RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-1-24-biden-and-trump-classified-documents-scandals-progressive-talking-point-falls-apart

I have so far avoided weighing in on the Biden and Trump classified documents scandals, but I guess the time has finally come.

I’ve had a “Secret” clearance in my life, and almost all of the “classified” documents I have seen have been of very underwhelming significance. So when the Trump classified document thing blew up with the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago back in August, I was not impressed. It reeked of something highly likely to be completely devoid of real world significance, but useful to Biden and the left because Trump would be put in a position of not being able to defend himself publicly without disclosing the contents of the documents. Meanwhile Trump as President had had complete authority to declassify the documents if he wanted, and his position was that he had done so. But even if Trump had a good or even excellent position that he had declassified the documents, he would not take the risk of disclosing their contents to defend himself. So it seemed like a total freebie for Biden to go on 60 Minutes in September and say “How could anyone be that irresponsible?”

Here is the picture that the Justice Department filed in court of the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago:

Then on January 9 CBS News broke the story that a cache of classified documents had been discovered in a closet at Biden’s office at the “Penn Biden Center” in Washington, a supposed “think tank” funded by the University of Pennsylvania. Oops. “How could anyone be that irresponsible?”

This was not going to be an easy one to spin. But within a couple of days, the official talking point had emerged, as it always seems to do for the far left press. The official talking point was, this is different because Biden is “cooperating” with the government, whereas Trump was “resisting” the righteous efforts of the National Archives to get back the documents to which they are entitled and which only they can safeguard appropriately.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/charles-mcgonigal-indicted-russia-collusion-james-comey-crossfire-hurricane-fbi-11674685934?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

James Comey may have been right about Russia collusion after all. But instead of the Trump campaign, the alleged culprit was a member of Mr. Comey’s own team at the FBI.

In 2016 Mr. Comey appointed veteran agent Charles McGonigal to head the bureau’s counterintelligence efforts in New York, where he was involved in some of the most sensitive work. They included the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into claims that the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to steal the 2016 election. Mr. McGonigal was arrested Saturday on twin indictments.

The New York indictment charges him with violating U.S. sanctions on Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and crony of Vladimir Putin. It alleges that he and Sergey Shestakov—a former Soviet and Russian diplomat—were paid by Mr. Deripaska to investigate a rival oligarch. The two men also allegedly worked, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Deripaska off the sanctions list. The money laundering charges stem from the attempt to cover up the payments.

Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. McGonigal was also indicted on nine counts of concealing his relationship with a former Albanian intelligence officer. The indictment says he accepted secret cash payments totaling $225,000 from this man. It also says that the FBI, at Mr. McGonigal’s request, opened an investigation into foreign lobbying in which the former Albanian intelligence officer served as a confidential informant.