Wall Street Journal November16,2021 Kimberley Strassel is spot on in her analysis of Mr. Durham’s complex indictment of Igor Danchenko (“Hillary Clinton’s Russian Helpers,” Potomac Watch, Nov. 12). I would not, however, conclude as she does: “We can’t know what the Kremlin’s goal was in 2016.” In the efforts recited in the indictment, and in…
Tag: Russian Election Interference
Whose Prosecutorial Discretion Is It, Anyway?
News outlets and social media are aflame with denunciations of Attorney General William Barr’s order to change the prosecutor’s sentencing recommendation to the judge in the case of Roger Stone, a gadfly Trump supporter. The excitement was created by the dramatic “resignations” of four Assistant U.S. Attorneys who had originally submitted a memo recommending a…
The Inspector General’s Report – A Matter of Intent
The Inspector General of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, recently released a report unappealingly titled “Review of Four FISA Applications and Other Aspects of the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane Investigation.” In its bureaucratic prose, larded with acronyms and unnamed actors, it lives up to its dreary title. (Oddly, the Mueller Report, by contrast, whatever…
It’s Mueller Time 2: Obstruction
Recently in It’s Mueller Time!,” I discussed the Meuller Report’s treatment of the issue of whether President Trump or his campaign criminally conspired with the Russians during the 2016 campaign (“Russian Collusion”). I relied on Attorney General William Barr’s summary of the principal conclusions of the report. Since then the full report with very limited required…
It’s Mueller Time!
Saturday Night Live will continue Alec Baldwin’s ham-handed send up of Donald Trump but it doesn’t look like Robert DeNiro will long reprise his role as a menacing Robert Mueller. The Special Counsel has filed his final report and closed shop on his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and, particularly, of whether…
Donald Trump, “The Manchurian Candidate?”
On January 11 Americans were horrified to read a front page story in the New York Times headlined, “FBI Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia.” Unfortunately, only about half were horrified that a few civil servants at the top of the FBI, on record as looking for ways to derail…
Jim Clapper’s “Magical Mystery Tour”
Before he accepted his appointment by President Obama as Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper wrote in a letter to the President: “I have always sought to be ‘below the radar;” I do not like publicity.” The big payday of a large book contract seems to have overcome Clapper’s reticence. In addition to his paid…
The House Intelligence Memo: Damning Details
There’s not much news in the House Intelligence Committee Majority Staff Memo on abuses by a few individuals at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) in the use of FISA (Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act) to conduct surveillance on domestic political opponents. There is confirmation of the leaks that the discredited “Trump Dossier” a/k/a “Steele…
The “Russian Collusion” Investigation Takes an Unexpected Bounce
If John LeCarre’s later novels seem to have taken a more polemic tone than his byzantine earlier tales of espionage and treachery, maybe it’s because writers of spy thrillers, like practitioners of political parody and satire, find themselves ever more unable to stay ahead of reality. The subject of Russian interference in the 2016 American…
Comey’s Revenge
It’s only been a month since President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on May 9. Comey’s testimony today before the Senate Intelligence Committee climaxed a rush of developments since then. Look elsewhere for prescience. On May 11 in “Comey’s Exit and the Artificial Storm” I flatly stated “There will be no independent counsel,”…
Comey’s Exit and the Artificial Storm
Good riddance Jim Comey and don’t let the door hit you on the ass. The self-righteous, publicity seeking FBI Director was fired Tuesday by President Trump. While the FBI Director is supposed to be above politics, it is necessary that he be politically adept enough to follow Justice Department policies and political protocol in the…
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