DECEMBER 2, 2018
Another Turbulent Week with Some Big Mysteries
By
Clarice Feldman
Still Winning
This week the President
signed a new trade deal with Mexico, Canada, and Argentina, a deal far more favorable to our interests than the now discarded NAFTA deal.
In the same time frame, our master negotiator hosted the first trilateral meeting with Japan and India, which should also boost the economy and which includes defense and military purchases. Merry Christmas, Xi.
Comey: Still a Loser
On the home front, Mueller and Comey keep looking worse and worse. Previously, former FBI Director James Comey refused to answer 100 questions when he testified before Congress because the hearings were public. Now, the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed him to take his deposition, allowing him to testify in a closed setting. He ran to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to quash the subpoena because he claimed his testimony might be selectively leaked. Judge Magistrate Trevor McFadden drew Comey’s counsel’s admission that there was no case law supporting his position. The government noted that Comey was free to publicly disclose his testimony after the deposition, and that, moreover, a transcript would be provided him 24 hours after his testimony which he was free to release in whole. Comey’s counsel told Judge McFadden “Here’s your opportunity, judge to make some law.” The judge said he would decide the case Monday at 10 a.m. I wouldn’t bet that he’ll make new law. The deposition, in the meantime, is now scheduled for this Tuesday. Doubtless, Comey is playing for time and the installation of a Democratic majority in the House and we can expect more shenanigans from the former FBI head.
Two Mysteries
1.
Chicago
While the President was out of the country the FBI
raided the office of Chicago Alderman Ed Burke, a guy who controlled the city and state finances. The Feds ordered everyone to leave, placed brown paper over the doors and went through the files in Burke’s office.
Is this Trump striking back? Is Obama’s cover coming undone? The Chicago field office offered no comment. It’s not clear they were even in the loop respecting this raid. Anti-Trumpers are salivating that this is another attempt to tar him, as his company hired Burke to handle permitting and tax issues to build in Chicago. Well, who didn’t? Only people who didn’t want building permits and favorable tax treatment.
2.
Cain Raid in Maryland
More distressing and inexplicable was the November 19 FBI raid on the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, a whistleblower who gave evidence that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity respecting Hillary Clinton, the Clinton foundation, and Rosatom, the Russian company which purchased Uranium One to Inspector General Michael Horowitz and which was then properly transmitted to the Senate and House Intelligence committees. The law protects whistleblowers that follow the procedure Cain did. Nevertheless, the FBI charged that Cain possessed stolen government property and used this to obtain permission for the raid from federal magistrate Stephanie Gallagher. The details of this seemingly shocking use of the FBI were reported by crack investigative reporter
Richard Pollack.For six hours agents rifled through Cain’s home even after he handed over the documents to the FBI he’d already given to Horowitz.
Pollack notes:
The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to
Uranium One, the document reviewed by The DCNF alleges.
Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
“The bureau raided my client to seize what he legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, told the DCNF [Daily Caller News Foundation], noting that he considered the FBI’s raid to be an “outrageous disregard” of whistleblower protections.
