The Inevitable New The Inevitable Trump Mocking Thread

https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019...erica-thomas-is-jussie-smolletts-biggest-fan/


Is it really a surprise that Erica Thomas is Jussie Smollett’s ‘biggest fan’?

Posted at 6:18 pm on July 21, 2019 by Greg P.


Well, look at this.

Erica Thomas, the Georgia State Rep who accused a Cuban immigrant who hates Donald Trump of “verbally” assaulting her at a Publix grocery store, is the “biggest fan” of disgraced actor Jussie Smollett:

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tenacious said:
Yeah... why recognize problems and think of solutions when you can pretend you're a hick for Oceanside and complain (or are you now self identifying hillybilly again?)
Click to expand...
I like solution in the White House right now.
signed, "Hick for Oceanside"

How is that complaining?

Jesus H Christ! do people really pay you to write?
 
MEDIA AUGUST 17, 2017
Rush Limbaugh has an interesting theory on why the GOP allows 'leftists' to tear America apart
JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images

SARAH TAYLOR




Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, during the Thursday airing of his nationally syndicated radio show, claimed that the GOP is standing aside while "leftists" destroy America.

Ditch the fake news ==> Click here to get news you can trust sent right to your inbox. It's free!
Limbaugh opened his segment with a direct shot to the media, in which he said, "The media is dividing this country and tearing it apart, and because of fear of the media, way too many on our side are unwilling to stop or even try to explain or oppose this."

"Identity politics," he continued, "which we have been focusing on in recent weeks — intensely in recent days — is the primary weapon being used to divide the country."

Limbaugh noted that "black people and white people who were never slaves are fighting white people and others who were never Nazis over Confederate statues erected by Democrats," and added that "somehow it’s all Donald Trump’s fault."

The radio host condemned mainstream media outlets like CNN, which he claimed only spin stories, and speak out of the sides of their mouths, in order to sabotage the GOP, Republicans, conservatives, and the Trump administration.

About CNN, Limbaugh added, "The questions continue to be asked, and as such, the Republicans have no brand. They have no credibility. They can’t get anything in their agenda done because they won’t condemn whatever went on in Charlottesville, or because they wish to condemn also the violence perpetrated by Black Lives Matter and the anarchists and the Antifa people and so forth. Which, if you do that, CNN and others just jump right down your throat as though you’re a bigot and a racist for daring to point out that the violence everywhere in this country often starts by people on the left. And not only is the violence in this country often started by people on the left, they are the sole practitioners of the violence in 99% of protests."

"Ninety-nine percent of protests you don’t even see the Republicans showing up," Limbaugh said. "It’s a relatively new phenomenon that opposition to the left is showing up at protests. But it still isn’t mainstream Republicans showing up. They just don’t do it. And it isn’t mainstream conservatives showing up to protests. You disagree with the premise, 99% of all violent protests and riots in this country start and are engineered and practiced by the left?"

About the response to Trump's remarks about the Charlottesville terror attack, Limbaugh said, "It was a genuine unhinged hysteria from all over the place, in the Drive-By Media and in Washington. And however the media goes is how the Republican Party is gonna go."

Not to leave out the GOP, Limbaugh claimed that many Republicans jump ship on Trump anytime the mainstream media set their sights on the Trump administration.

"Media goes crazy on Trump, Republicans say, 'Oh, God, there goes our brand. Oh, jeez. We’re never gonna win again.' And they abandon Trump publicly," he explained. "But in their case, they really do. They then go silent. And there isn’t any push-back against any of this, and the problem there is the push-back is not just against Trump.

What the media is doing is not just to Trump. They’re dividing the country, and they are smearing everybody who is not a left-winger or a Democrat or an activist. They’re smearing everybody. They’re smearing talk radio. They’re smearing people that voted for Trump. They are smearing elected Republicans, Republican staff, doesn’t matter where they are, everybody’s being smeared here."

Limbaugh concluded with a suggestion of his own for the Republicans.

"If I may be bold here, if I may be helpful, Republicans, the idea here that you fear damage to your brand? You’re about 30 years late in realizing this, and the reason that you have ongoing fear of your brand is that for the first time it somebody’s fighting back against these allegations, and that’s what’s making you nervous," he blasted. "You’ll note that it’s Donald Trump fighting back against all this that’s really what makes the Republicans nervous."

"For 30 years, the Democrats have been able to call Republicans anything with impunity — racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe, and add on to that — and there’s been never any pushback," Limbaugh said. "All there is, is Republicans trying to kiss up to the media so that they individually are not included in the smear. Well, this is what pushing back looks like, just like this is what trying to strip power away from the establishment looks like."

He added, "This is what it looks like when you push back. It was never gonna be easy, and it was never gonna be pretty. Somebody is trying to save the Republican brand by defending it against all of these smears: Racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia. Too many Republicans have been conditioned to go along with the allegation and to ask for exemption from it."
 
Ricky Fandango said:
I like solution in the White House right now.
signed, "Hick for Oceanside"

How is that complaining?

Jesus H Christ! do people really pay you to write?
Click to expand...

You just seem like a complainer to me. That's the complaining I'm taking about.
Nobody pays me to write as I'm a video editor? Although the last few shows I worked on have been pulling 2.0+'s on cable tv. People will certainly pay for that though...
 
tenacious said:
You just seem like a complainer to me. That's the complaining I'm taking about.
Nobody pays me to write as I'm a video editor? Although the last few shows I worked on have been pulling 2.0+'s on cable tv. People will certainly pay for that though...
Click to expand...
That makes sense to me.
I thought you said awhile back you were some kind of writer.
I was gonna find out who your boss was and steal your job.
Video editor makes more sense.
 
Ricky Fandango said:
That makes sense to me.
I thought you said awhile back you were some kind of writer.
I was gonna find out who your boss was and steal your job.
Video editor makes more sense.
Click to expand...

I do have BA in English with a writing emphasis.
Words or video... most of the conventions are the same. Just a matter taking the time to learn them.
 
Ricky Fandango said:
I was just kidding about stealing your job.
I like my job.
Click to expand...

Good to hear. I'm happy that you're happy. Or to channels some Willie Nelson:
Momma don't let you babies grow up to make tv.
Let them be doctors, lawyers or plumber kings...
Don't let them play with those cameras and lights,
or to learn Media Composer.

(did you see what I did there?)
 
How’s that wall doing?
At Least 14 Illegal Aliens Amongst 22 MS-13 Gang Members Charged with Murderous Machete Attacks
ms-13-gang-tattoos-filephoto-getty-images-640x480.jpg

YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images
JOHN BINDER21 Jul 20195,822
2:20
At least 14 of the 22 MS-13 gang members charged with murdering victims with machetes came to the United States as illegal aliens, Breitbart News can confirm.

Last week, 22 Los Angeles-based members of the violent El Salvadorian MS-13 gang were arrested and charged with a string of gruesome murders that included cases where victims were allegedly hacked with machetes to death and had their hearts cut out from their chests.

Records obtained by Breitbart News confirms that of the 22 MS-13 gang members charged with the vicious murders, at least 14 came to the U.S. as illegal aliens. Thirteen of the illegal alien gang members came from El Salvador and one arrived from Honduras.

In multiple cases, the illegal aliens were ordered to be removed, petitioned to bring relatives to the U.S., were granted or denied work permits, attempted to get asylum, and claimed to be the victims of crimes.

Four of the 22 gang members were born in the U.S. and granted birthright citizenship, while another four have unconfirmed immigration statuses and are presumed illegal aliens until proven otherwise.

The case sheds light on how the MS-13 gang has been highly effective in smuggling its members and potential recruits across the U.S.-Mexico border and avoiding deportation by claiming asylum or petitioning for special immigrant visas.
 
JULY 22, 2019
For Being Such an Idiot, Trump is Pretty Smart
By Brian C. Joondeph
We have been hearing now for four years, ever since that escalator ride at Trump Tower, how then-candidate, now-President Trump is such an idiot. The media, Democrats, and NeverTrumpers, virtually in lockstep assured us that Trump would never be the Republican nominee. When he was, they doubled down promising that he would never be president. Every so-called opinion poll confirmed their predictions.

So who turned out to be smart, winning the White House, and who turned out to be a bunch of buffoons? Yet they still couldn’t admit that they were wrong, predicting that Trump would be impeached or that he would resign from office under intense pressure from critics and scandal. From Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti to Robert Mueller to Megan Rapinoe, each one was portrayed as the dragon-slayer ready to bring down Trump.

All have come and gone like the seasons, bringing down nothing but their reputations and what little integrity they might have possessed. Yet Trump haters won’t give up. Trump is still too stupid and incompetent to be president, they tell us. He is an embarrassment to the country and the world.

Yet on Friday, July 19, Trump sits at 49 percent total approval in the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, four points higher than his predecessor, Mr. Perfect, exactly eight years ago. These approval numbers are despite what many have described as a bad week for the president with his “unforced error” of going after the four lovely patriots of the “Jihad Squad” and telling them that if America is so bad, they are welcome to “go back” to somewhere, anywhere, that is more to their liking.



Screen grab from YouTube

Brit Hume, godfather of the Republican D.C. establishment, not a NeverTrumper, but more of a SometimesTrumper, said Trump’s tweets were “politically stupid.” When Rush Limbaugh and others suggested that Trump’s tweets were strategic and calculated rather than stupid, Hume dismissed this immediately: “I think that's too smart by half, too clever by half, Trump couldn't put something like this together, are you kidding me?”

Of course, Trump couldn’t put something like this together. He isn’t clever enough. Yet he was smart enough to defeat 17 competent and experienced contenders for the Republican nomination in 2016 despite having never run for political office. And he is still president after two and a half years of nonstop negative media coverage and criticism from Democrats and many Republicans.

More in Home









Reuters reluctantly reported: “Republican support for Trump rises after racially charged tweets.” Jake Tapper, liberal CNN mouthpiece, had to acknowledge, “Dem sources admit Trump's 'brilliant' move to make stars of AOC, Omar.”

So, which is it? Did Trump stupidly make a racist, sexist, xenophobic, nativist, white-supremacist tweet as the media and NeverTrumpers claim? Or did he just make the Jihad Squad the new face of the Democratic Party?

Who hasn’t been in the news this past week? How about the 20-plus Democrats vying for the party’s nomination to go up against Goliath Trump next summer? Other than news of the next Democrat primary debate or who is ahead of who in the latest poll, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg are no longer newsworthy.

Instead they, along with Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat party, have been forced to rally around Ocasio-Cortez and Omar. That seems a pretty smart move by Trump.

Axios recently polled what it called “white, non-college voters who embraced Donald Trump in 2016 but are needed by Democrats in swing House districts.” Only 22 percent had a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez with shockingly only 9 percent viewing Omar favorably. This same poll noted that socialism was viewed negatively by 69 percent of swing voters.

With a few tweets and comments, Trump has rebranded the Democratic Party as the party of socialism, with its new party leaders viewed negatively by the vast majority of swing voters.

Are Republicans fleeing the party over Trump’s tweets? Hardly. GOP support for Trump rose this past week. His rally in North Carolina was as enthusiastic as ever. And those hapless Democrats running for their party’s nomination became yesterday’s news as quickly as Trump-slayer of-the-week Megan Rapinoe.

Democrats, in a fleeting moment of honesty, understand the brilliance of Trump’s tweets and framing of the Democrat party, as they admitted to Jake Tapper. Rasmussen also reported that by a 42 to 29 percent margin, likely Democrat voters want the party to be more like Nancy Pelosi than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yet thanks to President Trump, Nancy Pelosi has had to shift towards Ocasio-Cortez rather than vice versa, defending the Jihad Squad against Trump’s tweets.

For Pelosi it’s the path of least resistance. If she denounces the squad, there will be an internal civil war within her party. If she defends them, she makes them the face of the party. Trump has put her in a box.

Some may call it 4-D chess. Instead it may be decades of street smarts developed in the trenches of the New York City real estate development world, along with the branding experience of running a successful television reality show for a decade. What it is not is Trump being stupid.

It’s not just politics. Trump’s supposed stupidity is on display elsewhere. His tough trade war with China is reaping benefits. The U.S. economy is humming along and as the Wall Street Journal reports: “China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas.” Trump has visited North Korea and has a constructive and personal relationship with Kim Jong Un, a first for an American president.

Mexico is suddenly securing its southern border and Trump is doing via executive order what Congress is too lazy to do for asylum-seeking and birthright citizenship.

Spygate is ready to unfold and burst, with declassifications and hopefully accountability for its wrongdoers.

Jeffrey Epstein, the latest Trump-slayer for the wishful thinking Democrats and media, will be anything but. Does anyone really believe that if Epstein had dirt on Trump, we wouldn’t have known it before the election? Epstein and the Clintons were good pals. If Epstein had incriminating photos of videos of Trump with underage girls, Hillary would have used this in 2016 rather than paying millions for a phony dossier. Instead like everything else, Epstein will likely backfire on the left, as Vanity Fair described, “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names.”

For being so stupid, Trump continues to outsmart the smart set on the left, the media geniuses, Hollywood, academia, and the Democrat party. His opponents keep calling him an idiot and he runs circles around them. Trump is winning, and his supporters are not yet tired of it.
 
Sheriff Joe said:
JULY 22, 2019
For Being Such an Idiot, Trump is Pretty Smart
By Brian C. Joondeph
We have been hearing now for four years, ever since that escalator ride at Trump Tower, how then-candidate, now-President Trump is such an idiot. The media, Democrats, and NeverTrumpers, virtually in lockstep assured us that Trump would never be the Republican nominee. When he was, they doubled down promising that he would never be president. Every so-called opinion poll confirmed their predictions.

So who turned out to be smart, winning the White House, and who turned out to be a bunch of buffoons? Yet they still couldn’t admit that they were wrong, predicting that Trump would be impeached or that he would resign from office under intense pressure from critics and scandal. From Stormy Daniels and Michael Avenatti to Robert Mueller to Megan Rapinoe, each one was portrayed as the dragon-slayer ready to bring down Trump.

All have come and gone like the seasons, bringing down nothing but their reputations and what little integrity they might have possessed. Yet Trump haters won’t give up. Trump is still too stupid and incompetent to be president, they tell us. He is an embarrassment to the country and the world.

Yet on Friday, July 19, Trump sits at 49 percent total approval in the Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, four points higher than his predecessor, Mr. Perfect, exactly eight years ago. These approval numbers are despite what many have described as a bad week for the president with his “unforced error” of going after the four lovely patriots of the “Jihad Squad” and telling them that if America is so bad, they are welcome to “go back” to somewhere, anywhere, that is more to their liking.



Screen grab from YouTube

Brit Hume, godfather of the Republican D.C. establishment, not a NeverTrumper, but more of a SometimesTrumper, said Trump’s tweets were “politically stupid.” When Rush Limbaugh and others suggested that Trump’s tweets were strategic and calculated rather than stupid, Hume dismissed this immediately: “I think that's too smart by half, too clever by half, Trump couldn't put something like this together, are you kidding me?”

Of course, Trump couldn’t put something like this together. He isn’t clever enough. Yet he was smart enough to defeat 17 competent and experienced contenders for the Republican nomination in 2016 despite having never run for political office. And he is still president after two and a half years of nonstop negative media coverage and criticism from Democrats and many Republicans.

More in Home









Reuters reluctantly reported: “Republican support for Trump rises after racially charged tweets.” Jake Tapper, liberal CNN mouthpiece, had to acknowledge, “Dem sources admit Trump's 'brilliant' move to make stars of AOC, Omar.”

So, which is it? Did Trump stupidly make a racist, sexist, xenophobic, nativist, white-supremacist tweet as the media and NeverTrumpers claim? Or did he just make the Jihad Squad the new face of the Democratic Party?

Who hasn’t been in the news this past week? How about the 20-plus Democrats vying for the party’s nomination to go up against Goliath Trump next summer? Other than news of the next Democrat primary debate or who is ahead of who in the latest poll, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O'Rourke, and Pete Buttigieg are no longer newsworthy.

Instead they, along with Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat party, have been forced to rally around Ocasio-Cortez and Omar. That seems a pretty smart move by Trump.

Axios recently polled what it called “white, non-college voters who embraced Donald Trump in 2016 but are needed by Democrats in swing House districts.” Only 22 percent had a favorable view of Ocasio-Cortez with shockingly only 9 percent viewing Omar favorably. This same poll noted that socialism was viewed negatively by 69 percent of swing voters.

With a few tweets and comments, Trump has rebranded the Democratic Party as the party of socialism, with its new party leaders viewed negatively by the vast majority of swing voters.

Are Republicans fleeing the party over Trump’s tweets? Hardly. GOP support for Trump rose this past week. His rally in North Carolina was as enthusiastic as ever. And those hapless Democrats running for their party’s nomination became yesterday’s news as quickly as Trump-slayer of-the-week Megan Rapinoe.

Democrats, in a fleeting moment of honesty, understand the brilliance of Trump’s tweets and framing of the Democrat party, as they admitted to Jake Tapper. Rasmussen also reported that by a 42 to 29 percent margin, likely Democrat voters want the party to be more like Nancy Pelosi than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Yet thanks to President Trump, Nancy Pelosi has had to shift towards Ocasio-Cortez rather than vice versa, defending the Jihad Squad against Trump’s tweets.

For Pelosi it’s the path of least resistance. If she denounces the squad, there will be an internal civil war within her party. If she defends them, she makes them the face of the party. Trump has put her in a box.

Some may call it 4-D chess. Instead it may be decades of street smarts developed in the trenches of the New York City real estate development world, along with the branding experience of running a successful television reality show for a decade. What it is not is Trump being stupid.

It’s not just politics. Trump’s supposed stupidity is on display elsewhere. His tough trade war with China is reaping benefits. The U.S. economy is humming along and as the Wall Street Journal reports: “China’s State-Driven Growth Model Is Running Out of Gas.” Trump has visited North Korea and has a constructive and personal relationship with Kim Jong Un, a first for an American president.

Mexico is suddenly securing its southern border and Trump is doing via executive order what Congress is too lazy to do for asylum-seeking and birthright citizenship.

Spygate is ready to unfold and burst, with declassifications and hopefully accountability for its wrongdoers.

Jeffrey Epstein, the latest Trump-slayer for the wishful thinking Democrats and media, will be anything but. Does anyone really believe that if Epstein had dirt on Trump, we wouldn’t have known it before the election? Epstein and the Clintons were good pals. If Epstein had incriminating photos of videos of Trump with underage girls, Hillary would have used this in 2016 rather than paying millions for a phony dossier. Instead like everything else, Epstein will likely backfire on the left, as Vanity Fair described, “It’s going to be staggering, the amount of names.”

For being so stupid, Trump continues to outsmart the smart set on the left, the media geniuses, Hollywood, academia, and the Democrat party. His opponents keep calling him an idiot and he runs circles around them. Trump is winning, and his supporters are not yet tired of it.
Click to expand...
He likes fishing. Cheerleading the fact checked Fracking President is a classic.
 
Just let me point out that if the CIA has spies in an unfriendly country and that country announces that they have imprisoned those spies, the proper response of our government is to deny that they are spies. On the other hand, if an unfriendly government announces they have captured CIA spies and the CIA knows that to be false (they don't have any there, or, more likely, it's not the ones who were captured), the proper response of our government is to deny that they are spies.

I would read that novel just to see how it turns out in the end.
 
nbc-mueller-testifies.png

WaPo, Politico: You know Mueller-mas will be a bust (again), right?

ED MORRISSEY Posted at 4:41 pm on July 22, 2019

Of course we know it will be a bust, but at least a couple of outlets are getting ahead of the curve. The media has begun ramping up chatter over Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday — as I’m writing this, NBC’s sending around a promotional e-mail complete with a logo, seen above. Their missive also pledges to have five anchors working the gig spread across two platforms, NBC proper and MSNBC.












Nothing like setting expectations! To be fair, everyone seems to be jumping into the deep end of the Mueller pool (via Twitchy):



https://twitter.com/bjv1129/status/1153343132605603841

Dear @StephenKing So your research before you spread #FakeNews @JaniceDean @FoxNews @Carolde https://twitter.com/JaniceDean/status/1153339739237474310 …


Janice Dean

✔@JaniceDean

Just like your books, this is fiction. @BretBaier is anchoring coverage with @marthamaccallum all day Wednesday. But keep spreading fake news, Mr. King. https://twitter.com/stephenking/status/1152974779214946304 …


16
9:36 AM - Jul 22, 2019 · Pen Argyl, PA
Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Belinda Thomma's other Tweets





The Washington Post, however, sounds deeply skeptical that Mueller will say anything worthy of the media circus that will launch the day after tomorrow … or anything new at all:

On Wednesday, when he delivers long-awaited testimony about his investigation into President Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election, Democrats are hoping to coax from him the kind of dramatic moments that could galvanize public opinion against the president. Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to elicit testimony that shows the investigation was biased from its inception.

Those who know him best are skeptical he will meet either side’s expectations.

“For anybody hoping he’s going to provide new information or evidence against the president, I think many people will be very disappointed,” said John Pistole, who served as Mueller’s deputy for years when he was FBI director. “And then on the other side of the aisle, some may be disappointed to find out that he’s not a demagogue of the left.”

Pistole reminds the Post that Mueller dislikes congressional appearances anyway, but Mueller has already specifically made it clear he has nothing to add to his report. He held a press conference after its full release explicitly discouraging committees from attempting to force him to appear, telling them to read the report instead. Mueller had pushed the limits of Department of Justice guidelines on the report to AG William Barr, who then released almost all of it to the public.







Pistole offers a even-money prediction:

Pistole said he expects Mueller to be “as unresponsive as possible, while telling the truth. I think his first approach will be, ‘Read the report and form your own conclusions.’ He’s no longer a government employee, and he can tell them to pound sand, not that he would use those words.”

By the end of the day, who knows? Mueller might well use those specific words for the umpteenth time someone demands to know something that’s already in his report.







Politico also tries to do a little bar-lowering today as well. In an opinion piece, Fordham law professor Jed Shugerman offers his own prediction, as well as the one piece of advice that is guaranteed to be ignored on Wednesday:

If recent history is any guide, Robert Mueller’s much-anticipated Capitol Hill appearance on Wednesday will fizzle into a mix of political grandstanding by the questioners and frustratingly narrow answers from the star witness. Congress’s biggest public chance to highlight the links between the Trump campaign and Russia, and the president’s acts of obstruction, will become a chance for members to showcase their wit, score politcial points and maybe even go viral with a dramatic exchange. This one was originally scheduled for last week, and a main reason for its delay is that the junior members of the Judiciary committee wouldn’t have enough time to get their own questions in.

So far, the solution has been to expand the hearing time. Here’s a better one: None of the members should ask the questions at all.

Their expert staffers should ask all the questions—not just to resolve the battle of egos, but to give Congress its only chance to make any real progress on the issue.

Here’s an even better suggestion: no one asks any questions. Instead of this hearing, everyone should resolve to do two things — read the report, and then do their jobs rather than farm them out to special counsels. If Congress is unhappy with Mueller’s conclusions, Mueller’s not the problem. The legal “mistakes” to which Shugerman refers later all come from the same source, which is Congress’ demand to have the executive branch investigate the president instead of Congress itself. Democrats in particular raised Mueller high up on a pedestal, threatening to pass laws protecting an inferior executive branch employee from his superiors and making him into Super-Mueller, at least until they read his report.






Finally, even Jerrold Nadler is worried that expectations might be set so high that Mueller’s appearance comes across as a “dud”:







House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said on Sunday he hopes former special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before the House won’t be “a dud.”

“What if the whole thing ends up being a dud?” Chris Wallace asked the New York Democrat on “Fox News Sunday.”

“Well,” Nadler responded, “we hope it won’t end up being a dud. We’re going to ask specific questions — ‘look at page 344, paragraph 2, please read it. Does that describe an obstruction of justice? Did you find that the president did that?’

And when Mueller says It depends on the context and intent as I wrote on page 344 paragraph 3, what then? The word “dud” does come to mind. Democrats had better be ready for the wave of ennui that sweeps across America everywhere except in the Beltway bubble.
 
Comey-eyebrow.jpg

Oh my: IG report to allege Comey lied to Trump — and spied on him

ED MORRISSEY Posted at 8:41 am on July 22, 2019

If RealClearInvestigations’ sources accurately describe Inspector General Michael Horowitz’ upcoming report, it’s no wonder Donald Trump fired James Comey. According to two sources reportedly briefed on the upcoming Horowitz report, the former FBI director repeatedly lied about not targeting Trump in his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Comey also had what amounted to a spy in the White House, raising the specter of J. Edgar Hoover all over again:










Sources tell RealClearInvestigations that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will soon file a report with evidence indicating that Comey was misleading the president. Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an investigative agent.

Two U.S. officials briefed on the inspector general’s investigation of possible FBI misconduct said Comey was essentially “running a covert operation against” the president, starting with a private “defensive briefing” he gave Trump just weeks before his inauguration. They said Horowitz has examined high-level FBI text messages and other communications indicating Comey was actually conducting a “counterintelligence assessment” of Trump during that January 2017 meeting in New York.

In addition to adding notes of his meetings and phone calls with Trump to the official FBI case file, Comey had an agent inside the White House who reported back to FBI headquarters about Trump and his aides, according to other officials familiar with the matter.

RCI’s Paul Sperry goes into considerably more detail, so be sure to read all of his report. How much of this actually ends up in Horowitz’ finished version is anyone’s guess. Usually, these reports get passed around to various impacted department heads for feedback and revisions. Sperry notes that the report isn’t expected out until September, which means edits and revisions might still take place. And, curiously, Sperry doesn’t offer much of anything at all on what is supposed to be central to Horowitz’ investigation — the use of the Steele dossier to get a FISA surveillance warrant on Carter Page. Either that part might be a dud, or perhaps Horowitz is playing that one a little closer to the vest.






If Sperry’s sources are accurate, and ifHorowitz can document all this, hoo boy. The allegation that Comey repeatedly lied to Trump about his status in Comey’s probe may not be impossible to explain; if Trump was suspected of espionage, the FBI wouldn’t have wanted him to know it too soon. The problem with this explanation is that the FBI had no evidence of any such suspicion. The Horowitz report will supposedly confirm that, but Robert Mueller has already done that work for Horowitz. Under those circumstances, Comey acted with significant insubordination to his superior and constitutional officer, which matters even if Comey didn’t like Trump or think he should be president.






Spying on Trump by coopting one of his aides hikes that to a level not seen since the FBI’s bad old days. It’s true that the FBI has the main charter for domestic counterespionage activities, but the FBI is not supposed to spy on elected officials — not without bulletproof substantiation of a threat. And again, we know now that the FBI never had even a reasonable suspicion to spy on Trump.






At least in RCI’s telling, the FBI under Comey had reverted to its J. Edgar roots and was attempting to manipulate the American political system for its director’s ends. If that’s also Horowitz’ telling, then Comey’s firing averted a disaster. This also provides significant context for the claims of obstruction of justice against Trump in the Mueller report. If Comey had corrupted the FBI in this manner, Trump was well within his authority to put an end to it and not to cooperate with a poisoned FBI operation targeting his administration.







The rest of us will have to wait until September to get a read of Horowitz’ take on these issues. If RCI proves prophetic, will the media narrative on the Russia-collusion investigation reflect those changes if they arise in September?
 
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