Secret Acts Shall Be Revealed, Part II

In our last post we talked about corruption coming to light at a local level, related to voter fraud in Harris County, Texas.

Today we’ll talk about corruption coming to light on a national level.

Back in 2012, just after Obama’s reelection, I said this:

President Obama divides the people, ignores the Constitution, and has a four-year record of failed economic policies. His behavior toward our allies has been offensive. His behavior to our enemies has been apologetic and submissive. His specific lies following the Benghazi attack are so egregious as to require impeachment. His history, while sketchy, clearly indicates a disdain for our beloved constitutional ideals. He seems incompetent as a leader (specifically failing to persuade others to follow his actual ideology when truthfully stating it). Meanwhile, I think he is consistent in moving to transform the nation from a constitutional republic into a Marxist tyranny. His tone is condescending and his attacks on his opponent are petty and small-minded. Because I love my homeland and the blessed freedom we inherited from our forefathers, I see him as an enemy.

His second term did not change my mind; it only gave me more evidence. At the end of his second term almost 3 ½ years ago, he didn’t go home and get off the political stage. He remained in Washington, DC, and speaks out against his successor. In and of itself, that’s weird. Unprecedented. And low class. If there’s a political purpose for it, above and beyond bad character, that’s even worse. And it appears that is the case. He’s staying there to keep running a personal army within government, against our country.

Obama, screenshot from The Epoch Times

We’re going to get to the Flynn case, but first, let’s just list again what Obama’s “scandal free” administration included:

·         Gun-running in Mexico, the Fast and Furious scandal.

·         SEAL Team 6 Extortion 17.

·         State Department lying about Benghazi.

·         Voter fraud upon voter fraud.

·         Failure to count military votes.

·         Boston bombing, followed by temporary suspension of rights.

·         Assassinating Americans overseas with drones.

·         Wanting to assassinate Americans with drones in our own country without the benefit of the law.

·         Supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, setting off the Muslim Spring.

·         IRS targeting of conservatives.

·         DOJ spying on the press.

·         Lying to the American people: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor; if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” and “The average family will save money in healthcare costs,” when costs actually rose for almost all Americans.

·         NSA monitoring phonecalls, emails, and more; meta-data being kept on innocent Americans

·         Ordering the release of nearly 10,000 illegal immigrants from and prisons—falsely blaming the sequester.

·         Threatening to impose gun control by executive order to bypass Congress.

·         Failure to propose and submit a budget, suggesting his priorities to Congress.

·         Unconstitutional recess appointments in an attempt to circumvent the Senate’s advise-and-consent role.

·         State Department interference with Inspector General investigation on departmental sexual misconduct.

·         HHS employees being given insider information on Medicare Advantage.

·         Hillary Clinton, IRS officials, James Clapper, and Eric Holder all lying to Congress.

·         Illegal FISA warrant to spy on an opponent’s presidential campaign.

·         Conspiring with corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs to supply dirt to be used in fake FISA warrant.

·         Threatening to cut military aid to Ukraine if they didn’t immediately fire a prosecutor that was investigating VP Biden’s son’s connection with corrupt Burisma.

·         Temporarily taking over sectors of the economy, such as the automotive industry, and interfering with the banking industry.

·         Stonewalling investigations into Hezbollah crime and terrorism, renaming them a legitimate party, as part of his efforts to negotiate with Iran, which included giving Iran pallets full of cash to get them to sign onto the deal that would guarantee them the right to have nuclear weapons in ten years. [12-19-2017]

·         Promising “more flexibility” to the Russians after the 2012 election, when he wouldn’t have to worry about voter opinion any longer.

·         Using more executive orders than any previous administration for actions clearly beyond the powers granted to the executive branch.

·         Requiring slap-downs, with multiple unanimous rulings from the Supreme Court on issues related to religious freedom.

If you were unaware of these things, or thought they were just rumors or yet another “nothing burger,” it is because the biased media you are paying attention to has been purposely covering up for Obama's wrongdoing.

Now, about the Flynn case.

Lt. General Michael Flynn
image from The Federalist

While this is in the midst of investigation, let’s cover what we think we know.

I keep wondering where to start, but let’s go back to spring 2016, during the Trump campaign. Lt. General Michael Flynn became part of the campaign team. This upset the Obama administration. Flynn knew things that could come to light. As Glenn Beck put it (Wednesday, May 13), Flynn “knew where all the bodies were buried.” I don’t know exactly what details Flynn knows that he has been unable to reveal these past several years, but I hope we find out soon.

The FBI started an investigation into Flynn, based on nothing but his being part of the campaign. This in itself is corruption. This investigation ties in to the rest of the Russia investigation, based on the Steele dossier, a Hillary-campaign-purchased oppo research pack of lies intended to create doubt about Trump’s loyalties prior to the election.

That didn’t work, and several years of investigations proved there was no Russia-Trump collusion—which we knew from the get-go, but which the Mueller investigation proved.

Documents justifying investigating Flynn
screenshot from here

During the investigation, it appears that surveilling noncitizens who had contact with Flynn was a way of surreptitiously surveilling Flynn, a US citizen, which is illegal, but, under such wiretapping, citizens do get swept up. Normally their names are not revealed, since they are not relevant to the surveillance of the foreigner, but when officials ask for the name to be revealed to give them context concerning conversations that have been recorded, that unmasking can be requested. Under those conditions, the name is known by the official requesting it, who has a valid reason to know, and who is under obligation to keep the name secret so as not to violate that citizen’s 4^th Amendment rights. Multiple unmaskings were requested involving Flynn; it appears he was the actual object of surveillance and not the innocent citizen accidently caught up in surveillance. Without warrant. In other words, if motive is proven, this is a crime.

Beyond that, Flynn’s name was leaked to the media as being under suspicion for his connection (known and valid) with Russians. Unmasking to the media is a felony. Stephanie Powers testified under oath that she had not only asked for much fewer unmaskings of Flynn than were done in her name; she had asked for none. Whoever used her name and official top secret clearance to get the unmaskings is guilty of multiple counts of that crime as well.

One of the issues involving Flynn was his giving a speech in Russia, for which he was paid about $40,000. That is not illegal. And it was before the election and any official appointment. Bill Clinton was paid $500,000 for a speech in Russia, and no one jumped on that claiming illegal dealings.

On December 29, General Flynn spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The call was recorded, purportedly aimed at surveilling the Russian Ambassador. Flynn’s name was unmasked—and mysteriously leaked to the media. But there was nothing wrong with what he said in the call, according to FBI investigators.

The Justice Department had looked at everything Flynn had done for months and found nothing that could be construed as wrongdoing, so they said they were closing the investigation.

Almost immediately afterward, on January 4, 2017, FBI officials openly discussed their concern that, if they couldn’t stop Flynn, he would soon be privy to their Russia investigation—which would unveil what they had done against the Trump campaign and plans they had to undermine the Trump presidency. They wished the case could be reopened, so they would have the excuse that someone under investigation shouldn’t be briefed on state secrets he was entitled to see. Then (Strzok and Page, possibly others) realized that, because of a sort of clerical error, the case hadn’t been officially “closed,” so they would make use of that error and proceed with it as still open.

Obama was aware of this. Yates, Brennan, and Clapper have all testified that they did not inform Obama about it. In fact, Yates was unaware of the information until Obama shared it in a January 5th meeting. Strzok had told Page in an email, however, that Obama wanted to know everything about what they were doing. It may have been them. It’s also likely the information came to Obama from Susan Rice.

So, on January 5^th there was a briefing related to Russia matters in the Oval Office. Attending this meeting were President Obama, Vice-President Biden, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director James Comey.

Following the briefing, intelligence officials not staying beyond the Obama term left, but Obama asked Yates and Comey were asked to stay. I believe at least Susan Rice and Joe Biden also remained. We learned of this meeting because of a memo email Rice wrote to herself upon leaving office on inauguration day.

The Flynn situation was discussed in that after-meeting. If it is as it appears, Obama not only was aware that the Flynn case was not “officially” closed; he directed, either obliquely or directly, the others to pursue Flynn using the Logan Act. This is a very old (1799), never successfully used piece of legislation, possibly needed back in days before phones or transportation faster than sailing ships, to prevent ordinary Americans from going to a foreign country and representing themselves as speaking on behalf of the country, and declaring our foreign policy. The phone conversation Flynn had was official, as the incoming National Security Advisor, and there was nothing in it that was expressing anything contrary to the elected administration’s position. Not only couldn’t the act be used because it was irrelevant for Flynn in his position; there wasn’t anything Flynn had done that could have been construed as acting on his own behalf instead of the Trump administration.

Additionally in the meeting Obama (presumably) directed those “deep state” officials to not share any Russia-related information with the incoming administration—a breech of law and the biggest failure to turn over power to a duly elected next administration ever. Banana republics, and Venezuela, fail to turn over power without a bloody coup. Up until now, America was exemplary for its peaceful transitions of power. This Obama policy is unprecedented.

It is likely not because of sheer cussedness; it may have been a desperation move to keep bigger secrets hidden. We don’t know what else has been withheld.

Moving forward with the Flynn, the FBI set up an interview—to entrap him. They told him he was not under investigation; it was just a friendly chat. He wouldn’t need a lawyer. Except, they were there to entrap him; we have their handwritten notes discussing that purpose.

They questioned him about the Kislyak conversation—not to gain information; they had the transcript, which he apparently realized, so when he was unsure of details, he deferred to their suggestion of how it was, which turned out to be incorrect. And that “incorrect” statement, that couldn’t possibly have interfered with an FBI investigation, because it was information they already held and that didn’t relate to any crime—that is what they used to claim he gave a false statement to the FBI.

When they came after him for that, they used organized crime tactics to pressure him to plead guilty. They told him he was being prosecuted under the Logan Act (even though he wasn’t), and that he’d provided false information (which he hadn’t intentionally done), and that if he didn’t plead guilty, they were going after his family. I understand they were going after his son in some way, but I don’t know what that is about.

Anyway, this case has been hanging over his head for three years already. Finally it goes to trial, and the Department of Justice is looking at the case and realizing, there’s no case here. That’s the announcement we got a couple of weeks ago.

Then, in another unprecedented move, US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan invited amici—that is, instead of saying, “OK, no prosecution, no case; we’re dismissed,” he says, “Calling anyone out there. If you have something to say in favor of keeping the prosecution going, let’s hear from you.” Judges Do. Not. Do. That.

His pretext for not giving up is that Flynn lied by pleading guilty. I am not kidding.

There are several good sources on what has happened. One is a piece by Molly Hemingway on May 8^th, offering a detailed timeline of what happened from January 4 through March 2, 2017, concerning the railroading of Flynn. 

Glenn Beck, "Collusion Confirmed, How Obama Sabotaged Trump"
screenshot from here

Glenn Beck did a video exposé, chalkboard and all, on May 13^th, called “Collusion Confirmed: How Obama Sabotaged Trump,” on his weekly show, available on YouTube. He provided all the documents he had used. You can find them and read them for yourself, here. 

Most of these are photos of the documents. A couple are links to documents, which I’ve also provided, but here's the list:

·       The Susan Rice email header, when she emailed herself on inauguration day about the January 5, 2017 meeting.

·       The letter sent February 12, 2018, by Senators Grassley and Graham asking Rice why she sent that email to herself. 

·       Sally Yates’ testimony, including who attended the January 5^th briefing and the followup meeting, where using the Logan Act came up.

·       The FBI’s justification for opening up an investigation of Flynn, dated 8/16/2016

·       Harry Reid's email to the FBI, dated 8/27/2016, specifically mentioning the Steele Dossier contents regarding Carter Page. 

·       The FBI's justification for opening an investigation into Mike Flynn.

·       The FBI’s final communication on Flynn, closing communications on the investigation, dated 1/4/2017.

·       The FBI’s handwritten notes, discussing using the Logan Act as pretext for getting Flynn fired.

·       Mike Flynn’s statement to the FBI, used to charge him of a crime.

Since the airing of Glenn Beck’s show (he says the first of several on what’s being called Obamagate), I’ve come across more.

·       “Obama White House Kept Key Officials in Dark About Brennan’s Russia Intel” in today’s The Epoch Times. 

·       The Daily Wire praises new press secretary for her explanation, video included. It’s epic. “Reporter Asks Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany To Explain ‘Obamagate.’ She Gives A First-Class Education.” 

·       Former Obama officials testified under oath that they had no evidence linking the Trump campaign with Russia, no matter how much many of them had insinuated there was. Western Journal commentary by C. Douglas Golden. Former Obama Official Admits She Lied to Media About Evidence of Trump-Russian Collusion

Title graphic from Glenn Beck's show
screenshot from here

Remember how Obama used to use that word audacity? It never made sense to me in the way he used it, as if it’s some sort of revolution to “hope” for something vague and undefined. It makes more sense in the normal meaning of hubris or shamelessness.

After word comes out about his wrongdoings—his personal role in the multiple crimes—he has the audacity to speak to graduating seniors across the country, telling them what a terrible president we have, and how terrible the administration’s response to the virus has been. Dispicable.

Never has an ex-president worked so hard to undermine a sitting president.

We know Obama lied. We know he recruited, directed, and endorsed weaponizing government agencies against American citizens. We know, by our own experience, that he was feckless and disparaging while representing us internationally. He relished the long economic malaise as a new normal. And we know he divided us racially and politically beyond what we’d seen since the Civil War.

Imagine what would be happening to us if his cohorts had been elected instead of President Trump, and all the secret corruption remained hidden.

This man—and everyone in government still doing their damage to our constitutional republic—must be held accountable.

Light is a disinfectant, and we need all of this corruption to come to light so we can clean it out.

No One Has the Right to Rule Over Us

I don’t know if it’s obvious, but I don’t spend a lot of time covering the top news stories of the week here. This is more about the principles that lead to freedom, prosperity, and civilization—which come under the category of political philosophy, rather than actual politics.

One of the principles of freedom is that the people grant government its powers, not the other way around. And we should always beware of power mongers—tyrants, who feel an inherent right to rule over other human beings.

So, this week’s news has been distracting me, as it probably has most people. But the underlying point is to understand and prevent tyranny.

To sum up,

·         The Democrats put announced there was a whistleblower’s report that a phonecall between the newly elected President of Ukraine and President Trump was a quid pro quo, pressuring Ukraine to investigate corruption that could be a political advantage to Trump. The call was simultaneously transcribed by several workers, whose words are then aligned to create as accurate record as possible. The whistleblower was not one of those transcribers, but apparently heard a leak that came, presumably, from one of them, each of whom would have had a security clearance that such a leak would violate. (Why is no one talking about the illegality of such a leak, and finding out who leaked?)

·         President Trump, with permission from the Ukrainian president, within a day put out the full unredacted transcript of the 30-minute phonecall, about 10 minutes of which was under question. Obviously, what was claimed about the phonecall was not actually spoken or done. No pressure. No quid pro quo.

·         Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, announced, the day after the whistleblower’s claim came out, that there would be an “official” Impeachment inquiry—a re-labeling of six committees already involved in a search for misconduct of the president. That is, not investigations into actual wrongdoing, but various searches for wrongdoing. Calling these already existing investigations officially an impeachment inquiry changes nothing about what they were doing, but it puts the word “impeachment” front and center. By the time she made this pronouncement, the transcript of the phonecall in question was already public, but she’d already set her plan in motion.

·         When it was clear the phonecall itself was not what they’d claimed, they then said the President was blocking the actual whistleblower report. So he had that released, with mild redactions (for national security and protection of names in the intelligence community). The additional claims were that there was a delay in giving certain aid, or selling certain arms, to Ukraine—with a claim that there was an implied quid pro quo of withholding those things until Ukraine followed through on the corruption investigation Trump advised in the phonecall.

In order to believe the claim that there was an impeachable offense, one must attribute motives and thoughts to the President that were not spoken and mostly do not coincide with records and timelines.

The “whistleblower,” who had no direct knowledge, observed some things that, if they were connected, might be construed to be pressure on a foreign government. But the whistleblower account reads much more like analysis than factual reporting.

Such analysis happens all the time. Think back to Jack Ryan, the analyst in Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. He sees some facts, and, based on his background understanding of one of the people involved, comes up with the theory that the Russian submarine Red October isn’t intending a renegade attack; it’s attempting to defect. It’s a wild speculation. In the meeting in which Jack Ryan presents it, his superior is concerned at how foolish such a wild speculation makes them look. But, because it’s fiction, the analysis gets traction, and the rest of the movie ensues.

An analysis isn’t a whistleblower report; it’s one person’s speculation about the meaning surrounding facts based on the analyst’s experience and biases. If it isn’t convincing to his superiors, it’s just another data point, set aside unless and until something more comes along to make it worth a second look. This “whistleblower,” reportedly someone in intelligence with an anti-Trump bias, wasn’t satisfied with his/her theory/speculation not being taken as fact, so he/she put it out as if it were a stifled whistleblower report (something that required a change in rules concerning whistleblowers in order to qualify).

People read the phonecall transcript differently, depending on how much they hate having Trump as our president. That doesn’t make it a fair reading.

I think it’s a fair assessment that the whole situation is evidence that there is indeed a Deep State—officials within government working toward wielding their own power, regardless of who the people elect—and that’s power mongering, which is antithetical to our constitutional republic.

Today on Andrew Klavan’s show [partial video on Facebook, entire audio podcast at The Daily Wire], he talks about this pretty accurately. Here’s the transcript from his Big Idea segment:

Andrew Klavan, September 30, 2019, screenshot from here

In a world of fake news, it’s important sometimes to remember the real news, the story that’s not being covered. And that story is this: The heads of the intelligence community, under Barak Obama, used Russian disinformation, bought and paid for by the Democrat Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to launch a spying operation on an opposition candidate, namely Donald Trump. They then engineered and launched a two-and-a-half-year investigation into a Russia collusion hoax in order to distract from their incredible act of American subversion.

Today, as the Department of Justice Inspector General prepares his report on these doings and his DOJ Prosecutor John Durham leads a separate investigation, a completely meaningless story about Trump and the Ukrainian president, has replaced the collusion hoax as the tool of distraction, and is being covered by the press with the same breathless and reckless hysteria as the Russian hoax—and for the same reasons.

It’s as if the Russian hoax had never been exposed, but it has.

Now, why do I say the Ukraine story is meaningless? I say it because no one cares. Zero percent of the population of the United States cares if our loudmouth president said stupid stuff to the president of Ukraine. To put that in numerical terms, no people care. None.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are people who care very deeply about hobbling Trump and getting him out of office. And they care very deeply about what they hope to get out of the Ukraine story. And there are people who care very deeply about defending Trump from the Deep State, and they care about disproving the story. But no one cares about the substance. It makes absolutely no difference to anyone if Trump was nudging the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter Biden’s obviously nepostistic sinecure with their stupid gas company, and Joe Biden’s likewise obviously compromised integrity because of it.

At the very worst—and I don’t believe this at all, by the way—but at the very worst, Trump was organizing a jerry-rigged, tape-entwined version of what Obama did to him using the full power of the government. It’s the exact story that the press, not only won’t cover, but is covering up what Obama did to Trump. And now Trump—if the worst of this is true—is sort of, kind of, maybe a little trying to do that to Joe Biden—which is absurd, because he would have much rather run against Joe Biden than Elizabeth Warren.

Now, you may say, well this could still be serious if it leads to impeachment. And we know that would be serious, because people keep saying that it’s serious. Reporters, politicians, commentators. Just listen to them. They all keep saying impeachment is a serious business. But, in fact, nothing is serious if it’s not done seriously. An impeachment show about something no one cares about, that will not result in the president leaving office, is only serious in the sense that it disgraces a legislature that no longer actually legislates, but spends all it’s time in politically motivated investigations and show trials when it’s not raising the debt ceiling to pay for the politically motivated investigations and show trials.

Want to know the news? Follow the Obama story—Obamagate. It’s a big scandal, and a dangerous scandal. And if anyone actually covers it and investigates it, it may begin to root out a Deep State that is willing to do and say anything to cover up the fact that it has gotten way, way out of control.

A bit later in the podcast, Klavan shares a couple of montages. First is one minute of a five-minute montage of the press fawning over Obama. Next is the media dishing up the “impeachment” idea, starting in November 2016, before Trump had taken office, on up through this past week.

from the montage included in the Klavan podcast
screenshot from here

What we have is a segment of society—and media, politicians, and other elites fit in here—that refuses to accept the results of an election. It was an election Hillary Clinton, with the help of a sitting president, attempted to secure through illegal means, and yet she lost. My guess is that Nancy Pelosi’s giving in to talking about impeachment now, after three years, when an election will come up before an actual impeachment could take place, is a desperation move intended to taint the president, because, based on the state of the economy and the increase in personal freedoms after Obama, the Democrats greatly fear Trump will be reelected, despite all their efforts.

As Klavan says later, this isn’t about any of the things they claim it is about:

The target is you. The target is to teach you a lesson: "Do not vote for whom we do not want you to vote for."

Those who feel they have the right to rule over us are tyrants, who should be kept as far away as possible from any of the reins of government.

If there is anything good that can come out of this, I hope it’s that truth will reveal the nefarious works of those trying to undermine the best and most important experiment in self-government in the history of the world.

Trump is not the enemy of our freedom. Maybe, as unpleasant as he is in the Twitter world, he’s exactly the tough leader we need to stand up to the tyranny. I hope he wins this particularly uncivil war against him, against us, and against our constitutional republic.