Fa-La-La-La-Phooey

As Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified about the abuses of the FISA court by The World’s Most Dangerous Community Organizer’s Department of Justice and FBI and their “applications” to spy on the Trump campaign, CNN and MSNBC stopped following the hearing after about a half hour.  Both cable outfits refused to cover the opening statement of Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham.

The decision did not comport with the endless air time they gave to the impeachment hearings led by “Pencil Neck” Schiff and the morbidly obese Jerry Nadler. 

CNN is not taking the Senate Horowitz hearing live. Unbelievable. A perfect example of how bias works. It’s not just what they cover. It’s what they don’t cover.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) December 11, 2019

The Horowitz Report provided damning proof of how the FBI wantonly mistreated Donald Trump and it directly contradicted their fake news coverage over the last three years.  The outright bias was not lost on the 2020 Trump campaign:

After airing days & days of Democrat impeachment hearings, FAKE NEWS @CNN and @MSNBC are REFUSING to air @LindseyGrahamSC's opening statement in the Inspector General's report hearing.

They are COVERING UP the truth. They are nothing more than propaganda for the Democrats! pic.twitter.com/i7wyLNPVgl

— Trump War Room (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TrumpWarRoom) December 11, 2019

While MSNBC aired some of Sen. Graham's statement, the network cut away quickly. CNN appears not to have covered his opening statement at all.

Today, WH correspondent for the New York Times and contributor for MSNBC and NBC News, Annie Karni tweeted:

The canceling of the WH media christmas party was a story last year, and now it's just gone and it's not even a thing, like the press briefing and the NYT/WaPo subscriptions.

— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) December 11, 2019

Two weeks before Christmas, the White House did not put the “media party” on its  holiday schedule nor did it furnish a reason for the decision.  Instead, members of the media and their families were accommodated with open White House tours to see the holiday decorations.

It wasn’t necessary to state a reason for the decision.  After all, media organizations have made a big show of their contempt for this president for his entire first term.  How preposterous would it be to go to a Christmas party at the White House with the Trumps and act like everything is hunky dory?

So, Ms. Karni complains there’s no opportunity again this year to schmooze with the booze and the finger foods.  There are no more press briefings where her ilk waged war on WH Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and subscriptions to the failing New York Times and Washington Post were canceled by the White House.

Oh, the humanity. 

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Did Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman Start This Coup?

During Tuesday’s impeachment hearing, Lt. Col. Vindman made a strategic error during his public testimony.  He appears to have perjured himself.

For the record, Vindman was on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky.  When ranking member Devin Nunes pressed him on whether he discussed the call with anyone outside the White House, the good little soldier said he discussed the call with U.S. State Department Deputy Secretary George Kent and an “individual in the Intelligence Community.”

In a published report at The Washington Examiner, Byron York noted Vindman’s closed-door testimony in the bunker in the basement of the Capitol Building revealed he had “twice taken his concerns to Eisenberg [National Security Council Legal Advisor].  He also told his twin brother Yevgeny Vindman, who is also an Army lieutenant colonel and serves as a National Security Council lawyer. He also told another NSC official, John Erath, and he gave what he characterized as a partial readout of the call to George Kent, a career State Department official who dealt with Ukraine. That led to an obvious question: Did Vindman take his concerns to anyone else? Did he discuss the Trump-Zelensky call with anyone else? It was a reasonable question and an important one. Republicans asked it time and time again. Vindman refused to answer, with his lawyer, Michael Volkov, sometimes belligerently joining in. Through it all, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff stood firm in favor of keeping his committee in the dark.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) asked Vindman, "You never leaked information?"  He replied, "I never did. I never would. That is preposterous that I would do that."

"Your boss had concerns about your judgment, your former boss, Dr. [Fiona] Hill, had concerns about your judgment, your colleagues had concerns about your judgment, and your colleagues felt there were times when you leaked information," Jordan said. "Any idea why they have those impressions?"

It’s vital to remember Lt. Col. Vindman clearly stated in his public testimony he did speak to an “individual in the Intelligence Community” and when Nunes pressed him to identify the person his attorney intervened to say his client was not going to answer the question.  At that point Chairman Schiff gaveled in to stop the questioning, but Nunes countered asking the Chairman how it was possible to identify the whistleblower if no one knows the name.

“Under advice of my counsel and instructions of the Chairman, I have been advised not to provide any specifics on who I have spoken to inside the Intelligence Community,” Vindman said. “But I can offer that these people were properly cleared individuals with a need to know.”

Nunes said Republicans had tried to subpoena the whistleblower, but the motion was tabled by committee Democrats. Nunes ended his questioning by calling the hearings an “impeachment inquisition.”

Alexander Vindman looks really bad here as he gets grilled by Jim Jordan pic.twitter.com/3rq8qIGpM3

— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) November 19, 2019

After being vaporized by Jordan’s questioning, Vindman snapped back saying, “I was doing my job.”

The “individual in the Intelligence Community” looks more and more like 33-year-old Eric Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House who had worked with Joe Biden and John Brennan.  Ciaramella left his National Security Council post in the West Wing of the White House in mid-2017 amid concerns about leaks to the media.  He has since returned to Langley, VA where the CIA headquarters is located.

Earlier this year, Adam Schiff recruited two of Ciaramella’s closest allies at the NSC—both of whom were also Obama holdovers—to join his committee staff. He hired one, Sean Misko, in August—the same month the whistleblower complaint about Trump’s phone call was filed.

The graphic accompanying this blog post is Photoshopped®, but then you knew that already.  Photographs of Ciaramella are nearly impossible to find.  Most of the photographs you can find are blurry, but I lucked up and found four very interesting pictures of our whistleblower with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren.

I chose to create the above graphic of Ciaramella with Sen. Schumer to highlight his now-ominous warning from January 2017 on the Rachel Maddow Show:  “Let me tell you;  You take on the Intelligence Community—they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

After Three Years And Countless Deceptions, Democrats Lack The Credibility To Hurl Accusations At President Trump

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, articulated his trepidation with the Democrats’ case for impeaching President Trump during the first hearing not to be conducted behind closed doors.

“For years they accused the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia when they themselves were colluding with Russia by funding and spreading the Steele dossier, which relied on Russian sources. And now they accuse President Trump of malfeasance in Ukraine when they themselves are culpable. The Democrats cooperated in Ukrainian election meddling, and they defend Hunter Biden’s securing of a lavishly paid position with a corrupt Ukrainian company, all while his father served as Vice President.”

[SKIP]

“What we will witness today is a televised theatrical performance staged by the Democrats. Ambassador Taylor and Mr. Kent—I’d like to welcome you here and congratulate you for passing the Democrats’ Star Chamber auditions held for the last six weeks in the basement of the Capitol. It seems you agreed, wittingly or unwittingly, to participate in a drama. But the main performance—the Russia hoax—has ended, and you’ve been cast in the low-rent Ukrainian sequel.”

I’ll conclude by noting the immense damage the politicized bureaucracy has done to Americans’ faith in government. Though Executive Branch employees are charged with implementing the policy set by our President, who is elected by and responsible to the American people, elements of the civil service have decided that they, not the President, are really in charge.”

[SKIP]

“Officials showed a surprising lack of interest in the indications of Ukrainian election meddling that deeply concerned the President at whose pleasure they serve. Despite all their dissatisfaction with President Trump’s Ukraine policy, the President approved the supply of weapons to Ukraine, unlike the previous administration, which provided blankets as defense against invading Russians.”

”By undermining the President who they are supposed to be serving, elements of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and now the State Department, have lost the confidence of millions of Americans who believe that their vote should count for something. It will take years, if not decades, to restore faith in these institutions.”

“This spectacle is doing great damage to our country. It’s nothing more than an impeachment process in search of a crime.”

Since taking office, the Trump Administration has continued to pressure Russia over its involvement in eastern Ukraine.  In January 2018, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on 21 individuals and nine companies linked to the conflict in March 2018, the State Department approved the sale of Javelin anti-tank weapons to Ukraine, the first sale of lethal weaponry since the conflict began in July 2018 the Department of Defense announced an additional $200 million in defensive aid, bringing the total amount of aid provided since 2014 to $1 billion.

In his opening statement on October 22nd, behind closed doors, Acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor described a visit to the frontlines in northern Donbas over the summer in vivid terms that underscored his views on the importance of U.S. security assistance to Ukraine. 

"I could see the armed and hostile Russian-led forces on the other side of the damaged bridge across the line of contact," Taylor said. "Over 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed in the war, one or two a week. To this day, that continues. More Ukrainians would undoubtedly die without US assistance."

The Ukraine conflict, which began in 2014, has led to roughly 13,000 deaths and displaced roughly 1.6 million people. 

Rep. Wenstrup: after being denied lethal aid from Obama, Ukraine has “strong support” From Trumphttps://t.co/TJOzA7dpmi pic.twitter.com/h0EzJThvfW

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 13, 2019

The Maidan uprising, which took place on the eve of the closing day of the Sochi Winter Games, astonished and enraged Putin.  He responded by ordering the takeover of Crimea at dawn on the morning of February 23, 2014. The war of aggression, occupation, and annexation that followed turned out to be the grim beginning of a new era and what might be the start of a new cold war, or worse.

At its heart, however, the conflicts within Ukraine and the fight Putin has picked with Ukraine, are about post-Soviet kleptocracy and where and whether there is a popular will to resist it.

The impeachment spectacle we witnessed yesterday and will have to endure in the coming weeks, perhaps even months, has been designed to turn a phone call into a crime. 

It’s funny to watch people who shrugged when Obama refused to give the Ukrainians lethal aid for years now hyperventilate about a delay in the delivery of aid that Obama steadfastly refused to give in the first instance.

— James Hasson (@JamesHasson20) November 14, 2019