Andrew C. McCarthy: Flynn was framed as a Russian agent

The New Neo Posted on by

From Andrew C. McCarthy:

Well, the mystery is solved, at least if you can believe what the usual sieves — those courageously anonymous “former U.S. officials” — have told their notetakers at the Washington Post. As I surmised in last weekend’s column, Michael Flynn was not “unmasked” in connection with his controversial phone call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. He was never masked in the first place…

Though I was right that Flynn was never masked in connection with the Kislyak call on December 29, 2016, I was off the mark in hypothesizing that the conversation may be been intercepted by an intelligence agency other than the FBI — perhaps the CIA or a foreign intelligence service. Sadly, this owes to my giving the FBI the benefit of the doubt: Had Flynn been picked up on a FISA surveillance of which he was not the target (i.e., a surveillance of Kislyak), I reasoned that the FBI would have masked his identity under statutorily required “minimization instructions.” Indeed, we now know that Flynn’s identity was masked (and then unmasked) dozens of times before and after December 29, precisely because the government knew those minimization rules applied to him.

Alas, in this as in so much else throughout the Trump–Russia farce, the Bureau played fast and loose with the rules. When investigators are so inclined, it turns out the privacy vouchsafed by the minimization rules is illusory. FBI officials — if they thought about it at all — figured Flynn need not be masked because they did not see him as an innocent American incidentally caught up in foreign surveillance. They purported to suspect that he was a clandestine agent of Russia.

Of course, they had no proof of that. And they knew they had no proof. That’s why they never sought a FISA-court warrant targeting Flynn. Doing so would have required showing probable cause that he was an operative of Russia; and as to Flynn, they didn’t even have a fabulist “dossier” to rely on for such a smear.

It’s hard to read that without getting sick to your stomach.

And, as commenter “AesopFan” wrote earlier today about McCarthy himself: “I think he is finally over his former admiration of his beloved agency, but it’s been a long hard battle.” Yes, a mind is a difficult thing to change. But I think McCarthy actually changed his – substantially if not entirely – at least a year ago, maybe more. And he’s mostly been spot on in recent years with his columns about Russiagate/Spygate/Obamagate/Flynngate. In the above quote from McCarthy, you can feel (at least, I can feel) the drip of his contempt and disgust for what the FBI did to Flynn.

Please read the whole thing. But here’s one more excerpt:

Here’s a more plausible explanation of motive. The Obama administration was actively constructing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative. Obama officials saw Putin’s “no retaliation” pose as an opportunity to float the fiction that the Kremlin had cut a sinister deal with Trump to gut Obama’s sanctions as a reward for Russia’s hacking of Democrats during the campaign. Obama officials and the FBI hoped to conceal the Trump–Russia investigation from the incoming Trump administration for as long as possible, and to continue the investigation of Trump’s campaign — remember, by December 29, they had already gotten a FISA warrant based on the representation that Trump’s campaign had conspired with the Kremlin, and they were preparing to reaffirm that claim in order to get a second 90-day warrant (the second of what would eventually be four).

The Flynn–Kislyak call was intercepted because the FBI had FISA coverage on Kislyak, and both the Bureau and the Obama White House instantly recognized that hyping the call could advance all these objectives. Then, they really hit the jackpot: Even though Flynn had done nothing wrong, Trump officials amateurishly misled the public about the call — claiming that Obama’s sanctions were not discussed, rather than that the topic came up but Flynn made no concessions to Moscow. This, naturally, stoked a few “Flynn discussed the sanctions, then lied” news cycles. These amplified the frenzy over publication of the Steele dossier — choreographed by Obama-administration leaks about the Russia briefing our intelligence agencies gave Trump. Flynn’s days were numbered. By Valentine’s Day, he was cashiered as national-security advisor . . . no longer an obstacle to the Obama-driven strategy of continuing the Trump–Russia investigation after Trump took office.

The point of all this was politics, not national security.

I repeat: please read the whole thing.

ADDENDUM:

It’s interesting to go back in time and read McCarthy. Some of his columns – particularly those that expressed his faith in the integrity of someone like Comey, with whom he’d worked long ago – don’t age well. But I think the majority age extremely well. Case in point, this one from March 3, 2017, after Sessions’ recusal (which McCarthy criticized).

McCarthy had not been a Trump admirer. But this is what he wrote only a little over a month after Trump’s inauguration [emphasis added]:

…[R]est assured, this does not end with Jeff Sessions. No more than it ended with Mike Flynn [he’d recently been forced to resign]. No more than it would end if the media-Democrat complex were to obtain the much coveted scalp of Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Seb Gorka, or one of the other Beltway gate-crashers we’ve come to know over the last six improbable months. The objective is President Trump: preferably, his impeachment and removal; but second prize, his mortal political wounding by a thousand cuts just in time for 2018 and 2020, would surely do…

Democrats…have an iron-cast stomach and an unseemly zeal for upheaval. They’re ready to build. All they lack is a case. No problem: They have made one up, and they are confident not only that they will build it into a national crisis of confidence in the presidency but that the Republicans will help them.

And lo and behold, Republicans are helping them. Unwittingly perhaps, but helping all the same…

it’s not like the FBI and the Obama Justice Department didn’t try to make a case against Trump. In fact, they scorched the earth.

Besides the illegal leaks of classified information that have fueled the “Russia hacked the election” scam, this is the most outrageous and studiously unmentioned scandal of the election. While the commentariat was rending its garments over the mere prospect that Trump might have his political adversary, Hillary Clinton, investigated if he won the election, Obama was actually having Trump investigated. [emphasis in the original]

There’s a lot more in that McCarthy column from over three years ago. It’s long, but fascinating and impressive. He didn’t get all the details right, but he can hardly be faulted for that, given the information with which he had to work.

Again, it appears that Trump was right (case fatality rate)

The New Neo Posted on by

Trump’s got good “hunches.”

Apparently, this was one of them:

…[B]ack in March, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated a 3.4 percent [case] fatality rate and Dr. Anthony Fauci estimated that the [case] fatality rate of the coronavirus was about 2 percent.

President Trump was skeptical of both those numbers, particularly the WHO’s estimate: “Well, I think the 3.4 percent is really a false number,” Trump told Sean Hannity. “Now, and this is just my hunch, and — but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this. Because a lot of people will have this and it’s very mild. They’ll get better very rapidly. They don’t even see a doctor. They don’t even call a doctor. I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1 percent.”

Several studies have suggested that Trump was right…

According to the CDC’s current best estimate, the case fatality rate of the coronavirus is .4 percent. And that’s just amongst symptomatic cases, which, the CDC estimates, is 65 percent of all cases. This means the CDC estimates that the [current] fatality rate for all infections across all age groups, symptomatic as well as asymptomatic, is approximately .26 percent.

Predicting that the rate would fall wasn’t rocket science, either. It was quite obvious to anyone studying the science carefully. And I seem to recall that many scientists (including Fauci, if memory serves) were agreeing that the number would almost certainly go down over time. Early case fatality figures are nearly always higher, because serious cases are usually the only ones that come to attention at the outset of an outbreak. Then, as time goes on, the milder and even the asymptomatic cases get uncovered, and the case fatality rate goes down. I wrote about the phenomenon several times as early as March (see this, for example).

But a lot of people – and by “people” I’m definitely including members of the MSM – don’t seem to get this very basic concept. Some of that mental denseness is feigned, I believe, because if the MSM wants to emphasize a certain figure on a certain day to hurt Trump, they will do so, and not cue the public about the tactic.

I also think that some people really do have a lot of trouble with math, and their eyes glaze over when they hear statistics. Propagandists exploit that fact.

And then there’s the CDC. At the moment, the agency seems to be conflating two different statistics:

We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.

Actually, the author may be making an error in that paragraph, too. The upshot isn’t necessarily that the government “is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19.” Are there sick people all over the country clamoring for a COVID test who can’t get one? There certainly used to be, but I haven’t heard that recently. It may even be that the number of people being tested for active COVID right now is very close to the number requiring such testing (I leave out those who might want a test every time they sneeze).

But what on earth is going on with the CDC in this particular case? The article doesn’t really answer the question of why the two types of testing results have been mixed, but the implication is that the government wants to make it seem like we’ve done a lot more testing than we have. I suppose that’s possible, but I actually just think it’s part of the general incompetence that seems to be in ample supply these days.

I also think the entire thing is an emphasis on the wrong numbers. The important issue with testing is whether the people who need tests (not just want tests, but need them) are getting them. But far more important in each state is the hospitalization rate and the death rate per capita. The antibody numbers are very important, too, because they will tell us how far along we are towards immunity as a population. The absolute numbers of confirmed active COVID cases and the number of active case tests performed in a state are less important, although the MSM loves to talk about those numbers.

Rip Van Winkle Wray wakes up after long slumber and announces…

The New Neo Posted on by

…that the FBI will be investigating itself to see if “current employees engaged in misconduct,” and whether any “improvements might be warranted to FBI procedures.”

Now that the cat’s been let out of the bag by others, I guess Christopher Wray figures he has to pretend to care, and the FBI has to pretend to investigate itself. Maybe it could even arrange to entrap itself.

Please forgive my cynicism here, but it’s well warranted.

That order for Judge Sullivan to respond to the mandamus writ was highly unusual

The New Neo Posted on by

Please see this:

Earlier [yesterday], the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit issued an extraordinary order — on its own motion — directing Judge Sullivan himself to file a response to the Petition for Writ of Mandamus filed by Gen. Flynn earlier this week.

In more than 30 years of practicing law, almost exclusively in federal courts, I have never seen a federal appeals court direct a district court judge to personally respond to a litigant’s motion, petition, or appeal.

As significant, in my opinion, is that the Order directs Judge Sullivan to address the Rule 48(a) issue in relation to the Circuit Court’s earlier decision in United States v. Fokker Services.

As many reading this are probably aware, I wrote extensively on the Fokker Services decision in this story and concluded that it left Judge Sullivan no choice other than to grant the Department of Justice’s Motion to Dismiss the case against General Flynn.

My piece on Sullivan is coming. Just probably not today. It’s taking a while to organize and write. But in the meantime, I did find something important – the transcript of the December 18, 2018 hearing at which Judge Sullivan excoriated Flynn and mused about whether he could have been charged with treason. It’s quite a document.

ADDENDUM: [Found at Ace’s.]

See this Twitter thread.

Did you know that Joe Biden gets to decide who’s black and who isn’t?

The New Neo Posted on by

And he gets all folksy doing it:

“You’ve got more questions? Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden quips, before smiling broadly.

And that wasn’t all.

But the left agrees that black people don’t vote for Trump, and they’ll forgive Biden for saying it out loud – unless and until they find a good substitute. Then they’ll kick him to the curb.

Steven Pinker tweets something stunningly stupid

The New Neo Posted on by

I like some of Steven Pinker’s work. His book The Better Angels of Our Nature, for example (which I wrote about here) presents a fascinating thesis that is quite persuasive, although it sounds absurd when you first hear it: that society has become less violent over time.

But the following tweet by Pinker – which contains a link to this WaPo column by Gary Abernathy – is deeply stupid in so many ways it’s almost a parody. Alas, Pinker seems to mean it quite seriously [hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit]. The following is not a quote from the WaPo piece to which Pinker links; it appears to be Pinker’s own words:

Pinker is an atheist, and says he’s been one since he was thirteen years old. Actually, he put it this way: “I was never religious in the theological sense. I never outgrew my conversion to atheist at 13.” That’s interesting. What does “religious in the theological sense” mean? Is there any other way to be religious? I suppose he means “theological” as opposed to “spiritual,” the word a lot of people use these days as a shortcut for saying they’re not into organized religion. But “theology” is the study of the Divine and of religious belief in all its guises.

More to the point, Pinker himself is an atheist, and his contention that he never outgrew becoming an atheist at thirteen is probably meant to be slightly humorous. But it is also telling. Did his atheism stagnant at that stage of his development, adolescence? That would explain a lot about the tweet.

As a supposed scientist, Pinker should know that calling belief in an afterlife a “delusion” (much less a “malignant” one) is an opinion of his, not a scientific fact. The afterlife is by definition after life, not of it. The ultimate answer, and the ultimate test, comes outside of this world and this temporal life. We do not know the answer one way or the other in the sense of scientific proof, we can only live humbly and respectfully in a state of faith or lack of faith.

Why “malignant”? Is Pinker unaware of the good that is done by religious people who believe in an afterlife: the selflessness, the sacrifice, the help to others? I think Pinker is correct that belief in an afterlife can sometimes contribute to a sense of invulnerability that can in certain limited circumstances help make a person impervious to malignant consequences: witness the suicide bomber terrorist. But they constitute such a tiny portion of believers as to be nearly meaningless – except in certain parts of the world and among certain groups. The vast vast majority of believers either live ordinary lives or altruistic ones. Meanwhile, unbelievers are hardly immune from malignant risk-taking: crimes, and even crimes against humanity.

Nor are atheists happier than believers. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much scientific evidence that people who don’t believe in the afterlife live lives that are “longer, safer, happier.” It’s certainly not true as compared to religious people.

As Pinker well knows, or should know. But his anger and his politics seem to be blinding him here.

Of course, another point is that most Republicans are not Evangelicals, and many Democrats are. In fact, for those wishing to look at the actual numbers (not Pinker, apparently), they can be found here (from 2016). Thirty-six percent of registered voters describe themselves as evangelical, and they constitute 45% percent of Republican (or lean-Republican) voters. They also constitute 29% of Democrat (or lean-Democrat) voters, nearly a third. And both Republicans and Democrats who are Christian constitute around another third of the registered voters in each party (40% for Republicans and 35% for Democrats). So the differences exist, but are not all that large between the two parties regarding religious beliefs, and probably concerning the afterlife as well. Christian believers constitute a substantial majority of registered voters in both parties.

I’ve not seen evidence that evangelicals drive the beliefs of other Republicans in any respect. And of course, there are people who are not Christians at all who believe in an afterlife, and even – whether Pinker knows it or not – people who would be considered atheists who believe in an afterlife of spirit beings or energy fields or the like.

Lastly, there are scientists who question the value of shutdowns for COVID based purely on the science of what we’ve learned about how COVID seems to be operating: patterns of transmission, and data from countries and states that locked down harshly vs. those who did not. For example, there’s this, and there are plenty of others. The science is, as they say, unsettled. But it’s not trending in Pinker’s direction.

[NOTE: And from that Abernathy WaPo piece to which Pinker links:

The coronavirus? Christian fundamentalism is often fatalistic. As far as many evangelicals are concerned, life passes quickly, suffering is temporary and worrying solves nothing. That’s not a view that comports well with long stretches of earthly time spent waiting out business closures or stay-at-home orders. It should be no surprise that a person’s deepest beliefs about the world influence how they measure the risks they’re willing to take.

But what Abernathy is describing here, accurate or not, also indicates a stance that would be likely to accept a lockdown with equanimity rather than to protest it.

This sentence appears later in the piece [emphasis mine]:

McEwen [an evangelical leader and ex-politician] told me this week that evangelicals aren’t rattled by covid-19, either the disease or the government’s response to the pandemic, because the Bible instructs them not to let earthly fears overwhelm them.

So again, that indicates an attitude as likely to accept a lockdown as to reject one.

The difference that Abernathy – and Pinker – miss, and the one that makes the difference IMHO, is not belief in an afterlife. It is a focus on liberty rather than fear.]

[ADDENDUM: And then there’s this church bombing, which may or may not have been a false flag operation.]

Trump: the country’s not closing down if there’s a second wave

The New Neo Posted on by

I think his instincts are correct on this:

“People say that’s a very distinct possibility. It’s standard. And we’re going to put out the fires. We’re not going to close the country. We’re going to put out the fires,” Trump told reporters during a tour of a Ford manufacturing plant in Ypsilanti, Mich., when asked if he was concerned about a second wave of COVID-19.

Trump expressed confidence in the country’s ability to contain future outbreaks, referring to them as “embers.”

“Whether it’s an ember or a flame, we’re going to put it out. But we’re not closing our country,” the president continued.

We never did it before, not even with worse viruses. And we can’t afford to do it again, not in terms of life quality, mental and physical health of the non-COVID type, and people’s livelihoods.

In addition, the evidence has amassed that it probably is unnecessary. At the beginning, we needed to buy time. Time has been bought, with a high price. The voices clamoring to stay closed are all on the left, and time has (so far) proven them wrong. I certainly hope it will continue to prove them wrong in terms of COVID. And I hope we can recover from the damage.

We’re hardly alone, either. A lot of countries are facing this situation. Our federalist system, though, allows (so far) governors who wish to be little dictators to bring out their inner tyrant. The courts might stop them, although that takes time.

Speaking of time, this has been quite a couple of months, hasn’t it?

Actually, it’s been quite a couple of years, even before COVID. I remember when Trump was elected, a Democrat friend of mine said, “Well, it certainly won’t be dull.”

She was correct.

Coming attractions: and speaking of Judge Sullivan

The New Neo Posted on by

I was up very late last night, thinking and reading. Or maybe reading and thinking.

When I get hold of a mystery, something that puzzles me and interests me, it’s hard for me to let it go. I often do that in my personal life, and I do that on this blog at times. Sometimes I have an “aha” moment. But sometimes the mystery remains despite hundreds of hours of research.

Yeah, it’s a bit OCD. But to me, it’s fascinating.

One of those puzzles has been Judge Emmet Sullivan. People dismiss what he’s done by saying “oh, he’s just politically biased” or “oh, just gone nuts” or “oh, he must be getting senile.” But none of those explanations ring true for me. As Flynn’s current lawyer Sidney Powell has said (in an interview I saw on TV but don’t have time to search for right now), he was the hero of her book about the miscarriage of justice in the Stevens case. Even Powell is at a loss to explain his behavior now, and doesn’t even try (for good reason; she doesn’t want to raise his ire further).

So last night I read and read and read articles about the judge’s actions in the Flynn case as well as the Stevens case. And I’m happy to say I’ve come up with a theory of what’s really going on. I thought I’d write the first installment today, but other events intervened, and I have a social engagement this evening (Zoom, of course). So I’ve decided to take my time and I hope to write it out in the next few days.

This post was just to whet your appetite.

Russiagate/Spygate/Obamagate overview

The New Neo Posted on by

Russiagate/Spygate/Obamagate is as unwieldy as the names given it. Even though I’ve spent an inordinate number of hours trying to understand its development and steps, and all its different parts and motivations and characters, I haven’t mastered its complexities.

And that’s one of the things the Democrats are counting on. People will throw up their hands in despair, and be more likely to embrace (with relief) the MSM designation of “conspiracy theory,” and just move on to something else.

I’m not about to do that, of course. But I note the fatigue phenomenon.

Fortunately, we have several intrepid souls who have written lengthy pieces about the process that so far appears to be the worst domestic political abuse of power in modern American (perhaps in American) history, and we haven’t even learned all of it yet. I refer you to this article by Eli Lake in Commentary about the whole vile thing, and this by Lee Smith in Tablet, which deals with one particular aspect of its origins and motives.

The Eli Lake article in particular is long, the most complete statement of what happened to Flynn at the hands of the FBI and the Obama administration that I’ve read so far. You may need to do some deep breathing exercises every few minutes as you read it, because of mounting fury.

Judge Sullivan ordered to respond to writ of mandamus

The New Neo Posted on by

By June 1. Good, that’s not far away:

[Hat tip: commenter “Barry Meislin.”]

Voting fraud confession in Philadelphia

The New Neo Posted on by

But we were told this sort of thing didn’t happen. Quelle surprise:

Demuro admitted he tampered with primary elections in 2014, 2015, and 2016. He received around $5,000 to rig these elections.

Demuro was a municipal Judge of Elections in Philadelphia and an official in the Democratic Party. The numbers involved in his confession were small, but the elections were local primaries which I assume involved small populations. I also don’t see why something similar couldn’t be done on a larger scale in state and/or national elections. And I assume it has been, and is very difficult to catch.

Has COVID caused the left to tip its hand too soon?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been somewhat puzzled by the extreme reaction of the leftist governors to COVID.

Don’t get me wrong; I think I understand what’s behind it: some combination of extreme eagerness to control the peons under their rule, and exploitation and drumming up of fear in the populace. Let’s not forget, also, that they think/hope that tanking the economy will help them as well, both by causing people to blame Trump (or at least make him lose bragging rights to the booming economy we had just a short while ago) and by increasing government dependency. And they also know they have the wind of fawning MSM coverage at their backs.

Then why am I puzzled? Because I think what many of them are doing is so stifling, arbitrary, stupid, nasty, and pervasive that it’s causing a backlash even in blue states. How widespread that backlash will become is anyone’s guess.

Barack Obama was no genius, although I’ve always contended he’s a smart guy. But he was a genius at one thing: hiding his leftism behind a soothing facade, and calibrating his moves. Obama knew how much the populace could take. He was elected without the people knowing much about him, but it was his re-election that was his triumph. And I think the only reason Hillary wasn’t elected after him was that her personality was so off-putting. And even then, she nearly did it, so although there was a backlash to Obama (which at least in part accounted for Trump’s election), it wasn’t anywhere near as large as I would have hoped.

But these governors don’t share Obama’s skill at knowing how much their constituents will tolerate. At least, I think they run that risk. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the appetite of states such as Michigan and New York for leftist tyranny is almost limitless. If so, however, it would be a recent phenomenon for Michigan. Before Whitmer, Michigan had a Republican governor. Even New York had a Republican governor as recently as 2006 (Pataki).

Could it happen again? Have people woken up?

I don’t want to make too much of news like this from Virginia, but at least it’s in the right direction:

Staunton, a usually reliable Democratic stronghold in the conservative Shenandoah Valley, went surprisingly Republican in Tuesday’s City Council elections.

The slate of Andrea Oakes, Mark Robertson, Amy Darby and Steve Claffey took the four seats up for grabs in the 2020 local election, giving the Queen City a conservative majority for the first time in recent memory…

How unlikely was this conservative sweep? Hillary Clinton won Staunton in the 2016 presidential election, Barack Obama had won the city in the previous two election cycles, and Democrat Jennifer Lewis pulled 56.5 percent of the vote in her 2018 Sixth District congressional race against Republican Ben Cline, who eventually swept to victory, winning 59.7 percent of the vote district-wide.