RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is making a last-ditch effort to block the release of a House Intelligence Committee memo detailing the bureau’s behavior during the 2016 election. This is all the more reason to let Americans see it.

In an unusual public statement Wednesday, the bureau objected that it had only “a limited opportunity to review” the memo the day before the House voted Monday to release it. The statement added that the FBI had “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

This is really something. The FBI knows what’s in the memo because it has long known what the House committee was seeking to examine. For months it refused to provide access to those documents until director Christopher Wray and the Justice Department faced a contempt of Congress vote. If they now object to the way the House construes the facts, they should have been more cooperative from the start.

Note the FBI’s language about “material omissions” rather than errors of fact. Until this statement the FBI was pleading damage to “national security.” Now that rationale has given way to the claim that the House is omitting key details to reach judgments that the FBI apparently disagrees with. If Mr. Wray wants to fill in those omissions, he can always ask President Trump to declassify more documents to provide a more complete record. We’d love to see them, and Mr. Trump should give that transparency a boost even if Mr. Wray doesn’t request it.

Divided on partisan lines, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence voted yesterday to make public a memo asserting the FBI relied on the discredited Trump-Russia dossier to obtain court-ordered foreign-intelligence wiretaps against U.S. citizens, a breathtaking abuse of power.

The document is already generating shock waves in Washington, even though few on Capitol Hill are said to have read it.

The FBI admits the Left’s electoral collusion conspiracy theory is unsubstantiated but still refuses to distance itself from the discredited Russia propaganda dossier Democrats paid Fusion GPS to create to undermine President Trump’s candidacy. And congressional Democrats, long sympathetic to Russia, have suddenly been transformed into strong defenders of the nation’s national security apparatus, implying that criticism of the long-troubled FBI is somehow treasonous or unpatriotic. It is a vicious smear calculated to redirect Americans’ attention, but par for the course for the Left.

Why anyone is even surprised at FBI corruption is unclear. Although the nation’s premier investigative agency is top-heavy with fine, ethical men and women, the FBI was born in corruption. Its founding director, J. Edgar Hoover, kept blackmail material on the powerful so he could stay in power for 50 years. The FBI needs a good housecleaning at the top.

It was a month ago that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly refused to criticize the dossier at a closed-door hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence chaired by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).

The House Intelligence Committee voted Monday night to release a Republican memo that by most accounts reveals how the FBI handled, or mishandled, federal wiretap requests during the 2016 presidential campaign. The White House should now approve its public disclosure as the first of several to help the country understand what really happened.

Democrats are objecting to the release, claiming partisanship and violations of national security. None of this is persuasive. Republican Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes has followed a long and deliberative process that follows House protocol.

When the FBI finally agreed after months of resisting to answer a committee subpoena for documents, Mr. Nunes deputized former prosecutor and South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy to investigate. The subsequent memo was vetted for security concerns, provided to the entire House committee, then made available to the entire House, then shown to the director of the FBI, and is now undergoing White House review. This is hardly a Chelsea Manning-to-WikiLeaks-to-New York Times leak.

Another false claim is that Republicans are “censoring” a rival Democratic memo. The same Democrats howling about national security wanted the committee on Monday instantly to approve the public disclosure of their counter-memo that hasn’t gone through the equivalent reviews that the majority memo has. Committee Republicans voted to start that process by making the Democratic memo available to the full House, and by all means let’s see that memo too.

Donald Trump is a recent Republican convert and he’s hardly a traditional conservative, so we’ve expected that sooner or later he’d turn to deal-making with Democrats. The question is whether his call to deal in Tuesday’s State of the Union address will produce some bipartisan progress this year in a polarized Congress.

“So tonight I am extending an open hand to work with members of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, to protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed,” Mr. Trump declared in one of several pitches for cooperation across the aisle.

This is a rhetorical turn, and could be productive. Presidents usually do this in the first year, starting in the Inaugural, but Mr. Trump cast that speech as a dirge about “American carnage.” He followed with his ill-prepared travel ban, and he was off to the polarizing races of the Steve Bannon phase of his Presidency.

That start made it easier for Democrats to oppose him at every turn, and Mr. Trump was forced to pass his legislative agenda with Republican votes. His approval rating is low, especially considering the strong economy, and many Democrats can’t wait to impeach him after what they expect will be a takeover of the House and Senate in November.

In that context Mr. Trump’s Tuesday speech played against type by seeking what he called “common ground.” The Twitter attack specialist called for Congress to strike bipartisan deals even on an issue such as immigration that is as polarizing as American politics gets.

Investigative journalist Sara Carter reported on Fox News last night that outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may be in serious trouble if the information she had received from FBI sources proves to be true.

“I have been told tonight by a number of sources … that McCabe may have asked FBI agents to actually change their 302s,” Carter told host Sean Hannity.

The 302 form contains information from the notes an FBI agent takes during an interview of a subject. It is used by FBI agents to “report or summarize the interviews that they conduct.”

“So basically every time an FBI agent interviews a witness, they have to go back and file a report,” Carter explained.

Hannity pointed out that, if true, it would constitute a case of obstruction of justice, and Carter agreed. She said the matter was being investigated by FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

“If this is true — not just alleged — if it’s true, McCabe will be fired,” Carter said. “They are considering firing him in the next few days. If this turns out to be true,” she added. CONTINUE AT SITE

WASHINGTON (AP) — Brushing aside opposition from the Justice Department, Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted to release a classified memo that purports to show improper use of surveillance by the FBI and the Justice Department in the Russia investigation.

The four-page memo has become a political flashpoint, with President Donald Trump and many Republicans pushing for its release and suggesting that some in the Justice Department and FBI have conspired against the president.

The memo was written by Republicans on the committee, led by chairman Rep. Devin Nunes of California, a close Trump ally who has become a fierce critic of the FBI and the Justice Department. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and whether Trump’s campaign was involved.

Republicans have said the memo reveals grave concerns about abuses of the government surveillance powers in the Russia investigation. Democrats have called it a selectively edited group of GOP talking points that attempt to distract from the committee’s own investigation into Russian meddling.

The vote on Monday to release the memo is an unprecedented move by the committee, which typically goes out of its way to protect classified information in the interest of protecting intelligence sources and methods. The memo was delivered by courier to the White House on Monday evening. Trump now has five days to object to its release by the committee.

The White House said late Monday that the president will meet with his national security team and White House counsel to discuss the memo in the coming days.

For more than a year now, Democrats have been driven into hysterics on a weekly basis by highly selective, often partisan leaks fed to them in 900-word increments by the political media. Whether these sensationalist stories were debunked or not, no Democrat demanded that every scrap of information related to their leaks be declassified immediately to ensure that the nation see the appropriate context. It’s a process, we were told.

You’ll notice that many of the same process-oriented folks, now preemptively dismissing the four-page summary memo alleging surveillance abuses by the Justice Department and FBI as a bunch of conspiracy theories, have a different set of standards for Rep. Devin Nunes and Republicans.

“FISA warrants typically are big thick documents, 50-60 pages,” John McLaughlin, a former CIA deputy director, recently wrote. “If the Nunes memo about one is just 4 pages, you can bet it’s a carefully picked bowl of cherries. Made all the more dishonest by holding back the minority rebuttal memo. A real debate needs both. Someone fears that.” Indeed.

McLaughlin is repeating a well-worn talking point. As far as I can tell, none of the critics of the memo have argued that the contentions are untrue, only that the contentions are out of context, misleading, cherry-picked, and so on. But since the memo — which is culled from a year-long investigation — isn’t an indictment or the entire story, there’s no real reason we shouldn’t use it to help ascertain whether there were potential abuses in intelligence-gathering in the Obama administration. Once we have an outline, we can take the issues on one at a time, or disregard all of them.

Adam Schiff is portrayed by many in the media as a straight shooter. His record in reality is of fanning the flames of every single Trump-Russia collusion allegation out there.

Yesterday the House Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence voted to release a four-page summary document alleging surveillance abuses by the Justice Department and FBI. The committee’s memo has been available to all 435 House members for more than a week. Some of those who read it described it as “troubling,” “shocking,” “jaw-dropping,” “sickening,” and “criminal.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray reviewed the memo on Sunday. As soon as the committee had finished voting, ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff ran to the cameras to spin the news. From that point, he began explaining things in a non-truthful manner. This inability or unwillingness to accurately convey information is not a surprise so much as a regular feature of his work with journalists, but it’s worth noting how that played out in just one few-hour span.
1: Omitting Facts About Committee Business

For background, Schiff has spent the last week and a half upset that the majority’s memo alleging abuses was available for House review. He and his fellow Democrats had voted against making such a memo available to the House, much less the public. He said it was reckless to discuss anything in the memo and that it compromised national security. A compliant media lapped it up. He announced, though, that he had created a counter-memo in support of the Trump-Russia collusion theory we keep hearing about.

December 7, 1941, the date of infamy when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor killing 2,400 Americans and wounding 1,178. President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded decisively by addressing Congress and unambiguously seeking a formal declaration of war on Japan.

September 11, 2001, the date of infamy when 19 mostly Saudi Al-Queda Muslims living in the U.S. attacked New York City killing 3,000 Americans and wounding 6,000. President George W. Bush responded ambiguously by addressing the nation and declaring a War on Terror without naming the enemy. Instead, he disarmed America by assuring the country that Islam is a religion of peace.

Roosevelt’s War on Japan was far more successful than Bush’s War on Terror. Why?

Sixty years ago Americans had not yet been attacked by political correctness, moral relativism, or historical revisionism – the three basic tenets of radical left-wing liberalism that support collectivism. Americans unapologetically loved their country, their families, and their God. Roosevelt’s America was still the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Individualism is the foundation of America that values freedom for individuals over collective or state control. Individualism is the infrastructure that supports our Constitution and protects our right to live freely with minimal government interference. Individualism encourages independence, adulthood, personal responsibility, and allegiance to the United States of America. Individualism and the meritocracy incentivizes production and created the most powerful and freest country in the world.

Sixty years ago collectivism was in its nascent stages in America. Collectivism is the practice of giving a group priority over each individual in the group. Collectivism encourages dependence, perpetual childhood, government control, and allegiance to a world community without national borders or national sovereignty. Collectivism is the enemy of individualism. Collectivism is the enemy of a free and sovereign United States.

After WWII the enemies of the United States did not go quietly into the night – they adjusted to military defeat by changing strategies. Instead of targeting soldiers and military installations they targeted civilians and cultural institutions to destroy America from within by shattering the infrastructure of American individualism – no bullets required. This is how it works.

The re-education of America is a longterm information/indoctrination war targeting the entire population of children and adults. From its inception the information war was a Culture War on America designed to eliminate patriotism, minimize family influence, and eradicate the religious authority of the church – the cultural pillars that support individualism. To win an informational war it is necessary to indoctrinate and propagandize the children as early as possible and the adults as much as possible.

The re-education of America began after WWII with a marketing campaign designed to sell collectivism to adults through the media. The effort required rebranding to sell it to Americans who were culturally averse to collectivism and committed to individualism. Communism was renamed socialism and socialism sold as globalism. Collectivism was falsely advertised as the compassionate selfless political system that provides social justice and income equality.

The Page-Strzok text exchanges might offer a few answers. Or, as Lisa Page warned her paramour as early as February 2016, at the beginning of the campaign and well before the respective party nominees were even selected:

One more thing: she [Hillary Clinton] might be our next president. The last thing you need us going in there loaded for bear. You think she’s going to remember or care that it was more doj than fbi?

The traditional way of looking at the developing scandals at the FBI and among holdover Obama appointees in the DOJ is that the bizarre atmospherics from candidate and President Trump have simply polarized everyone in Washington, and no one quite knows what is going on.

Another, more helpful, exegesis, however, is to understand that if we’d seen a Hillary Clinton victory in November 2016, which was supposed to be a sure thing, there would now be no scandals at all.

That is, the current players probably broke laws and committed ethical violations not just because they were assured there would be no consequences but also because they thought they’d be rewarded for their laxity.

On the eve of the election, the New York Times tracked various pollsters’ models that had assured readers that Trump’s odds of winning were respectively 15 percent, 8 percent, 2 percent, and less than 1 percent. Liberals howled heresy at fellow progressive poll guru Nate Silver shortly before the vote for daring to suggest that Trump had a 29 percent chance of winning the Electoral College.

Hillary Clinton herself was not worried about even the appearance of scandal caused by transmitting classified documents over a private home-brewed server, or enabling her husband to shake down foreign donations to their shared foundation, or destroying some 30,000 emails. Evidently, she instead reasoned that she was within months of becoming President Hillary Clinton and therefore, in her Clintonesque view of the presidency, exempt from all further criminal exposure. Would a President Clinton have allowed the FBI to reopen their strangely aborted Uranium One investigation; would the FBI have asked her whether she communicated over an unsecure server with the former president of the United States?

Former attorney general Loretta Lynch, in unethical fashion, met on an out-of-the-way Phoenix tarmac with Bill Clinton, in a likely effort to find the most efficacious ways to communicate that the ongoing email scandal and investigation would not harm Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. When caught, thanks to local-news reporters who happened to be at the airport, Lynch sort of, kind of recused herself. But, in fact, at some point she had ordered James Comey not to use the word “investigation” in his periodic press announcements about the FBI investigation.