Pranksters On Parade

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Let’s not pretend that RussiaGate was ever anything but a “treasonous conspiracy” and a “years’ long coup” as bluntly labeled by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Friday. The election prank launched by Hillary Clinton’s campaign turned into an overt sedition op led by President Barack Obama to overthrow his elected successor, Donald Trump. DNI Tulsi Gabbard went even further and proffered criminal referrals on all this to the US Attorney General.

If you think this is not extremely serious, you are not paying attention.

The New York Times was not paying attention in its Sunday edition. Not a word about this historic action on the paper’s website landing page. So now you know why the Harvard law professors, the Martha’s Vineyard chardonnay widows, and all the creative class hipsters of Brooklyn persist in their personal globes of political delusion. Instead, The Times dwelt on the Epstein business, still haplessly hoping to catch the Golden Golem in its golem trap. (Mr. Trump’s lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize committee for rewarding the Time’s RussiaGate coverage is still pending, by the way.)

Meanwhile, DNI Gabbard went on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday confab and warned of more info releases coming this week. Sooner or later AG Pam Bondi will have to announce that a case based on that referral is under construction. My guess is that this is exactly what Kash Patel’s FBI has been preoccupied with for months with no leaking — you can imagine severe penalties against that. You might also note that there are no higher crimes under our law than treason, as explicitly spelled out in the DNI report.

The DNI also stated flatly on Sunday, “There must be indictments.”

If you think DNI Gabbard went forward without consulting some crack constitutional lawyers, you’ll be disappointed.

And also meanwhile, Deputy AG Todd Blanche has applied for release of the sealed grand jury transcripts on the 2019 Epstein case from the DOJ’s Manhattan outpost (SDNY). And consider: all that info was completely segregated from the Epstein files that former FBI Director Christopher Wray controlled for years and years, meaning it was not subject to editing and manipulation. You may finally get to see the difference between the “hoax” elements of the story and the actual evidence.

The Russian meddling and collusion story might have seemed like “a thing” to many in the early January days of 2017 before Mr. Trump’s first inauguration. But when they went after the newly appointed National Security Advisor, General Mike Flynn, for having a conversation with the Russian ambassador, you had had to know that something sketchy was afoot. As this blog asked at the time: why are ambassadors from foreign lands here, if not to speak with our government officials? The story was preposterous but, of course, the news media helped run Gen. Flynn out of office and then led the cheering for the DOJ’s malicious prosecution of him afterward in Judge Emmet G. Sullivan’s DC district court.

You also have to wonder if anyone in the news media might be subject to indictment above and beyond the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of the press. Is there a line between that and acting as an accessory to treason? What did New York Times editor (at the time) Dean Baquet think he was doing, publishing all that patent garbage? Or the producers of CNN and other network news?

The DNI called these activities a “treasonous conspiracy” for a reason. A conspiracy charge that encompasses a skein of persons in a continuous series of crimes extends the statute of limitations to the latest criminal act for all involved. You might also wonder how wide a net the DOJ could cast. Will it include such obvious players as Senator Mark Warner, who schemed to play along on RussiaGate as Vice-chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence? Or then-Congressman Adam Schiff on the House Intel Committee when, for years, he pretended to have “proof” of (i.e., lied about) Trump-Russia collusion? Or FBI Director Wray, who hid evidence, might have tampered with evidence, and apparently lied to Congress about many of these connected matters? Or Andrew Weissmann, who virtually ran the phony Mueller Investigation as a RussiaGate cover-up op because Robert Mueller was mentally infirm? Or Lawfare Ninjas Marc Elias, Norm Eisen, and Mary McCord who appear liable for 2020 election hackery and the Jan 6 “insurrection” op (including the House J6 Committee fakery afterward) along with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? Or former AG William Barr, who sat on the Hunter Biden laptop during Trump Impeachment No. 1, when the device was stuffed with exculpatory evidence withheld from Mr. Trump’s lawyers? Or CIA agent Eric Ciaramella, Lt. Col Alex Vindman, and Intel Inspector General Michael Atkinson, who conspired with Rep. Adam Schiff on the “Ukraine phone call” operation that was the basis of impeachment No. 1? Or DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who botched his investigation (on purpose?) of FISA court criminal irregularities, or Judge James Boasberg who presided over those criminal irregularities and issued many of them? Or Special Counsel John Durham who took years to overlook the salient elements of the RussiaGate coup? Or many other figures involved one way or another. . . McCabe, Stzrok, Page, Pientka, Thibault, Baker, Rice, Yates, Rummler, Halper, Pompeo, Haines, Bruce and Nellie Ohr. . . .

Are they all rounded-up and sent to court together, like a Nuremberg proceding? Or do they get their own separate cases? Or will the DOJ only go after the top dogs: Obama, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey?

Finally, consider this: demonizing Vladimir Putin set the stage for the Ukraine War — which was initially kicked off in 2014 under President Obama and his State Department / CIA group led by Victoria Nuland orchestrating the Maidan revolt.

The official disclosures now by the DNI should make it clear that Mr. Putin did not deserve the treatment he got for years on end, and that the overall effect of it has been catastrophic for world peace.

Half the people in the USA still believing all the manufactured bullshit about Mr. Putin has made it extremely difficult for President Trump to end the war in Ukraine that has killed millions.

RussiaGate had the gravest consequences, and now there can be consequences for the merry pranksters who started it and kept it going, one way or another, for a decade.