Displaying posts published in

April 2020

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

FBI notes detail effort to catch Flynn in lie to ‘get him fired’ as Trump adviser ‘What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?’ John Solomon

By on April 30th, 2020

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/breaking-fbi-notes-detail-effort-catch-flynn-lie-get-him

A senior FBI official’s handwritten notes from the earliest days of the Trump administration expressed concern that the bureau might be “playing games” with a counterintelligence interview of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to get him to lie so “we could prosecute him or get him fired.”

The notes and other emails were provided to Flynn’s lawyers under seal last week and released Wednesday night by court order, providing the most damning evidence to date of potential politicalization and misconduct inside the FBI during the Russia probe.

The notes show FBI officials discussed not providing Flynn a Miranda-like warning before his January 2017 interview —  a practice normally followed in such interviews — so that he could be charged with a crime if he misled the agents, the officials said.

“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?,” the handwritten notes of the senior official say. The notes express further concern the FBI might be “playing games.”

Multiple officials confirmed to Just the News that the author of the notes is William Priestap, the now-retired FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and the ultimate supervisor for fired agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia probe.

Continue reading →
ISRAEL Comments turned off

What does ‘a Jewish state’ mean? Should there be a separation between shul and state? By MOSHE DANN

By on April 30th, 2020

https://www.jpost.com/judaism/jewish-holidays/what-does-a-jewish-state-mean-626097

A fundamental misunderstanding has dominated the discussion about this question. Does a Jewish state mean one that is run according to Halacha? Entangled in questions of interpretation and authority, the State of Israel struggles with this issue daily and in myriad ways. What is the place of secular, non-religious Jews? How can individual freedom be protected? Should there be a separation between shul and state?

The idea of a Jewish state is not about the role of Jewish law, a realm of rabbinic discourse, but about how a political structure can incorporate all of its constituent elements into a dynamic, organic whole. The function of a Jewish state is to provide by virtue of its sovereignty the basis of Jewish civilization, a context for Judaism to grow and develop, Jewish existence, a consciousness of what it means to be a Jew.

Jewish civilization and Jewish sovereignty

For Jews in Israel, the struggle to survive is often taken for granted. A fact of life that punches us with every terrorist attack, pounds with every anti-Jewish Arab riot and pains with condemnations by UN agencies and European Union diplomats. It’s nothing new; Jews have lived with persecution and the threat of extinction for millennia. It’s in our blood. We breathe our vulnerability, our eyes search for escape. Many assimilate and drop out, some join the perpetrators and turn on their own. And yet the fragile DNA of Jewish living persists.

Continue reading →