Super Takedown Of NeverTrumps And Team Mueller

Right, that's a pretty broad title. What I'm talking about is shipwreckedcrew's brutal deconstruction of a David French article on the supposed scandal of Trump commuting Roger Stone's sentence:

David French Reveals The Depth Of Intellectual Dishonesty Needed For The NeverTrumpers’ Vituperation of Roger Stone

The article is an absolutely brutal evisceration of French, but it also gets into the dishonesty of the Mueller Report and everything that flowed from it. Here's how shipwreckedcrew starts out:

David French has written a deeply dishonest story today about the prosecution of Roger Stone, and how the commutation of his sentence by Pres. Trump doesn’t change the “facts” of the case. 

Well, if you’re looking for “facts”, David French’s “story” isn’t the place to start. 

“Mueller’s investigation revealed Stone’s contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the 2016 campaign.” 

So, what did Mueller’s investigation “reveal” on this question?

The answer to that question, as shipwreckedcrew demonstrates in detail, is that Stone had NO contacts with Julian Assange--not even through intermediaries such as Jerome Corsi. As for the supposed GRU hacker Guccifer 2.0, those contacts amounted to the merest handful of texts--initiated by the Guccifer persona--culminating in Stone stating that he was unimpressed with the material Guccifer had released. Quoting the Mueller Report (p. 44):

On September 9, 2016, the GRU – again posing as Guccifer 2.0 – referring to the stolen DCCC documents posted online and asked Stone “what do u think of the info on the turnout model for democrats entire presidential campaign.”  Stone responded “pretty standard.”

And having untangled all the various stories surrounding these supposed but actually NON-events, shipwreckedcrew concludes:

Prayers For Mike Sylwester--And A Note Re Seth Rich

Many of you may have noticed that Mike Sylwester--who has been a major contributor here--has been absent in recent weeks. I heard from Mike late last night. He had a heart attack not long ago but has returned home and says he's recovering well. Your prayers are solicited.

Mike also sent along a link to an article at Consortium News by Craig Murray. It's the same article that also appeared at Zerohedge, but I forgot to mention Murray by name--which I should have--when I wrote A Good Place For Tim Shea To Start? To refresh everyone's recollection, that article (and the blog) dealt with the recent discovery that the FBI appears to have concealed the existence of emails with the subject line "Seth Rich" that were requested in a FOIA suit. The FBI, of course, denies any intent to conceal.

Like me, Mike was drawn to the passage in Murray's article about Wikileaks (Julian Assange) offering a $20K reward for information regarding the murder of Seth Rich. While it's possible to construct various theories for why Assange would offer this reward, the obvious one seems to me to also be the most probable: that Seth Rich did, in fact, provide Wikileaks with the DNC emails and Assange was simply seeking justice for a Wikileaks informant.

The failure of the FBI to interview Julian Assange regarding Seth Rich--as far as we know--seems inexplicable except as a measure to preserve the "Russian hack" narrative that has formed so much of the basis for the various hoaxes perpetrated on the American public by the Deep State. To suggest that this is a logical line of inquiry for the Barr/Durham investigation(s) would be a vast understatement.

A Good Place For Tim Shea To Start?

Tim Shea is Bill Barr's right hand man, hand picked to be the USA for DC. Recall:

As the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia, Shea would oversee some of the lingering cases from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, along with a number of politically charged investigations. The office is also generally responsible for handling potential prosecutions if Congress finds a witness in contempt.

There's no lack of work waiting for Shea. There's the Flynn case, of course. And all the Durham related matters--FISA fraud, the origins of the Russia Hoax, etc. There are also--or should be--any number of leak cases. And then there are old cases, some closed, that deserve another look. The Awan brothers, for example.

But here's a case that begs for a look--or another look, depending on whether you believe the FBI or not: the Seth Rich murder. If Durham is busy looking at the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) that "established" for the gullible and for the cynical Never Trumpers that Russian "hacking" of the DNC and general "meddling" was a thing. Barr has consistently made skeptical noises, so why not start by finding out what the FBI did or didn't do? We know the FBI didn't examine the DNC server--preferring to take the word of a Ukrainian linked firm, Crowdstrike, that the meddling Russians had hacked it.

There's an interesting story that's been out for a few days now. It seems the FBI has been caught out lying about Seth Rich. Here's the 25 words or less version of what's going on: The FBI has always denied possessing any records related to the Seth Rich investigation; documentary evidence has surfaced that proves that position to be false.

For the sake of refreshing everyone's recollection, this is what the Seth Rich case is about:

Seth Rich In The News Again

There's a story that came out earlier today that injects the whole Seth Rich - DNC narrative into the public view again. Here's the slightly more than 25 word version:

A businessman and ex Fox Business contributor named Ed Butowsky has, through his lawyer Ty Clevenger, filed a lawsuit in which he alleges--among much else--that Fox analyst Ellen Ratner told him that she had been informed by Julian Assange that Seth and Aaron Rich provided the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Obviously, IF TRUE, this is mind boggling. It's that "if true" that gives pause.

This is Ed Butowsky, via Wikipedia:

Edward "Ed" Wayne Butowsky (born February 12, 1962) is an American financial adviser and former Fox Business Network commentator. Butowsky was purportedly banned from the network's building in August 2017 after he gained notoriety over his role in a story published and subsequently retracted by Fox News concerning the murder of Seth Rich and his alleged ties to WikiLeaks.

Here is Ty Clevenger's account of the facts that Butowsky alleges in his lawsuit, linked to FR:

Briefly Noted: Devin Nunes On The GOP Strategy For Questioning Mueller

I'm pleased that Nunes appears to be on the same page with my recommendation for questioning Mueller. Nunes was on Hemmer Time with Bill Hemmer earlier this week, and Hemmer led off with questions about how the GOP would approach the Mueller testimony. Nunes' response was that he was advising all the GOP members to "keep it simple," don't give speeches that would allow Mueller to respond with his own counter-speech. Instead, confine yourselves to very specific "yes or no" questions. And he gave an example:

Did you know that Andrew Weissmann was briefed on the "dossier" in the summer of 2016? That's an easy one to start with. ... If an attorney is involved in the chain of custody of the evidence he shouldn't be involved in the investigation itself. I'm not a lawyer myself but all the lawyers around me ... say that's like in the 101 handbook of what not to do as a prosecutor.

There are plenty of other simple, binary type questions of that sort. Now that Judge Dabney Friedrich has slammed half of the "collusion" narrative, I strongly recommend--as have various commenters here--that the GOP members focus on the other half: the claim of Wikileaks and Russian involvement in the DNC "hack." Again, just simple questions regarding the failure to take custody of the physical evidence and yet conduct investigations and prosecutions that relied on third party claims (by Crowdstrike) about that evidence.

The whole half hour interview is fairly interesting.

ALREADY UPDATED: Was The Russia Hoax Really About Cyber Crimes?

No. But ...

CTH has a fascinating post up reporting on remarks today by Rod Rosenstein at the Metropolitan club of Washington. CTH quotes a Bloomberg story.

Here's the relevant entirety of the Bloomberg story:

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Friday that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report describes Russian cybercrimes during the 2016 election. 

The report, which is expected to be released soon, will clear up questions about the Russian campaign to interfere in the election President Donald Trump won, Rosenstein said in a speech given to a private group at the Metropolitan Club of Washington, according to three people in attendance. 

Rosenstein joked that his last day at the Department of Justice will be “one of these days,” the people said. He also said that it will take the U.S. some time to extradite WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange from the U.K. in order to prosecute him.

CTH sees this as the Deep State desperately trying to maintain the legitimacy of the Team Mueller extension of the Russian Hoax (i.e., Crossfire Hurricane), and quotes Barr's summary of the Mueller report to support his thesis:

Could Papadopoulos Blow The Russia Hoax Wide Open?

On November 2 Dan Bongino conducted a fascinating interview with George Papadopoulos. The most convenient way to digest the interview is at Jeff Carlson's blog, which has a link to the interview on Bongino's radio show as well as a full transcript of the interview. What emerges from the interview is, in my view, convincing evidence that Papadopoulos was, in Chuck Ross's words, the target of an "FBI sting." Actually, that characterization doesn't even go far enough. What seems clear at this point is that the FBI--representing the US Government and as an agency of the Department of Justice--targeted Papadopoulos and attempted to manipulate him into appearing to be a vehicle for Russian influence in the Trump campaign. The FBI had no reason to believe that Papadopoulos had any connections to Russian officials before they targeted him. The fact is, Papadopoulos' academic background and previous experience was in what could be broadly termed "Eastern Mediterranean" politics--Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel. Moreover, in his published writings he actually evinced a degree of hostility to Russian influence in that region. When the FBI's attempt at framing Papadopoulos in this manner predictably fell flat, Papadopoulos was indicted on trumped up "false statements to the FBI" charges stemming from a harmless misstatement--not a lie.

The entire interview is well worth listening to--to capture Papadopoulos' personality--and also worth reading closely for the details that emerge. Chuck Ross's digest is also useful as a summary. Bongino's tone is remarkable. He's well prepared for the interview and, as he goes into the details of how Papadopoulos was groomed to be a fall guy in the FBI's war against Trump, his tone is incredulous to the point of hilarity at times--the FBI's setup is that transparent. Bongino has difficulty throughout in restraining himself from exclaiming at Papadopoulos' only too obvious naivete. For his part, Papadopoulos is naturally reluctant to portray himself as a complete dupe, but even he at a certain point ends up quoting his wife, who exclaimed to him:

"What on earth are you pleading guilty for, when this guy [Mifsud] is obviously setting you up?"

Rather than attempt an exhaustive analysis of the many intriguing threads of information that can be found in the interview, what I'd like to focus on are two particular themes in Papadopoulos' narrative: 1) That he was the subject of a FISA, and 2) that his conversations with FBI intelligence assets such as Halper, Downer, and Mifsud were "recorded".