“We caught them spying, now it’s up to our Attorney General. As you know I've wanted them [Barr’s DOJ] to do it. I didn’t want to get overly involved. Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn’t but I do hear it’s breathtaking what they found. That’s all I can say – breathtaking, and hopefully it'll come out soon. But it's beyond what anyone could have thought even possible, how bad it is. How bad it is and how corrupt it is. But, I'm gonna let them [Barr’s DOJ] do that. It's a horrible thing that took place, and it should never be allowed to happen to another president."
Yes, hopefully soon. I'm willing to wait till after the conventions, because we need the nation's full attention focused on this. What we already know is staggering in the deliberate injustices committed, the corruption of our entire constitutional order--Executive, Legislative, Judicial branches. The nation needs to come to terms with this.
I foresee an unplanned new wing being added to our former community organizer-in-chief's future library honoring himself.
ReplyDeleteDJL
I'm sure it was their first offense. And really, haven't the coup plotters suffered enough, what with the unflattering press coverage, angry emails saying mean things? Mistakes were made. How about 30 days probation, 24 hours community service, and a pinky promise to never again conspire to overthrow a democratically elected president?
ReplyDeleteAfter conventions but before labor day. So "end of summer" as Barr put it. That would probably the best political timing. It is early enough for voters to be informed about what happened, but not so close to the election to be deemed a political hit.
ReplyDeleteIn order for Americans to truly evaluate the job Trump did, they need to understand the scope and scale of what was done to him his first couple years (and maybe more). If Americans had that information before the last midterm election, they may have been more cautious about voting more Dems into office and flipping the House.
I agree with Chuck Grassley that this needs to be revealed before Americans go to vote. Democracy requires that.
Which is exactly why Barr said 'No.'
DeleteIf Barr has any sense of humor at all he'll let it be "leaked" that BoP is seeking bids to refurbish and reopen Alcatraz for an expected surge in high profile incarceration.
ReplyDeleteSo many heads would explode in D.C. that tourist photos of the Mall will be misidentified on CNN as the Beirut waterfront.
Off Topic:
ReplyDelete>> https://twitter.com/Techno_Fog/status/1291044659293192192 <<
Appeals court notifies parties to address in oral arguments whether Sullivan should be disqualified for lack of impartiality, or if he should be disqualified because he's asserting he's a party to the case.
IS the Appellate court desperately trying to find a less bumpy exit ramp from this judicial dumpster fire?
Well that is certainly a new twist. I wonder why this part was left to be reveled several days after their first order.
DeleteCould this just be part of a ploy to pretend to weigh arguments both sides put forth? Or Was the first written order meant to sink in so as to allow Sullivan to save face before they slap him down. I'm OK if it is the later...I just want to see justice according to the law, and that means the government and defendant should be allowed to mutually agree to drop a charge.
Shipwreckedcrew updates story with this article :
Delete>> DC Circuit Directs Gen. Flynn, DOJ, and Judge Sullivan To Be Prepared To Answer Questions Regarding Judge Sullivan’s Bias and Lack of Impartiality <<
>> https://www.redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/08/05/dc-circuit-directs-gen-flynn-doj-and-judge-sullivan-to-be-prepared-to-answer-questions-regarding-judge-sullivans-bias-and-lack-of-impartiality/ <<
His take is very much along the lines of what I suspected, but he has much more detail.
It appears the Appellate Court wants to take a different exit ramp, one that dissuades future shenanigans, as well as Mandamus Motions, in the future.
Both issues deal with whether or not Sullivan can remain on the case.
The "Catch-22" issue for Sullivan is that if he is a party to the Appellate action, that disqualifies him from being the judge at the trial level! And if he's NOT a party to the appellate action, then he lacked standing to request an en banc re-hearing.
As Shipwreckedcrew puts it, this is a major development in the case.
I just did a post on that article. I finish by suggesting a way that the Court could avoid disqualifying Sullivan, but nevertheless rein him in.
DeleteIt does suggest that the Circuit realizes that Sullivan has landed them in the soup in a way that they really shouldn't want to be. Hopefully.
DeleteI'm watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Sally Yates (on tape delay).
ReplyDeleteIf you tune in, be sure to watch Unites States Senator Diane Feinstein repeat every single one of the lies that underpin the Conspirators' plot to frame Flynn and overthrow Trump.
Then watch Sally Yates defend the Narrative.
Lest anyone wonder whether the Dems are persisting in the Russian Hoax Narrative, rest easy.
They're all in.
It's not gonna work. Who but true believers are watching and believing that nonsense? Very few. But when indictments come, the public will pay attention and totally discount all the previous talking points.
Delete"the public will pay attention and totally discount all the previous talking points."
DeleteIf it goes that way, the *whole* GOP brass will then need to go scorched earth vs. this vote-by-mail BS.
If they dare to do that, that'll be the Tell, that the brass really care enough about our Const. system, to use this opportunity to cream the Dem party on a nat'l level.
Of course they are. Isn't it reassuring to see how fervently they engage in willful denial and to realize that so many of the "collusion" truthers were once in official positions of tremendous responsibility that required extremely informed, sober, unbiased and objective actions? Makes one wonder just how much misconduct they got up to.
DeleteI can't say who's watching, but roughly 50% of American citizens are true believers. And since there's nothing rational about what they believe about Trump, why would evidence to the contrary change their minds? They are not going to yield. Truth means nothing to them.
ReplyDeleteWhatever Durham and Barr bring forth, assuming they bring anything forth--I have my doubts--is going to be dismissed as partisan lies. Dems have been laying the groundwork for this since Barr was nominatsed.
Sidebar: do creatures like Feinstein and Hirono really believe what they say about Trump? In which case they're morons. Or do they know what the truth is and choose to play cynical power games?
Cynicism, or idiocy? I'm of two minds.
Indictments still mean something. Even better if there are plea agreements where perpetrators admit their wrongdoing.
Delete"50% of American citizens are true believers" vs. DJT?
DeleteI'll bet the number is more like 30%.
But on the Feinstein etc. mentality, of course they know better.
They're sociopaths.
Mouse, I agree with your percentage.
DeleteMark & Mouse, I sure do hope that 30% is right. If it is, DJT wins in a landslide, which is what this country needs. A squeaker gets us nowhere. And a Biden win opens the door to hell.
DeleteAnd, I'll bet that another c. 10% heavily lean toward that 30%, but that, up to 20% would be quite heavily affected by what Durham and Barr can bring forth.
DeleteThe rest, of course, already being already with DJT.
"If it is, DJT wins in a landslide", provided that Barr makes major heads roll before folks vote, and that the *whole* GOP brass goes scorched earth vs. this vote-by-mail BS.
DeleteI saw a Washington Post article the other day about Barr's lies. They are totally prepping the beach. There's nothing in the Post which is believable.
ReplyDeleteMany of us assumed that Biden delayed his VP nomination because of issues of his mental capacity making the VP selection more important, or perhaps because someone like Bass had last minute dirt show up. I don't think the first point is anything new, so why now? And the second point, I doubt the background work done on Bass somehow missed these liabilities.
ReplyDeleteA random thought crossed my mind. As rumors of indictments coming out start to become more frequent, would the DOJ have warned candidate Biden of a potential legal matter that is anticipated to be resolved in the next couple weeks one way or the other vis-a-vis prospective VP nominee Powell?
Barr made clear there was no investigation that touched any "candidate", and just being frequently mentioned is a possible VP choice is not really the same as being a candidate. But that changes once a presidential nominee selects their VP. At that point, they are a candidate.
Why would Barr warn off Biden? To protect the integrity of his investigation from perceptions of politics.
Highly speculative on my part, I know. It's just something fun to think about/speculate on while we are waiting for years for accountability.
According to Ms Yates, the Obama Administration was perplexed and concerned that the Russians weren't escalating tensions with the United States on the eve of Trump's inauguration (as they hoped Russia would) in response to Obama sanctions. So they decided to spy on Flynn to find out why. I'm sure that if Obama had picked up the phone and asked Donald Trump what his position was on the new sanctions, Trump would have told Obama that he intended to try to de-escalate tensions with Russia. Just as Flynn told Kislyak.
ReplyDeleteTo my simple mind, Obama and his subordinates had two options:
1. Pick up the phone, call Trump and get to the bottom of things.
2. Launch a phony coup attempt against Trump by framing Flynn which dishonestly distracts the country for four years, costs (wastes) tens of millions of dollars, probably leads to the loss of the House in 2018, and substantially undermines Trump's ability to enact his policy agenda.
And perhaps destroys trust in our government for generations.
I agree--none of it makes any sense, unless you assume that the Obama administration was trying to undermine Trump and Flynn without regard for our constitutional order. Then it makes perfect sense.
DeleteA minor quibble: I think Trump's election reflects an already existent distrust in the ruling class that will last generations pre Russia Hoax.
Delete@Cassandr; and/or you knew Trump was planning to train wreck your Iran deal. The vindictiveness of that guy.
DeleteYates insists that there was a systematized and concerted Russian effort to influence, in fact, change the outcome of the 2016 election. In fact, she says, it was an "unprecedented" "attack" on our Democracy.
ReplyDeleteShe lists Russian attempts to hack the DNC (did they?), to spread disinformation through social media (did it remotely matter?), to aid Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton (true?)...and, she goes on: they even reached out to PapaD to offer to assist with the anonymous release of emails. All of this, she repeats, was "an unprecedented attack on our Democracy." Ignoring the reality that the approach to PapaD was a CIA setup. This required, she says, the intel community to bore down on these concerns to protect our nation.
This is all they've got? And, in fact, basedf on these concerns, they did nothing to stop the Russians before the election?
Sally Yates purports to believe these unsubstantiated lies and yet she couldn't be bothered to ferret out the substantiable lies in the two FISA applications she signed.
I call BS.
Russia Hoax theater. One that everyone has seen before. Senate is a joke, but Durham's not.
DeleteA highlight of the Senate 'theatre' was Senator Josh Hawley's devastating cross-examination of Yates regarding her participation in the FISA application process.
DeleteHawley concludes that Yates must have been a dupe since she says she was not aware of the numerous misstatements in the FISA. Yates responds she was not a dupe.
So? Yates was...
Hawley can be very good, very smart. It's particularly awkward because Trisha Anderson testified to the House that Yates and McCabe went over the application "line by line."
Delete"Yates and McCabe went over the application 'line by line.'"
DeleteLie by lie, as it turned out. But nevermind all that because the Russians were trying to help Trump by smearing him as a sexual deviant. Mmhmm riiiiiight.
You gotta love the simplicity of Marxist dialectics. If she wasn't a dupe then she had to have been a willing accomplice. Petard meet Derrière.
DeleteSally Yates gets her facts from the Daily Beast, Vox, and the Guardian.
DeleteNoted Yates today took accountability for the 130K DOJ employees who may have screwed up. Reminds me of Comey describing Hillary as being “extremely careless”. Looking for a mea culpa is Yates.
Delete"Noted Yates today took accountability for the 130K DOJ employees"
DeleteYeah I noticed that as well. But what does it mean in actuality? What does her "accountability" or "responsibility" really mean?
She wouldn't accept responsibility for Comey, her direct report, and she wouldn't accept it for Ohr, her direct report. But somehow she'll accept it for 130,000 others?
Just empty words.
The whole session was empty words, except maybe Hawley. Can't believe they let her skate on everything. They hardly challenged her at all. So many points they could have skewered her on.
They couldn't even press her to admit that an incoming NSA had every right to speak.
Will Chamberlain speaks about "wartime conservatives" and "peacetime conservatives".
These R senators are mostly peacetime conservatives - they still haven't realized they're at war.
FLASH TRAFFIC:
ReplyDeleteBrennan to be interviewed by Durham probers.
"WASHINGTON — The investigation ordered by Attorney General William Barr into how the CIA and the FBI looked into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia's 2016 election interference operation may be nearing a conclusion, people familiar with it say.
One indication is that the prosecutor in charge, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, has asked to interview former CIA Director John Brennan, according to a person familiar with the request. Brennan has agreed to be interviewed, and the details are being worked out, the person said."
>> https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-administration-s-probe-russia-investigation-may-be-nearing-conclusion-n1235904 <<
UPDATE: several folks who tend to be on top of such things warn that this story is via Ken Delanian, so it may well be smoke being pushed by Brennan.
DeleteThis is interesting. I don't see that Brennan has anything to gain from an open ended interview unless there's some sort of deal in the works. Perhaps some of the former prosecutors will speculate on this.
DeleteAnd obviously Brennan and/or his allies wanted this information out. If we assume it is true, Brennan wants others to know he is being interviewed and he agreed to it. To your point about a potential deal in the works, why would Brennan want others to know about that?
DeleteCrafty man that he is, I would expect him to have an all-else-fails plan where there is a pre-determined last man standing and fallguy. I hope that ends up being the sanctimonious Comey.
And Brennan has top flight lawyers, too.
Delete