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Saturday, December 2, 2017

Dems Want Anti-Trump FBI Agent Back On Mueller Team


House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes has issued an angry demand to the FBI and Department of Justice to explain why they kept the committee in the dark over the reason Special Counsel Robert Mueller kicked a key supervising FBI agent off the Trump-Russia investigation.
Stories in both the Washington Post and New York Times on Saturday reported that Peter Strzok, who played a key role in the original FBI investigation into the Trump-Russia matter, and then a key role in Mueller's investigation, and who earlier had played an equally critical role in the FBI's Hillary Clinton email investigation, was reassigned out of the Mueller office because of anti-Trump texts he exchanged with a top FBI lawyer, Lisa Page, with whom Strzok was having an extramarital affair. Strzok was transferred to the FBI's human resources office — an obvious demotion -- in July.
The Post reported that Strzok and Page exchanged text messages that "expressed anti-Trump sentiments and other comments that appeared to favor Clinton."
Word of the messages and the affair were news to Nunes, even though the committee had issued a subpoena that covered information about Strzok's demotion more than three months ago. The committee's broadly-worded subpoena for information related to the so-called Trump dossier went to the FBI and FOJ on August 24. In follow-up conversations on the scope of the subpoena, committee staff told the FBI and DOJ that it included information on the circumstances of Strzok's reassignment.
On October 11, Nunes met with deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. In that meeting, Nunes specifically discussed the committee's request for information about Strzok.
In an October 31 committee staff meeting with the FBI, bureau officials refused a request for information about Strzok.
On November 20, the committee again requested an interview with Strzok. (Three days earlier, on November 17, Strzok met with the Senate Intelligence Committee.)
On November 29, Nunes again spoke to Rosenstein, and again discussed Strzok.
On December 1, the committee again requested to speak with Strzok.
After each occasion, the FBI and DOJ did nothing. Now, in what appears to be an orchestrated leak, both the Post and Times published the reason for Strzok's demotion, along with concerns that the revelation might help President Trump. "Among federal law enforcement officials, there is great concern that exposure of the texts they exchanged may be used by the president and his defenders to attack the credibility of the Mueller probe and the FBI more broadly," the Post reported. The Times reported that "the existence of the text messages is likely to fuel claims by Mr. Trump that he is the target of a witch hunt."
Well, yes. It will be of concern to Trump's defenders, and to defenders of fair investigations generally, that such an important figure in both the Clinton and Trump probes privately expressed bias. It will be important for investigators -- and the public -- to see Strzok's and Page's texts to assess the extent of the problem. But in any event, Nunes is extremely unhappy -- not only with the revelation of bias but with the FBI's resistance.
"By hiding from Congress, and from the American people, documented political bias by a key FBI head investigator for both the Russia collusion probe and the Clinton email investigation, the FBI and DOJ engaged in a willful attempt to thwart Congress' constitutional oversight responsibility," Nunes said in a statement Saturday afternoon. "This is part of a months-long pattern by the DOJ and FBI of stonewalling and obstructing this committee's oversight work, particularly oversight of their use of the Steele dossier. At this point, these agencies should be investigating themselves."
To add insult to injury, at just the moment the leaked stories appeared, the Justice Department out of the blue notified Nunes that it would meet some of the committee's demands for information that it had been refusing for months. That didn't make the chairman happy, either.
"The DOJ has now expressed -- on a Saturday, just hours after the press reports on Strzok's dismissal appeared -- a sudden willingness to comply with some of the committee's long-standing demands," Nunes said in the statement. "This attempted 11th-hour accommodation is neither credible nor believable, and in fact is yet another example of the DOJ's disingenuousness and obstruction."
As a result, Nunes said he has instructed committee staff to draw up a contempt of Congress citation for Rosenstein and for FBI Director Christopher Wray. The chairman promised to take action on the citation before the end of December unless the FBI and DOJ meet all the committee's outstanding demands.
Obviously Nunes is angry that he did not know about the real reasons for Strzok's demotion. And he is equally angry with the FBI's and DOJ's treatment of the committee. Contempt of Congress is a big move for lawmakers to take, especially against an agency controlled by the same party as leaders of the House. But remember, House Speaker Paul Ryan has already said the FBI and DOJ "stonewalled" the House, and he demanded that it comply immediately. That was five weeks ago. Now, after this latest episode, it seems likely that leaders in Congress are becoming increasingly frustrated with what they see as the FBI and DOJ jerking lawmakers around. At some point, they will act.

Where Are The Answers To The Las Vegas Shooting?


WALSH: 58 People Were Killed In Las Vegas, We Still Don't Know Why Or How, And Nobody Cares

Photo by Denise Truscello/Getty Images

I am going to break the rules of the Internet Hot Take Industry and write about an old story that nobody cares about anymore. We have gone on to other topics, and then other topics, and then other topics, and other topics, etc. The news cycle moves at the speed of sound. Events from last week are a distant memory and news from October may as well have occurred during the Cretaceous Period.
Still, I can't help but recall, ever so faintly, that little thing known at the time as the worst mass shooting in American history. If memory serves, a wealthy 64-year-old gambler named Stephen Paddock murdered 58 people and injured hundreds from the window of his luxury hotel room. In the days after the slaughter, nobody could figure out why he did it, or how he managed to pull it off. So, we all kind of shrugged our shoulders and moved on. The questions were never answered.
It is now two months later and we know as much today as we knew six hours after the shooting. But nobody is talking about it anymore. It's as if it never happened.
There was a time when a mass shooting of this magnitude would dominate the news for weeks and weeks. Columbine — which paled in comparison to this — was the only thing anyone talked about for at least a month. Even more recent shootings — Charleston, Aurora, Orlando — were in the headlines for much longer than Las Vegas. Yet there were more people shot in Vegas than in Columbine, Charleston, Aurora, and Orlando combined. Twice as many, easily.
Well, I think.
I actually don't know how many people were shot. They tell us 527 people were injured, along with the 58 killed, but were all of those injuries from gunshots? Did the guy actually physically shoot 585 human beings? Or were some of the injuries from people getting knocked over and trampled in the melee? I would imagine the latter must be the case, but I don't know. It's been two months and we still don't even know how many people Paddock shot. Maybe that number is available somewhere but I couldn't find it. How is that possible? How could it be two months after the worst mass shooting in American history and we still don't have a precise and well-publicized casualty count?
And that's just one unanswered question.
There are many more, because, basically, none of the questions about Las Vegas have ever been answered. And they don't need to be answered because nobody is asking them. So the questions remain. Questions like:
Why did he do it? We were told it wasn't terrorism, even though ISIS claimed credit. Okay, then what was it? Was he crazy? But then how did a crazy person manage to orchestrate something like this? And why hasn't a single person from Paddock's personal life come forward and called him crazy? All we heard was that Paddock was a normal, rational guy. Dylann Roof was obviously disturbed. Adam Lanza had clear mental issues. James Holmes is a nutcase. The Orlando killer was a terrorist. Every single one of these guys fits into one of two categories: terrorist or lunatic. We're told Stephen Paddock was neither of those things. What was he? Why did he do it? And why isn't the media asking why he did it?
In fairness, some media outlets have sued the FBI to gain access to information about the shooting, but they could put more pressure on the Powers That Be if they actually reported on the story and asked this question publicly. Or this question:
How did he do it? We know he used a gun. Or guns. He had dozens of guns in the hotel room with him. How did he get them all in there? How did he set up a kill room in a major American hotel without anyone noticing? How did he manage to shoot hundreds of people from 500 yards away at night? Was he trained? Where did he train? Who trained him?
More questions:
Why did the timeline of the shooting change three times? What's the current version of the timeline? First they told us a "hero" security guard named Jesus Campos stopped the shooting while it was happening. Then they told us Campos himself was actually shot six minutes before Paddock opened fire on the crowd. Then the hotel told us Campos was shot 40 seconds before Paddock began his massacre. Which is it? None of these? And how could there ever have been any confusion about the timeline? There are video cameras everywhere. There were gun shots being fired in a crowded hotel. Shouldn't it have been immediately obvious exactly when all of this started?
And what exactly were the police doing? If Campos was shot six minutes before the massacre, and the massacre lasted 10 minutes, why didn't anyone intervene sometime during that 16-minute time span? Police didn't finally enter the hotel room until an hour after the shooting stopped. What took them so long? Where were they? In one of the last press conferences about the shooting, the Las Vegas sheriff confirmed that the police were in the hotel when the shooting started. It took them over an hour to get upstairs? Or were they just waiting by the door as Paddock executed 58 people?
And why did it take them a month to disclose that an officer did discharge his weapon inside Paddock's room? They insisted for weeks that no officer fired a shot. Did they really not know? Or were they withholding the information? Why? And why was a shot fired if Paddock was allegedly already dead when they entered?
And why did Paddock wire $100,000 to the Philippines before the shooting?
And what happened to his missing hard drive? Did they ever find it? And why did he get rid of it? What's on it?
We're told Paddock had an escape plan. How could he have ever imagined that he might be able to escape? Did he have some help? Or was he supposed to have help but it fell through?
Why did he stop shooting after ten minutes if he had so many guns and so much ammunition?
Why did he stop shooting yet make no attempt to escape?
And what's the deal with Jesus Campos? Why did he leave the country immediately after the attack? Why did he refuse to do interviews with any news outlets until suddenly appearing on Ellen, of all places?
And do we know for sure that Paddock was the only shooter? Multiple witnesses swore that there were shots coming from more than one location. Were they mistaken?
And here's a big one: Why haven't we seen any video footage of Stephen Paddock whatsoever? Paddock carried out his attack in one of the most monitored cities in the world. You can scarcely find a nook or cranny of Las Vegas that isn't under video surveillance. Yet not even one second of Paddock video has leaked? No video of him carrying the gun-laden bags into the hotel? No video of him checking in? No video of whatever went down between Paddock and Campos? Not even any video of Paddock at one of the many casinos he frequented? We're told Paddock spent a lot of time in Vegas. There must be literally hundreds of hours of footage of him spread out between dozens of hotels and casinos. None of it has leaked? All of it was confiscated immediately?
That doesn't make any sense.
None of this makes any sense.
And maybe it never will make sense, because nobody is paying attention anymore.

Police Allowed Charlottesville Violence To Escalate


REPORT: CHARLOTTESVILLE PD ORDERED STAND DOWN AT ‘UNITE THE RIGHT’ RALLY

‘Let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly,’ said police chief

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According to a bombshell new 220-page report, Charlottesville police chief Al Thomas ordered police to stand down at the “Unite the Right” rally in August because he said it would “make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”
From VICE:
“Let them fight.” That directive from the police chief as the violence started to unfold was only part of the massive failure of the response to the “Unite the Right rally” in Charlottesville, according to a searing 220-page report by an independent review team released Friday.
[…]Virginia State Police were told that their job was to protect Emancipation Park, where the statue of Robert E. Lee was located. Charlottesville officers were told that they were only to “intervene in serious violence, violence where someone would be seriously hurt or killed,” Heaphy said.
When things began to escalate, with white supremacist groups openly clashing with antifa and other counterprotesters, Charlottesville police leadership responded sluggishly, according to the report.
Upon witnessing the first signs of open violence, Police Chief Al Thomas said “Let them fight, it will make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly’,” according to his personal assistant’s account to investigators. Thomas didn’t recall making that statement but did concede he wanted to wait to see how things played out. “Regardless of what he said, Chief Thomas’ slow-footed response to violence put the safety of all at risk and created indelible images of this chaotic event,” the report states.
It wasn’t until more than 40 minutes after those first signs of violence that an unlawful assembly was declared, at around 11 a.m. Other delays were due in part to the fact that officers didn’t have their riot gear on hand, which they would need to disperse protesters from the park. “When the CPD officers arrived at the supply trailer, they had to fish through plastic bins to find their gear, which included gas masks, riot shields, and ballistic helmets,” the report stated. “For many of them, it was the first time they had ever worn this equipment.” The line commanders were also unable to locate all their bullhorns, which they needed to clear the area. Other hold-ups included poor communication with Virginia State Police, who were trying to extract their undercover agents from the fray in the park before Charlottesville riot police moved in.
If you search “Charlottesville police stand down” on Google as of today, the top two results are “fact checkers” proclaiming there was no stand down because the police chief said so and any claim to the contrary is “false.”
It turns out there was a stand down as your’s truly reported right after the event and it was done specifically to “make it easier to declare an unlawful assembly.”
The report also found a ‘counter-protester’ started the infamous Charlottesville parking garage fight.
As the Daily Caller reports:
According to the report, review of the “open source video footage” of the parking garage confrontation shows that “a counter-protester attempted to yank a flag away from a Unite The Right demonstrator who resisted and fought back… During that struggle, a second counter-protester named Deandre Harris rushed in and used a club—possibly a Maglite flashlight—to strike the Alt-Right demonstrator’s head or shoulder.”
The report notes that Harris was then pushed to the ground when the group of white nationalists began to fight back, “which left him defenseless against a mob of angry Alt-Right demonstrators that descended upon him with flagsticks, shields, and pieces of wood.”
Deandre Harris raised $166,000 on GoFundMe after claiming he was “beaten by white supremacists” for no reason.
You can see Harris attacking a man with an alleged Maglite flashlight — which he was carrying in broad daylight — in the video below:
After raising heaps of cash off gullible liberals, Harris released a music video on YouTube featuring himself driving a new Mercedes Benz and flaunting piles of cash.
Harris was served a warrant for alleged unlawful wounding and turned himself in October 12th only to be immediately released on an unsecured bond.