Just keep it in the ballpark, please.

Fox News Catherine Heridge reports:

Two senior House Republicans are accusing the Justice Department of being behind “anonymous attacks” in the press targeting a House Intelligence Committee GOP staffer who helped author the committee’s well-publicized memo alleging surveillance abuse by the FBI and DOJ during the 2016 election.

The same House staffer is also a driving force behind the latest Russia records standoff.

"I would have a lot more respect for DOJ or House committee Democrats if they would take out their frustrations on members of Congress, and leave staffers alone,” South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told Fox News on Monday. “The members make the final decision and are responsible for them, not staffers."

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy have been invited to DOJ for a classified briefing about Nunes' latest request for classified information related to the Russia Investigation.

"Attacking staffers, planting false stories, and endangering national security by leaking sensitive information to the press, including information about intelligence sources -- this is what the DOJ is doing, and this why trust in the DOJ is rapidly eroding in Congress,” said California Rep. Devin Nunes, the GOP chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

In response to the GOP committee chairmen, Justice Department spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores said, “As Deputy Attorney General [Rod] Rosenstein has said repeatedly, we don't put a lot of stock in anonymous sources over here and we are committed to continuing to work with Chairmen Gowdy and Nunes to accommodate their requests.”

Nunes and Gowdy were reacting to a weekend New York Times report that cited anonymous sources in detailing growing tension between the parties, amid a contentious request for records involving an individual and intelligence reporting that may have been used for the Russia case, as well as in obtaining surveillance warrants.

Citing a former federal law enforcement official, The New York Times reported that Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia probe, felt "misled" by Nunes' staff over House Intelligence Committee investigator Kash Patel's travel to London last year.

The newspaper, citing the same official, reported Rosenstein wanted to know if Patel was attempting to interview former British spy Christopher Steele, the author behind the salacious anti-Trump dossier.

Rod Rosenstein says DOJ won't be 'extorted' by House conservatives threatening impeachment. In a separate development, House panels seek more info on Comey memos; Catherine Herridge reports. But the House Intelligence Committee says the staffer was already in London on committee business.

“The story that Kash flew to London to meet with Christopher Steele is false, no matter how many times it’s reported,” House Intelligence Committee staff director Damon Nelson said.

Nelson said he asked Patel and another staffer to try to make contact with Steele’s lawyer as part of an effort to obtain an address to send Steele an invitation to testify to the committee.

“Anonymous DOJ officials who imply to reporters that Kash has ever been dishonest about this are spreading an outright falsehood,” Nelson said. “If the anonymous DOJ officials want the truth, they can talk to me.”

In its story, The New York Times also reported that top officials at the Justice Department are worried these congressional Republicans “are simply mining government secrets for information they can weaponize against those investigating the president,” like Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In a statement to Fox News, Nunes backed up Patel as an "absolutely crucial committee investigator who’s always two steps ahead of the DOJ.”

“In fact we suspect his effectiveness is exactly why the DOJ are launching anonymous attacks on him in the press," Nunes said.

Gowdy said he interacts with Patel often.

“I benefit from him giving me the other side of the argument,” Gowdy said. “He is a great career prosecutor and defense attorney. It is sad when you pick on staffers who are doing the right thing for their member or committee."

The New York Times story also reported that House Speaker Paul Ryan encouraged Gowdy go with Nunes “to help keep the meeting civil” at the Justice Department last Thursday to go over the committee’s records request.

But a source close to Ryan pushed back against that reporting, saying Gowdy was always going to the meeting.

“The original plan as widely reported was for Chairmen Nunes and Gowdy to go down to DOJ on Thursday afternoon,” the source said. “The speaker didn’t have anything to do with setting that meeting up or choosing its attendees.”

Asked for comment, a New York Times spokeswoman said, "We are confident in the accuracy of our reporting."

Link

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JALLEN,

First lady Melania Trump underwent an embolization procedure Monday to treat a benign kidney condition, the White House announced.

Mrs. Trump was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will likely be in the hospital for the rest of the week, according to the first lady’s communications director.

“This morning, First Lady Melania Trump underwent an embolization procedure to treat a benign kidney condition. The procedure was successful and there were no complications,” the communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement Monday. “Mrs. Trump is at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and will likely remain there for the duration of the week. The First Lady looks forward to a full recovery so she can continue her work on behalf of children everywhere.”

Grisham told Fox News that the first lady “is doing well. Doing well.” She did not say whether the procedure was previously scheduled.

President Trump arrived at the hospital Monday afternoon to visit the first lady. Before departing the White House, Trump tweeted that his wife was in "good spirits."

"Thank you to all of the well-wishers!" Trump added.

A White House official told Fox News that the president spoke with his wife before the procedure, and spoke with her doctor afterwards. Trump arrived at the hospital by helicopter and got into a waiting SUV. He waved to reporters, but declined to speak.


http://www.foxnews.com/politic...idney-procedure.html

I got my summons today.

Meanwhile, in Israel, Jerusalem soccer team to add 'Trump' to its name to honor U.S. president.
https://www.jpost.com/OMG/Isra...-US-president-556280

I wonder how much more crap from the DOJ Uncle Trump will put up with before he starts firing people?

Could the press and democrats treat him any worse? Firing everyone of the SOBs from the top on down is within the Presidents purview, is it not?

Get rid of all those crooked, seditious bastards. My 0.02 Regards 18DAI

Head’s up. There is an article by Andrew McCarthy on National Review, “The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump-Russia Investigation” Link

quote:

Originally posted by 18DAI:
I wonder how much more crap from the DOJ Uncle Trump will put up with before he starts firing people?

Could the press and democrats treat him any worse? Firing everyone of the SOBs from the top on down is within the Presidents purview, is it not?

Get rid of all those crooked, seditious bastards. My 0.02 Regards 18DAI

Someone said that it would take almost his entire first term to clear out all the Obummer hired attorneys and staff....and that was before the whole FBI/DOJ Deep State Cabal crap came up.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Head’s up. There is an article by Andrew McCarthy on National Review, “The Strzok-Page Texts and the Origins of the Trump-Russia Investigation”

Interesting. Biggest nit I have is that there was no clarification that Papadopoulos had been "tricked" with the Russian possession of Hillary emails bit in much the same fashion as Preibus was by McCabe about the FBI not believing the Trump collusion business.

It has become apparent at every turn that the anti-Trump forces have set one false narrative after another with tricks and deceit unparalleled in US political history.

couple comments on the McCarthy article

1. I wrote some things about this sequence of texts on page 4 of the "Steele dossier" thread

2. The texts in that release from Sen Ron Johnson are from Lisa Page's phone. The time stamps on the texts appear to be GMT time.

So to get east coast time, you need to subtract 4 hours. (At one time, I thought the correction was -5, but it looks like GMT)

I urge everyone to follow JAllen’s link to the Andy McCarthy article one the Strzok-Page texts.
Lots of new stuff I had not seen before, including references to the (Obama) White House involvement.

Conrad Black
National Review

Trump: The Non-Proliferation President

With his policies on Iran and North Korea, he is taking the bull by the horns.

With the news from the always well-informed and reliable Kim Strassel and Andy McCarthy that there was probably an FBI informer in the Trump campaign, the tide in the investigative struggle turns decisively from the floundering, flailing effort to pin something grievous on the president to the rising wave of curiosity about the extent to which the Justice Department was politicized under the Obama administration in favor of the Clinton campaign. This could contain the elements of a scandal almost as great as would have occurred if there had been the slightest evidence to support the notion that a presidential candidate had concerted with a foreign power to rig an American presidential election. I place my bets with Ms. Strassel and Mr. McCarthy, and expect the current of suspicion of the Justice Department to accelerate with the FBI inspector general’s next report, on official handling of the Clinton email issue.

If Mueller doesn’t repurpose his mandate to focus on the conduct of the Democrats who commissioned the Steele dossier, he will probably have to be satisfied with written responses from the president to written questions relevant to Mueller’s mandate, or an invitation from the president, who should not respond to a subpoena to appear before a grand jury, to indict him and show his evidence. (It is very unlikely that Mueller has any.) The old special prosecutor’s game of co-opting the Congress to corner the president won’t fly. Even if the Democrats win the House and vote impeachment for obstruction because Trump refuses to go before a grand jury, there is no chance of conviction without evidence, and Comey, McCabe, Clapper, Brennan, and all the rest will still have to face the music for lying under oath. The people are the jury, and Russian collusion is a clunker, unless Mueller has an intellect-transplant and starts to chase real legal problems involving Trump’s enemies.

(One minor point: Alexander Downer, who had the boozy encounter with George Papadopoulos in the Kensington Wine Rooms, is not “an Australian diplomat.” He is an unsuccessful leader of the opposition who was rewarded when his party came to office with representing Australia in London. Downer has no career diplomatic standing or connections, and what went on in that conversation about the Trump and Clinton campaigns was rank gossip and hearsay.)

There is nothing to do but wait for the next flaking off of real facts and findings. The anti-Trump case has been based on fantasy and smears since it started.

On to North Korea and Iran. The wails of those who warned that the two mad boys-with-toys, Kim and Trump, would blow up the world, have now turned to dire warnings that Trump is unprepared and will be hosed by the wily chief of the Hermit Kingdom. Kim is coming to the party at Singapore only because he has bought the face-saving formula of recognition, end of sanctions, and of talk of reunification and absence of nuclear weapons from South Korea (where there have never been any permanently deployed), rather than have his nuclear-relevant sites razed by U.S. conventional attack, along with cruise-missile carpet-bombing on the artillery aimed at Seoul, South Korea, from the foothills just across the DMZ. Kim will make the deal, given the alternative, but the negotiation has already happened. This Kim, who appeared so ludicrous, could be incomparably the greatest and most successful Kim of all. (Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il just festered in their penurious artificial prison-nation, completely dependent on the Chinese, who pretended to demur but enabled the Kims to irritate the West.)

Something similar can be done with Iran. That politically and economically palsied country is grossly overextended, trying to bankroll and partially fight civil wars in Yemen and Syria and underwrite the anti-Israeli skirmishing in Lebanon and Gaza. Any serious reimposition of sanctions by the United States (and it can kick the European allies into line, if not lock-step, as commerce with the U.S. is worth to them a high multiple of the value of trade with Iran), when coordinated with Israeli escalation against Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon and Gaza, and Saudi intensification of the civil war in Yemen, will force Iran to contract its grandiose play for resurrection of the ancient Persian Empire of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, which threatened ancient Greece. The British, French, and German leaders can play the analogous role to that of Chinese president Xi Jinping opposite North Korea, though Iran is much less dependent on them and is a substantial country of ancient standing and not just an artificial creation like North Korea, which was set up at the line where it was determined whether the Japanese occupying forces in Korea would surrender to the Russians or the Americans at the end of World War II.

The United States can force Iran to expand the ridiculous agreement negotiated by Obama and the European allies and Russia and China, to be a permanent renunciation of nuclear weapons, including missile and warhead development, and wind-down of Iranian military and terrorist meddling, by sanctions and the threat of military elimination of the Iranian military nuclear program (with the encouragement and if necessary the participation of the Egyptians, Saudis, and Israelis). Iran is less advanced in military nuclear terms than North Korea, its sites would be resistless against American attack, and Iran has nothing like the sponsorship North Korea long enjoyed from China. It is a stronger country than North Korea, but almost as friendless and with a much less docile population. The choice will be real renunciation of Iran’s nuclear weapons and of its support of terrorist proxies, presented as a success and not a humiliation, or complete economic impoverishment and direct military air attack of unanswerable precision and force on its nuclear-arms program. If Kim can figure it out, the ayatollahs should. The Europeans, though they cannot be trusted for much else, can deliver that message.

The supreme irony of these issues is that contrary to conventional opinion, President Trump is the last bulwark of nuclear non-proliferation. The nuclear powers (U.S., U.K., Russia, France. China, India, Israel, and Pakistan) are a club that has pledged to try to disarm and has (wisely) ignored the pledge, as retaliation is the only reliable guarantee against another world war (though South Africa after the end of the apartheid government and Ukraine after the dissolution of the USSR commendably did disarm). None of the nuclear powers has behaved irresponsibly with its arsenals, but North Korea and Iran have both threatened to destroy other countries and are completely untrustworthy politically. In disarming them, with whatever face-saving is appropriate (and with any luck the rotten and medieval despotism in Iran could implode anyway), President Trump will at least keep nuclear non-proliferation on the rails. If North Korea and Iran become military nuclear powers, so will Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and that will just be the beginning — the whole system for avoidance of great wars will pass from nuclear abstinence to missile defense and massive retaliation. Again, the United States is the only country (followed distantly by Israel) that has any idea of how to stop incoming missiles with nuclear warheads, but it would be a desperate extremity to retreat to that point for assurance of avoidance of nuclear war.

We are already facing the increasing possibility of terrorists’ putting missiles in civil airliners or container ships or even suitcases, and enabling the nuclear weaponization of terrorist states such as Iran is an abominable practice of appeasement. The unsuspecting world will have reason to be thankful for President Trump.

Link

The same damn fool, Al Green, that has been squawking about a Trump impeachment since he was elected is now causing a split in his party. Pelosi vs. Green - dueling morons - and just in time for the election.



Dem rep rips Pelosi for undermining Trump impeachment push


http://www.foxnews.com/politic...mpeachment-push.html

Al appears to be in need of a good laxative. He always has that same pained, strained expression on his face. This is what can happen when you're not regular. Chronic constipation may turn you into a Democrat.

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
I urge everyone to follow JAllen’s link to the Andy McCarthy article one the Strzok-Page texts.
Lots of new stuff I had not seen before, including references to the (Obama) White House involvement.

If it had not been for those texts.......

This is why my scams never worked. Somebody was always blowing their lines, doing something unanticipated, blabbing to friends, omitting some detail to make things plausible and keep the wool pulled.

It’s always something!

quote:

Originally posted by justjoe:
Add this to the long column of wins: ISIS is downgraded from "caliphate" to "shrinking pockets of terrorists."

MAGA

http://www.breitbart.com/natio...king-terror-pockets/

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Chronic constipation may turn you into a Democrat.

So that's why they are so full of crap. It all makes sense now.



.

POS Chris Cillizza of CNN tweeted a picture of President Trump in a crosshair as President Trump talked about police officers killed in line of duty. (from CT)

Cillizza then changed the gif

"I’ve deleted a GIF about President Trump. We use @GifGrabber to make our GIFs and it defaults to the image below as a first frame. To clear up any unintended confusion, I’ve removed the tweet."

https://twitter.com/cillizzacnn

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
POS Chris Cillizza of CNN tweeted a picture of President Trump in a crosshair as President Trump talked about police officers killed in line of duty. (from CT)

Cillizza then changed the gif

"I’ve deleted a GIF about President Trump. We use @GifGrabber to make our GIFs and it defaults to the image below as a first frame. To clear up any unintended confusion, I’ve removed the tweet."

https://twitter.com/cillizzacnn

So it's @GifGrabber's fault you chose that image. Got it.

Well, Kim Jong-un didn't wait long to test Donald Trump. NK threatens to cancel the nuclear summit. Hope we play a very hard ball game w NK.