Conservative Musings

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Saturday, May 26, 2018

Why Is The DOJ Redacting The Cost Of A Conference Table? Makes Us Wonder What Else They Are Covering Up As A Table Is Not A National Secret!

Grassley Demands DOJ Explain Redaction of Strzok Text Suggesting Obama White House Ran Probe

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA)sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Wednesday demanding the Justice Department remove redactions from a text message exchanged between FBI agent Peter Strzok and former bureau lawyer Lisa Page.

The senior Iowa lawmaker contends the redactions cover up excessive spending habits of FBI officials and appear to make reference to the Obama White House exerting control over an unspecified probe.

“On May 1, 2018, and May 18, 2018, Committee staff reviewed in camera less redacted versions of the Strzok and Page text message productions provided to the Committee. On several occasions, my staff have requested that the Department of Justice provide the Committee with a redaction key, to no avail. Thus, the Committee is still in the dark about the justification the Department is relying upon to withhold that information from Congress,” wrote Grassley.

“As one example of redacted material, in a text message produced to the Committee, the price of Andrew McCabe’s $70,000 conference table was redacted. In another, an official’s name was redacted in reference to a text about the Obama White House ‘running’ an investigation, although it is unclear to which investigation they were referring.”

Fox News published a less redacted version of the exchange in which Strzok, on August 5th, 2016, wrote, “Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote, ‘the White House is running this.’”

“My answer, ‘well, maybe for you they are.’”

“Yeah, whatever (re WH comment). We’ve got emails that say otherwise,” Page responded.

Grassley requested the Justice Department hand over unredacted copies of the text messages to the Senate Judiciary Committee by June 6th.

Strzok was removed from special counsel’s Russia probe over the summer after Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered the agent’s texts showing a perceived political bias against Donald Trump.

After meeting with President Trump on Monday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein agreed to request the watchdog probe on how the FBI “conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.”

“Based on the meeting with the President, the Department of Justice has asked the Inspector General to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s or the Department of Justice’s tactics concerning the Trump Campaign,” a White House statement said.

“It was also agreed that White House Chief of Staff [John] Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with Congressional Leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested.”

Trump Works For America Again!

TrumpTrain

Trump Shuts Down Saudi Resistance

05/25/2018
Source: TTN
by: TTN Staff

image: https://structurecms-staging-psyclone.netdna-ssl.com/client_assets/trumptrain/media/picture/5982/0001/6970/2d47/02ca/0100/content_Donald_Trump_by_Gage_Skidmore_2.jpg?1501691919

Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Saudi Arabia recently changed its tune in regards to world oil prices. And President Trump is largely to thank. Under pressure from Trump, the Saudi government decided it would be in its best interest to keep oil prices reasonably low.

According to Bloomberg:

The world’s largest oil exporter just made quite a policy swerve. Within six weeks, Saudi Arabia has gone from advocating higher prices to trying to stop the rally at $80 a barrel.

The U-turn scrambled the outlook for oil markets, hit the share prices of oil majors and shale producers and set up a diplomatic wrangle with other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

What changed? The supply threats posed by the re-imposition of U.S. sanctions on Iran oil exports earlier this month and the quickening collapse of Venezuela’s energy industry are both part of the answer, but they’re secondary to Donald Trump. On April 20, the president took to Twitter to lambaste the cartel’s push for higher prices. "Looks like OPEC is at it again," he tweeted. "Oil prices are artificially Very High!"

Trump’s intervention gave typically strident voice to a concern held more widely in the U.S. and other consuming countries: oil’s rally from less than $30 in early 2016 to more than $80 this month risked becoming a threat to global economic growth.

This is just another win for the American people from the Trump Administration. The mainstream media will largely ignore this to talk about some scandal they dreamed up, but this is a huge win for America.

Read more at http://trumptrainnews.com/articles/trump-shuts-down-saudi-resistance#KV4vmUq6VyPdtG9w.99

Is Trump The Wizard Of Twitter?

Friday, May 25, 2018

Of Course It Was Squelched!

Comey Disaster: Agent Who Quit Over Rigged Hillary Investigation Heads to Congress

BY CILLIAN ZEAL
MAY 25, 2018 AT 6:50AM

An FBI agent who allegedly quit the bureau over his belief that the Hillary Clinton email investigation was rigged will testify before the House of Representatives, The Hill reported.

The joint investigation between the House Judiciary and the Oversight Committees — led by Republican Reps. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia and Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, respectively — has been a source of consternation for Republicans and Democrats alike.

Conservatives have complained about the slow pace of the examination into how the Clinton email investigation was conducted, noting that only two witnesses have appeared before it.

Democrats, of course, have complained that it exists at all, since anything that distracts from the endless investigation into how President Donald Trump is really a Russian plant is simply frivolous — particularly if it implicates former FBI Director James Comey, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or former President Barack Obama in any wrongdoing.

Well, now we’re finally about to see some fireworks. Three top witnesses are going to testify before lawmakers: John Giacalone, who was in charge of the Clinton investigation for the first seven months; Bill Priestap, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division; and Michael Steinbach, former head of the FBI’s national security division and the man who succeeded Giacalone.

All three are of particular interest, especially since Priestap was the supervisor of FBI agent Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump text messages have thrown the objectivity of the entire investigation into doubt.

However, the real headliner here may be Giacalone. Shortly after then-FBI Director Comey announced he wouldn’t be pursuing charges against Hillary Clinton for the email server, Fox News pundit Judge Andrew Napolitano wrote a column in which he claimed Giacalone had quit the bureau because he believed the investigation was rigged.

In the Oct. 28, 2016 column, Napolitano claimed at that at the start of the Clinton email investigation, “agents and senior managers gathered in the summer of 2015 to discuss how to proceed. It was obvious to all that a prima-facie case could be made for espionage, theft of government property and obstruction of justice charges. The consensus was to proceed with a formal criminal investigation.”

Do you think that the Hillary Clinton investigation was rigged?

“Six months later, the senior FBI agent in charge of that investigation resigned from the case and retired from the FBI because he felt the case was going ‘sideways’; that’s law enforcement jargon for ‘nowhere by design,'” Napolitano wrote.

“John Giacalone had been the chief of the New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., field offices of the FBI and, at the time of his ‘sideways’ comment, was the chief of the FBI National Security Branch.”

“The reason for the ‘sideways’ comment must have been Giacalone’s realization that DOJ and FBI senior management had decided that the investigation would not work in tandem with a federal grand jury. That is nearly fatal to any government criminal case. In criminal cases, the FBI and the DOJ cannot issue subpoenas for testimony or for tangible things; only grand juries can,” Napolitano continued.

“Giacalone knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would be toothless, as it would have no subpoena power. He also knew that without a grand jury, the FBI would have a hard time persuading any federal judge to issue search warrants.”

Napolitano speculated there were several possible reasons that the case went “sideways.” One was that Obama feared having to testify if Clinton went to trial (he had sent emails to the private server, after all, meaning he was aware of it). There was also the fact that a Clinton indictment could have led to Trump becoming president, and Obama simply couldn’t countenance that. (Less than two weeks after Napolitano’s column was written, it must be noted, that reason became moot.)

Either way, if the investigation had indeed gone “sideways,” it would need to have done so with approval from the highest levels — certainly James Comey and possibly Barack Obama.

Whether or not Giacalone has any concrete evidence of this or not is another issue entirely. My guess would be no, given that we’re going on two years since Comey’s infamous news conference and we still haven’t heard anything to that effect from Giacalone.

However, of all of the congressional testimonies we’ve seen over the past few years, this could be one of the most underreported. John Giacalone may open up a gigantic can of worms for Comey and Clinton — one that drags them back in the spotlight for reasons significantly less pleasant than their book tours.