"Keep It Simple, Stupid" -- Advice the ProgDems and Deep State Forgot to Follow

AFTER THE PROGDEM ATTACKS ON PRESIDENT TRUMP'S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, THEY HAVE RETURNED TO "THE MEMO." For more than a week, Washington has created a battle around the release of a memo prepared by House Intleeigence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes that apparently summarizes the federal abuse of surveillance on US citizens. • • • NATIONAL SECURITY VS. THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW. Fox News reported last Thursday that : "A top Justice Department official is urging House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes not to release a much-buzzed-about memo circulating in Congress that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuses...In a letter, which Fox News has obtained, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd writes, 'We believe it would be extraordinarily reckless for the Committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum and to advise the [House Intelligence Committee] of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release.' Boyd continued, 'Though we are currently unaware of any wrongdoing relating to the FISA process, we agree that any abuse of that system cannot be tolerated.' ” • The self-defense of AAG Boyd must be palced beside the reaction of many members of Congress who have read the memo and described it as "shocking,"“troubling” and “alarming,” with one congressman comparing the details to KGB activity in Russia. It is believed to include information about government surveillance conducted during the Obama administration. • Also last Thursday, Fox News reported that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley ahd accused the FBI and the Justice Department of hiding information from the public about the Russia investigation and Dossier author Christopher Steele : "It sure looks like a bureaucratic game of hide the ball, rather than a genuine concern about national security,” Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor, where he described the DOJ using false classification labels to stop the release of information related to his criminal referral to the Justice Department of Steele, the former British spy who authored the infamous Dossier of unverified claims about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. • Grassley and South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham sent a January memo to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein requesting the criminal referral of Steele after discovering “discrepancies.” Grassley said last week that he wants to release the “unclassified portions” of his referral, but the DOJ and the FBI are preventing him from doing so, because the “FBI is falsely claiming that three of our unclassified paragraphs each contain the same, single classified fact” : “If FBI really believed this fact was classified, then the FBI and the department should take better care to act consistent with that belief. Unfortunately, I suspect something else is really going on here.” Grassley said he doesn’t believe the fact at issue is classified for several reasons, including how Rosenstein discussed it "with me more than once in unsecure space and on an unsecure phone line.” He also said that the FBI is not acting as if this information would harm national security if released, and that other entities who received the memo were never contacted by the FBI to tell them it was classified. Grassley added : “Those particular paragraphs are based on nongovernment sources and do not claim to repeat or confirm any information from any government document. Even if those portions of our referral did reference the allegedly classified fact at issue, it is hard to understand why that fact should be classified." Grassley said he is “pressing this issue” with Wray and hopes to be able to release the information “as soon as possible : "“Hiding from tough questions about these controversial cases is no way to reassure the public. If the department is afraid of independent oversight, that just reinforces people’s suspicions and skepticism. The only real way to reassure people is to let the sun shine in and let the chips fall where they may.” • And, there, Senator Grassley got it absolutely right. American citizens have followed with great interest the Steele Russia Dossier since its publication by BuzzFeed News in January 2017. Republicans in several congressional committees have been investigating whether the unverified Russia Dossier fueled the original Russia inquiry and helped justify illegal surveillance on Trump and his team. The later revelation that the Dossier project got funding from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee added urgency to the investigations. But, as per their usual Swamp kneejerk reactions, the ProgDems have fustigated and pounded on the mainstream media about the need to hide whatever is now known about the Russia Dossier and how it could have been wrongly used to "wiretap" Trump, as he alleged back in 2016. It is time to get this memo out into the public domain so Americans can evaluate it. • • • NUNES AND TRUMP SEEK PUBLICATION OF THE MEMO. The Washington Examiner reported on Wednesday that : "The FBI said Wednesday it has 'grave concerns' about the classified memo put together by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, and said it includes 'material omissions of fact.' The FBI claims it was "provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it...As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.” • According to a prior report, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned the White House to object to the release of the memo, spearheaded by the staff of House Intel Chairman Devin Nunes. Wray reviewed the memo on Capitol Hill on Sunday, and the committee voted along party lines Monday night to make the four-page memo public. The vote gave President Trump five days to object to making the memo public, after which the committee can release it. In response to Wray, Nunes said top officials at the Justice Department and FBI : “used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again." • President Trump was caught on a micrphone Tuesday night as he left the Hosue chamber after his SOTU address telling Representative Jeff Duncan he would “100 percent” release the memo. The White House received the memo late Monday, and has said there is now a multi-agency review going on. • Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly said during a radio interview early Wednesday that he thinks the memo “will be released here pretty quick.” • Democrats on the House Intel Committee have prepared their own memo that they say fills in the blanks and counters the “misleading” GOP memo, but the full Committee voted Monday to keep the Democrat memo private for House members only, until it follows the same steps for release that the Nunes memo took. • And, who would object loudly? The Washington Post published an op-ed Wednesday by House Intel ranking member Adam Schiff, the California Democrat, how wrote that the memo “crosses the line.” Schiff said the memo “cherry-picks facts, ignores others and smears the FBI and the Justice Department,” and also alleged that Nunes has not read the classified documents that the memo characterizes. Schiff charged that the memo release is meant to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller -- who was appointed in May by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to investigate Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. • Schiff represents a ProgDem group obviously afraid that the details in the memo will further tarnish any integrity left in their cabal that is functioning as a drumhead court to destroy Trump and his presidency and the Republican Party. If that sounds exaggerated, consider that the GOP memo reportedly details abuses of the federal surveillance court process under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by top officials at the FBI and Department of Justice, to obtain surveillance warrants against associates involved in the Trump campaign. • Such revelations would stop the ProgDem "collusion" witch hunt in its tracks, despite the hard-to-believe FBI comment Wednesday : "The FBI takes seriously its obligations to the FISA Court and its compliance with procedures overseen by career professionals in the Department of Justice and the FBI. We are committed to working with the appropriate oversight entities to ensure the continuing integrity of the FISA process." Rosenstein, former FBI Director James Comey, and outgoing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe are reportedly named in the memo. And, we know how ethically upright and dedicated ot justice and fairness thay are -- McCabe stepped down from his position on Monday ahead of the release of an inspector general’s report on the FBI’s handling of its probe into Hillary Clinton’s private email server which will undoubtedly find that his failure to report his wife's $700,000 campaign contribution from Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton pal who financed their Chapaqua home purchase, was illegal. / The Washington Post reported late Tuesday that Rosenstein made a last-minute plea to White House chief of staff John Kelly about the “dangers” of releasing the memo, and he was reportedly joined by FBI Director Wray in the Monday meeting. / Last week, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd told Nunes in a letter that releasing the memo would be “extraordinarily reckless.” / In a statement, Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein said the FBI’s statement “is the latest reason not to release it.” • These ProgDem and Deep State admonitions are all reasons to let the American public see the memo. What Trump's FBI Director Christopher Wray is doing consorting withthe ProgDem Swamp Creatures is a mystery. • • • NUNES FIGHTS BACK AGAINST THE PROGDEMS. The Independent Journal Review reported on Wednesday that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes criticized the FBI after it expressed concern about Congress potentially releasing his memo on alleged abuses at the Department of Justice. Nunes stated : “Having stonewalled Congress’ demands for information for nearly a year, it’s no surprise to see the FBI and DOJ issue spurious objections to allowing the American people to see information related to surveillance abuses at these agencies." His statement came just after the FBI said it had “grave concerns about material omissions” in Nunes' memo. Nunes, in response, suggested the FBI could make those omissions public : "The FBI is intimately familiar with ‘material omissions’ with respect to their presentations to both Congress and the courts,” Nunes said cynically, “and they are welcome to make public, to the greatest extent possible, all the information they have on these abuses....It’s clear that top officials used unverified information in a court document to fuel a counter-intelligence investigation during an American political campaign. Once the truth gets out, we can begin taking steps to ensure our intelligence agencies and courts are never misused like this again.” • • • SPEAKER RYAN SUPPORTS NUNES. In an uncharacteristic taking of a position on any topic relating to President Trump, House Speaker Paul Ryan defended Nunes on Wednesday. The Washington Post wrote : “House Speaker Paul D. Ryan on Tuesday defended the way that Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes handled a politically divisive vote to publicize a classified memo detailing alleged surveillance abuses by federal law enforcement agencies, but he warned against using it to discredit the special counsel’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Ryan said Nunes was following a well-established process when the committee voted Monday to release a GOP-drafted memo to the public, provided President Trump does not block its efforts within five days. The panel also voted to make a memo drafted by Democrats rebutting the GOP’s document available to House members to read in a secure facility, as the panel had done with the GOP memo 11 days earlier along party lines.” • • • THE MEMO SURELY WILL CAST DOUBT ON ALL THE PROGDEM DEEP STATE INVESTIGATIONS AND ON MUELLER & CO. There are many examples of the harm any release of factual materiual could heap on the ProgDem cabal against Trump and the Constitution. • • SHIELDING COMEY. American Thinker published a piece on January 24 stating that FBI Director James Comey has "tried to weasel out of leak admission by claiming professor pal was his lawyer." Monica Showalter wrote : "With the heat on about the Federal Bureau of Investigation manipulation of the US election to 'get' Trump the news of the day, it seems that his old tale of leaking FBI documents to a Columbia Law School professor pal, Daniel Richman, is now that the guy was his attorney all along." Showalter quotes The Federalist : "A friend of former FBI director James Comey who leaked sensitive FBI memos to the New York Times in the wake of Comey's firing in 2017 now claims to be Comey's personal attorney. Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University, told The Federalist via phone on Tuesday afternoon that he [is] now personally representing Comey. The revelation comes in the wake of news that Comey was interviewed by the special counsel's office last year. According to the New York Times, the line of questioning from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller focused on memos that Comey wrote and later leaked after he was fired from his job by President Donald Trump. A review of FBI policies governing the handling of sensitive government documents suggests [that] Comey violated FBI policy by leaking the memos, which were produced on government time, using government equipment, and directly related to his official government responsibilities, according to Comey's own testimony before Congress." Showalter says that The Federalist's Sean Davis, who got the scoop, reports that "Richman got at least one classified document from the Comey pile, which wouldn't be legal even if he had been Comey's attorney." At the same time, Showalter says the new claim to attorney representation in the Comey-Richman relationship : "looks a lot like a bid to shield the both of them from answering questions from Congress, due to attorney-client privilege. Comey, recall, was Mister Noble Whistleblower when, upon being fired, he told Congress he had written up some memos and then got Richman to leak them to the press. Given that Richman is an old pal of Comey's, it looks like an effort to weasel out of potential legal troubles now that the long knives are out for the FBI -- and could easily be an agreement between friends. How convenient that they are both lawyers, too." Showalter continues : "It underlines that the heat is on, and Comey sounds as though he'd prefer to avoid any responsibility for his role in this growing bonfire of a fiasco. If so, maybe the media's loud claims that the problems are all in the congressional inquiries and Special Counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on President Trump aren't the real direction this news is going. The sudden claim to attorneyship from Comey looks a lot like a weaselly effort to get out of any accountability for his strange exoneration of Hillary Clinton and his agency's inexplicable continuous targeting of President Trump." James Comey is changing his story -- Again. • • MORE EVIDENCE OF ANTI-TRUMP FBI MEETINGS. TheHill reported last week that : "Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Repulbican, says that a whistleblower has told Congress about secret meetings between FBI and Department of Justice officials who allegedly gathered to discuss ways to undermine President Trump following his victory in the 2016 election. Johnson's comments come after House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy said two FBI agents accused of anti-Trump bias made reference in text messages to a 'secret society' within the FBI and DOJ in the aftermath of Trump’s election. Speaking Tuesday on Fox News, Johnson, the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he has an informant to back those claims up." Johnson told Fox News : “The secret society -- we have an informant talking about a group holding secret meetings off-site. We have to continue to dig into it. This is not a distraction. This is biased, potentially corruption at the highest levels of the FBI.” The information has led Senator Johnson to join several GOP lawmakers in calling for a second special counsel to investigate the FBI’s handling of the investigation into whether Trump campaign officials had improper contacts with Russians during the election. That probe is currently being led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Johnson stated : "Robert Mueller used to run the FBI. He's in no position to do an investigation over this kind of misconduct. I think at this point in time, we probably should be looking at a special counsel to undertake this investigation, but Congress is going to have to continue to dig.” And, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says special counsel Robert Mueller is safe, according to Bloomberg : “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday he sees no need to act to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation -- and declined to say how Republicans would react if President Donald Trump tries to fire Mueller. ‘My understanding is there’s no effort under way to undermine or remove the special counsel,’ McConnell of Kentucky told reporters. ‘Therefore I don’t see any need to bring up legislation to protect someone who appears to need no protection.’ McConnell declined to say what Republicans would do if Trump sought to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein or Mueller, despite reports Trump has discussed both possibilities.” • That WP ending -- ''despite reports Trump has discussed both possibilities" -- is the Washington Post's way of convicting Trump of collusion followed by obstruction of justice, despite all evidence to the contrary. • • INVESTIGATING McCABE. The DOJ has started to focus on FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s involvement in the 2016 campaign, according to Fox News, which reported on Wednesday : “The Justice Department's internal watchdog has been scrutinizing why former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe seemingly delayed an investigation of emails related to Hillary Clinton's personal server in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz is attempting to determine whether McCabe or other FBI officials wanted to hold off on probing the emails found on the laptop of former Democratic Representative Anthony Weiner. McCabe, a 22-year FBI veteran, left his position Monday ahead of his planned retirement, effective March 18. The Post reported that McCabe's departure was announced following a meeting with FBI Director Christopher Wray at which the inspector general's investigation was discussed. ...However, the Post reports that McCabe was aware of the emails on Weiner's laptop by late September or early October.” • • • DEAR READERS, that brings us to the strangest piece of Deep State covering up we are ever likely to see. The ProgDem - Deep State effort at "rehabilitation" has begun. Legal Insurrection's Mary Chastain reported on Wednesday evening : "CNN has reported that FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the man who exchanged anti-Trump texts with an FBI lawyer, co-authored the letter from former FBI Director James Comey that reopened the investigation into failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails." The letter referred to is the October 2016 letter that Comey wrote to Congress stating that the Hillary email probe had been reopened. ProgDems and Hillary and her MSM stalwarts continue to say that this Comey letter cost Hillary the election -- the loss had nothing to do with her poor campaign style, her lies, her history of 'crooked' dealings, her unexplained illnesses, or her "Deplorable" comment. • Here is what CNN said : "Strzok, who co-wrote what appears to be the first draft that formed the basis of the letter Comey sent to Congress, also supported reopening the Clinton investigation once the emails were discovered on disgraced former Represnetative Anthony Weiner’s laptop, according to a source familiar with Strzok’s thinking. The day after Strzok sent his draft to his colleagues, Comey released the letter to Congress, reigniting the email controversy in the final days of the campaign. Strzok did, however, harbor reservations about Comey making a public announcement just days before the election and sent a text message to that effect, two sources said. And Strzok’s text messages provided to Congress show him grappling with the fallout of making the letter public, according to a CNN review of his texts. This latest news appears to show a different side of Strzok, but two sources also told CNN that the agent did 'harbor reservations about Comey making a public announcement just days before the election and sent a text message to that effect.' ” • What is CNN talking about? CNN continued : "In an October 27, 2016, email the FBI provided to congressional investigators, Strzok informs his colleagues he and another FBI agent had drafted 'the first cut' of the letter notifying Congress of the decision to reopen the Clinton email investigation. His colleagues then exchanged two additional emails referencing further comments and changes to Strzok’s initial draft, which was ultimately forwarded to Comey by the then-FBI chief of staff James Rybicki. One of the drafts, reviewed by CNN, was recently produced to Congress with the email chain. But it is unclear whether that draft was the initial copy written by Strzok or one incorporating others’ edits. That draft states that the FBI had an 'obligation to take appropriate investigative steps to review' the newly discovered emails on Weiner’s laptop. The next day, on October, 28, 2016, Comey sent the final letter to Congress, editing out the line that he had an 'obligation' to take steps to review. Instead, new language was added saying that Comey had been briefed by his team 'yesterday' and that he 'agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps.' ” • We are now being told by CNN -- the most discredited, biased 'news' outlet in the US -- that it has "sources" (the infamous unnamed and never revealed 'sources' of CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post are the basis for much of the Deep State trouble being heaped on Trump) that show that Peter Strzok -- the FBI lawyer already fired and under multiple investigations for unprofessional and probably illegal conduct while working for the FBI and Mueller -- suddenly had a change of heart -- a conversion on the road to Damascus, if you will -- and decided to tell his boss James Comey to come clean about the Weiner emails and devil-be-damned if the chips fell against Hillary. • The Strzok conversion is nothing short of a ProgDem miracle, despite the ProgDem revulsion against all things religious. We recall a Peter Strzok -- the FBI lead in the FBI dealings with Christopher Steele and the Hillary-DNC rubbish Russia Dossier, the #2 on the Hillary investigation who exchanged anti-Trump texts with his mistress FBI lawyer Lisa Page, the lawyer fired by special counsel Robert Mueller because of the anti-Trump text messages -- who was so afraid of Hillary not winning in 2016 that he emailed about talking to "Andy" -- who is generally agreed to be FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, recently "removed" from the FBI -- about an "insurance policy" in case she lost, presumably to do just what these Deep Staters subsequently did -- smear and investigate Trump for dreamed-up nonsense charges of collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice. • YES. We are talking about THAT Peter Strzok. The CNN tale of his conversion is laughably FAKE news. • What is really going on is that the FBI and DOJ have found themselves in hot water with Congress and the American people because their very complicated Deep State trickery to destroy Trump in the event that Hillary was not elected has blown up in their faces. So, they are now inventing a new ruse to save themselves by saying that they really meant to get at the truth in their hoax investigations, even if Hillary suffered as a consequence. • All I can say about this ProgDem comedy is that it is pitifully sad to see officials America trusted to protect its best interests fall so deep into the Swamp that they cannot get out again. One basic truth about conspiracies -- and we all know this is a conspiracy against President Trump and the constitutional rule of law -- is that they must be limited to very few co-conspirators and be very SIMPLE. Complication leads to lies and errors and uncovers the conspiracy faster than you can say "Peter Strzok." • We could probably sell these turkeys the Brooklyn Bridge.