An important interview between Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R – TX) as he discusses the likely motive behind why Mueller decided to talk out against the Buzzfeed report. Representative Ratcliffe points to the testimony of AG nominee William Barr as the annoying pebble that made Mueller’s team stop to shake out their shoe.
Additionally, in an outline to highlight the corrupt abuse of the Rosenstein/Mueller probe, Ratcliffe outlines Bruce Ohr’s testimony and exposes a larger issue: if Mueller was honorable, when he became aware of the scheme he would have dropped his inquiry.
.
Fox News did not post the second part of that interview. However, we located a secondary source below: (more…)
There are two distinct narrative angles that are intersecting in the current weekend talk venues. One is the government shutdown and how the resistance is attempting to gain maximum political benefit against the White House. The second is how the larger ‘shutdown narrative‘ is being deployed as cover for revelations within prior testimony showing how the Obama DOJ and FBI weaponized against their political opposition.
In this regard, the shutdown (as planned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi) serves a dual purpose; it is helping to construct a larger oppositional narrative while burying a story the MSM are desperate not to cover. The two narratives are intertwined and it would be against the interests of Pelosi, Cummings, Schiff and Nadler, to reach a shutdown agreement.
HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff appears after VP Mike Pence on FtN and highlights this intended dual purpose. Schiff immediately transfers from the shutdown into a discussion of using Michael Cohen: the two narratives are intertwined.
*Note*: It’s important to remember the democrat strategy is planned out. Oversight Committee (Cummings), builds to HPSCI Committee (Schiff) who ultimately leads to Judicary Committee (Nadler). Jerry Nadler is where they hope to initiate the ‘impeachment‘ angle. (more…)
All day the left-wing media have been breathlessly reporting on a Buzzfeed claim citing reports from Michael Cohen. In a story published Thursday, BuzzFeed cited two unnamed federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation on the matter who said Cohen acknowledged to Mueller’s office that he was instructed by Trump in 2017 to lie to Congress about the now-abandoned real estate deal to build a Trump Tower in Russia.
Except there’s a problem…. well, it never happened. The claim was so ridiculous the Special Counsel spokesperson Peter Carr just made a statement: #FakeNews.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday issued a rare statement disputing a bombshell news report claiming President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie about the timing of discussions over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.
While reading a great article by Mollie Hemmingway at The Federalist, something stands out that might lend a cautious amount of optimism toward ongoing ‘spygate’ investigative inquiries and accountability. There are two distinct differences in the Bruce Ohr testimony as compared to all others released or revealed so far.
The known list of witnesses questioned by the joint House Judiciary and Oversight committees includes: James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Lisa Page, Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok, and Bruce Ohr.
Until the release of the Ohr transcript all prior reports and leaks of witness testimony have been from the FBI side of ‘spygate’. Bruce Ohr is the first witness from the Main Justice (DOJ) side of the issue.
Within the released witness transcripts, lawyers from the FBI were interceding in the testimony and instructing witness not to answer questions; and/or blocking statements from the witness to the questioners. This pattern exists in Comey, McCabe, Baker, Page, Priestap and Strzok statements. However, there is a stark difference, a much more fulsome set of answers, obvious in the testimony from Bruce Ohr. Example: (more…)
Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova discuss how Justice Department official Bruce Ohr shared information from the dossier author in 2016 with DOJ prosecutors now working for special counsel Robert Mueller.
Anastasia Vashukevich (27) is the Belarusian woman connected to Oleg Deripaska who was being held in a prison in Thailand under charges of recruiting women to act as prostitutes and escorts. [Backstory] Her name surfaced early in 2018 when CNN claimed she had dirt on Trump and “tapes” of some sort relating to Deripaska and his activities with contacts around the 2016 election. [More Backstory] While the outlandish aspects to the storyline pushed by initial media appeared ridiculous; there was something about Ms. Vashukevich’s connections to the larger Deripaska story that also appeared valid. Ms. Vashukevich has been held in Thailand for almost a year.
Last week the Thai government agreed to release Ms. Vashukevich. Today she was en route to Belarus when she was intercepted in Moscow:
MOSCOW — A model from Belarus who claimed to have recordings shedding light on the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia was detained at a Moscow airport Thursday on prostitution allegations, the police said.
The model, Anastasia Vashukevich, had been deported from Thailand earlier in the day after spending nine months in prison on charges of conspiracy and soliciting prostitution.
She was booked to fly to Minsk, Belarus, but was detained along with three others traveling with her as she changed planes at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, according to her husband and another person traveling with her.
John Solomon has a well-written article at The Hill outlining the leaked transcript from Bruce Ohr together with his own sources. The key point Solomon focuses upon is how Bruce Ohr warned DOJ and FBI officials about the political intents and specifics behind the inbound information from Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS. [Read Here]
(L-R) Christopher Steele – Bruce Ohr – Glenn Simpson
The primary aspect to Ohr’s testimony is how strongly he warned officials at the FBI (Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, James Baker, Peter Strzok, Joe Pientka), and officials in DOJ Main Justice (Andrew Weissmann, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad), about the political intents and purposes behind the information that eventually became “The Steele Dossier”.
In essence Bruce Ohr told the FBI and Main Justice, right at the outset of their Crossfire Hurricane operation, that Chris Steele’s work product was an assembly of political opposition research specifically paid for by the Hillary Clinton Campaign.
Under all ordinary circumstances this under oath revelation would be a game changer; particularly because two of those in Main Justice who knew about the political construct, Zainab Ahmad and Andrew Weissmann, are currently officials directly on the Robert Mueller probe. However, in the highly partisan era of Trump-hate, the media will completely ignore the scale of this admission by Bruce Ohr. (more…)
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer met privately with AG nominee William Barr earlier today. At the conclusion of the meeting Senator Schumer addresses the media.
Schumer appears conflicted and confused as to how to describe his own highly political desires with the answers he received from Mr. Barr. It does not appear Schumer was pleased with his overall inability to leverage control over the nominee; and that comes out in the early part of his statement. That’s a good sign. Watch:
.
The issue of how Mr. Barr would produce a summary document about the completed Mueller investigation is an aspect that deserves some clarity and discussion. (more…)
Once again the actual transcript is not released, only the Epoch Times authors’ interpretations of the content of the leaked transcript. *Note* the author, Ivan Pentchoukov, does not reveal the name of the “alleged spy”.
Previous leaked transcripts from:
Three congressional committees have requested the release of witness transcripts. HPSCI via Devin Nunes (September 2018); and the joint House Judiciary/Oversight committee (December 2018). Congressional allies of President Trump (Nunes, Jordan, Meadows and Collins) are being blocked by DOJ/FBI officials within the current administration. So each side in the DOJ/FBI corruption story is currently leaking to advance their interests.
President Trump’s AG nominee William Barr testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee about his legal views and perspectives. Overall post-testimonial punditry converges on the outlook Mr. Barr will be easily confirmed with broad bipartisan support.
Rather than agree or disagree with various opinions CTH is providing a full video of the Barr hearing below with a recap video as presented by Global News:
.
My own personal view is that William Barr will likely reset the DOJ ‘status quo‘ to the institutional construct that existed prior to the Obama DOJ (Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch) era. That is to say: Barr will attempt to remove obvious weaponization and overt political motives behind every action taken by the U.S. Justice Department.
However, it also appears the most purposeful goal for Mr. Barr, in direct alignment with his close personal friend Robert Mueller, will be the preservation of the DOJ institution as a historic apparatus. That “preserve-the-institution” at all costs means Barr will necessarily have to bury any/all systemic corruption to achieve a larger institutional goal.
I Do not anticipate Barr will deliver any sunlight to expose how badly corrupted the DOJ has become. Instead he’ll likely apply bondo to cover the rot and apply a fresh coat of paint. (more…)
