Fighting with Congress, the Supreme Court and the White House -- the Democrats Are Way Out of Sync with America

A TEMPORARY FAREWELL TO NIKKI HALEY, A VICTORY LAP FOR KAVANAUGH, AND MORE CRACKS IN THE RUSSIA COLLUSION TALE. It has been a great beginning of October for President Trump. • • • FORMER FBI GENERAL COUNSEL TESTIFIES ABOUT COMEY AND THE RUSSIAN PROBE. The Daily Caller reported on October 3 that : "A former top lawyer at the FBI provided “explosive” testimony to Congress on Wednesday regarding the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, lawmakers said. James Baker, who served as the FBI’s general counsel until May, told Congress that a previously unidentified source provided information to the FBI for its investigation, which began on July 31, 2016." • Fox News quoted Jim Jordan : " 'During the time that the FBI was putting -- that [the Department of Justice] and FBI were putting together the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance warrant] during the time prior to the election -- there was another source giving information directly to the FBI...we found the source to be pretty explosive,' Ohio GOP Representative Jim Jordan said after a hearing, according to Fox News. As the FBI’s top attorney, Baker was directly involved in handling applications for the FISA warrants granted against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page." • Daily Caller said Baker was interviewed behind closed doors as part of a congressional task force’s investigation into the FBI’s possible abuse of the FISA process. Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns that the Page FISAs relied heavily on the unverified Steele Dossier. The document, which was funded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was cited extensively in the FBI’s applications to spy on Page." • GOP Representative Mark Meadows told Fox News : “Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature. This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That’s extremely troubling.” • Both Jordan and Meadows said that congressional investigators were not aware of the source until Baker’s testimony. Meadows said last Wednesday that he has seen evidence that “confidential human sources” used by the FBI “actually taped members within the Trump campaign. There is strong suggestions in that some of the text messages, emails, and so forth who was involved, that extraordinary measures were used to surveil." • Then, on October 4, Fox News added details to the developing story about the FBI source. Catherine Herridge reported that : "Michael Sussmann, a top lawyer working with the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign, provided documents for the Russia probe as federal investigators prepared a surveillance warrant for Trump campaign aide Carter Page, sources close to a congressional investigation said....The FBI official who was contacted, James Baker, revealed the exchange to congressional investigators during a closed-door deposition Wednesday. He said Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann initiated contact with him and provided documents as well as computer storage devices on Russian hacking. The sources said Baker described the contact as unusual and the “only time it happened.” Perkins Coie was a key player in the funding of the controversial anti-Trump Dossier, which Republicans have long suspected helped fuel the FBI’s investigation. The DNC and Clinton campaign had hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016, through Perkins Coie, to dig into Trump’s background. Fusion, in turn, paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the Dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016." Herridge says that Sussmann’s contact with Baker suggests another connection between the early stages of the FBI’s Russia probe and those working with the DNC and Clinton campaign. Sussmann's bio on the Perkins Coie website describes him as a former senior Justice Department official with extensive national security and cybersecurity experience: "[Sussmann] is engaged on some of the most sophisticated, high-stakes matters today, such as his representation of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in their responses to Russian hacking in the 2016 presidential election." When asked about James Baker’s statements, however, a Perkins Coie spokesperson said Sussmann’s contact was not connected to the firm’s representation of the DNC or Clinton campaign. The spokesperson said in a statement revealed by Fox News : "Prior to joining Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann served as a cybercrime prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice during both Republican and Democratic administrations. As a result, Sussmann is regularly retained by clients with complex cybersecurity matters. When Sussmann met with Mr. Baker on behalf of a client, it was not connected to the firm’s representation of the Hillary Clinton Campaign, the DNC or any Political Law Group client.” • Representatives Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan would not provide many specifics about the private transcribed interview, citing a confidentiality agreement with Baker and his attorneys. However, they indicated in broad terms to Fox News that "Baker was cooperative and forthcoming about the genesis of the Russia case in 2016, and about the surveillance warrant application for Carter Page in October 2016." • • • BAKER AND ROSENSTEIN ROLES. Former FBI general counsel Baker is at the heart of surveillance abuse allegations, and his deposition lays the groundwork for this week's planned closed-door interview with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Baker, as the FBI's top lawyer, helped secure the FISA warrant for Page, as well as three subsequent renewals. Prior to the deposition, Republican investigators said they believed Baker could explain why information about Steele and his apparent bias against then-candidate Trump were withheld from the FISA court, and whether any exculpatory information was known to Rosenstein when he signed the final FISA renewal for Page in June 2017. Fox News asked Baker after the deposition about the handling of the Trump Dossier, what he told Rosenstein about potential exculpatory evidence and whether he is the subject of an FBI leak investigation. Baker told Fox News he could not answer the questions. Baker, who had a close working relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this year. • Rosenstein is expected on Capitol Hill on Wednesday for what Republican House sources have described as a closed-door interview led by the House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte. It comes after the New York Times reported last month that he’d discussed secretly recording the President and removing him from office using the 25th Amendment. Rosenstein and the DOJ disputed that report, calling it “inaccurate.” Rosenstein’s planned in-person meeting with Trump, meanwhile, has been pushed off amid prior speculation he might be fired or resign. • • • FBI DOCUMENTS EXIST RELATED TO THE CLINTON URANIUM DEAL. Western Journal's Conservative Tribune reported on October 3 that : "Thanks to the national fever over the Kavanaugh hearings, a report that the FBI is holding onto documents that are potentially damning for the Clintons has been able to slip under the radar of the establishment media. In a recent bombshell report by TheHill, investigative journalist John Solomon wrote that the FBI has identified 37 pages of documents that may offer information about what FBI agents told the Obama administration preceding the Uranium One deal about the criminal wrongdoing found in Russia’s nuclear Industry. Those suspicious of the deal pointed to evidence that bribery may have been at play in the deal." The Conservative Tribune points out that, for example, there is "the fact that Russians paid former President Bill Clinton $500,000 to give a speech at a Russian bank that was promoting Uranium One stock a few weeks before then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to vote on the acquisition. Or, the $145 million that went to the Clinton Foundation from interests linked to Uranium One. Or, the fact that Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager, was paid $180,000 by Uranium One to encourage Clinton’s approval of the deal. And more evidence of Clinton-Russia collusion may exist in these FBI documents. At least, there is reason to believe that the documents would inform the American people about what information the Obama administration was working with before the Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States made the highly controversial deal with Russia." • The report about the FBI's 37 pages of documents suggests that either the Obama administration knew about the corruption involved and chose to give American assets to Russia anyway, or the FBI hid their findings and failed to alert the President, the Secretary of State and the CFIUS board. Either option gives a serious indication of the corruption that compromised national security when 20% of US uranium reserves were sold to Russian interests. • BUT, it appears, says the Conservative Tribune, that "the FBI is keeping the documents secret from the public. They claim that they must not disclose the info in order to protect national security and law enforcement, or that they are guarding the privacy of American citizens, or that they must protect the ability of government agencies to communicate among themselves. Pick one....these sound like the same reasons that the FBI originally gave for why they couldn’t publish documents about the Russia collusion investigation -- documents which gave information about former FBI agent Peter Strzok’s anti-Trump texts, or documents on Clinton and other Democrats funding the fraudulent Steele Dossier to take down Trump. The bureau did release a few documents under the title “Uranium One Transaction” in its Freedom of Information Act online vault, but these were just public letters from members of Congress calling for answers about the Uranium One case." • Prior reports have revealed that in 2009 William Douglas Campbell, an American businessman, posed as a consultant inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s massive nuclear corporation, Rosatom, while actually working as an FBI informant....Campbell gave the FBI extensive evidence that by early 2010, Rosatom’s main U.S. executive, Vadim Mikerin, had engineered a major racketeering scheme, including bribes, kickbacks, and extortion which led to the corruption of the main uranium trucking company in the US, putting national security at risk. Mikerin and some other American officials were eventually convicted of these crimes, but not until many years later. And these years of delay in prosecution meant that the public was ignorant of the fact that the FBI was aware of the Russian bribery plot as early as 2009. • • • PROGDEMS TRY TO MAINTAIN ANTI-KAVANAUGH FIGHT. In the lingering Justice Brett Kavanaugh story, the Great American Daily reported last Friday that Senator Dianne Feinstein, who doesn’t believe the FBI has had enough time to investigate Kavanaugh, is bnaking on the mid-term elections to let the Democrats take back the Senate, so that they will have the votes to demand a left-wing Proigressive Supreme Court justice at the next Court vacancy, or vote against anybody Trump tries to nominate until they can take the White House in 2020. If they take back either of the Houses in Congress, their goal will be to keep Trump from being able to do anything. My guess is that Senator Feinstein is also reading palms and tea leaves as indicators of the Democrat mid-term victory. It is just not going to happen. • But, like Feinstein, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi is a poor loser. According to a Washington Times Monday article, Pelosi announced on Saturday that she will file a Freedom of Information Act request for the FBI report on sexual assault allegations against incoming Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh : “In purposefully limiting the FBI investigation, it is clear the Republicans were not seeking the truth. They were seeking cover to do what they wanted to do anyway. To add insult injury they blocked the public’s access to the report.” Pelosi revealed her plans after the Senate confirmed Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination with a 50-48 vote. As I recall, it was Feinstein and Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer who first called for the FBI report to be kept secret. • • • LINDSEY GRAHAM DARED SCHUMER TO PICK ONE JUDGE FROM TRUMP’S LIST. It happened on the Fox News Sunday TV program. Senator Graham held up the Trump list of possible Supreme Court picks and said : “Name five, name three, name one that would be okay with you.” Graham added : “Brett Kavanaugh was a mainstream judge. I would’ve chosen him if I had been president, Bush supported him, everybody running for President on our side believe that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were outstanding conservative jurists.” The Senator from South Carolina then tied the Democrat opposition to Kavanaugh to those who he claimed were still trying to re-litigate the results of the 2016 presidential election : “The other side wants to cancel the election. So, Chuck, if you want someone new? Look at this list and see anybody you agree to, but what you want to do, Senator Schumer, is to overturn the election. We are not going to let you pick the judges. If you want to pick judges, then you need to win the White House. When Obama won, I voted for two judges that he picked. So Chuck Schumer, name one person on this list you think is acceptable.” Graham also confirmed that he planned to celebrate Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Sunday by playing golf with President Trump. • • • A CNN HEADLINE SAYS TRUMP IS WINNING. Let's consider the Monday American Thinker article by editor Thomas Lifson. Lifson says a friend wrote to him saying : "Here’s a CNN headline and news story I never thought I’d see : 'President Donald Trump’s Winning Streak.' Trump said we’d get tired of all the winning, but I’m not tired yet." Lifson added : "It's not exactly signs and wonders territory, but the Age of Trump is normalizing some phenomena we didn't think we would ever see. The CNN article says this : "President Donald Trump’s Winning Streak. (CNN) -- Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President. Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history....There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature. Largely unnoticed in the Washington imbroglio over sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, the Trump administration is engineering significant changes at home and abroad that often represent sharp revisions of direction from traditional American positions....It’s also no longer possible to credibly argue -- despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington -- that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself." • That may be the beginning of the end of the Progressive attack on President Trump. Even the meanest anti-Trumpers run out of words and energy in a losing battle that they must know is hurting them, not President Trump, who just keeps on going from strength to strength with the American public. • • • DEAR READERS, to wrap up this blog, consider this Rasmussen poll. The Conservative Tribune reported the results last Friday. Listening to the mainstream media and most TV talking heads, we would think that the entire country is firmly opposed to President Trump. BUT, the truth is that, as the Conservative Tribune puts it : "Despite frequent protests and tantrums from the President’s opponents, however, the facts are telling a very different story. Trump’s approval ratings are near their highest level, even as the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has turned bitter. On Friday, the latest Rasmussen Reports Presidential Tracking Poll was unveiled, and it showed that a majority -- 51% -- of likely voters approve of the job Trump is doing....it’s higher than former President Barack Obama’s approval rating at the same point in his presidency." Rasmussen reported : "The latest figures include 38% who Strongly Approve of the President is performing and 39% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -1. By comparison, Barack Obama earned a presidential approval index rating of -11 on October 5, 2010, in the second year of his presidency.” • The 51% approval rating for Trump is the highest it has been since March 2017; and it could be part of a trend that Democrats didn’t see coming : Their widely publicized attempts to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation seem to be boosting Republicans. If true, that’s bad news for the Democrat Party as the November mid-term election approaches. Even the left-leaning NPR said last week : "Over a month away from critical elections across the country, the wide Democratic enthusiasm advantage that has defined the 2018 campaign up to this point has disappeared." Rasmussen noted that in July, there was a 10-point gap between the number of Democrats and Republicans saying the November elections were ‘very important,’ summarizing a poll that it helped conduct. “Now, that is down to 2 points, a statistical tie.” • In addition to the frustrations stemming from the Kavanaugh issue, the generally strong economy is likely playing a big role in Trump’s poll numbers. A month ago, the number of American workers filing for unemployment hit an almost 50-year low. The seasonally adjusted total of 203,000 unemployment claims was the lowest level since December 1969, when Richard Nixon was president, according to the Labor Department. The latest employment report showed the lowest unemployment rate in 49 years -- 3.7%. These may be dismissed by the Democrats as mere data points but they add up to one conclusion : Democrats face serious up-hill battles in their attempts to win in the mid-terms, and their bluster about talking back the House and Senate is just that -- BLUSTER. From the Supreme Court to Congress and the presidency, the Democrat Party is way out of step with the American public, and while we must take nothing for granted and get out the vote in November, it looks like President Trump's successful America First agenda will be the American Voter Agenda for the foreseeable future.