Rep. Elijah Cummings has evidence that Michael Flynn told a friend that one of the Trump Administration's first tasks would be to "rip up" the Russians sanctions. Update!

CUMMINGS in letter to Trey Gowdy: Michael Flynn told a business associate Russia sanctions would be "ripped up" as one of administration's first acts, according to a whistleblower. Full letter: https://t.co/DuVxH4tVpW

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) December 6, 2017

Courtesy of the Baltimore Sun:

President Donald J. Trump’s former national security adviser told a business associate that U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia would be “ripped up” by the new administration, according to a whistleblower account made public Wednesday in a letter written by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings. 

Michael T. Flynn, who pleaded guilty last week to lying to the FBI, was communicating with former business associates “within minutes” of Trump’s inauguration, according to the letter — reassuring them Russian investments would soon be available as the Trump administration lifted sanctions. 

The allegation — which suggests the Trump administration was eager to lift sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama and that Flynn may have blurred his public and private roles during his brief run at the White House — was outlined in a letter Cummings sent to Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. 

“I do not bring this whistleblower to your attention lightly,” Cummings, the Baltimore lawmaker and top Democrat on the committee wrote in the letter. 

“I have attempted to advance this investigation without exposing individuals to personal or professional risk. But the exceptionally troubling allegations in this case — combined with ongoing obstruction from the White House and others — have made this step necessary.”

D-damn! If this holds up it is proof positive that Flynn was trying to satisfy Putin's desire to get rid of those Russian sanctions, on day one!

You can read Cummings' letter here.

I imagine that Cummings has not only notified Gowdy but also Robert Mueller as well.

This just gets more interesting every single day.

Update: Trey "Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi" Gowdy has responded to the letter by Rep. Cummings.

While Democrats may want every Committee of Congress to investigate the same fact patterns, it isn’t a prudent use of resources – something they used to be mindful of. pic.twitter.com/LHkcP5jvIJ

— Trey Gowdy (@TGowdySC) December 6, 2017

You know it's like hypocrisy is the drug of choice for Republicans and they are addicted to that sweet sweet high.

19 Republican Congressmen sign letter attempting to interfere with investigation by Special Counsel.

Trump and Rep. Brian Babin.

Courtesy of the Daily Caller:  

Nineteen Republican congressmen signed on to a letter sent out Friday requesting congressional hearings to keep special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of lawyers accountable. 

“This team has sweeping authority and an open-ended mission, yet they are allowed to operate largely in secret, selected by and ultimately accountable to only one person: Mr. Mueller himself,” the letter sent to House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley states. 

Texas Republican Rep. Brian Babin started asking his colleagues to sign the letter in August. The congressmen who signed on include: Iowa Rep. Steve King, Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, California Rep. Duncan Hunter and Virginia Rep. Dave Brat. 

“With numerous reports emerging almost every day on possible conflicts of interest and allegations of political bias, it would be in the interest of both the public and the Special Counsel team to speak to the American people through their elected representatives in Congress,” the letter continues on to say. “Accordingly, we respectfully request that one of broth (Sic. I will assume they meant to type "or both." It is so hard to get good help these days.) of the Judiciary Committees immediately convene a public and open hearing or series of hearings to bring Mr. Mueller and his team out of the shadows and into the public square.”

Steve King? Duncan Hunter? Trent Franks?

Oh yeah, nothing partisan about these folks. 

I am going to imagine that this letter will have little impact, which is good as it is clearly an attempt to undermine or sabotage Mueller's investigation.

Remember, before he was chosen as the Special Counsel the Republicans LOVED Robert Mueller.

This does however indicate that the investigation is cutting close to the bone and that Trump and his cronies are panicking. 

President Obama's Inauguration Day letter to Donald Trump will make you miss him more than ever.

Here is the full letter courtesy of CNN:  

Dear Mr. President - 

Congratulations on a remarkable run. Millions have placed their hopes in you, and all of us, regardless of party, should hope for expanded prosperity and security during your tenure. 

This is a unique office, without a clear blueprint for success, so I don't know that any advice from me will be particularly helpful. Still, let me offer a few reflections from the past 8 years. 

First, we've both been blessed, in different ways, with great good fortune. Not everyone is so lucky. It's up to us to do everything we can (to) build more ladders of success for every child and family that's willing to work hard. 

Second, American leadership in this world really is indispensable. It's up to us, through action and example, to sustain the international order that's expanded steadily since the end of the Cold War, and upon which our own wealth and safety depend. 

Third, we are just temporary occupants of this office. That makes us guardians of those democratic institutions and traditions -- like rule of law, separation of powers, equal protection and civil liberties -- that our forebears fought and bled for. Regardless of the push and pull of daily politics, it's up to us to leave those instruments of our democracy at least as strong as we found them. 

And finally, take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family. They'll get you through the inevitable rough patches. 

Michelle and I wish you and Melania the very best as you embark on this great adventure, and know that we stand ready to help in any ways which we can. 

Good luck and Godspeed, 

BO

Jesus Christ, that made me choke up.

Is that normal or am I becoming some sappy old guy who breaks down during sentimental car advertisements and seeing people greeting loved ones at the airport?

I would like to point out that it appears that Trump ignored every piece of advice that President Obama gave him except maybe the last part about family and friends.

Which should not be at all surprising since Trump treats everything that Obama touched as if it has competent presidential cooties for something.

Of course the sad part is that if Trump had possessed the intelligence to embrace that advice his presidency would be in much better shape.

Was the FBI's interference in this election a bigger scandal than Watergate?

Rank-and-file FBI investigators on the Clinton case seem to have said, "If we can't indict her, we'll deny her the presidency." So they did.

— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 14, 2016

So the columnist whose tweet is posted above wrote a rather long and expansive examination into what exactly the FBI did to interfere in the 2016 election.

You can read the entire thing here, but for the purposes of this post I will concentrate on the twelve most important bullet points:

(1) Abedin told people after the discovery that “she [was] unsure how her emails could have ended up” on the computer the FBI found them on, suggesting that if she’d ever been contacted by the FBI in early October she could have helped them dialogue through the situation (as the idea that she had deliberately withheld these emails from the FBI never made any sense, given the Bureau’s unwavering insistence that Abedin had always been cooperative with them, and the pointlessness of Abedin risking federal Obstruction of Justice charges and federal prison time to hide emails that were—as we now know—not just without any evidentiary value but in fact duplicates of emails she had already turned over to FBI investigators); 

(2) consensus in the media and beyond, as summarized by The Washington Post, was that “an announcement from the FBI in early October, when the emails were discovered, might have been less politically damaging for Clinton than one coming less than two weeks before the Nov. 8 election,” a fact no one in the FBI could have failed to appreciate, given its obviousness (even notwithstanding the agents’ enormous, day-to-day professional investment in the situation); 

(3) a report in The New York Times indicated that, during the more than three weeks the Weiner investigators kept their discovery from Director Comey, they nevertheless shared their new information with the ”tremendously angry” (see #6, below) rank-and-file FBI investigators from the Clinton email-server case (the New York Times having reported on October 30th that the discovery of “new” Abedin emails in early October “prompted a renewed interest among agents who had investigated Mrs. Clinton for her use of a private email server as Secretary of State” [emphasis supplied]); 

(4) after the late-October revelation that the FBI had found new emails on Weiner’s computer on October 3rd, rank-and-file FBI agents told the media that “there was no chance the email review could be completed before Election Day” (thus ensuring it would disrupt the Clinton campaign through the casting of all ballots, early and in-person), only to be overruled by Director Comey within 24 hours, with Comey decreeing that the relevance of the new emails would be determined by Election Day (as it ultimately was, after many millions of Americans had voted early, and before many more millions could hear about the second, exculpatory Comey letter; nevertheless, the stark disparity between the rank-and-file’s comments to the media and Comey’s comments remains unexplained); 

(5) a member of Trump’s inner circle, Rudy Giuliani, confessed on the Lars Larson radio program that current FBI agents working on the Clinton investigation had illegally leaked information to him about the Abedin emails before it became public and before Director Comey had been told of the emails, and, moreover, were intending to leak this information—if they were unable to get Comey to do it via the implicit threat of a leak—as an (in Giuliani’s words) pro-Trump “October Surprise,” thereby establishing a political motive among a faction of the FBI in the timing and dissemination of information about the emails (”Darn right I heard about it,” said Giuliani, “[and] I can’t even repeat the language I heard,” referring with this latter remark to the agents’ anger at not being able to indict Hillary Clinton for multiple federal felonies in July of 2016; concurrently, Jim Kallstrom, who headed the New York field office of the FBI in the 1990s, also admitted to Fox News to receiving leaks about the Clinton investigation from current FBI agents working on the case); 

(6) Giuliani further disclosed that a faction of rank-and-file FBI agents within the New York field office felt “tremendous anger” toward both Director Comey, Hillary Clinton (the subject of their investigation, who they believed should have been indicted in July), and “a pretty corrupt Obama Justice Department” (many of whose officials might have retained their posts if Clinton were to win election to the presidency), and we know from The Chicago Tribune that Comey wrote “the Comey Letter” only because he believed these same rogue FBI agents in New York were planning to leak the “new” evidence in the Weiner case (which leak would have violated numerous federal criminal statutes, and which plan to leak would already be regarded as a criminal conspiracy by law); 

(7) the Abedin emails turned out to have no evidentiary value, and indeed were in many instances duplicates of emails already held by the FBI, which fact Comey likely could have determined himself even from meta-data alone (had he been given the opportunity to do so during the first week of October); 

(8) Giuliani mysteriously took himself out of the running for any position within the Trump administration on the very same day (December 9th) that The Washington Post and The New York Times ran stories about Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election, thereby beginning a period of heavy scrutiny for both the FBI and CIA’s actions before and during the election, with the stated reason for Giuliani’s demurral from a once-certain Cabinet position being his potential conflicts of interest abroad (which conflicts are reportedly far fewer in number than those of either the President-elect or the President-elect’s nominee for Secretary of State, and occur in the context of an administration that has thus far expressed no concern at all about foreign business entanglements); 

(9) as reported by The Chicago Tribune, a Los Angeles attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg, is now asking a New York City judge to release, on Thursday, the search warrant the FBI sought for the Abedin emails on Weiner’s computer—with what probable cause to believe they contained evidence of criminal conduct one can, in view of the facts in this article, only begin to imagine—with Schoenberg’s stated purpose being to determine whether “someone in the Manhattan orbit of then-candidate Donald Trump may have provided a false lead to the FBI” regarding the Abedin emails (alternatively, as observed by The Gothamist, the search warrant could turn up “funny business by overly zealous conservative FBI agents”); 

(10) the lawsuit in New York was made necessary by the FBI’s inexplicable refusal to turn over its FOIA-eligible investigatory materials to Attorney Schoenberg in the 20-day window mandated by law, or even to respond to Schoenberg’s request at all, which refusal would have assured, absent Schoenberg’s lawsuit, that this information would remain under wraps prior to the Electoral College vote; 

(11) the judge in the New York lawsuit now says he may release the entirety of the search warrant prior to the meeting of the Electoral College on Monday, December 19th, acknowledging thereby the potential political relevance of the material; and 

(12) if the search warrant is in any way irregular, or the FBI’s redactions from it suspicious, this could confirm political collusion at the FBI and thereby increase the number of “Hamilton Electors” from their current reported 20 to the 38 needed to throw the 2016 presidential election to the House of Representatives—which temporary delay in Trump’s ascension to the presidency would allow ample time for investigations of both FBI collusion with the Trump campaign and multifaceted Russian interference with the presidential election.

There is actually a lot more in the post, but these points alone are more than enough to suggest, if not prove, that there was a definite conspiracy to deny Hillary Clinton the presidency.

Then add to that the Republican witch hunts over Benghazi and the private server, Russian hacking, and voting irregularities, and there simply is no longer any doubt.

In my opinion Watergate was child's play compared to this, and what is even more troubling is that it is about to be swept under the rug by a media that is desperate to maintain access to the new president at the expense of reporting the most egregious attack on our democracy perhaps in our entire 240 year history.

Pollster Nate Silver comes right out and says it, without the Comey letter Hilary Clinton would now be our President.

Clinton lost 4 states (FL, MI, WI, PA) by ~1 point. If not for Comey/Russia, she probably wins them all by ~2 points & strategy looks great.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

So if you're going to second-guess, a way better question is whether Clinton needed a better October Surprise response strategy.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

There's more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016

I'll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter).

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016

That was essentially the point that I made right after the election as well.

The Russians and Wikileaks worked together to undermine Hillary's trustworthiness, hoping to disenfranchise the still butt hurt Bernie supporters among others, and when that did not deliver enough votes for them in the polls they unleashed the FBI director.

From my point of view it seems inarguable that James Comey did what he did at the behest of somebody wanting to help Donald Trump win this election.

Whether that was the Russians, the Republicans, or Donald Trump himself remains unclear, but it is was obviously SOMEBODY connected to Trump winning. 

THAT means that Comey should be removed from this post, and  investigated thoroughly.

However that is now unlikely, because the guy he risked his career to get elected, did in fact get elected, and there is NO way that he will support an investigation against his benefactor.

President Obama meets with six year old boy who wrote to him offering help to Syrian boy in iconic photograph.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:  

An adorable six-year-old boy has met President Obama in the White House after a letter he wrote offering to help and befriend a young Syrian refugee boy went viral. 

Alex Myteberi, dressed in a dapper new suit, was wide-eyed as he shook hands with Obama for the first time in the Oval Office last week. 

The young boy wrote a letter to Obama in August asking the President if a five-year-old Syrian boy affected by the civil war could come and live with his family in Edgemont, New York. 

'I liked what you wrote so much that I ended up reading it to everybody. You being so nice, and kind, hopefully makes other people think the same way. So I was very proud of you,' Obama told the excited six-year-old boy. 

This was the picture that made little Alex Myteberi write to the President offering his home to the boy and to be his new brother. 

I don't know about all of you but I needed a story like this to end my day.

Some days just drain you, and this was one of them.

And then when I think of what happens in January......well let's just say I need as many of these reminders of how wonderful our President is that I can get until then.

Hillary Clinton's 2008 letter to the Democratic Super Delegates is something that supporters of Bernie Sanders might want to read.

Courtesy of The Atlantic:  

In a final plea to undeclared Democratic superdelegates, Sen. Hillary Clinton points to her lead in the popular vote, some recent polling showing her strength against John McCain, and surveys showing that voters believe she is ready to serve as commander in chief. 

In a letter, sent Tuesday, and in an extensive memo, sent today, Clinton frames the choice for superdelegates as one between a candidate who has won more delegates in caucuses and a candidate who has won more delegates in primaries and has won the popular vote.

In the letter, which can be found on the Atlantic webpage from 2008, lays out Clinton's argument that she is the stronger candidate against John McCain, and that she hopes that the super delegates will recognize that fact and support her.

However towards the end of the letter Hillary Clinton makes this promise: 

Finally, I am in this race because I believe staying in this race will help unite the Democratic Party. I believe that if Senator Obama and I both make our case – and all Democrats have the chance to make their voices heard – everyone will be more likely to rally around the nominee. 

In the end, I am committed to unifying this party. What Senator Obama and I share is so much greater than our differences; and no matter who wins this nomination, I will do everything I can to bring us together and move us forward. 

This is in stark contrast with what we are publicly hearing from the Sanders' campaign, though there is information that behind the scenes Sanders is assuring the DNC that he will play nice.

At this point I am just worried that by the time Sanders calls for unity his followers will have already "Berned the place down."

After all Hillary Clinton supporters in 2008 were the party faithful, they were not interested in overhauling the DNC they just wanted to elect the best candidate.

However Sanders is calling for a revolution.

Revolutions do not respect the rules, nor do they want to maintain decorum, revolutions want to destroy what exists and replace it with something better.

Clinton supporters in 2008 liked what they had, and they wanted it to survive, not just the 2008 elections, but every election to come.

(H/T to Addicting Info)