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Samizdata quote of the day Yet the involvement of sitting intelligence officials—and a sitting president—in such a campaign should be a frightening thought even to people who despise Trump and oppose every single one of his policies, especially in an age where the possibilities for such abuses have been multiplied by the power of secret courts, wide-spectrum surveillance, and the centralized creation and control of story-lines that live on social media while being fed from inside protected nodes of the federal bureaucracy.
– Lee Smith
Emphasis added.
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If we assume for sake of argument that Trump actually was colluding with Russia to harm the US somehow, then Obama and the intelligence agencies getting involved is the correct thing to do. Avoiding foreign infiltrators at high levels of government is a pretty big deal to them, and rightly so. It’s only problematic if the intel that he was doing so was false(or nonexistent). This seems like it was in the “unlikely, but not impossible” category, from what little I’ve read – it’s not really good intel, but it’s at least worth a bit of follow-up. That’s not carte blanche to wiretap half of New York to see what you find, but an investigation to some degree or another seems like it’s reasonable to me.
So, the “president” who sold off a significant portion of the US’s uranium supplies to Russia in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes, lied to the American people so that Iran could become a nuclear power, handed half of the ME to the Russians through ineptness and intention, accidentally let us all hear as he explained to the Russian ambassador that he would have more freedom to help Russia once the pesky election was over, and used his executive-branch agencies to harm his political opponents ought to use those agencies to “investigate” the possible wrongdoings of his party’s political opponent when the evidence – contained within a memo that speaks of that opponent hiring prostitutes to urinate on a bed because Obama once slept there – was fabricated by Obama’s own party?
Sorry, no.
And even if that parade of horribles weren’t true, a special protection exists in a democracy when an administration starts contemplating using its powers against its political opposition.
Obama et al have transformed us into a banana republic. Every one of them needs to be rooted out and ruined.
I was a spy against the Soviets back in the 1960’s for a division of NSA. We “troops” in the trenches all trusted the NSA. Today, forget it. There are two parts of any US spy, law enforcement agency: the troops and the generals. The troops are enlisted men that want to do a job for their country or for the money/pensions but for the most act like they can be trusted. The generals are appointed by presidents. Obama appointed most of traitors on the 7th floor of the FBI who thought it was their right to break any law, spy on any person in order to try to find anything against Trump. Obama appointed Adolph Contreras the FISA court judge who rubber stamped this travesty. The FBI scum never disclosed to Contreras that the ‘evidence” was all bullshit paid for by the Clinton campaign.
This is Watergate on steroids and goes right up to the highest level (Obama). Watergate was a half-assed, stupid break-in. This is systematic, coordinated and evil corruption by an entire administration. The difference is crucial. Back in the early 1970’s similar to today the press in Washington was 95% hard left so they hounded the Nixon administration smelling blood. The press today are all 100% Democrats: Socialists, Communists, fellow travelers, useful idiots, Progressives and so forth. There is virtually 100% push back against all evidence incriminating the Obama/Clinton party by the press, the media arm of the Democrat Party. There is no attempt, I mean zero, to be investigative reporters like Watergate reporters Woodward/Bernstein. In fact any such attempt would be ‘spiked’ by the press hierarchy, managers and ownership.
My only fear is that Trump is not savvy enough to realize his Justice Department is compromised. If the Justice Department under sleepy boy AG Sessions does nothing then the press will control the narrative. The press will cover this story with a pillow until it stops moving.
Can you imagine if Crooked Hillary had been elected? This story would have been buried and never, ever have seen the light of day.
“..should be a frightening thought even to people who despise Trump and oppose every single one of his policies…”
…but won’t be.
And after all this those mythical “good FBI agents” still haven’t appeared to spill the beans on all the corruption they’ve been privy to. It’s almost like protecting their criminal colleagues is more important than their duty and oaths.
It is not ‘a frightening thought even to people who despise Trump and oppose every single one of his policies’ because they know that he and the Republicans would never do such a thing.
You know, Trump is really growing on me. I would have stayed home on election day rather than vote for him, so I guess it’s fortunate I’m not American and my opinion didn’t count on the day.
I’ve wondered about this for years: When you become the sitting government of a nation, you gain access to top secret briefings and your nation’s intelligence network. That means you know all sorts of things as president that you didn’t know as candidate. This would presumably include many of the dirty little secrets of the last administration.
And yet, I can’t recall leaks about what a scoundrel the “last guy” was occurring in any western democracy, despite the seemingly obvious capacity for such leaks. The only thing I can conclude is there is a “gentleman’s agreement” among politicians that they won’t do this. I won’t leak your dirt if you don’t leak mine. They’re all in it together.
But Trump isn’t playing that game. For all his faults this can only mean one thing. Folks it has finally happened. We’ve elected someone who isn’t one of them.
JadedLibertarian (February 4, 2018 at 9:39 am), the knowledge that your political enemies will one day have access to all secret files is one of the most important controls on government.
The key point about this last election cycle is that they really believed that Trump could not win – that the “1.6% chance of winning” they said he had was meaningful, that “Georgia could well be in play for the Democrats.” The wholesome constraint that a fear of Trump’s winning would have given was absent. So they earned credit with incoming Hillary by cheating for her – and if, as the campaign went on, they wondered, as she did, “Why am I not 50 points ahead!”, then they doubled down – they were already “in fraud step’d in so far that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er”. After the impossible happened, getting rid of Trump was not just their worldview – it was essential, before this ‘most important control’ started to take effect.
None of the policies of the Trump Administration are pro Russian – the restoration of the American military (deliberately undermined by Comrade Barack Obama) and the deregulation of American hydrocarbon production (in competition with Russia – and reversing the war-on-American-industry of Comrade Barack Obama) is the exact opposite of what Mr Putin would want.
It is clear that the American “Deep State” (the leftist elite from the universities – who go into the Federal bureaucracy, and into the socialist “mainstream media” such as the Stalin and Castro supporting New York Times) was desperate for Hillary Clinton to win. This was obvious in the Democrat Primary campaign – where responsible candidates, such as Senator Jim Webb, were ignored by the (socialist) mainstream media and not even allowed time in debates (as Senator Webb said when he pulled out of the rigged process in disgust – what is the point of going to a debate if you are not allowed to debate, if you are not allowed to SPEAK). The only alternative to Hillary Clinton that the media talked about was an elderly Vermont socialist (and former porn writer) “Bernie” Sanders – whose one virtue is that he openly admits he is a socialist. The media (the evil creatures from the universities) did not really want him to win the nomination – as the people “are not YET ready” for an open socialist. But they did want him to be the only alternative to Hillary Clinton – so that Mrs Clinton could be presented as the “moderate alternative” to “Bernie”.
It is often forgotten that during the Republican Primary campaign the Deep State (and the media – which is joined with the Deep State at the hip, as they both the product of the education system, the universities and so on) actually wanted Donald Trump to win – this was because they regarded Mr Trump as the weakest opponent for Hillary Clinton.
“Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination – and then Hillary Clinton wins the Presidency” that was the “Progressive” (read “Deep State” and media) plan – but it went horribly wrong for them, when Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton.
However, the left has not given up. On the contrary the Deep State, education system and the “mainstream” media (basically the forces of socialism – from Hollywood to Harvard) have “doubled down” – they now want to make President Trump a hate-figure so that a Progressive (read socialist) can win the Presidency in 2020.
They even pretend that there was no government campaign against Donald Trump in the general election – for example the Economist magazine says that President Trump “falsely” claims that communications from Trump campaign people were intercepted by the Deep State (what in common language is called “tapping”).
“But Paul the Economist magazine is not leftist – they just have a personal hatred for Donald Trump, which is why the Economist magazine constantly lies about such things as the tapping”.
So it is just personal hatred and not ideological? Then please explain why the Economist magazine endorsed Comrade Barack Obama for President of the United States in 2008 and 2012, was Mr Trump the Republican candidate in 2008 and 2012? Whatever the Economist magazine actually is (and I think “Fellow Traveller” rather than “socialist” best describes the vile publication) it is NOT the “Classical Liberal” roll-back-the-state publication it pretends to be. Indeed it even supports the European Union (and it has certainly not given up its campaign to subvert and destroy the independence of the United Kingdom – a nation for which it has an ideological hatred).
At least the American “mainstream media” and education system (the schools and universities) do not claim to be “Classical Liberals” who support the Free Market – the evil of the American “mainstream media” and education system (and of such scum as the “Justice” Department and so much of the Federal bureaucracy) is now out-in-the-open.
Action must be taken – the Federal bureaucracy (especially the “Justice” Department) must be dismissed – without pensions or other perks. The “mainstream media” fully exposed as the socialists (indeed sometimes actual Frankfurt School types) they are, and (above all) the “education system” (the schools and universities whose fanatical obsession is to make young people hate and despise everything the United States of America is supposed to stand for) cleared out, by radical “defunding”.
Not much can be done about elite private schools for children (which are often also radical collectivist indoctrination centres – teaching “Social Reform” and “Social Justice” i.e. socialism by the instalment plan), but the taxpayer funding of the general far-left “education system” must be ended, both at Federal and State and local level.
“Obama appointed Adolph Contreras the FISA court judge who rubber stamped this travesty.”
Contreras was appointed to the federal bench by Obama, but he was designated to the FISA Court by Chief Justice John Roberts. Frankly, I don’t know if there is much which can be read into that. The 11 FISA Court judges are all sitting federal judges who add FISA duties to their regular ones; in other words, they’re still active judges, they just do FISA “stuff” when needed. And as to his involvement in the Flynn case, he was randomly appointed to it (cases at the District Court level are assigned by rotation). I’m not prepared to read anything sinister into his involvement in any of this.
“It’s almost like protecting their criminal colleagues is more important than their duty and oaths.”
Maybe, although I suspect that it’s more about protecting their careers. The FBI is full of mid-level bureaucrats who could make any whistle-blower’s life miserable, and in any event sooner or later the Democrats will be back in power and they are vindictive and have long memories. Better just to keep your head down and wait until your pension vests.
Pretty transparent partisan hit job on the FBI. No doubt the courts will be the next target.
Any possible mechanism of presidential accountability will be smeared, undermined and weakened in like fashion.
And at some point in the future there will be someone from the other party in the White House. Do you think that person will be in any great hurry to repair the damage?
Nunes and co will not be looking so clever then.
You have that the wrong way around, Biffa.
John Galt III,
You are correct about 7th floor of FBI, but not NSA, at least as far as this situation goes. Adm. Rodgers will be shown to have been upright and on the right side when all comes out. But like the NSA he’s keeping a low profile.
Biffa,
“on the FBI” -> “by the FBI”
AMIRITE!?
I’m not agreeing with Biffa (as Perry says, he has it exactly backward), but at the same time there is no federal agency more deserving of a “hit job” than the FBI. It has an utterly sordid history of domestic spying, blackmail and intimidation, and political manipulation. There was no more vile creature than J. Edgar Hoover, and if you think its practices have changed since his death I have a lovely bridge to sell you.
You will all change your tune under the next Democrat administration, or the next time a prominent Democrat is in the FBI’s sights. I guarantee it.
If no one here “changes their tune”, you won’t retract your statement – I guarantee it. I won’t actually do anything, or stake anything of value, or even remember that I’ve said this, but I still guarantee it.
Do you see how easy and utterly pointless that was?
> So, the “president”
He was the president – there’s not really a lot of possible ambiguity there.
> sold off a significant portion of the US’s uranium supplies to Russia in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes
Russia has no shortage of uranium – remember, they already have enough nukes to vaporize us half a dozen times over, and that’s after shrinking their arsenal a few times. I’d feel more comfortable selling uranium to Russia than to most other nations, regardless of my opinions of the nation otherwise – selling someone their millionth bullet is a lot less dangerous than selling them their first. And looking into this allegation, it’s pretty clearly bogus. The deal was the sale of a mining company, not shipping off tons of uranium, because them actually shipping stuff around is still controlled(the only actual shipment anyone seems to be discussing went to Canada). Most of the “bribes” were years before the sale and came from the Canadian guy who sold the company, not Russia.
> lied to the American people so that Iran could become a nuclear power
It seems a lot more like incompetence than malice to me. Someone who was silly enough to believe an Iranian regime’s promises would act like Obama acted. Same way Clinton did with North Korea in the 90s. Democrats are often skeptics of US power, but by the time they get to high office, the bureaucracy(which is very pro-US government) has usually captured them enough that actual malice is pretty hard to credit.
> handed half of the ME to the Russians through ineptness and intention
Yup, we agree on this one.
> accidentally let us all hear as he explained to the Russian ambassador that he would have more freedom to help Russia once the pesky election was over
Diplomacy is fun like that. He’d have said the same thing whether or not he intended to help. Not a point in Obama’s favour, but hardly his worst sin.
> and used his executive-branch agencies to harm his political opponents ought to use those agencies to “investigate” the possible wrongdoings of his party’s political opponent when the evidence – contained within a memo that speaks of that opponent hiring prostitutes to urinate on a bed because Obama once slept there – was fabricated by Obama’s own party?
Wait, this is the same dossier as the “golden showers” thing? I thought they were two separate ones – there was no mention of that when I looked into this whole mess. Okay, the appropriate size of the investigation in my mind just got cut in half.
> And even if that parade of horribles weren’t true, a special protection exists in a democracy when an administration starts contemplating using its powers against its political opposition.
The police should investigate crimes. Trump looking into Clinton’s emails would be “an administration…using its powers against its political opposition”, but it would also be a genuine inquiry into a potential crime. Tread carefully, but holding office is not and should not be a bar to prosecution.
> Obama et al have transformed us into a banana republic. Every one of them needs to be rooted out and ruined.
Damned incompetent one – they couldn’t win an election against the least popular candidate in history.
JadedLibertarian: More of an observation than a prediction, really. To be gladly retracted if you can provide a link to any vehement outrage you expressed in late 2016 about Comey reopening the Hillary investigation. I’m waiting.
Ah so you’re willing to reconfigure your prophesy into a historical critique? As to my previous conduct I barely know who Comey is, and have never written a comment containing that name before so you’ll be waiting a while. I’m Scottish so much of American politics escapes me.
I was criticising your rhetorical style as empty grandstanding. You’ve not convinced me I was wrong.
“Pretty transparent partisan hit job on the FBI.”
Refute it, then.
The reason there was little outrage expressed on the “right” about the reopening of the Clinton investigation is that it was already glaringly obvious by that point that the Bureau had been politicized, and was protecting the then-existing administration while attempting to prevent its opponents from forming the next. Unlike the Russian non-scandal, there is no doubt or insinuation in the Clinton email case: Comey himself stated plainly that classified information had indeed been placed on an insecure server in violation of the law. But he took it upon himself, with no legal authority, to recommend that there be no prosecution because there was no intent, which the relevant law doesn’t require.
Then, within months, the Bureau opened a major investigation into Clinton’s opponent based entirely on a spurious dossier of innuendo paid for by the DNC, “corroborated” by stories taken from that dossier in the Democrat-friendly press. What is any impartial observer (I’m British and no fan of Trump, although, like JL, he’s growing on me) supposed to think?
You won’t find much celebration of the reopening, either: in simple terms, it was seen as Comey attempting to save his skin once he realised the incoming administration might not be the one he thought it would.
You talk of accountability. Where’s the FBI’s accountability in all of this? Quis custodet ipsos custodes?
There is a “wonderful” missing-the-point in this thread (including me).
This is not about Donald Trump – there is a much more general thing here.
The Federal “Justice” Department (including the FBI) have got out of control – Court decisions have essentially destroyed key parts of the Bill of Rights.
Such “offences” as “Obstruction of Justice” and “lying to a Federal official” are defined so broadly as to be tyranny. And the “Justice” Departments works in such a warped system that the conviction rate (once in its clutches) is way a above 90%
There should be no “deals” (“copping pleas” or agreeing to perjury, yes PERJURY – baring false witness against other people, for the FBI in order to get a reduced sentence), and there should be no vaguely defined “crimes” that any action or inaction makes someone “guilty” of.
Can we get off the specific Donald Trump thing and look at the real problem – the powers of the American “Justice” Department bureaucracy (the FBI and so on) are arbitrary and despotic. That is the problem.
I know the powers the Feds have were given for “good reason” – such as “we have to fight the Mafia”. But powers that make the justice system a despotic mess (and the American Federal Justice system is a domestic mess) are a BAD THING.
Sam, where is the FBI’s accountability you ask?
Hmm, if only there were some sort of formal public forum in which the FBI at the end of one of its investigations would be required to either prove its claims based on legally acquired evidence or withdraw them …
THANK YOU. At least someone gets it. This is NOT a ‘Trump story’. It is NOT about god damn Trump FFS!
I beg to differ Perry. It’s precisely because of Trump that we even got to hear of this.
Had, say, Jeb Bush been in the White House, I suspect this would have become a poker chip to be tucked away until needed in the backroom dealings of Washington. Had it been Hilary, the perpetrators would likely have been rewarded with high office and no one would have been any the wiser.
It’s precisely because Trump is not a politician that any of this has come out at all. Indirectly I suspect this may also be why he was targeted for this treatment in the first place, both because he was a threat and also because his status as an outsider lent an air of plausibility to the Russian collision narrative.
That’s not too say the OP is wrong about this sort of thing being troubling in and of itself. It is.
Perry says “this is not about Donald Trump.”
Here is the thread:
“Yet the involvement of sitting intelligence officials—and a sitting president—in such a campaign should be a frightening thought even to people who despise Trump and oppose every single one of his policies, especially in an age where the possibilities for such abuses have been multiplied by the power of secret courts, wide-spectrum surveillance, and the centralized creation and control of story-lines that live on social media while being fed from inside protected nodes of the federal bureaucracy.
– Lee Smith
Emphasis added.
For “Russian collision narrative” read “Russian collusion narrative”. 😛
Would a possible collision with Russia have been as scandalous? 🙄
Irrelevant. Is a murder case about the investigating detective or is it actually about the crime? It is about the crime and the detective is just a walk-on player. It is not ABOUT Trump, it is about corruption, systemic endemic corruption.
And if it ain’t, if this being about Trump becomes the dominant narrative, then this is just another partisan political kerfuffle, and frankly of course it will just come down to a strict split on party lines, and then: (a) frankly this isn’t that interesting (b) I expect the only thing that changes is who gets to hold the new & improved IT enabled whip.
But it isn’t about Trump, which is why “even to people who despise Trump and oppose every single one of his policies” they should want to see the people behind this corruption brought down. Why? Because it ain’t about Trump, so hating Trump shouldn’t be an obstacle to seeing justice done for anyone who actually wants the system to work as intended.
To continue your metaphor Perry, Trump is the detective investigating the crime, in a city wholly bought and paid for by the mob. He actually investigates and prosecutes a crime that is supposed to “go away”, potentially at great personal risk.
I would concur that the crime and the investigation are in principal independent, but I don’t know that I’d call it irrelevant.
Bootlegging, the Mafia, rampant police corruption, Elliot Ness and the “Untouchables” were all part of the story of organised crime during prohibition.
To stretch your metaphor to breaking, what you seem to be saying is “This is about bootlegging and police corruption, not Eliot Ness…”.
I don’t think this can be compartmentalised. Given how divisive a figure Trump is, I can see why you would want to compartmentalise it: so you can arrange a cross political popular backlash.
I don’t see that happening though.
“Hmm, if only there were some sort of formal public forum in which the FBI at the end of one of its investigations would be required to either prove its claims based on legally acquired evidence or withdraw them …”
And what if it refuses to make any official claim, despite the evidence? What if it pursues surveillance warrants on US citizens in non-publc fora based on the flimsiest of evidence without their knowledge? Surely, even if you don’t accept that this is what happened in 2016/17, even if, to coin a phrase, you despise Trump and oppose every single one of his policies, you can see how it might be a problem?
If a local police force drops cases against the officers’ friends while vigorously pursuing the tiniest infraction against anyone who crosses them, the latter having their day in court is hardly mitigation for the former. Fair trials don’t protect against bent coppers unless they themselves can be held to account, not for any individual case, but for the very manner in which they conduct their business.
And you still haven’t refuted the “hit-job”.
@Biffa Bacon
Hmm, if only there were some sort of formal public forum in which the FBI at the end of one of its investigations would be required to either prove its claims based on legally acquired evidence or withdraw them …
If you have such confidence in our criminal justice system and the impartiality of the agents involved I suggest you look at this video that bobby b shared with us all a few threads back. It is excellent, terrifying and one that I will be sharing with my children. (Thanks @bobby b.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=41&v=jgDsbjAYXcQ
The reason many libertarians were not too fussed when Comey reopened the investigation of Clinton is because it was plainly evident to anyone who was willing to look objectively that she had committed serious felonies that were very much relevant to her ability to be head of our government. And that the FBI had laid out an indictable case only to then say that no indictment would be forthcoming. His reopening of the case gave us all a small hope that perhaps justice would be done, even for the powerful, a hope that was later dashed. Many did so even though they found Donald Trump just as unsuitable as a president as she was (though I am pretty sure they are wrong). All they asked was that the important people be treated to the same standard of justice that we, the little people had to sweat under. For me it was most certainly NOT a partisan issue. I would have held the same opinion had Trump invited all the security services of all the world over to his house to view lots of government secrets as Ms. Clinton did.
If people see it your way, game.set.match to the Deep State then. You are wrong, it is not a Trump story, but if that is how most people see it, the reality hardly matters. Game over.
That’s a couple of times you’ve said something to that effect Perry.
I’ve given you my reasons for what I believe, how about you give me yours? Otherwise it’s just arguing for arguments sake.
Federal agency overreach is not a new phenomenon. Ruby Ridge or the Branch Davidians ring any bells? What sets this time apart is that the sitting president doesn’t appear to be in on it. That president is Trump.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is so powerful that the FBI could have been found planting a brick of cocaine in Trump’s sock drawer and huge swathes of the left would tie themselves in knots trying to excuse it.
So why do you care so much about what they think? Truth is truth, regardless of whether there is a bipartisan consensus on the matter.
I suppose I should add that the sitting president when it came out isn’t in on it, because it looks very much as though Obama was….
Sorry, but Paul’s comment (and Perry’s support of it) is a straw man. I doubt anyone who commented here so far is ‘missing the point’, thinking that this is about Trump. Trump does figure prominently in all discussions about the Memo and its fallout, for reasons others, especially JL, pointed out – as he well should, because he is a very prominent, if not crucial figure in all this. And as the post says, it has nothing to do with whether one likes the man or not.
Because the facts speak for themselves. This is about the corruption in the institutions, not the advantage or disadvantage of a given president. It would have been just as bad if it had been used against the Democrats (rather than used by the Democrats, which seems to have been the case).
Thank you for eloquent examples of why is clearly isn’t about Trump.
Yet many in the media are furiously spinning this as “just another incidence of Trump rampaging through our great institutions”. Clearly Biffa Bacon commenting here thinks this is about Trump simply attacking his enemies with no underlying justification.
I think that outside this forum, the people for whom this is really about Trump can be divided into two groups: in the first one are those afflicted with TDS, and in the second are those who are praying to his picture in their parents’ basement. I suspect, although I have no numbers to hand, that the first group is quite small (despite being extremely loud), while the second group is even smaller. My impression is that the quiet majority, including those who don’t like the man and his policies, do understand that this is far from being just about this particular President.
I certainly hope so.
Me, too.
@Perry de Havilland (London)
> I certainly hope so.
Frankly, I think you hope in vain. Right now there is this Tom Hanks movie playing about the release of the Pentagon Papers by the WaPo. The irony of the timing on this when the current WaPo has gone out of their way to surpress information on this scandal is utterly lost on nearly everyone in the media.
We regularly hear media diatribes about “gross abuse of power, damaging our fundamental institutions, destroying democracy” recited in the press and I am all like “Yeah, I couldn’t agree more” until I realize that they are in fact referring to the committee that released the memo, not the dirty cops at the FBI (and other places.)
The narrative is so backward on this, and all I can tell you is that the water cooler discussion is entirely split down party lines, almost without exception. Perhaps some of our other American commentators can add here whether their experience lines up with mine.
Having said that, I think this isn’t finished. I think there is a lot more to come out and it will dribble out over the next nine months. I think there is a chance that the President will be made to testify before Muller, and get sucked into his trap, but his lawyers seem to be insisting on written q&a. If the President testifies personally, it could be a disaster, if q&a it’ll be a lot of noise and fury but nothing actually resulting.
It depends on Sessions. He could be sending a lot of people to jail (and he should) but he may well not do so. The really substantial question is the impact on the election next November. I think if the IG report comes out before the election then the Republicans will have a landslide in their favor, and we might get two years where substantial changes can be made to make the country better. If not, it is extremely hard to tell what will happen.
But at the moment, this is almost entirely a partisan issue in the public’s mind, AFAICS.
(BTW, for British readers, the WaPo is the Washington Post, which used to be a great paper, having brought about both the revelations of Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, but is now little more than a liberal shill since it’s acquisition by Jeff Bezos.)
Yes this would have been wrong had the target been Bungle from Rainbow. So in that sense you’re right it’s nothing to do with Trump.
However the target wasn’t Bungle from Rainbow. The target was Donald Trump. So in that very real sense it had quite a lot to do with him.
The USA government has been doing some seriously shady shit for years, Waco and Ruby Ridge being the two most egregious examples. But almost without fail they stage manage it until it more or less goes away. Never mind Lewinsky or the Clinton Foundation, Bill’s use of tanks on American citizens within the continental United States should have seen him impeached. But he wasn’t. They made it go away.
So this is just the latest in a long line of shit, and in all likelihood it will just go away too. But… there’s an unstable gorilla with a Twitter account and a fake tan running around. He’s impulsive. He’s unpredictable. He’s smarter than he pretends to be.
Could Trump, rather than being the thing that turns this into a partisan issue, actually be the wild card that ensures this piece of muck actually sticks to the federal government?
Because if so, I say let’s make it about Trump.
But note that they, too, speak about institutions, democracy, etc. – IOW, they are forced to pretend that for them this is not about Trump. The reason as I suspect is that they know this is what’s important to most people, including at least some Democrat voters. That was the point in my previous comment.
WaPo was truly awful for several years before it was bought by Bezos (with some spare change that his housekeeper must have found between the cushions of his couch). It is still far from being the best source of news and analysis, but it is actually less bad now than it was then.
Good point about institutions Alisa.
It’ll take years before we really know if this is truly “Worse than Watergate ” but I note that when Nixon wanted to spy on his political enemies he had to set up a separate, unique organization,”The Plumbers”. In this case the institutions – FBI/DoJ were willing to spy on Obama’s political enemies.
mmmmm ?
Taylor, I think we can already say with sufficient confidence that this is worse than Watergate. And, if Nixon happened to be a Democrat (not a huge stretch given his positions on various issues) running against a Republican, would he not have been able to find allies in the DOJ and the FBI just as Hilary did in the last elections?
Trump cannot be “made” to testify before Mueller; there really are special rules applicable to sitting presidents. He can’t be sued while in office (there isn’t any actual case law on this, but there is a long series of Attorney General opinions, going back decades over administrations of both parties, which reaches this conclusion, and I doubt that any court would overrule them), and I don’t believe he can be subject to a subpoena either, for basically the same reasons. Certainly it would lead to a true constitutional crisis and require Supreme Court intervention. Mueller (or any successor) would have to wait until he is out of office. However, Trump has stated that he wants to testify, so we’ll see if his lawyers can constrain him.
“It depends on Sessions.” True, and that is an unknown. The man is incompetent, and there’s no predicting what he’ll do. Personally, I believe he is being lead along by some of the career lawyers in the DOJ, which is not a good thing. I was dismayed at his nomination, and nothing he has done while in office has changed my opinion.
This is about Trump like the mafia is about Joey “the fist” Fontana demanding protection money from a small grocery store.
If we focus on the specific, the systemic problems will never be fixed. This kind of thinking is the same kind of stuff that sees us getting the same kind of shitty politicians served up election cycle after election cycle.
Good point Alisa
Nixon liked to think of himself as an American Disraeli “Tory men and Liberal ideas” and so on.
But au fond, he was too much of an anti commie to be acceptable. If Scoop Jackson had been in the White House I doubt the institutions would have helped him. Anyone, Republican or Democrat that wanted America to win the Vietnam war was an enemy of the culturally dominant “liberals”.
Exactly the same. Ten more memos, with more details, won’t change the minds of the truly committed progressives, because those details are just details. BAMN (by any means necessary) is what rules the day for them.
The value of this chapter lies in how much it helps getting the numbers over 50%. You always have that 10-15% sitting in the middle, too uninformed and incurious to care until they maybe take part in voting because of some vague thought that they ought to vote. Bringing this into the open has utility to the extent that it can affect those voters.
So, in Perry’s way of thinking, yes, it’s already lost, because it is nothing more than a partisan issue. Just as stopping Hitler’s march was merely a partisan issue – just two sides jockeying for advantage, and maybe life. There are no surprises here – the progressives wish to destroy a philosophy of life that many of us find to be necessary? – quelle horreur! They are willing to subvert our constitutional form of government in order to control government? – omigawd! Who woulda thunk it?
You can use the phrase “partisan issue” in a cheap and casual way that trivializes the conflict. But the fight between good and evil is merely a “partisan issue”, isn’t it? Perry is correct, and misses the point. Yes, this was a groundbreaking chapter of malfeasance and an attempted illegal coup. And the Progs’ reaction to that is “and damn, it didn’t work.”
Then if Trump’s the issue, everyone who didn’t vote for Trump ends up supporting the use of the FBI as a political tool.
Is forcing the fence sitters into a choice between justice and complete moral bankruptcy a bad thing? Leftists love to think of themselves as the good guys, and while they might be able to keep that up while releasing their inner Stalin, I doubt they’d be able to convince anyone else.
Without speculating about numbers and percentages, I’ll agree in general with bobby b, (February 6, 2018 at 1:04 am) that the constituency for truth (and/or for applying the law equally to the ‘elite’ as to the rest of US citizens) is more than large enough to swing an election – is enough to make an election a ‘landslide’ as that term is casually used. While very, very few of the people my left-leaning west-coast friend described as “hysterical” after Trump’s election will ever admit things as obvious as their hand in front of their face, you don’t need their votes to swing an election.
You have the obvious problem that the MSM is more eager to avoid exposing this than they were to expose Nixon/Watergate, but you have their hysteria going for you, as well as the web. The (few) articles on it I’ve read there are revealing in tone and in blatant avoidance of discussing the memo’s details. Even Comey’s “That’s it!” is revealing – a sneering dismissal in place of a specific point-by-point rebuttal.
Lastly, do not entirely neglect the ability of absurdity – of the Democrats and MSM yelling, “Believe the FBI; don’t impede their spying on you. The Russians are behind it all!” – to open some unlikely minds to fragments of the truth.
Just saw this, and was reminded of Laird’s last comment here.
Those with even one eye and half sense have noticed few things.
1. Obama made a deal with a nation that’s supported and spawned terrorism for decades, ending with him giving the green light for several pallets loaded with the world’s currency on it…BILLIONS of dollars worth of paper currency…to be dropped from plane in the middle of the night.
2. That current stink that’s overwhelming you is the stench of a draining swamp.
3. The only people who even seem to believe “the russian narrative” against Trump…are demonstrably stupid tools of the state…or are just simply demonstrably stupid. Of course, roughly half the population has below average intelligence, and if you’re even halfway smart, average intelligence seems dull.
4. Anyone who’s shocked that the “deep state” and “globalist” tech companies spy on us, turning on our cell phone and tablet microphones and cameras at will, is woefully naive. People do it because they can and because it’s effective, profitable or both.
5. The problem isn’t the FBI. It’s just that the FBI are the errand boys for the “deep state”. When organizations can violate laws with impunity, then lawlessness becomes the expected norm.
Alisa, NEVER “talk” to the cops, especially if you’re innocent, and here’s why.
Youtube vid, yes, it’s 27 minutes, but the professor is so interesting it seems like 5.