RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/14/the-constitution-requires-judge-emmet-sullivans-lawless-amicus-order-against-michael-flynn-be-overturned/

The U.S. Constitution makes clear that the judiciary has no business second-guessing prosecutorial decisions. That’s what Michael Flynn judge Emmet Sullivan decided to do.

On May 13, Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a blatantly biased and unconstitutional order in the long-lasting Michael Flynn criminal case. To preserve the rule of law and our constitutional separation of powers, the Department of Justice has no choice now but to seek a writ of mandamus from the D.C. Circuit Court ordering the criminal charge against Flynn dismissed and reassigning the case to another judge.

On Tuesday, Judge Sullivan shocked court watchers when he entered an order stating that, “at the appropriate time,” he intended to enter a scheduling order permitting “amicus curiae” or friend of the court briefs to be filed in Flynn case. Flynn, who more than a year ago pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, was seeking to withdraw his guilty plea when the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss the criminal charge against Flynn.

The government’s motion to dismiss highlighted new evidence uncovered by an outside U.S. attorney, Jeff Jensen, and detailed the government’s position that even if Flynn had made false statements to FBI agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, as a matter of law there was no crime because the false statements were not “material” to a legitimate investigation.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/14/dni_richard_grenell_deserves_the_nations_gratitude_143200.html

Before he was appointed U.S. ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell was a foreign policy expert and a media commentator, recognized for his insight and independent analysis. Now that he’s the acting Director of National Intelligence, Grenell is after one thing on behalf of the American people: the truth. In his role as the DNI, Grenell has used his power responsibly, thoughtfully, and constitutionally to find the facts about what happened across the intelligence agencies serving the American people and how they were weaponized for political purposes before and after the 2016 election. 

Although Grenell’s appointment earlier this year was always intended to be temporary, he has not taken the job lightly. Just weeks into his new role, Grenell began reforming the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to enhance transparency and accountability while implementing measures to protect our intelligence agencies from future political interference.  

In May, Grenell announced even more structural reforms designed to improve ODNI’s efficiency and effectiveness. “[M]ore changes to come…because there have been 4 studies in the last 2 years from other career IC officials asking for reforms,” Grenell tweeted, adding that these reforms “should have been done before I arrived.” 

But Grenell’s most important contribution to justice — and truth — has been his decision to declassify the list of former Obama administration officials who “unmasked” the identity of the former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Thanks to Grenell’s efforts, Americans now know that the Obama administration abused its power during the 2016 campaign in order to illegally spy on Donald Trump’s associates.  

https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/the-scale-to-which-obamas-team-spied-should-be-focus-of-unmasking/

The presumptive Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, heads a list of more than a dozen Obama officials who spied on Donald Trump’s ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Others senior officials include chief of staff Denis McDonough, CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and UN Ambassador Samantha Power.

A list declassified Tuesday by Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grennel shows that Biden and others asked to have Flynn’s name “unmasked” in transcripts of US intelligence intercepts of foreign officials. The names of US persons or entities incidentally collected by such intercepts are minimized to protect the privacy rights of Americans. Unmasking identities is not in itself illegal, nor even necessarily improper. Occasionally US policymakers will ask to unmask a US person to better understand the nature of the intelligence before them. Obama officials, however, gorged themselves like children at a candy store.

In an almost two-month period starting election day, Nov. 8, 2016, senior US officials made 49 requests to unmask the retired three-star general.

Flynn’s Dec. 29, 2016, call to a Russian diplomat in which they were alleged to have discussed sanctions on Russia was leaked by a senior US official to the Washington Post’s David Ignatius. His subsequent column ignited the Russia collusion scandal, which in time became the special counsel investigation. Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI regarding the call, and finally last week the Department of Justice withdrew its deeply compromised case.

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/05/anti-social-social-distancing.html

“There’s no reason for increased penalties for reducing the 2  meter (6 feet) rule in the open air because viruses disperse in the open air; the rule isn’t applied when people are shopping in a supermarket and in many other indoor spaces where it can’t be policed.

“I think the govnmt is trying to avoid the formation of crowds and the potential for civil unrest.”  (4.02 PM 5/10)

Prolific writer, Christine McNultty, is often published in the Watford Obsever, in the UK. 

But rationality rarely enters the minds of power-lusters, with only the chance to use brute force whetting their appetite. Reason and force are antipods 

Some good news is that a Dallas Texas salon owner was released from jail after defying a judge’s decision to imprison her for violating the and “social distance” orders. The governor of the state ordered her freed.

Some awful, outrageous news it that an Australian woman in Sydney who was demonstrating peacefully against the lockdown was brutally arrested and her young screaming son wrested from her grip by the police. She was roughly put into the police van, still resisting her arrest. 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/05/13/obama-chief-of-staff-unmasked-flynn-day-of-crucial-white-house-briefing/

According to declassified documents released Wednesday by acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, President Barack Obama’s chief of staff requested the unmasking of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn on the same day as a crucial White House meeting that involved all the perpetrators of the Russian collusion hoax.

Denis McDonough, a longtime Obama loyalist and the president’s chief of staff during his second term, asked the NSA to unmask Flynn’s identity on January 5, 2017 related to an unspecified foreign intelligence report. That date is significant because it’s the same day that President Obama met with top aides including James Comey, James Clapper, Susan Rice, and John Brennan for the ostensible purpose of reviewing the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russia’s attempted election interference. (Vice President Joe Biden also attended the Oval Office meeting. Biden made an unmasking request on January 12, 2017, the day David Ignatius at the Washington Post first reported on the Flynn-Kislyak call.)

The real purpose of the meeting, as new evidence suggests, was to discuss how to set up the incoming president and entrap Flynn. After the general briefing, President Obama asked Comey and Sally Yates, the number two at the Justice Department who would serve as acting attorney general until Trump’s appointee was confirmed, to stay behind. (Yates and Comey, it’s worth noting, both signed the initial FISA application on Carter Page.)

That’s when Obama informed Yates about Flynn’s infamous December 29, 2016 phone call with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about sanctions. “At that point, Yates had no idea what the president was talking about, but figured it out based on the conversation,” according to the special counsel’s 2017 interview with Yates. “Yates recalled Comey mentioning the Logan Act. It was not clear to Yates from where the President first received the information.”

It now appears that we know the source: McDonough. There are no other unmasking requests between Flynn’s call on December 29, 2016 and the January 5, 2017 meeting.

But that might not have been the only leak tied to McDonough. Mary McCord, former head of the National Security Division that was responsible for seeking the FISA warrants on Page, testified to the House Intelligence Committee in 2017 that “in theory” the leak to the Washington Post came from the Obama White House.

Igantius’ article first floated the outlandish Logan Act case against Flynn. “According to a senior U.S. government official, Flynn phoned Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak several times on Dec. 29, the day the Obama administration announced the expulsion of 35 Russian officials as well as other measures in retaliation for the hacking,” Ignatius wrote. “What did Flynn say, and did it undercut the U.S. sanctions? The Logan Act (though never enforced) bars U.S. citizens from correspondence intending to influence a foreign government about ‘disputes’ with the United States. Was its spirit violated?”

The illegal leak of classified government information is a felony punishable by up to ten years in prison. The “senior U.S. government official” who tipped off Ignatius about the Flynn-Kislyak call has not yet been identified or charged with a crime.

McDonough’s request is the closest tie between President Obama and the framing of Michael Flynn; as this massive scandal unfolds, Barack Obama still has not been asked a single question about what he knew or when he knew it.