RUTHFULLY YOURS

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.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273732/mourning-students-rebel-high-pressure-gun-control-matthew-vadum

Disgusted students in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, stormed out of a vigil May 8 for a high school student shot to death this week after two politically tone-deaf Democrat politicians and a left-wing group tried to turn the event into a posthumous pep rally for gun control.

This major public-relations setback in the leftist war on guns came a few days after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a new commonsense law allowing teachers to be armed while on duty. Parkland, Florida, was the site of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead on Valentine’s Day last year.

The reaction to the attempted hijacking of what was supposed to be a memorial service for an innocent victim forced the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence to apologize for its affiliate, Team Enough, for politicizing the Colorado event.

Some of the students leaving the vigil were chanting “mental health,” according to local media. Apparently, it was a call for better mental health services to prevent future mass shootings. Some of the students complained they were not allowed to address the crowd at the event.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/09/was-sergey-kislyak-part-of-the-russian-collusion-hoax/

If the Trump-Russia election collusion hoax was a movie, Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak would have a starring role.

From Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ fateful recusal to National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s resignation to the aftermath of FBI Director James Comey’s firing, the former Russian diplomat made more than just a few consequential appearances. The question is, were these incidental cameos or was Kislyak following a script written for him by the collusion fraudsters?

As Senate Republicans threaten to excavate the origins of the corrupt investigation into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, they might want to take a closer look at how Kislyak helped shape the bogus Russian collusion plotline.

Kislyak appears 55 times in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s recent report. Alleged spy Maria Butina, sentenced last month to 18 months in federal prison for one count of conspiracy, met with Kislyak numerous times in 2015 and 2016 and promised to “collect the contact information of prominent conservatives” for him. He has openly bragged about his numerous contacts with Trump associates.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-constitutional-crisis-11557444084

America is in a “constitutional crisis.” Trump Administration officials have “decided that they’re not going to honor their oath of office.” President Trump is “almost self-impeaching” and “is every day demonstrating more obstruction of justice.”

All of these are quotes in the last 48 hours from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who will soon have to hire a lexicographer to come up with new ways to say that Mr. Trump is committing impeachable offenses. How many synonyms are there for “obstruction”?

Yet Mrs. Pelosi and House Democrats refuse even to begin a formal impeachment inquiry. If Mr. Trump is so disrespectful of the Constitution, and so in violation of the separation of powers, what are they waiting for? Mr. Trump still has 20 months left in his four-year term, so surely if the threat is so dire, Democrats will move urgently to fulfill their sacred vow to protect the Republic?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-nadler-really-wants-11557442946

Don’t think this week’s headlines about contempt of Congress and impeachment are about anything so serious as contempt of Congress or impeachment—never mind the “constitutional crisis” Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared Thursday. This is red-meat politics.

The House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines Wednesday to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt. It demands Mr. Barr turn over an unredacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, as well as “all documents obtained and investigative materials created by” Mr. Mueller’s office.

Chairman Jerrold Nadler also threatened to hold former White House counsel Don McGahn in contempt if he doesn’t testify. Mrs. Pelosi spent all week meditating on the prospect of impeaching President Trump, accusing him of “obstruction, obstruction, obstruction,” and even declaring him “self-impeachable,” whatever that means.

Mr. Nadler insists the point of his subpoena fusillade is to obtain “evidence” as part of his “investigation” into “abuses of power” by Mr. Trump. This is obviously untrue, as evidenced by Mr. Nadler’s dogged, daily efforts to make sure he does not obtain any information of value.

Already, on April 18, Mr. Barr made available to senior members of Congress the opportunity to view a version of the report more complete than the one released to the public. It contains the minimum redactions required by law—only 1.5% is redacted material, compared with about 10% for the public version. Mr. Nadler could have weeks ago obtained a flurry of new detail about Mr. Mueller’s investigations and evidence. But neither he nor any other Democrat has visited the Justice Department to view the fuller report. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://twitter.com/andrewbostom/status/1126637002584150017

Imam Omar Suleiman who stated (link: https://bit.ly/2VcIWqY) bit.ly/2VcIWqY “The Zionists are the enemies of Allah, His Messengers, sincere followers of all religions, & humanity as a whole,” Delivered Opening Prayer in US House of Reps Today (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=JiCAPZcjlWg) youtube.com/watch?time_con…

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/against-the-persecution-of-bill-barr/

The attorney general has gone above and beyond legal requirements in his release of the Mueller report. He deserves Congress’s gratitude, not its contempt.

The Democratic party’s current war on Attorney General William Barr is one of the most misguided, misplaced bursts of outrage that I’ve seen during the first term of the Trump administration. Barr protected the Mueller investigation, he went above and beyond legal requirements to release Mueller’s report to the public, and he has offered to congressional leaders far more details about the investigation than are publicly available. Yet now he’s subject to congressional contempt proceedings?

This is nonsense.

Barr has been far, far more transparent than governing law requires. The special-counsel regulations are crystal clear: The special counsel is required to deliver to the attorney general a “confidential report explaining [his] prosecution or declination decisions.” The attorney general is under no obligation to make that report public. Instead, the regulations state that he “may determine that public release of these reports would be in the public interest” and if so can release them subject to “applicable legal restrictions.”

This is exactly what Barr did: He released the report with minimal material redactions. The American public can read all about Russian interference in American elections, Trump’s unscrupulous campaign team, and Trump’s own deceptions right here. An annotated version can be read here. A bound volume of the report can even be bought here.

So why are Democrats now claiming that we’re in the grips of a “constitutional crisis”? Why are some openly suggesting using the sergeant at arms to arrest Barr and throw him in jail? The answer is absurd: because Barr has not complied with a congressional subpoena that demands from him documents he cannot legally disclose. Yes, that’s right. Congress is threatening Barr with contempt in part because Barr won’t break the law.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-congress-contempt-barr-democrats-watergate

When Congress uses its contempt power, there are basically three avenues it can pursue for purposes of enforcement. In the case of the House Judiciary Committee’s party-line vote to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt – for purportedly failing to produce a report he has actually produced – Democrats, who control the House, will use the route that is most political and, thus, least credible: the unilateral congressional procedure.

The committee will refer its finding for a vote by the full chamber. The stunt here is so nakedly partisan that the House won’t even try to get support from the Senate. In theory, the House could try to take enforcement action on contempt. Congress even has a jail cell in the bowels of the Capitol … though it hasn’t been used in many, many years, and it certainly is not going to be used against a cabinet officer of the executive branch. (I’m thinking the U.S. marshals would not take kindly to the House sergeant-at-arms showing up at Main Justice with a congressional arrest warrant for the attorney general).

On the other extreme, the House could theoretically avail itself of the second avenue: It could seek the help of the executive branch – specifically, the Justice Department – to pursue criminal contempt charges against the attorney general (i.e., it could ask the attorney general to prosecute the attorney general).