Page was more serious than anyone suspects. Had Hillary been elected, they both would have earned fast-track promotions and likely deepened (if not formalized) their relationship as up-and-coming power players in Hillary's new administration. No pun intented.

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