Posted on 08/27/2019 8:05:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
I interviewed Andrew McCarthy about his new book, "Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency," because it is a critically important read for thoughtful people.
"This is a story about hubris," is how it begins. Thoughtful people know that for all our grand monuments carved of granite and marble, a republic is an extremely fragile thing. Especially now, as a cynical establishment seeks restoration, as establishment Kemalist bureaucrats run for cover, and as the divisions in our nation widen and public discourse sounds like rival packs of angry barking dogs.
And in a few weeks, sooner perhaps, the dogs will begin barking even louder upon release of Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report on his investigation of possible Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses by the Justice Department and the FBI as they looked into Donald Trump and Russia. It all starts with hubris.
"This is why people who start out with the best of intentions to protect the country get to the point where they forget what the country is about," McCarthy said on my podcast, "The Chicago Way."
And what America is about, in part, he said, is this: "A self-determining people that has a government that is supposed to serve the people."
He added: "The turnaround here is that high officials think they are a government that happens to have people associated with it, but they are the ones who know what's best for the country."
Certainly, Citizen Barack Obama understood how federal power could be abused as he lectured on the Constitution at the University of Chicago, not too far from where Chicago plans to build him a great temple.
But did President Obama worry about this when he convened that secret White House meeting on Jan. 5, 2017, just as Trump was about to take control?
John Brennan of Obama's CIA was at that meeting. And Vice President Joe Biden. James Comey, then of the FBI, was there, as were national security adviser Susan Rice (who lied for the Obama White House about the Benghazi disaster) and other intelligence bosses.
Weeks later, on Jan. 20, some 20 minutes after Trump was sworn in as president, Rice was still in the White House, about to leave. But first she wrote a curious email memorializing that Jan. 5 meeting.
She said Obama insisted that everything they were doing was done "by the book." Who talks like that, unless it's someone covering their behinds?
You certainly don't need to say that someone reminded us all that we have to do everything by the book if you've been doing things by the book for the past eight years," McCarthy told me. "You don't have to tell people who are 'by the book' people to do things by the book."
The real collusion was that the Obama administration put the awesome powers of the federal government -- law enforcement and intelligence -- at the service of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
The scheme to get Clinton elected had two parts, McCarthy argues. The first was to shield former Secretary of State Clinton from disqualifying and potentially criminal allegations that she violated federal law by having a private unsecured email server and later destroyed the evidence.
And, as an insurance policy, the other part of the scheme was to portray Trump as an agent of Russia's Vladimir Putin.
"Ball of Collusion" is a detailed, connect-the-dots read. McCarthy, a former top federal prosecutor in New York, knows the workings of the CIA and the Department of Justice.
It looks to me like a Chicago Way takedown. In the old days, boss mayors would call in trusted detectives -- even those on the payroll of the Chicago mob -- and ask for dirt on opponents, which would be leaked to friendly local scribes.
Just as the Steele dossier, paid for by Clinton, was leaked to CNN and BuzzFeed. "They (FBI, DOJ, CIA bosses) did not believe that Donald Trump was fit to be president," McCarthy told me. "Now there are a lot of things you can say about Donald Trump, good and bad. But ultimately, the way this system works, is that we have elections. We don't have the FBI and CIA as a check on the public.
"What happened here is that they decided their judgment about who was fit to be president was superior to the public's, and they weren't going to take the public's determination for an answer," McCarthy said. And when Trump won, and they were going to be found out, they panicked. Some readers, who'd like nothing better than to jeer at my sightless head on a pike, keep making a mistake in thinking that I'm a Trump guy because I'm not of the left.
But I was for Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky in 2016. Why? I loathed the Clintons. And I thought Paul, unlike Trump, had the temperament to be president. And Paul talked constantly and in glowing terms about the Constitution.
The republic is what I care about. And the only way to keep it is through the Constitution.
The framers truly understood human nature, the temptations that come with holding awesome federal power, and the problems with factions and blind partisanship. They understood what would happen if a people lost faith in their institutions, if those institutions were shaped, in grotesque partisan fashion, to serve only the elite, now often called the best and the brightest.
Benjamin Franklin was walking outside the Constitutional Convention of 1787 when he was asked, "Well, Doctor, what have we got -- a republic or a monarchy?"
"A republic," replied Franklin, "if you can keep it."
If no one at the DOJ, FBI, CIA ate prosecuted this is for naught.
So they all got carried away with good intentions and this was not about greed and lust after $$$ and power. /sarc
If no one at the DOJ, FBI, CIA ate prosecuted this is for naught.
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Listen to DiGenova. Toward the end of the interview he says in essence that Barr is going to indict the agencies, not prosecute the perpetrators.
And the band played on...
Maybe....but I’m going to cling to the prophecies: Obunga and a slew of gubmint bigshots who were part of, or accessories to the treachery will go to prison, or worse. At least 3 Supremes will go to prison, or worse. U.S. Marshalls will make the arrests. And when the left gets riotous, Martial Law will probably be declared for a period. MAGA
I don’t think this will happen but it would be fun to watch the libtards gain a “new appreciation” for The Second Amendment.
We like to think that everyone is equal under the law, but that is a myth we choose to believe. Obama, Clinton(s), et al are as above the law as any renaissance aristocrat.
to not be equal under the law by the powers to be could have “unintended consequences”( see novel by John Ross) if the scales of justice are out of balance, someone will have to balance them...first choice/chance, is Barr, should he fail, balancing them will fall to others not so restrained by politics, rules regulations and laws. Living with two sets of justice is not compatible with free people. It may soon be time (or is it past time?) to march on Washington and present our grievances.
I hope DS & DS media realizes they are on the precipice of of great awakening and drastic consequences by the public at large. CNN hiring McCabe is an in your face act of defiance to the whole nation. Failure of DOJ to prosecute McCabe NOW would signal acquiescence to the DS and media....I see the media doesn't like having their records and tweets shoved back at them, apparently they are too self centered and narcissistic to realize that might be the least of their problems..
If Barr won’t prosecute then class action lawsuits need to fly to hold these people accountable for their grotesque violation of American citizens’ constitutional rights, including the rights of Donald Trump.
How about holding people accountable for obstruction of justice related to allowing Hillary Clinton to skate?
If Barr won’t prosecute then class action lawsuits need to fly to hold these people accountable for their grotesque violation of American citizens’ constitutional rights, including the rights of Donald Trump.
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I agree. Completely.
If they are not prosecuted it will establish, beyond any doubt, that we have a two tiered legal system. The blindfold should then be removed from Lady Justice since impartiality before the law is clearly a farce and a falsehood.
I would also say that we are not quite as free as we think we are...The Deep State, Media, Entertainment, Academia, Education - Iron Wall has made the Dem Party nearly like the Politburo in power wielded.
I fully expect kinetic responses if there are not many indictments, starting with Squirrely McCabe.
I fully expect kinetic responses if there are not many indictments
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There may be a couple of indictments (that probably won’t result in anything) but most of the perps will never be held accountable. That is just the way things work in Washington.
Bear in mind that one of the main reasons why there is great reluctance to prosecute anyone is an underlying, deep seated fear inside of DC of what they or their friends might reveal about others when facing prosecution. In other words, nobody in DC wants to see the SHTF because they might get hit with the splatter.
Let’s face it, we live in a kleptocracy. The Swamp has been a corrupt and rotten miasma for a long time and will continue to be so.
I think we’ll have to settle for seeing most of the plot revealed along with the names of those who “violated their public trust”. There may be some organizational changes in the agencies implicated in the plot but it will be mostly in the form of “new management controls”. But that will basically be the extent of it.
You make an excellent rationalization.
However, if this come to fruition, I see little hope of a future for our Republic.
It’s all up to Barr now. In a very real sense the fate of our republic rests on his shoulders. That is an unsettling reality. Moreover, we know there are still powerful forces inside the DOJ, FBI and intelligence community that are continuing to stonewall and thwart his investigation.
This is without a doubt the greatest and most alarming political scandal in our country’s history. It will be an extraordinary and unprecedented act of personal courage if Barr takes on the Deep State and prosecutes those in the traitorous cabal with a vengeance.
The esteemed Joe DiGenova does not, however, see this happening. Nor do I foresee Barr ‘rolling up’ the perps in some dragnet fashion. But I will be the first to (happily) admit that I was wrong if he does.
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