“Bill Barr can go down as the greatest attorney general in the history of our country, or he can go down as an average guy. We’ll see what happens.”
Or this:
“They spied on my campaign, which is treason."
In the first place, it's not fair to give ammunition to those who will claim that if Barr and Durham come down with indictments then Barr is simply responding to Trump's prodding.
In the second place, no matter what indictments they do come up with, none will be for "treason"--which in the US Constitution has a very specific and highly restrictive definition. The mere fact that the crime of treason is defined in the Constitution is remarkable in and of itself. "Spying on my campaign" isn't part of that definition, and Trump--who's no dummy and has smart lawyers working for him--knows that.
On the other hand, this is true:
"They spied, both before and after I won, using the intelligence apparatus of the United States to take down a president, a legally elected president, a duly elected president of the United States. It is the single biggest political crime in the history of our country.”
Trump, who won the presidency fair and square against all the odds, who has done his level best for this country against unprincipled opposition from both parties and the elite establishment and Deep State, has had to put up with outrageous and intentional, knowing, slanders for four years. Knowing what we all know, that what was done to him was, quite literally, criminal--whether or not a guilty verdict can be obtained.
Who among us could have handled all that the way he has? It makes the circus in the Dem House against Barr look like patty cake. So I guess he's entitled to say just about anything he wants.
Still, Barr is the best friend Trump has. Trump needs to remember that.
UPDATE: True/Not True?
InfoTruth6999
@MarkTruth9
Hannity just said a few minutes ago that Bill Barr will be on his TV show tonight.
He also said there is some kind of announcement coming today. 
3:26 PM · Aug 13, 2020InfoTruth6999
Obviously not indictments and not resignation. What?
True!
Sean Hannity
@seanhannity
TONIGHT ON HANNITY:
I have an exclusive interview with Attorney General William Barr. Tune in at 9:00 PM ET !!!
Maybe it's about the DoJ finding that Yale discriminates--and has for a long time--against Asians and Whites?
I see this as nothing more than Trump informing the American people of what was done to him while prodding Barr and Durham to deliver - before the election. The average American is not going to look up the definition of treason, but they will know what illegal acts and dirty tricks look like; and there is plenty of evidence of both.
ReplyDeleteDJL
Trump doesn't want friends. He wants results.
ReplyDeleteJeff Sessions was his friend, wasn't he?
DeleteSession was not Trump’s friend. A friend would have recognized that his requirement or recuse to obtain confirmation was against Trump's interest. Some may say he could not have known, but that belies the way that the Democrats treated Sessions contacts with Russians through the course of his senate responsibilities.
DeleteCould be related to AG Barr's mysterious visit to McConnell's office the other day?
ReplyDeleteOh, I missed that.
DeleteNews media ignored the story; only reported by some observant individual who saw Barr entering McConnell's office, and tweeted it.
DeleteAs I said yesterday; I don't think he was there to play a duet on the bagpipes.
No, most likely not. Does Mitch like bagpipe music?
DeleteFLASH TRAFFIC:
DeleteBarr to be interviewed on Hannity in moments... "with breaking news"
(I doubt it's to announce Soft Coup indictments, but could be an update in timing of when Durham will act?)
Keep us apprised.
DeleteOPERATION LEGEND: arrest of alleged perp who killed 4 year old black child sleeping in his bed.
DeleteSegued into discussion about radical rioters.... coming back after commercial break to discuss Durham, mail in voting and more.
Ah, thanks. One way or another, while it might not be his preferred platform, I think it's good for him to be seen more.
DeleteMORE:
DeleteDurham: American public needs to know the truth of what happened in 2016 AND 2017, and if anyone crossed the line and committed criminal acts, and we have the evidence to prove it, they will be charged. WE will not be delayed or controlled by the election, while at the same time, we will not do anything to effect the election; do what the facts demand when the facts demand it.
Expect Durham to have results this summer, IN FACT THERE WILL BE A DEVELOPMENT (not a very big one) TOMORROW!
In that case I'll get out of bed! :-)
DeleteThe thing that jumps out at me is the "... AND 2017 ..." phrase. That has to be Flynn case, Carter Page FISA spying in 2017, or something else related to Mueller investigation.
DeleteThat's very encouraging.
Right. He's been saying that for quite a while--that what happened AFTER the inauguration was in some ways worse that what came before. I think we know that the SC was in the works for months, while they looked for a triggering event. I don't say Comey instigated his firing, just that it was opportunistically seized upon. No wonder Weissmann is so worked up.
DeleteI have always thought Comey engineered his own firing -- he told Trump privately over and over that he was not under investigation, while concurrently, FBI/DOJ were leaking like mad all manner of false allegations to the MSM. Trump ask Comey to make a public statement to knock down the leaked stories, but Comey refused.
DeleteThat sounds to me like a prescription to drive a newly minted non-politician president wild with anger, to bait him into firing Comey, which would trigger McCabe to launch an Obstruction investigation (which had no valid predication, of course,) and Rosenstein then authorized the Mueller SCO.
It smells like a set up to me.
One more observation: Barr mentioned this was the FIRST time he had ever appeared on Hannity's show.
DeleteInteresting timing.
Perhaps. I'm more or less agnostic, although it was very convenient.
DeleteI sorta hate to bring this up, but isn't Sundance coming out with some big revelation tomorrow, first to his selected journos, and then on Saturday, to the public??
DeleteUPDATE:
DeleteActual quote:
>> Barr: "There are going to be significant developments before the election...Tomorrow, there will be a development in the case. It's not earth-shattering...but it is an indication that things are moving along at the proper pace..." <<
Yeah, sundance will totally upstage Barr tomorrow, reducing him to status of An Average Guy.
DeleteI suspect shipwreckedcrew is onto something:
shipwreckedcrew
@shipwreckedcrew
·
7h
I think it was a cry for attention. His time is about to run out. Way too many red herrings over the last couple years with suppositions and conclusion that lead no where. He's been lost in the weeds for a while. He's sure there is a pony in that pile of shit somewhere....shipwreckedcrew
@shipwreckedcrew
·
7h
I think it was a cry for attention. His time is about to run out. Way too many red herrings over the last couple years with suppositions and conclusion that lead no where. He's been lost in the weeds for a while. He's sure there is a pony in that pile of shit somewhere....
https://twitter.com/shipwreckedcrew/status/1293984273335111680
DeleteThat's some weird tweet stuff going on Mark.
DeleteTrump is interesting.
ReplyDeleteAn extremely wealthy man who had a massive head start in life and went to an Ivy League university, but seems to be more in tune, ie thought, with a brick layer than a stock broker or humanities PhD.
Some of that is promotion and marketing, obviously, but listening to him makes it that much more apparent it’s sincere and part of who he is.
Take treason. He knows treason is specific. Even if he didn’t know, I doubt by the way, betcha someone at some point would have respectively pointed it out or maybe, bluntly, like his daughter or son-in-law.
What would the person at the cash register of a fast food joint call it? What would the person manning the stop/go slow signs on a road construction crew call it?
Trump is not erudite. Trump is unfiltered. Many times it is cringeworthy and sometimes to his detriment.
However, and this is a big however ...
I would rather have this than a smooth talking politician that takes money away from, tells me I am racist, demands I must endure crime, and slicks it up to where I feel grateful at his largesse.
TexasDude
"There's a part of me that says, I wish Trump wouldn't say sh*t like this"
ReplyDeleteYou too? I have that one nearly every day. The juvenile personal insults and needless brush fires are so very frustrating. Far too often he is his own worst enemy.
Actually I like the insults and so forth--it's great theater and punctures the inflated media driven egos, falsified expertise, brings them back down to earth.
DeleteThis was different. Or so it seemed to me.
Most often Trump calls it as we see it. His daughter once described him as “blunt”. He is the antithesis of PCness. The pearl clutchers who don’t want him to be Trump, who don’t want him to tweet (do they have no understanding of how twisted his words would be via the Trump-hating media?), who don’t want him to defend himself, are just annoying. So missing the big picture of what he has brought to our country against all odds and while fighting off those who don’t want his kind of change. As for the Barr remark, it was jarring but not earthshattering. Trump’s and Barr’s enemies have tried hard to paint Barr as Trump’s handmaiden. Wingman. Personal lawyer. This remark put some public air between them. My opinion.
DeleteAs for what is happening at CTH, I am totally bumfuzzled. The video of the Barr call-in to Hannity is posted there. Nothing earthshattering. I looked at a few commenters who believed that Barr said something related to Sundance’s threat. I couldn’t find it.
After following Sundance (not his commenters) for a few years, I am seeing wacko…
Shipwreckedcrew has, over the last few days, been engaged in a running exchange with his followers on his Twitter thread--mostly just slapping them around.
Delete@EZ
ReplyDelete"It smells like a set up to me."
Absolutely.
Wasn't every bit of the whole thing a "set up" to destroy Trump?
Not just Comey's actions leading to Mueller, but:
The Steele Dossier
The MSM Phony Leaks
The PapaD and Page Plants and Investigations
Halper, Mifsud and Downer Entrapments
The Made Up "Russian" DNC Hack
The Flynn Frame Up
The Phony IC Assessment
Sessions Pre-baked Recusal
The Romney Secretary of State Ploy
Mueller Indictments and Obstruction of Justice Charade
The Kavanaugh Hit Job
The Ukraine Hoax
The Phony Impeachment
I'm sure there's plenty more I'm not thinking of. Yes, it was all a "set up". It was an orchestrated coup attempt and a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the President.
There was *no* evidence of possible criminal acts or national security concerns either of which could justify an investigation or investigations into the Trump Campaign, or associates of Trump or the Campaign, or the Trump Administration.
It was all a set up. And the Conspiracy has not yet been explained to the American People and the Conspirators have not yet been brought to justice.
Its time.
And from that perspective, I'm not gonna second guess Trump on how to wage war against the Establishment. After all "a criminal conspiracy to overthrow the President"--and we along with Barr and Durham all know that's what it was, at the highest levels of the Deep State--is Treason in all but the strictest (constitutional) definition. Trump speaks in terms that people understand.
DeleteStrict legal definitions aside, many would agree with calling it treason.
DeleteAt this point in our history I think we can call it a distinction without a difference, and perhaps a mistake on the part of the Framers. Perhaps I could have been clearer. While I want people to understand that there will be no treason prosecutions, I do agree with Trump's assessment and I do agree that calling a spade a spade is also necessary.
DeleteI have expressed concern in the past about Trump using the word treason in a manner not supported by the constitution, but I do agree that it is a distinction without a difference.
DeleteI'm coming around to Trump's use of the word. Yes, he surely knows - at least by now - that the Framers restricted its meaning, but it is the most apt term to describe the terrible abuses inflicted by the Obama-DS cabal.
NYT:
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON — A former F.B.I. lawyer intends to plead guilty to falsifying a document as part of a deal with prosecutors conducting their own criminal inquiry of the Russia investigation, according to three people familiar with the case.
The lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, 38, who was assigned to the Russia investigation, plans to admit that he altered an email from the C.I.A. that investigators relied on to seek renewed court permission in 2017 for a secret wiretap on the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had at times provided information to the spy agency. Mr. Clinesmith’s lawyers said he made a mistake while trying to clarify facts for a colleague, the people said.
More here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/us/politics/kevin-clinesmith-durham-investigation.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20200814&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta®i_id=108256783&segment_id=36131&user_id=68ed15cee0a36f3326a30763880aebdb
Funny: "prosecutors conducting their own investigation..."
DeleteAs if this were some sort of side job, just so they could blow off some steam...
"conducting their *own* investigation...", as if Barr hadn't signed off on it!
DeleteNYT reporting Clinesmith expected to plead guilty.
ReplyDeleteClinesmith was a dead duck, and everyone knew it -- he confessed to the OIG when confronted with the document that he altered -- an email to create the OPPOSITE impression the original email intended -- and then sent it along to the people putting together the FISA warrant application on Carter Page.
So, a guilty plea by Clinesmith is something we all knew was coming. But notice what the NYT reporter doesn't tell us: what's the charge to which he's pleading.
This is where the surprise might be, if there is one.
If the charge is false statement, or "altering a government record" or misuse of a government computer charge, it doesn't tell is anything about what else Durham has up his sleeve.
If the sentencing is deferred, conditioned on "ongoing" cooperation with Durham's investigations and prosecutions, then we know he flipped, in addition to acknowledging his own guilt.
And if Clinesmith has pleaded guilty to a CONSPIRACY COUNT, then we can expect other co-conspirators to be charged.
We'll just have to wit and see.
I just put up a new post on this. In it I make the similar point that, while assuming that the plea relates to the altered email, we don't know what else may be behind it.
DeleteOne can reasonably deduce that Clinesmith has been cooperating because he could have been hit with multiple charges. Instead it's plead guilty to a single false statement charge. That's revealing. Besides, does anybody seriously believe that Clinesmith just decided all on his own to falsify the CIA info?
DeleteIf I were investigating, I would NOT be inclined to believe that.
DeleteI see what you did there.
Delete