RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/about-that-fbi-source-1525992611?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=0&cx_tag=pop&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it allowed House Intelligence Committee members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.

Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.

House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”

This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI.

The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.

I miss Carter Page. It seems like years since I have heard anything about the American businessman who briefly volunteered at Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

You remember Carter Page. He was, along with the micturating prostitutes, one of the stars of The Dossier™, the as-told-to novella by Christopher Steele, the leakin’-lyin’ former British spook who was commissioned by Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS to compose this gritty fantasy.

It had been a long time since Steele had been to Russia. But he knew people who knew people who had been told things by people who were close to people who had the same name as someone who used to work for Vladimir Putin. Slam dunk. Fusion, and therefore Steele, was paid in part through the law firm of Perkins Coie—it took a while to find that out—which in turn was paid by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It took a while to find that out, too.

Just about all major political campaigns engage in opposition research. It’s not nice. But it is business as usual. The great thing about being a Democrat, though, is that you can surreptitiously pay for opposition research on your opponent and then, even when the “research” is only hearsay—what would your history teacher say, Mr. Steele?

Sources, sources!—even if it’s just made-up gossip, you can encourage your friends in the CIA and other intelligence services to vouch for it and get the FBI to petition for and receive multiple secret court warrants to spy on American citizens who just happen to be connected with your political rival, thus giving you access to your rival’s communications and setting up a pretext for investigating him later on. Nicely done!

And the great thing was, no one was supposed to know about the origin of The Dossier™. That is, we, the public, weren’t supposed to know that 1) Hillary Clinton paid for it or 2) that it was the only substantive basis for the warrant to spy on Carter Page.

Had Hillary Clinton been elected president—I feel a little queasy even saying that, like the characters in the Harry Potter novels who avoid uttering the name “Voldemort”—if she-who-will-not-be-named had been elected, we would never have known about these shenanigans. Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak would have covered the entire saga and Hillary would have gone about her business destroying America. Amazing.

Fulfilling a campaign promise, earlier this week Donald Trump officially withdrew the United States from the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran, calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into.” For critics of the deal who recognized its flaws and did not turn a blind eye to evidence Iran was violating the terms of the agreement, this was welcome news a long time coming. Trump fulfilled his promise, and the days of kowtowing to terror-sponsoring regimes are behind us.

Naturally, Obama administration alums are throwing hissy fits. Obama himself released a statement calling the decision “a serious mistake.” Apparently, the man who gave billions of dollars and a pathway to creating nuclear weapons to the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism thinks he has any credibility on the issue. Of course, Obama, the self-proclaimed former constitutional law professor, should have known that Senate ratification is required for his deal to be legally binding. For all intents and purposes, Obama’s Iran deal was written in pencil, and Trump took his eraser to it.

Just like that, Obama’s “major” foreign policy achievement became yet another example of just how foolish Obama’s “I have a pen and a phone” approach to governing was for someone who wanted to establish a long-term legacy.

Below are the top four unilaterally implemented Obama policies Trump has successfully reversed:

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer harshly criticized President Trump’s most recent foreign-policy moves Thursday.

After the return of three American prisoners from North Korea Thursday, Trump thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un by name, and said Kim “really was excellent” to the prisoners. Schumer, the New York Democrat who took over as minority leader upon Senator Harry Reid’s retirement, blasted Trump’s conciliatory words.

“We can’t be fooled into giving the North Korean regime credit for turning (over) Americans that never should have been detained in the first place,” Schumer argued on the Senate floor Thursday morning. “It is so troubling to hear President Trump say that Kim Jong-un treated the Americans excellently.”

Schumer added that he thought the president’s comments had weakened America’s leverage ahead of his upcoming summit meeting with Kim, which is aimed at denuclearizing North Korea.

“We’re all rooting for diplomacy to succeed on the Korean Peninsula but we cannot sacrifice the safety of American citizens around the world in exchange for an illusory veneer of peace,” the senator said. “I worry that this president, in his eagerness to strike a deal and get the acclaim and a photo-op, will strike a quick one and a bad one, not a strong one.”

Schumer also slammed the president’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement earlier this week, even though Schumer opposed the deal when President Obama signed it in 2015.

Michael Avenatti, porn star Stormy Daniels’ lawyer, released a seven-page dossier on Tuesday containing a list of payments purportedly made to Michael Cohen, the lawyer for President Donald Trump.

But there is one problem with the document: two of the allegedly “fraudulent” payments were made to men named Michael Cohen who have no affiliation with Trump.

Avenatti’s report includes a section listing “possible fraudulent and illegal financial transactions” involving Trump’s lawyer. One of the payments is a $4,250 wire transfer from a Malaysian company, Actuarial Partners, to a bank in Toronto.

The other is a $980 transfer from a Kenyan bank to Bank Hapoalim — the largest bank in Israel.

Zainal Kassim, a representative for Actuarial Partners, told The Daily Caller News Foundation Avenatti’s report is a case of mistaken identity. He forwarded an email the falsely accused Michael Cohen sent to Avenatti requesting the lawyer “correct this error forthwith and make it known publicly” there is no connection to Trump’s Michael Cohen.

“You are surely aware of the fact that this is an extremely common name and would request that you take care before involving innocent parries in this sordid affair,” wrote Cohen, who told Avenatti he is an international consultant who was paid by Actuarial Partners for work on a project in Tanzania.

“Actuarial Partners have already received inquiries from the press in this regard, and we would like to see this scurrilous rumour spiked as soon as possible.”