Highly Recommended: Mollie Hemingway Re Holding The Senate

I need to try to stay abreast of the Flynn case today, but I want to recommend Mollie Hemingway's current article:

GOP Needs A Trump Victory In November To Retain Senate Control

Here's what I think is the important paragraph:

The conventional wisdom among the still sizable group of Trump-skeptical establishment Republicans in Washington is that Republicans on the ballot can somehow separate their fate from that of Trump in 2020. Some high-level Republicans have said on background that they hope to create a path to a split ticket, where anti-Trump suburban voters vote for the Republican Senate candidate while voting for Joe Biden and his running mate. They think they have a clever solution to the problem posed by having a president popular with Republican voters and opposed by the media and others.

That should tell you all you need to know about Trump's travails in draining the Swamp--or even bringing it to heel. The Senate advises and consents to key Deep State nominations. Trump was extremely fortunate in getting Bill Barr to take on the AG position. Barr had the nearly unique combination of establishment creds but a principled commitment to justice, wherever that might lead.

So, Who Ever Said Stanford Scientists Are All Ethically Scrupulous?

Hilarious. Kinda.

Additional reporting on how the seroprevalence study in California may have been impacted by methodological challenges. New seroprevalence studies are likely to be unveiled in the coming weeks that will give us truer insight into the prevalence of #covid19 https://t.co/KBLjKS3E8B

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) April 24, 2020

Woops! Was I wrong to single out Stanford?

 

New York City’s Department of Health sent an alert to providers advising them against using antibody tests to diagnose prior covid infection or to assess immunity because of low reliability and high rates of false positive results. This is a good regulatory action by the city. pic.twitter.com/2o68NowbtO

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) April 24, 2020

UPDATED: Why The Michael Flynn Case Is Potentially So Important

The reason the Michael Flynn case is so important is because it potentially gives John Durham a hook not only into all the major players in the Russia Hoax, but also the fake impeachment. Let me repeat that: ALL the major players.

Why was the Deep State so intent on silencing Michael Flynn? There were three interrelated reasons.

1. Flynn, as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), had written a paper that exposed the foreign policy establishment of the Deep State--and the policy of Obama--as directly connected to the rise of ISIS. The United States was supporting radical jihadists. This provided Obama and all those in the top levels of his administration who were connected with national security a reason to wish to silence Flynn.

2. Flynn, as head of DIA, had sought to transform the agency into a much more proactive collector of intelligence--in effect, to make it a competitor with the CIA. To say that James Clapper and John Brennan wanted Flynn punished and excluded forever from any position of influence is putting the matter mildly.

3. Flynn, a longtime insider in the national security and intelligence world, had an insiders knowledge not only of the institutions concerned with national security matters but of many of the major players. The list goes on.

These would be the people urging DoJ and FBI to do something about Flynn. Something drastic, to silence him. The investigation and prosecution accomplished that. Who was involved?

At DoJ it's a long list. Investigating a former General and former head of DIA as an agent for Russia is a very big deal. It didn't happen without involvement of everyone at the top levels. Loretta Lynch. The AG had to be in on it. Sally Yates. Mary McCord--yes, she as part of it, before she went on to become the principle legal counsel advising Michael Atkinson and Adam Schiff on impeachment matters. Yes, it's not impossible that Durham could end up there. Rod Rosenstein--that goes without saying. He supervised the whole Mueller Witchhunt and specifically authorized significant matters, like, permitting Mueller/Weissmann to target Michael Flynn, Jr.

Team Mueller is clearly in Durham's crosshairs. I've speculated in the past that Durham may feel he has unfinished business with Mueller, going back to Durham's thwarted investigation of Mueller's corruption in Boston. Andrew Weissmann would have been behind all the decisions and tactics deployed against Flynn. Also lower level prosecutors like Brandon Van Grack, Jeannie Rhee, Zainab Ahmad.

At the FBI Peter Stzok is a small fish compared to the top two--James Comey and Andrew McCabe, along with their legal counsels, James Baker and Lisa Page. And of course many more.

The New York Times says Durham is even probing Grand Jury witnesses about David Ignatius, recipient of FBI leaks about Flynn. Could a journalist be a part of a criminal conspiracy? Why not?

All of these people and more were involved in the false prosecution of Flynn to one degree or another. All can potentially be jammed up by Durham with regard to the Flynn case, and then required to cooperate about all the rest of the Russia Hoax. And possibly much more having to do with the weaponizing of the national security establishment against President Trump.

Whether Durham ever gets to the total end of that road of course remains to be seen. But if I'm a betting guy, I say Durham right now is loaded for bear.

Interesting times lie ahead.

UPDATE: If the case against Flynn is dismissed, Flynn will be free to talk as much as he wants. Think about that!

UPDATED: Breaking: DoJ Files Exculpatory Docs In Flynn Case

I guess I can call it "breaking," since Sean Davis of The Federalist reported it about a half hour ago.

Details are murky, since the documents were filed under seal. In the body of the brief story Davis qualifies the report with the word "allegedly":

Newly Filed Court Documents Include Exculpatory Evidence For Michael Flynn

New documents filed under seal in federal court include exculpatory information about former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, an FBI official told The Federalist on Friday.

Further, the use of the term "Department of Justice" is ambiguous, given that many reporters fail to distinguish among various components of DoJ--Main Justice components, a local US Attorney (here, DC). Here's what Davis is able to tell us. Note that the information is sourced to the FBI, rather than to DoJ. The sentence is long, but the beginning and end are the important parts:

The new documents, which were filed under seal by the Department of Justice Friday, allegedly include exonerating evidence about Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his conversations with foreign diplomats as Trump’s top incoming foreign policy adviser and is currently attempting to withdraw his plea, as well as evidence of malfeasance by the FBI during its investigation of Flynn.

And then there's this important added bit of information:

According to the FBI official who spoke to The Federalist, FBI general counsel Dana Boente led the charge internally against DOJ’s disclosure of the new materials. Boente, who briefly served as acting Attorney General after Trump became president, personally signed off on one of the federal spy warrants against former Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page. The new documents, which were filed under a protective order by DOJ on Friday, will reflect poorly on the FBI, the official told The Federalist. It is not clear when, or even if, those documents will be unsealed and made available to the public for review.

Finally, while we can only speculate at this point, we do know that at the beginning of April AG Barr brought in an outside US Attorney--Jeffrey Jensen of St. Louis--to "reexamine" the entire Flynn case. Was this disclosure of documents--apparently strongly opposed by Dana Boente, a longtime highlevel DoJ official and now FBI Director Wray's counsel--made at the instigation of Jensen? I think we know it wouldn't have been undertaken by the lead prosecutor, former Team Mueller lawyer Brandon Van Grack, whose work Jensen is "reexamining."

Very interesting.

UPDATE 1: OK, I was right--the release of documents was by USA Jensen, whom Barr appointed to "reexamine" the Flynn case. "EDMO" in the letter from Shea (USA-DC) that Sidney Powell posted means "Eastern District of Missouri," which is St. Louis--and that means Jensen.

Significant development regardless, and Powell characterizes the documents as "remarkable new & long withheld BRADY evidence."

UPDATE 2: I'm about to start reading Sidney Powell's supplement to the motion to dismiss. According to TGP Powell says that the new material “defeats any argument that the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24 was material to any “investigation.” The government has deliberately suppressed this evidence from the inception of this prosecution—knowing there was no crime by Mr. Flynn.” This, of course, was at the heart of what I argued strenuously: The FBI agents who interviewed Flynn--and those like Comey and McCabe who ordered their actions--were acting outside their official authority. They knew there was no crime to investigate or any other legitimate action. They were part of a conspiracy to deprive Flynn of his civil rights under color of official authority and law.

Powell also claims that she “has found further evidence of misconduct by Mr. Van Grack specifically.” Maybe Van Grack will want to spill the beans on Team Mueller?

It's hard to believe that what's going down isn't part of Durham's investigation.

UPDATE 3: This passage from the Supplement to the Motion to Dismiss gives an idea of what may be coming:

Since August 2016 at the latest, partisan FBI and DOJ leaders conspired to destroy Mr.Flynn. These documents show in their own handwriting and emails that they intended either to create an offense they could prosecute or at least get him fired. Then came the incredible malfeasance of Mr. Van Grack’s and the SCO’s prosecution despite their knowledge there was no crime by Mr. Flynn. All this new evidence, and the government has advised there is more to come, proves that the crimes were committed by the FBI officials and then the prosecutors. The government’s misconduct in this case is beyond shocking and reprehensible. It mandates dismissal.

Furthermore, this Court should order the government immediately to provide the defense with unredacted copies of the documents in Exhibit 3, filed under seal. Those documents were filed under seal solely in an abundance of caution because the government produced them under the protective order, and we request that they be unsealed. Consequently, Mr. Flynn is filing Exhibit 3 to this Supplement contemporaneously and asks that the Court promptly unseal the document.

Blue States Lied, Seniors Died

And if numbers give an accurate picture, they will continue to die.

My title is a paraphrase of the first line from Daniel Greenfield's important article:

1 in 5 Coronavirus Deaths Could Have Been Prevented by Securing Nursing Homes

Blue states lied: thousands of nursing home patients died.

Sitting here in my bucolic blue state suburb, I was noticing that the case count and deaths for my town were continuing to climb. My wife and I kept asking each other: Who are these people? Finally it dawned on us--these had to be inmates of nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Greenfield's article confirms that nationwide, just days after the state was forced to provide the data for our area that confirmed exactly what my wife and I had suspected. While playgrounds are being shut down and the city is enacting stricter mask ordinances, the real risk is at the nursing homes. And the same holds true for suburb after suburb in our area.

And here's the kicker.

As we see case counts continuing to climb in the most affected states--largely blue states--we can be pretty sure that those cases will be disproportionately among seniors in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. The numbers that we've seen thus far aren't lying in that respect. And we know that that will translate to lots more deaths. Those deaths will be occurring disproportionately among a demographic that was known to be at high risk but was not protected, while large segments of the population who were at least arguably not at great risk were bullied and scared into measures that may not have been appropriately targeted for the population at large.

To be clear, I don't want to fall into the trap of equating "risk" with risk of death. We know that this virus--unlike the flu or other coronaviruses like the common cold--can have long term health effects for those who recover. For those who require treatment, the burden on healthcare is also significantly higher that for the flu. I can also understand that public officials fear that unless drastic measures are required, more targeted measures may not be followed. Or that if the fact that this pandemic may only play out over several years, with relatively "low" rates of infection, public resolve will flag. Nevertheless, this lack of transparency in a democracy is egregious. It's also bound to be a big mistake. People ultimately need to be treated as adults and allowed to provide input into the momentous decisions that have been made largely by fiat up to this point.

With that off my chest, take a look at what Greenfield is reporting:

What Can Super Spreader Events Tell Us About Practical Safety And Reopening?

This evening Steve Sailer quoted at length--Q. What Is Best in Life? A. That Which Is Most Likely to Spread Coronavirus--from an even lengthier but very interesting article--COVID-19 Superspreader Events in 28 Countries: Critical Patterns and Lessons--that examines 54 "Superspreader Events (SSEs) around the world. However, Sailer zeroes in on the most important parts.

I know when I first started hearing about "superspreaders" I had the impression that there were certain individuals who somehow were capable of spreading the Wuhan virus more easily and widely than others. Of course that's not the case at all--the phenomenon of "superspreading" isn't about individuals. It's about social settings, very specific circumstances that are particularly conducive to spreading the infection.

The author of the article, Jonathan Kay, focuses on how major outbreaks--SSEs--of the Covid19 disease have occurred. And what he found by studying 54 examples around the world tends to strongly confirm the "6 feet/ten minute rule". The bottom line is that it's very unlikely that you'll catch the virus from casual contact. Infection requires fairly close and prolonged contact. These excerpts--taken out of context-- ill give you an idea of what he's talking about:

In fact, the truly remarkable trend that jumped off my spreadsheet has nothing to do with the sort of people involved in these SSEs, but rather the extraordinarily narrow range of underlying activities. 

... all seem to have involved the same type of behaviour: extended, close-range, face-to-face conversation—typically in crowded, socially animated spaces. 

With few exceptions, almost all of the SSEs took place indoors, where people tend to pack closer together in social situations, and where ventilation is poorer. (It is notable, for instance, that the notorious outbreak at an Austrian ski resort is connected to a bartender and not, say, a lift operator.)

Testing, Infection, Mortality

Commenter ronlsb got on my case this morning for my post Schools, Hospitals, Lockdown, claiming I've changed my tune and urging that America should be reopened instanter. If not sooner:

Mark, you spent days reciting the views of health care "professionals" warning us how truly dangerous this virus is and by doing that in effect endorsing the drastic measures being foisted upon us by our bettors. [Sic. An interesting typo.] Now you seem to have changed your tune. The more we learn about how this virus has worked, the clearer it becomes that it is successful (for the most part of course) in attacking people with preexisting conditions. Leaving supermarkets to remain open around the nation with no measurable detrimental effects ought to be evidence enough to any thinking person that the reaction to this virus has been blown way out of proportion to the damage being done to our citizens. Reopen American and do it now!

I responded that I haven't changed my tune, that I've always maintained that the modeling doesn't strictly apply to the US with its unique "human geography", that I've also always maintained that the Wuhan virus is not as easily transmissible as, for example, seasonal flu, etc. All that means in my mind that I have been open to a more flexible approach--but cautiously so, because of the undoubted danger of the Wuhan virus and the lack of reliable information. Indeed, as I pointed out in Please Read This Re Covid19 Testing there has been a lot of tendentious reporting to go along with a lack of information.

I'd like to briefly follow up on that testing post by quoting a very informed comment by "brookwood" at FR--New York State Antibody Study Finds Infectino Mortality Rate At Least 5 Times Greater Than Seasonal Flu. Brookwood uses new data regarding the infection rate in NYC, which is significantly higher than the California "studies" that I cited:

Actually, 20,792 have died in New York State - see link below https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Using a 13% infection rate and 2,700,000 cases, the Infection fatality rate is .8%, 8 times higher than seasonal flu. And the .1% seasonal flu mortality rate cited is based on cases with symptoms, it does not consider infections which could be detected by blood test but produce no symptoms. 75% of regular flu is asymptomatic so the infection fatality rate for normal flu is actually .025% Therefore Covid19 is 32 times as deadly as seasonal flu. Any questions?

https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/three-quarters-of-people-with-flu-have-no-symptoms/

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2018-2019.html

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-many-people-already-have-covid-19/

Schools, Hospitals, Lockdown

Two good articles at The Federalist on two aspects of the shutdowns that are coming back to bite us in the *ss--hard. Just as we need to understand epidemiology and testing and the demography of this pandemic, we need to think about effective v. non-effective counter measures.

Much of this is the result of the PC takeover of our health institutions, which pursued liberal social goals rather than preparing the country for the inevitable epidemics that everyone knows will occur and reoccur. Was funding Wuhan's bat virus research--including molecular engineering of new viruses that could spread human-to-human and evade early detection by our immune systems--a good use of resources? Or even a good idea? How much was spent looking for an AIDS vaccine over decades--and where is that vaccine? Enlisting public health in the crusade against the Second Amendment--instead of making sure we have masks in case of, like, What's Happening Now?

Increasingly I worry that this is leading to a massive Leftist takeover and makeover of America. Naturally the educational establishment is in the forefront, although the makeover of elections is also very much on the agenda.

Highly Ranked, Wealthy Virginia School District Still Can’t Teach Kids Online After Six Weeks

Fairfax's online schooling difficulties, delays, and incompetence are not an anomaly as governors indefinitely suspend kids' futures due to coronavirus mass death theories that are failing to materialize.

Some excerpts and this anecdote. Locally, on the news, we hear NOTHING about learning going on. Repeat: NOTHING. One would expect human interest stories about kids learning online from their homes. No. NOTHING. All mention of the schools ceased once meal services were assured. That's right. I know this is nothing new, but it still comes as a bit of a shock to realize that government run schools are largely about feeding kids, not educating them (full disclosure--I've never attended a government school).

Please Read This Re Covid19 Testing

City Journal is running an excellent article on Covid19 testing. It's especially important to understand the problems involved in the type of testing that was recently conducted in California. Most of the testing done in the US currently is done on persons who are exhibiting relatively serious symptoms that at least raise a concern that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is involved. The two sets of tests from California, on the other hand, attempted to establish the degree to which the virus may have spread in the general population--including those who are exhibiting no symptoms. The problems with this type of testing begin with the fact that the tests used were not FDA approved and had a very low level of specificity (more on that below). These tests, it turns out, had a specificity of only 90-95%--read on and you'll see why that makes those test results highly problematic--and very controversial among scientists.

In addition to the difficulties of interpreting test results of this type from a statistical standpoint, there are also problems caused by the fact that SARS-CoV-2 is not the only coronavirus circulating in the US. That can give rise to false positives, with no way of readily distinguishing the false positives from the real thing.

Beyond those problems, the testing tells us very little about the central concern with regard to this virus: immunity. Unfortunately many people labor under the misconception that Immunity is a simple binary phenomenon--if you test positive for coronavirus antibodies you have immunity, if you don't you don't. That is not the case. Immunity comes in degrees, and the presence of antibodies in and of itself does not guarantee an effective immunity has been developed. Unfortunately, our tests don't do a good job of assessing that. Furthermore, testing can't tell us how long immunity will last.

All these things have to be taken into account in assessing proper policy responses to the pandemic. Add to that the uncertainty caused by what I consider the high probability that SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that has been enhanced with "gain of function" features through molecular engineering. Here are some fairly extensive excerpts:

FREE THE TRANSCRIPTS!

This morning I wrote about Schiff skullduggery and DNI Grenell's pushback--Schiff V. Grenell. Having exposed Schiff's bad behavior--no doubt with the assistance of Grenell or intermediaries of Grenell--John Solomon is taking action. He has filed a FOIA lawsuit asking ODNI to release those transcripts--43 in number--that have been declassified. Please note that: Solomon is suing ODNI, not asking HPSCI and Schiff. I suspect a quid pro quo of sorts:

Grenell: John, how'd you like to know how Schiff blocked release of transcripts about the Russia Hoax?

Solomon: Yes!

Grenell: There's one condition--you have to promise to sue me to release the actual transcripts.

Solomon: Haha! Sign me up!

John Solomon
@jsolomonReports 

One role journalists play is to pry public interest information from a reluctant government. I have now filed a FOIA asking ODNI to release the declassified transcripts. If you want to #FreeTheTranscripts please retweet.

How Adam Schiff secretly thwarted efforts to bring transparency in Russia probeDemocrat demanded DNI keep evidence from Trump, holds transcripts that were supposed to be made public. 

justthenews.com 2:56 PM · Apr 22, 2020

Cautions On Reopening

Yesterday I ran two posts that were mostly the work of others, both of which focused on the pandemic. AG Bill Barr, in his interview with Hugh Hewitt, spoke to the need for a more targeted response to the pandemic--we can't shutdown forever. We need to come up with some strategy for managing the undoubted risks of "reopening" the country. Ways for managing the risks on an individual level--but with implications for society wide risk management--were discussed in Saving Your Health, One Mask at a Time. The good news is that practical precautions are available, but the caveat is that if those precautions are not taken we could face highly unpalatable alternatives.

Today I offer articles that highlight the serious nature of the Wuhan virus, lest we forget that the risks we need to manage are very real risks.

The first is from The Atlantic:

Why Some People Get Sicker Than Others

COVID-19 is proving to be a disease of the immune system. This could, in theory, be controlled.

The article does get into a fair amount of detail about the more technical medical aspects of the fight against the virus. Here I want to use the more anecdotal, impressionistic, general excerpts to lead you to read the rest. To begin with, the author offers a personal account to remind us that "recovery" from COVID-19 is neither smooth nor rapid--because this isn't just an ordinary disease:

Schiff V. Grenell

An interesting battle is shaping up between Adam Schiff, Dem chair of the House intelligence committee, and President Trump's Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Rick Grenell. Schiff has attempted to bully Grenell and bring him to heel--which is to say, bring a halt to Grenell's ongoing housecleaning of the Intel Community. Grenell has rejected Schiff's demand that personnel moves be cleared through Schiff. In typical Schiff fashion, Schiff's missives have--for practical purposes--been released to the press before Grenell has had any chance to respond. Grenell is having none of it, and has responded in a manner that sets him apart from the usual groveling of agency heads before a Congressional committee chairman.

The Hill has a summary of the spat: Intelligence chief Grenell hits back against Schiff criticism of agency reorganization. Schiff set things off by essentially claiming that Grenell should clear personnal changes through Schiff.

Schiff noted that Grenell was pursuing leadership changes at intelligence agencies without seeking authorization from Congress and raised questions about the removal or departure of every Senate-confirmed official at the ODNI.  

Schiff also accused Grenell of allowing his staff to “interfere with the production and briefing of intelligence information” on election security that was given to Congress during a March 10 all-members briefing on election security.  

...  

Another issue raised by Schiff was the decision by President Trump to fire Michael Atkinson, the now-former acting inspector general of the IC. Atkinson alerted Congress to the anonymous whistleblower complaint around Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that ultimately kicked off the impeachment investigation into Trump. 

Grenell responded by telling Schiff in just about so many words to mind his own business and spend some time reading the Constitution: