ProgDems Are Really Good at Lecturing Republicans, but They Never Heed Their Own Advice

THE REAL NEWS TODAY IS THAT SESSIONS IS PROVING TO BE HIS OWN MAN. And, as Fix This Nation's Friday article said -- "Finally: Justice May Be Coming for Hillary Clinton." But, the other news is that the ProgDems are so determined to bring down President Trump that they have forgotten all about legal vs illegal and the rule of law. • • • COMEY, UNLIKE SESSIONS, WAS NOT HIS OWN MAN. Conservative America watched in stunned silence in July 2016 when former FBI Director James Comey stood at a podium and told a national television audience that, despite breaking several federal criminal statutes regarding the safekeeping of classified material, Hillary Clinton would not be prosecuted for her crimes. As bizarre and unconscionable as Comey's decision was, it took second place in the miscarriage of justice that occurred under Comey at the FBI and Loretta Lynch at the Department of Justice when they were serving President Obama in covering up for the former Secretary of State. First place in cover-ups goes to the Obama Justice Department’s complete and utter lack of interest in investigating whether or not Clinton traded state favors for donations to her private charity, the Clinton Foundation. At least Comey stood up and took his medicine as Lynch and Obama's water carrier -- showing Hillary was guilty before saving her skin. When it came to Uranium One, the most easily proven of the pay-for-play Hillary and Bill scams while Hillary was at State, noboby even showed up at a microphone to say the words. Uranium One was, as Fix This Nation put it : "merely left on the table to fester like an open sore. Clinton herself dismissed the very idea as ludicrous and the mainstream media was more than happy to treat her denials as fact." • • • ENTER SESSIONS AT DOJ. We have chafed and complained about Jeff Sessions. President Trump has opined that he was not doing his job. Sessions even reportedly gave Trump a letter of resignation that the President refused to accept. But, in the past month, Sessions has become the new sheriff in town. It will be time for all of us to apologize to him if Sessions actually begins to right the wrongs of the Obama Justice Department. • And, a new report from TheHill has informed us that the Justice Department has “launched a new inquiry” into the Clinton Foundation and the role it played in getting donors in to see Secretary Clinton. TheHill reported, also on last Friday, that : "FBI agents from Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Foundation was started, have taken the lead in the investigation and have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, and law enforcement officials said additional activities are expected in coming weeks. The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their charitable efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing government outcomes.” • As we have come to expect, in a statement, Clinton spokesperson Nick Merrill said that the FBI’s investigation was politically-motivated : “Let’s call this what it is : a sham,” Merrill said. “This is a philanthropy that does life-changing work, which Republicans have tried to turn into a political football. It began with a now long-debunked project spearheaded by Steve Bannon during the presidential campaign. It continues with Jeff Sessions doing Trump’s bidding by heeding his calls to meddle with a department that is supposed to function independently.” • But, Fix This Nation makes a truly excellent point : "Here’s the thing, though. Actually, two things: One, if we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that Attorney General Jeff Sessions does not do the President’s bidding. When it comes to matters regarding his boss and Hillary Clinton, in fact, Sessions seems to be taking his recusal seriously -- much to Trump’s dismay. It’s tough to believe that Sessions is suddenly abandoning his pledge to do some political dirty work in Little Rock after passing on so many chances to 'protect' the President from the Russia inquiry. Two, Merrill’s offhand dismissal of Bannon’s 'long-debunked project' doesn’t match reality. Merrill is referring to the Breitbart-funded Peter Schweizer book Clinton Cash, which debuted in 2015. Far from being 'debunked,' the meat of its story was largely corroborated by mainstream sources -- as we noted in Tuesday's blog -- that were doing everything in their power to save Clinton’s campaign from Trump attacks. Maybe it was a coincidence that so many Clinton Foundation donors had access to the Secretary and that so many of their interests aligned with State Department decisions at the time -- maybe...but the facts laid out in the book have not been 'debunked' by any stretch of the imagination." • So, we await the outcome of the FBI Little Rock investigation and the fate of Crooked Hillary and Slick Willie -- but our hopes must be tempered with the knowledge that the Clintons have gotten out of one criminal jam after another. Perhaps, though, their luck will run out this time with Obama out of the picture and Sessions & Co hot on their tails. • • • SPEAKING OF COMEY. He has his own problems with mishandling classified documents. Zero Hedge reported on Saturday that : "A recently retired and active duty FBI agent, Chris Farrell, and others, have said they consider Comey to be a dirty cop...As James Comey trots around the country on his book-selling tour, tweeting Bible quotes and nature scenes, a less serene series of events is playing out in Washington DC which suggests the former FBI Director may be in trouble over the memos he leaked to Columbia law professor, allegedly detailing conversations between Comey and President Trump." While Professor Richman told CNN : “No memo was given to me that was marked ‘classified,’ " and Comey told congressional investigators he tried to “write it in such a way that I don’t include anything that would trigger a classification,” it appears the FBI’s chief FOIA officer, David Hardy, disagrees : “We have a sworn declaration from David Hardy who is the chief FOIA officer of the FBI that we obtained just in the last few days, and in that sworn declaration, Mr. Hardy says that all of Comey’s memos -- all of them, were classified at the time they were written, and they remain classified.” Therefore, Farrell points out, Comey mishandled national defense information when he “knowingly and willfully” leaked them to his friend at Columbia University. “It’s also mishandling of national defense information, which is a crime. So, it’s clear that Mr. Comey not only authored those documents, but then knowingly and willfully leaked them to persons unauthorized, which is in and of itself a national security crime. Mr. Comey should have been read his rights back on June 8th when he testified before the Senate...” Chris Farrell is Director of Investigations at Judicial Watch. He also told Gregg Jarrett in a December 21 Media Matters interview that special counsel Mueller : "is completely unable to articulate what the criminal predicate is for his investigation. No one can tell you what crime has been committed, and instead they're investigating people, looking for a crime, which frankly is Stalinist....That's not the way we operate in this country." • • • SENATOR FEINSTEIN IGNORES SENATE PROCEDURE TO MAKE FUSION GPS' SIMPSON TRANSCRIPT PUBLIC. The breaking news was on CNBC Tuesday morning : "Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Tuesday released the full transcript from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson's August 22 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election." Senator Feinstein said at the release : "The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public." Feinstein said the release of the transcript was supported by Judiciary Committee Democrats, who are, by the way, the minority on the Committee. Senator Feinstein's statement should be read to mean that she and her Senate ProgDem cohort in the Senate will break Senate tradition and protocol if they think it will help them destroy President Trump. • Her move follows Committee a decision by Republicans Chuck Grassley, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham to issue a criminal referral last week against Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the largely unverified "Trump Dossier." Democrats on the Committee said they were not consulted ahead of the Republicans' referral to the Department of Justice. Tit for Tat?? The problem with that is the GOP is now the majority and Dianne Feinstein is no longer chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But, ProgDems have a way of ignoring the niceties of procedure -- especially when the target is President Trump. The transcript in pdf format can be accessed at < https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/3/9/3974a291-ddbe-4525-9ed1- 22bab43c05ae/934A3562824CACA7BB4D915E97709D2F.simpson-transcript-redacted.pdf >. • WBUR-FM, Boston's NPR news station and the home of nationally syndicated programs, reported on Tuesday that the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Chuck Grassley, issued a criminal referral last week for Steele, alleging the Committee had reason to believe that the former spy had lied to authorities about his conversations with the press regarding the dossier. A spokesman for Grassley, Taylor Foy, called it "confounding" that Feinstein released the transcript "unilaterally," over the objections of the Republican majority. This will hurt the work of the Committee to bring in future witnesses, he said; adding : "Feinstein's unilateral decision was made as the Committee is still trying to secure testimony from other witnesses, including Jared Kushner. Her action undermines the integrity of the Committee's oversight work and jeopardizes its ability to secure candid voluntary testimony relating to the independent recollections of future witnesses." • Fusion GPS was first hired in 2015 by a conservative donor to investigate Trump's background in the early stages of the Republican presidential nominating process. Later, as Trump's Republican nomination became assured, Fusion GPS was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee to continue that research. As part of that research, Fusion GPS hired Steele, who reportedly had been the head of MI6's Russia desk. The resulting memos, written over the summer and fall of 2016, were explosive, alleging that the Russian government had compromising material on the President and that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to defeat Clinton during the presidential elections. Trump has called the Dossier politically motivated, and several congressional committees are investigating whether it formed the basis for the FBI's initial investigation into Russian election interference. Fusion GPS co-founder Simpson has testified for more than 20 hours before three congressional committees regarding his firm's role in commissioning the report. On January 2, Simpson and fellow Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch called on congressional investigators to release their testimony. • • • FUSION GPS SHOCKER -- SOMEBODY HAS BEEN KILLED BECAUSE OF THE TRUMP DOSSIER. Fox News' Alex Pappas reported on Tuesday that an attorney for Glenn Simpson, co-founder of opposition research firm Fusion GPS, revealed during the closed-door interview on August 22 with congressional investigators that “somebody's already been killed” as a result of the publication of the anti-Trump Dossier. Attorney Josh Levy told the Senate Judiciary Committee on August 22 that Simpson : "wants to be very careful to protect his sources. Somebody's already been killed as a result of the publication of this Dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work.” Levy doesn’t elaborate on who was killed. • The website BuzzFeed first published the Dossier online in January, 2017, airing its unverified allegations about President Trump's connections with Russia. The Levy statement was in the lengthy transcript of Simpson's interview with committee investigators, released Tuesday by Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein. • • • THE HISTORY OF THE DOSSIER. Fox News' reporters Catherine Herridge, Pamela K. Browne, and Cyd Upson, wrote a review of the Trump Russia Dossier on Tuesday : "Former senior British diplomat, Sir Andrew Wood, says he was instructed by Christopher Steele to reach out to Senator McCain about the Dossier...to inform Senator John McCain about the controversial “Dossier” containing salacious allegations about then-candidate Donald Trump...“My mission was essentially to be a go-between and a messenger, to tell the Senator and assistants that such a dossier existed”...Fox News spoke to Wood at the 2017 Halifax International Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada. As Britain’s ambassador to Moscow from 1995-2000, Wood witnessed the end of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the rise of Vladimir Putin....in November 2016, Arizona GOP Senator McCain spoke at the same security conference. Wood says he was instructed -- by former British spy Christopher Steele -- to reach out to the senior Republican, whom Wood called “a good man,” about the unverified document....Wood insists that he’s never read the Dossier that his good friend and longtime colleague prepared. It was commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS and funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign....In August 2016, “[Steele] came to me to tell me what was in it, and why it...was important. He made it very clear...yes, it was raw intelligence, but it needed putting into proper context before you could judge it fully.” August 2016 is a critical period, just after the FBI opened the Russia meddling probe, and after then-director James Comey recommended against prosecution for Clinton’s mishandling of classified information. Wood said Steele had “already been in contact with the FBI” at the time....British court records reviewed by Fox News as well as US congressional testimony revealed that Steele was directed and paid at least $168,000 by Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson to push the research that fall to five American media outlets. According to British court documents, Steele met with The New York Times (twice), The Washington Post (twice), CNN, The New Yorker and Yahoo News (twice). “Each of these interviews was conducted in person and with a member of Fusion also present,” according to the records associated with separate civil litigation against Steele and Fusion GPS....Three weeks after Trump won the presidential election, at the Canadian security conference, the details were finalized for the Dossier hand-off to McCain. Along with the Senator, Wood and McCain Institute for International Leadership staffer David J. Kramer attended the Canadian conference. British court records state McCain ordered Kramer to get a personal briefing from Steele in Surrey, just outside of London, and then return to Washington, D.C., where Fusion GPS would provide McCain with hard copies. In January, McCain officially gave the Dossier to the FBI, which already had its own copy from Steele. Of note, listed in the official program for the 2016 November Canadian conference as a participant was Rinat Akhmetshin — the same Russian lobbyist who was at Trump Tower five months earlier in June for a highly scrutinized meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and others. The Senator’s office noted to Fox News that McCain said in January 2017 he had no contact with Akhmetshin. “Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public. Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI. That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.” It is not known whether Akhmetshin had any contact with Kramer. Fusion GPS and Kramer did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News." It is also "not known" what Senator McCain's full role in bringing the Dossier to publication was. • • • AND THE 25th AMENDMENT BECOMES A PROGDEM WEAPON. The Democrat leadership in Congress loves to tell the GOP how to operate and behave, but their own comportment is of the "Anything Goes" variety. They ranted in 2016 when candidate Trump said the election was rigged and he might not accept the results. Progressives accused Trump of risking a "violent insurrection" with his irresponsible talk about the legitimacy of the election. BUT, Trump won and now that he's keeping his campaign promises to overturn many of the Obama policies detested by the majority of Americans -- who voted for Trump -- the ProgDems have forgotten everything they said about the sanctity of the electoral process. In the past week, kicking Trump out of office with the 25th Amendment has gone from an extreme idea whispered about in ProgDem pow-wows to something mainstream Democrats are actually considering. The ProgDems are trying to remove Trump through a "silent coup". • • • DEAR READERS, if we are to believe the Progressive mainstream and its online media, the Trump Cabinet is only too willing to join the coup -- the Democrats in Congress would need the support of Trump’s entire Cabinet. But, the last time I looked, I actually didn't see many Progressives lurking in the Trump Cabinet. They all appear to be rather conservative people whose political histories point to just that -- and unless the ProgDems are plotting to carry out stealth frontal lobotomies or attack Cabinet members with massive doses of drugs, I don't see how they expect to get even one of Trump's Cabinet officers to turn on him. • It is not going to happen. But, in their delirium -- brought on by the loss of the White House to a feisty conservative -- the ProgDems will continue to rant and plot and puzzle over the 25th Amendment. And, just as Feinstein's fury at being held in check by the Republican chairman of "her" Judiciary Committee led her to tear up Senate protocol, the fury of the ProgDems at not being able to force Trump to "get out of town" has turned their “violent insurrection” lecture to the GOP back in 2016 on its head as they plot the Democrat "silent coup" of 2018.