The FBI’s investigation has been exposed, undeniably, as baseless from the beginning.
April 16, 2020
ITEM #1: With the coronavirus crisis garnering the overwhelming majority of news coverage these days, there’s been another major development that’s received far less attention than it deserves.
Of course, given the nature of the story, it’s likely the mainstream news media would have downplayed it under any circumstances — virus outbreak or not.
That’s because the story is this: The whole “Crossfire Hurricane” episode — the FBI’s investigation into the Donald Trump campaign over its supposed ties with Russia — has been irrefutably unmasked as baseless and unjustified from the start.
And U.S. Attorney General William Barr isn’t taking it quietly.
In a recent interview with Fox News, Barr unloaded on the whole Russia charade, calling it "one of the greatest travesties in American history."
"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."
Barr said the investigation was launched “without any basis,” and added that the attempts to sabotage the President didn’t end after the campaign did.
"They started this investigation of his campaign. And even more concerning, actually, is what happened after the campaign. A whole pattern of events while he was president ... to sabotage the presidency ... or at least have the effect of sabotaging the presidency. …
“I think it's very sad and the people who abused FISA have a lot to answer for."
As Kevin R. Brock, writing for The Hill, put it:
“This is an attorney general projecting an air of confidence, not afraid to speak truth to slippery politicians even though the pushback will be fierce and personal. In light of that, it’s hard to imagine his confidence isn’t buttressed with mounting evidence of abusive government actions.”
It sounds like we haven’t heard the last from the Attorney General on this. Good.
ITEM #2: So let’s unpack this recent news bombshell.
The Trump-Russia story has been a media obsession for years, and the lynchpin of its attempts to paint the Trump presidency as entirely illegitimate. But that case — which was always clearly without merit for all but the most committed left-wing partisans — has now been thoroughly exposed for the sham it always was.
While much of the press has ignored this new development, some reporters, admirably, have covered it quite well. One of them, CBS News’ Catherine Herridge, does a great job of recapping the latest turn in this saga, demonstrating how it was all bunk from the beginning:
"The FBI was warned sections of the controversial Steele dossier could have been part of a 'Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations,' according to newly declassified footnotes from a government watchdog report.
"The December report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz examined the FBI's investigation into alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia as well as the FBI's four surveillance warrants for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page. ...
"Several footnotes in Horowitz's report were redacted, and Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson pushed for the declassification of four footnotes related to the Steele dossier, a collection of opposition research notes on the Trump campaign's ties to Russia compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer.”
Of course, as Herridge notes, FBI investigators used the Steele dossier — which was commissioned by the Democratic National Committee through the opposition research firm Fusion GPS — to secure the surveillance warrants for Page. Herridge continues:
"Footnote 350 in the IG report addresses the FBI's knowledge of Russian contacts with Steele and the potential for disinformation. Steele had 'frequent contacts with representatives for multiple Russian oligarchs, we identified reporting the Crossfire Hurricane team received from (redacted) indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele's election reporting.'"
Damning stuff. But it gets worse:
"The footnote also indicates that warnings to the FBI's Russia probe became more pronounced over time.
"'The (redacted) stated that it did not have high confidence in this subset of Steele's reporting and assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate US foreign relations.'”
Herridge quotes Senator Johnson, who sums things up nicely: "From the opening of the investigation, the FBI team kept accumulating exculpatory information. Yet rather than wind the investigation down, they ramped it up ... Then it got worse. The FBI team excluded exculpatory information from its FISA application ..."
You simply must read Herridge’s full, detailed story. It’s available here.
ITEM #3: The mainstream news media may prefer this new development go unnoticed, but boy, were they enthusiastic about covering this story when they were certain the facts would be damaging to the President.
David Harsanyi, writing for National Review, calls them out:
"At the height of the Russia-collusion hysteria, anyone who theorized that Crossfire Hurricane had been sparked by the Steele dossier — a document paid for by the political party running against [the] target of the investigation — would be rigorously fact-checked.
"Mainstream reporters covering the story would authoritatively inform their audience that it was evidence gleaned from a conversation with then-20-something former Trump adviser George Papadopoulos that had triggered the investigation. They knew, of course, that if the FBI had relied principally on the dossier, the investigation would look transparently and problematically partisan. The Papadopoulos conversations, on the other hand, sounded pretty damning, even though journalists didn’t know exactly what they entailed.
"Well, DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz recently told the Senate that those FISA warrants used to spy on the Trump campaign were 'entirely' predicated on information from that dossier. And we now know that virtually every one of those applications to spy on American citizens was rife with errors, misleading information, and 'fraudulent' evidence.”
But of course, the Papadopoulos angle fit the media’s preferred narrative. And so that’s what they pushed. Yet another banner moment for the Fourth Estate.
ITEM #4: And let’s not forget about James Comey.
The former FBI Director’s clownish antics throughout all of this are legendary, and James A. Gagliano, writing for the Washington Examiner, has penned a thorough takedown of this corrupt, shamelessly partisan hack.
Here’s Gagliano, on Comey’s repugnant behavior:
"The accumulation of exculpatory information ignored by Comey’s Crossfire Hurricane investigative team is also a damning indictment of intentionality. Trump’s campaign proved to be catnip for a partisan team hypnotized by the lure of bagging the ultimate prize: a presidential candidate they loathed. And though entitled to their own personal political opinions, Comey’s crew appears to have been a monolith of partisan, anti-Trump #Resistance members. ...
"The issues with Crossfire Hurricane were directly related to Comey’s feckless leadership and the partisan team of callow sycophants he assembled to assure the emperor he was wearing invisible threads."
And then comes the mic-drop moment:
“It wasn’t ‘sloppiness’ of ‘mid-level supervisors’ who caused this debacle. It was all a result of Comey's leadership failings.”
So there you have it, folks, plain as day for anyone with eyes to see. Crossfire Hurricane was a political hit job launched by the Obama Justice Department from day one, and then exploited further by left-wing partisans and a dutifully compliant news media well afterwards. It was a groundless, crooked attempt to undermine a presidential candidate, and then a president, by unethical political snakes.
It’s a shame that it took so long for the truth to come out. Still, better late than never. Now, the next step is to ensure that those who are responsible for forcing this travesty on our country pay a hefty political price.
ITEM #5: Last week, we took a close look at the many ways the left is trying to exploit the coronavirus crisis to further its long-standing political agenda. One of the examples we focused on was their push for all-mail ballots in our elections, which is dangerous in that this approach would greatly increase the likelihood of electoral fraud and abuse.
But you don’t have to take our word for it. Just ask … Jimmy Carter.
Via John Lott, writing for The Wall Street Journal:
“‘Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.’ That quote isn’t from President Trump, who criticized mail-in voting this week after Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to change an election at the last minute into an exclusively mail-in affair. It’s the conclusion of the bipartisan 2005 report of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III.”
Lott goes on to detail the findings of the Commission, which included “intimidation and vote buying” among its top concerns over absentee voting.
As Lott notes, President Trump has sounded the alarm over this threat to election integrity. And the mainstream news media have, naturally, howled in response, with CNN even publishing a “fact check” scolding the President over his “lies about voter fraud.”
We await the forthcoming admonishments of Jimmy Carter for his attack on our democracy.
ITEM #6: Jim Acosta, CNN’s Trump-hating gasbag-in-chief, tweeted last week:
“Six in 10 Americans now say the economy is in poor shape, up 30 points since last month, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.”
This is such an appalling, disgusting cheap shot. And it’s even more disgusting knowing how giddy Acosta clearly is to be reporting about people’s suffering.
ITEM #7: According to a new Ipsos poll, “Almost three-in-five Democrats want taxpayers to bail out the poverty-stricken communities of illegal immigrants.” Yes, because our country doesn’t have enough on its plate right now.
Good luck running on that in the fall!
ITEM #8: Sen. Diane Feinstein wrote last week that “President Trump should support Iran’s request to the IMF for emergency funds to contain this virus.” Sparking Sen. Ted Cruz to respond:
“The Ayatollah leads chants of ‘death to America.’ He pledges to destroy America, which he calls ‘the Great Satan.’ And Senate Dems want to send him millions??? At the EXACT SAME TIME, Senate Dems are blocking desperately need relief to small businesses in America.”
Democrats, still suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, seem to have their priorities all screwed up.
ITEM #9: Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones, a black Democrat, bucked his party and endorsed Republican President Trump for re-election this week, saying the president’s policies have helped African-American voters.
He was immediately labeled an embarrassment to his race. But something tells us he’s not the only black Democrat who will be pulling the Trump lever in November.
ITEM #10: NBC, one of China’s propaganda arms sucking up to the communist nation here in the U.S., reported last week:
“Meanwhile in China, where the pandemic broke out, not a single new coronavirus death was reported.”
As if any claim coming out of China can be taken at face value.
Replied David Burge on Twitter: “Fun fact: China also never reported a single death at Tiananmen Square.”
NOTABLE QUOTES
“What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.” – Thomas Sowell
“The safest/most secure way to vote is in person. When you take that away, anything goes. We’re destroying our economy, we’re limiting our freedoms, and now [the Left] just wants to blow up our elections." – Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch
“House Democrats announced that they don’t plan on going back to work until early May ‘absent an emergency.’ I guess a global pandemic, 17 million Americans out of a job, and thousands of small businesses closing their doors doesn’t qualify as an ‘emergency’ to Nancy Pelosi.” – Charlie Kirk
“The same people who say President Trump doesn’t know anything about medicine think Greta Thunberg is a climate expert. Let that sink in.” – Ryan Fournier