Abstract:
A lot is going on and the
Olympics seem to be a convenient distraction.
For over a year, we have been inundated by a Russian collusion
narrative. To date, there has been no
evidence to support this allegation. To the
contrary, facts are emerging that are not consistent with this narrative. The challenge for us consumers of the news is
to be able to sort fact from fiction.
The following article introduces emerging facts that challenge the
prevailing fiction.
AM: Central to the memo is the role the Russian
dossier played in justifying FISA-approved surveillance on those associated
with the Trump campaign. As we discussed
previously, it was McCain’s
staffer that was sent overseas to get the dossier and then for McCain to hand
it over to the FBI. McCain has a
fingerprint on this manufactured document that clearly shaped and controls the
public narrative. Amazingly reported in The New York Times, here is how McCain’s role was
portrayed:
James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director whose firing
by Mr. Trump prompted the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the
Justice Department’s Russia investigation, received a copy of the memos after
Election Day from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. Mr. McCain had
dispatched David J. Kramer, a former top State Department official, to obtain
the dossier directly
from Mr. Steele. And before Election
Day, the F.B.I. reached an agreement to pay
Mr. Steele to continue his research, though that plan was scrapped after
the dossier was published.
IM:
McCain offered no rebuke when his colleague Senator Feinstein publicly
and unilaterally released
the closed door testimony of Glenn Simpson from Fusion GPS,
against the objections of the committee chair.
Some argue this release was designed to defuse the role Fusion GPS
played in manufacturing the dossier.
AM:
McCain is one of the longer
standing ruling elite. I just finished
reading Red Notice by Bill Browder,
grandson of Earl Browder who was the former President of the Communist Party
USA. Browder’s book is a true story
about corruption in Russia. To make a long
story short, one of his Russian accountants was tortured and murdered by the Russian
government. Bill Browder wanted justice
and advocated the Magnitsky
Act in the US Congress. A multi-billionaire,
Browder was unsuccessful in getting an audience with McCain until he convinced
a powerful lobbyist to facilitate a meeting.
IM:
Is McCain really that naïve about the Nunes memo? At some point in time, facts do catch up with
fiction. He must be naïve in this case, otherwise
he must have some equity in perpetuating the fiction. At any rate, he knows his days are numbered
so perhaps he anticipates mortality will win the race with the facts.
Old Gadfly: Joe DiGenova, a former federal prosecutor, provides
a compelling narrative (take notes and watch more than once) to the Daily Caller News Foundation. The
two heroes in this narrative are Vice Admiral Mike Rogers and Representative
Devin Nunes. We need heroes today to
offset those Cicero warned us about:
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot
survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he
is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within
the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the
very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he
speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their
arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men.
He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to
undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can
no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
