The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 4-24-2019

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 4-24-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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The Patriot Post® · Mueller Is Done, but the Democrats' MAGA Obstruction Continues
By Mark Alexander · Apr. 24, 2019 · https://patriotpost.us/alexander/62591-mueller-is-done-but-the-democrats-maga-obstruction-continues

“It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.” —Thomas Jefferson (1808)
The Mueller v Trump charade may have concluded, but the Democrats v America charade remains in full swing.

Most Americans want political leadership that is, first and foremost, dedicated to promoting a domestic agenda that is good and right for our nation. On a personal level, we want safe communities to raise our families, good jobs that provide income so we can afford to support our families, and a sense of security about our future and that of our nation.

Those of us who are military families have more at stake. Democrats constantly endeavor to undermine the president’s foreign-policy agenda by undermining his office. At a time when Donald Trump1 is dealing with critical national-security issues, some of which have been neglected for decades including the crisis on our southern border2, that endangers our military personnel.

Democrats often repeat the mantra that they are doing “the work of the American people.” But all they have to offer is their vitriolic “Hate Trump3” platform that feeds the anger and fear of their increasingly deranged constituents4.

Donald Trump has genuinely endeavored to make America a better country5 for all of its citizens — and in many respects has accomplished that despite that Democrats’ best efforts to obstruct that agenda6.

But Democrats have spent the last two years using their “Russia collusion” subterfuge to undermine progress for all Americans — because that progress threatens their power. They will spend the next two years doing the same thing7.

To that end, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), along with her House tag team of Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), are desperate to keep their collusion/obstruction8 narrative alive.

Last Thursday, Attorney General William Barr delivered his remarks9 ahead of the release10 of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s lightly redacted 448-page report11 — the findings of his 675-day, $35 million investigation into alleged collusion12 between Donald Trump1 and Russia in order to influence the 2016 election.

The origins of those allegations13 were fabricated in a fake dossier14 funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign15 and her Democrat Party cronies16. It was then used by Barack Obama’s17 corrupt deep-state operatives in the FBI and CIA18 as the basis for a FISA warrant, which then allowed them to spy on the Trump campaign and ultimately to appoint a special prosecutor to “investigate” Donald Trump1 and his associates.

The purpose for setting up this two-year sham investigation served no other purpose than to obstruct Trump’s political agenda19 and potentially even find grounds for his removal from office. Arguably, this was the most dangerous and disgraceful episode in American political history.

The “bottom line,” according to Barr: “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the special counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

Three weeks ahead of the Mueller Report’s release, Barr provided an executive summary20 in which he concluded, “The Special Counsel’s investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

The full Mueller Report bears out that assessment. As former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy declared21, “It cleared the president of the vacant collusion allegation that Democrats peddled for two years.”

As Barr noted, “The White House fully cooperated with the special counsel’s investigation, providing unfettered access to campaign and White House documents, directing senior aides to testify freely… The president took no act that in fact deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation. … [Mueller’s] evidence of non-corrupt motives weighs heavily against any allegation that the president had a corrupt intent to obstruct the investigation.”

Barr’s summary also concluded that Trump, “in the interest of transparency and full disclosure,” did not assert executive privilege22 to withhold information from Mueller, although it would’ve been well within his rights to do so. And all redactions were done in accordance with Department of Justice protocols for protecting ongoing investigations and national-security sources and methods.

Does that sound like a president who’s trying to obstruct justice?

KEY REPORT FINDINGS…

The report completely debunks the veracity of the Trump-Russia dossier23, which was the premise for this entire Democrat-concocted enterprise.

The report also deflates several extraordinary claims24 promoted by the Demo/Leftmedia propaganda machine25. Among those would be: Carter Page, whose supposed Russian connection was the basis for the FISA warrant, which was the basis for the investigation, should never have been targeted; Trump never directed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress; Cohen did not travel to Prague; Cohen’s conversation with a Russian had nothing to do with collusion; Trump’s interim campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was not providing polling data to Vladimir Putin; Trump did not encourage Republicans to soften their position on Ukraine; and, as it turns out, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not a Russian agent.

But the report raised serious questions by virtue of omission.

The most significant failure of the report is that it did not evaluate the predicates for the investigation. As Barr noted in his recent congressional testimony26, “I think spying [on the Trump campaign] did occur.” He continued, “The question is whether it was adequately predicated. Spying on a political campaign is a big deal.”

As McCarthy makes clear27: “If spying is to be conducted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, then FISA must be followed. To conduct FISA surveillance of an American citizen suspected of being an agent of a foreign power, there must be probable cause that the American citizen is knowingly — not unwittingly — engaged in clandestine activities on behalf of the foreign power; and those clandestine activities must be a probable violation of federal criminal law. Furthermore, by the FBI’s own procedures, approved by the Justice Department, facts are not supposed to be submitted to the FISA Court unless they have been verified.”

McCarthy concluded, “The issue is not the credibility of the person who has assembled the hearsay information; the issue is the credibility of the actual sources of the probable-cause facts.”

Even the Washington Post’s Watergate-era liberal, Bob Woodward, is now calling for an investigation into the FBI and CIA’s reliance on the Steele dossier. “I think it was the CIA pushing this,” he said. “Real intelligence experts looked at this and said ‘No, this is not intelligence; this is garbage,’ and they took it out. … The idea that they would include something like that in one of the great stellar intelligence assessments, as Mueller also found out, is highly questionable.”

Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova added: “While the Democrats continue to cling to the fantasy that evidence of collusion really is lurking somewhere in the dark recesses of the Mueller report, the report itself makes it clearer than ever what any unbiased observer of the Russia story has been able to see for more than a year: Robert Mueller knew very early on in his investigation that there was no collusion.”

Political analyst Kimberley Strassel concludes in The Wall Street Journal28: “President Trump has every right to feel liberated. What the report shows is that he endured a special-counsel probe that was relentlessly, at times farcically, obsessed with taking him out. What stands out is just how diligently and creatively the special counsel’s legal minds worked to implicate someone in Trump World on something Russia- or obstruction-of-justice-related. And how — even with all its overweening power and aggressive tactics — it still struck out.”

[nChrist]

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The Patriot Post - Alexander's Column 4-24-2019
From The Federalist Patriot
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Regarding the report’s controversial “Ten Episodes” of possible obstruction29, these events are readily dismissible as the actions of a president frustrated by a phony Justice Department investigation seeded by his political enemies and high-level government operatives30 as part of a coup d'etat to end his presidency31 or, at the very least, to obstruct his MAGA agenda32.

Of course, it’s difficult to establish obstruction of an investigation into a crime that never occurred.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley says, “Despite identifying 10 troubling episodes that could be defined as acts of obstruction, [Mueller] could not say with confidence that Trump acted with the requisite ‘corrupt intent.’ … Mueller, found ‘substantial evidence’ that Trump wanted to limit the scope of the investigation, but that is not necessarily intent. … Even the best grounds for obstructive intent with Trump seeking to fire Mueller, an order ignored by White House Council, was justified by Trump as based on his fear of a conflict of interest. … Like indictable acts, impeachable acts demand a showing of intent, not simply an array of possible intense.”

Not content with the report’s failure to comport with the Democrats’ agenda, Rep. Adam “Shifty” Schiff has “invited” Mueller to testify before his Intel Committee. But that testimony, if it happens, will provide ample openings for Republicans to ask important questions about the Obama administration hacks who should really be investigated33 for seeding this hoax.

All that said, one of the most significant findings of the Mueller Report is that, under the Obama administration’s watch, the Russian government engaged in a “sweeping and systemic” campaign of interference through its government sponsored Internet Research Agency, and the Russian Army’s Main Intelligence Directorate, the GRU. According to the report, it was the GRU that hacked the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta, along with more than 300 Clinton campaign staffers and others associated with campaigns.

The report also notes that the GRU created the “DCLeaks” and “Guccifer 2.0” fronts that distributed those emails to WikiLeaks anarchist Julian Assange34.

KEEPING THE IMPEACHMENT DREAM ALIVE…

As they launch phase two of the coup19, Democrats believe that the Mueller Report provides them a roadmap to impeachment35.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren36 (D-MA) was the first Democrat on the crowded 2020 presidential stage to call for Trump’s impeachment37. “To ignore a president’s repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation into his own disloyal behavior would inflict great and lasting damage on this country,” she pontificated. “The severity of this misconduct demands that elected officials in both parties set aside political considerations and do their constitutional duty. That means the House should initiate impeachment proceedings against the president of the United States. We have a Constitution of the United States. And it says, when a president engages in this kind of activity, then it’s time for impeachment.”

Of course, whenever a leftist mentions the word “Constitution,” we can be confident that whatever follows is complete horse pucky.

Sen. Kamala Harris38 (D-CA) also got on board: “I believe Congress should take the steps towards impeachment. I believe that we need to get rid of this president.” But she lamented, “I’ve not seen any evidence to suggest that [Senate Republicans] will weigh on the facts instead of on partisan adherence to being protective of this president, and that’s what concerns me and what will be the eventual outcome.”

Nancy Pelosi, in a letter to her House Demos, declared with great drama, “We have to save our democracy. This isn’t about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about saving our democracy. If it is what we need to do to honor our responsibility to the Constitution — if that’s the place the facts take us, that’s the place we have to go.” (If she’d ever bothered to read our Constitution, she might know that we’re a Republic, not a “democracy.”)

Pelosi continued: “While our views range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth. … it is also important to know that the fax regarding holding the president accountable can be gained outside of impeachment hearings.”

This, of course, has nothing to do with the truth. The Mueller Report has (however one-sidedly) already documented the truth — which is that this entire affair was a Democrat ruse. But their “collective constituency of dunces39” will likely not be able to discern that.

To borrow a line from Shakespeare, “The [ladies] doth protest too much, methinks.” Perhaps this is a diversion to head off further investigations into the real criminal actions40 committed by Obama and Clinton and their deep-state operatives at the DOJ and CIA.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, when asked about whether there is evidence to impeach Trump, paused for a few seconds before responding, “Yeah, I do. If proven, if proven — which hasn’t been proven yet — if proven, some of this would be impeachable, yes. Obstruction of justice, if provable, would be impeachable.”

Weather forecast for DC: a blizzard of subpoenas. However, Trump says he will fight41 every one of these politically-motivated efforts to obstruct and distract: “We’re fighting all the subpoenas. The subpoenas are ridiculous. I say it’s enough. Get back to infrastructure, get to back to cutting taxes, get back to lowering prescription drug prices.”

Nadler insists he wants the entire unredacted Mueller Report released to Congress: “I am open to working with the DoJ to reach a reasonable accommodation for access to these materials, however I cannot accept any proposal which leaves most of Congress in the dark, as they grapple with their duties of legislation, oversight and constitutional accountability.” (Did he just mention the Constitution?)

Of course, the redacted version doesn’t leave “Congress in the dark,” and the Justice Department has already cleared a few lawmakers to read a less-redacted version.

Last but not least, Rep. Adam Schiff insists that there were “without question [acts] within the realm of impeachable offenses.”

Responding brilliantly to this gaggle of Demo accusers, Trump asked, “How do you impeach a Republican President for a crime that was committed by the Democrats?”

Indeed, even CNN’s leftist anchor Wolf Blitzer concluded, “So there you have almost a complete vindication of the president of the United States.”

Even The New York Times begrudgingly concluded42, “The 35-page dossier, spiced up with tales of prostitutes and spies, sketched out a hair-raising story more than two years ago. Russian intelligence had used bribery and blackmail to try to turn Donald J. Trump into a source and ally, it said, and the Kremlin was running some Trump campaign aides practically as agents. But the release … of the report … underscored what had grown clearer for months — that … some of the most sensational claims in the dossier appeared to be false, and others were impossible to prove. Mr. Mueller’s report contained over a dozen passing references to the document’s claims but no overall assessment of why so much did not check out.”

The claims didn’t merely “appear to be false.” They were false. As for “why so much did not check out,” again, the claims were false.

But Leftmedia25 outlets will continue to churn this hoax43 because, regardless of its merits, it comports with their political agenda and it sells advertising — it’s a big seller!

However, Democrats and their Leftmedia mouthpieces risk public fatigue44 with their endless fake collusion charade. Recent polls indicate that 0% of American voters think the Russia investigation is the most important issue in the 2020 election, while 54% say they believe the investigation was politically motivated. Notably, only 38% of Americans support the Democrats’ plan to continue the investigation.

Meanwhile, Demos are lining up their next round of fodder to obstruct Trump’s agenda, turning their attention to his tax returns45 for diversion.

Footnote: I propose that the $35 million bill for Mueller’s investigation be invoiced to the DNC46 — or perhaps the Clinton crime syndicate47.

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776