RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/trending/dems-resurrect-russia-collusion-in-announcing-articles-of-impeachment/

On Tuesday, House Democrats announced two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump. They accused him of abuse of power and of “obstruction of Congress.” The poll-tested “bribery” charge was nowhere to be found. Yet they also resurrected the skeleton of the Russia collusion narrative, despite Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s finding of no collusion and an Inspector General report revealing the many errors in the FBI investigation. The announcement was a clear political attack on Trump, more calculated to undermine his chances in 2020 than to actually hold him accountable for any alleged crimes.

“The first article is for abuse of power,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) began. “It is an impeachable offense for the president to exercise the powers of his public office to obtain an improper personal benefit, while ignoring or injuring the national interest. That is exactly what President Trump did when he solicited and pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 presidential election, thus damaging our national security, undermining the integrity of the next election, and violating his oath to the American people.”

This claim twists the facts of Trump’s engagement with Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted, over and over again, that he felt “no pressure” on the July 25 call at the center of the impeachment inquiry. In that call, Trump asked him to investigate Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and potential corruption regarding the notoriously corrupt energy company Burisma, which had given Joe Biden’s son Hunter a sweetheart job on the board — despite his lack of experience in the industry.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/12/10/ig-report-confirms-schiff-fisa-memo-media-praised-was-riddled-with-lies/#.Xe-auL_JUUM.twitter

The new inspector general report on FISA abuse settles the debate between Republicans and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Both groups put out memos about the Department of Justice’s efforts to secure a warrant to wiretap Carter Page.

At the time of their release, the media praised Democrat Adam Schiff and his memo and vilified Republican Devin Nunes and his memo. Nearly two years later, the inspector general’s report vindicates the Nunes memo while showing that the Schiff memo was riddled with lies and false statements.

The memo from the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee reported:

A salacious and unverified dossier formed an essential part of the application to secure a warrant against a Trump campaign affiliate named Carter Page. This application failed to reveal that the dossier was bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.
The application cited a Yahoo News article extensively. The story did not corroborate the dossier, and the FBI wrongly claimed Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, was not a source for the story.
Nellie Ohr, the wife of a high-ranking Justice Department official, also worked on behalf of the Clinton campaign effort. Her husband Bruce Ohr funneled her research into the Department of Justice. Although he admitted that Steele “was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president,” this and the Ohrs’ relationship with the Clinton campaign was concealed from the secret court that grants surveillance warrants.
The dossier was “only minimally corroborated” and unverified, according to FBI officials.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/473769-controversy-on-phone-records-intensifies-amid-impeachment

House Republicans are escalating their feud with Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, accusing the California Democrat of carrying out a “smear campaign” against his GOP counterpart, Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), by publishing his phone records in the panel’s sweeping impeachment report.

Collecting the phone data has been strongly defended by Democrats while Republicans have seized on the new controversy as unfair and a bad precedent.

President Trump’s Republican allies on Capitol Hill have sought to shine the spotlight back on Schiff as Democrats build their case against the president and continue marching toward an impeachment vote as soon as next week.

During Monday’s impeachment hearing, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Doug Collins (Ga.), spent several minutes ripping into the Democrats for including the Nunes records — something Collins argued added no value to the report and was only done as a “political vendetta” against one of Trump’s key defenders.

“It was a drive by. It was a gratuitous drive by that you wanted to smear the ranking member,” Collins told Schiff’s Democratic counsel, Daniel Goldman.

Schiff’s report detailed that Nunes had multiple communications with key figures in the House impeachment inquiry: Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, as well as with Giuliani’s Soviet-born associate Lev Parnas, who has been indicted on campaign finance charges. The records also show Giuliani was in communication with conservative opinion columnist John Solomon, who previously worked for The Hill.

Before we really begin, please allow me to suggest that the reader take the enclosed links seriously. For the sake of limiting the length, I’ve included many important details that are key to understanding this subject matter within those linked articles.

There is currently renewed debate regarding the Salvation Army. Some of this came to light after a popular Christian restaurant chain cut its donations to it.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/prager-left-hates-salvation-army-thats-all-you-dennis-prager/

Dennis Prager, whom I most often agree with, claims that since the Left hates the Salvation Army, nothing else really matters in any conversation about it.  David Horowitz’ (another gentleman with whom I most often concur) FrontPage Magazine first published the piece. Horowitz has published several of my own analyses over the years as well. As a footnote of sorts, I’ve done extensive doctoral studies and am widely published in many of the same subject areas that both of these men frequently comment on themselves…so, I’m not just shooting from the hip.

I first took a liking to the Salvation Army like most other folks did—seeing volunteers ringing bells and collecting charity for the needy during the Christmas season….What’s not to like?

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/09/obama-and-biden-three-scandals-one-day/

The Democrats’ Ukrainian impeachment gambit is backfiring on Joe Biden. The three-time presidential hopeful is getting awfully testy with voters and journalists who dare to confront Biden about his son’s ghost-payrolling gig for a corrupt Ukrainian energy company while dad was vice president and acted as President Obama’s point man for that country.

Biden taunted an Iowa farmer during a campaign event for raising questions about Hunter Biden’s lucrative Burisma board seat; over the weekend, he repeatedly scolded a female NPR reporter who pressed him on the matter. (An outrageous display that would now dominate headlines had it been President Trump.) 

But Biden’s in-your-face reaction when presented with valid inquiries about his son’s multi-million-dollar patronage job, a post that he surrendered this year only after the senior Biden announced his run for president, is telling: This is how you behave when the press runs cover for you and your boss for more than a decade.

The American public often is reminded, usually by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and their loyalists in the American news media, that Obama’s eight-year reign was “scandal-free.” Of course, that is nowhere near the truth. From the “Fast and Furious” gun-running scam and IRS targeting of Tea Party activists to the egregious Benghazi terror attack cover-up two months before the 2012 election, the Obama Administration was among the most corrupt in U.S. history. And they have laughed all the way to Martha’s Vineyard and the Democratic presidential debate stage.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/12/tough-dirty-30-prosecutor-tame-deep-state-drone-lloyd-billingsley/

“I think we’ll learn part of the story tomorrow,” Carter Page told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. As Page had learned, “there’s a lot of exculpatory evidence that’s remaining classified, and there’s been internal battles.” On Monday, the former Trump advisor was on full alert when the Department of Justice Inspector General released the massive Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.

“We identified at least 17 significant errors or omissions in the Carter Page FISA applications, and many additional errors in the Woods Procedures” of the FBI, the report explains. On the other hand, the Inspector General did not conclude that the decision to surveille Page “was based on improper considerations in the absence of documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary.” That leaves open the possibility the someone in the DOJ wasn’t talking, or advanced false information.

The FBI’s Peter Strzok, known for texts with Lisa Page touting an “insurance policy,” appears in the report 66 times. Strzok’s supervisor, William Priestap, Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, “ultimately made the decision to open the investigation,” and that decision came “after multiple days of discussions and meetings that included Strzok and other leadership in CD, the FBI Deputy Director, the FBI General Counsel, and an FBI Deputy General Counsel.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/ig-report-says-cia-dismissed-steele-dossier-as-internet-rumor/

The CIA considered the now infamous dossier from former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to be nothing more than an “internet rumor,” according to the Justice Department inspector general.

According to the Intel Section Chief and Supervisory Intel Analyst, “the CIA expressed concern about using the Steele election reporting in the text of the [January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment into Russia’s election interference],” Inspector General Michael Horowitz said in his report released Monday on the FBI’s handling of investigations into the Trump campaign.

“The Supervisory Intel Analyst explained that the CIA believed that the Steele election reporting was not completely vetted and did not merit inclusion in the body of the report. The Intel Section Chief stated that the CIA viewed it as ‘internet rumor,’” the report states.

The controversial dossier came under scrutiny when its unverified and salacious information about then-presidential candidate Trump showed up in the FBI’s applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to surveil the Trump campaign during the 2016 election cycle.

The dossier alleged that the campaign had conspired with Russian operatives to benefit Trump in the election. However, Horowitz’s report asserts that the FBI found Steele’s information about a Russian government connection to be dubious, but nevertheless declined to mention as much in its later applications to the FISA court for warrants to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/schiff-threatens-press-freedom-11575937690?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide, the bible for agents, has long recognized that journalists, the clergy and lawyers deserve special protections because of the constitutional implications of investigating their work. Penitents who confess to a priest, sources who provide confidential information to a reporter, and clients who seek advice from counsel are assumed to be protected by a high bar of privacy, which must be weighed against the state’s interests in investigating matters or subpoenaing records. Judges and members of Congress also fall into a special FBI category because of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The FBI and Justice Department have therefore created specific rules governing agents’ actions involving special-circumstances professionals, which include high-level approval and review. There are also special rules for subpoenaing journalists.

If the executive branch, and by extension the courts that enforce these privacy protections, observe the need for such sensitivity, it seems reasonable that Congress should have similar guardrails ensuring that the powers of the state are equally and fairly applied.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff apparently doesn’t see things that way. His committee secretly authorized subpoenas to AT&T earlier this year for the phone records of President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and an associate. He then arbitrarily extracted information about certain private calls and made them public.

Many of the calls Mr. Schiff chose to publicize fell into the special-circumstances categories: a fellow member of Congress ( Rep. Devin Nunes, the Intelligence Committee’s ranking Republican), two lawyers (Mr. Giuliani and fellow Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow ) and a journalist (me).

More alarming, the released call records involve figures who have sometimes criticized or clashed with Mr. Schiff. I wrote a story raising questions about his contacts with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, a key figure in the Russia probe, that brought the California Democrat unwelcome scrutiny. Mr. Nunes has been one of Mr. Schiff’s main Republican antagonists, helping to prove that the exaggerated claims of Trump-Russia election collusion were unsubstantiated. Messrs. Sekulow and Giuliani represent Mr. Trump, who is Mr. Schiff’s impeachment target.