The House Dem majority are ramping up investigations against
Trump to perpetuate their highly unsubstantiated witch hunt. As Willis L.
Krumholz of The Federalist points
out, there should be further investigations about conspiracy in the 2016
election. Yet the people that should be investigated are the Obama and Crooked
Hillary connections.
JRH 3/8/19
Your generosity is always appreciated:
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Obama & Crooked Hillary. Photo
Nathan Forget Flickr
35 Key People
Involved In The Russia Hoax Who Need To Be Investigated
As their desperate
search for collusion continues, Democrats want to interview 81 people. Try this
list instead.
MARCH 8, 2019
Funny how things change. The Washington Post couldn’t say a
nice thing about congressional Republican efforts to investigate the Obama
administration and FBI shenanigans that occurred before and after the 2016
election. That’s if they even covered these efforts at all.
But with Democrats controlling the House, and that
legislative body’s subpoena power, the establishment media’s line has changed.
Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have just sent letters to 81 people,
all associated with President Trump or the Russia probe, demanding answers on
Russian election interference.
This is part of Democrats’ effort to continue their hunt for
proof of Russia collusion—although they are already sure that Trump is
guilty—as Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation appears to be winding
down. To cover these events, the Post’s Philip Bump wrote an article titled: “The 81 people and organizations just looped
into the Trump probe—and why they were included.” Of course, the
article is totally unquestioning of the House Democrats’ desired narrative and
motivations.
Investigated, But Not
for the Reasons Dems Give
It isn’t worth it to go through Bump’s whole article, but
even the commentary about the first name on the list—Rinat Akhmetshin—omits
glaring and important facts. Bump says Akhmetshin “joined his colleague Natalia
Veselnitskaya, a lawyer linked to the Kremlin, at the June 9, 2016, meeting in
Trump Tower predicated on providing information that would undermine Hillary
Clinton’s campaign.” But, Bump says, “the focus of the meeting instead
reportedly focused on the Magnitsky Act—a law that resulted in sanctions on
numerous prominent Russians.”
Bump somehow forgets to tell us that Fusion GPS, the
opposition research firm hired by Hillary Clinton to create nefarious ties between
Trump and Russia, was working with Akhmetshin and Veselnitskaya to
lobby for the Russian government. Fusion GPS even provided the documents that
were handed out at that Trump Tower meeting. Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson also
met with the Russians both before and after that Trump Tower meeting. Yet
Simpson isn’t on the Democrats’ list.
So there’s a few people on the Democrats’ list who should be
investigated, but not for the reasons Democrats say. Some should also be
charged with crimes.
The following all played a part in the stunning and
successful effort by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to infect the executive branch
of the federal government with Trump-Russia conspiracy theories. Various writings—either
authored by a Brit with ties to the Kremlin who was indirectly paid by
Clinton’s campaign, or directly written by Hillary Clinton cronies—were
funneled into the federal government through multiple avenues.
Partisan Democrats in the Obama administration were all too
willing to believe the allegations, and use them as an excuse for bad behavior
whether they believed them or not.
The documents have been called “dossiers,” but that really
just attaches a fancy term to a Word document full of unverified mumbo jumbo
that alleged Trump-Russia collusion. Those Word documents were then used to spy
on the opposing political party’s presidential campaign, and to plant stories
in the media right before the election insinuating that Trump had nefarious ties
with Russia.
Here are 36 people who should be interviewed under oath, if
they have not been interviewed already, some of whom should be subjected to
criminal prosecution.
Obama and Comey’s FBI
People
Gregory Brower was Jim Comey’s FBI congressional
liaison, and left the agency in 2018. Brower
was in Comey’s inner circle, and like many in Comey’s inner circle, Brower
played the game of claiming things were classified when they were not, in order
to label Republican investigators as leakers and hide how the FBI used the
“dossiers.” Brower was called out by Sens. Chuck
Grassley and Lindsey Graham for that.
Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer, wrote
anti-Trump texts with former top FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
According to the Washington Times, Clinesmith
“worked on the 2016 probe into Hillary Clinton’s email use [known as
Mid-Year-Exam], then worked on the FBI’s original investigation into the Trump
campaign [known as Crossfire Hurricane] and, eventually, with the special
counsel’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.”
But Clinesmith, like Strzok, was let go from Mueller’s
investigative team once his anti-Trump texts were uncovered by the FBI
inspector general (IG), who is tasked with uncovering wrongdoing at the FBI.
“Viva le resistance,” Clinesmith said in one text.
Joseph Pientka, an FBI official, was the
go-between for Fusion GPS and the FBI. Pientka interviewed Department of
Justice official Bruce Ohr on at least 12 occasions, who passed on the
information Ohr’s wife Nellie (who worked for Fusion GPS) was receiving from
Christopher Steele (who also worked for Fusion GPS), and who was using Edward
Baumgartner, a British national with ties to Moscow, to compile the dossier for
the Clinton campaign.
Steele was originally the direct FBI source, despite his
ties to the Clinton campaign through Fusion GPS, but when Steele was caught
leaking to the media to paint Trump as a Russian stooge just before the
election, official FBI rules said that Steele’s use as an FBI source had to be
discontinued. The FBI top brass worked around these rules, which are in place
to prevent this very kind of abuse, by using Pientka to interview Ohr, who
was getting his information from Steele.
Pientka also played a role in the interview of former Trump national security
advisor Mike Flynn, where Pientka and Strzok interviewed Flynn, and
Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI officials (including former deputy attorney
general Sally Yates) used that interview to entrap Flynn for a completely non-nefarious conversation with
the Russian ambassador. The pretext for the interview was the Logan Act, a 200-year old law
that has never led to a conviction and is probably unconstitutional. Plus, it
is violated by every incoming administration, as they seek to begin conducting
foreign policy during the transition period.
All Flynn did was talk to the Russian ambassador and try to
get Russia to not retaliate against sanctions Obama placed on Russia right
before leaving the White House, and to not allow an anti-Israel vote at the
United Nations. The Obama administration was going to allow this vote in the
final days of Obama’s presidency, an unprecedented move.
Although Flynn was never charged with violating the Logan
Act, he was later charged with lying to the FBI investors sent to interview
him, under the pretext of a possible Logan Act violation—even though the agents
didn’t think he was lying at the time, and even though the FBI had wiretapped
access to the record of Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador.
What happened to Flynn is a disgrace, and a total perversion
of our justice system. And it is just one example in the dangerous trend of the
left using our justice system to take out political opponents, where Democrat
politicians point out a target or a supposed crime, and
the federal bureaucracy dutifully moves into action.
Obama’s DOJ People
Tashina Gauhar is a Department of Justice
attorney who was deeply involved in applications to the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance (FISA) Court, which were used to spy on the Trump campaign using
the dossiers. Gauhar was also one of the few people to see or be notified of
the existence of missing Hillary Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiner’s computer.
Weiner was being investigated for pedophilia and was married to top Clinton
aide Huma Abedin.
Gauhar and Andrew McCabe sat on those emails, and a cursory investigation—led by anti-Trump FBI
agent Strzok—was only conducted when FBI field agents in New York
threatened to go public. Gauhar later played a role in recommending former
attorney general Jeff Sessions’ recusal from overseeing
Mueller’s probe.
John Carlin is the head of the Justice
Department’s National Security Division, and got out of the DOJ in late 2016.
He was the former chief of staff to Mueller, when Mueller led the FBI in the
2000s. Carlin was involved in the FBI’s systemic abuse of the FISA surveillance
laws, which included spying on the Trump campaign.
This included omitting information on FBI wiretap abuse to
the FISA court, and omitting information when applying to spy on Trump campaign
official Carter Page to the FISA court. Carlin was also regularly briefed on
and involved with the FBI’s overall investigation into the Trump campaign,
called Crossfire Hurricane.
David Laufman is a high-level DOJ official in
the national security division. Laufman worked with FBI counterintelligence guy
Strzok on both the Clinton email investigation and the investigation into the
Trump campaign based on the still-unproven, Clinton-paid, and Russian-sourced “dossier.”
Mary McCord was the acting assistant attorney
general for a time, replacing Carlin as the head of the DOJ’s national security
division. She left the DOJ in 2017. McCord played a role in Yates’s plan to spy
on Flynn and entrap him with the Logan Act.
George Toscas, a senior official in the Justice
Department, was in charge of the “Mid-Year-Exam” investigation into Clinton’s
email abuses. Toscas had a front seat to both McCabe and Comey’s efforts to
hide the fact that Clinton’s emails were found on Weiner’s computer, and former
Obama attorney general Loretta Lynch’s efforts to
stymie the Clinton email investigation.
The importance of Hillary’s emails wasn’t just her flouting
security rules. Many have speculated that Hillary’s 30,000 missing emails,
which were stored on her home-brew server, would have shown pay-to-play
activities Clinton conducted while Obama’s secretary of state.
Obama’s State
Department People
Victoria Nuland was a top Obama State Department
official, and potentially Clinton’s secretary of state. Nuland had a role in
pushing Fusion GPS conspiracy theories in the State Department, and in the
broader Obama administration.
She received the Steele dossier just after it was created,
via Jonathan Winer, in July 2016. That was possibly two months before the
document was in the hands of the FBI, unless the FBI had it sooner than we
currently know. She then ultimately gave permission for the FBI to make the
contact with Steele, which was initiated by Michael J. Gaeta, an FBI agent
based in Rome who became Steele’s handler.
Steele even came to the State Department to directly brief officials
on his work, paid for by the Clinton campaign. Nuland had an awkward exchange with Sen.
Richard Burr, where she claimed she “actively” avoided this Steele briefing,
but also said she didn’t hear about the briefing until after it occurred.
Safe to say that if Nuland was tied to the Trump campaign,
she would already be indicted for perjury by Mueller’s team of angry Democrats.
Jonathan Winer was a top Obama State Department
official. Winer received documents alleging Trump-Russia collusion from notorious
Clinton guy Cody Shearer, through another even more notorious Clinton guy named
Sidney Blumenthal, and received the Steele dossier from Steele in summer 2016.
Winer shared the contents of these documents with his boss,
Nuland, and prepped a summary of these docs for the State Department. He also
gave the Shearer document to Steele, who then gave it to the FBI. That both
Shearer and Blumenthal are known Clinton cronies and hatchet-men never seemed to be important to Winer.
Winer was also a source for at least two journalists who wrote articles prior
to the election based on the Steele dossier.
Jonathan Finer was another Obama State
Department official, and the chief of staff to former secretary of state John
Kerry. Finer got the so-called dossier from Winer, and gave it to John Kerry.
This of course, among several other pieces of information, raises questions as
to whether President Obama saw the
dossiers and knew about what was being done to the Trump campaign.
Elizabeth Dibble was the deputy chief of mission
at the U.S. embassy in London. She was reported to be one of the State
Department officials who received information from Australian ambassador to the
U.K. Alexander Downer, who has ties to the Clinton Foundation,
about George Papadopoulos saying to Downer that Joseph Misfud—a European
professor with potential ties to western intelligence
agencies—told Papadopoulos that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Misfud allegedly told Papadopoulos this in April 2016, and
Papadopoulos allegedly told Downer what Misfud had said in early May. It is entirely
possible that Papadopoulos was set up by Misfud, who has
now disappeared and is hopefully just in hiding and not at the bottom of some
body of water.
This chain of events became important when the FBI began
using the Papadopoulos tip as an excuse for its “Crossfire Hurricane”
investigation into the Trump campaign, in order to say why they didn’t rely on
the Clinton-funded dossier.
But the FBI didn’t open Crossfire Hurricane until several months after the
Dibble-Downer tip was received, and that tip, if it ever even occurred, didn’t
go through the normal and proper chain of intelligence (others have claimed
that the tip wasn’t taken seriously until the Democratic National Committee
hack was made public).
More damning for the FBI’s Papadopoulos excuse was that they
didn’t interview Papadopolous until after the 2016 election, and went after
Carter Page for FISA surveillance instead. This was no damning piece of
firsthand information, or emergency. It was hearsay, and what Papadopoulos said
to Downer, and what Misfud said to Papadopoulos, is still disputed.
The reality is that the Clinton-funded dossier started the FBI’s investigation into Trump,
at least the official Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Finally, Thomas Williams is another State
Department guy in the London embassy. Colin Kahl, Kathleen
Kavalec, and Lewis Lukens were all State Department
officials who had some sort of interaction with the dossier, or Fusion GPS
people.
People Tied to the
DNC or Clinton Campaign
Perkins Coie, a law firm, was paid by the Clinton campaign
to serve as a go-between to hide the fact that Hillary’s campaign was paying
Fusion GPS to push the Trump-Russia smear.
Marc Elias is a lawyer at Perkins Coie, who
hired Fusion GPS for the Clinton campaign.
Michael Sussmann is another lawyer at Perkins
Coie, who received a story about a Russian bank, Alphabank, communicating with
a server in Trump Tower from Fusion GPS. Sussmann went directly to the FBI with
that story—to James Baker, who was general counsel of the FBI under Comey—prompting
reports midway through the 2016 campaign that hinted Trump had nefarious ties
with Russia.
Although it was widely debunked, the server
angle again showed up in media stories, including in New York Times and Slate
articles, right before the election in September of 2016. Hillary Clinton
even tweeted that Slate article
when it posted.
Robbie Mook was a top Hillary Clinton campaign
official. As Fusion GPS was working on the dossier, Perkins Coie was getting
the information from Steele and briefing Mook. It is important
to note that Mook was the first Hillary official to publicly say that Russia
wanted to help Trump win. Mook said this right before the Democratic National
Convention.
This is more evidence that Clinton’s campaign is the entity
that started the Russia investigation, by alleging that Trump had nefarious
ties with Russia to distract from the DNC and Clinton
campaign’s mistreatment of Bernie Sanders, as was revealed by the
DNC email theft that was leaked by WikiLeaks right before the Democrats’ 2016
national convention.
Jake Sullivan is another top advisor in Clinton’s
campaign, who played a role in forming the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.
Cody Shearer is a longtime Clinton dirty tricks
guy, with a record of smearing the Clintons’ political
opponents. He authored a “dossier,” largely based on Steele’s work,
that was picked up by Winer at Obama’s State Department.
Sidney Blumenthal is an even more infamous Clinton
stooge. “Sid” is so infamous that Obama told Hillary that he didn’t want
Blumenthal associated with the Obama administration. Blumenthal got the
Trump-Russia conspiracies written by Shearer into the Obama State Department,
when only the Clinton campaign was talking about Trump-Russia collusion.
Fusion GPS People
Fusion GPS is a D.C. based opposition research and public
relations firm with a history of representing less-than-savory actors,
including Planned Parenthood, the Venezuelan dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro,
and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Fusion has been shown in court documents to
have paid still-unknown journalists, likely for the placement of stories or to
push a certain narrative.
Rinat Akhmetshin is the aforementioned Russian
spy guy who was working with Fusion GPS when he showed up in Trump Tower. Get
him under oath and ask him how much he knew about Fusion’s work for the Clinton
campaign.
Edward Baumgartner is the British national,
fluent in Russian and with ties to the Kremlin, who actually worked on most of Steele’s dossier.
To compile the dossier, Baumgartner used unknown Russian sources that were paid
and totally unverified, possibly tied to the Kremlin.
Peter Fritsch is a partner at Fusion GPS.
Mary Jacoby is the wife of Fusion GPS head
Simpson, and has bragged publicly that her
husband started the Russia investigation.
Shailagh Murray was a senior advisor to the
Obama administration. Her husband is Neil King Jr., who works at Fusion GPS.
Neil King Jr., a Fusion GPS guy married to Murray,
was also Obama’s top communications advisor. On a related story, Politico
quoted King without mentioning he worked for Fusion GPS.
This is just one of many examples of the endless ties between reporters and
Fusion GPS, and between so-called journalists and prominent Democrats.
Thomas Catan is a Fusion GPS executive. He pled the Fifth in front of Congress when
asked questions about the role of the dossier for the Hillary campaign.
Daniel Jones, a former staffer to Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, heads the Penn Quarter Group, a D.C. “consulting firm.” He also
heads a “nonprofit” called the “Democracy Integrity Project.” Jones’ groups
have received millions from the
likes of George Soros and Tom Steyer, two leftwing billionaires, to continue
investigations into Trump via Fusion GPS. It appears as
if Jones began picking up the tab for Fusion to continue its work as soon as
the Clinton campaign and the DNC stopped paying Fusion after the election.
Glenn Simpson is the head of Fusion GPS. There
are lots of indications that he lied to Congress during his testimony about
Nellie Ohr, the wife of DOJ official Bruce Ohr, before it was publicly known
that Nellie worked for Fusion GPS. Specifically, Simpson told Congress that
only Baumgartner spoke Russian at Fusion. But Nellie spoke Russian, and she was
largely hired because she was a Russia expert (and because her husband worked
at DOJ).
Simpson also lied about the timing of his contacts with
Bruce Ohr. Again, if he were associated with Trump, he would have been indicted
by Mueller already.
The Big Fish
Of course, there’s also former director of national intelligence Jim
Clapper, Comey and Andrew McCabe at FBI,
and former CIA director John Brennan.
Comey and McCabe are leakers, and should be prosecuted as
such. Brennan is a particular bad actor, and did
much to spread the dossiers around the federal government and our intelligence
community. It is also thought that Brennan pushed the FBI to
investigate Trump, or at least increase the intensity of its spying on Trump’s
campaign.
Will any of these guys ever be prosecuted? Better said, does
new Attorney General Bill Barr care about the rule of law or not?
So Many Questions Yet
to Be Answered
Was the Kremlin behind this whole thing,
in order to sow distrust in the American political process? If so, that would
make far too many Democrats their “useful idiots.” Why isn’t there more uproar
about the fact that Fusion GPS was working for Russia while it was working for
the Clinton campaign?
The other gnawing problem is the timeline to all of this. In
early June 2016, the DNC publicly said that it had been hacked, two days after
WikiLeaks announced that it had information that showed Clinton and the DNC
were mistreating Sanders. Right away, Steele began his work for Fusion
GPS in June.
The DNC says it first noticed that it was hacked on April 28,
2016. But DNC staffers weren’t forced to turn over their presumably infected equipment until
June 10, 2016. And numerous set-up attempts of Trump
campaign people occurred during 2016, possibly as early as April 2016.
You don’t have to think that the Clintons killed Seth Rich
to think something stinks to high heaven here. Justice has been grossly
miscarried, on a high and far-reaching level. If this is what America is to be
like going forward, it will be only a shell of what it once was in the past.
The only hope is for Barr’s DOJ to swing into action.
___________________________
Willis L. Krumholz is a
fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University
of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. The views
expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz.
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