Donald Trump was kicked off social media for starting an insurrection and claiming the 2020 election was unfair. Thousands of people in cities all across the U.S. protested the 2016 election in the days following that election and nobody even hinted at the word insurrection. Stacy Abrams has claimed the last four years she is the rightful governor of Georgia and has been supported by her party in that claim; the outcry and demand for proof has been minimal. Trump lost Georgia by about 10,000 votes in 2020 while Abrams lost the state by more than 50,000 votes in 2018. Yet, somehow Abram’s claim is legitimized by the media while Trump’s is not. During the 2020 Democratic presidential convention, Abrams was even invited to sit on a panel of state governors, despite never being elected to a governorship. Whatcha talking about Willis?
We all know the criticism of President Trump and his campaign for raising concerns about the 2020 election, perhaps you even agree with this criticism and engaged in critiquing his behavior as well, but do you know he was not the first to make such claims, and that his claims do not seem so outrageous if compared to other claims from the last twenty years? Stick with me, please. There’s much more to this.
I am old enough to remember the 2000 election which was contested in the state of Florida. George Bush won Florida by about 500 votes out of almost 6 million total votes; it was incredibly close.
| Party | Candidate | Running mate | Votes | Percentage | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | George W. Bush | Dick Cheney | 2,912,790 | 48.847% | 25 | |
| Democratic | Al Gore | Joe Lieberman | 2,912,253 | 48.838% | 0 |
Without Florida, Bush would have lost the electoral college to Al Gore. This was the closest election I ever remember and one of the closest of all time (of course, don’t forget the 1800 election of Thomas Jefferson versus Aaron Burr which went to the House of Representatives to be resolved).
The 2000 election started a new trend of debating the legitimacy of U.S. elections, not such a good trend given the debate since. For eight years, Bush was called an illegitimate president, at first because of the grave disappointment over the Florida vote and the court decision to end the re-counting and then for other reasons which became convenient and better supported the narrative that sold better. Many gravitated to the claim that Bush was not legitimate because he lost the popular vote, but he won by the rules that were in place then, have always been in place, and, in fact, are still in place today. Now that he is out of office and has no political power, they call Bush a statesman, but they said no such thing for eight years (just as they did with McCain and Romney when they were nominated by the Republicans and posed a real threat to others power, but are now recalled fondly that they are no longer real threats).
Trump, as well, won the presidency without winning the popular vote in 2016, but it was more convenient to blame Trump’s 2016 victory on Russian interference. By the way, do you really believe that the Russians preferred Trump over Clinton? It was the prior Democrat Administration that allowed Crimea to be peeled off from Ukraine without any consequences. Would Clinton have been tougher on Russia than Trump? I don’t believe such logic. After all, Obama did little in 2014 and Biden is not doing much now.
The 2000 election went through a legitimate process; it was litigated for more than a month and numerous recounts were done before Bush was finally declared the victor. It was not arbitrarily given to Bush because a few who were in power were able to manipulate the process. Gore eventually conceded in December (after withdrawing his first concession on election night), but the debate over who won the election did not end in 2000; it went on for eight years, some of it was legitimate debate, but most of it not. Perhaps you are old enough to remember too. Maybe the debate didn’t bother you, but it was bothersome to me that it never really ended.
If you were old enough, maybe you have forgotten the 2000 election or maybe you did not much care at the time. Maybe you should have cared more then because much has since been built on top of that foundation. Surely you have an opinion of the more controversial recent elections? How could you not? They have been more discussed than the 2000 election and the rhetoric has only gotten worse in the last twenty years.
Following the 2016 election of Donald Trump, we simply were not permitted to forget that the Russians intervened to help him. We were to be reminded continually until we believed it to be so and hated him for cheating.
The election results were a bit more interesting in 2016 because three states were in question unlike the one in 2000. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by a grand total of 80,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all surprising victories. A few thousand votes in the other direction in these three typically blue states would have made Clinton president. The razor edge closeness of this election and the shock that Trump, the underdog, won it made this election too much to bear for those who lost. So close and yet so far.
But do you remember everything said about the 2016 election, including what was said on January 6, 2017 in Congress and what was said and done beyond that day? Or maybe you were never told about some of it? Maybe you never heard of the comparisons between 2016 and 2020, the main difference is only in which side was making the arguments.
First, let’s start with the inimitable Nancy Pelosi who said the following in 2017:
Our election was hijacked. There is no question. Congress has a duty to #ProtectOurDemocracy & #FollowTheFacts.— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) May 16, 2017
Can you honestly say there is a substantial difference in this claim from Pelosi regarding the 2016 election and the manner she went about raising it and the claim Trump made about the 2020 election and the manner he went about raising his concern? Yet, clearly there is a substantial difference in how the two claims were received and covered by our media.
Let’s go back five months prior, to January 6, 2017, when Trump’s election was certified. Democrats challenged various states, starting with Alabama, which Trump won by a whopping margin of around 30 points. What reason could there be for challenging Trump’s victory in Alabama?
While Trump, who is set to take office on Jan. 20, garnered more than the 270 electoral votes required to win, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. The election has been shadowed by concerns over Russian attempts to influence the result in Trump’s favor.
Trump, who has repeatedly downplayed possible Russian interference, was due to receive a U.S. intelligence report on the situation later on Friday. He told the New York Times on Friday that the focus on the issue was a “political witch hunt.”
The 2017 debate and certification was not substantially different than the debate that occurred in Congress on January 6, 2021. On January 6, 2021, when Biden’s election was certified, the exact same types of challenges were made as they had been made four years earlier, and yet 2021 was a scandal while 2017 was forgotten (or I should say ignored by some). In 2017, sitting vice president Joe Biden presided over the debate and did his job of confirming his political opponent’s victory. In 2021, sitting vice president Mike Pence presided and confirmed his opponent’s victory, thereby removing himself from power. There were no legal tricks from either of them.
In January 2021, Ohio Representative Jim Jordan reminded the country what had happened four years earlier.
“In his opening remarks, the Democrat chair of the Rules Committee said that Republicans last week voted to overturn the results of an election. Guess who the first objector was on January 6, 2017? First objector? The Democratic chair of the Rules Committee,” Jordan said, referring to House Rules Committee Chairman James McGovern (D-Mass.).
“They can object to Alabama in 2017, but tell us we can’t object to Pennsylvania in 2021? Pennsylvania, where the state Supreme Court just unilaterally extended the election to Friday,” the congressman said.
“Pennsylvania, where the secretary of state unilaterally changed the rules, went around the legislature in an unconstitutional manner. Pennsylvania, where county clerks in some counties, and you can imagine what counties they were, let people fix their ballots against the law, fix and cure their mail-in ballots, direct violation of the law,” he said.
“And they tell us we tried to overturn the election. Guess who the second objector was in 2017? The individual managing the impeachment for the Democrats,” Jordan said, referring to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).
The irony of Maryland Representative Raskin objecting is that he was an impeachment manager for Trump’s 2021 impeachment trial during which he highlighted the illegitimacy of Trump’s 2020 election claims. Raskin never referred back to his own behavior in the prior presidential election while he condemned the same behavior from Trump during the 2020 election–and worse yet, nobody in our liberal, one-channel media called him on it.
Many folks in Congress and the the media went so far as to propose impeaching Senators Cruz and Hawley for their roles in the 2021 debate, their roles being mainly asking questions about what happened. The impeachment of Cruz and Hawley never got off the ground, but such action may be seriously considered in the future. What seems outrageous today is often commonplace in ten years. Last January, Missouri Representative Corey Bush went even further; she proposed unseating all the Republicans from Congress that had voiced any support for Trump’s claims. Was there any real criticism of her for this outrageous proposal? Mind you, she is the same woman who said to defund the police while justifying her own security task force–because her role is more important than yours, you see. She, by the way, is one of the new fresh faces, part of the squad, the up-and-comers in the party. Can’t we do better?
I suppose if we don’t actually impeach all Republican Congressman for doing what so many others have done in the past, a few can be intimidated into silence. Maybe then we could really get things done, right? Maybe that is the end-game being played? Tyrants don’t tell you they are usurping power before doing it, but afterward it is a bit too late to undo the mess. How about that Willis? The article above makes another significant point:
The congressman also pointed out that Democrats objected to the Electoral College votes of more states in 2017 than Republicans objected to in 2021.
“Americans are tired of the double standard. They are so tired of it. Democrats object to more states in 2017 than Republicans did last week, but somehow we’re wrong,” Jordan said.
Raising concerns about elections has been par for the course for a while. Everyone seems to have forgotten the many protests, some violent, some near the White House, immediately following the 2016 election. You can find many such stories if you look. Here is just one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_riots. In 2018, when Abrams lost, the claims of election fraud went even deeper down the rabbit hole. I thought it was nuts then, laughable almost that a candidate who lost by so many votes would persist in her claim, but I didn’t realize what would be coming in two more years.
Even today, a year out of office, Trump continues to be a target. The New York Attorney General specifically said she would go after Trump after he left office. There had to be something there and she was going to find it. It got her a few votes I am sure. But Trump is not your typical politician. Most politicians are protected from real scrutiny, but he and Brett Kavanaugh are among the most investigated folks of all time. If there was something to be found, we would have heard. We heard a lot when there wasn’t anything substantial; the walls were closing in, they told us, but they never actually did. Still, even in 2022, they have not found anything to pin on Trump (and don’t tell me about the two ridiculous impeachment hearings based on nothing). There must be something to Trump’s credit that they haven’t found a crime to put him away yet.
Manhattan DA’s Trump Investigation Appears to Have Cratered
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria (Russian Chief of Secret Police).
Then there is Stacy Abrams who gets totally different treatment, preferential treatment if you ask me. Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Terri McAuliffe, and many other big-wigs in the Democratic Party have been outspoken for years as they have supported Abrams claim she was cheated in the 2018 governor’s race. It seems a right of passage to support Abrams, one of those things that those in Democrat leadership are required to affirm in order to retain their position.
In the article below, Hillary Clinton speaks at Selma Anniversary breakfast: “Stacey Abrams should be governor, leading that state right now.” pic.twitter.com/XFciiJNkVq
— The Hill (@thehill) March 4, 2019
“We see all of the phony obstacles to registering. We see all of the all of the suppressive efforts at the point of registration and even the point of voting. We see the longer lines. We see how all of this is designed to discourage, to depress, to prevent people from voting -particularly communities of color,” said Clinton.
“Candidates both black and white lost their races because they have been deprived of the votes they otherwise would have gotten. Stacey Abrams should be governor leading that state right now,” she added.
Understand the term, “suppressing voters” is code for “you are a racist because you only want to suppress certain votes”. The seriousness of the charge is more than enough to frighten many weak-kneed Republicans into submission. The truth is most Americans want it easy to vote but hard to cheat. Suppressing votes should mean suppressing illegal votes, votes that should not count in any case. However, folks like Clinton think both, voting and cheating, should be easy because those rules benefit her and her party. They think too it should be easy to import voters across the Mexican border because more of those folks will vote with their party than not. This is the game. They didn’t like the current electorate, so they seek to change it to one more favorable to them. They have some success in that effort.
Vice President Kamala Harris not only supports Abrams claim but has also said Ron DeSantis is not the rightful governor of Florida either. DeSantis is an evil right-wing, horse-medicine loving, white supremacist, so he must have cheated, right?
If Democrats get their way, we may be headed for a country where elections are but a fond memory, since we can’t seem to get them correct from the left’s viewpoint. Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris said this weekend that Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum would be the governors of Georgia and Florida respectively, “without voter suppression.”
Again, the term “voter suppression” appeals to your emotions. But wait: don’t think with your emotions. Your emotions and feelings can change from one day to the next, perhaps even more often, so don’t let them guide your thoughts about all important issues. Use your God-given intelligence to think things through.
By the way, Andrew Gillum, DeSantis’s opponent in 2018 has fallen from grace and so not so many besides Harris have lined up behind him.
Gillum-found-inebriated-in-Hotel-Room-with-Meth
Florida gubernatorial candidate turned CNN political commentator Andrew Gillum was found in an inebriated state in a Miami Beach hotel room early Friday where cops also found baggies of crystal meth, according to the Miami New Times.
Terry McAuliffe, former Virginia governor and Clinton insider jumped in on this election fraud debate while running for Virginia governor in 2021, a post he had held previously.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mcauliffe-stacey-abrams-should-be-governor-of-georgia
Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe claimed that Stacey Abrams should be the governor of Georgia, accusing Brian Kemp (who ran for governor while also serving as secretary of state) of having “disenfranchised” more than 1 million Georgia voters in the state’s 2018 gubernatorial election.
They all make the same claim about voter suppression, suppression of legitimate voters. What voter suppression have we in the last fifty years (and let’s not go back to the 1960’s and before). Where is their proof of it today? Have you ever seen it? I haven’t and I dare anyone reading this to provide it.
And, of course, as mentioned earlier, in 2020, Abrams was invited to sit on the governor’s panel during the party’s presidential convention. This is done so all Democrats can have cover in affirming all African American voters by affirming Abrams’ claim. So, why was it not highlighted when all these folks, all very prominent in Democrat Party leadership, spoke out election fraud? Where were the challenges to their claims? How about they get the same scrutiny given to Trump?
I listened to these folks claims about Abrams for years. I thought it’s a silly, unsubstantiated claim, but these folks have never let facts get in their way of power. They could say what they want and discredit themselves, and I think they did. However, they were also able to convince many people through their persistence and unity of message along with lack of serious media criticism. I realize now that their words were more than just silly; they were dangerous and they have come frighteningly close to their ultimate goal of consolidating power and locking out the other side from ever regaining power.
Do you think I am a conspiracy freak? Listen to what these people have said and done about Abrams election and voter suppression and racial politics and ask yourself why they are engaging in these discussions. Use your logic, separate it from your emotions and take the time needed to think it through. Without the emotional appeal, they have nothing, no facts, no logic, nothing.
Why did these same people object so strongly to Trump’s claims about the 2020 election when they themselves had done the same as Trump for prior elections? Why did they act as if Trump actions were a totally new twist to politics, one they could never have possibly imagined themselves? They demand proof from Trump (and often ignore the facts which he, in fact, provided), yet how about these same people provide some proof for their own claims or hold themselves to the same standard they hold others? Are these claims of Trump malfeasance just something we all just need to accept by faith because we all know Republicans are all racists and Nazis and those kind of people stop at nothing to get what they want?
Give, and it will be given to you; a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over—will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Luke 6:38)
I think the double standard, and the lack of interest in the truth (or rather a lack of interest when the truth is not in one’s own corner), is the thing that bothers me most about politics today. Why do so many go along with the flagrant double standard, especially those in media? Why is the truth suppressed when it not to their political advantage? It is one thing to pick and choose facts which support your own case, but to make up facts and to ignore and lie about facts which contradict your position, is another. Do they want to win that badly? Is the power gained worth the loss of your soul? Could this passage from 2,000 years ago, from an historical book that many discount today, but still speaks to human nature which has not changed during the interim, be any more relevant?
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? (Luke 9:25)
Politics has always been an ugly business, but there were common standards that held us together in the past. Where are those common standards today? How can we continue to be one nation under God when the factions today don’t have any common beliefs? What is going to bind these faction, all of us actually, together in the future? We need something to unite us. We need to get back that which has been lost.
Do I Have Your Attention Yet?
Maybe your mind on this topic is made up already. You already know what happened during the past two presidential elections and you know what should have happened. Or maybe you already know what else I am going to say and you can surely ignore yet another right wing, horse-medicine-loving, conspiracy nut like me.
But I do not intend to blindly defend anyone. I am not going to beat up on one side and ignore the problems of the other. I don’t like either political party nor most politicians; very few these days are worth their salt. I have plenty of criticism for Trump as well; I do not ignore his faults or mistakes. I do think Trump did some remarkable things as well; he started a revolution much like Reagan did forty years earlier and he awoke a spirit in folks that had been lacking for a long while, but I won’t discuss this either because many will tune me out as a ideologue.
I want to uncover for you a few truths, truths that have been subsumed because they are not convenient to someone’s narrative. We all need to hear the truth or at least seek it vigorously. We need to criticize the actions of those we agree with, perhaps even more than those we disagree with, so we can hold them accountable. Trump was such a politician that his base could hold accountable. He certainly made his share of mistakes, but he would listen to criticisms from his base; without such criticisms, he would run amok (and often did), and his base would be the one to blame. Seeking the truth, digging under the façade that we have given by those we thought told the truth, to find for ourselves what is really true, is a responsibility we have all been given by God.
A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself. Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous about acts to be performed or already committed. This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits . . . A good and pure conscience is enlightened by true faith, for charity proceeds at the same time “from a pure heart and a good conscience and sincere faith”. The more a correct conscience prevails, the more do persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and try to be guided by objective standards of moral conduct. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1790-1794)
The Durham Investigation
Why now raise these issues regarding long ago elections now? Because of long-awaited pronouncements from Federal Prosecutor John Durham. I wrote much about the elections more than a year ago when the topic was hotly debated, but have been largely silent for some time. But now that Durham is speaking up about a prior election, it is good time to discuss the issue again, especially as we head into another election this year.
Perhaps you know about Durham or perhaps you have never heard of him. Trump was counting on Durham to bail him out in 2020 and was sorely upset Durham didn’t speak up in time to make a difference during the 2020 election controversy. Durham obviously hadn’t built his case yet. Such things take time, and Trump’s political future was not in his purview.
Even if Durham had spoken up in 2020 or on January 6, 2021, would he have been received well or would his motives have been more suspect due to the timing? Who cares what he says in any case? Let’s ignore him or if we do not ignore him, let’s just say he is lying. Isn’t that the standard response to someone saying something we don’t like? We don’t need his stupid facts. He is probably a white supremacist and a Nazi in any case.
But again, who the heck is Durham, what is he saying, and what is being said about him?
Basically, Durham is the counter-weight to Robert Mueller. For the first several years of his presidency, the Trump Administration was investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. I am sure the Trump Team wanted to cancel Mueller, but they held their fire and, in fact, provide much information to Mueller. Mueller had all the time and money he needed and a friendly Attorney General (Rosenstein) overseeing his investigation (Jeff Sessions, as a reminder, had recused himself from the investigation early on, much to Trump’s dismay). After years of investigation, Mueller did not find an impeachable charge, the real goal of the investigation. The Mueller report did say many unflattering things about Trump, things that would certainly be red meat for his opponents, but still not anything which could be used to impeach–and Lord knows it wasn’t for a lack of trying. If you remember recent history, you will remember Trump was later impeached for a phone call with the Ukrainian president, nothing to do with Russian collusion. They needed another pretext after Mueller failed to provide one.
We all understood Mueller’s role and John Durham, like Robert Mueller, is investigating the 2016 election as well, but from a different perspective. His investigation is instead focused on the potential malfeasance on the other side of the aisle. The Durham investigation began in 2019 after Mueller fully retired, but while Trump was still president. Trump demanded Durham speak up in his defense and spill the beans before he left office, but Durham bided his time. The Durham investigation has continued during the first year of the Biden Administration, and is finally speaking up. It took him a few years just as it took Mueller some time. But now the shoe is on the other foot. Will we look as closely at Durham’s claims as we did with regard to Trump/Russia collusion? Isn’t that the fair thing? Isn’t it the right thing to do?
Last Fall, Michael Sussman, a lawyer for the Clinton campaign, was indicted by the Durham Team. Do you remember the wide coverage of this? No, of course not. Well, here is the story you missed. In 2017, Sussman went to the FBI regarding allegations of Trump/Russia collusion. Note that this fact is stipulated by all sides; however, Durham says this information came from (i.e. was created by) the Clinton campaign. In other words, as has been alleged by Team Trump many times before, the Clinton campaign cooked up the Russian collusion scheme, hired a law firm to find the dirt they planted, and when the law firm found the dirt they were directed to find, that dirt was then forwarded on to the FBI by the Clinton operative, Sussman, who has now been indicted for this scheme. The dirt made it to the top of the organization as FBI Director James Comey even briefed Trump on this dirt in January 2017, after which the news of that event and the famous Russian “dossier”, the dirt that Durham said was planted by the campaign, what Dan Bongino refers to as the “pee tape”, was leaked. Several years of the Trump/Russian collusion investigation ensued from these events in 2016 and 2017. That is whole story, a fairly simple one if you ask me.
That story has been the contention from the Trump campaign for years now and now it is finally supported from actual government investigators, not the Trump Team itself. Of course, the natural reaction from the Clinton Team is to tell us to ignore it all. Trump is simply getting more desperate, Hillary Clinton says, but this isn’t Trump speaking this time. Durham doesn’t have to do Trump’s bidding with him out of office and out of power.
On the other hand, Durham should know now he is over the target because those scrutinized want to shut him down–and Clinton has no qualms about using her political influence to make it happen (remember Ben Ghazi? Who cares about what happened at this point?). If Durham is all wrong, then let him make a fool of himself without trying to cancel him first.
NY-Post-Clinton-Campaign-Attorney-Moves-to-Dismiss-Investigation
If the dirt on Trump is real or if Sussman believed it to be real, then it seems legitimate for him to share it with the FBI; that would be his civic duty, and he should not be prosecuted for it. But if the evidence is cooked up and if there never was any Trump/Russia collusion and if Sussman knew it was cooked up, then this charge is appropriate; that would be Durham’s civic duty to reveal this game.
So, do you believe: Team Trump or Team Clinton? Which one is your favorite team? Do you hate Trump so much that you just don’t want his story to be true? The truth is the truth no matter where it leads. Our mission should be to determine the truth. This matters now not just because of the past, but because of the future, the future of our kids, grandkids, and our great American experiment. We need to trust such an awful scheme would eventually be exposed and those participating in it would be discredited.
The story of Trump/Russia collusion has been circulating many years now. It had its day (several years actually) in the sun. The Mueller investigation could not link the Trump campaign to a Russian conspiracy despite years of trying and much support from Congressional Democrats like Chairman Adam Schiff. But now there is a new story, one that Schiff and his cronies have less control over. Trump’s narrative has been circulating for many years as well. It is a simple and straightforward narrative, not something that gets crazier over time, as Clinton has alleged. Now, the Durham investigation has linked the Clinton campaign to the invention of a phony Russian narrative. That’s a big deal. It still matters six years later.
So, what should we think about all this? Was Mueller incompetent? He certainly had ample opportunity to prove his case. Will Schiff and his investigation be discredited by the new revelations? Or instead is Durham corrupt and making it all up and Trump really is the bad guy?
I say maybe there never was anything to the Russian collusion story to begin with. Maybe the folks who invented this narrative will finally be forced to finally account for it? Which narrative do you think is true? Both cannot hold at the same time. There should be justice for this, justice for Clinton or Trump, justice for Durham or Schiff, justice for those who knew the truth but hid it and deliberately deceived the American public. Someone has clearly done wrong; let’s not stop until we determine who.
Unfortunately, it is hard to imagine true justice in today’s corrupt political world of elites who have insulated themselves from accountability, but I still hope and pray for some version of justice. The oligarchy of liars must end. I know this for sure: we are at point now where someone needs to be held accountable. If Durham is playing partisan politics, he and his team should be the ones to pay. Trump too should pay if he has furthered the big lie. If not, the Clinton Team should finally be held to account. The Clinton solution is that we should dismiss the Durham investigation and pretend nothing ever happened. I am highly suspicious of that proposal. Demand a light be shown on it all, whether it supports your own team or not.
I do not have a lock on the truth myself, but I can follow breadcrumbs to determine where they lead. The latest release this month from the Durham investigation is even more problematic if true. Durham now claims the Clinton campaign spied on Trump even after the election, even while he was president. A private citizen spying on the sitting president of the United States seems a pretty massive scandal. Why is it being largely ignored by media? They are calling it pizza-gate, as if we should laugh off yet another attempt to target the angelic person of Hillary Clinton, poor benighted soul. It is more activity that makes me more suspicious. They were so focused on the Olympics that this story pales in comparison? On the other hand, the information is coming from a credible source, or at least from a person who is in a position of significant authority, although you may distrust the source.
We know the Clinton Team is aghast at the claims and wants Durham to be discredited and go away, but what do others say? Let’s start with CNN, America’s most trusted news network, right?
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/16/politics/durham-allegations-explainer/index.html
The new filing fleshed out the case against Michael Sussmann, a lawyer for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign who was charged with lying to a top FBI official during a meeting about then-candidate Donald Trump’s connections to Russia. In the filing, Durham suggested Sussmann’s allies “exploited” government databases to snoop on the Trump White House.
This triggered a tsunami of coverage from pro-Trump outlets, and outrage from Republican lawmakers and Trump himself — all of it rife with distortions, false claims and misinformation.
The term “exploited” is quoted as if this is an odd word to use in describing how the president was spied on. Why so? I wonder. Trump was either spied on, which seems a massive revelation and highly relevant to the conversation given years of accusations and censorship of Trump, or he wasn’t spied on, and Durham should be fired and prosecuted for misusing his position. Doesn’t Trump finally deserve his own day in court after all the scrutiny applied to him?
Obviously, CNN is doubtful of the Durham claim, but it seems the response is more reflexive than anything else. The outrage from those darned Republicans who have been saying this same thing for six years now is too much for CNN to accept. They were wrong before, so they must be wrong now. The zealous Republicans are the ones to blame here as they pounced on unsuspecting Democrats who just want to go about living lives and protecting us all now that Trump is gone from office. The CNN story goes on in this vein:
Trump and his allies essentially have taken Durham’s assertions at face value — and then some. They claimed, falsely, that the filings prove Trump was the victim of a massive deep state conspiracy to spy on his campaign and White House. Incredibly, Trump suggested that people involved deserve to be executed for their alleged actions.
CNN claims also that Sussman, currently Durham’s target, has something (“odd data” to be specific) on Trump which is why he is being targeted by Durham. Ok, if Durham is a partisan why didn’t he bail out Trump with his phony claims at the end of 2020 when it could have made a bigger impact? If he is making up stuff, why wait until now? Why run the risk that Biden might shut down your out-of-control investigation? Or perhaps Durham is telling the truth, and as we all know, no good deed, goes unpunished.
Regarding the Russian phones, Durham said his team “identified no support” for the claim that Trump associates used the devices near the White House. But Sussman and the researchers called this a red herring. They said they found odd data at Trump Tower — and separately at the Obama-era White House, while looking for security threats after a Russian hack in 2015.
The CNN story wraps up with this comment which is actually insightful, only I will say we shouldn’t root for bad things to happen to our opponents, only that justice be served if these things turn out to be true. The real worry, I think, is that political players (on all sides) are often protected and there won’t be true justice. We must end this protection racket.
Ironically, many of the key players have seen a role reversal in this saga.
There was rampant speculation in left-wing circles that special counsel Robert Mueller would bring down Trump’s presidency, and send him and his family to prison. Now, Trump and his allies are breathlessly hyping up the Durham probe, and have welcomed each development as proof that bombshell indictments against top Democratic figures are right around the corner.
So, let’s hear what the CNN foil, Fox News, says about this investigation. Former Trump official, K.T. McFarland makes some substantial charges in this Fox News opinion piece:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/durham-investigation-questions-kt-mcfarland
So, they fabricated the Big Lie — claiming Trump was a puppet of Russian President Putin. Voting for Trump was like putting a Russian asset in the Oval Office. They didn’t worry about getting caught since they could bury it once she won.
Clinton’s chief disinformation officer, who was also her foreign policy adviser, peddled the story to the press. The ratings hungry media was happy to repeat the Big Lie. They hated Trump with a passion, so savaging him was easy.
Once Trump and his staff moved into the White House, the hacking efforts moved with them. Still nothing. But the Big Lie had taken root – in the media, with Congressional Democrats, with the intelligence community, even the FBI. They all launched investigations into Trump’s ties with Russia.
Certainly, hatred of Trump and those he represented was real. Is the rest of the claim real? It speaks of motivations and motivations need to be proven, not simply alleged. To beat the dead horse again, Durham has the goods or he doesn’t. Mueller was allowed to continue his investigation for years and he went on national TV to share his report with Congress. How about we give Durham the same respect, at least until someone proves him wrong? Just because Trump said the same thing as Durham doesn’t mean it isn’t true. McFarland continues:
Two years later Special Counsel Mueller admitted they could find no Trump-Russia connections and closed up shop. But in the process they did manage to destroy reputations and careers (my own included).
They did manage to force innocent Trump officials into debt to hire lawyers to defend themselves. They even tried to get innocent people to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit, or to accuse others, including President Trump, of crimes he did not commit.
The media loved every minute of the three years of Russiagate. Reporters became celebrities, they got lucrative book contracts and speaking gigs. They even gave each other awards for reporting breaking news scandals, which were hand-fed by “anonymous sources.”
If the seriousness of the charges is the standard for investigation, then this investigation needs to continue. It several multiples of Watergate. If proven true (and believed by the public), the Democrat Party will be destroyed. That’s the real concern. Certainly, they can’t let that happen. It is better for them to suppress the story if it is anywhere close to true. McFarland ends with a couple of questions. She doesn’t know the answers, nor do I, nor do most of us, but shouldn’t we find out?
No one outside of Durham himself knows where this goes next. But two glaring questions stand out.
First, did the intelligence community know the Clinton campaign was hacking into Trump’s campaign, presidential transition and White House offices? If so, did they just look the other way? Did they stand on the sidelines while the Big Lie was spread far and wide? Or, did they actually participate in the effort to spy on Donald Trump?
If the intelligence community knew nothing about Clinton’s efforts to infiltrate Trump’s campaign, why not? Did they know about the ongoing surveillance when Trump was president-elect, and then sworn in as president? A key part of their job is to keep a president’s communications secure, including from hackers both foreign and domestic.
There is so much more on this topic of election integrity and I will need at least one more post to fully cover it. Is it not vitally important that Americans trust our election process and know that the person who receives the most legitimate votes is the true winner?
One More Recommendation:
I end this post with one final recommendation. I watched the movie, The Plot Against the President, a few years ago, and if you want to determine the truth for yourself, I strongly recommend it. It is very well done and has many well known figures in it. Dinesh D’Souza, I hear, is coming out with another movie on elections, but I have not seen it yet.
If you already know the truth and you don’t need to hear what the right wing nuts featured in this movie, folks like Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan, Donald Trump Jr, and Kash Patel (someone you may not know, but you should), folks who might know something about this particular election, then please don’t watch it. Be secure in your knowledge of the truth (and share your knowledge with the rest of us, please).
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/plot-against-the-president-trump-movie
movie trailer: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/plot-against-the-president-trump-movie
For the next post, I will dig deeper and look at the recommendations for fixing the election process, bi-partisan recommendations, mind you. I didn’t cover the 2020 election in much detail yet, but let’s next examine what happened in 2020. Did things get better or worse with that election? Was this the cleanest election ever as many have told me? Maybe it was just a run-of-the-mill average election with minimal problems? Or was it closer to what Trump said it was? I will dig into the book, Rigged, by Mollie Hemmingway which I have just recently completed. It has a ton of information and I will try to share a little bit of the flavor of it.
Whatever the problems are with our elections, be assured we can fix them, but we must know the truth first. We must demand the truth and we must be informed ourselves so we are not fooled by those who couldn’t care less about the truth and only want to win the game. If we don’t seek the truth and remain skeptical of all, we will be doomed to repeat the problems of the past and we will reflexively and forever blame the other side (whichever side that is for you) for all problems–and things will only get worse from there.
For more of my thoughts on this topic (there is too much on election problems to cover in just one post):
Update:
The problems continue into the 2022 election. We’ve been called election deniers for raising concerns, but that is all we are doing. There are definite problems that need to be addressed. Here is my latest post on 2022 election concerns:
Seek the Truth 
“the rules that were in place then, have always been in place, and, in fact, are still in place today. ”
Actually – the rules were changed in 2020. The COVID scare was the reason given. The rules change changed the voter electorate. And it was a Plot. It wasn’t illegal, but the election was rigged.
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My comment was regarding the rules around the electoral college. Bush lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote, so suddenly the electoral college became illegitimate. The electoral college was never challenged until it became the excuse for Al Gore’s loss.
Many gravitated to the claim that Bush was not legitimate because he lost the popular vote, but he won by the rules that were in place then, have always been in place, and, in fact, are still in place today.
In 2020 the rules changed with COVID as a pre-text. I agree with you on this point.
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