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February 2018

Media Fumble Their Latest Attack on Nunes Memo By Julie Kelly

The media and Democratic spinmeisters think we are stupid. Wait, check that. Not just stupid—illiterate.

How else to explain their latest attempt—to borrow a promo from CNN—to tell us an apple is a banana? More specifically, how could they twist media reports that do not say the Justice Department informed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that the infamous Steele dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign into reports that say they do?

A few hours after the Nunes memo was released Friday afternoon, the Washington Post rushed to dispute one of the missive’s most explosive claims: That none of the FISA applications “disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts.” As anyone who is not living off-the-grid knows, the DNC and Clinton campaign paid millions for the shady dossier that was leveraged to win FISC approval to spy on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page months after he left the campaign.

On Friday night, the Post reported that two U.S. officials speaking on condition of anonymity claimed “ample disclosure of relevant, material facts” were made to the court that “revealed the research was being paid for by a political entity.” The sources went on: “No thinking person who read any of these applications would come to any other conclusion but that [the work was being undertaken] at the behest of people with a partisan aim and that it was being done in opposition to Trump.”

Even though the Post attempted to create a phony plotline that of course the court must have known the dossier was paid for and peddled by the same party of the sitting president, as well as by the campaign of his former secretary of state and the Democrats’ presidential candidate, the paper had to fess up that “the application did not specifically name the Democratic National Committee or the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.” I mean, duh, don’t FISA court judges read Yahoo News?

Video: Muslim Driver Attempts Hit and Run on Jewish Father and Son in Belgium By Michael van der Galien

The Jewish community of Antwerp (Belgium) has released CCTV footage of an attempted car ramming incident on an Orthodox Jewish family Saturday morning.

A Jewish father and his son were on their way to the local synagogue when they suddenly had to jump out of harm’s way because a car was coming directly at them. (Note: the two were walking on the sidewalk.) Here’s the footage:

Police have arrested the driver. According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan News, the driver is of Muslim origin. He was tracked down through the footage of the license plate and is to be arraigned today on the charge of attempted manslaughter.

Sadly, this is one of many recent examples of increased antisemitism in Western Europe over the last few years — and especially the last few months. In September of last year, for instance, a Jewish man was assaulted in Antwerp by a “local youth” who called him every anti-Jewish slur in the dictionary. The attacker had converted to Islam recently and was arrested with the help of onlookers.

5 Things The FBI Never Told The FISA Court About The Trump Dossier By Rachel Stoltzfoos

The memo from House Intelligence Committee Republicans outlining how the FBI and Department of Justice secured a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign official alleges the agencies scrubbed highly relevant political context when presenting it to the secret court as a basis for the warrant.

Anonymous sources previously claimed the agencies used the unverified dossier produced by Christopher Steele on behalf of Hillary Clinton as a basis for the warrant, and confirmation of that is deeply troubling. But the revelation that the FBI and DOJ deliberately withheld information about the dossier that would have undermined their case before the court — that it was opposition research paid for by the target’s rival campaign — is stunning.

Here are five things the FBI and DOJ never told the court when asking for multiple warrants, according to the memo.
1. The dossier was funded by Hillary Clinton and The Democratic National Committee.

Although the false claim that Republicans helped pay for the dossier is still circulating, the dossier was commissioned by Fusion GPS only after Republican funding ceased. The Clinton campaign and the DNC were the sole source of funds to the opposition research firm for the entire duration of Steele’s work on the dossier.

The FBI and DOJ knew this, but didn’t tell the FISA court that Trump’s rival campaign paid for the document they were submitting as a basis for spying on a member of Trump’s campaign. They didn’t mention the DNC, the Clinton campaign, or any political party in the first application for a warrant, or in any of the three applications to renew the warrant, according to the memo.
2. The FBI terminated Steele as a source for “what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations.”

Steele was terminated as a source to the FBI after he disclosed his relationship with the bureau to the press in October 2016. He should have been fired sooner for other unauthorized disclosures to the press, but he lied about them to the FBI, which delayed their discovery of this fact. Yet the FBI never disclosed to the FISA court any issues with Steele’s credibility, the memo says, even after they fired him because he broke their trust. Instead, the bureau used his history of credible reporting in the FISA application to firm up their argument for a warrant.

The FBI also had reason to believe Steele might be politically biased. They learned shortly after the election he told a senior DOJ official in September 2016 that he was “desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.” The FBI noted this indication of Steele’s bias at the time and in following official files, but never disclosed it to the FISA court.
3. The dossier had not been independently verified.

The head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division assessed corroboration of the dossier as in its “infancy” when the first surveillance application was submitted to the FISA court in October. After Steele was fired for disclosing his relationship with the FBI to the press, an independent unit inside the FBI reviewed his reporting and assessed the document as “minimally corroborated.” FBI Director James Comey later referred to the dossier as “salacious and unverified” in testimony before Congress.
4. A news story purporting to corroborate the dossier actually came directly from the dossier.

The Ticking Memo By Victor Davis Hanson

The House Intelligence Committee memo is pretty simple. It should not have been classified and thus far withheld from the public. In fact, far more information now needs to be released.

Despite the outcry, as Chairman Devin Nunes clarified, the memo can easily be in the near future supported or refuted by adducing official documents. In other words, the memo makes a series of transparent statements and leaves it up to the criminal-justice system and the public to ascertain subsequent criminal liability.

It is likely that the basic accuracy of the document will not be questioned, but rather opponents, some of them mentioned in the memo, will either ask why the resulting embarrassing information needed to be aired or insist that there are only minor possible crimes in the events it narrates, or both. Remember, officials from the FBI supposedly read the memo before its release to ensure that there were not factual errors or misrepresentations.

In sum, on four occasions during and after the 2016 campaign, the FBI and DOJ approached a federal FISA court — established to allow monitoring of foreign nationals engaged in efforts to harm the U.S. or American citizens deliberately or inadvertently in their service — to surveil Carter Page, a sometime Trump adviser. These requests also mentioned George Papadopoulos, apparently as a preexisting target of an earlier investigation by FBI official Peter Strzok, but according to the memo mysteriously there was not adduced any direct connection between the two individuals’ activities.

The basis of the requests was an anti-Trump dossier that the FBI and DOJ had purchased from a private concern. At the time of their various requests, FBI director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, apparently knew that the document was the work of an opposition-research team, hired and paid, through a series of intermediaries, by the Clinton campaign. The same knowledge supposedly was known to DOJ officials Sally Yates, Dana Boente, and Rod Rosenstein, who variously joined the FISA requests.

The Nunes Memo: Just an Opening Act Landmines left behind by the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign might soon start detonating—on Democrats. Fred Siegel Marc Epstein

The publication by the House Intelligence Committee, under the leadership of chairman Devin Nunes, of a four-page summary memo regarding FBI surveillance of a Trump campaign advisor in 2016 is the long-awaited opening act of an extended drama about the Obama administration’s abuse of power—which, when all is revealed, might yet outdo that of the Nixon administration.

Obama concealed his sharp-edged, Chicago-style machine politics under the rhetorical cover of progressivism. He was protected by a press corps that first enlisted in his administration and then fought to stop Donald Trump. But now that Obama is out of office, his ability to intimidate is much diminished. This past week, a 2005 picture of a beaming Obama next to a bright-eyed Louis Farrakhan surfaced, after having been held back for more than a decade at the behest of a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who had been tried for corruption by Obama’s Justice Department after he refused to toe the party line about the “peace-loving” mullahs of Iran, has now seen the charges against him dropped. Z Street, a hawkish nonprofit supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel, had been tied up with IRS matters since 2009; it has just been released from its legal chains. Democrats are holding to the line that the prophet of hope and change ran a pure administration, virtually free of scandal. But the memo is probably just the beginning; we’re likely to see many more revelations come out.

Obama isn’t directly mentioned in the memo. But he’s nonetheless implicated through his appointees’ apparent efforts to clear Hillary Clinton in her State Department email scandal while undermining her opponent, Trump, through the veneer of legality provided by FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Security Act) warrants, justified solely by the so-called Steele Dossier. The dossier was paid for by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee; it was created by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, who despised Trump, and the “research” firm Fusion GPS. The FISA Court, supervised by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, was never told about the unverified dossier’s origins.

As for matters of Russian collusion: Fusion GPS was tied to Vladimir Putin’s associates in the Kremlin, who wanted to undermine the Magnitsky Act, a U.S. law that sanctions Russian officials believed to be connected with the murder of anti-Kremlin lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The “journalists” at CNN made much of Donald Trump Jr.’s 20-minute meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower in 2016, while ignoring her meeting, before and after that one, with Fusion’s cofounder, former Wall Street Journal reporter Glen Simpson, who was working to overturn the Magnitsky Act. Simpson slimed Hermitage Capital’s Willian Browder, who had helped pass the Magnitsky legislation and authored the important book Red Notice.

Arabs are torch-bearers for Nazi anti-Semitism Lyn JUlius

Truth be told, the virus of Nazi anti-Semitism was exported to the Arab and Muslim world as early as the 1930s. It gave ideological inspiration to Arab nationalist parties like the Ba’athists in Syria and Iraq and paramilitary groups like Young Egypt, founded in 1933. Anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are the central plank of the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, and their ideological cousins, Islamic State, who sought to impose Allah’s kingdom on Earth through jihad and forced conversion of non-Muslims.

On the day that the world commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, the U.K. liberal newspaper The Guardian declared in an editorial :

“The Arabs, meanwhile, cannot be blamed for feeling that Europe’s blood debt to the Jews was paid with what they see as their territory.”
The myth of the Arabs as innocent bystanders, who had no responsibility for the Holocaust—and indeed, paid the price for a European crime when Israel was established—is widely believed.

The Arabs, like other third-world peoples, are only ever seen as victims of Western oppression and colonialism. They cannot themselves be guilty of oppressing others.

The West self-righteously deplores the old European anti-Semitism of the “far right.” But a new Green-Brown-Red anti-Semitism—encouraged by an alliance of the Far Left, the Greens and Islamist sympathizers—is studiously downplayed, ignored by the media, or blamed on Israel.

Truth be told, the virus of Nazi anti-Semitism was exported to the Arab and Muslim world as early as the 1930s. It gave ideological inspiration to Arab nationalist parties like the Ba’athists in Syria and Iraq and paramilitary groups like Young Egypt, founded in 1933. Anti-Jewish conspiracy theories are the central plank of the totalitarian Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, and their ideological cousins, Islamic State, who sought to impose Allah’s kingdom on Earth through jihad and forced conversion of non-Muslims.

The Holocaust was, in the words of author Robert Satloff, as much an Arab story as a European. In spite of efforts to trumpet the stories of individual “righteous” Muslims who rescued Jews (particularly in Albania), scholars continue to uncover evidence of Arab sympathy and collaboration with Nazism.

Mark Steyn: The Grammy Hall of Fame

I’ve been boycotting the Grammys since “Feline Groovy” inexplicably failed to garner, as the rock journalists say, a half-dozen awards. So I didn’t discover until this morning that the Grammy producers had booked an actual grammy, Hillary Clinton, to appear in a sketch about the Fire and Fury audio book. I know there are those who think pop culture’s completely lost its sense of danger and rebelliousness, but c’mon, in an age whose very slogan is one of groupthink coercion (#MeToo) what could be edgier, as they say, than to book a serial enabler of serial predators? Cool! #Time’sUp – but, oddly, never for Hillary. Next year maybe Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose can appear in bathrobes and play a few cords.

~Meanwhile, in further news of female empowerment, Australia is promoting itself as a hub of the booming “modest fashion” market:

Modest fashion is clothing that conceals rather than accentuating the body – and it is quickly increasing in popularity.

Hmm. Interesting. Why would “modest fashion” be “quickly increasing in popularity”? Particularly for, say, unaccompanied women walking at night in certain neighborhoods of western cities?

Once upon a time Australian fashion was associated with women like Elle Macpherson, who was known as “The Body” because it was very evident that she had one. But from The Body to the body bag is a mere blink of an eye. This new exhibition, funded by Australian taxpayers and promoted by my old friend Julie Bishop’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, celebrates the Australian inventor of the burqini and “the rise of the hijabistas”.

That’s great news! Tie me burqa hood down, sport! Who’ll come a-shroudin’ Matilda with me? Sorry, I’m just working on my Grammy nomination for Best Covered Versions.

Unfortunately, The Australian’s Caroline Overington is none too happy at being fitted for her burqini:

‘Modest Australian fashion.’

In case you don’t know what that is, it’s skirts to the floor, ladies.

It is full body suits at the beach. It’s covering up your hair, and draping yourself in heavy fabric as you go about your day.

When did this become something the Australian government wanted to promote, and celebrate?

Europe: Making Islam Great Again by Judith Bergman

In Germany, 47% of Muslims believe Sharia is more important than German law. In Sweden, 52% of Muslims believe that Sharia is more important than Swedish law.

The studies are supported by European intelligence reports. In Germany, intelligence agencies warned in the early fall of 2015 that, “We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law.”

A recent Belgian study, in which 4,734 Belgians were polled, showed that two-thirds of Belgians feel that their nation is being “increasingly invaded”.

“We cannot and will never be able to stop migration”, wrote the EU’s Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos recently. “At the end of the day, we all need to be ready to accept migration, mobility and diversity as the new norm and tailor our policies accordingly”.

Given that such people would have us believe that migration has become such a categorical and seemingly incontestable policy of the EU — “Migration is deeply intertwined with our policies on economics, trade, education and employment”, Avramapolous also wrote — it is crucial to analyze what kind of “diversity” the EU is inviting to make its home on the European continent.

Professor Ednan Aslan, Professor of Islamic Religious Education at the University of Vienna, recently interviewed a sample of 288 of the approximately 4,000 predominantly Afghan asylum seekers in the Austrian city of Graz, on behalf of the city’s integration department. Members of the department understandably wanted to know the views of the Muslim newcomers there. The results were published in a study, “Religiöse und Ethische Orientierungen von Muslimischen Flüchtlingen in Graz” (“Religious and ethical orientations of Muslim refugees in Graz”).

According to the study, two-thirds of the asylum seekers are men, mostly under 30 years old. They are all in favor of preserving their traditional, conservative, Islamic values. The migrants are extremely religious; 70% go to the mosque every Friday for prayers.

Obama and the FISA Court Both of their reputations cannot survive the collusion investigation. By James Freeman

This column is trying to imagine how an editor at The Wall Street Journal would treat a draft article alleging a political campaign adviser was secretly working for a foreign government if the story featured uncorroborated opposition research paid for by a rival campaign. If the writer of the draft article assured the editor that readers would not be told where the information originated, it’s a safe bet this would not increase the chances of publication.

This column is also trying to imagine the conversation that would ensue if a reporter or writer then tried to persuade the editor by appealing to the authority of Yahoo News.

Of course the Journal isn’t the only media outlet that enforces standards. Many organizations strive to ensure basic accuracy and fairness. Can it possibly be true that the evidentiary standards for obtaining a federal warrant allowing the government to spy on the party out of power are significantly lower than in a professional newsroom?

Today the American people are finally able to see the memo from the majority staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence alleging abuse of government surveillance powers during the last presidential campaign. Many will be appalled that, at least according to the memo, on October 21, 2016 the Department of Justice and the FBI obtained a court order authorizing electronic surveillance on a Trump campaign volunteer without telling the court that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee had paid for at least some of the research presented.

A Reckoning for the FBI The House memo reveals disturbing facts about the misuse of FISA.

Now we know why the FBI tried so hard to block release of the House Intelligence Committee memo. And why Democrats and the media want to change the subject to Republican motivations. The four-page memo released Friday reports disturbing facts about how the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appear to have been used to influence the 2016 election and its aftermath.

The White House declassified the memo Friday, and you don’t have to be a civil libertarian to be shocked by the details. The memo confirms that the FBI and Justice Department on Oct. 21, 2016 obtained a FISA order to surveil Carter Page, an American citizen who was a relatively minor volunteer adviser to the Trump presidential campaign.

The memo says an “essential” part of the FISA application was the “dossier” assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele and the research firm Fusion GPS that was hired by a law firm attached to the Clinton campaign. The memo adds that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told the committee in December 2017 that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” without the dossier.

This is troubling enough, but the memo also discloses that the FBI failed to inform the FISA court that the Clinton campaign had funded the dossier. The memo says the FBI supported its FISA application by “extensively” citing a September 2016 article in Yahoo News that contained allegations against Mr. Page. But the FBI failed to tell the court that Mr. Steele and Fusion were the main sources for that Yahoo article. In essence the FBI was citing Mr. Steele to corroborate Mr. Steele.

Unlike a normal court, FISA doesn’t have competing pleaders. The FBI and Justice appear ex parte as applicants, and thus the judges depend on candor from both. Yet the FBI never informed the court that Mr. Steele was in effect working for the Clinton campaign. The FBI retained Mr. Steele as a source, and in October 2016 he talked to Mother Jones magazine without authorization about the FBI investigation and his dossier alleging collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The FBI then fired Mr. Steele, but it never told the FISA judges about that either. Nor did it tell the court any of this as it sought three subsequent renewals of the order on Mr. Page.

We don’t know the political motives of the FBI and Justice officials, but the facts are damaging enough. The FBI in essence let itself and the FISA court be used to promote a major theme of the Clinton campaign. Mr. Steele and Fusion then leaked the fact of the investigation to friendly reporters to try to defeat Mr. Trump before the election. And afterward they continued to leak all this to the press to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.

No matter its motives, the FBI became a tool of anti-Trump political actors. This is unacceptable in a democracy and ought to alarm anyone who wants the FBI to be a nonpartisan enforcer of the law.