I will not hold my breath on anyone in the Obama Administration going to jail.
Friday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” host Laura Ingraham gave her take on the indictments handed down by special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe regarding interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Ingraham told viewers the indictments illustrated how Russia was still a threat to the United States despite then-President Barack Obama’s dismissal during the 2012 presidential election. She also said Mueller should interview 2016 Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State John Kerry, former National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and former President Barack Obama as part of his investigation.
Partial transcript as follows:
INGRAHAM: We finally have indictments in the Mueller investigation related to meddling in the 2016 election and the only ones being charged are Russians. A federal grand jury has now indicted 13 Russian individuals and companies for interfering in the 2016 election.
They are charged with a bunch of things like creating fake ads, staging pro and anti-Trump campaign events and also setting up bogus-run organizations, but they’re not accused of rigging the election for Trump, but instead of waging information warfare to sow discord in the political system.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictments and added this important caveat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charge conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Did you hear that? No American knowingly took part in the meddling and the plot had no effect on the outcome of the election. The facts, as we know them right now, support the president’s argument, an argument we have been making on this show for months, that there was no Russian collusion.
Trump took a bit of a victory lap, tweeting today, “Russia started their anti-U.S. campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for president. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong. No collusion.”
Well, it certainly looks that way, but we don’t know for sure what else Mueller may have up his sleeve. Though, I’ll tell you who this totally vindicates. Conservatives and Republicans who have been warning people for years about how devious the Russians can be in this situation.
Remember, when President Obama sarcastically mocked Mitt Romney’s Russia warning back in 2012 during the presidential debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FORMER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: When you’re asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al Qaeda, you said Russia. In the 1980s or now, calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the cold war has been over for 20 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: Now, Obama was so convinced of that, his DOJ and FBI did next to nothing about the Russian skulduggery. I love that word. His State Department actually approved the visas for the Russian operatives that were indicted by Mueller today.
His FBI began spying on Trump Campaign Advisor Carter Page with a FISA warrant in the fall of 2016. Now details in today’s indictment do point to vindication for the Trump team. This is Jonathan Turley from tonight’s “Special Report.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN TURLEY: This makes more sense than the narratives that everyone has been throwing around in conspiracies. This began in 2014, began before the presidential election. The Russians were taking targets of opportunity and shooting at everybody in the election but certainly working more against Hillary Clinton. But what it does show is that they did a really quite impressive job in finding this cyber trail to these individuals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: I’ll say. And the indictment describes rallies that took place after the election, both in support of and against Trump, and by the way, some of them happened on the same day, all allegedly promoted by these Russian accounts.
You see this ad? Well, according to “Buzzfeed,” this anti-Trump rallies staged just four days after the election was promoted by something called “Black Matters U.S.,” a social media campaign thought to be organized by Russians.
So, why would Trump collude with Russians to stage anti-Trump rallies? Does that make any sense? Here’s the bottom line. The Trump campaign did not know about Russian interference in the election. But the Obama administration certainly did and may have in fact enabled it.
Given that we already know Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC paid for that fake Russian dossier, it’s time for the special counsel to interview Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Susan Rice, Ben Rhodes, and maybe even Barack Obama. I say it’s high time that we determine who really colluded with the Russians.
I thought the Russians were suppose to be in Collusion with Donald Trump.
Russian internet trolls not only used social media accounts to promote President Donald Trump’s election bid, they also operated accounts supporting the candidacies of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued an indictment for 13 Russian nationals affiliated with three Russian companies suspected of interfering in the 2016 election. The goal of their campaign was to sow discord in the U.S. political process.
The indicted Russians operated both pro- and anti-Trump social media accounts, and accounts were also used to support Democratic presidential candidate Sanders and Green Party candidate Stein.
Russians named in the indictment also set up a “Blacktivists” Instagram account that promoted the message: “Choose Peace and Vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it’s not a wasted vote.” They also used the Instagram account “Woke Blacks” to encourage people not to vote.
“A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia returned an indictment on Feb. 16, 2018, against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of violating U.S. criminal laws in order to interfere with U.S. elections and political processes,” special counsel spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement.
“The indictment charges all of the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft,” Carr said.
Mueller’s indictment, however, does not allege any of the Russian online activities in any way altered the outcome of the 2016 election.
FBI Director James Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with President Barack Obama two weeks before Trump’s inauguration and may have deliberately misled Congress about it, according to an email sent by National Security Advisor Susan Rice that GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham partially unclassified.
The meeting — which Comey never previously disclosed to Congress — occurred in the White House on Jan. 5, 2017. It included Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Rice deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and Comey. The topic of the meeting was potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
By failing to inform the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the meeting in his June 8, 2017, testimony, Comey may have deliberately and intentionally misled Congress about his interactions with the former president, especially a meeting so close to Trump entering the White House.
“President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office,” Rice wrote in an email written the day before the inauguration.
The National Archives gave Grassley and Graham “classified and unclassified emails” about the meeting.
Previously, Comey contended he only met with the Obama twice, once in 2015 and another “to say goodbye in late 2016,” according the former FBI director’s June 8, 2017, testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016,” Comey’s opening statement read.
Grassley and Graham stated on their websites they “were struck by the context and timing of this email, and sent a follow up letter to Ambassador Rice.”
“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation,” the two senators told Rice.
“In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book,’” they continued.
Rice is scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Feb. 22.
Grassley co-authored the letter to Rice as chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and Graham as chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.
I don’t think Obama spied on Trump, Hell i Know he did.
Spying On Trump: Americans overwhelmingly believe the Obama administration “improperly surveilled” Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and a majority say they would like to see a special prosecutor appointed to look into possible misconduct by the FBI and Department of Justice in spying on Trump, the latest IBD/TIPP poll shows.
One fact emerges from the poll of 900 people conducted from Jan. 25 to Feb. 2: The public doesn’t necessarily buy into the Democratic narrative that the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russia to tamper with the 2016 presidential election.The poll also suggests that many Americans think the roots of the allegations made against Trump extend beyond the two major party campaigns in the last presidential election and deep into the Obama era’s intelligence and law enforcement bureaucracies, and may involve active political bias on the part of supposedly nonpartisan employees of both the Justice Department and FBI.
In the IBD/TIPP survey of public opinion, we asked respondents “How closely are you following news stories about the role played by the FBI and the Department of Justice during the 2016 presidential election?” Of those who responded, 72% said they were following the story either “very closely” (39%) or “somewhat closely” (33%). Our responses were taken only from those who were following the story closely.Some 55% of those said it was “likely” that the Obama administration “improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.” There was an obvious partisan split among the responses, with 87% of Republicans and 55% of independents saying the improper spying took place, but only 31% of Democrats.
On the question of whether a special counsel was needed to “investigate whether the FBI and the Department of Justice improperly surveilled the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election,” 54% responded “yes,” and 44% “no.” Again, 74% of Republicans and 50% of independents wanted a special counsel appointed. But even 44% of Democrats thought it would be a good idea.
If so, a full-on investigation might be in the cards, not just of the so-called Steele dossier on Trump, which was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and by the Democratic National Committee, but of key members of the Obama administration, including former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former FBI Director James Comey.
We further asked Americans whether they thought “some senior career civil servants at the FBI and Department of Justice knowingly coordinated to frame the president with allegations of Russian collusion in order to cast a cloud over his presidency.”
There, the readings were not as definitively strong as with the other two questions. Of those queried, 35% said yes, Justice and FBI officials coordinated their actions to frame the president for colluding with the Russians, while 60% said no. This had by far the biggest partisan split of all, with 77% of Republicans saying yes, but just 11% of Democrats and 30% of independents agreeing.
Plainly, Americans are concerned by what they’ve read and heard of the surveillance of the Trump campaign and would like a full investigation.
The poll’s contents are troubling for those in the Democratic Party and the left-leaning media who had hoped to make a case with the American people that President Trump worked with Russian officials to win the 2016 election. The American people don’t seem to believe it.
More seriously, recent revelations suggest that the Obama administration FBI and Justice Department “basically conspired with the Democratic Party, the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign to exonerate her of violations of the Espionage Act and, in the course of trying to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president, to frame him for a nonexistent crime of collusion” with the Russians, as former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova told Fox News.
Using the Hillary-funded Steele dossier on Trump, which included false and outrageous claims that couldn’t be verified, the FBI and Justice Department convinced the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on sometime Trump volunteer Carter Page. In doing so, they were able to spy on much of the rest of the Trump campaign, as well. However, the initial application for the surveillance in October 2016 did not mention that the source for the surveillance request was a political campaign. If it had, it might well have been rejected.
The possibility that an administration used the federal apparatus to spy on a political foe reeks to high heaven. As House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes noted last week, “The American people understand the FBI should not go to secret courts, using information that was paid for by the Democrats to open up investigations with warrants of people of the other political party.” It’s the stuff of banana republics and totalitarian dictatorships.
With so many Americans having questions about the Russia collusion scandal, we won’t be surprised if it leads not just to an investigation of the events of late 2016, when much of the activity took place, but to the time before that — when the Obama administration, keen on protecting Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects, began to use the federal bureaucracy for what appears to be political purposes. For the record, that’s against the law.
The question going forward may well become: What did President Obama know about the dossier, and when did he know it?
James The Corrupt Comey and Peter S. Needs to be investigated NOW.
The FBI didn’t flag that some emails from Hillary Clinton’s private email server were marked classified with a “(C)” when they were sent — something that seemingly would have been one of the first and most obvious checks in an investigation, and one that FBI agents instantly recognized put the facts at odds with Clinton’s public statements.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General noticed it after the FBI missed it, texts between FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, reveal. “Holy cow,” Strzok wrote, “if the FBI missed this, what else was missed?”
“Remind me to tell you to flag for Andy [redacted] emails we (actually ICIG) found that have portion marks (C) on a couple of paras. DoJ was Very Concerned about this,” he wrote.
“Found on the 30k [emails] provided to State originally. No one noticed. It cuts against ‘I never sent or received anything marked classified,’” he wrote, referring to statements by Clinton downplaying the danger of her email practices.
Much of the more in-depth investigation considered whether Clinton and her aides emailed materials that were classified but were not marked as such, a harder determination to make.
The exchange occurred on June 12, 2016. FBI Director Jim Comey disclosed the findings of marked-classified emails to the House on July 7.
On May 10, 2016, Strzok had suggested that in his mind, the investigation was closer to being finished than to just getting started — suggesting that if it weren’t for the inspector general, it might have closed down and cleared her despite missing the most obvious first step.
“I cannot overstate to you the sense of urgency about wanting to logically and effectively conclude this investigation,” he said.
The ommission allowed Clinton to repeatedly and prominently state that she had “never received nor sent any material that was marked classified” on her private email server while secretary of state.
She even said so at major debates, and because the FBI hadn’t caught the letter (C), and therefore never stated its findings, PolitiFact rated the claim “Half True.”
When the FBI belatedly noticed and relayed the truth, the fact-checking site said “Now we know it’s just plain wrong.”
Clinton decided to print out 55,000 pages instead of providing the State Department with her emails in their digital format, a technique sometimes used by lawyers to make searches harder for their opponents. A CTRL-F search for “(C)” could have missed the markings because State had to re-digitize the forms with Optical Character Recognition, which can get tripped up on symbols, perhaps interpreting it as something like “[C]” or a copyright symbol. Nonetheless, the classified marker always appears at the beginning of a paragraph and is visually distinct.
The comments come from 500 pages of texts released Wednesday by Senate investigators.
Markings denoting the different levels of classified information include (C) for confidential, (S) for secret, and (TS) for top secret.
