Maybe it will be remembered as the weekend when, at long last, the media-Democrat complex overplayed its hand on the “Collusion with Russia” narrative. They are still having so much fun with the new “Jared back-channel to the Kremlin” angle, they appear not to realize it destroys their collusion yarn.
Their giddiness is understandable. The new story is irresistible: President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in a December 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the ubiquitous Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, discussed setting up a communications “back-channel” between the incoming administration and the Kremlin.
There is now the inevitable Kush-said-Kis-said over exactly who proposed the back-channel. For Trump’s critics, the meeting itself, as well as the contemplated (but apparently never consummated) line-of-communications, are a twofer against Trump: a) the amateurish attempt to insulate the transition’s discussions with an important foreign power from monitoring by the Obama intelligence agencies, and, b) the naïve sense that the Russians would keep their discussions discrete rather than humiliate Trump at the first opportunity.
As if that were not enough, more cause for media-Democrat excitement: Reports that Kushner’s outreach to Kislyak resulted in the former’s being passed along to a shady Russian banker—a close Putin crony with roots in Russia’s intelligence services.
For anti-Trumpers of all ideological stripes, the story is a much needed gap-filler. For all the hype in D.C. and the Democrats’ coastal enclaves, the collusion story is flagging in most of the country. It lacks what a scandal needs to sustain itself: evidence. There is none: not when it comes to anything concrete that the Trump campaign may have done to aid and abet the Russian “interference in the election” project―a project that, though probably real, is more a matter of educated intelligence conjecture than slam-dunk courtroom proof.
align=”right” For anti-Trumpers of all ideological stripes, the story is a much needed gap-filler. For all the hype in D.C. and the Democrats’ coastal enclaves, the collusion story is flagging in most of the country. It lacks what a scandal needs to sustain itself: evidence.
The latest episode in the Trump-Kislyak follies may divert attention from this omission for a few days. But sooner or later the new angle must be recognized for what it logically is: the death knell of the collusion narrative. Once that dawns on the commentariat, maybe we can finally get around the real collusion story of the 2016 campaign: The enlistment of the U.S. government’s law-enforcement and security services in the political campaign to elect Hillary Clinton.
Let’s start with the ongoing collusion farce. National-security conservatives harbored pre-existing reservations about Donald Trump that were exacerbated by his Putin-friendly rhetoric on the campaign trail. It is no secret that many conservatives who supported Trump in November―or at least voted against Hillary Clinton―preferred other GOP candidates. All that said, we’ve found the collusion story risible for two reasons.
First, to repeat, there is no there there. The “there” we have is a campaign by politicized intelligence operatives to leak classified information selectively, in a manner that is maximally damaging to the new administration. Democrats and their media friends have delighted in this shameful game, in which the press frets over imaginary crimes while colluding in the actual felony disclosure of intelligence. Such is their zeal, though, that we can rest assured we’d already have been told about any real evidence of Trump collusion in the Russian 2016 campaign project. Instead, after multiple investigations, a highly touted (and thinly sourced) report by three intel agencies (FBI, CIA and NSA), and a torrent of leaks, they’ve come up with exactly nothing.
Second, the eight-year Obama record is one of steadfastly denying that Russia posed a profound threat, and of appeasing the Kremlin at every turn. This even included a hot-mic moment when Obama explicitly committed to accommodate Putin―to America’s detriment―on missile defense.
It could scarcely be more manifest that the collusion narrative is strictly political. Were that not the case, there would be no bigger scandal than the Clinton Foundation dealings with Russia that lined Bill and Hillary Clinton’s pockets while the Russians walked away with major American uranium reserves.
align=”left” The truth of the matter is that Obama, the Democrats, and their media megaphone had no interest in Russian aggression and duplicity until they needed a scapegoat to blame for their dreadful nominee’s dreadful campaign.
The truth of the matter is that Obama, the Democrats, and their media megaphone had no interest in Russian aggression and duplicity until they needed a scapegoat to blame for their dreadful nominee’s dreadful campaign. Until the fall and The Fall, the Left’s default mode was to ridicule Republicans and conservatives who took Putin’s provocations seriously―like Obama’s juvenile jab about the 1980s wanting its foreign policy back when, at a 2012 debate, Mitt Romney correctly cited Russia as a major geo-political menace.
Palpably, the point of the collusion storyline is to damage Trump politically. It is not good faith alarm over Putin’s regime.
The latest revelation about Kushner’s contacts with Russia underscores the emptiness of the collusion narrative. The contacts took place weeks after the election was over. Put aside the Trump transition’s foolishness in deputizing the young, green Kushner to negotiate with Kislyak, a wily former Soviet apparatchik. We’re talking collusion in the election here. If there had been such collusion―if the story the Left has been peddling for six months were true―there would have been no need for a discussion in December about opening communications channels. The lines of communication would long have been up and running.
Thus, the latest Kushner brouhaha strongly suggests that the Trump campaign did not have a collusive relationship with Kremlin operatives during the 2016 campaign, much less one specifically aimed at influencing the 2016 campaign.
Of course, that hardly means there was no collusion.
Kushner’s Trump transition companion at the December 2016 meeting with Kislyak was none other than retired army General Michael Flynn. His presence is significant, but not because of the now familiar Flynn-as-Putin-puppet caricature.
Flynn was Donald Trump’s top adviser in the 2016 campaign, particularly regarding intelligence about the threats confronting the United States throughout the world. He had also been the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency until Obama fired him in 2014. Flynn’s conflict with the White House boiled down to one thing: He believed the administration had politicized the intelligence community―i.e., that Obama’s top intelligence officials were altering fact-based assessments made by the analysts in their agencies in order to support rosy administration narratives that downplayed threats to the United States.
Flynn laid this case out in the bestselling 2016 book he co-authored with historian Michael Ledeen, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. Remarkably, despite Flynn’s travails, his book is virtually never mentioned in the collusion coverage.
Or maybe it’s not so remarkable. After all, Flynn’s book argues that the Putin regime, along with its Iranian ally, forms the core of a global challenge that confronts the United States on multiple fronts, including through the jihadist groups it supports. That is, Flynn’s book not only undermines the “Putin puppet” claims; it contends that Obama’s foreign policy was an abject failure in refusing to factor the reality of Russian hostility into dealings with the Kremlin on areas of mutual interest.
The Field of Fight also includes passages like this one:
In 2014, I was fired as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency after telling a congressional committee that we were not as safe as we had been a few years back. Others who want to tell the truth about the war are fighting back against their censors. In the late summer of 2015, dozens of military analysts protested that their superiors at CENTCOM—the Central Command for the war in the Middle East—were blocking or altering their reports on the true course of events. That allegation was then investigated by the Pentagon’s inspector general. The story was leaked, and congressional hearings were held. This book shows that the censorship isn’t new; it has been going on for years, and threatens our ability to win.
It is a theme of Flynn’s argument that the Obama administration put American intelligence―its credibility and its capacity to shape narratives―in the service of the Obama political agenda. Can there be any doubt that this is true?
Do we really need to wonder whether our intelligence agencies were exploited this way in 2016 when it is undeniable that they were so exploited in 2012? Do we really need a reminder that during the two months between September 11, 2012, and Election Day, when Obama was locked in a tight race, the White House and the intelligence community colluded to defraud the electorate into believing the Benghazi massacre was the result of a “protest” run amok over an anti-Muslim video, rather than an epic failure of Obama’s policy of empowering sharia-supremacists in Libya?
So what do we know about the 2016 election so far?
- The Obama Justice Department bent over backwards to avoid charging Hillary Clinton with patent violations of law―involving mountainous evidence of the mishandling of classified emails and destruction of thousands of government records―while simultaneously investigating the Trump campaign with great zeal over what appears to be vague suspicion.
- The Obama White House, State Department and intelligence community shrouded the Iran deal in secrecy, hiding risible terms, cash ransom payments to the mullahs, and Tehran’s violations, in order to preserve the arrangement without harming Clinton’s campaign.
- The NSA and FBI have both been cited by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for flouting court-ordered restrictions against accessing and exploiting intelligence about Americans gathered under foreign intelligence-collection authorities.
- Foreign intelligence-collection authorities were used to investigate Trump campaign and transition officials, at least some of whose identities were “unmasked” even though they should presumptively have been concealed under court-ordered restrictions.
- The New York Times, based on classified leaks, reported that the FBI was consulting with “Obama advisers” while the Bureau investigated Flynn’s communications with Kislyak—communications that were appropriate given that Flynn, as Trump’s incoming national security adviser, was communicating with various foreign officials as the new administration prepared to take power. “Obama officials” pressed the FBI on whether Flynn had discussed a “quid pro quo” with Kislyak—i.e., the possible dropping of sanctions in exchange for Russian cooperation of some kind. The FBI conceded that he had not.
- In a strangely timed order just days before his administration ended, President Obama loosened the restrictions on access to raw intelligence, allowing the NSA to share it throughout the community of intelligence agencies before sanitizing it to protect American identities in accordance with privacy protections. This would geometrically increase the likelihood of leaks of classified information involving American citizens.
- A former Obama Defense Department official, Evelyn Farkas, let slip in an interview that the administration and its allies were encouraging Congress to demand disclosure of classified information, especially intelligence pertaining to Trump and alleged ties to Russia. This, again, would dramatically enhance the likelihood of selective, unlawful disclosures of top-secret intelligence. Or, as Ms. Farkas put it, “That’s why you have all the leaking.”
- Finally—I know you’ll be shocked to hear this—there has been a spate of classified leaks since Election Day, clearly designed to undermine Trump’s capacity to govern and advance the agenda on which he campaigned.
Should Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn have met with the Russian ambassador without alerting the Obama Administration and its intelligence apparatus? No. They should have known our spies would learn about their communications by monitoring Russian operatives―and, probably, that those Russian operatives would put out misinformation about the meeting for the purpose of embarrassing Trump. (Memo to POTUS: for the umpty-umpth time, Russia is not your friend.)
But to concede that Kushner and Flynn used bad judgment is not to say they didn’t have their reasons. There is abundant cause for concern that the Obama administration tore down the wall between the missions of law-enforcement and foreign-intelligence, on one side, and partisan politics, on the other. The White House and its politicized security services wanted Hillary Clinton to become president, and they do not want to let Donald Trump be president.
There’s a collusion story here, but it’s got nothing to do with Russia.
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The White House needs to get serious about prosecuting the leakers, those who violated the 4th amendment with illegal surveillance, and Hillary for a host of criminal activities. They can add slander to her bill when no collusion with Russia is found.
“The White House needs to get serious about prosecuting the leakers”. Thank god he doesn’t have that kind of power! Pretty sure that’s the DOJ’s call there. Besides, they have enough on their plate with the current mess in the white house.
Since you are unaware, the DOJ is part of the executive branch which is under the President. If you’re going to troll, at least know what you’re talking about first.
Naw. It’s more fun when they inadvertntly reveal that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Oh, so how many charges should Trump bring against Assange? Don’t pretend to know things
Try to keep up, nobody was talking about Assange. Azzhats like him always get what is coming to them.
you do know that President Obama was the most aggressive in the charges they wanted to bring for leakers they disagreed with, right?
Susan Rice, John Brennan and Samantha Power subpoenaed regarding the “unmasking”…
Guess what kids? The Russia thing is about to bite the entire democratic party AND their news / propaganda arm in the a**..
Stock up on popcorn!
As Mr. McCarthy says, the Obama Administration exploited a weakness in our Constitutional protections by using the IC to circumvent the need for “probable cause” in criminal investigations and conduct a counterintelligence investigation of Trump and his Campaign. Congress needs to improve the process of approving CI investigation into US persons to include a probable cause determination, preferably by the FISA Court.
Obama also believed, until the election, that there was zero chance he would ever be exposed for the criminal he is.
That conviction changed pronto!
This indeed THE central issue. They were virtually certain they would hold onto the executive branch along with the permanent bureaucracy. With the election “in the bag” their crimes and the deep state’s violations of every law on the books would be hidden or scrubbed like Mrs. Clinton’s server.
That’s why Rice, Power, et al., with the collusion of the IC, continued their unconstitutional program of spying on the Trump team. They never thought there was a chance that Hillary wouldn’t be elected.
Correct!
I have been saying this for eight months:
Never lose sight of this single fact: Until November 9, 2016, Barack Obama was convinced that Hillary Clinton would be the next President of the United States.
Did you get that?
One more time then:
Never lose sight of this single fact: Until November 9, 2016, Barack Obama was convinced that Hillary Clinton would be the next President of the United States.
And once more.
Never lose sight of this single fact: Until November 9, 2016, Barack Obama was convinced that Hillary Clinton would be the next President of the United States.
It explains everything since.
I’ll add something to that Until November 9, 2016 THE RUSSIANS along with virtually everyone else convinced that Hillary Clinton would be the next President of the United States.
This is why the notion of Trump being groomed as a Manchurian Candidate years before by the Russians is preposterous on its face. No one save Trump ever considered him to be a credible candidate for President of the United States.
First, few of us ever expected him to throw his hat in the ring and actually run. Then, once he did decide to run, virtually everyone expected him to drop out when the process proved to be tiresome. He was said to be doing it as yet another exercise in self-promotion. “Everyone” said that when it became necessary to release his tax returns (as is customary but not required) he would drop out. Instead, realizing that his all his complex returns would do would be to cause hundreds of critical stories for months, if not years, disabling his campaign, he wisely refused. Then, it was presumed that the vastly better funded (and as we have been told a thousand times by McCain-Feingoldites, funding is EVERYTHING, right?) and experienced GOP candidates would wipe the floor with him and he would give up.
Then, once Mr. Trump won the primaries it was clear to nearly EVERYONE that the well-oiled and well-funded Clinton campaign with backing from every major corporate sector, along with the Lords of Silicon Valley and 95% of the media in collusion, along with the public sector unions and the permanent deep state would wipe the floor with him. Then, once Trump got into an ill-advised tiff with Mr. Kahn and then a fully orchestrated and carefully stage-managed campaign to portray Trump as a serial sexual miscreant was unleashed, nearly EVERYONE knew Trump’s holiday goose was cooked.
On the eve of the election, Mr. Silver, the prognosticator gave Trump about a 33% chance of winning and was the subject of ridicule from other pollsters and researchers, who gave Mr. Trump a 1-2% chance of winning. The notion that Trump of all people could tear down some of the Democratic firewall, states the GOP never ceased to dream about flipping – Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan – while running the table in the must win states of Florida, North Carolina and Ohio, was seen to be preposterous on its face. How could a rich man from New York City of all places with a model wife and gold plated faucets and his own air fleet win over the rust belt?
The notion of a “Trump Presidency” was ridiculous on its face to all but Trump, his close advisors and a small number of commenters such as Scott Adams, who looked on the campaign with a different perspective. A look at the New York Times trick little election meter tells the whole story – well into election day it was quite clear that Mrs. Clinton was going to break through the ultimate glass ceiling the way that her husband busts out of his pants when he sees a large breasted woman with her mane properly teased into a crescendo of big-haired pulchritude.
Mrs. Clinton was going to get her revenge on Bill at last, on all of us, on everyone who accused her of being corrupt, on every campaign advisor who insisted on yet another campaign to “humanize” someone who evidently had resisted “humanizing” campaigns that date back to 1992, on everyone who thought she should be in stir for a long career of destroying evidence, obstructing justice and being the most corrupt major public official in the history of the federal government, when she stole and destroyed thousands of documents and sold her office to the highest bidder. She was going to be President, that was crystal clear.
So, the idea that anyone in Russia actually thought that Trump (a loose cannon if there ever was one) would have been seen as a possible, let alone probable future President by the Russians, is ridiculous. No one on the left or in the permanent state ever considered Mr. Trump anything but a buffoon. Which is why their anger is even more palpable then it was in 1980 or 2000 or 2004.
No, the Russians already had influence on the campaign trail in the form of Hillary Rodham Clinton whose foundation had received hundreds of millions of dollars in bundled donations from Russia’s Canadian partners and her influence in the Uranium deal was a major coup, an investment they got a banner return on. Then, to seal the deal former President Clinton flew to Moscow to pick up a cool $500,000 for a “speech” for a Putin-affiliated bank.
A superlative summary!
You did leave out an important item. The single greatest deed any American president could hand Vladimir Putin and Russia was keeping fossil-fuel prices as high as possible and Russia solvent.
With hundreds of billions of dollars lost to the Kremlin every year because of the collapse of oil-and gas prices, the notion that Putin would act not with that ongoing fiscal catastrophe for a country that has little else to sell in mind, preferring instead to settle a grudge arising from Clinton’s opposition to his “election,” is too fantastic a fable to be believed by anyone not working at CNN. MSNBC, or <emThe New York Times.
Barack Obama had done all he could to protect Russian solvency. He had said openly in 2008 that energy prices would have to “soar” if renewables were to be competitive in service to a preposterous scientific theory.
Hillary was on board to continue the insanity 110%
That’s why the Report’s conclusion that Putin favored Trump is so ridiculous. He hated Hillary, and wanted to cripple her Presidency, but never believed for a minute that Trump would win. Brennan claimed that his opinion changed “depending on who it appeared would win at the time,” but that was NEVER Trump.
Trump, with Tillerson’s assistance, should begin immediate plans to massively increase east coast facilities for the export of LNG to Europe. The one inadequate facility in the Chesapeake is being expanded already, but not rapidly enough. This would not only assist marketing of our expanding energy production, but help break the back of Russia’s stranglehold on Europe’s energy.
At the same time we should expand facilities on the west coast for the handling of coal. China seems to bring a new coal-fired plant on line almost daily, and they can take all that we can ship. Good for them, and good for us.
the environmental groups in the NE won’t let you build anything, much less an LNG plant. You’ll need to find a friendlier area to make that happen (but agree it should, along with one in San Diego)
Cove Point LNG Terminal is an offshore liquid natural gas shipping terminal, on the Chesapeake, approved in 2014. It’s a start.
Cove Point, on the Chesapeake, approved in 2014 and under construction.
Ship enough and we can break Russia’s back. Problem is what they do then?
a bit long winded, but exactly what I have been saying for months! Putin was messing with Hillary precisely because he thought she was going to win, just like everybody else
Good point when you write, “Should Jared Kushner and Michael Flynn have met with the Russian ambassador without alerting the Obama Administration and its intelligence apparatus? No.”
However; in this instance, we are talking about the duplicitous administration of the failed former president, Barack Hussein Obama. He who was purported to have made our intelligence agency part of his political apparatus so, how could they be trusted with any information of their duty to seek communication and understanding with a foreign entity that plays large on the world stage? No one is asking the Obama administration to account for their collusion before and during their tenure? The fact that our media and our politicos have focused on Trump and not the outgoing failed former president is evidence there is not justice in this country unless it’s the Marxist social justice that demands we all believe that only the white and right is corrupt. The Obama years have left our country not only weaker militarily and economically, but our internal issues have only intensified and there is no slowing this train wreck down until the Obama years are litigated.
Yes, advising the Obama administration of anything you expected to keep secret as required by law would be farcical. It was they who relaxed all of the “protections” that were put in place to allow domestic and politically-motivated spying on a wholesale basis.
As opposed to Israel providing classified information to Trump, who openly reveals it to Russia. Yes, we have a much better system in place now.
of course you wouldn’t believe him, but Trump says he didn’t reveal that. ABC, however, had no problem making sure the world knew that was the source. Why is ABC a “revered” news organization and Trump is assumed to of course be wrong?
ABC revealed both the information and the source.
As far as your question: you know why. Because they don’t have anything legit to throw at Trump, so they’re stuck with made-up stuff, even when it doesn’t make much sense.
Probably because of how often he lies. I’d start there
This one is hilarious. As if Democrats were concerned about the security of classified information. Or of course the security of anything to do with the state of Israel, which is the left’s enemy #2 of course, said to be an “Apartheid State.”
Then what we are said to “know” about the sharing of information between the President and the Russians on terrorism from anonymous leaks, meaning we don’t have any way of knowing of this or any other component of the Russian stories has even a smidgen of truth to it.
Indeed every bit of the Russian story has been anonymously sourced and the few people to testify under oath have said again and again that there has been no evidence they have seen of collusion. Second, the information that may have been discussed (without sources and methods, which the President was not privy to) was later said to come from the Jordanians, not the Israelis.
Furthermore, it is up to the President to share such information as he and his administration see fit and see as appropriate. Just as the last President, one Barak Obama and his administration shared information about terror plots and plotters with the Russians countless times. There were no leaks of course then, for the deep state had only love for Obama.
That of course was before Democrats were far, far, far, far, far, far g from concerned about Russia as a threat, when they held all of Eastern Europe and had hundreds of thousands of political prisoners and had executed millions, when the Democrats felt the Russian threat was exaggerated. But, that was of course before Hillary Rodham Clinton failed to burst through the ultimate glass ceiling like a heifer charging through a plate glass window.
Too long, didn’t read. I will say this though- I have no standard bearer. Its just way too easy to point out Trump’s deficiencies
Well, I know that trolls have short attention spans and a perpetual inability to confront arguments with counter-arguments, so in the future I’ll refrain from pointing out the deficiencies of your official talking points.
As far as having no “standard bearer,” you reveal your foolishness. The choice in November was binary, either Hillary Rodham Clinton, the most corrupt senior federal official in the history of the Republic, or the greatly flawed Mr. Trump, someone who at least would not endorse the policies of the loony left, so voting for anyone else or abstaining was an act of cowardice or an exercise in electoral onanism. Have a nice life.
Well Trump was right. He said if I voted for Clinton we would have a president being investigated by the FBI on day one. I guess he eventually had to be right about something. Broken clock, right.?Good luck to you
A back channel would be extremely logical in the face of the spying that the FISA Court has found to be a long-standing practice of the Obama IC, but if the Obama Team [of which Kushner was an integral part] were colluding with the Russians, wouldn’t they already have established channels for collusion? Does it take more than minimal intelligence to see through this?
I don’t get your point. At what time was Jared Kushner part of failed former president Obama’s administration?
Sorry – Trump. Can’t even blame that on auto-correct.
Indeed, look at the mess his IC is fomenting right now. Un-American haters all.
” Jared Kushner, in a December 2016 Trump Tower meeting with the ubiquitous Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, discussed setting up a communications “back-channel” between the incoming administration and the Kremlin.”
Is that not additional evidence of a “wire-tap” of Trump Tower? If not, how did the leaker come up with this information?
Of course. When Trump used this antiquated phrase he clearly meant that the President-elect’s communications were being monitored, listened into and then illegally leaked. But his wordage became the issue, not the fact that someone was committing a high crime by leaking the contents of a conversation and letting the Russians know we could monitor what one assumes would have been encrypted communications. Revealing sources and methods is of course a major felony and injurious to national security, but that matters not a whit to Trump’s enemies on the left and right who are out to take him down, even if they violate every law in the book in the process.
Of course the word used became the issue. How else could they pretend what he’d said was somehow untrue?
Which narrative would YOU prefer, if you were them: dishonestly calling Trump a liar, or admitting Obama is far far worse than a mere liar?
Excellent summary! This article should be shared as widely as possible.
Why? You think the rest of the world can’t see through unmitigated partisan blindness? You’re all so wrapped up in your GOP that you can’t see treason for what it is. This article would be a flop outside this echo-chamber.
I know real treason when I see it. There have been ample examples of it over the last 8 years.
It’s not treason to not be a white chest-beating male.
hahaha there it is: liberals projecting their own sins (or in this case treason) onto their enemies.
It’s a “tell”.
But you offer no refutation. If you had any intelligence you could obviously expose all if the fallacies. So you’re either too stupid or are talking out of your backside.
His fallacies are numerous and meticulously documented, out in the open for anyone to see. That I might have to spell them out for you suggests you are either very lazy or willfully ignorant… Or both.
“They are still having so much fun with the new “Jared back-channel to the Kremlin” angle, they appear not to realize it destroys their collusion yarn.”
Destroyed? Don’t assume that the contradictions cannot simultaneously exist in the Leftist’ mind.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (Alice in Wonderland)
Good article. However, even if Putin is not Trump’s friend, he’s not his enemy either. Russia has potential to become a great economic power and the United States needs to have a non-adversarial dialogue with them. Look at a map and see where Russia is – it physically connects Asia and Europe. The United States is only connected to South America.
Even though they are our adversaries in many regards, Russia, aside from its massive geographic size, is the world’s largest oil producer, 2nd largest nuclear power, and 2nd strongest military. To not maintain relations with them would be foolish.
Agreed. The knee-jerk neocon posturing of McCain and his ilk seems more and more like a desperate attempt to restart the Cold War. And of course the neoliberals are onboard as well.
What is the fascination with a vicious dictator like Putin? Do some research, Russia is not our friend. As soon as we may reach our hand out to them, they’d bite it. They do not have our interests in mind. They do not share American ideals.
“I’ll have more room to negotiate after the election”. Sounds ever so stern and unfriendly.
Writes Andrew McCarthy:
Exactly right. In my view the whole ‘Russia Collusion’ fable was seized upon by the Obama administration, the Intelligence Community, and the Clinton campaign as a way of turning public (i.e. media) attention away from their own malfeasance (rampant illegal spying on political opponents, especially the Trump campaign). They even used the so-called ‘hack’ of the DNC computers and subsequent Wikileaks email releases as ‘proof’ of Russian meddling. The DNC refused FBI help with their computers, and instead hired a company run by an anti-Russian Ukrainian and Hillary supporter, which announced, “It was the Russians!” See “The Easter Bunny Cover-up” here:
https://walkingcreekworld.wordpress.com/2017/04/19/the-easter-bunny-cover-up/
It wasn’t until President Trump, with his infamous “wire-tap” tweet, turned the tables on the Obamunists (like Brennan at CIA) that evidence of illegal spying, ‘un-masking’, and leaking started to come out. The tide is now turning, and will become a flood if Attorney General Sessions can discard his self-imposed ‘recusal’ and start investigating the absurd ‘Russia Collusion’ fable.
/L. E. Joiner https://WalkingCreekWorld.wordpress.com
The author cites ICA 2017-01D, “a highly touted (and thinly sourced) report by three intel agencies (FBI, CIA and NSA).” This is the same report that Hillary cited the other day as having been issued by “17 Agencies.” It’s been commonly described as such before, but that’s wrong, and Hillary’s repeating of it is either ignorance, or another lie of which she’s shown herself in the past to be all too capable.
Is that photo of zer’O & HerSelf hugging in beatific bliss the most noxious image in history?
Nearly as repulsive to the eye as Hillary and Bubba dancing on the beach during the Monica scandal. How dumb do they think we are?
The Russian collusion delusional was a media smokescreen to conceal the felonious unmasking scandal from Obama and his cronies. It appears as if Trump was correct: The Obamanites were “tapping” his communications after all!
Into the beers a bit early I see.
Any outcome that doesn’t result in serious prison time for Mr. Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and their cadres of criminal political operatives would be an awful miscarriage of justice.
It is really too bad that “the West” cannot produce or elect leaders of President Vladimir Putin’s character & caliber.
Great article
You are such a freaking idiot, McCarthy.
Another great argument! Please use more fake curses like “freaking”!
It is partly Trump’s fault that he hasn’t ousted Obama’s holdovers who are embedded in the FBI, NSA and CIA. And he needs to have Sessions use all the powers at his disposal to locate and prosecute all the leakers and other criminals. The government should come down on them like a hammer, and the news of real crimes will focus the nation on the true threat to the Constitution. The Justice Dept should also investigate the crimes of Obama’s IRS and of Hillary Clinton. The media, the Democrats and the deep state like investigations–give them something to make them cry.
It isn’t Obama holdovers. It is more likely rogue republicans with sense of moral decency and a desire to protect the United States from the lunatic in the White House.
“sense of moral decency” … that must be leftyspeak for “desire to overthrow a legitimate election because we don’t like unwashed people having the right to vote”, aka “sedition”.
It’s Patriotic American Citizen speak for some of us value our Democracy more that Trumps personal agenda.
Where “democracy” means “what elites want, and if voters don’t obey, then just overturn the election”.
Which is about what you’d expect from someone who labels Orwellin doublespeak “Patriotic American Citizen speak”
Lefties figured out long ago that they can get cooperation from anyone by labeling their intentions exactly opposite whatever is true. They’re starting to learn now that everyone else has figured out how that works, and it isn’t working so well any more (and about time people finally figured it out!)
So you say … Meanwhile Trump fills every post in his cabinet and beyond with billionaires and wall-street insiders.
The hypocrisy is dense.
I would suggest that the leakers and others who have come forth, one way or another, are attempting to protect this country from a man who is mentally impaired. Nobody can think Trump’s delusions and paranoia are normal. Nobody can think that a POTUS who is unable to carry on a press conference (Last was in February and he has not been allowed to stand up and answer questions front the press since that mess.) is a normal state of affairs. I watched the Rose interview mentioned and I suggest those who find fault with what I am saying give it a try. The deterioration is immediately noticeable and knowing his father died of Alzheimer’s, it seems probable that is why his behavior is so bizarre. ” “STAT reviewed decades of Trump’s on-air interviews and compared them to Q&A sessions since his inauguration. The differences are striking and unmistakable.”
“Research has shown that changes in speaking style can result from cognitive decline. STAT therefore asked experts in neurolinguistics and cognitive assessment, as well as psychologists and psychiatrists, to compare Trump’s speech from decades ago to that in 2017; they all agreed there had been a deterioration, and some said it could reflect changes in the health of Trump’s brain.”
“In interviews Trump gave in the 1980s and 1990s (with Tom Brokaw, David Letterman, Oprah Winfrey, Charlie Rose, and others), he spoke articulately, used sophisticated vocabulary, inserted dependent clauses into his sentences without losing his train of thought, and strung together sentences into a polished paragraph, which — and this is no mean feat — would have scanned just fine in print. This was so even when reporters asked tough questions.”
There needs to be some prosecutions. These felonious leaks will not stop until then. Any remaining Obama appointees need to be handed their pink slips – now. And finally, high-ranking military supporters of Obama’s political and social engineering agendas needs to be put out to pasture – now.
Now even Putin say that russian hackers where probably responsible for the DNC hack. I wonder what the right conspiracy theorists will say now (Rest in Peace Seth Rich…).
The other thing I wonder is, what the same would have say, if Clinton where requesting who requested a back channel to Russia…
We know about her profits in back channels.
When will finally get over Hillary, she is gone.
If you are unhappy with how the US works, then blame it on Trump, he is the POTUS.
While still campaigning for the presidency in 2008, then Senator Barack Obama, sent William G. Miller to Tehran, as his representative, to set up a back channel line of communication with the Mullahs, to assure them of better relations with the U.S., once he was elected President. Iran, at this time was a sworn enemy of the U.S. If ever there was a violation of the Logan Act, it was then.
A short fact check on the internet reveals, that this story lacks credibility. There is only one source for this story, a conservative “expert” on Iran and Iraq.
William G. Miller denies the story. It is basically a he said, she said thing, with nothing to back up the story.
As long as there is no prove that Miller was in Iran in 2008, I file the story under “fake news”, probably fabricated by a Trump fan to distract from the Kushner problem.
hy are people so upset about leaks about Trump? Aren’t these the same people who cheer for every leak about Clinton or Obama.
So either accept all leaks, or condemn all, but please be not selective about whom the leaks are, it just shows that you are not interested in the truth.
Because the leaks about Trump are illegal and violate the security of the US. Hillary’s leaks were due to her own incompetence.
Why are the Progressives so eager for conflict with Russia? Is it part of their eugenics campaign to send working class kids off to die in foreign wars? Are their trust funds secretly invested in defense stocks? Why are they so belligerent?
Memo to McCarthy: While Russia might not be our friend, they are still far, FAR more patriotic towards America than the Democrat Party. How many American blacks has Russia lynched? None. The Democrat Party was primarily responsible. Did the Russians implement Jim Crow? No. That was the Democrat Party. Did the Russians start the KKK? Why, no. That was the Democrat Party. Did the Russians assassinate multiple civil rights leaders? No. That was done by members of the Democrat Party. Was it the Russians who kept blacks from universities? No. Again…the Democrat Party.
Leftists, and, by definition, the Democrat Party, are nothing mo than cancerous growths on the the globe. Sickening illnesses, which are designed to destroy the entire body.
I accept your view, for the most part, but I’d change “FAR more patriotic” to “FAR less antagonistic.”
Any country that wants to see us defeated should never be called “patriotic.”
But, you are correct that the dems are worse. THAT’s a fair point.
Good point.
While McCarthy may be my favorite “National Review” writer, I am disappointed to see him in “American Greatness” for this reason: Conservative, Inc is populated with about 3 dozen primary writers who can publish in any conservative platform they want, like Robin Williams walking into any comedy club to practice his improv.
If “American Greatness” has shown anything it’s that conservatism needs fresh voices, voices that accurately discerned the times in 2016. Please do not become “National Review,” “Commentary,” or “The Weekly Standard.”
I dunno, I kinda like being able to read McCarthy without having to click on National Review’s links.
Mr. McCarthy is certainly a writer to best delineate the particular legal thread involved in a topic, this article no exception. Well appreciated. At the same time, McCarthy’s writing includes the use of poking condescension in Trump’s direction to make a point. To mr. McCarthy, your correction of POTUS can be direct without impugning Trump preferred process.
American Greatness is a name that does come with specific credit. Weenie pants conservative “never Trumpers” have many places to grind their passe axe.
The author dismisses this issue as if it were nothing. He os profoundly wrong. This is Trump’s shoot out at the OK corral and he is not going to survive it.
You’d better hope he doesn’t survive it, because the Democrats have shot their wad: if they don’t take Trump down AND kill the entire reform movement, they are in biiiiiiig trouble. (And they know it.)
I sincerely hope that Trump is dragged from office by the orangutang pelt on his thick ugly head.
Your rage amuses me.
Trump is doing a great job. Even if he were dragged from office by his hair, he still exposed Obama’s administration as deeply corrupt, and forced both the left and the media to drop the pretenses and “out” themselves.
A major win whether Trump stays or goes. And don’t forget that downticket, the GOP has completely owned the Democrats. Good luck in 2018!
Its not rage. Its contempt. But don’t worry about 2018, Trump won’t see the end of the year in office. He will be back to bankrupting companies and screwing tradesmen.
The reaction of people like you is the best part.
Move on junior, you’re out of your league. Find a kid’s site.
ROFL. That you are feeling defensive is good. Very good.
You are gonna so hate the next few years.
lame. loser talk.
Hurts that bad, huh?
Speaking of being childish and immature. It is totally on display in your words. Sad.
TDS
The issue is far from nothing. The author, although with some humor of a life long inconsequential back bencher, made clear the beef in any future argument will come from the howls of the past administration’s inhabitants. The courts will finally have an opportunity to carry some weight.
Would you mind listing the federal code or any law you have convinced yourself was violated? Excuse me if I don’t trust your rhetoric as proof of anything. Oh, and no conjecture, just facts and codes.
I remember reading about Obama’s orders to give the raw intelligence to many people. I thought at the time that this was done to hide the leakers identity. Why else would he do it just before leaving office. I now think he was trying to save his own ass as well. What a sleeve.
He got desperate between the election and inauguration, and ramped up excesses that FISA Court found were already out of hand and serious violation of 4th Amendment. Most interesting is Power involvement. Gowdy seems to have her number, and there’s no logical reason why she should have been unmasking.
Excellent article!
I don’t understand how this new Kushner narrative helps the Dem-Media. I may not be a smart man Jenny, but how do you hack an election that happened in November by setting up a communication link in December?
I think at this point it’s just a mob following a shoe.
And if you’ve been colluding with Russia, why do you need to set up communications?
It doesn’t and that’s the point. The Dems (at least the smart ones) KNOW there is nothing to this, but that is completely beside the point. The *point* is to generate enough smoke, noise, and confusion in order to keep President Trump from getting anything done, and to make GOP congressmen so nervous that they won’t do anything.
Excellent fake news article….
It’s an op-ed, but literacy is hard.
And solidly well-documented.
I like McCarthy. He’s one of those ones that, when I see he’s the author, I read it first.
The little snowflakes here are left to mumble nonsense about fake news and impeachment. They fail to realize that the Democratic Party of JFK is dead, and all that’s left are communists, socialists, fascists and the painfully ignorant. They’ll get crushed again in 2018.
This is not a news article doofus.
You have a great fan base of lefty loons Mr McCarthy. You can always tell when you hit one to of the park by the response.
Now they’ve got Nigel Farage as a”person of interest?” They really have lost it.
Given that we now know that the FBI under Comey flouted the 4th Amendment w/r/t FISA related foreign surveillance, and given that Comey *under* *oath* had already testified that there was no political pressure to end any investigation, I am now *VERY* curious how Comey gets out of his upcoming testimony without either exonerating Trump or winding up in JAIL.
The world’s most honest man he is not.
Hillary is NOT the POTUS. If the Russians were instrumental in achieving that result, we should thank them for their service.
yet another trump apologist licking the balls of the so-called president
Yeah, good argument!
More cursing!
President Trump’s BALLS are so big everyone is tripping over them.
OOPs! There you go, need a hand up?
F that, *spit* *kick*
Its a good thing that President Trump has his appointees installed at CIA and NSA and is holding his ace in the hole (head of FBI) until the grandstander Comey makes his move. Things are becoming clearer by the hour, and the left’s attempt to suppress this gargantuan breaking story is gradually eroding. Pretty soon, the damn is going to break.
Andrew McCarthy is a highly respected writer. He really knows whereof he speaks, and this is the flat unvarnished truth in a nutshell.
Very good observation, I agree.
I like that, “the damn is about to break”
And I believe that is putting it mildly.
“Memo to POTUS: for the umpty-umpth time, Russia is not your friend.”
Who wants to enslave me and destroy my way of life? Is it Russia? Or the Democrat party? Russia is not MY enemy. The Democrats are more MY enemy than the Russians are. I bet the Donald thinks that too.
Unfortunately that are a few small problems with your comment. Since Putin, the ‘president’ of Russia was quoted as saying that ‘the biggest catashrophe of the 20th century was the collapse of the Soviet Union’ and the Soviet DID enslave millions of citizens of the Baltic nations and most of eastern Europe, so given the opportunity & with Donald’s help, there is a good chance that Putin would enslave most Americans, including YOU. I’m not sure any Democratic administrations actually enslaved or destroyed anyone. Also Russia certainly is not Donald’s enemy because if he was, he would have been poisoned or assassinated by now, as has happened to all of Putin’s enemies.
The Dems are mostly Socialists, the Soviet Union was Socialist, connect the dots.
They lead far away from President Trump and right to the Dems.
The truth is coming and the truth shall set us free. You likely can’t handle the truth.
Right on, Mr. Marx ;, right on!
Democrats are enemy #1, extremely.
An excellent article that draws aside the obvious media curtain of double-standards and fake “news”. Unfortunately, the left control today’s media and the truth is neither in their toolbox nor their interest.
And who, pray tell is the arbiter of truth & ‘real’ news? Trump who has issued more than 400 verifiable lies or half truths or media like Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Daily Caller, News max or Breitbart, etc? If you agree with it, it’s ‘real news’. If you disagree it’s ‘fake news’. That method makes sense only to you guys who seem to filled with wishful thinking, a vivid imagination and preconceived narratives that cannot & will not be shaken by anything that doesn’t fit into your world view. SAD!
400 “verifiable lies”? Really? Did you count those yourself or did Joe (“President Bannon”) Scarborough or Brian (Plagiarizer in Chief) Williams or Don (“we’re not going to insult you by reporting that”) Lemon count those “verifiable lies” for you?
From Fact Checker: Throughout President Trump’s first 100 days, the Fact Checker team tracked false and misleading claims made by the president since Jan. 20.
Update: See the Fact Checker’s ongoing claims database, 365 days of Trump’s claims
As of Trump’s 100th day, we counted 492 false or misleading claims.
There is a difference between ideology slant and making S up.
I watch actual events or read actual sources. Everyone slants and a lot make S up.
As Reagan said, “trust but verify”.
Once verified to be Fakes, don’t trust.
Do you have any issue with the points made in this article?
Please do tell me 10 of your 400 so called lies by President Trump.
It doesnt matter if there is evidence of collusion with the Russians. The fact that the investigation s causing agita in the trump WH is what you want.
The Impeachment Train is warming up. Estimated arrival: early 2018, possibly earlier.
Excellent article.