Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Obama vs. Trump
Even though Barack Obama's name won't be on the ballot, it's beginning to look like the presidential race is going to be between Donald Trump and Barack Obama. The former president's actions in the last several days are extraordinary and revealing.
Late last week, Obama held a conference call with 3,000 former members of his administration. Just think about that for a second!
A portion of last week's call was selectively leaked to friendly media, and it involved a troubled Barack Obama telling these 3,000 left-wing warriors how concerned he was for the rule of law in America. He said:
"The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn. And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free.
"That's the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that . . . our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we've seen in other places."
Obama is a lawyer by training. He certainly knows that Flynn was not charged with perjury. He also knows that the FBI agents who interviewed him didn't believe Flynn lied to them. And he knows that the FBI was about to close the investigation without charging Flynn until Peter Strzok intervened.
It's also not true that there is no precedent for dropping charges in a criminal case. It happened under Obama by his attorney general. You may recall that Eric Holder dropped charges against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens. In fact, as the Washington Times notes, there are striking similarities in the Stevens and Flynn cases:
"Both men faced the same criminal charges of making false statements, the same judge, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, handled both cases, and each had their criminal prosecution undone by a handwritten note that was buried by federal prosecutors."
The final point is the most relevant as it relates to prosecutorial misconduct or gross abuses by government prosecutors, something which should alarm every American – Democrat, Independent and Republican alike.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board was surprised by Obama's musings on the Flynn case, and rhetorically asked, "We wonder what he's really worried about."
The Journal warns that it was the Obama White House and Justice Department that put "our basic understanding of the rule of law at risk" with a politically motivated prosecution of an innocent man.
Let's face it, there was a lot of bad blood between Obama and Michael Flynn. President Obama fired Gen. Flynn because Flynn disagreed with Obama over just about everything – from appeasing Iran to confronting radical Islam.
Obama even warned Trump not to hire Flynn. That seems like a petty thing for the outgoing president to do. But far worse was what happened after Trump ignored Obama's advice – that's when the Obama White House and FBI set out to destroy Michael Flynn.
That January Meeting
I know this has been going on so long and is somewhat confusing. But I want to revisit the extraordinary meeting that took place on January 5, 2017, at the White House, just two weeks before Donald Trump's inauguration.
The nation's intelligence chiefs were summoned to the White House – FBI Director James Comey, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, National Security Adviser Susan Rice. Also attending the meeting were Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Vice President Joe Biden.
They decided that President-elect Donald Trump should be told about the Russian dossier, but they did not tell him that they knew it was debunked. It was decided that Comey would do that dirty work, and he flew to New York the next day to brief Trump.
Once Comey gave Trump that briefing, the Deep State started leaking. Days before Trump's inauguration, there were multiple press reports about an ongoing investigation into whether the president-elect was compromised by the Russians.
Back to the January 5th White House meeting. At some point Brennan and Clapper leave, but Biden, Comey and Yates remained behind. Obama then began discussing the intercepted call between Flynn and the Russian ambassador.
Deputy Attorney General Yates did not know about that call, and she was shocked that Obama did know about it. Someone, perhaps James Clapper, had apparently briefed Obama about it at some point.
This meeting is one of the key events in the entire Russian collusion / Resistance effort. One of the most significant pieces of evidence about this meeting is that infamous Susan Rice memo.
On Inauguration Day, Susan Rice spent her final moments in the Obama White House writing a CYA memo or "cover your a-- memo" to herself. She curiously uses the phrase "by the book" twice.
The memo appears to be after-the-fact evidence asserting that Obama directed everyone in the Russian collusion fiasco to do everything "by the book" because they didn't. That memo was written for a moment just like this.
Don't get me wrong. I don't think Barack Obama will be indicted or go to jail. It is still very much up in the air whether anyone like Comey, Clapper or Brennan will pay a significant price for what they did.
But the Deep State's corruption must be exposed, especially if we truly care about the rule of law.
A Question of Motivation
At yesterday's White House press briefing, President Trump made several significant announcements related to major advances on coronavirus testing. For example, the president said that as of this week 10 million tests will have been conducted across the country. Trump also announced that we will soon be conducting over 300,000 tests per day.
That good news, however, resulted in one left-wing reporter questioning the president's motives for wanting to "grow the economy ahead of the election." Well, here's a hint for this crack journalist: Every president wants to grow the economy!
The only people who don't want the economy to grow are those on the left who want to see America fail, no matter how many people get hurt in the process.
Radical atheists and secularists are thrilled that many churches are shut and may go bankrupt.
To my knowledge, no responsible liberal leader has condemned these disgusting comments. Nor does the liberal media ever call on Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer to condemn the progressive left. That makes them complicit in this kind of bile, which is polluting our political discourse.