IG Report

We urge CHQ readers and friends of civil liberties of whatever political stripe to call Senator Lindsey Graham, the toll-free Capitol Switchboard number (1-866-220-0044), tell him that you want him to undertake an investigation to establish who at the Obama White House was involved in Operation Crossfire Hurricane and what Obama knew and when did he know it.

Horowitz, who is a creature of official Washington, is loath to interpret such rationalizations from fellow bureaucrats in a sinister light. Durham is under no such constraints. Unlike Horowitz, he also has the power to compel testimony. (Horowitz notes that he was unable to interview such figures as Jonathan Winer, the John Kerry protégé at the State Department who helped grease the wheels for Christopher Steele at the FBI.) Of course, the media will continue to pit Horowitz against Durham and Barr. But it is obvious to anybody who bothers to read it that Horowitz’s report lacks rigor and is more perfunctory than authoritative. Spygate’s day of reckoning still approaches.

What the IG report describes are the middle steps in the circular proof cycle created to justify the surveillance and investigation of the Trump campaign and set-up the Russian collusion narrative. But the report doesn’t examine the predicate steps that brought Trump campaign volunteer George Papadopoulos into contact with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, so, since the IG failed to do so, we will connect all the dots in the circle.

Mr. Comey reportedly broke several rules for which he will not be prosecuted. He took home memos detailing private meetings he had with the president and then disclosed their contents to a friend who he believed would leak them to The New York Times. His motivation was to make sure a special counsel would be appointed to investigate alleged “collusion” between Russia and the Trump campaign. The Justice Department decided not to prosecute Mr. Comey, citing a lack of evidence that he “knew and intended to violate laws on handling classified information.” As FBI director, how could he not know of these things? Of course, he had to know.

Comey did, in fact, leak classified information. It's right there in the report. It wasn't much classified information, and it was perhaps not terribly important, and Justice Department officials concluded it was not worth prosecuting. But Comey leaked classified material. Comey leaked classified information to his lawyers. Comey gave classified information to people who were not authorized to receive it. Surprised, stunned, shocked. Comey's FBI colleagues did not utter those words because they heard Comey had been exonerated. They uttered them when they heard the full extent of what Comey did, and that included leaking classified information.

The new IG report is devastating for Comey. His leak of other materials from his memos — sensitive law enforcement material from an ongoing investigation — violated Justice Department and FBI policies, as well as Comey's own FBI employment agreement, the inspector general wrote. More broadly, Comey set a "dangerous example" for all FBI employees. If other bureau officials acted similarly, the report said, "the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement duties properly." So Comey did much more than just the "Hoover-esque" gambit of January 2017. The full story of his actions, even in this small part of the Trump-Russia affair, will cast a long shadow over his reputation.

Our friend Joe diGenova has described former CIA Director John Brennan as “the mastermind of” the “conspiracy to frame Donald Trump.” However, as a “mastermind” Brennan falls far short – he can’t even make-up an original lie to cover his tracks, his story about a high-level source close to Putin follows the “magic source” plotline of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy so closely.

Fired FBI Director James Comey, former CIA Director John Brennan, former FBI General Counsel James Baker and several others are already in the crosshairs. Given U.S. attorney John Durham’s reputation for uncovering and prosecuting FBI corruption in the Bolger case, which one of the Spygate rats is going to flip first?

Our friend former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova had a pithy assessment of where Attorney General Bill Barr’s investigation into whether the Obama-inspired spying on President Trump and his campaign were properly predicated: "Comey is ultimately screwed,” said DiGenova.

Andrew McCabe would have us all believe that HE believed the Steele “dirty dossier” and other purported contacts between the Trump campaign and various Russians or Russian-affiliated persons, even though he knew almost all those contacts were set-ups orchestrated by the Hillary Clinton campaign, the FBI and various other organs of the Obama administration.

We already know that the Obama administration abused the existing FISA protections and undertook surveillance of Sharyl Attkisson and many of President Trump’s political associates, and maybe even then-candidate Donald Trump as well. How long will it take before the Democrats’ surveillance regime moves beyond the border zone to encompass the entire country?

What research on the Steele dossier has slowly revealed is the scope and logistics of the information operation designed to sabotage an American election. Players include the press, political operatives from both parties, and law enforcement and intelligence officials.

The prosecutorial harassment of Donald Trump, those related to Donald Trump or in Donald Trump’s “circle” is an outrageous perversion of justice. What's more, the opprobrium heaped on the Trump family by the establishment media and popular culture has also claimed entirely innocent victims, such as Josh Trump of Delaware.

It seems that James Comey and Hillary Clinton are infected with the same memory loss virus that affects so many of the elite university graduates who make up DC’s political class, leading one to conclude it is not memories, but ethics and integrity that they are missing.

We agree with the President that there is a “lingering stench” at the Justice Department and FBI, however, it is unclear whether Rod Rosenstein will resign, be fired or stay in his position. The question is, is firing Rosenstein a set-up as Sean Hannity suggests, or something that needs to happen right away, as Judge Jeanne Piro and Laura Ingraham have urged.

Senator Rand Paul was right, President Trump should revoke the security clearances of former CIA Director John Brennan and anyone else involved in the unmasking of Trump associates, the phony FISA warrant applications and the spying on the Trump team.

It is time for Congress and the media to stop chasing the phony charges that Trump “colluded with the Russians” and start asking what changed during the Obama years that allowed this extensive cyberattack on America to go unchallenged, and with such ease, and why were our cybersecurity operators told to “stand down.”

We urge CHQ readers and friends to contact Attorney General Jeff Sessions (202-514-2000) to demand that Peter Strzok be fired for dereliction of duty for failing to investigate the information presented to him by the Intelligence Community Inspector General as documented by Rep. Louie Gohmert at yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing.

Yesterday, Rep. Jim Jordan grilled Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein about the documents he has been withholding from Congress, as Rosenstein smirked his way through the questioning. But Rosenstein may not be smirking now as the House passed a resolution demanding he comply with its subpeonas by July 6.

Strzok told his mistress that he wanted Hillary to beat Trump “100,000,000-0,” and that he would “stop” his victory. It appears that Strzok deleted the latter text, not realizing that his FBI device had stored it elsewhere, only to be excavated later by Horowitz’s Internet wizards. Hillary’s fiends in high places were hoist by their own petard, thereby revealing the most grotesque irony in the 2016 race: one government did most certainly and corruptly interfere in it — theirs.