For some months now there have been strong rumors that New York financier Jeffrey Epstein would be federally indicted and arrested on charges related to child sex trafficking going all the way back to the 1990’s.

It finally happened.

Epstein was indicted by a New York federal grand jury, however the sealed indictment was not unsealed until this weekend when Epstein was arrested by the feds on Saturday night at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey after he returned from another overseas trip.

This article appearing in today’s Washington Times online was written by Jeff Mordock.  It is headlined Jeffrey Epstein charged with operating sex trafficking ring, using underage girls to recruit.  Mordock’s article is a decent summary of what led up to Epstein’s indictment and Saturday night arrest.

There is an equally informative article in today’s Washington Examiner online.  It was written by Jerry Dunleavy and headlined Federal prosecutors charge Jeffrey Epstein with sex trafficking and conspiracy.

Skews media reports imply that because of his wealth and political connections, Epstein was able to essentially skate on the earlier Florida charges.  For example, see the May 13, 2016, Fox News article written by Malia Zimmerman and headlined Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender’s jet much more than previously known.

Neither the Palm Beach County Prosecuting Attorney in Florida nor the US Attorney in Florida had much interest in Epstein when the alleged crimes and evidence were fresh.  Epstein spread his considerable money around in Democrat circles and in throwing private parties for political, entertainment industry, and news media friends.   Epstein had enough influence that an incompetent or politically astute US Attorney or county prosecutor could find plenty of excuses to concoct a sweetheart plea deal.   The rationale for undercharging or over-bargaining is not limited to Florida’s political hacks.

In my opinion the sudden renewed interest in Epstein by the skews media and the US Attorney of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) has far less to do with the pursuit of justice on behalf of Epstein’s victims than in Epstein’s being acquainted with Donald J. Trump before he became President Donald J. Trump.   I suspect the ink wasn’t even dry on Epstein’s indictment by the SDNY before Epstein’s attorneys were working out plea bargain strategies for Epstein to “sing” or if necessary “compose” one story or several implicating Trump.

There is, however, already one smelly tie-in to President Trump’s Cabinet: The US Attorney  for the Southern District of Florida who arranged the sweetheart federal agreement to not prosecute Epstein federally on the child sex trafficking charges if he agreed to plead guilty to one reduced state charge was Rene Alexander Acosta, President Trump’s Secretary of Labor.   On April 27, 2017, Acosta was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 60-38. He was sworn in on April 28, 2017.  All 50 Republican US Senators vote to confirm Acosta.   (So much for due diligence in their duty to advise before consenting.)

Acosta is a piece of garbage the President does not need.  Acosta must resign.

Various skews media accounts of the Clinton connection to Epstein have implied or even stated that former President Clinton “signed off” on letters declining Secret Service protection on some trips Clinton took with Epstein.  The term the skews media used was Clinton “ditched” the Secret Service.

By federal statute, former presidents receive Secret Service protection for life or until they formally decline further protection.  Shortly after he resigned, former President Nixon signed off on a letter declining further Secret Service protection.    But the sign-off was permanent for Nixon.

In contrast with former President Nixon’s declination, the skews articles imply that former President Clinton was allowed to selectively and temporarily sign off so he could take some short-duration trips with Epstein or using Epstein’s aircraft.  Presumably the Secret Service protection resumed after Clinton’s return.

It is very difficult for me to accept that the Secret Service would go along with occasional sign-offs like these.   If there is a valid national security reason for former presidents to receive Secret Service protection, then it must be continuous and unbroken protection for the sake of national security.    There is little harm to the national security when a former president dies, but a former president who is subjected to forced interrogation or blackmail is still in a position to harm the national security.

No responsible Secret Service Director would accept temporary sign-offs like the ones the skews media suggest occurred in the Clinton-Epstein arrangement.  Neither should Congress appropriate any funding for Secret Service protection for former presidents or specified other “formers” who insist on only occasional protection (babysitting and chauffeur service).   Even for “formers,” effective protection is costly to US taxpayers.

In their best and most valiant efforts to imitate their idols at Tass, Pravda, Xinhua, CCTV, and People’s Daily, the American skews media first tried to deny that the US Department of Justice and its action arm, the FBI, had illegally sought and obtained FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign prior to the 2016 election.

Their denial proved to be yet another feeble deception by our intrepid “free press.” Once the denial proved futile, they schemed with the DoJ and some in the Intelligence Community to try and cover the illegal surveillance with the cloak of national security.  “It was a counterintelligence investigation,” they said.  “We did it to protect the our elections from the Russians,” they said as they directly targeted the Trump campaign.

Ostensibly, candidate Trump (now President Trump) was never the target of an official investigation.  Yet, the feds never bothered to tell candidate Trump they were spying on his campaign.

In particular, the feds studiously avoided disclosing to anyone that they had used a work of fiction (the Steele dossier) paid for by the Clinton and DNC campaign using a law firm cutout to make the payments to a foreign intelligence service agent (discredited British spy and FBI informant Christopher Steele).  Evidence suggests now that the Steele dossier was, in fact,  actually written and  provided by Russian disinfornmation intelligence operatives.  Steele may have just been the conduit/cutout to give the information the appearance of legitimacy.

Similarly, in applying for the initial FISA warrant and three renewals, the feds did not disclose to the FISA judges that the feds had first given the Steele dossier to the never-inquisitive skews media.  Predictably, the skews media printed what the feds wanted them to print, the salacious details in the Steele dossier.  In turn, the feds saved the skews articles and used them as supposedly independent verification of the Steele dossier in their applications to the FISA court.  Thus, our “free press” became complicit in the fraud committed by the feds against the FISA court.

Thankfully, not all of the “free press” are journalistic whores intent on committing acts of  journallatio on Swamp Dwellers.

A few very diligent and dedicated reporters (e.g., John Solomon, Sara A. Carter, Catherine Herridge, Sharyl Attkisson, Kimberley Strassel, Byron York, and Gregg Jarrett) have conducted themselves and performed their duties more professionally than nearly all the others who profess to be journalists.

Most recently, John Solomon and the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) have filed a Motion for Publication of Records with the FISA Court.  The motion seeks:

… rulings, orders and opinions issued by the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance] Court finding any of the attorneys associated with the Carter Page FISA applications violated rules of the Court or rules governing professional conduct by attorneys.

It has been revealed that one of the more honorable members of the US Intelligence Community, Admiral Mike Rogers, the Director of NSA at the time, approached President Trump and walked him through how the FISA was being misued, possibly criminally, by the feds in their applications against Trump campaign workers.

Court motions tend to be boring reading, however Solomon’s and the SLF’s motion to the FISC is worth reading in order to better understand the gravity of the unlawful actions the feds took to try and prevent President Donald J. Trump from being elected.  Their actions have been continued by Robert Mueller for the past two years to provide ammunition to incite a misinformed public to rise up and demand President Trump resign or be impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate.

Here’s what I believe to be the most important take-away from this:  None of this abuse of intelligence and law enforcement assets to affect the outcome of a US presidential election would have been revealed if Hillary Clinton had been elected.  It would have been successfully covered up.  That means these assets would have likely been illegally used again and again against US citizens in violation of our Constitutional rights, federal civil rights.

The Hill’s John Solomon has just posted a detailed article headlined Nellie Ohr’s ‘Hi Honey’ emails to DOJ about Russia collusion should alarm us all.

Solomon’s article reveals that Nellie, working as a contractor for Fusion GPS, did “research” which she sent to her husband Bruce, the number 4 person at the US Department of Justice at the time.  She also evidently sent the same information to Bruce’s colleagues.

The problem is that in testifying (or maybe “testilying”) before Congress, Nellie invoked marital privilege in declining to reveal the colleague communications.

It is likely that Congress will now send the New and Improved FBI a referral requesting it initiate an investigation into Nellie’s possible perjury in Congressional testimony.

Whoa, Nellie!

(John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. )

John Solomon, a very reputable journalist and columnist for The Hill website, has been digging into Ukraine’s interference in the 2016 general election in the United States.  Specifically, Solomon has been looking at allegations by Ukraine’s National  Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) that the Ukraine government provided Hillary Clinton’s campaign with information about Paul Manafort’s business dealings in Ukraine.  Information about Manafort’s Ukraine deals was relevant in the 2016 US presidential election because of Manafort’s known association with then Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.

In my OpenCdA post on April 7, 2019, I linked to Solomon’s article headlined Ukrainian to US prosecutors:  Why don’t you want our evidence on Democrats?  That article raised an allegation supported by documentary evidence that US Department of Justice prosecutors only wanted evidence against Paul Manafort.  The same authorities rejected receiving information connecting Hunter Biden, son of then-Vice President and now announced 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden, to a money laundering scheme.  Solomon’s article said:

Financial records showing a Ukrainian natural gas company routed more than $3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden, younger son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, who managed U.S.-Ukraine relations for the Obama administration. Biden’s son served on the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holdings.

On April 25, 2019, Solomon published another related article on The Hill website.  Its headline is How the Obama White House engaged Ukraine to give Russia collusion narrative an early boost.  This latest article adds more details about the evidence and supporting the assertions that (1) Ukraine provided information about Manafort to the USDoJ with the specific intent of helping Hillary Clinton win the 2016 presidential election, and (2) that Vice President Joe Biden intervened with the Ukraine government in March 2016 to get Ukraine’s Chief Prosecutor fired.  That Chief Prosecutor had sought to interview Hunter Biden about the money he was receiving from inside the Ukraine while he was sitting on the board of Burisma Holdings.

Ukraine officials are seeking a meeting with Attorney General Bill Barr to provide him with the evidence they have about Ukraine interference in the 2016 US presidential election and about payments made to 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, by the Ukrainian government.

This set of facts makes even more important the reports of the DoJ Inspector General and the investigation supposedly being conducted by US Attorney John Huber.   Whereas the Mueller non-investigation investigation was intentionally limited to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, the IG and Huber investigations have a much broader scope of investigation into criminal conduct by US officials before, during, and after the 2016 election.

If the Russians were genuinely interested in recruiting Donald Trump or any member of his family to be an agent to spy clandestinely, long-term, for its foreign and military intelligence services, the FSV RF and the GRU, would they (meaning Putin) send a Russian national lawyer (Natalia Veselnitskaya) with direct ties to the Russian government into overt meetings with potential targets for recruitment in the Trump Tower?

If the government of the People’s Republic of China were genuinely interested in spying on President Donald Trump or anything going on at Mar-a-Lago, President Trump’s private club in Florida, would the PRC’s intelligence service, the MSS, have sent a readily-recognizable Chinese national woman (Yujing Zhang)  with poor English language skills and an array of technical equipment, covert communications, and malware to try and talk her way through staff and Secret Service checkpoints with poorly prepared and very shaky multiple cover stories?

The answer to both these questions is a resounding “No!”

And yet, the Fools on the Hill (members of Congress) and their go-to stooge, Robert Mueller III, have just spent the last 2-1/2 years and tens of millions of dollars trying to show that President Donald J. Trump and his presidency have been fatally contaminated by exactly these kinds of foreign influence operations.

If the very few honest and competent Senators and Representatives among the Fools on the Hill Club dig deeper, what they are likely to find is that both the Russians and the ChiComs have been running what is often referred to as “discoverable influence operations” (or discoverable intelligence operations) in the US.  I’m quite certain this possibility occurred to or was explained to them long before now, though judging from their actions, you might reasonably ask if they were listening to the explanation.  The key word is “discoverable.”

Most covert or clandestine intel operations run in other countries are intended to remain hidden from the counterintelligence services of the host country and the target country.  Learning that your successfully recruited spy has been discovered is the next-to-last thing either a case officer  or the espionage agent want.  (Only more disturbing to the case officer or spy would be having the spy discovered by counterintelligence and the CO or spy does not know about it!)

For example, Robert Philip Hanssen is a former Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent who spied for Soviet and Russian intelligence services against the United States from 1979 to 2001.   The KGB (later the FSV) and Hanssen used proper tradecraft to keep his identity and espionage activities secret from the FBI and others in the US counterintel community for as long as they could.   Hanssen and the FSV hoped he would never be discovered.    Once he was discovered, Hanssen was of no further use to the FSV.  He became a throwaway and will die in prison.

In contrast with “normal” human intelligence operations like Hanssen, discoverable influence/intelligence operations are expected to be discovered by host country counterintelligence.  In fact, they’re designed to be discovered.  Their discovery is part of the aggressor intelligence service’s operation strategy.

The host and target countries’ counterintelligence discovery of the operation, the methods used to discover or failure to discover it, and the amount of time it took for the countries to discover and correctly assess it provides the aggressor’s intelligence services with useful information about the skills, capabilities, and limitations of opposing counterintelligence services.

How we have responded and continue to respond to the absurd charges of “Russian collusion” against candidate, nominee, and now-President Trump has provided foreign intelligence services with valuable information about the United States intelligence and counterintelligence services’ own capabilities and limitations.    It has also further revealed more of our own social, political, and economic vulnerabilities.

I just finished watching Attorney General William Barr’s press conference in which he officially releases the public version of the Mueller report.

If you didn’t watch the entire press conference that lasted just under 24 minutes, here is a link to it.  The press conferences begins at 18:50.  After his prepared remarks, AG Barr took questions from the skews media.  He left the podium at 42:05.

My observations:

–It’s reassuring to finally have a real Attorney General in charge of the Department of Justice, an AG that understands the duties of that department and the potential for abuses by people employed in it.

–Most of the press corps demonstrated by their conduct and many of their questions that they are profoundly ignorant and lacking in sufficient subject matter knowledge to be reporting on the Justice Department.    Though they had not yet seen the redacted public version of the Mueller report, they were clearly underinformed about the special counsel processes and the role of the Attorney General.

–Unlike the members of the skews media, AG Barr listens carefully and has the skill and ability to politely, succinctly, and clearly answer questions and point out the illogic used to frame many of them.

–Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein would rather have been in The Mad Dentist’s chair and having his teeth extracted without painkiller than standing behind AG Barr at the press conference.

As AG Barr promised, the entire redacted version of the Mueller report has been posted on the Department of Justice’s website.

AG Barr also explained that with the exception of 6(e) material, key Congressional Committee chairmen will be allowed to view the otherwise unredacted version of the Mueller report.  I have little doubt that the names of all those allowed to view it will be recorded on a bigot list.

The headline for journalist John Solomon’s April 7, 2019, column for The Hill online is framed as a question:

Ukranian to US prosecutors:  Why don’t you want our evidence on Democrats?

The answer is that the proffered “evidence” appears to implicate Democrat soon-to-be-presidential-candidate Joe “Hands-On” Biden and his son, Hunter, in statutory violations that make Paul Manafort look like a choir boy.

But if that’s so, then why hasn’t the Trump Department of Justice jumped all over the “evidence” and run with it to the nearest television skews camera crew and microphones?

Here’s a thought:   Attorney General Barr is actually competent and ethical.  I suspect he fully understands that some of the ultra-liberal loyalist attorney holdovers from the Lynch and Holder DoJ are as difficult to get rid of as a bad case of foot fungus.   It was these attorneys who turned a willful blind eye to the facial absurdity of the Steele Dossier’s allegations about presidential candidate Trump.  They would love for AG Barr to damage the Trump presidency by being as stupid as Holder and Lynch were.

In fact, Barr and some of the many honest FBI employees and DoJ attorneys may very well be carefully and critically examining the evidence offered by the Ukranians implicating the Biden Gang.  They may even be looking at some of the Biden Gang’s dealings with the People’s Republic of China (we hope!).

There is nearly incontrovertible evidence Barack Obama and his AGs Lynch and Holder sought to use the law enforcement and intelligence resources of the United States government in a tyrranical move to defeat Donald J. Trump in the 2016 election.   Their effort had a lot of help from our demonstrably failed “free press” including Bezos’ Bozos at the Washington Post, Sulzberger’s and Slim’s Slimes at the New York Times, and nearly all the network and cable “skews” departments.

AG Barr’s DoJ is trying to remove the  septic tank sludge layer and sterilize the institutional space that Barack Obama, Eric Holder, and Loretta Lynch produced at DoJ.  Hopefully Barr won’t get sucked in by the stuff he’s trying to clean up.

Fox News is reporting that 29-year-old Juan Manuel Flores Del Toro, the Mexican citizen who shot and killed 42-year-old Kittitas County Sheriff’s Deputy Ryan Thompson and wounded 22-year-old Kittitas Police Officer Benito Chavez Tuesday night, was in the US illegally.    Imagine that.

According to ICE, Flores Del Toro entered the U.S. at Laredo, Texas, in April 2014 on a temporary agricultural worker visa.  There was no record of the murderer ever leaving the US or extending his visa.

Hopefully the continuing investigation will reveal his list of employers in the US as well as his motivation for shooting and killing Deputy Thompson and wounding Officer Chavez.   I’m assuming that there will be an effort to determine from whom and by what means Flores Del Toro illegally obtained the gun he used to murder Deputy Thompson and wound Officer Chavez.

Flores Del Toro was shot during the exchange of gunfire with the officers and died at the hospital.

According to John Solomon’s article entitled Senior Ukrainian official says he’s opened probe into US election interference
posted March 20, 2019, at 10:33 AM EDT, online at The Hill, “Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko … is probing a claim from a member of the Ukrainian parliament that the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Artem Sytnyk, attempted to the benefit of the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of Hillary Clinton.”

Solomon’s article suggests that NABU’s Sytnyk provided the allegedly damaging financial information about Paul Manafort’s business dealings in Ukraine specifically to undermine the Trump campaign and to provide support for the Clinton campaign.

Sounds like meddling by a high-level Ukraine official (Sytnyk) in the US presidential election.

Someone might wonder what benefit Sytnyk received in advance or was promised after Clinton became President.   And who provided that benefit?