RUTHFULLY YOURS

Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a redacted version of the conclusions from their investigation into Russian election meddling Friday, saying they found “no evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“While the committee found no evidence that the Trump campaign colluded, coordinated, or conspired with the Russian government, the investigation did find poor judgment and ill-considered actions by the Trump and Clinton campaigns,” the Republican report states.

The report cited the Trump Tower meeting between Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer as an instance of “poor judgment” on the part of the Trump associates. The report also criticized the Trump campaign’s praise for and contacts with WikiLeaks, which it called a “hostile foreign organization,” as “highly objectionable and inconsistent with U.S. national security interests.”

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee were not spared in the report, which criticized Democrats for allegedly hiring Russian sources to draft opposition research against then-candidate Trump.

President Trump touted the report on Twitter Friday morning.Democrats, meanwhile, wrote a dissent to the 243-page report in which they accused the majority of a “lack of seriousness and interest in pursuing the truth.” Representative Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the committee, said Republicans had taken a “fundamentally flawed approach to the investigation” and reached “superficial and political” conclusions.

From time to time, Title IX supporters admit they know some campus rape accusations may be false. Yet, they still support the denial of due process rights to the accused.

Earlier this month, Clackamas Community College Title IX coordinator and Dean of Human Resources Patricia Wieck told The College Fix why believing accusers rather than waiting for evidence is important:

Believing survivors means let’s sit down and understand each other’s experience. Let’s believe what that person said, he or she has experienced, that we have experienced. It may not be the truth, as has been determined, but it is that person’s truth and what they were going through.

Are you kidding me?

This woman believes the false destruction of a man’s life via pinning on him one of the most horrible crimes a human can commit — some would argue the worst, and I can’t disagree outright — is preferable to a fair trial because of some postmodernist garbage?

The backers of Title IX have always used a lot of this “truth is subjective” nonsense to defend themselves. Her comments show the entire process is biased — by design.

Wieck is saying that even if the accuser is wrong, she’s right if she really, really feels that way. But if you’re the poor schmuck falsely accused of rape, your feelings — and the evidence you produce — don’t get the same treatment.

The reality is that truth isn’t subjective. Feelings aren’t truth. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON – In response to the Starbucks incident in Philadelphia earlier this month, Dr. Cornel West said that Americans must fight white supremacy “in all of its forms.”

An employee called the police on two African-Americans in a Starbucks store for sitting inside and not making a purchase. The police arrived and arrested the men, who stated that they were waiting for someone to arrive for a business meeting. Starbucks announced that it plans to close all of its stores on the afternoon of May 29 for “racial bias education.”

West was asked for his preferred outcome of the Starbucks incident.

“We’ve got to fight white supremacy is all of its forms,” West replied after a “Save Our Sons: Stop the Killing” and “Condemn Donald Trump” National Black Men’s Convention march and rally organized by former New Black Panther Party Chairman Malik Shabazz, president of Black Lawyers for Justice, on Saturday outside the White House.

During his speech at the protest, West urged civil rights activists not to “isolate” white supremacy from capitalism.

“I have the love of God and it empowers me in the midst of all of this nightmare, all of the lies and mendacity, all of the cold-heartedness and mean spiritedness of Donald Trump and his cronies and Wall Street and the military industrial complex and the State Department and the Pentagon. They all go together,” he said. “Never isolate white supremacy from capitalism. Never isolate capitalism from colonialism and imperialism and let us bring our critiques to bear on patriarchy.”

West condemned police shootings of African-Americans, telling the crowd to remember that black police officers can be “trigger happy, too.” CONTINUE AT SITE

A newly declassified report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections reveals that former intelligence chief James Clapper lied to Congress about information he shared with CNN on the infamous Steele dossier.

Buried within a newly declassified congressional report on Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections is a shocking revelation: former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper not only leaked information about the infamous Steele dossier and high-level government briefings about it to CNN, he also may have lied to Congress about the matter.

In one of the findings within the 253-page report, the House intelligence committee wrote that Clapper leaked details of a dossier briefing given to then-President-elect Donald Trump to CNN’s Jake Tapper, lied to Congress about the leak, and was rewarded with a CNN contract a few months later.

“Clapper flatly denied ‘discussing[ing] the dossier [compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists,’” the committee found.

When asked directly whether he had ever discussed the dossier with any journalists, Clapper replied that he had not, according to a transcript of the proceedings:

MR. ROONEY: Did you discuss the dossier or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists?

MR. CLAPPER: No.

WASHINGTON — Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was confirmed as secretary of State today by a 57-42 vote in the Senate.

Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.) and Doug Jones (R-Ala.) supported Pompeo, along with Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine).

“Based on his experience as CIA Director, an Army officer, a congressman, and his proven leadership on national security matters, he is eminently qualified to serve as our nation’s top diplomat,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) after the vote. “It is a shame that his nomination encountered partisan headwinds at a time when the U.S. and our allies face mounting national security threats. I look forward to working him and I am confident that he will successfully advance U.S. interests abroad, including the promotion of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he voted against Pompeo “because we need someone who will be a check on President Trump’s bellicose nature, not an encourager.”

“After 17 years of war in Afghanistan, 15 in Iraq and decades of huge military budgets, we need a secretary of state who will help bring the nations of the world together in diplomatic efforts to prevent war, not someone who supports never-ending wars,” Sanders said. “We need a secretary of state who will stand up for people of all faiths, sexual orientations and genders, not someone who opposes women’s rights and LGBTQ rights and who promotes religious bigotry. And we need a secretary of state who will address the crisis of climate change, not stymie action on one of the world’s most serious security threats.”

As one of President Trump’s nominees cleared the Senate, another dropped out before even getting to the confirmation hearing stage. CONTINUE AT SITE

Too many Trump critics have abandoned all pretense of respecting due process.

The absurd ruling by District Judge John Bates in the DACA case — which means that what is lawlessly imposed by executive order may not be lawfully rescinded by executive order — reminds us that justice is being politicized plenty from the bench. No surprise, then, that the pols and pundits are getting in on the act.

Byron York’s Washington Examiner column takes up the question of whether, where Donald Trump is concerned, the “generally accepted standard of justice has been turned on its head.” The matter at issue is the so-called Steele dossier, the Clinton-campaign-sponsored compilation of opposition-research memos that the author, former British spy Christopher Steele, masqueraded as intelligence reports. Byron collects commentary from left-leaning political, academic, and media doyens, all arguing that the dossier’s sensational allegations carry a degree of credibility because, though unverified, they have not been proven untrue.

We’ll come to the law in a moment. First, it’s worth observing how even the facts are corrupted by political narrative. The dossier did not drop out of the sky five minutes ago. Many media outlets had it long before it was finally published 17 months ago, refusing to run with it because they well knew that doing so would be irresponsible. The FBI has had Steele’s reports for nearly two years. As former deputy director Andrew McCabe told the House Intelligence Committee, the bureau made elaborate efforts to corroborate it. What’s more, the FBI and Justice Department have come in for fierce criticism for failing to verify dossier allegations that were included in the surveillance applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court). They have great incentive to show corroboration if it exists, but they haven’t.

President Trump vociferously protests his innocence as Robert Mueller finishes the first year of his Russia investigation. Still, the endless Tweet bleats of “PHONY” and “WITCH HUNT” are doing little to help his cause.

The question is why this high-energy president seems to have fallen for the media claim that his only proactive course is to fire Mr. Mueller. It isn’t. There are two very bold actions the Trump White House could take to reset the Russia dynamic. Both would aid Mr. Trump’s presidency and serve the executive branch and the public in the longer term.

The first is an abrupt overhaul of the president’s legal team and strategy. Mr. Trump has talented lawyers, but not ones skilled at confronting the threat at hand. They continue to fret over his personal liability, when the real threat is to the Constitution—to this presidency and every future one. Mr. Mueller is by all accounts now focused on obstruction of justice. Mr. Trump needs constitutional powerhouses who can swiftly take that issue off the table.

Constitutional lawyer David Rivkin in December argued on these pages that a president’s exercise of the powers of his office cannot legitimately be construed as obstruction of justice. Among those powers are the right to direct law enforcement and to fire executive-branch appointees at will. Whether or not Mr. Trump’s conversations with former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, or his firing of Mr. Comey, were wise, Mr. Trump was exercising rightful powers. If Congress believes he abused his office, it has the power to impeach. If Congress had the authority to criminalize the exercise of presidential power, or the judiciary to question a president’s motives, the separation of powers would be severely threatened.

Already we are seeing the obstruction narrative threaten other core powers. We are now told it is obstructionist for a president to use his pardon power, as Mr. Trump did with Joe Arpaio and Scooter Libby. We are told that Mr. Trump is obstructing justice by ordering the attorney general to cooperate with congressional document demands. And Team Trump needs to understand that the mere specter is enough to constrain the presidency; Mr. Mueller doesn’t need to bring a charge.

Which is why the president needs a team that focuses on the Constitution, decoupling its defense of Mr. Trump’s presidential powers from his personal legal risk. CONTINUE AT SITE

A copy of the little-publicized second dossier in the Trump-Russia affair, acquired by RealClearInvestigations, raises new questions about the origins of the Trump investigation, particularly about the role of Clinton partisans and the extent to which the two dossiers may have been coordinated or complementary operations.

The second dossier — two reports compiled by Cody Shearer, an ex-journalist and longtime Clinton operative — echoes many of the lurid and still unsubstantiated claims made in the Steele dossier, and is receiving new scrutiny. Over the weekend, Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a TV interview that his panel is shifting its focus concerning the genesis of the Russia investigation from the FBI to the State Department. This probe will include the Shearer dossier.

In late September 2016, Sidney Blumenthal, a close Clinton confidant and colleague of Shearer’s, passed Shearer’s dossier on to State Department official Jonathan M. Winer, a longtime aide to John Kerry on Capitol Hill and at Foggy Bottom.

According to Winer’s account in a Feb. 8, 2018 Washington Post op-ed, he shared the contents of the Shearer dossier with the author of the first dossier, ex-British spy Christopher Steele, who submitted part of it to the FBI to further substantiate his own investigation into the Trump campaign. Steele was a subcontractor working for the Washington, D.C.-based communications firm Fusion GPS, which was hired by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee to compile opposition research on her Republican opponent.

Steele’s 35-page dossier was used as evidence in October 2016 to secure from a secret court a surveillance warrant on volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Among issues the intelligence panel will likely want clarified is whether the FBI also used Shearer’s material as evidence in obtaining the FISA warrant.

Shearer did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment. Attempts to reach Winer by email were unsuccessful. And efforts to reach Blumenthal through his publisher were unsuccessful.

The copy of the Shearer memo provided to RealClearInvestigations is made up of two four-page reports, one titled “Donald Trump—Background Notes—The Compromised Candidate,” the other “FSB Interview” – the initials standing for the Russian Federal Security Service.

The only Trump campaign figures named are Donald Trump himself and his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, misspelled as “Manniford.” Shearer may be hinting at a third person when he quotes, without substantiation, a Turkish businessman saying a Russian source knows of a “cut out” or intermediary through whom the prospective “president of the U.S.” would communicate “into President Putin’s office.” The version of the two memos RCI has seen is undated.