I agree. To quote CNN
"The congressional transcripts obtained by CNN..." .....

"Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who was dismissed from Mueller's team and later fired over anti-Trump text messages, texted Page ... and said: "We need to open the case we've been waiting on now while Andy is acting," a reference to then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe."

I seem to recall CNN being outraged over Strzok being, as well as McCabe, being fired.

"Comey's memos, in which he wrote that Trump suggested Comey drop the probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, were leaked by a friend of Comey after his firing in an effort to spark the appointment of a special counsel."

My, CNN has forgotten that they have competitors: "Moreover, the memos were withheld by Comey’s surrogate, a Columbia University law professor, who reportedly read the information to the media."
(Google search time 0.46 seconds, page 1 of search https://thehill.com/opinion... )

Who is that Columbia Law Professor? Let's check another CNN competitor's public reporting:
https://www.nbcnews.com/pol...

"Richman is a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and has been a consultant with the Department of Justice and the Department of the Treasury,... His bio also lists him as an adviser to Comey"
That means a claim of attorney-client privelege.

Thanks for the world class reporting CNN. It's not like a trio of reporters would ever use open source information to inform themselves or their readership. It's almost like they are political operatives and not reporters. Who gave CNN this latest round of documents to leak out?

I agree 100% with PL. And what's much more than merely American in importance to this is the Russia hysteria that is the main wrapping of the conspiracy. That is leading to censorship (gotta stop that Russian fake news) even more subterranean attempts to shape "the news" (vide Integrity-Challenged Initiative) and, more serious, an ever increasing chance of stumbling into World War Last.

So, what to do?
(personally I think DJT should have confronted this from the get go, gone on TV in a fireside chat, read from a script outlining what had happened, declassified everything and start charging people. But he didn't.)
So, what to do?

"I think DJT should have confronted this from the get go, gone on TV in a fireside chat, read from a script outlining what had happened, declassified everything and start charging people. But he didn't."

Patrick,

Completely agree with you. It would have set a precedent that "soft coups" would not be tolerated. The question is why did Trump not take action? He's been tweeting all along. So he clearly knows what happened. He would have had good reason to fire Comey, et al at that point.

He went to the brink when he ordered declassification using the excuse that Congress should have the information. But then backtracked. He has never asserted that he should declassify as subversion of the constitution by national security agencies should not be permitted under any circumstance.

"The question is why did Trump not take action?"

Trump's been in business for decades. His sort of business brings the businessman in contact with crooks. Fraudsters, politicians and officials on the take, rich Russian emigres, those looking to launder money through property deals, other property dealers who've cut corners getting where they are.

I doubt he's cut corners himself, partly because the New York property scene, like any other such racket, is replete with lawyers who know how to stay on the right side of the law and partly because he got a head start in property, and it's usually when a businessman is starting from nothing that the shady stuff gets done.

But even by his own admission during his election campaign he's given bribes - that is, money dressed up as campaign contributions paid over in order to get permits. Just needs one crook politician to dispense with the omerta and that'll come out.

Even if a property developer has kept strictly within the letter of the law he'll have consorted with enough who haven't to give more than enough material for innuendo. Trump's better off letting this Russian nonsense run its course than letting the hounds get on that scent.

Tough being a poacher turned gamekeeper. Somehow I think he'll manage it.

Patrick Armstrong

Yes, the establishment is certainly using hatred of Trump to launch a tsunami of authoritarian measures to 'protect' us. Ironically Trump's own clarion call for us not to trust "fake news" is a gift to the would-be censors. I see Microsoft's latest mobile browser incorporates a tool called 'NewsGuard' to tell us which news sites are trustworthy or not. Fox and CNN are considered 'green' and you can guess how RT is rated. The composition of their Advisory Board speaks volumes about what kind of news will be permissible in the future. Their aspirations, from the company's home page:

"NewsGuard will be available on mobile devices when the digital platforms such as social media sites and search engines or mobile operating systems add our ratings.. ..directly." (my emphasis)

So soon your phone will be able to filter out unapproved news, though doubtless we'll be told you can turn the setting off if you really want those bothersome 1A rights. Once the brand is built I expect the 'green' media and government will simply dismiss anything rated 'red' out of hand. Pretty clear where this is all headed.

https://www.mintpressnews.c...

Barbara Ann,

It is all headed towards – has already reached – various kinds of ‘peasants’ revolt.’ This is true throughout the ‘Western world.’

As a certain kind of ‘liberal conservative’, I do not like this, and fear where it will end.

But then, I hanker after days, now apparently long gone, when prudent members of élites used to realise that, both to preserve themselves, and, sometimes, for somewhat more altruistic reasons, they needed to actually take some account of what the ‘deplorables’ thought, felt, might do.

The apparently complete ‘autism’ of today’s ‘meritocracy’ – a.ka., the ‘imbecile clerisy’ – continues not simply to scare me silly but to baffle me.

People often write about the ‘1%’, as though these were superb Machiavellian manipulators.

It is complete and utter rubbish.

For one thing, the groups implicated in this are much larger.

For another, they are seriously stupid. The possibility that they are sawing off the tree on which they are sitting appears to be largely beyond these people.

David

I'm sure you notice that the gilets jaunes protests which is now in the 10th week are not reported at all at least in US media. If such protests were taking place in Russia, Syria, Venezuela or any place the Borg deems "enemies" there would have been non-stop hysteria on CNN, Fox, NBC, NY Times and WaPo.

What do you think the implications of gilets jaunes are for Macron and the EU project? Do you believe that Macron will use increasing force to suppress?

A bunch of protests are happening in Venezuela, but the left isn't interested in anti-leftist protests.

"People often write about the ‘1%’, as though these were superb Machiavellian manipulators."

No truer words have been written. Did the latest round of anti-male advertising, this time from P&G, make the news in the UK? I can't think of a better way to alienate tens of millions of current and potential customers of what are effectively well branded commodity products your firm sells than this one.

David

What is the state of British politics now that May's Brexit plan has been voted down by your Parliament?

Indeed. The juxtaposition of Gilets Jaunes protestors erecting a mock (so far) guillotine with Macron's forces firing tear gas from helicopters at them elsewhere is extraordinary and typifies the imprudence of which you speak, IMO. Perhaps one revolt needs to go all the way to engender an appropriate level of prudence in the élites elsewhere. Spring is not a phenomenon unique to the Arabs.

Sir

It baffles me why POTUS Trump has not exerted his constitutional authority and declassified all the material and charged all these people with sedition. Is he that timid or incompetent? I haven't figured out his strategy of tweeting "witch hunt", which he's been doing for 2 years.

"It baffles me..."
It's not that baffling. As Col. Lang has outlined above, President Trump certainly has the authority to do those things. Failure to do them must be taken as evidence that the expected results would be even worse than what we have now. I don't know what the facts of the "witch hunt" are. But I know from numerous indications that President Trump does not want us to know the details. So declassifying all the materials is the last thing he wants to do. I don't know quite what the threats are that keep him from charging people with sedition. Possibly the discovery process that our legal system requires before you can actually prosecute anyone. Whatever the downsides are, they are potent. He is not holding back out of any consideration for the people or the processes.

Yes, yours is one interpretation. Another more simpler one is the fear of an epic constitutional crisis with the security agencies claiming massive national security breach through disclosure. In either case by preventing disclosure a precedent is being created that the security agencies are above the constitution and can act with impunity. The road to dictatorship.

You are right, but I'm puzzled why nobody here has taken note that the FBI has done this for decades. The early example was FDR's vice president, Henry Wallace. They (meaning at least J. Edgar Hoover but including at least some of the top executives in the FBI) were convinced Wallace was a Russian agent because he felt Truman was being to hostile to the Russians. Sound familiar? I have no idea how we might reform the "security" agencies.

IMO both the FBI and CIA should be replaced with new services based on DIA and the Marshals Service. Both have a better track record than FBI and CIA.

I like that.

I don't think that the FBI has threatened the presidency since Hoover's departure. This is a new low.

Maybe you're right. It used to be believed that Hoover (the Old Queen) threatened Presidents and cabinet members. Of course McCarthy implied that Truman was a Communist. Anyway, in my lifetime the FBI has been guilty of so many crimes I refuse to go along with the current Democratic leadership in idolizing them. I do not agree with rehabilitating George H.W. Bush, either.

In my opinion, the FBI was irreparably politicized and compromised when Comey acquiesced to DoJ's terms that the Clinton e mail investigation be conducted as a faux investigation. There is no one with the slightest understanding and experience of the resources typically brought to bear in major FBI case who can look on the limp efforts employed in that case and not see it as a farce orchestrated to look like an investigation. Pitiful.
That it was handled as a special out of HQ and the DoJ rather than out of the Washington Field Office and the US Attorney's office in itself exposes it as a political farce. FBIHQ normally does not arrogate to its own handling criminal investigations; and they are not conducted by the Director, Assistant Directors, and their Deputies.
I've written before on what a major case is supposed to look like and won't repeat myself; but a shorthand comparison would be to compare Mueller's tactics (also serving a politicized end by the way) but manifestly an actual investigation such that it is technically informative with regard to how the interplay of interviews, search warrants, FGJ, immunities, etc, work as measures that the government uses when it wants results. On the other hand, judging from what is out here in the public domain, we can pretty much conclude that Mueller and his office are the result of a misbegotten and unprecedented abuse of justice and the American political process, but that is another story.
My sense is that this vaporous Russian collusion allegation was pus that flowed from the infection that resulted as a result of the officials involved having been thoroughly politicized and inside a bubble of their own making; and there was no authority above them with the judgement to sober them with the reality that pigs are pigs and evidence is evidence. From my reading, Carter Page, who had once cooperated with the FBI, should have been approached directly and not targeted for FISA electronic surveillance. As it was, the Steele related materials which seem to be the substance of every noxious twist and turn to follow, would not have been sufficient probable cause to get a warrant to search a dump in Jersey City for a stolen Peterbuilt tractor. "The source knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows a high level official in Moscow who heard...". A first office Agent in Scranton PA would be embarassed to put that down on paper.
With regard to the overseas sourcing, it looks very much to me like it had to originate with Brennan's CIA because intel ops overseas belongs pretty much entirely to the Agency. The Bureau's operational authorities overseas are severely restricted and I think it most unlikely that the CIA did not at least initially broker those overseas sources to the FBI, including Steele and the sources that supported the Page FISA application. It would be dispositive to know that Strzok was the handler of Steele, but so far, as far as I know, we do not know that to have been the case; but it does appear that Strzok was the debriefer of the so called sources in England.
What I find incomprehensible is that there appears to have been no one in those upper reaches of the FBI who had the experience to say that the predicating information was all a bunch of nebulous bullshit. What we see in the public domain is information that was replete with rank hearsay. The Agents had no idea where it specifically originated, they had no means of testing its reliability (how the source came to know what he was alleging), or the source's credibility (has he been known to lie, has he a motive to lie.) It seems certain that Steele, the packager of the most inflamatory of the source information, as a paid political operative, had a motive to lie. If you are being paid to produce "oppo research", you produce "oppo info."
In my opinion the constitutional questions relating to whether the FBI can investigate a sitting President, or President elect, should never have arisen because the predicating information was so weak, and what little strength it had appears to have come from feedback and reverberations from what was questionable information in the first place.
If the FBI and the DoJ thought they should be investigating a President elect on the crappy predicate they thought they had developed, they should have taken it to President Obama. After all, he was supposed to have been a constitutional scholar.
But who knows, maybe they did.

Not sure how "soft" the coup is, given that it is being abetted by the media and the establishment, or as Colonel Lang refers to it the Borg.

"4. IMO
this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and
"the lads" of the Deep State were doing with the British intelligence
services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and
from the continued stonewalling of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing. pl

Agreed. And on most issues I am not a Trump fan. This crowd should be prosecuted.

CTH highlights some claims by anonymous commentator "RLTW" about some of Mueller's actions when he was FBI director:

"Robert Mueller – From the Inside…."

Mueller implemented an “up or out” policy where all SSAs were required to move to DC and do Headquarters time or lose their GS 14 pay grade. This policy change by Mueller purposely targeted the most senior Agents in the FBI who had finally earned the right to move their family to a medium sized office in fly over country, had teenage kids and were living a comfortable life.
Mueller knew these Agents would not uproot their families and move to DC. Hundreds of these senior Agents immediately retired. Literally thousands of years of investigative experience left the FBI overnight.


This is exactly what Mueller wanted. These were the men and women who would have called Mueller out when he started transforming the FBI from a criminal investigative organization into a domestic intelligence organization (it is illegal to collect intelligence on American citizens).


Mueller immediately began filling the ranks with Strozk/Page types. The FBI does extensive psychological screening of applicants. Stroke and Page are self interested,


well-educated cowards whose only motivation is their own promotion and


paycheck. In other words they are people who will be blindly loyal to


the Agency and will obey any order no matter how un-Constitutional or


unlawful. This is the psychological profile that Mueller and Comey


actively recruited and hired.

'Up-or-Out' was formalized into law in the US military in 1980. Although it had been in place for many years prior, e.g. General Marshall implemented it to purge older officers in 1940. The Brits have a similar law.

The State Department also has that policy. As do major civilian law firms, accounting firms, universities, and Silicon Valley.

Do you recall the Peter Principle?

https://www.amazon.com/Pete...

I was commissioned in 1962. "Up or out" may have been codified in 1980 but the system was firmly established from the time I entered the Army. It was understood that a Regular officer who was passed over twice for promotion in the Regular Army would be released from the service. If the officer had 20 years service, he could retire with half pay and benefits. A longer service would result in a higher percentage of retirement pay. Colonels who were not promoted to BG were not considered to have been passed over because the number of available BG positions was so small. Marshall's winnowing out of the officer corps is not really the same thing. He had been around since 1902 and had firm opinions on all the seniors. He simply sent into retirement those he personally found unfit for war service. He applied these judgments ruthlessly without regard for old acquaintance. He wrote in his journal that "an officer on duty has no friends." I agree.

Yes. It was in place for officers back in 1960 when I took the oath. I included Marshall's winnowing of the officer corps because it seemed to me that it was a forerunner of 'up or out'. The enlisted ranks did not face 'up or out' until sometime in the 70s. In the early 1960s, I recall serving with a buck Sergeant, no rockers, who retired after 40 years of service. You can't do that now unless you are maybe a Four Star or a Command Sergeant Major.

Mandatory rotation is not a unique policy. Command-staff and geographic rotation has always been a staple of military life as you know. The same policy is common in the IC and has been more strenuously applied since 9/11. It's not what the FBI was used to. Normally a young SA served his/her time in one of the large offices (New York, Miami, etc.) and eventually got a nice job in a quieter, smaller office.

All

Here it is. Obama administration SDNY attorney claiming that a policy position inimical to Borg interests is a high crime that justifies impeachment. We are there as Col. Lang notes.

https://twitter.com/PreetBh...

That's just barking at the Moon by Bharara. There's nothing impeachable in this and the Republican Senate would never impeach him for this. Even Bharara quickly realized he screwed up. His response to this tweet: "I got a little carried away on this one. Happens on the twitter sometimes. Be best."

TTG,
In vino veritas

It's okay for some to get "a little carried away" on Twitter. Others - with no political connections or power - get fired, banned or deplatformed. As Bharara well knows.

TTG

Preet Bharara was the previous US attorney for the southern district of NY. A big Kahuna, with jurisdiction over Manhattan. Presume for this position he's an expert on constitutional law. Was the tweet a Freudian slip of real authoritarianism and "got carried away" the excuse when there was significant push back even from many in the TDS universe who saw how dangerous it was to their cause when many Americans know that a POTUS has full constitutional authority to devise a foreign policy?

“Treason never prospers, for if it does, none dare call it treason”.

"Shall any man be above Justice? Above all shall that man be above it, who can commit the most extensive injustice?"

A quote from George Mason.

I would quibble about the notion that only the President should have the power to order the FBI or the CIA to investigate himself. Congress has no investigative branch with the people who have the public trust necessary for investigations such as this, this is largely because everybody depends on the FBI and CIA. Mueller was chosen by Congress to oversee an investigation relating to the President, so denying him the assets of the FBI and the CIA in conducting it seems out of kilter. If we are to label that investigation treason before it is concluded, can there be any investigation that isn't treason?

George Mason did not like the constitution and voted against ratification telling the majority at the Virginia ratification convention that their grandchildren would curse them for their votes. He was right of course. Mueller was not chosen by Congress . He is just another Justice Department official chosen by Sessions and Rosenstein. The president is not above the law. The impeachment process sees to that. I did not say anything about "treason." Perhaps someone else did. If Mueller wants the assistance of the FBI or the CIA he can ask Rosenstein fr that. It was absolutely not the right of senior FBI officials to decide for themselves if they should investigate the president, their boss.

I see that the reports that Mueller was approved by Congress are about his stint at the FBI. Thanks for the correction on that.

I can see troubling aspects of senor LE officials opening an investigation on a POTUS, but the problem is then whom should they must seek permission from?

They should not seek permission for an improper investigation. It is the sole responsibility of the Congress to investigate the president prior to impeachment

Off topic: Last night the SDF captured the village al-Abu Badran, which now leaves ISIS less than 7500 acres in the Middle Euphrates River Valley. That is a smaller area than the city of Alexandria VA.

I hope you like it.

William Arkin recently quit NBC over their lionization of security organizations and criticism of Trump's NK and Syria policies. The opening picture of Claudius groveling before the Praetorians is good, should appeal to the classicists here. A review at naked capitalism. http://bit.ly/2SVA2hv

We are a government of laws and not of men. The FBI is not a military unit at war. There are policies and procedures that are authorized by law, i.e. the legislature. In addition, all of these officers swore to defend the constitution. Unlike the military where the legislative function is limited solely to a declaration fo war the law enforcement function is not so limited. The Constitution is not a civil code that incorporates all the rules necessary for the functioning of a government. It is merely a blueprint and it is designed for there to be tensions between the various branches. Nor is the executive branch organized like some corporation (or military unit). These agencies are created by legislation enacted by Congress. They are run by the executive but not created by it.

Yes, a government of constitution and laws. The constitution is merely a guide? I see. If the FBI wishes to overthrow the elected president, they can do so because that "feels right" to them. They sought to overthrow the constitutional order with no authority to do so. They merely disliked Trump, as you do. These conspirators should be prosecuted for sedition. The FBI is NOT a branch of government.

The FBI can't overthrow the elected president unless they can convince the courts, through bonafide investigation or subterfuge, to issue an arrest warrant and the FBI successfully carries out that arrest. Even with that, they would have to withstand a Supreme Court judgement on their actions. I don't see that happening.

I don't agree with your view that the FBI cannot investigate the president. The question of indicting a sitting president is generally not considered doable, but even that is not settled law. I do agree that the president is well within his prerogative to fire FBI and DOJ appointees for any reason he sees fit and can carry out HIS foreign policy (within established law) as he sees fit.

Yes. The courts, the secret service and the military might prevent an arrest. Is that an excuse for the FBI plotting against the president? They evidently falsified an application to the FISA court to obtain surveillance authority. Are the FBI a law unto themselves. If the president is to be investigated it would have to be investigators working for Congress. That process is underway.

I don't see any credible evidence of a falsified FISA application. Nunes' efforts to prove just that with selected release of portions of those applications fell flat. Perhaps the results of FBI or SC investigations will have to be passed to Congress for any further actions involving the President. SDNY and the SC have already indicted individuals surrounding Trump. I wouldn't call this CI investigation a plot any more than the CI investigations of Montes, Ames or Hanssen. If anything comes of this investigation, then we are in new territory. At that point, it would be out of the FBI's hands.

http://www.floppingaces.net... There are several articles on the internet that seem to have the same text concerning the use in the warrant application of the Steele Dossier which had been produced with Clinton Campaign and DNC money by Fusion GPS with the staff work of a wife of a senior Justice official who passed the material to the FBI and to the press. the Steele dossier was also released both to the FBI by their paid informant Sttele and directly to Senator McCain who handed it to Comey. None of this appears to you to be construction of a false narrative for the FISA warrant against Page?

No, I do not see a false narrative. I see a narrative that did make heavy use of the Steele dossier. The fact that Steele was a long time paid FBI informant and also paid by Clinton's campaign (Candidate 2) through Fusion GPS (identified US Person) to find derogatory information on Trump (Candidate 1) was made clear in the application. Steele'e use of subsources rather than first hand observation was also made clear. To date, I have seen nothing that disproves the Steele dossier as a fake and totally made up after two plus years of scrutiny even though Steele himself claims an accuracy rate of 70%. In contrast, Trump's initial claims that he had no Russian money, no business interests in Russia and no contact with Russians have been blown apart in those two years. Granted none of those contacts and connections prove collusion.

There is also a lot in the FISA application we don't see. Five pages of the initial application comprising two complete sections are still totally redacted. The results of FISA surveillance that must be included in the subsequent applications is also redacted. Unless the surveillance is producing useful information, the subsequent applications would not be renewed.

Well, I know the FISA judge to whom the initial application was made, having testified in the judge's district court several times. This judge seems to me to be extraordinarily accommodating to the DoJ and FBI, deferring to their judgment in every instance that I have observed and very accepting of the practice of presentation of evidence ex parte (privately) by the prosecutors without insisting on discovery of the evidence to properly cleared defense counsel. What you have said of the unredacted sections of the application points to the fact that the evidence was not sufficient in my opinion to have granted a warrant for surveillance of Page since it was largely based on a fabrication done for money and from hatred of Trump. IMO the kinds of judges who have in recent years been appointed to the FISA court on the recommendation of DoJ indicates to me that the compliant are recommended. The Chief Justice appoints them on the recommendation of DoJ. IOW these are henchmen of DoJ and the FBI. The rate of approval of applications points to that. This is a Star Chamber.

I agree the current FISA approval rate indicates a level of compliancy in the FISA court. It wasn't that way pre 9/11. I also think the FBI by now knows exactly what to say in their applications to get them approved. We will just have to disagree about whether the Steele dossier is a fabrication or not.