[Wash Examiner] Outgoing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes on Sunday called for the creation of a transparency office nestled under the White House that would be dedicated to declassifying government information.
"Our investigation is essentially over. We have everything that we need. What we're lacking now is that we're lacking the declassification by the president," Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News of his panel's probe into the Justice Department and the FBI's handling of the Russia inquiry.
"For various reasons, the president or his staff doesn't want to do it. Therefore, I think it's important if the president doesn't want his hands on it, we have to have somebody, some office, that's going to look at all of these issues and all of these documents that need to be declassified," Nunes said. "I'm going be working with my colleagues to work on and send some example over to the president of a transparency type of office, so that the Congress, the American people, others can put in requests of documents or issues that they want declassified. That way the president doesn't have to take this full burden on and the Congress has somewhere where we can go to try to avoid the swamp creatures from getting involved and ensuring that the American public is kept in the dark."
Nunes' proposal follows the delayed release of Russia-related materials after Trump changed his mind in September about ordering their immediate declassification. Instead, the president delegated the responsibility to the DOJ inspector general. The change was reportedly prompted by meeting with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other officials.
[Wash Examiner] A court will overturn former national Security Adviser Michael Flynn's conviction for lying to the FBI, a House Judiciary Republican predicted Sunday.
The prognostication by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who is retiring from Congress in January, comes after a federal judge demanded more information about Flynn's dealings with the FBI ahead of his expected sentencing on Tuesday. Last December, Flynn pleaded guilty as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's federal Russia inquiry to lying during a January 2017 interview with investigators. He told them he did not discuss sanctions with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn's lawyers have argued their client should not receive prison time due to the casual nature of the sit-down, including how Flynn was not advised he was under scrutiny from the government.
"I would not be surprised a bit if the conviction of Flynn is overturned because of the Justice Department and the FBI's misconduct," Issa told Fox News.
Issa then criticized fired FBI Director James Comey, who last week said the bureau was able to question Flynn without following established procedures because the Trump White House was not as "organized" as previous administrations.
Mueller recommended earlier in December that U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, the judge overseeing Flynn's case, not hand down a prison sentence to Flynn, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and 2016 Trump campaign surrogate, given his "substantial assistance" to the Russia probe.
#2
Surely there must be some legal technicality of which we peons are not aware that will keep the judge from overturning this case. But it'd make a nice Christmas present if there isn't.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/17/2018 11:15 Comments ||
Top||
[Political Insider] According to two experts, the Clinton Foundation should have never been a registered non-profit and should have been seen as a foreign agent.
This testimony was given before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which was convened by Rep. Mark Meadows. (RELATED: Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers Scheduled to Make ’Explosive’ Allegations This Week.)
Investigative journalist Sarah Carter reports:
The Clinton Foundation operated as a foreign agent ’early in its life’ and ’throughout it’s existence’ and did not operate as a 501c3 charitable foundation as required by its and is not entitled to its status as a nonprofit, alleged two highly qualified forensic investigators, accompanied by three other investigators, said in explosive testimony Thursday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Earlier this week, we learned that over 6,000 documents on the Clinton Foundation turned over to the FBI may have proof that the Clinton Foundation was engaged in illegal activity. We’re still waiting to learn more from that trove of information. before they're shredded and burned
What we did learn from the testimony of those two forensics experts is what we’ve long suspected: the Clinton Foundation was a clearing house for foreign graft. More from Carter’s report, referencing witness John Moynihan:
[Gateway Pundit] Mueller’s Special Counsel team of 13 angry Democrats scrubbed Peter Strzok’s phone and then turned it over to the Office of Inspector General investigators AFTER Peter Strzok was fired from the special counsel.
Peter Strzok was fired from the Special Counsel after text messages surfaced showing that he had a strong hatred for Donald Trump and his supporters.
Peter Strzok was reassigned in the summer of 2017 to the FBI’s human resource department after his dismissal from the Mueller witch hunt in July 2017.
His lover Lisa Page reportedly resigned from the FBI in May 2018 ‐ and was removed from Special Counsel on July 15th, 2017. She was fired two weeks before Strzok was fired from the special counsel.
Lisa Page’s phone was scrubbed and not turned over to OIG until September 2018.
#2
If there is justice anymore, Judge Sullivan ought to throw out the case and harshly penalize punish those who brought it and restore what Flynn lost plus punitive damages.
The entire Mueller proctology probe was based on lies. Fruit of the poisoned tree.
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today released two sets of heavily redacted State Department documents, 38 pages and 48 pages, showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).
Judicial Watch obtained the documents through a June 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department after it failed to respond to a February 2018 request seeking records of the Obama State Department’s last-minute efforts to share classified information about Russia election interference issues with Democratic Senator Ben Cardin (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-01381)).
The documents reveal the Obama State Department urgently gathering classified Russia investigation information and disseminating it to members of Congress within hours of Donald Trump taking office.
[Hot Air] Since it’s never too early to start the 2020 election cycle, CNN got out ahead of the pack this week and put a poll in the field in Iowa, the first caucus state for the presidential election. They were looking to see who the hot prospects for the nomination are. The results aren’t all that much different from some national polls we’ve already looked it, but there were a few juicy bits of goodness in there.
At the top of the pack (as usual) were Joe Biden
...age 76...
and Bernie Sanders.
...age 77. Either or both might be dead in two years.
The only real shocker was to see Beto O’Rourke moving up into third place. But there was one name missing from notable contention and Chris Cillizza read the tea leaves. Iowa Democrats have pretty much no interest in seeing Hillary Clinton
...merely 71, but decidedly unhealthy despite the efforts of her medical staff and her personal cosmetologist...
darkening their doorways for a third try. (CNN)
Hillary is a non-starter
There is some chatter within the Democratic Party that Clinton, who has run for president twice before unsuccessfully, might try one more time. This poll suggests that Democrats simply are not pining for her to run. More Democrats view her unfavorably (49%) than view her favorably (47%). But it gets worse! More than one in five (22%) have a "very" unfavorable view of Clinton while 26% have a mostly unfavorable view. Just 17% have a "very" favorable view. But it gets even worse. Almost three-quarters ‐ 72% ‐ think she would detract more than she would add to the race. Reminder: This is among Democrats! Not good.
This clearly not a case of Hillary Clinton just being "less interesting" to Iowa voters than others. Her favorable numbers are underwater, with nearly a quarter of them seeing her "very unfavorably." And that figure regarding whether she would "add to" or "detract from" the race by being in it at all is just brutal. She lost that one by more than 70%. So it’s not just case of liking someone else better. Iowa Democrats don’t even want her on the stage.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Gateway Pundit] Mueller’s Special Counsel team of 13 angry Democrats scrubbed Peter Strzok’s phone and then turned it over to the Office of Inspector General investigators AFTER Peter Strzok was fired from the special counsel.
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today released two sets of heavily redacted State Department documents, 38 pages and 48 pages, showing classified information was researched and disseminated to multiple U.S. Senators by the Obama administration immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The documents reveal that among those receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).
