Jonathon Turley put it this way: The Titanic had a great reason for starting it's voyage, the question is, what did they do when they began to encounter ice-bergs?
The threshold for STARTING an investigation is very low, as in an "articulable suspicion" or some such thing, the problem is what they did AFTER they started the investigation.
As already covered, Horowitz confirmed that they deliberately concealed that Page was an Operational Contact, for the CIA, and in that role, had contact with Russian Intelligence Officers, the very Corrupt FBI deliberately concealed that from the Court, and even used that contact as "evidence" that Page was a spy for the Russians! Brennan has confirmed that he REPEATEDLY and IN WRITING informed the FBI that Page worked for them gathering intelligence from Russian Intelligence FOR the US government, and in fact, the corrupt FBI on one of those documents added "IS NOT" right before the phrase "A Source" in order to reverse the meaning of the sentence in the email, and submitted that as "proof" that Carter Page WAS NOT a source for the CIA.
Had The Corrupt FBI told the truth, they would not have been authorized to spy on the Trump Campaign, which is why The Corrupt FBI LIED to The Court.
That covers The Corrupt FBI's first venal act, let's go to the 2nd of 17 outlined in The Horowitz Report:
Included a source characterization statement asserting that Steeleās prior reporting had been ācorroborated and used in criminal proceedings,ā which overstated the significance of Steeleās past reporting and was not approved by Steeleās FBI handling agent, as required by the Woods Procedures;
These are powerful spying authorities that WE THE PEOPLE grant to the Executive Branch to use to keep the President of The United States fully informed of overseas threats. Because of past corruption by the FBI and illegal spying, such as against MLK, we implemented The FISA act and The Woods Procedures.
The Steele Dossier did not have NAMED, Corroborated sources, the Corrupt FBI slid this past the Court by really hamming up what a fabulous source Steele was, even though he was NOT the source, he was the purveyor of unnamed, unverified, uncorroborated sources. The FISA Judges did not seem to catch this, hopefully at some point we will get the time stamps so we can see just how much time the Court actually spent studying the submission, we may be shocked to find out that they approved it much more quickly than the time necessary to properly study it.
The FBI lied about how "credible" Steele was and they did not get approval from Steele's handling agent as required by the Woods Procedures. But since they were lying to the Court, obviously the handling agent would not have approved their lie.
And once again, had The Corrupt FBI told the truth, the Court would have never given them approval to spy on a major Presidential Campaign, which is why The Fraudulent FBI lied to the Court.
All of this happened AFTER Carter Page had left the Campaign. Not during. None of this occurred while Page worked for Trump.
The searches of electronic equipment and the stored trove of electronic communications that the Federal Government maintains is searched both after the date the warrant is issued and BEFORE the date it was issued, without date limit. Between that and "the 3 hop rule", the warrant on Carter Page threw a blanket over the WHOLE campaign. You want to know more about the 3-hop rule?
In other words, now that the IG has completely debunked Trumpās lies that the FBI spied on his campaign, you come up with this 3-hop conspiracy theory in a desperate effort to keep your lies alive.
Just to be really clear here. Trump was investigated because of HIS OWN behaviours, inviting Russians to find Hillaryās emails and then relentlessly using the stolen emails to boost his campaign, and spinning lies of out the WikiLeaks releases.
Trump is now being impeached because having learned NOTHING after being investigated for two years over the Russian interference in 2016, he then invited both the Ukrainians and the Chinese to interfere in the 2020 election to help his campaign.
You should try reading for a change. That way you won't have to rely on regurgitating the bullshit the MSM feeds you.
I'm not the one regurtitating bullshit here. I'm waiting for any Republican to come forward and dispute the facts of this case, and so far, no one from the Trump side has come forward to say that what the witnessed testified to did not happen, and so far, no one has come forward and denied Trump subverted foreign policy to serve his own political ends.
In fact, this past weekend, in an interview with FOX News, Rudy Guliani admitted that he got Maria Yovanovich removed because she was in his way and would have "interfered" in the Biden investigation. He said that the "Deep State" kept her from being fired. Since Mike Pompeo is in charge of the State Department, making him the Ambassador's boss and the guy with the authority to fire Yovanovich, Rudy is suggesting that Mike Pompeo is part of the Deep State.
If Trump has done nothing wrong, why is he blocking testimony from his staffers who were involved: Mulvaney, Pompeo, and Bolton? Why has he produced no documents to exonerate himself? Why has be obstructed the investigation at every turn?
Democrats determined to impeach Trump as soon as they won the 2018 election.
The abuse-of-power allegation is confined to the Ukraine episode, a kerfuffle that emerged three months ago and was promptly magnified into a scandal. The claim of obstruction relates to the presidentās refusal to cooperate with the partisan impeachment inquiry, the outcome of which was foreordained even as Democrats refused for weeks to conduct a vote endorsing it ā for fear of antagonizing voters, which, of course, would not be a fear
if there were an obvious, egregious impeachable offense.
It was the lack of an identifiable crime that settled Democrats on āabuse of power,ā ignoring the Framersā caution against an ambiguous standard that would invite politicized impeachments based on trifling misconduct. Here, Democrats say the abuse involves Trumpās converting of presidential power to his āpersonal political benefitā.
Democrats maintain that Trump pushed for Ukrainian investigations of the Bidens and Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 election
solely for his personal political gain. The argument is flawed.
1. There Were (and Are) Legitimate Grounds for Investigations
Itās not like the president was asking Ukraine to make up corruption evidence out of whole cloth ā as
Schiff disingenuously claimed in his āparodyā performance of the TrumpāZelensky call. There is, for example, more reason to suspect Biden-family self-dealing in Ukraine (among other places) than there was to suspect a Trump cyberespionage conspiracy with Russia ā which our government zealously investigated for years, complete with surveillance warrants, confidential informants, and a special counsel probe.
Furthermore, Trumpās request for Kyivās help in investigating Democratic collusion with Ukraine in the 2016 campaign is not, as the impeachment article implies, limited to the debunked theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, hacked the DNC. There is also significant evidence of Ukrainian government officialsā working with Democrats to harm Trumpās campaign. The fact that this election interference was not as āsystematicā as Russiaās does not erase the fact that
it was meddling. Furthermore, even the discredited theory that Trump mentioned to Zelensky is best understood as Trumpās effort to dispel suspicions that he colluded with Russia in 2016, not an effort to get a leg up in the 2020 race.
2. Nothing Happened
The claims that Trump pressured Ukraine to interfere in our domestic politics and thus undermined our elections bump up against the stubborn fact that, in the end, nothing of consequence happened. Yes, Trump delayed defense aid and a coveted White House visit for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. Yet Kyiv got its aid and barely noticed any delay. Trump correctly points out that he did not pressure Zelensky in their
July 25 conversation, Zelensky says he never felt any pressure, and Trump gave Zelensky an audience ā albeit in New York City at the high-profile U.N. meeting, not yet at the White House.
Nothing Happened . . . and Biden Does Not Have Immunity
Trump dropped the matter: Ukraine got its aid, Zelensky got a POTUS meeting, and no investigations (or announcement thereof) were required. Plus, the Democratsā claim hinges on such fictions as the assertion that Trump was asking Ukraine to fabricate a case against Biden.
Running for president does not give Joe Biden immunity from inquiry into colorable suspicions of corruption, even if, as a collateral political consequence, the inquiry could help Trump and hurt Biden. If āhigh crimes and misdemeanorsā now includes factoring domestic politics into dubious foreign-policy decisions (see, e.g., Obamaās withdrawal of troops from Iraq), maybe, to save time, we should start impeaching presidents before they take office ā because every one of them will surely be impeachable.
2. Ukraine-gate Does Not Hold a Candle to Russia-gate
Even with the media cover they enjoy, the Democratsā audacity in lodging this claim of corrupting elections against Trump is remarkable. Each new Russia-gate revelation elucidates that the Obama administration, in collusion with foreign governments, used the executive branchās investigative powers in the service of the Democratsā 2016 campaign. The Ukraine misadventure is amateur hour compared with the Trump-Russia investigation ā to which Democrats reacted not by condemning interference in our elections but by demanding a special counsel to straitjacket Trumpās administration.
3. The Risible āContinuing Threatā Claim
Finally, Democrats claim President Trump poses a continuing threat to facilitate foreign interference in elections due to what they portray as a pattern begun in 2016. Thatās when candidate Trump purportedly encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton. The inanity of this suggestion has not stopped it from being investigated by the special-counsel staff that Robert Mueller stacked with partisan Democrats, nor from being repeated ad nauseam by Democrats, their media allies, and anti-Trump pundits.
It is a silly allegation, no matter who feigns serious concerns about it. Trump did not encourage Russia to hack former secretary of state Clinton. In a palpably tongue-in-cheek effort to call public attention to his opponentās biggest political vulnerability ā viz., her astounding use of a non-government, non-secure email system for her sensitive (often classified) State Department correspondence, and her purging of over 30,000 emails that she falsely claimed were wholly unrelated to government business ā Trump quipped that he hoped Russia found the missing Clinton emails because they would titillate the media.
Obviously, Trump was not calling for Russia to hack Clintonās emails. He couldnāt have been. As everyone knew, the FBI had Clintonās decommissioned servers, offline and under lock and key. Indeed, the Bureau strongly suspected that Clintonās emails had long ago been hacked by hostile foreign actors, potentially including Russian intelligence services. Trump was not sending a signal to his purported Russian confederates; he was campaigning. He was hammering Clinton over her recklessness and dishonesty, major election issues. Furthermore, the ācollusionā narrative held that Putin was the master and Trump the puppet; even in that fantasyland, Trump did not give orders to Russian intelligence; he took them.
Nevertheless, Democrats insist that the president (a) was pushing Russia to meddle; (b) has now pushed Ukraine to meddle; and (c) has more recently pushed China to meddle, also by investigating the Bidens. This last stems from still more presidential bloviating: When criticized for calling Kyiv to investigate Joe Biden, Trump (being Trump) doubled down by encouraging Beijing to do so, too. China does not take orders from Trump, and it plainly has no incentive to probe suspicions of corrupt ties between the Bidens and . . .
itself.
C. Endangering National Security
Just as frivolously, Democrats maintain that Trumpās āabuse of powerā includes endangering American national security. Here is the theory: Our noble (if pervasively corrupt) ally Ukraine is in a border war with Russia, a hostile foreign power, so we supply defense aid to Kyiv so they can fight Moscowās mercenaries over there, lest we have to fight the Russian army over here. Yes, Jerry Nadler would have us believe that Ukraine ā
its armed forces threaded with neo-Nazis and jihadists ā is the only thing preventing Putin from laying waste to everything from the Upper West Side down to Greenwich Village.
This, from the same Democrats who yawned when Russia annexed Crimea, and when Obama denied Kyiv the lethal defense aid Trump has provided. This, from the same Democrats who swooned when Obama mocked Mitt Romney for observing that Russia remains our most worrisome geopolitical foe. This, from the same Democrats who cheered when Obama struck a deal, including cash ransom payments, to give Iran, the worldās leading state sponsor of anti-American terrorism, an industrial-strength nuclear program that, in the absence of meaningful monitoring, could be converted to a nuclear-arms program in nothing flat.
It is perfectly reasonable to contend that arming Ukraine against Russian aggression is in American interests ā especially after prior U.S. administrations of both parties encouraged Ukraine to disarm on the loopy theory that post-Soviet Russia posed no threat. But the claim that Trumpās dealings with Ukraine have put our national security at risk is fatuous.
OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS
The second article of impeachment alleges that President Trump has obstructed Congress. That is, he has unilaterally decided what executive-branch information will be revealed to House investigators, directing relevant witnesses to withhold testimony and agencies to withhold documents.
Consequently, an episode at Mondayās House hearing is worth pondering.
Daniel Goldman, the Intelligence Committeeās top majority counsel and investigator, was being questioned by the Judiciary Committeeās ranking member, Doug Collins (R., Ga.). At issue was the majorityās decision, in composing its report, to issue telephone-records subpoenas and then publicize the resulting phone records of its political piƱatas ā Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, journalist John Solomon, and Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes ā as if they were engaged in a nefarious conspiracy. The phone-records exposition did not advance the case that Trump pressured Zelensky to meddle in U.S. elections; it was a smear job.
Collins wanted to know,
Who decided to do that? Who made the call not only to issue the subpoena but to publicize the relevant
names rather than refer to them anonymously, as would typically be done in intelligence reporting (e.g., Lawyer No. 1, Journalist No. 1, Congressman No. 1)?
Goldmanās response? Essentially: None of your business. He refused to answer the questions. That is, the Democratsā chief legal beagle told an elected member of the Peopleās House that he (the lawyer) had unilaterally determined he need not provide information if he had what he regarded as a worthy reason to protect the confidentiality of communications.
The story is worth rehearsing so you understand: The Democratsā position is that the president of the United States does not have the same right to decline House requests for information ā based on legally recognized executive privilege and attorney-client privilege ā as an unelected bureaucrat who obeisantly answered every question posed by his fellow Democrats.
Itās unreasonable for the House
to impeach under circumstances where the executive is willing to litigate privilege issues in court.
When Daniel Goldman told the committee he would not answer any questions that he did not wish to answer, no Democrat objected.
In impeachment, selective outrage is not a good look. One is almost tempted to call it an abuse of power.
Donald Trump Impeachment Articles: Trivial & Overblown | National Review
