RUTHFULLY YOURS

On Friday, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued an order in United States v. Flynn that, while widely unnoticed, reveals something fascinating: A motion by Michael Flynn to withdraw his guilty plea based on government misconduct is likely in the works.

Just a week ago, and thus before Sullivan quietly directed Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team to provide Flynn’s attorneys “any exculpatory evidence,” Washington Examiner columnist Byron York detailed the oddities of Flynn’s case. The next day, former assistant U.S. attorney and National Review contributing editor Andrew McCarthy connected more of the questionable dots. York added even more details a couple of days later. Together these articles provide the backdrop necessary to understand the significance of Sullivan’s order on Friday.
What’s Happened in the Michael Flynn Case So Far

To recap: On November 30, 2017, prosecutors working for Mueller charged former Trump national security advisor Flynn with lying to FBI agents. The following day, Flynn pled guilty before federal judge Rudolph Contreras. Less than a week later — and without explanation — Flynn’s case was reassigned to Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

One of Sullivan’s first orders of business was to enter a standing order, on December 12, 2017, directing “the government to produce to defendant in a timely manner – including during plea negotiations – any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.” Sullivan’s standing order further directed the government, if it “has identified any information which is favorable to the defendant but which the government believes not to be material,” to “submit such information to the Court for in camera review.”

The indictments are in.

Team Mueller indicted a bunch of Russians associated with a troll farm for interfering with an election in the United States. Russian troll farms generally don’t follow United States law. But foreigners are not allowed to interfere with elections in the United States. Unless they’re named Christopher Steele.

The Clinton campaign employed a British foreign agent who used Russian intelligence sources to put together opposition research meant to interfere with the results of a United States election. Collusion between the Clinton campaign, Steele and the Russians doesn’t require an endless fishing expedition.

Foreigners interfering in United States elections are not a new phenomenon. Muslims in Gaza famously ran a phone bank for Obama. A Hamas political adviser had declared that he hoped Obama would win.

There was no investigation. Nor did anyone indict the Gazans running the phone bank.

The indictment states that, “the Federal Election Campaign Act… prohibits foreign nationals from making any contributions, expenditures, independent expenditures, or disbursements for electioneering communications.” But Obama had chosen to accept untraceable donations from abroad. He had failed to ask for proof of citizenship and his website had even allowed donations from Iran and North Korea.

The chair of Nigeria’s stock exchange had organized an “Africans for Obama” fundraiser. The Albanian Socialist Prime Minister had been accused of a scheme to transfer $80,000 to an Obama fundraising committee. Gazans bought and resold Obama t-shirts from the campaign website. And no indictments.

None of that counts as election interference. And none of it generated an investigation of Obama.

Indicting civilians covertly employed by a foreign government to engage in propaganda in the United States is an unserious act. But Obama Inc. responded in the same futile way to Chinese hacking efforts. Responding to cyberwarfare with toothless indictments is not how you head off the next attack.

Let’s suppose for a minute that Hillary Clinton and all her fellow Resisters, along with all their allies in the Deep State, had accepted the results of the 2016 election, as has been the tradition and expectation. Remember Hillary’s sneering question to Donald at the debates – whether he would accept the election results? At that time, nobody thought Hillary would be the one to throw the temper tantrum when she lost, much less organize a resistance movement.

Suppose that, instead of anger and outrage over losing the election and launching what is turning out to be a suicidal frontal assault on Donald Trump, Hillary and her minions had set about to co-opt him with flattering news coverage and invitations to all the most glittering social events. In the past, that’s how it worked. The Powers that Be co-opted newcomers to the Executive and Legislative Branches of government with seduction – showering them with all the enticements within the political insider’s bags of goodies. It’s been done often before; the GOP is populated with legions of politicians who came to Washington promising the voters that they would be change agents. Instead, the so-called RINOs succumbed to the voices of the Sirens who control the media, the money, and the chairmanships. It is, as the saying goes, so much more pleasant and profitable “to go along to get along.” After all, who wants to endure a ceaseless torrent of negative coverage in the Washington Post, the New York Times, CNN, and the rest of the MSM?

This time, finding no sealed divorce proceedings to crack open at the last minute to rig the election and failing in destroying their opposition with character attacks, the Hillary forces’ insurance policy was to trump up charges of Russian collusion. I suppose it is the Arkansas-Chicago way. Plus, destroying your opponents does afford a certain amount of ego gratification. In fact, it’s been obvious for a long time that the Clinton way is akin to Conan the Barbarian’s – i.e., to “crush your enemies” is “what is best in life.”

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Professional politicians have produced a breed of humanitarian hucksters selling policies and products that benefit themselves rather than the American public they are entrusted to serve. Politicians are necessary in our representative government but career politicians are not. Term limits are necessary to protect the public against abuses of power created by career politicians living insulated lives inside Washington where their self-serving deals have become normative.

Historically politicians were citizen legislators who provided short term patriotic service to the country without remuneration. They were citizens from all walks of life bringing a variety of perspectives to Washington in service to their constituents. What happened? LOBBYISTS.

Lobbyists spent 1.45 billion dollars in 1998. In 2017 lobbyists spent 3.34 billion dollars. How is that money spent? What do lobbyists expect to receive for the billions of dollars they spend? Who benefits? LOBBYISTS, CLIENTS, and POLITICIANS with policies “for our own good” of course.

Opensecrets.org reports data on lobbying, lobbyists, and lobbying recipients. There is a lot of money changing hands. In 2016 Hillary was at the top of the list. Lobbyists are not charities distributing to the poor – lobbyists spend billions of dollars on politicians to convince the politicians to vote in favor of whatever the lobbyist is peddling. Here is the problem.

What the lobbyist is selling is rarely beneficial to the public but always beneficial to the lobbyist, the lobbyist’s client and to the politician. The longer the politician remains in office the longer he/she is tempted by the myriad of enticements offered by the lobbyist to provide favorable outcomes for the lobbyist’s generous clients. Lobbying is a business and lobbyists are extremely candid and unapologetic about their business goals.

Howard Finkelstein, the Broward County public defender whose office is representing Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., puts it bluntly:

This kid exhibited every single known red flag, from killing animals to having a cache of weapons to disruptive behavior to saying he wanted to be a school shooter. If this isn’t a person who should have gotten someone’s attention, I don’t know who is. This was a multi-system failure.

Specifically, the FBI admits that it received two separate tips about Cruz. Last fall, a frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment left on one of his videos. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” said a user named Nikolas Cruz. The vlogger alerted the FBI and was interviewed. But the agency subsequently claimed its investigators couldn’t locate Cruz, despite the highly unusual spelling of his first name.

Then, just six weeks ago, a person close to Cruz warned a call taker on the FBI’s tip line that the expelled student had a desire to kill and might attack a school. The bureau said that the information was not passed to agents in the Miami office. Florida governor Rick Scott has called for FBI director Christopher Wray to be fired. So has NRO’s Kevin Williamson in a powerful piece: “Fire the FBI Chief.” Other officials are calling for FBI heads to roll, but at a level below Wray’s. Florida attorney general Pam Bondi told Fox News, “The people who had that information and did not do anything with it, they are the ones that need to go.”

For his part, Director Wray is promising that his agency will conduct a full probe. Congressional oversight committees are skeptical about how complete that will be given the recent evidence of the FBI’s politicized role in the probes of Russia and the Trump campaign, along with the infamous anti-Trump “Steele dossier,” which the FBI relied on without verifying,

“The fact that the FBI is investigating this failure is not enough,” Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) said in a statement. “Law enforcement personnel constantly remind the public that ‘if you see something, say something.’ In this tragic case, people close to the shooter said something, and our system utterly failed the families of seventeen innocent souls.”

When Democrats talk about evil “Republican billionaires” like Sheldon Adelson and the dreaded Koch Brothers, it’s always in apocalyptic terms. They are trying to “buy” elections and hide their influence with “dark money” schemes.

Somehow, Democrats never get around to mentioning their own billionaires and the massive amounts of money contributed to Democratic causes by the likes of Tom Steyer, Mark Cuban, and J.B. Pritzker, who is running for governor of Illinois.

And, of course, George Soros.

Soros’s reach is international. He has a huge network of international do-gooder organizations that promote his pet causes. And he is a reliable, if sometimes shadowy, contributor to Democratic Party causes in the U.S.

But Soros’s son Alexander is emerging as a major player in Democratic politics. According to the Federal Election Commission, Alexander contributed $650,000 to Democratic campaigns and various committees in 2017.

Washington Free Beacon:

Alex’s generous contributions spanned across a number of liberal party committees and campaigns, including two donations totaling $203,400 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s (DCCC) recount and building funds, while providing an additional $33,900 to the committee during the primary period.

Alex also gave large amounts to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). Like his contributions to the DCCC, Soros gave the DSCC $203,400 for its recount and headquarters account, with another $33,900 going towards the primaries.

President Trump said Sunday Russia accomplished its goal of creating “discord, disruption and chaos” in the United States and now Russians are “laughing their asses off” at the U.S.

“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!” Trump tweeted.
Donald J. Trump

✔ @realDonaldTrump

If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!

Trump spent the early part of Sunday morning tweeting thoughts about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, criticisms of the Obama administration made by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and a $1.7 billion payment to Iran made by the Obama administration as a part of the nuclear deal.

Friday’s grand jury indictment in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election destroys Democratic claims that the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the race, and that the Russian interference cost Hillary Clinton the election. It is now time for Mueller to look into real election interference and collusion with the Russians by the Democrats.

The grand jury indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities for their alleged efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. The indictment says the Russians hid their involvement in this scheme and communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign. There was no allegation in the indictment that any American was a knowing participant in the scheme.

Boom. The Democratic Trump-Russia collusion narrative is dead.

But the left will continue to argue that Russia handed the presidency to Donald Trump. Expect them to claim this is proven by two things: the sophistication of the election interference effort; and the allegation that the accused Russians promoted the Trump campaign and worked to disparage Hillary Clinton.

Don’t be fooled. The indictment says the Russian election interference effort started in 2014. It says that the Russians staged rallies for and against Trump after the election and also promoted the Bernie Sanders campaign.

These facts strongly indicate this was a Russian campaign to sow confusion in the United States and to undermine Clinton, who Russian officials expected to win the election.

If you ask after every latest mass shooting why the US won’t ‘do something, anything’ about guns, a refresher course in American law and history is in order. Also worth bearing mind is that Americans, unlike Australians, don’t see themselves as submissive subjects of the State.

Apparently, there are some 300 million legally-held guns in the United States. Who knows how many illegally-held guns there are? Lots I imagine. In the wake of the latest horrific school shooting in Florida, the usual suspects are calling for tighter gun control. The Republicans and the NRA are blamed for having always resisted such calls.

For the first two years of Obama’s presidency, the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and close to a filibuster majority in the Senate. For four months, they had 60 votes in the Senate and therefore absolute control. Why did they not act to impose additional controls on gun ownership, if the current laws are such a burning affront to public safety? There are, I suggest, two principal reasons.

First, beyond emotional cheap talk, it is very difficult to identify specific amendments to the law which would both reduce the risk of gun violence and be enforceable.

Second, it’s not the Republicans in Congress or the NRA that represents the biggest obstacle to imposing anything which smacks of seriously restricting gun rights, it is gun-owning voters. The latest Gallup poll (Oct 2017) reported that 42% of US households had a gun. That would clearly mean well over 50% of adults have access to guns. Moreover, many of those gun owners are passionate about their right to bear arms. “Out of my cold dead hands,” the late, great Charleston Heston put it, while holding up his rifle.

One further complication is that federal law overlays state laws, which differ from state to state. Federal law bans a convicted felon from owning a firearm, also someone who is involuntarily committed to a mental institution or declared mentally incompetent by a court or government body. The interpretation of this law can vary from state to state, which perhaps creates an opportunity for legislators at a federal and state levels to close off any obvious loopholes. Though this would have made no difference in this most recent school shooting.

Closing loopholes aside, the difficulties of taking substantive measures should not be lost from sight. Take mental illness, which has occupied the attention of commentators urging that something more be done.

Lewis Carroll once wrote in praise of adjectives, saying that “adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs.” That is certainly true with the latest indictments by special counsel Robert Mueller of 13 Russians for interfering with the 2016 presidential election. For the White House, the entire report comes down to a single adjective. Let’s see if you can spot it: The Russian defendants “communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign.”

Despite a 37-page indictment with a long narrative on a coordinated Russian campaign of interference, the most newsworthy fact comes from the carefully placed adjective “unwitting.” It confirms that the special counsel has found no knowing coordination or collusion between these hackers and Trump officials. The indictment names 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities in alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election. It describes a coordinated effort by Russians, including the shadowy Internet Research Agency, to wage “information warfare” against the United States.
The charges themselves are not particularly novel or exotic. They involve identity fraud, wire fraud and other conventional charges. However, the context is anything but conventional. This is the largest indictment of a foreign effort to interfere with our elections, and the clear import is that the hand of the Russian government was behind this effort. Moreover, it is clear that the Russians were acting to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton.

While the indictment is historic, it is hardly a surprise. Few people were questioning the Russian interference with and hacking of the election. Both Democratic and Republican leaders were in agreement on this fact, as were all of the administration’s top intelligence figures. The one hold-out seemed to be the president himself. He routinely referred to the “fake news” of the Russian investigation.