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6 Freshly Documented Instances Of Systemic Pro-Democrat FBI Corruption


BY: JOY PULLMANN | MAY 17, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/17/6-freshly-documented-instances-of-systemic-pro-democrat-fbi-corruption/

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Former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann and others lied to the nation about the special counsel report released Monday that deeply documents years of systemic FBI corruption in favor of the Democratic Party. That report reveals and adds detail to multiple instances in which FBI employees used high-level intelligence and law-enforcement positions to promote misinformation that affected at least two presidential elections, always on behalf of Democrats.

Special Counsel John Durham’s report lists and compares multiple such instances to illustrate “Systemic Problems” that are “difficult to explain.” Many more have been uncovered in the past few years. This information key to Americans’ oversight of their government through free and fair elections has been blacked out on corporate media airwaves and censored online by private grantees and social media companies obeying funding conditions and threats from federal officials.

1. Weaponizing Democrat Party Misinformation Developed With Probable Foreign Spies

It just so happens that the false information the FBI used to immediately open a spy operation on Democrats’ opposition was developed by the Democrat presidential campaign, in conjunction with at least two potential or allegedly former foreign spies.

According to the Durham report, top FBI, DOJ, and CIA officials, as well as President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, were told “within days of its receipt” that the Hillary Clinton campaign had developed a “plan to vilify Trump by tying him to Vladimir Putin so as to divert attention from her own concerns relating to her use of a private email server.”

CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama, Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and Attorney General Eric Holder on this intelligence on Aug. 3, 2016, a few days after Clinton’s campaign developed the plan. The CIA reportedly got this info about Clinton’s smear plan from its surveillance of Russian intelligence.

This means that, in the summer of 2016, the FBI and DOJ, and the head of the Democrat Party, knew that the Steele dossier, Alfa Bank allegations, and other claims of Donald Trump being a traitorous Russian stooge “were part of a political effort to smear a political opponent and to use the resources of the federal government’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies in support of a political objective.”

This should have gotten the FBI to question its Crossfire Hurricane operation, Durham’s report says. Instead, however, the FBI raced ahead, with FBI headquarters demanding faster pursuit of Trump under what they knew were false pretenses.

The FBI’s actions indicated a clear double standard for Republicans and Democrats, the report shows. “Unlike the FBI’s opening of a full investigation of unknown members of the Trump campaign based on raw, uncorroborated information, in this separate matter involving a purported Clinton campaign plan, the FBI never opened any type of inquiry, issued any taskings, employed any analytical personnel, or produced any analytical products in connection with the information,” notes the Durham report.

The report says if the Clinton campaign knowingly supplied this false information to the government, that’s a criminal offense. Durham claims his team was unable to establish this criminal intent, but it’s obvious it existed even if it can’t be established with emails and voice recordings.

So, again, months before the press started stampeding false claims of Russian collusion into three impeachment attempts that strangled Trump’s ability to wield the power voters had given him, the heads of U.S. intelligence agencies, the sitting president and head of the Democratic Party, and Democrats’ next president were aware it was a political disinformation operation with no basis in fact. The head of that same FBI that ran a multi-year spy operation against Trump based on this claim knew it was politically motivated disinformation before the lie even got its boots on.

This goes far beyond agency “bias.” It is the complete corruption of half of the nation’s political party system and its federal law enforcement. It is the systematic disenfranchisement of Americans who don’t agree with the national security blob — or wouldn’t, if that blob allowed them to learn true facts about its evil machinations.

It is the systematic weaponization of the U.S. national security apparatus against constitutional self-government. It is the end of government of the people, by the people, and for the people in the United States of America. That’s what Durham’s report shows. Anyone who doesn’t treat this as a five-alarm fire set by saboteurs is helping fan the flames.

2. Protecting Democrats’ POTUS Pick While Slandering Republicans’ POTUS Pick

Several times, the Durham report notes that FBI and Department of Justice officials treated the Clinton and Trump campaigns completely differently. Another notable way was in regard to potential contacts with agents from foreign governments.

When the feds learned of a foreign influence operation seeking to target Hillary Clinton, they gave her campaign what is called a “defensive briefing.” That means they warned the campaign about the potential for undue foreign influence.

When the feds learned that a foreign influence operation might be seeking to target Trump, they warned almost everyone except the Trump campaign. The FBI, DOJ, and CIA not only gave Trump’s campaign no defensive briefings on such potential threats, the report says, these agencies used the threats as an excuse to surveil Trump’s campaign and boost Clinton’s disinformation operation linking Trump to Russia in the press.

“The speed with which surveillance of a U.S. person associated with Trump’s campaign was authorized … are difficult to explain compared to the FBI’s and the [Justice] Department’s actions nearly two years earlier when confronted with corroborated allegations of attempted foreign influence involving Clinton, who at the time was still an undeclared candidate for the presidency,” says the report on pages 73 and 74.

3. Dismissing Foreign Funds Transfers for Clinton, Not for Trump

In contrast to the bureau’s full-scale rush to use its powers to smear Republicans with known falsehoods, the report shows that when the FBI knew the Democrat presidential campaign might be violating federal law, the FBI stood down. When an informant told the FBI the Clinton campaign was likely accepting illegal foreign campaign contributions, the FBI told the informant to drop it and did nothing further.

“Once again, the investigative actions taken by FBI Headquarters in the [Clinton] Foundation matters contrast with those taken in Crossfire Hurricane,” says Durham’s report. “As an initial matter, the NYFO [FBI New York Field Office] and WFO [Washington Field Office] investigations appear to have been opened as preliminary investigations due to the political sensitivity and their reliance on unvetted hearsay information (the Clinton Cash book) and CHS reporting. By contrast, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was immediately opened as a full investigation despite the fact that it was similarly predicated on unvetted hearsay information.”

Another double standard was revealed in this contrasting FBI treatment of different political parties: “Furthermore, while the Department appears to have had legitimate concerns about the Foundation investigation occurring so close to a presidential election, it does not appear that similar concerns were expressed by the [Justice] Department or FBI regarding the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.”

4. Putting Powerful Democrats Above the Law

We already knew from the years The Federalist has spent unraveling Spygate that former FBI Counterintelligence Division Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and his mistress, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s staff lawyer Lisa Page, weaponized their government positions to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. These are the two who infamously texted that they’d “stop” Trump from becoming president.

Durham’s report shows multiple instances of McCabe, Strzok, Page, and their superiors wielding federal law enforcement positions as weapons against Republicans. The Durham report contains more evidence that high-level federal intelligence officials see it as routine to put powerful Democrats above the law.

Besides the disparate treatment outlined above and many other such instances, Durham’s report includes a telling text exchange between Strzok and Page. It shows them deciding not to apply the law to Hillary Clinton because of her powerful position. It seems that the powerful are indeed above the law in the United States — provided they’re affiliated with the Democratic Party.

5. Refusing Interviews with the Special Counsel

Key FBI figures refused interviews with Durham’s team, including Comey, Strzok, the Clinton campaign’s Marc Elias, McCabe, Page, and Glenn Simpson of the opposition research firm that cooked up the Steele dossier for Clinton’s campaign.

Add that to the many instances of “former” FBI and CIA figures being employed in social media companies to assist with government censorship demands, and going on TV to fuel the Russiagate hoax and other lies to Americans about crucial public issues. It adds up to yet another indication of an intelligence state using its vast — and unconstitutional — powers on behalf of the Democrat Party.

6. Refusing to Obey Congressional Subpoenas About Records on Biden Corruption

Durham’s report indicates that the FBI repeatedly sat on evidence the Clinton campaign was accepting bribes — payments in exchange for policy preferences. The FBI is still doing that with Joe Biden. According to several high-level members of Congress, the FBI has been refusing to release to them subpoenaed, non-classified information about how it handled documentation alleging that Biden also traded political favors for campaign donations.

“We know the FBI relied on unverified claims to relentlessly target a Republican president. What did the FBI do to investigate claims involving a Democrat President?” asked Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Numerous private and congressional watchdogs have documented that the Biden family has received millions of dollars from foreign individuals and companies connected to hostile governments including communist China.

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley said in a press release earlier this month. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further.”

Congressional subpoenas have the force of law. Federal agencies operate at the discretion and funding of Congress, according to the Constitution. The FBI’s leadership doesn’t seem to believe, however, that constitutional checks and balances apply to them. So long as Congress doesn’t enforce its own prerogatives, the FBI’s corrupt leaders are right.

It’s been publicly known for decades that the FBI uses its surveillance, investigatory, and other law enforcement powers to manipulate American politics. Recall its surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. and infamous FBI head J. Edgar Hoover’s spying on the Supreme Court, Congress, and presidents.

The Durham report is, in that respect, nothing new. What would be new would be punishing the FBI’s use of blackmail, smear operations, threats, censorship, illegal spying, and election rigging. If that doesn’t happen, the United States is quite simply not a free country anymore.


Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

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No One Is Above the Law? Give Me A Break


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | APRIL 04, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/04/no-one-is-above-the-law-give-me-a-break/

The Clintons at Donald Trump's inauguration
On exacting poetic political justice.

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Lock Donald Trump up, or don’t lock him up, but don’t tell me that “no one is above the law.” It’s one of the most ludicrous fantasies peddled by the left.

Plenty of people are “above the law.” James Clapper, who lied under oath to Congress about spying on the American people, is above the law. John Brennan, who lied about a domestic spying operation on Senate staffers, is above the law. Unlike Trump advisor Peter Navarro, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was never going to be handcuffed and thrown in prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena. He is above the law.

Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, is also above the law. The then-Secretary of State set up a private server in her home to circumvent transparency surrounding her slush-fund foundation. She sent 110 emails containing marked classified information, and 36 of those emails contained secret information. Eight of the email chains contained “top secret” information. Every one of those instances was a potential felony punishable with up to ten years in prison.

We learned all of this from James Comey, then FBI director, who noted that Hillary had been “extremely careless” in conducting her business. Comey didn’t recommend charges because, he claimed, the state couldn’t prove Clinton’s intent — even though “gross negligence,” not intent, was the only standard he needed. Gross negligence and extreme carelessness are synonyms. Comey concocted a new standard to protect Clinton because she is above the law.

When Hillary’s husband, also above the law, perjured himself under oath, Democrats argued that puritanical conservatives were only pursuing Bill because of some trumped-up charge over “sex.” Using that logic, Trump’s campaign finance charges related to Stormy Daniels’ “hush money” are also about sex. This is different because Trump is the boogeyman, and everyone knows he’s guilty of something. The important thing is getting that mug shot.

Don’t worry, though; former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says, “Everyone has the right to a trial to prove innocence.” By “everyone,” she means Republicans. And if you think this authoritarian formulation is an accident, you haven’t been paying attention. When Democrats were smearing Brett Kavanaugh as a (gang) rapist a few years back, Mazie Hirono was asked whether the then-nominee deserved the “same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America?” After all, this wasn’t about any judicial disagreement but about alleged criminal behavior. The Hawaii senator responded, “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.”

In other words, if you’re a conservative, your politics are evil; and if your politics are evil, you’re probably evil. I imagine that was the rationalization used by Kamala Harris when reading obvious fabrications about Kavanaugh into the Congressional Record. It is likely the rationalization of Lois Lerner or Merrick Garland — both above the law — when they weaponized government agencies against political opponents. It is almost surely the rationalization of Alvin Bragg. This is what justifies the contemporary left’s increasing comfort with deploying the state to punish and destroy political enemies. For many progressives, the legal system isn’t merely a tool for criminal justice (if that) but a way to exact poetic political justice.

(Though it should probably be mentioned that Alvin Bragg promised to use the DA’s office to enact social justice, not any kind of impartial or neutral justice. People who don’t pay for public transportation, those who trespass, those who resist arrest, those who obstruct governmental administration, or those involved in prostitution, are all above the law in New York City.)

Despite there being perfectly sound political arguments against Trump, we have been on a hysterical journey that has taken us from accusing Trump of being a seditious actor working on the orders of an antagonistic foreign government — the most successful conspiracy theory ever spun in American politics — to indicting him on some rickety seven-year-old campaign finance violation charge. Giving a porn star “hush money” is an immorality, not an illegality. Are DAs now going to be in the business of indicting political opponents who put $130,000 on the wrong side of the ledger during a race that cost hundreds of millions of dollars? I look forward to this kind of justice being meted out equally.

Everyone knows, of course, what’s going to happen when (or if) Republicans return the favor. Cries of fascism, that’s what. When Harry Reid blew up the judicial filibuster, it was to preserve the republic. When Republicans use that very precedent for themselves, they are power-hungry partisans. When Democrats throw congressmen off subcommittees, they do it for democracy. When Republicans follow suit, they are bigots. When a Republican governor retaliates against Disney for involving itself in educational issues, it’s 1933 all over again. But when a Democrat governor punishes companies like Walgreens for their stand on abortion drugs, it is a blow against injustice. This goes on and on and on.

Not that anyone cares about double standards anymore. I’m not naïve. And no one is innocent in politics. But the contemporary left’s utter and growing disdain for any semblance of limiting principles — the kind of abuse that helped Trump win the presidency in the first place — continues to do profound damage to the system. Trump is an easy target. The next target, I assure you, will be a Republican who is even “worse than Trump.” And the justifications for throwing out norms to stop them will be exactly the same.

Conservatives who contend that Democrats won’t like where the Trump arraignment leads are probably engaged in some wish-casting. Those who hold the upper hand in our major institutions aren’t too worried about short-term threats of retribution. And, anyway, progressives love Calvinball, a “system” of constantly shifting norms that rewards those most willing to use power. That’s the point.


David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

Trump Refused To Prosecute Hillary Clinton. Democrats Have No Such Restraint


BY: JOY PULLMANN | APRIL 03, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/03/trump-refused-to-prosecute-hillary-clinton-democrats-have-no-such-restraint/

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton
If it is indeed ending democracy to jail political opponents, let’s be clear about which party is dragging the nation down that route.

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Bill and Hillary Clinton’s long, crooked political careers have been marked by multiple well-established high crimes and misdemeanors. Not the least of these was Hillary’s decision to commit what amounts to multiple felonies by using an insecure private email system to conduct top-secret public business while U.S. secretary of state under Barack Obama.

This criminal behavior that so-called U.S. justice systems openly and repeatedly refused to punish was undertaken to hide treasonous actions. Those include selling political access and favors to foreign adversaries, as journalist Peter Schweizer and others, including The Federalist and members of Congress, have repeatedly and thoroughly documented.

Selling political favors to foreign opponents, including communist China and authoritarian Russia, is clearly treason. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “treason” as: “The betrayal of allegiance toward one’s own country, especially by committing hostile acts against it or aiding its enemies in committing such acts.” The Clintons got filthy rich from it.

Clinton then compounded that with more treasonous conduct when she lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump.

It is by now well-established that Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid various actors to lie to U.S. intelligence agencies about Trump in an operation that eventually essentially negated the 2016 election — including encouraging federal employees’ treasonous behavior and two falsely predicated impeachments — and helped lose Republicans the 2020 election. Her campaign even tacitly confirmed this by paying a slap-on-the-wrist Federal Election Commission fine while still refusing to admit guilt for it a few weeks ago, seven years after the fact.

Did FBI agents ever show up at Hillary Clinton’s house over her clearly criminal and treasonous “documents dispute”? Nope. The FBI’s director instead essentially confirmed she had committed multiple felonies but decided not to investigate or prosecute her for it because she was a presidential candidate for a major political party.

Hillary paid to have Trump falsely smeared as a traitor, laundering the slander through U.S. agencies that are supposed to provide equal justice under the law but now function as weapons to damage Democrats’ political opposition. In conjunction with others in the Obama administration that likely include Obama himself, she colluded with multiple security-state agencies to slander, undermine, hamper, and now threaten with jail time Democrats’ top political opponent.

That’s treason. It’s election erasure. It’s ongoing. And these traitors are all running about totally scot-free, while they jail their political opponents for what at best are misdemeanors, and for which they refuse to prosecute anyone on the left who perpetrates them — from street rioters all the way up to their presidential candidates.

My colleague Elle Purnell pointed out that when Trump countenanced chants of “lock her up” at his rallies over Clinton’s never-penalized repeat criminal behavior, Democrats lost their minds, and insisted this was the stuff of dictatorships, tyranny, and political repression.

“Dictatorships lock up the opposition, not democracies,” said Spygate intelligence official Michael McFaul. “Since when do Americans advocate jailing political opponents?” said top Spygate propagandist Julia Ioffe, then at Politico.

“In a democracy, you can’t threaten to jail your opponents,” Obama said in 2016. “We have fought against those kinds of things.” “In America, we don’t send our political opponents to jail,” tweeted an official Democratic National Committee Twitter account.

The Clintons are clearly traitors willing to endanger their nation for profit, and it would be fully just to prosecute them as such. Yet as president when he had the chance, Trump decided not to pursue it. According to Trump Attorney General Bill Barr’s recently published memoir, “Trump brought up the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and surprised Barr by saying that he had wanted the matter to be dropped after the 2016 election,” according to a review of Barr’s memoir in the fall 2022 Claremont Review of Books.

“‘Even if she were guilty,’ he told Barr, “for the election winner to seek prosecution of the loser would make the country look like a ‘banana republic.’”

Ever since riding down his golden escalator, Trump has been ceaselessly vilified as a tinpot dictator, an evil supervillain, an authoritarian, the second coming of Adolf Hitler. But Democrats cannot change the facts, which include that Trump had fully legitimate justification to prosecute his horribly corrupt political opponent and refused to do so. They can make no such argument for themselves.

So, if it is indeed the stuff of banana republics and ending democracies to jail one’s political opponents, let’s all be clear about which political party is dragging the nation down that route. And let all in authority who care about equal justice under the law begin fiercely applying Democrats’ standards to them until they stop perverting justice to destroy our country.

The no-holds-barred legal shutdown and prosecution of leftist insurrectionists filling state capitols in support of a transgender child murderer would be one such proportionate response.


Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

If ‘No One Is Above The Law,’ Democrats And Their Partisan Pawns Would Be Arraigned, Not Trump


BY: JORDAN BOYD | MARCH 31, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/31/if-no-one-is-above-the-law-democrats-and-their-partisan-pawns-would-be-arraigned-not-trump/

POTUS Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
If Democrats truly valued rule of law, they would pursue cases against many more people before even considering indicting Trump.

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America’s two-tiered justice system status was solidified on Thursday after a Manhattan grand jury voted to hit former President Donald Trump with a felony indictment and the threat of imprisonment. Cue the chorus of Democrats and corporate media mouthpieces who spent all of Thursday night on Twitter condescendingly warning: “no one is above the law, not even the former president.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the anti-Trump Adams, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Rep. Adam Schiff, and even Trump’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen say Trump- or anyone else- doesn’t just get a free pass because he’s a 2024 presidential candidate. Yet, it doesn’t take an expert to know that the sole reason Trump ever faced indictment is because his political enemies requested it.

In addition to suggesting that Trump is not “above the law,” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that the former president has the opportunity to “prove innocence” in court. Of course, the law, smugly touted by Pelosi, dictates that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty- not the other way around.

Whether Pelosi’s “innocence” comment was a Freudian slip or a genuine assertion, we may never know. What we do know is that for years, Democrats have operated under the belief that their party members and their partisan allies are above the law.

1. The Criminals Alvin Bragg Refused To Prosecute

While Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was busy searching for ways to indict Trump, violent criminals were taking over New York City streets.

During Bragg’s first year in office, major crime in New York City increased by 22 percent. Since then, the DA has made a career out of reducing charges for armed robbers, freeing cop-beaters, relaxing bail, and letting violent antisemites off.

Bragg’s soft-on-crime policies may have earned him left-wing billionaire financier George Soros’ favor and dollars, but even Democrat-voting New Yorkers know that he’s no stranger to giving better treatment to convicts than law-abiding people like this bodega owner who defended himself against a murderous criminal.

2. Hillary Clinton

If Democrats truly cared about campaign finance law violations, they would have already prosecuted several members of their party, including Hillary Clinton.

In 2022, the Federal Elections Commission fined Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign for falsely attributing the money that the Democrat used to orchestrate the Russian collusion hoax. If Trump is guilty of intent to conceal a campaign finance crime, a motivated prosecutor might look at the DNC and Clinton campaign’s efforts to hide their involvement in the so-called Steele “dossier” and find they were guilty of the same crime.

In addition to her election meddling, Clinton and her staff mishandled highly classified information, which resulted in at least 91 security violations. Instead of raiding her house and asking the DOJ to prosecute her, the FBI “inexplicably agreed to destroy [Clinton staffers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson’s] laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters.”

Clinton also played a central role in the decision to abandon four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, where they were murdered by terrorists.

3. Barack Obama

Before Clinton was forced to pay for her scheming, President Barack Obama faced “one of the largest fees ever levied against a presidential campaign,” $375,000, for “campaign reporting violations.” Instead of facing calls for prison time, Obama received years of protection from the corporate media and fake fact-checkers who repeatedly downplayed his violation as a proportionally small infraction compared to the billion dollars he raised on the campaign trail.

4. Election Law-Breakers Like Marc Elias

Marc Elias has repeatedly tried to undermine U.S. elections. He has such a reputation for meddling and manipulating elections that even a federal judge reprimanded him for it. Unlike Douglass Mackey, who was charged by the DOJ for posting a meme encouraging Hillary voters to “text” their votes, however, Elias has not faced any charges or unannounced raids.

5. President Joe Biden

A president avoiding paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes seems like the kind of thing federal agencies, including the recently financially invigorated Internal Revenue Service, should explore. Yet Biden, who hasn’t explained millions of dollars of his recorded income, and First Lady Jill Biden together reportedly dodged about $517,000 in Medicare and Obamacare taxes between 2017 and 2020 without scrutiny.

6. Hunter Biden

The president’s son isn’t just a walking liability for the Biden family name, he’s a glaring national security threat with a long, infamous history of using illicit drugs, engaging in possibly criminal sexual escapades with foreign women, and selling access to his dad under the guise of doing business with foreign oligarchs from places like China.

Besides all this and his reckless handling of a lost gun in 2018 — which, against normal protocol, the Secret Service reportedly helped him cover up — Hunter likely lied on federal forms about his drug use to purchase that gun, a felony, with barely a whisper of punishment.

7. Eric Swalwell

Speaking of communist China, Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell canoodling with a known spy for the nation’s No. 1 enemy seems like a pretty serious offense. Instead of a member of the House Intelligence Committee facing consequences for giving foreign spies access to key U.S. government offices and information, Swalwell is still comfortably rage-tweeting about Trump and MAGA supporters and appearing as a guest on corrupt corporate media programs.

8. Eric Holder

Former Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress during its investigation of the Obama-era “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal, which used taxpayer dollars to put guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords. Holder was held in contempt, but that’s pretty much the only punishment he received for intentionally dodging subpoenas and hiding documents from congressional oversight.

9. Susan Rice

President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, unmasked members of the Trump transition team and then lied about it. Unmasking may be a legitimate and legal process for those with the authority, but covering up an attempt to target the political enemies of the regime is an abuse of power that deserves examination.

Instead, it was yet another action taken by the U.S. intelligence apparatus to justify spying on American citizens.

10. The Pelosi Family

Suspected insider trading deserves at least a second glance by federal investigators, but it looks like, so far, Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul have gotten away with conveniently timing their stock purchases and sales to massively grow their wealth.

[Read: “Democrats Say ‘No One Is Above The Law,’ But This List Of Their Corrupt Allies Proves Otherwise”]

The same people who love lording “no one is above the law” over Americans are the ones who think they are above any semblance of oversight or law, or constitutionality. If Democrats truly valued rule of law, illegal border crossers, Russia hoaxers, Jeffrey Epstein’s clients, pro-abortion vandals, rioters, and the people who run corrupt government agencies like the Department of Justice, the FBI, the NSA, and the Manhattan DA’s office would be the ones standing in court next week, not Trump.


Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

Democrats’ Banana-Republic Persecution Of Donald Trump Must Meet A Republican Response


BY: TOM CRIST | MARCH 22, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/22/democrats-banana-republic-persecution-of-donald-trump-must-meet-a-republican-response/

Donald Trump
This is the equivalent of a nationally televised jaywalking arrest to humiliate a person due solely to personal hate.

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American media has bombarded us daily from all directions to make sure we know that Donald Trump indirectly paid a woman to shut her mouth as she and her now-convict lawyer, Michael Avenatti, shook him down for money.

In New York, false financial accounting can be a low-level misdemeanor, but it’s rarely prosecuted. Now Alvin Bragg, a municipal prosecutor, is trying to make a name for himself by charging former President Trump with that crime.

This is the equivalent of a nationally televised jaywalking arrest to humiliate a person due solely to personal hate. George Soros, Bragg’s benefactor, must be grinning from ear to ear.

Hillary Clinton Got Off For a Worse Deed

Trump’s former lawyer accounted for the payment as consulting or attorney’s fees. Allegedly, so did President Trump, and $130,000 changed hands.

For perspective, Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee paid $1 million for the infamous fictional “Steele dossier.” They paid for this using one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent lawyers, Marc Elias, as a cutout to hide who was paying for this opposition research that falsely claimed Trump was colluding with Russia.

They then laundered the dossier through various contacts to try to destroy Trump and get Clinton elected president. Those people officially accounted for the $1 million dossier expense as “legal fees.”  So, one side paid people to lie. The other paid someone not to lie, or at least not to speak.

Clinton lives in New York, the state in which Trump is likely to be charged over a $130,000 payment. She has not been charged for the $1 million payment. Do these events really sound vastly different to you?

Bragg hopes to spin that unserious charge into a federal campaign finance violation. Meanwhile, the dossier fraud, which affected two presidential elections and two presidential impeachments, was settled with a $113,000 fine.

Bragg’s Case Is a Mess

City prosecutors cannot charge people with federal crimes. Only feds can charge federal crimes, not some city prosecutor. Bragg has allegedly met with the Secret Service about how they will react to a New York City police officer approaching President Trump with handcuffs (if they can find one who will do it). Bragg is way over his head and wading into deep political waters.

New York Attorney General Tish James ran for office almost exclusively on a “get Trump” platform. She hated the man and promised to find a crime he committed, rather than responding to a crime and looking for a perpetrator. After years of not finding anything, she did not charge Trump with any crimes. Same state. Same New York laws. More investigative tools. Yet she passed on the opportunity to arrest a president.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigated the same alleged crime and also chose not to prosecute. Every prosecutor in the state above Bragg’s office passed on this one knowing they could not prove President Trump committed a crime. Or they realized that no serious person could charge Trump and not also indict Democrats.

Bragg is the same Manhattan DA who has publicly decriminalized crimes in the name of wokeness. This alleged prosecutor will ignore criminal violence and release people on their own recognizance after a stern talking to for beating someone half to death or attacking police. But he wants to charge Trump for this garbage after every one of his superiors has declined to do so. Why? Incompetence? Tunnel vision? Irrational hate? Why choose?

Democrats’ Hate Could Prompt a Constitutional Crisis

Many Democrats want Trump arrested for anything. They want to see him in cuffs more than they want their own kids to be happy and healthy. They have been searching for someone stupid or reckless enough to “perp walk” the man for the cameras. They might very well have found him. If Bragg does it over this fluff, it will prove to be a poor career choice for him and could have much broader implications that are rungs above his pay grade.

Some Dems even want conservatives to riot if a cop cuffs Trump, just like a lack of security made it easy for people to barge into the Capitol through open doors just to be charged and arrested. They might get their wish. And it is likely a trap. If it happens and people protest, see whether New York City will give them all “room to vent” like city officials gave lefty rioters for months. Hopefully, any protests will be peaceful. I will not be involved in any of it.

A lot of people continue to be surprised at these events and have truly had enough of the second set of rules for conservatives. If the hard left keeps pushing this kind of thing, it will eventually be deeply sorry.

Feds raided Trump’s house with a tactical team over papers a librarian wanted. Oddly, CNN was present and ran the story on a loop. Joe Biden dropped 50 years of classified documents all over the country and the feds let his personal lawyers (who lacked security clearances) sort them before giving them to the government at their leisure.

They investigate Trump from all sides. They give Biden a pass on everything. The feds investigated Trump’s sons and son-in-law for any irregularity. Yet Hunter Biden, a man in a long line of alleged Biden bag men, lives in a $40,000-per-month Malibu beach house and sells splatter paintings to anonymous purchasers for exorbitant amounts.

Wildly Unequal Legal Treatment

Everyone is supposed to just sit back and accept the different treatment and think it is okay and normal. This is far from normal—it is a thumb in the eye of half the American population.

Even apparently peaceful Jan. 6, 2021 protestors have been in pre-trial detention for two years. Black Lives Matter and Antifa got carte blanch to riot and burn courthouses with impunity with at least tacit support from the White House and open support from the vice president, who encouraged people to donate money to bail the rioters out of jail.

Firebomb a pro-life crisis pregnancy center and take credit for it, and Biden’s inept AG will give you a pass. Pray in front of an abortion clinic and you will be charged with a list of felonies. This is not sustainable. People, in large numbers, will eventually stop taking it.

The Acceleration of Dangerous Trends

In accordance with their oaths, prosecutors are not supposed to charge people with crimes they cannot prove, since doing so can ruin people’s lives even if they are eventually acquitted. The citizenry remembers the charge, not the acquittal.

Likewise, presidents are not supposed to issue executive orders they know will be overturned as unlawful, just for political gain and show. Both have been happening for the last two years at a clip never before encountered. Team Biden is daring half the country. Stand up, but do not take the bait.

Many think Bragg will charge Trump soon because he can. These people might not be ready for the fallout they will provoke. And by that, I do not mean violence. I mean turnabout.

Republicans may politically finally address Democratic Party lawfare, taking an eye for an eye. Some have recently shown backbone their predecessors lacked. Their voters will increasingly elect officials who promise to do so. Trump himself was a harbinger of this.

Republicans Need to Respond, Good and Hard

If Bragg pulls the proverbial trigger, everyone had better be really sure about his next moves. Bragg and his upstream cronies will not be able to take it back, apologize, call for calm, or put that leftist authoritarian genie back in the bottle.

If they think they are right and their ideas the best, Democrats should square up and try to beat at the polls whomever the Republican candidate is in 2024. Another round of transparent politically driven rigging, especially like this, after the ridiculous failures of their impeachment efforts and Jan. 6 show trials, will light a dangerous fuse for which the American people have lost patience.

Most countries that fail to address unequal treatment start dying from within. Every American should want to avoid that for all our sakes. Bragg staying out of presidential politics and focusing on the skyrocketing violent crime rate in his own backyard would be a welcome next step.

When Republicans take the White House, they should make sure prosecutors at every level have every resource and unclassified document they require to investigate and, if mandated, charge everyone on team leftist. No letting things slide. If the Dems want old-fashioned dirty politics, the other side might finally give it to them good, hard, and thoroughly.


Thomas Crist is a husband, father, lawyer, and political conservative who loves his country and despises all myopic hypocrisy regardless of its source.

Discovery Of More Biden Docs Proves Mar-A-Lago Raid Was Just Another Russia-Collusion Hoax


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 23, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/23/discovery-of-more-biden-docs-proves-mar-a-lago-raid-was-just-another-russia-collusion-hoax/

Joe Biden gets off Marine One
The discovery of more Biden documents highlights the ridiculous plot to destroy Trump that culminated in the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home.

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The FBI recovered an additional cache of classified documents from President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, following a 12-hour search conducted by federal agents on Friday. While this development adds to the scandal surrounding the current president, it does much more: It highlights the ridiculous plot launched to destroy Donald Trump that culminated in the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home.

“Six items” were recovered on Friday from Biden’s Delaware home, which consisted of “documents with classification markings and surrounding materials,” the president’s lawyer said in a statement released after the search. While the “crafty legalese” deployed by the attorney left unclear how many classified documents were contained within the “six items” recovered, Biden’s lawyer confirmed that the documents dated back to the Delaware Democrat’s time as both vice president and senator, so spanning from 2017 to as far back as 1973

The president’s lawyers had previously searched the Bidens’ Wilmington home (and garage), and while they discovered a handful of other documents marked classified, they apparently overlooked the “six items” the FBI found last week. 

The search of Biden’s home followed the discovery in November 2022 of at least 10 classified documents, including ones reportedly marked “top secret.” Those documents also dated back to his days as vice president under Barack Obama and were stored in a closet at a private office building in D.C. But the so-called “think tank” where they were stored, the Penn Biden Center, did not open until February 2018, meaning Biden had kept the classified documents found there at another location for the year following his time as vice president. 

That the classified documents Biden removed from the White House and earlier the Senate were not missed at the time and are only now being discovered — at least a decade later for some — and then only after multiple searches of different locations, contrasts sharply with what happened following Trump’s time in office. 

According to then-archivist of the United States, David S. Ferriero, he watched “the Trumps leave the White House and getting off in the helicopter” at the end of Trump’s term. Ferriero recalled someone was “carrying a white banker box,” prompting Ferriero to ask himself, “What the hell’s in that box?” 

Ferriero claimed, “[T]hat began a whole process of trying to determine whether any records had not been turned over to the Archives,” with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) “going through materials transferred from the White House in the chaotic final days of Trump’s presidency.” According to The Washington Post, “officials had noticed that certain high-profile documents were missing,” such as “Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that he had termed ‘love letters.’” 

The NARA also could not locate the “National Weather Service map of Hurricane Dorian, which Trump had famously marked up with a black Sharpie pen to extend to Alabama,” or the letter Obama had left for Trump upon the change in administrations.

NARA sought the return of these documents, and in January 2022, Trump representatives worked with NARA employees to arrange for 15 boxes of presidential papers to be returned to the archive. Within those boxes were some documents marked “classified,” which led NARA to refer the matter to the Department of Justice. 

The DOJ then launched an investigation into Trump, even though when alerted to Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified documents, NARA made no such referral. A grand jury later issued a subpoena for any presidential documents, and following a search of Mar-a-Lago by Trump’s representatives, those documents were turned over. However, after a source told the DOJ that some documents remained at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI obtained a search warrant and executed a surprise raid on the former president’s home.

This entire sequence began because NARA went looking for missing documents and then, rather than work with Trump to establish his presidential library and to arrange for the documents to be stored under the auspices of NARA’s custody at a mutually agreeable location — something NARA had done for Obama — NARA created a federal criminal case out of the matter.

Had NARA dug through former Senator and then-Vice President Biden’s documents looking for the smoking gun that was not there, they would have discovered the classified documents Biden absconded with too — and likely many more documents that over the last decade-plus years disappeared forever. Ditto for Obama.

The most recent discovery of “six items” containing an untold number of classified documents at Biden’s Delaware home illustrates this point. It also brings into focus the get-Trump scheme launched by a “backbench bureaucrat” that culminated in the raid on the former president’s Mar-a-Lago home.

With this reality now in focus, Americans would be wise to revisit the timeline leading up to the Mar-a-Lago raid because the Trump classified-document scandal bears all the hallmarks of a hoax peddled by the deep-state cabal and their corrupt media partners. 


Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

Adam Schiff And a Band of Democrats Propose Overturning the First Amendment


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | JANUARY 20, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/20/adam-schiff-and-his-merry-band-of-democrats-propose-overturning-the-first-amendment/

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States
Happy Birthday, Citizens United!

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Adam Schiff and a group of Democrats introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision, one of the greatest free-speech victories in history.

It’s just a political stunt, of course, as Schiff doesn’t have the votes. But it does reflect the authoritarian outlook of the contemporary left on free expression. From the day the decision came down, 13 years ago this week, Citizens United was a rallying cry for those threatened by unregulated discourse. President Barack Obama infamously, and inaccurately, rebuked the justices during his State of the Union for upholding the First Amendment. Since then, Democrats have regularly blamed the decision for the alleged corrosion of “democracy.”

Recall, however, that Citizens United decision revolved around the federal government’s banning of a documentary critical of 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before the Democratic primary elections. At the time, McCain-Feingold made it illegal for corporations (groups of freely associating citizens) and unions (ditto) to engage in “electioneering” a month before a primary or two months before a general election. It was outright censorship. In oral arguments, then-Solicitor General of the United States, now-Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan initially contended that the federal government had the right to censor books that “express advocacy.”

Also recall that “campaign finance” laws — speech codes, in reality — were written by politicians and defended by a media encumbered by any limitations on their own free expression. These detestable laws prohibited groups of citizens from assembling and pooling their resources to engage more effectively in what is the most important kind of political expression at the most vital time, right before an election.

Schiff’s amendment would overturn Citizens United, and thus the First Amendment, and empower state and federal governments to enact “reasonable, viewpoint-neutral” limitations on speech that “influences” elections.

For one thing, even a wholly neutral restrictions on political speech were possible, they would still be restrictions on expression. It doesn’t matter one whit if you find those restrictions “reasonable” or “neutral.” The right of free speech isn’t contingent on fairness or outcomes or your good faith limitations. It is a free-standing, inherent right protected by the Constitution, not prescribed to us by the state in portions. It’s amazing that this has to be said.

Moreover, do Democrats trust Kevin McCarthy’s conception of “reasonable”? Because I don’t. Nor do I trust Hakeem Jeffries or that weasel Schiff, who has already personally engaged in censoring dissent. As Lois Lerner could tell you, any law empowering bureaucrats to define political speech will be arbitrarily enforced and, inevitably, abused. The only “viewpoint-neutral” position on speech is that it’s none of the state’s business.

Then again, not even the amendment is neutral. Section 4 of Schiff’s proposal offers an exemption to the “press.” Who is the press? Bureaucrats, no doubt, will make that determination. Schiff knows that most large communication companies already work for Democrats. The big studios produce movies and documentaries with one ideological viewpoint; and major news outlets give one side billions in in-kind contributions. The amendment would strip one group of its power to compete in the marketplace of ideas. “By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in Citizens United, “the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice.”

Schiff’s amendment could also be used to strip people of anonymity. “Dark money” has been a bogeyman of the left for years, treated as one of the most corrosive elements in contemporary politics — even though leftists are more reliant on anonymous big-dollar money than conservatives. Of course, the expectation that private citizens have any responsibility to publicly attach their names to political speech — as Publius might tell you — is destructive nonsense.

“Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority,” the 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission famously noted. It “exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation … at the hand of an intolerant society.” There are entire genres of mainstream “reporting” that exist to dox heretics and punish dissent and engage in struggle sessions. Leftists want to create as many Brendan Eichs as possible to chill speech.

Schiff claims he wants to “return power to people” by allowing the state to prescribe the way they can participate in political debate. Schiff’s amendment includes restricting corporations from spending “unlimited amounts of money to influence elections.” Corporations have been banned from donating directly to candidates since 1907. But why shouldn’t private entities, groups of people, be allowed to “influence” politics? Anyway, you can already imagine the malleability of the word “influence.” Will California ban corporations from influencing green policy? Or only from influencing cultural policy? Boy, I wonder.

A decade ago, politicians would give us some perfunctory words about the importance of free expression. Those days are gone. The bogus panic over “disinformation” — without free will, you guys are far too susceptible to bad ideas — has given them the excuse to wring their hands over the dangerous excesses of the First Amendment.

These days a person can contribute as much money as they please to any independent group that shares their values. The notion that there should be restrictions stopping you from airing those views, whether you’re a billionaire or a poor student, is fundamentally un-American and authoritarian.


David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist, a nationally syndicated columnist, a Happy Warrior columnist at National Review, and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. He has appeared on Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and radio talk shows across the country. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

Dr. David Harsanyi Op-ed: ‘National Conservatism’ Is A Dead End


BY: DAVID HARSANYI | NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/16/national-conservatism-is-a-dead-end/

Pat Buchanan presidential campaign, 2000
A rant.

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Since a civil war is about to break out and destroy the modern Republican Party — fingers crossed — let me tell you what grinds my gears.

Young NatCons, many of whom I know and like, seem to be under the impression that they’ve stumbled upon some fresh, electrifying governing philosophy. Really, they’re peddling ideas that already failed to take hold 30 years ago when the environment was far more socially conservative and there were far more working-class voters to draw on. If Americans want class-obsessed statists doling out family-busting welfare checks and whining about Wall Street hedge funds, there is already a party willing to scratch that itch. We don’t need two.

“National conservatism”— granted, still in an amorphous stage — offers a far too narrow agenda for any kind of enduring political consensus. It lacks idealism. It’s a movement tethered to the grievances of a shrinking demographic of rural and Rust-Belt workers with high school degrees at the expense of a growing demographic of college-educated suburbanites. 

The “New Right” loves to mock “zombie Reaganism.” Well, the ’80s fusionist coalition, which stressed upward meritocratic mobility, free markets, federalism, patriotism, and autonomy from the soul-crushing federal bureaucracy, was by all historical measures more successful than the Buchananism that followed or Rockefellerism that preceded. Zombie Reaganism was a dramatic success not only in 1980 but also in 1994 and again in 2010 and 2014. The “shining city on a hill” might sound like corny boomerism, but it’s still infinitely more enticing than the bleak apocalypticism of Flight 93.

Too many conservatives misconstrued Donald Trump’s slim 2016 victory as a national realignment. It was a mirage. Trump, a uniquely positioned celebrity candidate, benefitted not only from Obama fatigue but, more than anything else, the cosmic unlikability of Hillary Clinton. Yes, the GOP needed an attitude adjustment, a stiffening of the spine. There is no denying Trump’s presidency achieved some positive results (most of them, incidentally, also on the “zombie Reaganism” front with deregulation and the judiciary), and he made inroads with working-class voters and Latinos. But Republicans have now blown three elections catering to largely incoherent NatCon populism. 

There is no one reason or person culpable for the right’s failures in 2022, but there are certain types of candidates finding success. Ron DeSantis, Brain Kemp, and (in 2020) Glenn Youngkin can call out crony capitalism without sounding like Ralph Nader’s comms director. All of them have been highly critical of lawlessness of illegal immigration, but none of them come off like chauvinists. All of them supported heartbeat bills and election integrity laws, and above all, they are competent administrators of government.

The white-collar worker in Virginia or North Carolina, living in a multi-use neighborhood, probably isn’t as preoccupied with drag queen story hour or the intrigues of Big Tech or the Justice Department or Chinese tariffs — as important as those issues might be — as Josh Hawley seems to believe. The suburban voter might be more socially liberal these days, but they are still dispositional conservative. And one strongly suspects they would rather see public school reform, bigger retirement accounts, and lower property tax bills than a commissar regulating the internet or some protectionist policy killing economic dynamism. 

Of course, the New Right would like to claim DeSantis as one of their own. Allie Beth Stuckey, like many on the “New Right,” maintains that the Florida governor’s impressive win tells us: “we’re done with the old, corporate tax cuts GOP. We want you to use all the power available to you to crush the entities crushing us.”

That’s a Twitter reality. In the real world, hundreds of thousands of people flock to Florida (and Texas and Arizona) to enjoy an inviting regulatory environment, low taxes, and relative freedom — not to watch the governor teach Disney a lesson. A politician who cuts taxes and opens schools and businesses, despite pressure from the federal government, isn’t “crushing” anyone, he is freeing them. A politician who insists that state-run elementary schools should teach kids math, science, and history rather than identitarianism, myths, and sexuality has a compelling story to tell parents.

DeSantis is also a politician. So he shows up at trendy NatCon conferences, in the same way he used to chase trendy Tea Party endorsements from Club For Growth and FreedomWorks. Despite the left’s claims, DeSantis doesn’t strike me as an ideologue, but rather a champion of normalcy. Maybe incumbents were successful in 2022 because people are sick of drama?

What about J.D. Vance, though, David? Different types of candidates appeal to different regions. No one is arguing that Zombie populism is without any traction. Before Vance, there was Rick Santorum, whose message also had a limited allure. Yes, Vance can win in Ohio. Mike DeWine, about the most milquetoast moderate imaginable, can also win in Ohio, and by a bigger margin. Does Vance win Arizona or Nevada? Probably not. Does Blake Masters win in Ohio? Probably. But Americans are moving to Henderson, Nevada, and Boise, Idaho, not Akron, Ohio.

In the meantime, the New Right’s intellectual movement is a Trojan horse for a bunch of corrosive authoritarian “post-liberal” ideas. If a malleable “common good” means jettisoning limiting principles, well, no thank you. Plenty of secular right-wingers like myself have been defending religious freedom on neutral, classical liberal grounds. Today, the New Right tells me those notions are dead. If that’s true, I wonder who will be left to defend them 10 years from now?

By the way, if you’re under the impression that the New Right think-tankers and technocrats who rail against “elites” and “libertarians” and romanticize lunch-pail unionism are going to send their kids to work in warehouses for minimum wage, I have news for you. That’s reserved for the plebs. It’s no surprise that Compact, the New Right magazine standing athwart the “libertine left and a libertarian right,” employs a Marxist editor or that so many anti-woke socialists feel comfortable allying with the New Right. That’s a Twitter realignment, however, not a real-world one.

Fortunately, it’s highly unlikely that the average Republican with a small business is as antagonistic to the notion of individual liberty as the average First Things editor. The average voter tends not to treat every loss as if it were the end of Rome. It’s bad out there. But people who tell you this is the worst era in history or that we’re facing insurmountable unique problems are just as hysterical as the people who tell you democracy is over. Most Americans realize politics is a grind. I’d love to live in a minarchist paradise, but I’m a realist. There are approximately 349,999 million people who think differently. That’s how it shakes out in a diverse, sprawling nation. A national party needs to broaden its message to convince — not just follow the whims — of as many voters as possible. NatCons are headed in the wrong direction.

My friends believe the Republican Party establishment is incompetent and cowardly. Maybe. Thankfully, we don’t have a binary choice. May both factions fail.


David Harsanyi is a senior editor at The Federalist. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books—the most recent, Eurotrash: Why America Must Reject the Failed Ideas of a Dying Continent. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post, and numerous other publications. Follow him on Twitter, @davidharsanyi.

Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


A.F. Branco Cartoon – I’m Not With Her

A.F. BRANCO | on October 27, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-im-not-with-her/

Democrats like election-Denier Hillary Clinton calling out Conservatives like Kari Lake for denying elections.

03 Election Denier AC 1080a
Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022

DONATE to A.F.Branco Cartoons – Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

Special Counsel Must Choose: Risk A Russia Hoaxer’s Second Acquittal Or Expose More Deep-State Dirt


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 06, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/09/06/special-counsel-must-choose-risk-a-russia-hoaxers-second-acquittal-or-expose-more-deep-state-dirt/

Special Counsel John Durham news on MSNBC

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Crossfire Hurricane agents never intended to drop their investigation of Donald Trump, and therefore any lies he told the FBI did not affect their decision-making, Igor Danchenko argued in a motion filed on Friday seeking dismissal of the criminal charges pending against him in a Virginia federal court. With the trial set to start next month, Special Counsel John Durham must now decide whether to acknowledge the deep state’s complicity or risk a second acquittal.

Durham charged Danchenko last year with five counts of making false statements to the FBI related to Danchenko’s role as Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source in the fake dossier the Hillary Clinton team peddled to the FBI and the media. According to the indictment, Danchenko lied extensively when he provided Steele with supposed intel, and then later made false representations to the FBI during a series of interviews. 

One count of the indictment concerned Danchenko’s denial during an FBI interview on June 15, 2017, of having spoken with “PR Executive-1” about any material contained in the Steele dossier. According to Durham’s team, “PR Executive-1,” who has since been identified as the Clinton and DNC-connected Charles Dolan, Jr., told Danchenko that a “GOP friend” had told him Paul Manafort had been forced to resign from the Trump campaign because of allegations connecting Manafort to Ukraine.

“While Dolan later admitted to the FBI that he had no such ‘GOP friend’ and that he had instead gleaned this information from press reports, Dolan’s fabrication appeared in the Steele dossier.” But according to the indictment, when the FBI asked Danchenko whether he had talked with Dolan about that and other details included in Steele’s reports, Danchenko lied and said he hadn’t. 

The four remaining counts of the indictment concerned Danchenko’s alleged lies during questioning by the FBI on March 16, May 18, October 24, and November 16, 2017, concerning conversations he supposedly had with Sergei Millian, who was the then-president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce. According to the indictment, Danchenko told FBI agents during those interviews that he believed Millian had provided him information during an anonymous phone call, including “intel” later included in the Steele dossier that there was “a well-developed ‘conspiracy of cooperation’ between the Trump Campaign and Russian officials.” However, no such call ever occurred, Durham’s team charged. 

In seeking dismissal of these five counts, Danchenko’s attorneys argued in the motion to dismiss they filed on Friday that the government’s false statement charges failed as a matter of law because ambiguity in the FBI’s questions and in his own answers make it impossible to show he knowingly lied to the government. What proved more intriguing, however, was Danchenko’s second argument based on “materiality.” Here, in essence, Danchenko argued that his statements, even if knowingly false, could not create criminal liability because they were immaterial to the FBI’s investigation. 

To support this argument, Danchenko notes that the FBI was already investigating Millian’s “potential involvement with Russian interference efforts long before it had ever interviewed or even identified Mr. Danchenko,” apparently based on Steele’s claim that Millian served “as the source of relevant information.” Accordingly, Danchenko maintains his supposed lies were not the reason the FBI targeted Millian.

Danchenko further emphasizes in his brief that Steele had falsely told the FBI that “Danchenko had reported meeting with [Millian] in person on multiple occasions.” Danchenko exposed Steele’s own lies by telling the FBI he had never met with Millian “and could not be sure he ever spoke to him,” Danchenko’s attorneys stress in their motion to dismiss, thus calling Steele’s “statements, and portions of the Company Reports, into question.” Yet, even after learning of Steele’s apparent lies, the FBI did not alter the course of the investigation and, in fact, continued to rely on Steele’s reporting to seek renewals of the FISA surveillance orders, Danchenko’s brief underscores to argue that nothing Danchenko said during his interviews really mattered to the FBI.

Because Danchenko’s statements failed to change the trajectory of the government’s investigation into Millian and more broadly Trump and his associates, Danchenko posits that “it is difficult to fathom how the government would have made any decision other than to continue investigating [Millian] … regardless of what Mr. Danchenko told them.” In other words, Danchenko’s alleged lies were immaterial.

As a matter of law, Millian’s materiality argument is weak, but as a matter of defense-attorney rhetoric, it holds the potential to score Danchenko an acquittal. 

Potential for Acquittal

The legal standard for materiality requires a false statement to have “a natural tendency to influence, or [be] capable of influencing, either a discrete decision or any other function of the agency to which it is addressed.” Further, “the falsehood need not actually influence the agency’s decision-making process, but merely needs to be ‘capable’ of doing so.” Thus, legally speaking, that the Crossfire Hurricane team, and later Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office, seemed unconcerned with what Danchenko said, as shown by their continued reliance on Steele and his dossier, is irrelevant. The question is whether the lie was capable of influencing how a hypothetically “objective” government official would have acted had they known the truth.

While Durham’s team will argue to the jury — assuming the district court denies Danchenko’s motion to dismiss the indictment — that the alleged lies were capable of influencing several decisions of the FBI agents, the reality is that the jurors will have a hard time buying that proposition unless Durham exposes the malfeasance of the Crossfire Hurricane agents and the members of Mueller’s team. In short, Durham needs to tell the jury that Danchenko’s alleged lies did not actually influence the government’s investigation because the agents were out to get Trump.

If the Special Counsel’s office does not take this tack, what the jury will hear is the story Danchenko previewed in his motion to dismiss: 

“During the course of its investigation into the [Steele dossier], the FBI determined that the defendant, Igor Danchenko, was a potential source of information contained in the [dossier]. In order to assist the FBI in its investigation of the accuracy and sources of the information in the [dossier], Mr. Danchenko agreed to numerous voluntary interviews with the FBI from in or about January 2017 through November 2017. He answered every question he was asked to the best of his ability and recollection. As part of the 2017 interviews, FBI agents asked Mr. Danchenko to review portions of the [dossier] and describe where he believed the relevant information had derived from and to explain how any information he had provided to [Steele] may have been overstated or misrepresented in the [dossier].”

Danchenko did as the FBI asked, his defense will argue to the jury, before stressing that even after Danchenko highlighted Steele’s lies to the bureau, agents continued to investigate Millian. This fact will serve as a lynchpin for Danchenko to argue that his statements, even if false, were immaterial.

A Likely Argument

In his motion to dismiss, Danchenko previewed another argument likely to be repeated at trial, namely that no one thought Danchenko lied until the appointment of a second special counsel. “The Special Counsel’s office closed its entire investigation into possible Trump/Russia collusion in March 2019,” Danchenko noted in his motion, stressing that while “approximately thirty-four individuals were charged by Mueller’s office, including several for providing false statements to investigators. Mr. Danchenko was not among them. To the contrary, not only did investigators and government officials repeatedly represent that Mr. Danchenko had been honest and forthcoming in his interviews, but also resolved discrepancies between his recollection of events and that of others in Mr. Danchenko’s favor.”

While these arguments are currently aimed at the court, a repeat will surely follow during next month’s trial, and unless Durham provides the jury with an explanation for the FBI and Mueller’s lack of concern over Danchenko’s statements to investigators, an acquittal seems likely.

Durham’s Strategy

We won’t have to wait until the start of the trial to learn Durham’s likely strategy, however, as the government’s response to Danchenko’s motion to dismiss will likely provide some strong hints, especially given some of the assertions included in Danchenko’s brief. For instance, in his summary of the facts, Danchenko claimed, based on the DOJ’s inspector general report, that there was an “articulable factual basis” to launch Crossfire Hurricane based on “information received from a Friendly Foreign Government.” The “information received from a Friendly Foreign Government” refers to then-Australian diplomat Alexander Downer’s claim that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos made suggestions that the Russians could assist the Trump campaign with the release of damaging information about Clinton. 

Those well-versed in the Russia-collusion hoax will remember that Durham has already publicly pushed back against the Inspector General’s claim that Downer’s tip prompted the launching of Crossfire Hurricane. Durham released a statement following the publication of the IG report contradicting the IG’s assertion and revealing that “based on the evidence collected to date,” his team had “advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.”

Another passage in Danchenko’s brief could similarly prompt pushback by Durham. Relying again on the inspector general’s report on FISA abuse, Danchenko asserts that there is “no evidence the [Steele] election reporting was known to or used by FBI officials involved in the decision to open the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.” 

Two years have passed since the IG issued its report, however, and during that time Durham has been continuing to investigate the claimed predication of Crossfire Hurricane. If his team found evidence that Steele’s reporting prompted the launch of Crossfire Hurricane, Danchenko’s motion provides a perfect opportunity for Durham to publicly reveal that evidence.

Whether Durham will reveal these details and others remains to be seen. And while the special counsel’s office used pretrial court filings in the criminal case against former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann to pepper the public with new revelations about the Russia-collusion hoax, the lead prosecutor in that case, Andrew DeFilippis, is no longer prosecuting the case against Danchenko. We should know soon whether Durham, who is now personally involved in the Danchenko prosecution, will use the case to expose more details about SpyGate. 

Durham has already filed his first motion in limine, or a pretrial request for the court to rule on the admissibility of evidence, in the Danchenko case. That motion, however, concerns classified information and was thus sealed. The special counsel will likely be filing several more motions in limine in the weeks to come, with the court last week entering an order encouraging the parties to file those motions “as early as possible,” but no later than October 3, 2022, absent good cause. 

Those motions, as well as Durham’s response to Danchenko’s motion to dismiss, will provide some insight into the special counsel’s planned strategy in the Danchenko case and specifically whether the special counsel will highlight the complicity of the deep state in the Russia-collusion hoax. If Durham doesn’t, it might cost his team a second loss.


Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

    Democrats Say, ‘No One Is Above the Law,’ But This List of Their Corrupt Allies Proves Otherwise


    BY: JORDAN BOYD | AUGUST 17, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/17/democrats-say-no-one-is-above-the-law-but-this-list-of-their-corrupt-allies-proves-otherwise/

    President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland

    Author Jordan Boyd profile

    JORDAN BOYD

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    When the FBI executed a raid on the home of former President Donald Trump, who happens to be the most popular political leader in America, the “get Trump” crowd was overjoyed.

    Democrat Speaker of the House Nancy PelosiMiles Taylor (the “anonymous” author who pretended to be a senior Trump aide), Clinton-era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, even Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, and many others all gave the same justification for the FBI’s actions that they gave for Trump’s first and second impeachments: “No one is above the law, not even a president of the United States.”

    Yet, a majority of Americans know that’s categorically untrue. That’s why so many of them rejected Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray’s scolding of anyone who dared question their credibility following the raid.

    But while the FBI and DOJ have busied themselves with targeting Trump and his aides, colluding with the National School Boards Association to silence concerned parents, concocting entrapment schemes masquerading as plots to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and chasing down election integrity supporters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, plenty of real criminals and security threats have gotten away scot-free. That’s no accident.

    Here is everyone who Democrats and their bureaucrat buddies have deemed “above the law” and unworthy of proper investigation and prosecution.

    1. President Joe Biden

    A president avoiding paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes seems like the kind of thing federal agencies, including the recently financially invigorated Internal Revenue Service, should explore. Yet Biden, who hasn’t explained millions of dollars of his recorded income, and First Lady Jill Biden together reportedly dodged about $517,000 in Medicare and Obamacare taxes between 2017 and 2020 without scrutiny.

    2. Hunter Biden

    The president’s son isn’t just a walking liability for the Biden family name, he’s a glaring national security threat with a long, infamous history of using illicit drugs, engaging in possibly criminal sexual escapades with foreign women, and selling access to his dad under the guise of doing business with foreign oligarchs.

    Besides all this and his reckless handling of a lost gun in 2018 — which, against normal protocol, the Secret Service reportedly helped him cover up — Hunter likely lied on federal forms about his drug use to purchase that gun, a felony, with barely a whisper of punishment.

    3. Hillary Clinton

    Hillary Clinton and her staff mishandled highly classified information, which resulted in at least 91 security violations. The FBI, of course, never raided Clinton’s house over her rogue server despite the crimes committed to cover it up. Instead, as Sen. Chuck Grassley put it, the FBI “inexplicably agreed to destroy [Clinton staffers Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson’s] laptops knowing that the contents were the subject of Congressional subpoenas and preservation letters.”

    4. Everyone Involved in Benghazi

    Speaking of Clinton, why wasn’t she or any other Obama-era bureaucrat who was responsible for abandoning four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, where they were murdered by terrorists, punished for trying to cover up the fatal scandal?

    5. Illegal Border Crossers

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection has apprehended roughly 3.5 million illegal border crossers since Biden assumed office, but those migrants are rarely punished for violating the law.

    Instead of addressing how the compromised border is fostering an environment ripe for trafficking and other crimes, the Biden administration along with the FBI and DOJ have brushed off concerns about illegal immigration. Apparently, it is more important to go after American citizens than prosecute potentially dangerous foreign ones.

    6. Gavin Newsom and Every Other Dem Who Partied While Americans Suffered Lockdowns

    Dozens of Democrats including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Pelosi, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio were caught violating their own Covid-19 lockdown rules. If Democrats cared about rule of law so much, why did these politicians escape accountability?

    7. Summer of Rage Rioters

    During the summer of 2020, rioters looted, burned, and destroyed more than $2 billion worth of private and federal property. Some of those who were caught were bailed out by Kamala Harris and her allies and let off the hook by the federal government. The rioters who weren’t caught can live comfortably knowing that the DOJ is too busy trying to track down potential J6 offenders to prosecute them.

    8. Climate Insurrectionists

    In October 2021, rowdy climate rioters stormed the Department of the Interiorphysically fought with police, and vandalized a building. Several officers were even injured, but I don’t see the rioters’ faces plastered all over an FBI tip line website nor an illegitimate congressional committee dedicated to their downfall.

    9. Jane’s Revenge

    It took 44 days after attacks on dozens of pregnancy centers, churches, and pro-life organizations began for the FBI to tell The Federalist that it would investigate the firebombings. Two months after the agency reportedly started its search into the criminal activity, neither the FBI nor DOJ has announced charges against the vandals, including a mysterious anarchist-connected group called Jane’s Revenge, which took responsibility for some of the destruction.

    10. Everyone Else Who Threatened SCOTUS over Dobbs

    Shortly after a leak revealed that the Supreme Court planned to strike down Roe v. Wade, leftists called for violence against the Republican-nominated justices. While the Biden administration and DOJ stood idly by, some even said the court should burn to the ground. It took until a man was caught attempting to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of Garland’s former colleagues, for the DOJ to respond to Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s questions about whether the agency planned to prosecute anyone touting the “ongoing, coordinated campaign of intimidation against the majority of the justices on the Supreme Court.” Even then, nothing came of the DOJ’s words.

    11. The Pelosi Family

    Suspected insider trading deserves at least a second glance by federal investigators, but it looks like, so far, Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul have gotten away with conveniently timing their stock purchases and sales to massively grow their wealth.

    12. Almost Everyone on Jeffrey Epstein’s Client List

    Epstein and his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell were both convicted of trafficking children for sex, but the list of their clients is still reportedly harbored by the DOJ, something lamented by many including Elon Musk. Of those names that have surfaced from Epstein’s “little black book,” few have been prosecuted and convicted for their involvement in the sex-trafficking ring.

    13. Marc Elias and Election Law-Breakers

    Marc Elias has repeatedly tried to undermine U.S. elections, something the FBI loves to spy on Americans for. Elias has such a reputation for meddling and manipulating elections that even a federal judge reprimanded him for it. Unlike Douglass Mackey, who was charged by the DOJ for posting a meme encouraging Hillary voters to “text” their votes, however, Elias has not faced any charges or unannounced raids.

    14. Mark Milley

    Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, undermined Trump by having secret conversations with known U.S. enemy communist China. In those covert calls, Milley promised to warn China if the U.S. ever decided to attack. Talk about a national security threat that deserves some attention from federal law enforcement.

    15. Eric Swalwell

    Speaking of communist China, Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell canoodling with a known spy for the nation’s No. 1 enemy seems like a pretty serious offense. Instead of a member of the House Intelligence Committee facing consequences for giving foreign spies access to key U.S. government offices and information, Swalwell is still comfortably rage-tweeting about Trump and MAGA supporters and appearing as a guest on corrupt corporate media programs.

    16. The NSA

    The National Security Agency deserved to be disbanded over its wiretapping scandal, but it’s still spying on Americans such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson with no reprimand.

    17. Eric Holder

    Former Attorney General Eric Holder misled Congress during its investigation of the Obama-era “Fast and Furious” gun-running scandal, which used taxpayer dollars to put guns into the hands of Mexican drug lords. Holder was held in contempt, but that’s pretty much the only punishment he received for intentionally dodging subpoenas and hiding documents from congressional oversight.

    18. Susan Rice

    President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice unmasked members of the Trump transition team and then lied about it. Unmasking may be a legitimate and legal process for those with the authority, but covering up an attempt to target the political enemies of the regime is an abuse of power that deserves examination.

    Instead, it was yet another action U.S. intelligence agencies exploited to justify spying on American citizens.

    19. All the Russia Hoaxers

    There were plenty of people in the DOJ and FBI who broke the law when they lied on official documents and to other officials to advance the Russia-collusion hoax. Yet, FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in early August that so far, none of the FBI agents involved in the SpyGate scandal against Trump have faced serious consequences.

    Similarly, despite lying about why he was supplying information about a supposed link between Trump and the Russia-based Alfa Bank to the FBI, former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann was acquitted and let go without consequence.

    20. Themselves

    The same people who control the enforcement of the law, who love lording “no one is above the law” over Americans, are the ones who think they are above any semblance of oversight or law or constitutionality.

    That’s why the FBI has skirted any of Congress’s attempts at oversight even though it has a long history of botched and politicized investigations, sometimes authorized on falsified information.

    Instead of investigating and prosecuting real crimes, the FBI and DOJ have chosen to shame Americans who have called out the corruption and politicization that clearly drives their agencies’ actions. That’s a deliberate decision, but also a disastrous one.

    Rule of law is one thing that sets the United States apart as a bastion of freedom, but when the government fails to uphold it properly, as the list details, the nation is in crisis and on the verge of falling apart.


    Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Econocide

    A.F. BRANCO | on May 24, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-econocide/

    Joe Biden wants you to believe that the robust economy trump left behind has somehow killed itself.

    Biden Killing the Economy
    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022

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    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Donald Trump.

    Hillary Clinton Personally Approved Spreading Trump-Russia Disinformation to Media, Former Campaign Manager Testifies


    REPORTED BY SHELBY TALCOTT | SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT | May 20, 2022

    Read more at https://dailycaller.com/2022/05/20/hillary-clinton-approved-spreading-trump-russia-claims-media-robby-mook/

    Robby Mook, Campaign Manager for U.S. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and Communications Director Jen Palmieri (L), talk to reporters onboard the campaign plane enroute to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S. October 28, 2016. Picture taken October 28, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
    REUTERS/Brian Snyder

    Hillary Clinton’s former campaign manager testified Friday that the then-Democratic presidential nominee personally approved spreading material that claimed the Trump organization had a secret communications channel with a Russian bank to the media.

    Robby Mook, Clinton’s former campaign manager, testified Friday in special counsel John Durham’s case against former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann. At one point, Mook was pressed about the level of understanding within the campaign regarding allegations that the Trump organization had a secret connection with Alfa Bank. Mook was also pressed on whether the campaign was going to distribute such allegations to members of the press, according to Fox News. Mook admitted that former campaign general counsel Marc Elias first informed him of the Alfa Bank situation, and also said the Clinton campaign was unsure whether the data was legitimate.

    The former campaign manager continued on to say that discussions about giving the information to reporters happened amongst multiple senior campaign officials – and, most notably, the then-Democratic presidential nominee herself. (RELATED: Former FBI Official Testifies In Durham Case, Says He’s ‘Confident’ Sussmann Denied Acting On Behalf Of Client)

    “I discussed it with Hillary as well,” Mook said, according to Fox News. “I don’t remember the substance of the conversation, but notionally, the discussion was, ‘hey, we have this, and we want to share it with a reporter.’”

    Mook also admitted that “she [Hillary Clinton] agreed” to have the information spread out to the media. While he expressed uncertainty in when, exactly, Clinton was briefed on the idea, he noted that he remembered “that she agreed with the decision,” Fox News reported.

    Sussmann, a Democratic lawyer with ties to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was charged last year by Durham with lying to the FBI during a 2016 meeting. Friday’s testimony came one day after U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper denied the defense’s motion for a mistrial.

    Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Go Get Em’

    A.F. BRANCO | on March 9, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-go-get-em/

    Biden is all talk, the master of talking tough but nothing to show for it but disaster.

    Biden is all hat no cattle
    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022.

    A.F. Branco Cartoon – The Comeback Kid

    A.F. BRANCO | on March 10, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-the-comeback-kid/

    The Clintons are bringing back their pay-to-play scheme just in time to get ready for the 2024 election.

    Clinton Global Initiative is coming back
    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2022

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    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – In Deep Schiff

    A.F. BRANCO | on February 15, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-in-deep-schiff/

    The Durham Investigation is pointing at the Hillary Campaign for likely spying on Trump.

    Hillary Spied On Trump
    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 – $5.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 – it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

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    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Ooooh That Smell

    A.F. BRANCO on January 18, 2022 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-ooooh-that-smell/

    Just when you thought it was over for Hillary, she raises her evil corrupt head again for 2024.

    Hillary Clinton 2024?
    Political A.F. Branco Cartoon ©2021

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    Disgraced FBI No. 2 Andrew McCabe Calls for Feds to Treat ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives Like Domestic Terrorists


    Reported BY: EVITA DUFFY | JANUARY 10, 2022

    Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/10/disgraced-fbi-no-2-andrew-mccabe-calls-for-feds-to-treat-mainstream-conservatives-like-domestic-terrorists/

    McCabe

    Have you ever wondered what disgraced former deputy FBI directors do after trying to stage a coup and lying under oath? Apparently, they give talks about “protecting democracy” at top-rated institutions of higher learning. Indeed, this last Thursday the University of Chicago invited former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe to join a panel of partisans to discuss the Jan 6 “insurrection.” 

    McCabe was fired as the deputy FBI director for leaking sensitive information about an investigation into the Clinton Foundation and then lying about it under oath. He also took part in spying on the Donald Trump campaign through a secret warrant granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.

    The dossier he used to obtain the surveillance warrant was funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and, in an ironic twist, was itself the product of Russian disinformation. McCabe and his allies in corporate media justified all sorts of similar illegal and undemocratic tactics to discredit and attempt to unseat President Trump. 

    Of course, neither the University of Chicago nor McCabe acknowledged the irony in him discussing the integrity of “democracy” in America on Thursday evening. In fact, what McCabe said at the University of Chicago event on Jan. 6, 2022 is even more shocking than his invitation to speak in the first place. Below are four of the most appalling assertions and policy proposals McCabe made at the public event.

    1. Conservatives Are in The Same Category As Islamic Terrorists 

    McCabe likened conservatives to members of the Islamic Caliphate: “I can tell you from my perspective of spending a lot of time focused on the radicalization of international terrorists and Islamic extremist and extremists of all stripes… is that this group shares many of the same characteristics of those groups that we’ve seen radicalized along entirely different ideological lines,” he said.

    McCabe went on to describe the rise of the Islamic caliphate in Syria and how Islamic extremists were radicalized across socioeconomic, educational, and racial lines, likening it to the “mass radicalization” of the political right across demographics. That’s right, according to McCabe a grandma who shares a Federalist article on Facebook and your uncle with a “Let’s Go Brandon” coffee mug are in the same category as a jihadist who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub.

    2. Parents at School Board Meetings Pose A ‘Threat To National Security’

    “Political violence [is] not just confined to the Capitol,” McCabe asserted. “It’s going on in school boards around the country. It’s going on in local elections. It’s happening, you know, even to health-care workers.” According to this politically protected former FBI no. 2, the “political violence” occurring recently at school board meetings and during local elections is a “very diverse and challenging threat picture.” 

    If you haven’t heard already, Democrats are branding parents who oppose child mask mandates and racist critical race theory indoctrination as “domestic terrorists.” 

    McCabe said moms and dads who stand up for their children’s health and education at school board meetings in ways Democrats disagree with are very dangerous. So dangerous that it is actually “essential” we have a “rapid and complete response by law enforcement at the state, local and federal level to this sort of political violence…” 

    Holding America’s parents “accountable” is not enough for McCabe. He wants to make sure that federal agencies also put “out that message that this sort of conduct that both horribly victimizes individuals, but also serves to undermine our democratic process” is “considered a threat to national security [that is] not tolerated.” 

    3. McCabe Wants More Surveillance of ‘Mainstream’ Conservatives 

    “I’m fairly confident,” McCabe said, “[that] the FBI [and other agencies] have reallocated resources and repositioned some of their counterterrorism focus to increase their focus on right-wing extremism and domestic violent extremists. And I think that’s obviously a good idea.” 

    But McCabe wants more. McCabe asserted that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and FBI need to stop merely focusing on the “fringes of the right-wing movement,” in order to “catch this threat” of the “right.” 

    “Are you going to catch this threat if your focus is only on the traditional, right-wing extremist, those groups that we know about, the quote-unquote, fringes of the right-wing movement?” asked McCabe. “And I think the answer to that is no.” 

    “It’s entirely possible that when the intelligence community and the law enforcement community looks out across this mainstream,” McCabe continued, “they didn’t assume [on January 6] that that group of people — business owners, white people from the suburbs, educated, employed — presented a threat of violence, and now we know very clearly that they do.” 

    McCabe wants to get around constitutional obstacles that restrict the abuses of federal agencies. He explained that the path to granting the feds more power to spy on and punish “extremists,” a.k.a. conservatives, is by implementing federal penalties against “domestic terrorism.”

    A measure like this would grant domestic agencies the intelligence capabilities of the international terrorism-focused National Counterterrorism Center. It would, McCabe says, “give investigators the ability to begin investigating when folks are plotting or planning or organizing to use violence for the purpose of coercing the population or influencing government…” 

    Joshua Geltzer, President Joe Biden’s advisor on “countering domestic violent extremism,” made the same proposal in a 2019 hearing before a subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee. In his proposal, Geltzer suggested that we need to “polic[e] [tech company] platforms to remove not just incitement to violence, but also, the ideological foundations that spawn such violence.”

    McCabe claims these proposed federal laws against domestic terrorism can be implemented without infringing on Americans’ First Amendment right to free speech. That seems quite impossible, however, given Geltzer is proposing government oversight of social media, for example.  It is even more difficult to believe when you consider that Democrats are not going after real domestic terrorists and have literally defined parents speaking out at school board meetings as national security threats. As McCabe said himself, to Democrats, the extreme right is the mainstream right. 

    4. McCabe Believes No One Is Above The Law (Except Himself)

    Ironically, one of McCabe’s last remarks was a proclamation of equality under the law. “Whether you are a Trump supporter or a Biden supporter, right, left, or otherwise, we should all be able to agree on the principle that no one is above the law,” stated McCabe.

     “… [F]rom the lowliest trespasser on January 6, up to the highest-ranking government officials who may have been aware of a plan that would ultimately lead to violence in the Capitol––those people should be held accountable, period,” he announced. “And if we can’t do that, that is just another sign that we are becoming a non-functioning democracy.”

    Ironically, McCabe’s firing for repeatedly breaking the law was expunged from the record only because he settled with a partisan Biden Department of Justice. If no one is above the law, as McCabe claims to support, then he would be in jail. Of course, McCabe is above the law. Only dissenting conservatives, in his view, deserve the suspicion and wrath of unelected federal agencies. 

    Disturbingly, the University of Chicago does not care about national introspection post-January 6, 2021. If it did, it would not have invited McCabe, of all people, to speak about “protecting democracy.” 

    UChicago allowed McCabe to spin lies about what truly happened one year ago and filtered student questions via Zoom, refusing to ask him any tough questions. Consequently, McCabe was given a platform to teach young, impressionable college students without question that the federal government should be weaponized against fellow Americans whom leftists brand as “extremists.”

    To the elites in America — Democrats like McCabe, university administrators, and professors – January 6 is the key to labeling their political opponents as dangerous, “white supremacist extremists” and enacting new policy accordingly. America’s universities are now indoctrination machines that shape the minds of the next generation. Academia openly exploits its power and rewrite history to serve their illiberal agenda.

    Sadly, McCabe’s dishonest version of January 6 is happily accepted by the academic elites who invited him Thursday night. His frighteningly despotic views and policy prescriptions will likely be accepted and implemented by his young listeners. 

    This story was originally published in the Chicago Thinker. 


    Evita Duffy is a senior contributor to The Federalist, co-founder of the Chicago Thinker, and a senior at the University of Chicago, where she studies American History. She loves the Midwest, lumberjack sports, writing, & her family. Follow her on Twitter at @evitaduffy_1 or contact her at evitapduffy@uchicago.edu

    Today’s THREE Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Tyrants’ Best Friend

    A.F. BRANCO on June 4, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-tyrants-best-friend/

    Dictators and Tyrants around the world can smell weakness in Biden.

    Biden Weakness

    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.

    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Pride Before the Fall

    A.F. BRANCO on June 6, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-pride-before-the-fall/

    Governor Walz could have stopped much of the damage in Minnesota by Left-wing groups.

    Governor Walz Proud of Himself

    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021

    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Leave it to the Pros

    A.F. BRANCO on June 7, 2021 | https://comicallyincorrect.com/a-f-branco-cartoon-leave-it-to-the-pros/

    Crooked Hillary Clinton must be looking at Fauci as an Amateur with his recent exposed email.

    Fauci Emails and Hillary Clinton

    Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2021.

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated – $1.00 –  $5.00 –  $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. Also Venmo @AFBranco – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and shared by President Donald Trump.

    Joe Biden’s DHS Nominee Is The Absolute Picture Of DC Political Corruption


    Reported by Christopher Bedford DECEMBER 4, 2020

    Alejandro “Al” Mayorkas is a left-wing Democrat with a history of doing favors for wealthy and politically connected people, including working to help suspected Chinese spies enter the country and convicted drug dealers get out of prison. Last time he was in power, he administered President Barack Obama’s most anti-congressional use of executive power to accomplish amnesty. He also earned zero votes from the Republican minority when applying for that job.

    Some might suggest this makes Mayorkas just about the worst possible nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), but not Joe Biden, who plans to put him in the post in 2021.

    So why would Biden do it? The left wing of the party was promised a partnership in a Biden presidency, with Sen. Bernie Sanders claiming Biden personally told him he will “be the most progressive president since FDR.” So far, they’ve been disappointed, with nominees including a Clinton-mold liberal interventionist to the Department of State, and Janet Yellin (over, say, Elizabeth Warren) to Department of the Treasury.

    And if Democrats succeed in Georgia to tie the Senate, a Vice President Kamala Harris can push Mayorkas across the finish line and earn the left a man on the inside. If they lose, the left gets a human sacrifice in their honor. Either way, the left gets a try, although it’s unlikely enough to satiate The Squad.

    So who is Mayorkas, and why does the left seem to like him so much? In his role at United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), he swiftly implemented  Obama’s extra-congressional amnesty order. His work with legal and illegal immigration advocates earned their praise, and at least two awards from outside immigrant groups. In his eventual role as deputy secretary of Homeland Security, he led the president’s Cuba delegation. Combine this resume with his Cuban-American heritage and he stands in stark contrast with President Donald Trump’s DHS.

    Now, why won’t he gain any Republican support? In addition to his politics, he appears about as corrupt as modern D.C. gets.

    99-page report prepared for the U.S. Senate by the DHS inspector general (IG) details the allegations against Mayorkas during his tenure at the head of the USCIS. While he denies the allegations and prefers to talk about the orphans he’s helped in his letter to the IG, the three cases detailed involve trying to give citizenship to politically connected, wealthy foreigners, at the behest of powerful Democrats.

    I was praised for my leadership when I engaged with the poor and the needy,” he complained in a letter to the IG, maintaining that his influential Democrat buddies with direct access to him don’t deserve any less.

    The meddling was allegedly on behalf of figures like Hillary Clinton’s now-deceased brother, Anthony Rodham, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, future Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, then-former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, and the then-mayor of Los Angeles. Unsurprisingly, Mayorkas says he can’t remember the substance of any of the private conversations he had with these players. Equally unsurprising: Every one of these outside players declined to speak with the IG.

    The program in question, the EB-5 program, essentially trades U.S. citizenship for “job creation,” doling out the coveted passport to foreigners who can pull together $500,000 and demonstrate their money will create jobs in a specific area of the country. More than 80 percent of applicants come from China, The Daily Caller News Foundation reports, including those working with a casino represented by Reid’s son, Rory, and including the Chinese investors working with McAuliffe and Rodham.

    The Chinese government doesn’t let its subjects go abroad without a promise to keep their party and loyalties in line, and Republicans have accused the Chinese Communist Party of specifically using the pay-to-play citizenship model to infiltrate the United States for low cost. Indeed, one of Rodham’s clients was a vice president of Huwaei, a company globally targeted for extensive connections to Chinese spying operations.

    The three incidents of Mayorkas’s meddling were plenty sufficient to shock the IG, as were the number of people willing to report on his behavior.

    “That so many individuals were willing to step forward and tell us what happened is evidence of deep resentment” stretching from the Washington office all the way to California, the IG report reads. These whistle-blowers included “current and retired career and non-career members of the Senior Executive Service, attorneys, all levels of supervisors, immigration officers, and those involved in fraud detection and national security.”

    Mayorkas says he was just a good public servant trying to fix a broken system without regard to “the identity of the petitioners.” The agency, he said in justification for his abrasive attitude, “was failing in… administration of the EB-5 program, including failing to enforce the law, adhere to its own policies, promote sound policy, understand business facts and realities, correctly apply economic principles, and honor its own representations.”

    Also, McAuliffe is a belligerent ass — and on that point Mayorkas is hysterically and believably adamant.

    Mayorkas has a point about the bureaucratic difficulties in Washington, but according to a great number of interviews, his motives can’t be taken seriously. “Employees were afraid to speak up in meetings,” the report reads, “because if they had a different view, Mr. Mayorkas would ‘cut them up, take them apart, or put them in their place.’”

    “Another high-ranking official,” it continues, “described going to a meeting with Mr. Mayorkas as feeling like ‘going into a lion’s den to justify our existence as a Christian… That scenario always comes to a predictable end.’”

    “I fear,” one official emailed when the Reid deal began, “we are entering a whole new phase of yuck.”

    It’s all in the IG report —  a report that helped earn Mayorkas 41 Republican nays, four abstains, and zero yays when  Obama nominated him for a promotion to the deputy secretary of Homeland Security — the department Biden now wants him to lead. Democrats were less concerned, voting unanimously for him with only his old friend Leader Reid sitting it out (a customary move when his vote is not needed).

    The behavior detailed in the report isn’t a career standout: Favors for the powerful are no strange game to Mayorkas. As his term as President Bill Clinton’s attorney for Central California drew to a close, he used his power to become the most influential person in favor of commuting the sentence of Carlos Vignali, Jr., who was serving 15 years for trafficking massive amounts of cocaine.

    “U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas provided critical support for the Vignali commutation that was inappropriate, given his position,” a 2002 House of Representatives report reads. “Mayorkas, the top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, was asked by Horacio Vignali to call the White House in support of his son’s clemency petition.”

    “His call,” the report continues, “conveyed support for the Vignali commutation … despite his knowledge that the prosecutors responsible for the Vignali case opposed clemency.”

    So why would he make the call? In short, Vignali Sr. was a major Democratic backer, who made donations to powerful politicians in Los Angeles.

    Once again a Hillary Clinton brother — this time Hugh Rodham — joined in on the fun, earning $204,200 for “working part-time for two months gathering materials in support of Vignali’s case and making telephone calls to White House staff.” When his sister and brother in law pressured him to return the money, the congressional report reads, he returned just $50,000.

    These are the circles Mayorkas runs in, and has for decades. Even the Hunter Biden-China trouble doesn’t seem enough to dissuade Joe Biden from wanting him to defend the homeland.

    He was “smart, charismatic, and persuasive,” his old employees said. “Full of emotion, impulsive, volatile, and tenacious.” In other words, he does well in Washington — and so do his friends. That is, if Democrats win in Georgia.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
    Christopher Bedford is a senior editor at The Federalist, the vice chairman of Young Americans for Freedom, a board member at the National Journalism Center, and the author of The Art of the Donald. Follow him on Twitter.

    Trump: I’m Authorizing Total Declassification Of All Docs Related To Hillary’s Alleged Plan To Smear Me


    By  Hank Berrien |   | DailyWire.com

    U.S. President Donald Trump walks in a corridor of the White House to greet visitors, while a portrait of Hillary Clinton hangs on the wall, March 7, 2017 in Washington, DC . / Aude Guerrucci-Pool/Getty Images

    On Tuesday night, following the news that Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe had declassified documents showing former CIA Director John Brennan had briefed former President Barack Obama about the plan that Hillary Clinton allegedly approved to smear Donald Trump about his supposed connections to Moscow, President Trump tweeted that he would authorize the release of the full, unredacted documents related to the case.

    As The Daily Wire reported on Tuesday:

    Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe declassified documents on Tuesday showing that former CIA Director John Brennan briefed former President Barack Obama about the plan that Hillary Clinton allegedly approved to smear then-candidate Donald Trump to Russia as a way of distracting from her email scandal.

    “Ratcliffe declassified Brennan’s handwritten notes – which were taken after he briefed Obama on the intelligence the CIA received – and a CIA memo, which revealed that officials referred the matter to the FBI for potential investigative action,” Fox News reported. “That referral was sent to then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.”

    A source that was familiar with the documents told Fox News that, despite claims from the media and Democrats, the information was not “Russian disinformation,” and the fact that Brennan reportedly briefed Obama on it is a sign that it was serious.

    “This is not Russian disinformation. Even Brennan knew, or he wouldn’t be briefing the president of the United States on it,” the source said. “There is a high threshold to orally brief the president of the United States and he clearly felt this met that threshold.”

    In late July, former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett suggested that the public stop focusing on whether the Obama administration used the FBI to spy on Donald Trump in 2016.

    Appearing on Fox Business with host Maria Bartiromo, Jarrett stated, “Well, Maria, look, I have a high degree of confidence that our intelligence community, our investigators comported themselves responsibly. Look, Lindsey Graham is the one that encouraged Senator McCain to turn over the dossier in the first place to the FBI.”

    The Daily Wire had reported that the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found 17 “inaccuracies and omissions” in FISA warrant applications to spy on Carter Page. But the FBI ignored information from a U.S. government agency that said it had a prior relationship with Page involving contacts with Russian intelligence officers. The Daily Wire noted, “The FBI hid this information from the FISA court in order to obtain another warrant to continue investigating Page, even though it knew there was nothing to investigate. By spying on Page, the FBI gained access to other Trump associates to spy on in order to find some evidence that could be used against Trump.:

    Jarrett added, “So, I can’t tell you all of the reasons why Comey went forward with his investigation. Maybe this was one piece of a bigger puzzle. But I do know that it’s nearly four years ago and I don’t understand why our focus isn’t on what’s happening right now and today. That’s the investigation I would like to see going on.”

    HUGE! Clinton Campaign Attorney Mark Elias Admitted in Testimony He Sent the Bill from Fusion GPS for Dossier Directly to Campaign Manager Robbie Mook


    Reported By Jim Hoft | Published May 11, 2020 at 8:58pm

    Hillary Campaign Manager Robbie Mook

    On Saturday The Gateway Pundit reported that thanks to newly released transcripts Hillary Campaign chairman John Podesta admitted during testimony that both the DNC and Hillary Campaign split the cost of the bogus Trump-Russia dossier in 2016 that initially launched the attempted coup against Donald Trump. John Podesta was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman in 2016.

    CNN reported in October 2017 that Podesta and then DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz “both denied to congressional Russia investigators that they had any knowledge about an arrangement to pay for opposition research on President Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.” But that is not what John Podesta told House Intelligence investigators under oath in his December 2017 testimony.

    John Podesta admitted under oath that the DNC and the Hillary Campaign split the cost of the Trump-Russia dossier.

    Now we know.
    Via M3thods:

    That’s from page 13 of his testimony.

    Now on Monday night investigative reporter Paul Sperry reported that Hillary Clinton Campaign Lawyer Mark Elias testified that he sent the Fusion GPS bills for their work to Clinton Campaign Manager Robbie Mook.


    Paul Sperry@paulsperry_

    BREAKING: Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias testified he sent the bills from Fusion GPS to campaign manager Robby Mook, yet Mook has publicly denied knowing anything about the dossier at the time

    27.4K people are talking about this


    The Mark Elias transcript was released on Friday.

    Here is Elias’s testimony where he admits Hillary’s Campaign Manager Robbie Mook was sent the bill for the Fusion GPS dossier!

    page 16 from his testimony

    More on page 17

    This is amazing. Not only did Podesta admit the Clinton Campaign split the bill for the dossier with the DNC. But now we have the Clinton attorney admitting he sent the bill to Clinton Campaign Manager Robbie Mook!

    This was 100% a Hillary Clinton, DNC operation. And it was 100% lies on Trump.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Creepy Crooked and Corrupt

    Hillary is endorsing Biden because she shares his same values, like assorted sexual assault scandals?
    Hillary Endorses BidenPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2020.
    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $25.00 – $50.00 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.

    Michigan governor endorses Biden ahead of primary


    Posted

    Michigan governor endorses Biden ahead of primary / © UPI Photo

    Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Thursday endorsed Joe Biden for president, a significant boost for the former vice president ahead of next week’s primary in the Wolverine State. Whitmer, whose state’s primary will allocate 125 pledged delegates, cast Biden as an advocate for working families, citing his work on health care, bailing out the auto industry and more during his time in the Obama administration.

    “Working families in Michigan need a president who will show up and fight for them, and Joe Biden has proven time and again that he has our backs,” she said in a statement. “Michiganders have grit. We’re tough. We know what it’s like to be overlooked and counted out. And we know that when you get knocked down, you pick yourself up and get back to work. Joe Biden has been right there with us in the tough fights.” 

    “Joe Biden is the candidate we need to defeat Donald Trump in November. He’s always had our backs. Now, I’m proud to have his,” added Whitmer, who is also being named a national co-chair to Biden’s campaign.

    Whitmer said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Biden’s commitment to expanding health care was personal to her, noting that the same type of brain tumor killed both her mother and Biden’s son.

    “I have commiserated about Joe about this very thing,” she said of her mother’s brain cancer diagnosis. “I know his commitment.”

    Biden is set for up for a battle in Michigan next week with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who narrowly took the state’s primary in 2016 over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

    The Wolverine State is a key contest for both candidates’ claims of support from white working-class voters. The state was one of the key victories, along with others in the Rust Belt, for President Trump in the 2016 general election.

    Whitmer, who was endorsed by Biden during her 2018 gubernatorial bid, has steadily gained a national profile after winning the gubernatorial election two years ago and delivering the Democratic Party’s response to President Trump’s State of the Union in February.  Her endorsement comes just one day after former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm also threw her support behind the former vice president.

    They are just the latest in a slew of establishment Democratic figures falling in line behind Biden after resounding victories in South Carolina and several Super Tuesday states vaulted him back into the front-runner position in the primary.

    Though Biden put up underwhelming showings in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, a 30-point win in the Palmetto State and victories in 10 out of 14 Super Tuesday states have revived his campaign, setting him up to have a narrow delegate lead after all of California’s primary votes are tallied.

    Sanders, meanwhile, won California, Colorado, Utah and his home state of Vermont on Super Tuesday.

    Biden appears set to capitalize on his Super Tuesday resurgence in upcoming primary and caucus states, which consist heavily of demographics that appear to favor the former vice president. Six more states will cast ballots on Tuesday, with Michigan representing the heftiest delegate haul.

     

    Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – With Friends Like These…

    We once again find the Clinton’s in full-blown denial, this time in regard to any involvement in the Epstein suicide.

    Bill and Hillary Clinton about EpsteinPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.

    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Smash Hit

    It Maybe time for Hillary and Bill to get out the bleach bit and hammers to limit any incriminating evidence in the Epstein investigation.

    Clinton’s Connection to EpsteinPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.
    More A.F. Branco cartoons at FlagAnd Cross.com here.

    An adult children’s Book for all ages APOCALI NOW! brilliantly lampoons the left. ODER >  HERE

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been popular all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great El Rushbo, and has had his toons tweeted by President Trump.

    Klein: James Comey Peddling Falsehoods with ‘Questions’ for Mueller


    Written by Aaron Klein | 

    URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/23/klein-james-comey-peddling-falsehoods-with-questions-for-mueller/

    This combination photo shows President Donald Trump speaking during a roundtable discussion on tax policy in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., on April 5, 2018, left, and former FBI director James Comey speaking during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 8, 2017. Trump fired off …
    AP Photo/Evan Vucci, left, and Andrew Harnik
     

    NEW YORK — Disgraced former FBI Director James Comey has been making the media rounds peddling a list of “questions” that he compiled and published on the Lawfare blog in a posting titled, “What I Would Ask Robert Mueller.”

    Comey’s “questions” are deceptively framed in a manner clearly aimed at attempting to perpetuate the Russia collusion conspiracy even though Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s extensive report found no evidence of any collusion or coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

    Below are the obvious answers to Comey’s “questions” on Russia, with the answers coming from Mueller’s report itself in addition to other documentation.

    1 – Did you find that there were a series of contacts between the Trump campaign and individuals with ties to the Russian government?

    Perhaps Comey failed to read Mueller’s actual report, which concluded (emphasis added):

    The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation.

    In particular, the investigation examined whether these contacts involved or resulted in coordination or a conspiracy with the Trump Campaign and Russia, including with respect to Russia providing assistance to the Campaign in exchange for any sort of favorable treatment in the future. Based on the available information, the investigation did not establish such coordination.

    Comey should also refer to the following section of the Mueller report, which related that Russia didn’t even know how to contact the incoming Trump administration after the billionaire mogul won the 2016 election:

    As soon as news broke that Trump had been elected President, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new Administration. They appeared not to have preexisting contacts and struggled to connect with senior officials around the President-Elect. As explained below, those efforts entailed both official contact through the Russian Embassy in the United States and outreaches — sanctioned at high levels of the Russian government — through business rather than political contacts.

    The Mueller report details the hilarity of Russian President Vladimir Putin having trouble reaching Trump’s team to offer simple congratulations:

    At approximately 3 a.m. on election night, Trump Campaign press secretary Hope Hicks received a telephone call on her personal cell phone from a person who sounded foreign but was calling from a number with a DC area code. Although Hicks had a hard time understanding the person, she could make out the words “Putin call.” Hicks told the caller to send her an email.

    The following morning, on November 9, 2016, Sergey Kuznetsov, an official at the Russian Embassy to the United States, emailed Hicks from his Gmail address with the subject line, “Message from Putin.” Attached to the email was a message from Putin, in both English and Russian, which Kuznetsov asked Hicks to convey to the President-Elect. In the message, Putin offered his congratulations to Trump for his electoral victory, stating he “look[ ed] forward to working with [Trump] on leading Russian-American relations out of crisis.”

    Hicks forwarded the email to [Jared] Kushner, asking, “Can you look into this? Don’t want to get duped but don’t want to blow off Putin!” Kushner stated in Congressional testimony that he believed that it would be possible to verify the authenticity of the forwarded email through the Russian Ambassador, whom Kushner had previously met in April 2016. Unable to recall the Russian Ambassador’s name, Kushner emailed Dimitri Simes of CNI, whom he had consulted previously about Russia, see Volume I, Section IV.A.4, supra, and asked, “What is the name of Russian ambassador?” Kushner forwarded Simes’s response — which identified Kislyak by name — to Hicks. After checking with Kushner to see what he had learned, Hicks conveyed Putin’s letter to transition officials. Five days later, on November 14, 2016, Trump and Putin spoke by phone in the presence of Transition Team members, including incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

    Comey’s team further cited Petr Aven, a Russian national in charge of Alfa-Bank, Russia’s largest commercial bank. Mueller’s report states: “Aven also testified that Putin spoke of the difficulty faced by the Russian government in getting in touch with the incoming Trump Administration. According to Aven, Putin indicated that he did not know with whom formally to speak and generally did not know the people around the President-Elect.”

    If Comey really wants to get into the weeds, he may do well to review the particulars of each instance of contact between members or surrogates of the campaign and individuals affiliated with Russia as thoroughly documented in Mueller’s report. In each case and with no exception, Mueller found no evidence of wrongdoing.

    2 – In particular, did you find that a Trump foreign policy adviser learned that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails?

    This will be answered together with Comey’s next “question.”

    3 – Did you find that the Trump foreign policy adviser said the Trump campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton?

    Once again, Comey is trying to stir things up based on questions that were already answered inside Mueller’s report.

    A reminder: as referenced above, Mueller concluded, “The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation.”

    Anyway, Comey here is referring to one episode involving George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy panel adviser tangentially involved with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

    The Justice Department’s filing against Papadopoulos documents that he was allegedly told by Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese academic plagued by allegations of suspicious associations, that on a trip to Moscow “he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained ‘dirt’ on then-candidate Clinton.”

    Former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer later transmitted to the U.S. that he was told about the alleged Russian “dirt” on Clinton by Papadopoulos, reportedly leading to the start of the FBI’s controversial probe of Trump’s campaign under Comey’s leadership at the agency.

    No evidence has been presented that Papadopoulos spoke about emails at his meeting with Downer or that Misfurd mentioned emails. But Papadopoulos later described to the FBI that “They [the Russians] have dirt on her”; “the Russians had emails of Clinton”; “they have thousands of emails.”

    The Justice Department concluded, “No documentary evidence, and nothing in the email accounts or other communications facilities reviewed by the Office, shows that Papadopoulos shared this information with the Campaign.”

    Misfurd himself denies mentioning emails during his meeting with Papadopoulos, as per his testimony to the Justice Department: “But Mifsud denied that he had advance knowledge that Russia was in possession of emails damaging to candidate Clinton, stating that he and Papadopoulos had discussed cybersecurity and hacking as a larger issue and that Papadopoulos must have misunderstood their conversation.”

    In his report, Mueller does not at any point claim that Misfurd’s denial was false.

    As National Review summarized, Papadopoulos later explained that any reference to emails was to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, a subject of international news reportage at the time of his meeting with Downer.

    The magazine reports:

    Papadopoulos says the emails he claims Mifsud referred to were not the DNC emails; they were Clinton’s own emails. That is, when Papadopoulos claims that Mifsud told him that Russia had “dirt” in the form of “thousandsof “emails of Clinton,” he understood Mifsud to be alluding to the thousands of State Department and Clinton Foundation emails that Clinton had stored on a private server. These, of course, were the emails that were being intensively covered in the media (including speculation that they might have been hacked by hostile foreign intelligence services) at the time Mifsud and Papadopoulos spoke — i.e., April 2016, when neither Mifsud nor Papadopoulos had any basis to know anything about hacked DNC emails.

    The Justice Department, meanwhile, documented:

    When interviewed, Papadopoulos and the Campaign officials who interacted with him told the Office that they could not recall Papadopoulos sharing the information that Russia had obtained “dirt” on candidate Clinton in the form of emails or that Russia could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information about Clinton.

    Papadopoulos stated that he could not clearly recall having told anyone on the Campaign and wavered about whether he accurately remembered an incident in which Clovis had been upset after hearing Papadopoulos tell Clovis that Papadopoulos thought “they have her emails.”

    The Campaign officials who interacted or corresponded with Papadopoulos have similarly stated, with varying degrees of certainty, that he did not tell them. Senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, for example, did not remember hearing anything from Papadopoulos or Clovis about Russia having emails of or dirt on candidate Clinton. Clovis stated that he did not recall anyone, including Papadopoulos, having given him non-public information that a foreign Government might be in possession of material damaging to Hillary Clinton.

    4 – Did you find that senior members of the Trump campaign met with Russian representatives at Trump Tower after being told in an email that the meeting was part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump?

    Here, Comey seems to ignore Mueller’s finding of no evidence of any coordination between Russia and Trump’s campaign. His question seems to suggest wrongdoing on the part of Trump’s team.

    Comey should refer to multiple Breitbart News investigations by this reporter into the infamous brief meeting at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016 between individuals tied to Russia, Donald Trump Jr. and other campaign officials. Those probes point to the increasing likelihood of the confab being set up as a dirty trick against Trump’s presidential campaign.

    Three Russian participants at the meeting have ties to the controversial Fusion GPS outfit, and two have confirmed ties to Clinton.

    Also, email logs brought to light show numerous emails were exchanged between a Clinton associate, Fusion GPS and Trump Tower participants, with the subjects of some of those emails listing the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russian officials and was by all accounts the very topic of the Trump Tower meeting.

    One Russian participant in the Trump Tower presentation admits to personally knowing Hillary Clinton since the late 1990s and says he “knew” some of the people who worked on Clinton’s 2016 campaign.

    Another Russian attendee, a translator, testified that he was previously an interpreter for Hillary herself as well as for John Kerry and Barack Obama.

    Questions are also raised by a timeline showing numerous personal meetings between Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and Trump Tower participants. A Clinton associate, Ed Lieberman, was listed as being present at one and possibly two of those meetings.

    Separately, Lieberman met with one Russian participant the same day as the Trump Tower meeting, according to separate testimony.

    There are also questions about the initial setup of the Trump Tower meeting, with the publicist who sent the infamous email to Donald Trump Jr. promising “information that would incriminate” Clinton later admitting that he used deliberately hyperbolic language to ensure that the meeting took place. No such incriminating information on Hillary was provided, according to all meeting participants. In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Robert Goldstone, the publicist, further said that he believes the meeting was a “bait and switch” by a Russian lobbyist seeking a meeting on another matter by misleadingly claiming to be bringing the Trump campaign dirt on Clinton.

    5 – Did you find that, despite the fact that candidate Trump said he had “nothing to do with Russia,” his organization had been pursuing a major Moscow project into the middle of the election year and that candidate Trump was regularly updated on developments?

    Comey is peddling conspiracies, suggesting that a proposed draft project discussed generally and briefly by a real estate company that routinely builds overseas — a potential project with no secured financing, land or developer — could amount to wrongdoing. Trump did not secure any real estate project in Russia, but even doing so would not have been illegal.

    Michael Cohen, a convicted liar and fraudster, claimed during a guilty plea that he lied to Congress when he first said that discussions on a Moscow real estate project ended in January 2016. Cohen later claimed messages were exchanged through June and that he personally updated Trump on the project.

    Mueller’s report documents that Cohen “emailed the office of Dmitry Peskov, the Russian government’s press secretary,” but actually sent an email to the wrong address.

    Mueller’s office could not find any follow up beyond one phone call with Peskov’s assistant:

    On January 20, 2016, Cohen received an email from Elena Poliakova, Peskov’s personal assistant. Writing from her personal email account, Poliakova stated that she had been trying to reach Cohen and asked that he call her on the personal number that she provided. Shortly after receiving Poliakova’s email, Cohen called and spoke to her for 20 minutes. Cohen described to Poliakova his position at the Trump Organization and outlined the proposed Trump Moscow project, including information about the Russian counterparty with which the Trump Organization had partnered. Cohen requested assistance in moving the project forward, both in securing land to build the project and with financing. According to Cohen, Poliakova asked detailed questions and took notes, stating that she would need to follow up with others in Russia.

    Cohen could not recall any direct follow-up from Poliakova or from any other representative of the Russian government, nor did the Office identify any evidence of direct follow-up.

    Also, Cohen told Mueller’s office that “he elected not to travel at the time because of concerns about the lack of concrete proposals about land plots that could be considered as options for the project.”

    6 – Did the Trump campaign report any of its Russian contacts to the FBI? Not even the indications from the Russian government that it could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton?

    What is Comey even talking about here? Which Russian “contacts” should Trump’s campaign have reported to the FBI? Mueller concluded not only that there was no evidence of wrongdoing, but that “the investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated” with Russia’s interference campaign. If Trump’s team did not “knowingly or intentionally” collude with Russia, how could they have known to report anything?

    For Comey’s misleading insinuation of “indications from the Russian government that it could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to candidate Clinton,” please see my responses to #3 above, since the credibility-challenged Comey is asking a deceptively phrased question about a disputed episode involving Papadopoulos.

    Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

    Joshua Klein contributed research to this article. 

    Democrats plot strategy to win back Senate


    Written

    Democrats plot strategy to win back Senate
    © Greg Nash

    Democrats planning their bid to win back control of the Senate will run hard against the Washington swamp next year, repurposing one of President Trump’s most effective campaign messages from the 2016 election as their own.

    Top party operatives are poll-testing messages aimed at winning over voters who are fed up with a gridlocked capital, searching for ways to build an advantage among swing voters who may still like Trump, but not the senators who are seeking reelection in 2020.

    And while Democrats could not convince some of their best-known candidates to forgo long shot presidential campaigns in favor of bids for Senate seats, the party will now rely on a once-unorthodox stable of candidates with little or no experience in elected office. 

    It is a strategy reminiscent of 2006 and 2018, when House Democrats ousted Republican majorities on the backs of candidates with unusual profiles. This year, the stable of Senate Democratic candidates includes more women and veterans than has been typical in recent cycles.

    “In races around the country, there are strong Democrats stepping up to run who fit their states and will be a breath of fresh air with new perspectives to bring to the Senate,” said Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

    When former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D) opted against challenging Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), Democrats turned to M.J. Hegar, a veteran and businesswoman who lost a closer than expected bid for Congress last year. 

    In Iowa, another former congressional candidate, Theresa Greenfield, is Democrats’ preferred candidate against Sen. Joni Ernst (R), though she faces a primary fight.

    Arizona Sen. Martha McSally (R) will face Mark Kelly, the retired astronaut making his first run for public office. In North Carolina and Maine, Democrats recruited two state legislators to challenge Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). 

    Those candidates will pitch themselves as fresh-faced outsiders who can shake up a corrupt and broken political system — even if, as is the case in Texas, Iowa and North Carolina, the favored Democratic candidate has lost a race before.

    “In this race for Senate, it’s time for somebody who will stand up and fight, to build an economy that works for everybody, for the health care that each family deserves, and to reform the corrupt political system in Washington,” former North Carolina state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D) said in a video announcing his bid to unseat Tillis.

    Complicating matters for Democrats, only two states that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 have incumbent
    Republican senators today: Maine and Colorado. To win back the Senate majority, Democrats must win states like North Carolina, Arizona, Iowa and even Texas — all states that gave Trump their electoral votes three years ago and where he remains either popular or at least competitive today.

    That has Democrats also focusing on a different villain: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Several Democratic groups are testing whether portraying Republican senators as McConnell’s minions can be effective. 

    Those surveys and public polls show McConnell is surprisingly well-known, and not in a good way. 

    A Harvard-Harris Poll survey conducted in May pegged McConnell’s favorable rating at just 23 percent, lower than Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), at 36 percent, or Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), at 27 percent. His unfavorable rating stood at 44 percent, lower than Pelosi’s 50 percent but higher than every other politician tested except Trump, Clinton and Vice President Pence.

    In a poll conducted for the Democratic group End Citizens United, Global Strategies Group found reading messages against McConnell moved voters toward Democratic candidates more effectively than messages against Trump or the Republican Congress at large.

    “Mitch McConnell is beholden to special interests and he’s blocking progress on everything from making prescription drugs more affordable to addressing political corruption to making health care more affordable,” said Patrick Burgwinkle, who heads communications for End Citizens United.

    McConnell appears twice in Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon’s (D) video announcing her bid against Collins. Greenfield lumped Ernst and McConnell together in her own video. In Texas, Hegar called Cornyn “that tall guy lurking behind” McConnell.

    More than half of the 295 advertisements the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is currently running on Facebook show McConnell’s image or mention his name.

    Attacks against national party leaders are nothing new to Republicans, who spent several cycles using Pelosi as shorthand to tie every prominent Democratic challenger to liberal San Francisco values.

    Republicans aren’t convinced that McConnell will be the poison pill that they saw in Pelosi.

    “You use party leaders in midterms to polarize an electorate when you have registration advantages in the state or district. In a presidential election the electorate is polarized and motivated. The middle isn’t making a decision to show up for a presidential election based upon a three-way bank shot in the side-pocket about whether a senator serves in the same conference as somebody else,” said Josh Holmes, a longtime Senate Republican strategist and top aide to McConnell.

    “The reality for him is that any resource spent attacking Mitch McConnell is a resource that is not used to attack his Republican colleagues, and that’s just the way he likes it,” Holmes said.

    But Democrats hope the focus on corruption can be the beginning of a discussion of other issues, too: That health care costs rise because of pressure from special interest groups or that gun safety legislation has not passed because of the power of the National Rifle Association.

    Democrats “can make the case that Mitch McConnell and special interests in Washington are the ones preventing these priorities from being addressed,” Burgwinkle said.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – In The Bag

    Democrats are very excited about their recent poll numbers being higher than Trump’s, but wait a minute, haven’t we been here before? I’m sure Hillary remembers.

    2020 Democrat Poll NumbersPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco 92019.
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    Branco’s Faux Children’s Book “APOCALI” ORDER  HERE

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

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    THREE New Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Changing of the Guard

    The Democrat party was once called the party of JFK, but as they further to the left, they’re starting to look more like the party of AOC.

    The Party of AOCPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.

    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Pet Smart

    Stephanopoulos interviews President Trump on a Hypothetical situation involving foreign oppo-research, and now the left is in fake outraged mode again, not having a problem with Hillary’s collusion with Russia and the Steele dossier.

    Stephanopoulos, Foreign Oppo-ResearchPolitical Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.

    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Happy Birthday Mr. President

    Trump turns 73. Happy Birthday Mr. President with a cake complete with fake news candles.

    Trump 73rd BirthdayPolitical Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.
    See more Conservative Daily News cartoons here

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, the great El Rushbo, and most recently President Trump.

    New Cache of 339 Emails Shows Fusion GPS Emailing Anti-Trump Intel Directly to Obama’s DOJ: Report


    Reported By Benjamin Arie | Published May 2, 2019 at 3:55pm

    It’s no secret that liberals across the country have tried desperately to stop Donald Trump since he became a candidate, but their efforts to undermine him may now be coming back at themselves like a boomerang.

    A scandal which began before the 2016 election was even held has just exploded, at least if a bombshell report from the watchdog group Judicial Watch is accurate. The organization has been diligently unraveling the facts around Fusion GPS, and what they recently found is jaw-dropping.

    Fusion GPS, of course, is the “opposition research” firm which was contracted by the DNC to dig up dirt on Trump in the run-up to the election. The company is linked to the infamous dossier containing scandalous — and thoroughly debunked — claims about the president, but the controversy is much wider than just those papers.

    It now appears that someone working for Fusion GPS was purposely and frequently collaborating with a deputy attorney general within the Obama administration, sending anti-Trump material in a way that was certainly unethical if not completely illegal.

    The Obama-era official is Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, and the anti-Trump figure working for Fusion GPS was his wife.

    TRENDING: Ukrainians Say Obama WH Tried Getting Them To Do Hillary’s Dirty Work in Jan. 2016

    “[A] series of ‘Hi Honey’ emails from Nellie Ohr to her high-ranking federal prosecutor husband and his colleagues raise the prospect that Hillary Clinton-funded opposition research was being funneled into the Justice Department during the 2016 election through a back-door marital channel,” explained veteran investigative journalist John Solomon for The Hill.

    “Ohr has admitted to Congress that, during the 2016 presidential election, she worked for Fusion GPS — the firm hired by Democratic nominee Clinton and the Democratic National Committee to perform political opposition research,” the journalist said.

    That kind of research is often used by political campaigns against their opponents, and is not by itself off limits. But Judicial Watch uncovered 339 emails which reveal that Nellie Ohr likely crossed the line by using her marriage as a political tool, and sending pages of anti-Trump research directly to official Department of Justice email accounts.

    “They clearly show that Ohr sent reams of open-source intelligence to her husband, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, and on some occasions to at least three DOJ prosecutors: Lisa Holtyn, Ivana Nizich and Joseph Wheatley,” Solomon said.

    “Such overt political content flowing into the email accounts of a DOJ charged with the nonpartisan mission of prosecuting crimes is jarring enough. It raises additional questions about potential conflicts of interest when it is being injected by a spouse working as a Democratic contractor trying to defeat Trump,” he continued.

    But the scandal is deeper than just emails. Nellie and Bruce Ohr apparently had key roles in pushing the debunked Trump dossier and the false narrative that the future president was colluding with Russia.

    “For instance, just 24 days after the anti-Trump screed was emailed, both Ohrs met in Washington with British intelligence operative Christopher Steele,” Solomon said. “She said she learned that Steele had concerns that he hoped the DOJ or FBI would investigate, with help from her husband.”

    And that appears to be exactly what happened.

    “The next day, Bruce Ohr used his official DOJ position to go to then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe with Steele’s allegations (later to become known as the Steele dossier), and the bureau opened its first investigation into Russia collusion,” he said.

    There are obvious parallels to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI officials who were also having an affair all while texting back and forth about how Trump should be stopped. More and more, it looks like partisan politics and anti-Trump collaboration was widespread within agencies which are supposed to be unbiased.

    That is the real scandal here: Not that liberals tried to uncover dirt on a candidate, but that official government personnel within our own government eagerly participated in the partisan witch hunt.

    It looks like there was collusion, but not by Trump.

    Instead, the real collusion took place between Obama-era government officials and activists who saw nothing as off limits in order to install Hillary Clinton as president — and that should alarm every American, no matter their party.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

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    Benjamin Arie is an independent journalist and writer. He has personally covered everything ranging from local crime to the U.S. president as a reporter in Michigan, before focusing on national politics. Ben frequently travels to Latin America and has spent years living in Mexico. Follow Benjamin on Facebook

    Trump Furious as New Docs Show Potential Charges Against Hillary Quashed by Obama’s DOJ


    Reported By Jack Davis | Published March 13, 2019 at 9:46am

    New information shows the Justice Department was a “broken and corrupt machine” during its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, President Donald Trump said Wednesday.

    This week, Republican Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia released 370 pages worth of transcripts from testimony given to the House Judiciary Committee last summer. Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who shared her anti-Trump sentiments with former FBI special agent Peter Strozek in a series of text messages that were later uncovered, testified about the 2016 investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

    “The American people deserve to know what transpired in the highest echelons of the FBI during that tumultuous time for the bureau,” Collins said in a statement.

    Trump cut to the chase in a pair of Wednesday tweets that condemned the Justice Department under the leadership of former President Barack Obama and the FBI under the leadership of former Director James Comey, whom Trump later fired.

    “The just revealed FBI Agent Lisa Page transcripts make the Obama Justice Department look exactly like it was, a broken and corrupt machine. Hopefully, justice will finally be served. Much more to come!” the president tweeted.

    “Comey testified (under oath) that it was a ‘unanimous’ decision on Crooked Hillary,” he said. “Lisa Page transcripts show he LIED.”

    Trump focused on a part of the transcript in which Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe was questioning Page, Fox News reported.

    “So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory,” Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to the transcript, “but when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to –“

    “That is correct,” Page said before Ratcliffe could finish.

    Page said she and other FBI officials objected to Justice Department decisions, according to excerpts published in The Washington Post.

    She said that “we all at FBI” also disagreed with the ruling to let “fact witnesses” — Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson — sit in on Clinton’s interview about her email scandal. Page said that decision was made by Justice Department officials and not within the FBI.

    “It is not typically appropriate or operationally necessary to have fact witnesses attend an interview,” Page said in the transcript, noting that no other witness was allowed to bring such an entourage.

    Ratcliffe tweeted Tuesday that Page essentially confirmed that “the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information.”

    Page said the DOJ and FBI had “multiple conversations … about charging gross negligence.”

    She denied the FBI “blew over” potentially charging Clinton with gross negligence under the Espionage Act.

    Officials considered the charge, she said, but thought it would be “constitutionally vague,” without any recent precedent, and “they did not feel that they could sustain a charge.”

    Page said Richard Scott of the Justice Department advised against making the harsher charge, according to The Post. Scott had not responded to news outlet as of Wednesday morning.

    DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz criticized FBI officials for showing their biases in the Clinton case.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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    Jack Davis is a free-lance writer who joined The Western Journal in July 2015 and chronicled the campaign that saw President Donald Trump elected. Since then, he has written extensively for The Western Journal on the Trump administration as well as foreign policy and military issues.

    Famous Trump Painter Redefines ‘Border Emergency’ with Newest Work


    Reported By Ben Marquis | Published March 7, 2019 at 4:11pm  | Modified March 7, 2019 at 4:13pm

    While much of the art world and entertainment industry leans decisively to the left, there are those among them who hold a more conservative ideology, and some of those are increasingly speaking out about their beliefs through the use of their own talents.

    One of those is conservative artist Jon McNaughton, a Utah-based artist who over the years has painted a number of compelling portraits that were first exceptionally critical of former President Barack Obama and are now supportive of President Donald Trump.

    McNaughton’s latest work of art centers around the current sharp divide between Trump, who aims to secure the nation by securing the southern border, and numerous prominent Democrats who have staunchly opposed and obstructed those efforts.

    The painting is titled “National Emergency,” and it features a number of prominent Democrats standing atop a tattered American flag — while holding various flags representing other nations or groups — as the president looks sadly upon the lost doll of a little immigrant girl forced to make the dangerous and illicit cross-border journey into the U.S. … as a caravan of countless illegal migrants approach the border in the distance behind them.

    In McNaughton’s description of the work, he wrote, “In my new painting, the Democrat establishment declares victory against President Trump as he announces a national emergency to secure the border. They proudly hold the flags they represent and cherish.

    “Our politicians have become traitors to this country, in most cases they are more loyal to whichever country, lobbyist, corporation, or special interest group that will keep them in office and line their bank accounts. I’m sick of how they trample our flag and do not seek America’s interests first,” he continued.

    McNaughton added, “Trump stands apart from them with his head bowed contemplating the state of our border situation. He sees a lost doll left behind by a little girl forced to make the dangerous journey. To not build the wall is to allow people on both sides of the border to suffer needlessly.”

    As can be seen in the painting, McNaughton provided great detail in his representation of those who currently stand most opposed to his border security efforts, and shows by way of the flags they are holding where their interests lie, ahead of those of the American people.

    Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is holding the flag of communist China, while Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren holds one for the European Union. They stand beside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who are holding a Mexican flag together.

    To the other side of Pelosi and Schumer stand failed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton with an Iranian flag and former President Obama with a United Nations flag.

    In the background stands New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with a New York flag alongside Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, who hold up a Palestinian flag. California Reps. Adam Schiff and Maxine Waters can also been seen holding a California flag.

    Meanwhile, a veritable horde of people are crossing through the desert toward the border in the far distance behind all of them, as the Democrats cheer about blocking Trump’s efforts to halt that flow of humanity.

    President Trump made numerous efforts to reach out and negotiate with a Congress to find an agreeable solution to the ongoing crisis at the border, to no avail.

    As a result of the decided lack of cooperation from Democrats, Trump finally fell back on congressionally authorized presidential powers to declare a national emergency to directly address the situation himself.

    Of course, the Democrats are fighting that, too, and have refused to relent in their incessant opposition to everything done by Trump, up to and including stomping on the desires and interests of the American people who voted to elect the president that is so despised by the left.

    This painting beautifully, if quite tragically, sums up the current situation in a rather stark, but necessary, manner.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

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    Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments. He has covered current events and politics for Conservative Tribune since 2014.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Dummies

    Known convicted liar, Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony sounded more like it was coming from the Clinton camp than his own words.

    Lanny Davis Puppet CohenPolitical cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2019.
    See more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here.

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    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

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    FBI Raids Home of Clinton Foundation, Uranium One Whistleblower


     

    Reported By Richard Pollock | November 29, 2018 at 8:22pm

    URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/fbi-raids-home-whistleblower-clinton-foundation-uranium-one-lawyer-says-2/

    Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

    Former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. (Brad Barket / Getty Images)

    The Justice Department’s inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.

    The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to enforce criminal laws pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges.

    Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.

    “The bureau raided my client to seize what he legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, told TheDCNF, noting that he considered the FBI’s raid to be an “outrageous disregard” of whistleblower protections.

    Sixteen agents arrived at the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, a former FBI contractor, on the morning of Nov. 19 and raided his Union Bridge, Maryland, home, Socarras told TheDCNF. The raid was permitted by a court order signed on Nov. 15 by Magistrate Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in the U.S. District Court for Baltimore and obtained by TheDCNF.

    A special agent from the FBI’s Baltimore division, who led the raid, charged that Cain possessed stolen federal property and demanded entry to his private residence, Socarras told TheDCNF.

    “On Nov. 19, the FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity in the Union Bridge, Maryland area,” bureau spokesman Dave Fitz told TheDCNF. “At this time, we have no further comment.”

    Cain informed the agent while he was still at the door that he was a recognized protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act and that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recognized his whistleblower status, according to Socarras. Cain further told the FBI agent the potentially damaging classified information had been properly transmitted to the Senate and House Intelligence committees as permitted under the act, Socarras said. The agent immediately directed his agents to begin a sweep of the suburban home anyway.

    Frightened and intimidated, Cain promptly handed over the documents, Socarras told TheDCNF. Yet even after surrendering the information to the FBI, the agents continued to rummage through the home for six hours.

    “After asking and getting my approval to do so, DOJ IG Michael Horowitz had a member of his staff physically take Mr. Cain’s classified document disclosure to the House and Senate Intelligence committees,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

    “For the bureau to show up at Mr. Cain’s home suggesting that those same documents are stolen federal property, and then proceed to seize copies of the same documents after being told at the house door that he is a legally protected whistleblower who gave them to Congress, is an outrageous disregard of the law,” he continued.

    Cain came across the potentially explosive information while working for an FBI contractor, Socarras told TheDCNF. Cain met with a senior member of Horowitz’s office at a church close to the White House to deliver the documents to the IG, according to Socarras. He sat in a pew with a hoodie and sunglasses, Socarras said. Cain held a double-sealed envelope containing a flash drive with the documents. The IG official met him and, without saying a word, took the pouch over Cain’s shoulder and left.

    If the complaint is found credible, the law protecting whistleblowers, which covers employees of government contractors, requires the IG to share such information with the attorney general — who at the time was Jeff Sessions. The two law enforcement officials directed the documents be sent to the Senate and House Intelligence committees for their examination, according to Socarras, who said that a high-level IG official hand-delivered the documents to the two intelligence committees.

    “I cannot believe the bureau informed the federal magistrate who approved the search warrant that they wanted to search the home of an FBI whistleblower to seize the information that he confidentially disclosed to the IG and Congress,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

    The whistleblower act is intended to protect whistleblowers within the intelligence community, which includes the FBI.

    “The (intelligence community) is committed to providing its personnel the means to report violations of law,” according to a 2016 intelligence community directive.

    “The (whistleblower act) authorizes employees of contractors to take government property and give it to the two intelligence committees confidentially,” Socarras told TheDCNF.

    The FBI has yet to talk to Cain’s attorney despite the raid, according to Socarras.

    “After the raid, and having received my name and phone number from Mr. Cain as his lawyer, an FBI agent actually called my client directly to discuss his seized electronics,” Socarras told TheDCNF. “Knowingly bypassing the lawyer of a represented client is serious misconduct.”

    A spokesman for the IG declined to comment.

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    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco cartoon – Creep Show

    The scariest scenario going this Halloween season among many Democrats is the possibility of Hillary running for president in 2020.

    Creepy Hillary 2020Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.
    More A.F. Branco Cartoons at The Daily Torch.

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    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

    Dick Morris: Trump’s Base Returns in Nick of Time


    Opinion By Dick Morris | October 22, 2018 at 10:53am

    The voters who elected Donald Trump in 2016 are returning to him just as the midterms approach. With their help, Trump has recorded his highest job approval in the WSJ/NBC poll since he took office — 47 percent.

    But the real story is behind the numbers. Trump’s base — white non-college voters (38 percent of the country) is rallying to his candidates just as they did in the closing weeks of 2017. According to a Fox News poll, the only one that measures white non-college voters as a discrete group, Trump’s approval has surged among these folks.

    In August 2016, his margin of approval over disapproval was only 11 points (54-43).  By September, it had risen to a 17 point margin (57-40).

    In their latest poll, Oct. 13-16, it surged to a 21 point margin (60-39).

    These voters are coming home.

    This base lives in a place that is a blind spot for the mainstream media. It doesn’t really know that these voters exist. They live away from the West Coast and outside of the Northeast. They haven’t been to college. And they are white. The failure to measure their changing opinions is responsible for the media’s error in predicting a Hillary Clinton victory in 2016 — and they haven’t changed their methodology since.

    Trump’s base hides in plain sight during the bulk of the year. Estranged from the political process, they don’t follow it closely except when their man is in danger and summons them forth. That’s why the GOP did not do as well in the special elections of the past two years as Trump had hoped. But when the national fireball rings, they wake up and respond.

    The controversy over the Kavanaugh nomination and the phony stories of sexual abuse energized the sleeping giant and motivated the voters to return to the Trump banner. Since, by emphasizing the immigration issue and the caravan arriving from Central America, he has held their attention.

    The national polling is slow to pick them up on its radar. While their participation and increasing enthusiasm shows up quickly in the national job approval polling, it is slower to make its impact felt in the less frequent polling of the nation’s Senate races. The House polling, less frequent still, takes even longer to manifest their participation, but they are there, moving the needle.

    The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owner of this website.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

    Dick Morris is a former adviser to President Bill Clinton as well as a political author, pollster and consultant. His most recent book, “Rogue Spooks,” was written with his wife, Eileen McGann.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Hindsight 2020

    Hillary appears to be positioning herself for a presidential run in 2020, but her party may not be that excited about after failed attempts.

    Hillary Clinton for President 2020Political cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.
    More A.F. Branco Cartoons at The Daily Torch.

    A.F.Branco Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – Baggage Claim

    Hillary Clinton continues to appear cozy with violent left-wing mobs, and like the mainstream media, even refusing to call them mobs.

    Hillary Cozy with Mob RulePolitical Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.
    More A.F. Branco Cartoons at The Daily Torch.

    A.F.Branco Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

    Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon by A.F. Branco


    A.F. Branco Cartoon – I’m With Them

    Hillary Clinton endorses Mob Rule calling for no civility as long as the Democrats are out of power.

    Hillary Clinton for Mob RulePolitical Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.
    See more Legal Insurrection Branco cartoons, click here.

    A.F.Branco’s New Coffee Table Book <—- Order

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

    China Hacked Hillary’s Server, Got Her Emails


    URL of the original posting site: http://www.con-alerts.com/china-hacked-hillarys-server-got-her-emails/

    National security moves made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration came as no surprise to China. We’re now learning that a Chinese state-owned company – aka the Chinese government – hacked Clinton’s email server and then inserted code to forward themselves a “courtesy copy” of every email she sent or received after that. Insanely enough, the code was discovered in 2015 by the Intelligence Community Inspector General who then warned the FBI officials – and agent Peter Strzok – but the FBI says it found no such compromise and the ICIG has declined to comment. There was no follow up. Any guesses why the FBI found no evidence of the hack just before the presidential election heated up?

    Here’s more from Fox News…

    A Chinese state-owned company reportedly hacked former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server, then inserted code that forwarded them a copy of virtually every email she sent or received after that — a revelation President Trump is demanding be investigated.

    The Daily Caller reported that the firm operating in the D.C. area wrote code that was then embedded in the server and generated a “courtesy copy” for almost all her emails — which was then forwarded to the Chinese company.

    The code reportedly was discovered in 2015 by the Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG), which then warned FBI officials of the intrusion.

    A source briefed on the matter confirmed to Fox News the details of the Caller’s reporting, and said that the ICIG was so concerned by the revelation that officials drove over to the FBI to inform agents — including anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok — of the development after it was discovered via the emails’ metadata.

    The source told Fox News the hack was from a Chinese company, describing it as a front for Chinese intelligence.

    Cohen’s plea deal is prosecutor’s attempt to set up Trump


    Reported

    Here we go, from Russia with love, to campaign finance with love.

    Why was Michael Cohen investigated? Because the “Steele dossier” had him making secret trips to meet with Russians that never happened, so his business dealings got a thorough scrubbing and, in the process, he fell into the Paul Manafort bin reserved by the special counsel for squeezing until the juice comes out. We are back to 1998 all over again, with presidents and candidates covering up their alleged marital misdeeds and prosecutors trying to turn legal acts into illegal ones by inventing new crimes.

    The plot to get President TrumpE out of office thickens, as Cohen obviously was his own mini crime syndicate and decided that his betrayals meant he would be better served turning on his old boss to cut the best deal with prosecutors he could rather than holding out and getting the full Manafort treatment. That was clear the minute he hired attorney Lanny Davis, who does not try cases and did past work for Hillary Clinton. Cohen had recorded his client, trying to entrap him, sold information about Trump to corporations for millions of dollars while acting as his lawyer, and did not pay taxes on millions.

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    The sweetener for the prosecutors, of course, was getting Cohen to plead guilty to campaign violations that were not campaign violations. Money paid to people who come out of the woodwork and shake down people under threat of revealing bad sexual stories are not legitimate campaign expenditures. They are personal expenditures. That is true for both candidates we like and candidates we do not. Just imagine if candidates used campaign funds instead of their own money to pay folks like Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about affairs. They would get indicted for misuse of campaign funds for personal purposes and for tax evasion.

    There appear to be two payments involved in this unusual agreement. Cohen pleaded guilty to a campaign violation for having “coordinated” the American Media payment to Karen McDougal for her story, not for actually making the payment. He is pleading guilty over a corporate contribution he did not make. Think about this for a minute. Suppose ABC paid Stormy Daniels for her story in coordination with Michael Avenatti or maybe even the law firm of the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the election.

    By this reasoning, if the purpose of this money paid, just before the election, would be to hurt Trump and help Clinton win, this payment would be a corporate political contribution. If using it not to get Trump would be a corporate contribution, then using it to get Trump also has to be a corporate contribution. That is why neither are corporate contributions and this is a bogus approach to federal election law. Note that none of the donors in the 2012 John Edwards case faced any legal issues and the Federal Election Commission ruled their payments were not campaign contributions that had to be reported, both facts that prosecutors tried to suppress at trial.

    Now, when it comes to Stormy Daniels, Cohen made a payment a few days before the election that Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani says was reimbursed. First, given that this payment was in October, it would never have been reported before the election campaign and so, for all intents and purposes, was immaterial as it relates to any effect on the campaign. What is clear in this plea deal is that, in exchange for overall leniency on his massive tax evasion, Cohen is pleading guilty to these other charges as an attempt to give prosecutors what they want, which is a Trump connection.

    The usual procedures here would be for the Federal Election Commission to investigate complaints and sort through these murky laws to determine if these kinds of payments are personal in nature or more properly classified as campaign expenditures. On the Stormy Daniels payment that was made and reimbursed by Trump, it is again a question of whether that was made for personal reasons, especially since they have been trying since 2011 to obtain agreement. Just because it would be helpful to the campaign does not convert it to a campaign expenditure. Think of a candidate with bad teeth who had dental work done to look better for the campaign. His campaign still could not pay for it because it is a personal expenditure.

    Contrast what is going on here with the treatment of the millions of dollars paid to a Democratic law firm which, in turn, paid out money to political research firm Fusion GPS and British spy Christopher Steele without listing them on any campaign expenditure form, despite crystal clear laws and regulations that the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds must be listed. This rule was even tightened recently. There is no question that hiring spies to do opposition research in Russia is a campaign expenditure, yet no prosecutorial raids have been sprung on the law firm, Fusion GPS or Steele. The reason? It does not “get” Trump.

    So, Trump spends $130,000 to keep the lid on a personal story and the full weight of state prosecutors comes down on his lawyer, tossing attorney-client privilege to the wind. Democrats spend potentially millions on secret opposition research and no serious criminal investigation occurs. Remember that the feds tried a similar strategy against Democratic candidate Edwards six years ago and it failed. As Gregory Craig, a lawyer who worked both for President Clinton and Edwards, said, “The government theory is wrong on the facts and wrong on the law. It is novel and untested. There is no civil or criminal precedent for such a prosecution.” Tried it there anyway and it failed.

    Let us also not forget that President Clinton was entrapped into lying about his affairs and, although impeached, was acquitted by the Senate. The lesson was clear: We are not going to remove presidents for lying about who they had affairs with, nor even convict politicians on campaign finance violations for these personal payments.

    With Cohen pleading guilty, there will be no test of soundness of the prosecution theories here, and it is yet another example of the double standards of justice of one investigation that gave Clinton aides and principals every benefit of the doubt and another investigation that targeted Trump people until they found unrelated crimes to use as leverage. Prosecutors thought nothing of using the Logan Act against former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, but they are using obscure and unsettled elements of campaign finance law against Trump lawyer Cohen to manufacture crimes in what is a naked attempt to take Trump down and defeat democracy.

    Trump should do a better job of picking aides who pay their taxes, but he is not responsible for their financial problems and crimes. These investigations, essentially based on an opposition dossier, were never anything other than an attempt to push into a corner as many Trump aides and family members as possible and shake them down until they could get close enough to Trump to try to take him down.

    That is why so many of his aides, lawyers, and actions in the campaign and in the White House have undergone hour by hour scrutiny to find anything that could be colored into a crime, leaving far behind the original Russia collusion theory as the fake pretext it was. Paying for nondisclosure agreements for perfectly legal activities is not a crime, not a campaign contribution as commonly understood or ruled upon by the Federal Election Commission. Squeezing guilty pleas out of vulnerable witnesses does nothing to change those facts.

    Mark Penn is a managing partner of the Stagwell Group, a private equity firm specializing in marketing services companies, as well as chairman of the Harris Poll and author of “Microtrends Squared.” He served as pollster and adviser to President Clinton from 1995 to 2000, including during Clinton’s impeachment. You can follow him on Twitter @Mark_Penn.

    Today’s Ann Coulter Letter: “The Pantsuit That Cried Wolf”


    Commentary by Ann Coulter  | 

    URL of the original posting site: http://humanevents.com/2018/08/23/the-pantsuit-that-cried-wolf/

    If you’ve ever wondered how Russia became America’s most fearsome enemy, long after that country gave up Communism, gulags, forced starvations and mass murder (all of which liberals were cool with), the answer is: This crackpot idea came from the same woman who blamed a “vast right-wing conspiracy” for Monica Lewinsky.

    The Russia conspiracy is classic Hillary, as detailed in my new book, Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind.

    Throughout her long and blemished public career, Hillary has always blamed her troubles on bad people conspiring against her.

    When her husband’s mistress, Gennifer Flowers, stepped forward as Bill Clinton was running for president in 1992, Hillary blamed a former gubernatorial opponent of her husband, who “has now spent the last two years doing everything he can to try to get even, and it’s a sort of sad spectacle.”

    Bill later admitted to the affair.

    When Hillary callously fired long-serving White House travel office employees to make room for her friends’ travel business, she responded to the public outcry by accusing the head of the travel office, Billy Dale, of embezzlement. To continue the charade, her husband’s government criminally prosecuted Dale. The jury acquitted him after about three minutes of deliberation, but Dale was left jobless and nearly bankrupt.

    When Hillary’s health care bill went down in flames, hurting the Democrats and leading to the first Republican Congress in 40 years, she blamed the media for having “bought into the right-wing attack.” (You know how the media slavishly repeat conservative talking points.)

    As mentioned above, when her husband was caught for the millionth time molesting the help, Hillary blamed a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

    When DNA proved the story was true, Hillary blamed the fuss in the media on “prejudice against our state” — meaning Arkansas. “They wouldn’t be doing this if we were from some other state,” she said. Even The San Francisco Chronicle hooted at that one.

    When she lost to Obama in 2008, she blamed the media’s rampant sexism. In fact, a ham-handed liar like Hillary could only have survived in politics as long as she did thanks to the media’s devotion to her.

    Quiz: When the Democratic National Committee’s emails popped up on Wikileaks in July 2016, embarrassing her campaign and enraging Democrats, would Hillary:

    A) Apologize to Bernie Sanders for the DNC’s horrible mistreatment of him;

    B) Demand an accounting of the inept computer security measures at the DNC;

    Or

    C) Invent a story about Russia conspiring against her?

    Answer: C. Russia had to become the next Linda Tripp, a mysterious enemy undermining our heroine.

    Hillary’s campaign manager Robby Mook launched the Russia conspiracy theory on the eve of the Democratic National Convention on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” — because who better to ask the tough questions than a former top aide to Hillary’s husband?

    Mook explained:

    “Well, what’s disturbing about this entire situation is that experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through these websites. … And it’s troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by — by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.”

    Stephanopoulos may not have burst out laughing, but, at the time, every serious journalist in America did. Right up until Trump drove liberals mad by winning the election, Hillary’s Russia conspiracy theory was scoffed at throughout the media.

    A New York Times story described Mook’s claim as an “eerie suggestion of a Kremlin conspiracy to aid Donald Trump.” It was, the Times reporters said, a “remarkable moment.” Even at the height of the Cold War, such an accusation had never been leveled by one presidential candidate against another. And yet, the Times dryly observed, Mook had cited nothing more than unnamed “experts.”

    Los Angeles Times reporter Mark Z. Barabak also pointed out the unnamed “experts” and noted that Mook’s “allegation” served two political purposes. It tainted Trump’s boast that he’d get along with Russia and “also served the added benefit, from Clinton’s perspective, of distracting from internal party divisions over the emails.”

    Russian scholars and cyber-security experts dismissed the harebrained claim:

    “Experts: Hard to prove Russians behind DNC hack” — USA Today

    “Why the Kremlin might not be the fan of Trump that it’s said to be” — The Christian Science Monitor

    A month later, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi held a conference call with nervous Democrats, urging them to push the Russian conspiracy theory and also to put out the word that “the Russians” might have altered the content of the emails.

    President Obama took the alleged Russian hacking so seriously that he told Putin to “cut it out.”

    It was only after disaster struck and Trump won the election that the media decided maybe there was something to that Russia business, after all.

    As described in the book “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” two days after the election, Hillary’s communications team met for hours “to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. … Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.”

    The entire Russian collusion gag was invented to assuage the potty pantsuit’s embarrassment at having lost a second election that was fixed for her to win.

    In the two years since the media guffawed at Mook’s claim, the public has been presented with no new evidence. All that’s changed is that the media suddenly decided to demand that we all believe it.

    Hillary Addresses Yale Grads: No Sane Parent Would Want Her Advice


    Posted by Tami Jackson | on

    Hillary at Yale 2

    As an esteemed and über expensive Ivy League school, Yale draws media attention and carries weight with all the Fortune 500 companies.

    Like its seven fellow Ivies, Yale was founded as “an institution to train ministers and lay leadership.” Yep. Yale was the school expected to churn out pastors and congregants well versed in the Bible and biblical theology.

    Sounds like science fiction! Today the Ivies churn out almost 100% hardcore Progressive radicals.

    So it would be pretty true to say Yale and most of the Ivy League colleges have literally gone to hell. No kidding.

    And of course if you’re Yale and you want to invite a fantastic commencement speaker who do you ask?

    Easy.

    Ask the 2009 highly esteemed Margaret Sanger Award Recipient, the ardent champion of abortion, the woman renowned for selling 20% of our strategic uranium to Russia, the dame who eviscerated very women preyed upon by her infamous philanderer hubby, the presidential candidate who not only lost the election, but has since trotted the globe making excuses for her epic loss.

    Yes. Of course. Ask Hill the Pill Clinton to speak!

    All those impressionable young graduates can soak up the Rules for Radicals she learned at the feet of Commie Agitator Saul Alinsky!

    Think of it: on top of shelling out almost $50K per year for tuition to have their little darlings propagandized with the most extreme leftist ideology, parents this year had the added bonus of words to live by from Madame HRC herself.

    So what did these oh-so-very-lucky parents get for their cool $200K, commencement speaker-wise?

    Ms. Clinton (who thankfully had a commencement gown over her traditional pantsuit) chortled through the story of why she chose Yale over Harvard:

    Now to be honest [what? are you ever honest?] I had had some trouble making up my mind between Yale and Harvard law schools. Then one day, while we were still in that period of decision making, I was invited to a cocktail party at Harvard for potentially incoming [“INCOMING!” an apt term for the arrival of HRC] law students, where I met a famous law professor.

    A friend of mine, a male law student, introduced me to this famous law professor. I mean truly…big three-piece suit, watch-chain.

    And my friend said, “Professor, this is Hillary Rodham. She’s trying to decide whether to come here next year or sign up with our closest competitor.”

    Now the great man gave me a cool dismissive look [you would know that look, Hill, you’ve perfected it] and said, “Well, first of all we don’t have any close competitors. and secondly, we don’t need any more women at Harvard.”

    To which Hillary replied, “Well do you need any cackling witches? (or a word that rhymes with that)”

    Actually I made that up. Just kidding. But it sure seemed true to character!

    Next Hill regaled the grads with the story of meeting her future husband, William Jefferson Clinton:

    I confess, of all the formative experiences that I had at Yale, perhaps none was more significant than the day during my second year when I was cutting through what was then the student lounge with some friends and I saw this tall handsome guy with a beard who looked like a Viking [NO! DON’T disparage all of us Vikings by assigning the nefarious Bubba to our Nordic bloodlines!].

    I said to my friend, “Who is that?”

    And she said, “That’s Bill Clinton. He’s from Arkansas and that’s all he ever talks about!

    Yadda yadda. Just what we never wanted to hear: the Hill and Bill love story, a match not made in heaven, but someplace farther south and scorching hot.

    The former FLOTUS also noted an oddly ironic tale:

    One day I saw a note about a woman named Marian Wright Edelman a Yale Law School graduate, civil rights activist, who would go on to found the Children’s Defense Fund. Marion was coming back to campus to give a lecture.

    I went. I was captivated to hear her talk about using her Yale education to create a head-start program in rural Mississippi. And I wound up working for her that summer.

    And the experience opened my eyes to the ways that the law can protect children.

    Does that strike you as odd?

    Children? As in those little humans that begin life in a supposed safe zone, i.e. the womb?

    The proud recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award — Sanger being the loathsome eugenicist who founded Planned Parenthood (the organization responsible for the killing of 7.6 million babies since Roe v. Wade — that sure sounds like genocide!) — that same woman wants these grads to believe she is a compassionate grandmother who loves “all the little children of the world.”

    Sorry. Can’t swallow that. Jesus loves the little children. Hillary, not so much.

    Well, HRC loves the children if they grow up to vote for her. Maybe love is too strong a word, too foreign a word for HRH Misses Clinton? Tolerate might be a more apt word.

    The moral of this story?

    Nearly every graduate was enraptured by the Queen of Excuses, smiling and laughing at every phrase as though listening to a Mark Twain or Garrison Keillor…oops. Strike the Keillor. Too Bill-like.

    You get the point.

    Four years of liberal elitist education thoroughly transformed these Yale students into brain-dead Leftist lemmings who hung on Hillary’s every word.

    God help us.

    And God have mercy on the parents who chose to throw nearly a quarter of a million dollars at a once stellar institution that would invite one-half of the Clinton Deadly Duo to speak at commencement. Thus, sending the grads on their way with her words of wisdom…perverse vanity.

    Oh how the Ivies have fallen!

    #EpicIvyFail

    Clinton Insider: To Keep Hillary from Losing, DNC Quietly Let Russia Hack DNC, Steal Data


    Reported By Cillian Zeal | July 16, 2018 at 7:35am

    I’ve often heard conspiracy theories bandied about, mostly on the more feverish corners of the internet, that the Clinton family has ways to get those who would talk ill about them to, um, stop talking. I personally don’t buy into these theories, if for no other reason than that Donna Brazile is still hale, hearty and still hurting the Clintons.

    Brazile, astute readers will remember, was the former Clinton insider and interim DNC head after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned in the summer of 2016 for, well, reasons. Brazile also shepherded Hillary and her party through through the election. And, when Disasterfest: 2016 was over, Brazile turned around threw Clinton not so much under the bus as under every departure from the Washington, D.C., Greyhound depot.

    First, there was an excerpt last year from her then-forthcoming book “Hacks” that let everyone know that the entire apparatus of the DNC was backing Clinton in order to help quash Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign. That was bad enough.

    TRENDING: Dem Panic: Page May Seek Immunity Deal To Come Clean on Strzok, McCabe, Even Comey

    That book, released in November, continues to haunt Clinton. Just last week, 12 Russians were indicted for breaking into the DNC’s servers in order to steal email, including Hillary Clinton’s. Yet, according to “Hacks,” the DNC knew it was being hacked but kept its servers up anyway because it didn’t want to disrupt the primary process.

    “In May, when CrowdStrike recommended that we take down our system and rebuild it, the DNC told them to wait a month, because the state primaries for the presidential election were still underway, and the party and the staff needed to be at their computers to manage these efforts,” Brazile wrote, according to The Daily Caller.

    “For a whole month, CrowdStrike watched Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear operating. Cozy Bear was the hacking force that had been in the DNC system for nearly a year.”

    Both Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear were cyber-security firms with extensive ties to Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

    Brazile wasn’t at the helm during this period; the primaries ended in June and Wasserman Schultz was still the chairwoman of the DNC until July, when she resigned over the hacks. In other words, top Democrats had been given due warning about being hacked and continued to use the servers for roughly a month or two.

    This was all to keep the primaries running apace — and given that this was the DNC, the organization that Brazile has openly admitted did everything in its power to keep Bernie Sanders from winning, it was done so that Hillary Clinton didn’t suffer any more embarrassing primary defeats.

    Now, we don’t know what data was stolen between May and June that wouldn’t have been had the servers been disassembled. For all we know, the Russians had everything they needed by the time they were even discovered inside the system. We’ll certainly learn more about that in the coming months.

    Or perhaps not: The United States, pursuant to constitutional considerations, doesn’t practice trial in absentia if defendants aren’t available at the beginning of the process. And it seems unlikely Moscow is going to turn over anyone indicted last week.

    However, what we do know from Brazile’s book — inasmuch as it can be trusted, given that these sorts of books are given over to self-acquittal and glorification — is that the DNC was flagrantly bad about protecting its data and that it was compromised by foreign actors. We also know that it was used as a de facto arm of the Clinton campaign before she was even nominated.

    And now we know how bad things were at the DNC, thanks to Donna Brazile.

    Just saying.

    Terror Expert on What He Saw Going into Summit: Media Is Completely Off-Base


    Reported By Ben Marquis | July 17, 2018 at 12:28pm

    There was great consternation and outrage among the media and Democrats — as well as some Republicans — following President Donald Trump’s summit in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin. While the harsh criticisms and shouts of “treason” from the hard left and NeverTrump right are more than a little disconcerting, they are not the least bit surprising as that sort of reaction has become rather predictable in this day and age.

    Indeed, the stage was set ahead of the summit for just such a reaction by the media and Democrats, who displayed their “glaring hypocrisy” with regard to their coverage of Trump’s diplomatic meeting as opposed to the diplomatic meetings held by former President Barack Obama or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

    That was the message delivered on “Fox & Friends” on Sunday morning by former U.S. Army Special Forces member and anti-terrorism expert Jim Hanson, who pointed out the disparate ways in which Trump, Obama and Clinton were treated by the establishment and media following their particular dealings with Russia.

    Co-host Pete Hegseth began the segment by recalling Clinton’s embarrassing attempt in 2009 to hit the “reset” button with Russia, using a hokey red plastic button that actually had the wrong Russian word printed on it to symbolize the development in U.S./Russian relations.

    “And Hillary walks into that meeting asking for nothing with her giant button that actually said ‘overcharge’ in Russian, and she’s telling them, ‘ok, you can have whatever you want from us,’” Hanson said.

    “Even a more glaring example was when President Obama was talking to (then-President) Medvedev of the Russian Republic and tells him, ‘after my next election I’ll have more flexibility,‘” he continued.

    “Now that is him admitting that he was lying to the American public during that election cycle, and afterwards he would give Russia what they wanted. But yet, where is the outrage? Where is the press saying we should investigate that?” Hanson asked.

    Hegseth asked what sort of “flexibility” Obama was referring to in that particular remark, and if it meant allowing Russia to annex Crimea, invade Ukraine or even meddle in our elections.

    “All of it, and that’s the problem Pete,” Hanson replied. “You know the entire focus and entire stature of the Obama foreign policy was cringing capitulation, it was ‘America last’ — ‘what do you guys want, what can we give you’ — and it ended up making the world a much more dangerous place.”

    “In that case they were actually talking about missile defense, so the security of the entire free world for any attack by any crazed person with missiles — which could have included the Russians — is being put at risk because Obama was willing to go ahead and bow down,” Hanson said.

    “And now, the media at that point in time had nothing to say, now President Trump wants to have a less antagonistic relationship with the Russians, maybe get them to stop hurting us with North Korea, stop hurting us in Syria, and all of the sudden it’s the worst thing that ever happened,” he continued.

    “It’s glaring hypocrisy,” Hanson concluded, to which Hegseth could only reply, “Absolutely it is, every single day of the week.”

    When Obama and Clinton reached out and tried to make nice with Russia, they were applauded by the liberal media and establishment politicians on both sides of the aisle, even as Putin and Russia took full advantage of the naïve good faith extended by Obama and Clinton.

    Now Trump is seeking to tone down the harsh rhetoric and smooth out the rough relationship between the U.S. and Russia and he has been attacked and smeared as some sort of Putin puppet that has sold out his own nation by the same folks who cheered similar efforts by Trump’s predecessors.

    If that isn’t glaring hypocrisy, nothing is.

    KARMA: After Hillary Attacked Trump Border Policy & Said He’s Torturing Kids, She Got an EPIC Dose of Karma


    Reported by 

    URL of the original posting site: http://www.americanjournalreview.com/hillary-attack-trump-border-policy/

    Hillary Clinton recently attacked President Trump for his new “zero tolerance” policy. 

    Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Trump administration is separating children from their parents at the southern U.S. border and it is a “moral and humanitarian crisis.” President Trump has defended his new immigration policy, which has separated almost 2,000 immigrant children away from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. There have been accounts of children being kept in cages and parents not sure where their children are. 

    The separation policy has come under increasingly strong criticism from the left. Hillary Clinton says she warned America during the campaign that this type of situation would happen. However, what people forget to remember is that Hillary ranted about needing to deport immigrant children back in 2014… Now that Trump is president, her entire opinion has changed. 

    Reported by subjectpolitics:

    Hillary Clinton has joined other liberals the past few days in bashing President Trump for the crisis at the border.  She said,  “every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged,” and claimed Trump is “letting children suffer.”

    This comes after spending the last 2 years calling Pres. Trump and his supporters “Racist” or “xenophobic” for wanting to enforce immigration laws.

    But a video just surfaced that shows how empty Hillary’s words are and exposes her as the vile hypocrite she truly is.

    While promoting her book on CNN in 2014, Hillary was asked whether or not children who arrive at our border should be deported or allowed to stay.

    Watch this clip then spread it everywhere so we can expose her.

    Hillary RANTS about how we have to deport them and “send a clear message” that just because children show up here “doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.” While this is a reasonable opinion shared by most Americans, Hillary Clinton in 2018 would now say that statement is racist.

    https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fnumbersusa%2Fvideos%2F1886936001363086%2F&show_text=0&width=476

    “We have to send a clear message. Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean that child gets to stay.” – Hillary Clinton in 2014

    So what changed??  Hmm…

    Oh, right. Trump is President so she has to change her opinion completely and blame him for everything.  Liberal playbook 101.

    These are some of her tweets from the past few days. Does she not realize we there is video of her previous statements??

    Comey Disaster: Agent Who Quit Over Rigged Hillary Investigation Heads to Congress


    disclaimerReported By Cillian Zeal | May 25, 2018 at 6:50am

    URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/comey-disaster-agent-who-quit-over-rigged-hillary-investigation-heads-to-congress/

    An FBI agent who allegedly quit the bureau over his belief that the Hillary Clinton email investigation was rigged will testify before the House of Representatives, The Hill reported.

    The joint investigation between the House Judiciary and the Oversight Committees — led by Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, respectively — has been a source of consternation for Republicans and Democrats alike.

    Conservatives have complained about the slow pace of the examination into how the Clinton email investigation was conducted, noting that only two witnesses have appeared before it.

    Democrats, of course, have complained that it exists at all, since anything that distracts from the endless investigation into how President Donald Trump is really a Russian plant is simply frivolous — particularly if it implicates former FBI Director James Comey, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or former President Barack Obama in any wrongdoing.

    Well, now we’re finally about to see some fireworks. Three top witnesses are going to testify before lawmakers: John Giacalone, who was in charge of the Clinton investigation for the first seven months; Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division; and Michael Steinbach, former head of the FBI’s national security division and the man who succeeded Giacalone.

    All three are of particular interest, especially since Priestap was the supervisor of FBI agent Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump text messages have thrown the objectivity of the entire investigation into doubt.

    However, the real headliner here may be Giacalone. Shortly after then-FBI Director Comey announced he wouldn’t be pursuing charges against Hillary Clinton for the email server, Fox News pundit Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote a column in which he claimed Giacalone had quit the bureau because he believed the investigation was rigged.

    In the Oct. 28, 2016 column, Napolitano claimed at that at the start of the Clinton email investigation, “agents and senior managers gathered in the summer of 2015 to discuss how to proceed. It was obvious to all that a prima-facie case could be made for espionage, theft of government property and obstruction of justice charges. The consensus was to proceed with a formal criminal investigation.” 

    “Six months later, the senior FBI agent in charge of that investigation resigned from the case and retired from the FBI because he felt the case was going ‘sideways’; that’s law enforcement jargon for ‘nowhere by design,‘” Napolitano wrote.

    “John Giacalone had been the chief of the New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., field offices of the FBI and, at the time of his ‘sideways’ comment, was the chief of the FBI National Security Branch.”

    “The reason for the ‘sideways’ comment must have been Giacalone’s realization that DOJ and FBI senior management had decided that the investigation would not work in tandem with a federal grand jury. That is nearly fatal to any government criminal case. In criminal cases, the FBI and the DOJ cannot issue subpoenas for testimony or for tangible things; only grand juries can,” Napolitano continued.

    “Giacalone knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would be toothless, as it would have no subpoena power. He also knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would have a hard time persuading any federal judge to issue search warrants.”

    Napolitano speculated there were several possible reasons that the case went “sideways.” One was that Obama feared having to testify if Clinton went to trial (he had sent emails to the private server, after all, meaning he was aware of it). There was also the fact that a Clinton indictment could have led to Trump becoming president, and Obama simply couldn’t countenance that. (Less than two weeks after Napolitano’s column was written, it must be noted, that reason became moot.)

    Either way, if the investigation had indeed gone “sideways,” it would need to have done so with approval from the highest levels — certainly James Comey and possibly Barack Obama.like i said

    Whether or not Giacalone has any concrete evidence of this or not is another issue entirely. My guess would be no, given that we’re going on two years since Comey’s infamous news conference and we still haven’t heard anything to that effect from Giacalone.

    However, of all of the congressional testimonies we’ve seen over the past few years, this could be one of the most underreported. John Giacalone may open up a gigantic can of worms for Comey and Clinton — one that drags them back in the spotlight for reasons significantly less pleasant than their book tours.

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    Today’s TWO Politically INCORRECT Cartoons by A.F. Branco


    Never-Ever-Trumper

    According to Nancy Pelosi Trump is never right even when he is and is damned if he does or damned if he doesn’t.

    Pelosi Trump and Korea

    Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

    See more Conservative Daily News cartoons here

    A.F.Branco Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here!

    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News” and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

    The Mad Hatter

    Hillary Clinton, while speaking at Yale, presents her very own Russian Hat. who did she have to collude with to get that?

    Hillary Clinton’s Russian Hat

    Political Cartoon by A.F. Branco ©2018.

    More A.F. Branco Cartoons at The Daily Torch.

    A.F.Branco Coffee Table Book <—- Order Here!
    Donations/Tips accepted and appreciated –  $1.00 – $5.00 – $10 – $100 –  it all helps to fund this website and keep the cartoons coming. – THANK YOU!

    A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions, (art and politics) and translated them into the cartoons that have been seen all over the country, in various news outlets including “Fox News”, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as James Woods, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, and even the great El Rushbo.

    MORE Politically INCORRECT Cartoons for May 23, 2018


    according to hillaryall i can hear is russia collusionbad faith offerdropoutfb spyfishing troublehillarys russia hathope its not a volcanoI am NOT a spyindy 100leftist pelosi value of life double speakms13 animalsparty animalssocialism magmastarboxtrouble understanding englishtrump deplomacyvenezuel socialist idea of changewhat messageplease likeand share and leave a comment

    Mueller may have a conflict — and it leads directly to a Russian oligarch


    Special counsel Robert Mueller has withstood relentless political attacks, many distorting his record of distinguished government service. But there’s one episode even Mueller’s former law enforcement comrades — and independent ethicists — acknowledge raises legitimate legal issues and a possible conflict of interest in his overseeing the Russia election probe.

    In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.

    Yes, that’s the same Deripaska who has surfaced in Mueller’s current investigation and who was recently sanctioned by the Trump administration.

    The Levinson mission is confirmed by more than a dozen participants inside and outside the FBI, including Deripaska, his lawyer, the Levinson family and a retired agent who supervised the case. Mueller was kept apprised of the operation, officials told me.

    Some aspects of Deripaska’s help were chronicled in a 2016 book by reporter Barry Meier, but sources provide extensive new information about his role. They said FBI agents courted Deripaska in 2009 in a series of secret hotel meetings in Paris; Vienna; Budapest, Hungary, and Washington. Agents persuaded the aluminum industry magnate to underwrite the mission. The Russian billionaire insisted the operation neither involve nor harm his homeland.

    “We knew he was paying for his team helping us, and that probably ran into the millions,” a U.S. official involved in the operation confirmed.

    One agent who helped court Deripaska was Andrew McCabe, the recently fired FBI deputy director who played a seminal role starting the Trump-Russia case, multiple sources confirmed.

    Deripaska’s lawyer said the Russian ultimately spent $25 million assembling a private search and rescue team that worked with Iranian contacts under the FBI’s watchful eye. Photos and videos indicating Levinson was alive were uncovered.

    Then in fall 2010, the operation secured an offer to free Levinson. The deal was scuttled, however, when the State Department become uncomfortable with Iran’s terms, according to Deripaska’s lawyer and the Levinson family.

    FBI officials confirmed State hampered their efforts.

    “We tried to turn over every stone we could to rescue Bob, but every time we started to get close, the State Department seemed to always get in the way,” said Robyn Gritz, the retired agent who supervised the Levinson case in 2009, when Deripaska first cooperated, but who left for another position in 2010 before the Iranian offer arrived. “I kept Director Mueller and Deputy Director [John] Pistole informed of the various efforts and operations, and they offered to intervene with State, if necessary.”

    FBI officials ended the operation in 2011, concerned that Deripaska’s Iranian contacts couldn’t deliver with all the U.S. infighting. Levinson was never found; his whereabouts remain a mystery, 11 years after he disappeared.

    “Deripaska’s efforts came very close to success,” said David McGee, a former federal prosecutor who represents Levinson’s family. “We were told at one point that the terms of Levinson’s release had been agreed to by Iran and the U.S. and included a statement by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointing a finger away from Iran. At the last minute, Secretary Clinton decided not to make the agreed-on statement.”

    The State Department declined comment, and a spokesman for Clinton did not offer comment. Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, declined to answer questions. As did McCabe.

    The FBI had three reasons for choosing Deripaska for a mission worthy of a spy novel.

    • First, his aluminum empire had business in Iran.
    • Second, the FBI wanted a foreigner to fund the operation because spending money in Iran might violate U.S. sanctions and other laws.
    • Third, agents knew Deripaska had been banished since 2006 from the United States by State over reports he had ties to organized crime and other nefarious activities. He denies the allegations, and nothing was ever proven in court.like i said

    The FBI rewarded Deripaska for his help. In fall 2009, according to U.S. entry records, Deripaska visited Washington on a rare law enforcement parole visa. And since 2011, he has been granted entry at least eight times on a diplomatic passport, even though he doesn’t work for the Russian Foreign Ministry.

    Former FBI officials confirm they arranged the access.

    Deripaska said in a statement through Adam Waldman, his American lawyer, that FBI agents told him State’s reasons for blocking his U.S. visa were “merely a pretext.”

    “The FBI said they had undertaken a careful background check, and if there was any validity to the State Department smears, they would not have reached out to me for assistance,” the Russian said.

    Then, over the past two years, evidence emerged tying him to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, the first defendant charged by Mueller’s Russia probe with money laundering and illegal lobbying. Deripaska once hired Manafort as a political adviser and invested money with him in a business venture that went bad. Deripaska sued Manafort, alleging he stole money.

    Mueller’s indictment of Manafort makes no mention of Deripaska, even though prosecutors have evidence that Manafort contemplated inviting his old Russian client for a 2016 Trump campaign briefing. Deripaska said he never got the invite and investigators have found no evidence it occurred. There’s no public evidence Deripaska had anything to do with election meddling.

    Deripaska also appears to be one of the first Russians the FBI asked for help when it began investigating the now-infamous Fusion GPS “Steele Dossier.” Waldman, his American lawyer until the sanctions hit, gave me a detailed account, some of which U.S. officials confirm separately.

    Two months before Trump was elected president, Deripaska was in New York as part of Russia’s United Nations delegation when three FBI agents awakened him in his home; at least one agent had worked with Deripaska on the aborted effort to rescue Levinson. During an hour-long visit, the agents posited a theory that Trump’s campaign was secretly colluding with Russia to hijack the U.S. election.

    “Deripaska laughed but realized, despite the joviality, that they were serious,” the lawyer said. “So he told them in his informed opinion the idea they were proposing was false. ‘You are trying to create something out of nothing,’ he told them.” The agents left though the FBI sought more information in 2017 from the Russian, sources tell me. Waldman declined to say if Deripaska has been in contact with the FBI since Sept, 2016.

    So why care about some banished Russian oligarch’s account now?

    Two reasons.

    • First, as the FBI prepared to get authority to surveil figures on Trump’s campaign team, did it disclose to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that one of its past Russian sources waived them off the notion of Trump-Russia collusion? 
    • Second, the U.S. government in April imposed sanctions on Deripaska, one of several prominent Russians targeted to punish Vladimir Putin — using the same sort of allegations that State used from 2006 to 2009. Yet, between those two episodes, Deripaska seemed good enough for the FBI to ask him to fund that multimillion-dollar rescue mission. And to seek his help on a sensitive political investigation. And to allow him into the country eight times.

    I was alerted to Deripaska’s past FBI relationship by U.S. officials who wondered whether the Russian’s conspicuous absence from Mueller’s indictments might be related to his FBI work.

    They aren’t the only ones.

    Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz told me he believes Mueller has a conflict of interest because his FBI previously accepted financial help from a Russian that is, at the very least, a witness in the current probe.

    “The real question becomes whether it was proper to leave [Deripaska] out of the Manafort indictment, and whether that omission was to avoid the kind of transparency that is really required by the law,” Dershowitz said.

    Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a “far more significant issue” is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: “It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.”  

    George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

    Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted. In the meantime, the episode highlights an oft-forgotten truism: The cat-and-mouse maneuvers between Moscow and Washington are often portrayed in black-and-white terms. But the truth is, the relationship is enveloped in many shades of gray.

    John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He is The Hill’s executive vice president for video.

    [Editor’s note: This post was updated at 8:10 p.m. on May 14, 2018.]

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    Bombshell: 2nd Russia Dossier Exists, Author’s ID Changes Everything


    Reported By Chuck Ross | May 2, 2018 at 6:51am

    URL of the original posting site: https://www.westernjournal.com/bombshell-2nd-russia-dossier-exists-authors-id-changes-everything/

    Clinton operatives pushed a dossier during the 2016 presidential campaign that appeared to be a classic “rope-a-dope” scheme being peddled by purported Russian spies, according to a person who was briefed on the documents by one of the Clinton insiders during the campaign. The dossier in question was written by Cody Shearer, a notorious Clinton fixer. It was passed to the Department of State by Sidney Blumenthal, a friend of Shearer’s and another Clinton operative.

    The eight-page document eventually made its way to the FBI through Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote a dossier of his own. While the FBI is reportedly investigating the claims made in the Shearer memos, one person who discussed the document with Shearer during the campaign says it appeared at the time to be a ruse.

    According to the source, who spoke to The Daily Caller News Foundation on condition of anonymity, Shearer claimed that members of Russia’s spy service, the FSB, had video tape of Trump engaged in sexually compromising acts. That allegation was similar to the one contained in Steele’s dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. Steele, a former MI6 officer, cited a source who said that the Kremlin has video of Trump in a Moscow hotel room in 2013 with prostitutes. The Russian government was blackmailing Trump with the footage, Steele alleged.

    Shearer said he did not have the supposed tapes, TheDCNF’s source said, adding that Shearer’s situation sounded like a “rope-a-dope story where the FSB throws this stuff out there, sucks people in, tries to get money.”

    A U.S. government official who was briefed on the Shearer memos in Aug. 2016 — though not by Shearer — told TheDCNF that the allegations were not taken seriously because Shearer was “not a guy with a whole lot of credibility.”

    “The whole thing stinks,” recalled the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the Russia investigation.

    The official said that Shearer’s effort showed that Clinton loyalists were “doing their best to get this stuff out into the mainstream media before the election.”

    Shearer’s memos have received little media attention since their existence was revealed in January. The Guardian broke the story that the documents had been passed to the FBI through Steele and that the bureau was attempting to ascertain their accuracy. Steele reportedly told the FBI that the information came ultimately from Shearer.

    Shearer first gained notoriety in 1991 when he was involved in spreading the false claim that then-Vice President Dan Quayle purchased drugs from Brett Kimberlin, a drug dealer who was the culprit behind the Speedway bombings. It turned out that Kimberlin made up the story about Quayle. He is now a left-wing political activist.

    Shearer, whose brother-in-law is Brookings Institutions President Strobe Talbott, was also reportedly investigated by the State Department’s inspector general in the late 1990s for allegedly misrepresenting himself as State Department official during negotiations with associates of a Bosnian warlord. Shearer was reportedly paid at least $25,000 in exchange for helping the warlord.

    New details of Shearer’s memos emerged on Thursday with a report from Real Clear Investigations.

    Journalist Lee Smith reported that Shearer created two four-page reports entitled “Donald Trump — Background Notes — The Compromised Candidate” and “FSB Interview,” a reference to the Russian spy agency.

    Shearer wrote that he relied on information from an unnamed Turkish businessman who claimed to have “excellent contacts within the FSB.” The businessman said the FSB source knew of a “cut out” between the Trump campaign and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Trump campaign was “also involved hacking his opponents and trying to alter votes on election day,” Shearer’s source claimed.

    Shearer wrote that his FSB source said that the spy agency knew of Trump’s predilection for women and used it against him.

    “From observing Trump for years in previous visits to Moscow, the FSB knew he had a weakness for women,” reads the Shearer memo, according to Real Clear Investigations.

    Trump was also aware that the Kremlin had compromising material on him.

    Copies of the video were in Bulgaria, Israel and in vaults in Moscow, Shearer’s source said.

    Shearer’s memos wove a twisted path to the FBI, with Blumenthal being the initial conduit.

    In summer 2016, Blumenthal shared Shearer’s documents with a friend, a State Department official named Jonathan Winer. At the time, he was serving as special envoy to Libya, provided the Shearer reports to Steele, who he had known since 2009. Steele gave the Shearer reports to the FBI. The London-based Steele first contacted the bureau in July 2016 to share his information on Trump. He continued meeting with investigators through that October. Steele provided information from his own dossier to Winer. Winer wrote a two-page memo summarizing Steele’s allegations and passed them up the chain of command at the State Department. Sec. of State John Kerry ultimately decided that the dossier information should be shared with the FBI.

    According to Lee Smith, the Real Clear Investigations reporter, Shearer’s memos also detail conversations he had with two journalists who heard rumors about Trump’s activities in Moscow. Both of the journalists, ABC News’ Brian Ross and The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Cullison, had been in contact with Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that hired Steele. According to Shearer, Ross said that he would report on the story if he would “fly to Moscow to tape and air for broadcast,” which he would do if he could find a “talking head source” to back up Shearer’s claims. While Ross did not secure the explosive interview he sought, he did interview Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born businessman who is alleged to be “Source D,” the dossier’s main source for the Moscow hotel room allegation.

    The recent book “Russian Roulette” suggests that Ross learned about Millian from Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson. Simpson hired Steele in June 2016 to investigate Trump’s activities in Russia.

    “For Simpson, Millian was now an investigative target. He tipped off ABC News, which conducted an on-air interview with Millian, in which he said Trump ‘likes Russia, because he likes beautiful ladies — talking to them, of course,’” write Michael Isikoff and David Corn, the authors of “Russian Roulette.” Corn is the Washington bureau chief of the left-wing Mother Jones magazine.

    Millian’s alleged involvement as a source for the dossier has raised questions about the veracity of the document. Former business associates of Millian have claimed that he has embellished his business achievements and connections. According to “Russian Roulette,” Fusion GPS’s Simpson was concerned that Millian was a source for Steele.

    “Simpson had his doubts. He considered Millian a big talker,” the book reads.

    Cullison, a former Moscow correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, was one of the three reporters who broke the Jan. 11, 2017 story revealing that Steele was the author of the dossier. According to Real Clear Investigations, Shearer claimed in his memo that Cullison told him that the DNC was paying Fusion GPS to corroborate the story about Trump’s Moscow visit. The Wall Street Journal has denied that Cullison knew who hired Fusion GPS. But as Lee Smith notes in his report at Real Clear Investigations, even if Cullison did not know that the DNC had hired Fusion GPS, Shearer clearly had that information.

    It remains unclear how Shearer knew that the DNC was involved with Fusion GPS and how he happened to speak with two reporters who were in contact with the opposition research firm.

    Shearer’s memos show he also spoke to Robert Baer, a former CIA operative who currently works for CNN. Shearer said that Baer claimed that “the Russians had established an encrypted communication system” between the Trump campaign and Russian president Vladimir Putin.

    Baer told Real Clear Investigations that he picked up that story “from acquaintances at The New York Times who were trying to run the story down.” He recalled speaking with Shearer in March or April 2016. As Smith notes, if that timeline is accurate, Shearer was investigating the salacious Trump claims at around the time that Fusion GPS was hired by the Clinton campaign and DNC.

    Shearer has refused to provide comment to TheDCNF.

    A version of this article previously appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

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