Hope springs eternal
During Obama’s presidency there was a series of revelations that made the right imagine that someone was going to be indicted or impeached or that the presidency would be declared invalid. It didn’t start with Obama’s presidency and it didn’t start with Republicans, but it certainly was prominent during the Obama administration.
Some reasons given for the impeachments or indictments or invalidations (I’ll leave out birtherism, which was only supported by a minority of the GOP) were Benghazi and the turning of the IRS into a political weapon. But they weren’t the only ones. I recall a succession of revelations (or promised revelations) and sequential hopes, all of which came to naught.
Trump hasn’t been in office nearly as long as Obama, but the anti-Trumpers have been busy with their own hopes, and they’ve been bitterly disappointed so far. But with all the ongoing investigations, hope springs eternal. There is very little doubt in the minds of the entire “Resistance” (in this case, they even give themselves a noble name) that Trump is guilty of many many crimes. And if not crimes, then he’s insane, stupid, or senile, or some combination of the three. At any rate, he must be removed from office for those reasons. Unlike during the Obama administration, the press is now on the “Resistance” side.
The so-called Steele dossier has been the focus of some of those anti-Trump hopes. But at the moment, the dossier appears to be the focus of the right’s hopes to indict someone in the Obama administration and the Democrats, based on a recent report to the House. Here’s a description:
A growing number of Republicans are demanding the release of a classified report that they say reveals political bias at the FBI and Department of Justice in the investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling
Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) spearheaded the effort this week to allow lawmakers to view a top-secret report compiled by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.).
Scores of Republicans have since viewed the document in a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility on Capitol Hill. They left expressing shock, saying the special counsel investigation into whether Trump’s campaign officials had improper contacts with Russia is based on politically motivated actions at the highest level of law enforcement.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) called the memo “shocking.”
“I’m here to tell all of a America tonight that I’m shocked to read exactly what has taken place,” Meadows (R-N.C.) said in a speech on the House floor.
“I thought it could never happen in a country that loves freedom and democracy like this country. It is time that we become transparent with all of this, and I’m calling on our leadership to make this available so all Americans can judge for themselves.”
Meadows and his allies asked GOP leaders in the House to declassify the report as part of a short-term spending bill the House passed late Thursday night. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he wanted to follow House rules on the matter and deferred to Nunes and the Intelligence Committee.
All over the internet you can read speculation about what the repercussions could be (see this and this, for example). There is also the question of what they should be.
But then there’s the question of what they will be. I admit that, particularly after the relative lack of repercussions for the use of the IRS to harm political opponents during the Obama administration, an abuse of power if there ever was one, I have my doubts that any revelations of wrongdoing by Democrats—even of extreme wrongdoing—will lead to serious punishment or widespread and bipartisan outrage.
Now, if what’s contained in the memo proves to be not all that much, that won’t matter. But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that no matter what the memo reveals, nothing will come of it.
That’s a pretty jaded position for me to take, but prior experience points to it. Of course, if something about the history of the Steele dossier and how it was used during the election were to end up boomeranging against the Democrats, it would be richly ironic, since it was meant to take down Trump. It just may have been the dirty trick that outdid that of tricky Dick.
And so (you probably knew I was going to say this)—we’ll see.
[NOTE: I am inordinately pleased with the rhyme the dirty trick that outdid that of tricky Dick.]
[ADDENDUM: See also this by Jonathan Turley.]
I think it highly unlikely that either the DOJ or the GOPe will support criminal charges against former Obama administration officials. At best forced resignations of a very few will occur.
There’s an unwillingness to go after the Left by too many who claim to be on the Right and so the Left will keep pushing until the only remaining corrective is, as Clausewitz observed… “the continuation of politics by other means…”
President Obama is completely innocent and free of any wrongdoings, and this made up dossier scandal clearly was manufactured by the republican party as a distraction to divert the public attention away from the on going investigation of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign in the 2016 presidential election.
As a registered democrat, i am calling for the congress to release the memo in its entirety as this is the only way to prove president Obama’s innocence
My bet is that fellas currently in office will be canned.
( FBI, DoJ )
Trump will do the canning.
All he needs is justification.
The memo is a GOP document.
So you can bet the Democrats will howl.
I’m with Neo on this. Even if the Dems were caught roasting babies and eating them, the MSM would ask who’s supplying the the wine? Even if they were DACA babies, there would be some excuse for no action. That’s why they continue to work at this high level of corruption: there’s absolute no accountability, and they know it!
This will be ignored by the mainstream media and if forced to mention it they will emphasize over and over that it is a GOP produced document.
And, oh yeah, it’s racist too.
And Islamaphobic, too.
And anti-woman.
“….Obama’s innocence.”
LMAO
I’m not at all surprised, just increasingly disgusted.
Sean Hannity (for all his shortcomings) has been all over this stuff every evening, with Laura Ingraham (*no* shortcomings, I’m in love!) a close second. I agree with both of them that the mischief involved dwarfs those of the Watergate revelations.
Yet even Drudge hasn’t seen fit to play these scandals up anything like Hannity or Ingraham have, that I can perceive.
It’s not surprising that the mainstream media have studiously ignored this entire sordid mess: birds fly, fish swim, and mainstreamers blithely ignore. It’s simply what they *do*.
I’d love to see what (if anything possible) it takes to drag all this stuff into the sunlight. I am very discouraged thus far, because like neo, and quoting her, “I have my doubts that *any* revelations of wrongdoing by Democrats – even of extreme wrongdoing – will lead to serious punishment or widespread and bipartisan outrage.” Outrage tends to be something to be nurtured and fomented by the communications media, and they have been virtually wholly a.w.o.l. on this stuff — and we here at neo’s place know very well exactly why.
The reason nothing or very little will be done to the likes of Comey, Lynch, McCabe, Stzok, Page, Ohr, Rhodes, Power, and even Obama is that they believe that what they have done was a patriotic service to the country. Not one of them can ever accept the results of the election because……..they know best. Should any of them be convicted of civil crimes, they will go to prison believing they are martyrs and the MSM will canonize them as such.
We are at a point where it is acceptable among the progressives to criminalize the politics of their opponents. With that principle uppermost in their minds, they see no reason to follow the law as they strive to overturn the election results.
I take a small objection to your omitting “birtherism” from your list of “reasons given for the impeachments or indictments or invalidations,” since it was just as worthy of any other charge against Obama — because Barack Hussein Obama started the meme himself, in the publicity for his autobiography. (Please don’t tell me the publicist made it up herself; anyone who has had a book published will confirm that the publisher does not make up the blurb — they ask the author to submit a short bio which they use in publicity and the blurb. Should we not believe our illustrious always-truth-telling President himself?
I have generally stayed above the howls of the birther brigade, but truthfully, the bio raises high suspicion that Obama was either born outside the US, and claimed otherwise when the time came that being a US citizen was important, or – perhaps more likely – he is a US citizen who lied to colleges about being a foreign student, when that suited his purposes.
Let me get this straight.
We have a top-secret document compiled by Devin Nunes of all people.
Republicans, who control the House, not to mention Senate, White House, DOJ, and FBI are demanding its release because it incriminates Obama.
But despite all the levers of power being on the side that stands to gain if its released, it hasn’t been released.
It hasn’t been released for the same reason the FISA warrant that Trump would have us believe implicates Obama hasn’t been released. It’s bullshit….after all Trump could declassify the warrant himself.
It’s Birtherism, Seth Rich, Uranium all over again…you guys are being played.
“you guys are being played.”
We got it a long time ago, manju. We know how much smarter you are than the rest of us.
“… he [Obama] is a US citizen who lied to colleges about being a foreign student, when that suited his purposes.”
I agree with this. It’s hard to get around the birth notice in the local newspaper. Obama played up his “foreignness” early in his career to get publicity for himself, e. g. claiming he ate dog meat in Indonesia, then backpedaled later when he needed to seem more American. One of a great many deceptions about and from him.
Re: Obama lied about being a foreign student.
So I did a quick google search and found some Snopes entries:
Verdict: FALSE
Verdict: FALSE
Now the very guy who peddled this bullshit is trying to tell you that the election was rigged (against him), that Obama wiretapped him, and the resason nothing comes of this is because that the FBI and Deep State is out to get him.
All this, including Birtherism, just happens to align with Russian efforts to undermine faith in out democracy.
You guys are being played.
Note to Manju:
I know it is inconceivable but just consider that “Snopes” may have an agenda and viewpoint to push.
Oh, I forgot you are too smart to be played. You probably confirmed the Snopes assessment on Wikipedia.
Played indeed.
Ah Manju, Manju, Manju, you try so hard!
How sweet of you to enlighten “us guys” on how we’re “being played.”
Those who believe that Obama got financial aid for being a foreign student (I’m not one of them, by the way, and I would guess that most of the commenters here are not, either) do not necessarily believe there’s evidence of that. The latter is what Snopes debunks.
From what I’ve read about those who believe the foreign student story, for the most part they believe it not because there’s evidence but because of the failure of Obama to release his transcripts. They believe there’s something that’s being hidden, and that’s one of the theories about what’s being hidden.
As far as the contents of the memo goes, did you even read the post [emphasis mine]?
Of course the memo might be a big nothing, as I noted there. But it might not. It would be nice to see it (or some redacted form of it, since it contains sensitive information) and find out. But (as I said in the post), even if it contains something that implicates the Obama administration, I don’t think anything will come of that.
“You guys are being played.”
Inventory this, genius:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070403190001/http://www.dystel.com/clientlist.html
This is a web archive from *2007* showing Obama’s publisher with a short bio saying he was born in Kenya. It was corrected shortly thereafter.
Before you resume your smarmy little game note that I do not claim he was born abroad, only that he played up his foreign origins as long as it suited his purposes. Just one small (or not-so-small) example of his fundamental dishonesty.
A good article on this that also questions whether it was a “mistake” made without Obama’s knowledge, also pointing out that the sainted, beyond reproach Hillary Clinton tried using “birtherism” in the 2008 primaries.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/09/obama_was_the_original_birther.html
Trum used the Birther card against Ted Cruz, saying he wasn’t eligible as a US citizen. Interesting move, that I think won him some Demoncrat votes out in in lalaland.
Verdict: Manju is playing here.
Republicans are demanding the release of this memo.
Who wrote the memo? Devin Nunes and his team of Republican assistants.
Who decides to release it? Devin Nunes and President Trump, according to the linked article above.
The very same people who played the same stunt a few months back. The White House provided material to Nunes who promptly claimed it contained shocking info about Obama abuses. Where did that go? Nowhere.
So here we are again.
It’s like Walter Duranty writing a memo that proves the Ukrainian Famine never happened. The Communist Party demands the release of this memo. But somehow Walter Duranty and Joseph Stalin can’t seem to make this happen. So they blame the CIA.
Manju:
I have a novel suggestion for you: why don’t you wait and see before you come to a conclusion about it?
As I said, there may be nothing important in it, or there may be something. But (and I repeat myself) whether it’s nothing or something, I doubt anything much will happen as a result.
That is rich, Manju writing about Duranty and the Holodomor as an analogy to Obama FISA-gate and the Republicans in Congress. Did Manju intend it as self parody or an “own goal?”
Recent news indicate that the Republicans may declassify and release the entire thing in 19 working days (late February). If that happens what will Manju say then? Let me guess, “but Trump, but Trump.”
We will see.
“Manju:
I have a novel suggestion for you: why don’t you wait and see before you come to a conclusion about it?”
He is a troll, that is what he does.
Powerline has an update:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/that-explosive-house-intel-committee-document-an-update.php
We shall see.