Obama spying scandal and the failed attempted coup against Trump

[Don Giovanni]

So much for what I know. I can't say I've followed it all that closely, but I can see it's now a matter that might be brought before the House Committee on Ethics.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/bu...omplaint-68817

Judicial Watch wrote to the Office of Congressional Ethics: “We call upon the Office of Congressional Ethics to launch an investigation into Rep. Omar’s conduct immediately.”

The Office of Congressional Ethics is comprised of non-congressmen who intake complaints and, if they deem the complaints strong, publicly refer them to the House Committee on Ethics.

[Reaper]

Seems to be building indeed:

https://www.omartruth.com/

[Don Giovanni]

James Clapper spelled out on a CNN segment that Mueller was more like a "CEO" and didn't actually "interrogat(e) witnesses" nor "write the report!" It's a remarkable admission from someone who has shaped and pushed the narrative that Trump colluded with Russia to win the presidential election.

This means Mueller's team, made up exclusively of Hillary Clinton donors and associates, drove the investigation. This includes Andrew Weissman, who was with Hillary Clinton on the night she lost, and Aaron Zebley, an IT aide who destroyed Hillary Clinton's blackberry while she was under investigation by the FBI and he himself was subpoenaed. Zebley was by Mueller's side during the hearings and was feeding him information to help him answer questions regarding his report.

[Don Giovanni]

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/455616-james-comeys-next-reckoning-is-imminent-this-time-for-leaking

The Justice Department’s chief watchdog is preparing a damning report on James Comey’s conduct in his final days as FBI director that likely will conclude he leaked classified information and showed a lack of candor after his own agency began looking into his feud with President Trump over the Russia probe.

Although a technical violation, the DOJ did not want to “make its first case against the Russia investigators with such thin margins and look petty and vindictive,” a source told me, explaining the DOJ’s rationale.

But Comey and others inside the FBI and the DOJ during his tenure still face legal jeopardy in ongoing probes by the IG and Barr-appointed special prosecutor John Durham. Those investigations are focused on the origins of the Russia investigation that included a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign at the end of the 2016 election, the source said.

“There are significant issues emerging with how the FISA was handled and other conduct in the investigation, and everyone involved remains under scrutiny,” a second source said.

[Reaper]

How is Mrs Omar doing? Congress still not interested in launching an investigation into her?

[Don Giovanni]

The majority party in the house are Democrats and view this as a partisan attack against one of their own. They'll try to block it if indeed anything comes of it from the ethics office, but I can't say if it will ever get to that point. If the allegations carry enough basis, especially if there's hard evidence that she committed immigration fraud, it will be very damaging to the Democrats and their message on the issue of immigration, a key issue for Trump.

[Don Giovanni]

McCabe lost his appeal and is set to be indicted (finally):

MSNBC has interesting way of framing things; however, CNN went one further and outright hired McCabe back in August! Comey sn't out of the woods yet either.

Meanwhile, Flynn and his prosecutor are looking to have his case dismissed for prosecutorial misconduct due the Special Counsel's failure to hand over all relevant documents, otherwise known as "Brady materials." Apparently the DOJ had issued a memo confirming that Flynn was not a Russian agent and then there was a letter sent to Susan Rice from the British embassy which disavowed Christopher Steele and referred to him as untrustworthy. There were also documents relevant to Flynn's FBI interview which were not handed over. I wouldn't mind seeing him back in his old job once this ordeal is finished.

[Don Giovanni]

Democrats and establishment Republicans (Romney, etc) are staking a bet on impeachment proceedings. First they claim Russian collusion and now Ukrainian collusion.

There's a big problem however. Trump doesn't threaten the Ukrainian president over the withdrawal of funds. The transcript proves this.

Trump does ask for a favor, but that favor involves having the president of Ukraine calling the US Attorney General about getting to the bottom of the Crowdstrike "situation." Crowdstrike is the very company responsible for providing cyber security to the DNC servers that were allegedly hacked by Russia. In other words, Trump wanted Ukraine to find the truth behind the claims of Russia's alleged hacking. Here were Trump's exact words:

I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike ... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation.. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible.

The Ukrainian president gave a long reply that ended by saying,

I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly. That I can assure you.

Then Trump responds immediately as follows:

Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what's happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

At no point does Trump mention anything about denying funds to the Ukrainians if they fail to restart that prosecution.

However, here's Biden, in his own words, threatening to deny a billion dollar loan guarantee to Ukraine if they didn't shut down a prosecution against an energy company (Burisma Holdings). Biden makes no mention of it in his speech, but his son sat on the board of that company which was being prosecuted:

I went over to Kiev and I was suppose to announce that there was another billion dollar loan guarantee. [...] I said 'nah, were not going to give you the billion dollars.' They said, 'you have no authority, you're not the president.' [I said,] 'call him. I'm telling you, you're not getting a billion dollars. [...] I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor isn't fired, you're not getting the money.'

Biden's son, Hunter, landed that job after he was discharged from the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine use. He was paid up to $50,000 a month by that company that was under prosecution. On top of that, he split from his wife, who later claimed he wasted all his money on hookers and drugs:

https://pagesix.com/2017/03/02/ex-cl...hookers-drugs/

Throughout the parties’ separation Mr. Biden has created financial concerns for the family by spending extravagantly on his own interests (including drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs, and gifts for women with whom he has sexual relations), while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills,” Kathleen says of Hunter in the filing.

Moreover, the general prosecutor of Ukraine at the center of this controversy gave an interview back in May claiming that he was forced out after he made another attempt to seize Burisma assets. That was when Biden made the threat to deny Ukraine the loan guarantee.

https://112.international/article/bi...kin-39549.html

[Reaper]

How is it looking? What do the American people in general think?

[Don Giovanni]

Most people don't care. They hear what's on TV, know little about what's actually happening, and go along with the media narrative without questioning or concerning themselves with it. In their mind, this will sort itself out and nothing will affect them. As for most who didn't like Trump to begin with, then they think he deserves to go, for loads of reasons, not just this. I'd say a majority think along these lines. The ones who support him are not willing to talk freely or openly about it. Most of those people are ashamed to admit support for the president due to the campaign of intimidation waged against them. Basically Trump supporters are being treated like US soldiers returning from the Vietnam war.

[Reaper]

Joe Biden's team reportedly sent a letter to top TV news execs demanding they stop booking Rudy Giuliani

https://www.businessinsider.com/joe-biden-asks-tv-news-execs-stop-booking-giuliani-2019-9?r=US&IR=T

[Don Giovanni]

They didn't impeach Bush for lying about the Iraq war, nor for legalizing mass surveillance, nor for handing the richest banks a blank check. But Trump will be impeached, not for colluding with Russia, as we have been told since before Trump became president, but for colluding with Ukraine.

[Reaper]

What are all these polls saying the american people back this impeachment, have they lost their mind? Or fixed polling?

[Don Giovanni]

It depends how they phrase the question and whether they call up people they know are Democrats to game it, like they did with the polls that showed Hillary at 14% over Trump three weeks out from the election day. Towards election day, they made the number more realistic (they brought it down to 2% the week before in order to account for people who will "actually" vote). It's a game they play. The majority of Americans (over 30%) align as Democrats compared to Republicans (less than 30%). The difference ranges from 5% to 10%, anything that accounts for a figure higher in representation for Democrats in their polls is fixed. The other 20%-30% or so are "independents."

[Reaper]

Democrats remind me of Remainers - willing to weaken their country simply to remove a democratically elected President/reverse a democratic referendum they don't like.