RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/05/11/who_were_the_mueller_reports_hired_guns_140289.html

Special Counsel Robert Mueller spent more than $732,000 on outside contractors, including private investigators and researchers, records show, but his office refuses to say who they were. While it’s not unusual for special government offices to outsource for services such as computer support, Mueller also hired contractors to compile “investigative reports” and other “information.”

The arrangement has led congressional investigators, government watchdog groups and others to speculate that the private investigators and researchers who worked for the special counsel’s office might have included Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, the private research firm that hired Steele to produce the Russia collusion dossier for the Clinton campaign.

They suspect the dossier creators may have been involved in Mueller’s operation – and even had a hand in his final report – because the special counsel sent his team to London to meet with Steele within a few months of taking over the Russia collusion investigation in 2017. Also, Mueller’s lead prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, had shared information he received from Fusion with the media.

https://townhall.com/columnists/alfredoortiz/2019/05/12/contrary-to-democrat-talking-point-the-economy-is-working-for-everyone-n2546152

With the unemployment rate at its lowest level in 50 years and wages growing at their fastest pace in a decade, even Democrats cannot deny that the economy is booming. But in an attempt to downplay President Trump’s economic success, they are claiming that these economic gains are merely going to the rich.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that “the evidence shows that most of the economic gains continue to benefit those already well-off.” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer claimed, “wages aren’t growing fast enough to allow millions of workers to keep pace and feel that real economic security is within reach.” And Sen. Cory Booker broadly asserted that “Americans are struggling.”

This Democratic characterization of Trump’s economy is not new. Earlier this year, Kamala Harris said, “The economy is not working for working people.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer complained that “the state of the Trump economy is failing America’s middle class.” And for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the economy is perpetually “rigged” — whatever that means.

This diversion tactic fails on its merits. Start with unemployment rates, which are at or near record lows for Hispanic, black, female, and young workers. The unemployment rate for Americans without a high-school education, supposedly a group that’s been shafted in today’s economy, is hovering near a record low. The rate for those with disabilities has fallen by more than 20 percent over the last year to a mere 6.3 percent — the lowest level on record.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/trump-russia-investigation-partisan-politics/

This is an exquisitely planned political campaign.

Russiagate has always been a political narrative masquerading as a federal investigation. Its objective, plain and simple, has been twofold: first, to hamstring Donald Trump’s capacity to press the agenda on which he ran (immigration enforcement, conservative judicial nominees, deregulation, and a military build-up, along with skepticism about military interventions, free trade, and NATO); and ultimately, to render him unelectable come autumn 2020.

That’s it. That’s what FBI agent Peter Strzok so aptly called the “insurance policy.”

Yes, of course, if some grievous misconduct had emerged, something so egregious that Beltway Republicans could chance the wrath of the Trump base by hopping aboard the impeachment train, Democrats might take a shot at removing the president. But that, as they say in the Green New Deal biz, was just “aspirational.”

The real work in the here and now is hardball politics: Hem Trump in. Politicize the intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus. Signal to the public through intelligence leaks and suggestive official public statements that the president was suspected of conspiring with the Kremlin. Convince Trump that using the presidency’s arsenal to fight back would just bolster the obstruction case against him. Sic a special counsel on him if he lashed out anyway. Use the investigation as a rationale for slow-walking Trump nominees and for refusing to deal with him on such critical issues as border enforcement. Drive his numbers down.

It’s working.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-politics-is-front-and-center-for

Politics is front and center for the Russiagate probe, which has reached previously unknown heights of farce – and that’s saying something.

This week saw the spectacle of the House Judiciary Committee holding the attorney general of the United States in contempt for withholding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report … notwithstanding that the report was actually provided to lawmakers.

Desperate to project the illusion of cover-up in the utter absence of cover-up, Democrats proceeded against the attorney general even though (a) Barr did not owe Congress a single comma in the report because federal law calls for it to be confidential (i.e., between the prosecutor investigating the case and his supervisor, the attorney general); (b) Barr nevertheless gave Congress about 95 percent of the report; (c) congressional Democrats did not avail themselves of the opportunity to read other unredacted portions to which he gave access; (d) all of the unsavory information about President Trump – i.e., the stuff in the report that Democrats truly care about – has been disclosed; and (e) Barr only withheld grand jury information which it would be illegal to disclose – meaning: Democrats put the AG to the untenable choice of violating the law or being held in contempt.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/just-who-is-or-isnt-above-the-law/90680/

“So who is seeking to be positioned above the law? It’s hard to read the precedent as suggesting Mr. Trump is doing that. Nor is the Justice Department, which is on the side of the president; nor has the Justice Department’s special prosecutor moved against the president. No, it’s starting to look like the party seeking to maneuver itself above the law is — wait for it — the United States Congress.”

Is — or is not — the President above the law? It looks like we are going to be quarreling over that question as the Congress moves to confront President Trump for the Mueller report. We are going to be popped this poser, too, in respect of Mr. Trump’s aides, Attorney General Barr and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who are, among others, rebuffing subpoenas from the Representatives House.

Our sense of it — after reading up — is that both sides will want to avoid assumptions. That’s the gist, too, of an opinion just issued from the chambers of the New Yorker magazine’s constitutional maven, Jeffrey Toobin. He reckons that Mr. Trump is creating a “new constitutional norm” in which the only likely remedy for an executive defying the legislature would be the next election.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/10/nadlers-contempt/

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday held a press conference responding to the effort by Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for his testimony last week. McCarthy was relaxed and jovial as he approached the entrails of the self-destructing anti-Trump movement with a voracious appetite.

For too long the media and their client Democrats in Congress have operated in an environment in which the rule of law meant only one law: “Get Trump.” That “law” made everything done in service to that goal “legal” and everything in opposition to the goal “illegal.” Cries of a “constitutional crisis” are simply rehashing the received wisdom that there is a new, unwritten amendment to the Constitution called the “Get Trump” provision.

Thus, an exercise of delegated power by an elected president over the unelected subordinate branches could be called (without intended irony) an attack on democracy. The Obama era ushered in a convergence of power among the powerful federal agencies, the media, and the Democrats. In the early part of the Trump Administration, it even appeared strong enough to overcome the inconvenient election of a candidate who ran in opposition to the cabal.

But, as they say, something that cannot go on forever must eventually stop. With Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in charge of the Department of Justice and all “Get Trump” operations, there appeared to be no exception to the new law. Rosenstein dutifully used the Department of Justice against Trump’s allies while seeming to grant immunity to Trump’s enemies.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/comey-acknowledges-strzok-page-damaged-fbi-it-made-us-all-look-bad/

Former FBI director James Comey conceded Thursday night that former FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, damaged the Bureau’s reputation through their political partisanship.

Strzok and Page have been publicly excoriated by Republicans and allies of President Trump ever since the release of anti-Trump text messages they exchanged while they were working on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team.

“Considering the high standards that we set for law enforcement, what do you think should have been the consequences for Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Andrew McCabe?” an audience member asked Comey during a CNN townhall Thursday night.

“I think, given the standards that we have — especially we in the FBI have — there should have been, and was, severe discipline around their behavior,” said Comey. “As [CNN host] Anderson [Cooper] said, very different episodes of behavior. Everyone has opinions — about political issues, about religious issues, and sports issues. You can’t bring them to work and have them affect your work. There have to be severe consequences. FBI employees must tell the truth, always. And if they don’t, I don’t care what it’s about, it’s going to be investigated and there’s going to be severe consequences.”

Comey went on to explain that he was unaware of the bias exhibited by Strzok and Page at the time Strzok was serving as the lead investigator of Russian interference in the election, but admitted that the revelations about Strzok and Page’s hostility toward Trump damaged the FBI’s credibility.

“So, do you acknowledge that this whole episode with Strzok and Page, that it damaged the reputation of the FBI and that it perhaps tarnished the investigation?” asked Cooper.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/william-barr-vs-eric-holder-a-tale-of-two-attorneys-general/

The differences between the cases are informative.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has declared it a “constitutional crisis” that Attorney General William Barr refuses to divulge the small parts of the Mueller report that contain grand-jury material. By a straight party-line vote, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress.

What did Pelosi think when Barr’s predecessor, Eric Holder, refused to divulge documents to a congressional committee and was held in contempt? “Ridiculous!” she said. What did Holder and Obama say? That the House subpoena was a violation of “separation of powers.”

To partisans, the difference between the cases is obvious. Barr is defending Trump; Holder was Obama’s self-proclaimed “wing man.” That is enough for many journalists and most politicians. The rest of us might want to know: What is the legal or constitutional difference between Holder’s refusal to provide documents and Barr’s?

Here is the background of the Holder contempt. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), a unit of Holder’s Department of Justice (DOJ), conducted an operation called “Fast & Furious,” intended to track illegal gun sales. In fact it put hundreds of weapons in the hands of Mexican criminal gangs, leading to the death of an American officer. On February 2, 2011, after news of the operation emerged, Holder’s assistant attorney general sent a letter to Congress declaring that the Obama administration had no knowledge of the operation. This letter was false, as Holder later admitted.

A congressional committee wanted to know why it had been misled. BATFE employees leaked to Congress that the department was still suppressing the truth about the operation and retaliating against whistleblowers. The committee wanted to dig into that. It demanded DOJ documents “relating to actions the Department took to silence or retaliate against Fast and Furious whistleblowers,” so that it could determine “what the Department knew about Fast and Furious, including when and how it discovered its February 4 letter was false, and the Department’s efforts to conceal that information from Congress and the public.”

The committee’s first request for documents came early in March of 2011. The department did not comply with the request. On March 31, the committee issued its first subpoena. Again the department failed to comply. Over the next six months, the committee held a series of hearings, and Holder eventually admitted that the Fast & Furious operation had been “fundamentally flawed” and that DOJ’s February 4 letter denying administration knowledge was “inaccurate.” DOJ released thousands of pages of documents, but refused to give Congress all the documents it was asking for.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/05/two_stunning_revelations_on_russia_hoax_investigation_yesterday_from_dc_superlawyers_victoria_toensing_and_joe_digenova_.html

Washington, D.C. super-lawyers Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing have consistently been ahead of the news on the course of the unfolding scandal of spying on the Trump campaign and administration.  Appearing last night on Lou Dobbs’s Fox Business Network show, the two law and marriage partners revealed that the DoJ inspector general has already concluded that the last three of four FISA warrants were illegally obtained.Moreover, with the revelation from John Solomon that that “[n]ewly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media,”

Horowitz is re-opening the investigation into the legitimacy of the first of four FISA applications.Watch:Make no mistake: this means that crimes were committed and criminal referrals from the I.G. are coming.  Those who signed the applications — a group that includes James Comey and Rod Rosenstein — face criminal prosecution.The second revelation from the duo is, if anything, even more shocking: the FBI attempted to set up a sting on George Papadopoulos by offering him $10,000 in cash — which he left on the hotel room bed where it was offered to him.  

The trap this represented was fully revealed when Papadopoulos returned to the USA and customs agents unsuccessfully searched for the $10,000.  One of them told Papadopoulos, “This is what happens when you work for Donald Trump.”  They make the point that the rot at the FBI is not confined to a few appointees at the top.  A large number of lower-ranked officials were involved in these stings and associated frauds, and not a single one spoke up as a whistleblower.  A heartening assertion from the two well connected figures is that they are confident that justice will be done — that grand juries and indictments are in process. Watch:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/10/skyrocketing-attacks-nyc-jews-ignored-race/

Imagine that members of a religious minority were being frequently physically assaulted in America’s largest city at alarming rates. Imagine if members of that minority were being cold-cocked or spit on randomly for doing nothing more than being who they are and dressing how they dress. Imagine what a powerful and important story this would be to our country, how mobilized the media and government would be to stop it. But what if I told you that this is happening in New York City right now, and nobody seems to care very much? How can this be? I’ll explain it.

Orthodox Jews in New York City, specifically in Brooklyn, have experienced alarming rates of physical assault over the past year. The New York Police Department says that hate crimes in the city are up 67 percent this year. Of those, a whopping 80 percent have been anti-Semitic hate crimes. Just this week an Orthodox Jew just walking down the street was attacked from behind, punched in the head by an attacker who then ran away. In another incident this week, an Orthodox Jew was attacked by a group of men, one of whom shouted “You (expletive) Jew.”

This is an all too familiar story in Brooklyn these days, and there is a reason it isn’t being treated as a crisis by our media or government. That reason is that many if not most of the assailants are black or Hispanic men. In an article in The New York Times last October that was careful to point out, although without much evidence, that people of all descriptions are committing acts of anti-Semitism, Ginia Bellafante writes (emphasis mine), “In fact, it is the varied backgrounds of people who commit hate crimes in the city that make combating and talking about anti-Semitism in New York much harder.”