I’ve been on the move all day and haven’t had a chance to dip into the IG report on the FBI’s behavior during the 2016 election campaign that was released today, but I did catch up with Hillary Clinton’s response. It is three words long. Here it is: It’s still a total mystery why she lost the election. »
Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller found this gem in the Inspector General’s report released today. An FBI attorney who worked on Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation until February of this year sent a message to a colleague exclaiming, “Viva le [sic] Resistance.” The lawyer wrote these words in response to another FBI attorney who asked him whether he was rethinking his commitment to the Trump administration (I take this to »
Ben Rhodes couldn’t. . .I mean. . .process. . .I mean. . .just couldn’t. . .process Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. Fortunately, Barack Obama was available to process it for him. When you have the arc of history down cold, processing setbacks, even really bad ones, isn’t that hard. Matthew Continetti writes a devastating piece on Barack Obama’s processing, as described in Rhodes’ new book. To assist Rhodes, Obama »
When it comes to primary documents like the 20-page letter dated January 29, 2018 from former Trump lawyer John Dowd and the preceding 11-page memo dated June 23, 2017, both resisting an interview of the president by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, my preference is to give readers the originals via Scribd. Having obtained their own copies, the New York Times is forcing us to consult the originals here along with »
Larry O’Connor now writes for the Washington Times. He has been following the comments of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on the FBI counterintelligence investigation that swept up the Trump campaign. Clapper is out promoting his book Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence. Larry found “Clapper’s claptrap wearing thin” in response to a question posed by CNN’s unabashed Dana Bash. Bash asked Clapper why »
In my notes on the HBO documentary The Final Year — here (part 1) and here (part 2) — I lacked film clips of either of the films two highlights. The reaction of Obama fabulist Ben Rhodes accounts for one highlight. Video of the clip is in the tweet below. David Burge (Iowahawk) comments that “it takes a heart of stone not to laugh your ass off.” This video of »
In an interview on CBS, Rep. Trey Gowdy poured cold water on claims that the FBI behaved improperly towards the Trump campaign in 2016. Gowdy, who attended a classified briefing last week about the use of an FBI informant to gather information from individuals in the Trump campaign, said: I think the FBI, if they were at the table this morning, they would tell you that Russia was the target »
Former CIA Director Michael Hayden can’t stand President Trump. Lots of good people can’t. But Hayden is intellectually honest enough to reject James Clapper’s claim that there’s “no doubt” Russian meddling swung the election in favor of Trump. Hayden says it’s “unknowable” whether the Russians influenced the election to that extent. He also criticized Clapper for making his claim. “We should stop talking about it,” Hayden admonished. “Donald Trump is »
I will venture a prediction: by the end of President Trump’s first term, it will be obvious that Hillary Clinton’s health would not have permitted her to serve effectively as president, had she won the 2016 election. Hillary falls down and faints. She needs help going up and down stairs. There are persistent rumors that she drinks too much. During the campaign, there were many days when Hillary was AWOL. »
In his new book, James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence, says “of course” Russian activity swung the election to Donald Trump. The left is treating this speculation, almost certainly driven by animus towards President Trump, as immensely important. For example, Rachel Maddow said, ahead of her interview with Clapper: “The immediate past director of national intelligence, who was director of national intelligence during the Russian attack on the »
I am not comfortable with the frequent effusions of “weird and outrageous things” (I’m quoting Victor Davis Hanson) that President Trump says. His words go well outside the box of conventional presidential behavior. It is a quality that probably eased his transition from business to politics. For more on the implicit question of character, I yield to Charles Kesler’s invaluable essay “Thinking about Trump.” For a man who seems habitually »
I’ve heard my share of commencement speeches both live and via C-SPAN. Typically, speakers offer words of encouragement and advice to graduates. Rags to riches stories aren’t commonly told these days, but commencement speakers often recount tales of achievement against the odds, sometimes by the speaker, sometimes not. I once heard a commencement speech devoted to heaping praise on the college president (Jim Kim of Dartmouth). That was an outlier, »
Glenn Greenwald, a leftist, offers his perspective on the man the FBI selected to spy on the Trump campaign and on the brouhaha surrounding his “outing.” First, Greenwald says that this man, now a professor, was responsible for spying on the Carter administration on behalf of Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign in 1980. He did this, by running a scheme whereby CIA operatives passed classified information about Carter’s foreign policy to »
An election is going on in Venezuela. In a country where there are no more pets and children join gangs to fight over dumpster refuse, while their parents battle for dead rats to eat for dinner, you would expect the incumbent party to lose a free election. But Nicolas Maduro will no doubt be re-elected, in part because the polls are being boycotted by most of his opponents. So Venezuela’s »
Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent, argues that the FBI didn’t spy on the Trump campaign (or use an informant, as she delicately puts it) to go after Donald Trump. Rather, it did so to protect him. Rangappa argues that the FBI should have investigated alleged Russian infiltration of the Trump campaign aggressively and directly, given the gravity of this threat. However, she continues, it elected to investigate quietly through »
The FBI and its friends in the mainstream media want to make the Bureau’s spying on the Trump campaign seem as dry, innocuous, and non-cloak-and-dagger as possible under the circumstances. An elderly professor contacted three Trump advisers — Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Sam Clovis. He met with Page at least several times and maintained an email correspondence with him. He met with Clovis once for coffee. He met several »
Why was the Watergate break-in more than just the “second rate” burglary Richard Nixon tried to pass it off as? Because it was directed by the president’s team at the Democratic National Committee. Thus, it was an offense against our two party system and our democracy. One political party is not supposed to steal information from the other party, and certainly not in the midst of a presidential campaign. It »
“Arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.” Winston Churchill
“Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof.” Inscription on the Liberty Bell
