Government Corruption

Opinion/Analysis: Obama should apologize for shameful cash payment to Iran

Since the elimination of Iranian terrorist leader Qassem Soleimani, much of the world has rightfully held its collective breath in fearful anticipation of what might be to come. Iran is indeed a dangerous terrorist state that not only has a powerful standing army, air force, navy and advanced weapons systems — including ballistic missiles and a growing space program — but also controls multiple proxy terrorist organizations responsible for killing and injuring hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. Included on that list of victims are thousands of American military personnel and contractors. These were facts that former President Obama knew when he deliberately chose a policy of appeasement and cash payoffs instead of strength and accountability as the way to deal with Iran. President Trump spelled this out in no uncertain terms on Wednesday when he addressed the nation while seeking to dial down the imminent threat Iran may pose to our nation, the Middle East and the world. Said the president in part, “Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013 and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash. … Then, Iran went on a terror spree, funded by the money from the deal and created hell in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. The missiles fired last night at us and our allies were paid for with the funds made available by the last administration.” As we have seen and heard, some — especially Democrats, their allies in the media and Obama supporters — chose to challenge or quibble with Trump’s statement. That said, I spoke with a former senior intelligence official who said that much of the $1.8 billion cash payoff from the Obama administration was used explicitly to fund terrorism as an additional “screw you” from the leaders of Iran — including Soleimani — to the United States. The rest of the money, my source believes, ended up in the bank accounts of corrupt Iranian leaders and terrorists. The cash payment authorized by Obama is one of the most disgraceful and shameful “negotiations” in the history of our nation. It was a payment the Obama White House first denied, then ignored and then grudgingly acknowledged. We paid in cash, but not U.S. currency. Wary of using U.S. bills for a variety of reasons involving concealment, the Obama White House had the money converted to untraceable Euros, Swiss francs, and other foreign currencies. More troubling than those initial denials and deceptions was the fact that $400 million of that all-cash payment was used to pay a ransom to the government of Iran for the release of four American prisoners, in violation of standing U.S. policy. In a pathetic attempt to hide behind semantics, the Obama administration finally did acknowledge that $400 million was delayed as “leverage” until the Americans were allowed to leave Iran. While the Obama White House hid from the true definition of the word “leverage,” Iran’s state-run media was more than happy to brag that Iran had just forced the United States to pay a ransom. Former Congressman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), who chaired the House Foreign Affairs Committee at that time, condemned the deal: “Sending the world’s leading state sponsor of terror pallets of untraceable cash isn’t just terrible policy. It’s incredibly reckless, and it only puts bigger targets on the backs of Americans.” Former Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) seconded Royce’s warning: “Paying ransom to kidnappers puts Americans even more at risk. … The White House’s policy of appeasement has led Iran to illegally seize more American hostages.” Said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), “President Obama’s disastrous nuclear deal with Iran was sweetened with an illicit ransom payment and billions of dollars for the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.” What many Americans don’t realize is that the Obama White House took the ransom money from something called the “Judgment Fund,” which is administered by the Treasury. That little-known account is entirely paid for by American taxpayers and was set up in such a way that Obama could bypass congressional approval to pay the cash to Iran. Those who continually praise and defend Obama often describe him as “brilliant.” There is no doubt the former president is an intelligent person, certainly bright enough to realize — and admit, at least to himself — that the cash he turned over to the murderous regime leading Iran to ruin was not used for altruistic purposes. Any honest assessment would conclude that at least part of that secretive, massive payment was used to finance terrorist attacks against Americans, our allies and innocent civilians. Trump is correct on that point. For that reason, Obama should apologize for the thousands wounded and killed in terrorist attacks since Iran took possession of that tainted cash. That is his debt to pay.

Exactly!!!  Thanks to Douglas MacKinnon for that absolutely spot-on analysis.  Douglas is a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.  Keep everything you said in mind as you read the next article about John Kerry.  Excellent!!     🙂

Schumer wants ‘impartial’ impeachment trial for Trump but didn’t want one for Clinton: Report

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer took a hit in the liberal media Friday when CNN reported the New York Democrat argued repeatedly during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the late 1990s that the Senate wasn’t an impartial “jury box.” Mr. Schumer has criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in recent days for describing himself as “not an impartial juror” in advance of President Trump’s impeachment trial. “That is an astonishing admission of partisanship,” Mr. Schumer said on the Senate floor of his Republican counterpart. But Mr. Schumer campaigned for the Senate in 1998 on a pledge not to impeach or convict Mr. Clinton, CNN noted, and he gave several television interviews in 1998 and 1999 in which he described the Senate as “quite different from a jury” during impeachment trials. “We have a pre-opinion,” Mr. Schumer said on “Larry King Live” in January 1999, referring to himself and two newly elected Republican senators who had voted on impeachment as House members in 1998 and planned to vote in Mr. Clinton’s Senate trial. “This is not a criminal trial, but this is something that the Founding Fathers decided to put in a body that was susceptible to the whims of politics.” Mr. King asked him in the interview, “So therefore, anybody taking an oath tomorrow can have a pre-opinion; it’s not a jury box.” “Many do,” Mr. Schumer replied. “And then they change. In fact, it’s also not like a jury box in the sense that people will call us and lobby us. You don’t have jurors called and lobbied and things like that. I mean, it’s quite different than a jury. And we’re also the judge.” As a lame-duck member of the House Judiciary Committee in 1998, Mr. Schumer voted against Mr. Clinton’s impeachment. Then as a senator in 1999, he voted to acquit Mr. Clinton.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is such a brazen hypocrite.  Its hard to even listen to him.  He’s such a sleazy, self-serving politician.  What a tool…  For more, click on the text above.

Durham’s investigation into possible FBI misconduct is now criminal probe, sources say

U.S. Attorney John Durham’s ongoing probe into potential FBI and Justice Department misconduct in the run-up to the 2016 election through the spring of 2017 has transitioned into a full-fledged criminal investigation, two sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News on Thursday night. One source added that DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s upcoming report on alleged FBI surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign will shed light on why Durham’s probe has become a criminal inquiry. Horowitz announced on Thursday his report would be available to the public soon, with “few” redactions. The investigation’s new status means Durham can subpoena witnesses, file charges, and impanel fact-finding grand juries. Fox News reported on Tuesday that Durham’s probe had expanded significantly based on new evidence uncovered during a recent trip to Rome with Attorney General Bill Barr. Barr reportedly told embassy officials in Italy that he “needed a conference room to meet high-level Italian security agents where he could be sure no one was listening in.” A source in the Italian Ministry of Justice told The Daily Beast earlier this month that Barr and Durham were played a taped deposition made by Joseph Mifsud, the professor who allegedly told ex-Trump aide George Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. Mifsud reportedly was explaining to investigators in the deposition why people would want to harm him, and why he needed police protection. Papadopoulos has suggested he was connected with Mifsud as part of a setup orchestrated by intelligence agencies. Sources told Fox News that Durham was “very interested” to question former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump critic who recently dismissed the idea. The New York Times reported Thursday that Durham’s criminal review has prompted some CIA officials to obtain criminal legal counsel in anticipation of being interviewed. Brennan and Clapper were at the helm not only when Mifsud spoke to Papadopoulos, but also when an unverified and largely discredited dossier, written by British ex-spy Christopher Steele and funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, was used to help justify a secret surveillance warrant against former Trump adviser Carter Page in the run-up to the 2016 election. (The Times’ reporting on Thursday, which overtly framed Durham’s probe as politically tainted without evidence, did not mention the Steele dossier at all.) The FBI apparently obscured the fact that the Clinton campaign and DNC funded the dossier in its warrant application, telling the secret court only that the dossier was prepared at the behest of an unidentified presidential campaign. Additionally, in its original FISA application and subsequent renewals, the FBI told the FISA court it “did not believe” Steele was the direct source for a Yahoo News article implicating Page in Russian collusion. Instead, the FBI suggested to the secret court, the September 2016 article by Michael Isikoff was independent corroboration of the dossier. But, London court records showed that contrary to the FBI’s assessments, Steele briefed Yahoo News and other reporters in the fall of 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS. It has further emerged that Steele had communications with a State Department contact — which were relayed to the FBI — in which Steele claimed the Russians were running a “technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election” and that “payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian Consulate in Miami.” There is no Russian consulate in Miami, a fact the State Department official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, emphasized in her notes. And, Steele had suggested his client was “keen” to see his information come to light prior to Election Day. Kavalec forwarded her notes to the FBI and other government officials several days before the FISA warrant was issued for Page. Additionally, Special Counsel Robert Mueller was unable to substantiate other key claims in the dossier, including that the Trump campaign employed hackers in the United States, that there was a compromising recording of the president in a hotel room, and that ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen flew to Prague to build a conspiracy with hackers. Cohen has denied ever heading to Prague, and no public evidence has contradicted that claim.

Uh oh!!  Boy are the Dems and their willing accomplices in the dominantly liberal mainstream media losing their minds.  They can’t stand that the shoe is now on the other foot.  Rachel Maddow nearly had a meltdown last night on MSNBC.  The whole Russia so-called “collusion” hoax is unraveling, and those responsible for creating it in an attempt to undue the results of the 2016 election are the ones now being investigated.  Some of them will probably end up going to jail.  Guess we’ll see..  This story is developing..  Sit back and pop some popcorn..  This is gonna be fun to watch!      🙂

Video appears to contradict Warren’s suggestion that school fired her over pregnancy

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., suggested this week that a school principal effectively fired her from a teaching job after she became “visibly pregnant,” but a resurfaced video indicates that wasn’t the actual reason she left the job. “I was married at nineteen and then graduated from college [at the University of Houston] after I’d married,” Warren, then a Harvard Law School professor, said in an interview posted to YouTube in 2008. “My first year post-graduation, I worked — it was in a public school system but I worked with the children with disabilities. I did that for a year, and then that summer I actually didn’t have the education courses, so I was on an ’emergency certificate,’ it was called. “I went back to graduate school and took a couple of courses in education and said, ‘I don’t think this is going to work out for me,'” Warren continued. “I was pregnant with my first baby, so I had a baby and stayed home for a couple of years, and I was really casting about, thinking, ‘What am I going to do?'” By contrast, Warren told an audience at a town hall in Carson City, Nev. Wednesday that she had “loved” working as a special needs teacher. “By the end of the first year, I was visibly pregnant, and the principal did what principals did in those days,” she said. “Wish me luck and hire someone else for the job.” Warren has repeated the story at campaign appearances throughout the summer, each time repeating the “principal did what principals did” line to describe her departure from teaching. The senator’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment to clarify the apparent discrepancy. This isn’t the first time that Warren’s past has raised questions about her credibility. She has been widely criticized for identifying herself as a Native American in legal directories before applying to work at Harvard Law School. Last year, Warren released the results of a DNA test showing she is only between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American — and apologized for identifying as Native American on past forms.

Sen. Warren (D-MA) is a pathological liar.  So, this really isn’t anything new.  It’s just par for the course.  But, we wanted to make sure we passed this latest example along…because the dominantly liberal mainstream media sure won’t.

Tucker Carlson: The real reason Obama intel officials don’t want you to know how they spied on Americans

On Tuesday, the Washington Post, our hometown newspaper here in the nation’s capital, published an op-ed by former FBI Director Jim Comey. In the piece, Comey explains that whatever surveillance the Obama Justice Department conducted on the 2016 Trump campaign was entirely justified and within bounds — nothing weird about it at all. Yes, American citizens were monitored electronically without their knowledge, but it wasn’t spying. Of course, it wasn’t “spying.” It was “investigating.” It was done for your own good. And if you don’t like it, you’re unpatriotic and possibly, mentally ill. That’s Comey’s position. What the op-ed did not contain was any evidence at all that what he said is true. Comey is a bitter partisan with a long history of shading the truth. But he suggests you’ve got to trust him anyway. It’s your duty to trust him. Okay, well, here’s another idea. We could see for ourselves exactly what happened in 2016. We could declassify all the relevant information and then make it public. That way, we wouldn’t have to take anyone’s word for what happened — Comey’s word, President Trump’s word, or anyone else’s word. The president has suggested doing just that. The left is outraged by the idea. “Trump has every reason to believe Barr will use his new powers to aid the President’s anti-deep state propaganda efforts,” MSNBC host Chris Hayes said to viewers. “Trump giving Barr unilateral authority over classification is just a huge deal in the world of Intelligence agencies. Barr will be able to override other agencies’ independent classification determinations. And the goal of all this here seems pretty clear. It’s basically to give Sean Hannity material for his television show. So the plan, as it appears now, is essentially a kind of purge of the ideologically suspect members of the intelligence apparatus.” It’s a purge, like Joseph Stalin! Unless we stop the release of this information, people will die! That’s what they’re telling you. Just another day of balanced news coverage on MSNBC. Keep in mind, as you watch and rewatch that clip, that Chris Hayes is not a flack for the CIA. He’s a member of the national press corps. But he isn’t arguing for openness — just the opposite. Hayes is using his position as a public advocate to argue against giving the public more information. These are not military secrets, by the way, or the names of U.S. agents working undercover overseas. The information in question is about how the FBI spied on Americans while investigating crimes that we now know did not occur. So what could possibly be the justification for keeping all of that secret? Really, the only justification would be to protect the intel agencies from embarrassment. That’s what they fear. And that’s exactly why the former director of the CIA, John Brennan, and so many others are anxious to preserve the veil of secrecy. “I think it’s critically important that the counterintelligence professionals continue to carry out their responsibilities and resist these unwarranted and very, very irresponsible efforts to try to undermine what they’re doing,” Brennan said on MSNBC. So John Brennan thinks it’s risky, unwarranted, “very irresponsible” to let American citizens know whether their law enforcement agencies abused their power. That kind of transparency is, again, irresponsible. What if we applied the same standards to John Brennan himself? You know that after leaving the White House, Brennan was allowed to keep his security clearance, and that clearance increased his value as an employee once he entered the private sector. It allowed him, among other things, access to classified information, which he could then selectively leak to his colleagues at MSNBC. So how does giving classified information to John Brennan help American national security? Well, it doesn’t. It helps only John Brennan. Keep in mind, this is a man who has accused his political enemies of treason, a death penalty offense. “This is nothing short of treasonous, because it is a betrayal of the nation,” he said of Trump last year. “He is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Treasonous is defined as a betrayal of trust, as well as aiding and abetting the enemy. And so that was the word that came to my mind.” That was for Trump’s “crime” of holding a press conference with Vladimir Putin last summer in Finland. He was talking with the Russian president. This is not stable behavior. John Brennan is exactly the sort of person who should not have a security clearance.

Agreed 100%!  Thanks to Tucker Carlson for that spot-on op/ed.  Having spent more than two decades in the intel community myself,  I wholeheartedly agree with Tucker’s assessment.  John Brennan is a self-righteous, partisan, agenda-driven hypocrite who has NO need to retain his clearance, and frankly is an embarrassment to the intel community.  For more of this article, click on the text above.

William Barr confirms expanded Justice Department probe of Russia-Clinton links

Attorney General William P. Barr revealed Wednesday that the Justice Department is looking into the possibility that Russian operatives fed disinformation to the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential election season. Mr. Barr told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about the expanded scope of a review into “the activities over the summer of 2016,” which included vehemently anti-Trump FBI senior officials making key decisions on the investigations of Mrs. Clinton and Republican candidate Donald Trump. One key question is how much the FBI relied on the dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, using information gleaned from Russian sources, which helped spur the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. The dossier was funded by payments from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee that were hidden in campaign finance reports behind payments to a law firm. Republican senators said it’s possible that Mr. Steele’s Russian sources were intentionally feeding him disinformation, which then made it to the highest levels of the FBI. Indeed, former FBI Director James B. Comey’s first personal interaction with Mr. Trump was to brief him on the Steele dossier shortly before his inauguration in January 2017. “That’s the definition of collusion,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the chamber’s senior Republican. Mr. Barr said he doesn’t know the answer — yet. “That is one of the areas that I’m reviewing. I’m concerned about it, and I don’t think it’s entirely speculative,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

One word…karma.  What goes around, comes around.  Now the shoe is on the other foot, and AG Barr is rightfully assembling a team to look into how this whole nonsense actually started.  The whole things was based on lies and a brazen abuse of power by the Obama DOJ.  Pop some popcorn and get ready to sit back and watch the fireworks as the heads of Dems explode over this.  They fed America the lie that their duly-elected President was a traitor and a Russian plant.  Now, we know the whole Russian collusion narrative was a hoax; a hoax perpetrated by Dems and their willing accomplices in the dominantly liberal mainstream media.  AG Barr is gonna investigate how it started, and follow the trail wherever it leads.  And corrupt Dems are nervous as heck, which is why they’re disingenuously crying foul.  This is gonna be fun!  For more, click on the text above.   🙂

Remember Solyndra? Loss of taxpayer millions now seems forgotten, expert says

It’s been exactly ten years since the Solyndra solar power company accepted a loan of half a billion taxpayer dollars that would never be repaid. Now one industry expert says he’s not sure any lessons have been learned in the years since. On March 20, 2009, then-Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced Solyndra would be the recipient of a $535 million loan from his department under the Obama administration’s revamped loan guarantee program. Solyndra used the money, along with hundreds-of-millions more from private investors, to build a new facility where it would be mass-producing its easy-to-install cylindrical solar “panels.” The whole thing lasted about two years. The ill-fated energy company had initially asked President George Bush for cash under the loan guarantee program, which was created to help companies working with clean energy technologies that might be considered too risky for private investors. But it wasn’t until President Obama launched his sweeping stimulus spending plan that Solyndra’s application was approved, launching the California company to poster-child status despite what were apparently growing concerns about its long-term (and even short-term) viability. Those concerns were reportedly being relayed to the White House in the run-up to President Obama’s highly publicized visit to Solyndra headquarters, which was scheduled just six months before the 2010 midterm elections. Congressional investigators later uncovered information indicating that Solyndra was planning on laying off some of its employees ahead of the midterms, but waited due to pressure from the White House. By the end of August 2011, little more than a year after hosting a presidential visit, Solyndra had filed for bankruptcy. And the writing was on the wall much earlier. In Feburary 2011, the Department of Energy had restructured its loan and included terms that guaranteed private investors would be repaid before the government in the event the company went under. Adding to the anger among Republicans over what was perceived as a politically-charged loan process was the fact that one of the private investors backing Solyndra was a well-known Obama fundraising bundler, George Kaiser. A little more than a week after the company announced it was going bankrupt, the FBI conducted a surprise raid and agents were seen carrying crates upon crates from Solyndra HQ in Fremont, Calif. A 2015 Inspector General report found that Solyndra had over-inflated the value of some of its contracts, with some clients apparently receiving goods at a discount despite indications they would be paying full price. Some of the clients they had been counting on wound up bailing due to the availability of much cheaper technologies from China. Either way, the IG report indicates that “the investigative record suggests that the actions of certain Solyndra officials were, at best, reckless and irresponsible or, at worst, an orchestrated effort to knowingly and intentionally deceive and mislead the Department.” The IG admits that there were signs the government might have missed some obvious red flags, while critics have argued those red flags were more likely overlooked intentionally. The loan guarantee program that helped Solyndra get off the ground, however briefly, still exists today, and taxpayer dollars are still being shelled out to energy companies of all types. The solar industry itself also doesn’t seem to have suffered much, with a recent industry report predicting the number of installed solar projects would more than double by 2021. Tom Pyle, an energy industry expert who led the Trump presidential transition team on energy, says the program’s ongoing existence despite the lessons learned from the Solyndra debacle shows that government has no business backing private energy companies, whether they’re solar or not. “Even though President Trump has submitted very responsible budgets, including eliminating the loan program, Congress continues to fund it… even more generously,” Pyle said. And when he considers the prospects of our energy future under proposals like the Green New Deal, Pyle says the lack of knowledge becomes all the more obvious. “The bottom line is the Green New Dealers want to impose massive government control of our energy resources, and infuse billions of our taxpayer dollars into doubling down on the Solyndras and those projects,” Pyle says. “So there aren’t lessons being learned here, they’re going the opposite way.”

Agreed 100%