by
Joseph D. O’Shaughnessy
I am going to go through the just released Nunes memo, but I will give you my conclusion about its release, about what it said, about the propaganda being released by every Right Wing web site and media outlet in the country. And I will tell you why Nunes, a lackey, a political prostitute, a man of not only low character, but virtually no character, released the memo over the objections of almost every reputable law enforcement or intelligence agency in the country.
There is only one reason and one possible reason—Donald Trump is guilty of working with the Russians to interfere in our election process, quite possibly leading to his election. Nunes knows, and the President knows, that unless he can discredit everyone with honest and dignity and respectability in law enforcement, with these exaggerations and speculations…he will be impeached.
Consequently, and reluctantly, I now say—we must all—all of us, to save this Democracy—call for his impeachment before it is too late. Write your Senator. Call your friends and tell them to call their Senators–both Democratic and Republican.
Mike Pence is a Conservative and a Right Wing, pay-to-legislate Republican, beholden to the billionaires. But even as that is our option, we must not let this pass. Or we will surely sink into Fascism. And—please—think of what Fascism will mean—total loss of control of our government to one small group of very rich men, and generals and radicals, like White Supremacists and Nazi thugs and gangs now organizing because of this President
In the past, Fascism has cost tens of millions of lives—not the least of which were by those citizens of the countries that were Fascist. The only people who will come out of this whole…no matter what happens, are the hated Koch Brothers. Unless, for some reason a crazy person should assassinate or blow them up. But, hopefully, our tragedy will end before something like that happens.
Now here is the essence of the memo and you decide.
1. The Nunes Committee begins with the accusation that the FBI obtained a FISA warrant to go after information about Carter Page, one of Trump’s associates, for his connections with the Russians involving the U.S. election. Why is Carter Page important? Why do they want to make the warrants by the FBI seem so prejudiced? Because Page doesn’t want to go to jail. And what we don’t know, but what is almost as certain as if he had just gone through a red light at 80 miles an hour…is that he can put Trump in the room or, at the very least, prove that Trump was involved—and the whole Republican house of cards comes tumbling down.
2. The Nunes committee, that is Nunes and the other Republicans, including Paul Ryan, have brought Christopher Steele into this. Steele’s involvement was not political. Steele is a British Intelligence agent. Why do I not say “former” British Intelligence agent? Because I know something about Intelligence collection and I know some things about British Intelligence. So let’s just say two things about this. One, Intelligence agencies don’t want this kind of information out. They don’t want people knowing who is doing what. Nunes is the head of the House Intellignce committee. He knows this, even if he is criminally stupid and arrogant—he knows this is exactly what the Intelligence agencies to do not want. So he thinks, in his tiny little mind, that this will provide or thought it might provide some leverage. It won’t.
3. The memo cites such irrelevant stuff as an article by Michael Isikoff in “Yahoo News” and use the name of Perkins Coie, the law firm behind the second name, Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson and connects the information about Page to the Hillary Clinton Campaign. While it is true that Steel was paid by this group for information that he had previously come upon in his official responsibilities—it doesn’t change the nature of the information—which, remember, was collected long before. Fusion was paying not for information that Steele collected but information that Steele already had. If Mister A commits a crime, whether Mister B or Mister C pays to get information about that crime to law enforcement does not change the guilt or innocence of Mister A. But Nunes would like you to believe…because he thinks you are stupid or easily manipulated..that it does.
4. The memo goes on to connect George Papadopoulos to the FISA warrant but then tries to indicate that the warrant is reckless because there is only the mention of his name. Any intelligence operative will tell you that this open-ended comment by Nunes is one point where he is forced to leave out significant information because of classification restrictions. And it is this kind of reckless behavior—just the mention in this kind of now public memo—by which the FBI and other Intelligence agencies are outraged. They may not want to say it, but I will. This borders on treasonous behavior, no less reckless than that by Dick Cheney’s operatives against Ambassador Joe Wilson and CIA operative, Valerie Plame. For this alone, Nunes should be summarily censured by Congress and run out of town.
5. Nunes memtions FBI agents Lisa Page and Peter Strzok who corresponded about Trump and Clinton, as did millions of others during the campaign, and called Trump what millions of others called him during the campaign…generally speaking…a lout. After all millions of American women, like Page were being insulted daily by the routine highly offensive perverse comments of Trump about women. Even with all this, it turns out that rather than slandering Strzok, they have made him something of a hero. If heroes are those in the justice system who can do their jobs even against their own personal beliefs because they have the integrity to be objective, then Strzok is a hero. Because it turns out, we now know, that it was Strzok’s assignment from then FBI director Comey to write the second press release concerning the Clinton campaign E-mails that many people, including Hillary Clinton, believe cost her the election.
It isn’t anything in the memo…there is nothing of any substance in it…or any wrongdoing on the part of the FBI…to anyone involved in the details of producing evidence this is pretty routine. The way Nunes presents the information it may sound, to the uninitiated that the FBI stretched a point or two. But they didn’t. When you’re trying to catch a crook, the crook holds all the cards. The investigator goes to the judicial system with hat in hand begging. This case was no different, in fact, far, far less relaxed than the many very liberal policies on FISA interpretation during the (Republican) Bush-Cheney era when men in black SUVs were picking Americans up off the street and sending them to the Middle East for questioning. We are far from that in this case. The FBI had very substantial evidence and a legitimate request over a very serious matter that required investigation. There is no “there” there, as they say. The FBI did its job.
There is only once conclusion. The Republican Party backed a Right Wing hack, Nunes, a man who will do anything to maintain political power. The first thing we need to do is put pressure on government…march…call…demonstrated…do whatever is necessary to call for the removal of Nunes and the Impeachment of Trump…not for whatever Mueller discovers…but for this…for the attempt to bypass our Constitutional political processes—using propaganda and outright lies–to install a Neo-Fascist government that will damage this country and the People.
