Against the backdrop of Speaker Pelosi tamping down expectations of a House impeachment, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders appears on Fox News to discuss the current state of DC politics.
The U.S. Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) was created in 1973 and reports to the Attorney General through the Deputy Attorney General. The AGAC represents the U.S. Attorneys and provides advice and counsel to the Attorney General on matters of policy, procedure, and management impacting the Offices of the U.S. Attorneys.
The purpose of the AGAC is to ensure consistent interpretation and application of the Attorney General’s priority throughout the broad U.S. justice system. [28 CFR § 0.10]
As much as possible pay attention to the dates and names (highlighted) as they each play an important role in understanding what has taken place in the past two years.
Those November 2017 appointments included: U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama Richard Moore; U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah John W. Huber; U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jessie K. Liu; U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio Justin E. Herdman; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina Robert Higdon; U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Oklahoma Trent Shores; U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana Joshua Minkler; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri Jeff Jensen; and Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska Bryan Schroder.
AG Jeff Sessions appointed Richard Moore (Alabama) as Chairman of the AGAC, and John W Huber (Utah) as Vice-Chairman.
“I am pleased to announce the first members of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee under this administration. These U.S. Attorneys will play an important role in carrying out the Department of Justice’s mission to reduce violent crime, combat transnational criminal organizations, secure our southern border, end the devastating opioid crisis, and return to the rule of law,” said Attorney General Sessions
Four months later, on March 12th, 2018, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the appointment of six additional U.S. Attorneys to serve two-year terms on the AGAC, joining the nine members previously selected on November 13, 2017.
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Remember: “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” ~ Mike Tyson
The exploitation of Michael Cohen toward the launch of Speaker Pelosi’s impeachment effort backfired bigly. Not enough people found Cohen credible; and because of the ridiculous way the entire staged performance was carried out by Democrats, and the their media allies, most people saw right through the politicization of it. The plan just failed.
Additionally, some politicians like Jim Jordan, Jody Hice and Mark Meadows started calling out the blatant construct behind Pelosi’s impeachment plan. HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff sending his staff to New York four times to prep Michael Cohen before the hearings – was only made more ridiculous by Chairman Schiff trying to deny they coached Cohen. Schiff looks like a doofus. So today:
[Nancy Pelosi] “I’m not for impeachment. This is news. I’m going to give you some news right now because I haven’t said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I’ve been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.” (link)
UPDATE: Jerry Nadler has also joined in (see below).
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Senator John Kennedy (R-GOPe/Tom Donohue’s candidate) responds to Andrew McCabe and the politicization of the FBI under the tenure of James Comey and Deputy McCabe.
The primary ‘spygate” architect appears on CBS with Margaret Brennan to share his reaction to the sentence of Paul Manafort for tax fraud. Andrew McCabe said he was ‘shocked’, ‘s.h.o.c.k.e.d‘, that Manafort was not given a life sentence.
Beware of the Decepticons. Senator John Barrasso is one of Mitch McConnell’s key small council members, which includes: McConnell, Cornyn, Barrasso, Earnst, Young, Thune, Lee, Crapo and Gardner. All the Decepticons make moves based on ulterior motives. The Decepticons are the UniParty constants in an ever changing universe.
National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow appears on Fox News Sunday to discuss economic policy, budgets and taxes. Since the discussion is the economy, Wallace quickly puts on his doomsday hat.
NBC News penned an article about the unorthodox release of DOJ official Bruce Ohr’s transcript. Within the article NBC notes current DOJ officials responded to the congressional request for release by sending them an approved “redacted version”:
(NBC) […] The transcripts of interviews with Ohr and other witnesses before the joint committee investigation were sent to the Justice Department last December to be vetted for public release at the request of the outgoing GOP chairmen, Bob Goodlatte from the Judiciary Committee and Trey Gowdy from the Oversight Committee.
The Justice Department returned the Ohr transcript to the committee this week with redactions. But Collins said he was releasing a copy without those edits because the changes sought by the department did not relate to classified information or sensitive personal data. By releasing the transcript on the House floor, Collins would be protected under what is known as the Speech and Debate Clause from any reprimand. (read more)
Having read the Ohr transcript (also provided below), there didn’t appear to be any national security interests, sources or methods, beyond investigative embarrassment for DOJ and FBI, simply because of the sham of it all.
What parts did the current DOJ redact, and what would have been their justification? What did the current DOJ attempt to hide? …Maybe Representative Doug Collins could provide the redacted version, so we can find out. Curiouser, and curiouser…
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Two backstory aspects frame this discussion.
♦First, Nancy Pelosi specifically set up the House committee rules to: (1) drop any committee notification for the minority; (2) drop any need for committee participation by the minority. What this first point highlights is the scale of pre-planning from 2018 (last year), for this impeachment scheme.
♦Second, the planning of Cohen as the first step in an impeachment process was entirely predictable. [SEE HERE] On a positive note, Jim Jordan appears to know the scheme.
We discovered last year that Jeff Sessions had authorized U.S. Attorney John Huber to work with the Inspector General’s office, but we did not know exact dates and scope of the original Huber investigation. Thanks to a FOIA request, some details now fill in.
A left-leaning watchdog group, American Oversight, filed a FOIA request in 2017 looking for any communication that might show former AG Jeff Sessions giving instructions to DOJ officials to target Hillary Clinton for investigations.
Ironically, and perhaps serendipitously, the American Oversight FOIA request was submitted on November 22nd, 2017, the exact date Sessions’ chief-of-staff Matt Whitaker was sending a letter to Utah U.S. Attorney John Huber. Had they waited a day, what AO were looking for would have surfaced. However, with the Sessions-Huber communication falling outside the FOIA request window, the DOJ response was delayed until yesterday.
The Sessions letter was an attachment to a email sent by Whitaker to Huber at 5:21pm on November 22nd, 2017. The AG letter to Huber requests Huber to review issues raised by the House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, and return with advice. Here’s the letter:
CONTEXT – in 2017 House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte was conducting oversight and receiving testimony from witnesses concerning a possibility the DOJ and FBI had intentionally manipulated their investigations to protect Hillary Clinton. Goodlatte wrote to AG Sessions about his concerns.
At the request of AG Jeff Sessions, Asst. AG Stephen Boyd sent a responsive letter back to belay Goodlatte’s concerns explaining what ongoing review processes were in place:
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