Inspector General: Russia Investigation Wasn’t an FBI Witch Hunt

Like Hitler and the Nazi regime, Donald Trump works to use two propaganda efforts to subvert the truth and to play to his knuckle dragging base.  One is to attack the independent media. that endeavors to report the truth regardless of whether or not it is popular with Trump and what Hillary Clinton aptly referred to as the "deplorables" in his base.  As a recent piece in the New York Times noted: Hitler and the Nazis had found the simple slogan they repeated again and again to discredit reporters: “Lügenpresse.” . . . .  which in English is “fake news.”  The other method is to promote conspiracy theories and outright lies.  One of the latter is Trump's refrain that the entire Russiagate investigation was a "witch hunt" and therefore should not be believed by his cult- like true believers. With the release of the Inspector General report, the Trump "witch hunt" mantra against the FBI suffered a major blow - much to the chagrin of Attorney General William Barr, perhaps, in my opinion, one of the most corrupt individuals to ever serve as Attorney General. A piece in New York Magazine looks at the inspector general report. Here are article excerpts:

Throughout both the Mueller and the subsequent House Intelligence Committee investigations of Trump campaign and administration dealings with foreign governments, [Trump's] the president’s allies have relentlessly promoted a counter-narrative full of lurid conspiracy theories. They all date back to an alleged “deep state” plot in 2016 to keep Trump from becoming president by using allegations allegedly planted by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to accuse his campaign of colluding with Russia.

A long-awaited Department of Justice report in response to these claims from Inspector General Michael Horowitz has largely exonerated the FBI of charges of political bias, while criticizing the reliance on the so-called Steele Dossier in the agency’s application for a wiretap on one key Trump operative, foreign-policy adviser Carter Page. Horowitz’s boss Attorney General William Barr is not happy about it, according to the Washington Examiner . . . . Barr made clear his displeasure with Monday’s report almost as soon as it came out.

While Horowitz suggested that the wiretap on Page was not properly secured, he views that sideshow as irrelevant to the bigger investigation and does not think it represents some sort of coordinated effort to invent a scandal designed to damage Trump’s campaign, as Politico explains in its takeaways from the IG report: . . . Horowitz found that the Crossfire Hurricane team — the codename agents gave to the Russia inquiry — did not receive Steele’s election reporting materials until after the investigation had already been opened using information about Papadopoulos the team received from a foreign ally.

Horowitz also found that the decision to pursue an investigation was above the pay grades of the “FBI Lovebirds” Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the key figures in the right-wing counter-narrative whose emails to each other displayed hostility to Trump.

Horowitz will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee later this week to discuss his findings, and you can be sure Republicans will make every effort to link his criticisms of the pre-Trump Justice Department and FBI to the “witch hunt” they are alleging during impeachment proceedings currently in the hands of the House Judiciary Committee. But it looks like slim pickings for those claiming that candidate or President Trump is an innocent victim of partisan shenanigans.

Trump's Lies and Disingenuous Claims of Treason

If there is anyone betraying the best interest of the United States, I would argue that it is Donald Trump who is shredding our alliances and violating the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution daily.  Yet like Hitler did with his opponents who recognized him for the threat that he posed to Germany, Trump is wildly claiming the it is U.S. intelligence agencies and the FBI that are the traitors.  Trump seemingly views himself as the government in the form of a monarch and thereby any investigation of him and his dirty business dealings is "treason."  While James Comey is hardly among my favorite individuals - his bungling of the Clinton email red herring  helped elect Trump - in a column in the Washington Post he reminds us that facts matter and that Trump's baseless lies need to be confronted.  One can only hope that the media listens and goes after Trump and his minions accordingly. Here are op-ed highlights:

It is tempting for normal people to ignore [Trump] our president when he starts ranting about treason and corruption at the FBI. I understand the temptation. I’m the object of many of his rants, and even I try to ignore him.

But we shouldn’t, because millions of good people believe what a president of the United States says. In normal times, that’s healthy. But not now, when the president is a liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions. We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts.

Russia engaged in a massive effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Near as I can tell, there is only one U.S. leader who still denies that fact. The FBI saw the attack starting in mid-June 2016, with the first dumping of stolen emails. In late July, when we were hard at work trying to understand the scope of the effort, we learned that one of Trump’s foreign policy advisers knew about the Russian effort seven weeks before we did.

Of course, nobody from the Trump campaign told us this (or about later Russian approaches); we had to learn it, months after the fact, from an allied ambassador.

But when we finally learned of it in late July, what should the FBI have done? Let it go? Go tell the Trump campaign? Tell the press? No. Investigate, to see what the facts were. We didn’t know what was true. Maybe there was nothing to it, or maybe Americans were actively conspiring with the Russians. To find out, the FBI would live up to its name and investigate. . . . If there was something to it, we didn’t want to let corrupt Americans know we were onto them. So, we kept it secret. That’s how the FBI approaches all counterintelligence cases.

And there’s the first problem with Trump’s whole “treason” narrative. If we were “deep state” Clinton loyalists bent on stopping him, why would we keep it secret? Why wouldn’t the much-maligned FBI supervisor Peter Strzok — the alleged kingpin of the “treasonous” plot to stop Trump — tell anyone? He was one of the very few people who knew what we were investigating.

We didn’t “spy” on anyone’s campaign. We investigated to see whether it was true that Americans associated with the campaign had taken the Russians up on any offer of help. By late October, the investigators thought they had probable cause to get a federal court order to conduct electronic surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser named Carter Page. Page was no longer with the campaign, but there was reason to believe he was acting as an agent of the Russian government.

There is a reason the non-fringe media doesn’t spend much time on this “treason” and “corruption” business. The conspiracy theory makes no sense. The FBI wasn’t out to get Donald Trump. It also wasn’t out to get Hillary Clinton. It was out to do its best to investigate serious matters while walking through a vicious political minefield.

But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must. When those investigations are over, you will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances.

Sadly, Attorney General William Barr is acting more like the consigliere to a Mafia crime boss than attorney general of the United States.  Rather than protect the American people and the justice system, his sole allegiance appears to be to Trump. 

Trump Has Concealed Details of Meetings With Putin

The Washington Post is reporting that Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to conceal the details of his conversations with Vladimir Putin, including keeping details from top officials in his regime. Frankly, no one should be surprised.  Why would Trump want the U.S. public or his own officials to know the details of his conversations with his handler?   It is all part and parcel of the very disturbing pattern of Trump's pandering to Putin at the expense of American interests at the same time Trump is undermining alliances that Putin detests.  Mere coincidences?  Personally, I think not. Nor did the FBI when it launched its investigation of Trump as a possible foreign operatives as reported by the New York Times as noted in a prior blog post. NONE of this is normal and one has to wonder why "conservatives" who proclaim their patriotism don't see the lashing alarm bells.  Oh, I forgot - they love Trump's racist, pro-white supremacist policies more than they care about the nation's future.  Here are highlights from the Post piece:

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by [Trump] the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is thought to be in the final stages of an investigation that has focused largely on whether Trump or his associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. The new details about Trump’s continued secrecy underscore the extent to which little is known about his communications with Putin since becoming president.

Former U.S. officials said that Trump’s behavior is at odds with the known practices of previous presidents, who have relied on senior aides to witness meetings and take comprehensive notes then shared with other officials and departments.

Trump’s secrecy surrounding Putin “is not only unusual by historical standards, it is outrageous,” said Strobe Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state now at the Brookings Institution, who participated in more than a dozen meetings between President Bill Clinton and then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. “It handicaps the U.S. government — the experts and advisers and Cabinet officers who are there to serve [the president] — and it certainly gives Putin much more scope to manipulate Trump.”

Senior Democratic lawmakers describe the cloak of secrecy surrounding Trump’s meetings with Putin as unprecedented and disturbing.

Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview that his panel will form an investigative subcommittee whose targets will include seeking State Department records of Trump’s encounters with Putin, including a closed-door meeting with the Russian leader in Helsinki last summer.

The concerns have been compounded by actions and positions Trump has taken as president that are seen as favorable to the Kremlin. He has dismissed Russia’s election interference as a “hoax,” suggested that Russia was entitled to annex Crimea, repeatedly attacked NATO allies, resisted efforts to impose sanctions on Moscow, and begun to pull U.S. forces out of Syria — a move that critics see as effectively ceding ground to Russia.

At the same time, Trump’s decision to fire Comey and other attempts to contain the ongoing Russia investigation led the bureau in May 2017 to launch a counterintelligence investigation into whether he was seeking to help Russia and if so, why, a step first reported by the New York Times.

[S]everal officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the president’s two-hour meeting in Helsinki. Unlike in Hamburg, Trump allowed no Cabinet officials or any aides to be in the room for that conversation.

Trump also had other private conversations with Putin at meetings of global leaders outside the presence of aides. He spoke at length with Putin at a banquet at the same 2017 global conference in Hamburg, where only Putin’s interpreter was present. Trump also had a brief conversation with ­Putin at a Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires last month.

Senior Trump administration officials said that White House officials including then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster were never able to obtain a comprehensive account of the meeting, even from Tillerson.

“We were frustrated because we didn’t get a readout,” a former senior administration official said. “The State Department and [National Security Council] were never comfortable” with Trump’s interactions with Putin, the official said. “God only knows what they were going to talk about or agree to.”

Noe of this is normal and true patriots ought to be concerned and demanding that the behavior cease immediately.

FBI Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Is a Russian Agent

While Donald Trump continues to bleat (and likely lie) that there was no collusion with Russia by himself or his campaign, the New York Times is reporting that the FBI was so concerned with what security officials were seeing that it opened an investigation of whether Trump was in fact working for Russia - a concern that every patriotic and sane American should continue to have as Trump destroys relations with allies, continues a government shut down that is costing the economy over $1 billion per week, and has created trade wars wreaking havoc on portions of the economy. All of this is  a dream come true for Vladimir Putin who seemingly pictures himself as Russia's once and future tsar (Putin is actively rehabilitating Russia's last imperial family to the delight of the Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy). In addition to his efforts to seemingly fulfill Russian's objectives of harming America's standing in the world, one thing about Trump's behavior doesn't ring true: if he were innocent, he should want the investigation to be completed and clear his name.  Instead he wants to kill, strongly suggesting he has something to hide.  Here are highlights from the Times piece:

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by [Trump's] the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether [Trump's] the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But [Trump's] the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it. That inquiry is part of Mr. Mueller’s broader examination of how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with them. It is unclear whether Mr. Mueller is still pursuing the counterintelligence matter, . . . .

The criminal and counterintelligence elements were coupled together into one investigation, former law enforcement officials said in interviews in recent weeks, because if Mr. Trump had ousted the head of the F.B.I. to impede or even end the Russia investigation, that was both a possible crime and a national security concern. The F.B.I.’s counterintelligence division handles national security matters.

If [Trump] the president had fired Mr. Comey to stop the Russia investigation, the action would have been a national security issue because it naturally would have hurt the bureau’s effort to learn how Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Americans were involved, according to James A. Baker, who served as F.B.I. general counsel until late 2017.

No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel’s office both declined to comment.

The F.B.I. conducts two types of inquiries, criminal and counterintelligence investigations. Unlike criminal investigations, which are typically aimed at solving a crime and can result in arrests and convictions, counterintelligence inquiries are generally fact-finding missions to understand what a foreign power is doing and to stop any anti-American activity, like thefts of United States government secrets or covert efforts to influence policy. . . .

Trump had caught the attention of F.B.I. counterintelligence agents when he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack into the emails of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Mr. Trump had refused to criticize Russia on the campaign trail, praising President Vladimir V. Putin. And investigators had watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia.

In the months before the 2016 election, the F.B.I. was also already investigating four of Mr. Trump’s associates over their ties to Russia. The constellation of events disquieted F.B.I. officials who were simultaneously watching as Russia’s campaign unfolded to undermine the presidential election by exploiting existing divisions among Americans.

“In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself, you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability, America’s ability and the West’s ability to spread our democratic ideals,” Lisa Page, a former bureau lawyer, told House investigators in private testimony reviewed by The Times.

“That’s the goal, to make us less of a moral authority to spread democratic values,” she added. Parts of her testimony were first reported by The Epoch Times.

And when a newly inaugurated Mr. Trump sought a loyalty pledge from Mr. Comey and later asked that he end an investigation into the president’s national security adviser, the requests set off discussions among F.B.I. officials about opening an inquiry into whether Mr. Trump had tried to obstruct that case.

After Mr. Comey was fired on May 9, 2017, two more of Mr. Trump’s actions prompted them to quickly abandon those reservations.

The first was a letter Mr. Trump wanted to send to Mr. Comey about his firing, but never did, in which he mentioned the Russia investigation. In the letter, Mr. Trump thanked Mr. Comey for previously telling him he was not a subject of the F.B.I.’s Russia investigation.

The second event that troubled investigators was an NBC News interview two days after Mr. Comey’s firing in which Mr. Trump appeared to say he had dismissed Mr. Comey because of the Russia inquiry.

Many involved in the case viewed Russia as the chief threat to American democratic values.  “With respect to Western ideals and who it is and what it is we stand for as Americans, Russia poses the most dangerous threat to that way of life,” Ms. Page told investigators for a joint House Judiciary and Oversight Committee investigation into Moscow’s election interference.

F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment [Trump] the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.  “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Someone innocent does not behavior the way Trump acted and continues to act. Moreover, he continues to further Putin's strategic objectives. Treason is perhaps the best description.  And yes, I delete all references to Trump as "president" because it degrades the office to use the term in in conjunction with Trump's name.

Trump Curtailed FBI Investigation Will Not Legitimize Kavanaugh

With the White House directing the last minute FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, I guess it was a foregone conclusion that the investigation would be a joke and qualify as anything as legitimate.  The FBI's report was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee last night and there are reports that only one copy exists and Senators on the Committee will be given time slots to view it - an obvious effort to make sure copies aren't leaked which would convince the majority of Americans that the entire charade was rigged.   It is most obvious that Trump/McConnell/Grassley never wanted to find out the real truth. The entire scenario is like something out of Putin's Russia and sets a course where, if confirmed, Kavanaugh will be deemed forever illegitimate.  Worse yet, conservative 5-4 rulings will be seen as illegitimate and, in the minds of many, not binding or legitimate.  One can hope that some Republicans may vote "no" in light of the Trump manipulated investigation.  Failing that, it is imperative that Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives (and hopefully the Senate) and launch a proper investigation of Kavanaugh which will lead to either his resignation or his impeachment.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the farce that is the FBI report.  Here are excerpts:

The FBI background check of Brett M. Kavanaugh appeared to remain curtailed in its scope Wednesday even as agents neared the end of their work, opening up the possibility that the bureau would again face criticism over what some will view as a lackluster investigation.

Though complete details of the FBI’s findings had yet to be released Wednesday evening, the bureau’s inquiry seems to have focused mostly on an allegation by a California professor who claims Kavanaugh assaulted her decades ago at a party in Maryland, when both were high school students.

The Washington Post has been able to confirm interviews with only six witnesses, five of whom have a connection to the professor or her allegation.

The investigation was always unlikely to answer definitively whether Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual misconduct decades ago. But the probe’s limited scope — which was dictated by the White House, along with a Friday deadline — is likely to exacerbate the partisan tensions surrounding Kavanaugh’s nomination.

[S]everal people who claimed to have information that could be useful said they ended up mired in bureaucracy when they tried to get in touch with the FBI. Democrats also cried foul over what they saw as inappropriate parameters that the White House seemed to be imposing on the bureau. The White House and the FBI have treated each other warily throughout the process, people familiar with the matter said. Both sides were mindful that their written communications might one day be subject to subpoena, particularly if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives in next month’s midterm elections, the people said.

President Trump has insisted publicly he was not curtailing the FBI probe. But privately, the White House restricted the FBI from delving deeply into Kavanaugh’s youthful drinking and exploring whether he had lied to Congress about his alcohol use, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

The FBI, for example, interviewed Deborah Ramirez, who accused Kavanaugh of exposing his penis to her at a gathering when both were college students at Yale, and Ramirez’s team provided agents with more than 20 people who might have information relevant to her claims. But as of Wednesday, Ramirez’s team had no indication that the bureau had interviewed any of them.

The FBI also did not interview Christine Blasey Ford, her legal team said. . . . . Instead, the bureau interviewed three people who Ford said attended the party: Mark Judge, Patrick Smyth and Leland Keyser. The FBI also talked to two other friends of Kavanaugh’s who were listed as attending a gathering during the same summer that Ford alleged she was assaulted: Chris Garrett, who went out with Ford for a time, and Tim Gaudette.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said that agents also had apparently not talked to Kavanaugh himself.

“The White House confirmation that it will not allow the FBI to interview Dr. Blasey Ford, Judge Kavanaugh or witnesses identified by Deborah Ramirez raises serious concerns that this is not a credible investigation,” she said in a statement.

The FBI similarly had not — at least as of Wednesday — interviewed Julie Swetnick, who said in a declaration that Kavanaugh was physically abusive toward girls in high school and was present at a house party in 1982 where she says she was the victim of a “gang” rape. But the bureau did ask Judge, who was named in the affidavit, about her claims.

Richard Oh, an emergency room physician who lived in Kavanaugh’s first-year residence hall, said he contacted the FBI office in Denver to describe overhearing someone tearfully telling another student about an incident when Kavanaugh was a student at Yale. The incident, which Oh described to the New Yorker, involved a fake penis and a male student exposing himself.

Oh said he was put on hold and waited so long that he eventually submitted information through the FBI website.  “So far I haven’t heard back,” Oh said Tuesday. Wednesday night, he said that was still the case.

Lawyer Alan M. Abramson said he represented a friend of Ramirez’s who was hoping to share an account of a conversation the two had in the early 1990s about an incident in her freshman year. The friend, Abramson said, was among those whose names Ramirez’s lawyer had passed to the FBI.

Abramson said that when the friend, whom he declined to identify, did not hear from the bureau, he called a supervisor, who referred him to a field office, which said it would pass his information on. “I have not heard from them yet, but I am hopeful that they will still contact me,” Abramson said in an email to The Post.

Democracy is near death in America.  If Democrats do not prevail in the 2018 midterms, it may be time to consider leaving.  My only concern is how will I also get my children and their families out of the USA if it comes to that last ditch situation.

NRA Affiliated Russian Woman Charged with Spying for Moscow

Russian spy and NRA affiliate, Maria Butina.

On the same day that Donald Trump was throwing America under the bus and serving as Vladimir Putin's bitch boy, Maria Butina, 29, a Russian national affiliated with the National Rifle Association ("NRA"), was indicted for meeting with U.S. politicians and candidates to establish ‘back channels’ and secretly reporting to Kremlin.  Stated more directly, she was indicted for being a Russian spy.  Unlike the other Russians indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, Butina was physically taken into custody and will face active prosecution.  This comes atop stories that the $30 million thrown into the 2016 presidential election to back Trump by the NRA may well have been monies sourced from Russian nationals.   One can only hope that Butina spills her guts to strike a plea deal and helps expose the NRA's nefarious activities.  A piece in The Guardian looks at her arrest.  Here are highlights:

A Russian woman has been charged with spying for Moscow in the US by infiltrating the National Rifle Association (NRA) in an attempt to influence the Republican party and American politics.

Maria Butina, who purported to be a pro-gun activist, met American politicians and candidates to establish “back channels” and secretly reported back to the Kremlin through a high-level Russian official, according to the US justice department.

Prosecutors said in a statement that Butina, 29, had been “developing relationships with US persons and infiltrating organisations having influence in American politics, for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian federation”.

Butina was charged with conspiracy to act as a Russian agent within the US without notifying the attorney general. She was arrested on Sunday and appeared before a magistrate in Washington on Monday, officials said. In an affidavit, an FBI agent said investigators had searched Butina’s laptop computer and mobile phone.

The NRA did not respond to requests for comment.

Butina has come under increasing scrutiny amid the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 campaign. Footage emerged of her asking Trump a question in front of an audience at a conservative event in July 2015.

She is known as a protege of Alexander Torshin, a senior official at the Russian central bank, who is also a longtime associate of the NRA. Torshin, who met Donald Trump Jr at an NRA event in 2016, was placed under sanction by the US in April.

Charging documents unsealed on Monday say Butina was directed by a “high-level official in the Russian government”. The unnamed official’s biography matched that of Torshin, but he was not identified by name.

Two unidentified Americans, one of them described as a “political operative”, were said in the charging documents to have assisted Butina in her efforts to make political contacts in the US. Neither was charged with a crime.

Butina has a longstanding working relationship with Paul Erickson, an NRA member and conservative operative based in South Dakota. Erickson did not respond to a voicemail left on Monday afternoon.

Prosecutors said Butina emailed the first American associate in March 2015, suggesting a specific political party “would likely obtain control over the US government after the 2016 elections” and noting the powerful role in this party played by a certain gun rights organisation.

According to prosecutors, she reported that a Kremlin official had given approval for the back channel she was building, and she told the American: “All we needed is ‘yes’ from Putin’s side. The rest is easier.”

Officials said the investigation into Butina was conducted by the FBI’s Washington office and was being prosecuted by the national security sections of the US attorney’s office in Washington and justice department headquarters. The office of Robert Mueller, the special counsel, played no immediately apparent role.

Little surprise that the NRA and Erickson failed to respond to inquiries.  The irony, of course, is that it is quickly turning out that those who have been the loudest about their supposed patriotism are the ones supporting treason.  Sadly, I doubt the news of the last couple of days will sink in with some "friends" who continue to post what is little better than Russian/Trump propaganda on Facebook.   I sincerely hope that before all of this is over, the Republican Party will become synonymous with treason and traitors. 

Trump, a Treasonous Traitor

Today Donald Trump meets with an un-indicted co-conspirator who master minded an attack on America and its electoral system.  In the lead up to the meeting, Trump has attacked America's longest standing allies, sought to undermine the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and called the European Union America's greatest economic threat. Meanwhile, he calls an investigation into Russia's wrongdoing a "with hunt" even though the investigation has yielded 32 indictments and three guilty pleas by former Trump aides.  If all of these were not happening in real time before our very eyes, one would think it all was a plot out of a David Baldacci or Steve Berry spy novel.  Terrifyingly, Republican U.S. Senators and congressmen are turning a blind eye to Trump's misdeeds or, worse yet, joining in maligning the FBI, CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies. A traitor occupies the White House and they care nothing about the threat to the nation, their only concern being to hold onto power and appease their toxic, hate-filled base.  A column in the New York Times looks at the treason occurring before our eyes.  Here are excerpts:

Put aside whatever suspicions you may have about whether Donald Trump will be directly implicated in the Russia investigation. Trump is right now, before our eyes and those of the world, committing an unbelievable and unforgivable crime against this country. It is his failure to defend.

The intelligence community long ago concluded that Russia attacked our election in 2016 with the express intention of damaging Hillary Clinton and assisting Trump.  And it was not only the spreading of inflammatory fake news over social media. As a May report from the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee pointed out:

“In 2016, cyber actors affiliated with the Russian Government conducted an unprecedented, coordinated cyber campaign against state election infrastructure. Russian actors scanned databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases successfully penetrated a voter registration database. This activity was part of a larger campaign to prepare to undermine confidence in the voting process.”

This is a thing that is still happening and will continue to happen. As Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the committee in February, “Persistent and disruptive cyberoperations will continue against the United States and our European allies using elections as opportunities to undermine democracy.” As he put it, “Frankly, the United States is under attack.”

The Robert Mueller investigation is looking into this, trying to figure out what exactly happened in 2016, who all was involved, which laws where broken and who will be charged and tried.

That investigation seems to be incredibly fruitful. According to Vox’s tally:  “Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies — that we know of. That group is composed of four former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Five of these people (including three former Trump aides) have already pleaded guilty.”

[T]here remains one incontrovertible truth: In 2016, Russia, a hostile foreign adversary, attacked the United States of America.  We know that they did it. We have proof. The F.B.I. is trying to hold people accountable for it.

And yet Trump, the president whom the Constitution establishes as the commander in chief, has repeatedly waffled on whether Russia conducted the attack and has refused to forcefully rebuke them for it, let alone punish them for it.

Instead, Trump has repeatedly attacked the investigation as a witch hunt. . . . Just last week at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump said:

“I think I would have a very good relationship with Putin if we spend time together. After watching the rigged witch-hunt yesterday, I think it really hurts our country and our relationship with Russia. I hope we can have a good relationship with Russia.”

Now Trump is set to pursue just such a relationship as he meets one-on-one with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday in Finland.

Trump should be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia for the attacks and prevent future ones. But he is not.   America’s commander wants to be chummy with the enemy who committed the crime. Trump is more concerned with protecting his presidency and validating his election than he is in protecting this country.

This is an incredible, unprecedented moment. America is being betrayed by its own president. America is under attack and its president absolutely refuses to defend it.  Simply put, Trump is a traitor and may well be treasonous.

In my view, possible impeachment is too lenient on Trump.  A trial for treason is needed, followed by a conviction and the imposition of the harshest punishment possible.

Putin: The As Yet Un-indicted Co-conspirator in the Russiangate Probe

As noted in previous posts, I have worked before with the FBI as a legal consultant.  One case in particular involved numerous "real estate closings 101" courses for attorneys from the U.S. Attorney's office and a sit down with special agents to review how they were assembling a case to make sure they had laid out documentation in  the correct sequence. The case ultimately lead to 30 year conviction of the target of the investigation.  It also involved an "un-indicted co-conspirator" who, while never officially indicted was up to his ears in the fraudulent transactions and, in my opinion, facilitated at least some of the crimes.  Fast forward dozen years and we are seeing something similar with the latest indictments handed down by special counsel Robert Mueller: Vladimir Putin, the as yet un-indicted co-conspirator on whose orders the indicted Russian intelligence officers were acting.  A piece in Politico notes this reality:

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday called Russian President Vladimir Putin “essentially an unindicted co-conspirator” in Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

The congressman’s remarks come one day before President Donald Trump is set to meet one-on-one with the Russian leader in Helsinki.

And not just any co-conspirator,” Schiff continued. “He’s the ringmaster of this conspiracy, and he’s going to be sitting down at the table with Donald Trump.”

The Trump-Putin get-together also follows special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment Friday of 12 Russian military officers for hacking the Democratic National Committee ahead of the 2016 presidential race — charges Schiff said the Helsinki meeting undermines.

“Trump is basically saying that indictment is just a witch hunt. And that’s a great gift for Vladimir Putin,” Schiff said. “So, I think if Kim Jong Un can eat the president’s lunch, which I think he clearly did, it will be a very easy matter for Vladimir Putin.”

With Trump, the traitor-in-chief calling the European Union America's greatest threat ahead of his summit with Putin, be prepared to watch Trump sabotage American interests and bend over backwards to keep Putin from revealing whatever powerful dirt he must be holding on Trump.  Don't hold your breath hoping Congressional Republicans will belatedly act to protect the nation.  They sold their souls to Trump long ago.  Be very, very afraid, 

Paul Ryan and Senator Burr Say FBI Has Acted Appropriately

Senator Richard Burr (R-NC)

To stir up his knuckle dragging base and in apparent preparation for possible impeachment, Donald Trump has been working overtime building the myth that the FBI placed a spy withing his campaign and/or worked to entrap him or his sleazy and possibly traitorous minions.  Far too many congressional Republicans have kissed Der Trumpenführer's ring and have rebroadcast the lies, most notably Devin Nunes who seemingly takes orders from Vladimir Putin himself.  Now Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and House Speaker Paul Ryan - although very belatedly in the case of Ryan - have challenged Trump's untrue fabrications (another name for lies) and have stated that the FBI acted appropriately contrary to Trump's claims.  How Trump and his insane/morally bankrupt apologists will try to frame these simply statements of the truth as the result of machinations and manipulation on the part of Democrats remains to be seen.  The only certainty is that Trump's base will continue to swallow his lies like pigs at a trough.  A piece at CNN looks at Burr and Ryan's break with the Trump lie machine. Here are highlights:

House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, both Republicans, broke with President Donald Trump on Wednesday over allegations spies infiltrated his 2016 campaign, saying they agree with GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy that the FBI did "exactly" what it should have done over its handling of a confidential source. The declarations by the leading Republicans are the latest indications that Trump lacks any evidence to back up his claims of a major political scandal he calls "spygate" -- since those lawmakers were among a select group briefed on the classified intelligence at issue. The only Republican briefed on the intelligence who has yet to break from Trump is Rep. Devin Nunes, the House Intelligence chairman who has demanded more documents as part of his investigation. "I think that Trey Gowdy's description of the process was correct," Burr said

Officials briefed Ryan, Gowdy and other congressional leaders last month on the FBI's use of a confidential source that interacted with Trump's campaign two years ago as the Department of Justice investigated Russian meddling.
 The briefings came after House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes demanded more information about the source -- a push that has prompted Trump to publicly speculate whether the FBI infiltrated his campaign. Nunes declined to comment Wednesday.

Gowdy, chairman of the House Oversight Committee who is retiring at the end of his congressional term, concluded last week after attending a classified briefing that the FBI acted appropriately in the probe. "I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got, and that it has nothing to do with Donald Trump," Gowdy said in an interview on Fox News. . . . I have seen no evidence to the contrary of, of the initial assessment that Chairman Gowdy has made," he [Ryan] said.
 Ryan was also asked whether he believes the President is able to pardon himself, after Trump tweeted Monday that he has the "absolute right" to do so, though he added he's done nothing wrong as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his investigation.

"I don't know the technical answer to that question, but I think obviously the answer is he shouldn't," Ryan said. "No one is above the law."

Trump "Spygate" Myth Loses Steam

The GOP's Trey Gowdy who has refuted Trump's "spygate" lies.

As noted in previous blog post Donald Trump and certain of his sycophants have been spreading the lie that the FBI and/or other government agencies improperly placed "spies" within the Trump presidential campaign.  As Rudy Giuliani shockingly admitted more or less that all of the "spygate" lies were part of a "PR" effort to dupe the American public should Trump find himself facing impeachment.  Now, that false storyline is collapsing as even some right wing Republicans are conceding that the FBI acted appropriately given the questionable Russian ties of some of Trump's "inner circle." In my view, the real issue that Trump is deliberately ignoring is the fact that he surrounded himself with individuals suspected as being Russian agents. This, of course, leads to the question of why Trump surrounded himself with individuals in some instances for years prior to the launch of the Trump candidacy/campaign.  A piece in Politico looks at Trump's crumbling line of lies and bullshit.  Here are story excerpts:

President Donald Trump’s claim that the FBI embedded a spy in his campaign for political purposes began to crumble Wednesday after a prominent Republican, as well as defenders of the president, said he might have the story wrong.

In less than 24 hours, Trump’s allegations were publicly refuted by House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), one of just nine lawmakers briefed on highly classified details of the FBI’s operation; Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano, a Trump favorite; and prominent legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, a vocal Trump ally who has advised the president on legal strategy.

Legal experts and Trump critics say the defections have exposed cracks in the president’s narrative and undermine his attempts to discredit the FBI investigation into Russian contacts with his campaign as a partisan, “deep state” attack on his presidential bid.

And notably, a slew of Trump's congressional allies who have been active purveyors of what the president dubbed “spygate” — including Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and Lee Zeldin — were silent Wednesday. POLITICO reached out to a handful of these lawmakers and did not hear back.

The White House declined to directly rebut Gowdy on Wednesday, but made clear the president hasn’t backed off his concern. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that “clearly, there's still cause for concern” about the president's "spy" allegations."

The blowback began Tuesday night when Gowdy, pressed during a Fox News interview, insisted that the FBI acted appropriately when it deployed an informant to collect information during the 2016 presidential election from Trump campaign aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. Both men had been suspected of having questionable Russian contacts and the FBI's attempt to follow the lead was appropriate and necessary, Gowdy said.

“I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do when they got the information they got,” said Gowdy, one of just five Republicans in a classified DOJ briefing last week for congressional leaders about the issue.

Wednesday morning, Gowdy doubled down on CBS.  “When the FBI comes into contact with information about what a foreign government may be doing in our election cycle, I think they have an obligation to run it out," he said.

The lawmaker's comments were echoed by Napolitano, who said Trump's “spy” claim seemed to be “baseless” and that the use of an informant on the periphery of the campaign is “standard operating procedure” in the FBI’s counterintelligence operations.
Dershowitz joined in Wednesday morning by conceding that he was “on the way to being persuaded” that the FBI’s use of an informant was proper.

The confluence of conservative defenses of the FBI undercuts Trump’s aggressive PR strategy to undercut special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into Russian election meddling and whether there was any coordination with the Trump campaign.
Jordan (R-Ohio) and Gaetz (R-Fla.), who have also vocally excoriated the FBI and Justice Department, were also not immediately available to comment.

The other Republicans who attended last Thursday's briefing — House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner and House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes — have also declined to publicly comment on how the meeting affected their opinion of the issue. 

Those Republicans remaining silent are little better than the Vichy French who collaborated with the Nazi occupation, hence why I refer to them as "Vichy Republicans."

How Democracy Dies: The Constitutional Crisis Is Here

Day after day we see Donald Trump behaving little better than a loud mouthed school yard bully - or more appropriately, like a banana republic or African dictator from years ago.  Lies, boasting, and seeing the government apparatus as merely existing to protect and appease him alone.  No one else has rights and concerns for constitutional government and the rule of law are of no consequence.  Indeed, Trump views himself as above the law - a trait demonstrated throughout much of his real estate career - as he tries to torpedo an investigation into his own wrongdoing sparked in no small measure by the sleazy and possibly treasonous minions that he used to staff his 2016 campaign.  Manafort, Page and Gates were ALL on the FBI radar long before they joined the Trump campaign.  In the case of Page, years before Trump ever announced his candidacy.  If anyone is to blame for the investigation, it is Trump himself through his poor choices and, as we have learned, his sycophants' efforts to collude with foreign powers.  Now, Trump, to protect himself, is moving to destroy the rule of law and ultimately democracy in America.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this dangerous crisis.  Here are excerpts:

Stop waiting for the constitutional crisis that President Trump is sure to provoke. It’s here.

On Sunday, via Twitter, Trump demanded that the Justice Department concoct a transparently political investigation, with the aim of smearing veteran professionals at Justice and the FBI and also throwing mud at the previous administration. Trump’s only rational goal is casting doubt on the probe by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, which appears to be closing in.

Trump’s power play is a gross misuse of his presidential authority and a dangerous departure from long-standing norms. Strongmen such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin use their justice systems to punish enemies and deflect attention from their own crimes. Presidents of the United States do not — or did not, until Sunday’s tweet:

“I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes — and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Rather than push back and defend the rule of law, Justice tried to mollify [Trump] the president by at least appearing to give him what he wants. The Republican leadership in Congress has been silent as a mouse. This is how uncrossable lines are crossed.

The pretext Trump seized on is the revelation that FBI source Stefan A. Halper made contact with three Trump campaign associates before the election as part of the FBI’s initial investigation into Russian meddling.

The informant was not embedded or implanted or otherwise inserted into the campaign. He was asked to contact several campaign figures whose names had already surfaced in the FBI’s counterintelligence probe. It would have been an appalling dereliction of duty not to take a look at Trump advisers with Russia ties, such as Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, when the outlines of a Russian campaign to influence the election were emerging.

This conspiracy theory has so many holes in it that it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s start with the glaringly obvious: If the aim was to make Trump lose, why wasn’t all the known information about the Trump campaign’s Russia connections leaked before the election, when it might have had some impact?

The truth appears to be precisely the opposite of what Trump says, which is not uncommon. The record suggests that Justice and the FBI were so uncomfortable investigating a presidential campaign in the weeks and months before an election that they tiptoed around promising lines of inquiry rather than appear to be taking a side. . . . . we had no idea that such a mature investigation of the Trump campaign was underway.

Now that the Mueller probe has bored into Trump’s inner circle — and federal authorities have raided the homes and office of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen — [Trump] the president appears to be in a panic. The question is whether he sees this “spy” nonsense as a way to discredit Mueller’s eventual findings, or as a pretext for trying to end the investigation with a bloody purge akin to Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”

The Justice Department answered Trump’s tweeted demand by announcing that an existing investigation by its inspector general will now “include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation” by the FBI. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein may hope that is enough to avoid a showdown. I fear he is wrong.

None of this is normal or acceptable. One of the bedrock principles of our system of government is that no one is above the law, not even the president. But a gutless Congress has refused, so far, to protect this sacred inheritance.

Trump is determined to use the Justice Department and the FBI to punish those he sees as political enemies. This is a crisis, and it will get worse.

The Flaw in Trump's Russiagate Excuse That the FBI Set Him Up

Satan is sometimes referred to as the "Lord of Lies."  In 2018 America, the name also applies to the occupant of the White House who - like his evangelical supporters - must be assumed to be lying if his lips are moving.  Sadly, the same applies to most of the Republican leadership in Congress.  The latest lie being circulated is that somehow the FBI plotted to "entrap" Trump and his minions in a scandal of Russian collusion.  Never mind the issue that if one has no criminal or sinister intent, it is hard to be entrapped in the first place.  Plus, as a piece in New York Magazine lays out, the key to the supposed plot - an "October surprise" - never occurred.  If anything, James Comey's baseless letter in October about reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton, shows that Trump and devin Nune' latest manufactured conspiracy theory is absolutely ridiculous.  Not, of course, that Trump's mindless base of support will ever be swayed but the baselessness of the newest effort to undermine the FBI and the Russiagate investigation.  Here are article excerpts:

There has been no more barometrically reliable insight into the Trump administration’s defense strategy on Russia than Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel. Her weekly missives, essentially transcribed straight from the fevered mind of Devin Nunes, bring the readers up to date on every twist and turn in the developing conspiracy theories about the nefarious Deep State plot to frame the innocent president.
Strassel’s latest missive brings into view the latest working theory. It holds that James Comey planted a spy in the Trump campaign, in order to set in motion an investigation that would be used to smear Trump as a Russian tool, and thereby to hand the election to Hillary Clinton. This is the theory Trump is referring to when he rages about a plot that is “worse than Watergate.”
Put aside for a moment whether it is actually scandalous for the FBI to use an informant to uncover evidence of criminal conduct. The argument is that the clear purpose of this maneuver was to influence the 2016 election.Except there’s one tiny flaw in this theory: They never sprang the October surprise. The FBI kept a tight lid on the investigation — so tight, in fact, they floated a misleading story in the New York Times conveying the false impression that they saw no ties to Russia. Clinton did help finance Christopher Steele’s investigation, but also did not publish his reporting. And the Obama administration also kept a tight lid on the disturbing details that emerged. The farthest Obama went was to ask leaders of both parties to join in a bipartisan statement warning Russia not to interfere with the election — and when Mitch McConnell refused, they did nothing. When voting took place in November 2016, as far as the public was concerned, Clinton had been under FBI investigation and Trump had not.
This alleged secret plan to smear Trump only works if you actually let people know about it.
The details of the FBI investigation and Steele’s report did begin to leak out in January 2017. But there’s a reason the trick is called “October surprise” and not “January After the Election surprise.”