Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

The collusion and obstruction investigation indicts others, not Trump

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Officially, Mueller investigated Trump’s alleged collusion and obstruction. We now know that there was collusion and obstruction — but not by Trump.

Obstruction Collusion Brennan Comey Obama ClapperThe investigation into Trump’s campaign began with the ludicrous hearsay (in some cases, multiple levels of hearsay) allegations compiled by Michael Steele, paid for by the DNC, provided to the FBI before the 2016 election, and briefed to every major media outlet as part of an “October surprise” that failed to derail Trump.  It is worth quickly reviewing what those allegations were.  To summarize the charges in the original Buzzfeed “report”:

  1.  Trump was a Russian intelligence asset who had been working for Russian intelligence for at least seven years.
  2. Trump, who had no business interests in Russia, was being paid in Russian prostitutes for his services.
  3. Russian intelligence has a tape of Trump inviting prostitutes to his hotel room during the 2013 Miss Universe contest held in Moscow and so they could perform a “golden shower” on the bed.
  4. Trump was handling the payment of Russian assets in New York through a complicated money laundering scheme.
  5. Trump coordinated with Russian intelligence through Paul Manafort, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and his private attorney, Michael Cohen.
  6. Carter Page’s business trip to Russia in 2016 was cover for a meeting with Russian intelligence.
  7. The Trump campaign coordinated with Russia for the release of DNC emails hacked by Russian intelligence.  Papadopoulos admitted to knowing this information in near real time, before it was made public by the DNC.
  8. Michael Cohen was subject to Russian influence through his Russian wife (she is not Russian, by the way).  Cohen traveled to Prague to coordinate with Russian intel on behalf of Trump once Russian involvement in the campaign became public knowledge.

All involved denied those allegations. Moreover, Mueller’s $30 million-plus, two year-plus investigation either affirmatively disproved them or was unable to find any facts that might prove them.  None are supported in the Mueller Report.  And indeed, Mueller makes only passing reference to the Steele Dossier.

Now recall that, once it became apparent that the Steele Dossier did not provide probable cause for anything, because all of its wild allegations were affirmatively false or incapable of proof, a story appeared in the NYT  on Dec. 30, 2017, based on a leak, that the investigation was warranted because Papadopoulos in fact knew of the theft of DNC emails before that theft was made public.

There’s only one problem with the NYT’s “bombshell of the moment”: Reviewing the FBI affidavit that supports charging Papadopoulos with the crime of lying to investigators, it is readily apparent that Papadopoulos had said nothing at all that tied the hacked DNC emails to Russia. As I wrote at the time, anyone paying attention to the Hillary email scandal suspected that Hillary’s emails had long before been hacked by foreign intelligence from her time as Secretary of State. [Read more…]

Dan Bongino explains the post-Manafort and Cohen stakes

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Yesterday’s news had nothing to do with collusion. It was about Leftists attacking constitutional elections. Dan Bongino explains with facts and passion.

Dan BonginoDan Bongino was on fire today. If you haven’t yet listened to his podcast, I recommend you do. He begins by explaining what yesterday’s Manafort verdict and Cohen plea bargain mean, which is interesting. Where it really catches fire, though, is about 18 minutes or so into the podcast when he explains what the stakes are.

Bongino’s key point is that this is the time to fight. That Trump has an unsavory past is something we’ve always known about him. What we’re discovering, though, is that the Democrats and the Deep State (which usually, but not always, overlap), will do anything to overturn an election with which they disagree. This is much bigger than Trump. People who throw up their hands in either despair or disgust, while saying, “Well! Trump’s a sleaze so I’m not going to support Republicans in November” are turning themselves into dangerous quislings.

The effect of the Manafort verdict and Cohen plea bargain

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While Leftists and #NeverTrumpers bathe themselves in ritual blood from the Manafort verdict and Cohen plea, Americans just want government to support them.

Manafort CohenManafort is not either a nice or a morally decent man. Today, the jury found him guilty on eight charges of tax fraud (long before he worked on the Trump campaign), while the judge dismissed the other eleven charges on grounds of mistrial. Likewise, there’s no reason to believe that Trump’s former attorney, Cohen, was a man of either decency or honor. Manafort was someone Trump ended up with when no one in the establishment would touch him in the run-up to the election, but Cohen and Trump go back a ways. Like many in New York’s big-time construction industry, Trump had his fixer.

However, it’s worth pointing out that past presidents — most notably Democrats — haven’t had very savory connections either. Manafort is no better than his past partners in business, the Podesta brothers, but while the latter continue to fly comfortably under the Clinton-Democrat-Deep State radar, Manafort, because of his connections to Trump, became a marked man.

Indeed, when it comes to the Clinton’s, I’d need to have as many fingers as the Hindu goddess Kali to count off all of their unsavory and deeply criminal connections. Obama was no better: Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Louis Farrakhan, Palestinian terror supporters, his whole top-level IRS, Brennan, Hillary Clinton, etc. He had a rogues gallery surrounding him, all of whom again had the protective umbrella of the Clinton-Democrat-Media-Deep State complex. They weren’t less corrupt than anyone around Trump; they were just better insulated from their crimes.

But going back to Manafort and Cohen, while Trump and his supporters have pointed out that none of this has anything to do with collusion and that silencing a blackmail probably isn’t campaign fraud outside of Mueller-land, the Left and their fellow travelers amongst the #NeverTrumpers are in paroxysms of excitement, believing that (again) this is the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency. I thought I’d share some of their tweets with you. As you read the tweets from Leftists, please note that they haven’t yet seem to process that, if they get Trump out, then Pence is in. [Read more…]