Aug. 6, 2020
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Yates says Comey had the FBI ambush Michael Flynn in the White House ‘unilaterally,’ was unaware Steele sub-source folded on Trump-Russia allegations in Jan. 2017
“I didn’t
authorize that interview because I wasn’t told about it in advance… I was upset
that Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally.”
That was former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, telling Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham in Aug. 5 testimony that former FBI Director
James Comey did not clear with the Justice Department his plan to send FBI
agents to interrogate then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn in the White
House on Jan. 24, 2017 shortly after President Donald Trump was sworn into
office. Comey kept the then-Acting
Attorney General Yates in the dark about something that by all accounts was a
serious breach of protocol — an attempt to entrap the President’s top foreign
policy advisor to take out the President. The agents questioned Flynn on what
turns out were routine discussions with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak
during the presidential transition. Yates was apparently also in the dark about
the FBI’s separate Jan. 24, 2017 interview of the primary source used by former
British spy Christopher Steele in drafting the dossier falsely alleging
President Donald Trump was a Russian agent and that the Trump campaign
knowingly assisted Russia in hacking the Democratic National Committee and
putting its emails on Wikileaks. The source ended up contradicting Steele’s
allegations in the Jan. 2017 interview, leaving the FBI with no real witnesses
of Trump’s supposed treason. If Yates didn't know, then the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, which is supposed to assist the President in his duties to
combat enemies of the U.S. foreign and domestic with the gathering of
intelligence, should be abolished immediately. Nobody responsible for
overseeing the surveillance of U.S. citizens or even the President verifies the
most important allegations. Not the Justice Department. Not the FBI. And not
the FISA court.
Video: Trump is right. Why are we outsourcing national security w/ production of the F-35 stealth fighter?
President Donald
Trump says the F-35 stealth fighter should be made in the U.S. as Lockheed
Martin projects more than $600 billion to go to maintenance and operations of
the fleet over the next 60 years. Can the production of our most vital asset to
national security be insourced?
Socialism is theft and Marxist regimes like Venezuela and China need to be held accountable
Socialism is
theft. At their very core, these Marxists believe that they have a right to
take the property of others and make it their own without even bothering to
compensate the rightful owner in any way. Thieves, looters, mobsters and some
government officials, like Venezuelan dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro,
make it a habit of demanding protection money under the threat of taking a
person or company’s property at the point of a gun.In the case of the Las
Cristinas gold mine, refusing to pay bribes to local officials resulted in then
dictator Hugo Chavez confiscating the mine in 2011. This, after Cristallex, the
mine owner had invested more than $500 million into the local economy building
infrastructure and other projects. What did Cristallex and its shareholders get
for this half a billion dollar community improvement expenditure? They got
their property stolen at the point of a gun, a Venezuelan government gun.
Cristallex took its case to court with cases going all the way to the U.S.
Supreme Court which refused to take up an appeal by Venezuela’s leader Juan
Guaido, the man who the U.S. government recognizes as the legitimate leader of
Venezuela over the dictator Maduro. The Supreme Court failed to even choose to
hear the Venezuelan appeal disputing a lower court’s finding that the mining
company be made whole through liquidation of U.S. based assets of the
Venezuelan government owned oil company — Citgo. Very few presidents in recent
history have been as strong of defenders of property rights as President Donald
Trump, and holding Marxist regimes like Venezuela accountable for their
unlawful seizure of property, like the Las Cristinas mine, is necessary to stop
future illegal takings.
Americans for Limited Government announces ad campaign opposing President Trump’s proposed drug pricing Executive Order
Americans for Limited
Government President Rick Manning: “No one has been a bigger fan of President
Donald Trump than I have been. I have
repeatedly defended him against repeated attacks from never Trump
ne’er-do-wells, and will continue to do so.
But the issue of socialized medicine and the ramifications of the
President’s proposed Executive Order are too serious to ignore. It is my firm
hope that the President will reconsider this draconian step. Drug prices are a
symptom of a deeper problem related to the high cost of bringing medicines to
market ($2.6 billion according to the latest Tufts University study) and the
length of time it takes to bring those treatments to market. The ad is
respectful but extremely firm in making people aware of the danger of presidentially
mandated prices based upon the whims of foreign governments. President Trump
gets so much right, Americans for Limited Government implores him to reconsider
this mistake.”
Yates says Comey had the FBI ambush Michael Flynn in the White House ‘unilaterally,’ was unaware Steele sub-source folded on Trump-Russia allegations in Jan. 2017
By Robert Romano
“I didn’t authorize that interview because I wasn’t told about it in advance… I was upset that Director Comey didn’t coordinate that with us and acted unilaterally.”
That was former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, telling Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in Aug. 5 testimony that former FBI Director James Comey did not clear with the Justice Department his plan to send FBI agents to interrogate then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017 four days after President Donald Trump was sworn into office.
“Did Comey go rogue?” Senator Graham asked Yates.
“You could use that term, yes,” Yates responded, explaining later in her testimony, “Director Comey was part of the Department of Justice and I expect him to tell me about that…”
Comey kept the then-Acting Attorney General Yates in the dark about something that by all accounts was a serious breach of protocol — an attempt to entrap the President’s top foreign policy advisor to take out the President. The agents questioned Flynn on what turns out were routine discussions with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak during the presidential transition.
Yates was apparently also in the dark about the FBI’s separate Jan. 24, 2017 interview of the primary source used by former British spy Christopher Steele in drafting the dossier falsely alleging President Donald Trump was a Russian agent and that the Trump campaign knowingly assisted Russia in hacking the Democratic National Committee and putting its emails on Wikileaks.
The source ended up contradicting Steele’s allegations in the Jan. 2017 interview, leaving the FBI with no real witnesses of Trump’s supposed treason. According to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’ Dec. 2019 report on FISA abuses in the Trump-Russia probe, “the Primary Sub-source made statements during his/her January 2017 FBI interview that were inconsistent with multiple sections of the Steele reports, including some that were relied upon in the FISA applications. Among other things, regarding the allegations attributed to Person 1, the Primary Sub-source’s account of these communications, if true, was not consistent with and, in fact, contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’…”
But Yates was apparently never informed of the sub-source interview, and told Graham she did not learn about the inconsistencies in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) applications until she read the Horowitz report almost three years later.
Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017 by President Trump. She signed the FISA warrant applications against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016 and Jan. 12, 2017, which gave the FBI unprecedented access to the campaign, the presidential transition and finally the Trump administration’s phone calls, text message, emails and other documents.
As the top Justice Department official who signed the FISA warrant applications, more than anyone she was responsible for the spying on the Trump campaign. In questioning from Sen. Lee she remarkably claimed she didn’t know the DNC and Hillary Clinton campaign had paid for the Steele dossier even though the warrant applications intimated “The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign.”
She told Graham had she known then what she knows now, she wouldn’t have signed the FISA warrant applications: “if I had known that it contained incorrect information, I certainly wouldn’t have signed it.”
Yates added, “I believe the Department of Justice and the FBI have a duty of candor with the FISA court that was not met… I know that now based on the Horowitz report” which she said she “certainly was shocked” by.
Both of these Jan. 24 interviews by the FBI of Flynn and Steele’s primary source were of critical importance not only to the investigation, but of the Justice Department’s position in the executive branch under President Trump.
The FBI under Comey was carrying on a top secret investigation of the White House that not even the Acting Attorney General was fully aware of, and then when the investigation turned up exculpatory evidence calling the whole enterprise into question, the Acting Attorney General was not briefed. Nor was the Justice Department was fully advised. And then the exculpatory evidence was hidden from the FISA court as the department went on to request two more FISA warrant renewals on April 7, 2017 and June 29, 2017.
Comey would go on to later excuse himself for not disclosing the Steele sub-source interview, telling Fox News’ Chris Wallace, telling Fox News’ Chris Wallace on Dec. 15, 2019: “that doesn’t drive a conclusion that Steele’s reporting is bunk. I mean, there’s a number of tricky things to that. First, you’re interviewing the sub-source after all of the reporting has become public. And so, as a counterintelligence investigator, you have to think, ‘Is he walking away from it because it’s now public?’… This is when it blew up, when it was published by whatever the outfit is — BuzzFeed. It was all over the news and had become a big deal.”
But Comey says he didn’t know either that Steele had been contradicted by the primary sub-source: “As the director, you’re not kept informed on the details of an investigation. So, no, in general, I didn’t know what they’d learned from the sub-source. I didn’t know the particulars of the investigation.”
Taken at face value, even as unbelievable as it appears, if both Yates and Comey are telling the truth, then neither of them knew the Justice Department’s case against Trump had fallen apart four days into his presidency based on the Steele sub-source interview, and neither did the FISA court.
This wasn’t an investigation of gang members or the mob. They were investigating the President of the United States, for crying out loud. If true, then the agents under Comey’s command had gone rogue and were covering up vital information — as unbelievable as that sounds.
Probable cause under the Fourth Amendment is a joke. Nobody responsible for overseeing the surveillance of U.S. citizens or even the President verifies the most important allegations. Not the Justice Department. Not the FBI. And not the FISA court.
At least if Yates or Comey knew about the exculpatory information but simply declined out of corruption to tell the FISA court, that’s corruption that could potentially be charged. But if the overseers themselves were unaware of the details of an investigation into the President, then the system itself is broke.
If true, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is supposed to assist the President in his duties to combat enemies of the U.S. foreign and domestic with the gathering of intelligence, should be abolished immediately.
It offers no protection not even to the President from rogue agents motivated by politics or power in their attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2016 election with false allegations of treason and subvert the will of the American people. The apple has fallen very far from the tree of liberty — and it is rotten to the core.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
Video: Trump is right. Why are we outsourcing national security w/ production of the F-35 stealth fighter?
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXjeCcX_5jo
Socialism is theft and Marxist regimes like Venezuela and China need to be held accountable
By Rick Manning
Socialism is theft. At their very core, these Marxists believe that they have a right to take the property of others and make it their own without even bothering to compensate the rightful owner in any way. Thieves, looters, mobsters and some government officials, like Venezuelan dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, make it a habit of demanding protection money under the threat of taking a person or company’s property at the point of a gun.
In the case of the Las Cristinas gold mine, refusing to pay bribes to local officials resulted in then dictator Hugo Chavez confiscating the mine in 2011. This, after Cristallex, the mine owner had invested more than $500 million into the local economy building infrastructure and other projects. What did Cristallex and its shareholders get for this half a billion dollar community improvement expenditure?
They got their property stolen at the point of a gun, a Venezuelan government gun.
Cristallex took its case to court with cases going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court which refused to take up an appeal by Venezuela’s leader Juan Guaido, the man who the U.S. government recognizes as the legitimate leader of Venezuela over the dictator Maduro. The Supreme Court failed to even choose to hear the Venezuelan appeal disputing a lower court’s finding that the mining company be made whole through liquidation of U.S. based assets of the Venezuelan government owned oil company — Citgo.
Very few presidents in recent history have been as strong of defenders of property rights as President Donald Trump, and holding Marxist regimes like Venezuela accountable for their unlawful seizure of property, like the Las Cristinas mine, is necessary to stop future illegal takings.
For those who don’t remember, President Trump has forced China to at least accept on paper the concept of Intellectual property in the Phase One trade deal. Whether they will is another matter, as China had already agreed to and then subsequently failed to protect intellectual and other property rights when they entered the World Trade Organization in 2001.
About a decade later, New Jersey Representative Chris Smith, the Chairman of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China began a hearing ten years after China entering the WTO questioning whether China has kept its promises when entering that body with a scathing statement taking the rogue Maoist-Marxist nation to task for abuses of human rights and property rights where he said, “China's record of protection of intellectual property rights, a fundamental WTO obligation, is abysmal. Infringement of our companies' intellectual property [IP] leads to lost sales to China from the United States and other countries, lost royalty payments, and damaged reputations, and presents a risk to consumers here and in China of unwittingly buying counterfeit pharmaceuticals or unsafe, fake products.”
The truth is that private property rights, intellectual or otherwise, are counter to the DNA of a socialist-communist regime which believes that everything belongs to the state. So China’s continuing abuses of property rights over the past two decades are not surprising.
And until President Trump was elected, no U.S. president was willing to hold Marxist governments like China and Venezuela accountable.
This is why it is so critical for the President to direct the Treasury and State Departments to enforce the federal court rulings to convert Venezuelan government owned Citgo assets as compensation for those who poured half a billion dollars into building out the area around the Las Cristinas mine, along with other costs associated with the mine operations, only to have it stolen.
If State and Treasury refuse to carry out the federal court decisions to make the owners of Las Cristinas mine whole, it sends a clear message to China, Venezuela and every other communist regime in the world, that the U.S. is not really serious about protecting private property rights and they can continue business as usual.
Everyone who has been paying attention knows about President Trump’s battles with the swamp. He has been completely unafraid to assert his control over the administrative state as the elected leader of our great country and they have chafed at the new hand at the wheel. Now, he needs to show Venezuela, China and indeed the world, that the United States will hold countries which nationalize private property accountable. Through a simple action involving Venezuela, the President can send a powerful message to China that this time, they’d better keep their property rights promise, or else there will be consequences.
The truth, which our President understands better than anyone, is that private property rights are the building blocks of prosperity, and without them, eventually capital does not flow to grow an economy. In a very short while, Venezuela has slipped from one of South America’s largest and most vigorous economic success stories to a place where its formerly prosperous citizens are reduced to eating their pets to avoid starvation.
Time has run out for Maduro and his out of control government. The time has come for America to lay down a marker that there is a new Sheriff in town, by following the rule of law and enforcing the federal court rulings allowing Venezuelan government owned Citgo assets to be sold to meet the debt their Marxist government created through their thefts of foreign owned property. It is time to hold Venezuela accountable, by making those who they had their property stolen whole and enforcing the U.S. court order
If the U.S. State and Treasury Department’s fail, they will set the principle of property rights, and indeed, freedom back a generation as other Marxist regimes will declare that private property is fair game.
Socialism and Marxism are robbery and its time for the robbers to pay the piper.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: http://dailytorch.com/2020/08/socialism-is-theft-and-marxist-regimes-like-venezuela-and-china-need-to-be-held-accountable/
Americans for Limited Government announces ad campaign opposing President Trump’s proposed drug pricing Executive Order
Aug. 5, Fairfax,Va.—Americans for Limited Government will be taking to the airwaves opposing President Trump’s proposed Executive Order tying U.S. drug prices to those dictated by foreign socialist governments.
The $2.2 million dollar first phase cable TV ad buy starts on August 6th focusing upon Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement regarding the TV ad buy:
“No one has been a bigger fan of President Donald Trump than I have been. I have repeatedly defended him against repeated attacks from never Trump ne’er-do-wells, and will continue to do so. But the issue of socialized medicine and the ramifications of the President’s proposed Executive Order are too serious to ignore.
“It is my firm hope that the President will reconsider this draconian step. Drug prices are a symptom of a deeper problem related to the high cost of bringing medicines to market ($2.6 billion according to the latest Tufts University study) and the length of time it takes to bring those treatments to market.
“The ad is respectful but extremely firm in making people aware of the danger of presidentially mandated prices based upon the whims of foreign governments.
“President Trump gets so much right, Americans for Limited Government implores him to reconsider this mistake.”
