Posts

4 Big Unanswered Questions About the ‘Unmasking’ Scandal

/0 Comments/in , , /by

As the “unmasking” scandal unfolds, the Senate Judiciary Committee will delve into the conduct of the Obama administration and the intelligence community in secretly investigating the incoming Trump administration.

Two Senate Republicans released previously secret information Wednesday listing top Obama administration officials who made the same request in early 2017: that the intelligence community disclose to them that retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was the American whose phone conversation with the Russian ambassador had been intercepted by intelligence officials.

Flynn at the time had been chosen by President-elect Donald Trump as his first national security adviser. Flynn’s “unmasking” at the request of some of outgoing President Barack Obama’s closest advisers set in motion events that led to Flynn’s resignation after only 23 days in office during the new Trump administration.

Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, both Republicans, released the names of the Obama officials requesting Flynn’s identity as part of information declassified by Richard Grenell, acting director of national intelligence.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., announced Thursday that his committee would hold hearings in June examining issues surrounding the Flynn case and related to the initial FBI investigation of possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

In a joint statement, Johnson, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Senate’s chief oversight panel, and Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said:

Our investigation of these matters has been ongoing for years, and as information finally comes to light, our focus on these issues is even more important now. The records are one step forward in an important effort to get to the bottom of what the Obama administration did during the Russia investigation and to Lt. General Flynn. We will continue to review this information and push for additional relevant disclosures until we are satisfied that the American people know the full truth.

Meanwhile, U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut continues to look into the origins of the Russia investigation, and the Justice Department has said that the Flynn unmasking requests is one part of that probe.

Here are four big unanswered questions as the Senate and the Justice Department scrutinize actions taken by the Obama administration between Trump’s election on Nov. 8, 2016, and his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017.

1. Can Obama Be Compelled to Testify?

It might well be must-see TV, but at this point it seems highly unlikely that Obama himself would be subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Trump made the demand in a tweet Thursday.

“If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama,” Trump said in the tweet. “He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!”

The previously classified documents released this week show that in the waning days of the Obama administration, these six well-known officials each submitted an unmasking request that would reveal Flynn’s otherwise protected identity under U.S. law: FBI Director James Comey, White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, Vice President Joe Biden, United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

The Justice Department’s case against Flynn for lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador largely fell apart after other documents recently surfaced. They included notes of a discussion among Comey and two other top FBI officials about whether the goal in questioning Flynn at the White House was to “get him to lie” so that he could be fired or prosecuted.

The Justice Department last week dropped the case against Flynn for misleading the FBI, but a federal judge this week called in outside authorities to dispute that action. Flynn has withdrawn his guilty plea.

Graham, in a statement Thursday, appeared to be reluctant about Trump’s call for Obama to testify.

“I am greatly concerned about the precedent that would be set by calling a former president for oversight,” Graham said. “No president is above the law. However, the presidency has executive privilege claims against other branches of government.”

Graham continued:

To say we are living in unusual times is an understatement.

We have the sitting president (Trump) accusing the former president (Obama) of being part of a treasonous conspiracy to undermine his presidency. We have the former president suggesting the current president is destroying the rule of law by dismissing the General Flynn case.

All of this is occurring during a major pandemic.

As to the Judiciary Committee, both presidents are welcome to come before the committee and share their concerns about each other. If nothing else it would make for great television. However, I have great doubts about whether it would be wise for the country.

Graham is striking the correct balance, said Charles Stimson, a senior legal fellow for national security at The Heritage Foundation.

“Chairman Graham should go after the facts, and see where that leads. He’s going to hold hearings,” Stimson told The Daily Signal on Thursday. “To take the president up on that suggestion [of calling Obama to testify] would risk looking political and could delegitimize the inquiry.”

2. What Are the Legal Issues?

Graham said the first part of his committee’s comprehensive inquiry would focus on the Flynn matter.

“Our first phase will deal with the government’s decision to dismiss the Flynn case as well as an in-depth analysis of the unmasking requests made by Obama Administration officials against General Flynn,” Graham said in his written statement. “We must determine if these requests were legitimate.”

If Obama administration officials engaged in improper conduct, it’s not clear whether a law was broken, or who violated the law if one was broken.

Under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, U.S. intelligence agencies may intercept and listen to the telephone calls of foreign citizens, including foreign officials. That would include Flynn’s call with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on Dec. 29, 2016, roughly three weeks before Trump’s inauguration.

If a foreign citizen is speaking to an American citizen on the intercepted call, the law requires the name of the American citizen to be blacked out, or masked, in documentation.

So unmasking is the process by which authorized federal officials request to see information regarding American citizens mentioned anonymously in classified transcripts of calls or other communications involving foreigners.

However, someone leaked Flynn’s communication with the Russian ambassador to the media shortly after the unmasking requests were made. Leaking classified information is a crime.

Brennan, Clapper, Comey and the others named in the documents released by Grenell were authorized to ask for the unmasking. The question is whether there was a legitimate reason to ask for the unmasking, Stimson said.

Another question, besides who leaked Flynn’s name, is whether the unmasking was an attempt by officials of the outgoing Obama administration to undermine the incoming Trump administration.

“I’m not there yet. I want to see more facts,” Stimson told The Daily Signal.

Stimson added that congressional hearings typically seem political, but could produce further lines of inquiry.

He said he is more focused on the probe by Durham, whose career has been as a “stand-up, just-the-facts-ma’am, Joe Friday type of guy.”

3. How Did FISA System Go ‘Off the Rails’?

Graham said the next phase of the Judiciary Committee’s inquiry will revisit the apparent abuse of the process for obtaining warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, highlighted in a scathing report late last year by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

Horowitz testified to the committee in December about his report’s findings. Among the most startling: The FBI relied almost entirely on the so-called Steele dossier, an opposition research document financed by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, as the basis for a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

The inspector general’s report also determined that FBI overreach wasn’t limited to Page, but included other Trump campaign aides such as Flynn, then an adviser; George Papadopoulos, a campaign volunteer; and one-time campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

“Our next area of inquiry, later this summer, will be oversight building upon the Horowitz report about FISA abuses against Carter Page,” Graham said. “My goal is to find out why and how the system got so off the rails.”

4. What Was the Point of the Mueller Probe?

After an investigation lasting nearly two years and costing taxpayers $32 million, special counsel Robert Mueller, Comey’s predecessor as FBI director, determined that the Trump campaign did not conspire with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.

The problem, critics of the Mueller probe say, is that prior to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointing him as special counsel, no evidence existed to suggest a Trump-Russia conspiracy.

Thus, the Judiciary Committee will look into the predicate of initiating a special counsel probe, Graham said.

“Finally, we will look at whether Robert Mueller should have ever been appointed as Special Counsel,” he said. “Was there legitimate reason to conclude the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians?”

Mueller secured grand jury indictments against some two dozen Russian operatives—none of whom is expected ever to stand trial because they are in Russia.

The special counsel’s team also scored a conviction of Manafort for financial crimes unrelated to the presidential campaign. (For more from the author of “4 Big Unanswered Questions About the ‘Unmasking’ Scandal” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

‘Obamagate’ Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory, It’s the Biggest Political Scandal of Our Time and Biden is Right in the Middle of It

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By The Federalist. When former president Barack Obama told supporters last week that the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case against former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is a “threat to the rule of law,” he was relying wholly on the fiction, willingly propagated for years by a pliant media, that the Russia-Trump collusion probe launched by his administration was lawful and legitimate.

But of course it wasn’t. A string of recently released documents have confirmed that the entire Russia-Trump investigation, which eventually entrapped Flynn and forced then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to recuse himself, was an unprecedented abuse of power that amounted to organized effort by the Obama administration to nullify the results of the 2016 presidential election. It was in effect an attempted coup. . .

The Flynn case is just one piece of a much larger story about how the Obama administration—with the full knowledge and support of both Obama and Biden—targeted incoming Trump officials in a failed attempt to cripple the new administration with allegations it had colluded with Moscow.

The complexity of their scheme, and the efforts to hide it and mislead the American people, are frustrating. The cast of characters—from high-ranking Obama administration officials to relative nobodies loosely associated with Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign—is long, as is the timeline of events. Details have come out slowly, in fits and starts, over the course of years. Following all the leaks and declassified transcripts and congressional hearings requires constant vigilance, and if you don’t keep up with it you can easily lose the thread.

That all works to the advantage of those who perpetrated this hoax, because it’s easy to get overwhelmed and tune it all out, or simply accept the corporate media’s deceptive reporting. But the ongoing revelations about the FBI’s targeting of Flynn can’t be ignored. They demand a full accounting. If ever there was a threat to the rule of law, it was the Obama administration’s abuse of power and its weaponization of intelligence agencies in an attempt to take down Trump. (Read more from “‘Obamagate’ Isn’t a Conspiracy Theory, It’s the Biggest Political Scandal of Our Time” HERE)

__________________________________________________________

The Unmasking of Joe Biden

By The Hill. . .The media portrayed both Obama and Biden as uninvolved. But now we know they both actively followed the investigation. According to former acting attorney general Sally Yates, she was surprised that Obama knew about the investigation and knew more than she did at the time. Obama called upon former FBI director James Comey to stay after a meeting to discuss the investigation. Comey had mentioned using the Logan Act to charge Flynn, even though the unconstitutional law has never been used successfully in a prosecution since the country was founded.

Biden has repeatedly denied knowledge of the investigation. Just a day before the latest disclosure, George Stephanopoulos asked Biden in an interview what he knew of the Flynn investigation. Biden was adamant that he knew nothing about “those moves” and he called it a diversion. But that is not true if he took the relatively uncommon action for a vice president of demanding the unmasking of Flynn information.

Yet none of this matters. A Democratic administration using a secret court to investigate the opposing political campaign does not matter to many in Congress or in the media anyway. An investigation continuing despite the lack of credible information supporting collusion does not matter to them either. A president and a vice president who take personal interest in the surveillance of their political opponents also does not matter.

There was a time, however, when all of this did matter. There was once a time when this would be viewed as the story of the century, including the unmasking of Biden himself in this investigation. But these are not those times, and this cannot be the story. Russian collusion is the story and, as Biden stressed, the rest is just a diversion. It is up to the public to decide who has been ultimately unmasked by the Flynn investigation. (Read more from “The Unmasking of Joe Biden” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

It Looks Like President Obama Ordered up Phony RussiaGate Scandal; Carlson: Obama Should Be Known as a Disgraced President Who Used the FBI Against His Political Enemies; Joe Biden Denies Then Admits to Knowledge of FBI’s Flynn Set Up

/0 Comments/in , /by

By New York Post. RussiaGate is now a complete dead letter — but ObamaGate is taking its place. Just how far did the then-president go to cripple his successor?

It’s now clear the Obama-Comey FBI and Justice Department never had anything more substantial than the laughable fiction of the Steele dossier to justify the “counterintelligence” investigation of the Trump campaign. Yet incessant leaks from that supposedly confidential probe wound up consuming the Trump administration’s first months in office — followed by the Bob Mueller-led special counsel investigation that proved nearly the “total witch hunt” that President Trump dubbed it.

Information released as the Justice Department dropped its charges against Gen. Mike Flynn shows that President Barack Obama, in his final days in office, played a key role in fanning the flames of phony scandal. Fully briefed on the “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation, he knew the FBI had come up with nothing despite months of work starting in July 2016. . .

This even as then-President Obama also directed that as many people as possible across his administration be briefed on the (utterly unsubstantiated) allegations against Team Trump — and as Rice and others took unprecedented steps to “unmask” US citizens like Flynn whose conversations had been caught on federal wiretaps of foreigners.

Indeed, the Obama administration went on a full-scale leak offensive — handing the Washington Post, New York Times and others a nonstop torrent of “anonymous” allegations of Trumpite ties to Moscow. It suggested that the investigations were finding a ton of treasonous dirt on Team Trump — when in fact the investigators had come up dry. (Read more from “It Looks Like President Obama Ordered up Phony RussiaGate Scandal” HERE)

_____________________________________________________

Tucker Carlson: Obama Should Be Known as a Disgraced President Who Used the FBI Against His Political Enemies

By Fox News. . .It was January 20th, the last day of the Obama administration. Outgoing National Security Adviser Susan Rice sat down at her desk to write her final memo. Rice described the presidential transition which had been underway for months. Then she wrote this, during a meeting two weeks before: “President Obama said he wants to be sure that as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”

Now, Rice does not explain why Obama’s staff felt it might not be possible to give intelligence on Russia to Donald Trump’s staff, or for that matter, why the Obama people thought they had the right to withhold national security information from an incoming American president who had just won a national election.

But Rice didn’t need to elaborate. There was only one possible explanation for this: Donald Trump could very well be a Russian agent. Barack Obama himself said he believed that was possible. In Rice’s words: “The President asked [Jim] Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.”

Now, what exactly does that mean? Here is what it means. The president of the United States turned to the head of the FBI, the most powerful law enforcement official in America, and said continue to secretly investigate my chief political rival so that I can act against him. Comey’s response? Yes, sir. That’s what Obama was saying openly.

In any normal period in American history, this exchange would define Barack Obama forever. Obama would be known as the disgraced former president who used federal law enforcement to hurt his political enemies. That’s what he did. (Read more from “Tucker Carlson: Obama Should Be Known as a Disgraced President Who Used the FBI Against His Political Enemies” HERE)

_____________________________________________________

Joe Biden Denies Then Admits to Knowledge of FBI’s Flynn Set Up

By The Federalist. Former Vice President Joe Biden admitted Tuesday he was aware of federal prosecutors’ plans to question incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn after denying knowledge of any investigation.

“I know nothing about those moves to investigate Michael Flynn,” Biden said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” when George Stephanopoulos asked what he knew of the FBI’s operations in early 2017. . .

Stephanopoulos followed up, adding that Biden was present at a Jan. 5, 2017 Oval Office meeting where he and President Barack Obama was briefed by top White House national security officials on plans to question Flynn over conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislak as the presidential transition was underway.

“I thought you asked me whether or not I had anything to do with him being prosecuted,” Biden said. “I was aware that there was, that they asked for an investigation, but that’s all I know about.” (Read more from “Joe Biden Denies Then Admits to Knowledge of FBI’s Flynn Set Up” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Two More of Obama’s Politically-Motivated Federal Convictions Thrown Out by SCOTUS

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed the Obama-appointed federal prosecutor who oversaw the 2013 “Bridgegate” case Thursday after the Supreme Court unanimously threw out the convictions of two of his political allies. . .

Bridget Anne Kelly, Christie’s onetime deputy chief of staff, and Bill Baroni, a Christie appointee to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey– which operates the George Washington Bridge, major airports, and other bi-state commuter crossings — were convicted in November 2016 of wire fraud, civil rights violations and other charges. The case revolved around Kelly, Baroni and another Christie ally, David Wildstein, allegedly creating traffic problems in Fort Lee, N.J. by closing lanes at the George Washington Bridge under the guise of conducting a traffic study.

The designed congestion, the Supreme Court noted in its ruling written by Justice Elena Kagan, was political payback against Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich after he declined to endorse Christie’s reelection bid.

However, the ruling noted that since the goal of the traffic scheme was not to obtain money or property, the federal fraud statutes under which Kelly and Baroni were convicted did not apply. . .

The former governor and 2016 GOP presidential candidate said Fishman “invented” charges against Kelly and Baroni and “dragged” his administration through years of turmoil and cratering public approval ratings while the investigation itself was “filled with leaks and improper activity.” (Read more from “Two More of Obama’s Politically-Motivated Federal Convictions Thrown Out by SCOTUS” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Obama Pardoned a Former General Who Lied to the FBI

/0 Comments/in , /by

In a leaked phone conversation recording with former members of his administration released last week, Barack Obama claimed that the “rule of law is at risk” because of the “unprecedented” move by the Justice Department to drop charges against Michael Flynn, who was the victim of a perjury trap set up by officials in the FBI. Flynn was coerced into pleading guilty to lying to FBI officials.

“The news over the last 24 hours I think has been somewhat downplayed — about the Justice Department dropping charges against Michael Flynn,” Obama said. “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.”

But, in 2017, just days before leaving office, Barack Obama pardoned retired Marine Corps general James E. Cartwright, who pleaded guilty to charges of lying to the FBI.

Cartwright served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Obama, and was “a key member of Mr. Obama’s national security team in his first term and earned a reputation as the president’s favorite general,” according to the New York Times. Cartwright had leaked classified information regarding Iran’s nuclear program to the media and lied to FBI officials investigating those leaks. He faced up to two years in prison before Obama pardoned him. (Read more from “Obama Pardoned a Former General Who Lied to the FBI” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Declassified Docs Show Obama Knew Intimate Details of Gen. Flynn’s Wiretapped Calls, Shocking Top DOJ Official

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Fox News. President Obama was aware of the details of then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to documents released Thursday as exhibits to the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn case.

Obama’s unexpectedly intimate knowledge of the details of Flynn’s calls, which the FBI said at the time were not criminal in nature, raised eyebrows because of his own history with Flynn — and because top FBI officials secretly discussed whether their goal was to “get [Flynn] fired” when they interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017.

Obama personally had warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn, and made clear he was “not a fan,” according to multiple officials. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014.

On January 5, 2017, Yates attended an Oval Office meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, according to the newly declassified documents, including an FD-302 FBI witness report. . . A previous memo from [national security adviser Susan] Rice stated that Biden also stayed behind after the main briefing had ended. . .

After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to “stay behind,” and said he had “learned of the information about Flynn” and his conversation with Russia’s ambassador about sanctions [and] was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.” (Read more from “Declassified Docs Show Obama Knew Intimate Details of Gen. Flynn’s Wiretapped Calls, Shocking Top DOJ Official” HERE)

________________________________________________________

AG Barr Defends Michael Flynn Reversal: ‘History Is Written by the Winners’

By CBS News. . .In a motion filed in U.S. district court, federal prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the single count of making false statements to the FBI, claiming the government concluded that the FBI’s interview of Flynn “was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.”

Attorney General William Barr joined CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge to discuss the reasoning behind the motion. . .

[Catherine Herridge:] In closing, this was a big decision in the Flynn case, to– to say the least. When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written? What will it say about your decision making?

[AG Barr:] Well, history is written by the winner. So it largely depends on who’s writing the history. But I think a fair history would say that it was a good decision because it upheld the rule of law. It helped, it upheld the standards of the Department of Justice, and it undid what was an injustice.

(Read more from “AG Barr Defends Michael Flynn Reversal: ‘History Is Written by the Winners’” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Additional 11-Pages of FBI Documents Unsealed – Biggest Surprise: President Obama Implicated; Bombshell Flynn Files Helping Durham Build ‘Serious Case’

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By The Conservative Treehouse. This afternoon Judge Emmet Sullivan unsealed an additional 11-pages of documents showing more background information about how the FBI was targeting former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn. [Court PDF HERE] . . .

The release today is even more revealing than the handwritten notes released last night; and specifically President Obama’s “by the book” statement on January 5, 2017, takes on an entirely new light. They may not realize it yet, but this release implicates Obama.

Within the release we discover an “Electronic Communication” or “EC” from the Washington FBI field office recommending to close the FBI investigation of General Flynn on January 4, 2017, due to “no derogatory information.” However, FBI Agent Peter Strzok immediately responds to the FBI team [main headquarters] saying: “don’t do it yet’… and the plot unfolds. . .

The very next day, January 5th, James Comey goes to the White House for a meeting with President Obama and Vice-President Biden.

January 5th is the White House meeting where National Security Advisor Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey (Crossfire Hurricane), and Deputy AG Sally Yates (Flynn FARA) are talking to President Obama about the status of the Flynn FBI investigation and President Obama says “by the book”. (Read more from “Additional 11-Pages of FBI Documents Unsealed – Biggest Surprise: President Obama Implicated” HERE)

______________________________________________

Bombshell Flynn Files Helping Durham Build ‘Serious Case’

By WND. The files unsealed this week in the Michael Flynn case showing FBI officials discussed trying to get the former national security adviser to lie are bolstering the “serious case” the Justice Department is building against FBI and DOJ officials who carried out a counter-intelligence “Russia collusion” probe of the Trump campaign in 2016.

Sources who spoke to Fox News said charges could be justified against officials, and Attorney General Bill Barr is speaking regularly with U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is leading the investigation.

“Durham has seen all of this already,” a source told Fox News, adding the Flynn evidence “could be sufficient for some charges against agents.”

“It’s a crime to present under oath false or misleading information,” the source told Fox News. “Not to mention obstruction of justice.”

“They’re building a very serious case,” another source told Fox News.” (Read more from “Bombshell Flynn Files Helping Durham Build ‘Serious Case'” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Giuliani: ‘Fauci Gave $3.7 Million to Wuhan Laboratory’ in 2014; More Evidence of Chinese Cover-up; NPR Kissing Up to China – Again

/0 Comments/in , , /by

By Breitbart. Sunday on New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable,” Rudy Giuliani, personal legal counsel for President Donald Trump, accused the President Barack Obama administration in 2014 of funding the Wuhan laboratory in which the coronavirus is believed to have originated. . .

“You could say [China’s experimenting] … was for the purpose of weaponizing it,” Giuliani told host John Catsimatidis. “Back in 2014, the Obama administration prohibited the U.S. from giving money to any laboratory, including in the U.S., that was fooling around with these viruses. Prohibited! Despite that, Dr. Fauci gave $3.7 million to the Wuhan laboratory. And then even after the State Department issued reports about how unsafe that laboratory was, and how suspicious they were in the way they were developing a virus that could be transmitted to humans, we never pulled that money. So, something here is going on, John. I don’t want to make any accusations. But there was more knowledge about what was going on in China with our scientific people then they disclosed to us when this first came out. I mean, just think of it, if this laboratory turns out to be the place where the virus came from — we paid for it. We paid for the damn virus that’s killing us.” (Read more from “Giuliani: ‘Fauci Gave $3.7 Million to Wuhan Laboratory’ in 2014” HERE)

______________________________________________________

Is Bat coronavirus 4991 a smoking gun in China’s COVID-19 cover-up?

By Dr. Lawrence Sellin. There is no doubt that COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus, but from where did it originate?

No one knows. There have been hints. Yet, now, for some reason, some of those hints have disappeared from the debate.

In the February 3, 2020 article in the prestigious journal Nature, scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, led by Zheng-Li Shi, claimed that the coronavirus RaTG13, isolated from bats in Yunnan Province, China, showed a 96.2% sequence identity with COVID-19 and, therefore, “RaTG13 is the closest relative” of COVID-19 and forms a distinct lineage from other coronaviruses.

A month later on March 17, 2020, in now the most widely-cited article both by scientists and the media, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” published by Nature Medicine, the authors supported the conclusion that RaTG13 is CoVid-19’s closest relative, which “jumped” from animals to humans in the Wuhan Seafood Market.

But is that conclusion warranted?

In an article that appeared on February 6, 2020, scientists at the State Key Laboratory of Virology, Modern Virology Research Center, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University wrote that the partial RdRp gene sequence of bat coronavirus strain BtCoV/4991 (GenBank KP876546) had a 98.7% nucleotide identity with COVID-19.

On March 16, 2020 and maybe earlier, it was noted that BtCoV/4991’s short sequence was a 100% match for the same short sequence in RaTG13 and was also a 100% match for SNU01, the viral isolate from the first COVID-19 patient in South Korea.

The obvious question then as now remains, are RaTG13 and BtCoV/4991 the same coronavirus? If true, it could reveal a cover-up by China as to the true origin of COVID-19.

Both bat coronaviruses RaTG13 and BtCoV/4991 were isolated from bats in Yunnan Province, China in July 2013. There GenBank accession designations are MN996532 and KP876546, respectively.

BtCoV/4991 was partially sequenced in 2016, but its full sequence has never been published. Oddly, although isolated in 2013, the sequence of RaTG13 was not submitted until January 27, 2020.

It is also strange that with all the information publicly available, the most widely cited article by many scientists and media, “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2,” never mentions BtCoV/4991.

And how did a coronavirus, whether it be RaTG13 or BtCoV/4991, isolated from bats in Yunnan Province, nearly 1,000 miles away, end up in the Wuhan Seafood Market, if that was indeed the source of the outbreak?

Or, more likely, was it the result of a leak from a Wuhan laboratory, where experiments were being conducted on a variety of bat coronaviruses?

In addition, no one has explained the origin of COVID-19’s furin polybasic cleavage site, which exists in none of the yet identified close coronavirus relatives and may be partially responsible for its enhanced transmissibility in humans.

Furthermore, as an April 22, 2020 comment states:

“If they [the Chinese] obfuscated the origin of this virus, how can we be sure the RaTG13 genome is accurate and not manipulated? In this context, we would need independent third-party access to the original specimen to extract the genetics.”

Indeed. The science coming out of China seems to raise more questions than it answers.

Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel, who previously worked at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and conducted basic and clinical research in the pharmaceutical industry. His email address is [email protected].

______________________________________________________

NPR Tries to Convince Americans that the Chicom Virus Didn’t Come From a Wuhan Laboratory

By NPR. Virus researchers say there is virtually no chance that the new coronavirus was released as result of a laboratory accident in China or anywhere else.

The assessment, made by more than half-a-dozen scientists familiar with lab accidents and how research on coronaviruses is conducted, casts doubt on recent claims that a mistake may have unleashed the coronavirus on the world. . .

But after corresponding with 10 leading scientists who collect samples of viruses from animals in the wild, study virus genomes and understand how lab accidents can happen, NPR found that an accidental release would have required a remarkable series of coincidences and deviations from well-established experimental protocols.

“All of the evidence points to this not being a laboratory accident,” says Jonna Mazet, a professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Davis and director of a global project to watch for emerging viruses called PREDICT. (Read more from “Virus Researchers Cast Doubt on Theory of Coronavirus Lab Accident” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

WATCH: Trump Tweets Satirical Video Slamming Obama for Endorsing Biden; Views Quickly Surpass Obama’s Endorsement Itself

/0 Comments/in , , /by

President Trump on Monday tweeted a satirical video that shows former President Barack Obama – or rather, his head doctored onto someone else’s body – shrugging off awkward comments by presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden before cutting to a Trump-Pence 2020 campaign logo.

The video – which was not produced by the campaign – parodies an Allstate commercial showing the insurance company’s spokesman Dennis Haysbert watching a basketball game with his friends before a commercial of Haysbert advertising Allstate appears on the screen. In the original ad, Haysbert’s friends implore him to change the channel, which he does, only to find another Allstate ad starring himself.

In the video Trump tweeted, Obama’s head is obviously superimposed over Haysbert’s, and instead of an Allstate commercial, a fake Biden ad appears on the TV when the basketball game goes to commercial.

“The kids used to come up and reach in the pool and rub my leg down so it was straight and then watch the hair come back up again,” Biden says in the fake ad. “I learned about kids jumping on my lap, and I loved kids jumping on my lap.”

The ad might be fake, but it uses a real quote by the former vice president from June 2017 in which he was describing his time as a lifeguard at a Delaware pool when he was younger. The Biden comments were not nefarious and were not the main subject of the speech he was giving, but have been seized on by his opponents previously to illustrate the candidate’s gaffe-prone nature. (Read more from “Trump Tweets Satirical Video of Obama Shrugging off Awkward Biden Comments” HERE)
___________________________________________________

Trump’s Satirical Video Outpaces Obama’s Within Hours

By Joseph A. Wulfsohn. It appears President Trump had the last laugh as his satirical video mocking President Obama’s recent endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden has garnered more views within hours than Obama’s 12-minute address did in the last week.

Obama endorsed his former running mate after all of Biden’s primary rivals withdrew from the presidential race. The widely publicized endorsement received 10.2 million views since last Tuesday.

However, the video Trump shared surpassed Obama’s video, earning 10.3 million views within roughly 13 hours despite the former president’s remarks still having more likes and retweets.

The video – which was not produced by the campaign – parodies an Allstate commercial with the insurance company’s spokesman Dennis Haysbert watching a basketball game with his friends before a commercial of Haysbert advertising Allstate appears on the screen. In the original ad, Haysbert’s friends implore him to change the channel, which he does, only to find another Allstate ad starring himself. (Read more about the satirical video HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

U.S. Intel Says Obama Gave Millions of Dollars to Wuhan Lab That ‘Produced’ Coronavirus; Director of Lab Denies Coronavirus Escaped From His Facility

/0 Comments/in , /by

By LifeZette News. For once a reporter asked a pertinent question at a White House daily virus briefing. On Friday one reporter asked President Trump if he was aware of U.S. Intelligence reports that the Obama administration sponsored the Wuhan lab, the same lab coronavirus may have come out of, to the tune of $3.7 million in 2015.

The president does not usually speak of ongoing intel matters and said he would follow up the query. However, if it is true then the regime of the disgraced 44th president gave millions of U.S. tax dollars to a facility that was probably thought to be, even then, a biowarfare lab making toxins and viruses that target American troops and possibly American civilians. If it is true it would represent a betrayal of U.S. interests on par with the worst of Obama’s actions. (Read more from “U.S. Intel Says Obama Gave Millions of Dollars to Wuhan Lab That ‘Produced’ Coronavirus” HERE)

______________________________________________________

Director of Wuhan Lab Denies Coronavirus Escaped From His Facility

By New York Post. The director of a lab studying the coronavirus in Wuhan — the Chinese city where the global outbreak is believed to have originated — denied that the bug accidentally spread from his facility.

“There’s no way this virus came from us,” Yuan Zhiming, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, told state media on Saturday.

Yuan’s denial came days after a fresh round of reports suggesting the novel coronavirus escaped from the Wuhan Institute or another similar laboratory miles away in the Chinese city. (Read more from “Director of Wuhan Lab Denies Coronavirus Escaped From His Facility” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE