The Big Trump Administration Mistake That Led to Impeachment

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There were literally thousands of qualified Trump-supporters eager to join his administration, yet those responsible for personnel decisions decided to retain Obama employees or hire NeverTrumps, who, collectively, either resisted or actively undermined Trump and his America First agenda.

The consequences of that neglect are now playing out in the Senate impeachment trial.

In his shocking article “Whistleblower Was Overheard in ’17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump,” Paul Sperry describes a plot hatched by Obama holdovers and Democrat partisans in the White House National Security Council (NSC) to remove President Trump from office.

According to Sperry, after a staff-wide meeting called by then–national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, NSC co-workers Eric Ciaramella and Sean Misko, both Obama holdovers, were overheard talking about toppling Flynn and Trump.

Ciaramella said, “We need to take him out,” and Misko replied, “Yeah, we need to do everything we can to take out the president.”

That incident wasn’t the only time the pair exhibited open hostility toward the president. During the following months, both were accused of leaking negative information about Trump to the media.

Ciaramella has been unofficially identified as the “whistleblower” of the leaked Trump July 25, 2019 conversation with Ukraine’s president that provided the pretext for impeachment.

Sperry states that former NSC co-workers and congressional sources identified Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who held Ciaramella’s old position at the NSC, as the Democrat partisan who leaked the information to Ciaramella on July 26.

The same day, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff hired Misko to head up the investigation of Trump.

Sperry also identifies another Schiff recruit believed to be part of the clandestine political operation against Trump. It is Abby Grace, who also worked closely with Ciaramella at the NSC, both before and after Trump was elected. During the Obama administration, Grace was an assistant to Obama national security aide Ben Rhodes.

It is disturbing to say the least that such opponents of the administration remained in high positions well into Trump’s tenure.

What is far more disturbing is that no action was taken against Ciaramella and Misko when their comments at the Flynn meeting were reported, or the fact that many possessing questionable loyalty remain in the Trump administration.

For example, why is James H. Baker, an Obama appointee, still director of the Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon?

The October 24, 2019 court filing by the defense attorneys for General Flynn alleges that Baker leaked to the press copies of the transcripts from Flynn’s December 2016 telephone calls to then–Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Baker had regularly scheduled lunches with The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, who published an article about the calls in January 2017.

Over four years, the Office of Net Assessment paid alleged FBI informant Stefan Halper, linked both to the Flynn case and the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, over $1 million for research papers of dubious value.

Trump-supporters have every right to be angry, both those who applied to serve in his administration but were ignored and those who see the agenda for which they voted sabotaged by partisan moles. (For more from the author of “The Big Trump Administration Mistake That Led to Impeachment” please click HERE)

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Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel; trained in Arabic and Kurdish; an I.T. command and control and cyber-security subject matter expert; and a veteran of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. He receives email at [email protected] and can be followed on Twitter at @LawrenceSellin.

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GOP Rep.: Adam Schiff Communication With Ukraine Whistleblower Is the ‘Only Cover-Up’

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By Washington Examiner. Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows claimed on Thursday that House impeachment manager Adam Schiff and his fellow Democrats orchestrated the “only cover-up” in the impeachment process.

Democrats have been accusing Republicans of staging a “cover-up” over the last week, and Rep. Jerry Nadler went so far as to accuse them of that on the Senate floor.

“I see a lot of senators voting for a cover-up, voting to deny witnesses, an absolutely indefensible vote, obviously a treacherous vote,” Nadler said late Wednesday night.

“The House impeachment managers are actually not only making false statements, but they’re intentionally misleading the American people,” Meadows told Fox News.

“We are going to continue to hear allegations of ‘cover-up.’ The only ‘cover-up’ that I’ve seen is actually Adam Schiff and his team’s cover-up on their coordination with the whistleblower.” (Read more from “GOP Rep.: Adam Schiff Communication With Ukraine Whistleblower Is the ‘Only Cover-Up'” HERE)

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Gregg Jarrett: Under Dems’ Trump Impeachment Justification, Lincoln Would’ve Been Impeached

By Fox News. If Rep. Adam Schiff was around in 1864, he would have orchestrated the impeachment of President Abraham Lincoln.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Schiff, D-Calif., and his confederate impeachment managers demand that President Trump be removed from office because the president did something that might advantage him politically in the upcoming election. This, they claim was an impeachable “abuse of power.” . . .

History tells us that American presidents often take actions that advantage themselves politically. Indeed, one can argue that nearly all presidential decisions have some ancillary political calculation. It is the inherent nature of politics.

I recently read historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s brilliant book “Team of Rivals.” In Chapter 24, she recounts how Republican President Lincoln utilized the powers of his office to ensure that Union soldiers in the field, who vigorously supported Lincoln’s reelection in 1864, were given the chance to cast their ballots for him. Most states permitted absentee ballots for troops. But the crucial state of Indiana did not.

So Lincoln wrote General William T. Sherman encouraging him to grant his men leave to return briefly to the northern state of Indiana. “Any thing you can safely do to let … soldiers, or any part of them, go home and vote at the State election, will be greatly in point,” wrote the president. Despite the risk that this might compromise his troop strength, Sherman consented. (Read more from “Gregg Jarrett: Under Dems’ Trump Impeachment Justification, Lincoln Would’ve Been Impeached” HERE)

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Bernie Sanders Leads Donald Trump by Widest Margin of All 2020 Candidates

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Senator Bernie Sanders leads President Donald Trump by the widest margin of all the candidates in the Democratic Party’s 2020 race when Americans are asked to choose in a face-off against the Republican incumbent, according to a poll.

SurveyUSA asked 4,069 registered voters nationwide how they would vote in an election today if Trump was pitted against each of the 2020 candidates in the Democratic race. The progressive Vermont independent came out on top.

The poll found that 52 percent of voters would choose Sanders and 43 percent Trump, giving the veteran senator a nine-point lead. Next was former vice president Joe Biden at 50 percent to Trump’s 43 percent, a seven-point lead.

Michael Bloomberg, the media and financial data billionaire, also led Trump by seven points at 49 percent to 42 percent. Democratic Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren leads Trump 48 percent to 45 percent, a three-point advantage. (Read more from “Bernie Sanders Leads Donald Trump by Widest Margin of All 2020 Candidates” HERE)

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Geraldo Rivera: Donald Trump Is a ‘Civil-Rights Leader’ (VIDEO)

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Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera on Tuesday insisted that President Donald Trump is a “civil-rights leader,” pointing to low African-American unemployment to make his case.

The morning after Martin Luther King Day, the former Celebrity Apprentice star reacted to Trump’s arrival at the economic summit in Davos, telling the hosts of Fox & Friends that he feels “awful” for the president because he’s dealing with impeachment during his trip.

“This is an economic summit, the American economy is the envy of the world,” he declared. “I call him, to great controversy, a civil-rights leader, especially yesterday on Martin Luther King Day.”

“Because why?” Rivera continued. “African American unemployment—lowest it’s ever been. Latino unemployment—lowest it’s ever been. The rising tide, the rising tide is lifting all boats, we should be celebrating, instead he’s fighting this—this, you know, cage match.”

(Read more from “Geraldo Rivera: Donald Trump Is a ‘Civil-Rights Leader’” HERE)

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Mass of Giant Sloths Died Together, and Scientists Can’t Figure out Why

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Paleontologists Dig Into a Giant Sloth Boneyard

By Scientific American. . .Fossilization is a fairly rare occurrence to start with. Most lives that ever have been lived left no record of their existence or passing. So when paleontologists come across dense pockets of bone, representing not just one animal but many, how such an ancient treasure trove was assembled is one of the core threads that we can pull on to unravel the mystery of a time long gone. So it is with a massive accumulation of sloths found in Santa Elena, Ecuador.

The site, called Tanque Loma, has just gotten a detailed description from paleontologist Emily Lindsey and colleagues. It’s a fantastically-rich Ice Age bonebed, containing the remains of at least 22 individual Eremotherium laurillardi – one of the largest of the giant ground sloths. What’s more, the bones are entombed in sediment rich in asphalt and the mashed-up plant material found at the site are the sloth’s feces, gut contents, or both. So how did so many sloths wind up buried in the same spot?

First, the asphalt is something of a red herring. This place wasn’t a sticky trap like the famous La Brea asphalt seeps in Los Angeles. Instead, the bonebed was created in a watery environment that was later infiltrated by asphalt. Digging deeper, Lindsey and coauthors write, Tanque Loma was “a low-energy, anoxic, marshy aquatic environment” that sometimes went dry for long enough to let terrestrial plants to grow there. And this backdrop may hold the key to what befell the sloths. . .

But why at this place, and why so many? There are other bonebeds near Tanque Loma, but none contain Eremotherium in such great abundance. And bonebeds like this can form in very different ways. Perhaps the sloths stuck around a dried-up watering hole too long. Maybe some local catastrophe killed a whole bunch of the sloths at once. Maybe this place took victims over time, with mud or some other trapping mechanism preventing sloth after sloth from escaping. Or perhaps ancient humans with a hunger for sloths created this site. (Read more from “Paleontologists Dig Into a Giant Sloth Boneyard” HERE)

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A Bone Bed Reveals Mass Death of Herd of Giant Ground Sloths

By Nature. . .The team found that the animals ranged from juveniles to full-grown adults, hinting that these Ice Age behemoths might have travelled in herds. The site, which has been carbon dated to roughly 18,000 to 23,000 years ago, features copious remains of the beasts’ digested food.

Ground sloths found at other fossil sites died after becoming mired in asphalt seeps. But the authors hypothesize that the Tanque Loma animals might have been gathered in a drying waterhole — as modern-day hippopotamuses do — when they perished of thirst or disease. (Read more from “A Bone Bed Reveals Mass Death of Herd of Giant Ground Sloths” HERE)

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Tulsi Gabbard Sues Hillary Clinton for Defamation

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Tulsi Gabbard said that the $50 million in damages sought in her defamation lawsuit against Hillary Clinton is not enough.

“It should have been for $50 billion,” the Hawaii congresswoman and Democratic presidential candidate said when asked how she arrived at the figure. “What is your life worth to you? What is your honor and loyalty and your identity worth to you?”

Gabbard on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Clinton, asserting that the former Secretary of State’s October 2019 comments in which she asserted that Gabbard was being groomed by Republicans to run as a third-party spoiler candidate and appeared to call her a “Russian asset” harmed Gabbard’s political ambitions. (Read more from “Tulsi Gabbard Sues Hillary Clinton for Defamation” HERE)

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DHS Started Preparing Against Iran Threats Months Ago, Acting Secretary Says; The New Iranian General to Watch

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By Daily Caller. Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said the U.S. government was well prepared for any threats from Iran because it had prepared months in advance.

Wolf visited Yuma, Arizona, earlier in January to commemorate 100 miles of border wall built since the beginning of the Trump administration. The acting DHS chief spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation about construction progress, the roadblocks to securing the border, and about the recent security threats from Iran — which is largely under the purview of DHS.

While the events earlier in January between the U.S. military and Iran appeared to catch the public by surprise, Wolf revealed that his government was able to hit the ground running to ensure the public was safe because it had been preparing since the summer.

“The nation-state of Iran and the threats that surround that are nothing new to the department, nothing new to the U.S. government generally,” Wolf told the DCNF. “We started working collaboratively within our department to come up with contingency plans for the variety of different threats. We had that on the shelf this summer, so when the events on the second took place, we took that off and started implementing those right away.” (Read more from “DHS Started Preparing Against Iran Threats Months Ago, Acting Secretary Says” HERE)

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The New Iranian General to Watch

By Politico. The U.S. killing of Gen. Qassem Soleimani earlier this month deprived Iran of one of its most singular leaders, and created new questions about Iran’s strategy of building and maintaining its power in the region. Without its charismatic and high-profile commander, would Iran be forced to retrench and pause? Or would it find new ways to lash out? . . .

This week, Iran announced a new and potentially more telling promotion: The new Quds Force deputy commander will be Gen. Muhammad Hussein-Zada Hejazi, who most recently commanded the Quds Force’s Lebanon Corps, overseeing Iran’s ties to Hezbollah and the Quds Force activities throughout the Levant more broadly.

The message behind Hejazi’s promotion is clear: Soleimani may be dead, but the Quds Force he led lives on, and is taking active measures to ensure it is able to continue pursuing the regional strategy he championed.

Forced to rebuild the proxy management and command and control mechanisms that Soleimani once ran himself by force of personality and longtime connections, Iran is developing a new strategy to oversee what Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei described as “fighters without borders.” And the strategy comes down to this: Since no one commander can replace Soleimani, Iran’s proxy network will now be run by committee, with the Quds Force cobbling together a crew of its more senior and experienced managers to collectively fill the roles Soleimani had taken on himself. Key leaders of Iranian proxy groups, especially Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, are sure to play major roles. But policymakers should pay especially close attention to personnel shifts and promotions within the Quds Force itself. (Read more from “The New Iranian General to Watch” HERE)

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Trump Administration Releases Rule to Restrict ‘Birth Tourism’

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The Trump administration on Thursday formally issued a rule allowing customs officials to deny entry to travelers whom they suspect are headed to the U.S. for the sole purpose of giving birth on American soil.

A rule issued by the State Department marks the administration’s first formal effort to cut down on the practice known as “birth tourism,” which President Trump has heavily criticized and suggested should be a reason for ending birthright citizenship.

“This rule establishes that travel to the United States with the primary purpose of obtaining U.S. citizenship for a child by giving birth in the United States is an impermissible basis for the issuance of a B nonimmigrant visa,” the statute reads.

“Consequently, a consular officer shall deny a B nonimmigrant visa to an alien who he or she has reason to believe intends to travel for this primary purpose,” it continues.

The White House said in a statement that “the birth tourism industry threatens to overburden valuable hospital resources and is rife with criminal activity, as reflected in Federal prosecutions.” (Read more from “Trump Administration Releases Rule to Restrict ‘Birth Tourism'” HERE)

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Almost Two-Thirds of Americans Will Back Candidates Who Support Abortion Bans or Restrictions

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More than half of Americans say they are more likely to favor candidates in 2020 who support abortion restrictions ranging from an outright ban up to allowing the procedure only in the first trimester, a new poll has found.

The Marist poll, which was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization, found that 65% of Americans are likely to vote for a candidate who believes abortion should be outlawed after the first three months of a pregnancy; allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother; or not permitted under any circumstance.

Twenty-five percent said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who believes abortion should be available at any point during a pregnancy, and 9% said they would back a candidate who thinks the procedure should be allowed only in the first six months of a pregnancy.

When it comes to how Americans characterize their views on abortion, 55% consider themselves pro-choice and 40% say they are pro-life. Public attitudes abortion have diverged in the last year, as a February 2019 poll found Americans were as likely to consider themselves pro-life — 47% — as they were pro-choice.

The survey also found that seven in 10 Americans support limiting abortion to the first trimester of a pregnancy. Twenty-one percent believe the procedure should be available to a woman at any point during her pregnancy. (Read more from “Almost Two-Thirds of Americans Will Back Candidates Who Support Abortion Bans or Restrictions” HERE)

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Alleged Al-Qaeda Jihadis Caught Trying to Enter U.S. With Fake Colombian Passports

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American authorities identified and apprehended three Syrian nationals accused of belonging to al-Qaeda in Dallas, Texas, from Colombia, the Colombian news agency RCN reported on Thursday, publishing images of the three individuals’ fake passports.

According to RCN, American law enforcement identified the three individuals as Al Raefee, Tuameh Tuameh, and Al Harari Al Harari. The three are believed to be in U.S. custody, soon to be charged with membership in a terrorist organization. The men appear to have entered Colombia through Venezuela, where they acquired Colombian residency paperwork, a government identification card, and a Colombian passport through an illegal documentation network.

Journalist Luis Carlos Vélez published images of the counterfeit passports on Twitter, noting that the men appeared to have crossed into Colombia through the La Guajira border crossing with Venezuela. Reports have not yet specified how the Syrians entered Venezuela or how long they had spent in the country after leaving Syria. Vélez reportedly stated that the U.S. embassy identified them as al-Qaeda terrorists when they attempted to procure U.S. visas, which does not align with the RCN report that police arrested them in Dallas. The RCN report does not note if Dallas authorities arrested them at the airport, which would suggest the men did receive U.S. visas and got onboard a flight to the country, or if they arrived by other means.

American authorities reportedly suspected criminal activity after inspecting the passports and finding several irregularities. The identification numbers on all three passports, RCN noted, did not match their birthdates. Colombian passports assign numbers to citizens based on when they were born. Although the youngest of the three men is 45 years old according to his passport, the identification number on his passport corresponded to a much more recently born person, at most 25 years old. (Read more from “Alleged Al-Qaeda Jihadis Caught Trying to Enter U.S. With Fake Colombian Passports” HERE)

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