The TRUMP POTUS "Tribute" & "Tribulations" of the Politically Incorrect....!

A fierce partisan battle over the Justice Department and its role in the Russia investigation moves into its second week Monday as Democrats try to persuade the House Intelligence Committee to release a 10-page rebuttal to a controversial Republican memo alleging surveillance abuse.

The panel's top Democrat, Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), is expected to offer a motion to release his party's response to the Republican document during a committee meeting scheduled for Monday at 5 p.m. It was not immediately clear whether Republicans would join Democrats in voting for the document's release, as some members of the GOP have expressed concerns about its contents.
Speaking Sunday on ABC News, Schiff called the GOP memo a "political hit job on the FBI in service of the president."
Stewart, arguing that the two are "very separate" issues, said Mueller should be allowed to finish his work. "This memo, frankly, has nothing at all to do with the special counsel," he told "Fox News Sunday."
The four Republicans walked a careful line on the GOP document, which alleges that the Justice Department abused its powers by obtaining a warrant for surveillance of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page using information from a source who was biased against Trump. Their comments echoed those of Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who supported the memo's release but insists its findings do not impugn Mueller or Rosenstein.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), whose actions have been at the center of the debate over the memo, did not participate in interviews Sunday.
It remained unclear Sunday whether Trump would use the document as a pretext to fire senior Justice Department officials, a decision that could trigger a constitutional crisis, according to Democrats. Trump had advocated the memo's release, telling advisers it could help him, in part by undercutting Mueller's investigation and opening the door to firings.
Trump tweeted Sunday that while "the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on," the Republican memo "totally vindicates" him.
"Their [sic] was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!" he wrotefrom Florida, where he spent the weekend.
The four-page GOP memo accused current and former senior Justice Department officials of omitting key facts about former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the source of some of their information, in applications to carry out surveillance on Page. Steele wrote the now-infamous dossier alleging ties between Trump and Kremlin officials; his research was paid for by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Republicans say this funding stream should have been disclosed in the surveillance applications, which they argue would not have been approved without the information contained in the dossier. Democrats take issue with both points.
Nunes said Friday that Justice "got a warrant on someone in the Trump campaign using opposition research paid for by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign."
"That's what this is about," he told Fox News. "And it's wrong. And it should never be done."
If the House Intelligence Committee approves the release of the Democratic memo, it is expected to go to the Justice Department for redactions. Even if the motion succeeds, Trump has five days to block it.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged the president to support the document's release in the spirit of fairness.
"A refusal to release the Schiff memo . . . will confirm the American people's worst fears that the release of Chairman Nunes' memo was only intended to undermine Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation," Schumer wrote Sunday in a letter to Trump.
The Intelligence Committee voted along party lines last week to release the Republican memo despite warnings from national security officials that it would damage U.S. law enforcement.
As Sunday's back-and-forth set the stage for more heated debate in the coming week, Republicans faced questions over whether Trump might fire Mueller or Rosenstein.
Reince Priebus, the former White House chief of staff, said Sunday that he "never felt that the president was going to fire the special counsel," disputing a report in The Washington Post that he was "incredibly concerned" Trump was moving to fire Mueller last summer.
"I never heard that," Priebus said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Pressed on whether he was aware of the president's views on the issue, Priebus said Trump was "clear" about what he saw as Mueller's conflicts of interest in the job and allowed that others may have "interpreted that" as Trump's desire to fire Mueller.
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that he would urge Trump not to fire Rosenstein.
"I would tell the president, if I was in his presence, 'Do not fire him [Rosenstein]," he said. "He'll be fair and impartial. You may be upset about the politicization of what happened, but I don't think it came from him. Give him a chance to sort this out with the rest of the department.' "
Scaramucci also said he hopes Trump decides not to testify before Mueller in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
"I actually don't want him to testify because as a lawyer, I don't want him caught in a 'gotcha' moment where someone accuses him of lying, where he may not remember something . . . I would say, 'Sir, there's no reason to testify. Let the thing unfold the way it is.'
"The goal here really isn't to find out the answers from the FBI. The goal here is to undermine the FBI, discredit the FBI, discredit the [special counsel] investigation, do the president's bidding," Schiff told This Week.
Democrats spent the weekend pushing back against the claim by President Trump and some Republicans that corruption has poisoned the investigation led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III into possible coordination between Trump associates and the Kremlin during the 2016 election. Democrats and some Republicans worry that this view, buttressed by the GOP memo, will lead Trump to fire Mueller or Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who oversees the Russia probe.

Calling on Trump not to interfere in Mueller's investigation, four Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee dismissed on Sunday the idea that the memo's criticism of how the FBI handled certain surveillance applications undermines the special counsel's work. Reps. Trey Gowdy (S.C.), Chris Stewart (Utah), Will Hurd (Texas) and Brad Wenstrup (Ohio) represented the committee on the morning political talk shows.

Gowdy, who helped draft the memo, said Trump should not fire Rosenstein and rejected the idea that the document has a bearing on the investigation.
"I actually don't think it has any impact on the Russia probe," Gowdy, who also chairs the House Oversight Committee, said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

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WASHINGTON SECRETS
You're fired: Trump to rid 'worst' federal workers, automatic raises, fat bennies
by Paul Bedard | Feb 9, 2018, 7:01 AM
President Trump plans to take the huge federal Civil Service off cruise control, ending automatic pay increases that go to 99.7 percent of the workforce, trimming fat benefit packages, and for the “worst,” rolling out his trademark phrase from The Apprentice, “You’re fired!”

In his budget, set for release Monday, his administration is planning the biggest reform to the federal workforce in decades, using models from Amazon, Google, and a handful of well-operating agencies.

Officials said the overall goal is to bring the 1950s-styled Civil Service into the digital age, introduce automation, reward “the best” with bonuses, make it easier to hire and fire, and provide “flexibility” by moving employees where they are needed and even rehiring skilled retirees.

Gone would be the automatic reward of pay “step” increases of 3 percent to 5 percent which 99.7 percent of workers get, regardless of their performance. Also targeted, said the officials, are annual reviews that now give “everybody” a grade of four or five on a scale of five. And benefits, now 47 percent higher than in the private workforce, according to a congressional report, will be trimmed.

“This is a subject that essentially people have ignored,” said a top Trump budget official at a background briefing. “The American people elected a president that promised dramatic change.”

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump called for a smaller, more efficient federal government and he repeated that in his State of the Union Address. "Tonight, I call on the Congress to empower every cabinet secretary with the authority to reward good workers and to remove federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people," he said.

Reforms have been introduced in the past but opposition from the biggest workforce in the country often puts up a good fight. This time, officials stressed that there is bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for the needed legal changes to make the reforms, backing by federal unions and even encouragement in agencies who feel bad workers are rewarded and good ones are ignored.

The proposed changes are part of a broader effort to modernize the government and integrate the types of innovation that the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is drafting.

The officials, speaking on background, did not say how large or small they expect the bureaucracy to be after the three-year reform effort, but it was clear that many workers in jobs that private industry has automated will be out.

And it was also clear that the workforce will be younger, mobile and more tech-savvy. Several times the officials noted that the Civil Services was created at a time when secretarial help was key and now higher-educated IT employees are needed.

“We’re 18 years into the digital millennium. We need to look at a different way,” said a budget official.

Among the changes proposed:

Creation of a bonus pool to reward good employees.
An end to so-called “step increases,” pay hikes of 3 percent to 5 percent that 99.7 percent of federal workers get even if they are poor performers.
Changes to the overall pay package, with a focus on generous retirement benefits, that align federal pay to the private world.
Retraining of employees.
Redeploying workers where they are needed.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com

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Hillary Clinton’s Fingerprints Are All Over The FBI’s Investigation Into Trump’s Russia Ties
Her campaign's is linked to at least three separate pieces of information fed to the FBI, including the dossier the FBI used as a pretext to spy on a Trump campaign associate.

By Rachel Stoltzfoos
FEBRUARY 10, 2018

A significant part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s basis for investigating the Trump campaign’s Russia ties is looking more and more like a political hit job carried out by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Her campaign’s fingerprints are on at least three separate pieces of information fed to the FBI, including the Christopher Steele dossier Republicans say formed the basis of a secret warrant obtained to spy on Trump campaign associate Carter Page.

A former State Department official confirmed on the record Thursday that Clinton associates were funneling information to Steele as he was compiling a dossier commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign and DNC. That’s on top of the recent revelation that a top Department of Justice official fed the FBI information compiled by his wife, who was working for the firm Clinton and the DNC were paying to dig up dirt on Trump, Fusion GPS.

The dossier was quoted “extensively” in the FBI’s application to obtain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign, according to a memo released by Republicans on the House intelligence committee. In a January letter to the FBI made public this week, two Senate Republicans also said Steele’s information formed a “significant portion” of the warrant application.

“It is troubling enough that the Clinton Campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility,” Sens. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, and Lindsey Graham wrote in the letter referring Steele to the FBI for a criminal investigation.

Taken together, here’s what we know so far about the extent of Clinton’s involvement in the FBI’s case.

1. Clinton ally Sidney Blumenthal funneled information to the FBI through a contact at the State Department.

In an account published by The Washington Post, former State Department official Jonathan Winer describes how research compiled by a Clinton ally made its way into his hands and then to the FBI. Winer was in charge of combating transnational organized crime at the State Department under Bill Clinton in the 1990s, and returned under the Obama administration to work on international law enforcement. Between his two gigs, he became friends with Steele, who as a result began feeding information to the State Department, and tipped Winer off in Sept. 2016 to the Trump dossier he was compiling.

That same month, Winer met Blumenthal, who provided him with notes on Trump and Russia compiled by another Clinton insider, Cody Shearer. “What struck me was how some of the material echoed Steele’s but appeared to involve different sources,” Winer writes in The Washington Post. He decided to show the notes to Steele, who told him the information could be used to corroborate his dossier. Steele walked away with a copy of the notes, which he provided to the FBI.

Shearer and Blumenthal, known respectively as “Mr. Fixer” and “Vicious Sid” in Clinton world, are staunch allies of the Clintons. Winer notes he didn’t know whether the information Blumenthal fed him was accurate, but says he fed it to Steel anyway because he was “alarmed at Russia’s role in the 2016 election.”

Grassley and Graham express concern in their criminal referral that Steele was “vulnerable to manipulation” while compiling his dossier on Trump, as he has admitted to meeting with at least four different news outlets during that time (in violation of an agreement he had with the FBI), and indicated he received unsolicited and unverified tips on Trump and included them in his dossier. “Simply put, the more people who contemporaneously knew that Mr. Steele was compiling his dossier, the more likely it was vulnerable to manipulation,” they wrote in their letter.

Of course, the Clinton network knew to some extent about the dossier, since Hillary’s campaign and the DNC had commissioned and funded the effort through Fusion GPS. Whether Blumenthal was planting bogus information to manipulate Steele or passing along what he regarded as a legitimate tip is unclear, but it’s certainly not a good look.

Regardless, this second unverified and unsolicited dossier made its way to the FBI thanks to the Clinton camp.

2. Steele was at that same time compiling a dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

As noted, Steele was already well into work on a dossier paid for by the Clinton campaign and DNC regarding Trump’s Russia ties when Winer approached him. Perkins Coie, a law firm representing the Clinton campaign and the DNC, had hired Fusion GPS to dig up opposition research on Trump prior to the election. Fusion in turn employed Steele, a former British spy, to compile the dossier. His work was entirely funded by Democrats.

The FBI was never able to verify the salacious claims in Steele’s dossier, so relied heavily on his reputation to infuse the document with credibility before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, according to the Republican memo and criminal referral. The bureau continued to vouch for him before the court in subsequent applications to renew the warrant, even after learning he was “desperate” to stop Trump from getting elected, had broken the bureau’s trust by dishing to the press in one case, and potentially lied to the bureau outright in several other instances — a criminal offense. The court learned none of this, and continued to grant the FBI permission to spy on a U.S. citizen based in part on Steele’s research.

3. A top DOJ official fed the FBI research on Trump from his wife also paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC.

The third piece of information provided to the FBI in connection with Clinton allies is research compiled by the wife of former senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, who worked closely with Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and her replacement, Rod Rosenstein. Ohr was also a friend of Steele.

Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to help compile opposition research on Trump. According to the Republican memo, Ohr eventually turned over all of the information she compiled — while working ultimately for the Clinton campaign and the DNC — to the FBI. It’s unclear whether this information made it into the FISA applications, but it’s one more example of evidence received by the FBI that can be traced back to the Clinton campaign.

According to the Republican memo, the FISA court was never informed of the Ohr’s connections to Fusion GPS and Steele.

In sum: To obtain a warrant to spy on a Trump campaign associate, the FBI relied heavily on a dossier that was never substantiated, put together by a former spy “desperate” to stop Trump. That dossier was paid for by powerful Democrats on Trump’s rival campaign, who also paid for opposition research the FBI received from a powerful couple inside President Obama’s DOJ. Separately, two Clinton allies worked together to funnel a second unsubstantiated dossier to the FBI through the State Department.

Rachel Stoltzfoos is managing editor of The Federalist. Follow Rachel on Twitter.

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Jack@European_Parts said:

America's infrastructure is falling apart — here's a look at how bad things have gotten

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...-bad-things-have-gotten/ss-AAo9gwx?ocid=ientp

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President Trump finally revealed his $1.5 trillion plan to repair America's crumbling infrastructure on Monday.

His proposal doesn't include extensive federal funding to states to help rebuild failing highways, bridges, airports, and water systems. Instead, Trump wants states and local government to provide the bulk of the funding.

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Washington Post said:

4 things we learned from the indictment of 13 Russians in the Mueller investigation
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...mueller-investigation/?utm_term=.1c675fb930e0

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Uwe said:

So let me get this straight: Mueller indicted a bunch of Russians for saying mean things about Hillary?

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Jack@European_Parts said:

Hey Don,

So when do you think that people will wake up and realize that they been played by very wealthy promotional tactics & to only make media coverage by bifurcation of the country to do it?
Doesn't matter the polarized side right, because those advertising dollars come in from all sides?

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Jack@European_Parts said:

Hmmmmm AR-15 it's the gun?
Yet people forget Colorado Columbine don't they & that those kids not only committed suicide but were prepared with improvised munitions such as pipe bombs?

Really what has to happen is maybe learn to treat people nicer and not bully each other right?

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Jack@European_Parts said:

That is a serious contribution to it and in my opinion a vicarious result of pharma cartel, using to abuse the affordable care act or Medicaid/Medicare to implement.

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Jack@European_Parts said:

Really what has to happen is maybe learn to treat people nicer and not bully each other right?
When you really piss people off and no matter the age, it creates a mechanism where one may strike back right?

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