FYI I just took a look at the Wikipedia articles on this subject. The people on the talk pages are in total denial. "It's all disinformation" is their cry. Technically, they point out that Wikipedia uses secondary sources, and so they can't do anything until other reports, mainly MSM and academics, respond to Gabbard's release. I won't hold my breath.
Another reason to quickly sweat the truth out of the conspirators.
Wikipedia is good only for it's footnotes. When I am researching something Wikipedia is helpful for uncovering potential sources of information, but that's it.
It's fairly good on technical subjects, and yes the footnotes are good. Current events are atrocious. The only reason I looked this subject up was curiosity. One article labels Gabbard's work as a conspiracy theory. It is going to take a serious DOJ effort to overturn this, and we only have about a year to do it.
....been waiting for one of these charlatans to be arrested since the mid nineties. Always seems ~ "this time we got' em". I've come to the point I just let it float 🍁🍂 on past and hope one day to see them in cuffs, but not really expecting it to happen.
The ideal is always that the guilty will be hauled away in shackles.
The reality is never so cut and dried. The law is messy and clumsy and usually inelegant.
What I would like to see is people realize that we are the ones who make our votes count. We are the ones who keep reelecting the same corruptocrats on both sides of the aisle, and we are the ones who can stop reelecting them.
I want to see people realize that the jury box is not a substitute for the ballot box.
If Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns show us anything at all it is that the establishment does not have the control they think they have, or that they have persuaded us they have.
Nov 6, 2016 to Jan 21, 2017 I believe Obama is untouchable. All he has to say is ‘based on classified information which cannot be divulged I believed Trump and Putin were heavily involved’. End of story. HOWEVER….after Jan 21, 2017? He was a private citizen. If he ran a backdoor coup against Trump then he has no Presidential immunity. All actions taken after Jan 21, 2017 are indictable. IMO.
Donald Trump is the final arbiter of what is and is not “classified”. Even if Obama claimed the material could not be made public, he cannot refuse to disclose it to the Trump Administration, which can then reveal it.
Nor is it likely he had such information. Remember, Tulsi Gabbard has established that just prior to Obama ordering up an ICA to spec, the intelligence community was of the opinion that Trump and Putin were not BFFs. The intelligence community knew the Steele Dossier was garbage.
Obama could not have had any actionable intelligence which the intelligence agencies did not have, because they were his source for all intelligence.
Presidential immunity vis-a-vis Trump v United States makes a direct indictment of Obama difficult, but an impeachment conviction would likely overcome that obstacle--and if the Democrats circle the wagons around Obama 2026 could prove a replay of 2024, which was as much a rejection of the Democrats as it was an embracing of Donald Trump.
I agree. He knew all along. I am saying if it went to court he could say ‘despite all of this I believed….and I therefore made the decisions I did’. He could make up ‘other’ conversations etc. But I don’t believe after inauguration he has any presumed immunity. And I don’t believe he wasn’t fully involved.
Except he knew the Steele Dossier was phony. He might claim to have believed Trump was in cahoots with Putin, but that does not justify lying and ordering his intelligence chiefs to lie.
An impeachment conviction would be a powerful argument against the immunity defense. By definition an impeachment conviction means the conduct in question is misconduct, and therefore cannot be official conduct.
A bit tangential, but an essay about the Democratic Party’s insanity that you may find interesting, Peter. Ringer is a libertarian/Constitutional conservative I’ve read since the 70s:
“How will Democrats appear to the American electorate if they support the use of blatant lies and known falsehoods to construct a hoax narrative specifically targeting a sitting US President? What would be the political fallout to the Democratic Party from taking such a stance?”
The Democratic Party is now at a crossroads. If they do not stand up for truth and for serious examination of the political wrongdoing that have obviously been rampant within their ranks for several years, they will be taken over by the extremists and nut cases that are now ascendant. THAT will be the political fallout! Communists, Socialists, and extremists of all sorts will render the Democratic Party a “fringe” party. The rise to power of Mandami in NYC is an example and a frightening warning.
Have you followed what happened within the (corrupt) Democratic Party of Minneapolis on Friday? In a contested vote - the electronic voting apparatus failed, and the tech support guy “coincidentally” had a medical emergency at that precise point - a Somali socialist won the Party’s official endorsement. This has alarmed the entrenched Old Guard of the Party, and Mayor Frey has vowed that he will run anyway. But it shows the crossroads of the Democrats: they must return to a centralist position or be tossed out of power by extremists.
It’s now or never, Democratic Party. To paraphrase a line from “The Shawshank Redemption”, “Get busy living (right), or get busy dying”.
Peter, I am generally not in favor of prosecutions here. They will be too distracting from the serious issues at hand (not that I'm dismissing this coup as unserious, I'm not). They will drag out for too long.
What I would like to see is Brennan, Clapper, and Comey told that they can avoid prosecution on the condition they turn state's evidence. Sweeten the deal with the promise of pardons. Get the truth out of them, then move on to Powers, Rice et al. If everyone ends up pointing at Obama to avoid bankruptcy it will be a good thing. Do it quickly.
I think the investigation needs to also look at FISA Judge Boasberg and corporate media. I doubt anything criminal will be discovered with the media, but their credulity and lack of ethics needs official exposure. As for Boasberg, Comey will either have to admit he lied to Boasberg or else state Boasberg was in on it.
This is another reason why the impeachment process makes sense.
During an impeachment inquiry regarding Barack Obama, all the players can be subpoenaed, and, if necessary, given immunity in return for their testimony.
Everything gets put out in the public record, and each Congressman and Senator ultimately has to decide where their political interests lie.
It might not result in prosecution and prison sentences but it would be one way to get full disclosure of everything.
The impeachment process is fundamentally broken. It died when the Democrats blew their opportunity to put Gore in the Oval Office - just think of how different our history would have been with the Clintons sent packing. It died again during the first Trump impeachment, which was just another facet of the coup. It died again with the partisanship at the second Trump impeachment; IMO he deserved it, but now I thank God for the partisanship. We would need to recover real bipartisanship to think seriously about using impeachment again.
I really don't want to see Congress tied up over someone who is out of office, and I think a lot of people would agree. A video of Comey saying Obama directed him to render false testimony to the FISA court is enough for me.
Wow, Peter. Several Substacks have addressed this political bombshell in the past few days, but your essay, with its comprehensive and insightful analysis, is the best by far! I’m imagining a Supreme Court Justice reading this and being blown away, thinking that your writings put theirs to shame, and being a little bit alarmed that a Substack analyst could be so much better than they could ever hope to be. Seriously, Peter - I can’t gush enough. You are off-the-charts GREAT!
Okay, the Trump administration, via the DOJ, now has TWO Constitution-level scandals to pursue, with plenty of evidence to result in multiple convictions. They could bring down several top-level Biden-administration players because of the Auto-pen malfeasance. AND Gabbard now shows that there is evidence to torpedo members of Obama’s administration, too. We’re talking impeachment, sedition, and potentially MASSIVE damage to the Democratic Party.
Because these are Watergate-level scandals, with Constitutional implications, to fully pursue either of these matters would take years, and require the expenditure of enormous amounts of political capital. Peter, do you think that legally pursuing BOTH issues is realistically feasible for the Trump administration? I think it’s a tall order - but Trump has just effectively negotiated the end to three armed conflicts in the world, so he’s shown that he can indeed tackle the big challenges. What do you think - will Trump fight to the finish in both of these political battles?
Tulsi Gabbard's document reveal underscores the extent to which the Democrats operate without any effective limits or boundaries. Like small children what they want they attempt to take, rule of law be damned.
Can the Department of Justice pursue both Russiagate and the autopen scandal simultaneously? Yes.
What could prove more politically effective, however, is for the House of Representatives to commence impeachment inquiries for both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. Not only would that create a venue for public disclosure and discussion of all the corrupt practices of the Democratic Party, but it puts the Congressional Democrats in the position of having to defend that conduct.
Put Democrats in the position of either doing the right thing and going against the party leadership, or going along with the corruption and risk the voters' wrath next election cycle.
I should clarify: they are “assessments”, more than just opinions. You are so good at assessing whether a move is legally feasible and politically wise that I truly wish you could be advising in the White House. Our country would benefit, Peter!
I’d like to see Mike Flynn and Carter Paige bring civil suits for defamation.
FYI I just took a look at the Wikipedia articles on this subject. The people on the talk pages are in total denial. "It's all disinformation" is their cry. Technically, they point out that Wikipedia uses secondary sources, and so they can't do anything until other reports, mainly MSM and academics, respond to Gabbard's release. I won't hold my breath.
Another reason to quickly sweat the truth out of the conspirators.
The one source I will never cite is Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is good only for it's footnotes. When I am researching something Wikipedia is helpful for uncovering potential sources of information, but that's it.
It's fairly good on technical subjects, and yes the footnotes are good. Current events are atrocious. The only reason I looked this subject up was curiosity. One article labels Gabbard's work as a conspiracy theory. It is going to take a serious DOJ effort to overturn this, and we only have about a year to do it.
WJC, HRC, BHO.....
....been waiting for one of these charlatans to be arrested since the mid nineties. Always seems ~ "this time we got' em". I've come to the point I just let it float 🍁🍂 on past and hope one day to see them in cuffs, but not really expecting it to happen.
The ideal is always that the guilty will be hauled away in shackles.
The reality is never so cut and dried. The law is messy and clumsy and usually inelegant.
What I would like to see is people realize that we are the ones who make our votes count. We are the ones who keep reelecting the same corruptocrats on both sides of the aisle, and we are the ones who can stop reelecting them.
I want to see people realize that the jury box is not a substitute for the ballot box.
If Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns show us anything at all it is that the establishment does not have the control they think they have, or that they have persuaded us they have.
Nov 6, 2016 to Jan 21, 2017 I believe Obama is untouchable. All he has to say is ‘based on classified information which cannot be divulged I believed Trump and Putin were heavily involved’. End of story. HOWEVER….after Jan 21, 2017? He was a private citizen. If he ran a backdoor coup against Trump then he has no Presidential immunity. All actions taken after Jan 21, 2017 are indictable. IMO.
Actually, Obama cannot say that.
Donald Trump is the final arbiter of what is and is not “classified”. Even if Obama claimed the material could not be made public, he cannot refuse to disclose it to the Trump Administration, which can then reveal it.
Nor is it likely he had such information. Remember, Tulsi Gabbard has established that just prior to Obama ordering up an ICA to spec, the intelligence community was of the opinion that Trump and Putin were not BFFs. The intelligence community knew the Steele Dossier was garbage.
Obama could not have had any actionable intelligence which the intelligence agencies did not have, because they were his source for all intelligence.
Presidential immunity vis-a-vis Trump v United States makes a direct indictment of Obama difficult, but an impeachment conviction would likely overcome that obstacle--and if the Democrats circle the wagons around Obama 2026 could prove a replay of 2024, which was as much a rejection of the Democrats as it was an embracing of Donald Trump.
I agree. He knew all along. I am saying if it went to court he could say ‘despite all of this I believed….and I therefore made the decisions I did’. He could make up ‘other’ conversations etc. But I don’t believe after inauguration he has any presumed immunity. And I don’t believe he wasn’t fully involved.
Except he knew the Steele Dossier was phony. He might claim to have believed Trump was in cahoots with Putin, but that does not justify lying and ordering his intelligence chiefs to lie.
I know it is bad. I am
Thinking of the blanket immunity SCOTUS gave to all
presidents for anything in their mandate. Would it include lying to America?
This is why I say impeach him.
An impeachment conviction would be a powerful argument against the immunity defense. By definition an impeachment conviction means the conduct in question is misconduct, and therefore cannot be official conduct.
That needs 60 Senators though.
A bit tangential, but an essay about the Democratic Party’s insanity that you may find interesting, Peter. Ringer is a libertarian/Constitutional conservative I’ve read since the 70s:
https://robertringer.com/coalition-of-the-unhappy/?goal=0_491af21cbc-ec7b051eff-81735517&mc_cid=ec7b051eff&mc_eid=e2228a07c7
I post Ringer’s essay because of your paragraph:
“How will Democrats appear to the American electorate if they support the use of blatant lies and known falsehoods to construct a hoax narrative specifically targeting a sitting US President? What would be the political fallout to the Democratic Party from taking such a stance?”
The Democratic Party is now at a crossroads. If they do not stand up for truth and for serious examination of the political wrongdoing that have obviously been rampant within their ranks for several years, they will be taken over by the extremists and nut cases that are now ascendant. THAT will be the political fallout! Communists, Socialists, and extremists of all sorts will render the Democratic Party a “fringe” party. The rise to power of Mandami in NYC is an example and a frightening warning.
Have you followed what happened within the (corrupt) Democratic Party of Minneapolis on Friday? In a contested vote - the electronic voting apparatus failed, and the tech support guy “coincidentally” had a medical emergency at that precise point - a Somali socialist won the Party’s official endorsement. This has alarmed the entrenched Old Guard of the Party, and Mayor Frey has vowed that he will run anyway. But it shows the crossroads of the Democrats: they must return to a centralist position or be tossed out of power by extremists.
It’s now or never, Democratic Party. To paraphrase a line from “The Shawshank Redemption”, “Get busy living (right), or get busy dying”.
Peter, I am generally not in favor of prosecutions here. They will be too distracting from the serious issues at hand (not that I'm dismissing this coup as unserious, I'm not). They will drag out for too long.
What I would like to see is Brennan, Clapper, and Comey told that they can avoid prosecution on the condition they turn state's evidence. Sweeten the deal with the promise of pardons. Get the truth out of them, then move on to Powers, Rice et al. If everyone ends up pointing at Obama to avoid bankruptcy it will be a good thing. Do it quickly.
I think the investigation needs to also look at FISA Judge Boasberg and corporate media. I doubt anything criminal will be discovered with the media, but their credulity and lack of ethics needs official exposure. As for Boasberg, Comey will either have to admit he lied to Boasberg or else state Boasberg was in on it.
This is another reason why the impeachment process makes sense.
During an impeachment inquiry regarding Barack Obama, all the players can be subpoenaed, and, if necessary, given immunity in return for their testimony.
Everything gets put out in the public record, and each Congressman and Senator ultimately has to decide where their political interests lie.
It might not result in prosecution and prison sentences but it would be one way to get full disclosure of everything.
The impeachment process is fundamentally broken. It died when the Democrats blew their opportunity to put Gore in the Oval Office - just think of how different our history would have been with the Clintons sent packing. It died again during the first Trump impeachment, which was just another facet of the coup. It died again with the partisanship at the second Trump impeachment; IMO he deserved it, but now I thank God for the partisanship. We would need to recover real bipartisanship to think seriously about using impeachment again.
I really don't want to see Congress tied up over someone who is out of office, and I think a lot of people would agree. A video of Comey saying Obama directed him to render false testimony to the FISA court is enough for me.
If you don't want prosecutions and you don't want impeachment there isn't any other process available.
Sure. I want prosecutions IF the guilty parties won't publicly admit their wrongdoing.
Wow, Peter. Several Substacks have addressed this political bombshell in the past few days, but your essay, with its comprehensive and insightful analysis, is the best by far! I’m imagining a Supreme Court Justice reading this and being blown away, thinking that your writings put theirs to shame, and being a little bit alarmed that a Substack analyst could be so much better than they could ever hope to be. Seriously, Peter - I can’t gush enough. You are off-the-charts GREAT!
Okay, the Trump administration, via the DOJ, now has TWO Constitution-level scandals to pursue, with plenty of evidence to result in multiple convictions. They could bring down several top-level Biden-administration players because of the Auto-pen malfeasance. AND Gabbard now shows that there is evidence to torpedo members of Obama’s administration, too. We’re talking impeachment, sedition, and potentially MASSIVE damage to the Democratic Party.
Because these are Watergate-level scandals, with Constitutional implications, to fully pursue either of these matters would take years, and require the expenditure of enormous amounts of political capital. Peter, do you think that legally pursuing BOTH issues is realistically feasible for the Trump administration? I think it’s a tall order - but Trump has just effectively negotiated the end to three armed conflicts in the world, so he’s shown that he can indeed tackle the big challenges. What do you think - will Trump fight to the finish in both of these political battles?
Tulsi Gabbard's document reveal underscores the extent to which the Democrats operate without any effective limits or boundaries. Like small children what they want they attempt to take, rule of law be damned.
Can the Department of Justice pursue both Russiagate and the autopen scandal simultaneously? Yes.
What could prove more politically effective, however, is for the House of Representatives to commence impeachment inquiries for both Barack Obama and Kamala Harris. Not only would that create a venue for public disclosure and discussion of all the corrupt practices of the Democratic Party, but it puts the Congressional Democrats in the position of having to defend that conduct.
Put Democrats in the position of either doing the right thing and going against the party leadership, or going along with the corruption and risk the voters' wrath next election cycle.
Your intelligence, knowledge, and political wisdom are why I’m always asking for your opinion, Peter. Yours is an opinion worth hearing!
I should clarify: they are “assessments”, more than just opinions. You are so good at assessing whether a move is legally feasible and politically wise that I truly wish you could be advising in the White House. Our country would benefit, Peter!
I’m praying this isn’t just another testify before a committee and then crickets.
Recall that Harry Trueman thought the FBI was becoming a Gestapo.