Media Silent As Christopher Steele ‘Hero’ ‘Spymaster’ Narrative Crumbles

Mollie Heming way names names. 

 The media liars who peddled the Russia hoax. 

 Read the whole thing. 

 For years, the media assured Americans that the dossier alleging treasonous collusion between Donald Trump and Russia was based on the scrupulous work of a mastermind British ex-spy and his vast network of credible and well-connected sources spread throughout Europe. 

It wasn’t true. Steele did not personally collect any of the factual information in his reports. 

The “vast network” was instead a “social circle” of an American-based former Brookings Institute junior staffer, recently identified for the first time as Igor Danchenko. 

The friends didn’t have well-documented claims so much as rumors, drunken gossip, and outright brainstorming, conjecture, and speculation. 

Even that information was “multiple layers of hearsay upon hearsay” before it got to Steele, who then hyperbolically overstated it. 

And the damning claims of “collusion” appear to have been scandalously misattributed or invented out of whole cloth. 

With such shoddy information collection and analysis methods, there was never any reason to give credence to any of the salacious allegations in the dossier, whether it was claims of secret deals with Russian oil concerns, secret meetings in foreign capitals, prostitutes urinating on Moscow hotel room beds, files of compromising information, or the careful cultivation of Trump, yes Trump, into the most effective Russian agent in history. 

Here are the 21 primary liars that participated in a treasonous coup attempt to overthrow an elected American President.

1.  Adam Goldman 
2.  David Corn 
3. Michael Horowitz 
4.  Michael Isikoff 
5.  Evan Perez 
6. Jim Sciutto 
7. Jake Tapper 
8. Carl Bernstein 
9. Michele Neubert 
10. Ken Dilanian 
11. Cassandra Vinograd 
12. Tracy Connor 
13. Bradley Hope 
14. Michael Rothfeld
15.  Alan Cullison 
16. Scott Shane 
17. Matthew Rosenberg 
18. Luke Harding 
19. Jane Mayer 
20. Natasha Bertrand 
21. Christian Caryl

Comey’s last stand for the deep state

When even Clinton supporters like Mark Penn, who served as pollster and adviser to President Clinton from 1995 to 2000, begins to speak out about this witch hunt, the witch hunters will soon realize that the game is up.  Everyone who participated, including Mueller, Comey, Brennan and the other members of the Obama gang who participated on this conspiracy to overturn an election are going to need lots of lawyers.  I suspect that there will be trials that will shake the country and re-direct the political landscape.

They were among the most powerful men of the last decade. They commanded armies of armed agents, had the ability to bug and wiretap almost anyone, and had virtually unlimited budgets. They were the leadership of the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence under President Obama. Each day, it becomes clearer that they are the real abusers of power in this drama.

The book by former FBI Director James Comey and the daily hyperbolic John Brennan sound bites are perhaps the final reveal of just how much hubris and vitriol they had. Comey’s book, according to reports, contains nothing new of legal consequence to Trump (while suggesting that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has something to worry about), but it unmasks the hatred that Comey had for Donald Trump from the beginning. It impeaches Comey’s fitness to have ever held high, nonpartisan office.

Whether you are a Democrat who can’t stand Trump, a Hillary Clinton supporter who feels robbed by Comey, or a Trump supporter, any use of wiretapping and vast prosecutorial machinery against our political campaigns and sitting presidents always has to be viewed skeptically and should meet the highest standards of conduct and impartiality. The post-election actions of these former officials makes suspect their actions as officials.

It was, after all, Comey who went to the president during the transition seeking a one-on-one meeting to tell him about the inflammatory dossier, but who critically omitted telling the president that the dossier was a product of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. These facts, he knew, if revealed at that moment in January, would have ended further inquiry. This was no effort to inform the president and douse the fires of unverified and salacious information, but one to inflame the president and spread the stories everywhere.

Unlike a murder or a robbery that has a specific trail of facts that can be investigated, Russia collusion is an allegation that could never be disproved. The accusation allowed special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the entirety of the Trump campaign, every aspect of the presidential transition, and even interview 27 White House aides.

When that did not bear fruit, the special counsel could start looking at every business transaction with Russians or foreigners who knew Russians. After all, collusion could be hiding anywhere — in a speech given years ago, a condo bought a decade ago by an oligarch — so he could search for it everywhere.

The Mueller investigation bears all of the hallmarks of prosecutorial overreach: pre-dawn raids, denial of reasonable bail, threats to prosecute family members, investigations of unrelated business matters. He didn’t appropriately subpoena selected transition emails but collected every email in the entire transition without notice, prying them from holdover employees at the General Services Administration.

Grand Jury Witness: Mueller Probe Is a Witch Hunt

Ronn Torossian 

On December 15, 2017, I spent the day testifying in Washington, D.C., in front of the Mueller Commission grand jury at the United States District Court. As Business Insider first reported, in 2012 I was approached by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates to do Public Relations work for the Ukrainian government, and not to report said work to the Department of Justice as required by FARA laws. They also implied they’d pay me off shore.

Kyle R. Freeny, a Special Investigator in Mr. Mueller’s office strongly urged me to do my patriotic duty, drop all my professional and personal responsibilities even and appear immediately in front of the grand jury (about a short meeting held 5+ years ago which I vaguely remembered). I reluctantly wake up for a 6 a.m. shuttle flight and spent the day in court. Prior to that testimony, I shared the limited details during interviews with government investigators. I verified that I spoke with Manafort and Gates a few times in February and March 2012, and shared the handful of emails I was in possession of and testified under oath they were accurate.

After hours of repeating the same thing again and again, questions then veered into Russian names I’d never before heard (including Konstantin Kilimnik), and questions about previous work I have done for Russian oligarchs, confirming that I know Roger Stone, worked for Eric Trump’s Foundation in 2017, and more. (Yes, my NYC born kids understand Russian as my ex-wife is Russian, and yes they attend the same NYC school that Ivanka and Jared’s kids did.)

After being thanked profusely by Ms. Feeny and a series of stern-looking attorneys, alone, I exited the courtroom, ignored questions from the media outside the courthouse, and took the Acela back to my Park Avenue office. Not surprisingly, Manafort and Gates have been indicted, yet nothing has connected this matter to President Trump.

This investigation feels like a witch-hunt, even more so after reading yesterday’s CNN news report that, "Special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators have questioned Russian oligarchs travelling in the U.S. about whether they donated to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. One oligarch was questioned and his electronic devices searched when his private jet landed in the U.S., and a second Russian oligarch was also questioned during a recent trip to the U.S. An informal interview request has been made to a third oligarch who has not recently been to the U.S."

This is the U.S. under the thumb of the Deep State and a Prosecutor who is out of control.

Read the whole thing.

[DRUDGE] When the witches are Liberals the witch-hunt fades fast

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The Manafort Indictment: Not Much There, and a Boon for Trump

Andrew McCarthy

The Paul Manafort indictment is much ado about nothing . . . except as a vehicle to squeeze Manafort, which is special counsel Robert Mueller’s objective — as we have been arguing for three months (see here, here, and here). Do not be fooled by the “Conspiracy against the United States” heading on Count One (page 23 of the indictment). This case has nothing to do with what Democrats and the media call “the attack on our democracy” (i.e., the Kremlin’s meddling in the 2016 election, supposedly in “collusion” with the Trump campaign). Essentially, Manafort and his associate, Richard W. Gates, are charged with (a) conspiring to conceal from the U.S. government about $75 million they made as unregistered foreign agents for Ukraine, years before the 2016 election (mainly, from 2006 through 2014), and (b) a money-laundering conspiracy.

...

Now, it is surely a terrible thing to take money, under the guise of “political consulting,” from an unsavory Ukranian political faction that is doing the Kremlin’s bidding. But it is not a violation of American law to do so. The violations occur when, as outlined above, there is a lack of compliance with various disclosure requirements. Mueller seems to acknowledge this: The money-laundering count does not allege that it was illegal for Manafort and Gates to be paid by the Ukrainian faction. It is alleged, rather, that they moved the money around to promote a scheme to function as unregistered foreign agents, and specifically to avoid the registration requirement. That seems like a stretch.

Even from Paul Manafort’s perspective, there may be less to this indictment than meets the eye — it’s not so much a serious allegation of “conspiracy against the United States” as a dubious case of disclosure violations and money movement that would never have been brought had he not drawn attention to himself by temporarily joining the Trump campaign. From President Trump’s perspective, the indictment is a boon from which he can claim that the special counsel has no actionable collusion case. It appears to reaffirm former FBI director James Comey’s multiple assurances that Trump is not a suspect. And, to the extent it looks like an attempt to play prosecutorial hardball with Manafort, the president can continue to portray himself as the victim of a witch hunt.

Read the whole thing.

Robert Mueller Stocks Staff with Democrat Donors

Time to impeach Robert Mueller.