Showing posts with label Horowitz report. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horowitz report. Show all posts

Monday, December 16, 2019

A Christmas Carol For The Trump Era

On a frigid evening in the nation’s capital just days before Christmas, a mean-spirited and ruthless fibber named Adam Schiff works meticulously on a speech he plans to give on the floor of the House of Representatives.

Despite the harsh weather, Schiff refuses to pay for another lump of coal for the fireplace to warm his office.  His cruelty and bitterness have a chilling effect on his toiling staffers.

Suddenly, Eric Swalwell bursts into the office offering holiday greetings with an exclamatory, “Happy Festivus!”  The grumpy Schiff responds with “Bah! Humbug!” refusing to share in his Festivus cheer.

The hour is quite late, but Schiff follows his same old routine of taking dinner in his usual Beltway bar and returns home through the dank Washington streets.  Just before entering the house, the doorknocker on his front door, the same one he has passed through every day catches his attention.  A ghostly image in the curves of the knocker gives the scoundrel a momentary shock.  He looks away then refocuses and sees nothing but a doorknocker.

Slipping the key into the lock the doorknocker comes to life.  It’s the peering face of President Trump.  Unsettled by the vision, Schiff mutters to himself, “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato.  There’s more gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

He plods up the wide staircase to his bedroom.  He prepares for bed when the carvings on his mantelpiece suddenly transform into visions of voters shouting their disgust with him and the role he has played in the impeachment proceedings.  Determined to dismiss the strange visions, blurts out, “Humbug!”

Moments later Schiff hears footsteps thumping up the stairs and, in a flash, a ghostly figure of Jonathan Turley floats through the closed and locked door.  He tells him he is there to save him from the growing contempt Americans have for all Democrats in 2020.

Turley leads Schiff to an open window and gestures to him to look out.  He sees a throng of spirits each of whom is bound in chains.  They wail about their failure to lead honorable lives and their obsession with impeaching a president simply because they hate him for winning in an electoral landslide.

Turley warns that Schiff will be visited by three spirits and quickly leaves him trembling alone in the dark.

In this retelling of the classic Dickens tale, the Spirit of Impeachment Past recounts Schiff’s egregious lies about the FISA warrants, the Russian witch hunt and the deceitful Articles of Impeachment he and his minions rammed through their committees.

At the stroke of one, a second spirit, the Spirit of Impeachment Present, appears before him.  He whisks him away to a number of Christmas gatherings of Americans who are better off than they were four years ago and are dismayed with the Democrat Party and their railroading of a duly elected president.  Finally, the Spirit takes him to the White House where President Trump is hard at work for the forgotten men and women of this country.  Schiff is bewildered at the sight.  He wonders aloud, “How, in the face of all the forces arrayed against this man, can he continue to successfully make the country great again?”

As the clock strikes two, Schiff is visited by a hooded phantom coming toward him.  Schiff kneels before him asking if he is the Spirit of Impeachment Yet To Come.    

The menacing wraith takes Schiff to the New York Stock Exchange where a group of businessmen discuss the death of the economy; a dingy pawn shop on the Southside of Chicago where shady characters sell the personal effects from a dead man; the dinner table of a family who were forced to go back on food stamps and the husband and wife expressing relief at the death of an unforgiving man to whom they owed money.

Schiff struggles to understand the lesson of the silent ghost.  In that moment he finds himself in a churchyard where the Spirit points to a freshly dug grave.  Schiff draws nearer and reads the inscription on the headstone:  2020 General Election.

Schiff inquires if nothing can be done to change the future.  Mockingly, the ghost quotes the Mueller Report. “No collusion.  No obstruction.”  The ghost reminds him the Horowitz Report revealed his own lies about the FISA warrants and his contact with the whistleblower.

Unlike Scrooge who faced an imminent moral reckoning, our character is faced with the very real prospect of a quick death in the Senate of the Democrats’ impeachment dreams.  They do not have the bipartisan takedown of this president and the public tenaciously resists impeachment over the Ukraine fantasy.

In the end Tiny Tim, perched upon President Trump’s shoulders, shouts for all to hear “God bless us everyone!”

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Whatfinger News.

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

President Bobcat’s Warning

Ten days after President Trump was inaugurated a bobcat escaped its enclosure at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC.  The feline freedom seeker was one of the last hopes in a world gone rotten.  A perfect mascot for a city of cubicled, uptight bureaucrats yearning to be free.

So captivated by the story was Comfortably Smug of Twitter fame that he launched a “President Bobcat” campaign.  His minions “swarmed” with approval at the novel idea.
The release yesterday of the Horowitz Report is a triumph for former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes who first blew the whistle on FISA abuse and excoriated Rep. Adam Schiff for his memo which stated FBI and DOJ officials did not abuse the FISA process.  Schiff had access to the same documents Nunes did yet he chose to misinform the American public.

According to the report, there were 17 separate problems with submissions to the FISA Court including the FBI’s overstatement of Christopher Steele’s credentials and failure to provide the court with exculpatory evidence.

Horowitz laid out facts demonstrating “extensive compliance failures” overstating some information, omitting vital information and “cherry-picking” certain details—a clear case of the Surveillance State and The Swamp at work.

As “purr” President Bobcat’s warning, “The next Democrat elected President will be impeached.” 

Friday, December 6, 2019

Jerry Nadler’s Zipper Vs. The Horowitz Report

As this decade draws to a close, the political calendar for Monday will feature the Heavyweight Fight Card of Fat Jerry Nadler’s Zipper versus The Horowitz Report.

At 9:00 AM from the Longworth House Office Building, the House Judiciary Committee will hold its second impeachment hearing entitled “The Impeachment Inquiry into President Donald J. Trump:  Presentations from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and House Judiciary Committee.”

Sometime Monday morning DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report into the FBI’s intrusive wiretapping powers will be made public.  Release of the IG’s report follows revelations in October that a related—and equally politically charged—examination of the origins of the Russia investigation has shifted to a criminal probe.

Horowitz, during the more than a year-and-a-half investigation, has not commented on his investigation into FISA court abuses to issue secret warrants by “dirty cops” to monitor persons within the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election.  Warrants were renewed several times by judges based on uncorroborated information obtained by disgraced British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Thus far, four Inspector General reports and internal Justice Department documents have found senior FBI officers guilty of lying, insubordination, security violations, mishandling confidential material and personal biases against President Trump.

Media outlets whose implicit agenda has been to damage this president have deliberately downplayed the significance of Horowitz’s report.

If you believe, as many do, the Democrats are governed by the clock and the calendar in moving forward with Articles of Impeachment the facts are these:

Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Horowitz on November 18th inviting him to testify before the committee on his findings.  Horowitz agreed to the date authorized by Graham which he set for December 11, 2019.

Horowitz Cc’d his letter to Dianne Feinstein who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and to Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.  In addition, copies were sent to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH).

Horowitz gave assurances the “lengthy” report would be published with few redactions and without a need to prepare or issue “separate classified and public versions of the report.”

When asked if Chairman Nadler would hold a hearing on the FISA report once it is released, Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) said, "No chance. Jerry Nadler is going to run, not walk, away from any opportunity to bring the Inspector General in to talk about these issues."

The ranking member on the Committee, Georgia Republican Doug Collins, has asked Nadler to schedule a hearing. "FISA oversight falls squarely within the Judiciary Committee’s jurisdiction. We must act swiftly to address concerns outlined in the Inspector General’s report," he wrote in a letter to Nadler.

“I’m not aware of any terrible problem with the FISA court and specifically not with the Carter Page application,” Nadler said.

More than two months later, a hearing focused on Horowitz's report has not been scheduled by the committee. A representative for Nadler did not respond to a request for comment.

Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows also pressed House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (she replaced Rep. Elijah Cummings who died recently) to hold a FISA report hearing, making the request in a letter. A representative for Maloney did not respond to a request for comment about whether such a hearing might be scheduled.

Sunday, November 24, 2019

CNN’s War Against Devin Nunes

CNN has lost so much of its prior viewership and its reputation it would be wise for the network to shut down, fire its entire management team and most of its journalists and start over with an entirely new name and a code of ethics.

Their televised Trump Derangement Syndrome has but one agenda:  to abort the presidency of Donald J. Trump by any means necessary.  Their Orwellian “Ministry of Truth” now includes a good and decent man whom they view as an acceptable casualty in their war against the President—Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes.

When the American public learns of a completely false news story, CNN is usually at the center of the story.

Nunes said on Saturday he plans to sue CNN and the Daily Beast for stories that accused him of meeting with a former Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokin in Vienna, Austria last year in a hunt for dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

Joseph A. Bondy (pictured in the graphic above) is the “source” for the story.  Bondy is the Manhattan attorney representing Soviet-born Lev Parnas.  Bondy wants Parnas to testify before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence led by Adam Schiff.

Parnas is living under house arrest at his Florida home after federal prosecutors charged him with illegally funneling foreign money into U.S. political campaigns.

The unsavory Mr. Bondy was cheered on via Twitter by indicted anti-Trump attorney Michael Avenatti.

Mr. Nunes released an official statement regarding his lawsuit against the laughingstock cable news outfit:

“These demonstrably false and scandalous stories published by the Daily Beast and CNN are the perfect example of defamation and reckless disregard for the truth. Some political operative offered these fake stories to at least five different media outlets before finding someone irresponsible enough to publish them. I look forward to prosecuting these cases, including the media outlets as well as the sources of their fake stories, to the fullest extent of the law. I intend to hold the Daily Beast and CNN accountable for their actions. They will find themselves in court soon after Thanksgiving.”

Every American should be alarmed by the McCarthyism that is prevalent in the media and the Intelligence Community.  Devin Nunes has been at the heart of the scandals surrounding a coup attempt and the collection of intelligence that allegedly occurred during the Trump transition in November and December of 2016 and January of 2017.

“There was clearly significant information about President Trump and his team [Trump Tower wiretapping] and there were additional names that were unmasked,” said Nunes in March of 2017.

Tuesday evening, March 21:  Nunes took a phone call while sharing a ride with a staffer, according to The Washington Post. After the call, he switched cars without telling his team where he was going.  The unscheduled trip was to the White House, where an unnamed source provided Nunes with information about incidental collection of Trump and his associates.

Wednesday afternoon, March 22: Nunes held a press conference in the Capitol building outlining “incidental collection” of Trump and associates, as well as their “unmasking,” from FISA surveillance.

Monday, March 27: Nunes admits meeting secretly at the White House with intelligence officials to view the intelligence behind his claims in his March 22 press conference.

In response, Adam Schiff called on Nunes to “recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation” and all “oversight matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition."

In early April 2017, the House Ethics Committee opened an investigation into whether Nunes broke rules governing the public disclosure of classified information when he told reporters he had obtained details about “American intelligence monitoring foreign officials who may have picked up communications of Trump transition team members.”

Eight months later the Ethics Committee closed the case against Nunes declaring, “The Committee does not determine whether information is or is not classified.  In the course of this investigation, the Committee sought the analysis of Representative Nunes’s statements by classification experts in the Intelligence Community. Based solely on the conclusion of these classification experts that the information that Representative Nunes disclosed was not classified, the Committee will take no further action and considers this matter closed.”

There are conflicting opinions about the upcoming report from Inspector General Michael Horowitz to be released on December 9th concerning abuse of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  Ex-Whitewater Independent Counsel Sol Wisenberg feels it will be “very, very hard-hitting.”  Others expect the report will find there were “mistakes in the FBI’s handling of the FISA process, but that those mistakes do not undermine the premise for the FBI’s investigation.”
UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Whatfinger News.

UPDATE II:  Welcome readers of Pirate’s Cove.  We are grateful to the Admiral for linking to this post.