On IG Horowitz’s report and the meaning of Russiagate
The revelations in the report by IG Horowitz released yesterday are disturbing on many levels, but one of the deepest and most basic is of the power of institutions such as the FBI if they become corrupted and corrupt. What used to be reserved for the plot of movies has now been revealed to have happened, and the maneuverings easily could have remained secret if just a few circumstances had been otherwise.
Talk about fostering distrust and paranoia!
Here’s just one example:
Criminal defense attorneys must be dancing around the courtrooms today because they know that many prospective jurors are never going to believe anything an FBI agent says on the stand.
Thanks Comey, McCabe, etc.
You did this.
You destroyed the FBI's reputation.
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) August 29, 2019
And in the comments section of this blog earlier today:
Un F’n believable.
A conspirator in the attempted coup to overthrow a fairly elected President, gets away with only a F’n report that says he violated established procedures.
No indictment, no arrest, no jail time pending posting bond; not a F’n thing.
So the lesson here is that members of the “correct” ruling class – appointed or otherwise – can really do whatever the F they want and not worry about getting in trouble…When the citizenry no longer regards the government as legitimate, that’s when the wheels fall off the wagon of govt.
And from another comment:
Comey is strutting around and running his mouth, as if he knows that he will never be prosecuted, and perhaps whatever friends he still has in the FBI are telling him that—whatever show, however much gritting of teeth, shouting, stamping, apparent anger, whirling around, and head shaking, whatever Kabuki routine might be put on—in the end, that is what is going to happen, like Hillary, Comey will never be prosecuted.
This got me thinking, and a horrible thought at that.
Could it be that we have all been way too naive and blind to boot, and that all of this “resistance” by apparently every high level official in the alphabet agencies—from both those officials already in place, or starting immediately after their appointment—is a sign that the the coup we feared was taking place today actually took place some time ago and, moreover, that it was successful?
That despite the maintenance of the outward forms of our Republican government—now an ossified and dead shell—it is actually the members of the Deep State, working underneath that concealing, protective shell, who are de facto calling the shots and running the country, as they have been doing for quite some time now?
It’s certainly possible—and what’s for certain is that the revelations of what actually happened at the hands of Comey et al, and also what they intended to happen and nearly accomplished but did not, engenders the sort of thinking expressed above. While it’s not true that everyone was naive prior to this—some people have been alleging Deep State control of things for a long time—however naive we were, we are all less naive now. When paranoia, right or wrong, seems justified, it doesn’t bode well for the nation.
And as with Watergate and Nixon (which pales in comparison with this), the question can and should be asked: “What did Obama know and when did he know it?” But will that question be asked by anyone with the power to answer it?
This is not the first time the American public has seen what appears to be a two-tiered system of justice. Some people are hounded, harassed, and found guilty of infractions that seem minor while others (Democrats and members of the Deep State) are winked at when they appear to be committing acts that are far worse. A discerning person, looking at the situation, can’t help but notice it. And way too many Americans are willing to look the other way if the person committing the infraction is a member of their party and is out to kneecap a member of the opposite party. Rule of law? What’s that? That clip I’ve used so many times from “A Man For All Seasons” is once again, sadly relevant.
I do have a caveat, however. The fat lady has not yet sung on James Comey. The IG report that came out yesterday is not in the nature of the final report. It only concerns Comey’s taking and leaking of the memos, and the DOJ declined to prosecute on that issue alone. Many analysts are saying that this was because that was a weaker case compared to other cases that can and will be made later against Comey. So the DOJ’s decision in this more narrow matter doesn’t mean that Comey will not be prosecuted for something connected with Russiagate.
That said, I wonder whether Comey will ever be indicted. I tend to doubt it.
I believe that this entire incident has damaged respect for many institutions: the law and the FBI, for starters. But if they are damaged institutions (which they appear to be, at least for now), we should lose respect for them because they don’t deserve respect.
However, the loss of such respect—and the loss of integrity within these institutions that has caused that loss of respect—is a profound loss to the nation. It leads us down a dark path towards more and more chaos and a scrambling for power with no objective rules. That is the deeper meaning and the deeper threat behind all these events.
If Trump can’t get it done, no one can. An incoming Dem gov’t will undo any progress in this regard. Obama will never face consequences because, let’s face it, that would be racist. Move along; nothing to see here.
Strangely, the left who never trusted the FBI (aka “the man”) now love them and super patriot James Comey. And if you point out this hypocrisy and they can’t label you racist for it, they will think of something else just as vile.
Apparently the Deep State has found a “not illegal” means to stage a coup against a duly and legally elected president.
Strangely, the left who never trusted the FBI (aka “the man”) now love them and super patriot James Comey.
Ken: I recall the film, “Mississippi Burning,” with Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe as FBI agents on the pivotal case of Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney, the civil rights activists murdered in Mississippi. Hackman plays the good ole boy agent who knows how to get things done. Dafoe plays the Kennedyesque straight-arrow intent on getting things done. Eventually enough right things get done in the face of Southern opposition and the KKK, that the case is solved. Good news.
However, the film was panned by many civil rights leaders and sympathizers because it showed the FBI in such a favorable light. The same FBI under Hoover’s leadership, which among other things was conspiring to convince Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide. True, dat.
Still, it was a good film and the Mississippi civil rights murders did receive justice because the LBJ administration bigfooted the case hard with the FBI and even Navy seamen. The case became important for the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
But not enough to please the left.
It doesn’t “lead us down a dark path” it underscores how deep into that dark path we already are. And we are going deeper. And unlike this lucky poet, we’ve no guide.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
Andy McCarthy: Trump Was Always the Target of the Russia Investigation
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/trump-was-always-the-target-of-the-russia-investigation/
Obama’s target. Obama’s target. Say it again. Obama’s target.
Can’t be said enough. Obama’s authority, Obama’s target.
Don’t foist this corruption off on other people. It’s Obama’s baby. Let him own it.
Serious GOP candidates for federal offices need to start campaigning on the principal issue of legislatively dismantling the administrative state. I’m convinced that many would be elected. Given the chance, people would be happy to look at Trump as little more than a warm-up.
I hope to one day see the end of the FBI, and the symbolic implosion of its headquarters. There’s no reason why this dream should be left to the lunatic fantasies of a radical fringe. The thought has become the very definition of political sanity.
The case became important for the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Messrs. Schwerner, Goodman, and Cheney were abducted on 21 June 1964. The act had already passed both houses of Congress. The conference report, the final votes, and the President’s signature were complete by 2 July. The bodies of the three men were found about a month later.
the Mississippi civil rights murders did receive justice
The Mississippi court system made a hash of the case and they had to be tried in federal court on less serious charges. The crew from the local klavern which abducted and killed them (which had the active co-operation of the county sheriff and his senior deputy) received sentences of between three and ten years (less whatever remission they received in parole). A functioning state court (not Missisiippi’s) would have put the whole crew in front of a firing squad, bar the federal informants and the fellow who turned state’s evidence.
The same FBI under Hoover’s leadership, which among other things was conspiring to convince Martin Luther King Jr. to commit suicide. True, dat.
The three men murdered were field employees of the Congress of Racial Equality (which hadn’t yet gone down the black nationalist drain). All three were under the age of 25. One had just arrived in Mississippi that day and another was a local. Neither Schwerner nor Cheney had two nickels to rub together. They worked for James Farmer. Were there ever any scandals adhering to James Farmer?
vanderleun:
What makes you think that “it leads us down a dark path” means we are not already somewhere on that path? It indeed does lead us down a dark path—further down a dark path we already were on. Part of my post—the excerpt here—indicates as much [emphasis added]:
Further and further.
I bow to your legalistically liter’y legerdemain of lalapaloozian legend and I shall not note that you wield a mean if minor microtome for custom cuts when it comes to slicing chop logic.
Crimes without Consequences – The Clinton / Comey Amendment
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/crimes-without-consequences-the-clinton-comey-amendment/
The time has come to face reality. Some American citizens are superior to others as far as justice under the law is concerned. They just are.
Take the Clintons for example. Allegedly, they have been on a crime spree since they took control of the Governor’s Mansion in Arkansas back in 1979. And maybe earlier than that for all we know. But they are never held to account. Never. Rather than list all the Clintonian scandals and criminal accusations here, you can google them online and see the sordid details for yourself. The Clintons are representative of privileged members of the political class for whom justice doesn’t apply.
Yesterday, former FBI Director, James Comey, joined the Clintons as one of the untouchables. The U.S. Department of Justice decided not to prosecute Comey after the DOJ’s Inspector General issued a scathing report on Comey’s insubordinate behavior to conform to FBI rules and regulations and the apparent violation of the Espionage Act in his handling of classified information. By its refusal to indict Comey, the DOJ, in effect, validated and reinforced Comey’s decision to exonerate Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified documents. Comey, the Exonerator-in-Chief, was himself exonerated for breaking the same law, adding insult to injury. Perhaps, it’s time to nullify the Espionage Act or, as a minimum, amend it to stipulate that certain individuals are exempt from it. James Comey exemplifies members of the federal government’s bureaucratic class, derisively referred to as the deep state, for whom justice doesn’t apply.
When the rule of law is seen to be utter pretense, vigilante law cannot be far behind.
” The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution.” Thomas Jefferson
Pres. John Kennedy paraphrased; Those who make peaceful resolution of grievance impossible, make violent resolution of grievance inevitable…
vanderleun:
Alliteration will get you nowhere. 🙂
The poet of VDL’s quote is Dante from the Inferno.
We read the John Ciardi translation in high school. Quite approachable. All the imaginative torments of Hell held our interest. I suspect we would have been bored by the Paradiso.
“When policemen break the law, then there is no law. Just a fight for survival.”
-Billy Jack
Y’all remember Sandy Berger, I expect. That was quite a shock to me. I think as much as anything the shock came from his confidence that he could, should, and would do it, and get away with it. At least he ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.
Comey, Westerhout et al. “In the name of God, go!”
As I put myself in your shoes I wonder how you tolerate such incompetence. A coup has been revealed but nothing is going to be done about it. The President wags his finger at Comey (“He should be ashamed of himself”) as if he stole an apple or something. As far as we know, there is not even a formal investigation, just departmental “reviews”.
To my mind, the absence of any action is evidence that you’ve fallen for a hoax. It’s a version of; “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”
I could not imagine Democrats behaving in such a manner if there were a coup against Barack Obama while they control the Executive Branch. They would march Holder and Comey down to Capital Hill ASAP to say the least.
But not you guys. Almost three years in and you have no wall and Mexico hasn’t paid for it. There has been no repeal of Obamacare, let alone a replace. You’ve lost the House so now its too late. The tax cuts didn’t pay for themselves, there is no 3% annual growth, let alone 4, deficit speeding has accelerated, the stock market is under-performing Obama’s, and, judging from the inverted yield curve, the economy is weaker than the one he inherited.
How do you tolerate such failure?
Manju:
As so often is the case, you provide comic relief.
Oh ye concern troll extraordinaire, thank you so much for your kind interest.
Any ambitious alliterative author allegedly aiming at acquiring artistic accolade awards almost always achieves actual aureate acclamation, as analytical almanacs advantageously approve, and annual anthologies automatically accept auspicious applicants’ accomplishments, avidly acknowledging all axiomatic ability, albeit advisedly, abrogating artificially abstract abbreviations affecting alternative attributes.
On the other hand, plagiarism is now officially okay, since Joe Biden is the Democratic frontrunner.
Pretty nifty, though.
I’d forgotten about Sandy Berger. That was shocking. This, in a 2008 article in Washingtonian magazine, is scary, in that it shows how easily such stuff can happen because of self-interest/lack of courage:
Manju,
I could be mistaken but this seems to me like the closest you’ve ever come to dropping the mask and showing us what a troll like yourself really believes. A rare moment of honesty.
All the gaslighting and the lies are put away and you gloat about the what the coup has accomplished, what its done to this country.
You’re not just a troll. You’re evil.
“however naive we were, we are all less naive now. When paranoia, right or wrong, seems justified, it doesn’t bode well for the nation.” – Neo
As Kurt Schlicter never tires of saying, “They really do hate us.”
I confess that I didn’t just plagiarize that last comment, I stole it outright.
Manju on August 30, 2019 at 6:33 pm said:
…
To my mind, the absence of any action is evidence that you’ve fallen for a hoax. …
I could not imagine Democrats behaving in such a manner if there were a coup against Barack Obama while they control the Executive Branch. They would march Holder and Comey down to Capital Hill ASAP to say the least.
* * *
If you had said “the absence of any evidence” then I would agree with you that the “Deep State coup” might be a hoax; however, we do have ample evidence that it occurred, and have had for years now.
“The absence of action” is precisely what is concerning Neo and the rest of us (along with a great many other people), because it is not an indication that the “Deep State coup” is a hoax, but rather that the DS may extend further and deeper than all but our most paranoid conspiracy theorists were willing to posit.
If Comey isn’t charged with other crimes; if the IG reports to come contain similar or more convincing evidence and NO ONE is indicted or punished; if the perception of elite lawlessness, that there really is a separate rule for the favored courtiers of the king, spreads and takes hold in America, then it is very possible that the GOP / conservatives that you mock for impotence will be superseded by the so-called “alt Right” that seems to be such a bogeyman for the Left, and the actions you profess to admire so much when undertaken by the Democrats will be visited on yourselves.
Which is a long way to paraphrase what GB said above:
Ann on August 30, 2019 at 7:09 pm said:
I’d forgotten about Sandy Berger. That was shocking. This, in a 2008 article in Washingtonian magazine, is scary, in that it shows how easily such stuff can happen because of self-interest/lack of courage:
* * *
The almost casual law-breaking by rank-and-file staff in their treatment of Berger mirrors what we have had revealed in the last decade about (particularly) the VA, the ATF, and the IRS, and seems to be standard operating procedure in government.
We used to believe that some agencies (especially those entrusted directly with enforcing The Law) were free of the curse, but now that belief appears to be, as Neo said, just because we were naive — and without the internet & blogs & alternate news sources, that belief would still be operative.
Lawless behavior is only condemned by factions when it is used against them, never when they make use of it themselves. And they never seem to think breaking the law for their own benefit will come back to bite them.
Sometimes, as Manju noted, they have good cause for that assumption: not because the coup was a hoax and does not admit of “action,” but because there are such fundamental philosophic and ideological differences in the way the Left & Right deal with opposition. Just as there is a great reluctance on the Right to believe that such a thing could even happen in the US, there is also a great reluctance to take actions that might, in themselves, further subvert the rule of law, and appear to be vengeance rather than justice.
So, yeah, Manju: sometimes we treat malfeasance too gently for our own good.
The Right is different from the Left, but “If This Keeps On” the differences between them will diminish, and not in a good direction.
Artfldgr on August 30, 2019 at 4:22 pm said:
Crimes without Consequences – The Clinton / Comey Amendment
https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/crimes-without-consequences-the-clinton-comey-amendment/
* * *
Read the rest of the post – it expands on the excerpt.
Bottom line:
Hang them all from lamp posts would be the only solution, but it’s wrong and I can’t advocate violence.
sdferr on August 30, 2019 at 3:01 pm said:
Andy McCarthy: Trump Was Always the Target of the Russia Investigation
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/08/trump-was-always-the-target-of-the-russia-investigation/
* * *
If you haven’t read it yet, please do.
Including Manju.
Just to make crystal clear what was going on, McCarthy referenced a report by Byron York, who explains:
But Comey is an honorable man….
Cornflour, Fractal Rabbit, Ken.
Amen!
AesopFan,
The “secure videos conference” was between Comey and various individuals at the FBI, including the Crossfire Hurricane team.
They were not taping Trump.
So I’m not sure what the McCarthy’s big reveal is. We already know that there was an “FBI counterintelligence investigation, known as “Crossfire Hurricane,” concerned whether individuals associated with the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election were coordinating with, or had been unwittingly co-opted by, the Russian government.” (Page 18, IG Report)
The behavior here is totally consistent with what the FBI would do under those circumstances.
Many analysts are saying that this was because that was a weaker case compared to other cases that can and will be made later against Comey
Because they’ve been accurate thus far?
“those circumstances”
Y’know, those that didn’t exist and therefore required manufacture by the counterintelligence aparatus. Yeah, “those”.
The Watergate impeachment was also an FBI run operation. Woodward and Bernstein were messenger boys, Felt was the mastermind.
You Americans think you are free but you are actually slaves of the Deep State, the Federal Reserve, and a whole bunch of other organizations that public education was told never to talk to you about.
Also the US President is not powerful enough to even fire the US Federal Reserve board. That is why trum has to rail against them on twitter. He knows how it works. The rest of the country… do not.
As for Felt…
In the early 1970s, Felt had supervised Operation COINTELPRO, initiated by Hoover in the 1950s. This period of FBI history has generated great controversy for its abuses of private citizens’ rights. The FBI was pursuing leftist groups, such as the Weather Underground, which had planted bombs at the Capitol, the Pentagon, and the State Department building. Felt, along with Edward S. Miller, authorized FBI agents to break into homes secretly in 1972 and 1973, without a search warrant, on nine separate occasions. These kinds of FBI operations were known as “black bag jobs.” The break-ins occurred at five addresses in New York and New Jersey, at the homes of relatives and acquaintances of Weather Underground members. They did not contribute to the capture of any fugitives. The use of “black bag jobs” by the FBI was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the Plamondon case, 407 U.S. 297 (1972).
The Church Committee of Congress revealed the FBI’s illegal activities, and many agents were investigated. In 1976, Felt publicly stated he had ordered break-ins, and recommended against punishment of individual agents who had carried out orders. Felt also stated that Patrick Gray had also authorized the break-ins, but Gray denied this. Felt said on the CBS television program Face the Nation he would probably be a “scapegoat” for the Bureau’s work.[55] “I think this is justified and I’d do it again tomorrow,” he said on the program. While admitting the break-ins were “extralegal”, he justified them as protecting the “greater good.” Felt said:
To not take action against these people and know of a bombing in advance would simply be to stick your fingers in your ears and protect your eardrums when the explosion went off and then start the investigation.
That American memory problem that starts and begins with AP and the national media propaganda arms.
In June 1973, Ruckelshaus received a call from someone claiming to be a New York Times reporter, telling him that Felt was the source of this information.[54] On June 21, Ruckelshaus met privately with Felt and accused him of leaking information to The New York Times, a charge that Felt adamantly denied.[46] Ruckelshaus told Felt to “sleep on it” and let him know the next day what he wanted to do. Felt resigned from the Bureau the next day, June 22, 1973, ending his thirty-one year career.
In a 2013 interview, Ruckelshaus noted the possibility that the original caller was a hoax. He said that he considered Felt’s resignation “an admission of guilt” anyway.[54]
Don’t worry, spying on Americans is only a crime when it is Democrats doing it to their enemies and not the other way around.
President Ronald Reagan pardoned Felt and Miller.
In a phone call on January 30, 1981, Edwin Meese encouraged President Ronald Reagan to issue a pardon. After further encouragement from Felt’s former colleagues, President Reagan pardoned Felt and Miller. The pardon was signed on March 26, but was not announced to the public until April 15, 1981.
In the pardon, Reagan wrote:
During their long careers, Mark Felt and Edward Miller served the Federal Bureau of Investigation and our nation with great distinction. To punish them further—after 3 years of criminal prosecution proceedings—would not serve the ends of justice.
Their convictions in the U.S. District Court, on appeal at the time I signed the pardons, grew out of their good-faith belief that their actions were necessary to preserve the security interests of our country. The record demonstrates that they acted not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government.[64]
The FBI determines which US Presidents gets to spy on which political parties and citizens.
***
Americans are not exceptional in being blind to secret factions. The rest of humanity is also blind to the Matrix.