Here are my observations on the news of the day.
DRIP, DRIP, DRIP – In my January 25, 2018 post, I recounted that when Hillary Clinton was interviewed by the FBI regarding her mishandling of e-mails: 1. Despite the fact that she was a high-profile individual, she was not interviewed by the FBI director. 2. She was not under oath during the interview. 3. Two of her aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, were permitted to be present. And, 4. We have been told that no notes or transcript, and no video or audio tape exist of the interview. All hard to believe.
But now, thanks to the obvious politicization of the FBI, and indiscretion revealed in texts exchanged between FBI attorney Lisa Page and her lover, FBI investigator Peter Strzok, we know that Page cautioned Strzok to take it easy on Hillary during his interview with her.
“One more thing: she (Clinton) might be our next president,” Page texted on February 25, 2016, “the last thing you need (is) going in there loaded for bear … you think she’s going to remember or care that it was more doj than fbi?”
“Agreed,” Strzok replied, “I called Bill and relayed what we discussed. He agrees.”
Other texts between them reveal more than a mere bias against candidate Trump, but a severe hatred of him, using language I cannot repeat here. Strzok and Page were supportive of a Clinton win, but seemed to panic – suggesting the need for an “insurance policy” – with Trump’s victory.
AND IN ANOTHER TEXT, May 19, 2017, after 10 months of leading the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, Strzok told Page that he had not seen compelling evidence that President Trump or high-level campaign officials colluded with the Russian government.
“You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because my gut sense and concern that there’s no big there there,” Strzok wrote to Page.
IN THAT JANUARY 25, 2018 POST I said I believed former FBI Director James Comey essentially protected Hillary Clinton, thinking that Americans could not survive her indictment in the middle of the election.
Lo and behold, Holman W. Jenkins, writing in today’s Wall Street Journal, said, “It doesn’t tax the imagination to suppose Mr. Comey and fellow intelligence officials were operating on a shared premise that a Clinton presidency was inevitable and need to be protected from e-mail-related risks.”
Writing of the leaking of intelligence and planted scurrilous innuendo about Trump by Obama intelligence officials, Jenkins said, “what Comey did was worse. The choice not to prosecute was political decision that the Obama administration and Obama justice department had a duty to make and to own.
“The American people are not idiots. They would have considered the reasons, spoken and unspoken, understood the complexities, and come to their usual, wildy divergent views about the propriety of the Obama decision.
“Instead, Mr. Comey lied to the electorate in the middle of a presidential race. He lied when he said the FBI conducted a thorough, apolitical investigation of the candidate of the party in power. He lied when he said the evidence alone exculpated Mrs. Clinton and her aides.”
In his conclusion, Jenkins said, “Mr. Comey had no business prejudging the election based on his personal estimate that Mr. Trump was as unacceptable to the American people as he was to Mr. Comey and his Obama administration colleagues.”
Sound familiar?
DEMS REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FACTS – Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the top minority members on the Senate and House intelligence committees, are in denial over the revelations in the much-ballyhooed House Intel Memo, said to uncover surveillance abuses within the federal government.
Those who have been following the Russia, Russia, Russia investigation by the two bodies know that Warner and Schiff never shied from the microphone when they wanted to allude to misdeeds by President Trump or his transition team.
Earlier this week, Warner referred to the House Intel Memo as “sloppy, baseless, and careless (with) no grounding in fact,” but admitted, “I have not seen the memo.”
Release of the memo by the House for public consumption is still in doubt, and may require presidential approval.
As much as I would like the memo released – enough of the politicization in the DOJ – I would prefer the House hold it in abeyance until DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases his year-long findings and recommendations. If his report fails to name names and adequately reveal surveillance abuses within the DOJ and FBI, the House should then consider the release of their memo, supported by their findings.
YOU LOST, JEB, and I’m not interested in what you think of President Trump. Face it, you were the front-runner for the Republican nomination with a $100 million war chest and you came across as a typical “old Washington” establishment type with no fresh, bold ideas to capture the party. While Jeb Bush praised Trump’s moves to roll back regulations and overhaul taxes, Bush attacked the president’s leadership style, his obsession with Twitter and “racist” comments. “I don’t think he will succeed if he continues on this path, “said the loser.
WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL with President Trump discussing with his staff the proposition of firing Special Counsel Robert Mueller? I thought it would have been a mistake if he actually did it, but he didn’t do it. How is that obstruction of justice?
I found it interesting that former federal prosecutor Patrick Cotter said, “The hardest thing to prove in most obstruction cases is intent to obstruct.” If former FBI Director James Comey determined that he couldn’t prove Hillary Clinton’s intent to mishandle classified information, when she purposefully set up a private server to provide cover for her communications, I’d say the president’s safe.
MARY KATHARINE HAM, Tweeting about the difference between firing a guy and not firing a guy, wrote: “Forgive me if I can’t muster the same indignance as I do with things that do happen.”
MANUFACTURING BOOST – I have written much about the hundreds of companies that have provided employees with bonuses and pay increases since the passage of the tax legislation, but word is now surfacing on how manufacturers are stepping up automation and modernization in U.S. factories, by buying machinery in an effort to boost productivity.
The newly revised tax code gives companies five years to deduct the entire cost of equipment purchases from their taxable income.
And in case you missed it, FedEx announced plans to spend $1.5 billion to expand its Indianapolis hub and modernize its home-base in Memphis. It will also invest $200 million in raises for employees, most of it for hourly workers, and another $1.5 billion for employee pensions. Of course, these are just “crumbs” according to Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
PRESIDENT TRUMP drew rare praise from the globalists who attended the Davos World Economic Forum in Switzerland this week. While the media was hoping to cover the protesting that was predicted, all they saw were hundreds of participants holding up smart phones to capture a picture of him.
“America first doesn’t mean America alone,” he assured the audience in his speech at the close of the Forum, in which he told them America is open for business and invited them to invest in the U.S.
