Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Tear It Down and Salt The Earth
When I was a child I read about the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. I was very impressed with what I read about the end of Carthage:
Starting in the 19th century,[74] various texts claim that after defeating the city of Carthage in the Third Punic War (146 BC), the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ordered the city be sacked, forced its surviving inhabitants into slavery, plowed it over and sowed it with salt.
After the quoted text in Wikipedia the author(s) go on to explain that there seems to be little actual archeological evidence for the “salt sowing”. But that does not erase it from my childhood memory and the impression it made upon me.
And so it was that the thought in the post title came to me in reading the report from Judicial Watch that the Obama Administration was spreading classified Russiagate information to Senators shortly before Trump’s inauguration:
[I]nvolved in providing classified information to members of the Senate was Naz Durakoglu, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs. In an email dated Thursday, January 19, 2017, with the subject line “Signed, sealed, delivered” Durakoglu apparently confirms that Obama State Department officials were eager to provide the classified material before Trump was sworn into office: “We made the deadline!” Durakoglu states [Emphasis added] “Thank you everyone for what was truly a Department-wide effort!”
President Trump was inaugurated less than 24 hours later.
- In a Wednesday, January 18, 2017 email, Naz Durakoglu signed off on the document transmittal letter on behalf of her bureau. This letter accompanied “the documents to Senator Corker and Cardin”
- In a Thursday, January 19, 2017 email, Durakoglu appears to confirm that she is who carried the documents from the State Department to Capitol Hill. She states, “I will be carrying over the cables to the Hill.”
“These documents show remarkable evidence of the non-stop, unethical effort in the Obama State Department to gather and send its own dossier of classified information on Russia in an effort to discredit the incoming Trump administration,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
This is bit more than the sabotage reported by the Clinton White House for the incoming Bush Administration.
Their mission was clearly to “tear it down and salt the earth”. All I can say, is if the defenestration of Trump succeeds may it be paid back in kind — there will be no more constitution as we have known it and relied upon to safeguard us from the power hungry. Progressives (and Never-Trump allies) care not whether it is a bloodless or bloody coup, so long as it is a successful coup.
Published in General
Wow! Thanks for this. I wonder where we would be without Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch has been far more effective than the Republican Congress. (Sigh)
Judicial Watch is one of very few groups doing actual journalism. Kudos to them.
From Trump’s inaugural address:
Those words represent something to be proud of. However, it turned out not be true thanks to the subversive efforts of Team Obama. It had been true for the entire history of the USA–44 successful transfers of power. No country on earth had such a long and perfect record. But now the perfect record is broken and it can never be recovered:( First he poo-pooed American Exceptionalism in public and then proceeded to destroy it in private by corrupting the IRS, FBI, DOS, CIA, NSA, DOJ,…
Am I missing something?
What is the problem with the State Dept providing classified information to members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee?
@klatuu, I can’t comment on what you may be missing. But the report outlines a distribution of the “salacious and unverified” (per Comey) Steele accusations among other things from the States Department. “Classification” highlighted the importance and veracity of the accusations and kept it from meaningful discussion and analysis. Recall that Obama had torn down firewalls on certain classified information between agencies. This facilitated distribution from sources that were not the original recipients of the information, and made tracking who told what to whom and when more difficult. Some (including me) find this behavior problematic. If you do not, there is likely nothing I can say to persuade you to my way of thinking about this.
At the same time the same agencies are discussing WITHHOLDING information from the incoming administration.
Where is the report you speak of? The JW press release does not mention the information including or even pertaining to the Steele dossier.
Might have been “classified” but I think NONE of the Steele paperwork has been verified. By anyone.
Where is it stated this information related to Steele? Is this just being assumed?
I find the oddest thing about this story to be the triumphal “We made the deadline! Thank you everyone for what was truly a department-wide effort!” sent by a Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief of Something-Or-Other, announcing that all of the information had reached its destination prior to Trump’s inauguration.
Why the hurry to get this done? I guess the answer is obvious, but that simple story and that answer, speak volumes.
If only the State Department could muster this sense of urgency for other important matters under its purview. I keep hearing stories that it’s going to take years, or decades, or centuries, to gather up and compile this or that bundle of information to be sent to one congressional or senatorial committee or another. Some of it sounds like pretty important stuff, too. But I don’t see anyone lighting a fire under any of those folks to get it done. Not at the moment, anyway.
I guess one man’s “deadline” is another man’s opportunity to look the other way. The FBI and DOJ seem to think so, anyway. Where is Naz Whatshername when we need her?
I’m sure the answer is obvious to partisans on both sides, completely different but obvious.
Agree. And “volume-speaking” in either case.
And considering that it was the Steele dossier that led to the FISA warrant, it is very revealing – and damning – that no one bothered to verify its contents before allowing it to serve as the cause to bring about the warrant.
It’s not that no one bothered to verify it. It was too good to fact check. Or perhaps they knew it was mostly untrue, and just didn’t care. It got them what they wanted.
Yet so many Americans are still unaware of how politicized the alphabet agencies have become. Someone just tweeted this:
The special counsel allowed phones of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to be wiped in the middle of a scandal involving their texting habits. WTH? Most of corporate America have better controls regarding handling of evidence in minor employment matters than the freaking FBI.
It is so terrifying that Flynn was “brought to justice” over the omission of one aspect of his dealings with Russians when talking to Pence. He omitted telling Pence that sanctions had been discussed with the Russians, and didn’t admit to this omission during an interview with the FBI that Flynn had been told was “no big deal” and there is “no need to bring an attorney.” Other individuals interviewed by the FBI were allowed to correct their statements later on, but not Flynn.
Hillary Clinton is discovered to have deleted some 15,000 emails pertinent to various important matters while she was Secretary of State. The emails might possibly have included aspects of “pay to play” deals with Saudi and Qatar officials, or else Benghazi, and all that is allowed to slide. All because the FBI is dominated by those who are in bed with the Clintons.
Per the OP, I too am fascinated by the story of Carthage. I attribute that to rereading The Aeneid several times over the past few years.
Cato the Elder–AKA Cato the Censor–famously ended a series of speeches with the words, “Carthago delenda est”: “Carthage must be destroyed.” Chesterton fans might appreciate his comments on this quote and on Carthage in the chapter titled “The War of the Gods and the Demons” in The Everlasting Man.
And now back to your regularly scheduled politics… :D
Great historical reference to frame the argument.
There’s a sense of urgency when something may benefit a political party.
Less urgency when, say, someone requests additional security for their compound.
Then not so much. Where are the celebratory emails going around State, high-fiving each other that they increased security and prevented the deaths of 4 people?
“The number of Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) security staff in Benghazi on the day of the attack and in the months and weeks leading up to it was inadequate, despite repeated requests from Special Mission Benghazi and Embassy Tripoli for additional staffing. Board members found a pervasive realization among personnel who served in Benghazi that the Special Mission was not a high priority for Washington when it came to security-related requests, especially those relating to staffing. The insufficient Special Mission security platform was at variance with the appropriate Overseas Security Policy Board (OSPB) standards with respect to perimeter and interior security. Benghazi was also severely under-resourced with regard to certain needed security equipment, although DS funded and installed in 2012 a number of physical security upgrades.”
I just read the WP article and it gave President Trump 2 Pinocchio for lying about the number of request from Benghazi. WP claims that not once did the Amb. Stevens directly e-mail Clinton for help. How in heck would they know since Clinton destroyed thousands of her emails? She is the head of the dept, so did none of her minions tell her that Amb. Stevens had been telling them for months there was inadequate security and wanted more? And knowing the one guy on guard had no ammunition for his gun, and was not an American, who ran away when the Outpost was attacked, is pathetic. Clinton sat there and watch what came down via that drone, and did nothing. WP gets 15 Pinocchio for misleading the public, and calling our President a liar. The liars are Clinton and Obama. If I am drowning in a lake, calling for help, and not one of the onlookers attempt to save me because I didn’t send a formal request to the “life” guard, that’s okay?
I am still totally sickened by Benghazi, but he isn’t the first person connected to the Clintons to die. She is a cold blooded killer and belongs in prison. And not the Federal health camp either.
Yep, the WP article more or less points to those inconsistencies, but wrapped it all up in the claim of the “number” of times security improvement requests were um, actually requested.
I have some information for the WP, in case they need some free education for the stupid: Any request, greater than 1, is 1 too many. Got it? If you’re that stupid, you’d be fired from any other gig.
As far as Hillary’s state, it’s clear to me they ignored requests in order to keep a lower profile, and it costs the lives of 4 people, including an ambassador – an event which has sparked wars in the past. What did we get? Obama and Hillary in an airplane hanger, insulting the memories of those slain overseas, on their watch.
People voted for her. They voted for that thing, that leech, that soulless void of husk of a human being.
It’s interesting what we project onto, but especially ignore, in the politicians we favor, for whatever reason we favor them.
Thank you. I can’t think of better language to describe another morally bankrupt politician. Hillary and Obama are on the list of the worst worst in my view. Not just cowardly (a la Chamberlain) but purposefully, aggressively and in a thoroughly calculated way, malevolent in their treatment of people they deem beneath them.