90 Miles From Tyranny

Saturday, October 15, 2022

The Broken Promises of the January 6 Committee

Questions about the role of the FBI and other prominent government agencies in the events of January 6, 2020 remain unanswered because they were not asked

The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol conducted its final televised performance on Thursday afternoon, an event dutifully carried live by every cable and broadcast news station. Representatives Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) now plan to exit stage left as their congressional careers come to an end—the former at the hands of disgruntled Wyoming Republican voters and the latter at the hands of gerrymandering Illinois Democrats. It’s only a matter of time before both find a new home at some NeverTrump outlet funded by leftist billionaires to play the role of the “conservative” useful idiot to the Democratic Party.

Since its inception, the select committee has wielded its unchecked authority not to fulfill the stated mission of finding out exactly what happened on January 6—a four-hour disturbance the enabling legislation refers to as a “domestic terror attack”—but as a vehicle to harass, intimidate, prosecute, and destroy the careers of Donald Trump, his aides, and his supporters. Former federal prosecutors for months have interrogated Trump White House officials behind closed doors to produce cherry-picked clips to bolster the regime’s narrative that Trump incited the “insurrection” by refusing to accept the 2020 presidential election as legitimate—a view still shared by the overwhelming majority of Republican voters.

Among specific promises regarding the committee’s outcome, House Democrats initially pledged to examine the “activities of intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, and the Armed Forces, including with respect to intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination and information sharing among the branches and other instrumentalities of government.” Further, committee members claimed to be interested in the “policies, protocols, processes, procedures, and systems for interoperability between the United States Capitol Police and the National Guard, the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia, and other Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies in the National Capital Region on or before January 6, 2021.”

Unsurprisingly, the committee to date has addressed almost none of those matters. So-called “evidence” instead revolved around plans by Trump and his inner circle to prepare for and fight an election that didn’t go their way—something of an American tradition before it became the basis of an alleged criminal conspiracy after November 2020. There was almost no discussion of security failures related to the breach of the building. Promises of bombshell revelations that would “blow the roof off the House,” as Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) warned in April never materialized.

Committee hearings have featured one dramatic scene after another; tearful and sanctimonious committee members, aggrieved cops-turned-media-celebrities, remorseful Capitol protesters, and disloyal administration officials participated in a public therapy session of sorts—all emoting under the direction of a skilled television producer hired to attract an audience.

For the most part, however, the performances fizzled. The only star born was Cassidy Hutchinson, a telegenic White House aide who detailed a physical encounter between Trump and a Secret Service agent that afternoon. (Her account has not been backed by anyone involved; the officials she named have not been invited back by the committee to confirm her description.) The American people quickly lost interest, to the extent it ever existed outside of the nation’s capital: one CNN columnist fretted that Americans are more concerned about the cost of fast food than the committee’s “compelling” trove of evidence.

During Thursday’s matinee, which Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) noted at the start had been changed to an official business meeting in order to allow for a vote, Thompson promised the committee’s swan song would provide “a clear picture of what took place” on January 6 by making “documentary evidence available to the American people.” But aside from airing a few newly-obtained emails exchanged among Secret...

Morning Mistress

The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1172

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The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1872

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

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There Are Clues That Indicate Russia Could Be Preparing A Surprise Lightning Strike To Take Kiev

Is the war in Ukraine about to pass the point of no return? When Russia announced that it would be mobilizing large numbers of troops, a lot of people assumed that those troops would be sent to bolster existing defensive lines. But it appears that may not be necessary. The Ukrainian counter-offensives have mostly petered out at this point, and the Russians have even taken some new territory in recent days near Bakhmut. In order to make the gains that they did in September, the Ukrainians were forced to sacrifice a staggering amount of personnel and vehicles, and now their forces are over-extended and exhausted.

It would actually be a perfect time for the Russians to launch a surprise assault behind the existing battle lines, and that may be exactly what they are planning to do.

In fact, the Russians may actually be planning a lightning strike to take Kiev while most of Ukraine’s forces are occupied on the southern and eastern fronts.

According to the Washington Examiner, Russians troops are being sent to Ukraine’s border with Belarus “by the trainload”…

Russian troops are pouring into Belarus “by the trainload.”

The news comes alongside an announcement from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Russian troops would return to the country, which neighbors both Russia and Ukraine, in large numbers, according to the Belarusian state news agency Belta. Tens of thousands of Russian troops used Belarus as the staging ground for their initial northern offensive into Ukraine in February but mostly withdrew by late March. Since then, a few hundred Russian troops have stayed behind, mostly air and missile troops that use the close Russian ally as a launching pad for missile strikes into Ukraine, but that now appears to be changing.

“Russian soldiers are entering Belarus by the trainload. They’re traveling in cattle cars — just a huge quantity. Just waves of trains arriving,” a Belarusian source told Kyiv Post correspondent Jason Jay Smart.

So why are so many Russian troops suddenly being sent to Belarus?

Are they going to just sit there and do nothing?

Of course not.

When Russian troops surged toward Kiev during the initial invasion, Belarus was the staging ground.

And if Russia was planning a new larger assault on Kiev now, this is precisely where we would expect to see troops massing.

The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has confirmed that large numbers of Russian troops will be coming.

In fact, he reportedly has said that it “won’t be just a thousand troops”…

“This won’t be just a thousand troops,” Lukashenko told his military high command in a recent meeting, announcing the large-scale arrival of Russian troops. “Be ready to receive these people in the near future and place them where necessary, according to our plan,” he said, according to the New York Times.

Despite what the Russians are claiming, there is no threat that the Ukrainians will invade Belarus.

So unless the Russians plan to do something with them, there is absolutely no need to put thousands upon thousands of troops there.

We have also learned that shipments of fuel to Russian forces at the front have hit the highest level that we have seen in...

Utter proof the FBI framed Trump and shielded Hunter Biden

Igor Danchenko is on trial, but so is the FBI.

That is the theme of Russiagate special counsel John Durham’s prosecution of Danchenko, heading into its third day of trial in Alexandria, Va., federal court.

Danchenko is charged with five counts of lying to the FBI about two of his sources for what became the infamous “Steele dossier” — a compilation of faux intelligence reports, mainly authored by former British spy Christopher Steele, that portrayed the GOP’s then-presidential candidate, Donald Trump, as a clandestine agent of Russia.

Danchenko was Steele’s principal source. In essence, Durham accuses him of (a) concealing from the FBI that he was getting some information about the Trump campaign from Clinton political ally Charles Dolan and (b) falsely claiming he received explosive information from Sergei Millian, a Belarusian American tangentially associated with Trump, alleging the GOP candidate was in a “conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin.

It remains to be seen whether Durham can prove these charges: The allegation related to Dolan is not crystal clear (because Danchenko did make a vague reference to discussions with him), and Millian, who is overseas and beyond US subpoena power, has refused to testify.

What is not in doubt, though, is that the trial is highlighting the FBI’s shocking malfeasance in the Trump-Russia “collusion” probe, which it codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”

The first witness in the case was FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten, of whom Durham himself conducted the prosecution’s questioning. Auten conceded the FBI had offered Steele $1 million if he could prove his sensational allegations that Trump was in cahoots with the regime of Vladimir Putin and that the Kremlin was positioned to blackmail the then-candidate because it supposedly possessed a video recording of Trump engaging in sexual hijinks.

Ultimately, the bureau never had to pay the $1 million because neither Steele nor Danchenko could prove the dossier allegations. In fact, according to court filings, Durham’s investigation has concluded the so-called pee tape was a complete fabrication. Further, when the FBI finally got around to interviewing Danchenko, months after it first received Steele’s reporting, Danchenko debunked it as a screed of rumor and innuendo, much of it exaggerated and gussied up to look like professional intelligence analysis.

More to the point, though, that the FBI offered to pay such an exorbitant sum in hopes Steele’s anti-Trump claims could be backed up is proof positive that the bureau knew these claims were not verified.

That is key. The rules of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Justice Department mandate the FBI must verify information before submitting it to the court in applying for surveillance warrants. Even though it could not prove the Steele allegations and had every reason to know they were exaggerated if not out-and-out false, the FBI relied on the Steele claims in sworn applications.

It gets worse. The FBI obtained FISC surveillance warrants to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page in October 2016 and mid-January 2017, representing to the court that Trump appeared to be in a corrupt conspiracy with the Kremlin. Finally, in late January, the FBI interviewed Danchenko, who debunked Steele’s reporting. Nevertheless, even after speaking with Danchenko, the bureau continued relying on Steele’s allegations when — again under oath — it persuaded the court to extend the surveillance in April and June 2017.

Indeed, not only did the FBI fail to disclose to the Justice Department and the court that Danchenko had contradicted Steele’s claims. The bureau told the court it had interviewed Danchenko to “further corroborate” Steele’s reporting (which actually had not been corroborated). In so doing, the bureau elaborated, it found...