Introduction by The Editor:
Donald Trump is a political outsider, starting his political career at the top.  One of President Trump's biggest obstacles is the Washington Establishment, also known as the Deep State.  These are the career bureaucrats, especially those in the Pentagon and the three-letter spy agencies who are quite comfortable with the way Washington works and don't want anyone to rock the boat, to say nothing of draining the swamp.

Related pages:

Obstructionism
The numerous traps and stink bombs Obama left for Trum

Background, overview and recap articles:

(Scroll down for timely news, or click here.)

The Deep State Exposed Itself.  The Deep State promised that Trump would crash the economy and impetuously start wars.  Instead, he stopped wars, reduced the cost of energy, and expanded middle-class opportunities.  The Deep State insisted that he had "colluded" with Russia.  In reality, Hillary Clinton's campaign and Barack Obama's espionage chiefs invented the Russia Hoax in order to illegally spy on Trump and pressure him into leaving office.  The Deep State claimed that Trump engaged in an illicit quid-pro-quo arrangement with Ukraine in order to get political "dirt" on Biden.  In truth, he exposed both Biden's and other Deep State players' financial corruption with foreign regimes.  The Deep State says President Trump must go to prison for leaving office with classified documents (even though the president possesses inherent classification authority) but that Jim Comey, Hillary Clinton, Mike Pence, Joe Biden, and countless other Establishment offenders should be excused for unlawfully possessing classified documents of their own.  The Deep State says that it was perfectly fine for Barack Obama to use drone strikes to murder U.S. citizens without any form of due process and to deliver political speeches that encouraged violence against police officers (and resulted in a number of targeted assassinations during his presidency).  At the same time, the Deep State claims that President Trump's January 6, 2021 speech questioning the 2020 election's legitimacy in the wake of rampant mail-in ballot fraud was an act of "treason" deserving of the death penalty.  For eight years now, the Deep State's two-tiered "justice," overt propaganda, and malicious political targeting have been too conspicuous for rational people to ignore.

Gitmo's Unsolved Deaths.  If street thug prosecutors manage to railroad President Trump to prison, could he be Epsteined?  Many Americans would be shocked to know that the government has previously covered up horrible prison deaths with outrageous lies.  One of the most notorious incidents happened at a secret CIA facility located just outside the perimeter of Guantanamo. [...] The incidents at Guantanamo starkly reveal how easy it is for the Deep State to conceal crimes of murder.  Instead of being forthright, they spew out nonsense with impunity.  The big question is whether Trump needs to fear being their next victim.

The Invisible Power Controlling the US Government.  Inverted totalitarianism does not have an authoritarian leader, but instead is run by a non-transparent group of bureaucrats.  This unelected, invisible ruling class runs the country from within.  They are easily influenced by corporate interests due to both the lure of powerful jobs after federal employment and the capture of our legislative bodies by the lobbyists serving concealed corporate interests.  One element of inverted totalitarianism is that the administrative state typically inserts stricter and stricter rules and regulations to control the populace.  Not at the behest of Congress or the President, but rather by and for the interests of the administrative state itself.  Power begets power.  We the people are forced into compliance by an unknown and unknowable invisible ruling class, with no way to even understand who, what, or how they are forcing this compliance upon us.  As if that is not bad enough, in these modern times, the globalist corporations and financial groups have come to play a larger and larger role in controlling this administrative state.

The Silent Coup.  Many historians and folks who just read the newspaper every morning and watch the news at night felt that something quite different and very odd was occurring.  Where were all the leaks coming from?  Why all the Russia Russia Russia talk?  What was all this 25th Amendment talk about?  Why was there immediate talk of impeachment?  What was with the quick firing of Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn by Vice President Mike Pence?  Why did the progressive liberal media obviously show that they had a favorite?  Why the criminality in the 2020 election?  Why the Jan. 6 roundup of citizens who only wanted free and fair elections?  Now it is clear for all to see, the Deep State was running a coup against Donald Trump.  A coup against candidate Trump.  A coup against President-elect Trump.  And a coup against President Trump while in office.  The Deep State, including the Fourth Branch of government (the intelligence apparatus), went after Trump from the moment he came down the escalators.  Not a military coup that we once thought of from a banana republic.  No rifle fire, hand grenades, nor mortar launchers.  But a soft and silent, yet deadly coup done by people with suits and ties and dresses and skirts in law firms and excutive offices.

Trump uncovered a spirit of racketeering running the country.  When I look at the last four years and how our country seemed to get more divided than any time since the Civil War, it's easy to conclude that President Trump is the reason it occurred.  From the moment he declared war on the corruption in D.C., he became a target of all those entrenched power brokers who have been able to hide their venal activities from an unsuspecting public.  Trump became the loudest whistleblower in history when he talked about draining the swamp that had been operating like an organized crime family for generations.  In order for a Mafia-like mob to operate effectively, it must keep its nefarious pursuits from public exposure.  Hence, President Trump had to be destroyed!

The Insect Politicians of the Administrative State.  The United States Civil Service, sometimes called the "administrative state" or "deep state," is supposed to be professional.  It ought to be apolitical, like an ant colony or beehive, serving a queen, the sovereign people, as they express themselves, under law, through their representatives in the elected offices.  Whether the designers of the modern progressive civil service intended it to be apolitical is an open question.  Even if it were so designed, civil servants are not and cannot be ants or bees.  They are people.  Without robust mechanisms — prompt dismissals, firings, and swift and unfeelingly severe sanctions for misconduct — to enforce the political will of the sovereign people, they are bound to express a political will of their own.  They will become insect politicians.

Federalist Co-Founder Notes The Real Reason Behind The Media's Trump-Ukraine Obsession.  Since the 2016 election, the media has just been engulfed with Trump Derangement Syndrome.  They hate Trump.  They hate Republicans.  And this has blinded them to being hit with buckshot on a near-daily basis.  For two years, they peddled the Trump-Russia collusion myth that was a manufactured lie based on the infamous Steele Dossier, aka Trump dossier, that was compiled by ex-MI6 spook Christopher Steele.  It was never fully verified, most of the allegations in it were trash, and even members of British intelligence were skeptical.  The FBI was not, as evidenced by their lack of due diligence in verifying this biased piece of political propaganda.  A Google search could have pointed out the glaring errors within the dossier.  This was a political opposition research project funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democrats.  It was based on second-hand sources, some of which were still active in the Kremlin.  If anything, this proves Clinton-Russia collusion and interference in the 2016 election.  The report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller debunked this entire project.  So, the Democrats had to suffer humiliation, as did their media allies — but impeachment was still the end goal.  It was why they retook the House in 2018.

Lets Call the Russian Collusion "Hoax" What it Really is.  Euphemism, the counterfeit of good manners, is the enemy of truth, which is the only ally worth having.  I have been thinking about this constellation of ideas recently as the news has been full of talk about the "Russian collusion hoax."  Use of the term "hoax" got a big boost in the aftermath of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on the question of whether there was actionable cooperation, coordination, or collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.  Two years, $34 million, and a wide swath of debilitating rumor, innuendo, and unrelated indictments and prosecutions later and we know that the answer to that question is "No, there was no cooperation, coordination, or collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin." [...] But thinking about it, I conclude that the term "hoax" is wholly inadequate to describe the enormity of the political scandal that was perpetrated against Donald Trump, against the office of the president, and ultimately against the American people.

Sally Yates -vs- Michael Flynn.  After the November 8th, 2016, election everyone within the Obama network associated with the Trump surveillance operation was at risk.  This is the impetus for the "Muh Russia" collusion-conspiracy narrative that was used as a mitigating shield.  Within a few days after the election ODNI James Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan began pushing the Russia election interference narrative in the media.  Without notifying anyone, NSA Director Mike Rogers went to Trump tower on November 18th, 2016.  Despite his compartmentalization it appears Rogers identified the NSA database abuse as the likely underpinning for some form of political surveillance.  By mid-December 2016 the Obama administration was deploying a full-court-press using their media allies to promote the Russia conspiracy.  However, despite their public proclamations Clapper and Brennan were refusing to give any specifics to congress.

USA Today Calls For Investigation Into Obama-Era Deep State Election Manipulation.  Interesting indeed!  Here is the left-leaning USA Today finally calling for an accounting of Obama-era officials, (including Mr. Obama himself) and the roles they played in what became the 2+ year-long, multi-million dollar waste of time known as the Mueller investigation that saw the U.S. intelligence agencies politically weaponized to alter the Election Day outcome.  Treason, sedition, intimidation, corruption, you name it they seemingly did it all.

Real Scandal Of Trump Term Starts To Unravel.  The most immense and dangerous public scandal in American history is finally cracking open like a ripe pomegranate.  The broad swath of the Trump-hating press that has participated in what has amounted to an unconstitutional attempt to overthrow the government are reduced to reporting the events and revelations of the scandal in which they have been complicit, in a po-faced ho-hum manner to impart to the misinformed public that this is as routine as stock market fluctuations or the burning of an American flag in Tehran.  For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives:  that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result by falsely propagating the first narrative.  It is now obvious and indisputable that the second narrative is the correct one.

The Enemy Within.  What we learned in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election in the United States was the most shocking secret our country has ever had to come to terms with:  the US Government had become a criminal enterprise controlled by a cabal of elite insiders; "The Enemy Within".  This was decades in the making, but we were warned this day would come.  We were told in the founding fathers own words about governments turning on their people, and the people's right to 'throw off the chains of Tyranny', to President Eisenhower's famous speech warning us about the grave danger posed by a large military alliance and partnership with the private sector companies that make up the defense contractor community — what he called the Military Industrial complex.  Decades after President Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial complex, his nightmare has come to life. [...] America's rise to this National Security State was driven by the cold war, but it has become a permanent fixture for two ever present reasons:  money, and power.

Criminality Of Deep State Investigation Of Trump Confirmed — Has U.S. Become A Banana Republic?  Both the Justice Department and FBI have maintained they didn't really know that Trump Dossier compiler Christopher Steele had any bias at all against Trump.  And, even when they got their hands on Steele's unverified dossier on Trump, they claim they didn't know that Steele's employer, Fusion GPS, had any conflicts of interest.  Moreover, when they appeared before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to get the OK to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page, they didn't tell the court what they knew.  They lied.  Or at the very minimum, concealed the truth.  This is a crime.  How can we be sure that top officials at Justice and the FBI knew all this?  Ohr said so.

Red Handed:  All the Collusion was in the Deep State.  Let's begin with the obvious — if President Trump's foreign policy views warranted an FBI investigation, then why didn't the bureau probe the pro-Russia stances of former American leaders such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton?  Many forget that President Obama once told his Russian counterpart at the time, Vladimir Putin lackey Dmitry Medvedev, that he would have "more flexibility" after his re-election in 2012 — an ominous indication that Obama was cutting secret deals with the Russian government behind the scenes.  Remarkably, he then stood by and did nothing as Putin invaded Ukraine.  Likewise, Hillary Clinton was never investigated for her disastrous "Russia reset" in the early years of the Obama administration and received no meaningful scrutiny for the sale of Uranium One to Russia despite receiving $145 million in donations from some of the people involved in that transaction through the Clinton Foundation. [...] Then there's Senator Dianne Feinstein, a member of the "Gang of Eight" and a member of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, who employed a Chinese spy for 20 years.  Did the FBI treat her as a Chinese asset?  No, they went directly to her and briefed her on the problem.

Democrats: A plague on the nation.  Our once most revered institutions, the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA, have been thoroughly corrupted.  Mueller, a willing participant in that corruption, is up to his eyeballs in the cover-up.  Will any of these people at the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA, ever be held accountable?  To date, they have not been.  The power they have within the Deep State is beyond formidable; it is seemingly absolute.  It appears that America has become a sort of medieval oligarchy.  Trump, as the outsider he is, is a grave threat to all of those who believed they were in control in perpetuity.  They are ready and willing to do anything, no matter how illegal or immoral, to depose him, to expel him from office.

The War On Trump Is All About Keeping Liberals And Their Lackeys In Power.  [T]his year ends with our loser ruling class shedding any pretense of legitimacy in its quest to reclaim the power we took back from it in 2016.  The reaction to Donald Trump by our alleged betters [...] is instructive.  They have abandoned all the principles they once claimed to support — democracy, civil rights, due process, and equality.  None of those principles help them to keep or regain power anymore, so they are expendable.  As are you.  Liberalism was always a lie and a scam, right from its sordid beginnings among the progressives with their creepy messianic fervor, their infatuation with "expertise" (and hence, their embrace of evils like eugenics), and their contempt for the Constitution.  Liberals consider themselves the anointed, divinely entitled to rule over us lesser folk, and they aren't going to let anything get in the way of retaking the throne.

Are the Investigations the Cover-Up?  Those of us who have been paying attention know that serious crimes were committed at the highest levels of government in an attempt to exonerate Hillary Clinton and frame Donald Trump.  There was collusion between government agencies, including collusion with foreign agents, to illegally influence the 2016 Presidential election.  There is enough evidence on the table to be confident of these claims.  And those of us who care about rule of law, who want to see justice done to the criminals in this conspiracy, have been waiting for years to see that happen.  We hear that these serious matters are being investigated.  We hear that there are whistleblowers inside the government who want to come forward and expose the corruption.  We hear that there are many, many more documents which will substantiate our worst fears about one of the greatest scandals in the history of our country.  We have been assured that there are several investigations looking into the various aspect of this abuse of power.  Inspector General Michael Horowitz, prosecutor John Huber, and others are looking into the corruption.  Mueller is supposedly tasked with exposing foreign influence on the Presidential election.  But what if the 'investigations' are really the cover-up?  What if the investigations are carefully structured to protect criminal actions rather than expose them?  What if the investigations are actually being used to hide evidence from the citizenry?

The Democrats Are the Threat to Democracy.  In fact, Trump has spent the last two years having the legitimacy of his unprecedented election to the presidency challenged by unelected and unaccountable members of the U.S. intelligence community — all of whom have partisan axes to grind against Trump.  The president fired FBI Director James Comey; he helped to remove senior FBI officials, like Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page; Trump revoked the security clearances of former officials, like John Brennan, not because he was hiding something from the world.  Rather, Trump took these actions as a means of self-defense against former Obama officials masquerading as unbiased intelligence officers.  Fact is, the intelligence community — like the rest of the federal government — was weaponized by former President Barack Obama and used to punish political enemies of the Democratic Party.

Fake bombs are not bombs.  Fake news is fake news.  The American left to this day is unable to accept the results of the 2016 election.  So certain that their candidate would prevail, they have suffered a psychotic break from which they have not recovered.  Every sentient being now knows that it was Hillary, the DNC, the FBI, the DOJ, and the NSA that collaborated to prevent Trump from becoming president.  She and they fabricated the "dossier," planted spies in the Trump campaign, falsified FISA warrants, and leaked to the media.  Their plan was a Deep State coup like nothing else in U.S. history.

Spygate: The True Story of Collusion.  The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment.  Here was a true political outsider who held no traditional allegiances.  He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't care what others thought of him — he trusted himself.  Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried.  Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy, regulations, and the power of special interests.  He challenged Congress.  He challenged the United Nations and the European Union.  He questioned everything.

Yes, The Deep State Is Real — And Working To Undermine Our Nation.  President Trump earlier this week said that he would release a trove of documents related to the Russia investigation and declassify their contents.  Included are 21 pages taken from a June 2017 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application used to spy on former Trump aide Carter Page.  Along with those pages, Trump also seeks release of unredacted FBI notes made during interviews conducted for the FISA application, along with text messages related to Russia and notes from FBI interviews with Bruce Ohr, the No. 4 official in the Justice Department.  Why is that key?  Ohr had close ties to former British spy Christopher Steele, who authored the so-called Trump dossier for Fusion GPS.  Steele, whose work was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and by the Clinton-controlled Democratic National Committee, served as an informant to the FBI until he was let go for leaking to the media.  But Ohr's wife, Nellie, continued to work for Fusion GPS, a fact that Bruce Ohr didn't reveal on his mandatory federal disclosure filings.

Knowing What We Know Now, We Must Remind Ourselves.  As we absorb the corrupt evidence within what the DOJ, FBI, CIA and intelligence community was willing to do to stop the Trump administration; as we absorb the totality of all methods deployed by the professional political establishment to destroy Donald J Trump; as we begin to quantify the scale of corruption within our political institutions, and continue bearing witness to the ongoing war against our the presidency; it is worthwhile revisiting a warning, a call to arms, from two-years-ago.  The lies, the severity of hatred and opposition, now make much more sense.

How Anti-Trump Leakers Moved From Offense to Defense.  RCI has found that the anti-Trump leaks fall into two broad categories, or phases.  Initially the leaking was an offensive operation aimed at disrupting Trump's agenda, especially through leaks alleging connections between his campaign and the Russians.  Its early successes included leaks of highly classified material that led to the firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions from overseeing that probe.  The second phase — which began roughly a year into the Trump administration — has been more defensive, pushing back against congressional oversight committees that had uncovered irregularities in the FBI's investigation of Trump.  This phase has been marked by the willingness of press outlets to run stories backing off earlier reported leaks that proved to be deeply misleading — including the roots of the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign and the relationship between Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr and the opposition research firm that produced a central document of that probe, the largely discredited "Steele dossier."

The Three Hard Truths of the Trump Era.  [#3] The deep state is real.  Despite the media's obsessive and positive coverage of Robert Mueller's "collusion" investigation, and their willful shooing aside of its numerous shortcomings and inconsistencies, the truth is slowly but surely coming out.  And it appears Trump was right all along.  There can be little doubt that, given what we know now, federal agencies were harnessed to both excuse Hillary Clinton's transgressions and impede Donald Trump's Presidency.  The facts are:  [A] Partisan agents loyal to Hillary were hugely influential in both the investigation into her emails and the investigation into Trump's collusion with Russia.  [B] The FBI relied heavily on the Steele dossier, which has been largely debunked, to justify its collusion investigation.  [C]  There were numerous conflicts of interest in both investigations:  in regards to Hillary's emails, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe's wife had ties to long-time Clinton ally and former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe.  In regards to Mueller's "collusion" investigation, the wife of a top DOJ official was hired by FusionGPS, the firm behind the notorious dirty dossier, specifically to investigate the President.

Mueller, Comey, and the Deep State Rescue of Sandy Berger.  [Scroll down]  Republican presidents struggle against a collective of entrenched careerists, soulless opportunists, and left-wing ideologues — the so-called "deep state."  The ideologues are in it for the power, the careerists for the pensions, and the opportunists for the applause.  Working together with their media partners, they follow the path of least resistance, which is almost inevitably to the left.  When a Democrat is president, they have his back.

You're Surrounded Mr. Mueller, Give Yourself Up.  [Scroll down]  Seamus Bruner of The Epoch Times has just put together a list of 25 DOJ and FBI officials who have resigned in the last year. [...] As I look at this list, I know it includes only a fraction of those who have risked their careers and their reputations because they simply couldn't bear to see Donald Trump in the White House.  Before this is over, others will be added to the list.  Perhaps even Rod Rosenstein.  And there will likely be former top-level Obama officials caught in the net as well.  Perjurers John Brennan and James Clapper come to mind.  In addition to the men and women who have been working against Trump in the DOJ and the FBI, there were/are employees in the State Department and the CIA, holdovers from the Obama administration, who are complicit.  The mainstream media has played a huge role in perpetuating this hoax.  They have breathlessly distorted events to influence public opinion.  Instead of reporting the news, they have worked overtime to shape it.  For an example of how the mainstream media has aided and abetted the left's attempt to impeach Trump, we need to look no further than their outrage over the revocation of John Brennan's security clearance.

Why aren't the Democrats horrified by the corruption at the FBI and DOJ?  It is becoming clearer by the day, after over a year of investigations, that the Obama administration did indeed weaponize the DOJ, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the IRS and the NSA.  Over those eight years, each of the above agencies was transformed into an arm of the Democratic Party tasked with crippling the opposition and abrogating the Constitution.  Since all of the mainstream media already were arms of the DNC, it is well and truly a miracle that Donald Trump prevailed throughout his campaign to win the election, as the entire DC bureaucracy and media were aligned against him.  Most of them still are.

The Deep State Wears Black Robes.  Freedom Watch Founder Larry Klayman discusses the bad legal advice President Trump is getting about Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia-gate probe and urges the president to hire new lawyers to go after Mueller and the Deep State.  He also declares Judge Brett Kavanaugh "uniquely unqualified and unfit" to serve on the Supreme Court because of his controversial decision in favor of Barack Hussein Obama's illegal NSA mass surveillance program, which targeted President Trump!  Klayman is proposing the use of citizen grand juries to go after the Deep State operatives who control the intelligence agencies and have "the ability to gather information to blackmail" people such as Kavanaugh to do their bidding.  [Video clip]

It's Oakland in Muellerville.  Wikipedia defines this autogleipsimous activity as "a self-perpetuating system that has no purpose other than to sustain itself."  The Mueller investigation and its attendant pseudo-pods in the media and "intelligence community" are indeed self-perpetuating.  But they exhibit a purpose that goes far beyond their own self-perpetuation.  No, in this safari, big game is the object, the end, the purpose, to wit the destruction of the president of the United States.  That is the true purpose of this charade:  not the truth about "Russian meddling," not alleged wrong doing by Paul Manafort in 2005, not a lack of candor under FBI questioning by George Papadopoulos (who?) or Michael Flynn.  The one true purpose (in addition to the welcome subsidiary effect of helping out the ratings of the MSM) is to hobble Donald Trump, a prelude to removing him from office.

Just How Far Will the Left Go?  The Obama apparat and the proverbial deep state never imagined Trump could win and thus to ensure that he would not just be defeated but humiliated, vied to use the power of government to destroy the Trump candidacy.  The National Security Council was weaponized and thus unmasked the names of surveilled Americans and leaked their names to the press to undermine the Trump campaign.  The Department of Justice was weaponized to ensure Hillary Clinton was exonerated for her misdeeds concerning her email server and quid pro quo collusion with a variety of foreign and domestic influence peddlers and buyers.  The FBI and CIA were weaponized to subvert the Trump campaign, by peddling an unverified smear dossier, paid for by Hillary Clinton, by implanting informants into the Trump campaign, and by undermining a FISA court through dishonest presentations of evidence for warrants to spy on American citizens.  All such behavior was assumed to ensure the landslide Clinton victory and thus would be seen as sacrifice beyond the call of duty to be rewarded by a President Clinton not as illegal behavior to be punished during a Trump administration.  And as a result, the more culpability that was exposed, the more the culpable went on the offensive — on the theory that constant attack is the best defense against their own criminal liability.  T

The Real Threat to American Democracy.  We know that the FBI and DOJ swept under the rug Hillary's gross negligence in handling classified information and that Bill Clinton arranged a secret meeting with Loretta Lynch while the investigation was ongoing.  The only reason we know that the meeting occurred was due to the efforts of one brave local investigative reporter.  To this day, the FBI and DOJ are waging a war on the president — nothing less than an attempt to nullify the people's vote in 2016.  Clearly, the FBI's and DOJ's malicious attacks on the president indicate that they think power belongs to the ruling elites, not the people.

Obama single-handedly ruined the FBI and the DOJ.  While the devious machinations of the Deep State are not new, it was the Obama administration, most likely Obama himself, who brought us to this low point, the wholesale corruption of the FBI and the DOJ leadership.  Obama surrounded himself with like-minded globalist elites who thought no laws applied to them:  Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Valerie Jarrett, the Podestas, Ben Rhodes, Jonathan Gruber, and more.  Eric Holder was the most unprincipled attorney general, more even than John Mitchell, who served time in federal prison.  We learned from the I.G. report that Obama lied when he said he learned of HRC's private server from the media.  He knew because he, too, corresponded with her from a private email, just as Comey used a non-FBI email account.  None of these people, not one, respected our Constitution or the laws meant to govern their agencies.  This is what Obama did to America.  He virtually destroyed the FBI, the CIA, and the DOJ by turning them into weapons with which to destroy his opponents.

The Deep State Is an Organism, Not a Conspiracy.  The FBI folks like Strzok, Page, McCabe, Attorney #2 and so on appear to have been an actual conspiracy (definition: a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful) but they alone certainly aren't sufficient to justify people talking about a "Deep State."  But that's beside the point.  From the point of view of the Administrative State, which survives on a diet of fresh government programs and mutual backscratching, Trump's unexpected election was like a wound.  It was a danger to the organism, and the organism responded using its immune system — which is composed of "incompetence, idiocy, bureaucratic self-aggrandizement, and partisan hackery."

From 9/11 to Spygate:  The National Security Deep State.  [Scroll down]  We know some of what Mueller was doing.  The same official who paved the way for raiding the president's lawyer, who illegally seized material from the Trump transition team and whose case is based in no small part on illegal eavesdropping, fought alongside Comey against surveilling terrorists.  Materials involving the Muslim Brotherhood were purged.  Toward the dawn of the second Obama term, Mueller met with CAIR and other Islamist groups and a green curtain fell over national security.  But the surveillance wasn't going anywhere.  Instead it was being redirected to new targets.  Those targets were not, despite the wave of hysterical conspiracy theories convulsing the media, the Russians.  Mueller's boss was still quite fond of them.  Barack Obama did have foreign enemies that he wanted to spy on.  And there were plenty of domestic enemies who could be caught up in that trap.

Spygate:  The Coming Storm.  A growing segment of the American public now knows that the country's intelligence community was spying on the Trump campaign, and then attempting to sabotage the Trump Administration with false allegations of "Russian collusion."  That's #Spygate in a sentence.  A long and tawdry web composed of lies, obstruction, and leaking has slowly been unraveled until the falsehoods of the FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, and other assorted deep state actors were revealed.  FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has been fired, and is counting his GoFundMe cash in preparation for large legal bills.  Former FBI Director James Comey publicly set fire to his reputation during his recent book tour.  James Clapper was hired recently on CNN to analyze all the nefarious stuff he did as the former director of national intelligence.  Last, but certainly not least, former CIA head John Brennan has had to settle for pompous raging on Twitter — which is just about the most amateur thing that an ex-spymaster can possibly do.  The erstwhile leaders of our "intelligence community" have proven to be not very intelligent at all.

Why the Mueller probe is really five scandals, not one.  [Scandal #3]  The calculated effort to undermine and discredit then-candidate and now-President Donald Trump is actually a continuation of a deep anti-Republican bias in the Justice Department.  This Justice Department tradition is well catalogued in Sidney Powell's stunning book, "Licensed to Lie:  Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice."  If you have any illusions about the Justice Department's objectivity, keep in mind that employees of this department gave 97 percent of their 2016 campaign donations to Hillary Clinton — while the department was supposedly investigating her for illegally using a private email server to send and receive classified information as secretary of state.

An Unparalleled Scandal.  The Deep State is clearly out of control.  Back when we uncovered the Clinton email scandal, Judicial Watch fought tooth and nail with the State Department, the Justice Department and the FBI for documents.  Little did we know that, even as they were protecting Hillary Clinton, these agencies were also targeting her political opponent, Donald Trump.  And, since then, we've uncovered a scandal unparalleled in American history in terms of abuse by government officials, offices, and agencies for political purposes.  The Obama administration used the Justice Department, the FBI, and other agencies to spy on its political opposition; and worked with Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, to launder suspect intelligence from foreign nationals and use that as a pretext to spy on Donald Trump and his associates.  It's an incredible story, one that begins with the Obama White House and continues in the Deep State today.

A Conspiracy of Dunces.  Imagine, if you will, a cabal of government employees expecting one person to easily win the presidential election, and then the other candidate, the one they couldn't fathom leading the country, actually wins.  Now imagine those government employees aren't slogging away in the mailrooms of various departments, but they are the upper-echelon of the nation's intelligence agencies and they resolve to cripple the newly-elected president anyway they can.  You don't have to imagine it, it happened.  And we appear to be living in the aftermath of that effort.

Attacking Trump's Attorney:  Calling All Tea Partiers.  Raiding the office of the personal attorney of the president of the United States is the most outrageous of the Deep State's unprecedented, unhinged, and relentless attempts to overturn the 2016 election.  This raid should tell everyone that the Deep State will twist and bend the law to get rid of Trump.  As stated by President Trump, the Deep State truly is engaged in a disgraceful witch hunt.  Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton are loyal Deep State operatives.  They have been stealthily transforming America into a socialist-progressive nation in which the federal government controls every aspect of our lives.  Trump is the new sheriff in town determined to crush the Washington, D.C. cartel by draining the swamp.  The Deep State is determined to block and destroy Trump at any and all cost.

The left at work:  Let's hope Trump survives.  The country is at present enduring the dire consequences of the depth and breadth of the Obama administration's many illegal activities.  Former CIA chief John Brennan surveilled American citizens, some of them senators, as Obama was pushing the horrific Iran deal, and he's never been charged with that crime.  In collusion with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, these Obama operatives used a fictional dossier to obtain FISA warrants to spy on Trump campaign officials.  They seriously meant to prevent him from getting close to a victory.  They conspired to clear Hillary Clinton of her many crimes so she could continue her bid for the presidency.  Who are the culprits?  All upper-echelon bureaucrats who considered themselves above the law:  Comey, Holder, Lynch, Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Rice, and Power are well known names, the public faces of Obama's administration.  Now we know there was a host of lesser known operatives working behind the scenes, as Lois Lerner did, to manipulate facts and events in order to ensure Clinton's win.  Without question, this bunch of white-collar criminals has orchestrated the biggest, most serious campaign of political corruption in American history.  One would think every member of both parties in Congress would be outraged, that every American would be equally angry.  But no.  The Democrats have all lined up to defend these felons, and the Democrats are absolutely without shame in doing so.

America Is In Utter Jeopardy.  The vicious hatred of President Donald J. Trump by people ranging from republican party statists like Paul Ryan or the retiring Jeff Flake and democrats like Chuckie Schumer is not because Mr. Trump is the most horrible person to set foot in the Oval Office.  The hatred of Trump stems from his mission to reverse the curse of putting the interests of foreign nations and illegal border-crossers over the interests of you and I, Americans born and raised.  The simple yet powerful mission to make America great again immediately became a dividing line between those of us who love this republic and appreciate her many good attributes and the others who wish for her demise.  As horrific as the situation is politically with the swamp dwelling statists who are seeking to kill, steal and destroy our unalienable rights, especially the right to bear arms and protect ourselves, family and property.  That struggle pales in comparison to the awful drumbeat of government school indoctrination that has literally caused the creation of legions of young Americans who are literally seeking to destroy the republic from within.

This trap was set well before Trump won.  So this is the new standard for electing a president here in America, the greatest living experiment in self-governance.  A man can run the gauntlet against more than 20 professional politicians and come out victorious.  He can win more than 40 Republican primary contests and beat every professional political campaigner out there, earning the votes of more than 14 million Republicans.  He can then turn his attention to beating the most powerful, entrenched political machine America has seen in nearly a half-century.  (That corrupt machine had just pulled off its most devious and dishonest scam ever — rigging a presidential primary to snatch the party's preferred Socialist candidate away from Democrat voters.)  In the end, President Trump won the presidency fair and square, earning the votes of more than 60 million Americans and — crucially — winning the 30 states he needed to take the White House.

Timely news and commentary:

The subsection about General Mark Milley is now at the bottom of this page.)

Trump attorneys claim evidence of 'grave juror misconduct' during hush money trial.  President-elect Trump's attorneys have accused a member of the New York jury that convicted him of wrongdoing, seeking to overturn the historic guilty verdict.  In a letter to Judge Juan Merchan unsealed Tuesday, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove claimed the legal team has "evidence of grave juror misconduct during the trial."  "The jury in this case was not anywhere near fair and impartial," they alleged.  But prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney's office called the allegations "untested" and "unsworn," casting the claim as an effort to undermine public confidence in the case.  Details of the allegations were heavily redacted and concealed from public view.  Merchan said in a separate letter that he ordered the redactions to ensure the safety of jurors, who have remained anonymous, and preserve the case's integrity.

Deep State Officials Opposing Tulsi Gabbard's Nomination Have Close Ties To Defense Contractors, Censorship Tools.  Numerous officials that signed a letter opposing Tulsi Gabbard's nomination for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are tied to groups targeting "election misinformation," left-wing organizations, intelligence agencies and defense contractors.  Certain members of Foreign Policy for America, the group behind the letter, are linked to entities from Lockheed Martin to George Soros's Open Society Foundations.  Nearly 100 national security officials published a letter calling for a "thorough vetting" of Gabbard, and it was addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and soon-to-be Majority Leader John Thune.  [Advertisement]  Former Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman criticized Gabbard's views on the Russia-Ukraine war, former head of U.S. counterintelligence Joel Brenner blasted the nomination as "an insult to our intelligence agencies," and former Senior CIA officer Melvin Gamble said her nomination "should worry any American who cares about keeping our country safe."  But these very same people are part of the cohort of intelligence officials President-elect Donald Trump has signaled he wants to remove from power.  [Tweet]

Who's Funding the Radical Trump-Hating 65 Project? — Now We Know.  The 65 Project is an NGO affiliate attempting to disbar lawyers including 7 attorneys general, a governor and a couple of senators.  All, of course Republicans.  Common Sense Elections is using the Fractal Dark Money Tracking System, built in 2024 to track not only the immediate funding source, but show the connections to the thousands of Leftist NGOs in the Leftisphere.  Leftist NGOs operate with tax-exempt money, undermining American institutions, interfering in elections, with no regulation.  These groups can attack some of the country's most respected jurists, like Professor Dershowitz or John Eastman, and nobody does anything about it.

Three Russia Hoax Bombshells Hidden In IG Report On DOJ Surveillance Of Congress.  Last week the Department of Justice's inspector general released a report on some of the DOJ's tracking of communications from media and congressional figures as part of its purported investigation into who was leaking classified information against President Donald Trump in 2017. Three significant bombshells about the Russia collusion hoax were hidden inside the dense and dry 100-page report.  For context, when Trump won the 2016 presidential election, anonymous Democrat operatives in the federal government and Congress began leaking like sieves as part of a coordinated effort to paint Trump as a mastermind spy who had worked with Russian President Vladimir Putin for decades in order to steal the election.  Two Washington Post stories, a New York Times story, and a CNN story were all found to have included classified information.  None of the four stories are specified in the report, but they all appeared in the first half of President Trump's first year in office.

Judge Merchan Rejects Trump's Effort to Overturn Felony Conviction Despite Presidential Immunity Ruling From Supreme Court.  Judge Juan Merchan on Monday upheld the 34 felony convictions against President Trump despite the Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling.  In April, Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts after he was accused of paying porn star Stormy Daniels, AKA, Stephanie Clifford, 'hush payments' through his then-attorney Michael Cohen in a scheme to silence her and stop the story about their alleged affair from being published in the National Enquirer.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleged Trump committed fraud because the payment was labeled "legal fees."  Late last month Judge Merchan delayed Trump's November 26 sentencing in Alvin Bragg's lawfare case indefinitely.

Are the Years of Madness Ending?  Rarely have the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, the Department of Justice, and the Pentagon become weaponized and so flagrantly and with impunity broken the law, abandoned their mission statements, and served political agendas rather than the American people.  Not since the J. Edgar Hoover era has the FBI hierarchy serially lied under oath, stonewalled Congress, forged a court affidavit, or partnered with the media to suppress the news.  Has the FBI ever raided an ex-president's home, spied on parents at school board meetings, monitored Catholics, or tried to terrify and harass pro-life activists?  Never has the justice system, from local to state to national jurisdictions, so systematically and coordinately, sought to bankrupt, render inert, and jail an ex-president and current presidential candidate.

The Special Counsel Who Indicted Trump is Under Investigation.  [Scroll down]  The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary has been investigating Jack Smith and his gang of persecutors.  Specifically, the Committee has been investigating ethically and legally questionable conduct by Jay Bratt, one of the Special Counsel's senior attorneys, including his orchestration of the unprecedented Federal raid on Mar-A-Lago and efforts by Bratt to strong arm one of the attorneys representing a co-defendant in the Florida documents case into getting his client to help the government.  The Committee is also investigating allegations that another Jack Smith deputy, JP Cooney, spread "baseless" and "politically motivated conspiracy theories" in Roger Stone's case and sought an extraordinarily long sentence for Stone.  (You probably have not heard about those investigations either, but that is yet another story.)  During the course of these investigations, the Judiciary Committee learned about a whistleblower from Jack Smith's team. [...]

What's Next for the Woke Bureaucrats in the Administrative State?  President-elect Donald Trump poses a serious threat to the woke bureaucrats and their left-wing allies who have injected their ideology into the administrative state, but these activists won't be giving up easily.  As Trump staffs up for a second term, the bureaucrats have hatched at least three strategies to oppose him: returning to the left-wing nonprofit sphere to act as a government-in-waiting; passing new regulations to cement their ideology into the rules before Trump can reverse them; and burrowing into the bureaucracy to oppose him from within, the same way they did during his first term.  Trump will enter office Jan. 20 with a mandate to drain the swamp, but the swamp is working overtime to clog up the drains while it still can. [...] Even before Trump won the 2024 presidential election, bureaucrats had been gearing up to "Trump-proof" the administrative state.  In April, the Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule that will make it harder for Trump to reinstate his "Schedule F" executive order — an order that would have made it easier for the president to fire certain bureaucrats.

Mark Levin Outlines Why Obama/Biden Administration are Talking About "Preemptive Pardons".  President Trump suggested on his Truth Social account to review the commentary by Mark Levin this past weekend.  Within his opening monologue, Mr Levin walks through the historic background of the attacks against President Trump, and by extension the larger American electorate, and how all of that White House triggered weaponization underpins the nervousness of the Obama/Biden administration.  It is an interesting review and revisit to the issues of great familiarity to all of us.  [Video clip]  Why don't we ever hear her name?  If there is one Lawfare operative who has escaped scrutiny for her corrupt endeavors, it would be Mary McCord.  More than any other Lawfare operative within Main Justice, Mary McCord sits at the center of every table in the manufacturing of cases against Donald Trump.  Mary McCord's husband is Sheldon Snook; he was the right hand to the legal counsel of Chief Justice John Roberts when the Dobbs decision was leaked.

Jack Smith's Partisan Prosecutors Lawyer Up as They Brace For Trump.  Jack Smith's prosecutors are lawyering up as they brace for President Trump.  Late last month Jack Smith moved to dismiss both federal cases against President Trump as Trump plans to go scorched earth and fire the special counsel's entire team of prosecutors.  Jack Smith asked to dismiss both the January 6 case and classified documents case against President Trump.  Both cases against Trump were dismissed and now Jack Smith's investigators are fielding calls with lawyers in DC.

Get a load of Fani now.  It's been a bad few weeks for the people out to get Trump.  The stars are not aligning for Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, and now Fani Willis. [...] The Georgia decision should give us all hope about abuse of power and political persecution.  It's completely un-American to use banana republic tactics to destroy your enemies.  My guess is that many Americans voted for Trump to protest these tactics.  So what happens to Fani now?  I don't know, but a message should be sent to district attorneys that this kind of politicization will explode in their faces, as we see here.

Report: AG Merrick Garland is Begging Deep State Lawyers to Remain at DOJ.  Joe Biden henchman and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is reportedly urging employees of the Department of Justice not to leave as the Trump administration prepares to take power.  According to The Washington Post, Garland is concerned that staffers plan to leave because they do not want to be part of Donald Trump's DOJ. [...] Garland's pleas are likely a ploy to try and sabotage the Trump administration from the inside, similar to what Obama holdovers did during his first term in office.  Last month, NBC revealed that many employees at the FBI and the DOJ were already hiring criminal defense lawyers ahead of Trump's return to the White House.

Trump Defense Attorneys Cite Biden's 'Extraordinary Condemnation' Of DOJ In Motion To Dismiss.  President Joe Biden, when he pardoned his son, conceded his own Department of Justice (DOJ) is politically motivated, attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump wrote in a Monday filing.  In their latest motion to dismiss Trump's New York case, defense attorneys pointed to Biden's claim that his son was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted" with political motives that lead to a "miscarriage of justice" as further justification for ending proceedings.  "These comments amounted to an extraordinary condemnation of President Biden's own DOJ," Trump's attorneys wrote.  "This is the same DOJ that coordinated and oversaw the politically-motivated, election-interference witch hunts targeting President Trump by disgraced Special Counsel Jack Smith, the other biased prosecutors in Smith's Special Counsel's Office ('SCO'), and others.  This is the same DOJ that sent Matthew Colangelo to DA Bragg to help unfairly target President Trump in this empty and lawless case."

Lawfare Will End When the Left Is Too Terrified to Contemplate Continuing It.  Now that Donald Trump is headed to the White House, he has to make a decision vital to the Republic's health.  Over the last eight years, President Trump and his allies have been the subject of a non-stop stream of lawfare attacks designed to cripple him while he was president and later, after he peacefully turned over the reigns of power to the addled Joe Biden, to imprison him for what could have been the rest of his life.  The campaign to jail him was clearly a conspiracy involving Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis.  The extent to which the civil cases against him were coordinated with the criminal cases has never, as far as I know, been explored, but it is hard to imagine that it did not exist.  This use of the judicial system to attempt to impoverish and imprison political opponents is foreign to the United States and to its founding principles.

Criminal law Should be Inelastic.  [Scroll down]  In July the Court ruled that a president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.  Moreover, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.  Since then, we learned how factually weak the case was.  For example, we learned what had previously been hidden — that he had in fact asked for the National Guard to be present on January 6 to prevent any possible rioting (as he had claimed) and that Pentagon leaders had deliberately delayed their deployment to the Capitol.  (Something they concealed for over three years.) [...] So, not only did Trump ask that the demonstration be peaceful, he did everything in his power to keep it that way.  That case should never have been brought, but in any fair adjudication should have been dismissed, unless you think that being a Republican deprives a president of a right to free speech.  The fate of the J6 defendants is still being considered by the District of Columbia courts, but the Supreme Court's ruling in June of this year (Fischer v U.S.), makes clear the prosecutors erred in an overly expansive reading of the relevant criminal law.

Jack Smith and Merrick Garland Don't Look to Be Done With Trump Yet.  Special Counsel Jack Smith, as Townhall has been covering this week, has dropped his cases against President-elect Donald Trump, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreeing to end the classified documents case.  As Katie highlighted earlier on Friday, though, there's still a need for accountability.  Further, Smith and Attorney General Merrick Garland may not be completely done with Trump, given that they're still looking to release a report.  The New York Times had actually teased some coverage about Smith two weeks ago, noting that he planned to resign before Trump took office.  There was also mention of a report for Smith to complete and Garland to release, though.  Following Smith's moves to drop the charges, CNN reported on some key "takeaways," including a section on "What will we learn next?"

What Part of Mandate Don't You Understand?  [Scroll down]  Because of Mr. Trump being the primary target of DOJ / FBI enmity, blob publicists will try to color it as "personal retribution," but it is really the proper response of an aggrieved nation.  A large number of current and former officials deserve to face charges for what they did, serious crimes against their fellow citizens.  They also deserve fair trials to determine their culpability.  The catch is, these proceedings ought to take place outside the DC federal district court, which is itself parasitized and corrupted.  Outside of these criminal proceedings, the rest is executive process — just firing a lot of dead-weight and bureaucrat officials who contribute nothing but inertia and impediment to the normal functioning of a society.  And deconstructing whole agencies.  The blob will likely attempt to block that effort by marshaling its own allied lawyer army to bombard the courts with suits and writs.  If the Trump team does its work carefully, with scrupulous attention to correct process, that offensive can be overcome and worked-around.

Elon Musk:  Alexander Vindman 'Committed Treason,' Will 'Pay the Appropriate Penalty'.  Elon Musk said retired Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman "has committed treason against the United States" by being "on the payroll of Ukrainian oligarchs," and will "pay the appropriate penalty."  Musk's comments came in response to Vindman accusing him of conspiring with Russian president Vladimir Putin.  "Vindman is on the payroll of Ukrainian oligarchs and has committed treason against the United States, for which he will pay the appropriate penalty," Musk said in a Wednesday X post.  Musk was reacting to a post by another X account that shared a video of Vindman accusing the Tesla CEO of having ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and claiming Musk only supported President-elect Donald Trump in the 2024 election because Putin told him to.

A garbage case goes out with the garbage:  Jack Smith drops his cases targeting Trump.  Was there ever anything fouler, trashier, stinkier, smellier than the six or so lawfare cases directed at President Trump durin his campaign?  I'd say 'no.' [...] All of these cases were coordinated by the White House, with each prosecution team making trips to that temple for instructions.  The White House even seeded an operative in one of the New York offices.  They all came at the same time, as if to suggest that suddenly President Trump had turned to a life of crime — right about when he decided to run for reelection.  They all employed flamingly partisan judges, prosecutors, and juries.  Several were plagued with conflicts of interests and even flaming corruption from both the prosecutorial and judicial side.  Some of the lawfarists were absolute pigs of no recognizable professionalism.  They all sought to interfere with President Trump's election run, through an artificially speeded up court calender, illegal gag orders, and court dates prohibiting travel for campaigning.  That was what it was really about, wasn't it?  Trialwise, they were rigged against the defense, and denied President Trump key witnesses.  The charges were invented, never used on anyone in the past, and they even changed laws in order to make those charges.  In several cases, they employed massive numbers of felony charges and institute massive unprecedented fines.

Jack Smith's Election Interference Case Against Donald Trump Is Officially Toast.  As reported earlier, Special Counsel Jack Smith formally moved to dismiss the D.C. election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump, citing Trump's reelection and DOJ policy not to prosecute a sitting president.  (Smith also moved to dismiss the Government's appeal of the dismissal of the classified documents case against Trump.)  Now, Judge Tanya Chutkan has granted the Government's request, ordering the dismissal of the D.C. case as requested.  As noted in the original article, the dismissal is without prejudice, and in the Memorandum accompanying her order, Chutkan further explains why she believes such is appropriate in this instance, noting, "Dismissal without prejudice is also consistent with the Government's understanding that the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office."  So... it's officially over.  For now.

Adam Schiff Copes and Seethes After Jack Smith Drops Trump Charges, but There's More to His Crying.  One of the most dishonest, slimiest members of Congress is speaking out after news broke on Monday that DOJ Special Counsel Jack Smith is moving to drop all charges against Donald Trump.  Adam Schiff, who California saw fit to elect to the U.S. Senate recently, blew up on social media, attacking the Biden administration and the court system for supposedly failing to uphold the rule of law.  As RedState reported, Smith cited two OLC opinions on a sitting president not being prosecutable in his decision.  He also left the door open for future charges after Trump leaves office by not dismissing the current ones with prejudice, though I'm highly skeptical this isn't the end of the road for all intents and purposes.  Regardless, Schiff was none too happy.  [Tweet]

The Morning Briefing:  Jack Smith's Pathetic Jihad Comes to a Fitting, Inglorious End.  A lot of loathsome government characters have been foisted upon American citizens since early 2020. [...] It's difficult to choose the worst of that crowd — they're all awful human beings — but kinda/sorta Special Counsel Jack Smith would probably get a lot of votes.  Smith launched lawfare jihads against Donald Trump on more than one front, which made him very popular with the Democrats.  They treated Smith like he was some kind of rock star as he carried out his obsessed vendetta.  A vendetta that is no more.

Judge grants Jack Smith request to dismiss Jan. 6 charges against Trump, appeal dropped in Florida docs case.  A judge has dropped the charges against President-elect Donald Trump in the D.C. case against him, following a request that Special Counsel Jack Smith made on Monday [11/25/2024].  The decision concerns the investigation into the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach.  Fox News Digital previously learned of Smith's request earlier on Monday.  "The Government has moved to dismiss the Superseding Indictment without prejudice," U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in a decision. "Defendant does not oppose the Motion... and the court will grant it."

Trump's sentencing is canceled.  Will reality ever take a bite out of Bragg's outrageous case?  New York Judge Juan Merchan has consistently proven the point by his maltreatment of Donald Trump in the ill-conceived, if not farcical, prosecution brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  The case resulted in preordained guilty verdicts last May in a trial that stands as a monument to injustice.  But on Friday, in the aftermath of Trump's presidential victory, Merchan canceled next week's scheduled sentencing and reluctantly agreed to formally consider a defense motion to dismiss the case entirely.  A sensible and fair judge would grant it.  That may exclude Merchan.

The 2024 Presidential Election Landslide.  The ruling elite, the elected representatives, the Deep State, big tech, Globalist, and their allies, or as I call them, "the Cabal," acted together, and all acted in lockstep and spoke with one voice.  The Cabal knew what was best for the people, which often coincided with enriching the Cabal.  The Cabal manipulated false narratives to scare the people.  The Cabal attempted several coups to prevent Trump's election in 2016, and it sabotaged his first term as a duly elected President.  It successfully blocked his election in 2020 and tried again but failed in 2024.  It most likely facilitated the two assassination attempts.  The legacy media labeled President-elect Trump as being of poor character, a convicted serial felon, a rapist, a racist, a misogynist, a Nazi, and a fascist who would rule as a dictator.  Trump, they warned, would ignore the Constitution and was an existential threat to our Democracy.  These labels were a bald-faced lie.  The Cabal was doing exactly what it accused Trump of doing.

Expect the D.C. Administrative State to Defend Itself by Any Means Necessary.  The Tea Party wasn't cool when Barack Obama was thought to be cool.  But nowadays, Barack Obama's hectoring of the "brothers" for not getting on the trolley in supporting Kamala Harris has made him the farthest thing from cool, yet the Tea Party's idea about shrinking the federal government couldn't be cooler.  This "commission" has taken life as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is both a funny reference to a meme-coin involving Elon Musk and, more importantly, the greatest and most necessary idea in modern American history.  As Charlie Kirk writes on X, the "creation of DOGE will be the first federal program whose goal it is to eliminate itself.  It exists to shrink government, not grow it." [...] Americans are winning against the big government threat in our own country, but we haven't won yet.  The malignant Deep State has been identified and openly targeted for eradication.  We should only expect that its efforts to maintain its own existence become more desperate from here.

How the 'deep state' will fight tooth and nail against Trump's revenge presidency.  Following the election of Donald Trump and his appointment of Elon Musk to make swingeing cuts to the federal government, civil servants are said to be quitting in droves.  Government insiders said employees were already resigning and looking for work in the private sector amid concern that their roles will be "politicised" under Mr Trump's second administration.  Others fear they will be sacked.  Mr Trump has drawn up unprecedented plans to take on federal bureaucracy, promising to bring back "Schedule F" — a controversial order he introduced at the end of his first term, which would have made it easier to remove civil servants who disobey him.  The move is one measure he has proposed to take on the Washington "swamp", which he says blocked many of his policy plans between 2017 and 2021.  "Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state," the president-elect told supporters at his first rally of the 2024 election cycle.

Trump Clinches Another Win in Hush Money Case.  We all knew the hush money trial was in trouble since Donald J. Trump won the 2024 election.  The now-president-elect wouldn't be sentenced to jail if he beat Kamala Harris, and Judge Juan Merchan made a series of moves before Election Day to ensure that sentencing could go either way.  We all know this case was a political hack job, where the statute of limitations was toyed with, and definitions of the crimes Trump stood accused of involving his alleged tryst with Stormy Daniels were stretched to the limits of reason.  Even CNN's Elie Honig, who is no fan of Mr. Trump, lambasted the case, which has irritated liberals.  Trump's win caused Judge Merchan to delay sentencing indefinitely.  The prosecution, helmed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, tried to postpone until 2029.  No way that's happening.

Trump's Legal Team Requests Dismissal of Manhattan Case on New Grounds.  On Tuesday, Judge Juan Merchan was expected to rule on the post-trial motion filed by President-elect Donald Trump's legal team in his Manhattan criminal case asserting that the verdict should be set aside on the grounds of presidential immunity following the Supreme Court's ruling on that issue.  He'd already put it off by a week in response to a joint request by Trump's team and District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office to postpone it.  But when the moment came, initially, it appeared Merchan had put that off indefinitely and postponed the sentencing set for November 26.  Then we learned that was merely an automated schedule alert rather than a substantive move by the judge.  Shortly thereafter, Bragg's office filed a letter with the court requesting that the case be formally adjourned to allow time for Trump's legal team to file an additional motion to dismiss based on the unique circumstances in play given Trump's reelection and impending inauguration (and indicating they would be opposing such motion).

Exclusive: Article III Project Head Wants Accountability for 'Criminal Conspiracy' Against Trump.  Article III Project founder and president Mike Davis emphasized that New York authorities' postponing Donald Trump's sentencing illustrates how political the whole case was from the start in exclusive comments to PJ Media.  Davis, a Republican legal expert, has repeatedly called out the judges, DOJ officials, and DAs involved in the many and various lawfare cases against Trump.  Now, corrupt Judge Juan Merchan and Soros-backed Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg admitted that Trump's sentencing in the case involving alleged "hush money" payouts and records falsification has been indefinitely delayed.  Davis sees this as a vindication not only of Trump but of all those who consistently exposed the corrupt lawfare.  Davis stated, "The postponement of the sentencing in New York proves that this case was always about Democrat lawfare and election interference."  If the case were legitimate, why keep delaying the sentencing?

Bragg tries to control President Trump by delaying case — throw it out!.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg pushed Tuesday to create a new constitutional creature: the layaway president. [...] In a filing before Manhattan Justice Juan Merchan, Bragg suggested that the court should stay the pending criminal case and defer any sentencing "until after the end of defendant's upcoming presidential term."  That would allow a city prosecutor to put a leash on a sitting president for four years.  Trump would govern by the grace of this local judge and district attorney.  In the meantime, pundits and politicians could portray the president as free on a type of work release program.  The suggestion is appalling to most of the people in the country, including the majority of voters who voted for Trump.

Bragg Won't Drop Trump's 'Hush Money' Sentencing, But May Suspend It for 4 Years.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Tuesday [11/19/2024] that his office will oppose President-elect Donald Trump's motion to dismiss his felony conviction in New York.  Bragg said that despite plans to oppose Trump's motion, his office would agree to hit pause on the proceedings pending the judge's decision on Trump's motion to dismiss.  Bragg also suggested the case could wait until Trump finishes his term in the White House.  "No current law establishes that a president's temporary immunity from prosecution requires dismissal of a post-trial criminal proceeding that was initiated at a time when the defendant was not immune from criminal prosecution and that is based on unofficial conduct for which the defendant is also not immune," Bragg wrote in a letter to Judge Juan Merchan.  "Rather, existing law suggests that the court must balance competing constitutional interests and proceed 'in a manner that preserves both the independence of the executive and the integrity of the criminal justice system.'"

Beating the 'Committee'.  A lot of people put considerable effort into tying up Trump during his first term.  This was made possible by control of the institutions, cooperation from the media, and considerable assistance from the GOP establishment. [...] Then came two impeachments, intended to taint the Trump brand permanently, followed by a comprehensive program of lawfare targeting every aspect of Trump's life with the goal of at the very least bankrupting him, but with the hope of giving him a lengthy sentence.  We can presume that this was to be followed by the reelection of the committee's puppet president, with the hard Left's transformational wish list — the Green New Deal, expansion of the Supreme Court, D.C. and Puerto Rican statehood, universal censorship, and formalization of the woke and transgender agendas — going into effect shortly thereafter.

Report: Multiple DOJ, FBI Officials Weigh Lawyering Up in Fear of Being 'Criminally Investigated'.  Multiple former and current DOJ and FBI officials are considering hiring lawyers "in anticipation of being criminally investigated" by the incoming Trump administration, three people with knowledge of their deliberations told NBC News.  The preemptive initiative underscores a serious belief that President-elect Donald Trump will make good on his promise to purge the federal government of rogue and corrupt actors within the administrative state.  Last week, Trump transition adviser Mark Paoletta warned DOJ career attorneys that subverting, undermining, or sabotaging Trump's incoming agenda will be cause for termination.

DOJ Apparatchiks Told to Lawyer Up and Flee the Country.  Why?  As I reported last week, former and current apparatchiks for the Department of Justice are making plans to resign in advance of Donald Trump's return to the White House in January.  Those headed for exits include Special Counsel Jack Smith and his top team of prosecutors, who just withdrew their appeal of Judge Aileen Cannon's order dismissing the classified documents indictment in Florida and asked for a halt to the proceedings in the January 6-related case pending in Washington.  The resume-burnishing appears to extend to main Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (housed under the DOJ), and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia office, which oversees the government's ongoing prosecution of January 6 protesters.  Anonymous "sedition hunters" who have aided the FBI in targeting and identifying hundreds of J6ers deleted their social media accounts over the weekend for fear of reprisal; the FBI reportedly paid the "sedition hunters" as FBI informants to help their pursuit of Trump supporters.

Georgia appeals court cancels arguments in Trump election case until further notice.  A Georgia appeals court on Monday canceled until further notice oral arguments on an effort by President-elect Donald Trump and other co-defendants to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the criminal election interference prosecution against them.  The Georgia Court of Appeals acted on its own in canceling the arguments scheduled for Dec. 5.  The court did not explain its reason for the move.  Three other criminal cases against Trump have been put in limbo since the Republican won the presidential election nearly two weeks ago.  Trump and the other defendants are charged in state court in Atlanta with crimes related to their attempt to undo his 2020 election loss in Georgia to President Joe Biden.

The Editor says...
Bias alert!  Questioning the outcome of a crooked election is not a crime.  Maybe Mr. Trump in fact won the 2020 election, and isn't trying to undo his loss, but instead confirm his victory.

Report: FBI, DOJ Officials Freaking Out Over Announcement of Gaetz As AG Pick, Start Lawyering Up.  We've reported on how FBI officials were panicking when Trump won the presidential election, worrying that there would be a "bloodbath" of layoffs as the President-elect cleaned house after their endless persecutions of him.  [Advertisement]  But now FBI and Department of Justice officials are freaking out even more with the announcement that Trump picked former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz to be his attorney general. [...] One official said he did nothing wrong but expects they'll come after him anyway.  For what, I wonder, if everything they did while conducting endless lawfare against Trump was "aboveboard?"

Georgia Court of Appeals Abruptly Cancels Oral Arguments in Fani Willis Trump RICO Case Against Trump.  President Trump's hearing to disqualify Fani Willis was set for December 5, but the Georgia Court of Appeals abruptly canceled the oral argument.  It is unclear why the appeals court canceled the oral arguments.  [Tweet]  In August 2023, corrupt Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted President Trump and 18 co-defendants for daring to challenge the 2020 election.  [Exhibit]  In March, Georgia Judge Scott McAfee ruled that crooked and dishonest Fani Willis will be allowed to remain on the Trump case.  [Advertisement]  In September Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dropped two criminal counts against President Trump in Fani Willis's lawfare RICO case.  Judge McAfee said two of the counts related to conspiracy and filing false documents are outside of Fani Willis's jurisdiction since she is a local District Attorney and not a federal prosecutor.

The Great 'Splainin' Cometh.  The New York Times, your field-guide to blob-think, is warning its dwindling readership of psychodrama addicts that Donald Trump will now take out his "grievances" on the noble, self-sacrificing bureaucracy that manages things so well in this land.  As usual, The Times misleads and misinforms.  These are the grievances of the nation that has seen its law and its culture twisted into new orders of wickedness that leave daily life in the USA perverted, dishonored, and grotesquefied.  So now Mr. Trump has picked a cabinet that scares the blob to death — for good reason.  They are aiming to systematically disarm and disassemble the blob.  They are a team of serious and intelligent warriors and they mean business, in particular Gaetz, Gabbard, Kennedy, Ratcliffe, and Homan, with Elon and Vivek riding shotgun.  (A new FBI Director has not yet been named.)  You must wonder how the blob is planning to defend itself, for it surely will resist.

Radical Trump-Hater Who Supports Communist Antifa Allegedly Unmasked as Secret Service Agent.  Another shocking allegation involving the Secret Service could potentially endanger President Trump's life further following two assassination attempts.  Counter-extremism researchers with the Justice Report say they have discovered that a lifelong anarchist, left-wing extremist, and devout follower of Anfifa is working as a Secret Service agent.  Moreover, the individual reportedly has made a series of disgusting comments regarding Trump.  The Gateway Pundit will NOT be naming the alleged Secret Service agent until we confirm the person's identity.

WSJ Reports Gaetz Nomination Doomed ... In Committee.  Hoo boy.  And that's without reading the soon-to-be-leaked House Ethics Committee report on Matt Gaetz, too.  The drumbeats around the GOP campfire yesterday already made Donald Trump's choice for Attorney General look like a longshot.  Even one of his top allies in the Senate caucus couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for Gaetz; Ted Cruz just told Newsmax that the process would have to play out on the "surprise" pick.  A lack of enthusiasm isn't really the problem, the Wall Street Journal reported this afternoon.  The problem is outright hostility to the move, so much so that Gaetz might lose half the caucus and fail to even have his nomination clear the Senate Judiciary Committee: [...] Keep in mind that Gaetz has no track record of building bridges on Capitol Hill — just the opposite, in fact.

Inside the Uniparty's Effort to Destroy Matt Gaetz.  Matt Gaetz, Trump's appointee for Attorney General, was the victim of an orchestrated campaign of lawfare, a deliberate and cynical manipulation of the legal system to undermine political opponents.  As a tireless defender of President Trump, Gaetz made enemies on both sides of the aisle, particularly during his vociferous stand against the fake Russian collusion narrative, the subsequent impeachment witch hunt, and the ouster of the Speaker of the House.  Yet it is precisely this dedication to defending Trump's legitimacy — and by extension, the will of the people — that has painted a target on Gaetz's back.  Gaetz, as Trump's Attorney General pick, epitomizes Trump's plan to transform the Department of Justice from a tool of political persecution into a bulwark against overreach.

Secrets.  Would you like to know what the Deep State knows?  Every dirty little secret?  The details of their campaigns against parents concerned about the political and sexual indoctrination of their kids in public schools?  Want to know who decided to surveil Catholics and other Christians?  How about who's behind the tyrannical pursuit of Americans who visited the Capital on January 6? Want all the details about who's behind the Covid lockdowns and lies?  How about the real story on the 51 intelligence traitors who went after Trump, the whole story on the Russia hoax and who decided to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story?  And wouldn't it be satisfying to know how anti-American thugs at the DOJ conspired against Americans and America?  How about knowing who was planning to put us in Covid camps?  Wouldn't it be nice, even dare I say it — democratic — for the public to know all of this, and so very much more? [...] Absent the will to ferret out those who have betrayed America, we'll never be able to hold the country together.  We'll never be able to restore the republic the Founders worried we could not keep.  Me, I'm looking forward to the Epstein client list.

The Editor says...
I'd like to know who gave the order to implode World Trade Center Building Seven and why.  I'd like to know who shot down TWA Flight 800.  I'd like to know why a large part of Maui, Hawaii, burst into flames on August 8, 2023, with the exception of every blue object, and why the news media doesn't really want to question the official explanation.  Also, how did a 30-acre barn catch fire so rapidly that 20,000 cows burned up, and none of them escaped?  That was April 10, 2023, and again the media asks no questions.  I'd like to know who murdered Seth Rich and why.  I'd like to know who murdered Vince Foster.  I'd like to know who murdered John F. Kennedy, not that it really matter any more.  I'd like to know who coordinated the theft of the 2020 presidential election, and gave the order to stop counting votes in the middle of the night.  I'd like to know where Barack H. Obama was born, and why he uses somebody else's Social Security Number.  On the other hand, I'd rather now know too much unless everybody else knows, too.  Bad things happen to those who know too much.  Just ask Dorothy Kilgallen, Karen Silkwood, Catherine Cesnik and Lee H. Oswald.

Lawmakers Threaten to Revoke Security Clearances of 51 Hunter Biden Laptop Deniers.  The 51 former intelligence officials who suggested Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation could lose their security clearances, Republican lawmakers indicated this week.  The potential action of revoking the security clearances would fulfill a campaign pledge by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.  "You cannot lie, take your position of public trust, and lie to the American people for political purposes," Vance said.  "It's disgraceful.  And people have to suffer consequences for it."

Exclusive: Pentagon 'Scrambling,' Wiping Evidence of DEI as Trump Readies to Fire Woke Generals.  The Pentagon is in "absolute disarray" with "generals scrambling" due to the incoming Trump administration's plans to fire woke senior military leaders who prioritized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) over combat readiness, according to sources.  One source compared it to a hornet's nest being kicked over and that "DEI pages are starting to disappear off the main websites."

Dana Bash's Husband Calls for CIA Officers to Commit Treason.  Jeremy Bash, Dana Bash's ex-husband, can wave his hands all he wants, but it's clear he suggested that CIA officers commit treason and that military officers disobey direct orders from the President of the United States.  You shouldn't be too surprised.  He was one of the 51 "Intelligence officers" who lied to the American people about the provenance of the Hunter Biden laptop.  [Tweet]  I can't argue with the suggestion that military officers disobey "illegal orders."  However, I suspect that his definition is rather expansive and includes anything that the transnational elites dislike.  None of these officers, after all, will get an order that lawyers haven't vetted first.  Still, his suggestion that the CIA should obstruct presidential orders amounts to calling for treason under the bizarre claim that officers whose power derives from the Executive Branch should ignore the orders of the Chief Executive.  Plenty of these same CIA agents have spent at least the last 8 years going after the enemies of the transnational elite, pushing to censor (illegally) the free speech of Americans and misusing their power to undermine and harm Donald Trump.

The Deep State War Against Donald Trump Begins.  In a video posted on X on November 7, 2024, two days after the election, Trump detailed a plan to dismantle the Deep State.  In this three-minute video, Trump explained how he would take a series of measures to "shatter the Deep State."  In this video, Trump made the same mistake JFK made when JFK said he was going to break the CIA into a thousand pieces after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.  By announcing his intention in advance, JFK signed his death warrant.  Trump has now declared war on the Deep State as president-elect.  Because he spoke before he was inaugurated, giving him the power to act, Trump alerted the Deep State that he represented an existential threat to its survival.  The bottom line is that the Deep State cannot afford for Trump to become president on January 20, 2025.

I'm sure he does!
Report: Jack Smith Wants to Resign Before Trump's Inauguration.  The New York Times reported that Special Counsel Jack Smith plans to retire before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration in January.  Trump promised to fire Smith right after he's sworn in.  Smith asked the judge in his election interference case against Trump to pause it since Trump won the election. [...] The DOJ cannot prosecute a sitting president.  Smith has faced numerous setbacks in his case.  It's doubtful everything would get wrapped up before Trump's January 20 inauguration.

New York case against Trump should be dismissed after Merchan's delayed ruling.  As the left's once potent lawfare campaign against Donald Trump continues to collapse, New York Judge Juan Merchan delayed his plan to rule on Tuesday as to whether the President-elect's conviction in Manhattan should be dismissed based on the recent Supreme Court's immunity decision.  But there is more to it than that.  Merchan now wants to hear from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg just how prosecutors believe the case should be handled going forward in light of Trump's victory last week in both the Electoral College and popular vote.  The judge surely recognizes that there are constitutional concerns that militate in favor of dismissal.  It is well established in law that a sitting president is entirely immune from indictment, prosecution, or any criminal process in state and federal cases.  This doctrine was long ago enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court and has been strictly followed by the Department of Justice.

Jack Smith Ditching His Case Against Trump Is Not A Concession, It's A Coverup.  Following President Donald Trump's decisive victory in both the electoral and popular vote, it's becoming clear, based on multiple reports, that the weaponized Department of Justice (DOJ) is poised to dismantle its baseless and frivolous criminal prosecutions against Trump in Florida and Washington, D.C., and may even dismiss Jack Smith before Trump has the satisfaction to utter his most famous line, "you're fired."  While some might interpret this as Democrats waving the white flag in the face of Trump's resurgence or as a premature gesture of goodwill, don't be fooled.  This move marks yet another self-serving, calculated maneuver, a legal sleight-of-hand designed to protect the reputations of Attorney General Merrick Garland, Smith, and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and to distract from Smith and Mueller's unconstitutional appointments.

Mysteries Revealed.  There are already reports of frenzy among the culpable DOJ lawyers, and FBI Director Wray is set to resign before Mr. Trump can fire him.  Attorney General Merrick Garland has gone radio-silent for his own good since Election Day.  Expect many abiding mysteries to get unraveled, such as exactly how many federal agents did work the crowd around the Capitol on J-6, 2021 — which Mr. Wray has pretended to not be able to discuss "due to ongoing investigations."  Expect to learn more about the pipe-bomb caper at the DNC HQ a few blocks away that same day.  Prepare to be amazed at how deeply criminal these schemes were.  You must wonder if the document-shredding party is already underway, despite calls to preserve all the emails, memos, and texts.  Then there are the poisoned realms of the intel blob located at CIA, DHS, State, DOD, and elsewhere being subject to inquiry and overhaul.  Think:  John Brennan, James Clapper, Bill Barr, Michael Atkinson, Mayorkas, Judge Boasberg, Mary McCord, Col. Vindman, Senator Warner, Avril Haines, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power, Gina Haspel, Marie Yovanovitch, Jen Easterly, all their deputies, and many more unknown to the public.  Some of these names may yet seem obscure to you.  They were all neck-deep in what looks a lot like sedition, treason, real conspiracies, not theories.

In Other Countries We Call This Coup Plotting.  The media and the left keep telling us that the Deep State is a myth, and they are gaslighting you.  During Trump's first term the same people who denied that the Deep State existed also celebrated the #resistance within government, even celebrating on the pages of the New York Times' editorial page a White House official who bragged that he was working to stymie Trump's policies.  Trump was unprepared to staff up his administration the first time around, and establishment Republicans helped him staff up with people who turned out to be swamp creatures.  Trump won't make that mistake again.  He has surrounded himself with the cream of the crop--people who risked it all in order to save America.  That terrifies the Deep State, and they are plotting what amounts to a soft coup.

There appears to be a cancer in the Pentagon with sedition on its mind.  If this story of a cabal of Pentagon officials meeting to undermine the incoming constitutional commander-in-chief of the U.S. military had been a rumor circulating on X or I'd received in an email from some random source, I would have discounted it.  But that's not the case; it comes from CNN.  This suggests that something is deeply wrong in the Pentagon — the same Pentagon that "forgot" to send absentee ballots to U.S. troops serving overseas, a gross violation of their civil rights, and one that ought to result in courts-martial all the way up to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

The "Six Ways from Sunday" Problem.  All information provided to the Office of the President comes from the "six ways from Sunday" group.  The Presidential Daily Briefing is constructed by the "six ways from Sunday" group.  The DNI position is legislatively the most powerful position in the IC, yet that authority has never been exploited thanks to a DC silo system in the control of the "six ways from Sunday" group.  Barack Obama quickly learned the risks within the "six ways from Sunday" silo process.  Obama subverted the "six ways from Sunday" control mechanisms brilliantly, he just ignored it and gave the info to everybody.  President Trump is vulnerable to a DC silo system that self-preserves and that almost no one understands.  The President of the United States looks out his window and sees and illusionary world created by the "six ways from Sunday" group.  The agenda of the "six ways from Sunday" group can only succeed if the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branch are kept misinformed and isolated.

Sorry, We Can Only View This Secret Pentagon Meeting as a Plot to Foment an Insurrection.  John Frankenheimer directed a movie called Seven Days in May in the 1960s, starring Kirk Douglas as a military officer who uncovers a coup against the president of the United States by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who signed a deeply unpopular nuclear disarmament treaty.  That's a movie.  In 2024, the Pentagon brass plotted to countermand President-elect Donald J. Trump's orders.  If we're going by the Left's rules here, this is an insurrection.  It's a military coup.  What's worse is that these anti-Trump meetings were held in secret and then got leaked to the media. [...] CNN's Scott Jennings tore apart these unelected bureaucrats yesterday.  We're back to the same Deep State games, but this time, Trump, with no re-election ahead of him, can go hard and fast to rid the Pentagon and any agency of troublesome government workers who think they're above the law and not accountable to the will of the people.  The illegal orders narrative is also ridiculous, soaked in the anti-Trump hysterics that have engulfed the Left.

Did celebrities have to be paid to endorse Kamala?  [Scroll down]  Kamala Harris will be quickly forgotten by all but the historians, who will one day write about the 2024 campaign and leftists' vicious plan to destroy Donald Trump because they so feared his outsider status.  Despite his fame and fortune, he was never part of the political establishment or a denizen of the Deep State, those creatures of the black lagoon that is Washington, D.C. His election in 2016 sent that cartel that runs the place into a frenzy of fear and loathing.  They immediately set about fabricating a dozen ways to destroy the man: the Russia hoax, impeachments based on nothing, lawfare that led to countless phony lawsuits meant to bankrupt him and hopefully imprison him, etc.  Once he announced he was running again, they doubled down on their vile tactics.  God forbid he win and expose the way they do business, how they line their pockets at the taxpayers' expense, provoke war because it makes them rich.

An Electoral Awakening Worth Celebrating.  [Scroll down]  These public revelations caught fire once Democrat prosecutors chose to engage in an unprecedented lawfare campaign against President Trump that threatened his liberty and property.  Americans have witnessed the Clintons and other Democrat politicians in good standing with the D.C. "blob" escape prosecution for real crimes (including Hillary's Russia collusion fraud against the American people) too many times for the avalanche of criminal and civil cases against President Trump to pass muster.  There was a time when Americans would have placed credence in the serious accusations coming from the mouths of U.S. prosecutors.  After years of watching corrupt judges assist in the political targeting of Trump confidantes such as Rudy Giuliani, Peter Navarro, and Steve Bannon, though, the lawfare against President Trump has appeared malicious, unacceptable, and un-American.

Judge Chutkan Grants Jack Smith's Request to Cancel Further Proceedings in January 6 Case.  Judge Tanya Chutkan, the Obama appointee who is presiding over the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Trump, issued a brief order on the docket today, vacating all proceedings scheduled in the case, including any briefing on pending issues.  She ordered that on or before December 2, 2024, Biden-Harris DOJ special counsel Jack Smith must file "a status report indicating [the government's] proposed course for this case going forward."  The course for the case is to dismiss it.  Judge Chutkan's order was a result of a brief application by Smith's staff, unopposed (naturally) by Trump's counsel, stating:  ["]As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, the defendant is expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025.  The Government respectfully requests that the Court vacate the remaining deadlines in the pretrial schedule to afford the Government time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.["]

Bill Barr:  Prosecutors should 'do the right thing' and dismiss Trump cases: 'Respect the people's decision'.  Former Attorney General Bill Barr, who served in President-elect Trump's first administration, is calling on prosecutors at the state and federal levels to dismiss the pending legal cases against Trump before he takes office once again.  Barr told Fox News Digital that voters were well aware of all the allegations against Trump when electing him to a second term in office on Tuesday, and that it is in the country's best interest for prosecutors to listen to them.  "The American people have rendered their verdict on President Trump, and decisively chosen him to lead the country for the next four years," Barr said.  "They did that with full knowledge of the claims against him by prosecutors around the country and I think Attorney General Garland and the state prosecutors should respect the people's decision and dismiss the cases against President Trump now."

DOJ Drops Jack Smith Lawfare Cases, Using 2024 Election Outcome as Justification.  In Florida, Judge Ailleen Cannon threw out the "classified documents case" against President Trump, citing in her opinion that Special Counsel Jack Smith had no constitutional authority to target and charge President Trump.  Did you notice the missing DOJ appeal effort?  In the J6 case President Trump was accused of conspiring to illegally overturn the 2020 election.  Charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.  However, the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, again threw a wrench into the Lawfare strategy.  President Trump wins a massive electoral and popular vote landslide election.  Within 12-hours the DOJ announce that technical legal processes block them from targeting a president-elect and sitting president.  The non-pretending reality of the issue is that Jack Smith and the Lawfare attacks were always going to end up in appeal to the Supreme Court, and the high court had already put its opinion on record.

Asked About Dropping Trump Charges, DOJ Says Policy Is to Not Prosecute Presidents.  Special counsel Jack Smith's office said the Department of Justice (DOJ) has a longstanding policy not to prosecute a sitting president, in response to a query about whether it will drop its criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, who won the 2024 election.  Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel's office, declined to comment on whether the office will drop its cases but directed The Epoch Times to a 2000 memo from the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel.  It states that "indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions."  Multiple Republicans called on the DOJ and local district attorneys to end their prosecutions of Trump after he won the presidential election on Nov. 5.

Corrupt Special Counsel Jack Smith to Exit DOJ, Drop Cases.  Corrupt Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Keystone Cop who has serially failed to throw Donald Trump in prison or undermine his reelection chances, will not wait for incoming President-elect Trump to fire him (as Trump has understandably promised to do). Instead, since a special counsel cannot prosecute a sitting president, Smith will leave the Department of Justice before Trump is sworn in as the 47th president.  The (phony) cases against Trump will also be dropped.  Here's the Fox News report:  [Tweet with video clip]  Since November 2022, Smith has sought to put Trump in prison using four felony accounts that laughably claim Trump conspired to steal the 2020 presidential election.  [Advertisement]  Smith also filed 40 felony counts against Trump over the documents the former president held at his Mar-a-Lago home.  A judge dismissed that case.  Smith had plans to file an appeal to reinstate the charges.  That won't happen now.  [Advertisement]

Trump victory should be death knell for Democrats' lawfare.  One week after former President Trump's smashing victory, there is slated to be action in a New York State court, where the president-elect must still deal with 34 felony business-records charges on which a Manhattan jury found him guilty this spring.  Judge Juan Merchan is expected to rule on Trump's motion to vacate the guilty verdicts.  Team Trump argues that, under the Supreme Court's July 1 ruling that former presidents have presumptive immunity from prosecution for official acts, the case must be thrown out because District Attorney Alvin Bragg recklessly chose to include official-acts evidence in the prosecution.  Merchan, an activist Democrat, has ruled against Trump with numbing regularity throughout the proceedings.  Past being prologue, we should expect Merchan to deny Trump's immunity claim.  Then things get interesting.  Merchan anticipates not only issuing his immunity ruling on Tuesday but imposing sentence on the president-elect on Nov. 26.  And although the case is absurd — alleging that Trump falsified his business records to conceal a legal non-disclosure agreement — the judge indulged the D.A.'s farcical contention to the jury that Trump had conspired to steal the 2016 election.  That ratchets up the pressure on the court to impose a prison sentence of some duration.

Actually, The Democratic Party is Hitler.  The Democrats complain that a Trump victory means the Department of Justice will be weaponized against them.  Is that rich, or what?  It actually tells the whole story since you know the Party always accuses its opponents of exactly what it is already doing.  Speaking of which, we must look forward to Judge Juan Merchan's November 26th sentencing of Mr. Trump in DA Alvin Bragg's "Stormy Daniels hush money" case.  It's out there, looming, and it ain't going away.  Judge Merchan is going to have to do... something!  The jury has pronounced Mr. Trump guilty of those 34 "felonies" (based on 34 book-keeping entries, originally misdemeanors, and beyond the applicable statute of limitations).  I'd like to see the Judge stash the president-elect in the Rikers Island lockup for a few hours.  It'll be a better stunt than Mr. Trump's shift serving fries at McDonald's, or riding the garbage truck after "Joe Biden" called more than half the country that supports him "garbage." Because a few hours after Mr. Trump settles into his Rikers cell and enjoys his first boloney sandwich, the SCOTUS is going to turn a flame thrower on Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg and vacate the absurd case and every half-assed procedure that was used to arrive at it, and refer Merchan and Bragg for disbarment for professional misconduct, malicious prosecution, and failure to uphold the law.

A Little Sweet Revenge Against Democrats Threatening to Kill Careers of Trump Lawyers.  You'd think that there might be an ethical issue running ads that threaten the careers of any lawyers if they work for Donald Trump, but this is the state of play in 2024 in the Democrats' Lavrentiy Beria political police state.  Show me the man and I'll show you the crime.  Rules of propriety are for you, not for us.  [Advertisement]  Those ads, which you can see [elsew]here, are running in swing states online and in legal journals in this election — in effect promising the personal destruction of anyone who touches the Trump campaign.  [Tweet]  But now these bullies and extortionists may finally feel the heat for intentionally chilling the speech and threatening the livelihoods of any lawyers for working for Donald Trump in Election 2024.  They may have to live by their own rules.

Whistleblower: James Comey had FBI 'honey pot' spies infiltrate Trump's 2016 campaign.  The House Judiciary Committee is examining a new whistleblower report that the FBI targeted Donald Trump soon after he announced his presidential campaign in June 2015, an off-the-books operation ordered by FBI Director James Comey that predated the Crossfire Hurricane operation.  An FBI agent involved in the probe revealed the off-the-books criminal investigation on Tuesday in a protected disclosure sent to the committee.  The whistleblower disclosure said that two female FBI undercover agents successfully infiltrated Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign at high levels and were directed to act as "honey pots" while traveling with Mr. Trump and his campaign staff on the trail.

Democrats Are Already Plotting To Cripple A Trump Presidency, "These People Are Revolutionaries".  [Quoting Mark Levin:]  Look what they did to Trump right out of the box.  They impeach him twice, they unleashed a criminal investigation of him and his family and the subpoenas.  They try to undermine them.  They have lawyers in the shadows right now slip and fall lawyers who they talk about democracy and they talk about the constitution.  They are out of the George Washington law school.  They are plotting right now how to cripple a Trump presidency right out of the box.  These people are the revolutionaries whether it's revolution by immigration or revolution by law and law fair.  These people are trying to turn this country inside out.  They are a grave danger to our way of life, our prosperity, peace and security and our family.  That's why this election, every thing is on the line.

The Best Laid Schemes of the Ruling Class Have Turned to Ashes.  The alliance of the Democrat Party, the legacy media, and NeverTrumpers entered 2024 brimming with confidence. [...] The linchpin of the grand strategy was to make certain Donald Trump was the Republican nominee.  They did so by choreographing numerous indictments in Democrat strongholds throughout 2023. [...] All 91 of the criminal counts were specious and without merit.  The main purpose of this absurd avalanche of indictments was to create wall-to-wall media coverage in anticipation of the inevitable show trials. [...] With each public event or press briefing Biden's accelerating mental and physical decline became increasingly obvious to the bulk of the American people, particularly when compared to the boundless energy and vitality of Donald Trump. [...] Two weeks from the election the Ruling Class's grand strategy is a smoldering heap of ashes as they are faced with promoting the most undisciplined, unpopular, and unlikable presidential candidate in modern American history against a candidate, Donald Trump, who not only has a successful presidency to point to but has run an extraordinarily well-organized, disciplined, and optimistic campaign.

The Three Layers of Culpability.  The Great Fright among the elite of the party ruling our country steals across the land chillingly now from sea to shining sea — as if all those ghouls, werewolves, zombies, and tormented wraiths assembled in the front yard Halloween displays send up one mighty wail of despair:  Donald Trump will seek revenge against his enemies if you elect him! they scream into the pale moonlight.  Well, he ought to, of course, and remember:  they are your enemies, too — the FBI thugs battering down your doors at five in the morning, the malicious US attorneys manufacturing phony felonies, the Soros-owned DAs and party-owned judges, and the thousands of spooks from agencies both known and unheard-of surveilling your every move, every purchase, every journey, every thought.  Consider that it is not whether Mr. Trump might seek revenge but whether justice, and the mental health of the nation, require an accounting for the real crimes of actual persons against the people of America lo these years of the Woke Jacobin Inquisition.

Judge Releases Tranche of Redacted Documents Filed by Special Counsel in Trump Election Case.  District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan released a redacted version of the appendix to special counsel Jack Smith's immunity motion on Oct. 18, offering more insight into the evidence undergirding his prosecution of former President Donald Trump.  So far, the tranche of released evidence consists of four volumes and nearly 1,900 pages, although large portions of the files are sealed or redacted.  Trump described Smith's motion as "falsehood-ridden" and said the Justice Department violated its policy on avoiding actions that could influence an election.  "This entire case is a Partisan, Unconstitutional, Witch Hunt, that should be dismissed, entirely, just like the Florida case was dismissed!," the former president said in a statement earlier this month in response to Smith's filing.

Our Current Government Is No Longer Constitutional.  In Washington Goes to War, David Brinkley details how the DC bureaucracy exploded during the war, aided in no small part by FDR's New Deal.  Today, notwithstanding that the Constitution makes the federal government a republic and, in Article IV Section 4, guarantees that each of the 50 states is a republic, in all 51 jurisdictions, the republican form has been eclipsed by the administrative bureaucracy that dominates the federal and state governments.  These administrative bureaucracies are, in effect, a fourth branch of the government in all 51 jurisdictions.  These fourth branches are wholly unelected, hence nullifying self-government.  These fourth branches enact more laws than their corresponding legislative branches and exercise their own powers of prosecution, adjudication, and sentencing.  Because the personnel of these fourth branches are appointed by the corresponding executive branches and their superintendent deep states, these fourth branch personnel exhibit a distinct cyborg persona, which renders them adverse to the human citizens of the states.

About whom is Trump speaking when he references the enemy from within?  The media is having a collective cow over the fact that President Trump said he worries about the "enemies from within" who will pay a price for what they've done to this great nation. [...] Here is a sample of people who Trump refers to as the enemies from within:
  ◦   People who say they want to remake (destroy) America. [...]
  ◦   Antony Blinken, 51 intelligence officials, and the DOJ staff who were willing to lie to intentionally hide the Biden family corruption from the American people.  They clearly didn't care about a free and fair election.
  ◦   Politicians who used IRS bureaucrats to target and silence political opponents, and all the people at the DOJ who didn't care about the abuse of power.
  ◦   All the bureaucrats at the DOJ who were willing to lie to the FISA court so they could illegally spy on their political opponents, and all the bureaucrats who stayed silent on this pure corruption.

Biden Suggests He Wants Trump in Prison — After Kamala Warns Trump Will Prosecute Opponents.  President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday that he is looking forward to seeing former President Donald Trump imprisoned — right after Vice President Kamala Harris warned that Trump would prosecute his opponents. [...] The irony is that the Department of Justice and elected Democratic prosecutors at the state level have been prosecuting Trump for several years in highly dubious and, critics say, partisan cases.  Trump's "34 felonies" relate to payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels (née Stephanie Crawford) as part of a legal non-disclosure agreement.  George Soros-backed prosecutor Alvin Bragg claimed that Trump failed to report the payments as federal campaign expenditures; the conviction is considered likely to be overturned on appeal.  (Under the same standard, Harris or her husband, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, could be prosecuted for his payments to a former nanny as part of a non-disclosure agreement relating to his affair with her, which ended his first marriage.)

What Is Fani Willis Hiding?  Fulton County DA Fani Willis sent a scathing letter to the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee demanding that her lover, Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to spearhead the prosecution of former President Donald Trump on Georgia RICO charges, should not have to answer certain questions before Congress, because the proceedings could compel Wade to "improperly divulge confidential information."  Willis contacted the committee's chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), ahead of Wade's deposition slated to take place Tuesday, arguing that it could interfere with the Trump case.

The Plot to Manage Democracy.  The reality facing America now is that of widespread, coordinated efforts to control our politics, carried out by a self-interested elite grown openly disdainful of the nation's traditions.  If not for a last-minute postponement, a Manhattan judge would have sentenced Donald Trump for the former president's conviction last May by the time this article appeared, in what could fairly be characterized by an objective observer as a politically motivated trial, intended to hamper his 2024 presidential campaign.  The charges pushed the "outer boundaries of the law and due process," according to a former federal and state prosecutor, now working as an analyst for CNN — not exactly a bastion of conservative bias.  The judge in the trial, Juan Merchan, previously violated New York State ethics rules by donating to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign and to a group called Stop Republicans.

FBI and the US Secret Service Plot Against Trump.  New information released by Empower Oversight (EO), a respected American civil rights watchdog, proves that the FBI high ranking employees became way too supportive of the Democrat party.  A September 19 letter from EO president Tristan Leavitt to Jim Jordan, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, exposes mistreatment, and even the firing of agents because of their conservative political views.  It is a real story of a certain Marcus Allen, a highly professional and decorated FBI employee, who had his security clearance suspended and was later fired because of his conservative stance and doubts about whether the bureau acted properly during the Black Lives Matter and January 6 incidents.  According to the EO investigation, a dramatic change in the FBI leadership back in 2021 allowed some agents, specifically those with pro-Democrat sentiments, to experience a skyrocketing growth in their career.  The letter reads that unnamed witnesses describe these agents as deeply anti-conservative.

FBI and the US Secret Service Plot Against Trump.  A recent report shows that the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump were facilitated by unacceptable misconduct and unprofessional behavior by employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Secret Service (USSS) stemming from deep-seated politicization within these agencies.  The increasing politicization of the U.S. government and its institutions has become a pressing concern in many media.  Conservative pundits have been sounding the alarm about that issue since at least 2016, when the FBI plot against Donald Trump was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory.  Now, after it became clear that the Democrat party has weaponized the Department of Justice to destroy Trump's presidential campaign, it turned out the "conspirators" were telling nothing but truth.

The impenetrable arrogance of the left media.  Those who support Harris do so because they loathe Trump.  Why do they hate him?  He is a threat to the way they've been doing things for probably a hundred years.  It seems pretty clear that the "deep state" does actually run the country, faceless, nameless operators who care nothing at all for the American people.  They care about keeping their own gravy train rolling.  They value their wealth, their lofty positions in government, and the power they wield.  They, whomever they are, have controlled Biden and will control Harris, a woman who cannot put a coherent sentence together.  They do not care about her lack of qualifications.  They, (Hillary, John Kerry, Kamala Harris, etc.), very much want to put into place the authoritarian government they've long dreamed about, one in which they control everything, especially speech that is in opposition to their goal.  We cannot let that happen.  Vote like your life depends on it because it does.

Lawfare is Jihad Against Our Country.  You think the bankers are up to no good?  No band of scoundrels has brought more chaos and grief to the life of this republic than the claque that gathers darkly under the banner of "Lawfare."  Its public face is Lawfaremedia.org, run by Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings senior fellow, but that gang functions only to lend a false-front of decorum to the operations of its Democratic Party activist lawyer-army led by Field Marshal Marc Elias, architect of the ballot fraud that has caused Americans to lose faith in their elections.  Marc Elias was the original expeditor of the RussiaGate hoax in 2016 from his perch at Perkins Coie, then Hillary Clinton's campaign law firm, which laundered payments to Christopher Steele, front-man for Glenn Simpson's Fusion GPS political PR shop, which concocted the fraudulent "dossier" and set in motion a train of DC intel blob legal shenanigans aimed at defenestrating Donald Trump from the White House — the Mueller Investigation, impeachment, etc.  While all that was going on through the Trump term, and with the Covid-19 Op providing cover, Mr. Elias engineered the 2020 changes in many states' election laws and bylaws to permit large-scale mail-in voting, organized ballot-harvesting activities, and introduce the use of drop-boxes for receiving bundled votes.

Two Trump Criminal Counts Dropped In Georgia Election Interference Case.  The Georgia judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's election interference case dropped two counts against Trump on Thursday [10/10/2024], according to multiple outlets, though the former president still faces eight charges including a violation of Georgia's racketeering act.

'Our Democracy' Marks 'Their Duplicity'.  Presently, we are embroiled in a presidential campaign.  It is the apex of political messaging, as both parties and their well-heeled allies bombard the electorate with varying promises, claims, smears, and deceits.  [Advertisement]  One of the Democrats' and their "Never Trump" cohorts' favorite narratives is that the GOP candidate, former president Trump, is divisive and that he must be defeated to allow the Democrat nominee, Vice President Harris, to unite the nation.  To believe this, one must concur with the Democrats and Never Trumpers on two counts:  first, Mr. Trump, his MAGA supporters, and the GOP are divisive; and, second, Ms. Harris and the Democrats are not divisive but rather a unifying political force.  [Advertisement]  [Unrelated video clip]  For purposes of this piece, let us stipulate Mr. Trump and his MAGA and GOP supporters are "divisive," if only for the simple reason they dissent from the Democrats radical, extreme, and dangerous agenda; and, moreover, unapologetically champion the populist and conservative principles and policies they believe will promote and protect the liberty, prosperity, and security of our free republic.

Whistleblower claims Secret Service 'painting a false picture' of protection for Trump:  Hawley.  Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley sent letters to U.S. Secret Service (USSS) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) leaders on Wednesday detailing a new whistleblower claim that Secret Service leadership is trying to hide the level of protection given to former President Trump.  The letter to USSS Director Ronald Rowe and DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari alleges a whistleblower's claims that government auditors are being denied access to certain Trump campaign events in an effort to hide these apparent protection shortfalls for the former president.  "You of course have publicly stated that former President Trump is receiving 'the highest level of Secret Service protection' and that 'he's getting everything.'  This new whistleblower information troublingly contradicts your public statements," Hawley wrote in his letter to Rowe.

This election isn't Trump versus Harris.  Kamala Harris is running as the Democrat candidate against Republican Donald Trump, but in reality, Trump is facing a 100-year development of a Progressive government monolith.  Harris is merely the "Borg Queen" who acts as the voice of this monolithic, massive, solid government cube.  It is so out of control in its reach and power, that it has become effectively its own separate entity.  How our own government turned into a kind of living, breathing machine in its own right, and how it lives apart from the American people who are constitutionally its master, is something that should be kept in mind as the election nears.  Trump and his team face the ultimate corporate restructuring job, and that is probably the most rational, pragmatic way to look at the tasks ahead after Trump is elected and forms his working team.

Postbellum, not Antebellum.  The war against America has come from within, by those in charge of its most deadly and surreptitious weapons developed over decades at its disposal.  How did America engage in coups from 1946 on?  The lineup is impressive and extensive and first aimed at the United States in 1963. An agency that has outgrown control, beyond accountability for fear of the safety of those attempting to control it.  If that is not a danger to "democracy" I'd like to hear a better definition.  Were it not being used to the satisfaction of the current regime there would be howls of constitutional objections.  That is what they are worried about when it comes to Trump, that their weapons might be turned on them.

Jack's 'October Surprise' is a Dud.  On Oct. 2, prosecutor Jack Smith filed a 165-page Motion against President Trump that contains nothing new.  The document will be revered by the MSNBC crowd, but those people already plan to vote for Kamala Harris.  The rest of America — MAGA and undecided voters — will see it as more evidence of a corrupt DOJ.  Before we delve into the details, consider this:
  •   By issuing the Motion in October, the DOJ violated its own rule, which precludes the release of information within 60 days of an election, if the information could affect the election.
  •   After waiting three years, this prosecutor released his allegations just 33 days before the election — in time to affect voter preferences, but just late enough to deprive Trump of time for a rebuttal.
  •   For several months, Trump had been subject to a gag order because Smith felt Trump's comments could influence potential witnesses.  Now, however, Smith has decided that it is O.K. to influence potential witnesses — and potential voters.
  •   According to Trump's attorneys, the Motion was issued before Jack fulfilled his obligations to provide all exculpatory evidence to Trump (Brady Rule).
I don't believe the American public will buy what Jack is selling.

The Editor says...
It doesn't matter if the public agrees with the allegations or the methods used by Mr. Smith.  He doesn't care if his accusations are thrown out of court eventually.  His only objective appears to be the obstruction of Trump's success in the November election.

Trump blasts DOJ for unsealing evidence against him just before the election.  Former President Donald Trump blasted the Department of Justice on Tuesday, accusing the agency of "election interference" for unsealing critical evidence against him about one month before Election Day.  A federal judge unsealed a 165-page court filing Tuesday chock full of Special Counsel Jack Smith's argumentation and evidence against Trump in the ongoing election interference case.  "For 60 days prior to an election, the department of injustice is supposed to do absolutely nothing that would taint or interfere with a case," Trump wrote on TruthSocial.  "They disobeyed their own rule in favor of complete and total election interference.  I did nothing wrong, they did!  The case is a scam, just like all of the others, including the documents case, which was dismissed!"  Trump's comments Tuesday refer to the "60-day rule," the DOJ's practice of avoiding major legal announcements just before the election.  That rule was thrust into the forefront when the FBI held a press conference about Hillary Clinton's emails before the 2016 election.

Trump Slams DOJ, Jack Smith Over Unsealed Motion in Election Interference Case: 'Hit Job'.  Former President Donald Trump slammed the Department of Justice (DOJ) for unsealing a motion from Special Counsel Jack Smith regarding Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, describing it as a "hit job."  In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that the Democrat Party was "weaponizing" the DOJ against him "because they know" he is winning, pointing out that this unsealed motion came after Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), Trump's vice presidential running mate, "humiliated" Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) in the vice presidential debate on Tuesday.  "Democrats are Weaponizing the Justice Department against me because they know I am WINNING, and they are desperate to prop up their failing Candidate, Kamala Harris," Trump wrote.

Why They Hate Trump.  Donald Trump dared to challenge the political status quo.  By publicly questioning the economic and foreign policy decisions of the Establishment Class in Washington, D.C., he became an existential threat to a system that has long worked against the interests of the American people.  As David Plouffe, one of Barack Obama's closest advisers, inveighed before the 2016 presidential election: "It is not enough to beat Trump.  He must be destroyed thoroughly.  His kind must not be allowed to rise again." [...] Why is this one American's voice so threatening to the old guard?  It's simple:  President Trump is (1) a political outsider who (2) rejects the supremacy of the administrative state and (3) prioritizes Americans over foreign nationals.  It might seem strange to call Donald Trump an "outsider."  He's a billionaire.  He's famous.  He's served as president of the United States.  But for all his success, wealth, and celebrity, he is not a member of the ruling political class.

Heroes and Villains.  [Scroll down]  Just yesterday, former Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking of Mr. Trump returning to office, told MSNBC's Jen Psaki:  "They will use the mechanisms of the DOJ to go after people who are their political foes.  This is something that has never really happened in the history of this republic."  Mr. Holder may have been born at night, but probably not the night before last.  Apparently, he has not noticed the uses to which current AG Merrick Garland has put "Joe Biden's" DOJ, bending heaven, earth, and the law to put Mr. Trump behind bars and bankrupt him — not to mention the scores of Trump-adjacent lawyers prosecuted in cockamamie cases based on their efforts to pursue ballot fraud in the 2020 elections.

Trump in January.  To the Democrat Party bosses, as well, and to the Swamp, and to the globalists, Trump is a monster only because he is a real and standing threat, again, to their own long-term ambitions and vices. [...] The Democrats do not like being out of office, nor do they hand over the reins in good faith.  Look at Lincoln, Bush (see Al Gore), and of course Richard Nixon, who got away with far less than your average rogue Democrat.  Hillary Clinton took some of the White House's bespoke dinner china when she left (that was hers, right?). The Obamas were hideously ungracious to the incoming Trumps (the Obamas wouldn't even leave town, 'eva!).  Democrats are adverse to being nice, to playing fair, and to just going.

Appeals Court May Overturn or Reduce Donald Trump's Massive $478 Million Civil Fraud Judgment.  A Manhattan judge found Donald Trump guilty in February of fudging his net worth and the value of his real estate holdings to obtain favorable rates from banks and insurers.  New York Attorney General Letitia James wanted to criminalize what was a common practice in the cutthroat New York City real estate market for two reasons.  First, Trump spent ten years overstating his wealth.  Second, the trial judge did not detect any remorse or contrition from Trump or his sons who were the other defendants.  Apparently, the judge didn't like the fact that the Trumps failed to grovel.  Then there was the bonus that James is a Democrat and Trump is a Republican presidential candidate.  'Nuff said.  But the case has now reached the New York Court of Appeals.  The five-judge panel seemed skeptical of AG James's application of the particular fraud statute she used to stick it to the former president.

Another Presidential Election, Another Deep State Letter Opposing Trump.  Two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Politico published a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officers falsely claiming that a New York Post story about the infamous Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.  The letter was organized by Antony Blinken of the Biden campaign and former CIA Director Michael Morell.  The CIA cleared it for publication.  Many Americans were outraged over this letter because it represented former intelligence officers, several with high-paid government contracts, misusing their profession to meddle in a U.S. presidential election and mislead the American public.  Undeterred by the considerable blowback generated by the 2020 Hunter Biden laptop letter, the Harris campaign has organized a similar letter against President Trump in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election that claims he is unfit to be commander-in-chief and endorses Kamala Harris.

The least shocking endorsement of them all.  The Drudge Report, the deep-state's electronic bulletin board, promoted an NYT column it ran under General Stanley McChrystal's name:  "Why Kamala Harris Has Won Me Over."  The column reflected much soul-searching and deep thinking by the the general. [...] This is a phony epiphany.  Character requires candor, which this piece lacks.  The retired general had no decision to make.  He detests Trump and would vote for Thomas Crooks if he had to. [...] Like Kamala, the general is silent on Biden making Afghanistan the only war America ever lost.  To be sure, Vietnam and Iraq were stalemates but this was an all-out surrender with America giving the Taliban American arms in tribute.  McChrystal is a political player who got cashiered because he forgot the chain of commanded and publicly dissed the commander in chief.  This made him a media darling, especially when he dissed Trump.  This also made McChrystal a sham at the end of his military career, something he carried over into civilian life.

New York court is set to hear Donald Trump's appeal of his $489 million civil fraud verdict.  A New York appeals court is set to hear arguments in Donald Trump's fight to overturn a civil fraud judgment that could disrupt his real estate empire and cost him close to a half-billion dollars.  The former president and current Republican nominee has given no indication he plans to attend Thursday's hearing in Manhattan.  Trump's lawyers are asking the state's intermediate appellate court to nullify a judge's findings that he deceived banks, insurers and others for years by lying about his wealth on paperwork used to make deals and secure loans.  They contend that Judge Arthur Engoron's verdict was "egregious" and should be reversed.

Kamalism Will Destroy America.  General Mark Milley committed treason when he told his Chinese counterpart that he would be warned of an American attack.  Before any voter fraud, the Trump administration was overthrown by bogus investigations, impeachments, never ending character assassination, and lies like those concocted by the infamous 51intelligence officers — who most probably changed the outcome of the election by their authoritative lie that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian "disinformation."  This was a coup, and Republicans should say so.  All these things are part of a concerted effort to destroy the American way of life.

The truth of the latest bomb Trump assassination scare could be darker than you imagine.  News spread like wildfire yesterday of yet another assassination attempt against Trump as explosives were allegedly found in a car near the location Trump was scheduled to speak at his Long Island rally. [...] Almost as quickly as the story spread, the media swooped in to debunk it as "misinformation." [...] Of course, it's quite possible that this incident is just a bizarre fluke.  That a random person just happened to be engaging in an innocent bomb sniffing exercise at an event where the former President, who has survived two assassination attempts, was to speak an hour later.  It's also possible that there's more to the story.  Revolver News' Darren Beattie pointed out that the feds often run drills or training exercises concurrently with suspicious or questionable events.  That way, if the bad actors are caught in the act, they have the plausible deniability of explaining their behavior as a training exercise rather than something more nefarious.

Trump Assassins:  Off-the-Books Assets?  Prior to their respective assassination attempts targeting Trump, Ryan Routh and Thomas Crooks had extraordinary proximity to U.S. Intelligence, demonstrated foreknowledge of Trump's schedule and security, and acquired skills that intelligence agencies have a history of sharing with assets.  Routh staked out Trump's golf club for twelve hours, lying in wait behind bushes to ambush him during an unscheduled game of golf.  Unfamiliar with the locale, Routh managed to give security the slip, bringing an AK-47-style rifle onto Trump's golf course.  Routh managed to give a U.S. Secret Service agent the slip again after being fired upon, losing his pursuer despite initially being only ten feet away from the agent (whose gunfire somehow missed Routh), escaping in his vehicle only to be caught later thanks to a witness who snapped a picture of his license plate.  For the second time, it was not the Secret Service, but locals who caught the gunman.

Is Obama cash underwriting Iran's election interference?  Now it is clear and substantiated by our intelligence agencies that Iran has been funneling intelligence regarding the Trump campaign to Kamala Harris.  Like so much right now, the American people are expected to swallow this outrage and 'move on,' while the Left shrieks louder that it isn't so.  Of course it is true and has been very arguably so since Obama got into office.  The absolutely tiresome ya-da-da about Russian interference again (concurrent with Hillary's return to the MSM main ticket), is what the media, in the last three election cycles, is dragging out of its moldy box of tricks.  But not Iran — the MSM will stay away from Iran, as they have thus far.  They must have got the memo.

Iran Hacked Trump Data, Sent It to Biden Campaign.  Iranian hackers in late June and early July sent what the agencies described as "unsolicited emails" to people associated with the Biden campaign.  This came weeks before Biden announced in a statement that he was suspending his reelection bid before backing Vice President Kamala Harris, his then-running mate.  The emails contained non-public information that was stolen from the Trump campaign.  The FBI and the other agencies said that Iran has tried to send the stolen Trump data since June to media organizations.  In August, the agencies said that Iran had launched a multifaceted approach to influence the U.S. election and sow discord among the American electorate.

Leftists Deserve the J6 Treatment.  Remember: illegally appointed special counsel Jack Smith is prosecuting President Trump in D.C. for exercising his constitutional right to free speech after the 2020 election.  Smith's case essentially claims that Trump was not entitled to question the legitimacy of the mail-in ballot-tainted election and that his refusal to concede to Joe Biden directly led to the breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.  The fact that Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, are using the imprimatur of the criminal justice system as a smokescreen to railroad and possibly imprison the leader of the opposition party is bad enough.  By treating President Trump's speech as the "proximate cause" of other alleged crimes (consisting mostly of questionable trespass violations reimagined and inflated into felonies) committed by strangers, the Biden-Garland-Smith Triumvirate of Tyranny has turned every American's opinion into a potential criminal act.

Three Types of Assassination:  The Desperate Effort to Eliminate Trump.  This article is about three types of assassination.  The first, which President Trump has endured nonstop since he first entered the political arena, is character assassination.  The second is legal assassination, sometimes called "lawfare."  The term is appropriate, because it is derived from warfare.  This is the attempt to lawlessly, but under the guise of law, bankrupt, ruin, defame and even imprison a dangerous political opponent. [...] And finally, when all else fails, there is actual assassination.  These three types of assassination are connected, and typically one leads to another.

Corruption within the Secret Service and the Supreme Court.  The big news from Sunday is that Trump — thank God — survived a second assassination attempt and, just as thankfully, no one else was killed or injured.  Currently, we have no explanation for the shooter's pinpoint accuracy regarding where he'd find Trump.  What some may have missed, though, was another story yesterday in the New York Times claiming that a massive Supreme Court leak implied that Chief Justice John Roberts, a notable squish, manipulated normal procedures to save Donald Trump via the Court's immunity decision.  Both these events — the would-be assassin's weirdly precise knowledge about Trump's whereabouts and the Supreme Court's leaks — tell us that something is rotten in the state of the Deep State.

In Huge Blow to Fani Willis, Judge Drops Two Counts Against President Trump in Lawfare RICO Case.  Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Thursday dropped two criminal counts against President Trump in Fani Willis's lawfare RICO case.  In August 2023, corrupt Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis indicted President Trump and 18 co-defendants for daring to challenge the 2020 election.  Judge McAfee said two of the counts related to conspiracy and filing false documents are outside of Fani Willis's jurisdiction since she is a local District Attorney and not a federal prosecutor.  A total of five of the 13 charges of the original indictment have now been dropped against President Trump.  Judge McAfee dropped three of the charges earlier this year.

Beating the Cheat.  It can't actually be said that the either the Butler assassination attempt or Joe's bugout upended the 2024 campaign.  That had already largely occurred by the second week of July.  Every last effort against Donald Trump by the progressive establishment and their Deep State and bureaucratic allies had collapsed by that point.  The lawfare campaign miscarried completely, generating sympathy for Trump and anger against his tormentors.  The Supreme Court's decision in Trump v. United States put an end to that chapter and cleared the way for Donald Trump's next move.  Judge Aileen Cannon's dismissal of Jack Smith's demented records case is simply icing on the cake.

Trump May Not Win in Pennsylvania — Until After the Election.  Donald Trump is likely to win the most votes in Pennsylvania, but unless he leads by at least 3 percent on Election Day, it is likely that Kamala Harris will be declared the winner.  If that happens, the Republicans will have to take extraordinary steps to dispute the stolen election.  To understand the need for an extra 3 percent, we must review the serious problems of the 2020 election, which remain today.

Guess Who's Not Going to Jail Before the Election?  For some time now the Left has been salivating over the prospect that New York judge Juan Merchan would jail Donald Trump on September 18, before the election.  Reports were that a cell in Riker's was being readied for him and even that he'd be denied Secret Service protection (such as it is) while incarcerated.  Not going to happen.  The week stated off badly for Manhattan District attorney Alvin Bragg, the prosecutor of that case, when on a hidden camera Nicholas Biase, Bragg's chief spokesman said, "Honestly, I think the case is nonsense." [...] Of course, the case contending it was felonious for the way money paid to "hush" Stormy Daniels was reported is, in fact, nonsense.  A few days later, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik filed an official ethics complaint against Judge Merchan for refusing to recuse himself despite "his family's increased financial ties" to the proceedings (His daughter has garnered millions of dollars fundraising on behalf of Kamala Harris.)

Judge in Trump Non-Disclosure and Records Case Sued for Hiding His Disclosures and Records.  How many data points must you identify before you can identify a pattern?  This is a question I've pondered about in the case of New York's Acting Judge Juan Merchan.  He is the judge presiding over the bookkeeping and non-disclosure agreement case of Donald Trump.  What happens when you hide evidence of a pattern?  Ironically — and illegally — Judge Merchan and the people at the oxymoronically-named Ethics Commission for the New York State Unified Court System have been hiding the judge's records and disclosures since 2018. America First Legal is suing both Merchan and ethics overseers for illegally hiding the judge's disclosures for the past seven years.

Jonathan Turley Says He Thinks 'Merchan Was Aware' Sentencing Trump Before Election Would Help Him Win.  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley on Friday said that Judge Juan Merchan's decision to delay former President Donald Trump's sentencing could be an effort to avoid boosting his campaign.  Merchan had scheduled Trump's sentencing for Sept. 18, but on Friday, he postponed the date to Nov. 26 "if necessary," according to his order.  Turley, on "America Reports," claimed that Merchan's rulings against Trump during his case were advantageous to his reelection bid, suggesting that maintaining the September sentencing date would have further intensified support for the former president.

President Trump Accurately Identifies the Institution at the Epicenter of Government Controlled Voter Fraud.  President Trump sends out a "cease and desist" message that absolutely nails the institutional origin of the voter fraud process as it is permitted and facilitated.  Although slightly using a coded message, within the spelling, punctuation and pertinence, the identification "DoJ" is transparently clear.  I hope everyone can see it. [...] The identification of the DoJ as the primary institutional silo that permits voter fraud is keenly accurate.  That same institutional silo has the capability to stop voter fraud by prosecuting all of the public-private officials and NGO's who participate in the process.  Main justice facilitates voter fraud through a subsidiary of secondary divisions (sub-silos) within the main institution.  The Civil Rights Division of the DOJ is a critically compromised agency and must be addressed accordingly in order to confront the weaponized bureaucracy underneath the leadership level.  This is why the Attorney General position is so critical in 2025.

No Trial Date to Be Set in DC Trump Case Until Immunity Is Sorted Out.  It.'s [sic] been a while since Special Counsel Jack Smith's legal team and that of former President Donald Trump faced off in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.  The 2020 Election case brought by Smith against Trump has been in limbo since it went up on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on the presidential immunity issue.  [Advertisement]  Since the SCOTUS July 1 ruling on the scope of immunity, the parties have made various filings, and Smith has filed a superseding indictment, but Thursday marked the first day the parties were actually back before Judge Tanya Chutkan in person, a fact which Chutkan acknowledged as she greeted Trump attorney John Lauro.  [Tweet]

Jim Jordan Launches Inquiry Into Jack Smith's 'Latest Sham Indictment'.  Last week, as Mia covered, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a new indictment against former and potentially future President Donald Trump to do with January 6. Days later, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, taking issue with the "latest sham indictment" and calling Smith's move out as "Election interference." As Jordan began by reminding, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Trump v.  United States decision on July 1, which found that the office of the president has immunity from criminal prosecution.  The Court issued such an opinion "explaining the parameters of presidential immunity and rebuking Special Counsel Jack Smith for violating this Constitutional principle in his political prosecution of President Donald J. Trump," as Jordan put it.

Who Really Is Barack Obama?  A Counterintelligence Inquiry.  Trump bears a grudge against the Intelligence Community for the many leaks that spooks provided to the media during his presidency at his expense (I reported several of them).  Trump believes that there was a full-blown secret conspiracy against him perpetrated by IC leaders to smear him with imaginary connections to Moscow.  He's largely right to think that.  I spent the years of Trump's presidency discussing allegations of his clandestine links to the Kremlin in detail.  Those connections to Russian intelligence were not wholly imaginary.  From any counterintelligence perspective, Trump's dalliances with Moscow were highly concerning. [...] Trump has nothing to be proud of in this matter, but he was never a Russian spy, neither was he "installed to destroy us" per the online "Resistance" wine-mom mantra.

Jack Smith, Democrat-Lawfare Complex Hit Man.  The modern Democratic Party operates like a Mafia family.  Like the Mob, Democrats have a specific organizational hierarchy.  There are the grand bosses who sit atop the entire food chain, such as the Obamas and the Clintons.  There are the trusted consiglieres, such as Attorney General Merrick Garland and outside super-lawyer Marc Elias.  There are caporegimes, such as Govs.  Gavin Newsom and Kathy Hochul.  Heck, there was even a years-long omerta vow of silence surrounding President Joe Biden's obvious physical and mental decline. [...] In the year 2024, so-called special counsel Jack Smith — yes, only so-called, as both Justice Clarence Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon recently concluded — is the foot soldier par excellence for the Democratic Party, and the Democrat-lawfare complex that now serves as the party's tip of the electoral spear.

Trump Will Seek Jack Smith's Dismissal in January 6 Case, Argues That Prosecution 'Must End as a Matter of Law'.  The joint status report presented to Judge Tanya Chutkan and co-authored by the teams behind President Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith discloses that the two sides are anything but synced on how the 45th President should be tried for January 6. The filing is a preview of Trump's plan to stymie the prosecution.  Judge Chutkan requested the summary in advance of a hearing she has scheduled for Wednesday on how the election subversion case against Trump ought to proceed.  The prosecution has been upended — but not entirely derailed  — by the Supreme Court's ruling in Trump v.  United States that official presidential acts are presumptively immune.  Mr. Smith digested that ruling by convening a fresh grand jury to hand up the same four charges from his original indictment, though he pared down his recitation of evidence to omit those interactions between Trump and the Department of Justice that the justices held were entitled to "absolute" immunity.  His new charge sheet is nine pages shorter, but otherwise much the same.

As Campaign Enters Home Stretch, Trump Remains Bound and Gagged by Democratic Lawfare.  While Donald Trump continues his impressive pace of rallies and interviews and running mate JD Vance continues to humiliate the regime press, Kamala Harris is re-upping Joe Biden's 2020 strategy of staying out of the public eye as much as possible; her schedule regularly consists of "internal discussions and briefings" rather than the sort of turf-hitting grind one expects of a presidential candidate.  Harris's disastrous pre-taped, partially-aired CNN interview before a nauseatingly-compliant Dana Bash last week is a reminder why she was the most unpopular vice president on record and why her team plans to keep her under wraps up to the finish line.  At the same time Kamala coasts during this critical period, the month of September will find Trump's lawyers in two courtrooms as the lawfare against the former president reaches different stages in New York City and Washington, D.C.  The proceedings represent egregious election interference, which is infuriating considering it is unlikely either case ultimately survives the Supreme Court's immunity test presented in the landmark Trump v US opinion published in July.

Colorado, Michigan and Wisconsin refusing to remove RFK Jr. from ballot, all to hurt Trump.  The rebellion of states has begun after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign and threw his support behind Donald Trump in the 10-or-so battleground states that Trump has to win in order to achieve an election victory.  In his campaign suspension speech, Kennedy urged his supporters in the other 40 states to still vote for him, but indicated that he is voluntarily removing his name from the ballot in about 10 battleground states, some of which are refusing to cooperate because they want Trump to lose.

The Editor says...
In other words, the election officials in several states are interfering with the process because of their personal preferences.

D.C. Swamp-Dwellers Say It Doesn't Matter Who Wins the Presidency, They'll Do What They Want.  If he is reelected this November, will Donald Trump manage to drain the swamp this time?  The swamp-dwellers are saying no.  Ever since he began his first run for president, Trump has famously vowed to drain the swamp, that is, clear out the far-left bureaucracy in Washington that bears so much responsibility for the leftward drift of the nation over the last decade and a half. [...] In fact, before Trump was elected and the Washington bureaucracy rose against him, few people, if any, knew that there was a swamp at all.  One of the most important results of the Trump presidency was not one anyone intended: it revealed the deep corruption and politicization of the civil service.  Now, a more experienced Trump is again vowing to destroy the swamp, but the swamp-dwellers are insisting that they're not going anywhere and will continue to run things.  The gauntlet has been thrown down.

Will Democrats Repeat the Fraud of 2020?  Even before Trump became president, the Uniparty establishment made their political and personal hatred for him well known and spent his entire term working to delegitimize his election and remove him from office.  Despite these attempts, the Democrats 2020 campaign did not suggest they were serious about beating him.  They nominated a feeble and fading, two-time failed primary candidate in Joe Biden, used COVID as an excuse to shield him from the public, and ran on a radically left agenda that was the antithesis of Trump's increasingly popular America First one.  It wasn't until the early hours of November 4th, 2020, that it became obvious why that was the case:  It wasn't President Trump versus Joe Biden, but rather their election theft machine.  Now, we are once again seeing them use similar tactics as we approach the 2024 election.

How are Ukraine Stakeholders, CIA and U.S. Intelligence Community Going to Stop Donald Trump?
  •   To stop him in 2016, the FBI and DOJ ran a comprehensive surveillance operation against his campaign.  The same people manufactured a completely fabricated case of Trump colluding with Russia.  Have you forgotten?
  •   To stop him in 2017, the DOJ and Congress ran a comprehensive Special Counsel operation against his presidency.  The justification of the SC operation was to prove a completely fabricated case of Trump colluding with Russia.  The real reason for the SC operation was to cover up the FBI and DOJ completely fabricating the case of Trump colluding with Russia.  Have you forgotten?
  •   To stop him in 2019, congress and the intelligence apparatus (Mary McCord and Michael Atkinson) manufactured an impeachment hoax using Ukraine, a fabricated DoD plant on the National Security Council (Vindman), the CIA (Ciaramella) and the Intelligence Community Inspector General (Attkinson).  Have you forgotten?
  •   To stop him in 2020, the U.S. Intelligence Community, working through the U.S. CDC, seeded a global pandemic and quickly manufactured an election result using mail-in ballots to manufacture 81 million votes for a completely controlled candidate with dementia.  Have you forgotten?

Our Future.  In the current presidential campaign the Democrats' main issue is that Trump is a dictator who will destroy democracy.  This from a Democrat regime that has turned law into a weapon against political candidates such as Trump who is currently fighting four felony indictments and as many civil indictments in the midst of the presidential campaign.  Clearly, the Democrat Department of Justice (sic) and the Democrat New York attorney general are using law to interfere in the election.  All of this is underway while one of the Democrats' indictments of Trump is that he interfered in an election by the way he reported a business expense.  The corrupt Democrat judge presiding over this farce intends to sentence Trump next month.  The double standards are extraordinary and go far beyond mere mudslinging.  We are watching the party in power use the police powers of the state in an effort to control the outcome of an election.  As for the Democrats' commitment to democracy, how strong is this commitment when some of them are saying that they will not accept the election outcome if Trump wins?  Doesn't this make them "January 6 insurrectionists"?

Watergate(s) on Steroids.  The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post bragged early in 2017, "Resistance from within:  Federal workers push back against Trump."  The story said, "Less than two weeks into Trump's administration, federal workers are in regular consultation with recently departed Obama-era political appointees about what they can do to push back against the new president's initiatives.  Some federal employees have set up social media accounts to anonymously leak word of changes that Trump appointees are trying to make."  This was immoral, unprecedented and unconstitutional.  The press acted like not graciously accepting defeat was a good thing.

Everybody Knows the Captain Lied.  The dice have been loaded for decades.  The war was over in 1963 when the CIA, on behalf of the Deep State, murdered John F. Kennedy.  The American people (the good guys) lost, and the Deep State won.  They got their war in Vietnam.  They got their Welfare State.  They got guns, butter, a currency unlinked from gold, and the green light to create debt to infinity.  The Deep State has consolidated their power and control over every aspect of our lives in the six decades since they killed JFK.  They have used every crisis they create to abscond with more of our liberties, freedoms, rights and wealth.  In addition to the never-ending wars created around the globe to benefit their military industrial complex, their wars on poverty, drugs, terror, CO2, and covid have enriched them and their lackeys, while exacerbating the very things they declared war upon.  None of these wars are meant to be won.  Keeping the masses in fear and ignorance makes them easier to control.

Site Notes.  Some people think DC corruption is really, really bad.  Trust me, it's worse than that.  My thoughts on staffing, roles and responsibilities are from a pragmatic place of what can reasonably be expected to be achieved.  CTH has never joined this nonsensical "trusty-planner" mindset.  There is no plan.  There never was a plan.  There is one guy, Donald Trump, trying to enact policies to the benefit of the American people.  Every democrat and every republican want him to fail.

Rage Against the Machine.  [Scroll down]  Examples:  The current lawfare against Trump and others in his circle.  Charging them with felonies for essentially jaywalking, for doing things all administrations have done, pretending these are now crimes.  Literally trying to put their opponents in prison as third world countries and communists of all stripes have done in the past.  Using the bureaucracies to forward their pet nonsensical ecological ideas to destroy energy creation, to destroy our economy, and the capacity of so many of us just to keep up with living expenses.  Using our foreign policy institutions and the CIA to forward the goals of the corrupt and greedy military/industrial complex.  Pushing us towards WWIII without a sense of proportion as to what that would mean for the country and the world.  Opening the border to the control of the cartels, bringing us illegal drugs, human trafficking, the sex trading of children, and the intent to replace our country with citizens malleable to the whims of the left.

Democracy in Name Only:  How Kamala Harris Became Democratic Nominee.  Just before his election in 2008, Barack Obama famously (or infamously) said that we were on the threshold of "fundamentally transforming the United States of America."  He was right about that.  But the irony was that the transformation entailed the establishment of political stasis.  Throughout his first term, Donald Trump endeavored to change some important things, to roll back that "fundamental transformation" that Obama had overseen.  The FBI and other agencies of the regulatory state, abetted by the propaganda press, intervened to stymie him at every turn.  He was investigated, indicted, impeached, nearly bankrupted, and, just a week or so ago, shot.  The Dems love the rhetoric of "change," just as they cherish the word "democracy."  Their actions show that they are hostile to both.  Change is incompatible with the maintenance of their perquisites and privileges, just as genuine democracy is fraught with peril for the establishment.  Take democracy seriously and who knows?  You might wind up with someone like Donald Trump.

How far will the left go to eliminate Trump?  Everything that Trump said about the corruption in the Deep State has come to fruition.  They used flimsy evidence and tyrannical methods to imprison his supporters, including many of his top-level staff members and attorneys.  Not only did they charge the former president with accounting misdemeanors that had expired under the statutory limitations' laws, but they upgraded them to felonies.  He was kept off the campaign trail for several months, forced to sit in courtrooms defending himself from bogus accusations.  With the American people watching the trials on television, the Biden administration was hoping the public would be indoctrinated to believe that Trump was a criminal.  Then, with a New York leftist for a prosecutor and a jury of Trump-haters, they got what they wanted when he was found guilty of 34 felonies.  As fast as you could say "kangaroo court," Biden was blasting his opponent as a felon who didn't deserve to be a candidate for president.

Deep State Carnival Barkers Distract Us with Kamala.  A manufactured cycle of psychological highs and lows keeps Americans' attention directed toward anything that is glamorous and away from everything that matters.  Consider the roller coaster we've all been riding at higher and higher rates of speed and evermore-dangerous heights these last few months:  One New York judge abuses a civil fraud statute to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from Donald Trump.  Another ignores settled law and relevant facts to help convict him of thirty-four fake felonies.  Democrats break out in euphoria.  Then, the U.S. Supreme Court steps in to recognize presidential immunity in a way that threatens three other criminal cases against bogeyman Trump.  Democrats scream obscenities in protest and demand the Court's "cancellation."

8 shots to Hell.  "By any means necessary" they say.  They cheated at the ballots in 2020 and mostly got away with it.  But that didn't defeat Trump or make his supporters disappear.  Trump decided to run for president in 2024.  They tried lawfare, but he is so honest they couldn't come up with any legitimate charges against him.  Never mind, they came up with transparently phony charges and got the whore media to make believe they were real.  Trump beat some of the charges, is contesting the ones he lost, and paid crippling bonds on the crazy fines against him.  He's still standing.  He's still going to rallies that regularly crush attendance at Biden rallies.  He is more popular than ever.  He debated Biden, who came across as the demented sack of evil that he is.  So, with nothing left, the media started giving their followers permission to assassinate Trump by openly discussing the idea.

When Democrats Incite an Assassination.  [Scroll down]  Right now, lawfare assassin Jack Smith is arguing in front of black-robed tyrant Judge Chutkan that the once-and-future President Trump should be tossed in the hoosegow for daring to question the legitimacy of the 2020 election and "inciting" the so-called Capitol "insurrection" on January 6, 2021.  Anybody with a brain knows that there was never an insurrection, that President Trump never encouraged any criminality of any kind, and that trampling on a president's right to free speech pretty much assures that the rest of us will soon be prosecuted for our political speech, too.

Trump's Resilience And The Inevitable Endpoint of Democrat Politics.  The Democrats conspired to sabotage [Donald Trump] beginning before he was president and never gave up.  There have been lies about Russia, kids in cages, "Good people on both sides," suckers and losers, and (a Biden favorite) Trump encouraging the drinking or injecting bleach.  He was impeached for talking with Ukraine, investigated for allegedly trying to coerce Georgia's Secretary of State to create votes after the 2020 election, and impeached for inciting that January 6th "Insurrection," even though no such insurrection occurred, that he urged people to be peaceful, and that Twitter shut down his efforts to calm the crowd.  The countless manufactured court cases have just been more of the same.  All this while Democrats and their mouthpieces in the Propaganda Ministry have been telling Americans that Trump is a threat to the nation, calling him Hitler, and suggesting that if he gets into office, he'll never leave.  Donald Trump has been on the defensive for the last eight years.  What's more, his supporters have been abused, harassed, thrown in jail and, as happened to Ashli Babbitt on January 6th and Corey Comperatore on Saturday, killed.

Any Assassination Investigation That Includes Merrick Garland Or Chris Wray Is A Coverup.  The FBI has been deeply intertwined with DOJ and other spy agencies' decade — or more — of politicized corruption.  As has been well established by years of investigative work by The Federalist, other outlets, and congressional investigations, the FBI worked hand-in-hand with other U.S. spy agencies to frame Trump as a Russian traitor.  This election-interference operation prompted a special counsel investigation that hamstrung Trump's governance and deceived millions of voters with a constant campaign of leaks and lies.  As part of this operation, the FBI paid for Russian disinformation to take down the elected U.S. president.  Another special counsel investigation later found agency bias was to blame for multiple FBI violations of law and policy to "prevent Trump from becoming president."  The bias that led to this federal effort to end democratic control of U.S. military and intelligence agencies has not only continued since, it's expanded.

Note:  All the discussion of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is now accumulating on a page of its own, located here.

On Day He Was Supposed to Be Sentenced, Trump Files Motion to Have His NY Convictions Thrown Out.  This was not the day the Democrats had planned.  They were hoping to see a handcuffed Donald Trump hauled to jail while Joe Biden cemented his lead in the presidential campaign.  Oh, how the tides have turned.  On Thursday, July 11 — the day Trump was supposed to be hauled off after his conviction on 34 counts of business fraud in New York — we instead saw the resurgent former president angling to get those bogus charges tossed even as Joe Biden desperately tried to salvage his flagging campaign.  But times have changed after the bombshell July 1 immunity ruling by the Supreme Court: [...]

Dems Are Consolidating Absolute Power In The Name Of 'Democracy'.  Colorado became the first state to remove former president Donald Trump from the primary ballot after a left-wing activist group backed a challenge from Colorado voters to disqualify him under the 14th Amendment.  The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump was ineligible to appear on the ballot.  Maine made a similar move, along with a county in Illinois where Judge Tracie Porter ordered Trump be removed from the primary ballot after the board of elections unanimously voted against removing him.  Porter ruled Trump should be removed from the ballot and ordered "any votes for him to be suppressed."  The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision overturning the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling and found states did not have the constitutional authority to boot Trump from the ballot.  When that didn't work, Democrats focused their efforts on tossing their opponent in jail.

Missouri AG Sues New York For Lawfare 'Interference' In Presidential Election.  Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit Wednesday against New York alleging in part that the lawfare trial against former President Donald Trump violated Missourians' First Amendment right "to hear from a presidential candidate in the 2024 presidential election," as stated in a press release announcing the suit.  In a lawfare case brought by a D.A. who campaigned on taking on Trump, the former president was found guilty by a New York jury in May on 34 charges related to a crime that "nobody can quite articulate."  Following the Supreme Court's immunity decision, Trump's team moved to overturn his conviction, and Trump's sentencing was delayed until Sept. 18, less than two months before Election Day.  In the lawsuit, Bailey filed a motion for a preliminary injunction, asking the Supreme Court to stop any further proceedings related to the New York lawfare case until after the election.

Clarence Thomas Raises Another Reason Jack Smith's Case Against Trump May Be Unconstitutional.  In a concurring opinion in Trump v.  United States, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas highlighted "another way in which this prosecution" — led by Special Counsel Jack Smith — "may violate our constitutional structure."  Specifically, Thomas writes that "the Attorney General purported to appoint a private citizen as Special Counsel to prosecute a former President on behalf of the United States" but he's "not sure that any office for the Special Counsel has been 'established by Law,' as the Constitution requires."  "Few things would threaten our constitutional order more than criminally prosecuting a former President for his official acts," Thomas explains in his concurring opinion.  "Fortunately, the Constitution does not permit us to chart such a dangerous course."  Thomas explains that the Constitution requires Congress to create any federal offices "by law" as an "important check against the President" who "cannot create offices at his pleasure."  As such, if "there is now law establishing the office that the Special Counsel occupies, then he cannot proceed with this prosecution" because a "private citizen cannot criminally prosecute anyone, let alone a former president."

The Lies We Have Lived Through.  The October surprise laptop disinformation lie may have cost Trump the 2020 election.  But it was concocted so that Joe Biden could stare at the debate camera and swear to the American people that Trump was a liar, citing "51 intelligence authorities" who insisted Hunter Biden's laptop was a likely hallmark of Russian disinformation.  We were asked to believe that clever Russian disinformationists fabricated all the sick photos and selfies of poor Hunter, knew the Biden family's intimate tensions and fault lines as evidenced in the computer's texts and emails, and were able to package and deposit the computer to either a Russian operative masquerading as a computer repairment or have it delivered to the supposedly useful idiot.  The truth was, the FBI had the laptop during the debate and had long verified its authenticity — and thus kept mum as its brethren intelligence apparatchiks lied to the nation.  What the untruth did not fully reveal was that Biden's campaign foreign policy guru, Anthony Blinken (the current Secretary of State), cooked up the entire ruse.

Clarence Thomas Questions Jack Smith's Authority in Blistering Opinion on Immunity Ruling.  Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioned Jack Smith's authority as special counsel in his concurring opinion on the high court's presidential immunity ruling.  The Supreme Court on Monday ruled 6-3 that Trump has absolute immunity for his core Constitutional powers.  Former presidents are entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for their official acts.  The Supreme Court ruled there is no immunity for unofficial acts.

Be careful, Donald.  I am worried about President Trump.  Now that he has demolished Joe Biden in this week's presidential debate, many on the Left would like to see him vanish.  Democrats are desperate, and likely to try to stop him by fair means or foul. [...] There is no shortage of evil people who would 'Epstein' someone if the incentive were big enough.  Already many people have mysteriously died if they crossed some former presidents, so it is no secret that assassins are out there (look up "arkancide" and then when you're done with that, ask why security cameras were "malfunctioning" when Epstein "hung himself" in his jail cell.)  Trump cannot afford to be put in a jail cell with iffy equipment.  Donald Trump is deeply hated by the Deep State, by many Democrats in politics, and by those with contacts in what passes in some pathetic circles for the media.  The communist, globalist, and Islamist agendas, foreign and domestic, are in grave danger from Trump and his voters.

Put a Fork in Him.  [Scroll down]  Democrats and liberals did not stand up and work to deny Biden his reelection bid because they hate Donald Trump so much they could not believe he would survive the onslaught of the legal cases against him and his own indiscipline.  They believed he would sabotage himself as he did in 2020, and that would be what mattered.  They would be saved from their own weak candidate by the weakness of the opposing candidate.  The thing is, they never really had any substantive reason backed by data to think this.  Trump has never given any indication of being a weaker candidate than Biden in the eyes of the electorate.

Jack Smith's January 6 Case Against President Trump Torpedoed After Supreme Court Overturns 1512(c)(2) Obstruction Charge.  The US Supreme Court on Friday delivered a devastating blow to Biden's corrupt Justice Department and overturned the obstruction charge used to jail hundreds of January 6 defendants.  Biden's corrupt DOJ charged more than 300 J6ers with 18 USC §1512(c)(2).  Additionally, two of the four charges against Trump in Jack Smith's DC case are conspiracy to obstruct so the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday torpedoed the special counsel's case against Trump as well.  The Supreme Court earlier this year heard oral arguments in Fischer v.  United States and at issue was statute 18 USC §1512(c)(2):
Whoever corruptly —
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
(2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
On Friday, in a 6-3 vote, the court holds that to prove a violation of the law, the government must show that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.

Decoding New York's Legalese:  President Trump Was Wrongly Prosecuted and Convicted.  The corruption of the law in the Manhattan case against President Donald J. Trump should shock every American, and the devil is in the details of the law, the prosecution, the judge, the jury, and the conviction.  There were two financial accounts referred to in the prosecution.  The first is a revocable trust fund for Donald J. Trump which was created just after he became president, and the second is the personal account of Donald J. Trump.  The indictment indicates that Trump received invoices from Michael Cohen where each invoice was then added to the general accounting ledger with a voucher number, and then a check was issued to pay each invoice.  11 counts of the indictment are for receiving invoices from Michael Cohen.  The first invoice covered two months (January and February), and the other 10 invoices covered one month each for legal services.  How anyone can even suggest that receiving an invoice is falsifying a business record is nonsensical — Joe Hoft at joehoft.com pointed out that this is comparable to being in receipt of a bill for electricity.  Yet, Trump was found guilty on all eleven counts for falsifying business records for receiving invoices.

How CIA interference with the 'Spies Who Lie' letter made Biden the president.  It is chilling to contemplate that, if it had not been for the malign intervention of the CIA in the 2020 election, Donald Trump would have won a second term and the wars raging in Ukraine and Gaza would never have happened.  We now see that the CIA staged a domestic disinformation campaign to protect its favored candidate, the decrepit and pliable Joe Biden, from the political consequences of his corruption.  Now we are told that former CIA Director Gina Haspel was in on the "Dirty 51" letter in October 2020 that falsely claimed Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation.  This bombshell, revealed by former CIA chief operating officer Andrew Makridis to congressional investigators, will go down in history as an act of sabotage against the American people by a rogue intelligence agency.

Trampling the 5th Amendment.  Americans have long derided dictators for eliminating political opponents by prosecuting them on dubious grounds and denying them due process.  Hence, they would have widely condemned the use of these techniques to obtain the criminal conviction of a candidate for high office — were it not for the fact that the candidate was Donald Trump.  President Biden and most other Democrats found the sausage so appetizing that they ignored how it was made.  Although the court's violations of the 5th Amendment could be corrected by higher courts if they took the Constitution seriously, much damage has already been done to the credibility of the courts and the sanctity of the electoral process.

Attack On Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was a CIA Operation.  Congress just released a report confirming that the effort to discredit the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop was a CIA operation.  The report reveals the Biden official who triggered the operation and active CIA contractors involved in the operation.  [Video clip]

Report Says Mike Morell, David Buckley Were on CIA Payroll When They Signed Hunter Biden Letter.  A bombshell report released Tuesday afternoon by the House Judiciary GOP claims that at least two of the 51 "former" intelligence officials who signed a letter discrediting the Hunter Biden "Laptop from Hell" as Russian disinformation were actually on the CIA's payroll at the time they signed the letter[,] despite actively asserting that they didn't have access to any classified information.  Former Deputy Director Michael Morell and former CIA Inspector General David Buckley are the two signatories named in Tuesday's report as being on active contract at the time they signed the statement.  Since the CIA "declined to declassify the entire universe of signatories who were on active contract," though, it's unknown how many signatories were both colluding with the Biden campaign and on the CIA payroll.  In addition, the report states that the statement's co-author, former Senior Intelligence Service Officer Marc Polymeropoulos, included classified information in his proposed media talking points "that had to be removed before publication."

It Was a Quiet Insurrection.  The established oligarchy has a stranglehold on our representative republic government and is choking the life out of our inalienable rights.  The legislature writes so many bills and laws that there is no possible way for Americans to know what is what, and if and when we are "breaking a law."  Because of their ability to twist words and mold the laws for their own purpose, America and the world have watched as Biden and his Democrat Party run one attack after another against President Donald John Trump.  What they did to him while he was president, and what they are doing to him now, is unlawful and unconstitutional, yet they get away with it.  Remember there were many republicans running interference for the Democrats during both impeachments of President Trump, and there were republicans sitting on the fake January 6 committee that set it all up, in order to "crucify" President Trump.

The Poor Legal Arguments of Jack Smith.  On Friday [6/21/2024], Judge Aileen Cannon, overseeing the Florida-based records prosecution of former president Donald Trump, heard a lawsuit regarding the legitimacy of the appointment of special prosecutor Jack Smith.  On Sunday, his office provided the response to those complaints.  On Monday, the court entertained the oral arguments regarding this issue.  Based upon his arguments, even a non-lawyer such as myself can see that the two cases (Florida and Washington, D.C.) are illegitimate.  Now we must await Judge Cannon's opinion.  On Sunday evening, Mark Levin announced on Fox News that his Landmark Legal Foundation had filed a brief concerning the validity of Jack Smith's appointment.  He laid out the legal arguments.  Further information demonstrates the weakness of Smith's argument.  Levin noted that Ed Meese and Michael Mukasey provided briefs arguing against Smith's appointment.

Imposing a Permanent Gag Order on Trump.  Gag orders, constitutionally dubious, are meant to protect the integrity of a judicial proceeding.  However, even with the trial over, the gag orders imposed on former President Trump are not going away.  DA Bragg's office (which had just freed the antisemitic Columbia Hamas rioters) demanded a continuation of the gag order which prohibits him from commenting on the individuals involved in the trial.  Since Trump is also running for president and Biden is spending $50 million to attack him over the various Democrat trials imposed on him, this effectively bans a presidential candidate from debating a campaign issue.  The New York Court of Appeals claimed that "no substantial constitutional question is directly involved" in gagging a presidential candidate when in reality several are involved.  But weasel words like "substantial" and "directly" give away the game.  Imposing a gag order post-trial on a potentially indefinite basis has no legal validity.  There is no longer a judicial proceeding to protect.  The basis for Bragg's demands is the DA's claim that he's still getting death threats and that Trump may seek revenge.  There will be plenty of people who hate Bragg regardless of what Trump says and the rationale that the rhetoric poses a personal risk rather than a risk to a case allows for a permanent gag order.

Keeping Trump Under Gag Order Likely Violates His — And Americans' — Rights, Experts Say.  With the trial over, former President Donald Trump no longer has to sit in the courtroom each day, but even as the first presidential debate approaches, he still can't speak freely about what happened there.  New York's highest court declined Tuesday to take up Trump's appeal, and Bragg's office insists the gag order is needed through sentencing.  Keeping a gag order in place after conviction is exceedingly uncommon, legal experts told the DCNF, noting there is a strong case to be made that doing so violates Trump's civil rights, especially when there was never much justification for issuing one at all.  [Advertisement]  "This really goes right to the heart not only of Donald Trump's First Amendment rights, but the rights of the American people to hear from the candidates running for president," former federal prosecutor Jonathan Fahey told the DCNF, highlighting that Biden is making Trump's 34 felonies a "core feature" of his re-election.  "Biden is going to talk about it, and Trump has to walk on eggshells to make sure he doesn't offend the judge," he continued.

Legal Insurrection Through Lawfare, Part 2.  The Department of Justice is the most heavily politicized of the U.S. government.  In 2016, 91.6% gave to Democrats.  Homeland Security employees came in at 75% Democrat, and the Department of Education was as high as 96% Democrat.  The National Education Association has never donated to a Republican presidential candidate.  All federal government departments have moved from very liberal to radical via the red diaper/red thread chain of the Obama administration hierarchy.  Critical theory and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) remained practically undisturbed by Trump and then emerged revitalized on the first day of Biden's administration.

Armed Enemies Within Plot Trump's Murder.  The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will soon hold a hearing on "potential vulnerabilities within the U.S. Secret Service" that prevent this agency from protecting high-profile figures such as President Donald J. Trump from assassination.  This follows reports of fights breaking out among armed Secret Service agents and "potential insider threats" that threaten national security.  The federal law enforcement agency has been plagued by sex and alcohol scandals but more recently its agents have been trying to protect themselves from dog bites by the German Shepherd "Commander," the Biden family dog.  The Secret Service is a component of the Department of Homeland Security, run by Open Borders architect Alejandro Mayorkas.  That means that the federal official ultimately in charge of the Secret Service "protection" for Trump is at the same time turning a blind eye to hundreds of foreign terrorists entering the country, perhaps to assassinate Trump.  The handwriting is on the wall — Trump's life is in danger because the federal agency in charge of protecting him has been seriously compromised and perhaps even infiltrated.

Trump is a Marked Man.  With right-wing parties making gains in European Union parliamentary elections, it is apparent that a global rejection of the status quo is paving the way for President Trump to win the U.S. presidency in a decisive manner.  While some commentators are focused on whether Joe Biden can make it all the way to November's elections because of his senility and old age, the real question is whether the communists and globalists decide the time is right to take out Trump by any means necessary.  Communist groups are promising "Revolution Summer 2024," a series of protests targeting Biden and Trump but Trump is clearly the main enemy of intelligence agencies here and abroad and is being "Marked for Death," the title of a new report from my group, America's Survival, Inc.  The Marxist groups active in the Democratic Party believe their street protests can force Biden to step down, but Trump is a different story.  That will require a sophisticated intelligence operation so that the fingerprints of the federal agencies that are supposed to protect Trump and the American people can be obscured.

Russia's KGB and Ours.  [Scroll down]  If the Deep State is in fact dominated by the Soviet KGB, now known as the FSB, that would explain a lot.  It would also explain why the Russia-gate hoax against Trump was based on Russian disinformation.  I have come to accept the view of spy catcher James Jesus Angleton, the former CIA counterintelligence chief, who concluded the CIA was hopelessly infiltrated by our enemies.  It turns out so was the FBI, which employed Robert Hanssen as a counter-intelligence agent assigned to catch Soviet/Russian spies, when he was working for the Soviets and the Russians.  When you understand how America's Deep State has become a branch of the KGB, your view of America and the world changes.  You come to better understand the no-war wars of Joe Biden and the failure to back American allies and confront our enemies.  You come to suspect that characters like Hunter Biden were protected for years by federal agencies like the FBI and the IRS because he (and his father) served the interests of American intelligence agencies.  I have been around too long to buy the excuse that federal agencies are just incompetent.

Near Half of Independents Say Biden Uses DOJ To Target Political Enemies.  New polling data suggests a significant portion of the electorate believes the Biden government "...has actively used the Justice Department to investigate political enemies with little or no evidence of actual wrongdoing."  The data is troubling for Joe Biden as it shows a sizeable portion of independent voters — 41 percent — agree that the Biden government has purposefully targeted its political enemies.  Additionally, even one in ten Democrats agree. [...] A large number of independent voters in the Ipsos poll also signaled they believe major figures in the Democratic Party played a part in pushing Bragg to prosecute Trump.  Nearly 40 percent of independent respondents said they believe New York Attorney General Letitia James was involved in pushing Bragg to prosecute.

Joe's Distemper Is Showing.  Here in the Big Apple, through the workings of a depressingly corrupted legal machinery — the New York state court system was once the envy of the jurisprudential world (one of the major reasons the city served as financial capital of the world) — the Democrats finally achieved what they have long sought: pinning the appellation "convicted felon" (at least temporarily) on Donald Trump.  They and their media allies now create a deafening echo repeating the phrase incessantly.  Yet if demeanor is any indication, it is Joe Biden, and not Donald Trump, who has the look of a man being led to his political execution.  Perhaps he knows that while Mr. Trump looks forward to a successful appeal of his phony conviction, Biden has lost nearly every appeal he's made to the American people since his election.

Trump Verdict Makes NYC 'Venezuela-on-the-Hudson'.  A former president was convicted of 34 misdemeanors for paperwork errors (whose statute of limitations had run out) that were changed to felonies because he had supposedly violated another state law — nowhere mentioned in the indictment — that makes it a crime to use "unlawful" means to promote or oppose the election of a candidate.  And what was that "unlawful" means?  Well, the defendant didn't know because those other "unlawful" means (i.e., other crimes) weren't mentioned in the indictment, either.  The judge told the jurors that they didn't need to even agree on what other crimes the defendant had committed, seemingly in conflict with hundreds of years of English and American jurisprudence, including the Constitution's guarantee of due process of law.  No, said the judge, the jury could consider violations of tax law or a violation of federal campaign finance law or of some other unnamed law for listing as a legal expense — instead of as a campaign expense — a settlement payment made to an individual who was represented by counsel in a perfectly legitimate, and perfectly legal, transaction.  But no need for a unanimous decision on that issue.  A violation of federal campaign finance law?  What were a local prosecutor and a state court judge doing bringing up a violation of federal law over which they have no jurisdiction whatsoever?

35 and a Citizen.  [I]t seems a good time to review who can be president and whether or not you can give money to a person to shut up. [...] The feds — you know, the people who absolutely adore Trump — looked at this issue and said no.  The Federal Election Commission did the same.  But NY DA Alvin Bragg and his team apparently all sat around a bong one night and had a great "highdea:"  say the misdemeanor paperwork charges are actually a felony because he futzed with the paperwork in the furtherance of another crime.  They never really did settle on what that other crime was and only brought it up in closing arguments so the defense could not rebut the alleged but never filed charges and then the judge said to the jury that it really didn't matter and that whichever predicate allegation you want to base your conviction — sorry, your deliberations on — is fine and you can mix and match them if you want, too. [...] Another funny thing about the trial is that what Trump did — paying someone to shut up — is not illegal.  At all.

Judge Marchan [was] NOT Chosen Randomly — The FIX Was In.  Democrat-appointed Judge Juan Merchan went out of his way to stack the deck in favor of Manhattan Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg's false criminal case against former President Donald Trump for allegedly falsifying business records.  Merchan was allegedly randomly assigned the Trump and Bannon cases by the New York court system.  That is a lie — he was also assigned to the politically motivated cases of Trump CFO on tax fraud as well as his War Room Trump advocate Steve Bannon whom he recently sentenced to 4 months for allegedly lying to Congress.  Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has filed a complaint with the New York State Unified Court System over the claim that Merchan was randomly assigned the case.  "If justices were indeed being randomly assigned in the Criminal Term, the probability of two specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is quite low, and the probability of three specific criminal cases being assigned to the same justice is infinitesimally small," Stefanik wrote.  "And yet, we see Acting Justice Merchan on all three cases."

Time to Jettison the Animals.  [Scroll down]  The putative replacements for [Biden] — Newsom, Hillary, Pritzker, Whitmer, Harris — are political creatures at least as loathsome to voters as "JB" has become.  And the obvious pitfall for Michelle O is that her husband looks like a wannabe American Caesar seeking a fourth term.  What else have they got?  Nothin'.  Some utterly unknown governor they can primp up in a few months?  Fugeddabowdit.  They'll have to run one of the loathsomes, take the "L," and hope for the best, perhaps make a get out of jail "deal" with dealmaker supreme Mr. Trump.  Or, they could attempt another mighty prank:  kill him.  You can imagine they'll try it, having exhausted all other gambits.  If they succeed, and it doesn't provoke an instant civil war, Mr. Trump's faction has a pretty deep "bench" of capable figures who can step in and run against the Party of Chaos, Hoaxes, and now Murder.  If the assassins botch the job, I wouldn't want to be them on that dreadful day.

Caution:  May not have happened.  See update below.
Juror Sent Cousin Message Saying Trump Was Convicted A Day Before Judgement.  Aren't the jurors supposed to be in seclusion?  This is the kind of thing that should lead to a mistrial[.]  [Tweet]  What should happen is that a mistrial is declared and a higher court jumps in to say "stop.  This is insane.  It would get crushed on appeal, and Merchan and Bragg are sanctioned."

There was just a huge twist in the Trump case.  His New York judge brought these social posts to the world's attention.  [T]he social media post of a very dumb person might have just saved the Republic.  [Numerous tweets]  This little quip made me think this was a nothingburger, but the New York justice system apparently thought it was reliable enough to put out a formal letter on Friday evening, which means this guy likely is related to one of the jurors. [...] They sent out a legal letter on Friday night without any vetting at all??  But if it's real, is it a psyop that was designed to give Democrats an out after successfully pinning Donald Trump with the label felon?  Was a mistrial always the plan to keep Trump's numbers from going even higher behind bars?

Update:
Don't Be Shocked If the Story About the Trump Juror Spilling the Guilty Verdict Ends Up Being Fake.  We knew the trial was a sham.  The verdict was baked into the cake long before opening arguments began, but now we have evidence.  Judge Merchan's office issued a letter to Donald Trump's defense team alerting them that one of the jurors discussed the verdict with a family member, who later shared that foreknowledge on the court's public Facebook account.  [Advertisement]  We'll see what happens.  It could be troll bait, but this trial became more of a circus if true.  The person who posted about the verdict claimed to have a cousin on the jury for Donald Trump's hush money trial.  [Tweets]  [Advertisement]  Before we discuss how this will impact the verdict, let's see who "Michael Anderson" is and whether he has a cousin on the jury.  All of this can and should be investigated.  The New York Post's Miranda Devine said the whole conviction should be tossed if true.  UPDATE: Is this fake?  I wouldn't be shocked if this is too good to be true.  The rigging and bias in this trial were believable from the start, but this might be a stretch.

American Prometheus Chained at Mar-A-Lago.  The First Amendment protection given to a free press so that darkness can be stripped away is a useless joke, as the majority of mainstream media would rather cheerlead a lie than investigate corruption.  The darkness shows that there are indeed two sets of legal systems: one to protect Democrats and one to ruthlessly persecute Republicans.  The darkness professes that the Constitution simply does not apply to Donald Trump, as the ends justify the means, believing it to be a righteous and noble deed to eradicate him from Public service, no matter the costs.  Two bogus, failed impeachments; five partisan and political indictments; the twisting of the 14th Amendment Insurrection clause in an attempt to disqualify Trump from appearing on the ballot, then unanimously rebuffed at the Supreme Court; the absence of any such charges — much less a conviction — made such a notion repulsive.  Now, a kangaroo court conviction has been set in motion by a blindly biased judge and a corrupt prosecutor.  There seems to be no end.

The Myth That Biden Had Nothing to Do with the Prosecutions of Trump.  The five criminal and civil prosecutions of Donald Trump all prompt heated denials from Democrats that President Biden and Democrat operatives had a role in any of them.  [Advertisement]  But Joe Biden has long let it be known that he was frustrated with his own Department of Justice's federal prosecutors for their tardiness in indicting Donald Trump.  [Advertisement]  Biden was upset because any delay might mean that his rival Trump would not be in federal court during the 2024 election cycle.  And that would mean he could not be tagged as a "convicted felon" by the November election while being kept off the campaign trail.  [Advertisement]  Politico has long prided itself on its supposed insider knowledge of the workings of the Biden administration.  Note that it was reported earlier this February that a frustrated Joe Biden "has grumbled to aides and advisers that had Garland moved sooner in his investigation into former President Donald Trump's election interference, a trial may already be underway or even have concluded..."  [Advertisement]

Mocking the left's missteps.  [Scroll down]  Make no mistake: the verdict in the sham that was the Trump trial was one of those watershed moments that brought everything into focus.  Up 'til now, you could fool yourself into thinking things were still semi-normal, so to speak.  But now we're talking about the serious consequences of the weaponization of the government by one political party against its opponents.  If that can be done against the man at the top, what's to stop them from doing that to everyone else?  All of this should be a signal it's time to stop playing nice with the left.  Leftists expect us to use their words and follow their silly rules, while they use any means to attack the country and Western culture and cancel conservatives.

America's Corrupt Political Class Should Be Prosecuted, Not Trump.  [W]ith the Trump conviction in New York, we may well have just witnessed the nadir of abuse of prosecutorial discretion.  It's not just that a former president — and the leading contender to be the next president — has been convicted of a felony on dubious and untested charges.  For all of the demands that we respect "rule of law" in the wake of the Trump verdict, it has become patently obvious that prosecuting corruption is not bound by law or principle — it's about gatekeeping.  Those favored by our entrenched institutions get away with it, those who threaten unaccountable power do not.  The Washington establishment has kept its Sauron-like gaze fixed on Trump in the hopes that you won't notice that nearly our entire political class is corrupt in ways that threaten the country far more than paying off a mistress and classifying it as "legal services."  To understand how distorted the system has become, it helps to understand how Trump's various court battles stack up next to his political peers.

Georgia Court of Appeals Halts All Proceedings in Trump RICO Case.  Fani Willis' trial against Trump is most certainly not happening before the 2024 election!  The Georgia Court of Appeals on Wednesday halted all proceedings in Trump's RICO case until the court rules on the effort to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.  "The proceedings below in the Superior Court of Fulton County are hereby stayed pending the outcome of these appeals," the order read.

The Trump Verdict Indicts an Angry Elite.  The work of Trump's prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, and his judge, Juan Merchan — consistent with their middling legal pedigrees — is shoddy.  Trumping up a charge on a clean man like a legal MacGyver takes talent.  These guys don't have it.  Bragg and Merchan's show trial is hobbled by many grave errors.  Chief among them is that Merchan allowed jurors to disagree on exactly what unlawful conduct Trump supposedly intended to commit or cover up.  Practically, that meant Trump had to put forth evidence that he had no unlawful intent once Bragg produced just enough evidence to convince some jurors of one intent and others of another.  But a prosecutor must bear to the trial's end the burden of proving a defendant's guilt beyond all reasonable doubt.  Merchan let Bragg get away with leaving some jurors with reasonable doubt on what other jurors may have thought Trump's criminal intent was and vice versa so that ultimately all jurors could have reasonable doubt yet still convict.  That's an unconstitutional outrage.

The Editor says...
The jury system in America is becoming one of its weak links.  The prosecution doesn't have to prove anyone's guilt — all they have to do is convince the jury to find him guilty.  So the most gullible dunces in the jury pool are selected, and after a few days of small-town theater in the courtroom, the verdict is delivered.  The outcome depends far more upon the performances of the lawyers than the quality of the evidence.

Georgia Appeals Court Halts Trump Election Case.  The Georgia Court of Appeals ordered on June 5 a stay on all proceedings in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's case against former President Donald Trump and eight codefendants, challenging the district attorney's ability to prosecute the case.  "The proceedings below in the Superior Court of Fulton County are hereby stayed pending the outcome of these appeals," reads an order by the court clerk, citing a Georgia Supreme Court case ordering the stay of criminal case proceedings during an interlocutory review.  This comes as the court has agreed to review whether Ms. Willis should be disqualified.

Jesse Watters: "There is Something Very Fishy About How Judge Merchan Came to Preside Over This Case".  The Gateway Pundit reported that GOP Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) filed a misconduct complaint with the New York State Unified Court System related to the "random" assignment of far-left radical and conflicted Judge Juan Merchan to Trump's NYC 'hush money' trial.  Stefanik announced, "I just filed an official misconduct complaint with the New York State Unified Court System related to the "random" assignment of Acting Manhattan Justice Juan Merchan, a Biden donor whose daughter is fundraising millions off his unprecedented work, to criminal cases against President Donald J. Trump, his companies, and his allies."  Stefanik is not the only one raising questions about the "random" assignment of crooked Judge Juan Merchan as the judge to oversee the Trump Bragg case.

America Has Crossed the Rubicon.  Last week, America finally crossed the Rubicon from a nation of liberty and the rule of law to a banana republic thugocracy where the ruling party indicts, arrests, and imprisons its political opposition. [...] Donald Trump's conviction on nonsensical misdemeanor process crimes, beyond the statute of limitations, a dispute over whether fees paid to a lawyer were actually legal fees (as opposed to what, medical bills?), that these payments influenced an election concluded a year before said payments were made, tried within a rigged courtroom construct by a conflicted judge and attorneys guaranteeing a guilty verdict, and last but not least federal charges inappropriately tried at the state level after the feds declined to pursue these charges.  These all blew up Lady Justice's scales and any premise of due process or equal protection under the law.

Joe Biden's Fingerprints Are All Over The Criminal Prosecutions Of Donald Trump.  In response to Americans' outcry over the political prosecutions of Donald Trump and a Manhattan jury convicting the former president on 34 felony counts, President Joe Biden declared, "It's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged, just because they don't like the verdict."  Coming from the Commander-in-Rigging, this proclamation means nothing.  Biden and those seeking to ensure his re-election have their hands all over Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's prosecution of the former president.  A lead prosecutor for Bragg during the trial was Matthew Colangelo.  In December 2022, Colangelo left the Biden Department of Justice to "jump start" the criminal case against Trump.  Biden had previously named Colangelo his acting associate attorney general — the third-highest-ranking official in the DOJ.

Trump's Conviction Signals New Political Era.  The rule of law means, above all, restraint, predictability, and equal treatment.  It is supposed to ensure that no single branch of government has too much power and that the other branches, as well as mandatory processes, constrain the government and its personnel.  The rule of law is not merely a set of rules but a culture.  Over many decades, that culture has broken down and become distorted due to the malevolent influence of legal realism, which has been amplified by the extreme partisanship of the law schools and the managerial class.  Collectively, almost every holder of institutional power — the courts, the media, the military, and Congress, along with state and federal prosecutors — has deviated from its normal course to deal with the allegedly unprecedented threat from Donald Trump.  The fact there has been a trial and a verdict is not some vindication of the rule of law.  Dictatorships also have laws, elections, and trials.  In fact, they are infamous for their "show trials," where the trial process becomes an exercise in propaganda and mythmaking for the regime.

Mark Levin's Legal Advice for Trump Is Spot On.  Following the guilty verdicts against Trump in the sham trial in New York City, radio host Mark Levin, who served as chief of staff to former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese, has sound legal advice for Trump:  get the case out of New York and to the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible.  Trump will most certainly appeal his conviction, but an appeal within the New York court system likely won't happen before the election.  There's always the possibility that Judge Juan Merchan, a Biden donor who basically was a puppet of the prosecution, may, in fact, sentence Trump to prison before the election.  "The issue is how to get out of the New York system and bring the case to the Supreme Court, which may or may not take it up," explains Levin in a post on X.  "That is why I look to Bush v Gore, where the [Supreme Court] decided to step in BECAUSE it was a presidential election.  There was another court involved, the Florida Supreme Court.  And it was that court that the Supreme Court believed was violating the Equal Protection Clause.  That was the doctrine it settled on, given the unequal treatment of voters."

'Intentional Misfeasance' Makes Show Trial Conviction Ripe For Reversal, Legal Experts Say.  Leftist District Attorney Alvin Bragg's show trial delivered the Democrat Party's dream:  A felony conviction against their most hated political enemy.  The prosecution and the trial also were also littered with legal landmines and "reversible error" that should make former President Donald Trump's looming appeal a slam dunk, legal experts say.  [Advertisement]  Historical and stunning but not surprising to many who have closely followed left-wing lawfare in recent years, the 12 angry Manhattan jurors after two days of deliberations found Trump guilty on all 34 trumped-up felony counts against him.  Judge Juan Merchan has scheduled sentencing for July 11, just four days before the Republican National Convention is slated to begin in Milwaukee, where the GOP is poised to again nominate Trump as its presidential candidate.  He will face President Joe Biden in the rematch of 2020's mess of an election.  Trump also is facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison, depending on the vindictiveness of a New York judicial system that has already proved to be quite vindictive.

Tyranny Is Upon us:  Law and Juries Are Weaponized.  Keep in mind that these are 34 made-up felonies based on how an expense was recorded by accountants and attorneys.  Trump did not record the expense.The expense was recorded according to accounting standards.  Keep in mind that a single accounting reporting charge, a misdemeanor, was magically turned into 34 federal felonies of election violations, if memory serves, the argument being that Trump won the election by misreporting the expense.  There are so many civil and criminal show trials going on against Trump that it is hard to keep track of all the absurdities.  Keep in mind that it is a case without complainants, without harmed parties.  It is a case brought by a prosecutor who can show no party harmed.  What is frightening is that legally this is a case for which there are no legal grounds for bringing it.  Yet, the bar associations, the law schools, the media said nothing.  Getting Trump was so important that law was sacrificed for the purpose.  Trump's demonization made a fair trial impossible, and few jurors can resist using their power against a rich person.

Essential Information For Understanding Why Trump's Appeal Will Succeed.  Donald Trump has been convicted by a jury in Manhattan.  "I was convicted.  I'm appealing!"  Most of us have a TV legal drama perspective.  I rise to shine light on this process so that we can properly understand how a guilty verdict was reached in a case where Donald Trump did nothing illegal, immoral, or fattening.  A prosecution must satisfy conditions laid out in the Constitution, which is, should anyone forget, the highest law of the land.  It specifies safeguards for the legal process.  In the 5th Amendment, we find "No person... shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law..."  That due process is further defined in the 6th Amendment.  ["]In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.  (Emphasis added)["]  The prosecuting attorney is an officer of the court and is duty-bound to guard these steps carefully.  DA Alvin Bragg ran roughshod over them.

Beneath the Law!  "No one is above the law!" trumpet the progressive Democrat fanboys in the wake of the Donald Trump sham conviction in New York for alleged crimes on paper.  Joe Biden literally tweeted those exact words.  Nobody is above the law except thoroughly corrupt, senile, and decrepit Joe Biden, who took classified documents when he was a senator and vice president when he had absolutely no authority to do so.  Biden either directed or allowed his despicable son Hunter to accept millions of dollars in bribes from corrupt foreign oligarchs and even our nation's enemies. [...] Judge Juan Merchan committed enough reversible errors to virtually guarantee that the convictions will eventually be overturned by a more sane and reasonable court still willing to follow the Constitution, but when the defendant's last name is Trump, don't count on it.

Of Course They'll Put Trump in Jail.  Why wouldn't Judge Juan Merchan finish the job and add to the left's glee in calling Donald Trump a "convicted felon" by sentencing him to jail?  That fact that Trump's sentencing is on July 11, mere days before the Republican National Convention, would not impede a judge who, according to Trump attorney Alina Habba, covered his mouth to laugh during his sentencing.  It would be no impediment to the hand-picked jurist who allowed prosecutors to hide the underlying "crime" for the entire trial, hide witnesses, and overrule the majority of the defense objections in this goat rodeo.

Trump Found Guilty — a Travesty of Justice for America.  Trump was found guilty of a crime, but can anyone say what it is?  Prosecutorial misconduct is dripping.  It's the judge, not Trump who belongs in prison. [...] This case was convoluted in theory and dripping with prosecutorial misconduct and should have been dismissed.  If they can do this to Trump, they can do whatever they want to anyone.  And they will, for political purposes.  Ironically, people worried that Trump is dangerous and will abuse power.  Think of what Hillary did both in offense and gross obstruction.  Nothing.  The prosecutor was sent directly from the DOJ.  A state case.  A misdemeanor, on which the Statute of Limitations had run out, was used to produced 34 felony counts on committing a Federal offense for which he was not charged.  This is the emerging face of the US judiciary and legal system.  Better hope Democrats do not get the trifecta.

A Guilty Verdict for Trump and Its Consequences for the Country.  Twelve New York jurors have found Donald Trump guilty of falsifying business records, a total of 34 felony counts, in history's first criminal conviction of a former President.  What a volatile moment for the country.  Will the judge jail Mr. Trump?  Will voters re-elect him in November anyway, in disgust of this concocted case?  What if it's thrown out on appeal?  Will Republicans retaliate?  The nation might soon regret this rough turn.  Thursday's guilty verdict wasn't entirely surprising, given the jury pool in Manhattan.  If Mr. Trump had lucked out, he might have drawn one or two stubborn skeptics, like the Henry Fonda character in "12 Angry Men," resulting in at least a hung jury.  Instead the fortunate one was Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who filed the weakest of the four indictments of Mr. Trump, but who managed to drag his case first over the finish line.  Normally a felony conviction would be politically fatal for a candidate appearing on the ballot in five months.  But normally a prosecutor wouldn't have brought this case.

Donald Trump's conviction is nothing more than a 'thrill kill'.  Political prosecutions are something most citizens associate with dictatorships.  But the Trump prosecution has forced many to confront the undeniable reality of the politicization of our legal system. [...] Trump was convicted in a trial with a Biden donor judge, who has a daughter who is a major Democratic operative, a lead prosecutor previously paid as a DNC political consultant and a jury selected in a district that voted roughly 90% against Trump.  The trial itself was a travesty.  Even after sitting in the courtroom watching the trial and the verdict, I still have no idea what Trump was convicted of in the case.  The charges were built on a dead misdemeanor barred with the passage of the statute of limitations.  It was zapped back into life by alleging that the falsification of business records occurred to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election.  Merchan told the jury members that they did not have to agree on what those unlawful means may have been.

Beware the cornered rat!  [Scroll down]  Thus, Biden became president, and since then the Democrats have been on an aggressive blacklisting campaign to destroy anyone who opposed them.  That campaign reached its summit yesterday with Trump's conviction in what could be called the most ludicrous and disgusting legal case ever brought against any American.  Not only can no one name the crime that Trump was supposed to have committed, the jury was given instructions that it could find him guilty even if they themselves couldn't agree on that crime.  As expected, the public's response to Trump's conviction has been to increase his support.  One quick poll suggested Trump's support had grown by six points almost immediately. [...] In fact, all signs suggest the guilty verdict will help Trump win, because the public clearly sees this as a show trail designed by the Democrats to destroy their number one political opponent.  And Americans don't like these kinds of bullying tactics.

Did Judge in Trump Case Violate Constitution With His Jury Instructions?  These Attorneys Think So.  Defense attorney Randy Zelin and former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore said on Friday that Judge Juan Merchan violated the U.S. Constitution with his instructions to the jury in former President Donald Trump's trial.  Merchan instructed the jury that it is not a requirement for them to be in unanimous agreement about what "other crime" Trump committed, instead receiving a choice of three separate crimes they can select to convict the former president.  The two attorneys on "CNN Special Report" said Merchan's jury instructions were flawed to the point that an appeals court could conceivably overturn the conviction.  "I hate to do this, but I would be remiss if I didn't," Zelin said.  "Whether you are driving in a Ford or a Ferrari, if someone gives you bad directions, you're going to end up lost.  And those jury instructions were just a complete, just take the Constitution, throw it out a window, burn it, shoot it, and hang it."

It was rigged, let us count the ways.  Start with Judge Juan Merchan's infamous "gag order," a blatant and arguably unconstitutional attack on President Trump's free speech rights, and which Trump is suing Merchan over.  That order, which supposedly prevents Trump from disparaging witnesses, court officers, or their families, and which Merchan held Trump in contempt of court for "violating" over 10 times, was issued for one reason, and one reason only: because Judge Merchan's daughter, Loren Merchan, is a card-carrying member of the anti-Trump resistance.  No, really: she has a photo of Trump in jail as her X profile photo.  And, incidentally, she has made out like a bandit.  She was paid $4 million by Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff to push Schiff's since-debunked accusations of Russian collusion.  Since then, Merchan (the daughter) has raised around $100 million off the back of the trial.  Ordinarily, a judge with this kind of a compromising connection to such a viciously partisan figure would be expected to recuse himself.  It may even be grounds for an appeal.  But Merchan clearly didn't care.  He wanted to be the judge who "got Trump" because even if he was overruled, he and his daughter will dine out on that for the rest of their lives.

Bearing Witness To The Downfall Of Our Constitutional Republic.  My friends who believe either that what happened to Trump was not such a big deal or that the rule of law is not yet totally corrupted because Trump is likely to prevail on appeal miss the point.  Anarchy at this level in America is outside of any of our experiences. [...] What is it about New York City and the Democrat party, in general, that's got it in for Trump so bad that a politician can run for office on the single pledge that he or she will put Trump in jail, and no one bats an eye?  That's what a rogues gallery of politicians or political appointees espoused, including the New York state Attorney General, the Manhattan District Attorney, and the U.S. Justice Department's number three, who resigned and stepped down to prosecute Trump in New York.  All of us bear stark witness to something never before seen in American political life — the successful use of lawfare in to nullify a political enemy.  How else can you explain the wantonness of New York's attempt to silence its conservative enemies?

Biden declares it's 'dangerous' for anyone to say Trump trial was 'rigged'.  On Friday, Joe Biden addressed the guilty verdict reached the day prior in the falsified business records case against Trump, declaring that it's "dangerous" for people to say that it was a rigged trial.  [Advertisement]  "It's reckless, it's dangerous, it's irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don't like the verdict," Biden said.  [Video clip]  [Advertisement]  "The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed."

The Editor says...
There is little or no room on this website for statements by Joe Biden.  Everything in Biden's statement was a lie.  Surely somebody else writes all of his public statements; but even so, he willingly repeats the lies and puts his name on them.

Fear Not, Patriots, Trump Just Won the Election.  My lovely fiancee Jessica wanted to go to the bar to sulk after the ridiculous verdict against Trump came down.  It's easy to be sad.  Commie animals outside the courtroom — too stupid to see that they too can now be politically persecuted — are cheering.  Facebook dopes are taking victory laps just as they have done after every nonsensical strike Trump has taken but always recovered from.  One thing I adore about communists is that they never learn from their mistakes. [...] I suspect several things will happen next.  I believe Biden, who has taken millions of dollars from Chinese commies, will pretend to take the "high road" and refuse to debate Trump because he is now a "convicted felon," which was always the plan.  You don't need me to say this, but the donations will continue to go through the roof.

Kangarooed.  A jury of shills rather than a jury of peers found Donald Trump guilty of 34 counts of ... what were the crimes again?  Doesn't matter.  The Democrats got the verdict they were looking for.  And it wasn't justice on their minds.  They wanted retribution.  They wanted to hang an anchor around Trump's neck during the campaign.  They wanted the equivalent of a political execution.  They got it all.  Yet they still want more.  The Democratic Party is now officially the party of Stalin.  Its operatives and functionaries have long tilted much closer to Sovietism than Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson.  Today they have fallen fully into the arms of Uncle Joe.  Maybe it's merely a coincidence that the titular head of the party is also known as Uncle Joe.

I Wish We Did Not Know Happens Next.  After a conviction of any kind, the left will ramp up to eleven on the "Trump as felon" narrative, and the anger on the right will boil over in response.  There will be efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot, and a very orchestrated preemptive political attack from the media and Congressional Democrats on SCOTUS to either prevent an appeal or to discredit the court and their decision as partisan — proof of the need to pack the court or personally destroy conservative justices.  Those who've openly spat on the rule of law will loudly claim to be its protectors.  They will dust off the same winning message from 2020 that the only way to get rid of the constant, loud anti-Trump unpleasantness generated overwhelmingly by the left is to get rid of Trump.

Six Week Trial And Nobody Knows The Crime.  The trial entered the final arguments stage on Tuesday, after a trial when the crime was never divulged.  This trial was scripted with the one intention of Biden being able to label his primary competitor a convicted felon.  Every day of the trial gave ammunition for an appeal, but the one remaining fact loomed over the trial:  there was no crime. [...] This trial is a classic con game that distracts people from the real issues of the failed Joe Biden presidency.  Look at Donald Trump, who is constrained to a chair in a courtroom and unable to campaign.  Don't look at the price at the gas pump.  Don't look at the thousands of young men crossing our southern border.  Don't look at the two wars we are funding.  Don't look at Biden defying the Supreme Court and transferring student loans to every American.  Don't look at the cost of your weekly shopping cart of groceries.  This was the plan, but it is not working.  The trial is not working out as planned by the Democrats, and people are not falling for the gaslighting.  Biden has been trying to convince Americans he was on the right track and they needed to understand the new parameters.  He actually insulted the intelligence level of Americans, and Americans do not forget being played for fools.

Trump Verdict Is Indictment Of GOP Leaders Who Can't Be Bothered To Resist Republic-Wrecking Lawfare.  Former President Donald Trump was convicted Thursday by 12 jurors in Democrat-dominated New York City for a crime no one can articulate that was brought by a George Soros-funded district attorney and overseen by a Biden donor.  But the conviction wasn't just an indictment of Democrat lawfare — it was an indictment of how feckless Republican "leaders" have become.  As radio host Michael Berry quipped in a post on X, the sham verdict in New York "probably made some Republicans in Congress so mad that they will even consider holding some hearings."  [Advertisement]  [Tweet]  It's funny until it's not.  Republican leaders have remained largely tight-lipped about Democrats' anti-Trump lawfare despite holding the House and control of several states in which Biden surely could be brought up on charges pertaining to the porous border or defying the Supreme Court.  But Republicans did and continue to do nothing.  Take, for example, the belated and worthless response from Senate Minority "Leader" Mitch McConnell.

Criminal Convictions and the Presidency.  On Thursday May 30, a New York court led by Judge Juan Merchan convicted a U.S. President of 34 felony counts. [...] Pursuing political prosecutions of candidates in order to interfere with an election is dangerous and likely to boomerang rhetorically upon those seeking their own ends in this abuse of power. [...] The Justice Department is showing itself to be a partisan organization that views its operations of law enforcement to be subordinate to an ideological goal that is the defense of the Democrat Party and its hold upon the executive branch.  The American public should not cooperate with this plain election interference and evident violation of among our most precious civil rights: freedom of speech.  The prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment of U.S. Presidential candidates is not unprecedented, but it does not insure the reduction in political power or appeal to any such candidate.  These encroachments are the truest threat to our democratic republic.

The Trump Verdict:  Guilty.  The dirty work of Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller investigation failed, the Fulton County prosecution is stayed pending appeal, and Special Counsel Jack Smith won't get his cases to trial before the November 2024 election.  But they always had New York — the State has made Trump and his company and his family a political target — and District Attorney Alvin Bragg came through with the early indictment.  The target might have been Trump, but the real goal was to influence the 2024 election, no matter the shaky facts and dubious legal theories of the case.  Democracy must be saved even through unlawful and unethical means.  The enemies of society must be hunted, the obstacles to progress must be destroyed.  Even when they're innocent[.]  Especially when they're innocent.

Manhattan jury finds former President Donald Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts.  A Manhattan jury found former President Donald Trump guilty on all counts in his hush money trial and made him the first former U.S. president convicted of a crime.  The verdict on 34 charges, reached after deliberating for 11 hours over two days, means Mr. Trump will campaign against President Biden as a convicted felon.  Mr. Trump, seated, looked at the foreperson but then looked straight ahead and briefly shook his head as the foreperson repeatedly said "guilty" to all the counts.

Biden campaign pounces on Trump's guilty criminal trial verdict: 'No one is above the law'.  President Biden's 2024 re-election campaign says the unanimous guilty verdicts Thursday in former President Trump's criminal trial show that "no one is above the law."  Trump was found guilty by a jury in New York City on all 34 felony charges of falsifying business records in his history-making case in which a former or current president for the first time was tried in court.  "Donald Trump has always mistakenly believed he would never face consequences for breaking the law for his own personal gain," Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement minutes after the verdict was read in court.

The Editor says...
Yep, no one is above the law, other than Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Eric Holder, Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Henry Cuellar, Robert Menendez, Barack H. Obama, Nancy Pelosi, James Comey, the guy that broke Jeffrey Epstein's neck, the "sleeping" guards outside Epstein's maximum-security cell, the guy that rubbed out Vince Foster, the guy who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt, John Doe #2 in the OKC bombing, the BLM and Antifa rioters in the summer of 2020, the fifty-one former intelligence officials who vouched for a fictitious document to get Joe Biden elected, the numerous coordinated criminals who stole the 2020 presidential election in the middle of the night, and about 30 million illegal aliens.

Should Garland be charged with lying to Congress?  Merrick Garland recently testified before the House Judiciary Committee, and among other things, was "battered" over his decision to keep the recorded interview tapes between Joe Biden and special counsel Robert Hur hidden from the public.  Garland has the audacity to say that no one is above the law, and his Justice department never considers politics in its decisions, but those statements are demonstrably not true. [...] Alejandro Mayorkas has continually lied to Congress[,] and has never been charged.  Anthony Fauci has continually lied to Congress[,] and has never been charged.  Does anyone believe that "politics" aren't part of the decision-making process, as Garland has yet to charge Jim and Hunter Biden for lying to Congress?  The Justice Department has never cared about the Biden family business of taking kickbacks.  Why would they change now?  Former FBI director James Comey listed all the crimes Hillary committed, but let her off so as not to get in the way of her presidential run.  Comey and others continually lied to the FISA court to illegally spy on people surrounding President Trump, and were never charged.  The FBI never charged drug-running terrorists, instead opting to let them off the hook, because Obama ordered them to stand down for the sake of his Iranian nuclear deal.  That is purely a political decision.  The FBI knowingly lied to social media companies, a scheme to censor the information about the "Laptop from Hell" from the public just a month before the November 2020 election, but none of those involved in this coverup were ever charged.  Isn't this election interference?  What about Garland himself?  He clearly is above the law.  He lied to Congress about his involvement with the White House and the National School Boards Association on a coordinated effort to target parents.

American justice?  The Biden Department of Injustice, the FBI, CIA, DIA, M-O-U-S-E, and other government agencies have been so thoroughly compromised — and weaponized against anyone who would dare to challenge them, that there appears to be no way back to decency, objectivity, and sanity.  This erstwhile constitutional, representative republic has devolved into a banana republic in just a few short years.  Barack Obama's stated goal of "fundamentally transforming" the (formerly) United States has come to fruition.  The nation that long did more to advance human freedom and dignity than any other is now just another polity controlled by power-hungry madmen seeking their own glorification over that of the Creator.  Donald Trump has been convicted of, well, being Donald Trump — and standing in the way of Biden's re-election.  Nothing more and nothing less.

Trump is a convict, but will it matter?  This is an extremely strange moment for American democracy.  Polls suggest that independent voters — the people who decide American elections — will not vote for a man who is a convicted felon.  But now Donald Trump, currently the favourite to win re-election in November, has been found guilty, on 34 counts, of falsifying business records — and nobody knows if that verdict will make him more popular or less.  On the one hand, Trump has been traduced — 34 times over.  A legitimate or at least actual court has decided that, yes, he deliberately altered his financial accounts, possibly for election campaign reasons back in 2016.  He is now a convict. [...] On the other hand, this Manhattan case has always felt like a political hit job — proof of what Trump has long claimed, that the system is rigged against him, that the Democrats will stop at nothing to keep him out of power.  Alvin Bragg, the District Attorney, cobbled together various tax misdemeanours and turned them into an indictment.

The Merchan Scale.  [Scroll down]  That wasn't Trump's problem in the case in New York.  That was straight-up Bolshevism on display.  A judge instructing the jury that they didn't have to reach a unanimous conclusion on every count?  In front of the cameras and everything?  That is just flat-out amazing and a level of judicial malfeasance that requires it's own scale.  On a scale of 1-10 of judicial malfeasance, that's somewhere in the 12 or 13 range, requiring a different scale all together, the Merchan Scale of judicial malfeasance.  When a judge has gone completely off script and began making up his own laws right in the courtroom, one must be rated on the Merchan scale that starts at 3 and goes to 15, because, on the Merchan Scale, there is no innocence.  That is just an archaic principle used way back in say 2015, before Trump had all of the rules of judicial practice altered to fit the level of lawfare they intended to use against him from 2015 to the present.

Judge Merchan's Instruction to the Jury Will Leave Your Jaw on the Floor.  Fox's John Roberts has since issued an update to his original "smorgasbord" interpretation of Judge Merchan's instructions.  He posted, "It is more nuanced than that.  All 12 need unanimity that Trump committed a crime.  But the underlying unlawful means is a smorgasbord they can pick from — and they don't all need to agree on what it was."  [Advertisement]  What this means is that there must still be a unanimous guilty verdict, but the jurors do not have to be unanimous about what the actual offense was.  There are three to choose from, and all 12 jurors don't have to agree, just so long as there are 12 votes overall.  I'm told that's New York law in these cases.  Even with this correction, none of the underlying problems with the case against Trump have changed.  There's still no crime that the prosecution has defined, there's still no magic math that lets two misdemeanors add up to a felony, and there's still no getting around Merchan allowing the prosecution to do almost anything while shackling Trump's defense.

Trump's Trial Has Already Damaged the Office of the Presidency.  In the short term, polls suggest that even a guilty verdict will have little effect on Trump's political standing.  A Quinnipiac poll reports that a conviction would make only 6 percent of self-identified Trump voters less likely to vote for him.  With Trump wrapping up the Republican nomination during his prosecution and leading in polls nationally and in six of the seven battleground states, the trials may have even helped him politically (though they might cost him in the general election).  Part of the blame for this rests with the Democrats who brought such farcical charges to knock Trump out of the race.  Win or lose, the weakness of the New York hush-money trial has put Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg's partisan motives on full display.  He focused the trial on the salacious details of the encounter between Trump and Stephanie Clifford (the real name of pornographic-film actress Stormy Daniels), which had almost no relevance to the actual legal charges.

Four-Four-Four.  The more time we have to look through Judge Juan Merchan's byzantine jury instructions in Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in Manhattan, the worse they look.  The vague nature of the instructions has even led to disputes among legal analysts who have struggled to make sense of the case from the beginning.  At Townhall, our colleague Matt Vespa has a good rundown of one of the most glaring problems with the instructions.  The judge gave the jurors the unheard-of option of picking any one of three crimes that were "concealed" by the entry of "false business records" and said that all twelve of them didn't necessarily have to agree on which of the three crimes was committed.  In other words, he appears to be opening the door to a conviction without a unanimous finding by the jury.  Matt warns that we "should be prepared for a conviction."

Stefanik Complaint:  Judge Merchan Was 'Intentionally Selected' To Ensure Trump Is Convicted.  Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., has submitted an official misconduct complaint to the New York State Unified Court System regarding the allegedly "random" selection of Juan Merchan as the judge over the ongoing case against former President Donald Trump in Manhattan, she announced Tuesday evening.  [Tweet]  Her complaint comes toward the end of a criminal trial in which Trump has faced 34 felony charges stemming from accusations that he instructed his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pay "hush money" to pornographer Stormy Daniels to conceal an alleged past affair.  Trump is accused of falsifying financial records by failing to label these payments as campaign expenses, an absurd allegation given that labeling such payments as campaign expenses would have been illegal.  [Advertisement]  Stefanik's complaint pertains to Merchan's assignment to three separate criminal cases related to Trump, including his ongoing criminal trial, the previous trial against the Trump Organization, and the upcoming trial against Trump ally Steve Bannon.  The New York State Unified Court System's rules state that criminal cases are assigned to judges randomly, but Stefanik doubts this rule was followed in Democrats' lawfare crusade, which has proved to be their top 2024 campaign strategy.

Justice Merchan gets even sleazier.  New York State Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg's trial of President Trump over a bookkeeping issue is getting sleazier now that Bragg's case is starting to fall apart, giving the Red Queen of the Alice In Wonderland story a run for her money.  At issue now are his instructions to the 12-person jury as it goes into deliberations, telling them that they don't need to agree about what the supposed 'underlying' crime of Donald Trump was that would make his hush money payment to porn "star" Stormy Daniels a felony, which is the legal basis for turning the bookkeeping issue into a 34-count felony.  They just need to think that Trump was thinking about commiting a crime when he signed off on the check and what that crime was can be anyone's guess.  But no matter:  Sentence first, verdict later.

Corrupt Judge Says Jury Can Convict Trump Without Agreeing on Crime.  Closing arguments in former President Donald Trump's Manhattan "hush money" trial begin today, and the judge gave the jury the green light to convict him without agreeing on the underlying 'predicate' crime he committed.First, into the legal weeds:  Trump's being charged for labeling "hush money" payments to adult actress Stormy Daniels as "legal fees." That alone is just a misdemeanor crime, and the statute of limitations has already expired. [...] Judge Juan Merchan sided with the prosecution and ruled that the jury does not need to agree on the alleged felony in order to find Trump guilty.

Will Biden Take Us Down With Him?  Biden's handlers thought it was a sly Machiavellian move to coordinate local, state, and federal prosecutors to wear down Trump, bankrupt him, destroy him mentally and physically, and brand him as a criminal felon — through a long winter, spring, summer, and fall of lawfare of the sort never witnessed in America before. [...] The judges — Lewis Kaplan (Carroll case), Arthur Engoron (James), and now, the most touchy, and prejudicial of the three, Juan Merchan (Bragg) — have proved so imprisoned by their Trump animus, so ideologically transparent, so intent on ignoring even the pretense of applying the law equally to all parties, that they have lost the American people.  Ditto Fani Willis.  The nation is daily becoming more embarrassed — and angry over — how the world's once finest example of jurisprudence has been reduced to the status of the Soviet show trials.

Here's why the case against Trump should end in 'not guilty'.  With the closing arguments set for Tuesday in the trial of former President Donald Trump, defense attorneys are in a rather curious position.  There is still debate among legal experts as to the specific crime that District Attorney Alvin Bragg is alleging.  Trump's lawyers are defending a former president who is charged under a state misdemeanor which died years ago under the statute of limitations.  It was zapped back into life in the form of roughly three dozen felonies by claiming that bookkeeping violations — allegedly hiding payments to Stormy Daniels to ensure her silence about a supposed affair with Trump — were committed to hide another crime.  But what is that second crime?

The Plan to Convict Trump.  At last, we can see Alvin Bragg's underlying criminal theory:  he doesn't have one.  Bragg and Judge Merchan are running the real trial in the court of public opinion, not to deliver justice but to hurt Trump's presidential campaign by branding him a convicted felon during the election.  They seek to do this by lying to the jury — for example, by pretending to have a criminal theory.  The prosecution rested their case without specifying the second crime, nor giving a shred of evidence for the first:  even if we took Michael Cohen's testimony at face value, ignoring that he's a serial perjurer who confessed to six different felonies on Monday morning alone, his claim that Trump himself ordered the monthly payments that were calculated from Cohen's loan reimbursement demand and deemed them "legal fees" would not constitute a crime.  That case is dead in the water on appeal, but Merchan's parallel trial, which has little to do with established law and instead runs on innuendo and vagaries, aims for a temporary conviction.

Prosecutors Are Still Hedging on Exactly What 'Crime' Trump Tried To 'Aid' or 'Conceal'.  Donald Trump is charged with 34 felonies in New York because he allegedly falsified business records to conceal "another crime."  In the run-up to Trump's trial, which began last month and is expected to conclude next week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was cagey about exactly what that other crime was.  His prosecutors suggested several possibilities without picking one in particular, and they are still hedging on this crucial point.  It looks like the case will go to the jury with that central question unresolved.  That's fine, according to a ruling that Juan Merchan, the judge presiding over the case, made this week.  For a verdict to be valid, Trump's lawyers argued, the jury should have to settle on a specific legal theory.  The prosecution disagreed.  Under "the standard application of the law," lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo argued, jurors can convict Trump as long as they unanimously agree that he falsified business records with "an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."  In Colangelo's view, jurors do not have to agree on what that underlying crime was.

Top Dem Hakeem Jeffries Sent Over $1.4 Million to Trump Trial Judge's Daughter's Home.  Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has sent over $1.4 million to Loren Merchan, according to investigative reporter Laura Loomer.  Merchan is the daughter of the judge overseeing Democratic District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg's election interference prosecution of Donald Trump in Manhattan, Juan Merchan.  "Hakeem Jefferies is a client of Judge Merchan's daughter, Loren Merchan, and has sent her over $1,428,879.99 in payments to her PERSONAL RESIDENCE!" Loomer posted on X (formerly Twitter).

U.S. Intelligence Deserves the Distrust It Is Generating.  President Obama sought to change the demographics and the political complexion of the federal work force, and intelligence leaders such as CIA director John Brennan (2013-2017) made clear that they intended to change the organizational cultures of agencies in politically significant ways.  They succeeded brilliantly, with overt activism in defense of Obama/Brennan changes beginning in 2016, when Trump emerged as a potential threat to the "progress" that Obama's policies allegedly had achieved.  This radical change became glaringly obvious when former CIA deputy director Michael Morell invoked his CIA credentials in a New York Times op-ed to rationalize endorsing Hillary Clinton for president while harshly criticizing Trump.  Morell then became one of the "talking heads," along with Brennan, former director of national intelligence James Clapper, former CIA director Michael Hayden, and several dozen less-senior people whom the mainstream liberal press promoted as legitimate observers of everything relevant to their anti-Trump campaign.

Justice Merchan's gagged witness goes public with what he would have told the jury.  After Michael Cohen's disastrous testimony, it would seem that the case against President Trump over the bookkeeping entry in a hush-money payment case would be in tatters as it goes to the jury.  Many legal eagles have said as much.  But the politically partisan New York justice in this case, Juan Merchan, doesn't give up that fast and clearly wants to salvage the case.  He's instructing the jury to ignore the detail about the 'underlying crime' and treat the case the same way a burglary case is treated. [...] We'll get to the burglary analogy in a minute from the character named Vance, but the bottom line is, Merchan is trying to slant the jury the prosecutor's way, telling them not to bother about the little detail about what the underlying crime was that makes the hush money payment a jailtime felony.  They can make it up, if they like. [...] The underlying "crime" of course is trying to influence an election.  Apparently no one is allowed to influence an election, and especially not a candidate.

Alvin Bragg is in a Lot of Trouble After Michael Cohen's Testimony.  Here's Why.  Political allies of former President Donald J. Trump — and even members of the corporate media — are criticizing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's decision to bring Michael Cohen as his prosecution's star witness in Trump's hush money trial.  The disgraced perjurer's testimony may have undermined Bragg's entire case against Trump.  Cohen spent four days testifying, where it was revealed he stole upwards of $60,000 from the Trump Organization — the payments being meant for a vendor.

Maybe Trump knows what he's doing.  After twice being railroaded by a New York judge and jury, a third railroading is inevitable.  The evidence doesn't matter.  He is not on trial for 34 tedious counts of election violations and bad bookkeeping.  He is on trial for being Donald John Trump.  Guilty as charged.  But The Donald's goal is not to avoid prison.  His goal is to return to the Oval Office in January.  Once you understand that, you see the logic behind having him testify because he makes himself defiant and worthy of our respect and admiration.  Recall that a year ago, Democrats and their handmaidens — a polite way of saying massage parlor girls — in the media drooled over the prospect of seeing Donald Trump in a mugshot.  They convinced themselves that a mugshot would ruin him and hand the nomination to Ron DeSantis.  Much to their chagrin, there was no happy ending.  Democrats and the media watched helplessly as the mugshot improved Trump's poll numbers because it made him a sympathetic victim of a rigged criminal justice system.

Hemingway: The Point Of Trump Show Trial Is A Quick Conviction, Not Fairness.  "There's no actual crime.  There's no evidence to support the crime.  The star witness might be the worst witness we've ever seen in American history.  And yet, the whole point of a show trial is to secure a quick and easy conviction.  That's why it's happening in New York with a very biased jury," Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway said on Fox News' "Outnumbered."  [Video clip]

Jonathan Turley Questions Why Judge Who Donated To Biden Was 'Hand-Picked' For Trump Trial.  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Monday that the judge in the Trump business records trial violated ethics rules with his donation to President Joe Biden's 2020 election campaign, and questioned why he was presiding over the case at all.  Merchan made a $15 donation to Biden's election campaign in 2020, a $10 donation to a group called "Stop Republicans" and a $10 donation to a "Progressive Turnout Project," according to data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC). Turley said that the small size of the donation was irrelevant.  "It is very clear, they say you can't make political contributions and he did," Turley said on "Fox and Friends" after co-host Ainsley Earhardt mentioned the donations.  "And the fact it is 'de minimus' or small, really, I think, misses the point.  You make donations to show your support, that is what that $15 did."

Sinking the Republic.  The trial going on in New York is a classic example of what we all have coming in the years ahead.  The judge, Juan Merchan, when asked to recuse himself due to conflicts of interest simply declared himself "not conflicted" despite the fact that his daughter is raising money for Democrat candidates on the basis of her father putting Trump in jail.  That is authoritarian rule and while the communists in the media scream about the threat of Trump imposing authoritarian rule should he be re-elected in November, they are completely happy with authoritarian rule when it's imposed against their political enemies.

What if Justice Merchan has been compromised?  Given what we know about what has been going on in Justice Juan Merchan's Manhattan courtroom, including the preposterous, over-the-top bias of this judge for the prosecution and his overt antipathy for the defendant, Donald Trump, what explains his willing destruction of his own reputation as a judge?  Each and every legal scholar who has weighed in on the course of the trial, from Alan Dershowitz to Jonathan Turley and countless others, (with the exception of those paid by CNN and MSNBC) is gobsmacked by Merchan's thoroughly unconstitutional rulings, gag orders, contempt charges, exclusion of practically every witness with relevant testimony for the defense, and his allowance of non-relevant witnesses like Stormy Daniels. [...] We've known for years now that our judicial system has been corrupted, transformed into an extension of the Democrat party by President Obama and Joe Biden, but Justice Merchan has taken their unscrupulousness to a wholly new and shocking level.

Mark Levin: 'Bragg Should Be Disbarred' — He Has Violated the Brady Rule.  Thursday on FNC's "Hannity," conservative talker Mark Levin laid out why New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg may have knowingly violated former President Donald Trump's constitutional rights throughout and other established legal precedents during his office's prosecution of Trump.  Levin called for Bragg's disbarment, referring to him as a lawless government official and citing the numerous violations as justification.  [Video clip, transcript.]

Defund Jack Smith. Then Investigate Him.  An increasingly toxic relationship with U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon, accusations of grand jury and prosecutorial abuse, and the government's recent revelations that investigators mishandled and possibly misplaced key evidence threatens to launch Smith into the Fani Willis/Alvin Bragg category — a corrupt, egotistical clown with crashing public credibility and waning support from some of his most loyal toadies.  Smith's already shaky reputation isn't the only thing in jeopardy.  As I explained here, Judge Cannon has set a mini trial of sorts over the next several weeks that puts Smith, in essence, on the defendant's side of the courtroom for once; even the leftwing blog Lawfare recently acknowledged as much.

Trump asks NY high court to intervene in fight over gag order in hush money trial.  Donald Trump is seeking to have New York's highest court intervene in his fight over a gag order that has seen him fined $10,000 and threatened with jail for violating a ban on commenting about witnesses, jurors and others connected to his hush money criminal trial.  The former president's lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, a day after the state's mid-level appellate court refused his request to lift or modify the restrictions.  The filing was listed on a court docket, but the document itself was sealed and not available.  Trump presidential campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said it's a request for the state's Court of Appeals to take up the matter.

Cohen Made Huge Admission in NYC Trump Case and Now the Tumblers Begin to Fall in Place.  We're just now beginning to understand a few more things about this Jenga-like prosecution of Donald Trump.  Other than the feds, in the form of the Southern District of New York federal prosecutors and the Federal Elections Commission declining to prosecute Trump for his payments to his attorney, we learned Tuesday [5/14/2024] that Robert Mueller's Special Counsel's Office wanted a piece of Michael Cohen before he reported to prison in 2018.  Indeed, when all the questions are answered, we might discover that it was Mueller's pitbull, Andrew Weissmann, the FBI, and the DOJ who were responsible for his bizarre plea deal that sparked the idea for this wrong-headed case.

Trial Judge's Daughter Helped Campaign to Kick Trump Off Colorado Ballot.  They aren't even trying to HIDE the corruption in New York.  After all, nobody will call them on it until an appeals court reverses a conviction against Trump in the New York fake hush-money case.  [Tweet]  It had been revealed earlier that Judge Merchan's daughter was making bank off the trial, and now a Post Millennial report outlines how Loren Merchan has been working to destroy Donald Trump for months and making a pretty penny in the process.

Legal experts:  New York hush money trial must end in Trump acquittal.  As the New York hush money trial of Donald Trump has continued to unfold, critics of the prosecution have marveled at just how thin the case truly is, and according to some high-profile commentators, acquittal is something that just now requires.  In the estimation of observers such as former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, writing for National Review, the bottom line is that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg simply cannot prove that the former president has committed a crime.

DA Bragg's office reportedly deleted critical phone records between Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen.  DA Alvin Bragg, in his prosecutorial pursuit of former President Donald Trump, has had a handful of serious setbacks over the past week or so.  According to The Epoch Times, that was evidenced once again after a paralegal from Bragg's office testified "that some phone call records between Michael Cohen and Stephanie Clifford's (a.k.a.  Stormy Daniels) lawyer were deleted."  The deleted records, of course, pose evidentiary issues for Bragg's prosecutors that Trump's lawyers immediately seized upon.

Black's Law Dictionary, 1991, page 1401.

The Making of a Banana Republic.  It is a presidential election year and a leading candidate for president of the United States, who also happens to be a former president of the United States, is currently a criminal defendant chained to a dingy courtroom four days of the week — time that he should be spending interacting with voters out on the campaign trail.  That's terrible.  But it's only the beginning.  The daughter of the presiding judge is a professional political operative for the presidential candidate's opposition party, and the candidate himself is subject to an over-inclusive and unconstitutional gag order.  The George Soros-funded district attorney, who campaigned on a platform of prosecuting that candidate, only pressed charges after his own left-wing predecessor opted not to do so due to the frivolous nature of the charges.  One of the Soros-funded DA's subordinates curiously joined his team, just in time to prosecute the candidate, from a high-ranking perch in the Department of Justice that is headed by the candidate's chief political rival.

Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial.  U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump's espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn't mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.  In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date — an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future — Cannon declined to set another date, calling it "imprudent" at this stage of the process.  She noted a "myriad" of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith's 42-count indictment against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government's investigation.  Cannon, however, did schedule a number of proceedings that could be considered a way to put the Department of Justice on trial.  In a stunning turn of events, Cannon, appointed by Donald Trump in 2020, is poised to make Smith a defendant of sorts.

Trump's trial is a stupendous legal catastrophe.  Some had asked whether a jury selected in Manhattan, which voted overwhelmingly against Trump, could be fair in judging the former president.  But now that we have moved beyond this point, the real problem Trump has is that his best arguments are legal in nature:  prosecutors appeared to cobble together misdemeanours and felonies in order to find something with which to "get Trump."  The underlying crime is seemingly a minor misdemeanour — falsifying business records — which long ago expired under the statute of limitations.  In order to turn it into a felony within the statute of limitations, prosecutors will have to show that Trump falsified the records in order to impact his election, thus constituting a federal election felony.  The problem is, however, that federal authorities have not prosecuted Trump for this federal election crime.  Moreover, state prosecutors have no jurisdiction over federal election law.  Finally, we were not even clear, when the trial began, as to precisely which federal election laws the District Attorney was relying on.

Just One More Thing, Stormy:  Do You Know Anything About Trump's Business Records?  Ten years after the porno performer claims she and Trump had a sexual encounter, she ordered her attorney to wring money out of Trump before the election while the getting was good.  In all, $130,000 was paid to her representative.  The money was paid by Michael Cohen.  And now, 18 years after the alleged sexual encounter, prosecutors put Trump on trial for stealing the 2016 election by listing his payments to his attorney on the balance sheet in 2016 as attorney payments instead of campaign expenditures.  The judge has given his blessing to prosecutors to link these payments to Cohen as a conspiracy to steal the election and think about breaking another law to elevate them to felonies.

Democrats may be the dog that caught the car.  [Scroll down]  Now, if Alvin Bragg had charged Trump with a single felony count of [blah, blah, blah] and a jury had convicted him, the judge in the case could have sentenced Trump to probation and a substantial fine, perhaps even requiring him not to leave the state or at least having him check-in in-person with his probation officer on a regular basis, which would have allowed Democrats to significantly impede the Trump campaign.  Additionally, it would allow the Democrats to run advertisements claiming that Donald Trump was a "convicted felon."  But because TDS is real and the concept of "nuance" is completely lost on liberals, they instead charged ahead like a bull in a china shop with 34 felony indictments against the former president.  This means if Trump is convicted, the judge will have no choice but to impose an incredibly harsh sentence.  Consider, if Trump is convicted of 34 felonies, offering a lenient sentence such as probation would be prima facie evidence that the case were overcharged, especially if the judge postponed sentencing pending appeal.

Johnson: Merchan not 'serious judge' after threatening Trump with jail time in election year.  House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., blasted Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday for fining former President Trump 10 times for gag order violations during an ongoing presidential campaign.  Merchan is presiding over Trump's hush money case in New York.  "The judge, who is a well-known Democrat, is pursuing an indefensible gag order on President Trump.  Now, just think about that.  Think about the magnitude of that.  He's trying to override President Trump's constitutional right to defend himself against the constant smears of his political opponents, in an election year," Johnson said during a news conference on Tuesday after a House GOP conference meeting.  "You cannot call yourself a serious judge and threaten a presidential candidate with jail time when he defends his reputation in public in the middle of a campaign.  And I think everybody of good conscience understands that," he added.

Democrats are Silencing Voices of Opposition.  In the 'Hush Money' trial, which began on March 25, Democrat Judge Juan M. Merchan cited Trump's prior comments about him and others in the case in granting the prosecution's request for what it termed a 'narrowly tailored' gag order barring Trump from making certain out-of-court statements.  Prosecutors cited what they called Trump's 'long history of making public and inflammatory remarks' about people involved in his legal cases when it asked for the gag order.  Further damaging Trump's ability to campaign and raise funds, Judge Merchan ruled that Trump must be in court when it's in session.  Merchan gave a warning "...that if Trump disrupts the proceedings, he could face jail time."  In what has to be the greatest case of chutzpah ever, Marchan said, "There's no agenda here.  We want to follow the law.  We want justice to be done.  That's all we want."  He also said he is certain of his "ability to be fair and impartial."  He said that despite the facts he's contributed to Democrats and his daughter is a party consultant.

FBI Staged Fake Photo of Classified Documents for PR Purposes.  You know that famous photo of Trump's purloined Top Secret documents?  The one that the FBI released that showed all those classified documents hidden in folders?  [Advertisement]  It's kinda, sorta faked.  Staged.  Not accurate at all.  A sham.  A con.  [Photo]  No, it's not a photoshop.  That would be worse, I suppose.  Maybe.  You see, those folders that scream Top Secret were brought by the FBI and the documents were inserted in them by FBI agents.  Think about this for a minute.  The General Services Administration shipped these documents to Trump, which is why they are stuffed away in Mar a Lago in the first place.  Then, the Archives met with the Biden administration to prod it to investigate Trump.  Then the FBI raids Mar a Lago, armed with folders screaming "Top Secret," photographs them, and releases the photo to the world, suggesting that Trump stole away with these documents in these folders screaming Top Secret.  Smells like a setup.

Will the Supreme Court Let This Crisis Go to Waste?  In Trump v. United States, the Court is considering whether Donald Trump has immunity for actions taken while he was president.  The DoJ argued that the motive for presidential actions should determine whether immunity applies and that the discretion and good motivations of DoJ attorneys should be trusted to make that determination (try not to laugh).  Justice Alito questioned the wisdom of that argument, asking if the DoJ should be trusted, "given its history of abusive partisan prosecution."  That is about as close as a Supreme Court justice will ever come to telling a government solicitor general that the latter has squandered his last ounce of credibility.  It appears that the Supreme Court justices are becoming aware that our justice system is now a tangle of broken constitutional promises and inconsistent legal decisions.  But do they realize that they helped create this mess?

Judge Cannon Indefinitely Suspends Jack Smith's Witch Hunt Against Trump.  In a dramatic twist in one of the most high-profile cases in recent history, Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida ordered the indefinite suspension of Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into former President Donald Trump.  The ruling effectively halts further pre-trial proceedings while the court sorts through a labyrinth of discovery matters, disclosure issues, and other complex legal motions.  In her meticulously detailed five-page order, Judge Cannon cited the interconnected nature of numerous pre-trial motions, discovery disputes, and Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) considerations as compelling reasons to vacate the scheduled May 20, 2024 trial date.  Instead, the judge alluded to the need for additional time to ensure a fair and comprehensive legal process.

Judge Cannon Indefinitely Postpones Jack Smith's Classified Documents Trial After Special Counsel Admits to Evidence Tampering.  Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday afternoon indefinitely postponed Jack Smith's classified documents trial against Trump.  As previously reported, Judge Cannon on Monday night postponed a key deadline in the classified documents case after Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted to tampering with evidence.  Cannon on Monday evening temporarily stayed a May 9 deadline for President Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira related to CIPA.  On Tuesday afternoon, Judge Cannon set a second set of pre-trial deadlines to manage pending discovery and disclosure matters.

America:  Goodbye my Country.  Today America is governed by an illegitimate tyrannical regime, and nothing has been done about it.  The Republican Party is useless.  Only Trump soldiers on with four orchestrated criminal indictments and a number of civil cases arrayed against him.  The media, Democrats, and Rino Republicans are all against him.  Only the people are for him, and the people are powerless.  They don't even have the vote as the Democrats made clear by stealing the last two elections.  Those prosecuting Trump have no concern that they are destroying America's reputation and reducing the power of all future presidents, making them even more subservient to the deep state.  America's only representative — Donald Trump — is so overloaded with criminal and civil prosecutions that he has no time to campaign and even as a billionaire is overwhelmed with the legal costs of defending himself from obvious nonsensical charges.

Bragg's own witness, Hope Hicks, implodes case against Trump.  In an epic miscalculation that backfired spectacularly, prosecutors in the Manhattan hush money trial of Donald Trump called Hope Hicks to the witness stand.  The moment cross-examination began, their misbegotten case against the former president began to collapse.  Hicks, who served as press secretary during the 2016 presidential campaign, explained that Trump's motive for suppressing salacious stories was to protect his wife, Melania. "Absolutely... I don't think he wanted anyone in his family to be hurt or embarrassed about anything on the campaign.  He wanted them to be proud of him."  In an epic miscalculation that backfired spectacularly, prosecutors in the Manhattan hush money trial of Donald Trump called Hope Hicks to the witness stand.  The moment cross-examination began, their misbegotten case against the former president began to collapse.

Biden's Political Persecution of Trump Damages the U.S. and Aids the PRC.  A fundamental aspect of American politics is that it is simultaneously domestic and international.  Domestic events impact international ones, and vice versa.  What happens within the U.S. also reaches global audiences.  In that light, the civil and criminal trials in New York City in Judge Arthur Engoron's and Juan Merchan's courtrooms of former President Donald Trump have a world impact, as do the trials in Fulton County, Georgia, and by the Special Counsel for Trump Inquires, Jack Smith, in Washington, D.C., and Florida.  While Trump's trials have multifaceted domestic political effects which will play out to election day on November 5, 2024, these events also have myriad and adverse international implications.

The insanity at the heart of the Trump trial.  Perhaps the weirdest, and by far the most unjust, thing about former President Donald Trump's trial in New York is that we do not know precisely what crime Trump is charged with committing.  We're in the middle of the trial, with Trump facing a maximum of more than 100 years in prison, and we don't even know what the charges are!  It's a surreal situation.  Yes, we know that Trump is charged with falsifying business records of payments made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016 and 2017.  But falsifying business records is a misdemeanor with a two-year statute of limitations, meaning prosecutors would be prohibited from charging Trump with that crime after 2019, which was five years ago.  They obviously missed that deadline by a mile.  We also know that New York law allows falsifying business records to be upgraded to a felony if the alleged falsification was done with "intent to defraud that includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."  In that case, the statute of limitations extends to five years, which would have allowed prosecutors to charge Trump as late as 2022.  Prosecutors missed that deadline, too.

NY Prosecuting Trump for Being Extorted.  None of the liberals calling for Trump's head know what he's accused of, they just know he did it.  They don't remember how the previous accusations ended or even what they were, despite having taken the strongest of positions; and here they are, again, taking the strongest position on the one issue they want you to know they care about:  Donald Trump is Guilty.  So that's the Manhattan jury pool.  Almost all of them read the New York Times so it's no wonder.  But to be fair, no one else knows what Trump's accused of, either.  Not the lawyers, not the pundits nor the people they interview.  Three weeks in, no one on either side or on the outside knows what the crime is.

'Election Interference': Bragg Case Gag Order Puts Unprecedented Limitations On Trump Campaign.  Allies close to former President Donald Trump are furious with the gag order imposed on him and his campaign by New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, telling the Daily Caller it is hamstringing his campaign like no other has been before.  On Tuesday, the start of week three of Trump's Manhattan trial, Merchan held the 2024 Republican presidential nominee in contempt of court and issued a $9,000 fine for repeatedly violating a gag order.  Merchan has also threatened jail time if Trump continues to violate the order.  Trump and his campaign have been barred from speaking about Matthew Colangelo, a lead prosecutor in the case who spent two years serving in the Biden administration's Department of Justice (DOJ) as acting associate attorney general.  After working near the top of the DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland, Colangelo joined the Manhattan District Attorney's office as senior counsel in December 2022.

Judge Cannon Set to Unseal Information Related to Obama Judge's Order.  Judge Aileen Cannon is set to release information related to Judge Beryl Howell's order piercing through Trump's attorney-client privilege.  Cannon set a telephonic status conference for next Wednesday, May 8.  [Tweet]  Jack Smith used a DC grand jury — and a radical Marxist Obama-appointed DC judge (Beryl Howell) in the classified docs case before quietly roving down to Florida to file the charges.  Judge Beryl Howell ruled against Trump at every turn!

Trump-haters hit a brick wall at SCOTUS.  Trump-hating prosecutors' joy ride hit a brick wall in the Supreme Court last Thursday, where six Justices doubted and ridiculed liberals' attempts to prosecute Trump in federal court.  This was so thoroughly a rout of Biden's minions that it also diminishes the impact of the ongoing New York County prosecution of Trump.  Delusional Biden supporters have expected federal prosecutors to rescue Biden by putting Trump on trial before the election.  But a barrage of comments by a Supreme Court majority exposed fatal defects in this legal strategy of anti-Trumpers to win the presidential election by prosecuting Trump.  Chief Justice Roberts did more than reject the decision by the Democrat-dominated D.C. Circuit that went against Trump.  Roberts mocked that decision for relying on a senseless tautology, which is also known as begging the question — assuming the truth of a statement without proving it.

This is 100% Obama:  The Rigged Communist Show Trial Against Trump.  The Intentional Destruction of America.  George HW Bush talked about "1,000 points of light."  Obama uses "1,000 points of destruction" to achieve his goal- the intentional destruction of America.  You can see it all happening just blocks apart right now — all built around Columbia University and NYC.  Upper Manhattan is where the anarchy at Columbia is on display.  The Jew-hatred.  The America-hatred.  The hatred of capitalism.  The desire to destroy the greatest nation in world history, ever blessed by God.  And then a few miles south to lower Manhattan is the courtroom where a rigged communist show trial is happening to destroy the greatest symbol of everything Obama hates- President Donald J. Trump.

Harmeet Dhillon Reveals Judge Juan Merchan's Sneaky Move To RIG Trump's Trial.  In an explosive appearance on the Megyn Kelly Show, Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney closely associated with former President Donald Trump's legal affairs, vehemently criticized Judge Juan Merchan's conduct in Trump's ongoing hush money trial.  Dhillon has been actively involved in high-profile legal cases, such as defending Project Veritas and participating in election integrity efforts during the 2020 presidential election.  According to Dhillon, Merchan has made the controversial decision to exclude campaign finance experts from testifying, a move she argued could unfairly impact the trial's outcome.  As the case is set to resume Tuesday in Manhattan, concerns over judicial fairness have intensified.  Dhillon described the situation that has been compromised by biased judicial oversight.

The Troubling Story of John Eastman and Election Lawfare.  John Eastman gave legal counsel to President Trump while he was still in office on cases dealing with election fraud.  He became nationally known after he spoke at the protest rally on the Ellipse prior to the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 riots.  He authored the "Eastman Memos," brainstorming papers in which he analyzed potential means of responding to the illegalities in the 2020 election that he had uncovered through investigation.  Since Jan. 6, 2021, Eastman has endured three years of malicious lawsuits, bar complaints, subpoenas, and testimony before the House January 6 committee.  The lawsuits include his inclusion in the indictment of President Trump and 17 of his associates by Fulton County, GA, District Attorney Fani Willis on racketeering charges.  In June of 2022, FBI armed agents frisked him and seized his phone, which they have kept in evidence for over two years.  It prompted Tucker Carlson to host him on Fox News to share details of the encounter.

The 'Deep State' Is Far Deeper Than Anyone Imagined.  For decades, pollsters have been telling us the electorate yearned for a third way, a nonpartisan who wasn't wedded to either party and would represent the vast middle.  Along comes the brash, imperfect real estate developer who had worked with both sides of the aisle in "the art of a deal."  The media elite loved it, especially the most salacious exploits of the prowling Manhattan mogul.  That is right up until presidential candidate Trump embraced a reformulated version of America First that turned out to be a direct threat to those global media empires.  You know, the ones who profitably ran all those Big Pharma ads while "reporting'" on COVID. It wasn't long before the crude tapes and "hush money" stories started rolling in.  Indeed, Trump's real sin was his desire to return to the economic and foreign policy nationalism that had been summarily quashed by globalists in both parties.  And it was a grave enough transgression to warrant his destruction by any means necessary.

Jonathan Turley Says Bragg's Case Against Trump Is 'Collapsing' After Witness Testimony.  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley on Friday said the prosecution's case against former President Donald Trump is failing as a key witness is benefiting the defense.  Trump is on trial facing 34 felony counts of allegedly falsifying business records in relation to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.  The prosecution's first witness, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, was helpful to Trump as the prosecution made mistakes that the defense capitalized on during cross-examination, Turley asserted on Fox News' "Outnumbered."  [Video clip]  "It's a breakdown in the courtroom.  They have a witness that is disassembling in front of them," Turley said.  "The prosecution never revealed to the jury in the direct that Pecker had actually killed stories for other celebrities, that he had been working on stories two decades before the election with Trump that he was suppressing.  And now it's only getting worse.  Yesterday was really bad In terms of the cross-examination for the prosecution.  Today is much worse.  I mean, here Pecker is saying that Trump didn't want to purchase the story.  Yesterday when he asked him about reimbursing Cohen, he said he didn't know anything about that."

A Supreme Form of Election Interference.  The president for America First Legal Stephen Miller told Newsmax on Friday [4/26/2024] that the four criminal indictments against former President Donald Trump amount to "the most supreme form of election interference."  Trump is facing a total four separate indictments for business fraud, unlawful retention of classified documents, and two cases of election interference.  Opening arguments for the business transaction case began this week in Manhattan.  Miller pointed out that because of Trump's various legal entanglements he has been kept off the campaign trail.

Jonathan Turley, Leo Terrell Say Bragg's Team Still Hasn't Proven Trump Committed Crime.  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley and civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said Thursday prosecutors still have not shown evidence former President Donald Trump committed a crime in the "hush money" case pursued by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  Prosecutors called former media executive David Pecker of the National Enquirer to the stand Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to detail how the publication purchased the rights to stories involving Trump while not publishing them regarding a $130,000 payout to porn star Stormy Daniels.  Turley noted that the prosecutors had not tied Trump personally to illegal actions while questioning the media executive about Trump's alleged involvement in the schemes.

Democrats Need To Be Held To Account For Denying Trump's Due Process Rights.  Due process of law, or at least its absence, is the heart of the unconstitutional lawfare aimed at Donald Trump this week in a New York courtroom, ostensibly for hush money payments to Stormy Daniels.  This is a crossing of the Rubicon moment for our Republic.  "Due process" is ancient shorthand for the sum of all the procedures the government must comply with and honor before it may take a person's life, liberty, or property.  The right to due process is over 1,000 years old in English jurisprudence.  It is a right of every citizen and a duty of every government.  A year ago, I wrote about DA Bragg charging Trump with a crime, but not identifying the crime.  Within the past few days, Andrew McCarthy called the prosecution a "farce" and listed its many failings.  Prof. Jonathan Turley wrote that Trump is not being prosecuted for any actual crime.  Prof. Jed Shugerman called the prosecution unfounded, both a "legal embarrassment" and a "historic mistake."  Matthew Whitaker said that Judge Merchan, who presides over the Manhattan kangaroo court, is hopelessly conflicted to a degree that would make Joe Biden blush.

'Trial By Ambush': Former Federal Prosecutors Say Alvin Bragg's Strategy Is Unlike Anything They've Seen Before.  When defendants go on trial, the allegations against them are generally clear.  Not so with former President Donald Trump and his "hush money" case.  Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office offered new transparency not only to the public, but seemingly also Trump's defense attorneys on Tuesday when, one year after indicting the former president, they finally pulled back the curtain to reveal the motivating crime in their case: a violation of state election law.  Former federal prosecutors told the Daily Caller News Foundation Bragg's lack of clarity is unfair to the defense, who can't prepare to argue against a charge they don't know, and unlike what they've seen before.  "I don't recall ever having a trial where the defense didn't know what the government was trying to prove," former federal prosecutor Jonathan Fahey told the DCNF, likening Bragg's approach to a "trial by ambush."

Trump's Defense Attorney Cripples Alvin Bragg's Entire Case.  During the cross-examination of the prosecution's first witness, former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker, defense attorney Emil Bove aimed to raise doubts about the core arguments in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against former President Donald Trump.  Bove highlighted the tabloid's practice of purchasing stories to prevent their release, a common tactic in what has been referred to as "checkbook journalism."  By pointing out that this practice was not unusual, Bove sought to portray the deal with former playboy model Karen McDougal as standard procedure rather than part of an illegal conspiracy to influence the 2016 election.  He emphasized other instances where Pecker's magazine suppressed damaging stories for public figures like Rahm Emanuel, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others, suggesting that such actions were not out of the ordinary.  [Tweet]

Supreme Court Majority Is Sympathetic to Trump's Immunity Claim With No Trial Likely Before the Election.  The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments stemming from Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of former President Donald Trump on felony charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.  Jack Smith sent his advocate, Michael Drebeen, a veteran of over 100 Supreme Court appearances and Robert Mueller's unethical investigation of President Trump, into a proverbial Cuisinart of hostile questions.  If the questions and statements of the justices are to be taken at face value, Trump's trial will not take place before November's election and possibly not at all.

What is this, if not a conspiracy?
Report, Lawfare Beach Friends Meet Every Friday to Discuss Legal Filings and Best Trump Attack Strategy.  Politico is outlining how a group of Lawfare ideologues meet every Friday to discuss their constructed legal filings and the next week of attack angles against President Donald Trump.  In essence, the core group inside the meeting are what Christine Blasey-Ford called the "beach friends" when discussing who constructed the legal avenues for the ridiculous attack against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.  As we have noted for the past several years, it's this same group of Lawfare ideologues, mostly former DOJ administrators and lawyers, who are behind every anti-Trump effort.  The primary trio is Mary McCord, Norm Eisen (left in red tie), and Andrew Weissmann.  These are the three members who write the briefs and court motions that Jack Smith then files.

Can the Swamp be Drained?  On October 17, 2016, Donald Trump issued a press release and subsequent Tweet stating, "I will make our Government honest again — believe me.  But first I am going to have to #DrainTheSwamp." in Washington, D.C.  Thereby creating a campaign slogan that was instrumental in his winning the 2016 election as Trump seized on an extremely popular position that resonated with a majority of the electorate.  Trump recycled a phrase used by Ronald Reagan in reference to the necessity of reducing a bloated government bureaucracy. [...] Both men failed in their respective attempts to "drain the swamp."  Reagan was stymied by a Democrat-controlled House for both of his terms.  Trump, during the first two years of his term, was hamstrung by an avalanche of politically-motivated leaks and inane investigations as well as intransigence on the part of the Republicans in both Houses of Congress.  In his second two years, a malevolent Pelosi-led House focused almost entirely on impeaching him twice.

A Prosecution In Search of a Crime.  Donald Trump is undergoing a criminal trial in Manhattan.  He is charged with filing corporate records that included a false statement; namely, that payments to Michael Cohen that were described as being for legal services were, in fact, to reimburse Cohen for making one or more payments to Stormy Daniels in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement.  But those payments to Daniels were perfectly legal, and filing a false corporate document is a misdemeanor on which the statute of limitation has passed.  So in order to charge Trump, District Attorney Alvin Bragg had to allege that the false documents were filed in order to cover up another crime.  That would make it a felony.  But what is that other crime?  Bragg has been coy about it.  In truth, there was no other crime, and Bragg's prosecution is election interference on behalf of the Democratic Party, plain and simple.  One would think that this case could not have gone to trial without a clear specification of that other crime and evidence in support of it.  But that appears to be what has happened, courtesy of trial judge Juan Merchan, who is in on the scam.

Biden should be more concerned than anyone about the precedent the Trump trials are setting.  [Scroll down]  Alex Berenson's essay about the bad precedent these trials set drew me to this idea. [...] He outlines the absurdity of the case, a ledger error within Trump's own personal notes as at the crux of the case, and a claimed underlying crime of trying to influence his own election, which is absurd.  On that, he notes that the so-called crime happened in 2017, which was after he was already elected president.  The whole kangaroo case would be laughable if it didn't involve jailtime for Trump if he is convicted by a Democrat judge and jury, meaning, they could knock him out of the race to do their version of kangaroo "justice" as appeals go on.

Did Letitia James Accidentally Reveal the Real Reason for Her Trump Witch Hunt?  A New York judge ruled on Monday that the $175 million bond judgment against former President Donald Trump will remain intact despite New York Attorney General Letitia James's efforts to challenge it.  James's legal team argued that the court should nullify Trump's reduced judgment of $175 million in his non-jury civil fraud trial.  Her team raised concerns about the ability of Knight Specialty Insurance, the company behind the substantial bond, to actually pay the bond if necessary.  That's a rather curious position since she had asked for a much larger $370 million in damages — it's as if the entire point was to achieve a judgment that would be impossible for Donald Trump to pay.  It's as if the entire point of her case was to seize his assets under bogus pretenses and be a hero to the radical left.

Gag Order Hearing:  D.A. Alvin Bragg Backs Down from Wanting Trump in Jail.  Democrat Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg backed down from asking New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan on Tuesday to jail former President Donald Trump for allegedly violating a gag order, according to court reporters.  Trump appeared to call Bragg's bluff, saying in April that it would be a "GREAT HONOR" to become a "modern-day Nelson Mandela" in the "clink" for speaking the truth about Merchan.  [Advertisement]  Bragg called for the Tuesday hearing to ask Merchan to punish Trump for allegedly violating his gag order.  Merchan has the authority to fine and send the former president to jail for up to 30 days for allegedly violating the order.  [Advertisement]

Judge Juan Merchan's 'Manifestly Unfair' Gag Order on Trump Comes Under Serious Legal Scrutiny.  A gag order that severely limits what former President Donald Trump can say publicly about a case where a Democrat district attorney is seeking to put him in jail was the focus in court on Tuesday as part of the business records trial he faces in Manhattan.  Democrat District Attorney Alvin Bragg accused Trump of violating the gag order 11 times for allegedly attacking witnesses and other members of the court — even if they have attacked him.  [Advertisement]  [Promotional video]  New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case and who imposed the gag order, could fine Trump up to $11,000.  As examples of attacks, Bragg's team cited in an April 1 filing some of Trump's posts on Truth Social, including one in which Trump called on Merchan to recuse himself from the case, and called him "biased and conflicted."

In Trump trial, Manhattan DA Bragg's hocus-pocus case exposed on first day.  Hocus-pocus is a meaningless distraction or illusion that is intended to fool.  That neatly summarizes District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case against Donald Trump.  The DA hopes to snooker a Manhattan jury into convicting the former president with a bag of legal tricks.  In most courtrooms, the chicanery would never work.  But in this Trump-hating venue the defendant's jury of purported peers are likely predisposed to accept magic for magic's sake. [...] The first sleight of hand happened the moment the lead prosecutor addressed jurors during opening statements on Monday.  Assistant DA Matthew Colangelo (formerly Joe Biden's number three official at the Justice Department) told the panel, "This case is about a criminal conspiracy."  Really?  Why, then, is Trump not charged with that?  Even though Colangelo repeatedly accused the defendant of participating in a criminal conspiracy, the word "conspiracy" can be found nowhere in Bragg's indictment.  It's not there because there was no criminal conspiracy.

Special Counsel Jack Smith Lacks Standing to Defend the D.C. Circuit's ruling on Presidential Immunity in the Supreme Court.  [Scroll down]  Jack Smith is in the eyes of the law a private citizen, and all the acts he has taken since his appointment on November 18, 2022 are null and void.  This is as true of the acts Smith has taken in the Florida classified documents case, against Donald Trump, under the eye of the 11th Circuit, as it is of the actions Smith has taken in the D.C. District Court case, against Trump involving the events of January 6, 2021.  All those he has imprisoned or entered into plea bargains with are free.  Indeed, Jack Smith can be sued in torts for unconstitutionally depriving people of liberty and property.  The absence of standing to defend the D.C. Circuit's opinion below on Smith's part cannot be waived by Donald Trump's or anyone else's failure to raise it sooner.  And, the absence of defendant standing must be raised sua sponte by any federal judge or Supreme Court Justice who Jack Smith purports to appear before in any case whether the case involves Donald Trump or anyone else.  Standing must exist at all stages of litigation including throughout all authorized appeals and habeas corpus petitions.  We argue that under the Constitution only Congress can create the Office of Special Counsel to which Jack Smith was appointed.  The power to create federal offices is an exclusively congressional power and may not be usurped by the executive branch.

Unredacted motion reveals collaboration between Biden White House and NARA to concoct classified docs case against Trump.  On Monday, a version of Donald Trump's motion to compel discovery in the Mar-a-Lago documents case was released by Judge Aileen Cannon with much of the information originally redacted by Biden's special counsel Jack Smith being unredacted.  In one section titled "Early Indications of NARA Bias," which was heavily redacted in its original, January 16 version, it now states that NARA General Counsel Gary Stern sent an internal email attaching a draft letter to President Trump's [Presidential Records Act] representatives.  Stern noted that he 'had several conversations' with [White House Office of Records Management]'s [redacted] and that [redacted] had 'raised some of these concerns directly with David [Ferriero, NARA's Archivist]."  "Stern's draft concluded that 'things were very chaotic, as they always are in the course of a one-term transition,' and he acknowledged that 'the transfer of the Trump electronic records is still ongoing and won't be complete for several more months.'"

Judge Cannon Unmasks Redacted Documents Revealing Biden White House Direct Ties to Mar-a-Lago Raid, Jack Smith Investigation.  Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday ordered key evidence in Jack Smith's classified documents case to be unredacted.  The newly unredacted documents revealed Biden's White House had direct ties to the Mar-a-Lago raid.  The Biden Regime was also directly tied to Jack Smith's investigation despite claims to the contrary from US Attorney General Merrick Garland.  Before with redactions:  Jack Smith wanted to hide the fact that the National Archives had several conversations with the Biden White House.

'Conspiracy Theories' Aren't Theoretical Anymore.  There is nothing demented or delusional about believing our government would willingly facilitate the murder of a political threat.  The actions of the DoJ in conjunction with the legislation proposed by the Democrats makes that perfectly clear.  The plot to place Donald Trump at the tender mercies of a prison's "genpop" is not the only evidence of government criminal conspiracy.  The ATF really did traffic guns to Mexican drug cartels to promote gun-control legislation.  One federal agent and countless civilians were killed with those guns.  The DoJ sought to remove a duly elected President — even to the point of the Deputy Attorney General offering to "wear a wire" to record conversations with the President (with cabinet support).  The FBI really did set up some useful idiots to advanced their domestic terrorist narrative (the Governor Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping).  It was a classic entrapment scheme in which federal assets planned the crime, and hapless stooges stepped in the trap.  All this is changing our worldview and is causing us to observe our government with a new level of skepticism.

'Hush money' is not a crime, and Bragg has no case against Trump.  Opening statements get underway in Manhattan Monday morning in Donald Trump's "hush money" trial — the first-ever criminal trial of a former American president and, indeed, of a de facto major-party presidential nominee.  It got me to thinking:  Why do we call it the "hush money" trial?  Well, sure, the media-Democrat complex loves the salacious overtones of that spin.  But that's not the real reason.  If Trump had robbed a bank or, as he once famously put it, shot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight, we'd be talking about Trump's bank robbery trial or his murder trial.  That is, we'd be talking about the crime.  The problem that Democrats and their note-takers have, the problem that the elected progressive Democratic prosecutor Alvin Bragg has, is that what they want to accuse Trump of is not a crime.

CNN Panel Finds It 'Pretty Remarkable' Juror Can Go To Dentist Appointment While Trump Restricted From Major Events.  A CNN panel on Monday said they found it striking that an alternate juror in former President Donald Trump's case can attend a dentist appointment while the defendant cannot attend momentous events.  Opening arguments for Trump's trial related to a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels began on Monday, and the judge overseeing the case, Juan Merchan, reportedly will end the session early to allow one of the alternate jurors to attend the appointment.  Merchan previously ruled that Trump must be in the courtroom throughout the trial because of his status as a criminal defendant, meaning he is not permitted to attend the Supreme Court's Thursday presidential immunity argument and may not be able to go to his son Barron's graduation.

Two Former High-Profile Trump Critics Now Admit It:  His Foes Are the Real Threat to Democracy.  Two high-profile Trump critics, one of whom was even touted as the presidential candidate who could topple Bad Orange in 2020, have just shown that they realize that the real threat to this tottering republic is coming not from the man they once happily joined in on hating, but from his enemies[.]  First it was the man whom Tucker Carlson indelibly dubbed the "Creepy Porn Lawyer."  Michael Avenatti, porn star Stormy Daniels' former lawyer, is now doing time for a variety of crimes including theft and fraud.  This has given him some time to think about the man whose indictment he called for back in 2018, and whom he thought he could defeat for the presidency in 2020.  Avenatti has thought so much about the whole thing that he has done a 180 and completely changed his positions.  Now he is even willing to testify on Trump's behalf.  "The defense has contacted me," Avenatti said Saturday from the minimum-security prison in Los Angeles where he is doing his time.

Yes, They Want Him Dead:  Dem. Rep. Introduces Bill to Make It Easier to Kill Trump.  The Democrats have been trying to destroy Donald Trump ever since he announced his candidacy for president back in 2015. They've framed him for Russian collusion, election interference, and even rape.  They've impeached him twice.  They've tried to bar him from the ballot.  They still may succeed in convicting him of bogus crimes and even sending him to prison, all in the hope of making sure that he doesn't walk back into the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2025.  Yet even all this isn't enough for some of these sinister authoritarians.  Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Racism) on Friday introduced a bill to "terminate United States Secret Service protection for felons."  Thompson evidently doesn't count a competent prose stylist among his handlers, for the "Short Title" of this bill is as verbose as it is grandiose, self-important, and silly: ''This Act may be cited," it announces on its first page "as the 'Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable Former Protectees Act' or the 'DISGRACED Former Protectees Act.'"  Thompson's bill stipulates that Secret Service protection "shall terminate for any person upon sentencing following conviction for a Federal or State offense that is punishable for a term of imprisonment of at least one year."  There is an unmistakable hint that the Democrats plan to imprison Trump for at least a year, ideally so that he will be behind bars on November 5, 2024 and January 20, 2025.

Trump's Jury Trial Will Be As 'Fair' As The Russia Hoax And 2020 Election.  Jury selection for 12 jurors wrapped up Thursday in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's lawfare against former President Donald Trump, with the next phase of the trial expected to begin as early as Monday.  But with two selected jurors booted for potential bias and perjury and at least one juror who made clear she doesn't like Trump's "persona," can he really get a fair trial?  After two of the initial seven selected jurors were struck from the panel, another seven were chosen Thursday.  The jurors will hear Bragg's claim that Trump broke the law by allegedly classifying payments made by his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, to pornographer Stormy Daniels as part of a nondisclosure agreement as "legal fees" instead of campaign expenditures.  Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York declined to charge Trump in 2018.

Did Letitia James Just Admit Her Persecution Of Trump Is Revenge For Obama?  Yesterday Letitia James asked the judge to disallow Trump's $175M bond.  There will be a hearing on Monday.  Notice at the 45-second mark how Letitia says she is upset by how Trump treated Obama.  This prosecution smells like a Valerie Jarrett operation.  [Video clip]

Alan Dershowitz reveals why Trump has drawn 'a bad jury' for his New York hush money trial.  Alan Dershowitz, a longtime trial lawyer and former attorney for Donald Trump, says that the ex-president's jury at his New York hush money trial is bad news for his one-time client.  Following three days of legal wrangling a panel of seven men and five women has now been selected and they will assess his guilt or innocence over the coming weeks.  Dershowitz, 85, says that the makeup of the jurors — who include a corporate lawyer, an investment banker, a software engineer and a teacher — suggest Trump will fare poorly.

Why Is Judge Juan Merchan Refusing to Honor Trump's Due-Process Rights?  I observed in a post this week that, compared to some of Donald Trump's other recent complaints about Judge Juan Merchan, there is more substance to his grousing about the judge's denial of his request that the trial be adjourned for a day so that he may be in attendance at the United States Supreme Court next Thursday, April 25.  That's the day the justices will hear argument on the question of whether the former president has immunity from prosecution in the 2020 election-interference indictment brought in Washington, D.C., by Biden Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.  There are competing legal and practical considerations here.  Practically speaking, if I'm a Trump appellate lawyer, I would prefer that he not come to the Supreme Court argument.  I don't think the justices would appreciate the spectacle.

The big money bankrolling the Left's lawfare.  As Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's transparently political prosecution of former President Donald Trump began last week, it is important to remember that the former president is not the only target of the Democratic Party's campaign to use government power to silence political dissent.  The Left's efforts to intimidate conservative activists this month included Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) delivering a congressional subpoena to Federalist Society Co-Chairman Leonard Leo.  It was voted on by the Senate Judiciary Committee last November without securing a single Republican vote.  Durbin has not explained why the subpoena was not delivered for five months.  His attack on Leo comes as another elected Democrat, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, has also used his office to harass Leo.  After a complaint filed by the dark money-funded Campaign for Accountability, Schwalb opened an investigation into Leo's management of two nonprofit organizations.

Democrat House reps stop just short of explicitly calling for Trump's assassination.  Rep. Bennie Thompson (D. Miss.), who chaired the House J6 Committee, introduced legislation that calls for President Donald Trump to lose his Secret Service protection if he's convicted and sent to prison.  Thompson fully understands that there is a strong likelihood that the current Manhattan hush money trial or the upcoming Georgia RICO trial, both of which are open partisan lawfare rather than justice, will see at least one felony conviction and prison sentence for Trump.  In other words, this legislation is an almost explicit call for Trump's assassination.  It's been apparent since the get-go that the myriad criminal actions against Trump are a form of election interference.  Each case has no basis in law or fact.  All are purely partisan actions intended not only to prevent Trump from re-taking the White House but to tell anyone else who opposes the Democrat machine that the machine will go into Destructor-mode.  Now, though, we're seeing an even more sinister side to the Democrats' anti-democratic and immoral actions, all of which are zooming the U.S. toward a constitutional crisis as profound as that which faced America in 1861.

Prospective 'Hush Money' Juror Claimed to Be Unbiased, Admits Trump Makes Her 'Angry'.  A prospective juror who had told the court she was unbiased in President Donald Trump's so-called "hush money" trial.  However, that same juror has just admitted during a recent interview that she is actually "not a fan" of Trump.  Alarmingly, the juror then started listing various reasons why Trump makes her "angry."  She then continued by blasting Trump's handling of the pandemic and his views on China and abortion.  Worryingly, the juror wasn't dismissed over her obvious bias.

Crazy America.  [Scroll down]  Proof of Mr. Trump's rapey-ness has been finally and formally declared in the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial.  It's certified, you see, though the trial itself was a joke of performative pretense.  All you really need is a cast of characters, including the judge, Lewis Kaplan, who are sufficiently deranged and degenerate to carry out the performance.  New York State Attorney General Letitia James was up next to attempt the financial castration of Mr. Trump with an artfully concocted civil case that magically transformed a normal real estate transaction into a victimless fraud (say, what?), prompting the Rumpelstiltskin-like Judge Arthur Engoron to declare an unprecedented cash penalty of $354-million, designed to enable the confiscation and forced sale of Mr. Trump's buildings.  That hasn't quite worked yet, and may never work, given how appeals courts up to SCOTUS might view the malicious prosecution based on Ms. James's repeated campaign promise to... pin something on Trump.

Democrats Move a Bill "to Ensure Trump Is Murdered".  Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) introduced legislation on Friday to terminate Secret Service protection "for any person upon sentencing following a conviction for a Federal or State offense that is punishable for a term of imprisonment of at least one year."  Democrats not only want to imprison Donald Trump for an invented crime, they don't want him to have any protection.  This is why we need the House to remain intact.  The DISGRACED Former Protectees Act claims there would be "potential for conflicting lines of authority within prisons."  It would also "allow judges to weigh the sentencing of individuals without having to factor in the logistical concerns of convicts with Secret Service protection."  It is meant for Donald Trump.  They filed 91 charges against him because they want to imprison him until he dies.  The bill's fact sheet says his "unprecedented 91 felony charges in Federal and State courts across the country have created a new exigency that Congress must address."

Rigged: Judge Merchan Let an Anti-Trumper Who Lied Onto the Jury.  Judge Juan Merchan's anti-Trump bias is so bad he isn't even pretending to make the jury selection process fair.  Earlier this week, Fox News' Jesse Watters reported on how the process has been rigged against Trump, and he brought up how liberal activists are trying to sneak onto the jury.  "They are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge.  They're saying, 'Oh, have you ever said anything on social media about Donald Trump?'  'No, I can't remember.'  'Well, what about this post where you said he should be in prison?'  'Oh yeah, that one.'  'Strike!' and they keep throwing these undercovers at him." [...] But not everyone who has been caught lying was booted.  One of 12 seated jurors includes a woman who lied on her questionnaire to cover up her anti-Trump views.  Trump's lawyer, Todd Blanche, sought to have Juror No.  B133 removed because she had posted a video on social media celebrating Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential election.  "This is a woman who said she never attended a Trump rally," Susan Necheles, another of Trump's attorneys, pointed out before adding that this was "clearly an anti-Trump event."

How Alvin Bragg made (preposterous) history with Donald Trump's case.  Alvin Bragg is to be commended for getting to trial on the Trump hush-payments case.  Lesser prosecutors would have been daunted by the prospect of creating a national melodrama and a norm-breaking prosecution of a former president over what is, in essence, a misdemeanor business-records charge.  They would have blanched at relying on serial perjurer Michael Cohen as a star witness.  They would have recognized the inherent ambiguity over whether the hush payments to Stormy Daniels were personal payments or campaign expenses.  They would have been reluctant to torture the law to stretch the statute of limitations just far enough to cover the events in question, and would have been too embarrassed by the chronological difficulty involved in arguing that events in 2017 influenced the 2016 election.

What Won't the Swamp Do to Stop Trump?  For nearly a decade, the D.C. swamp has used every tool in its arsenal to take down first candidate, then president, and then citizen Donald J. Trump.  They've lied, connived, impeached, indicted, sued, misconstrued, cheated, deleted, changed laws, ignored laws, and just plain broken laws to take The Donald down.  [Indeed], they used a pandemic virus — which wee Tony Fauci helped fund the synthesis of, and later dissembled about the provenance of, all while becoming a saint to the left and filthy rich — to unilaterally, and without consent of the people, change voting laws and lead many to believe that the 2020 election was illegitimate.  If they've half a brain in their head — which precludes President Biden, his V.P., and his press secretary — creatures of the swamp should be quaking in their hip boots about now.  Because if Trump earns a second term, vengeance — or restorative justice, if you prefer — will be for the Lord of Queens.

Dems want to send Trump to prison without Secret Service protection.  Key Democrats revealed new legislation Friday that would strip former President Donald Trump of his Secret Service agents if he is convicted and sentenced to prison.  Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said it's about making sure Mr. Trump doesn't get special treatment for whatever crime he might be sentenced.  He is worried that having to accommodate a Secret Service protective detail could lead to accommodations for a former president.  "It is regrettable that it has come to this, but this previously unthought-of scenario could become our reality," the Mississippi lawmaker said.  "Therefore, it is necessary for us to be prepared and update the law so the American people can be assured that protective status does not translate into special treatment — and that those who are sentenced to prison will indeed serve the time required of them."

It's a Bill of Attainder — of the worst kind.
Democrats Move to Strip Trump of Secret Service Protection.  Democrats want Trump dead.  House Democrats on Friday moved to strip President Trump of his Secret Service protection if he is convicted.  Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson introduced a resolution that would terminate Trump's Secret Service protection.  The legislation dubbed the "Denying Infinite Security and Government Resources Allocated toward Convicted and Extremely Dishonorable (DISGRACED) Former Protectees Act would apply to all Secret Service protectees convicted and sentenced under felony charges. [...] "Obvious subtext here is that removing USSS would make it easier for someone to kill Trump, which is arguably the goal of Thompson's bill, H.R. 8081," Byron York said.  [Tweet]

New Report Confirms Trump Won't Receive a Fair Trial.  A Left-leaning columnist is admitting that the 12-person jury selected to serve on former President Donald Trump's trial leans more Democrat than not.  New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman confirmed a common belief among Trump supporters — which is that the 2024 hopeful won't get a fair trial in the majorly liberal city of Manhattan.  "One thing that's been striking during this round of voir dire is there a lot of people who, based on their answers, are more left-of-center than not, politically," Haberman wrote.  "But some seem to be trying to show they can consider alternative viewpoints, and others seem to want to show they believe in the concept of jury service as independent from personal opinions."  Attorney and legal scholar Jonathon Turley pointed out that only about 12 percent of New Yorkers voted for Trump in 2020.  In comparison, President Joe Biden won the Manhattan vote by 86 percent that same year.

Trump Could Be Jailed for Speaking About His NYC Case Due to Judge's 'Unconstitutional' Gag Order.  President Trump could go to jail if Judge Juan Merchan rules him in contempt of court in his New York City bookkeeping trial.  When court resumed on Thursday after a day off, New York City prosecutors argued that former President Trump had broken the gag.  Merchan imposed the order in March and later expanded it to keep Trump quiet about the judge's daughter who works to elect Democrats, including Joe Biden.  She has used the trial as a fundraiser for her Democrat clients.  Prosecutors claim that Trump has broken the gag order ten times and have asked for higher fines and other punishment for him.  They want to raise the fine for each offense from $1,000 to $3,000.  The judge will hold a hearing on the gag order on Tuesday.

The trouble with Trump's jurors shows the results of a post-truth society.  This essay is not about the fact that Trump's "hush money" trial is completely corrupt for myriad reasons.  These reasons include but are not limited to the fact that Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg violated due process by revitalizing invalid election fraud claims and time-barred misdemeanors allegations by elevating them into unnamed felonies.  I'm also not talking about the judge having a daughter who is a highly-placed anti-Trump activist raising money off the trial.  Instead, this post focuses on one specific thing:  The fact that it is impossible for Trump to have a fair jury in this corrupt trial.  The lack of fairness begins with the fact that Trump is the most famous man in the world, and he is running for president.  There is literally no one on earth, unless they have the awareness of a potato, who doesn't have an opinion on the case, and who doesn't understand that its outcome will affect the election.

Criminalizing Trivialities.  In the two federal indictments brought by Jack Smith, the Fulton County indictment brought by disgraced District Attorney Fani Willis and her lover Nathan Wade (now removed from the case for misconduct), and the indictment brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, state and federal prosecutors have abused federal and state fraud-type criminal statutes.  By my count, of the remaining 88 or so felony charges against Donald Trump, roughly 60 of them reveal egregious misuses of fraud-type criminal statutes.  This essay analyzes the 34 counts in Bragg's indictment, the trial of which is just underway.  What follows is not an analysis of the elements of the offenses charged against Donald Trump, which are often narrower than prudence dictates or legislatures intend.  Rather, this essay explains how honest prosecutors use common sense to evaluate "fraud-type" cases, an evaluation that involves more than a mere hyper-technical application of facts to elements.

The 12 jurors picked in Trump's hush money trial, including a woman who called him 'selfish'.  Twelve Manhattan residents have been picked to decide the fate of Donald Trump in his historic hush money trial.  Seven men and five women — including a corporate lawyer and a woman who called the ex-president 'selfish' — will ultimately determine if Trump is guilty or not guilty of hiding a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about their alleged affair.  The brutal selection process which included extensive questioning and research into their backgrounds took three days to complete.

Grotesque Bias Against Trump.  [Scroll down]  The [Access Hollywood] tape is not actually an admission of sexual assault — it is the opposite, in fact — but put that aside.  Trump is charged with the misdemeanor (bootstrapped into a felony by the prosecutor) of filing business records that were incorrect.  What [...] does the Access Hollywood tape have to do with Trump's accounting records?  Nothing.  I can see no basis for this ruling other than an outrageous effort at election interference by the trial judge, Juan Merchan.  It does not bode well for the coming weeks — during which, by the way, Trump will be required to be present at the trial and will not be able to campaign.  More election interference.

The lynching of a president.  [Scroll down]  Law professor Jonathan Turley laid into the whole premise of the 34-count indictment for maybe having sex with a hooker.  Turley wrote, "I have long been critical of the case as a clear example of the weaponization of the criminal justice system.  No one seriously believes that Alvin Bragg would have spent this time and money to prosecute what is ordinarily a state misdemeanor if the defendant was anyone other than Trump.  One does not have to like Trump to repel from the spectacle about to unfold in Manhattan."  I have a quibble.  One must vote for Trump if one wants to keep any semblance of a free country.  Democrats not only have gone 10 bridges too far, but they have burned them all down.  Democrats are using race with black prosecutors Fani Willis and Mister Bragg fronting the prosecutions in state courts.  Ted Kaczynski-look alike Jack Smith is handling the federal case.  The problem for Democrats is they keep spiking the ball and it keeps bouncing back, hitting them in the eyeball.  For years they dreamed of a mugshot of Trump on one of their trumped-up charges.  They finally got one.  It backfired.

Jesse Watters Reviews First Seven NYC Jurors in Trump's Rigged Criminal Case.  The first seven jurors in President Trump's NYC lawfare case in liberal Judge Juan Merchan's court.  Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday accused Trump of intimidating a juror who admitted she posted a pro-Biden video to her Facebook page.  Jury selection was still underway on Tuesday in the Stormy Daniels 'hush money' trial after more than 50 prospective jurors were dismissed from the jury pool on Monday.  One potential juror was brought in for questioning after Trump's lawyers discovered she posted a pro-Biden celebratory video in 2020.

Trump will Be Found Guilty in NYC And Bragg Will Try to Imprison Him.  New York City is out to destroy Donald Trump, and Alvin Bragg's criminal trial starts today — Monday.  We already know the outcome — Trump will receive nothing of a fair trial, and Bragg, with the judges, will find Trump Guilty, and they WILL try to imprison Trump on Riker's Island and cheer when an inmate kills him.  I feel sorry for those who are blinded by their hatred of Trump.  This is tearing down the country, and whatever they do to Trump has opened the door for rouge Republican prosecutors to do the same to Democrats.  This is the start of the American Civil War, and ironically, the first one began on April 12th, 1861, and here this one will be instigated on April 15th, 2024 — 163 years later [...] Bragg, who has called Trump a "rich white guy," is even introducing racism to this event in addition to Bragg being a zealot Democrat.  Of course, racism only works in one direction, like a ONE-WAY street.  Nobody will ever address that issue.  New York is notorious for corruption in the legal system.

When Contempt Is Necessary.  This week's Trump Trial of the Week is the bazillionth attempt by the ruling party to nail the leader of the opposition on ...something, anything, whatever's to hand.  So naturally a certain artfulness is required.  In this case, if one accepts as true the charges of corrupt prosecutor Alvin Bragg, Trump paid former crony Michael Cohen to pay off Stormy Daniels.  Which would be a falsification of business records.  Which is, under the "laws" of New York, a misdemeanour - albeit one in which the statute of supposed limitations has already kicked in.  So Bragg is arguing that the expired misdemeanour is actually a non-expired felony, because it was used to cover up another crime.  What other crime he has not said.  And, as is now familiar in the State of New York, the corrupt judge Juan Manuel Merchan has been happy to indulge him.  So we are in the quintessentially American realm of the Higher Bollocks.  That means so-called conservative legal scholars fill the airwaves conceding that yes, it's an almighty stretch but, in the fullness of time (which, as I can attest after twelve years in the choked septic tank of DC justice, can be very full indeed), Judge Merchan's whims and caprices will likely be overturned on appeal.  So the system works — eventually.

'Truly Un-American': Legal Expert Mike Davis Slams Use of Unconstitutional Gag Order.  The first criminal trial against former and potentially future President Donald is moving forward, with Tuesday bringing us more of jury selection.  As Matt covered on Monday, the trial thus far has been incredibly unfair to Trump, and not merely because it's such a weak case.  Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan, who has been criticized as "a Democratic operative in a robe," won't even let Trump attend his son's high school graduation.  Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg is no better, though, as he's looking to punish Trump for violating the unconstitutional gag order thrust upon him.  The Article 3 Project's Mike Davis called out such a move from Bragg in his many posts shared to his X account, as well as with his many media appearances.  This included an appearance with Jack Posobiec, who also shared coverage from The Post Millennial.  As Davis has warned before, when the gag order was first announced back in late February, "these are republic-ending tactics by these Democrats."  [Tweet]

The Deep State's Accelerating Attacks On Trump Show A Consciousness Of Guilt.  To cover for the Democrat collective's illegal acts, the Biden administration, via the DOJ and FBI, is using lawfare, in the form of malicious and selective prosecution, and vexatious civil litigation to target Trump to make it impossible for him to be a viable in the 2024 election.  The federal government as self-evidently coordinated closely with state prosecutors.  These cases, in chief, lack merit and use convoluted stretches of the law.

The Manhattan case against Trump is a travesty.  The facts of the case starting this week are simple.  It's the legal theories that are convoluted.  Donald Trump paid a porn star named Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about their affair.  (Leave aside for a moment whether it's possible to have an "affair" with a porn star, and leave aside whether Stormy blackmailed him into making the payment.)  Despite the opprobrious term "hush money," this type of payoff is perfectly legal and happens all the time.  In fact, it's the most frequent outcome of a sexual harassment case, where it's politely termed a "confidential settlement agreement."

Here's the Real Reason the Soros-Bought NYC Prosecutor Put Trump on Trial.  There's nothing at all funny about putting a former president of the United States of America on trial for misdemeanor record-keeping offenses and turning those into felonies through a badly done magic trick.  The underlying reason why the George Soros-selected prosecutor put Donald Trump on trial starting Monday, however, is yet another reason why this case should be laughed out of court.  The avowed Trump-hating prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, is part of the effort by the left to tie up the former president in court so he can't campaign for president.  Additionally, they hope that by ringing up all manner of charges against Trump, they'll smear his reputation.

Crib Notes for the Trial of the Century.  [Scroll down]  Fast-forward to the 2020 election.  "Joe Biden" manages to charm swing-state voters from his basement hide-out, moves into the puppet-theater known as the White House, and unleashes the dogs of lawfare on former president Trump so as to knock him off the political game-board for once and for all.  "JB's" Attorney General, Merrick Garland, sends Deputy AG Matthew Colangelo to work in DA Alvin Bragg's office, to construct some kind of case out of the Stormy Daniels / Michael Cohen debris.  The result is an improbable farrago of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to the Stormy Daniels hush-money payments, converted from misdemeanors to felonies on the theory that the falsifications were intended to conceal other election law crimes, including "influencing the 2016 election."  Each count for which Trump is convicted could result in a prison sentence of up to four years, to be served consecutively, meaning 136 years in jail.  Mr. Trump thus becomes the proverbial ham sandwich that an ambitious DA can convince a grand jury to indict.

A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system.  The famous Roman philosopher and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, "The more laws, the less justice."  This week, New York judges and lawyers appear eager to prove that the same is true for cases against Donald Trump.  After an absurd $450 million decision courtesy of Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will bring his equally controversial criminal prosecution over hush money paid to a former porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.  Lawyers have been scouring the civil and criminal codes for any basis to sue or prosecute Trump before the upcoming 2024 election.  This week will highlight the damage done to New York's legal system because of this unhinged crusade.  They've charged him with everything short of ripping a label off a mattress.

FBI Interrogated Trump's Valet Driver without Trump's Knowledge — And Turned Ambush Interview Into Perjury Trap:  Court Docs.  Judge Aileen Cannon ordered the public release of the FBI's interview of Trump's valet driver Walt Nauta.  Walt Nauta is a former White House employee and Navy veteran who worked valet for Trump and served as a personal staffer at Mar-a-Lago.  According to the transcript of the May 2022 interview, the FBI interrogated Trump's aide Walt Nauta — without Trump's knowledge.  The FBI agents approached Walt Nauta and asked for a voluntary interview under the guise of national security interest (similar to the General Flynn ambush).

Congress Is Lying to You About FISA.  A few years ago, we learned conclusively that, in fact, the FBI and the federal intel agencies — the dozen or more federal intel agencies we have, for some reason — had been working secretly against Donald Trump's presidential campaign.  Trump had whispered about this, then shouted about it, was roundly denounced as a conspiracy nut, a lunatic.  But in the end, he was vindicated.  It was true.  These agencies spied on Trump, and they leaked some of what they learned to the media, which used it against Trump.  Then these agencies concocted false stories about Trump.  They tried to crush Trump completely in 2016 and then for the entire course of his presidency.  Then they did the same thing in 2020 during the presidential election.  And they're doing it still.  They're trying to put him in prison for the rest of his life.

Jack Smith Signals He'll Try To Circumvent SCOTUS If It Says Obstruction Charges Aren't Real Crimes.  Democrat hacks have claimed that Special Counsel Jack Smith's indictments against Donald Trump over the former president's challenging of the 2020 election are legally sound.  So why is Smith grasping at legal straws in his latest court filing?  On Monday, Smith filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the nation's highest judicial body to dismiss Trump's presidential immunity claims.  Citing the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, the special counsel indicted Trump in August over his speech questioning the administration of the 2020 election.  This prompted the former president's legal team to file a motion essentially arguing that Trump "should be immune from prosecution because the conduct he is accused of constituted official acts of the president," as Fox News summarized.

Judge Grants Donald Trump's Request to Reconsider Gag Order.  A New York appeals court judge on Tuesday permitted the full Appellate Division First Department to consider relaxing a sweeping gag order against former President Donald Trump.  The appellate court could reportedly decide to delay the criminal trial while it considers Trump's gag order appeal.  Trump sued New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan in an appeals court on Monday to challenge the judge's sweeping gag order.  Merchan, who is presiding over the New York criminal case, imposed the gag order after news surfaced about a connection between Merchan's daughter and conspiracy theorist Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).

Letitia James to Start Seizing Trump's Properties.  According to former federal prosecutor Eric Lisann, Knight Specialty Insurance won't be allowed to post a $175 million bond for Donald Trump as he appeals a fraud judgment.  This statement came in response to lawyer Dave Kingman's assertion that the insurance company wouldn't be able to secure the bond for Trump. [...] On April 1, Trump submitted a $175 million bond to prevent the seizure of his assets by New York Attorney General Letitia James during his appeal of a civil fraud ruling.  However, the court's filing system rejected the bond shortly afterward due to missing paperwork, including a "current financial statement."  James later questioned the adequacy of the bond and highlighted that Knight Specialty Insurance Company (KSIC), is not authorized in New York, rendering it ineligible to obtain a certificate of qualification from the Department of Financial Services.  KSIC has resubmitted its paperwork to restart the process.

Democrats Slip and Accidentally Confirm the Campaign Is All About Throwing Trump in Prison.  Oops.  Democrats just said the quiet part out loud about their lawfare campaign against Donald Trump, his lawyers, associates, and former aides leading to the 2024 presidential election.  Since Democrats and their fellow travelers in the Department of "Justice" first pushed the cascade of questionable cases, the political left continues to maintain that Trump is just a bad guy who did bad things leading up to, during, and after the 2020 presidential election.  All stories, comments, and the like assume that Donald Trump has done something horrible and should be thrown in jail.  Orange Man bad.  Sure, the forces going after Trump worked with the Biden Administration to coordinate at least some of these cases, but these cases had to take jerry-rigged convolutions to get us to where we are right now.

Report: Donald Trump to Sue Judge Juan Merchan in Gag Order Challenge.  Former President Donald Trump will reportedly sue New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan in an appeals court to challenge his sweeping gag order.  Merchan, who is presiding over the New York criminal case, imposed a gag order on Trump after news surfaced about a connection between Merchan's daughter and conspiracy theorist Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA).  Trump believes Merchan should recuse himself, citing a conflict of interest regarding his daughter's position at a Democrat consulting firm that supported President Biden's 2020 campaign.

Democrats Plan to Kneecap Trump's Candidacy.  The deep state, swamp, blob, ruling class, establishment, uni-party, or whatever is today's term de jour for the permanent administrative state has been pulling out all the stops to vanquish Trump.  Nonsensical lawfare investigations, lawsuits, special counsels, and baseless accusations are thus far having no effect on "Teflon Don."  That could change, but the Democrats and Never-Trumpers are determined and resourceful.  What's their plan, given that Trump has so far been unstoppable? [...] Formerly red, now deep blue, Colorado, with a feckless Republican Party as dysfunctional as a circular firing squad, attempted via their far-left Secretary of State, to keep Trump off the Colorado ballot claiming he is an "insurrectionist."  Never mind that he has neither been accused nor convicted (other than by Democrats and the media) of insurrection.  That did not matter to the Colorado Supreme Court which in their self-proclaimed wisdom deemed that Trump did indeed incite an insurrection.

Vectoring Dangerously.  [Scroll down]  While all that is churning things up, the next round of Trump trials are set to kick off in Alvin Bragg's New York and Fani Willis's Fulton County (Atlanta), GA.  Both cases have publicly wrecked themselves.  In the New York case, you have the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, Loren Merchan, 37, a Democratic Party consultant who has multi-million-dollar contracts with Rep. Adam Schiff, the nation's leading RussiaGate hoaxer, and working partner of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, a chief witness in the matter of a hush-money payment made to porn-star Stormy Daniels (hush money, you might note, not being illegal).  Any political motivation to see in that cast of characters?  And that is apart from the sheer bullshit nature of the case, as packaged for Mr. Bragg by US Attorney Matthew Colangelo, who was swapped out of the Main DOJ HQ in Blobville to the office of Soros-connected DA Bragg in Manhattan specifically to engineer a political prosecution.

Biden's plan to save the 'deep state'.  The Biden administration is bracing for a second Trump term by rolling out a rule that would complicate Donald Trump's pledge to fire tens of thousands of federal workers if he wins in November.  The new rule is also a huge gift to the public-sector unions that Joe Biden needs firmly in his corner.  The latest edict, issued by the US Office of Personnel Management, is an almost direct response to Trump's stated plans to purge the bureaucracy.  That's not how the OPM is framing it, of course; instead, OPM deputy director Rob Shriver said it "is about making sure the American public can continue to count on federal workers to apply their skills and expertise in carrying out their jobs, no matter their personal political beliefs."  Those political beliefs caused never-ending ire in the Trump years, of course.

Trump's Judges Aren't Using Legal Reasoning.  Even if you don't happen to be a lawyer, law professor or legal scholar, it isn't hard to see a big problem with many of the published decisions made by judges who are hearing defense arguments and motions made by President Trump, in the continued "lawfare" cases being used by the DNC (not the United States) to persecute him financially, and block him politically.  There are a number of these judicial positions that are out in the press.  I'd like to focus on just one:  the most recent case in Georgia involving free speech.  I'm not going to write up a "case review" that is readily available from several professional critics involving substantive and procedural law.  What I want to point out here, rather, is that the government's case, and the judge's opinion stemming from it, rest on systematic logical fallacy.

Alvin Bragg's 'hush money' case:  No due process and a judge whose objectivity is highly suspect.  From the second it was filed, it was clear that Alvin Bragg's indictment against Donald Trump for the payments he made to Stormy Daniels was a due process disaster.  The complaint alleges legal conduct and then concludes that this legal conduct constituted illegal action of an undisclosed nature.  The case should have been tossed instantly.  But now that we know that the judge trying the case has deep Democrat ties and is trying to prevent Trump from exposing those ties, it's becoming clear why it's proceeding to trial.

Some Basic Law Stuff for Conservatives Watching This Legal Chaos.  There is almost no resemblance between what is happening with Trump and the law as normally practiced among normal people in normal times.  Remember, there's a Trump Exception to all the rules and all the norms that rejects any kind of precedent and procedure, as well as simple fairness, in its pursuit of the Bad Orange Man and his allies.  When you understand that, you will understand why I shake my head when people ask me my legal opinion about what's going on.  My legal opinion about what's going on is it has nothing to do with the law at all.  Understand that what we're seeing now are attempts to frame Donald Trump and people affiliated with him to abuse and misuse the legal system to gain a political advantage.  This is nothing new.  It is something scumbags have been doing for thousands of years.

Time is Running Out to Save Western Civilization.  The U.S. is moving quickly towards a centralized state.  Our liberties, our culture, and our national greatness are being subverted.  Subverted by a corrupt, clever, twisted, amorphous blob of powerful people.  Most of the old media, the new technocratic media (i.e.,: Facebook and Google), one entire political party, part of the other party, along with the unelected bureaucracies and spy agencies of the U.S. are all a part of this blob.  Evil that's difficult to overcome.  What this blob is doing is not new.  These current evils have often been repeated.  During the French Revolution, Robespierre et al. terrorized their population, and thought they could control people, not just what they did, but what they thought.  Their ideas turned bloody.  Would our elites repeat those evils to retain power?  Yes.  Consider the horrid treatment of the J6 prisoners and the Trump family as a beginning.  More recently, the Soviet state and its satellites controlled their citizens in horrible ways.  China has been doing the same since the Cultural Revolution and continues today.  This is not new.  Unchecked tyranny corrupts, causing massive harm.

Jack Smith's Case Against Trump Appears to Be Falling Apart.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's efforts to imprison Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents have hit a few snags recently, and the latest snag is, indeed, a big one.  "Special Counsel Jack Smith could be blocked from using evidence against Donald Trump contained in grand jury investigation files, which were transferred to the former president's Florida classified documents case this week, a former prosecutor has suggested," reports Newsweek.  "In 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., heard evidence from witnesses — including Trump's attorney, Evan Corcoran — while considering whether charges should be brought against the former president and others for hoarding classified documents.  However, Trump and his co-accused were later indicted in Florida and, under federal rules, the grand jury files were transferred on Monday to Trump-appointed judge, Aileen Cannon's court."  According to former prosecutor Bill Shipley, the transfer of the case from D.C. to Florida gives Judge Cannon control over what evidence can be included — especially testimony that may have violated attorney-client privilege.  [Tweet]

Democracy By Deception.  These are people who have used every form of resistance, including using the FBI to spy on the Trump campaign, hoping to discover some scandal.  After he won, in 2016, they refused to recognize him as the winner, because of the "Russian collusion" they invented.  They made false accusations of criminality and kept alive the "investigation" for three years to keep him from fulfilling his duties as POTUS, had organizations sue him every time he enacted a policy, calling it racist or fascist.  They sued him to keep from building the wall.  The whole power of the federal government was turned on him, a sight unimagined in America.  They kept him in constant legal conflict. [...] He suffered treachery from within his own cabinet and advisors, apparently not understanding that having an "R" by one's name did not mean they were not an enemy.  They were proud of their interference in his administration, planting agents to work against him, give him faulty advice, who refused to follow orders and delayed every command to wait out his term.  In the 2020 election, they had 51 former intelligence agents and directors swear to a fraudulent document that called Hunter's laptop Russian disinformation and not one of them have faced trial.  They used the FBI to influence social media sites to silence political opposition and critics of their crimes of election interference.  They are now disbarring and imprisoning any attorney who brought election fraud cases to court.

Judge sets new hearing date in 2020 Georgia election interference case.  In a Monday afternoon [3/25/2024] order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set a new hearing date in the 2020 election interference case.  Attorneys representing former president Donald Trump and former Georgia Republican Party chairman David Shafer are due back in court on Thursday for a hearing to address three motions, according to the judge's order. [...] Former president Trump's attorney, Steve Sadow, has asked the court to dismiss the indictment against Trump.  He argues that Trump's alleged criminal conduct was actually political speech protected by the First Amendment.

Cracks begin to appear:
NY Appeals Court Reduces Trump Bond in Civil Fraud Appeal and Extends Deadline.  While former President Donald Trump is in a New York courtroom Monday seeking to obtain a dismissal or delay of the "hush money" criminal case brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump notched a legal victory in a New York appellate court regarding the $454 million appeal bond he was due to pay by Monday.  Per initial reports, the appellate court reduced the requisite appeal bond to $175 million and extended the deadline for paying it by 10 days.  [Tweet]

This is still excessively high.
Appellate Court Rules Trump Can Post $175 Million Bond to Cover Letitia James' Judgment.  An appellate court ruled that President Trump can post a $175 million bond to cover Letitia James' $464 million judgment.  Trump has 10 days to post the bond.  Marxist New York Attorney General Letitia James last Thursday took the initial step to seize Trump's assets.  She filed judgments in Westchester County where Trump's private estate and golf course named Seven Springs is located.  President Trump had until Monday to either pay the judgment or convince the appellate court to allow him to defer the payment pending appeal.

Turley for Attorney General!
Judge's 'absurd' bond in NYC Trump case could have been reduced to almost nothing, says Turley.  Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley reacted Monday to former President Trump's bond being slashed to $175 million in the New York City civil fraud case, calling the original $454 million amount "absurd."  Turley called the bond change a needed "restraint" to the legal system in New York, warning the "political vortex" hasn't played well with voters or companies.

Donald Trump: 'It Will Be My Honor to Post' $175M Bond.  Former President Donald Trump vowed to post an adjusted bond amount of $175 million within ten days, according to a court ruling on Monday — while decrying the court cases against him as "election interference."  The new bond amount of $175 million is far less than Judge Arthur Engoron's order required Trump to post.  The five-panel New York appeals court ruled Trump could post a bond "in the amount of $175 million" to cover the judgment.  The court also delayed enforcement of the $464 million judgment by ten days.  The order also means Trump can still operate a business in New York and obtain loans from New York financial institutions, CNN reported.

Finally — House Subcommittee Chairman Pete Sessions Starts Looking at Root of DC Lawfare Activity.  Representative Pete Sessions is Chairman of the Subcommittee for Govt Operations and the Federal Workforce within the House Oversight and Government Accountability Committee.  The subcommittee has a few key Republican representatives, including Clay Higgins and Byron Donalds, who are aligned with MAGA, Donald Trump, pushback against the weaponization of our modern UniParty government — and they appear as allies in the effort to stimulate a larger awakening amid the American electorate.  As readers here are very aware, I am exceptionally frustrated with the willful blindness that permeates most of our Republican representatives.  The GOP reps ignore the root causes of the problems and choose to focus on the politics of narratives.  As a result, congressional hearings, soundbites, letters written etc. generate nothing that stops the weaponization of govt.  Quite simply, there are specific people within the administrative state that are the core of the corrupt activity.

Change in America.  And then there is Donald Trump.  We are a nation of laws, the press and the Washington establishment say again and again.  Yet Trump has stood against the permanent elites, the permanent establishment, the permanent institutions.  This is why they hate him so.  He has provided a voice to many who have believed for a very long time that the system is rigged.  We don't have voice.  We don't have say.  It's all an insider deal.  The swamp.  Now Trump is expected to pay almost half a billion dollars in fines because he supposedly overvalued the worth of his properties.  He has said this would never have happened to him if he hadn't been running for President, and, of course, he is right.  However, this is just another example of an institution, a permanent power structure and the elites within it, trying to undermine the will of the people, rig the election, obliterate anyone outside the system from representing the average Allan and average Anne, who feel they no longer have representation within the system.

Fani Willis Delivers a New Threat to Donald Trump, Sets Up a Constitutional Crisis.  Does Fani Willis, who is currently trying to throw former president Donald Trump in jail, want to be a prosecutor or in a Netflix special?  The Fulton County District Attorney was caught red-handed having an affair with a prosecutor she hired, paid an exorbitant amount of taxpayer money to, and then took lavish vacations with, providing no proof she reimbursed him for the expenses.  It wasn't her first brush with corruption, either.  Willis was previously dragged before a judge to explain why she hosted a fundraiser for the political opponent of one of the possible targets in the Trump case.  What was her punishment in both cases?  A stern talking-to.  The system always protects its own, and that means instead of tempering her completely unprofessional and out-of-bounds behavior, Willis is doubling down.

The Music Stops as CNN Panel Guest Explains What Seizing Trump's Property Could Do.  The hands that grab former President Donald Trump's New York properties could hand him the White House, a pollster says.  Pollster Frank Luntz appeared on CNN Thursday amid talk that New York State Attorney General Letitia James could begin seizing Trump's properties Monday.  James sued Trump in a civil fraud case that ended up with Trump being ordered to pay out millions, with $464 million due Monday.  Trump has indicated that making that payment — which state rules say must be made for Trump to appeal — could be difficult, leading to speculation that James is ready to seize Trump properties in New York state's swanky Westchester County.  Luntz said if James does that, she is helping Trump.

Frank Luntz on CNN: If Letitia James Starts Seizing Trump's Assets 'You Are Going to Elect Donald Trump'.  Frank Luntz recently appeared on CNN and was asked about the possibility of New York AG Letitia James seizing Trump's assets.  He gave the far left network a stark warning, saying that if James does this, she will essentially make Trump's case for him and he will surely be elected.  The point Luntz is making is a good one, but it may have already happened in the mind of the public.  People already see this happening.  The mere possibility of it is as real as if it already happened.

Never-Trumper Frank Luntz warns seizing his properties will backfire bigly.  Political pollster Frank Luntz is no fan of Donald Trump but he sees the former president back in the White House if the current persecution against him continues.  Luntz issued a direct message to New York Attorney General Letitia James and warned that the legal machinations against the presumptive 2024 Republican nominee could backfire, speaking specifically about reports that James may be preparing to seize Trump properties as part of the civil fraud case she brought against him.  During a CNN panel discussion, Luntz cautioned the New York AG not to "play politics" lest her efforts propel Trump to a victory in November.

New York State Targets U.S. Citizen Donald Trump with Unprecedented Lawfare Maneuver.  The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments, but also mentions "excessive fines" and bail.  The "excessive fines" clause surfaces (among other places) in cases of civil and criminal forfeiture.  In New York state, Attorney General Letitia James, in coordination with New York Judge Arthur Engoron, are seeking to continue the targeting of President Donald Trump with a series of financial judgements, penalties and control mechanisms intended to isolate the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate from his wealth.  As if something akin to the John Galt character in Atlas Shrugged was coming to life, no American individual has ever faced this level of intentional weaponization of power.  If the state appellate court does not intervene, I predict a federal judge will have to get involved.  The reason is simple; the State of New York is clearly violating the 8th Amendment, and despite the compromised judiciary, the scale of overreach is even beyond the ability of the pretending judicial system to overlook it.

Trump's Third Act has begun.  The Democrats planned to cripple Trump financially so he couldn't spend as much on the campaign.  Trump turned Leticia James into his best fundraiser.  Lots of interesting developments lately on the topic of the 2020 election.  The Simulation wants at least one of those fresh allegations to be a Kraken.  Trump's legal maneuvering is likely to keep him eligible for the election.  You can fantasize about a heroic Democrat such as Newsom swooping in and replacing Biden, but it's looking less likely every day.  If it had always been the plan, it would have happened by now.  Looks like Biden has to stay on the job to keep the Biden Crime Family out of jail.  The predictable Democrat Summer Hoax will add some excitement, but it will be forgotten and debunked by November.

Fairness for Trump?  Former President Donald Trump has just days to come up with a bond, a nearly half-billion-dollar bond, to ensure that he will pay the outrageously excessive judgment against him in the lawsuit filed by New York's Democratic attorney general, Letitia James.  Nailing Trump has been a longtime goal for James — in her campaign for state attorney general, she pledged to "bring him down."  Now, with the help of a compliant judge — in New York, Trump did not have the right to a jury trial — James is threatening to confiscate Trump's assets before he is even able to appeal the verdict against him.  It's happening because under New York law, James can force Trump to put up the whole judgment, $454 million, before he can appeal.  And if Trump doesn't produce the cash or secure a bond for the money, James can seize his assets and sell them off.  That is all before an appeals court can review the highly questionable proceeding against Trump.

Radical Judge Engoron Punishes Trump More, Orders Court to Oversee Organization's Finances for 3 Years.  Not content with slapping former President Donald Trump with almost half a billion dollars in fines for a "crime" in which there were no victims, New York Judge Arthur Engoron ruled Thursday that the court will effectively take over the Trump Organization.  At least, that's how it reads, seeing as Trump will have to disclose his every financial move to his government overlords. [...] Who will be monitoring the operations of the multi-national real estate conglomerate?  An experienced businessperson?  A financial expert?  No, it will (continue to) be another judge: [...] That already sounds like enough, but there's even more.  The court has to be notified of just about every piece of paper shuffled during the workday: [...]

Trump's Legal Team Fights Back as Letitia James Takes Initial Step to Seize Trump's Golf Course and Private Estate.  President Trump's legal team fought back as Letitia James took the initial step to seize Trump's assets on Thursday after his attorney said he was unable to secure a bond to appeal the massive judgment in the NYC fraud case.  Letitia James filed judgments in Westchester County where Trump's private estate and golf course is located.  President Trump has four days to either pay the judgment or convince the appellate court to allow him to defer the payment pending appeal.  Trump's legal team has filed an appeal and requested a stay on the massive $464 million judgment.

Letitia James appears to eye Trump's Westchester golf club and 212-acre estate as properties she could seize.  New York AG Letitia James may be gearing up to seize Donald Trump's Westchester golf club and Seven Springs estate as the deadline looms for the ex-president to secure the $454 million bond a judge imposed after his fraud trial.  The attorney general formally registered judgements in Westchester County where Trump has the two properties just north of Manhattan on March 6.  According to the county clerk's online database, the judgements were registered against Trump, the Trump Organization and his two adult sons Don Jr. and Eric.  The action was first reported by Bloomberg News.

Donald Trump may not pay bond — and instead let Letitia James seize Trump Tower: insiders.  As Donald Trump faces a Monday deadline to post a $454 million bond in the civil fraud case against him in New York, insiders said he may be weighing a little-discussed option:  Doing nothing.  The ex-president reportedly has been struggling to raise the cash for the bond — either from banks or wealthy friends — with his lawyers claiming on Monday that it was a "practical impossibility."  While some reports have raised speculation that Trump may "go nuclear" with a Chapter 11 filing to protect his prize real estate assets across Manhattan, experts said bankruptcy would create unwelcome complications as the 2024 election season comes to a head.

Judge Allows Trump And Co-Defendants To Appeal Fani Willis Ruling.  Judge Scott McAfee ruled Wednesday that former President Donald Trump and eight other co-defendants can seek review of his decision not to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.  McAfee granted the certificate of immediate review sought by defendants, finding it "of such importance to the case that immediate review should be had."  The decision means defendants can appeal McAfee's decision, which allowed Willis to stay on the case against Trump after special prosecutor Nathan Wade stepped down, despite finding an "appearance of impropriety" in their actions.  "The challenged order is not one of final judgment, and the State has informed the Court that it has complied with the order's demands," McAfee wrote.  "Thus, unless directed otherwise by an appellate court, supersedeas shall only apply to the order being appealed."

Trump Team Says It's Unable to Obtain Bond in Civil Fraud Case.  Former President Donald Trump is unable to post a bond in his appeal of a New York civil fraud judgment against him, according to a court filing by his attorneys on Monday [3/18/2024].  Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in the 2024 general election, was sued by Democratic state Attorney General Letitia James of New York for allegedly falsifying his company's assets in order to obtain loans for business ventures, with the New York Supreme Court's Trial Division issuing a ruling on Feb. 23 that ordered him to pay the state of New York $454 million.  Trump, who has appealed the decision, moved the court's Appellate Division on Monday to stay the execution of the judgment and indicated that he is unable to obtain a "supersedeas" bond that would guarantee the final amount pending the outcome of the appeal.

Democrats Cannot Win a Fraud-Free Election.  Under Biden, Americans are seeing unprecedented weaponization.  Jack Smith was appointed special counsel in the classified documents and January 6th indictments of President Trump, both widely viewed to be politically motivated.  Smith was directly appointed by Biden's Attorney General, Merrick Garland.  Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis met directly with the Biden administration shortly before prosecuting Trump for election interference.  In the New York-based hush money case, Matthew Colangelo, who previously targeted Trump during his time in the New York AG's office, recently left the Biden/Garland DoJ and joined Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's team that is targeting Trump.  Beyond targeting the preferred candidate of millions of Americans, Biden's FBI has also targeted traditional Catholics, labeling them as potential violent extremists, in addition to Biden's White House encouraging major social media platforms to violate the First Amendment by removing posts they disagreed with.

Joe Rogan Rips 'Banana Republic' Indictments of Trump: 'Looks Like You're Trying to Prosecute Your Political Opponents'.  Joe Rogan slammed the indictments of Trump during a recent episode of his podcast, calling it the stuff of banana republics.  In his criticisms, he singled out Letitia James and Fani Willis, questioning what their real motivations are and suggesting that this looks like nothing more than the targeting of political opponents, which is exactly what it is, of course.  This is notable because if Joe Rogan is asking these questions, millions of Americans are thinking the same thing, and not just Trump supporters.

Jack Smith Gets 'Worst Possible Outcome' After Recent Ruling:  Former Official.  Several former U.S. officials warned that special counsel Jack Smith appears to be struggling in his classified documents case against former President Donald Trump — even after the federal judge in the case denied an attempt to dismiss the charges against the former president.  This week, Judge Aileen Cannon issued an order that denied President Trump's motion to dismiss the case on grounds of "unconstitutional vagueness."  While she noted his attorneys raised questions that warrant consideration, she said that their arguments relating to the Espionage Act should be made in "connection with jury-instruction briefing."  Andrew Weissmann, a former U.S. attorney who worked on special counsel Robert Mueller's team, said on MSNBC that the judge's ruling not to dismiss the case was the "worst possible outcome for the government" and Mr. Smith.  Because, he argued, if the judge had agreed to dismiss the case, it could "have been appealed" to an appeals court in the meantime.

Adam Schiff Is Big Mad at Justice Department for Taking Too Long to Prosecute Trump.  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) railed against the Justice Department on Sunday for taking too long to indict and prosecute former President Donald Trump in the various cases against him.  He also lashed out at Trump for seeking to delay his trials.  While Schiff insists that his criticism is motivated by a desire for justice, it is abundantly obvious that this is more about politics.  Schiff made his remarks during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union."  The host brought up Schiff's disagreement with Attorney General Merrick Garland's handling of the investigations into the former president, particularly when it comes to the timing.  The lawmaker responded, noting that the Justice Department "did wait at least a year to look beyond the foot soldiers, that is, those that broke into the Capitol that day and refrained from looking at those who were the inciters of the attack on the Capitol."  He continued, lamenting that the cases against Trump could stretch beyond the election.

Lawfareland gets nervous.  This newsletter has noted that the elected Democrats, Biden DOJ-appointed prosecutors, legal activists, and others who have filed criminal charges and lawsuits against former President Donald Trump have crafted a multiple-redundant line of attack.  If one case fails, there is another to back it up, and if that case fails, there is another to back it up, and so on.  There are four criminal cases against the former president, all charging him with felonies.  At the beginning of this week, there were 91 felony counts against Trump, but a judge in the Georgia prosecution threw out some counts, so the total number of felony counts Trump faces now stands at 88.  That is a lot of redundancy.  All it takes is for Trump to be convicted on a single count in a single case for Democrats and their allies to make a million campaign ads branding President Joe Biden's challenger a "convicted felon."  Polls have shown that some voters who might otherwise support Trump will back away if he is convicted of a felony.  That alone might be enough to swing the election.  So of course the Democratic lawfare team, and its cheerleaders in the media, is desperate that at least one Trump trial start and reach a verdict before the Nov. 5 election.

Judge Questions Why Trump Was The Only President Charged Over Handling Of Classified Material.  The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's Florida case questioned during a Thursday hearing why he was the only president who has been charged over his handling of classified material, according to multiple reports.  During a hearing to consider various motions Trump filed to dismiss the case, Judge Aileen Cannon noted no former president had similarly faced criminal charges over the handling of classified material, according to NBC News.  Trump's attorneys brought up special counsel Robert Hur's report finding evidence President Joe Biden willfully kept classified documents, but declining to charge him, according to CNN.  "Even with other former presidents, there was never a situation remotely similar to this one," prosecutor Jay Bratt told Cannon, according to CNN.

Andy McCarthy Says Robert Hur Testimony Shows Why 'Biden Should Pardon Trump'.  Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy on Wednesday asserted President Joe Biden should pardon former President Donald Trump after special counsel Robert Hur's Tuesday testimony.  Hur testified on his report that concluded there should be no charges against Biden despite him willfully withholding classified documents.  Trump faces charges related to classified documents and Biden should pardon him to get rid of the alleged double standard, McCarthy asserted on "Fox and Friends."

Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg Agrees to 30-Day Delay of 'Hush Money' Trial.  More information is now available as to the rationale for Bragg's office agreeing to the delay:  "Specifically, yesterday the USAO produced approximately 31,000 pages of additional records and represented that there will be another production of documents by next week," the district attorney's office said in a motion to the court requesting the delay.  Based on our initial review of yesterday's production, those records appear to contain materials related to the subject matter of this case, including materials that the People requested from the USAO more than a year ago and that the USAO previously declined to provide," the motion said.

Judge Dismisses 6 Charges in Georgia Trump Indictment Ahead of Expected Fani Willis Decision.  The judge overseeing the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia dismissed six counts of the indictment Wednesday.  Judge Scott McAfee, who is expected to soon decide whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will be disqualified from the case over an alleged conflict of interest, sided with defendants in a separate motion to toss certain counts.  He wrote that six counts did not "give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways."  McAfee's ruling said that the state can still bring new indictments on the six charges, which all center on "Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer."

Judge in Georgia election interference case dismisses three counts against Trump.  The judge presiding over the election interference case in Georgia has dismissed some of the criminal counts against former President Donald Trump.  In a ruling Wednesday, Judge Scott McAfee found that six of the counts in the indictment against Trump and some of his co-defendants, including his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, lacked sufficient detail.  The judge left open the possibility that prosecutors could re-file the counts.

Federal Judge Sides With Trump, Allows More Time to File Motions.  The federal judge overseeing the Trump classified documents case handed defense lawyers a win on Monday, allowing a 10-day extension to file motions.  In a paperless order on Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted former President Donald Trump a 10-day extension, meaning that he shall file a reply to their pretrial motions by March 24.  His lawyers had made the request this week, arguing that they are preparing for a separate criminal trial in New York over state charges that he allegedly falsified business records at the end of the 2016 election.  The former president's attorneys wrote that both President Trump and his attorneys "are currently preparing for a trial in New York, New York that is scheduled to begin on March 25, 2024, and the need to simultaneously devote attention to that case.  "This matter has been necessitated in part by the discovery violations and strategic scheduling demands of the Special Counsel's Office that have prejudiced President Trump in multiple respects," they added.

House GOP opens probe into Democrat J6 panel 'collusion' with Atlanta prosecutor pursuing Trump.  Republican congressional investigators have opened an inquiry into the extent of "collusion" between the Democrat-run House Jan. 6 committee and the Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis during her prosecution of Donald Trump.  In a status report released Monday, the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Rep. Barry.  Loudermilk, R-Ga., said that it located a letter in which Willis in 2021 asked for the House Democrats to send her any evidence that would further her prosecution of Trump.  The committee said it was concerned that the Democrat-run investigation led by Reps.  Benny Thompson and Liz Cheney may have shared evidence such as video depositions with Willis's office while not providing them to the Republicans that took over the House chamber in 2023.  The Republicans raised their concerns in chapter of the report Monday entitled "collusion with Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis."

Infamous Trump-Raffensperger Call at Heart of Fani Willis Prosecution Was Illegally Recorded.  Can an illegally recorded phone call be used to form the basis of a prosecution?  That's a question that is about to become very relevant following a bombshell revelation regarding the infamous phone call between Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.  On the call, Trump can be heard telling Raffensperger, "I just want to find 11,780 votes."  That statement was one of the centerpieces of the former president's second impeachment.  Was it definitive, though?  In context, Trump had also asked Raffensperger to "find the fraud," indicating that he thought there were legitimate votes left to be uncovered.  Regardless, Fulton County DA Fani Willis used the phone call as the foundation for her RICO prosecution against Trump and his associates.  According to a new book published by Michael Isikoff (who was an original pusher of the Russian collusion hoax), that call was illegally recorded by Jordan Fuchs.

New Book Admits Fani Willis' Get-Trump Investigation Began With Illegal Recording.  Democrat Fani Willis' legal troubles extend beyond recent revelations that she deceptively hired her otherwise under-qualified, secret, married lover to run the political prosecution of former President Donald Trump and other Republicans in Georgia.  A new book from Mike Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman admits that a widely misunderstood phone call, on which Willis' political prosecution rests, was illegally recorded.  That means the entire prosecution could crumble with defendants having a new avenue to challenge Democrat lawfare.

Trump 'Lawfare' Update.  Former President Donald Trump's victory in the Supreme Court 14th Amendment case, together with delay and disorder in the criminal cases against him, has set off panic among Democrats who hoped to use prosecutions and other legal maneuvers to keep Trump from winning a second term.  "Supreme Court ruling darkens critics' hopes for a judicial curb on Trump," read one headline in the Washington Post.  You might find it outrageous that people in positions of great power and responsibility, in the midst of a campaign, would use the justice system to "curb" one of the two major presidential candidates.  You might find it outrageous that those people — a coalition of elected Democrats, Biden administration appointees, Democratic Party activists and career lawfare specialists — are in fact desperately pushing the system to work faster to win verdicts by Election Day.  But there it is.  The anti-Trump coalition has launched six main attacks on Trump. [...]

Democratic Panic:  A Trump Conviction is the Only Way Biden Can Win.  It's not like this was a secret or something you couldn't have figured out for yourself, still it's sort of revealing when Democrats say the quiet part out loud.  I'm talking specifically about a new Thomas Edsall column in the NY Times titled "'This Could Well Be Game Over.'"  The game in this case is the 2024 election and the over refers to Joe Biden's chances of winning it if Donald Trump isn't convicted of a serious crime prior to November.

If Trump wins in November, expect a real insurrection from Democrats.  The reaction by Democratic Party politicians and pundits to the Supreme Court ruling on March 4, 2024 — voiding the effort by Colorado to throw Donald Trump off its ballot — reveals some very fundamental realities that must be faced by all Americans.  To put it bluntly:  These Democrats have no intention of accepting a victory by Donald Trump in the upcoming election, even if he should win by a majority so vast that no amount of election rigging can disguise it.  The first reaction to that decision was a major tell.  Jean Griswold is the secretary of state of Colorado who had taken Trump off the ballot, claiming he was an insurrectionist even though that was merely her opinion as Trump has not only never been convicted of that crime, he has not even been charged with it. [...] Spurred by her blind hatred of Trump, Griswold's refusal to deal with reality here is disturbing, to say the least.  First, the court made it very clear, unanimously, that the states don't have this authority when it comes to federal elections.  That she as a lawyer could not recognize the plain legal arguments here that were agreed to by even the most radical leftists on the court indicates how blind she has become to reasonable disagreement.

The Consequences of Jack Smith's Rush to Trial.  Jack Smith is rushing to prosecute former President Donald Trump for the events of Jan. 6 so that the American people can have the benefit of his evidence, and the views of the jury, before they vote in November.  This rush violates Justice Department rules.  The Supreme Court now faces the question whether it too will be a party to this rush and, if not, how it will avoid it.

House Dems Prep an "Insurrection" Bill Barring Trump from Taking Office.  The Supreme Court didn't dig into the weeds of the entire insurrection debate, but one obvious issue with the various efforts to remove Trump from the ballot in various states was that insurrection had been left entirely to Democrat state officials to define.  That kind of nonsense however won't fly in an actual legislative process.  Now that the Supreme Court blocked state officials from announcing that Trump can't be on the ballot because he's an "insurrectionist", House members are now trying to play the same game. [...] For now, in a GOP House, the bill is mostly virtue signaling, but tellingly Raskin is not so much trying to define insurrection as trying to define J6 as an insurrection.  It's the typical end run around the process of defining the thing because otherwise Democrat BLMers might fall afoul of it.  The Raskin bill conveniently defines J6 as an insurrection and carefully defines the term so as to specifically apply it to Trump.  It does not however define what an insurrection is making the whole exercise into a bill that specifically exists to block a particular candidate from being able to take office on grounds that would be unlikely to apply to his own party.  Does that raise some major banana republic issues?  Obviously.  Still, has Raskin considered what kind of can of worms he's opening here?

The Colorado Secretary of State says she now trusts the people to make the decision she didn't trust them to make four months ago.  The cabal that calls itself the Democratic Party of Colorado nearly pulled a coup last fall.  Unburdened by any inconvenient process that might have been due, a Democrat state judge decided that Donald Trump was an insurrectionist.  Therefore, under a clause of the 14th Amendment designed to prevent former Confederates from running for federal office, Trump was ineligible to run for president.  Never mind that Trump had never been convicted or even charged with the crime of insurrection.  On appeal, four of the seven Democrat-appointed justices on the Colorado Supreme Court agreed.  The other three in their strident dissent all but wondered out loud what kind of Colorado-legal weed the majority was smoking.  The next stop was the United States Supreme Court.

Maine Secretary of State Withdraws Determination That Donald Trump Should Be Banned from Ballot.  Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) withdrew her previous determination that former President Donald Trump should be prohibited from appearing on the ballot, doing so following the Supreme Court's nine-to-zero decision, which determined that states do not possess the authority to ban a candidate from the ballot using the Fourteenth Amendment's "Insurrection Clause."  In December, Bellows determined that she believed Trump to be ineligible to appear on the state's ballot based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Insurrection Clause.  However, she said at the time that the decision would not be carried out until the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in.

Democrats Jump at Chance to 'Revive Legislation' to Kick Trump Off of the Ballot.  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 9-0 decision on Monday that Colorado erred in removing former and potentially future President Donald Trump from the ballot.  As the Court ruled, though, "responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States."  Democratic Reps.  Jamie Raskin (MD), Eric Swalwell (CA), and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) have thus wasted no time in their crusade to "revive legislation" to kick Trump off of the ballot and deny the American people their right to vote for or against him.  As Raskin explained it when offering his reaction to CNN's Dana Bash, these and other members are working "to revive legislation that we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment."  [Tweet]

The Fani Willis Scandal Is So Much Bigger Than Trump.  Is any public figure having a worse start to the year than Fani Willis?  The once-lauded Fulton County prosecutor was billed as the savior of "democracy" not too long ago. [...] During the recent hearings on her misconduct, Willis claimed that she paid Wade back.  The proof?  There is none.  According to Willis, she used a horde of cash she keeps at her home, but not a single receipt or bank statement has been produced to prove any transfer of money was made.  Things have gotten so bad that both Wade and Willis are now facing discipline from the Georgia State Bar, but that may be the least of their worries.  What started as a prosecution of Trump has become its own story, and it can't be ignored.  Even if the former president weren't involved, this would still be a major scandal.  A top prosecutor in one of America's largest cities was funneling cash to a married man she was sleeping with and then going on vacations paid for by that money.  Forget disbarment.  We could be talking about removal from office and even criminal charges for Willis at some point in the future.

Supreme Court puts Trump back on Colorado Republican primary ballot.  The Supreme Court on Monday [3/4/2024] unanimously reversed the Colorado court ruling that barred Donald Trump from appearing on the state's Republican presidential primary ballot because of a provision in the U.S. Constitution related to people who engage in insurrection.  The decision Monday said that "States have no power under the Constitution to" enforce the provision disqualifying people from federal office if they engaged in insurrection, "especially the Presidency."  The ruling said states could disqualify people from holding state offices on those grounds.  The Supreme Court's ruling mean that no other state can bar Trump, or any other candidate, from a presidential ballot by invoking the insurrection clause in the Constitution.  "For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States," the ruling said.  "The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand."

American Paralysis and Decline.  Most accept that had former President Donald Trump just not run for president in 2024 or was a man of the left, he would not now be facing four different felony court cases.  Most accept that three of the four prosecutors have either in advance promised to get Trump or have proved grossly unethical.  Most know it is wrong to try to remove a leading presidential candidate from state ballots.  Yet many shrug that this new weaponization of America's legal system is the flamboyant Trump's own problem, not their own.  So they ignore the third worldization of our political system, which they quietly acknowledge is otherwise leading us to a Venezuela-like mess.

Jack Smith Asks DC Judge Boasberg to Decide What Trump Classified Doc Evidence to Show Florida Judge.  If you ever needed a good point to highlight the nature of political Lawfare, this is a great example.  Julie Kelly essentially notes that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith is asking DC Judge James Boasberg to decide what evidence should be given to Florida Judge Aileen Cannon. [...] There is a certain level of cognitive disassociation needed by the media to ignore how the DOJ is using a DC court system to prosecute a Florida case against Trump.  Boasberg, an ally of SSCI Chairman Mark Warner, has intercepted several cases that brought sunlight upon the corrupt DC system.  In each case Boasberg ruled in favor of maintaining the corruption, including his willfully blind support of the FBI searching NSA databases to conduct illegal surveillance of Americans, and including Boasberg's personal appointment of Mary McCord to run defense on behalf of the corrupt DOJ main office.

Is Trump's Mega-Fine Unconstitutional?  Although the Eighth Amendment is not explicitly limited to criminal cases, its three subjects — bail, fines and punishments — all relate generally to criminal cases.  Trump's fine was imposed in what was denominated a civil case.  But it was not a traditional civil case between private parties, because no private parties were allegedly damaged by Trump.  It was a case brought by the State of New York, which would receive the fine.  Moreover, the fine was intended to deter the kind of conduct of which Trump was accused.  These factors make the fine seem closer to the usual attributes of a public criminal case than of a private civil case.  A functional analysis of the fine in this case could well conclude that it is really criminal in nature and should be covered by the Eighth Amendment.  Trump's lawyers will certainly argue at this point, though they are unlikely to succeed on the initial appeal.  They will then almost certainly seek certiorari, a review by the Supreme Court of the United States, by alleging a violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Democrats are determined to destroy not just the political career but the life of President Trump.  It is important to reiterate that there is no basis for any of these cases against Trump.  Had he not run for President in 2016 these cases would never have existed.  Perhaps if he had struck a deal with the establishment in 2020 to never run again and to abandon the MAGA agenda, he would have been spared.  The persecution of the January 6th protestors is proof that Trump supporters will also not be spared.  The goal is to crush the MAGA movement, which is the first truly grassroots movement, one so successful that it won the topmost elected office in the country and the world.  For Trump supporters, the real disappointment occurs when elected GOP officials either behave like bystanders or worse, join the Democrats whenever President Trump is targeted.  Many of these officials are there because of endorsement from President Trump.

Illinois Judge Kicks Trump Off The Ballot, Says Any Votes For Him Must Be 'Suppressed'.  While outlets like The Washington Post have tried to convince Americans that "Democracy Dies in Darkness," it actually dies in Illinois courthouses where judges whose expertise revolves around parking tickets kick former presidents off ballots.  In the left's latest attempt at election interference, Cook County Judge Tracie Porter kicked former President Donald Trump off the primary ballot on Wednesday — but put her own order on hold because she knows it won't stand.  Porter ruled Trump must be removed from the state's March 19 primary ballot but stayed her own order until Friday pending a likely appeal.  Porter said the quiet part out loud, ruling that the board of elections, which unanimously voted against removing Trump from the ballot, "shall remove Donald J. Trump from the ballot for the General Primary Election on March 19, 2024, or cause any votes for him to be suppressed."  The suit was brought by the left-wing group Free Speech For People, which argued Trump is ineligible based on the 14th Amendment's insurrection clause.  Trump has not been charged with nor convicted of inciting or partaking in insurrection.

Politicized Prosecutions Are A Warning Shot Across The Bow For All Americans.  New York Gov. Kathy Hochul knows she has spooked her state's business community.  That's why she went on a talk show last week to calm their very legitimate fears that they would be next.  If former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted and fined hundreds of millions of dollars for a common business practice, who is safe?  Hochul said New Yorkers are generally "honest people, and they're not trying to hide their assets and they're following the rules... This judge determined that Donald Trump did not follow the rules."  Hence the $355 million fine levied by the court.  But the truth is Trump engaged in a common business practice for developers.  As "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary noted in a Fox News interview, "Forget about Trump, every single real estate developer everywhere on Earth does this.  They always talk about their asset being worth a lot, and the bank says no.  That's just the way it is."  The broader effect of such politicized prosecutions is clear — Americans are increasingly convinced we live in a nation with a two-tiered justice system.

If Illinois prevails in keeping Trump off of the ballot, our republic is finished.  Cook County has been labeled "Crook County" for good reasons.  Chicago Circuit Judge Tracie Porter decided that former President Donald Trump should be disqualified from appearing on the Republican presidential primary ballot in Illinois.  This decision was based on allegations tied to his involvement in the events of January 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.  The judge's ruling, invoking the insurrection clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, has sparked a significant debate over the balance of free speech, political activism, and the boundaries of legal disqualification from public office.  Insurrection?  Give me a break.  Trump was not part of the demonstration and even if he were, it's free speech and not an "insurrection."  This ruling, while currently delayed in anticipation of an appeal, underscores a concerning trend towards the politicization of legal mechanisms and the potential for judicial overreach, to say the least; it is paramount to recognize the implications such decisions may have on the democratic process, especially when considering the role of the judiciary in electoral matters.

Fani Willis Plays the Stooge.  Our master-criminal coconspirators came up with a plan to return someone who is otherwise unelectable, Joe Biden, to the Oval Office.  They'd use a novel application of the law, to indict Trump and 18 others for doing absolutely nothing illegal.  Their plan was quite clever:  prosecute Trump and his pals in a friendly venue, and then see if the Donald can campaign from a cell as well as Joe can campaign from a basement.

The 8th Amendment comes out in favor of Trump.  On February 16, 2024, a judge in New York State imposed fines totaling just over $360 million on former president Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, and several related Trump companies and trusts in the civil case brought by the New York attorney general.  President Trump's sons Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump were fined just over $4 million each.  The court imposed additional sanctions, including injunctions against former president Trump; Donald Trump, Jr.; and Eric Trump from serving as officers or directors in New York corporations for specified numbers of years, among other sanctions.  The media reporting on the court's decision has been massive since the decision was rendered.  However, little or no reporting focused on the constitutionality of the fines under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.  President Trump and his co-defendants all have substantial 8th Amendment "excessive fine" challenges to raise.  In fact, a review of the facts and applicable law reveal that this decision is simply more election interference.

Trump Appeals $450M NY State Fraud Judgment, Calls Out 'Fake Political Prosecutions'.  Donald Trump and his sons have appealed the stupefying $454 million (including interest) New York civil fraud judgment determined by Judge Arthur Engoron.  The former president was accused of inflating the value of his assets to obtain better financing and deals for his properties.  It is unclear as of this writing whether Trump has posted bond, which according to law could require the full amount of the massive fine.  Trump and his lawyers argued that the judge clearly overstepped his bounds: [...] Although there were no victims in the former president's alleged "crimes," and no banks or other creditors claiming they were victimized, Judge Engoron nevertheless ordered the seemingly vindictive penalty and also ordered that Trump and sons could not do business in the state for three years.

Will The Democrats Let Donald Trump Be President If He Wins?  The Supreme Court will not throw Donald Trump off the ballot through some sort of deus ex MSNBCmachina, and Trump's polls are improving while President Crusty's are getting worse, so we face the real possibility of Donald Trump winning the presidency.  Obviously, it's not a done deal, but it is a bigger possibility than it used to be.  Well, the Democrats are facing it, and now they're trying to figure out how to stop him from taking office if and when he wins the election.  This is a really bad idea.  But of course, the Democrat Party is the Party of Bad Ideas, and the Party of Nanny Fascism.  And it is also remarkably free of any recognition of its own hypocrisy.  It's become popular to say that the issue is not hypocrisy but hierarchy, and that the Democrats feel entitled to do whatever they want.  They don't want Trump to be president, so what are they going to do about it?  Whatever they have to do to hold power.

Democrats Plot An Insurrection To Stop 'Insurrectionist' Trump.  We've now reached peak Trump Derangement Syndrome.  Democrats are actually making plans to prevent Donald Trump from taking office even if he legitimately wins the election.  In other words, they are plotting an insurrection to keep the man whom they claim is an insurrectionist out of the White House.  Logic, common sense, the future of the country, [notwithstanding].  How do we know this is what they are scheming?  Because, as President Joe Biden's poll numbers continue to drop, his mental and physical health rapidly deteriorate, and options to replace him on the ballot shrink, Democrats are openly talking about it.  The Colorado attorney arguing before the Supreme Court to keep Trump off that state's ballot warned the justices that if they didn't stop him from being elected "it could come back with a vengeance."

The Persecution of Donald Trump Means Turning Ordinary Activities Into Crimes.  Like millions of Americans before me, I've done exactly what Donald Trump did; namely, sought a loan based upon my best estimate of what my property was worth — and I didn't look to what the tax assessor said in reaching that value.  However, as part of the Democrats' lawfare, Letitia James twisted a perfectly ordinary act into something evil, and a partisan judge put his imprimatur on her efforts.  If it's allowed to stand, the results will be devastating, not just for the political class but also for normal Americans. [...] [O]ne would imagine that some banks or insurance companies lost money because they loaned money to Trump or that Trump defaulted on them.  That didn't happen.  Indeed, Trump paid back the loans with interest.  There were literally no victims, and banks still wanted to lend to him!  But that didn't matter.  The bottom line is that, according to James, Trump used one set of books for getting a loan and another set of books for taxes.  But of course, outside of a politicized prosecutor's office, that's normal, not actionable.

If A President Can Have His Money And Property Snatched By His Political Opposition, This Isn't A Free Country.  Voters in a few months are supposed to cast a ballot for their preferred presidential candidate.  Meanwhile, we just watched one of our major political parties attempt to literally bankrupt the likely nominee of the other, and seize his property.  Whatever you want to say of America anymore, it can't possibly be called free and our elections aren't anything close to fair.  A Democrat judge linked up with a Democrat district attorney in New York last week, ruling that Donald Trump, who earned more votes in 2020 than any sitting president in history, pay the city about half a billion dollars in penalties and fines, plus forego his right to conduct business or borrow money in the entire state.  The pretext for the obscenity is that Trump in his years as a real estate developer routinely defrauded lenders by inflating the value of his assets, a hideous crime that resulted in his victims' insolvency and buried by insurmountable debt.  Wait, that's not right.  Let me check my notes.  Sorry, what actually happened is that the banks who took the risk of financing Trump's ventures raked in fistfulls of profits and continued chasing him to continue their lucrative partnerships.  In other words, the parties "wronged" by Trump got richer.  With each passing day, nearly $100,000 in interest is tacked onto the sentence and the D.A., Letitia "peek-a-boo" James (as Trump calls her for hilarious yet unknown reasons), has gone so far as to threaten state seizure of the former president's marquee real estate properties should he fail to pay the sum.

Jack Smith Will Annoy the Supreme Court.  The Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause provides that a congressman may not be put on trial for any "legislative act." [...] A president has it harder, according to Special Counsel Jack Smith.  In the Justice Department's prosecution of President Trump for contesting the 2020 election results, Smith argues that he may put Trump on trial for official presidential acts.  All that's required to arrest Trump, says Smith, is that just over half of a biased Washington, D.C., grand jury conclude that his words or deeds fall within the vague wording of a rarely charged criminal statute.  In Smith's telling, he may put a president on trial for standing in the Speaker's Lobby off the House floor to urge congressmen to vote against certifying an election — but because voting is a legislative act, not the congressmen who stand three feet away and actually cast the votes as urged.  Smith admits that a president must be protected by at least a qualified immunity from criminal prosecution — but he refuses to spell out exactly what that immunity is.

Blue Laws for Red Citizens.  There are eerie commonalities in all these five court cases involving plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, New York Attorney General Letitia James, federal special counsel Jack Smith, and Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis.  One, they are either unapologetically left-wing or associated with liberal causes.  They filed their legal writs in big-city, left-wing America — Atlanta, New York, Washington — where liberal judges and jury pools predominate in a manner not characteristic of the country at large.  Two, they are overtly political.  Bragg, James, and Willis have either campaigned for office or raised campaign funds by promising to get or even destroy Donald Trump.  Carroll's suit was funded by left-wing billionaire Reid Hoffman.  Smith sued to rush his court schedule in hopes of putting Trump on trial before the November election.  Three, there would not be any of these cases had Donald Trump not run for the presidency or not been a conservative.

The Crime of Donald Trump.  Technically speaking, Donald Trump is guilty of something — he's guilty of the crime of being Donald Trump.  He hasn't broken any laws, but laws have been modified to break him. [...] The Democrats have been shown one term of Donald Trump in power and they didn't like what they saw.  Energy independence, historically low unemployment, almost zero inflation, a strong economy... I mean, who wants that?  Not the Democrats, that's for sure.  They prefer to keep a horribly corrupt, senile old man in the White House by any means necessary, and that means a never-ending onslaught of lawfare designed to bankrupt even a billionaire.  Let's begin with the judgments already issued against Donald Trump and then evaluate the ongoing court cases.  We will break down each case according to judge name instead of a state because New York has multiple cases against him.

New York's Trump Fraud Findings Refute Judge's Conclusions.  [Scroll down]  Notwithstanding that New York, for the above reasons, has no valid claim on behalf of itself or any of the lenders for common law fraud and misrepresentation, New York is claiming under a state statute that some immaterial mistakes or misrepresentations justify recovery, not for the banks, but for the benefit of the state of New York, of all gains or profits that the borrower may have made on each project where claimed illegality may have occurred.  All of this results, notwithstanding that the lenders suffered no financial or other loss, were not fraudulently induced to do anything, and were aware and comfortable with the notion that the banks are totally responsible for performing their own due diligence, securing of their own appraisals, and developing their own valuations.  In the Trump case, that approach has led to a claim that New York is entitled to recover for its own account (not for the account of any lender) the sum of at least $355 million, apparently just to teach Trump and others a lesson.

Pay to Play:  Trump Faces a Staggering Cost for Appeal.  In the wake of the massive judgment against Donald Trump, many in New York are celebrating the prospect that the former president could be forced to sell off his property just to be able to appeal the $355 million judgment against him.  While Trump has good grounds to object to this excessive fine, he still has to come up with close to a half billion dollars just to make his arguments to the New York Court of Appeals.  In order to file an appeal, the courts require a deposit for the full amount of the damages or a bond covering the full amount.  Even with escrow options, the call for cash or collateral can be enough to put some executives in a fetal position.  It can be challenging enough for many companies drained from years of litigation.  For Donald Trump, the demand for $355 million plus $100 milion in interest could force a fire sale on properties to pony up just the deposit.

The Leftist Lynch Mob Attacking Trump.  I really, really don't care if you hate Donald Trump, think he is a threat to democracy, or honestly believe that he wanted to overthrow the US government (if you believe that you have been successfully brainwashed and need a deprogrammer, but whatever...).  Even if all that describes you, I think you are a browshirt if you approve of the lawfare being used against the former president.  Whatever fantasy you hallucinate, it's impossible to not see that none of the lawsuits, investigations, or prosecutions being used to cripple Trump is anything but a distortion of our legal system in order to achieve a political goal.  The latest verdict — the outrageous fine imposed on Trump for harming literally nobody — is beyond absurd.  It is outrageous — worthy of any third-world dictatorship in which El Jefe wants to cripple a political opponent without enduring the PR nightmare of outright executing him.

Trump learns.  Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 without needing to dig up dirt on Hillary because the FBI already did that with the email scandal.  But he failed to dig up dirt on Biden in 2020.  The open secret in DC was Biden was easily bought.  Everyone knew — except Trump.  Now as he faces lawfare — the act of tying a man up in court to bleed him dry from legal fees — Trump apparently has learned to dig up dirt on at least one of his persecutors:  Fani Willis the George Soros district attorney in Atlanta who threw her weight and indicted President Trump and associates, hoping to bring him down.  Thus far, all she has done is boost his electoral chances by forcing him to take a mugshot.

Private Equity Fund Manager Announces He "Will NOT Waste Time" Researching New Business Opportunities in New York After Engoron Ruling.  On Friday, far left Judge Arthur Engoron fleeced $355 million from President Trump for taking out loans in New York State and paying them back on time and with interest.  The charges were brought against Trump by crazed New York State Attorney General Letitia James.  There were no victims in the so-called crime.  The banks did their due diligence before they loaned Donald Trump the money and testified they would gladly do it again.  Judge Engoron called this a crime and ruled that President Donald Trump owed the state $355 million.  But that's not all.  As Volokh Conspiracy reported Engoron also put a Clinton-appointed judge in control of Trump business empire in New York State.

DA Alvin Bragg Is Trying to Punish Trump For Something That's Not a Crime.  Much has been made of Donald Trump's claim of presidential immunity as it relates to the criminal case in Georgia and other legal actions against the former president.  Special counsel Jack Smith and prosecutor Fanni Willis claim Trump "unlawfully interfered with the 2020 presidential election by trying to enlist state and federal officials in his efforts to stop Biden from taking office," according to Reason.com's Jacob Sullum.  But Trump's claim of immunity isn't quite as "wild" as some on the left suggest.  Presidential immunity was designed to prevent "frivolous, politically motivated criminal charges against former presidents," as Sullum points out.  That might not be the case entirely with the Smith and Willis cases.  After all, there are statutes that may have been violated.  The three-judge appeals court hearing Trump's immunity claim found the argument unconvincing.  The court ruled that "the danger" Trump perceived "appears slight" given prosecutors' "ethical obligations" and "additional safeguards," such as "the right to be charged by a grand jury upon a finding of probable cause."

Democrats weaponized justice system to punish Trump in business case.  Oscar Wilde wrote that "moderation is a fatal thing.  Nothing succeeds like excess."  Justice Arthur Engoron took that line to heart with his absurd imposition of $455 million in fines and interest against Donald Trump and his corporation.  It succeeded wonderfully with New Yorkers, who celebrated the verdict like a popular public execution.  It also worked wonderfully to make it difficult to appeal.  Much of the criticism of the decision focused on the unprecedented use of the law and the excessive size of the fine.  The New York statute has been on the books for decades and has always been something of an anomaly in not requiring an actual victim or loss to justify disgorgement or fines.  Even the New York Times agreed that it could not find a single case in history where this statute was used against an individual or a company that did not commit a criminal offense, go bankrupt, or leave financial victims.

New York Governor Admits State Legal Targeting Was Only at Donald Trump.  New York Governor Kathy Hochul has admitted the lawfare deployed against the Trump organization and President Donald Trump himself was a specific plan for his targeting and any other business interests or people within New York should not be concerned.  It's a rather brazen admission all things considered; however, if it changes the public outlook as the various New York lawfare cases against President Trump continue, is yet to be determined.

Update Far Outside the Wire.  [Scroll down]  We already know if Donald Trump can take the MAGA fight back to Washington DC, the entire apparatus of government, and yes that includes your elected representatives, will fight to destroy him at every opportunity.  So, how exactly do we: (a) support President Trump, (b) push back against the weaponized state, (c) confront our government abusers?  There are more of us than them, yet each of our efforts seems to face the full force of "them" against a divided sense of "us."  One of the ways we have discussed direct push back is a modern version of a workers solidarity movement.  Essentially, the creation of a system where targeted general work strikes can have an impact on the system that is targeting us.

Biden administration to put up 'roadblocks' in case of Trump win?  Siccing federal intelligence agencies on Trump, covering up his political opponents "shenanigans" and crimes, lying under oath, arbitrarily changing states' voting laws, ushering in massive mail-in voting, somehow receiving and/or counting hundreds of thousands of votes for Biden in the middle of the night with almost none for Trump, launching endless spurious lawsuits against Trump with the intention of preventing him from campaigning and putting him in prison, and threatening to pack the court and end the filibuster are just some of the things Democrats, Deep Staters, and assorted other never-Trumpers have done, almost all with the stated intention of "preserving our democracy."  Mindboggling.  Joseph Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot weren't much more opposed to democracy, but were far less hypocritical.  And yet Democrats, Deep Staters, and assorted other never-Trumpers always seem to get away with it.

CIA Manipulated Evidence To Hide Evidence Russia Wanted Clinton To Win In 2016, Not Trump:  Report.  The Central Intelligence Agency manipulated intelligence information to make it look like Russia wanted Donald Trump to win the 2016 presidential election despite having more credible information showing that Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win, according to a new report.  The effort to manipulate the information was headed up by John Brennan, Obama's CIA director, who disregarded evidence that the Russians preferred Clinton because she was more predictable and highlighted questionable evidence claiming Russia favored Trump, sources told independent journalists Matt Taibbi, Michael Shellenberger, and Alex Gutentag.

Is Ukraine Bill a Pretext for Third Trump Impeachment?  The Ukraine funding bill poised to pass the Senate could be used as a predicate to impeach Donald Trump should he win a second term, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, argued Monday.  Vance joined a forum on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, along with Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and others.  Over the weekend, with 18 Republicans joining the Democrat majority, the Senate moved to close debate and go to a vote on a $95 billion supplemental spending bill for Ukraine, which is defending itself from Russia's invasion, and Israel, which is attempting to eradicate Hamas after its Oct. 7 terrorist attacks.  About $61 billion of aid would go to Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel.  "There is actually a very good argument that the exact same legal justification for the impeachment of 2019 would hold with this legislation," Vance said of Trump's impeachment by a Democrat-run House over his phone call to Ukraine's president.

Checking The Scorecards On The Lawfare Contests Being Waged By The Biden Administration and Its Allies Against Donald Trump.  The big news here is the removal of the scheduled March 4 trial from the District Court's calendar this past week. [...] After an Appeals Court issues an opinion resolving the appeal, the Court issues a "Mandate" returning jurisdiction over the case to the District Court.  Until that Mandate comes back, a District Court is powerless to move ahead on the case for any purpose, and a defendant is not obligated to cooperate or participate in any proceedings in the District Court.  Lots of hand-wringing and teeth gnashing by the Lefty Legal Beagles have resulted from the fact that waiting for the decision from the Appeals Court has now derailed the trial schedule. [...] The final hurdle to getting the DC case back on track is the other Special Counsel case filed in Florida.  I'm 100% certain Smith regrets having filed that case first.  Filing the DC case second, and then advocating for a trial date in DC that came ahead of the trial date ALREADY SET in the Florida case, really PO'd the Judge in Florida more an anyone really understands.  THAT IS JUST NOT DONE.

What Trump's 'Retribution' Really Means.  Trump's entrance into politics began as a mockery but has now progressed into impeachments, indictments, ballot removals, arrests, and God knows what else to come between now and November.  These are real issues, and any candidate who suggests that these things should be "left in the past" concedes that he either isn't aware of how legitimate voter concern about these issues are or willfully ignoring them for political gain.  Either explanation is disqualifying.  Republicans ignoring or not recognizing these attacks as real issues is a wrong.  But Democrats' current and most brazenly hypocritical instance of gaslighting to date is even more alarming.  Leftist TV panels can frequently be heard shrieking at the thought of Trump indicting his political opponents.  Yes, they somehow say this without ever noting that Biden and his cronies have already set the precedent for this.  They almost deserve credit for getting through their TV segments with a straight face.  But despite all their theatre, it isn't "retribution" they truly fear, but rather accountability, and perhaps with good reason.

Icing the Puck, Supreme Court Style.  In theory, or at least in cocktail lore, there's still one last Japanese soldier in a cave somewhere who hasn't heard that World War II is over — and, as the Emperor of Japan announced on the radio, that it was concluded "not entirely to Japan's advantage."  That last soldier may also be the only person who doesn't realize that the various lawsuits filed against Donald Trump have nothing whatsoever to do with the stated substance of the suits but are designed and brought solely to interfere with the coming presidential election, which, polls currently tell us, Trump may win.

Further Thoughts on Projection and the Truth.  The palm for the funniest post on X, formerly Twitter, this weekend goes to former national security adviser John Bolton.  "There are," he wrote, "clear dangers to a second term for Donald Trump."  Like what, John?  "For one, he has made it known he will seek retribution against his political enemies using agencies like the Justice Department.  It's certain Trump has plans to repeatedly cross lines that will cause conflict, often constitutional conflict."  Imagine, a president of the United States weaponizing "agencies like the Justice Department" to harass his political opponents!  Whoever heard of such a thing?  Well, there are the 1,200 or so people who have been targeted by the DOJ for hanging around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  And, believe it or not, the DOJ is planning to charge "thousands" more for "parading," "obstructing an official proceeding," etc.  Do you remember the name Enrique Tarrio?  He wasn't even in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, but that didn't matter.  He was a leader of the "Western chauvinist" group The Proud Boys.  So not only was he swept up by the FBI but he was given a 22-year prison sentence, the longest of anyone so far who had been on that kinetic sightseeing trip to the Capitol.

Initial 3-Judge Panel Within DC Circuit Court of Appeals, Rules Against Presidential Immunity.  Three judges from the Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals have denied the immunity request from President Trump.  In a rather stark decision reached by the panel[,] "We have balanced former President Trump's asserted interests in executive immunity against the vital public interests that favor allowing this prosecution to proceed," the court wrote in its ruling Tuesday.  "We conclude that the interest in criminal accountability, held by both the public and the Executive Branch, outweighs the potential risks of chilling Presidential action and permitting vexatious litigation."

Supreme Court Grants Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold 10 Minutes to Justify Her Position on Disqualifying President Trump From Ballot.  Apparently the Lawfare crew have been working and coaching overtime to give Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold a framework to explain to the Supreme Court how Colorado's very specific election laws allow for presidential candidates to be disqualified despite meeting all constitutional requirements.  State Solicitor General Sharon Stevenson would be the legal mind representing Jena Griswold.  This should be an interesting attempt.  Griswold asked the Supreme Court for 15 minutes to explain how Colorado law supersedes the U.S. Constitution.  In an order announced earlier today [pdf here], the court has granted Ms. Griswold 10 minutes to make her case.  The oral arguments will take place on Thursday, February 8th.

Federal judge in DC postpones Trump's March trial on charges of plotting to overturn 2020 election.  A federal judge in Washington formally postponed Donald Trump's March trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election as a key legal appeal from the former president remains unresolved in the courts.  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday vacated the March 4 trial date in the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith but did not immediately set a new date.  The move opens the door for a separate prosecution in New York, charging Trump in connection with hush money payments to a porn actor, to proceed first.

Will 2024 Be the Most Dangerous Election of Our Lifetime?  We got a glimpse of how our bureaucratic overlords view the voters in 2016; when the DoJ, FBI, and CIA worked to influence the election.  When their gal failed to win, they continued their efforts to unseat our electoral choice.  But all of that was just a warmup for January 6, when they took things to a whole new level.  When pipe bombs were discovered outside the Democrat and Republican headquarter buildings in Washington D.C., it triggered a nationwide investigation.  Thousands of MAGA supporters were  intimidated  interviewed by FBI agents for the suspicious behavior of being in the same zip code as the bombs on January 6 — oh, and attending a Trump rally.  Also on January 6th, an unarmed insurrection nearly took down our government, at the encouragement of undercover federal assets planted in the crowd (snark intended).  Our federal criminal justice system has subsequently imprisoned hundreds, for little more than trespassing and taking selfies — many at the invitation of Capitol police.  Now the DoJ has announced plans to prosecute thousands more for daring to cross an unmarked line on the Capitol lawn that their taxes pay for.  After the Republicans took control of the House, the "stop MAGA" operation seems to have moved into the coverup stage.  The Swamp's desperation to keep something hidden reveals just how dangerous our own government has become.

Trump's Federal Election Trial Postponed Indefinitely by Judge.  The trial date in the election interference case against former President Donald Trump was postponed, the federal judge overseeing the case confirmed on Friday.  "The court will set a new schedule if and when the mandate is returned," U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in the order, handing a victory to the former president as he appeals the case on arguments that he was immune from prosecution.  More than 50 days have passed since Judge Chutkan paused the case amid the former president's appeal to the D.C. Court of Appeals.  Over the past several weeks, she has signaled that the initial March 4 trial date would not hold.  The judge on Friday also wrote that prospective jurors who were asked to appear in court in the coming days won't have to fill out a written questionnaire.

Verdict Delayed in Trump Civil Fraud Trial as Judge Engoron Weighs Lifetime Business Ban.  The verdict in former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial in Manhattan that could see him banned for life from doing business in New York has been delayed until mid-February, according to a court spokesperson.  Justice Arthur Engoron said during the trial's closing arguments on Jan. 11 that he hoped to make his final decision by Jan. 31 in a much-anticipated verdict that could, in addition to hitting the former president with a lifetime business ban, see him fined $370 million.  After the tentative Jan. 31 deadline came and went without a verdict, a spokesperson for the New York State Office of Court Administration, Alfred Baker, said that the judge is now expected to deliver his decision in early to mid-February.

Fani Willis gets slapped with 22 articles of impeachment.  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has found herself in hot water over the past few weeks as allegations of misconduct have sprung forth, casting a dark shadow on her behavior in the legal world, particularly as she continues to spearhead the Georgia election-related case against President Donald Trump.  As reported by RSBN, a story surfaced in the media that broke allegations concerning Willis's involvement with an alleged romantic partner whom she hired to prosecute Trump, thus resulting in reported financial benefits.  This partner has allegedly been identified as Nathan Wade, a private attorney.

The Trump-Carroll Case is Blatantly the Greatest Miscarriage of Justice in Modern American History.  The awarding of nearly $90 million to the second-rate advice columnist E. Jean Carroll will doubtless be remembered for generations as the greatest miscarriage of justice in contemporary American history.  Jean Carroll's case was not just ludicrous on the face of it, but between the judge, the "experts" who testified, and the mechanisms by which the case even came to be, it's impossible for any ordinary person in the West to see this as anything more than the continuation of a series of hoaxes perpetrated on former President Donald J. Trump with the desire to keep him from re-entering the Oval Office in January 2025.

The extortion of Donald Trump.  [Scroll down]  Governor Hochul of New York signs into law the Adult Survivors Act, a law that allows survivors of sexual assault to sue their abusers regardless of when the abuse occurred.  At face value, it sounds like a good and righteous law.  One of the first to file was E. Jean Carroll.  She had no evidence except what she said and what she told a few friends, which was eerily similar to an episode of Law & Order:  Special Victims Unit.  She also had a photograph of her and Trump in a crowd together.  President Trump claims to this day he never met her.  (Do you remember everyone who was in a crowd when you were in the picture?) Nevertheless, the evidence, which was virtually nonexistent, was irrelevant.  President Trump could never get a fair trial in NYC.  He was found liable for sexual abuse and ordered to pay $5 million.  Of course, President Trump fumed about this.  Wouldn't you fume about a law that was specifically designed as a political attack against you and allowed no possibility of defending yourself and required no evidence?  Now another NYC jury has found Trump guilty of defamation and ordered him to pay $83.3 million.  They intended to send a message, but the message they sent has the exact opposite meaning of what they intended.

Why is no one wondering how the Trump trials have such idiotic jurors?  [Scroll down]  A jury consultant's job is to research, as closely as possible, each prospective juror by any means necessary so that the defense can select the persons who may be most disposed to find their client not guilty.  Of course, prosecutors hire jury consultants as well to determine who among the pool will be likely to find the person on trial guilty.  On its face, this seems to be an obviously unethical practice; depending on who got the most jurors of their choosing is likely to win.  How can this be legal, one might ask.  It probably should not be, but one thing is clear:  Juries are rarely a "jury of one's peers" anymore.  They are carefully and deceptively chosen.  We can be certain that jury consultants were hired to select the people who would sit in judgment of President Trump for each of the numerous trials to which he has been so unfairly subjected.

Secret Service Agents [have been] Ordered to Not Wear Red Ties Because President Trump Wears Red Ties.  Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino revealed in his podcast Friday that the Secret Service has ordered agents to not wear red ties.  The order came down last week after an agent guarding Trump was photographed sporting a similarly colored red tie as Trump as he took the stage at a campaign rally in New Hampshire.  Bongino warned, "They're gonna get this guy hurt."  Bongino said an email edict went out after the photo of the agent wearing a red tie while guarding Trump was published in the Guardian last Sunday.  Bongino said agents are [angry] about the tie order.  Bongino said Trump needs to clean out Secret Service management when he returns to the White House next year, citing the agency's tanking of the White House cocaine investigation last year.

Trump demands Fani Wills is disqualified from his election fraud case because she 'inappropriately injected racial bias'.  Donald Trump has demanded Fani Willis be disqualified from his Georgia election fraud case after she 'injected race' into the case, and called for the charges against him be dropped.  The former president's co-defendant Michael Roman alleged in court filings that Willis had an inappropriate relationship with Nathan Wade, the lawyer she hired to help run the criminal case.  The bombshell court document has led to a flurry of allegations, including Wade buying flights and cruises for Willis as they carried on their fling.  The scandal centered around Wade's divorce from his wife of 26 years has thrown the case into chaos and now the president's legal team is demanding she is removed.

If Fani Willis' Get-Trump Case Were Legit, Democrats Wouldn't Be So Desperate To Keep It In The DA's Office.  Democrats are desperately fighting to keep the Fulton County prosecutor's office in charge of the Georgia criminal case pending against Donald Trump and his associates.  And that tells you all you need to know about the merits of the get-Trump prosecution launched by the now-falling Democrat star Fani Willis.  "Fani Willis's Grand-Slam Indictment Against Donald Trump," blared one headline from last August, championing the news that the Democrat-elected county prosecutor had charged Trump and 18 others in a sprawling 41-count indictment.  For months, Willis wore the crown of the country, being honored everywhere from the local Atlanta Business League to the Apollo Theater in Harlem, where she received the title of 2023's Most Influential Black American.  She was reportedly even up for Time's Person of the Year.  But now The New York Times has run an op-ed calling for Willis to take a leave of absence from the Fulton County district attorney's office.

Lawyers for Trump urge the Supreme Court 'to put a swift and decisive end' to ballot removal efforts.  Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Thursday urged the Supreme Court "to put a swift and decisive end" to efforts to kick him off the 2024 presidential ballot over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.  In a written filing, Trump's lawyers called on the court to reverse a first-of-its-kind Colorado Supreme Court decision that said Trump should not be on the state's Republican primary ballot because of his role in the events that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.  The justices are hearing arguments Feb. 8 in a case that both sides say needs to be resolved quickly so that voters know whether Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, is eligible to hold the presidency.

Trump case could go off rails as Fani Willis love triangle, corruption investigation heats up.  A messy love triangle between the high-powered district attorney in charge of the 2020 election-fraud case involving former President Donald Trump, the married lover she chose to be special prosecutor and his estranged wife is imploding in Fulton County.  Nobody on either side of the political aisle understands what Fulton County DA Fani Willis was thinking when she hired her reported boyfriend, a personal injury lawyer with zero high-profile felony trial experience, to be the lead special prosecutor in what is likely the biggest case of her career.  Nor do people understand why she'd blur her personal and professional life by jetting off for a $2,600 cruise and romantic trip to California's Napa Valley with still legally married Wade while working on the sprawling and complex racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his allies.

Trump Team Renews Motion for Mistrial in E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case After She Deletes Emails that Exonerate Trump.  As Cristina Laila reported earlier[,] President Trump appeared in court on Wednesday as E. Jean Carroll testified in a trial where the jury will decide how much Trump has to pay for his so-called 'defamatory' statements about her.  Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, previously ruled that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape. [...] Under cross-examination by Trump's lawyer Alina Habba, E. Jean Carroll admitted she deleted emails under subpoena. [...] Carroll admitted to deleting emails under subpoena because she didn't want to upset her lawyers.  How is this not a criminal act?  Why was she not charged with destroying evidence?

Maine Election Official So Desperate to Keep Trump off Ballot She's Appealing Judge's Hold on Decision.  Maine's Democrat secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, is so determined to promote "trust in our free, safe and secure elections" that she wants to make sure voters in the state aren't allowed to vote for the leading GOP contender, former President Donald Trump.  After Trump appealed Bellows' unilateral decision to keep his name off the Republican primary ballot, Superior Court Judge Michaela Murphy called for a hold on her decision while the nation waits for the Supreme Court to weigh in on a similar situation in Colorado.  Waiting for the nation's top court to render judgment was just too inconvenient for Bellows, evidently, as she announced Friday that she was going to appeal Murphy's decision to the state's top court, and she wants a quick answer: [...]

Fulton DA accuses special prosecutor's wife of 'interfering' with Trump probe.  Fulton County's district attorney on Thursday fired back at allegations she has engaged in an "improper" relationship with her top deputy, accusing his estranged wife of trying to obstruct her prosecution of Donald Trump and his allies.  Fani Willis has been subpoenaed to give a pretrial deposition in the divorce case of Nathan and Joycelyn Wade on January 23, but in a blistering court filing on Thursday the DA's attorney said that subpoena should be quashed.  Joycelyn Wade "has conspired with interested parties in the criminal election interference case to use the civil discovery process to annoy, embarrass and oppress District Attorney Willis," argued Cinque Axam on Willis' behalf.

Three Former Attorneys General File Brief Insisting Trump is Constitutionally Qualified to Appear on Ballot.  Three former attorneys general, including Bill Barr who is not even supporting Trump in 2024, have filed a brief insisting that Trump is constitutionally qualified to appear on the ballot.  This move comes as a response to the efforts in Colorado, Maine and other states where leftists have sought to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot.  The argument of these former AGs was drafted with the help of law professors and is rock solid.

Trump's Lawyers Accuse Jack Smith of Concealing Evidence, Working With Biden Admin.  Former President Donald Trump's lawyers alleged Tuesday night that special counsel Jack Smith concealed evidence about his office's collaboration with the Biden administration.  In a 68-page Wednesday filing in the Florida case concerning his handling of concealed documents, Trump's legal team claimed it obtained heavily redacted documents through a Freedom of Information Act request revealing "politically motivated operatives in the Biden Administration and the National Archives and Records Administration" have been involved in pushing the classified documents probe since 2021.  Trump's lawyers asked the judge to require Smith to produce any "additional evidence of bias and political animus," writing that the documents obtained through FOIA "should have been disclosed by the Office, in unredacted form, at the outset of the case."

Collusion!? Jan. 6 Committee Inserted Itself Into Fani Willis' Georgia Case Against Trump.  In the spring of 2022, Georgia prosecutors investigating Donald Trump over his actions related to the 2020 election received an early boost from another set of investigators:  the House Jan. 6 select committee.  In mid-April of that year, Committee staff quietly met with attorneys working on the case in Fulton County for DA Fani Willis, right around the time she was preparing to convene a special grand jury investigation[,] during which she employed her alleged paramour, Nathan Wade, who would also coordinate with the Biden White House on their case.  So[,] Fani coordinated with both the J6 committee and the White House, who helped them assemble their case against the former president.  According to Politico, the Jan. 6 committee attorneys allowed the DA's team to review (but not keep) a 'limited set of evidence' they had gathered.

The 14th Amendment's History Militates Against Colorado's Ruling Against Trump.  A doctrine used once in December 1868 to make sure that former Confederate President Jefferson Davis never held office again has been revived to justify removing former U.S. President Donald Trump's name from the ballot of the Colorado Republican primary.  The doctrine, called self-execution, allows the terms of the 14th Amendment to be applied without action by Congress.  Self-execution is inconsistent with the 14th Amendment's text, which provides for enforcement by the U.S. Congress.  If it were ever applied to cases beyond those of Davis and Trump (and, as this essay argues, it's seriously doubtful it should apply to Trump), the results would be chaotic.  Trump has appealed on the grounds that the Colorado ruling violates his due process rights.  U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on February 8.

Lawfare Against Trump Is Running Out of Gas.  We should dispense with the tired narrative that four conscientious state and federal prosecutors — independently and without contact with the Biden White House or the radical Democrats in Congress — all came to the same disinterested conclusions that Donald Trump should be indicted for various crimes and put on trial during the campaign season of 2024.  The prosecutors began accelerating their indictments only once Trump started to lead incumbent Joe Biden by sizable margins in head-to-head polls.  Moreover, had Trump not run for the presidency, or had he been of the same party as most of the four prosecutors, he would have never been indicted by any of them.  Yet now they are in a doom loop of discovering that the more they seek to rush to judgment before the election and gag Trump from speaking publicly about these star-chamber proceedings, the more he rises in the polls.

[The] White House [is] Coordinating Trump Prosecutions.  In late 2022, when asked by reporters about the probability that former President Trump would run for a second term, President Biden pledged to make sure "he does not become president again."  This was largely ignored at the time because Trump had not yet been bombarded with the brazenly partisan prosecutions that he is now fending off.  In hindsight, it is clear that Biden was referring to a carefully planned lawfare campaign coordinated by the White House.  His administration's fingerprints are all over every prosecution from the first indictment by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to the recent attempt to remove Trump from the Colorado primary ballot.  The Colorado ballot case provides the clearest White House connection.  As The American Spectator noted last year, the initial lawsuit was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) in September of last year.  Noah Bookbinder, CREW's President, was appointed to an advisory council in March of 2022 by DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and his name appears on White House visitor logs multiple times in 2023, according to a recent Daily Caller report.

Lawmakers and others are 'secretly' plotting a military mutiny if Trump is elected.  Constitutional norms are falling all over the place, but it's the left that's doing it.  Shorn of his eccentric rhetoric, Trump governed in the grand tradition of 20th-century American presidents:  strong national security, focus on the economy, an eye to energy independence, etc.  It is Biden who has broken every norm in American history:  destroying the border, destroying energy independence, and arresting political opponents.

What Was That About a Deep State?  Check Out These Plans to Deal With Trump If He Wins.  Joe Biden and the Democrats truly take the cake.  Biden is down in the polls to former President Donald Trump, who is the leading GOP candidate.  So they're doing all they can to play up the "threat to democracy" from Trump.  Now I have no doubt whoever was leading would immediately become "Hitler" to them, because that's how they do things.  That's their only play, given Biden has such a horrible record.  He has no real accomplishments on which to run.  According to an NBC report, the powers that be are already trying to work to put Trump in check.  People talk about the deep state.  Check out what they're saying here, it's something else.  They're worried that Trump may win so the unelected people want to thwart how the elected representative of the people might exercise his power.

Fani Willis and the corrupt mainstream media.  Last week contained more than one terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.  On Monday, January 8th, Ashleigh Merchant, lawyer for Michael Roman (one of the 18 Trump co-defendants in The State of Georgia v.  Donald J. Trump, et al.), filed a "bombshell" motion alleging that Willis "improperly hired an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Donald Trump and financially benefited from their relationship."  The "alleged romantic partner" is special prosecutor Nathan Wade. [...] According to RedState, on the same day that Ashleigh Merchant filed her motion against Willis and Nathan Wade, Jocelyn Wade subpoenaed Willis to appear for a deposition in the Wades' divorce proceedings.  This whole sorry saga is a disaster for the Fulton County DA and her efforts to prosecute the former president.

Judge Cannon Smacks Down Hitman Jack Smith Again — Rejects His Request to Force Trump to Reveal Defense Strategy.  Judge Aileen Cannon denied without prejudice Special Counsel Jack Smith's motion to compel Trump to disclose his defense strategy in the classified documents case in Florida.  In November, Jack Smith tried to force Trump to disclose his decision on whether he would use an "advice-of-counsel" defense in the classified documents case.  This could have forced Trump to waive attorney-client privilege.  Thankfully Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, denied Jack Smith's request.

Can America Survive This Perversion of Our Justice System?  Execution without due process is murder by an officer of the state.  According to Jack Smith, Obama is immune for extrajudicial killing, but Donald Trump is not for trying to investigate election fraud in 2020.  We can also consider the immunity of the vice president, who admitted on video to strong-arming the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor investigating his son's company.  That was an act committed as an official of the United States.  Is there immunity for that?  How about taking bribes to skewer foreign policy while in office from foreign countries?  Immunity for that?  News flash:  The only thing preventing Biden's legal team from trying that argument is that they do not want immunity to be extended to Trump.

Trump 14th Amendment Challenger Arrested on Federal Tax Charges.  A man who filed a number of lawsuits in different states to try to prevent former President Donald Trump from appearing on election ballots has been arrested on federal tax charges.  John Anthony Castro was charged last week with 33 counts of aiding the preparation of false tax returns, according to Department of Justice prosecutors.  They said that he ran a virtual tax business that gave customers returns beyond what they were really owed.  "Castro would promise a significantly higher refund than taxpayers could receive from other preparers and on many occasions, offered to split the additional refund with taxpayers," federal prosecutors wrote in court documents.  "In order to achieve these larger refunds, Castro generated false deductions, that were not based in fact, and which were submitted without the taxpayer's knowledge."

Jim Jordan launches investigation into Fani Willis after revelations she hired romantic partner in Trump case.  House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan has launched an inquiry into Nathan Wade, the prosecutor hired by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis with whom she had allegedly been in a romantic relationship with.  "The committee on the Judiciary continues to conduct oversight of politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials.  Based on recent reports, we believe that you possess documents and information about the coordination for the Fulton County District Attorney's Office (FCDAO) with other politically motivated investigations and prosecutions and the potential misuse of federal funds," the letter began.

Keyword:  Cahoots.
President Of Left-Wing Group Behind Trump's Colorado Ballot Removal Visited Biden White House Multiple Times.  The CEO of the left-wing legal group behind former President Donald Trump's removal from the Colorado ballot went to the Biden White House multiple times last year, visitor logs show.  Noah Bookbinder, president and CEO of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), visited the White House twice in 2023, visitor logs from January to September 2023 indicate.  He first visited on Jan. 6, 2023, the two-year anniversary of the 2021 Capitol riot, to watch Biden award the Presidential Citizens Medal to law enforcement officers who responded to the unrest, a CREW spokesperson told the Caller.  The visitor logs appear to confirm Bookbinder's attendance at the event.

Fani Willis subpoenaed in Trump prosecutor's divorce case — as it emerges he wasn't even approved by board.  Embattled District Attorney Fani Willis has been subpoenaed to testify in the divorce case of the special prosecutor handling the Trump election interference case, with whom she stands accused of having an "improper relationship."  Furthermore, it has emerged that the attorney, Nathan Wade, wasn't even approved by the relevant board before being hired by Willis, who presides over Fulton County in Georgia.  Willis hired Wade, an Atlanta-based private attorney, as a special prosecutor in the case against former President Donald Trump and 18 of his associates over their alleged actions following the 2020 election.  Despite Wade having no experience prosecuting a complex Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act case like the one against Trump, he was handed a contract that has so far earned his company more than $650,000 in legal fees from the DA's office.

Report: Fani Willis Secretly Colluded with January 6 Committee; Could Blow Up Case.  Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis secretly colluded with the one-sided, Democrat-run January 6 Committee to obtain tips that would help her prosecute Donald Trump — and tried to keep it out of court, and public view, using a procedural trick.  The revelation could upend the prosecution of Trump and 18 co-defendants because the evidence was concealed to keep it away from discovery requirements that would allow defense lawyers to see what was shared, and the extent of the collaboration.

Biden 'Saves' Democracy by Destroying it.  When faced with the possible return of President Donald Trump, the current agenda of the Democratic Party is summed up simply as "We had to destroy democracy to save it."  The effort shares a common theme:  any means necessary are justified to prevent the people from choosing their own president, given the fear that a majority might vote to elect Donald Trump.  Sometimes the anti-democratic paranoia has been outsourced to state and local officials and prosecutors to erase Trump from the primary and likely general election ballots as well.  One unelected official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, is a Democrat, an official never elected by the people, and a non-lawyer rendering a legal edict.  Yet she has judged Trump guilty of "insurrection."  And presto, she erased his name from the state's ballot.  Yet Trump was never charged, much less convicted, of "insurrection."

Trump [is] banned from speaking in his own defense in closing argument in New York fraud trial.  The judge in former President Donald Trump's New York fraud trial has barred him from speaking in his own defense during closing arguments later this week.  The former president, 77, is a defendant in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.  His business empire in New York is on the line, and James has asked for his business to be fined $370 million for inflating property prices to get favorable loan deals.

Judge blocks Trump from making his own closing statement in NYC civil fraud trial.  Donald Trump won't deliver his own closing statement at his New York civil fraud trial after all — after the judge said he needed to stick to "relevant, material facts."  Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron emailed Trump attorney Christopher Kise Wednesday saying he was assuming the 77-year-old former president wouldn't agree to the "lawful limits" and "therefore, he will not be speaking in court tomorrow."  Kise first notified the judge in a January 4 email that after the lawyers give their arguments in the $370 million case on Thursday, "President Trump plans to present argument at closing as well," court records show. Andrew Amer, a lawyer with the New York Attorney General's Office, which is prosecuting the case, opposed allowing Trump the chance to speak, warning that he "is prone to giving irrelevant speeches, lacks self-control, is evasive in responding to questions and has repeatedly violated court orders for which he has been sanctioned."

Letitia James Visited Joe Biden White House Several Times Amid Trump Witch Hunt.  Radical Marxist New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) visited the Biden White House three times between April 2022 and August 2023, according to White House visitor logs.  In September 2022, Letitia James announced a civil fraud lawsuit against former President Donald Trump and his family.  AG James has been investigating whether the Trump Organization inflated values of some of its properties.  "Today, I filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump for engaging in years of financial fraud to enrich himself, his family, and the Trump Organization," Letitia James said in September 2022.

Have No Fear, 'Big Brother' Is On Duty.  [Scroll down]  Has our federal bureaucracy become a hive of worker bees, with no central leadership but with individuals instinctively working for the health of the bureaucracy? [...] The hive perceived Donald Trump as a threat, and it's still frenetically stinging those who might send him, or someone like him, back to Washington.  When a Washington prosecutor bee asks a jury of bees to sting a January 6 defendant, they respond instinctively and aggressively — with guilty verdicts for virtually every charge.  Evidence and the rule of law are apparently irrelevant when the welfare of the hive is at stake.

Those Behind the Efforts to Disqualify Trump Have Something in Common.  All over America, party loyalists whose preferred candidate is President Joe Biden are engaging in lawfare to win at the ballot box by any means necessary.  Some of the bad-faith actors spearheading the efforts to defeat former President Donald Trump — the GOP's far-and-away frontrunner — before Election Day even begins are beneficiaries of puppeteering philanthropist George Soros. [...] Maine was the second state to officially declare Trump ineligible.  In Colorado, the state Supreme Court decided on Dec. 19 to enforce Trump's disqualification.  Leading the charge in the Colorado case to ensure Trump's removal is the Orwellian-named Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).  Between FY 2017 and 2021, CREW was given more than $2.8 million in grants by the Foundation to Promote Open Society, which acts as one of Soros's two chief grantmaking vehicles, for "general support" and "support[ing] political advocacy on ethics in government," according to an Open Society Foundations database.

The allegations against Fulton County's prosecutor.  [Scroll down]  Separate from the vendetta against Trump, if the charges are true, it smells horrible that Willis illegally appointed her boyfriend to a position that saw him receiving $625,000 from Fulton County taxpayers.  Let's not stop there, though.  As the old Ginsu knife commercials used to say... but wait!  There's more.  We can add a whole new level of stench to the smell coming out of Fulton County.  The same filing includes copies of the invoices from Nathan J. Wade explaining why the Fulton County taxpayers owed him $654,000 dollars.  In the bills, aside from the usual lawyer stuff (team meetings, telephone calls, meeting with the DA, research, writing, etc.), there are two that really stand out:  [#1] May 23, 2022: "Travel to Athens; Conf with White House Counsel."  Willis charged eight hours for that day, at $250 per hour, for a total of $2,000.  It's unclear how much time was allocated to travel and how much to the meeting.  [#2] November 21, 2022: "Interview with DC/White House."  Once again, this was an eight-hour day at $250 per hour, the only difference being that it's clear that Wade's entire eight hours was spent in conference with the White House counsel.  That's a lot of time to spend in conference. [...] I don't know if it's illegal for the White House to have worked with a state prosecutor in this way, but it's certainly problematic, especially when the target is almost certainly going to be the opposition candidate in the next election.

Ted Cruz Has an Idea on How SCOTUS Could Rule Unanimously to Keep Trump on the Ballot.  As the senator explained to co-host Ben Ferguson, matters for the Court to address include both whether or not there was an insurrection on January 6, 2021, which Trump was in charge of, and which would thus mean he would be disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, as well as whether or not Colorado was overstepping.  Cruz also had strong words for the Colorado Supreme Court, calling their decision "lawless."  Sharing at one point how he believed taking up this case was "a no-brainer," Cruz also said that "I think all nine [justices] agreed 'we needed to take it' and I don't think they hesitated on it," given how major a Constitutional question it was.  "Under the Constitution, it is difficult to imagine a more consequential question and a question that demands the Supreme Court to get it," he added.  When it comes to the topic Cruz would speak to throughout the episode, in the Court not wanting to be seen as political, the senator also offered that "I don't think the Court was eager to get into this issue at all," explaining that "the justices are not looking to opine on this, but once Colorado ruled, they had no choice and they had no choice but to do it quickly."

Democrats Want Criminals To Vote, But No Ballot Access For Trump.  Although former President Donald Trump hasn't been convicted of a crime despite two impeachments, FBI investigations, and myriad prosecutions, Democrats want him stripped from ballots while their party supports ballot access for criminals.  The official who unilaterally stripped Trump from the ballot in Maine did so based on her personal view that "Mr. Trump was aware of the likelihood for violence and at least initially supported its use" on Jan. 6, 2021.  She is not a judge, and even if she were, such a pronouncement would be contrary to law.  Trump's much-viewed public statements on that day were not a clear incitement to violence, and therefore are First Amendment-protected speech.  Leftists are criminalizing speech by claiming it equals violence, breaking constitutional standards.  The claim is belied by the facts:  The vast majority of people listening to Trump that day were not incited to violence.  There's plenty of evidence that incitement occurred instead among the proportionally few rioters.  Claiming Trump incited insurrection is a political projection intended to promote a one-party state.

The Roots of Lawfare.  The first nationally infamous use of "lawfare" was most likely the battle in 2005 to remove Tom Delay (R Texas) from his position as Speaker of the House.  The vendetta against Tom Delay was led by one Ronnie Earle, the DA in Austin, Texas who had a strong dislike for Delay (One might call it TDDS). Ultimately the case was overturned on appeal, but the battle was won, as Delay was removed from office.  Recognize that one of the purposes of Lawfare is to remove the person from the political scene.

A Culture in Collapse.  The post civilization civil bookend to that precivilizational subterfuge was a systematic legal effort, for the first time in American history, to remove in an election year the leading primary and general election candidate Donald Trump from various state ballots.  The Soviet-like charge was that he was guilty of "insurrection," a crime he has never been charged with, much less convicted of.  Meanwhile, three state prosecutors and one special federal counsel — all leftists and some previously bragging in their own election campaigns of their intention to destroy Trump — have charged candidate Trump with an array of felonies.  The vast majority of Americans agree Trump would never have been so charged had he just not sought to seek reelection — or had been a liberal Democrat.

Here's The Legal Question That Could Determine The 2024 Election.  The disqualification of former President Donald Trump from the ballot in several states may depend on whether the U.S. Supreme Court believes that the president of the United States is an "officer of the United States" according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. [...] Trump has since appealed both decisions, with the Colorado case being granted certiorari by the Supreme Court on Friday.  One of the questions Trump has presented to the court in his petition for certiorari is whether, as the president, he was an "officer of the United States" as the term is used in the amendment, which elsewhere does not specify the president or vice president as such an officer, a question that has divided legal experts considerably.  [Tweet]

Over 80 Percent of Democrats Believe States Should Disqualify Trump from 2024 Ballot.  Eighty one percent of Democrats believe states should disqualify former president Donald Trump from presidential ballots, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll.  By contrast, 90 percent of Republicans believe states should keep Trump's name on the ballot.  Independents are more closely split:  44 percent believe states should remove Trump's name from ballots, while 56 percent believe states should allow Trump's name to remain on ballots.  Both Colorado and Maine have disqualified Trump from their respective primary ballots because his actions in the wake of the 2020 election allegedly violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which forbids individuals who have "engaged in insurrection" from seeking federal office.

President Nothing:  Joe Biden is a figurehead for Obama.  The press has never fully explained why people voted for him.  Oh sure, they said he was not Trump, but Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Pocahontas Warren also were not Trump in 2020 and each was well ahead of Biden when they suddenly dropped out after raising millions and garnering far more votes than he had.  Whatever happened to the unspent millions they raised?  No one in the media seems interested in finding that out.  The press is too busy advancing the Democrat Party line to bother with holding Democrats accountable.  We know what happened.  Obama picked Biden just as he had picked Hillary four years earlier.  After Biden failed in Iowa and New Hampshire, Obama paid off the rivals and had Jim Clyburn fix the South Carolina primary, which for Democrats is largely a black primary.  Unleashing a pandemic panic and race riots across the nation, Obama almost pulled it off.  He needed a last-minute mail-in forgery operation to take key states to seal the deal.  Knowing Trump had the votes to come back in 2024, Obama has had him impeached, indicted and in civil court.

Iowa AG Brenna Bird:  Efforts to Take Trump off the Ballot 'Absolutely Election Interference'.  Efforts to take former President Donald Trump off the ballot — particularly in Colorado — are "absolutely election interference," Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird told Breitbart News Saturday.  "What Colorado is trying to do, what their Supreme Court did, is absolutely election interference," Bird said.  "And it is just wrong when Americans can't vote for the presidential candidate of their choice, and he's the leading candidate on the Republican side."

27 states file an amicus brief in Supreme Court to keep Trump on the Colorado ballot.  Twenty-seven states have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, urging the court to keep former President Donald Trump on the Colorado ballot. [...] Attorneys general in the states of West Virginia, Indiana and multiple other states argued in the filing that declaring Trump an "insurrectionist" under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution would have "vast consequences that reach far beyond Colorado."  The Supreme Court is set to hear the arguments for the brief on Feb. 8, according to Fox News.

Trump is backed by more than two dozen states' attorneys general in Supreme Court fight.  Republican attorneys general from 27 states have filed a court brief supporting Donald Trump in his Supreme Court battle to remain on Colorado's 2024 presidential ballot.  In a 22-page 'friend of the court' brief filed on Saturday, the attorneys general called on the high court to strike down a Colorado court decision barring Trump under the 14th Amendment's insurrectionist ban.  The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case on February 8, and its decision on Trump's eligibility to run for president will have far-reaching implications for the November election, after Maine acted separately to ban Trump on similar grounds.

It's the Same People — Politico Confirms Robert Mueller Agents/Lawyers Are Jack Smith Agents/Lawyers.  I have long been saying the Jack Smith special counsel team is the reassembly of the Robert Mueller team.  Today, inside an article outlining other ancillary matters about the 2020 election challenges, Politico inadvertently confirmed my suspicions.  First, the non-pretending Big Picture.  The Clinton exoneration FBI Team became the Trump investigation FBI Team (Crossfire Hurricane) — which then became the Robert Mueller FBI Team (exact same people, plus some additions) — which then became the J6 Investigation FBI Team (exact same people, plus some additions) — which then became the Jack Smith FBI Team (same exact people).  Not only is it one long continuum, but it's also the EXACT SAME PEOPLE.

What happens if... ?  This is a very scary essay to write, but it must be said and deeply considered.  Tucker Carlson has long opined that Trump's greatest threat is being "Epsteined."  Democrats have pulled out all the stops to prevent him from ever entering the White House ever again, yet at every one of their attempts his popularity grows.  Every new attempt to keep him off the ballot spirals ever deeper into the "crazy zone" with reasons they seemingly pull out of thin air, and judges that are O.K. to rule on these specious arguments; I won't belabor them because this has been well-covered on these pages.  Obviously, these attempts won't ultimately succeed because the law is not on the side of the accusers (I know that many readers will say the law doesn't matter anymore, but I'm going to pretend, for now, that it does).  Therefore, Trump will be the Republican nominee.  But what happens if someone takes the final irreversible step of removing Trump from the face of the earth?  Tucker believes Democrat Plan B is to back Nikki Haley.

President Trump Asks the Court to Hold Jack Smith in Contempt For Violating Order.  President Trump's attorneys on Thursday asked the Court to hold Special Counsel Jack Smith in contempt for violating Judge Chutkan's order staying all proceedings in the January 6 case against Trump.  "President Donald J. Trump respectfully moves this Court for an order to show cause why prosecutors Jack Smith, Molly Gaston, and Thomas Windom (collectively, the "prosecutors") should not be held in contempt for violating the Court's order 'stay[ing] any further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on Defendant.' Doc. 186 at 2 (the 'Stay Order')." Trump's lawyer wrote in the order reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.

Trump's brief to the Supreme Court is solid, well-written, persuasive, and underreported.  Six days ago, Donald Trump's lawyers filed a 34-page brief in the Supreme Court.  In legal-speak, their brief is called a "petition for certiorari."  It asks the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 4-3 decision by the Colorado Supreme Court banning Trump from the Colorado ballot.  This case presents one of the most important legal and political issues of this century:  Whether a state can exclude a national candidate from the state's ballot on the grounds that he committed a federal crime that he was never convicted of or even charged with.  But the media has largely ignored Trump's brief.  I have not seen a single news report about it.  Reporters embarked on crazy endzone dancing when the Colorado decision came out last month, which has apparently left them too woozy and hungover to report on a particular salient fact — namely, that this play is almost certainly under review by the real Supreme Court.  And initial indications point to the on-field ruling being overturned.

Ex-CIA Analyst Warns About Intel Agencies Being Involved in 2024 Election.  Looks like electoral mischief might be afoot again.  According to ex-CIA analyst, now professor at Georgetown University Dr. John Gentry, he believes the alphabet agencies will try to interfere in the 2024 election. [...] Gentry termed the effort to downplay the Hunter Biden laptop as "clearly political" and that "in no uncertain terms" it was done "explicitly" with the "intent to help the Biden campaign."  He said he was already seeing signs. [...] Gentry also pointed out how the intel agencies had been compromised by politics, that the standard of not being involved in politics was largely "gone" and political activism was "common."  He pointed to two main reasons: former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.  Gentry said that they did things pursuant to DEI and "policy actions, in terms of specific recruitment efforts" that helped to precipitate this change.

Raskin's Disturbing Defense of Removing Trump From Ballot Includes Chilling Words About SCOTUS.  CNN had Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) in on Sunday to talk about the efforts by Democrats to boot former President Donald Trump from the ballot using the 14th Amendment.  Raskin made some comments that a lot of people are talking about.  The first part was what he said about the disqualification process.  He had the temerity to claim that what they were trying to do against Trump was the most "democratic" form of disqualification.  This takes some kind of gall to attempt this level of spin; [Tweet]

Trump Ballot Bans and the Specter of Bush v. Gore.  It's safe to say that Chief Justice John Roberts would rather keep the U.S. Supreme Court out of the legal battles that seem destined to define the 2024 presidential election.  Unfortunately for Roberts, it will be all but impossible for the Court to avoid deciding whether state officials and courts possess the legal authority to remove Donald Trump from primary ballots after declaring him guilty of a crime for which he has never been charged.  Because SCOTUS is likely to rule in favor of Trump, it will produce outrage on the left and countless comparisons to Bush v. Gore.  Consequently, it's a useful exercise to debunk the myths still purveyed by the Democrats about that fabled 2000 ruling.

Destroying democracy to save it:  Maine shows the danger of zealots in our legal system.  Maine's Shenna Bellows issued a "decision" that declared Trump an "insurrectionist" and ineligible to be president.  She joined an ignoble list of Democratic officials in states such as Colorado who claim to safeguard democracy by denying its exercise to millions of Americans.  Yet the most striking aspect of this poorly crafted decision was not its litany of conclusory findings, but rather Bellow's implausible suggestion that she struggled over the decision.  Bellows was a natural choice for challengers, who have been searching for any officials or courts willing to embrace this dangerous theory under the Fourteenth Amendment that they can unilaterally bar candidates deemed rebellious or insurrectionalist. [...] In our cynical politics, Bellows and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, among others, have become wildly popular for seeking to complete the effort to defeat Trump by removing him from the ballot.  This cynicism is captured in statements from pundits who warn that Democrats can no longer rely on the election process, given Trump's soaring popularity.

Conservative Group Files Lawsuit Against Maine Official Who Removed Trump From the Ballot.  Maine's Secretary of State Shenna Bellows has been under scrutiny ever since she decided to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot as part of a national effort to influence the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.  She has been the subject of criticism from folks on both the left and the right.  As I wrote earlier, she already faces impeachment proceedings, which Republican state Rep. John Andrews announced on Friday evening.

Maine Secretary of State, a Non-Attorney, Makes Legal Ruling Striking Trump from Ballot Based on YouTube Videos.  Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows unilaterally ruled that former President Donald Trump is unqualified to appear on the 2024 primary ballot despite lacking a law degree and substituting YouTube videos for due process.  Bellows, who previously worked as Executive Director of the Maine Chapter of the ACLU but is not an attorney and did not attend law school, made the legal conclusion in her ruling that "the declaration on [Trump's] candidate consent form is false because he is not qualified to hold the office of the President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment."

The Mastermind Behind the Campaign to Thwart Trump.  The intricate web of political tactics deployed against former President Donald Trump unveils a key orchestrator:  Norm Eisen.  As a co-founder of the Voter Protection Program and a significant figure in the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), Eisen's involvement in shaping strategies to impede Trump's political journey is becoming increasingly evident.  His role extends beyond mere opposition; it represents a calculated effort to influence critical decisions and events that have left indelible marks on the American political narrative.  Eisen's influence is particularly discernible in two major political junctures:  the absence of National Guard deployment on January 6th and the legal maneuvers leading to Trump's disqualification from the 2024 presidential ballot.  These instances are not isolated events but rather elements of a broader, cohesive strategy aimed at neutralizing Trump's influence in American politics.  This article delves into Eisen's multifaceted role, uncovering the tactics and implications of his actions in the grander scheme of American political dynamics.  From his advisory role in state-level decisions to his legal orchestrations at the federal level, Eisen emerges as a central figure in the concerted efforts to challenge Trump's political legitimacy and aspirations.

Meet The Left-Wing Activist Politician Who Kicked Trump Off The Maine Ballot.  Democratic Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, the woman responsible for kicking former President Trump off the state's 2024 election ballot, is a longtime left-wing activist and Democratic politician.  Bellows unilaterally removed Trump from the ballot Thursday night under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, barring individuals from running for office if they engaged in an insurrection.  The former president has not been charged with, or convicted of, engaging in an insurrection.  Bellows became Maine's Secretary of State in January of 2021 after she was elected by the legislature following two terms in the Maine senate from 2016-20, her official bio states.  Her second term began in January of 2023 and goes for two years.

Federal Government Operatives And Soros Money Behind Plot To Keep Trump Off Ballot.  Maine's top election official removed Trump from the state's 2024 primary ballot on Thursday, joining the Colorado Supreme Court in disqualifying Trump from running for president.  Maine's Secretary of State Shenna Bellows determined that Trump was ineligible to run under the 14th Amendment due to his alleged role in the January 6 Capitol riot. [...] But the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the storming of the Capitol was a security failure, not a coup attempt, and that undercover law enforcement informants or officers may have allowed, or even encouraged, it to happen.  January 6 prosecutors have failed to prove a clear link between the rioters and Trump or his associates.  And the fact that the Department of Justice declined to indict Trump for inciting an insurrection is a tacit recognition that Trump's words leading up to the riot were legal speech.  Even some Democrats and mainstream news commentators agree the Maine decision has no merit.

The Mess in Maine.  Normally campaign season is a period of heightened engagement, as people scour the Internet to research even the most inane questions, knowing that at the end of the process, they get to cast votes on them.  It's why news companies tend to fatten up in election years, like Grizzlies during salmon runs.  People are absorbed by dramas in which they feel themselves to be participants.  This year the public is being forced to research questions in which they have no say.  We all understand now that there's a disqualification clause in the 14th Amendment.  We also understand that this clause seems to have been written with deliberate vagueness.  I'm no lawyer, but I doubt the 14th Amendment was designed to empower unelected state officials to unilaterally strike major party frontrunners from the presidential ballot.  If it was, that's a shock.  I must have missed that in AP Insane Legal Loopholes class.  Is there any way this ends well?

Maine GOP state lawmaker moves to impeach state secretary over Trump ballot removal.  A Maine Republican state lawmaker wants to impeach the Maine secretary of state who removed former President Donald Trump from the primary ballot.  GOP state Rep. John Andrews said he wants to pursue impeachment against Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows after she disqualified Trump from the 2024 Republican primary ballot on Thursday.  In her ruling, Bellows cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which bans from office those who "engaged in insurrection."  Andrews said in a statement that he filed a request with the Maine Revisor's Office saying he wanted "to file a Joint Order, or whichever is the proper parliamentary mechanism under Mason's Rules, to impeach Secretary of State Shenna Bellows."

Persecutor Jack Smith fears presidential immunity.  A single executive is part of our three-branch balanced republic, and the executive is restrained by impeachment and having to stand for election for a maximum two terms.  Unfortunately, the contemporary democrat/Socialist/Communist Party recognizes no restraint, and impeachment has become a favored strategic harassment, a weapon employed for the first time in history against Donald Trump when he was no longer in office.  Considering Congress has delegated — abandoned — much of its power to an entirely unaccountable and increasingly aggressive and totalitarian Deep State, that point can't be underestimated.

Maine's Secretary of State Is An Anti-Trump Partisan Democrat.  Maine's Secretary Of State Shenna Bellows joined Democrats in their attack to take down former President Trump as the 2024 election was terrible news for President Joe Biden.  The Trump campaign is accusing Bellows of being a "rabid anti-Trump Democrat" who is relying on her interpretation of the 14th Amendment despite not being a lawyer and never graduating from law school.  She was also a Biden elector in 2020.  In March 2022, Bellows claimed Biden is fighting for democracy, saying, "In speaking to the battle between autocracies and democracies, President Biden reminds us of a crucial struggle of our time.  Our democracy is worth fighting for.  It matters." [Tweet]  She is such a leftist that she thinks that the New York Times is right-wing.  [Tweet]

Jackboot Smith Aims to Silence Trump.  This is absurd, unconstitutional, and Putinesque.  Jack Smith should be immediately removed for even proposing this.  In a move worthy of any aspiring tyrant, Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking the court to prevent Donald Trump from making arguments that he believes are relevant to his defense.  Smith, as the prosecutor, may disagree with Trump's arguments, but last I checked, in our justice system, it is up to a jury to determine the facts of a case.  [Tweet]  Smith's sweeping motion would essentially silence Trump — preventing him from criticizing the Special Counsel, law enforcement, the electoral process, or just about anything else.

Maine Democrat Secretary of State Determines, Without Judicial Hearing, Donald Trump is Disqualified from 2024 GOP Primary Ballot.  At the same time the Colorado Republican Party files a petition to the United States Supreme Court to overturn a disqualification ruling issued by the Colorado Supreme Court, a challenge that will result in President Trump appearing on the Colorado ballot, the Democrat Maine Secretary of State has ruled by fiat that Trump should be disqualified.  Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows issued a public statement declaring that under her independent determination, President Trump should be disqualified. [...] It is a remarkable display of political hubris and hypocrisy to see the Lawfare leftists proclaim they are defending democracy by trying to destroy the foundational "right to vote" of the American electorate.  Then again, the hubris and hypocrisy are a feature of communism, not a flaw therein.

Maine tries to dump Trump:  Secretary of state rules Donald is not eligible for election ballot.  Maine has become the second state to disqualify Donald Trump from the primary ballot, citing the 14th Amendment's ban on anyone who engaged in insurrection from holding office.  The decision by Maine's secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, follows a similar conclusion made on December 19 by Colorado's Supreme Court.  Trump's team on Thursday night said they will appeal the decision, as they will in Colorado.  On Thursday, the Republican Party in Colorado appealed against their Supreme Court's decision, meaning that he is back on the ballot until an expected U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

Jack Smith asks court to ban Trump from introducing evidence of Jan. 6 security failures.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's office asked a federal judge Wednesday to prevent former President Donald Trump from introducing evidence at his Jan. 6 criminal trial concerning selective prosecution and security failures that occurred at the Capitol or making arguments his actions were protected by the First Amendment, suggesting such a defense amounted to politics.  Trump has tried "to inject into this case partisan political attacks and irrelevant and prejudicial issues that have no place in a jury trial," Senior Assistant Special Counsel Molly Gaston wrote in the court filing.  The special counsel is seeking to bar Trump from claiming that he is being selectively prosecuted and introducing evidence supporting such allegations.

Jackboot Smith Aims to Silence Trump.  This is absurd, unconstitutional, and Putinesque.  Jack Smith should be immediately removed for even proposing this.  In a move worthy of any aspiring tyrant, Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking the court to prevent Donald Trump from making arguments that he believes are relevant to his defense.  Smith, as the prosecutor, may disagree with Trump's arguments, but last I checked, in our justice system, it is up to a jury to determine the facts of a case.  [Tweet]  Smith's sweeping motion would essentially silence Trump — preventing him from criticizing the Special Counsel, law enforcement, the electoral process, or just about anything else.

'Under the United States'....  The Colorado Court claimed that the [14th] Amendment was "self-enforcing."  This means that they completely ignored the plain language of the Amendment.  Section 5 says, "The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."  One of the key principles of legal interpretation is, expressio unius est exclusio alterius (the expression of one thing means the exclusion of others).  In short, as Justice Antonin Scalia noted in his book A Matter of Interpretation (2018), this is the commonsense way to read the law.  Section 5 says Congress has to enforce Section 3.  It is not self-enforcing.  Scalia is in good company here.  Not one member of the Congress that wrote the 14th Amendment is on record to suggest that it was self-enforcing.  They were all agreed with the need for Congress to flesh things out by statute.  Strike one.  The second issue is insurrection.  Logically, Donald Trump, the sitting president, could not commit insurrection against himself.

Michigan Supreme Court rejects bid to take Trump off primary ballot.  The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an attempt to remove former President Trump from the state's primary ballot under the 14th Amendment's insurrection ban.  A liberal-leaning group had appealed a state appeals court ruling that concluded, regardless of whether the 14th Amendment disqualifies Trump from holding office, Michigan's secretary of state lacks the legal authority to remove him from the ballot.  The state's highest court, controlled by Democrats, let that lower ruling stand, saying in an unsigned order that it was "not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court."  The decision hands a legal victory for Trump as his lawyers seek to stave off 14th Amendment lawsuits filed across the country, aimed at preventing the former president's return to the White House.

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud:  Biden Might Lose, So Screw the Constitution.  There is a debate raging on the Left about the Colorado Supreme Court's unconstitutional decision to strip Donald Trump off the ballot.  The decision, as you know, is based on a claim that Trump's behavior post-election amounted to "insurrection" and that the 14th Amendment precludes insurrectionists from running for president.  I am no lawyer, but I can see many problems with this argument, including the obvious one that insurrection is a legal term with a specific definition.  As it is a violation of a law, an insurrectionist must be convicted to be defined as such.  In other words, you can't just say, "He is an insurrectionist," and Wham! he is ineligible to be president.  We have a legal system in which there is a presumption of innocence, and, by the way, Trump is not even charged, no less convicted of "insurrection" or "rebellion."  Lots of lawyers have pointed this out, although there are plenty of Left-wing lawyers who long ago gave up on the notion of laws being anything other than malleable tools for enforcing their desires.  One would have to assume that the US Supreme Court will overturn this decision, but we still have to ask why the Left is going in this direction.

Trump Attorneys:  Appeals Court Should Toss D.C. Indictment On 'Immunity' Grounds.  "During the 234 years from 1789 to 2023, no current or former President had ever been criminally prosecuted for official acts," the Trump lawyers wrote.  "That unbroken tradition died this year, and the historical fallout is tremendous.  The indictment of President Trump threatens to launch cycles of recrimination and politically motivated prosecution that will plague our Nation for many decades to come and stands likely to shatter the very bedrock of our Republic — the confidence of American citizens in an independent judicial system."  Trump's lawyers urged the appellate panel that's set to hear oral arguments on Jan. 9 to kick the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan "with instructions to dismiss the indictment with prejudice."

Jack (Smith) Not So Nimble.  It seems clear to me that Jack Smith was appointed for the purpose of besetting Donald J. Trump and finding a means to keep him from running for president again.  If I'm right, Smith's many strategies have come to naught this week and it is extremely unlikely that the cases he instituted in the District of Columbia and Florida (meritless as I think they are) will ever be resolved before the election. [...] Further complicating matters, the Supreme Court just granted certiorari upon a petition by a person charged with obstructing an official proceeding on January 6 — the Fischer case.  And much of the case before Judge Chutkan uses the same arguments against Trump that are at issue in that case.  Oral arguments in that case probably won't be heard until sometime in March or April, and surely it will take time for an opinion by the Court, an opinion which has significant bearing on a great deal of Smith's case.  If the government loses that case, there will not be much left for Smith to prosecute should by some miracle he gets a trial before the election.

Former AG drops bombshell allegation against Jack Smith: 'Has no more authority' than Taylor Swift.  According to former President Ronald Reagan's Attorney General Ed Meese, special counsel Jack Smith is a "naked emperor" whose requests should be rejected by the Supreme Court because he was unconstitutionally appointed to begin with.  Meese joined forces with law professors Steven G. Calabresi and Gary S. Lawson to file a friend-of-the-court brief on Wednesday arguing that, as a private citizen, Smith's appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. [...] "Under the Appointments Clause, inferior officers can be appointed by department heads only if Congress so directs by statute... and so directs specifically enough to overcome a clear-statement presumption in favor of presidential appointment and senatorial confirmation," Meese wrote, according to Fox News Digital.  "No such statute exists for the Special Counsel."

A smart amicus brief says Jack Smith is an illegitimate special prosecutor.  Leftist judges usually write horrible opinions that are filled with bazillions of case citations and facts, most of which are, at best, marginally relevant.  They do this to hide that the conclusions are intellectually and factually bankrupt.  Rule of thumb in the law:  The clearer an argument, the stronger the position.  That's true for any legal argument, as is demonstrated by the amicus brief that former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese and two law professors filed before the Supreme Court.  It argues with exquisite clarity that Jack Smith's appointment as Special Prosecutor was unconstitutional, which would void everything he's done. [...] The operative facts are simple.  Despite having a whole host of Assistant U.S. Attorneys available to him, when it came to investigating the allegations swirling around January 6, Merrick Garland appointed someone who is not a U.S. Attorney but is, instead, a private citizen to investigate the matter (and, naturally, to bring preordained charges).

Turley: January 6 Wasn't Insurrection or Rebellion — 14th Amendment Doesn't Apply.  Thursday on FNC's "The Story," network contributor Jonathan Turley questioned the merits of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the 2024 primary election ballot.  According to Turley, the 14th Amendment didn't apply because January 6 was a riot, not an insurrection.  "It's nonsense," he said.  "I mean, first of all, there's really interesting analogies to go to Bush v. Gore, you know, a little over 20 years ago, they had another 4-3 decision by another state Supreme Court.  And what the court did is they were uncomfortable with the ambiguous standards being used by Florida.  This is even more so.  When I read the 14th Amendment, I see the words insurrection or rebellion.  This was neither.  This was a riot. [...]"

Supreme Court Sends Jack Smith Packing — Denies His Request For Ruling on Trump Immunity Argument.  The US Supreme Court on Friday denied Jack Smith's request for a ruling on Trump's immunity argument.  Jack Smith last Monday asked the US Supreme Court to weigh in on Trump's immunity claims.  President Trump on Wednesday urged the US Supreme Court to reject Jack Smith's request to expedite the ruling on his immunity argument.  Trump's lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged 'crimes' committed while he served as US President.

Democrats Are Staging A Coup In Broad Daylight.  If it wasn't obvious before now that the left will do anything to stop Donald Trump from winning a second term in the White House, the events of the last few days should leave no doubt in any American's mind.  Democrats, including President Biden, are prepared not only to rig the 2024 election in broad daylight but also to twist the U.S. Constitution and undermine the republic so they can hold on to power.  As most everyone knows by now, an infamous 4-3 majority of the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that voters in their state will not be allowed to cast a ballot for Trump in next year's presidential election.  The court's outlandish claim is that Trump is ineligible to appear on the ballot because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says candidates who have "engaged in insurrection" are prohibited from holding public office.  According to the court, which is dominated by left-wing ideologues appointed by Democrat governors (all the judges on the Colorado Supreme Court are Democrats, some are just more radical than others), Trump meets this definition because he "incited" a riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.  Never mind that Trump has yet to be convicted of a crime associated with Jan. 6 (or any crime for that matter) or that the 14th Amendment doesn't include the president or vice president in a list of offices to which its Section 3 provision applies.

Whatever It Takes Won't Be Enough.  And just like that — snap ! — the news about the Colorado Supreme Court's droll action against candidate DJ Trump vanished from the front page (or top screens) of The New York Times.  Do you know why?  I'll tell you:  Because the political Left has finally managed to embarrass itself with a "lawfare" gambit so nakedly fatuous that it exposes the faction's drive to destroy the election process, and with it our country.  This is what you get from a regime that faked its way to power and now must strain to cover up its long train of crimes, abuses, and effronteries to common sense, while running out of tricks to keep fooling even its own deranged followers.  Somehow, the act of kicking a leading candidate off the ballot has finally registered as inconsistent with "defending our democracy."

There's A Direct Line Between Joe Biden's Deep State And Trump Getting Removed From Colorado's Ballot.  The left-wing legal organization behind Colorado's decision to remove former President Donald Trump from its Republican primary ballot has a direct link to the Biden administration.  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) President and CEO Noah Bookbinder is a member of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) tasked with giving real-time advice to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS website says.  CREW brought the Colorado case against Trump and celebrated the Colorado Supreme Court's 4-3 ruling to keep Trump off the state's GOP primary ballot.  "Our Constitution clearly states that those who violate their oath by attacking our democracy are barred from serving in government.  It has been an honor to represent the petitioners, and we look forward to ensuring that this vitally important ruling stands," Bookbinder said in a press release.  Bookbinder is a former trial attorney for the Department of Justice's (DOJ) public integrity section and former chief counsel for criminal justice for the Senate Judiciary Committee.  He repeatedly donated to former President Barack Obama's re-election campaign during his tenure with the Senate, Federal Elections Commission (FEC) records show.

Four Fascist Colorado Judges Tell Voters Who to Vote For.  Let's remove the fact that this insurrection accusation against Trump is objectively laughable.  Former President Donald Trump has not been convicted of anything, much less insurrection.  Insurrection is a crime.  You cannot be guilty of insurrection until a jury finds you guilty.  Nevertheless, these four black-robed fascists ruled against a former American president as though he were a convicted criminal.  These fascists punished a man who, according to our sacred Constitution, is presumed innocent.  Whether we are talking about a former president or a convicted three-time felon who now stands accused of a fourth felony, before a jury rules, it is un-American for anyone to punish either as though they are guilty.  Four State Supreme Court judges blithely ignoring that basic Constitutional protection is nothing less than the stuff of banana republics.  What's more, in this particular case, Trump is not the only one suffering at the hands of four belligerents with no respect for the Constitution and Rule of Law.  We The People are being punished.

Here Are the 16 States Where Efforts to Remove Trump from the Ballot Are Underway.  With their advocates buoyed by the apparent success of the Colorado-based lawsuit to deny former President Donald Trump a place on the 2024 presidential ballot, efforts to use the courts to thwart Trump's chance at the White House are underway in almost a third of U.S. states.  The core argument against Trump — the front-runner in the GOP primary race — is that a part of the post-Civil War 14th Amendment bars those who have committed insurrection against the government from seeking federal office, specifically listing the legislative branch.  Success requires two things.  First, a judge has to rule that Trump committed an insurrection against the country, which a Colorado judge did in a ruling equating the [e]vents of Jan. 6, 2021, with an insurrection and holding Trump culpable.  Second, the amendment has to be interpreted as saying it includes the presidency, which the Colorado Supreme Court did this week in its ruling that said the former president can't be on the ballot.

Washington Post Editorial Board:  The Supreme Court Should Toss the Colorado Decision.  People (including our own Ed Morrissey) have been saying this since the decision appeared Tuesday but I'm still a bit surprised to see the Washington Post's editorial board making the same case.  After laying out the basis of the Colorado decision under the 14th Amendment, the board points out "the law is not so clear."  The board argues that section 3 of the Amendment should probably apply to the president (which is what the Colorado Supreme Court found) but says that doesn't really matter unless you've also concluded that President Trump did in fact commit insurrection in connection with Jan. 6.  And on that point, the Colorado court is way out on a limb.

Trump off the ballot?  First, the reason Trump is being excluded is new, untested, and profoundly controversial in its application here.  Basically, the court is saying Trump cannot appear on the primary ballot because of a subsection of the Fourteenth Amendment meant to exclude Confederate officials who waged a civil war against the United States.  Using that provision to exclude Trump is utterly novel.  Its unprecedented use here invites the conclusion that it is being wielded as a political sledgehammer by Trump's opponents and that some of those opponents wear judicial robes.  Trump's supporters took a nanosecond to reach that conclusion, and they are furious.  But it's not just them.  All his Republican opponents came out immediately against the court ruling.  The backlash against the ruling will also spill over to other Trump prosecutions.  Prosecutors waited three full years to bring these cases, and it is not a wild conjecture to think they waited to inflict maximum damage on a presidential campaign.  Special Counsel Jack Smith strengthened that conclusion recently when he appealed directly to the US Supreme Court to contest Trump's claim of immunity.  Smith's argument for by-passing the normal appellate process boils down to the raw claim that "I need to try this guy before the election."  That's a political declaration, not a legal argument.

Who does kicking Trump off the Colorado ballot help?  Does kicking a popular candidate off the electoral ballot protect democracy?  Or is that in fact deeply anti-democratic?  These are the questions that many Americans are pondering after Colorado's Supreme Court voted four to three to block Donald Trump from running in its state in the election next year, citing the insurrection clause in the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution. [...] Donald Trump is probably not going to win in Colorado — he lost comfortably in the state to Hillary Clinton< in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020 — but that's not the point.  The ruling is a clear attempt to establish that Trump, by "inciting an insurrection" on January 6, is persona non grata in American elections according to the Constitution.  It could be used as a precedent to block Trump from running across America in 2024.  Similar cases are making their way through courts in several other states.

Democratic lawfare vs.  Donald Trump.  The story of the 2024 campaign so far is the effort by Democrats and their appointees to use criminal charges and lawsuits to force former President Donald Trump out of the race for a second term in the White House.  The name for such an effort is lawfare — that is, "the strategic use of legal proceedings to intimidate or hinder an opponent," to cite one law dictionary.  The latest development, of course, is the Colorado Supreme Court ruling disqualifying Trump from being on the state ballot.  All seven members of Colorado's highest court were appointed by Democrats.  The case was started by a Washington-based, aggressively anti-Trump activist group called CREW, or Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which recruited local Coloradans to file suit against Trump.  The Colorado case, of course, comes amid a growing number of Democratic legal efforts to bring down Trump.  Here are five additional examples.  All were brought by Democratic or Democratic-appointed prosecutors, and three of the five are being tried before Democratic-appointed judges.

California, Maine Exploring Options to Keep Trump Off Ballot Following Colorado Ruling.  The states of California and Maine are now exploring options to keep former President Trump off their respective state ballots in the wake of Colorado's ruling.  As Breitbart News reported on Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled "in a 4-3 opinion that the Constitution's 'Insurrection Clause' prohibits former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot for the presidency in 2024."  "The court found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three" of the Fourteenth Amendment, the ruling read.  The ruling will partially reverse a previous ruling from Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace, who ruled in November that the Fourteenth Amendment would not apply in the case of former President Trump, being that he is not an officer of the United States as was defined at the time of the amendment's ratification following the Civil War.

The Colorado Ballot Exclusion of Trump is Backfiring.  The unconscionable Colorado Supreme Court decision to exclude Donald Trump from the state's ballot, in what many believe to be a political maneuver to sideline the former president on very dicey grounds, may very well may backfire.  Many prominent Republicans are now calling for President Biden to removed over his complete mishandling of the border.  The Colorado Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision rooted their ruling in the 14th Amendment's "insurrection clause" that prohibits anyone who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, including members of Congress, officers of the United States, or state executives and judicial officers, from engaging in insurrection.  They made this determination under the presumption that Trump was involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack even though there has been no criminal trial against the former president.

The backdoor insurrection conviction will not stand.  The Colorado Supreme Court yesterday decided that Donald Trump "engaged in an insurrection or rebellion" on or about Jan. 6, 2021.  Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, he is therefore ineligible for the presidency and would be removed from the Colorado ballot.  A few points to consider:  The Court on its own volition stayed its order until Jan. 4 to give Trump an opportunity to appeal the case to the real Supreme Court, the United States one.  If he does so, and he will, and the Supreme Court decides to hear the case, and they will, then the order is further stayed until the Supreme Court issues its decision this spring or summer.  The Colorado Supreme Court is comprised of seven justices.  All seven were appointed by Democrat governors.  The U.S. Supreme Court has a materially different composition.  Six of the nine justices are Republican appointees.  Notwithstanding that the Colorado Supreme Court is unanimously Democrat appointees, their decision was 4-3.  Three of the seven Democrat-appointed justices sided with Trump.  The Colorado decision is contrary to decisions in Minnesota and Michigan, whose supreme courts are also majority Democrat appointees.  It's fair to say that the Colorado decision is an outlier, even among Democrat jurists.

Colorado's Supreme Court Blocks Democracy to Bar Trump on the 2024 Ballot.  The Colorado Supreme Court has issued an unsigned opinion, making history in the most chilling way possible.  A divided court barred Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot.  For months, advocates have been filing without success in various states, looking for some court to sign off on a dangerous, novel theory under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.  They finally found four receptive jurists on one of the bluest state supreme courts in the land.  Even on a court composed entirely of justices appointed by Democratic governors, Colorado's Supreme Court split 4-3 on the question.  The majority admitted that this was a case "of first impression" and that there was "sparse" authority on the question.  Yet, the lack of precedent or clarity did not deter these justices from making new law to block Trump from running.

Radical-Left Colorado Supreme Court Disqualifies Trump from 2024 Ballot.  As the Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump will not be on the ballot in Colorado in 2024 thanks to their far-left Supreme Court.  The Court dubiously cited Section 3 of the US Constitution's 14th Amendment which states public officials who have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the US may be disqualified from public office.  Trump did not engage in an insurrection nor has been charged with one.  As TGP readers know, this ruling came in response to a suit brought by the George Soros-funded Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW).  CBS News previously reported the group filed its lawsuit against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Trump in September, arguing the 45th president is disqualified from public office under Section 3.

The Colorado Supreme Court 4-3 Decision Is Pure Nonsense.  President Donald Trump was not charged with "insurrection," is not accused of "insurrection," does not fit the complaint under the definitions of "insurrection," and has never been found guilty of insurrection.  The complaint is moot before the court. [...] As long as President Trump appeals the decision to the Supreme Court, the appeals court stays their own ruling — essentially indefinitely.  The Colorado primary ballots printed, and the primary election will be over, before the Supreme Court puts this on their docket.  In addition to the virtual guarantee the high court will overrule this political nonsense, SCOTUS can make the entire issue moot before them by following their own normal schedule for submissions, arguments, deliberation and opinions delivered by the court.  The Colorado appellate court knows this, that's why they put this self-stay into their 4-3 ruling.

'Election Interference': Colorado Supreme Court Removes Trump From Ballot.  The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in an unprecedented 4-3 decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the state's presidential primary ballot, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.  This is a nakedly partisan, anti-democratic decision that ignores the law and prior precedent.  Under the text and history of the 14th Amendment, as well as court precedent, Trump is not disqualified from running for office for numerous reasons.  First, Section 3 of the 14 Amendment applies only to individuals who were previously a 'member of Congress,' an 'officer of the United States,' or a state official.  Individuals who are elected — such as the president and vice president — are not officers within the meaning of Section 3.  Second, no federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in 'insurrection or rebellion.'  In fact, the Senate acquitted Trump of that charge in his second impeachment.  Third, some scholars assert Section 3 doesn't even exist anymore as a constitutional matter after the Amnesty Acts of 1872 and 1898 — a matter completely ignored by the court today.  Fourth, prior court rulings have held that Section 3 is not self-executing and Congress has never passed any federal law providing for enforcement, meaning that courts such as the Colorado Supreme Court have no legal authority to enforce Section 3.

A Left-Wing Appeals Panel Is Rigging Trump's J6 Case Through Bogus Fast-Track Process.  For Democrats to succeed with their 2024 presidential campaign strategy of imprisoning the current front-runner in the race, they need a massive assist from key judges.  District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan has done everything in her power to speed up the process for one of the complicated cases Democrats have filed against former President Donald Trump.  Whereas the standard federal fraud and conspiracy case takes about two years to get to trial, controversial Special Counsel Jack Smith and Chutkan have worked in concert to get the trial started in March, a breathtaking seven months after Trump's indictment.  Likewise, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Florence Pan is doing her part to assist the effort to give Trump far less time than other defendants to prepare for a trial against him.  Last week, she led a panel to fast-track an appeal in order to facilitate Smith's goal of securing a quick conviction before one of Washington, D.C.'s notoriously partisan juries.  "Any fair-minded observer has to agree" that Smith and Chutkan are acting based on the election schedule, conceded former federal prosecutor and left-wing pundit Elie Honig.  "Just look at Jack Smith's conduct in this case.  The motivating principle behind every procedural request he's made has been speed, has been getting this trial in before the election."  Election interference isn't incidental to this prosecution, then, it's the entire point.

NY AG Brags That the Judge Ruled Against DJT Before the Trial.  NY Attorney General Letitia James gave a very deceptive statement in a new video about the Trump family's alleged fraud over the years.  She must have been thinking of the Biden Crime Family.  She mentioned what we already knew.  Judge Engoron determined Trump engaged in "significant financial fraud" before the trial ever began, and any defense was presented.  In fact, Engoron wouldn't even let the family present some evidence verbally.  "Before this trial even began, the judge ruled in our favor and found that Donald Trump did engage in years of significant financial fraud," Attorney General admitted. "We uncovered throughout this trial, we revealed the full extent of that fraud.  We introduced extensive evidence and questioned more than two dozen witnesses."  They don't seem to realize this is Soviet-like.  Even Russia pretends to have legitimate trials.  These communists are out in the open now.

Meet Lawyer Michael Dreeben, The Man Behind Three Major Anti-Trump Operations.  Eyebrows were raised last week when it was discovered that Special Counsel Jack Smith had added attorney Michael Dreeben to his legal team.  "An interesting detail:  Michael Dreeben somehow snuck into Jack Smith's office.  He was Mueller's appellate guy," enthused Marcy Wheeler, a proponent of the debunked conspiracy theory that Donald Trump stole the 2016 election by colluding with Russia.  Fellow Russia-collusion hoaxer Rachel Maddow of MSNBC ran an entire segment to announce the exciting news that Dreeben is "helming this part of the case," meaning Smith's request to the Supreme Court to look at whether American presidents may be prosecuted for actions taken while they are president.  Left-wing legal activist (and, yes, another bitter clinger Russia-collusion hoaxer) Joyce Vance said her "friend" Dreeben had "framed this petition" before the Supreme Court.  Mueller, of course, is Robert Mueller, the ostensible head of the Mueller probe that treated the Russia conspiracy scam as credible and leaked information to the propaganda press to ensure it had maximum effect.

NY Attorney General Letitia James Admits Her Guilt in Denying Trump Due Process.  In her latest video, New York Attorney General Letitia James admitted her guilt in compromising former President Donald Trump's right to due process.  This comes after she claimed that Judge Arthur Engoron had found Trump guilty of "significant financial fraud" even before the current trial began.  Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in 'damages' when there is no victim in this fraud case and she is also seeking to ban Trump and his sons from operating any businesses in New York.  She accused Trump of inflating his assets and defrauding lenders and insurance companies.

Dog whistle:
Will the Deep State actually assassinate Donald Trump?  The inevitability of another Trump nomination — and possible electoral victory next November — is something Beltway elites are coming to grips with.  Robert Kagan, the neo-con husband of liberal zionist Victoria Nuland, said as much in a recent column for CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post.  Nuland is a bureaucratic parasite (what the media calls a "diplomat") who currently serves in the Biden regime.  Her primary job right now is to ensure yours and my tax dollars are funneled to Volodymyr Zelensky's ever-widening pockets.  Kagan's article is several thousand words long. [...] It is an unhinged rant about how Trump will usher in a "dictatorship" if he ever gets re-elected, which, Kagan admits, is looking very possible.  Kagan theorizes that if Trump wins the presidency he will "immediately become the most powerful person ever to hold that office."  Kagan then ominously asks his audience — most of whom are probably intelligence agents — what they are going to do to prevent this from happening.  "If we thought there was a 50 percent chance of an asteroid crashing into North America a year from now, would we be content to hope that it wouldn't?" he wonders.  "Or would we be taking every conceivable measure to try to stop it, including many things that might not work but that, given the magnitude of the crisis, must be tried anyway?"

CNN Legal Analyst Makes Concerning Statement About Prosecution of Trump.  CNN had an interesting discussion involving senior legal analyst Elie Honig concerning whether Jack Smith was acting based on the election schedule.  Honig believed that he was.  [Tweet with video clip]  But Honig didn't leave it there.  "The motivating principle behind every procedural request he's [Smith] made has been speed, has been getting this trial in before the election," Honig said.  He noted how the trial date that Smith asked for — "five months out" — was fast compared to Jan. 6 trial requests.  "Donald Trump is being given far less time to prepare," he said.  Then Honig noted the DOJ policy that you're not supposed to do anything that might impact the election.

Republican Elise Stefanik demands ethics probe into D.C. judge who's ruled in Trump's January 6 case.  Top Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik filed a judiciary complaint accusing the judge in Donald Trump's January 6 case of engaging in 'highly inappropriate political speech.'  The staunch Trump ally and GOP conference chair requested an ethics investigation into D.C. Circuit Court Judge Beryl Howell over her November remarks at the Women's White Collar Defense Gala.  During the address Howell signaled the January 6 Capitol riot had been the result of 'big lies.'

Anything you have ever said can be used against you, years later.
Jack Smith Will Use Trump's Cellphone Data in Federal Election Trial.  Anti-Trump special counsel Jack Smith revealed that he plans to present data analysts to comment on Donald Trump's White House cellphone and Twitter data in an upcoming Washington, D.C., trial in the federal election case.  Smith wrote in a court filing on Dec. 11, 2023, that the government intended to call up to three expert witnesses to testify in the case.  Trump is charged with four counts related to his post-election efforts to challenge the process and results of the 2020 election, according to the Epoch Times.  The filing also explained how leftist prosecutors plan to use the mountains of data obtained under warrant from Twitter about Trump's account, including location data.

Lawsuits Against Trump Are So Transparently Political They're Backfiring Badly With Democrats.  It turns out that the American people know a scam when they see one — even Democrats.  A new I&I/TIPP poll shows indisputably that the lawsuits against Trump are beginning to boomerang in the minds of Democrats. [...] Donald Trump is currently indicted on 91 obviously orchestrated felony counts, as well as other lawsuits in multiple venues around the U.S. There's the indictment about legally held documents at Mar-a-Lago, there's the one about "inciting" an insurrection, and there's the fraudulent civil lawsuit in New York on which the judge has already ruled the former president is guilty without hearing the evidence.  Then there's the other New York case alleging "hush money" payments.  There's the lawfare special from the 1980s alleged assault in New York.  There's the racketeering lawsuit brought by Fani Willils in Georgia alleging the former president tried to "subvert" an election.  There are lawsuits to keep him off the ballot in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and 17 other states.

Jack Smith Collected Images, Website Visits And Usage Data From Trump's Cellphone, Filing Reveals.  Special Counsel Jack Smith collected data from the cellphone former President Donald Trump used in the White House, according to a recent court filing.  Smith revealed three expert witnesses he may call on during Trump's coming 2020 election trial in a court filing Monday, including one who "extracted and processed data from the White House cell phones used by the defendant [Trump] and one other individual."  Data reviewed by Smith's expert witness includes images and website visits, along with phone "usage" around Jan. 6, 2021, according to the filing.

Jim Jordan wants a medal for stating the obvious.
Jim Jordan Claims Fulton County DA Fani Willis Colluded With J6 Committee to Indict Trump.  Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan's probe into Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' indictment against former President Donald Trump has seen an interesting turn of events.  Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has been looking into the indictment over suspicions that it is motivated more by politics than by a pursuit of justice.  On Tuesday, Jordan sent another letter to Willis highlighting her refusal to comply with the demands in the previous letter the committee sent.  Of particular note, however, is a new revelation that Willis' office reached out to the Democrats' House Select Jan. 6 Committee to get information that could aid in her effort against Trump.  In the letter, Jordan notes that Willis' indictment and prosecution against the former president "implicate substantial federal interests, and the circumstances surrounding your actions raise serious concerns about whether they are politically motivated."  The lawmaker pointed out, "It is noteworthy that just four days before this indictment, you launched a new campaign fundraising website that highlighted your investigation into President Trump."

Subtle Like a Brick Through a Window - CIA Outlet Approves Donald Trump Assassination.  I have stayed away from this subject for eight years; however, everyone in/around U.S. politics knows the Washington Post, owned by Big Tech Amazon, is effectively the PR firm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  No one inside the DC beltway does not understand this basic truth.  Therefore, when the husband of State Dept official Victoria Nuland, a man named Robert Kagan, writes an op-ed in the CIA newsletter, effectively calling for President Trump to receive the Julius Caesar treatment, the non-subtle message is for the CIA to repeat their Kennedy performance and kill President Trump.  As alarming as this acceptance might sound, there are no intellectually honest people who would deny it.

There Are Games Afoot In The Scheduling of Trump's Two Federal Cases.  First Commandment of federal criminal trial practice:  Thou shalt not take deliberate steps to disrupt a federal judge's calendar.  There is almost nothing that will bring a federal prosecutor or defense attorney grief and vituperation more quickly or in greater volume than to deliberately do something that forces a federal judge to alter his or her schedule to accommodate something an attorney has done.  At the top of that list for prosecutors there is probably a new entry now — indicting the highest profile defendant possible in two different courts and then seeking a schedule in the second case that makes it impossible for the earlier-indicted case to proceed as scheduled.  What's happening now with scheduling in the Florida and D.C. cases is that each Judge is playing a game of "chicken" with the other court's calendar.

The legal labyrinth facing Donald Trump.  Donald Trump's children are due to give evidence in a New York courtroom in a civil action against the family and their company.  He, himself, is due to testify in the case next week.  Trump's journey through the courts is turning into a legal labyrinth.  You'd be forgiven for losing track, so here's a refresher guide.

Video footage depicts gross misconduct by Judge Engoron's law clerk in Trump trial.  The civil fraud case against President Donald Trump has hit a snag after Judge Arthur Engoron's law clerk, Allison Greenfield, was exposed for previously praising Joe Biden as the "best president in the history of the United States."  Greenfield made the cringeworthy comment while attending a Democrat fundraiser back in October 2022.  While she sat in the front row, Greenfield yelled "Yeah!" while shaking her head in agreement with Democrat politician speakers as they bashed Trump.  All of this took place while the Trump civil fraud case was still pending, which many say constitutes a mistrial.  Greenfield's bias apparently invalidates her as a qualified law clerk in the case.

New York Appeals Court Reinstitutes President Trump Gag Order Without Any Explanation.  In the New York civil action against Donald Trump, all the banks and lenders did their own due diligence on financing terms with Donald Trump.  All operational loans and Trump Org. business loans were paid back.  There were no defaults or banking interests adversely impacted.  There are no victims of what the State calls "fraud," yet this judge is ruling the Trump organization must dissolve all business interests in the state and exit.  Inside the insufferable nonsense represented by the trial Judge Arthur Engoron, acting on behalf of his partisan political clerk Allison Greenfield, issued a gag order forbidding President Trump from complaining about the political affiliations of the judge, clerk and any other court official or possible witness.  After an interim stay of the gag order by an appellate justice, the New York appeals court has reversed the stay and reinstituted the gag order.

New York Appeals Court Reinstates Gag Order on Trump in Letitia James' Show Trial.  A New York Appeals Court on Thursday reinstated a gag order against President Trump in Letitia James's Soviet-style civil fraud case.  Earlier this month a New York Appeals judge temporarily lifted NY Judge Arthur Engoron's gag order on Trump.  New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in 'damages' in her lawfare case against President Trump.  There are no victims in this fraud case.

Judge Chutkan Denies Trump Motion to Subpoena for Missing J6 Records.  Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Special Counsel Jack Smith's case against former President Donald Trump for 2020 election interference, this week denied a motion by the former president to seek materials he said the House Committee investigating January 6, 2021, had not turned over to the National Archives.  On Monday, Chutkan rejected Trump's motion, accusing him of going on a "fishing expedition."

Deutsche Bank May Have Just Destroyed Letitia James' Civil Fraud Case Against Trump.  Deutsche Bank might have just blown up Letitia James's civil fraud case against President Trump.  Radical Marxist New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking $250 million in 'damages' when there is no victim in this fraud case and she is also seeking to ban Trump and his sons from operating any businesses in New York.  She accused Trump of inflating his assets and defrauding lenders and insurance companies.  A Deutsche Bank executive who worked to approve at least one of Trump's loans testified on Tuesday that it is "atypical, but not entirely unusual" to reduce a client's asset values and still approve a loan.  This type of lending is typical in high net-worth, high-profile clients like Donald Trump.  Anyone with basic knowledge of banking, lending, portfolio and credit risk management knows this.

Trump is Winning Ballot Access Cases.  The ongoing campaign by progressive activists to deny former President Trump a place on state ballots received yet another serious setback late Friday.  After a weeklong bench trial, Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace issued a 102-page opinion in Anderson v. Griswold concluding that "Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to Trump."  She ordered Colorado's Secretary of State Jena Griswold to place his name on Colorado's presidential primary ballot.  This is the fourth state in three weeks to reject efforts to keep Trump off their ballots.  This case will inevitably be appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court.  On Oct. 30, a judge in New Hampshire declined to hear Castro v. Scanlon because the plaintiff lacked standing to sue and the complaint raised a "nonjusticiable political question."  On Nov. 8, the Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed Growe v. Simon, as follows:  "Because there is no error to correct here as to the presidential nomination primary, and petitioners' other claims regarding the general election are not ripe, the petition must be dismissed."  On Nov. 14, a Michigan judge rejected LaBrant v. Benson on the grounds that the courts have no authority to prevent Trump's name from appearing on the state's primary ballot.

Trump's lawyer goes to battle with government over his ability to call January 6 trial witness a 'slimy liar'.  U.S. Court of appeals court judges asked a series of probing questions about a federal judge's 'gag' order that would prevent him from 'targeting' potential witnesses in the January 6 case.  The judges picked apart Judge Tanya Chutkan's order, which prohibits Trump from targeting court personnel and witnesses, following his repeated attacks on Special Counsel Jack Smith.  But they also acknowledged the difficulty of managing the case, asking whether the former president could use social media to in effect tell a witness 'don't act treasonously — don't cooperate' as a form of intimidation.  Trump's lawyer raised repeated concerns that the order would infringe on the former president's First Amendment rights, and members of the three-judge panel who are considering it weighed in with some of their own misgivings, while asking questions about who the former president could go after and under what circumstances.

Trump Might Just Enter 2024 Election Unscathed As Court Dates Are Delayed, Legal Attacks Falter.  As former President Donald Trump's legal difficulties continue to stack up, scheduling conflicts and trial delays offer relief and highlight an emerging path for him to enter the 2024 election without facing a potential conviction, should he be the Republican nominee.  Facing the strain of four separate criminal indictments while running a presidential campaign, Trump has sought to postpone trials in his cases until after the election.  At least two judges — the one overseeing his Florida classified documents case and another overseeing his New York case for allegedly falsifying business records — have signaled a willingness to delay, while Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis believes the Georgia trial may not conclude until early 2025.

In win for Trump, judge stays gag order in New York civil fraud case.  President Donald Trump scored a judicial win on Thursday when an appeals court judge temporarily lifted a gag order preventing him from criticizing court personnel and the prosecutors in his New York civil fraud case.  The gag order was originally imposed by Judge Arthur Engoron after Trump posted an image of his primary clerk, calling her "Schumer's girlfriend."  Judge David Friedman curtailed the restrictions while the appellate process plays out, suggesting it ran afoul of Trump's First Amendment rights, the Associated Press reported.  The decision followed an emergency hearing on Thursday after Trump's legal team challenged the gag order the evening prior.  "I don't see a reason for restrictions because Ms. James is continuing to disparage my client.  Both sides need to be able to speak and the fact that I, frankly, couldn't and my client couldn't speak, for the past however many days, is so unconstitutional," Trump attorney Alina Habba argued.

Trump Asks For Mistrial In Civil Fraud Case Due To 'Tangible And Overwhelming' Evidence Of Bias.  Former President Donald Trump filed for a mistrial Wednesday in his New York civil fraud case, citing "tangible and overwhelming" evidence of bias.  Trump's 30-page motion alleges that Judge Arthur Engoron engaged in extrajudicial activities "publically commenting" in the trial and is impremissably "co-judging" with his law clerk Allison Greenfield, who is involved with "extensive, public partisan activities."  He also attacked the gag orders Engoron issued barring Trump and other parties from speaking publicly about members of his staff as being imposed to prevent these issues from "becoming public."  "Such evidence, coupled with an unprecedented departure from standard judicial procedure, has tainted these proceedings and a mistrial is warranted," his lawyers said.  "Specifically, the Court's own conduct, coupled with the Principal Law Clerk, Allison Greenfield's ("Principal Law Clerk") unprecedented role in the trial and extensive, public partisan activities, would cause even a casual observer to question the Court's partiality."

Michigan judge denies effort to keep Trump off 2024 ballot.  A Michigan judge on Tuesday dismissed an effort to keep former President Donald Trump off the state's ballot in 2024.  The judge said that under Michigan law, the secretary of state does not have the authority to intervene in a primary election if the party chooses to list a candidate who would not qualify for the office.  "The ultimate decision is made by the respective political party, with the consent of the listed candidate," the judge wrote.  The decision comes after a group of Michigan voters in September filed a legal challenge to Trump's candidacy, arguing that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and his and conduct surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, making him ineligible for office.

Selective prosecution against Trump.  There are two brief but powerful statements about law and justice etched in stone upon the two buildings in Washington, D.C. which house those most responsible for carrying them out.  On the Department of Justice building, on its most visible Pennsylvania Avenue side, these words appear: "Where law ends tyranny begins."  On the Supreme Court building we behold:  "Equal Justice Under Law."  Both of these precepts can only have authentic meaning if selective enforcement of the law for improper purposes is avoided.  Where law ends is where discretionary enforcement begins, and it will be tyranny if carried out selectively for improper ends.  Equal justice under law also cannot exist if carried out with such selectivity.

Judge rejects Donald Trump's bid to delay classified documents trial until after the election.  Donald Trump has been hit with a fresh legal blow after a federal judge rejected his pleas to delay his classified documents until after the election.  U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon called the request to postpone by the former president's defense lawyers 'premature', and signalled the trial will start in May.  The decision came as Trump tore into a CNN report that Mar-a-Lago staff — including a maid, a plumber and a woodworker — could be called to testify.

Elise Stefanik Files Complaint Against Judge Overseeing Trump Civil Fraud Trial.  Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik filed a complaint against the judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, calling him out for "inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance," she announced on Twitter Friday.  Stefanik filed her complaint against Judge Arthur Engoron with the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, alleging that he is "not honoring [Trump's] rights to due process and a fair trial," according to her tweet.  She pointed to examples of Engoron's "clear judicial bias," including telling Trump's attorney last year that his client is "just a bad guy" who Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James "should go after."  His "bizarre and biased behavior is making New York's judicial system a laughingstock," Stefanik wrote.  "If Judge Engoron can railroad a billionaire New York businessman, a former President of the United States, and the leading presidential candidate, just imagine what he could do to all New Yorkers," she told the commission.

Unfairly Targeting Trump.  The Left's never-ending attempts to vilify everyone in Donald Trump's orbit never cease to amaze.  From top advisors to future cabinet members, they are taking down anyone who merely agrees with the former president.  Even the waitstaff at Mar-a-Lago are not immune.  Are Democrats so intolerant that they cannot entertain an opposing thought without massive, overreaching destruction?  Does a challenge to a socialist's core threaten them so much that there are no barricades to stop the crossing of the Rubicon and into unconstitutional realms?  If the Left's anti-Trump witch-hunt is indeed about obtaining power, then there is no longer any schoolhouse rock in Washington, D.C. There used to be off-limits zones, but that went away with Trump's first presidency.

It sounds like a Perry Mason moment!
Trump Pulls Out Paper from His Suit During Testimony, Says It Completely Vindicates Him.  It was a show-stopper moment in the political show trial of former President Donald Trump.  On the witness stand on Monday in his civil fraud trial in Manhattan, the former New York real estate king and leading 2024 GOP presidential candidate drew a piece of paper from his jacket pocket that he said would end the case once and for all.  Naturally, he wasn't allowed to read it.  According to the New York Post, the document was likely a disclaimer notice, a kind that's routine in major financial transactions, that warned potential lenders to the Trump Organization that they needed to conduct their own valuations of Trump properties before deciding to lend the business money.

Trump Lawyer Alina Habba:  NY Judge Was 'Definitely Assisting' Anti-Trump Lawyers.  Justice Arthur Engoron was "definitely assisting" the opposing attorneys in espousing anti-Trump sentiments on Monday, former President Donald Trump's lawyer and spokeswoman Alina Habba said during a Tuesday appearance on Breitbart News Daily, outlining the absurdities of the New York civil fraud case while discussing some of the drama around Trump's testimony.  Trump testified at the New York County Supreme Court on Monday and had a back-and-forth with Justice Arthur Engoron, which went viral after the judge reportedly asked Trump's counsel, "Can you control your client?  This is not a political rally."  Trump counsel Chris Kise reportedly responded, "You're in control of the courtroom, not me."  In another viral moment, Habba told Engoron he was there to "hear what he [Trump] has to say" after repeated interruptions.  "I'm not here to hear what he has to say.  He's here to answer questions," Engoron retorted.

Special Counsel Jack Smith argues that Trump can still be convicted in Jan 6 case even if former president genuinely believed he won the election.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's team have filed another blistering filing in Donald Trump's January 6 case, accusing him of 'deceit, trickery, or dishonest means,' while arguing his own belief that he won the 2020 election isn't relevant to charges he defrauded the government.  The indictment that has Trump heading toward a March trial in federal court in Washington, DC charges that he 'made knowingly false claims that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 presidential election,' then led a conspiracy to try to overturn the results for Joe Biden.  This included 'dozens' of claims of substantial fraud, dead voters, or illegal alien voters, even while top officials in his own government were telling him there was no such large scale fraud.

The Editor says...
I am convinced that tens of millions of legitimate voters — including myself — believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, or he would have won in the absence of wholesale fraud.  Organized fraud.  Premeditated fraud.  Fraud that can only be carried out after an extensive conspiracy.  (There — I said it.)  Someday the truth will be known.

Former Trump Official Sues Biden Admin Over Committee With Members Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter.  Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Richard Grenell along with America First Legal are suing the Biden administration, according to a copy of the lawsuit first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the formation of the "expert" board to address issues of national security in September to include Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, who all signed an October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop and suggesting its release was a Russian disinformation ploy.  The latest legal action alleges that the group's creation was done in an illegal manner and that it lacks credible members, according to the copy of the lawsuit.

Court Pauses Order Restricting Trump's Speech About Federal Election Case.  A gag order against former President Donald Trump related to his federal 2020 election case has been paused by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals after Trump filed an emergency request on Thursday saying the order violated his First Amendment rights.  The court issued an administrative stay, saying that the decision was made to give the judges more time to hear Trump's arguments.  The court said that the ruling "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits."  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, had imposed the gag order on Trump Sunday night after Trump criticized former chief of staff Mark Meadows.  Chutkan is overseeing special counsel Jack Smith's federal election case against Trump, who has denied any allegations of wrongdoing.

DC Appeals Court Overrules Judge Chutkan Gag Order.  A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted District Judge Tanya Chutkan's gag order prohibiting Trump from criticizing the special counsel, Jack Smith, or "any foreseeable witness" in the case.  In my opinion, it was the generalized "foreseeable witness" part of the Chutkan order that became the central issue for the appellate court.  Jack Smith could name anyone as a potential witness, just to silence the accused.  President Trump's team previously indicated in their filing to the appeals court that they are prepared to seek immediate relief at the Supreme Court.  However, at least now, that approach will not be needed as the DC Appellate Court has blocked the gag order.

Knowing They Will Lose At The Ballot Box,Soros-Funded Leftists Turn To Lawfare To Defeat Trump.  If leftists have their way, the 2024 presidential election will be decided in courtrooms by liberal judges — not by Americans at ballot boxes across the country.  With President Biden's poll numbers at all-time lows and public polling showing former President Trump consistently leading in 2024, Democrats are scrambling not to win the support of voters but to simply disqualify their opponent through Democrat operatives, attorneys, and judges.  This strategy is especially rich coming from the "democracy is on the ballot" crowd.  Apparently, "democracy is on the ballot" means only Joe Biden is on the ballot.  I've been in Denver this week witnessing the latest use of lawfare to defeat Trump in front of Democrat judges instead of American voters.  Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) is behind the irresponsible and left-wing billionaire-funded lawsuit.  CREW, which received funding from George Soros' Open Society Foundations, has a history of frivolous lawsuits targeting Donald Trump.  The left-wing organization exists to abuse the legal system to harm Republicans, and they might get lucky this time with their Hail Mary attempt to take out Trump.  The judge presiding over their case is Sarah Wallace, a Democrat donor who was appointed just last year by Democrat Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.

Could Be Interesting — Tucker Carlson Visits Julian Assange?  For a brief moment I will allow myself to imagine that Tucker Carlson's research team is aware of the information we have previously provided.  If so, an interview with Julian Assange could be exceptionally interesting.  Tucker posts on Twitter that he was visiting with Julian Assange today:  [Tweet] [...] Julian Assange was not a threat to Donald Trump, but he was a threat to those who attempted to stop Donald Trump.  In 2017, the DC system was reacting to a presidency they did not control.  As an outcome, the Office of the President was being managed and influenced by some with ulterior motives. [...] Why would CIA Director Mike Pompeo be so concerned about Julian Assange and Wikileaks in April 2017?  In April of 2017 Pompeo's boss, President Donald Trump, was under assault from the intelligence community writ large, and every deep state actor was leaking to the media in a frenzied effort to continue the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.  The Trump-Russia effort was so all consuming that FBI Director James Comey was even keeping a diary of engagement with President Trump in order to support an ongoing investigation built on fraud — yet, Mike Pompeo is worried about Julian Assange.

Colorado Prosecutors Caught in Major Lie in Court Case to Remove President Trump from Ballot.  The Democrat Party's radical far-left attorneys in Colorado delivered their opening statement to toss President Trump from the ballot in the state.  During their opening remarks, the Trump-hating attorneys shared two clips of President Trump's speech at the Ellipse to a million supporters on January 6, 2021.  They insist President Trump started a violent riot.  But they refused to play video of his statement calling on his supporters to peacefully march to the US Capitol.  But that's not all.  The prosecuting attorneys also lied about their timeline of events they showed the court on Monday.  The attorneys misrepresented the time stamps on the videos they played in court — not be minutes but by hours!

Complaint Calls for Trump New York Trial Judge's Clerk to Be Disbarred for Excessive Political Donations.  The top clerk for New York Justice Arthur Engoron, Allison Greenfield, appears to have violated judicial rules preventing officers of the court from making excessive political donations, Breitbart News has learned.  What's more, it appears Engoron was advised of Greenfield's violations in a 72-page complaint addressed to his court via email that was also filed with the New York State Bar Association the same day he decided to issue a gag order against former President Donald Trump in his case currently playing out in Engoron's Manhattan courtroom.  Engoron has subsequently fined Trump a total of $15,000 for two alleged violations of that gag order preventing the former president from criticizing his principal law clerk.

Trump civil fraud trial is a sham.  One of the central allegations in this trial is that Trump and his associates used "false and misleading" financial statements to secure more favorable loan terms.  However, it is crucial to distinguish between aggressive business practices and fraudulent intent.  Trump's alleged inflated valuations of assets can be attributed to his shrewd business acumen.  Real estate values often vary and are subject to interpretation, making differing valuations familiar in the industry.  The prosecution must demonstrate that Trump and his associates deliberately misled lenders and not simply that they had different assessments of asset values.  It is essential to emphasize that the charges against Trump and the Trump Organization are civil, not criminal.  In a civil trial, the burden of proof is considerably lower than in a criminal case.  The prosecution merely needs to show that specific actions occurred and that they were fraudulent without having to prove malicious intent.  This lower standard for evidence makes it easier for allegations to be brought forward but does not necessarily indicate wrongdoing.

Consequences of American Communism.  [Scroll down]  Unfortunately, too many people are looking at the political polls and think that it's just a matter of time before Trump is re-elected.  That's not an answer, that's a hope.  Even if the globalist powerbase in control of our politicians would allow a fair election to take place, Trump will be as hamstrung as he was last time.  Simply being the president does not eradicate the massive administrative state that turned its back on him and his policies in his first term.  Blue states sued him over everything he tried to do just to gum up the works and get it into the courts, shutting it down for years while the issue worked through the legal system and whether he won or lost, the momentum and any benefit of it was drained out in the process.

Court challenges to keep Trump off 2024 election ballots begin in two states.  A legal effort to use the Constitution's "insurrection" clause to block former President Donald Trump from running for office in 2024 is becoming a more serious threat as hearings begin in two states over cases that could reach the highest court.  A weeklong hearing begins in Colorado on Monday over a lawsuit that cites the Civil War-era provision of the 14th Amendment that blocks those who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and later "engaged in insurrection" from holding higher office.  Oral arguments over a similar question also start at the Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday. [...] The practical outcome for the challengers is to see that Trump stays off the November 2024 presidential election ballot in both states.

The Editor says...
Has President Trump been tried and convicted?  Even if Trump is guilty of insurrection, which he isn't, why not let the voters decide, to "preserve democracy?"  If Canada can put Castro Junior on the ballot, the U.S. can hold a referendum on Trump and let the voters take him or leave him.

Trial begins on whether Trump should be kept off the 2024 ballot in Colorado.  A Denver court began hearing arguments Monday in a lawsuit seeking to bar former President Donald Trump from the state's 2024 ballot over his role in the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021.  The trial comes after Colorado Judge Sarah Wallace last week rejected the latest attempt by Trump to toss the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of six voters in Denver district court last month.  The lawsuit argues Trump should be prohibited from running in future elections, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which states no person may hold office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" after swearing under oath to support and defend the Constitution.  The suit alleges Trump violated his oath of office in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Denver judge overseeing Trump disqualification case won't recuse over political contribution.  On the first morning of a weeklong hearing to determine if Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to appear on Colorado's 2024 presidential primary ballot, the judge overseeing the case rejected Trump's request to recuse herself over a $100 political contribution she made prior to taking the bench.  Scott Gessler, an attorney for Trump, "reluctantly" filed a motion on Saturday seeking Denver District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace's recusal.  Gessler indicated he only learned on Oct. 27 that, prior to her appointment as a judge, Wallace made a $100 contribution to the Colorado Turnout Project.  "Its website proudly proclaims that the group was formed 'shortly after Colorado Republicans refused to condemn the political extremists who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021,'" Gessler wrote.  "A contribution to the Colorado Turnout Project shows support for the view that January 6, 2021, constituted an 'insurrection.'"

President Trump Absolutely Destroys Lawless NYC Judge Engoron After Case Collapses.  President Trump used his Constitutional right to Free Speech on Friday to go off on the crooked Judge Arthur Engoron, New York State Attorney General Letitia James for continuing this lawfare suit against President Trump and his family after the star witness testified this week that there is zero evidence that President Trump misrepresented the value of his assets to gain business loans for his company.  There is no victim in this lawsuit.  President Trump paid off each loan and the banks admitted they would readily loan him money for future projects.  Engoron is the same bizarre and unhinged judge who opened the garbage trial against Donald Trump and his business empire by giggling to the cameras.

It's almost like there's a conspiracy against Trump.  The moment that Donald Trump won the 2016 election, the outlines of a conspiracy began.  Obama, Biden, their staff, Democrat lifers in the DOJ, FBI, CIA, the Pentagon, the establishment media, woke billionaires and the Democrat party, foremost among them House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, shaped a plan to wreck his presidency and cheat to defeat him in 2020. [...] Dr. Anthony Fauci's Wuhan virus coincidently escaped the lab.  Aware, and against Trump, the CCP permitted thousands of infected passengers to enter the U.S. where it created a pandemic.  Anticipating it and seemingly prepared for it, the Democrat party exploited it to create a seismic, unprecedented distortion in public policies around economy-killing lockdowns, and in voting rules, increasing unverifiable ballots by previously unheard of multiples.  It coordinated with its champions in social, print and network media to censor and suppress [embarrassing] information about its own candidate and his depraved family.

Trump Exonerated in Years-Long DOJ Probe.  Former President Donald Trump was exonerated by the Department of Justice on Thursday in an investigation into the FBI's intentions to vacate the prestigious J. Edgar Hoover building.  The investigation determined that allegations of collusion made to defend his Washington, D.C. hotel were without merit.  Democratic members of Congress were the first to request the report.  They claimed that President Trump exerted pressure on former Director Christopher Wray to authorize a relocation plan that would have thwarted the development of a competing hotel on the site of the Hoover Building, but provided no evidence to support their claims.  This request resulted in the Oversight and Review Division of the DOJ publishing the report.  Once the Bureau realized that selling the Hoover Building to a private developer would not generate sufficient funds to purchase a new structure, it ultimately decided against proceeding.

Hole opens in Fani Willis' RICO case against Trump.  An analysis of the Georgia organized crime case being brought against President Donald Trump and a dozen of his close associates during the 2020 election fight has revealed a hole in the case.  So far, among the four defendants who have reached plea agreements, none has ended up with a guilty verdict to the core claim, the RICO organized crime count.  The charges brought by prosecutor Fani Willis claim that Trump and others broke the law when they worked to reverse the decision that Joe Biden won the state in 2020.  Willis famously claims that Trump's insistence to state officials that they look for additional ballots was confirmation of a crime, even though similar comments are routine for politicians in the heat of an election fight.  Since then, of course, evidence of significant outside election influence for the 2020 results has become known, including the $400 million plus that Mark Zuckerberg handed out to recruit voters from Democrat districts to help Joe Biden.

Jack Smith Asks Judge Chutkan to Impose Stricter Gag Order on Trump, Send Him to Jail If He Talks About Witnesses.  Special Counsel Jack Smith asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to impose a strict federal gag order on Trump and send him to jail if he talks about any witnesses.  In August Trump was hit with 4 counts in Jack Smith's January 6 case up in DC:  Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.  Jack Smith is using the DC J6 case to gag Trump.  The special counsel's prosecutors accused Trump of attempting to "prejudice the jury pool through disparaging and inflammatory attacks on the citizens of this District, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses."

Romney is not stupid.  He's either lying or incompetent.
Mitt Romney confesses he didn't know anything about Burisma when he voted to impeach President Trump.  Mitt Romney voted to impeach President Trump for a phone call in which the president encouraged Ukraine to investigate allegations of serious corruption — coincidentally involving the Biden crime family — but according to a new book, the failed politician admits he had no idea what Burisma was when he voted to impeach a duly-elected president for calling on foreign governments to investigate alleged criminality.  That is extreme ignorance (not to mention dangerous) when a senator is willing to impeach a president just because he doesn't like him, all without knowing the facts.

[A] Democrat-Appointed Colorado Judge [Enables an] Effort to Kick Trump Off [the] 2024 Ballot.  A Colorado judge Friday denied a motion by Donald Trump and the Colorado GOP to throw out a lawsuit seeking to block Trump from appearing on the ballot in Colorado.  The ruling was issued by Judge Sarah Wallace, a Colorado district court judge.  Wallace was appointed to the bench earlier this year by Democrat Gov. Jared Polis.  Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, faces challenges to appear on the ballot in multiple states based on his alleged role in events of January 6, 2021.  Those lawsuits cite the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War, which bans those who "engaged in insurrection" from holding public office.  Trump has not been convicted of insurrection and was acquitted by the U.S. Senate of charges of engaging in insurrection.

Sidney Powell's Guilty Plea Points to a Faltering Case in Atlanta.  While the media spin will be different, my first impression of Sidney Powell's guilty plea in the Fulton County election-interference case is:  It signals that District Attorney Fani Willis's much-heralded RICO indictment — in which 19 are charged, including Powell's famous co-defendant Donald Trump — is a dud.  Powell is the second defendant in the case to be offered a misdemeanor plea to dispose of what was publicized as an indictment of the grand conspiracy to destroy American democracy.  A bail bondsman named Scott Hall, who was implicated in the same scheme as Powell in Willis's sprawling indictment — namely, a plot to access voting data in rural Coffee County, Ga. — was permitted to plead guilty on September 29 to misdemeanor charges involving intentional interference with the performance of election duties.  Like Powell (and Trump), Hall was hit with the big RICO-conspiracy charge, as well as several felony charges.  Like Powell, his plea to the minor charges will assure him of a non-prison sentence.

Judge temporarily lifts narrow gag order on Trump in 2020 election interference case.  The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump's 2020 election interference case in Washington agreed Friday to temporarily lift her narrow gag order.  The ruling gives Trump's lawyers time to prove why the former president's comments should not be restricted as the case heads toward trial.  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said the gag order would remain on hold — for now — while she considers Trump's bid to speak freely about the case as he challenges the restrictions in higher courts.

A federal judge's gag order against Trump may be satisfying.  But it isn't constitutional.  Although I often wish that Donald Trump would shut up, he has a constitutional right not to.  A federal judge went too far in restricting his free expression Monday when she imposed a gag order on the former president.  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the Washington prosecution of Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, ordered him to refrain from rhetoric targeting prosecutors and court personnel as well as inflammatory statements about likely witnesses.

Government Gangsters:  How the Deep State Imperils National Security.  Like most Americans, Kash Patel grew up believing that the country was run as a democracy, with a government that honors the will of the people and is accountable to them.  It was only much later, as an attorney and then as a senior advisor to former president Donald Trump, that he encountered — and confronted — what has come to be called the Deep State, people at the highest levels of government, business, and culture who subvert democracy to serve their own ends.  In his recent book Government Gangsters:  The Deep State, The Truth and the Battle for our Democracy, Patel describes the Deep State in broad terms as the politicization of core American institutions and the federal government.  More specifically, this oligarchy includes elected leaders, journalists, business leaders, and NGOs with leftist ideologies.  But its most entrenched and active arm comprises "members of the unelected federal bureaucracy who think they have the right to rule America, not Congress or the president."

Donald Trump fined $5,000 for violating gag order in New York fraud trial and warned twice about imprisonment.  Former President Donald Trump was fined $5,000 by a New York judge on Friday for violating a gag order not to speak about any members of the court staff — and was warned twice about possible imprisonment.  "Donald Trump has received ample warning from this Court as to the possible repercussions of violating the gag order.  He specifically acknowledged that he understood and would abide by it," Judge Arthur Engoron said in his order Friday.  "Accordingly, issuing yet another warning is not longer appropriate; this Court is way behind the 'warning' stage."

Jack Smith Gives Trump Huge Win — Withdraws Key Subpoena.  Indicators suggest that the ongoing federal litigation against former President Donald Trump, in which he is accused of meddling in the 2020 election, is waning.  Recent action by special counsel Jack Smith to revoke a substantial subpoena demanding information regarding the president's fundraising activities during the specified time frame.  Smith is reportedly reducing the quantity of subpoenas he has issued to facilitate an investigation into whether President Trump solicited funds in support of allegations that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election fraudulently.

Trump Files Notice Of Appeal For Gag Order Blocking Statements About Special Counsel, Witnesses.  Former President Donald Trump will appeal a gag order issued Tuesday by the federal judge overseeing his 2020 election case.  Trump filed his notice of appeal just hours after U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, issued the written order.  Chutkan partially granted the Department of Justice's proposed order from the bench Monday, blocking Trump in the written order Tuesday from making public statements targeting Special Counsel Jack Smith or his staff, the defense counsel or their staff, court staff and "any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony."  The order issued by Chutkan also blocks Trump from "directing others to make any public statements" falling into the prohibited categories.

Ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell pleads guilty in Georgia election interference case.  Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell pleaded guilty Thursday morning in the Georgia election interference case just a day before jury selection in her trial alongside co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro was set to begin.  Powell pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor counts in Fulton County Superior Court as part of a deal reached with prosecutors.  Powell agreed to serve six years of probation and pay a $6,000 fine and $2,700 in restitution to the state of Georgia.  She also agreed to submit an apology letter to the citizens of Georgia and to testify at related court proceedings.  Powell was one of 19 defendants named in District Attorney Fani Willis' indictment, which also charged former President Donald Trump.  Powell, who acted as one of Trump's lawyers after his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, was charged with racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, trespassing and invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state.

Sidney Powell Flips, Cuts a Deal in Georgia.  Sidney Powell finally delivered a real "Kraken on steroids" in the 2020 election saga.  Only this time, it won't prove that the election got stolen — it will help Fani Willis build her RICO case against Donald Trump and 17 other co-defendants in Fulton County, Georgia.  Trump's key election attorney and architect of "Stop the Steal" cut a surprising plea deal this morning.  Powell will get probation for six misdemeanor guilty pleas and testimony against her co-defendants:  [Tweet with video clip]

Prediction:  Sidney Powell won't be cooperating against Trump.  Today, Sidney Powell accepted a plea agreement from the Fulton County District Attorney, pleading to six counts of "Conspiracy to Commit Intentional Interference with Performance of Election Duties."  Those are all misdemeanors.  She faces six years of probation, a $6,000 fine, and have to pay $2,700 in restitution.  Call that a win for the defense.  Here's why.  Powell was indicted with seven felony counts: conspiracy to violate Georgia's RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) statute; two counts of conspiracy to commit election fraud; conspiracy to commit computer theft, trespass, and invasion of privacy; and conspiracy to defraud the state.  These charges are felonies that carry heavy penalties.  A conviction under Georgia's RICO conspiracy statute, for example, requires a punishment of between five and 20 years of imprisonment.  See Ga. Code Ann. § 16-14-5.  That gets us to our second point — the risk of conviction.

The Trump gag order should be struck down.  The imposition of a gag order on former President Donald Trump was overwhelmingly applauded by pundits and press alike.  Journalists described the order from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan as "narrow" and "limited."  Most of them lionized Chutkan as an "unflinching" and "no-nonsense" judge who would not tolerate Trump's penchant for personal attacks and reckless rhetoric.  However, this order should concern everyone who values freedom of speech.  While the odds may favor Chutkan on appeal, this order should be overturned as overbroad and dangerous.  For years, many of us have been criticized Trump for his personal attacks on judges and opponents alike.  Undeterred, Trump has continued such inflammatory attacks on "deranged" Special Counsel Jack Smith and the "biased, Trump-hating Judge" Chutkan.  Smith has pushed aggressively for a gag order, even though one of the major issues in Trump's campaign is whether the Biden Administration has weaponized the criminal justice system against him and other Republicans. [...] These orders come at a great cost — limiting both parties and counsels in raising objections to alleged abuses of the government.

Judge Chutkan Releases Official Gag Order on Trump and It's Worse Than We Thought.  Judge Tanya Chutkan released the gag order on Trump and it is worse than we thought.  Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday imposed a gag order on Trump in the middle of a presidential election.  Last month Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to gag Trump.  "The need for the proposed order is further evidenced by a review of the defendant's prejudicial statements in the weeks since the Government initially filed its motion on September 15," Jack Smith's prosecutors wrote in the court filing reviewed by this reporter.

Obtuse, Thy Name is Chutkan.  In one of the most disingenuously undefined judicial rulings in recent memory, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan says President Trump may not "target" a member of the court or prosecution in his rebuke of their official offices against him.  [Exhibit]  Obviously, Judge Chutkan intends to give herself the most latitude possible when defining what terms of speech may end up being considered "targeting." However, criticism is not a possible definition in ordinary parlance.  So, we'll see.  Additionally, Chutkan did not outline what, if any, punishment would be levied in the event she considers any statement to be considered "targeting."

Hate Trump All You Like, The Gag Order Is Still Wrong.  This week, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan overseeing United States v. Donald Trump issued a gag order prohibiting a leading presidential candidate, Donald Trump, from engaging in speech aimed at "government staff," among others, during his trial.  Listen, I understand the disdain some conservatives feel for the former president.  I share the sentiment.  But if you're cheering on a judge who's inhibiting political speech on rickety grounds, you're no friend of the "democracy" or the Constitution. [...] Who is Chutkan to dictate the contours of a presidential candidate's political speech?  What if one of the "participating government staff" or a family member is compromised by partisanship?  Moreover, preemptively suggesting that without gagging, Trump will engage in a "smear campaign" is as prejudicial to the case as any of the inflammatory things Trump has thrown around.  It implies that any accusation now aimed at prosecutors is untrue.

Judge Prohibits Trump From Speaking Out Against Prosecutors, Others.  Judge Tanya Chutkan, presiding over the case against former President Donald Trump for allegedly interfering in the 2020 presidential election, ordered certain restrictions on what President Trump can say in relation to his case after hearing arguments on the morning of Oct. 16.  Judge Chutkan said she would not impose restrictions on statements he makes about Washington, D.C., or criticism of the government, including the Biden administration and the Department of Justice (DOJ). However, President Trump will be prohibited from posting statements attacking special counsel Jack Smith, his staff, Judge Chutkan's staff and other court personnel, and the families of any of these people.  He is also limited in part about what he can say about potential witnesses; for example, he may make posts about former Vice President Mike Pence, but not in regard to underlying events connected to his case.

President Trump Responds to Obama Judge's Unconstitutional Gag Order.  Earlier today lawless Trump-hating DC Judge Tanya Chutkan hit President Trump with a gag order in his DOJ lawsuit by the Biden regime.  President Trump will be barred from speaking out against Special Counsel Jack Smith, court witnesses and more!  This is complete lawlessness and is meant to silence President Trump as Jack Smith continues to leak to the press on a weekly basis.  This was an unprecedented move by a Trump-hating DC judge who has openly spoken out against President Trump and his supporters.

Chutkan's Gag Order Is Pure Gold for Trump Campaign.  U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has issued a so-called "limited gag order" restricting what former president Donald Trump can say about his ongoing election interference prosecution in the District of Columbia.  In granting the motion of Special Counsel Jack Smith to silence Trump, Chutkan stated from the bench, "This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses.  This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice."  Judge Chutkan claimed that she was balancing Trump's First Amendment right to free expression with prosecutors' concerns that his frequent social media attacks might intimidate witnesses or imperil the integrity of the court's proceedings. [...] In other words, we won't know exactly what speech Chutkan is forbidding until she files her written order.  But, regardless of its terms, there can be no dispute that her gagging of the leading Republican candidate for the presidency is unprecedented and an alarming milestone on this nation's descent into banana republic status.

Beyond Orwell — DC Judge Rules President Trump is Not Permitted to Criticize Trial, Judge, Witnesses or Prosecution.  Yes, DC Judge Tanya Chutkan can decree from her perch that President Donald Trump is not permitted to criticize his persecution, the court, the witnesses who will testify against him or the political prosecution that is targeting the leading 2024 presidential candidate, but executing that decree is another kettle of fish entirely.  It is one thing to decree your control over independent speech, it is another thing entirely to try and enforce that decree.  Thankfully, and standing firm in his position, President Trump said in response he is "willing to go to jail, if that's what it takes for our country to win and become a democracy again."

Gagging Trump.  Another precedent-setting event related to the criminal prosecution of a former president is scheduled for Monday morning in the federal courtroom of Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington.  Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking Chutkan — an Obama appointee with a record of biased and often inaccurate statements about Donald Trump and the events of January 6 in general — to silence the leading GOP presidential contender on a key campaign issue through the heart of the 2024 primary season.

Trump Hit With Gag Order!  Leading Presidential Candidate Barred from Attacking DOJ Hitman Jack Smith.  Lawless DC Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama-appointed judge, hit President Trump with a gag order on Monday.  President Trump will be barred from speaking out against Special Counsel Jack Smith, court witnesses and more!  This is complete lawlessness and is meant to silence President Trump as Jack Smith continues to leak to the press on a weekly basis.

Tripling value of Trump's NYC penthouse was 'minor' mistake, ex-CFO testifies at civil fraud trial.  Exaggerating the size of Donald Trump's Manhattan penthouse on financial documents amounted to just a minor mistake, his longtime finance chief testified Tuesday — waving off one of the key claims in the New York attorney general's fraud case against the ex-president.  Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg acknowledged that a 1994 document listed the Trump Tower triplex at its true size of 10,996 square feet — rather than the bloated 30,000 square feet that Trump, 77, allegedly falsely claimed for years on financial statements.  But Weisselberg said the misstated value of the apartment was "de minimis" — a Latin term frequently used in law to mean that something is too trivial to warrant consideration.  "I never even thought about the apartment," Weisselberg testified in Manhattan Supreme Court during trial over New York Attorney General Letitia James' $250 million fraud lawsuit against Trump.

Donald the Inevitable.  Readers may recall that I favored a DeSantis-Trump duel for the nomination until the day they really did indict Donald Trump.  It was then that the reality of the depth of the evil we fight hit home.  I will say it again: we have no choice but to re-elect him if we are to retake the republic from the bananas.  I am not alone.  In its report on despondent Never Trump donors, Disney's ABC said, "Trump hasn't polled at less than 50% in 538's national average since late August."  That is the immediate American reaction to the Mugshot — which Never Trumpers thought was going to save them but actually sank them.  But they valiantly go down with the ship.  The Washington Examiner — owned by Philip Anschutz, a Never Trumper — blames Trump for the indictments.

America's Armageddon.  [Scroll down]  I contend this scenario is not at all unrealistic, as we've seen our justice system weaponized against one political party, the arrest of Donald Trump for a misdemeanor, the attempted coup via the Steel Dossier, the purposeful undermining of our energy security, defunding of police, release of felons whose felony charges are reduced to misdemeanors, labeling parents as domestic terrorists, and ignoring of oaths of office and the law by opening of our borders north and south to whomever wishes to enter.  Anyone of the latter events is cause for great concern, but together they paint a picture of a purposeful strategy given such acts are not coincidental.  In simple terms, the current actions by a set of radical left progressive extremists are not ad hoc.  It is more likely a well-planned, and staged, implementation of a strategy.  We must consider this a real possibility if we are honest in assessing, imagining, and projecting what can unfold.

Trump Scores a Significant Victory in Court.  Leftist Judge Arthur Engoron's behavior and actions in Trump's civil fraud trial have been questionable at best.  His bizarre valuation of Mar-a-Lago at $17 million when real estate experts put it at closer to $300 million has been just one of many factors leading many to believe that the outcome of this trial has been predetermined by anti-Trump partisans.  Last month, Engoron even ordered the dissolution of Trump's businesses, a move that prompted a swift response from Trump's legal team.  Trump's attorney Christopher Kise argued that the dissolution of Trump's businesses would have been a disaster for not only the businesses but for the company's employees.  On Friday, a New York appeals court judge, Associate Justice Peter Moulton, reversed Engoron's order, though he did allow for the bogus civil fraud trial to continue.

Jonathan Turley Says New York AG 'Hell Bent' On Destroying Trump's Companies.  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said Friday that Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York was "hell bent" on destroying former President Donald Trump's business empire.  New York Judge Arthur F. Engoron issued a ruling finding that Trump's business was guilty of committing fraud Sept. 26, ordering Trump's business licenses to be rescinded and seeking to dissolve Trump's businesses, but the dissolution was placed on hold by an appeals court judge Friday.  Trump has spoken out against the trial, calling it a "sham" and calling for Engoron to be disbarred.  [Video clip]  "Those employees don't really have a representative in court for their interest and there is also this question of just overkill," Turley told "Ingraham Angle" guest host Kayleigh McEnany.  "You know, there is evidence of overvaluing and undervaluing assets in this case.  That has long been a problem in real estate."

In Her Jan. 6 Courtroom, Judge Who Will Hear Trump's Case Is the Pot Calling the Defendant Incendiary.  At her first appearance in the criminal case against Donald Trump for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan repeatedly warned the former president's lawyers that politics would not be tolerated in her courtroom.  But even as she warns Trump about his "inflammatory" language, Chutkan has routinely issued politically charged rulings and made incendiary statements of her own while presiding over some 30 cases involving Trump supporters charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, melee at the U.S. Capitol.  These include her public assertions that the 2020 election was beyond reproach, that the Jan. 6 protests were orchestrated by Trump, and that the former president is guilty of crimes.  She has described Jan. 6 as a "mob attack" on "the very foundation of our democracy." Chutkan's strident language raises questions about her impartiality in handling the case against the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024.

Georgia Election Case Defendant Seeks Dismissal Over Prosecutor's 'Embarrassing' Mistake.  An apparent paperwork oversight could jeopardize the case against one of former President Donald Trump's co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case, although one former state prosecutor said the issue would "at worst" likely be considered merely "embarrassing" by the presiding judge.  An attorney for Kenneth Chesebro argued in a court filing Wednesday that Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade was never qualified under state law to present the case to the Fulton County grand jury in the first place.  The motion to dismiss the charges against Chesebro says that makes Wade's work on the case, including the indictment against Chesebro, "void as a matter of law."

10 Ways Democrats Are Already Rigging the 2024 Election.  Who needs free and fair elections when you can just throw your political opponents behind bars ahead of a major election?  Spanning four separate cases and 91 felony counts, the DOJ and leftist prosecutors' seemingly coordinated efforts to imprison Trump could not represent a more obvious attempt to interfere in the election process.

Trump, Citing Immunity, Seeks Dismissal of Federal Election Charges.  Former President Donald Trump filed a motion on Thursday seeking the dismissal of federal election conspiracy charges on the grounds he cannot be prosecuted for actions he took while in the White House.  Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is to go on trial in Washington in March of next year for allegedly conspiring to subvert the results of the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.  The former president's lawyers, in a 52-page motion to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, argued the charges should be thrown out.

Judge Engoron Bars Trump, Trump Family Members From Transferring Assets without Notifying Appointed Court Monitor — Former Clinton Judge Barbara Jones.  Far-left Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron barred Trump and Trump's family members from transferring assets or creating new entities without notifying an appointed court monitor on day 4 of Letitia James' Stalinist show trial.  The independent court monitor, Barbara Jones, is a former federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton. [...] Judge Arthur Engoron ruled last Tuesday that Trump and Trump Org. are liable for fraud.  The judge also ruled that Mar-a-Lago is worth $18 million — of course, no one in the real estate business is buying this.

MSNBC Legal Analyst Says Letitia James Made 'Tactical Error' By Going After Trump For Court Appearance.  MSNBC legal analyst Rebecca Roiphe said Thursday that Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James made a "tactical error" by criticizing former President Donald Trump on Wednesday after his court appearance.  Speaking to reporters after the third day of hearings in the civil suit brought by James herself, she said the "Donald Trump show is over."  "This was nothing more than a political stunt.  A fund-raising stop, and now we can continue to go forward with our trial, and we are confident that justice will be served."

You can't drain a swamp from a raft in the middle.  Democrats will pervert the law in unimaginable ways to prevent a second Trump presidency, and the mainstream media will publish any lie to help them.  They will convict him a hundred times of a hundred crimes.  They impeached a former president for the first time in history; why not impeach a president-elect?  The legal maneuvers to prevent the inauguration of a president who is obsessively hated by the federal government, the left-wing media and corporations, and who has already been outlandishly persecuted for seven years, are unimaginable.  If all else fails, much of this nation will be burned to the ground.  Other things too awful to speak of could happen.  Gullible, emotional people raised to a fever pitch of hatred against one man for seven years might do anything.

Judge presiding over Trump's Manhattan civil trial exclusively donated to Democrats.  New York City Judge Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over former President Donald Trump's civil fraud trial, has exclusively donated to Democrats, according to a report.  Engoron wields unique authority over Trump's civil fraud case.  It is a jury-free bench trial, with Engoron overseeing it and ultimately determining its outcome and penalties.  New York Attorney General Letitia James wants a $250 million penalty imposed on Trump's businesses after accusing him of fraudulent practices.  Engoron, meanwhile, has shown support for Democrats with his checkbook in the past.

That's not how it works.  I appeared this afternoon on Fox Live Now to talk about the civil trial of Donald Trump and numerous Trump organizations for allegedly inflating property valuations to deceive banks and insurance companies.  The backdrop to the interview was Trump's statement as he entered court earlier in the day:  [Video clip][...] The judge ordered New York business certificates for numerous Trump entities cancelled.  That alone could have a devastating impact on the businesses.  The current trial is just about the additional penalties sought, including hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and an order barring Trump and his organizations from doing business in New York State.  That would be, as Trump has said, a business death penalty.  This all is egregious.  There is no claim that consumers or banks and insurance companies lost money, or were defrauded out of money.  That may not be an element of the offenses, but if you are going to destroy a massive business built over decades over property valuations without any impact on the public, it's an overreach.  And obviously politically motivated.

Trump Receives Another Dose of Political Persecution from a Democrat Judge.  On 26 September, a partisan Democrat judge in Manhattan determined that Donald Trump and his family business fraudulently inflated the value of his properties and other assets to obtain business licenses over the years.  The decision paves the wave for Trump-hating New York State Attorney General Letitia James (who campaigned on a "get-Trump" by calling him a "con man" and "carnival barker") to determine damages as she has been reduced to prosecuting (suing) Trump and his family for what amounts to a victimless non-crime.  A secondary goal appears to be to destroy Trump's ability to do business in New York in the future because the judge ordered the cancellation of certificates that let some of Trump's businesses operate in New York, as well as the appointment of a receiver to manage the dissolution of those businesses.

Judges are not business experts.  A DNC-affiliated New York judge determined, in a highly irregular summary judgment, that former president Trump's detailed financial valuation statements used to finance or refinance certain real estate and related businesses were overstated, or inflated, and suddenly an area of judicial concern, despite these valuations having been unchallenged and in good standing, in some cases for decades.  Why suddenly now is a judge making such a determination against them, and more importantly, how?  In summary judgments, there can be no genuine dispute as to any material fact, and any such judgment must be made as a matter of law.  In Trump's case, facts were disputed, and no law was followed, while due process was apparently an inconvenience in the court's rush to serve its political masters.

The horrible NY ruling against Trump and the horrible judge who issued it.  It was a given when a judge ruled against Donald Trump on the suit that New York State Attorney General Letitia James filed, alleging that Trump defrauded banks to obtain loans.  The ruling revealed two interesting and important things about how leftists and their fellow travelers use the legal system and about the ideological corruption of leftist judges.  It goes without saying that the verdict was a joke.  The claim was that Trump lied to lenders to get better loan terms.  Interestingly, none of the lenders complained, and Trump paid back every penny.  More than that, commercial lenders have a due diligence responsibility, meaning they're supposed to do their own valuations before lending millions of dollars.  At Trump's level, lying is virtually impossible.  Still, it should have been a big story:  A judge claims Trump committed fraud and banned him from conducting business in New York, the state where most of the properties Trump developed exist.  You'd think that this would have been news fodder for days.

Trump Fraud Case:  Democrat Judge, Democrat Prosecutor, Democrat City.  Former President Donald Trump, two of his sons, and two of his employees were found liable for fraud Tuesday in a case brought by an elected Democrat prosecutor before an elected Democrat judge in a staunchly Democratic city.  Arthur Engoron, an elected civil Justice of the New York County Supreme Court, issued a rare summary judgment that concluded that New York Attorney General Letitia James proved her case before the defense mounted its own.  He went further, sanctioning Trump's attorneys and fining them $7500 each for filing repeated motions to dismiss that Judge Engoron decided were frivolous, disregarding the expert opinion of a former judge, filed with the court.

Real estate insiders bewildered by judge's $18M valuation of Trump's Mar-a-Lago: 'Would list at $300M'.  A New York judge's Tuesday [9/26/2023] ruling valuing Donald Trump's sprawling, headline-making Florida estate at $18 million has left industry experts perplexed.  In his verdict, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron delivered a bombshell ruling that the former president committed fraud by inflating the value of his wealth, with details including the monetary value associated with Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.  This decision, which came down without a jury, has sent shockwaves through political — and real estate — circles, especially that $18 million base value for the property.  One prominent Palm Beach real estate broker, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The [New York] Post, "It's utterly delusional to think that property is only worth $18 million."  The insider added, "If that property were on the market today, I would list it at around $300 million, minimum ... at least.  He also has the separate golf course minutes away."

New York Judge Rules Without Trial, Jury or Verdict, That President Trump Must Dissolve All Business Interests in State.  This is John Galt level government targeting.  A New York State judge has arbitrarily ruled, no trial — no jury, that President Trump overvalued his real estate holdings in New York, which means he paid too much in taxes, in order to secure financing and loans.  All the banks and lenders did their own due diligence on the financing.  All operational loans and business loans were paid back.  There were no defaults or banking interests adversely impacted.  There are no victims of what the State calls "fraud," yet the judge is ruling the Trump organization must dissolve all business interests in the state and exit within 10 days.  New York Attorney General Latisha James campaigned for office with promises to target the Trump Organization and Donald Trump himself.  This is malicious lawfare in the extreme.

Judge In Fulton County Trump Case Reveals How Dangerous This Prosecution Is To Our Country.  Did former President Donald Trump ask then-Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark's legal opinion concerning Department of Justice options for addressing voting irregularities in Georgia, or did Clark volunteer his legal analysis on the question without the president's prompting?  The federal judge presiding over Clark's removal case, who will decide whether Clark must defend himself in the Democrat stronghold of Fulton County or in a Georgia federal court, focused on that question during last week's hearing.  In doing so, the judge revealed just how crazy — and dangerous — this political prosecution is to the future of our constitutional republic.

Former Trump Campaign Attorney Says Fulton County Case Based on Illegal Evidence.  Kenneth Chesebro, who served as an attorney for the Trump Campaign during the then-president's challenge of the 2020 elections, is arguing that the Fulton County District Attorney's office is violating attorney-client privilege in its pursuit of a case against him, former President Donald Trump, and 17 other defendants.  In Thursday filings, Mr. Chesebro moved to quash the charges against him in Fulton County, arguing that they were based on emails covered by attorney-client privilege, and have any such illegally obtained evidence thrown out.  The 19 co-defendants were charged with violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, as well as 40 other charges, for their actions in the contesting of the 2020 election results.

Jack Smith Adds Radical Left-Wing Democrat Donor to Special Counsel Team Persecuting Trump.  Jack Smith added Alex Whiting, a 'war crimes prosecutor' to his special counsel team of nearly two dozen rabid prosecutors gunning for Trump.  Whiting is a radical left-wing Trump hater who previously praised Mueller's inquisition against the former president.  Former special counsel Robert Mueller's 'Trump-Russia collusion' investigation ended in a whimper and completely crumbled.  "Whiting has been a frequent commentator on the previous special counsel to investigate Trump:  Robert Mueller, who investigated links between Russia and Trump's 2016 campaign.  Whiting wrote numerous articles and gave interviews assessing the strength of Mueller's case against Trump, often siding with those who saw extreme legal peril for Trump over his efforts to curb the investigation." Politico reported.

Jack Smith Was Hired as Hitman to Take Trump Out.  Don't be fooled.  Special Counsel Jack Smith was not hired to argue a brilliant case against President Donald Trump in a court of law.  Jack Smith was not hired to bring legitimate charges against President Trump.  Jack Smith was hired as a DOJ hitman to take out Trump.  Period.  Jack Smith has always been a hitman.  He was hired as a hitman before.  He was hired as a hitman to destroy Trump.  Jack Smith is not a genius in legal theory.  That's not his job.  When Attorney General Merrick Garland, top DOJ officials, and Joe Biden's handlers met to plan their next assault on the former president they all agreed on one thing.  They needed to destroy President Trump completely and ensure that he never makes it to Election Day.

Special Counsel Jack Smith calls for 'narrowly tailored' gag order against Donald Trump in January 6 case.  Special Counsel Jack Smith has asked for a 'narrowly tailored' gag order against Donald Trump, to stop him from making 'inflammatory' and 'intimidating' comments to the judge and witnesses in the federal January 6 case.  Smith's team has accused Trump of engaging in a campaign of 'disinformation' and harassment intended to intimidate witnesses, prosecutors and others involved in the trial.  The extraordinary filing says Trump's efforts to weaken faith in the court system mirror his attacks on the 2020 election and the results.

Fulton County DA Accused of Burying Evidence That Could Derail Trump RICO Case.  Sidney Powell's defense attorney in the Fulton County, Georgia, RICO case regarding an alleged effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state accused county prosecutors Thursday of withholding exculpatory evidence in violation of the law.  Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee also made a key ruling in the case severing Powell's and pro-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro's cases from those of former President Donald Trump and the 16 other defendants, CNN reported.  Both Powell, a former Trump campaign attorney, and Chesebro sought a speedy trial, consistent with their Sixth Amendment right, while Trump and the other defendants want the case slowed down to better prepare their defenses.

The Mathematics of Democrat 'Justice'.  Judge Tanya Chutkan of the D.C. Federal District Court has ruled that the trial there against Trump will begin March 4, 2024.  Many have already commented on how badly that will impact candidate Trump subjectively, given the electoral calendar's Super Tuesday primaries the next day.  Attention should also be directed to how Democrat "justice" is being imposed on defendant Trump in objective terms.

Weaponizing the Fourteenth Amendment.  By now, it is clear that the concerted effort to paint Donald Trump as a criminal has backfired.  After four indictments, including the most recent 13-count indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, Pres.  Trump holds a commanding lead among prospective Republican primary voters in Iowa and elsewhere.  Evidence indicates that Trump's criminal indictments strengthen, rather than shrink, his poll numbers.  Enraged by Trump's rising popularity, his political opponents are now looking to keep his name off the ballot entirely.  Already, this effort has gained momentum in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Arizona.  These states, egged on by elite law professors, have turned the 14th Amendment, which was previously used to prevent ex-Confederates from seeking office after the Civil War, into an improvised legal weapon designed to bar the former president from reclaiming office after his actions in the weeks following the 2020 presidential election.

California Attorney Files Lawsuit to Bar Donald Trump from 2024 Ballot.  An attorney in Venice, California, filed a federal lawsuit on Saturday to bar former President Donald Trump from California's 2024 presidential primary election, arguing that he is disqualified due to his alleged role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to a report.  The lawsuit argues that the Fourteenth Amendment states that no one can hold office who has previously taken an oath of office to support the Constitution and then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" or gave aid to those who did, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

Trumpophobes Seek to Keep Him Off '24 Ballot for Crimes He Never Committed.  As if the four previous prosecutorial cow pies that surround Donald Trump were not fetid enough, the U.S. Supreme Court soon will step into efforts to bar him from state ballots.  Assorted Trumpophobes are using the Bill of Rights to deny Americans the right to vote for or against Trump for president.  Specifically, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment disqualifies from high office certain individuals who "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [U.S. Constitution], or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."  This legal theory might make sense if Trump had been imprisoned for insurrection or rebellion.  It might hold water if he had been convicted of insurrection or rebellion.  This boomlet even might boast a thimble full of steam, if the Justice Department, a state attorney general, or some county prosecutor had indicted him for insurrection or rebellion.  Unfortunately for Trump haters, that never happened.

They Are Removing Trump From The Board.  What Are You Going To Do About It?  Regardless of any delusions you, I, or anyone else may harbor on this issue, the odds that Donald Trump will be saddled with at least one FELONY conviction out of the dozens he is currently charged with are exceedingly high.  It doesn't even matter whether the charges are with or without merit.  If a firing squad is pointing 91 rounds at someone, at least one of them is gonna hit the target.  This means that this time next year, instead of campaigning or even accepting the GOP nomination in person, the former president could either be in prison or on house arrest, playing golf with an ankle bracelet.  Make no mistake.  They are removing Trump from the board. [...] It seems evident that the powers that be want to secure a GOP nomination for Trump while making it impossible for him to win or even compete in the general election.  A win was already going to be an uphill climb, but now it's absolutely impossible, and they know it.

If President Trump Is Not an 'Officer of the United States,' Section 3 Should Not Apply.  As President Donald J. Trump continues to dominate the field, some are looking to disqualify him from the ballot in different states pursuant to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, [...] The gist of the argument is that Trump allegedly engaged in an insurrection against the United States and is, therefore, prohibited from holding office.  There are many reasons why this interpretation or argument should fail.  [#1] There was no insurrection.  To begin, there is no evidence that Trump engaged in an insurrection nor proof that an insurrection occurred.  As a matter of fact, the Senate acquitted Trump of such ridiculous charges during the second impeachment.

Six Republicans File Lawsuit to Remove Trump from 2024 Ballot in Colorado.  A coalition of six Republicans and unaffiliated Colorado voters, including former state and federal officials, filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to disqualify former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state's 2024 presidential ballot.  The plaintiffs are represented by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a nonprofit and "nonpartisan" watchdog organization, alongside law firms Tierney Lawrence Stiles LLC, KBN Law, LLC, and Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC.  The plaintiffs are Norma Anderson, Michelle Priola, Claudine Cmarada, Krista Kafer, Kathi Wright, and Christopher Castilian.

Trump suffers big loss in E. Jean Carroll defamation case, judge says he's liable.  A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Donald Trump is civilly liable for defamatory statements he made about writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when she went public with claims he had raped her decades earlier.  Judge Lewis Kaplan, as part of that ruling, said the upcoming trial for Carroll's lawsuit against Trump will only deal with the question of how much the former president should pay her in monetary damages for defaming her.  Normally, a jury would determine at trial whether a defendant is liable for civil damages claimed by a plaintiff.

Democrat Disconnect in D.C..  It should come as no surprise to anyone that a recent poll found that a majority of residents of the District of Columbia would convict Donald Trump over his challenge of the 2020 election results.  Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) once told me during an interview that the people in D.C., particularly those inside the Beltway, have absolutely no clue about what the rest of America is thinking, feeling, or experiencing.  Granted, not everyone or perhaps anyone who responded to the survey is a member of the Marble Mafia, but the response reflects the attitudes of the coastal elites and those who faithfully adhere to the accepted narratives as opposed to, say, anyone else.  The poll, conducted by Emerson College Polling, showed that 64% of Washington residents stated that if it were up to them, they would find Trump guilty of trying to undermine the election results.  Twenty-eight percent were unsure, while 8% said that they would find Trump innocent.

We're all witnesses to an attempted political murder.  Never before has the American people been subjected to the obnoxious spectacle of a former president being relentlessly pursued by craven partisans using government (read: taxpayer-funded) resources.  One explanation involves Mr. Trump's unique ability to bring out the worst in his enemies.  Actually, it may also be caused by a common character weakness among his opponents.  One would need an enormous score card to keep track of all the indictments and other litigations being heaped upon Mr. Trump.  He has thus employed an army of attorneys in order to resist the onslaught.  Being a billionaire has certainly come in handy for this effort — but a few billion dollars can go only so far.  The stubborn continuation of his candidacy for re-election allows him to raise campaign contributions, some of which can be applied to his legal defense — because they are an appropriate campaign expense, much like media advertisements, mailers and travel.  The prevailing countermeasure has been for the Deep State thugs to add Trump's lawyers to their target list.

MAGA vs. the DoJ.  Along with all its other efforts to hamstring Donald Trump's legal defense in the D.C. case, the DoJ has dumped 12.8 million documents on Trump's defense team, leaving them without adequate time to prepare before the March court date.  This is unlikely to earn them much consideration from Judge Tanya Chutkan, who has exhibited open hostility to Donald Trump.  This appears to be a new tactic developed by prosecutors to cripple defense efforts while remaining within the letter of the law.  On August 25, prosecutors dumped over 4 million documents on the defense team of accused cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried while at the same time making it next to impossible for him to actually view them.  (Bankman-Fried is being held at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, which has no facilities for accessing the documents.)  The solution for Trump's team is simple:  utilize his vast personal following as a crowdsourcing resource to analyze and sort out the documents.

Law and Order:  The Post-Constitutional Episode.  When Donald Trump was inaugurated, the city erupted in flames, store windows were smashed, cars were hammered, and protestors attempted to tear down the fence around the White House.  When George Floyd, a man with serious health problems, a long criminal record, and a history of drug abuse, died in custody, Black Lives Matter protests roiled cities with massive destructive protests.  In D.C., without authorization, on her own, the mayor painted a major thoroughfare with a giant "Black Lives Matter" message.  One District Judge was offended by the disparate treatment given these rioters and the draconian measures against the J6 protestors, almost all of whom had only engaged in peacefully seeking contested election results be sent back to the respective states for investigation before the results were certified. [...] She is the judge in the pending case here against Donald Trump.  Julie Kelly, almost singularly, has been covering the preliminary proceedings in this case and it is evident that Judge Chutkan has no interest in conducting a fair trial.  The judge has set a March 4 trial date (the day before Super Tuesday).  This is a time frame that will be impossible for the defense to meet.  For one thing, they've just been handed 12.8 million discovery documents by the prosecution, an amount of material to review and prepare a response to in a time frame which is grossly inadequate.  "DOJ could not name a single case in DC District that went from indictment to trial in 5 months," In fact, numerous J6 defendants have been confined to the DC jail without trial for over two years.  "Chutkan keeps saying case won't go to trial in 2026 and grasping for reasons why.  She continues to hammer Trump's lawyer for not reviewing possible evidence related to an indictment that didn't even exist."

Anti-Trump RINOS and the 14th Amendment.  The 14th Amendment, one of three post-Civil War amendments passed in 1866, contains several important legal provisions, including the Due Process Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and the Citizenship Clause.  But a lesser-known provision in Section 3 of the Amendment — the "Insurrection Clause," targeting individuals who have engaged in rebellion or insurrection against the United States, has gotten the RINOs excited.  Under the Insurrection Clause, no person shall hold certain federal or state offices if they previously took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and then engaged in rebellion or insurrection against it.  Historically, this applied to Confederate officers who first swore allegiance to the United States, but then launched massive armed attacks upon the United States complete with guns, cannons, and bayonets, and actually spilled oceans of American blood. [...] To get Trump, RINOS and Democrats join together to twist the Insurrection Clause into something opposite of its original meaning.

Federal Judge Dismisses Case Trying to Keep Trump Off 2024 Ballot.  A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Florida lawyer who claimed Trump should be banned from the 2024 ballot for inciting an insurrection.  The legal theory is based on Section 3 of the US Constitution's 14th Amendment which states public officials who have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the US may be disqualified from public office.  Trump has not been charged with engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.  Judge Robin Rosenberg a US District Judge for the Southern District of Florida ruled the attorney, Lawrence Caplan, lacked standing to bring the lawsuit.

Fani Willis Threatens to Violate Rights of Defendants in Trump RICO Case Because She's Not Prepared For Trial.  Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is now threatening defendants in Trump's RICO case because she is not prepared for trial.  Earlier this month Fani Willis hit President Trump and 18 others with RICO and conspiracy charges for daring to challenge the 2020 election.  A Fulton County grand jury returned a 41-count indictment which included RICO and conspiracy charges against Trump.  There are 30 unidentified unindicted co-conspirators.

Trump Co-Defendant Eastman:  If We Don't Fight Back, We Will Never Have a Fair Election Again.  Wednesday on FNC's "The Ingraham Angle," Trump co-defendant John Eastman argued efforts to focus on alleged wrongdoing during the 2020 election were justified.  Eastman told host Laura Ingraham those aligned with former President Donald Trump had to fight back or face the possibility of never having a "fair election" again.  "The answer is not to just, you know, take a powder and concede because then it will get worse on the next go around," he said.  "The answer is to fight it with everything we've got because what's at stake here is too important. [...]"

Yuscil Taveras, the Mar-a-Lago IT director who flipped on Donald Trump, is a registered Democrat with a history of money troubles.  The Mar-a-Lago IT director who flipped on Donald Trump in the classified documents case is a part-time DJ and registered Democrat with a history of money troubles, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.  Yuscil Taveras, 45, managed to rack up debts of nearly $750,000 despite holding down a string of well-paid tech jobs and moonlighting as 'DJ Juicy.'  The dad-of-two battled back from bankruptcy but now finds himself a pivotal figure in Special Counsel Jack Smith's efforts to convict Trump of mishandling top secret government material.

The True Big Lie.  The entire case against Trump and his fellow defendants in the 2020 election-interference prosecutions can't even get off the ground unless it is more or less evidently true that the election was not stolen.  The fact of the matter is that it's not unreasonable to believe that the election was stolen, and consequently it isn't possible for it to be (more or less) evidently true that the election was not stolen.  That is why the case against Trump and his collaborators necessarily collapses, whether or not a corrupted legal system recognizes this.  There is no case against Trump and his confreres insofar as it's reasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen.  Trying to stop an apparently stolen election is what everyone should do.

New York AG Seeks Immediate Partial Judgment, No Trial, in $250 Million Fraud Lawsuit Against Trump.  New York Attorney General Letitia James is seeking an immediate partial summary judgment in her multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, court documents show.  Documents dated Aug. 30 show that Ms. James urged Judge Arthur Engoron to issue a summary judgment on one of seven claims in her 200-page civil lawsuit filed against President Trump, The Trump Organization, and three of his adult children in 2022, alleging "years of financial fraud to obtain a host of economic benefits."  In her lawsuit, Ms. James claimed that over a 10-year period, from 2011 through 2021, President Trump and the other defendants had "engaged in numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentation in the preparation of Mr. Trump's annual statements of financial condition," which included deceiving insurers, tax officials, and lenders by allegedly inflating the value of his properties, including his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Dave Smith on Rogan:  The Deep State vs. Trump.  If you've been following this blog for a a while, very little in this Joe Rogan interview with Dave Smith will be new to you.  But this is a nice explanation of how the early part of the Russiagate hoax developed if you weren't paying attention to the blow-by-blow revelations at the time.  [Video clip]

The criminalization of politics to get Trump is endangering everyone's rights.  The U.S. Constitution is clear:  Political speech is protected by the First Amendment.  Also, battles over the acceptance of electors to validate a presidential election are wholly within the political realm and should not be subject to criminal sanctions.  Yet our nation is very close to setting a dangerous precedent by criminalizing speech and politics, and one political faction is rushing into this folly headlong.  If the Biden administration is allowed to criminalize speech and politics, we will become a nation where the losers of presidential elections are arrested instead of being sent into retirement with book tours and libraries.  The criminalization of politics is a dangerous game that Democrats used to decry, when they thought the shoe might end up on the other foot.  No matter how you feel about former President Donald Trump's activities after the 2020 election, the reaction of putting Trump in jail for his speech and activities to organize opposition to Congress counting Electoral College votes would degrade our political system and set the precedent that one party can criminalize the political activities of the other.

Mark Levin Says Trump's Fulton County Indictment Is 'A Perfect Case For Grand Jury Abuse'.  Fox News host Mark Levin called the handling of the indictment of former President Donald Trump in Fulton County, Georgia, "a perfect case" of "grand jury abuse," citing the leak of a document.  Trump turned himself in at the Fulton County jail to be booked after a grand jury handed down indictments the night of Aug. 14, charging Trump and other associates, including former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City and attorneys Jenna Ellis, John Eastman and Sidney Powell.  A document listing charges against Trump was posted on the website of the Fulton County courts the afternoon of Aug. 14 before being deleted.

Georgia Officials Didn't Follow Ethical, Legal Rules in Trump Indictment.  A judge in Fulton County, Georgia, failed to properly follow the precedent set by the state Supreme Court in allowing the county's top prosecutor to go forward with a grand jury investigation of former President Donald Trump after disquaifying the prosecutor from part of the probe for misbehavior.  In a legal analysis Aug. 15 in The Daily Signal, I pointed out the problems with the spurious indictment of Trump and 18 codefendants orchestrated by Fani Wills, the politically ambitious district attorney in Fulton County.  This combination of factors has resulted in an unprecedented attack on the First Amendment and the structure of the American legal system.  So what is the ethical problem above and beyond the constitutional and legal problems with Willis' indictment of Trump?  On July 25, 2022, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney disqualified Willis from continuing to target then-state Sen. Burt Jones as part of her grand jury investigation.

Trump [is the] Victim of a Radically Transformed Federal Judiciary.  The judicial persecution of Donald Trump has exposed the blatant political bias that animates many Federal District Court judges.  Packing the Federal Judiciary at all levels with left-wing judges is the cornerstone of the Marxist Democrat Party strategy to permanently transform America.  If they win the presidency in 2024, they will have succeeded in packing the Federal Judiciary by the end of the term on January 20, 2029.  This process began in earnest with Barack Obama.  He came into office determined to fill the judiciary with left-wing judges, and he succeeded, as virtually every one of his appointments has revealed their bias and leftist ideology while serving on the various courts.  Joe Biden has followed in Obama's footsteps by nominating equally if not more ideologically bound left-wing judges.  The following federal judges are not animated by upholding the law or the Constitution but instead are motivated by political considerations and their allegiance to statist ideology.

U.S. Attorney Weiss Colluded With DOJ To Thwart Congressional Questioning, Emails Show.  Emails obtained by the Heritage Foundation following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit and shared exclusively with The Federalist establish that on multiple occasions, the Department of Justice intervened on behalf of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to respond to congressional inquiries related to the Hunter Biden investigation.  This revelation raises more questions about the June 7, 2023, letter dispatched to House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan under Weiss's signature line, in which the Delaware U.S. attorney claimed he had "ultimate authority" over charging decisions related to Hunter Biden.  It also suggests Weiss and the DOJ may have conspired to mislead Congress.

The Left is 'willfully blind' to President Trump's rights.  A senior law professor at New York University Law, Professor Burt Neuborne, who is also the founding director of NYU's Brennan Center, and perhaps ironically a former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, penned a Guest Essay ("There's a Good Chance Trump Will Be Found 'Willfully Blind'), which is a fascinating example of falsification and post hoc fallacy:  he aggressively advances with astonishing mistruths that President Trump is already guilty based solely on accusations; makes from that particular false assumption, a false conclusion that the former president has limited legal remedies, and finally tries to sell the general reader on a legal theory that serves the Plaintiff (the "government") in its case against the Defendant: that President Trump will be found "willfully blind" by using false statements (questioning an election) to create an unlawful benefit (overturning it).

Democrats Aren't 'Interfering' In 2024 Election With Trump Trial, They're Blatantly Rigging It.  News broke Monday that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the judge overseeing the Jan. 6-related case against Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., set a March 4, 2024, trial date for the former president.  It just so happens that March 4 is the day before Super Tuesday, when more than a dozen states, from California to Texas to Virginia, will hold Republican primary elections.  What a coincidence!  What this means is that Trump, the Republican front-runner by a wide margin, will not be able to campaign ahead of the most important date on the GOP primary calendar.  It also means he'll likely be tied up in court a week later on March 12, when four more states hold primary elections.  But this isn't merely election "interference," it's a naked attempt to rig the 2024 election.  The timing here is important, because not only will Trump be pulled off the campaign trail at a crucial time, he will almost certainly be convicted over the summer.  After all, the jury in this case will be drawn from a pool that voted 92 percent for Joe Biden.  No matter how outlandish and unconstitutional the charges are, no matter how utterly politicized the process is, a D.C. jury is going to convict Trump.

Authoritarian Ruling Class Mulls Post-Civil War Measures To Bar Trump From The Presidency.  Anti-Trump legal scholars have been arguing that the third clause of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War measure barring Confederates from holding public office after participating in an insurrection, can be used against Donald Trump.  Attaching a broken boxcar to the back of this moving train, an Aug. 25 essay at Politico casually compares the case for 14th Amendment disqualification from the presidency to the disqualification of southern congressmen during the Civil War.  You may have already spotted a problem in that last sentence because the story Joshua Zeitz writes about Trump and the 14th Amendment has nothing to do with the 14th Amendment:  It's a story about the refusal of the House of Representatives to take notice of southern congressman in 1864, well before the Reconstruction amendments were ratified.

The statistical fraud of multiple counts and courts.  If "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring a criminal case unless the odds of conviction were well above a mere coin toss, then what are we to make of 91 counts, 34 in New York, 40 in Florida, 4 in D.C., and now 13 more in Georgia?  After all, it only takes one conviction for the Democrats to chortle: "See!  See!  He's a criminal!  Lock him up!"  And even if each count against Trump had only, say, a sixty percent chance of a guilty verdict, it would only take six counts for the overall statistical odds of obtaining at least one conviction to be above a confidence level of 99 percent.  So what can not six but 91 counts mean?  It means the Left can bring counts it knows are weak, yet still gain "success" from a statistical trick.  Even if each count has only a ten percent chance of "sticking" — and any prosecutor bringing such a poor case should be dismissed — with 91 such counts, then the odds of at least one "success" among them would still be over 99.99 percent.

Here's Proof That Trump's Trials Are Election Interference.  Earlier this month, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis proposed a March 4 trial date for her case against Donald Trump.  March 4 also just happens to be the day before Super Tuesday, on which 15 states hold their primaries.  However, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp threw cold water on that idea.  So naturally, Obama-appointed U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan went ahead and scheduled a start date for Trump's federal charges (for his alleged crimes between the 2020 election and January 6, 2021) for the exact same day.  Coincidence?  Please, don't make me laugh.  "Setting a trial date does not depend and should not depend on the defendant's personal and professional obligations," Judge Chutkan insisted during the hearing. "Mr. Trump, like any defendant, will have to make the trial date work regardless of his schedule."

New Hampshire Secretary of State Backs Down, 'Not Seeking' to Remove Trump from Ballot.  New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan told NBC News on Monday he is "not seeking to remove any names" from the Republican primary ballot after Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk urged his supporters to call Scanlan's office following reports Scanlan was weighing using the Fourteenth Amendment to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot.  On Friday, Scanlan met with New Hampshire attorney Bryant "Corky" Messner to discuss Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says public officials are not eligible to hold office if they "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against" the United States.

Save the Rule of Law By Destroying It?  Three leftwing prosecutors are criminalizing politics with more than 90 simultaneous indictments of Donald Trump, the ex-president and currently the leading Republican primary candidate.  While New York prosecutor Letitia James is hounding Trump with a $250 million state lawsuit against the Trump organization and family, on the pretense of supposedly Trump overvaluing his real estate and filing inaccurate financial statements.  Is there any Mafia don, mass murderer, or terrorist who has faced so many indictments or suits in so many jurisdictions at almost the same time? [...] Americans ask themselves questions whose answers are never given.  Why are all these Trump prosecutors leftwing or with Democratic connections?  Would any of the 90 something indictments for "crimes" of years past have been lodged against a citizen Trump who had retired from politics?

The Establishment's 'Gallipoli Campaign' against the American People.  Of all the politicians in America, why did toads such as David Plouffe, Bill Kristol, and communist CIA chief John Brennan eventually see Donald Trump as such a threat?  First, because Donald Trump has always been his own man — unowned and unbowed by the cabal of corporate oligarchs, Intelligence Community shadow dictators, and institutional Marxist globalists that are now correctly understood as the permanent Deep State.  For all the ruling class's talk of "democracy," it abhors anything independent enough to exist beyond the managed control of its secretive clique.  Second, because Donald Trump articulates a vision of economic nationalism that threatens the interests of multinational corporations and one-world-government enthusiasts.  Enriching and protecting Americans, abiding by the limits of the U.S. Constitution, and defending individual liberty and national sovereignty — these straightforward goals are all antithetical to the Marxist collectivism and technocratic despotism of the World Economic Forum's planned new world order.

Georgia indictment of Trump is the same flawed product in a different package.  The processing of former President Donald Trump in the Fulton County jail followed a familiar pattern.  First came the mugshot, then the merchandise.  Both the left and the right immediately started selling mugs and t-shirts featuring the scowling image of Inmate P01135809.  Snap, scowl, sell and spin.  Our legal and political dialogue has now been reduced to the substance of a Benetton catalogue.  Politicians and pundits continue to assure the public that this indictment is not just the criminalization of political speech or election challenges.  Much of that spin returns to a familiar point of reference:  Trump's call to Georgia officials.  Indeed, I have been criticized for even suggesting that "the call" is not evidence of a crime, even though I continue to support the actions of the Georgia officials who resisted Trump's requests, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Trump and the Tower of Lies.  Donald Trump is never going to prison.  He is never going to be sentenced.  It's likely that at least some of the legal proceedings are never going to come to fruition, simply because the end result would be too embarrassing to the powers-that-be.  If in fact Trump is ever convicted at all, it will last only until it reaches an unbiased appeals court, at which point each count will be thrown out, one after the other. [...] The entire purpose of these exercises is to see to it that he doesn't run again — that there is no Trump '24 campaign — with the secondary intention of terrorizing anyone that may run in his stead or otherwise inconvenience the Democrats.  In this, they have failed miserably.  Despite this full-bore attack on all levels of the legal system from county to national, despite a legacy media completely in the pocket of the elites, despite the full cooperation of law enforcement and intelligence communities, despite last-ditch opposition from the GOP establishment, Donald Trump is not only maintaining his status as a candidate, he is prevailing.  Recent polls put him up to 46 points ahead of all rivals, a lead unparalleled in previous campaigns in which the frontrunners suffered none of Trump's problems.  Furthermore, Trump is running even with, and in some polls actually beating the incumbent.  This is an incredible achievement, and one for which Trump has received absolutely no credit — itself a sign of cognitive dissonance.

Steve Bannon Outlines National American Destiny as Attached to Trump Destiny.  Steve Bannon did an excellent monologue today [8/25/2023] outlining how President Donald Trump is one of only three people who have the destiny of the nation attached to their own destiny.  Together with President Abraham Lincoln and President George Washington, the destiny of our constitutional Republic as intrinsically tied to President Donald Trump.  [Video clip]

The election doubts of the DA prosecuting Trump for election doubts.  The DA in Georgia prosecuting President Donald Trump for his election doubts, and his statements about those, has been revealed as having her own doubts about elections, and making public statements about those.  Trump was booked Thursday on counts in an indictment created by Fani Willis, who is a hard-left activist who is fundraising on her agenda against Trump.  It's one of four indictments pending against Trump, and has been described as possibly the most political of the four, as it appears to make criminal the act of making a phone call or having a meeting.

Can the Trump-Hating Psycho Prosecutors Be Stopped?  Most respected legal analyses of the various charges against Trump agree that the law has been twisted into something unrecognizable in order to "get" him.  From a layperson's viewpoint, the Fulton County charges seem to be particularly awful, as does its district attorney, Fani Willis.

Trump Names 2 Democrats He Suggests Should Get Indicted on the Charges He Faces.  Former President Donald Trump suggested that under the standard by which he faces racketeering charges in Fulton County, Georgia, for contesting the 2020 presidential election, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams should also be indicted for contesting elections they lost.  "Hillary called me up and conceded," Trump told Tucker Carlson in the interview released Wednesday night on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, just before the first Republican 2024 presidential debate.  "Now the word is that [President Barack] Obama said, 'You have to do that.'  But she called up and totally conceded," Trump added.  "But now, every time you see her on television she's saying ... she's challenging the election."  Although Clinton, then the Democratic nominee for president, publicly conceded to Trump in 2016, she later referred to her former opponent as an "illegitimate president."

Justice Requires Fair Procedures.  The late US Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter once observed that the history of liberty is largely a history of procedural fairness.  Our constitution embodies that history by reading "the due process of law.  Lately, however, many so-called progressives have been willing to ignore procedural safeguards and due process in their campaign to get former President Donald Trump — to misuse the law in an effort to prevent the leading Republican candidate from running against the incumbent candidate for president.  In doing so, they are violating the second principle of justice: "Do not recognize faces."  That commandment is the basis for the blindfolded statute of justice.  Some progressives who would ignore procedural safeguards to get Trump acknowledge that this is because they regard him as especially dangerous and therefore undeserving of due process.  Special injustice for an unjust man!  But in our system of law, which is based on precedent, there is no such thing as special injustice.  Injustice, once practiced against an unjust person, will serve as precedent for deploying it against just persons.

Professor Turley:  Effort to Bar Trump From Ballot is 'Single Most Dangerous Constitutional Theory' Ever.  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley recently called the effort by Democrats to keep Trump off the ballot "dangerous."  Of course, the left doesn't care.  They believe the ends justifies the means.  Democrats would burn the country down to keep Trump from being reelected.

5 Things You Can Do Right Now to Help Dismantle the Federal Bureaucracy.  In America, we're supposed to have three branches of government and a robust system of checks and balances.  What we're not supposed to have is an unaccountable fourth branch of government that is impervious to the changes promised by winning presidential candidates.  Yet, thanks to the idea that government should be run by supposedly nonpartisan, apolitical experts, we have that fourth branch.  Some call it the administrative state; some call it the managerial state; some call it the Deep State.  For the sake of our constitutional republic, conservatives must dismantle much of the bureaucracy and return the power to those who are elected by — and accountable to — the American people.

Can Democrats Constitutionally End Trump's Campaign?  As the number of inane indictments of Trump demonstrates, the Democrats will do virtually anything to keep Donald Trump from ever again occupying the White House and threatening the Swamp's grip on the throats of the American people.  However, I don't think a traditional October Surprise is much of a danger in the 2024 election.  Why would Democrats wait until the last minute to release some exquisite horror that will send Trump packing?  They wouldn't.  The fact that they haven't released such a campaign-killing bit of information already means that they simply don't have one.  As such, the Democrats are in trouble.  Between having a guy who electrifies crowds like no one in American history, on the one hand, and on the other hand, having as their presumptive nominee a doddering Alzheimer's patient, means that Democrats really have two problems to solve, not one.

The disqualification of Donald Trump and other legal urban legends.  The popularity of urban legends is a testament to the will to believe.  The desire of people to keep Elvis alive or prove that a Sasquatch could exist furtively in our backyards shows the resilience of fables.  Constitutional urban legends often have an even more immediate appeal and tend to arise out of the desperation of divided times.  One of the most popular today is that former President Donald Trump can be barred from office, even if he is not convicted in any of the four indictments he faces, under a long-dormant clause of the 14th Amendment.  This 14th Amendment theory is something that good liberals will read to their children at night.  It goes something like this:  Donald Trump can never be president again, because the 14th Amendment bars those who previously took federal oaths from assuming office if they engaged in insurrection or rebellion.  With that, and a kiss on the forehead, a progressive's child can sleep peacefully through the night.  But don't look under the bed.  For as scary as it might sound to some, Trump can indeed take office if he is elected, even if he is convicted.  Indeed, he can serve as president even in the unlikely scenario that he is sentenced to jail.

The Corrupt DoJ has Charged Trump with a Fake Crime.  First, the legal basics: a standard criminal conspiracy comprises two parts: (1) an agreement among conspirators (2) to accomplish a criminal object.  For any conspirator to be liable for a criminal conspiracy, at least one must also (3) commit an "overt act" — that is, do something — for the purpose of accomplishing the criminal end.  The overt act need not be a crime in itself, and the criminal object need not ever have been accomplished.  You can't be indicted without specific facts alleged.  You can't be sent to trial on an indictment that just says "you violated such and such federal law."  The indictment must say how.  So a conspiracy indictment must do more than merely list a provision of a criminal statute as the object of a conspiracy.  It must identify a specific result intended by the conspirators that is a crime.

Trump Isn't Just the Target, He's the Pretext.  Emulating the Biden administration's Department of Justice's special counsel, Jack Smith, once again a partisan local Democratic prosecutor in a one-party jurisdiction has stretched state laws to indict a former president from their opposing party who is also the leading candidate for its 2024 nomination.  As previously demonstrated by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Georgia's Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will receive the plaudits and votes of her partisans for her indictment of Mr. Trump and 18 of his 2020 campaign associates.  Given the electoral insularity of her position in a Democratically controlled county, the enmity of Republicans and/or MAGA supporters is impotent to unseat her; and, in fact, it is politically beneficial to her, as it burnishes her credentials with Democratic primary voters.  (Ironically, this is akin to how these political indictments boost Mr. Trump's standing in the GOP primary).  The Fulton County, Manhattan, and the federal special counsel's indictments are politically motivated, even if juries agree in the heavily Democratic jurisdictions of Atlanta, New York City, and Washington, D.C.

CIA Sued for working with the Biden campaign to produce 'Dirty 51' intel letter calling Hunter's laptop disinformation.  The CIA has been sued for its role in helping to craft a letter from 51 intelligence officials discrediting Hunter Biden's laptop as Russian disinformation.  The letter that was signed by 51 intel officials in 2020 immediately before the presidential election falsely claimed that Hunter Biden's laptop had all the 'classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.'  A Republican report released in May showed that the CIA was actively involved in getting signatures for the letter which 'was a political operation to help elect' Joe Biden in November 2020.

Trump Can Prove It.  Establishment politicians and mainstream media have fought harder than on any other issue to convince the public that voter fraud is a conspiracy theory.  But unconstitutional changes to state election laws, unsupervised ballot drop boxes, voting machine errors, mathematically improbable voter turnout, and other examples of outright voter fraud that were denied a chance to be presented in court between the 2020 election and Biden's inauguration can't simply be chalked up as coincidental.  All those things occurring simultaneously make the fraud seem coordinated.  In response to the most recent indictments, Trump's attorneys indicated they finally have a platform to "fully re-litigate every single issue that occurred during the 2020 election," of which there were many.  The most important issue in America may finally get its due.

Prosecutorial Bolshevism.  In the United States of America, there are roughly 3,150 counties.  Most of them have prosecutors or district attorneys.  Each one of these can usually empanel a grand jury.  These grand juries can, with rare exceptions, meet in secret to consider indicting anyone at all.  There need be no publicity at all, but there usually is.  These grand juries can call witnesses and even require Americans to testify for days or even weeks on end on matters that took place years before.  The "defendants" in these matters are not allowed to have lawyers, although sometimes they do.  They are sometimes kept from their families and colleagues for long periods.  At any point the prosecutors can issue indictments for crimes, real or imagined, felonies or misdemeanors based on the proceedings of the grand juries.  In many jurisdictions, but not all, the mere fact of being indicted bars an American from holding public office or even running for public office.

Pollak on Savage:  Trump Could Take Oath of Office in Prison and Walk Free.  Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Joel B. Pollak told Dr. Michael Savage on his podcast Friday that it was possible Donald Trump could be railroaded by a D.C jury — but could take the oath of office in prison, pardon himself, and walk out a free man.

Mehdi Hasan Worries That World's Most Recognizable Man May Try To Sneak Out Of Country.  MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan worried Thursday that former President Donald Trump could pose a flight risk as the trial dates for his various indictments approach.  A grand jury indicted Trump late Monday night for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.  Eighteen others, including Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jeffrey Clark and Kenneth Chesebro were indicted alongside the former president.  "He's afraid of the law," Hasan told "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough, referring to the former president.  "I genuinely think we need to start having a discussion about whether this guy is a flight risk.  And I don't say that lightly."

Georgia State Senator Takes First Step to Impeach Trump's Fulton County Prosecutor.  Georgia state Sen. Colton Moore (R) took the first step on Thursday towards impeaching Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis for her actions against former President Donald Trump, a memo exclusively obtained by Breitbart News shows.  In a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp (R), Moore announced an initiative to begin an emergency session to conduct a thorough investigation into the actions undertaken by Willis.  On Tuesday [8/15/2023], a Georgia grand jury indicted Trump on 13 counts.  The lawmaker's investigation could lead to defunding Willis's investigation of Trump and/or ultimately impeaching the district attorney.  "We must strip all funding and, if appropriate, impeach Fani Willis," Moore said in a statement.

How Jack Smith Is Twisting Our Election Process.  If Special Counsel Jack Smith has his way, election integrity as we know it will be a thing of the past, and all election results in the future will be suspect.  I've got a particular interest in election integrity.  As the leader of Tea Party Patriots Action, I've spent the better part of the last two and a half years traveling the country, training tens of thousands of citizens for work as election officials and poll workers.  Our work has been necessitated by the doubts raised about election integrity in recent election cycles.  Poll after poll demonstrates Americans' distrust of our elections.  Our hope is that we can help reestablish the public confidence in elections necessary for them to function as they must — to allow the electorate to exercise its right to choose our leaders.

Fani's Fifteen Minutes of Fame.  Poor Fani.  Her moment of glory will be a short one.  Lawyers tell us that Fani's case against President Trump is likely to be moved to a federal court — because it is directed at federal officials and because the accusations are very similar to those made by Jack Smith in the January 6th indictments.  In the end, however, Fani may be happy to let the feds conduct the trial because some of the 161 "Acts of Racketeering" (ACTs) in the indictment involve dangerous criminals doing dangerous things.  For example, here is ACT 6 (in its entirety):  ["]On or about the 21st day of November 2020, MARK RANDALL MEADOWS sent a text message to United States Representative Scott Perry from Pennsylvania and stated, "Can you send me the number for the speaker and the leader of PA legislature.  POTUS wants to chat with them."  This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.["]  Exchanging telephone numbers:  That is pretty scary stuff.

GA State Senator Demands Emergency Session to Investigate Fulton County DA Fani Willis.  Georgia State Sen. Colton Moore (R) wants Gov. Brian Kemp to declare an emergency session to investigate Fulton County DA Fani Willis.  Willis is the one who brought charges against President Donald Trump, including a RICO charge.  A grand jury indicted him this week. [...] Moore has been asking people to sign a petition to investigate Willis:  ["]Corrupt District Attorney Fani Willis is potentially abusing her position of power by pursuing former President Donald J. Trump, and I am calling on my colleagues in the Georgia legislature to join me in calling for an emergency session to investigate and review her actions and determine if they warrant impeachment.  The politically-motivated weaponization of our justice system at the expense of taxpayers will not be tolerated. [... "]

Criminalizing Politics In The Trump Indictments.  I've made the point repeatedly that both the D.C. and Georgia indictments of Donald Trump start from a premise that isn't true — that an attempt to "overturn" an election in and of itself is criminal.  The means by which an election is overturned may be criminal, but the end goal is not.  With regard to the D.C. indictment, I questioned Where is the crime?

The Purpose Of The Trump Indictments Is To Demonstrate The Left's Power.  The latest indictment of former President Donald Trump is even more outlandish than Jack Smith's blatant attempt to criminalize free speech.  The indictment Monday out of Fulton County, Georgia, criminalizes mundane activities like asking for a phone number, texting, encouraging people to watch a televised hearing, and reserving a room at the Georgia capitol.  These activities, according to Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, run afoul of the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute.  As far as Willis is concerned, Trump's legal efforts to challenge the election results in Georgia amounted to a criminal conspiracy, with Trump as the criminal mastermind.  What that means, outlandishly, is that every phone call or tweet related to those legal efforts, every step Trump and his team took to press their legal case, counts as "an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy."

Fulton County clerk responds to publishing Trump indictment ahead of grand jury decision: 'I am human'.  The Fulton County clerk who released an indictment document displaying charges against former President Donald Trump before the grand jury voted said she inadvertently hit "send" instead of "save" in an interview with WSB-TV Tuesday.  The court briefly posted a document on its website Monday afternoon listing 13 charges against the former president, Reuters first reported, which ultimately matched the charges released after the grand jury made its decision.  The Office of the Fulton County Clerk of Superior and Magistrate Courts initially responded to media reports by claiming the document was "fictitious," which Clerk Ché Alexander told WSB-TV was "the best word I could come up with."  "It was fictitious," she told the outlet. "It wasn't real.  It didn't have a stamp on it."  "I am human," Alexander said.  [Tweet]

To Understand The Latest Crazy Trump Indictment, Check Out The 6 Types Of Charges.  Late Monday [8/14/2023], Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants in a 98-page indictment that included a total of 41 different counts.  The defendants are already fighting back, with Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, seeking to remove the case to federal court based on a statute that protects federal officials from state court prosecution for official conduct.  More counteroffensives will likely follow, with other former federal officials, including Trump, presumably also seeking removal to federal court, while the remaining defendants will probably expeditiously move to dismiss the indictment on a variety of grounds.

Dershowitz slams GA indictment, says Trump used same tactics as Al Gore in 2000: not a 'crime'.  The former legal counsel for Al Gore who challenged — and lost — the presidential election results in 2000 says Gore's team did "the same thing" as what a Georgia prosecutor is claiming Trump committed as a crime.  Donald Trump is facing a fourth indictment, this time from Fulton County, Georgia district attorney Fani Willis, involving allegations that Trump sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.  Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, speaking to Fox News Digital, criticized the pending indictment, calling Trump's actions "very similar" to that of Al Gore's legal strategy in the Bush v.  Gore case that decided the 2000 presidential election.

Trump Is Not Guilty Of Racketeering; The Deep State Is.  Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga, charged former President Donald Trump and 18 colleagues with racketeering under Georgia's RICO law.  The charge is that he conspired with them to overturn the 2020 Georgia presidential election results.  Experienced lawyers, such as those at Bochetto & Lentz, a law firm that says it specializes in "messy, complicated, high-pressure, and high-stakes cases," highlight the benefits of using RICO statutes, which enable prosecutors to tie numerous crimes into one case, even if they have covered an extensive period.  The person who didn't "pull the trigger, set a fire, or commit a burglary" can be charged under RICO laws.  It is little wonder that RICO has been traditionally used against the Mob.

Destruction of Rule of Law in Fani Willis' Georgia Star Chamber.  The attack on the First Amendment and the very structure of the American legal system by the Star Chamber of Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis is a profound assault on our democratic republic and the rule of law.  There's no other way to characterize the politically partisan indictment of former President Donald Trump and 18 other defendants (along with 30 unindicted coconspirators) for legally questioning the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2020 election in Georgia.  Willis is trying to criminalize free speech and have a chilling effect on anyone in the future who might dare to question the results of an election.  Willis manufactured this egregious "case" with seeming unforgivable ignorance of the freedom to speak, to engage in political activity, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances that is protected by the First Amendment.

Mark Meadows Seeks to Remove Georgia Indictment to Federal Court.  Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows filed a motion on Tuesday to remove the Fulton County, Georgia, indictment against him to federal court.  Meadows was charged with two counts in a 41-count indictment that named himself, former President Donald Trump, and 17 others.  Meadows is being charged under Georgia's RICO statute and faces charges for soliciting an official to violate their oath of office.

Georgia Indictment Says Trump Telling People to Watch TV Is Proof of Racketeering Activity.  In their ongoing crusade to criminalize dissent, former President Donald Trump's persecutors might have sunk to a new low.  Trump's latest criminal indictment, handed up Monday by a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia, claimed the leading GOP 2024 presidential contender and his associates "constituted a criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities."  It included one assertion that defies belief.  In a section that detailed the supposed acts of racketeering, "Act 22" accused Trump of encouraging his Twitter followers to turn on the television.

The Level of Pretending Needed to Believe This is Jaw Dropping.  The Fulton County clerk of courts is putting out the third public statement trying to explain and justify why they posted the grand jury indictment of Donald Trump before the grand jury had even met to vote on the indictment.  This latest explanation is so incredulous it's almost impossible to believe they are making this public:  [Document]  According to the story above, the original indictment before the jury met, was a trial run upload, made of a totally fictious construct, with totally random charges, that just happened to line up with the exact same charges, in the exact same sequence, as the indictment after the jury voted.

Radical Georgia D.A. Fani Willis Launched Reelection Fundraising Site Days Before Trump Indictment.  Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis launched her reelection fundraising website days before a grand jury returned a 98-page, 41-count indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants, per Atlanta First News.  The outlet reported that Willis's campaign emailed supporters on Thursday, notifying them that the website was up and running.

Democrats Denied Election Results 150+ Times Before Trump Was Indicted for Challenging Election.  Although a Georgia grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump on Monday for challenging the 2020 election result, Democrats have refused to accept the results of elections they lost for decades.  As Breitbart News reported, more than 150 examples show Democrats denying election results, including President Joe Biden; two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton; House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY); Reps.  Barbara Lee (D-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX); and failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.  [Tweet with video clip]

The Democrats are Certain They Will Never be Held Accountable for the Trump Indictments and Biden Cover-Up.  Never in the 235 years since the ratification of the Constitution has an administration premeditatively and blatantly prosecuted, on specious and conjecturable charges, the titular leader of the opposition party and leading candidate for president.  And doing so while overtly flaunting their egregious actions to protect and cover-up for the incumbent president who has been exposed as potentially complicit in massive bribery and fraud.  In any previous election cycle, these overt and unabashed actions would have been the death knell for the incumbent president's campaign and his party.  Yet the Democrats are blatantly unconcerned, supremely confident that they will prevail in 2024 regardless of who they nominate.

Biden Junta Goes Full-on Stalinist Against Trump.  The Biden DOJ keeps hitting Donald Trump with new indictments, including one that could possibly draw the draw the death penalty.  These mounting attacks on the former president have drawn comparisons to a banana republic or third world dictatorship.  A new development suggests a different dynamic is in play.  Former U.S. Attorney General William Barr was recently asked if he would be willing to testify against Trump.  "Of course," Barr responded.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's case was "challenging," but Barr does not think it "runs afoul of the First Amendment."  That runs afoul of Bruce Thornton, who makes a strong case that quashing free speech is what Smith's inquisition is all about.  As Robert Spencer contends, "we're racing past" the banana republic stage and America is "heading toward becoming a new Stalinist regime in which critics of those in power are arrested by the regime itself, tried on false and fabricated charges, and executed."

Trump's Georgia Indictment is the Final Proof the 2020 Election Was Stolen.  The 2020 election was stolen.  The debate is over.  How do I know?  Because both the feds and Georgia just indicted our President for talking about, questioning, and trying to investigate a stolen election.  When the communist thugs, bullies and tyrants make it a crime to question a stolen election, in a country built around free speech, it's 100% proof they stole the election.  There is a perfect precedent.  In the NFL.  The game was called "The Miracle in the Meadowlands."  Everything about that fixed game reminds me of the 2020 stolen election.  It's a perfect match.

Justice Shrugged:  The Persecution of Donald Trump.  Here's what I dream of Donald Trump saying when he stands trial on bogus charges proffered by his political opponents:  "I do not recognize this court's right to try me ... I do not recognize my action as a crime."  Those are the fighting words of industrialist Hank Rearden when he was put on trial for ignoring an unjust law in Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged."  Although the circumstances of the cases differ, Rearden is a perfect avatar of Donald Trump, as both larger-than-life men are persecuted by the justice system for seeking to pursue their own self-interest and for refusing to surrender to government oppression.  Self-interest is central to the Objectivist philosophy of Rand, who grew up in Russia and witnessed first-hand the oppression of free thought and free enterprise following the 1917 Communist revolution.  Her masterpiece, "Atlas Shrugged," is the ultimate roadmap to how American democracy can be subverted by leftist bureaucrats and a corrupt media to destroy some individuals and intimidate the rest.

What the Fulton County judge could do.  Currently, there are more than 400,000 to 500,000 people — the number varies, depending on the source — charged with crimes who are being detained pre-trial, even while they are still "legally" innocent.  Many are jailed because they can't afford the bail.  There are hundreds of thousand cases where the judge set an exceptionally high bail just to ensure they cannot flee the jurisdiction.  However, pre-trial detention also applies to those charged who are deemed a flight risk, regardless of how high — or low — bail is set.  There are even no-bail situations — where prisoners are held just to make sure they don't disappear into the woodwork of our jammed-up legal system.  Former President Donald Trump is not a resident of Georgia.  His primary residence is in Palm Beach Florida, at Mar-A-Lago, while his secondary residence is in Trump Tower in Manhattan.  This makes Trump a "flight risk," at least in the narrow definition of someone who might flee the jurisdiction of Fulton County, Georgia.

Trump is now facing Ninety One criminal charges in four criminal cases.  Donald Trump has now been indicted in a fourth case, with the former president being charged Monday in Georgia over his efforts to overturn his 2020 general election defeat in the state.  The probe by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis began shortly after the release of a recording of a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which the then-president suggested that Raffensperger could "find 11,780 votes" -- just enough to overtake Joe Biden.  Trump, a Republican, has described his phone call to Raffensperger as "perfect" and has portrayed the prosecution by the Democratic district attorney as politically motivated.

Trump Attorneys:  Georgia Indictment 'as Flawed and Unconstitutional as This Entire Process'.  Lawyers for former President Donald Trump responded after midnight Tuesday morning to the late-night indictment in Fulton County, Georgia, by District Attorney Fani Willis, calling it "as flawed and unconstitutional as this entire process." [...] Critics noted that the 41-count indictment (which include 13 counts against Trump) accuses the defendants of crimes for simply arguing that the 2020 presidential election was flawed.  That, in turn implicates the First Amendment right to free speech and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.  The indictment also attempts to use a county court in Georgia to charge the defendants for crimes allegedly committed on a national scale and in violation of a federal election, which typically fall under federal jurisdiction.

Fulton County Georgia Briefly Publishes Then Removes Trump Indictment Document.  Primed for immediate nullification.  The indictment was briefly unsealed before the grand jury voted.  This is clear and demonstrable evidence of a prejudicial and malicious prosecution.  Divine providence.  The Fulton County DA Fani Willis has been preparing a malicious prosecution against Donald Trump for over a year.  The novel theories around the prosecutorial approach have been widely discussed and the grand jury foreperson previously gave rather odd public statements during gleeful interviews about the evidence the jury had received.  It is and was ridiculous in the extreme; however, that's how lawfare works.  Today Reuters and other media noticed the court filings against Donald Trump were briefly uploaded and then deleted from the website.  Again, more suspect and odd behavior from Fulton County, Georgia, a county widely known as the epicenter of Southern fraud.

Trump and 18 Others Indicted in Georgia; Charges Include Violation of RICO Act.  A grand jury in Georgia voted to indict Donald Trump on Monday over his efforts to expose the 2020 election fraud in the state and reverse his loss.  The 41-count indictment levied by Fani Willis, the District Attorney for Georgia's Fulton County, includes: violating the Georgia RICO Act; Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Impersonating a Public Officer; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Conspiracy to Commit False Statements and Writings; Conspiracy to Commit Filing False Documents; Conspiracy to Commit Forgery in the First Degree; Filing False Documents; and Solicitation of Violation of Oath by a Public Officer.  The D.A. also charged 18 others, including former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, attorneys Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Jeff Clark, John Eastman.

Donald Trump, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis Indictment in Fulton County.  Indictments were returned by a Fulton County, Georgia grand jury Monday evening, against Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, former North Carolina Sen. Mark Meadows, and John Eastman.  The 41-count indictment includes charges of racketeering, solicitation of violation of an oath by a public officer, conspiracy, and filing a false statement.

New evidence shows just how biased Trump judge is in Jack Smith's case.  Judge Tanya Chutkan, the D.C. federal district court's hanging-ist judge when it comes to the January 6 cases, was (quite coincidentally, I'm sure) assigned to Donald Trump's case after Jack Smith essentially indicted him for believing that the November 2020 election was rife with fraud.  (A belief, apparently, available only to Democrats following elections.)  The fact that Chutkan hates January 6 defendants, of course, doesn't mean she's anti-Trump.  However, Julie Kelly has revealed a trial transcript in which Chutkan openly states her belief that Trump should be in jail.

Jack's Schizophrenic Indictment.  According to Jack Smith, the Electoral Count Act (ECA) gave Mike Pence and the members of Congress only one job to perform on January 6, 2021:  collect, count, and certify.  Smith calls it the "federal government function," and he claims Trump and his six co-conspirators took actions aimed at violating that "bedrock" function of our federal government.  That is how the Special Counsel starts the Trump indictment, and believe me, he lays it on thick.  There are numerous references to the three C's and to federal government function.  However, the Special Counsel's supporting arguments seem strangely incongruous.  Starting around paragraph 12 and proceeding for dozens and dozens of paragraphs, the Special Counsel supports the indictment by trying to prove there was no fraud in the various swing states.  Why would he spend so much ink on fraud in the states if the ECA only involves the simple federal function of collecting, counting, and certifying?

Moderate Republicans Sound the Alarm on David Weiss's Special Counsel Appointment.  House Republicans are seemingly unified in condemning U.S. prosecutor David Weiss's appointment as a special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation, including several moderate members of the GOP conference.  Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel in the "ongoing investigation" into Hunter Biden, "as well as for any other matters that arose or may arise from that investigation."  Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said he hopes Weiss "gets to the truth," but expressed concern with his appointment. [...]

The Weaponization of Justice.  Jack Smith, with a long history of partisan conduct, is the prosecuting attorney in the case in the District of Columbia charging Trump with disinformation regarding the 2020 election, a confection of dubious legal basis.  This week, the parties argued before District Court judge Tanya Chutkin the prosecution's right to muzzle Trump during his campaign as he and his team poison public opinion and a potential jury pool with leaks and accusations of wrongdoing.  Judge Chutkin has a history of sentencing J6 defendants to longer sentences than even the prosecution requested.  She warned counsel for Trump that politics had no place in her courtroom, but in at least one transcribed exchange with one of those defendants she tipped her hand, expressing her view that it was wrong that Trump was not yet jailed:  [Transcript]

A Sham Special Counsel.  Just when you thought the Justice Department's handling of the Hunter Biden case couldn't appear more corrupt, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that he was appointing Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as "special counsel" in the case.  Not only is Weiss the same controversial federal prosecutor who has botched the investigation of President Joe Biden's son so far, but the written rules governing special counsels call for the attorney general to appoint "an outside Special Counsel."  (Emphasis added.)  In other words, someone who doesn't have the inherent conflict of interest that any employee of the Justice Department has — such as when the department is investigating the son of federal prosecutors' ultimate boss, the president of the United States.  Yet what does Garland do?  Appoint the same U.S. attorney for Delaware who, through either incompetence or intentional action, already has compromised this investigation.

Obama-Appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan's Former Law Firm Represented Huma Abedin in Clinton Email Server Investigation.  Following the recent indictment against President Donald Trump, spearheaded by Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, it has been revealed that the case was assigned to an Obama-appointee judge, Tanya S. Chutkan.  The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Trump had requested an immediate recusal of far-left and anti-Trump U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, to preside over his ongoing "January 6th" case in Washington D.C. Trump characterizes the judge as a "biased" judge.

Obama Judge Tanya Chutkan Signals She will Gag Trump in Middle of Presidential Campaign.  Judge Chutkan is going to gag Trump in the middle of a presidential campaign!  Trump's lawyer appeared before Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan Friday morning for a hearing on a proposed gag order.  Judge Chutkan gave Trump only ONE DAY to respond to a motion for protective order (gag order) filed by dirty Jack Smith rather than give him the standard 14 days.  Chutkan signaled she will gag Trump in the middle of a presidential campaign.

Jack Smith isn't even trying to hide it.  Special Counsel Jack Smith has set court dates for his various charges against President Trump — and what a coincidence — they all coincide with key dates during the U.S. election. [...] But this is not about fairness to the defendant.  This is about swinging the election.  He tried earlier to get this so-called "speedy trial" done through his presidential records charges, where he sought a December trial date, and was granted a May 20 one, well into the election season.  So now he's gotten even by moving his January 6 charges even more strategically through the court dockets, even though legal experts have noted that they are pretty flimsy, meaning, he could theoretically present a stronger case if he made time to build the case.

Don't Be Surprised if Some Republicans Help Jack Smith Put Trump in Prison.  Many conservative patriots are gleeful today based on their belief that Jack Smith's most recent indictment of President Donald Trump is going to afford the MAGA movement its first real opportunity to litigate all the irregularities of the 2020 election and the events of Jan. 6 in a court of law.  This is the evidence they think will be needed for the president to rebut Smith's allegations that he is a fraudster because he knew all the time that the 2020 elections were legitimate.  But, before Trump's supporters pop the proverbial champagne bottle to celebrate, they probably would do well to consider the implications of the following language extracted directly from the first count of Smith's indictment: [...] Boiled down to the basics, Smith has alleged that Trump knew his claims of election fraud were false and used them to try to defraud the United States.  Some have asked how Smith even hopes to carry his burden of having to prove such knowledge ever existed in the president's mind beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Latest Trump Indictment Looks Like It's Backfiring.  If Joe Biden thought siccing his Department of Justice on Donald Trump would keep him from returning to the White House, that strategy appears to be backfiring.  A new poll conducted Aug. 2-7, which is entirely after the latest indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith, shows that Trump now leads Biden in a 2024 rematch.  The survey by Premise found that Trump garners the support of 42% of registered voters, while Joe Biden gets 38%, giving Trump a 4-point advantage.  If you're a Democrat seeing this poll, it has to make you nervous.  Trump was indicted earlier this month, and Democrats have been accusing him of crimes from the moment he decided to run for president.  To them, the indictment not only represents Trump getting justice, but it's the key to keeping him out of the White House.

What Will Happen If Trump Goes to Trial for January 6 Charges?  Each week I resolve to try to write about some subject that does not include a reference to President Trump, but on most weeks some subject involving him is the most newsworthy story in the world.  The indictment of him and others over the intrusion on January 6, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol exposes several new perspectives.  It was no surprise, as it had been telegraphed months in advance.  The Democratic political strategists must have inspired themselves with Russian army tactics in mobilizing many weeks in advance ten divisions on the Ukrainian border under the direct gaze of NATO aerial reconnaissance which was shared with the whole world:  Democratic strategists had been announcing a quadruple indictment of the former president by their drone-like marionettes in the Justice Department for a long time.  What was surprising was the vacuous legal argument, yet it was received as plausible by some people who should have known better.  The former attorney general, William Barr, a man capable of profound reflection on the law and justice, and Vice President Pence, who never would have been heard of outside of Indiana were it not for Mr. Trump, have disclosed themselves as stage-four sufferers of inoperable Trumpphobia.

Special counsel got a search warrant for Twitter to turn over info on Trump's account, documents say.  Special counsel Jack Smith's team obtained a search warrant in January for records related to former President Donald Trump's Twitter account, and a judge levied a $350,000 fine on the company for missing the deadline to comply, according to court documents released Wednesday.  The new details were included in a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington over a legal battle surrounding the warrant that has played out under seal for months.  The court rejected Twitter's claim that it should not have been held in contempt or sanctioned.  Smith's team repeatedly mentioned Trump's tweets in an indictment unsealed last week that charges the former president with conspiring to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

Why Wouldn't Americans See Politics in Trump Indictments?  It is sometimes said that the prosecutions of former President Donald Trump are "backfiring" on Democrats.  That is, instead of lowering Trump's political support, they are raising it.  That is indeed happening among Republicans and some independents.  But many Democrats still hope the cumulative weight of multiple indictments — there will soon be four, when the Georgia case is added to the New York case and the two federal cases — will make it impossible for Trump to win the general election.  That is why there seemed to be a mini panic recently when a number of political observers pointed out that, in spite of everything that has happened, Trump not only has a very good chance of winning the Republican nomination — he also has a reasonable chance of winning the presidency again.

Political Prosecution:  A Constitutional Crisis In The Making.  We tend to think of election interference as a fraudulent or nefarious activity directly connected to the election itself, whether by manipulating voting machines, ballot harvesting, paying for votes, registering votes from incompetent or non-existent people, voter intimidation, vote-count manipulation, etc.  But in the United States, we overlook the most obvious form of election interference that's common throughout the world and throughout history:  political prosecution.  Imagine you are the president of the United States, and you want to remain in power (or keep your party in power). Now imagine that you control the Department of Justice, the FBI, and a host of other intelligence agencies.  What would stop you from bringing multiple criminal cases against your main political rival?  And if you are being investigated by Congress for bribery and other crimes, what would stop you from bringing criminal indictments against those in Congress who pose a threat?  Political prosecution is the nuclear weapon of election interference.  In the hands of a corrupt politician, anything is possible.

New York Times Op-ed Warns of 'Terrible Consequences' of Prosecuting Trump.  Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, a noted critic of former President Donald Trump, published a "guest essay" in the New York Times on Tuesday warning of "terrible consequences" for the country in the ongoing prosecutions of Trump.  Goldsmith, who served in the George W. Bush administration, warned Times readers that while they might enjoy the idea of Trump being indicted and possibly imprisoned, the other half of the country did not see it that way, and would seek revenge: [...]

Federal Indictment of Donald Trump Is Weaponization of American Political System.  The indictment of former President Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith — with the full approval of Attorney General Merrick Garland — is an attack on the American political system and fundamental rights protected by the First Amendment to freely discuss, debate, and contest serious election and political issues.  It represents the ultimate weaponization of the Justice Department, a transformation started by President Barack Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, and completed by Garland, to take out a viable political opponent of Garland's boss and political patron, President Joe Biden.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Trump is charged with four felony counts under three federal statutes — 18 U.S.C. §§ 371, 1512, and 241 — for supposedly conspiring to defraud the U.S., obstruct an official proceeding, and suppress the right of Americans to vote.  Why?  Because he "spread lies" questioning the outcome of the 2020 election by claiming "that he had actually won," according to the indictment, thus creating a "national atmosphere of mistrust and anger" and "erod[ing] public faith in the administration of the election."  That's the kind of language you would normally see in an editorial from The New York Times, not in a criminal indictment.  It is an opinion, not an actual rendition of facts.

Trump Indictment Is a Mockery of Common Sense.  Politics arise from disagreements.  People disagree about their values and opinions, about who should rule and how, and sometimes they disagree about facts, particularly complex ones.  What caused a recession?  Who started a war?  What is the best way to reduce crime?  These are factual questions of a sort, but beliefs about these kinds of facts are inseparable from one's values and loyalties.  For Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has now brought a second indictment against former President Trump, the world is much simpler:  There is only truth and fraud.  There are no honest disagreements, misunderstandings or debates.  Thus, most of the indictment consists of ridiculous constructs:  The election was not stolen, and we know because Jack Smith told us so.  Someone told Trump this, but Trump disagreed.  Because Trump didn't embrace the conventional wisdom, he is now a liar committing criminal fraud.

A Florida Trial and a D.C. Grand Jury for Trump.  The elites may have to hold one of their show trials in Florida, but the grand jury had to be in D.C.  ["]Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday asked the Justice Department to explain its use of an out-of-state grand jury in the Mar-a-Lago case.  While the Mar-a-Lago case is being handled out of her Fort Pierce, Fla., courtroom, much of the grand jury work ahead of the indictment was conducted through a Washington, D.C., grand jury.["]  A D.C. grand jury is an obvious rubber stamp for political prosecutors.  A D.C. grand jury would indict a ham sandwich, as long as it was a Republican.  That's why the real show is in Washington D.C.  Going down to Florida is a bit inconvenient because it's one of those provinces of the empire.

Prosecutor Working With Jack Smith Donated Thousands to Biden, Cory Booker, the Democratic National Committee.  David Rody, a prosecutor working with special counsel Jack Smith on the Trump indictment, is also a donor to Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and the Democratic National Committee.  Rody is not a grassroots donor who gave $10 or $25 here and there, he donated thousands of dollars, meaning that he is obviously a partisan.  These people are abusing our legal system for political reasons and it's so obvious.

The Trump Indictment and 2024.  What is happening to Trump will not be limited to the Democrat's political opposition, but it will be directed at virtually everyone who oppose the dictates and policies of a de facto one-party socialist state.  The desperate and preposterous indictments of Donald Trump must be a wake-up call to the American people, in particular Republican and Independent voters.  These unconscionable actions underscore the reality that is no longer hyperbole to say that the 2024 election is the most important since 1860.  As in 1860, in 2024 the future of this nation hangs in the balance.  If the judiciary is captive to the Marxists, there is no turning back.

The Weaponization of Justice.  [Scroll down]  Administrations and their efforts to stock the justice department with supporters come and go.  But in the last decade the Left has viewed the Department of Justice as a political extension of the party — whose unchecked power must properly be directed to hurt enemies and help friends.  No wonder Eric Holder described himself as Obama's "wingman" and became the first Attorney General to be held in contempt for ignoring a congressional subpoena.  Never in U.S. history have the Department of Justice and sympathetic state and local prosecutors indicted a leading opposition candidate and likely nominee of one of the two major parties, and at the beginning of a presidential campaign.  Donald Trump is currently charged with nearly 100 felonies by at least two prosecutors.  He likely eventually will be hit with more than 500 indictments, from four prosecutors, every one of the latter with a long record of either leftwing associations or Democratic service.  The mass murderer Charles Manson faced less legal exposure.  No one believes Trump would have been indicted on such counts — most of them involving allegations from years past — were he not running for President.

The Three Politically Motivated Phony Indictments of Trump so Far.  There are three pending criminal cases against Donald Trump so far, with another one likely to arise in Georgia.  Biden-appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith is prosecuting Trump in Florida over allegedly taking classified documents from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.  He's charging him over J6 in D.C., and Georgia prosecutors may follow with a similar suit.  State prosecutors in New York have charged Trump with fraud over an alleged payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. No one actually believes the formerly most powerful man in the world, who had the top attorneys and advisors surrounding him, would blatantly commit felonies.  Everyone knows it's a fishing expedition by politically motivated prosecutors to exploit the left-leaning justice system and take lawfare to a new level — prosecution.  In the latest indictment, regarding J6, Trump has been charged with four felony counts: conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy against rights and witness tampering.  It essentially repeats the DNC talking points the MSM repeats ad nauseam; that he stoked violence and pretended the election was stolen.

Can Trump Get an "Impartial Jury" in DC?  What the Law Requires.  The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees the accused the right to "an impartial jury."  But it also states that the trial should take place in "the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."  What should happen, therefore, when it is virtually impossible for the defendant to get an impartial jury in that state or district?  In federal cases, the law provides for a change of venue under appropriate circumstances.  The prosecution of Donald Trump for the events around January 6, 2021 would seem to call for a change of venue.  The District of Columbia is the most extreme Democratic district in the country.  Approximately 95% of the potential jurors register and vote Democrat.  Whereas approximately 5% voted for Trump.  Furthermore, the anger against Trump is understandable in light of the fact that the events of January 6th directly involved many citizens of the district.  Moreover, the judge randomly selected to preside over this case has a long history of bias against Trump and his supporters, and her law firm has a long history of conflicts and corruption.

Why Trump Wasn't Charged With Insurrection.  For 31 months, the Democrats and their allies in the corporate media have characterized the Capitol Hill chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021 as an "insurrection." The House of Representatives reinforced this version of events by impeaching then-President Trump for "incitement of insurrection."  The Senate acquitted him, of course.  Nonetheless, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th attack referred the case to the Justice Department for further investigation.  Consequently, it was something of a surprise that the formal indictment unsealed last Tuesday by Special Counsel Jack Smith failed to charge Trump with fomenting insurrection.  This must have been particularly frustrating for those who have long insisted that the 14th Amendment prohibits Trump from serving a second presidential term.

Will the Biden Administration (sic) Let Trump — Or Any Republican — Take Office in 2025?  As if there is not enough going on out there to trouble your mind already, have you considered distinct possibility that the current PINO — the president-in-name-only — and his crypto-fascist clique would not allow Donald Trump to take office again if the Bad Orange Man somehow won the nomination and then defied the odds (I give him 15%) to somehow go Full Grover Cleveland?  Because there is a real chance they would not.  Crazy talk?  Yeah, but the crazy talk came from the lying piehole of our dust puppet alleged chief executive.  He shamelessly told us — like he shamelessly told us he fired that Ukrainian prosecutor as part of the Delaware Corleone crime club's corruptorama — that he absolutely would not let Trump take office again.  Sure, he qualified it by claiming, in his own grammatically challenged way, that he would only employ "legitimate efforts of the Constitution," but we have seen that, among other things, his idea of the "legitimate efforts of the Constitution" includes using his DOJ to frame the ex-president/his chief political rival.

Bartiromo: The DOJ Is Waiting for More Evidence of Things to Come Out on Joe Biden — Then They Will Give Georgia the Go Ahead to Release Another Indictment.  Maria Bartiromo went on FOX and Friends Weekend to discuss her upcoming show this morning.  Bartiromo announced her guests and then made a prediction on upcoming indictments against President Trump.  Maria Bartiromo:  I will also tell you that all of the lawmakers I spoke with over the weekend, and many of them are on board they want an impeachment inquiry started.  They believe that a Georgia indictment is coming in two weeks.  So I assume the DOJ is waiting for more evidence of things to come out on Joe Biden and the Biden Family taking money in and then they will give Georgia the go ahead to release another indictment on President Trump.

The Machinery of Government is Coated with Gunk.  The charges depend on Trump's state of mind and "proving the requisite intent on the part of Trump and his alleged co-conspirators on all of these charges is likely impossible, at least in front of a fair jury in a fair courtroom."  More troubling is that "Jack Smith's theory of the case necessarily requires criminalizing political speech," a core protection of the First Amendment.  Trump is surely not the first candidate to claim elections were stolen from them:  In 1824 Andrew Jackson claimed John Quincy Adams cheated him out of the election.  More recently Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams, to name but two, made that claim. [...] Of course, whatever infirmities there are in this case, the most obvious is that the facts in this case were known in 2020, and timing it now while demanding a speedy trial has "all the appearances" of Smith arrogating to himself the right to pick the next president.

Trump plans to ask for recusal of federal judge overseeing 2020 election case and for venue change.  Former President Donald Trump says he plans on asking the judge overseeing his federal charges related to the 2020 election to recuse herself and he wants to have the venue moved out of Washington, D.C., in order to get a fair trial. [...] D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee assigned to oversee Trump's federal election case, donated thousands of dollars to elect Barack Obama as president.  Additionally, she ruled against Trump in another case related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.  Chutkan is well known for dealing out the toughest sentences on Jan. 6 defendants, giving longer prison sentences than requested by prosecutors in more than 60% of those cases before her.  Trump had said last week that he hoped to be tried in an "impartial" venue such as a court located in nearby West Virginia, rather than in Washington, D.C., where the district's citizens voted overwhelmingly against him.

Here's the 'Democrat Dream Scenario' for the Trump Trial Ted Cruz Warns to Be Mindful Of.  [Scroll down]  The senator not only brought up concerns about election interference in how the Biden administration is trying to jail his most likely opponent.  It's also "an assault on democracy," Cruz explained, "because they don't trust the voters."  He again spoke about Biden's record in that "they don't want the voters to vote on Biden's record.  Because if we vote on Biden's record, Biden loses.  Instead, they want to use the Department of Justice to steal the election," also speaking once more to news coverage in that "they're trying to steal it by dominating the headlines by bringing the full force of the federal government to bring case after case after case."

Jonathan Turley spells out how foul the Trump indictment really is.  Every American's speech is entitled to First Amendment protection.  However, if the Biden administration has its way, that protection does not extend to Donald Trump.  With his usual clarity and insight, law professor Jonathan Turley spells out just how foul the Trump indictment really is.  As always, when it comes to the latest Democrat "gotcha" against Trump, this one is stink and dangerous, explains Turley.  Hidden behind the legal language and statutory citations is a straightforward effort to punish Trump for daring to speak his mind about the chicanery he (and half of the American voters) perceived in the 2020 election:  ["]Trump was not charged with conspiracy to incite violence or insurrection.  Rather, he was charged because he 'spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won.'["]  In other words, Trump is being accused of challenging the Democrat establishment's insistence that it won the election fair and square.  Any dissenting views must not only be silenced but must be punished, both to keep Trump off the ballot and as a warning to others.

Trump demands Washington DC federal judge Tanya Chutkan recuse herself from case.  Former President Donald Trump claimed 'there is no way' he can get a fair trial in his alleged election interference case, as he called for the judge in the case to be recused and for the trial to be moved out of liberal Washington, DC.  The 2024 GOP frontrunner announced on his Truth Social platform on Sunday that his lawyers will be asking for a recusal of federal court judge Tanya Chutkan on unspecified 'very powerful grounds.'

The Editor says...
As much as I like Donald J. Trump, I still think he needs to stay off of all social media and let his attorneys do all the talking.

Secretary Blinken is appalled at reports that a president jailed his political opponent.  [A] hallmark of narcissism is that you're never wrong.  No matter what happens, it's only bad if the other guy does it.  That's why I can't even pretend shock at the fact that Biden's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, took to Twitter to announce that the Biden regime condemns Putin for convicting Aleksey Navalny, Putin's political opponent.  Navalny has been a burr in Putin's side for some time now.  In 2011, after a contested election based on claims of election fraud (sound familiar?), the Putin regime jailed him for 15 days "for defying a government official."  Navalny instantly became a leading voice in opposing Putin.  He's been pushing back against Putin ever since — except that Putin has been pushing a whole lot harder. [...] Despite the Deep State's and Biden administration's conduct since 2016, Antony Blinken, Biden's Secretary of State, officially tweeted out that the Biden administration thinks it's a very bad thing when a sitting president jails his political opponent:  [Tweet]

DOJ Prosecutor Working on Special Counsel Jack Smith's Team Is a Biden Donor.  One of the veteran attorneys advising special counsel Jack Smith in his prosecution of former President Donald Trump has donated thousands of dollars to Democrat politicians, including President Joe Biden.  David Rody left his role as a partner at the Sidley Austin law firm in 2022 to join the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a senior counsel in the criminal division.  Now, he is helping advise Smith, who has indicted Trump twice for his alleged efforts to challenge the 2020 election and his handling of White House documents.

MSNBC's Joy Reid savors the 'demographic reality' that Trump's J6 judges are women of color.  Joy Reid just can't help herself when it comes to inserting race into absolutely everything and the upcoming trial of former President Donald J. Trump in a Wahington, D.C. courtroom presided over by a hostile Obama-appointed judge is no exception.  During MSNBC's coverage of Trump's traveling to the nation's capital for his arraignment on Thursday, the "race lady" took great pleasure in pointing out that both of the judges who the former president faced would be women of color, seeming to suggest that their ethnicity could have an effect on how the trial will play out.  Reid was clearly savoring the "demographic reality" of the D.C. courts and suggested that the Trump team's desire for a change of venues was rooted in racism rather than the reality that there is no way that he will get a fair trial in an area where the overwhelming majority of the jury pool hates his guts.

The Stunning Lack of Self-Awareness of Biden's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.  On Friday, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was sentenced to 19 years in prison on charges of supporting "extremism."  This is actually his fifth criminal conviction, and, according to a report from USA Today, "Navalny and his supporters have repeatedly criticized his criminal convictions as politically motivated and described them as attempts by Russian President Vladimir Putin to silence his archenemy."  Navalny has been incarcerated since January 2021. He has reportedly been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin and was found guilty of multiple charges, including creating and participating in an extremist community, financing extremist activities, organizing such a community, making public calls for extremist actions, and involving minors in dangerous activities.  Additionally, Daniel Kholodny, the former technical director of Navalny's YouTube channel, was also convicted of similar offenses, receiving a lesser sentence of eight years in a penal colony.

Turley Raises Questions About Case Against Trump:  Jack Smith 'Would Need To Bulldoze' First Amendment To Convict.  Attorney and law professor Jonathan Turley raised serious legal questions about Special Counsel Jack Smith's path to convicting former President Donald Trump.  In an op-ed published Saturday by The Hill, Turley warned that the latest indictment of Trump relating to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot threatens the First Amendment by giving the government an unprecedented power to criminalize false statements.  Trump was indicted earlier this week on four charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.  He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Bill Barr Refuses to Say if He Assisted the Jack Smith Targeting of Donald Trump.  [Scroll down]  Through research and eventually a stroke of luck, I was able to trace the people Attorney General Barr assigned to review the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense.  I found the people working for Durham and questioned the lead investigator.  Again, I immediately told everyone there was nothing being done to confront the corrupt entities who fabricated the nonsense.  After those events I also outlined the institutional silo corruption, a process Benny Johnson recently described as "the ghost in the machine".  While Johnson has the big picture accurate, these entities are not some unnamed random institutional bureaucrats.  They are people, they know exactly what they are doing, and they understand exactly how to control the mechanics.  These "ghosts" are the people AG Bill Barr was/is protecting.

Seriously Sketchy — Judge Boasberg Sits in Back of DC District Court During President Trump Appearance.  In March, when I wrote the outline about Judge Boasberg being the corrupt DC judge who broke the constitutional restrictions on executive privilege, which technically forced Mike Pence to turn over his notes and testify to James Smith and the DC grand jury, I said at the time, "The entire judicial system is corrupt, soup to nuts, all of it."  I was not using hyperbole.  For Judge Boasberg (who is on vacation) to show up in court and sit in the back row of the courtroom is a stunning visible display of judicial ideology and targeting.  In reality, Boasberg is bearing witness to the outcome he created by forcing a Vice President to give testimony against the Chief Executive, thereby establishing the basis for the fraudulent allegations Special Counsel Jack Smith was utilizing to target that same executive, President Donald Trump.  This is the same Judge Boasberg who sat as presiding judge on the FISA court.  The same Judge Boasberg who gave FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith a slap on the wrist for manufacturing evidence used in the Carter Page FISA application that defrauded the court.  The same Judge Boasberg who appointed former DOJ-NSD head Mary McCord as amicus curiae advisor to the court, after she knowingly and fraudulently submitted the FISA application to the court.

A Country Descending into Madness.  This is what it looks like when a country descends into madness.  Two standards of "justice" preclude any justice at all.  Hillary Clinton kept top-secret information on a home-brew private server that was infiltrated by malicious foreign actors, and she suffered no legal consequence — even after having destroyed Blackberry devices and other subpoenaed evidence of criminal culpability.  President Trump keeps personally declassified documents in his home, and the FBI sends a SWAT team into Mar-a-Lago so that Merrick Garland's goons can throw Trump in prison.  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama conspired with the Intelligence Community to frame Donald Trump as a Russian spy and remove him from office, and not a single perpetrator involved in that incendiary plot has been indicted.  Trump correctly points out that mail-in ballot fraud irreparably marred the 2020 election, and the violent thugs in control of D.C. level criminal charges against him that could lead to his execution.

The Latest ABC News Poll Is a Disaster for Everyone Involved.  We'll start with Donald Trump, as there are several ancillary questions asked about his recent indictment to discuss. [...] Specifically, the indictments of Trump are boosting his primary support while at the same time harming him in regard to the general election.  You have to remember that most people are never going to read the various indictments.  They are never going to see that the most recent January 6th-related charges are, legally speaking, extremely weak.  All they are going to hear is political rhetoric, and Democrats will presumably own the airwaves in 2024 given the former president's fundraising woes.  We saw a preview of that when special counsel Jack Smith gave his presser on Trump's latest indictment.  Instead of speaking to the law and what evidence existed, he gave an exposition on the events of January 6th.  That despite the fact that Trump is not charged with inciting January 6th.  But again, all that most people will hear is the rhetoric, not the legal realities.

Dershowitz: Jack Smith Could be Indicted for Fraud for Omitting Trump's 'Peaceful' Statement.  Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says that under his own "fraud" standard, Special Counsel Jack Smith could be indicted for omitting a key portion of then-President Donald Trump's speech in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021.  The indictment charges Trump with four counts, including "conspiracy to defraud the United States."  But in a portion recounting Trump's speech at the "Stop the Steal" rally, Smith repeats the errors made by House Democrats in Trump's second impeachment trial:  he focuses on Trump's use of the phrase "fight like hell," and omits a sentence highlighted by Trump's defense team:  "I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Vince Coglianese Lays Out DOJ's 'Massive Credibility Crisis'.  WMAL Talk radio host and Daily Caller Editorial Director Vince Coglianese ripped the new indictment against former President Donald Trump on the Wednesday edition of "Special Report with Bret Baier."  Coglianese questioned the credibility of the Justice Department and argued that Americans "fundamentally do not trust this institution."  "This is the prosecution and persecution of the leading candidate for president against Joe Biden," Coglianese said.  "I think we have a Justice Department with a massive credibility crisis on its hands.  Voters fundamentally do not trust this institution.  They have routinely gone after Trump through the years in the form of the FBI-Russia collusion hoax and, of course now all of these prosecutions."

Trump DC Indictment — Where is the crime?  The indictment may make out a persuasive case that Trump lied in the post-election period about election fraud, and disregarded the warnings of his most trusted and most loyal confidants that what he was saying was not true, but that doesn't equate to a crime.  The core of the alleged crime is disruption of the electoral count, but that took place because of the riot, and Trump has not been indicted (yet) for inciting the riot.  What the indictment purports to prove may be a reason not to vote for Trump, but it's far from clear it's a reason to criminally charge him.

6 Ways Jack Smith's Latest Indictment Is Legally Flawed And Politically Shady.  Special Counsel Jack Smith's latest indictment against President Trump seeks to criminalize political speech and taking incorrect legal advice.  Americans of all political stripes should be furious and deeply concerned by the course Smith has set this country on.  I have reviewed the new Trump indictment closely, and sadly, it is exactly what we have come to expect from Smith's team — a highly political document, riddled with legal and factual infirmities.  This indictment should have never been brought to a grand jury in the first place.  Moreover, its timing, particularly in light of Smith's statements and actions in the Trump documents case, is so highly suspect that it casts a political pall over the whole case.

Herridge: Attorney Points to Big Problem With Trump Indictment — Allegedly Exculpatory Evidence.  Looks like there are more problems with that indictment from Special Counsel Jack Smith, even as it just getting started with the arraignment of former President Donald Trump on Thursday.  Trump entered a not guilty plea to the four counts, which included conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.  According to a report from CBS News' Catherine Herridge, Tim Parlatore, who is the attorney for former NYPD Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, provided records to Jack Smith on July 23.  Parlatore thinks the Special Counsel may not have reviewed records before indicting Trump because he thinks those materials are exculpatory.

Joe Rogan:  Biden DOJ's Trump Indictments Are the 'Actions of a Banana Republic'.  Podcast host Joe Rogan said the U.S. Department of Justice's multiple indictments against former President Donald Trump are the "actions of a banana republic."  Rogan spoke about how the indictments against Trump galvanized his supporters.  "Yeah, and the people that love Trump, they feel like this is a witch hunt.  And they feel like all the things he's getting indicted for are [unfounded] anyway," Rogan said.  "Not only does it not work, but it kind of hardens their position that he's being targeted.  And these are like the the actions of a banana republic."

Lawyer:  Jack Smith 'has the entire law wrong'.  An attorney for former President Donald Trump said Thursday that Trump's defense will use a "very simple" strategy should charges over the 2020 election be brought to trial.  Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges during his Thursday arraignment after Special Counsel Jack Smith secured a four-count indictment of Trump relating to his efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election.  Smith previously secured a 37-count indictment against Trump in June based on an investigation into allegations surrounding classified documents.  "The legal strategy in this case I think is very simple:  You attack the facts that Jack Smith put out that are wrong for instance, Jack Smith claiming, as you already pointed out, that Donald Trump did anything other than call for peace and patriotism on January 6th is wrong," attorney Jesse Binnall told Fox News host Jesse Watters Thursday evening.  "And then you attack the law, because Jack Smith has the entire law in this case wrong, and more importantly, he is ignoring the Constitution of the United States."

Jack Smith Admits Making False Claim to Court in Trump Case.  Special counsel Jack Smith's team made a startling admission in its case against former President Donald Trump, acknowledging in a new court filing that it failed to turn over all evidence to Mr. Trump's legal team as required by law and falsely claimed that it had.  Mr. Smith's team said in a July 31 court filing (pdf) in its classified documents case against the former president that it had incorrectly claimed during a July 18 court hearing that it had provided all Mar-a-Lago surveillance footage to Mr. Trump's defense attorneys, as required by law.  "On July 27, as part of the preparation for the superseding indictment coming later that day and the discovery production for Defendant De Oliveira, the Government learned that this footage had not been processed and uploaded to the platform established for the defense to view the subpoenaed footage," Mr. Smith's team wrote in the July 31 filing.

DOJ Indictment Of Trump Is A Declaration Of War Against American Voters.  On Tuesday, President Joe Biden's Justice Department took the unprecedented step of indicting former President Donald Trump — Biden's chief rival in the upcoming 2024 election — for repeatedly expressing his opinion that the last election was stolen, rigged, and unfair.  It's an opinion millions of Americans share, and to which they are unquestionably entitled thanks to the First Amendment.  That includes Trump, who has said repeatedly (and recently) that the 2020 election was stolen.  He'll probably keep saying it until his dying day, and he has every right to do so.  The idea that our Justice Department can indict someone, especially the sitting president's main political rival, over speech that's protected by the First Amendment is simply insane.  It puts us firmly into banana republic territory, where tinpot dictators jail their political opponents ahead of election day to ensure their "reelection."  Simply put, this indictment is nothing more than a declaration of war against American voters and their constitutional right to free speech.

At this point, why not bypass the legal niceties and just put Trump in jail?  The Biden Administration has clearly given up on the idea that the federal government exists to do anything but satisfy Joe Biden's whims.  So why not get it over with?  Throw Donald Trump in jail without due process, construct reeducation camps, and rename the FBI the Stasi? [...] If we lived in a free country with a working press there would at least be some outcry.  Stories about the corruption would be printed and crusading journalists would be ringing alarm bells about the destruction of democracy.  Actually, on that latter point, they are doing precisely that, only they are blaming the Republicans for not buckling to the inevitable.  The current definition of "democracy" is simply complying with anything the Left wants to impose on us.

The State Farm Late Night Ballot Stuffing Video Was NOT Debunked.  Once again, President Trump was indicted on Tuesday — the DAY AFTER Hunter Biden's best friend and business associate Devon Archer testified that the Joe Biden was included on 20 calls when his son was sitting with foreign officials arranging influence peddling deals for the family.  Archer also testified that Joe Biden met with Russia's Yelena Baturina who invested $40 million into Hunter Biden's real estate ventures.  And she also paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in consulting fees.  Joe Biden later excluded Baturina from his Russian sanctions list.  So what happened next?  President Trump was indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith.  For those paying attention, this is not the first time this has happened.  There have been at least six times now where new evidence was released implicating the Biden Crime Family and then President Trump is indicted by the Biden regime the very next day.

The Judge Assigned to Trump's January 6th Indictment Is Going to Be a Nightmare.  Once again, the political world has been engulfed by another indictment of Donald Trump, this time surrounding his alleged actions involving January 6th.  The details include four different counts, including two counts of conspiracy and two counts of obstruction.  Those four counts break down specifically to Trump allegedly attempting to obstruct an official proceeding, which has to do with January 6th, while the conspiracy charges appear to center on the supposed alternate electors scheme.  Obviously, arguments about selective prosecution and weaponization of the DOJ will be at the forefront for political circles, but even on legal grounds, this indictment appears to be far weaker than the one charging that Trump mishandled classified documents and conspired to obstruct the investigation into the matter.  Specifically, counts two and three sure seem like "disinformation" is being criminalized.  Regardless, putting even the legal arguments aside, one thing is certain:  The judge assigned to this case is going to be a nightmare.

Trump Could Have Spent Jan. 6 Talking About The Weather And Still Would Have Been Indicted.  Former President Donald Trump was indicted for the third time on Tuesday when Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled charges ostensibly related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.  According to Smith, Trump is guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy against rights, obstruction of an official proceeding, and conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding, all for raising electoral objections that Democrats have made for decades.  As protesters breached the first police barriers at the Capitol, Trump was still speaking at the White House, with explicit directions for demonstrators to "peacefully and patriotically make [their] voices heard."  That timeline itself undermines the left-wing narrative that Trump alone incited a deadly insurrection.

Jonathan Turley and Andy McCarthy Rip Apart Flawed Nature of New Trump Indictment.  As we reported earlier, Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped another indictment on former President Donald Trump, charging him with three counts of conspiracy and one count of obstruction on Tuesday.  At this point, it's getting a little ridiculous and frankly, transparent, as to how hard the Biden administration seems to be working to try to take Trump out of the race with lawfare and indictments.  Fox News' Bret Baier shared how Republicans are describing the indictment for what it is:  Democrats looking at a box of chocolates, trying to figure out what was the best box of chocolates to "prevent him from becoming president again."  That's hitting the nail on the head; that's what it's all about.

Special Counsel Jack Smith Unseals Criminal Indictment of President Trump for Protesting Results of 2020 Election.  Interestingly, nowhere in the indictment is anything criminally alleged relating to the January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol building in Washington DC.  However, you will notice in the Lawfare delivery of the remarks, Special Counsel Jack Smith factually speaks almost exclusively of the January 6th events.  The absence of a criminal charge (ie. seditious conspiracy or insurrection) when contrast against the extreme verbal emphasis of the event as outlined by Smith in the presser, will be missed by most.  Speaking of the non-criminal event as the context for a fabricated/stretched criminal allegation, is Lawfare in action.  Why emphasize but not charge?  Because the DOJ/FBI does not want the risk of litigated discovery and evidence of coordinated government activity therein, that's why.  Jack Smith knows he is out on a limb with his Lawfare effort to criminalize the legal and constitutional challenge to an election outcome.

Trump Jan 6 Case [is] Assigned to Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama Appointee.  The DC grand jury indicted Trump in the January 6 investigation.  "Trump indicted in federal probe over effort to undo election loss and subvert transfer of power in run-up to Jan. 6 riot" AP reported.  Trump was hit with 4 counts:  Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.

Indictment 3.0: Jack Smith Indicts Trump Day After Hunter, Joe Biden Implicated.  Special Counsel Jack Smith announced Tuesday evening that a grand jury in Washington, D.C., had indicted former President Donald Trump on charges relating to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.  The indictment was announced the day after President Joe Biden had been implicated in a long-running influence peddling-scheme by his son Hunter's former business partner, Devon Archer, in testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

Donald Trump Indicted For Third Time.  Former President Donald Trump has been indicted for a third time.  Officials announced Tuesday that Trump has been indicted in relation to his alleged attempt to interfere in the 2020 election and alleged involvement in Jan. 6. Trump was charged with "Conspiracy to defraud the United States," "Conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 proceedings" and "A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one's vote counted."  "This is nothing more than the latest corrupt chapter in the continued pathetic attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election, in which President Trump is the undisputed frontrunner, and leading by substantial margins," the Trump campaign said in a statement.

Trump has been indicted again.  A grand jury has filed an indictment connected to the 2020 election.  At the moment the indictment is sealed and no official statement has been made about who has been indicted or why but the Washington Post is reporting the target is former president Trump.

Republican Party Elites Want to Change Primary Rules to [Deprive] Trump of Delegates.  A poll released earlier this month projected President Trump would win in a massive blowout in the Republican Primary. [...] This terrifies the GOP elites.  They hate Trump and hate the fact that they cannot sway Republican voters away from President Trump.  Massachusetts is the latest state where Republicans are playing with the rules to thwart President Trump in the upcoming primary.

They are rubbing our noses in their filth.  The false investigations, and fake indictments of Donald Trump are ridiculous and aimed at showing his supporters and his distractors alike that no one can escape them. [...] President Trump never really was in charge.  Obama led the resistance — an act of sedition — that thwarted Trump at every turn.  McConnell and the rest of the gullible guinea pigs in DC who call themselves conservatives aided and abetted Obama.  Trump's inability to govern properly is one of the reasons some commentators want to abandon him.  It is like telling a rape victim she should have fought harder.

It's time to prosecute the prosecutors.  With their lies about masks, vaccines, and lockdowns all exposed, another pandemic won't work, because nobody's buying that trick again.  So now, it's banana republic prosecutions against the Republican frontrunner, on multiple, coordinated fronts.  Note the timing here — not two years ago, but right before the election.  What a coincidence!  By bringing these prosecutions, Smith and Garland are breaking federal law by violating the Hatch Act, which states that a federal "employee may not ... use his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election." But the unfortunate fact remains that few legal tools or weapons exist to hold rogue prosecutors accountable for these wild shenanigans.  Violators of the Hatch Act, for example, face a maximum $1,000 fine and debarment from working for the government for a maximum of five years.  But does anybody think a thousand-dollar fine will deter Smith and Garland from their rabid anti-Trump fixation?

Hemingway: DOJ Playing With Fire Trying To "Literally Imprison" The President's Top Political Rival.  "The Federalist" senior editor Mollie Hemingway, during an appearance Sunday on FNC's "Media Buzz, drives home the point that with the indictment of Donald Trump on federal charges over the January 6 riot, the Department of Justice is "working to literally imprison the top political opponent of the current president" over an issue of political speech.  She said Trump not being allowed to "do what everybody else was always allowed to do, which is protest election results and challenge election results" is "very dangerous."  "To criminalize that act, something the Democrats have done every single election since Reagan... The Department of Justice is acting in a very reckless fashion, and a competent media would be accurately talking about that, what a problem it poses to the very existence of our republic."

Trump attorneys: Fulton DA is raising political cash off her investigation.  Former President Donald Trump's Atlanta attorneys are making yet another attempt to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from further investigations into his alleged 2020 election meddling in Georgia.  On Thursday, Trump's attorneys filed a motion in Fulton County Superior Court, arguing Willis should be disqualified from her investigation because she allegedly is using the case to raise re-election funds.

Is there a judge anywhere in the US with the courage to say that the Emperor has no Clothes?  [Scroll down]  Again, is there an AG or a judge or justice with the moral core and the principles to do what is right anywhere in this country, who remembers we don't have emperors?  We all know that all these legal actions that have been filed against Trump — the NY nonsensical stuff, the documents case, the absurd Jean Carroll case, the numerous cases accusing him of election interference or inciting the fedsusrrection of January 6, 2021 — are all, shall we say, trumped up.  There must be an AG in some state — Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan - states we know the Democrats cheated in 2020 — who is brave enough to stand up against this Stalinist offensive against the best President since Reagan?

Endless Trump Indictments And Jail Threats Means Republicans Can't Quit The Weaponization Fight.  The deep state's incessant attempts to undermine the 2024 presidential election by throwing President Joe Biden's number one political enemy in jail is getting old.  It seems like every day, Biden bureaucrats and Democrats manufacture new justifications for why former President Donald Trump deserves to be behind bars.  "Deranged Jack Smith, the prosecutor with Joe Biden's DOJ, sent a letter ... stating that I am a TARGET of the January 6th Grand Jury investigation, and giving me a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and an Indictment," Trump announced in a Truth on Tuesday.

Mark Levin: Trump Attorneys Must File Motion to Investigate the Biden DOJ and Jack Smith.  Mark Levin called on the Trump attorneys to immediately file motion for order the Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the series of illegal leaks by Joe Biden's corrupt Department of Justice and Special Counsel Jack Smith used to interfere in the 2024 presidential election. [...] ["]This Department of Justice is destroying America.  It's destroying the 2024 election.  It's violating every norm, every tradition, everything it inherited to ensure that that department could be trustworthy and could be reliable.  It has criminalized politics.This Department of Justice is destroying America.  It's destroying the 2024 election.  It's violating every norm, every tradition, everything it inherited to ensure that that department could be trustworthy and could be reliable.  It has criminalized politics.["]

The push to disqualify Trump from 2024 using the 14th Amendment.  An effort to disqualify former President Donald Trump's White House bid is being undertaken by two civil rights groups that say the Jan. 6 Capitol riot could prevent Trump from holding office under the 14th Amendment.  Mi Familia Vota, a nonprofit organization to unite the Latino community, and Free Speech For People, an advocacy group pushing for political equality, have joined forces to create the "Trump is Disqualified" campaign.  The campaign aims to inform voters and state officials of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.  This section bars people from holding certain offices who have previously taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and have "engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."  The groups are pushing efforts across the nation to bar Trump from appearing on the 2024 ballot next November, urging secretaries of state and chief election officials through letters to use what is known as the insurrectionist disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment to block Trump from "any future ballot," according to Free Speech For People.

Enough!  I could tell you that you will never get Donald Trump through the Republican Convention, that all of the money is for DeSantis and the rules are being re-written at the state GOPs to get rid of Trump during the primary for DeSantis, but most of you will not hear what I am saying.  Should he somehow manage that and it is still possible, I could tell you that there is no way Donald Trump wins in 2024; that despite the cheating that is now a part of American Democracy (yes, the capitalization was intended) as much as any Soviet-style election, except on a much grander and more physically exhausting scale, having to overcome actual people voting opposite of the preferred candidate rather than having but one name on the ballot.[...] Trump is a pipe dream.  The GOP won't even let him have the nomination.

217 Pages Reveal Obama Admin's Building of Trump-Russia Narrative.  Heavily redacted documents from the National Security Agency tell at least part of the story of a final-month rush by the outgoing Obama administration to torpedo the incoming presidency of Donald Trump.  The Daily Signal obtained 217 pages of documents from the NSA through a Freedom of Information Act request.  The documents reveal that Obama administration officials, from Vice President Joe Biden down to several ambassadors and many officials in the Treasury and Energy departments, gained access to secret information about President-elect Trump's incoming national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

If Alleged DOJ Misconduct Is True, A Judge Could Dismiss The Whole Case Against Trump.  Lost in the breathless headlines over the indictment of President Trump for alleged violations of the Espionage Act is a story that deserves much more attention than it has received thus far: the allegation that a senior official at the Department of Justice attempted to shake down Trump's co-defendant's lawyer.  It is a scandal in the making that could result in the investigation of senior DOJ officials, which should lead to public congressional hearings, and that might even result in the entire case against Trump being dismissed.

In Defense of Donald Trump.  Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis has some formidable hurdles to clear in her quest to convict Donald Trump for interfering in Georgia's 2020 election. [...] Trump's "big lie" is fundamental to her case.  To support her premise, she may cite the dozens of judges who have tossed the Trump legal team's lawsuits from their courts, seeing no evidence of fraud in the 2020 election.  She is not so likely to draw the court's attention to the fact that millions of Americans, who are not judges, have seen a plethora of evidence that amounts to nothing short of a calculated coup d'état, coordinated across several states.  Such evidence ranges from expert analysis to published graphs showing impossible spikes in Biden votes in three battleground states: Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia.  These fantastic vote spikes were logged in the wee hours of election night when, according to reports, no observers were present, as would be required by law.  As J.R. Dunn has stated, "The prosecution is going to have a very hard time stating a case without allowing in evidence that they desperately don't want anyone to hear."

Koch Network Plans to Spend $70 Million Exclusively to Block President Trump from GOP Nomination.  As if on cue, here comes another billionaire group by well-established political control agents in yet another multimillion effort to block President Trump.  This time it's Koch and his Americans for Prosperity network.  The Koch groups are planning to spend $70 million in their effort to eliminate the support of Donald Trump in 2024.  However, [it will be interesting] to watch how the downstream media networks attack Trump in order to get a piece of the spending allotment.  That's where knowing where the Koch money flows comes in handy.

America's justice system has been corrupted by political bias.  Three very different indictments — but one [bad] conclusion:  America's blatantly politicized justice system is broken.  Daniel Penny.  Hunter Biden.  Donald Trump.  'Isn't it amazing,' Trump is heard declaring on a bombshell audio recording leaked to CNN on Monday of a now infamous 2021 meeting at the center of a case against the former president over the mishandling of classified information.  'These are the papers,' Trump says as he reportedly flaunts 'secret' military plans detailing an attack on Iran.  Yes, isn't it amazing?  It's astonishing, in fact, that explosive details of perhaps one of the most important and unprecedented legal cases in America's history, against our most hated Republican president, keep leaking out as if from a broken water main.

CBS Report, Mysterious DoD Iran Attack Memo Does Not Exist and Is Not Part of Jack Smith Case Against Trump.  After a full media cycle of apoplexy and pearl-clutching, which included Andrew Weissmann appearing on MSNBC to declare "It's the end of Trump," CBS is now reporting there is no Defense Department memo about attacking Iran — the foundation of the media claims surrounding the leaked audio tapes from Special Counsel Jack Smith.  Worse still, and exactly as CTH previously outlined, despite the claims by CNN about how this audio would be used as the "central element" by the prosecution of Trump, the audio and mysterious memo are not part of the Special Counsel case.

Four Ways the Deep State Betrays Americans.  Do you think it is an accident that the Deep State has worked so hard to protect the Biden family from prosecution when the Chinese bought Joe long ago?  Do you think it is a coincidence that the Deep State is trying to put President Trump in prison for the rest of his days, when he has been the lone voice on the national stage calling for American independence from reliance upon foreign dictators?  Could the Deep State make it any more obvious that it works against Americans' interests and for the interests of World Economic Forum scum such as Klaus Schwab, George Soros, Bill Gates, and all the other anti-American, Marxist globalists?  For all intents and purposes, the Uniparty occupying D.C. is a wholly owned and operated corporate subsidiary of the communist Chinese.

Why is the Clinton Special Counsel Delaying Start of Trump Trial?  Usually trying to delay a trial is done to give your side more time to prepare.  Jack Smith, the Clinton-linked special counsel targeting Trump, is strangely asking for a significant delay on behalf of Trump's people. [...] Why is Smith filing motions on behalf of the defense?  If Trump's legal team wants to delay the case, they're capable of asking to do so.  And Smith's arguments perhaps provide them with grounds for doing so.  What's strange is the red team asking for a delay on behalf of the blue team.  It's a safe bet that Smith's concerns that Trump's lawyers have the time they need are not the real story.  Smith rushed to indict Trump, but now he wants to slow down.  Pushing the trial to December will, along with inevitable further delays, will take the trial into the primary season[,] as it's intended to do.  This isn't about winning the case, it's about, much as with Russiagate, keeping the case in the public eye.

Donald Trump's 2020 election loss was an inside job.  There are numerous bombshells in the congressional testimony of two IRS whistleblowers, but the most significant is that members of Trump's Department of Justice helped to tip the 2020 election to his opponent by slow-walking the investigation into Hunter Biden.  The interference with the probe began as soon as it looked like Joe Biden was going to win the Democrats' nomination.  That's the allegation made by supervising agent Gary Shapley, who detailed steps he and other IRS investigators wanted to take to gather evidence against Hunter for massive tax fraud and other crimes.  They planned to execute search warrants in New York, California, Arkansas and Washington, DC.  They also wanted to search Joe Biden's Delaware guest house because Hunter spent a lot of time there.  The probers laid out their plan in a probable cause memo, but it was inexplicably rejected by DOJ lawyers.

Who is lying?  Merrick Garland or the whistleblowers?  "I'm not the deciding official."  Those five words, allegedly from Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, shocked IRS and FBI investigators in a meeting on October 22, 2022.  This is because, in refusing to appoint a special counsel, Attorney Garland Merrick Garland had repeatedly assured the public and Congress that Weiss had total authority over his investigation.  IRS supervisory agent Gary A. Shapley Jr. told Congress he was so dismayed by Weiss's statement and other admissions that he memorialized them in a communication to other team members.  Shapley and another whistleblower detail what they describe as a pattern of interference with their investigation of Hunter Biden, including the denial of searches, lines of questioning, and even attempted indictments.  The only thing abundantly clear is that someone is lying.  Either these whistleblowers are lying to Congress, or these Justice Department officials (including Garland) are lying.

DOJ Request For Delay Of Trump Florida Trial Has Nothing To Do With Strength Or Weakness Of The Case.  When Judge Aileen Cannon scheduled the trial of Donald Trump in the Mar-a-Lago documents case for August 14, 2023, no one who knew the slightest thing about court procedure expected that to hold.  Among other things, Trump doesn't even have a full defense team (his prior team quit), his new lawyers will need to get security clearances to view classified documents, and procedures for the handling and control of classified material would have to be worked out.  An August trial never was going to happen. [...] It's really not difficult to understand.  Please ignore the people who are claiming that it reflects that the government is afraid to present its case, or that it thinks the case is imploding.  And most of all, please ignore the conspiracy theorists who construct elaborate arguments and theories around it and so many other things.  These people are misleading — most of all — Trump supporters.

'Someone's got to go to prison'.  [Scroll down]  Now, in Biden's America it is the good guys who go to prison, as in the hundreds of J6 peaceful protesters who, in some cases, were merely present in DC that day.  The real bad guys, the Biden crime family, all those who invented and perpetrated the Russia collusion hoax on the American people for nearly three years, did not go to prison; not one of them: not Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and the long list of their co-criminals at the FBI and DOJ and in the media.  They were all complicit in what was effectively a coup, the calculated overthrow of the President of the US.  Trump did serve out his term, but the same crowd made damn sure he wouldn't serve another no matter what; even if he won, which he did!  All of these people knew the collusion story was a hoax but relished in its success at hog-tying the Trump administration.  Despite their traitorous crimes, Trump was the best president since Reagan!

Hearing Highlights of the Plot to Take Down Donald Trump in 2016.  On Wednesday, John Durham explained the findings of his investigation into the FBI handling of the Russia-Trump hoax to the House Judiciary Committee.  In the opening statement, Rep. Jordan explained what John Durham found.  There was no predicate for the Beria-style probe.  There was not one single substantive allegation in the dossier, but it was used just the same to enable spying on innocent Americans.  Durham also found that the FBI failed in its mission to follow the rule of law.  [Tweet with video clip]  After 40 years in the FBI, John Durham and his fellow investigators called the findings sobering.  Sobering is very euphemistic.  [Tweet with video clip]  He answered questions on a purported plan by one of Mrs. Clinton's foreign policy advisors to create a scandal tying Donald Trump to the Russians.  This plan was shared with then-CIA director Brennan, then-President Barack Obama, and his Vice President Joe Biden, and James Comey of the FBI, and the DNI on August 3, 2016.  No one stopped it.  In fact, they went along as if it were legitimate.  Why does Hillary and her advisor skate?  [Tweet with video clip]

The DOJ treats Donald Trump one way, Hillary and Biden another.  The Espionage Act of 1917 has never been used against a former president, vice president, or even a cabinet secretary — until last week.  According to Mark Levin, the 106-year-old law was never intended to be used the way it suddenly has been: to criminalize document cases.  "Whether the documents are classified or not, it doesn't matter who created them.  They're in the possession of the White House, the president, his staff," Levin says.  "The Presidential Records Acts, which was passed in 1978 and instituted effectively in 1981," Levin continues, "has no criminal penalty.  So, you can't start with a Presidential Records Act and all of a sudden say, 'Okay, let's move to the Espionage Act.'"  Levin notes that the Espionage Act wasn't even used against Lyndon B. Johnson, who had directed his staff to remove top secret information involving the Vietnam War and illegally tapped Nixon's phone.  "Nobody even thought about charging anybody with the Espionage Act," he says.

This kind of lawfare is evil.  In today's United States, a lawyer can become a celebrity for representing O.J. Simpson, but if you represent a former President of the United States be prepared to be attacked by your fellow lawyers and be driven out of the profession.  That is the mission of The 65 Project, which is managed by former Perkins Coie attorney Michael Teter.  Perkins Coie is the Democrat Mega law firm that represents everybody who is anybody in Democrat politics: the Democratic National Committee, Democratic Leadership Council, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  Other political clients include most Democratic members of the United States Congress.  It has also represented several presidential campaigns, including those of John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.  The group's political law practice was founded by Robert Bauer who recruited Marc Elias and made him chair of the group in 2009.  Basically, Perkins Coie IS the legal arm of the Democrat Party.  This basically implies that for all intents and purposes, so is the 65 Project.

Were They Spying on Trump All Along?  Secrets are only for the bureaucrats to leak as they please with no consequences, like the Flynn/Kislyak phone call, or to simply ignore when it involves their friends, such as Hillary's email scandal.  Neither James Comey nor the guy, John Huber, finally appointed by Jeff Sessions to look into the Hillary emails, even bothered to convene a grand jury.  The whole fake Huber investigation is particularly galling.  After Trump demanded action for years, all his DoJ did was appoint a guy who stayed in Utah and reviewed a few files.  But Donald Trump, no secrets for him.  As soon as he left office, Joe Biden cancelled the usual classified briefings all former Presidents get.  Then the hunt was on to nail him for having classified/declassified documents; something all former Presidents routinely possess.  Biden's DoJ had no trouble getting a grand jury for Trump, barely a year after he left office, and it was in the wrong venue, risking a dismissal of the whole case right away.

Washington Post helps those who are intimidating lawyers into not working for Trump.  The right to counsel for defendants is sacred to our democratic republic.  Preventing defendants from obtaining counsel clearly adds to the darkness that the Washington Post endlessly tells us is fatal to democracy.  A highly organized group of people is attempting to deny Donald Trump the right to legal counsel of his choosing by organizing a campaign of intimidation of lawyers who might be asked to serve his defense in the criminal matter he now faces.

Our Broken System Needs Disruption, And Trump Is The Disruptor.  Andrew Jackson was an irascible war hero known for his blunt manner, explosive temper, and inclined to physical violence.  He was elected President in 1828, his second attempt, as a reformer who promised to clean out the "deep state" corruption of his day.  By that time, our country's founders had passed on, and power had been inherited by a motley group of inheritors and cronies (Hunter?  Is that you?) who established a cozy kleptocracy to ensure their continued access to the public trough.  Unsurprisingly, ordinary citizens were very unhappy to the point where southern states, led by Sen. John Calhoun (S.C.), Jackson's future vice president, threatened to secede via federal "nullification," while northeastern elites, represented by Daniel Webster, worked assiduously to enhance federal control over the United States and its riff-raff citizenry.  Despite much howling, unceasing personal attacks, and violent opposition from the deep state of his time, Andrew Jackson persevered, fixed it... and was re-elected in 1832.  Andrew Jackson, in other words, was a disruptor.

Beyond a Banana Republic.  As radio personality Jesse Kelly remarks on Twitter, there are two ways to view what is happening with Donald Trump right now:  ["]Either you see what's happening to Trump as being about Trump or you see it being about a weaponized government planning to make any opposition a crime.  Only one of those views is correct.  You don't have to be a Trump fan to see it's the latter.["]  For most Americans who've paid the slightest bit of attention these past years, that's an obvious statement.  But as George Orwell said of his own time, we've "sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."  That particular phrase derives from a 1939 review of the book Power: A Social Analysis (1938), by Bertrand Russell.  What makes his observations interesting, and why it serves as another example of Orwell's prescience, is how precisely his commentary reflects what we are witnessing at this moment.

Trump Lawyers Targeted by Dark Money Group.  mong the unusual features of last week's arraignment of former President Trump in Miami involved the difficulty he had finding a qualified attorney to represent him in the classified documents case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.  The corporate media inevitably made much of this issue.  The Washington Post, for example, quoted various anonymous sources who claimed that Trump's reputation as a "challenging client" caused several prominent lawyers to turn him down.  In reality, the problem resulted from an intimidation campaign by a radical pressure group called the 65 Project, whose explicit mission is to ruin any lawyer willing to represent Trump.

There Is No 'Moving On' From Corruption.  A common sentiment expressed by some voters on social media these days is the need to "move on."  This viewpoint seems to be particularly popular with those deeply desirous of a Republican candidate for president of the United States who is not Donald Trump.  They readily admit that Trump's policies were far better for the economy and view Biden's administration as disastrous.  Some even acknowledge that social media censorship and changes to election procedures — many unlawful — cost Trump the 2020 presidential election.  Even so, they say, "It's time to move on.["]  It's easy to chalk this up to "Trump fatigue" — weariness of Trump's ego and combative personality.  But an argument can also be made that this is the latest example of the public's reluctance to confront corruption and the erosion of standards in American governance.  What we're watching transpire in U.S. politics right now should be galvanizing the country.  But it doesn't seem to be, and we need to ask ourselves why.

Carpetbagger!
Dem in Congress said the quiet part out loud on MSNBC, that Trump 'needs to be shot'.  Call it a "Freudian slip," where a person accidentally says what she really is thinking.  Stacey Plaskett is a nonvoting member of Congress, a delegate representing the US Virgin Islands in the House of Representatives.  She was born and grew up in New York City, and graduated from the elite and expensive Choate Rosemary Hall prep school in Connecticut before going on the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and law school at American University.  She says that she and her family frequently visited St. Croix, where her parents are from, in her childhood, and that apparently was good enough for the voters to choose her to represent them in Congress.  She's no loudmouth dummy, and instantaneously recognized what she said and corrected herself to say "stopped" in place of "shot," but that bell can't be unrung.  The word was there in her mind and slipped out before her superego could intervene and stop it, to use Freudian terminology.

Trump Indictment Timeline Reeks Of Deep State Information Operation.  Former President Donald Trump was indicted on the same day FBI Director Christopher Wray caved to House Republicans and allowed members of the Oversight Committee to view an agency document demanded by the GOP.  The document, an unclassified FD-1023 form, is said to implicate President Joe Biden in a criminal bribery scheme from his time as vice president.  According to Republican lawmakers who viewed the document in a secure room on Capitol Hill, the document from a credible confidential informant contains evidence President Biden took a $5 million-dollar bribe from a "foreign national."  That foreign national, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley says, is an executive at Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company that showered Hunter Biden on the board in excess compensation.  "According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden," Grassley said on the Senate floor Monday, with 17 recordings in "total."  Grassley's bombshell floor speech brought the Biden bribery scandal back into the news cycle after FBI officials sought to suppress coverage of the scheme with Trump's second indictment.

6 Reasons DOJ's 'Get Trump' Documents Case Is Seriously Flawed.  [#5] Why are they bringing this case now?  They know Trump is the leading candidate for president.  They know he is beating Biden in the polls.  They must know how bad it looks for a sitting president's DOJ to indict that president's primary political opponent.  DOJ has long had policies in place to prevent new indictments from being brought, or overt investigative acts being committed, in the months preceding an election in order to avoid the appearance of political timing.  The same reasoning clearly applies here.  The special counsel's team did not have a statute of limitations issue, they could have easily just announced the facts as they saw them after the search warrant was executed and all the documents were recovered, and then held off on further investigative acts and the indictment until after November 2024.  The fact that they did not follow that course is strong evidence to me that a big part of this is the burning desire among many on the left to "get Trump."  They don't care about the law.  They don't care about the facts.  They don't care about norms or propriety or anything else.  They just want Trump in cuffs.

The Trump Indictment: Irresponsibility Squared.  [Scroll down]  That said, the indictment charges Trump with multiple counts of what is essentially the same offense.  This aids headline writers who want to write that the former president, who turned 77 on Wednesday, faces hundreds of years (310, to be exact) of imprisonment, but is at odds with Justice Department guidelines.  [Jack] Smith seems to be needlessly piling on here.  And do indictments usually include photographs of evidence, like the widely circulated view of the boxes in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom?  In addition, the indictment includes multiple quotations of Trump's assertions that classified material should remain secret.  Perhaps their inclusion can be justified as showing intent — that Trump knew that what he was doing was wrong.  But intent is not required by the Espionage Act, and the material recited looks like the sort of thing you see in negative political ads.

Trump Indictment a Violation of Federal Law.  The Presidential Records Act, the big red elephant in the room ignored by [Jack] Smith, at 44 USC § 2205 (3), gives a former president unrestrained access to the presidential records which he declares to be his and gives his designated agents also access to such records.  Yes, the National Archives can take control of those records, after consultation with the former President, and any disagreement on the designation of a record is to be resolved by a United States District Court in a civil proceeding, not a criminal prosecution.  But the Presidential Records Act simply does not create an exception prohibiting the former President's access to records marked as secret, classified, or confidential.  Under the Presidential Records Act, Trump, even as a former president, has all the access he wants to all his presidential records, even those which may have been classified, and may give such access to his designated agents.  End of story.

Trump is Charged Under a Law Meant to Suppress Political Opposition.  A year after the start of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson addressed his message to Congress and warned that the "gravest threats against our national peace and safety" did not come from "other governments", but from "within our own borders".  "Citizens of the United States," Wilson continued, "born under other flags but welcomed under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life."  Wilson, a notorious racist and a supporter of the KKK who had contempt for a wide variety of other peoples, likely had German immigrants, but not just them, in mind when he called for what would become the Espionage Act so that "we may be purged of their corrupt distempers."  "I need not suggest the terms in which they may be dealt with," Wilson concluded.  While there were indeed pro-German terrorist conspiracies in those days, including the Black Tom bombing which damaged the Statue of Liberty and a plot to infect the country's horses, the Espionage Act of 1917 went far beyond prosecuting criminal activities.  Wilson had sought, but not received, the power to censor the press, he did get the power to censor the mail.

Former Asst. US Attorney Takes Apart Trump Case and Raises Some Important Questions.  [Will] Scharf is a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who worked on two Supreme Court confirmations and clerked for two federal appellate judges.  He's also running for Missouri Attorney General.  Like many, he thinks the prosecution against the former president is "outrageous." [...] Scharf notes that Article 3 Project's Mike Davis and Judicial Watch's Michael Bekesha's argument:  ["] ...distills down to the idea that the President's authority to retain Personal Records, as well as his rights to access his Presidential Records, make it impossible to prosecute him under the Espionage Act section at issue here, § 793(e), because the government cannot prove 'unauthorized possession,' as required under the statute.["]

When are enough Americans going to realize our government is a criminal enterprise?  How corrupt is our Department of Justice?  In order to take Trump off the board, they have indicted President Trump on a long list of made-up, fabricated crimes regarding the documents confiscated in that misguided, illegitimate raid on Mar-A-Lago.  These charges are ludicrous, and a decent judge would and may well toss them.  The thoroughly corrupt Jack Smith has chosen to ignore all the precedents that should apply.  Tapes stored in Clinton's sock drawer?  Legal.  Sandy Berger stole docs from the National Archives?  Slap on the wrist.  Biden's many hundreds of documents and Pence's possession of "classified" docs?  Ignored by the DOJ.  Comey's disingenuous decision to give Hillary a pass for her oh-so-many and far more serious crimes got a pass.  So terrified of the most pro-America president since Reagan, the left has gone to extreme and illegal lengths to destroy the best President since Reagan. Biden's two years in office have brought the US to the brink of an abyss.  This indictment of Trump only proves the unfairness of our two-tiered system of justice.

The Lilliputians are All in Conspiracy Against Trump.  The framing of Donald Trump continues.  Fear and loathing are motivators, but, most importantly, the hope is to lash Trump to the ground so that he can't rise to the presidency in 2024.  Multiple indictments are the ropes.  Convicting Trump would be icing on the cake, but keeping him sidelined is critical.  Trump has now run afoul of the Espionage Act, say federal persecutors.  It might as well be the Escargot Act.  Does it matter, finally?  As establishment mouthpiece Rachel Maddow suggests, federal charges can disappear if Trump scrams from the presidential contest.  Fat chance, knowing Trump. [...] Grasps the establishment: A Trump presidency would be all-out war on their power and prerogatives, a war they worry they'd lose.  More and more Americans are against them.  That's where the fear and loathing of Trump comes in because they know that Trump 47 has every incentive to carry the fight to them.

Donald Trump's Arraignment.  First, the politics.  The early indications are that predictions that Trump supporters would rally around him in the event of an indictment appear to be true.  A poll by CBS News and YouGov found that 76% of likely Republican primary voters said that the indictment was politically motivated.  When asked if the indictment would change their view of Trump, 61% said it would not change their view at all, while 14% said it would change their view of Trump for the better.  Just seven percent said it would change their view of Trump for the worse, and 18% said it depends, meaning they weren't really sure.  In a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 81% of Republicans said "politics was driving the case."  "The indictment did not appear to dent Trump's standing in the Republican nominating contest for the 2024 presidential election," Reuters reported.  So the answer, at least for now, to the question of whether the indictment would hurt Trump among Republicans is no.

Biden's Banana Republic.  It was amazing to see Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointed special counsel, Jack Smith, step in front of the cameras and say of the indictment of former President Donald Trump: "No one is above the law."  Which is to say, Jack Smith looked the American people in the eye and straight up lied.  It was the stuff of a banana republic.  Fact?  Joe Biden, who did the same thing with classified documents as Donald Trump — and four times over — is not being indicted.  He is above the law.  Fact?  As Rep. James Comer's House Oversight Committee is revealing, Joe Biden now stands accused of routinely accepting bribes from China to enrich his family.  No indictment forthcoming.  Because Joe Biden is above the law.

Ill-advised indictments weaponize federal government against Trump.  The indictment of former President Donald Trump amid allegation of "mishandling national secrets" is the natural next phase of the left-wing establishment's arrogance and corruption.  The left has been desperately trying to stop Mr. Trump since he announced his candidacy in 2015.  (Recall the made-up Trump Tower-Moscow scandal, the phony Russia-Trump collusion scandal, the made-for-TV impeachment effort, etc.)  The constant attacks have eroded Americans' trust in government institutions, a far bigger problem than the left's hatred of Mr. Trump.  There are several other indictments that should have been announced to reestablish the rule of law.

Flashback: Biden Promised to Use His Power to Prevent Trump From Returning to White House.  As Donald Trump faces charges from the Biden administration over his possession of classified documents, many of his supporters and advocates have pointed out how the administration's actions parallel corruption long associated with third-world dictatorships.  And yet, during a press conference last November, Joe Biden actually promised he would do exactly that when asked about Trump's possible return to the White House.  "So the entire genesis of that G7 conversation was tied to your predecessor, who is about to launch another campaign.  So how do you reassure them, if that is the reason for their questioning, that the former president will not return or that his political movement, which is still very strong, will not... once again take power in the United States?" a reporter asked Biden.  "Well, we just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by — if we — if he does run," Biden said.  "I'm making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again."  [Tweet with video clip]

The National Security "Nuclear" Documents Outlined by Jack Smith Are Pure Lawfare Manipulation.  Devin Nunes was previously the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.  In that very specific role, Nunes was a member of the Gang of Eight who are briefed on all intelligence issues at the same level as the President, the chief executive.  The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman, is the #2 ranking intelligence oversight member within the national security oversight apparatus, exceeded in rank amid the Gang of Eight group only by the House Speaker.  As the HPSCI chairman, Nunes has a very granular understanding of intelligence language and the way the intelligence apparatus uses words within national security documents.  When Nunes talks about national security documents, he is a subject matter expert on the administration side of the process.  Why is that important right now?  Because Nunes knows how to contrast the wording in the Jack Smith indictment against wording used to describe national security documents.  [Video clip]

Is the Trump Indictment Part of Biden's 2024 Strategy?  Any discussion of Joe Biden's 2024 election strategy would be incomplete without examining the context of Biden's threat to stop Donald Trump from "taking power" after the 2024 election.  Just what did he mean by that?  Recall that on November 9, 2022, shortly after the Democrats' surprising showing in the midterm elections, Biden was speaking at a press conference in the state dining room at the White House.  There he made the infamous pledge to stop Trump in response to a sympathetic journalist asking about the concerns of foreign leaders over a second Trump term.

Our justice system is being weaponized to prevent Trump from becoming president again.  In case you didn't see it over the weekend, a Wall Street Journal editorial makes the point that the long and complicated indictment of former President Trump never once mentioned the Presidential Records Act that allows a president access to documents, both classified and unclassified, once he leaves the office.  And everybody should read that editorial.  The Journal goes on to say the indictment assumes Trump had no right to take any classified documents.  This assumption is completely false.  The whole point of this discussion, going all the way back to the insane invasion of Mar-a-Lago last summer, was about discussions and disagreements between Mr. Trump on the one hand and the National Archives on the other.

Tulsi Gabbard: Trump Indictment May Be 'Final Nail' in U.S. Democracy's 'Coffin'.  Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard slammed the recent indictment of former President Donald Trump, claiming the move is "not something that should happen" in the U.S., while warning it may be the "final nail in the coffin of our democracy."  Speaking this weekend at the 14th annual Western Conservative Summit in Denver, Colorado — one of the largest annual gatherings of conservatives outside Washington, DC — former congresswoman and presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard began by noting her love for the United States, her military service, and her later role in congress.

Three ways the indictment of Donald Trump hurts America.  Former President Donald Trump has been indicted for illegally storing and hiding classified documents.  As conservative radio host Steve Gruber describes it, the "bananafication" of our republic continues apace.  There are three reasons every American — even those of us not supporting Trump's 2024 campaign — should find this further assault on the former president repugnant.  First, it reinforces the view, shared by many conservatives, that our government delivers a two-tiered system of justice — one for people on the right and another for those on the left.  Donald Trump, after all, is not the only public official found to have mishandled secret documents.  Special Counsel Jack Smith claimed, as he brought the indictment: "We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone."  History suggests otherwise.

Republicans react to Trump indictment; suggest it is an attempt to 'preemptively steal the 2024 election'.  Former President Donald Trump revealed Thursday he had been indicted on seven counts in connection with his handling of allegedly classified documents.  Trump's attorney, Jim Trusty, called the charges — which reportedly include false statements, conspiracy to obstruct and a charge under the Espionage Act — "ludicrous."  Trusty confirmed to CNN that the Department of Justice sent a summons letter to the Republican presidential candidate's legal team via email listing the counts and scheduling a Miami federal court appearance for Tuesday afternoon.

Former DNI John Ratcliffe Accuses Special Counsel Team of Improper Actions in Effort to Get Trump.  Former DNI John Ratcliffe appeared with Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures," and he ripped into the indictment of former President Donald Trump, calling it a "travesty."  Ratcliffe reminded everyone of the past abuses that have gone on in the effort to get Trump and have been detailed in things like the Inspectors General reports and the Durham report.  He noted how the FBI lawyer made a false claim to the FISA court to get a warrant to surveil a Trump team member.  Ratcliffe said the same kind of thing was happening in this indictment.  He highlighted something that many reports are missing — that they were allegedly "committing crimes to prosecute crimes." Ratcliffe alleged that a member of Jack Smith's special counsel team had threatened "a lawyer representing President Trump's personal valet," Walt Nauta, and that the lawyer had to "flip" Nauta.  Otherwise, the lawyer might not get the position as a judge he was aiming for.

How the Left Learned to Love the Espionage Act.  For a century after the Espionage Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by Democrat President Woodrow Wilson, our friends on the left have consistently denounced it as antithetical to democracy.  They objected when it was used to jail socialist Eugene Debs in 1918 and continued to condemn the statute 55 years later when the Nixon administration deployed it against Daniel Ellsberg pursuant to the Pentagon Papers.  As recently as 2013, the Guardian accused the Obama administration of McCarthyism for using this law to "persecute" whistleblower Edward Snowden.  Yet, now that Special Counsel Jack Smith has included 31 violations of the Espionage Act in his indictment of former President Trump, the left has had a "road to Damascus" experience concerning the once-reviled statute.

Can Trump Clean The Augean Stables on the Potomac?  I ask again, what was Trump's crime?  I think it was a dual manifestation of one crime.  His original sin, his unforgivable or eternal sin, was being elected president in 2016. The regime endeavored to expiate that sin by hampering Trump, then by impeaching him.  But here he is, persisting in his folly, seeking to commit the same tort again.  Conclusion: he must be destroyed.  Hence the treason trial masquerading as a legitimate judicial proceeding.  Reflecting on the latest chapter in the tale we might call "The Persecution of Donald Trump," the Wall Street Journal noted that this is "a fraught moment for American democracy.  For the first time in U.S. history, the prosecutorial power of the federal government has been used against a former President who is also running against the sitting President."  Donald Trump is currently, and by a large margin, the front runner of the opposition party in the 2024 presidential campaign.  The party in power is attempting to silence him, to take him out of the running, by mobilizing the police power of the state against him.  This is the sort of thing one expects from banana-republic regimes in Africa and Central America.

Former Federal Prosecutors Identify Several Flaws In Trump DOJ Indictment.  A pair of former federal prosecutors have identified a number of flaws in the 49-page indictment against former President Donald Trump they suggest will work in his favor if the case goes to trial.  Former DOJ Deputy Assistant Attorney General Victoria Toensing and former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Joe diGenova noted that all the allegations are problematic for Trump if they are true, but that doesn't mean the case is rock-solid.  As reported by Newsmax, "Trump on Thursday was indicted, accused, among other things, of mishandling classified documents at his Florida estate.  The prosecution marks the first time in U.S. history that a former president faces criminal charges by the federal government he once oversaw.  He faces the possibility of prison if convicted."

Mark Levin Reacts to Trump Indictment — Frivolous Documents Charges.  I am deep in the weeds and assembling notes for outlines to be delivered in the next several articles.  However, that said, perhaps the only time Mark Levin's shouting was tolerable was last night as he responded to the indictment of President Trump.  [Video clip]

Marjorie Taylor Greene Outlines the FBI Document She Reviewed Highlighting Bribes to Joe Biden and Family — Video and Transcript.  Amid all the furor of the corrupt and political indictment against President Trump, Congress was permitted to read the witness statement from a Confidential Human Source who outlined allegations of bribery in testimony to FBI agents.  The FD-1023 report was written by FBI investigators in July of 2020.  It became an issue after the FBI seemingly took no action, and then recently claimed to be "investigating" the claims of the "highly credible" FBI source.  Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) reviewed the report and then gave her impression to the media.  [Video clip]

Trump Is Charged But Nobody Has Time To Investigate The Possibility That We Have A Spy In The White House.  Donald Trump is apparently being charged with seven counts of mishandling classified documents.  All of this is related, it appears, to boxes of documents allegedly found in the former President's home in Florida after he left office. [...] I will note for the record that the widely quoted claim that "nuclear launch codes" were amongst these documents is obviously false.  Outside of Hollywood's imagination, those codes don't exist in the way the public has been told they do.  The broader issue here is this.  How is it that DOJ and the FBI have found time to run this "crime" to the ground but apparently have dedicated no resources of any kind to pursuing the massive trove of evidence suggesting strongly that Joe Biden is fully compromised by the Communist Chinese and has taken literally tens of millions of dollars from individuals directly connected to Chinese intelligence?  If Trump was sloppy with classified documents — a claim as yet unproven — we can probably agree that is less than ideal.  If the guy sitting in the Oval Office is in the pay of our number one foreign enemy that seems like it would be a much bigger deal.

Jeff Clark Gives Solid Take on DOJ Trump Indictment Scheme.  First, it is important to always remember why this indictment is taking place.  The DOJ, specifically Lisa Monaco, are continuing the offensive against Trump in large part to cover for the actions of the Obama administration in the originating targeting of their political opposition.  Originating Spygate operations ('15-'16), Russiagate ('16-'17), Mueller ('17-'19), Impeachment #1 ('19-'20), Durham ('19-'23) and Jack Smith '22-present, are all part of one long continuum of weaponized DOJ and FBI operations.  The entirety of the effort is to protect the actions taken by the Obama administration.  In this interview Jeff Clark gives his opinion of the statutory weaknesses that exist in the case as outlined in the indictment.  The first two defense approaches will likely be:  (1) the Presidential Records Act supersedes the issues of document holding as noted in the use of the Espionage Act.  (2) However, if the Espionage Act [Statute 793(e)] has to be defended, the originating issue of "unauthorized possession" will be the second approach heading to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.  [Video clip]

Latest Trump Indictment Proves Deep State Is Trying To Rig Yet Another Election.  The same institutions that tormented former President Donald Trump for years with false accusations of collusion with Russia are making yet another brazen attempt to rig the next presidential election against the wishes of the American people.  Democrats and their cronies in the Department of Justice and the FBI have a history of election meddling to achieve their political goals.  The raid on Trump's Mar-a-Lago home and subsequent persecution of the former president by Special Counsel Jack Smith, sanctioned by the same corrupt players who have targeted Americans for wrongthink for years now, prove to be no exception.  There's nothing the deep state isn't willing to try to do to keep their biggest threat — Trump and his voters — from regaining power.  Democrats and corporate media are so committed to this goal that they didn't even try to keep their desire to change election outcomes a secret.

Legal Opinions On Trump Indictment Incoming.  CTH has been hammering away on the Espionage Act angle — 793(e).  And with good reason.  Obviously CTH is getting some good legal advice.  Here CTH highlights a common misunderstanding.  Violations of the Espionage Act need not involve "classified" documents.  In fact, the entire classification system is a post WW2 innovation: [...] CTH is absolutely correct that the Trump situation is NOT what the Espionage Act purports to be about.  The use of the Espionage Act has regularly been prone to abuse, and it has always had its critics because of the very broad and vague language, such as "relating to".  Hopefully Trump's lawyers will attack from this angle in pre-trial motions.

The Trump Indictment Is Much More Than An Interesting Coincidence.  The very day that the Oversight Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives canceled a Contempt of Congress vote against FBI Director Christopher Wray after the latter agreed to turn over a witness file containing bribery allegations against President Joe Biden stemming back to his days as vice president of the United States, Donald Trump — former president and current poll leader among prospective 2024 GOP presidential candidates — informed the public that he has been indicted for mishandling presidential documents.  This extraordinary coincidence illustrates an important, baneful trend in American life: the use of criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits as a political weapon.  With a gross profusion of federal, state, and local laws in place, many of them hundreds of pages in length and larded with ambiguities and internal and external contradictions, it is easy to find some legal breach with which to charge someone whose policies you oppose or whom you simply dislike.  This costs your enemy time, effort, and money.

How to commit the perfect coup against a president and his supporters.  Everything from here on out is a theory, but it's a theory based upon readily available facts.  If you look at them in a particular way, those readily available facts show a sustained pattern of subverting the will of the people to obtain total political power, something that culminated in the recently announced indictment against Donald Trump.  If I were trying to overthrow a duly elected president, I'd start by saying he conspired with a foreign power to cheat in the election. [...] When it became apparent that the president was hugely effective at governing on those things that matter to ordinary people, such as the economy, national security, immigration, energy policy, etc., and that the false charges of treason and cheating weren't sticking, I'd look ahead to throwing the next election.  What I would need is a way to prevent the president from campaigning and a way to institutionalize election fraud.  Thankfully, I would have gamed out long before the election what a government can do if faced with a pandemic infection.  COVID's appearance was providential.

The Editor says...
Covid was, in my opinion, intentionally released as a biological weapon.  Its appearance was not providential, except in the sense of being fortuitously well-timed.  Disease is not a gift from God.

Biden's DOJ Tried to Bribe Attorney for Trump's Valet in Exchange for Testimony Against Trump.  On Thursday The Guardian reported that Joe Biden's DOJ attempted to bribe the attorney for Trump valet driver in exchange for testimony against Donald Trump.  Clearly, this is an illegal act and it should threaten the case against President Trump.  The only criminal act in this entire case is the actions by the Biden DOJ!

Trump Impeachment Lawyer David Schoen Destroys Case Against Trump.  [Video clip only.]

Biden's DOJ attempts to take out the GOP frontrunner.  The inevitability has finally been realized (if reports are true): Donald Trump has been indicted by the Biden DOJ. [...] After years and years of prosecutorial and investigative abuses and crimes, the Department of Justice has finally indicted Trump.  In doing so, the DOJ has inserted itself into the 2024 presidential election, again disenfranchising millions of voters.  It's a sad day for the country and a sobering day for those who wish for the equal administration of justice.  This story is still developing.  The New York Times states there are seven counts; we expect these to concern various provisions of the Espionage Act (18 USC 793), such as the dissemination of national security information and the unauthorized retention of national security documents.  We understand that the indictment has been filed in the Federal District Court in Miami.  Quick analysis: this is a comparatively good venue for Trump, given the support he has in Florida and in the Miami community.  It is much better than DC, where Trump would face unfavorable judges and a Democrat jury pool.

Who is Really Conducting the Jack Smith Prosecution of Trump?  On June 2nd former Mueller special counsel and impeachment operative, Andrew Weissmann and Norm Eisen respectively, published their current Trump prosecution memo using a novel and arcane interpretation of US Code 793.  Four days later media began reporting from leaks within the Jack Smith special counsel of the main legal approach they were going to use against President Trump.  What approach is Jack Smith taking, US Code 793!  This is not coincidental.

7 reasons to be highly skeptical of the legitimacy of the indictments of Trump. 
[#3] As Julie Kelly put it, "The indictment represents the first time in U.S. history a former president will face criminal charges."
[#4] The indictments are the product of an unprecedented raid on the residence of a president, at Mar-a-Lago
[#5] The seizure that resulted from the raid was overly broad, otherwise known as a fishing expedition: [...]
[#6] The media circus was immediate and intense, part of the joint effort of the deep state.  The legacy media, and the Democrats to weaken President Trump's candidacy in the general election, while solidifying his support among Republicans, so as to nominate a weaker (in the eyes of his opponents) candidate.

Report: Trump's Legal Team Informed He Is a 'Target' of Classified Documents Probe.  Federal prosecutors have told the legal team for former President Donald Trump that he is a "target of their investigation" into his handling of classified documents after leaving office, according to a report.  The New York Times reported Wednesday [6/8/2023] that the notification from Special Counsel Jack Smith was the "clearest signal yet that the former president is likely to face charges in the investigation."

Feds inform Trump he is target likely to be indicted as DOJ rebuffs prosecutorial misconduct claim.  Federal prosecutors have notified Donald Trump that he is a criminal target and likely to be indicted imminently in a probe into alleged classified documents — even as the Justice Department declined to delay charges to give time to investigate allegations of witness tampering submitted by the former president's legal team, according to multiple people on Wednesday familiar with the case.  The sources directly familiar with the case told Just the News that DOJ declined to delay the planned indictment of Trump to investigate allegations that a senior prosecutor working on the case tried to influence a key witness by discussing a federal judgeship with the witness' lawyer.  That allegation is still pending in a secret case before Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg, the jurist who oversees the federal court in Washington, D.C., and the grand juries that convene in that courthouse, the sources said.

Indicting a Former President over Nonsense Is Playing with Fire.  Reports are circulating that federal prosecutors are about to ask a grand jury to indict former President Donald Trump over his handling of classified documents after leaving office.  If those reports are true, and prosecutors do move against Trump, it would be the first time in American history that the government had prosecuted the leading opposition candidate.  It would also destroy public faith in the rule of law and voters' trust in democracy.  The documents charges are incredibly weak, from what has been reported publicly thus far.  The president has full declassification authority, and there is no formal procedure for declassifying documents.  Breathless claims of "national security" secrets, even nuclear codes, being brought to Trump's estate at Mar-a-Lago turned out to be fantasies.  Prosecutors may fall back on charges of obstruction of justice, which seem to be just as speculative.

Leading GOP Election Officials: Feds' 'Treasonous' Interference Is A 'Direct Attack' On U.S. Elections.  Several leading Republican election officials are sounding the alarm about the federal government's persistent interference in U.S. elections.  Jay Ashcroft and Mac Warner, the secretaries of state of Missouri and West Virginia, respectively, recently told The Federalist they are increasingly worried about the mounting evidence documenting federal agencies' interference in prior elections to the benefit of the Democrat Party.  Ashcroft pointed to the long-awaited report from U.S. Attorney John Durham that confirmed what The Federalist has been reporting for years:  The FBI possessed no real evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump colluded with Russian government officials when it launched its investigation into the Trump campaign leading up to the 2016 election.  The political investigation — which was "based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence" — would continue throughout the 2016 election and well into Trump's presidency.

Durham reports shows Biden and Obama knew truth of Trump collusion hoax but kept silent.  A silence kept in order to hide the truth is a lie.  By that maxim, there are plenty of liars among prominent Democrats who knew that the damning Trump-Russia collusion narrative was all a hoax.  But they chose to remain mum, preferring instead to watch contentedly as an American president was vilified nonstop by a media-driven orgy of lies.  It consumed the nation for years and inflicted untold harm.  None of them had the decency to volunteer the truth.  This is one of the key findings in the 306-page Durham report that the special counsel filled to the brim with documented acts of deviousness, dishonesty and malice by high officials in government whom we are supposed to trust but should not.

After Covid: Twelve Challenges for a Shattered World.  [Scroll down]  Americans had become vaguely aware of this thing called the deep state before the pandemic response but the experience itself proved it.  Democracy did not exist.  We were at the mercy of bureaucrats and their decisions.  Courts did not step up.  When they finally did, the bureaucrats pushed back and said that no one has the right to control them.  There are hundreds of agencies and millions of deep-state employees who are accountable to no one and yet exercise massive power over our lives.  There is nothing about these institutions in the Constitution.  The bureaucratic state is a fourth branch of government when there are supposed to be only three.  The tentacles from Washington extend not only to every state and city but all over the world.

Durham reports shows Biden and Obama knew truth of Trump collusion hoax but kept silent.  A silence kept in order to hide the truth is a lie.  By that maxim, there are plenty of liars among prominent Democrats who knew that the damning Trump-Russia collusion narrative was all a hoax.  But they chose to remain mum, preferring instead to watch contentedly as an American president was vilified nonstop by a media-driven orgy of lies.  It consumed the nation for years and inflicted untold harm.  None of them had the decency to volunteer the truth.  This is one of the key findings in the 306-page Durham report that the special counsel filled to the brim with documented acts of deviousness, dishonesty and malice by high officials in government whom we are supposed to trust but should not.

[The] Deep State [is] Quietly Starting to Fear the Worst: The Return of the Trump Wrecking Ball.  Worried about too much systemic rigging and fraud for a Republican ever to win office again?  Good news!  The riggers themselves are quietly starting to worry it may happen.  Politico ran a story on Friday, and I must say, the title quickened my pulse.  Tellingly titled, "Hurricane Trump Is Coming — And Washington Hasn't Bothered to Prepare," the story ran with the subhead, "After 2020, reformers vowed to erect guardrails against a rogue chief executive.  They ran into a wall of complacency, partisanship and distraction."  As if Leftists would have done a single thing to curtail executive overreach while they held office.  Puh-lease.  The article fretted that the complacent deep state has done nothing to rein in a president who is on the wrong team.

51 People Who Should Never Have Clearances Again.  The 51 Intelligence Community professionals who signed a letter claiming the Hunter Biden laptop showed "signs of Russian disinformation" should have their clearances immediately revoked and their access to classified information severed and never again restored.  Their blatant disregard for the proper process through which an intelligence investigation is conducted, as well as for national security matters in general, is ground to terminate their clearances immediately.

The Trump-Russia Collusion Conspiracy Was a Coup D'état.  The bottom line is that everything the Obama justice department, IC and FBI did, to include support from Republicans in congress during the 2016 election and aftermath, was a coup d'état against U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.  This is the truth of the thing.  The U.S. media participation and subsequent denial of their culpability looks increasingly pathetic in the aftermath of the report outlined by Special Counsel John Durham.  However, it doesn't take a media admission of the coup effort for the demonstrable actions and evidence of the coup to be factual.  Read the report, all the evidence is there.  The truth stands alone, regardless of the discomfort it creates.

[During the 2020 election, the] CIA had 'no evidence' Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, says top intel officer.  A former top intelligence officer with oversight of threats ahead of the 2020 election said the Central Intelligence Agency had "no evidence" at the time that Hunter Biden's laptop had anything to do with a Russian disinformation campaign, despite claims from then-candidate Joe Biden's allies.  Just before the election, 51 former national security officials wrote a public letter claiming the Hunter Biden laptop had "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."  It was signed by former President Obama CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, among others.  However, in an interview with Fox News Digital, former National Intelligence Officer for Cyber Chris Porter said that claims from Biden's supporters "did not reflect" the actual intelligence.

Pomerantz Pleads Fifth in Deposition, Claims GOP's Trump Indictment Probe Is 'Political Theater'.  Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, refused to answer any questions relevant to former President Donald Trump's indictment during much of a deposition before Congress on Friday.  Pomerantz warned in an opening statement he would do as much, according to a copy of the opening statement leaked to CNN and other legacy media outlets.  "It gives me no joy to invoke my legal rights, but I am glad that the law allows me not to cooperate with this performance of political theater," Pomerantz said, per his statement.  The deposition ran for roughly five hours.  A source with direct knowledge of the matter told Breitbart News that Pomerantz had invoked the Fifth Amendment for "most of his deposition."

John Brennan's closed-door hearing 'confirmed' Hunter laptop letter was 'all political': Jim Jordan.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News the testimony his panel heard in private from Obama-era CIA Director John Brennan "confirmed" the letter signed by 51 current and former intel officials was not on-the-level.  "[Brennan] sat for a four-hour interview and he further confirmed that this thing was all political," Jordan said on "Jesse Watters Primetime."  Jordan recounted his allegation that then-Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken was the "impetus" behind the letter, which he said was organized in-part by former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell, who testified before the Judiciary Committee earlier in May.

The Staggering Flaws of the Biden Family.  Good government should be non-partisan, competent, and trustworthy.  (It hasn't been for a long time.)  Democrat partisans overwhelmingly populate the vast majority of government departments, and no Republican administration has been able to put a dent in that political slant.  Constant leaks have become the story instead of relaying the accomplishments of Republican presidents.  Democrats don't have to use overt bias to enforce a progressive liberal bureaucracy to do their bidding; instead, they step aside and watch a parade of bias and salacious leaks flow endlessly to a media too willing to use unnamed sources.  President Trump faced an average of two leaks a day in his first 100 days, and to this day, virtually no one was punished in any government agency, including agency heads, for any leaks to reporters.

CIA Solicited Signatures For Hunter Biden Laptop Letter, Congressional Testimony Shows.  The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) both solicited signatures for and eventually approved the infamous 2020 letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a Russian disinformation plot, recent congressional testimony suggests.  According to a report to be released Wednesday by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, multiple former U.S. intelligence officials testified under oath about the CIA's involvement in the distribution of the letter, which was eventually signed by more than 50 former senior U.S. intelligence officials.  "One signer of the statement, former CIA analyst David Cariens, disclosed to the Committees that a CIA employee affiliated with the agency's Prepublication Classification Review Board ('PCRB') informed him of the existence of the statement and asked if he would sign it," the House investigative report notes.  "The Committees have requested additional material from the CIA, which has ignored the request to date."

The next step in the plan to remove Trump.  Just last week the Proud Boys trial around the events of January 6, 2021 concluded.  Four leaders of the Proud Boys were convicted of "seditious conspiracy" in a heavily biased DC court for their activities related to the mostly peaceful demonstrations of that date. [...] To my mind, there are some dangerous precedents that have been set for subsequent attacks on Donald Trump and on the GOP presidential campaign.  The first of these is having a court identify the J6 events as "sedition", meaning an attempt to overthrow the legitimate government.  Prior to this time, despite the J6 committee attempts to label the events as insurrection, there has been no successful effort to classify them as more than a riot.  Being able to apply a label of "sedition" is a huge legal step, bringing into play the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that prohibits anyone guilty of insurrection from holding the office of President.

Is Trump's Campaign and Reelection a Fool's Errand?  [Scroll down]  Can he even win the nomination?  Expect an endless stream of lawsuits and indictments tying up Trump in depositions and a barrage of negative press from Big Tech and the corporate media.  Expect far left judges to rule that Trump is ineligible to appear on the ballot, with Soros-funded state secretaries of state eager to keep his name off their state ballots.  These trials will all be timed to begin next year when primary season heats up.  How can Trump run a campaign and hold rallies when he is tied up in depositions and court?  There will be Fulton County, Alvin Bragg, and Special Counsel Jack Smith all planning their big trials for campaign season next year.  Expect scores of women to accuse Trump of rape, even if they have no recollection of when or where it happened.  Trials will be held in Trump-hating NYC or other deep blue jurisdictions before leftist judges that will ensure that the trial is stacked against Trump.  That will be enough for lawfare to ensnarl Trump as the Lilliputians tied down Gulliver.  Expect the weaponized judicial and intelligence agencies to manufacture scandals against Trump, as they did with "Russian collusion" and hide or ignore scandals of his opponents, as with Hunter Biden's laptop.  If Trump somehow prevails and wins the nomination, his troubles are far from over.

Savor Trump's Electoral Landslide — Until the Phantoms Vote.  RINOs, psyops, controlled opposition like Breitbart and Fox and the grifter consultant class are selling the narrative that Trump wins the nomination bigly — then takes the Electoral College.  Joe Biden is on wobbly knees, at the edge of the actuarial life chart, leaving America with the most ridiculous replacement president.  His own party doesn't want him to run — but the party owners are stuck with him.  That too favors Trump.  Blissfully count the new Senate majority, the expanding House majority, and the keys to a White House that will finally drain the swamp.  Then, have a coffee, sit down and remember 2022.  That felt great too — until the day after the election.  To become president, Trump must win a bunch of swing states.  To win each state he needs more ballots in his pile than the other guy.  It's baked into the data — which we look at every day — that Trump is not going to win those swing states.  None of them.  It's not his fault.  He will probably get more votes, just not more ballots.

Judge in Trump's 'hush money' trial engages in blatant dissimulation.  My assessment of the probability of Donald Trump receiving a fair trial on the highly questionable charges (falsifying business records) brought against him by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg just plummeted to subterranean levels.  The judge in the case [...] issued a gag order and specified that he was not issuing a gag order and violated Trump's First Amendment rights while claiming he didn't violate his First Amendment rights.  The technical name [...] is dissimulation. [...] I don't pretend to be an expert on the law, but Justice Merchan has destroyed my confidence in his ability to conduct a fair trial.

Uncovered Recruitment Email Confirms Infamous 'Intel Letter' Was Meant to Interfere in the 2020 Election.  Former Obama-era CIA Director Mike Morell and current Secretary of State Antony Blinken were recently exposed as being behind the infamous "intel letter" that sought to dismiss Hunter Biden's laptop as Russian disinformation.  Now, a new report is providing unassailable evidence of exactly what the motive behind the gambit was.  According to The Washington Examiner, Morell sent a recruitment email to gather signatories for the letter.  Notably, in the email, he admitted that the entire purpose was to give Joe Biden a rebuttal to Donald Trump's attacks during the presidential debates. [...] Morell sent the email with an admission that the entire purpose was to provide a "talking point" for Biden to use.  Sure enough, that's exactly how it played out.  Trump brought up Hunter Biden's laptop at the debate in question, and Biden responded by claiming it was Russian disinformation, a claim that was bolstered by the supposed authority of all the intelligence officials who signed the letter.

"A full-blown Color Revolution-style attack on the US Supreme Court as an institution is now in its early stages".  "Color Revolution" is a term that has been around for a while and doesn't have a single clear definition.  But the term most famously was used as to the "Orange" Ukraine 2004 civil unrest that allegedly was manipulated by western intelligence agencies to topple a pro-Russia regime.  A color revolution then, is a form of manipulated mass civil disobedience meant to accomplish regime change.  We saw it used against Trump after the 2016 election, where manipulated and hysterical claims of Russia collusion were used to attempt to paralyze the Trump administration under the umbrella of "The Resistance" — and it worked well in stymying many of Trump's planned initiatives.  It all was highly organized and manipulated.

The Russia Hoax Orbiting Hunter Biden's Laptop Is So Much Bigger Than Blinken.  Antony Blinken represents neither the beginning nor the end of the info ops run to convince voters the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.  Revisiting the contemporaneous coverage of the laptop story in light of last week's revelations about Blinken reveals the scandal extends far beyond the Biden campaign and involves government agents.  Last week, news broke that a former top CIA official, Michael Morell, testified as part of a House Judiciary Committee investigation that Blinken, now-secretary of state and then-Biden campaign senior adviser, had contacted Morell to discuss the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story.  Blinken and Morell reportedly "discussed possible Russian involvement in the spreading of information related to Hunter Biden."  According to Morell, Blinken's outreach "set in motion" what led to the public statement signed by 51 former intelligence agents that falsely framed the laptop as Russian disinformation.  This revelation is huge — but it's only a start to understanding the scope of the plot to interfere in the 2020 election by framing the laptop exposing Biden family corruption as foreign disinformation.

Dominion vs. 'Russian Collusion' and 'Disinformation'.  Compare Dominion's writ with the twin "Russian collusion" and "Russian disinformation" hoaxes.  Lots of journalists and guests on network news, cable, public broadcasting, and internet news sites ran daily with the utter lie that the concocted Christopher Steele dossier was accurate.  Four years later, they were still claiming that Donald Trump had won the 2016 election only by enlisting the aid of the Russians — as an "asset" and puppet of Vladimir Putin.  All that was demonstrably untrue.  No one on these news shows ever produced any information validating the dossier, much less offered apologies to those whose lives they ruined, as in the case of Lt.  General Michael Flynn and Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.  The steady two-year drumbeat of media and DNC-fabricated untruths neutered the first two years of the Trump Administration.  Robert Mueller's $40 million, 22-month special counsel "investigation" leaked wild and lurid rumors of Trump indictments to come, and yet ultimately found no proof of collusion.  No matter.  The agendas of the Democratic Party's collaboration with the media were fulfilled.  The Trump Administration was wounded, forced on defense to reply to countless new fabrications, and smeared to the point of caricature.

Former Clinton Labor Secretary Says States 'Must Refuse To Place' Trump's Name On 2024 Ballot.  Former Labor Secretary for Bill Clinton Robert Reich said states should refuse to place Trump's name on the 2024 presidential ballot due to his alleged "treason."  Reich made the comments in an op-ed published Monday [4/24/2023] in The Guardian.  Reich argues that Trump is guilty of treason under the 14th amendment because of his claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.  The 14th amendment prohibits anyone guilty of insurrection against the United States from serving in public office.

To put it another way...
Bill Clinton's Commie Secretary of Labor Says Trump Must Be Barred From Running Again.  Robert B. Reich was Bill Clinton's labor secretary; since then he has been keeping busy teaching at Berkeley and gracing us all with his punditry on Twitter, where he has a million and a half followers.  Reich has become notorious for his unhinged far-Left rants; on Monday, he showed yet again why he has gained a reputation as an upscale Keith Olbermann.  In the UK's neo-Stalinist Guardian, Reich called for Donald Trump to be barred from running for president again — to preserve what Leftists love to call "our democracy," by which they mean their hegemony.

Bragg Drops Case Against Jordan, Allowing House GOP to Depose Ex-Manhattan Prosecutor.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has dropped his effort to quash a congressional subpoena to a former prosecutor who worked in his office, a congressional aide told The Epoch Times in a statement on Friday.  "This evening, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office withdrew its appeal in Bragg v. Jordan.  Mr. Pomerantz's deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance," Russel Dye, spokesperson for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to The Epoch Times in a statement.  "Bragg caved.  Jim Jordan won," the House Judiciary Committee wrote in a statement on Twitter Friday.  The development wrapped up a legal clash between Bragg and House Judiciary Republicans, whereby Bragg had attempted to stop the lawmakers from requesting testimony from Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor who investigated former President Donald Trump's finances.  Pomerantz left Bragg's office in February 2022 in protest of Bragg's initial unwillingness to bring an indictment against Trump.

Ex-acting CIA director reveals he had 50 spies sign a letter saying Hunter Biden laptop scandal was Russian disinformation.  A retired CIA leader coordinated a letter from former intelligence chiefs claiming that Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation because he wanted to help Joe Biden's presidential campaign.  Mike Morell told the House Judiciary Committee that he was asked by Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State — who at the time was a senior member of the Biden campaign — to help discredit the laptop reporting.  Morell was a former acting CIA director, serving for two months in 2011 and four months from 2012 to 2013.  He retired from the CIA in September 2013.

Testimony Reveals Blinken — As Adviser to Biden Campaign — Spurred Letter from 51 Intel Officials Discrediting Hunter Laptop Story.  An author of the now-debunked public statement from 51 intelligence officials casting doubt on the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story revealed this month to Congress that Antony Blinken, then a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, was the impetus for the statement.  Former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell testified to the House Judiciary Committee on April 4 that now-Secretary of State Blinken called him about the laptop story just days after the New York Post published it and that the call "triggered" Morell to draft the statement.

Ex-top spy admits Hunter Biden laptop letter designed to influence 2020 election, Blinken involved.  A former acting CIA director has admitted to Congress that he organized the letter that falsely portrayed Hunter Biden's laptop as Russian disinformation in an effort to influence the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden and that he did so at the direction of current Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to a letter released Thursday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.  The extraordinary admission by career intelligence officer Michael J. Morell provides stunning evidence that the now-infamous letter from 51 security officials in October 2020 was not an organic intelligence community initiative but rather a political dirty trick originating with Blinken and the Biden campaign.  Jordan sent a letter demanding Blinken answer a series of questions about Morell's stunning testimony, as lawmakers weighed the enormity of America's top diplomat being willing to accuse a nuclear-armed superpower of interfering in the 2020 election without evidence.  That letter included major snippets of Morell's testimony.

Donald Trump's NYC case may be headed in only one direction, former prosecutors reveal.  Donald Trump was indicted recently on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — but New York City prosecutor Alvin Bragg's case against the former president faces significant legal hurdles, experts told Fox News Digital.  The 2024 Republican presidential candidate pleaded not guilty to the raft of accusations against him and has characterized the legal offensive as a politically motivated witch hunt.  "If it wasn't Donald Trump, no prosecutor in the world would have touched this," said former assistant district attorney Daniel Bibb, who spent more than two decades trying murder cases in Manhattan.  "If you and I did what Trump did, we never would have been charged."  Trump is the first former or current U.S. president to be indicted for a crime, but the case is more half-court heave than slam dunk, experts say.

Trump at the Gates.  Perhaps brilliant Democrat strategists pulled the strings of the clearly vacuous Manhattan DA, but to what avail?  Bragg is merely the latest to advance a "Get Trump" ploy.  Democrats have tried to waylay Trump since he announced for the presidency in the autumn of 2015.  Anyone with eyes can see that there was no overarching strategy other than nailing the Donald in the moment.  The Mueller special counsel investigation ate clock and spent $32 million of taxpayer money, only to report that no there was there.  Two goofy Pelosi-driven impeachments made impeachment a toothless, highly politicized gesture.  The January 6 "insurrection" is, with every new revelation, being laid bare as a political hit job by Democrats and by two  Republicans  pawns, venal and dumb Liz Cheney and equally spiteful and idiotic Adam Kinzinger.  The Democrats' machinations were piecemeal.  Everyone of their nefarious gambits were thwarted by a wily street fighter, Trump himself.

Mike Davis, Jim Jordan Slam Alvin Bragg's Lawsuit Against Jordan.  "Bragg is now trying to cover up his brazen violations of civil rights and his obvious election interference, through today's frivolous lawsuit to obstruct a congressional investigation."  Mike Davis, the founder and president of the Article III Project (A3P) and an advocate for a constitutionalist judiciary, ripped apart the lawsuit from Soros-tied Manhattan District Attorney (DA) Alvin Bragg against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).  Bragg last week revealed a legally laughable 34-count indictment of Donald Trump.  Bragg charged Trump based on Trump's supposed hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels through lawyer Michael Cohen.  Cohen's lawyer previously said Cohen privately paid Daniels without a refund from Trump, but Bragg won't let up.  Now, ultimately in pursuit of Trump, Bragg is also taking aim at House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan.

The world's newest dictatorship.  The United States can now join the ignoble list of authoritarian regimes where the party in power is the government, and they decide who can oppose them.  In the U.S., become a threat to the ruling party or get too popular and you'll be arrested and thrown in jail.  You disagree?  What do you call having President Trump arrested for a non-crime?  The NYC DA who arrested Trump didn't even bother to state a crime that Trump committed.  Oh, he listed 34 counts but no crime.  Even anti-Trump Politico questioned the legal basis for charging him.  Trump's crime is he opposes the Dems and Biden's authoritarian regime.  Hey, Alvin Bragg, 75% of rural Georgia opposes Biden and his regime, you gonna arrest us all?

Is 2024 Only A Mirage?  [T]he elitists know that the indictment of President Trump last week not only motivated him to want to hold them accountable for the witch hunts they have plagued him with over the last six years, but has also opened for him the precedent he needed to be able to indict them for their crimes.  Moreover, all of President Trump's persecutors no doubt have a very real fear of being held accountable should he regain power because they know in their hearts such retribution is something they would do if they were him.  Thus, whether or not President Trump would actually follow through with such a purge of these corrupt elitist criminals does not matter.  What does matter today is that they think he would, and they will therefore do anything they can between now and the next election to stop him.

Alvin Bragg's Insane Clown Circus Adds a Kangaroo to the Court.  We've been using the term "banana republic" to describe what has been going on, and it's been fitting.  At this rate, however, the United States may find itself getting sued by other banana republics for being an embarrassment to the team.  If you've been reading various assessments of the 34 charges, you know that even the left media is having difficulty finding a legal expert who will say that any of it is legally sound.  Someone just coming out of a coma and attempting to get up to speed on this story might wonder if Alvin Bragg ever really went to law school.

Alvin Bragg Might Be in Serious Trouble Following Trump Indictment.  Alvin Bragg might fancy himself a hero of the radical left for indicting Trump, but his desperate efforts, which included charging Trump 34 times for the same alleged crime, may have serious consequences for him.  A source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital that the House Judiciary Committee is contemplating summoning Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and two prosecutors who quit his team last year to testify before Congress.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) have been pressuring Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and his office for answers since last week, just days before the extraordinary indictment and arrest of a former U.S. President.  Jordan and Comer have requested that Bragg testify before Congress.

Jail Him, Or They Lose.  They've tried literally everything short of ordering a hit on him, and he still stands.  They have exhausted every avenue, option, and possibility, and they are left with a bag of nothing.  They tried a fake dossier, a made-up narrative that the media put on repeat.  They accused him of a high crime for a transcript of a phone call.  They accused him of advocating violence when his words said precisely the opposite.  Now they are trying to say he obstructed justice when he, in fact, followed the request of the FBI to the letter.  Now they are trying to say that another phone call is evidence of a felony when again, his exact words prove otherwise.  Now they have indicted him for something that if a crime is even evident (and clearly it is not), the statute of limitations ran out years ago.  They tried to argue he avoided paying taxes, only for the record to show he followed the tax code with precision.  They want to argue now that he intends to defraud the government of what he owes in taxes, even though during his four years in public office, he refused his $400k salary and returned it in full to the government coffers.  No elected leader has been more maligned, lied about, and attempted to be neutralized as they have with former President Trump.

If The Left Can Come After The President Of The United States, No One Is Safe.  "In reality, they're not after me, they're after you.  I'm just in their way."  Who can forget that meme President Trump posted to Twitter after his first impeachment?  In any event, it stands as a reminder of just how hostile the left is to the American people in its desperate attempt to maintain political rule.  Now, as President Donald Trump has been arrested and arraigned in New York City, we must consider the implications of his indictment, and what it means for the United States and the 2024 presidential election.  For all the criticisms of Donald Trump and his defects, one thing is certain:  liberals fear him.  No other man has posed such a threat to America's ruling liberal ideology.  Whether it was calling to impose tariffs, rebuild American manufacturing and industry, or reclaim any semblance of American political rights, Trump upset challenged Washington's bipartisan orthodoxy.  As for the indictment, there is no case against the former president.

Trump is not being treated normally and never has been.  Earlier this week, former President Donald Trump surrendered to the New York City courts to face an indictment on 34 felony charges.  The case arose from his accounting records of payments to a former paramour, Stormy Daniels.  The indictment itself is garbage, the product of an extremely ideological prosecutor.  Elevating these charges to a felony required that the bookkeeping errors furthered some other crime, but the indictment does not even identify the other crime. Indictments are usually bare bones, but the New York rule requires that an indictment "asserts facts supporting every element of the offense charged ... with sufficient precision to clearly apprise the defendant or defendants of the conduct which is the subject of the accusation."  Why did Trump surrender at all?

Bragg violated Trump's 6th Amendment rights in refusing to disclose underlying crime:  legal expert.  Former President Donald Trump's Sixth Amendment rights may have been violated when New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg refused to disclose the underlying crime the defendant intended to conceal through his alleged falsification of business records, legal experts opined Wednesday.  The Sixth Amendment provides in part for the right of a criminal defendant to "be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor..."  When questioned by a reporter as to what the underlying crime the indictment fails to name is, Bragg replied in New York State, he does not have to.

Fresh proof Bragg's Trump case is a reach, and nakedly political.  The numbers don't lie: Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's case against Trump is a massive outlier, not the "bread and butter" move the crime-lover claimed it was.  Turns out, his office almost never prosecutes cases on charges like the ones he's mounted against the ex-prez — i.e., first-degree falsifying business records with the "intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof."  State crime data crunched by the Times-Union show that Bragg's office has gone after people for this as a top charge only eight times in the past few years.  Statewide, there have been fewer than 300 such cases since 2019.  This alone debunks Bragg's claim that the Trump case represents just another day in the office.

America Needs a New Normal.  Casting aside the "norms" that the Left loudly pined for just a few short years ago, far-Left Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg compelled the former president to appear in a Manhattan court to enter a plea in response to an indictment containing 34 counts of "falsifying business records," which is normally a minor misdemeanor charge.  The facts surrounding the case haven't changed in the years since multiple agencies of the federal government evaluated the merits and declined to take legal action against Donald Trump.  The allegations surrounding payments made to sad little cuck Michael Cohen, supposedly to reimburse him for paying an adult film star to keep quiet about her past alleged dalliances with Trump, aren't new and nothing in the indictment indicates there is any new evidence.  From all the legal analyses I've read about it, the case is pretty weak, especially the justification for trumping the charges up to felonies.

FEC Commissioner Undermines Entire Manhattan Prosecution, The Trump-Daniels NDA Is Not an Election Campaign Violation.  If the other substantive weaknesses in the politically constructed Manhattan case against Donald Trump do not lead to a pre-trial dismissal, this one should collapse it.  The Commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) explicitly states the payments by President Trump to Stormy Daniels are not an election campaign violation.

FEC Already Investigated Trump-Stormy Payoff and Concluded No Crime Took Place.  The case against Donald Trump brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is melting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West.  The DA is keeping everyone in the dark about exactly what individual crime Bragg will try Trump on.  This is sort of important because, without a predicate crime, there's nothing to convict Trump of doing anything illegal.  Bragg has taken that crime and sliced it into 34 parts — a prosecutorial trick designed to make sure the jury convicts Trump of something — anything — to justify charging a former president with felonies.  And if Bragg wants to try Trump for violating federal campaign finance laws by trying to cover up the payment to Stormy Daniels, there's only one itsy-bitsy problem with that.  The Federal Election Commission already investigated the hush money payment and found nothing illegal about it.

Trump Pushes Legal Envelope Post-Indictment.  Trump is now the first former president in history to face criminal charges.  According to the charging documents read in court earlier that day and released by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, he had "repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election."

The Editor says...
The news media, with the exception of the New York Post, covered up the story of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop, and the dirt it held, so one could rightly say that the news media also "hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election."  Hiding damaging information is nothing new.

Jim Jordan Subpoenas Manhattan Prosecutor Who Resigned over Suspended Trump Probe.  House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) escalated Republicans' investigation into the Manhattan district attorney's indictment of former President Donald Trump by subpoenaing a prosecutor on Thursday who resigned from the office last year over the district attorney's initial reluctance to pursue Trump's case.  Jordan's subpoena, reviewed by Breitbart News, directs Mark Pomerantz, who resigned from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office in February 2022, to appear before the committee for a deposition on April 20.  In a cover letter accompanying the subpoena, Jordan said his committee had legislative reasons to demand Pomerantz's testimony.

12 Anti-Trump Pundits And Lawmakers Who Think Bragg's Case Is Terrible.  For weeks now, former President Donald Trump and legal experts on the right predicted that the prosecution Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought against Trump was pathetic and partisan.  Not long after Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records during his arraignment on Tuesday, some of his most outspoken political enemies also began casting doubt on Bragg's attempts to send the former president to jail.  Here are the notorious anti-Trumpers who willingly admitted that Bragg's case against the leader of the Republican Party is a weak attempt to keep him from winning the White House in 2024. [...]

Why All The Other 'Get Trump' Cases Are Just As Weak As The Manhattan DA's.  The grand jury indictment against former president and 2024 contender Donald Trump hasn't even been unsealed yet.  But the corporate press has already moved on, redirecting the public's focus to the other pending investigations — a subtle acknowledgment that the forthcoming charges by the Manhattan district attorney will be both weak and properly perceived as political persecution.  But the Fulton County, Georgia investigation and Special Counsel Jack Smith's probes of Trump are equally weak.  Later today [4/4/2023], Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will unseal the indictment returned last week by a grand jury against Trump.  Selective leaks suggest the former president will be charged with more than 30 criminal counts of business fraud related to hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels.

Report: Alvin Bragg Wants Trump Trial in January 2024, During Republican Primary.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg reportedly asked Judge Juan Marchan to hold the trial of former President Donald Trump in January 2024, which happens to be the middle of the presidential primary season.  Fox News reporter Jake Gibson, who was in the courtroom, said that prosecutors had asked for the January 2024 trial date.  The Iowa caucuses — the first contest in the Republican primary — will be on February 5, 2024.  That means prosecutors want a trial that would undoubtedly affect the race for the Republican nomination, both by distracting the current frontrunner, and by tarnishing him relative to other candidates in the race.

The Judge Overseeing Trump's Case Might Have a Major Conflict of Interest.  Meet the judge presiding over President Donald Trump's criminal case: Acting New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Manuel Merchan, an apparent 2020 Biden donor whose daughter once worked for Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential campaign.  According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings, Merchan donated three times to ActBlue in the summer of 2020, once on July 26, 2020, when the judge's donation was — according to the FEC — earmarked for President Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign.  The other two of Merchan's contributions were pledged to the Progressive Turnout Project (PTP), a left-wing PAC that rallies voter turnout for Democrat candidates, and Stop Republicans, a PTP sub-project that's dedicated to "resisting" Trump and the Republican Party.  [Tweet]

Is that really all there is to the Trump indictment?  How pathetic.  Is that all there is?  Yes, that's all there is.  The charges against Donald Trump are almost exactly as predicted.  They are weak and, most important, political.  As such, they are shockingly blatant punishment for Trump daring to become president.  In this sordid case, the letters DA stand for Democrat Attorney.  The charges are the crime.  Shame on Bragg for abusing his authority and turning his office into a partisan outpost.  The prosecutor who thinks most violent criminals are simply misunderstood youths just made history on a legal move that is breathtakingly flimsy.

Legal Experts Across the Political Spectrum Are Laughing at Alvin Bragg's Indictment of Donald Trump.  RedState's Nick Arama has had Alvin Bragg's number for quite some time, predicting that the 34-count indictment would amount to charge stacking and that there could be nothing a serious lawyer would put their name to in it.  I wrote earlier that once we saw the indictment we knew why Alvin Bragg wanted it to be sealed as long as possible, and that according to one reporter who was in the courtroom Trump's attorneys laughed when they read it.  Trump's attorney Joseph Tacopino seemed to confirm this with an answer during a press conference after the indictment:  [Tweet]

Trump Indictment: As Bad As We Thought.  You can read Alvin Bragg's indictment of Donald Trump and a supporting statement of facts [elsew]here.  The indictment is what we expected.  It all has to do with paying $130,000 to Stormy Daniels for a non-disclosure agreement, which was legal.  The payment was made by "Lawyer A," Michael Cohen.  Trump reimbursed Cohen using Trump's own money, which was legal.  The "34 counts" arise out of the fact that by agreement, Cohen got reimbursed by sending monthly invoices to Trump or his revocable trust.  So for each monthly bill from Cohen, we get three counts of falsifying documents: one for the invoice, one for the ledger entry, and one for the check stub.  Pathetic. [...] Bragg's statement of facts includes a long narrative about the National Enquirer and a woman other than Ms. Daniels ("Woman No. 1"), but that appears to be solely for lurid context, as no count of the indictment relates to that alleged woman.

Manhattan DA Bragg Reveals the 'Crime' Trump Tried to Cover-Up — And It's an Absolute Farce.  Donald Trump's arraignment in a Manhattan court on Tuesday was carried out with the minimum amount of fanfare — considering that this was a historic first grand jury indictment of a former president.  However, the court proceedings in the wake of ostensible felony leaks to the press about the sealed indictment did produce a curiosity:  How was radical activist Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg able to elevate charges that are misdemeanors past the statute of limitations and stack them into 34 felony charges, when the facts of the case did not show there was a cover up a more serious crime?  As the eagle-eyed legal commentator Techno Fog noted, there was a critical thing that the Trump indictment and statement of facts omitted.  [Tweet]

Trump's Indictment Is a Blunder of Historic Proportions.  There is little doubt that news of former President Donald Trump's indictment and pending arraignment will be met with jubilation on the Left.  The reality, however, is that the Left and the Right — the United States as a whole — will suffer the consequences of this blunder of historic proportions.  New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg's decision to bring charges will be a moment that historians, and society more broadly, will look back upon as a societal turning point.  The immediate reaction to the first criminal indictment of a former U.S. president has largely focused on the legalities, with charges related to the hush money allegedly paid to former porn star Stormy Daniels.  If this is true — and with the indictment still under seal, we don't yet know — it makes the situation worse not merely for Alvin Bragg, but for the entire country.

Daughter of Judge Overseeing Trump's Case Worked For 'Kamala Harris Campaign'.  The Gateway Pundit previously reported New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan is presiding over President Trump's Stormy Daniels 'hush payment' case.  Judge Merchan previously oversaw the tax fraud cases of the Trump's Org and the Trump Org's former CFO Allen Weisselberg.  Trump is not a fan of Merchan and took to Truth Social last week and wrote "Juan Manuel Merchan, was hand picked by Bragg & the Prosecutors, & is the same person who "railroaded" my 75 year old former CFO, Allen Weisselberg."  Merchan has been described as a life long Democrat and a bombshell discovery of his daughter's LinkedIn account reveals his daughter is not just a Democrat but a Democrat who previously worked on Kamala Harris' Presidential campaign.

Destroying the Rule of Law.  I could not care less if Donald Trump gave "hush" money to a porn star back in 2016.  What concerns me is why a misdemeanor is being upgraded to a felony offense by a New York City District Attorney.  The same DA who downgraded felony offenses to misdemeanors and released violent criminals back onto the streets to continue assaulting innocent citizens.  Why does this same DA prosecute something that has gone past the statute of limitations?  Something his predecessor refused to pursue, along with the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice. [...] We have entered a new era in America.  The progressive socialist left has no regard for the rule of law.  They only care about the right to rule.  The Constitution does not bindthem, they only adhere to Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals."  They do not want unity, they demand abject conformity, subjugation, and subservience.  Leftists do not want political opposition, they want no obstacles to their rule, and those ends justify their means.

Proof of Political Persecution Emerges, DA Bragg's Chief of Staff Wanted Trump Banned From Office.  Jordan Stockdale, the Chief of Staff for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, has been caught endorsing tweets calling for the impeachment, removal from office, and future prevention of Trump from holding public office again.  As Chief of Staff for Bragg, Stockdale's obvious bias against former President Trump should raise questions about both his and Bragg's ability to perform their duties impartially.  Many Republicans have voiced their concern about the partisanship and lack of objectivity from the Left during Trump's witch hunt indictment.  Screenshots revealed that Stockdale was liking comments from Bernie Sanders, Hilary Clinton, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and many other left-winged members that were bashing Trump on Twitter.  Stockdale has since deleted his Twitter account.

Donald Trump: Civil Rights Hero.  The persecution of Donald Trump continues.  It seems no accident that within the same twenty-four-hour window, anti-American prosecutors both confirmed their intent to lock up a president for exposing the Deep State's vise-grip over government power and celebrated the conviction of an American meme-maker who had used his First Amendment rights to mock Hillary Clinton's voters before the 2016 election.  Highlighting both events as further proof of the country's two-tiered application of "justice," Tucker Carlson correctly noted that the in-your-face double-standard is precisely the point: leftist authoritarians want Americans to fear their power and meekly submit or respond unwisely and be crushed.  Just as with the government's outrageous persecution of J6 political prisoners for exercising inviolable freedoms once constitutionally secured by the Bill of Rights, perverting the criminal justice system into nothing more than an illegitimate vehicle for stomping on both Trump and his supporters is now official government policy.  As Carlson soberly concluded, "there is no coming back" from this moment.

Even If You Hate Trump, You Should Be Standing With Him Now.  Now that Donald Trump has been indicted, everyone who loves America as a free society, no matter where you may be on the political spectrum, should be standing with him.  There are many reasons why this simple fact has been obscured today, not least of them being Donald Trump himself. [...] Now that he has been indicted, however, all those considerations must take a back seat to the fact that Donald Trump is the man whom the authoritarian Left hates and fears more than anyone else, and is determined to destroy.  The Leftist establishment is so avid to destroy Trump that it has not hesitated to take the wrecking ball to Americans' trust in our most respected institutions.

The Final Fight Begins Now.  The truly unprecedented indictment, and now possible arrest, of a popular former president — not to mention current presidential candidate and possible future president — goes far beyond any semblance of traditional party politics.  Other past presidents who had their own shares of legal troubles, from Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon to Bill Clinton, never faced nearly as much scrutiny, vitriol, and endless resistance as President Donald J. Trump.  The implications for this uniquely horrifying development are not limited to the upcoming 2024 presidential election, although that is certainly at the top of mind for many in the elite who desperately want to see President Trump shut out of public office for the rest of his life.  As the 45th president himself has said on several occasions, in perhaps the single most powerful statement of his entire political career: "They're not after me.  They're after you.  I'm just in the way."

There's No Coming Back From This.  Corrupt Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg has decided to abuse the nation's justice and legal system to persecute the Democrats' top political opponent.  This corrupt, Soros-backed DA, who was hell-bent on indicting President Trump over some made-up "charges," used their usual strategy...pick a target, then find a "crime."  Is America officially a banana republic?  Americans are seeing the weaponization of the legal system before their very eyes.  This is what happens in third-world countries, not here.  The party in power, for the first time in the nation's history, has indicted a former president of the opposition party who is actively campaigning to take back the White House.  This is unprecedented and despicable.  There's no coming back from this.  If the leftist radicals can come for Donald Trump, they can come for you — and those like us who want to bring you the truth.

Tacopina: If Trump Were Not Running for Presidency 'He Would Not Have Been Indicted'.  Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that if former President Donald Trump were not running for 2024, he would not be facing an indictment in Manhattan.  Anchor Dana Bash said, "I'm going to speak to Michael Cohen's attorney next.  He says that there is actual evidence that your client, the former president, participated in falsifying business records.  Have you seen any such evidence?"  Tacopina said, "Yeah.  I know there's no such evidence.  I mean, look, Michael Cohen's lawyers spitting Michael Cohen's side.  Michael Cohen is a pathological convicted liar."

Trump's indictment creates a new era for the GOP.  Swamp Republicans hardest hit.  The indictment and pending arraignment of Donald Trump signals a new era for the Republican Party.  The move by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, not coincidentally timed to push aside discussion of documentary proof of bribes funneled by China to Biden family members, has clarified the nature of the actual political system we live under today. [...] But there is no going back now to the pre-banana republic days when the norms of American politics made it unthinkable to trump up highly questionable charges to take the leader of the opposition out of contention in the next election. [...] Either the GOP contests the rule of Democrats by using all the tools that they use, or else the GOP loses viability by sticking with the "rule of law" norm that is nothing but an illusion at this moment.

Republicans Risk Running Headlong Into The "Rally-Around" Trap.  If Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee, he has Alvin Bragg to thank for single-handedly making Trump a martyr, causing a substantial rally-around effect.  It's understandable and predictable.  We've rallied-around Trump as a target, as has DeSantis.  There is truth to the claim that Trump serves as a proxy for the way many of us are abused by institutional rot.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Admits He Used Federal Dollars in Trump Investigation — Who Approved This?  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg confirmed he used federal funds in his investigation into Trump's so-called 'hush payment' to porn star Stormy Daniels.  House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil last week launched an investigation into DA Alvin Bragg, accusing him of abusing his power.  Last Monday the three House GOP lawmakers sent Bragg a letter demanding testimony and documents related to his investigation into the 'hush payment' after Trump said his arrest was imminent.

Trump's Legal Team Makes Major Decision Regarding Indictment.  Former President Trump's legal team makes a significant announcement against Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's "politically motivated" indictment against him.  On Sunday [4/2/2023], Trump's attorney Joe Tacopina expects to make a motion to dismiss any charges against the former president.  "We will take the indictment.  We will dissect it.  The team will look at every potential issue that we will be able to challenge and will challenge.  And, of course, I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming because there's no law that fits this," Tacopina said during an interview on CNN.  The Trump lawyer said his team would not do anything at the arraignment because that would be "showmanship."  The indictment of Trump will be sealed until he appears at an arrangement hearing, which is currently scheduled for Tuesday.

Trump Spy Chief John Ratcliffe Flips Script, Says Indictment Leak Is A Crime.  Leaked details about Donald Trump's indictment are grounds for criminal charges, a top official from the former president's administration said on Sunday [4/2/2023].  John Ratcliffe, a former U.S. congressman and federal prosecutor who served as Trump's final director of national intelligence, reacted to reports that Trump faces around 30 counts related to business fraud as part of the investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  "The only felony of which we can be certain to come out of this Alvin Bragg prosecution in New York is the felony committed either by DA Bragg himself or someone on the grand jury that he's using for this perversion of our justice system," Ratcliffe told "Sunday Morning Futures" anchor Maria Bartiromo.  "The accused, Donald Trump, and his lawyers, don't know what's in this sealed indictment.  But for the past, what?  Seventy-two hours, the American public has been discussing supposedly 30 or 34 felony counts," he added.  "Leaking grand jury information is a felony.  And so the only people capable of that would be Alvin Bragg's team or members of the grand jury itself."

Former AG Barr slams 'pathetically weak' legal theory behind Trump indictment: 'An abomination'.  Former Attorney General Bill Barr reacted to the indictment of former President Trump over his alleged 2016 hush money scandal on Friday, calling it "an abomination."  Trump was indicted by a grand jury on Thursday.  He is the first ex-president in U.S. history to be indicted.  Barr appeared on Fox Business to discuss the indictment with host Larry Kudlow.  "Obviously, we don't have the indictment, so there's a little bit of speculation involved," Barr began.  "But based on the news reports, if they're accurate, this is an abomination."

"First Year Law Students Could Get This Dismissed" — Alan Dershowitz on Alvin Bragg's Indictment Against President Trump.  Esteemed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz joined Steve Bannon on The War Room on Saturday to discuss Alvin Brigg's indictment against President Trump.  The Soros-funded New York City DA announced charges against Trump last week two days after bank statements were released showing the Biden Crime Family were being paid by China for selling their influence. [...] Dershowitz is correct.  The case should be tossed out and Alvin Bragg should be disbarred.  Americans better wake up to what the Communist-left is doing to this country.

Yes, we Have Gone Bananas.  New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. has indicted former President Trump.  Arraignment is scheduled on Tuesday.  Sometime before then we are likely to see the charges against him, which reportedly — as is the normal order of weak cases — run to over 20 counts.  Charging so many counts is a prosecutorial trick based on experience:  Some jurors may think the more counts there are the greater the likelihood of a pony hiding in the manure pile; others may just want to get out of the deliberations and agree to one or two to get out of there.  Almost universal criticism of this move, by even the editors of the Washington Post, suggests there is ample reason to believe this is a meritless, politically motivated prosecution. [...] Bragg's office (a New York state operation) received federal funds to investigate Trump, and if you think Attorney General Merrick Garland was not in some way involved in this matter, you and I are in disagreement.

Will You Be Next?  It finally happened.  On Thursday, Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg got the indictment that so many on the political left have been pining for ever since Donald Trump ran for president in 2016.  Since then, Trump has had a target on his back, with unhinged leftists desperately trying to find a crime to pin on him.  The best they were able to get was a misdemeanor campaign finance violation.  This indictment is unprecedented in virtually every way, and should scare you to the core.  It is true that just because Trump is a former president, he is not above the law, but he's not exempt from equal justice under the law either.  But the offense he's been accused of is so minor that it normally merits a fine — just ask Hillary.

Pelosi's Tweet Reveals the Real Intentions Behind Trump's Indictment.  [Scroll down]  Back to Pelosi's tweet.  Pelosi wrote:  "No one is above the law, and everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence."  This is nothing short of a shocking statement, especially from a lawmaker with many decades of experience.  The presumption of innocence is the standard in any civilized democracy — anyone accused of any crime is considered innocent until proven guilty.  The legal burden of proof lies on the prosecution, which must present compelling face-based evidence to before a judge or a jury.  The prosecution must prove that the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  If reasonable doubt remains, the accused must be acquitted. [...] This remains the goal behind the exercise, to make the process the punishment.  To drag the trial along, and to drain all their resources and spirits of the accused.  To sully reputations permanently.  To make the accused feel worse than the worst of criminals in the U.S.  They know that these stories spread like wildfire and most people seeking a life of peace for themselves and their families choose to refrain from challenging the Democrats merely to avoid hardships.

The Trump indictment shifts American political tectonics.  The day before yesterday, Donald J. Trump was indicted on phony political charges.  It may prove to be the day the real America will be resurrected, for two reasons:  One, the Left are petrified of MAGA politics, politics that loves America as founded, that loves its military as originally constituted before Woke happened, and whose capitalism is the greatest economic engine on the planet.  MAGA is for patriots and the Left are not patriots; they hate America.  The second reason Trump was indicted is because of the larger Soros & Co. plan to communize America, turn her into an oligarchy with Soros at the helm, to use "climate change" as the Trojan horse for the terrifying Great Reset, so Trump cannot stand in the way of that happening.  Alvin Bragg and his Soros backers, including Joe Biden, has just declared open warfare on half the American public.  Except now it's more than half, with this indictment.  Americans have always loved an underdog, the come-from-behind hero who battles evil against all odds and wins.  Donald Trump is that hero now and the Democrats have created him so.

Even the Washington Post Admits the Case Against Trump Is Probably [Specious].  When you're a far-leftist district attorney prosecuting the man the left hates the most, and you have lost the Washington Post, you might want to rethink your position.  This is the situation in which New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg finds himself as he continues functioning as the head of the progressive spear to be used to kill former President Donald Trump's chances of occupying the White House once again.  The Post's editorial board published an op-ed titled "The Trump indictment is a poor test case for prosecuting a former president," in which the authors cast doubt on the chances that Bragg will be able to carry out a successful prosecution of the former president based on the Stormy Daniels matter.

After Trump indictment, Manhattan DA accuses House GOP of 'unlawful political interference'.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office has fired back at House Republicans who are demanding documents and testimony about their case against former President Donald Trump, calling the GOP lawmakers' demands "unlawful political interference" in an ongoing criminal case.  In a letter sent Friday to three top House Republican chairmen, Leslie B. Dubeck, the general counsel for Bragg's office, slammed their "baseless and inflammatory allegations that our investigation is politically motivated."  Trump is the first American president to be indicted on criminal charges.  "The Committees' attempted interference with an ongoing state criminal investigation — and now prosecution — is an unprecedented and illegal incursion on New York's sovereign interests," Dubeck wrote.

Trump's lawyer says was 'initially shocked' by Manhattan indictment but is now feeling 'combative'.  Former President Donald Trump has launched a social media assault on Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, the Democratic prosecutor going after him for alleged fraud, and even took aim at his wife in the most recent round of complaints since he was indicted last night.  Trump, 76, will be arraigned in Manhattan at 2.15 pm on Tuesday on an array of business fraud charges relating to 2016 hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.  He has denied any personal wrongdoing, and says he is the victim of a politically-motivated witch hunt led by the famously Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  The charges are not yet known — only once he is formally charged in person will the indictment become unsealed.

The martyrdom of Donald J. Trump.  Meanwhile, Bragg's office is trying desperately to stuff this toothpaste back into the tube.  The problem is that everybody's watching from front row seats — while all of these rodents scurry around.  And many already know that there's overwhelming evidence that Trump never even came close to committing a crime.  Leaked information confirms that Trump has been indicted.  Apparently, yesterday's earlier announcement that the Manhattan grand jury was taking a month's hiatus was intended to lull the Trump camp into complacency.  But is Trump really being damaged?  Or is this furthering the compelling drama of his martyrdom?  It is fortunate for America's destiny that Mr. Trump is pretty good at taking a punch.  It is problematic, however, as to whether he may respond with sufficient elegance.  But then again, he didn't rise to the top of the food chain by bungling opportunities.

Justice Department 'is irritated by Manhattan DA's indictment of Donald Trump.  Justice Department officials are said to be annoyed by the Manhattan District Attorney's decision to indict Trump, as they believe it is a weak case which could undermine more serious legal probes Trump is facing.  Alvin Bragg's intention to criminally charge the former president for his payment of hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels was revealed on Thursday, sparking consternation and anger in Mar-a-Lago, and, according to The New York Times, in Washington DC.  The paper reported that 'senior officials' at the Justice Department had concerns about the strength of Bragg's case.

Soros family helped push Manhattan DA Bragg into power.  The Manhattan grand jury indictment Thursday night of former President Donald Trump is sparking new scrutiny of the George Soros-supported district attorney who led the investigation into Trump's alleged violations of state campaign finance laws.  The former president is expected to surrender to District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office early next week, following his indictment stemming from Bragg's investigation into Trump's alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.  Fox News Digital previously reported that in May 2021, financier George Soros pushed $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, which turned around and spent big, backing Bragg's candidacy.

Steve Scalise: Indictment of Donald Trump 'Clearest Example' of Democrats Weaponizing Government Against Their Opponents.  House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said in a statement on Thursday [3/30/2023] that the indictment of former President Donald Trump was the "clearest example" of Democrats using the government to target their political opponents.  Scalise, the number two Republican in the House, said in a written statement, "The sham New York indictment of President Donald Trump is one of the clearest examples of extremist Democrats weaponizing government to attack their political opponents.  Outrageous."

Trump indicted by N.Y. grand jury, first ex-president charged with crime.  A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict former president Donald Trump, making him the first person in U.S. history to serve as commander in chief and then be charged with a crime — and setting the stage for a 2024 presidential contest unlike any other.  The indictment was sealed, which means the specific charge or charges are not publicly known.  But the grand jury had been hearing evidence about hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, allegedly to keep her from saying she'd had a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.  It comes after weeks of speculation about whether and when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg might take such a step, setting the stage for a courthouse showdown between one of the most combative politicians in modern American history and local prosecutors who have pursued him for years.

A Rubicon Is Crossed.  So the Democrats decided to indict Donald Trump after all.  (I assume that Alvin Bragg would not have proceeded without a green light from higher-ups in the party.)  Here, as in so many other areas, we are in uncharted waters.  The Democrats have launched a sort of blitzkrieg against our traditions, our Constitution, our culture (at least, our culture as it was), and every form of restraint that makes civil society possible.  They have unleashed a wind, and seem serenely confident that they will never face a whirlwind.  I don't know, maybe they are right.  I do know that after today, our country will never be the same again. [...] The Democrats are behaving like a party from a pre-Enlightenment, pre-constitutional era.  Seeing themselves in the driver's seat, they are making a naked grab for totalitarian power across a broad range of issues and institutions.  Indicting a former president on frivolous grounds is shocking, but it is of a piece with the strategies Democrats are following in Washington and across the country.

Chuck Schumer Claims Trump 'is subject to the same laws as every American'.  In response to the Trump indictment, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is saying that Trump is subject to the same laws as everyone else.  This has become a Democrat talking point.  How many times have you heard Democrats say no one is above the law?  It's a total lie.  If it was true, Pelosi, Hillary, Biden and countless other Democrats would already be in jail.

Donald Trump Officially Indicted.  In a shocking twist, Donald Trump has been officially indicted by a Manhattan-based grand jury.  In the weeks prior, the situation had appeared to deteriorate for District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  On Wednesday, it was announced that the grand jury was being sent home for a month.  The assumption, a fair one at the time, was that Bragg needed more time to rescue his case.  That was apparently wrong, though, as the grand jury voted to indict on Thursday [3/30/2023].

A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century.  For more than half a century, McCarthyism stood as a defining chapter in the worldview of American liberals:  a warning about the dangerous allure of blacklists, witch hunts, and demagogues.  Until 2017, that is, when another list of alleged Russian agents roiled the American press and political class.  A new outfit called Hamilton 68 claimed to have discovered hundreds of Russian-affiliated accounts that had infiltrated Twitter to sow chaos and help Donald Trump win the election.  Russia stood accused of hacking social media platforms, the new centers of power, and using them to covertly direct events inside the United States.  None of it was true.  After reviewing Hamilton 68's secret list, Twitter's safety officer, Yoel Roth, privately admitted that his company was allowing "real people" to be "unilaterally labeled Russian stooges without evidence or recourse."  The Hamilton 68 episode played out as a nearly shot-for-shot remake of the McCarthy affair, with one important difference: McCarthy faced some resistance from leading journalists as well as from the U.S. intelligence agencies and his fellow members of Congress.  In our time, those same groups lined up to support the new secret lists and attack anyone who questioned them.

Time to End the Veil of Secrecy Inside D.C. Kangaroo Court.  Judge Beryl Howell [...], appointed to the D.C. District Court by Barack Obama in 2010 and elevated to the court's highest post in 2016 — just in time to oversee numerous criminal investigations into Donald Trump — finished up her seven-year stint as chief judge earlier this month.  Colleagues and staff assembled in her courtroom as the proverbial torch was passed to Judge James Boasberg, another Obama appointee.  But according to Politico, the retirement celebration turned into a "roast" of sorts as one judge after another chided Howell for her closed-doors dealings.  "Howell seemed to freeze in her seat as the most senior jurist on the court, Judge Paul Friedman, publicly described her still-secret rulings in grand jury-related matters," reporters Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney wrote on March 17.  "[Her] fellow judges made clear they were as tantalized as the rest of the political world by Howell's secret work presiding over grand juries that could lead to charges against former President Donald Trump."

President Trump Kicking Off His 2024 Campaign in Waco Sends the Right Message to the Right People.  The Trump 2024 presidential campaign will officially kick off Saturday afternoon in Waco, Texas.  The symbolism of former President Trump, beset by potential political indictments at the state and federal level, starting his presidential campaign at the site of the most egregious and unprovoked act of violence perpetrated upon US citizens by the federal government in the history of the Republic can't go unnoticed by even the dimmest bulbs in the ranks of NeverTrump.

Why Alvin Bragg's case against Trump is falling apart.  While an indictment was expected this week, the grand jury looking into former President Donald Trump will go another week amid reports of opposition in the grand jury over what is viewed as a "weak" case.  The problem is that Bragg has long been searching for a crime in the criminal code to fulfill his pitch during his campaign that he was the man for voters who wanted to bag Trump.  The falsification of business records in reference to the $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels might have been a possibility, but it lacked two things.  First, it expired as a chargeable misdemeanor after two years — and that was roughly five years ago.  Second, it was a mere misdemeanor that could be brushed off by Trump even if they succeeded.

New Evidence Further Devastates Case Against Trump.  A letter written by porn star Stormy Daniels, which was shared by former President Donald Trump on his Truth Social account on Thursday, has further undermined the case against him by Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  The letter, dated 2018, refutes any claims of an affair between the two.

Trump could be in more danger than you think.  One of the things I often have to remind people about, including lawyers who should know better, is that each state has its own unique laws and procedures.  What is no big deal in most places may be a fiasco in another.  For Donald Trump, the upcoming New York "falsifying business records" charge he may be facing would be laughed out of court almost everywhere, as no money was stolen and no harm to anyone seems to have been done.  Unfortunately for him, he is stuck in the Empire State.  And as unfair as it sounds, I think Mr. Trump is in some real trouble.  The plan the Manhattan D.A. has is to convict him on a trivial offense, then hope a vindictive judge will throw the book at him.  This happens all the time to suspected mafiosi in New York courts, and it may be what's going on here.

Memos from 2018-19 shake up Trump case: Cohen denied having incriminating evidence on hush money.  An attorney who advised disgraced Trump organization lawyer Michael Cohen provided Manhattan prosecutors with voluminous documentation, including contemporaneous emails and memos, purporting to show that in 2018 Cohen wanted Donald Trump to help cover his legal bills and repeatedly claimed he had no evidence incriminating the former president in a hush money deal with porn actress Stormy Daniels.  "Cohen said he had no information against Trump," one memo summarizing attorney Robert Costello's interactions with Cohen stated.  That memo, dated April 2019, recounted Costello's interview with federal prosecutors about conversations he and colleagues had with Cohen a year earlier.  Costello, a former federal prosecutor who has represented famous clients like George Steinbrenner, Leona Hemsley, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, told Just the News on Tuesday he provided Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office with more than 300 pages of emails, memos and texts chronicling his dealings with Cohen.

'Game-Changer' Costello Testimony May Have Sunk Manhattan DA's Case Against Trump, Dershowitz Says.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's possible criminal case against former President Donald Trump may have derailed this week, according to Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz.  On Monday, former federal prosecutor Robert Costello testified in front of a Manhattan grand jury over matters related to a $130,000 hush money payment to a porn star in 2016. Costello told the jury that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, expected to be Bragg's main witness in any case against Trump, "couldn't tell the truth if you put a gun to his head."  Dershowitz appeared on Fox News on Tuesday night and told host Sean Hannity that "Bob Costello has changed this case dramatically."

Trump Responds to Latest Illegal Leak to ABC News on Special Counsel Probe.  President Trump responded to the latest illegal leak to ABC News.  Judge Beryl Howell last Friday wrote that special counsel Jack Smith's prosecutors have evidence Trump 'committed criminal violations' in the classified documents case, according to a leak to ABC News.  Trump lawfully stored presidential records at his Mar-a-Lago residence but the Deep State is going after him anyway.

Memos from 2018-19 shake up Trump case: Cohen denied having incriminating evidence on hush money.  An attorney who advised disgraced Trump organization lawyer Michael Cohen provided Manhattan prosecutors with voluminous documentation, including contemporaneous emails and memos, purporting to show that in 2018 Cohen wanted Donald Trump to help cover his legal bills and repeatedly claimed he had no evidence incriminating the former president in a hush money deal with porn actress Stormy Daniels.  "Cohen said he had no information against Trump," one memo summarizing attorney Robert Costello's interactions with Cohen stated.  That memo, dated April 2019, recounted Costello's interview with federal prosecutors about conversations he and colleagues had with Cohen a year earlier.  Costello, a former federal prosecutor who has represented famous clients like George Steinbrenner, Leona Hemsley, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, told Just the News on Tuesday he provided Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office with more than 300 pages of emails, memos and texts chronicling his dealings with Cohen.

Chuck Schumer Refuses to State Confidence in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  Democrat Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) refused to state his confidence in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who is expected to indict former President Donald Trump.  Schumer's remarks came during a press conference on Wednesday.  "Do you have confidence in Alvin Bragg?" one reporter asked Schumer.  Schumer refused to answer, instead insisting that it is "premature to comment" on the situation.  "Look, the bottom line is, as I said, it's premature to comment on what's happening, and we'll have to wait and see what he does," Schumer responded.

Bombshell 2018 Letter Delivers a Gut Punch to Manhattan DA's Case Against Trump.  How much is Michael Cohen's testimony worth at this point?  I wrote that his legal adviser Robert Costello told the Manhattan grand jury considering the case against Donald Trump that Cohen was a serial liar, "far from solid evidence," and that Cohen had told him that he never told Trump about the payment to Stormy Daniels, the crux of the case against Trump.  Now there's newly-surfaced evidence that also throws a gut punch into District Attorney Alvin Bragg's case.  A February 2018 letter written by Michael Cohen's then-lawyer to the Federal Election Commission claims that Cohen "used his own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford," a/k/a Stormy Daniels, in 2016.  That also matches what Cohen told Costello.  [Tweet]

Will Alvin Bragg be a team player or is he in it for himself?  Alvin Bragg openly admitted during his election campaign that he would make it a priority, if elected, to prosecute Donald Trump, albeit without bothering to select a law that's been broken.  Bragg is only the next batter up to try and make party politics a crime.  He steps to the plate way down in the order following such heavy hitters as the FBI, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, Leticia James and Merrick Garland.  If he indeed does follow through and charge the former president with a crime that he knows full well will never result in a conviction, he will do it against the express orders of the Democrat party hierarchy.  The power brokers on the left, from Barack Obama all the way down to The Squad, understand that Trump the Martyr is a far more serious and dangerous a candidate than The Donald of spring 2023, who lagged in the polls behind Florida governor Ron DeSantis.  Bragg must be fending off constant phone calls and messages passed on through plenipotentiaries begging him to not file charges.

Prosecutor: Secret Service Won't Allow Trump Handcuffing.  Former President Donald Trump is unlikely to be handcuffed if he's arrested, according to a Florida prosecutor who said the Secret Service wouldn't "allow local law enforcement to put their hands on the former president."  Trump said last week that he expects to be indicted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  Trump's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, told Newsmax he expects police to handcuff Trump during an arrest.  "I had this idea in my head that they'd [prosecutors] be dumb enough — if he [Trump] were indicted — to actually try to cuff him and walk him.  And then we can see how far we've really devolved in this country," Tacopina said on "Rob Schmitt Tonight" on Monday.  "I think that's what they're going to try to do."

Fake "Trump Supporters" at Manhattan Protest Are Identified As an Actor And an Anarchist.  President Trump asked his supporters to "Protest!" in advance of his alleged indictment by the radical Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg that was supposed to take place today.  Many Trump supporters believed it was a mistake for President Trump to call on his supporters to protest, as they feared many would be set up by fake Trump supporters who were really undercover FBI agents or informants or even members of Antifa.  The radical Anarchist group Antifa has been known to create violence at protests, making it appear as though the group who organized the event were actually responsible.  In Manhattan, during yesterday's protest in support of President Trump, independent reporter Rebecca Brannon did an incredible job of uncovering the fake "Trump supporters" who were supposed to be there to protest Trump's impending arrest by the radical Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.  Bragg had barricades placed around the Manhattan courthouse in NYC in an attempt to give the false impression that they needed to protect themselves from Trump supporters.  [Tweet]

Trump wants to appear in handcuffs if he's charged in NYC: report.  Former President Donald Trump has reportedly said he wants to be hauled into court in handcuffs if he's slapped with unprecedented charges in the "hush money" case involving porn star Stormy Daniels.  Trump, 76, told advisers of his plan, saying that if he has to go through the ordeal of getting arrested and arraigned, he'd prefer making it a "spectacle," the Guardian said Wednesday, citing unidentified sources close to him.  The ex-president — who's seeking the Republican nomination for a third White House bid in 2024 — also wants to avoid any special treatment that could make him look weak, the sources reportedly said.  It's unclear how serious Trump is about the plan, which could be stymied by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Guardian said.

Tucker Carlson Makes a Chilling Prediction About Possible Trump Indictment.  On Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson made a compelling argument that indicting former President Donald Trump could lead to the permanent destruction of the United States justice system.  Although Carlson acknowledged that former presidents could be indicted if they have committed a crime, the undeniable fact is that Trump is the current frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, and the abuse of the justice system by partisan prosecutors to take out a political opponent would be unprecedented and dangerous.  In fact, as Carlson pointed out, Alvin Bragg ran for district attorney on the promise that he would indict Trump.  He has spent years trying to find a way to pin several various crimes on him, and he's landed on the so-called "hush money" payment to Stormy Daniels — a payment the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) has already said isn't even a campaign finance violation.

Tucker Carlson Breaks Down the Lawfare Constructed, Banana Republic, Persecution of Donald Trump.  For his opening monologue tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson breaks down the Manhattan case against President Trump as constructed by District Attorney Alvin Bragg.  Carlson notes and contrasts recent almost identical situations involving former Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, and later Hillary Clinton.  The legal merits of the campaign finance case are farcical on their face as admitted by the Federal Election Commission (FEC), previously litigated via legal precedent (John Edwards), and even Supreme Court interpretation (VA Gov Bob McDonnell).  Additionally, even if there was a legal issue, there isn't, the statute of limitations on the claimed infraction has expired.  Furthermore, and seemingly overlooked by most pundits opining on the issue, the legal issue Bragg is attempting to weaponize is a federal campaign finance issue, out of the jurisdiction of the Manhattan district attorney.  So, what gives?

Trump's Lawyers Are Now Targeting the Georgia Grand Jury Probe.  The past few days have made it clear that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is determined to get Donald Trump for something — so much so that his office is trying to turn a hush-money payment to Stormy Daniels into a campaign finance violation.  Bragg isn't the only one hoping to make a name for himself by taking Trump down.  Fulton County, Ga., DA Fani Willis is in the midst of her own anti-Trump crusade.

Trump Unveils Plan To 'Dismantle The Deep State'.  Former President Donald Trump unveiled his new plan Tuesday to "dismantle the deep state" by firing "rogue" bureaucrats and career politicians, according to a new policy agenda video.  Trump released a list of ten items that indicate how he plans to "clean out the deep state," starting with re-instating an executive order that would give the president the authority to fire bureaucrats, according to the video posted on Rumble.  The former president's plan would dismantle the "Washington Swamp," target corruption and ensure that federal bureaucrats and politicians are held accountable.

Soros-Funded DA Alvin Bragg [was] Caught Hiding Nearly 600 Pages of Exculpatory Evidence from NY Grand Jury in Trump Case.  Attorney Robert Costello, the former legal adviser to Michael Cohen, spoke to Tucker Carlson on Monday night after he testified to the Manhattan Grand Jury investigating President Donald Trump.  Costello told the FOX News audience that he testified for two hours in front of Alvin Bragg's Manhattan Grand Jury.  Robert Costello told Tucker Carlson, "I spoke to the jury for two hours... It was clear to me the Manhattan Grand Jury did not want to get to the truth."

Fulton County, Georgia, is also contemplating lawfare to derail Trump's presidential run.  Hot on the heels of news that Manhattan's DA, Alvin Bragg, is planning to charge Donald Trump for using private funds to silence a woman who later admitted that she never had sex with him, the Fulton County prosecutor's office in Atlanta, Georgia, is going ahead with plans to prosecute Trump and his associates under RICO laws for daring to challenge problematic vote counting in Georgia.  Tucker Carlson has warned that, if Democrats get away with using ideological prosecutors to attack our election system, the great American experiment is over. [...] Fulton County, of course, is one of the counties in which vote counting stopped for six hours in the middle of the night after the election.  Going into that six-hour pause, Trump was in the lead.  Coming out of it, Biden was in the lead.  There were other significant irregularities in Fulton County, all of which the political establishment protected from any investigation.  And of course, that's all Trump was asking for:  An investigation.

Final Grand Jury Witness Speaks After Testimony, Says Michael Cohen Is "Far From Solid Evidence".  While discussing Trump's potential indictment on Monday, Robert Costello, former legal advisor to Michael Cohen, referred to Cohen as a "convicted perjurer" and suggested that his testimony may not be reliable in any case.  Recently, a grand jury has been investigating Trump's business practices, including his alleged involvement in hush-money payments made to a woman who claimed to have had an affair with him before the 2016 presidential election.  As part of this investigation, Robert Costello, former legal advisor to Michael Cohen, testified before the grand jury.  Costello stated that he made the decision to testify despite warnings from others that he had nothing to gain.  He wanted to tell the truth to the grand jurors and counter the lies being promoted in the media.  Costello suggested that if there is solid evidence to go after Trump, that's alright — but he believes that Cohen is far from solid evidence.

Avenatti says there's no case against Trump.  Today is supposed to be I-Day — indictment day — in New York City.  For the 7th consecutive year, the loony left is predicting the imminent indictment and arrest of President Trump.  The walls are closing in!  Comey-Mueller-NYC DA have him right where they want him.  He will be frog-marched and perp-walked.  Just like Karl Rove.  Just like Dick Cheney.  The charge is he paid off Stormy Daniels, a hooker — or as the media now calls them, an adult entertainment actress — who claimed she had sex with him.  The case has bounced around in civil court where a judge ruled that her lawsuit was so frivolous that the whore would have to pay him!  As for this I-Day, Republicans know the drill and frankly, the dog-and-pony shows have become boring.  Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, is a man of his convictions — of which there are three and he will spend the next 20 years in federal prison for being a crook.

Alvin Bragg's End Run Around the Constitution.  We've endured four years of Mueller's failed "Russiagate" hoax, two failed, politically-driven impeachment trials from radical House Democrats in Congress driven by Nancy Pelosi, not to mention the highly-partisan "January 6" Committee that failed to call a single witness adverse to their pre-cooked "it-was-an-insurrection" narrative, and a host of other Trump-related political prosecutions.  But now, this weekend's announcement from President Trump that he expects to be indicted on Tuesday in Manhattan forecasts the most radical tactic yet that the Democrats will use to block Trump's return to power: lawfare with unfounded charges in the criminal courts.  Let's be clear.  The feds have already declined to prosecute anything surrounding Trump's civil settlement with Stormy Daniels.  Perhaps that is because confidentiality clauses are part of millions of civil settlements in lawsuits around the country every day.  I've seen hundreds in my own career as a civil litigator.  In other words, nothing to see here.

House Judiciary Committee Demands Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg Hand Over Documents and Testify Regarding Possible Donald Trump Indictment.  The House Judiciary Committee is ordering far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to hand over communications, documents, and testimony that Bragg is allegedly planning to use to indict former President Donald Trump.  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent the letter Monday morning demanding Bragg's cooperation.  Rep. James Comer (R-KY) and Bryan Steil (R-WI) also signed the letter.

Manhattan prosecutor's office reportedly 'in chaos'.  When law is tossed out the window, is anybody surprised that chaos follows?  That's apparently what we have in the Manhattan district attorney's office, where Soros-financed District Attorney Alvin Bragg is reportedly presiding over a chaotic shambles in the wake of news that his men intend to indict President Trump on politicized charges. [...] The root of it seems to be in Bragg's stated Trump-hate, which he openly campaigned on when he ran for office in Manhattan.  That's actually illegal, but the matter was ignored by voters.  As a Soros man, Bragg has a positively disordered view of what the role of prosecutor is in the city's legal infrastructure and what rule of law is.  Based on his history, he has a problem with the law.

This article from the Associated Press reeks with bias:
Will Trump be indicted?  What we know about the process.  The decision whether to indict former President Donald Trump over hush-money payments made on his behalf during his 2016 presidential campaign lies with a Manhattan grand jury that has been hearing evidence in secret for weeks.  An indictment of Trump, who is seeking the White House again in 2024, would be an unprecedented moment in American history, the first criminal case against a former U.S. president.  Law enforcement officials are bracing for protests and the possibility of violence after Trump called on his supporters to protest ahead of a possible indictment.

The Editor says...
The AP knows, or should know, that rioting and political violence come from the left.  In the one case where it appeared that Trump supporters got out of hand, it was (as I see it) due to leftist agitators mixed in with the crowd.

Dems will infiltrate Trump street protests to turn them violent.  Donald Trump has characterized his impending arrest this week as a political vendetta, and has urged his supporters to take to the streets in protest.  I agree with him that it's a political vendetta, but disagree about taking to the streets.  It is indeed a nakedly political act by the Manhattan District Attorney.  Numerous other prosecutors including sophisticated federal prosecutors have reviewed this same evidence, and have declined to pursue this case.  Rightly so.  It's a lousy case.  The legal theory is a stretch.  Moreover, the prosecution's fact witnesses are not credible.  One is a former porn star who has been caught numerous times lying and the other is Trump's former lawyer who is willing to say anything he's told to say in order to save his own hide.  Layer on top of that a prosecutor who is not exactly a top-notch trial lawyer and is known to get money from George Soros, and you have, as I said, a lousy case, even in New York where Trump has gone from loved to reviled.  The prosecution will lose.

A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family.  If Democrats really wanted Donald Trump to fade away, as they claim, they would stop persecuting him.  Maybe they are so blinded by hatred that they can't see that every time they use the heavy hand of the law against the former president, they just cement his status as a MAGA martyr.  Or maybe they are so terrified of running against Ron DeSantis in 2024 that they actually want to martyr Trump to ensure he wins the Republican presidential primary ready for a repeat contest with Joe Biden. [...] Whether or not Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg really is about to arrest Trump this week, as has been reported, over trumped-up hush-money charges relating to a one-time assignation 17 years ago with porn star Stormy Daniels, Friday's leak from the court could not have come at a better time for President Biden.

Arresting Trump.  On Tuesday, former President Donald Trump will be arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.  Reportedly, the charges will pertain to alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels which purportedly violated campaign finance laws.  Alvin Bragg, the Soros-funded progressive District Attorney, has yet to explain the legal theory underlying the charges.  But, given his alarming and astounding demolition of Manhattan's criminal justice system, it will no doubt be a counterintuitive and inventive interpretation of the law.  No matter what charges are brought, it is clear that this prosecution will be just one more tawdry political hit job.

Indicting Trump Could Get Him Reelected.  If Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg actually indicts former President Donald Trump this week and prosecutes him in what will inevitably become a show trial, the Democrats will regret it.  This is ironic considering their absurd yet oft-repeated comparison of Trump to Adolf Hitler.  If these people knew anything about the latter's rise to power, they would realize that it was just such a trial that launched his genocidal political career in Germany.  Trump is no aspiring autocrat, but a politicized prosecution and biased coverage by the corporate media will certainly energize his base.  As former UN Ambassador John Bolton told CNN, "Having very much in mind the one rule of law for everybody ... I think historians would look back and say, that's the act that reelected Donald Trump president."  Bolton's allusion to equal treatment under the law was echoed in the New York Sun by Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School: "Mr. Trump should not be indicted for novel and unprecedented technical crimes for which no one else would be prosecuted."  George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley adds in the Hill that Bragg's case would be exceptionally weak at the very best: [...]

Surprise Trump Grand Jury Witness Revealed.  A source with knowledge of the "hush-money" investigation has confirmed to the New York Times that Rudy Giuliani lawyer Robert Costello, a former legal advisor to Michael Cohen, will be appearing before the grand jury on Monday with the sole intention of undermining Cohen's credibility.  Meanwhile, Cohen, the former lawyer for Donald Trump and star prosecution witness, has made himself available on Monday in case prosecutors decide to call him to provide rebuttal testimony against Costello. [...] According to Trump, Costello has "conclusive and irrefutable" evidence that should exonerate him.  What is this evidence?  Who knows?  But experts have already said that the case against Trump is ridiculously weak.  But hey, maybe Costello can provide solid evidence that will make it impossible for even a partisan grand jury and a partisan prosecutor to go forward with bogus charges.

Democrats' Daddy Issues With Trump Aren't Going to Work Out Well for Them.  American Democrats are continuing their descent into a Trump-induced madness from which there obviously won't be any return.  They've escalated their insane war on Donald Trump to a point that has the potential to backfire in grand fashion.  They really didn't think this one through.  Then again, they haven't thought any of their Trump tantrums through.  They're blinded by rage and won't stop until they get some red meat footage for the 14 viewers who still watch MSNBC and CNN. [...] It's not likely that whatever [Robert] Costello has to say will be enough to change New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg's mind — he's chomping at the bit to get his moment in the media as the guy who finally "got" Trump, no matter how fleeting the victory is.

Former U.S. Attorney Argues Trump Could Be Indicted for Same Thing Clinton Was Fined For.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is essentially using the same legal theory to potentially indict former President Donald Trump that Hillary Clinton's campaign was fined for, argued former United States Attorney Brett Tolman.  Tolman asserted Saturday [3/18/2023] that Bragg's legal theory that Trump tried to hide a campaign expenditure by using his then-lawyer to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in alleged hush money before the 2016 presidential elections would have applied to Clinton when her campaign hid a payment for the phony Russian pee dossier against Trump as "legal fees."

Lauren Boebert: Democrats Believe Arresting Donald Trump Is Their 'Only Hope' of Victory in 2024.  Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) argued in a Twitter post that Democrats believe the anticipated arrest of former President Donald Trump is the party's "only hope" of winning the 2024 election.  Boebert, who has closely aligned herself with Trump since she first ran for the House of Representatives in 2020, argued, "Democrats know they won't be able to beat our ideas at the ballot box in 2024 so think this is their only hope."

Arresting Donald Trump.  For much of the last two months the rumors have swirled.  On Saturday the former President acknowledged it.  On Tuesday it may happen. [...] What happens if they put handcuffs on a former President?  If you've watched social media this weekend the reaction has ranged.  Trump supporters have asserted flatly that it insures his re-ascendancy to the White House.  Trump haters are mixed with some gloating "we finally got him!"  Some are accusing him of attempting to start a civil war.  They say this because he merely said "protest" in his post on Truth Social that went viral.  Between the gloating and the accusing there appears to be a good deal of panic on the left about the outcome. [...] The "evidence" is non-existent and they already know in a deep place inside themselves that the American people are fair-minded.  They understand that Americans are watching the next iteration of a witch hunt that has been long in the making and thwarted via self destruction at every point where they were convinced they had stopped him.

Trump and Hillary Have Been Accused of the Same Crime, but Hillary Never Faced Potential Arrest.  The justice system is supposed to be blind to political affiliations and treat all individuals equally under the law.  It's hard to deny that there seems to be a double standard when it comes to the way justice is applied to those on the left versus those on the right.  The mere possibility of Donald Trump facing possible arrest and charges for something that, at most, might result in a minor fine for a Democrat is a prime example of this disparity.  Just look at Hillary Clinton.  Last year, the Federal Election Commission fined Hillary Clinton for misreporting payments made to a law firm during the 2016 campaign to hide spending.  The law firm in question was Perkins Coie, which hired Fusion GPS to conduct research that resulted in the Steele Dossier, which was later used by Congress to impeach Trump.  Clinton classified these expenses as "legal services" and was fined $113,000 for the misrepresentation.

More about Bill and Hillary's accumulated baggage.

Trump Will Likely NOT Be Arrested, at Least on Tuesday.  Donald Trump announced on Saturday morning that he would be arrested on Tuesday, and the nation has been agog at the prospect of the Leftist establishment crossing the rubicon of arresting its principal opponent on flimsy charges and demonstrating before the entire world that the American republic is now the American banana republic, in which foes of the regime can expect the full weight of corrupt government authority pushing back against them for daring to dissent.  But now it turns out that the Manhattan district attorney's office, which has Trump in its sights, just may be stepping back from the brink:  Business Insider reported Saturday night that Trump's indictment is "on hold" until one more witness testifies Monday afternoon.  That's about all that has come to light, as the relevant authorities are being quite closemouthed about this whole thing.  Insider says that "a source with knowledge of the investigation" told them on Saturday night "there is one more witness."  The indictment is apparently not a certainty until this witness testifies.  But who is this witness?

Vivek Ramaswamy Warns Trump Indictment Would Be a 'National Disaster'.  Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a 2024 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, decried the prospect of former President Donald Trump being indicted.  "A Trump indictment would be a national disaster.  It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals," Ramaswamy tweeted on Saturday [3/18/2023].  He made a reference to the 2004 presidential election in which Democrat John Kerry lost to George Bush and his running mate Dick Cheney.  "If a Republican prosecutor in 2004 had used a campaign finance technicality to arrest then-candidate John Kerry while Bush & Cheney were in power, liberals would have cried foul — and rightly so," Ramaswamy said. "Principles go beyond partisanship."

The coming Trump arrest is a very dangerous power play.  The Tea Party emerged in 2009.  Even though its rallies were peaceful and always left the rally locations immaculate, Democrats in and out of the media described Tea Partiers as dangerous, racist, wild-eyed activists.  The template was in place.  Trump mulled the idea of running for president, and leftists were initially excited because they foresaw an easy Hillary victory against him.  Trump became the primary candidate, the crowds turning out for him were unprecedented, and Hillary was revealed to have violated multiple national security laws, only to limp into the election thanks to a James Comey "fix."  Trump won, and Democrats had a massive, very public, complete mental breakdown.  Shortly before Trump entered office, high-level Democrats (Hillary?  Obama?) instituted what came to be the Russia collusion hoax.  Despite the Russia collusion hoax, the Ukraine phone call hoax, a failed impeachment, and myriad other faux scandals, Trump looked like a shoo-in for reelection.  The economy was booming, China was being constrained, illegal immigration was diminishing, peace was blossoming in the Middle East, and there were no new wars or concentration camps.  Something needed to be done.  Enter COVID.

Calls Grow on the Left for Trump to Be Held Without Bail — For a Misdemeanor.  The left is salivating at the idea that finally Orange Man Bad will be arrested and perp walked in front of the media next week.  But that is not enough for them.  Calls have gone out on Saturday for President Trump to be held without bail because they say he is a danger to the country over his call for supporters to protest should he be arrested.  The liberals are saying this is an incitement to another January 6 and therefore Trump should be kept behind bars where he could not post calls for protests on social media.  New York has extremely lax bail laws, making bail non-existent for most of those charged.  However, the liberals think an exception should be made for Trump.

Trump now says Manhattan's DA should be investigated for 'interfering' with the election.  Donald Trump is claiming full innocence and isn't buying the narrative from some Republicans defending him by saying the alleged hush-money payments he made to Stormy Daniels are a 'misdemeanor' at best.  The former president said on Sunday that there 'was no crime' and flipped the script on the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, demanding the Democratic prosecutors be investigated for 'interfering' with the presidential election.  Prosecutors argue that he violated a New York law which prohibits falsifying business records when he marked a $130,000 payment to Daniels as 'legal expenses.'

Jonathan Turley Destroys Manhattan DA's Case Against Trump.  The timing of the reported indictment about to drop against President Donald Trump can only be called suspicious, given the Stormy Daniels issue has been lying fallow for years, with President Donald Trump now a declared candidate for the 2024 presidential nomination.  It's about the perp walk and the theatrics.  Just like they tried the Jan. 6 Committee prior to the midterms, this is going to be the continuing thing that they will throw out there to attack Trump and the Republicans in the presidential race.  It's about the optics to move the middle/the independents away from Republicans.  But what about the legal case against Trump?  George Washington law professor Jonathan Turley called it what it is:  "legally pathetic."

Democrats Have Nothing — President Trump Did Nothing Wrong — But They Will Arrest Him Anyway.  The world is in a financial meltdown right now and our economy is on the brink of collapse.  This is due to Biden's actions.  Now the criminals running our government want to arrest a good man who did nothing wrong because he threatens their power.  The GOP RINOs tried to stop candidate Trump from winning the nomination in 2016, they couldn't.  Hillary called Trump and his supporters "deplorable" and he beat her.  Obama spied on Trump, and he got caught.  The Obama gang attempted a coup of the Trump Administration, it failed, Trump did nothing wrong.  The Democrats impeached him for daring to ask about the Bidens' actions in Ukraine, he was doing his duty, the Bidens were taking millions from foreigners in bribes and favors.  The Chinese drop COVID-19 with the Deep State doctors' help, they attempt to cover it up, Fauci and gang got caught.  President Trump won millions more votes than any President in history in the 2020 election so they stole it from him.

Manhattan DA Pursuing Felony Against Trump Has History of Reducing Charges Against Others.  Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is expected to bring felony charges against former President Donald Trump next week related to payments made in 2016 to settle rumors of an extramarital affair.  The charges, which Bragg upgraded from a misdemeanor class, stand in stark contrast to the prosecutor's history of reducing charges against the majority of cases on his watch.  Since taking office last year, DA Bragg has downgraded approximately 52 percent of all cases brought before his office.  A significant portion of these cases involved reducing felony charges to misdemeanors.  Under Bragg's predecessor, less than 40 percent of cases were comprised of similar downgrades.

George Soros Exposed as Major Force Behind Trump's Prosecution and Imminent Arrest.  President Donald Trump reacted to the news of his imminent arrest in New York by pointing out that the Manhattan District Attorney's office's "leader is funded by George Soros."  Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg, whom Donald Trump is referring to in his post, was elected in November 2021 with indirect backing from left-wing billionaire George Soros, who gave $1 million to the Color of Change PAC, which spent it to elect Bragg.  The Color of Change PAC is a radical activist group that describes itself as "the nation's largest online racial justice organization."  Fox News reported that Soros has "funneled $40 million dollars into district attorney campaigns nationwide," including Bragg's.  Former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton spoke out against the "$1 million donation that Hungarian-born philanthropist Soros gave to the Color of Change political action committee, which supported Bragg," the New York Post reported.

Trump Puts out a Post That Says Everything About His Legal Situation.  As RedState reported, Donald Trump put a statement on Saturday morning confirming that his indictment and arrest are imminent.  According to the former president, he'll be taken into custody on Tuesday after the Manhattan District Attorney's office charges him over a hush money payment made to Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 election.  The contention is that Trump broke the law by ordering Michael Cohen to make the payment, which was ultimately classified as a legal expense.  New York prosecutors assert that election laws were broken because it was actually a campaign expense meant to affect the election.  As a legal matter, it's incredibly weak, and it relies on a never-before-tried legal theory to upgrade the charge to a felony.  That would bypass the statute of limitations and put jail time in play for the former president.  Now, Trump is speaking out further, and I believe his latest Truth Social post says everything about his legal situation.  [Tweet]

Professor Turley exposes the incredible weakness of the Trump indictment.  Professor Jonathan Turley, one of the few brave honest liberals in academia, is far too nice a person to speak with utter contempt in his voice.  But the substance of what he has to say about the indictment and pending arrest of former President Donald J. Trump exposes contemptible behavior on the part of the New State justice system.  In two brief clips from an interview he did Saturday with Molly Line of Fox News, he exposes the flimsiness of the case against Trump and the illicit origin of the indictment.  First, how Trump could end up convicted even though the charges are likely to get thrown out on appeal: [...]

A Trump arrest will just underline the Deep State's crackdown on freedom.  What does this forthcoming indictment signal if not the establishment's intent on rigging the 2024 presidential election by means of a phony-baloney political indictment?  Consider the reaction of Prof. Alan Dershowitz to a Trump indictment based on the Stormy Daniels matter, long ago buried, but now revived by Manhattan D.A. Bragg.  This is "targeted injustice" according to Dershowitz.  Note that only John Solomon's Just the News website carried Prof. Dershowitz's response.  Generally, the media — as usual — are compliant with a Deep State move against the former president.  What better indication of how utterly unjust the justice system in deep red country when it comes to matters concerning Mr.Trump?  Mr. Trump predicts he will be placed under arrest Tuesday, March 21, and calls on supporters to protest.  Look for "Jan. 6" to be replaced by "Mar. 21" as the date of MAGA "insurrection" by the totalitarian forces in the country.

GOP Presidential Hopeful Responds to Possible Donald Trump Arrest: 'Dark Moment'.  Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said that rumors and reports claiming former President Donald Trump could be arrested soon are a "dark moment" in U.S. history.  "It is un-American for the ruling party to use police power to arrest its political rivals," Ramaswamy, a tech entrepreneur who recently declared his GOP candidacy, wrote on Twitter Saturday.  "If a Republican prosecutor in 2004 had used a campaign finance technicality to arrest then-candidate John Kerry while Bush & Cheney were in power, liberals would have cried foul — and rightly so."  "This will mark a dark moment in American history and will undermine public trust in our electoral system itself," Ramaswamy also wrote.  "I call on the Manhattan District Attorney to reconsider this action and to put aside partisan politics in service of preserving our Constitutional republic."  Later on Saturday, Ramaswamy called on former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who announced a Republican run for president, and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — who is also reportedly mulling a presidential bid — to denounce Bragg.

Get ready for Manhattan DA's made-for-TV Trump prosecution: high on ratings, but short on the law.  "The moment that we are waiting for, we made it to the finale together" — those familiar words from "America's Got Talent" — could well be the opening line for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg next week, when he is expected to unveil an indictment of former President Trump.  With Trump's reported announcement that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday, it would be a fitting curtain raiser for a case that has developed more like a television production than a criminal prosecution.  Indeed, this indictment was repeatedly rejected only to be brought back by popular demand.  Trump faces serious legal threats in the ongoing Mar-a-Lago investigation.  But the New York case would be easily dismissed outside of a jurisdiction like New York, where Bragg can count on highly motivated judges and jurors.  Although it may be politically popular, the case is legally pathetic.  Bragg is struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump over his payment of "hush money" to former stripper Stormy Daniels.

Government Tyrants Play with Fire.  The communist thugs controlling America's legal system have chosen to cross the Rubicon, it seems.  President Trump says he will be arrested Tuesday now that New York City's corrupt, Soros-funded district attorney has cooked up some cockamamie criminal indictment against him involving Stormy Daniels — the same political pawn who was already ordered to pay the president 300,000 dollars in legal fees as restitution in a prior case.  If anyone needed further evidence that we reside under a post-constitutional Uniparty regime with utter disdain for the rule of law, add this to the long list of government crimes and usurpations committed against the American people.  No doubt the politicians and their State-controlled agents in the press will actually hail President Trump's arrest as shimmering validation that "no one is above the law."  What poppycock!

A Subtle Way for Establishment Republicans to Sabotage Trump.  Having recently re-elected Mitt Romney's niece to the chair of the National Republican Committee, the press is giving Donald Trump the Ron Paul treatment, which is to say pretending he doesn't exist.  Not the least of these media outlets is FOX News, now spearheaded by Rupert Murdoch's liberal son and failed vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.  Similarly, in the mold of Uncle Mitt and Reince Priebus, Ronna Romney McDaniel is now promoting the National Republican Committee's pursuit of a loyalty pledge, binding campaigns to support whomever the press elevates to the nomination as a prerequisite to participate in debates.  Let's hope this loyalty pledge goes farther than the loyalty of Florida governor Ron DeSantis.  In 2018, DeSantis couldn't slap on another piece of Trump flair fast enough.  Now he treats MAGA like leprosy.

Judge Overseeing Trump Georgia Grand Jury Weighs in on Crazy Forewoman's Media Tour.  The judge overseeing the Georgia special grand jury weighed in on the crazy forewoman who went on a media tour last week.  To be clear, the Georgia special grand jury cannot bring any indictments, they can only recommend indictments and District Attorney Fanni Willis would then have to pursue the case.  Fulton County judge Robert C.  McBurney recently ordered parts of the grand jury report in the garbage Trump 2020 election investigation to be released as the prosecutor considers charges against Trump and his allies.  The grand jury concluded that "one or more witnesses" lied under oath and recommended perjury indictments.

I not a lawyer or a judge, but this is a Bill of Attainder:
Chinese Spy Lover Eric Swalwell Proposes Bill to Ban Trump From U.S.  Capitol.  Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif), who was kicked off the House Select Committee on Intelligence because of his years-long affair with a Chinese spy, is trying to stay in the headlines by proposing a plan to keep former President Trump out of the Capitol.  The bill, introduced by Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA), would permanently bar Trump and several top aides from the Capitol because of their attempt to "undermine and overturn the 2020 presidential election."  The proposal asks the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms and the U.S.  Capitol Police to take "such actions as may be necessary" to keep Trump from entering the halls of Congress forever.

Why the 2020 Election was Unverifiable.  Joe Biden acquired his job through a legal process.  However, he did not earn enough verifiable votes to justify the certifications in six key swing states.  This issue is addressed in my new book, but here is some of my reasoning.  I have limited myself to one example of unverifiable votes for each of those swing states. [...] Before the 2020 election, the Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, implemented an illegal procedure that seriously undermined the integrity of the election.  Benson announced that all signatures would be presumptively valid — even if they were only slightly similar to registration signatures.  The announcement was, effectively, an invitation to fraudsters to grab all the unused ballot applications they could find or buy; and fill them out and send them in.  Trump opposed Benson's new procedure, and he ended up winning in court — four months after the election.  In March, 2021, State Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray:  "Nowhere in this state's election law has the Legislature indicated that signatures are to be presumed valid..."  By using an illegal standard for processing of signatures, and by announcing that new standard in advance so that fraudsters could exploit it, Benson effectively invalidated the Michigan election certification.

Atlanta, GA, "Special Grand Jury" Foreperson Speaks to MSNBC About Their Trump Investigation.  Putting aside the rules of grand juries speaking to media that do not apply because the Fulton County, GA, group was not a regular grand jury — but rather a "special grand jury", you might be interested to watch the foreperson of the group speak to MSNBC.  [Video clip] [...] In May of 2022 Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis assembled what is called a "special grand jury" to review claims that President Donald Trump attempted to coerce Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find votes and assist him in winning the November 2020 election.  The "special grand jury" exists outside the traditional justice system and as an outcome cannot produce indictments.  It was assembled, for all intents and purposes, as a quasi-grand jury with the intent on creating a continual political effort through a process best described as lawfare.

Georgia Grand Jury's Report Is Garbage Because Fulton County D.A. Fed Them Garbage To 'Get Trump'.  "Grand jury says Trump's election team committed perjury."  Without searching for the legacy media's coverage of today's release of a handful of pages from the report compiled by the Fulton County, Ga.  Special Purpose Grand Jury, I tapped out that mock headline.  Sure enough, the corporate press remains predictable.  "Georgia grand jury: 'Perjury may have been committed' in Trump election probe," The Washington Post headed its coverage.  "Georgia Grand Jury in Trump Inquiry Sees Signs of Perjury By Witnesses," The New York Times echoed.  USA Today similarly headlined its reporting, "Georgia Grand Jury Recommends Perjury Charges for Unnamed Witnesses in Trump Investigation."  But color me skeptical that any perjury occurred — because of what the Special Purpose Grand Jury said on page two of its report and because of what the partisan Fulton County D.A., Democrat Fani Willis, said in various court filings related to her "investigation."

Rep. Waltz Says DOD Told Him China Spy Balloons Crossed US During Trump Years But Gen. Mattis Did Not Tell Trump.  Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) joined Stuart Varney on Monday morning on FOX Business Network.  Rep Waltz says current Pentagon officials briefed him over the weekend and said Chinese spy balloons crossed over Texas and Florida during the Trump years.  Waltz then dropped this bomb.  Rep. Waltz said that General Mattis was Secretary of Defense at the time and decided not to inform President Trump because the Pentagon thought Trump was "too provocative and aggressive!"  This is a treason if true.  Mattis put the US in danger, offered comfort to the enemy, allowed Chinese spying on US installations, and then hid this from his superiors, including the President of the United States.

The Stench of Fascism Is Suffocating our Democracy.  The Democrats have targeted their chief political opponent Donald Trump, who received 74 million votes in the last election, with the longest, most determined, and most vicious campaign of character assassination in modern history, and possibly ever.  They have warned other potential presidential contenders like Governor Ron DeSantis that they will get the same treatment.  They have smeared Republicans as racists, white supremacists and white nationalists, and has done this in the service of rigged elections in its drive to establish a one-party state.

Who is running our government?  Classified documents, everywhere, and by everyone: Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Mike Pence... and the list keeps growing.  Now there are questions about Barack Obama, who took 30,000,000 documents to his Presidential library (it's doubtful he even knows what he has) and who has ignored the National Archive's requests for their return.  This is just more evidence of what the American people have learned really exists: The Deep State.  The Deep State successfully ousted Trump with constant leaks and political chicanery against a sitting president, all to foment distrust and dishonor, and to make his life and office a living Hades.  Pelosi's Congress was no slouch either and impeached him a second time, even after he left office (with the first impeachment over a phone call!).

50 ways for experts to lose their expertise.  It turns out that everyone was lying, including those 50 experts who called the laptop Russian misinformation.  Can't wait to see one of the 50 explain it to Representative Jim Jordan now that Hunter Biden admitted the laptop is his.  Wouldn't you love to see the Trump-Biden second debate now that we know that it was his laptop?  As you may remember, President Trump kept bringing up Hunter and Biden the experts.  In other words, the whole Russia-Trump story, from collusion to the laptop to Hamilton 68, was fake.

Another Trump-hating FBI lovebird flies out of the woodwork.  A certain amount of foofaraw came about when FBI bigshots Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were caught sending Trump-hating text-messages while in the throes of an extramarital affair.  And rightly, most of the attention went to the pair's illegal use of government property and underhanded Borgia-style machinations against the incoming U.S. president.  But their openly out there extramarital affair is worth noting, too.  Under FBI regulations, adulterous affairs are a firing offense, given that such behavior puts national security at risk and automatically leads to the loss of one's security clearance.  There's a lot of this going on at that troubled wokester agency now that a new lovebird case has emerged in the bust of FBI counterintelligence chief Charles McGonigal, yet nobody seems to be stopping it.  Sure enough, an angry mistress has emerged in McGonigal's case and she was reportedly instrumental in exposing his influence-peddling on behalf of a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

Classified Documents Are A New Potential Trap For Any Politician Who Crosses The Deep State.  Procedural complaints about classified documents are quickly turning into a catch-all trap that can depose duly elected officials, especially those tasked with oversight of U.S. intelligence agencies.  Last August, an unprecedented classified document complaint provided a pretext for an FBI raid on former President Donald Trump's home, in an eerie echo of the use of police and military resources against opposing politicians typical of banana republics.  That administrative power flex has now been turned into the unprecedented appointment of three special counsels, most recently against the deeply unpopular current Democrat Party figurehead, Joe Biden.  This all reverses the American structure of elected officials maintaining oversight of unelected permanent administrators.  Instead, we now have unelected bureaucrats performing selective "oversight" of elected officials.

Clinton-appointed judge slaps Trump with nearly $1M penalty for 'frivolous' lawsuit against Hillary.  A federal judge has ordered former President Donald J. Trump and his lawyer to pay nearly $1 million in sanctions to cover legal costs for failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and other defendants in a failed lawsuit against them for promoting the Russia collusion hoax.  On Thursday night, US District Judge Donald Middlebrooks tore into Trump and attorney Alina Habba in a blistering 46-page filing that, in addition to blasting them for abusing the courts, ordered that the $938,000 financial penalty be paid.  "This case should never have been brought," wrote the Bill Clinton appointee.

Destroying American Democracy — An Inside Job.  Today we know that the "Russia hoax" was a lie.  After a 22-month investigation, no evidence of collusion between any element of the Trump campaign and Russia was uncovered.  The supposedly compromising evidence had never existed; the information in the "Steele dossier" was false — and the FBI had known it was from the start.  The entire fabrication had been an attempt to attack and politically weaken Trump.

Just What Kind Of A Republican Is Mitch McConnell?  Following the November 2022 midterm election fiasco, the evidence pointed even more strongly to an ongoing organized conspiracy among Republicans.  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican National Committee Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel deliberately tanked the midterms by denying funding and support personnel to pro-Trump candidates in many states, including Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania.  McConnell foolishly diverted $9 million to support Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, over Kelly Tshibaka another Republican. [...] Why?  Murkowski voted to impeach President Trump, while Tshibaka supported the former president.  The inescapable conclusion seems to be that Republican leadership only supports candidates that support them, as opposed to those who support America and Americans.

Rebellion Against the People.  While it's important to justify one's position, to provide proof and evidence of crimes, betrayals and treason, I believe we're past the discovery phase and need to move on to the resolution.  What more do we need to know than the CIA has been involved in some of the most treacherous acts committed against the republic, that they've had their hands in the dirtiest of business?  What more do we need to know than the FBI has worked with social media companies to install a worthless, feckless president, perpetrating a treasonous coup in the guise of an election?  All of this, while recently verified, was information we had long since accepted as true.  Such villainous acts were known in 1992 when Vicki Weaver was shot down by a government sniper while holding her infant at Ruby Ridge.  Does that not speak of the inhumanity with which the government views all of us with dissenting views, those who will not simply obey every outrageous law or dictate?  To domestic enemies, patriots are scum.  This is a division between the people and those entrusted with power that cannot be ignored without the absolute destruction of the republic in all but name.  That is the current state of the union and has been, I would venture, since 1963.

The Coming Split.  Trump was the first president since Ronald Reagan (or some would argue, since earlier than that) who seemed to appreciate the dangers of unaccountable, unlimited, deep-state government.  And I'm willing to bet he'd appreciate those dangers a lot more in a second term, having fallen victim to them himself in the 2020 election.  But, despite the obvious differences, we're heading for a 1912-repeat, in which the Republican Party ignores its own voters.  The Republican machine has no intention of letting us choose Trump again: He is not a uniparty team player.  They'd rather lose an election to the Democrats, their brothers in crime, than win with Trump.  That leads us to the inevitable question:  What should we do when a majority of Republicans want Trump, but the Republican Party says we can't have him?  Do we knuckle under and vote for Ron DeSantis because he would be vastly better than any Democrat?

Stewart Rhodes warns Trump is next for politically motivated prosecution.  Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers militia who has been convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, said his case is a harbinger of what the Justice Department has in store for former President Donald Trump.  The former Army paratrooper and Yale Law School graduate turned militia leader warned that his conviction on the rare Civil War-era charge has set an ominous precedent that should alarm conservatives.  "Their success in my trial is paving the way for them to keep rolling through other people building up to Trump," Rhodes told The Washington Times.  "It was a warmup for what they're going to do.  That's what that was:  a political show trial."

Dems Vote to Release Six Years of Trump Tax Returns in Stunning Invasion of Privacy.  Add yet another government overreach to the "Things You Didn't Think Could Happen in America" file:  Democrats on the lame-duck House and Ways and Means Committee voted Tuesday to release six years of former President Donald Trump's tax returns. [...] But wait, you say to yourself, that's not possible; your tax returns are private by federal law, and therefore protected from release.  The Dems of course found a sleazy way around that.  The tax code allows the committee to look at people's tax returns to provide "oversight" of the Internal Revenue Service, and by writing an official report on their findings, then those returns can legally become public as part of the report.

Washington DC Labels Donald Trump an "Enemy of the State" — [but] "That's Why We Voted for Him".  The entire reason why CTH supported Donald J Trump in 2015 and forward was because he was a disruption to the DC system that few understood as deeply as an assembled bunch of politically homeless people right here on these pages and across America.  Since that original moment, Trump's presence has done exactly what we always knew it would do, EXPOSE THE CORRUPTION.  Trump is the Rosetta Stone, the physical embodiment of a massive unrepresented middle-class assembly that despises Washington DC and the corrupt political establishment they represent.  Republicans and Democrats are two wings of the same vulture feeding on the carcass of the American worker, or what the FBI calls "domestic extremists," people who just want to be left [...] alone.

Alan Dershowitz dismisses Jan. 6 committee's Trump referral: 'Worthless piece of paper'.  Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz denounced the Jan. 6 committee as a "kangaroo court" that produced a worthless report that should be "thrown in the wastebasket."  In an interview Monday evening on Newsmax TV, the eminent lawyer said that "not only is [the Justice Department] not obligated to do anything, it is obligated not to do anything" in response to the panel's recommendations Monday that former President Donald Trump be prosecuted.  According to Mr. Dershowitz, the panel operated against the spirit of one of only two civil-liberties provisions in the original Constitution, before the Bill of Rights was added — a ban on "bills of attainder."

10 Steps to Save America.  Americans distrust the "swamp," administrative state, or deep state.  Call what you will, the Washington nexus of bureaucracies, media, and lobbyists has created a huge, unelected permanent army of auditors, regulators, investigators, and punishers, all mostly exempt from audit and accountability and without fear of their elected overseers.  The easiest solution is to break up concentrations of power.  Transfer out of Washington, in this age of zoom and telecommunications, major cabinet departments like Health and Human Services, Energy, or Agriculture into the hinterland.  Restore the idea that lying to Congress, feigning amnesia, or pleading ignorance under oath to Congress or federal investigators or in depositions is a prosecutable felony with jail time.

Cleveland: FBI Lied About The Hunter Biden Laptop Story To Steal The Election From Trump.  "Our FBI lied to the media to get them to censor a story that directly impacted the 2020 election.  This is outrageous and you have to continue on to look at the other breadcrumbs we have," Federalist Legal Correspondent Margot Cleveland said on "I'm Right with Jesse Kelly."  [Video clip]

A Corrupt, Evil Regime Intent on Imprisoning Trump.  Gunrunner, never-charged criminal, political hack, and perpetually aggrieved former attorney general Eric Holder is back, bloviating about President Trump being imminently arrested.  Given that we live in post-Republic times and that the Department of (in)Justice has exhibited no shame or remorse in its years-long campaign of political persecution and partisan double-standards, I'll take Obama's contemptible "wingman" at his word just this once.  So Democrats, Establishment Republicans, and the Deep State Leviathan plan on humiliating President Trump by frog-marching him before the world and tossing him in the clink.  So what?  They've been telegraphing this play for months, if not years.  We get it.  The U.S. government is irredeemably corrupt, we've officially entered banana republic territory, and all the worst tyrants in D.C. plan on rounding up and punishing anyone brave enough to fight back or dissent.

Trump Isn't The Nation's Greatest Threat To Democracy.  His Exile Is.  Former President Donald Trump is back as a candidate, but after leaving the White House, he never left the political arena — and therefore, the investigations designed to send him into political exile never let up either.  Trump's bid for a nonconsecutive second term is faced with the same level of resistance that hampered his first, when Beltway actors weaponized the levers of government to politically terminate their public enemy number one, beginning from before day one.  In February last year, Trump became the first and only president to undergo an impeachment trial in the Senate after he had already left office.  One week before Joe Biden took the presidential oath, Trump was hit with a snap impeachment from House Democrats who sought to indict the outgoing president for the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump v. Biden, the FBI, and the Deep State.  It's no secret that deeply and thoroughly embedded within our once well-reputed federal agencies, are members of what we colloquially call, the Deep State — perhaps another moniker ought to be "American Stalinists"?  Filed yesterday, the courts handling the Mar-a-Lago raid issued a new ruling.  The per curiam 21-page opinion in Donald J. Trump v. United States of America decision overturns the federal district court's appointment of a special master to review the documents seized by the politicized FBI at the direction of the viciously-partisan attorney general, Merrick Garland.  (Can you believe this man almost became a Supreme Court justice?)  Strangely, I don't find the plaintiff and defendant an accurate reflection of reality; rather it should read something like Trump v. the American Stalinists, or Trump v. Biden, Obama, and Garland.

Democrats Now Have Trump's Tax Returns.  The battle over Donald Trump's tax returns has concluded, and it will either be a bombshell development or a tremendous deafening silence, the latter of which has been the end to many hit pieces and innuendos of impropriety about the former president.  Democrats now have Trump's tax returns — which has been an obsessive topic among members of the media and the Democratic Party.  Liberals are convinced that some felonious activity is hidden within the pages of these financial documents.  Trump has fought tenaciously against legal actions forcing him to release these files, but his last stand — the Supreme Court — was unsuccessful.

The Trump Special Counsel is Another Clinton Payback.  When Bruce Wasserstein, a billionaire backer of the Clintons, provided a $25 million donation to Harvard Law, future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, then serving as dean, welcomed it.  The gift built on the Wasserstein Fellows Program already established at Harvard Law which brought "outstanding public interest lawyers" to Harvard and provided them stipends of up to $24,000 to meet with and influence students toward social justice at the prestigious law school.  When Jack Smith became a Wasserstein Fellow, even while, unironically, serving as head of the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section, seemingly soliciting and accepting a grant funded by a leftist billionaire (but who watches the integrity of the head of the Public Integrity Section) he joined a list of leftist activist lawyers working for the ACLU, Earthjustice, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Soros' Open Society, Catholic Charities and the UN.

Appointment of Special Counsel Amounts to Election Interference and Sets Dangerous Precedent.  While Republicans kicked off the 2024 presidential race with the announcement that Donald Trump was running for president, in perhaps the ultimate sign of our ignominious times, Democrats, in effect, kicked off their half of the contest three days later by appointing a special counsel to escalate their political prosecution of him.  This is where "our democracy" stands today:  with its purported defenders engaging in the singularly anti-democratic act of siccing a hyper-politicized law enforcement apparatus on a candidate for the highest elected office, on dubious grounds, thereby subverting the political process by which we decide who represents us.  At a minimum, no doubt to an approving President Joe Biden, his law enforcement arm is now engaged in what amounts to election interference against arguably the president's top challenger — ironically probing in part then-President Trump's alleged interference with the transfer of power in 2020, when Trump could make the case the Deep State did the same to him from the inception of Russiagate in 2016 onward.  Worse, with Attorney General Merrick Garland's appointment of Jack Smith as special counsel, the prospect of the former president being charged and convicted of something, anything, is more real than at any time during the perpetual campaign to purge Trump from the body politic.

The coup-attempt party.  A political light bulb went on regarding Adam Schiff's remark on CNN's "State of the Union" as reported by Breitbart's Pam Key.  In the interview, Schiff again mentioned the Russia hoax he has promoted for five years, if not longer.  (Note that Dana Bash did not call Schiff on this huge lie.).  With Schiff continuing to assert this gross falsehood, the Democrat Party has, for years, switched from being a loyal opposition party to priding itself as a party of the permanently-attempted coup.  How dumb of me not to have taken seriously the Democrat cries of "Resistance," as of the Trump inauguration, January 20, 2017 — but I then understood such cries to be figurative and fanciful references of a politically romantic nature.  But where were the Republican political experts like House Speaker Paul Ryan back in early 2017 when the "Resistance" was gearing up?  Alas, the anti-Trump Ryan was silently supporting the Resistance.  How could the Democrats have succeeded with the Mueller probe if Ryan had spoken out forcefully against what was apparently a coup attempt to oust the legitimately-elected president?

There's Something Fishy About the Special Counsel Investigating Trump.  Last week, the Biden administration's Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed special counsel Jack Smith to investigate former President Donald Trump, days after President Joe Biden's top GOP rival declared a third bid for the presidency.  Garland's appointment marks the naming of the third special counsel in five years to examine Trump-related matters.  But this particular pick has had some major misfires, one of which took out a high-profile potential Republican presidential candidate.  More than a decade ago, under President Barack Obama's leadership, Attorney General Eric Holder picked Smith to oversee the Justice Department's public integrity section.  A few years later, Smith's unit convicted former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, in 2014 on corruption charges for accepting over $165,000 in gifts and loans from an affluent businessman in exchange for promoting a dietary supplement.  However, two years went by, and the Supreme Court overturned the conviction in a unanimous ruling that found that the jury was given faulty instructions about what constitutes bribery under federal law.

Supreme Court smacks Trump.  Consider, please: the high court ruled, in Dobbs, that a right to abortion, created in Roe v. Wade, is nowhere found in the Constitution of the United States.  On November 22, half a year later, the high court stated, effectively, that a house of Congress has a right, found nowhere in the Constitution, to the tax returns of a president of the country.  To boot, the justices bestow such a right on a viciously partisan panel that was established to probe the four-hour disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 — and not the tax returns of the former president.  Not only should the justices have dismissed the action against Mr. Trump as the fruit of a poisonous House panel, but the Court should have denounced the subpoena demanding tax records as a bill of attainder — and noted that if tax records for a former president are subject to (unlawful) congressional subpoena, who among the people is protected against a tyrannical Legislature serving a dictatorial administration, with SWAT teams sent forth by a thuggish FBI to enforce totalitarian subpoenas?

It's Trump vs. the Establishment All Over Again.  Since the "red wave" fizzled out, a consensus has quickly emerged in the media that Donald Trump is no longer a viable political force.  The newly anointed prince of the Right, according to the tastemakers, is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump's more palatable, less chaotic protégé.  But DeSantis and Trump offer two very different things.  DeSantis is a conventional politician with Trump-like qualities, who can, at least according to his fan base, build a popular majority that is beyond Trump's reach.  Trump is a radical outsider to a rigged, illegitimate political system with which he has been at war for seven years, and which his supporters see as an existential threat to their way of life.

Dueling Investigations.  Scott noted earlier that Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel, Jack Smith, to torment Donald Trump.  Garland said, I assume with a straight face:  ["]It also allows prosecutors and agents to continue their work expeditiously, and to make decisions indisputably guided only by the facts and the law.["]  Indisputably!  Right.  Smith will be returning to Washington from The Hague, where he is "chief prosecutor for the special court."  That will be good training for his role as the Democratic Party's agent in destroying Donald Trump.  The Democrats have been planning on indicting Trump for a long time, and appointing a special counsel is part of their plan.  It allows them to wash their hands of the investigation, pretending that impartial justice is simply taking its course.  For the record, Smith's charge includes both the events of January 6, 2021, and the innocuous documents that Trump stashed in his Mar-a-Lago basement.

Biden Says He's 'Making Sure' Trump Will Not Become President Again.  Old Joe Biden, the ostensible president of the United States, on Wednesday held one of his Potemkin press conferences before the gathering of sycophants and propagandists known as the White House press corps.  When a reporter said that Trump's movement was "still very strong," Biden laughed derisively and said, "Oh yeah?"  He added, "Well, we just have to demonstrate that he will not take power by — if we — if he does run.  I'm making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next President again."  How can he make sure of that?  He didn't say, and of course the sycophants didn't ask.

What Really Happened in the Midterms and Why.  By every account, this was a strange election.  Having had some time to think about it, I have determined the best explanation for November 8 is that this midterm election was intended to turn out pretty much the way it did.  Who intended it?  The Republican establishment.  Why?  To get rid of Trump. [...] This was a midterm election, so there are no real consequences beyond the control of Congress.  This means that if you can control one house, even by a slim margin, you can stall the agenda of the other side.  How large a majority you have is secondary and, in the long view, not that meaningful.  The establishment Republicans were willing to settle for less than expected numbers in the House to eradicate what they see as by far their biggest problem.  This was their chance to bury Trump and avoid a great deal of damaging unpleasantness at very low to no real cost.

It's been two years since 51 intelligence agents interfered with an election — they still won't apologize.  Exactly two years ago, on October 19, 2020, one of the dirtiest tricks in electoral history was played on the American people by 51 former intelligence officials, who used the false alarm of "Russian interference" to stop Donald Trump winning a second term as president.  Using the institutional weight of their former esteemed roles, they signed a dishonest letter to mislead voters 15 days before the election, claiming that material from Hunter Biden's laptop published by the New York Post "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."  In their expert opinion, "the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue."  Russia was "trying to influence how Americans vote in this election ... Moscow [will] pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win.  "A 'laptop op' fits the bill, as the publication of the emails are [sic] clearly designed to discredit Biden ... It is high time that Russia stops interfering in our democracy."  It was all a lie.  Their letter was the culprit "interfering with democracy" in broad daylight.  Not one of the 51 had seen any material from the laptop or bothered asking for it, [...]

Why Trump Must Run.  The final take on the disastrous Mar-a-Lago raid and its noxious aftermath — the latest in a series of "killing blows" aimed at Donald Trump and the movement he created — is that Trump must run once again for president and must win.  The logic behind this is simple:  the Deep State, in its slow, dull-witted, and utterly inept way, is making its big move, and Trump is the only visible figure who can stand against this.  The Left is well aware of this, and is terrified.

The Establishment's Response to Trump's Presidency.  In late July 2016, FBI Director James Comey notified certain members of the Obama White House, along with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, about the FBI's opening of the "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation into the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald Trump.  CIA Director John Brennan was already aware of the investigation since he was the one who had been providing the FBI with information regarding the Trump campaign. [...] But here's the thing.  The Intelligence Community (IC), the Obama administration, and the political establishment never expected Trump to win.  And when he did win, the IC was suddenly faced with a very real problem: How would they properly cover up their actions?  And how would they hobble the new Trump administration?  As it turns out, the timeline of their actions in the first few months of 2017 tells a story; it's one of an establishment response to the very real threat that the young Trump administration presented to the long-standing — and corrupt — political structure of our nation.

Connecting the 87,000 Dots between Trump and You.  Letitia James, the New York attorney general, has filed a civil lawsuit of $250 million against Donald Trump, his children, and the Trump Organization.  She alleges "Staggering Fraud." [...] There is something deeper going on here.  There is more than James doing this for political reasons.  Put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and we have a clear picture of the ulterior motives of the entire Democrat party.  Going back to the 2020 election, regardless of whether the truth about election fraud is real or not, why are the Democrats so fearful of Donald Trump running again?  If he was beaten as badly as they claim, by seven million popular votes, he should be history.  Apparently, he's not.  There is much truth to his claim that they are after the citizens of the United States and he is in the way.

Letitia James parades her economic and entrepreneurial illiteracy.  For years, most of the media, the federal Justice Department, and other Democrats have waged a vendetta against Donald Trump, perpetuating endless investigations in search of crimes.  So far, their efforts have failed, but that's not stopping another leftwing loon from boarding the Trump Derangement Syndrome train.  Since New York Attorney General Leticia James, could not find a crime, she has promised voters that she would destroy Trump, and now since election is coming soon, she's suing Trump and his family for alleged fraud for supposedly claiming their property was worth more than it is.  If the Trumps committed bank fraud, as James says, they would have sued him and filed a criminal referral on him, but they did not.  The state was not a victim, nor the bank, nor the citizens of New York, so why is she suing?

The Trump Raid — We're Missing the Point.  Seeking to prove that Trump did nothing wrong in possessing these documents is like trying to establish that the victims of Stalin's show trials weren't in fact Trotskyites.  Well, of course they weren't.  But Stalin didn't care if his enemies — perceived or real — were Trotskyites or "counter-revolutionaries."  What mattered to him was that they were his enemies.  And that's why we call their legal proceedings "show trials."  They weren't exercises in justice; they were facades for political suppression.  Did Trump commit a crime?  I doubt it.  Democrats have spent six years and tens of millions of dollars investigating virtually every step he's taken in his life.  So far, they've come up with nothing.  Which means that although Trump seems impetuous, he evidently hires excellent lawyers who ensure he always remains within the bounds of the law.  But at the end of the day, the question of Trump's innocence is irrelevant.  Because what we're witnessing is not a legal investigation but a political crusade — aided by the Justice Department — to crush a man it can't stand.  And if we allow the left to win this battle, we will have allowed it to cross a line from which there may be no turning back.  For this isn't about Trump.  It's about the left doing whatever it takes to retain political and ideological control of this country.  As one political commentator has pointed out, Trump represents everything the left hates, everything they've spent 50 years trying to eradicate.

The FBI Paid For Russian Disinformation To Frame Trump.  The FBI put a contributor to the Hillary Clinton campaign's Donald Trump smear dossier on FBI payroll as a confidential human source after investigating Igor Danchenko for allegedly spying for the Russian government, revealed Special Counsel John Durham in a court filing unsealed by a Virginia federal court yesterday.  The filing contains this bombshell and seven other significant details about the Democrat-led plot to use U.S. intelligence agencies to deny Americans the results of their choice for president in 2016.  The FBI made Danchenko a confidential human source, providing him and the FBI's use of him "national security" cover, in March 2017 and terminated that designation in October 2020, according to the court filing unsealed on Sept. 13.  Danchenko is the originator of the false claim trumpeted all over global media that Donald Trump told prostitutes to pee on beds the Obamas had slept in in a Russian hotel.

The DOJ's opposition to the special master exposes a nefarious motive.  When the federal judge ordered a special master to review the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago to determine whether the FBI possessed documents subject to "attorney-client and/or executive privilege" claims, I considered it a Pyrrhic victory because the DOJ had already reviewed all the documents.  I was more interested in whether the DOJ insisted that the appointed special master have a security clearance to review for classified or top-secret material.  Failing to do so would be a giveaway that the whole "classified information" claim was a scam.  On Thursday, however, the DOJ went one step further and did something that, to my mind, strongly indicates that its raid on Mar-a-Lago was intended to obtain and protect information that would be embarrassing to Obama, Biden, and the Deep State.

Clinton-Appointed Judge Dismisses Trump Lawsuit Against Hillary Clinton and FBI Crooks Who Manufactured Russia Collusion Hoax.  In April President Trump requested the Clinton-appointed judge overseeing his Russiagate case against Hillary Clinton and others be removed from the case due to obvious conflicts of interest.  President Trump earlier had sued a number of individuals and former officials for their actions related to the Russiagate hoax and attempted coup of his administration.  Somehow this case was assigned to Clinton-appointed Judge Donald Middlebrooks and Judge Ryon McCabe.  Judge Donald Middlebrooks was appointed by Bill Clinton to the Southern District of Florida in May 1997.  President Trump urged the courts to replace the Clinton judge with someone who is not biased in the case.  Judge Ryon McCabe later recused himself from the case.

For the Deep State, Trump Was Never President.  There is something peculiar going on with the post facto attempts to justify the search of Donald Trump's home.  At first we were told that he had purloined American nuclear secrets, complete with rank speculation that he sold them to the highest bidder.  Then the magistrate who authorized the search warrant ordered the release of a highly redacted supporting affidavit.  The affidavit said nothing about nuclear secrets and also had no specificity about the documents being sought; rather, it showed that the whole affair arose from a spat with the National Archives, the presidential equivalent of overdue library books.  When the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, evidently they took everything, including personal effects, passports, and a large number of sensitive documents protected by attorney-client privilege.  In a separate lawsuit brought by Trump, another federal judge appointed a special master to review the seized documents.  This decision implicitly recognized that Trump's claims of executive privilege may have some weight.  After this, the leaks changed.  The leakers dropped the nonsense about American nuclear secrets, and said, instead, that Trump possessed a report about an unnamed nation's nuclear capability.

Special Counsel Must Choose: Risk A Russia Hoaxer's Second Acquittal Or Expose More Deep-State Dirt.  Crossfire Hurricane agents never intended to drop their investigation of Donald Trump, and therefore any lies he told the FBI did not affect their decision-making, Igor Danchenko argued in a motion filed on Friday seeking dismissal of the criminal charges pending against him in a Virginia federal court.  With the trial set to start next month, Special Counsel John Durham must now decide whether to acknowledge the deep state's complicity or risk a second acquittal.  Durham charged Danchenko last year with five counts of making false statements to the FBI related to Danchenko's role as Christopher Steele's primary sub-source in the fake dossier the Hillary Clinton team peddled to the FBI and the media.  According to the indictment, Danchenko lied extensively when he provided Steele with supposed intel, and then later made false representations to the FBI during a series of interviews.

Remember that classifying documents usually protects the government, not you.  The late Angelo Codevilla was a brilliant political observer.  A reader reminded me of one of his articles that is singularly appropriate to the time in which we live.  The article, written in 2018, suggests to Trump that, in addition to firing Robert Mueller, instantly order the declassification of every document related in any way to the 2016 election.  Had Trump taken that advice, I'm certain we would today be living in a thriving America enjoying Trump's second term in office.  Aside from that wishful thinking, what's very clear is that bureaucrats too often classify documents not to protect America and Americans, but to protect themselves. [...] Ultimately, what Trump really did wrong was allowing a manifestly biased government process to take place.  He should have trusted the American people with information showing that the federal government is corrupt, possibly irredeemably so.  That he trusted a corrupt government to have an honest outcome reveals the dangerous naiveté that guided Trump during his first term.

When Must a Good Citizen Become a Dissident?  After Facebook's Zuckerberg recently confessed to censoring the New York Post's explosive Hunter Biden "laptop from Hell" story (evidencing a compromised and most likely criminally culpable Biden family) before the 2020 election in response to FBI pressure that the social media giant treat real news as "Russian disinformation" (thereby corroborating that the national security Deep State helped rig the presidential election), the FBI superciliously responded with the equivalent of a teenaged shoulder shrug and a haughty "so what?"  According to the FBI, our domestic spy agency regularly encourages censorship and secretive control over the free flow of information.  No big deal!  Except it is a very big deal.  Recent polling shows that nearly 80% of Americans believe that President Trump would have won re-election had voters "known the truth about Hunter Biden's laptop."  In other words, the Deep State stole an election.

Never Trump's Pursuit of Donald Trump Takes a Dark Turn.  The pursuit of Donald Trump continues apace by those who fancy themselves as Never Trump.  Per RedState's Sunday prior reporting, Adam Kinzinger recently did the one thing that makes him feel relevant by appearing on Meet the Press.  What followed was a ridiculous diatribe accusing Republicans of hypocrisy for wanting Hillary Clinton charged but not Donald Trump regarding the handling of classified information.  Putting aside that Trump was president and had the power of declassification, do you see how the game works?  The rules get changed in order to protect a Democrat, but instead of abiding by that new standard, Republicans are expected to play under the old rules.  Yeah, that's not how any of this works.  It is not hypocritical to want the law applied evenly, and while Clinton should have been charged, she wasn't and that changed things.  Trump should not be held to some arbitrary, "orange man bad" standard when it comes to enforcement of the law.

The Primary Architect of The Trump Targeting Operation Surfaces on ABC News.  For the past five years Mary McCord has been one of a small and select lawfare group organizing the targeting of President Trump.  Mary McCord led the support team who created the Carter Page FISA warrant using the Steele Dossier to replace the required 'Wood's file'.  McCord was the DOJ-NSD official who traveled with DOJ Deputy AG Sally Yates to talk to former White House counsel Don McGhan which weaponized the Flynn-Kislyak call to remove Trump's National Security Advisor.  Mary McCord was the person who organized Alexander Vindman and Eric Ciaramella to construct the first impeachment effort.  Additionally, it was Mary McCord along with her former legal counsel, turned Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, who changed the ICIG whistleblower rules allowing an anonymous complaint to underpin the false accusations from Ciaramella against Trump.  It was also Mary McCord who was appointed by FISA court Judge James Boasberg as an amici curia to the court, intercepting issues of false information in filings from the DOJ-NSD to the court as constructed by Kevin Clinesmith.

Mark Zuckerberg Admits On Joe Rogan That Facebook Censored The Hunter Laptop Story At The Request Of The FBI.  Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that before the New York Post broke the Hunter Biden laptop story, the social media giant received a warning from the FBI which prompted Facebook to limit the story's reach on the platform ahead of the 2020 presidential election.  The billionaire tech mogul said the FBI approached Facebook and warned it "be vigilant" before the New York Post story on the contents in Joe Biden's son's laptop.  [Video clip]

Trump plans to take legal action against the DOJ and FBI.  One of the major causes leading up to the American Revolution was the "general warrant."  This was a search warrant that was completely open-ended, allowing the British government official to search anything, anywhere, at any time.  When they ratified the Bill of Rights, they explicitly banned general warrants, requiring that all search warrants must be specific.  The DOJ and FBI, though, went to Mar-a-Lago with a warrant so broad it allowed them to take anything.  Donald Trump has therefore announced that he will be bringing an action against the government alleging his Fourth Amendment rights were violated.

Dems' war on ex-President Donald Trump is without precedent.  When you cross the Rubicon, there is no going back.  Democrats are getting very close to that fateful moment.  Their dream to indict Donald Trump has turned into determination, putting them on a collision course with history.  No president has ever been prosecuted after leaving office, with even Richard Nixon escaping that infamy after Watergate because of how it would tear America apart.  Yet day by day, the evidence shows Dems have liberated themselves from such concerns and are resolved that this time will be different.  The number and fervor of their army of prosecutors reveal a contagious fever, and it often appears they are competing to be the first to file charges.  Will it be Attorney General Merrick Garland, who approved the raid on Mar-a-Lago and also has a separate investigation of Trump regarding events before and after Jan. 6?  Or will the first shot come from Georgia, where the Fulton County district attorney is using a special-purpose grand jury to investigate "election interference" in the state by Trump and his associates after the 2020 election?

Unconstitutional security state targets Trump.  Former President Donald Trump will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury.  He is the victim of a federal government that knows no bounds and has assumed powers nowhere granted in the Constitution by the sheer force of its own will.  It has created a security state, replete with three lettered acronymic-named agencies — FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, DIA — that are nowhere recognized in the Constitution, regularly break the written and moral laws, and are themselves far more dangerous to human freedom than the folks they pursue.  How many laws have the feds broken?  Ha.  No one knows how many criminal laws Congress has enacted.  Estimates range from 4,400 to 5,500.  How can this be?  For starters, members of Congress in both parties rarely if ever read the legislation they enact.  House members were given 15 minutes to read the 132-page Patriot Act, which passed overwhelmingly.  And much federal law is so convoluted that a simple reading leaves even an experienced lawyer and judge bewildered as to how many different behaviors were made criminal by the statute in question.

Spygate Docs and Trump's RICO Lawsuit: Exploring the Real Reasons Behind the FBI Raid.  Following the FBI's raid of the residence of former President Donald Trump, there's been much speculation about the Department of Justice's (DOJ) motivation.  Was it done to prevent Trump from running again in 2024, or was the raid related to documents and evidence surrounding the January 6th Commission?  While these factors may have had some bearing on the FBI's raid, some entirely different, and potentially larger, factors may be at play.  It is likely that the FBI's raid on Trump was driven by intelligence community fears over information that was contained within those documents relating to the RussiaGate hoax.  The DOJ's coordinated FBI raid of Trump was likely related to the potential unsealing and public presentation of this information — particularly in relation to Trump's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) suit against Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and former FBI officials like former Director James Comey, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former agent Peter Strzok, and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page — and his amended RICO suit, which added more defendants.

Quit Pretending.  What is the great offense?  Answer:  The people elected someone who was not approved.  There is one permanent, political and administrative deep state running the United States Government.  It does not matter which color flag rests atop the congressional spire, republican or democrat, it does not change the behavior of the participants.

Understanding Why the Deep State Is Terrified of Trump's Documents.  The CIA, with the knowledge of the Director of National Intelligence, worked with British counterparts starting in the summer of 2015 to collect intelligence on Republican and at least one Democrat candidate.  John Brennan was probably hoping that his proactive steps to help the Hillary Clinton campaign would ensure him taking over as DNI in the new Clinton Administration.  Regardless of motives, the CIA enlisted the British intelligence community to start gathering intelligence on most major Republican candidates and on Bernie Sanders.  This initial phase of intelligence gathering goes beyond opposition research.  The information being gathered identified the key personnel in each campaign and identified the people outside the United States receiving their calls, texts and emails.  This information was turned into intelligence reports that then were passed back to the United States intel community as "liaison reporting."  This was not put into normal classified channels.  This intelligence was put into a SAP, i.e. a Special Access Program.

Sources Say Hillary Clinton Operatives Have Been Secretly Working With DOJ Officials For Several Months To Take Down Trump.  The FBI seized boxes containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege during its raid of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News, adding that the Justice Department opposed Trump lawyers' request for the appointment of an independent, special master to review the records.  Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president's team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents — all seen on the final page of the FBI's property receipt — contained information covered by attorney-client privilege.  The FBI seized classified records from Trump's Palm Beach home during its unprecedented Monday morning raid, including some marked as top secret.  But the former president is disputing the classification, saying the records have been declassified.

The Establishment Has Emerged From the Shadows.  They're Betting That You Won't Care.  Our nation is under siege.  But this siege is not the result of some domestic or foreign terrorist threat.  This siege on our great republic comes from within the very institutions for which we have entrusted our nation with.  The establishment, in concert with their allies within the Department of Justice, have conducted an unanticipated, unprecedented raid on the Mar-a-Lago residence of former President Donald Trump.  Our institutions have betrayed us.  They have engaged in conduct that is more becoming of a third-world country where opposition battalions regularly raid the residences of their political adversary and often kill them.  They have proven themselves wolves, but they have not donned sheep's clothing.  This is a clear attempt to indict Trump for political gain; the establishment has shown their cards, and they know that most will not bat an eye.  A federal grand jury need only find probable cause to believe that Trump broke some nebulous federal statute in order to indict him.

Stop Assuming the Legitimacy of the Corrupt Establishment's Actions.  [Scroll down]  This was an atrocity, a disgraceful, disgusting, and dangerous escalation of the War on the Normals by our enemies designed to frame Trump and send a message to his supporters that we are second class citizens.  There's no hidden, secret Trump crime that the garbage FBI and the garbage DOJ are investigating.  They spent the last six years trying to frame Donald Trump, but right — this time it's for realsies!  It would only be too perfect if it really was over possessing classified info, which apparently is illegal again now.  Here's the truth — it's all a lie designed to make sure President Trump can never be elected again and finish what he started.  I know it.  You know it.  They know it.  But some Republicans refuse to accept it.  Instead, they still fall for this nonsense, pretending that there's no way a government agency could be politicized and weaponized.

Their Desperation to Stop Trump Isn't Just About Keeping Power, It's Fear of His Retribution.  The raid on Mar-a-Lago says a lot about where we are as a country but if you look closely it says a lot less about us and a lot more about the Democrats.  As I spent a lot of time explaining during Wednesday's RedState LIVE!, the Democrats have shown just how desperate they are to stop Trump, so much so that they'll cook up one of the worst excuses to raid anyone in the history of ever, and a former president no less.  It's abundantly clear that they fear him running in 2024 and are searching relentlessly for something, anything, that might prohibit him from being a candidate.  But it's not just a loss of power that they fear.  Democrats do value it above all else... well, almost.  The only thing they value above power is self-preservation.  They know that if Trump gets into the White House again, his work won't just be a continuation of his first term.

The Mar-a-Lago Raid is a Preview of a Rigged 2024 Election.  On Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray cut short his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee to fly the FBI's private jet to his family's vacation home.  At the hearing, Wray had admitted that disciplinary action against FBI personnel involved in Russiagate abuses had been "slowed down" and refused to call Russiagate a "hoax".  On Monday, President Trump revealed that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by "a large group of FBI agents".  Any warrant for such a raid would have been signed off on by Attorney General Merrick Garland and his associates in the Biden administration which expects to face the former president in the next election.  Wray, who quietly listened to complaints about the politicization of the FBI from Senator Grassley and Cruz, among others, would have known what was coming.

Deep State Burns Its Bridges to Get Trump — and Now It's Fighting for Its Life.  What are we to make of 30 or so FBI agents raiding President Trump's Florida home to collect maybe 35 boxes of records for what is perhaps the Deep State's 7th or 8th impeachment attempt?  First, why no raids on the Democrats who took the jet to Epstein's pedophile island with its readily available sex with underage girls?  Why no raids on Hunter Biden and the apparent crimes documented on the laptop?  Why no raids on Hilary Clinton after she destroyed evidence?  The good news, and I think it is great news, is that at least a third of the country no longer believes they can expect justice from the federal department that bears that name.

The Existential Threat.  President Barack Obama's former campaign manager David Plouffe famously said of Donald Trump's entry into politics:  "It is not enough to simply beat Trump.  He must be destroyed thoroughly.  His kind must not rise again."  What was it that Washington DC and President Obama's team feared so much about Donald J Trump?  The answer to that question is why the FBI, DOJ and CIA targeted Trump in 2016; and why they continued the targeting in 2017 with the Mueller investigation; and why they continued the targeting through two attempts at impeachment in 2019 and 2020; and why they still keep targeting Donald Trump with the J6 committee and a DOJ investigation two years after he is no longer in office.  Donald J Trump is the existential threat.  When your business involves gaining personal wealth by selling out America, Donald Trump is bad for business.

They Can't Let Him Back In.  The people who really run the United States of America have made it clear that they can't, and won't, if they can help it, allow Donald Trump to be president again.  In fact, they made this clear in 2020, in a series of public statements.  Simply for quoting their words in an essay for The American Mind, I was mercilessly mocked and attacked.  But they were quite clear.  Trump won't be president at noon, Jan. 20, 2021, even if we have to use the military to drag him out of there.  If the regime felt that strongly back then, imagine how they feel now.  But you don't have to imagine.  They tell you every day.  Liz Cheney, Trump's personal Javert, has said that the 45th president is literally the greatest threat facing America today — greater than China, than our crashing economy, than our unraveling civil society.

Is The J6 Committee Trying To Get Trump Re-Elected?  Now that anonymous sources are leaking to The Washington Post that the Department of Justice is officially targeting former President Donald Trump with criminal charges, this is a good time to ask:  Just how crazy are the occupants of Washington, D.C.?  Do they really think they will indict, prosecute, convict, and imprison the Republican frontrunner for president in 2024 without creating a massive amount of public backlash?  For half the country, trying to take down Trump for giving a speech over a mile away from the Capitol on Jan. 6 while hardly anybody has been held accountable for the atrocious Russia collusion hoax that nearly destroyed his presidency will be nothing less than total confirmation of a two-tiered and irreparably corrupt justice system and could permanently tear the nation in two.  This may come as a shocker to Washington, but Congress's J6 obsession is not high on Americans' list of critical issues.  Polls show the American people's top concerns are skyrocketing inflation and economic uncertainty, not what happened on Jan. 6.

'US public sphere has been poisoned by FBI, Obama administration'.  The U.S. government under former President Barack Obama employed obscurantist tactics reminiscent of those of Iran to overthrow Donald Trump before he even got started, according to U.S. journalist Lee Smith.  "Half of the country fell prey to an insane story about the president of the United States working on behalf of a foreign power," Smith, author of "The Permanent Coup:  How Enemies Foreign and Domestic Targeted the American President," said this week in an interview with Ellie Cohanim.  "Our entire public sphere has been poisoned by what the FBI did, by what [former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency] John Brennan did, by what Hillary Clinton did, and by what Barack Obama did."  Smith was referring to the Clinton campaign plot in the fall of 2016 to share information with a reporter about Trump being tied to a top Russia bank, and about Russia supposedly helping swing the election for Trump.  Ultimately, no evidence of conspiracy was found.  [Video clip]

Why Donald Trump Should Not Run for President in 2024.  If Trump were to defeat the ruling elites a second time, their nihilist radical left-wing allies and their media sycophants would be consumed with uncontrolled vengeance.  Their determination to destroy Trump on a personal basis would exceed that of his first term.  Thereby, creating incessant and ongoing media-driven national chaos and anxiety and diverting the citizenry's attention from the necessity of utilizing every political tactic available to permanently defeat this malevolent cabal.  Nor should Trump be expected to further erode and further damage his family business ventures that would take significantly greater hits than what he suffered in his first term during which he experienced a loss of over 33% of his net worth (or $1 Billion).

One Way Government.  We are still told that our government operates by the formal dictates outlined in the Constitution — checks and balances carefully designed to limit the power any one side can wield while in office.  But that is no longer the case.  In our desire to remove politics from public policy decisions we have replaced our constitutional republic with governance by technocracy, i.e. governance by the deep state.  And the deep state is a ratchet: it only moves in one direction because that is what it is designed to do.  The deep state ensures that our government, if it moves at all, always moves to the left, especially when it is gaining power.  This is why the Right has a very difficult time establishing lasting change in the permanent machinery of Washington.  By controlling the institutions that credential bureaucrats, the Left controls the ideology that will guide the decisions of the technocracy, no matter who 'officially' controls it.

Proof Former Obama Admin Officials Committed Treason Under Trump.  It's impossible to say that I'm shocked by the latest bombshell courtesy of the American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ).  According to a memo obtained by ACLJ via a FOIA lawsuit, several Obama administration officials held secret meetings with Iran during Trump's presidency.  [Tweet]  Former Obama Secretary of State John Kerry's efforts to undermine Trump by negotiating with Iran as Trump was working towards pulling out of the nuclear deal have been known for years.  But the memo obtained by the ALCJ is from October 2018, titled "Notes From 'Iran and the US: An Off-the-Record Conversation with Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif" has never been seen before now, and shows that Kerry wasn't the one working to undermine Trump.

FBI ignored lies to get their hands on Trump.  [Clinton campaign lawyer Michael] Sussmann claimed he was not representing any client when he brought the FBI internet data that he insisted showed that Donald Trump had established a communications back channel with the Kremlin, through servers at Russia's Alfa-Bank.  In reality, Sussmann was representing the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.  He wanted an "October surprise" to torpedo Trump's chances, and what better way than to make it look like the FBI was investigating the candidate?  It's clear from text messages and testimony that Sussmann lied about not having any ulterior motives, and simply acting as a concerned citizen.  But his defense presents a problem — both to the FBI's reputation and special counsel John Durham's prosecution of the lawyer.  Sussmann argues that no matter what he said, FBI officials knew he was aligned with the Clintons.

Drain The Swamp.  The bureaucratic mire in DC is full of predatory beasts, noxious insects, and other unseen hazards.  Directives from the White House are apt to be ignored because there is no one translating those directives into marching orders for the lower floors of government-owned buildings.  This leaves the denizens of departments to their own devices, none of whom are the slightest bit concerned with anything beyond the office water cooler. [...] If the Secretary of Department X decides to go full MAGA, little or nothing will actually happen, since most of his underlings frankly don't [care].  They are protected by Civil Service rules and can't be fired short of the next millennium.  In other words, it's hopeless.  Yes, I know, Donald Trump claims to know what he did wrong and will do things differently next time.  It all sounds good, but so do all the claims from every politician.  After all, they're "fighting for you!"  But actually, they're mostly trying to baffle you [...] so you'll vote for them again.

The Swamp Must Be Drained.  Trump ran against the corrupt back-scratching, log-rolling society of the OBushintons — the Clinton pay-to-play schemes, the Biden sales of influence and access, the semi-disguised socialist racism elitism of the Obamas, and the flabby sameness and ineffectuality of the Bush-McCain-Romney-McConnell-Ryan Republicans.  Trump sensed the people were dissatisfied with the bipartisan Swamp, and he ran as strenuously against the Bushes and McCain and Romney in 2016 as he did against the Clintons and Obamas.  The anti-Trumpers of both parties, in the most legally questionable presidential election in U.S. history, eased Trump out in 2020 with the aid of 4.8 million harvested ballots, 95 percent of the national political media, and 70 percent of the campaign money, to bring in (unintentionally, one assumes, although there was plenty of warning) the most incompetent regime in the country's history.  In 2020, the Washington establishment demonstrated the accuracy of Trump's claims of how corrupt and unscrupulous it was, and Biden has demonstrated that it's even more incompetent at government than Trump alleged.

'Deep State' Was Working Against Trump on COVID-19 Response:  Paul Alexander.  According to Paul Alexander, when former President Donald Trump was trying to tackle COVID-19 in 2020, the "swamp" or the "deep state" was working against him, using flawed data to tarnish him, locking down society, and keeping schools closed.  "Can you imagine the president of the United States fighting against the [teachers'] union, fighting against the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)], fighting against his own task force?" Alexander told EpochTV's "Facts Matter" program in an interview that will air on May 3.  "They're working against him.  So you need to be there to understand when he said 'the swamp' — and he talked about deep state — it is real.  I dealt with them.  It is the bureaucracy.  The entrenched bureaucracy is real."  From late March till early September 2020, Alexander served as scientific adviser to Michael Caputo, then-assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Clinton Campaign, DNC Misreported Opposition Research as Legal Services:  FEC.  Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) labeled payments that went to Fusion GPS for opposition research against her rival Donald Trump as going to legal services, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has determined.  A years-long investigation into the matter, triggered by multiple complaints, led commission lawyers to conclude that payments reported as legal services actually went to Fusion to dig into Trump, documents released on April 28 show.  Invoices "demonstrate that Fusion was providing opposition research services related to Trump and Russia, and there is no evidence that Fusion provided services other than this opposition research," the lawyers wrote in a brief.

The terrible unintended consequences of the Biden presidency (unless they were intended).  From the moment Donald Trump rode down that escalator, the American left began their campaign to destroy the man and prevent him from being elected. [...] For nearly three years, with the aid of the FBI, the DOJ and the CIA, they sought to make absolutely certain he could not be re-elected.  The Clintons, Obamas and their activist worker bees in and out of Congress worked tirelessly to destroy Donald Trump.  For four years, Mark Elias traveled state to state to get election laws changed to facilitate the cheating they planned. [...] But the NeverTrumpers cared not a bit about the American people.  They cared only about removing the outsider from their swamp.  They feared his pledge to drain that swamp, to expose all their personal get-rich arrangements, all of them essentially corrupt.

Newly Obtained Emails Raise Questions About Department Of Defense Involvement In Spygate.  After spending weeks dismissing concerns about its work with Russia hoax-connected researchers, a newly discovered email from The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to a Georgia Tech researcher with the subject line "Mueller case" casts doubt on DARPA's denials.  Last month, The Federalist first reported that an email exchange obtained from Georgia Tech pursuant to a Right-to-Know request indicated that Special Counsel John Durham's office was investigating the Democrat National Committee hack.  Manos Antonakakis, the Georgia Tech researcher branded "Researcher-1" in the special counsel's indictment of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, penned the email shortly after being questioned by one of Durham's top prosecutors.  The special counsel's office charged Sussmann last fall with lying to the FBI's general counsel, James Baker, when Sussmann provided Baker with data and white papers supposedly showing the existence of a secret communications network between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russian-based Alfa Bank.

New Documents Suggest Democrats Sicced The CIA On Their Domestic Enemy, The President.  Newly released CIA memoranda suggest the tech gurus behind the Alfa Bank hoax also tracked Donald Trump's movements to devise another collusion conspiracy theory.  While smaller in scale than other aspects of Spygate, the Yotaphone hoax represents an equally serious scandal because it involved both the mining of proprietary information and sensitive data from the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and the apparent surveillance of Trump's physical movements.  When Special Counsel John Durham charged former Hillary Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann in September 2021, the indictment focused on the Alfa Bank hoax that Sussmann, tech executive Rodney Joffe, and other cybersecurity experts had crafted.  The indictment detailed how Joffe and other tech experts had allegedly mined data and developed "white papers" that deceptively created the impression that Trump had maintained a secret communication network with the Russia-based Alfa Bank.

One Industry Insider Suggests The U.S. Government Plays A HUGE Role In Twitter.  There aren't a lot of new insights I come across where I sit dumbfounded, but this was one of them.  A huge kudos to Sundance over at Conservative Treehouse for shedding some light on the mostly-unknown world of Big Tech.  As bad as Twitter and the entire tech oligarchy is, it would appear that the situation is worse than even imagned.  Shadow banning of conservatives isn't fair — or legal, if Twitter is indeed the new public square — but things are about to really heat up if Sundance's insights and Elon's recent actions prove meaningful.  In short, Musk either intentionally or unintentionally stumbled upon the fact that Twitter's servers might be, or probably are, owned by several world governments and almost assuredly our own.  The next time you consider the fact that the sitting President of the United States was banned, just imagine THOSE ramifications.

News From The Culture War Front.  The GOP-E is notoriously skittish about the Culture War that's been raging in America.  The GOP-E preference, we've been told, based on fairly indisputable evidence, is to manage the devolution of America into a Social Democrat utopia — managers of the Revolution.  And they've been paid well to take on that role, so it's small wonder that so much of the GOP-E were frankly appalled at winning.  It wasn't just Trump — it was all the deplorables coming out, getting involved, voting.  The whole thing.  That's the story behind what investigations of Election 2020 are documenting — the coup against Trump was enabled in no small part not only by DC Establishment GOPers but by the state party apparatus as well.

Durham bombshell:  Prosecutor unveils smoking gun FBI text message, 'joint venture' to smear Trump.  Special Counsel John Durham is revealing new smoking gun evidence, a text message that shows a Clinton campaign lawyer lied to the FBI, while putting the courts on notice he is prepared to show the effort to smear Donald Trump with now-disproven Russia collusion allegations was a "conspiracy."  In a bombshell court filing late Monday night, Durham for the first time suggested Hillary Clinton's campaign, her researchers and others formed a "joint venture or conspiracy" for the purpose of weaving the collusion story to harm Trump's election chances and then the start of his presidency.  "These parties acted as 'joint venturer[s]' and therefore should be 'considered as co-conspirator[s],'" he wrote.

Biden [is] Telling Staffers He Wants the Justice Department to Prosecute Trump.  Joe Biden is telling staffers that he wants the Justice Department to prosecute former President Trump and other political opponents.  In an article about Attorney General Merrick Garland 'facing pressure as the January 6 investigation widens,' The New York Times claimed Biden wants Garland to prosecute Trump.  The New York Times reported:  "As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments."

CIA Officer Who Signed Hunter Biden Laptop Letter Claims Credit for Trump Loss.  One of the former CIA officers who signed a letter claiming stories about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were disinformation says he helped swing the 2020 election away from President Donald Trump.  "I take special pride in personally swinging the election away from Trump," John Sipher, who served for decades as a senior operations officer at the CIA, wrote in a recent post on Twitter.  "I lost the election for Trump?  Well then I fell [sic] pretty good about my influence."  Sipher and 50 other former U.S. intelligence officials signed the letter on Oct. 19, 2020, alleging that the effort to distribute the laptop's contents "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation," despite not knowing whether the laptop was legitimate.

Clinton-Appointed Judge Rules Trump "More Likely Than Not" Committed Crimes When He 'Attempted to Obstruct' Congress on January 6.  A federal judge on Monday ruled former president Trump likely committed crimes when he 'attempted to obstruct' Congress on January 6, 2021.  US District Judge David Carter, a Clinton appointee ruled that Trump "more likely than not" committed felony obstruction.  "Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021," the judge wrote, according to ABC News.  Earlier this month the January 6 Committee said Trump may have engaged in criminal conduct to overturn the 2020 election.

Huh?  Was Trump on trial?  I must have missed it.  This sure sounds like a verdict.
Trump likely committed felony obstruction, federal judge rules.  A federal judge ruled Monday that former President Donald Trump "more likely than not" attempted to illegally obstruct Congress as part of a criminal conspiracy when he tried to subvert the 2020 election on Jan. 6, 2021.  "Based on the evidence, the Court finds it more likely than not that President Trump corruptly attempted to obstruct the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021," U.S. District Court Judge David Carter wrote.

How Bill Barr's Silence Impacted the Outcome of an Election.  On May 18, 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr made a statement to the media, declaring that special counsel John Durham's investigation into the origins of the Russiagate hoax wasn't focused on either former President Barack Obama or former Vice President Joe Biden, stating that "I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man."  In his new book, Barr has revealed that he made that statement in response to a series of tweets by then-President Donald Trump.  A week earlier, Trump had started using the term "Obamagate" on Twitter, alleging that both Obama and Biden had "led the charge" on the FBI's phony Russiagate investigation.  Barr recounts in his book that he felt it was unacceptable for Trump to attempt to drag his presidential election opponent into the Russiagate scandal and that Barr felt that it was incumbent upon him to make a public statement.  The corporate media immediately seized upon Barr's statement, with The Washington Post running a same-day headline that "Barr says he does not expect Obama or Biden will be investigated by prosecutor reviewing 2016 Russia probe."  The New York Times' headline went further, claiming that "Barr Dismisses Trump's Claim That Russia Inquiry Was an Obama Plot."

AG Barr Zeroes in on the Real Interference That Occurred in the Last Presidential Election.  Former Attorney General William Barr has a new book out, so he's making the rounds.  He's rehashing some of the controversies of the 2020 election.  Specifically, he's commenting on the Hunter Biden laptop story that has finally been realized as authentic by the liberal media.  Now, we knew this already back when it was originally reported by The New York Post in October of 2020.  The Post was censored by big tech over this piece of journalism that made Joe Biden look awful.  It wasn't Russian disinformation, though every intelligence official came out of the woodwork to say so without evidence.  They signed a letter.  Joe even lied about his son's laptop during the debates which disturbed Barr immensely.  The former DOJ chief now says this story was weaponized to tilt the election, and it very well could be responsible for Biden's win.

Spies who lie: 51 'intelligence' experts refuse to apologize for discrediting true Hunter Biden story.  They are the supposed nonpartisan group of top spies looking out for the best interest of the nation.  But the 51 former "intelligence" officials who cast doubt on The [New York] Post's Hunter Biden laptop stories in a public letter really were just desperate to get Joe Biden elected president.  And more than a year later, even after their Deep State sabotage has been shown again and again to be a lie, they refuse to own up to how they undermined an election.  The officials, including CNN pundit and professional fabricator James Clapper — a man who was nearly charged for perjury for lying to Congress — signed a letter saying that the laptop "has the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."  What proof did they have?  By their own admission, none.  "We do not know if the emails ... are genuine or not," the letter said.  They're just "suspicious."  Why?  Because they hurt Biden's campaign, that's evidence enough.  Keep in mind this was written Oct. 19, 2020, five days after The Post published its first story.  Neither Joe Biden nor Hunter Biden had denied the story, they simply deflected questions.  Didn't these security experts think that if this was disinformation, the Biden campaign would have yelled to the heavens that the story was false?

Trump Offers a Proposal to Destroy the Deep State.  Virtually all Americans believed, until the inauguration of Donald Trump as president on January 20, 2017, that when someone became president, he could begin to implement his agenda.  Certainly Old Joe Biden's handlers have done so with a vengeance since they took over; but when Trump became president, he immediately began to encounter resistance from entrenched members of the government bureaucracy who refused to do as he ordered.  Some worked actively against Trump, while the establishment media assured us that these self-appointed "deep state" saboteurs were the courageous guardians of "our democracy."  At his South Carolina rally Saturday night, Trump continued to tease a 2024 run and made a new promise about how he would break the power of the unelected "deep state."

The Unsung White House Official Who Warned President Trump in 2017 that the Deep State Was Trying to Prematurely End his Presidency.  No President of The United States ever before faced anything comparable to the organized effort of officials within his administration to sabotage Donald J. Trump's presidency and drive him from office.  The Memo by Rich Higgins is a first and only book by an American soldier and patriot who exposes the deep state and the anti-Trump coup activities.

Biden's America:  The inmates are running the asylum.  [Scroll down]  The swamp that is D.C. is known for promoting the incompetent.  How else to explain Joe Biden's rise to president?  He was always a failed senator, a grifter who used his position to cheat and enrich himself.  The same goes for the Clintons, the Obamas, and a host of other swamp-dwellers.  They were all sold to us as the "smartest people in the room" but they are actually the most venal people in any room.  So enamored of their own superiority, they think nothing of fabricating a tall tale about the outsider presidential candidate to take him out.  When he won despite the cheating that they thought ensured a Clinton victory, they doubled down on their criminality; they invented the Russia hoax that enveloped and hampered the Trump presidency.  That despicable stunt has possibly led us to the Russia/Ukraine war now dominating the world.  Russia never wanted Trump to win the 2016 election for now obvious reasons: he was a strong, American First leader.  The Russians wanted Hillary as they wanted Biden — thoroughly corruptible pols who would do their bidding.

The Curious Case of Stefan Halper, Longtime 'Zelig' of American Scandals Who 'Crossfired' Trump.  In the late summer of 2016 Stefan A. Halper met with at least three of Donald Trump's associates in England and the United States, bragging about his friendship with Russian spies who "can be very helpful to us at this time."  As they listened to his tales of foreign intrigue and promises of illegal foreign help, what George Papadopoulos, Carter Page and Sam Clovis did not know was that Halper was not who he said he was.  He was, indeed, a spy, but his handler was not the Kremlin — it was the FBI.  Armed with leading questions and on at least two occasions a hidden tape recorder, Halper had been tasked by the bureau with finding dirt on the Trump campaign.  Halper's undercover operation, which was documented in a report by the Department of Justice's Inspector General, would prove largely a bust.  Transcripts between Halper and Trump campaign officials would show that none of them took the bait, or appeared to otherwise be soliciting Russia's help in the 2016 presidential campaign

The Prosecutors Who Resigned Over Trump Criminal Probe Completely Expose Themselves.  No president in history has faced more corrupt lawfare than Donald Trump, and that didn't end once he left office.  Numerous criminal probes are going on in various far-left districts, including New York City and Atlanta, in an attempt to throw Trump in prison for anything they can come up with.  You see, unlike most criminal investigations, these probes didn't start with a clearly defined crime that demanded justice.  Rather, they started with a political target, and everything else has flowed from there.  As you'd expect, those corrupt practices have led to some hiccups, most recently with the probe happening out of the Manhattan DA's office.  In February, RedState reported on the resignation of two lead prosecutors who were upset the newly elected DA (a Democrat) was expressing reservations about their case.

Former AG Bill Barr outs himself as an establishment swamp creature.  When I think of former Attorney General William Barr, I think of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Part of him is an upstanding figure who respected constitutional limitations; another part of him is a loyal swamp creature who desperately wanted to serve a milquetoast George W. Bush (or George H.W. Bush) only to find himself working for a vigorous, aggressive Donald J. Trump.  Both those aspects of his personality apparently come through loud and clear in a new 600-page book (and doorstop) in which he narrates his stints as U.S. Attorney General under both George Bush, Sr., and Donald Trump.

If they spied on Trump, they will spy on you.  If the revelation earlier this month that Big Tech executives continued to spy on Donald Trump after the 2016 election and into his presidency was an isolated incident, it would not be a grave concern.  But once you step back and see the pattern of behavior by those in power to spy on and systematically undermine a democratically elected president, every citizen should be concerned.  When the FBI first opened its investigation into allegations that candidate Trump was coordinating with Russia, the FBI inspector general reported that the leadership of the FBI "hand-picked" the team that would conduct "one of the most sensitive FBI investigations" in the agency's history.  These were supposed to be agents of the highest character and professionalism.

Eulogy for a Bureaucrat With a Conscience.  A statesman died last week who did not sacrifice his conscience, and paid a price for it.  His death, so far as I know, had nothing to do with his conscience, but his firing from his public duties had everything to do with it.  And because he was removed instead of rewarded, the nation did edge toward chaos.  In July 2017, Rich Higgins was unceremoniously dismissed from his job at the National Security Council, forced to resign as the result of a seven-page memo he wrote describing an internal and external threat to Donald Trump's presidency.  "This is not politics as usual but rather political warfare at an unprecedented level that is openly engaged in the direct targeting of a seated president through manipulation of the news cycle," he wrote.  "It must be recognized on its own terms so that immediate action can be taken.  At its core, these campaigns run on multiple lines of effort, serve as the non-violent line of effort of a wider movement, and execute political warfare agendas that reflect cultural Marxist outcomes.["]

The Case Against Trump (Predictably) Collapses in Manhattan.  Two prosecutors leading the Manhattan district attorney's probe into former President Donald Trump's business practices threw a temper tantrum and quit on Wednesday.  They'd spent more than a year trying to cobble together fragments of a ludicrously weak case, only to be told by the newly-elected D-A, Alvin Bragg, that there is "no there there."  It's not unusual for an elected D-A to take office and undertake a review of ongoing cases, especially high-profile ones.  And it's not uncommon when the line prosecutors — who have spent months or years trying to build a case — get their knickers in a bunch if the new D-A takes a different point of view by concluding that the case has serious problems with those pesky things called evidence and proof.

We Can't All Be Traitors, Can We?  [Scroll down]  If "subverting democracy" has any meaning at all, the organized and relentless campaign to overthrow Donald Trump takes the cake.  If "treason" meant anything other than "opposition to Democrats or their bureaucratic instruments in permanent control of the federal government," then Hillary Clinton would be in prison, the FBI and CIA would be disbanded, and President Trump would be serving his second term as we speak.  Alas, totalitarianism always brings with it the death of meaning.  And even lauded legal giants such as Laurence Tribe and Merrick Garland prove that ideology alone controls their understanding of what is right and fair.  At the end of the day, anyone who dares disagree with them is likely a traitor and guilty of treason, just as those who dared to stand up to the madmen of the past were demeaned as traitors, too.

'Those Who Make Peaceful Revolution Impossible Will Make Violent Revolution Inevitable'.  Every single American with a functioning brain knows that Donald Trump won the election in 2020 and that everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to the mainstream media to the Democrat party to Never Trumper "conservatives" conspired to steal it.  And they did.  Of course, the theft of the election comes after four years of continuous attacks.  The genesis of most of those attacks was the activity John Durham laid out in his court filing:  Hillary Clinton's funding the fabricated data suggesting Trump was colluding with the Russians in order to steal the election.  The Democrats produced, proffered, and peddled this pure propaganda, and the media parroted and promoted it.  Millions of Americans bought it, hook, line, and sinker, leading to a Special Counsel to investigate ties between the Russians and the Trump campaign.  That Special Counsel and the media's constant promotion of the "Russian collusion" hoax kneecapped Trump's administration.

Vindman and the rest of the Trump-hating Ukraine cabal have much to answer for.  The Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine has finally happened, and now the Trump-haters who tried to impeach President Trump over Ukraine have much to answer for.  Looking at you, Alexander Vindman.  Looking at you, Alexandra and Andrea Chalupa.  Looking at you, Fiona Hill.  These are all the crummy little supposedly pro-Ukraine operatives who did their [utmost] to undermine President Trump during his administration.  After all, the Russia invasion didn't happen on Trump's watch as they plotted and schemed against him instead of doing their jobs.

Byron York catalogs the effort to spy on the Trump campaign.  Chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner Byron York appeared on Laura Ingraham's show Quake Media to outline all the different attempts to spy on former President Donald Trump's campaign.  York appeared on the program Saturday to debunk the cover-up behind the FBI's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.  "We found out that the FBI employed a confidential informant, the professor Stefan Halper, who had conversations and tried to get information out of George Papadopoulos and out of Carter Page," York explained.  Halper's conversations would go on to be cited in the findings of the Department of Justice's inspector general report on FISA abuse.  "Then, we learned that the FBI actually sent an undercover agent with the alias Azra Turk to go and befriend [Papadopoulous], record Papadopoulous secretly in their conversations.  If that's not a spy I don't know what is."

Truth about techies who targeted Trump.  The usual suspects are already circling the wagons around the techie "experts" who spied on Donald Trump.  If their defense feels tired, it's because we've been through it before.  It's Christopher Steele all over again.  Special counsel John Durham destroyed the last shreds of Mr. Steele's credibility last year, proving that the paid-for-hire spook had relied on fabrications for the infamous dossier the Federal Bureau of Investigation used in its Trump probe.  The special counsel is now dismantling that other big claim of Trump-Russia "collusion" — the Alfa Bank narrative.  The wonder is that the press and others are stepping up for another humiliation — when the disturbing actions of the creators of the Alfa narrative are already so easy to document, and in their own words.  The Alfa story came to life in October 2016, when Franklin Foer of Slate was gulled into writing that a largely anonymous "benevolent posse" of "computer scientists," "spurred by a sense of shared idealism," had discovered data showing secret communications between the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank.

Six Things Clarified By The Durham Probe.  [#6]  At this point, there is only one question left to answer:  How deep does this go?  Unfortunately, there are so many twists, turns, cover-ups, misdirection, and layers to this we might never get to the bottom.  There's also the fact that Durham might not want to or be allowed to ever get there, either.  This whole thing is a mess, and the more we learn, the messier it simply gets.  All of this means that the lay newsreader can never quite keep up, and even when they do, bits of information are discussed here, obscure and unknown names are dropped over there, and technical aspects are folded in everywhere, ultimately meaning that the Clinton campaign's operation to lie, cheat, and steal will be given cover by the sheer scope of it all.

Those responsible for the 'dirty tricks' against Trump need to face consequences.  "Dirty tricks" was a term used to describe the behavior of operatives within the Nixon administration to smear the reputations of opponents and undermine the appeal of certain politicians. [...] Dirty tricks are not to be confused with negative campaigning, which at least has some component of truth, but a filing by special counsel John Durham that alleges the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton paid a technology company to "spy" — the word Donald Trump uses — on his presidential campaign, goes beyond dirty tricks into the illegal.

Deep State and Congress:  Who Controls Who?  Donald Trump warned Americans about the Deep State.  Instead of listening, Democrats (the Party of yore that actually cared about abusive government power) and their cronies in the Mainstream Media mocked him for peddling an "Alt-Right conspiracy."  Not only do we now have more than sufficient proof that the Deep State exists, but clear evidence it has grown stronger, bolder, and more dangerous.  In just the past week, two shocking reports have come to light that detail the extent to which the Deep State has flourished in the shadows.  The first comes from Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, who, in a just-declassified letter to the country's top Foreign Intelligence officials, called for full disclosure of a previously classified, April 2021 report by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB).

Hillary Clinton Spied on Trump Even After the Election — and I Think I Know Why.  As RedState reported, John Durham dropped an absolute bombshell of a filing on Saturday detailing Hillary Clinton's spying against Donald Trump.  Allies of the DNC used a sensitive government arrangement that was started under Barack Obama's tenure to then target the DNS traffic of Trump.  The purpose of that was to try to prove a nefarious connection with Russia, with the information being passed back to the DNC and Clinton.  That scheme bolstered now-debunked tweets like this from the failed 2016 presidential nominee.  [Tweet from 2016]  Yet, one of the most shocking parts of the filing was the fact that the spying continued after Trump was inaugurated — which begs the question of why?  At that point, what would be the purpose?  I think I have a pretty good idea, and to be honest, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out.  She was trying to overturn the election.  Ask yourself why she'd even bother to keep looking into Trump if the goal wasn't to prove he was an illegitimate president?

Swamp Thing:  Who is Colin Kahl?  With revelations from the Durham special counsel's investigation that the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016 paid tech executives to spy on the Trump campaign, the Trump residence, and then the Trump presidency, many political watchers think significant indictments are probably coming as a result of it.  The tech executive, for one, has fired back at Durham, which, if nothing else, signals how big of trouble he might be in.  John Ratcliffe, President Trump's former director of National Intelligence, thinks "significant" indictments are coming.

John Durham:  Democrats Paid to 'Infiltrate' Trump White House Servers.  Special counsel John Durham's team alleged on Feb. 12 that a tech executive aligned with the Democratic Party was paid to spy on former President Donald Trump's residences and the White House when Trump was president.  Lawyers for the Clinton campaign allegedly paid the technology executive to infiltrate servers at the Trump Tower and the White House, Durham said in court filings, in order to establish an "inference" and "narrative" to tie Trump to the Russian government.  Durham's office made the claim as part of his investigation that had brought charges against Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who had worked on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and who is currently charged with making a false statement to the FBI.  Durham alleged Sussmann "had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign," according to a section in the court filing, titled "Factual Background."

"I Hope Donald Trump Sues Them All for Everything! ... This is the Biggest Scandal We've Ever Seen!" — Maria Bartiromo.  This weekend we learned that the Durham investigators uncovered evidence that shows Hillary Clinton's team paid operatives to "infiltrate" the Trump Tower and then President Trump's White House servers to link Trump to Russia. [...] On Sunday morning [2/13/2022] Maria Bartiromo exploded on FOX and Friends Weekend over the historic findings in the Durham probe!  Maria said this will go down as one of the greatest political scandals in US history!

Trump accuses Hillary Clinton campaign of treason after Special Counsel John Durham said they paid tech firm to hack into his White House servers.  Donald Trump has furiously accused Hillary Clinton's election campaign of treason after a special counsel said her team had tried to spy on his White House servers in a bid to find ties to Russia to smear him with.  The former president unleashed a furious broadside on Saturday, claiming that Team Clinton's behavior would once have merited execution, after Special Counsel John Durham made a court filing explaining the alleged hack.  Trump said: 'The latest pleading from Special Counsel (John) Durham proves indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia.

The Latest Democrat/RINO Plan to Prevent Trump From Running Again in 2024.  Why did Mitch McConnell break ranks with the Republican National Committee and insist, contrary to a growing mountain of evidence, that the Jan. 6 incident was "a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent a peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next"? [...] If it was an insurrection, then Trump, who has grown increasingly critical and contemptuous of McConnell, can be barred from running in 2024.  The initiative to do this is gathering steam. [...] The Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3 [...] was designed to keep unrepentant Confederates out of public office after the Civil War (although many did hold office, as more often than not Congress did vote to waive the prohibition).  As PJM's Rick Moran noted Wednesday [2/9/2022], it's already being used against America-First Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), although he is fighting back hard.  It's likely to be used against others who are associated with the Jan. 6 non-insurrection as well.  But Cawthorn and the rest would just be a dry run.  The great white whale these Captain Ahabs are hunting is Donald Trump, and they hope that in the 14th Amendment, they have found their harpoon.

The United States Government Is "Desperate to Hide the Truth".  How are Americans going to respond when Washington D.C, the Fourth Branch of the security and surveillance state, and all the institutions of the United States government, officially declare that Donald John Trump will not be permitted to run for office? If you have not thought about that question, we had better hurry up and get that conversation front and center.  It's about to happen, and President Trump knows it.

And the Band Played On.  In 2016, surrogates for the Obama administration, operating as a fifth column behind a curtain of national intelligence and federal law enforcement loyalists, plotted for a de facto third term by initiating a corrupt campaign against the candidacy of a populist Republican candidate.  Crazed after the consequent loss to Donald Trump, they commenced a broadside of straw allegations and conspiracies against the new president and his supporters.  More than a dozen Democrat-run subcommittees over two terms of Congress opened fifty probes of the Trump administration, harassed political opponents with subpoenas, alternately withheld and leaked secret testimony without fear of reckoning, and staged two theatrical impeachment proceedings replete with cutaway footage of silly walks between the chambers.  Throughout, the Trump presidency stayed off the ropes, fending off serial indignities while effectively tackling the business of the people, securing the border, reducing unemployment, achieving energy independence, and sending more than 200 judges to the federal bench, including three Supreme Court justices.

Durham vs. Horowitz:  Tension Over Truth and Consequences Grips the FBI's Trump-Russia Reckoning.  As he documents the role of Hillary Clinton's campaign in generating false allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, Special Counsel John Durham has also previewed a challenge to the FBI's claims about how and why its counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign began.  At stake is the completeness of the official reckoning within the U.S. government over the Russiagate scandal — and whether there will be an accounting commensurate with the offense:  the abuse of the nation's highest law enforcement and intelligence powers to damage an opposition presidential candidate turned president, at the behest of his opponent from the governing party he defeated.  The drama is playing out against the clashing approaches of the two Justice Department officials tasked with scrutinizing the Russia probe's origins and unearthing any misconduct:  Durham, the Sphinx-like prosecutor with a reputation for toughness whose work continues; and Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice inspector general, whose December 2019 report faulted the FBI's handling of the Russia probe but nonetheless concluded that it was launched in good faith.

The Democrats Are Attempting A Coup By Lawfare.  As a rule, the Constitution prevents Congress from prohibiting a person who meets the basic requirements of Article I §2 (age, citizenship, residency) from competing in a federal election or being seated in government should they win. [...] The only exception to this power written into our constitutional law came with the passage of the 14th Amendment on the heels of the Civil War after 1,500,000 Americans were killed or wounded and one of John Wilkes's distant relatives assassinated a president.  That limited exception is that people who have committed rebellion or insurrection against the U.S. may be excluded from running for office or excluded from office if they win an election.  The progressive left is going all out to paint conservatives as "domestic terrorists" and to claim that the January 6 riot — a riot of a few hours by people with no weapons and carried out virtually without violence (and that may have been part of an FBI entrapment scheme) — is tantamount to our Civil War of 1861-1865.  This is so far beyond ludicrous it is stunning.  Yet progressives fully embrace this tactic as their only hope to stop a popular vote that promises to be a wave election in 2022 and an Electoral College vote that might return Trump to power in 2024.

The FBI's Broken Relationship with Us.  All large organizations suffer from the occasional presence of bad actors.  The FBI is no exception.  But it managed to retain a good relationship with the public in spite of its flaws, because it was still solving rather than creating crimes.  But something fundamentally changed in the last five years. [...] "Crossfire Hurricane" was the investigation into alleged Trump collusion with Russia to steal an election.  Within a couple of months, the bureau knew that the whole thing was a hoax created by Hillary, yet the investigation continued for three years — eventually transitioning into a special counsel investigation.  Peter Strzok called "Crossfire Hurricane" the bureau's insurance policy — against a Trump presidency.  It was a good way to show off for his mistress, Lisa Page — a rabid anti-Trump FBI lawyer.

Durham's Investigation:  Incriminating Inference in the FBI's Empty Russiagate Predication.  The vaporous predication for the FBI's opening of its "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation of "Russian collusion" is often attributed solely to anti-Trump bias, with no more to learn from its study.  But sustained examination shows it to be not only pretextual but also designed to conceal American history's most insidious governmental treachery since Benedict Arnold.  According to the FBI, the "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation was opened on July 31, 2016, because lowly Trump aide George Papadopoulos had been told by one Professor Joseph Mifsud that Russia had emails harmful to Hillary Clinton.  Two weeks later, Australian (FFG) diplomat, British-connected Alexander Downer, pried from Papadopoulos that Russia had dirt on Hillary, which he repeated in July to an American embassy in London.  Because both Mifsud and Downer were Western intelligence plants, without any knowledge of Russian designs, this was clearly a bootstrapped, circular predication.  That millions of common citizens also suspected Russia had email dirt on Hillary did not seem to dampen FBI ardor.

Biden's Cabinet:  A slew of mediocrity and incompetence.  Most folks who were paying attention during the Obama administration realized he was racializing and weaponizing each and every one of our law enforcement institutions, among others.  The damage done to law enforcement has been catastrophic.  How did he do it?  By appointing people who were loyal to him and not because they were particularly smart or competent.  Like the quote above about the personnel who ran Chernobyl, Obama's people were chosen or kept for their dedication to the Obama agenda, which they assumed Hillary would continue.  By the time President Trump took office, all of these agencies were geared up to do Clinton's bidding but instead set out to destroy Trump and his administration with a series of hoaxes, all of which have been debunked.  From Comey to Holder to Brennan, Clapper, and McCabe, all of them were dedicated to one project, one project only:  Sabotage Trump.  And sabotage him they did, at every turn, right up to blatantly rigging the election and then falsely accusing him of orchestrating the January 6 event.

We Have Very Little Time To Act To Save American Elections.  Communists are very good at the waiting game.  They take the long view and bide their time.  They've been slowly, but efficiently, infiltrating American institutions for more than half a century. [...] The accumulation of power within the deep state has been grindingly weakening the constitutional government for a very long time.  This slow-motion coup was the last remaining objective that needed to be accomplished before any attempt was made to seize permanent control of the country and change America into something that it was never intended to be. [...] The 2016 election of Donald Trump to the presidency was a massive shock and setback to the left.  That victory launched all the leftist hysterics that continue to this day.  Trump's election, however, also provided leftists with an opportunity for a dress rehearsal.  If the deep state could somehow tear down the new administration or at least render it ineffective, it would then be ready to implement the full scope of the left's elitist, authoritarian "revolution."

Russia hoax whitewash era begins (2).  The Clinton presidential campaign's fabrication of the Russia hoax is the dirtiest trick in American political history.  Beginning with Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS and the Perkins Coie law firm, it enlisted co-conspirators in the Obama Department of Justice, the FBI, and the mainstream media.  The principals are not only still at large, they have achieved high office, wealth, riches, and Pulitzer Prizes.  They will never be brought to justice.  They won't even break a sweat.  We were never meant to be clued in.  As the veil of the fraud was pierced by Rep. Devin Nunes and others including, most recently, John Durham, we now have a good handle on the con.  It is almost unbelievable.  It is also an inexhaustibly rich subject.

Looney Bette Midler Wants Trump Arrested for 'Trying to Kill' Biden.  Liberal activist, washed up entertainer and full time lunatic Bette Midler is calling for former President Donald Trump to be arrested for trying to kill Joe Biden.  Midler claimed to her two million followers that Trump is the devil and attempted to infect Biden with Covid-19 during the presidential campaign in order to beat him.

Bette Midler:  Trump is the Devil, Should Be Arrested for Attempted Murder of Joe Biden.  When did Trump try to kill Old Joe, you ask?  Why, it all goes back to the sensationalistic recent fake news claim that Trump had tested positive for the dreaded killer disease with a 99% survival rate before his first debate with Biden.  As my PJ Media colleague Matt Margolis noted here Thursday [12/2/2021], Trump's test was actually a false positive, followed by two negative tests before the debate, so Old Joe was never actually in any danger.  Midler, however, was unmoved by these facts.

The Editor says...
Not only that, she had a year to get her facts straight, and still didn't.

Here Comes the Limited Hangout.  Whether Hillary Clinton was aware of the crimes committed between 2016 and 2020 to further her political ambitions is a question that may never be answered.  What has been proved beyond any shadow of doubt by the U.S. Justice Department over the past few months is that top operatives in her 2016 campaign used concocted falsehoods to leverage active law enforcement officials who in turn used U.S. government programs and resources to spy on the Trump campaign — a violation of American political norms whose only real parallel is Watergate.  We also know that under the pretext of "investigating collusion," at least 40 Obama officials, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, spied on the Trump team.  There is circumstantial evidence that Barack Obama knew what was going on, but since, miraculously, no one has ever publicly asked him about Russiagate, not even once, he hasn't had the opportunity to either lie or come clean.

Emails Show Researchers Who Alleged Trump Links To Russian Alfa Bank Were Anti-Trump.  [David] Dagon's name first became connected with the Alfa Bank story when Special Counsel John Durham indicted Michael Sussmann two months ago, charging the Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer with lying to FBI General Counsel James Baker.  According to the indictment, when Sussmann met with Baker on September 19, 2016, and provided the top FBI lawyer with "white papers" and data files purporting to establish a secret communications channel between the Trump organization and the now famous Russia-connected Alfa Bank, Sussmann falsely claimed he was not there on behalf of a client.  In truth, though, Sussmann was working both for the Clinton campaign and an unnamed "U.S. technology industry executive," the indictment charged.  The 27-page speaking indictment then detailed the origins of the Alfa Bank story.  In July 2016, a computer researcher, using the moniker "Tea Leaves" and referred to in the Sussmann indictment as "Originator-1," "had assembled purported DNS data reflecting apparent DNS lookups between Russian Bank-1 and an email domain, 'mail1.trump-email.com." "Tea Leaves," a business associate of Tech-Executive 1, shared her information with Tech-Executive 1 and others, with Tech-Executive 1 alerting Sussmann to the data.

We are living in legendary times.  Coupled with the China Plague, we have seen the theft of a presidential election.  I do not doubt that a major effort was undertaken to stop the obvious progress on every level that was being affected by the Donald J. Trump administration.  As bombastic as Trump was and is, he was effective and efficient (when not overtly opposed by Democrats, leftists, FBI/CIA et al, media, and swamp dwellers), the exact formula despised by deep state politicians on both sides of the aisle.  Kicking the can down the road has become the go-to approach to problem solving for Congress and the White House, spending like drunken sailors all the while.  Trump made them look bad.  Very bad.  Considering the rigged election, Molly Ball's Time magazine article did most of the bragging on behalf of the victorious, detailing the depth and the scope of the effort.  I have no doubt that some of the effort was scripted and some of the effort was ad hoc on the part of the faithful.  It was truly a team effort.

Durham And Big Picture Stuff.  [T]he abject failure of the original Russia Hoax, as well as the Mueller Witchhunt and the Ukraine Hoax and the Faux Impeachment Theater probably insured that genuinely strong Dem candidates would not emerge to challenge Trump.  This, in this view, would have cleared the deck for the substitution of a puppet of a candidate who was systematically protected by the establishment. [...] We find ourselves under the thumb of a regime — the word I've been using since Election 2020 — a regime rather than a true administration, with a puppet president to front for the puppet masters behind the scenes.

Iowa Student Asks Turncoat Mike Pence Who Told Him to "Buck Trump" and Certify the 2020 Election Results.  An Iowa student asked Turncoat Vice President Mike Pence why he "bucked Trump" and went ahead and certified the clearly fraudulent election results on January 6th.  Pence did this while President Trump was speaking to over a million supporters at the Ellipse in Washington DC.  The people knew the election was stolen on Jan. 6th.  And today a majority of American voters still believe Democrats cheated to in in 2020.  On Thursday night an Iowa student asked Mike Pence for the name of the person who told him to buck Trump and certify the 2020 election results.  Pence responded, "James Madison."

Yes, Virginia, There is a Deep State.  Six or seven years ago, "Deep State" was a term you would only see in left-leaning media.  Bill Moyers explored the theme on his site from time to time, and when The Nation asked Edward Snowden about it, he said, "There's definitely a deep state.  Trust me, I've been there."  The "deep state" was on the liberal left's front burner then because a spate of horrendously ugly revelations put it there.  We learned via Snowden that the NSA was collecting the communications of people all around the world in secret (Carollo might want to mark down that congress wasn't informed) in a program the U.S. Court of Appeals just last year declared illegal.  We found out top intelligence officials like CIA chief John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to congress, among other things about the warrantless surveillance program, and got away without perjury charges despite a furious outcry from legislators (another useful factoid for [Ben] Carollo, on the oversight front).  We learned about the CIA's systematic use of torture techniques, ranging from anal feeding to threatening to rape and murder relatives to induced hypothermia, another fun set of pastimes the agency decided not to burden congress with knowledge of.

Justice Department hasn't released Russia documents Trump ordered declassified on last day.  Two top Republican senators are demanding answers from Attorney General Merrick Garland because the Justice Department has failed to release anything in the "binder" of Crossfire Hurricane documents that former President Donald Trump ordered declassified during his last day in office.  The memo from Trump said he had "determined that the materials in that binder should be declassified to the maximum extent possible."  The FBI said in mid-January that the bureau had "identified the passages that it believed it was most crucial to keep from public disclosure."

The CIA "Continued the Effort to Try to Destroy Trump and They Realized the Only Way They Could Do It Was They Had to Steal the Election".  Former CIA and State Department employee Larry Johnson was on with Joe Hoft and Kell Brazil at Real Talk 93.3 out of St.  Louis this morning.  Larry discussed the beginnings of Obama's Deep State actions against candidate and President Donald Trump this morning.  When Obama's Ethics Czar Norm Eisen was discussed and his efforts and the CIA's efforts using methods against President Trump before the 2016 Election through the 2020 Election, here is part of what Johnson responded:  ["]What we saw was the law enforcement and intelligence assets of the US government, instead of serving to protect the interests of the US people, were turned and used in the most abhorent, partisan ways to attack a Presidential candidate to discredit him.  Despite all their efforts they initially failed in 2016.  But they didn't stop.  They continued the effort to try to destroy Trump and they realized the only way they could do it was they had to steal the election.["]

The Left Got What It Wanted — So Now What?  No sooner had Donald Trump entered office than scores of House Democrats filed motions for impeachment, apparently for thought crimes that he might, some day, in theory, could possibly commit.  Foreign Policy published an article by a liberal Obama Administration lawyer outlining all the ways to remove an elected president as soon as possible — including consideration of a military coup.  The FBI and the entrenched bureaucrats at the Justice Department continued their prior failed efforts during the campaign to seed the lies of the fabricated Steele dossier and Fusion GPS.  A 22-month-long and $40 million hoax ended with the special counsel himself, a doddering Robert Mueller, swearing under oath that he essentially knew nothing about the dossier or Fusion GPS — the twin catalysts that had prompted his very own investigation.  Fired FBI Director James Comey — a lion on Twitter, and a lamb when under oath — on over 240 occasions testified to the Congress that he either did not know or could not remember, when asked details about the collusion fraud that the philosopher G-man had helped perpetuate.

Durham Probes Pentagon Computer Contractors in Anti-Trump Conspiracy.  Cybersecurity experts who held lucrative Pentagon and homeland security contracts and high-level security clearances are under investigation for potentially abusing their government privileges to aid a 2016 Clinton campaign plot to falsely link Donald Trump to Russia and trigger an FBI investigation of him and his campaign, according to several sources familiar with the work of Special Counsel John Durham.  Durham is investigating whether they were involved in a scheme to misuse sensitive, nonpublic Internet data, which they had access to through their government contracts, to dredge up derogatory information on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign in 2016 and again in 2017, sources say — political dirt that sent FBI investigators on a wild goose chase.  Prosecutors are also investigating whether some of the data presented to the FBI was faked or forged.

Kash Patel, A Trump Staffer Who Exposed The Russia Hoax, Aiming New Fire At Deep State.  Former Trump official Kashyap "Kash" Patel, who helped dismantle Democrats' Russia collusion hoax, will join the Center for Renewing America as a senior fellow for national security and intelligence.  Patel's primary focus in his new position at CRA, which is headed by Trump alum and former Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, will be continuing his work to expose the deep state in the FBI, NSA, and other intelligence organizations, a spokeswoman confirmed to The Federalist.  [Video clip]  Patel first started his work combatting the Russia collusion hoax as senior counsel for Rep. Devin Nunes who, at the beginning of Trump's presidency, chaired the House Intelligence Committee.  During that time, Patel and Nunes criticized the hysteria that arose out of what turned out to be an operation secretly designed and funded by the Clinton campaign to meddle in the 2016 election.

The Symptoms of Our Insanity.  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, does not deny that:  1) he deliberately aborted the legal chain of operational command — that is, violated the law — by recalibrating established protocols for using nuclear weapons in times of crisis.  And he says his interventions were based on his own diagnoses (after prompting from the opposition leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) that the commander-in-chief was crazy, and thus could be circumvented.  And 2), in freelancing style, Milley, on more than one occasion, called the top figure of the Chinese Communist People's Liberation Army, General Li Zuocheng.  He reportedly announced that his own country was currently in crisis (experiencing "messy" democracy), reassuring the Chinese that if he, Milley, the newfound autokrator, sensed there was any chance of hostile and aggressive action on the part of his own country, then on his own initiative he would tip off the Chinese in advance.  And far from resigning or being fired for his Strangelovian efforts, Milley would then be hailed as a hero by the popular media and progressive civil libertarians.

'Our Kids Carpooled Together': How Old Friends In High Places Assembled The Russia Collusion Hoax.  The indictment of Washington attorney Michael Sussman — accused of lying to the FBI in order to smear Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign — reveals the ace up the sleeve of high-powered Democrats.  It's a card they played time and again to advance the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory: friends in high places.  They used friends in law enforcement to launch secret investigations; they used friends in the federal government to broaden those investigations; and they used friends in the media to spread the word about Trump and his organization being under investigation.  The Russia fiasco metastasized in large part because those involved in advancing the false allegations had important connections.  They used friendships with powerful federal officials to encourage investigations against team Trump.

Russiagate, More Like Watergate.  CNN Chief Media Reporter Brian Stelter hopped on the set of Reliable Sources last weekend, and offered his take on Special Counsel John Durham's recent indictment of former Perkins Coie attorney Michael Sussmann, calling Durham's probe a "total bust."  This was in the context of accusing other networks like Fox and OAN of a pattern of "lie, rinse, repeat." [...] A long list of press figures — from Stelter's own CNN colleague and shameless intelligence community spokesclown Natasha Bertrand, to reporters from The New Yorker, Time, MSNBC, Fortune, the Financial Times, and especially Slate and The Atlantic — were witting or unwitting pawns in a scheme to sell the public on a transparently moronic hoax, i.e. that Donald Trump's campaign was communicating mysterious digital treason to Russia's Alfa Bank via a secret computer server.  The story sounded absurd from the start, and was instantly challenged by experts.

Biden Security Adviser Jake Sullivan Tied to Alleged 2016 Clinton Scheme to Co-Opt the CIA and FBI to Tar Trump.  White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan figures prominently in a grand jury investigation run by Special Counsel John Durham into an alleged 2016 Hillary Clinton campaign scheme to use both the FBI and CIA to tar Donald Trump as a colluder with Russia, according to people familiar with the criminal probe, which they say has broadened into a conspiracy case.  Sullivan is facing scrutiny, sources say, over potentially false statements he made about his involvement in the effort, which continued after the election and into 2017.  As a senior foreign policy adviser to Clinton, Sullivan spearheaded what was known inside her campaign as a "confidential project" to link Trump to the Kremlin through dubious email-server records provided to the agencies, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.  Last week, Michael A. Sussmann, a partner in Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of making false statements to the FBI about his clients and their motives behind planting the rumor, at the highest levels of the FBI, of a secret Trump-Russia server.

Judge in case of anti-Trump mudslinger is married to attorney for ex-FBI lawyer Lisa Page.  Last week, the special counsel appointed to oversee the probe into the FBI's investigation of former president Donald Trump indicted Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.  Republicans and Trump allies are optimistic about the latest development in John Durham's investigation but are still concerned that Attorney General Merrick Garland might halt the investigation to protect allies and even the president himself.  FBI notes appear to suggest that as vice president, Joe Biden played a role in the Democratic Party project to smear Trump as a Russian asset by raising the obscure, disused, 18th century statute the Logan Act as a possible vehicle for prosecuting Michael Flynn for speaking with the Russian ambassador to Washington — even after FBI case agents had cleared Trump's incoming national security adviser of wrongdoing.  And now Republicans are raising concerns that the judge appointed to the Sussmann case has too many conflicts of interest to preside over it fairly.

I See Free Speech Disappearing Before Our Very Eyes.  [Scroll down]  But now we have a new and devilish threat:  To understand it, we must know that the USA's founding document is the Constitution.  It is a uniquely perfect document, allowing for the maximum of self-government and self-discipline in a world of confusing and aggressive men and women who do not always agree, often function with hatred in their hearts, and sometimes do not wish well for our nation.  But the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, allows us to function anyway, even with all of these shortcomings and dangers.  If the citizenry can be allowed to self-govern, the nation can work.  If the rights of Americans to speak freely, to worship, to petition for a redress of grievances, can be preserved, the nation will survive and flourish.  It was to demolish that framework towards which Al Qaeda worked.  Again, Al Qaeda did not succeed.  But now we have an alliance between the almighty Big Tech Internet companies of this country and the Democrat regime of this country.  Together, they have done the unthinkable: they have hit the citizens with overwhelmingly potent restrictions on free speech.  They have taken away free speech from a man whom they hate — Donald Trump — and preserved it for the most wicked terrorists on the planet:  Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their friends.

Ex-CIA analyst:  Anti-Trump officials politicized intelligence, undermined U.S. security.  U.S. intelligence officials waged a politicized campaign to undermine President Trump and his administration, and the politicization undermined American security, according to a former U.S. intelligence analyst.  John A. Gentry, a former CIA analyst, stated in a journal article that former high-ranking intelligence officials were frequently used by sitting intelligence officials, to leak damaging information.  Many "formers" directly or indirectly helped elect current President Biden and defeat Mr. Trump in the 2020 election.

Deconstructing the Fourth Branch of Government.  There is a way to deconstruct the current system of corruption within the U.S. government that follows a path outlined by the framers of our constitution.  In this series of articles we will outline what I believe to be the way forward.  It is a narrow path, and each step is dependent on the American electorate understanding the challenge. [...] There will be ZERO institutional allies in this effort.  Because of the scale of their power, the Senate will not give up control easily; and every institution of society and government will attempt to stop We The People from taking back control of the upper chamber.  Every entity from Wall Street to multinational corporations, big tech, banks, foreign governments and world organizations will be aligned against us.  When you truly understand the epicenter of the corruption, then you are able to see the tentacles extending from it.

Yes, the 2020 election was stolen.  Trump had made the USA energy-independent for the first time in 70 years, created more than 5 million jobs, reduced unemployment to below 4% and brought African-American unemployment to its lowest ever.  He brought America's southern border finally under control including construction of over 450 miles of border wall, cut taxes and burdensome regulations, raised household middleclass incomes and negotiated strong pro-American trade agreements in place of job-killing ones like NAFTA. Early in the COVID pandemic, he marshalled all the forces of government, the military and private business to join together to keep the mysterious new virus from overwhelming America's hospitals, manufacturing needed ventilators, bringing military hospital ships to hard-hit areas, and launching "Operation Warp Speed" to develop a vaccine.  Internationally, he stood up to China — something no other modern president has done — withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, destroyed the murderous ISIS caliphate, ratcheted down the nuclear threat from North Korea's deranged dictator, moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to the capital Jerusalem, and brokered peace deals between Israel and five different Arab-Muslim countries, for which he was twice nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.  All this while being attacked literally non-stop — including two corrupt impeachment trials — by Democrats, virtually the entire "mainstream media," the powerful tech monopolies and the permanent "deep state," particularly Washington's scandalously weaponized federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Not Incompetence:  Afghanistan and Globalism.  Democrats' actions are motivated by their goals.  If we understand their goals, then their actions should be clear.  Trump was the first serious Republican president who rejected globalism and believes in the nation-state — America First.  That's why Democrats not only hated him, but felt entitled to do anything and everything, legal or illegal, to stop him.  Democrats were laser-focused on removing Trump from office, by waging an unprecedented daily media campaign against him, using our Intelligence Community to spy on him, impeaching him twice, and even fraudulently winning the 2020 elections.  With Trump, globalists and socialists now fear his 75 million supporters.  They have become the new obstacle.  That explains the intense hate campaign to tarnish them as racists, "white supremacists," and dangerous insurrectionists against the state.  Democrats and their media are not looking for the truth or to dialogue with the Trump side over the pros and cons of globalism.  Democrats want to keep their goals covert because if they're open about their plan, the majority of Americans will reject it.

The Deep State Comes for the Big Guy.  Throughout his candidacy, presidency, and reelection campaign, Donald Trump was targeted by the deep state, which undertook to subvert, defeat, and destroy him.  In the 2020 election specifically, we saw leaks, lies, and letters from "experts" and "leaders" attacking Trump with sundry false accusations, all intended to boost the chances of his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden.  Unlike so many of Biden's open supporters, such as the National Education Association or the Service Employees International Union or even his billionaire supporters' dark money, it is impossible to quantify how much the deep state contributed to him.  But it is indisputable the deep state is part of Biden's core constituency.

Cutting to the Chase: Why Trump Was Driven from Office.  There were essentially three called strikes against him, all that was needed to count him out.
  [#1]   He was not "presidential."  He was considered crude in speech, rough-hewn in manner, and given over to bluster and hyperbole unbefitting the highest office in the land. For these transgressions, he could not be forgiven.
  [#2]   He was an outsider, the first president in American history with no military or political experience.  He was not a politician, a general, a lawyer, or a holder of public office.  He was never a member of the Beltway club, whether Republicrats or Democrats.  He was not followed by a train of professional lobbyists, owed no political debts, did not accept a salary, and did not enrich himself when in power.  For these transgressions, he could not be forgiven.
  [#3]   He was competent and proudly patriotic.  He put America first, cutting taxes, renegotiating bad trade deals to the nation's advantage, reducing a red-tape regulatory nightmare, making the country energy-independent and a net exporter of energy, rebuilding the military, defending the southern border, re-establishing global prominence, and connecting with the commons.  For such transgressions, he could not be forgiven.

AG Barr Told Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer to Stop Looking Into Truck Driver Jesse Morgan's Testimony That He Moved More Than 200,000 Fraudulent Ballots from NY to PA Before the 2020 Election.  This past week, Lt. Col. and President of the London Center for Policy Research, claimed that former Attorney General Bill Barr told him to stop looking into the transfer of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania he uncovered after the 2020 Election.  LtCol Anthony (Tony) Shaffer (retired), is the President of the London Center for Policy Research, a New York Times bestselling author, and CIA trained intelligence operations officer with 35 years of experience in global and national security.  After the 2020 Election Shaffer was one of many Americans who offered to help investigate the results of the 2020 Election.  Shaffer looked into the events before the election where a truck driver for the US Postal Service reported that he transferred a trailer load of ballots from New York to Pennsylvania before the election.

Dear Republican Trump haters — What did you get for your trade?  A little less than a year ago, a significant number of independent and Republican voters decided to trade bad tweets for bad policy.  Today, your Twitter feed is void of President Trump's tweets.  But the price was high.  Gone are the good policies that drove the Trump economy and made the world a safer place.  In their place are policies antithetical to prosperity, freedom and security.  You traded energy efficiency for dependency on the Middle East.  Whereas a year ago you enjoyed inexpensive gas, high paying energy jobs, and fewer incentives to entangle ourselves in Middle Eastern politics, today President Biden is begging OPEC to produce more oil.  Apparently, his climate agenda can handle more oil production as long as Americans aren't the ones profiting from it.

Remember the Failed Coup Attempt against Trump.  In my December 2017 column for the Providence Journal, I asked, not altogether rhetorically:  "Is Trump the target of a coup attempt?"  To the consternation of many of my friends and colleagues, I answered in the affirmative.  I argued that if military officers had done to President Obama some of the things that members of the intelligence community (IC) had done to President Trump, they would have been denounced as conspirators seeking to undermine the actions of a duly elected president, and thus enemies of civilian control of the military and the Constitution itself.  Commentators would have called their actions what they were: an attempted coup against a duly elected president.

Revenge: Biden Department of Justice Directly Targets Trump, Directs IRS to Give His Tax Returns to Pelosi.  The Biden Department of Justice has ruled that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has to provide Congress with former President Donald Trump's tax records.  The opinion, which was written by the Justice Department's Legal Counsel team, stated that Congress has a "legitimate legislative purpose" to request former President Trump's tax returns.

Trump's Tax Returns Must be Released to Congress:  Department of Justice.  Tax officials must give former President Donald Trump's tax returns to a congressional panel, the Department of Justice said Friday [7/30/2021].  The House Ways and Means Committee has long sought the returns, only to be stymied by federal officials.  Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the panel, has said he wanted six years of Trump's tax returns as part of a possible adjustment of federal law concerning tax policies.  The attempt was blocked by the Treasury Department during the Trump administration.  The Department of Justice previously said that refusal did not violate the law, but under a new president is saying officials must hand the returns over to Neal.

Trump calls for Gen. Milley to be court-martialed if reports on what he said are true.  Former President Donald Trump issued a scathing statement against Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley and called for him to be court-martialed if he actually stated that he believed Trump was orchestrating a coup.  Two Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporters, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker made that alarming allegation in their anti-Trump book "I Alone Can Fix It."  In the book, they claim that Milley believed that the former president would attempt to remain in power through a coup conducted in the final days of his presidency.  Trump says it is absolutely untrue.  "Despite the fact that the 2020 Presidential Election was Rigged and Stolen, and while numerous people, including the outside public, were saying we should bring in the Military, I never even gave it a thought.  The writings within these third-rate books are Fake News, and 'General' Milley (who [former Defense Secretary James] Mattis wanted to send to Europe in order to get rid of him), if he said what was reported, perhaps should be impeached, or court-martialed and tried," Trump proclaimed in a statement issued on Friday.

Barr's Mistaken Choice.  Suppose the laptop that made its way into FBI hands had belonged to one of President Trump's sons and proved that the infamous phone conversation with President Zelensky forming the basis of Trump's impeachment was somehow a corrupt attempt to protect the no-show job and salary of that hypothetical son.  In that case, Barr's refusal to hand over to House impeachment managers clearly incriminating evidence against the president would have placed him squarely in John Mitchell territory — as an obstructer of justice, political hack, and possibly even an eventual target for his own prosecution.  So why is withholding exculpatory evidence not judged by the same harsh standard?

A Reminder About Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley as a Political Operative.  Statements made by Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley about his belief that President Trump was contemplating a post-election coup should not be viewed in a vacuum. [...] Remember, General Milley did some really odd things as Joint Chiefs Chairman under President Trump:
  [#1]   Milley never removed Lt. Col Alexander Vindman from his White House post after the underling compromised his leadership position.  The pentagon left Vindman on assignment to the NSC even after Vindman attempted to take-down President Trump.
  [#2]   Milley was then slow to react to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer threatening President Trump; attempting to extort him into inaction over the disciplinary plans against the SEAL commando, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher.  And perhaps worst of all...
  [#3]   Joint Chief Chairman Milley, and SoS Mike Pompeo traveled to Mar-a-Lago in December 2019, where they informed President Trump of military strikes in Syria and Iraq *after* they took place.  President Trump made Esper, Milley and Pompeo hold a press conference without Trump supporting them; then President Trump remained silent on the issue for days.

Big Tech are State Actors.  A 'state actor' is a private company that either acts on behalf of the government or has other special relationships with the government, which subject it to constitutional restrictions on government, including the First Amendment.  Google's YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter have been state actors since about 2010.  They claimed to be neutral, non-discriminating in their political and scientific views, and denied any political bias — until about a year ago.  Then they reversed the narrative and said that they are private companies that can discriminate against whomever they want.  I can list half a dozen ways in which they are state actors.  The pressure on them from Democrat officials, asserted by Trump in his lawsuit, is one of them.  Obamanet, or net neutrality, is another one.  But most obviously, they became state actors when federal and state government agencies opened accounts on their platforms and started to use them for interaction with the public.  By accepting (and luring) multiple government accounts, they became public forums and state actors.

Trump Reveals Letter from Pennsylvania U.S Attorney Detailing Bill Barr Blocking Philadelphia Vote Fraud Investigation.  In the middle of his CPAC speech President Donald Trump dropped a bombshell story about a Pennsylvania U.S. Attorney who was intending to investigate voter fraud in Philadelphia and was blocked by Attorney General Bill Barr.  [Video clip] [...] Can you see the structure of the set-up in hindsight?  President Trump was lied to about the motives and intents of Bill Barr and what he was doing with the appointment of John Durham as a special prosecutor.  It is very likely President Trump was frustrated by the DOJ information that was given to him directly or indirectly.  However, likely despite his own gut instincts, the president granted the benefit of doubt to Bill Barr on that October date.  It would be entirely understandable for President Trump to be exceptionally angry in 2021 about how Machiavellian and manipulative the apparatus of the justice department, the FBI and the aggregate intelligence apparatus are.  The Fourth Branch of Government is in control.

A Coup Against The Constitution?  The modern era of direct attacks by bureaucrats based on ideology came into full effect when the IRS targeted Tea Party groups over their tax-exempt status.  This happened during Obama's reign, but really went into overdrive when Trump was elected. [...] The control of the permanent bureaucracy in government by the political left has already been achieved.  Around 90 percent of political donations by government union employees go to Democrats.  The partisanship became evident during the Trump administration as the intelligence community and Justice Department were shown to be increasingly biased.  They spent nearly four years pushing a theory that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians in the 2016 election that was embarrassingly false.  Special Counsel William Mueller spent more than two years and untold millions of dollars yet found zero evidence of any collusion.  But that was never the point, and they knew it before he even began.

Bill Barr re-emerges, spotlights total corruption of the Department of Justice.  Six months after resigning as attorney general, William Barr recently re-entered the spotlight, reportedly telling friendly news correspondent Jonathan Karl that allegations of vote fraud during the 2020 election are bull.  Now that civilian Bill Barr has jumped back into the political fray, it is time to take unflinching stock of the degraded Department of Justice (DOJ) and how it became even further corrupted during Barr's reign.  In reviewing the attorney general's passivity during his tenure, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Barr's inaction was born of anything other than profound fear of the progressive, hydra-headed agency he ostensibly led.  Indeed, during his nearly two years on the job, the nation's top cop repeatedly gave interviews in which he alluded to criminal wrongdoing on the part of the Obama administration and senior leaders of Obama's intelligence agencies, which spied on the Trump campaign and later sought to remove Trump from office on a variety of increasingly implausible and comically specious pretexts.  Yet, despite all of Barr's talk, there was never any accountability for the malefactors.

Rudy Giuliani's Law License in Washington Suspended.  A U.S. appeals court ruled on July 7 that Rudy Giuliani can't practice law in Washington, a move that follows the suspension of Giuliani's New York law license two weeks ago.  The order from the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals comes after Giuliani, who served as the personal attorney for former President Donald Trump, had his law license revoked for making what the New York Supreme Court described as "false and misleading" statements following the Nov. 3 presidential election.  Giuliani is "suspended from the practice of law in the District of Columbia pending final disposition of this proceeding, effective on the date of entry of this order," the July 7 order states.  The filing cites the suspension of Giuliani's New York law license and says that his Washington license is revoked pending the result of disciplinary proceedings in New York.

Did Pence Intentionally Damage Trump?  While many know that Pence downplayed allegations of voter fraud and certified Biden's presidency, fewer are aware of Pence's actions on and leading up to that fateful day on Jan. 6.  Nor was this the first time that Pence engaged in seemingly specifically timed and crucial actions that impaired Trump's presidency.  Why did Pence make public statements supporting an election challenge before making an abrupt about-face?  What responsibility does Pence bear from heading the coronavirus task force and keeping Fauci in place?  And what responsibility does he bear for the firing of General Michael Flynn and the ensuing Flynn witch hunt?  [Video clip]

Every New Republican Is the Most Evil Republican Ever.  Donald Trump was less a revolutionary than an eccentric with an inability to hide his contempt for his fellow caste members.  He grew up and prospered in elite society, and he enjoyed it — as his myriad amorous adventures splashed across the cover of the NY Post testified.  What made him dangerous is that he didn't participate in the framework of Mutually Assured Discretion that keeps the members of our upper crust from telling the proles just how inept, corrupt, and unaccomplished our elite truly is.  They know that they are a bunch of clowns, posers pretending to be the best and the brightest, and they work together — Democrats and Republicans — to preserve that status by not spilling the beans on how their class has none.  They will tear each other up individually, but to blow the whistle on the establishment as a whole is a no-no.

Trump must be extremely clean if this is all the NY prosecutors came up with.  After years of prosecutors targeting Trump in search of a crime, Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg "surrendered early Thursday to New York authorities for arraignment in the first criminal indictment arising from a two-year investigation into the former president's company," according to the AP.  The charges relate to paying perks for executives without showing those perks on their W-2 forms, and paying income taxes and payroll taxes on those perks. [...] All corporations, including the WaPo and the NYT, should now be investigated to make sure that no executives ever get free stuff, like country club dues or special transportation, without paying income and payroll taxes.

Cy Vance's Trump case is straight from a banana republic — punish your political enemies.  Donald Trump has long claimed that investigations of him are a partisan "witch hunt." Manhattan DA Cy Vance seems determined to make Trump's point for him by indicting the Trump Organization along with its chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg.  The 15-count indictment throws a kitchen sink of charges, including grand larceny, conspiracy, scheme to defraud,and tax fraud.  But the whole thing comes down to paying perks to Weisselberg — such as his parking garage fees, tuition for family members and reimbursement of holiday gratuities — and not reporting them as taxable income, or reporting that the wrong Trump entity paid them.  For this they slapped Weisselberg in handcuffs Thursday and paraded him in front of the media — a stage-managed political show trial.

Outgoing US envoy to Syria says he hid true number of troops from Trump team.  Veteran diplomat James Jeffrey, the outgoing US special representative in Syria, reportedly said he and his team were deliberately ambiguous in communications with senior Trump administration officials about the number of American troops in Syria.  President Donald Trump ordered withdrawals of US troops from northeast Syria, where they partnered with Kurdish forces to oppose the Islamic State, in 2018 and in October 2019, saying that the terror group had been defeated.  The withdrawal of the American soldiers was seen as a major shift in US policy, and a betrayal of the Kurds — longtime, close allies to the US whose territory was invaded by Turkey shortly after the US withdrawal.

Predictably Bondo Barr Covers The Rot.  There has been a lot of discussion today about an Atlantic article containing an outline of former AG Bill Barr's discussion with reporters and the White House in the aftermath of the 2020 election.  In essence the nub of the article is Bill Barr stating to a journalist December 1st:  "To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election," and then the article covers the fallout with the White House from that AP interview.

There's a Small Problem With Barr's Profanity Laced Claim About No Election Fraud.  Yesterday, we reported how former Attorney General Bill Barr left no doubt he was exiting the Trump orbit when he told ABC's Jonathan Karl what he thought about the claims of election fraud.  He sat down with Karl in a series of interviews for a piece in The Atlantic in the spring.  The piece regarding the interviews was published yesterday [6/27/2021].

How American Journalism Became A Mouthpiece Of The Deep State.  Reporters joke that the easiest job in Washington is CIA spokesman.  You need only listen carefully to questions, say, "No comment," and head to happy hour.  The joke, however, is on us.  The reporters pretend to see only one side of the CIA, the passive hiding of information.  They meanwhile profit from the other side of the equation, active information operations designed to influence events in America.  It is 2021 and the CIA is running an op against the American people.  Leon Panetta, once director of CIA, explained bluntly that the agency influenced foreign media outlets ahead of elections in order to "change attitudes within the country."  The method was to "acquire media within a country or within a region that could very well be used for being able to deliver a specific message or work to influence those that may own elements of the media to be able to cooperate, work with you in delivering that message."  The CIA has been running such ops to influence foreign elections continuously since the end of WWII.

Can New York Arrest Donald Trump?  Leftists are fantasizing about Donald Trump being arrested, booked, and put on trial.  Well, they are fantasizing about that... again.  The New York State Attorney General's investigation of the Trump Organization is now "no longer purely civil in nature," Fabien Levy, the spokesperson for New York Attorney General Letitia James, confirmed to Politico by email.  "We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan D.A. We have no additional comment at this time."  It is important for political observers, cowardly-lion Republicans, patriots, and activists to know what is happening here.  More ammunition and detail are needed to arm the reader properly for this latest tempest in a teapot being sold as a hurricane.

Trump Celebrates News That Swampy Republican Will Not Seek Re-Election.  Donald Trump is celebrating following news that one of the swampiest Republicans in the country will not be seeking re-election.  On Monday [5/17/2021], Georgia Lt. Governor Geoff Duncan announced that he will not pursue re-election in the 2022 contest.  Trump released a statement on Tuesday saying that it is good for Georgia and the GOP.

On the January 2017 Felony Leaks.  Back on January 5, 2017, who leaked intelligence about Russia's purported efforts to interfere in the 2016 election — and info on the Flynn-Kislyak calls — to the Washington Post?  One high level official at the Office of the Director of National had a guess:  "my bet is either the WH or SCCI Dem source on the Hill."  Those were the words of Brian Hale, the Director of Public Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, in response to a question of January 5, 2017 leaks to Washington Post reporters Adam Entous and Greg Miller.  James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence at the time, was copied on that email.

Top Mueller Henchman Lays Out New Scheme To Prevent Trump 2024 White House Run.  Former President Donald J. Trump may have been run out of the swamp, but the witch hunt goes on with his enemies fully mobilized to prevent his return.  While Trump continues to mull a 2024 White House run, efforts are underway to use every dirty trick in the book to take him out with extreme prejudice.  Now, a familiar cast of characters have emerged as conspirators.  One of them is Andrew Weissman, the vicious former prosecutor who was fondly referred to as "Mueller's pit bull" for his role on Robert Mueller's sweeping investigation into the Russian collusion hoax.

The Deep State is Back.  ecently, the FBI searched Rudy Giuliani's Manhattan apartment.  The search was made in connection with the prosecution of two Ukrainian Americans for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).  Giuliani is a respected lawyer, a former federal prosecutor, and was mayor of New York during the 9/11 attacks.  FARA prosecutions are rare and typically are dealt with through fines.  The use of search warrants against a lawyer is also unusual, and the Department of Justice handbook counsels the use of some lesser means, such as subpoenas, to obtain information when possible.  In his dealings with Ukraine, Giuliani says he acted as President Trump's emissary and lawyer.  These "minister without portfolio" employments have been used before, particularly where, as in Ukraine, American government officials may themselves be corrupt, compromised, or resistant to the president's agenda.

The Giuliani warrants.  The Foreign Agents Registration Act is the last refuge of a prosecutorial scoundrel.  That was my reaction to the New York Times story yesterday reporting that Rudy Giuliani is under investigation for an alleged FARA violation. [...] Yesterday's [New York] Times story vaguely reported that the criminal investigation involves Giuliani's dealings in Ukraine.  Today's Times story is ambiguous about Giuliani's status:  "The warrants do not accuse Mr. Giuliani of wrongdoing, but they underscore his legal peril:  They indicate a judge has found that investigators have probable cause to believe that a crime was committed and that the search would turn up evidence of that crime."  So is Giuliani a target, a subject, or a witness in the investigation?

Is the Deep State targeting Trump allies?  Federal agents raided the home and office of Rudy Giuliani at dawn, Wednesday, April 28, seizing computers and cellphones.  While he hasn't been charged with any crime yet, the DOJ has been investigating Giuliani for his dealings in Ukraine while working as President Trump's personal lawyer, and charges could wait in the future.  Giuliani is far from the first Trump associate to face federal investigation for allegedly violating laws that — not that long ago — were rarely actively enforced.  Is the raid about Giuliani's supposed lobbying in Ukraine without registering as a foreign agent?  Or is the Deep State simply targeting Trump allies because they couldn't get to the Donald himself?

John Ratcliffe Discusses Severe Political Compromise Within U.S. Intelligence Community.  Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe appears with Maria Bartiromo [4/11/2021] to discuss the issues with Hunter Biden's laptop and the severity of political compromise within the U.S. intelligence apparatus.  Ratcliffe notes how politicized the intelligence community and national security have become specifically in defense of lies being perpetrated by those behind the Biden administration.  Misinformation and disinformation is rampant as the Nat Sec community and Intel Community use their political ideology to advance false assertions.  [Video clip]

Prescient Diatribe — As True Today as it was in 1976.  I understand the scope of the enemy, the scale of the war, the financial and economic power of the opposition, and the effort it will take to stop decades of willful blindness amid 97% of the American people.  I also see exactly what they are doing now, even with President Trump forcefully removed from office, to destroy the threat he still represents.  Donald J Trump was/is a walking red-pill; a "touchstone": a visible, empirical test or criterion for determining the quality or genuineness of anything political.  I have been deep enough into the network of the Deep State to understand the scale and scope of this enemy.  To think that President Trump alone could carry the burden of correcting four decades of severe corruption of all things political, without simultaneously considering the scale of the opposition, is naive in the extreme.  POTUS Trump was disrupting the global order of things in order to protect and preserve the shrinking interests of the U.S.  He was fighting, almost single-handed, at the threshold of the abyss.

New York Prosecutors Subpoena the Personal Bank Records of Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer.  Let's be clear about the motives of a fully weaponized DOJ here.  The DOJ is looking for any way to destroy Donald J Trump.  As long as he exists in the sphere of political influence, he represents a risk to their objectives.  Direct targeting of Donald Trump has not succeeded.  Direct attacks against Donald Trump and his organization and personal finances have not succeeded.  The DOJ is not getting the results they need.  So now they need a backdoor, some leverage, from somewhere, anywhere, where they can use that leverage to destroy their enemy.  THAT is what's going on.

No Storm, No Reckoning, No Nothing.  For years we have been hearing about a coming storm.  It was to be biblical and would bring pain to members of the deep state ruling class who, after exposure, would not be able to walk down the streets.  The storm was to begin with spygate, a coordinated effort among top officials in the nation's justice and intelligence agencies, to prevent Donald Trump's election; then after failing, to undermine his transition, cripple his presidency, then stop his reelection, the latter goals achieved.  Then there were crimes against humanity:  child abuse, trafficking, and the like, all to be exposed via the Anthony Weiner laptop or the Jeffrey Epstein cabal.  Both seem distant memories now.  In fact, we are now going in the opposite direction with the Biden administration suspending FBI background checks for migrant children caregivers.  We have lived in the "calm before the storm" for years and to this day it remains calm.  There are no storm clouds building, nothing on the horizon.

Conservatives need to attack the tech monopolies aggressively.  Conservatives need to acknowledge a paradigm shift has occurred:  Big Tech companies are not "free market capitalists," but are, in fact, agents of American socialism.  When Michelle Obama tweets out that Twitter and Facebook should deplatform the sitting President of the United States, and they follow that directive within a day or so, we need to realize there is a new power structure in place.  Keep in mind that Hitler rose to power with the support of German industrialists.  He never needed to have his government pass a decree ordering the Final Solution; his followers knew what was expected.

The 21st Century Ugly Americans.  The current American ruling class is the laughingstock of the planet.  This coterie includes among its number the Democrat party, the media/entertainment complex, Wall Street, tech oligarchs, corporatists and the professoriate.  This gaggle of buffoons are perhaps the most inept, egocentric and oblivious among all ruling classes in democratic and free nations around the globe.  This descent into absurdity began many decades ago but accelerated precipitously over the past five years.  The primary catalyst:  the campaign and election of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States.

Putin's Former Chief of Staff Calls Trump a Champion against New World Order.  Sergey Ivanov, Vladimir Putin's former chief of staff, currently on the Russian Federation Security Council, has weighed in on the "historical scale of the personality and achievements of President Donald Trump" in an op-ed for Eurasia Daily.  I have changed not a word of what he has to say.  In his national ideology, Putin warns repeatedly of the dangers from the "Transnationalists" (Proekt Rossiya [Project Russia], EKSMO Press, 2014).  The Russians are joined by the British with their Brexit and the French with their Front National led by populist Marine Le Pen.  Populism actually straddles the Atlantic, and Donald Trump is regarded as its hero.  As Ivanov observes, if Joe Biden, the American Deep State, and the world global elites have called Donald Trump the "worst president in U.S. history," well, it is because they know best who is the worst — for them.

Deep State:  Rod Rosenstein Admits He And Andrew McCabe Discussed Recording President Trump.  During Trump's presidency, whenever he or anyone else discussed the Deep State, Democrats and the media would dismiss it as the stuff of conspiracy theories.  When Trump suggested that the Obama team spied on his campaign, Democrats and the media lost their minds.  Now former Justice Department official Rod Rosenstein is openly admitting that he and the FBI's Andrew McCabe discussed recording conversations with Trump.  Is this still a conspiracy theory?

President Trump Targets the DeceptiCons, Those GOPe Establishment Politicians who Need To Be Removed.  During his CPAC speech President Trump named some of the DeceptiCons in congress who have blocked the MAGA agenda.  President Trump identified some of the politicians by name in both the House and Senate who need to get primaried.  [Video clip]  President Trump has established the Political Action Committee that will fund primary opponents to those [R]epublicans who have failed to support the America First agenda.

Storm? What Storm?  It Was Barely a Breeze.  The only storm is what Trump dove into on day one of his presidency, when calls for impeachment began minutes after his inauguration.  Two unsuccessful attempts were made, with assistance from cranks within his own political party.  His own agencies including the FBI, DOJ, and CIA had their own storm planned, illegally spying on Trump's campaign, transition, and administration.  They spied and wiretapped Trump and his circle, they fraudulently manufactured evidence to obtain FISA warrants, and destroyed real evidence as in phones and emails.  This was all cheered on by print, digital, and social media, political operatives rather than arbiters of truth.  We trusted Barr and Durham.  Barr is retired, playing his bagpipes, serving up only one spygate indictment of a mid-level FBI attorney who received a slap on the wrist.  Barr acknowledged "spying did occur" but like his predecessor, did nothing about it.

The Lies Aren't Secret.  Secrecy is the ultimateentitlement program for the Deep State.  The federal government is creating trillions of pages of new secrets every year.  The more documents bureaucrats classify, the more lies politicians and government officials can tell.  In Washington, deniability is prized far more than truth.  At the end of the Trump era, the Deep State is triumphant at home and abroad.  Trump's epic clashes with federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies helped cripple his administration, and they illustrate the continued danger of Deep State secrecy.  If all of the FBI's shenanigans on Russiagate came to light, it would be far more difficult for the FBI to manipulate American politics and presidents in the future.  If CIA records on Syrian rebels were exposed, the Biden administration would have far more difficulty dragging America back into the Syrian civil war.  But both seem unlikely.  Recent court rulings make clear how badly Trump failed to drain the swamp.

Twenty days of infamy: the January 2017 red flags the FBI blew past on Russia collusion.  From its earliest moments, the FBI's Russia collusion probe was always fraught with warning signs.  Agents were told Christopher Steele provided faulty information, had likely been compromised by Russian intel disinformation, wanted to defeat Donald Trump, had leaked to the media and was being paid by Hillary Clinton, who herself might be carrying out an epic dirty political trick to vilify Trump with false information to distract from her own scandals.  Those intelligence reports alone should have given agents pause.  The fact that Steele had been terminated by the FBI as an informant for leaking also should have weighed heavily.  But if ever there were red lights screaming for the FBI to end the counterintelligence probe, they were flashing during a harrowing 20-day window in January 2017 as Barack Obama was leaving office and Trump was coming in.  Between Jan. 4, 2017 and Jan. 24, 2017, nearly every major assumption of the FBI's Russia collusion theory was gutted, according to recently declassified evidence reviewed by Just the News.

ABC Now Looks to State and Federal Prosecutors to Get Trump in Court.  Only after former President Trump was acquitted for the second time in an impeachment trial did ABC finally give any form of credence to the Republican argument that the Senate was not the right place to hold a former president accountable.  And during Valentine's Day Sunday, Good Morning America was trying to count the ways and charges Trump could face and the federal and state levels to bar him from running for office ever again.  "In his speech after the vote to acquit, after he, in fact, voted to acquit, [Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell [R-KY] said, Trump, and I'm quoting here, 'didn't get away with anything, yet,'" co-anchor Dan Harris noted to legal analyst Dan Abrams.  "So, what legal consequences could Trump still face?  Could there be state charges, federal charges?  What do you think?"  According to Abrams, federal prosecutors would be too intimidated by the "political imagery" to prosecute Trump for inciting the Capitol insurrection.  So, he looked to the states: [...]

There are already two anti-Trump parties.  No need for a third one.
More than 120 former Republican officials hold Zoom meeting to discuss forming breakaway anti-Trump third party.  More than a hundred former Republican officials, who view the party as unwilling to stand up to former President Donald Trump, are in talks to form a center-right breakaway party, four people involved in the discussions told Reuters.  The early stage discussions include former elected Republicans, former officials in the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Trump, ex-Republican ambassadors and Republican strategists, the people involved say.  More than 120 of them held a Zoom call last Friday to discuss the breakaway group, which would run on a platform of 'principled conservatism,' including adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law — ideas those involved say have been trashed by Trump.

The Editor says...
If this group of RINOs and big-government centrists had any regard for "principled conservatism," they'd support Donald Trump.

Time Magazine Details the 'Shadow Campaign' Against Trump.  In a surprisingly brazen article, "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election," Time magazine chronicles a myriad of pre- and post-election actions taken by a loose coalition of Democratic operatives, grassroots activists, mainstream media, tech companies, and corporate CEOs before and after the 2020 presidential election.  According to the article, the effort consisted of "a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information."  In the post-election days, the author refers to this disparate grouping of players as a "conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs" resulting in an "informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans."

Trump aide Peter Navarro charges AG Barr worked to help Biden issue blizzard of early executive orders.  Speaking with Maria Bartiromo yesterday on her weekly Fox News Channel program Sunday Morning Futures, Peter Navarro made a startling charge against his former Trump administration colleague, former attorney general William Barr. [...] I confess that I was a defender of Barr, whom I saw as a righteous man aware of the sabotage the Trump administration faced from a politicized bureaucracy seeking to frustrate the elected POTUS. Now it sounds as though he joined the conspirators, although it is possible that the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ worked with Biden's handlers on the executive orders behind his back.  Was he always a plant, assuming that Navarro's charges are true?

Navarro: DOJ Slow-Walked Trump's Executive Orders While Fast-Tracking Biden's.  The Department of Justice (DOJ) put up hurdles to executive orders prepared by President Donald Trump while fast-tracking the ones prepared by President-elect Joe Biden during the transition period leading up to Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, according to former Trump senior adviser Peter Navarro.  "Bill Barr, President Trump's attorney general, actually turns out to be Joe Biden's first attorney general," Navarro told Fox News' Maria Bartiromo in an interview aired on Feb. 7.  "We had over 30 executive orders queued after Election Day, ready to go, but we kept running into all these roadblocks and hurdles.  It turns out that Bill Barr's Office of Legal Counsel was fast-tracking all of these Biden EOs [executive orders], and basically, it was a deep-state coup."  Navarro made the remarks when asked to explain how Biden managed to have dozens of executive actions ready to go during his first days in office.

The Leaked Interrogation Of James Clapper Reveals The Dirty Tricks The Deep State Tries To Get Rid Of Trump.  James Clapper Interrogated — and he tells all, and he names names.  The corruption he describes is worse than we ever imagined.  This clip is only a fraction of what Clapper disclosed.  [Video clip]

Conway: Hey, I barely knew the guy with whom I founded The Lincoln Project and co-wrote anti-Trump op-ed.  This certainly could be possible in our online world, but is it credible?  George Conway told Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC's Morning Joe earlier today [2/1/2021] that he barely knew John Weaver, his co-founder of The Lincoln Project.  That group finally began distancing itself from Weaver yesterday after the New York Times reported nearly two dozen men coming forward to accuse Weaver of sexually predatory behavior.  Two weeks earlier, the Lincoln Project had stood behind Weaver, but now everyone appears to be looking to conduct a rapid retreat, including his partner in the anti-Trump effort.

Was Trump Laid Low Just to Satisfy Barack Obama's Ego?  [Scroll down]  [S]ince President Trump took office, it's hard to not smell Obama's obsessive stink all over a calculated effort to destroy a good man.  Of late, those carefully crafted plans include acrimony and suspicious ACORNish activity, not to mention a year-long lockdown and Rules for Radicals-style chaos.  Recently, Americans witnessed a sham inauguration and post-inaugural mischief where every executive order Joe the Automaton signed reeked with the stench of Obama's malicious effort to reinstate himself as all-knowing redeemer.  Lest we forget, Kamala "I'm Speaking" Harris has had a longstanding relationship with former president Obama.  Thus the reason for her meteoric rise from the shadows of Willie Brown's love shack to the vice presidency.  Unfortunately for America, besides having a cackle from hell, "the best-looking" attorney general on the planet also has Barry's slimy fingerprints all over her high tops.  Then there's the return of the posse of familiar co-conspirators who emerged from the political ash heap of history to take up where the Obama era left off.

Trump Fought the Swamp, and the Swamp Won.  Trump's accomplishments are even more impressive, given the unremitting hostility and obstructionism to which he was subjected from the day he took office.  The centerpiece, of course, was the Russia collusion hoax, which was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign, adopted by the FBI and other government agencies, and institutionalized in the form of a special counsel.  No president has ever been subjected to anything similar, let alone on such a flimsy basis.  But that wasn't all: apart from the Russia hoax — supplemented, one should note, by the Ukraine kerfuffle and the Democrats' comic-opera impeachments — Trump faced not just opposition, but non-stop hate, from the press, Big Tech and big business generally, academia, Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry, the public schools, almost all of the federal bureaucracy (including the bureaucrat/"expert" D.C. revolving door), the China Lobby, and — to sum up — the rest of the Swamp.

Fascism is Back.  Today's fascist oligarchs comprise a formidable array:  the deep state of unaccountable bureaucrats, academe, the megalomaniacs of Silicon Valley, Davos elites, Hollywood, Wall Street, big banks, many of the largest corporations, legacy media, some state governors, professional sports, New World Order kleptocrats, some functionaries of both parties.  The oligarchs' front men in legacy media are partisans.  In the US, what on the surface appears to be two party governance is in fact one party, the big state party, with two branches:  the pedal to the metal fascists and the drive 55 fascists, the latter renowned for their complicity in private but now exposed thanks to an American president.  Their allies in academe have been and are doing everything they can to obscure the evidence, cloud the issues with misdirection and propagandize the young against Western liberalism.

FBI, Justice Department knew there was no Russia collusion by spring of 2017.  The top Justice Department official in early 2017 overseeing the FBI's Russia probe testified he was briefed as many as six times on its status and was told there was no evidence of Trump campaign collusion, a newly released transcript shows.  The testimony of Dana J. Boente is significant because during this time the FBI took major steps to expand the probe.  And President Trump in May ended up firing then-FBI Director James Comey, a stunning move that led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller and two years of a White House under constant criminal scrutiny.

Senate Releases More Documents Relating To Russia Investigation, All Transcripts.  The Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday [1/15/2021] released 11 transcripts of depositions conducted as part of the committee's investigation into the origins of the FBI's Russia probe.  Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said in a statement that he "decided to release all transcripts of depositions involving the committee's oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation," adding, "We have released as much material as possible, but some classified material has still been withheld."  The 11 transcripts include one from "Case Agent 1," who was identified as Stephen Somma by The New York Times in February 2020.  As The Daily Caller's Chuck Ross reported at that time, Somma was blamed for "some of the most significant problems laid out in the Justice Department's inspector general report on FISA abuse against a Trump campaign."  Somma was singled out by the Department of Justice's Inspector General in a report documenting numerous inaccuracies and omissions included in the FBI's FISA warrants against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

What Now?  Trump had denounced the swamp in apocalyptic terms, but it proved to be even deeper and more extensive than he knew. [...] The news media, with very few exceptions, made it their task to thwart his progress and poison his name with a constant flow of disinformation.  They said Trump had told people to drink bleach.  They said he'd called neo-Nazis "good people." They said many other outrageous things that they knew were outright lies.  They relentlessly repeated the charge that he did nothing but lie, lie, lie, when in fact it was they, the media, who were constantly feeding us lies.  Trump thought he could rely on Fox News to report on his presidency with at least a degree of fairness.  But no.

What Now?  In fact I can now see that these people are worse than I ever imagined.  Worse than most of us ever imagined.  Worse, even, than Donald Trump, with all his insight, imagined.  He went into office determined to clean up the swamp.  He was tireless.  But not tireless enough.  No mere mortal could have been tireless enough.  Trump had denounced the swamp in apocalyptic terms, but it proved to be even deeper and more extensive than he knew.  It reached into the upper echelons of the intelligence community and the military, into cabinet departments and the judiciary.  Not only did the Democrats try to derail his campaign and then his presidency.  Even people whom he appointed to White House jobs proved unreliable.  Far from being too suspicious, he'd been too trusting.  He'd appointed two-faced D.C. insiders.  He'd trusted people who turned out to be snakes in the grass.

Sometimes you drain the swamp & sometimes the swamp drains you.  The Trump Era is over after the incumbent announced in the day after Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol that "My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power", which was widely interpreted by friends and foes alike as the tacit concession that he previously promised never to provide a little more than 24 hours prior during his speech at the Save America Rally.  At that event, he literally said that "We will never give up.  We will never concede, it doesn't happen.  You don't concede when there's theft involved", yet completely changed his tune following the day's tumultuous events and after mysteriously "going dark" for over 24 hours, during which time some speculate that he was forced by his enemies in the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies ("deep state") to give up the fight.

US diplomats condemn Trump in State Department 'dissent channel'.  U.S. diplomats issued a scathing rebuke of President Trump's incitement and handling of the Wednesday attack on Capitol Hill in two cables sent via the State Department's "dissent channel."  The dissent channel is a messaging system through which career diplomats can send criticisms of U.S. policymaking or foreign affairs decisions that are circulated to top State Department officials.  In what the Associated Press called a "highly unusual" use of the messaging system, diplomats said that the events from Wednesday undermined U.S. credibility on the international stage and hobbled the country's ability to defend democratic values.

Remarkable Duplicity — Former AG Bill Barr Attacks President Trump For Questioning Same Ballot Fraud Barr Previously Outlined.  During his tenure AG Bill Barr spoke out of both sides of his mouth.  He outlined the abuses of authority within the DOJ/FBI in the targeting of President Trump; and he spoke about the corrupt intent likely behind mail-in ballots in the 2020 election.  However, his actions did nothing to address either issue.  Actions speak louder than words.  Yes, it is true that any corrupt activity that would be exposed would have initially weakened the DOJ and/or FBI, and easily provided ammunition to any defense attorney in courtroom proceedings against those officers; but the corrupt activity exists regardless of whether it is admitted publicly or not.  President Trump has said nothing about the 2020 election outcome that AG Bill Barr did not himself warn about prior to the election.  However, now that President Trump notes the actual results... all of a sudden AG Bill Barr stands in opposition to those same positions and opinions he held only a few months ago.

The Swamp Is Scared of the Next 12 Days.  [Scroll down]  Pelosi has called the military and put 'em on standby in case Trump launches the nuke codes.  Who are we gonna nuke?  The little pot-bellied dictator, Kim Jong-un?  What are they terrified of?  They're terrified that Trump is gonna unleash classified documents.  You know, he's got a bevy of 'em, folks.  He's got classified documents about the hoax, the four-year coup.  The four-year coup, the four-year effort to get the election results of 2016 overturned.  There are all kinds of people who broke the law, all kinds of people who are quaking in their boots.  They're worried silly that Trump is gonna unleash some of these classified documents.  Do you know what else they're worried about?  Do you know what else they're scared of?  They are scared to death — they are terrified — that Trump is gonna pardon people who are dangerous to the establishment.

Intelligence analysts downplayed Chinese election influence to avoid supporting Trump policies, inspector finds.  Politicization problems exist in U.S. spy agency assessments on foreign influence in the 2020 U.S. election, including analysts who appeared to hold back information on Chinese meddling efforts because they disagreed with the Trump administration's policies, according to an intelligence community inspector.  Barry Zulauf, an analytic ombudsman and longtime intelligence official, issued a 14-page report obtained by the Washington Examiner to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, revealing his investigation was "conducted in response to IC complaints regarding the election threat issue."  In addition, he lamented the "polarized atmosphere has threatened to undermine the foundations of our Republic, penetrating even into the Intelligence Community."

Yes, it was a Fraudulent Election.  [Scroll down]  Election fraud in a democracy is pretty serious, no?  And yet, apart from a small though intrepid group pushing failed court cases, our fearless leaders and their media propagandists just want to sweep it under the rug.  YouTube will not even allow postings that suggest the election outcome was changed by "widespread fraud or errors."  Which, of course, is exactly what may have happened.  Why the silence and creepy censorship?  The answer leads to a very dark place.  Some of the people who occupy positions of influence and power, including both Republicans and Democrats, saw President Trump as an existential threat to this country, so getting him out by any means necessary was justified in their minds.  That was a sinister, and also very foolish, calculus.  But stealing the election was a scheme that went too far; a scheme which would itself pose an even greater threat to the country.  They may see that now.

Report: Vice President Mike Pence Does 'Not Believe' He Has 'Power to Block Congressional Certification'.  Vice President Mike Pence reportedly told President Trump Tuesday [1/5/2021] that he does not possess the power to block the certification of the election — a remark that followed Trump asserting the vice president, who is presiding over Wednesday's joint session of Congress, has the "power to reject fraudulently chosen electors."  According to a report from the New York Times, Pence reportedly told Trump "he did not believe he had the power to block congressional certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s victory in the presidential election despite Mr. Trump's baseless insistence that he did, people briefed on the conversation said."

How to Steal an Election in Four Steps.  Note the scope of what has happened.  When government agencies fake the lethality of a disease, isolate people, impose lockdowns, and try to cause a recession, when they deceive via unconstitutional laws, fake polls, mail-in-voting, and rigged software, when the fraud enlists the Centers for Disease Control, the FBI and CIA, high-level plants within other agencies, state governors & attorneys general, the broadcast media, & social media — all to take down one man because he's the choice of the people — that's not "voter fraud."  It's an organized coup.  Are the Democrats that you know capable of this?  Could Pelosi, AOC, Swalwell and the rest pull this off?  Or are just politically-aligned order-takers, like our media and social media, from, likely, Soros and China, a pair that often work together because they share a common enemy?  Today's Democrats are controlled by far-left Alinskyites who produce tension & chaos, then blame capitalism, racism, & Trump.  Look what they did to us this year.  How many Americans did they isolate to sell the virus lie?  How much depression and loss of income did they cause?  How many breakups and divorces?  How many elderly people had to die alone to serve the Left's narrative?  They even suppressed the effective covid drug hydroxychloroquine for months — they kept medicine from people who needed it — solely because President Trump had said the drug was effective and they could not allow Trump to seem to be right about anything.  As noted, they suppressed the vaccine as well.  The party is no longer a political opponent; it is a US enemy and the most retrograde force in America.

The Etiology of Executive Order 13848.  The fate of Western Civilization, some three thousand years in the making, now hangs by a slender thread.  That thread is Executive Order 13848.  So what is in that Executive Order? [...] It relies heavily on the Attorney General.  The hapless Jeff Sessions was in that role when Executive Order 13848 was signed.  He was replaced on 14th February, 2019, by Bill Barr.  Barr seemed reliable but achieved nothing.  The reason he slow-walked everything, couldn't see corruption in the Hunter Biden laptop etc. became apparent when he recently referred to President Trump as a "deposed king ranting."  Barr outed himself as a Deep State operative too soon, and leaves his position on 23rd December and so won't be involved in drafting the remedies report in response to the report by the Director of National Intelligence.  The fate of Western Civilization hangs on such small matters.

What an unfortunate Deep State coincidence.
Census Bureau to miss deadline, jeopardizing Trump plan.  The Census Bureau plans to announce it will miss a year-end deadline for handing in numbers used for divvying up congressional seats, a census official said.  That delay could undermine President Donald Trump's efforts to exclude people in the country illegally from the count if the figures aren't turned in before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.  A census official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter confirmed the delay to the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Tainted Electors in Post-Legal America.  The American left has been working overtime to obfuscate the real issues at the heart of whether or not the 2020 presidential election is being stolen.  For instance, when Chris Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), announced in a statement on November 12 that the 2020 election was "the most secure election in American history" and President Trump fired him, the Left went berserk and cited the firing as just more evidence that Trump is an illegitimate tyrant or something. [...] It appears that Mr. Krebs is not an information technology professional, an electrical engineer, a computer programmer, or any kind of techie whose opinion on cyber-security matters might carry some weight.  You see, Chris Krebs is a lawyer.  So his previous job at CISA could only be as a manager, and when he says the election was the safest ever, it means nothing.  He's merely repeating what he's been told by his staff.

Trump: The American David.  Trump's enemies also want to take him out because he stands in the way of those who benefit from lucrative political corruption rackets and others who embrace globalism.  Many of those among the internationalist establishment in and out of government and a growing part of the corporate elite have accepted the subordination of the United States to a New World Economic Order.  They embrace a world without borders for access to low-cost labor and offshore manufacturing.  Mainland China has been the number one destination, despite its communist government that now threatens the security of its neighbors and the United States — a threat against which Trump is the first president to push back.  It was Democrats and members of the Deep State who engineered the highest crime and misdemeanor of disenfranchising the American people through fraudulently obtained warrants for surveillance and orchestrating a coup against Donald Trump based on Hillary Clinton's bought-and-paid-for phony Russian dossier of salacious and false charges of Trump being compromised by the Russians.  That led to the Mueller investigation.  Then it was the House Democrats who then attempted to impeach Trump based on another falsehood.

Tracing the Genesis of the Swamp.  Much has been made of the Washington, D.C. "swamp" over the last four years.  The vast apparatus of power that is now consecrated in the federal government is certainly immense and a far cry from what the Founders envisioned.  It contains programs and agencies that work for both domestic and foreign goals.  The question of how the swamp came to be has no one particular answer.  Some can be laid at the feet of the 20th-century Progressives during the Roosevelt-Wilson era.  Other expansions of power originated with the New Deal.  Certainly, the last quarter-century has seen its fair share of new agencies, policies, and expansions of government.  However, one particular moment deserves its own focused attention if we are to truly understand the vast apparatus that is the swamp and the rationale for its creation from a national defense perspective:  the National Security Act of 1947.

The Biggest Political Blunder in American History.  If courts and state legislatures award Joe Biden the presidency, the anti-Trump cabal, driven by a four-year single-minded obsession to defeat President Trump, will have committed the greatest political blunder in American history — the unabashed and overt theft of the 2020 presidential election.  This myopic and oblivious group so misunderstood the depth and breadth of support for Donald Trump that their blatant manipulation of the election would fall monumentally short of the planned for and anticipated landslide defeat of the incumbent.  A landslide they needed in order to dominate the political arena for the foreseeable future and avoid any backlash from the electorate for their duplicity.  Thus, this cabal, which consists of the Democrat party establishment, Tech and Wall Street billionaires, the mainstream media and left-wing elitists, will find itself in a quagmire of being unable to govern.  The Democrat party's dominant and radicalized left-wing base will revolt over failed promises and expectations while the extent of the fraud will inevitably be fully exposed, resulting in nearly half of the citizenry viewing the government as illegitimate.

When does this guy's resignation take effect?
Barr: No need for special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden, election fraud.  Attorney General William Barr on Monday said he saw no reason to tap a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden's finances or claims of election fraud.  Barr, speaking at a Justice Department press conference about new charges in the Lockerbie bombing case, did not comment extensively on the Hunter Biden investigation but said it was being handled "appropriately."  "I think to the extent that there's an investigation I think that it's being handled responsibly and professionally currently within the department," Barr, who is leaving office this week, told reporters.  "To this point, I have not seen a reason to appoint a special counsel and I have no plan to do so before I leave."

The Editor says...
There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Deep State Pushes to Deep-Six Intelligence Report Demonstrating Chinese Interference in 2020 Election.  Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe is considering not signing an intelligence report to Congress if it does not accurately reflect an ongoing debate among intelligence community career analysts over Chinese attempts to influence American voters in the 2020 election, according to a source familiar with the issue.  The intelligence report on foreign efforts to influence the 2020 election is due to Congress on Friday, but Ratcliffe is concerned it will not accurately reflect the debate among senior intelligence community analysts as to the extent of China's influence operations during the election, according to the source.

Is the whole government in on this fraudulent election?  As soon as Trump was elected president in 2016, the dark state realized that it had blundered.  Its members had underestimated the degree of fraud it would need to defeat him.  This time, they removed all possibility of failure, and even then, they needed vastly more fraud than even they had anticipated.  Stuffing the ballot boxes was not enough; they had to call time out, for a few hours, so they could print yet more ballots.  Indeed, they printed so many more that the sheer number of them made it obvious that they were cheating.  One might think they overplayed their hand, that they had used a sledgehammer to swat a mosquito.  In doing so, they removed all reasonable doubt — the election was clearly rigged.  But the dark state was so desperate that its operatives cared nothing for how it seems to the informed observer.  Nothing.  They just had to make absolutely sure that there would be no way that Donald Trump would be declared the winner.

Mitch McConnell congratulates Biden and lobbies colleagues to oppose a final-stage Republican effort to overturn his victory..  Breaking with President Trump's drive to overturn his election loss, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky on Tuesday congratulated President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. on his victory and began a campaign to keep fellow Republicans from joining a last-ditch effort to reverse the outcome when Congress tallies the results next month.  Although Mr. McConnell's moves came weeks after Mr. Biden was declared the winner, they amounted to clear effort by the majority leader, who is the most powerful Republican in Congress, to put an end to his party's attempts to sow doubt about the election.  They were also a bid to avoid a messy partisan spectacle on the floor of the House that could divide Republicans at the start of the new Congress, pitting those loyal to Mr. Trump against institutionalists.

Curiouser and Curiouser.  [Scroll down]  This has NOTHING to do with electing Biden or heels up Harris.  They're simply puppets for the New World Order folks, the UN folks, the "Great Reset" folks.  This is all about getting Trump out of their sandbox.  Trump's most prescient statement was when he uttered "They're not after me, they're after you, I'm just in the way." And that's exactly right.  Trump has frustrated the globalist elites at every turn.  When they wanted to tax us for "carbon" he got us out of the Paris climate baloney.  When they wanted more wars, he said no, and hasn't started a war in any of his 4 years.  When they wanted open borders to rush in millions of illegal immigrants like they've done with Europe, he said no, and started his wall.  On and on it goes, and the Bilderbergers, the CFR, the Brussels elites, hate his guts.  He's raining on their socialist/communist/globalist parade, and they want him out.  You could have run a banana and a bunny rabbit against him and the bunny would be the "President elect" because it has nothing to do with them wanting Joe Biden specifically.  They just needed a crook they could depend on to advance their agenda's and be a blank check to make it happen.  His dementia in this case is actually a positive for them.

Trump: Bill Barr 'Had An Obligation To Set The Record Straight' On Hunter Biden Investigation During Election.  President Donald Trump said in an interview with "Fox & Friends" that Attorney General Bill Barr "had an obligation" to disclose the ongoing FBI investigation into Hunter Biden before the election.  Speaking with "Fox & Friends" host Brian Kilmeade in an interview that aired Sunday morning, Trump compared Barr's decision to not reveal the investigation to former special counsel Bob Mueller intervening quickly in 2019 to label a BuzzFeed story claiming that Trump had instructed his former attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress as "not accurate."  "Joe Biden lied on the debate stage," Trump said.  "He said 'there's nothing happening, nothing happening,' and Bill Barr should have stepped up.  Say what you want about Robert Mueller, when BuzzFeed put out a phony article ... Bob Mueller stepped out and he said that article was a phony and then there was ultimately proven there was no collusion ... Bill Barr should have done the same thing."

Report: Bill Barr Knew of Criminal Investigations into Biden Family in Spring and Worked to Keep It Quiet.  A report within the Wall Street Journal does not necessarily come as a surprise; however, it also does little to provide solace for the lack of action by Attorney General Bill "Bondo" Barr.  According to the article AG Barr has known about at least two investigations related to the Biden family since early spring 2020, and he worked to keep them quiet.

Trump retweets call for Bill Barr to 'be fired by the end of business today' if he knew.  President Donald Trump on Saturday retweeted a post demanding that he fire Attorney General William Barr if a published report earlier this week claiming he knew in the spring about a federal probe into Hunter Biden was accurate.  "If the Wall Street Journal story is true and Attorney General Barr knew in the spring about the Biden investigation and kept it quiet — he should be fired by the end of business today," former Fox News contributor Todd Starnes wrote Friday.

The Honor of the Legal Profession.  [Scroll down]  Anyone who reads the complaint filed by Texas (and rejected by the Supreme Court) must conclude that there are serious reasons to believe that this election was characterized by massive fraud in certain swing states and that this fraud was prepared and executed by partisan party operatives who used litigation to erode mechanisms of ballot security and control of the counting to consummate the win.  Note that I do not claim that the evidence is conclusive, though I personally think it overwhelming.  I use the softer "reason to believe", which means only that it needs investigation.  A legal establishment dedicated to upholding process values would regard itself as honor-bound to demand an investigation of these charges. [...] This is not the reaction of the real legal establishment, which is demanding not just that the charges not be investigated, but that any lawyer who represents the president be damned.

AG William Barr reportedly hid two federal probes into Hunter Biden for months.  Attorney General William Barr knew about two contemporaneous federal investigations into Hunter Biden for months — and worked to keep them from the public ahead of the election, according to a new report.  The nation's top law enforcement official avoided providing information about the probes to Republicans in Congress without explanation, a person familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.  One of the investigations was made public this week, when the 50-year-old son of President-elect Joe Biden disclosed on Wednesday that he was being probed for possible tax fraud.

Congressional Republicans Are Furious With Bill Barr, and They Are Right to Be.  A new report is out detailing just how furious Congressional Republicans are over Bill Barr hiding the Hunter Biden investigation.  According to The Daily Caller, Barr knew about the investigation months ago (which also leaves the question open as to why he didn't know years ago).  Instead of allowing the voters to be made aware of such a monumental development prior to the election, the DOJ paused the investigation and refused to confirm it existed. [...] Barr knew about this in the spring but didn't tell the President, nor any members of Congress that would usually be kept abreast of such a high profile investigation into the son of a presidential candidate.  Further, Barr allowed the investigation to cease during the election season despite the fact that such steps were not taken for the Hillary Clinton, nor Donald Trump investigations during 2016.  Why did Joe Biden deserve this kind of protection?  And how was it fair to the electorate to not give them all the facts?

Confirmed: Barr kept Hunter Biden probe a secret until after Election Day.  Someone on Twitter said last night that this is the most ethical thing Barr has done as Attorney General and he's probably going to get fired for it.  Which would make this administration two for two in dispatching AGs for the crime of behaving ethically.  I'll be a little surprised if he survives the day.  Trump was already thinking of firing him.  Now he has confirmation from the WSJ that Barr could have revealed that Hunter Biden was under federal investigation at any time before the election — and chose not to.

Trump tweets video of Chinese professor claiming that Beijing can swing US policy because it has 'people at the top of America's core inner circle of power'.  President Donald Trump has tweeted video of a Chinese professor suggesting that China has managed to influence U.S. policy for decades thanks to a special network of relationships with people at the upper echelons of American power.  The video, which had originally been posted on Weibo but has since been removed from Chinese social media according to Fox News, depicts Di Dongsheng, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing.  Tucker Carlson shared a clip at the top of his show on Monday evening [12/7/2020].  In the video Professor Di suggests that China has managed to influence American policies for decades through a special undercover network of 'old friends' who were at the highest levels of the U.S. government and financial institutions.

Justin Amash Says Members Of Congress Have 'No Idea' Who Is Writing Legislation.  Outgoing Michigan Rep. Justin Amash claimed on Sunday evening that members of Congress are not aware of who is writing the legislation that they vote on.  "Legislation used to be crafted by legislators, not 'negotiators,'" he tweeted.  "The public needs to know that members of Congress have no idea who the hell is writing our legislation.  It's certainly not us."

Where's the Kraken?  Where's the Storm?  The deep state mobilized soon after Donald Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015 and polling showed he was a serious candidate.  They attempted to undermine his campaign, transition, and presidency, with impunity and without fear of punishment.  Attorney General Barr and U.S. Attorney Durham have accomplished little.  One mid-level FBI attorney, Kevin Clinesmith, may or may not serve prison time but the big players, Comey, Clapper, and Brennan, appear free and clear.  Comey was rewarded for his seditious activity with a teaching gig at Columbia Law School and his consigliere Peter Strzok got a similar deal at Georgetown.  That's assuming they have time to teach when not appearing on CNN or writing books. [...] Would the Senate be a bulwark against any of this?  What have their investigations into Benghazi, Clinton emails, Spygate, Burisma, Uranium One, and so on produced, even under Republican jurisdiction, other than hot air?

Trump campaign charges 'not a single' witness interviewed by DOJ.  President Donald Trump's campaign on Dec. 1 fired back at Attorney General William Barr after the nation's top law enforcement official reportedly claimed that officials haven't seen evidence of widespread election fraud.  "With all due respect to the Attorney General, there hasn't been any semblance of a Department of Justice investigation," Rudy Giuliani, a Trump lawyer, and Jenna Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney, said in a joint statement.  "We have gathered ample evidence of illegal voting in at least six states, which they have not examined.  We have many witnesses swearing under oath they saw crimes being committed in connection with voter fraud.  "As far as we know, not a single one has been interviewed by the DOJ.  The Justice Department also hasn't audited any voting machines or used their subpoena powers to determine the truth.

The Supreme Court and the Electoral Coup.  Because Trump was an outsider committed to fighting corruption and changing Washington's ways, multiple coup plots against him were contemplated even before he was inaugurated.  Taking down General Michael Flynn was just the beginning of the siege of President Donald Trump by the Deep State, instigated by the FBI Director James Comey.  Flynn's takedown was immediately followed by two years of the Mueller Commission investigation into Trump's alleged ties to and collusion with Russia.  Try as they might, no substantive evidence could be found.  Then the baton was passed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who commenced impeachment hearings.  That too failed for lack of evidence.  Since there were no penalties from the previous coup efforts based on the fraudulently obtained FISA warrants, it's only natural that the Deep State and Democrat Party operatives were emboldened to make a third attempt by seizing on the coronavirus crisis to continue the coup effort in Trump's fourth year — this time putting in the fix on the November 2020 Presidential election.

The Deep State and Democratic Party join hands against America.  Voters who imagine that they control what the government does are mistaken.  Our federal government is really at the mercy of the huge unelected bureaucracy, the Deep State, that represents the "big" in our bloated federal government.  Everybody who lives within 15 miles of Washington is part of it, or so it seems.  Of all the ways in which the Left is attempting to redefine America, its support for an enormous bureaucracy has been the most successful.  The people we elect — the president and Congress — are merely a front for the Deep State.  The federal government has become separated from the American public that it is supposed to serve.  Deep State power has reached the point where it is beyond the reach of constitutional safeguards.  "As the administrative state grows," says Mark Levin in Ameritopia, "the vote is less effective and the individual is increasingly disenfranchised."

Senate holds hearing on FBI's Russia investigation.  The Senate Homeland Security Committee held a hearing on the FBI's 2016 'Russia Investigation.  On Thursday [12/3/2020], the Committee heard from multiple witnesses affiliated with the 'Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.'  Republicans have frequently asserted the FBI's Russia probe was really a Democrat-led means of going after President Trump, which led to a number of security compromises.  During the hearing, senators questioned former FBI Assistant Director of Intelligence Kevin Brock, who argued the partisan investigation violated FBI regulations.

Is the Democrats' Election Heist 'Too Big to Fail'?  President Trump and Fox News enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship, until, loyalty already fraying, Fox betrayed Trump on election evening by prematurely calling Arizona for Biden.  Only stalwart reporters such as Mark Levin, Judge Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs, and Sean Hannity remain by Trump's side.  Republican elected officials who retained power are mostly mute.  Although the predicted Blue Wave never materialized as Republicans flipped House seats and Senate control is so close it will only be decided after the results of a Georgia runoff election are known, feckless state governors and attorneys general overseeing election preparations stood idly by as Democrats set up the apparatus for the big election steal.  Republicans in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania were the exception.  Resisting the illegal power grab the Democrats had implemented by a massive mail-in-ballot scheme and extending, by three days, the deadline to vote, Republican state officials appealed to the Supreme Court.

Trump says DOJ and FBI are 'missing in action' amid voter fraud allegations during first interview since election.  President Trump said the Department of Justice and the FBI are "missing in action" in investigating potential voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.  "Where is the DOJ and the FBI in all of this, Mr. President?  You have laid out some serious charges here.  Shouldn't this be something that the FBI is investigating?  Are they?" Fox News's Maria Bartiromo asked Trump on Sunday during his first interview since Election Day.  "Missing in action.  Can't tell you where they are.  I ask, 'Are they looking at it?' Everyone says, 'Yes, they're looking at it,'" Trump responded.  "Where are they with all of this stuff, and what happened to Durham?  Where's Durham? [...]"

Sidney Powell Calls For the Complete Reconstruction of the FBI and Department of Justice.  "It affects the bedrock of our democratic republic," Powell started as she detailed fraud in the 2020 election.  "It can't be allowed to stand and, frankly, I'm about to think the entire FBI and the entire Department of Justice need to be hosed out with Clorox and firehoses."  Powell has been very aggressive in recent weeks as she presents her case of voter fraud to the American people.  Last Wednesday, Powell filed a 104 page bombshell complaint in the state of Georgia relating to alleged voter fraud.

Maria Bartiromo gets an earful after asking Trump, where are the DOJ and FBI?  Appearing on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," [11/29/2020] President Donald Trump took aim at the FBI and even U.S. Attorney John Durham for their apparent refusal to exact justice against wrongdoers, including those allegedly responsible for voter fraud and impropriety in the 2020 race.  "Where are they with Comey, with McCabe, with Brennan, with all these people?  They lied to Congress, they leaked, they spied on our campaign.  I see Carter Page is bringing a lawsuit.  That's good news.  Where are they with all of this stuff, and what happened to Durham?  Where's Durham?" he asked incredulously.  The remark was made in response to host Maria Bartiromo asking him whether the FBI is investigating his campaign's allegations of voter fraud and impropriety.  His point appeared to be that the FBI and Department of Justice, in general, have been missing in action for so long that he doesn't expect them to do anything.

Did President Trump Spring a Trap on Treasonous Democrats on Election Night?  After the November 3 presidential election of 2020, a news story broke reporting the seizure of important computer servers in Frankfurt, Germany.  Though the event is disputed, what occurred, according to the Gateway Pundit, was this:  "[a] unit under the command of USEUCOM (i.e., United States European Command) did in fact conduct an operation to take control of computer servers.  But these servers belong to the CIA. ... Such an operation would have been carried out with US law enforcement present to take custody of the evidence."  The presence of federal agents of the court would guarantee a chain of legal custody for the servers that would render their data admissible before a judge.  Gina Haspel and Christopher Wray were supposedly not informed of the raid in advance, leaving the CIA and FBI heads necessarily blind to this action and, therefore, unable to interfere.  This means that the CIA was certainly the target and that a law enforcement agency unrelated to the FBI, such as the U.S. Marshalls or the Secret Service, was likely used to take control of the evidence.  The timely firing of Mark Esper prior to the raid would mean that the oppositional defense secretary was cut off from foreknowledge of the raid and, therefore, would have been unable to disrupt what was going to transpire.

New reports about election manipulation read like a Tom Clancy novel.  On Friday [11/27/2020], a retired top Air Force intelligence analyst stated with certainty during an interview that special forces had secured a CIA-run facility in Germany that had computers showing election manipulation.  If this report is real, we are witnessing the biggest coup attempt, sabotage, and treason in American history.  No matter what, though, because this report is out there and comes from serious people, it deserves serious investigation.  I have no idea whether this raid happened.  Its having taken place, however, is consistent with my ruminations about Trump's peculiarly-timed shake-up at the Pentagon:  Firing defense secretary Mark Esper and replace him with Christopher Miller, a special forces man; moving special forces into their own command, rather than having them function as subsets of other military branches; and firing potentially disloyal members of the civilian Defense Policy Board.  These actions indicated that Trump was clearing the decks for something big.

'Durham has been looking at 2020 election fraud as well".  [Thread capture]

The Editor says...
The most interesting articles are the ones where the reader can hardly tell if it's fact or fiction.  This is one of those cases.

The coming purge.  In the end, the continuing control by Obama holdovers in this and other intelligence agencies resulted in a fake Russian collusion investigation, spying on the president, and a fake impeachment effort.  All against the duly and legally elected president by a gang of partisan anti-American Democrats acting as a fifth column in the executive branch.  The saddest part of this story however is how so totally typical it is for Republican administrations since the 1980s.  Republican elected officials have routinely been very lax about cleaning house of Democratic appointees, once in power.  They make a few miscellaneous appointments, but in general let the previous Democratic Party operatives hold sway.  The Democrats however have never had any qualms about firing everyone if necessary to get the policies they want enacted.  In fact, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were merciless in eliminating as soon as possible any Republican holdovers, so that very quickly their administrations were being run by their supporters, with no dissenting views.  This was Trump's biggest failure.  All he had to do was exercise his due powers and fire a lot of people — like Clinton and Obama — replacing them with those who supported him.  No violence, no illegalities, no brutality was necessary, only the reasonable actions of an executive trying to implement his policies.  Trump, like the Bushes before him, did not do this.

Letting the Democrats Steal This Election Is Real Appeasement.  [Scroll down]  They massively abused their power to cripple and sabotage the presidency itself.  The brilliant political scientist Angelo Codavilla is worth reading here.  He writes that Trump's win threatened to derail America morphing into a permanent oligarchy.  And the oligarchs wouldn't put up with that, which is why they mobilized the Deep State to destroy him and his team, by any means necessary.  And now we see how far they proved themselves willing to go.  Do we really want to find out how much further they'll dare to take things?  People unafraid to annul the last presidential election, if they really tried to steal this one, are coldly and deadly serious about holding onto power.  They're willing to imprison innocent men like General Mike Flynn, and Kyle Rittenhouse, and David Daleiden.  To persecute innocent citizens like Brett Kavanaugh, Nicholas Sandmann, and Mark Judge.  To close all our churches, open our borders, create new farcical states, and pack the Supreme Court with flunkies.  What will they do to us and our cities if we try to resist them now?  I think a lot of Republicans consider this, and cower.

Why the Status Quo Wants Trump Out.  I confess to having been utterly naïve.  I had wondered why on Earth the business community would prefer a frail and corrupt president Biden over a pro-business president Trump.  Trump has a track record of economic growth and stands for lower regulations and taxes, fairer international trade, and a stronger military.  Biden wants to increase taxes and regs and put in place a number of new initiatives like the Green New Deal that might bankrupt the economy.  But Wall Street, the tech industry, and many more backed Biden, while even many GOP congressmen seemed lukewarm to Trump.  The choice for Trump seemed so obvious, what was I missing?  The difference is the status quo.  A lot of people make lots of money the way things are now.  They constitute a powerful force that seeks to get rid of inconvenient obstacles — especially a serial disruptor like President Trump.

Outgoing Syria Envoy Admits Hiding US Troop Numbers; Praises Trump's Mideast Record.  Four years after signing the now-infamous "Never Trump" letter condemning then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as a danger to America, retiring diplomat Jim Jeffrey is recommending that the incoming Biden administration stick with Trump's foreign policy in the Middle East.  But even as he praises the president's support of what he describes as a successful "realpolitik" approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior leaders about troop levels in Syria.  "We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there," Jeffrey said in an interview.  The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is "a lot more than" the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019.

Senior Administration Officials Lied To Trump About Troop Levels So He Wouldn't Pull Out Of Syria.  Jim Jeffrey, the United States' retiring Special Representative to Syria and the special envoy in the fight against the Islamic State, confirmed Thursday that he and other senior administration officials routinely misled President Donald Trump on troop levels in the Middle East.  Jeffrey, speaking to Defense One, explained how despite Trump's stated promise to withdraw America from endless Middle Eastern engagements, he was able to convince the president to commit to keeping between 200 to 400 troops in the region in 2019 to "secure" oil fields held by U.S. allies and other strategic positions.

Drain the swamp!  One embedded lefty at a time, if necessary.
Top DHS official behind website debunking election misinformation says he is about to be fired — after directly contradicting a Trump tweet.  President Donald Trump's post-election purge is about to pivot to the Department of Homeland Security, where a top cybersecurity predicts his head will roll after he set up a 'rumor control' website to debunk false election claims.  Top U.S. cybersecurity official Christopher Krebs has told associates he expects to be fired by the White House, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.  Krebs, who heads the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), did not return messages seeking comment.  CISA and the White House declined comment.

Deep State Diplomat Lied To Trump About Syria On Behalf Of Military-Industrial Complex.  Senior U.S. Diplomat and special envoy for Syria James Jeffrey repeatedly lied to the Trump administration about how many troops were stationed in Syria over the last four years.  "We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there," Jeffrey said in an interview.  While President Donald Trump announced late in 2018 that he would be withdrawing troops from Syria following the defeat of the Islamic State, Jeffrey, whose term ended on Sunday, and his team continually found reasons to prevent total removal from the region.

Pay No Attention to the Drama Queen at DOJ who Resigned After AG Barr Authorized Fraud Investigations.  On Monday afternoon [11/9/2020] the Department of Justice put out a statement confirming that Attorney General William Barr had authorized federal prosecutors and investigators to initiate federal criminal investigations into "substantial allegations" of vote fraud in the Presidential election.  The whinging and hand-wringing on the left began immediately, with claims that Barr was again using the Justice Department as a weapon against President Trump's political opponents, and there is no evidence of vote fraud that warrants any federal investigations.  Then, to cap things off, late in the day on Monday the left-wing press — led by the NYT I believe — shrieked that the Director of the DOJ's Election Crimes Branch had resigned in protest following the announcement by AG Barr.  That individual's name is Richard Pilger, who is a "career" official with the Department of Justice.  But let's draw back the curtain a bit more so everyone can understand what is happening here behind the scenes. [...]

The Meaning Of Barr's Action Yesterday.  [Scroll down]  The point is that there's more to see here than just another career DoJ drama queen flouncing off the election fraud stage.  Barr took his action because he became aware that investigations of election fraud were being blocked from within DoJ HQ.  As SWC details, the drama queen, one Richard Pilger, has been in charge of the Election Crimes Branch at DoJ HQ for quite a few years.  During the Obama years he wrote up a manual of procedures for the handling of allegations of election law violations.  That manual specified that the local US Attorneys (USAs) — including their Assistants (AUSAs) and FBI agents — could take no action with regard to allegations of election law violations without DoJ HQ — meaning, without Pilger's — approval.  There's an important distinction here, one that might seem minor but which helps to see events of the last week more clearly — those events leading up to Barr's action.  First of all, that provision in the manual didn't prevent the FBI or local USA offices from receiving allegations of election crime violations.  Now, you'll recall that shortly after the election, Barr had his DAG specifically state that FBI agents could enter election centers armed.  That was a clear sign that the FBI was receiving complaints of election law violations and was responding to them by going to election centers — presumably because the complaints were coming from workers at those centers.  They were being blocked from entering because they were armed, and their complaints about this obstruction got to Barr very quickly.

The real story behind AG Barr authorizing investigations of vote fraud blows away the MSM narrative.  Even some of my most respected conservative correspondents have been taken in by pessimism over Attorney General William Barr's authorization of investigation of vote fraud.  The media cabal seeking to oust President Trump focused on the abrupt purported "resignation" (he is keeping his federal paycheck and transferring to a different post) of Richard Pilger, director of the DOJ Criminal Division's Election Crimes Branch.  The narrative Pilger offers, all but universally adopted by the media, is that Barr is violating established norms and acting out of (corrupt) political motives. [...] But there is LOT more going on here, and despite the frustrated worries of some of my conservative friends and colleagues that nothing will come of this, Barr's order is hugely significant, for it removes the obstacle that has prevented serious investigations of vote fraud up to now.  To explain, I turn to Mark Wauck, an email correspondent and contributor who has written important articles here, often building on his wealth of experience as a retired FBI special agent.  His blog Meaning in History is a daily read for me.

Ex-Mueller Deputy Andrew Weissmann Compares President Trump to Hitler.  Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ex-deputy Andrew Weissmann on Tuesday [11/10/2020] compared President Trump to Adolf Hitler in a tweet, amid Democrat calls for Trump supporters to join together with the left and "heal."  Weissman, a former senior Justice Department official until he joined Mueller's team in 2017, tweeted Tuesday morning, "For those people who say we should appease Trump, how did that approach go for Neville Chamberlain":  [Redundant tweet]  Weissmann, despite holding a top position at the DOJ until 2017, was reportedly very partisan.  In December 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that he attended former 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's election-night party.  Election filings also state that Weissmann donated several thousand dollars to the Democratic Party, including a $2,350 contribution to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 and $2,000 to the DNC in 2006.

Donald Trump Jr:  "Declassify Everything".  I have spent a great deal of time thinking about this since the media began their insufferable onslaught and "president-elect Biden" narrative.  The time has long past for President Trump to fully demand his executive cabinet members declassify the evidence outlining intrusive government surveillance upon not only himself, but all Americans.  CTH has a rather unique perspective on the declassification angle.  This conversation has traveled with me for over two years as I have talked to people inside the machinery.  Ultimately the discussion ends around something like this:  ["]Is the DC political surveillance state, and all of the ramifications within that reality, so fundamentally corrupt and against our nation's interests, that no entity dare expose the scope and depth of it?  And ultimately... is it the preservation of institutions that is causing so many disconnected outcomes from evidence intentionally downplayed?["]  If we assume the scale of unconstitutional conduct has become systemic, that likely answers the questions.  Personally, I believe this is the most likely scenario.

How Trump Survives a Coup.  [Scroll down]  Most serious, however, is the ongoing intimidation of the Supreme Court: only three Senators have publicly declared that the newly elected president should appoint more judges to overturn the moderate majority.  But of the three (Gillibrand, Harris, and Warren), one is now the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate.  That is highly relevant because it is the expressed opinion of the leaders of the Democratic establishment — enunciated by former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton — that Biden should not concede victory to Trump under any circumstances, i.e., regardless of the number of votes that he might win.  Those are words which would have been simply unimaginable in the past; now they do not even arouse much furor when spoken.  If therefore election-night ballot counting, or the belated counting of mailed-in ballots, fails to yield the required number of votes for Biden in the different states, thus requiring an appeal to the courts that would quickly reach the Supreme Court, the latter must do its duty and side with Biden, on penalty of being diluted with new appointments.  Such is the logic of the Democrats' party leaders.

Donald Trump, Counterrevolutionary.  Until Trump's arrival, Big Tech was three-quarters home on the road to Nineteen Eighty-Four.  Five or six companies monopolized most American — and indeed the world's — access and use of the internet.  In cynical fashion, Silicon Valley grandees patronized naïve conservatives that they were the supposed embodiment of Milton Friedman libertarianism and 19th century robber baron daring.  Yet to their leftist kindred, the moguls of Menlo Park simultaneously whispered, "Don't worry about such necessary disinformation:  we will enrich only your candidates, only your agendas, only your foundations, only your universities — in exchange for your exemptions."  Antitrust legislation was as much an anathema to good liberals as rigging searches, institutionalizing the cancel culture, and censoring thoughts and ideas were welcomed.  For now Trump, almost alone, is battling that revolution.

President Trump Opens the Valve to Drain the Swamp With a New Executive Order.  President Trump has signed an executive order that removes civil-service protections from certain positions within federal government agencies.  There has been much whining and gnashing of teeth, but voters should be thrilled.  Making policymakers in the Deep State "at-will" employees, who are easier to dismiss if they attempt to obstruct the duly elected president's agenda, is a good thing.  Not being bound to hire according to a career-progression ladder will also allow agencies to bring in new people with new ideas.  This will be true whether or not Donald Trump is president.  The need to reduce protections within the civil service became apparent when training based on critical race theory was banned from the federal government.  Within two weeks of the order, whistleblowers started to report that their scheduled critical race training would proceed — in direct violation of the order.

Trumpism:  Then, Now — and in the Future?  [Scroll down]  Aside from fundamental changes in foreign and democratic policy, and renewed emphasis on class instead of race, Trumpism changed the political dialectic.  Of course, Trump could be crude, even at times bullying and profane.  But much of his braggadocio and vulgarity were designed as chemotherapy to kill the cancer of the administrative state and the lock-hold on permanent government by the revolving-door, bipartisan coastal elite.  The reasons why Trump just days after his inauguration faced a failed impeachment, or calls for his removal by the 25th Amendment, or even talk of a military coup, or the Steele dossier hoax that led to a $40 million, 22-month effort by progressives to destroy his presidency, his person and his family, were manifold.  But one cause surely was that Trump was orphaned from the hard-Left Democratic Party and the Republican establishment and seemed either to welcome the ostracism or not be fully cognizant of the cost that it entailed.

Why Does Barr Let Wray Lie and Flout the Law?  One is supposed to believe that Attorney General William Barr is in charge of the Department of Justice, and that FBI Director Christopher Wray works for Barr.  Both men purportedly work for President Donald J. Trump.  President Trump has been very clear about his desire and directives to declassify and release all materials related to the "Russia!" hoax.  The President is consistently ignored by his staff.

GSA Gave FBI, Mueller 'Secret Access' To Trump Records.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the General Services Administration (GSA) undermined the Trump transition team by violating a memorandum of understanding between the Trump transition team and the GSA — when they complied with requests from the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller's office to provide private records on members of Trump's team, according to a Senate report released on Friday [10/23/2020].

Senate report:  FBI, GSA undermined Trump 2016 transition by sharing private Trump team records.  A Senate report released today [10/23/2020] claims that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the General Services Administration undermined the Trump transition team in 2016 by sharing private Trump team records in violation of an agreement between that team and the GSA.  The majority staff report from both the Senate Committee on Finance and the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs claims that officials from both the FBI and Mueller's office "secretly sought and received access to the private records of Donald J. Trump's presidential transition team, Trump for America, Inc."

Mark Meadows Informs Court President Authorized Declassification of Documents [but] Did Not Order It.  Federal Judge Reggie Walton saw an opportunity to give media (Buzzfeed and CNN) their request for all documents from the Weissmann/Mueller investigation when President Trump wrote a tweet on October 6, 2020, re-emphasizing declassification.  Seemingly Judge Walton wanted to interpret the tweets as authority for the declassification of material underlying the Mueller probe.  As a consequence Walton asked for clarification from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.  Mr. Meadows responded to the request from the court with a one-page statement: [...]

This Is How the Left's Power Structure Collapses.  The smartest people in the world actually believe they can be successful in spiking one of the biggest stories to pop up in any American election cycle.  Their hubris is so advanced, so viral, so awful, that they can't see what they've done to themselves.  They really believe they are going to keep a cork on this.  The derogatory phrase for the establishment has been "the swamp."  How bad is this, how deep is this, how criminal is this, how horrifying is it to find out the vast amount of corruption and collusion in so many of our institutions and corporations?  It's staggering.  It's infuriating.  These are the most powerful among us.  All rich.  All corrupt.  All once respected by Americans of all stripes.  And here, in one fell swoop, they reveal themselves to the average American.  As arrogant bullies, as deceitful liars, as evil as anything we've seen in our generation.  They have revealed themselves as the cabal of darkness.

Obama, Clinton, Biden, Harris, Brennan, Clapper, Hayden, Rice, Comey, Mueller, Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff et al. must be charged with treason and sedition.  There are countless other co-conspirators in this extremely complex criminal conspiracy to overthrow the Trump administration.  Loretta Lycnch, Rod Rosenstein, Sally Yates, Andrew Weissman, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Bill Priestap, Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Christopher Steele are just a few of the many other career criminals who subversively used their offices within the U.S. Federal Government to carry out a soft coup against President Trump.  [Chart]  What else needs to be said: all of these hardcore criminal co-conspirators are guilty of attempting to collapse the government of the United States of America.  After years of in-depth investigation, all of the hard evidence currently points to myriad acts of treason and sedition on the part of the aforementioned coup plotters.

Why Trump Must Never Stop Talking about the Russia Hoax.  [Scroll down]  Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's apparent use of the CIA and FBI to frame President Trump as a Russian agent reveals such corruption and treachery at the highest levels of government that no past political scandal compares.  What is worse, supporters of the president have been attacked for four years as delusional for correctly believing that everything from the Steele Dossier to Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation was the product of a political hit job and setup.  Many Americans have been forced to watch a slow-moving coup against the president of the United States, while being told over and over again by nefarious government actors and a complicit press that President Trump is the real villain.  Never have Americans been victimized by gaslighting on such a grand scale, and to downplay the psychological toll that has had on voters outside of the Beltway is to ignore the irreparable damage caused by parties who have, as yet, have been neither fully named nor punished.

Debate Commission Packed With Trump Critics From Both Parties.  The leadership of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which organizes the general election debates, includes many Trump critics from both parties.  While the commission is officially nonpartisan and includes a mix of both Republicans and Democrats, it is overwhelmingly made up of members of the political establishment who are opposed to President Donald Trump.  Majorities of both the commission's chairmen and board members include people who have either taken aim at the president in the past or donated to Democratic political candidates, a Daily Caller News Foundation review found.  Trump has butted heads with the commission over its decision to conduct the second debate virtually, which Trump cited as a reason to boycott the event.

Rigged: The Chairman of the Presidential Debate Commission is Co-Founder of "Color Revolution" Org Linked to Steele Dossier and More.  From the failed Chris Wallace-Biden tag-team attempt against Trump, to biased moderator Susan Page's shrill interruptions of Vice President Pence, to the Presidential Debate Commission's ridiculous and politically motivated effort to force a "virtual debate" on Biden's behalf, patriotic Americans have caught on to the fact that there is something deeply unfair about the presidential debates.  This clear bias has justifiably led many observers to wonder what is wrong with the Presidential Debate Commission.  Just yesterday, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany called out the Commission directly:  [Tweet]  Kayleigh's characterization of the Commission is of course correct.  However, its corruption and bias goes beyond the simple fact that it's in the tank for Joe Biden.  The nominally Republican Chairman of Presidential Debate Commission, Frank Fahrenkopf, is both a co-founder and current board member of the International Republican Institute (IRI), a top "Color Revolution" propaganda outfit.  The IRI was run by Never Trump neoconservative John McCain for decades.  It is closely linked to the thoroughly discredited Steele Dossier at the center of the Russia Hoax.

John Brennan, Hillary's Helper.  It came out this week that John Brennan, the most partisan CIA director ever, briefed Barack Obama on Hillary Clinton's plans to smear Trump as a Putin-besotted collaborator.  Brennan's 2016 briefing notes to Obama refer to "alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 28 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services."  Did Obama tell his CIA director to steer clear of this partisan mischief?  Clearly not.  Brennan had already joined in it.  Auditioning for a role in the Hillary administration — Brennan had told his colleagues he wanted to remain as CIA director under her — Brennan was pushing the Trump smear as hard as anyone.  CIA interference in elections was once one of the gravest sins in the liberal catechism.  How times had changed.

An American Coup Attempt.  The U.S. is in a constitutional crisis.  It began on the day of President Trump's election, when unelected bureaucrats mobilized against his presidency.  This is a crisis in the executive branch, perpetrated by subordinate officials who don't see themselves as answerable to the president.  They have effectively established a fourth branch of government — a permanent, unaccountable bureaucracy.  [Paywall]

Nunes Suggests Shutting Down Intel Agencies Until They Turn Over 'Smoking Gun' Trump Information.  Rep. Devin Nunes, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday suggested shutting down U.S. intelligence agencies if they refuse to turn over information they collected on Donald Trump during the 2016 election.  In an interview on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," Nunes said that he is aware of intelligence he described as "smoking guns" that should be declassified and released to the public.  "Every Republican senator and member of Congress should be saying... we want every [...] bit of evidence that every intelligence agency has or it's maybe time to shut those agencies down," said Nunes.

Why Trump Contracting COVID-19 Will Reelect Him.  [Scroll down]  Nevertheless, if we are to believe the polls (and I don't, really, but arguendo...) Biden enjoys a sizable lead a month off from the election.  This can largely be ascribed to the mainstream media whose hatred for Trump was manifest the moment he rode down the escalator to announce his candidacy.  Almost simultaneously, if you think about it, a cabal of intelligence and FBI agents, evidently with the approval of the previous administration, began a treasonous attempt to prevent Trump's election or, failing that, to discredit him.  Then came the impeachment trial over Ukraine when it was Biden & Son who deserved to be impeached for their activities in that country.  All of this has resulted in an unprecedented level of hate and vengeance in our country that seems unending.  But as with the French Revolution, eventually these things go too far and burn out.  Now we have reached a kind of apotheosis of hate that portends some kind of ending.

Did The CIA, FBI And Hillary Launch A Silent Coup Against Trump?  Former FBI Director James Comey plays dumb in testimony before Congress, while CIA Director Gina Haspel blocks further declassification of documents in the Russia scandal.  That's the obstructionist Deep State in action, hiding the truth about a major scandal from the American people.  Listening to Comey testify this week about the FBI's "Crossfire Hurricane" investigation into supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 campaign has been revelatory.  "In the main, it (Crossfire Hurricane) was done by the book, it was appropriate, and it was essential that it be done," Comey said.  Later, under persistent questioning from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Comey maintained that "Overall, I'm proud of the work."  When he wasn't being proud, Comey played as if he were ignorant of the things going on around him, including the fraudulent application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to spy on the Trump campaign.

Big Tech's Backing of the 'Transition Integrity Project' Lacks Integrity.  During Tuesday night's debate, while fielding yet another softball from moderator Chris Wallace, Joe Biden promised to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.  "I will accept it, and he will too," Biden replied.  "You know why?  Once the winner is declared after all the votes are counted, that will be the end of it."  But Biden, as usual, wasn't telling the whole truth.  The former vice president can publicly assure Americans he will abide by the voters' decision this year because he knows his campaign team is part of a massive operation — cosigned by the most powerful media, business, and political interests in the country — performing Biden's dirty work behind-the-scenes to make sure that he, not Donald Trump, takes the oath of office on January 20, 2021.

The Presidential Debate Commission Tried, And Failed, To Ambush Trump.  Tuesday night's presidential debate was not supposed to go down like that.  Most everyone agrees that the debate, which quickly devolved into a chaotic shouting match between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden (with frequent, one-sided interruptions by moderator Chris Wallace), was a disaster.  But for the Commission on Presidential Debates, the body that oversees and runs these things, it was a complete failure.  The debate was supposed to be an orchestrated ambush of Trump, with Wallace playing a key role helping Biden land punches and avoid getting flustered by Trump.

Davis: CIA Director Gina Haspel Is Blocking Declassification Of Remaining Russigate Documents.  CIA Director Gina Haspel is personally blocking the declassification of documents detailing corruption at the highest levels of the intelligence community during the 2016 election, according to The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis.  While new information about wrongdoing at the FBI has recently been declassified, including recent revelations about Hillary Clinton campaign's collusion with Russia, Davis reported on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday that Haspel herself is standing in the way of the declassification of other relevant documents.

CIA Director Gina Haspel Blocking Declassifying Critical Documents Related To Russia Investigation, Report Says.  Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, reported on Wednesday night that CIA Director Gina Haspel is reportedly blocking the declassification and release of critical documents related to the FBI's surveillance of the Trump campaign in 2016.  "I can report here tonight that these declassifications that have come out, those weren't easy to get out and there's in fact far more waiting to get out," Davis told Fox News host Tucker Carlson.  "Unfortunately, those releases and declassifications, according to multiple sources I've talked to, are being blocked by CIA Director Gina Haspel, who herself was the main link between Washington and London as the London station chief for John Brennan's CIA during the 2016 election."

The Deep State Wins if Trump Loses.  Donald Trump has done his level best to seek justice in the dank D.C. quagmire.  In addition to House and Senate committees, he's tasked Attorney General William Barr and federal prosecutor John Durham with investigating the numerous ways the intelligence community — aided by the lying media, every elected Democrat and lots of GOP pols — tried to get back at the President.  But the Swamp is deep, wide and treacherous.  Thanks to unelected federal bureaucrats, the Durham investigation has been hindered at every turn.  Getting documents from the FBI, CIA, DoJ and State Department has been harder than pulling teeth on a unsedated lion.  It's become increasingly clear that U.S. voters won't learn the full extent of Deep State treason until after the election.  And should Joe Biden, the Democrats' dead-man-walking candidate, somehow win in November, we won't learn anything.

'Locked safes, lost keys': Richard Grenell details 'crazy' excuses about classified reports.  Former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said on Monday that officials make up "crazy" excuses not to release classified reports.  Fox News host Sean Hannity alluded to Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham saying over the weekend that "more damning" information about the Russia investigation will soon be released to the public and asked Grenell if he had any idea what is in store.  "We've heard every excuse in the book about why these reports aren't coming out:  locked safes, lost keys, all sorts of crazy stuff," Grenell said as he called for further transparency.  Critics of such declassifications have also warned about putting sources and methods at risk.

The Head of the FTC Is Yet Another Tyrannical Deep State Swamp Creature.  The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — is yet another one of those Executive Branch joints the Legislative Branch set up to be "independent." Which is, of course, unconstitutional.  The Constitution establishes three branches of government — Executive, Legislative and Judicial.  You can't create an "independent" fourth branch — unless and until you amend our founding document.  So in Reality, the FTC should be an Executive Branch agency.  As with all the Executive Branch agencies, departments, commissions and boards — the FTC is supposed to execute the policy intentions of the duly elected Chief Executive.  THIS duly elected Chief Executive — Donald Trump.  Not the PRIOR duly elected Chief Executive — Barack Obama.  Whose nigh entire panoply of policy intentions were diametrically opposed to this one's.  But the FTC just yet again voted to continue doing the bidding of Obama — who hasn't been president for nearly four years.

Seth Rich:  The Murder Washington Doesn't Want Solved.  [Scroll down]  Donald Trump received just 4.1 percent of the District's vote in the 2016 election.  Trump's election disrupted short-term strategies and long-term expectations in every one of the capital's major institutions, local and federal, public and private, the legal community among them.  According to Hersh, Trump was a "circuit breaker," one who made a whole lot of enemies.  Those enemies, as we have seen, would go to great lengths to discredit Trump and anyone associated with him.  The pressure they can bring to bear on even those who want to tell the truth remains formidable.

It WAS a coup attempt.  In the past few days a number of news stories have confirmed, unequivocally, that the effort in the FBI, CIA, and Justice Department to spy on the Trump campaign before the election and then pin the false accusation of Russian collusion on Trump after his election were all an effort to dictate the results of the election, and then overturn it when Trump won.  It was an out-and-out coup attempt by these government officials, apparently aided and abetted by Obama when he was still president.  First we learn that the FBI agents working on the fake prosecution of former National Security were so worried their misconduct would be uncovered by the Trump administration that they bought liability insurance to protect themselves. [...] They all knew there was no evidence against Flynn, and to get his conviction required blackmail against him as well as the faking of evidence, both of which were done.  Those acts by the way are outright crimes.

"Get Trump" was the Dominant Theme of Special Counsel Mueller's Crossfire Hurricane "All-Star Team".  Early on Friday morning, I went through in summary fashion some of the highlights of the FBI 302 Memorandum of Interview of FBI Special Agent William Barnett.  Barnett was interviewed on September 17, 2020, but not for John Durham — it was investigators working with US Attorney Jeffrey Jensen on his review of the Special Counsel Office's investigation and prosecution of Gen. Michael Flynn.  Barnett was the original Case Agent for the investigation dubbed "Crossfire Razor" which was focused on the activities of General Flynn prior to and after he became President Trump's National Security Advisor during the campaign, and later in the White House.  Barnett led the Razor investigation from August 2016 until early January 2017.  As noted in the 302, and as I noted in my first story last night, he was "cut out" of the decision to interview General Flynn on January 24, 2017, not being told about it having taken place until the following day.  Weeks after that he asked to be removed from the Razor investigation.

Stunning revelations expose FBI's Trump probe as dirtiest political trick in US history.  It was always a witch hunt designed to "get Trump."  Collusion was an illusion invented by a suspected Russian spy but zealously embraced by malevolent actors at the FBI and later by scheming prosecutors on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team of partisans.  These are the stunning revelations contained in two sets of newly declassified documents that pull back the curtain on the Russia Hoax, the dirtiest political trick in American history.  In testimony that is corroborated by records, FBI Special Agent William J. Barnett has exposed how the bureau's collusion investigation of Donald Trump was based on nothing more than "supposition on supposition" and devoid of any credible evidence.

Secret Report:  How CIA's Brennan Overruled Dissenting Analysts Who Concluded Russia Favored Hillary.  Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan's take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan's role in drafting the document.  The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia "collusion" investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016.  It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.  The Obama administration publicly released a declassified version of the report — known as the "Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent Elections (ICA)" — just two weeks before Trump took office, casting a cloud of suspicion over his presidency.

D'Souza's New Film 'Trump Card' Slashes the 'Deep State' to Ribbons.  Dinesh D'Souza has become the master of the conservative political documentary film genre, starting with his first offering, "2016: Obama's America," which examined the roots of then-President Barack Obama's desire to fundamentally transform the United States.  Obama, D'Souza argued, saw the U.S. as fundamentally unjust, particularly in matters of race and wealth distribution.  "Trump Card," the fifth of D'Souza's films, picks up in a sense where "Obama's America" ended, but this time the enemy is the "deep state" and the democratic socialists.

Transition Integrity Project founder calls for execution of former National Security Council official, and mocks those who express disgust.  Now, here's a real charmer, wafting in from the Trump-haters — the founder of the "civility"-preaching "Transition Integrity Project," who's now calling for public executions for wrongthink: [...] The Brasillach that Gilman refers to is a French intellectual who was shot by firing squad in 1944 by French resistance forces for his advocacy of Nazi collaboration and anti-Semitism.  It sparked some controversy at the time, given that he didn't actually kill anyone; it was premised solely on his vile ideas.  He isn't exactly missed.  Now Gilman has decided he'd like the same thing to happen to Michael Anton, a former National Security Council official and powerful writer whose "Flight 93 election" article made a huge impact in 2016, and whose more recent essay, "The Coming Coup," warned of plans for a "color revolution" in the U.S. where elections are overridden by mobs, plotted by the very Deep-Staters connected to George Soros, who invented the color revolutions elsewhere.  The target in his piece is the Transition Integrity Project, as it turns out, and rather than argue or defend his project, he called for killing his critics.

Forgetting History and Misrepresenting History is America's Real Pandemic.  [Scroll down]  But here's what has taken me by surprise.  The extent and depth of treason going on within all these government agencies, and throughout every level of government in America by government officials, elected and un-elected, military and civilian.  There's a reason the phrase "The Deep State" has been coined to explain them.  Its been known for years the government of the United States during the Roosevelt years was the most heavily infiltrated government in the history of the world.  Senator Joe McCarthy was contemptible in many ways, accusing innocent people of being communists, but he was right in his contention the federal government was filled with communists, socialists, Stalinist agents and fellow travelers.  All of which was proven by the release of the VENONA intercepts, and by the release of the Soviet Union's files after its collapse.  Information FDR, Truman and Eisenhower all had to know about.

Rage for the Machine.  Donald Trump was an unexpected monkey wrench in their plans.  He is an outsider expressing neither the palatable views of the pro-business GOP, nor the globalist views of the neoliberal establishment.  Thus, the government that Trump ostensibly runs resists him actively or passively at every turn.  In this, it is joined by big business, the media, and pretty much every other established institution.  They all believe in the same myths: that cops are racist, that America is evil, that masks are magic, that the traditional family is oppressive, that nationalism is outmoded, and that America only began to be worth anything starting in the 1960s when the old America began to become undone.  The 1960s counterculture is now just the culture.  The rebels took over the institutions.  What looks like "resistance" in the streets is just the activity of shock troops defending the status quo.  There is little daylight between the black-clad, blue-haired Antifa terrorists, and the well-educated and wealthy leaders of the Google HR department.

NeverTrumpers Unhinged Over Their Growing Irrelevance.  Washington D.C. has always been a club, with decorum and strict membership rules.  Most of us are not in this club and would have no desire to join if offered membership based on our morals, ethics, and a desire to look at ourselves in the mirror every day without being disgusted.  George Carlin said it best, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."  The club goes by many names — deep state, swamp, uniparty — and the club charter is quite clear, outlined ironically by someone not in the club, blackballed by the membership committee.

Debates Commission Is Part of the Washington Swamp.  It's time to debate.  After months of political posturing, Americans deserve to see President Trump and Joe Biden come face to face, explaining their policy platforms and outlining their visions for the future.  But the Commission on Presidential Debates stands in the way.  Created in 1987 with noble intentions, CPD's purpose was to ensure that general election debates remain a part of the electoral process.  However, as so often happens in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit organization has morphed into something quite different today:  CPD is now an entrenched part of the Washington swamp, leveraging its bureaucratic presence to exert undue influence over presidential elections.

Paul Craig Roberts:  The US & Its Constitution Have 2 Months Left.  When Generals and the CIA say that a president is unfit and dangerous, they mean he is dangerous to their budget.  By "unfit" they mean he is not a reliable cold warrior who will keep hyping America's enemies so that money keeps pouring into the military/security budget.  By serving defense contractors instead of their country, generals end up very wealthy.  Both Kennedy and Trump wanted to normalize relations with Russia and to bring home US troops involved in make-war operations overseas that boost the profits of defense contractors.  To stop Kennedy they assassinated him.  To stop Trump they concocted Russiagate, Impeachgate, and a variety of wild and unsubstantiated accusations.  The presstitutes repeat the various accusations as if they are absolute proven truth.  The presstitutes never investigated a single one of the false accusations.  These efforts to remove Trump did not succeed.  Having pulled off numerous color revolutions in which the US has overthrown foreign governments, the tactics are now being employed against Trump.  The November presidential election will not be an election.  It will be a color revolution.

Investigators May Finally Be Noticing Brennan's Top Secret Probe of Non-Existent Russian Collusion That Started Within Days of Crossfire Hurricane.  In what's hopefully a sign there's more to come, RedState emeritus Stu Cvrk posted a fantastic column today titled, Digging Into the Corpulent Alexander Vindman.  I won't spoil your pleasure and reveal any of the interesting details except to say that I was both shocked and gratified to see this one:  ["]Note that Investigative journalist Paul Sperry reported on Sunday that John Brennan 'ran a secret task force out of Langley with its own separate budget to investigate the Trump campaign and alleged ties to Russia.'["]

Digging Into the Corpulent Alexander Vindman.  The media's continued use of "unnamed sources" for their sensational anti-Trump articles may actually mask something far more sinister.  It is presumed that actual anti-Trump personnel in the White House, National Security Council, CIA, and State Dept are the sources of the classified leaks that served as the basis for many legacy media claims over the past four years.  It is entirely possible that the real sources of the classified information leaks were through electronic eavesdropping of White House communications with other federal agencies and foreign governments.  Thus, "unnamed sources" are misdirection to hide the real sources of the leaks — unauthorized illegal electronic surveillance.  The media stories could have been written and slanted as cover stories to protect the non-human technical surveillance wiretaps.

Tom Fitton:  "There Needs to be A Criminal Investigation of the Special Counsel".  There are a lot of tenuous characters who report on the machinations of the swamp, Lou Dobbs and Tom Fitton are not part of that media system.  In this interview both Dobbs and Fitton deliver brutal honesty, call the baby ugly, and discuss the best approach that President Trump should take to deliver sunlight upon the schemes.  [Video clip]

Trump Barred From Omitting Undocumented Immigrants in Census.  President Donald Trump's policy excluding undocumented immigrants from census data violates the law, a panel of federal judges ruled, blocking it from taking effect.  Three judges in Manhattan on Thursday ruled that Congress hadn't given the president authority for the policy.  The case, brought by several states including New York and advocacy groups, is notable because census results are used to determine representation in the House of Representatives and to allocate federal funds.  "Throughout the nation's history, the figures used to determine the apportionment of Congress — in the language of the current statutes, the 'total population' and the 'whole number of persons' in each state — have included every person residing in the United States at the time of the census, whether citizen or non-citizen and whether living here with legal status or without," the judges said in an 86-page opinion.

There is something very wrong with some in the top ranks of America's military.  It began to be clear last October that the Obama administration (with some help from Bill Clinton's presidency) had seeded the Pentagon with leftist generals whose allegiance was to the Deep State, to cultural leftism, and to the infamous and profitable "military industrial complex" that Eisenhower warned about in 1961.  In only five years, Obama had conducted a major Pentagon purge, firing almost 200 senior officers who held the old-fashioned belief that the military exists to protect America and should not be a social justice institution with limited firepower.  The upper-level officers who remained were hardcore Democrats.  While still in the military, Admirable McRaven gave bin Laden a respectful, private burial.  Once out of the military, he wrote an editorial for the New York Times, strongly suggesting a military coup against Trump.  Barry McCaffrey, a Clinton White House officer, likened Trump to Mussolini because he canceled the White House's newspaper subscriptions.  And Obama's Joint Chiefs Vice Chair, James Winnefeld, was deeply offended on behalf of ISIS terrorist Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because Trump did the psychologically smart thing of telling al-Baghdadi's followers that he died like a coward.

Yet Another Deep State Swamp Creature Committing Crony Insurrection.  The way things are supposed to work is:  If you don't like what your new bosses are doing — you have two choices.  Do it anyway — or quit.  However, this is not how untold thousands of federal government bureaucrats have reacted.  These untold thousands of bureaucrats — have engaged in a countless, simultaneous, ongoing, rolling insurrections.  Either slow-walking advancement of the agenda — or outright halting it.  And in many, many worse case scenarios — working against it.  And if they can work against it — while simultaneously rewarding Leftist cronies — so much the better.  And there is likely no bigger Leftist government crony industry than monstrously huge Big Tech.

'This Investigation is a Sham': Judicial Watch President Slams John Durham for Going Easy on the Deep State.  Trump supporters are waiting with baited [sic] breath for U.S. Attorney John Durham to come out with his explosive findings in regards to his investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion probe against President Trump.  Fitton said that he is inclined to believe disgraced former CIA Director John Brennan when he says that he is not a person of interest in Durham's investigation.  "I don't see grand juries operating.  I don't see a bunch of witnesses coming in.  I don't see lawyers complaining about their clients being brought in before Durham," Fitton said.  He said that the Mueller investigation was run much more thoroughly than Durham's so-called investigation, the goal of which appears to be protecting the deep state.

'Non-Partisan' Transition Integrity Project Founder Dined With Soros And Biden Campaign Advisers.  While the Transition Integrity Project — which purports to thwart President Trump's refusal to concede the election if Biden wins — claims to not undermine President Trump's candidacy, an email from May 13th 2015 highlights its founder's deep ties to Biden-linked, Democratic party heavyweights.  Brooks emailed Podesta, President Bill Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff, Counselor to Barack Obama, and Chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 Presidential campaign, a message entitled "Following up on conversation at Soros dinner."  Another recipient of the email, also mentioned in the text itself, is Jake Sullivan, a former National Security Advisor to Joe Biden and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Sullivan has also been dubbed by Foreign Policy as part of the "national security brain trust for a Biden administration" and identified as playing a critical role in the campaign's formation of foreign policy.

The Assassin Who Helped Create the Deep State.  By now it is abundantly clear that President Trump faces furious opposition not just from the Democrats, the establishment Republicans, and the mainstream media, but from a shadowy, determined cabal of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who are deeply embedded in the government: the "deep state." Paradoxically, the ability of such a cabal to grow and operate freely can be traced back in American history to well-meaning efforts to end government corruption — as well as to the evil act of one deranged assassin.

It's Trump's Republican Party Now.  Before President Trump, the Republican Party, and the Democrat Party for that matter, were controlled by the ruling elites of their respective parties.  Neither party had any interest in those they claimed to represent, instead bowing to big money donors in exchange for power and position.  Once called the military industrial complex, it is now the globalists, wealthy individuals and families happy to hide behind foundations and corporations, ruling America without the consent of the governed, using coercion and force if necessary.  This is what candidate Trump railed against. [...] He was running against not only the Democrats and their allies in the media, academia, Wall Street, Hollywood, and in the Beltway, but he was also fighting his own party.  Republican elites, feeding off the teat of the uniparty, wanted no part in replacing a political establishment that they controlled and benefited from.

A Tyranny Perpetual and Universal?  Our government in no way functions according to the elevated words on the parchment, and President Trump does not control the executive branch.  I say this not to disparage the president but only to state a plain fact.  No doubt, he has done his best.  I doubt that anyone else could have done better.  But while facing a near-universal rebellion from every power center in our society, emphatically including the agencies he was elected to lead, naturally he has found it very difficult to make the federal bureaucracy do what he tells it to do.  That difficulty has astonished even me. [...] Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies would try to frame the president with a phony "crime," launch a pointless two-year investigation over a fraud, then impeach him over the timing of foreign aid payments, all the while lying daily to the American public.

All The Republicans Who Have Endorsed Joe Biden For President.  Though Trump has largely seized control of the Republican party and the loyalty of GOP officials, a number of prominent former GOP officials, and even some of his ex-staffers, have come out in favor of former Vice President Joe Biden. [...] Numerous Republican media figures, campaign strategists and government officials have even organized PACs dedicated to supporting Biden, such as Republican Voters Against Trump and, most recently, 43 Alumni for Biden.  The most notable among them is the Lincoln Project, whose scathing attack ads on Trump have captured the hearts of anti-Trump resistance-minded Democrats.

The Original Deep State.  Donald Trump is not the first president to face down a deep-state cabal, that is, an unelected oligarchy of shadowy figures who wielded enormous power while being unaccountable to the American public.  The first was President Andrew Jackson, who faced down the Bank of the United States in the 1820s and 1830s; then as now, the deep state has apparently included a significant financial element.

Trump is Not the First President to Face Down a Deep State Cabal.  The far-Left rioters who attempted to topple the statue of Andrew Jackson in Washington, DC's Lafayette Square several weeks almost certainly know nothing whatsoever about him.  What they were told in the Antifa indoctrination camps that are called higher education these days is that he was largely responsible for the forcible exile of Native Americans from the Eastern United States, the Trail of Tears, and is thus to be reviled and hated forever.  What they were not told is something that may have made them hate him even more:  Andrew Jackson was responsible for destroying the first deep state cabal of shadowy, unelected powerbrokers in American history.

Graham says declassified FBI documents show 'double standard' for Clinton and Trump campaigns.  Following the release of recently declassified documents, Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., says he believes the FBI showed a double standard in its investigations into reports of foreign interference at the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and now-President Trump in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election.  Calling it "the ultimate double standard," Graham said that the documents reveal that leaders at the FBI sought to give the Clinton campaign a defensive briefing before it could pursue a FISA warrant related to a threat posed to the campaign by a foreign government.  But instead of doing the same for the Trump campaign, the FBI opened the Crossfire Hurricane operation and pursued a number of FISA warrants against people working with Trump's campaign.

Why John Brennan, Peter Strzok and DOJ Needed Julian Assange Arrested — And Why UK Officials Obliged.  According to reports in November of 2019, U.S Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. [...] It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there appears to be evidence of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence services.  In addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to the CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control.  In this outline we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.

State Dept. 'Guts' Donald Trump's Curbs on Fortune 500's Visa Workers.  The State Department is allowing Fortune 500 companies to freely import H-1B visa workers for jobs needed by American voters, despite President Donald Trump's June 22 Executive Order barring nearly all visa workers.  "They have totally eviscerated the requirements" of Trump's E.O., said John Miano, a lawyer with the Immigration Reform Law Institute.  "There is no doubt about it — whoever created this is thumbing their noses at President Trump," he said, adding, "you can bet that the guys who did this are voting for [Joe] Biden."

No Need for a Conspiracy Theory.  In recent days, social media like Twitter and Facebook have taken action to prevent Q-Anon, a shadowy entity that promotes various conspiracy theories, including the "Deep State," from using their platforms.  For those who haven't been following this matter, the "Deep State" is basically also a shadowy conspiracy, within the government, that seeks to undermine the policies of Republicans. [...] I call such people the "permanent government," people who have chosen to make their careers in and off government.  The existence of these people is not open to any serious debate: residents of the Washington area see them morning and evening, commuting in and out of the city; they're why suburban Washington exists, why the Beltway has a near permanent traffic jam, and why it became necessary to build a modern subway system.  Some of these people, mainly at lower levels, are largely unaffected by what policies are being pursued, while for others, those policies have direct consequences.

Would the Military Side with Leftist Tyranny or with America?  [Scroll down]  Here, Trump and his populist movement are agents of rapid and disruptive change.  The military, in which these generals grew up and which gives them their identities, is the least disruptive institution in American society.  The lengthy and laudable tradition of civilian authority over the military, as well as the hierarchical nature of the military itself, makes it instinctively against rapid, disruptive change.  Though the Democrats have moved left, they maintain a headlock on the institutions, and the institutions are what the generals are loyal to even if the leaders of those institutions have morphed into rabidly anti-American aspiring dictators.  To embrace Trump and populism is to repudiate the whole establishment hothouse that grew their power and prestige.  They would be opposing themselves.

Must We Fight Cancel Culture with Cancel Culture?  Peace and stability — under liberty — leads to real progress.  Most of us today are not at all different.  We want matters settled civilly, through discussion and debate and at ballot boxes.  There's no room for intimidation and violence.  The Silent Majority awaits the November elections.  Trump's re-election would provide a critical firebreak.  But a Trump win won't compel Democrats and the left to go quietly into that good night.  They've made it plain that they don't abide election results.  They not only conspired, via the Russia hoax, to derail Candidate Trump, but carried over their intrigues to his presidency.  They worked in concert with Deep State players.  It was a historically unprecedented conspiracy.  The final gasp of their failed offensive, Pelosi-led Democrats impeached the president.

Meet At The Old Mill, We Ride at Midnight.  First, my sincere appreciation for all of your support as we have worked through a complex process of information assembly, travel, and briefings to those who we hope will step forward.  Mid-August was always the most visible date to determine whether or not DC still retained any functional way to self-correct from the severity of corruption that so many people are now familiar with.  That date has stuck with me for almost two years; and so it will remain.  Long gone are the 'hopes' and 'trusts' attached to Jeff Sessions, Rod Rosenstein, Michael Horowitz, John Huber, Matt Whitaker, John Laush, the House of Representatives or Senate; all futile in their efforts, perhaps purposefully so.  That leaves John Durham and AG Bill Barr, and hope is not a strategy as we enter the final stretch.  If no progress is made by Friday 5pm CTH will first share the names of the primary Durham investigator to media previously briefed on the documents we assembled.  From there, and within 24 hrs, we will make that name public and direct inquires can begin.  Barring some unforeseen shift in approach; and based on recent Senate responses to Sally Yates during testimony; there's going to be no help in the delivery of sunlight from anyone on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Senator Ron Johnson and the Senate Homeland Security Committee is equally useless; and by now every American should know the Senate Intelligence Committee was an active participant; no help there.

The Truth Doesn't Care About Your Feelings.  [Scroll down]  Yes, FISA abuse is a big deal; yes, crossfire hurricane is a big deal; yes, the Carter Page FISA application is a big deal; yes, the Chris Steele aspect is a big deal; but in the final analysis that's only the beginning of the effort.  Look at what the special counsel was doing from May 2017 to April 2019 and the scale of the effort is stunning.  Corrupt Republicans and Democrats worked together; the legislative branch worked in coordination with usurping elements inside the executive branch; the intelligence apparatus and the State Dept worked to assist both the legislative branch and the usurping agents inside the DOJ-NSD and Main Justice.  And, worst of all, none of it could have been carried out if there was not someone very close to President Trump, someone very much participating with the effort, who was whispering in his ear about making appointments that were specifically designed to allow the effort to continue.

Exploring Citizen Trump.  [Scroll down]  As [Robert] Orlando perceives it, Donald Trump's choice of enemies are not without irony, given his background.  Trump comes from the establishment himself.  Nonetheless, the brash, cocky New Yorker has brilliantly pitted himself against the establishment.  He would overcome the political system in 2016.  That first included the Republican establishment.  How could one man, with no political resume, overcome a field of 16 highly credentialed Republicans also vying for the job?  Once he won the GOP Primary, how could he persevere when being out-funded by the Democratic Party establishment, or when out-strategized by one of the most corrupt political machines in the history of the presidency, the Clintons?  Once in the Oval Office, could he survive an unprecedented blitzkrieg of media attacks still going on today?

Former US Attorney Joe diGenova on Today's Democrats.  Former US Attorney Joe diGenova was on the radio earlier today [7/20/2020] with Mornings with the Mall as part of his weekly interview.  At the beginning of interview diGenova discussed the John Durham investigation and how the Durham team is working on guilty pleas with members of the Deep State involved in the failed coup attempt of President Trump.  After this the subject changed to Democrat Represenative Adam Schiff.  Lying Schiff did an interview on a podcast this past week that was shared and discussed.  Schiff was calling AG Bill Barr a criminal for upholding the letter of the law and bringing individuals involved in the attempted coup of President Trump to justice.

Judge orders DACA restart, including new applications, indirect pathway to citizenship.  A federal judge on Friday ordered the government to revive the DACA program as it existed before President Trump tried to phase it out in 2017, which means opening it up to brand new applications.  That's a key issue that had remained in limbo after last month's Supreme Court ruling, which found the Trump phaseout cut too many corners.  U.S. District Judge Paul W. Grimm, sitting in Maryland, issued an order restoring all parts of the program back to where they were, which means not only protecting current recipients but also approving new ones.

FBI Conspires Against Trump.  As we continue uncovering details of the coup against President Trump by top Obama/Deep State officials, we've also noted the FBI and DOJ are still slow-rolling the release of information about the scandal.  So, frustratingly slowly — but surely — we're getting piece after piece of the Obamagate puzzle.  We received another batch of emails, 136 pages, between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page.  They include heavily redacted emails showing Strzok, Page and top bureau officials in the days prior to and following President Donald Trump's inauguration discussing a White House counterintelligence briefing that could "play into" the FBI's "investigative strategy."

Pelosi Says She 'Yearns' for Other Republican Presidents.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is so fed up with President Trump that she said she actually "yearns" for other Republican presidents.  "I yearn for other Republican presidents," she said at her press conference on Thursday.  "While we may disagree on many points, at least we had a shared commitment to the governance of our country."

The Editor says...
In other words, Nancy Pelosi would get along quite well with a deep state uni-party "reach across the aisle" centrist RINO in the White House.

Robert Mueller Was Obama's Shield — Graham Open To Mueller Hearing.  Why is it important to understand the duality of purpose for the appointment of the special counsel run by the figure-head (in name only) of Robert Mueller?  Because from the outset the seventeen Lawfare lawyers who formed the resistance unit operation took control over the DOJ.  That was a large purpose of their installation.  The Mueller resistance unit controlled everything, including every impediment to congress.  Despite the fact they should have been aware of this, many individual Senators and congressional representatives now claim they had no idea of this purpose.  Setting aside their willful blindness; all that stuff is in the rear-view and only leads to anger in a debate that needs to look forward; the issue now becomes putting indisputable evidence, an actionable trigger, in front of them and forcing public confrontation.

Where [...] Is John Durham?  In May 2019, Attorney General William Barr made an announcement millions of Americans had been waiting for:  A U.S. attorney outside the Beltway would investigate the corrupt origins of the FBI's probe into Donald Trump's presidential campaign and government efforts to sabotage the incoming president after he was elected.  For the past 14 months, we have been waiting (impatiently, I confess) for news from John Durham, the Connecticut prosecutor Barr tapped to lead the long-delayed inquiry.  After all, by the time the attorney general initiated the targeted probe, there was plenty of evidence of wrongdoing by top officials in the Obama Administration, including James Comey, John Brennan, and Andrew McCabe among others.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller had wrapped up his two-year partisan witch hunt and despite unlimited resources — along with the unflinching support of Republicans on Capitol Hill — Barack Obama's former FBI director could find no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.  But Mueller did plenty of damage in the interim.

U.S. Army Sends Out Race-Baiting Email Calling 'MAGA' Slogan and More 'White Supremacy'.  The U.S. Army sent an email to its military and civilian members after the Fourth of July that included a graphic that claimed innocuous words and phrases like "colorblind," "all lives matter" and the Trump Campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" are evidence of "white supremacy."  The graphic also listed "Celebration of Columbus Day," the "Denial of White Privilege," "Talking about 'American Exceptionalism,'" and saying "There's Only One Human Race" as behaviors that are indicative of white supremacy.  After Army personnel brought the offensive email to the attention of a U.S. Congressman, the Army said the material was "unapproved" and sent out "in error."

US Army Meddles in the 2020 Election and Declares 'Make America Great Again' to be a Sign Of Covert White Supremacy.  The US Army has ordered a 'handout' produced by Army's "Project Inclusion," which, according to the Army is supposed to 'improve diversity, equity and inclusion across the force and build cohesive teams.'  Because nothing builds teamwork or inclusion like labeling people who support the Command-in-Chief as racist. [...] It is utterly impossible to believe that this handout was created with no review or oversight by anyone with a brain. [...] It is barely this side of outright mutiny.  The fact that no one will be disciplined over this is all the proof you will ever need that this act was condoned by the highest levels of Army leadership.

Army investigates handout suggesting Trump campaign slogan constitutes 'covert white supremacy'.  The Army Wednesday night announced it has launched an investigation into how a presentation on racism and discrimination included a handout suggesting President Donald Trump's campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" is considered "covert white supremacy."  The investigation was launched after a complaint from an Alabama congressman.  Mo Brooks, a Republican who represents the district where the handout was distributed at the Redstone Arsenal, called the handout a "violation of the Hatch Act" designed to keep the military out of partisan politics.  Brooks sent a letter to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, copied to Trump, Attorney General William Barr and others.

Alexander Vindman Is No Martyr — He Tried To Overrule Foreign Policy Chain Of Command.  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who testified against President Trump, retired from the Army Wednesday.  Per his attorney, the reason for his retirement was "a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation" for cutting short his military career.  Of course, the mainstream media has been all over his attorney's claim, and cite his testimony as a reason for the supposed bullying.  The liberal media ignored the fact that Alexander Vindman is no martyr.  He was accused by a U.S. Senator of possibly being a leaker who thought he could overrule the President's foreign policy decisions.

Alexander Vindman, Trump impeachment witness, retires from military.  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key impeachment witness against President Trump, retired from the Army Wednesday, with his lawyer citing "a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation" for cutting short his military career.  Vindman marked his retirement by tweeting a picture of himself in a rumpled plaid shirt working on a laptop — a stark contrast to the many photos of him in uniform.

Chuck Grassley:  John Durham will be too late if prosecutions begin after 2020 election.  A top Republican tagged President Trump in a tweet encouraging U.S. Attorney John Durham to initiate any planned prosecutions as part of his inquiry into the Russia investigation before the 2020 election.  Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a longtime critic of the Trump-Russia investigations, warned Monday that waiting until after November's contest might be too late.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Lt. Col. Vindman, a key impeachment witness, is retiring from the US military after being 'bullied' by Trump.  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an important impeachment witness, is retiring from the military in response to a White House "campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation" led by the president, CNN reported Wednesday [7/8/2020], citing Vindman's lawyer.

Once You See The Strings on the GOP Marionettes.  Those who can see the maneuvers of the GOPe may have noticed the recent positioning of two key players, Nikki Haley and Liz Cheney.  Both Haley and Cheney are part of a decepticon club positioning to undermine President Trump and the America First agenda.  We have previously outlined the agenda of Haley ([elsew]here); so it's time to review Cheney.  When Paul Ryan left congress he exited his role as the primary inside resistance operative; however, he did not stop the agenda.  Knowing President Trump was now officially the head of the formal republican party, prior to departure Ryan positioned Liz Cheney as an influence agent with her role as Republican Conference Chairwoman.  Essentially an explosive anti-MAGA cell with instructions to activate at a time of maximum damage. [...] If we can retake the House of Representatives this fall, Ms. Cheney is going to try and position herself to become "speaker" or "majority leader".  Neither position would be good for the America First agenda.

Heckuva Job, Biden's Bushies!  "Heckuva job Brownie" was a meme before there were memes.  One might have thought that Michael Brown would not be welcomed into a prominent role in a presidential campaign.  One might have thought that he would remain persona non grata forever.  But, of course, one would be wrong.  Brown has reemerged as the most prominent organizer of a presidential campaign committee.  The committee, whose formation has been reported in these pages by Catherine Smith, is called "43 Alumni for Biden."  As Dave Barry used to say, I am not making this up.  Does anyone want to know what sort of Republican intends to vote for Biden in November?  There you have it.

Hundreds of former George W. Bush officials set to endorse Biden: report.  Hundreds of former officials who served under President George W. Bush are gearing up to endorse presumptive Democratic Nominee Joe Biden.  The group of officials — which include members of Mr. Bush's cabinet and other senior officers — has reportedly formed a political action committee dubbed 43 Alumni for Biden.  Mr. Bush was the 43rd president.  "We know what is normal and what is abnormal, and what we are seeing is highly abnormal.  The president is a danger," Jennifer Millikin, one of the 43 Alumni organizers, who worked on Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and later in the General Services Administration, told Reuters.

Devin Nunes: 'We're up to somewhere around 14 criminal referrals' to Justice Department.  House Intelligence Committee Republicans have sent up to 14 criminal referrals to the Justice Department related to the Russia investigation and the 2016 campaign.  Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the panel, told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Monday their inquiry has turned up "many unanswered questions" they hope the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr can work out.  "We have recommended many criminal referrals now, I think we're up to somewhere around 14 criminal referrals that we have now made to the Department of Justice," the California Republican said.  Nunes has been talking up a new slate of criminal referrals over the past few weeks, which adds to the eight referrals to Barr last spring.

What's Inside Grassley's Letter Demanding More About Deep State Role In Spygate.  Last week, Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote James Baker, the director of the Office of Net Assessments, seeking information concerning ONA's potential involvement in Spygate.  The chair of the Finance Committee had previously asked Baker for all records related to Crossfire Hurricane's go-to informant, Stephan Halper, but as Grassley's follow-up letter made clear, Baker's response was greatly lacking.  In addition to pushing for more answers about Halper, Grassley is now demanding answers about Baker's alleged role in leaking details about Michael Flynn's conversation with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, to the press.

House Judiciary Republicans Refute Democratic Narrative On Fired US Attorney.  Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released their own annotated version of a transcript of lawmakers' interview with fired U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman Monday, refuting claims made by Democrats charging the Attorney General William Barr of unethical and potentially unlawful conduct.  "Chairman Nadler and Committee Democrats remain obsessed with attacking the President and Attorney General for political gain," committee Republicans wrote.  "This singular obsession has clouded their judgement and colored their opinions."  Last month, Berman was fired from his role as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York after he refused to transition to a new role following Barr's attempts to replace him.  Berman and House Democrats allege Barr placed undue pressure on Berman to step aside with an illegally apparent quid quo pro, a seemingly favorite charge among Democrats used to slander their opponents.

Fired US Attorney Berman Mistakenly Believed SDNY Stood for "Sovereign District of New York".  The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that a disagreement between the Justice Department and fired Southern District of New York US Attorney Geoffrey Berman, concerning a letter that would have been critical of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio with regard to NYC's enforcement of "social distancing" rules on religious practices, likely played a role in Attorney General William Barr's decision on Friday evening to announce that Berman would be "stepping down" and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton would be nominated to be the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  Here is a link to the article, which is behind the Journal's paywall.  On Friday and Saturday, I covered what I called the "Rumble in DOJungle" in two parts, with Part One detailing the dispute that broke out after a DOJ press release announcing the changes that would be made effective July 3, 2020, followed later by a statement issued by Berman that he was not "resigning."

Attorney General Bill Barr Removes SDNY Attorney Geoffrey Berman — Berman Refuses to Leave.  Officially it's being called a "resignation" according to the Associated Press.  However, all the right Lawfare "beach friends" are going bananas as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Geoffrey Berman, is being replaced.  According to the DOJ release Berman is being replaced by the nomination of Jay Clayton, currently the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Additionally, "Craig Carpenito, currently the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, will serve as the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, while the Senate is considering Jay Clayton's nomination." [...] All of the exit moves and incoming replacements are coming to a head at the same time; early July.  The current SDNY move is effective July 3rd, which is the same time that FBI chief legal counsel Dana Boente is leaving his position.  Both Boente (FBI) and Jeffrey Berman (DOJ-SDNY) appear to be resigning by Bill Barr's request; essentially being told to leave.

Standoff: Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman won't resign after Barr announces ouster.  The Justice Department announced Friday evening that Geoffrey Berman is leaving his position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, which the federal prosecutor quickly denied.  Attorney General William Barr said Berman, who has overseen cases against allies of President Trump, is stepping down after two-and-a-half years of service.  "With tenacity and savvy, Geoff has done an excellent job leading one of our nation's most significant U.S. Attorney's Offices, achieving many successes on consequential civil and criminal matters.  I appreciate his service to the Department of Justice and our nation, and I wish him well in the future," Barr said in a statement.  Within a couple of hours, Berman released a statement of his own denying he is going anywhere.

Almost Runaway Prosecutor Bows To Rule of Law.  "What Would Happen If Trump Refused to Leave Office?" That question is bruited in a headline the Atlantic issued a few months back.  It's been echoing around the Democratic press for months.  The answer is that it would be an unsustainable constitutional affront.  And what would happen were a United States federal prosecutor to refuse to leave office?  We came awfully close to finding out this weekend.  The would-be runaway prosecutor was the United States attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman.  He was appointed in 2018 by the judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.  They acted under Section 546 of Title 28 of the United States Code.  In certain circumstances, it allows a federal district court to appoint a U.S. attorney to serve "until the vacancy is filled."  Mr. Berman seemed to think that language meant he could stay in his post until the Senate confirmed a replacement, which could have run past the election.

US Attorney Geoffrey Berman steps down, ends tug of war with AG William Barr.  Geoffrey Berman on Saturday night agreed to step down as one of the nation's most powerful U.S. Attorneys, ending a day-long power tug-of-war that stretched from his Manhattan headquarters to the White House and Justice Department in Washington.  In a statement issued at 6 p.m., Berman said he would leave immediately, and turn control of the office over to his Deputy U.S. Attorney, Audrey Strauss.  Berman credited his decision — which came after a day of refusing to step down — to Attorney General William Barr backtracking on his original demand that his successor be attorney and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton.

The Left's Premature Revolution.  The nation has been subjected to over three years of government abuse and illegalities in the Establishment's unceasing efforts to destroy, impeach and/or derail Donald Trump.  Almost every day another revelation exposing the corruption of the so-called deep state is exposed in what is without a doubt the most egregious political scandal in the nation's history.  Consequently, an ever-growing percentage of the population is becoming more aware of the pitfalls of the all-powerful central government which the left demands.

Senate Collusion Theater.  Sometimes, it seems Graham is after FISA abuse by the FBI in the Trump — Russia investigation.  Sometimes, it's the decision by then-deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to appoint Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate the sitting president under circumstances where there was no basis for such an investigation.  Sometimes, the focus is described as the Mueller investigation itself:  why it went on so long despite the lack of a solid evidentiary predicate, why Rosenstein, in August 2017, defined its scope based on allegations long known to be either groundless or far afield from purportedly suspected Trump-Russia collusion.  Given that Graham has no power to send any good candidates to jail, and the real investigative work either has already been done by the Justice Department's inspector general, or is in the process of being done by prosecutor John Durham, one can't help but ask:  What is the objective of this scattershot production?  This is a pressing question now that Graham, on a party-line vote of his committee, has been authorized to carpet-bomb Obama-world with subpoenas.

Retired generals who denounced Trump could be recalled to active duty and prosecuted, experts say.  Retired four-star military officers who lambasted President Trump could be recalled to active duty and prosecuted for violating the U.S. Code, military law experts told Just the News.  "Retired officers can't make contemptuous remarks of the commander-in-chief," said John Dowd, a former Marine Corps Judge Advocate and former Trump legal advisor.  "They're all subject to recall.  They're subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice until they die."  The pertinent law is Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Section 888, the experts said.

It's Worse Than We Thought — DNI Ratcliffe Declassifies "Annex A" The Supportive Documents For 2017 Intel Community Assessment.  DNI John Ratcliffe has declassified the Appendix to the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA).  The appendix known as "Annex A" was the material the FBI and CIA did not include in the body of the ICA; however, it was used to brief congress.  There was always suspicion that "Annex A" was the ridiculous claims by FBI source Christopher Steele; those suspicions are confirmed today [6/11/2020].  The ICA was written in late December '16 & early January 2017, and the purpose was to politicize intelligence by making outlandish claims of the Trump-Russia conspiracy the official position of the U.S intelligence apparatus (CIA, FBI, DOJ and NSA).

Fired State Department IG Sent Confidential Info to His Personal Email Accounts.  The State Department inspector general whose recent dismissal ignited a political firestorm sent copies detailing a sensitive investigation to his personal email account, according to a probe into his conduct run by the Defense Department's inspector general.  The inquiry report, dated March 17, confirms that fired State Department inspector general Steve Linick was the subject of a broad investigation related to the leaks of politically charged materials to journalists, specifically a draft evaluation report into Brian Hook, the State Department's top Iran official.  The report, which was provided to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, concluded that while Linick was permitted to send information to his personal email account to facilitate access while traveling, he was the only official in that office to have done so.  The disclosure is likely to raise new questions about Linick's suspected role in leaking sensitive information to the press.

Lara Logan:  Retired Generals Waging Information Warfare Campaign Against Trump.  Award-winning journalist and war correspondent Lara Logan discussed how retired generals who are speaking out against President Trump are either "complicit" with or waging an information warfare campaign against him, in an interview [...] on Wednesday [6/10/2020].  Logan reminded listeners of the Russian collusion narrative, and how many officials from the Justice Department, Director of National Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and other agencies worked together to push the idea that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Stunning explosion of cheers from Iran and China dissidents over booting of Obama holdovers at Voice of America.  President Trump was happy as heck at the news that Michael Pack, his choice for new director at the Voice of America, finally got confirmed by the Senate.  It came as a sort of miracle, given the dirty, protracted battle from deep state's Obama holdovers to keep him out.  It was so underhanded it involved a last-ditch Kavanaugh-style bid to smear Pack as corrupt if for nothing else to delay his Senate confirmation to eternity.  It was deep state at its worst and it failed.  Now, what's probably the last solid Obama bastion of deep-state government has toppled.

The Rule of Doctors Threatens Trump's Reelection, American Well-Being.  A couple of months ago, President Donald Trump was riding high.  The economy was going gang-busters, and the various Democrat and "resistance" coup attempts, from the Russian collusion hoax through the Ukrainian phone-call impeachment gambit (Does anybody still remember what that was all about?), had fallen short.  Reelection, if not assured, looked very likely.  And then came the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.  In a stroke, and without a single constitutional shot fired, the country was given over to two unelected doctors named Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, the Democrats suddenly discovered the virtues of federalism, and the economy slammed into the brick wall of the CCP virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus, as governors across the country trashed the Constitution and began ordering their residents around like serfs. [...] And so everything from the sacred (churches and synagogues) to the profane (California beaches) was shuttered, the hospitality industry cratered, the airlines found themselves grounded, the Trump economy died, and the president's reelection chances are going up in smoke along with the incinerated jobs of some 30 million American breadwinners.

Democrats Believe More in the Swamp Than in Biden.  Joe Biden's questionable competence demonstrates Democrats' unquestioned faith in the Swamp. [...] If Biden supporters look at him at all, it is as a placeholder, a prop.  They are looking through Biden altogether and ahead to beating Trump.  Their horizon extends only as far as November.  For the rest of America, so shortsighted a view raises the question:  What happens then?  If Biden cannot campaign, how is he to govern?  For Biden supporters, his ability — or rather obvious inability — to govern is the least of their concerns.  The reason is that they are not expecting Biden to govern.  Truth be told, they do not even want him to.

Grenell rips DC swamp, Politico, Democratic leakers.  Richard Grenell, who shook up the intelligence world in just three months as acting director of national intelligence, used his first interview since stepping down to blast Washington's insider culture of protecting itself and ruining outside reformers.  In a 19-minute interview on the Mark Levin Show, the longtime public servant who recently was ambassador to Germany said that the political-media axis in Washington is toxic and geared to thwart reforms that threaten its operation.

Deep State Plotters — Devin Nunes Targets Rod Rosenstein's Corrupt Activity to Initiate Robert Mueller.  When contemplating the malign activity of Rod Rosenstein; and how angered President Trump is with former AG Jeff Sessions; it is worth remembering that Sessions requested Rod Rosenstein as his deputy, and then immediately thereafter Sessions recused himself, effectively positioning Rosenstein to run the operation against President Trump.  That's the background context for a great interview by Gregg Jarrett where Jarrett walks through the timeline of events with former HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes.  At the 5:30 point of the interview, Nunes identifies Rosenstein as part of the coup attempt and blasts him for how Rosenstein structured the fraudulent scope memos.  Nunes says his investigation is now looking at the part of the effort where Robert Mueller's investigation was used as part of the initiating effort to remove President Trump.

An Open Letter to the D.C. Right.  [Scroll down]  Then Donald Trump came along.  He spoke of liberty and of putting America First.  Your public rage at him — and his supporters — was instantaneous.  It was visceral, full-throated, and constant.  I didn't remember any of you getting that worked up about Barack Obama.  Ever. [...] Trump represented an existential threat to everything you had — your job security, your social status, your sumptuous lives in places like Chevy Chase, Falls Church, and Georgetown.  You knew — somehow all of you could tell instinctively — that when Trump talked about liberty, he meant it. [...] And the economy boomed.  Jobs came back.  Americans began to prosper as never before.  And you hated every minute of it.  You made that clear in your articles and TV appearances and social media posts.  When the Democrats tried to sell the patently phony Russian-collusion narrative and impeachment case, some of you joined in the pile-on.  Some didn't: such matters weren't in your wheelhouse.  Besides, at least some of you had to have realized early on that it was all lies.  But none of you blew the whistle on it.

The Key Reason DC Hates President Trump — It's a Big Club, and He Ain't in It.  Something 99% of American voters do not understand.  Congress doesn't actually write legislation.  The last item of legislation written by congress was sometime around the mid 1990's.  Modern legislation is sub-contracted to a segment of operations in DC known as K-Street.  That's where the lobbyists reside.  Lobbyists write the laws; congress sells the laws; lobbyists then pay congress commissions for passing their laws.  That's the modern legislative business in DC. [...] DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame most voter's reference points.

Obamagate: Of Course It Comes Back to Obama's Narcissism.  For three years, the Trump administration attempted to find their sea legs while actively being harassed and harried by Obama holdovers and self-dealing Republicans in the House and Senate.  None of this could have happened so easily had Congress provided oversight.  Why would they want oversight, though?  It would expose themselves.  It wasn't just Joe Biden's crackhead kid in Ukraine, after all.  Sens. John Kerry, John McCain, and, yes, Lindsey Graham, also had strange relationships there, too.  It's like Ukraine was one big money laundering scheme for political insiders.  A lot of pols have a lot to hide, and that's why this fiasco has gone on as long as it has. [...] The American system isn't equipped to handle this level of injustice.  Those who wait on justice likely wait in futility.

The U.S. Senate Is the Heart of the Problem.  This week, the depth, breadth, and scope of the swamp made itself clear.  It started with the unraveling of the case against former national security advisor Michael Flynn.  The FBI initially had accused Flynn of violating the Logan Act — an 18th-century statute that has never successfully been used to prosecute anyone, not in the least because of its dubious constitutionality.  Ultimately, Flynn was charged with lying to federal agents — a process crime but hardly treason.  This week, it was revealed that members of the Obama Administration, many of whom had no real role in counterintelligence operations, repeatedly unmasked (that is, requested their identities and activities from intelligence gathering sources) Trump's incoming staff — including Flynn. [...] This is hardly a one-off for the Obama Administration, whose director of national intelligence lied to Congress about spying on American citizens.  That was before John Brennan, Obama's CIA director, spied on Senate staff and broke into their computer files.  And, of course, Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, used the Espionage Act to surveil journalists from Fox News and the Associated Press.  And let's not forget the time they eavesdropped on the phone calls of members of Congress.

Federal court revives emoluments lawsuit against Trump over DC hotel.  The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday revived a lawsuit from the Maryland and Washington, D.C. attorneys general that accuses President Trump of violating the Constitution's Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses by benefiting from use of the Trump International Hotel by foreign and U.S. officials.  The case previously had been ordered dismissed by a Fourth Circuit panel.  But the full roster of judges reheard the case and, in a 9-6 decision, determined Trump cannot have the court overrule a lower court's decision to deny him certification to appeal before trial.

Will There Be an Obamagate Reckoning?  You Betcha!.  One can argue over who in the ObamaGate conspiracy wears a black hat or a white hat.  One can also complain about nothing happening, no indictments or perp walks.  The deep state has been the king in Washington DC for decades.  To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, "When you strike at a king, you must kill him."  Trump and his team have one shot at this and will take the kill shot on their terms and timing. [...] The forces against Trump are huge — the DC establishment, media, Hollywood, academia, and even members of his own party.

Why is Obama Panicking Now? — The Importance of Understanding Political Surveillance In The Era of President Obama.  Why is former President Obama calling forth all his defensive resources now?  Why did former national security advisor Susan Rice write her cya letter?  Why have republicans in congress not been willing to investigate the true origins of political surveillance?  What is the reason for so much anger, desperation and opposition from a variety of interests?  With the release of recent transcripts and the declassification of material from within the IG report, the Carter Page FISA and Flynn documents showing FBI activity, there is a common misconception about why the intelligence apparatus began investigating the Trump campaign in the first place.  Why was Donald Trump considered a threat?

The FBI Did a Hatchet Job in Their 302 Report on Michael Flynn, and Some Familiar Names Were Involved.  The Trump-Russia collusion story was a myth.  It was a manufactured lie peddled by the liberal media that engulfed the nation for over two years.  In many ways, we're not over it.  There are still hordes of liberals so deranged, so mind-broken over the 2016 election, that they think the Russian colluded with Trump to tilt the race.  Not true.  There is no evidence this ever occurred.  None.  That's why every single bombshell was a nothingburger.  The report from the Mueller probe, which needs a review of its own in the wake of the Flynn fallout, said there was no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.  It also tore the heart out of the document that started this whole circus:  the Trump dossier.  An unverified piece of political opposition research compiled by ex-British spook Christopher Steele and funded by the Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign.  The Department of Justice Inspector General's Office also delivered a kill shot to this document in their report about FISA abuses during the Obama administration.

A Key Obama Meeting Was Held to Ensure FBI Russia Collusion Probe Wasn't Discovered by the Trump Administration.  [Michael] Flynn has been vindicated, and more light is being shed on the scope of this whole operation.  The deep state does exist.  They're malicious.  They're ruthless.  Just look at the mindset of Andrew McCabe and James Comey, who were determined to ensnare Flynn, department policy, and constitutional rights [notwithstanding].  It's chilling.  And now we're seeing how Obama was the starting quarterback for how to ensure the incoming Trump administration would be saddled with the Trump-Russia collusion allegations.  It was coordinated chaos.

Beyond Flynn:  Indict Obama, Clinton, Comey, and Brennan.  LTG Flynn was the first victim of what we now know was, arguably, a coup d'é`tat to take down Trump.  As I noted two years ago, DoJ's operation "Crossfire Hurricane" to ensnare Trump by entrapping those connected to his campaign, and then his administration, devolved into a "Backfire Tornado." As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy noted this week, the conspiracy to entrap Flynn was key to keeping the corrupt Russia-collusion investigation moving forward.  McCarthy notes, "If no way could be found to sideline Flynn, then Flynn was going to find out about Crossfire Hurricane."  On the charges being dropped, McCarthy also makes the case, "There was no basis to believe Flynn, a decorated former US combat commander, would ever be Moscow's mole, much less that he had committed a crime."  The key deep-state operatives in this coup attempt were Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — who colluded with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the current House Intelligence Committee chairman.

Are Russia Collusion Hoax Holdouts Still Operating Within the FBI?  What is it like inside the seventh floor of the FBI's Hoover fortress while revelations of constitutional abuses lash the walls like a never-ending hurricane season of the FBI's own making?  Newly released documents have refocused attention on the FBI's abuses in the Flynn prosecution.  The FBI's dirty tricks in the Flynn prosecution are almost too numerous to inventory.  Does FBI Director Christopher Wray fret over the increasing perception that the FBI has become a rogue police force unbound by constitutional checks and balances?  Is he feverishly working behind the scenes to root out perpetrators of spying abuses that targeted opponents based upon politics and other non-law enforcement purposes?  A new interview with former journalist Carl Bernstein signals that there remains a Russia collusion hoax rearguard within the FBI in spite of the resignations, firings, and departures of Crossfire Hurricane figures, including Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bill Preistrap, James Baker, James Comey, and Kevin Kleinsmith.

Fmr CIA operative, Dem voter bluntly says Comey, Brennan should get death penalty for coup against Trump.  Former CIA operative Bryan Dean Wright isn't pussyfooting around when it comes to fired FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan, and their actions in the Russian collusion hoax.  Declaring that Comey and Brennan, who went on to become virulent Trump bashers, decided to "take out" a member of President Trump's administration, Wright said the two are "traitors" and should get the death penalty, if convicted.  His remarks are in response to the bombshell report last week that former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, a retired three-star U.S. Army general, may have been set up by the FBI.  Wright, who is a Democratic voter, appeared on "Fox & Friends" over the weekend, and he was skeptical that there would be any admission of wrongdoing.

James Comey must be prosecuted.  Andrew McCarthy, writing in the National Review, outlined the case that the FBI, under the direction of James Comey, working through Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, and others, set up General Michael Flynn for a perjury trap.  Comey sent Strzok and another agent to entrap General Flynn on January 24, 2017. The reason was to remove General Flynn as Trump's national security adviser because General Flynn, an experienced military and intelligence officer, would have discovered the FBI's investigation of President Trump, titled "Crossfire Hurricane" but otherwise known as the Russia Hoax.  McCarthy answers the question of why to entrap General Flynn to remove him.  But the next question is, did Comey act on his own or on orders, explicit or implicit, from his superiors to entrap General Flynn to remove him?  In an interview with Nicolle Wallace, Comey bragged that he had sent two FBI agents to question General Flynn.

America Has a Jared Kushner Problem.  If President Donald Trump is serious about draining the swamp, he ought to start with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.  Kushner raised eyebrows when he strutted into the role of pandemic point man for the White House, alongside his former roommate and a handful of McKinsey & Company management consultants.  As Chris Buskirk wrote in these pages, Team McKinsey has "a history of doing little more than helping failing institutions fail in style while growing rich in the process."  Project Airbridge, Kushner's plan to take the reins of the Federal Emergency Management Agency supply-chain task force and partner with private companies to fly health care supplies to New York City from China, lived up to the McKinsey style.

It Appears John Brennan Pulled a Deep State Move to Benefit Hillary Clinton.  [Scroll down]  Is this part of the dirty laundry that these Obama officials thought would remain buried because Hillary Clinton was a sure thing in 2016? I think we deserve some more answers regarding this allegation, no?

Here's 'Anonymous,' Trump Aides Say.  And Here's How They Outed Her.  Ever since a "senior official in the Trump administration" penned an anonymous 2018 New York Times column attacking President Trump as unfit for office, Washington has been engrossed in a high-stakes whodunit.  After an exhaustive investigation, the White House believes it's cracked the case, identifying Trump's turncoat as his former deputy national security adviser, Victoria Coates, according to people familiar with the internal probe.  Rather than fire Coates, the White House has quietly transferred her to the Department of Energy, where she awaits special assignment in Saudi Arabia — far from the president.

Despite COVID-19, the Trump administration hasn't forgotten the Russia hoax.  While everyone's attention is on COVID-19, things are still happening around the Russia hoax.  No one should ever forget that a weaponized Obama bureaucracy spied on the Republican party's presidential candidate to prevent him from winning the 2016 election.  Then, when that illegal effort failed, the entire Democrat establishment, both inside and outside government, bent all of its energies to claiming that America's duly elected president was a Russian asset who used election fraud to win.  By first acting illegally and then pushing a hoax, the Democrats and the Deep State (but I repeat myself) effectively handicapped Trump's first two years in office. [...] The Trump administration, however, is making loud noises indicating that the Democrats' and the Deep State's flagrant, unethical, unconstitutional, and illegal conduct is neither forgiven nor forgotten.

President Trump Cleans House - Fires Multiple Deep State IGs in One Swoop.  While everyone's focus is on the news and the coronavirus, President Trump isn't letting this distract him from doing the rest of his job.  He promised to drain the swamp.  He's been doing it and is still doing it even to this very moment.  He has rid Washington of many of them, but there are still many that need to be removed.  Rest assured that investigations are still going on in the background and we still have Deep State operatives being fired.

AG William Barr on the Russia investigation: 'There's something far more troubling here'.  The Russia investigation into President Trump's 2016 campaign was "one of the greatest travesties in American history," Attorney General William Barr said Thursday during an appearance on "The Ingraham Angle."  Barr said he has seen troubling signs from U.S. Attorney John Durham's ongoing probe into the origins of the two-year probe, which resulted in no allegations of wrongdoing against the president.  "My own view is that the evidence shows that we're not dealing with just the mistakes or sloppiness," Barr told host Laura Ingraham.  "There was something far more troubling here.  We're going to get to the bottom of it.  And if people broke the law and we can establish that with the evidence, they will be prosecuted."

Adam Schiff Whines About Acting DNI Grenell Clearing Out His Deep State Friends.  Failed impeachment manager Adam Schiff has a new complaint:  Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell is getting rid of his friends working in the deep state.  In fact, Schiff is so concerned his stream of endless conspiracy theories about President Trump might be coming to an end that he's written an accusatory letter to Grenell, which he leaked first to the press, demanding to know more about what he's doing.

President Trump Removes Coup Plotter ICIG Michael Atkinson — Effective 30 Days From Today.  President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson: [...] The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community.  It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson's office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large.

What if Hillary had won in 2016?  If Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election, we would not know about the enormously complex attempted coup she undertook, with a vast cast of characters, to defeat Donald Trump as a candidate and then unseat him once he was elected president.  Only because she lost, do we now know a great deal about all that.  We know Hillary commissioned and paid for the vaunted "dossier," that she hired Fusion GPS to deliver opposition research that would take candidate Trump out of the running.  We know that bad actors in the FBI (James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Pete Strzok, et. al.), at the DOJ (Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr, et. al.), at the CIA (John Brennan) and James Clapper at the DNI all coordinated with each other to destroy Trump by wholly fraudulent means.  Thanks to the wisdom of the voters, we now know all about their crimes against this country.  Numerous books have been published by intrepid actual journalists that have laid out what happened in tremendous detail.  Hopefully when AG Bill Barr and prosecutor John Durham release their report, we will be privy to all the details of the whole sordid story of the most venal political scandal in American history.

Schiff protects intel 'status quo' power by sinking wide-reaching FISA reform:  Source.  Attempts to rein in the government's ability to spy on Americans fell flat after Rep. Adam B. Schiff intervened to protect the types of powers that the FBI used to go after the Trump campaign in 2016.  Mr. Schiff, California Democrat and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, ran roughshod over House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat, whose panel had control over the battle to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, said advocates on both sides of the aisle.  The power struggle created an awkward moment in which Mr. Nadler canceled the markup of his own bill just minutes before it was scheduled.

Here's Why the Deep State and Wuhan Virus Are Like White on Rice.  Many people wonder why those working in federal agencies — especially those who were politically-appointed — were involved in the crimes that we have only just begun to see exposed in the DoJ, FBI, IRS, State Department, etc.  What motivated them all to do what they had to at least subconsciously know were criminal acts?  After all, giving one's life towards "service to the country" is supposed to be a noble endeavor — or at least that's what the political elite, legacy media megaphones, and others have been telling us for decades, isn't it?  Except that, in the Age of Trump, we're finding out that many of these people — especially those in the upper echelons of federal law enforcement agencies — aren't as altruistic as we have been led to believe.  In fact, many of them are down-right crooks!  I am still shocked by the DoJ Inspector General's report on FISA abuse and the subsequent revelations/determinations by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the Obama-era FBI and DoJ defrauded the court.  These were "officers of the court" who willfully committed the crimes!  If they all don't receive harsh justice, then there is no such thing as justice in America anymore.  It's as simple as that.  Why did they commit the crimes?  The Deep State cabal (multi-agency) is in it for fame, fortune, power, and career.

DOJ Political Surveillance — From the IRS in 2011 to the FISA Court in 2016.  An assembly of government reports and public records now indicates a political exploitation of the NSA database, for weaponized intelligence surveillance of politicians, began mid 2012.  After an initial attempt to exploit IRS records, the legal tool used to access the NSA database was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.  With research files on the '15, '16 and '17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ "secret research project" (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations & gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of four to six years.

Arrest McGahn?  House hints of possibility in court filing on subpoenas.  The House hinted Friday [3/6/2020] that it might have to arrest former White House Counsel Don McGahn and other Trump administration officials to force the federal courts to decide whether congressional subpoenas can be enforced against current and former executive branch officials.  Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee made the statements in a petition to have the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rehear its lawsuit to force McGahn to testify as part of a probe into the actions of President Donald Trump.

Obama National Security Officials Susan Rice, James Comey, John Brennan Back Joe Biden.  Former President Barack Obama's national security leaders came out this week right before Super Tuesday to announce their support for former colleague Joe Biden, in apparent hopes to tip the scales against his non-establishment competitor, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).  Their endorsement signals that the national security establishment that has been excoriated by both President Trump and Bernie Sanders for supporting the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and military intervention elsewhere, will also back Biden.

John Ratcliffe's Interview With Catherine Herridge Has Brennan, Atkinson, and Ciaramella Panicked.  Last week, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) was nominated as the next Director of National Intelligence by President Trump.  The subsequent firestorm of protests from the Democrat-media complex is an indication that this was an outstanding selection by the President.  In addition to having served as a congressman from Texas (during which time he distinguished himself in cross-examining the Democrats' witnesses during the House impeachment hearings), he is a former federal prosecutor who spent five years at the Dept of Justice involved in matters related to national security and count-terrorism.  He gave an interview to Catherine Herridge, senior investigative correspondent at CBS that must have some members of the coup shaking in their boots.

This should have been done years ago.
Administration Insiders:  Pentagon House Cleaning of Never Trumpers Looms.  President Trump's firing of John Rood, the top policy official at the Pentagon, is a sign the agency is not immune from an effort to purge from influential positions across the administration "snakes" who do not support the president, according to four current and former officials.  Rood had been on the chopping block for months, but his firing just last week amid a spate of other personnel changes shows that the president is finally ready to clean house at a department that has tried to distance itself from politics, they said.

The Counter-Coup Has Begun.  [Scroll down]  The administrative state, the permanent bureaucracy, the deep state, whatever you wish to call it decided 19 minutes after he was sworn in as president, that Donald Trump must not be allowed to continue in that role.  The non-swamp, brusque outsider from Queens had to be sabotaged because he could not be controlled.  From Stormy Daniels to Michael Cohen, from subpoenas for his tax returns and bank accounts to fake "whistleblowers," from subordinate [lieutenant] colonels born in Ukraine, to an impeachment trial in the Senate, the Democrats and their co-conspirators, just like poor marksmen, repeatedly tried to "kill the king" and failed.

Senior US Intel Briefer "Overstated" Assessment of 2020 Russian Interference.  In a leak to the New York Times last week, intel officials warned House lawmakers that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get Trump reelected.  Less than 24 hours later the hoax fell apart.  Catherine Herridge reported on Friday that after pressed for evidence to back up claims Russia was backing Trump in 2020, NOTHING was offered to the DNI.

Rep. Ratcliffe on Russia reportedly trying to interfere with 2020 election:  Dems 'leaked information that's not accurate'.  In an exclusive interview on "Sunday Morning Futures," [2/23/2020] Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, addressed reports that Russia is allegedly trying to interfere with 2020 election, saying Democrats "leaked information that's not accurate."  Ratcliffe, who serves on the House Judiciary and House Intelligence Committees, made the comment in response to host Maria Bartiromo, who asked him what happened during a meeting he attended earlier this month when House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., brought up the issue of Russia meddling.  "You're asking me about details of a classified briefing that was intended to remain secret, you're asking me about it because it has been reported on by the New York Times," the Texas congressman told Bartiromo.  "It's all too familiar."

The Loser Establishment Is Rightfully Terrified of Ric Grenell.  President Trump continued his unbroken streak of awesomeness by appointing Ric Grenell the acting Director of National Intelligence, thereby threatening the intelligence community's unbroken streak of failure.  None of our media idiot savants — a term which is only half-accurate — thought to ponder the question of exactly how Ric's appointment could possibly make the IC worse.  Its legacy of ashes is a national embarrassment.  But then, the purpose of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment is not to serve the people of the United States.  Its purpose is to serve the personal interests of the currently-constituted intelligence community, the foreign policy community, and every wing of our incompetent, inept, and corrupt establishment.  Its denizens fear that this fearless patriot is going to burn down their whole shoddy edifice, and we can only hope they're right.

The case for repealing FISA and reforming the FBI and CIA.  The FBI, in its bungling partisanship, very likely swung the 2016 presidential election away from its preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton.  The sprawling "community" of intelligence agencies (led by the FBI and CIA) covertly used dubious foreign sources to justify monitoring an American political campaign and, later, a U.S. presidential administration.  To do so, it invoked daunting foreign-counterintelligence surveillance powers, based on a fever dream that its bête noire, Donald Trump, was an agent of the Kremlin.  And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court recently chastised the FBI for feeding it false and unverified information — the secret court apparently calculating that this extraordinary public expression of wrath will divert attention from its own shoddy performance in approving highly intrusive spy warrants based on sensational, blatantly uncorroborated rumor and innuendo.

Deep State snakes slither back after FBI, CIA swamp draining.  [Scroll down]  Soon The Washington Post had its own scoop, a report that "Russia is trying to help Bernie Sanders' campaign."  Whoa, Nellie!  Inquiring minds are confused.  Whose side are the Russians on?  How can it be that Putin is trying to help both the Republican nominee and the likely Democratic nominee at the same time?  Is he stupid?  The better question is this:  Do Deep Staters and their media handmaidens think Americans are stupid?  Yes, they do.  They count on it.  It is troubling that Trump and Sanders were given conflicting information, suggesting that the intel officials don't have their facts right.  More telling about the aim is the fact that both briefings were leaked, demonstrating that nothing has changed and that insiders are still using classified information for political purposes.

Key Intelligence Aide Joins Acting DNI Richard Grenell.  Kash Patel previously worked as Devin Nunes' senior staffer on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI).  It was Patel who was the lead author of the Nunes memo exposing corrupt conduct of the FBI and DOJ officials during Crossfire Hurricane.  Patel joined the National Security Council's International Organizations and Alliances directorate last February and was promoted to the senior counterterrorism role at the NSC mid-summer 2019.  According to recent reporting Patel is now joining Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell as a Senior Advisor and Catherine Herridge is reporting the objective is to 'clean house'.

U.S. Intelligence Analyst Pleads Guilty to Leaking Classified Information to Media.  U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) counterterrorism analyst Henry Kyle Frese pleaded guilty on Thursday [2/20/2020] to leaking information to the press in 2018 and 2019.  According to a DIA press release, Frese faces up to 10 years in prison for leaking sensitive military information from five separate classified documents.  Frese was employed by the DIA as either a contractor or employee from January 2017 to October 2019.

Alexander Vindman Is Not Owed an Apology, He's Owed an Investigation.  Alexander Vindman was one of the more grating characters that tried to make a name for himself during Trump's impeachment.  An Army officer, he shamelessly shouted about his "patriotism" in an attempt insulate himself from all criticism.  Of course, the media (including some in conservative circles) played along, pronouncing it absolutely off limits to question Vindman's reasoning and motives.  You may have noticed, but there's a clown nose on, clown nose off routine when it comes to the military and Trump opponents.  If it's Michael Flynn, you can trash him relentlessly as a Russian asset despite his decorated career of service.  But if a military member speaks against Trump, they immediately gain protective status and it becomes "gross" to suggest they could be political.

Trump says he knows identity of 'Anonymous' author.  President Trump said he knows the identity of "Anonymous."  His statement to reporters on Tuesday indicates a multipronged search within the White House for the author of the tell-all book, A Warning, which spoke of a resistance movement within the Trump administration, has been successful.  "I know who it is," Trump said as he boarded a plane at Joint Base Andrews destined for Los Angeles, adding that he could not divulge a name just yet.  "But I know who it is," he added.  "We won't get into it.  People know it's a fraud.  I know who it is, and I know who some of the leakers are."

Uncovering 'Anonymous' in the White House.  In swamp news, Deputy National Security Advisor Victoria Coates is reportedly being pinned by senior officials in the Trump administration as the so-called "Anonymous," the hideous little operative deep within the Trump administration who claimed to be the anti-Trump "resistance" on the inside, brazenly writing an essay in the New York Times to 'assure' us that the Trump administration was full of such people.

Deep State Revolt:  Federal Judges to Hold Emergency Meeting Over Barr and Trump.  Just weeks after President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate of bogus partisan impeachment charges by the House of Representatives, a group of federal judges will hold an 'emergency meeting' on Tuesday regarding the intervention by Attorney General William Barr against the abusive proposed sentence for Roger Stone and the criticism by President Trump of the proposed sentence and the federal judge overseeing the case, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, as well as other actions by Barr and Trump regarding 'politically sensitive' cases before the judiciary.

President Trump Starts to Drain the Swamp, Yanks Liu.  This was the week that President Trump really started to drain the swamp.  It came when he yanked the nomination of Jessie Liu to a Treasury Department post.  The decision was all Trump's and occurred after Trump learned details about what was going on when she was United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.  Though Trump was most aggravated with Liu not clamping down on the outrageous sentencing recommendations of her staff in the Roger Stone case, there was a long list of other concerns that made it clear to the president the extent of ideological weaponization across the Justice Department.  Let's start with Roger Stone for now.  Liu's so-called "career prosecutors" devised a sentencing recommendation of nine years in prison for behavior that became commonplace anytime former Attorney General Eric Holder appeared before Congress under oath.

Army Announces They Will Not Investigate Lt. Col Alexander Vindman.  President Trump mentioned the likelihood the military would take a look at the conduct of Lt. Col Alexander Vindman in the wake of his leaking classified information to construct a fraudulent whistle-blower complaint with CIA ally Eric Ciaramella.  Today [2/14/2020] Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Vindman will not be investigated for his role in breaching national security protocol, fabricating claims and breaking chain of command.

It was Obama, not Trump, who weaponized government against political opponents.  The media frequently buries stories that might hurt political candidates or policies they support and will continually run false stories against political candidates and policies they oppose.  How else can it explain the years of fake stories on Russian collusion, seeking to destroy white Christian boys for wearing MAGA hats, trying to destroy Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh with no evidence, the false "Hands up, don't shoot" narrative?  How else do you explain the burying of stories about all the mental and sexual abuse of women by the Clintons and the burying of stories or the lack of investigation into the clear corruption and kickbacks of the Clintons and Bidens if not pure bias?  How many people are the media willing to destroy in order to get power back for the Democrats?

Has the Deep State beaten Bill Barr?  Willaim Barr assumed the reins of the Department of Justice (DOJ) a year ago, succeeding Jeff Sessions as attorney general (A.G.) of the United States.  By universal consensus, the tenure of Sessions was an epochal shipwreck, disfigured as it was by Sessions, who infamously and needlessly recused himself from the entire Deep State Russia Hoax while simultaneously declining to root out Deep State operatives obsessed with removing Trump from office (to say nothing of maintaining and even extending legal protections afforded the likes of Hillary Clinton and Lois Lerner, among other Democrat-friendly government officials).  Like Pontius Pilate, Sessions washed his hands of the matter and allowed the coup-plotters of the ironically named Justice Department to proceed against Trump unopposed.  Among law-and-order conservatives and defenders of Trump, it was widely hoped that Barr would be an A.G. unintimidated by the Deep State, with the intestinal fortitude to push back against a DOJ corrupted by progressive lawyers and grandiose bureaucrats blinded by their irrational and atavistic hatred for Trump.

The Counterattack Is Underway.  Trump supporters have been impatiently waiting for some real push-back on the Democrats and their Deep State and legacy media allies for over three years now.  Some well-earned Trumpenfreude is long overdue for those involved in the various illegal investigations (e.g., Crossfire Hurricane), abuses of the FISA process, the impeachment farce, and frivolous investigations into President Trump and his family (e.g., the emoluments clause lawsuit).  With his lifetime acquittal by the US Senate of the hyper-partisan impeachment charges brought by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives, President Trump is now counterattacking on multiple fronts.

Abolish CIA & FISA.  America's Intelligence agencies are the deep state's deepest part, and the most immediate threat to representative government.  They are also not very good at what they are supposed to be doing.  Protecting the Republic from them requires refocusing them on their proper jobs.  Intelligence officials abuse their positions to discredit opposition to the Democratic Party, of which they are part.  Complicit with the media, they leverage the public's mistaken faith in their superior knowledge, competence, and patriotism to vilify their domestic enemies from behind secrecy's shield.  Pretenses of superior knowledge have always tempted the Administrative State's officials to manipulate or override voters.  Hence, as Justice Robert H. Jackson (who served as chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials) warned, they often turn their powers against whomever they dislike politically, socially, or personally and try to minimize the public's access to the bases upon which they act.

About Those 70 Obama Holdovers Cut From the NSC.  Twitter and other social media outlets went nuts on Monday over a slightly misleading report issued by the Washington Examiner.  The report itself, filed by Paul Bedard, is accurate, but requires some close reading to understand what is really being communicated.  Unfortunately, as is so often the case, it was the headline that misled most readers and caused the story to go viral on social media, which of course was the goal of the misleading headline. [...] The misleading part of the story itself comes not in what the author said, but in what he left out of the text.  While it is apparently accurate that 70 NSC employees, most of whom were indeed holdovers from the Obama era, have been removed from the NSC staff, nowhere in Bedard's story does he mention that this transition has been a slow and steady process that has taken place since current National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien took over that job last fall.

Trump Is Discussing Firing Corrupt ICIG Michael Atkinson — Whose Impeachment Testimony Is Still Hidden By Liar Schiff.  On Friday anti-Trump Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman was escorted off the White House grounds and dismissed from the National Security Council.  His twin brother Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, who served as a lawyer on the NSC was also fired and left with Alex.  There are unofficial reports that White House staffers stood up and cheered as the twin brothers were escorted form the White House.  But President Trump is not done yet.  There are reports that dozens more may be removed this week.  And there are reports that crooked Intelligence Committee Inspector General Michael Atkinson may be asked to leave.

The Rot Is Deep (Part I).  Last week, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, an Army Officer temporarily detailed to the National Security Council, was relieved of his duties and escorted out of the White House and off the grounds.  This was ostensibly as part of a normal rotation, but more likely for defying the President and Commander in Chief, of whom he serves at the pleasure. [...] LTC Vindman isn't some 4-Star General who, believing he is professionally bulletproof, allows his staff to badmouth the sitting President to Rolling Stone magazine.  This is a relatively junior officer who believes his judgment is better than personnel 8 levels above him, 9 counting the President.

Being Fired by Trump Does Not Make You a Holocaust Victim.  Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes, one of the media's favorite Donald Trump antagonists, took to Twitter this weekend to pen a transcendently nonsensical thread comparing the firing of a handful of bureaucrats to the rounding up of political undesirables in the lead-up to the Holocaust.  It's wouldn't be a huge deal, except that this kind of hysterical reaction has now been normalized in American discourse, illustrating that once-rational people have either lost all sense of history or are willing to belittle the past for short-term political gain.  My bet is on the latter.

Vindman Twins Removed from NSC Posts, Escorted from White House.  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a "star witness" in the impeachment farce against President Trump, and his twin brother Yevgeny were removed from their National Security Council posts and escorted out of the White House on Friday, Politico reported. [...] The president told reporters earlier Friday that he was "not happy" with suspected leaker Alexander Vindman and suggested that he would be dealt with soon.

This should have been done years ago.
Bigger than Vindman:  Trump scrubs 70 Obama holdovers from NSC.  President Trump is making good on his promises to "drain the swamp" and cut Obama-era holdovers from his staffs, especially the critical and recently controversial National Security Council.  Officials confirmed that Trump and national security adviser Robert O'Brien have cut 70 positions inherited from former President Barack Obama, who had fattened the staff to 200.  Many were loaners from other agencies and have been sent back.  Others left government work.

Report: White House Has Identified And Will Cut Ties With 'Anonymous' Official Amid Sweeping Security Council Layoffs.  The White House has identified and will soon part ways with the "anonymous" official behind a recently released book and a "resistance" focused editorial published in the New York Times, former U.S. attorney Joe diGenova claimed Monday morning [2/10/2020].  DiGenova made his claim on WMAL's "Mornings on the Mall," but senior White House officials declined to comment on the topic when asked by the Daily Caller.

The Purge of Colonel Vindman.  What is the official policy — today — of the United States in respect of Ukraine and the Bidens?  Is it that Ukraine should investigate the Burisma energy company's employment of the son of Vice President Biden?  The veep's son was pulling down something like $80,000 a month while his father was vice president.  Is it the policy of the United States that Ukraine's government should look into this?  We pose the question because of the reassignment of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindmam.  He was an aide on the National Security Council who testified during the Trump impeachment that he was uncomfortable with the President's request that Ukraine undertake such an investigation.  On Friday, the colonel was cashiered from the NSC as part of what the press is calling a "purge." [...] When you help launch a constitutional process (a trial, an impeachment, an election) you're bound to accept the constitutional conclusion — or you risk being purged.

On the removal of Sondland and Vindman.  [Scroll down]  In any event, the bottom line for me is that the president should have NSC staffers he trusts.  He doesn't trust Vindman.  Thus, it made sense to transfer him back to the Pentagon.  Had Trump gone further and taken some extraordinary measure of retaliation — e.g., firing Vindman from the government, demoting him, or slashing his pay — that would be objectionable, in my view.  But Trump didn't.  He simply moved Vindman back to his old posting (albeit unceremoniously), as is commonly done with NSC staffers.

Trump Should Absolutely Fire Witnesses.  President Donald Trump fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman (shown) and Gordon Sondland from their respective positions on the National Security Council and as ambassador to the European Union on Friday.  Despite media howls to the contrary, it was an action he absolutely needed to take.  The only problem is that he did not do so months ago.  During the impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives, Vindman and Sondland gave damaging testimony against Trump.  Two days after being acquitted in the Senate of the impeachment charges leveled by the Democratic Party-controlled House, Trump ousted both individuals.  He also ridded the White House of Vindman's brother, Lt. Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, who was a lawyer in the White House.  Yevgeny Vindman has been reassigned to the Army.

Medal Of Honor Recipient Says LTC Vindman Was A 'Spotlighter' Whose Own Peers Wanted Him Out.  Medal of Honor recipient MSG Leroy Petry defended President Donald Trump's decision to fire LTC Alexander Vindman, saying that Vindman had shown he couldn't be trusted.  Petry made an appearance on Sunday morning's "Fox & Friends" and responded to the news that Vindman had been fired from his post on the National Security Council and escorted from the White House.

Settling All Family Business?  Friday Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman was escorted from the White House where he had served on the National Security Council.  His twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, was also dismissed from the NSC.  Alexander had testified against President Trump in the House impeachment proceedings.  He had listened in on the President's telephone call with Ukrainian President Zelensky and testified that Trump had abused his office by withholding aid to the Ukraine until it announced investigations of his political opponents.  Reportedly Alexander is believed to be the primary source of information for alleged whistleblower Eric Ciaramella.

Thread reader:  What Will Democrats Lie About Next?  [H]ad Hillary won in 2016, we would never have learned anything about the Steele dossier and its origins, Crossfire Hurricane and FISA abuse, or Ukraine election meddling and Democrat corruption there.  James Comey would still be sweeping Democrat corruption under the rug with his able assistant-crook Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates would be the attorney general, Victoria Nuland would secretary of state, and Peter Strzok and company would be deep in schemes to take out Hillary's challenger in the 2020 election.  Thanks to President Donald J. Trump, the motives of the Democrats and their Deep State allies (NOT a conspiracy theory, Jeffries) are more transparent to Americans than they have ever been before.

Yevgeny and Alexander Vindman, Brothers in the Impeachment Coup Effort, Escorted Out of White House.  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, the twin brothers who work at the NSC & who participated in an attempted coup to remove President Trump, were both escorted from the White House and removed from their position "with no explanation" on Friday [2/7/2020].

Impeachment witness Vindman fired, escorted out of White House after Trump acquittal.  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who made waves as a witness during the Trump impeachment proceedings, was fired Friday by the National Security Council and escorted off of the White House grounds, Fox News has confirmed.  Vindman was on detail to the National Security Council from the Department of Defense, and it is expected he will return there.  It comes just two days after President Trump was acquitted in the Senate on the impeachment charges brought by the House last year over his dealings with Ukraine.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman Was Suspected of Leaking.  Former National Security Council official Tim Morrison testified during the House Intelligence Committee's closed-door hearings in the impeachment inquiry in October that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman had been suspected by others of leaking information — apart from the controversy over President Donald Trump's July 25th telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.  Vindman was removed from his job at the National Security Council on Friday and escorted from White House grounds.

White House Fires Alexander Vindman.  Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the House Democrats' partisan impeachment inquiry, was fired from the National Security Council and escorted out of the White House on Friday, CNN first reported.  Vindman's attorney, David Pressman, confirmed his client's termination and subsequent removal from the White House.

The Deep State Is Alive and Well and Dedicated to Defeating Trump.  The House trial gave us an up-close portrait of several swamp-dwellers.  They are dedicated to trying to take down Trump and are more than willing to use every instrument at their disposal, no matter how illegal or intrusive. [...] On the witness stand, these Deep Staters revealed themselves to be even more entitled and arrogant than we imagined.  Yovanovitch referred to the U.S. embassy residence in Ukraine as "my house."  When asked who sets U.S. foreign policy, she replied, "We do," correcting herself only after it was pointed out that the president sets foreign policy under our constitution.  A puffed up Vindman wore his uniform to the trial and insisted he be referred to by his full military title — how could anyone get more "entitled" than that?  You can bet there are many more Deep State agents where they came from, all with a fierce loathing of Trump.  Their one saving grace is that they do not appear to be terribly intelligent.

The Vindman Twins Are Creatures of John Bolton.  During his four decades as an accumulator of power in the nation's capital, a holder of high offices in the State Department, and finally a stint as President Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton has been well known for his scrupulous attention to the hiring and firing of his staff.  He always has demanded unwavering personal loyalty as well as fealty to his own — not his president's — policy agenda. [...] The extremes to which Bolton goes to enforce his Bolton-centric scheme of things were exposed dramatically in the episode of his handpicked choice as deputy national security advisor, Mira Ricardel.  The latter had a well-deserved reputation as "Bolton's Bolton" — that is, a screamer, a browbeater, and a toxic boss par excellence.

John Bolton Praised Trump's Ukraine Call Before Getting Fired.  U.S. President Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton changed his tune on how he felt about the commander-in-chief's July 25 call with his Ukrainian counterpart after he was fired from his White House post.  While Bolton claims he resigned in early September 2019, Trump said he fired him.  On August 27, 2019, Bolton described Trump's July 25 phone conversations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) as "very warm and cordial calls" and acknowledged that corruption poses a significant problem for Ukraine.  However, Bolton's story changed after Trump allegedly fired him.

In 2010 Fox Interview, John Bolton Confessed He Would 'Absolutely' Lie About National Security Matters.  In a 2010 interview with Andrew Napolitano on Fox Business Channel, former White House National Security Adviser John Bolton stated that he would have no problem lying to the public if he thought it was necessary to protect national security.  Bolton, who has written a book for Simon & Shuster based on his time working on national security policy for President Donald Trump that is scheduled to be released in March of 2020, also said during the 2010 interview that government secrecy and protection of classified material was necessary to protect the public

White House told Bolton to remove classified material from manuscript before publication.  The White House has told former national security adviser John Bolton not to publish his upcoming tell-all about his time in the Trump administration until classified material is removed from the manuscript.  "Under federal law and the nondisclosure agreements your client signed as a condition for gaining access to classified information, the manuscript may not be published or otherwise disclosed without the deletion of this classified information," Ellen J. Knight, a National Security Council aide, wrote in a letter to Bolton attorney Charles J. Cooper last week, which was obtained by Fox News.

Levin Unveils Video of John Bolton Describing Trump's Conversations With President of Ukraine.  Rather than wait for his 6 P.M. show to begin, radio host Mark Levin chose Wednesday [1/29/2020] to unveil a video of former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton earlier in the day — because it was too important to the nation that the video be seen while the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump was taking place.  "I am linking to this now, rather than waiting for my radio show this evening, even though I know the backbenchers will gobble it up & claim they're 'breaking news' with their 'exclusive' reports.  So be it.  It needs to get out there to a broad audience," Levin tweeted, introducing the embedded video.

Bolton and the Consequences of the Destruction of Executive Privilege.  Fred Fleitz, a former deputy to John Bolton, the national security advisor President Trump fired in September 2019, over the weekend published an opinion piece explaining the dangers of his former boss's anticipated tell-all book.  "Given the importance of protecting a president's confidential discussions with his senior advisers," Fleitz wrote, "I strongly disagree with Bolton's decision to release the book before the November presidential election and call on him to withdraw it from the publisher immediately."  Bolton is just the latest example of former advisors cravenly monetizing the confidential access to a president.

Codes of Conduct From the Swamp.  [A]pparently our country's intelligence community was out to put the clamps on Mr. Trump even before he was elected.  Slowly we are finding out that, for instance, FISA warrants included warrants that were illegal.  We are finding out that these agencies were eavesdropping on Trump and his aides.  Conservatives always defended the CIA and FBI against career civil libertarians.  Now we are finding out that these agencies were used against President Trump and his people.  What did the Trumpians do to antagonize the intelligence community?  Do the heads of these agencies really think that Donald Trump colluded with Vladimir Putin?  I have not seen the evidence.  A two-year investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller could not find the evidence either.  So let us come up with the evidence that will convince Americans that, as John Brennan, formerly of the CIA, has said, Trump's behavior was "treasonous."  Treasonous?  The evidence?

Think there isn't a uniparty ruling class?  Exhibit A: John Bolton.  Whatever the protestations of John Bolton as to who is leaking what to whom, the fact remains that Bolton has written a 'tell-all' book about his experiences as President Trump's National Security Advisor, with the intent to release the book in the year Trump is running for re-election.  It's not easy to engage in behavior that is both petty and despicable at the same time, but Bolton has done it.  He has made himself into the poster child for an off-the-charts arrogant ruling class that an increasingly large portion of Americans (maybe 63 million and counting?) are absolutely seething about.

The Radical Dems:  Masters of Projection.  Trump-haters were waiting breathlessly for the Mueller report so impeachment could finally proceed.  But even after Mueller's impartial team of Hillary-supporters "issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search warrants and interviewed more than 500 witnesses [and] likely compiled thousands, if not millions, of documents and pieces of evidence," Schiff's secret evidence just couldn't be produced.  Agent Strzok's insurance policy did not pay out.  Of course, its premiums had been tendered in fraud.  Amazingly enough, just when the scam of the entire Trump counterintelligence investigation puzzle was coming together, the House Democrats did a breakneck pivot to Ukraine.  If Russia didn't work, maybe the country that interfered in the 2016 elections by outing Paul Manafort's corruption would.  Trump had to be impeached, so the manufactured Ukraine phone call scandal would have to suffice for substantive impeachable crimes.  The U.S. attorney general is investigating James Comey, et al. for misleading the FISA court to spy on the Trump campaign based on unverified opposition research paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC.

The Deep State Tapestry of Deceit is Beginning to Unravel.  The plot was simple.  The Obama administration, in 2016 and before, wanted to preordain the 2016 electoral outcome.  What better way to do this than to spy on the rival presidential campaign?  Since spying is illegal, a pretense was needed.  That's where the Steele Dossier came in.  The DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and top Obama administration officials colluded with multiple foreign governments to fabricate opposition research on the Trump campaign alleging treasonous activities.  This allowed the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, and likely others as well.  The Obama administration colluded with foreign governments to influence an election.  How ironic that this is exactly what President Trump was impeached for, and why he is a "dictator" and an "existential threat to democracy".

Government in the Shadows.  The frenetic opposition to Donald Trump by the Washington establishment, the new progressive, hard-left Democratic party, and in particular the veterans of the Obama administration has led to the ruination of a number of hallowed protocols and customs.  Impeachment has been redefined as a mere vote of no confidence and will become a rank political ploy for years to come once an opposition party gains a majority in the House.  It is taking on the flavor of a preemptory device, a vaccination, rather than a medicine, as if to prevent future hypothetical crimes in the absence of current impeachable offenses.  Whistleblowers are now mere political operatives, who work with the opposition party to disseminate second- and third-hand rumor to prompt impeachment frenzies.

NSC Russia Expert Escorted From White House Under Intelligence Investigation.  CTH held off reporting on this explosive story until we could see if a tell-tale consequence surfaced; perhaps it has.  On Friday the National Security Council senior director for European and Russian affairs, Andrew Peek, was escorted from the White House grounds and is currently under a security investigation.  There are few details about why Peek was physically removed and is under a very serious investigation; however, some of Andrew Peek's professional background details tell a story.  The connection to Gen. John Allen is a massive warning flare.

Fake Investigations — Designed To Fool You.  Many government officials with long entrenched power are unwilling to give up any of that power. [...] Most of the big 'investigations' in the news in recent years have not been at all what they pretended to be.  The sham investigations of Hillary's email, or the Clinton Foundation, or Weiner's laptop, or Uranium One, or Mueller's witch hunt, or Huber's big nothing, or the IG's whitewash, or the Schiff-Pelosi charades, have all been premeditated deceptions.  There are three types of investigations that call for different deceptions by the Deep State.  The first type is the rare honest investigation.  Examples would be the attempt to find the truth about Fast and Furious (Obama's gunrunning operation), or the IRS scandal (Obama's weaponizing of government).  In response to real investigations, the criminals do two things:  lie and hide evidence.  Key evidence, even if it is under subpoena, just disappears.  In the IRS case, Lois Lerner's relevant email and the email of 6 others involved in the scheme was just "lost".  The IRS "worked tirelessly" to find the email, but hard drives had been destroyed and back-up drives were missing, so the subpoenaed evidence could not be provided.  For the Deep State, hiding and destroying evidence of guilt is standard operating procedure.  They simply report a "glitch" that destroyed the key evidence and that's the end of it.  Or, they simply redact the portions of the record that would expose the truth.  To my memory, no one ever suffers any consequences for this.

No Bureaucratic Drainage in the Washington Swamp.  [Scroll down]  With all of these exposures of the deep state bureaucracy, will the swamp be drained?  Don't hold your breath.  None of these happenings reported daily here in the capital (but mostly kept quiet elsewhere) has shaken in the slightest the Washington community's belief in the "scientific administration" supposedly utilized by its centralized bureaucratic career experts to solve all of the nation's problems.  Nobel economist F.A. Hayek called this belief a "superstition" future generations will find impossible to understand in the face of the obvious fact that no matter how secret this is kept from the "deplorables" it simply does not work well.  The people may resent it, the politicians may bark, and the media pontificate, but here in swamp headquarters there is no danger of drainage.  The four richest counties in the U.S. are all right here.

Comments on the GAO Report.  [Scroll down]  The President briefly held up funds to Ukraine while probing accounts of corruption.  In fact, the administration released military aid to Ukraine three weeks early.  Certainly not coincidentally, the GAO issued a report in time to toss it into the impeachment debate, claiming that the president's several week holdup of aid to Ukraine violated the Impoundment Control Act.  As we argue below, it did not violate that Act.  The GAO report was a partisan ploy and if the report's findings were factual, it would violate the Constitution by circumscribing the authority of the chief executive. [...] In any event, the GAO is not the finder of fact in impeachment.  If it were, Obama should have been impeached seven times in which the GAO found the Obama administration had violated federal law.  Any ruling that the President has no right to withhold Ukraine Funds (as GAO claims) would, in any event, violate the Constitution.

Ex-Treasury employee pleads guilty to leaking Trump team info, after dramatic bust with flash drive in hand.  A former top Treasury Department official pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy for leaking confidential banking reports associated with members of the Trump campaign, following her dramatic arrest in October 2018 as she toted a flash drive full of sensitive documents.  Natalie Edwards, 41, entered the plea in Manhattan federal court, where U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods set sentencing for June 9.  Although the conspiracy charge carried a potential penalty of up to five years in prison, Edwards signed a plea deal with prosecutors that recommended a potential prison sentence of zero to six months.

Nunes Reveals: 'Republicans Have an Active Investigation Into Intel Community IG Michael Atkinson.  Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes told investigative reporter Sara Carter that Republicans are currently investigating Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.  GOP lawmakers asked Mr. Atkinson to reveal who changed the whistleblower complaint form to allow for second-hand info and office gossip.  "We've mentioned it, but I think people have just kind of ignored it because, of course, we don't have the subpoena power, so we can't bring Atkinson back in but he's got serious questions to answer for because I believe that he either lied to Congress or he really needs to correct his statements and he's refused to respond," said Nunes, who could not elaborate on Atkinson's testimony.

Deep State Leaks Portion of Intelligence Briefing on Drone Strike That Killed Soleimani to NY Times Reporter in Order to Damage Trump.  The Deep State is once again trying to damage President Trump with selective leaks to the left-wing media.  Two 'sources' who had intelligence briefings (Obama holdovers) about the strike that killed Iranian military officials leaked portions of the briefings to the New York Times in order to push the narrative that President Trump authorized a drone strike that killed top Iran commander Soleimani with "razor thin" evidence that an attack on American targets was imminent.

The Swamp is un-lovely, dark and deep.
Inspector General Report Shows Special Counsel Replicated FBI Abuses.  Shortly after the release of the special counsel report last year, I posited that Robert Mueller's failure to investigate whether Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election by feeding dossier author Christopher Steele disinformation established that Mueller was either incompetent or a political hack.  Now, with the release of the inspector general's report on FISA abuse, we know the answer:  He was both.  The IG's report on the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI's handling of the Carter Page surveillance applications established 17 significant inaccuracies and omissions in the FISA application and renewals.  (Eighteen if you include the one the IG missed).  The 400-page report also established that the special counsel's office was complicit in the FISA abuse, the probe was a witch hunt, and Mueller's report was a cover-up for systematic government malfeasance.

It's Statistically Impossible For The FBI's Spygate Errors To All Be Mistakes.  [Scroll down]  There's no way the cards can all fall one way, no way every "mistake" can redound in support of the government's "case" against Page.  There's no statistical way every single oversight, clerical error, unchecked box, unread file, misplaced document, unread email, uncorroborated assumption, unverified assertion, omission of exculpatory evidence, and inclusion of false allegations can all fall against Page, and in favor of the FBI's goal of providing probable cause to convince the court to believe he was an agent of a foreign power.  There's no way 17 glaring omissions, mistakes, mischaracterizations, and straight-up lies can make their way, undetected, unquestioned, and uncorrected, through the now-legendary labyrinth of supervisory coordination, from line agents to Woods Procedures to FBI supervisors to DOJ reviewers to FBI counsel, FBI deputy director, FBI director, DOJ general counsel, deputy attorney general, and attorney general certification.

Does William Barr Have the Guts?  The recent I.G. report on FISA abuse was just another in a very long line of disappointing indicators that equal justice may never be restored to our nation. [...] Is this guy Barr for real?  Is he ready to face the hellfire that will be unleashed if he takes real steps to hold coup conspirators accountable?  It's looking increasingly likely that he is for real, but what remains to be seen how far he is willing to go. [...] The first question to be answered is exactly how far Barr needs to take it.  If you ask MAGA country, they're calling for heads up to and including Obama's.  This is doubtful and certainly not prudent because the political and systemic repercussions would be devastating and permanently destabilizing for the USA. [...] Care must be taken to avoid the precedent of high-level political war.  Otherwise, we'll morph into a banana republic in less than a generation.  Ultimately, justice needs to be done, so a compromise must be made.

The Russia Hoax Was Aided by NGOs Peddling Junk Science.  Some of the most vicious anti-Trump voices have come from US government-funded Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), affiliated with the State Department, Big Tech, and Soros afiliates.  Many of these NGOs have existed since the Cold War, with a mandate to promote freedom and democracy abroad.  They are forbidden to operate in the US, especially in partisan fashion.  Apparently, they have disregarded that mandate and have instead positioned themselves as pillars or guardians of the "global civil society."  They found a reliable ally in State Secretary Hillary Clinton.  They have been interfering in US political campaigns and elections since at least 2016, frequently in coordination with their UN/EU counterparts.  One such NGO is the National Democratic Institute, headed by Madeleine Albright.  It receives federal funding, which it mixes with money and influence from the Open Society Foundation (George Soros), UN agencies, the European Commission, multiple foreign governments, Amazon, Google and others.

Former intelligence chiefs fit perfectly into media advocacy culture.  Former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have lots of things in common.  One, they ran the nation's key intelligence and investigatory agencies under former President Barack Obama.  They were deeply involved in the "Russian collusion" hoax.  And they participated in the surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition. [...] In the advocacy culture of our new media, ex-government officials such as Brennan, Clapper and McCabe can be paid to appear on news programs to analyze (or vindicate) their own unethical behavior.  As employees of the media, they sell their checkered government service to exonerate themselves while confirming the anti-Trump biases of their paying hosts.

Secretary Hillary Clinton and the Deep State:  A RICO Criminal Conspiracy.  The Deep State needed Hillary Clinton to win the 2016 presidential election, or the dike holding back the truth would burst.  Trump, the disruptor, was an immediate threat to both the Republicans, Democrats, and the Deep State.  If the truth were laid bare, it would expose the Obama Administration, Hillary Clinton, the Senate and House, and many executive departments for these abuses of power, corruption, bribery, frauds, and thefts of public funds.  High-level government officials and the Deep State committed many serious felonies either in furtherance of or to conceal the crimes committed in the pay to play scam.  In exchange for favorable consideration by Secretary Clinton, those who benefited would donate to the Clinton Foundation.  The FBI started and stopped investigations into the Clinton Foundation at least twice as reported by the Washington Post. [...] The collective actions of the Deep State are and were a silent coup to delegitimize a Presidential candidate.

Voters Favor Jail, Firing for Rogue Officials Who Targeted Trump.  Voters are ready to jail or fire senior law enforcement officials who illegally targeted President Trump, but most think they are unlikely to be punished.  The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone and online survey finds that 52% of Likely U.S. Voters consider it likely that senior federal law enforcement officials broke the law in an effort to prevent Trump from winning the presidency.  Thirty-nine percent (39%) say that's unlikely.  This includes 36% who say it's Very Likely they broke the law to get Trump and 24% who say it's Not At All Likely.  These findings are virtually unchanged in surveying since February of last year.

Barr gets the word out about deep state.  Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson has an excellent rundown at the Epoch Times of all the statements Attorney General William Barr has been making from various media appearances, noticing the patterns in what he's putting out there.  She calls him suddenly "chatty," which of course the guy is not, making the point that he's releasing a lot of information with a hard purpose.  What did she find?  That there are quite a few unpleasant coming attractions for the Deep State as the Russiagate scandal unfolds and more reports are set to come out.

Why Is Our Society Degrading So Badly, So Fast?  In Washington, the Democrats are attempting to subvert the will of the majority of the American people, as expressed by the election results in 2016, by executing and plotting orchestrated campaigns to remove President Trump from office before the next election.  These efforts range from the recently unsuccessfully perpetrated Russia collusion hoax, which is now being followed up by an illegitimate impeachment drive by the House.  These operations also revealed the mostly clandestine activities of a permanent and extensive Deep State, also labeled "the swamp," actively working with the Democrats to subvert President Trump.  A broken environment exists in Washington that contributes to the perception that too many of our elected officials feel free to participate in and to tolerate corruption without being held accountable for their actions.  It is highly discouraging for many Americans that up to this point, there have been no legal consequences or viable restraints in place to curb these types of actions that are so fundamentally dangerous to the very foundations of our country.

Impeachment Is Trump's Punishment for Questioning the Intelligence Community.  The Intelligence Community has largely relied upon Crowdstrike in reaching the conclusion that the Russians hacked the DNC servers in the 2016 election.  The "favor" Trump wanted, had nothing to do with Biden.  It had to do with Crowdstrike.  Is it treason (or bribery, or cattle rustling) to ask Ukraine to look into Crowdstrike?  Yes, according to Democrats.  Because merely asking about Crowdstrike implicitly questions the unquestionable conclusions of the intelligence community and nothing endangers our democracy like an elected president's failure to submit to his spymasters in the CIA.  We can know with near certainty that the Left lacks confidence in their narrative by the effort they put into branding anyone who questions it as "traitors," or collaborators with Putin.  Otherwise, they would use persuasion, not intimidation, to resolve the debate.

Ukraine was the Origin of the Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax.  December 2015 was a pivotal month in many respects.  During the first week of December 2015, Donald Trump began to establish a substantial lead over his Republican primary opponents.  Vice President Joseph Biden traveled to Ukraine to announce, on December 7th, a $190 million program to "fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector," but behind the scenes explicitly linked a $1 billion loan guarantee to the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the energy company Burisma, which employed Biden's son Hunter.  On December 9, 2015, the reported whistleblower Eric Ciaramella held a meeting in Room 236 of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building with Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, which was 59%-funded by Barack Obama's State Department and the International Renaissance Foundation, a George Soros organization.

It's Time for Civilian Control of the State Department.  Everyone has heard about Marie Yovanovitch, the career foreign service officer removed from her post in May as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.  According to the Constitution, all ambassadors and senior state department officials serve at the pleasure of the president.  Foreign service officers rotate between jobs and seldom stay in one post for more than two or three years.  Yovanovitch, an appointee of President Barack Obama, was overdue for reassignment.  She served longer as ambassador to Ukraine — almost three full years — than she did as ambassador to Armenia as an appointee of President George W. Bush retained in office by President Obama.  Yovanovitch and her supporters allege that some allies of President Trump made malicious remarks about her to hasten her reassignment.  Malicious gossip against anyone is always morally wrong, but its existence is not exactly front-page news.

Trump's Disruptive Energy vs. the Deep State.  Although the president's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was a rabid Communist, the murder was almost instantly reframed as an expression of right-wing hatred. [...] There are contemporary lessons to be drawn from the metamorphosis of Kennedy's assassination at the hands of a pro-Soviet Communist into an object lesson in the perils of right-wing animus.  The only Russian collusion on offer in 2016 was between the Hillary Clinton campaign and various Russian and Ukrainian operatives, but somehow we all got saddled with a nearly three-year, multimillion-dollar investigation into Donald Trump's supposed collusion with Russia.

The Vindman Intelligence Operation Against Trump.  [W]hat has been going on in Washington since Election Day 2016 is not American politics as usual, but a sophisticated intelligence operation to destabilize and overthrow the legitimate government of the United States.  Each step along the path to impeachment is exactly what the CIA or the intelligence agency of a foreign power would do to use non-military means to destabilize and eventually replace the leader of an unfriendly government.  So, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's actions at the NSC are best understood if one views him as an intelligence operative acting to destabilize the government of the United States.  And the techniques used in the operation are all actions we've seen before in the ongoing operation to remove Donald Trump from power.

Misplaced Patriotism Is Damaging to Our Constitutional Order.  For most of the last three years, Donald Trump's critics have scoffed at supposed "conspiracy theories" that claimed a "deep state" of bureaucrats were aborting the Trump presidency.  We have been told the word "coup" is hyperbole that reveals the paranoid minds of Trump supporters.  Yet oddly, many people brag that they are proud members of a deep state and occasionally boast about the idea of a coup.  Recently, former acting CIA chief John McLaughlin proclaimed in a public forum, "Thank God for the deep state."  Former CIA director John Brennan agreed and praised the "deep state people" for their opposition to Trump.

America's Choice:  Abolish Elections or Disband the National Security Council (NSC).  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the latest star of the Democrat effort to undo the 2016 election, is still at work on the National Security Council. [...] The National Security Council has been ground zero in the campaign against President Trump from the beginning.  General Flynn's appointment as National Security Advisor had touched the third rail because the NSC had been used to coordinate anti-Trump operations in the Susan Rice era.  The NSC doesn't answer to Congress.  Its members are meant to advise the president.  (Except when they're actually working for a previous president.)  They command the implements of foreign policy, traditionally the weakest element in domestic politics, but not when they start treating their domestic political opponents as agents of a foreign state.  And the size of the NSC has gotten out of control.  Under Obama, the NSC staff hit 400 people.  That's up from a dozen during its Cold War origins.  And it's the staff that's the problem.

Impeachment Lesson:  Cut Government.  Every Republican president starts day one on the job in charge of a massive disloyal workforce.  Follow the money.  Almost every single dollar, to the tune of 95%, donated by a federal bureaucrat during the 2016 election went to Hillary Clinton.  This is a massive challenge for every Republican president.  One of the easiest jobs in the world is being a Democratic president.  The federal bureaucracy quite literally worships you.  The media, academia, and entertainment industries call in supporting fires to portray every move as a Nobel Prize-worthy gesture.  The corollary to this is that the hardest job in the world is to be a Republican president.  The executive branch workers you oversee despise you and seek to undermine every move.  They are the head of the resistance, the very heart of the deep state snake.

Let None Dare Call It Sedition.  Respectfully, Mr. President, this is not a witch hunt.  This is a coup.  The objective and tactics have been clear from the start.  It is no longer silent.  The evidence grows daily.  The recently released tweets from the attorney for the "whistleblower" confirmed what we have long believed.  "Coup has started," he wrote prophetically.  Indeed it had.  And it continues.  They almost succeeded.  The co-conspirators deserve much worse than to be sent packing in the next election.  Long prison sentences are the only sure deterrent to prevent this from ever happening again.  Calling the "whistleblower" a whistleblower is a misnomer.  He is a partisan second-hand leaker.  He is a coward and a traitor.  He and all those who conspired with him should be treated as such.

What If They Gave an Impeachment and Nobody Came?  Donald Trump's real crime is not deferring to the same D.C. geniuses who were so relentlessly awful that they caused us to elect Donald Trump in the first place.  The meme is going around that "I hired Donald Trump to fire people like you," and boy — is it ever on point.  That the president — yeah, he's our president and he's going to keep being our president for five more long years — refuses to submit to the bureaucrats of the ruling caste on foreign policy is not a bug.  It's a feature — the feature that closed the sale.  See, our ruling class is utter garbage, as the televised circus on the Potomac proved.  But no one goes to circuses anymore.

Senate GOP Leadership Warns Trump:  Any White House Attempt to Dismiss Impeachment Charges Will Fail.  They are called "decepticons" for a reason.  McConnell is king, and Cornyn, Thune and Barasso are his praetorian guards.  Senator John Cornyn (TX), a key member of the Senate GOP leadership; and a member of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees; warns the White House that a vote to immediately dismiss articles of impeachment and avoid a trial won't work.

The Great Gift of the Mueller Russian-Collusion Probe.  [Scroll down]  The president has the right to fire any ambassador who does not support his agenda, so who cares that he fired some anti-Trumper in the Ukraine embassy, Marie Yovanovitch or whatever her name is?  Frankly, we elected him to fire her, whatever her name is.  Was she so deeply embedded in the embassy that she did not catch the chants back in America to "Drain the Swamp"?  That was the whole idea of 2016:  we wanted people like her thrown out of the foreign service and sent off to host an MSNBC show.  If anything, we eagerly await the firings of hundreds more Marie Yovanovitches, or whatever their names are, who comprise the vast unelected Deep State within the State Department, advancing agendas that we did not vote for.

The Deep State Cabal Against Trump Is Very Real.  [Scroll down]  Donald Trump's exposed it.  Whatever you want to call it, the deep state, the elites, the Washington establishment, there's no question that it exists.  And there's no question that they are ticked off.  And there's no question that maybe the center of it is the national security apparatus, the National Security Council, because within that group is every other group we're talking about.  Director of national intelligence, CIA, military has people in there, State Department, diplomacy.  It's all in the National Security Council or apparatus.  The whistleblower was on the National Security Council.  McMaster, who we now know had ties to the whistleblower, he was the national security adviser for Trump.  And that seems to be the nexus.

The DC Game Is Rigged to Favor the Deep State.  The Trump-Russia witch hunt is an egregious example of the power of the state being abused for partisan political purposes.  That failed to deliver the goal of deposing the president, and may even backfire as the investigations into it complete and there is a possibility of indictments for some of the conspirators.  Having come at the president and missed, they decided to redouble their efforts, so we come to the impeachment inquiry currently operating in full kangaroo court fashion.

How the Deep State Media Operate.  The targeted, coordinated and swarming feeding-freezing journalism for political ends appears to be, not just the product of individuals, but a collaborative effort between media outlets and the Deep State, which is transnational and may have been and may still be an intimate element in the perpetration of the anti-Trump narrative.  In many ways similar to Journolist, the British Integrity Initiative describes itself as an organizer of an international "network of networks" of "experts, opinion formers and policy makers" to "counter Russian disinformation."

Sunday Talks:  Kevin McCarthy vs Maria Bartiromo.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the ongoing details within the legislative impeachment process.  As part of his remarks Leader McCarthy states:  "this is a calculated coup orchestrated by Adam Schiff" ...  [Video clip]

Praetorianism and the 'Deep State'.  Defenders of President Trump have long railed against the "deep state," a name given to the entrenched bureaucracy working from within to bring down the Trump Administration. [...] They point to the machinations of high ranking members of the Intelligence Community (IC), including former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and fired FBI Director James Comey, who have worked assiduously to undermine the president at every turn, and indeed even to mid-level drones such as the still-anonymous (officially) "whistleblower" who touched off the investigation of President Trump and his dealings with Ukraine, as well as Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, who expressed similar concerns.

The Justice Department is fishing for details about the anonymous 'resistance' op-ed writer.  The Justice Department is looking for identifying details about the anonymous Trump administration official who excoriated the president's "amorality" in an unsigned New York Times opinion column last year, according to a letter the agency sent Monday [11/4/2019].  The author of the column, whose identity has remained a secret for more than a year, has also written a tell-all book that will publish this month — and Assistant Attorney General Joseph H. Hunt wants proof that the writer is not bound by a government nondisclosure agreement.  Either that, Hunt wrote in the letter, or the book's publisher and the author's agents should turn over the official's employment information: where in the government the person worked, and when he or she worked there.  If the official had access to classified information, Hunt warned, the book should be "submitted for pre-publication review."

Lee Smith's Book Will Make Patriots' Blood Boil.  Lee Smith's The Plot against the President is an invaluable contribution to the history of America in the Trump era. [...] Every congressman and senator, and every American voter, ought to read Smith's book.  Americans who detest President Trump's personality and decorum will remain free to continue, but if they are honest, they will be absolutely repelled by the behavior of the higher-ups in just about every so-called American "institution" — the CIA, FBI, DOJ, State Department, and mainstream media, and yes, the Obama White House.  Concocting lies and leaks to the media, fabricating evidence, running "humint" scams to develop further lies and leaks, manipulating courts by withholding evidence and declaring half-truths, carrying out orchestrated personal threats against Nunes and anyone else who dared to expose the truth — these are nothing short of organized crime activities, with each and every one of these institutions directly and knowingly involved.

Former Czech Ambassador Bašta:  CIA, FBI and Democrats Are Working Behind the Scenes to Remove President Trump, "It's a Thing of Dictatorships".  Former Czech Ambassador to Russia and then Ukraine Jaroslav Bašta spoke to iDNES.cz news last week.  The discussion centered around the 2016 US presidential election and the current political situation in the United States.  Bašta, who is familiar with the politics in Ukraine, accused the FBI, CIA and US Democrats, along with the former Ukrainian government, of colluding in the interest of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.  Bašta added, "And it is not just some conjecture, everything is well documented by the Ukrainian authorities and now also based on the first court decision."

The Military-Intelligence Complex.  Donald Trump had been in office less than a month when the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had decided on their own to withhold information from the recently inaugurated president of the United States:  "In some of these cases of withheld information, officials have decided not to show Mr. Trump the sources and methods that the intelligence agencies use to collect information, the current and former officials said."  What would one call that?  Obstruction?  A coup?  A conspiracy?  Most of the major intelligence heads in the Obama Administration — James Comey, John Brennan, and James Clapper — either leaked classified information aimed at harming candidate and then President Trump, later declared him a veritable traitor and Russian asset, or earlier took measures to monitor his campaign or administration's communications.

Why Schiff.  The assignment of the impeachment to Adam Schiff and not the House Judiciary Committee shows what the real aim is.  Democrats assigned the House Intelligence chairman this task to protect the intelligence agencies who tried to overthrow President Donald John Trump.  America's spies and the FBI tried to frame him.  They made false accusations of treasonous collusion with foreigners to rig the election.  3 days before the inauguration, Chuck Schumer bragged that the intelligence agencies can get you six ways to Sunday.  That's possible.  After all, Watergate was a coup run by Mark Felt after Nixon passed him over for FBI director after J. Edgar Hoover died.  Adam Schiff is a tool of those politicized intelligence agencies that Schumer bragged about.  Schiff is their spokesman.

Court-martial the spy Vindman.  Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman ignored a direct order from the commander-in-chief.  A court made decide whether Vindman broke the military code of justice.  President Donald John Trump ordered him not to appear before a House committee.  The Military Times played down Vindman's insubordination. [...] But was he a whistle blower or a spy?  He did not report any wrongdoing.  He did not follow the chain-of-command with his reporting.  The story said he may get an Article 15 for his Seven Days in May defiance of the president.  Article 15 is a step below court-martial.  But he spied on the president.  He was not part of the telephone call the president made.  He had no reason to access the record of the phone call.  Indeed, he tried to alter the transcript.  Also, there is evidence he worked for the Ukrainian government, at least as a lobbyist.

How the Army officer who testified against Trump could end up in a court-martial.  When Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman appeared before members of Congress on Tuesday [10/29/2019] to discuss what he knew about President Trump's conversations with Ukraine's president, he was violating an order from his commander in chief not to cooperate with the House's impeachment inquiry.  He is likely protected from legal ramifications from showing up to testify, a former Army judge advocate told Military Times on Thursday.  But it remains to be seen whether what he told legislators could get him charged with a crime — and, of course, how his choice to rebel against his White House chain-of-command will affect his career.

The First Four-Star Flag Officer in US History Joins the Effort to Void the Election of the US President.  From time to time, I like to promote the Combat Veterans for Congress Political Action Committee, as their cause is righteous.  I agree whole-heartedly with almost all of their stances on issues.  Here is one of those opinion pieces that I'm certain will resonate with you, too.  In fact, the topic makes me furious!

Media-Democrat Tantrum [is] a Fear Response.  In 1776, 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence, knowing that their actions would be viewed as treason by the prevailing power. [...] Fast-forward a mere 240 years.  A group of corrupt and craven people gathered in secret to once again consider radical actions.  But, unlike the Declaration's signers, they were the prevailing power and intended to remain so, fully confident in their complete control of government, the media, the Judiciary, academia, entertainment, and nearly every form of cultural power.  They feared no consequences.  It was simply inconceivable to them that with so many hands on the scales, they could possibly lose an election.  And then they did.  All of their treasonous misdeeds that were supposed to not only be covered up, but rewarded by the queen of corruption were suddenly a real vulnerability.  They weren't just shattered by the election loss.  They were genuinely afraid.

A stunning confession from a Deep State member subverting the constitutional republic.  The arrogance and lack of self-awareness among the mandarins that inhabit the top levels of our government bureaucracies has led to a smoking gun-level confession. [...] A confession from a man who formerly ran the CIA came Wednesday at an event sponsored by a friendly organization, the Michael V. Hayden Center and Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.  Former CIA Acting Director John McLaughlin was among friends who share the same seditious outlook, speaking on a panel discussion, with CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell.  With everyone sharing the same assumptions, McLaughlin apparently let down his guard and committed a "Kinsley gaffe" — accidentally telling the incriminating truth.

Anti-Trump Collusion by Media.  According to a June 11, 2017, FBI write-up:  ["]The purpose of the meeting, as it was explained to SSA [supervisory special agent, redacted] was to obtain documents from the AP reporters that were related to their investigative reports on Paul Manafort.["]  No such documents were included in the documents released to us.  During the meeting, the AP reporters provided the FBI information about a storage locker of Manafort (the Mueller special counsel operation raided the locker on May 26, 2017):  ["]The AP reporters advised that they had located a storage facility in Virginia that belonged to Manafort... The code to the lock on the locker is 40944859.  The reporters were aware of the Unit number and address, but they declined to share that information.["]  The reporters shared the information that "payments for the locker were made from the DM Partners account that received money from the [Ukraine] Party of Regions."  The notes suggest the AP pushed for criminal prosecution of Manafort[.]

Haley Recalls Serving With Some Who Tried to Undermine Trump; 'What's At Stake is the Constitution'.  Officials serving in the administration are not free to push their "personal agenda" if they do not like President Trump, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said this week, arguing that "we have one president at a time, and that president attained his office by the choice of the American people."  Speaking at an American Enterprise Institute event in Washington, where she received the conservative think tank's Irving Kristol Award, Haley recalled serving in the Trump administration "alongside colleagues who believed that the best thing to do for America was to undermine and obstruct the president."

Trump Admin Launches Investigation Into 'Deep State' Targeting Top Trump Iran Official.  The State Department has opened an investigation into a campaign of leaks targeting the Trump administration's top Iran official, including leaks of a non-public inspector general report, according to multiple sources inside the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill who have been briefed on the investigation and the report.  Brian Hook, the special representative for Iran and one of the longest-serving Trump appointees in the administration, has been a focus of an inspector general investigation alleging he engaged in politically motivated staffing decisions involving a career State Department official who worked closely on the Obama administration's landmark nuclear deal with Iran and other diplomacy with the Islamic Republic.

Trump Asks, Was Today's Never-Trumper Witness 'On the Same Call I Was?'.  As people inside his own administration rise up against him, President Trump is fuming about it on Twitter. [...] Trump also retweeted Fox News's Laura Ingraham, who noted that when he took office, Trump had "zero idea" how many career staffers working inside his administration "would be working 24/7 to undermine his agenda." [...] At the beginning of that call, President Zelensky told Trump, "[W]e are trying to work hard because we wanted to drain the swamp here in our country.  We brought in many many new people.  Not the old politicians, not the typical politicians, because we want to have a new format and a new type of government .. You are a great teacher for us and in that."  The "swamp" that Trump supposedly drained is now rising up against him, with the full support of Democrats and the liberal media.

The Editor says...
Mr. Trump is at least trying to drain the swamp, which nobody else has even attempted.  Personally, I don't think the swamp can ever be drained.  The swamp is deep and wide.  The swamp is all plugged up by a big wad of money that has been taken out of our pockets and scattered around Washington, DC, to be spent on all sorts of things that nobody asked for.  The swamp is lined with the offices of hundreds of bureaucrats who live quite comfortably and don't like changes.  The swamp is good for the TV news business, so you know what the news readers will say if any part of the swamp is threatened.  And unfortunately, too many voters are blissfully pacified by their monthly government handouts, so they don't like changes, either.

Speaker Pelosi Wasn't Informed.  So What?  Saturday was a great day for America.  U.S. Special Forces killed one of the most vile human beings on the planet, terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  The leader of ISIS was dead.  The mass murdering terrorist was chased down a tunnel by dogs and blew himself up.  But true justice being dealt out was not enough for Democrats in Washington.  Nancy Pelosi is upset, again.  This time, the Speaker of the House is upset because she was not informed of the raid to kill al-Baghdadi ahead of time.  Well, President Trump was right not to tell her, or any of the Gang of Eight, ahead of time.  The Gang of Eight, a collection of top Congressional leaders, are typically briefed ahead of such significant missions.  But we are not living in normal, typical times.  We are living in a time when certain Congressional leaders would seemingly like the president to be open with them, all the while trying to destroy his presidency.  Military operations are not a game.  National security is not a game.

The Walls are Closing In — but Not on Trump.  Democrats and their media propaganda arm have been telling us since President Trump took office that "The walls are closing in." [...] News this week suggests that the walls are indeed closing in, but not on President Trump.  Instead it's officials in the Obama administration, up to and including President Obama himself, who notice the size of their rooms beginning to shrink.  As many of us hoped, Attorney General William Barr's investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion hoax is now a criminal investigation rather than simply an administrative inquiry.  For those patiently, or impatiently, sitting through the calm before the storm, the storm has finally arrived.

Fear strikes deep into the woke.  It's not often we get a clear picture of how leftists actually think. [...] So "Is William Barr the Head of DOJ or QAnon?" by Rick Wilson is an interesting surprise — for once, we're getting the true gem of what a leftist thinks. [...] Wilson is truly terrified as to what is going to come out of Barr's and Durham's efforts.  What is he afraid of?  It's hard to say.  It's all amorphous and vague — nothing concrete to it. [...] The obsessive secrecy of the "impeachment" process, Schiff running off to hide when confronted by GOP congressmen, McCabe suddenly dropping his lawsuit, the visible nervousness of Brennan and Clapper over the past week.  These people are afraid.

Multitasking the Intelligence Community Roundup.  [Scroll down]  Big takeaway:  it is "disconcerting" now to be "investigated for doing our duty, what we were told to do by the president."  And exactly what were they doing?  Investigating a candidate, President-elect Trump, with the end, said Clapper, of preparing a big, comprehensive report for Congress and "the next administration."  You see that James Clapper, despite appearances to the contrary, does have a wry sense of humor.  He can say with a straight face that the covert investigation aimed at destroying Donald Trump was actually an investigation intended at least in part for the incoming Trump administration.  Yuck, yuck, yuck.  What a card!  But note that Clapper, funny though he was, was not himself laughing.  I don't blame him.  The spook-turned-media-lap-dog is as much in the crosshairs as anyone, except perhaps another spook-turned-media-lap-dog, former CIA director and Gus Hall voter John Brennan, who now lends his authoritative anti-Trump commentary to MSNBC.

How the Democrats are like mushrooms.  Adam Schiff is learning more about the high price of his impeachment posturing every day, it seems.  Schiff was one of a number of congressmen who were not notified of the impending raid against ISIS that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  This despite the fact that Schiff, as chair of the House Intelligence Committee, would be automatically in the loop regarding any such effort.  President Trump announced that Schiff, among others, had been left out during questions following his Sunday speech announcing he successful mission.  He made no bones as to the reason why:  "We were going to notify them last night but we decided not to do that because Washington leaks like I've never seen before," Trump said.  "There is no country in the world that leaks like we do and Washington is a leaking machine."  As befits a president, Trump was most concerned about the troops at the tip of the spear:  "A leak could have caused the death of all of them."

Bureaucratic Rule: By What Right?  The New York Times long has tried to school us in the rightfulness of the bureaucracy's attempt to rule America contrary to the results of elections.  Last year, the editorial board published an anonymous piece, in an unprecedented move, purporting to be written by a "high official" arguing that mandarins like himself serve the country by subverting the Trump administration. [...] That, in turn, means that the bureaucrats, whom we pay but may not fire, are the rightful deciders and any notion of a sovereign people ruling themselves through representatives whom they elect and fire is a quaint and outmoded one to be discarded by those of superior understanding, like themselves.  Their superior right supposedly comes from superior knowledge and morality.  In short, they should rule us because they are better than we.

Deep State Hates America First Policy.  After the longest war in the history of our country, it is time for our troops to return home.  In 2001, the United States responded to the horrific terrorist attacks of 9/11 by sending our military to Afghanistan on a mission to destroy Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.  We were successful in destroying their terrorist camps, killing and capturing Al-Qaeda leaders, and forcing Bin Laden out of the country.  Amazingly, our military is still in Afghanistan, although the Taliban control over half of the country.  Of course, President Trump and his supporters want to bring these troops home, but he is facing enormous resistance within the government, including the Defense Department.

Inside Trump's White House:  Deep State treason or conspiracy theory?  Democrats and never-Trump Republicans have waged a relentless campaign against Trump, accusing the president of being an intelligence asset of Vladimir Putin's Russia — a treasonous act.  But what began as a political dirty tricks campaign by the Democratic National Committee, the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, and Obama's Deep State, morphed into a coup plot intended to remove Trump from office.  A matter of deep concern for the Deep State plotters is US Attorney John Durham's expanded criminal investigation into the origins of their Trump/Russia counterintelligence operation.

The Deep State Does Not Truly Understand the Peril They Now Face.  I do not believe in coincidence.  I do not believe that it is a mere coincidence that these three events occurred late last night [10/24/2019]:  [#1] The investigation of the roots of the plot to destroy Donald Trump and his Presidency is now a criminal matter.  [#2] A letter from Inspector General Horowitz announcing that his report on the FISA fraud would be out shortly with no major redactions.  [#3] The Government caved to Honey Badger Sidney Powell and allowed her to fully expose criminal conduct by Michael Flynn's prosecutors.  What is going on?  Two words.  Bill Barr.  The Attorney General has pulled the trigger and altered the landscape in the Russiagate saga.

The State Department's War on Trump.  House Democrats are grilling a stream of disgruntled career diplomats in a basement hearing room of the Capitol.  The hearings are supposed to be secret, but — no surprise — Democrats leak snippets of the testimony daily.  They're hoping it will add up to a case for impeaching President Donald Trump.  So far, all the testimony actually proves is that these State Department diplomats think they — not President Trump — ought to be running the nation's foreign policy.

The Deep State Is in Deep Trouble.  On Thursday evening, the New York Times reported that U.S. Attorney John Durham's administrative review of the origins of the Trump/Russia investigation has shifted into a criminal inquiry.  This major development grants Durham the power to subpoena witnesses and documents and to impanel a grand jury.  Speculation has increased in the wake of reports that Attorney General William Barr and Durham had twice traveled to Rome and London to meet with intelligence officials recently and the news that Durham was interested in questioning both former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan.  My colleague, Bonchie, posted on this story last night (here), writing that the mainstream media is portraying this as a political move.  The following excerpt from the Times will give you an idea of how they plan to spin it.

Mittens, the Deep State, and the Ongoing Coup Against POTUS.  Recently, one of my email pals sent me an incredible opinion piece from Howell Woltz at The International Centre for Justice, in Warsaw, Poland.  He is the author of "Justice Denied:  The United States vs. the People," a very interesting book about the US justice system and federal prisons and the need for some serious reform.  Occasionally, an opinion piece is so profound that it simply MUST be disseminated to a much wider audience than a simple blog post.  This is one of such article.  In this commentary, he opines on the DoJ/FBI cabal's ongoing coup against POTUS while explaining some key connections among John Brennan, Mitt Romney, Cofer Black, Burisma Holdings (Ukraine), Bararck Obama, Hillary Clinton, and all the rest.  It fills in a lot of gaps and explains much about what is going on with respect to the Ukraine kerfuffle.  While I can't vouch for the veracity of all the claims here, this just rings true to me and connects a lot of very interesting dots.  As usual, I caution you to "trust but verify."

The Case for Indicting John Brennan.  Former CIA director John Brennan calls the Justice Department's widening probe into Spygate's origins "bizarre."  It has no "legal basis," he bleats.  What's bizarre is that the expanding inquiry didn't happen earlier.  Brennan's responsibility for criminal leaks during the Obama administration's investigation of Trump has been obvious for at least two years.  Even Trump hater Peter Strzok, the FBI liaison to John Brennan, couldn't believe the leaks coming out of his shop.  Referring to Brennan's agents as "sisters," Strzok said to his mistress Lisa Page, "our sisters have begun leaking like mad.  Scorned and worried and political, they're kicking in to overdrive."  The "leaking like mad" began in the thick of the 2016 campaign, as the feverishly partisan John Brennan sought to sabotage Donald Trump before Election Day.

Rand Paul:  There Are GOP Senators 'Whose Allegiance Is More to the Deep State' Than Trump.  Monday [10/21/2019] on Fox News Channel's "Tucker Carlson Tonight," host Tucker Carlson questioned Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) as to why Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) had not been aggressive employing his subpoena power as the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee against various central figures involved with the effort to derail Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and his presidency.  Paul explained he had urged Graham to act.  However, he said there were other Republican members of the U.S. Senate that had more of an "allegiance" to the so-called Deep State than Trump.

Report: CIA Deep State Actors Linked to Origin of Russia Hoax Lawyer Up.  The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) review into the origins of the Russian collusion hoax probe has reportedly prompted some CIA analysts in the crosshairs of investigators to lawyer up.  NBC News made the revelation on Monday [10/21/2019], adding that DOJ "has found something significant" and expanded the review.

The Deep State Comes Out Of The Shadows.  Two news stories published over the weekend had the same message.  The State Department was out to get President Donald Trump after suffering years of "frustration."  At least these denizens of the deep state are being honest.  Politico's 2,000-word story — titled "The Revenge of the State Department" — begins by reporting on the fact that "current and former Foreign Service officers have defied Trump administration orders and trudged to Capitol Hill to testify before House committees investigating whether to impeach the president."  These officials, the story says, are "furious," "terrified," "incredulous," "disappointed," "fed up," "livid," with a "deep well of resentment," in an "unbearable" situation.  Some of them, Politico reports, are using the hearings as a "platform to air long-held grievances over Trump."  And their colleagues are "hailing them as heroes."  What, exactly, are these career State Department bureaucrats angry about?

When Does It Count as a Coup?  Not only are we living in the most divisive time in the republic's history since the Civil War, but we are also right now witnesses to an ongoing plot to subvert the duly elected President of the United States.

John Durham Questioning CIA Officials About Intelligence Community Assessment.  Against the backdrop of the DOJ admitting FBI investigators never had access to the DNC servers to verify a Russian hack; and with new information about the FBI receiving partial and redacted analysis from Crowdstrike; the review by U.S. Attorney John Durham toward the downstream assessment/claims of the CIA takes on new meaning.  CTH has previously outlined how the December 29th, 2016, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) on Russia Cyber Activity was a quickly compiled bunch of nonsense about Russian hacking.  The JAR was followed a week later by the January 7th, 2017, Intelligence Community Assessment.  The ICA took the ridiculous construct of the JAR and then overlaid a political narrative that Russia was trying to help Donald Trump.

Licensed to Lie: 2014 book exposes start of Deep State DOJ corruption.  In the corruption trial of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, a key witness was intimidated into presenting false testimony.  As in the Merrill Lynch case, the prosecutors concealed exculpatory evidence from the defense, a violation of due process under the Supreme court's Brady v. Maryland 373 U.S. 83 (1963) decision.  In Senator Stevens' conviction, which led to a narrow loss in his 2008 re-election campaign and impacted the majority makeup of the Senate, the presiding judge appointed a special prosecutor to investigate abuses.  Confronted with the need to clean house as he came into office, writes Powell, Attorney General Eric Holder failed to take action.  Powell's book provides an expose of federal prosecutorial misconduct and introduces us to some of the worst federal prosecutors who still reside at the top levels of our government.

NY Times columnist admits there's an anti-Trump Deep State — But claims members are the good guys.  "There is no Deep State!"  That's been the anti-Trump media argument ever since President Trump took office and his administration started leaking like a cheese grater.  Lots of major news organizations made the claim, interviewing supposed insiders — from CNN to The New Yorker and The Nation.  New Yorker Editor David Remnick rationalized the pushback against Trump in 2017:  "The problem in Washington is not a Deep State; the problem is a shallow man — an untruthful, vain, vindictive, alarmingly erratic President."  Now there's no attempt at hiding it.  In one of the more blatant impeachment stories of the week, New York Times columnist James B. Stewart went on NBC's "Today" show to tell everyone that Trump is right.  Stewart was pushing a new book, "Deep State," only he sees the Deep Staters as heroes — the same way the rest of his media buddies do.

Trump Issues Executive Orders Designed To Deconstruct The Deep State While Dems Focus On Impeachment.  President Donald Trump signed executive orders Wednesday afternoon that are designed to take much of the sting out of what conservatives believe is an out-of-control administrative state.  The orders will limit the use of a tool the Trump administration believes short-circuits the rule-making process.  They take aim at federal guidance, which agencies can use to explain how they intend to implement policy.  The Wall Street Journal reported on the orders Tuesday [10/8/2019].  The orders are expected to dramatically reduce the impact a key element of the country's regulatory infrastructure has on businesses and Americans, according to White House spokesman Judd Deere.

Meet Kyle Frese:  Trump Hater, Federal Employee, Arrested for Leaking National Security Secrets.  Federal employee Henry Kyle Frese was arrested today for allegedly leaking national security secrets to reporters at CNBC and NBC. One of the reporters was his girlfriend. [...] Frese was a federal employee at the Defense Intelligence Agency.  It comes as no surprise that Frese — like so many other federal employees in Washington, D.C. — is full of hatred toward Donald Trump and willing to use his personal power and government job to attack the president and conservatives.  Let's peruse his Twitter feed before it disappears.

John Durham Expands His Investigation:  Timeline to Include 2016 Election Spying on Trump to Spring of 2017.  US Attorney John Durham has recently expanded his probe into the Obama administration's spying on candidate Donald Trump.  Durham is now looking at evidence up to the launch of the Mueller Special Counsel.

Intelligence agent arrested for spilling secrets to journalists.  The feds busted a Defense Intelligence Agency worker Wednesday for leaking classified national defense information to two journalists in 2018 and 2019 — one of whom he was shacking up with.  Henry Kyle Frese, 30, a counterintelligence analyst from Alexandria, Virginia, who had a Top Secret security clearance, was indicted Tuesday [10/8/2019] on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information to persons not entitled to receive it.  "Frese was caught red-handed disclosing sensitive national security information for personal gain," said John C. Demers, assistant attorney general for national security, who cited ex-Attorney General Jeff Sessions' vow to pursue leakers as the motivation for the probe.

Sex, Leaks, Lies and Spies:  Trump Takes Down Intelligence Community Leakers.  Amidst a battle between the President of the United States and the Intelligence Community that has sparked formal impeachment proceedings against the president by Democrats in Congress, federal law enforcement officials have formally charged one intelligence community official with leaking highly classified information to the media.  This comes in the wake of a top-ranking congressional intelligence committee staffer facing similar charges of leaking last year and sets the stage for a larger fight between Trump and intelligence community leakers.

Democrats' Fear of Durham [is] About to Reach [the] Panic Level.  The important news of the day — far beyond the inevitable tedious impeachment jousting — is that John Durham's investigation of the provenance of the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of possible Trump-Russia collusion has expanded, according to several administration officials. [...] In Churchill's words, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Eventually, however, it does.  And when it does, in this case, if the Democrats have already impeached a president — if it turns out there was a coup plot or something close involving the CIA, the previous administration and others — there will be [consequences] in this country like we haven't seen since the 1860s, maybe worse.

Activity and Background of Sketchy IC IG Michael Atkinson Now Under Investigative Spotlight.  Last week the Intelligence Community Inspector General, Michael Atkinson, testified behind closed doors to congress.  Atkinson testified about his role in bringing the 'whistle-blower' complaint forward.  The details of that testimony are now starting to surface and thankfully congress is taking a closer look at the sketchy background of Michael Atkinson.

Stephen Miller Exposes the Deep State: 'A Collection of Permanent Bureaucrats Enmeshed Inside the Federal Government'.  Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, joined Breitbart News Sunday [10/6/2019] [...] to expose the deep state:  forces he said are driving the effort by Democrats to proceed with impeachment against the president.  "The attempt at impeachment is best understood as a legislative coup against a democratically elected president, and the radical leftists in Congress are working arm-in-arm with the deep state saboteurs and their allies in the media in order to try to effectuate this illegal coup," Miller said.

The Coup against Trump:  Is John Brennan a Russian Agent?  In the coming weeks, former CIA director John Brennan will be meeting with Attorney John Durham about the origins of the Russia Hoax.  There can be no question that Brennan is at the center of the Obama White House campaign to use unconstitutional and extra-judicial means to target and destroy Donald Trump.  There is little doubt that Brennan and his compatriots in the Deep State have done more damage to America than the Russians could ever do in 100 years.  Obama, Clinton, and Brennan have much to answer for.

Trump Orders Cut to National Security Staff After Whistle-Blower.  President Donald Trump has ordered a substantial reduction in the staff of the National Security Council, according to five people familiar with the plans, as the White House confronts an impeachment inquiry touched off by a whistle-blower complaint related to the agency's work.  Some of the people described the staff cuts as part of a White House effort to make its foreign policy arm leaner under new National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien.

The Real CIA.  The CIA is far from being the murderous threat of a KGB or Gestapo, and its tactics so far have been weasely, assaulting our democratically elected leadership with sneakiness and innuendo.  Nevertheless, its attacks on President Trump have been the most significant attacks our president has faced.  CIA employees have no intention of assassinating Donald Trump, but they do seek to assassinate his presidency.  The CIA's founders would be horrified.  They insisted as a condition of the CIA's founding in 1947 that it was not to be a KGB or a Gestapo that preyed upon its own citizens.

Whistlegate Reveals Some Very Chatty Minders of State Secrets.  As Democrats in Congress assess a CIA analyst's "whistleblower" allegations against President Trump regarding Ukraine, one thing already seems clear:  There has been a breakdown within the government of traditional restrictions against sharing intelligence beyond those with a need to know it.  Unlike most whistleblowers, the CIA analyst was not a witness to events.  Instead, he functioned as a kind of investigative reporter who worked sources to develop the information detailed in the complaint.  While some have praised the informer for unearthing questionable behavior by the president, some experts in national security law say that the whistleblower and his sources may have violated regulations aimed at preserving state secrets.

One dares call it treason.  The Constitution, in Section 3 of Article III, says those who give aid and comfort to the enemies of this country are traitors to it.  President Trump is an existential threat to the entrenched ruling class.  The Deep State is a part of that class, and it attacks the president on their behalf.  Any and all means are justified in attacking him and in defending their power.  Their power is the center of the existence of the ruling class, their most precious possession.  Trump threatens it all, and all of them.  So when Adam Schiff mockingly impersonates the president's call to Ukraine, making it seem like a threatening call from a mob boss, he is giving aid and comfort to the Deep State, the enemy of the people and the enemy of the United States.

Deep State insurance policies, the press and Intelligence Community coups.  When President Donald Trump told Americans that the left-wing media are "the enemy of the people," he was only partially right.  His presidential candidacy and later election as the nation's 45th president triggered an unprecedented opposition campaign.  A campaign by Deep State infested US intelligence community (IC) services at home and abroad.  That campaign against a duly elected government official has been consistently advanced by the so-called independent press.  It amounts to an ongoing intelligence community coup against the president.

Inspector General Identifies DC U.S. Attorney Leaking Grand Jury Evidence.  The Department of Justice Inspector General has released a notification stating that a former U.S. Attorney within the DC Circuit was caught leaking grand jury information to an "unauthorized individual[.]"

Clapper: Whistleblower Fueling the 'Conspiratorial Fire' of the 'Deep State' Trying to Overthrow Trump.  Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that there isn't a "deep state" effort to undermine President Donald Trump but the whistleblower complaint about his call with the Ukraine president from someone in the intelligence community "fuels that conspiratorial fire."  "Well, I never heard of the term deep state, maybe I was, you know, ignorant or bliss or something, but I never heard of that until the campaign and afterwards.  Allegedly this is a conspiracy of career government public servants who somehow organize themselves into a conspiracy to undermine or overthrow the president, which on its face is ridiculous," Clapper said during the Washington Post's Cybersecurity Summit on Wednesday [10/2/2019].

Stephen Miller:  "The Deep State is Terrified of Being Exposed".  White House Senior Policy Adviser, Stephan Miller, appears on Fox Business with Lou Dobbs to explain the apoplexy coming from DC's administrative state.  Miller outlines the deep fear held by many in the professional political class in/around DC toward ongoing investigations by U.S. AG Bill Barr and U.S. Attorney John Durham.  In framing the opposition to the Trump administration, Mr. Miller identifies the Marxist roots that bind governmental ideologues in united resistance.  Impeachment is their best hope of defense.  [Video clip]

Carl Bernstein Warns Deep State Allies:  Bill Barr is on to us.  Carl Bernstein is an insufferable propagandist for the political left; but sometimes you can get a sense of where things stand by listening to his partisan protestations.  Additionally, Bernstein was at the center of the media effort to engineer the Russia narrative by pushing disinformation from the intelligence apparatus in January 2017.  Bernstein was one of the key media figures constructing and pushing the vast Russian election interference narrative.  He also worked closely with Jake Tapper, Jim Sciutto, and Evan Perez to promote the Steele Dossier as a valid intelligence product.  In essence Bernstein is a part of the 'resistance' agenda writ large; he travels DC circles accordingly.

Dan Bongino calls the Russia investigation the biggest political scandal of our time.  [Scroll down]  [Quoting Mark Levin]:  You had spies inserted into the Trump campaign by the FBI You had lies fed to the FISA Court, a Federal Court.  Federal district court judges run the FISA Courts, by the highest levels of the FBI and the Department of Justice.  You had the unmasking of American citizens, including from people at the White House, as well as from the U.N. and others on a scale we've never seen in modern times.  You've had the leaking, the felonious leaking of information, so-called investigative information, trying to push the ball with the public against candidate Trump, and now President Trump.  You had leaking by the head of the FBI, he denied it.  He is a liar.  And he also wrote self-serving memos that belong to the government.  And he leaked some of those.  The number two at the FBI, McCabe, a leaker and then lied about it, and is now potentially facing criminal charges.  The General Counsel the FBI, forced to resign.  The top level the FBI wiped out.  [Video clip]

Intel Community Secretly Gutted Requirement Of First-Hand Whistleblower Knowledge.  Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. [...] The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump's July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only "heard about [wrongdoing] from others."

Key Whistleblower Requirement Was Removed, Allowing IC Complaints Based on Hearsay.  A key requirement for whistleblowers to lodge a "Disclosure of Urgent Concern" complaint was secretly eliminated at some point in the past year to allow submissions of second-hand material, it has been revealed.  This allowed the August submission of an error-ridden whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump to proceed, as the whistleblower — who is believed to be a member of the intelligence committee assigned to the National Security Counsel — has admitted to having no direct knowledge of wrongdoing on the part of the president.  A previous version of the form only allowed first-hand whistleblower complaints — not hearsay, rumor, or gossip about presidential diplomacy with a foreign leader.

Limbaugh: Turns Out Ukraine 'Whistleblower' Was 'Deep State Plant From The CIA'.  On his radio show Thursday, Rush Limbaugh addressed the revelations from The New York Times about the identity of the "whistleblower" who sparked the controversy of President Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukraine's president that has given the Democrats a rationale to move forward on their impeachment campaign.  According to the Times, the whistleblower is "a CIA officer detailed to the White House," and, according to Paul Sperry, former D.C. bureau chief for Investor's Business Daily, rumors are "swirling" that the whistleblower was one of former CIA Director and current NBC analyst John Brennan's "old CIA humps detailed over to — planted inside — the White House to spy on Trump and help thwart the investigation of #Spygate which also involves Obama DOS/FBI/CIA skullduggery in Ukraine."

Who is responsible for the impeachment circus?  [Scroll down]  Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House from October 2015 to January 2019. He was also the 2012 vice presidential nominee for the Republican Party running with the hapless Mitt Romney.  When Donald Trump became president, this gave the Republicans control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate.  This was a golden opportunity to move the Trump agenda forward.  And it would have been accomplished — except for Ryan.  As leader of the GOP in the House of Representatives, he engaged in ankle-biting the president and dragging his feet otherwise.  Trump has thundered that Ryan was "weak, ineffective, and stupid" as House speaker.  Ryan was all that only if one assumes he was on the same team supporting the president and the American middle class.  But if Ryan was instead serving big moneyed globalists and Wall Street, then he was smart and highly effective — as a saboteur.

New York Times identifies Trump whistleblower as CIA officer.  The New York Times is claiming the whistleblower behind a complaint made about a phone conversation between President Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart is a male CIA officer who at one point had been detailed to the White House.  The report, which the Times says was corroborated by three sources, paints the most detailed portrait of the insider to this point, though he has yet to be named publicly.  The Times also reports that, based on the wording of his complaint, the whistleblower likely has extensive knowledge of Ukrainian politics.

White House hunt for identity of whistleblower and 'spy' who helped him.  President Trump and his advisers are frantically searching for the identity of the whistleblower who exposed Trump's phone call with Ukraine's president and those in the White House who spoke to him.  Trump demanded the identities of the sources as Democrats clamored for Trump's impeachment for allegedly inducing Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.  "I want to know who's the person who gave the whistleblower the information because that's close to a spy," Trump said.  "You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right?"

$50K reward offered to out Trump whistleblower.  Two Trump supporters are offering a $50,000 reward for information about the national security whistleblower at the center of the Ukraine phone affair.  Controversial conservatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl said they would pay the money for "information relating to the identity of the 'Trump Whistleblower.'"  The New York Times on Thursday [9/26/2019] reported that the whistleblower works at the CIA and was stationed in the White House when the call was made.  The duo have said their goal is to provide full transparency on the issue in which the administration has already released the transcript of the July 25 call and the inspector general's report on it.

It's Not About Biden — Deep State Response to Ukraine Call [is because] Trump Questioned Crowdstrike.  The completely over-the-top response by a Deep State embed whistleblower and his/her political allies withing the administrative state now makes sense; it had nothing to do with Joe Biden.  President Trump asked President Zelenskyy about "Crowdstrike." [...] According to the original FBI statements made by James Comey:  Crowdstrike did the captured imaging of the DNC network (servers/cloud), then conducted analysis, then provided a report to the DNC with their findings; and that report was given to the FBI.  At least that was the original 2017 claim.  However, during court filings in the case against Roger Stone, the DOJ/FBI later admitted they never even saw the Crowstrike final report.

Further Evidence Intelligence Community Inspector General is Part of Lawfare Alliance.  [Scroll down]  The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD.  It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016 operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok.  It was also the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901) originated.  The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson.  ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay 'whistle-blower' complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was "blowing-the-whistle" based on second hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie 'hearsay'.  Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016.

Dobbs on whistleblower fiasco:  Intel community insanely 'hostile' to Trump.  Fox Business host Lou Dobbs slammed the media for fomenting yet another "contrived, left-wing-inspired political firestorm" concerning whether President Donald Trump had pressured Ukraine's president to investigate former vice president Joe Biden.  As BizPac Review reported, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko flatly denied unsubstantiated reports by the Washington Post and the New York Times making this claim.

Let's get real:  Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections.  [Scroll down]  Nellie Ohr testified to Congress that some of the dirt she found on Trump during her 2016 election opposition research came from a Ukrainian parliament member.  She also said that she eventually took the information to the FBI through her husband — another way Ukraine got inserted into the 2016 election.  Politics.  Pressure.  Opposition research.  All were part of the Democrats' playbook on Ukraine long before Trump ever called Zelensky this summer.  And as Sen. Murphy's foray earlier this month shows, it hasn't stopped.  The evidence is so expansive as to strain the credulity of the Democrats' current outrage at Trump's behavior with Ukraine.

He'll have more flexibility after 2020 — and he's going to need it.  The swamp is bottomless.  Truly undrainable.  Unlike blood-sucking vampires that can be tamed with garlic necklaces, holy water and a stake driven through the heart, this THING cannot be stopped.  The Leviathan has become a glioblastomic tumor with roots so deep beneath the Potomac that they can never be wrenched out.  Its gnarly fingers of government intrusion slither into every thin cranny of American life.

Trump, Kavanaugh, Lewandowski and our malignant Left.  Most Americans are by now familiar with the fact that higher-ups in the FBI, DOJ, CIA and the Obama administration attempted to destroy the Republican candidate for the presidency.  Once Donald Trump won, they doubled down on their despicable collusion of fakery to see the man not only driven from office but rendered guilty of treason.  They did all of this knowing full well that none of it was true.  It was all part of a plan, their "insurance policy" to ensure Hillary Clinton's ascension to the White House despite her many crimes, which they all worked to conceal.  Much of this was likely done to ensure their own job security.

McCarthy promises accountability as Barr reviews IG's FISA report: 'The closest we've ever seen to a coup'.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., promised that guilty parties will be held accountable after Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases his report on the FBI's alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in the Russia investigation, and predicted that former bureau leaders James Comey and Andrew McCabe will face criminal charges after what he described as an attempted "coup" to take down President Trump.  The report will address concerns with whether or not the FBI acted improperly in obtaining a FISA warrant to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in the early stages of their investigation of Russian election interference and possible Trump campaign connections.

The Intelligence Community Works for the President.  It's simply hard to know where to begin to respond to the staggering chutzpah of Jennifer Rubin's recent Washington Post opinion column accusing the president of undermining our intelligence community.  Rubin used the recent leak regarding the exfiltration (a fancy word for "removal") of an undercover "asset" in Russia as a hook to make the case that the president is somehow responsible for outing this source and therefore harming U.S. interests.  Her column is an example of the backward view elite leftists have towards democracy and the Constitution.  These elites, in desperate need of a remedial civics class, have convinced themselves that our elected president must learn to take orders from the intelligence community.

New State Department Documents Reveal Last-Minute Efforts By Obama State Department To Undermine President Trump.  Judicial Watch today [9/9/2019] released 90 pages of heavily redacted U.S. Department of State documents showing Obama State Department officials' efforts to disseminate classified information to multiple U.S. Senators immediately prior to President Donald Trump's inauguration.  The information, which included raw intelligence, purported to show "malign" Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

New docs reveal frantic Obama State Department efforts to undercut Trump.  On Monday [9/9/2019], conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch released 90 pages of U.S. State Department documents revealing frantic efforts before President Trump's inauguration by Democrats and their supporters to share classified intelligence information with various senators.  The documents, obtained through a June 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, are heavily redacted but they still provide stunning evidence of intent to bring down the newly elected president by any means necessary.

Trump-Russia and Clinton-Libya:  A Story of 2 Probes and the FBI.  Records recently posted online by the FBI indicate that it did little to investigate allegations from private sources connected to Republicans about a scheme in which associates of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to exploit their connection to her to profit from the turmoil in Libya in 2011.  The FBI received the documents in June 2016, around the same time it launched an exhaustive, three-year investigation of the Trump campaign's ties to Russia based, in part, on information from private sources connected to Democrats that in the main would prove to be false — the Steele dossier.  The bureau's different responses to these documents also came during the same period when FBI Director James B. Comey controversially cleared Clinton, in his first of two exonerations, of criminal wrongdoing in the bureau's probe of her unauthorized and insecure email setup.

Trump vs.  Clinton 2020: Is the Deep State coming for the Oval?  With Congress returning this week, the 2020 election, and impeachment quest ramps up.  Numerous pundits and opinion writers have predicted that Hillary Clinton will be Democrat savior.  Including the artist, Ben Garrison, behind the lead cartoon.  Is Hillary the one that, this time, will beat Donald Trump?  Can the mistress of the Deep State deny him of his second term?  Will Hungarian Billionaire and Deep State God Father, George Soros be willing to support another Clinton — Deep State run?  Because out of all the DNC contenders, Hillary Clinton alone reigns as the Queen of the Deep State globalist agenda.

Comey Tickles the Wire.  [Scroll down]  In other words, when Comey met with Trump, the FISA surveillance had been underway for three months and was ongoing.  Given that no charges have ever been brought against Carter Page, it would appear that by the time of Comey's approach to Trump, the FISA surveillance had been a dry hole.  So it was that Comey resorted to the time-tested technique of "tickling the wire" by meeting with Trump and trying to scare him with tales of Moscow hookers and compromising tapes.  And CNN's reporting on the subject only increased the desired level of agitation.  Even if, as indeed turned out to be the case, Trump did not blurt out anything incriminating during the meeting, the possibility remained that he or his associates would be spurred to make damaging statements and admissions in their wire or oral communications.  And, if that happened, the FBI would be intercepting and recording every word.  In short, although the OIG does not address the possibility, the convergence of the FBI's previously unproductive FISA surveillance with Comey's reptilian and manipulative approach to the president-elect leads to the inevitable conclusion that Trump was absolutely correct when — despite the mockery of the mainstream media — he insisted that he was being wiretapped by the FBI.

Federal Reserve Bank's 'myth of political neutrality' now is dead and gone.  Donald Trump is only the most recent POTUS to discover that the Fed wields enormous political power, able to speed up or slow down the economy via its manipulation of interest rates and the money supply.  He is far from the first president to complain about the Fed when he perceives it as hampering his growth agenda.  What is different is that one of the top officials of the Fed in recent years has fought back and urged the Fed to operate so as to exert political influence against Trump.

Trump Admin to Create Special "Office of Transparency" to Expedite Release of DOJ Documents Stalled by Deep State.  Investigate journalist John Solomon of The Hill released another breaking report in his appearance on Hannity on Wednesday night [8/28/2019].  According to Solomon the Trump Administration is creating an "Office of Transparency" to expedite the release of DOJ documents that have been stalled by Deep State operatives.  This comes after months of waiting for subpoenaed documents from the FBI and Director Christopher Wray who has done all he can to stall and protect Hillary Clinton and the Deep State cabal.  [Video clip]

Details Behind Patrick Byrne Allegations of FBI "Political Espionage".  Former CEO Patrick Byrne has given four primary interviews where he outlines his knowledge of a 2015 and 2016 political espionage operation being run by the FBI.  After a review of the interviews, and extracting specific points therein, here's an overview.  The substance of Mr. Byrne claims does seem to align with what we already know about the DOJ and FBI activity during the 2016 election cycle, including the FBI operations.

Patrick Byrne Describes Maria Butina as a Walking FISA Virus.  After appearing on Fox Business, former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne appeared on Fox TV with Martha MacCallum.  In this interview Byrne explained his impetus for contacting the FBI in 2015, about Russian national Maria Butina, surrounded a low-level security clearance he held and a responsibility to report suspicious contacts.  Mr. Byrne then names Peter Strzok, Bill Priestap, Andrew McCabe and James Comey as the top of an operation where Byrne was instructed to guide Butina into the contact circle of republican presidential candidates in 2015, and then back away.

Ex-Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne says he got 'fishy' orders from Peter Strzok; former acting AG unsure of claims.  Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne, who resigned Thursday amid ties to a government probe related to the 2016 election, claimed he received "fishy" orders from former FBI official Peter Strzok.  Byrne said Thursday [8/22/2019] on "The Story" he'd helped the federal government with investigations twice in the past, including to "help them take down people on Wall Street."  Several years after Byrne's last contact with the government, he said FBI officials reached out to him in 2016.  "I was given some fishy orders and I carried them out in 2015-2016, thinking I was conducting law enforcement," he said.

Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne resigns amid Russian spy link, 'deep state' comments.  Overstock founder and CEO Patrick Byrne resigned Thursday [8/22/2019] after 20 years at the company amid his ties to a government investigation related to the 2016 election.  "In July I came forward to a small set of journalists regarding my involvement in certain government matters," Byrne said in a letter to shareholders.  "While I believe that I did what was necessary for the good of the country, for the good of the firm, I am in the sad position of having to sever ties with Overstock, both as CEO and board member, effective Thursday, August 22."

Founder of Overstock.com resigns, goes public about his role in FBI surveillance of presidential campaigns.  In a pair of jaw-dropping interviews yesterday [8/22/2019] following his resignation from the company that he founded twenty years ago, Patrick Byrne revealed his collaboration with the FBI as an informant, including involvement in surveillance of the presidential campaigns including multiple Republicans... and of the Hillary Clinton campaign, too.  In both interviews he fingered Peter Strzok as the person responsible for sending the "men in black" from the FBI who visited him, but in the second, he stated that higher ups, whom he would only identify as "X, Y, and X" — people whose names you would know, directed the program.

John Solomon: 10 Declassified Russia Collusion Revelations.  Investigative journalist John Solomon joined Sean Hannity to discuss his latest revelations in the ongoing Trump-Russia Spygate scandal. [...] John Solomon in his list suggests that the FBI may have been giving Christopher Steele information on the Crossfire Hurricane investigation on Donald Trump and his campaign.  Solomon says the deep state also had exculpatory statements that would have cleared George Papadopolous that they withheld from the FISA Court.

AG Bill Barr's Other Problem — The 2018 DOJ and FBI Coverup To Protect The Senate Intelligence Committee.  In the first part of this research into the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) we outlined how the committee was engaged in the 2017 effort — with specific evidence of communication — to support Robert Mueller and the 'soft coup' team.  When you understand what the group was doing in early 2017, you understand why the FBI had to use DOJ official Bruce Ohr as a go-between to contact with Chris Steele.

Lindsey Graham:  There Is Proof Of Systematic Corruption At Highest Level of DOJ and FBI.  "Here's what we're looking at:  Systematic corruption at the highest level of the Department of Justice and the FBI against President Trump and in favor of Hillary Clinton," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.  Host Sean Hannity then asked Graham whether officials "lied purposefully" on a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant application to surveil former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Trey Gowdy Calls Secret Document 'Game-Changer'.  [Scroll down]  Gowdy, who was chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he was "clueless" as to why the documents have not been made public, because there is no information that could damage U.S. relationships with allies.  "It goes to a fundamental precept we have in this country.  When there is exculpatory information, information that tends to show that a person did not commit a crime, that information is every bit as important" as any evidence that would suggest a crime," he said.  "Show us the transcripts.  Show us the questions you coached the informants or the cooperating witnesses to ask of the Trump campaign officials.  If it's not about the campaign, then you're right.  But if you're veering over into the campaign or questions are not solely about Russia, then you've been misleading us for two years," said Gowdy.

Deep State Center Holds — John Ratcliffe Nomination Withdrawn.  Donald Trump was an outside candidate; a disruption in the global way of things.  He questioned NATO, he challenged "globalism", he challenged the perpetual war machine.  In essence he was a risk.  Hence the SSCI aligned against candidate Trump and continued that opposition into the "insurance policy" phase to remove President Trump.  The pre-election operations of the SSCI is why the 2016 Vice-Chairman of the committee, Dianne Feinstein, abdicated her position as soon as Trump won the election.  She knew eventually the SSCI would be in direct confrontation with President Trump; and Feinstein knew what actions they had taken.  She didn't want to stick around for the bloodbath.

Transcripts Obtained of Former FBI Chief of Staff James Rybicki Testifying Russia Conspiracy Came from Obama's White House.  Transcripts obtained from the FBI in a request for information show that James Rybicki, the former FBI Chief of Staff under James Comey, testified that the Russia Conspiracy sham came from Obama's White House in October 2016.  We reported last week that businessman Ed Butowsky filed a lawsuit where he outed reporter Ellen Ratner as his source for information that Seth Rich and his brother provided WikiLeaks the DNC emails before the 2016 election, not Russia.  This totally destroys the FBI and Mueller's claims that Russians hacked the DNC to obtain these emails.

The Deep State [is] apoplectic over the appointment of John Ratcliffe as DNI, for good reason.  The testimony of Robert Mueller signaled the end of Act One of the Russia Hoax story arc.  The appointment of Rep. (and former US Attorney) John Ratcliffe as the new Director of National Intelligence launches Act Two, where the events of the first act begin to be understood in a new light.  The miscreants and their friends understand very well what is ahead, and they are acting accordingly.

Professor Joseph Mifsud: a spy to be dragged in from the cold.  Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio would like an answer to a simple question:  Who is Joseph Mifsud?  He's the man the New York Times describes as "an otherwise obscure Maltese professor with sketchy academic credentials who has stayed out of public view for more than a year and a half."  That may be so, but Professor Mifsud, along with British spy Christopher Steele' of Trump dossier fame, provided the impetus for the US counterintelligence operation relentlessly waged against Donald Trump's 2016 Republican presidential campaign.

Who has the most egg on his face after the Mueller hearings?  Adam Schiff.  From the beginning of the Left's attempt to destroy the Trump candidacy, then presidency, it was Adam Schiff who was the most consumed by the fabricated hoax that Trump had colluded with Russia to win the election.  He believed every morsel of disinformation that was carefully leaked by the collaborators at the FBI, DOJ, CIA, DNC and the Clinton gang.  Once their fake news was leaked, they could and did use those articles as evidence against the President.  They used those columns of fabricated tales of Trump's collusion to get FISA warrants to spy on every person who was part of the campaign.  They spied, they set-up innocent persons like Papadopoulos in service of constructing a complex but false narrative that would round out their coup.

Ex-FBI, CIA Officials Draw Withering Fire on Russiagate.  As Congress arrives back into town and the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees prepare to question ex-Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller on July 17, partisan lines are being drawn even more sharply, as Russias-gate blossoms into Deep-State-gate.  On Sunday [7/7/2019], a top Republican legislator, Rep. Peter King (R-NY) took the gloves off in an unusually acerbic public attack on former leaders of the FBI and CIA.  King told a radio audience:  "There is no doubt to me there was severe, serious abuses that were carried out in the FBI and, I believe, top levels of the CIA against the President of the United States or, at that time, presidential candidate Donald Trump," according to The Hill.

When Does the Deep State Morph into the Police State in Our Country?  What makes the Democrats especially dangerous these days is that they are highly united in their attempt to impose in an increasingly totalitarian fashion their progressive and socialist agenda by any means possible.  They often use the tactics of overtly attempting to silence and eliminate conservative opposition and practicing the policy of personal destruction of their opponents.  It reached a point where, seemingly, an alliance of "Deep State" federal bureaucracy players, including high-ranking members of the Obama administration consisting of the DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA, united with Hillary Clinton to participate in a comprehensive campaign to rig the outcome of the 2016 election in her favor.  Gone are the days of Democrats attempting to win voters in the court of public opinion with a free, open, and honest debate of ideas and policies.

This only means that the swamp hasn't been drained.
Amash: Republicans, High-Level Officials Thanked Me for Saying Trump Should Be Impeached.  Sunday [7/7/2019] on CNN's "State of the Union," Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI), who left the Republican Party earlier this week, said when he came out in favor of impeachment, other "Republicans, high-level officials" contacted him "saying thank you for what you are doing."

Trump hasn't drained the swamp.  Here's how to do it.  Donald Trump ran for president promising to "drain the swamp," but even his sometimes valiant efforts amount to no more than removing marsh water one tin cup at a time.  Three Supreme Court decisions at the end of its term last week remind us that the federal administrative state, not the elective offices, is the frustrating, sometimes abusive entity through which most citizens encounter their government.  The next president should make it a priority to radically restructure and reduce the administrative leviathan.  The virtual GOP campaign against President Trump must make massive administrative reform a galvanizing issue.

The Left's Endgame Is Not Chaos.  It's Worse.  First, at present, leftists want to create a state of political cultural chaos in the U.S. for a specific reason.  They need chaos as a smokescreen to defend their current leaders — that is to say, Obama, Hillary & Co. — from prosecution.  Make no mistake:  Obama, Hillary, and their cohorts committed some serious crimes of an unprecedented nature for people at their level.  We executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for far less. [...] That is what the Left is doing with all this "chaos." For if Trump gets enough political breathing space to lock on for the kill and hold them accountable, they are through.  Their whole program is derailed, and many principals will indeed wind up in jail.

Why Ash Carter, Clapper and Brennan tried to get NSA's Mike Rogers fired.  According to a November 19, 2016 Washington Post report, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper tried to get NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers fired.  In a deliberately leaked memo, "senior officials" attacked Rogers' abilities, questioned his leadership, and otherwise tainted his record.

Multiple fingers pointing at alleged leaker of plans for ICE raids today.  The chronic problem of sabotage by bureaucrats hostile to the outsider president shaking up the Deep State will never be solved until unmasking and punishment become the order of the day.  That's why it is so heartening that with unusual swiftness, accusations are pointing to the alleged identity of a leaker who successfully delayed implementation of a key Trump policy initiative, the planned ICE raids on illegal alien scofflaws who have defied court orders for theior deportation.  This exercise will — if the allegations are sustained by evidence — help establish a norm of exposing the rat finks that could discourage future saboteurs.

Tom Homan Identifies Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan as Deep State Leaker, Trying to Undermine President Trump.  Today [6/22/2019], Mr. Homan seemed to clearly identify Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan as the person working against the interests of the President; leaking information to impede the immigration policy of President Trump; and likely the reason why Homan would only consider entering back into the administration if the process was changed to allow him to work around a corrupt Acting DHS Secretary, McAleenan.  Suffice to day, after this interview Tom Homan and Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan will likely never work together.

Fired up Tom Homan accuses DHS chief of 'resisting' ICE, leaking raids to media.  Former Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan unleashed a blistering attack against a government official he believes leaked information about impending mass raids to the media.  The Fox News contributor blasted Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan during an appearance on "Fox & Friends" Saturday [6/22/2019], accusing him of "resisting" ICE and slamming the leaks that put the lives of agents at risk.

Emails Show Obama State Department's Role in Anti-Trump Coup Cabal.  John Kerry, President Obama's secretary of state, seems to be having trouble staying within the legal bounds of the Logan Act, so it's not surprising that his State Department lieutenants were getting their hands dirty in the conspiracy to bring down Donald Trump.  Judicial Watch now has received more evidence of this anti-Trump conspiracy.  With The Daily Caller News Foundation, they just released 16 pages of documents revealing senior State Obama officials — Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Special Coordinator for Libya Jonathan Winer — coordinated with incoming House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer's (D-MD) national security advisor, Daniel Silverberg, to work on Russia dossier information provided by Christopher Steele.

Get ready for the biggest 'skating' event of all time.  No, it's not the traditional ice skating performed by elite athletes on Olympic and NHL ice; it's the political skating performed by seasoned Deep State operatives on the thin ice of lawless criminal corruption.  Whether you're aware of it or not the big event has already begun.  It's the "spygate" investigation into how Donald Trump, a legitimate presidential candidate and duly elected president, was targeted by deep state political operatives in an attempt to sabotage his candidacy and then over-turn his election as President of the United States.  The participants in the big event will include numerous elite skaters from within the Deep State; headlined by top-seeded entrants from the elected and appointed political arena to the intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Only with Real Transparency Will the FBI Ever Be Trusted Again.  When Donald Trump told George Stephanopoulos he (Donald) might listen to "oppo" research coming from a foreign source and that he might not tell the FBI about it, the mainstream media, as is so often the case, deliberately missed or misstated what he meant, went into one of their usual hissy fits, and attacked the president, even calling him treasonous.  Besides the obvious hypocrisy, pointed out with characteristic aplomb by Andrew McCarthy, something else, likely more important, was at play.  The media (and the Democrats, of course) deliberately missed the point because you would have to be seriously intellectually challenged not to get why Trump might have been hesitant or ambivalent about going to the FBI.

The CIA Is Running Scared.  Last Wednesday [6/12/2019] the intelligence community launched its first attack on Attorney General William Barr's investigation into its illegal acts and abuses of power during the 2016 election.  In a New York Times article entitled "Justice Department Seeks to Question CIA in its Own Russia Investigation," the IC makes clear its fear of the results of Barr's investigation of their spy operation on candidate Trump in 2016 that continued through his early presidency.  The article, obviously written at the behest of its intelligence community sources — "current and former American officials" — is the first of many concerted attacks on Attorney General William Barr's investigation of the joint CIA/FBI spy operation.  Many other articles, based on carefully crafted leaks to the media and Congress, are sure to follow because current and former high-ranking officials of those agencies (and probably the NSA as well) have a lot to lose.

Rand Paul:  Deep State Ignored Order to Pull John Brennan's Security Clearance.  Appearing Tuesday [6/4/2019] on CNN, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slammed the intelligence community over a recent report claiming it defied an order from President Donald Trump to revoke the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan.

Deep State:  First, the attempted coup.  Now, the political prisoner.  What we are all looking at is how criminal Deep State is, demonstrating how it can use the levers of power to turn a first-world country into a banana republic.  We aren't seeing normal things from these people, we are seeing some incredible abuses of power.  Manafort was convicted earlier and is doing time in Pennsylvania for white collar crimes around taxable income and foreign agent registration.  These are crimes few are ever prosecuted for, but they were real enough.  Now he's a wedge player in a new and very dirty deep-state political game.

Deep State and Democrats Are Terrified of Doddering "Figurehead" Mueller Testifying — He's Unable to Answer Material Questions.  Mueller cannot get in front of a Congressional panel to address questions about his Mueller report.  Deep State won't let him.  It would be devastating to their coup.  "Placeholder" Mueller does not know all that happened under his watch.  For two years the Mueller special counsel was investigating the President of the United States.  The Democrats and their Deep State cheered him on.  Numerous corrupt and criminal events took place.  The last thing that the Democrats now want is for him to testify in public about his bogus, dishonest and one-sided report.

Lawsuit Exposes How the Media and Deep State Hatched the Russiagate Hoax.  [Scroll down]  If the media repeats the false narrative often enough, it becomes the conventional wisdom — it becomes the media's truth — whether it is the press pushing the Russia collusion conspiracy with reports of the Steele's dossier, Carter Page's supposed spying-inducing behavior, George Papadopoulos' purported inside knowledge of the WikiLeaks hack, the Trump Tower meeting, or stories that Trump's team softened the Republican National Convention's platform on Russia.  The stories began with innuendo wrapped in unrelated facts, leaks from unnamed sources seemingly verified elements of the tale, and a complicit media then wove the strands into a growing Russia collusion narrative.  Unraveling that truth, though, is time consuming and requires a depth of details that few Americans care to have.

Deep State:  The collusion between the FBI and Mainstream Media that everyone stopped talking about.  The Office of Inspector General's report on the FBI and Justice Department's handling and mishandling of the investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton's use of an unauthorized, non-secure email server to conduct secret government business as Secretary of State revealed real and damning information on the mainstream media and their tight relationship with the deepest members of the deep state.  But for some reason this story has just disappeared into the ether.  And with all this talk of collusion you'd think this would be a hot topic.  While the FBI was leaking classified information, reporters were funneling bribes back to the leakers in the form of tickets to sporting events, golf outings, dinners, drinks, invites to private exclusive parties and more.

Caught! Ex-FBI official leaked 'sensitive' info, improperly accepted gift from media.  In yet another example of how corrupt the Obama-era Deep State had become, a high-ranking FBI official has outed by the Inspector General for accepting bribes in exchange for "sensitive materials" leaks to the media.

Two-Tiered Justice and Professional Escape Artists.  First, if you remember when the 568 page IG report on FBI/DOJ conduct was delivered in June 2018, you might remember how the 'executive summary and conclusions' were disconnected from the main body of evidence within the report.  In 2018 CTH warned this "disconnect" was by design; essentially the corrupt officials were laying down a defense for any conduct, later outlined, that is connected to the body of the IG review.  When IG Horowitz announced last year he could find no evidence of actions taken as a result of political bias by FBI and DOJ officials; he also stated he could not rule out bias within their investigation.

OIG Finds Preponderance of Evidence Against FBI Deputy Asst. Director — DOJ Refuses to Prosecute.  Citing the ongoing internal investigation of FBI leaks to media, from the 2018 OIG report on FBI conduct, today [5/29/2019] the Office of Inspector General outlined a preponderance of evidence against a corrupt FBI Deputy Asst. Director.  However, the DOJ is refusing to prosecute. [...] The most alarming aspect is the OIG finding of the Deputy Asst.  Director leaking grand jury information to the media, and yet the DOJ is declining to prosecute.  Incredibly, the inspector general (IG) indicated, without explanation, that "prosecution of the DAD [deputy assistant director] was declined."  Instead, the investigation's findings will be referred to the FBI for "appropriate action".

When Barack Obama declared war on Donald Trump.  The latest round of navel-gazing is the effort to name what has happened to President Donald Trump.  It is a hoax or is it a coup, and when did it start?  I am a 2003 graduate of the Naval War College.  We studied "war."  What happened to Donald Trump was an act of war. [...] President Barack Obama marshaled secret government resources across the intelligence and law enforcement communities and declared war on the civilian Donald Trump.  "Hoax" suggests a humorous or malicious deception.  "Coup" suggests a sudden, violent, and illegal seizure of power from a government.  President Obama's actions were neither humorous nor malicious but were an egregious abuse of power of the Executive.  To say that what happened to President Trump was a coup d'état, an overthrow or a type of revolution, or an illegal and overt seizure by the military or other elites within the state apparatus, isn't adequate, either.  President Trump's enemies declared war on him for one reason and one reason only:  vindictiveness.  Vengeance.

Mike Morrell, the CIA and the international house of Trump Russia collusion.  President Donald Trump telegraphed to the American people that Attorney General William Barr's investigation into the origins of the Russia collusion hoax is going international.  The first hint that something of an alliance existed between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the international reach of the Deep State was provided by Michael Morell.  Morell has served as both acting and deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency (2010-2013).

The Deep State Wants Joe Biden to Win in 2020.  Call it a hunch, but it looks like the intel agencies won't be targeting Biden's 2020 campaign for surveillance and sabotage like they did to Donald Trump in 2016.

'A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' on Obama's Bad Cops and Spies.  The skies are growing dark and increasingly ominous for dirty officials at the top of Obama-era law enforcement and intelligence agencies.  Leading the "I'm really worried" list are James Comey, John Brennan, James Clapper, Loretta Lynch, and their senior aides, all political appointees.  They expected Hillary Clinton to win in 2016 and bury any traces of malfeasance, just as they had buried hers.  It didn't work out that way.  Now they need protection themselves.  House Democrats and anonymous leakers are busy providing it.

Congressman Adam Schiff Is Getting Very Nervous These Days.  He spent nearly two years claiming he had "irrefutable evidence" of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.  He then went on to make calls for impeachment (without any evidence to support such a thing) and take money from voters who believed his increasingly wild promises of "taking down Trump."  These days Congressman Schiff is sounding a bit different, though, and a LOT more nervous.

Donald Trump makes good on a promise but Dems cry 'coverup'.  The president is going nuclear.  Democrats who thought control of the House gave them control of the agenda now will face stiff competition.  Their expressions of outrage will seem tired next to the sensational revelations about the actions of Jim Comey, John Brennan and others.  Based on what we already know, it is highly likely those revelations will prove the [Obama] White House, FBI and CIA engineered the greatest scandal in American political history by unjustified spying on Trump and by trying to tip the election to Hillary Clinton.  Predictably, Dems are furious at Trump's decision, with many on the left launching personal attacks on Barr.  He's not getting Brett Kavanaugh-level smears yet, but give them time.

The Declassification Directive Gives Pelosi, Schumer and Small Group Few Options.  When President Trump announced the futility of attempting an infrastructure bill with Pelosi and Schumer as they simultaneously tried to impeach him, the president certainly knew he was going to issue a declassification memo within hours.  The declassification directive to AG Bill Barr creates a dynamic ensuring Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will align with the former intelligence officials and further attack the offices of the President and Attorney General; they have few options.  Those who participated in the creation of Russia-Gate or Spy-Gate have few options except to manufacture a narrative shield and accuse the President of unethical, immoral and criminal conduct.

Trump-Russia: The Knives Are Out.  Now that the Russia collusion allegations have evaporated, the long knives are out and President Trump's antagonists are watching their backs.  They have moved from accusing him of treason to pushing revisionist narratives that try to shift the blame for the debunked probe onto others.  This effort is expected to accelerate following Trump's decision Thursday to empower Attorney General William Barr to declassify CIA, Pentagon, and Director of National Intelligence documents as necessary to access "information or intelligence that relates to the attorney general's review" of the Russia probe.  In other words, he's gaining the authority needed to investigate the investigators.

Declassification and Cognitive Dissonance in the Media.  When Nancy Pelosi decided to appease the impeachment hawks in her caucus by accusing President Trump of engaging in a cover-up, the media responded with undisguised glee.  The New York Times, for example, ran a story that essentially congratulated the House Speaker for publicly goading the man.  Trump responded by giving them transparency good and hard.  He not only instructed the various intelligence agencies to assist Attorney General William Barr with his inquiry into the inception of the Russia investigation, but gave Barr authority to declassify related intelligence material.  Oddly, the media have suddenly lost their enthusiasm for transparency.

John Brennan's prized Russia informant abruptly said to be imperiled by Barr's new power.  The need for secrecy was so great that CIA Director John Brennan hand-delivered information from a critical informant close to Russian President Vladimir Putin in an envelope to President Barack Obama in August 2016.  Now, one day after President Trump gave Attorney General William Barr "full and complete authority to declassify information" related to the origins of the federal investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, the New York Times reports this source is in jeopardy.

Sara Carter discusses declassified docs, what she believes will be most damaging, and who should be worried.  Shortly after President Donald Trump granted Attorney General Bill "full and complete authority" Thursday evening [5/23/2019] to declassify any and all documents tied to the Russia probe, investigative reporter Sara Carter provided a handy list of what all the public should expect to soon see.  Speaking on FNC's "Hannity" with guest host Dan Bongino, she specifically listed what she believes will be the most damaging pieces of information to be unveiled in the declassified documents.

No, Nancy.  It's the Dems Who Are Engaged in a 'Cover-Up'.  At this moment, since we know there was no Russia collusion, the big "cover-up" is the provenance of the Mueller investigation itself.  And some of that, at least, is about to be revealed, as the Democrats are no doubt aware.  [President] Trump called this investigation a "witch hunt," but that appears to have been an understatement.  It was a "treasonous coup plot" — unprecedented in American history — with many of the secret conspirators beginning to be known to those interested (Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec).  Doubtless, additional names are to come, adding to the more public ones already fired or conveniently laid off by the FBI and DOJ.  (Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, James Comey, etc.  As of August 2018, 25 were fired or "resigned."  Not sure of the number now.)

Will the Deep State Conspirators Ever Be Held Accountable?  Democrats and their complicit media wildly overpromised on how damaging the Mueller report would be to President Trump.  They paid a huge price when Mueller did not deliver.  Collusion diehards like Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler look delusional with their ongoing search for something that never existed.  The Deep State coup attempt stands busted cold, its perpetrators caught red-handed in unbelievable and un-American actions aimed at covering up Hillary Clinton's inarguable illegalities and overturning an election whose result they could not abide.  For Trumpservatives the schadenfreude was sweet.  But now, those vindicated supporters of the president must caution against being overpromised to themselves.  To what extent, if any, will Russia-Gate actors like Lynch, Simpson, Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Strzok, Page and the rest be held accountable for their alleged criminality?

Patriot Act enabled Russia collusion hoax and further Deep State treachery.  In October of 2001, and following 9/11, President George W. Bush told the nation that the Patriot Act would "give intelligence and law enforcement officials important new tools to fight a present danger."  It was assumed — foolishly — that the threat was from terrorism.  But when and as reauthorized, the Patriot Act during the administration of President Barack Obama, Obama claimed that tweaks to the act would allow US law enforcement to better target homegrown "lone wolves."  Again, the assumption — a foolish one — assumed that the targets would largely be self-motivated terrorists.  Terrorists like Boston Marathon bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  But leave it to official Washington to stretch any legal definitions beyond their original, intended scope.

Louie Gohmert: 'This Came Very Close to Being the First Successful Coup' in U.S. History.  Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) warned that America "came very close" to suffering its "first successful coup," describing Robert Mueller's operation — marketed as an "investigation" by authorities — as an attempt to usurp a duly elected president.

MAGA vs. the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  The general public typically equates the Chamber of Commerce with local Mom and Pop businesses in their area which meet for networking and mutual support in local chapters across the country.  This is erroneous.  According to the Hill:  ["]While local chambers cater to the needs of car dealers and restaurant owners, the national Chamber operates as the lobbying arm of large corporations that have never met a big government program they did not like.  They are weapons dealers pushing billion-dollar battleships and telecommunication lobbyists protecting slow Internet at the world's highest prices.  They are lobbyists for pharmaceutical companies, big banks, and Wall street traders who treat the American people as gullibles to be fleeced without mercy.["]

Mueller's Copperhead Bill of Attainder.  On the one hand, the second part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report reads like a brief opposing presidential powers in a separation of powers dispute.  But even more, it reads like a justification for a bill of attainder or an ex post facto law — two forbidden forms of legislation in the Constitution (Article I, Section 9, clause 3; and Section 10, clause 1).  Such constitutionally prohibited laws are designed and targeted to punish individuals (in this case President Donald J. Trump) and are not general statements about the rule of law.  A Congress devoted to identity politics, or politics about personal traits, can only fashion laws that make personal attacks on people.  Thus, as a defender of the Constitution, Attorney General Bill Barr should dismiss part two of Mueller's report like dicta (unsupported viewpoints) in a Supreme Court opinion, or a bizarre brief concocted in a stupor — as Barr evidently has done.

Trump, Pareto, and the Fall of the Elites.  Under the old elite, universities have become overfinanced monsters, exploiting students whose futures are mortgaged by student debt.  This outrage is allowed to continue because the universities brainwash youth to support the old ruling class and because the universities provide intellectual support for the policies of the old ruling class.  Under the old ruling class, the government has become heavily populated by time-servers whose continued employment would become unnecessary under a Trump-inspired reorganization of the government.  Change is a clear and present danger to those in charge.  That is what is behind the fierce and illegal attacks against Trump.

FBI refuses to reveal if Daniel Jones' research on Trump exists.  The FBI has turned down a request from The Washington Times to disclose whether it has received any opposition research from Daniel J. Jones, the former Senate Democratic staffer who raised $50 million to investigate President Trump.  Mr. Jones has spread the discredited Alfa Bank server conspiracy, which says Russia's largest commercial bank supposedly had a direct link to the Trump campaign via a computer network.  The FBI said The Times' request under the Freedom of Information Act has been closed.  The action should not be construed as acknowledging that the material does or doesn't exist, the bureau said in an April 25 letter.

Mueller prosecutor:  FBI began obstruction case before special counsel appointment.  The FBI began its obstruction of justice case against President Trump before the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller, newly unsealed court documents show.  In a January 2018 hearing, a prosecutor on Mueller's team revealed the obstruction inquiry was prompted by memos written by former FBI Director James Comey that contained notes from his one-on-one meetings with Trump.

Gohmert sounds the alarm: 'Attempted coup' culprits must be held accountable, or we won't 'last much longer'.  Rep. Louie Gohmert ripped the "attempted coup" against President Donald Trump and warned that "we're not going to last much longer" if those behind it don't go to jail.  The fiery Texas Republican blasted the Robert Mueller report and doubled down on previous criticisms he has leveled against the special counsel's investigation of now-disproved Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 election, telling Fox Business News host Lou Dobbs it "goes beyond the pale."

Was Sergey Kislyak Part of the Russian Collusion Hoax?  If the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax was a movie, Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak would have a starring role.  From Attorney General Jeff Sessions' fateful recusal to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn's resignation to the aftermath of FBI Director James Comey's firing, the former Russian diplomat made more than just a few consequential appearances.  The question is, were these incidental cameos or was Kislyak following a script written for him by the collusion fraudsters?  As Senate Republicans threaten to excavate the origins of the corrupt investigation into Donald Trump's presidential campaign, they might want to take a closer look at how Kislyak helped shape the bogus Russian collusion plotline.

Is A Major Real Scandal About To Break Soon?  The whole "Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress" was essentially a sub-hoax perpetuated by Buzzfeed.  Despite Cohen's sensational testimony before Congress in an effort to ingratiate himself to prosecutors, we found out that even this "bombshell" was nothing.  Taken altogether, what we know is that the entire Russian collusion story was nothing but a huge hoax foisted upon the American public, but one we should all be worried about.  What has become increasingly clear is that there was a story developed by a strange incestuous group involving the media, the Clinton campaign, deep state Obama bureaucrats and the DNC to derail the Trump administration.

How The George Papadopoulos Story Was Manufactured To Justify A Hoax Investigation.  As I never tire of saying, I think the entire story that a conversation over wine between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and former Australian diplomat and alleged British intelligence asset Alexander Downer is such transparent [nonsense] that it shows just how stupid the FBI and Mueller thinks the nation is.  The story is wildly implausible on its face and the fact that nothing in the story turned out to be true makes it, and the motives of the FBI, even more suspect.  Today [5/6/2019], NRO's Andy McCarthy goes through the Papadopoulos story with a fine-toothed comb and what he finds makes the whole premise of the Papadopoulos story looked [...] silly.

When Will Trump Finally Drop the Hammer on the Deep State?  This country needs to get to the bottom of how this nightmare all started.  We have to find out who was responsible for putting these corrupt wheels of injustice into full motion.  If it leads all the way to the top and Barack Obama, so be it.  What did Obama know and when did President Obama know it?  And if he did know, to what extent was he involved?  All those who participated in this malfeasance must now be held fully accountable.  If these deep state actors are found guilty, then all of these people must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.  This is no game; President Trump has basically been robbed of the first two years of his presidency by the corrupt people in Washington and their leftist pawns in the media.  This must not stand; these corrupt politicians must not be allowed to run out the clock.

Former Top CIA Official:  Coup Against Trump "Biggest Violation Of Constitution In History".  Former CIA official and whistleblower, Kevin Shipp, isn't holding back when it comes to his views on what took place via the Deep State's attempt to overthrow a duly elected U.S. president.  "Biggest violation of Constitution in history."

Shipp: Coup Against Trump Is "Biggest Violation Of Constitution In History".  President Trump says the Deep State tried and failed to remove him from office in a coup.  Former CIA Officer and whistleblower Kevin Shipp says the attempted coup on Trump was a global conspiracy.  Shipp explains, "Yes, this is a coup.  This is the most shocking violation of the Constitution and criminal activity in the history, not just of America, but of a western government..."  [Video clip]

Listen to Joe diGenova.  If diGenova's track record holds, a legal rain of ruin is about to befall the deep state operatives who tried to steal the 2016 election and, failing that, to unwind the result.  And if, in fact, the enormous surveillance powers of our intelligence agencies were usurped by the Obama administration to spy for years before the election on the opposing political party, then the implications go far beyond just one election and one presidential candidate.  If that happened, then there can be no doubt that, when candidate Obama promised to "fundamentally transform America," he really meant it.  If Obama's "fundamental transformation" involved not only the atrocious harassment and intimidation of the Tea Party patriots by his Internal Revenue Service, but also included surveillance state spying on the Republican Party generally, there must be no question about whether the deep state actors should be punished for their actions.

Listen Carefully — Senator Lindsey Graham Outlines Deep State Exit.  Pay close attention to this interview and note how Senator Graham supports that narrative saying: "the Russians hacked into John Podesta's e-mails, the campaign manager for the Democratic candidate for President.  The Russians hacked into Hillary Clinton's e-mails, the candidate for the Democratic Party."  This 'Russia-hacking narrative' is the DC 'chaff and countermeasures'; when combined with their 'by-the-book' justifications, it becomes their unified defense.  Once you accept their baseline, it becomes much more difficult to expose their unlawful conduct.  [Video clip]

Trump Opponents Never Tire of Losing.  For well over three years, Donald Trump has been under attack.  He has been subjected to unprecedented slander by the media, dirty tricks by the Democrats, legally dubious investigations, and sabotage by the deep state.  Yet he is not only still standing, he has a record of accomplishments that any president would be happy to claim after two years in office.  One would think his opponents would be able to divine a message from this.  To wit, their time might be better spent working on behalf of the voters rather than launching further futile attempts to bring Trump down.

John Podesta 2015 Email Reveals Plot to "Slaughter Trump" by Linking Him to Putin and Russia.  Of course, there was never anything there between Trump and Russia.  Russia was the furthest thing from the Trump campaign.  But, as Jimmy Dore explains, Hillary Clinton knew her biggest vulnerability was the fact that she sold off one-fifth of US uranium to the Russians for a few hundred million and a half-million dollar speech to Bill Clinton from Putin.  So John Podesta devised the lie to project on Trump that he was the candidate colluding with Russia.  It was all initiated by the Clinton inner circle.

Joe di Genova explains where the Russia Hoax is headed.  Throughout the unfolding of the Russia hoax, nobody has topped the clarity provided by DC superlawyer and former US Attorney for the District of Columbia, Joseph DiGenova.  In his television and radio appearances, he has not minced words about the nature of the illegal coup underway, and has not hesitated to name names.  Undoubtedly, he has sources within the DC legal community that, combined with his experience as the top federal prosecutor among US Attorneys, give him a bird's eye view of where this scandal — the biggest political scandal in history — is heading.

Victor Davis Hanson:  "It was a coup attempt to destroy the presidency...".  Last week as the Mueller Report was about to drop, Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institution and the National Review Institute was interviewed by The Epoch Times as part of their American Thought Leaders series.  He offered his thoughts on the Mueller investigation, the Trump presidency, and much more.  Hanson takes us back to the earliest whispers of Russia and walks us through the maddening series of attempts to prevent Trump from becoming president, even after he won the election.  You may have forgotten some of the crazier details, such as the effort to get copies of the Steele dossier to members of the Electoral College.  Hanson has forgotten nothing, and his analysis cuts like a knife despite his cool demeanor.  [Video clip]

U.S. Intelligence [Agencies are] Institutionally Politicized Toward Democrats.  The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have become bastions of political liberals and the pro-Democratic Party views of intelligence personnel have increased under President Donald Trump, according to a journal article by a former CIA analyst.  John Gentry, who spent 12 years as a CIA analyst, criticized former senior intelligence leaders, including CIA Director John Brenan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell, along with former analyst Paul Pillar, for breaking decades-long prohibitions of publicly airing their liberal political views in attacking Trump.

U.S. Intelligence Institutionally Politicized Toward Democrats.  The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies have become bastions of political liberals and the pro-Democratic Party views of intelligence personnel have increased under President Donald Trump, according to a journal article by a former CIA analyst.  John Gentry, who spent 12 years as a CIA analyst, criticized former senior intelligence leaders, including CIA Director John Brenan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former deputy CIA director Michael Morell, along with former analyst Paul Pillar, for breaking decades-long prohibitions of publicly airing their liberal political views in attacking Trump.  The institutional bias outlined in a lengthy article in the quarterly International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence risks undermining the role of intelligence in support of government leaders charged with making policy decisions.

Justice Is Coming.  Let me make this clear:  President Donald John Trump is not answerable to the FBI.  The FBI is answerable to him.  It is not an independent agency but rather a government bureaucracy under command of the nation's chief executive.  He in turn is accountable to Congress and the America people.

President Trump Has It Right, He Was The Target Of A Coup Attempt.  [I]t is hard to draw many conclusions from what we now know about the Mueller investigation and not see it as a tool that was created by James Comey for the express purpose of causing the impeachment or resignation of President Trump.  Whether there was someone calling the shots behind the scenes, or whether the antipathy towards Trump was so great in the senior ranks of Obama loyalists and fanbois that a lot of people acted toward a common purpose, there is no doubt that the Trump campaign was targeted for surveillance and infiltration by the FBI and by, seemingly, foreign intelligence services who were, presumably, working in some way in cooperation with the CIA.

Obama State Dept Conspiracy Against Trump?  Victoria Nuland, President Obama's assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs from September 2013 until January 2017, has been linked to the notorious anti-Trump dossier fabricated by Hillary Clinton's opposition research firm.  The author of the dossier, Christopher Steele, reportedly had developed long-standing relationships with senior State Department officials, including Nuland.  "Between 2014 and 2016, Steele authored more than a hundred reports on Russia and Ukraine.  These were written for a private client but shared widely within the State Department and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and to Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of the U.S. response to the Ukraine crisis."

Obama judge blocks Trump from keeping illegals in Mexico.  Democrat obstruction of the presidency continues as Obama-appointee Judge Richard Seeborg sided with a liberal group in stopping President Donald John Trump from executing his constitutional duty as commander in chief.  Seeborg is the same obstructionist judge who earlier blocked the Trump administration from restoring the citizenship question on the census that Obama had unilaterally removed in the 2010 Census.  That unconstitutional decision is on appeal.

All the Progressive Plotters.  No reporter seems to care that Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to work with other foreign nationals to sabotage, first, her opponent's campaign, then his transition and his presidency, along with the wink and nod help from key Obama officials at the Department of Justice, State Department, National Security Council, FBI and CIA.  The final irony?  If the CIA, FBI, and DOJ have gone the banana republic way of Lois Lerner's IRS and shredded the Constitution, they still failed to remove Donald Trump.

Diana West Discusses The Red Thread:  Why Did The Administrative State Target Donald Trump?  Diana West discusses her new book "The Red Thread" with Stefan Molyneux in a recent interview.  Mrs West asks why the conspiracy against President Trump took place; and she is one of the few people openly challenging the false narrative about Russia intefering in the 2016 election.  This is a great interview to watch:  [Video clip]

The Full Story of How Obama, Hillary and Brennan Carried Out The Crime of the Century.  This is the information the Establishment Media has been working very hard to ignore in order to keep enough Americans ignorant so as to avoid justified marching in the streets of D.C.  And know that this isn't the first time the Deep State has directly attempted to manipulate an election outcome.  It's just that this time because President Trump fights so hard, refuses to give up, and his tens of millions of supporters stand by him, that the Deep State was caught in the act.

Devin Nunes Op-Ed Reflects Intelligence Dance to Thread a Needle.  By now everyone knows there were two parallel operations, two investigative paths, at work in the 2016 election.  There was an official government investigation, Crossfire Hurricane via the FBI; and an unofficial investigation, dossier assembly via Chris Steele and Fusion GPS. Both operations originated in synergy with the vast Russian conspiracy narrative.  One operation was a function of elements outside the traditional framework of government via Fusion GPS.  The second operation was specifically happening inside government spurred by CIA Director John Brennan and with the delivery of his "EC" officially creating the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation.

Team Mueller and the Predictable "Leak Campaign" — But The Much Bigger Issue is the 40 FBI Agents.  Sure, we didn't expect the Mueller team to beg forgiveness for conducting the most ridiculous investigation in modern history; however, I also didn't expect them to be so honest about the motives.  In their own words, they are now admitting:  it's all about politics and maximum political benefit.  Despite the proclaimed reason for the investigation, the greatest concern amid the Mueller team is not whether Russia interfered in the 2016 election; but rather who gets to shape the political narrative that comes after three years of weaponized intelligence ops.

Behind and beyond the Mueller Investigation.  Had Hillary Clinton done what she was supposed to do and won the 2016 presidential election, the American people would never have known about the "dossier," the FISA court, Christopher Steele, or Carter Page.  Hillary and Hillary alone had to win, but she didn't, and so a true conspiracy to overthrow a duly elected President of The United States commenced.  By deciding to take part in the coup attempt, senior members in the FBI and DoJ risked going to prison for up to 20 years according to 18 U.S. Code § 2385 — advocating the overthrow of government.  But not even a deep hatred for Trump would have been enough incentive for them to consider such a thing. [...] It wasn't about who Trump was — it was all about what Trump promised.  It was about the survivability of the swamp.

Mark Levin Interviews John Solomon and Sara Carter.  Journalists Sara Carter and John Solomon sit down for a lengthy discussion of the multi-year weaponization of the DOJ, FBI and intelligence apparatus to target Donald Trump and his administration.  This is the biggest political scandal of our lifetime.  [Video clip]  The conspiracy to stop, undermine and overthrow the presidency of Donald Trump is also the greatest opportunity in modern political history to confront corruption within the U.S. federal government.  There can be no 'moving on' until every measure is taken to hold these participants accountable for their unlawful and unconstitutional effort.

Obama Judge Decrees That Obama's Decisions Are Permanent and President Trump Can't Change Them.  In the late December 2016, just a few weeks before his term of maladministration and race-baiting ended, Barack Obama decided to take one more shot at the country he despised above all others.  By executive order, he banned drilling in large swaths of the Arctic.  This had been done by past presidents, but always with a time lime.  Obama, being the Lightworker, desired his decisions to have immortality and he banned drilling in perpetuity.  Shortly after he was sworn in, President Trump issued an executive order overturning Obama's executive order an opening the Arctic to exploration and drilling.  The enviro-nazis sued and yesterday an Obama-appointed judge in Alaska handed down a surprising, yet unsurprising, decision that because Obama had intended for his ban to last forever, it could not be changed by any other president, but only by act of Congress.

Robert Mueller used triangulation to promote and protect the Deep State.  As special counsel, Robert Mueller became an integral part of the ongoing Deep-State insurance policy to destroy and eventually impeach and unseat President Trump and provide cover for Hillary Clinton, the Obama administration, and Deep-State operatives in the FBI and DOJ.  What's shocking is that Mueller operated under a cloak of secrecy and protection provided by our own government.  A major part of Mueller's objective appears to have been dragging out the Russia collusion investigation long enough to affect the 2018 elections in hopes of helping Democrats take control of either the House or the Senate or both.  Mission accomplished.

The vast attempt to undo the 2016 election has failed.  John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Sally Yates, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, John McCain, Christopher Steele, Glenn Simpson, and others did their best to undo the results of the 2016 election.  The Mueller investigation was their not-so-secret weapon upon which vast hopes rested.  It has, unfortunately for them, been increasingly clear for some time that Robert Mueller was coming up empty-handed, at least on the main task, which was to unseat the President.

Dossier-Tied Firm Pitches Reporters Daily on 'Collusion'.  Key Democratic operatives and private investigators who tried to derail Donald Trump's campaign by claiming he was a tool of the Kremlin have rebooted their operation since his election with a multimillion-dollar stealth campaign to persuade major media outlets and lawmakers that the president should be impeached.  The effort has successfully placed a series of questionable stories alleging secret back channels and meetings between Trump associates and Russian spies, while influencing related investigations and reports from Congress.

Someone in State Department likely involved in bid to take down Trump:  Herridge.  Fox News' chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge believes a claim by Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows of a coordinated effort to hurt President Trump — including "sitting ambassadors," the FBI and the Department of Justice — also likely involves someone in the State Department.  "I think the congressman is referring to someone within the State Department based on my reporting," Herridge said Tuesday [3/19/2019] on Fox News Radio's "Brian Kilmeade Show."  "Because we have a pretty good sense now from these transcripts that have been revealed and then also records that were unsealed at the end last week in the defamation suit with BuzzFeed that ... the government network was being pulsed with the dossier in the final months of the campaign and then during the transition period.  And that it was coming at the FBI and Justice Department through many different lanes or many different avenues, and the objective was to lend it credibility."

Mark Meadows:  There Are Sitting Ambassadors Who Were Involved with Deep State Coup to Get Trump.  On Monday night Rep. Mark Meadows, reporter Sara Carter and FOX News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett joined Sean Hannity to discuss the latest developments in the deep state coup of Donald Trump.  Once again, Sean Hannity assured his audience that criminal referrals are coming soon for the deep state operatives who worked overtime to criminally remove President Trump from office. [...] Then Rep. Mark Meadows dropped this bomb on the Deep State — Sitting ambassadors were involved in the coup to get Trump.

Graham: Need A Special Counsel To Investigate "Potential Crimes" By Department of Justice, FBI.  Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told FNC's Sean Hannity Wednesday night [3/13/2019] that the Department of Justice must answer two questions:  Did they stop the Clinton investigation because they wanted her to win?  Did they start the Russian investigation against Trump as an insurance policy in case he won?  Graham also called for a special counsel to investigate "potential crimes" committed by officials in the Department of Justice, especially the FBI.

Lindsey Graham Senate Floor Speech on Mueller, FISA Abuse, and DOJ/FBI Investigations.  Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham challenges Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to amend his Mueller report resolution and permit adding the appointment of a Special Counsel to look into the numerous 2016 election abuses by the DOJ and FBI.

Revelations In The Deep State's War Against Trump Are Becoming Too Big For Them To Hide.  The abuse of power by officials at the top levels of the Department of Justice, including Obama's Attorney General Loretta Lynch, became clearer than ever due to Rep. Doug Collins' (R-GA) release of transcripts from the 2018 Bruce Ohr and Lisa Page hearings in the last week.  Their testimonies both corroborated many of Devin Nunes' previous findings and provided new information.  In addition, Fox News obtained a copy of an internal FBI chart with a written comment next to the section of the statute which most closely applied to Hillary Clinton which said:  "Note:  DOJ not willing to charge this."

18 Real Attacks on the 'Rule of Law'.  [#5] The Sally Yates insurrection:  Shortly after President Trump assumed office, he issued an executive order citing his power under the Immigration and Nationality Act to place a travel moratorium on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries.  Sally Yates, the Obama-era holdover who temporarily served as acting attorney general, oversaw a vetting of this executive order and the Department of Justice issued a legal opinion confirming the order was legal and proper.  Nevertheless, Yates used her authority to instruct the Department of Justice to defy the president.  She clearly violated the president's authority under Article II of the Constitution as the chief executive by refusing to carry out an order she acknowledged was legal.  Unfortunately, this appears to have set the tone for the Justice Department's continued resistance to the president ever since.

Fake Hate, Fake Collusion:  All in the Name of Destroying the Trump Presidency.  In more ways than one, hate crime hoaxer Jussie Smollet is far from alone.  He's simply the latest in a long line of unhinged leftists with evil intent bent on destroying Donald Trump's presidency.  Be it fake hate or fake collusion, for nearly three years now, Donald Trump has been the target of an unprecedented campaign meant to end his candidacy and his presidency.  After the recent revelations of former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, there should now be no doubt as to the existence of a nefarious "Deep State."  As revealed by McCabe himself in his soon to be published book, in May of 2017, angered by President Trump's firing of his boss, then-FBI director James Comey, McCabe, and his like-minded cronies at the FBI and the Justice Department foolishly plotted as to how they might invoke the 25th Amendment and remove the duly elected president from office.

The 25th Amendment Talk Isn't The Real Scandal.  The Spygate Coup Attempt Is.  The true scandal is not the swirling gossip that Rosenstein mentioned the 25th Amendment, but what has been front and center for more than two years:  It's the dossier, stupid!  It's the dossier, its funding, its creation, and its use.  It's the leaks, the sabotage by political appointees and career DOJ and FBI agents, the media's complicity, and the triggering of a special counsel, all with the end goal of removing the duly elected president by pressuring Trump to resign or face impeachment.  While we may never learn the full scope of this sting, what is known makes "Spygate" — for want of a better term — the worst political scandal in American history:  A dossier funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign, and authored by a former British spy (Christopher Steele, who despised Trump), falsely claimed Trump and individuals connected to his presidential campaign conspired with Russia.  The dossier was shopped to multiple media outlets and passed off to the Obama administration's DOJ, FBI, and State Department, as well as several members of Congress and their staffers.

Deplorable McCabe Enabled by Dormant Pelley Brings '60 Minutes' and America to New Low.  McCabe discusses his meeting with Rod Rosenstein from the Justice Department and the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to take Trump out of office.  The fact that these two men would be discussing the 25th Amendment with so little knowledge of what the language states are criteria for removing a president from office stupefies any knowledgeable person.  McCabe says he did not have much to contribute when Rosenstein brought it up.  What he should have contributed was reporting this to his superiors in the White House as a potential coup d'état.  By not doing so McCabe became a co-conspirator.

Confirmed: John Fry, the IRS Analyst Who Leaked Michael Cohen's Tax Returns, is a Far Left Trump-Basher Who Supports Beto O'Rourke.  John Fry, an IRS Analyst was arrested this past week for releasing former Trump attorney Michael Cohen's tax returns to creepy porn lawyer Michael Avenatti.  Although Fry's social media accounts were suspended, what was found wasn't surprising.  CNN reported that Fry was charged by the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California with unauthorized disclosure of a suspicious activity report, or SAR.  Banks file SARs on any transactions that could be illegal.

IRS analyst charged with leaking Michael Cohen bank records.  A U.S. Internal Revenue Service analyst in San Francisco has been charged in federal court with leaking information about the bank records of Michael Cohen, a former personal lawyer to President Donald Trump.  IRS investigative analyst John Fry, 54, was charged in federal court in San Francisco on Feb. 4 in a criminal complaint filed under seal.  The complaint was unsealed Thursday after Fry's initial appearance before a federal magistrate.

Autopsy of a Dead Coup.  The illegal effort to destroy the 2016 Trump campaign by Hillary Clinton campaign's use of funds to create, disseminate among court media, and then salt among high Obama administration officials, a fabricated, opposition smear dossier failed.  So has the second special prosecutor phase of the coup to abort the Trump presidency failed.  There are many elements to what in time likely will become recognized as the greatest scandal in American political history, marking the first occasion in which U.S. government bureaucrats sought to overturn an election and to remove a sitting U.S. president.

President Trump is Slowly Stopping the Exfiltration of American Wealth.  Every element of global economic trade is controlled and exploited by massive institutions, multinational banks and multinational corporations.  Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), control trillions of dollars in economic activity.  Underneath that economic activity there are people who hold the reigns of power over the outcomes.  These individuals and groups are the stakeholders in direct opposition to principles of America-First national economics.  The modern financial constructs of these entities have been established over the course of the past three decades.  When you understand how they manipulate the economic system of individual nations you begin to understand why they are so fundamentally opposed to President Trump.

To get Trump, FBI and Justice Department officials trampled the Constitution.  Justice Department and FBI officials spied on U.S. citizens with false warrants, gave a pass to one presidential campaign with a predetermined investigation, investigated another political campaign on the basis of no verified evidence, and illegally leaked information on investigations.  They discussed wiretapping and using the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove President Trump, and appointed a special counsel as a retaliatory move for Comey's firing.  It is now crystal clear that the highest echelons of the Justice Department and FBI had morphed from the world's most professional law enforcement organization into a Third World rump group.  They had the hubris to believe that they — not the American people or their duly elected representatives — should decide who governs and how.

Alan Dershowitz:  Ousting Trump via 25th Amendment is 'clearly an attempt at a coup d'etat'.  Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz on Thursday said the Department of Justice's discussions to employ the 25th Amendment to oust President Trump — if true — amounted to an attempted coup.  Dershowitz appeared on Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight," to give his take on former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's descriptions of Justice Department meetings where he said officials discussed ousting the president.  "If [McCabe's comments are] true, it is clearly an attempt at a coup d'état," Dershowitz said.  Evoking the 25th Amendment, Dershowitz added, would be a fundamental misuse of its original purpose.  He said it was originally "about Woodrow Wilson having a stroke.  It's about a president being shot and not being able to perform his office."

House Democrats Are Planning Another Trump-Russia Witch Hunt.  The Department of Justice's Russia investigation headed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is said to be close to closing up shop, though we've had that for months and we're still waiting on a report.  So far, there is zero evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, the unicorn the Left is hoping to physically take a hold of in order to impeach the president.  They're still seething over their 2016 election loss.  They hate President Trump.  And that animus extends into the liberal media who has been astoundingly wrong in their coverage of this story.  There have been so many so-called bombshells that have turned out to be nothing burgers.  It's hard to count them all.  The latest is BuzzFeed's recent trip-up over ex-personal attorney Michael Cohen, who they say was directed to lie to Congress about a Russian real estate deal by President Trump.  That story was discredited — by the Mueller investigation.  And yet, even when this investigation ends, it won't stop there.  House Democrats are already planning another wild goose chase into Russia and the president[.]

Who Knew About The FBI & DoJ coup d'état Planned To Oust The President?  Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe — who seems to have taken part in what can only be described as an FBI and DoJ planned coup d'état to oust the president of the United States of America — will now get to boast about it on this Sunday's CBS "60 Minutes"?  How can this be? [...] In short, while some 63 million people who voted in Donald Trump were celebrating their victory, forces within the FBI and DoJ were already working on removing the president from office.

House GOP Leader Presses Adam Schiff Over Secret Meeting With Fusion GPS Founder.  House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is pressing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff for answers about his interactions with Glenn Simpson, the founder of the opposition research firm behind the Democrat-funded Steele dossier.  In a statement released on Friday [2/15/2019], McCarthy questioned whether Schiff, a California Democrat, should recuse himself from the Intelligence panel's Russia investigation because of a meeting he had with Simpson at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2018.

Top GOP rep demands answers after Dems hire anti-Trump investigators for Judiciary Committee.  The top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee is demanding to know why the panel's Democratic leadership made the "costly" and "unusual" decision this week to hire two prominent anti-Trump consultants to conduct a purportedly impartial investigation of the the White House.  In a letter to House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the ranking member on the committee, GOP Rep. Doug Collins, asked how much taxpayers could expect to be charged for Barry Berke and Norman Eisen's services — as well as what exactly the pair of vocally anti-Trump operatives will be doing.  "Your unilateral decision to hire two individuals with such obvious bias against the president will taint anything they touch going forward," Collins wrote to Nadler.

Senator Mitch McConnell Announces He is "Especially Proud" of Legislation Rebuking President Trump.  [Scroll down]  Every time this happens victims of battered conservative syndrome start a process of reconciling the reason for their abuse by excusing and justifying their abuser, Mitch McConnell.  Let's be clear, CTH has watched this process, on a very granular level, for well over a decade; specifically about Senator McConnell.  Mitch McConnell doesn't give a hoot what any voter, constituent, or member of the national electorate thinks about his action.  He is entirely unfazed and bound to a power ideology that sets him above all considerations.

Black swans, black ops, BlackCube, and red herrings.  I'm not sure the indictments are working.  The Russians are so far from being shamed that now they're engaged in fake hacking.  Dr. Megan Reiss notes Special Counsel Mueller's recent claim that Russians are leaking discovery materials and pretending they came from a hack of the counsel's office.  Remember the remarkably adroit robot that turned out to be a Russian in a robot suit?  That's what this reminds us of.

Who Do Our Intelligence Agencies Think They Work For?  This week's "Fake News" swirling around the Director of National Intelligence's (DNI) testimony before Congress on his annual "National Worldwide Threat Assessment" isn't simply dishonest.  It is dangerous.  While Capitol Hill has the mandate to exercise its oversight function — and should use it — over the executive branch, the IC does not work for Congress.  In fact, it exists solely to support the national security policies and decision-making requirements of the commander-in-chief.  As such, the reports that the testimony of DNI Dan Coates, CIA Director Gina Haspel, and FBI Director Chris Wray contradicted or undermined the president are not simply wrong-footed, they are reckless in the extreme.

Inside DOJ and FBI: Anatomy of a bloodless coup?  The word "coup" evokes imagery of bloody revolution, but does a coup have to be bloody, or even happen all at once?  What if, instead, a bloodless, rolling coup started with a snowball and ended with an avalanche?  Many believe this very thing happened in 2016, with a small political cabal determined to see Hillary Clinton elected president.  When she was defeated, the theory goes, they worked even harder to try to bring her hated opponent, Donald Trump, down by any means necessary — even if this caused much of the American public to believe the president of the United States is the tool of a foreign adversary.

Schumer calls for CIA to stage 'intervention' with Trump.  Chuck Schumer on Wednesday night called for US intelligence chiefs to "stage an intervention" with President Trump just hours after the president called them "naive" in a tweet.  The Democratic Senate minority leader delivered a missive to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats that said Trump's frequent disregard for their research puts the country at risk.  Schumer asked that Coats — along with CIA Director Gina Haspel and FBI Director Christopher Wray — set up a meeting with Trump to give him a reality check.  "You cannot allow the President's ill-advised and unwarranted comments today to stand," Schumer wrote.

Tripwire — Chairman Adam Schiff Sends HPSCI Witness Transcripts.  Frustratingly, there are those claiming to be on "our side" who are oblivious to these political constructs.  They are either intentionally trying to distract from the real danger that is heading toward President Trump; or they are brutally naive people watching things unfold while having no actual grasp of what forces opposes them.  There is a very real danger here as the Epoch Times community keeps selling "trust the plan" pitches and perspectives of honorable Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller while completely ignoring the reality of what is taking place.

The real evil of fake news.  Leakers have been embedded in the Trump administration from the start to sabotage the president's agenda.  Although under-reported by the liberal media, text messages between former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his lover Lisa Page blew the lid off this conspiracy.  Strzok conducted the railroading of Michael Flynn and let former secretary of state Hillary Clinton slide over her use of a personal email server for official communications.  He was caught dead to rights in a text saying to his mistress:  "I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go."  Entities such as the Washington Post and the New York Times blow constant smoke with the hope that these crucial details can be forgotten down the memory hole, so you might think the fact the FBI investigated Trump as a possible Russian agent is somehow noteworthy.

Crush the Coup:  Break Up the FBI.  Given the last two years of continued assaults against President Trump by Mueller and Obama-holdovers such as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the confirmation of a new attorney general might not be enough.  There may be one solution that preserves the patriotic agents who are protecting the nation while helping drain the Beltway swamp: dissolve the FBI, fire all the senior political operators still in the Hoover Building, and make the 56 FBI field offices across the nation — where the real agents work — the counterterrorism, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations division of the Department of Homeland Security.  This way we may prevent the next palace coup.

Red Handed:  All the Collusion was in the Deep State.  Washington, D.C. is plagued by political weaponization of government, law enforcement, and media, the likes of which America has never seen — all coordinated and perpetrated by the Democrats and their Deep State allies.  According to The New York Times, the FBI secretly investigated President Trump based on concocted claims that he was working with the Russians against American interests.  They officially launched the "investigation" — which they had long been running unofficially — after the President rightly and justifiably fired James Comey.  As a pathetic excuse, the disgraced and fired former FBI Assistant Director Andrew McCabe and Agent Peter Strzok focused on isolated and innocuous statements made by Donald Trump regarding Russia during and after the 2016 campaign.

The Coup Against Trump Has Failed — Is the Worm About to Turn?  It is now obvious that for two and a half years, Democrats and their friends in the deep state have been peddling an elaborate hoax:  the spurious charge that President Trump conspired or colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 election.  The entire enterprise from the beginning was always about defeating Trump — either by planting smears in the media in 2016 to prevent his election or if that didn't succeed, by doubling down on the investigation in an effort to keep the president from uncovering their election-year espionage malfeasance.

For Real 'Russian Collusion,' Look to the Democrats.  In trying to lob a Molotov cocktail into the Trump White House, the New York Times last Friday succeeded only in blowing off yet another of its appendages.  Fixated on its manic desire to destabilize the lawfully elected government of the United States (at what point does the "Resistance" become active sedition?), the media has chosen to fight as down and dirty as possible, and in so doing hit a new low. [...] This is, in a nutshell, the heart of the MSM's "case" against the president, a mixture of wishful thinking, venality, and downright criminality.  It is also one of the most egregious cases of psychological projection we've ever seen, for reasons that will soon become clear.

The FBI is the security threat.  The Washington Post ran a column, "The FBI can't neutralize a security threat if the president is the threat."  The President of the United States is never a threat to national security.  He is national security.  We elect him commander in chief.  The FBI works at his command.  Jimmy the Geek Comey and his crew committed mutiny when they began an investigation into Our President.  Their actions are treasonous and in violation of their oaths to defend the Constitution.

Public Disdain For Russia Probe Intensifies, Trump Approval Climbs — IBD/TIPP Poll.  Most people think President Trump's critics are trying to use Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation to delegitimize the 2016 elections, the latest IBD/TIPP Poll finds.  And a plurality thinks the FBI investigation into Trump's alleged ties to Russia was meant to rein him in.  These findings come in the wake of a New York Times story Friday that claimed the FBI had opened a counterintelligence probe into Trump several months into his presidency[.]  The probe began, the Times says, days after Trump fired then FBI Director James Comey and was meant to determine whether Trump was a Russian agent.

NY Times:  Counterintelligence Investigation was Payback for Trump Firing Comey.  We have an actual government of elected officials.  And a vast unelected body of officials who pursue their own agendas.  With the Mueller coup, the two have come in direct conflict with one another.

On What Grounds Can the FBI Investigate the President as a Counterintelligence Threat?  The New York Times reported on Jan. 11 that the FBI "began investigating whether President Trump had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests" soon after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017.  In other words, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation on the president.  The Times reports that my friend and former colleague, former FBI General Counsel James Baker, said during testimony to House investigators in October 2018 that "Not only would [firing Comey] be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the Russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security." [...] If the story is accurate, then what the FBI did was unprecedented and possibly — I emphasize possibly, since many relevant facts are not included in the Times reporting — an overstep, or at least imprudent.  The reason the FBI step might have been imprudent is that it was premised on an inversion of the normal assumptions of Article II of the Constitution.

An Open Letter to the President:  How You Can Take the Fight to the Deep State.  President Trump, please release the unredacted Barrett and Cox Reports to the American public.  Any sources and methods should be protected.  But the majority of the document — as demonstrated by the cover-up attempts on the part of Democrat elites — should be seen by the American people.  Let's find out what Hillary Clinton and her husband were really up to when they occupied the White House for eight years.  I fear that the lawlessness of the Clintons set an ominous launching point for the Obama years.  This escalation of "legalized criminality" must be stopped.  You can begin the process of healing our country.

Trump Is Right:  Most Federal Workers Are Democrats.  Today [1/4/2019] Pres[ident] Trump tweeted that he wonders whether Democrats have realized yet how badly our country desperately needs border security and The Wall because the U. S. must stop drugs, human trafficking, gang members, and criminals from coming into our country.  Then Trump went on to ask this question:  "Do the Dems realize that most of the people not getting paid are Democrats?"  Trump's claim is true.  In 2016, 95% of nearly $2 Million from 14 federal agencies went to support Hillary's campaign.  Several agencies had more than 99% of their contributions going to Hillary.

The FBI and DOJ Were Working to Protect Hillary Clinton a Lot Longer Than Generally Discussed.  Arguably the biggest story of 2018 is how much we have learned about institutional political corruption within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). With that level of new knowledge in mind, some earlier stories about the DOJ and FBI take on an entirely different light.  Here's one from late 2016 — You might not know the name Marc Turi but if you are familiar with the Benghazi Brief, or more specifically with Operation Zero Footprint, you'll likely know the issues.

Deep State Caught:  "So She Lied.  BFD. No One At DOJ Is Going To Prosecute."  So many have said so many times how the rules don't apply to certain globalist politicians, right?  Well, here are some FBI agents communicating that very thing regarding Hillary Clinton's closet confidante, Huma Abedin, after thousands of classified/critical docs were found on her unsecured laptop — and she lied about it.  (A BIG no-no.)  This was near the end of the 2016 campaign.  Huma was photographed on the Clinton campaign in tears.  (She knew she was in big-big trouble.)  Then, inexplicably, all that trouble went away.  -Poof-  Vanished.  No doubt the Clintons called in some big favors to some high-ranking Deep State officials and Huma and Hillary were off the hook — again.

Victor Davis Hanson:  We Are Witnessing a Soft Coup of the Trump Administration.  Author and historian Victor Davis Hanson joined Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night after the Flynn court hearing today [12/18/2018].  Hanson described the fantastical stories building on the left and the US elite's unwillingness to accept the results of the 2016 election.  Hanson described it as a soft coup.

Emails Reveal Obama Admin's Push To Create Russia Scandal Hours Before Trump's Inauguration.  Close observers know that the Operation Crossfire Hurricane strategy surfaced during the 2016 presidential election and continued well into Trump's presidency, with General Michael Flynn getting snared in a Peter Strzok/Sally Yates ambush play in the early days of the Trump White House.  Now, Team Obama's documented effort to cook up the Russia story before Trump's inauguration emboldens a narrative already proved by text messages involving Obama official James Clapper:  the Obama people actually thought they could stop Trump from getting sworn in.

When Does Trump Say, 'Enough Is Enough!'?  For his efforts, he is ridiculed and scorned.  Not only by his political opponents, but by those in his own party.  NeverTrumpers in Congress and the media who would be ecstatic if a President Bush, Kasich, or Rubio were implementing everything Trump is doing, yet Trump's conservative accomplishments mean nothing because he tweets and calls his detractors mean names.  He is not one of them, not part of their elite club, not a dues-paying member of the establishment.  So those who have been advocating for conservative policies their entire political careers have turned on a dime, throwing their conservatism to the wind, embracing Democrat policies instead, all because they don't like the messenger.

The fury of the establishment.  The Establishment's full fury has been unleashed against Donald Trump and is not about to subside until its goal is reached: the removal of the president from office, either through impeachment or defeat in the 2020 election.

Trump's Enemies:  A Book for the Ages.  Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie have written a seminal book as critical participants in one of the most historic events in American history.  Their book is about the triumphs and setbacks of the campaign of Donald Trump to be elected the 45th president and then his governance for the first eighteen-plus months.  Their book works on three important levels.  First, it is a good read.  The authors take a murky and complicated story about the president's "Deep State" enemies and present names and events in an easy to understand linear narrative.  By presenting a timeline with names and specific examples of individuals who have demonstrated disloyalty to constitutional safeguards, they make the horror of what happened understandable.

Does 'Make X Great Again' Ever Happen in History?  [Scroll down]  In some sense, if Trump's election as the first president without either political or military experience was unprecedented, equally unparalleled was a 90 percent hostile media, coup-like attempts to abort a presidency through absurd resorts to the Logan Act, Emoluments Clause, the 25th Amendment, lawsuits, impeachment writs, and non-stop celebrity talk of assassination, and death and destruction to the Trump family.  Almost any other man Trump's age would long ago have collapsed under the stress and venom.

President Trump Discusses His Decision Not to Declassify "Spygate" Documents.  The New York Post has an article today, surrounding an interview with President Trump, where the topic of declassifying the evidence behind 'Spygate' surfaced.  To say there is a massive schism amid supporters of the President on this issue would be an understatement.  On one hand the declassification would potentially, and finally, outline the scale of the FBI/DOJ politicization and weaponization of intelligence against the President — exposing the entire 'spygate' scandal in all its glory.  On the other hand that potential is also seen as political leverage against the schemes of DC and all the characters.

Former aides promise to expose 'deep state' plot to stop Trump becoming president.  President Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and deputy campaign manager David Bossie this week will release a new book detailing how the president's "enemies" inside and outside the White House are working to thwart his agenda.  The two former Trump aides are set to release their new book, "Trump's Enemies:  How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency," on Tuesday [11/27/2018].  The authors want the book, which is reported to describe an ominous and somewhat conspiratorial Washington under the Trump administration, to show readers how there are establishment embeds within the nation's capital that are actively working against the president and "the American people."

Is The Deep State Feeling The Heat?  Bad as it may have been, the worst of the Russia Hoax was not the abuse of the FISA electronic surveillance regime for political purposes.  Nor is the worst even the patent involvement of our intelligence agencies — and in particular the FBI and CIA — in electoral politics.  No, the worst aspect of the Russia Hoax is that our intelligence agencies, including elements of DoJ and the State Department cooperating with the Clinton campaign, enlisted the intelligence services of foreign powers — first in their effort to defeat the candidacy of Donald Trump and, when that effort failed, turning their efforts to what can only be described as an attempted coup against the elected President of the United States.

A Deep State Motive Behind Conspicuous Releases?  Throughout the research into the Machiavellian constructs of "Spygate" and the subsequent Mueller investigation, there have always been larger questions behind the stories.  It is a fact that most of the evidence surfaced after General Michael Flynn entered a plea agreement with special counsel Mueller on November 30th, 2017.  Why were the original Page/Strzok text messages released to the public in December 2017, and January 2018?  Perhaps more importantly:  Who did the redactions within the text messages prior to their release?  And why were those redactions ever made?

Democrats have a plan if Trump fires Mueller in 'Saturday Night Massacre'.  House Democrats have a Plan B to make sure Robert Mueller's findings in the Russia investigation see the light of day if President Trump fires the special counsel, a report said.  Democrats, who regained control of the House in Tuesday's midterm elections, are preparing for a Saturday Night Massacre situation in which Trump fires top Justice Department officials in an attempt to quash Mueller's investigation.  In that scenario, Democratic officials told Politico, Mueller would be immediately summoned to Capitol Hill, where he would testify about his findings on national television.

FBI Admits It Used Multiple Spies To Infiltrate Trump Campaign.  The FBI, under the guidance of then-director James Comey, used more than one spy in its investigation into former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, the government disclosed in a court filing on Friday [10/19/2018].  "The FBI has protected information that would identify the identities of other confidential sources who provided information or intelligence to the FBI" as well as "information provided by those sources," wrote David M. Hardy, the head of the FBI's Record/Information Dissemination Section.  The filing by Hardy and the Department of Justice came in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to gain access to four of the FBI's applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page.  While the applications were released June 20, they were heavily redacted, and "USA Today reporter Brad Heath has sued for full copies of the documents," The Daily Caller reports.

FBI admits using multiple informants, some paid, to illegally target Trump campaign.  The U.S. government revealed Friday that it used multiple informants to obtain information against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.  In court filings, government officials also revealed confidential human sources were paid for their work.  The FBI relied heavily on an uncorroborated dossier to obtain warrants to spy on Page.

U.S. Official Arrested, Criminally Charged For Leaking Confidential Documents in Russia Probe.  On Tuesday [10/16/2018], a U.S. official was arrested and criminally charged for leaking confidential financial documents relating to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, the Russian embassy and accused Russian spy Maria Butina.  40-year-old Natalie May Edwards, the senior advisor in the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network who was arrested Tuesday [10/16/2018], leaked the documents to Jason Leopold, a reporter for BuzzFeed according to a Wednesday announcement by Manhattan federal prosecutors.

Senior U.S. Treasury Official Arrested for Leaking Financial Forms To Media.  Every organization from mortgage providers, to international financial institutions, to local U.S. main street banks, all the way to Western Union and convenience stores who generate money orders, are required to file CTR's and SAR's as part of the Treasury Department Banking Secrecy Act; a law requiring anyone engaged in financial services to assist government agencies in detecting and preventing money laundering.  At some point every person reading here has likely had a report filled out by a financial provider, submitting their details within a financial transaction, filed with the Treasury department.  You never know about it, because it's part of compliance reporting.  According to the DOJ release Ms. Mayflower Sours-Edwards "was in possession of a flash drive appearing to be the flash drive on which she saved the unlawfully disclosed Suspicious Activity Reports, and a cellphone containing numerous communications over an encrypted application in which she transmitted SARs and other sensitive government information to" journalists.

Treasury employee charged with leaking financial info on Trump team was arrested with flash drive in hand, prosecutors say.  The top Treasury Department employee who was charged Wednesday [10/17/2018] with leaking confidential financial documents pertaining to former Trump officials was apprehended the previous evening with a flash drive containing the allegedly pilfered information in her hand, prosecutors said in court papers.  The dramatic arrest late Tuesday came on the heels of other high-profile, leak-related prosecutions under the Trump administration, which has pledged to go on the offensive against leakers that the president has called "traitors and cowards."  Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 40, a senior official at the department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), is accused of illegally giving a reporter bank reports documenting several suspicious financial transactions, known as Suspicious Activity Reports ("SARs"), from October 2017 to the present.

Ron Johnson Demands Records Of FBI's Meeting With DNC Attorney During Campaign.  Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is calling on FBI Director Christopher Wray to hand over documents related to a former FBI lawyer's meeting during the 2016 campaign with an attorney that represented the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.  The meeting was revealed during a congressional deposition that former FBI general counsel James Baker gave on Oct. 3.  Baker told lawmakers that in September 2016 he met with Michael Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie.

Obama Had a Secret Plan in Case Trump Rejected 2016 Election Results.  The Obama White House plan, according to interviews with [Ben] Rhodes and Jen Psaki, Obama's communications director, called for congressional Republicans, former presidents, and former Cabinet-level officials including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, to try and forestall a political crisis by validating the election result.  In the event that Trump tried to dispute a Clinton victory, they would affirm the result as well as the conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence community that Russian interference in the election sought to favor Trump, and not Clinton.  Some Republicans were already aware of Russian interference from intelligence briefings given to leaders from both parties during the chaotic months before the election.  "We wanted to handle the Russia information in a way that was as bipartisan as possible," Rhodes said.  The existence of the postelection plan has not been previously reported.

Trail Covering:  As Predicted U.S. DOJ and Treasury Turn on Oleg Deripaska.  Some things are just so predictable they become funny.  The story of Oleg Deripaska is a little bit convoluted and challenging to keep up with.  The short version is that former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, FBI Agent Peter Strzok and corrupt U.S. DOJ officials tried to recruit Deripaska in 2016 for their vast Russian conspiracy plot against candidate Trump, President-Elect Trump and President Trump.  Because of the associations with the scheme and coup-plotters, Oleg has buckets of dirt on corrupt U.S. officials who were trying to target Donald Trump.  In the wake of a soft-coup failure, Oleg then became a risk.  So it comes as no surprise to see today the U.S. DOJ and Treasury turn on him and confiscate his U.S. assets.

Did Hillary Clinton Direct Deep State's Trump Investigation?  While America argued last month over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, something momentous was happening all but off the media's radar:  The Trump-Russia collusion investigation narrative continued to collapse in spectacular fashion, as Hillary Clinton's leading role in the scandal came into sharper focus.

Twelve points to keep in mind on the NYT's Rosenstein 'wear a wire' and invoke 25th Amendment story.  We are only getting started on figuring out what this really means, but here are twelve points to keep in mind:  [#1] The New York Times is comfortable exposing deep state resistance to Trump.  The idea that members of the federal bureaucracy are deliberately sabotaging and working to oust a duly elected president of the United States has been dismissed as a conspiracy theory by all sorts of mainstream media outlets and purported fact-checkers.  But first with its publication of an anonymously-written op-ed, and now with this story, the Times is eager to admit the resistance and celebrate it, presumably because it thinks the end is nearing for the Trump presidency.  [#2] Memos written by Andrew McCabe and Lisa Page were at least part of the basis for the report.  Given the fact that McCabe has been fired and has been referred by the DOJ's Inspector General for criminal prosecution, there may be self-protection motives in releasing them to the leading journalistic opponent of Trump's presidency.  [#3] Rod Rosenstein's denials are lawyerly and self-contradictory.

The Resistance is Everyday, Everywhere.  We've learned that there are active efforts inside the administration to thwart President Trump's agenda and policies.  This person thinks he (or she) knows better than the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump.  But what should be sobering to Trump supporters — and to all serious conservatives and Republicans, for that matter — is the fact that [the New York] Times op-ed represents just a small sliver of what's going on inside even a Republican administration on virtually a daily basis.  There is a vast, unelected body inside the federal government that silently influences the ways in which our country is run.  This permanent, unelected elite views citizens and their elections as nothing more than white noise.  Something to be tolerated, but never heeded.

The 'deep state' leaves Trump with no good options.  President Trump is not generally given to understatement, but he soft-pedaled problems at the Department of Justice.  There is, he said Friday, a "lingering stench" there.  A "stench" doesn't describe the situation.  A snake pit is more like it.  The report by The New York Times that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein plotted to remove Trump, either by wearing a wire or invoking the 25th Amendment, cements forever the fact that there was and still is a deep state centered in the nation's top law-enforcement agency.  This was a plot by power-mad individuals who aimed to overturn the 2016 election and thwart the will of voters.

James O'Keefe vs The Permanent Administrative State.  A very interesting speech by James O'Keefe at the Gateway-Eagle Forum highlights an upcoming Project Veritas enterprise.  What O'Keefe outlines is a preview for undercover research within Washington DC to put actual names and faces behind those who operate inside the Administrative State.  [Video clip]  What James O'Keefe outlines is highly pertinent as it applies to current discussions of corrupt activity within the institutions of the DOJ and FBI.  Specifically, the nameless and faceless administrators control much more important outcomes than generally discussed; including outcomes from a recent series of questions we posed.

Project Veritas catches deep state red-handed.  We've long known that unelected leftist bureaucrats embedded in the bowels of the federal government have been lawlessly targeting conservatives and abusing their power to thwart the agenda of duly elected Republican policymakers.  The proof keeps pouring in.  The Obama administration's IRS deliberately discriminated against conservative groups in their applications for tax-exempt status.  This isn't an empty partisan allegation from an imaginary "right-wing conspiracy."  In 2013, an IRS official admitted scrutinizing groups with right-wing identifying names, such as "Tea Party" and "patriots."  An inspector general's report that year confirmed this nefarious practice.  At least two groups of cases were settled in 2017 with the IRS agreeing to a "substantial financial settlement" in one and expressing "its sincere apology" in another.  This is the kind of tyrannical behavior that liberals used to care about.

Deep State Unmasked:  State Department on Hidden Cam, "Resist Everything," "I Have Nothing to Lose".  Today [9/18/2018], Project Veritas released the first installment in an undercover videoinvestigation series unmasking the deep state.  This video features a State Department employee, Stuart Karaffa, engaged in radical socialist political activity on the taxpayer's dime, while advocating for resistance to official government policies.  In addition to being a State Department employee Stuart Karaffa is also a ranking member of the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America (Metro DC DSA.)  Metro DC DSA is a socialist group that works to advance progressive causes in the metropolitan DC area.  Mr. Karaffa's loyalties seem to be with DSA, not with his employer.

Delusional Bill Kristol prepares 'war machine' to challenge Trump for 2020 GOP nomination.  Swamp fever has taken a toll on a number of DC-dwelling conservative pundits and driven them mad.  They seem to be competing with each other to see who can bark at the moon loudest.  There's Jennifer Rubin, who has excoriated Trump for taking positions that she previously advocated.  There's George Will, who wished for a 50 state sweep for corrupt Hillary Clinton.  But making a strong move to capture leadership of this cohort is Bill Kristol, who still fancies himself a kingmaker, despite the ignominious defeat of his second-choice Trump challenger Evan McMullin after first choice David French bowed out.

John Kerry deserves jail for secret Iran diplomacy.  In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt, former Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that he's been working behind-the-scenes to salvage the Iran nuclear deal.  "What I have done is tried to elicit from him what Iran might be willing to do in order to change the dynamic in the Middle East for the better," he explained.  Kerry's backchannel with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif has not been a one-time deal.  "I think I've seen him three or four times," Kerry said, and acknowledged that his talks were occurring without the Trump administration's approval.

Trump Should Worry About "Human Sources" inside the U.S. Government.  I'll give you long odds that the American Government is riddled with foreign spies.  Primarily Chinese, Iranians and Russians, I'm not talking about the hackers; I'm talking about the real thing, real live humans, who have penetrated the government, especially the military, intelligence, and national security branches.  They have two main objectives.  The first is to find out what we have in store for them.  The second is to steal our technology.  Both are essential parts of the real, global war that is being waged against us by an alliance of jihadists and leftist radicals hell-bent on destroying Western liberty.  Some of this is done secretly, some of it — for example, former top Pentagon officials going to lucrative jobs with enemy institutions — can be documented with public sources.  I suspect that we can see a lot of anti-American activity inside the government simply by matching the salaries of high-ranking officials with the costs of "normal" life in DC:  mortgages, private schools for the kids (which cost pretty much the same as college), insurance, nanny/housekeeper, et cetera et cetera.  In many cases we'd see that government salaries cannot cover the costs.  How do these people pay for it all?

How to Stop the Administrative State.  Please check out Mark Pulliam's review of Peter Wallison's forthcoming short book, Judicial Fortitude:  The Last Chance to Rein in the Administrative State.  Wallison, who served in two posts during the Reagan administration and is now ensconced at the American Enterprise Institute, takes aim at the governing apparatus in modern America:  the administrative state.  Functioning as a rogue fourth branch of government that combines legislation, executive, and judicial powers all into one anarchical mass, the administrative state is the chief enemy of republican government today.  Pulliam sketches out Wallison's thesis on the problem of administrative rule (for one cannot call it government) and how it could be countered.

Why the swamp has little to fear.  The midterm elections will either halt or hasten the current soft coup whose aim is to overthrow a legally elected President now being conducted by the swamp.  And if the history of Washington, D.C. corruption is any indication of what will happen after the midterms, the swamp will survive regardless of its coup's success or failure.  But the efforts to expose the treasonous plot will fade away into the dustbin of political history after being seen as just another waste of time and taxpayer money.  The seemingly endless parade of corruption scandals and mind-numbing criminal activity will go on unabated and continue to escalate to unimaginable heights because of an inescapable fact of human nature.

John Kerry slammed for 'shameful' shadow diplomacy after admitting to meetings with Iran.  Former Secretary of State John Kerry is being slammed for conducting shadow diplomacy with Iran after admitting to multiple meetings with Iranian officials behind the backs of Trump administration officials — including over the scrapped nuclear deal.  An administration official on Thursday told Fox News Kerry's meetings are "shameful," pointing out what Iranian-backed militias are doing to kill and injure people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.  Other Republicans suggested it may not even be legal.

State Dept.  Email:  Bob Woodward — Who Just Published Anti-Trump Book — Has Been FBI Asset Since 1970s.  [In his new book, Bob] Woodward paints a portrayal of the Trump White House as having a "nervous breakdown" and an "administrative coup d'etat".  The book was meant as a hit piece on President Trump and his administration.  What comes across is what Trump supporters already know about Trump:  He relies on his instincts, he is learning as he goes and has been beset by disloyal operatives determined to preserve the ways of Washington, D.C., and prevent him from 'draining the swamp.'  Several top Trump officials have already disputed Woodward's facts as complete rubbish.

Report: Obama climate change aides in shadow 'cabinet' to thwart Trump.  A shadow government made up of former Obama climate change aides and funded by wealthy environmental advocates is supplementing liberal governors in an "off-the-books" operation to help them win approval of sweeping global warming changes and defy President Trump, according to a new investigative report.  In it's "Government for Rent" report, the Competitive Enterprise Institute published dozens of emails detailing the scheme and the efforts by governments to have the activists draw up official state climate change agenda paid for by private donations.

Real 'Collusion' — Deep State's Failed Effort To Elect Hillary Clinton Unravels.  President Trump may soon release classified documents related to top FBI official Bruce Ohr and former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.  If so, it's likely to reveal once and for all the sham nature of the FBI's "investigation" of alleged Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 election.

Mr. Anonymous Exposes an Even Deeper State.  The latest salvo in the resistance's efforts to nullify the will of the American electorate is an anonymous New York Times op-ed purportedly penned by a "senior official" in the Trump administration. [...] But this sounds far more like a damning admission of an unelected, self-important saboteur than a persuasive indictment of the duly elected president.

Deep State Official: 'There Are Dozens and Dozens of Us'.  Another anonymous senior official in Donald Trump's administration confirmed the existence of the "deep state" resistance in the presidency.  "I find the reaction to the NYT op-ed fascinating — that people seem so shocked that there is a resistance from the inside," an anonymous senior official told Axios, admitting that some of them wished they had written the piece.  "I hope he knows — maybe he does? — that there are dozens and dozens of us," the source continued.

New Schweizer-recommended book exposes extent of corruption at FBI and DOJ.  The FBI and the DOJ have gone to the Dark Side.  Amazing, considering their longstanding promotion of their status and posture for decades as the defenders of freedom and the American way — but times change, and the deep Deep State has no special affection for the America conceived of and promoted by the founders.  I have a friend and colleague who is retired from the FBI.  We talk, and he insists that the FBI basic hardworking field agents and such are concerned and upset about the misconduct of the many miscreants in the leadership of the FBI and the DOJ.  For example, he tells me of the perceived problems that were created by FBI decisions to make cases headquarters cases instead of following FBI protocols that made the field agents the drivers of the case.  However, I see nothing of any effort by FBI agents to fix the corruption problem at the top.  Wanna know why?  They are bureaucrats, and they have no taste for the risks of fixing corruption.

Congress waits, waits, waits for Sally Yates documents.  Obama appointee Sally Yates was acting attorney general under President Trump for just 10 days — from Jan. 20, 2017 until Jan. 30, 2017 — but by any measure they were consequential days.  Even now, two issues from Yates' brief tenure are still of interest to congressional investigators.  One was the series of events that led Yates, in charge of the Justice Department, to reject the president's executive order temporarily suspending the admittance into the United States of people from some Muslim nations.  The second is Yates' role in the FBI's questioning, apparently on dubious premises, the president's national security adviser, Michael Flynn, four days into the new administration — questioning that ultimately led to Flynn's guilty plea in the Trump-Russia investigation.  Both are matters of great public significance and interest — and on both, the Justice Department is refusing to allow the Senate Judiciary Committee access to documents from Yates' time in office.

Email Logs Reveal Correspondence Between Clinton Associate, Fusion GPS, and Russians at Trump Tower Meeting.  Attorney Edward Lieberman, whose late wife Evelyn served as Hillary Clinton's chief of staff, exchanged numerous emails with the co-founder of the controversial Fusion GPS firm and Russian participants in the infamous June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting, documentation provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee shows.  The correspondence, part of a series of exhibits provided to Senate investigators and reviewed by Breitbart News, took place in the weeks leading up to the Trump Tower meeting.

How a twenty-year-old movie foretold the Mueller witch hunt.  These are evil people — Mueller, Rosenstein, and their cabal of villains.  They have shredded the Constitution, violated every legal precedent.  Their mission is clear:  destroy Trump by any means necessary.  This week, we learned that Bruce Ohr, who met seventy times with Christopher Steele after he was officially fired as an FBI asset, has never been interviewed by Mueller.  Ohr's wife likely wrote the infamous dossier meant to ruin Trump.  Neither have the other players in the coup attempt been interviewed by Mueller.  In Mueller's world, they are the good guys.  We have learned that China had in-time access to Hillary's private server for four years.  China knew every move the U.S. was making while she was secretary of state.  Our FBI and DOJ knew it and did nothing.  They were all busy enriching themselves, selling access, selling secrets.

Ex-officials actually use security clearances to get rich.  Former CIA Director John Brennan's temper tantrum over the revocation of his security clearance has inadvertently pointed a spotlight at one of the Swamp's favorite get-rich-quick tricks:  the national intelligence contractor hustle.  On Aug. 20, President Trump escalated his attack on Brennan.  "Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it's worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan," Trump said.  The president's point is valid:  Maintaining access to top-secret or classified information is how former intelligence officials like Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and others command millions of dollars from the private sector.

Former Clinton Pollster:  Hillary Clinton Broke Campaign Finance Laws, Not Donald Trump.  Mark Penn, the former pollster for both Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has penned an op-ed in The Hill Wednesday [8/22/2018] in which he argues that Michael Cohen's guilty plea shows the double standard that prosecutors have applied unfairly to Donald Trump.  Penn argues that while what Trump is alleged to have done — paying Stormy Daniels for a non-disclosure agreement she had sought for five years prior to the election — was legal, Hillary Clinton failed to report campaign expenditures that led to the Steele dossier.  If anyone broke campaign finance law, Penn argues, it was Clinton, not Trump — but prosecutors want Trump out of office.

Fmr Obama FBI hot-head explodes on CNN, cusses and screams at guest to 'get out!  A CNN panel fell into disarray Friday [8/17/2018] after an outspoken political commentator argued in favor of revoking the security clearances of people like Obama era official John Brennan and former Trump White House official Omarosa Manigault on the basis that they've been abusing their access to information to procure certain benefits, including monetary profit.  "A lot of these people that have these security clearances — and this is the secret in swampy Washington, D.C — they have them and they keep them because it's profitable for them after they leave government," conservative commentator Paris Dennard pointed out.

Actually, Brennan Should Be In Jail Right Now.  [S]ecurity clearances involve principles precisely opposite to those of free speech.  In fact, it is a felony to violate security clearance rules in order to "speak out."  [...] Stifling speech is the entire point of security and clearances.

Bruce Ohr Texts, Emails Reveal Steele's Deep Ties to Obama DOJ, FBI.  A trove of emails and handwritten notes from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr exposes the continuous contact and communication between the DOJ attorney and anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, according to notes and documents obtained by SaraACarter.com.  The emails and notes were written between 2016 and 2017. [...] In one of Ohr's handwritten notes listed as "Law enforcement Sensitive" from May 10, 2017, he writes "Call with Chris," referencing Steele.  He notes that Steele is "very concerned about Comey's firing, afraid they will be exposed."  This call occurred months after FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee and revealed for the first time that the FBI had an open counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump's campaign and alleged collusion with Russia.

An embarrassment to the CIA.  From Rear Adm. Sidney W. Souers, who had the job for a few months in 1946, to the current CIA director, Gina Haspel, selected by President Trump, it's a long list of names that most Americans would not recognize.  In other words, we don't see the CIA director in the headlines that much, unless there is something going on like September 11.  We definitively have not seen former CIA directors doing politics on partisan cable news shows.  Enter John Brennan, who just had his security clearance revoked.  In the past, these clearances have been a courtesy to former officials, who may have to be consulted at a moment's notice on an issue that they worked on.  It's a good idea, but it's a two-way street.

New Texts Reveal Steele Anxious Over Comey Testimony, Hopes "Firewalls Will Hold".  In March, 2017, two days before former FBI Director James Comey testified to lawmakers that the bureau had an open counterintelligence investigation into President Trump's campaign, former British spy Christopher Steele sent an urgent message to Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr hoping that "important firewalls will hold" when Comey testified.  The text message from Steele, who compiled the infamous unverified dossier on Trump, was sent on March 18, 2017, to Ohr and obtained by SaraACarter.com from a government source, familiar with the ongoing investigation.

Strzok Fired, Likely Bruce Ohr is Next — False FISA Affidavits, Fraudulent 302s, Security Clearances Under Review.  One of the outcomes of losing a security clearance is the inability to prepare for any testimony.  When Sarah Sanders stated today that currently employed DOJ official Bruce Ohr was a person having a security clearance review; the logical takeaway is he will be fired after he delivers his testimony.

Trump pulls security clearance of ex-CIA director Brennan.  President Donald Trump on Wednesday revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan, who has become a harsh critic of the president, and appeared to be targeting others who have disagreed with the administration.  "Mr. Brennan's lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation's most closely held secrets and facilities, the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, reading a statement from Trump while briefing reporters on Wednesday [8/17/2018].

Brennan, the Spooks, and Russian Collusion.  The CIA is in charge of American government spy ops that occur in foreign countries, not the FBI.  While an American tourist can fly to Britain to see the changing of the guard and be in front of Buckingham Palace within 24 hours, an American FBI agent can do nothing in Britain without intricate CIA approvals and supervision.  If the CIA were not involved, they'd be raising hell with the FBI for doing business on their turf.  Turf is everything in bureaucracy.  CIA involvement is certain.

2016 Trump Tower Meeting Looks Increasingly Like a Setup by Russian and Clinton Operatives.  The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between high-ranking members of the Republican presidential campaign staff and a Russian lawyer with Kremlin ties remains the cornerstone of claims that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to steal the election.  A growing body of evidence, however, indicates that the meeting may have been a setup — part of a broad effort to tarnish the Trump campaign involving Hillary Clinton operatives employed by Kremlin-linked figures and Department of Justice officials.  This view, that the real collusion may have taken place among those who arranged the meeting rather than the Trump officials who agreed to attend it, is supported by two disparate lines of evidence pulled together for the first time here: newly released records and a pattern of efforts to connect the Trump campaign to Russia.

Russian Collusion Investigation Has Orwellian Roots.  The existence of this investigation is vindication for those who voted for Brexit and Trump because they believe an illuminati rules the world.  The Washington establishment may not use jet contrails to control minds.  But, if crossed, they will seize your lawyer's files, put your one-time campaign manager in solitary confinement, and tell your third wife that you slept with a porn star.  They even dared to appoint the same guy they once trotted out to tell everyone there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to do it.  The Washington establishment is less interested in the means used to influence voters than in the fact that the deplorables have been prompted to defy them, which cannot be allowed.

Corrupt in Every Sense of the Word.  For years, now, many of us have pointed out that much of the radical leftist activity here and abroad has been instigated and funded by a secretive group of fascist Democrat millionaires. [...] Now, according to an article in the Washington Free Beacon, a shadowy group that calls themselves the Patriotic Millionaires is moving from behind the scenes funding to out front activism.  Their agenda appears to be classic fascism — a partnership between an über-wealthy elite and government, with the masses (read:  We, the People) providing the labor under a socialist system.  In furtherance of this goal, one of their members, Scott Wallace, is running for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican district in Pennsylvania.  As is often the case with Democrats, he has not resided in his district, but moved there from, of all places, South Africa where he managed the Wallace Global Foundation, a funding source for all sorts of odious leftist groups and projects.  One of the groups his foundation funded, Zero Population Growth, advocates abortion and families be "taxed to the hilt" for "irresponsible breeding."  They blamed overpopulation on the "white middle-class" that "use up more than their share of resources and do more than their share of polluting".  South Africa, by the way, has just declared open season on white people and is moving to confiscate all the white owned farms.

Highly Suspect — Corrupt Senate Intelligence Committee Wants To Interview Julian Assange Behind Closed Doors.  The most corrupt part of congress is the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).  The SSCI is the center of the deepest part of the Deep State swamp.  The SSCI never, ever, E.V.E.R. does anything that does not protect and advance the self-interest of the corrupt Washington DC professional political class.  The severity of the corruption within the Senate Intelligence Committee is the one constant in an ever changing universe.  Every action they take is for their own interests.  Most of that action is illegal (see the recent James Wolfe indictment); and all of their conduct is severely unethical (see the secret messages between Vice-chair Mark Warner and Christopher Steele).

Privately, Intel Officials Back Shutting Out Brennan, Clapper.  President Trump has been criticized for politicizing the intelligence community by threatening to strip the security clearances of former top officials including John Brennan and James Clapper.  But numerous past and present senior intelligence officials say that the Obama administration started the politicization — and that revoking the clearances of those who abuse the privilege for partisan purposes may help right the ship.  "As is often the case with the Trump administration, the rollout of the policy is bad, but the idea driving the policy is sound," said one senior intelligence official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke to RealClearInvestigations only on condition of anonymity.  "Under some Obama-era intelligence chiefs, intelligence was used as a political weapon.  We need to root that out, not reward it."

Remembrance of Russia's Past Meddling.  After the president's summit with Putin last week, John Brennan tweeted, "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.'  It was nothing short of treasonous."  Sen. Steny Hoyer agreed and Democrat Steve Cohen, who wanted a Purple Heart for Peter Strzok, was calling for a military coup.  This is what happens when the nation allows a Gus Hall voter to become head of the CIA.  This is what happens when the nation neglects actual Russian spying and instead manufactures fake collusion.  This is what happens when a president deploys the deep state to install his designated successor, all part of the fundamental transformation of America the Democrats' candidate spoke of in 2008.

Trump Is Right About Clearances.  The legal framework for security clearances was charted by a 1988 Supreme Court decision, Department of the Navy v.  Egan.  The justices noted that a president has absolute power to grant, deny or revoke access to classified information.  This authority is inherent in his role as commander in chief.  The court ruled that the president could form due-process procedures for challenging an adverse decision — which President Eisenhower first did in 1960 — but no appeal would be available through the courts.  A body of law and policy has since developed around several key ideas:  First, a security clearance should be granted or continued only if it is "clearly consistent with the interests of national security."  Second, security clearance places an individual into a fiduciary relationship with the government.  Third, authorization of access to classified information must be joined with a demonstrated "need to know."

Taming Swamp Critters with Security Clearances.  At long last President Trump finally discovered, thanks to Senator Rand Paul, the most potent weapon against large numbers of "swamp creatures" a.k.a., the abusive senior leaders of critical sections of the Federal bureaucracy.  Trying to fire a senior civil servant not appointed by the president is almost impossible and it often is a double-edged sword when successful because nothing stops them from publicly stirring up trouble after the fact.  However, if the security clearance rules are used properly, they can become the president's greatest clean-up weapon against the "swamp."  Clearances are a true leash that can keep otherwise disruptive executive bureaucrats to heel.

Docs requested after ex-CIA Brennan is suspected of leaking intel to Harry Reid to hurt Trump campaign.  Judicial Watch believes former Sen. Harry Reid may have been used in efforts to undermine the Trump campaign.  Communications in 2016 between former CIA Director John Brennan and the former top Senate Democrat are being sought in documents requested from the CIA by the watchdog group, according to Fox News.

Dear Mr. Brennan,.  I understand that you are a political opponent of the current President of the United States.  I understand that you are an American citizen, and you have the right to freedom of speech.  I encourage you to utilize that right.  I encourage you to speak your mind.  I encourage you, as I do all Americans, to be heard.  I implore you, however to cease and desist from continuing to attempt to portray yourself in the public media as some sort of impartial critic concerned only with the fate of the republic.  I beg you to stop attempting to portray yourself as some sort of wise, all-knowing intelligence professional with deep knowledge of national security issues and no political inclinations whatsoever.  None of this is true.  You were never a spy.  You were never a case officer.  You never ran operations or recruited sources or worked the streets abroad.  You have no idea whatsoever of the true nature of the business of human intelligence.  You have never been in harm's way.  You have never heard a shot fired in anger.  You were for a short while an intelligence analyst.  In that capacity, it was your job to produce finished intelligence based on information provided to you by others.  The work of intelligence analysts is important, however in truth you never truly mastered this trade either.

Trump is right to pull security clearances from those actively undermining his administration.  President Trump is considering the entirely proper move of pulling security clearances from a number of former government officials including disgraced former FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former DNI James Clapper and several others.  These are all people who have been abusing the credibility gained by their previous positions and potentially their continued access to our secrets in a partisan political manner.

Why should people out of power have clearances, anyway?  Years ago, I remember hearing the story of President Nixon's final flight from the White House to California.  The president took off on Air Force One, but it changed to a military flight as soon as President Ford was sworn in.  In other words, the president of the U.S. was no longer on board!  The principle is that when it comes to matters of state, once you're out, you're out.  Put me down as someone who does not understand why former Obama officials have security clearances anyway.  Why do we do that?  You are either in or out, or so I understood.  President Trump should pull the security clearances.

Obama Sought To Wipe Out Outdated Security Clearances Just Like Trump Wants To Do.  The story began on Monday, when Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he's going to ask Trump to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance (the guy who keeps calling every action by Trump "treason").  "Is John Brennan monetizing his security clearance?  Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media with his attacks on @realDonaldTrump," the Kentucky Republican wrote on Twitter.  "Today I will meet with the President and I will ask him to revoke John Brennan's security clearance."

White House:  Trump Has Started 'Mechanism' for Pulling Security Clearances from 'Certain Individuals'.  President Donald Trump has started "the mechanism" for pulling security clearances from "certain individuals," a White House aide revealed Tuesday [7/24/2018].  White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters aboard Air Force One traveling to Joint Base Andrews in Camp Springs, Maryland, that the administration has begun taking the necessary steps to revoke access to classified information from former top intelligence officials but declined to get into specifics.

NBC Reporter:  Trump Will Cause 'Financial' Harm to Clapper, Brennan by Revoking Security Clearances.  NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian suggested Monday [7/23/2018] that President Donald Trump would hurt the livelihoods of Obama administration alumni by taking away the "valuable commodity" of their security clearances.  Dilanian, who covers the intelligence community and national security issues, accused Trump of "seeking to levy a financial penalty" on former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper — both of whom are paid contributors at cable news networks.

The Editor says...
If anyone is making a living as a TV commentator based on his or her access to classified information, that monetization of government secrets is a gross abuse of power.

Clapper Says It's 'Very Petty' That Trump Is Considering Revoking His Security Clearance.  Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper responded Monday to the news that the White House is considering revoking his security clearance, along with the clearances of other former intelligence officials who have been vocal critics of President Trump.  He called the move "a petty thing to do."  White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the president was "looking to take away [John] Brennan's security clearance, he's also looking into the security clearances of Comey, Clapper, Hayden, Rice, and McCabe."  She explained that it was due to these former officials politicizing and monetizing their past service to make "baseless accusations" against the president.

All The President's Hacks:  Media Fake News Fueled Obama's Watergate.  When Hillary Clinton cites the "intelligence community assessment" to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the presidential election, she's really repeating her own lie, that her campaign created, rolled through the media and the government, which used it to spy on the Trump campaign, and then finally became an "assessment" under orders from Obama carried out by political allies like Clapper and Brennan.  The media, which once boasted of exposing Watergate, had played a key role in Obama's Watergate.  The release of a redacted FISA warrant application exposes the fact that the spying on Carter Page, a figure associated with the Trump campaign, relied on no sources other than Democrats and media allies.

Lying Liar James Clapper Just Lied Again About His Previous Lies About NSA Spying.  In an interview with the ladies of "The View" Tuesday afternoon [5/22/2018], James Clapper told another lie about his previous lies about the NSA program to spy on American citizens.  Meghan McCain confronted Clapper about a statement he made while testifying before Congress five years ago, when he was asked whether or not the NSA was spying on Americans.  "In 2013 when you were asked about it, you said 'no,'" McCain said.  "So that is a lie."  "I made a mistake," Clapper said.  "I didn't lie.  I was thinking about something else, another program."

John Brennan Moves from Charges of Treason to Fomenting Rebellion.  The former [?] Communist and CIA Director John Brennan called Trump's remarks at a press conference with Putin in Helsinki "treasonous" and he is not letting up on his attack.  He is now urging the Intelligence community to "withhold vital intelligence", ostensibly to protect information.  That is the new line of attack — Trump is sharing secrets with Putin.  Make no mistake, the former [?] Communist is recommending a mutiny over a few inartful comments made by the President which he has since explained.  The Washington Times reported that Brennan made the comments in a private meeting.  "Dan Coats and Gina Haspel need to be on top of their game now and speak truth to power," he said, referring to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel.  "And make sure Trump doesn't get away with this."

Why the 'Resistance' in the State Department is a Gift to Trump.  The majority of our 75,382 State Department employees do not support our president.  Many are openly scornful.  Several ambassadors, ready to retire anyway and with full pensions locked in, have resigned dramatically.  But because State Department protocols and diplomacy have failed us for decades — in Libya, Syria, with the creation of ISIS, Russian expansion, and North Korean belligerence — their "Resistance" has given President Trump the opportunity to do an end-run around them.

POTUS TRUMP Calls Out Deep State — "Where Is The DNC Server?".  It's a valid question and one that should be front and center of any media coverage of Rod Rosenstein's bizarre "we're indicting twelve Russian nationals" performance yesterday [7/13/2018].  Mr. Rosenstein (publicly) claims these Russians hacked the DNC while at the same time keeping quiet about the fact the FBI has never directly reviewed the actual DNC server to verify said hack.  This fact raises a myriad of questions.  Why did the DNC refuse access?  Why were they even allowed to refuse access given such a hack would be considered a potential breach of national security.  What was the DNC hiding?  What is the FBI/DOJ still hiding?

Julian Assange, CrowdStrike, and the Russian Hack That Wasn't.  Robert Mueller's investigation into the 2016 presidential election is predicated on Russian intelligence having hacked the Democratic National Committee's computers.  Russia's guilt is such an article of faith among our political class, that a Republican-controlled Congress imposed sanctions and President Trump signed on, substantially worsening relations with an important and potentially dangerous nation.  Outside the Acela Corridor, however, one finds more skepticism.  A lot of ordinary folks wonder why the DNC wouldn't let any outside parties examine their server.  Instead, the FBI accepted the word of CrowdStrike, a private contractor hired by the DNC, without any independent confirmation.  And a bunch of not so ordinary folks who know a thing or two about computers thinks there may be a simple explanation for the DNC's unwillingness to let outsiders have a peek at the evidence:  There isn't any.  The Russian hacking that's caused so much division and turmoil at home and abroad never really happened.

CrowdStrike Bragged About Purging Russians From The DNC's Networks.  Now We Know They Were Wrong.  Russian hackers retained access to the Democratic National Committee's network until October 2016, despite private security firm CrowdStrike's claim that it had expelled all intruders months earlier, according to an indictment filed Friday against 12 Russian intelligence operatives.  The indictment, filed by the office of Special Council Robert Mueller, reveals that CrowdStrike was unsuccessful in expelling intruders from the DNC's networks in June and that a malicious program "remained on the DNC network until in or around October 2016."  The hackers also gained access to DNC computers hosted on a third-party cloud-computing service around September 2016, which enabled them to steal data from the DNC by creating backups, or snapshots, of the DNC's cloud-based systems.

Former DNC Chair Brazile:  DNC Allowed Russian Hackers to Steal Data.  Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian military officials days before President Trump's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Rosenstein also planned his press conference at the same time President Trump was meeting with the Queen of England.  With the 12 Russians indicted Friday, the corrupt Mueller team has now indicted 31 individuals and 3 companies, with more than 80% of the indictments related to Russians who will never be prosecuted. [...] But dirty cop Rosenstein forgot to mention the DNC allowed the Russians to infiltrate their servers.  In her 2017 book, [...] Democrat operative Donna Brazile admitted the DNC allowed alleged Russian hackers to steal data from the party's servers.

Attorneys: The DNC's Lawsuit Against Russia Undermines Their Own Defense in the DNC Fraud Lawsuit.  Disobedient Media has consistently reported on the DNC Fraud Lawsuit and the disturbing, sometimes bizarre events surrounding the case.  Though the suit was initially dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, that ruling is in the process of an appeal in the 11th Circuit appellate court.  Last week, the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the suit submitted a supplemental authority letter in the case, arguing that the DNC's suit against Russia was relevant to the DNC Fraud Lawsuit.  The cited relevance was due to arguments made by DNC defense counsel that stated donors did not contribute funds based on the promise of impartiality by the DNC towards Democratic Party primary candidates.

Donald Trump Calls on DNC to Hand Over Email Server.  President Donald Trump called on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during his press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland on Monday to hand over its server to the FBI to prove Russia hacked into it.  Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire asked Trump if he believed U.S. intelligence agencies that say Russia interfered in the election or Putin's assertion that Russia did not and if he would denounce that interference and tell Putin to never do it again.  Trump said he had confidence in both parties but added he would like to see the DNC hand over its server.

Trump Will Win This Round With the Deep State.  President Trump knew what he was getting into in holding a press conference with Vladimir Putin.  He knew the press would ask him whose version of Russian meddling in the 2016 election does he believe?  Putin's?  Or that of former U.S. intelligence agency directors John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey?  The question came and President Trump quickly moved to the missing Clinton servers and 33,000 erased Clinton emails under congressional subpoena.  Trump's response causes the ultimate evocation to the voters in this epic battle that has been lurching and raging over America and astonishing the world for two years.

Four Coincidences:  FISA Abuse and Unanswered Questions About the DNC Server.  [Scroll down]  Again, exactly what was on those DNC Servers that involved the need for such secrecy.  There's been a lot of Telling Noise from the Left — noticeably from the upper echelon of the Old Intelligence Community.

Five Things That Would Make The CIA/CNN Russia Narrative More Believable.  I do not believe the establishment Russia narrative.  I do not believe that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to rig the 2016 election.  I do not believe the Russian government did any election rigging for Trump to collude with.  This is not because I believe Vladimir Putin is some kind of blueberry-picking girl scout, and it certainly isn't because I think the Russian government is unwilling or incapable of meddling in the affairs of other nations to some extent when it suits them.  It is simply because I am aware that the US intelligence community lies constantly as a matter of policy, and because I understand how the burden of proof works.  At this time, I see no reason to espouse any belief system which embraces as true the assertion that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections in any meaningful way, or that it presents a unique and urgent threat to the world which must be aggressively dealt with.  But all the establishment mouthpieces tell me that I must necessarily embrace these assertions as known, irrefutable fact.

Why Do The Democrats Refuse To Allow FBI To Examine Its Hacked Servers?  [Scroll down]  Both the FBI and the Democratic Party agreed that the crime-fighting agency based its decision to blame Russians for hacking into the DNC computers on a report commissioned by the DNC and generated by a company called CrowdStrike.  Yes, our intelligence agencies agree it was all the Russians fault.  But can one trust the veracity of that determination when the FBI relied exclusively on information from private digital forensics company Crowdstrike who were being paid by the Democratic Party?  Doesn't anyone besides the President (and me) wonder what the Democrats are hiding and why the FBI allowed the Democrats to get away with obstructing their investigation?

The Deep State and Tyranny.  The Department of Justice Inspector General's Report released last week didn't tell us anything we didn't know, but merely added more damning evidence for the corruption of the FBI and its investigations over the last few years.  More worthy of comment, as Andy McCarthy writes, is its refusal to use common sense and note the obvious interconnections among the various bad actors, and the bond of political bias, seasoned with careerism and arrogance, that united them.  But the problems we are confronting reflect deeper dangers than the professional corruption of some functionaries of corrupt executive agencies armed with the coercive power of the state.  The true moral of the story is the dangers to freedom of centralized and concentrated power — the very dangers consensual governments, including our own, were created to minimize.

FBI agent fast-tracked Clinton email case to 'stop' Trump from being elected.  FBI agent Peter Strzok put the Trump-Russia investigation on a fast track during the 2016 election season at the same time he was sending text messages to his lover condemning the Republican presidential candidate as an "idiot" and vowing to "stop" him.  Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, in a voluminous report, singled out as troubling Mr. Strzok's decision to move quickly from working on Hillary Clinton's email case to investigating Mr. Trump.

Nadler: FBI's Strzok and Page 'Did Not Bring Bias' to the Clinton Investigation.  Referencing the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (IG) report on the actions of the FBI during the 2016 presidential election, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said that FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page "did not bring bias" to their investigation of Hillary Clinton's illicit use of a private server and email for State Department business and her mishandling of classified documents.  In 2016, Strzok was a senior counterintelligence officer at the FBI and Page was a senior attorney.  They were among the few top FBI officials investigating the Clinton case.  Strzok and Page, although married to other people, reportedly were having an adulterous affair at the time.  Their text messages, disclosed by Congress and the IG report, reveal that they despised Donald Trump and desperately wanted Hillary Clinton to be elected president.

The Bigger Story Behind the James Wolfe Indictment.  It is important not to get so granular we miss the big picture.  The indictment of former senior senate intelligence committee staffer James Wolfe is filled with information to highlight a much bigger picture.  Keeping with custom and a very familiar pattern, you will note the big DOJ/FBI investigative releases are timed to drop when President Trump is outside Washington DC.  Note also, it was the Senate Intelligence Committee where Wolfe worked.  CTH has continually stated the SSCI is one of the most corrupt committees in congress.  It did not come as a surprise to see the staff from this specific committee leaking secret and top-secret classified information.  The committee rots from the head down.

Suddenly the media cares about privacy.  New York Times reporter Ali Watkins slept with the head of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who gave her classified information, which she used to build her career from college student to a Times reporter, one leaked story at a time.  Federal investigators seized her phone and her records dating back five years ago, when she was in college.  The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is up in arms. [...] Really?  Seizing the records of President Donald John Trump's lawyer — breaking lawyer-client privilege — is OK, but somehow a journalist's records are sacrosanct.

More Trump-hating lovebirds:  Ali Watkins and the rise of casting-couch journalism.  The Beltway's Get Trump movement has added another pair of lovebirds to the morass, this time in the Ali Watkins-James Wolfe hook-up, evidently uniting love with a common mission to destroy the president.

DOJ Nails Senate Intel Committee's Security Chief as Deep State Leaker.  Senior Justice Department officials announced late Thursday criminal charges against Senate Intelligence Committee's long-time director of security James Wolfe.  The indictment charges Wolfe with making false statements to the FBI and details how Wolfe passed classified information, including presumably information related to one-time Trump campaign aide Carter Page, to a series of media outlets, confirming long-standing suspicions of the career intelligence community's complicity in leaks.  The three-count indictment charges Wolfe with separate instances of making false statements to the FBI, not directly charging him for leaking classified information, but appearing to detail how he did allegedly leaked classified information to reporters and then allegedly lied about it to the FBI.

Veteran Senate Intelligence Committee staffer, in romantic relationship with NYT reporter, arrested in probe of leaks.  James A. Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, lost everything when he was arrested by the FBI last night.  A review of media reports on the background of the arrest suggests that the lure of romance with a nubile female journalism school student was his undoing.  This is a story with at least two compelling themes:  the apparent betrayal of national security by a veteran Senate staffer and the rise in a mere four years of a comely female reporter in a romantic relationship with Wolfe from unpaid undergraduate intern at McClatchy to the lofty post of New York Times national security correspondent.

There's a huge difference between the Trump and Clinton probes.  Clinton's core wrongdoing was publicly established fact from the start — whereas the Trump investigation has always been an effort to find out if there was any wrongdoing.  It was actually the House Select Committee on Benghazi that started asking questions after a hacker unveiled Clinton's e-mails with Sidney Blumenthal.  Some of those e-mails were related to the 2012 Benghazi attack yet had never been handed over to investigators in all the many Benghazi probes.

Report: Sessions Is Key Witness in Mueller Inquiry into Trump Obstruction.  Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reportedly a key witness in Robert Mueller's inquiry into whether President Donald J. Trump obstructed the Russia investigation.  During a March 2017 meeting at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump asked Sessions to unrecuse himself from the collusion probe — a request the Attorney General declined.  "The confrontation, which has not been previously reported, is being investigated by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as are the president's public and private attacks on Mr. Sessions and efforts to get him to resign.  Mr. Trump dwelled on the recusal for months, according to confidants and current and former administration officials who described his behavior toward the attorney general," reports the New York Times.

Clapper Disinformation Campaign.  James Clapper, President Obama's director of national intelligence, gained a reputation among liberals as a liar for covering up the existence of secret data-collection programs. [...] Mr. Clapper not only exaggerates Russia's efforts, he crucially overlooks the fact that it's the net effect that matters.  Allegations and insinuations of Russian meddling clearly cost Mr. Trump some sizeable number of votes.  Hillary Clinton made good use of this mallet, as would be clearer now if she had also made good use of her other assets to contest those states where the election would actually be decided.

Hillary's Premonition.  An attempt to rig an election using falsified evidence as the basis for an investigation a most serious crime against our form of government and cannot go unchallenged or unpunished.  An attempt to frame Donald Trump and oust him from the presidency is even more grave.

Can Trump lawfully investigate his investigators?  Can the president investigate his investigators?  Yes — but not until the investigation of him is completed.  That's because no one can fruitfully examine the legitimacy of the origins of the case against Trump without knowing the evidence and the charges.  Trump's allegations are of extreme scandal — the use of FBI assets by the Obama administration to impede his presidential campaign.  Yet if he is exonerated, those allegations will lose their sting.  If he is charged with crimes or impeachable offenses that do not have their origins in politically charged spying, then his allegations will be moot.  But if he were to force the DOJ to turn over raw investigative files now to politicians who want to help him, he might very well be impeding the criminal case against him.  That would be profoundly threatening to the rule of law, for it provides that no man can be the prosecutor or the judge in his own case.

The London-to-Langley Spy Ring.  Even before the first Republican primary, a London-to-Langley spy ring had begun to form against Donald Trump.  British spies sent to CIA director John Brennan in late 2015 alleged intelligence on contacts between Trumpworld and the Russians, according to the Guardian.

'An Abuse of Power': Rep. Biggs Says Mueller Is Investigating a Person, Not a Crime.  Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) is one of several Republican lawmakers calling for a second special counsel to probe alleged abuses by the FBI and Justice Department.  On "Happening Now" on Wednesday, Biggs said the only way to get to the bottom of apparent "improprieties" in the Russia and Hillary Clinton email probes is to investigate the investigators.  "We can't rely on them to investigate themselves.  So we need to get a special counsel outside of them to get in there and investigate," Biggs explained.

The Bipartisan Deep State.  The deep state looks after its own.  And this is why — whether "Republicans" or "Democrats" — the Permanent Bipartisan Fusion Party hates Donald J. Trump.

Spying On Trump: Was Obama Behind CIA, FBI Plan To Elect Hillary?  As Robert Mueller's chimerical Russia-Trump collusion probe grinds on, a real possible crime has been revealed:  the collusion between the Justice Department, the FBI, the Clinton campaign and, possibly, the Obama administration, to plant a spy in the Trump campaign.  If so, as some say, it's bigger than Watergate.  The spy's name is Stefan Halper, a professor at Cambridge University who has high-level ties to both U.S. and British intelligence, as Daily Caller New Foundation investigative reporter Chuck Ross discovered.  The revelation made Trump livid, and rightly so, as his tweet on Sunday afternoon plainly showed: [...]

When did Trump-Russia probe begin?  Investigators focus on mystery months.  Revelations that an FBI informant insinuated himself into the Trump campaign have led some congressional investigators to rethink their theories on how and why former President Barack Obama's Justice Department began investigating the 2016 Trump presidential effort.  Most reporting has focused on the July 31, 2016, creation of a document formally marking the beginning of the FBI counterintelligence probe targeting the Trump campaign.

Donald Trump Goes to War with 'Disgraced' John Brennan.  President Donald J. Trump said that former CIA director John Brennan had "disgraced" himself, blaming him Monday [5/21/2018] for launching the investigation of his presidential campaign.  The president quoted at length Dan Bongino, who challenged Brennan in a Monday morning appearance on Fox News.

Mueller v.  Trump.  Can special counsel Robert Mueller require President Trump to testify before a grand jury?  It would be unprecedented, and his effort to do so could lead to a major constitutional confrontation.  The president could, of course, resist a grand jury subpoena by asserting his right under the Fifth Amendment not to be a witness against himself.  However, for political reasons, he may not wish to do that.  And he may not need to.  Another off-ramp for the president, which he may choose not to take, is to remove the special counsel.  Mueller is an appointee of the Department of Justice, part of the executive branch.  He is therefore a subordinate of the president.  Trump might have to jump through some hoops to remove him — such as removing the deputy attorney general who selected Mueller — but he has the power to do so.

We Need to Know What Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Rice, Power and the Rest of Them Did.  The FISA court failed us.  The FISA court failed us repeatedly.  We have these so-called national security letters that are supposed to be used in extreme circumstances.  Instead they are being used by a cabal of FBI agents who took it upon themselves to investigate a candidate and his campaign, and then we have of course actual spies attempting to entrap members of the Trump campaign. [...] Why haven't Republicans called these FISA judges before Congress?  Because they're gutless.

Trump demands DOJ investigation of possible campaign infiltration.  President Trump said Sunday that he is demanding that the Justice Department investigate whether the U.S. government infiltrated his 2016 campaign for political reasons. [...] On Sunday, Trump aggressively denounced special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of possible Trump campaign collusion with Russia as a "Witch Hunt" and wrote, "Republicans and real Americans should start getting tough on this Scam," else they impact the 2018 midterms.

H.A.L.P.E.R. Spells Game Up for Obama's Spies.  Last week I reported that Internet sleuths had winkled out the name of the spy/agent provocateur that Obama's intelligence officers had used on the Trump campaign.  The New York Times and Washington Post, the Democrats' semi-official newspapers this week megaphoned the instigators, offering up their justifications without naming his name.  Again, the name is Stefan Halper, who, as I wrote here last week, was paid a substantial sum by the Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment.  If it was for this work — and it suspiciously looks like it because the payments were made in July and September of 2016 when he was weaseling his way into the campaign — then we know we have the DNI, CIA, DOJ, FBI, Dept. of State and the Defense Department working for Hillary's election and to smear and create a basis for further spying on Trump and his campaign.

Cambridge professor outed as FBI informant inside Trump campaign.  A Cambridge professor with deep ties to American and British intelligence has been outed as an agent who snooped on the Trump presidential campaign for the FBI.  Multiple media outlets have named Stefan Halper, 73, as the secret informant who met with Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos starting in the summer of 2016.  The American-born academic previously served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations.  The revelation, stemming from recent reports in which FBI sources admitted sending an agent to snoop on the Trump camp, heightens suspicions that the FBI was seeking to entrap Trump campaign aides.  Papodopoulous has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, while Page was the subject of a federal surveillance warrant.

What Obama and his political Choom Gang did is far worse than Watergate.  The Obama administration — with or without the knowledge and direction of President Obama himself — perverted one of the most powerful, clandestine spying operations in the world and used it at the very height of a presidential campaign to spy on political opponents, punish them and, ultimately, silence them through extortion.  If this was orchestrated without the express knowledge of Mr. Obama, then it reveals just how blatantly he instructed by example the weaponizing of the entire federal government to carry out his low, dishonest and unjust ideology.  By any means necessary, one might say.  Only instead of being driving by visions of justice, these people were driven by visions of undying power.

Trump demands of Mueller investigation, ranting about a '$20,000,000 Witch Hunt' that should be looking into Hillary Clinton.  President Donald Trump demanded to know Sunday [5/20/2018] when special counsel Robert Mueller was going to 'STOP!' probing into alleged Russian influence on the presidential election and turn his investigative power onto Hillary Clinton.  In a long, bitter Twitter rant the president railed against the cost of the investigation, calling it a '$20,000,000 Witch Hunt' that has found 'no Collussion with Russia, No Obstruction, but they aren't looking at the corruption in the Hillary Clinton Campaign.'

MSM silence on Stefan Halper's name ends.  The conspiracy to use the vast powers of the US intelligence community spy on the Trump campaign and hobble his presidency with fabricated allegations of collusion with Russia is unraveling at an accelerating pace.  The latest evidence of the slow motion collapse of the cabal is that the name of Stefan Halper, which has been known to readers of American Thinker for quite some time now (and which was first revealed by Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller almost two months ago), suddenly is being published and broadcast by members of the mainstream media.

Stefan Halper Agent Provocateur — In His Own Words.  Stefan Halper has been identified and confirmed as the intelligence informant used by President Obama's CIA and FBI to engage in contact with low level Trump campaign officials during their efforts to conduct a counterintelligence operation against the candidate.  The joint CIA and FBI operation was codenamed "Crossfire Hurricane".  Rather ironically, five days before the 2016 election intelligence agent provocateur Stefan Halper gave an interview to Sputnik News where he outlined his agenda; in hindsight the aggregate agenda of the Obama administration: [...]

Deep State & Media Operatives Now In Full On Cover Up Mode As Illegal Spying On Trump Campaign Revealed.  The Obama era Intelligence community was determined to punish Donald Trump and his supporters for challenging the political status quo.  They didn't actually think Trump would win though.  So what was initially a punishment operation turned into a search and destroy operation that pitted the Deep State and its media cohorts against a duly elected President of the United States?  That attempt is now being uncovered in real time which in turn has led to a flurry of cover-up activity from such powerful players as the New York Times.  And not only are they desperate to save their own skins but even more importantly protect the man at the very top of this political conspiracy food chain — Barack Obama himself.

DOJ Frets About Source Outing While Deliberately Outing Source.  U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have leaked extremely sensitive information about a top secret source three times in the last week while claiming that confidentially sharing information about the source with congressional investigators could greatly impact U.S. national security and potentially risk the source's life.  The officials have leaked specific information that could directly identify the source on three separate occasions to reporters at the Washington Post and New York Times.  This raises even more questions about whether current top intelligence and law enforcement officials can be trusted to obey the law and to adequately protect the nation's intelligence secrets.

Where in the World Was Barack Obama?  [Scroll down]  Many of those questions remain unanswered but we do know that the "deep state" referenced by the [New York] Times did have a boss in 2016.  Yet Mr. Obama doesn't show up in this story until the ninth paragraph.  Those inclined toward Watergate analogies will say that it was some time before the break-in was connected to Richard Nixon, and of course we have no idea at this point whether the current controversy will end up being a Trump scandal, an Obama scandal or a permanently murky partisan battleground.  But since this controversy goes to the core of our democratic process, Americans desperately want clarity.  How and why exactly did leaders of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies end up focusing on a domestic political campaign?

Cambridge Professor Spied On Trump Campaign Advisers.  A top-secret CIA and FBI source who spied on two Trump campaign advisers and initiated contact with a third was all but outed Friday night [5/18/2018].  The New York Times and The Washington Post provided a detailed description of the source in articles published Friday night, but did not identify him by name, citing concerns about his physical safety.  But the reports match up exactly with a Cambridge University professor first described in a Daily Caller News Foundation report from March.  That professor, Stefan Halper, contacted Trump advisers Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis during the 2016 campaign.

Mueller's team of Dem donors under fire from Trump as probe hits one-year mark.  The long and winding special counsel Russia investigation that President Trump has routinely decried as a "witch hunt" hit the one-year mark on Thursday — giving Trump's legal team an opening to renew criticism of the probe's focus and its investigators.

The "Crossfire Hurricane" Story Paints An Ugly Picture Of The FBI And Department Of Justice.  A couple of days ago, the New York Times ran a rather stunning piece on FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign. [...] This is the basic outline of the story.  The FBI, based on a semi-drunken conversation between George Papadopoulos and an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, opened an investigation of the Trump campaign.  What is missing from the story is any mention of the Trump dossier which we know was briefed to the FBI on July 5, nearly a month before the Papadopoulos conversation jumped the Atlantic and the shark.  As the investigation grew, eventually four members of the Trump campaign — Michael T. Flynn, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Papadopoulos — were placed under some sort of surveillance.  Eventually, Carter Page was the subject of a FISA warrant.  This surveillance continued even while Flynn and Manafort were on the transition team.

Is Joe DiGenova Nuts Or Does He Know Something?  First off, it is not unlikely that the DOJ IG, Michael Horowitz, expanded the scope of his investigation.  If Robert Mueller can investigate financial transactions from a dozen years ago as part of looking at Russian collusion in 2016, Horowitz looking at FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign would be a non-issue, particularly since Horowitz is the guy who uncovered the Page-Strzok texts as part of his investigation.  Based on what we've seen to date, there doesn't seem to be much doubt that Brennan, Clapper, and Comey were working in concert to push the collusion narrative.  Is that criminal?  I don't know.

Levin: NY Times Reveals 'Secret Cabal of FBI Agents' 'Crossfire Hurricane' Against Trump.  On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Wednesday [5/16/2018], host Mark Levin made the case that the New York Times, in an article titled "Code Name Crossfire Hurricane:  The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation," has revealed a "secret cabal of FBI agents" against Trump.

Trump: Obama FBI 'Probably' Had a Spy Inside Presidential Campaign.  President Donald Trump on Thursday [5/17/2018] accused the FBI of potentially spying on his presidential campaign and said doing so would be a bigger scandal than Watergate.  Citing National Review's Andrew McCarthy, former assistant U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, Trump said the FBI "probably" had an informant embedded in Trump's campaign.

John Brennan's 'Exceptionally Sensitive' Issue.  It appears that Brennan's alleged "tips" were too flaky and unofficial for the Obama administration to commit to print.  Brennan had his own partisan hunches, fueled by his feverish hatred of Trump and perhaps a few spitballing conversations with other Trump-hating spy chiefs abroad, [...] but he had no evidence to meet any reasonable threshold for a counterintelligence probe of a presidential campaign, especially one undertaken by an administration supporting that candidate's opponent.  Brennan's espionage against Trump was as audacious as a paranoid LBJ wiretapping Nixon's campaign plane in the thick of a race against LBJ's vice president, Hubert Humphrey.

Obama's Army of Agents And the Entrapment of Donald Trump.  High-level Obama officials, including John Brennan and John Kerry, appear to have attempted to entrap Trump campaign officials and candidate Trump himself.  This very likely scenario is being closely looked at after Wall Street Journal editor Kimberly Strassel reported there was a mole placed in or close to the Trump campaign.  This isn't how things are supposed to work in the United States.  "This is not who we are," to quote Obama.  Tying in what we know about spying, unmasking, and leaked texts, it appears the Obama administration was actually attempting to entrap them, in other words, frame them.  They might have believed they were doing it to protect the nation, but it appears to be a set up.

Trump officials on why they leak:  This is a never-ending 'Mexican stand-off'.  White House leakers used a raft of excuses Sunday to justify sharing sensitive Trump administration information with reporters, reasons ranging from a way to settle personal scores to dealing with a confrontational work environment within the West Wing.  "The most common substantive leaks are the result of someone losing an internal policy debate," a senior administration official told Axios.  "By leaking the decision, the loser gets one last chance to kill it with blowback from the public, Congress, or even the President."

Harry Reid sent sensitive Trump collusion letter over CIA objections.  Then-Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid released a letter in the heat of the 2016 election alleging Trump-Russia collusion even though the CIA director at the time urged him not to, according to a person familiar with their conversation.  Mr. Reid's Aug. 27 letter to the FBI appears to mark the first time a Democrat officially accused President' Trump's campaign of colluding with the Russian government to hack his party's computers.  The letter has come to represent for conservatives the "deep state" — Obama loyalists leaking unproven allegations to the press against Mr. Trump and his people to ruin the campaign, the transition and the White House.

How Obama loyalists conspired to undermine the Trump transition.  Republican-driven investigative reports on Russia have provided an unanticipated view into secret anti-Trump maneuvers by Obama loyalists during the span of the presidential transition.  Congress set out in early 2017 to investigate Moscow election interference and any coordination with the Donald Trump campaign.  As the collusion avenues led to dead ends, Republican investigators for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Judiciary Committee traveled on a new lane.  They discovered a number of behind-the-scenes moves that they said transformed a traditionally acrimony-free transition into a partisan transfer of presidential power.

Report:  Secret Source Who Aided Mueller Probe Is Deemed Off Limits To Congress.  House Republicans are again battling with the Justice Department over information related to the Russia investigation, this time over documents the intelligence community said involves a top-secret source who has provided information to the CIA and FBI.  The mysterious source has also gathered information that was given to Special Counsel Robert Mueller as part of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to The Washington Post.  WaPo reported Justice Department and intelligence community officials issued a stark warning to the White House on May 2 against a request from House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes.  Nunes had submitted a subpoena to the Justice Department on April 24 for records related to the Russia probe.

How a Febrile Press Whipped Up Anger At Trump, for Nothing.  The New York Times' list of questions that the special counsel wishes to put to the president is a farrago of psychometric inquiries into mood, motive, and opinion that has almost nothing to do with the original canard about Trump-campaign collusion with Russia.  Unlike the cases of the Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Whitewater special prosecutors, there was no prior fact of a crime here.  Nor has any emerged in the year since Robert Mueller was nominated as special counsel in an already long-going investigation, except the very probable untruthfulness under oath of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, former directors James Comey (FBI), James Clapper (NIA), and John Brennan (CIA), and probably Hillary Clinton and others.  Mr. Mueller gives no hint of pursuing anyone but Trump and his collaborators, and right to the last week has packed his investigative team with rabid anti-Trump partisans.

Ex-CIA officer:  Brennan's attacks on Trump 'cringe-worthy,' put national security at risk.  A behind-the-scenes U.S. intelligence community fight over the merits of publicly scorning President Trump has burst into the open recently, with the CIA's former Moscow station chief accusing Obama-era spymaster John O. Brennan of crossing a red line through incessant Twitter and cable news excoriations of the current commander in chief.  In addition to claiming that Mr. Brennan is aiding a Kremlin plot to deepen America's partisan divide, former CIA Clandestine Service Officer Daniel Hoffman says the former CIA director has actually jeopardized national security by publicly insinuating that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be blackmailing Mr. Trump.

The Deep Congress.  Today's approval by the Senate Judiciary Committee of a bill to gut the president's power to fire a special counsel represents a shocking breach of the principle of separated powers.  It's an attack by a cowardly congress on an executive branch whose coequality, enshrined as it is in our national parchment, the members of the Congress are sworn to support.  The measure's approval in the Judiciary Committee is no less shocking for the fact that it is unlikely to be passed into law.  The Hill newspaper reckons it lacks the votes for cloture in the Senate and, in any event, it is opposed by the majority leader, Senator McConnell.  It stands less chance of passing the House.  It would, in any event, be vetoed by any self-respecting president.

Trump-allied House conservatives draft articles of impeachment against Rosenstein as 'last resort'.  Conservative House allies of President Trump have drafted articles of impeachment against Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the ongoing special counsel probe, setting up a possible GOP showdown over the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.  The document, which was obtained by The Washington Post, underscores the growing chasm between congressional Republican leaders, who have maintained for months that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III should be allowed to proceed, and rank-and-file GOP lawmakers who have repeatedly battled the Justice Department during the past year.

Comey, Fitzgerald, Mueller:  Partners in Crime.  It was no surprise that liar and leaker James Comey added Patrick Fitzgerald to his legal team and is one of the three to whom Comey leaked memos of his private and classified conversations with President Trump.  The two go way back and have in common a relentless pursuit of the innocent to protect their political favorites and targeting of the political opposition.  Using government power to pursue their political agenda, even if it means ignoring the truth and lying, is a trait both have in common: [...] President Trump's pardoning of Scooter Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, corrected a grave injustice in which James Comey and Patrick Fitzgerald were co-conspirators.  It followed a D.C. Court of Appeals decision reinstating Libby to the bar in 2016.  Comey, who falsely claimed that no serious prosecutor would take the case of Hillary Clinton, was among those who found sufficient evidence to prosecute and convict Scooter Libby.

Democrats Ignore Dossier In Russia Report, In Stark Contrast To Their Early Rhetoric.  At a House Intelligence Committee hearing just over a year ago, Democrats on the panel focused heavily on the infamous Steele dossier, the salacious and unverified report alleging that the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.  California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, made numerous references to Steele's claims during an opening statement for the hearing, which was held on March 20, 2017.

Conservative House lawmakers draft articles of impeachment against Rosenstein.  A group of conservative House lawmakers have begun drafting a resolution that calls for the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the top Department of Justice (DOJ) official overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.  The impeachment document makes a series of charges against Rosenstein, the latest sign of escalating efforts among conservatives to oust the DOJ's No. 2 official, according to a copy of the draft obtained by The Hill.  There has been no indication, however, that Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and other House GOP leaders will act on the measure, having largely remained silent amid calls for his removal by hard-line conservatives.

Indictments Are Coming.  Americans must open their eyes.  Indictments of those responsible for this charade will reaffirm America as a nation of laws and not of people, no matter how big and untouchable those on the left think they are.

More Mueller Conflicts of Interest — His Former Employer is Manafort's Law Firm!  The Special Counsel law requires that the Attorney General or Assistant Attorney General ensure that the appointed Special Counsel has no conflicts of interest.  There is no way that Rod Rosenstein could have determined that Robert Mueller had no conflicts of interest.  Congress should request the data related to this assessment and address obvious flaws in approving Mueller, remove Mueller and prosecute Rosenstein for lying and failing his duty as Assistant AG!

Losing Patience with the Rollup of the Rogue Ruling Class.  More information came to light this week about the extensive, illegal operations of Obama's rogue bureaucratic corps.  Like the Attorney General, the President, Professor Alan Dershowitz, Joe DiGenova, former Clinton pollster Mark Penn and millions of others, we think this is taking far too long, and the Mueller investigation needs to close its bunker door and fade away.  I'm with them.  Moreover, if indictments of the Obama Bureaucrats who confected this nonsense and tried to cover it up don't follow quickly on the release of the Inspector General's report — now due May 8 — it is hard to imagine how much more contempt we will have for claims that we must respect the judicial system.  Having seen the criminal justice system misused as a vicious political weapon against Lewis Libby, Ted Stevens, and now General Michael Flynn while manifest lawbreakers, including both the Clintons, McCabe, and Comey waltz home free, inspires depths of distrust that only the enemies of a democratic state could hope to accomplish[.]

Collusion, Anyone?  [Scroll down]  Contrast that with the collusion of Obama officials with the Clinton campaign-financed Christophe Steele/Fusion GPS dossier alleging Trump ties with Russians.  Comey and the Justice Department used it, without divulging who paid for it, to get a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign operative Carter Page's future and past communications — the "wiretap" Trump was derided for mentioning.  Similarly, when Comey informed Trump in January 2017 of the contents of the then-unpublished Steele dossier, he didn't reveal that the Clinton campaign had paid for it.  Asked on his iatrogenic book tour why not, he blandly said he didn't know.  And maybe he doesn't actually realize he was employing J. Edgar Hoover-like tactics to keep his job.  Maybe.  In any case, after he was fired, he immediately sent four of his internal memos, at least one of them classified, to a law professor friend to leak them to the press, with the intent of getting a special counsel appointed — who turned out to be his longtime friend and ally Robert Mueller.

Revolution and Worse to Come.  First came the failed lawsuits after the election alleging voting-machine tampering.  Then there was the doomed celebrity effort to convince some state electors not to follow their constitutional duty and to deny Trump the presidency — a gambit that, had it worked, would have wrecked the Constitution.  Then came the pathetic congressional boycott of the inauguration and the shrill nationwide protests against the president.  Next was the sad effort to introduce articles of impeachment.  After that came weird attempts to cite Trump for violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.  That puerile con was followed by plans to declare him deranged and mentally unfit so that he could be removed under the 25th Amendment.  From time to time, Obama holdovers in the DOJ, National Security Council, and FBI sought to leak information, or they refused to carry out presidential orders.

FBI Scandal:  Deep State Corruption Of FBI, Justice Was There From Very Start Of Hillary Email Probe.  Were the Justice Department and FBI corrupted by their efforts to protect Hillary Clinton and her future chances at the presidency?  Recent revelations suggest the answer is an unqualified yes, and now those who cooperated may soon feel the law's sting for doing so.

Trump is Guilty of Obstructing... the Bureaucracy!  The charge that Donald Trump "colluded" with Russia to steal the 2016 election was never serious.  The Democratic National Committee's civil suit in that regard makes the unseriousness transparent.  "Obstruction of justice" is the charge Democrats want to use to remove him from office.  And in fact, Trump's campaign, his election, and presidency, have done a lot of obstruction.  He has thwarted longstanding bureaucratic policies and has fired bureaucrats.  Whether that has obstructed justice or favored it depends on the meaning of "justice."

Deep State or Democrat State?  The real climax of the Hillary investigation came when immunity agreements were handed out to her associates like candy in exchange for their "cooperation".  When Hillary and her people lied to the FBI, it wasn't a crime.  Not only wasn't it a crime, but the whole point of the exercise was immunizing her people from prosecution so that a Trump administration would have little leverage against them.  The investigations are also crimes.  And they not only abuse government power to suppress political opponents, but also work to suppress any counter-investigation of the crime being committing.  While Trump and Cohen had their attorney-client privilege shattered, Cheryl Mills inappropriately claimed attorney-client privilege in her relationship with Hillary Clinton, even though she had been a government employee, and not only did the FBI respect the claim, but she got an immunity agreement.  What do these three cover-ups have in common?  All three abused law enforcement resources to protect Democrat political assets.

Jack Goldsmith on the Deep State.  Jack Goldsmith, writing in the Guardian, tells us that the "deep state" is real and dangerous.  His assertions carry weight for two reasons.  First, Goldsmith should know.  He was a high ranking Justice Department official — head the Office of Legal Counsel — during part of the George W. Bush administration.  This placed him in the middle of issues regarding national security, electronic surveillance, and the like. [...] Second, Goldsmith is a strong critic of President Trump. [...] It's also noteworthy that Goldsmith's column on the deep state appears in The Guardian, a left-wing organ.

Fusion GPS co-founders signal next phase in attempted Trump takedown has started.  What is known about the Fusion GPS role in stoking and implementing an attempted takedown of candidate and ultimately president Trump is one of the greatest political scandals in memory.  But it's a story that only partially has been told.  We now know that Russian-Collusion-mania had as its source-fuel Fusion GPS opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee.  The culmination of that effort was the so-called Steele dossier, which was used to obtain FISA court warrants to surveil Carter Page, and by extension, likely other members of the Trump campaign and transition team both in real time and historically.  What is less known, but almost certain, is how Fusion GPS pushed Russia conspiracy stories through its close relationship with reporters, and likely continues to do so.  Fusion GPS not only was tight with reporters, it was tight with DOJ officials involved in pushing the Russia conspiracy narrative.

The Supreme Court Already Said Trump Can Fire Mueller.  A Republican President is under fire from his own party.  Capitol Hill Republican leaders have threatened to impeach him if he fires high-level appointees who are undermining him, and they pass legislation to bar him from doing so.  A constitutional crisis ensues when the President vetoes the bill, the veto is overridden, but the President proceeds to attempt to fire one of the protected appointees claiming Congress has no authority to force him to keep executive branch employees he doesn't want.

Ken Starr on 'Troubling' Cohen Raid: 'All Americans Should Be Concerned'.  Former Solicitor General Kenneth Starr said Thursday [4/19/2018] that the investigation into President Trump's personal attorney is "very troubling."  "Any time that a lawyer's office is raided, I believe all Americans should be concerned about that," said Starr, who investigated then-President Bill Clinton as independent counsel in the 1990s.  FBI agents raided Cohen's home, hotel room and offices last week, reportedly obtaining documents related to Cohen's payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006.

President Trump vs. the Foreign Policy Swamp.  President Trump's decision to postpone new economic sanctions against Russia on Monday brought some clarity to the foreign policy fight in Washington.  The issue isn't whether UN Ambassador Nikki Haley gets confused, as she waspishly denied, but the fact that the president is fighting the swamp single-handed.

Comey is a Pink-Hatted Women's-Marcher.  It doesn't matter how James Comey voted when he discharged his duties as FBI director as a partisan campaign operator for Team Clinton.  As his book reveals, his actions were all directed toward electing Hillary Clinton and discrediting her opponent.  He wrote a letter exonerating Clinton long before he interviewed her and her campaign associates.  His October surprise, reopening the Clinton email investigation, was not to hurt Clinton, but instead to exonerate her before the election.  He read the polls, knew she would win, and wanted to clear the decks for her presidency by declaring the email issue dead and buried.  I wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Comey discussed in the year before the election?  He was supposed to be nonpartisan in his position, but she certainly didn't have to be.

Trump and the attorney-client privilege.  [Scroll down]  The federal prosecutors also argued that [Michael] Cohen was not truly performing legal work for Trump; rather, they said, he was a fixer of Trump's image and a trickster to Trump's adversaries.  Then they revealed that the source of their purported knowledge of the Trump-Cohen relationship was surveillance of Cohen, whose telephone calls, emails and text messages the feds had been capturing for months.  That means that federal prosecutors have overheard the president of the United States in telephone conversations he believed were protected by privilege, in which he was talking to a man under criminal investigation who he has said was his lawyer.

Dirty Cop Mueller Will Threaten Trump Attorney with Life in Prison.  Last week Dirty cop Robert Mueller stormed Trump Attorney Michael Cohen's home and office collecting documents going back 30 years.  Mueller may threaten Cohen with life in prison for associating with President Donald Trump.  Mueller will find the charges later.  The deep state doesn't play.

Winter Is Coming.  Domestic tyranny is spreading across the land as the Deep State attempts to maintain their stranglehold over the financial, political and media levers of our surveillance state.  Our hour of darkness, adversity and peril is approaching like a deadly winter storm.  The arrival of Trump through the wintry mist has not rallied the entire country to his cause.  His entrance into the Swamp has divided the country into two competing camps, unwilling to compromise or cooperate in doing what's right for the long-term benefit of the country.  The advent of Trump has exacerbated the three driving core elements of debt, civic decay and global disorder.  He is a lightning rod, not a healer.  The vitriol, hate, and animosity engulfing the country is reminiscent of the years leading up to the Civil War.

Coulter: Cohen Raid Was Attempt By Mueller to Get Trump to Fire Him.  Conservative author and attorney Ann Coulter said special counsel Robert Mueller was "trying to get himself fired" by overseeing the office of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen being raided by federal agents.  Coulter said on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" that the probe into alleged collusion between President Trump and Russia has morphed into probe into the president's alleged one-night-stand with pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels.  She said that fact "proves there's no Russian collusion" and that Mueller has no case for such.

Colluders on the Loose.  Ironically, collusion of all sorts — illegal, barely legal, and simply unethical — has been the sea that Washington fish always swim in.  Christopher Steele, hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign through a series of firewall intermediaries, probably paid Russian sources for gossip and smears.  If there is a crime of collusion, then Clinton-campaign contractors should be under investigation for seeking Russian help to find dirt on Trump, to spread smears around throughout the DOJ, FBI, and CIA, and to make sure that the dirt was leaked to the press in the final weeks of the campaign — for the sole "insurance" purposes of losing Trump the election.  Some sort of collusion likely occurred when the Obama DOJ and FBI sought FISA-court requests to surveille Carter Page and, indirectly, possibly many other members of the Trump campaign.

A quick look at Michael Cohen's judge.  Kimba Wood... Kimba Wood... where have I heard that name before?  Well, look at this.  She was Bill Clinton's second choice to be attorney general, after the Zoe Baird nomination blew up.  Kimba's blew up, too, because she forgot to tell the White House she had employed an illegal as a nanny.  Is this amazingly great luck for the Mueller-U.S. attorney tag team or what?  But don't be downhearted.  Judge Wood has it all doped out:  "I have faith in the Southern District U.S. Attorney's office that their integrity is unimpeachable," Judge Wood said.  Remember how we were treated to glowing tales of how Comey and Mueller were "Boy Scouts," straight arrows both, who played it straight down the middle, eminently fair?  And besides, they're both Republicans!

Judge In Cohen Case Was Almost Bill Clinton's AG Nominee.  Judge Kimba Wood, who is presiding over the case against President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, was nearly nominated by then-President Bill Clinton to serve as attorney general in 1993.  Wood was hand-picked by Hillary Clinton, who had been asked to submit a list of possible nominees for her husband's consideration.  Wood first raised eyebrows when the Clinton White House learned that she had trained to be a Playboy bunny while still a student.  She was later forced to withdraw herself from consideration when it was revealed that she had employed an illegal immigrant as a nanny.

Investigators reveal bias against Trump.  We should not be clamoring for special counsel Robert Mueller to be fired.  That ship has sailed.  While the Russian collusion investigation seems to be withering away, having yielded no evidence that might impugn President Trump, a new investigation has been spun off in New York City, targeting his attorney, Michael Cohen.  Since that investigation is separate from the Russia investigation, some are hoping Attorney General Jeff Sessions can reauthorize himself out of recusement and squash it.

The Real Investigation.  President Trump now has real legal peril.  The potential jeopardy stems from the investigation that came to light this week when the FBI conducted raids on the office and residences of his lawyer and self-professed "fixer," Michael Cohen.  I've never thought "collusion with Russia" posed jeopardy.  If there had been anything criminal to that storyline, the politicized anti-Trump factions in the intelligence and law-enforcement agencies would have leaked it.  And, notwithstanding Trump's nauseating nods to Putin, the administration has taken enough aggressive steps against Russia that it is past time for the Kremlin to broadcast the big kompromat file if it exists.

Comey's last stand for the deep state.  They were among the most powerful men of the last decade.  They commanded armies of armed agents, had the ability to bug and wiretap almost anyone, and had virtually unlimited budgets.  They were the leadership of the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence under President Obama.  Each day, it becomes clearer that they are the real abusers of power in this drama.

Raid on Trump lawyer crossed the line into special prosecutorial abuse.  We're supposed to be reassured that the FBI agents who raided the offices and home of Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, were, in Cohen's words, "courteous" and "respectful."  The president's attorney was understandably grateful that the agents didn't replicate the FBI's tactics at the home of Paul Manafort, Trump's onetime campaign manager.  Busting in before dawn, guns drawn, with a "no knock" warrant while Manafort and his wife were in bed, the agents frisked Mrs. Manafort while she was still in her nightclothes.  Perhaps Cohen thinks if he sounds reasonable, he can appease Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who ordered Manafort's arrest, or his other federal prosecutors behind this raid.  Or maybe Cohen simply developed the quickest case of Stockholm syndrome in history.  Whatever his reasons, a line has been violated.  The government is going after lawyers now, as part of an investigation that feels as though policy differences and partisan politics have been criminalized.

American Greatness and its Enemies.  President Trump's railing against political correctness, and his disparaging of the deep state, show that he has a visceral understanding of these two core fissures in American culture and society.  It is that understanding that resonated with the Americans who voted for Mr. Trump, a group that was enough to hand him a victory in the electoral college.  So committed are his enemies, so unyielding are their beliefs, and so dangerous is the Kafka-esque legislative structure that we have created, that the American understanding of sovereignty and experiment in popular government is now at grave risk.

Feds:  Michael Cohen is barely even a lawyer.  Michael Cohen is a fraud of a lawyer who works exclusively for President Trump, federal prosecutors charged Friday [4/13/2018].  "Cohen has told at least one witness that he has only [one] client — President Trump," the lawyers wrote in court documents, challenging Cohen's claims that records seized in raids on his home and office Monday [4/9/2018] should be protected by attorney-client privilege.  And he's barely doing any "legal work" for Trump, either, they claim.

How a Republic Dies:  The Federal Leviathan Wages All-Out War With a Duly Elected President.  Political operatives have now seized privileged communications between the President of the United States and his lawyer.  Despite fairy tales about a clean process, these communications will be harvested by the counterparts of Peter Strzok, who unlike him are still on the case at the FBI, some of it will appear in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and some will be passed along to other political allies.  That's what happened at every juncture of Watergate 2.0.  And it only follows that it will happen again.  Just like the eavesdropping, the process will be compartmentalized for maximum plausible deniability.  The leakers will be protected by their superiors.  The media will shrilly focus the public's attention on the revelations in the documents rather than on the more serious crimes committed in obtaining them.  Nixon couldn't have even dreamed of doing this in his wildest fantasies.  But Obama could and did.  Now his operatives throughout the government are continuing the work that they began during his regime.

Never trust a Never Trumper.  We have a rogue prosecutor.  He has sent agents to raid the homes and offices of the president's former campaign manager and his personal lawyer.  This outrage has liberals gloating, be they on the left or be they on the right of your television screens.  Decades of chatter about civil rights turn out to be a facade.  They no more care about the Constitution than a Canada goose does.  And the Never Trump wimps once again side with the Big Government Deep State.

Piers Morgan:  Left Can't Prove Trump-Russia Collusion, So They're 'Moving the Goalposts'.  Piers Morgan said the left has been unable to find solid evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, so Democrats are "moving the goalposts" and going after President Trump's personal life.  "They want to prove to the world that Donald Trump collaborated with Russians to fix the election [and] that's why he won," Morgan said on "Hannity" on Thursday [4/12/2018].  "So far, they have singularly failed to establish that."  He said that's why they're moving on to lurid allegations about the president's private life, such as his purported 2006 affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

'This Is Third World Stuff': Former DOJ Attorney Suggests Legal Process Being Used to 'Terrorize' Trump.  Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should have been fired months ago, former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams argued, saying Rosenstein let Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation "get completely out of control."  Rosenstein met with President Trump on Thursday, amid recent calls for Rosenstein's ouster over his role in the Russia probe.  Adams explained on "The Story" on Thursday [4/12/2018] that Mueller originally was supposed to investigate possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but the probe has expanded far beyond that.

DOJ IG releases explosive report that led to firing of ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  Andrew McCabe, onetime acting FBI director, leaked a self-serving story to the press and later lied about it to his boss and federal investigators, prompting a stunning fall from grace that ended in his firing last month, says a bombshell report released Friday by the Justice Department's internal watchdog.  Inspector General Michael Horowitz, appointed by President Barack Obama, had been reviewing FBI and DOJ actions leading up to the 2016 presidential election.  The report, handed over to Congress on Friday and obtained by Fox News, looked at a leak to The Wall Street Journal about an FBI probe of the Clinton Foundation.

Justice Department hands over Russia probe documents after impeachment threat.  The Justice Department has handed over all of the documents requested by the House intelligence committee after a congressman threatened to impeach FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein over the delay.  A Justice Department official said the documents, which were related to the FBI's probe of the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia, were turned over Wednesday [4/11/2018].  That was just before the deadline set by Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and the intelligence panel chairman, had threatened to impeach Mr. Wray and Mr. Rosenstein for failing to comply with a subpoena for the documents from last August.

DOJ gives House Intel original document that prompted Russia investigation.  The Justice Department has provided House lawmakers with access to a two-page document that the FBI used as the basis for initiating its original counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.  All members of the House Intelligence Committee received access to the document, a Justice Department official confirmed to The Hill on Wednesday [4/11/2018].  Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had requested access to the unredacted document, complaining that previous "heavily" redacted versions were not adequate for committee Republicans' investigation into alleged abuses at the Justice Department.

Russia Scandal:  Will Devin Nunes Investigation Prove 'Deep State' Collusion By FBI, DOJ?  Among the many investigations going on related to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, one stands out as notable:  The investigation by the House Intelligence Committee and its hard-charging chairman, Devin Nunes, of how the FBI came to spy on the Donald Trump campaign.  It's now coming to a head.

Rand Paul:  Mueller abused authority; 'every American citizen' could be next.  Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., says that special counsel Robert Mueller has abused his authority by referring President Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to the FBI, which raided Cohen's office Monday morning, seizing business records, emails, and other documentation, including a record of a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.  Paul said the special counsel is no longer looking at Russian collusion in the 2016 election.  "Going after someone's personal attorney is a great overstep, I think, in the authority of the prosecutor," Paul said.

Facebook [is] assisting Mueller probe into Trump 2016 campaign.  Facebook is working with special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Trump campaign interactions with Russian operatives during the 2016 election, company founder Mark Zuckerberg told Congress on Tuesday [4/10/2018].  Mr. Zuckerberg first said his company had gotten a subpoena from Mr. Mueller, then paused and said he wasn't sure if there was a subpoena but his company is sharing information the investigation.  He declined to go into more details.  "Our work with the special counsel is confidential," he said, testifying to the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees.

Trump Attorney Uncovers New Unmasking Docs Showing Samantha Power Actively Worked With Media to Undermine Trump During Transition.  An attorney for Trump, Jay Sekulow and his senior counsel Carly Gammill appeared in a Washington D.C. federal court last week to find out when they will be receiving documents related to the Obama unmasking scandal.  The ACLJ (American Center For Law and Justice) filed a FOIA lawsuit last summer and they are just now beginning to receive documents.

Nunes Warns Rosenstein & Wray:  Turn Over Unredacted Documents Or Face Impeachment.  On Fox News Tuesday evening [4/10/2018], House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes issued a stern warning to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein:  Hand over the unredacted documents that congressional investigators have requested or face not only the prospect of being held in contempt — but impeachment, as well.

Guess Whose House Wasn't Raided by the FBI.  Can't find any collusion between Trump and Russia?  Hey, why not look for collusion between Cohen and professional whore and porn star Stormy Daniels?  Was she paid to go away with campaign funds?  Even so, that's an FEC violation punishable by a fine and something that does not require a SWAT team.  It certainly does not compare with money funneled by Team Hillary and the DNC though a law firm to Fusion GPS and British foreign agent Christopher Steele to put together a fake dossier on Trump using Russian sources.  But where were the raids on the offices of the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and Fusion GPS?  This is the FBI of Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, and Peter Strzok, whose mission was to keep Hillary Clinton out of prison and Donald Trump out of the White House.  They never raided the home and office of Cheryl Mills, did they?  They never raided Hillary's house or seized the acid-washed server, did they?  But Michael Cohen is a threat to our democracy warranting brute force?

Trump-Appointed U.S. Attorney Was Forced To Recuse Himself So Cohen Raid Could Take Place.  Over the last 24-hours, the Establishment Media has repeated over and over again how the U.S. District Attorney who oversaw the raid on longtime Trump Attorney Michael Cohen's New York offices was a Trump appointee — implying there must have been some serious wrongdoing for the raid to then have taken place.  Ah, there's one problem though.  U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman was NOT part of the raid.  He was forced to recuse himself from the case by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

Outrageous — the FBI raid on Michael Cohen.  This morning [4/9/2018], the DOJ, based on allegations passed on by Bob Mueller, executed a warrant on Trump's personal attorney, Michael Cohen, sweeping up a host of material covered by attorney client privilege. [...] This warrant is from the same [people] who have yet — two years after the fact — to execute a warrant to verify that the single most basic fact of the collusion story, that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians.  This from the same [people] that allowed Hillary to maintain her private server for months after it became known that she had run all State Dept. business through that server, all but certainly exposing thousands of confidential, secret and top secret documents and items of information in violation of our state secrets laws.  During that time, Hillary and her attorney wiped that server clean.  And now these [people], seemingly having found nothing on which to charge Trump relating to Russian collusion, and having given Hillary and her team a pass on crystal clear felonies, go after Trump and/or his personal attorney on a technical violation of election law?  These worthless [people] are out of control.

Here Are 8 Things You Need To Know About The FBI's Raid on Michael Cohen's Offices.  [#7] The FBI Never Treated Hillary Clinton This Way:  This is perfectly obvious.  Hillary wasn't merely allowed to delete 33,000 documents from her computer server three weeks after revelations that she had a private computer server, she was protected by the DOJ and the FBI, which allowed her personal attorney, Cheryl Mills — who was also under investigation — to invoke attorney-client privilege to stop the FBI from investigating Hillary's email scheme

FBI director, Mueller, Rosenstein are out to take down Trump: diGenova & Toensing attorneys.  The tactics used in the FBI raid of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen are normally reserved for terrorists, according to attorneys from the law firm of diGenova & Toensing.  "Mueller and his gang have weaponized the criminalized justice system," attorney Victoria Toensing said Monday during an interview with FOX Business' Lou Dobbs.  "These no-knock raids that were done on his personal lawyer's house and offices, those kind of tactics are reserved for dope dealers and terrorists."

Cohen Raid & Mueller Madness.  No one has seen the search warrants.  No one knows why Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein pushed this warrant to New York.  What is known, according to the Washington Post, is that Cohen is being investigated for potential bank fraud and election fraud.  To the lawyerly among the Twitterati, there must be a there, there.  One commenter mused upon the "slow roll of the Nixon investigation" and saw an analogy.  And he's right.  There is an analogy.  The media hate Donald Trump just as they hated Richard Nixon.

The FBI Escalates its War on the Trump Administration.  News reports indicate that the FBI raid resulted, at least in part, from a referral by Robert Mueller.  The subject of the raid included "payments to the former porn actress known as Stormy Daniels."  Good going, Bob — you were assigned to investigate nonexistent collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russians, and now you're down to liaisons with porn performers.  Donald Trump allegedly spent one illicit evening with Ms. Daniels 12 years ago, when he was a private citizen.  (Lacking personal knowledge, I assume the allegation is probably true.)  That might be a big deal to Melania Trump, but to the rest of us it is utterly irrelevant.

The Editor says...
Twelve years ago, Donald Trump was a Democrat.

Alan Dershowitz:  Today is a 'very dangerous day for lawyer-client relations'.  Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz warned Monday that special counsel Robert Mueller's decision to raid President Trump's personal lawyer's office is an assault on the privileged lawyer-client relationship.  Dershowitz said on Fox News that he believes the decision to raid Michael Cohen's office would be a sign that Mueller is trying to turn Cohen against Trump.  "This may be an attempt to squeeze Cohen," he said.  "He's the lawyer, he's the guy who knows all the facts about Donald Trump, and to get him to turn against his client."  "This is a very dangerous day today for lawyer-client relations," he added.

Mr. Mueller, I'd like to know what you are doing.  I have some questions for Mr. Mueller:  First, who is getting fired for all of these leaks?  In other words, somebody's leaking, and we know that's a crime.  Why doesn't Mr. Mueller fire somebody to show that he won't put up with any more leaks?  Second, why so many Democrats working in this investigation?  Weren't there any Republican lawyers to balance the team?  So we wait and wait.

The Mueller coup.  Robert Mueller's unconstitutional raid on the president's lawyer — with Democratic Party operatives grabbing privileged communications — is the last straw.  Mueller should not be fired.  Mueller should be arrested and charged with political espionage.  That won't happen, but I trust that something calmer and more effective will occur.  I hope that the president will empower Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz to raid the offices of Mueller and every one of the two dozen Democratic lawyers he put on the public payroll with absolutely no vetting by Civil Service or Congress.  Furthermore, Horowitz should raid their private law offices and their homes.

The raid on Trump's lawyer:  Why?  And why now?  In the absence of any public statements from Robert Mueller's team or the FBI or DOJ — just leaks to pet media outlets — we can only speculate as to the motives for a thermonuclear escalation of tactics being used against President Trump in the effort to reverse the presidential election of 2016.  They have extended the fishing expedition to include seizure of protected communications between the president and his lawyers, now in the hands of the FBI, the same agency that has been stonewalling congressional investigation into its behavior in launching the surveillance of the Trump campaign on charges of collusion with Russia.  It should be noted that no evidence whatsoever of such collusion has been developed and made public, which has to be a deep embarrassment at a minimum.

FBI raids Trump lawyer's office.  The FBI on Monday [4/9/2018] raided the office of President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and seized emails, tax documents and records related to his payment to adult-film star Stormy Daniels.  Cohen's lawyer, Stephen Ryan, said in a statement that federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained a search warrant after receiving a referral "in part" from special counsel Robert Mueller.  Ryan called the search "completely inappropriate and unnecessary."  The New York Times reported that the payment to Daniels is just one of "many topics" being looked at by the FBI.

FBI Notifies Judicial Watch It Needs At Least Three Years To Turn Over Strzok-Page Communications.  On Monday [4/9/2018], the FBI notified Judicial Watch that the bureau will need at least three years to hand over "releasable," communications between anti-Trump FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

Team Obama's smear machine-in-exile mobilizes to destroy Iran-deal critics.  "John Bolton is at the nexus of Russia's interference in our democracy and the NRA's reckless agenda":  The sentence is so bonkers, so pristine in its conspiratorial insanity that it should one day grace a Museum of Natural History exhibit on early-21st-century US politics.  Yet it wasn't from an anonymous troll, or some Hollywood figure with tons of followers but little common sense.  It was tweeted by National Security Action — an outfit run by former top Obama officials.  Described by the Washington Post as a "political strike force," this NSA is a coterie of veterans from the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton's campaign, acting as a shadow government to weaponize foreign-policy disputes.  It's a fever-swamp-in-exile.  And it exemplifies everything that's wrong with top Democrats' partisan madness in the Age of Trump.

The Democratic Party Collusion Story Gets Worse.  We have barely begun to plumb the depths of the scandal arising out of the 2016 presidential election.  James Comey, John Brennan, Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Perkins Coie law firm, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, unknown Russians, Andrew McCabe — the list goes on and on, and it keeps getting longer.

Special counsel investigating the FBI.  The headline and accompanying story in the Hill made it appear as if Attorney General Jeff Sessions is defying the Senate:  "Sessions declines to appoint second special counsel."  The story said, "Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed in a letter to lawmakers Thursday [3/29/2018] that he had declined to name a second special counsel to investigate allegations of surveillance abuse within the Department of Justice, despite pressure from the Republican Party for him to do so."  I read the letter.  Sessions, a veteran prosecutor, said a special prosecutor isn't necessary.  Inspector General Michael Horowitz and his staff of 470 people are handling the investigation in the corruption of the FBI by Barack Obama and company.  Sessions named U.S. Attorney John Huber — an Obama appointee — of Utah to handle any prosecutions that may arise from Horowitz's investigation.

Documents suggest possible coordination between CIA, FBI, Obama WH and Dem officials early in Trump-Russia probe: investigators.  Newly uncovered text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page suggest a possible coordination between high-ranking officials at the Obama White House, CIA, FBI, Justice Department and former Senate Democratic leadership in the early stages of the investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to GOP congressional investigators on Wednesday [3/28/2018].  The investigators say the information provided to Fox News "strongly" suggests coordination between former President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, then-Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, and CIA Director John Brennan — which they say would "contradict" the Obama administration's public stance about its hand in the process.

Collusion Delusion:  New Documents Show Obama Officials, FBI Coordinated in Anti-Trump Probe.  Documents obtained by congressional investigators suggest possible coordination by Obama White House officials, the CIA and the FBI into the investigation into President Donald Trump's campaign.  Those senior Obama officials used unsubstantiated evidence to launch allegations in the media that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, according to newly discovered documents and communications obtained by Congress.  The documents also reveal that former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, sent a letter on Aug. 29, 2016, asking former FBI Director James Comey to investigate the allegations, which were presented to him by then CIA Director John Brennan.  Brennan had briefed Reid privately days earlier on the counterintelligence investigation and documents suggest Reid was also staying in close touch with Comey over the issues.

DOJ Inspector General reviews alleged FISA abuses by DOJ, FBI.  Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced Wednesday [3/28/2018] he will review potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by both the Justice Department and the FBI, following requests from Congress and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  The Office of the Inspector General released a statement Wednesday outlining the start of the review.  "The OIG will initiate a review that will examine the Justice Department's and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person," the statement obtained by Fox News read.  "As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source."

Newly-released Strzok-Page texts suggest a sneaky cabal.  More evidence was released yesterday indicating that the CIA, the FBI, the Obama White House, and congressional Democrats were communicating about a possible charge of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign three months before the November 2016 presidential election.  There is nothing close to a smoking gun here, I am afraid.  Nonetheless, the new Strzok-Page text messages released yesterday — more than 49,000 of their texts remain to be released — suggest that, contrary to Obama administration claims, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough was a participant in the launching of an FBI counterintelligence investigation into allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.  Other members of what could be a cabal include then-Senate minority leader Harry Reid; CIA chief John Brennan; and FBI officials, including Director James Comey and members of Andrew McCabe's counterintelligence division.

The Deep State Media Game.  Let's recall that what got us to this point is that when to their horror, the friends of Hillary in various government agencies like the FBI, the CIA and the DIA realized she had lost and Donald Trump was in fact set to be the next president, they set to work.  The critical part is the Trump/Russia collusion narrative would not have worked unless the likes of Brennan/CIA, Clapper/DIA/ and Comey/McCabe/Strzok from the FBI started feeding leaks to various friendlies in the media.  Everybody leaked to the media and they had their constituency with this or that favorite reporter.  The question now:  Is this still going on?  Based on the evidence, the answer is yes.

Hey, Deep State, Americans know you're hiding in there.  According to a new Monmouth University Poll, a substantial majority of Americans believes that an unelected, shadowy portion of government and the military secretly manipulates federal policy to its own ends.  Here's what's so intriguing about this finding:  It's bipartisan, one of the few things in these hyper-partisan days that members of both parties as well as independents share a fervent belief in.

The FBI's McCabe and Bias in the Deep State.  Andrew McCabe was fired from the FBI reportedly for lying.  He should have been fired for misuse of office and bias.  Notably, lying to the FBI is a crime under the False Statements Act.  So what "Andy" did was arguably a crime, for which dismissal is normal.  But bias, favorable or unfavorable, is not a crime.  That is why it is far more dangerous if left unchecked.  And that is why Andrew McCabe should have been fired for it.

The Deep State Is in Deep Trouble.  Why would some "concerned citizen" suddenly leak information to ABC that Jeff Sessions was under investigation for perjuring himself (about Russia, of course) during his confirmation hearing now almost a year behind us?  Could it have something to do with the fact that the man who instigated that investigation was none other than Andrew McCabe, only recently fired by Sessions?  Was someone or some group — the ABC report specifies "sources" with an "s" — trying to make the attorney general's act seem one of revenge, and thus illegitimate?  No doubt.  But the problem is that Sessions was long ago exonerated of this charge by none other than Robert Mueller.

House Probe Accuses Clapper of Misleading Congress.  A House Intelligence Committee investigation of Russian election meddling has concluded that former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper misled Congress about disclosing information to CNN.  The committee's final report on the investigation was approved on Thursday and now awaits an intelligence agency review.  Despite 472 days of investigation and thousands of witnesses, the committee stated in its list of final conclusions and recommendations that it found no evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump, his campaign aides, and Russia.  "The committee found no evidence that meetings between Trump associates — including Jeff Sessions — and official representatives of the Russian government — including Ambassador Kislyak — reflected collusion, coordination, or conspiracy with the Russian government," the list states.

Wait, What?  Andrew McCabe Launched an FBI Investigation Into Attorney General Sessions Because Dems Asked Him To?  It's been less than a week since former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions after a recommendation for termination from the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility.  The drama surrounding the lawful and justified firing hasn't stopped since and late Wednesday night [3/21/2018], ABC News dropped a bombshell story alleging Sessions was under FBI investigation last year for perjury.  The man leading the charge?  Andrew McCabe.

McCabe's Bogus Witch Hunt Of Jeff Sessions Confirms Worst Fears About FBI/DOJ Politicization.  Thousands upon thousands of media reports over the last year and a half have intimated, suggested, or flat-out asserted that President Donald Trump is a traitor who colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton.  What this widely held theory lacks in evidence, its diehard supporters in the media and other anti-Trump bastions make up for with their faith-filled conviction of its truth.  An alternate storyline has been unfolding over that same time.  The basic contour is that claims Trump stole the election by treasonously colluding with Russia are the result of a coordinated campaign that was bought and paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, weaponized by the federal government, and promulgated by a completely compliant media.

John Brennan, Obama's Head of the Innuendo Community.  [John Brennan] turned up on MSNBC to disseminate the smear that Russia holds compromising material over Trump.  This claim, he admitted, was based on nothing more than his own hunch.  So here was a former CIA director sliming a sitting president on his own vicious speculation, just days after one of his old colleagues in the Obama administration had hinted at dark things to come for Trump — and that wasn't the story!  No, the story was the "alarm" felt by such a ruling-class worthy, as if the intensity of Brennan's feelings somehow made up for his total lack of evidence.  A similar subtext runs through many of the stories about the "respected" Christopher Steele:  they gloss over the absence of evidence in his dossier and focus instead on the depth of his "concerns."  Who cares?  Where is the evidence?  We know that if the Brennans and Steeles had any real evidence they would have leaked it by now.

Limitless Investigation of Trump Was Always the Plan.  A man can run the gauntlet against more than 20 professional politicians and come out victorious.  He can win more than 40 Republican primary contests and beat every professional political campaigner out there, earning the votes of more than 14 million Republicans. [...] We can pick our president.  But then the powerful established bureaucracy must conduct a massive, sprawling, limitless investigation into any and all aspects of the president we pick.  The basis of this "investigation" is an increasingly debunked frame-up designed and drafted by the Kremlin and paid for by President Trump's political opponent in the presidential election.  And then spread to all four corners of the globe by the oldest creatures of the powerful establishment in Washington.

John Brennan:  Deep State Political Hack.  Considering that John Brennan once proudly admitted that he voted for Communist Party leader Gus Hall and openly supports liars and perjurers like Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, and James Comey, he redefines chutzpah when in a tweet he describes President Trump in words that sound as though they were plagiarized from FBI lead investigator Peter Strzok: [...] The only "disgraced demagogues" in this scenario are John Brennan; James Clapper; Andrew McCabe; James Comey; Peter Strzok; and, yes, Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller, all parties in a political resistance whose purpose was to keep Hillary Clinton out of prison and Donald Trump out of the White House.  And John Brennan dares to talk about political corruption?

The bad news is the swamp is deeper than we knew.  For eight years (likely more) the Democratic Party has used national security fears to spy on Americans.  Do you think they began with Trump and confined themselves to political opposition?  Unmasking — disclosing to political operatives who was spied upon and what they said — was common. [...] Transcripts were released to reporters.  The New York Times used this wiretapped information — that is what the Times called it — for a front page story on Inauguration Day designed to undermine the new president.

Samantha Power and the importance of being very, very afraid of ex-CIA chief John Brennan.  The rage wing of the Democratic Party has gotten active again.  Former Obama administration United Nations ambassador Samantha Power followed former Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan to make big threats to the Trump administration in the wake of the firing of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe for lying.  It's fascinating because it's something President Trump had absolutely nothing to do with, given that it was apolitical watchdogs in the Department of Justice and the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility who made the call.  Yet they are lashing out and now making threats — because it's dawning on them that they too can be held accountable.

'Deep State' Alumni Rally Around McCabe.  Numerous former "Deep State" operatives, politicians, and media figures united behind former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Twitter in the wake of his termination Friday night [3/16/2018].  Former CIA Director John Brennan sent an ominous tweet Saturday calling Trump a "disgraced demagogue" who will eventually land "in the dustbin of history."

James Clapper:  Deep State Point Man.  As the House Intelligence Committee on Monday [3/12/2018] announced its findings that there was no collusion between Team Trump and Russia, more evidence of the collusion between Deep State swamp creatures and a disloyal media to undermine the presidency of Donald Trump was also revealed.  James Clapper has been exposed as both a perjurer and a criminal leaker of classified information to the press.  The cynicism of Americans regarding integrity and accountability in government grew as swamp thing James Clapper avoided his part of the bog being drained.

The Real Collusion Story.  [Scroll down]  With his jacket and tie off, the cuffs of his sleeves turned, and a winning smile spread from ear to ear, Obama came to loan Hillary Clinton his common touch.  Passing the baton to her was a team effort, however.  It demanded hard work from countless enablers.  These included not just Democrats but also many Republicans, who shared the conviction that Trump represented an extraordinary threat to our democracy.  Desperate times call for desperate measures.  To block Trump, Clinton's supporters bent rules and broke laws.  They went to surprising lengths to strengthen her while framing him — both in the sense of depicting him in a particular light and of planting evidence against him.

Eric Holder Comes Unglued After GOP House Intel Committee Rules No Trump-Russia Collusion.  House Intelligence Committee Republicans announced Monday [3/12/2018] that they found "no evidence of collusion," between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin in the panel's 'Russia probe.'  The Deep State and Democrats aren't taking the news well.  Leaker Adam Schiff immediately blew a gasket and released a ridiculous statement claiming the Republicans don't care about the fact that the Russians may have leverage over Trump.  Former Attorney General Eric 'Fast and Furious' Holder was livid after the GOP House Intel panel shut down the Trump-Russia probe.

Former DNI James Clapper Allegedly Leaked to CNN, investigation revealed.  Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper allegedly leaked information to CNN early last year regarding the classified briefings given to then President-Elect Donald Trump and President Barrack Obama on the salacious dossier claiming the Russians had compromising information on the president-elect, according to government sources, who noted the evidence of the leak was collected during the House Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation.  Clapper, who was one of four senior Obama administration officials to attend the briefing with the presidents, also stated his "profound dismay at the leaks" in an official statement issued in January, 2017 and warned that the leaks were "extremely corrosive and damaging" to national security, according to his press release.

Report: James Clapper Was Leaking Intelligence Reports to CNN During President-Elect Trump Transition.  This story today from Sara Carter is really interesting because CTH outlined the foundation of this back in January of 2017.  According to an article published today by Sara Carter her congressional sources have told her of an investigation into former ODNI James Clapper and his leaking of "intelligence information" to CNN in an orchestrated effort to damage the incoming Trump administration.

Former Director Of National Intelligence, James Clapper, Caught Lying During CNN Broadcast.  It is easy to get lost in the weeds if you don't follow the details closely; however, last night James Clapper appeared on CNN to defend himself against mounting evidence he leaked, and falsified the content of a presidential briefing of an Intelligence Discussion — including the "Steele Dossier" — to CNN January 9th or 10th 2017.

'Can It Happen Here?  Authoritarianism in America'.  [Scroll down]  Some see these bureaucrats [of the American Deep State] as a vital check on the law-breaking or authoritarian or otherwise-illegitimate tendencies of democratically elected officials.  Others decry the Deep State as a self-serving authoritarian cabal that illegally and illegitimately undermines democratically elected officials and the policies they were elected to implement.  The truth is that the Deep State, which is a real phenomenon, has long been both a threat to democratic politics and a savior of it.  The problem is that it is hard to maintain its savior role without also accepting its threatening role.

Anti-Trump bureaucrats accused of weaponizing security clearance process.  The security clearance process has tied the Trump administration in knots — and that is exactly what the bureaucrats running the White House personnel security office intended, said a lawyer who has been battling the office.  The problem is a small group of career bureaucrats holed up in the Old Executive Office Building who turned security reviews into quicksand to ensnare President Trump's team, said Sean M. Bigley, a federal security clearance lawyer who represents several senior administration officials caught up in the process.  "The security clearance process is being weaponized by anti-Trump bureaucrats who are using it as a tool to not only thwart the president's agenda but to prevent him from installing appointees who will execute it," Mr. Bigley told The Washington Times.

Report: Mueller's investigation takes a bizarre turn.  The Washington Post reports that Robert Mueller is investigating President Trump's "private comments and state of mind" during the period when he issued a series of tweets belittling Attorney General Jeff Sessions.  According to the Post, the thrust of Mueller's inquiry is to determine whether the president's goal was to oust Sessions in order to pick a replacement who would exercise control over Mueller's investigation.  If this story is true, it demonstrates why the nation needs someone in the Justice Department to exercise control over Mueller's investigation.  It also confirms the suspicion that Mueller is either nuts, desperate to get Trump, or both.

Doctor Hamburger Diagnoses a Malignant Administrative State.  The ominous nature of the administrative state (think IRS, EPA, DOJ, DEA, Interior, FCC, SEC) transforms our government originally designed as limited and by the consent of the governed.  Emblematic of the administrative state problem is the slow-rolling special counsel coup being orchestrated by intelligence and law enforcement agencies intent on overturning a presidential election, energized and perpetrated by human creatures in the embedded federal bureaucracy that occupies a wide swath of swampland on the Potomac River.

Political Espionage, By the Book.  John Brennan, Obama's CIA director, gives himself this description on his Twitter account:  "Nonpartisan American who is very concerned about our collective future."  In other words, Brennan is still in the disinformation business.  Liberal partisan who is very concerned about our collectivist future — that would be a more apt description for one of the most politicized CIA directors ever, whose ascent to the top of the CIA began with a lie-detector test in which he revealed that he was a supporter of the Soviet-controlled American Communist party.  Brennan was the fox guarding the henhouse — a role he played to the hilt for Hillary Clinton in 2016 as he set in motion a sham investigation into the Trump campaign.  NBC recently signed Brennan up as a "national security" correspondent.  So the fox will now get to comment on the henhouse he raided.

Trump's agenda:  Saving sovereignty and citizenship from the deep state.  The 2016 election revealed American citizens' crisis of confidence in their political establishment.  More than a year on, that establishment ought to take the opportunity of President Trump's first State of the Union address to think seriously about our politics, our Constitution, and our cultural and political life together.  More than anything else, President Trump spoke to Congress about individual Americans and the meaning of American citizenship — often using criminals, adversaries and hostile foreign powers as foils.  The president's speech was about that most fundamental of political and human distinctions — friends versus enemies — but it built to a vision of American justice rooted in the sovereignty of the people.

General Mike Flynn, Rudolph Contreras and The Increasingly Sketchy FISA Application.  On November 30th, 2017, Mike Flynn signed a guilty plea; ostensibly admitting lying to investigators.  The plea was accepted by Judge Rudolph Contreras; who is also a FISA court judge.  Six days later, December 7th, 2017, Judge Contreras "was recused" from the case without explanation.  The case was reassigned to DC District Judge Emmet Sullivan.  The Contreras recusal always seemed sketchy.  If the conflict existed on December 7th, wouldn't that same conflict have existed on November 30th, 2017?

How Obama's Hillary Clinton cover-ups destroyed DOJ and FBI.  The Obama/Clintons' shadow government operatives will stop at nothing to cover up their crimes against democracy, including the destruction of evidence and obstruction of justice.  Destruction of evidence has been a big theme throughout the Bill/Hillary Clinton era.  Just take a look at scandals involving the missing emails, Benghazi, and the Clinton Foundation.  Based on the recent announcement from the Department of Justice regarding the 50,000 missing texts written by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, it appears this trend is continuing.

The Administrative State as opposed to the Deep State.  The two terms overlap, but are not essentially the same thing.  The "administrative state" refers to the Progressive constitutionalism that consciously seeks to supplant democratic self-government with rule by experts in permanent agencies, neatly skirting the principle of the separation of powers.  The "deep state" is actually a term of foreign origin (usually Turkey) that refers to what the left used to call the "national security state," that is, a cabal of the military and intelligence communities.  It is a curious thing that an idea that once was the province of the left has become the property of the populist right.  After all, it used to be the left that hated the FBI; now it's our side.

The GOP memo proves the 'deep state' is real.  Because of the memo and previous revelations, we know that swamp creatures are embedded in the top of the FBI and the Department of Justice.  Some used their power to try to tip a presidential campaign based on their personal politics.  They conducted a sham investigation of the Democratic candidate and misled federal judges to spy on at least one associate of her Republican challenger.  To block exposure of their misdeeds, these officials falsely claimed that national security would be damaged.  Add that despicable lie — issued in the name of the FBI itself — to their shameful records.  Thanks to the battle over the memo, we also know with 100 percent certainty that the mainstream media is part of the swamp.

Ex-Obama intel bosses snipe at Trump from sidelines amid concern over politicized agencies.  Once upon a time, former intel chiefs employed a restrained and nonpartisan tone in the public eye.  Now, they're diving right into the mud of today's rancorous political fights.  And the current battle between law enforcement circles and congressional Republicans over the controversial memo on alleged surveillance abuse has pulled Obama-era spy guys even deeper into the brawl.

Deep State Agent of Corruption.  The confirmation of Rod Rosenstein as Deputy Attorney General by a lopsided 94-6 vote should have set off warning bells.  It is odd that a Trump nominee would get so much Democrat support, if any at all.  But Rosenstein's role in appointing his pal Robert Mueller to lead a fraudulent "Russian collusion" probe — as well as his history of looking the other way when Hillary Clinton is involved — shows the Democrats had high hopes for Rosenstein.  These hopes were realized by his actions that have been documented in the four-page House Intelligence Committee memo.

Rosenstein — Agent of the Deep State Coup.  The confirmation of Rod Rosenstein to be Deputy Attorney General by a lopsided 94-6 vote should have set off warning bells.  It is odd that a Trump nominee would get much Democratic support, if any.  But his role in appointing his buddy Robert Mueller to lead a bogus Russian collusion probe and his history of looking the other way when Hillary Clinton is involved shows the Democrats had high hopes for Rosenstein, hopes realized by actions documented in the four-page House Intelligence Committee memo: [...] Steele's discredited "research," which relied heavily on input from Russian sources, was paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign, which puts Rosenstein in the position of aiding the efforts of one political party to overturn the results of an election won by the other political party by okaying domestic spying on an American citizen.

Desperation Time As Democrats Seek to Stop Trump From Succeeding.  [Scroll down]  Then there's the never-ending Trump/Russia/Tin Foil thing.  The only conspiracy anyone has found yet was the Obama administration's conspiracy to rig the election.  Rigging elections is apparently okay when it doesn't involve the Russians.  See, the problem was that Trump's alleged plot was outsourced to foreigners or something.  The Democrats are hoping against hope that Trump will talk to Mueller, that beagle-looking lackey of the left, and get caught up in some [petty] perjury beef because he says something happened on a Tuesday around noon and it really happened at 11:43 a.m.  Trump should not let them bait him — it's a trap, a trick, an ambush, and he needs to listen to his lawyers and not have [any] thing to do with the people whose teen girl-like volumes of texting clearly reveal them as partisan agents determined to frame the president if that is what it takes to overturn the election.

Donald Trump Should Refuse a Mueller Interview.  Let's cut to the chase:  Donald Trump should not agree to be interviewed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and President Trump should not even be asked.  See, there are two Trumps to consider here.  There is the very eccentric and volatile man who is the subject of Mueller's amorphous investigation.  And there is the president of the United States, who has responsibilities to that vital public office.  Here, the interests of both happen to align.

Unless the Obamagate perpetrators do time, the republic is in peril.  Obamagate is the greatest scandal in modern U.S. history, and the mainstream media knows it.  This is why they are desperately trying to ignore it.  It won't work.  Washington is circling the wagons, trying to protect the FBI from the growing scandal.  Yet, the media-enabled "Deep State" conspiracy to implement a silent coup against President Donald Trump is slowly being exposed by courageous congressional investigators.

Obama — Leader of the Deep State Coup.  In any criminal investigation where the suspect is not immediately known, the first question usually asked is who would have the most to gain?  As we follow the bread crumbs of the text messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and await release of the House Intelligence Committee's memo regarding the collusion between the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the DOJ, and FBI to interfere with the 2016, ensure the election of Hillary, and the defeat or impeachment of Donald Trump, the answer to that question is clear — one Barack Hussein Obama. [...] This scandal did not occur in a vacuum any more than did the weaponizing of the IRS to target the Tea Party and other conservative groups before Obama's 2012 reelection campaign occured in a vacuum.  The agencies under Obama's control have been politicized before and used to intimidate and destroy his political opponents[.]

FBI's Secret, Anti-American Society.  Deep State operatives dominate the FBI.  They have never worried about discovery.  They believe they are too big to indict, and that they are somehow above the law.  Except, now, the FBI is under fire, and under examination, and the liberal left's wagons are circling the agency, not only to hide the corruption, but to keep the public from learning that a secret society of leftism is running rampant through the nation's top bureau of investigation.  They are trying to even blame the Russians for the FBI's crimes, but fall short drastically.  As the investigators got close, text messages disappeared, and the members of the secret society clammed up.  The circumstantial evidence says the FBI under Obama was also complicit in using illegal activities and an abuse of power in an attempt to defeat Donald Trump in 2016.

What Do We Do About the FBI?  Suppose what many are now suspecting is completely true — that the FBI, or parts of it, exonerated Hillary Clinton and her cohorts with a mock investigation, attempted to swing our presidential election against Donald Trump and then continued to undermine the new administration after they had won with illegitimate claims of Russian collusion orchestrated by sleazy political lowlifes?  While this is not quite Stalinist — no one was tortured in Lubyanka or sent to the Gulag for life — it's not all that distant.  It's tantamount to an internal coup d'état that is still ongoing.

Trey Gowdy:  Newly revealed Strzok/Page texts exhibit 'manifest bias 'favoring Hillary Clinton over Trump.  Text messages that were exchanged between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page demonstrate "manifest bias" favoring Hillary Clinton and provide the "unvarnished truth" for their feelings about President Trump, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Thursday night [1/25/2018].  Strzok and Page, both of whom were part of Clinton and Trump investigations, discussed being cautious during the agency's investigation of the former secretary of state, since she might become president.

Another 'secret society' among the plotting boyars of Obamadom.  The boyars were originally bureaucrats in its Kievian Rus origins, and eventually became independent noblemen with land rights that couldn't be abolished by the Czar.  Of course they were jealous of preserving their fiefs and powers.  So they formed secret societies that eventually went after the Czar.  They closely resemble the bureaucrats of FBI and DOJ who have since become powerful princelings in Obama's era of Big State, and who retain a patina of "independence" under the guise of professionalism.  Anybody surprised that they too have formed secret societies to go after Trump?  Weird, weird stuff in our supposed democracy, which as Russian observers sometimes note, doesn't seem that much like a democracy at all when you look at the elections and the rights of the political class up close.  And that can only be attributed to the power of an increasingly centralized government, which forms the heart of the Deep State, and which is the hallmark of Obama's 'change' for America.

Joe diGenova:  DOJ Officials 'Tried to Frame an Incoming President With False Russian Conspiracy' Tale.  Former federal prosecutor, special counsel, and prominent Washington attorney Joe diGenova said the scandal at the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) involves a "brazen plot" to exonerate Hillary Clinton of felony crimes involving her mishandling of classified documents, and an ongoing "false case" to "frame" President Donald Trump with a "false Russian conspiracy that never existed."  The senior DOJ and FBI officials involved knew the Russian conspiracy story was fake, said diGenova, but they "plotted to ruin" Trump as a candidate "and then destroy him as a president."  The FBI now "has to be completely reconstructed from the ground up," he said.

The Obama Administration's Criminal Perversion of Government.  A week after the election, groups inside and outside the government, some calling themselves Obama Anonymous, had begun meeting to plan the "resistance" to Trump.  Unlike the angry protesters in the streets, this resistance wasn't a new organization.  It consisted of Washington D.C. government lifers.  At the CFPB, there was a group calling itself Dumbledore's Army.  Within the FBI and the DOJ, there was a nameless "secret society".  Its details are being derived from text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok, a disgraced member of Mueller's team, and his mistress, Lisa Page, who worked for FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  Previous Strzok texts had spoken of taking out "insurance" against a Trump win.  This was all the more significant since Strzok had investigated Hillary and interviewed Flynn.  He was a crucial figure in both the investigations of Hillary Clinton and President Trump.

Franklin Graham warns of deep state coup against President Trump.  "I believe we are in a coup d'etat," Franklin Graham said Wednesday on the "Todd Starnes Radio Show."  "There are people in this country who are wanting to destroy the president and take over the government by force."  Graham revealed his concerns as congressional Republicans ramp up accusations that deep state actors within the FBI and the Justice Department may have been plotting against the president.  The evangelical leader did not name names, but he suggested the mainstream media was complicit in the silent coup.  Click here to listen to the shocking interview.

The Sinking of the FBI.  [T]he evidence is rapidly emerging that senior officials in our government, most likely up to and including then-president of the United States Barack Obama, worked in concert to illicitly, and possibly criminally, derail the candidacy of the opposition party's presidential candidate using fabricated information (or, as former FBI director James Comey described it, "salacious and unverified") obtained by a private investigations firm from an enemy of the United States:  Russia.  Even worse, once that effort to derail that candidacy failed and that candidate, Donald Trump, was elected, those same individuals used the same manufactured evidence as the basis to launch an investigation, employing the vast authority and technical resources of the United States government, whose ultimate goal, I believe, is to impeach and remove that duly elected president.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is a coup d'état.

New Texts From Anti-Trump FBI Agents Mention a 'Secret Society'.  New text messages from anti-Trump FBI agents reviewed by investigators reportedly make reference to a "secret society," in what could be the nail in the coffin for special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.  Investigators have reviewed 50,000 text messages on FBI servers looking for all exchanges between anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page during the 2016 election, Fox News reported.  The revelation comes as investigators are seeking the whereabouts of approximately five months' worth of text messages between Page and Strzok.  House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy told Fox News on Monday [1/22/2018] that one of the newly-revealed text messages spoke of a "secret society."

Paul Craig Roberts Slams The NSA: "It's A Blackmail Agency".  The main function of the National Security Administration is to collect the dirt on members of the house and senate, the staffs, principal contributors, and federal judges.  The dirt is used to enforce silence about the crimes of the security agencies.  The blackmail mechanism was put into gear the minute the news reported that the House Intelligence Committee had assembled proof that the FBI, DOJ, and DNC created Russiagate as a conspiracy to unseat President Trump.  Members of Congress with nothing to hide demanded the evidence be released to the public.

FBI 'Secret Society' Met [the] Day After [the] 2016 Election to Sabotage Trump.  Yes, there was actually something called a "secret society" at the FBI that included Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (the two hacks who's text messages suddenly went missing) and they met the day after Hillary Clinton was crushed in the 2016 election.

Oops! Those FBI Texts and 4 Other Times the Deep State 'Lost' Crucial Communications.  [Scroll down]  Many believe, and not without cause, that this "insurance policy" is the phony Russian dossier funded in part by the FBI (along with the Clinton campaign). The phony dossier was almost certainly used by the Obama White House to wiretap the Trump campaign under the FISA program.  These lost five months of texts also happen to coincide with the crucial months when the Russian hoax blew up in the media and resulted in the appointment of special prosecutor Robert Mueller.  Although, on its own, the very idea that these crucially important text messages were "accidentally lost" defies belief, what makes this news even more troubling is how frequently the Deep State loses communications that might prove to be inconvenient to the Deep State.

Page and Strzok Referenced FBI 'Secret Society' that Met the Day After the Election.  There is serious talk on Capitol Hill about the appointment of a second special counsel amid several new bombshell revelations swirling around the Trump/Russia probe.  First, there are the allegations of shocking and substantial government surveillance abuses under President Obama outlined in the FISA abuse memo.  Secondly, the FBI lost five months of key text messages between the anti-Trump/pro-Clinton FBI officials Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa Page.  And now there's talk of a "secret society" of officials within the FBI that apparently met the day after the election of Donald J. Trump to plot against the president-elect.

Missing Texts? — Inspector General Horowitz Letter to Chairman Nunes.  Remember, Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is first up; closely coordinating with House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte; closely coordinating with Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley; and all of them coordinating with the DOJ Office of Inspector General Michael Horowitz.  This is a long developed plan.  In order to carry out the entire reform operation, communication is made through public letters.  Sunlight is part of the strategy.  Questioning each other publicly and answering each other publicly is part of the strategy... the media is not used to this.

Another missing-email defense from the bowels of the Deep State.  The FBI has told a Senate committee that it "lost" the text messages of top counterintelligence officials attempting to undercut President Trump, conveniently during the five months when their political activity was most fervent.  This calls for its own investigation.

From foreplay to foreknowledge.  We learn from Senator Johnson's letter to FBI Director Wray that the Department of Justice has turned over 384 pages of text messages between FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page.  (We also learn that five months' of text messages between the infamous FBI couple during the critical period culminating in the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel have disappeared.)  What do the newly disclosed text messages reveal?  Strzok and Page seem to have been in the loop on then FBI Director's forthcoming exoneration of Hillary Clinton.

Former Federal Prosecutor Outlines Scope of FBI and DOJ Corruption.  Former federal prosecutor Joe diGenova outlines the majority of the events behind the unlawful surveillance of Donald Trump and each of the participating members within the FBI and DOJ corruption.  In essence, during this 30 minute discussion, diGenova outlines much of the back-story and how FBI officials Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, Jim Baker, Andrew McCabe and Jim Comey participated along with Justice Department Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, John P Carlin, Bruce Ohr and Lisa Page.  Mr. diGenova has a solid grasp on the players and how they are enmeshed within the entire operation.  [Video clip]

FBI Shadow Figure Surfaces To Protect President Obama Amid Released FBI Text Messages.  W.H. "Bill" Priestap is the FBI Head of Counterintelligence.  Priestap was one of the first FBI officials who caught our attention (spring of 2017) because FBI Director James Comey mysteriously pointed a finger upon him during testimony to congress on March 20th, 2017 [Although Comey didn't use Bill Priestap's name, only his position].  James Comey said last year the reason the FBI did not inform congress of the ongoing eight month counterintelligence investigation (required by congressional intelligence oversight), which began in July 2016 into candidate Donald Trump, was because Bill Priestap specifically told Director Comey not to inform congress or intelligence oversight.

AG Sessions Resists the Resistance.  The Supreme Court agreed yesterday [1/19/2018] to hear a challenge to the third iteration of the Trump administration's travel ban.  It had been struck down by lower courts — a Hawaii district court and affirming Ninth Circuit — that seemed to place their hostility to the president above the law, which grants the chief executive clear discretion on such matters relating to immigration and national security.  Back in February 2017, after the Ninth Circuit struck down the first version of the travel ban, Eric Posner, a liberal critic of both President Trump and his policy, recognized that the courts may be creating a "'Trump exception' to settled law on presidential powers," holding the current president to a different standard from that of his predecessors.  He recognized this aberration from the law could come back to bite us.  One year later, it is clear that judicial resistance to this administration is alarmingly broad and almost entirely unmoored form the law.

Yes, #ReleaseTheMemo — And The FISA Docs It's Based On.  Devin Nunes has uncovered an earth-shaking abuse of power at the DOJ in which a dubious dossier was cooked up into a FISA warrant to investigate the Republican nominee for president for nakedly partisan reasons.  And the FISA Court, which is supposed to scrutinize warrants for probable cause, simply rubber-stamped the application and went along.  If that's true, that the entire Russiagate probe is a political hit on Trump with two branches of government in on it, we need to know now.  Yesterday.  And by "yesterday" I mean "15 months ago."

Fierce battle erupts over declassifying intelligence report.  A battle erupted Friday over a push by Republican lawmakers to release a report they say will reveal high-level government abuse around the federal investigation into possible ties between Trump campaign officials and Russia.  Even as Congress hurtled toward a shutdown, Republicans in the House were buzzing over the contents of a classified memo on alleged surveillance abuses that was produced by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).  Scores of Republicans viewed the controversial memo in secure settings at the Capitol and concluded it contains hard evidence that the special counsel investigation into whether Trump's campaign officials had improper contacts with Russia were sparked by the politically motivated actions of senior FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) officials.

Republicans are lining up to view the classified FISA abuse memo, while Democrats choose to stay in the dark.  More than 130 congressional members have viewed the classified four-page memo detailing what senior government officials describe as "disturbing and explosive" surveillance abuse by employees of the FBI and Department of Justice under the Obama administration against President Trump and members of his campaign.  But almost all of them were Republicans.  Since the document was released Thursday to House members "only Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee have seen it," a congressional source with knowledge of the memo said.  The classified memo was described by senior government officials as a detailed account of the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into the FBI and apparent FISA abuse associated with the controversial dossier that alleged President Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.  As recently reported, some congressional members who reviewed the memo said the revelations may end in the removal or criminal prosecution of senior officials in the FBI and Department of Justice.

Up To 200 Members Of Congress Have Read The Memo And NO LEAKS = Devastating To Dems.  Word is as many as 200 members of Congress have now reviewed what some are calling a "shaking the foundation of our democracy" memo that links high-placed figures within both the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton campaign, the DNC, Deep State, and Establishment Media in an attempt to subvert the 2016 Election.  It was never "Russian Collusion."  It was our own government/the Obama administration/Deep State, attempting to choose the next president — Hillary Clinton.

James Clapper will skate on his perjury to Congress if not charged by March 13.  Deep State stalwart James Clapper provably lied to Congress on a matter of substantive importance, yet he was never charged with perjury.  In less than two months, the statute of limitations will excuse him from any criminal liability if he is not charged with lying to Congress.  Jonathan Turley, a liberal law professor who is honest, explains the outrageous process by which a "made man" (his term) escapes prosecution for crimes that less connected others would be imprisoned for committing.

Deep State DOJ Claims a "Glitch" is to Blame For 'Missing' Clinton-Lynch Tarmac Meeting Docs.  An attorney for Trump, Jay Sekulow is furious after the DOJ blamed a "glitch" for withholding 'missing' Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting docs from the ACLJ.  How convenient.  A glitch in the DOJ's sophisticated software.  The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed a FOIA lawsuit against the DOJ in order to obtain documents pertaining to the infamous Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting at Phoenix Int'l airport in June of 2016.  The DOJ failed to turn over key documents according to ACLJ founder and Trump attorney, Jay Sekulow.  Sekulow and the ACLJ team sought to recover the key documents and the Deep State DOJ responded by saying a "glitch" prevented them from locating the documents.

The System is Actively Working To Defend Itself.  People often attempt to describe the larger umbrella of control with terms like "Deep State", the "Administrative State", the "Establishment", the "industrial media", and other descriptive word assemblies.  The inherent goal is trying to describe various alignments and connections of institutional government with private sector social and financial interdependency.  It is, in essence, what we generally describe as "The System". [...] President Trump represents an uncontrollable, unaligned independent, free-thinking change-agent; a disruptor who exists entirely outside of the system's ability to influence favorable action.  It is a remarkable dynamic to witness.

Killing Trump Is Deep State's 'Plan C,' Warns Adviser Roger Stone.  Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser and confidant, certainly knows his way around Washington, having worked as a senior campaign aide to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Senator Bob Dole as well as having held many other political positions.  This proximity to the Deep State is what makes his claim, expressed in a recent wide-ranging interview with The New American magazine's Alex Newman, that much more eyebrow-raising.

Federal Judge Deals HUGE Blow To Fusion GPS In Bank Records Battle.  A federal judge has ruled against Fusion GPS in the Trump dossier firm's quest to block the release of its bank records to the House Intelligence Committee.  Judge Richard Leon shot down all four of Fusion's arguments against the release of 70 records of transactions involving some of its clients as well as journalists and researchers it has paid since Sept. 2015.  Fusion sued its bank, TD Bank, in October, to prevent it from complying with a subpoena issued by the House Intelligence Committee, which has been looking into Fusion's role in putting together the dossier.

How The FBI and DOJ Intelligence Units Were Weaponized Around Congressional Oversight.  Oversight protocol requires the FBI Director to tell the congressional intelligence "Gang of Eight" of any counterintelligence operations.  The Go8 has oversight into these ops at the highest level of classification.  In July 2016, the time when the operation began, oversight was the responsibility of this group, the Gang of Eight:  [Photo at left]  Obviously, based on what we have learned since March 2017, and what has surfaced recently, we can see a motive why the FBI and DOJ would want to keep hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate.

The Editor says...
The article above is quite lengthy, but it would be well worth your time to study it.

NeverTrumps Renamed:  AlwaysDemocrats.  Trump is fighting Deep State imbeds in the Executive Branch.  Just observe the DOJ and FBI and how they concocted the Russia collusion story to prevent, then destroy, his presidency.  In the Legislative Branch, Trump is opposed not only by Democrats, but also by many Republicans.  The judiciary is no better, substituting personal animosity for the rule of law, especially regarding immigration policy.

The Russian Collusion Narrative Was, As FBI Agent Peter Strzok Explained:  "An Insurance Policy".  Let us be clear on what the "insurance policy" was.  The insurance policy was, in totality, the entire fraudulent Russian Conspiracy Narrative; and all of the accompanying — and subsequent — FBI and DOJ collaborative actions that were taken, under the auspices of an FBI counterintelligence operation, in order to generate an entirely false premise.  The goal of using the "insurance policy" was to destroy, and possibly impeach, President Trump.

A Timeline Of Treason:  How the DNC and FBI Leadership Tried to Fix a Presidential Election.  As an aside, this appears to be the biggest political scandal in the history of the country.  Never before has an outgoing administration attempted to fix a presidential election.  It's like something out of a third world country.  But then, Obama always admired dictators like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Nagging Questions for the Special Counselors.  [#3] In an era in which "diversity" is a national mantra, why didn't Mueller's law team reflect much geographical, institutional, political, ideological, and career diversity?  Surely there were hundreds of blue-chip attorneys with DOJ or FBI experience, who lived outside of New York and Washington, who did not go to Ivy League law schools, who did not work in Mueller's former firm or even New York or D.C. firms, who were reticent about expressing preferences in the 2016 election, who did not give, say, over $100 to a presidential candidate, who were never involved in prior investigations of Hillary Clinton, and who had never represented or had contact with the Clinton Foundation or Obama officials.  Or was the political frenzy of early 2017 such that collusion was seen as a slam dunk, and many of the current and former elite of the DOJ, the FBI, and Mueller's firm wished to get in on the hunt to show how a "dream team," "army," and "all-stars" could take down the obviously hemorrhaging Trump?  In any case, in a politically charged era of accusations of a deep-state, ideologically driven, incestuous swamp, Mueller's team has almost proved a caricature.

The 'Swamp' Trump Is Trying To Drain Isn't Really A Swamp — It's An Ocean.  The nonprofit watchdog group Open The Books has put out a new report, "Mapping The Swamp," that seeks to flesh out what has, until now, merely been a metaphor.  What it found is eye-opening, and shows the size of the challenge that lies before President Trump as he seeks to drain it.  "We found small and large agencies across the federal government gaming the system for personal gain — and it's expensive for the taxpayer," said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com.  "Congress should hold hearings to bring transparency to all the information we're still missing, including performance bonuses and pension payouts.  It's time to squeeze out waste from compensation and stop abusive payroll practices."

Deep State Boasts:  We're Sabotaging Trump From the Inside.  In a recent pre-Christmas interview with C-SPAN, Roger Stone, a former adviser to President Trump, dropped a bombshell:  Members of President Trump's own Cabinet are plotting to remove him.  According to Stone, his sources within the administration say administration officials have discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to boot the president out of office.  Stone's sensational charges came only a few days after top members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), commonly known as "the American establishment," crowed that operatives of the "Deep State" (their fellow CFR members) inside the Trump administration are writing and deciding policy contrary to President Trump's announced agenda.

Gaffney: Court Ruling on Transgender Military Recruits Presents Constitutional Crisis; Trump Must Act Now.  Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney joined SiriusXM host Rebecca Mansour on a special Friday night [12/29/2017] edition of Breitbart News Tonight to discuss a recent court ruling that the military must accept transgender recruits and what President Trump's administration should do about it.  "The issue that really is at the heart of this matter as far as I'm concerned is, does the president have the unquestioned authority under the Constitution of the United States Article II, which vests exclusively in him, the role of Commander-in-Chief of the United States' armed forces, or does that authority now get subjected to the whim of any federal judge in the United States judiciary?"

Don't Fire Mueller, President Trump, Let Him Keep Making A Fool Of Himself Instead.  I am old enough to remember back when Robert Mueller's Russia-Whatever investigation was about collusion. [...] Well, we aren't hearing much about collusion anymore.  In fact, we aren't hearing anything about collusion anymore, except from Adam Schiff whenever he gets off the phone with Tater Stelter at CNN long enough to essentially insist that the collusion is all so very, very obvious, and that evidence is just a bourgeois conceit, and also please don't look at the scheming bureaucrats behind the curtain.

Mueller's Sinister Coup Attempt.  The unprecedented theft of thousands of likely privileged Trump transition emails by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller's investigators is yet more proof that the open-ended fishing expedition is continuing to move forward with its effort to reverse the results of the 2016 election.  News of the misappropriation of the email tranches comes weeks after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) urged that Mueller quit or be fired, saying the independent prosecutor has "indisputable" conflicts of interest.  "We are at risk of a coup d'état in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly-elected president of the United States," Gaetz said, echoing earlier remarks by writer Michael Walsh who asserts the Left is engaged in a "rolling coup attempt" against President Trump.

Oh Dear — Trail of Russian Dossier Origination Now Directly Leads to The Obama White House.  Several new developments happening today center around the FBI's use of the Christopher Steele Dossier in gaining FISA warrants to wiretap and monitor the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump; ie.  "The Trump Project".  Doug Ross continues to update the ongoing conspiracy Timeline.  And that timeline just gained a big addition from a recently discovered visitor to the White House.  Before going to the White House visitor angle, it's important to express appreciation for Tablet Mag who did a deep dive into the Fusion-GPS connection to the creation of the Steele Dossier, and more specifically how Fusion-GPS head Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby were instrumental in getting the dossier assembled and into the hands of the White House prior to the DOJ and FBI applying for the FISA warrant.

Why swamp creatures are hard to kill.  It's a wonder, in fact, that there isn't a Boeing logo next to the term "crony capitalism" in the dictionary.  The company's success in getting the federal government to act as its agent, protector and bank ranks the aircraft company right up there with Tesla, wind farms and ethanol producers as an expert-class crony capitalist.  Boeing and 9 other U.S. corporate giants like General Electric soaked up more than 65 percent of all the [Export-Import] bank's benefits before Congress pulled the plug in 2015 by allowing the Ex-Im charter to expire.

The greatest crime in American history is being revealed in front of our very eyes.  [Scroll down]  Conclusion: this was a highly organised and planned conspiracy by Teams Obama & Clinton to undermine a Presidential candidate, an elected POTUS and an inaugurated POTUS.  It was based on a LIE concocted by Hillary Clinton & the DNC:  that Trump & Putin colluded to steal the election.  Such was Clinton's arrogance & contempt for Americans, as well as her supporters, she assumed that she would win & then cover it up.  Ditto, Obama.  Obama and his key people conspired with Clinton to weaponize the lie.  A dossier was created to legitimize the lie, secretly funded by Teams Clinton & Obama.

Rand Paul Calls For "High Ranking" Obama Officials To Be Investigated For "Colluding" Against Trump.  Senator Rand Paul is calling for a full investigation into alleged collusion between Obama administration officials in an effort to prevent President Trump's election.  "Time to investigate high ranking Obama government officials who might have colluded to prevent the election of @realDonaldTrump!  This could be WORSE than Watergate!" tweeted Rand Paul on Thursday [12/21/2017].

Mueller's Sinister Coup Attempt.  The unprecedented theft of thousands of likely privileged Trump transition emails by Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller's investigators is yet more proof that the open-ended fishing expedition is continuing to move forward with its effort to reverse the results of the 2016 election.  News of the misappropriation of the email tranches comes weeks after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) urged that Mueller quit or be fired, saying the independent prosecutor has "indisputable" conflicts of interest.  "We are at risk of a coup d'état in this country if we allow an unaccountable person with no oversight to undermine the duly-elected president of the United States," Gaetz said, echoing earlier remarks by writer Michael Walsh who asserts the Left is engaged in a "rolling coup attempt" against President Trump.

McCabe Today, Ohr Tomorrow, And Deep State Predictably Runs Out Rooster Head For Chaff and Countermeasures.  Asst.  FBI Director Andrew McCabe is testifying today behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee.  Important to note how there have been no leaks; that's the first indication of coordinated chaff and counter measures deployed by the UniParty enablers of the Deep State institutional government.  Bruce Ohr is scheduled tomorrow; again behind closed doors, this time in the Senate Intelligence Committee setting.  Again, dueling intelligence hearings between House and Senate (on the same witnesses), indicates the UniParty apparatus has deployed Chaff and Countermeasures and is protecting the administrative state.

Dubious Trump dossier producer now targeted by Russian oligarchs for 'smear campaign'.  Fusion GPS, the producer of the infamous Trump dossier, is fending off in court three of Russia's richest oligarchs by painting them as corrupt bankers in bed with President Vladimir Putin.  The three primary investors in Moscow's Alfa Bank — Mikhail Fridman, Petr Aven and German Khan — filed a libel lawsuit against Fusion in October.  Fusion's dossier, written by former British spy Christopher Steele, says two of them engineered cash bribes to Mr. Putin.  The dossier also implies that the bank colluded with Mr. Putin to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election by hacking Democratic Party computers.  The lawsuit describes the three billionaires as international businessmen who became "collateral damage" in Fusion's war to destroy the Donald Trump campaign.

House Panel Interviews McCain Associate Who Handled The Trump Dossier.  The House Intelligence Committee met Tuesday [12/19/2017] with a key figure a John McCain associate who handled the infamous anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.  David Kramer, a former State Department official, was interviewed by the committee Tuesday morning, The Hill reported.  Kramer has been at the center of the dossier saga since January, when BuzzFeed News published the salacious document online.  It was revealed soon after the dossier was published that McCain and Kramer were first told about the uncorroborated report in Nov. 2016 by Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Russia who is a business associate of Steele's.

McCabe and Mr. Mueller.  As Fox News has reported, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe has rescheduled his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee with the Justice Department telling the network that it was due to a "routine scheduling error."  More likely it is due to the need for everyone to get their stories straight as the details of the fix that was in for Hillary Clinton are being, er... unmasked and the details of the deep state coup against President Trump bubble to the surface from the depths of the swamp: [...] McCabe has many problems and is at the heart of the criminal conspiracy to protect Hillary and unseat President Trump.

FBI 'offered British spy $50,000 to corroborate his claims in the dirty dossier on Trump-which he never did'.  Claims have resurfaced that the FBI offered the British spy behind the 'golden showers' dirty dossier $50,000 to corroborate his claims about now-President Donald Trump.  'I believe, just from examining the public sources, that the FBI offered Christopher Steele $50,000 if he could corroborate the dossier.  He either couldn't, didn't, wouldn't, and they didn't pay him the money,' news analyst Andrew Napolitano told Stuart Varney on Fox Business Monday [12/18/2017].  Former MI6 agent Steele's dossier claims the Russians possess compromising information that could be used to blackmail Trump, and alleges the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

Senate probing Jill Stein for possible collusion with Russia.  The Senate is reportedly probing former presidential candidate Jill Stein for possible collusion with Russia.  The head of the Senate Intelligence Committee said Monday [12/18/2017] that the Stein probe was one of two investigations about Russian collusion that his panel is pursuing, according to The Washington Post.  Stein dined with Russian president Vladimir Putin during a 2015 Moscow event that was also attended by President Trump's former national security adviser, Mike Flynn.  Politico reported in September that Stein — the Green Party candidate for president — was the beneficiary of Russian-bought political ads on Facebook.

A collusion bombshell, but not on target.  You've got to give the Democrats and their acolytes in the media credit for courage and a talent for tolerating bad taste and smell.  It's not easy to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a corpse.  How else to keep alive the Trump-as-Russian agent investigation?  Robert Mueller keeps hiring help, reluctantly cutting loose his chief investigator who turned out to be a Hillary plant eager for revenge, and keeping skeptics at bay with promises that he'll light the fuse on a bombshell just as soon as he can find one.  Mr. Mueller may have a secret witness or two ready to come forward, but Deep Throat is dead and gone, and secrets are never kept in Washington.  The Nation's Capital leaks like a month-old infant.

Why Did Trey Gowdy Just Omit Peter Strzok From Key List of FBI Officials He Wants To Grill?  This is odd.  In a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday [12/19/2017], both Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) demanded the Justice Department make FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and FBI chief of staff Jim Rybicki, available for "transcribed interviews."  Why wasn't disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok and demoted Justice Department official Bruce G. Ohr, along with his Fusion GPS-linked wife, Nellie, asked to be made available for interviews?

A Time for War:  Deep State's Strike and Trump's Counter-Strike.  Today's cold civil war has seen a series of strikes by the left on the presidency of Donald Trump.  The overwhelming wave of negativity toward him, as reported constantly by the old media, and the onslaught of wailing by the leftist Democratic Party, et al. have been a major part of life in the United States since November 9, 2016.  The strikes have been intensified by what is called "the Deep State," meaning the D.C. bureaucracy and the powerful government agencies of the DOJ and the FBI.  Seeming chaos has reigned as leak after leak came out trying to damage the Trump administration.  What appeared to be damaging strikes were launched by the Democrat-media-Deep State complex.  The whole of Washington, D.C., along with the media, has never relented, going on a binge of hate-filled rhetoric and actions.  They are trying to convince an unwitting public that Trump is nothing but horrible news.

What's really happening inside the DOJ and FBI.  Strzok is just going to be the beginning.  Strzok thinks he's now part of a cool team that's going to investigate & expose Trump, maybe even impeach him.  In fact, he's been put in a holding cell where he's kept busy & distracted while he's thoroughly investigated & evidence collected of his political fixing.  For the past 11 months, even before DOJ IG started his investigation, Trump & Co. likely knew who the political fixers in the DOJ/FBI were.  These political fixers needed to be [#1] removed from where they could do real harm and compromise real investigations [#2] given a cover story so they wouldn't realize they themselves are now being investigated.  Strzok was likely thunderstruck to realize the DOJ IG has been digging through his emails/texts/records of the past few years, investigating him quite throughly as Strzok was busy trying to find Trump/Russian collusion.

American Gestapo.  Any government agency with law enforcement and surveillance authority that uses those powers for political purposes is the definition of a secret police, no better than the Nazi Gestapo or the Soviet KGB.  There is indeed probable cause to conclude, meaning indictable offenses, that employees of the Department of Justice and/or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), sympathetic to the Democrat Party, used the power of their offices and with the assistance of foreign nationals to influence the 2016 election in favor of Hillary Clinton, first to exonerate her and then obtain information to prevent the election of Donald Trump or to provide a basis for his impeachment should he win.  It is also abundantly clear from the Congressional investigations involving the Department of Justice and the FBI that those institutions of government are protecting themselves at the expense of transparency and accountability to the American people.  In other words, the government employees involved consider the survival of the Deep State more important than the survival of the Constitution.  That is the definition of tyranny.

Letter of Notice From Trump Transition To Congress Outlining Illegal Search and Seizure by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  It is my belief, based on mounting evidence, a specific cast of characters within the Mueller "Russia Election Interference" probe were placed there to protect people behind the FBI's initial false claims.  Those claims formed the basis for the counterintelligence operation against 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Washington Bureaucrats Are Quietly Working to Undermine Trump's Agenda.  In report after report following Donald Trump's election, career staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration kept saying the same thing: climate change is real, serious and man-made.  That's surprising because Trump has called global warming a hoax.  His political appointees at the Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, have complained to its staff, but stopped short of demanding changes or altering the findings.  So the reports, blog posts and public updates kept flowing.  The bureaucrats won.  "Everything coming out of NOAA does not reflect this administration," said David Schnare, a retired lawyer for an industry-backed think tank who served on Trump's transition team and is skeptical about climate change.  "It reflects the last one."  That's true across the government as some of the roughly two million career staff have found ways to obstruct, slow down or simply ignore their new leader, the president.

Digging Ugly Holes — Robert Mueller Team Illegally Obtained Trump Transition Team Emails.  According to reports, in August 2017 the Mueller team went around the Trump administration in their quest for documents, by directly demanding documents from the General Services Agency (GSA); the entity that hosted the communication network for the Trump transition team.  According to reports, the content of 12 email accounts was handed over to the Special Counsels' office; consisting of thousands of pages of transition team communication.  Innocuous, ordinary transition stuff, but the method of procurement is jaw-droppingly unethical, possibly illegal.

Trump transition lawyer:  Mueller improperly obtained documents in Russia probe.  A lawyer for the Trump presidential transition team is accusing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office of inappropriately obtaining transition documents as part of its Russia probe, including confidential attorney-client communications, privileged communications and thousands of emails without their knowledge.  In a letter obtained by Fox News and sent to House and Senate committees on Saturday, the transition team's attorney alleges "unlawful conduct" by the career staff at the General Services Administration (GSA) in handing over transition documents to the special counsel's office.  Kory Langhofer, the counsel to Trump for America (TFA), argues the GSA "did not own or control the records in question" and the release of documents could be a violation of the Fourth Amendment — which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

How husbands and wives figure in the latest government scandal revelations.  We also have the swamp fighting furiously for every important federal job to be credentialed and not made "political." What sort of person benefits from that?  The Lois Lerners of the world — connected East Coast liberals.  There are 80,000 IRS employees but only two appointed by the president.  It is an irony worthy of a Charles Murray book that the liberal D.C. Democrats, who have done so much to destroy the American family in general, have made family ties their secret weapon for staying power in Washington, no matter who wins the elections.

Fusion GPS admits DOJ official's wife Nellie Ohr [was] hired to probe Trump.  A co-founder of the opposition research firm Fusion GPS acknowledged in a new court document that his company hired the wife of a senior Justice Department official to help investigate then-candidate Donald Trump last year.  The confirmation from Glenn Simpson came in a signed declaration filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and provided a fuller picture of the nature of Nellie Ohr's work — after Fox News first reported on her connection to Fusion GPS.

Fusion GPS Admits Nellie Ohr [was]Hired to Probe Trump.  Married to now demoted DOJ hack and Rod Rosenstein's right hand man, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr has been officially confirmed to have been hired by Fusion GPS to probe Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.  Yet, this doesn't seem to be getting much media coverage outside of Fox News.

Fusion GPS Paid Top DOJ Official's Wife To Dig Up Dirt On Trump.  Court documents reveal the opposition research firm that put together a dossier filled with wild, unsubstantiated claims about Donald Trump hired the spouse of a newly demoted Justice Department official to dig up dirt on Trump.  Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS — the infamous firm behind the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele — stated in a court declaration that his firm hired Nellie H. Ohr as a subcontractor to help with "research and analysis of Mr. Trump," according to Chuck Ross at The Daily Caller.  Nellie H. Ohr is married to Bruce G. Ohr, who was associate deputy attorney general at the DOJ until he was recently demoted.

Are Anti-Trump Conspirators Using HAM Radio to Communicate?  Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy, was hired by Fusion GPS in April, 2016.  Months later, Mrs. Ohr joined Mr. Steele at the opposition research firm, after being hired by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to investigate then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.  Additionally, her husband, Bruce Ohr, reportedly met with Mr. Steele during this time period, and with Mr. Simpson after President Trump's victory.  It is not clear if Mrs. Ohr ever used her HAM license, or if she herself owns the equipment to do so, but what is interesting, is the 1970s technology, when blended with modern day communications, can create an untraceable protocol for clandestine transmissions.

The Editor says...
For those of you who are unfamiliar with ham radio, the transmission of encrypted messages by ham operators is generally illegal.  The use of the ham radio bands in connection with any illegal activity is itself illegal, too.  Speaking to business associates about business is also prohibited.  And chatting across town from one's car, which was once a novelty, is now done by cell phone; therefore, the only reason that I can imagine for Mrs. Ohr to get a ham radio license — if her intent was to communicate secretly and send data files without using the (presumably wiretapped) telephone — is to make it easier to buy transmitting equipment without raising suspicion.  The proprietors of ham radio shops tend to ask for your callsign when you buy anything — especially anything with a transmitter in it.  Having a license and a callsign would also make it unnecessary to make unidentified transmissions, which would attract the attention of other ham operators, and then the FCC.  Incidentally, the "ham" in ham radio is not an acronym and is only capitalized by people who don't know much about it.

FBI's McCabe To Face House Panel Next Week, Where He'll Be Grilled Over Strzok's Cryptic Texts.  Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe will appear next Tuesday before the House Intelligence Committee, where Republicans on the panel are likely to grill him about Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and FBI agent Peter Strzok.  McCabe was originally scheduled to appear before the committee earlier this week, but the session was cancelled the night before the interview.  The Justice Department claimed the cancellation was due to a "scheduling error," but California Rep. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the Intelligence committee, dismissed the excuse, telling Fox News that it was "not really believable."  Sources on the committee said they believed that McCabe cancelled in order to avoid questions about Bruce Ohr and his wife, Nellie.

Poll: 54 percent say Mueller has conflict of interest.  A majority of polled voters say special counsel Robert Mueller has a conflict of interest because of his past ties to former FBI Director James Comey, according to the latest Harvard CAPS-Harris survey.  When asked if Mueller has a conflict of interest "as the former head of the FBI and a friend of James Comey," 54 percent responded that the "relationship" between the two amounts to a conflict of interest, including 70 percent of Republicans, 53 percent of independents and 40 percent of Democrats.  Comey succeeded Mueller as FBI director and the two have been described as "brothers in arms" for their working relationship, which dates back to the early 2000s, although the extent of their personal relationship is unclear.

Stranger Things and the Deep State.  [Scroll down]  The Upside Down may not be the world that CNN and MSNBC sees and reports on.  They only see a president suffering dementia, doing nothing but chugging Diet Coke and watching television.  His attorney general is asleep on the front porch hammock, while Special Counsel "Beyond Reproach" Robert Mueller is preparing to throw the entire Trump family and administration into Supermax.  Instead, as Sundance provides a glimpse into the Upside Down, more may be going on.  "Seeding false information into the blood stream of a closed unit within the organization then waiting to see if/where/when it turns up is a specific way to identify leakers and black hats."  Watching ongoing fake news stories, based on leaks, this makes sense.  With CNN and ABC playing the useful idiots.

Time to End Mueller's Wild Reign of Malfeasance?  Virtually all of Mueller's team-against-Trump is comprised of Hillary Clinton Democrat donors and/or those who have rabidly supported her.  One notable is Justin Cooper who actually admitted to destroying evidence that would likely have been gained against Hillary Clinton by — on at least two occasions — destroying her cell phones and "breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer!"  Another of the Mueller nightmare team — Aaron Zebley — was the attorney who represented Cooper.  Yet, another Mueller investigator — Jeannie Rhee — has strong ties to the (supposedly) dismantled 'Clinton Foundation' and personally represented Ben Rhodes.

Spy Wars:  The Mueller Mess Is Just the Outcome Russia Wanted.  I believe the Russians are involved in American politics.  It's an old story:  There used to be organizations known as "Communist front groups" that were founded, funded, and otherwise supported by the Kremlin, the most important of which was ANSWER.  Such organizations undoubtedly still exist, and their mission is still the same: destroy American democracy.  They are part of the global war against the United States.  They hate and fear democracy and freedom, which — as the demise of the Soviet Empire abundantly demonstrates — are the greatest threat to their own legitimacy and hence their continued tyranny.  Hatred and fear of the United States is what binds together such diverse regimes as those in Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, Pyongyang, and Caracas.  So I am not surprised when our counter-intel guys find evidence of Russian meddling.  But if we had an intelligence community worthy of the name, we'd probably know a lot more.  And not just about Russians, either.

FBI Agent Peter Strozk Anti-Trump Messages Released To Media — However, The Key Question is Not Content.  [Scroll down]  As Judicial Committee Representative Jim Jordan rightly outlined, Agent Strzok would not likely be removed because he had biased text messages with his mistress.  So long as that bias did not interfere with his work duty, there is no issue; and Strzok was not in a position of supervision over Lisa Page so they could encounter like rabbits to their black-hats desire.  However, if FBI Agent Strzok was a "leaker" to the media, or worse, well, that's an entirely different kettle-o-fish.  Getting caught as a leaker is likely the reason Strzok was removed and reassigned to the HR post; not the bias.

An Investigative Pattern Emerges.  Consider what is at stake; and further consider that you were given the task of revealing the outcome of an investigation of such consequence.  How would you introduce the findings to the larger U.S. electorate?  Given the timing of the releases from the IG's investigation, I think that's what we are seeing in the past two weeks.  A prosecutor laying out his case over the course of multiple media cycles.  For the past year plus, we have heard generalized terms of investigations.  However, since the beginning of December the information shifted and we begin hearing about specific names caught within the IG investigation.

House Judiciary Lawmakers Mull Subpoenas on FBI, DOJ After Text Messages Reveal 'Path' to Stop Trump.  Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee said on Wednesday it was time to issue subpoenas to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Justice Department, following the release of texts from FBI officials that suggested they wanted to stop Trump's election.  "It's time for subpoenas from our committee, not just from the intelligence committee, but from our committee.  Subpoenas for documents that we rightfully should have an ability to see," said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a senior member of the committee.  He also said he wanted to subpoena Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, FBI senior official Peter Strzok, and senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie Ohr.

And Now We Know.  [Scroll down]  What is obvious from the last 72 hours is that the Inspector General's office is selectively, and strategically, letting out information that appears to be preparing the general public for a rather extensive, and troubling, bigger story.  Simultaneously, if we accept the IG investigation is ongoing, these releases would also be part of a strategy, the ending of the sting, to see how each of the participants responds.  It is likely all of the identified plotters are being actively monitored to see how they are reacting.

Keywords:  shifty, evasive, slippery, Clintonesque, flim-flam, insolent.
Deputy AG Won't Say Whether The FBI Paid For Dossier.  Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein refused to say on Wednesday whether the FBI paid for the infamous Trump dossier.  Rosenstein, who was grilled by the House Judiciary Committee, suggested that he knew the answer to the question, which was posed by Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis.  "Did the FBI pay for the dossier?" DeSantis asked.  "I'm not in a position to answer that question," Rosenstein responded.  "Do you know the answer to the question?" the Republican DeSantis followed up.  "I believe I know the answer, but the Intelligence Committee is the appropriate committee..."  Rosenstein began.  DeSantis interjected to assert that the Judiciary panel has "every right to the information" about payments for the dossier.

Smoking Gun Text?  Strzok: 'We Have To Do Something About' Possible Trump Win.  The anti-Trump text messages between Peter Strzok — the recently demoted FBI agent on Special Counsel Robert Mueller's team — and his alleged mistress Lisa Page are worse than anyone imagined, as PJ Media reported here and here.  But one of those texts stands out among the others.  The Justice Department provided the House and Senate Judiciary Committees with the text messages late Tuesday night.  Republicans on the Judiciary Committee then questioned Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about them during the committee's oversight hearing on Mueller's investigation into Russia's influence in the 2016 U.S. election.

Ugly as Mueller's investigation may look, it's on track to clear Trump.  There was a rush to judgment last week on Peter Strzok, a top FBI counterintelligence agent and one of the lead agents on the Hillary Clinton emails investigation, after revelations that Strzok exchanged text messages during the 2016 campaign with an FBI lawyer that were pro-Clinton and anti-Trump.  The lawyer was Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair. [...] Nevertheless, Strzok and the Mueller investigation were slammed as Clintonian pillars of anti-Trump animus.  Not only were there calls for a purge of possibly corrupt bureaucrats in the FBI and Justice Department, but one Fox News host asserted that these government lawyers and agents should be "taken out in handcuffs" and "locked up."

Things fall apart:  The decline of 'Dumbledore's Army'.  Resistance to the Trump administration within the intelligence community is beginning to unravel.  When Mick Mulvaney was selected to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), he complimented the staff for being professional.  There are a significant number of CFPB employees opposed to the president and any of his appointees.  They have formed a resistance group they call Dumbledore's Army.  Although members of other departments, agencies, and bureaus do not call themselves Dumbledore's Army, they are essentially of the same mindset.  Perhaps the largest number of these Dumbledores are in the Department of Justice and the intelligence community.  They are mounting an attack on the Trump administration and are suffering one defeat after another.

Deepstate: FBI Agents Texted About Protecting Country Against Trump.  Two FBI agents who were assigned to the special counsel on Russia, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, had texted each other during the 2016 campaign about protecting the country against Trump, according to reports.  One of them, Strzok, had also led the FBI's Clinton email investigation, and watered down language that might have brought criminal charges for Hillary Clinton.  Strzok cryptically referred to a potential idea to thwart Trump's election during a meeting in FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's office in August 2016.

How the biggest political scandal in history will play out in 2018.  A lot of frustration has been expressed — on these pages and elsewhere — over the slow pace of progress in unraveling the Deep State coup against Trump.  But, "the process of uncovering the worst political scandal in American history" as I called it a couple of days ago, needs to be done the right way, or else it will founder under the waves of abuse that will pour from the media and political branches of the establishment.  Not only must legal niceties be observed, the rollout of information must be undertaken with a strategy in mind.  Each step builds on the previous, and addresses the probable response.

Strzok-Page texts show hatred of Trump by the two ex-Team Mueller members.  The text messages speak for themselves.  I would just add that the view of Trump expressed in these messages, and the language used to express them, are standard among the lawyer and government worker class in Washington, D.C.  In the Summer and Fall of 2016, I doubt that a week went by in which I didn't hear them expressed.  And I tried to avoid liberals during that period.  I believe the Page-Strzok hatred of Donald Trump is just the tip of the Team Mueller iceberg.

Deep State Resisters at State Dept.  Defy Jerusalem Directive.  Following President Trump's historic declaration recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, West Bank and Gazan Arabs took to the streets in rage.  They burned U.S. and Israeli flags.  They cursed America, Israel and the Yahuds (Jews).  Their imams cited verses from the Koran and the Hadiths about the usurpers and interlopers and the "descendants of apes and pigs."  In other words, it was business as usual for the Palestinians.  Nothing had changed.  At the State Department too, it was business as usual.  In a transparent effort to placate the Arab bloc, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the process of moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would take several years.  Tillerson is said to have counseled Trump against recognition.

Inside the Trump dossier handoff:  McCain's 'go-between' speaks out.  The man who says he acted as a "go-between" last year to inform Sen. John McCain about the controversial "dossier" containing salacious allegations about then-candidate Donald Trump is speaking out, revealing how the ex-British spy who researched the document helped coordinate its release to the FBI, the media and Capitol Hill.  "My mission was essentially to be a go-between and a messenger, to tell the senator and assistants that such a dossier existed," Sir Andrew Wood told Fox News in an exclusive interview with senior executive producer Pamela K. Browne.

The Swamp against the People.  [Scroll down]  These facts support two conclusions: [#1] The United States Congress is the only constitutional body with sufficient political power to declare the current Mueller witch hunt null and void.  If President Trump or the DOJ exercises its constitutional rights to do so, the acting party will inevitably be attacked by the corrupt media and the left.  [#2] The office of the "special counsel" is inherently a corrupt and partisan, cancerous growth on the U.S. Constitution.  That made up office must be abolished, and if existing constitutional prohibitions against arbitrary witch hunts are not sufficiently clear, a new amendment to the US Constitution should be passed on an urgent basis to make it clear beyond any doubt at all.

Liberal Diplomat Resigns From State Department.  A supposed "rising star" at the State Department has resigned in anger over President Trump's and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's policies.  Elizabeth Shackelford gave her resignation letter to the left-leaning Foreign Policy magazine, which was, of course, all too happy to publish it.  Shackelford's letter says she believes the new administration has abandoned human rights as a priority and shows disdain for the State Department's diplomatic work.

Is The Deep State Attempting A Coup?  President Trump has been in office for nearly a year, and has yet to take control over the federal bureaucracy that nominally reports to him.  I agree with Professor Barnett that this is a constitutional crisis.  The most powerful branch of today's government is the Fourth:  the permanent federal bureaucracy that is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution.  The Trump administration can best be viewed, perhaps, as a struggle to the death between American voters and the federal employees who are paid to serve them.

Sunday Talks:  Adam Shifty Talks Russia With Narrative Engineer Jake Tapper.  After spending a reasonable amount of time looking at the recent CNN Fake News story surrounding Donald Trump Jr; and accepting the leak that spurred that fake news story stemmed from inside the House Intelligence Committee; and after applying a reasonable amount of common sense to how it occurred; CTH believes Adam Schiff was the most likely source of the leak to CNN's Congressional Correspondant, Manu Raju, that led to the fraudulent story.  Today's discussion with Jake Tapper confirms that assertion:  [Video clip]

Jim Jordan Knows Exactly How To Expose The Entire "Counterintelligence Operation" Against Candidate Donald Trump.  It would be EXPLOSIVE if it turned out the October 2016 FISA warrant was gained by use of the Christopher Steele dossier.  That's a critical and key element to the sunlight upon the entire enterprise.  If the counterintelligence FISA warrant was obtained through deception, misleading/manipulated information, or fraud; and that warrant is what led to the wiretapping and surveillance of candidate Donald Trump and General Flynn; and that warrant was authorized by FISA Court Judge Contreras — who was the judge in Flynn's case, and is now recused — the entire tenuous FBI and DOJ operation begins to collapse.

Rod Rosenstein Overcome by Soros Swamp Gas.  The most common question I am asked in interviews these days:  "Why doesn't President Trump fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein?"  But the better question is:  "Why doesn't Rosenstein just quit?"  It's clear that nobody responsible for picking him wants him around anymore.  In case you missed it, even President Trump called him out as a hack.  What's clear is that Rod Rosenstein has been overcome by swamp gas.  The deputy attorney general — and more importantly, his top staff — seems to have forgotten why he has his job.  He has it because the American people wanted the swamp drained of Justice Department institutionalists.

Dossier author was in contact with Obama Justice Department.  It's been ten months since Washington learned that former British spy Christopher Steele, author of the so-called "Trump dossier," took the Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research document to the FBI, which considered sponsoring the anti-Trump work at the height of the 2016 presidential campaign.  Now, congressional investigators have made what is perhaps an even more consequential discovery:  Knowledge of the dossier project, during the campaign, extended into the highest levels of the Obama Justice Department.  The department's Bruce Ohr, a career official, served as associate deputy attorney general at the time of the campaign.  That placed him just below the deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, who ran the day-to-day operations of the department.

Strategic Omnidirectional MAGA-Winning is Ongoing.  In the past week, President Trump has held three full cabinet meetings.  Why?  Because common sense would tell us he's executing an omnidirectional strategic agenda-push, and direct communication is critical. [...] Last weekend's FBI leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post were specifically timed because the Department of Justice Inspector General is about to drop a years-long investigative MOAB bombshell into the DC swamp.

Federal judge says Trump administration can't stop funding sex-reassignment surgeries for military members.  A second federal judge has halted the Trump administration's proposed transgender military ban, finding that active-duty service members are "already suffering harmful consequences" because of the president's policy.  The ruling Tuesday [11/21/2017] by U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis in a Maryland case comes just weeks after another judge in Washington blocked the administration's proposal that would have stopped military recruitment of transgender men and women and possibly forced the dismissal of current service members, starting in March.  The preliminary injunction issued by the judge in Baltimore on Tuesday goes further than the earlier ruling by also preventing the administration from denying funding for sex-reassignment surgeries after the order takes effect.

Second U.S. judge halts Trump's proposed transgender military ban.  In a preliminary injunction issued Tuesday [11/21/2017] in Baltimore, U.S. District Judge Marvin Garbis ruled that transgender service members have "demonstrated that they are already suffering harmful consequences" due to the proposed ban including threat of discharge, stigma and the cancellation or delay of surgeries related to their gender transitions.  The six plaintiffs in the lawsuit he reviewed have all been receiving hormone therapy.

9th Circuit to president of the United States:  You answer to us.  This is not a joke.  We now have judges saying that not only can a president steal the nation's sovereignty and grant illegal aliens affirmative benefits, but that a subsequent president must submit enough information to the courts before getting rid of the lawless program!  Imagine if a president granted Americans — not just illegal aliens — tax amnesty on the first $200,000 of their earnings.  Could you envision a court forcing the new president to retain the illegal program or demand disclosure of the president's private information?  Then again, illegal aliens and their powerful lobbies rule the roost, while Americans are left paying for the tab as strangers in our own land.

A judge permanently blocked Trump's 'sanctuary cities' executive order.  A federal judge on Monday [11/20/2017] permanently blocked President Trump's executive order to cut funding from so called "sanctuary cities."  Trump's order would have removed some federal funds from cities that limit their cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.  U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick rejected the Trump administration's argument that the measure only applies to a relatively small pool of money.

Robert Mueller IS the Cover-Up.  [Scroll down]  The obvious kicker in all this is that Robert Mueller is part and parcel of the Hillary Cover-Up.  We know more about Hillary's misdeeds, thanks to all those WikiLeaks plus FOIA exposures of misfeasance and malfeasance galore, going back to the Bill Clinton and Paula Jones days, when Hillary ran the Bimbo Eruptions intimidation campaign.  We have huge amounts of believable evidence about these crooks and corruptocrats, going back to Arkansas and the rest.  The single most important fact is that nobody has ever been prosecuted for these crimes.  That fact by itself throws serious doubts on the entire justice system of the United States.  The farcical Mueller witch hunt against POTUS Trump is going to slather the whole U.S. Justice Department with that same stinky swamp water.  It's inevitable.  You can't put a close friend of the perps in charge of the "special counsel" — a made-up name that appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution or the Federalist Papers.  It's just an eructation of swamp gas from the Watergate years, meaning nothing.

Department of Defense Retweets Call For President To Resign.  The Department of Defense retweeted a post Thursday [11/16/2017] calling for the president's resignation.  The Pentagon marred its Twitter presence briefly by retweeting a post from a Twitter user named "PROUD RESISTER" that proposed a so-called "simple" solution to the sexual harassment situation going on in Washington.  The Twitter user appears to be a staunch critic of the right, as well as the president, and seems to be affiliated with the website proudresister.com, which sells resistance merchandise.

Pentagon Approves Gender-Reassignment Surgery for Service Member.  The Pentagon approved a gender-reassignment surgery for an active-duty military member, defense officials said on Tuesday, four months after President Trump abruptly announced a ban on transgender people serving in the military.  The surgery is the latest setback to Mr. Trump's effort to put a ban in place.  Two weeks ago, a federal judge temporarily blocked the ban, ruling that the justification for it was suspect and most likely unconstitutional.  Even before the ruling, officials at the Defense Department had been slow-walking Mr. Trump's orders, telling transgender members of the military that they could continue to serve openly while the Pentagon decided how to handle the ban.

Purchased Politicians, Mostly Republicans in House and Senate, Write Letters Opposing Trump on NAFTA.  Multinational corporations and foreign governments spend hundreds of millions in Washington DC lobbying House and Senate politicians to retain trade positions.  It's generally a legal bribery business where congressional representatives get rich by selling their votes to corporations and foreign governments.  Most of you already know the game:  It's a big club, and we — the working class — ain't in it.  Fortunately for us, President Trump won the election without funding from the big corporations and lobbyists within the U.S. political system.

ICE agents rebel, say Trump 'betrayed' them by retaining Obama's people.  The country's immigration enforcement officers launched a website Tuesday demanding that President Trump do more to clean up their agency, saying he has left the Obama team in place and it's stymying his goal of enforcing laws on the books.  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisors in Philadelphia banned officers from wearing bulletproof vests during an operation in the dangerous "badlands" section in the city's north for fear of offending the immigrant community, according to a new website, JICReport.com.  Meanwhile, officers in one Utah city are required to give city officials seven days' heads-up before arresting anyone — and by the time they go to make the arrest, the immigrants they are targeting have taken off, the website says.

Intel chiefs' botched Russia findings raise questions of motive.  Fourteen days before President Trump took the oath of office, the Obama administration's intelligence chiefs made public a unanimous assessment claiming Russian operatives, under orders from President Vladimir Putin, had orchestrated an influence campaign to help Mr. Trump win the presidential contest.  It was a watershed moment:  the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI challenging the legitimacy of a U.S. presidential victory.  The conclusions in the Jan. 6 document were sharp, but the findings unraveled 10 months later, raising questions about the basis for the evidence and the motives of the Obama appointees leading the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

Inspector Clouseau pounces!  [Scroll down]  Everybody is afraid of indicting Hillary for crimes committed in plain view, because Hillary might bring down the whole house of cards. But Americans who bother to pay attention to politics have a pretty good idea about the Deepsters and the Democrats under Obama and Hilary.  With any luck, the Mueller team will throw us a bone, too.  But it won't be the chief perps, because they have protection.

Focus of Russia Probe Needs To Be on Clintons.  The fact that, on the same day as the Manafort and Gates indictments, Tony Podesta — who was intimately connected with the Uranium One dealings that were contemporaneous with extraordinarily large pledges to the Clinton Foundation and the celebrated $500,000 speech-making payment to the former president, Bill Clinton — retired as head of the firm that bears his name[,] may indicate that Special Counsel Mueller is shifting gears with the evidence and broadening his attack, conducted by his largely Clintonian lawyer group.  Mr. Gates had so little notice of what was coming that he had not even hired a criminal lawyer; he had a public defender enter his plea.  I presume Mr. Mueller raced out with the Manafort-Gates charges in the hope that, if there were anything Mr. Manafort could say that would be damaging to Trump, an indictment such as this — the usual U.S. prosecutorial technique of throwing all the spaghetti at the wall ("conspiracy against the United States" is one of the more extreme charges) — will bring him to the standard plea bargain:  giving extorted and false but incriminating testimony against the big target (Mr. Trump), in exchange for a reduced sentence with an immunity for perjured testimony.

GOP Would Rather Lose than Fight.  America is at war.  Not with a particular country, in spite of our endless entanglements in the Middle East.  Instead the war is against a more nebulous enemy.  One that goes by many names.  The status quo.  The deep state.  The establishment.  The elites.  The enemy is everywhere.  Media, entertainment, sports, academia, and among the ruling class in Washington, DC.  A ruthless enemy, barbarians, willing to keep fighting despite setbacks and defeat.  Singleminded in focus, the enemy wants to "fundamentally transform America", creating a "new world order," to borrow phrases from both sides of the political aisle.

With hoax dossier, the Left politicized US defense institutions.  Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the Democratic National Committee have separately chipped away at America's treasured foundations and institutions.  Leftist policies over the past decade have done untold damage to America's culture, economy, global standing, and national defense.  Yet perhaps the most egregious and damaging actions from the Left was the revelation that they combined forces to undermine the independence of the U.S. intelligence community.  Our broad national security apparatus is tasked with keeping Americans and national interests safe and protected, both at home and abroad.  This past election season, it appears that that was thrown out the window in a hell-bent effort to undermine Donald Trump's candidacy.  Not since Watergate had politicians used these sacred actors for the apparent purpose of going after the political opposition.

Russia 'Collusion' Story Is Blowing Up Like the Hindenburg.  It is delicious to see, even more suddenly and completely than anyone had anticipated, the breakdown of the steamroller media smear of Donald Trump.  A trinitarian deus ex machina descended.  The Washington Post, struggling desperately in its discomfort, a few days ahead of the information being forcibly extracted by congressional subpoenas, acknowledged that the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee had paid for the assembly of the Steele dossier.  This rotten fish of lies and gossip was universally regarded at first as rubbish so scurrilous no one would publish it for months until Buzzfeed, the bottom of the web barrel, took it up, which emboldened the flounder skimming the bottom, CNN, to present it as a major triumph of journalistic enterprise and to popularize it.

Swamp Central:  U.S. State Department.  Romania is heavily influenced by the United States government, specifically the Departments of State and Defense, and at least the State Department seems intent on advancing the leftist agenda on LGBT issues in foreign nations as aggressively as if Donald Trump had never been elected.  U.S. Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm has been an outspoken champion of homosexuality, even marching for "gay marriage" in the pouring rain this past summer.  The jury is still out on the mixed messages coming Defense Secretary James Mattis, who has so far delayed the push for transgenderism in the military but allowed the rest of the "gay" agenda to proceed.  But just last week an Air Force colonel has been punished for refusing to affirm "gay marriage," and Secretary Mattis has been AWOL in his defense.

How the State Department is Undermining Trump's Agenda.  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has isolated himself from his own department and allowed subordinates to fill a handful of top positions with people who actively opposed Donald Trump's election, according to current and former State Department officials and national security experts with specific knowledge of the situation. [...] About 200 State Department jobs require Senate confirmation.  But the Senate cannot confirm nominees it does not have.  More than nine months into the new administration, most of the senior State Department positions — assistant and deputy assistant secretary posts — remain unfilled.

6 Examples of Jeff Sessions' Cowardice.  [#2] Sessions has shirked his responsibility to take control of his own Department, overwhelmingly staffed by pro-Obama and pro-Clinton lawyers, 97 percent of which either voted for or donated to the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.  As a result, Freedom of Information Act cases continue to be obstructed by lying DOJ lawyers, after years in the courts.  These lawsuits seek to force production of evidence about Obama and Clinton scandals, which include, as we have just learned through a leak to Circa News, the cover-up of an FBI investigation over bribery during the Obama administration — giving rise to Russia acquiring about 20 percent of America's strategic uranium reserves.

Judging by Mueller's staffing choices, he may not be very interested in justice.  What was supposed to have been a search for Russia's cyberspace intrusions into our electoral politics has morphed into a malevolent mission targeting friends, family and colleagues of the president.  The Mueller investigation has become an all-out assault to find crimes to pin on them — and it won't matter if there are no crimes to be found.  This team can make some.  Many Americans despise President Trump and anyone associated with him.  Yet turning our system of justice into a political weapon is a danger we must guard against.

The Clinton cover-up, brought to you by the same guys who are investigating Trump.  [N]ew evidence appears to show that Hillary Clinton used her office as Secretary of State to confer benefits to Russia in exchange for millions of dollars in donations to her foundation and cash to her husband.  But there's more.  It seems it was all covered up for years by the same three people who are now involved in the investigation of President Donald Trump over so-called Russian "collusion."

Federal judge blocks Trump's third travel ban.  A federal judge on Tuesday [10/17/2017] largely blocked the Trump administration from implementing the latest version of the president's controversial travel ban, setting up yet another legal showdown on the extent of the executive branch's powers when it comes to setting immigration policy.  The decision from U.S. District Judge Derrick K. Watson in Hawaii is sure to be appealed, but for now, it means that the administration cannot restrict the entry of travelers from six of the eight countries that officials said were unable or unwilling to provide information that the United States wanted to vet the countries' citizens.

Donors to anti-Trump 'resistance' group revealed.  The Center for Community Change, a Washington, D.C.-based 501 (c)(3) progressive community organizing group that does not reveal its donors, has been involved in direct action against President Donald Trump and Republicans before and after the November elections.  The organization's members sit on the boards of other prominent liberal activist groups.  The [Washington] Free Beacon has obtained the group's unredacted 2015 tax forms that shed light on its funders, who provide millions of dollars in assistance.  The group appears to rely heavily on a few major liberal foundations, organizations, and unions.

Obama holdovers, vacancies remain at top levels of State Department.  While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and President Trump seem to have patched things up after a report claimed the top diplomat considered resigning over the summer, another source of tension remains — Tillerson's department still has numerous vacancies, while several Obama administration holdovers are in top positions.  "There is a serious problem within the Trump administration," said John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.  "Trump and Tillerson don't have full control over their State Department.  The way a president exercises control over the bureaucracy is to get as many of his people as possible into senior positions."

Tom Price's Real Crime.  Anyone naïve enough to believe that Tom Price's ouster from HHS was actually about his use of chartered jets may wish to consider this:  The same transgression was committed on a much larger scale by numerous Obama administration officials, yet neither the "news" media nor the Democrats ever exhibited any outrage over far worse abuses by repeat offenders like Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch.  This doesn't excuse Price's poor judgment, of course, but it is a reminder that he was hounded out of office for one reason and one reason only — he was a fierce and powerful opponent of Obamacare.

Robert Mueller Blocks Congressional Oversight of FBI Involvement in Trump Surveillance.  A report from Reuters highlights the DOJ and FBI refusing to hand over documents related to the Steele Dossier on candidate Donald Trump, and the FBI (Via James Comey) involvement in assembling the content therein.  However, the lede is buried in paragraph four of the article. [...] This is genuinely much more alarming that might initially appear on first review.  In essence the FBI is protecting itself from inquiry into unlawful conduct of the FBI.

Mueller Scorches the Earth.  Robert Mueller's sprawling special-counsel investigation is playing hardball.  It was not enough to get a search warrant to ransack the Virginia home of Paul Manafort, even as the former Trump campaign chairman was cooperating with congressional investigators.  Mueller's [investigators] persuaded a judge to give them permission to pick the door lock.  That way, they could break into the premises in the wee hours, while Manafort and his wife were in bed sleeping.  They proceeded to secure the premises — of a man they are reportedly investigating for tax and financial crimes, not gang murders and Mafia hits — by drawing their guns on the stunned couple, apparently to check their pajamas for weapons.  Mueller's probe more resembles an empire, with 17 prosecutors retained on the public dime.  So ... what exactly is the crime of the century that requires five times the number of lawyers the Justice Department customarily assigns to crimes of the century?  No one can say.

Ryan Zinke plans overhaul because Interior Department employees 'not loyal'.  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Monday 30 percent of his agency's employees are "not loyal" to him or President Trump and he is developing a plan to overhaul the department.  "I got 30 percent of the crew that's not loyal to the flag," Zinke said in remarks to the National Petroleum Council, a federal advisory panel.

78 Obama appointees 'burrowed' into career jobs, watchdog finds.  A government watchdog found that 78 political appointees of President Obama managed to "burrow" into career government jobs over a six-year period.  A Government Accountability Office report obtained by The Washington Times on Wednesday [9/27/2017] shows that seven of Mr. Obama's political appointees switched to career jobs without obtaining necessary approval from the Office of Personnel Management.  Of those, four were later denied the jobs by OPM and three left their posts.  Congressional Republicans warned Mr. Obama last year against moving political appointees into career positions, and President Trump has stated frequently that he believes some employees in the federal workforce are Obama holdovers working against his agenda.

Did New York Mag Admit Mueller Investigation Is a Fishing Expedition?  Yesterday's [9/24/2017] New York magazine had the best summary of the state of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller yet written.  It was contained in a single paragraph buried deep in an article with no other surprises so you have to look for it.  Yet despite having to wade through material which basically tells us what we already know about that investigation, that one paragraph is so stunning in its revelation amid an otherwise routine summary of what Mueller is possibly up to, that it hits the reader like a hard slap across the face.  Before reaching that revelatory paragraph, New York magazine correspondent Cristian Farias reminds us that it is quite extraordinary that a private citizen, Paul Manafort, was secretly surveilled twice via FISA warrants.  Uh, yeah, it was stunning and it also confirms that President Donald Trump was almost certainly right in his claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped.  However, we have known this for over a week.

WSJ Openly Calls Mueller Probe a Sham Unless Wiretapping [is] Investigated.  The Wall Street Journal editorial board never minces words.  The conservative paper late Tuesday [9/19/2017] posted an editorial openly calling for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate wiretapping allegations involving top Trump aide Paul Manafort.  The paper says Mueller's ties to the FBI and to its former director, James Comey, "make him too conflicted" to conduct the investigation.  "Congress is charged with providing oversight of law enforcement and the FISA courts, and it has an obligation to investigate their role in 2016.  The intelligence committees have subpoena authority and the ability to hold those who don't cooperate in contempt."

Robert Mueller's team is going back more than a decade in Paul Manafort investigation.  Paul Manafort, President Trump's former campaign manager, is being investigated special counsel Robert Mueller for his actions spanning 11 years.  Mueller, who is leading the federal Russia probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, has told Manafort his team intends to charge him with possible tax and financial crimes, according to CNN.  This indicates the investigation is in the advanced stages and also signals the scope had exceeded Russia interference in the election.

U.S. Government Wiretapped Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort.  The July/August 2016 time frame is interesting because that coincides with the surfacing of the ridiculous opposition research "Steele Dossier" on Presidential Candidate Donald Trump.  Further recently revealed information about the "[S]teele dossier", interestingly surrounds the James Comey FBI paying for the information contained therein. [...] So the James Comey FBI paid a British informant, former MI6 operative Christopher Steele, for content within the Steele Dossier, which was originally financed by the Jeb Bush campaign and Never Trumpers, and later passed on to Hillary Clinton allies via continued investigative funding by Fusion GPS.  Christopher Steele is the same guy the DNC contracted to research the "DNC hacking" (which many think was actually DNC leaking).  Sometime in July 2016 the James Comey FBI was denied a FISA warrant by the court (rarely done) and the general appearance is that Comey was interested in surveillance of the Trump campaign.  Note Comey has never denied this allegation.

Special Counsel Mueller Tells Manafort He Will Be Indicted.  The real trouble all started for Manafort while he was still snoozing away in bed, early morning back in July.  He was fast asleep when federal agents serving a search warrant actually used lock picks to open his front door and started to raid his home located in Virginia.  Everything was fair game to the agents, they ended up taking binders full of papers, as well as computer files in which they had made copies from off his PC.  They really dug into the guy, even taking photo 'evidence' of his expensive suits, according to one source.

The Deep State Wraps Its Protective Cocoon Around Hillary Clinton.  Question:  Now that the Republicans control all three branches of government, my question is really simple.  Why is it that when organizations have sued the Justice Department and State Department — I'm, of course, speaking of Judicial Watch here — for documents related to Hillary Clinton, Benghazi and all of the other Obama scandals... why is it that State and Justice are so slow in releasing the documents that the judges have ordered to be released?  And if it is the deep state that you talk about, then why isn't Secretary Tillerson and Attorney General Sessions getting in there and kicking some tail to get this information out?

U.S. appeals court rules against broad interpretation of Trump's travel ban.  A U.S. appeals court on Thursday rejected the Trump administration's effort to temporarily bar most refugees from entering the country, ruling that those who have relationships with a resettlement agency should be exempt from an executive order banning refugees.  A three-judge 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled that grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins of legal U.S. residents should be exempted from President Donald Trump's order, which banned travelers from six Muslim-majority countries.

Murderers, Rapists And Pedophiles Got Government Security Clearances.  The head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Service says the troubled and clogged process to grant security clearances has led to criminals receiving access to classified information.  "I've got murderers who have access to classified information," Daniel Payne, head of the Defense Security Service, said during a conference Wednesday [9/6/2017], McClatchy reports.  "I have rapists.  I have pedophiles.  I have people involved in child porn."  The Defense Security Service grants temporary security clearances for civilian workers and contractors, and the Department of Defense (DOD) has been so hard pressed for employees with clearances that some criminals have slipped through.

Report: NSA Offered To Give FBI All Of Hillary Clinton's Missing Emails.  Comey Said No.  The New York Post's John Crudele had an interesting column outlining how the bogus Democrat/Media/Deep State instigated Trump investigation is backfiring on Democrats as the American people grow increasingly weary of repeated allegations without actual proof.  Beyond that fatigue is something even more concerning for Democrats.  The investigation is actually shedding light on wrongdoing by figures like Hillary Clinton and James Comey — NOT Donald Trump.

Reports: Globalists in White House Oppose Trump's Border Wall, Reforms.  The "West Wing Democrats" in the White House are eager to sacrifice President Donald Trump's top campaign promise in exchange for Democratic approval of the tax cuts sought by wealthy donors and business interests, according to an article in Politico.

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell Is Actively Working To Undermine M.A.G.A Agenda.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a speech today in Kentucky.  A speech which yet again personifies the disconnect between the insufferable professional republicans within the party and the MAGA insurgency that has taken it over.  CTH has been transparent with our support for Donald Trump, and the specific reason for it.  We want the GOPe machine torn down, dispatched to earth orbit, and nuked while there regardless of consequence, because we're sick of having to be brutalized and used by Republican liars hiding within it.  Period.

Has the Deep State Won?  The title of this column reflects the first thought I had on the news of Steve Bannon's resignation last Friday as President Trump's strategic advisor.  Although I do not know Mr. Bannon personally, the impression I have gotten from reading biographies of him, as well as my knowledge of his enunciated beliefs, his patriotism, and the pivotal role he played in galvanizing Donald Trump's presidential campaign, caused me to believe that he was the one individual with the intellectual firepower, intestinal fortitude, and strategic vision to check the unchecked growth of our government.  Now, with his resignation, I fear that that the barely-begun battle to retake control of the government and pare it back to something resembling sanity, is lost.

Obama Holdovers Still In Dozens Of Key National Security Council Jobs.  Several Obama holdovers who led initiatives at odds with President Donald Trump's foreign policy remain on the staff of National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.  About 40 of the National Security Council's (NSC) 250 officials — nearly one in six — are Obama administration holdovers, according to TheDCNF's analysis.  The holdovers include NSC directors for Korea, China, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Eastern Europe, Israel-Palestine, South America, North Africa and sub-Sahara Africa.  Holdovers also advise on weapons of mass destruction, counterterrorism, non-proliferation, arms control, defense policy, immigration, and homeland preparedness.

Trump's Unintended Consequences:  The Unmasking of the Deep State.  "Deep State" is hard to define, because it is composed of overlapping groups and individuals with complex and differing agendas.  It's an amalgam of people, agencies, and bureaucrats that changes.  The current leakers are part of it.  For now, let's say it's a mostly unelected, mostly leftist group within our government that wants to govern us against the will of America's founding principles.  These people want the final say over our Republic.  They want to rule, and they form part of a powerful alliance against the current administration and its voters.

Why the Swamp Hates Trump.  Imagine that you were elected to a federal office several years ago and had a safe seat with all the perks attached, including salary, expense account, and influence with corporate CEOs and other titans of industry.  Suppose further that you knew that the future would be prosperous when you left office because the connections you made would make you a fortune as a lobbyist.  Moreover, since unseating an incumbent is a herculean task, you felt that you were set for life.  In fact, as soon as you got elected, you began raising money and preparing for re-election. [...] Suddenly, a guy runs for office with a lot of ideas about "draining the swamp" and making rules that include a prohibition on lobbying for at least five years after leaving office.

The New Tenure of Office Act.  Congressional Republicans have been waging a quiet war on their own President.  The Senate voted unanimously to stay in session thus denying President Trump the power to make recess appointments — and they themselves have refused to move his appointments forward.  They prevented Trump from even using private funding to build a border wall in a previous deal.  They refused to even repeal Obamacare, the cornerstone of every Republican campaign promise.  And they have gone along with the Democrats with these investigations, which the GOP knows full well are purely political.

Former Obama Officials Operate Shadow Network to Push Science Agenda.  An unofficial shadow office "stocked with Obama loyalists" is quietly working in Washington, D.C. to carry out the previous administration's science agenda.  The group of science experts who left the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) after President Donald Trump took office "is informal yet organized," according to a report from the health-oriented news website Stat.  Members of the new group — which numbers in the dozens — have provided counsel to Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill, consulted with scientific societies, and have held group-wide strategy sessions, according to Stat.  They have also helped analyze the impact of White House budget proposals and policies, including the decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord.

Here Are The Major Scandals That Took Place When Robert Mueller Was FBI Director.  What stands out most during then-FBI Director Mueller's term in office is the two-tiered system of justice, when obvious crimes and scandals involving government officials and private-sector elites were ignored or even covered up by the FBI.  Much of the worst behavior of government officials in the Bush and Obama administrations was given a pass by Mueller's FBI, as well as a megabank that laundered billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and sponsors of terror.  Simply put:  Mueller helped to create the swamp that needs to be drained.

Colossus of Corruption:  Ben Rhodes Unmasked.  Somehow it does not surprise that former Obama Deputy Security Adviser Ben Rhodes is now a "person of interest" in the probe of who illegally leaked for political purposes the names of Team Trump players allegedly collected inadvertently in intelligence reports.  He joins others on Team Obama such as Susan Rice and Samantha Power in the unmasking designed to subvert the Trump administration in what amounts to a silent coup.

Mueller's Investigators Are Worried They're Going To Get Sued.  Department of Justice investigators purchased liability insurance to guard themselves against potential retaliatory lawsuits brought by the subjects they're investigating as part of the Russia probe.  The Department would cover any legal fees incurred in the course of duty.  However, a number of investigators opted to purchase extra protection as the probe moves further into examining President Donald Trump's finances and those of his associates, a source familiar with the investigation told CNN.

Dershowitz: 'Ethnic And Racial Composition' Of Mueller's Jury Pool Stacks Deck Against Trump.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller's decision to impanel a grand jury in Washington, D.C. will prove "very unfavorable" to President Trump, in part because of the "ethnic and racial composition" of jury members, says constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz.  "I think it's a tactical move designed to send a message that if the prosecutor decides to prosecute, he will have a real advantage with the jury pool where the case will be held," Dershowitz said in an interview on Friday [8/4/2017] with WABC radio host Rita Cosby.

Sources Confirm NatSec Advisor H. R. McMaster & His Deputy Dina Powell Are Leaking To The Anti-Trump Media.  Two separate National Security Council sources have confirmed that National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster and Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell have been leaking negative material about President Donald J. Trump to their allies in the anti-Trump media, GotNews can exclusively report.  "It's very hard when your boss, the President, and your boss, the NSC advisor, see the world so differently," says one staffer, who opposes regime change in Syria.

'Everything The President Wants To Do, McMaster Opposes,' Former NSC Officials Say.  National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster is thwarting President Donald Trump's foreign policy prescriptions, two former senior NSC officials told The Daily Caller News Foundation.  "Everything the president wants to do, McMaster opposes," a former senior official said in a wide-ranging interview.  "Trump wants to get us out of Afghanistan — McMaster wants to go in.  Trump wants to get us out of Syria — McMaster wants to go in.  Trump wants to deal with the China issue — McMaster doesn't.  Trump wants to deal with the Islam issue — McMaster doesn't.  You know, across the board, we want to get rid of the Iran deal — McMaster doesn't.  It is incredible to watch it happening right in front of your face.  Absolutely stunning."

Mission Creep:  Mueller Grand Jury Fishing for Evidence Unrelated to Russian Interference Probe.  Mainstream media reports poured in Thursday and Friday indicating that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has far outstripped the original parameters of his investigation and begun digging into President Donald Trump's business dealings.  CNN reported Thursday [8/3/2017], that sources close to the investigation told them they are hopeful "the web of financial ties could offer a more concrete path toward potential prosecution than the broader and murkier questions of collusion in the 2016 campaign."

H.R. McMaster:  Your Pro-Iran, Pro-Pakistan, Anti-Israel, McCain Ally in the Trump White House.  [Scroll down]  One source claims that Trump's political advisers are afraid of how it will look if he fires another national security adviser.  But that makes no sense.  Trump is being attacked for everything and nothing.  Who cares if he gets attacked for doing something that will actually help him to succeed in office?  Why should fear of media criticism play a role here or anywhere for this president and this administration? [...] And who recommended McMaster?  You won't believe this.  Senator John McCain.  That's right.  The NSA got his job on the basis of a recommendation from the man who just saved Obamacare.  Obviously, at this point, Trump has nothing to lose by angering McCain.

H.R. McMaster Is Proof The Deep State Exists.  What would you say if Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council, who discovered the Obama-era unmasking of the names of Donald Trump associates whose communications were perhaps illegally intercepted and leaked by the Obama intelligence apparatus, was fired, and that Susan Rice, the person at the heart of the Benghazi cover-up and the unmasking and leaking of the unmasked names, was granted a renewal of her Top Secret security clearance?  If you said that could never happen in a Donald Trump administration you'd be wrong, because H.R. McMaster, President Trump's National Security Advisor just did it.

The Slow-Motion Coup d'Etat picks up steam.  Since the election there has been an unprecedented attempt to unwind the election result.  Events have accelerated on several fronts lately with attempts from outside and within to paralyze the Trump administration.  What started as a collective media freakout on Election Night 2016 quickly progressed to an unprecedented attempt to intimidate Electors into changing their votes.  Some Democrats announced, even before Trump took office, plans to impeach him, and Democrat politicians fed media-driven Russia collusion conspiracy theories for which they knew there was no evidence.  Chuck Schumer, for example, used the alleged fact of Donald Trump being under FBI investigation as an argument against confirming Neal Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, even though Schumer (but not the public) knew from intelligence briefings that Trump was not personally under investigation.  All the while, the permanent bureaucracy, particularly in the intelligence community, started an unending and almost daily series of leaks meant to paralyze the administration.

McMaster's NSC Coup Against Trump Purges Critics of Islam and Obama.  Derek Harvey was a man who saw things coming. [...] Just like in Iraq, Harvey began digging at the NSC.  He came up with a list of Obama holdovers who were leaking to the press.  McMaster, the new head of the NSC, refused to fire any of them.  McMaster had a different list of people he wanted to fire.  It was easy to make the list.  Harvey was on it.  All you had to do was name Islamic terrorism as the problem and oppose the Iran Deal.  If you came in with Flynn, you would be out.  If you were loyal to Trump, your days were numbered.  And if you warned about Obama holdovers undermining the new administration, you were a target.  One of McMaster's first acts at the NSC was to ban any mention of "Obama holdovers."  Not only did the McMaster coup purge Harvey, who had assembled the holdover list, but his biggest target was Ezra Watnick-Cohen, who had exposed the eavesdropping on Trump officials by Obama personnel.

House Judiciary Member:  Mueller Must Resign Over Conflict — "Clear Violation Of Federal Code".  House Judiciary Committee member Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) is calling on Robert Mueller, special counsel for the Department of Justice's Russia investigation, to resign over a "conflict of interest" resulting from a personal relationship with James Comey — a person of interest in the investigation. [...] That relationship could come into play as Mueller reportedly investigates whether Trump's dismissal of the FBI director constituted obstruction of justice amid the bureau's probe into whether Russian agents coordinated cybercrimes with the Trump campaign.  As we've pointed out before, several of Mueller's early, notable hires have all been contributors to Hillary's and/or Obama's previous campaigns and Jeannie Rhee actually represented the Clinton Foundation.

House Intelligence Committee Leaks Ben Rhodes as "Person of Interest" in Unmasking Scandal.  There's another "explosive" and "exclusive" article from the latest chaf and countermeasures unit, Sara Carter, reporting Ben Rhodes as a "subject of interest" for the House Intelligence Committee's investigation into 'unethical' and possibly 'illegal' unmasking.  Understandably all discussion, and likely a large segment of Sean Hannity's TV show, will focus on the intended target of the newly drawn attention.  However, what's more interesting to those who look into the deep swamp is the identification of Carter's sources:  ie. who's feeding her?

The Deep State War on Trump's Foreign Policy Agenda.  The State Department's own "deep state" is trying to sabotage President Trump's foreign policy agenda.  From the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Iran, Qatar and climate change, the State Department, under Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, is reported to be in "open war" with the White House.  Key high level positions remain vacant as Obama holdovers "continue running the show and formulating policy, where they have increasingly clashed with the White House's own agenda," according to the Free Beacon.

Reports of FBI General Counsel Leaker Investigation Bear Hallmarks of "Controlled Opposition".  A few days ago we shared a story from Sara Carter, a frequent guest on Sean Hannity, who surfaced immediately AFTER the inauguration of President Trump and is often utilized to drive explosive headlines that lead to lengthy conversation but go 'no-where'.  CTH has spent years monitoring the interactions and interplay between the media and the various layers within what's called "The DC Deep State".  Almost immediately a very familiar pattern was noted in Carter's reporting. [...] You see, there is a pattern, a very predictable shaping pattern with a great deal of media and stories that surround scandals in politics.  The 'controlled opposition' pattern is never broken and the outcome of stories that check off each sequential part of that pattern are always the same.

Deep State Calls For Coup Against POTUS Trump.  Disregard the blue jeans and open collar shirt.  This is former CIA Director John Brennan (who no doubt maintains very high-level contacts throughout the Deep State machine) attempting to make acceptable the premise of a coup against a sitting president.  Don't forget, it was Brennan who was caught lying about the Deep State's massive data collection program on private citizens.  He lied to Congress without penalty.  That is the arrogance of Deep State masters.  They feel themselves superior to the laws of of this nation.  They maintain authority and control regardless of who is or isn't inside the White House.  POTUS Trump is the single greatest threat to that power monopoly — and they want him gone.

Congress Could Halt Spy Authorization Over Obama Aides' Anti-Trump Leaks.  Key lawmakers are threatening to cancel the authorization of sensitive U.S. spy operations until congressional leaders investigate efforts by former top Obama administration officials to leak highly classified national security information in what many believe was a targeted campaign to undermine the Trump administration, according to senior congressional sources familiar with the situation.  Key Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee are pressuring Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) to investigate former senior Obama administration officials believed to be responsible for these anti-Trump leaks, including former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and National Security Council official Ben Rhodes, according to sources who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon about mounting frustration over Congress's failure to adequately investigate these leaks.

Who Paid for the 'Trump Dossier'? Democrats Don't Want You to Find Out.  It has been 10 days since Democrats received the glorious news that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley would require Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort to explain their meeting with Russian operators at Trump Tower last year. [...] Yet Democrats now have meekly and noiselessly retreated, agreeing to let both men speak to the committee in private.  Why would they so suddenly be willing to let go of this moment of political opportunity?  Fusion GPS.  [...] Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson also was supposed to testify at the Grassley hearing, where he might have been asked in public to reveal who hired him to put together the hit job on Mr. Trump, which was based largely on anonymous Russian sources.  Turns out Democrats are willing to give up just about anything — including their Manafort moment — to protect Mr. Simpson from having to answer that question.

Getting a fix on Fusion GPS.  The so-called Trump Dossier appears to be something like the Rosetta Stone that will allow us to decipher the true story underlying the Trump/Russia "collusion" hysteria.  The hysteria has been driven by the Democrats and their media adjunct to explain the shocking outcome of the 2016 election.  Ishmael Jones argued the fraudulence of the Trump Dossier here on Power Line yesterday.  The FBI apparently thought the Trump Dossier was the real deal.  John Brennan and James Clapper disseminated it in briefings to Presidents Obama and Trump.  Leaks to the media followed in due course.  The provenance of the Trump Dossier lies with GPS Fusion.  GPS Fusion is the for-hire political outfit paid to dig up dirt on targets, as Kim Strassel put it in her Wall Street Journal Potomac Watch column yesterday.  For whom was GPS Fusion working in the matter of the Trump Dossier?  GPS Fusion isn't saying.

Ex-Obama Official Evelyn Farkas Urges Intel Community to Compromise Sources, Methods.  Evelyn Farkas, a former top Obama administration Defense Department official, has advocated for the intelligence community to consider compromising sources and methods when it comes to "saving American democracy."  "And I know that we have to preserve our sources and methods," Farkas said, speaking about the U.S. intelligence community.  "But at some point you know, sometimes maybe you have to actually compromise some kind of source or method if it comes down to saving American democracy."

Mueller's Russia Probe Is A Political Hit Job:  Either Rein Him In, Or Fire Him.  If recent reports are true, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has veered sharply off course to investigate matters that have nothing to do with Russia's tampering with our 2016 election.  He either has to be reeled in to do the job he was hired to do, or fired.

Chaffetz on Kushner Being Questioned in Senate Meeting: 'They Would Never Do This to the Clintons'.  On Monday [7/24/2017], Fox News contributor and former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) appeared on "Fox & Friends," where the topic turned to the big news of the morning:  Jared Kushner's written statement to the Senate.  Chaffetz expressed frustration with Kushner and Donald Trump Jr. being called to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee, arguing a double standard.  "Republicans need to get a backbone," he began.  "Every time the Democrats say they need to call up Jared Kushner or Donald Trump Jr., then call up Chelsea Clinton.  Call up the Clintons.  There, we have an inspector general who issues a report stating an actual crime."

Congress ratifies Deep State manuever to limit President Trump.  "Hacking the election" is a misnomer.  Revealing embarrassing information about the Democratic party is not the same as "stealing" or "hacking" the election itself.  If the Russian government was behind the hacks, they certainly deserve to be sanctioned.  But the only question that matters should be, will the sanctions interfere with the administration's diplomatic efforts to bring about closer cooperation between Russia and the US?  That is the question facing President Trump.

Mueller Probe Team Starts Leaking Special Counsel Investigation Details to Press.  The team charged with investigating whether there was any collusion between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia now appears to be leaking details of the probe to damage him.  "A person familiar with the probe" told Bloomberg that the special counsel is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump and his associates' businesses.  The leak comes the day after Trump told the New York Times in an interview that delving into his business matters would be outside the bounds of the Russia investigation.

Target Trump:  Use of Police State Tactics Is Un-American.  Never in American history has a sitting president (and his family) been hounded with unfounded criminal investigations as has President Trump.  While still a candidate, the Democrats and their propaganda arm in the mainstream media brought forth the scurrilous charge of Russian collusion with not a shred of evidence to support their charge.  It's a fishing expedition in search of a crime. [...] The entire Russian collusion affair stinks to high heaven.  There is no smoking gun to justify an independent counsel.  Nada!  Yet, Robert Mueller, best buddies with fired FBI director James Comey, who admittedly leaked classified information to ensure a special prosecutor would be appointed is now extending his investigation to include the Trump Organization.

Lawyers Who Donated Money to Dems Now Investigating Trump Administration.  President Donald Trump hasn't been easy on Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  Recently, he blasted the investigator in a New York Times interview, while his surrogate White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway characterized Mueller as leading a "witch hunt."  She accused the investigative team as being politically biased.  According to Fox News, she has plenty of ammunition to back up that claim.

Newt Gingrich:  Mueller's Law Firm Gave 99.81% of Its Donations to Hillary Clinton.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich pointed out on Hannity Thursday night that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's former law firm saw 99.81 percent of its donations go to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.  "The Mueller investigation has so many conflicts of interest, it's almost an absurdity," Gingrich said.  "The people that he's been hiring are all anti-Trump lawyers."  [Video clip]

Trump needs to be smart about how he fires Mueller.  Trump must eventually fire Robert Mueller, a partisan tool carrying water for his Establishment pals as he oversees an utterly corrupt "investigation" where the only person we actually know committed any wrongdoing is his bestest buddy Jim Comey.  But Trump can't just lash out and do it, though it is well within his political and moral right to do so.  No, he's got to do it cleverly, with cunning, in a way that shows the American people exactly why Mueller's witch hunt is a flaming dumpster fire of conflicts of interest and contempt for the right of normal Americans to have a say in their own governance.  Trump has to set the stage before he pulls the trigger and puts the coup de grace into the temple of this appalling fiasco.  He has to do it so the American people will see and understand why ending this idiocy is so absolutely necessary to preserve our Republic despite the mainstream media's best effort to hide the truth.

Mueller Expands Probe to Trump Business Transactions.  The U.S. special counsel investigating possible ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia in last year's election is examining a broad range of transactions involving Trump's businesses as well as those of his associates, according to a person familiar with the probe.  The president told the New York Times on Wednesday that any digging into matters beyond Russia would be out of bounds.  Trump's businesses have involved Russians for years, making the boundaries fuzzy so Special Counsel Robert Mueller appears to be taking a wide-angle approach to his two-month-old probe.

What is Mueller investigating?  It is basic criminal law that a criminal statute must be specific and clear to define the conduct that is declared illegal so that one knows that the conduct is illegal.  Similarly, if one is being investigated, the investigators must be authorized to seek out some specific conduct that is illegal and have probable cause to believe that the target of the investigation is involved illegally.  There is no such evidence here.

Special Counsel Reaches Down Russian Rabbit Holes.  Who investigates the investigators?  Bloomberg reports that special counsel Robert Mueller expanded his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to include "examining a broad range of transactions involving [Donald] Trump's businesses as well as his associates."  The transactions not only involve "associates" but, in some cases, date back a decade.  The deals include Russians buying apartments in Trump-owned buildings and the sale of pricey Florida real estate to a rich Russian in 2008.  Why not also subpoena disgruntled former USFL players angry at the Donald's role in the league's demise to testify?

Through Selective Security Clearances, Unelected Intelligence Agencies Claim Power To Veto President's Advisors.  On July 8 The New York Times reported that President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner's application for a security clearance had failed to report his contact with some Russians.  The media found this ominous.  I do too, but for a different reason.  The national security agencies of the executive branch are demanding that the president communicate about national security matters only with advisers to whom they issue clearances.  Someone in the FBI had slipped Kushner's questionnaire to the Times.  Publication of the story underlined the threat to withdraw the clearance.

"Translator" At Trump Jr.  Russian Meeting Has Deep Ties To Clinton Machine.  Long before the story broke public regarding meetings between Russian operatives and members of the Trump campaign, Hillary Clinton was hinting at such a connection.  How was she so privy to that information?  Yes, she likely was tipped off by the illegal wire tap courtesy of Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other within the Obama administration, but Mrs. Clinton just as likely received a heads-up from a man who was acting as an "translator" at that same meeting.  A man who was former employee of the Clinton State Department — Anatoli Samochornov.

Who's Colluding With Whom?  [Scroll down]  The Russian lawyer wasn't even supposed to be here.  She had been denied a visa for entry into the United States in late 2015, but given a rather extraordinary "parole" by the federal government to assist preparation for a client subject to an asset forfeiture by the Justice Department.  That was in January.  The client was Prevezon Holdings, a Russian company suspected of having been paid some portion of $230 million stolen by Russian mobsters.  When Sergey Magnitsky[,] a Russian lawyer representing a company that had been the victim of the theft, reported it to authorities in Moscow he was promptly jailed and beaten to death.  The American response to this atrocity was the 2012 Magnitsky Act, which sanctioned several individuals connected to human rights abuses.  The Russian government retaliated by preventing American adoptions of Russian children.  But in June, she was permitted to fly back to the U.S., have the meeting with Trump Junior — at Trump Tower, no less — and then end up in the front row for a congressional hearing involving testimony from a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, then turning up at a D.C. showing of a documentary film on the negative effects of the Magnitsky Act, and later appearing at a dinner involving Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and former Rep. Ron Dellums (D-CA) who is now a lobbyist for the Russians.  The repeal of that legislation is a priority item for the Russians and a personal project of Veselnitskaya's; it, rather than any Clinton dirt, was reportedly the primary subject brought forth at the meeting with Donald Trump Jr.  All of this without a visa!

Eric Holder Rallies Liberal Lawyers Against Trump in San Fran.  Former Attorney General Eric Holder told a group of liberal lawyers to keep fighting at a San Francisco fundraiser Wednesday, continuing his message about using state power to oppose the Trump administration.  Holder, who served during the Obama administration, told his audience not to be afraid of what President Donald Trump is doing, but he still affirmed that news from the White House is "disturbing," the San Francisco Chronicle reports.  He also said that he worries about the "moral arc of the universe" bending away from justice, not toward it as Martin Luther King Jr. said.  "It's the responsibility of all of us to keep our hands on that arc," he said.  "There is fighting to be done, there are lawsuits to be brought ... You can never underestimate the power of the American people."

Top Republican Demands Investigation into Comey and Purging of Obama Holdovers for Intel Leaks.  [Scroll down]  Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and chair of its National Security subcommittee, also called on President Trump to purge Obama holdovers still working in the federal government.  In an exclusive interview with the Beacon, DeSantis claimed that "the holdovers and their allies outside the White House are responsible for an unprecedented series of national security leaks aimed at damaging the Trump administration's national security apparatus."  And he singled out none other than Ben Rhodes, the creator of the Obama White House echo chamber (which is still operational), as the person responsible for most of the leaks.  DeSantis said he wants to get Rhodes under oath to testify before Congress about his nefarious activities since he left the White House.

Former FBI Agent:  Deep State Exists and Is Trying to Bring Down Trump.  Fifteen years ago, I would have suggested a tinfoil hat for anyone who believed in the deep state.  But recent events have made me rethink my diagnosis.  The term "deep state" intimates a conspiracy somewhere in the woodshed.  But it's basically two or more people who get together and agree on something bad.  In the case of a shadow government, that something is to impede or overthrow the legitimate government.  The current political environment offers convincing evidence that individuals are attempting to do just that.  They utilize legal and illegal means in an effort to annul the will of the people.  Their ultimate goal is to end the presidency of Donald Trump.

Deep State:  Trump Facing Seven Times More National Security Leaks Than Obama or Bush.  President Trump has faced seven times more leaks during the first 126 days of his administration than the previous two administrations.  That figure includes many leaks from the intelligence community that were aimed at embarrassing Trump but have damaged U.S. national security, according to a new Senate report.  "Since President Trump assumed office, our nation has faced an unprecedented wave of potentially damaging leaks of information," said the report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.  The report showed that the Trump administration faced 125 leaks potentially damaging to national security in 126 days — a "conservative estimate," it noted.

Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution.  An appeals court Monday struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's 90-day suspension of new emission standards on oil and gas wells, a decision that could set back the Trump administration's broad legal strategy for rolling back Obama-era rules.  In a 2-to-1 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit concluded that the EPA had the right to reconsider a 2016 rule limiting methane and smog-forming pollutants emitted by oil and gas wells but could not delay the effective date while it sought to rewrite the regulation.  The agency has proposed extending the initial delay to two years; the court will hold a hearing on that suspension separately.

Can Trump Win His Fight Against Leftist Judges And Open-Border Radicals Over Immigration?  A battle is brewing between the federal government's right to enforce U.S. immigration laws and some cities' and blue states' desire to provide "sanctuary" for illegal immigrants in the U.S.  But unlike the past four presidents, Donald Trump is willing, even eager, to fight this battle.

Trump may be right about the White House being bugged.  President Trump seems to be confirming something I wrote a couple weeks ago — the White House may be bugged.  When Trump finally admitted recently that he doesn't have tapes of his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey, the president also hinted that the US intelligence and law enforcement officials might have his office bugged.

Obama-appointed judges dismiss Supreme Court ruling, continue blocking Trump's immigration crackdown.  President Trump may have won a partial victory at the Supreme Court this week, but other federal judges remain major stumbling blocks to his aggressive immigration plans, with courts from California to Michigan and Atlanta limiting his crackdown on sanctuary cities and stopping him from deporting illegal immigrants he has targeted for removal.  The judges in those deportation cases have rejected Mr. Trump's argument that he has wide latitude to decide who gets kicked out, without having to worry about district courts second-guessing him on facts of the case.  Instead, the judges said, they get to decide their jurisdiction, and that extends to reviewing Mr. Trump's immigration policy.

Sharyl Attkisson Outlines President Trump as DC's Existential Threat.  Sharyl Attkisson appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight for a discussion segment about the media, Washington DC, and President Trump as a threat to the established political order.  Attkisson presents a smart summary of President Trump, the media perspectives, and how his policies and agenda items represent an existential threat to the administrative state of DC.  [Video clip]

Not So Special Counsel:  Time for POTUS to fight fire with fire.  John Eastman, law professor at Chapman University, writes in American Greatness this week that the powers invested in Special Counsel Mueller to investigate "Russian hacking/collusion/obstruction poses grave dangers to our body politic and our liberty."  His advice to President Trump:  Fight fire with fire.  Turn the law and the courts back on your opponents.  Trump is being investigated without any probable cause of a crime.  The Obama administration, in contrast, is a target-rich arena of criminal activity.  It is unconstitutional to issue a search warrant when there has been no crime and there is no probable cause.  But that is exactly what President Trump's DOJ has inflicted on the president and his team with Mueller's special investigation.  It was not just cowardice, but folly for the DOJ to buckle to the left-wing media's hysterical insistence to investigate our president's alleged collusion with the FSB.

Robert Mueller Adopts Stalinist Tactics.  Yes, Virginia, this is a witch hunt.  Robert Mueller III was appointed special counsel after his friend, the vindictive James Comey, committed a federal crime by leaking a memo which was a government record to the press.  Mueller has picked staff and prosecutors as if he were stocking Hillary Clinton's Department of Justice.  He has picked a bevy of Clinton donors, an attorney who worked for the Clinton Foundation, a former Watergate assistant prosecutor, and even a senior adviser to Eric Holder.

The Politics of Professional Procrastination.  The election result in Georgia's sixth district is yet another example of Trump supporters removing excuses the DC UniParty puts forth; yet the DC apparatus is so entrenched in their opposition to President Trump's policy agenda, they sit idle spinning various congressional hearings-to-nowhere in an increasingly transparent effort to avoid action.  Anyone who believes Democrats own exclusive opposition to Donald Trump are completely ignoring the deliberate construct of the 2015/2016 republican primary.  There are just as many — if not more — natural enemies within the Republican apparatus as there are within the Democrat group.  "America-First" is antithetical to the UniParty.

Can Robert Mueller be trusted?  The last few decades have not been good ones for those of us who believe in the rule of law, who subscribe to our country's proudest boast, that ours is a government of laws, and not men (or persons).  What this means is that we are governed not by arbitrary political power, but that our republic is committed to the values that endure from the founding generation.  These core values include an appreciation that there can be no order without law, no law without morality, and, indeed, that there can be no morality without religion.  These traditional views have been largely abandoned by our legal and political elites on the left, a trend that Duke's Dean Paul Carrington characterized as "legal nihilism," the belief that law doesn't matter and that's it's simply all about politics.

Is Trump honestly under criminal investigation by the FBI?  [Scroll down]  Because Comey presented a credible case for the possibility that the president interfered with a federal criminal investigation, Mueller no doubt is investigating that as one of the related matters.  In that respect, President Trump is under investigation by the FBI, which seeks to determine whether he attempted to influence a federal criminal investigation for a corrupt purpose.  Yet as a sitting president, Trump cannot be indicted for any criminal behavior committed while in office.  Hence he cannot be a "target" of an FBI investigation.  I use the word "target" in quotation marks because it has a technical meaning — namely, that the Department of Justice plans to seek an indictment.  So though it is true that the president is being investigated by the FBI, it is also true that he is not a target of that investigation.  Of what value is a criminal investigation of a person if that person cannot be charged criminally?

Fifteen Lawyers in Search of a Crime.  [Scroll down]  So in one month [Robert] Mueller has managed to put five times as many people on the DoJ payroll as Trump has since January.  As has been noticed, no matter how many lawyers Mueller hires, he only seems to know bigtime Hillary donors.  If he wraps the investigation up in time, the Special Counsel can change his title to Special Bundler for the Clinton 2020 campaign.  But, even if they weren't so ostentatiously partisan, the whole money-no-object profligacy sums up dysfunctional Washington at its most repulsive.

The GOP should do something!  Since President Trump's election, our president has been under daily siege from within and without.  Not a day goes by without an attack by the mainstream media and the press.  The attacks range from unfounded accusations of Russian collusion, which have been debunked, to obstruction of justice, since there is no evidence of collusion.  The whole scenario is a concocted schizophrenic scheme by the entire left to paralyze the Trump administration's agenda with a mission to impeach and remove President Trump from office.  This seditious plot is organized by Barack Hussein Obama from his compound in D.C. and financed by billionaire George Soros, who favors a one-world government.

Robert Mueller Hires Another Clinton Donor For Russia Probe.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller has added another Democrat to his growing team of Trump-Russia investigators.  The former FBI director recently recruited Elizabeth Prelogar, a lawyer in the Office of the Solicitor General, to work on the Russia probe, The National Law Journal reports.  A former law clerk for liberal Supreme Court justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan, Prelogar has donated in the past to Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, Federal Election Commission records show.

Is Mueller Too Conflicted To Investigate Trump Fairly?  Whether or not special prosecutor Robert Mueller is even investigating President Trump for obstruction of justice is far from clear.  What's becoming increasingly clear, however, is that if Mueller does launch such a probe, he shouldn't be the one to run it.

We need a Robert Mueller resignation or a second special counsel.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller has a problem:  He has a disqualifying conflict of interest regarding a large part of his work.  It involves a choice between investigating or relying on former FBI director James Comey, a longtime close friend of Mueller's.  Ideally, he'll recognize that and resign.  But if he doesn't resign, Attorney General Jeff Sessions should appoint another special counsel to take over the obstruction-of-justice part of the investigation, where Mueller is disqualified.

Trump's Way Out of the Progressive Labyrinth.  In every single week of the Trump presidency, the investigators and attorneys of FBI Director James Comey or, subsequently, of special counsel Robert Mueller, have leaked information that President Donald Trump was under investigation for either colluding with the Russians or obstructing justice — allegations so far without any substantiating evidence. [...] Since January 2017, the Congress ceased being a legislative body.  It is now a Star-chamber court determined to decapitate the presidency.

How the Deep State Built Its Field of Dreams.  In the first place, the "Russian collusion" accusation is utterly pretextual, concocted by the media and the Democrats, and it began when President Obama ordered the intelligence chiefs to compose a report on Russian Interference.  The Obama administration then spread the flimsy report, hastily put together across the intelligence community, through a supine if not complicit media.

Very Fake News:  The Cover-up of Robert Mueller's Rather Unseemly Track Record.  Simply put, [Robert] Mueller can't be trusted to arrive at the truth.  The anthrax letters case proves it.  He should never have received the appointment as special counsel.  [Fred] Barnes' assertion that the deck has been stacked ignores the fact that he and his associates in the Never-Trump movement helped stack the deck.  Why didn't they blow the whistle on Mueller when he was appointed?  Why do they ignore his real record now?

The lawyer finds a permanent client.  Mr. Mueller knows better than anyone that once he marches up the hill, he has to march down with the corpse of a president.  When he does, he will be the toast of the great American swamp.  The search continues for the evidence that proves the president sold the White House, the Smithsonian Institution with all its treasures and maybe even the Lincoln Memorial to the Russians.

The lawyers' civil war.  The Trump-Russia collusion story is nonsense, as its disseminators know better than anyone else.  The object of the exercise is not to support the innuendo, but to launch an investigation which can provoke the White House into responses that might be construed as illegal.  The intelligence leaks involved in framing the story alone are probably sufficient grounds to put several dozen senior officials in federal prison for double-digit terms.  That consideration gauges the scale of the problem:  the mutineers have committed multiple felonies, and their downside should the mutiny go wrong is not ignominious retirement but hard time at Leavenworth.

Is This Treason in Time of War?  Two of our worst enemies, North Korea and Iran, are working in close cooperation to develop nuclear weapons and ICBMs, which could destroy our cities with only 15 minutes warning time.  We are therefore at war, quite possibly a war that will end in national catastrophe for us and the civilized world.  This is an important point, because the U.S. Constitution defines "treason" as "aiding and abetting an enemy of the United States in time of war."  The President of the United States has been elected in a close election, and promises to clean out the swamp in Washington DC.  He is therefore attacked by the swampocrats, who have long controlled the media, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the legislature.

That Was Quick:  Reports Say Mueller Granted Comey Full Immunity Even Before Investigation Began.  Thus far, over the course of the utterly fraudulent "Russian Colusion" investigation, Democrats have accidentally uncovered crimes by Obama's attorney general Loretta Lynch and his FBI director James Comey.  And, as an added bonus, they may have also instigated brand new investigations of Hillary Clinton's suspicious activities.  So, by all means, let's continue this charade.

Are We Nearing Civil War?  We are approaching something of a civil war where the capital city seeks the overthrow of the sovereign and its own restoration.  Thus far, it is a nonviolent struggle, though street clashes between pro- and anti-Trump forces are increasingly marked by fistfights and brawls.  Police are having difficulty keeping people apart.  A few have been arrested carrying concealed weapons.  That the objective of this city is to bring Trump down via a deep state-media coup is no secret.  Few deny it.

Time to Shut Down the Partisan Witch Hunt against Trump.  We-the-People already know — and have known for almost a year — that the faux "Russian-collaboration investigation" into now-President Trump and his team is just that:  false.  Despite the continued Deep State's attempts to try to have something stick to our president — think lying James Clapper and John Brennan as well as pretend non-partisan former FBI Chief Mueller and his discredited BFF (and student) former FBI Chief James Comey — it has been a partisan witch-hunt from its inception.

Comey Wingman Robert Mueller Hiring Obama-Clinton Donors to Investigate Trump.  Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who has been sainted by the establishment, is a longtime and very close friend of Jim Comey's, the easily "stunned" and "confused" former FBI director.  Mueller's begun hiring members of his investigative team and at least four of them are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton donors.

Report: Two Lawyers Hired by Robert Mueller Were Max Donors to Hillary Clinton in 2016.  Surprisingly, this is from CNN.  Perhaps they're trying to goad President Trump into firing him.

Are Mueller and Comey 'colluding' against Trump by acting as co-special counsel?  It was obvious it would evolve this way from the very moment Mueller was named on May 17th.  Which is why I wrote a column two days later, arguing that Mueller should resign as special counsel.  He has a flagrant conflict of interest that disqualifies him from serving.  To wit, his personal and professional closeness to Comey.  They have long been allies.  Comey regards his predecessor at the FBI as a mentor, while Mueller considers Comey his protégé.  It was evident at the outset that the fired FBI Director would be the pivotal witness in any potential obstruction of justice investigation by Mueller.  Therefore, it was incomprehensible that Rod Rosenstein, the Acting Attorney General, would choose him.  It was equally baffling that Mueller would accept the position.

Mueller's disturbing staffing decisions.  When people in Washington talk on the record about Robert Mueller, they gush.  Terms like "straight shooter" and "unquestioned integrity" flow freely.  Of course, the same was once true of Mueller's friend, James Comey.  When I talk off the record to people I trust who know Mueller, there's less gushing, but no expression of alarm. [...] Yet, there may be cause for concern.  In my view, Mueller's friendship with Comey is one.  Some of Mueller's key staffing decisions are another.

Is Robert Mueller conflicted in Trump probe?  Fired FBI Director James Comey has emerged as the main figure in what some Democrats believe will be an obstruction of justice case against President Trump in the Trump-Russia matter.  Comey's stories of conversations with the president, plus the fact that he was fired, ostensibly as a result of the Russia probe, make him potentially the star witness in the case.  Which brings up an intriguing legal question.  Comey is a good friend of special counsel Robert Mueller — such a good friend, for about 15 years now, that the two men have been described as "brothers in arms."

Comey and Mueller have a history as a Deep State tag team.  Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection indicates that Comey's testimony suggests that Mueller is already going beyond the narrow mandate of Acting Attorney General Rosenstein and considering whether the president's discussion with him about General Flynn constitutes "obstruction."

Robert Mueller Stocks Staff with Democrat Donors.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich sparked a mini-meltdown in the media Monday [6/12/2017] with a tweet challenging the fairness of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Three members of Russia special counsel team donated to Democrats:  Report.  Three members of the team hired by special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Russia's meddling in the 2016 election have donated primarily to Democrats, according to records from the Federal Election Commission.  Mueller selected James Quarles, Jeannie Rhee and Andrew Weissman to make up members of his legal team, among the five lawyers identified by CNN.  Those three lawyers have collectively made more than $53,000 in political donations since 1988.

Mueller staffs up to pursue obstruction of justice.  "Personnel is policy" is an old truism that applies to the staffing decisions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.  Jonathan Turley, an esteemed constitutional scholar who is an honest liberal, examines a telling hire, Michael Dreeben, a deputy in the Solicitor General's office.  Dreeben, Turley informs us, argued to the Supreme Court for an expansive interpretation of obstruction of justice, one that would blur intent.  The details are technical, and Professor Turley's explanation is characteristically lucid.

The Entire Deep State DC Institutional Apparatus Knew President Trump Was Not Under Investigation.  When fired FBI Director James Comey testified to congress he admitted to telling President-Elect Donald Trump, and President Donald Trump, three times, he was never under investigation.  FBI Director Comey told President-elect Trump on January 6th he was not under investigation; Comey again told President Trump on January 27th he was not under investigation; and again on February 15th Director Comey told President Trump he was not under investigation.

Someone in Congress Put Trump's Name on Wikipedia's 'Obstruction of Justice' Webpage.  Somebody with a House of Representatives IP web address decided to put President Trump on Wikipedia's online list of people who faced prominent investigations for obstruction of justice. [...] Trump's name was mostly likely added to preempt the major news that was bound to come out of James Comey's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Comey's 'truth' crusade is really an anti-Trump one.  By his actions, Comey reveals himself to be a fellow traveler with Never Trumpers.  His firing brought him out of the shadows and into the open "resistance" to the president.

Reality Winner:  Accused leaker wanted to 'burn the White House down'.  The woman accused of leaking classified information once wrote she wanted "to burn the White House Down... find somewhere in Kurdistan to live," prompting prosecutors on Thursday [6/8/2017] to argue she would flee the country if she was released on bond.  Reality Winner appeared before a judge in Augusta, Ga., on Thursday [6/8/2017] who ordered her to remain jailed until her trial.  Prosecutors argued that the 25-year-old might try to flee the U.S. if she was released on bond.  They added that Winner wrote in her notebook alleged plans to set the White House on fire, travel to Afghanistan and pledge her allegiance to the Taliban, WSB-TV reported.

The monumental idiocy of leaker Reality Leigh Winner.  The online news outlet that unwittingly outed the Georgia woman who has since admitted to providing them with classified National Security Agency documents may not be the dumbest entity in this story.  Reality Winner, 25, whose top-secret clearance gave her access to the now-leaked NSA information, has been coaching family members via jailhouse phone calls, which are monitored, on how to manipulate investigators and the press, according to prosecutors.  Her plan, they said, is to portray herself as some sort of scared, doe-eyed neophyte.  For emphasis:  Jailhouse phone calls are monitored.  This is 100 percent normal, and it should come as a surprise to exactly no one.  If it's true she has been openly discussing the PR angle with family members over monitored phone calls, it suggests she is a lot dimmer than originally estimated.

Total Vetting Fail:  Left-Wing Snowden Fan Girl Reality Winner Gets Access to Our NSA Secrets.  The news reads like something out of a screwball comedy:  a far-left activist named "Reality Leigh Winner" somehow received clearance to work for the National Security Agency, which she allegedly proceeded to rob of classified material in the name of the kookburger anti-Trump "Resistance."  In the post-Edward Snowden era, how does someone like this get anywhere near sensitive data?  Speaking of Snowden, Ms. Winner is a huge fan of his.  He was one of only 50 accounts she followed on Twitter, along with WikiLeaks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, and the Anonymous hacker collective.  Her own Twitter posts were filled with foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Trump tirades such as, "Why burn a flag?  Donald Trump thinks crosses burn much better."

Update:
Federal Judge In Georgia Sentences NSA Leaker To 63 Months In Prison.  A former NSA contractor, who pleaded guilty to leaking classified information last June, is sentenced to more than five-years in prison.  26-year-old Reality Winner was sentenced to five-years and three-months in prison Thursday [8/23/2018], following a plea deal with prosecutors.  During a court testimony, Winner claimed she did not mean to harm national security.

Reality Winner's lawyer asks public to ignore her anti-Trump tweets.  A lawyer for Reality Winner, the 25-year-old government contractor who was arrested for leaking classified information to the press, said Wednesday that people should ignore her anti-Trump tweets and instead take it from her parents when it comes to "who she is as a person."  "For a better idea of who she is, I think her parents have done a phenomenal job in explaining to the world who she is as a person, not just this figure that's been created in the span of a week," lawyer Titus Nichols said on CNN.

Prepare the White House for President Pence.  The fact that [Robert] Mueller is, in effect, investigating the conduct of another FBI director, James Comey, is another significant factor.  Mueller and Comey are best friends.  They will protect each other.  Comey did not reopen the anthrax investigation in order to get to the bottom of Mueller's incompetence, and Mueller will not hold Comey responsible for targeting Trump by using the phony "Trump Dossier" filled with Russian disinformation.  Hence, they both have reasons to go after Trump.  They are a tag team against the President.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Acting U.S. Ambassador to China Resigns Over Pullout from Climate Pact.  The acting U.S. ambassador to China resigned on Monday [6/5/2017] to protest President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change accord. [...] The resignation highlights the level of politicization that has taken place in key U.S. government agencies during the Obama administration.

Kelly: Courts Have Blocked Me 'From Doing Those Things I Know Would Make Americans Safe'.  Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told Congress on Tuesday that he expects that some of the foreign fighters who traveled to Iraq and Syria to return home to continue their plotting, and "we expect that some will look to travel to the United States to carry out attacks."  But because the courts have blocked President Trump's temporary travel ban, Kelly said he is "not fully confident" that the Department of Homeland Security is doing "all that we can to weed out potential wrong-doers."

How The Intercept Outed Reality Winner.  Today [6/5/2017], The Intercept released documents on election tampering from an NSA leaker.  Later, the arrest warrant request for an NSA contractor named "Reality Winner" was published, showing how they tracked her down because she had printed out the documents and sent them to The Intercept.  The document posted by the Intercept isn't the original PDF file, but a PDF containing the pictures of the printed version that was then later scanned in.  The problem is that most new printers print nearly invisibly yellow dots that track down exactly when and where documents, any document, is printed.  Because the NSA logs all printing jobs on its printers, it can use this to match up precisely who printed the document.

Alleged NSA Leaker Is A 'Resist-Trump,' Bernie-Supporting Groupie.  She is also very concerned about 'Climate Change' and getting her home state of Georgia to be less dependent on fossil fuels.  But concerned about leaking classified information?  Apparently, not so much.

NSA Leaker: 'Being White Is Terrorism'.  The woman charged by the Department of Justice with stealing "Top Secret" information from the National Security Agency apparently believes being white is a form of terrorism.  That's according to a tweet the alleged leaker, Reality Winner, sent in February.  Winner, who is herself white, tweeted at rapper Kanye West that he should make a shirt declaring whiteness an act of terror.

And here I thought getting Top Secret Clearance was hard.  Turns out any blonde ditz can get Top Secret Clearance.

First arrest over Trump leaks:  Intelligence contractor, 25, is charged under espionage laws.  The federal government has leveled the first charges against an individual in connection with leaks related to the Russian election hacking.  The government has charged Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a Georgia intelligence contractor, with removing classified material from a government facility.  'Winner is a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation assigned to a U.S. government agency facility in Georgia,' according to a government criminal complaint.

Alleged leaker hid NSA documents in pantyhose, report says.  A former National Security Agency contractor has reportedly told federal authorities that she smuggled classified documents out of the NSA office where she worked by stuffing them in her pantyhose.  The documents reportedly contained classified data on Russia's alleged hacking during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.  Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a former Air Force linguist with a top-secret security clearance, was asked by an FBI agent about how she managed to get the documents out of the agency's Augusta, Ga., office.

Update:
NSA leaker Reality Winner will plead guilty after admitting to FBI she smuggled classified documents out of the office.  Reality Winner, the former National Security Agency contractor charged with leaking a classified document to a US news outlet, has decided to plead guilty.  Winner, 26, is scheduled to plead guilty in US District Court on June 26, according to US Department of Justice spokesman Ian Prior.  Online court records show a plea agreement was filed on Thursday [6/21/2018].  Court documents did not indicate what exact charge Winner will plead guilty to, although she was indicted for one count of violating the federal Espionage Act.

Why is Hillary Clinton's private server man running the U.S. embassy in U.K and undercutting Trump's tweets?  Lew Lukens, the highest-ranking U.S. official in London, is a piece of work.  The Chargé d'Affaires, or acting U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, undercut President Trump's criticism of London's Mayor Sadiq Khan in the wake of the recent terror attack by brazenly tweeting high praise to the leftist leader, whose hostility to Trump is well known.

The easy trail that led the feds to Reality Winner, alleged source of NSA leak.  Sources generally cover their tracks, especially in an era when even the most innocuous computer activity leaves an electronic trail.  Leaks are common, but prosecutions aren't.  Edward Snowden took extraordinary precautions when he leaked troves of classified information on surveillance activity by the National Security Agency to journalists, and was charged only after he publicly revealed himself to be the source. [...] In the case of Reality Leigh Winner, a government contractor accused of sending a top-secret document to a news outlet, federal authorities brought charges less than a week after being tipped off to the leak.

Reality Leigh Winner, federal contractor in Georgia, charged with leaking classified info on Russian hacking.  A federal contractor with top secret security clearance faces charges of leaking classified information to a news outlet, the Justice Department announced today [6/5/2017].  Reality Leigh Winner, 25, a contractor with Pluribus International Corp. in Georgia, is charged with removing classified material from a government facility and mailing it to an online news outlet.  Winner was arrested by the FBI at her home in Augusta, Georgia on Saturday.

DOJ Arrests 25-Year-Old NSA Contractor Leaking Classified Intel.  Reality Leigh "Sara" Winner is a Georgia resident and an employee of NSA contractor Pluribus International Corp.  She has held a top secret security clearance since at least February.  She made her first federal court appearance in Augusta, Georgia, Monday afternoon [6/5/2017]. [...] A review of Ms. Winner's social media and on-line presence shows her ideology is rabidly anti-President Trump.  She is a vocal advocate for Black Lives Matter and various left-wing organizations.  Her social media is that of a typically well indoctrinated leftist.

NSA Leaker Is A Bernie Supporter Who 'Resists' Trump.  The 25-year-old woman who stole "Top Secret" documents from the National Security Agency and leaked them to The Intercept appears to be a supporter of Bernie Sanders and other progressive icons, such as Bill Maher and Michael Moore.  Reality Leigh Winner's apparent social media footprint also shows that she is a supporter of other liberal causes, including the Women's March and the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim civil rights group. [...] Winner admitted to FBI agents that she stole the documents and provided them to The Intercept.  The news site published an article on Monday that appears to be based on the stolen materials.  The Top Secret records show that Russian agents attempted to hack into U.S. voting systems prior to the November election.

Punishing The Real Russia Crime:  Leaking.  The appointment of a special counsel, as well as the Congressional proceedings to uncover and punish such associates of Donald Trump as may have colluded with the Russian government with regard to the 2016 campaign, are a combination of partisan and Intelligence-bureaucracy warfare.  No one has mentioned any activity of anyone in that campaign that might qualify as a violation of any criminal statute.  Moreover, these legal and pseudo-legal proceedings abstract from the patently obvious felonies that U.S intelligence officials have committed each and every time they have informed reporters of the Washington Post and New York Times about the targets, functions, and results of U.S communications intelligence.  18 U.S. code 798 is, a "strict liability" statute, and specifies ten years' imprisonment and $10,000 fine for each count.  Trump's enemies, and Trump himself, treat this parody of law as a game.  It is not.

Should a Special Prosecutor be appointed to investigate Obama's criminal behavior?  I think it is a very valid question to ask if Barack Obama's spying on American citizens during his time in office was worse than Watergate.  I consider it to be massively worse.  It was ongoing and not limited to one event and yet Obama has not been called to task for it at all... yet.  A series of subpoenas were just issued by the House to former high-ranking members of the Obama administration for improper unmasking.  Those include Susan Rice, John Brennan and Samantha Power.  But you'd never know it...  ABC, CBS and other leftist media outlets are deliberately ignoring it and keep screeching Russia over Trump.  I'm all for a Special Prosecutor being appointed to investigate Obama's spying and criminal misdeeds.  Watergate was a single event, very limited in scope.  Obama's spying spans eight years.

Leak Investigation — House Intelligence Committee Issues CIA, FBI and NSA Subpoenas.  Interesting report from James Rosen via Fox News reveals the House Intelligence Committee has issued subpoenas for John Brennan (CIA), James Comey (FBI), Susan Rice (National Security Adviser) and interestingly, Samantha Power — former U.N. Ambassador — in relation to the unmasking and leaking of names contained within intelligence reports.  [Video clip]

House Intelligence Committee sends subpoenas to intel agencies.  Three of the nation's intelligence agencies received subpoenas Wednesday afternoon [5/31/2017] issued by the House Intelligence Committee, Fox News has confirmed, with each of the three demands for documents explicitly naming three top officials of the Obama administration:  Susan Rice, who served as President Obama's White House national security adviser; former CIA Director John Brennan; and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power.  The three subpoenas, among a total of seven signed by panel chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), were served on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency, and all three explicitly referenced "unmasking" — a signal that the House panel is intensifying its investigation into allegations that Obama-era aides improperly demanded the "unmasking" of names of associates of President Trump that had appeared, in coded form, in classified intelligence reports, then leaked the data to news media organizations.

Forget Russian Collusion.  We Are Russia.  What's a citizen to do when he or she no longer trusts the intelligence agencies of his or her country?  That's the terrifying situation evolving from the leaks and counter-leaks surrounding the various investigations grouped under the rubric "Russia" — though it appears to have less and less to do with Russia and more and more to do with us.

Former CIA Agent:  Deep State Targeting Trump Family Members to Damage President.  A former CIA agent said the Trump family is undoubtedly being targeted by intelligence agencies and other actors looking to damage the Trump administration.  Bob Baer, a former CIA case officer, made the comments Friday [5/19/2017] during an appearance on "The Laura Ingraham Show."  Ingraham asked Baer if right-wing populist political activists should be concerned about being monitored by deep state actors.  "For you and me, no ... we're not that important to the equation," Baer said.  "But you can count on it that people are after the Trump family right now."

10 Crazy Conspiracy Theories That Became Conspiracy Facts.  [Scroll down to #8] In his writing, [Mike] Lofgren emphasized the role of FISA international surveillance courts.  This was confirmed in a very interesting way when President Donald Trump accused former President Obama of tapping his phones, a charge Obama aides deflected by saying that if such a warrant had been issued, it would have been done through a FISA court.  This shows how presidents are able to skirt the constitution by outsourcing surveillance requests.  It also shows the interconnectedness of these agencies.  However you want to describe it, it's the natural conclusion of Operation Mockingbird and most certainly a reality that the elites would have rather kept under the radar.  Fortunately for the people of the Earth, revelations from Wikileaks and other whistleblowers have, over the last couple decades, made it abundantly clear that the Deep State (the New World Order) not only exists, but also that it's far more sinister and powerful than early conspiracy theorists could have ever imagined.

As Leaks Pile Up, It's Evident Trump Is Under Attack From His Own Staff.  It's coming from inside the house.  Throughout Trump's presidency and increasingly in the past few weeks, leaks from staff members to the press are undermining the president.  The New York Times reported Friday [5/19/2017] exact details of Trump's meeting last week with Russian officials.  The report cited a document read to them by an "American official," which summarized the meeting.

CNN's Chalian: 'There are People in This Government' Who Are 'Pretty Committed' to Taking Trump Down.  While discussing the New York Times' report that President Trump called FBI Director James Comey a "nutjob" and told Russian officials that firing Comey relieved "great pressure" on Friday's [5/19/2017] broadcast of CNN's "Situation Room," CNN Political Director David Chalian argued the Trump White House does have a point about leaks, and that while "It's not going to save them from their real legal and political troubles," "there are people in this government who seem pretty committed to taking him down."

How Many Countries Conspired Against Trump?  The Guardian adds to our knowledge of how the Obama administration and its allies overseas tried to discredit Donald Trump.  (For purposes of this post, I assume that everything the Guardian says is true, even though it is based on anonymous sources who are pursuing their personal and political interests.) [...] So just about every Western intelligence service was collaborating with the Obama administration in trying to elect Hillary Clinton.  Yet, amazingly enough, they failed.  The blindingly obvious point that the Guardian tries to obscure is that the combined assets of all of these agencies failed to find any evidence of collaboration between the Trump campaign and Russia.

The Frivolous Case Against the House Intelligence Chairman.  Well it looks like the media won't have Representative Devin Nunes to kick around anymore.  This is the latest twist in the dueling investigations around alleged Russian ties to President Donald Trump's associates and the Obama administration's alleged politicization of the surveillance state.

Going Overboard with #Russiagate.  Democrats in Congress and their allies in the media have officially become obsessed with the alleged links between the Trump administration and Russia, and it has very little to do with concerns over the integrity of the electoral process or the fate of American democracy.  In reality, the president's opponents see the investigations into Trump campaign associates and hangers-on as an invaluable weapon.  With the electorate booting the Democratic Party completely out of power, what better way is there to undermine the administration and cast a cloud of illegitimacy over the duly elected commander-in-chief?

Why the 'Trump' State Department still loves George Soros.  The failure of the Trump administration thus far to staff up the executive branch is hurting the conservative policy agenda and thwarting the will of the voters.  And six Republican senators who asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to probe whether foreign aid is promoting a progressive agenda around the world just got an abject lesson in how.  They got their answer not from Tillerson or anyone around him, but from a mid-level career official at the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, Executive Secretary Joseph E. Macmanus.  He pretty much told the senators to take a hike.

Unravelling the Team Obama anti-Trump leak machine.  She didn't "leak," she only "unmasked."  This is former National Security Adviser Susan Rice's self-defense for having sought the explicit exposure, in highly classified intelligence documents, of the names of US citizens inadvertently caught up in American surveillance of Russian officials.  Moreover, she and her partisans insist, seeking and achieving this "unmasking" (from either the director of the National Security Agency or the FBI) was entirely within her legal right as national-security adviser.  I'll take her word for it, though if it had been so pristine, it's unclear why Rice had previously lied and claimed no knowledge of any of it.  According to Eli Lake of Bloomberg, Rice "requested the identities of US persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign."  Dozens of occasions.

FISAgate: The Question Is Not Whether Trump Associates Were Monitored.  [Scroll down]  Nunes's disclosures further suggest that the communications of others associated with Trump's campaign (perhaps even Trump himself) were also intercepted.  During the press conference, a reporter asked, Nunes, "Was the president [i.e., Trump] included in that incidental collection — his communication?"  Nunes responded, "Yes."  Based on the little that has been reported, the interception and handling of these communications seems more disturbing because, according to Nunes, they have nothing to do with any known government intelligence investigations of Russia.  Unless there is some legitimate connection to foreign activities, the specter of political spying hovers.

Nunes Did Nothing New By Viewing Raw Intel At The White House.  There is nothing new about House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes leaving the panel's secure room beneath the Capitol Building and heading to the White House complex or a related facility nearby to view raw intelligence, The Daily Caller News Foundation's Investigative Group has learned.  For years, intelligence committee chiefs have trekked to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue or to an intelligence agency to view such super sensitive intelligence material, because the congressional secure room can't handle such material.

Former Obama Official Describes Last-Minute Rush to Spy on Trump Team, Conceal Intel Sources.  A former top Obama administration official made a stunning admission during a panel discussion on MSNBC's Morning Joe this week.  Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense under Obama, openly admitted that her colleagues had gathered intelligence on the Trump campaign's alleged ties to Russia before Donald Trump took office and then tried to hide the sources of that intelligence from the incoming administration.

Judge Andrew Napolitano Stands by British Surveillance Report in Return to Fox News.  Judge Andrew Napolitano spoke on Fox News, Wednesday [3/29/2017], making his first appearance on the network after pushing a controversial report in defense of President Trump's claims of wiretapping during the 2016 election.  Anchors Bret Baier and Shepard Smith previously said that Fox could not independently confirm the accuracy of Napolitano's claim that the British intelligence service GCHQ facilitated the wiretapping.  During Napolitano's spot on America's Newsroom today, Bill Hemmer noted that "you've had a few quiet days."  Hemmer then asked the judge whether he was still confident in the story, to which the Fox judicial analyst said yes.  [Video clip]

Comey, Senators Try to Convince America That Trump-Russia Probes Are Apolitical.  On Wednesday [3/29/2017], FBI Director James Comey and the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee attempted to boost people's confidence in the government's probes into Russia's election meddling — or at least distance themselves from the mess created by Nunes.  During the election, Comey criticized Hillary Clinton for her private email server and commented on the FBI's investigation numerous times.  Yet he only confirmed last week that the agency has been investigating the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia since July.  Comey has been accused of attempting to sway the election himself, or at least displaying terrible judgement.

Protecting Deep State:  Republicans and Democrats Refuse To Review Oversight Intelligence.  Chairman Nunes is the only member of the Intelligence Oversight Gang-of-Eight who has reviewed the executive level intelligence product which caused him concern.  Nunes alleged in the last week he received evidence that Obama administration political figures gained access to unmasked American identities through foreign intercepts involving the Trump transition team between November 2016 and January 2017.  Media and congressional leadership intentionally skip the obvious questions:  [For example,] Why don't the other seven members also go look at the same executive intel?

Stopping Trump's 'travel ban' a case study of the Deep State in action.  Democrats own the Deep State, that network of embedded bureaucrats, academics and media, judicial activists, and spooks that is operating to stymie, discredit, and ultimately remove from office a president that is a threat to their mutual agenda.  They are agreed that government should control more of life's essential functions, and that benign rule of the enlightened can reshape society to match their visions.  The Deep State's horror at the Trump victory has led it to act rashly and thereby expose itself to view.  Understanding that this cadre of activists covertly manipulates events ruthlessly, it is now time to collect case studies.

The Establishment Media Lied:  Trump Was Right All Along About Obama Admin Surveillance.  Since the moment President Trump released his now infamous Tweet accusing Obama of wiretapping him, the establishment media has done everything in their power to continually attack the White House while claiming that there is absolutely no evidence of any surveillance.  That line of disinformation was destroyed this week after multiple reports confirmed that the entire Trump team was most likely under surveillance, conducted while Obama was the president, right up until the day of the inauguration.  The media manipulation on this topic has gotten so blatant that a highly respected liberal law professor has even joined the argument, publishing a column in The Hill that not only confirms that Trump was right all along but also takes the mainstream media to task for purposefully misrepresenting Trump's original Tweet and the subsequent clarifications by the White House.

Will Smoking Gun Documents Vindicate Trump?  In the wake of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes's statements to reporters on Wednesday [3/22/2017], the outline of what could become the biggest political scandal of the last 100 years is becoming clear.  Obama administration officials, possibly aided by Obama's January 2017 order expanding access to the NSA's raw signals intelligence data, are alleged to have misused the NSA's surveillance capabilities to spy on the incoming Trump administration.  The NSA's raw data includes names of US citizens, which are supposed to be "masked."  Obama officials allegedly "unmasked" the names of people associated with Donald Trump, and feloniously leaked information (which may have been true or false) about those individuals to reporters in order to damage the incoming administration.

Did Obama Surveil Trump?  Sure Looks That Way.  Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says that the Obama administration surveilled Donald Trump's transition aides and possibly Trump himself following November's election.  If true, it warrants a major investigation.  "I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community ... collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition," Nunes told reporters.  Nunes immediately came under intense criticism from congressional Democrats for his revelations.  What's both hilarious and sad is that these are the very same Democrats who have been nearly silent as a series of illegal leaks from the intelligence bureaucracy have made their way into the mainstream media, in a transparent attempt by unnamed intelligence officials to damage Trump's presidency.

Schiff Slimes Devin Nunes.  It is said that the Senate plays chess while the House of Representatives plays smash mouth hockey.  The revelation by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes that, yes, members of Team Trump were in fact surveilled and the contents of their conversations and their names were recorded and disseminated set off ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff from the People's Republic of California.

Here's Why Nunes' Obama Spying Revelations Are Such A Big Deal.  In the last three months of the Obama presidency, significant personal information from and about the Trump transition was collected and widely disseminated at intelligence agencies, according to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes.  Dozens of intelligence reports provided to Nunes by an unnamed whistleblower were floating around during the sensitive transition period following the election, he said.  The information collection itself may have technically been legal, but the failure to properly mask the information "alarmed" the California congressman, who notified the White House of the surveillance and dissemination of information on Wednesday afternoon [3/22/2017].  Many of the reporters present didn't seem to grasp the significance of what Nunes revealed.

Potential 'smoking gun' showing Obama administration spied on Trump team, source says.  Republican congressional investigators expect a potential "smoking gun" establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.  Classified intelligence showing incidental collection of Trump team communications, purportedly seen by committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and described by him in vague terms at a bombshell Wednesday afternoon [3/22/2017] news conference, came from multiple sources, Capitol Hill sources told Fox News.  The intelligence corroborated information about surveillance of the Trump team that was known to Nunes, sources said, even before President Trump accused his predecessor of having wiretapped him in a series of now-infamous tweets posted on March 4.  The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.

John Podesta, in bed with the Russians all along.  Was there anyone more pious, anyone more inclined to stroke his chin and intone for guarding national security in the wake of the WikiLeaks revelations than Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta?  Turns out the wily Democrat operative was neck-deep with the Russians he intoned against all along, through a Russian-financed company called Joule, according to a new report from the Daily Caller News Foundation.  The problem here is that the Russian oligarchs he's been consorting with are so dirty that even Putin is after them.  That blows apart Podesta's dishonest narrative about "Russians hacked the election" and rival Donald Trump supposedly colluding with them, but also the issue of Putin's supposed animosity toward Hillary Clinton, as cited by FBI director James Comey Monday.

Intelligence Reports Reveal Improper Political Surveillance of Trump, Transition Team.  A House intelligence committee investigation took a dramatic shift this week after newly disclosed intelligence reports suggested the Obama administration improperly gathered and disseminated secret electronic communications from President Trump and his transition team prior to inauguration.  Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, indicated that the administration used its foreign intelligence gathering authority to spy on the discussions of Trump and his transition team by improperly unmasking the identity of Americans who were swept up in foreign electronic spying.  "What I've read seems to be some level of surveillance activity, perhaps legal, but I don't know that it's right and I don't know if the American people would be comfortable with what I've read," said Nunes, who uncovered the reports.

Report: NSA To Provide "Smoking Gun" Proof Obama Spied On Trump.  Yesterday [3/22/2017], Republican Devin Nunez Nunes held an explosive press conference outside the White House in which he told reporters that communications from the Trump team were picked up and disseminated within the government during the 2016 campaign.  Not surprisingly, the comments ruffled some liberal feathers and the mainstream media launched an immediate smear campaign calling for Nunes to resign his post immediately.

NSA Whistleblower:  NSA Spies On Congress, Supreme Court, White House, And Probably Trump.  NSA whistleblower Bill Binney, who left the intel agency in 2001, told Tucker Carlson not only was Donald Trump probably spied on but also members of Congress and the Supreme Court.  Binney also talked about NSA employees who spied on spouses and significant others to see if they were being cheated on.  Binney is a 30-year veteran of the National Security Agency.

Trump was right after all about the Obama administration wiretaps.  The curious thing about President Trump is that his method and language in communications often mask legitimate issues or concerns.  This may be such a case with the disclosure that indeed some Trump officials may have been subject to surveillance under the Obama administration.  Trump triggered this particular jump scare with the tweet on March 4 that he "just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory.  Nothing found.  This is McCarthyism!" He followed with such tirades as "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process.  This is Nixon/Watergate.  Bad (or sick) guy!"  The media pounced and rightfully demanded proof to support such a charge.  When it was clear that no evidence would be produced, the media (again rightfully) pummeled the White House for failing to support one of the most alarming claims ever made by a president against a former president.

The Obama Plot to Sabotage Trump.  Devin Nunes just set the cat down among the pigeons.  Two days after FBI Director James Comey assured us there was no truth to President Trump's tweet about being wiretapped by Barack Obama, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Trump may have had more than just a small point.  The U.S. intelligence community, says Nunes, during surveillance of legitimate targets, picked up the names of Trump transition officials during surveillance of targets, "unmasked" their identity, and spread their names around, virtually assuring they would be leaked.  If true, this has the look and smell of a conspiracy to sabotage the Trump presidency, before it began.

The 11 questions you probably have about Rep. Nunes and Trump surveillance.  Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., made headlines this week when he told reporters the intelligence community incidentally collected information on Donald Trump's transition team following the Nov. 8 election.  The congressman's surprise claim raises many questions, including whether the alleged collection was legal and who was involved.  As the issue is a confusing one that likely won't disappear anytime soon, I've compiled a list of the 11 questions you most likely have about this chapter in the ongoing saga involving Trump and the intelligence community: [...]

What's really hidden deep within all this intel squabbling.  One of the tricks in political communications when experiencing difficult times is to drag several other issues into the fray, muddying the waters to distract attention from the main controversy.  That's what you're witnessing now in the arcane kerfluffle over wiretapping, eavesdropping, surveillance and congressional protocol.  So, let's clear things up.  Forget President Trump's unsubstantiated tweets about being wiretapped by a certain ex-president who's fled to French Polynesia for a month.  Forget about Russians and what they may or may not have done last year.  And ignore the manners expected of a House committee chairman.  In other words, disregard all the pots calling all the kettles black.  Here's what really matters:  During the waning days of the Obama administration U.S. intelligence was indeed monitoring the conversations of foreign persons of interest after the Nov. 8 election and before the Jan. 20 inauguration.  That's normal and actually encouraging given how many key things those agencies have missed in recent years.

In Defense of Devin Nunes.  One of the strangest turns in the story of Russia and the Trump campaign has been the recent outrage from Democrats over politicization of the investigation.  This all centers on Chairman Devin Nunes, the Republican who is leading the House Intelligence Committee's investigation.  He was an adviser to the Trump presidential transition.  The White House asked him last month to talk to a reporter to rebut news stories that alleged Trump associates had many contacts with Russian intelligence officers.  On Wednesday, Nunes briefed the president about new information he had regarding dozens of widely disseminated intelligence reports on the Trump transition.  He did this before he briefed his committee's Democrats.  All of this has prompted an outbreak of high dudgeon from the party of Clinton.  Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the committee, says Nunes must choose whether he wants to lead a credible investigation or be a surrogate of the Trump White House.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says Nunes is a "stooge."

Trump Is 100% Vindicated On Wiretapping, and 7 Other Things You Should Know.  Yeppers, I said 100% vindicated, and those who disagree are either being stubbornly hyper-literal about the word "wiretap," or the placing of a "physical wiretap," or Obama himself placing the wiretap, or standing by the point Ben Shapiro makes that Trump is still wrong because the surveillance was "incidental."  I'll touch on the "incidental" issue at length in the points below, but to immediately address Ben's argument, even if the collection was incidental, once the unmasking and dissemination of that "incidental" information occurs, that is the Obama administration illegally targeting Trump using surveillance, and that is the exact same thing as outright spying.  And being illegally spied on was, of course, Trump's overall claim. [...] Not for a moment do I believe the Obama administration "inadvertently" or "incidentally captured" Team Trump communications.

The Trump surveillance scandal just blew wide open.  "We had an absolute bombshell" revelation about the Obama administration's surveillance of President Trump's team on Wednesday [3/22/2017], said Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin.  According to a report earlier in the day, House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (D-Calif.) told reporters that members of the president's transition team, and potentially Trump himself, were under surveillance during the Obama administration following November's election, told reporters Wednesday [3/22/2017].  According to Nunes, not only was "significant information" gathered on the Trump team, but identities of those surveilled were unmasked in the process.  Levin called it "stunning" and put it into perspective, saying. "...this is in addition to the ongoing counter-intelligence investigation" announced by Comey that has been happening since July.

Freedom Watch Notifies Congress of "Deep State" Intelligence Whistle-Blower.  Freedom Watch notifies congress of a "Deep State" intelligence community whistle blower, Dennis Montgomery, with hundreds of millions of documents showing CIA and FBI and Intelligence Committees were spying on, and conducting surveillance on, American citizens for political purposes.  Mr. Montgomery is trying to use a legal "whistle-blower" process and not follow the same approach as Edward Snowden.

House's Devin Nunes in Obama's 'Deep State' Crosshairs.  Democrats and jealous losers like Senator John McCain have ganged up on House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes for telling the truth about President Trump's personal email being illegally spied upon and read by someone whose reach may have gone as far as President Obama.  In fact, it might have been Obama himself.

How Team Trump's 'unmasking' by intel community may reveal illegal actions by Obama officials.  Trump presidential transition officials had their communications monitored and "unmasked" by the intelligence community, the chairman of the House intelligence committee said Wednesday [3/22/2017], offering the first major piece of evidence of possible illegal activity by Obama officials against Donald Trump as president-elect.  Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican, said Mr. Trump's own communications might have been monitored.  All of the information appears to have been scooped up legally and incidentally, meaning the Trump officials weren't the targets.  They may have been gathered by foreign intelligence and then shared with the U.S. under existing agreements, one lawmaker said.

Democrats Shouldn't Dismiss Nunes' Spying Claims So Quickly.  House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters yesterday [3/22/2017] that members of Donald Trump's presidential transition team possibly Trump himself had been caught up in surveillance during the last days of the Obama administration.  Nunes says the surveillance, by both the FBI and NSA, looked to be legal "incidental collection" that had nothing to do with concerns over Russia collusion.  If true, this isn't the "wiretapping" of Trump Towers, as Trump claimed in his infamous tweet a few weeks ago, but it is spying in any commonly understood sense of the word.  The NSA routinely listens to calls and reads emails of Americans and collects other data "incidentally" from third parties, avoiding warrants.  Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, which has been found constitutional, states that government doesn't need a warrant to collect information on Americans as long as the target of the collection is a foreigner.

Nunes 'Unmasking' Report Vindicates Trump Claims on Surveillance.  House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) announced on Wednesday that he had learned that members of President Donald Trump's transition team had been under surveillance by the Obama administration, that individual names had been "unmasked" by the intelligence community, and that those names had been leaked to the media.  Nunes's information which he said he would deliver to the White House later vindicates the bulk of Trump's claims earlier this month.

Nunes: Trump transition members were under surveillance during Obama administration.  House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes declared Wednesday that members of Donald Trump's transition team, possibly including Trump himself, were under inadvertent surveillance following November's presidential election.  The White House and Trump's allies immediately seized on the statement as vindication of the president's much-maligned claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones even though Nunes himself said that's not what his new information shows.

Trump team communications captured by intelligence community surveillance, Nunes says.  Members of the intelligence community "incidentally collected" communications from the Trump transition team during legal surveillance operations of foreign targets, a top Republican lawmaker said Wednesday afternoon [3/22/2017].  House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said this produced "dozens" of reports which eventually unmasked several individuals' identities and were "widely disseminated."  He said none of the reports he had read mentioned Russia or Russians and he was unsure whether the surveillance occurred at Trump Tower — as President Trump has suggested.  Nunes also was unsure if then President-elect Trump was captured by the surveillance, which occurred in November, December and January.  "I recently confirmed on numerous occasions the intelligence community incidentally collected intelligence," Nunes said.  Democrats quickly criticized him for his comments.

Obama Admin Loyalists, Government Insiders Sabotage Trump White House.  The Obama administration worked in its final weeks in office to undermine the incoming Trump White and continues to do so, according to multiple sources both in and out of the White House.  Behind the effort, these sources say, are senior government officials who previously worked under President Obama and remain loyal to his agenda.  These individuals leak negative information about the Trump White House and its senior staff to a network of former Obama administration officials who then plant this information in key media outlets including the Washington Post and New York Times.  Meanwhile, holdovers from the Obama administration are working to undermine the Trump administration's agenda through efforts to alter official communications, a number of administration officials confirmed in conversations with the Washington Free Beacon.

Chairman Devin Nunes:  Post Trump Debrief on Surveillance Discovery.  House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes conducts a press conference following his debrief with President Trump discussing the surveillance of the Trump transition team by former President Obama's intelligence community.

Independent Journal Review suspends Benny Johnson for role in publishing Obama story:  Report.  The Independent Journal Review (IJR) has reportedly suspended Chief Content Officer Benny Johnson and two editors for their role in publishing a conspiracy theory about former President Obama.  Alex Skatell, the conservative website's founder, suspended Mr. Johnson, viral editor Kyle Becker and content editor Becca Lower for publishing the report last week that suggested Mr. Obama may have influenced a Hawaii judge's ruling blocking President Trump's second travel ban, Business Insider reported.

The Conspiracy Against President Trump.  [Scroll down]  Indeed, the lack of integrity of the FBI, NSA, CIA, and Obama regime is evidenced by the sustained campaign of lies, distortions, and targeted "news leaks," that is, stories planted on the presstitutes by the intelligence services about Russian interference in the presidential election.  It is all about protecting the massive military/security budget and powers. [...] Trump cannot even count on the Republican Party.  Most Republicans are also dependent on political contributions from the military/security complex, and Republicans know that the intelligence agencies have all the dirt on them.  To fight for Trump is to expose themselves.

FBI bugged Trump Tower while probing Russian gambling ring.  There's truth to President Trump's claim that there was wiretapping inside his Midtown skyscraper during the Obama administration — only Trump wasn't the target.  The FBI listened in on phone conversations and monitored text messages between 2011 and 2013 while probing a gambling and money-laundering ring tied to the Russian mob that operated out of a 63rd-floor pad in Trump Tower, ABC News reported Tuesday [3/21/2017].  The $5 million condo, unit 63A, is located just three floors below the president's lavish, triplex penthouse.

Evidence Says Obama DID Wire Tap Trump's Campaign.  On Saturday morning President Donald J. Trump put a bee in the media's bonnet by tweeting how shameful it was that Obama tapped his phones during the late campaign for president.  It set off two full days of liberals acting shocked and outraged that Trump could say such a thing, got the media to covering for Barack Obama, and spurred weak kneed RINO Republicans siding with the left in attacking Trump.  So, what of all this?  Thus far, anyway, it seems completely true that Trump is right.  Obama did spy on candidate Trump.  The media went into a feeding frenzy on Saturday morning when President Trump tweeted out his accusation.

James Comey and the Art of the Shiv.  "I'd rather not be talking about this at all," Comey said.  "Now we are going to close our mouths and do our work."  Before Comey returned to his offstage role, he dropped enough bombshells to solidify his reputation as the most significant FBI director since J. Edgar Hoover.  Joined by his crusty sidekick, Adm. Michael Rogers, who heads the National Security Agency, Comey gave an artful lesson in how to stick a shiv into a sitting president without ever raising his voice or making a specific accusation.

The FBI's Coming Catch-22.  If the FBI finds evidence of some collusion or violation of U.S. laws, it's an epic scandal, will set up Democratic conspiracy theories for years, will take a sledgehammer to public faith in the Trump presidency... and everyone will rightly ask why the FBI couldn't uncover anything, or even inform the public about the investigation, until after the election.  [Indeed], not even until after the inauguration!  If the FBI doesn't find evidence of some collusion or violation of U.S. laws, it's an epic farce, where the Trump administration can rightfully ask where they can go to get their reputations back.

To Truly Beat The Bureaucrats, Trump Needs To Shut Their Agencies Down.  If there is to be real change in our form of government, the Trump administration needs to avoid the fatal flaw of previous Republican administrations: choosing to play the game by the Left's rules.  Nearly every Republican administration makes some changes, but mostly lightly exfoliates the elephant of the State.  These are temporary gains at best, small pauses in the seemingly inevitable march of government dominance.  Most Republicans don't seem to understand what we are up against, that the game is rigged against smaller government.

The Flynn Leak Was the Only Felony We Know Of, But I Won't Say Whether We're Investigating.  A Democrat congresswoman asked James Comey to explain the process of an ongoing investigation.  He said, "Well, that's pretty much what it is, it's an ongoing investigation."  She said, "Well, can you tell us how long it will take?" "Well, no."  "Well, can you give us the average time of an ongoing investigation?"  "Well, there is no average time.  Each investigation is its own investigation, and we never limit or prejudge.  We follow the facts.  We follow the evidence."  Well, they're following a lot of nothing right now.  Because there isn't any evidence.  None whatsoever.

Draining The State Dept.  Swamp:  Why It Must Be Job One for the White House.  President Trump has proposed a 31 percent cut in the State Department's budget, and the denizens of Foggy Bottom are howling.  All the usual delusions about diplomacy, foreign aid, "soft power," and "engagement" are being trotted out to rationalize the $47 billions of taxpayer money State spends.  What we don't hear about are examples of diplomatic successes that would justify maintaining an overfunded bureaucracy mired in internationalist received wisdom.  In fact, many of the defenses of "soft power" are positively surreal in their disconnect from reality.

Fox News Pulls Judge Napolitano Off Air Due To Prior Comments on UK Trump Surveillance.  Apparently Rupert Murdoch has taken action against Judge Andrew Napolitano as an outcome of his broadcast report on British Intelligence coordinating surveillance activity with the NSA[. ...] A few weeks earlier Napolitano was on Fox Business News saying President Trump was the first president to confront The Deep State.

F.B.I. Is Investigating Trump's Russia Ties, Comey Confirms.  The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, took the extraordinary step on Monday [3/20/2017] of announcing that the agency is investigating whether members of President Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.  Mr. Comey's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee created a treacherous political moment for Mr. Trump, who has insisted that "Russia is fake news" that was cooked up by his political opponents to undermine his presidency.  Mr. Comey placed a criminal investigation at the doorstep of the White House and said officers would pursue it "no matter how long that takes."

The UniParty Congressional Swamp's Meaningless Political FBI/NSA Hearing.  The Congressional Intelligence Committee hearing today was everything we anticipated it would be.  Which is to say it was: insufferable political posturing, pandering and circular parseltongue swirling the drain of non-intellectual gobbledygook.  These types of congressional hearings are perfect feed pellets for media pundits to blather endlessly, wax philosophically, and engage in long-winded academic esoteric analyses contrasting the implied meanings of stop signs.  However, they are ridiculous for all other purposes.

Limbaugh on Comey Hearing:  Message to Trump Is Stop the 'Drain-the-Swamp Stuff' or Face Impeachment.  Monday [3/20/2017]on his nationally syndicated radio show, conservative talker Rush Limbaugh maintained a House Intelligence Committee hearing that featured testimony from FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Michael Rogers was meant to send a message to President Donald Trump and his administration.  Limbaugh argued that although there were some good questions from Republicans members during the hearing, it was meant to be a warning shot at Trump — allow Washington Republicans to run the town or face possible impeachment.

Yes, Obama Did Investigate Trump.  Straining at the tweet and swallowing the camel has become Washington's favorite pursuit, and it was on tiresome display at Monday's Congressional hearing with Jim Comey.  Out of it came two clashing headlines:  "Comey Denies Obama Ordered Wiretapping on Trump,"  "The FBI is Investigating Trump's Links to Russia."  In other words, the core claim underlying Trump's tweets is true:  people acting on the authority of Obama opened an investigation into Trump's campaign, then criminally leaked mention of it to friendly news outlets in an attempt to derail his election.  When is Obama going to apologize for that?

Oops! CNN accidentally confirms story that Brit intell passed along Trump communications to Obama admin.  Lawyers are trained never to ask a question of a witness if they don't already know the answer.  But it is quite different in journalism — at least in principle, if the principle is getting at the truth.  But alas, in these days of fake news and fanatical dead-ender opposition to President Trump, those MSM TV networks committed to driving Trump from office might want to consider retraining for their talking heads.  Make them more like lawyers, and avoid embarrassments like that suffered by CNN's Brian Stelter.  Courtesy of Grabien, here is a disastrous interview in which the guest, Larry Johnson, confirmed the story that Judge Andrew Napolitano told on air about British intelligence passing along surveillance data involving the Trump administration.

Comey confirms FBI probing Russia-Trump team links, disputes wiretap claim.  FBI Director James Comey, in an extraordinary House hearing meant to clear the air on a host of allegations relating to the 2016 campaign, confirmed publicly for the first time Monday [3/20/2017] that the bureau is probing Russian meddling in the race including possible "links" to the Trump team — while disputing the president's claim that his predecessor wiretapped him.  The FBI director was called to testify alongside National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers for a public session of the House intelligence committee.  Comey's testimony could serve to fuel tensions with the White House, which maintains there's no evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.

Trump's war with CIA was preceded by Kennedy's.  The New York Times, in a front-page story, said that the president "wanted to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds."  Whether that quote is accurate or not we don't know, but it makes sense that after the agency damaged the president's reputation so badly, he would react with such anger.  If you are a student of history, you already know that the president who swore a vendetta against the Central Intelligence Agency wasn't Donald Trump, but John F. Kennedy, and that although he did not abolish the agency before his assassination, he did fire its director, Allen Dulles, in an effort to gain control over what was considered a rogue agency that had forced Kennedy's hand in the Bay of Pigs disaster.

The Judicial Insurrection against Trump's Presidency.  If the judiciary is so hostile to Trump, then there is no reason to think that hostility will stop with the immigration executive orders.  So the fight over the executive orders may really be a proxy fight over whether Trump will be permitted to exercise the executive powers vested in the office.

Wiretaps, Media, and Judicial Skullduggery.  While the Democrats have abandoned the counterfactual claim that the Russians interfered with the election to help President Trump into office, Trump's claim that U.S. officials surveilled him still has legs.

Here are 23 ways Trump should follow up his wiretap claims.  President Trump is facing calls to retract and apologize for his sensational claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower last year.  The chances of that happening are approximately zero, but Trump can meet his critics partway.  Here's what he should say: [...]

The Colossally Dishonest Swamp Attack On Dr. Sebastian Gorka's First-Rate Scholarship.  [Dr. Sebastian] Gorka's work deserves to be read, not attacked without merit.  The attacks we see seem to be the work of a small group of Obama partisans indifferent to the carnage caused on their own watch, based on their failed leadership and strategy.  They are likely still in shock at now being exiled from the swamp, but their own records speak to their responsibility for the rise of ISIS, and the spread of jihadist violence across the Middle East, North Africa and into the heart of Europe.  Now, they have launched a coordinated hit job against Gorka within weeks of his joining the administration.

Grassley: Officials withholding info on Russia probe.  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Wednesday said federal law enforcement officials were withholding information in his committee's probe of ties between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.  Grassley was asked by The Washington Post whether FBI Director James Comey gave his panel the same information he gave the Senate Intelligence Committee.  "Every time they come up here for their nomination hearing and I ask them are you going to answer phone calls and our letters and are you going to give us the documents you want?  And every time we get a real positive yes!  And then they end up being liars!" Grassley responded.

Assange Claims Hillary, Intel Officials "Quietly Pushing A Pence Takeover".  Over the weekend we noted chatter that some saw Mike Pence as "the Deep State's insurance policy," and now, judging by tweets from Wikileaks' Julian Assange, that may well be the Clinton/Intelligence Officials plan. [...] No matter what one makes of Trump — or his administration and the policies that have been initiated thus far — the fact remains that Trump won the U.S. election.  The people working behind the scenes to oust him are not subject to democratic controls, nor are they working in the best interests of the American public.  We are left to ask ourselves exactly how renewing relations with Russia — a nuclear power — could possibly endanger American lives.  Either way, we are more or less left with two paths ahead of us.

How Investigating the Trump Campaign Backfired on Obama's Embeds.  Confirmations of the Obama administration's investigation of the Trump campaign keep trickling out.  Naturally, the media has shown no interest in them.  It wants evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, not evidence that Obama's embeds were sniffing around Trump's computer server — an abuse of power no different than LBJ wiring Nixon's campaign plane to see if he was colluding with the Vietnamese.  In light of these new confirmations, an honest media would have called James Clapper back to explain his elliptical denial.  "The FBI investigated a Trump server in its Russia probe," reports the online publication Circa News in a piece co-authored by John Solomon, the respected former Washington Post reporter and Washington Times editor.  Can Clapper deny that the FBI investigated a Trump server?  Can Comey?  Can Lynch?  Can Brennan?  They have all fallen silent.

The Beltway Assures Us the Deep State Doesn't Exist.  [Scroll down]  So is the 44th president setting up a permanent campaign against the 45th president?  Obama denies any such intention; he says that he and his family are remaining in Washington so that his youngest daughter, Sasha, can finish high school.  Of course, that explanation doesn't quite tell us why former White House consigliere Valerie Jarrett has moved into the Obamas' 8200-square-foot home in the swanky Kalorama neighborhood, just a couple miles north of the White House.  In fact, the real goal of the relocation, according to The Daily Mail, is to "oust Trump from the presidency either by forcing his resignation or through his impeachment."

What is Going On (Part III)?  I must admit I love Trump's pugnacious style.  I love how he treats the despicable corporate media.  I love how he responds to baseless accusations by his contemptible opponents on the left and right.  The representatives of the Deep State — Schumer, Pelosi, Obama, McCain, Graham, Kristol, CNN, NYT, Washington Post, MSNBC, Soros, and anyone else willing to confront Trump are met with disdain, contempt, and abuse from the president. [...] No punch is taken without two being thrown.  He will never conform to the way the liberal corporate media and his opponents want him to behave.  Twitter is the dagger he uses to avoid the fake news media filter and plunge into his opponents hearts.  The faux journalists despise his use of Twitter.

Trump Needs to Fire Thousands of Deep State Government Employees NOW!  One of Trump's biggest problems is the thousands of Obama toadies still infesting the federal government both in Washington and in government offices elsewhere.  Because of this, the real era of Trump can't take effect.  Until these nests of insurrection are cleaned out, Trump won't be able to fully implement his agenda.  What I am saying is that if you work for the federal government, you need to be fired.  Over the last two months we have seen more leaks coming out of the deep state, left-wing, money wasting federal government than we've ever seen in American history and it's all aimed at destroying Trump and preventing him from cutting down the un-American administrative state.  If it wasn't clear before it is now; the federal government needs to be slashed to the bone.

The Environmental Protection Agency — Next Stop on a Guided Tour of the Deep State's Covert Resistance to Trump.  The EPA, of course, is right in the middle of the ongoing DC power struggle, which has spilled into open bureaucratic revolt.  On February 16, for example, The New York Times reported that EPA employees had brazenly been calling senators to urge them to vote against Scott Pruitt, President Trump's pick to head the agency.  It was, the Times' Coral Davenport observed, "a remarkable display of activism and defiance that presages turbulent times ahead for the EPA."

FBI prepares hunt for the source of CIA documents published by WikiLeaks after latest catastrophic breach for the US intelligence community.  The FBI is launching a hunt to unmask the source of the CIA document leak which has rocked the US intelligence services.  Thousands of documents were suddenly published by anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks yesterday [3/7/2017], purportedly revealing hacking tools which the CIA uses to break into devices such as phones, computers and smart TVs.  It the latest in an embarrassing series of revelations, and WikiLeaks has promised more to come.  Investigators are now carrying out a massive operation to find who released the documents, with the source likely to face a long jail term if caught.

The Beltway Conspiracy to Break Trump.  The president has reason to be enraged.  For what is afoot is a loose but broad conspiracy to break and bring him down, abort his populist agenda, and overturn the results of the 2016 election.  At its heart is the "deep state" — agents of the intel community, their media collaborators, and their amen corner in a Democratic party whose control of our permanent government is all but total.

Details of a Watergate-style conspiracy against Trump emerge.  President Donald Trump caused a media firestorm by claiming over the weekend that then-President Obama wire-tapped telephones at Trump Tower in Manhattan during the final leg of last year's election campaign.  Seeing the writing on the wall, tainted FBI Director James Comey promptly and publicly urged the Department of Justice to reject Trump's claims.  Although it is an attempt at a cover-up, it is an admirably transparent one.  Now the outlines of a Watergate-like conspiracy are emerging in which a sitting Democrat president apparently used the apparatus of the state to spy on a Republican presidential candidate.  Watergate differed in that President Nixon didn't get involved in the plot against the Democratic National Committee until later as an accomplice after the fact.  Here Obama likely masterminded, or oversaw someone like the diabolical Benghazi cover-up artist Ben Rhodes, masterminding the whole thing.

Hey, Clapper — If there were no FISA warrrants, what [...] were the FBI, CIA, NSA and the rest investigating?  It is only conservatives who are concerned about what they are reading in liberal media.  Have you you noticed that?  The media is very confounded right now, they are very confused.  They don't know whether to trash themselves, trash their colleagues, or what.  What did Obama know?  We know he knows this much:  everything you just read, he knew.  Because it's in the newspapers.  That is pretty big.  Number two, we know that if a FISA warrant was secured, it is very likely in his daily intelligence briefing or a call from the Attorney General or the director of the FBI the president would be given a heads up.  There's nothing illegal about it but he would have been given a heads up.

Jim Comey asserting power like no one in history.  Each day, FBI director Jim Comey goes to work in a federal building named for his most famous predecessor.  Yet for all his storied accomplishments and sordid controversies, J. Edgar Hoover never matched the singular feat of Comey.  Only Comey simultaneously investigated the top two presidential candidates during an election.  Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump each battled Comey last year while they battled each other for the Oval Office.  How's that for power?  Neither case led to charges, but that's almost beside the point.  Echoing Hoover's attitude, if not his methods, Comey is adept at using innuendo and leaks to remind the powerful that he cannot be ignored.

The Unbelievable Timeline of Leaks Relating to Donald Trump and Russia.  After each and every major event advancing Donald Trump's presidency, there is another leak to the media about Russia from within the intelligence community.  In the run up to the Electoral College; in the run up to the inauguration; and in the aftermath of President Trump's speech to Congress — each time he has positive headlines someone leaks information about Russia to the press.  That looks an awful lot like someone or some group is trying to delegitimize his Presidency through rumor and allegation.

Wikileaks CIA Dump Has Some Peculiar Timing.  A Wikileak of this sort is not only rare and specialized (when was the last time you saw a CIA secret splattered all over the Internet?) it was probably the work of Russian cyberspies, given that only the Russians are likely to have such capacity, as well as potential human penetrations on the inside.  If so, it means a Russian power game is now in play, with just the right timing to support it.  Consider the source of the Wikileaks again:  Julian Assange, someone who has repeatedly been accused of being a Russian agent based on the fact that his leaks (always accurate) consistently support Russian objectives.  He never leaks Russian secrets, just ours and those of our allies, generally to serve Russian aims.

NSA Whistleblower Backs Trump Up on Wiretap Claims.  President Donald Trump is "absolutely right" to claim he was wiretapped and monitored, a former NSA official claimed Monday [3/6/2017], adding that the administration risks falling victim to further leaks if it continues to run afoul of the intelligence community.  "I think the president is absolutely right.  His phone calls, everything he did electronically, was being monitored," Bill Binney, a 36-year veteran of the National Security Agency who resigned in protest from the organization in 2001, told Fox Business on Monday.  Everyone's conversations are being monitored and stored, Binney said.

Trump won't accept Comey's conclusion about Obama wiretap claim.  President Trump does not accept FBI Director James Comey's conclusion that former President Barack Obama did not order a wiretap at Trump Tower, a White House spokeswoman said Monday [3/6/2017].  "I don't think he does," deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on ABC's "Good Morning America" when asked whether Trump accepted Comey's denial.  The president "firmly believes that the Obama administration may have tapped into the phones at Trump Tower," she added.  Sanders also claimed news articles supported Trump's wiretapping allegation, even though none of the reports she was apparently referencing said Obama had ordered such surveillance.

Behind the collapse of the 'Russia Hacking' narrative, is panic spreading in the Obama camp?  [Scroll down]  By his tweet, President Trump forced the purveyors of this narrative to fiercely deny that any wiretapping took place at the Trump Tower.  It is a no-win situation for the president's enemies: either they repudiate their narrative of the last several months about Russia, or they admit that under President Obama, a spying effort was launched against the candidate of the opposition party.

Why Dems will regret a probe into Russian election hacking.  The investigation of Russian interference in the US election could turn into a big headache for the Democrats.  The phrase "Be careful what you ask for" comes to mind.  For months before the presidential election, I explained why the Democrats were making a big mistake by picking Hillary Clinton as their candidate.  And I correctly predicted that she would lose.  The Democrats didn't listen, and now their party is in shambles.  They aren't going to listen to me now either about the unintended consequences of an investigation of the Russians, but I'm going to explain anyway.

Long Knives.  This escalation represents a real threat to Obama.  Suddenly everything is out of control.  Nobody would have minded much if Trump had gone after one of Obama's henchmen — which is probably what was expected — but none can foresee how an exchange of blades between principals will end.  It is safe to say, however, that unless the combatants disengage, someone will get hurt.  It will be a terrible moment for American political civility when a king lies on the political floor.  The whole point of a peaceful transition of power is to prevent a clash between kings.  Yet the very tragedy the electoral process is intended to prevent is happening before our eyes.

FBI asked Justice Department to rebut Trump wiretap claims:  Report.  FBI Director James Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly reject President Trump's claim that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election.  Comey argued that the claim is false and must be corrected, but so far the Justice Department hasn't released any statement on the claim, the New York Times reported.  The House and Senate intelligence panels, at the White House's request, agreed to look into whether there was any government surveillance of political parties as part of a broader probe into Russian interference with the election.

Ex-Secret Service agent:  Media missing 1 huge wiretap point.  President Trump has caught plenty of flak from the establishment media and members of Congress for his weekend statement that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had Trump Tower wiretapped while Trump was still a candidate.  Some believe Trump is lying, while others think he may have pressured the FBI to tell him about an investigation against him.  But Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, says there's a third possibility no one is considering.

Exposing The Obama Deep State.  One is the elected President of the United States.  The other is the Anti-President who commands a vast network that encompasses the organizers of OFA, the official infrastructure of the DNC and Obama Anonymous, a shadow government of loyalists embedded in key positions across the government.  A few weeks after the election, I warned that Obama was planning to run the country from outside the White House.  And that the "Obama Anonymous" network of staffers embedded in the government was the real threat.  Since then Obama's Kalorama mansion has become a shadow White House.  And the Obama Anonymous network is doing everything it can to bring down an elected government.

Report:  Obama In Hiding After Former Secret Service Agent Outs Him in Wiretapping Claim.  Ever since Trump became president, Obama has been behind the scenes doing everything he can to cause massive chaos.  But setting up a shadow government and training his violent minions to take out Trump through his group Organization For Action (OFA) has just been the beginning of Obama's subversion tactics.  Over the weekend, we've learned that Obama secretly tapped Trump's phone throughout the 2016 presidential election in order to spy.  But unfortunately for Obama, his antics are about to blow up in a huge way after his former Secret Service agent just came forward with a huge bombshell, sure to tighten the screws even more on Obama's self-inflicted scandal.

The Enablers of Obama's Wiretapping Scandal.  [Scroll down]  Apparently, Barack Obama and his minions were supremely confident that Hillary Clinton would win.  Or if by any remote chance she did not, the assumption seemingly was that Trump and the Republicans would be their usual spineless selves and succumb to the customary intimidation tactics and would never retaliate once in office.  Additionally, the Democrats could count on the mainstream media never exposing their treachery.  Despite all their voluminous opposition research and Trump's own words, the Obama-Clinton cabal, brimming with overconfidence, refused to accept the reality that he was not a prototypical Republican or someone easily extorted.  Any cursory review of his business career and tactics would have disabused them of that mindset.

Is Obama the First U.S. President Ever to Try to Topple His Successor?  This post won't debate whether Trump or Obama are good or bad guys.  It will simply ask a historical question.

Investigate Obamagate.  Note well:  Watergate began with an attempt to wiretap phones — which is to say spy on the target, in this case the Democratic National Committee and its then-chairman, ex-JFK and LBJ aide Lawrence O'Brien.  On his radio show and in his Fox appearance, Mark Levin lays out eight specific examples of reporting by no less than the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the McClatchy news service, and Heat Street, the libertarian website.  Of all these sources cited, only Heat Street would be considered a "right-wing" site, as it is libertarian-oriented.  The rest, every one, are part of the left-leaning "mainstream" media in the United States and, in the case of the Guardian, the United Kingdom.  So, again, for the record, let's look at the stories Mark Levin has found that emphatically bolster President Trump's belief that the Obama Administration was spying on him.

For Obama, spying is nothing new.  In what has already been a historically bad year for Democrats, it just may be that they're about to lose again to Donald Trump, this time in a high-stakes game of Russian roulette.  The Dems' Putin smear was supposed to paint President Trump as a friend of the tyrant and beneficiary of Russian meddling in the election.  Instead, it is the standard-bearer of the Democratic Party, former President Barack Obama, who may take the fall.

Did Obama spy on Trump?  So President Trump set off a firestorm over the weekend with a series of tweets alleging that Obama had tapped Trump Tower.  But getting hung up on imprecise language in the president's tweets isn't the right way to look at things.  What seems to be at true is that the Obama administration spied on some of Trump's associates and we don't know exactly how much information was collected under what authority and who was targeted.  As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy summarizes in National Review, the Obama Justice Department considered a criminal investigation aimed at a number of Trump's associates.  When they didn't find anything criminal, they converted the investigation into an intelligence probe under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  Elements of that story have been confirmed by The New York Times, the BBC and McClatchy newspapers.

The evidence Trump was wiretapped laid out clearly by Mark Levin.  Yesterday [3/5/2017], in 14 short and exciting minutes of televised explanation, Mark Levin pointed out the evidence already on the public record indicating spying on President-Elect Trump.  In two early-morning segments on Fox and Friends, Levin cited chapter and verse with his characteristic high energy and incisiveness.  [Video clip]

ObamaGate Is a Lot More than a Hashtag.  [Scroll down]  So now we have Trump's bold, brash, "unhinged" Twitter accusations that Obama wiretapped him.  This came after Mark Levin, Breitbart, Andrew C. McCarthy, Louise Mensch and others I've forgotten about or am unaware of reported about two appeals to FISA courts (one denied last summer and one approved in October) for permission to tap phones in Trump Tower.  Did they happen?  It seems that tapping of some sort actually occurred because it was virtually acknowledged in tweets from Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau, who sprang to action only hours after Trump tweeted, writing:  "I'd be careful about reporting that Obama said there was no wiretapping.  Statement just said that neither he nor the WH ordered it."  Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for the former president, had almost simultaneously declared:  "Neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen."  Ordered?  That's what we used to call plausible deniability and now is known as a wiggle word.

J. Christian Adams:  If It Happened, Trump Wiretapping Makes Watergate 'Look Like a Joke'.  PJM's J. Christian Adams was on Fox News' "Justice With Judge Jeanine" on Saturday [3/4/2017] to discuss allegations by President Trump that his campaign was "tapped" by the Obama administration.  The discussion was in response to Trump's Saturday morning tweet: [...] Judge Jeanine Pirro read a statement from an Obama spokesman claiming, "As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen."  Pirro said that the operative word in that statement was "ordered."  Adams, a former Department of Justice official, agreed.  "That's exactly right," he said.  "There's a big difference between 'ordered' and knowing everything else about it."

Why Trump might suspect Obama bugged Trump Tower.  From the day Trump won election, his foes have waged a by-any-means-necessary campaign to overturn the results.  Officials (likely Obama-era holdovers) have broken the law and leaked what they hoped would be damaging info.  Groups tied to Obama have stirred up angry protests against Trump and other Republicans. [...] Remember, too:  Team Obama has a record of abusing power for political gain, as when the IRS targeted conservative groups.

Barack Obama's Trump Tower Wiretap Denial Reeks of Orwellian Doublespeak.  On Saturday [3/4/2017], President Donald Trump shook the world by accusing former President Barack Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election — a scandal comparable to "Nixon/Watergate."  While news outlets reported that Trump cited "no evidence" to support his claims, there is a disturbing trail of breadcrumbs suggesting that the Obama administration did indeed do this.  Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for the former president, denied these allegations, but the very denial was disingenuous at best.  In fact, one might even call it Orwellian.

President Trump owes Mark Levin a debt of gratitude.  Just a week ago, President Trump was embattled.  Democrats were lining up to go before cameras to ask, "Did [Trump associate X] meet with the Russians?  When?  What did they say?  We need a full investigation!"  Trump was clearly on the defensive.  And then, on Thursday [3/2/2017], all of a sudden, talk show host Mark Levin connected the dots.  He asked himself a simple question:  how did the media and Democrats know that Trump associates had talked to the Russians, however innocuous the contacts may have been?  The information had come from government leaks.  And how did the government know?  Quite obviously, it must have been monitoring members of the Trump campaign.

Josh Earnest Won't Deny Trump Tower Was Surveilled By Obama Administration.  When pressed by ABC's Martha Raddatz on Sunday, Josh Earnest opted not to categorically "deny that the Obama Justice Department" monitored Trump Tower during the 2016 election.  President Obama's former press secretary opened his interview by calling reports that "President Obama ordered a wiretap" false, yet backpedaled when the "This Week" guest host asked him to "categorically deny" that President Trump's campaign headquarters was under surveillance.

Russian Roulette.  Since the game is still in process, we cannot quite finish the chapter.  But we know how it starts.  It starts with groundless accusations that Donald Trump and/or his surrogates somehow "colluded," had illicit ties with, the Russians.  Maybe he helped them "hack the election." Maybe he is Putin's puppet.  We don't quite know.  But this calls for a "special prosecutor" (even though such a thing doesn't exist), a criminal investigation, the impeachment or at least the delegitimization of Donald Trump and all his works. [...] So far, there is no evidence of malfeasance, of anything improper or illegal.  But there is plenty of anchorless animus directed at Trump by the Democrats and their media pets.

'The Evidence Is Overwhelming': Mark Levin On Fox News Lays Out the Case On Obama's Spying.  Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin gave an interview on Fox News' Fox and Friends Weekend Sunday morning in which he laid out the case against the Obama administration use of "police state tactics" against President Donald Trump.  "The evidence is overwhelming," Levin said.  Using public records and mainstream media reporting, he showed how the Obama administration obtained a FISA court warrant to surveil Donald Trump's presidential campaign last year.  The question is, to what extent did the Obama administration spy on Donald Trump's campaign?

What's Good For The Goose.  My advice to President Trump and team would be for them to tell Director Comey to go ahead and hold a press conference and deny the wire-tapping/surveillance himself.  And while he's at it, he can clear up all of the nonsense surrounding these ridiculous media assertions which appear to be based entirely on leaks from his FBI community.  Go ahead Director Comey, hold your own [...] press conference.  You did it for Obama and Hillary Clinton, do it again now.  Don't go looking to hide behind the skirt of Attorney General Jeff Sessions just because all of the eyes are upon you now.  I'd be telling FBI Director James Comey to defend his own [very] poorly run department.  The same poorly run politicized department that is apparently the primary source of all the leaks causing the trouble.

Yes, If Trump is Correct, Even Partially, Then President Obama Might Be in Big Trouble.  Robert Barnes at LawNewz has a well structured outline showing how current public information does indeed appear to lay out a solid case that President Obama manipulated the legal use of intelligence gathering tools to monitor candidate, then president-elect, Donald Trump.

Yes, There Could Be Serious Legal Problems if Obama Admin Involved in Illegal Surveillance.  President Trump recently tweeted claiming that former President Obama wiretapped him during his campaign.  One can only imagine how nuts the media would have gone if the roles had been reversed:  President Trump wiretapping either Obama or the Clintons, though his DOJ could have authority to do just that given the expansive leaks of intelligence information by Obama and Clinton supporters the last few months.  [Indeed], he could wiretap the media at this point, legally and legitimately, as the sources of these unlawful leaks, for which Obama himself set precedent.  Do liberals understand what Pandora's Box Obama opened up by Obama using the powers of the NSA, CIA and FBI to spy on his political opponents?  Even Nixon never did that.  If the stories are correct, Obama or his officials might even face prosecution.  But, we are still early in all of this and there are a lot of rumors flying around so the key is if the reports are accurate.

Lt. Col. Shaffer:  Potential Obama Wiretapping Is 'Soviet-Level Wrongdoing'.  Ret.  U.S. Army Intelligence Officer Tony Shaffer said potential wiretapping by a sitting U.S. president is "Soviet-level wrongdoing."  Lt. Col. Shaffer was a guest Saturday morning [3/4/2017] on "Fox & Friends Weekend" sharing his thoughts on President Donald Trump's early morning tweets accusing the Obama administration of wiretapping Trump Tower prior to the 2016 election.

Weaponized Government:  The Only Obama Legacy.  Here is what we know:  In June 2016, the Obama Administration, using flimsy evidence of Russian connections to the Trump campaign, made an initial request for electronic surveillance of Trump and his associates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and its approval body the FISA court.  It should be noted that approval requires a very low standard of evidence.  Since its inception, the FISA court has permitted 99.7% of requests.  The fact that the initial request was denied, means that the basis upon which the request was made must have been extraordinarily weak or excessively broad or both.

Why yes, Obama did try to wiretap Trump Tower, and here are the details.  The timing of Trump's tweet is a little strange, but the facts are plain as day.  I don't really know why Donald Trump decided yesterday to tweet about the Obama Administration trying to wiretap Trump Tower.  But what was weird about it was not the content of the tweet.  It was the timing.  That this happened is not only beyond dispute, but it's been in the public's eye for weeks.

The Obama Camp's Disingenuous Denials on FISA Surveillance of Trump.  To summarize, reporting indicates that, prior to June 2016, the Obama Justice Department and FBI considered a criminal investigation of Trump associates, and perhaps Trump himself, based on concerns about connections to Russian financial institutions.  Preliminary poking around indicated that there was nothing criminal involved.  Rather than shut the case down, though, the Obama Justice Department converted it into a national-security investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  FISA allows the government, if it gets court permission, to conduct electronic surveillance (which could include wiretapping, monitoring of e-mail, and the like) against those it alleges are "agents of a foreign power."  FISA applications and the evidence garnered from them are classified — i.e., we would not know about any of this unless someone had leaked classified information to the media, a felony.

Revenge of Obama's 'Former Officials'.  Just 24 hours after Trump's address, a series of troubling reports involving links among those in Trump's orbit to Russian officials reset the national discourse.  Those stories make for a trend, though, that has little to do with Trump and a lot to do with his predecessor.  The Obama administration's foreign-policy team seems to be campaigning to rehabilitate itself one leak at a time, and the press is helping.

Former Bush attorney general:  Trump right that there was surveillance.  Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Sunday said that President Trump is likely correct that there was surveillance on Trump Tower for intelligence purposes, but incorrect in accusing former President Barack Obama of ordering the wiretapping.  "I think he's right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general — at the Justice Department," Mukasey told ABC's "This Week."  Trump on Saturday [3/4/2017] accused Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in New York City just before the November election.

FISA Is Not Law-Enforcement — It's Not Interference with Justice Department Independence for White House to Ask for FISA Information.  In my earlier post, I explained that the Obama camp is disingenuously responding to revelations that, during the presidential campaign, the Obama administration conducted an investigation, including wiretapping, against Trump associates and perhaps Donald Trump himself.  As I elaborated, one avenue of response is to conflate the Justice Department's two missions — law-enforcement and national security.  We can see this strategy playing out in the New York Times coverage of the controversy.

Chris Coons walkback:  "I have no hard evidence of collusion" between Trump world and Russians.  When Donald Trump sent out his series of tweets about alleged "tapping" of his phones and/or Trump Tower by Obama, the instant media reaction was that Trump made the allegation without presenting any proof.  As if proof were needed at the time of an accusation for a media that has put Trump on trial for the last 6-8 months based on innuendo about Trump campaign ties to Russia.  As pointed out repeatedly, there is zero proof in the public record of such media and Democrat accusations, and no proof was demanded by the media.

Fake News From the Associated Press on FISAgate.  Every time the AP mentions FISAgate, it includes this ritual defense of the Obama administration:  ["]Trump has offered no evidence or details to support his claim, and Obama's spokesman has denied it.["]  The AP's statement is false.  It is a classic instance of fake news.  Barack Obama's spokesman has not denied that "the Obama administration wiretapped Trump Tower last year."  He only denied that Barack Obama personally ordered such surveillance.  But that isn't the question.  Presumably, the order to conduct surveillance came from Loretta Lynch's Department of Justice.  But no one thinks that Lynch would have ordered the opposing presidential candidate's telephones tapped, or his computers hacked, without her boss's approval.

Huge Obama Scandal:  Illegal Surveillance/Election Tampering.  The Obama administration engaged in surveillance of Trump Tower communications during the 2016 Election.  With that fact now front and center, voters would do well to recall all of the "leaks" that were said to be coming from inside the then-Trump campaign.  Were operatives working under the direction of a then-sitting President of the United States, the source of those leaks?  Some are already suggesting YES, making what Barack Obama potentially did in 2016 MUCH WORSE than anything Richard Nixon did leading up to the Watergate scandal.  This is big.  This is the Obama Shadow Government now being exposed in real time:  [Video clip]

Worse Than Watergate!  Obama Administration Wiretapped Trump Tower Before the Election.  President Trump accused — based on evidence — former President Obama's administration of wiretapping phones in Trump Tower in New York City during the presidential campaign.  Former US Attorney Andy McCarthy says it's absolutely true.  The president made the claims in a series of tweets Saturday morning.  The tweets come after an article Friday on the right-wing news site Breitbart claiming that the Obama administration obtained authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign.  The article was information compiled by Mark Levin and based on research by former US attorney Andy McCarthy and others.

Obama wiretapped opposing presidential campaign using federal intelligence services.  If the reports are true — and they certainly appear to be — Obamagate is 100 times bigger than Watergate.  In short, a sitting president wiretapped the nominee of the opposition party, before the election, using the security apparatus of the federal government.

Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower Before the Election.  Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin opened his show Thursday night talking about the "phony scandal" plaguing Attorney General Jeff Sessions. [...] The "bigger scandal" here, Levin explained, is that we've had unelected Obama administration holdovers within intelligence agencies surveilling the Trump campaign and leaking information to the public, in hopes of getting Hillary Clinton elected.  Those are "police state tactics!" Levin said.

A Revolutionary "Deep State" Conspiracy Against Trump.  "This country is becoming unglued.  We're in the stage of a revolution here."  Attorney Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch says an "alternative government" in the intelligence community continues to target President Trump for the purpose of overthrowing his administration.  "These intelligence agencies are more powerful than the president himself."  Obama is the "Wizard of Oz" working behind the scenes against Trump, Klayman says.

Trump Asks If It's Legal for Obama to Wiretap Him — Here's the Answer.  The best that we can tell, Trump is referring to a Breitbart article which was published Friday night [3/3/2017] that makes reference to attempts by U.S. intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving Donald Trump and several advisers.  The interesting thing is that this isn't a new development.  In fact, several outlets including Mother Jones, The Guardian, The National Review, and Heat Street have been reporting on this alleged activity over the last couple of months.  Here is the best summary we could find of the Obama administration's efforts to wiretap Trump associates.

The "Alternative Government" Vs.  Trump.  President Trump gave a good speech on Tuesday night, but his presidency is still hanging by a thread.  Attorney Larry Klayman says an "alternative government" in the intelligence community continues to target him.  "These intelligence agencies are more powerful than the president himself," Klayman said on the Fox Business Network.  "They have the ability to blackmail people in this administration to the point that the American people's interests are going to be subverted."

Investigate and Prosecute the Press.  [Scroll down]  It is clear that he has inside information about the "alternative government," as attorney Larry Klayman calls this network of secret operatives, or the "Deep State," as others call it.  These are the "anonymous sources" who manipulate the press, reveal national security information, and threaten the foundations of our constitutional republic.  They are the real traitors, not the officials who had innocent conversations with Russians.  Does House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) have the guts to get to the bottom of this subversion of our democratic system?  Like President Trump, he says he is concerned about illegal leaks.  It's time for him to take action.  Otherwise, the illegal leakers will keep picking off our elected officials and those they appoint, using secret information they twist and distort for partisan political purposes.

Mark Levin to Congress:  Investigate Obama's 'Silent Coup' vs.  Trump.  Radio host Mark Levin used his Thursday evening show to outline the known steps taken by President Barack Obama's administration in its last months to undermine Donald Trump's presidential campaign and, later, his new administration.  Levin called Obama's effort "police state" tactics, and suggested that Obama's actions, rather than conspiracy theories about alleged Russian interference in the presidential election to help Trump, should be the target of congressional investigation.  Drawing on sources including the New York Times and the Washington Post, Levin described the case against Obama so far, based on what is already publicly known.

The Shadow Government Timeline.  No matter which entrance hole you follow down into the labyrinth — eventually you end up finding yourself in the same chamber, the treasury.  Every motive seems to consistently boil down to money.

Donald Trump Rejects Intelligence Report on Travel Ban.  An intelligence report by the Department of Homeland Security contradicts the White House's assertion that immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries pose a particular risk of being terrorists and should be blocked from entering the U.S.  The report is the latest volley in a struggle between intelligence officials and the Trump administration that has rippled across several agencies.

The Deep State's Coup Against Trump.  The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has reportedly interfered in countless governments across the globe.  Now, the agency has also begun an intelligence coup within its own government.  Last week, Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced out of the Trump administration following leaks from the intelligence community that revealed he had misled the public and the administration on conversations he had with a Russian diplomat.  Major news outlets, the Washington Post and the New York Times, both reported on the leaks.  While the mainstream media has blasted Trump and Flynn for these alleged ties to Russia, some of the more astute journalists out there have taken a different approach.  Although he asserted the leaks were justified, prominent journalist Glenn Greenwald raised some very disturbing issues as to the possible motives behind the leaks:

The 'deep state' is real.  The 'alt right' is fake.  Here's a fact for the media to chew on:  The "deep state" is here.  As outlined in Foreign Policy, the concept of the deep state is nothing new.  But the Trump presidency may serve as the galvanizing force that links some of the formal established Democratic opposition forces, including MoveOn.org, government unions and Black Lives Matter with the informal deep-state cadre of disgruntled liberal bureaucrats, the hostile mainstream media and the usual suspects on the left.  It's a troubling phenomenon, with anti-Trump organizations and Democratic-aligned civil servants conspiring to actively work against the incumbent government.

Clinton Donor Quits CIA Because of Trump, Says Decision Not About Politics.  A CIA employee who contributed thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and who is a registered Democrat announced his decision to leave the agency in a Washington Post column published Sunday [2/19/2017], writing that his departure "had nothing to do with politics."  Edward Price resigned from the CIA last week and used the Washington Post to explain his decision that he could not "in good faith serve this administration as an intelligence professional."  Price wrote that his "decision had nothing to do with politics," and that he "would have been proud to again work under a Republican administration."  "As intelligence professionals, we're taught to tune out politics," Price wrote.

Hugh Hewitt:  Fire Obama's 'Deep State' Sleeper Cells Yesterday.  Conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt today [2/21/2017] pressed Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway to answer why the Trump administration has been so slow to fire Obama holdovers throughout the government.

Disgruntled CIA Officials Begin Self-Deporting From NSC.  The Washington Post has an op-ed today [2/20/2017] from someone who purports to have resigned from the CIA because his sensibilities can't stomach working for a Trump administration. [...] This kind of malarkey has been my gripe with the intelligence community for a decade.  They have simply been spoiled and pampered and praised to the point that they think they are the masters rather than the servants of the President, the Congress and the People.  They've managed to do that while not serving the nation particularly well.  Along the way, the CIA, in particular, has taken on a quasi-political role.

Seven Days in February.  Currently, the political and media opponents of Donald Trump are seeking to subvert his presidency in a manner unprecedented in the recent history of American politics.  The so-called resistance among EPA federal employees is trying to disrupt Trump administration reform; immigration activists promise to flood the judiciary to render executive orders inoperative.  Intelligence agencies had earlier leaked fake news briefings about the purported escapades of President-elect Trump in Moscow — stories that were quickly exposed as politically driven concoctions.  Nearly one-third of House Democrats boycotted the Inauguration.  Celebrities such as Ashley Judd and Madonna shouted obscenities to crowds of protesters; Madonna voiced her dreams of Trump's death by saying she'd been thinking a lot about blowing up the White House.  But all that pushback was merely the clownish preliminary to the full-fledged assault in mid February.

Watchdog Wants Obama Held Accountable for His "Soft Coup".  Sadly, many Americans are not aware of just how dangerous Barack Obama is to the Republic.  This is pure Alinsky.  Much of the leaking which is damaging the Trump administration is tied to Obama's last hour rule change which allows the NSA to send out unfiltered raw data to the other 16 agencies.  The agencies then decide how to use it.  It makes it almost impossible, if not impossible, to track the leakers.  Barack Obama likely knew they had this information on General Flynn and others.  He put the rule in place shortly before leaving office to allow the leaks.  This is a hole that must be plugged immediately.

Why Was the FBI Investigating General Flynn?  Anonymous intelligence officials (a category that may include the FBI — though we do not know who the leakers are) outrageously revealed to the New York Times that [National Security Adviser Michael] Flynn was subjected to FBI interrogation ("grilled," the Times says) and that the Justice Department suspects that Flynn did not provide truthful, accurate information.  That does not sound like a cordial, "open and consensual" conversation.  It sounds like an investigation.  Why would Flynn be the subject of an investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department?

The Obama-Bezos-CIA-WaPo Link Coincidentally Lurking Behind Those Intel Community Leaks.  [Scroll down]  But you could still kind of buy that it's coincidental factors making WaPo the path of least journalistic resistance, for the torrent of themed propaganda coming out, we are told, from intel community officials.  These are obviously unhappy officials, taking arms against the Trump administration from inside the U.S. government.  Not only that, but at least nine of them were clearly in the Obama administration — something WaPo (perhaps unintentionally) clarified in its 9 February story explaining that all of those sources had primary information from the time Mike Flynn had the supposedly controversial phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.  Which was when Obama was still president.  The rogue officials behind the leaks are from the Obama administration.  You can certainly buy the deduction that they'd know reporters at WaPo, and would, in their unhappiness, "leak scoop" to them.  (Even though it never turns out to actually be anything, other than innuendo.)  But it's really been noticeable that whatever the most sensational claim is, every couple of days or so, it's that claim that ends up being leaked through the Washington Post.

Chaffetz asks Justice Department watchdog to probe Flynn leaks.  House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz told Fox News' "The First 100 Days" Wednesday night that he would ask the Justice Department's inspector general to investigate leaks of classified information that led to the resignation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn.  The Utah Republican told host Martha MacCallum that "no matter where you are on the political spectrum, you cannot have classified information migrating out into a non-classified setting."

CIA Analyst: Obama, John Brennan, James Clapper and Ben Rhodes Behind the Flynn Leaks.  Former CIA analyst and retired U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer in an appearance on Fox Business said the leaks coming out of the White House will lead directly back to Barack Obama.  The Democrats and some anti-Trump Republicans want an investigation.  Shaffer said, "be careful what you wish for".  "I would put this right at the feet of John Brennan and Jim Clapper and I would go so far as to say the Obama White House was directly involved before they left," Shaffer said.  "Ben Rhodes and those folks... The Democrats are behind this and some of the Republicans are involved with the leaks.  So I say 'Bring it on!'  This is the kind of thing they do in police states.

The Deep State Targets Trump.  When Gen. Michael Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser, Bill Kristol purred his satisfaction, "If it comes to it, prefer the deep state to the Trump state."  To Kristol, the permanent regime, not the elected president and his government, is the real defender and rightful repository of our liberties.  Yet it was this regime, the deep state, that carried out what Eli Lake of Bloomberg calls "The Political Assassination of Michael Flynn."  And what were Flynn's offenses?  In December, when Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats, Flynn spoke to the Russian ambassador.  He apparently counseled the envoy not to overreact, saying a new team would be in place in a few weeks and would review U.S.-Russian relations.  "That's neither illegal nor improper," writes Lake.  Vladimir Putin swiftly declared that there would be no reciprocal expulsions and U.S. diplomats and their families would be welcome at the Kremlin's Christmas and New Year's parties.  Diplomatic crisis averted.  "Great move ... (by V. Putin)," tweeted Trump, "I always knew he was very smart."  But apparently, this did not sit well with the deep state.

Judicial Watch Plans to Sue Agencies to Identify Obama Hacks Behind Disclosure of Flynn COMINT.  President Trump had a great response to the hysterical Democrat public relations flacks (you know, the guys who call themselves "journalists") who questioned his approval of Wikileaks' DNC disclosures during the campaign while decrying the wiretaps of Gen. Mike Flynn.  His point was exactly right:  John Podesta's Gmail account isn't a classified government system.  Hillary Clinton's private bathroom email server isn't a classified government system.  The wiretaps that helped take down Flynn related to his private (and, by the way, perfectly legitimate) conversations with foreign leaders.

I'm a Democrat (and ex-CIA) but the spies plotting against Trump are out of control.  Multiple reports show that my former colleagues in the intelligence community have decided that they must leak or withhold classified information due to unsettling connections between President Trump and the Russian Government.  Said an intelligence officer:  "I know what's best for foreign policy and national security... And I'm going to act on that."  Some of us might applaud this man, including a few of my fellow Democrats.  In their minds, this is a case of Mr. Smith Goes to Langley to do battle against a corrupt President Trump.  One small problem.  The intelligence officer quoted above was actually Aldrich Ames, a CIA traitor whose crime of treason in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in the compromise of more than 100 assets.  Many were tortured and executed as a result.

Hunt is on: Leakers pursued by Team Trump could face hard time.  President Trump has vowed to hunt down whoever is leaking classified information about him and his team, and if he succeeds in unmasking the sources of illegal disclosures, they could face hard time.  Trump himself has been plagued by leaks about his meeting schedule and phone calls to heads of state.  But the most damaging leaks to his month-old administration have been those that cost retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn his post as national security adviser.  Flynn had to resign after information came out about his December phone call to a Russian ambassador.

Donald Trump vs. the Deep State.  When one of two forces is going to win, if there's any moral difference between them at all, you have to stand for the better.  That's why I overcame my objections and voted for The Donald when the choice came down to him and a corrupt leftist who would surely have imperiled the American experiment at every level of government.  It was a painful decision but not a difficult one.  There's a similar choice to be made now.  The President or the Deep State.

The Lame Duck Timeline Strongly Suggests President Obama Set Up Intelligence Scheme To Undermine Trump.  Jay Sekulow outlines the case that President Obama set-up a plan for the intelligence community to target President Trump.  Specifically through the use of a lame-duck executive order, President Obama authorized multiple intelligence agencies to have access to Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) including phone call intercepts.

Trump launches bid to find leakers, as speculation surrounds Obama officials.  President Trump is setting out to uncover the saboteurs leaking damaging details about his administration, as speculation intensifies over whether current officials or a cabal of Obama lieutenants — or both — are turning the faucets.  One former senior intelligence official told Fox News he suspects ex-intelligence and other security officials, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, were in some way involved in revealing details of Michael Flynn's conversations with the Russian ambassador.

Trump and the leaks.  After less than a month in office, President Donald J. Trump, who as a candidate embraced WikiLeaks and a torrent of leaks about his rival Hillary Clinton's campaign, has become a champion of government secrecy.  In a rowdy, 77-minute press conference Thursday, Trump said he had personally instructed the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the leak of embarrassing information about his conversations with foreign leaders and former National Security Adviser Michael T. Flynn's contacts with Russia.  While it is unusual for a president to ask for such a criminal investigation, or to discuss it publicly, no law prevents him from doing so.  "It could be perceived as a political witch hunt," warned Susan Hennessey, a scholar at the Brookings Institution and former intelligence agency lawyer.

The CIA's affront to Trump.  The CIA has denied a security clearance to Trump National Security Council (NSC) official Robin Townley without any allegation, much less evidence of disloyalty to the United States.  Quite simply, it is because the CIA disapproves of Mr. Townley's attitude toward the agency, and this is unprecedented.  President Trump appointed Mr. Townley to coordinate Africa policy at the NSC.  The CIA did not want to deal with him.  Hence, it used the power to grant security clearances to tell the president to choose someone acceptable to the agency, though not so much to him.  This opens a larger issue:  Since no one can take part in the formulation or execution of foreign or defense policy without a high-level security clearance, vetoing the president's people by denying them clearances trumps the president.

The Left's Once Mighty Echo Chamber Is Losing Power.  The tricks the left used to nominate and elect a man who literally had no business running for any office — that's President Obama, who had no qualifications for the office — no longer work.  These same tricks were used to try to elect Hillary, they even doubled and tripled their usage of the echo chamber.  Yet Trump is now president instead of Clinton.  However, we now have a more sinister power rearing its ugly head in the out-of-control leftists embedded deep in the heart of our intelligence agencies and bureaucracies.  Trump is now fighting a multiple-front war for his transformative agenda.  He is facing an unhinged left, some remaining obstructionist fools in the GOP establishment, and a malevolently powerful deep state itself.

NSA Whistleblower:  Agency 'Absolutely' Tapping Trump's Calls.  William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official turned whistleblower, contended in an exclusive interview today that the National Security Agency (NSA) is "absolutely" monitoring the phone calls of President Donald Trump.  Binney was an architect of the NSA's surveillance program.  He became a famed whistleblower when he resigned on October 31, 2001 after spending more than 30 years with the agency.

FBI Randomly Releases Trump Real Estate Investigation Records From The 1970s.  The FBI on Wednesday released nearly 400 pages of records from an investigation it conducted on Donald Trump's family real estate company in the early 1970s.  The documents consist of interview notes, handwritten statements and FBI reports compiled during the bureau's investigation, which occurred between 1972 and 1974.  The FBI's investigation centered on allegations that the Trump Management Company, which was owned by Trump's father, Fred, discriminated against applicants for apartment rentals based on their race.

Michael Flynn and the revenge of the bureaucrats.  The resignation of White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn on Monday was the result of a coordinated effort by current and former U.S. intelligence officials to undermine the Trump administration using the disclosure of highly classified communications intercepts.  President Trump voiced his displeasure in a tweet Wednesday [2/15/2017] stating that misuse of the intercepts was un-American.  "The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by 'intelligence' like candy.  Very un-American!" the president stated.

US spies reportedly keeping intelligence from Trump.  Sensitive intelligence reportedly is being withheld from President Trump by U.S. intelligence officials because they are concerned that the information could be compromised.  The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday [2/15/2017] that in some cases officials opted not to show the president how they collected the information.  The paper, citing both former and current officials, said the decision to hold back information underscores the mistrust between the Executive Branch and spies.  Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said he has heard about these concerns in the past.

Is This Trump's Watergate, Or Revenge Of The Swamp People?  President Trump may have come to Washington to "drain the swamp," but now he's finding out that it's full of nasty swamp creatures.  And, as he's also discovered, they bite.  The debacle over national security advisor Michael Flynn's sudden departure over his ill-advised contacts with Russian government officials shows that the Democrats in Congress and the bureaucrats that work with them mean to take as many scalps and do as much damage possible to Trump's barely 3-weeks-old presidency.  If they can fatally damage him early in his first term, all the better.

Flynn's fall should have the intel community in the hot seat.  Why did Michael Flynn resign after just 24 days as President Trump's national security adviser?  Never before had so little certainty fueled such a political frenzy.  What's known is that Flynn spoke with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States, on Dec. 29, 2016, the same day President Barack Obama leveled sanctions against Russia for its alleged hacking during the US presidential election campaign.  US intelligence provided a transcript of that call to the FBI, which had been investigating Russian hacking.  In a breach of trust, someone in intelligence or law enforcement confirmed the call's existence to the media, and then detailed its contents in a further leak.

CIA broke the law to take out its critic General Flynn.  Make no mistake, we have just witnessed an operation by members of the CIA to take out a high official of our own government.  An agency that is widely believed to have brought down democratically elected governments overseas is now practicing the same dark arts in domestic American politics.  Almost certainly, its new head Mike Pompeo was not consulted.  Senator Chuck Schumer, of all people, laid out on January 2nd what was going to happen to the Trump administration if it dared take on the deep state — the permanent bureaucracy that has contempt for the will of the voters and feels entitled to run the government for its own benefit.

With the Bureaucracy, Trump's Got His Work Cut Out for Him.  During the Obama reign, the Federal Register grew by some 18,000 pages.  The Competitive Enterprise Institute estimated regulations cost the American people $1.9 trillion a year, which is more than 10% of GDP or about $15,000 per household.  Government regulations have gotten so that businesses and even individuals are almost guaranteed to be violating one regulation (or de facto law) or another.  Such an administrative state is what Alexis de Tocqueville had in mind when he defined soft despotism as a 'network of small complicated rules' that while maybe not obvious to the people, breed fear, uncertainty and doubt throughout society.  President Trump has promised to lasso government agencies and then bring back a constitutional understanding of their limits.

Subsection about General Mark Milley:

Biden White House considering pre-emptive pardon for retired Gen. Mark Milley, who made secret phone calls to China: report.  Senior White House officials are reportedly considering issuing retired Gen. Mark Milley a pre-emptive pardon over fears that President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration will go after the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  The potential pardon for Milley, who was the nation's highest-ranking military officer for part of Trump's first term, was reported by the Washington Post Thursday [12/5/2024].  Milley, 66, faced intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill during President Biden's first year in office after journalist Bob Woodward revealed that the Pentagon official placed secret phone calls to a top Chinese official before the 2020 election and after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Trump Needs to Make an Example of General Milley.  In short, Trump was not allowed to govern, nor treated as other presidents were during his first term. [...] Trump was a threat to business as usual.  Thus, a cabal of intelligence agencies cooperated to stop him from making changes to foreign policy or scrutinizing the outsized military-industrial complex.  Contrary to the media's dire pronouncements, these insiders were the real threat to democracy and self-government.  Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, was one of the worst offenders.  As documented in Bob Woodward's book Peril, Milley spent a lot of time after the 2020 election caballing with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and reassuring her that the military would resist certain orders from President Trump.  He met with the small group of officers who control our strategic nuclear forces and demanded they pledge to get his approval before executing any launch orders, even though, as head of the Joint Chiefs, he is merely an advisor and is statutorily excluded from the chain of command.

Steve Bannon urges Trump to rip apart the FBI and return Mark Milley to active duty so he can face court martial.  Donald Trump's former strategist Steve Bannon says former Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley should be returned to uniform on the first day of the new administration so he can be court martialed.  Bannon, who was recently released from federal prison, laid out his priorities for the next Trump White House and said he had been in close contact with his former boss, advising him on appointments.  The populist provocateur spoke to former Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer in an interview that will be released at 6 pm on Friday.  And his recent stint in prison has clearly done nothing to dim his revolutionary zeal.  'Number one thing is, I think Mark Milley has got to be recalled ... the first action of President Trump,' said Bannon.

General Milley's Attack on the Constitution.  Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, recently called Donald Trump a "fascist to the core" and "a wannabe dictator." That such a senior military leader would feel comfortable saying this about his former boss is remarkable given that similar statements by officers have, in the past, resulted in severe punishment.  The U.S. Constitution makes the president — the only democratically elected leader in the chain of command — commander in chief.  Military leaders serving under the president owe him both deference and respect, regardless of whether their policy preferences differ.  General Milley is challenging this foundational principle of American government.  Although General Milley's recent statements are not subject to Article 88 because President Trump was no longer in office at the time the general made them, his previous attempts to undermine Trump's authority could be.  Indeed, General Milley has recognized as much, expressing concern that he may yet face court-martial for his conduct during the Trump administration.  Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has revealed that General Milley discussed with her ways in which the military could ignore a hypothetical order from President Trump to deploy nuclear weapons, and that he agreed with the speaker's suggestion that President Trump was "crazy."

The Silent Insurrection:  General Milley's Hand on January 6.  In the days and weeks leading up to January 6, the nation's highest-ranking military officer, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, was moving in lockstep with the political anxieties of top Democratic leaders.  These Democrats grew anxious as over 140 House Republicans planned to contest the election results during the electoral college certification that day.  Milley was then deeply engaged with a circle of confidants including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others — all of whom shared a unified disdain for President Donald Trump.  At a House Oversight Committee hearing in April addressing the 3-hour and 19-minute delay in mobilizing the D.C. National Guard on January 6, Colonel Earl Matthews, one of four Department of Defense witnesses, testified about an "irrational" fear among a "clique" of senior military officers concerning the potential misuse of the National Guard by the president.

General Milley Ignored Trump Order to Deploy Nat. Guard at US Capitol Prior to Jan. 6.  Shocking new details were released by Republicans on the House Oversight Committee on Friday of US military brass ignoring President Trump's request for security on January 6th.  President Trump knew there would be a massive crowd of Americans at the planned rallies outside the US Capitol and at the Ellipse that day.  So, Trump ordered the National Guard to be deployed to the US Capitol prior to the planned protests on January 6.  The newly surfaced transcripts, which were previously concealed, reveal the truth that many in the mainstream media have ignored.

A Decade of Conspiracists?  For example, one contributor, Rosa Brooks, warns us about what Trump might do in a second term to warp democracy. [...] Brooks' 2017 essay also proved eerily prescient in retrospect, given that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley later chose to violate the chain of command and purportedly ordered theater commanders in the field to report directly to him, despite his strictly advisory role, in times of existential national crises to circumvent the commander-in-chief.  Milley also stealthily contacted his communist Chinese military counterpart to assure the head of the People's Liberation Army that he would warn him first should Dr. Milley, on his own, diagnose his own president as unhinged and thus any supposedly dangerously warlike presidential order as invalid.  Think of the Milley precedent: are the Joint Chiefs in the future to diagnose the stability of their presidents to adjudicate when they can contact their communist Chinese counterparts to warn them of their own commanders-in-chief?  Note as well that in August 2020, retired Lieutenant Colonels John Nagl and Paul Yingling co-wrote an op-ed addressed to Milley, warning him that he should use the military to remove Trump, should the military, in its infinite and vast political wisdom, assume that Trump would not accept the verdict of the impending election.

The Debate Revealed That Any President Voters Elect Doesn't Really Run The Government.  [Scroll down]  However, because we've already had the benefit of a Trump presidency, we can see that even a president as vigorous and defiant as he struggled to truly exercise authority over the people and institutions that, constitutionally speaking, the president commands.  Some of the most egregious examples of this occurred among cabinet-level national security types.  Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman under Trump Gen. Mark Milley was one of the worst offenders.  Washington Post and New York Times reporters say, according to excerpts from Haley McLean, that Milley deliberately stayed in his position to sabotage voters' elected commander-in-chief, saying to staffers of Trump, "I'll just fight him" and "I will fight from the inside."  Washington Post reporters say Milley led an internal military leadership effort to prevent Trump from quelling the George Floyd race riots in 2020: "Milley began informally planning with other military leaders, strategizing how they would block Trump's order to use the military in a way they deemed dangerous or illegal." Milley also disobeyed Trump's order to pull U.S. troops from Afghanistan, setting the stage for the disastrous Afghanistan pullout Milley oversaw under Biden that seriously damaged U.S. foreign policy goals, killed 13 U.S. soldiers, and left stranded thousands of American citizens.

Five actions by Democrats which sunk Ukraine.  Observers of American support for Ukraine would likely consider the Democrats to be pro-Ukraine and the Republicans anti-Ukraine.  This observation would be a generally accurate portrayal of recent budgetary considerations in the U.S. Congress regarding military aid for Ukraine.  Nevertheless, the conclusion that Democrats in the United States be considered pro-Ukraine constitutes a case of grand historic irony.  Indeed, the catastrophic invasion of Ukraine was largely caused or facilitated by five actions by American Democrat politicians.  Without these actions, Ukraine would likely be living in peace and security. [...] General Mark Milley and U.S. intelligence predicted Kiev would fall within three days of the February 2022 Russian invasion.  This was ludicrous on many levels.  Anyone familiar with Ukrainian history over the past century will understand — after the Soviet colonization of Ukraine, and the Stalin-imposed "Forced Famine" (The Holodomor) — that Ukrainians will never voluntarily accept Russian colonization again.

Milley was in direct communication with Susan Rice in the leadup to J6.  [Tweet]

The Silent Insurrection:  General Milley's Hand on January 6.  In the days and weeks leading up to January 6, the nation's highest-ranking military officer, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, was moving in lockstep with the political anxieties of top Democratic leaders.  These Democrats grew anxious as over 140 House Republicans planned to contest the election results during the electoral college certification that day.  Milley was then deeply engaged with a circle of confidants including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice, and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, among others — all of whom shared a unified disdain for President Donald Trump.

Time To Fight Dirty.  [Scroll down]  And when I say we need to fight dirty, let me clarify what I am not saying.  I am not saying that we should persecute innocent people, like the Left does.  I am saying that we need to go full-throttle, no-holds-barred lawfare against those who do break the law and smugly get away with it. [...] The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, in October 2020 and January 2021, made calls to his Chinese counterpart, assuring the Politburo that if President Trump attempted to launch a military attack against them in the waning days of his presidency, he would warn them beforehand.  For treason of this magnitude, he should be swinging from a lamppost.  Rather, he was vigorously defended by the Biden administration with not so much as a reprimand.  He retired this past February and... you guessed it... teaches at both Georgetown and Princeton.  Milley got away with it.

If... Then... 2024.  General Mark Milley refused a direct and constitutional order from his commander-in-chief to fortify and strengthen America's southern border.  General Milley committed treason against the Constitution in working behind Trump's back in concert with the Chinese.  Milley knew all along that the balloon flying over America was a Chinese spy balloon stealing America's national security secrets.  The top brass of the Pentagon really did work behind the scenes to diminish and destroy the Trump administration's capabilities.  Biden, Milley, the Pentagon, and national security officers know that cartels are trafficking children through our open southern border and then refuse to do anything about it, which they most assuredly could stop.

Report: Army Official Says Mark Milley Delayed National Guard Response to Jan 6 'Then Lied About It'.  Colonel Earl G. Matthews, senior legal adviser to Major General William J. Walker, who commanded the Washington D.C. National Guard on January 6th, 2021, has blamed former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley for letting the protest get out of hand.  The colonel compared the now-retired Milley to the murderous Don Emilio Barzini, who served as Don Vito Corleone's arch-nemesis in The Godfather.  "Milley controlled the Army," Matthews told reporter Neil McCabe, arguing that while the Joint Chiefs boss lacked legal authority within the chain of command, he instead leveraged his profound influence and contacts in the Pentagon to delay the Guard's response.  "The problem was not with Donald Trump; it's Mark Milley and the Army leadership in control.  They stopped the Guard from coming then lied about it and said the Guard acted at sprint speed," Matthews explained.

Army Colonel J6 Witness: 'Milley Is the Don Barzini of the Deep State'.  The colonel and Army lawyer challenging the Army's official narrative of the events and leadership decisions during the Capitol Hill protests on Jan. 6, 2021 — a narrative relied upon by the Colorado Supreme Court when it struck President Donald J. Trump from the ballot — told RedState then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley was the black hand operating outside his legal authority to delay the District of Columbia National Guard from responding the protests that day.  "Milley is the Don Barzini of the Deep State," said Col. Earl G. Matthews, the Harvard Law School graduate, who was the senior legal advisor to Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, the D.C. National Guard's commanding general from March 2018 through April 2021.  "He's the most powerful chairman of the joint chiefs in history," Matthews said.  "It was Milley all along, and I didn't realize it.  Milley was manipulating this entire stuff from point start."

General Coup.  To read the voluminous coverage of General Mark Milley's retirement as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one might mistakenly surmise that he is the greatest military patriot since George Washington.  But the opposite is far closer to the truth.  Promoted as the supposed savior of the republic by a well-orchestrated public relations campaign and a fawning press, Milley exhibited ambitions more akin to those of a partisan military commissar than the nation's senior military adviser under the authority of the president.  His tenure proved destructive to post-WWII civil-military norms, the integrity of the military chain of command, and the image of the U.S. military as being worthy of public trust.  Milley supervised a subversive revolution in military culture.  Under his watch, the various branches of the armed forces began allowing drag shows on installations and stocked base libraries with pornography.  Puppy-masked military officers performed sexual acts on each other — and later boasted about it online.  On the battlefield, Milley was no better.  He oversaw the greatest recruiting crisis in history, the failed evacuation of Afghanistan, and the forced removal of thousands of patriots who stood up to an illegal shot mandate.

General Mark Milley to Step Down as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman.  General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is departing from the highest-ranking military position in the country at midnight on Sept. 30 and will be replaced by Biden-appointed nominee Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.  Milley received a clapout as he left the Pentagon on Thursday for the last time.  [Tweet with video clip]  Milley's career, which began in 2019 under the administration of former President Donald Trump, was marred by a series of chaotic events, military disasters, and massive corruption.  During his time in office, General Milley faced unprecedented challenges, including the Capitol riots, the COVID-19 pandemic, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Ukraine war, Chinese spy balloons, and the June 2020 "Summer of Love" riots in Washington.

Outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman tears into the ex-president who said he should be executed.  Army Gen. Mark Milley delivered a full-throated defense of democracy and not-so-subtle swipes at former President Donald Trump during a packed ceremony on Friday as he closed out his four, often tumultuous years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Under cloudy skies at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Milley never mentioned the former president by name.  But he practically shouted on two different occasions that the U.S. military swears to protect the Constitution 'against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic.'  'We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator.  And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator,' he said. 'We don't take an oath to an individual.  We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we're willing to die to protect it.'

Mark Milley uses retirement ceremony to call Trump a 'wannabe dictator'.  Army Gen. Mark Milley delivered a full-throated defense of democracy and not-so-subtle swipes at former President Donald Trump during a packed ceremony on Friday [9/29/2023] as he closed out his four, often tumultuous years as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  Under cloudy skies at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Milley never mentioned the former president by name.  But he practically shouted on two different occasions that the U.S. military swears to protect the Constitution 'against ALL enemies, foreign AND domestic.'  'We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or to a tyrant or a dictator.  And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator,' he said.

Will General Mark Milley Ever Be Court-Martialed?  Chris Farrell is the Director of Investigations and research for Judicial Watch and a former U.S. Army Counterintelligence Officer.  Late last month, he wrote an opinion editorial for The Washington Times in an article titled, "Why Gen. Mark Milley should be court-martialed:  The most egregious examples of treasonous subversion by a commissioned officer since Benedict Arnold."  Since he exposed himself and his deeds relative to the 2020 election, several people with backgrounds in the military and military families have been asking, "Will General Mark Milley Ever Be Court-Martialed?"  Once again, this question is not related to politics but the simple rules of law.  Both before (October 2020) and after (January 2021) election, Milley bragged about calling his counterpart in China to allegedly calm their fears relative to any instability in America and assure them we would not be going to war with them without giving them a heads up first.

The Deadly Untrustworthiness of General Mark Milley.  General Mark Milley, who is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has forgotten that he was a soldier.  Now, he's only a leftist bureaucrat in uniform.  Milley's basic mode of operation is ingratiating himself to a political class that values the servile.  What makes Milley dangerous is his willingness to lie unhesitatingly, particularly in public.  He is the highest-ranking military officer in the nation, and this matters.  Technically the Secretary of Defense is a civilian post even though the Secretary may have a military background.  The President and Congress provide civilian oversight but can only do so when presented with truthful, accurate information.  In June 2021, Tucker Carlson made some very strong remarks about Milley's attempts to make teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the military seem benign.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Milley compared CRT to reading Marx and Mao, as if it's just part of educating the troops about different ideologies.  However, our military is not urging the adoption of Marxism.  (At least not yet!)  What Milley is doing is cooperating with the Democrat left to indoctrinate the troops in blatant racism.

Why Gen. Mark Milley should be court-martialed.  Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be subject to an Article 32 Hearing under the provisions of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for his conduct and statements as memorialized in the Bob Woodward book "Peril," and the Aug. 8, 2022, New Yorker magazine excerpt of a forthcoming book by Susan B. Glasser and Peter Baker.  An Article 32 Hearing is the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, and should probable cause of the commission of a crime be established, it would lead to Gen. Milley's court-martial.  The Army has an affirmative duty to maintain good order and discipline, especially with regard to senior leader misconduct.  History provides an example of a senior officer engaged in misconduct.  Assistant Chief of the Army Air Service Brig. Gen. Billy Mitchell was court-martialed in 1925 for remarks to the press concerning two deadly military aviation accidents. [...] Gen. Milley called his communist Chinese military counterpart in October 2020 and January 2021 with unauthorized promises and assurances of advanced warnings of U.S. military intentions and actions.  America learned of these contacts through the book "Peril," authored by Mr. Woodward and Robert Costa.

Anti-constitutional military leadership is becoming more brazen.  One of the core values that has kept us a republic (if we can keep it) is that of civilian control of the military armed forces.  Generals and admirals take orders from the commander-in-chief, who is the president of the United States, just as surely as "buck privates" obey orders from the general.  It is shocking to witness the decline of that principle in practice.  When General Milley assured our potential wartime enemy, China, that he would give them advance warning if President Trump gave any orders concerning China, orders of which Milley might personally disapprove — when he did that, he was not charged with any of the numerous crimes, from insubordination upward, that he should have.  Because of that, other high-ranking officers have been emboldened, not only to follow in Milley's steps, but to incrementally increase their open hostility — hostility not against their woke president, but against the Constitution and the American voter.

The Insurrection of General Milley.  "The riots over the summer, you know, I could make a case that those riots were riots organic to an aggrieved community that perceived that they had various injustices throughout their life," General Mark A Milley told the J6 Committee.  "It was sheer, unmitigated anger that expressed itself in the form of mass violence and rioting.  And, okay, I get it, it's illegal, it's wrong."  The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had previously justified the study of "white rage", went on to defend the riots and the double standard at the heart of the J6 Committee.  "I don't think the intent of those riots was to overturn the United States Government and to destroy the Constitution of the United States of America," he argued.  The mobs assaulting police officers, burning flags, attacking federal buildings in sieges, like the one in Portland, reminiscent of Fort Sumter, and calling for the destruction of America under the guidance of an organization of "trained Marxists" demonstrated that it was an insurrection.  And Gen. Milley's testimony showed that he sympathized with the insurrectionists.

Treason: Gen. Mark Milley Hid Nuke Codes from Trump — Held Secret Calls with Chinese Defense Officials — Then Surrendered to Taliban.  According to the book "Peril" written by Bob Woodward, General Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs chairman, told China in a secret phone call that he would give advance warning if the US was ever going to attack.  "In a pair of secret phone calls (Oct. 20 and Jan. 8), Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assured his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the PLA, that the U.S. would not strike, according to the new book written by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political editor Robert Costa.  On January 8, 2021, the same day Milley reportedly spoke to China in a secret phone call, CNN ran a story claiming Pelosi had gotten assurances from Milley there are safeguards in place in the event President Trump wants to launch a nuclear weapon.  According to Fox News, 15 people were present when Milley called China on teleconference in October 2020, which was coordinated with then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper's office (Trump eventually fired Esper).

Lawmakers call on Gen. Milley to answer report he broke Trump's military chain of command.  Congressional lawmakers have called on Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley to respond to reports that he cut off the statutory chain of command at the end of President Trump's term, undermining civilian control of the military.  Gen. Milley told lawmakers last year at a congressional hearing that he contacted his Chinese counterpart two times to tell him that the U.S. had no plans to attack China.  Rep. Jim Banks, Indiana Republican, said in a speech that Gen. Milley must "set the record straight."

General Mark Milley Admits Trump Was Being Managed By Administrative State Group Who Run Government, Mike Pompeo and Mark Meadows Assisted.  Years of agonizing and frustrating reviews and analysis of the Trump administration activity in real-time are reconciling today.  During Senate testimony today before the Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Mark Milley, clarified some very painful issues to accept.  President Trump was being heavily managed by operatives of the Senior Executive Service (SES), and his inner circle was willfully participating.  What follows is in no way a defense of Milley, quite the contrary, Milley is a brutally political, manipulative, entitled and arrogant member of the United States armed forces.  His delusions of grandiosity represent the worst of our nation and can only be topped by one other, Anthony Fauci.

What Does Gen. Milley's Conduct Say about Our System?  Bob Woodward's new book, Peril, reportedly makes allegations about the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley, which if true, make Milley a traitor to our country. [...] First, the United States has a civilian military command.  That is why the president, an elected official is the commander in chief.  He can be voted in or voted out.  The role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is to advise the secretary of defense.  It is not to make military decisions on his own.  The Joint Chiefs of Staff is not in the line of command; therefore, its chairman has no authority to issue orders or to command anyone in the military based on his own opinion.  Going outside the chain of command is a violation of both federal law delineating the chairman's scope of authority, as well as the limits on that authority (see U.S. Code Section 163).  It is also a violation of the Constitution itself.  Such conduct is, in effect, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Trippin' With General Milley.  They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  Gen. Mark Milley proves that a lot of knowledge can be a dangerous thing when accompanied by a fevered imagination and barely a glimmer of analytical ability and common sense.  James Hohmann of the Washington Post gushes that Milley "owns thousands of books in his personal library" and "attended Princeton before starting his climb up the officer's ladder."  The general is also an "amateur historian." [...] Of course, Trump wasn't interested in starting a war.  If Milley had any sense to go with his book learning, he would have understood this.  No American president in many decades has been more averse to war than Trump.  The notion that Trump would start a war with China, of all adversaries, due to his anger over the 2020 election is laughable.

New Timeline of Mark Milley 'Treason' Invalidates His Defense.  With all the news surrounding the border crisis, Biden's crashing approval, and Hunter Biden's corruption, another story flew under the radar over the last couple of days involving Gen. Mark Milley.  You'll recall that Milley called the Chinese up to promise to commit treason (as defined by the statute) in order to undermine then President Donald Trump.  It was an astonishing revelation that showed just how far our military leadership has fallen.  Milley was, of course, at the head of pushing critical race theory to servicemembers and the disastrous evacuation from Afghanistan that left 13 Americans dead.  Now, the details of the phone call to a PLA general are emerging, and the timeline is invalidating the excuses lodged by those who ran to defend Milley.

Lt Gen Thomas McInerney:  Fauci's Quack "Vaccines" Have Killed 15,000 Americans.  Ivermectin?  None.  [Scroll down]  Next, General McInerney unloaded on General Milley for his contacts with a senior Chinese general, his failure to advise still-President Trump of the talks, and his promise to the Commie that he would warn him if the U.S. was preparing to attack China.  For these offenses, Milley should immediately resign and face a court martial, General McInerney argued, although even that will not remove the deep stain his actions have left on the U.S. military and its leaders.

Mark Milley:  Deep State Poster Boy.  [Scroll down]  Now all I have to say is "General Mark Milley." Suddenly, they mentally step back and have to consider the obvious truth before them.  After all, can there be any reasonable explanation for the fact that General Milley called a Chinese general — Gen. Li Zuocheng — to inform him, in October 2020, that if an attack was coming from the United States, General Milley would call the Chinese military first to warn them?  Clearly, this is a Deep State actor moving behind the scenes to get his way — even if his way means committing treason down the line.  General Milley has thus become the personification of what conservatives mean when they say "Deep State":  an arrogant, self-righteous, unelected, elitist official who thinks he can circumvent the American people's will via our elected representatives.  And so General Milley has given us the pivotal moment in American politics that should have come when it came out that former FBI director James Comey was leaking to the media.  As a result, the Deep State now has a face and an arrogance that are palpable.  General Milley is so much a part of the Deep State that he doesn't even think he did anything wrong.

Mark Milley:  Traitor?  Everyone knows by now that a forthcoming Bob Woodward book alleges that General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), may have committed sedition during the Trump years.  According to Woodward, Milley contacted the top Chinese general and assured him that everything was under control in spite of the eccentric Trump, that he (Milley) wouldn't let Trump get us into war with China, and that he'd call them (the Chinese) if Trump were planning on that so there wouldn't "be any surprises."  If true, this is the biggest politico-military bombshell in American history.  MacArthur was insubordinate with Truman, but not since Benedict Arnold has a commissioned American officer in high office colluded with the enemy.  The problem isn't that the CJCS called up his counterpart to keep communications open between the two; he would actually be derelict in his duties if he did not do that every few months.  But Milley is alleged to have gone far beyond that approach in expressing willingness to aid and abet a major potential enemy in the event of hostilities.

Trump: 'Only reason' Gen. Milley still has a job is because he knows Biden's secret.  Former President Donald Trump theorized this week that alleged traitor Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is being protected by the Biden administration because he knows too much about last month's disaster in Afghanistan.  Milley allegedly twice called a high-ranking Chinese military official during Trump's final months in office to warn him about Trump's alleged mental state.  That's a claim being published in a new book called "Peril" from Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.  Trump shredded Milley in a statement released earlier this week over the claim.  On Wednesday, he floated the possibility that Milley only has a job at this point because he knows too much about President Joe Biden's chaotic and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Milley's actions were [an] attempted military coup against Trump.  In the continuing war for the truth, the good guys went to battle with a lone pea shooter against miscreants that have a military.  To be precise, it is the military of the United States of America.  Its leader is the latest to have been exposed trying to delegitimize Donald Trump's presidency.  First, it was the FBI, the CIA, the media, academia and others who crossed the line into political activism, and now we have clear evidence that the top man in the Pentagon also succumbed to the siren song of power.  It turns out that the nation's most admired public institution is led by some people with very dirty hands.  The reprehensible actions of Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, take the cake for audacity and arrogance.

Is treason no longer punishable?  [Scroll down]  President Donald Trump's secretary of defense Christopher Miller said that he did not sign off on a call from Milley to his Chinese counterpart.  Miller added that Milley's action "represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the nation's top military officer."  We go back to the basics.  The main function of all personnel of the armed forces is not devising military strategies or fighting wars, it is to defend and maintain democracy within the country.  Since 300 million-plus people cannot all run the country, they lend power to an individual through their votes.  A duly elected president is hence authorized to conceive, plan and implement the policies that he has the mandate for.  The armed forces must always function as a watchdog who is on the alert for even the slightest attempts to subvert democracy[.]  A military officer must always be loyal to the president and assiduously follow orders.

Gen. Mark Milley defends calls made to his Chinese counterpart as 'routine'.  General Mark Milley pledged to give a full account of his controversial phone calls with his Chinese counterpart during the final months of Donald Trump's presidency when he testifies under oath before Congress at the end of the month.  On Friday [9/17/2021], Milley made his first public comments on revelations he called Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People's Liberation Army to reassure him the U.S. was not going to suddenly attack China.  Milley defended his calls to his Chinese counterpart as 'perfectly within the duties and responsibilities' of his job as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Treason's Greetings.  For anyone who doesn't know, in the waning days of President Trump's term of office, General Milley made an urgent, foam-flecked emergency phone call to China to tell them that Trump was thinking of launching a preemptive nuclear strike on them...but not to worry, because if Trump actually did it, General Milley would call the Chinese first.  Presumably so they could duck and cover, or quickly release the lethal contents of everything still mutating in the Wuhan Apocalypse Lab & Grill.  For this act, the media and even president Biden are praising Milley.  "Wow!" they say, "Milley averted a nuclear war that Trump [...] probably would have started for no reason!"  Except Trump had no intention of starting a war or igniting a worldwide nuclear holocaust.  But ask yourself this:  did Milley's traitorous phone call really make nuclear annihilation less likely, or did it take us dangerously close to the brink of disaster?

No one elected Mark Milley.  A coup by any other name and maybe even a little light treason.  Those are the accusations flying over revelations in a new Bob Woodward book about what Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley did after the January 6 Capitol riots.  Milley reportedly held several phone calls shortly after January 6, with both Speaker Nancy Pelosi and with his counterpart in China.  According to Woodward, the general gave assurances to Gen. Li Zuocheng that he would alert the Chinese to any possible coming attack, nuclear or otherwise.  There is no evidence President Trump was planning any kind of strike against China, or Iran, or Florida.  No battle plans were being drawn.  Miller supposedly took these actions after Trump signed an executive order removing US forces from Afghanistan.  Woodward and Robert Costa write that Milley was concerned that Trump would 'go rogue' post election loss.

There's no candy coating on this headline:.
Mark Milley Is A Traitor.  Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, actively subverted the Constitution and explicitly violated his oath and attempted to subvert the chain of command in the United States while pledging to our enemy that he would give them a "heads up" if it necessary.  People have been executed for less, and justifiably so.  General Milley called Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People's Liberation Army to reassure him that the U.S. would not make any moves against China, pretty much no matter what.  This is bad enough, treasonous behavior in and of itself.  But Milley went further, assuring the communist leader, "General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years.  If we're going to attack, I'm going to call you ahead of time.  It's not going to be a surprise."  There is, in plain English, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military advisor to the President of the United States of America, swearing to an enemy of the country, of freedom, that he will tip him off if the United States, for whatever reason, were going to attack China.  Milley is offering to put U.S. troops in jeopardy, to get them killed, on behalf of the Chinese communists.  That's treason.

They wanted a coup all along.  I am not surprised by the news that the head of the Pentagon, Generalissimo "White Rage" Milley conspired with Red China and fellow officers to block President Donald John Trump.  Appalled, yes.  Disgusted, yes.  Hoping for a sentence of 20 years of hard labor, yes.  But surprised?  Nope because this is what Washington wanted all along.  The American press called for a military coup months before President Trump was elected!  During the Republican National Convention, the Los Angeles Times reported, "Americans viewing the recent failed coup attempt in Turkey as some exotic foreign news story — the latest, violent yet hardly unusual political development to occur in a region constantly beset by turmoil — should pause to consider that the prospect of similar instability would not be unfathomable in this country if Donald Trump were to win the presidency.

Biden says he has 'great confidence' in Joint Chiefs chairman Milley despite him admitting he DID call China and lectured staff on nukes protocol.  President Joe Biden said he has 'great confidence' in Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley after the embattled military man admitted on Wednesday he spoke to his Chinese counterpart in coordination with defense officials — but the acting Pentagon chief at the time said he 'did not' authorize the calls.  Milley was responding to a bombshell report that claims he phoned his counterpart there behind Trump's back over concerns the ex-president would take rogue action to stay in office.  'I have great confidence in General Milley,' Biden said to reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

CNN and WaPo Write Devastating Articles Outlining General Mark Milley as Leader of Military Coup Against President Trump.  The headline stories today are large, and so is the background as these issues surface.  Context becomes increasingly important as each aspect is reviewed. [...] You think CNN and the Washington Post only recently came to the understanding that General Mark Milley was a corrupt, politically motivated actor, working on behalf of the interests of the Deep State [4th Branch]?  Of course not.  They are using the opportunity of this book by Woodward and Costa to hit Milley, place the blame for Afghanistan in his lap, and make him the scapegoat so that Joe Biden and the other participants can avoid further scrutiny.  Their play is transparent.

Trump Defense Sec.  Miller denies giving Milley OK to China call.  Then-President Donald Trump's last secretary of defense said Wednesday that he did not sign off on a call from Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to his Chinese counterpart days after the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol.  Christopher Miller, who led the Pentagon on an acting basis between the 2020 presidential election and the inauguration of Joe Biden, told Fox News that Milley's action "represents a disgraceful and unprecedented act of insubordination by the Nation's top military officer".  The Jan. 8 phone conversation between Milley and People's Liberation Army Gen. Li Zuocheng is detailed in the forthcoming book "Peril," written by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and reporter Robert Costa.  The authors report that Milley told Li that the US government was "100 percent steady.  Everything's fine.  But democracy can be sloppy sometimes."

Milley Confirms Reporting on How He Undermined Trump, Committed Treason.  On Wednesday [9/15/2021], General Mark Milley confirmed reporting of his two conversations with the Chinese military where he committed treason by promising to notify them if then-President Donald Trump were ever to launch a military strike.  Milley broke the chain of command in these calls as he took matters into his own hands, breaking the law and committing treason.  In a shocking statement on Wednesday, Milley confirmed the reports of his conversations but claimed everything he did was legal and "within his authority in the lawful tradition of civilian control of the military and his oath to the Constitution."

WH defends Milley given 'context,' Joint Chiefs affirm calls to China.  President Biden is standing by Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, despite accusations he committed treason during the final weeks of the previous administration by reassuring his Chinese counterpart that then-President Donald Trump would not attack Beijing.  "I have great confidence in General Milley," Biden responded to reporters Wednesday, moments after press secretary Jen Psaki appeared to excuse Milley's alleged conduct as acceptable in the "context of this period and time in history" given that he did so while Trump was in his final days as commander-in-chief and amid the backdrop of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.  "What I can assure you all is that [President Biden] knows General Milley, he has been chairman of the Joint Chiefs for almost eight months of his presidency, they've worked side by side through a range of international events, and the president has complete confidence in his leadership, his patriotism and his fidelity to our Constitution," Psaki said when asked about the allegations against Milley in the forthcoming book "Peril" by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

Milley's Alleged Secret Calls To China Are Just Another Reason Americans Believe The System Is Rigged.  The Washington Post published extremely serious allegations against Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley yesterday, although of course the paper tried to make the centerpiece of the story former President Donald Trump's erratic behavior. [...] The story here, however, is not Trump, no matter how much the corrupt corporate media would have it be so.  The story is that a military leader defied civilian control over the direction of America's foreign policy, and did so through secret talks with our chief adversary on the global stage.  Under every president, we hear about "[name] derangement syndrome"; there was Bush Derangement Syndrome, and Obama Derangement Syndrome.  But only Trump Derangement Syndrome seems to have led the ostensible upholders of "norms" and "democracy" to treat as no big deal actual violations of democracy's most sacred norms in the service of thwarting Donald Trump.  Civilian control over the military is not something to be jettisoned when you disagree with the people's choice.

The Manchurian Twins, Mark Milley and Tony Fauci.  When Mark Milley wasn't diving deep into "White Rage" and threatening Trump's Chief of Staff, he was (apparently) aiding and abetting China.  Milley promised to tip-off China if military action was coming.  The fact the Trump is the only president since I was a teenager to not start a war is the richest of ironies.  If Milley dereliction of duty is true, or even close to accurate (based on what we previously learned about Milley's hatred of Trump and his active measures to circumvent the chain of civilian command) it seems likely that Milley actively stepped on the constitution and was willing to kneecap civilian command.  Why did he do it?  Apparently, because he didn't like the president.  It's an awful and scary precedent.  If true, it's an indefensible and a fireable offense.  If true — it's a crime that should land him in prison.

Gen. Milley admits he DID have calls with China but says they were held in coordination with the DoD.  President Joe Biden said he has 'great confidence' in Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley after the embattled military man admitted on Wednesday he spoke to his Chinese counterpart in coordination with defense officials — but the acting Pentagon chief at the time said he 'did not' authorize the calls.  Milley was responding to a bombshell report that claims he phoned his counterpart there behind Trump's back over concerns the ex-president would take rogue action to stay in office.  'I have great confidence in General Milley,' Biden said to reporters on Wednesday afternoon [9/15/2021].

Rand Paul:  Gen. Milley should be removed, court-martialed if secret calls to China are confirmed.  Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Wednesday that General Mark Milley needs to be interviewed and face consequences if it is confirmed that he spoke with Chinese officials out of concern then-President Donald Trump would cause conflict with the communist nation.  ["]It should be investigated immediately, today, he should be questioned under oath, if not with a polygraph test, on whether it happened.  If it happened, he should be immediately relieved of his duties and court-martialed.  You have to find out if it's true.  This is innuendo and rumor and propaganda perhaps.  But, if it is true he absolutely immediately needs to be removed.["]  [Video clip]

New Twist to the Milley Story Raises Even More Questions.  There's a new twist to the reporting about the actions of Gen. Mark Milley and his alleged contacts with the Chinese that have raised so much concern.  As we previously reported, it's completely improper for Milley to have had any contact with them without it being at the behest of the president and the reporting said it clearly wasn't.  Now Axios and Josh Rogin, who is one of the few good reporters at The Washington Post, are reporting some interesting information.  [Tweet]  Axios is saying that there were two calls from Milley — one on October 30 and one on Jan. 8.  But there was also a communication to the Chinese initiated by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, that went from lower levels to the Chinese because of Pentagon concerns in October that the Chinese were getting bad intelligence about our intentions.  Esper directed his policy office to issue a backchannel message to the Chinese to reassure them the U.S. had no intention of seeking a military confrontation.  That the Milley call later in October was a follow-up to those backchannel messages.  The report says it is not clear that Trump was ever told or knew about these actions.

CNN and WaPo Write Devastating Articles Outlining General Mark Milley as Leader of Military Coup Against President Trump.  The headline stories today are large, and so is the background as these issues surface.  Context becomes increasingly important as each aspect is reviewed. [...] Yes, General Mark Milley is a power-hungry political manipulator and collaborator with the Deep State, in the effort to undermine President Donald J Trump.  We already knew this.  So, why is The WaPo and CNN hitting him now?  The answer is in the problematic sunlight facing the Fourth Branch of Government in the aftermath of the Afghanistan mess.  CTH has been writing about this, because we knew a time would come when the coordinating participants were going to fracture in order to protect themselves.

General Mark Milley Seems to Have Been the Source for Bob Woodward's Story About Mark Milley Undermining the Constitution.  Yesterday [9/14/2021], most of us were stunned to find that in the aftermath of the January 6 disturbance on Capitol Hill, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark "White Rage" Milley had contacted his Chinese counterpart to promise that he'd give him advance notice of any attack on China carried out by an unstable President Trump.  This is from the Washington Post's promotion of the book "Peril" by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. [...] There is so much here to unpack that one doesn't really know where to start.  If the word "coup" is to have any meaning, then what Milley instigated here is certainly was one. [...] The underlying question here is how did this story come to be. [...] From the tone and detail of the account, the most obvious source for the story is none other than Mark Milley.  [Tweet]  Who is the hero of the story?  Milley.  Who is the villain?  Trump.  Quite honestly, there is no reason for anyone other than Milley to have told this story.

Coup: General Milley Secretly Pledged to Warn Chinese Communist Party if Trump Planned a Strike.  Through secret backchannels unbeknownst to then-President Donald Trump, General Mark Milley informed leaders from the Chinese Communist Party and Democratic Party that he would not carry out "any kind" of military action ordered by Trump.  The revelations represent a stunning admission of an effective coup d'etat at the top of the U.S. government, with U.S. officials colluding with the Chinese Communist Party in order to limit Donald Trump's powers.  General Milley — who controversially defended teaching Marxist "critical race theory" in the military — telephoned his Chinese Communist Party counterpart, General Li Zuocheng, twice in the final months of the Trump administration.  Milley's calls — according to Bob Woodward's and Robert Costa's new book entited Peril — were aimed at restricting the President of the United States' abilities to wage kinetic war against China.  Stunningly, Milley even secretly pledged to inform Beijing ahead of any potential U.S. military action.

Sen. Rubio demands President Biden fire Gen. Milley immediately.  Florida Sen. Marco Rubio is urging President Biden to fire Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley immediately.  In a letter to the president, Rubio, vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, writes with "grave concern" regarding recent reporting that Milley allegedly "worked to actively undermine the sitting Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces and contemplated a treasonous leak of classified information to the Chinese Communist Party in advance of a potential armed conflict."  "Even more egregiously, reports indicate that General Milley interfered with the procedures by which the civilian commander-in-chief can order a nuclear strike," writes Rubio.  "A senior military officer interfering with that civilian-controlled process is simply unacceptable at best, and at worst, would cause ambiguity which could lead to war," he went on to say.  The actions are reportedly described in a forthcoming book, "Peril," by Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.

Alexander Vindman Says Gen. Milley 'Must Resign' If Report of His Calls to China Is True.  An upcoming book by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa says the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took some pretty drastic measures over his concerns about how erratic and unhinged then-President Donald Trump acted after the 2020 election.  Milley allegedly took steps to prevent Trump from using nuclear weapons, and apparently he was so worried about Trump starting a war with China that he called his counterpart in China.

Gen Milley Planned Coup Against Trump, Called China To Warn Them Of Possible Attack.  During the final months of former President Donald Trump's term, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley made two phone calls to Chinese officials in fear that Trump would create conflict with the communist nation, a new book has claimed.  In the book, authored by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward and national political reporter Robert Costa, it is alleged that Milley made two secret phone calls, both to his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Li Zuocheng of the People's Liberation Army.  The book alleges that the phone calls took place prior to the 2020 presidential election on Oct. 30, 2020, and two days after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, on Jan. 8, 2021.  [Video clip]

The Gaslighting Begins After Mark Milley's Treasonous Actions Are Revealed.  Earlier today, one of the most consequential stories in a long time broke with the revelation that Gen. Mark Milley, now the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had colluded with the Chinese to possibly commit treason.  The discussion that led to the quote in question happened via secret, unsanctioned calls between Milley and a top Chinese general.  At one point, Milley is reported to have pledged to the Chinese that he would tip them off about any possible attack coming from the United States.

Treason? Resignation Calls Follow Report of General Milley's Secret Calls to China.  After the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco, some said General Mark Milley should no longer be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so Tuesday's Washington Post blockbuster, excerpted from Robert Costa and Bob Woodward's new book Peril, only adds fuel to that fire.  [Tweet]  Costa and Woodward report, "Twice in the final months of the Trump administration, the country's top military officer was so fearful that the president's actions might spark a war with China that he moved urgently to avert armed conflict."  In two secret phone calls, they report, Milley assured Gen. Li Zuocheng of the Chinese People's Liberation Army that the United States would not attack Beijing.  One call allegedly took place four days before the 2020 presidential election; the second was two days after the Jan. 6 Capitol siege.

Talk About a Coup:  It Was Pelosi Who Pushed Milley to Act Against Trump.  There's an incredible report that broke today about improper actions by Gen. Mark Milley after the Capitol riot.  According to the report, Milley tried to interfere with Trump's ability to solely control a nuclear decision. [...] This, of course, is a brazenly improper action as only the president can dictate the nuclear use and Milley was trying to do an end-run around him with this.  On top of that, as we reported earlier, Milley allegedly contacted his Chinese counterpart and told him he would warn him if we were going to attack — another astonishingly improper action which was reportedly done without the knowledge of President Donald Trump.

Woodward/Costa book:  Worried Trump could 'go rogue,' Milley took secret action to protect nuclear weapons.  Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, President Donald Trump's top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, single-handedly took secret action to limit Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons, according to "Peril," a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.  Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, 'was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.'  Milley worried that Trump could 'go rogue,' the authors write.  "You never know what a president's trigger point is," Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.

New Reporting Shows General Milley Committed Treason.  New reporting from The Washington Post, detailing the contents of a new book, shows General Mark Milley reassured China's People's Liberal Army General Li Zuocheng that he would give the communist country a heads up if President Donald Trump launched an attack in the final months of his presidency.  He did so in a series of reported phone calls and reassured Li he would stand between Trump and an attack on Chinese assets. [...] In other words, Milley instructed senior officers to obey his orders and to ignore those given by the President Trump, the duly elected commander-in-chief.  The outrageous behavior has sparked additional calls for Milley to resign and even for his arrest.

Tony Blinken must go for Afghan disaster, trying to bury its ugly truth.  Day 2 of the Antony Blinken show was worse than Day 1: Testifying to the Senate the morning after a savage House grilling, he still had no clear answers to basic questions about the Afghan-pullout fiasco — only gray evasion.  Even many Democrats hit hard.  "The execution of the US withdrawal was clearly and fatally flawed," said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ).  "This committee expects to receive a full explanation of this administration's decisions on Afghanistan since coming into office last January.  There has to be accountability."  But Blinken, a yes-man at Biden's side for two decades of disastrous foreign policy, took no responsibility, again fingering Team Trump for the whole debacle and sidestepping questions that would expose his own culpability.

Gen. Mark Milley Held Secret Pentagon Meeting, Told Staff Not To Take Orders From President Donald Trump Regarding Nuclear Weapons.  Two days after the January 6th riot at the United States Capitol, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley secretly took action to keep President Donald Trump from ordering the use of nuclear weapons.  The revelations come to light in Bob Woodward's new book "Peril."  "You never know what a president's trigger point is," Milley reportedly told his staff.  According to CNN, who reviewed the book, Milley 'called a secret meeting in his Pentagon office on January 8 to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons. [...] Milley instructed them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved.'

Can we believe Bob Woodward's story about General Milley?  Can we believe the shocking allegations of misconduct on the part of General Mark Milley in a new book to come from Bob Woodward?  His paper, the Washington Post has published excerpts. [...] I already despise Milley for his focus on "white rage" and for his conduct of what became an abject surrender to the Taliban.  But I have express some caution about believing Woodward, who does not name his sources. [...] Mark Levin pointed out on his syndicated radio show today that Woodward and the WaPo should not have sat on this story, if it is true, until Woodward had a book to hype.  Milley allegedly was, after all, discussing a wartime situation in which the US was going to strike China, which would make his giving aid and comfort to the enemy treason, a capital offense.