Examining the House Impeachment Inquiry Resolution | National Review

By Andrew C. McCarthy

Editor’s Note: This is a fair assessment of the ongoing impeachment process in the House of Representatives. Read on!

On Tuesday, House Democrats published the resolution that, once passed, will approve and govern the impeachment inquiry on the question whether President Trump should be impeached. The vote is likely to take place on Thursday.

Some observations about the eight-page resolution.

1) The resolution is flawed, for reasons we’ll get to (the flaws could be major or minor, depending on how the resolution is implemented). By any measure, though, it is a significant improvement over the status quo ante. Once it’s passed, the House as an institution will have endorsed the impeachment inquiry. As we have pointed out, the Constitution commits the impeachment power to the House, not to the Speaker or the majority party in the House. The House acts as institution only by voting. It will finally have done so once this resolution is approved. The president and Republicans will no longer have a valid argument that the inquiry is constitutionally infirm. That has been the White House’s main justification for refusing to cooperate. (This refusal is overstated since a number of executive officials have submitted to closed-door interviews and otherwise participated. This has largely been done, though, despite the discouragement of the White House, which has otherwise declined to cooperate.)

2) Not surprisingly, Democrats are posturing that the passage of the resolution means the president must produce any information directed by the House. This is an overstatement. What the resolution means is that the White House’s position of blanket, indiscriminate non-cooperation will no longer be justifiable. Nevertheless, the president maintains all the legal privileges he enjoyed — including executive privilege and attorney-client privilege — regardless of whether there was a resolution.

3) It is not clear how extensive executive privilege is. In United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court recognized that the president’s communications with key advisers in carrying out his official duties were presumptively privileged; but it further held that the privilege was not absolute and would have to give way to the needs of a criminal investigation — particularly if the evidence at issue was critical and there was no alternative source for obtaining it. A House impeachment inquiry is not a criminal investigation. It is, however, a core constitutional function, and I believe the courts would find that its needs for information are at least as compelling as those of a criminal investigation.

4) Chances are, however, that the courts will not be given the opportunity to rule on executive privilege. The House has plenty of other witnesses and sources for the information needed to investigate the Ukraine controversy, the details of which are already largely known. Moreover, Democrats are seeking to avoid the delay that would result from protracted court battles. If the president flouts a House demand for information, the House will simply add an article of impeachment for obstructing the investigation. Democrats would obviously prefer that to court challenges they could lose; it gives them incentive to ask for rafts of information.

5) Interestingly, the Resolution takes pains to refer to the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence as “the Permanent Select Committee,” dropping “on Intelligence” after page two. If they were just trying to be succinct, they would use the usual HPSCI shorthand. Omitting reference to the Intelligence is more likely some recognition of the strangeness of running an impeachment inquiry behind closed doors in the intelligence committee, and a suggestion to the public that this committee has been specially selected for impeachment purposes. Impeachment should be the work of the Judiciary Committee (which will take the help in inquiry’s the next phase). By doing it through the Intelligence Committee, moreover, Democrats dodge Judiciary impeachment precedents that would provide for more due process. (See Thomas Jipping’s post at Bench Memos.)

6) Not surprisingly, the resolution endorses the “ongoing investigation” that Democrats have been conducting. The resolution is pitched as a means of continuing that inquiry, not beginning anew. This is a face-saving measure: Democrats should have passed this resolution at the beginning of the inquiry. They did not do that because, as discussed yesterday, they hoped to move public opinion in their favor with selective leaks to friendly media of their closed-door proceedings — a strategy that, sadly, has worked.

Republicans are right to complain (as, for example, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) has complained) that Democrats are continuing the secret proceedings for now, notwithstanding the promise of imminent open hearings. The closed proceedings are nearly devoid of due process — they do not feature the Republican participation provisions attendant to the open hearings (and the presidential participation provisions envisioned once things more to the Judiciary Committee). Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) says they are like a grand jury, but (as I’ve explained) they are not — they are a rubber stamp for Democrats who decided three years ago that Trump should be impeached, and a vehicle for shaping media coverage by selective disclosure.

Ironically, the resolution’s endorsement of the secret hearings is portrayed as part of Democrat’s’ commitment to “open and transparent investigative proceedings.”

7) Whether the proceedings ultimately will be seen as open and transparent will depend in large part on whether the heretofore secret proceedings are disclosed. Significantly, the resolution allows for that, but does not require it. The issue is placed in the discretion of Chairman Schiff. This is part of what I referred to at the start as the resolution’s flaws. Schiff is a notoriously sharp-elbowed partisan, the protégé Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) placed in charge of implementing the unauthorized (by a House vote) inquiry practices of closed hearings and selective leaking. The question of disclosing transcripts will be a good early test of how straight Chairman Schiff is going to play this. The resolution empowers him to decide what should be made public, and to direct “appropriate redactions” for not only any classified information but anything he decides is too “sensitive” to be disclosed.

8) With that as a concrete example of what’s at stake, we should pause to deal with the central procedural issue. Republicans continue validly to complain about the rigged process. Whether it will be rigged going forward, though, depends on how committed Schiff and, ultimately, Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) are to open proceedings that both are and appear to be fair. It is not frivolous for Republicans to grouse that the future open proceedings with due process are tainted by the month of closed proceedings without due process, which has made impeachment a foregone conclusion. But the procedural argument won’t win the day, and Democrats still have to make their case to the public, no matter how one-sided things have been to this point.

I am not without hope that there will be real due process in the public hearings — not because hardcore partisans Schiff and Nadler will suddenly transform into paragons of fairness, but because it is in their interest to be fair.

The court here is public opinion, and — because the president is highly unlikely to be removed by the Senate — the verdict will come in November 2020. If the House Democrats have an impeachment case against the president, the Democrats have a strong incentive to let the process play out with deferential due process befitting the seriousness of the matter. If the case is thin gruel and the process is manifestly skewed against the president, with disclosure withheld, cross-examination slashed, exculpatory witnesses denied, etc., it will look like a partisan hit job — i.e., Democrats determined to impeach a president they never accepted, not spurred by egregious misconduct.

The public will judge the House impeachment inquiry on the finished product, not the dodgy start. In this vein, Republicans are seizing on the broad discretion and control that the resolution vests in Schiff. This is a sensible strategy: Schiff has conducted himself disreputably, theatrically reading an absurd caricature of the Trump-Zelensky transcript, concealing his staff’s coordination with the so-called whistleblower (and earlier, championing the discredited Steele dossier). A former prosecutor, Schiff is a very able interrogator; he is also hyper-partisan, sneaky, and erratic.

All that said, congressional inquiries are adversarial political proceedings, which means someone has to be in charge of them. Elections have consequences, so the someone is a Democrat. Since we are in a very partisan time, Republicans and Democrats tend to vote in antagonistic lockstep. Where there are disputes, Democrats will win because they have the numbers.That doesn’t mean the process has to be rigged. That will be up to Schiff. If Republicans make reasonable requests, Schiff would be well advised not to turn them into disputes; if he denies them, Democrats will look terrible. If Republicans make outlandish demands that appear designed to delay or derail the proceedings, there will be sympathy for Schiff. A lot rides on how he presides — and how Nadler does in phase-two.

To repeat, the president and his allies are going to need a substantive defense to the charge that, with a purpose to interfere in the 2020 election, he abused his foreign-relations power by encouraging a foreign government to investigate an American citizen for violating foreign law. Making Schiff the bogeyman is only going to get them so far. It will wear thin quickly if Schiff performs well.

9) The resolution outlines a bifurcated inquiry, the first half of which includes the closed-door investigative phase that has been underway for weeks under the direction of Schiff’s Intelligence Committee. That phase will soon go public. The resolution authorizes Schiff to conduct open hearings at which he and the Republican ranking member, Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), may, with equal time, question witnesses for up to 90 minutes — with the assistance of a member of the Committee’s professional staff (there are very experienced investigators and prosecutors on the staff). The Committee would then proceed with the familiar five-minute rounds of questioning by all members. (There are 22 members of the Committee, 13 Democrats and nine Republicans.)

10) In both this hearing phase, and the later Judiciary Committee phase, there is provision for the Republican minority to seek to call their own witnesses and present other evidence, including the ability to issue subpoenas for testimony and tangible evidence. Thomas Jipping’s Bench Memos post (noted above) observes that the minority is not being given the same procedural equal standing it got in the Clinton and Nixon impeachment inquiries. The distinction, however, may be more apparent than real. Underneath the veneer of bipartisan comity in prior impeachment lurked the reality that one side was the majority and would win if any dispute arose. This reality is more patent in the current resolution — for example, Schiff and the Democrats can subpoena whoever they want; Nunes and the Republicans must make a showing of relevance in writing to Schiff’s satisfaction. The brute fact, however, is that a House impeachment inquiry is a majority show, no matter how clearly the enabling resolution articulates it.

11) The resolution directs that the Intelligence Committee (in conjunction with the Foreign Affairs and Oversight Committees, which have also been investigating) file a public report with findings and recommendations, to be submitted to the Judiciary Committee — which would then proceed with impeachment articles.

The report is supposed to include any relevant materials Schiff deems appropriate. I would anticipate, then, that the report stage is when Schiff will release any currently sealed testimony and other evidence; the report will provide him with an opportunity to spin that information as he’d have people construe it, rather than allowing the public to form its own impressions. The Republican minority will be permitted to append dissenting views. The report will outline the Intelligence Committee’s findings and recommendations; presumably, that will be the first iteration of what will become the articles of impeachment.

12) After the report is filed, the proceedings shift to the Judiciary Committee. It is finally, at that stage, that the president and his counsel will have an opportunity to participate. It is the Judiciary Committee that will formally report articles of impeachment to the full House.

We’ll have more to say about the Judiciary Committee proceedings when we get there.

Source: National Review

Identity Of Ukraine ‘WhistleBlower’ Has Been Released | Trending Politics & Real Clear Investigations

Editor’s Note: As expected the identity of the whistleblower is an inside job of the CIA. Historically dozens of countries had their democratically elected Presidents overthrown by CIA orchestrated coups. Now, it’s come home to roost in these united states of America.

On Wednesday afternoon, the identity of the infamous whistleblower who is responsible for the beginning of the impeachment inquiry against President Trump was revealed to be registered Democrat Eric Ciaramella who has close ties to former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden and corrupt former CIA Chief John Brennan.

Not only does Ciaramella have an extreme political bias against President Trump but he also helped start the Russian collusion investigation into President Trump back in 2016.

Ciaramella was present at many events including one with Melania Trump:

The bombshell revelation was released by Real Clear Investigations. Check out what they reported:

RealClearInvestigations is disclosing the name because of the public’s interest in learning details of an effort to remove a sitting president from office. Further, the official’s status as a “whistleblower” is complicated by his being a hearsay reporter of accusations against the president, one who has “some indicia of an arguable political bias … in favor of a rival political candidate” — as the Intelligence Community Inspector General phrased it circumspectly in originally fielding his complaint.

Federal documents reveal that the 33-year-old Ciaramella, a registered Democrat held over from the Obama White House, previously worked with former Vice President Joe Biden and former CIA Director John Brennan, a vocal critic of Trump who helped initiate the Russia “collusion” investigation of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

Further, Ciaramella (pronounced char-a-MEL-ah) left his National Security Council posting in the White House’s West Wing in mid-2017 amid concerns about negative leaks to the media. He has since returned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

A formal NSC official previously spoke out about Ciaramella, revealing, “He was accused of working against Trump and leaking against Trump.”

It doesn’t end there. The whistleblower also worked closely with Democratic National Committee operative Alexandra Chalupa back in 2016 to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump.

Real Clear Investigations continues:

And Ciaramella worked with a Democratic National Committee operative who dug up dirt on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, inviting her into the White House for meetings, former White House colleagues said. The operative, Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American who supported Hillary Clinton, led an effort to link the Republican campaign to the Russian government. “He knows her. He had her in the White House,” said one former co-worker, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Documents confirm the DNC opposition researcher attended at least one White House meeting with Ciaramella in November 2015. She visited the White House with a number of Ukrainian officials lobbying the Obama administration for aid for Ukraine.

With Ciaramella’s name long under wraps, interest in the intelligence analyst has become so high that a handful of former colleagues have compiled a roughly 40-page research dossier on him. A classified version of the document is circulating on Capitol Hill, and briefings have been conducted based on it. One briefed Republican has been planning to unmask the whistleblower in a speech on the House floor.

Source: Trending Politics & Real Clear Investigations

House to Vote This Week on Impeachment Inquiry, Says Pelosi | The Epoch Times

The House is slated to vote this week on the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, top Democrats have said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Monday that “we will bring a resolution to the Floor that affirms the ongoing, existing investigation that is currently being conducted by our committees as part of this impeachment inquiry, including all requests for documents, subpoenas for records and testimony, and any other investigative steps previously taken or to be taken as part of this investigation.”

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), the chairman of the House Rules Committee, said on Monday that he will introduce a resolution to “ensure transparency” and “provide a clear path forward” in the inquiry.

According to the House Rules Committee’s website, a meeting will be held Wednesday “directing certain committees to continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House of Representatives to exercise its Constitutional power to impeach Donald John Trump, President of the United States of America, and for other purposes.”

McGovern, meanwhile, said that he plans on introducing it on Tuesday, according to a statement, as reported by CBS News.

It will be the first, formal vote on the impeachment process after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the inquiry in September.

Republicans and the Trump administration have called for the House Democrats to hold a vote on the inquiry.

“As committees continue to gather evidence and prepare to present their findings, I will be introducing a resolution to ensure transparency and provide a clear path forward,” McGovern said in a statement. “This is the right thing to do for the institution and the American people.”

At the same time, Republicans have criticized the way in which Democrats have conducted the investigation, saying they are being held in secret while leaking information about them to the media. Last week, a coalition of GOP lawmakers entered a closed-door meeting that was being held by House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

“We are taking this step to eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump Administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives,” said Pelosi in the statement.

Source: The Epoch Times

 

Google Joins the Pharmaceutical Industry | Health Impact News

Zurich, Switzerland – April 20, 2016: sign on the wall of a Google office building. Google is a multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products, its largest European office is located in Zurich, Switzerland.

By Kate Raines, The Vaccine Reaction

Editor’s Note: If you’re wondering why it’s now difficult to find certain websites re: vaccine safety, etc. it’s because Google has modified its search engine algorithm to bury vaccine-related search requests as from their profit-making perspective it’s a conflict of interest (since they’re now making money selling vaccines and other pharmaceuticals). As the primary gateway to the internet Google now has too much power to control the flow of information in its own self-interest and deny alternative viewpoints to those using its search engines. This is only the beginning of internet censorship along with the other gatekeepers such as Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.

Google’s burgeoning ties to Big Pharma have been exposed with the disclosure of its new pharmaceutical division, which just happens to be led by the former head of GlaxoSmithKline’s global vaccine business. As cautioned by Progressive Radio Network journalists Gary Null, PhD and Richard Gale,

Google today is not only a weapon for promoting the pharmaceutical agenda but now also a drug company itself.”1

Google is Much More Than a Search Engine

Backing up a few years to 2015, Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided the multi-armed behemoth that Google had become would benefit from a drastic reorganization. Consequently, they split their “core internet business” off from their other minimally (or un-) related projects such as X Lab and the Calico life extension project. Along with Google itself, those secondary companies were grouped under the umbrella of a new corporation called “Alphabet.”2

The upshot was that Alphabet now owns Google, although the key players have not changed. Page and Brin now serve as CEO and President, respectively, of Alphabet, while former Google product chief Sundar Pichai is now CEO of Google.

Tracing a line from Google’s reorganization of itself to its structure today, the initial division kept all of the Internet entities under Google’s wing, under one “side” of the Alphabet umbrella. These included Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. Google remained as the largest and most financially robust of Alphabet’s ventures.3

Other semi-independent companies under the Alphabet name included a diverse collection of corporations focused on such wide-ranging fields as biomedical or scientific advances, investment ventures, “smart home” applications, drone technologies and urban infrastructure.3

The Many Faces of Alphabet/Google

As the dust settled at Alphabet/Google, a number of the newly independent or semi-independent companies emerged, wielding some clout of their own. While Google’s revenues in 2017 continued to reap the lion’s share, reaching $110.9 billion, revenues from other ventures reported $1.2 billion. With operating losses reported at $3.4 billion, Google’s “side lines” were not yet profitable but climbing, up from 2016 losses of $4.6 billion.4

Those other ventures include X Lab (research and new ideas), G and CapitalG (investment funds), Sidewalk Labs (focused on urban innovation), Nest (smarthome devices), Chronicle (cybersecurity), Waymo (autonomous vehicles), Access (Internet provider innovations), Jigsaw (technological and geopolitics), Deep Mind (artificial intelligence), Verily (healthcare and managing disease) and Calico (biotech and lifespan extension).

The X Lab, or “Moonshot Factory,” is a research and development lab aimed at, in their own words, creating “radical new technologies to solve some of the world’s hardest problems.”5

Some of their projects include self-driving cars, delivery drones, renewable energy storage technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and learning robots, among many others. X acts as an incubation lab for cutting edge ideas that, once developed, may either be discontinued or “graduated” to become an independent entity.

Verily’s Pharmaceutical Ties

Verily Life Sciences is one of those Alphabet ideas now launched into independent status. Initially begun as a series of projects exploring the use of technologies including miniaturization and machine learning to create “wearable” devices such as smart lenses, Verily now partners with a number of pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines on projects ranging from smart lenses with Alcon (a subsidiary of Novartis) and surgical robotics with Johnson & Johnson to early identification and intervention in chronic diseases with Merck Sharp & Dohme and diabetes management with Sanofi.6

Verily is partnered with Gilead on profiling the immune system to clarify the biological mechanisms of autoimmune disease and with Verve Therapeutics on nanoparticle formulations. Verily is also partnered with GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer,7 in the development of bioelectronic medicine.6

With the creation of Galvani Bioelectronics in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, Verily now has its own pharmaceutical company that is working to “enable the research, development and commercialization of bioelectronic medicines,” which aim to treat disease using miniaturized implanted devices.8

Another of Verily’s projects is the development of the “sterile insect technique” to manipulate mosquito populations by releasing sterile male mosquitoes that will reduce the populations of insects carrying such diseases as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.9

The company has also entered the clinical study arena, first with its own study called Baseline, which seeks to connect potential study participants with clinical research groups.10

Partnering with Verily initiatives is appealing to pharmaceutical companies, including vaccine manufacturers and developers like Novartis, Sanofi, Otsuka and Pfizer, because of the young biotech company’s focus on modernizing and increasing the efficiency of data collection using tools such as electronic medical study process, as well as getting new drugs and vaccines to market faster. Although the partnered studies are not yet in progress, studies are being explored in cardiovascular disease, oncology, mental health, dermatology and diabetes.

Because anyone can join Baseline and potentially be connected with clinical trials relevant to their own life, keeping patient information private will be a challenge, but the projected market value of the program is expected to reach $69 billion by 2026. 11

As reporter Mark Terry put it for BioSpace, “Perhaps disconcertingly, a company that handles 92.4% of internet searches globally and already has significant amounts of information about your life, now wants to know medical and health information as well.” 12

Alphabet’s Other Medical Venture: Calico Labs

In addition to Verily, Alphabet has another older medical research company called Calico, founded in 2013 and headed by Arthur Levinson, the former CEO of Genentech, another pharmaceutical company that develops vaccines.13

According to Calico’s mission statement, the company wants “to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan” and will “require an unprecedented level of interdisciplinary effort.14

Dr. Aarif Khakoo, Head of Drug Development at Calico (and formerly a Vice President at Amgen, a pharmaceutical company that develops vaccines) said, “With the aging of the world population, there is a pressing need to gain a deeper understanding of the molecular underpinnings of human aging and to translate these insights into new therapies for aging and age-related diseases… I’m looking forward to working with the team and our external collaborators to move the lead therapeutic candidates into clinical studies in the future.”14

It has been obvious for some time now that Google’s algorithms have been adjusted to make it more difficult to find information, including information about vaccines, that doesn’t align with the messages about health and medical care that are approved by government and the pharmaceutical industry. In some cases, no matter how specific a search question is, or how it is worded and re-worded, the search results stubbornly return the same tired but mainstream medical authority-approved results.

Teasing out the infiltration of the pharmaceutical industry into Google, it seems that Alphabet is not just delivering an approved narrative, but Google’s message too.

Source: TheVaccineReaction.org.

SPLC brands evangelical group that fights antisemitism as ‘hate group’ | WND

Editor’s Note: Twenty years ago I found myself (aka “Johnny Liberty” and many of our associates on the distinguished SPLC listed as a “hate group” because we were largely successful in teaching millions of people about sovereignty through our audio courses and offshore seminars. SPLC labeled us as part of their continuing “disinformation” campaign waged on behalf of deep state operatives who wish to destroy this constitutional Republic at all costs. Unfortunately, SPLC was hired to miseducate police officers all across America to harass “constitutionalists” and sovereign citizens.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), once widely praised for fighting the KKK, has devolved into routinely slapping its “hate” label on groups that don’t align with its far-left values

With that in mind, there may be a silver lining in SPLC’s designation of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations as a hate group, said PJTN’s founder and president, Laurie Cardoza-Moore.

“If being pro-Israel and against antisemitism is now considered a hate crime, I will wear the SPLC listing as a badge of honor,” she said

But she said that placing her group “alongside bigots and Nazis minimizes the true meaning of hate.”

“In reality, PJTN is on the front lines and in the headlines of fighting against antisemitism on a daily basis.”

She vowed to continue “to fight hate through our thousands of PJTN Watchmen around the globe.”

“Our answer to this absurd listing will be to open more PJTN chapters in American and fight harder to have antisemitism defined and confronted throughout the free world,” Cardoza-Moore said.

She pointed to the irony of SPLC’s claim that PJTN is a “hate” group, since PJTN “exists to fight the world’s oldest hatred – antisemitism.”

“PJTN has gained wide international media acclaim as it encourages state legislators to act against antisemitism and BDS,” the organization’s statement said.

“However, the Southern Poverty Law Center seems to believe that being pro-Israel and against antisemitism is now a hate crime.”

Cardoza-Moore said the SPLC list “has become nothing short of a witch hunt against organizations that don’t share their extremist liberal worldview.”

“Sadly, many institutions still look to the once credible SPLC for advice on hate groups. We hope that being blacklisted will not impede upon our ability to continue defending the Jewish people and Israel against global antisemitism,” she said.

“We will not be marginalized or silenced because of our support for Israel and the Jewish people. This will only strengthen our resolve to work harder. We call upon all of our supporters to write to the SPLC and demand that they immediately remove PJTN from their nefarious list before they lose any credibility they still have as a credible watchdog.”

The organization was established to urge Christians to stand with their Jewish brethren and Israel against the global surge of anti-Semitism.

Cardoza-Moore, who serves as a special envoy to the United Nations, recently called on Christians to stand vigil outside synagogues during the Rosh Hashanah holidays for Jews.

Pointing to several acts of violence against synagogues, she said there is “no justification on earth for these heinous attacks and no American should feel unsafe in their house of worship.”

Source: WND

Deep state in total panic as Durham’s investigation confirmed to have transitioned to CRIMINAL phase… indictments imminent | Natural News

Editor’s Note: Perhaps these warriors of justice will find the light of day to expose the players behind the false Russian collusion narrative and the coordinated attempts by deep state agents within our own government and beyond to “influence not only an election” but to overthrow a duly elected President of the United States.

By Mike Adams

Beyond “bombshell” news, we now have confirmation that U.S. Attorney John Durham has transitioned into a “criminal investigation” which will likely lead to criminal indictments of deep state traitors. Those most likely to face criminal indictments are John Brennan and James Clapper, which may lead to evidence implicating James Comey, Robert Mueller, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, among others.

As the New York Times reported:

For more than two years, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the Russia investigation, portraying it as a hoax and illegal even months after the special counsel closed it. Now, Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into how it all began… Justice Department officials have shifted an administrative review of the Russia investigation closely overseen by Attorney General William P. Barr to a criminal inquiry, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move gives the prosecutor running it, John H. Durham, the power to subpoena for witness testimony and documents, to impanel a grand jury and to file criminal charges.

The illegal coup against Trump was initiated by Hillary Clinton and the criminal deep state

Our analysis of events unfolding over the last few months concludes that interviews with alleged “Trump dossier” author Christopher Steele revealed explosive new evidence that the entire intelligence community coup effort against President Trump was initiated by a Hillary Clinton-funded smear document (the dossier) which wasn’t authored by Steele at all. The entire operation has always been a deep state coup attempt to reverse the 2016 election by any means necessary. The effort failed, the deep state traitors have been identified and they are about to face justice.

Two key names to watch in all this are Christopher Steele and Joseph Mifsud. As Conservative Treehouse explains:

So what the New York Times is outlining here, is the CIA ran an operation using Mifsud to place information into Papadopoulos, a classic set-up, and the FBI is now claiming they had no idea the CIA was the originating intelligence apparatus for that information. Very interesting…. aligns with the FBI defensive framework from last week.

Well the claim: “The F.B.I. did not use information from the C.I.A. in opening the Russia investigation” is demonstrably false.  The CIA produced an “electronic communication” (EC) to the FBI which officially launched the premise of operation “crossfire hurricane’.  That EC has never been released, though it has been seen by congressional investigators.  So whoever this “former American official” is, is lying.

As Lisa Haven explains in this Brighteon video below, Durham’s criminal investigation is “the link to everything” and will expose the greatest cover-up in political history:

Observers are expecting criminal conspiracy charges to emerge from the Durham / Barr investigation. As The Gateway Pundit reports:

Former Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos reacted to the news tonight. Papadopoulos was set up by CIA-FBI operatives during the 2016 election.

George Papadopoulos: John Durham’s investigation has officially morphed into a criminal investigation. When I said Mifsud and Downer were in on it together and Halper was there to provide cover, I was serious. Expect conspiracy charges to come out of this. Great day for America!

Source: Natural News & The Gateway Pundit

Dick Morris: The Deep State is framing Trump on Ukraine | WND & The Western Journal

By Dick Morris, The Western Journal

Editor’s Note: There is always more going on than meets the eye especially via a highly politicized and polarized media from which we gather 99.9% of our information about what’s going on. To be truly informed, do your own research and learn from both sides of the equation to better understand the bigger picture. In this article we get a better understanding of why the US State Department is so riled up about Trump involving himself directly in foreign policy and building direct relationships with the leaders of the world (and why they are testifying against him).

Encased within the Democratic efforts to oust Trump is the determination of the deep state to limit presidential power to conduct foreign policy and the desire of allies of the EU to resist efforts to enlist the new Ukrainian president in their nationalist coalition.

Conservatives and Republicans are well aware by now of the deep state that permeates the Intelligence Community, having seen it operate to try to impeach President Donald Trump over phony charges of Russian collusion.

Now, meet the Deep State at State! The State Department and the National Security Council are filled with deep state operatives working feverishly to bring Trump down over the Ukraine affair.

Their pique at Trump’s heavy-handed intervention in Ukraine is rooted in their deep-seated belief that the president must be kept out of foreign policy despite the constitutional mandate that unambiguously puts in his lap.

Recognizing the president’s formal power, the deep state folks work overtime to get the president to do their bidding on foreign affairs.

William Taylor, former charge d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in Kiev told House investigators that he “began to sense that the two decision-making channels [formulating U.S. policy toward Ukraine] — the regular and the irregular — were separate and at odds.”

Translation: How dare the president conduct foreign policy without consulting us!

Atlanticist to the core, the deep state is heavily invested in the idea of globalism and the institution of the European Union. It watched, with alarm and dismay, the defection of the UK from the EU. They see Brexit as a tragedy. But now their focus turns to the eastern border of the EU as it threatens to defect as well.

There, a determined effort led by Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban (a former client) is eroding the power of the EU. Allying with like-minded leaders in Poland and Italy, he is crafting an independent course away from Brussels.

President Trump set off alarm bells in the State Department deep state when, according to The New York Times, “Trump met, over the objections of this national security advisor, with one of [Ukraine’s] most virulent critics, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.”

At that meeting, The Times said, Trump “was exposed to a harsh indictment of Ukraine” that “set the stage for events that led to the impeachment inquiry.”

Orban’s sin is opposing the EU, restricting Muslim immigration and battling with fellow Hungarian George Soros. Defying the EU, he has built a wall around Hungary to protect his country of only nine million from a hostile takeover by Muslim refugees and immigrants. He refuses to admit his quota of refugees assigned Hungary by the EU.

Eager to protect the 150,000 Hungarians living in Ukraine from forced assimilation, he has battled for permitting Hungarian to be used in the regions in which they live.

Seeking to preserve national identity is a no-no in the world of the EU.

And Organ also struck at left-wing billionaire George Soros who founded the Central European University in Budapest after the fall of communism. It’s increasingly leftist, anti-nationalist orientation has drawn criticism from Orban who has moved to restrict its government funding.

Orban is building a nationalist coalition in Eastern Europe that opposes immigration and resists EU domination. His Polish ally, Jaroslaw Kaczyński (another former client) just won the election there a few months ago. Leaders in Italy and other eastern European countries have backed Orban’s crusade.

Source: WND & The Western Journal

George Soros: Warren ‘most qualified to be president’ | WND

Editor’s Note: On the political right Soros has been a most despised and controversial figure although after seeing an unofficial documentary “Soros” directed by Bob Dylan’s son Jesse at the Telluride Film Festival my opinion of him and his financial contributions to numerous progressive grass roots organizations changed. As a Jewish child he barely survived Nazi fascism and after the Berlin Wall came down in the eighties was largely responsible for liberalizing many Eastern block countries of Europe (which were extremely repressed). So like him or not (much like those on the political left who hate Trump) he is a man who has shaped the post-war world.

The most prominent funder of left-wing political activism in the United States, billionaire George Soros, believes Elizabeth Warren is “most qualified” among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.

“She has emerged as the clear-cut person to beat,” he told the New York Times in an interview published Friday. “I don’t take a public stance, but I do believe that she is the most qualified to be president.”

Soros said, however, he’s not endorsing any candidate.

“I don’t express my views generally because I have to live with whoever the electorate chooses,” said Soros, 89, the Hungarian-born founder of the Open Society Foundations.

CNBC noted that Wall Street financiers are divided on Warren, a critic of “corporate greed” who proposes a new tax on the wealthy.

Soros was among the signatories of a letter in June supporting Warren’s tax proposal.

Soros, in the New York Times interview, said President Trump “is still doing a tremendous amount of damage.”

He added that the recent decision to remove U.S. troops from Syria “has been devastating for America’s influence in the world.”

Sections of the whistleblower complaint alleging President Trump pressured Ukraine’s president for political advantage relied on a self-described investigative journalism organization funded by Soros, reported Aaron Klein of Breitbart News last month.

In March, the Washington Free Beacon reported Soros bankrolled a massive “hate crime” database used by media that is stocked with claims by the likes of the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center and the Hamas-founded Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The partners that used the database of unverified claims of hate crimes include Google News Labs, New York Times Opinion and ABC News, according to tax documents and interviews.

Source: WND

Senate Resolution Urges Formal House Vote on Initiating Impeachment Inquiry | The Epoch Times

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) holds a press conference about the House impeachment inquiry process, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 24, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Editor’s Note: We the People are witnessing an attempted coup d’tat of our United States government in broad daylight and this impeachment inquiry is a smokescreen, a distraction, a false narrative and coverup orchestrated by the many co-conspirators who before Trump was elected in 2016 decided to manufacture a false accusation re: Russian collusion to discredit him. These “enemies of the state” decided that should Trump be elected that they would take it into their own hands to overthrow a duly elected President of the United States. If you are one of the many naive American’s who actually believe what you read in the mainstream, corporate newspapers and are not savvy enough to understand the hidden powers that pull the strings behind the curtain of the U.S. Congress, then shame on you. Wake Up America before it’s too late!

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) introduced a non-binding resolution on Oct. 24 calling on House Democrats to hold a formal vote on initiating an impeachment inquiry before moving any further in the investigation of President Donald Trump.

Thirty-five Republican senators co-sponsored the resolution, which also demands that the impeachment inquiry accommodate Trump with constitutional due-process protections. By early evening on Oct. 24, the number of co-sponsors had reached 46.

“The House of Representatives is abandoning more than a century’s worth of precedent and tradition in impeachment proceedings and denying President Trump basic fairness and due process accorded every American,” the resolution (pdf) states.

“One of the cornerstones of the American Constitution is due process: the right to confront your accuser, call witnesses on your behalf, and challenge the accusations against you.”

Senate Republicans unveiled the resolution one day after roughly three dozen House Republicans stormed a hearing room during a House Intelligence Committee impeachment deposition to demand that the closed-door hearings be opened to lawmakers and the public.

The resolution points out that during the three prior impeachment proceedings, the House held a formal vote to initiate an impeachment inquiry. In Trump’s case, the process was replaced by a press conference by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Republicans charge.

“The proposition that the Speaker acting alone may direct committees to initiate impeachment proceedings without any debate or a vote on the House floor is unprecedented and undemocratic,” the resolution states.

Prior impeachment proceedings allowed the presidents to have counsel present at hearings and depositions, according to the resolution. In each case, the presidents’ lawyers were allowed to introduce and object to evidence and call on and cross-examine witnesses.

“By contrast, the House’s current impeachment ‘inquiry’ provides none of these basic rights and protections to President Trump,” the co-sponsors say. “The main allegations against President Trump are based on assertions and testimony from witnesses whom he is unable to confront, as part of a process in which he is not able to offer witnesses in his defense or have a basic understanding of the allegations lodged against him.”

House Democrats are investigating allegations related to President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the conversation on July 25, Trump asked Zelensky to look into two matters. The first request concerned a server tied to Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm that analyzed the Democratic National Committee server allegedly breached by Russian government hackers. The second request concerned allegations of corruption by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

The Democrats have conducted all of the hearings to date behind closed doors. The public’s access to the information has so far been limited to leaks to the media and a handful of documents published by the committees.

The Democrats have defended the process, claiming that lawmakers in prior impeachment proceedings worked from material collected through an investigation by a special counsel. Meanwhile, the lawmakers took up the current case without letting a special counsel conduct an inquiry. As a result, the process requires secrecy so that witnesses don’t adjust their testimony.

The constant leaks from the inquiry have undermined the advantages gained through secret proceedings. Republicans say they don’t have access to transcripts of the depositions. Meanwhile, leaked information seems to consist almost entirely of sections of testimony damaging to Trump.

The minority Republicans on the three committees conducting the impeachment inquiry don’t have the same rights as those that were granted to the minority Democrats during the House impeachment inquiry of President Bill Clinton, including the ability to issue subpoenas. The resolution calls on the Democrats to follow precedent and grant Republicans the same rights.

“We’re not telling the House they can’t impeach the president. What we’re telling the House is, there’s a right way to do it, and a wrong way to do it,” Graham told reporters. “This is one part legal, and two parts politics.”

The White House has refused to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry unless the Democrats hold a vote to formally launch the inquiry. The president has denied any wrongdoing in his call with Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader said he wasn’t pressured during the phone call.

Trump on Oct. 23 criticized the impeachment inquiry along lines similar to the Senate resolution.

“Do Nothing Democrats allow Republicans Zero Representation, Zero due process, and Zero Transparency,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Does anybody think this is fair?”

The Democrats allege that in order to pressure Zelensky, Trump placed a temporary hold on military aid to Ukraine. All of the witnesses who have testified to date say that Ukrainian officials were unaware of the hold until one month after the Trump–Zelensky phone call.

Source: The Epoch Times

GOP Members Storm Closed Door House Session | Trending Politics

Editor’s. Note: An impeachment process must be transparent, open and factual. There’s something terribly wrong and one-sided if Republicans are not allowed to participate in the inquiry. 

On Wednesday, GOP members made the move to storm a closed door impeachment session, forcing far-left Rep. Adam Schiff to suspend the meeting and run from the scene.

Democrats have made the ongoing impeachment inquiry as secret as possible, offering no public transparency.

During a press conference before storming the hearing, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said: “We’re going to try and go in there, and we’re going to try to figure out what’s going on, on behalf of the millions of Americans that we represent that want to see this Congress working for them and not obsess with attacking a president who we believe has not done anything to deserve impeachment.”

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise also spoke out: “What is Adam Schiff trying to hide? I think that’s the question so many people have, so many of my colleagues have, so many people in the press should have.”

“Voting members of Congress are being denied access from being able to see what’s happening behind these closed doors where they’re trying to impeach the president of the United States with a one-sided set of rules,” Scalise continued. “They call the witnesses. They don’t let anybody else call the witnesses.”

“We’re gonna’ go and see if we can get inside,” Gaetz added.

It was then when the 30 Republicans stormed the closed-door hearing, forcing Schiff to run out and hide.

“He doesn’t have the guts to come talk to us,” Rep. Roger Marshall said. “He left, he just got up and left. He doesn’t have the guts to tell us why we can’t come in the room, why he doesn’t want this to be transparent. It’s the biggest facade, biggest farce of my life.”

Rep. Bradley Byrne too to Twitter saying: “Adam Schiff just SHUT DOWN his secret underground impeachment hearing after I led a group of Republicans into the room. Now he’s threatening me with an Ethics complaint! I’m on the Armed Services Cmte but being blocked from the Dept. Asst. SecDef’s testimony. This is a SHAM!” he wrote.

Republicans are clearly upset with the lack of transparency from Schiff and the rest of the Democrats. Gaetz has tried to attend the meetings however “he could not attend because he is not part of the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting the investigation along with the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees,” Fox New reported.

“Judiciary Chairman [Jerry Nadler] claimed to have begun the impeachment inquiry weeks ago,” Gaetz previously said. “Now, his own Judiciary members aren’t even allowed to participate in it. And yes — my constituents want me actively involved in stopping the #KangarooCourtCoup run by Shifty Schiff.”

House Democrats defended Schiff, saying that Schiff was in the right.

“I guess when you’re desperate you go back to complaining about the process, and that’s what they’re doing,” said Rep. Val Demings said.

“I think it’s completely inappropriate. I think when the facts are against you, the law is against you, the President apparently committed a crime, you are left with arguing process, and that’s what they’re arguing,” Rep. Harley Rouda (D-CA) said.

“We’re embarrassing ourselves in front of company,” said Rep. Mike Quigley of the House Intelligence Committee.

Source: Trending Politics