POTUS

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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

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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

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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

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Former House lawyer says Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry ‘is illegal’ | The Washington Times

Editor’s Note: The House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff is not authorized under the rules to lead an impeachment probe. Under H.Res 658 established by the 95th Congress (1977- 78), this Select Committee has oversight over the activities of the CIA and has no jurisdiction to conduct an impeachment inquiry against the President of the USA.

Thanks to a flurry of Ukraine activity, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic majority have approved more subpoenas to investigate President Trump than they have written laws.

The subpoena issued Tuesday morning to former Ambassador William Taylor marked the 56th that has been publicly acknowledged and aimed at Mr. Trump and his team. That is 10 more than the 46 House bills that have become law this year.

It’s far from a subpoena record, but it is complicating Mrs. Pelosi’s attempt to portray her troops as focused on their agenda.

Perhaps more worrying to Mrs. Pelosi’s cause is the conclusion of a former senior oversight attorney for the House, who said the spate of subpoenas issued this month as part of Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is illegal.

Samuel Dewey, a lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery who used to lead investigations for the House Financial Services Committee, said the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, led by Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, is not authorized under the rules to lead an impeachment probe.

“Unless there’s a bunch of stuff that’s not public, which would in itself be extraordinary, there is no way he has jurisdiction to conduct an impeachment inquiry. I think his proceeding is illegal,” Mr. Dewey said.

Mr. Schiff’s impeachment inquiry subpoenas have all centered around Mr. Trump’s attempts to rope Ukraine into investigating a potential political opponent, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden. The Washington Times counts 15 publicly acknowledged subpoenas issued on the Ukraine matter so far, including the one Tuesday to Mr. Taylor.

The House also has approved 22 subpoenas related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling and Trump campaign behavior in 2016, seven subpoenas dealing with the president’s finances, three concerning White House matters such as security clearances or the activities of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, five subpoenas over immigration policy, three over Mr. Trump’s now-abandoned attempt to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census, and one subpoena to the State Department over U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

Those are publicly acknowledged subpoenas that have been approved or for which chairmen have given notice. Other subpoenas may have been sent in secret, which would mean the ratio of subpoenas to bills could be even higher.

“This is becoming a do-nothing Congress, and it will ultimately cost them the majority in 2020,” said Corey Lewandowski, a confidant of Mr. Trump and the target of one of the 56 subpoenas, sent in August.

Mr. Lewandowski questioned the way Democrats went about calling him. He said it seemed more about confrontation than getting information.

His subpoena was issued even though his attorney told the House Judiciary Committee that he was willing to testify voluntarily — as he had already done for two other committees. But Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York issued a subpoena anyway. Mr. Lewandowski said he learned about it first from a reporter, hours before his own attorney received notice from the committee.

“Perhaps they wanted to make it a media story,” he said. “I think that the hearing itself was for show.”

He pointed out that the subpoena was issued the same day Mr. Trump was traveling to New Hampshire, where he all but endorsed a potential U.S. Senate bid for Mr. Lewandowski.

He also said the committee treated him differently than Mr. Mueller, who, unlike Mr. Lewandowski, demanded to be subpoenaed.

When during his July hearing a lawmaker asked Mr. Mueller to read parts of his report and he declined, the committee accepted that. When Mr. Lewandowski was asked and tried to decline, he was castigated.

“I just wanted to be treated the same,” he said. “I don’t think they did that.”

Mr. Lewandowski said he doesn’t question the legality of his subpoena. By that point, Mr. Nadler was arguing to the courts that he was engaged in an impeachment inquiry and had received his committee’s approval for 18 subpoenas related to the Russia investigation.

That probe petered out after Mr. Lewandowski’s testimony.

Now the focus is on Ukraine, and Mr. Nadler’s committee has been sidelined.

The Washington Times reached out to staff for Mr. Nadler’s committee and three others responsible for almost all of the subpoenas. None of them responded.

But Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, a Virginia Democrat and senior member of the Oversight and Reform Committee, challenged The Times’ comparison of laws to subpoenas. He said the House can issue the subpoenas on its own but needs cooperation from the Republican-led Senate and Mr. Trump to write legislation.

He said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, is refusing to pass Democrats’ bills, hurting their legislative record.

“Something becomes law when both parties vote for it. And we’ve passed easily 100 pieces of legislation waiting at the grim reaper’s — Mitch McConnell — desk,” he said. “We’ve got at least 100 more ready to go. They won’t bring it up.”

The House is on a good pace with 46 bills signed into law. Eight years ago, when Democrats controlled the White House and Senate and Republicans led the lower chamber, the House had written 32 bills signed into law at this point.

In 1995, when Republicans took both houses of Congress under a Democratic president, just 23 House bills were signed into law by this point.

Mrs. Pelosi’s tally this year is inflated by nine ceremonial pieces of legislation, such as renaming post offices. Even among the substantive bills, many are tweaks or extensions to current law, leaving few marquee accomplishments.

Mr. Connolly said whatever the ratio, the House is well behind Republicans in terms of subpoena records. When Republicans controlled the House and Barack Obama was in the White House, he said, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee alone fired off “well over 100 subpoenas.”

During the 1990s, when President Clinton was in office, Rep. Dan Burton sent out more than 1,000, including one notorious incident in which he sent a subpoena to the wrong person because he confused two people with similar Asian surnames.

But Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the oversight committee, said the subpoena numbers summed up Mrs. Pelosi’s tenure.

“We’ve been saying this. When the Democrats are completely focused on attacking the president, it’s tough to do what’s best for the country,” he told The Times.

Mr. Dewey, the former House attorney, indicated that Democrats have been more publicly confrontational in their approach to subpoenas than past congresses.

He said his own usual approach was to make a voluntary request to a target for documents or testimony and try to reach accommodations with those who resisted. Only after that failed would a subpoena be necessary, he said. He also said he worked with his counterparts in the other party, notifying them when subpoenas were issued.

“Honestly, if you’re cutting corners on procedure, my experience is you’re hiding something or you’re just lazy,” he said.

Mr. Dewey said Democrats could face a legal challenge over any impeachment-related subpoenas because the House has yet to vote to authorize an inquiry. Mrs. Pelosi created an inquiry by proclamation, turning the reins over to Mr. Schiff. Mr. Nadler, meanwhile, has argued to the courts that he has been in the midst of an inquiry for months.

Mr. Dewey said those arguments aren’t frivolous, but “I think they’re wrong.”

“I do not think as a matter of law that the Judiciary Committee can exercise the impeachment power without a vote of the full House,” he said. “And I think independently of that, I do not think any other committee can exercise the impeachment power.”

He said that could be an argument Mr. Trump’s team could make to defy some of the impeachment inquiry’s demands.

“It’s the defense to a subpoena,” he said. “I think that you would have a way to challenge it.”

Source: The Washington Times

Final Note: The committee oversees all or part of the following executive branch departments and agencies:

Source: Wikipedia

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Trump’s Error-filled Cabinet Meeting | FactCheck.org

By , , , and

For more than an hour, President Donald Trump presided over a cabinet meeting, reeling off numerous false or misleading claims:

  • Trump claimed, without evidence, that President Barack Obama tried to call North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “11 times” but that “the man on the other side … did not take his call” due to a “lack of respect.” Obama’s national security adviser and deputy national security adviser both called Trump’s claim false.
  • Trump took credit for making a “deal” between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds that he said “people have been trying to make” for years. One expert called this claim “nonsense.” The deal is only a five-day pause in the conflict that arose when Trump pulled U.S. troops from the Syria-Turkey border.
  • The president boasted that “nobody has ever done” a National Prescription Drug Take Back Day until he took office. In fact, it started in 2010.
  • He wrongly claimed that “many” of the “ambassadors” House Democrats are interviewing in the impeachment inquiry were “put there” by past administrations. Seven of the nine officials who have testified behind closed doors so far were appointed to their most recent positions under Trump’s administration.
  • Trump made the illogical and unsubstantiated claim that there was no informant who provided information to the whistleblower, whose complaint triggered an impeachment inquiry. And even more absurdly, Trump suggested the informant was Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House intelligence committee.
  • Trump was wrong in saying “no other president” has donated his salary. John F. Kennedy and Herbert Hoover also did so, according to news reports and Hoover’s library.
  • In defending the quashed plans to hold the next G-7 at his own resort, Trump suggested that Obama getting a book deal was like “running a business” while Obama was in office. The deal came after Obama left office.
  • Trump said, “China is doing very poorly — worst year they’ve had in 57 years.” China announced its economy grew by 6% in the third quarter of 2019, when compared with the same period the previous year. That was “the weakest pace in at least 27-1/2 years,” according to a Reuter’s analysis of quarterly data.

Trump made his remarks during an Oct. 21 cabinet meeting, which started — after a prayer from Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson — with the president talking about the U.S. economy, which he described as doing “fantastically well.” (See “Trump’s Numbers October 2019 Update” for a statistical measure of how things have changed since Trump took office.)

Calling Kim Jong Un

Trump claimed, without evidence, that President Barack Obama tried to call North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “11 times,” but Kim “did not take his call.”

Trump, Oct. 21: I like Kim; he likes me. We get along. I respect him; he respects me. You could end up in a war. President Obama told me that. He said, “The biggest problem — I don’t know how to solve it.” He told me doesn’t know how to solve it. I said, “Did you ever call him?” “No.” Actually, he tried 11 times. But the man on the other side — the gentleman on the side did not take his call. Okay? Lack of respect. But he takes my call.

Obama’s national security adviser and deputy national security adviser both called Trump’s claim false.

Susan Rice, who served under Obama as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and as Obama’s national security adviser from 2013 to 2017, tweeted that Trump’s claim is “a total fabrication.” She added, “Trump is completely delusional, and it’s scary.”

Likewise, Ben Rhodes, who served as Obama’s deputy national security adviser, tweeted, “Obama never called Kim Jong Un. Obama never tried to meet Kim Jong Un. Trump is a serial liar and not well.”

Trump’s claim is similar to one we fact-checked back in July. Then, Trump said Obama was “constantly … begging for meetings” but that Kim Jong Un refused. As we wrote then, Obama administration officials and experts on U.S.-North Korea relations said that’s not true.

“At the risk of stating the obvious, this is horse-sh*t,” Rice tweeted then. “Yes. It’s horseshit,” added Gen. Michael Hayden, via Twitter. Hayden served as director of the CIA from 2006 to Feb. 12, 2009, shortly after Obama took office.

A Deal Between Turkey and Syrian Kurds

Trump praised his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, saying the subsequent fighting that resulted between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds sparked a “deal” that he claimed “people have been trying to make” for years.

Trump, Oct. 21: If shooting didn’t start for a couple of days, I don’t think the Kurds would have moved. I don’t think, frankly, you would’ve been able to make a very easy deal with Turkey. … If they didn’t go through two and a half days of hell, I don’t think they would’ve done it. I think you couldn’t have made a deal. And people have been trying to make this deal for years. But we’re close to making it. We’ll see what happens.

Henri Barkey, a professor of international relations at Lehigh University and adjunct senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, called Trump’s claim of failed past attempts to broker such a deal “complete nonsense.”

“There is no effort of any sorts in the past between Turkey and Syrian Kurds,” Barkey told us in an email. “He is making things up.”

On Oct. 6, the White House announced it would withdraw U.S. special forces in northern Syria and that Turkey would soon move “forward with its long-planned [military] operation” against the Syrian Kurds, who had been U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State. Three days later, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan started “Operation Peace Spring,” resulting in dozens of deaths of civilians and Kurdish fighters.

After bipartisan criticism, Trump sent Vice President Mike Pence to meet with Erdogan in Ankara, Turkey, where on Oct. 17 they announced a five-day pause in the Turkish military operation to “allow for the withdrawal of YPG” from “the nearly 20-mile-wide safe zone area, south of the Turkish border in Syria.” The People’s Protection Units, or the YPG, is the armed wing of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party.

Turkey does have a long history of conflict with the Kurds, but direct Turkish involvement in northern Syria dates only to 2016. In August 2016, Turkey began Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria to clear the area of Islamic State terrorists and “prevent the YPG from establishing an autonomous area along the northern Syrian border with Turkey,” as explained in a January Congressional Research Service report.

Turkey felt threatened by the Syrian Kurds on its border. The Kurds were hoping for support from their allies in Washington, D.C. “Syrian Kurds wanted political recognition from DC,” and “down the road support for their autonomous state” in northern Syria, Barkey said.

National Prescription Take Back Day

Trump falsely said that “nobody has ever done” a National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, an event in which Americans can safely dispose of unused prescription drugs. The Drug Enforcement Administration began holding such national events in 2010.

Trump’s claim followed a briefing from White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on an upcoming take-back day on Oct. 26. After thanking Conway, he said, “Take Back Day is a big deal. And they’ve been talking about it for a long time. Nobody has ever done it. But it is big.”

The scheduled take back day, however, will not be the first, nor was the first national take back under Trump’s watch.

The initiative launched under Obama in 2010, with the primary aim of reducing misuse of old prescription drugs. The DEA has since organized two events each year — one in the spring and one in the fall — to encourage people to get rid of drugs lingering in their medicine cabinets. The most recent one was in April; Saturday’s take back will be the 18th event.

At the April 2016 event, the DEA collected a then-record 893,498 pounds of unwanted medicines. A new record was set two years later with 949,046 pounds. So far, across all 17 completed events, the DEA has collected nearly 12 million pounds of drugs.

During a take back, people can drop off their expired, unused or unwanted medications anonymously and for free — no questions asked — at a variety of locations across the country. This year, for the first time, the DEA will accept vaping devices and cartridges, in light of the recent spate of deaths and lung injuries linked to those products.

This isn’t the first time that Trump has falsely taken credit for launching a new program.

Last October, he took credit for the Veterans Choice Program, which allows veterans to seek health care outside of the VA if there are long wait times or travel burdens, and falsely added that it had taken “44 years” to pass the legislation. In fact, the program was created in 2014 under Obama. And in July 2018, Trump inaccurately said that prior to a law he signed in 2017, there was “nothing you could do” to get rid of VA employees who mistreat military veterans. On average, around 2,300 VA workers were fired each fiscal year before Trump’s legislation going back to 2005.

Trump Appointees

In remarks about the ongoing House impeachment inquiry, Trump wrongly claimed that “many” of the “ambassadors” Democratic-controlled House committees are interviewing were “put there during Obama, during Clinton, during the Never Trump or Bush era.”

Actually, among the nine government officials who have testified in closed sessions so far, just two were appointed to their current or recently resigned positions under the Obama administration. The other seven were appointed by Trump or Trump appointees, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Trump, Oct. 21: They’re interviewing — they’re interviewing ambassadors who I’d never heard of. I don’t know who these people are. I never heard of them. … Don’t forget, many of these people were put there during Obama, during Clinton, during the Never Trump or Bush era.

Let’s go through the list:

  • Steve A. Linick, the State Department inspector general, met with impeachment investigators on Oct. 2 and provided documents pertaining to Ukraine. Linick was appointed to the IG job by then-President Obama in 2013, and had served in the Justice Department under then-President George W. Bush and Obama from 2006 to 2010.
  • Kurt Volker was appointed special representative for Ukraine negotiations on July 7, 2017, by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, a Trump appointee. Volker resigned from that job on Sept. 27 and testified before the House committees on Oct. 3.
  • Michael K. Atkinson, the inspector general of the intelligence community, was nominated to the post by Trump in November 2017 and sworn in on May 17, 2018. Atkinson, who worked in the Justice Department for more than 15 years under both Republican and Democratic administrations, testified on Oct. 4.
  • George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state in the European and Eurasian bureau, assumed that job on Sept. 4, 2018, under Secretary of State Pompeo, a Trump appointee. He joined the foreign service in 1992; he testified Oct. 15.
  • Gordon Sondland, a Trump nominee, was confirmed as ambassador to the European Union on June 29, 2018. Sondland, the founder and CEO of Provenance Hotels, donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration committee through four companies registered to him, according to The Intercept. He testified on Oct. 17.
  • Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch was nominated to be ambassador to Ukraine by Obama on May 18, 2016, and confirmed by the Senate two months later. Yovanovitch, who joined the foreign service in 1986, was removed from her post by the Trump administration in May. She testified on Oct. 11.
  • Michael McKinley, another career diplomat, who joined the foreign service in 1982, was appointed senior adviser to Pompeo in May 2018. He testified on Oct. 16, days after resigning.
  • William B. Taylor served under the Bush and Obama administrations and was appointedchargé d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine in June after Yovanovitch was removed as ambassador. Taylor had been ambassador to Ukraine from 2006 to 2009. He testified on Oct. 22.
  • Fiona Hill became deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian Affairs under the National Security Council in 2017. Hill resigned this summer and testified on Oct. 14.

That list doesn’t include Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, a Trump appointee, who publicly testified before the House intelligence committee on Sept. 26.

Trump’s Strange Whistleblower Theory

Trump also made the illogical claim that there was no informant who provided information to the whistleblower. And even more absurdly, Trump suggested the informant was Rep. Adam Schiff.

Trump said the whistleblower relied on “second- and thirdhand information” and Trump questioned the very existence of an informant who told the whistleblower about the content of Trump’s July phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Trump, Oct. 21: Now, I happen to think there probably wasn’t an informant. You know, the informant went to the whistleblower, the whistleblower had second- and thirdhand information. You remember that. It was a big problem. But the information was wrong. So was there actually an informant? Maybe the informant was Schiff. It could be Shifty Schiff. In my opinion, it’s possibly Schiff.

Later, in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Trump reiterated his groundless theory.

Trump, Oct. 21: And where is the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because is that person a spy? Or does that person even exist? I have a feeling that person doesn’t exist. I think Schiff might’ve made it up.

Let’s quickly deconstruct why Trump’s theory makes no sense.

Despite Trump repeatedly claiming that the whistleblower “gave a totally false account of my conversation” with the Ukrainian president, as we have written, the whistleblower’s account of the phone call matches up with the White House-released memo. (Though the president takes issue with the whistleblower’s allegation that he “pressured” Zelensky to investigate the Bidens.)

Specifically, the whistleblower made these three claims that were corroborated by the memo: Trump asked Zelensky to “initiate or continue an investigation” into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden; assist the U.S. in investigating allegations that “Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election originated in Ukraine”; and “meet or speak” about these matters with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.

The whistleblower, described by the New York Times as a CIA officer who was detailed to the National Security Council, wrote in his complaint that while he did not participate in Trump’s phone call with the Ukraine president, “in the course of official interagency business” he was informed about details of the phone call by “multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.”

The intelligence community’s inspector general conducted a preliminary review of the whistleblower’s complaint and determined there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the complaint relating to the urgent concern ‘appears credible.’” Fox News reported that during the closed-door testimony of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson to House lawmakers, it was revealed that the preliminary investigation included interviews with a handful of witnesses, including two of the whistleblower’s supervisors.

Since then, the New York Times reported that a second whistleblower, one with firsthand knowledge of the phone call, has stepped forward and was interviewed by Atkinson’s office.

Given that the original whistleblower did not participate directly in the Ukraine phone call, and yet got key details about it correct, it stands to reason he was provided that information by an informant.

As for Trump’s theory that the informant might be Schiff, that makes no sense. As we wrote, Schiff, chair of the House intelligence committee, wrongly implied that his committee had no contact with the whistleblower before receiving the complaint, when the whistleblower had in fact reached out to a committee aide before filing a complaint. Trump has speculatedthat Schiff “probably helped write” the complaint, but there’s no evidence of that, and a spokesman for Schiff and the House intelligence committee said in a statement, “At no point did the Committee review or receive the complaint in advance.”

But Schiff did not participate in the phone call, and therefore could not have provided details to the whistleblower about it, at least not unless Schiff was debriefed on the call by — an informant.

Trump Isn’t Only President to Donate Salary

Trump does indeed donate his salary, which we’ve written about before, but he was wrong when he said “no other president has done it.”

Trump, Oct. 21: I give away my salary. It’s, I guess, close to $450,000. I give it away. Nobody ever said he gives away his salary.  … They say that no other president has done it. … They think George Washington did, but they say no other.

Trump’s annual salary is $400,000, and the press has covered the quarterly announcementson which government programs would be receiving Trump’s donated salary.

But John F. Kennedy also donated his salary in 1961, according to a Nov. 14, 1962, news article that attributed that information to the Minneapolis Tribune and Des Moines Register. The article said Kennedy was following the practice of Herbert Hoover, who “banked his presidential salary and gave it entirely to charity,” according to the Hoover presidential library.

Snopes.com wrote about this issue before Trump took office, noting that in Washington’s case, according to one book, he did refuse the salary at first but then accepted it at Congress’ urging.

In his book, “George Washington’s 1791 Southern Tour,” Warren L. Bingham wrote: “At first, Washington refused the salary, but Congress insisted on the principle, on which Washington also agreed, that the presidency should not be reserved for only those wealthy enough to work for free.”

Obama’s Book Deal

In defending his decision to host the 2020 G-7 at his Doral golf resort in Miami — and his subsequent reversal in the face of criticism — Trump claimed that other presidents “ran their business” while in office, citing Obama’s book and Netflix deals. But the book, reportedly a memoir on his presidency, and Netflix collaboration were announced after Obama left office.

Trump, Oct. 21: Hey, Obama made a deal for a book. Is that running a business? I’m sure he didn’t even discuss it while he was President. Oh, yeah. He has a deal with Netflix. When did they start talking about that? That’s only, you know, a couple of examples.

Penguin Random House announced on Feb. 28, 2017, a month after Obama left office, that it would publish books both by the former president and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The deal is reportedly worth about $65 million. Netflix announced a production deal with the Obamas in May 2018.

Trump also overlooks the fact that hosting the G-7 at Doral was akin to awarding a government contract to himself and accepting payments from foreign governments.

China’s Economy

Trump made several claims about China’s economy, and some of them were inaccurate.

First, Trump said, “China is doing very poorly — worst year they’ve had in 57 years.” Later, he claimed, “they announced that they have the worst numbers they’ve had in 20 years.” He was closer to being accurate the second time.

“They announced six,” Trump said, referring to China’s growth in its real gross domestic product.

Most recently, China announced its economy grew by 6% in the third quarter of 2019, when compared with the same period the previous year. That was “the weakest pace in at least 27-1/2 years,” according to a Reuters’ analysis of quarterly data.

On an annual basis, China is currently projected to have real GDP growth of 6.1% for all of 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund. But that would be the lowest annual growth in 29 years — since China’s GDP grew by 3.9% in 1990, according to World Bank data going back to 1961.

Trump went on to say: “So, if I weren’t elected, by right now, China would be the largest economy in the world. It was expected. It was said by many people that China would, right now — they were expecting around the second year of this term.”

We don’t know where Trump saw that China was projected to surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy in 2018. As of 2016, China’s GDP in nominal dollars was $11.2 trillion, which was still about 40 percent less than the U.S. GDP of $18.7 trillion.

Plus, by one measure — purchasing power parity, which accounts for differences in prices across countries — China had already become the leading economy in 2014, according to a Congressional Research Service report updated in June. Citing figures from the IMF and World Economic Forum, the CRS report said, based on PPP, China ($25.27 trillion) was still ahead of the U.S. ($20.49 trillion) in 2018, while the U.S. ($20.49 trillion) still outranked China ($13.40 trillion) in nominal dollars.

Trump also was wrong when he said, “And we’re getting bigger, and they’re not.” China’s economic growth has slowed in recent years, but it is still increasing at a faster rate than real U.S. GDP, which grew by 2.9% in 2018 and at an annual rate of 2% in the second quarter of 2019.

And as the IMF noted in July 2018, “[e]ven with a gradual slowdown in growth, China,” in nominal figures, “could become the world’s largest economy by 2030.”

Source: FactCheck.org

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Four Ways Pelosi Impeachment Inquiry Fails Hillary’s Watergate Tests | The Epoch Times

Editor’s Note: Hillary Clinton was a brilliant attorney who understood constitutional law and the pre-requisites for impeachment which she furthered during the Watergate era and the impeachment proceedings against her husband Bill Clinton. It would be a great day in America if these standards of justice would be applied today towards our current President.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump appears to be failing four tests described by the Democrat he defeated in 2016, Hillary Clinton.

Clinton was part of a team that produced a 1974 staff report for the House Judiciary Committee on how impeachments should be done that Democrats and Republicans both cite today.

But the path Democrats are blazing in 2019 falls short on four key factors that Clinton described as vital to the process’s credibility in an interview last year about her experience in helping produce one of the key documents in the Watergate impeachment.

Clinton has until recently said little about the impeachment effort against Trump and Pelosi may wish the former Secretary of State kept quiet as a result of her previously unnoticed comments in a July 9, 2018, interview for the Richard Nixon Presidential Library.

The Nixon Library interview was recently spotlighted by Politico but not as a yardstick for the present impeachment process.

Clinton occupies a unique place among contemporary Americans because she was involved in both the impeachment that prompted Nixon’s resignation in 1974 and the Monica Lewinsky inspired impeachment (but not conviction) of her husband as President in 1998.

It was as a 26-year-old staff member of the House Judiciary Committee that investigated Nixon in the Watergate scandal that Clinton worked “16 and 18 hour days,” including many on one of the key documents of the 1974 drama.

Clinton, who was then single, had not yet passed her first bar exam when she joined the committee staff team that researched and wrote the “Constitutional Grounds for Impeachment” (CGI) report first made public on Feb. 22, 1974, by judiciary panel chairman Rep. Peter Rodino (D-N.J.).

The report provided a comprehensive review of the history of impeachment to that point, first as it was understood from English history by the authors of the U.S. Constitution, and second as the process had been practiced since 1787 in the impeachments of 10 federal judges, a U.S. senator, a Secretary of War, and President Andrew Johnson.

“There was the issue of how do you proceed, how do you actually set up an appropriate process to consider all of these issues,” Clinton told the interviewer about the origin of the document.  “There were the process standards that I worked on a lot about okay, what do we do and how do we do it …”

Her focus in helping prepare the report makes her recent observations especially relevant in pointing to four ways the Pelosi impeachment falls short of the 1974 standards.

No Pre-Conceived Verdicts:

Perhaps the most important of the four is not prejudging the guilt or innocence of the President.

Clinton told the Nixon library interviewer that “we didn’t know how this was going to end up. I certainly didn’t come into it with any preconceived notions that this was going to be easy, we’re going to lay out all this stuff and the House will impeach and [Nixon] will be convicted. I certainly didn’t and I don’t know anybody who did” on the 1974 impeachment team.

But Pelosi disclosed her verdict the day she announced the official impeachment inquiry, saying “this week, the President has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically.

“The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the President’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections. Therefore, today, I am announcing the House of Representatives moving forward with an official impeachment inquiry…”

Her Sept. 24 announcement was based in great part on media reports about a whistleblower complaint that had not yet been provided to Congress, though it would later be learned the whistleblower had in fact consulted weeks earlier with Democratic staffers on the impeachment effort.

The next day, Pelosi admitted that she also had not read the transcript of Trump’s July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which Trump made public earlier in the day.

Even so, Pelosi reiterated what she declared the previous day, saying, “the fact is, the President of the United States in breach of his constitutional responsibilities has asked a foreign government to help him in his political campaign, at the expense of our national security, as well as undermining the integrity of our elections. That cannot stand. He will be held accountable, no one is above the law.”

No Partisan Purposes:

Second is a closely related factor about adjuring partisanship as a threat to the credibility of the impeachment effort.

“Restrain yourself from grandstanding and holding news conferences and playing to your base,” Clinton said in the interview. “This goes way beyond whose side…you’re on or who’s on your side. And try to be faithful purveyors of the history and the solemnity of the process.”

Clinton also told the Nixon library interviewer that in reviewing the previous presidential impeachment effort, she and her colleagues realized “there was a lot wrong with what was done to [President] Andrew Johnson. It was more than it should have been, in our assessment, a proceeding based on politics, not on evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Clinton and her colleagues repeatedly touted the importance of bipartisanship, including in the report’s opening paragraphs, noting the 410-4 vote by the House of Representatives on Feb. 6, 1974, to authorize the impeachment process.

The report emphasized that “this action was not partisan. It was supported by the overwhelming majority of both political parties. Nor was it intended to obstruct or weaken the President.”

In the Nixon Library interview, Clinton repeatedly praised the impeachment committee’s staff director, John Doar, a Republican-turned-Independent who had served in the civil rights division of the Department of Justice during Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Doar, she said, rigorously enforced a bipartisan approach with the staff, a lesson she thinks was unfortunately lost in succeeding years.

“That lesson was not learned. And that’s why I think it’s important to keep talking about how serious this is. It should not be done for political, partisan purposes, so those who did it in the late 1990s and those who talk about it now should go back and study the painstaking approach” of the 1974 process.

No Tampering With Evidence:

Clinton approvingly told the Nixon interviewer that Doar believed in 1974 that “the whole enterprise really turned on there being sufficient evidence, not necessarily to the level of being beyond a reasonable doubt … enough to be persuasive, clear and convincing …”

The 1974 report on which Clinton worked also declared that “not all presidential misconduct is sufficient to constitute grounds for impeachment.”

That reality put a premium on the staff presenting solidly credible reasoning and evidence to members of the committee prior to their voting on articles of impeachment, Clinton said.

Even so, Pelosi declared her pride in House Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), saying, “I’m very proud of the work that Adam Schiff is doing. I value the way he is conducting this.”

Pelosi’s pride in Schiff’s conduct was made clear after he had made up his own version of the Trump call transcript, which he read during a hearing on national television. Schiff conceded a few hours later that his version was in fact a “fable.”

As of this writing, 135 House Republicans have co-sponsored a resolution to censure the intelligence panel chairman. Republicans on the intelligence committee also claim Schiff is withholding evidence, while allowing carefully slanted leaks from testimony given to the committee behind closed doors.

No Denial of Due Process:

Clinton added in the Nixon library interview that “we were trying to impose an understanding of the law and history, combined with a process that would be viewed as fair, providing due process to the president if articles of impeachment were decided.”

Schiff’s secret meetings to hear testimony from selected witnesses while barring witnesses sought by Republicans on the committee has drawn particular ire.

Some legal experts see unfortunate parallels between the Speaker’s actions and England’s infamous Star Chamber Court during the reign of Charles I.

“We established basic rules of due process in this country in order to avoid the way things had been done in England with secret, anonymous accusations, with witnesses you couldn’t confront and cross-examine,” Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Hans von Spakovsky told The Epoch Times on Oct. 15.

“I mean, all the kinds of things the way Star Chambers operated, and even though impeachment isn’t a legal prosecution or legal case in the courts, it is such a serious undertaking, with such substantial consequences that those same basic rules of due process should apply even more so than in court,” he said.

Source: The Epoch Times

 

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The Epoch Times

Editor’s Note: This is truly one of the best independent news sources available that likely you’ve never heard of (although it’s been publishing since 2000). Their story is a courageous one, staunchly anti-communist and anti-socialist as the founders of this newspaper experienced Chinese oppression first-hand. Tune in to their video and subscribe as the newspapers and mainstream news channels have continued to sell out both journalism and the American people.

Source: The Epoch Times

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Deep State Enemies List Targeting Trump Family, Allies? Coup Update & More | Judicial Watch

Source: Judicial Watch/YouTube

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Tulsi Sets The Internet Ablaze With Fiery Response To Hillary Clinton | Trending Politics

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard fires back at former first lady over comments suggesting she was being groomed by Russia.

n Friday, Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard absolutely shredded failed 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton after she falsely stated that Gabbard was a Russian asset.

“Great! Thank you @HillaryClinton. You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long, have finally come out from behind the curtain.” Gabbard tweeted. “From the day I announced my candidacy, there has been a concerted campaign to destroy my reputation. We wondered who was behind it and why.”

She continued: “Now we know — it was always you, through your proxies and powerful allies in the corporate media and war machine, afraid of the threat I pose. It’s now clear that this primary is between you and me. Don’t cowardly hide behind your proxies. Join the race directly.”

This scathing statement from Gabbard immediately set the internet on fire, resulting in hundreds of thousands of tweets relating to the subject matter.

Gabbards tweets come in response to a conspiracy theory promoted by Hillary Clinton on Friday where she falsely claimed that Russia was “grooming” Gabbard to help President Trump win again in 2020.

The corrupt Democrat made the conspiracy theory during a podcast with President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe.

“They are also going to do third party again,” Clinton said. “I’m not making any predictions, but I think they’ve got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate,” Clinton said while referring to Gabbard.

“She is a favorite of the Russians. They have a bunch of sites and bots and other ways of supporting her so far. That’s assuming Jill Stein will give it up, which she might not because she is also a Russian asset,” Clinton bizarrely continued.

“They know they can’t win without a third-party candidate, and so I do not know who it’s going to be, but I can guarantee you they will have a vigorous third-party challenge in the key states that they most need it.”

Unlike Clinton, Gabbard has honorably served her country and has never been an asset to a foreign country. The failed presidential candidate and the rest of the Democratic party as a whole is spreading this conspiracy theory for one reason and one reason only. Gabbard is the only Democratic candidate who hasn’t sold her soul to the far-left base.

During the CNN debate on Tuesday, Gabbard went nuclear on CNN and the New York Times for slandering her, when they, like Hillary Clinton called her a Russian asset. CNN and the NYT also previously lied about her position on regime change in Syria, which Gabbard said was “completely despicable.”

The 38-year-old Iraq War veteran shredded CNN and the New York Times to their faces over their extremely biased coverage of her.

“Not only that, New York Times and CNN have also smeared veterans like myself for calling for an end to this regime change war,” Gabbard said.

“Just two days ago The New York Times put out an article saying that I’m a Russian asset and an [Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad apologist and all these different smears. This morning a CNN commentator said on national television that I’m an asset of Russia,” she added.

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below!

Source: Trending Politics & Al Jazeera

 

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Schiff Collusion with Whistleblower the Last Straw | American Thinker

By Daniel John Sobieski, a former editorial writer for Investor’s Business Daily and freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.

Perhaps House Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), would like to produce a transcript of his secret meeting with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson at the Aspen Security Forum in July 2018.  Or maybe someone like ranking member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) can make up a “parody” and read it into the record, as Schiff did with President Trump’s call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, both of whom publicly denied any collusion, pressure, or quid pro quo.

Liar and leaker Schiff had a transcript of the call and still made up his fable rivaling his fairy tale about having mounds of available evidence for everyone to see abut Trump’s mythical collusion with Russia.  We don’t have a transcript of Schiff’s meeting with Simpson, so we should be even freer to make stuff up about what each said, what each meant and heard, and what quid was promised for which quo.

Like Schiff’s Russian collusion delusion, Ukrainegate, to coin a phrase, is a made up scandal involving a questionable document with unverifiable or incorrect statements and allegations, chock-full of made up stuff and hearsay.  Like the Steele dossier produced through Fusion GPS, the Ukraine “whistleblower’s” letter to the inspector general is largely unverifiable hearsay or outright fiction.  Written by a CIA mole assigned to the White House who was not in the room or on the call, it is designed for one purpose: to bring down a sitting and duly elected president.

Now we find that Adam Schiff and committee staff had a copy of the letters before it was submitted to the I.G.  On Wednesday, the New York Times published a report that Schiff “learned about the outlines of a C.I.A. officer’s concerns that President Trump had abused his power days before the officer filed a whistle-blower complaint.”  As the New York Times related:

The early account by the future whistle-blower shows how determined he was to make known his allegations that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine’s government to interfere on his behalf in the 2020 election.  It also explains how Mr. Schiff knew to press for the complaint when the Trump administration initially blocked lawmakers from seeing it. …

Before going to Congress, the C.I.A. officer had a colleague convey his accusations to the agency’s top lawyer.  Concerned about how that avenue for airing his allegations was unfolding, the officer then approached a House Intelligence Committee aide, alerting him to the accusation against Mr. Trump.  In both cases, the original accusation was vague.

The House staff member, following the committee’s procedures, suggested the officer find a lawyer to advise him and file a whistle-blower complaint.  The aide shared some of what the officer conveyed to Mr. Schiff.

Schiff and his staff claim they had no hand in writing or editing the letter and did not coach the so-called whistleblower, even though his letter reads more like a legal brief written by a committee of lawyers.  Schiff, with  his track record, is not to be believed.

Take Schiff’s meeting with Simpson, an exercise in hypocrisy if nothing else.  Schiff, it may be remembered, accused House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes of conspiracy with President Trump.  Conspiracies against President Trump and conspiring with Deep-State players are okay in Schiff’s alternate universe.  As Chuck Ross writes in the Daily Caller:

The Schiff-Simpson meeting has come under scrutiny because of Simpson’s role in pushing the unverified Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory.  Simpson has also been accused by some Republican lawmakers of lying to the House Intelligence Committee about his interactions with government officials while working on the dossier.

During testimony to the House panel on Nov. 14, 2017, Simpson withheld that he met with Justice Department official Bruce Ohr prior to the November 2016 election.  Simpson said that he met Ohr only after the election.  But Ohr told Congress on Aug. 28, 2018 that he and Simpson met on Aug. 22, 2016 at Simpson’s request.  They met again on Dec. 10, 2016.

Ohr’s wife worked as a contractor for Fusion during the 2016 campaign.  And after the election, Ohr served as the back channel between the FBI and Christopher Steele, the former British spy who worked for Fusion GPS on the dossier project.

During the same testimony in which Simpson has been accused of lying, Schiff sought investigative leads from the Fusion GPS founder.

Schiff,  who once called the rooftop heroes of Benghazi liars, is at it again.  He is not uncovering corruption; he is part of it.  His is the corruption that needs to be exposed, and his Intelligence Committee is part of the swamp that needs to be drained.

Count Schiff among the many leakers who have released classified information and testimony designed to damage and slander the Trump administration.  During the testimony of Donald Trump, Jr. before the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Schiff repeatedly left the room.  Coincidentally, of course, leaked information from that testimony began appearing in anti-Trump media even before the testimony concluded:

Donald Trump Jr. and his lawyer formally requested an investigation Tuesday into leaks from the House Intelligence Committee that followed Trump’s participation in a closed-door interview with committee members and staffers last week.

“The public release of confidential non-public information by Committee members continued unabated” for 24 hours after Trump’s supposedly confidential interview last week, Trump’s lawyer, Alan Futerfas, wrote in a letter delivered Tuesday afternoon.

The four-page letter, addressed to Rep. K. Michael Conaway (R-Tex.), the panel chairman overseeing the Russia investigation, complains about public comments made by three members of the panel, all Democrats, including the highest-ranking minority member of the panel, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.).  The letter says that members and staffers began “selectively leaking information” even before the closed-door meeting ended.

Schiff sent a House intel staffer on a trip to Ukraine during August 24–31, just 12 days after receiving the whistleblower complaint.  To do what?  To dig up what?  It is reported the staffer met with the previous president of Ukraine, a friend of President Obama’s.

As reported by Gateway Pundit, Adam Schiff has strong ties to a prominent Ukrainian arms-dealer, Igor Pasternak, who has organized fundraisers for Schiff:

In 2013 Ukrainian Igor Pasternak held two different fund raisers for Schiff asking for contributions between $1,000 and $2,500[.] … Pasternak was reportedly in and around the Ukraine at the same time that Vice President Joe Biden had his son appointed to the Board of the Ukraine’s largest oil and gas producer[.]

Let’s investigate collusion with Ukraine to affect U.S. elections, Rep. Schiff.  Yours.

Schiff has defended Hillary Clinton and lied about her involvement in Uranium One and giving Russia 20 percent of our uranium reserves.  Talk about collusion with Russia!

Adam Schiff is a political hack, a swamp creature slithering past the truth while saying the American people can’t handle the truth.  What they can’t handle is swamp things like Adam Schiff.  It is he who should be impeached and removed from office

Source: American Thinker