I & I Editorial BoardI&I Editorial
Despite its many policy failures and foreign affairs disasters, the Obama administration always escaped serious criticism in the media because, we were told, there were no serious scandals during his two terms in office. As just-released documents show, President Barack Obama himself was neck-deep in the silent coup attempt by top U.S. officials at the FBI, Justice Department and CIA.
Another media myth, generated by left-leaning journalists to prop up their favorite politician, bites the dust. How do we know? #ObamaGate is now trending on Twitter, a sure sign of spreading interest in the scandal.
The latest document dump from the trove of secrets that the DOJ and FBI withheld from the public shows that the plot to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency by entrapping his National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn went all the way to the top.
Among the documents is one from the Mueller investigation regarding alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russian officials.
In it, according to the Washington Examiner, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates “told special counsel Robert Mueller’s team (in August of 2017) that she first learned the FBI possessed and was investigating recordings of Flynn’s late 2016 conversations with a Russian envoy following a Jan. 5, 2017, national security meeting at the White House. It wasn’t Comey who told her, but former President Barack Obama.
“Yates, who was briefly the acting attorney general during the early days of the Trump administration before getting fired, also laid out how in the ensuing days, Comey kept the FBI’s actions cloaked in secrecy and repeatedly rebuffed her suggestions that the incoming Trump team be made aware of the Flynn recordings.”
Let that sink in. Comey was investigating a key member of the incoming presidential administration, but didn’t inform the White House about the investigation, apparently at the behest of Obama.
Also attending that meeting, in addition to Yates and Comey, were Vice President Joe Biden, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and others.
Yates says Obama and Comey pulled her aside after the meeting ended to tell her what they were doing, and to keep it quiet.
It helps explain why Obama shrilly complained about the Justice Department’s fully justified decision to drop the phony charges against Flynn. Not publicly, of course, but by leaking a recent phone call with former members of his administration, in which he warned “our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk” and characterized Trump’s pandemic efforts as “an absolute chaotic disaster.”
The truth: Obama trampled the rule of law for eight years as president by weaponizing the National Security Agency, CIA, FBI, Justice Department and even the FISA court system to spy on Trump, possibly as early as 2015.
Now it’s all tumbling out, and Obama’s getting very nervous. But this is only the beginning of a deluge of devastating revelations about the Obama administration and how it used U.S. intelligence assets to spy on political opponents.
The investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham is ongoing, with most of these new revelations coming from that effort.
On Monday, interim Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, ordered a list of Obama officials involved in “unmasking” Trump campaign officials and aides who had conversations with Flynn and others who were investigated.
In essence, that practice allowed the Obama White House to tap all electronic communications of those who spoke or communicated with Flynn and others, and discover their identities, beginning from February 2016, when he first signed on as a Trump adviser.
The list is a long one. As Fox News reported, “The list revealed that then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made unmasking requests seven times between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 11, 2017. The list revealed that (Director of National Intelligence James R.) Clapper made three requests from Dec. 2, 2016 through Jan. 7, 2017; and that Brennan made two requests, one on Dec. 14 and one on Dec. 15, 2016. Comey also made a request on Dec. 15, 2016. On Jan. 5, 2017, (Obama Chief of Staff Denis) McDonough made one request, and on Jan. 12, 2017, Biden made one request.”
This amounts to an illegal domestic political spy ring, looking for dirt in the National Security Agency’s database on Trump’s incoming administration for ultimate use by Deep State insiders, such as disgraced former FBI chief Comey, CIA head Brennan, Clapper and, of course, Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, among more than a dozen other high-level Obama officials who had access.
They also granted access to NSA data to certain privileged “outside contractors.” That presumably includes both Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the now-infamous Trump Dossier containing salacious allegations that were never verified. The Hillary Clinton campaign paid for that research, which was shared with the FBI, serving as justification for more FISA wiretaps on the Trump campaign.
Of Rice, one of Obama’s closest advisers, ABC News reported back in 2017 that she “was involved in examining intelligence related to individuals affiliated with Trump’s campaign and transition team, and her actions are being heavily scrutinized.”
That means Obama knew what was going on, and likely was behind it.
After all, he hired Flynn as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in July 2012, but forced him out in August 2014, as Flynn’s criticisms of Obama’s bungled policies toward Syria and Iran became increasingly strident.
Did Obama’s animus against Flynn put him in the spy agencies’ crosshairs? The longtime narrative pushed by the media is that the FBI became alarmed about a late December 2016 conversation that Flynn, as the incoming national security adviser, had with then-Russian envoy to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.
The truth is, thanks to Obama and his allies at the FBI, CIA and DOJ, starting in February 2016, when Flynn first joined the Trump campaign, everyone who had contact with him was fair game. They were in effect spied upon. Some believe evidence will emerge showing Obama spying on Flynn all the way back to 2014, when he was let go.
Or as The American Thinker’s Thomas Lifson wrote, “In other words, a vast spy operation on the campaign of a political enemy — dwarfing Watergate in scale and importance — apparently was underway.”
Whatever this scandal gets named, it’s a massive one, contrary to the media’s ongoing assertions of Obama’s scandal-free tenure in office. And contrary to Obama’s recent remarks, it was he who undermined the rule of law by using the U.S. intelligence community to spy on a political opponent. By any reading of the law, that is a crime, the biggest scandal of all.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Using these vague “policy violations,” Google is now threatening to demonetize us. It’s part of Big Tech’s effort to silence conservative voices.
Shazam, please do not stop now. I really want to see Comey, Brennan, Clapper etc get the Roger Stone treatment.
There was no myth of a scandal-free administration. Just a hilariously blatant lie. Not this will change things. The Democrats will just keep telling the lie. Not like anyone will be prosecuted.
The scandal will only be as big as the major media make it. So, don’t hold your breath. They will never let anything top Watergate. It’s their go-to story.
LALALALALALALALALALA republicans win big in two special elections LALALALALALALALA trump taking lead in battleground polls LALALALALALALALA biden guilty of corruption LALALALALALALALA powers lied under oath to congress LALALALALALALALALA list of unmaskers grows and includes many who claimed they did not do it LALALALALALALALA etc, etc, etc.
Lamestream DNC-run media and their attempts to ignore breaking news.
Don’t think so. Among the outcomes in our post-virus world is the strong likelihood that ‘biz as usual’ is dead and gone forever. <<>> don’t control the agenda the way they did: push ’em a bit, they will crumble.
Watergate is a go-to story only for elderly journalists and craven academics, no one else.
“Not a SMIDGEN of corruption.” -Barry Soetoro
The MSM has been Lying to the American Taxpayer with Treasonous effects.. They need to be held accountable as the Criminal Democrats who Committed these Crimes.
The scandals started before the voting was complete. The New Black Panthers were violating voting laws in Philidelphia with intimidation and black jacks. Holder let them off completely. Thats no 1. Then Fast and Furious, The IRS lois Lerner issue, Then attacking the Gibson guitar company, Bengahzi, the ridiculous Iran deal , The bergdahl trade, and now we see the Russian collusion hoax to wrap it up started with colluding with the Clinton campaign and the :Dossier”. An incomplete list. Hers a good one:https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2017/01/02/18-major-scandals-obama-presidency/
Powers lied. Yavonavich lied. Comey lied. Clapper lied. Brennan lied. They all lied under oath. Durham needs to come through.
and yet not one indictment yet? why is that?
The really infuriating thing is that we knew all this from the beginning. We had no hard-down proof, but we did have eyes and ears. We saw how the Obama people – and Obama himself – repeatedly lied and the mainlining media said nothing about it. There was never any doubt in our minds that Obama himself was neck-deep in Russia Russia Russia. Biden would only have been involved peripherally since he was too inept to trust with anything serious, but he would have known.
obamagate makes me think of those starting gates used for animal races. Except instead of a race, it was like a pack of dogs turned loose to savage civilized norms.
Which was never anything more than a joke any way! The Obama Administration will, over time, be proven to have been one of the most corrupt Administrations ever to serve in Washington DC. The fact that an “in the tank” media helped hide the corruption and illegalities doesn’t make it true!
The myth was smashed long ago for anyone paying attention
– Fast and Furious
-weaponizing the IRS against conservative groiups
– denying security upgrades to embassies while spending lavishly on china, biodiesel conversions, etc.
-blaming Benghazi on a filmmaker and imprisoning him for over a year without charges
-claiming that there was no way to send in any QRF forces over a 24 hour period.
-Creating an “enemies list” of Romney donors and unleashing multiple federal agencies on them and their businesses – EPA, DOL, OSHA, IRS, etc. Obama gave speechee encouraging this activity and calling the donors enemies of America
– Obama’s quid pro quo with Putin – telling the prime minister to tell Putin to ease up on him until after the election and then he will have a freer hand. Putin used his half to invade Ukraine with the Obama admin saying nothing. It continued when Russia shot down a civilian airliner and the Obama admin parroted Russian propaganda that gee whiz, we can’t figure it out
-Not releasing military funds for the Ukraine after Congress directed him to do it twice. Instead sending blankets and MRE’s.
– State Department providing interference for Burisma,with the ambassador lying about it under oath
-Biden’s egregious quid pro quo to quash the investigation into his son’s firm
-Biden providing business influence for his son in China – flying him over on AF2 as part of official delegations twice, allowing him to sit in on meetings, and then having Hunter Biden spearhead a $1.5B deal with his new pals.
– Biden’s brother, with no experience in homebuilding, joins a homebuilding firm that suddenly gets a $1B contract to build homes in Iraq. While “sheriff Joe’ was supposedly in charge of Iraq.
-Uranium 1
-Pay for play with Clinton Foundation donors, having a hotine to Hillary
-Bill Clinton’s average pay for speeches more than doubling while Hillary was SoS. Many of them paid by Putin’s friends.
I could list dozens more, but you get the idea.
I think it cannot be understated, the any contacts Flynn had after he was appoint National Security Advisor by Trump during the transition period was exactly what you would expect an incoming National Security Advisor to do. There was nothing unusual about such contact. Of course he would be contacting officials in other countries to 1. Introduce himself and 2. Outline in general where the Trump administration stood on various issues of concern.
That fact has to be emphasized over and over and over, because the MSM keep trying to make the call into something out of ordinary and therefore sinister.
Hey, how about you publish some of the source material for these astonishing new revelations? Citing Fox news is not a source, by the way.
Obama and thugs, like all corrupt Chicago politicians are prone to do, weaponized all aspects of the Federal bureaucracy against opponents. The IRS scandal took a back seat because so much of the Left’s star’s administration oozed slime in every direction. This “new” scandal will be ignored by the MSN media and entertainment lapdogs, just as the Tara Reade story is being buried. The real scandal is how the media has utterly failed in its responsibility to the American people since it spread its legs for Obama.