The Democrat CIA-Russia Anti-Trump Gambit Had Legs until a Federal Judge said "Enough"

Tillerson it is for Secretary of State. And his nomination is inextricably tied up with the Democrat allegations that Russia hacked US election sites and the Democratic National Committee in order to help Donald Trump be elected President. What do we know??? • • • THE WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE. The Friday, December 10, Washington Post article by Ellen Nakashima and Adam Entous started the latest Democrat effort to rip up the November election of Donald Trump -- and what then?? Maybe a fiat unconstitutional anointing of Hillary Clinton, or the equally unconstitutional continuation of the Obama presidency?? Is this reallly the goal of a major American political party??? Could be. • The WP article said : "In a secure meeting room under the Capitol last week, lawmakers held in their hands a classified letter written by colleagues in the Senate summing up a secret, new CIA assessment of Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election. Sitting before the House Intelligence Committee was a senior FBI counterintelligence official. The question the Republicans and Democrats in attendance wanted answered was whether the bureau concurred with the conclusions the CIA had just shared with Senators that Russia 'quite' clearly intended to help Republican Donald Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton and clinch the White House. For the Democrats in the room, the FBI’s response was frustrating -- even shocking." The WP said that in the Senate Intelligence Committee briefing held the previous week, the CIA, as reflected in the letter the House members were shown, gave the members “direct and bald and unqualified” evidence about Russia’s intentions to help Trump, according to one of the officials who attended the House briefing. But, the WP reported that the FBI official’s remarks to the lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee were, in comparison, “fuzzy” and “ambiguous,” suggesting to the House members present that the FBI and the CIA weren’t on the same page, the UNNAMED official said. The WP explained the differences by implying that the difficulties faced by intelligence and law enforcement could cause experts to draw different conclusions about the Kremlin’s motives for hacking Democratic Party emails during the 2016 race. The WP also added : "Officials are frequently looking at information that is fragmentary. They also face issues assessing the intentions of a country expert at conducting sophisticated 'influence' operations that made it hard -- if not impossible -- to conclusively detect the Kremlin’s elusive fingerprints." Then the WP article continued : "The competing messages, according to officials in attendance, also reflect cultural differences between the FBI and the CIA. The bureau, true to its law enforcement roots, wants facts and tangible evidence to prove something beyond all reasonable doubt. The CIA is more comfortable drawing inferences from behavior." • • • WHAT DOES ALL THAT MEAN? Put succinctly, the FBI is not convinced that Russia had a particular aim in its meddling. The Washington Post called the differing FBI and CIA assessments "murky" in nature, and this, says the WP, is why many lawmakers are demanding answers about the Kremlin’s role in the presidential race. FBI Director James B. Comey, is already under fire for dropping a bombshell letter days before the election on the discovery of new emails potentially related to the Clinton private server investigation. And, on Saturday, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called on Comey to resign, saying the FBI Director deliberately kept quiet evidence about Russia’s motives before the election. Also on Saturday, Reid, in his usual "lie now and apologize later" approach, told MSNBC the Trump campaign was in cahoots with the Russians : "The FBI had this material for a long time but Comey, who is of course a Republican, refused to divulge specific information about Russia and the presidential election.” • • • CONGRESS TAKES THE BAIT. Lawmakers, in turn, want the review to be accompanied by a joint congressional investigation. Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and the lapdog who barks out any story spinning Democrats want to try against Trump, said : “Only in this way can the American people know the extent of Russian interference and we can attempt to inoculate ourselves against continued meddling in our elections.” But, this demand is where Republicans and Democrats part company. Most Republicans are willing to let the House and Senate Intelligence Committees carry out their investigations, but they refuse to acquiesce in Democrat demands for a full-blown Benghazi-style investigation by a Select Committee. Top Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have pointed to the possible ambiguity of the evidence to question the soundness of the claim that Russia acted to help Trump. • Representative Devin Nunes, House Intelligence Committee chairman, said : “There is no clear evidence -- even now. There’s a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that’s it.” Newsmax reported on Monday that Nunes refused to open a new probe into allegations that Russia interfered in the election, arguing it "would duplicate" House and Senate Intelligence Committee investigations already underway. In a statement, Nunes said his committee is engaged in "vigorous oversight" into cyber attacks connected to the presidential campaign : "At this time I do not see any benefit in opening further investigations..." Nunes said his committee would "remain a vigilant monitor" of efforts by the "FBI, CIA, and other elements of the Intelligence community" conducting their own investigations : "We will also closely oversee the production of the report on these attacks requested by President Obama to ensure its analytical integrity." Earlier Monday, according to TheHill, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell declared that the Senate Intelligence Committee should take the lead in investigating the CIA findings that the Russian government meddled in the election -- rejecting calls from Senators John McCain and Chuck Schumer for a special select committee. House Speaker Paul Ryan has also rejected a special panel. • • • JOHN BOLTON CALLS IT A FALSE FLAG. One clear voice on the GOP side is that of John Bolton, former UN ambassador who is reportedly being considered for Deputy Secretary of State. Bolton said Sunday that reports of Russian interference in the presidential election may be a “false flag” conjured up by the Obama administration. In an interview with Eric Shawn of Fox News, Bolton claimed the Obama administration had “politicized” intelligence and suggested there may have been a hidden motive behind the CIA finding that Russians hacked computer networks belonging to the Democratic and Republican national committees. He questioned why the FBI did not uncover similar evidence of meddling by foreign intelligence services when it investigated Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Bolton told Shawn : “It’s not at all clear to me just viewing this from the outside that this hacking into the DNC and the RNC computers was not a false flag operation. The question that has to be asked is, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary’s server but their dumb intelligence services against the election?” Bolton’s suggestion came after the Washington Post's Friday article. The term “false flag” is typically used to describe a covert attempt by a government to advance an agenda by making it seem like its activities are being carried out by another entity. During his Fox News appearance, Bolton said there should be “very grave consequences” if further investigation showed that Russia did try to influence the presidential election, but he questioned whether a sophisticated foreign intelligence service would leave “cyber fingerprints” after hacking. When Shawn asked whether Bolton was accusing the Obama administration or the intelligence community of “trying to throw something,” Bolton repsonded : “We just don’t know. But I believe that intelligence has been politicized in the Obama administration to a very significant degree.” Shawn then asked : “But would the intelligence officials politicize this -- to go so far to something that could potentially damage the very tissue of our republic and what we for 200-plus years have stood for?” Bolton answered : “I think the whole thing is called into question, which is why the notion of some kind of independent investigation becomes extremely important. I do think it’s critical to answer the question I posed : If you think the Russians did this, then why did they leave fingerprints?” Bolton told Shawn he is convinced that Russia had “both the capability and the intention of doing it,” but said he did not believe enough facts were available to the public. He also expressed concern about the Obama administration trying to complete its review rapidly, before Inauguration Day on January 20, 2017. Shawn, digging further, again asked Bolton to address his “false flag” claim, saying “that’s incredibly serious to say that and very disturbing as an American.” Bolton replied: “We would want to know who else might want to influence the election and why they would leave fingerprints that point to the Russians. That’s why I say, until we know more about how the intelligence community came to this conclusion, we don’t know whether it’s Russian inspired or a false flag.” • • • In his own way as House Intelligence Committee chairman, Representative Nunes is asking for information that could prove John Bolton to be right in his "false flag" suggestion. Nunes has written to the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, asking why the current reports by the CIA that Russia DID hack Democratic campaign documents contradicts what the agency was saying three weeks ago. Nunes is asking Clapper for an urgent briefing on the matter. Last month, Clapper said he lacked 'good insight' about the connection between Russian hacking of Democratic emails and their release by WikiLeaks. When he made his appearance at the House Intelligence Committee, Clapper told Congressman Adam Schiff : "As far as the WikiLeaks connection, the evidence there is not as strong and we don't have good insight into the sequencing of the releases or when the data may have been provided. We don't have as good insight into that." Nunes' letter sent Monday said : "According to new press reports, this is no longer the CIA's position....On November 17, 2016 you told the Committee during an open hearing that the intelligence community lacked strong evidence connecting Russian government Cyber-attacks and Wikileaks disclosures." • But, the Washington Post article insisted that a secret CIA assessment had concluded that Russia had interfered in the race to boost Trump, although the agency did not have "specific intelligence" showing Kremlin involvement. The CIA told Senators in the secret meeting that they believed hacks on Democratic emails in the election were intended to aid Trump's victory. Nunes wrote in his letter to Clapper : "I was dismayed that we did not learn earlier from you directly about the reported conflicting assessments and the CIA's reported revision of information previously conveyed to this Committee. I am deeply concerned that these press reports may contain unauthorized disclosures of both classified intelligence community (IC) information and the contents of closed intelligence committee proceedings. Additionally, if true, reports of conflicting IC assessments call into question the effectiveness of the IC's analytic coordination process regarding this crucial issue." Nunes ended the letter by demanding that Clapper complete, no later than January 13 -- a week before Trump's inauguration -- an "analytic and tradecraft review of any IC assessments related to alleged Russian involvement in cyber activities related to the US Presidential election....[and] a written assessment of whether any classified information was disclosed in recent media articles related to Russian involvement in cyber activities related to the US Presidential election." • TRUMP'S VIEW. When asked whether he thought that the CIA was trying to overturn the election results, Trump said he doesn't think "they're saying anything. If you look at the story and you take a look at what they said, there's great confusion. Nobody really knows, and hacking is very interesting. Once they hack if you don't catch them in the act you're not going to catch them. They have no idea if it's Russia or China or somebody. It could be somebody sitting in a bed some place. I mean, they have no idea." But, Trump came down on Bolton's side. He said he believes Democrats were behind the revealing of the CIA's assessment of the hacks : "I'm not sure [the CIA] put it out. I think the Democrats are putting it out because they suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of politics, and frankly I think it's ridiculous." • • • DEAR READERS, Newt Gingrich had the final word. Former House Speaker Gingrich told Fox News on Monday that calls for an investigation of claims Russian government actors intervened in the US election were "as stupid as anything I've seen the left try. Think about it. Barack Obama’s now saying that his administration was so incompetent that they stood around sucking their thumb while the Russians snuck in and hacked into an American election because of the utter incompetence of the Obama defense system." Gingrich added that he does not believe the claims of Russian hacking had any effect on the outcome of the election : "I don’t believe that the Russians carried Pennsylvania. I think Donald Trump did. I don’t think that the Russians carried Wisconsin...I don’t think the Russians carried Michigan. Donald Trump did. The problem the left has is they cannot come to grips with the reality that the American people are turning against them, that the American people defeated them, and frankly, if the election were held today, the margin would be even bigger." Then to put the last nail in the Democrat/Obama coffin, Gingrich contrasted the furor over the CIA assessment of Russian interference in the campaign with the coverage of Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton's email scandal : "What it does is it trivializes the serious. There were really serious security problems. There would normally be, I think, jail time for things on this scale. But I think it’s ironic that the New York Times and the Washington Post, they can’t cover the things that are real, so they have to make up junk in order to hide behind the noise." • But, perhaps we should Trump last word in his Monday tweet : “Can you imagine if the election results were the opposite and WE tried to play the Russia/CIA card. It would be called conspiracy theory!” • No -- the last word definitely goes to a federal court in Colorado that threw a lot of cold water on the fire Democrats are trying to build around Trump's victory. On Monday, a federal judge squelched a longshot plan to deny Donald Trump the presidency through the Electoral College, refusing to suspend a Colorado law requiring the state’s nine electors to vote for the presidential candidate who won the state in November. US District Judge Wiley Daniel denied a request by two Colorado electors who contended that the law binding their vote to Colorado vote winner Hillary Clinton violated their First Amendment rights and the intent of the Constitution’s Framers. The electors had sought the right to vote for someone other than Clinton in order to unite behind a consensus Republican other than Trump when the Electoral College convenes on December 19. Judge Daniel found that suspending the Colorado requirement would have harmed the state’s voters and jeopardized a peaceful presidential transition : “Part of me thinks this is really a political stunt to prevent Donald Trump from becoming President,” said Daniel, who was nominated to the bench by Bill Clinton in 1995. If the Colorado electors had been successful, it could have signaled that similar laws in more than two dozen other states could also be overturned, freeing a large number of electors to defect from Trump. • Nice try, Democrats. See you in 2020.