Someone finally brings clarity to the Obamagate narrative
One of the problems with Obamagate is that it's incredibly complicated. It began under the Obama administration and involved the alphabet agencies (the CIA, the FBI, and the DOJ), as well as President Obama, the national security adviser, the director of National Intelligence, the FISA court, and overseas intelligence agencies.
The wrongdoing included false affidavits; spying on innocent people, including the president-elect; unmasking; and set-ups, such as perjury traps and spies inveigling people into ambiguous statements that could be used against them. It then escalated to an attempt to overthrow the Trump presidency through a two-year-long investigation that destroyed several people's lives, even though the special counsel's office knew from Day One that neither Trump nor his team had done anything wrong.
What I stated above is just the super-simple, short version. Meanwhile, on the other side, for three years, all that the left had to do was holler "Russia! Russia! Russia! Collusion! Ukraine! Putin!," and everyone fell in line.
The problem for the forces of justice is that it's tough to get people excited about wrongdoing that they can't understand. Watergate was simple: a bumbling break-in followed by a foul-mouthed president who tried to cover it up. With Obamagate, though, within a few minutes of reciting multiple dates, dozens of names, three different continents, myriad documents, endless lies and cover-ups...well, people's eyes glaze over, and they start thinking, "This really does sound like some sort of crazy conspiracy theory. There are too many moving parts."
That's why when someone sits down and writes an article that explains with marvelous clarity what happened and why it's evil, anybody who is interested in truth and justice should read that article. I've been following Obamagate since the end of 2016. I've read books on the subject, stayed abreast of the articles, and listened to the podcasts, and I'm still confused. Today, though, I read Charles Lipson's essay at Real Clear Politics, "What the 'Obamagate' Scandals Mean and Why They Matter," which is the most streamlined, organized, and persuasive explanation about Obamagate I've seen to date.
The article is divided into three sections, which helps break out the scandal's separate phases:
Scandal No. 1: Massive, illegal surveillance of American citizens, using the database of the National Security Agency[snip]Scandal No. 2: Spying on the Trump campaign[snip]Scandal No. 3: Covering up this spying, continuing it during the new administration, charging that Trump was not legitimately elected, and impeding his presidency with major investigations, based on false charges
Within each section, Lipson's lucid prose provides an easy-to-comprehend overview of truly heinous conduct, the likes of which have never before occurred in America. For example, for "spying on the Trump campaign," which is normally a mess of confusing details, Lipson has this to say:
When NSA surveillance was halted, the Obama administration lost its secret eyes on domestic political activity and especially on the rising Trump campaign. To regain that vision, the CIA and FBI launched new surveillance efforts. Three elements stand out. First, the executive branch, then controlled by Democrats, was determined to spy on the opposition party. Second, much of the spying was conducted by agencies that are limited, by law, to foreign operations. Since their goal was actually domestic surveillance and since that was illegal, they apparently outsourced some of it to friendly foreign governments, who relayed the information back to Washington. Third, since the FBI wanted to spy on Trump aides who were not actually suspected of crimes, they couldn't get regular warrants. To work around that, the FBI (under James Comey) and Department of Justice (under Loretta Lynch) falsely claimed the targets were foreign spies, making them eligible for FISA warrants. They also tried to entrap them (with help from CIA assets abroad), hoping they would commit illegal acts or say their colleagues had done so.
If you've been struggling to explain to people what Obamagate is and why it matters, only to have them shrug and walk away because it's just too complicated, send them a copy of Lipson's article. If they're not outraged by what they read in it, either they hate Trump so much that nothing will bring them to reason or they really shouldn't even vote because they care so little about politics, the Constitution, and the rule of law in America.
“Judicial
Watch’s records request is designed to expose how California state legislators
are wasting tax dollars to take care of another corrupt politician – Eric
Holder – under the guise of resisting the rule of law on immigration and other
matters,” stated Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. “His record at the Clinton and Obama Justice
Departments demonstrates a willingness to bend the law in order to protect his
political patrons.”
“Obama’s new home in Washington has
been described as the “nerve center” of the anti-Trump opposition.
Former attorney general Eric Holder has said that Obama is “ready to roll”
and has aligned himself with the “resistance.” Former
high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a variety of groups
organizing direct action against Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,”
for example, features lectures by former campaign executive
Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing.”
Obama is a dirty man. It's becoming clearer by the day. The collapse
of the Trump-Russia collusion nonsense is exposing how the former president can
smile at you whilst setting forth a plot to bring about your annihilation. We
shouldn't be shocked; he did sign off on Fast and Furious that got a Border
Patrol agent killed. Obama barely bat an eye.
BARACK OBAMA and ERIC HOLDER: BUILDING OBAMA’S MUSLIM-STYLE
DICTATORSHIP requires destroying white middle class first.
Democrats Allow Communists
to Infiltrate Their Party Across the Nation
“Obama’s new home in
Washington has been described as the “nerve center” of the
anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said
that Obama is “ready to roll” and has aligned himself with the
“resistance.” Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a
variety of groups organizing direct action against
Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,” for example, features
lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing.”
*
“Professor Paul Kengor has
extensively researched the Chicago communists whose progeny include David
Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett, and Barack Hussein Obama. Add the openly
Marxist, pro-communist Ayers, and you have many of the key players who put
Obama into power.”
*
We are all victims of the Obama cabal’s collusion with Russia –
President Trump’s voters and all Americans who believe in our free and fair
election process.
OPERATION
OBOMB:
DESTABILIZE AMERICA TO LAY GROUNDS FOR A MUSLIM-STYLE DICTATORSHIP
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/seth-barron-obama-and-building-of.html
*
“Obama’s
new home in Washington has been described as the “nerve center” of the
anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said
that Obama is “ready to roll” and has aligned himself with the
“resistance.” Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a
variety of groups organizing direct action against
Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,” for example, features
lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing.”
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA-BIDEN HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA… first ease millions of illegals over our borders and into our voting
booths!
How the Democrat party
surrendered America to Mexico:
“The watchdogs
at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama
administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices
Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington
Times
"This is country belongs to
Mexico" is said by the Mexican Militant. This is a common teaching that
the U.S. is really AZTLAN, belonging to Mexicans, which is taught to Mexican
kids in Arizona and California through a LA Raza educational program funded by
American Tax Payers via President Obama, when he gave LA RAZA $800,000.00 in
March of 2009!
The “zero
tolerance” program was dismantled by Attorney General Erc Holder once it
had successfully cut the transit of migrants by roughly 95 percent.
Initially, officials made 140,000 arrests per year in the mid-2000s, but the
northward flow dropped so much that officials only had to make 6,000 arrests in
2013, according to a 2014 letter by two
pro-migration Senators, Sen. Jeff Flake and John McCain.
“The cost
of the Dream Act is far bigger than the Democrats or their media allies admit.
Instead of covering 690,000 younger illegals now enrolled in former President
Barack Obama’s 2012 “DACA” amnesty, the Dream Act would legalize at least 3.3 million illegals, according to a
pro-immigration group, the Migration Policy Institute.”
Acts of Treason
Barack Obama’s attempted coup
The crime that dare not speak its name.
David Horowitz
Perhaps the most troubling - and dangerous - aspect of the current
political conversation is the unwillingness of virtually every elected official
and every media pundit to confront what “Obamagate” is obviously about, which
is treason. Specifically, treason committed by the Obama White House in
attempting to block and then overthrow the Trump presidency. Obamagate is about
the failed attempt by President Obama and his appointees to use government
intelligence agencies to spy on the Trump campaign and White House, to concoct
a phony accusation of collusion with Russia against the president and then to
obstruct his administration and overthrow him.
Semantic deceptions are the currency of political conflicts
designed to take the public’s eye off the ball. So it’s no mystery as that
Republicans, whom Democrats regularly slander as racists, xenophobes,
Islamophobes and deplorables should be cautious around a word as volatile and
subject to misrepresentation as “treason.” It doesn’t help that the last
individual charged with treason was Tokyo Rose, a Japanese propagandist during
World War II. In the intervening years, the ties of national loyalty have been
so eroded, the idea of patriotism so demeaned by the political left, that the
charge of treason was not filed against the Rosenbergs, Aldrich Ames, Edward
Snowden, Bradley Manning, or many deserving others.
If all parties remain reluctant to name the threat embodied in
Obamagate, it’s not only unlikely but also unreasonable to expect justice to be
the outcome. Fortunately, at least one political figure is ready to do this.
One can assume it was President Trump who provided Rudy Giuliani, with the
license to speak frankly. “They wanted to take out the lawfully elected
President of the United States,” Giuliani told talk
show host John Catsamatidas, “and they wanted to do it by lying, submitting false
affidavits, using phony witnesses — in other words, they wanted to do it by
illegal means . . . What is overthrowing government by illegal means? It’s a
coup; treason."
This aggressive statement by the president’s lawyer is a sure guarantee that a reckoning is coming in the days ahead. But first there are the semantics. Responding to Giuliani’s accusation, law professor Jonathan Turley wrote: “No, James Comey Did Not Commit Treason.” According to Turley: “Giuliani is engaging in the same blood sport of using the criminal code to paint critics as not just criminals, but traitors. Where one can dismiss some of these charges as political hyperbole, Giuliani was sure to preface his remarks as coming from ‘an experienced prosecutor.’”
This aggressive statement by the president’s lawyer is a sure guarantee that a reckoning is coming in the days ahead. But first there are the semantics. Responding to Giuliani’s accusation, law professor Jonathan Turley wrote: “No, James Comey Did Not Commit Treason.” According to Turley: “Giuliani is engaging in the same blood sport of using the criminal code to paint critics as not just criminals, but traitors. Where one can dismiss some of these charges as political hyperbole, Giuliani was sure to preface his remarks as coming from ‘an experienced prosecutor.’”
Technically, but in a very limited way, Turley is right. Treason
is defined in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution in these words: “Treason against the United
States,
shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their
enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason
unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on
confession in open court.”
There’s a reason the Founders designed so restrictive a definition
of treason. They were all guilty of it for rebelling against their king. This
led to Benjamin Franklin’s famous quip: “We must all hang together or we shall
all hang separately.”
But this legal definition of the crime is only one aspect of the
issue, and in the end it is the less important one for understanding the
significance of what has happened. There is also the common usage of the words
“treason” and “traitor,” which speak to the moral dimensions of the crime. It
is these meanings that provide a proper guide to the seriousness and scope of
what Obama, Biden, Comey, Brennan, Clapper and the others involved actually
did.
This is the Merriam Webster definition of treason: “1: the offense
of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which
the offender owes allegiance or to kill or personally injure the sovereign or
the sovereign’s family. 2: the betrayal of a trust: treachery.”
“To overthrow the government of the state to which the offender
owes allegiance” –is a pretty precise definition of what Obamagate is about.
Although early on, the outlines of this conspiracy were clear to
dogged investigators like Congressman Devin Nunes, they have remained obscure
to anti-Trump partisans. This is due to the protective wall created for the
conspirators by Obama appointees at the Department of Justice, unprincipled
Democrats on the Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, and a corrupt news
media that has redefined its mission to be that of a propaganda squad for the
conspiracy itself. Consequently, it has taken nearly four years to recover the
documentary evidence that might persuade an honest critic of the Trump
administration of the crime the anti-Trump camp has committed.
Two recent actions have served to demolish the plotters’
protective wall and bring the true dimensions of Obamagate to light. The first
was Trump’s appointment of Rick Grenell as acting Director of National
Intelligence. Until then the transcripts of the impeachment hearings had been closed
to the public by the Intel Committee chairman, Adam Schiff. This allowed Schiff
to leak testimony damaging to the president and suppress testimony exonerating
him. The full testimonies by high-ranking foreign policy officials had remained
under Schiff’s lock and key for over a year. Grenell told Schiff that he
would unlock the testimonies if Schiff didn’t, which is how they came to light.
What the newly released testimonies showed was that one Obama
appointee after another when questioned by Republicans on the committee had
said they had no evidence whatsoever that there was any collusion between Trump
or the Trump team and the Russians. In other words, from the very beginning of
the plot against Trump, the conspirators including President Obama, Vice
President Joe Biden and the heads of the intelligence agencies knew that the
charge of collusion – of treason – which they had concocted to destroy Trump
was fraudulent. Despite this, they went ahead with the $35 million Mueller
investigation that tied Trump’s hands in dealing with the Russians and spread
endless false rumors about his allegiances, and in the end found no evidence to
support the character assassinations the investigation spawned.
The second revelation was the result of an FBI declassification of
hitherto hidden documents describing a White House meeting on January 5, 2017 -
two weeks before the inauguration of the new president. The meeting was
attended by the outgoing president and vice president, the heads of the
intelligence agencies, the acting Attorney General and Obama’s outgoing
National Security adviser Susan Rice. The subjects of the meeting were the
targeting of General Michael Flynn - Trump’s incoming National Security Adviser
- and the infamous Steele dossier which the Hillary campaign and the DNC had
paid a former British spy to compile with information from the Russian secret
police. The dossier was designed to discredit Trump and set up the
Russia-collusion narrative. The targeting of Flynn involved unmasking an
innocuous conversation with the Russian Ambassador which was then used to smear
Flynn and get him fired. Shortly after the meeting the fact that Flynn was under
investigation was leaked to the Washington Post – a felony
punishable by 10 years in jail. This leak opened a floodgate of public
accusations - backed by no evidence - that Trump and everyone close to him were
agents of the Russians.
The secret war the Obama White House declared on Trump before he
was even elected, was a war on America. Several years prior to the 2016
election, Obama had begun using the intelligence agencies to spy on his
Republican opponents. This was a direct attack on the most fundamental
institution of our democracy - elections. It was a much more destructive
interference in the electoral process than anything attempted by the Russians.
The subsequent cynical attempts to frame Trump as a traitor and then to impeach
him for concocted offenses is without precedent. Because they were attacks on
our democracy itself, Obamagate is the worst political crime committed against
our country in its entire history. The culprits involved need to be exposed and
prosecuted, so that – in the words of President Trump – this never happens to
another American occupant of the White House.
The Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium
214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DC 20002-4999
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawless
Overview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.
Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.
In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.
214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DC 20002-4999
http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawless
Overview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.
Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.
In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.
A Pattern of Executive Overreach
Commentary By
David Bernstein is the George Mason University Foundation
Professor at the George Mason University School of Law, and the author of the
new book, Lawless: The Obama
Administration's Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of
Law .
Recently, the Justice Department announced it would not be
indicting anyone for his or her role in the most
serious domestic political scandal since the Nixon years.
Starting in 2010, the IRS, under pressure from congressional Democrats and the White House, engaged in blatant ideologically motivated discrimination against conservative organizations applying for non-profit status.
That the most feared bureaucracy in Washington was making decisions based on illegal political criteria should send a chill down the spine of any American who cares about the First Amendment and the rule of law.
Yet the Department of Justice has refused to indict even IRS official Lois Lerner, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right to silence to avoid incriminating herself in testimony before Congress.
Unfortunately, the failure to prosecute anyone responsible for abusing the IRS’s authority reflects the Obama administration’s broader contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Consider just a few examples:
Starting in 2010, the IRS, under pressure from congressional Democrats and the White House, engaged in blatant ideologically motivated discrimination against conservative organizations applying for non-profit status.
That the most feared bureaucracy in Washington was making decisions based on illegal political criteria should send a chill down the spine of any American who cares about the First Amendment and the rule of law.
Yet the Department of Justice has refused to indict even IRS official Lois Lerner, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right to silence to avoid incriminating herself in testimony before Congress.
Unfortunately, the failure to prosecute anyone responsible for abusing the IRS’s authority reflects the Obama administration’s broader contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Consider just a few examples:
1.
Going to war in Libya in blatant violation of the War Powers
Resolution, and in defiance of the legal advice of the president’s own lawyers,
based on the ridiculous theory that bombing the heck out of Libya did not
constitute “hostilities” under the law
2.
Appointing so-called policy czars to high-level positions to
avoid constitutionally-required confirmation hearings
3.
Modifying, delaying, and ignoring various provisions of
Obamacare in violation of the law itself
4.
Attacking private citizens for engaging in constitutionally
protected speech
5.
Issuing draconian regulations regarding sexual assault on campus
not through formal, lawful regulation but through an informal, and
unreviewable, “dear colleague” letter
6.
Ignoring 100 years of legal rulings and the plain text of the Constitution
and trying to get a vote in Congress for the D.C. delegate
7.
Trying to enact massive immigration reform via an executive
order demanding that the Department of Homeland Security both refuse to enforce
existing immigration law, and provide work permits to millions of people
residing in the U.S. illegally
8.
Imposing common core standards on the states via administrative
fiat
9.
Ignoring bankruptcy law and arranging Chrysler’s bankruptcy to
benefit labor unions at the expense of bondholders
10.
Trying to strip churches and other religious bodies of their
constitutional right to choose their clergy free from government involvement.
More generally, the
president has abandoned any pretense of trying to work with Congress, as the
Constitution’s separation of powers requires. He prefers instead to govern by
unilateral executive fiat, even when there is little or no legal authority
supporting his power to do so.
Presidents trying stretch their power as far as they can is hardly news. What is news, however, is that top Obama administration officials, including the president himself, see this not as something to be ashamed of, but as a desirable way of governing, something to brag about rather than do surreptitiously.
Obama behaves as if there is some inherent virtue in a president governing by decree and whim, as if promoting progressive political ends at the expense of the rule of law is proper not simply as a desperate last resort but as a matter of principle.
After all, Obama says, democracy is unduly “messy” and “complicated.” “We can’t wait,” the president intones, as he ignores the separation of powers again and again, ruling instead through executive order.
“Law is politics,” and only politics, according to a mantra popular on the legal left, and therefore the law should not be an independent constraint to doing the right thing politically. Obama seems to agree.
As Obama’s lawlessness has received increased attention from Congress, the (conservative) media, and the general public, the president has been defiant, even petulant. When confronted by allegations of lawlessness, Obama takes no responsibility, and doesn’t even bother to defend the legality of his actions.
Harry S. Truman famously said “the buck stops here.” Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley writes, Obama “acts as if anything a court has not expressly forbidden is permissible.” And in many situations, no one has legal standing to challenge the president’s actions in court—which means that no judge can stop the administration’s lawbreaking.
So sue me? If only we could.
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, David Bernstein will be at The Heritage Foundation at noon for an event about his book, “Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law.” More details here.
Presidents trying stretch their power as far as they can is hardly news. What is news, however, is that top Obama administration officials, including the president himself, see this not as something to be ashamed of, but as a desirable way of governing, something to brag about rather than do surreptitiously.
Obama behaves as if there is some inherent virtue in a president governing by decree and whim, as if promoting progressive political ends at the expense of the rule of law is proper not simply as a desperate last resort but as a matter of principle.
After all, Obama says, democracy is unduly “messy” and “complicated.” “We can’t wait,” the president intones, as he ignores the separation of powers again and again, ruling instead through executive order.
“Law is politics,” and only politics, according to a mantra popular on the legal left, and therefore the law should not be an independent constraint to doing the right thing politically. Obama seems to agree.
As Obama’s lawlessness has received increased attention from Congress, the (conservative) media, and the general public, the president has been defiant, even petulant. When confronted by allegations of lawlessness, Obama takes no responsibility, and doesn’t even bother to defend the legality of his actions.
Harry S. Truman famously said “the buck stops here.” Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley writes, Obama “acts as if anything a court has not expressly forbidden is permissible.” And in many situations, no one has legal standing to challenge the president’s actions in court—which means that no judge can stop the administration’s lawbreaking.
So sue me? If only we could.
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, David Bernstein will be at The Heritage Foundation at noon for an event about his book, “Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law.” More details here.
