Briefly Noted: Updating The Largest Propaganda Op In History

In writing Largest Propaganda Op In History I knew that that title, borrowed from Dr. Robert Malone, was a pretty major claim. Well, there's not much point in debating the point--we can all come up with other world historical hoaxes to vie for 'honors' in our ranking. However, I want to draw attention to a new book that's reviewed at American Thinker today:

Obama Lies, Cashill Corrects

In November 2020, Barack Obama released his newest memoir, A Promised Land.  Now, hot on his heels, comes Jack Cashill's Barack Obama's Promised Land: Deplorables Need Not Apply, a savvy and ever-diligent effort to prevent fake news from becoming fake history.

The major point about Obama is summarized succinctly in the review:

UPDATED: Is This One Way?

Fire, meet gasoline:

Obama urges Americans to ‘confront historical inequities,’ after fatal Daunte Wright police shooting | Just The News https://t.co/5FNhJCUgMT

— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) April 13, 2021

It's not totally clear to me how "historical inequities" enter into a police officer confusing their taser gun with their service handgun. Nevertheless, we now learn that the mayor of Brooklyn Center has found one way to immediately address "historical inequities"--or something like that:

Black City Manager Fired For Saying Officer Who Shot Daunte Wright Deserves ‘Due Process’

Effective immediately our city manager has been relieved of his duties, and the deputy city manager will be assuming his duties moving forward. I will continue to work my hardest to ensure good leadership at all levels of our city government.

— Mayor Mike Elliott (@mayor_elliott) April 12, 2021

Now, here's a thought. Is there a difference between an "historical" and an "historic" inequity--or can one incident be both? If the two are different, should they be treated differently--and if so why? Here's what I'm getting at.

Back To Obama

Here's some good news, via Steve Sailer--Obama hasn't given up on America!

Feel better?

The Atlantic

@TheAtlantic

"I'm not yet ready to abandon the possibility of America—not just for the sake of future gen­erations of Americans but for all of humankind," writes @BarackObama:

11:11 PM · Nov 12, 2020

And that may have been the cue for Biden to give us a foretaste of what a Back To Obama movement might look like. Remember how Obama said he wanted to Trans-form America? Again, per Steve Sailer:

So we’re already back to the good old days of the Late Obama Age Collapse when square-jawed macho crazy men in dresses were given important jobs in the National Security establishment:

More late f/m trans alpha a-type personalities fighting new emotional career hurdles in Biden's department of defense. @Steve_Sailer https://t.co/i4zNzrHsQj

— Groyper AlvaradoSpawn (@laenorca_stille) November 13, 2020

That reminds me of an article that appeared yesterday: Trump Must Tackle The Military’s Diversity Cult. The author is right but, as it happens, Trump has other things on his mind just now. Nevertheless, it's a salutary reminder that the people who want to Trans-form America are still in place and still committed. Here's an excerpt:

The mainstream media is deeply upset that the president will not tolerate anti-American, anti-white, left-wing propaganda masquerading as government “training.” Government agencies, universities, and federal contractors are all racing to comply with Trump’s executive order, leaving many “professional diversity consultants” and other leftist grifters out of work.

This is a serious achievement, but much more work remains to topple the diversity cult embedded within our government, our businesses, and our universities. If Trump is able to gain a second term, he must make this a priority.

There’s no better evidence of this insanity than the commander of Air Force recruitment complaining that the service’s pilots are too dang white.

Major General Ed Thomas wrote in an October op-ed for Yahoo on why it’s a problem that 86 percent of Air Force pilots are white men. According to him and the rest of his service chiefs, diversity is a “war-fighting imperative.” He backs up his argument with the claim that we “risk losing ground to Russia and China, both of which are integrating potential game-changing technologies like artificial intelligence and hypersonic flight.” He says, without any hint of irony, that the solution to this problem is “improving our diversity.”

Notice he does not say we are losing our “diversity edge” to China or Russia, nor that these two countries are catching up to us thanks to racial quotas and white (or, in China’s case, Han) privilege training. They just seem to be finding the best people in their population to advance their military capabilities.

Back to Steve Sailer:

Meanwhile, this sensible book by a Wall Street Journal reporter warning about the dangers of the trans fad among adolescent girls has just been banned by Target stores:

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters by Abigail ... https://t.co/rADRKsNQyU via @amazon

— Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) November 13, 2020

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. We have removed this book from our assortment.

— AskTarget (@AskTarget) November 12, 2020

In Prog Trans-formed Biden America, book banning will again be a thing!

MULTIPLE UPDATES: Ratcliffe Releases Docs Showing The Russia Hoax Was Approved By Hillary--And Was A Known Hoax

We recently saw the letter from DNI John Ratcliffe to Lindsey Graham in which Ratcliffe described handwritten notes of John Brennan. Those notes memorialized Brennan meeting personally with Obama, Susan Rice, James Clapper, and Denis McDonough and informing them that it appeared that "the Russians" were aware that Hillary Clinton was ginning up a Russia Hoax operation against Donald Trump to distract attention from her email scandal. Today the original notes were released, along with a CIA memo to disgraced former FBI Director James Comey--with attention to Peter Strzok. The CIA memo documents the CIA's referral of the matter described in Brennan's notes to the FBI--something that Comey denied all knowledge of in his recent testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Here are Brennan's notes, which are partially redacted. Note that one of the redactions appears to provide the identities of persons--presumably Russians?--involved in a discussion of Hillary's plans to smear Trump:

Here's a transcript of the notes, provided by Sean Davis at The Federalist (DNI Declassifies Handwritten Notes From John Brennan, 2016 CIA Referral On Clinton Campaign’s Collusion Operation):

“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activites from [REDACTED]. Cite alleged approval by Hillary Clinton–on 26 July–of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to villify [sic] Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.”

 

Two things:

UPDATED: Comey And The Obama White House--Bombshells To Come?

The last we heard from disgraced former FBI Director Jim Comey, he was wracking his memory for the Senate Judiciary Committee and coming up empty. The famous note taker couldn't remember anything that would have interested anyone, even regarding matters that are now pretty much public knowledge. For example, the referral the CIA sent to the FBI in which the FBI was informed that "the Russians" might be aware of Hillary's Russia Hoax caper--even before it went into full swing.

Fortunately, Comey's 'Huh?' responses are unlikely to be the last word on some of those matters.

For example.

Jay Sekulow's American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) has been doing some digging with the help of FOIA and just got back some very interesting results. What they show, among other things, is James Comey in direct communication with Neil Eggleston, Obama's White House Counsel (and long time Clintonista). Those direct communications began in September, 2016, and continued up until the afternoon of January 19, 2017. Yes, January 19 was the day before Donald J. Trump was inaugurated. That's a pretty admirable example of the good old American work ethic, and one assumes that the only reason Eggleston didn't send more emails to Comey on the very day of Trump's inauguration was because ... he was busy coaching (or writing?) Susan Rice's email-to-self that morning--Susan Rice: The WH Counsel Told Me To Write It.

Sekulow wants you to know something else about the results of his FOIA work--which isn't complete yet. These results came as a result of a FOIA request for documents regarding FBI spies in the Trump White House. Uh, that makes those results even more suggestive than they already are.

What did Comey do with Eggleston's January 19, 2017, email (which included Andy McCabe and two redacted names on the address list)? Comey thought this email--and the attached, totally redacted, TOP SECRET letter from Eggleston--was the kind of thing that his (Comey's) General Counsel, James Baker, should also see--so Comey forwarded it to Baker. I point this out in particular because Shipwreckedcrew has claimed that the FBI's Office of General Counsel is mostly concerned with very boring stuff like Bureau car accidents. On the contrary, James Baker--long reported to be cooperating with John Durham--was very much Comey's right hand guy.

Who else knows about all this, has seen the redacted letter and any other relevant documents? I'm betting AG Bill Barr has. Uh oh!

The Most Powerful Dem Politician In The Country

Today's recommended read is by Thomas Lifson at AmThinker: Huge Illinois utility paying $200 million to settle bribery case implicating the real boss of Illinois politics, House Speaker Michael Madigan. Lifson takes a bit of a deep dive into the documentation behind the ComEd/Mike Madigan case in Illinois, the factual predicate to the deferred prosecution deal in which ComEd agreed to pay $200 million and cooperate with the Feds in further "investigations."

I'll simply quote the beginning and end of the article, to give a flavor:

Anyone who understands politics in the corrupt state government of Illinois realizes that the power of Michael Madigan, Speaker of the state House of Representatives since 1983 except for two years, dwarfs that of the state’s governor.  He’s been called  “the most powerful Democrat politician in the country” with good reason, and over the years AT has covered him (here, here, and here for instance) for his power, and lately for the appearance that federal investigators have been wiretapping associates and maybe, just maybe closing in on him.

Is that just hyperbole? The Speaker of the IL House, the most powerful Dem politician in the country? Perhaps there is some hyperbole there. However, we see parallels to this phenomenon in the reign of Willie Brown in CA. What makes Madigan so powerful is that, even though he runs a state that is in steep decline, his control is so absolute that he can reliably provide electoral votes to a degree that saves the Dems the trouble of campaigning and expending resources in a state that contains what is still the third largest metro area in the US. And his control has extended reliably from 1983 to the present.

Lifson closes by quoting long time Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass, and recalling some interesting history from the note so long ago past:

Com Ed has not entered a guilty plea. Instead the feds are using what is called a “deferred prosecution agreement,” in which the company can avoid future prosecution by cooperating with investigators and paying the $200 million fine. They have every reason to spill the beans, as do others named in corruption. As John Kas puts it: 

… there won’t be any deal for Madigan. He’s the target. Targets don’t make deals. Targets see their families on visitors day. 

A historical note: At the time that Barrack Obama was first establishing himself in Chicago, he was reportedly assisted by the father of his friend Bill Ayers in obtaining a summer internship at one of Chicago’s most prestigious law firms. That father was Tom Ayers, the longtime head of Com Ed, and the law firm where Obama got his summer internship was the corporate counsel for Com Ed.

In no way am I minimizing the overriding importance of the Russia Hoax. However, keep cases like this one in Chicago in mind when you hear people questioning whether Barr is doing anything. I very much doubt that, absent Barr's firm hand at the helm of DoJ, cases like this would get anywhere. The importance of it all is seen in the rage against Barr.

What's Bill Barr Been Up To?

Sometimes it seems everybody expects AG Barr to be micromanaging everything to do with DoJ: Why isn't this case being prosecuted on my time table, why hasn't this person been fired yet, why isn't Barr teliing about that other investigation, etc.

Yesterday, we saw Barr giving a major speech on China and our Tech/Media complex. Imagine how much of his time is absorbed staying up to date on those matters and the possibility of antitrust action!

Now here's a breaking story that illustrates one of the many things that is sure to draw Barr's attention and, in some degree, involvement. For those of you who aren't familiar with Chicago/Illinois politics, Speaker of the IL House Mike Madigan has, for many years, been considered to be the most powerful politician in Illinois. At any level.

We've been hearing about this investigation for years now--I can tell you that it was ongoing in one form or another when I was still working. Now Bill Barr is AG, and something is happening that could possibly transform politics in one of the most reliably Blue states in the country--a state that does make a difference in national politics. There's a reason why this didn't happen when Obama was still in the White House, and there's probably a reason why it didn't happen until Barr became AG:

CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- ComEd will pay $200 million to end a federal criminal investigation into a years-long bribery scheme, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting. 

In doing so, ComEd admits it arranged jobs, subcontracts and pay-offs for associates of “a high-level elected official for the state of Illinois,” the U.S. Attorney’s office announced Friday. 

That person is identified as “Public Official A” in a press release that implicates House Speaker Michael Madigan, according to the Sun-Times. 

“Public Official A controlled what measures were called for a vote in the Illinois House of Representatives and exerted substantial influence over fellow lawmakers concerning legislation affecting ComEd,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a news release.

One assumes this is really just the beginning of a new stage in a long running investigation. That $200 million and the attendant admissions is a down payment on future cooperation. High level people in ComEd will be called upon to testify against the Dem machine's very top levels.

Did I mention that Obama came up through this machine? That he was groomed for high office by that machine? IL Senator Dick Durbin is also part of that machine.

Strzok, Page, Baker Emails Re Logan Act

Catherine Herridge has a twitter thread in which she provides images of two internal FBI email exchanges early in the work day of January 4, 2017. Those email exchanges involve Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and James A. Baker. First, here is an image of the emails:

Now, bear in mind that James A. Baker was at the time the top legal guy at the FBI--he was General Counsel, which means that he was disgraced former FBI Director James Comey's personal lawyer for official purposes. Lisa Page's exact position in the organizational pecking order is a bit more ambiguous, but as Counsel to the Deputy Director, Andy McCabe--who was in charge of day to day operations--she would ipso facto have a lot of clout.

The first email is from Lisa Page to James Baker, and is captioned: "code section at question." I wonder whether Page means "code section IN question"? The entire text of the email is simply the United States Code citation to the Logan Act: "18 USC 953".

What's going on here?

More On Fallout From The Strzok Notes

Please note that I have corrected this post based on info from commenter Cassander--Sally Yates was NOT Acting AG at the time of the Oval Office meeting re Flynn.


The enormity of the revelation from the Peter Strzok notes is slowly starting to sink in. It's not that the notes reveal things that--realistically--we didn't know already. It's that we can now look to the future and get some idea of what could be in the offing--what has the Progs and Libs and crazy Lefties of all sorts bouncing off the walls.

Let me start my pasting in some dressed up comments from earlier this morning, exchanges with commenters.

My initial impression upon looking at the Strzok notes was that they appeared to have been taken by a participant at the Oval Office meeting involving Obama, Biden, Sally Yates (NB: Did AG Loretta Lynch absent herself deliberately?) and disgraced former FBI Director Jim Comey. But there's no way that a guy at Strzok's level could have been present at such a meeting. We'll probably find out later how it worked. I don't believe Comey could have recorded it, so I'm guessing--just a guess--that Comey took notes on his way back to FBIHQ and then, as part of a briefing for the Russia Hoax inner circle at FBIHQ, read the notes to participants in that briefing--who took notes on Comey's notes. Perhaps if we could get a look at the redacted portions of the notes we'd understand fully. Or, perhaps Strzok wasn't actually present at that Comey briefing but received a second hand briefing, and took notes from someone else who was reading their notes from the Comey briefing.

However it worked, the very fact that there were any such briefings raises interesting prospects for the future, prospects that the Barr/Durham investigation is unquestionably focused on. We have to presume that at the Comey briefing issues that flowed from the Oval Office meeting were discussed. Issues like: Where do we go from here? What concrete steps do we at the FBI take?

Durham will want to know--among other things:

Did Obama Try To Throw Comey Under The Bus

As if we needed confirmation, yesterday's developments in the Flynn case--both the Court of Appeals' decision but especially the bombshell Strzok notes disclosure--demonstrate that the Establishment media has failed with Fake News and has adopted the tactic of News Suppression. It was still stunning to realize that virtually nothing was said in the Establishment media about Obama's statements in the Oval Office meeting with disgraced FBI Director Jim Comey and Acting AG Sally Yates--as well as Joe Biden. Those statements were recorded in notes taken by disgraced former FBI agent Peter Strzok, probably as briefed by Comey after the meeting. Obama clearly urged the FBI Director to take official actions that the FBI Director had stated were unwarranted, because the matter under discussion "appeared legit."

Imagine if it had become known that Trump--or any Republican president you care to name--had said in similar circumstances:

Make sure you look at things, have the right people on it.

The collective howl from the Establishment media would have been heard around the globe. We would have had a mob descend upon the White House, probably including multiple GOP senators.

It seems clear to me that at this stage in the transition the Obama administration still had hopes of preventing Trump's inauguration. The lengths to which they were willing to go in that effort are revealed by Strzok's notes. It's worth taking another look at Susan Rice's email-to-self in light of these new revelations.

The Rice email has always been suspicious. For starters, the email was patently an exercise in ass covering: the "by the book" admonition attributed to Obama is really the main point of the email. This becomes apparent when we recollect several facts:

UPDATED: Strzok's Notes Implicate Obama And Biden

When those sources told Sean Davis yesterday that Strzok notes that DoJ had just turned over to the Flynn team would be "explosive," they weren't kidding. Remember how I've stressed how important the Flynn case is for getting to the heart of the Russia Hoax. I thought that meant Team Mueller--and it probably still does. But now we're learning that Strzok's notes directly implicate Obama and Biden. Do you think Michael Flynn will have something to say about that--that Trump will, too--between now and the election? Me too.

We'll see more later, but here's the first take available. It appears that Strzok must have been briefed regarding Comey's conversation with Obama--and that Biden was also present at the discussion on the Flynn case:

Techno Fog
@Techno_Fog

Peter Strzok notes from 1/4/17 released in Flynn case:

Discussion among Obama, Comey, Yates, Biden, and Susan Rice. 

Biden: "Logan Act" 

Obama: "Have the right people on" Flynn case. 

Comey: The Flynn/Kislyak calls "appear legit."

9:49 AM · Jun 24, 2020

From Sidney Powell's summary:

And a copy of the notes:

The immediate significance should be apparent: Comey told Obama (and Biden) that the Flynn - Kislyak calls "appear legit." Obama, however, wants Flynn investigated and wants Comey to be sure to have "the right people" on the case. Biden--apparently already suffering from senile dementia--chimes in: "Logan Act."

So Comey says, There's no case, there's no predication for an investigation. And Obama--the former "law professor"--appears to urge Comey to "investigate" Flynn anyway, and to handpick investigators who will be willing to go along with this illegal "investigation." That's huge! (I seem to be using that word a lot, today.)

And Dana Boente--Chris Wray's top legal counsel--was hiding this document? Very not good.

As Mr. Bean would say: Brace yourself!

UPDATE: Techno Fog states that the notes date from 1/4/17, but I don't see how that could be the case. Strzok's notes clearly appear to be notes taken at a briefing provided to top FBI officials by disgraced former FBI Director James Comey. The clearly appear to reflect Comey's recollections of the Oval Office meeting that took place on 1/5/17. In other words, on 1/4/17 Strzok got word from Comey that there would be a discussion of the Flynn case with Obama on 1/5/17--so Strzok immediately scrambled and told Pientka to keep the Flynn case open. Strzok's reason, as texted to Pientka, was that the "7th floor" was involved, i.e., Comey. But the real reason was that Obama was involved.

Margot Cleveland offers another shrewd insight. Susan Rice wrote her famous email to self, in which she memorialized the 1/5/17 Oval Office meeting, only after two weeks had passed: on 1/20/17, Inauguration day. Rice wrote the email at the direction of Neil Eggleston, Obama's White House Counsel. In that email Rice wrote that Obama instructed everyone to conduct the Flynn investigation "by the book."

But that, Cleveland notes, raises a very interesting question. What part of doing everything "by the book" is it for the POTUS--having been informed by the FBI Director that the matter under advisement "appears legit"--to nevertheless instruct the FBI Director:

Make sure you look at things, have the right people on it.

What "book" was Obama reading from when he gave those instructions to Comey? Further, as Cleveland points out, why did Strzok not include that admonition about the "book" in his notes? It's possible, of course, that Comey forgot to mention the admonition, but could it be that the admonition was never in fact given? That it was invented after the fact by Susan Rice at Neil Eggleston's instructions? Recall: Sally Yates, in her 302 on this meeting, did not mention any such admonition, either.

All of this suggests a disturbing mentality at Obama's White House, a mentality that was casting about wildly for some way--whether via Flynn and the nonsensical Logan Act claim, or Comey's attempted blackmail of Trump the next day with the "dossier" slander--to prevent Trump from being inaugurated as President of the United States.

UPDATED: I Was Wrong About 'CR Cuts'

Yesterday a friend pointed out to me that I was mistaken regarding the meaning of a Peter Strzok reference to "CR cuts." For that I apologize. Here's the short version:

Whereas I thought that the words "CR cuts" referred to "tech cuts" associated with the Crossfire Razor, i.e., Michael Flynn case, in fact the reference is to the Steele dossier. 

Now here's the longer explanation.

First, I want to be clear that this changes nothing regarding the Flynn/Kislyak conversations as far as issues of non-minimization or 'unmasking' are concerned. The testimony of disgraced former Director James Comey and of Andrew McCabe is explicit: Those conversations were written up, at least initially, in the form of 'tech cuts' and Flynn's name was not minimized or redacted. The reason for his name was not minimized was that Flynn was already the subject of a Full Investigation and thus fell within the exceptions to the minimization requirements. I've covered all that previously, and it all remains 'operative.' As a reminder, here's what a 'tech cut' is:

In FBI parlance a FISA order is referred to as "technical coverage". Or, simply, a "tech." The typed up summaries of, for example, telephone conversations captured in that way are referred to as "tech cuts" or, commonly, as "cuts."

Thus, I assumed that "CR" meant "Crossfire Razor" and "cuts" meant "tech cuts." However, there's a sort of dual context involved:

1) The context at the time Strzok and Lisa Page were texting, and

2) The context at the time I was writing.

To start with #2, I was writing in the context of new documentary revelations regarding the Flynn case, and debates about whether Flynn's name had ever been masked and, if not, why not. I was able to address those issues successfully, but then wrongly assumed, working from incomplete data, that "CR cuts" fell into the same category. In other words, I assumed that Strzok and Bill Priestap were objecting that DNI James Clapper should not be providing raw tech cuts to the White House. 

Now we turn to #1. Here's the fuller data, the full text thread between Strzok and Page on January 3, 2017, slightly reformatted:

DiGenova On The Flynn/Kislyak Call

Appearing on the Howie Carr show this week, Joe diGenova weighed in on the non-unmasking of Michael Flynn with regard to the famous Flynn/Kislyak call. DiGenova comes down on the side of those who say that the the monitoring of the call was not done by traditional FISA means as I've described them--picking Flynn up on the FISA for the Russian embassy. You can get a good link here, with the relevant portion near the end. Here's a word for word transcript of what Joe says:

I think it's going to become pretty clear that Michael Flynn was NOT unmasked but was rather the subject of a separate intelligence electronic surveillance by a foreign intelligence service at the request of John Brennan. Most likely the United Kingdom GCHQ, which is their NSA. When you look at the timeline in all the of the unmaskings of Flynn, those were done within a timeline that shows that the Kislyak conversation was not conducted in the United States. The Kislyak conversation was when Flynn was in the Dominican Republic and Kislyak was in Moscow for the Orthodox Christian Christmas, which is January 2nd. And so that means that in order for them to be wiretapped and have their calls intercepted that had to be done by a foreign power. And if you do that at the request of the United States, and you know that a US person is your target, and not Kislyak, that is a crime. That is a violation of federal law. You cannot wiretap an American citizen overseas under circumstances like that.

I want this on the record so that, if I turn out to be wrong, anyone who wants to rub my nose in it will have a good point of reference. Sitting here right now I see many problems with what Joe says.

First, what Joe has right--and I don't mean to sound flippant when I say that. He's right that to have targeted Flynn while he was overseas (in the Dominican Republic) in the absence of a FISA order on Flynn would have been illegal.

The problems start with the statement that "Kislyak was in Moscow for the Orthodox Christian Christmas, which is January 2nd." The Russian Orthodox Christmas is NOT on January 2nd. The Russian Orthodox Christmas is actually on January 7th--about nine days after the phone call, which was on December 29th.

UPDATED: Susan Rice: The WH Counsel Told Me To Write It

So Senator Ron Johnson's earlier speculation in the course of a Fox News interview turned out to be well informed speculation. Johnson stated that the Susan Rice email-to-self read like something she was told to write by--Johnson suggested--the White Counsel. That is confirmed by Gillian Turner, citing Rice's "team":

Gillian Turner
@GillianHTurner

#BREAKING: 

@AmbassadorRice’s team confirms to #FoxNews that she was directed by White House Counsel to write the Jan 20, 2017 memorandum documenting an Oval Office meeting in which President Obama & National Security officials discussed #MichaelFlynn.

12:08 PM · May 20, 2020

The White House Counsel at that point would have been long time Clintonista Neil Eggleston.

Remember the FBI's Flynn FD-302? It took weeks to write and turned out to be a team effort. Maybe the Rice email-to-self was like that. We know it took weeks to write, and now Senator Johnson's suggestion that it was a team effort may turn out to be right on the money. And after all, if you wanted to CYA, wouldn't you prefer to have a legal operative like Eggleston do it rather than a Susan Rice?

No doubt John Durham will want to discuss this with Eggleston. In front of a Grand Jury.

UPDATE 1: shipwreckedcrew has an article at RedState that parses the Rice email-to-self--and related correspondence--in excruciating detail. Based on that parsing he poses the question: Has Susan Rice Made Herself a “Target” for Durham Probe With Langauge in Her CYA Memo? His answer is: Yes.

Shipwreckedcrew argues that the email actually represents Obama's own self serving version of his meeting with Comey and Yates. He concludes, based on that understanding (which I agree with):

Andy McCarthy has posited — convincingly in my view — that the true purpose of the Memorandum written by Rice was to allow Pres. Obama to point the finger of blame at Comey for whatever might happen in the aftermath of the transition into power of the Trump Administration.  According to Rice’s Memorandum, Pres. Obama told Comey to do everything “by the book”, and if Comey did not do so then Comey — and only Comey — was to blame. 

Did Rice put herself present in the room just so she could avoid setting forth in the Memorandum that the details she memorialized had come from Pres. Obama? Was she playing the “loyal soldier” by creating the impression that Obama’s version of the conversation had at least one supporting witness — herself — rather than have it as a “He said, He said” between Pres. Obama and Jim Comey at some future point in time? 

Whichever answer is true, neither is a defense to the crime of violating Section 1001.

UPDATE 2: Brett Tolman nails it:

This is what a President or VP instructs Wh counsel to do so they can try and control a problematic narrative. This is not what you do when it is a legitimate national security investigation. https://t.co/bZ1QjqiBJA

— Brett L. Tolman (@tolmanbrett) May 20, 2020

Was The Rice Email Declassification Barr's Message To Obama?

You have to wonder how the revelation of the full Susan Rice email plays into the big picture of the Barr/Durham investigation.

At the beginning of the week AG Barr very publicly stated that he "doesn't expect" criminal charges against Obama and Biden. But that was very quickly followed by the bombshell Rice declassification. The Rice email-to-self, far from exonerating Obama (as Rice must have intended), shows Obama very closely involved with the coup conspirators--plotting against Flynn and thus against Trump himself.

Was Barr sending an equally public message to Obama? If so, that message may have run something like this:

"Look, as a former president we can give you a pass on your involvement and confine our criminal charges to the triumvirate: Brennan, Clapper, Comey. We're prepared to do that, but know this: If you don't back off from public interference with our investigation, life could get a lot more unpleasant for you going forward. Don't count on us not having more than just the Rice email. And know from this--the revelation of the Rice email--that we're ready to use what we have. It's up to you."

Bill Barr is the guy who's ultimately in charge of all this. He's AG, and he guides Durham. He also has authority over all declassifications. When Grenell shows up at Main Justice with a satchel of "stuff", count on it--it's all been carefully calibrated and orchestrated. None of this--not the events and not the timing--is happening by coincidence.

UPDATED: Brett Tolman Analyzes The Susan Rice Email To Self

Readers will know that I always find Brett Tolman's analysis of legal developments worthwhile. Yesterday Tolman offered a brief but pithy analysis of the now famous Susan Rice email to self which was finally fully declassified.

Like me, Tolman regards the email as basically a CYA exercise--designed to cover Obama and herself. In the process, however, it's apparent that all the targeting of Flynn was a structure built on sand--there never was any "there" there, there never was any valid predication to investigate Flynn at all. Ever.

Now, read Tolman with this sound bite from Devin Nunes in mind, taken from a Fox interview with Liz MacDonald. Speaking of the Rice email Nunes says:

If you can believe anything they say, which is a whole 'nuther story.

Which is to say, you have to take everything that Rice writes with a grain of salt. Here's what I mean.

If this email is a CYA exercise, which it is, then it's necessary to claim that the Flynn investigation had some valid basis. Yet, on the other hand, they had nothing to point to--no actual investigative results to point to. Moreover, as we reviewed once again in James Comey Unmasked, they were even unable to articulate any fact based predicate for the Flynn investigation to begin with. That's totally damning. Comey's admission that they've found NOTHING "thus far" is incredibly weak when combined with the lack of predication.

But the fact that Obama is even having this discussion with Comey--in front of a "shellshocked" Sally Yates--is telling. Reading between the lines of the email, it appears that Obama is looking for reassurance that Comey will keep Obama's knowledge of and involvement in the Flynn investigation mum--even while encouraging Comey to continue the operation against Flynn. However, Rice frames this as if Obama knew no specifics and wanted no factual update. Instead, Obama is portrayed as offering only the most general sort of guidance--Do it "by the books," guys!

James Comey Unmasked

Again.

The disgraced former FBI Director is once again revealed as an evil, narcissistic, conniver. Just a despicable excuse for a human being.

The context this time, of course, is the complete declassification of Susan Rice's famous email-to-self--written on 1/20/17 (two weeks after the event), minutes before being escorted out of the White House to make way for the incoming Trump administration. In what may be his parting shot to The Swamp--but there's always hope!--Acting DNI Grenell did the deed and declassified the remaining paragraph in the email. Rice had hoped to keep that paragraph hidden until after any Trump second term.

Here is the full email. The previously redacted but now declassified portion is bolded:

On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office.  Vice President Biden and I were also present.

President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book”.  The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.  He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.

From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.

Director Comey affirmed that he is proceeding "by the book" as it relates to law enforcement. From a national security perspective, Comey said he does have some concerns that incoming NSA Flynn is speaking frequently with Russian Ambassador Kislyak. Comey said that could be an issue as it relates to sharing sensitive information. President Obama asked if Comey was saying the NSC should not pass sensitive information related to Russia to Flynn. Comey replied "potentially. He added that he has no indication thus far that Flynn has passed classified information to Kislyak, but he noted that "the level of communication is unusual.

The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team.  Comey said he would.

This whole email reads very much like an ass covering exercise on behalf of Obama. The reason Susan Rice would have written this would be because--for the conspiratorial mindset--for Obama to have written something like this would have seemed too obviously self  serving. Rice writing it might seem more in keeping with the dutiful subordinate taking notes.

Regarding Barr's Remarks Today On The Durham Investigation

By now everyone will be aware that AG Barr stated today that he "doesn't expect" that the involvement of Obama and Biden in the Russia Hoax "will lead to a criminal investigation over either man. Our potential on criminality is focused on others."

That's a kind of good new - bad news statement. The good news is for Obama and Biden. The bad news has to do with those "others" on whom Durham is focused, because I assume that that this increases Durham's determination to take his investigation as high up the chain of command in the Obama administration as possible.

Strictly speaking, Barr's words could be parsed in a number of ways, and contradictions founds.

One standard for every American? Except ex POTUS and VPOTUS? How does that work?

On the other hand, "doesn't expect ..."? Is Barr open to surprises?

Rather than nitpick, however, I think we understand where he's coming from--he, unlike Dems, is actually concerned for the country. He wants--again, unlike Dems--to point the way to depoliticizing justice in America. It's a laudable goal and worth striving for--no matter how unrealistic it is. Here is Undercover Huber's summary:

UPDATED: Is This The Big Unmasking News?

Obama's Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, unmasked Michael Flynn on January 5, 2017. That was the date of the big Pow-Wow in the Oval Office, where Flynn was very much the topic of discussion among Obama, Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Biden, Yates, and Susan Rice.

Coincidence? Not!

UPDATE: Devin Nunes telling Lou Dobbs, It gets much worse because Flynn is only one of the people being surveilled and unmasked.

Billingsley's Brilliant: Obama's General Flynn Problem

Lloyd Billingsley's article at Frontpage is absolutely brilliant in sketching the big picture of the Obama years in relatively few words--Obama's General Flynn Problem:

...

And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. 

That was former president Barack Obama last week after the DOJ dropped the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who had not been “charged with perjury,” or anything else. The FBI set up Flynn in a perjury trap, with threats against his family, and that violated both institutional norms and the rule of law. The 44th president set up the whole thing in a January 5, 2017 Oval Office meeting with FBI boss James Comey, vice president Joe Biden, CIA boss John Brennan, and other administration officials. This revelation created a stir, but it’s really old news. 

“POTUS wants to know everything we are doing,” Lisa Page texted to Peter Strzok, the FBI factotum in the campaign against candidate and President Trump. To keep that operation going once Trump took office, POTUS needed to take down Flynn. The January 5 meeting was key but in May of 2017 a bigger bombshell would explode. 

'Dreams from My Father' was not a memoir or an autobiography; it was instead, in multitudinous ways, without any question a work of historical fiction. It featured many true-to-life figures and a bevy of accurately described events that indeed had occurred, but it employed the techniques and literary license of a novel, and its most important composite character was the narrator himself.