June 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Dipping into the Department of Justice Inspector General report released yesterday, we are inundated with information and interesting story lines. One such story line involves Bill Clinton’s response to the uproar created over his tarmac meeting with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch the Monday before Hillary Clinton’s scheduled weekend interview with the FBI in the email “investigation,” as we should probably refer to it. The uproar led to FBI Director
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June 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Former FBI Director James Comey led the FBI into crisis, scandal and disgrace. Fired from the job by President Trump, he presented himself as a model of ethical leadership with a best-selling how-to book. The IG report released yesterday documents his failures, notes his duplicity, calls him out for his high handedness, and gives us his endless self-justification. In the tweet below responding to the IG report, we see that
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June 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
A year after suffering a grave wound in the crazed assassination spree attempted against the House GOP baseball team by Bernie Bro James Hodgkinson, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise improbably took the field to play this year’s game against House Democrats. The New York Times story on the attempted assassination summarized the damage done to Scalise: “His injuries are extensive, and he was in critical condition Wednesday night, MedStar Washington
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June 15, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll finds no limits in THE THIRD RAIL. She writes: For decades now, we have heard that the “third rail” in politics – untouchable without inviting electrocution – was the Social Security System. And now a different sort of Third Rail has been grabbed. The lovely daughter of the President of the United States, communing with her beautiful baby, no less, is called a “feckless c*nt” by another woman.
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June 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Eric Felten extracts the story of the FBI’s other Trump-hating lovers from the Department of Justice Inspector General report released earlier today. Felten’s account is devastating. Please check it out. I want only to add one point to Eric’s outstanding article. Forget the culture of leaks at the FBI (one of the report’s institutional criticisms of the bureau). There was a culture of lying shot through the top ranks of
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June 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Department of Justice IG report on the Clinton email investigation includes a chapter (Chapter Five) reviewing the investigative methods used by the FBI in the Clinton email investigation. At the end of Part X (“FBI Inspection Division Internal File Review of the Midyear Investigation”) of that chapter (“Inspection Division Internal File Review of the Midyear [i.e., Clinton email] Investigation,” the report quotes from the FBI September-October 2017 Inspection Division
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June 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Department of Justice Inspector General report on the FBI’s treatment of the Clinton email investigation was released today under the somnambulistic title A Review of Various Actions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice in Advance of the 2016 Election. It is posted online at the link. I have embedded it below via Scribd. I’m not saying it’s worth reading, but I want you to have
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June 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
We need help learning how to watch a movie just as we do learning how to read a newspaper or a book. In its short history the art of film presents a wealth of riches. It’s easy to enjoy a good movie, but appreciating the art requires an education. Titus Techera has arrived to lend us an eye in a series of movie podcasts that celebrated their first anniversary with
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June 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Catherine Herridge reports a story on Deputy Attorney Rod Rosenstein that dates back to a January 2018 meeting. Here is the dramatic opening: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to “subpoena” emails, phone records and other documents from lawmakers and staff on a Republican-led House committee during a tense meeting earlier this year, according to emails reviewed by Fox News documenting the encounter and reflecting what aides described as a
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June 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the adjacent post Paul cautiously evaluates President Trump’s possible role in toppling Republican incumbent Rep. Mark Sanford in yesterday’s Republican primary. Yesterday afternoon Trump took time out to put the hex on Sanford and endorse Katie Harrington in the tweet below. With 99 percent of the vote counted, Arrington prevailed with 50.5 percent of the vote; Sanford took 46.6 percent. The margin between them was 2,500 votes. Stephen Douglas
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June 12, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday, seeking more information about heavily-redacted documents. Senator Johnson revealed new information under some of the redacted text messages between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page and reiterated his May 11 inquiry concerning the FBI redactions of material pertinent to the committee’s oversight. The Weekly Standard’s Eric Felten recently gave us a look at “the
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June 12, 2018 — Scott Johnson
President Trump and the psycho formerly known as Little Rocket Man have concluded their summit conference in Singapore. Their time together included a working lunch resulting in a signed an anorexically skinny agreement with a provision committing North Korea to “complete denuclearization” (text here). President Trump followed up with a press conference (text here). My daughter Eliana followed the proceedings as the pool reporter on the scene. Eliana’s account for
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June 11, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I will try to omit continued professions of difficulty keeping up with the true scandals surrounding the fabricated scandal of Trump-Russia collusion, or of disbelief over the bureaucratic obstruction that amounts to defiance when oversight beckons. In the spirit of Ciceronian praeteritio and rhetorical disgust, I wonder how long the authorities at the Department of Justice can abuse the patience of the Senate with their continued resistance? We have grown
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June 11, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The White House has released the statement below about the Singapore summit meeting tomorrow (embedded below via the Twitter feed of AP White House correspondent Zeke Miller). The statement relates: “The discussions between the United States and North Korea are ongoing and have moved more quickly than expected.” The summit will convene and adjourn in Singapore in the course of the coming day. Something is happening here. White House: Statement
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June 11, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Secretary Pompeo gave a press briefing on the status of negotiations with North Korea early this morning (our time). The video is below. His remarks anticipated the summit meeting tomorrow. Pompeo devoted his prepared remarks (about five minutes) almost entirely to disputing a New York Times report that the United States lacks the technical expertise to verify North Korean denuclearization. I may be mistaken about this, but I think he’s
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June 10, 2018 — Scott Johnson
I am studying up to arrive at a considered judgment on the incipient trade war between the United States and Canada. I have to say that this is one war in which I thought NAFTA was the answer and pacifism otherwise made sense, but I may be mistaken. Some days you have to turn to Twitter for perspective and insight. I can only say that I hope Canadian patriotism is
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June 10, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Ken Vogel gives us the New York Times take on the superseding indictment of Paul Manafort alleging obstruction of justice. It comes in Vogel’s story on the new charges against Manafort and his previously unnamed Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik. The previously pending charges against Manafort of course had nothing to do with the synthetic collusion hyseteria over the 2016 election. Neither does the alleged obstruction of justice in connection
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