Daily Archives: September 24, 2021

The indictment of Washington attorney Michael Sussman accused of lying to the FBI in order to smear Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign reveals the ace up the sleeve of high-powered Democrats. Its a card they played time and again to advance the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory: friends in high places.

They used friends in law enforcement to launch secret investigations; they used friends in the federal government to broaden those investigations; and they used friends in the media to spread the word about Trump and his organization being under investigation.

The Russia fiasco metastasized in large part because those involved in advancing the false allegations had important connections. They used friendships with powerful federal officials to encourage investigations against team Trump. Those targeted by Sussmann and others were unabashed outsiders, and as such lacked the sort of connections the insiders exploited so adroitly.

Sussmann was a partner at the Washington law firm Perkins Coie in 2016, which represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clintons campaign for president. But, according to the indictment handed down by Special Counsel John Durham last week, when he met with the FBIs general counsel, James Baker, to allege that Trump was in cahoots with the Russians, Sussmann claimed he was representing another client. The indictment alleges this was false.

Securing a meeting with the FBIs top lawyer cant have been easy. But for Sussmann it was.

Not just anyone can call up the bureaus general counsel and, with amorphous claims of conspiratorial criminality by a presidential candidate, promptly get a private sit-down. And yet that is exactly what Sussmann did. How? Because, as Baker told congressional investigators, Sussmann came to him based on a preexisting relationship.

In closed-door congressional testimony Oct. 18, 2018, Baker told lawmakers about Sussmanns convoluted claim that a computer server at Trump Tower was in secret contact with a possible Russian government cutout, Alfa Bank. So he was describing a what appeared to be a surreptitious channel of communications communication between some part of President Trumps, Ill say organization but it could be his businesses. I dont mean like The Trump Organization, per se. I mean his enterprises with which he was associated. Some part of that and a an organization associated with a Russian organization associated with the Russian government, and it was conducted in a way so as to make it a covert communications channel.

When Baker asked him how he came upon this information, Sussmann, according to Baker, said that there were some cyber experts that somehow would come across this information and brought it somehow to his attention, and that they were alarmed at what it showed, and that, therefore, they wanted to bring it to the attention of the FBI.

Asked for the names of the experts, Baker said, I dont think I ever found out who these experts were.

Faced with flimsy sourcing for an abstruse allegation, Baker might have been expected to ask a lawyer whose firm was closely aligned with the Democratic Party some probing questions. But if he did, thats now lost in a cloud of foggy recollection. I cant remember, Baker told members of Congress when asked if he knew Sussmann was billing the DNC and the Clinton campaign for his time talking with Baker. I dont specifically remember when I learned that. So I dont know that I had that in my head when he showed up in my office. I just cant remember.

I just find that unbelievable, Rep. Jim Jordan replied, that the guy representing the Clinton campaign, the Democrat National Committee, shows up with information that says we got this, and you dont ask where he got it, you didnt know how he got it. But he got it from some, you know, quote, expert.

Jordan asked Baker whether Sussmann ever mentioned he may have got some of this information from the Democratic National Committee?

I am not sure what I knew about that at the time, Baker said a failure of memory that Sussmanns lawyers are sure to take advantage of.

Baker suggested it was a mystery why Sussmann reached out to him and then repeatedly made it clear exactly why Sussmann saw him as a possible collaborator. I had a personal relationship with Michael, Baker said, but youd have to ask him why he decided to pick me.

And so what youre saying is you were the intermediary between Perkins Coie and the FBI because of your personal relationship with that attorney? then-Rep. Mark Meadows asked.

I believe so, Baker answered but he did so with the caveat: Youd have to ask Michael why he came to me.One plausible answer Sussmann could have givenwas that going to Baker was the best way to achieve his goal after all, Baker did pass the information on to bureau investigators, and there would soon be stories in Slate and the New York Times telling of an FBI probe into Trump and Russia.

For his part, Sussmann told congressional investigators that when he met with Baker, he told him, I wasnt looking for the FBI to do anything. I had no ask. I had no requests.

Sussmann wasnt the only old friend feeding Russia conspiracy stories to James Baker. In the fall of 2016, another Washingtonian with the general counsels ear was David Corn, the Washington bureau chief of the left-wing magazine Mother Jones.

David had part of what is now referred to as the Steele dossier and he talked to me about that and wanted to provide that to the FBI, Baker told lawmakers. And so, even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands of the FBI.

How did a Mother Jones reporter/columnist get chosen to drop a dime on Trump with the FBI?

David is a friend of mine

Longtime friend?

Longtime friend.

When did you first meet Mr. Corn?

Years and years and years ago, Baker said to congressional investigators. Our kids carpooled together. We carpooled with them when our kids were little.

As with the materials from Sussmann, Baker took dossier sections from David Corn and passed them on to FBI counterintelligence agents.

Having such relationships was seen not as a liability, not as a risk of bias, but instead as something that boosts the credibility of those passing along information.

Consider former British agent Christopher Steele, who had a knack for cultivating friends in high places. In 2007 he met Bruce Ohr at an organized crime conference. They would continue to meet about once or twice a year, whenever Ohr was in London or Steele was in Washington. Orbis, the private intelligence firm Steele formed after he left MI6, produced a steady stream of short reports; Steele shared them with Ohr.

Their friendship developed to the point that, in the spring of 2010, Ohr connected Steele with the FBI and pushed for the bureau to make his friend a paid FBI informant, a confidential human source. The relationship he built over the years with Ohr would prove helpful when Ohr became one of the highest-ranking career officials at the Department of Justice, associate deputy attorney general especially since Steele wasnt the only one cultivating a connection with Bruce Ohr.

Ohr had also become personally acquainted with Glenn Simpson at the same sort of policy conferences year after year. That relationship was reinforced when the opposition research firm Simpson co-founded, Fusion GPS, hired Ohrs wife, Nellie, as an independent contractor.

When it came time for Steele to tap Ohr in launching a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, Steele used all the trappings of friendship among international sophisticates: He took the Ohrs to breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington.

Not long before the 2016 election, Christopher Steele had a falling out with the FBI, which had discovered he was not honoring the confidential part of his agreement to be a confidential human source. But thanks to Steele and Simpsons relationships with Bruce Ohr, Steeles ability to influence the FBI was not lost. He began to funnel his spurious tales through Bruce Ohr to the bureau. Lawmakers asked James Baker why the FBI having shut down Steele as an official source turned to Bruce Ohr as a way to continue gathering information from Steele. Baker saw Ohrs friendship with Steele as an asset, not a liability: Bruce, Baker said, had some type of preexisting relationship with the source.

Ohr wasnt the only official Steele cultivated; he had also become pals with Jonathan Winer sometime around 2000. During the Obama administration, Winer was a top State Department officer. And while at Foggy Bottom, Winer didnt forget his old friend from London. For years, Winer encouraged colleagues at State to read the research reports produced by Steeles private intel company, Orbis. Winer distributed well over 100 of Steeles intel memos to Victoria Nulands State Department Eurasia team.

He also promoted Steele himself: Toria and Paul, Three reports from Orbis, Winer wrote in a November 2014 email, showing his nickname and first-name basis with Toria Nuland and Paul W. Jones, her deputy. He added, The man behind them and Orbis, Chris Steele (as previously mentioned, former MI6 Russia expert, and a trusted friend of mine) is in DC next couple of days. If youd like to meet with him, let me know and I can put it together. Winer promoted Steeles dossier with no less vigor and enthusiasm, distributing it among his friends at State.

From Michael Sussmanns relationship with the FBIs general counsel, Jim Baker, to Bakers friendship with David Corn of Mother Jones; from Bruce Ohrs long connection with Christopher Steele to Steeles decade-long association with Jonathan Winer, the stealthy dissemination of allegations against Trump, his businesses and his staff remains a blueprint of how Washington works.

This article was first published by RealClearInvestigations on Sept. 22, 2020.

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How Old Friends In High Places Assembled The Russia Collusion Hoax - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, actor, producer, and director Greg Ellis joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss his book The Respondent: Exposing the Cartel of Family Law.

Family law is the one branch of our legal system I found out that doesnt provide a presumption of innocence. So, in essence, that means that partners, spouses, parents, good law-abiding citizens arent afforded the same rights that criminals get, Ellis said. That astounded me and I think many people arent aware of this. I wasnt. I was ignorant, completely oblivious until this happened to me.

The push for social justice, Ellis said, is popular right now but he thinks men often get overlooked.

Everyone should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The presumption of innocence, Ellis said. But I think more and more thats not happening and thats more and more not happening with men.

Here is the original post:

How Our Ailing Culture Fuels The 'Cartel' Of Family Law - The Federalist

Federal officials are releasing thousands of illegal aliens into the United States as an influx of Haitian migrants overwhelms officials in Del Rio, Texas, a new report from the Associated Press suggests.

The Biden administration has repeatedly claimed it is countering the influx of illegal aliens at the southern border by ordering expulsions under Title 42, but data showsthe government is not near as vigilant about enforcing that policy as it appears to be.

Haitian migrants in Del Rio, the report indicates, are being let go from federal custody on a very, very large scale as President Joe Bidens border agency struggles to process and contain the approximately 14,000 illegal aliens camped out in foul and soiled conditions under International Bridge.

Some of the migrants released into the United States were directed to report themselves to an immigration office within the next two months, but reports indicate that only a small percentage of illegals caught and then released by the government actually follows through on self-reporting.

Despite footage, pictures, and reports of what is happening in Del Rio, the Biden administration is pushing aside the opportunity to address the crisis in favor of lying to the American public about their role in creating it.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in a press briefing this week that the Biden administration is expelling illegal aliens and claimed that the COVID-19 protocols for other foreign nationals shouldnt apply to migrants.

These are individuals we noted and discussed we are expelling individuals based on Title 42,specifically because of COVID,and we want to prevent ascenariowhere a large number of people are gathering and posing a threat tothe community and the migrantsthemselves.Those are the policieswe put in place in large partbecause again the CDC recommends Title 42, she said.

Later, she reiterated on CBS Mornings that we are still implementing Title 42.

We are going to send people out of the country who come in as we implement that, she said.

A COVID safety protocol? one of the hosts asked.

Exactly, Psaki confirmed.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN on Monday that the federal government has an obligation to execute on the Title 42 authority, which is a public health authority in a time of pandemic that is held by the Centers for Disease Control, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection data suggests that just under 45 percent of the 156,641 unique encounters dealt with by the agency in August resulted in expulsion under the COVID-19 policy.

If you come to the United States illegally, you will be returned, your journey will not succeed, and you will be endangering your life and your familys life, Mayorkas also said on Monday.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

Excerpt from:

Report: Federal Authorities Releasing Thousands Of Illegal Aliens Into US - The Federalist

CNN darling Brian Stelter told his viewers last week that the indictments that resulted from Special Counsel John Durhams probe and the attention it received from conservative media outlets were a total bust, further modeling the complicity of outlets like CNN in the attempt to smear former President Donald Trump.

Take the latest news about the Durham probe. Thats the investigation into the origins of the FBIs Russia probe. In and around Fox News-land, the Durham probe is a very big deal. Guys like Sean Hannity have been hyping it for years, promising it would knock the socks off the deep state. But its basically been a total bust. Poor Sean, Stelter said.

Stelter claimed that the pro-Trump fan base was misled. The host also indicted Fox News and other right-leaning media outlets for calling the Russia collusion stuff a hoax.

Lie, rinse, and repeat, Stelter said.

Stelters rant comes shortly after Democrat attorney Michael Sussmann was charged with lying to the FBI about his relationship with Hillary Clintons presidential campaign. At the time in 2016, Sussman fed the U.S. intelligence agency information about alleged communications between former President Trump and a Russian bank.

CNN, and many other corporate media outlets such as the New York Times and MSNBC, were complicit in spreading and promoting false information about Trump and his ties to Russia. Instead of addressing their own mistakes, however, many like Stelter are spinning the narrative on its head to blame Fox News and conservative media for pointing out the flaws and lies in the corporate coverage of the Russia collusion hoax.

MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade hinted that the Durham probe was the true hoax.

It may be that Durham is using this indictment as a vehicle to disseminate what he has found to the public so that Trump and his allies can paint a false equivalence between the conduct of the Trump and Clinton campaigns, she wrote.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Brian Stelter Calls Durham Probe A 'Bust,' Despite Ample Evidence Of Incompetence In The Industry He's Paid To Cover - The Federalist

(Watch the video for a monologue on this article and an interview with The American Conservatives Shaun Rieley on finding the path of good in a sometimes grey and painful world.)

Dear God, I ask you that you help me get out of here and that you take care of my mom.

Thats a prayer that the bishop of El Paso, Texas brought to a meeting of 20 Catholic bishops and Vatican officials. Its a childs prayer, written in Spanish, collected from a migrant in a tent city south of the border. Its heart-wrenching; theres no soul as innocent as a childs, and in this simple plea, it shows.

But theres no peace coming to children like these; not right now, in this moment at least not in this world.

The images flickering across American television screens this past year, and particularly these past couple of weeks, show that clearly. They are scenes of terrible suffering, of fear, exploitation, disease, trafficking in drugs and women and children, of rape and sexual assault, of human slavery and human desperation. They are scenes borne of weakness, lawlessness, and the criminal exploitation of the vacuum that lawlessness creates.

And heres what might be the most tragic aspect: The bishops of the Catholic Church bear a lot of responsibility for this disaster.

Its a hard charge to make and not one to be taken lightly, but its true: They help make this possible. How? Through their promotion to open borders a strict adherence that warps Gods call to love our neighbors, and misunderstands the criminal situation at the border.

Take a look at how quickly they condemned President Donald Trumps moves to seal the southern border and liberate it from the control of drug cartels. Look at the statement they released condemning the construction of a border wall, which they bafflingly claimed would undermine the right to freedom of worship.

Or look at how theyve repeatedly denounced both the Trump and Biden administrations for using Title 42 of the U.S. code to expedite deportations of illegal arrivals in the United States. If theres a step the United States can take to enforce its immigration laws, the bishops oppose it loudly and swiftly.

Now compare that with the hard fight some of our bravest bishops had to wage to protect life. Its been an uphill slog and its a wonder its come as far as it has.

But the difference between the two is not as surprising as you might at first think. The [United States Conference of Catholic Bishops] collected $50 million for migration and refugee services for the year 2020, most of which came from the federal government, Lepanto Institute President Michael Hichbor told the news site Church Militant. During that same period, he added, the U.S. bishops collected a meager $777,000 for pro-life activities.

That isnt to say the bishops arent pro-life; of course they are. Nor is it to say they are guilty of the humanitarian crisis on our border; they arent working as human smugglers and they arent running our ineffectual government.

But more than any other religious group, it is Americas Catholic bishops who lend moral support and cover to the current border situation, and who thunder against any change in the status quo that might possibly mean fewer illegal immigrants and fewer victimized children in tents run by criminal gangs just praying to God to protect them and their mothers.

This is a distinction with meaning: Its important to separate guilt from responsibility, just as its crucial for us to understand what our duty as faithful Catholics is to our country and her people, to our just laws and our future, to our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering and in distress, and to our salvation.

We live in a fallen world, and while we rightly desire one free of war and borders, that world is not and never will be ours until the Kingdom comes. This means until then, the Christian imperative to welcome the stranger comes with duties and responsibilities including preserving the society that welcomes him.

As a moral and Christian people, we have a religious duty to be welcoming and to take people into our care. There are a lot of excuses not to its not an easy command but there are precious few good reasons not to; the kind of reasons that will pass muster with God. There are, however, limits to how we limited men are able to love, and so there are limits on how we are called to charity. In St. Thomas Aquinass greatest work, Summa Theologiae, the renowned doctor of the church explains the order of charity, beginning with God at the center and moving out from ourselves to our family and nearest neighbors. God does not ask us to feed the hungry at the expense of our children, or to shelter the stranger by turning out the widows and orphans already among us.

And while we have an ordered call to charity, we dont have a religious duty to have no nations, no laws, and no order. In the New Testament and Old, we see individuals and families in strange lands, sometimes as refugees. We are shown their example, and over and over again you will see these same holy men and women act with respect toward their hosts. They dont break their laws, and when they do they flee.

Its difficult to understand how breaking our laws, disregarding our customs, and evading our lawful and justly stationed officers to cross our border against our wishes can be called an act of love, even if the perpetrators are deserving of charity once apprehended or turned back.

Nor are charity and love things our country lacks: Since the mid-1960s, we have taken in more than 60 million 60 million legal immigrants from all around the world. To put that in perspective, there are currently 330 million people in the United States.

This is the largest immigration wave in history. Not American history world history. If there is any country or any civilization anywhere at any point that has experienced anything like this, theres no trace left of them. And we did this voluntarily.

Does this sound like a place that doesnt welcome the refugee? Does this sound like a country that turn[s] away the vulnerable? Or one that does not answer the call to act with compassion towards those in need and to work together to find humane solutions, as the bishops have said?

When criticizing our policy that people stay in Mexico while applying, the bishops said we must honor the rule of law and respect the dignity of human life, but do they actually believe that?

If they do, then theyre either being foolish or have fallen for the lies our societys open border proponents tell, and this has terrible consequences. Their words and actions help shield and continue a murderous, criminal system that preys on the most vulnerable in our hemisphere and spits in the face of both the rule of law and the dignity of human life.

Once again, this is no exaggeration. Almost everything youve been told by corporate media about the border is a lie. Our border story is not Homeward Bound III, or Fievel Goes North its an organized cartel operation, complete with tagging systems and lines. Its also rife with sexual slavery, labor slavery, and unbelievable cruelty. Everything about the U.S.-Mexico border and what happens there is built on ignoring our laws, ignoring common sense, and ignoring basic humanity in favor of silence and cowardice.

The U.S. has chosen not to control its border, and thats the key word choose. We are easily rich enough and powerful enough to guard a few hundred miles of desert if we wanted. It would cost us one-fiftieth of what was so eagerly spent on a single failed war in Afghanistan. But no, we choose to not control our border. So somebody else controls it in our place. Gary Hale, a drug policy fellow at Rice Universitys Baker Institute in Houston, summed it up: Criminal organizations control the border.

What criminal organizations? The Mexican cartels. They have guns, knives, and the depravity to use both on any who oppose them. The result is a hellscape of human smuggling and exploitation.

A half-century ago, most people illegally crossing the border did so by themselves. Today, more than 95 percent hire a smuggler, many of them tied to the cartels. Human smuggling inevitably means everything that phrase evokes: migrants extorted for all their earthly possessions, young girls subjected to sexual exploitation, drugs and weapons pouring over the border, and people murdered when they see too much, say too much, or simply upset the wrong person.

Even where the Border Patrol does get involved, our own foolish policies are used against us. Word is out that if youre a family its almost certain you wont be deported. So at the border, theres a trade in children, some of whom are passed around to help multiple cross into the United States.

Children as young as two are being transported by the cartels, alone, all the way up from South America. The cartels tell parents now is the time to do it. Its good to take advantage of the moment, because children are able to pass quickly, one Guatemalan smuggler told Reuters. Thats what were telling everyone.

Thats just young children, but there are a lot of other broken parts. Because the United States makes deportation nearly impossible for anyone whose child is a U.S. citizen, pregnant women are making dangerous journeys, hoping to cross over and give birth just across the border.

More than 300 pregnant women are reported to be in that mass of Haitians in Del Rio, Texas. At least five have given birth already.

Because American policy is to let in unaccompanied minors with few questions asked, anybody under 30 with a brain claims to be an unaccompanied 17-year-old; its not like we have any way to check.

How many gang members have we let into the country this way? We dont know, of course when it comes to immigration, we deliberately avoid knowing too much. If we knew the truth, thered be pressure to change things.

Why do we let this insane situation persist? Because the current situation, as horrible as it is, creates a lot of winners. Employers get the low-wage workers they want. The Democratic Party gets the long-term political advantage of transforming this country more rapidly than the American people actually want or vote for. And everybody gets to avoid the discomfort of angering the press and activists by making the hard decision to stand up for the law instead of the easy decision to do nothing.

These are the profit centers, and they are happy for any moral shroud they can hide under. Theyll gleefully shield their misdeeds with the press statements of the Catholic Church.

But the more our moral leaders tolerate it, the more insane the situation at the border becomes. The way to ebb this humanitarian crisis is to stop feeding it. When America acts as a nation of laws where people have to arrive legally then the border crisis disappears, as it did in the final year of the Trump administration. But when we send the message that our laws mean nothing and anybody can get in if they know the magic words then more and more people show up. Nearly two million so far this year, and more are coming every day.

Theres an important role for the bishops to play in this human drama, as is true of all our politics. The root of the word politics, after all, is politik, a Greek word to describe the affairs of the city affairs the church cant afford to sit out of.

In 1962, for example, the bishop of New Orleans excommunicated three prominent Catholic segregationists for defying the churchs desegregation order, despite angry cries that he should not meddle in politics. Similarly today, church leaders fighting the evils of abortion are told to mind their business to stay out of the affairs of the city. There can be no accepting this.

While it might be upsetting to the chirping secretaries of our Commanding Heights, the ancient knowledge of the church has much to contribute on questions of economics.

But God does not call us to violate just laws for charity; nor to love all with equal good deeds and intensity, understanding we cannot extend good deeds to everyone on earth, nor love all with the same intensity. So when church leaders act, they must do so with careful consideration and sound theology, working hard to ensure no single teaching or group of teachings obscures the others to the detriment of the good; striving to make certain justice, charity, and mercy are all weighed.

Much as many bishops have erred in forgetting the necessity of repentance in forgiveness and the mercy and love inherent in just punishment, they have largely failed on the subject of immigration. They have stressed the importance of charity while neglecting the godliness of just order, they have placed a single newsworthy community of poor souls distant from us over an unseen and less glitzy community of poor souls next door and they have not paid proper heed to the harmful effects this charity without justice has had on the lives of the vulnerable (nor the power it has given wicked men).

The results of these mistakes are painful, are deadly, and are on our border every day and night. On this, there can be no confusion; its time for our church to recognize it.

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The Bishops' Misapplication Of Catholic Charity On Our Southern Border - The Federalist