Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 of this series have highlighted how specific activities have dissolved the rule of law and shown the corrupt nature of secret courts and ubiquitous surveillance.
PDJT was elected in 2016 at least in part because he called out the corruption that many people were beginning to discern. PDJT not only called out the corruption, he stood tall against it. PDJT did not cave into the enormous pressure exerted to diminish him and anyone who supported him.
Our journey through history has brought us to the battle over the evidence of that corruption.
When one fully understands the background of what was going on with the DOJ and the FBI from 2012 on, one realizes that sunlight is the last thing these people would want shining on their work effort. But it is not just the FBI and the DOJ who are at risk. The IC Branch entities (including the National Security division at the DOJ/FBI) were badly exposed after Admiral Rogers stopped FBI contractor access to the NSA database.
PDJT started declassification attempts in 2018 over his targeting. It is four years later and still there has been no release of the evidence in question. I think most right-thinking people understand why this has occurred. What they do not realize is the scale of the corruption that exists in Washington. PDJT was an existential threat to the gravy train that many have wallowed in all these years.
That gravy train manifests itself in many ways. The Russia-Ukraine war is just one small example. Very few people want to be on the front lines of any war. The cost in human terms is monstrous. Yet there are people who are benefitting from the war and would want to see it continue indefinitely (think Afghanistan). These people are the people who make the weapons of war and sell them around the world.
In the Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, there is a scene where a scalawag hacker, who has stolen a rich tycoon’s spacecraft, shows the good guys that there are people who profit from both sides of a war. Later he demonstrates the same view of life when he betrays the good guys for profit. This is true in real life. The weapons makers are pocketing a boatload of cash right now. And who pays for this? In most cases it is the American taxpayer.
In 2018 it had become abundantly clear about the nonsense of the Trump-Russia collusion claim. However, the Mueller investigation was in full swing and anyone and everyone around PDJT was a target. Leaks about the “walls closing in” abounded. It must have been extremely frustrating for PDJT to know that there was no substance to the claims. Yet the media constantly hammered away at him trying to stop the MAGA agenda.
Sundance noted:
It was into this fray of constant false narratives that President Trump first made statements that he would declassify documents related to his targeting. It was after Trump made those statements when the real motives of putting Robert Mueller as a special counsel became clear.
With Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused from anything to do with the Trump-Russia investigation, it was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who delivered the message to President Trump in September of 2018, shortly before the midterm election, that any action by him to release documents, now under the purview of the Mueller special counsel, would be considered an act of “obstruction” by the DOJ/FBI people charged with investigating him.
This is the first example of the barriers that PDJT faced in trying to clear his name. This barrier is the “ongoing investigation” barrier. While it is normal not to release information during an investigation until law enforcement is ready to act, the Mueller crowd knew immediately after his appointment that there was no case here. The whole effort was to try and entice PDJT into an obstruction of justice or lying to the FBI charge.
Sundance reports:
This was the first act of betrayal by political operatives within Main Justice who did not recognize or accept the concept of the ‘unilateral executive.’ According to Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director James Comey, Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and even later (including recently) AG Bill Barr, the office of the president cannot exercise unilateral executive authority when he himself is the subject of their investigative power.
In essence the DOJ and FBI, along with White House counsel and a collaborating Senate and media, kept President Trump from declassifying and releasing documents by threatening him with impeachment and/or prosecution if he defied their authority. The threats created a useful Sword of Damocles, and blocked Trump from acting to make documents public.
In this vein think about the Durham investigation. Is this another example of blocking sunlight from penetrating the depths of corruption in Washington?
A side note here. It was called the Mueller probe. However, Robert Mueller was just a figurehead and was often MIA. Mueller was put there in an attempt to legitimize corrupt activity. Andrew Weissman was the real person in charge.
MAGA supporters have been extremely frustrated by the inability to get sunlight shining on this whole corrupt activity. While patience was there in the beginning to allow the process to work, the absolute lack of any declassification activity is maddening.
Can the President declassify anything? The short answer is yes. However, there is a process.
Sundance notes:
Following that declassification process the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, then Dan Coats, and the FBI Director, Christopher Wray, and the Attorney General, in this example Rod Rosenstein, needed to “sign-off” on the declassification.
The process reasoning is simple in the ordinary (non-corrupt) flow of events. The intelligence agencies might need to protect part of the information, such as “sources or methods” of intelligence contained within the classified material.
Under ordinary declassification procedures the President would likely not want to compromise the ‘sources’ and ‘methods’ and would defer to the intelligence experts.
Now think about this. If just one of these people refuse to agree, where does that leave PDJT? Yes, he could fire that person. That is his prerogative. However, that does not mean that the next person in line will accede to the President’s request. And then there are the politics of such firings. The media would have had a field day blasting out stories about obstruction of justice. Remember PDJT was the target of all these corrupt efforts.
This is called lawfare. That is, the use of the law to wage war against individuals and groups outside the elite circle. It was not limited to PDJT and those close to him. Anyone who posed a threat to the regime’s power (think Devin Nunes, Trey Gowdy, etc.) could become a target.
As Sundance asked, think about this scenario.
President Trump asks DNI Dan Coats (intelligence hub) to coordinate the declassification of [fill_in_blank]. If he agrees, in November of 2018 Dan Coats then asks all of the compartmented principles with interest in that specific document. That likely includes the DOJ (after the midterm it’s Matt Whitaker), FBI (Chris Wray), and likely DoS (Mike Pompeo – because of the State Dept aspect to Chris Steele). Also, possibly the NSA and/or Cyber Command.
If FBI Director Christopher Wray refuses to declassify the document(s) because it is part of the current Mueller counterintelligence probe, of which Trump was a target, then President Trump would have to fire Chris Wray; and, while awaiting a replacement (Senate confirmation seriously doubtful), the request then falls on FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich. [Who would also likely refuse]
As this hypothetical declassification example is unfolding you can imagine the political damage being carried out. In addition, there’s the looming impeachment process waiting to start. Hopefully, you can see how President Trump could easily be accused of interference or obstruction of justice. So, he had to wait for Mueller to finish.
This is only the first barrier that PDJT tried to overcome.
After the 2018 mid-terms, PDJT fired Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. I personally think that jeff Sessions was not part of the corrupt pig stie that Washington has become. Sessions was in over his head. He allowed himself to be talked into recusing himself from the Trump-Russia investigation when there was no need to do so. It happened because Sessions was more morally upright than most of Washington. Comey, McCabe, et al, used that to get him out of the way.
Eventually Bill Barr was nominated and confirmed as Attorney General. While there were some reservations about Barr among a minority of Trump allies in the beginning, in general, Barr was seen as a breath of fresh air. Barr burnished those credentials by reviewing the Mueller probe and telling Mueller to finish and give a report. Barr released part of the report as soon as it was done. This occurred in April, 2019.
However, the conundrum of PDJT as both a target and a victim continued to muddy the waters around the declassification issue. Barr comes up with a solution.
Barr had already lined up John Durham to look into the 2016 election issues. Trump trusted Barr to do the right thing and expose the malfeasance within the IC Branch including the DOJ and the FBI. However, there is one thing to always remember about Bill Barr. He has an unflagging loyalty to the institutions of the DOJ and the FBI.
The Durham investigation is still ongoing. The only thing produced so far is a slap on the wrist to a couple of minor intermediaries. I think PDJT would agree that, in hindsight, his approach, while inventive and problem solving, was a mistake. Barr’s loyalties were not to the country first. The “ongoing investigation” barrier is still up.
Sundance notes:
AG Bill Barr used the “ongoing criminal investigation,” led by the man he appointed, John Durham, as a justification for non-release of documents.
Frustration continues to mount as impeachment efforts against President Trump and the painful reality of the Bill Barr motive starts to settle in.
Bill Barr replaced the obstruction and interference threat carried by Mueller special counsel, with the obstruction and interference threat carried by the Durham special counsel. The ‘ongoing investigation‘ narrative created both swords of Damocles. One created by Rosenstein/Mueller the other created by Barr/Durham.
Then Bill Barr did something even worse. He made sure Donald Trump could never remove it.
The John Durham investigation is still “active” even today. The corruption that lies at the heart of Washington politics and within institutions like the DOJ has still not been exposed. Bill Barr was loyal, loyal to the institutions of the DOJ and FBI.
I can understand being loyal to a good and honorable institution. However, Barr had to have severe blinders on not to see the corruption that was festering inside these agencies. Or else such blindness was intentional.
As Sundance notes:
If the broader American public understood what tools and surveillance systems were used; if the broad American public knew what the DOJ, FBI, intelligence apparatus and aligned Senate committees have done; if the broad American public became aware of the scale and scope of the corruption in DC as it now exists; entire institutions within that framework would start to collapse.
This is the basis for everything we see going on within the current administration. Trump represented a broad and direct threat to corporate interests and traditional allies within the military-industrial complex, which is thoroughly beyond the traditional R-D axis trotted out by the media. And that threat still exists. And the threat is becoming bigger as more and more of the public begin to discern the truth.
Our legal system has been converted into a perverted cat and mouse game, wherein the cat can attack the mouse any old time he wants. Obama was instrumental in creating the “system of justice” we see today. There was a dramatic rise in warrantless surveillance during his administration. He had the law changed twice to make it easier to do. Even the ACLU was alarmed about the increase.
The IC Branch including the DOJ and the FBI will stop at nothing to prevent the release of this evidence. This is why the Mar-a-Lago raid took place. They were trying to recover copies of the evidence that PDJT undoubtedly had.
I fear that great danger is on the horizon. Neil Oliver, whom I listen to from time to time, once said in effect that he recognized danger because his body reacted viscerally to its proximity. That’s how I feel now. These people are corrupt, power mad and evil beyond redemption. Sunlight must be shined on their work product.
What evidence is PDJT likely to have?
That is the subject of the final part in this series.