More On Why Trump Should Go With The Fraud Defense

Yesterday I presented a case for why Trump should absolutely raise the issue of election fraud at any Senate show trial--if there is one, rather than the Senate doing the right thing and tossing the whole thing. I say "a case" because there are a number of arguments that can be advanced in this regard. Basically, my argument was along the lines that because Trump has--rightly--never conceded, he should continue on the high ground by making his argument to the nation that a Big Steal went down--not, properly speaking, an election. I argued that Trump has everything to gain--including continued credibility for the future--and absolutely nothing to lose.

In the same blog I also presented Matt Braynard's claim that he is confident that he can show that vote fraud in the very traditional sense flipped the election in a minimum of three states (his research continues): AZ, GA, and WI. That would mean that Trump won the presidential contest. Continuing developments in the news, for those who have been following it, certainly supports Braynard. Local officials continue, to the best of their ability, to defy efforts to inject transparency in all three states. Since Trump's claims of fraud are raised in the Dem House charade, Trump should, as I argue, force the issue and force the Senate to address it or to deny him his right to a full hearing. Heads Trump wins, tails the Establishment loses.

Today at The Federalist David Marcus argues for Trump to take the same approach--to argue election fraud:

Barr Declines The Special Counsel Gambit

By now you've all heard that self-disgraced soon-to-be-former AG Bill Barr has declined to appoint one or more Special Counsels, to investigate either Biden Inc. or election fraud. In a sense he even went out of his way to add insult to injury. In the case of election fraud, he explicitly reaffirmed his earlier expressed view that fraud in elections happens all the time and this time was in line with the past. I'm sorry, that's absurd.

What was especially insulting, however, was his comparison of the Biden Inc. case to the Russia Hoax case, from the special counsel standpoint.

Special Counsel's are supposed to be appointed because

That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances

To my knowledge Barr never articulated any specific conflict nor any other extraordinary circumstance. What he said was that he wanted to assure Team Durham that they'd be able to complete whatever it is they've been doing for lo! these many months.

Compare that to what he said today regarding the ongoing Biden Inc. investigation:

"I think to the extent that there's an investigation, I think that it's being handled responsibly and professionally," Barr said Monday about the investigation into Hunter Biden. "To this point I have not seen a reason to appoint a special counsel and I have no plan to do so before I leave."

To my way of thinking it's far easier to articulate a conflict for DoJ or some "other extraordinary situation" when officials subject to summary dismissal by the president would be investigating not only the president's son but would be required to follow out investigative leads involving the president himself. Barr's Biden Inc. statement, to me, simply doesn't pass the laugh test when compared to the Russia Hoax case. And anyway, given that Durham's appointment appears to violate the DoJ regulations (he's a DoJ employee rather than an outsider), I assume Durham will be quickly gone unless he does something very soon.

Speaking of the laugh test, Jen Psaki is quoted as saying that Biden won't mention his son to any prospective AG candidates. Apparently a wink and a nod will cover the situation.

The Biden Inc. Investigation Timeline

Nope, I'm not gonna provide a timeline. Jen Dyer has already done that, and commenter devilman drew Dyer's timeline to our attention:  

The laptop and the FBI investigation: The most interesting timeline you will see in 2020

There are a few details that can be added to flesh the timeline out just a bit, which I'll try to do. Dyer's basic narrative is that everything that we're now learning has to be viewed as part of a larger political struggle--but with the critical involvement of AG Bill Barr.

Would The Biden/Ukraine Laptop Info Have Been Exculpatory At Impeachment?

Over the last few days I've seen a large amount of criticism directed at AG Barr for not revealing some of the Biden/Ukraine scandal that we've seen was on the Hunter Biden laptop--information that we have to presume Barr knew about at the time of Trump's fake impeachment. The constant theme of the criticism is that the evidence on the laptop would have been "exculpatory" for Trump. But would that information really have been exculpatory?

The short answer--and there is a longer answer--is probably: No. At least not in a strictly legal sense. You can see the reasoning for this response in a twitter exchange from this morning:

@JCBarca11

@JCBarca11

Replying to

@shipwreckedcrew

Ok, while Joe Biden was not in office at the time (May 2017), it certainly calls into question the ethics of the Biden family & also validates

@realDonaldTrump

's concern re: Hunter in Ukraine. Ship, would this have been considered "exculpatory evidence" in the impeachment trial?

6:29 AM · Oct 22, 2020·

shipwreckedcrew

@shipwreckedcrew

No. The issue wasn't whether Trump was justified in his request to the Ukraine Pres, the issue was whether Trump improperly linked US gov't action - already approved by Cong - to something he wanted Ukraine to do. It was always a BS charge, but it was all the Dems had.

7:04 AM · Oct 22, 2020·

On the other hand ...

Uh Oh! Is This Why Andrew Weissmann Is Freaking?

I can't recommend highly enough that you read Shipwreckedcrew's latest:

New FBI Document Released by Senate Judiciary Comm Shows FBI — AND Mueller — Deliberately Misled Senate About Steele Memos

Two points, however.

1) Unfortunately, Shipwreckedcrew screws up big time in his crucial timeline--thus missing an important point: Andrew Weissmann. And this also means he misses something about AG Bill Barr.

2) For a bit of perspective and corrective, please read CTH's two posts today re the Senate and especially re Lindsey Graham, who released this document today. You have to ask yourself:

If this document had been released a bit earlier, what would have become of Team Mueller and the Fake Impeachment?

Is it just possible that a lot of what's playing out in DC is not only about the Dems going after Trump but also about the GOPe trying to control Trump? If so--and I think it is--the Impeachment Theater was probably in large part about that GOPe effort. And this also shows how important an ally Bill Barr is for Trump. As I've stressed: Bill Barr is all about protecting the Executive. Period. He will work with Lindsey Graham and others, but he will not compromise on principle, and Executive powers are his principle. We all know that. Everyone in DC knows that.

So, what's up with this new document? Here's how CTH describes it:

UPDATE: Ukraine Corruption Backgrounder

I wrote about this, with the input of commenters, back in October, 2019. The material that was cited (via Gateway Pundit, which republishes today) is still highly relevant. Coming on the heels of the FBI search of Kolomoisky related offices in Cleveland and Miami, you may want to refresh your understanding of the relationship of Ukraine corruption to US--and especially Dem--politics:

Ukraine Corruption Backgrounder

Expect to hear lots more about this in the coming months, courtesy of the Trump campaign.

FBI Raids Offices Of Company With Ties To Ukrainian Oligarch

The offices are located in Cleveland, and the oligarch in question is Igor Kolomoisky--aka Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi. Kolomoisky is a pretty unsavory character, tied to money laundering, contract killings, and--as if that weren't bad enough--Dems! 

The only details available regarding the investigation so far are a bit slim:

Federal authorities in Cleveland have been conducting a wide-ranging probe involving Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky that has been ongoing for quite some time. Kolomoisky is a principal of the Privat Group, a large Ukrainian business company, and principals of the company are also part of Optima. 

... 

Kolomoisky and a fellow Ukrainian billionaire formed PrivatBank in the early 1990s. It became one of the Ukraine’s key financial institutions, according to Forbes. The Ukrainian government nationalized the bank in 2016 after an investigation suggested there was large-scale fraud over a decade-long period, Forbes reported. 

The financial news outlet places Kolomoisky’s net worth at about $1 billion. He remains a complicated political figure in his home country. He is a former governor of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.

This can't come as good news for Biden, for the Dems in general, many of whom (including Pelosi and Schiff) can be tied to dirty Ukrainian money, and especially not for Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, D-Fla. Mucarsel-Powell was last seen attempting to get the goods on AG Bill Barr, who swatted her to the sidelines. However, back in December, 2019, this link between Mucarsel-Powell and Kolomoisky surfaced:

What Kind Of Deal Could Comey Make?

Yesterday, commenting on a fine article by Shipwreckedcrew, I pointed out that in January, 2017, the FBI did two things that tied them firmly to the Steele Dossier:

1) At the beginning of the month they inserted a two page summary of the Dossier as Annex A to the Intel Community Assessment (ICA). This placed an Intel Community seal of approval on the Dossier, and drove all subsequent events in the attempted coup against Trump--especially the institution of the Team Mueller witchhunt. Even though Crossfire Hurricane had supposedly been predicated on the Downer - Papadopoulos bar conversation, the ICA in effect--although not in formal reality--superseded that narrative except for occasional tactical purposes when the Dossier came under fire.

2) Toward the end of the month, following Trump's inauguration, the FBI appears to have made the decision to take over operation of Chris Steele's notional "Primary Subsource" (PSS), Igor Danchenko. The FBI had known Danchenko's identity since before the 2016 election, which means they also knew that he was an employee of the premier Dem thinktank The Brookings Institute--then run by long time Clinton crony Strobe Talbott. Further, the vetting interview with the Washington based Danchenko confirmed definitively what the Bureau would have long suspected--that the Dossier was a hoax concocted by the Clinton campaign's "opposition research" arm (spearheaded by Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS, for which Steele was simply a subcontractor, probably used as a frontman to insulate the US operatives). Danchenko appears to have been unproductive in the role of a FBI source, but this action again tied the FBI closely to the Dossier. They could not disavow the Dossier for purposes of the ongoing FISA operation as long as they were also trying to mine its supposed sources for more "dirt" on Trump.

This all plays into the very recent rumors that Comey has been interviewed by John Durham. I gave it as my view that Comey would never sit for an interview with Durham except as part of a plea agreement. That's simply common sense--there would be no benefit for Comey in submitting to an interview under any other circumstances. If here were called before a GJ he would simply be forced to take the 5th.

Thus, I wrote:

Danchenko's Backstory Of Booze and Mental Illness

To be frank, I don't find Danchenko in himself at all interesting. You can read all about him in Paul Sperry's excellent article: 

Meet the Steele Dossier's 'Primary Subsource': Fabulist Russian at Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI IgnoredMeet the Steele Dossier's 'Primary Subsource': Fabulist Russian at Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI Ignored

The only real interest Danchenko has lies in his contacts--primarily Fiona Hill and the Brookings Institute. Those connections provide a key link--yet to be anywhere close to fully developed--between the Russia Hoax and the Fake Impeachment. That link, of course, is Fiona Hill, who had ties to Steele--including during the 2016 campaign--and to the anti-Trump resistance that brought her into Trump's NSC. That 'resistance,' of course, included key players in the GOP wing of the Deep State, like H. R. McMaster.

Bill Barr famously characterized the Durham investigation as 'sprawling.' This new revelation puts some flesh on those bones. I can well imagine that Barr and Durham's key prosecutive dilemma involves strategizing when to bring indictments when some of those targeted may have some connection to events that actually came after the Mueller Dossier was released. Including the fake impeachment.

For now, here's a data point that should be of interest.

When the interview of the PSS (Danchenko) first became public, Undercover Huber asked a key question: Who was Danchenko's lawyer (representing him at the 3-day interview) and who paid for that lawyer?

Today, Undercover Huber has the answer to the first part of that important question:

UPDATE: The PSS’s lawyer is Mark E Schamel, a top white-collar attorney in Washington D.C  

Schamel: 

—thinks Trump will drop out of the 2020 race
—supports BLM & tearing down monuments to George Washington
—FEC recs show donations to Dems inc. Tom Steyer & “Ditch Mitch” fund

The importance of who paid for Schamel is that that information will point towards the real controllers of the Russia Hoax.

Why May Igor Danchenko--Steele's Primary Subsource--Be Important?

This brief tweet (below) by Stephen McIntyre hints at a web of connections involving Christopher Steele's supposed primary source for his fictional "dossier" and a variety of Deep State actors whose history would lead one to suspect that their views would be antithetical to those of Trump. Primary among those actors is Fiona Hill--a former National Security Council staffer under H. R. McMaster who also testified against President Trump's interests in the fake impeachment hearings. Further, Hill worked for George Soros' Open Society Foundation from 2000 - 2006:

not long ago, I saw a tweet that quoted an article in which Fiona Hill had been approached by Steele earlier in 2016 trying to contact a person who now appears to be PSS [Danchenko]. Can anyone give me link to tweet or article.

That Fiona Hill was acquainted with Christopher Steele and held him in high regard is well known, as is the fact that Hill was in touch with Steele during the 2016 election campaign. Hill is also very familiar with Igor Danchenko--they were colleagues at the Brookings Institute. It would therefore be natural enough for Steele to go through Hill to contact Danchenko.

The connections of these various Deep State actors to Steele and Danchenko as well as to Soros is tantalizing. The question is: What has John Durham been able to make of these connections? It seems likely that Danchenko's identity has been hidden this long because Durham has been tracking down all possible leads surrounding him and interviewing everyone with a connection. It's a sprawling investigation, but it could conceivably lead to direct connections between the original Russia Hoax and the later fake impeachment.

Interesting days await us.