2016 Presidential Election
August 15, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Salon has a good column summarizing the argument presented by Patrick Lawrence in the Nation asserting that the alleged Russian hack of the DNC email was rather an inside job. It nicely complements our previous installments in this series. Author Danielle Ryan quotes the official DNC response to Lawrence’s Nation article provided to the Nation after publication and now appended to the article: U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded the Russian
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August 15, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The latest Washington Post collusion story is different from the others. The story is “Trump campaign emails show aide’s repeated efforts to set up Russia meetings.” Last night Paul Mirengoff summarized and and deconstructed the story here. If you’ve been following the collusion hysteria, you won’t want to miss this story. The story comes in the accustomed form — under the byline of numerous Post heavy hitters (Tom Hamburger, Carol
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August 15, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Last week I noted Patrick Lawrence’s article on the the purported hack of the DNC email by the Russians in the run-up to last year’s election. Lawrence reported on the analysis presented by former intelligence officials who assert it was something else entirely. Lawrence’s article was posted under the heading “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” Lawrence’s article includes relevant links. The analysis has been
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August 14, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
The Washington Post reports that in 2016, a new member of the Trump foreign policy advisory committee sent emails to the Trump campaign urging that the candidate meet with top Russian leaders including Putin, but that the campaign repeatedly rejected this suggestion. The Post’s report is based on emails that it says were “read to The Post by a person with access to them.” The foreign policy adviser in question
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August 11, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Yesterday the Nation posted Patrick Lawrence’s article on the the purported hack of the DNC email by the Russians in the run-up to last year’s election. Lawrence reports the analysis by former intelligence officials who assert it was something else entirely. Lawrence’s article was posted under the heading “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” The “report” comes in form of open letters to the president
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August 1, 2017 — Scott Johnson
President Trump thinks he can talk his way out of any situation or tight spot. He is not unique in thinking truth no obstacle. He seems to have thought he could help Donald Trump, Jr. talk his way out of the embarrassing New York Times story on the June 16 meeting of Trump Jr. et al. last year with Natalia V. et al. in search of incriminating information on Hillary
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August 1, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Edward Jay Epstein is the author of several books on Soviet/Russian intelligence-related matters including Legend: The Secret World of Lee Harvey Oswald, Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA, Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer and, most recently, How America Lost Its Secrets: Edward Snowden, the Man and the Theft. In the July 1974 Commentary essay “Did the press uncover Watergate?” Ed correctly deduced the identity
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July 30, 2017 — John Hinderaker
In the last year, there have been a number of extraordinary events in our political life, some of them plainly involving illegal conduct. And yet only one event, or set of events, is under investigation: possible collusion between Russian interests and the Trump campaign. Oddly, this is not one of the subjects where there is any evidence of illegality, and it would therefore seem to be a relatively low priority
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July 29, 2017 — Scott Johnson
The so-called Trump Dossier appears to be something like the Rosetta Stone that will allow us to decipher the true story underlying the Trump/Russia “collusion” hysteria. The hysteria has been driven by the Democrats and their media adjunct to explain the shocking outcome of the 2016 election. Ishmael Jones argued the fraudulence of the Trump Dossier here on Power Line yesterday. The FBI apparently thought the Trump Dossier was the
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July 28, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Ishmael Jones writes to comment on the infamous Trump “dossier.” It is one of the keys to the “collusion” hysteria and related “fake news” with which we have been inundated since the 2016 election. Mr. Jones is the pseudonymous former CIA officer and author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA’s Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture. He notes that his comments here are based upon his experience in writing “lots of intelligence
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July 25, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
President Trump’s latest attack on Jeff Sessions is perhaps his most stupid. Here is what Trump told the Wall Street Journal: When they say he endorsed me, I went to Alabama. I had 40,000 people. He was a senator from Alabama. I won the state by a lot, massive numbers. A lot of the states I won by massive numbers. But he was a senator, he looks at 40,000 people
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July 21, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Ammo Grrrll has been inspired by A VERY MINOR CELEBRITY’S AUCTION! She writes: I recently read a first-person account by a woman who had been a “proud lesbian” until her partner up and decided she was actually a man. This woman expected to be a Professional Gay Woman for life with all the dual rights and privileges to which she was entitled, and suddenly she finds herself married to a
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July 17, 2017 — Paul Mirengoff
Jake Sullivan was a top adviser to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Eight months after the election, he still isn’t over Clinton’s defeat. That’s understandable given the closeness of the election, its surprising outcome, and Sullivan’s view of the man who won it. But unlike many Clintonistas, and the candidate herself, Sullivan has managed to move beyond blaming James Comey and the Russians. According to the Washington Post’s Greg Jaffe, Sullivan is
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July 17, 2017 — Scott Johnson
In her response to my comments on her recent Trump/Russia column, Mona Charen writes: “The Wall Street Journal story about a Republican operative seeking Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails through Russia and claiming that he was working with Mike Flynn is possibly significant.” Anything is possible, but it is highly unlikely. Mona links to Shane Harris’s June 29 Wall Street Journal story on which I commented here. Andrew McCarthy blew off
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July 16, 2017 — Scott Johnson
My friend Mona Charen has sent me the following response to my nearby post “A witch hunt?” In my post I comment on her recent column “16 Things You Must Believe to Buy the ‘Witch Hunt’ Russia Narrative.” I want to give Mona the last word in this exchange and thank her for her response. Mona writes: Before plunging into your objections, Scott, I want to thank you for being
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July 16, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Mona Charen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, a syndicated columnist and author of two best-selling books that I have found permanently relevant, Do-Gooders and Useful Idiots. She is also a friend whom I greatly admire for her honesty and integrity. Both NRO and Jewish World Review carry Mona’s column. In her most recent column, Mona set forth “16 Things You Must Believe
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July 15, 2017 — Scott Johnson
Did Putin prefer Trump in the presidential election of 2016? According to the intelligence report dated January 6, 2017, Putin not only preferred Trump to Clinton. He mounted a so-called influence campaign to put him over. The report is posted online here. Issued under the auspices of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the report is based on the intelligence and assessments of the CIA, the FBI and
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