Tag Archives: Russian Collusion Hoax

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?

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The NY Times reports that a senior FBI official responsible for part of the Russia Collusion Hoax investigation has pleaded guilty to colluding with Russians himself.

The former head of counterintelligence for the F.B.I. in New York pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday to a single reduced charge of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions and laundering payments from a prominent Russian oligarch.

The plea by the former agent, Charles F. McGonigal, represented a remarkable turn for a man who once occupied one of the most sensitive and trusted positions in the American intelligence community, placing him among the highest-ranking F.B.I. officials ever to be convicted of a crime.

Hmmmm.

Nothing to See Here. Move Along.

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Former top FBI counterintelligence agent Charles McGonigal  has been indicted and arrested for illegally working for a Russian oligarch.

McGonigal, who was deeply involved in Russia Collusion Hoax investigation, is charged with money laundering and violating US sanctions law by working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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One of Brett Kimberlin’s corporate entities is called Protect Our Elections/EMPR Inc. It’s 501(c)(4) not-for-profit status was revoked by the IRS several years ago. Protect Our Elections, which is also registered as a trade name of Kimberlin’s Justice Through Music Project entity, has been involved in election-related activities, the exact nature of which are a bit unclear. Kimberlin has claimed under oath that he and his operation were involved with election security work with the Department of Justice during the 2016 election.

EMPR appears to stand of EuroMaidan PR, an English-language Ukrainian propaganda website. While the Mueller investigation was ongoing, Kimberlin ran a website promoting the Russian Dossier Hoax. Like so many of his web domains, it’s now long gone.

Protect Our Elections?

Our who?

What Norms and Which Institutions?

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While Hillary Clinton eventually conceded the 2016 election to Donald Trump, she and her enablers/allies among the Democrats, Media, and Deep State spent four years peddling lies about Russia! Russia! Russia!, the Mueller investigation, an impeachment falsely accusing Trump of doing the sort of thing Biden actually did, and more.

It’s 2020, and Trump is using litigation and other processes prescribed by law to challenge apparent fraud in the election. A significant portion of politicians and the media say the President’s insistence that the game be played by The Rules is a threat to “our norms and institutions.”

Well, yes, it is.

It was Trump’s pledge to drain the swamp of a grifting Elite whose norms and institutions force one set of rules on the Deplorables but are not binding on themselves that led to his winning in 2016. It was Trumps modest success in beginning to drain the swamp that led a sufficiently large majority of voters to support him that the logistical planning for stealing the election was overwhelmed, causing the shutdown of vote counts and mad scramble for extra ballots in various places around the country.

America’s constitutional DNA assumes that men are fallible, so our system is rigged with checks and balances as a form of immune system. Thus far, we’ve been able to through off infections from various tyrannies. I hope we survive this time.

A Bribe Too Far

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It appears that the Hunter Biden’s hard drive is the real McCoy. Neither Joe nor Hunter Biden deny it. It’s clear from the emails and other files on the drive that Hunter Biden was the family bag man and that Ukrainians were paying him for access to his father while Joe Biden was Vice President. It also appears that individuals—and possibly governments—from other countries were paying for similar access.

The Democrats impeached Donald Trump for asking the President of the Ukraine to pursue an investigation related to the bribery verified by the evidence on Hunter’s hard drive.

Let that sink in for a moment.

The Bidens acted as they did believing that they had an airtight level of protection. As the bribes rolled in, it seems they became increasingly arrogant. Hunter Biden’s arrogance compounded with his addictions and other character defects led him to be careless. He never should have let someone who wasn’t fully vetted to have access to any of his electronic devices, but he did.

I don’t know who paid the bribe that convinced Hunter Biden that he and his scams were immune from detection, but whoever he was, we’re indebted to him for inadvertently lighting the fuze on Biden’s self-destruction.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Well, it looks as if Team Kimberlin has figured which one their active websites has the best following. The global popularity ratings of the English language Ukrainian news site empr dot media and itstime2020 dot org are 6,164,010 and 14,338,928 respectively. Yesterday evening, this opinion piece appeared on the EuroMaidan PR website.

I’m not making this up, you know.

Russia has a long history of using assassination to effect its geopolitical goals, especially around elections. Although there have been no specific public threats by Russia to assassinate any American, including Mr. Biden, security officials in the United States would be foolish and naïve not to consider this very real possibility based on Russia’s recent use of poisons and assassinations. Indeed, members of the Russian Duma and commentators on Kremlin state media outlets have stated recently that the only way Donald Trump can win is if something happens to Joe Biden.

The piece engages in speculation that the Russians might try to assassinate Biden as a way of insuring that Trump wins the election, implying that could be a reason for Biden’s Secret Service detail to be keeping him in the basement.

This may be the most outlandish of all of Kimberlin’s false narratives.

What Did the President Know, and When Did He Know It?

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I remember watching the Senate Watergate hearings in 1973 and hearing Senator Howard Baker ask that question. It has again become appropriate, this time related to what the President knew in 2016. John Hinderacker has a post over at PowerlLine examining recently declassified information bearing on that question.

Highly redacted handwritten notes from a briefing CIA Director Brennan gave to President Obama on 28 July, 2016 have been declassified.

The relevant text reads:

We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from….

CITE alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on 26 July of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security services.

President Obama had several comments or questions, only one of which survives redaction. He wanted to know whether there was any evidence of collaboration between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Brennan’s answer to that question isn’t recorded in the notes, but we know from other documents that the fact that there was no such evidence was communicated to Obama. Contributions by Comey, McDonough and Rice are fully redacted.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Brennan’s notes is their date (assuming July 28 is correct). According to the intelligence report, Hillary Clinton approved the plot to smear Trump with the Russia collusion fiction on July 26. Just two days later, the head of the CIA, the FBI Director, the National Security Adviser, the President’s Chief of Staff and the President himself met, presumably in the Oval Office, to discuss the intelligence. The report, picked up by spying on the Russians, who I take it were spying on Hillary, was obviously top priority and was taken seriously by the intelligence community, in the person of Brennan.

What little reporting that has been done on this briefing has focused on either the claim that the Trump/Russia collusion hoax originated inside of the Clinton campaign or the claim that President Obama was informed of the hoax within days of it being launched.

There’s another important angle here. The CIA learned of Clinton plan because it had leaked to the Russians. What are the odds that the same leaker(s)/operative(s) would have been embedded in the inner circle of a Clinton White House staff?

We dodged a very large bullet in 2016.

Yet Another Rule 5

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Over the past few years, the Gentle Reader has seen references to three Rule 5s here at Hogewash!—

Stacy McCain’s Rule 5—Everybody loves a pretty girl.
Saul Alinsky’s Rule 5—Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5—Often mentioned when Brett Kimberlin violated it in many of his court filings.

Today, the Senate Homeland Security Committee authorized subpoena for John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, and others to testify. The committee had held off issuing subpoenas to avoid interference with U. S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation into the Russian Collusion Hoax.

Over the next few weeks we will probably be seeing the application of another Rule 5—Invoke your Fifth Amendment right to silence when you’re under indictment.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. OK, a bit behind schedule, but more or less on track.

Heard at the In Re Flynn Hearing

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Here’s what may be the money quote from the en banc rehearing of the In Re Michael Flynn mandamus petition at the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit today. In explaining why the list of reasons for dismissal given to the trial court were sufficient but not necessarily exhaustive, Acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall said—

The AG sees this in context of non-public information. It may be possible that the AG had before him information that he was not able to share with the Court.

Hmmmmm.

UPDATE—See my comment below.

An Interesting Question

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Here’s an order from the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in the Flynn case—(H/T, @AaronWorthing, @Techno_Fog)

28 USC § 455 deals with the disqualification of judges, and § 455(b)(5)(i) requires a judge to be disqualified when he “[i]s a party to the proceeding[.]”

Is the appeals court considering removing Judge Sullivan from the case because he took the unusual step of hiring counsel and filing a brief opposing Michael Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus? In doing so, did he make himself a party in the case?

Stay tuned.

 

18 USC § 1001

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(a)Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1)
falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2)
makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3)
makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.
(b)
Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party’s counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding.
(c)With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to—
(1)
administrative matters, including a claim for payment, a matter related to the procurement of property or services, personnel or employment practices, or support services, or a document required by law, rule, or regulation to be submitted to the Congress or any office or officer within the legislative branch; or
(2)
any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.

That’s the law Scooter Libby was convicted of violating. It’s the law that Michael Flynn was pressured into pleading guilty to.

It’s being reported that U.S. Attorney John Durham will be interviewing former CIA Director John Brennan. Mr. Durham has already subpoenaed a great deal of Director Brennan’s emails, phone records, and other documents, so the former spymaster should probably choose his words carefully. Or invoke his Fifth Amendment right to silence.

Lawyers File Amicus Brief in Support of Michael Flynn

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A group of lawyers have filed an amicus brief with Judge Sullivan in support of the Government’s motion to dismiss the criminal case against Michael Flynn. Here’s their brief and a list of their names.

I’ve had the privilege of working with a couple of these lawyers on First Amendment related issues.

BREAKING: Chicago Politician Suspected of Corruption

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Rumors are circulating that a Chicago politician may have been involved in corrupt activities aimed at preventing the election of a political rival and at the entrapment of a member of that rival’s staff in a false criminal charge.

While the Chicago politician has not commented directly on the matter, a leaked version of a telephone call quotes him as being concerned for the rule of law.

Stay tuned for more as this story develops.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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I must confess that I’ve been bogged down in my Real World work life and haven’t paid much attention to The Dread Deadbeat Protector Kimberlin’s protectorelections dot org website of late. While I wasn’t looking, the site posted an article with original content (everything for the past year or so has been ripped off from other websites). The new article is dated 5 February, 2020, and it tries to spin the problems with the Democrats reporting app for the Iowa Caucus as a Russian hack.

Without evidence, the article proposes the following similarities between the Iowa debacle and an alleged Russian attack on an election in Ukraine:

  1. Malware and/or denial of services attack to delay and distort election results;

  2. Interference of election result transmission to central tabulators;

  3. Chaos that undermined vote counting and confidence in election results;

  4. Propaganda effort to blame delay on those who oppose pro-Russian candidate; (sic)

BTW, the authority cited for the alleged attack in Ukraine is empr dot media, an English-language Ukrainian “news” website hosted on the same server as breitbartunmasked dot com and greencasamaryland dot org. In 2017, Kimberlin changed the corporate name of Velvet Revoution US to Protect Our Elections/EMPR Inc.

Of course, Protect Our Elections takes the position that the Russians favor Bernie in the Democratic primaries because they favor Trump in the fall.

In the case of Iowa, Russia wants chaos and wants to use that chaos to divide the Democrats.  Of all the major candidates, Russia wants Bernie Sanders to be the nominee against Trump so the false narrative being spun by Russia and Trump is that Joe Biden and the DNC caused this Iowa meltdown in order to deprive Sanders of his win there.  Clearly, in the case of the Iowa cyber catastrophe, the real beneficiaries are Russia, Trump and Sanders.  Although election officials are feverishly trying to spin the failure on a bad app rather than Russia, Americans need to understand that when Russia benefits from something, it likely has a hand in it.

And that’s supposed to make sense? Let me get this straight—Democratic party officials are trying to hide hacking by the Russians in the Iowa primary in order to help Russia and Trump in November.

Uh, huh.

If Kimberlin expects that kind of crackpot theory to generate more donations to Protect Our Elections, he should probably fix the PayPal link.

Bernie Bros and Bernie Bots

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The Washington Post reports that Senator Bernie Sanders has received a briefing from intelligence officials claiming that the Russians are acting to interfere in the Democrats’ primaries in support of Sanders. My podcasting partner Stacy McCain has posted his thoughts on the matter, and they’re worth reading.

Yesterday, I pointed out that the 2016 Russian Collusion Hoax never make sense. Why would the FSB or GRU or other Russian organization work to support an American presidential candidate who was promising to take effective actions against Russia’s interests? Russia supporting Trump over Clinton made no sense.

Recycling Russian collusion, this time supporting Sanders, may be a act of desperation by the Democrat establishment, but at least it makes sense.

Sanders claims to be a socialist, but based on his record, it’s probably more accurate to view him as a communist. If one of America’s adversaries were looking to support a politician who would weaken our economy, our military, and our standing in the world, who in the 2020 field of candidates fits the bill better than Sanders? While many Russians are too young to remember the USSR, the country’s leadership does. They saw (and many participated in) they way communism ruined Russia. They are no longer communists because they’ve seen communism fail, but they still think as Marxists, so they view the world in terms of a zero-sum power struggle. The logic of that worldview would lead them to favor candidates such as Corbyn in the UK and Sanders here.

And it is all about power.

The Russian nomenklatura have maintained power by allowing a quasi-Fascist alliance between government and oligarchs to evolve. Similarly, the Deep State has developed alliances throughout the West which are threatened from the Right by Trump and the Left by Sanders. In 2016, the Democrat establishment was successful in suppressing Sanders’ candidacy, but they failed to defeat Trump. Four years later, they’ve failed in their efforts to nullify that election. As one prominent Democrat observed, elections have consequences, and one of the consequences of 2016 is that the Deplorables learned they can push back against the elites and win. The ongoing struggle for command of the Democratic Party will be interesting to watch.

I’m ready for my second cup of coffee this morning. I think I’ll put a bag of popcorn in the microwave as a mid morning snack.

Gabbard v. Clinton

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Folks, I have quite a bit of experience being a defendant in vexatious nuisance lawsuits alleging defamation (four LOLsuits each from Brett Kimberlin and Bill Schmalfeldt). Of course, I won all those suits. Seven were dismissed for various reasons. One went to trial, and my codefendants and I won when the judge stopped the trial after Kimberlin rested case because the plaintiff hadn’t shown that we had made any false statements about him and granted a directed verdict in our favor. I tend to have a bias in favor of defendants in defamation suits, but in this case … not so much.

IANAL, but my initial sense of Tulsi Gabbard’s suit against Hillary Clinton alleging defamation is that it’s interesting.

The complaint specifically quotes Clinton’s allegedly false and defamatory remarks, citing when and how they were published. As I understand it, the complaint claims that falsely stating that an Army National Guard officer is the asset of foreign power is defamatory per se because if that were true, the officer would be unfit for his or her professional duties as a soldier. Tulsi Gabbard is a major in the Hawaii National Guard. She’s also a member of the House Armed Services Committee, an assignment that requires access to classified defense information. Being a Russian asset should be similarly disqualifying in that professional role.

Congresswoman Gabbard’s case appears to be much stronger than anything her colleagues are presenting to the Senate. But being based on actual facts tends to make a case stronger. I don’t know how far her suit will go in court, but I’m ordering more popcorn.

Buyer’s Remorse

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The Russian Collusion Hoax had failed. The Mueller Report was a nothing burger. So the left wing of the House Democrats sold Nancy Pelosi a bill of goods that finally led to her allowing the Impeachment Hoax to go forward. And then it dawned on the Speaker that it would be Cocaine Mitch who would take charge of the action when the Impeachment reached the Senate.

Now, it may be that she had thought that 2019/202 would be like 1974 and that a group of Republican senators would go to the President and tell him to resign rather than face a trial. But 2020 isn’t 1974. In 1974 there was an underlying crime and a cover up of that crime. In 2020, there’s merely whining about Orange Man Bad. Indeed, it appears that there was significant criminal activity that tainted the 2016 election, but the President was among the victims of those crimes. In 2020, the Republicans in the Senate seem prepared to give the President an opportunity to present his defense, and the President seems to look forward to vindication rather than removal from office.

Hence, the Speaker’s problem. If the case goes forward to the Senate, more of the Truth about who did what is likely to come to light, and that is not likely to be beneficial to Pelosi, her allies, or Democrats as a whole. No wonder she’s having trouble articulating her talking points.

Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.

 

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

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Well, finally!

The Dread Deadbeat Protector Kimberlin has gotten around to something “new” at ptotectourelections dot org. It’s a repost ripoff of an article from Politico that tries to tie some buggy election software used in North Carolina during the 2016 election with Russian hackers.

The Gentle Reader may remember that The Dread Deadbeat Pro-Se/Protector Kimberlin testified under oath in October, 2016, that he and his band of top-notch hackers were working with the DoJ to secure the 2016 elections. He mentioned hacking by the Russians.

If the Politico story is correct, it shows an example of TDPK’s failure to fully protect our election that year. OTOH, Hillary Clinton managed to get 78.9% of the vote in Durham County, so maybe TDPK doesn’t care.

Oh, look! TDPK has added a PayPal donate button to the site, but it turns out that it’s another example of his lack of attention to detail—it’s connected to a PayPal account that’s been closed. The NationBuilder link still takes you to a page that falsely claims that POE has 502(c)(3) tax exempt status. The organization used to have 501(c)(4) status, but that was revoked by the IRS several months ago.

#Loser

Past His Sell By Date?

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Mueller: “Could you repeat the question?”

* * * * *

Robert Mueller: “I’m not familiar … with that”

Chabot: “It’s not a trick question. It was Fusion GPS”

* * * * *

Mueller: “I’d have to check the statute.”

Sensenbrenner: “I just read it to you.”

* * * * *

Mueller: “I can’t go into that.”

Jordan: “Yes you can, because you wrote about it.”

* * * * *

Mueller: “I’m not going to get into that.”

* * * * *

Mueller: “It’s still outside my purview.”

* * * * *

Mueller: “I don’t agree with your characterizations.”

Jordan: “I’m reading from your report.”