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Hiding in Plain Sight
Ricochet alum Mollie Hemingway, as usual, is doing valuable work exposing the machinations of the deep state. Let’s not make this too complex. Let’s just look at a few verified facts surrounding the Comey memo/Russia Russia Russia! affair:
- On January 6, 2017, Comey met with Trump at the behest of then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. We know that Clapper set up this meeting, because Comey says so in his first memo: “I said that there was something that Clapper wanted me to speak to the PE about alone or in a small group.”
- Comey told Trump that CNN had the dossier (he called it “the reports”) and CNN was looking for a “news hook.”
- CNN reported four days later that “Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him.” The source of the report was “multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings.” The substance of the story can best be summed up in one sentence: “The classified briefings (on the dossier) last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs — Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.”
- James Clapper now works for CNN.
How many coincidences are too many to believe?
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Kudos to Ms. Hemingway. This is exactly the type of article that justifies the allegedly outdated NT pejorative aimed at journalists who won’t go here. Nobody is claiming that criticisms of DJT aren’t appropriate. But why are articles like this always off the table for some?
“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
― Ian Fleming
Byron York in the Washington Examiner:
As York points out, that interest in loyalty suddenly becomes a whole lot more understandable.
For some reason, the post reminds me of this:
Clap on, clap off… the Clapper!
Either Comey understood what Clapper was up to, in which case he’s duplicitous, or he didn’t, in which case he’s a moron.
I’ve wondered about this for quite a while. Why Comey? Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for intelligence information to be presented by the head spook? Or was it because Comey, as the FBI guy, was the only one who had a job after the inauguration?
To borrow a phrase, it looks like weasels all the way down.
Not only that, but Trump asks Comey specifically if the FBI leaks. Then, he asks Comey if this is a “private conversation”. Trump was indirectly asking Comey if he was the one who leaked the stuff to CNN. Trump reacted the way that any half-way intelligent person in his position would have reacted: with justified suspicion.
Comey took Trump’s reasonable expression of concern out of context and turned it into an unfair attack on Trump as a “mafia boss”. As bad as that was and is, it’s not the worst part. The worst part is that Comey owed his president at least enough loyalty to not leak the contents of their meetings, but he couldn’t manage that.
Also, as much as Comey obsesses about process and reporting lines when it suits him, he doesn’t appear to have been following those rules in the January 6 meeting. He appears to have been reporting directly to DNI Clapper, not the DAG or AG. He also later complained that Sessions shouldn’t have left him alone with Trump, when Comey had already asked for and received a meeting alone with Trump, apparently to set Trump up and tee off a story for CNN. All of this needs to be investigated thoroughly. Comey is a leaker, and he should do prison time.
The January 6 meeting was before the inauguration. This was the Obama Administration writing the new rules for presidential transitions. Let’s take copious notes. What goes around comes around.
This picture is really coming into focus. I think Comey was used, possibly in a conspiracy by Clapper and Brennan to brief the President-Elect in early January, 2017. In order for the contents of the Steele Dossier to become newsworthy in the ongoing early stage public discourse about Trump/Russia collusion, because of its security classification, the President needed to be informed of it’s existence and have some information about the contents. It is well-known that the President-Elect was not trusting of the foreign intelligence agency leaders he had inherited but he probably yet had at least some confidence in Comey and Comey would still be there after the inauguration.
The recent release of the Comey memos shows that the President-Elect was only briefed by Comey on the salacious contents of the Steele Dossier and this was done at the behest of Clapper. Subsequently, CNN reported on the Steele-Dossier and included a point that was factually inaccurate, that the President-Elect was given a two-page synopsis of the Steele Dossier that, in addition to the salacious content, contained information about Trump campaign officials collusion with Russians. Whoever leaked this information to CNN gave them something purporting to have happened that had not, Comey did not give Trump any two-page document. Clapper, a known lier, may also be a leaker. He works now for CNN.
This looks like a conspiracy to damage President Trump, maybe unseat him through impeachment. This conspiracy could also be connected with the small group within the FBI that worked on the FISC warrant and on the Clinton Email investigation under McCabe’s direction. Comey has made some mistakes but I don’t think it is clear at this point that he is on the same level of evil as these others. It also looks , at least to me, like fertile ground for Special Counselor Robert Mueller to discover criminal wrongdoing related to Russian influence in the 2016 election and its aftermath.
Most of this summary comes from material present in several postings by Sundance at theconservativetreehouse.com.
We argued vigorously about this at the time on Ricochet in this Claire Berlinski post. I recognized how important the CNN intel chiefs briefing report was and argued vehemently that the facts related to the meeting were in dispute. I posted this NBC report.
So it turns out that the piece that legitimized the dossier (the two page synopsis) never existed? I don’t disbelieve you, but how do we know this?
BTW, here’s the snip I took of the original version of the headline when I disputed it. Note the prominent placement of the headline right above golden boy CNN anchor Jake Tapper’s head.
Here’s how it looks now (updated on January 12, 2017). Note the replacement of the aforementioned golden boy anchor with pictures of Pres. Trump and the aforementioned intel chiefs. Was this CNN shifting responsibility for the story from their anchor to the intel chiefs, at least two of whom arguably were the sources of the story? I know, it’s speculation, but it looks fishy to me.
Gosh, shouldn’t Trump have let Comey just do his job? ;)
I don’t see how we can know this. If it existed, it would have been a product of Brennan’s perhaps delivered to Comey by Clapper who wanted Comey to brief the President-Elect on its contents, so the leak for the CNN news report could hang on that. Comey is the witness who could testify to the circumstances here, he may have had the synopsis but snipped what he reported to Trump, but he is somewhat tainted and ill-positioned to be credible now. There may be some others who know these facts and that may come out yet.
The way to find out is to put them all on the hot seat. Comey and McCabe are each calling the other liars at this point, and each could end up as a witness against the other if anything ever gets into court. If they’re all looking at jail time, I would expect dams to start bursting.
Yes, and I am more concerned with bad guys in the intel agencies and the State Department now because nobody is looking there. It looks as if Horowitz and Huber are all over the DoJ and FBI goons. We can only hope that Mueller is looking in these other places.
Doubtful. It’s outside the scope defined by Rosenstein.
Oh, I think I recall there was a State Department person who was a contact on something in the Steele Dossier, or at least with some Russian contact, and for sure Brennan and Clapper were involved in that matter.
So, what do you all think? Are these the new rules for presidential transitions? Does anyone think the Trump administration would or should conduct a presidential transition like they were done before Obama?
Should? Oh hell yes. The next Democrat elected president shouldn’t worry about needing to have a cabinet meeting for their first four years in office. Tell them you’ll get started on those hearings in about September, and then demand the 30 hours debate for each and every nominee. That whole peaceful transfer of power thing only happens when they win. The last time a Republican got a peaceful transfer of power was George H.W. Bush, and that was from another Republican.
This is how it has to be. Sad…
It does seem to be a ratchet. It only goes in one direction., Not sure how to change that.
You change it by giving them back their own dirty tactics, twice as hard. And Trump might actually be the guy to do something like that, seeing as how he doesn’t care about following their rules or doing things the ‘right’ way.
If you believe in all the coincidences necessary for the spontaneous creation of intelligent life, this is simple.
Probably CNN hyping some of the people it has working for them now. Aren’t these things frequently re-formatted anyway, even a day or two after publish, so it looks updated, refreshed?
There’s enough going on where reading into how CNN is displaying the article feels like grasping for something. Plenty of meat still on the bone based on all the other points you’ve raised, and Mollie’s article detailed. Your link is broken, I think this is the same article:
http://thefederalist.com/2018/04/20/comeys-memos-indicate-dossier-briefing-of-trump-was-a-setup/
Mollie has a mid-piece summary paragraph that I really like. It frames the events in January in a way that makes it easier to understand the timing of Trumps de-briefs and the leaks to news outlets, and how it certainly appears to look like much of this was planned to undermine the incoming president.
Keep in mind that nothing we now know about the dossier had been reported at the time. It wasn’t yet reported that it was used by the FBI to provide a substantial basis to wiretap at least one Trump affiliate despite the fact it was unverified. It wasn’t yet reported that the product was bought and paid for as a Hillary Clinton campaign operation, or that it was secretly funded by the DNC using a law firm as a pass-through to hide its provenance in federal campaign filings. It wasn’t yet reported that its author’s working relationship with the FBI was terminated because he had lied to the agency about how he wouldn’t talk to the media.
And people still look at me funny when I tell them I think the government spends far too much money, has far too much power, and has too much presence in our daily lives. Like they don’t consider that to be a bad thing. Which prompts me to ask “Hey. Are you an American?”
Somehow Mitch McConnell must be made to understand that we have reached a true constitutional crisis with practically all federal intelligence and law enforcement components corrupted by the weaponization of their capabilities for domestic political purposes. He should acknowledge a national emergency and dismiss the filibuster as an element of legislative procedure since if this situation is not remedied now the possibility is lost. All Obama administration appointees should be immediately dismissed and those positions filled with Trump nominees and appointments. As more criminal referrals are released within DoJ the distractions will increase as the Democrats try to use the Judiciary to stop Trump administration action.
EDIT: Forgot to be explicit also that all the procedures that work to delay the confirmation votes on nominees need to be suspended forthwith.
Because they knew what a self-righteous prig he was, nobody liked him, and they knew his head would be on the chopping block as a result of his actions. Basically, Clapper et al chose him to be the fall guy.
I’m just not sharp enough to keep pace with Sundance at theconservativetreehouse.com. He now points out that David Nunes, in the wake of the revelation that there was no intelligence that initiated the Trump campaign surveillance and understanding the HPSCI is directing investigative inquiry toward the State Department and knowing that President Trump has just nominated his own head of the CIA to become Secretary of State; …is it a surprise to see the political leadership of the Democrat Party attempting to block Pompeo?
I think there were 16 Democrats voted to confirm Mike Pompeo as CIA Director and most all of those are indicating non-support for him as Secretary of State, and that was puzzling me until now.