Once again, the great political cartoonist AF Branco has captured the essence of a political issue with graphic brevity and precision.

In this instance, he has caricatured the House Bullet Twins, Representative Adam “Hollow Point” Schiff and Speaker Nancy “Dum-Dum” d’Alesandro Pelosi, displaying their faux outrage at President Trump’s authorization to provide Turkey, Russia, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with a military deconfliction notice of the air traffic associated with the hit on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

“Military Deconfliction” notices have been used regularly to help militarily adversarial forces avoid misinterpreting the intent of a military action.   In this instance, the deconfliction notice would likely have been limited to the expected flight paths of the US helicopters flying low, dark, and fast in and out of Barisha, Syria.

It is almost certain that whoever made the call on behalf of the US disclosed only enough information to reassure the Turks, the Russians, and the SDF that they were not the intended target of a US military action.  It may have included any potential alternate flight paths if they were forced by operational necessity.

As for Hollow-Point’s and Dum-Dum’s faux outrage that the President didn’t inform them before the recipients of the deconfliction notice, they did not as Congresscritters have a “need to know.”  They had no beneficial part to play in the operation.  Their being informed ahead of time could only result in the operation being compromised, not improved.

If information about the operation had leaked out, it would have compromised operational security and jeopardized the lives of all our military troops involved.   It could easily have escalated the conflict rather than prevent it.   “Friendly fire” by uninformed adversaries would have adversely affected the mission’s success.  By giving the notice, President Trump was giving US military counterparts from Russia, Turkey, and the SDF time to prevent friendly fire.

It seems likely that the Russians, Turks, and SDF probably figured out what the US’s mission was.  They would quickly have deduced that al-Baghdadi’s demise helps them by removing a major impediment to stabilizing the region while at the same time not appearing to be in cahoots with the US.

We’re still waiting to see and read the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report “… on potential surveillance abuses by intelligence officials during the 2016 Russia investigation.”  And waiting.  And waiting.  Fox News Network is reporting that the final report is still being declassified.

The report’s boundaries have shown some elasticity insofar as what material will and will not be investigated and included in the report.

One of the more intriguing questions that has been posed (though not necessarily addressed in the report) will be whether the United States Eye solicited one or more of the remaining four of the Five Eyes (FVEY)  countries (US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) to conduct signals intelligence (SIGINT) surveillances on US citizens involved in the presidential campaign of 2016 presidential candidate Donald Trump.  The US cannot lawfully conduct or solicit surrogates to conduct such politically-motivated surveillances against US citizens.

If another Five Eye country was solicited by a US Intelligence Community member to collect and illegally pass the information to the Obama administration or campaign, the logical followup question would be, “Was President Obama aware of the illegal surveillances and did he in fact authorize them?”

I contend the answer to the followup question would have to be a resounding, “Yes!”

How can I be so sure?  Because there would be a good chance that a SIGINT agency head with a FVEY country receiving an obviously unlawful request from Brennan or Clapper would go running to his own head of government and say, “Mr. (or Madam) Prime Minister, a US intelligence community head just asked us to begin an electronic surveillance on the Trump presidential campaign and pass the information to him directly.  What do you want me to do?”  At that point, the PM would pick up the phone and call President Obama with a lot of very touchy questions about the request.  That would be an inquiry even President Obama would not want to receive unless he was not only aware of the DNI’s request but had also either explicitly or implicity approved it and already had some story fabricated to keep his own butt safe and sound in the Oval Office instead of federal prison.

Of course, Hillary Clinton was already measuring for drapes in the Oval Office.  It was a foregone conclusion that she would be the inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States in January 2017.  Had that happened, all of the corruption in the US Department of Justice, the FBI, the federal judiciary, and the State Department would have been swept under the rug stored in some obscure National Archives and Records Administration warehouse and sealed for 100 years.

President Trump’s victory and his determination to drain the swamp caught Obama, the Clinton Crime Family, and their numerous conspiring cronies off guard.  With a new President, an honest Attorney General, and a very competent US Attorney looking at the IG’s forthcoming report carefully, maybe the operative instruction to Obama et al should be, “Lawyer up!”

We can only hope…

Washington Examiner online opinion headline:

ABC News ‘slaughter in Syria’ footage appears to come from a Kentucky gun range

The print and electronic “news” media challenge how we, the great unwashed, can question their credibility when we read stories like this.

Don’t stop with the reporters.  Keep looking up the media food chain to editors, publishers, media owners, and above all, at the alleged journalism schools that teach and train tomorrow’s skewers of the news.

The US House of Representatives under the leadership (or something) of Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been making noises she hopes will mislead us into believing that the House has formally begun the action to impeach President Donald J. Trump.  She’s had considerable help with the misleading from the Democrat Party’s courtesans in the skews media.

Finally President Trump and Counsel to the President Pat Cipollone have heard enough of Pelosi’s and her cronies’ lies.  Even more importantly, the President and his counsel have recognized that Pelosi and Company have become completely committed to destroying the rule of law and to disenfranchising the voters who elected Donald J. Trump in November 2016.

So today, October 8, 2016, counsel Cipollone transmitted an eight-page letter to Pelosi and three of her Consigliere:  Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, and House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings.

Cipollone’s letter is a detailed explanation about why the President of the United States will be refusing to cooperate with the House’s unlawful efforts to deceive voters into believing the House is engaging in a lawful constitutonal process.

Cipollone’s letter should help clarify some of the procedural and legal issues the Pelosi Mob seeks to use to install a tyrannical government which could whimsically and corruptly  impeach and remove any and all elected officials including future presidents and federal judges.

President Trump and his legal counsel are right to refuse to be a party to Pelosi’s planned destruction of the separation of powers in our government.

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.