PAPANDOPOULOUS STORY A RED HERRING

NYT STORY AN ATTEMPT TO REWRITE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN DOSSIER

On December 29, 2017 when everyone was still recovering from the Christmas rush, the NYT put out a piece that smells (and reads) like a red herring.  Yes it seems suspiciously well designed to draw the reading public away from the actua facts—- that the FBI used the Russian Dossier (the Steele dodgy document rife wth fake dirt on Trump) to initiate the now infamous “investigation” into possible “collusion” into the Trump campaign and its relationship with Russia.

The leadership of the FBI has been reluctant (recalcitrant)  in its response to Congessional inquiry concerning the  Russian Dossier and how it was used to initiate an investigation into the campaign of the Republican candidate.  All evidence seems to point to the fact that indeed it.was dressed up to be presented to the FISA court as “evidence” to support domestic spying on the legitimate presidential campaign of an American citizen.  If proved true, many top FBI. heads would roll in front of 935 Pennsylvania Avenue in DC.  Trump would be vindicated and the “Holy Grail” of the left  of “Russian COLUSION” would be dead and buried. The editors of the Times, who have become a partner in the political club known as the Democrat Party, prefer to protect the perfidious elites in the top floors of the FBI offices.  The “Russian Dossier” shorty does fit into the scenario they would like to advance.  This paper is nn longer the great “gray lady” of the past, interested only in presenting the well documented facts. They have clearly left legitimate journalism to become political propagandists.

So to the Times’  Papandopoulous story.  According to the NYT George Papandopoulous, an American citizen, a novice  (age 28) in every sense of the word, had been working in the oil industry in London when he was tapped to serve in the Ben Carson campaign as a “foreign policy” expert.  (Perhaps his fragmentaryknowledge of geography and his ethnic ties to Greek family or friends of Reince Priebus had a hand in his acceptance as an “expert”  with the Carson campaign)   Papandopoulous appears from all accounts  eager to please his superiors and hopeful of a position in a Republican administration.  And why not?  But his eagerness, lack of expertise and brashness may have been his undoing.

When the Carson campaign collapsed he apparently continued to press his erstwhile political contacts for a position in the surging Trump campaign.  Desperate for manpower, the Trumpistas took him on.  He seems by accounts of this activities very eager to please his superiors.  Too eager.   He advanced some ideas for contacts with the Russians which were flatly turned down by more sober, practical and wiser campaign officials.   Left on his own recognizance, he returned to Europe where he seems to have made himserlf the target for every spy, huckster and lobbyist on the Continet.  During a liquor-laced conversation with the Austrailian Ambassador to the UK at an upscale London pub, he brashly claimed to know of a trove of emails held by the Russians which would expose the chicanery of the Clinton campaign.  This drunken braggadocio is the basis of the NYT story.  The piece states that Papandopoulous’ claim was “according to anonymous sources” of the NYT (it is always “anonymous sources”) was believed and then duly transmitted by the Australian official to the FBI.

Thus according to this big revelation of the NYT,  instead of the Steele dossier which the FBI had at a much earlier date (as well as the fact that they had knowledge and confidence in Steels as a spy) this Papandopoulous blather was the primary source for the FISA court approval to initiate domestic spying on Trump.  It was not the Dossier!

If this latter story seems believable to you please see my adverticement for the sale of a lovely stone and brick antique bridge which crosses the East River connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan.

CRIMINALITY IN FBI ? TRUMP VICTIM NOT PERP

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED FROM OUR 2016  ELECTION

WHAT IRONY, WHAT HYPOCRISY! WHAT A DISGRACE!!

The Mueller investigation and other revelations by the Inspector General have revealed the fact that President Trump is the VICTIM of conspiracy and collusion not a participant in conspiracy or collusion to affect the election.  

In this last year powerful agencies of our government  have been investigating an innocent victim.  It may be (imperfectly) characterized this way.  Imagine a case where an innocent citizen is mugged on a dark side street.  A patrolman  posted near-by sees the attack  and approaches the crime scene where (for some unknown reason) he brushes  past the burly perpetrator (urging him to “take off”) and then proceeds to drag the bloodied victim into the precinct.  There he   charges the victim of the attack with loitering and impeding pedestrian traffic.   

   In 2017 we learned that the threat to our Democracy did  NOT arise overseas. The collusion and conspiracy was not Russian in origin,  but from right here at home in the Washington Swamp.  It was the DC “Deep State”, the top echelons of the  FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department which acted to hide and submerge the probably felonious activities of the Clinton camp from shattering revelations and possible criminal indictment.   Then in an act of monstrous disregard for the basic concepts of democracy and our Constitution these activists turned  their massive police powers and investigative machinery against Mr, Trump, an American citizen.  These elites, apparently ignorant ot the seminal works of John Locke (Two Treatieses on Government 1668)  decided that they —not the citizenry—had the right to decide who governed this nation.  They ignored the 2016 election and  the votes of 63 million citizens as well as the fact that the Republican candidate won the popular vote in 30 out of 50 states.  Yet these establishment types  decided that the 2016 legitimate “choice of the people” of this nation had no right to enter the White House, and they conspired to achieve that end.  

Their collusion and conspiracy may have in large part been the result of the horribly misleading  polling during the campaign which continued right up to the election.  The polls all pointed to a massive win by the Clinton camp.  Trump was given only a 30% chance to win in the last days just before the election.  Those numbers practically assured a Clinton win.   

As a result of these misperceptions, those in the FBI, CIA, and Justice were highly confident that any shenanigans in favor of the Democrat candidate would never be investigated.  Ms. Clinton would win, and the cabal of pro-Clinton activist in the government agencies would expect to profit from their perfidy.  They expected a pat on the back and perhaps a substantial pay raise and promotion.  The actual result of the election—Trump’s win—was an earth-shattering shock.  With Trump as the victor sitting in the White House, their felonious collusion, and perfidy would likely be revealed and punished.   The outcome of the election was thus a powerful motivation to to weaken, undermine and unseat the newly elected Mr. Trump.    

We now know that the FBI used the now infamous Steele Document, a scurrilous and unsubstantiated political “dirt document” paid for by the Clinton campaign and fed to the FBI as the basis of their application to the FISA court to spy on the Trump campaign prior to and just after the election.  The fact that our own powerful domestic spy and intelligence agency actually turned its massive powers on a domestic opposition political candidate (Trump) and then after the election it continued to undermine the legitimacy of the newly elected President—in an attempt to abrogate  the choice of the 63 million people who voted for Trump.  We now know that they used the Steele  document as the unconstitutional basis for illegal domestic surveillance.  This revelation is the greatest scandal the FBI has every been charged with in its long and illustrious history.  

NIKI HALEY—TRUMP’S COLIN POWELL?

NIKI HALEY LIES LIKE COLIN POWELL—REMEMBER THE ANTHRAX VIAL!

Nicki Haley our UN ambassador has been rattling sabers at Iran.  Her accusations, that Iran is providing missiles for the Yemen Houthi rebels is laughable ——if it were not so dangerous. 

Mr Trump was elected on the basis of his promise of ‘America First’...No dumb foreign wars of choice.  Send no troops to die on foreign shires unless our own security is threatened!   Haley did not get that message—apparently so engaged in her own self-aggrandizement and roiling political ambitions to win her spurs as a war hawk. 

Haley seems to be attempting to replay the George Bush pre-Iraq war script of lies.  Her “missile” display at the UN being reminiscent of the phony vial of “anthrax” powder Colin Powell displayed at the UN so many years ago.  That was a  blatant lie.  Iraq had no anthrax or chemical weapons.  Niki Haley is following in Powell’s unfortunate and career-crushing footsteps. 

First.  There is no credible evidence that the twisted wreckage Haley hawked before the public had its origin in Iran.  Trump is eager to dump the Iranian Nuclear Deal-Obama did it. So it must be bad!  But the Iran Deal was one of the best things Obama did.  It averted war and kept Iran in the non-nuclear column.  Today, there is no credible  evidence that Iran is directing or responsible for these Houthi attacks. Iran is only one of the many nations which rightly support the rights of the Houthi minority to defend themselves.  

Second.  The Houthi rebels are the victims of a cruel and inhuman Saudi Arabian embargo which has denied food, medicines, and fuel from reaching the embattled civilian population in Yemen —one of the poorest nations in the world.   The brutal and relentless Saudi air attacks, categorized as war crimes, have destroyed  hospitals, schools, mosques and population centers.  Saudi Arabia has been censured by the world press and at the UN for the brutality of its air war in Yemen which has killed thousands of Yemeni civilians...including women and children.  The Yemenis have a right as all nations do to defend themselves from aggression.

Third.  Finally anyone who is knowledgeable about this conflict is fully aware that the US Air Force is aiding the Saudi regime in its inhuman, illegal, and brutal efforts to subdue this justified  insurgency. US intelligence agencies have and continue to provide air intelligence on targeting Yemeni cities.  The US continues its misguided efforts on the part of the Saudi air campaign.  US planes refuel Saudi bombers in the air over Yemen so they can return again and again to muderous attacks on ground targets.  These efforts make us here in the USA partly responsible for the more than 10,000 Houthi civilian deaths!  

The world outside of the Fox News Channel reception area are fully aware of all of these facts.  They all look askance at the hypocrisy of a UN Ambassador who lies like Colin Powell and anation which is culpable in the deaths of so many—-claiming with little to support their assertions—-that the Iranians did it! 

The Houthis could probably provide not a few missile parts —like Niki Haley—but mountains of  exploded armament debris with USA markings which have rained down on Yemeni civilians and villages.  

Niki lies like Colin Powelll.  Realizing that, let us not make the same mistakes over and over again

MOB IN SENATE LYNCH FRANKEN

FRANKEN VICTIM OF MOB RULE

SCREWED BY GILLIBRAND——HE SHOULD NOT RETIRE FROM SENATE

 In 1995 Emmett Till, a black youngster from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi, was brutally killed by a white mob for “wolf whistling” at a white woman. Till was a  tragic victim of mob rule too!  Gillibrand led the Senate mob.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has been the most invisible Senator from New York in my long history as a resident in this state. Ask any citizen upstate or down who is the “other” (non-Schumer) NY Senator? They will not know.

 Gillibrand is the classic “seat warmer” Senator.. Since Ms Gillibrand was tagged by Gov Patterson to fill out Hillary Clinton’s term when that “stalwart” was handed the job of Secretary of Defense as the booby prize for losing to Obama. Since Patterson didn’t really know who she was either, he acquiesced and gave in to Clinton’s urgings to seat Gillibrand, a favorite of the former Senator. Gillibrand was reelected to her own term in 2012 and will be up for reelection in 2018, So after all these years of doing nothing—her six years are coming up, and to keep warming the junior seat from NY, she must build name recognition. In desperate survival mode, she has belatedly taken up “women’s rights issues” after long and blatantly ignoring the peccadillos of Bill Clinton, his many victims and her mentor’s sliming of her husband’s victims. So at the drop of a pin the wraith-like “other” Senator, the non-Schumer “seat warmer” has self-interestedly “discovered”an issue in the post Harvey Weinstein age of “Me Too” female fanaticism. A few weeks back, she made the Democrats firmament tremble with the statement that “Bill Clinton should have resigned “when he embarrassed the nation with the Lewinsky scandal. Eyebrows were raised in surprise and many queried, “Who is she?” After all these years of silence and mum hypocrisy she finally threw her politically-neutered (and useless to her) Clinton benefactor under the bus. Very soon afterward, she followed that statement with an attack on her Democrat colleague Senator Al Franken of Wisconsin. Franken was faced with accusations of “sexual misconduct: hugging, and groping and of taking a non-funny picture of a sleeping female colleague (most took place long prior to his Senatorial career). The allegations were enough for Gillibrand to orchestrate a cabal of other frenzied female (and a few male Senators) to urge Franken to resign. It amazed many in New York that these other Senators even knew who she was.


Groups who believe that their actions will have no consequences too often descended into vigilantism and in the Democrat side of the Senate..a mob psychology took hold. Like lemmings running for a cliff, Democrat Senators swarmed toward Franken and as they ran they uncoiled the proverbial hanging rope to coldly lynch one of their own. The Gillibrand-led cabal demanded Franken resign his Senate seat...not so long ago awarded to him by more than a million Wisconsinites. No debate, No “due process”. No hearings. No assumption of innocence. Just the rule of a fanatic mob. A mob too reminiscent of tragic southern vigilanteism which resulted in black lynchings (like Emmett Till) in the south of the early 20th Century. One expected that the great debating society of our nation—the US Senate— would be the last place where the “golden thread” of jurisprudence—the presumption of innocence—-would be trod on in the hoof-pocked mud under a lynching tree. Gillibrand and the lemming Democrat Senators did not know or ignored the ancient and elementary premise of western jurisprudence:  the burden of proof is always on the one who accuses not the one who denies guilt.

 Let us hope that Senator Franken pauses and gives his colleagues one more chance to come to their senses.

ASSISTANT AG DUMBENSTEIN IS GRILLED BY GOP

ASSISTANT AG DUMBENSTEIN  IS GRILLED BY  GOP ON INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

WE ALL LEARN THAT THE DEEP STATE IS THE DANGER TO OUR DEMOCRACY

We didn't learn much from Assistant Attorney Rosenstein’s answers to probing questions by the members of the GOP Intelligence oversight committee. (Kudos to Representatives Jordan and Gowdy who stood out as real protectors of the people’s rights)   The Democrats just used their time to advance their irrational hatred for President Trump.  Rosenstein sadly played dumb all morning. When he was under pressure his answers were prefaced with a noticeable body spasm and a disconcerting : nasal “sniff, sniff” followed by his repeated assurances that: the investigators “have my confidence, or .they ARE NOT BIASED.  Other questions were parried with” my inability to discuss “that issue which is under investigation”, I don’t know, or “I have great confidence in his (her, their) ability to be.fair and objective.”  

But we DID LEARN A GREAT DEAL about how shockingly corrupt the whole system is. 

We learned that a “highly rated” “intelligence agent” by the name of Peter Strzok had so much time on his hands while at the FBI that he was able to write thousands and thousands of emails to his mistress (another employee of the government) in which he exposes his blatant bias against one political candidate while using the government’s email service (taxpayer provided) and on the government’s time.  His bias and his waste on the nation’s time and service was punished six months ago, when he was demoted —-but not outright fired!  Then the Special Prosecutor Mueller hid this fact from the public until just recently when it was exposed by the Inspector General.  Other that this guys perfidy, stupidity and hubris Strzok’s emails reveal that there appears to have been collusion among several members of this cabal of Trump haters and “Andy” (most likely the present Assistant Director of the FBI who has issues too!) to “set up an “insurance policy” so as to nullify the possibility of Mr. Trump’s election.  Now that sounds like treason to me!

The earth shattering  discovery was that there was COLLUSION!  

BUT NOT FROM THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN!

The collusion was by elements in the FBI and the Justice Department who hubristically thought that they had the right, and knew better than the entire American electorate...as to who should be President of the USA!  These government employees somehow thought that they were to DECIDE HOW AND BY WHOM WE WERE TO BE GOVERNED!  They ignorantly and pridefully ignored the one main principle that makes us different from a tin pot dictatorship....THAT THE PEOPLE DECIDE WHO GOVERNS THEM!   Not the past president, government employees or officials—-the power rests with the people who go to the ballot box...no where else.  Where did these people go to school in Communist China, Hong Kong, Soviet Russia? 

The collusion that appears to have been uncovered (with many questions still remaining) is that elements within the FBI and the Justice Department COLLUDED WITH THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN AND THE DNC in an attempt to undermine the election of Donald Trump.  After the election in which Mr, Trump was duly elected they  attempted a covert coup d’etat to unseat, undermine or impeach the candidate that was the valid choice of the people. 

These people are THE EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO OUR DEMOCRACY! 

The Intelligence Committee has the power to get to the answers that they want..but have not been able to get, due to stonewalling by Rosenstein, and others.  The committee should hit those in the Deep State with Contempt of Congress citations. Put these time wasters and seat warmers n a cell for a few days or weeks and then let’s see how quickly they respond to the questions posed by the valid representatives of the people!

STEELE DOSSIER. WHAT IS IT.?

I heard Alysia Camerota of CNN claim that the Steele Dossier is mostly true!

Another blunder by CNN. 

The Trump-Steele Dossier came about during the Republican nomination campaign.  Unnamed GOP political  activists desperate to gather any compromising  information, true or false, on Donald Trump were first to initiate the “research”. These Republican moneybags hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who was trained at Cambridge University.  As a student, Steele was known as a “confirmed socialist”.  Upon graduation, Steele joined the British intelligence service.  He served in the prestigious MI6,  and was assigned to covert work in Russia.  After several years in Russia his undercover status was compromised, and he was forced to repost  in a similar capacity in Paris and later he also served in Afghanistan.  But by 2105, the time he worked for US based Republican operatives, he  was operating his own intelligence agency in London, known as: Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd.

Thus by 2015 Steele had moved into a second act in his career, having transferred his allegiance from dangerous and low paying  British espionage abroad,  into a career centered on personal monetary gain.  His new business would pay much, much, more than his earlier government stipend.  He and his partner in London passed through the now infamous “revolving door from government to business”.  In the business world Orbis sold their expertise and contacts  to the highest bidder.  Sounds familiar!  

As noted above, early on, one of these interested parties was  anti-Trump GOP elements competing in the hotly contested 2015 primary campaign.  Steele and Orbis were hired and paid handsomely ($15,000 dollars per month and expenses) for some early unflattering documents on Trump.   But when Trump unexpectedly won the primary contest to become the GOP standard bearer,  Orbis’ Republican clientele were no longer interested in Trump “dirt”, and closed their bank books.  Steele and his partner may have been hooked on the flow of cash. They were also well-aware of  the massive income available from an American presidential campaign awash in money. They figured that they still had a good deal going, if they could find another client to pay for their “research”.  

Like any alert CEO, Steele went into a marketing mode with samples of his most “interesting” information..trying to find a buyer.  He contacted various groups in the USA, but few were willing.    Finally, his marketing activities paid off when he came in contact with former journalist Glenn Simpson—once a Roll Call reporter—-who like Steele had turned in his journalist’s spiral notebook for a glossy business card.  Simpson helped move Steele into the lucrative US presidential campaign.   Massive amounts of money were available to political activists and “experts”. Recall that Hillary. Clinton was to spend more than $1.2 billion dollars on her campaign.  Simpson and Steel had much in common both had similar goals—they were in the game for personal profit.  Both men envisioned a massive windfall of cash in the process of providing the kind of ‘opposition”information that their moneyed and desperate clients would pay for

Simpson, the former journalist, was at the time the head  of  Fusion GPS,  a Washington-based opposition research firm.   Fusion had been hired to provide ‘opposition research, ( i.e. ‘to dig up dirt” on Donald  Trump) for the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  As in many other similarly  somewhat ethically challenged activities all pay-offs flowed through a law firm—that could hide their source of cash behind a “lawyer-client” relationship, as in this case where Perkins Cole a legal firm represented the Clinton campaign. Perkins Cole, using Clinton funds would ultimately pay Steele’s Orbis firm and foreign Russian “sources” more than $13 million dollars for the thirty-five page “Trump dossier” which Steele generated.     That is about $371,000 dollars per page.  Making nearly $400,000 dollars per page of document was an irresistible  monetary incentive for Steele and Orbis.   

You can imagine that with this amount of cash in play that the question of the document’s VALIDITY was very low in the concerns of  the suppliers.  With that much money available, and with clients desperate for “ dirt” one needs little imagination to appreciate the powerful incentive Steele had to “provide” the exact kind of scurrilous “information” that his desperate political clients wanted and would pay for. There was no incentive of course for the truth or for a good character report. 

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So Steele had a strong demand for his product with clients that had plenty of cash.  But Steele did have a problem. It is true he had once been a British spy in Russia and no doubt, had contacts there.  The problem was that Steele had been OUTED as a British agent sometime in the late 90s and had been reposted to Paris and then Afghanistan.  He may have had knowledge of old informants in Russia—but he had powerful enemies there too.   The Putin government was not an organization with which to play dangerous games.  Steele  could not safely go back to Russia to personally interview any of his old sources.  So how did he accomplish his “research”?    By second and third hand proxy.  Steele accepted the cash from the Clintons, Fusion, and Perkins Cole and continued to sit in his plush Grosvenor Square Orbis office in  London, and live sumptuously in his Georgian mansion in the suburbs.   He simply sent his inquiries and plenty of MONEY to his old Russian contacts to dig up dirt on Trump.  These “sources’ were paid  with his lucrative “DNC and Clinton”  expense accounts.   Steele’s “dossier” is thus based on the second and third hand accounts of informants in Russia who had a powerful monetary incentive to provide dodgy information..the more dodgy the better. 

Try to imagine the underlying motivations in this situation.  A man in London with plenty of money to spend was willing to pay handsomely for embarrassing information on Mr. Trump’s activities in Russia.  The more damaging and bizarre the story the more likely the payment.  Steele was not on site to actually question sources face to face or verify any of the information.  Given the incentives outlined above—there is reason to expect that Steele’s  primary, secondary or third hand sources did nothing but simply make up much of the information they provided.   In fact Steele’s own motivation was the same as that of his “sources”..the more bizarre and potentially damning the better,  Truth or validity did not play a big role in this equation at all.  

This kind of “pay for dirt”, although derived from  “former British MI6 spy” with a good reputation, the data supplied had no relationship at all to  MI6 quality of intelligence provided by an actual British government agent.  Active agents would not have a monetary incentive to produce compromising information, nor would they attempt to provide verifiable information from afar.  They would be posted in the field and actually interview their sources.  This was not the case  with the Trump dossier.  This “dossier” information was as different from actual “foreign intelligence gathering” by a active  CIA or MI6 agent as a $10 “Rolex” (purchase  on many a corner in Manhattan) is from a REAL Rolex watch.  The fake one will look good for a few days,  but don’t expect it stay shiny or to keep time.  

Steele’s 35 page document was tailored for a short term Presidential campaign. When the campaign was over...and Trump lost (as was widely expected) the short-comings of the Steele intelligence would be apparent, and no harm would have been done.  The loser candidate would fade back into private life.  No national government would have depended upon the information to make existential decisions which would inform foreign policy, war or peace, life or death.  “Steele dossier”  information was only designed to knock out one candidate and support another.  No long term harm was envisioned by Orbis in putting out “garbage” and receiving a huge pay check for it.  They assumed Trump would lose and no one would bother to investigate them. 

I won’t bother retelling here all the actual errors, misstatements, odd spellings and untruths that have been noted by professional intelligence gatherers.  Such as the glaring statement regarding President Trumps personal attorney, who was supposedly having a sinister meeting in Prague,...when he was actually in Los Angeles at that time—-and had never even been in Czechoslovakia . 

Therefore...when someone claims that the “dossier” is true—understand they have intentionally ignored the facts or have not examined the facts. 

SOME HISTORY NOTES ON STEELE DOSSIER

WHAT IS THE STEELE DOSSIER?

We often hear of the “Russian dossier” or the “Steele dossier”...the irrational left continues to consider this scurrilous political-opposition document to have credence.  It is even suggested that the Mueller investigation is using this as a “roadmap” for its inquiry.  I hope not.  But if you understand the “dossier’s” source, how it came about, the cost, who paid for it and the motives of the parties involved, as well as the second and third hand origin of its content  you can no longer hold those beliefs.  

Yesterday (December 7, 2017) I watched Ohio Representative Jim Jordan effectively grill FBI Director Christopher Wray during a Congressional hearing on TV.  Jordan was impressive.  He was clear, coherent and  sincere in his query to Wray.   Although Wray basically stonewalled the Committee, Rep Jordan got his message out.  Wray pointedly failed to answer the question Jordan had most prominently in his mind.  Did top agent Peter Strzok  whose anti-Trump motivations were exposed (through emails to his mistress) use the “dossier”  to justify his application to the FISA in support an FBI spy operation on the Trump campaign team.   To do so would mean that the Obama Administration (still in power at the time ) was using  its foreign intelligence gathering institutions to gather data on its political domestic opposition.  This of course would have been “as wrong as it gets” according to Representative Jim Jordan.  

The following day, Jordan appeared on CNN’s “New Day” morning program where he was interviewed by Alysia Camerota.  Representative Jordan, again in his coherent and sincere way laid out his hypotheses that the Steele dossier was the improper vehicle by which the Obama Administration and the Deep State elements of the FBI and Justice Department used as all or part of its evidence to the FISA court to initiate telephone taps and electronic domestic spying  on American citizens.  Domestic spying on political enemies is a grievous act in any democracy. To compound that awful decision our intelligence agencies were using, not an actual intelligence agency generated document, but an unverified,  opposition research document paid for and generated by the Clinton team during the past election!

During the interview Camerota was unable to punch any holes in Jordan’s argument.  Finally in desperation repeated the  claims of the “never Trump irrational resistance”  that the “dossier” was NOT a discredited document and that “much of it was true!  Jordan was shocked—set back on his heels.  “Clueless Camerota” was simply repeating the  mantra of the left. Her statement left him nonplussed.  He just smiled in disbelief that anyone could make that claim.  

To grasp Jordan’s very likely thesis, which strikes at the very heart of the on-going Russia investigation— one must first evaluate the facts regarding the source and motivations of the “Steele Dossier”. 

The Trump-Steele Dossier came about during the Republican nomination campaign.  Unnamed GOP political  activists were desperate to gather any compromising  information true or false on Donald Trump. These Republican moneybags hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, a Cambridge University graduate who as a student was known as a “confirmed socialist”.  Upon graduation Steele moved from Cambridge to MI6 and was assigned to covert work in Russia.  After several years his covert status was compromised in Russia, and he served in a similar capacity in Paris and also in Afghanistan.  But by 2105 he  was operating his own intelligence agency in London, known as: Orbis Business Intelligence, Ltd.

Thus by 2015 Steele had moved into a second act in his career, having transferred his allegiance from the dangerous and low paying  British espionage abroad  to personal monetary gain for an act which would pay..much much more than his government stipend.  He and his partner in London passed through the revolving door from government to business into circumstances where Orbis sold their expertise and contacts  to the highest bidder.  Sounds familiar. 

One of these interested parties was  anti-Trump Republican GOP elements competing in the hotly contested 2015 primary campaign.  Steele and Orbis were paid handsomely for these initial documents on Trump.   But when Trump unexpectedly won the primary contest to become the GOP standard bearer Orbis’ Republican clientele were no longer interested in Trump dirt and closed their bank books.  Steele and his partner were hooked on the flow of cash and the massive income available from an American presidential campaign awash with money. They figured that they still had a good deal going if they could find another client to pay for their “research”.  

Steele went into a marketing mode with his information..trying to sell it to various groups in the USA but few were interested until with help from a former journalist (Glenn Simpson former Roll Call reporter) who like Steele had turned in his notebook for a business card.  Simpson helped move Steele into the lucrative Presidential campaign.   Recall that Hillary. Clinton was to spend more than one billion dollars on her campaign.  Simpson who, like Steel was now in the game for personal profit and both men envisioned a massive windfall of cash in providing the kind of information that their desperate clients awash in cash would pay anything for.    

Simpson, the former journalist, was at the time the CEO of  Fusion GPS,  a Washington-based opposition research firm.   Fusion had been hired to provide ‘opposition research, ( to dig up dirt on Donald  Trump) for the Clinton campaign and the DNC via the law firm of Perkins Cole..  Perkins Cole using Clinton funds would ultimately pay Steele and his partner more than $13 million dollars for the thirty-five page Trump dossier.    That is about $371,000 dollars per page.  Nearly 400,000 grand per page of dirt was the massive monetary incentive for digging up “unflattering information” on Clinton’s opponent Donald Trump.   The question of the document’s  validity was very low on in the concerns of  the suppliers.  With that much money available, and with clients desperate for “ dirt” one needs little imagination to grasp the massive incentive Steele had to “provide” the exact kind of “information” that his desperate political clients had.

.

But Steele did have a problem. It is true he had once been a British spy in Russia in the 90s and no doubt had contacts there.  The problem was that Steele had been outed as a British agent sometime in the late 90s and had been reposted to Paris and then Afghanistan.  He must have had informants there—but had powerful enemies there too.   The Putin government was not one to play with.  Steele  could not safely go back to personally interview any of his sources.  So how did he accomplish his “research”?    By proxy.  Steele continued to sit in his plush Grosvenor Square Orbis office in  London and  simply sent inquiries and MONEY to his Russian contacts to dig up dirt on Trump.  He paid these “sources” with his lucrative “DNC and Clinton”  expense account to interview and report on Donald Trump activities in Moscow.  

Try to imagine the underlying motivations in this situation.  A man in London was willing to pay handsomely for embarrassing information on Mr. Trump’s activities in Russia.  The more damaging and bizarre the story the more likely the payment.  Steele was not on site to actually question or verify any of this information. There is no reason to expect that his primary sources simply made up much of the information they provided to Steele.   In fact Steele’s own motivation was the same as that of his second and third hand “sources”..the more bizarre and potentially damning the better,  Truth or validity did not play a big role in this equation at all.  This kind of “pay for dirt”,  though coming from a “former British MI6 spy” had no relationship at all to actual MI6 quality of information provided by a British government agent .  This “dossier” information was as different from actual “foreign intelligence gathering” by the CIA or MI6,  as a $10 “Rolex” you can buy on any corner in Manhattan is from a real Rolex watch.  The fake will look good for a few days but don’t expect it to keep time.  

Steele’s 35 page document was tailored for a short term Presidential campaign...when the campaign was over...and Trump lost...as was expected...the short comings of the information would be apparent and no harm would have been done.  The loser would fade back into private life.  No national government would have depended upon the info to make critical existential decisions which would inform foreign policy, war or peace, life or death.  This “dossier”  information was only designed to knock out one candidate and support another.  No harm was envisioned by Orbis in putting out “garbage” and getting a great pay day for it.  

I won’t bother retelling all the actual errors and lies that have been noted by professional intelligence gatherers.  Such as the glaring statement regarding President Trumps personal attorney, who was supposedly having a sinister meeting in Prague,...when he was actually in Los Angeles at that time—-and had never even been in Czechoslovakia . 

Therefore...when someone claims that the “dossier” is true—like Ms Camerota of CNN— understand they have intentionally ignored the facts or have not examined the question. 

FRANKEN FACES MOB RULE.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE US SENATE?

The nation’s Founders must be spinning in their tombs.  The premiere debating chamber the Founders instituted has hit on hard times.  This body is the chamber the Founders envisioned where thoughtful commentary, advice and consent was to reign—not mob rule.  Touted as the staid upper chamber of the Congress, and called the “the most exclusive club” by Lewis Gould in his book of that name.     In this august chamber the great debates of the nation took place, were discussed and acted on.   Here the Civil rights Act of 1964, the Impeachment of President Johnson in 1868 (and more than a century later that of William Clinton)  and the celebrated  60 Day Debate over the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations in 1919.  Here too the watershed issue of slavery was debated, culminating in the famous Compromise of 1850 which attempted to avoid Civil War and in which the greatest statesmen of the time: Henry Clay,  John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster competed to sway the Senate.  

That was the past.  Today’s Senate is far different.  The great issue facing our modern senators is  not war and peace, threat of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, or crises of the day but: “alleged” sexual harassment.  Yes the Senate is engrossed in ALLEGATIONS of sexual misdeeds arising in the press, and which have mostly occurred not in recent times, but in the distant past.  Some of the allegations are reported from elderly alleged female victims from the misty past of four decades ago.  

Most recently we are barraged with allegations of improper behavior of Senator Al Franken.  I am not a great supporter of Senator Franken, but I do think that he deserves a fair hearing before he is forced  out of the Senate by his colleagues  simply on allegation appearing in the press presented by anonymous and identified accusers who have only to make a claim of an improper grab, hug or an attempted kiss.   Are these unsubstantiated allegations enough to destroy a man’s whole Senate career and his reputation?  

The modern Senate is not a debating and discussion chamber. The Senators simply act like    lemmings—-all  running Pell Mel in the same direction.    No debate.  No due process.  Just mob rule. 

Mob rule is the antithesis of senatorial debate. 

What has happened to the Senate? 

FLYNN ARREST: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

FLYNN: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING 

As in Shakespeare’s play in which deceptions are used for malevolent ends—we see the same form of misuse but in the DC legal system of modern times...where deceptions of the state are used to advance evil political ends. 

Mueller and the FBI entrap Flynn and concoct a “crime” from a legal act.  

Real crime committed by those in Obama government who spied on their political enemies using foreign espionage powers. 

Here is how corrupt, weird and baffling the DC swamp is.  We have just witnessed the assassination of a man’s reputation and probable jail time for an individual who honorably served this nation in uniform, on the battlefield and in Washington for decades.  He rose to the rank of Lt. General of the US Army.  He served in the cabinet of the Obama administration and briefly in the Trump Administration.  In that latter capacity, in the pursuit of the goals of the new administration, he legally communicated with an ambassador of a foreign power.  Whatever conversations he had they were legal government business.  He  committed no crime. His actions were perfectly and clearly pertinent to his position as National Security Advisor to the President.  This communication occurred  after the election and when he was an official of the new Trump government. There Was No Crime.  

The irony is that the real crime was committed by the Obama Administration in its illegal tapping into American citizen’s private conversations.  In league with the Clinton election campaign the Obama Administration turned the government’s powers of foreign espionage against its domestic political opponents.  That is illegal.  It used  phone taps to listen in on foreign officials when they contacted American citizens.  They illegally spied on the protected conversations of. Americans—like General Flynn.  Then they exposed the names of those they spied on and the  content of those conversations widely to government agencies—and to the press.  They illegally targeted their political enemies during the run up to the election and afterward.  

Using this illegally gathered information the FBI ready knew the detailed content of the conversations between Flynn and Russian Ambassdor Kyslyack before they interviewed him.  In his FBI interrogation Flynn had only to misstate a minor fact, mid remember a date, for them to charge him with lying.  Lying to the FBI is a crime...its a phony crime in this case.  One that he had to admit to.  

This episode is a very sad commentary on the state of government in Washington.  

It brings to mind the state of affairs in the corrupt late Roman Republic...when Julius Caesar had to decide whether to leave his legions behind and cross the Rubicon alone after his stint in Gaul. He would have had to enter Roman territory where his political enemies were waiting for him to charge him with phony crimes.  Sound familiar?  Sound corrupt? We know what happened to the Roman Republic...are we heading there?