RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/trump-loses-another-round-to-manhattan-da/

A quick update on developments in Manhattan District attorney Cyrus Vance’s investigation, in which the DA has subpoenaed years of President Trump’s financial records (including tax information) from his accountant, Mazars.

The DA’s office has just agreed to forbear from any effort to enforce the subpoena until after the Second Circuit federal appeals court has a chance to review the president’s motion to stay the latest ruling he just lost. At the end of last week, Judge Victor Marrero of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) issued a lengthy opinion denying Trump’s motion to quash the subpoena.

Before I go on with that, let’s back up to how we got here, because I believe the DA’s grand jury investigation has been widely misinterpreted.

The common assumption has been that Vance is focused on the hush money payments to the two women who claim to have had trysts with Donald Trump about a decade before he ran for office. Of these, the Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a Stormy Daniels) transaction would presumably be of more interest to the DA because it more directly involves the Trump Organization. On that deal, Michael Cohen (the now-convicted former lawyer and self-described “fixer” for Trump) laid out the payment and was reimbursed by the Trump Organization, and there are questions about whether the business properly accounted for the payments under New York law.

To be clear, I am not saying a crime was committed — I have no idea. I am just saying the DA’s interest in and jurisdiction over that transaction is easy to grasp. By contrast, the Karen McDougal transaction involved the purchase of her story by American Media Inc. (owner of National Enquirer), with no reimbursement by the president or his business conglomerate.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/when-will-democrats-reckon-with-their-own-crackpots-and-conspiracy-theorists/

Crackpot theories are as old as the Republic, but there are a few new reasons they may be more prevalent today.

 I n December of 2003, liberal NPR host Diane Rehm asked then-front-running Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean what he thought about President George W. Bush’s “suppressing” the 9/11 independent investigation.

Dean answered that he didn’t know for sure, but there were “many theories about it,” and the most interesting one he’d heard was that the president “was warned ahead of time by the Saudis.” Much like Donald Trump inquiring into Barack Obama’s real birthplace, Dean was just asking questions.

As the columnist Robert Novak explained at the time, the comments garnered scant media attention and no denunciations from Democratic Party leaders. Dean “neither apologized nor repudiated himself for passing along this urban legend” when he appeared on “Fox News Sunday” later that week, Novak noted.

Dean likely knew he was speaking to a sizable constituency. When an Ohio University poll for Scripps Howard asked Democrats three years later, “How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?,” 22.6 percent said it was “very likely” and another 28.2 percent said it was “somewhat likely.” Or in other words, more than half of Democrats in 2006 believed that the president probably had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks.

loot-pillage-and-burn-kenosha-following-police-shooting-n831506

In the name of Black Lives Matter, rioters shut down the streets in Kenosha, Wisc., setting trucks on fire, patrolling the streets with semi-automatic rifles, and ransacking nearby businesses. The riot followed the release of a viral video showing Kenosha police repeatedly shooting a black man who resisted arrest and reached into his truck. The man, identified as 29-year-old Jacob Blake, appears to have a violent history. Blake is in critical condition at a nearby hospital, according to police.

Rioters mobbed the police station and reportedly lobbed an incendiary device at the cops before police scattered them. Then the rioters took to the streets.

The shooting of Jacob Blake

According to the Kenosha Police Department, officers responded to a domestic incident at about 5 p.m., and the incident resulted in a shooting. “Officers provided immediate aid to the person. The person was transported via Flight for Life to Froedtert Hospital, Milwaukee. The person is in serious condition.”

Kenosha Police called upon the Kenosha Sherriff’s Department and Wisconsin State Patrol to investigate the matter, so as to avoid impropriety. The Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ), Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) will investigate the shooting.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/al-sharpton-jonathan-greenblatt-ad

This past weekend, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella group uniting 125 local Jewish communities and 17 national Jewish organizations, sent an email to its followers proudly announcing that it has signed on as a partner in the Virtual March on Washington this week, an event organized by Al Sharpton.

Because last week also marked the 29th anniversary of the Crown Heights riots, it’s worth it to stop and recall that among his many distinctions—MSNBC pundit, and an adviser who reportedly regularly speaks to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, collector of innumerable sateen suits—Al Sharpton is also currently America’s only living pogrom leader.

After a car driven by a Hasidic Jew accidentally swerved and struck a young African American boy, killing him, hundreds of the neighborhood’s Black residents rioted in the streets, chanting “death to the Jews!” as well as looting stores, attacking anyone who was visibly Jewish, and ripping mezuzot off of door posts. Sharpton was quick to arrive on the scene, leading a march in which participants burned an Israeli flag and called to kill all Jews. At the young boy’s funeral a few days later, Sharpton delivered a eulogy that borrowed heavily from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, saying that the Jewish residents of the neighborhood practiced “apartheid” and were there only to further the Jewish global grip on money and power. He ended by ominously shouting: “pay for your deeds.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/clinesmiths-guilty-plea-the-perfect-snapshot-of-crossfire-hurricane-duplicity/

Carter Page was a CIA asset, not a Russian spy, and the FBI knew it early on but plowed ahead with its fantasy anyway.

Author’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series.

To answer the question posed in last Tuesday’s column, Yes, Kevin Clinesmith did plead guilty Wednesday. Sort of.

Well, maybe it was a smidge better than “sort of.” After all, it did happen in a federal-district-court proceeding (via videoconference) on Wednesday. And Judge James Boasberg did accept the plea after eliciting it in accordance with settled criminal-law rules. Sentencing is scheduled for December 10. So it’s official.

But I’m sticking with “sort of.” If Clinesmith’s guilty plea is legally adequate, it is barely so. And neither a judge nor a prosecutor is required to accept an allocution sliced so fine. In “admitting” guilt, Clinesmith ended up taking the position that I hoped the judge, and especially the Justice Department, would not abide, in essence: Okay, maybe I committed the crime of making a false statement, but to be clear, I thought the statement was true when I made it, and I certainly never intended to deceive anyone.Huh?

I don’t mean to make you dizzy, but in my view, Clinesmith is lying about lying. His strategy is worth close study because it encapsulates the mendaciousness and malevolence of both “Crossfire Hurricane” (the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation) and the “collusion” never-enders who continue to defend it. A defendant’s lying about lying does not necessarily make a false-statement guilty plea infirm as a matter of law. The bar is not high. Still, his story is ridiculous, in a way that is easy to grasp once it’s placed in context.