90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Year in Review: 20 Notable Spygate Developments of 2019

In the saga of “Spygate,” 2019 has shaped up to be the year the tables turned.

In the first days of January 2019, a federal judge extended the term of the grand jury in the special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller. Later that month, the FBI raided the home of veteran Republican strategist Roger Stone in front of CNN cameras.

The raid and indictment of Stone were symbolic of the spectacle that was the Russia investigation. Mueller charged Stone with process crimes; the indictment included no allegations related to the central theme of the Russia probe—whether anyone on the Trump 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Meanwhile, the “Russiagate” media frenzy (sparked long before Mueller’s appointment) continued, with CNN treating the footage of the early-morning, guns-drawn raid as the late-stage operation in a takedown of a criminal empire.

Mueller’s final report would state that there was no evidence that any American colluded with Russia in the 2016 elections.

But the tables have turned as the year draws to a close.

Even before Mueller published his report on President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr sent shockwaves through the establishment by stating plainly that he believed spying did occur on the Trump campaign. As the year draws to a close, the Justice Department (DOJ) watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, has confirmed the long-running claims of significant errors in the applications to surveil Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

In 2020, the foundation laid by these developments will be a useful reference as U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation of the malfeasance continues. While not an exhaustive list, the 20 moments below are representative of the reversal and are helpful for viewing the events in the year ahead.

20. Senate Intelligence Committee Finds No Evidence of Trump–Russia Collusion

While the House Intelligence Committee had come to the same conclusion a year earlier, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s findings in February were significant because the committee has a track record for bipartisanship. At the time, both Democratic and Republican sources on the committee confirmed that the investigation didn’t turn up any evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

19. Rosenstein Removed McCabe From Russia Probe After Appointing Mueller

In mid-February, we learned that in May 2017, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had removed then-FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe from the Russia investigation shortly after appointing special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the probe. The revelation added to an emerging picture of the events surrounding Mueller’s appointment. The DOJ statement from which the news originated appeared to imply that Mueller’s appointment had something to do with actions taken by McCabe.

18. Trump Innocent of Collusion and Obstruction, DOJ Concludes

In late March, Attorney General William Barr released a summary of conclusions based on Mueller’s report. The special counsel concluded the investigation, finding no evidence that Trump or anyone on Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia. While Mueller didn’t make a call on whether Trump obstructed justice, Barr and Rosenstein reviewed the report and found insufficient evidence to bring charges.

17. Spying on Trump Campaign Did Occur, Barr Says

...And Watch Leftist Heads Explode...

Virginia Governor Northam Increases Corrections Budget In Anticipation Of Jailing Gun Owners

As if Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s wholesale attack on law-abiding gun owners wasn’t enough, the disgraced public official and his Michael Bloomberg-bought allies in the General Assembly now want the state’s hard-working taxpayers to foot the bill for their unconstitutional schemes. The budget bill (HB30) includes an appropriation of a quarter million dollars to carry out a host of gun control measures that Northam and his anti-gun allies hope to enact.

The $250,000 is appropriated to the Corrections Special Reserve Fund in order to provide for the “increase in the operating cost of adult correctional facilities resulting from the enactment” of Northam’s gun control measures. Among the enumerated laws that this allocation is meant to fund is a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms, the criminalization of private firearms transfers, and gun confiscation orders issued without due process.

Aside from the insult of forcing law-abiding Virginia taxpayers to pay for the diminution of their rights, the gun control allocation is a severe waste of resources. Northam’s Bloomberg-backed gun control measures will not make Virginia safer.

In additional to being unconstitutional, a ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms will not reduce violent crime.

Long guns of any description are rarely used in violent crime. FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data breaks down homicides by weapon type. In 2018, the FBI reported that there were five times as many ...

A Legacy To Preserve The Constitution....

CBC Deletes Trump Scene From Home Alone 2 Broadcast

Canadian state-funded broadcaster CBC deleted the scene featuring Donald Trump from their Christmas broadcast of Home Alone 2.

The scene from the 1992 movie features Trump telling Macaulay Culkin’s character how to find the lobby in the Trump Hotel.

The reason behind the deletion of the scene is not known, with many on Twitter claiming it was a political decision.

“CBC TV in Canada has cut Donald Trump’s Home Alone 2 cameo out of their broadcast,” tweeted Ryan Fournier. “They’re so triggered by him that they had to edit him out of the film. Absolutely pathetic.”

However, the broadcaster asserted that it was edited out due to time constraints.

“As is often the case with features adapted for television, Home Alone 2 was edited to allow for commercial time within the format,” CBC told ComicBook.com.

The fact that the scene is only 24 seconds long means many are...

If The FBI’s Contempt For The Law Is Not Reined In, Its Abuses Will Get Worse

The former CIA and FBI director’s article is a symptom of how the establishment media has become the propaganda arm of an increasingly robust U.S. authoritarian movement.

In 2018, the U.S. government filed 1,117 final applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for authority for the FBI to conduct electronic surveillance and physical searches. One application was withdrawn. One other was denied. The remaining 1,115 were granted.

Hours before the FISA court issued a December 17 order openly declaring that it could no longer trust any of the sworn statements the FBI had submitted to justify spying on Americans, The New York Times published an opinion article by William Webster, a former director of both the FBI and the CIA. Webster wrote, “Today, the integrity of the institutions that protect our civil order is, tragically, under assault from too many people whose job it should be to protect them.”

Gone are the days The New York Times worked to expose government abuse of power. The New York Times now defends power from truth.

No More ‘Dissent Is Patriotism’

Setting aside the very dubious propositions that the FBI and the CIA should be protected from criticism, let’s plumb the depths of the Webster/NYT argument. Who, according to Webster, has the job of protecting the FBI and the CIA? Webster explains exactly who he means: “I am deeply disturbed by the assertion of President Trump that our ‘current director’ — as he refers to the man he selected for the job of running the F.B.I. — cannot fix what the president calls a broken agency.”

Webster goes on to suggest that the FBI should operate as an independent agency and that he is outraged by the “president’s thinly veiled suggestion that the director, Christopher Wray, like his banished predecessor, James Comey, could be on the chopping block.” He adds, “The independence of both the F.B.I. and its director is critical and should be fiercely protected by each branch of government.” Webster goes on to make it clear that the “rule of law” is threatened by the president criticizing the FBI.

The article is a symptom of how the establishment media has become the propaganda arm of an increasingly robust authoritarian movement in the United States. This movement inverts constitutional principles so that it becomes the president’s job to protect the FBI from criticism and his threat to fire an FBI chief is a threat to the Constitution. This is the kind of thing that Vladimir Putin might have told Tass to publish as he sought to seize power from Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s.

Not Mistakes But Deliberate Abuse of Power

The legitimacy of the FBI is in free fall. But not its terrifying power. The biggest lie about the latest Office of Inspector General report is that it reveals “mistakes” made by the FBI. These weren’t mistakes. The FISA court used more accurate terminology, like...

What makes America exceptional?

Undoubtedly, most Americans would say our long-term commitment to self-government and the rule of law, and our extraordinary embrace of liberty.

Not so, according to The New York Times’ 1619 Project—named for the year in which African slaves were first brought to the English colonies in North America. The various New York Times authors apparently believe America’s unique quality is slavery.

The 1619 Project defines itself as an effort to “reframe” America’s history to define the nation’s “true founding” as one rooted—at its heart—in slavery rather than liberty.

It’s 1619 pitted against 1776.

America, according to this narrative, has been and always will be exceptionally and perhaps irredeemably racist.

As I wrote in my book, “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past,” this is a deeply misleading description of our history, but one that is becoming all too common in both popular culture and in American classrooms.

Yes, there was slavery and racism in our country’s history, and certainly the American people and our leaders have not always done the right thing. That’s something we should acknowledge and learn from, today and in the future.

And yet, America is still worth celebrating and taking pride in.

You don’t just have to take my word for it.

Historians from across the political spectrum have come out against the 1619 Project as bad history wrapped in a destructive ideology.

Allen Guelzo, a renowned historian and professor at Gettysburg College, called the 1619 Project a “conspiracy theory” based in part on the drive to “tarnish capitalism.”

In a recent appearance at The Heritage Foundation’s annual President’s Club meeting, Guelzo explained that the 1619 Project aims at rewriting the narrative of American slavery:

Not as an unwilling inheritance of British colonialism, but as the love object of American capitalism from its very origins. Not as a blemish, which the Founders grudgingly tolerated with the understanding that it must soon evaporate, but as the prize the Constitution went out of its way to secure and protect. Not as a regrettable chapter in the distant American past, but the living, breathing pattern upon which all American social life is based, world without end.

Guelzo is hardly alone in his criticism.

Two of the most prominent critics are Gordon Wood, a famed historian of the American Revolution, and James McPherson, a highly respected Civil War historian.

Both criticized the 1619 Project in...