By: Roger Aronoff | Gulag Bound

Do they really not get it? Do the liberals, leftists, Democrats, and establishment mainstream media (obviously a lot of overlap among those four entities) really not see that there was a plot, a plan, a conspiracy – call it what you will – by the highest levels of the Obama administration, to spy on, electronically surveil, plant informants, and ultimately crush and defeat the Trump presidential campaign, and then the Trump presidency?

Can they really look at the Horowitz Report from December of last year and not believe that the “17 significant errors” made during presentations to the FISA Court were actually corrupt acts meant to deceive the judges on the court? For example, changing a document to say that Carter Page was a Russian asset when they knew that he was a CIA asset so that they could order surveillance on him. For example, using the Steele Dossier and Christopher Steele, who had been fired by the FBI as a “confidential human source.” In addition, “Steele played a ‘central and essential role’ in obtaining the FISA authorizations and was represented to the court as ‘a reliable source’ even though his own handler warned Comey and McCabe that Steele was not reliable and was uncorroborated and that his principal sub-source was ‘a boaster, egoist . . . [who] embellishes,’ according to Steele himself. Yet the source was asserted to the FISA Court to be ‘truthful and cooperative.’”

Can they not see that Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was cleared by the FBI of having done anything wrong in his talks with the Russian ambassador, before deciding to re-open the case, and then setting him up during a January 24 White House meeting to try to get him to say something that they could eventually indict him for? And that his guilty plea for giving false statements to the FBI didn’t mean that he was admitting to have committed a crime, but rather it was a settlement agreed to that kept Flynn’s son from being indicted, and kept him from going completely broke?

Do they not recognize the double standard, and that Andrew McCabe walked free after lying to the FBI, and that Comey, Brennan, and Clapper lied to the FISA Court and to Congress so they could carry out their plan to bring down Trump, who, much to their surprise, defeated Hillary Clinton in November?

If they didn’t know from two-and-a-half years ago that Barack Obama was, at the very least, kept informed from the outset, as memorialized in Lisa Page’s September 2, 2016 text to her lover and fellow FBI conspirator Peter Strzok that “POTUS wants to know everything we’re doing,” then surely they know now that the notes from the January 5, 2017 meeting in the White House have been released, showing a plan underway to get Flynn. Don’t forget that Strzok wrote about an “insurance policy” in case Trump happened to win. What could that have been referring to?

In addition, the recent release of the transcripts from the House Intelligence Committee reveals that many key figures in the Obama administration knew early on that there was no evidence that Trump conspired or colluded with the Russians to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. But until those transcripts were finally released this [May}, they and their allies in Congress and the media lied and claimed that evidence exists proving that Trump had coordinated with Russia. Robert Mueller couldn’t find such evidence, and he knew it long before he reported it. Adam Schiff was still claiming “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.” Those key Obama administration figures include James Clapper, Ben Rhodes, John Brennan, Loretta Lynch, Samantha Power, and of course, Rep. Adam Schiff.

What about that January 5, 2017, White House meeting in which Obama made clear that he knew about the investigation of Michael Flynn, and was fine with withholding information from the incoming Trump administration since he was so carefully doing it all “by the book,” as Susan Rice wrote to herself on Trump’s inauguration day. Joe Biden was at that meeting, and he was one of the people who unmasked Michael Flynn. What did he know and when did he know it?

The fact that our media are so corrupt is apparent and has been for many years. We understand that they hate Trump at CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the broadcast news networks. Will any of them have people on their network to explain all of these issues, and examine them in an honest, open way? I conclude that the answer is no. To them, these stories don’t even deserve to be examined, because, of course, they are all “conspiracy theories based on no evidence.” They basically share the view of the woman who wrote in The New York Times that “I believe Tara Reade. I’m voting for Joe Biden anyway.” They must know the truth, but it doesn’t change their politics or their reporting. Orange man bad. Anything goes in the effort to help the Democrats win back the White House and Senate.

They are far more concerned with defeating Trump than they are with practicing real, honest, journalism. The New York Times’ Jim Rutenberg made that clear back during the 2016 election. He suggested that “reporters could abandon their objectivity and engage in ‘oppositional’ journalism because then-candidate Donald Trump was ‘an abnormal and potentially dangerous candidate.’” He gave reporters permission.

Who among them is willing to stand up and admit they were wrong, and walk away from the lies? Who will put honesty and “equal justice under the law” above party loyalty? You, Chuck Todd? You, Wolf Blitzer? You, Andrea Mitchell? You, Brian Williams? You, George Stephanopoulos? We’ll be waiting, but not expecting much. The reality is that it comes down to John Durham, the prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Barr to look into the origins of the Russian collusion investigation. Durham apparently has a grand jury and loads of evidence of corruption. The question is, can he, will he, put together the facts in such a way as to result in indictments for some of the key participants in this conspiracy.

Obama cabinet 2015


Roger Aronoff is the executive director and editor of the Citizens Commission on National Security. Aronoff founded the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi. He has produced and directed six documentaries, and produced a weekly series on PBS called “Think Tank with Ben Wattenberg.”