Trump, Comey, Mueller, the Swamp Creatures, and Americans Who Feel Like Strangers in Their Own Country

THE REAL NEWS OF THE DAY. Fox News reported on Thursday afternoon that the US military launched fresh air strikes against pro-Assad forces in Syria. Officials told Fox News the American strikes were the first against Assad positions since the Pentagon rained 57 Tomahawk missiles on the Shayrat air base near Homs. But the strikes confirmed Thursday were believed to be the first targeting Syrian personnel. According to the defense official, the coalition strikes targeted pro-Assad regime units operating in the vicinity of At-Tnaf. After a show of force to try to stop the pro-regime forces was ignored, the strikes were mounted. A senior US Defense official told Fox News : "The coalition commander assessed the threat and after shows of force didn't stop the regime forces and those forces refused to move out of the deconfliction zone, the commander on the ground called for the air strike as a matter of force protection." The attack does not reflect an escalation, the official said : "There is no change in policy." • • • COMEY'S CONTRADICTORY STORIES ABOUT TRUMP. Breitbart's Penny Starr reported that former FBI Director James Comey’s alleged memo about President Donald Trump’s attempt to stop the agency’s investigation into former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn was contradicted on Twitter Wednesday, noting that Comey denied any interference in the FBI’s investigations while under oath at a Senate hearing earlier this month. Jack Posobiec, Washington Bureau Chief for The Rebel.media, tweeted on Wednesday : "Comey said under oath that Trump did not ask him to halt any investigation." In the under-oath encounter, Senator Mazie Hirono didn’t specifically ask about Trump in the question she posed to Comey, the inquiry was about whether or not he had experienced having a higher authority stop an FBI investigation. Hirono asked : “So if the Attorney General or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation, can they halt that FBI investigation?” Comey answered : “In theory yes." Hirono : "Has it happened?" Comey : “Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that -- without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don’t see a case there, and so you ought to stop investing resources in it. But I’m talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It’s not happened in my experience.” • • • DID COMEY BREAK THE LAW? 18 USC 4 states : "Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. And, 28 USC 1361 states : "The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any action in the nature of mandamus to compel an officer or employee of the United States or any agency thereof to perform a duty owed to the plaintiff.” Action to Compel an Officer of the United States to Perform His Duty, 28 U.S.C. § 1361. • Fox News' Greg Jarrett raised the question on Tuesday : "Three months ago, the then-FBI Director met with President Trump. Following their private conversation, Comey did what he always does -- he wrote a memorandum to himself memorializing the conversation. Good lawyers do that routinely. Now, only after Comey was fired, the memo magically surfaces in an inflammatory New York Times report which alleges that Mr. Trump asked Comey to end the Michael Flynn investigation. Those who don’t know the first thing about the law immediately began hurling words like “obstruction of justice”, “high crimes and misdemeanors” and “impeachment“. Jarrett says here is what we know : "Under the law, Comey is required to immediately inform the Department of Justice of any attempt to obstruct justice by any person, even the President of the United States. Failure to do so would result in criminal charges against Comey. (18 USC 4 and 28 USC 1361) He would also, upon sufficient proof, lose his license to practice law. So, if Comey believed Trump attempted to obstruct justice, did he comply with the law by reporting it to the DOJ? If not, it calls into question whether the events occurred as the Times reported it. Obstruction requires what’s called “specific intent” to interfere with a criminal case. If Comey concluded, however, that Trump’s language was vague, ambiguous or elliptical, then he has no duty under the law to report it because it does not rise to the level of specific intent. Thus, no crime." • • • SPECIAL COUNSEL ROBERT MUELLER MUST INVESTIGATE COMEY. We certainly hope Special Counsel Mueller will look into whether James Comey actually committed a crime. Did Comey commit a crime when he neglect to inform the DOJ that Trump had "obstructed justice"? Or did Comey lie in saying Trump tried to stop the Flynn investigation when he leaked his memo. Or did Comey perjure himself under oath before Congress when he said he had never been asked to halt an investigation? • • • WHAT IS MUELLER'S JOB? He is a former FBI Director and lawyer who will oversee a federal investigation into the probe of alleged Russian influence of the 2016 presidential election. His broad mandate, beyond any specific Trump-Russia connection, also covers "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." His appointment seems to have been an effort to appease Democrat outcries for someone outside the Justice Department to handle the politically charged investigation, because nobody else agrees that a special counsel is needed while the Hosue and Senate committee investigations are ongoing. But, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein made the appointment anyway : “In my capacity as acting Attorney General, I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a Special Counsel to assume responsibility for this matter. My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted.” The above questions about Comey are critically important because the Rosenstein decision immediately followed the revelation Tuesday that Comey wrote in a memo that President Trump had asked him to end an investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn. • • • EVERYBODY IS HAPPY? Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called the appointment a "great selection." Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, praised the decision by the DOJ, calling it "a victory for all Americans who believe in the integrity of the rule of law. This investigation must be given the full resources and independence it needs to succeed. We must follow the facts wherever they lead, and demand complete accountability for any wrongdoing that is found.” • • • WILL MUELLER INVESTIGATE DEMOCRAT RUSSIA TIES? We hope Mueller will check Bill and Hillary's pay-for-play unranium deal with Russia while she was Secretary of State. We hope Mueller will investigate Hillary campaign manager John Podesta's unreported Russia company board membership and stockholdings -- as well as Podesta's brother Tom's representation of Russian interests. We hope Mueller will look into whether the Democrat National Committee knew all along that it was not Russia but one of their own staffers who leaked damning emails to WikiLeaks that led to President Obama's likely covering up for the DNC by shouting "The Russians are coming!" The staffer was murdered -- will Mueller look into that, too? • • • TRUMP SMELLS A WITCHHUNT. Senior DOJ officials told Fox News the White House was informed of the decision for a special counsel after the order had been signed, althrough the White House Counsel’s office, about an hour before the decision went public. President Trump's first written statement was tempered : "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know -- there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country." Later, President Trump tweeted : “With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed! This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!” • • • PROMINENT AMERICANS SUPPORT TRUMP. • Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said : "When the President blamed Rod Rosenstein for the decision to fire Comey, Rod Rosenstein made himself unfireable. He became the most powerful person, if not in Washington in the Justice Department." But, despite Mueller's stellar reputation in intelligence circles, Dershowitz described the appointment as "a mixed blessing : "For the American public, it's not such a good thing. We probably won't learn anything from this investigation. It's going to be in secret. We will never hear from a witness. At the end, we will either hear either two words -- 'no indictment' -- or we will hear 'an indictment.' " And, Dershowitz also cited an important limitation involving Mueller's investigation : "It's very likely no crimes occurred. If there was contact between the Russians and the administration, it might be a terrible, terrible thing -- but it wouldn't be a crime. So, Mueller wouldn't have jurisdiction to look into that. He can't generally look into things that might be politically bad or morally bad. He is focused," Dershowitz emphasized before referring to the main character of "Moby Dick," the 1851 classic by Herman Melville. "He is Ahab, looking at that white whale. "He either gets the whale or he doesn't get the whale. He doesn't look at the entire seascape." • Bestselling political author Ronald Kessler told Newsmax TV : "When it comes to the Comey material, these comparisons to Watergate are a joke. Comey was not asked by Donald Trump to stop the investigation. Trump did not take any action to interrupt the investigation. He allegedly asked if it could be stopped, but that's quite different from actually obstructing justice, which is what happened in Watergate." Kessler added : "That's the bottom line, the fact that he didn't report it indicates that he didn't feel it was obstruction of justice and it wasn't, by any definition. To obstruct justice you have to actually impede the investigation, take action to stop the investigation, or cover up or destroy evidence. Any of those things. None of which Donald Trump did. So it's a wild media frenzy that's going on." • US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, a legendary investor, said the ongoing investigation into ties between Russia and President Donald Trump is a distraction from more important items on the White House agenda : “We have to get on with it, get this over with. It's a sideshow. What the media forgets in the midst of this sideshow, this media frenzy, is: The President is running the country, getting ready to do an amazing trip to Saudi Arabia, to Rome, to Israel. This is an incredible movement on his part that's going to demonstrate once and for all that we're not retreating into isolationism.” • Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, doyen of the American business community, told CNBC on Wednesday that an impeachment of President Donald Trump would "blow the market away." But, Welch told CNBC that since Trump was so glowing in his praise when he kept the Obama-holdover Comey on after he took office, Trump should have "loved him on the way out" as much as he "loved him on the way in." On the policy front and in his Cabinet and Supreme Court pick, Welch said he would give Trump an "A." • Veteran financial guru and former Ronald Reagan adviser Larry Kudlow is urging any impatient investors to just give Trump a chance to fully enact his strategies to reform healthcare, spark economic growth and redesign the tax system. After all, Trump has been in office a relatively short time and has inherited a mountain of problems from the past two decades. “He's trying to fix a lot of problems that have gone unfixed in the last 20 years,” Kudlow explained to CNBC. Trump “still wants tax reform and healthcare reform. Those are big issues for him.” the Newsmax Finance Insider said. • • • DEAR READERS, bestselling political writer Ed Klein said on Tuesday that shortly after he was fired, a furious Comey boarded a Department of Justice Gulfstream G550 at Los Angeles Airport and began "barking" orders at his assistants. He tried several times to reach Trump by telephone to get an explanation why he was fired in such a disrespectful manner. No one at the White House would take his call. He was far from pleased that Trump appointed his deputy, Andrew McCabe, as acting director of the bureau. When McCabe's wife ran for the Virginia state senate, she received thousands of dollars from a super PAC controlled by Hillary Clinton's close friend, Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe. Comey questioned whether McCabe was too close to the Clintons during the FBI's investigation of Hillary's emails. After Comey landed in Washington, he called his wife, Patrice, who was in tears. She told him that the way he was treated by the President made it look as though he had committed some horrible crime. Comey vowed to his wife that he would fight back and not allow his firing to be a stain on his character. He also told friends that he wouldn't be cowed by President Trump's threatening tweet -- "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" In fact, says Klein, Comey does not believe there are any incriminating tapes in Trump's possession. • But, Comey lived very well. It reauires going to the UK Daily Mail to learn that : "James Comey lived like a king in one of America's wealthiest towns (home to Martha Stewart, Paul Newman and Harvey Weinstein) but now can’t unload his $3 million estate. James Comey was a hedge fund high roller when he lived with his family in the tony enclave of Westport, Connecticut until he was tapped to run the FBI in 2013. Comey bought the estate on more than three acres not far from where Martha Stewart used to live for $3,050,000 in August 2010. But now he's had to reduce the price four times -- down to $2.5 million and he still doesn't have a buyer for the palatial estate. It's a seven bedroom, nine bath, 7,157 square foot gated home in one of Connecticut's ritziest Gold Coast towns." The Daily Mail also says that Comey's net worth was $11 million, lived like a king during the six years he spent at the Connecticut home. Newsweek in May 2017 said : "Back when Obama nominated Comey for the job in 2013, the former prosecutor reported his net worth in Senate documents during the confirmation process. His net worth came in at $11 million, a figure that likely rose almost immediately considering he was due a $3 million profit-sharing payout from his former employer, the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, should he be confirmed to the post, CNN reported at the time. He worked as the firm's general counsel from 2010 through early 2013 and earned some $6 million in compensation his final full year with the company, according to Open Secrets. • So, James Comey is just another rich politician who did very well before being fired last week. • Consider the Tuesday poll released by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Atlantic examining sentiments held by white, working class adults. A majority of all those surveyed, 5%, think the United States “is in danger of losing its culture and identity,” including 68% of the white, working class.The poll found that almost half of all those surveyed felt that they had become “strangers” in their own country. Overall, 48% of Americans think American culture has changed for the worse since the 1950s. Among the white, working class, 65% think it has changed for the worse. “Family values in general have gone to complete shit since the 1950s, [is] the best way to put it,” one female respondent said. The poll reveals a deep divide between working-class, white Americans who did not go to college and white Americans who did. Nearly half (48%) of white working-class Americans say, “things have changed so much that I often feel like a stranger in my own country.” In contrast, only 26% of white college-educated Americans report they often feel like a stranger. Part of the white, working class’s sense of alienation appears to stem from the stifling atmosphere of political correctness and the severe social and economic punishments meted out to those who don’t toe the line. One woman told pollsters : “It just seems like it’s gotten to the point where if you don’t agree with me or I don’t agree with you, we look at each other as wrong. And how did that become that way? How did your opinion become wrong? Everybody has an opinion about life and living, and all of a sudden it’s wrong.” Other polls taken before the election have shown similar results. As Breitbart News reported a year before the presidential election took place, a majority of Americans did not identify with “what America has become” and over half did indeed “feel like a stranger” in their their own country. • Donald Trump has tapped into this strong, visceral feeling of millions of Americans. What Progressive Democrats and the mainstream media do not understand is that seeking to destroy Trump may further alienate the Republican party from a rapidly growing block of voters. According to a Reuters survey, 58% Americans say they “don’t identify with what America has become.” While Republicans and Independents are the most likely to agree with this statement, even 45% of Democrats share this feeling. A poll conducted by Kaiser Family Foundation and CNN a month before the election revealed that 84% of white, working class voters did not believe politicians in Washington, DC, represented the views of people like them -- and so did 74% of college-educated whites, as did 63% of both working-class blacks and Hispanics. • While it is an agony to watch the man America elected to Drain the Swamp being treated like a demented criminal when, in fact, most Americans know that the criminals are still swimming proudly in the Swamp. With a significant minority in the House of Representatives, Democrats won’t be able to bring impeachment charges against the President on their own, and there’s no apparent move on the Republican side to impeach their own standardbearer and the one person who saved them from thre dustbin. So, this political posturing that the Democrats have been doing for months will undoubtedly harm them more than Trump or the GOP, especially with the DNC and Hillary moving even farther to the left and away from the majority of American voters. And, the Trump bashers are still missing on thing even bigger than Republican support : Any EVIDENCE that Trump colluded illegally and unethically with Russian actors in the 2016 campaign. And until they can produce that evidence, they are just digging themselves into a hole. When the 2018 election season begins, even Democrat voters will surely wonder why their party has been unable to back up its allegations. Trump's supporters are loyal and are "sick and tired of the media." If Trump continues to do the job he was elected to do, as he is doing it now despite all Democrat efforts to stymy his agenda, America will continue to stand with him against the Swamp Creatures.