Collins Derides Dems’ ‘Railroad Job’ at House Judiciary Impeachment Hearing

Ben Sellers
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‘We may be all scrubbed up and lookin’ pretty for impeachment, but this is not an impeachment…’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) The opening of a new, hastily organized impeachment hearing in the House Judiciary Committee drew sharp contrasts with the polished and well-rehearsed evidence-gathering led by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in the House Intelligence Committee.

Schiff’s public hearings followed weeks of pre-screening witnesses and were staged to help Democrats sell their predetermined case for impeachment to the public, based on the prior testimony collected in secretive, closed-door sessions.

Coming only two days after Congress returned from its Thanksgiving break, Wednesday’s Judiciary hearing, led by Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, struck a less formal—but no less contentious—tone.

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., the ranking GOP minority member, said Nadler had put forth no plan for the hearings, which were being held in a new conference room in the Longworth Office Building.

The room, which normally houses the Ways and Means Committee, is also where Schiff held his hearings, Politico reported in a story relaying Nadler’s private preparations.

“This may be a new time, a new place, and we may be all scrubbed up and lookin’ pretty for impeachment, but this is not an impeachment,” he said. “This is just a simple railroad job.”

Collins said Nadler had refused to communicate with him during the break and had only notified committee members on Monday about the panel of law-school professors set to present their opinions.

“We didn’t even find your names out until less than 48 hours ago,” Collins told the panel during his opening statement.

“I don’t know what we’re playing hide the ball on,” he continued. “It’s pretty easy [to guess] what you’re gonna say.”

Collins also said he understood why President Donald Trump declined the offer to send legal representation to the “sham” hearings, which had no fact witnesses scheduled and presented no opportunities for cross-examination.

“No offense to the law professors—the president has nothing to ask you,” Collins said. “You’re not going to provide anything he can’t read.”

The freewheeling Southern congressman’s off-the-cuff colloquialisms were met in equal measure by Nadler’s clear discomfort and uncertainty with parliamentary rules of order while presiding over the hearings.

He appeared peeved as Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., requested clarity on how the proceedings would be conducted and Collins filed a motion to compel Schiff to testify, which Democrats promptly tabled.

Biggs told Fox News that he expected the proceedings to be “feisty.”

Nadler has focused considerable resources on issuing subopoenas to probe Trump’s finances and other possible avenues for impeachment since taking the committee gavel in January.

He boldly declared that impeachment was already underway only a day after Trump’s controversial July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president.

However, he was largely sidelined during the investigatory phase, amid rampant speculation that his botched efforts had put him out of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi‘s good graces.

Collins mocked the singular ambition of Nadler and his fellow party members in their relentless pursuit of a vendetta against Trump.

“The chairman has talked about impeachment since last year when he was elected chairman,” Collins said.

He also used Nadler’s own words criticizing similar procedures during the 1998 impeachment of former President Bill Clinton to point out the Democrats’ hypocrisy.

“I guess 20 years makes a difference,” Collins said.

But unlike the Clinton hearings and the Nixon hearings of the 1970s, Collins said the current effort was unique in that it lacked both concrete evidence and bipartisan consensus to support the charges.

“This impeachment is not really about facts… but they’re already drafting articles. Don’t be fooled,” Collins said.

“If you wanna know what’s really driving this, there’s two things,” he said. “It’s called the clock and the calendar. … They want to do it before the end of the year.”

Kamala Harris Drops Out of 2020 Race

Ben Sellers
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‘She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions…’

Kamala is the Darling of Progressive Hollywood's Big-Bucks Donors
Kamala Harris/Photo by InSapphoWeTrust (CC)

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headline) Sen. Kamala Harris said Tuesday that she was dropping out of the 2020 Democratic primary race.

“I’ve taken stock and looked at this from every angle, and over the last few days have come to one of the hardest decisions of my life,” she said, according to Politico. “My campaign for president simply doesn’t have the financial resources we need to continue.”

In addition to her fundraising struggles, Harris faced waning popular support among Democratic voters, signaling to some insiders that her beleaguered presidential bid may be approaching its final death spiral after months of disappointing decline.

Embarrassed by a series of negative “Pinocchio” awards from Washington Post fact-checkers, even left-leaning media outlets seemed to have abandoned their early hopes and acknowledged her flawed candidacy.

“She has proved to be an uneven campaigner who changes her message and tactics to little effect and has a staff torn into factions,” said a recent New York Times profile.

An Epic Fall

Harris’s announcement followed two new polls showing that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a recent entry into the primary race, already had surpassed her.

While several other candidates—including New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke and, most recently, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock—have dropped out of the race already, the Times observed that Harris was the only “top tier” candidate who had “fallen hard” from her early projections.

Her final poll plunge came amid news that a key staffer had resigned, issuing in her wake a scathing letter that cited the campaign’s disfunction and low morale as reasons.

FACT CHECK: Some of the 2020 Democrats' Lies
Kamala Harris/IMAGE: ABC News via YouTube

“This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly,” wrote Iowa Operations Director Kelly Mehlenbacher in her letter, which was published by the Times.

“While I still believe that Senator Harris is the strongest candidate to win the General Election in 2020, I no longer have confidence in our campaign and its leadership,” she said.

Mehlenbacher’s departure stemmed from a recent round of “restructuring” that laid off many employees and consolidated the campaign’s Washington, DC bureau with its Baltimore operations. The two cities are about an hour apart in favorable traffic—which is rarely favorable.

Mehlenbacher echoed past criticisms of the campaign’s indecisiveness, saying that Harris was insulated from critical feedback by campaign chair Maya Harris, the candidate’s sister.

“Our campaign For the People is made up of diverse talent which is being squandered by indecision and a lack of ‘leaders who will lead,’ Mehlenbacher said. “That is unacceptable.”

Branding Troubles

Harris—a freshman senator elected in 2016 to succeed longtime lawmaker Barbara Boxer—first garnered national buzz last year, during the confirmation hearings for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

She struck many as a dispassionate and unrelenting foe of the Trump administration, drawing on her background as an ice-veined San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general.

But those qualities failed to gain her traction against her fellow left-wingers.

She peaked after the first debate, when she successfully deployed a race-baiting attack against former Vice President Joe Biden. However, she was unable to follow through with a set of comprehensive policy proposals, instead attempting to hedge her bets on signature liberal agenda items like Medicare for All.

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Candidates during the first Democratic primary debate raise their hand in response to a question over their support for eliminating private health insurance. / IMAGE: America Rising PAC

A string of miscues and reboots branded her a serial flip–flopper. Efforts to appeal to a broader electorate by showcasing her softer side seemed to second-guess her strengths as a stone-faced automaton, but she still fell flat in conveying genuine warmth.

Strategically, Harris sought to funnel her resources into Iowa, where early success often translates to renewed momentum, doing so at the expense of other crucial campaign fronts like New Hampshire and her home state of California—the biggest electoral prize of all.

Harris—and several other 2020 hopefuls from the U.S. Senate—also were hoisted with their own petards by the timing of an impending impeachment trial against  President Donald Trump, likely to occur early next year.

Having long advocated for impeachment, the senators may now be forced to suspend campaigning in four early primary races—and possibly even Super Tuesday at the start of March.

Funding Dilemma

Echoing her policy struggles, Harris remained stuck in limbo over fundraising, wavering between the need to present herself as a grassroots progressive and the temptation to tap her Rolodex of wealthy, West Coast mega-donors.

Although Harris benefited from her popularity in places like Hollywood and Silicon Valley, the entrances into the race of two top Democratic donors—Bloomberg and hedge-fund investor Tom Steyer—proved a considerable setback for those unequipped to structure their campaigns around smaller donations.

Other candidates cut from the same cloth as Harris, such as former Obama Housing Secretary Julian Castro and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, also have hinted at ending their campaigns should they fail to meet the threshold for future debates.

During the final quarter of the 2019 fiscal year, Harris spent more than she took in, shelling out $14.6 million while raising only $11.8 million, the Washington Times reported.

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Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris / IMAGE: Sen. Kamala Harris via Facebook

She closed October with only $10.5 million left in the bank while continuing to lose momentum to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Questions now linger as to who will most benefit from Harris’s departure. Morning Consult’s polls have often showed Warren, the only other leading female, as the second choice of Harris supporters.

But increasingly, indicators have pointed to the possibility that another black, female candidate—Michelle Obama—might enter the race to fill the void left by Harris.

Trump Trolls Newsweek w/ Surprise Afghanistan Visit

Ben Sellers
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‘There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the earth…’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) For the second year in a row, President Donald Trump made a surprise holiday visit to support troops stationed abroad.

Following last year’s secret Christmas Day trip to Iraq and Germany, Trump spent his Thanksgiving visiting troops in Afghanistan, CBS News reported.

Video of the event, which Trump later posted on Twitter, showed the president being well received by the service members and helping to serve them their Thanksgiving dinner.

“There’s nowhere I’d rather celebrate this Thanksgiving than right here with the toughest, strongest, best and bravest warriors on the face of the earth—you are indeed that,” Trump told the troops.

CBS said the president flew into Bagram Air Field shortly after 8:30 p.m. local time. His visit—lasting about two and a half hours—also included a meeting with Afghani President Ashraf Ghani.

Trump confirmed during the visit that the U.S. had resumed peace talks with the Taliban. Prior talks stalled due to the radical Islamist’s group’s refusal to make some deal-breaker concessions.

A discussion about hosting the longtime U.S. enemy at Camp David was said to have contributed to the departure of former national security adviser John Bolton.

“The Taliban wants to make a deal, and we’re meeting with them and we’re saying it has to be a ceasefire, and they didn’t want to do a ceasefire, and now they do want to do a ceasefire,” Trump said. “I believe it’ll probably work out that way.”

The president also told reporters that he hoped to reduce the number of troops stationed there from 14,000 to 8,600.

Trump’s visit came on the heels of several recent casualties in the country. Two Army officers, Chief Warrant Officer 2 David C. Knadle, 33, and Chief Warrant Officer 2 Kirk T. Fuchigami Jr., 25, died last week in a helicopter crash. And over the weekend a civilian aid worker, Anil Raj of San Francisco, died in an attack on a U.N. vehicle in the capital city of Kabul, which Secretary of State Mike Pompeo described as “unconscionable.”

Trump’s public schedule indicated that he would be at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, conducting a conference call with troops. The visit went unannounced for security purposes.

However, Trump’s trip last Christmas also effectively trolled many in the liberal media who had pointedly criticized him for ignoring the troops.

At least one publication, the far-left Newsweek, appeared to fall for the ruse again. Trump retweeted a screenshot his son, Donald Trump Jr., had posted that showed the once-reputable news magazine attacking him.

Newsweek posted a revised story at 6:17 p.m. Thursday that was stealth-edited with the same timestamp. A note at the bottom noted the revision but made no reference to the earlier error.

Obama Trashes Biden: He ‘Really Doesn’t Have’ the ’08 Magic

Ben Sellers
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‘Everybody needs to chill out about the candidates but gin up about the prospect of rallying behind whoever emerges from this process…’

Biden Accused of Using Obama as a Crutch
Barack Obama and Joe Biden / IMAGE: CBC News via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) After staying below radar for much of the year, former President Barack Obama has finally commenced his inevitable handicapping of the 2020 presidential race, notably trashing his former vice president in a conversation with a Democratic rival.

“With one candidate, he pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an intimate bond with the electorate, especially in Iowa, that he no longer has,” Mediaite reported. “Then he added, ‘And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.'”

Many—including Fox News host Tucker Carlson—are now espousing the theory that Obama is seeking to clear the field for a late announcement from his wife, Michelle, despite her declarations to a child-journalist in August that she had a “zero percent” chance of running.

The biggest barrier, however, to an Obama entry is former Vice President Joe Biden.

The baggage-laden front-runner has maintained steady support in the polls, weathering scandals about his uncomfortable contact with women and girls; his racist policy positions; his tendency toward gaffes and lies; and, most recently, his family ties to a corrupt Ukrainian energy company.

As House Democrats press forward with an impeachment investigation into whether President Donald Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Biden, Republicans have pledged to call Biden and his son Hunter to testify, should it go to trial in the Senate.

Even those on the Left, such as Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., have acknowledged that such a move would be like “rolling a grenade down the aisle” of Congress.

Obama has pointedly refused to endorse Biden, whose personal bond with the former president has been a source of speculation, despite Biden’s dubious claims that they were close and that he asked his former boss not to back him.

In fact, the egocentric ex-executive has demonstrated a telling restraint from making frequent public comments on the Democratic primary race—or politics in general—and has focused instead on building a get-out-the-vote infrastructure through his gerrymandering operations with former Attorney General Eric Holder.

That Obama, in February, folded his former campaign arm, the nonprofit Organizing for Action, into Holder’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which includes a political-action committee, was one of several indications that something lay up his sleeve.

Holder, too, has played a convenient foil in Michelle Obama’s efforts to rehab her public image as a moderate, motherly voice of reason instead of a hate-filled radical.

Obama’s longtime confidante, bundler and “wing man” chided Democrats in September for attacking the Obama legacy while engaging in political infighting.

But Holder changed his tone recently with a leak that criticized Biden for standing in the way of his own political aspirations.

Obama, himself, has given similar signals of an overt rejection of Biden amid reports that he had encouraged former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to enter the race.

Last week, the de-facto party leader told a group of major donors to put aside their “tactical disagreements” with the current candidates in order to support a common effort.

“Everybody needs to chill out about the candidates,” he said, according to ABC News, “but gin up about the prospect of rallying behind whoever emerges from this process.”

Likewise, the Democratic National Committee has demanded that all of the current candidates—which includes two of its all-time biggest mega-donors, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer—promise to throw their support and fundraising to the eventual nominee.

Of course, even without the backing of other candidates and donors, Michelle Obama would enter the race well positioned to assume the lead with few of the financial hurdles that other candidates face.

The Obamas have been working with Netflix on developing several series, some of which conveniently may be timed for release around campaign season.

In addition to her work “educating” school children in red states how to vote, the former First Lady follows on the heels of a successful book tour last year with a new self-help journal based on her bestselling memoir, Becoming.

Michelle Obama’s former chief-of-staff, Tina Tchen, also holds the reins currently at the well-healed Southern Poverty Law Center, which—despite its nonprofit status—is reported to have more than half a billion dollars in assets, much of it in offshore bank accounts.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., earlier speculated that the embattled organization may seek to convert into a super-PAC, which would allow it to spend unlimited funds supporting candidates or political causes of its choosing.

Detroit Congresswoman Scuttles Impeachment Support, Calls for Censure Instead

Ben Sellers
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‘I don’t see the value of taking him out of office…’

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A former far-left impeachment hawk from a district beside that of Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., has now openly questioned its wisdom.

After the public hearings against President Donald Trump did little to move the dial on impeachment—and with the election fast approaching—Rep. Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., backpedaled Sunday on her unequivocal past support while speaking with a local radio broadcast, the “No BS News Hour.”

“I will tell you, sitting here knowing how divided this country is, I don’t see the value of taking him out of office,” she said. “But I do see the value of putting down a marker saying his behavior is not acceptable.”

Lawrence said she prefered other options that would send a rebuke to Trump without the risk of splashing back on Democrats.

“I want him censured,” she said. “I want it on the record that the House of Representatives did their job and they told this president and any president coming behind him that this is unacceptable behavior and, under our Constitution, we will not allow it.”

But even though Lawrence crowed about her independent-mindedness, all indications are that many vulnerable Democrats are now getting cold feet, fearing a repeat of the Russian collusion hoax that found them as abusing their investigative powers for partisan gain.

An Overplayed Hand

Lawrence’s seat in Michigan’s 14th district sits just north of Rashida Tlaib’s 13th district seat.

Like Tlaib’s, her district is safely Democrat, with a nearly 60 percent black demographic having supported blue presidential candidates for at least the past three decades by margins of around 80 percent or more.

That Tlaib—a progressive, freshman “Squad” member—has been one of the staunchest impeachment advocates, campaigning and fundraising on the issue as a central part of her platform, makes Lawrence’s recent about-face all the more stunning.

While leftist radicals have exerted an outsize influence on the current House session by making the most noise, their fortunes remain tied to  at least 31 so-called moderate Democrats hailing from districts that Trump won in 2016, noted Fox News.

Losing only 16 votes would put them outside the majority needed to pass articles of impeachment—which would be a devastating blow to their 2020 prospects and another validation for those who have long criticized the Left’s divisive maneuverings as nothing more than a partisan ploy.

Democrats expressed confidence prior to the hearings that they had the votes not only to investigate but to impeach Trump.

But even in their vote to formalize the proceedings they failed to get a consensus, with two Democratic congressmen crossing the aisle to vote with all of their Republican colleagues against the hearings.

Brenda Lawrence / IMAGE: Click On Detroit | Local 4 | WDIV via Youtube

Only two months ago, Lawrence was among those who cast impeachment as a turning point in the annals of U.S. history and a sacred obligation to fulfill her oath, reported the Washington Examiner.

“I feel strongly that for my legacy, for my time in history, sitting here at this table with an oath of office to protect this country, to protect the democracy of the United States of America, I cannot sit silent, that I must move forward with [impeachment] because this is egregious,” she said in an Oct. 4 radio interview.

Yet, Fox noted that voters and media in Detroit had recently expressed diffidence about the impeachment process.

On Saturday, an editorial in The Detroit News came out against it. “The evidence is too much based on hearsay and too conflicting to support impeachment,” it said. “… Unless more damning evidence is ahead, the Democrats don’t have a case that will stand up in the Senate…”

Ukraine Backlash

Recent polls increasingly have shown Democrats and independent voters souring on the impeachment proceedings, which were notably dry and dull.

Much of the complex, nuanced testimony that Democrats needed to press their case hinged on the manner in which career bureaucrats in the State Department had interpreted Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

But Republicans maintain that even if the interpretations of these civil servants rang true and were not tainted by partisan motives, no wrongdoing that was revealed came close to rising to the level of “high crimes and misdemeanors” needed to charge or remove the president.

Indeed, in both the Russia and Ukraine probes, the revelations that surfaced about the Left’s own conduct cast them in an even worse light, ethically speaking, than the alleged misconduct they were investigating would have cast Trump.

Liberal Media Losing the Effort to Dupe Public on Ukraine 1
Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi / IMAGE: Fox News via Youtube

If impeachment were to go to trial next year, Republicans would hold many of the same levers that House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both California Democrats, have held during the recent investigative phase.

Already, Senate leaders such as Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham, R-SC, have promised that a trial there would entail calling several witnesses who could show Trump was justified in seeking investigations into Democrats’ corruption in Ukraine during the Obama administration.

That includes the unfolding saga involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter—with mounting evidence that the two used their influence and connections to scuttle major probes of the Burisma energy company, where Hunter was receiving a lucrative monthly “consulting” fee until earlier this year.

Graham also vowed recently to subpoena the whistleblower whose complaint to the intelligence community inspector general ostensibly triggered the recent impeachment hearings.

The still-unidentified informant—presumed to be CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella—was revealed to have coordinated his complaint with Schiff’s office prior to filing it. He then sought to change the documentation when his partisan wranglings were exposed.

Democratic leaders have continued to hedge, with Schiff hinting—contrary to past declarations—that he may seek to draw out the process by compelling further testimony from uncooperative witnesses.

The party, thus, now faces a dilemma: A focus on anything but impeachment not only would be the latest in a long line of capricious reversals on earlier pledges—such as those to have the whistleblower testify and to move forward only with bipartisan support.

It also is likely to increase the growing rift with leftist radicals like Tlaib, for whom compromise is not an option.

Meanwhile, moving forward on a shaky foundation poses its own risks of failure, backlash, and even Republican retaliation with several counter-investigations pending in the Senate.

Trump, for his part, has said he would welcome a trial. But on Monday, amid a flurry of retweets about the waning support, he called on Democrats to put it behind them and focus on passing a bipartisan trade agreement.

FISA-Altering FBI Lawyers Linked to Inspector General at Center of Ukraine Conspiracy

Ben Sellers
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Lovebird lawyers (not Page & Strzok) were ‘unmasked’ last year during House Oversight hearing on Clinton emails…

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) An FBI attorney accused of making substantial edits on a warrant application to spy on President Donald Trump’s campaign in the Russia collusion hoax also has ties to the current Ukraine conspiracy, reported the Gateway Pundit.

Some, including conservative thought-leader Rush Limbaugh, initially speculated that the unnamed culprit, identified by CNN and The Washington Post only as an FBI lawyer who worked with disgraced former counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, might even be Strzok’s own mistress, Lisa Page.

But the two left-wing outlets, who received the scoop from anonymous leakers, later clarified that it was a line attorney. Online sleuths used the available information to identify the individual as Kevin Clinesmith, who was unmasked last year as one of those under investigation by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-NC, during a hearing for the House Oversight Committee.

As with Strzok and Page, Clinesmith is said to have allegedly maintained an inter-office romance with his own female accomplice, Sally Moyer, who also was under investigation.

Prior to the Trump surveillance, he had been working with Strzok and a small group of agents on the Hillary Clinton email investigation, labeled “Mid-Year Exam.”

Strzok switched over to the Trump sting operation, dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” and with him went his No. 2 man, Clinesmith after FBI Director James Comey announced the closing of the initial Clinton case in July 2016.

Moyer’s role in the general counsel’s office made her responsible for legal compliance related to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the warrant application to eavesdrop on Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

The details of her and Clinesmith’s association are still vague and unverified, and it is uncertain whether the two maintained any intimate and revealing correspondence on their traceable FBI phones, as Page and Strzok did.

However, Clinesmith it is known was removed from the Trump investigation after sending messages to colleagues that included “Viva le resistance.”

Both Clinesmith and Moyer also worked closely with Michael Atkinson, an FBI attorney who became the intelligence community’s inspector general.

Michael Atkinson / IMAGE: Associated Press

It was Atkinson who, according to House Democrats, was first approached by the so-called whistleblower, presumed to be CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.

After hearing the second-hand account of Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Atkinson proceeded to change the rules for filing whistleblower complaints to allow them to include those that were not directly witnessed by the complainant.

Even so, the Gateway Pundit noted that the form should not have been accepted since Trump was not a member of the intelligence community.

Atkinson remained unsatisfied with the lack of attention that the claims received from the Justice Department and reached out directly to the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Conveniently, having just rebounded from the disastrous debunking of the Russia collusion claims—in which he publicly had promised smoking-gun evidence to impeach the president—Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. was freshly in the market for a new scandal.

After it was revealed that the whistleblower, too, had spoken with Schiff’s office prior to the filing of the complaint, he, too, allegedly tried to edit the form, where he had indicated that he had not spoken to Congress, the Gateway Pundit reported.

Census Bureau Challenged Over Plans to Hire Foreigners to Do the Counting

Ben Sellers
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‘The bureaucratic runaround Judicial Watch received from the Census Bureau on its potentially illegal hiring of aliens to help conduct the census is remarkable…’

Judicial Watch Suit Raises Concerns about Census Hiring of Illegals
IMAGE: U.S. Census Bureau via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) An August report that the Census Bureau planned to hire non-citizens for help conducting the upcoming US census in 2020 raised many questions.

Now, Judicial Watch says, the bureau’s stonewalling on the answers to those questions has created even greater concerns over its intentions and the ability to oversee the national population count under politically charged conditions.

“The bureaucratic runaround Judicial Watch received from the Census Bureau on its potentially illegal hiring of aliens to help conduct the census is remarkable—and not in a good way” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a press release.

“Judicial Watch simply wants the documents so the public can be reassured that the census is being run according to law,” he said.

The underlying reason for the request was to ensure that the Census Bureau was complying with federal laws about the hiring of non-citizens. While it is generally prohibited from doing so, officials have claimed there are exceptions to the rule when it comes to things like translation issues.

“There are flexibilities within the Appropriation Act that would permit, for example, based on language requirements, some exemptions,” said Tim Olson, associate director for field operations at the Census Bureau, according to US News and World Report.

“We are actively working through those flexibilities to see if they can be used in 2020,” Olson said in August. “We are not there yet.”

According to Judicial Watch, the agency—an offshoot of the Commerce Department—seems no closer to getting their now than it was three months ago, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping it from moving forward with its hiring initiatives.

Fitton said that in response to an open-records request, the Census Bureau had sent two identical forms—even containing the same typos—requesting additional clarity on the request.

It seemed to be more of a stalling tactic than a good faith effort at compliance, he said.

“After a telephone conference and at least two more rounds of discussions, the Census Bureau still has not indicated whether it will process the straightforward request.”

Census officials also played semantic games by feigning ignorance over the use of the word “illegal”—claiming, “There is nowhere in our legal flexibilities that refers to people we could possibly hire as ‘’illegal.’”

However, the bureau later revealed it made no distinction between legal, documented aliens and those who had violated US law to gain residence in the country, Judicial Watch said.

Now, the government accountability and transparency watchdog has filed suit instead.

Concerns over the bureau’s intentions are well-founded given the focus that already has been paid to illegal immigration and election fraud matters during the Obama and Trump presidencies of the past decade.

After Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross announced the return of a citizenship question long excluded from most census forms, left-wing activists filed suit in several states—including New York, California and Maryland—to block the move, claiming it would deter participation by illegals.

That would, in turn, result in a loss of funding and political representation for “sanctuary” states that encouraged illegals to stay with various protections and services.

In June, the US Supreme Court ruled against Ross and the Trump administration, saying that even though the question was justified in theory, Ross had failed to give sufficient reason for making the change under the Administrative Procedures Act.

Trump initially planned to continue the fight after the case was remanded back to the lower courts, but facing tight printing deadlines, he backed off, saying he would use other means to obtain an accurate count of illegal immigrants through means such as driver’s license records.

Thus far, only Nebraska has publicly announced it plans to cooperate with the record-sharing request.

California‘s use of non-citizens for voter-registration and ballot-harvesting initiatives came under scrutiny following the 2016 and 2018 elections, amid reports of non-citizens aggressively soliciting new registrants—some of them homeless—and attempting to sway their vote.

Did DOJ Just Refer FBI Lovebird LISA PAGE in Russia-Gate Criminal Probe?

Ben Sellers
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‘I am so stressed about all the ways THIS has the potential to go fully off the rails…’

Lisa Page Admitted Obama DOJ Ordered Stand-Down on Hillary Prosecution
Lisa Page/PHOTO: Page Legal Team

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) An FBI lawyer is facing a criminal referral for altering a document as part of an investigation into the agency’s alleged abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on Trump campaign officials, CNN reported.

The reporting, based on unnamed sources, did not indicate the suspect’s name, nor the specific document alleged to have been altered, but some recent indications point to Lisa Page.

The criminal referral is part of a major series of probes being conducted by the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr.

One of those probes, an investigation by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, announced recently that it planned to conclude by Dec. 9, with Horowitz now scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 11.

A parallel criminal investigation, led by special prosecutor John Durham, remains ongoing, though it has been rumored to be in its final stages.

Horowitz already has wrapped several of his own investigations into FBI misconduct involving key Obama-era figures like Director James Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and counter-espionage agent Peter Strzok, who oversaw the investigations into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server and the since-debunked allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.

While not all have been recommended for prosecution, Horowitz has reportedly found some previous violations of law involving the leaking of classified material. He has been in close contact with Durham, who was appointed in May, shortly after the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller‘s Russia probe.

Last month, it was revealed that FBI attorney Lisa Page, best known for being Strzok’s mistress, had admitted to altering the 302 summary filing of an interview Strzok had conducted with Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

Those edits mischaracterized the FBI conclusions to indicate that they believed Flynn was guilty of illicit communications with the Russian ambassador. Flynn ultimately was indicted as part of the Mueller investigation.

Although Page denied any recollection of the changes, text-messages between her and Strzok not only offered her admission, but also showed that she knew it was improper conduct.

“I can feel my heart beating harder,” she wrote. “I am so stressed about all the ways THIS has the potential to go fully off the rails.”

According to Fox News, the CNN reports on the criminal referral were confirmed by The Washington Post, but the paper later stealth-edited a portion indicating that the person had worked “beneath” Strzok.

The recent filings from Flynn’s attorney that implicated Page also indicated that Obama’s director of national intelligence, James Clapper, encouraged a Washington Post reporter to “take the kill shot on Flynn” as Democrats sought to frame the Trump campaign.

Clapper, who is also a focus of Durham’s investigation, has said he was following the direct orders of President Barack Obama.

The Horowitz and Durham investigations figure to play prominently in an anticipated Senate impeachment trial for President Donald Trump as Republicans put forward an alternative narrative to counter the Left’s allegations of corruption.

Central to their defense is that Trump was justified in pressuring Ukraine to pursue investigations into Democrats given the past evidence of election interference involving surrogates of the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton campaign.

Graham Opening Senate Investigation on Bidens, Requests State Dept. Docs

Ben Sellers
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‘Hunter Biden began ‘following’ then-Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken … on Twitter, indicating that the two may have initiated conversations…’

Republicans Defend Trump After Leftists Attack Him As a 'Racist'
Lindsey Graham / IMAGE: News 19 WLTX via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) A day after announcing the conclusion an investigation led by the Justice Department inspector general, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said he planned to investigate the Burisma scandal involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requesting all pertinent correspondence between the Bidens and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Graham honed in on the period of time in February 2016 immediately before prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin tendered his resignation under pressure from Poroshenko.

Shokin reportedly submitted his resignation in or around Feb. 16, 2016, according to contemporary reports.

Democrats leading an impeachment hearing against President Donald Trump for pushing Ukraine to reopen its Biden investigation have falsely claimed that Burisma, the energy company that paid Hunter Biden a “consulting” fee to be on its board of directors, was not under investigation at the time of Shokin’s firing.

However, Shokin himself has indicated under sworn affidavit that he was pressured to drop the investigation, due directly to Biden’s influence.

Graham said in his letter to Pompeo that on Feb. 2, 2016, Shokin had raided the home of Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevksy. Two days later, Shokin seized property from Zlochevksy.

“It is also my understanding that on February 4, 2016, Hunter Biden began ‘following’ then-Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, a longtime advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, on Twitter, indicating that the two may have initiated conversations regarding Prosecutor General Shokin’s investigation into Burisma,” Graham wrote.

That was followed by a series of phone calls between Joe Biden and Poroshenko from Feb. 11-19, Graham said in the letter. Biden boasted during a 2018 panel that he had met with Ukrainian officials and threatened to withhold a billion-dollar loan if they did not fire Shokin.

John Solomon, a prominent conservative reporter with outlets including The Hill, previously disclosed documents obtained via open-records requests that top State Department officials had discussed meeting with Hunter Biden and Devon Archer, another Burisma board member and business partner of Biden’s at Rosemont Seneca Partners who had advised then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

As Democrats in the House conclude the investigatory phase of their Ukraine probe, with the likely outcome being articles of impeachment against Trump, Graham’s investigation of the Bidens may figure prominently into a Senate trial to determine whether to remove the president from office.

GOP leaders in the Senate have said they plan to subpoena for testimony several witnesses who will dispel the Democrats’ narrative, including the Bidens and an unnamed “whistleblower” widely presumed to be CIA analyst Eric Ciaramella.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Democratic presidential hopeful, insisted in one of her frequent late-night talk show appearances Thursday that there was nothing to see in the Burisma probe, calling Graham’s letter a “bunch of BS” and calling on Republicans to “leave Joe alone.”

Hunter Biden-Linked Co. Got $130M Obama-Era Bailout, Hid in Offshore Account

Ben Sellers
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‘This is a great example of the suspicion of many Americans that these bailouts were used to benefit connected insiders while ordinary Americans went broke…’

CNN, NYT, Propagand
Hunter and Joe Biden / IMAGE: Donald J Trump via Youtube

(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) An investment firm linked to former Vice President Joe Biden‘s son Hunter and two close associates of former Secretary of State John Kerry received $130 million in government bailout funds, which it routed to an offshore account used to avoid paying taxes of its own.

The investigation by the Washington Examiner into Rosemont Capital revealed that the company was a select few approved for a loan under the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility program in 2009, Joe Biden’s first year as vice president during the Obama administration.

That same year, Hunter Biden co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners with Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz, and a senior Kerry adviser, Devin Archer.

The Examiner’s investigation stemmed from the company’s involvement in a Ukrainian corruption scandal. Both Hunter Biden and Archer were offered lucrative positions on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, where they received a monthly consulting stipend estimated to be more than $83,000 while Joe Biden was overseeing U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine.

A month before the vice president coerced the firing of a prosecutor–general who had investigated Burisma for corruption by threatening to withdraw a billion-dollar loan, both Hunter Biden and Archer met with high-level State Department officials to lobby on behalf of Burisma.

Rosemont Seneca shared the same address and phone number as Rosemont Capital, which held a 50 percent stake in the subsidiary, according to records from the Securities and Exchange Commission reviewed by the Examiner.

Three weeks after its incorporation, the parent company was granted $13.4 million to invest in student loans and $11.1 million to invest in subprime auto loans. Within five months, that amount had ballooned to $130 million total.

“This is a great example of the suspicion of many Americans that these bailouts were used to benefit connected insiders while ordinary Americans went broke,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, which assisted the Examiner with its investigation.

Adding insult to injury, Rosemont stored the money in a Cayman Islands account to avoid taxation.

“It seems like a pretty basic ask that any recipient of these TALF loans would act in certain ways,” Matt Gardner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, told the Examiner. “And one of those ways would be to not organize their businesses to avoid taxes in the Caymans.”

The details of Obama-era corruption have, of course, only become clearer in hindsight as Democrats attempt to falsely accuse and pin blame on President Donald Trump for many of the outrageous acts that they either turned a blind eye to or brazenly flaunted as the spoils of power during the Obama years.

In the Bidens’ case, the revelations tie in with a long history of fudging the truth—if not outright lying.

In 2017, Biden misleadingly defended the Obama-era bailouts—despite the fact that many went to wealthy, well-connected corporations–by saying they were a necessary evil at the time.

“These guys are not the most likable guys in the world,” Biden said, according to the Huffington Post “But here are the facts … Had we not bailed out the largest bank institutions in the world, there would have been a flat-out depression.”

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