2016 Presidential Election
January 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
House sources leaked the testimony of Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr to Congress last year. Ohr himself was a conduit for the Steele Dossier and Russian meddling in the presidential election of 2016 if the dossier is taken at face value, as the FBI purported to take it. John Solomon broke the story of Ohr’s testimony here. Sara Carter had more here. Kim Strassel devoted her weekly Wall Street
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January 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared on CNN for a little roughhousing with Chris Cuomo yesterday. All over the news is Giuliani’s failure to deny that some on the Trump presidential campaign may have “colluded” with the friends of Vladimir Putin. I have posted Cuomo’s tweet with the video excerpt below. Cuomo to the contrary notwithstanding, I believe that Trump himself has acknowledged the possibility while denying that he himself committed
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January 13, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The Mueller madness has intensified to such an extent this past week that I was unable to keep up. We covered the story of Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s passing on polling data to his former Ukrainian/Russian associate Konstantin Kiliminik in the January 9 edition of this series. In that post I drew on the Wall Street Journal and AP stories while neglecting this New York Times story (accessible here
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January 9, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Attorneys for Paul Manafort inadvertently disclosed on Tuesday that the former Trump campaign chairman gave 2016 presidential polling data to a Kiev associate U.S. officials have linked to Russian intelligence and may have discussed a Ukraine peace plan with him. The disclosures surfaced in a filing made public Tuesday in which the attorneys disputed special counsel Robert Mueller’s allegation that their client lied to investigators about his contacts with the
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January 3, 2019 — Scott Johnson
In this series we have sought to recall what we have learned so far in the matter of the greatest scandal in our history — the one underlying the presidential election of 2016, from the Clinton campaign to the highest reaches of the Obama administration. Victor Davis Hanson provides a concise summary in the course of his ruminations on Romney: [F]or the first time in modern memory, during the 2016
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January 1, 2019 — Scott Johnson
As we kick off the new year with our felicitations to readers, I want to recommend some reading, mostly from recent Picks. In case you missed one or the other the first time around, consider this: • Lee Smith, “How should we read the American press? In Arabic” (Tablet). • David Albright, Olli Heinonen, Frank Pabian & Andrew Stricker, “Anatomy of Iran’s Deception and How Iran Benefited” (Foundation for Defense
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December 27, 2018 — Paul Mirengoff
Leftist news outlets are buzzing with excitement over a report by McClatchy suggesting that Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign. The infamous anti-Trump dossier, prepared by Christopher Steele and paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, claimed that Cohen made such a visit, during which he allegedly met with Kremlin insiders. However, Cohen denied being in Prague and no evidence surfaced to contradict him. But now, McClatchy says
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December 24, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In this series we have sought to recall what we have learned so far in the matter of the greatest scandal in our history — the one underlying the presidential election of 2016, from the Clinton campaign to the highest reaches of the Obama administration. UC Berkeley School of Law Heller Professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo wrote at FOX News over the weekend: A transcript [of
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December 23, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Supplementing Kim Strassel’s Wall Street Journal column that I highlighted on Friday, Jonathan Turley reviews key moments in the greatest scandal in American political history in the Hill column “The Steele Dossier and the perils of political insurance policies.” As I did in the post on Strassel’s column, I want to offer an excerpt for the record (with Turley’s many links omitted; read the whole thing): Throughout the campaign, and
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December 16, 2018 — Scott Johnson
On Friday night the FBI released a heavily redacted two-page summary that former FBI Director James Comey used to brief then President-elect Donald Trump in January 2017 regarding the so-called Steele Dossier on Trump’s ties to Russia. I have embedded the document below via Scribd. Politico procured the document released Friday night in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. Politico’s Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney report on the document here.
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December 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Special Counsel has filed his reply memo in the matter of the sentencing of Michael Flynn in compliance with Judge Sullivan’s order. I have embedded the memo and attachments as redacted below. Please take the following comments as provisional in nature and check my own comments against the document itself. Reading these materials quickly this afternoon, I observe that the only document contemporaneous with the interview is one page
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December 14, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General conducted an investigation of the gap in text messages during the period December 15, 2016, through May 17, 2017, from the cell phones assigned to famous FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The Office of Inspector General Cyber Investigations Office was asked to attempt recovery of these missing text messages for the period in issue. The Inspector General has just
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December 13, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Reading the transcript of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees last week, I formed the strong impression that Comey falls somewhat short of the straight shooter image by which he presents himself. He has learned how to play a G-man on television. The reality, however, departs from the image. I posted the transcript of Comey’s testimony last week in “Comey doesn’t know and
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December 9, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Andrew McCarthy has a deep reading of the 40-page sentencing memo filed filed by New York prosecutors in the campaign finance case against Michael Cohen. Reading the memo with a trained eye, Andy explains “Why Trump is likely to be indicted by Manhattan US Attorney.” I posted the memo and summarized it in Cohen can and cant (1)” Andy goes much further than I was able to in making out
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December 8, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Former FBI Director James Comey lies at the heart of the biggest scandal in American political history. He appeared before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees yesterday to testify about it. FOX News reports on his testimony here. The committees released the partially redacted transcript this afternoon; I have posted it below. Comey seems to have picked up a trick or two from the kind of people he used to
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December 8, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The Special Counsel referred his investigation of Michael Cohen in part to the Southern District of New York. The Special Counsel entered into a plea agreement with Cohen to one count of false statements to Congress. Both the Special Counsel and the US Attorney for the Southern District filed sentencing memos late yesterday afternoon. I discuss the 38-page sentencing memo filed by the Southern District prosecutors in the adjacent post.
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December 5, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In my contrarian “Notes on the Cohen plea,” I made these points among others: • Thanks to the work of Rep. Devin Nunes and his Republican colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee, we know of actual collusion by a presidential campaign with organs of Russian intelligence. I refer to the Clinton campaign’s work with the friends of Vladimir Putin via the Perkins Coie, Glenn Simpson/Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele. It’s
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