There has been a lot of speculation as to the true purpose of the FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida. Was it a fishing expedition? Was the raid cover for looking for documents related to January 6? One report even claimed that Trump had top secret documents about nuclear weapons.
Anonymous intelligence officials have told Newsweek they know exactly what the FBI was really after: documents related to the Russian collusion hoax — also known as Operation Crossfire Hurricane.
“Trump was particularly interested in matters related to the Russia hoax and the wrong-doings of the deep state,” one official told Newsweek. “I think he felt, and I agree, that these are facts that the American people need to know.”
“The sought-after documents deal with a variety of intelligence matters of interest to the former president, the officials suggest—including material that Trump apparently thought would exonerate him of any claims of Russian collusion in 2016 or any other election-related charges,” Newsweek reported.
This is a particularly interesting development for two reasons.
First, we know that Trump had declassified Crossfire Hurricane documents before leaving office.
The Trump-Russia collusion claims have long been debunked, so why exactly were these documents, which Trump had declassified already, of such interest to the FBI that they conducted an unprecedented raid on Trump’s home?
Does this mean the raid itself was an attempt by the FBI to cover up its culpability in the Trump-Russia hoax with the added bonus of making Trump look like he’s guilty of a serious crime? That’s what it sounds like to me.
* * * * * Total Solar Eclipse Hit the Twin Cities, June, 1954…..It was Spectacular!
Comment: And I would add, viewing the total eclipse of the sun that June, the morning of that day I graduated with my B/A degree in Georgraphy from the University of Minnesota, was far more overwhelming a sight than the unbelieveable beauty of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.
There was more to the show than viewing indescribable beauty. Every minute from start to finish, the eclipse was a scene and act unto itself.
The entire horizon with downtown St. Paul far in the distance was the stage. Lighting was that of the most beautiful June morning anywhere in temperate climes.
As the moon approached its mark, the wondrous magnificent drama began.
Light began a change……..winds began…..weather stirred the silent……..sounds were changing in tune and volume…….all the earth in view came to shake visually and become overwhelmed by shadows and stirrings, inspiring , yet frightening as the wave of darkness began its victory over light. Howling dogs, whistling winds pushing past trees, chirping birds suddenly were silenced and sound disappeared.
All six of us bearing witness together on a this barren Twin Cities suburban hill, were totally absorbed and struck numb and dumb by the choreographer’s power and talents.
Trust me, an honest and devoted conservative raised by a God-fearing mother and a greatest-guy-in-the-world dad ………I have never seen a show or scenes anywhere in my life so compelling, so thrilling, and ‘uplifting’ to the almost overwhelming, as that show the moment the moon appeared to touch the Sun at first reach that most exquisite June morning……
……AND WHAT A MORNING IT WAS!
(I wrote the review of the above description of the total eclipse of EARTH’S SUN set upon St. Paul, Minnesota that morning of June 1954 on November 13, 2012! It was, and still is, one of the most dramatic experiences I have ever had throughout my life, now at 88 years in a few weeks).
I was born cursed, yet also gifted, with dyslexia…..a disorder, yet gift of memory and vision beyond description! With the above note I wound up through memory to that very day…..the three hours or more thee of us guys and a couple gals were early sitting up on a hill overlooking much of downtown St. Paul beginning at six o’clock AM waiting, waiting, waiting for something fascinating to happen……as we had read in local newsprint.
AND IT DID ARRIVE!
MY GOD, IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT! The winds, shadows, colors, temperatures, noises, and THEN THE SILENCE AND the disappearance OF THE FULL SUN BEHIND THE FULL MOON… in darkness!
It was a beautiful day made in a spectacular sway as that dark which began to be opened by GOD’S SUN ONCE AGAIN….THAT TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE OF THE SUN WHICH CROSSED OVER OUR GOD FEARING TWIN CITIANS OF THOSE DAYS WHEN CIVILITY AND FAITH WERE STILL TAUGHT WITH HONOR AND PURPOSE.
AMERICA WAS STILL BEAUTIFUL THEN!
I wish to thank the reader who reminded me of the above article on November 13, 2012. You got me excited again to visualize and feel the magnificent surprise of that beautiful morning!
The recent FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, 92 days before the November midterms, brought to light troubling aspects regarding the functioning of the DOJ and the investigative agencies. Here’s a close look at the key issues.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers a statement at the U.S. Department of Justice August 11, 2022 in Washington, DC. Garland addressed the FBI’s recent search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, announcing the Justice Department has filed a motion to unseal the search warrant as well as a property receipt for what was taken. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Many lawyers believe that Attorney General Merrick Garland will indict former President Trump. Such an action would be unprecedented and likely deeply divide the country. Aside from the fact that the recent FBI raid took place just 92 days before the November midterm elections, there are numerous troubling aspects to this unparalleled action.
Here are a few key aspects that demand closer scrutiny.
1) Was Garland Pressured?
It is no secret that President Biden has been pressuring Attorney General Merrick Garland. We’ll never know if it was done face-to-face, but that is not the point.
The New York Times reported in an April 2 article: “The attorney general’s deliberative approach has come to frustrate Democratic allies of the White House and, at times, President Biden himself. As recently as late last year, Mr. Biden confided to his inner circle that he believed former President Donald J. Trump was a threat to democracy and should be prosecuted, according to two people familiar with his comments. And while the president has never communicated his frustrations directly to Mr. Garland, he has said privately that he wanted Mr. Garland to act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor willing to take decisive action over the events of Jan. 6.”
Garland might have succumbed to intense White House pressure. The President made sure that Garland got the message by criticizing him as a “ponderous judge” and setting public expectations that he should take the decisive actions of a prosecutor.
2) Conflicts of Interest
Numerous conflicts of interest appear in the extraordinary raid of the former president’s home.
First, in 2016, Attorney General Garland was denied a seat on the Supreme Court by Republicans, a move the then-candidate Trump backed. Judge Laurence Silberman, a friend and colleague of Garland, has said Garland has “always regarded the role of a judge as a culmination of his profession.” Garland may still be nursing a wound, and his actions may be driven by long-standing disappointment.
Second, Garland reports to President Biden. President Biden and President Trump are leaders of their parties and are likely to run against each other again.
Third, the FBI team closely tied to the raid has its own conflicts of interest, which we will discuss later in this article.
Fourth, the magistrate, Judge Bruce Reinhart, who signed off on the raid, also warrants a closer look.
3) The Magistrate
Federal magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant authorizing the raid on President Trump’s estate.
President Trump has sued Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats over Russia collusion allegations. On June 22, Judge Reinhart recused himself from that lawsuit, and six weeks after that, he signed off the FBI warrant. Judge Reinhart’s earlier recusal raises an interesting question: why did he recuse in the Trump vs. Clinton case, but not the raid?
During an appearance on Jesse Watters’ show last Friday, Trump’s attorney Alina Habba said, ‘They needed a little drama, so they throw this out there. They go to the judge that had recused himself in my Hillary case a month ago.’ She added, ‘I would like to know why he recused himself in that case, but then he was able to sign this warrant. I want to know that.’
We can only speculate. The Judge may have a relationship with Clinton, the Democrats, or other matters that might have presented a conflict of interest leading to the recusal. Shouldn’t the reason that caused the recusal ipso facto prohibit the signing of the Trump search warrant?
One wonders whether the underlying reason for his recusal motivated his participation in the Trump search warrant.
4) Timing Of The Raid
Attorney General Merrick Garland warned prosecutors about cases involving political figures in a memo dated May 25. He asked them to get extra approvals in the weeks and proceed carefully leading up to an election.
Also, according to news reports, Garland mulled over the decision to approve the Trump search warrant for weeks before he decided to go with it. He appears to have changed his mind between May 25 and August 1.
Further, Trump attorneys say things were copacetic with a DOJ visit to Mar-a-Lago in June. Then Trump lawyers handed over documents and surveillance footage. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump greeted the agents at the start of the meeting, saying, “I appreciate the job you’re doing” and adding, “Anything you need, let us know.” Trump staff complied with an additional lock to the basement storage as per subsequent advice.
There was no national security emergency pressing Garland. Had there been any imminent danger, it would not have afforded Garland the luxury of time for deliberation. Further, the magistrate approved the raid on August 1, stipulating that it must occur before August 19. The FBI took seven days after the approval to conduct the raid.
The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 92 days before the 2022 upcoming midterm elections on November 8. That goes against Garland’s memo, cited above, about no sensitive action close to an election.
In summary, Garland changed his mind, deliberated, and changed course. There was also no national security situation. Then what pressured him to go ahead with the raid 92 days before the midterms?
5) Duration Of The Raid
Thirty FBI agents raided Mar-a-Lago for nine hours, that is 270 person-hours, an awful amount of time.
If all they wanted was some government material stored in the basement, it should not take much time to take possession and leave the premises. The sheer amount of time indicates that their objectives were not well-defined and much more expansive, a possible witch hunt. They even searched the former first lady’s closets and the President’s office and broke a safe.
The FBI agents were given carte blanche authority to seize “any government and presidential records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021,” Trump’s entire term in office. In short, they could take anything related to the Trump administration.
The irony was that they scooped up President Trump’s passports, unaware that they needed a special warrant to seize passports.
Former FBI assistant director Chris Swecker opined that the guidelines governing the FBI’s raid of former President Trump’s home were “pushed aside.” Swecker said: “What you’re supposed to do when you possess these types of powers that the FBI does and Justice Department does is use the least intrusive investigative technique to get to what you need to get to, [whether] it’s information, evidence, what have you. You’re supposed to take into consideration the seriousness of the offense, and the impact on the public confidence in the FBI and law enforcement in general. These are codified in the domestic investigative operation guidelines and the attorney general guidelines. What jumps out at me is how that was completely … just shifted aside, just pushed aside. And this dramatic raid takes place over a fairly de minimis offense. Police lights flashing, dawn raid, kitted out ninja warriors outside, 30 agents inside.”
6) Tainted Investigators
The people who carried out the nine-hour drama bring baggage to the question of the fairness and credibility of the Mar-a-Lago raid. It is clear from the Russiagate investigation, which came to naught for lack of evidence, that there are agents within the bureau willing to go to great lengths to discredit the former President.
Paul Sperry, the investigative journalist, recently reported that Federal agents, who have actively promoted the Russiagate investigation and hold a deep bias against Trump, are now members of the raid searching for classified documents that allegedly “compromised” national security.
Members of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, who ran the Russia “collusion” investigation against President Trump during 2016-2017, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane,” are being probed by Special Counsel John Durham and the bureau’s internal disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility for “alleged abuses of power and political bias.”
Besides, Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, whose alleged labeling of evidence against Hunter Biden as “disinformation” brought the investigation to a close, is considered a top expert on Russia and nuclear warfare. Republicans fear, and justifiably so, that Auten, a man so biased against Trump, may be allowed to participate in analyzing and determining if the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago have compromised national security. Senator Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has written to FBI Director Christopher Wray to express his concerns.
Other noted members of the raid include Jay Bratt (DNC donor and top counterintelligence official in Justice’s national security division) and Alan Kohler (FBI’s counterintelligence division head). Bratt had visited Mar-a-Lago in June to inspect the storage facility personally and had taken documents then.
7) Barrage Of Leaks
Even as Attorney General Merrick Garland did his best to defend the professionalism and integrity of the nation’s top investigative agency and its judicial system, the litany of leaked information told a completely different story.
He must have been dismayed to read the Washington Post’s assertion that Federal agents had raided the former President’s resort residence in search of “nuclear secrets” that could compromise the nation’s security.
But this isn’t the first time the former President or his family has been the target of such reports in the media based on “confidential” or “anonymous” sources.
We could go on to catalog the barrage of leaks, but Garland should know he presides over an organization with a recent checkered history. The first half of Trump’s presidency was mired in the Mueller probe, an exercise that wasted taxpayer money and amounted to nothing. Throughout the investigation, the liberal media were fed snippets that made an entire nation question its President.
James Comey, the former FBI Director, violated agency policies by keeping and leaking a set of memos he took documenting meetings with President Donald Trump early in 2017, according to a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Recall DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz detailed in his report in 2018 multiple instances in which Andrew McCabe, the former FBI Deputy Director, “lacked candor” about his authorization to leak sensitive information to the Wall Street Journal that revealed the existence of an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation. The apparent aim of McCabe’s leak was to combat the perception that he had a conflict of interest managing two Clinton investigations while Clinton allies donated to his wife’s campaign.
The FBI’s partisan views and actions are becoming clearer by the day. AG Garland will find it difficult to naysay New York Times reporter Matthew Rosenberg’s words: “There were a ton of FBI informants among the people who attacked the Capitol.”
8) The White House’s Lack of Knowledge
The White House said it learned about the raid from news reports ‘just like the American people.’
If it is true, it is shocking. We want to believe the White House prima facia but also note a pattern when denying things.
Remember, one year ago, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, President Biden denied at least three times that no one advised him to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan. Though they would not divulge private deliberations, General Miley and General McKenzie said they recommended maintaining a presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The Biden veracity index is low. Those familiar with President Biden’s first half of his political career know his tendency to glorify his education accomplishments and other issues. More recently, he denied knowledge of his son’s foreign business dealings on the debate stage.
“Biden knew all about this, just like he knew all about Hunter’s ‘deals,'” President Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
President Biden also has a history with arcane laws. Going after General Flynn using the ‘Logan Act’ was his brainchild. Flynn’s legal team said “it appears” he “personally raised the idea” during a White House meeting. Using the Espionage Act in the search warrant against a former president is like using the Logan Act to go after General Flynn.
9) Hillary Clinton Standard
Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State under then Vice President Biden, had a personal email server at her home in Chappaqua, New York. She used the email address for all official and private emails during her four years as Secretary of State. She never had a state.gov email account hosted on secure servers owned and managed by the government. She claimed that she used her server out of “convenience.”
Clinton returned a partial tranche of 30,000 emails to the State Department. According to FBI director James Comey, 110 e-mails in that group had classified information. Further, seven e-mail chains concerned matters that had the Top Secret/Special Access Program level.
Comey concluded that while “there is evidence of potential violations” of criminal statutes covering the mishandling of classified information,” our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.”
So, what changed now?
The FBI did not raid Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua home. If no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Clinton, what is it about Trump that is different?
President Trump recently said at CPAC that a friend had said he was the most persecuted person in modern history.
The Justice Department and FBI subjected the country to a multi-year Russia collusion hoax. The key players have either found plum jobs in the media or are still trying to get President Trump in trouble.
Where does the political persecution of Trump stop?
DOJ’s pettifoggery must end immediately, and the agency must tirelessly work to win back Americans’ trust. Otherwise, it is the beginning of the end for America that we love as the shining city on a hill.
John Yoo assumes the rotating host chair for this week’s episode, since I was on the road much of the week and didn’t keep up with news that didn’t involve whisky (and mermaids). We review what to make of Liz Cheney’s huge defeat in Wyoming, and I gamely attempt to defend the shrewdness of Mitch McConnell from Lucretia’s relentless scorn.
Then we turn to the still-unfolding story and fallout from the Mar-a-Lago raid, noting the late breaking news that the magistrate judge will release a redacted version of the affidavit behind the search warrant, though we suspect our pal Charles Lipson has correctly anticipated what we’ll get (see image left).
The attempted killing of Salman Rushdie has revived one of the oldest bad habits of the left—asserting the moral equivalence between the efforts to restrain the teaching of CRT in public schools and the murderous ideology of radical Islam (The New Republic seriously argued this).
And then we spring a surprise guest—Ryan Williams, president of the Claremont Institute, to comment on the astonishingly positive feature article on Claremont that appeared in the . . . (checks notes) New York Times Magazine: “How the Claremont Institute Became the Nerve Center of the American Right.” Do take the time to read it if you have access to the NY Times, and ponder how many Times staffers must have felt “unsafe” in the newsroom after it appeared. Ryan shares some of the inside story of how it came to be, while I marvel that Claremont gets better treatment from the NY Times than from The Bulwark. One sample from the article: “Claremont was rooted in the plucky outsider, swashbuckling frontier conservatism of California, which shaped its perception of America.”
Finally, responding to a listener query, each of us gives a case for optimism to close out this overlong episode that raided just about everything in the news.
By the way, we’re working on sourcing some new 3WHH whisky glasses which we hope to make available as swag for fans, but we promise it won’t look like the one pictured left here, though it is tempting.
(Trick question: what’s wrong with this picture? Hint: Just think about one of our closing slogans. . .)
P.S. Since we talk a little bit about emissions at one point, special exit music this week consists of a real blast from the past from Allan Sherman.
You know what to do now: listen here, or shambol (I know—not a real word) your way over to our hosts at Ricochet.
British historian and author Neil Oliver recently wrote:
It’s hard to think of the unthinkable, but there comes a time when there’s nothing else for it. People raised to trust the powers that be, assumed as I once did, that the state regardless of its political flavor at any given moment is essentially benevolent and well-meaning, will naturally try and keep that benign sense of benevolence in mind in order to make sense of what is going on around them. People like us, you and me, raised with the understanding that we are free, that we have inalienable rights. Institutions of this country have our best interests at heart, we will tend to tie ourselves in knots rather than contemplate the idea that those authorities will actually be working against us now.
You mean like what happened when leaders in Zimbabwe discovered there were too many white men in their country? Zimbabwe passed laws that stripped white men of their citizenship and ability to own property — much as the Nazis did when passing the Nuremberg Laws — and many of the white men of Zimbabwe, primarily farmers and landowners, were hunted down and summarily executed by mobs. While the UK raced to resettle British citizens to the United States and the UK, new government regulations stipulated that all white business owners had to sign over a 51% majority share of their business to black Zimbabweans. What the mobs couldn’t achieve, regulations chased most of the whites out of the country. Could the Zimbabwe model be a roadmap of the left’s plan for America.
Discrimination based on race has been unconstitutional for a long time, but the Left’s racists seem to think they can get around or ignore the law. They cannot directly strip the rights of white people, such as cancelling their U.S. citizenship, but they can and are actively engaged in other means to effectively strip white men of their very being.
Mandatory Critical Race Theory education, the forced embrace of woke culture to replace the warrior culture, allowing those people previously described with sexual disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders to infiltrate the ranks, and pointless white supremacy and white extremism investigations in the Department of Defense serve only one purpose — not to improve America’s ability to fight our wars but to systematically chase white men from the ranks and make serving the country so untenable that leaving becomes a matter of survival.
Is there an acceptable percentage of white men in Air Force cockpits that racists would be comfortable with? What’s the magic number?
Oliver:
If you have been driving yourself almost demented in an effort to think the best of those in charge, those in senior positions in government in charge of those great institutions of state, those who are running the big corporations but finding it impossible to do so, then the solution to the problem might be to turn your point of view 180 degrees and accept, however unwillingly, that we are being taken for a ride.
To train the absolute best pilots means surviving one of the most challenging programs in government, one with an attrition rate that cannot be believed. The program is designed to find the most capable potential aviators, not worry about managing demographics.
Studies conducted by credentialed government education specialists for decades analyzed years and years’ worth of data and they continually determine, refine, and publish the very best courses of instruction in order to train the very best pilots. The process necessarily rejects the unqualified as well as the “weak swimmers” through a battery of flight aptitude tests and flight physicals to determine if someone is “aeronautically adaptable” — in other words, can they function in the air and don’t get sick when they leave the ground? The pressure chamber doesn’t care what race you are. The military develops a pilot to be a weapon. Only an idiot would ignore the facts and think the process is racist.
It is not lost on senior and retired military service members that the efforts of the left to leverage race over standards would destroy the armed forces from within. It’s an internal culture war. It is worth remembering that once the very productive Zimbabwe passed laws and tried to exterminate white men, the economy collapsed.
The unthinkable: Is this the goal of the American communists and black racists running our country now? To destroy the U.S. military from within? If the military falls, the country falls.
General Thomas’s agenda is to fix the problem of “there are too many white men in cockpits,” which means the unspoken problem is that the basic process of meeting the high standards that makes great pilots is now going to be deemed racist. Instead of lowering the standards, what needs to be done is to find more black people who can meet the standards.
Most pilots flying fighters (in anyone’s air force) have engineering or baccalaureate of science degrees (not gender or African studies degrees). Whites consistently earn seven times as many STEM (science, technical, engineering, and mathematics) degrees as blacks. Whites were awarded 385,132 STEM degrees and certificates in the United States from 2019-20, while blacks were awarded 55,642. So why isn’t the view that the U.S. must significantly improve STEM education for blacks and minorities?
What they are apparently trying to drive toward is: no longer will each potential African American pilot have to pass a drug test, pass a physical, pass a background investigation, pass academics, pass the simulators, and pass the in-flight check rides. The processes and standards that create the best pilots on the planet will now be overridden in the name of diversity.
We need new leadership at DoD. The current crop is either sympathetic generals of the likes the chairman of the JCS, General Mark “Diversity is our strength” Milley, or the incompetent undeclared racists hiding in uniform using the classical racist subterfuges to purge white men from the ranks, like Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Maj. Gen. Ed Thomas. They may wear the uniform of our country but they are not on the side of America.
Is this a conflict of interest, or business as usual at the FBI … or both? RealClearInvestigations reported yesterday that the same unit running the FBI’s probe of Donald Trump and the search of Mar-a-Lago also conducted the botched Russia-collusion probe that used the discredited Steele dossier to go after Trump in 2017-18. Paul Sperry writes that one key figure in the earlier investigation has a lead role in this one as well:
The FBI’s nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president’s Florida estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington – not Miami, as has been widely reported – according to FBI case documents and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau’s counterintelligence division led the 2016-2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team – Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten – has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of President Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
Let’s tackle the counterargument here first. Assuming Sperry’s sources are accurate, how unusual would it be for the FBI to run this investigation through its counterintelligence unit? Not at all, or at the very least the FBI would have a pretty good argument for that decision. The search of Mar-a-Lago was predicated — even if it was just a predicate — on the mishandling of classified material, likely involving intelligence matters. That type of investigation would almost certainly be tasked to teams with experience in matters of classification, documents handling, etc. It’s no coincidence that the statutes involved in that probe are called the Espionage Act, after all. That would definitely fall in this unit’s purview.
The inclusion of Brian Auten in this effort would be somewhat less explicable, however. Auten’s credibility issues aren’t limited to the Russia-collusion operation that blew up in the FBI’s face, either. Just three weeks ago, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) demanded answers from FBI director Christopher Wray to allegations from whistleblowers that senior FBI agents participated in a politicized effort to discourage coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the potential crimes it might have exposed. Guess whose name popped up in that letter, too?
It is further alleged that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (“FBI HQ”) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease. Based on allegations, verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation. …
Importantly, it’s been alleged to my office that Auten’s assessment was opened in August 2020, which is the same month that Senator Johnson and I received an unsolicited and unnecessary briefing from the FBI that purportedly related to our Biden investigation and a briefing for which the contents were later leaked in order paint the investigation in a false light.
That seems a little too coincidental for comfort, no? Auten seems to make a habit of participating in politically sensitive FBI operations. It’s not clear how much Auten is involved from Sperry’s reporting, but assuming that his participation is significant, it raises a lot of questions. That’s even more true when considering that Grassley made a point of publicly pointing out Auten as a particular concern from whistleblowers alleging that the FBI disseminated propaganda ahead of the 2020 election.
The FBI needs to explain Auten’s ubiquity in politically sensitive decisions and operations, especially — as Perry points out — Auten got specifically referred for further investigation by Inspector General Michael Horowitz for potential misconduct in relation to the Crossfire Hurricane probe. Wray testified last month than a number of those agents are still undergoing a “disciplinary review,” Sperry notes:
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
In congressional testimony this month, Wray confirmed that “a number of” former Crossfire Hurricane team members are still employed at the bureau while undergoing disciplinary review. In the meantime, Wray has walled off the former Russiagate investigators only from participating in FISA wiretap applications, according to the sources.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked Wray for copies of recent case files and reports generated by Auten and whether he is included among the team the FBI has assembled to determine which of the seized Trump records fall within the scope of its counterespionage investigation and which fall outside of it.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
Assuming again that Sperry’s sources are accurate, this all seems very curious. Why would the FBI have assigned Auten to this investigation, with all of its obvious political risks, after the Horowitz report and especially after Grassley’s letter last month?
That seems like a pretty good question to ask Wray the next time he’s in front of Congress, along with this one: why is the “disciplinary review” from the Horowitz referral taking years to accomplish? If any of the agents involved are still working on cases related to either Trump or the Bidens, it’s yet another hit on the FBI’s credibility as a non-political law enforcement agency.
You really covered yourself in glory this week, Wyoming.
The right column is comprised entirely of blue states while the left column is comprised entirely of red ones — except for Georgia, which I suppose technically qualifies as blue for the moment given that it went for Biden and two Democrats in last year’s Senate runoffs. But let’s revisit that this fall, after Brian Kemp takes care of business against Stacey Abrams. Georgia may be the truest purple state in the union in 2022.
The vaccine data comes from this fascinating survey by Morning Consult, which has been tracking public opinion on the jab since March of last year. The most arresting single data point in the many graphs at the link has to be the fact that the percentage of refuseniks nationally has been rock steady since spring of 2021. It was 21 percent on March 15 of last year and it was 21 percent as of a few days ago. No amount of persuasion, no volume of data was ever going to flip that hardcore one-fifth of the population, it seems.
Most of the “plans to get vaccinated” group was converted into “vaccinated” over time, obviously. So was the lion’s share of the “uncertain” faction, which was 18 percent of the public in mid-March 2021 and is down to just six percent now. All in all, 71 percent surveyed said they were vaccinated.
Is that good by first-world standards? Not really — although we’re not that far behind other U.S. allies.
The weirdly outsized percentage of partial vaccinations in the U.S. numbers may be due to the fact that data is gathered and reported differently across a patchwork of 50 states and many counties, leading some who are actually fully vaccinated to fall through the recordkeeping cracks and “appear” to be only partially vaccinated. The 67 percent figure may be misleading.
Then again, it’s also misleading to analyze the U.S. vaccination rate as an integral national metric when in reality there are really two nations existing side by side with very different rates of uptake. Per Morning Consult, some 84 percent of Democrats are vaccinated; among independents and Republicans, just 65 percent and 63 percent are, respectively. There are also divides by race (72 percent for whites, 61 percent for blacks) and education (89 percent for postgrads, 83 percent for college grads, 63 percent for those who didn’t go to college). The red/blue divide is to some extent a function of a wider class divide, especially among whites.
Oh, and as you might expect, at-risk senior citizens are waaaaay more likely to have been vaccinated than young adults. Among those 65 and over, 87 percent are vaxxed. Among those 18-34, just 59 percent are.
As for very young children, hoo boy. These numbers from Gallup are stark:
All of the age differentiation is rational. Your young child has practically nothing to fear from COVID, raising the relative cost of side effects from the shot. Totally different calculus for grandma and grandpa.
I’m curious to see what sort of uptake there is next month when the new and improved vaccines tailored to Omicron and its subvariants begin rolling out. My guess is that many who’ve already had two or three shots are going to pass, concluding that COVID is no longer a meaningful risk. That’s not true — Americans are currently dying at a rate of around 500 per day, or 180,000+ per year — but it is true that this summer’s wave was markedly less severe than the waves of 2020 and 2021. And I’m using the past tense there advisedly. By every metric, the worst appears to be behind us:
Cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions, and positivity rate are all in decline. (Deaths are flat lately.) It’s hard to do apples-to-apples comparisons between surges in cases and positivity now with surges in cases and positivity in prior waves since rapid at-home tests weren’t widely available in those earlier waves. But although COVID is less “visible” than it’s ever been, it’s conceivable that there were more infected people this summer than there were during any previous stretch of the pandemic. That’s because not only are Omicron’s descendants insanely contagious, it turns out that most people who are infected don’t even know it. According to one new study of blood samples, among 210 people whose blood was found to contain COVID antibodies, just 44 percent had suspected that they had the virus at some point. Lotta asymptomatics walking around out there, spreading that BA.5 around.
I’ll leave you with this insanity from China as a rejoinder to those who say “you can never be too careful.” Uh, you really can.
‘Hiding from voters’: Walz declines four debate invites, Jensen says
Jensen said the State Fair debate was scheduled to take place Sept. 2 with Minnesota Public Radio.
By Anthony Gockowski at Alpha News (Article sent by Mark Waldeland.)
-August 16, 2022
Gov. Tim Walz talks with voters after an Aug. 3 FarmFest debate. (Office of Gov. Tim Walz/Flickr)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is declining to participate in additional debates, Republican challenger Dr. Scott Jensen said in a press release Monday.
Walz and Jensen have only debated once so far this campaign season, meeting for the first time at FarmFest in early August. Since then, the governor has declined to participate in four additional debates, one at the Minnesota State Fair, another at Game Fair, a third with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, and a fourth on TPT Almanac, according to Jensen.
The two-weekend Game Fair event in Ramsey, Minn., runs for another three days this weekend, so Walz could still change his mind.
“Given the short shrift the environment got during the legislative session, there are some tough topics to grill candidates about this year. But with Game Fair two weeks away, organizers remain disappointed that we haven’t yet locked in a governor’s debate. To his credit, Republican candidate Scott Jensen has told us he’ll attend a forum tentatively slated for Saturday, Aug. 20, but Gov. Tim Walz’s people say they’re struggling to fit us into the schedule,” Outdoor News editor Rob Drieslein wrote in an article last month.
Outdoor News and the Minnesota Outdoor Heritage Alliance co-host the quadrennial debate, according to Drieslein, who in fairness noted that there were no debates in 2006 or 2014 when Govs. Tim Pawlenty and Mark Dayton were the incumbents.
“That said, after a couple of lousy legislative sessions, there’s a general feeling among state sportsmen that the outdoors ranks low on the priority list of politicians,” Drieslein wrote. “Folks of all political stripes will tell you Walz turned in a solid performance during this same event at Game Fair four years ago, so we’re perplexed why he or his campaign staff haven’t made it a priority again in 2022.”
Jensen said the State Fair debate was scheduled to take place Sept. 2 with Minnesota Public Radio.
“Gov. Walz is literally hiding from Minnesota voters and refusing to have a discussion of the issues,” Jensen said in a statement. “While I understand that he’s embarrassed of his record on runaway inflation and out of control crime, it is the right of Minnesotans to hear from their elected officials. Unfortunately, Tim Walz is continuing his pattern of not showing up when it matters.”
In an interview last week with MPR, Walz said he is willing to participate in more debates but only if his opponent understands it’s not about “spewing conspiracy theories.”
“I would hope, Mike, if we do these debates that moderators would be very clear about this, putting out false information around COVID, yourself not being vaccinated and telling others is killing people,” Walz claimed.
As a congressman, Walz declined to participate in an MPR debate against Republican Jim Hagedorn in 2016.
“Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Gov. Walz’s refusal to debate on Minnesota Public Radio is that he made it clear he does not want to be in front of an audience of Minnesota voters,” Jensen said.
“Gov. Walz has indicated he’d consider debating on Minnesota Public Radio only if it’s late in the election and not in front of an audience. I cannot remember a time when a Minnesota governor refused to debate at the Great Minnesota Get-together. Tim Walz is hiding from Minnesotans,” he added.
Multiple attendees confronted Walz after the Aug. 3 FarmFest debate, questioning his record on COVID-19 and the 2020 riots.
Alpha News reached out to the Walz campaign for comment but did not receive a response.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was asked yesterday about Republican prospects for the November elections.
“I think there’s probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different, they’re statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome,” McConnell replied.
What was McConnell thinking? What in the world was he thinking?
Unnecessarily ceding an incredibly winnable Senate to Democrats three months before an election is a great example of the leadership choices that have led McConnell to be the least popular national politician in the country, according to the RealClearPolitics average. And it’s a good example of why so many Republicans — grateful as they may be for his successes — think it’s time for new leadership.
Still, for the time being, McConnell is the top elected Republican, and he has an obligation to effectively lead the Republican team, respecting the voters and who they have chosen.
In this case, having a nearly opposite response about Republican prospects rather than the pouty and clinical one McConnell offered would have been strategically and politically wise. It also would have matched much more with the reality of the political environment.
Republicans vs. Democrats
To understand the utterly bizarre nature of McConnell’s response, a few reminders are in order.
Of the 14 Senate seats that are in contention, two are considered safe for Democrats, one leans Democrat, two are considered safe for Republicans, one leans Republican, and the remaining eight are toss-ups, according to polling averages.
The country is 18 months into Democrats’ total rule, and by nearly every measure the results of their political control are utterly disastrous. The southern border has essentially been erased. Inflation is reminiscent of the 1970s, as is the energy policy causing high gas prices and reliance on other countries. Consumer confidence has cratered. War with nuclear powers is dangerously close in at least two parts of the world. The economy should be roaring out of the pandemic, but it’s returned to Obama-era sluggishness or worse. Woke mobs are completing their destruction of the country’s institutions. Democrats are persecuting political opponents with their deeply unpopular J6 star chamber.
More than 70 percent of Americans say the country is moving in the wrong direction, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Americans are clearly not happy with the quality of leadership coming out of Washington, D.C.
And in this milieu, Republican voters who care deeply about their country have chosen a slate of extremely interesting candidates, many of them non-career politicians. Particularly compared to the crop of senators currently in Washington, they are all extremely talented and impressive people. This is something to highlight and praise, not lament. Having non-career politicians running is a good thing, not a bad thing,
Herschel Walker, Mehmet Oz, J.D. Vance, and Blake Masters are successful and impressive people in a variety of careers. Even the more traditional politicians running for re-election — Ron Johnson and Marco Rubio — are among the better senators in office. Adam Laxalt, running against an incumbent Nevada Democrat, is a highly decorated former Naval officer and Iraq War veteran. He was an incredibly successful attorney general in Nevada.
These are not bad candidates! If you can’t work with this level of quality, you can’t work with anyone. And they’re running against a crop of extreme and discredited candidates that a competent Republican leader should have no problem talking about, given the slightest opportunity. John Fetterman, an ostensibly grown man running for the Senate from Pennsylvania, is still supported by his parents. Raphael Warnock, trying to keep his Georgia seat, is a troubled man with an extreme voting record. Mark Kelly has envious funding but an extreme voting record and the personality of a fish.
More importantly, the Republicans won their nominations by running on the policies that have so reinvigorated and expanded the party. They have clear messages about helping out middle-class workers and their families, protecting the country from open borders and wasteful wars, and defending American values and freedom against leftist authoritarians.
It is political malpractice to pout and run them — and the voters who selected them — down. Republican voters came out in droves to nominate these candidates. They like them! McConnell, who is unfortunately quite politically unpopular — but who is the top elected leader of the party — should be taking every opportunity to sing their praises and push a unifying and expansive message nationally.
McConnell has a reputation for being a pessimistic individual, but he is more than capable of singing praises when he feels like it. He went out of his way to praise and congratulate Liz Cheney — not even a senator — when she initially defeated an effort to oust her from Republican leadership on account of her obsessive opposition to President Donald Trump. That obsession grew so extreme that Republican voters took matters into their own hands and decisively crushed her re-election bid this week in the Wyoming primary.
If McConnell can praise the politically toxic House member Cheney, surely he can take every opportunity to praise the men and women currently trying to help Republicans take back the Senate, no? To do otherwise risks seeming petulant about McConnell not getting his preferred pick in some of these tight primaries.
Money and Passion
As Republican voters decried McConnell’s curious decision to aid and comfort Democrats months before a tight election, some of his supporters defended him on the grounds that his political action committee is spending money on many of these races.
Money, which goes to political consultants, is important. But the measure of success isn’t fundraising dollars given to consultants, but victory in November.
Enthusiastic and motivated voters — the type the country saw this primary season — are preferable even to huge piles of cash. Periods of political excitement, such as the one the country has been in this past decade, result in outsider candidates, some of whom can’t defeat incumbents or win tight races. Sometimes you get a real clunker. But it’s still better to embrace the enthusiasm and excitement than run boring establishment candidates who also frequently risk loss.
One thing that depresses many Americans who vote Republican or can be persuaded to do so is seeing how little Republicans do to stop Democrat policies. To this end, McConnell’s current leadership strategy of having Republicans either help Democrats pass legislation or not really try to stop it, seems unwise. One voter called his legislative approach this Congress a “voter enthusiasm killing spree.”
It’s not just about what has been done, but what could be done in the future, too. When House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy set about to create an action plan for when Republicans take the House, McConnell said he thought it would be sufficient to run against Biden’s record. This misreads the mood of the country, which, as noted above, is extremely dissatisfied and seeking not just rhetoric but real policy changes to help heal the country.
McConnell has many strengths, even if his more vociferous critics are unwilling to admit them. He has done good work, particularly with judicial nominees. He prides himself on playing effective small ball to accomplish legislative victories. He has many powerful connections and does a good job raising money.
But at this moment, McConnell simply must be a better leader. As the top elected Republican in the country, he should be ecumenical in his support for all Republican candidates for Senate, becoming their biggest cheerleaders on a national stage. It’s understandable that an establishment figure such as himself might have preferred candidates more like himself, but he should set aside his hurt feelings for the sake of the party and country. He should motivate and energize the Republican voters while reaching out to those who can be persuaded to become Republican voters. He should learn how to fight the left-wing media that daily seek Republicans’ destruction, rather than kowtowing to them. He should be envisioning a bold legislative strategy to help save the country.
Mitch McConnell is the top elected Republican in the country. He has an obligation to immediately and dramatically improve his performance of these obvious, basic, and rudimentary political skills.
Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist.
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