The Front Page Cover
The Events of the Week -- Featuring:
The Coverup in Search of a Crime
by Charles Krauthammer
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Top Headlines
What we said about the Benghazi cover-up: liar-nObama and liar-Clinton knew immediately Benghazi was terror attack, not “protest." (Judicial Watch)
Leftmedia talking heads frustrated that Trump is not calling on them — well duh! (Washington Free Beacon)
60% of refugee arrivals since judge halted suspension have come from five terror countries. (CNS News)
Economist blasts Paris Climate Treaty $100T price tag: "Not a good deal." That's putting it mildly. (Newsbusters)
Surprise: At the end, liar-nObama administration gave NSA broad new powers. Now you know where those Flynn "leaks" are coming from. (PJ Media)
Trump's CEO pick for labor secretary drops out of consideration. Sad! (Business Insider)
Four broken liar-nObamaCare promises that town hall protesters should remember. (The Daily Signal)
Boeing workers in South Carolina vote against union. (The Washington Post)
Senate votes to repeal liar-nObama administration gun rule meant to disarm the elderly. (CBS News)
Far-Left Southern Poverty Law Center says American "hate groups" are on the rise, and they blame who else — Trump. (The Washington Post)
Policy: Skyrocketing prescription-drug prices are a more intractable problem than the White House realizes. (National Review)
Policy: On science, the Left has its own "alternative facts." (RealClearScience) ~The Patriot Post
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Iranian Dissidents Demand Investigation
Into Islamic Regime’s Secret U.S. Lobbying Network
by Adam Kredo
{freebeacon.com} ~ A group of nearly 100 prominent Iranian dissidents is demanding that Congress launch investigations into clandestine efforts by the Islamic Republic to influence U.S. policy using a network of lobbyists and propaganda pieces... placed in Voice of America's Persian service, according to a letter sent to leading lawmakers and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The group of dissidents, composed of prominent Iranian voices that oppose the hardline regime in Tehran, says that Congress is not doing enough to expose the Iranian regime's lobbying efforts in D.C. and propaganda network, which is said to include some at VOA Persia. Iranian-American groups claiming to represent American interests are said to be carrying water for the Islamic regime inside the White House and on Capitol Hill, according to these dissident voices... http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iranian-dissidents-demand-investigation-islamic-regimes-secret-u-s-lobbying-network/?utm_source=Freedom+Mail&utm_campaign=d0b1b3d239-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_02_20&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b5e6e0e9ea-d0b1b3d239-45611665
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Why Was the FBI Investigating General Flynn?
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
{familysecuritymatters.org} ~ National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was dismissed amid a torrent of mainstream-media reporting and disgraceful government leaks (but I repeat myself)... Among the most intriguing was a New York Times report the morning after Flynn's resignation, explaining that the former three-star Army general and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was "grilled" by FBI agents "about a phone call he had had with Russia's ambassador." No fewer than seven veteran Times reporters contributed to the story, the Gray Lady having dedicated more resources to undermining the Trump administration than the Republican Congress has to advancing Trump's agenda. Remarkably, none of the able journalists appears to have asked a screamingly obvious question - a question that would have been driving press coverage had an liar-nObama administration operative been in the Bureau's hot seat. On what basis was the FBI investigating General Flynn? To predicate an investigation under FBI guidelines, there must be good-faith suspicion that (a) a federal crime has been or is being committed, (b) there is a threat to American national security, or (c) there is an opportunity to collect foreign intelligence relevant to a priority established by the executive branch... http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/why-was-the-fbi-investigating-general-flynn?f=must_reads
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New Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as
national security adviser
by foxnews.com
{foxnews.com} ~ President Trump has tapped U.S. Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a warrior-scholar deemed an expert in counter insurgency, to be his national security adviser, Fox News has learned... McMaster replaces another retired lieutenant general, Michael Flynn, who resigned amid controversy over his contact with Russian officials prior to Trump's inauguration. McMaster, 54, is a career Army officer who is currently director of the Army Capabilities Integration Center. He joined the Army in 1984 and distinguished himself seven years later during the Gulf War. As captain of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment's Eagle Troop, McMaster led a force of just nine tanks that took out more than 80 Iraqi Republican Guard tanks and armored vehicles... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/02/20/trump-selects-lt-gen-h-r-mcmaster-as-national-security-adviser.html
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liar-nObama Signed ‘Secret Order’ 17
Days BEFORE Leaving Office to DESTROY Trump
by angrypatriotmovement.com
by angrypatriotmovement.com
{angrypatriotmovement.com} ~ Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law & Justice, has just revealed that Barack liar-nObama gave new intelligence agencies access to the NSA’s surveillance material, which was the source of the downfall of Michael Flynn... Like so many of liar-nObama’s decisions, this was a very bad move for our national security. Previously, only the NSA would have access to their materials. If they found something that would be of use to another agency, they would forward the information, with privacy protection if necessary. This kept sensitive data in as few hands as possible. Now, with thirteen new agencies looking through the material as they wish, liar-nObama has made the leaking of our national secrets more likely. I would hazard a guess that liar-nObama chose the agencies with specific loyalists to him in mind... http://www.angrypatriotmovement.com/obamas-17-day-secret-order/
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Defense Secretary Makes Surprise
Trip To Iraq, Vows He’s Not There For The Oil
by V. Saxena
{westernjournalism.com} ~ Prior to departing from Dubai for an unannounced visit Monday to Iraq, Defense Secretary James Mattis assured reporters that his trip had nothing to do with President Donald Trump’s previously shared desire to seize the nation’s oil... fields in order to pay for the United States’ ongoing efforts to defeat the Islamic State group. “I think all of us here in this room, all of us in America have generally paid for our gas and oil all along, and I’m sure that we will continue to do that in the future,” the retired four-star general maintained. “We’re not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil.” He added that he was heading to the Iraqi capital Baghdad “because I need to get current on the situation there, the political situation, the enemy situation and the friendly situation.”... http://www.westernjournalism.com/defense-secretary-makes-surprise-trip-to-iraq-vows-hes-not-there-for-the-oil/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=PostUp&utm_campaign=WJDailyEmail&utm_content=2017-02-20
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The Coverup in Search of a Crime
by Charles Krauthammer
{freedomsback.com} ~ It’s a Watergate-era cliche that the coverup is always worse than the crime. In the Mike Flynn affair, we have the first recorded instance of a coverup in the absence of a crime.
Being covered up were the Dec. 29 phone calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador to Washington. The presumed violation was Flynn negotiating with a foreign adversary while the liar-nObama administration was still in office and, even worse, discussing with Sergey Kislyak the sanctions then being imposed on Russia for meddling in the 2016 elections.
What’s wrong with that? It is risible to invoke the Logan Act, passed during the John Adams administration, under which not a single American has been prosecuted in the intervening 218 years. It prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers. Flynn was hardly a private citizen. As Donald Trump’s publicly designated incoming national security adviser, it was perfectly reasonable for him to be talking to foreign actors in preparation for assuming office within a month.
Worst case: He was telling Kislyak that the Trump administration might lift sanctions and therefore, comrade, no need for a spiral of retaliations. How different is this from Barack liar-nObama telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, on an inadvertently open mic, during his 2012 reelection campaign, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
Flynn would have been giving the Russians useful information that might well have contributed to Russia’s decision not to retaliate. I’m no Russophile. But again: What’s wrong with that? Turns out, the Trump administration has not lifted those sanctions. It’s all a tempest in an empty teapot.
The accusations of misbehavior by Flynn carry a subliminal echo of a long-standing charge against Richard Nixon that he interfered in the Paris peace talks in October 1968 to prevent his Democratic opponent from claiming a major foreign policy success on the eve of the presidential election.
But that kind of alleged diplomatic freelancing would have prolonged a war in which Americans were dying daily. The Flynn conversation was nothing remotely of the sort. Where’s the harm?
The harm was not the calls but Flynn’s lying about them. And most especially lying to the vice president, who then went out and told the world Flynn had never discussed sanctions. You can’t leave your vice president undercut and exposed. Flynn had to go.
Up to this point, the story makes sense. Except for one thing: Why the coverup if there is no crime? Why lie about talking about sanctions? It’s inexplicable. Did Flynn want to head off lines of inquiry about other contacts with Russians that might not have been so innocent? Massive new leaks suggest numerous contacts during the campaign between Trump associates and Russian officials, some of whom were intelligence agents. Up till now, however, reports the New York Times, there is “no evidence” of any Trump campaign collusion or cooperation with Russian hacking and other interference in the U.S. elections.
Thus far. Which is why there will be investigations. Speculation ranges from the wildly malevolent to the rather loopily innocent.
At one end of the spectrum is the scenario wherein these campaign officials — including perhaps Flynn, perhaps even Trump — are compromised because of tainted business or political activities known to the Russians, to whom they are now captive. A fevered conspiracy in my view, but there are non-certifiable people who consider it possible.
At the benign end of the spectrum is that the easily flattered Trump imagines himself the great dealmaker who overnight becomes a great statesman by charming Vladimir Putin into a Nixon-to-China grand bargain — we jointly call off the new Cold War, join forces to destroy the Islamic State and reach a new accommodation for Europe that relieves us of some of the burden of parasitic allies.
To me, the idea is nuts, a narcissistic fantasy grounded in neither strategy nor history. But that doesn’t mean Trump might not imagine it — after all, he maintains that if we had only stayed in Iraq to steal its oil, we wouldn’t have the Islamic State. And if this has indeed been his thinking about Russia, it would make sense to surround himself with advisers who had extensive dealings there.
I believe neither of these scenarios but I’m hard put to come up with alternatives. The puzzle remains. Why did Flynn lie? Until we answer that, the case of the coverup in search of a crime remains unsolved.
Being covered up were the Dec. 29 phone calls between Flynn and the Russian ambassador to Washington. The presumed violation was Flynn negotiating with a foreign adversary while the liar-nObama administration was still in office and, even worse, discussing with Sergey Kislyak the sanctions then being imposed on Russia for meddling in the 2016 elections.
What’s wrong with that? It is risible to invoke the Logan Act, passed during the John Adams administration, under which not a single American has been prosecuted in the intervening 218 years. It prohibits private citizens from negotiating with foreign powers. Flynn was hardly a private citizen. As Donald Trump’s publicly designated incoming national security adviser, it was perfectly reasonable for him to be talking to foreign actors in preparation for assuming office within a month.
Worst case: He was telling Kislyak that the Trump administration might lift sanctions and therefore, comrade, no need for a spiral of retaliations. How different is this from Barack liar-nObama telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, on an inadvertently open mic, during his 2012 reelection campaign, “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”
Flynn would have been giving the Russians useful information that might well have contributed to Russia’s decision not to retaliate. I’m no Russophile. But again: What’s wrong with that? Turns out, the Trump administration has not lifted those sanctions. It’s all a tempest in an empty teapot.
The accusations of misbehavior by Flynn carry a subliminal echo of a long-standing charge against Richard Nixon that he interfered in the Paris peace talks in October 1968 to prevent his Democratic opponent from claiming a major foreign policy success on the eve of the presidential election.
But that kind of alleged diplomatic freelancing would have prolonged a war in which Americans were dying daily. The Flynn conversation was nothing remotely of the sort. Where’s the harm?
The harm was not the calls but Flynn’s lying about them. And most especially lying to the vice president, who then went out and told the world Flynn had never discussed sanctions. You can’t leave your vice president undercut and exposed. Flynn had to go.
Up to this point, the story makes sense. Except for one thing: Why the coverup if there is no crime? Why lie about talking about sanctions? It’s inexplicable. Did Flynn want to head off lines of inquiry about other contacts with Russians that might not have been so innocent? Massive new leaks suggest numerous contacts during the campaign between Trump associates and Russian officials, some of whom were intelligence agents. Up till now, however, reports the New York Times, there is “no evidence” of any Trump campaign collusion or cooperation with Russian hacking and other interference in the U.S. elections.
Thus far. Which is why there will be investigations. Speculation ranges from the wildly malevolent to the rather loopily innocent.
At one end of the spectrum is the scenario wherein these campaign officials — including perhaps Flynn, perhaps even Trump — are compromised because of tainted business or political activities known to the Russians, to whom they are now captive. A fevered conspiracy in my view, but there are non-certifiable people who consider it possible.
At the benign end of the spectrum is that the easily flattered Trump imagines himself the great dealmaker who overnight becomes a great statesman by charming Vladimir Putin into a Nixon-to-China grand bargain — we jointly call off the new Cold War, join forces to destroy the Islamic State and reach a new accommodation for Europe that relieves us of some of the burden of parasitic allies.
To me, the idea is nuts, a narcissistic fantasy grounded in neither strategy nor history. But that doesn’t mean Trump might not imagine it — after all, he maintains that if we had only stayed in Iraq to steal its oil, we wouldn’t have the Islamic State. And if this has indeed been his thinking about Russia, it would make sense to surround himself with advisers who had extensive dealings there.
I believe neither of these scenarios but I’m hard put to come up with alternatives. The puzzle remains. Why did Flynn lie? Until we answer that, the case of the coverup in search of a crime remains unsolved.
http://www.freedomsback.com/charles-krauthammer/the-coverup-in-search-of-a-crime
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