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What a Slender Thread We Hang On
I remain pretty pessimistic about what will happen to actually clean up the corruption of the Justice Department, FBI, and State Department (Putting IRS and EPA aside for now). It is amazing to me what a slender thread of events has given us what we know about the corruption now. Below is my list of nominees for the “Slender Thread” award:
- The unknown (to me, anyway) reporter who reported on the meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch and her station, which allowed the story to be reported.
- Judicial Watch and their dogged quest for FOIA information. Without that, I don’t think we would have the Strzok-Page emails along with other relevant information.
- I hate to say this, but Anthony Weiner and his second offence is the reason that the NYPD and SDNY investigators wound up with his laptop and its incriminating emails from Hillary and Huma. (Maybe the award should go to “Fruit of the Loom.”)
- The NY case agent who went to the SDNY to see why the Weiner laptop data was not being analyzed by the FBI. This forced Comey’s hand. Without it, Comey could have held out until after the election.
Partial awards go to Trey Gowdy and Devin Nunes. They have uncovered a lot of what we know, but they have the added responsibility to actually set the hook.
Another award could be the “Weaver” award for those who have helped pull all of this into a coherent story. A partial list is
- Andrew McCarthy, National Review
- Sundance, American Treehouse
- Catherine Herridge, Fox
- Kimberly Strassel, Wall Street Journal
- Clarice Feldman, American Thinker
Unfortunately, I think the losers are the ones we should have been able to depend on — the Mainstream Media and the DOJ IG who seemed to do all he could to not connect the dots.
What did I get wrong or miss?
Published in Politics
Bill Sign, morning anchor for the ABC affiliate in Phoenix, broke the Lynch-Clinton story after he received a tip and was able to confirm it with secondary sources.
This is the problem with modern journalism. You need contacts but you shouldn’t have personal relationships or complete dependency on those sources to do your job. When the steroids story broke in baseball it took a reporter from outside the loop to do it. Same here.
And now, as we learn about The New York Times reporter Ali Watkins sleeping with her source and about the FBI agents taking gifts for leaks, you have to ask every reporter exactly how they get their “scoops.” As legendary editor Abe Rosenthal used to say, “I don’t care if you [expletive] an elephant on your personal time, but then you can’t cover the circus for the paper.”
@ejhill thanks for the added information. I had the impression that the reporter on the ground was a young female reporter. Is that true?
Sheryl Attkisson, the reporter who got spied on by the Obama Administration, also did a great job.
I have also many times thought about what a thin thread pulled this into daylight. It also depended on Trump winning.
Our press has done a terrible job and I will hold them in contempt forever.
Plugs for Mollie Hemingway, Byron York, and Lee Smith.
No. It was Sign. His source was said to be a local LEO that was assigned to the AG’s detail. The DOJ was livid. In an exchange of emails (all redacted to protect the guilty) our impartial FBI was livid. They talked about finding the local LEO and hauling them before their supervisors. Then they talked about making assisting cops sign non-disclosure agreements in the future.
Meanwhile the DOJ press people were working with national media to suppress the story. Not even ABC, whose affiliate broke the story, mentioned it on that night’s news. The press was so compliant that a statement of talking points drafted by their PR office wasn’t even issued. Because they didn’t need it.
Watergate was thrust on us by a $60 a week young night watchman that noticed flashlights in the office of the DNC and called the police. He first became suspicious after finding a door with the latch taped open.
The joke is that there was no corruption under Obama.
The truth is that there is no such thing as Left wing corruption. Any action taken by Leftist to further Leftist agendas is by definition acceptable. If such acts are not legal then the law will be interpreted to allow it to be considered in this case for these people. But if the same were done by others then the originally reading of the law applies. The truth is that this has always been the system. It is just that in the age of the internet and the lack of faith in MSM it is no longer possible to hide that the emperor has no clothes.
And if Trump has not been elected we would not have known all this. And that’s what they were counting on.
Afternoon Gumby,
You make such an important point. The FBI wasn’t corrupted by Trump, it was corrupt, gifts for leaks. One type of justice for our allies and another for those POS who are our opponents. The corruption was there, only the fluke election of Trump which surprised everyone including Comey and Strzok caused a cascade of events, each just as flukey, to pull back the sheets of the carcass of the deep state and show us the bed sores in plain view. If there were no other reason to feel blessed by the election of Trump this would be enough.
I just looked online at the front pages of the NY Times, WaPo, and CNN. There are no followup stories about the IG report. They are burying it. Instead it’s all illegal immigrant family separation stories.
What was the operation that VDH had?
The slender thread is what I can’t stop thinking about. Sorry to keep saying this over and over, but I can’t stop thinking about how close we came to being an actual banana republic with the FBI as Hillary’s palace guard. The fact that so many of them got careless with text messages shows just how sure of themselves they were. It’s truly truly frightening that this country could have come so close. And we never would have heard a peep about any of it. They’d have buried it all, and I have no doubt whatsoever that anyone who knew too much would have been found dead of mysterious causes or a car accident. Not even kidding.
@retaillawyer and @hoyacon – you are absolutely right. Sharyl Atkisson, Mollie Hemingway, Bryon York and Lee Smith deserve awards. I will try to update the OP, but for some reason, it isn’t giving me an edit option now.
Most of us know and [heart] Mollie, and Mr. York is a name. I did have some concern that Lee Smith might get lost and he’s been great. I’m seriously hoping that he can get a book out of this.
It’s not over yet. Maybe Trump did push it back a bit but this thing is far from over and may already be lost.
Nice post. It is good to be reminded of how tenuous it all is.
Thinking about this type of thing can drive you crazy. If Elian Gonzales hadn’t washed ashore in Florida, the Cuban population there wouldn’t have gotten super-pissed at Clinton and Janet Reno, and AlGore would have been President on 9/11.
Yup. Right out of their playbook.
Hat tip to Scott Johnson at PowerLine on this:
Please don’t watch the current hearings regarding the IG report going on now or you will pull out what’s left of your hair – – We are WORLDS apart – Democrats and Republicans – and the appalling people that represent the Democrats who are using this hearing for political purposes by hollering about the children being held – immigration – Benghazi, Obamacare – they are trying to defer, with fake tears Mr. Rep from Md, in every way possible away from the truth of what took place during the election.
They still think the election was stolen, they still think the American people cannot think for themselves nor can we read, they actually believe there was nothing in the IG Report that deserves more than a slap on the hand. I want to reach through the TV and slap a few upside the head….! Truly appalling!
For more reasons than one. CTH had a stunning post on Sunday.
Highlights:
It takes about 30 hours to read the IG’s report; about the same to read the Page/Strzok messages:
Sundance concludes that in May, Andrew McCarthy finally read and digested the Page/Strzok file, and as a consequence the tone of McCarthy’s writing was no longer nearly as sympathetic to the FBI and DOJ; Sundance writes “[i]n essence, he red-pilled himself.”
Similarly, he writes this of Wray’s press conference on IG Horowitz’ report:
And this on AG Sessions’ appearance:
And as an example of how bad things are:
RTWT
I think they think we are a joke. Sessions seems committed to not rocking the DOJ boat too much. If he read the report he might not be able to ignore things so well.
Let’s cling to the hope that something good is happening behind the scenes. They are all, all honorable men. Right?