RUTHFULLY YOURS

His history of lying and coverups does not just disqualify him for Secretary of State—it makes him unfit for any cabinet position in Trump’s administration.

David Petraeus was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos this Sunday, an event promoted as “Petraeus’s Sunday Hail Mary” in his last-minute efforts to become part of the Trump cabinet. Petraeus’s television performance was grim, tense, and hesitant. His demeanor was that of a defendant on the stand, trying to keep his stories straight.

Surprisingly, for someone who has sworn to defend the Constitution in his professional career, Petraeus stated without qualification, “I don’t vote.” He insisted that he did not support or oppose Trump, “nor did I support or oppose any other candidate. I’ve truly tried to be apolitical, non-political.”

But in fact, Petraeus’s positions have been identical to Clinton’s for years, possibly up to the moment last week when he entered Trump Tower for his meeting with the President-Elect. Petraeus as Secretary of State is Hillary Clinton in a better pantsuit.

And that’s why Petraeus is not just a bad choice for Secretary of State—he’s a bad choice for any other cabinet position. He brings too much baggage, a damaged brand, and a long history of lying. He lied to the FBI and CIA about his handling of classified documents; he lied to his wife about his mistress; he lied to Congress about Benghazi. Why should Trump’s transition team assume he’s telling them the truth now?
Petraeus Mishandled Classified Info and Lied about It

Petraeus handed over eight black binders of classified information to his mistress Paula Broadwell, risking charges of violating the Espionage Act. These were real secrets, and it was a more than just a “mistake,” as Petraeus would later allege. “The Justice Department said the information, if disclosed, could have caused ‘exceptionally grave damage,’” wrote the Washington Post. “Officials said the notebooks contained code words for secret intelligence programs, the identities of covert officers, and information about war strategy and deliberative discussions with the National Security Council.”

That was just the start of a series of lies and coverups. Petraeus was caught lying to the FBI in the investigation. He also reportedly lied to the CIA when he resigned, claiming he had no classified materials when, in fact, those eight books of secret information were still at his home. The administration managed to keep the FBI investigation of Petraeus secret until after the 2012 election: the election was held November 6, and Petraeus’s superior James Clapper was—conveniently—informed November 7 of Petraeus’ affair. Obama was then briefed, allegedly for the first time, on November 8—the day Petraeus resigned.

Mishandling classified information and then lying about it, and then being allowed to walk on a misdemeanor charge? It’s as if the Petraeus scandal was the dress rehearsal for the FBI’s handling of Hillary’s private server.
Petraeus Defended Middle East Clients Over the Rights of Fellow Americans

Petraeus’s first impulse is to silence any criticism of Islam that could upset his Middle East clients. When he was commander of CENTCOM, those clients were the Islamic nations in the CENTCOM region. Not much changed when he joined the global financial firm KKR in 2013, as a “door opener” to Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and everyone else he had previously courted in his official government role.

But then in December 2015, Trump suggested a temporary ban on Muslim immigration. Petraeus’s Muslim clients went ballistic. As The Federalist related earlier this year, “In December 2015, influential Dubai billionaire Khalaf Al Habtoor published an op-ed (‘Ignore Trump’s bigotry at your peril’).” On May 4, Habtoor called Trump “very dangerous” and a “loose cannon.” Two days later, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal warned against Trump’s effect on U.S.-Saudi relations.

A week later on May 13, Petraeus made his move against Trump. He wrote a scathing op-ed for the Washington Post, expressing his concern that Muslims would be alienated by “inflammatory political discourse that has become far too common both at home and abroad against Muslims and Islam, including proposals from various quarters for blanket discrimination against people on the basis of their religion.”

Petraeus’s op-ed reached CAIR-levels of outrage, scolding “those who flirt with hate speech against Muslims,” “those who demonize and denigrate Islam,” and “demonizing a religious faith and its adherents.” A bravura finger-wagging performance, the op-ed also served as a timely audition for a future Clinton administration, with Petraeus warning “It is precisely because the danger of Islamist extremism is so great that politicians here and abroad who toy with anti-Muslim bigotry must consider the effects of their rhetoric.”

Former Vice President Al Gore, a leading proponent of anti-global warming advocacy, met with President-elect Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka for what he described as “an extremely interesting conversation” at Trump Tower on Monday.

Via NBC News:

Gore, who campaigned for Hillary Clinton, declined to say what exactly he and Trump spoke about during the meeting. But he said he met with both the president-elect and Ivanka Trump, who reportedly wants to make climate change one of her signature issues.

“I had a lengthy and very productive session with the president-elect. It was a sincere search for areas of common ground… I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I’m just going to leave it at that,” Gore told reporters after the meeting.

The meeting came just days after a source said Ivanka was interested in making climate change one of her signature issues.
Donald Trump’s Post-Election Climate Stance

Trump, however, has been skeptical of climate change, calling it a “hoax” and tweeting in 2012 that global warming was “created” by the Chinese.

They’re coming for Senator Sessions. The Alabama Senator, soon to be Attorney General, has been denounced by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, which bills its poison pen letter as coming from “civil and human rights organizations.” Just don’t ask which ones.

The “civil rights” organizations include the AFL-CIO, which had just denounced its own “ugly history of racism” last year, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, whose leaders have at times defended and excused the anti-Semitic and racist Islamic terror of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the National Council of La Raza, whose name means “The Race” and reflects its racialist agenda.

A thuggish union that concedes its own ugliness and two racist groups, one of which defends Islamic terrorists, are the worst possible people to pass any kind of judgment on Senator Sessions.

But it gets worse.

There’s the Center for Responsible Lending, funded by the Sandlers, who helped cause the economic crisis by peddling subprime mortgages. Lending doesn’t get more responsible than that. And there’s also the National Lawyers Guild, which started life as a Communist front group and arguably continues as such, praising North Korea’s “free healthcare and education systems.” Move over Cuba, North Korea has even more shovel-ready free health care for the oppressed comrades of the working class.

I don’t know why the Conference couldn’t manage to get Al Qaeda to sign on to their letter against Sessions. Maybe Osama bin Laden’s iPhone can’t get any bars at the bottom of the Arabian Sea.

But this motley crew of racists, traitors and terrorists has issued its ruling and found that, “Senator Sessions is the wrong person to serve as the U.S. Attorney General.”

The right person is Vladimir Lenin. Unfortunately he’s dead and not qualified to practice law.

You would think that the “144 undersigned organizations” representing billions in wealth and untold amounts of power and influence, could manage a more coherent smear campaign. Instead the letter rehashes the same old discredited smears. Senator Sessions’ joke about the KKK smoking pot is described as “speaking favorably about the Ku Klux Klan” even while admitting that “he was helpful in the Center’s successful effort to sue and bankrupt the Ku Klux.”

Sessions is accused of undermining “voting rights” by prosecuting the “voting rights activists” who were caught mailing hundreds of absentee ballots. These “voter suppression tactics targeting African Americans” came in response to complaints of fraud by African-American officials like Perry County Commissioner Reese Billingslea and John Kennard, Alabama’s first black tax assessor, who said, “The only reason these people are hollering racism now is because they are in trouble for breaking the law.”