Confessions of a Colorado Conservative: January 2020

Friday, January 31, 2020

The Right to a Fair Trial

In theory, every citizen in the United States is equal under the law. In reality, far too often money has been able to buy rich people immunity from justice. We are all supposed to be considered innocent until proven guilty, but the way it usually works is that the accused are often judged guilty by the media before the trial ever starts.
The President of the United States is responsible for enforcing laws passed by Congress. As such, he is considered the chief law enforcement officer in America. Should you or I ever be accused of breaking federal law, Donald Trump is at the very top of the food chain of people responsible for seeing justice is fairly adjudicated in a court of law. After he has been accused of wrongdoing and impeached, doesn’t President Trump also have the right to a fair trial? He certainly didn’t get one.
In a civilized society, disagreements are supposed to be fairly and equitably resolved through debate, either in the public arena or a court of law. Never by violence. One of my all-time favorite movie quotes came from a relatively unknown movie called Time After Time, in the scene where H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) realized his friend (played by David Warner) was Jack the Ripper and had escaped to our future, where his crimes would draw less attention because violence had become so much more commonplace. Jack insists that Wells can never stop him unless he abandons his nonviolent philosophy and Wells brilliantly replied, “The first man to raise his fist is the man who has run out of ideas.” That said, when the other guy is Jack the Ripper and he’s coming your way with a long, sharp knife, you’d better think fast.
Just because I didn’t like the review that Marshall University biology professor Herman Mays wrote about my book Counterargument for God, it didn’t give me the right to drive to his home and punch him in the nose. When engaged in a battle of wits, use what God has given you. So instead of a violent response, I used my favorite, and only weapon of choice: my words. And just like our President, for whom my respect and love grows by the day, when somebody takes a sucker punch at me, I tend to punch back with my rhetoric twice as hard.

Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Donald Trump’s impeachment by the House of Representatives was a sick joke -- secret hearings in basements, exculpatory information withheld, it quickly degenerated into a sick partisan kangaroo court with the outcome of impeachment determined before the start. Lies were uttered and repeated until they became mantras, as if to prove the old adage about a lie told often enough becoming the truth, which is a dumb adage because lies never become true… but they can be believed by a gullible-enough audience.
However, we can all see the grotesque unfairness of this travesty of justice… only the prosecution can be allowed witnesses, with none for the defense.
Why would anyone believe that Trump would be worried about running against Joe Biden? It’s doubtful that Biden would ever become the nominee. Besides, the entire Democratic field is a clown car… Trump doesn’t seem to be very worried about any of them, but the Democrats are worried sure as hell that they can’t beat him in a fair election, which is why we have an impeachment with no crimes and for no legitimate reason. There are sixteen hours of questions and answers before a vote on witnesses.
For the moment, we can only hope and pray that fifty-one patriots still serve in our Senate. I’d gladly trade Mitt Romney for Joe Manchin in a straight-up deal. For crying out loud -- even Jeffrey Dahmer got a fair trial, and he ate people. President Trump hasn’t even broken the law.
His worst offense has been hurting the Democrat’s feelings.
I will leave everyone on a positive note -- my wife of thirty years was slowly being drawn over to the Dark Side, and mostly because of Trump’s tweets. Things were starting to get a little ugly here on the home front, but as I said in my article “Cowardice In The Era Of Trump,” this is no time for me to go wobbly on my support for President Trump, no matter the price. When she told me that she liked Pete Buttigieg (only because he’s young and she worried the other Democrat candidates might die in office), I asked her if we could stop talking about politics at home. When I shared Clarice Feldman’s hilarious article about Trump and Schrodinger’s cat, my own wife unfriended me on Facebook. Like John Belushi’s seven years of college, I was starting to worry that thirty years of marriage might be going down the drain. But then last night she admitted this impeachment process hasn’t come close to resembling a fair trial, and it’s starting to change how she feels about President Trump and the Democrats. Hope springs eternal.
Americans want the truth. We want justice, and fairness. Donald Trump is getting none of that.

It’s About Corruption – Replacing a Failed and Corrupt Political Establishment

By Brian C. Joondeph

American presidents have their famous speeches, remembered long after they leave office. JFK said: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Ronald Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate and told Mikhail Gorbachev to: “Tear down this wall.”
Some speeches are memorable in other ways. George W. Bush, days after 9/11, ironically announced that: “Islam is peace.” Barack Obama proclaimed himself the messiah: “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal.”
President Trump has certainly given strong speeches, such as at the recent March for Life. But he may be remembered more for his raucous rallies and hilarious tweets. Yet one speech has flown under the radar.
On Oct. 13, 2016, just weeks before the election, Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Florida. Leading up to the election, he was holding several rallies each day, giving numerous speeches, but this seemingly random speech stands out.
The enigmatic Q group refers to it as the speech that got Donald Trump elected. As it was one of many pre-election speeches he gave and at a Florida rally, it may have only been heard by a fraction of Trump voters before the election, but it certainly encapsulates his philosophy, both before and after the election, toward government corruption.
The speech explains the resistance by the Washington, D.C. ruling class to Trump’s candidacy, election, and presidency. Trump attacked the foundation of deep state power, wealth, and corruption. Trump was indeed an “existential threat” to the cabal.
Before even being elected, and years before Joe Biden decided to run for president, Donald Trump was focused on corruption. Not to influence his reelection, as House Democrats accuse, since he wasn’t even president yet. But because rooting out corruption was part of his plan to make America great again.
Everything that followed his election, from the Russian collusion accusations, White House leaks, special counsel investigation, and now impeachment, is a reaction to the ideas Trump explains in this 6-minute speech. Watch it here or read the transcript.

YouTube screen grab

The opening lines are prescient, becoming painfully obvious now almost four years after he laid out the scale of corruption.

Our movement is about replacing a failed and corrupt political establishment with a new government controlled by you, the American People. There is nothing the political
establishment will not do, and no lie they will not tell, to hold on to their prestige and power at your expense.
The Washington establishment, and the financial and media corporations that fund it, exists for only one reason: to protect and enrich itself.
The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. As an example, just one single trade deal they’d like to pass, involves trillions of dollars controlled by many countries, corporations and lobbyists.
For those who control the levers of power in Washington, and for the global special interests they partner with, our campaign represents an existential threat.

“Protect and enrich.” This is a perfect encapsulation of the Clinton Foundation and the Obama book and television deals. Then there is the Biden family corruption, followed closely behind by similar abuses of power and office by the Warren and Sanders families, as Peter Schweizer described in his recent book “Profiles in Corruption.” These names just scratch the surface of government corruption.
Candidate Trump then went on to say:

It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth, and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities.

This is money given to corrupt foreign countries, disguised as aid, only to be returned to the political elite by hiring their unqualified family members for do-nothing jobs, as in Hunter Biden, or funneling these U.S. taxpayer dollars back into political foundations, consultancies, or campaign contributions.
Once upon a time, journalists investigated such corruption. Now they ignore it, aiding and abetting the deception. As Trump said in his speech:

The corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They are a political special interest, no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with an agenda.

Speak up against the cabal and you will be destroyed, or even commit suicide. Trump went on:

The establishment and their media enablers wield control over this nation through means that are well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe and morally deformed. They will attack you, they will slander you, they will seek to destroy your career and reputation. And they will lie, lie and lie even more.

It’s amazing that Trump predicted exactly what happened a few days ago when “Republican political strategist” Rick Wilson called the group of “you” mentioned above, “credulous boomer rubes” with CNN hack Don Lemon laughing so hard he almost fell off his chair.
President Trump has been impeached for drawing back the curtain on deep state malfeasance. Before handing over millions of hard earned U.S. taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, the most corrupt country in Europe, he wanted to know the money was necessary and going where promised, rather than into the pockets of oligarchs and U.S. politician grifters.
He acted as he was required to under the “Treaty with Ukraine on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters,” ratified in 2000, 15 years before Trump announced his run for president. He was doing his job, fulfilling his Constitutional oath of office. His reward for pouring roach killer in the nest of Democrat crooks and knaves was impeachment and a concerted effort by Democrats, the media, and nasty NeverTrump Republicans, all heads on the same toxic hydra, to overturn the last election and rig the next one.
It’s not about Trump enriching himself, despite what Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler say, it’s for the country. Again, from the famous speech:

I didn’t need to do this. I built a great company, and I had wonderful life. I could have enjoyed the benefits of years of successful business for myself and my family, instead of going through this absolute horror show of lies, deceptions and malicious attacks. I’m doing it because this country has given me so much, and I feel strongly it was my turn to give back.

It’s all about corruption, exposing it, rooting it out, and destroying it. Those who are the most threatened are those who scream the loudest. Given the Democrat and media apoplexy, Trump must be getting closer to the truth.
He ended his speech by throwing down the gauntlet:

We will vote to put this corrupt government cartel out of business. We will remove from our politics the special interests who have betrayed our workers, our borders, our freedoms, and our sovereign rights as a nation. We will end the politics of profit, we will end the rule of special interests, we will put a stop to the raiding of our country – and the disenfranchisement of our people.

It’s not about abuse of power or obstruction of Congress. It’s not about quid pro quo or bribery. It’s simply a new sheriff in town, bringing law and order to drain a swamp of greed and corruption. It’s President Trump doing exactly what he said he would do if elected, making America great again.
He is doing what past presidents have talked about and promised, but then either looked the other way or became active participants in the graft. And those milking the system are petrified over exposure and their long overdue reckoning.

It becomes clear why they’re all trying to destroy Trump

Political Map of Ukraine with Crimea and Eastern Ukraine under Russian control

via tierneyrealnewsnetwork:

Romney, Kerry, Biden, McCain, Pelosi, Schiff, Mueller & Clinton are all tied to sketchy Ukraine deals. No wonder they want to impeach President Trump! (emphasis mine)

Mitt Romney’s top adviser, Joseph Cofer Black, joined the board of the Ukraine energy firm, Burisma, while Hunter Biden was also serving on the board. Hunter Biden was taking a salary of $50,000 per month from Burisma, and was simultaneously engaged in a relationship with John Kerry’s stepson, Chris Heinz, and mobster Whitey Bulger’s nephew, in a private equity firm, that allegedly appeared to be laundering millions of dollars in foreign money from China & the Ukraine, through Latvia, and back to the US.

Romney’s adviser, Joseph Cofer Black, trained for covert operations and eventually became the director of the National Counterterrorism Center. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks perpetrated by al-Qaeda, Black was appointed ambassador at large and coordinator for counterterrorism in December 2002 by President George W. Bush. John Brennan succeeded Black in his job as director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Cofer Black left the CIA in 2006 to join Blackwater, the huge contractor for services related to military and intelligence action, where he served as Vice Chairman until 2008. See all the ties that bind?

It appears that Romney, Kerry, Biden, McCain, Pelosi, Clinton, Mueller and Schiff all have ties to Ukrainian firms. VP Biden bragged on camera that he was able to force the former Ukraine President to fire a prosecutor who was investigating his son, Hunter, by threatening to withhold $1 BILLION in US loans from Ukraine – all with approval from Obama!

While Communist China ran $1.5 BILLION through the Biden/Heinz private equity firm to purchase US companies with military ties, John Kerry, as Secretary of State, approved questionable acquisitions that threatened national security, but enriched his family and friends.

Kurt Volker, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO under Obama, and was just fired from the Trump White House as special envoy to Ukraine, is the executive director of the John McCain Institute.

Update: Kurt Volker resigns as Ukraine envoy after mention in whistleblower complaint, source says

A new book alleges FBI agents looking into former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) messages to underage girls had an “oh s***” moment when they discovered thousands of Hillary Clinton’s private emails on the device.
The New York Post reported that the moment is included in a new book from journalist James B. Stewart, “Deep State: Trump, the FBI, and the Rule of Law.” From the Post:

Within hours of the Sept. 26, 2016, search warrant, FBI technicians noticed there were 340,000 emails on the laptop between Clinton and her top aide, Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin — many of them from domain addresses such as “hillaryclinton.com” and “state.gov.”
At an FBI briefing later that week, one participant said the revelation was like “dropping a bomb in the middle of the meeting.”
But the discovery fell through the cracks because top FBI officials were “overwhelmed” by the Russia probe, Stewart wrote.
A determined New York FBI agent was “scared” by what he had found and pressed his superiors to finish the job.
“I’m telling you that we have potentially ten times the volume that Director Comey said we had on the record,” the agent recounted to Stewart. “Why isn’t anybody here?”

The email revelation came the month before the 2016 election, prompting then-FBI Director James Comey (who famously held a press conference laying out all of Clinton’s crimes but saying the FBI was declining to charge her) to reopen the investigation into her private email server.
“In previous congressional testimony, I referred to the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had completed its investigation of former Secretary Clinton’s personal email server,” Comey wrote at the end of October 2016. “Due to recent developments, I am writing to supplement my previous testimony.”
“In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation,” Comey continued. “I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.”
As we all know, Clinton faced no penalties for conducting official State Department business on an unsecured private home server.
Comey’s reopening of the investigation into Clinton’s emails, given the timing, is credited as part of the reason Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump. It is not the only reason, however, as Clinton ignored Wisconsin despite her campaign hearing from on-the-ground activists that the state needed support. Clinton would go on to lose Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to Trump thanks to his support for manufacturing jobs.
Clinton, however, refused to admit that her policies had anything to do with her loss, as she even now maintains she won because she won the popular vote. Of course, that is not how U.S. elections are decided, as they are actually 51 smaller elections (each state plus the District of Columbia). Each of those smaller elections receives a proportional number of votes (the Electoral College) and whoever wins more of those votes wins the presidency. This is how the president has been decided for centuries and it is how Trump won, regardless of what Clinton or Democrats say.

Within hours of the Sept. 26, 2016, search warrant, FBI technicians noticed there were 340,000 emails on the laptop between Clinton and her top aide, Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin — many of them from domain addresses such as “hillaryclinton.com” and “state.gov.”
At an FBI briefing later that week, one participant said the revelation was like “dropping a bomb in the middle of the meeting.”
But the discovery fell through the cracks because top FBI officials were “overwhelmed” by the Russia probe, Stewart wrote.
A determined New York FBI agent was “scared” by what he had found and pressed his superiors to finish the job.
“I’m telling you that we have potentially ten times the volume that Director Comey said we had on the record,” the agent recounted to Stewart. “Why isn’t anybody here?”

Nancy Pelosi’s son, Paul Pelosi Jr., is involved in oil importing from Ukraine and his company, Viscoil, is under investigation for securities fraud. In 2015, Pelosi used the Air Force to fly her entire family to Ukraine at a cost of over $185,000. Nancy Pelosi’s legislative aide, Ivanna Voronovych, is from Ukraine and is connected to the Ukrainian Embassy, the Ukrainian military, the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian party life. Pelosi and Schiff are also both connected to a Ukrainian arms dealer.

We also know that Ukraine was involved in helping the Clinton campaign fabricate evidence against Paul Manafort to smear the Trump campaign and the firm the DNC used to “inspect” Hillary’s email server, Crowdstrike, is funded by anti-Russian Ukrainian Oligarchs and run by a man who used to work for Mueller at the FBI!

Most concerning of all, the former CEO of Danske Bank in Estonia, Aivar Rehe, a bank known for money laundering during the years Obama and Biden were in office, was just found dead in his yard. He was a witness for the prosecution in a $220 BILLION money laundering scandal involving transfers to Latvia.

Rudy Giuliani intimated that this corrupt banking network was likely used by Biden & pals to launder foreign $ from the Ukraine & China – to Latvia, Cyprus and on to America. Records show that some 10,000 “non-resident” accounts were involved. Giuliani says he began investigating Joe Biden before he announced his run for President and that more “corroborating” evidence is forthcoming.

Rudy Giuliani, who was once James Comey’s boss, and the former Mayor of New York during 9/11, took down the mob and runs one of the biggest private investigation firms in the world. Don’t underestimate Rudy. He already has videotaped interviews of the Ukraine prosecutor that Biden forced out of office. We shall hopefully soon see all the rest of the ties that bind.

Cipollone Uses Video of Dems' Own Words on Impeachment Against Them: 'I Couldn't Say It Better Myself'

By Craig Bannister | January 28, 2020 | 4:32pm EST

Pat Cipollone

(Getty Images/Saul Loeb)

“I couldn’t say it better myself,” concluded Trump attorney Pat Cipollone in his summation at Tuesday’s Senate impeachment trial – reacting to a video he had just played reminding Democrats of their own past declarations about impeachment.
“All you need in this case, is the Constitution and your common sense,” Cipollone said in his remarks to the Senate. “You just look at the articles of impeachment. The articles of impeachment fall far short of any constitutional standard, and they are dangerous.”
Cipollone urged senators to “look to the words of the past that I think are very instructive.” “They are instructive because they were right then and there right now, and I will leave you with some of those words, Cipollone said.
The video montage showed what Democrats at the 1998 House impeachment hearings, such as then-Representative Chuck Schumer (D-NY), providing dire warnings of the consequences of a politically-motivated, partisan impeachment.
“You were right. But. I am sorry to say you were also prophetic,” Cipollone said. “And, I think I couldn't say it better myself, so I won't.
“You know what the right answer is, in your heart. You know what the right answer is for our country. You know what the right answer if for the American people.”

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY): “There must never be a narrowly voted impeachment, or an impeachment supported by one of our major political parties and opposed by the other.
“Such an impeachment will produce the divisiveness and bitterness in our politics for years to come, and will call in to question the very legitimacy of our political institutions.”
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.): “This is unfair to the American people. By these actions, you would undo the free election that expressed the will of the American people in 1996. In so doing, you will damage the faith of the American people have in this institution and in the American democracy.
“You will set the dangerous precedent that the certainty of presidential terms, which has so benefited our wonderful America will be replaced by the partisan use of impeachment. Future presidents will face election, than litigation, then impeachment. The power of the president will diminish in the face of the Congress, a phenomenon much feared by the Founding Fathers.”
Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) “This is a constitutional amendment that we are debating, not an impeachment resolution. The Republicans are crossing out the impeachment standard of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ and they are inserting the words ‘any crime or misdemeanor’. We are permitting a constitutional coup d'etat which will haunt this body and our country forever.”
Rep. Bob Menendez (D-NJ): “I warned my colleagues that you will reap the bitter harvest of the unfair partisan seeds you sow today. The constitutional provision for impeachment is a way to protect our governments and our citizens, not another weapon in the political arsenal.
Rep. Chuck Schumer (D-NY): “I expect history will show that we have lowered the bar on impeachment so much, we have broken the seal on this extreme penalty so cavalierly that it will be used as a routine tool to fight political battles. My fear is, that when a Republican wins the White House, Democrats will demand payback.”
Cipollone: “You were right. But I am sorry to say you were also prophetic. And, I think I couldn't say it better myself, so I won't. You know what the right answer is, in your heart. You know what the right answer is for our country. You know what the right answer if for the American people.”

Schiff’s false claim his committee had not spoken to the whistleblower

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Glenn Kessler

Oct. 4, 2019 at 1:00 a.m. MDT

“We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to.”

— Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), in an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sept. 17

We recently took Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to task
for misleading reporters about the fact that he was a participant in
the call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky that was the subject of a whistleblower complaint and now an
impeachment inquiry in Congress. He earned Four Pinocchios for being
disingenuous in his remarks to reporters to obscure his firsthand
knowledge of what took place.

But
politicians spin all across Washington, often to deflect uncomfortable
facts. Now let’s look at comments by Schiff, who is heading the
impeachment inquiry, as reporters probed about the whistleblower before
the details of the allegation were revealed.

Schiff’s answers are especially interesting in the wake of reports in the New York Times and The Washington Post
that the whistleblower approached a House Intelligence Committee staff
member for guidance before filing a complaint with the Intelligence
Community inspector general. The staff member learned the “very bare
contours” of the allegation that Trump has abused the powers of his
office, The Post said.

When the Fact Checker asked what “bare contours” meant, a committee spokesman pointed to an exchange of letters. In a Sept. 13 letter
to the committee, the general counsel of the director of national
intelligence said that “complaint involves confidential and potentially
privileged communications by persons outside the Intelligence
Community.” In his own letter
that day, Schiff wrote that because of that language, and because the
DNI refused to affirm or deny that White House officials were involved
in the decision not to forward the complaint, the committee can conclude
only that “the serious misconduct involves the president of the United
States and/or other senior White House or administration officials.”

Our
suspicion is that the unidentified staff member learned the potential
complaint involved “privileged” communication, which is code for
something having to do with the president.

So,
with this new information, let’s look back at how Schiff handled
questions about his knowledge of the whistleblower complaint.

The Facts

Sept. 16, interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN

Cooper: “Just to be clear, you don’t know who this alleged whistleblower is or what they are alleging?”

Schiff: “I don’t know the identity of the whistleblower.”

Cooper: “And they haven’t contacted you or their legal representation hasn’t contacted you?”

Schiff:
“I don’t want to get into any particulars. I want to make sure that
there’s nothing that I do that jeopardizes the whistleblower in any
way.”

This
is a classic dodge — “don’t want to get into any particulars” — and
Cooper failed to follow up. Notice how Schiff quickly answered whether
he knew the identity of the whistleblower — “I don’t know” — but then
sidestepped the questions about whether the committee had been
contacted. But in doing so, he managed not to mislead; he just simply
did not answer the question.

Sept. 17, interview on “Morning Joe”

Sam
Stein: “Have you heard from the whistleblower? Do you want to hear from
the whistleblower? What protections could you provide to the
whistleblower?” …

Schiff: “We have not spoken
directly with the whistleblower. We would like to. But I am sure the
whistleblower has concerns that he has not been advised, as the law
requires, by the inspector general or the director of national
Intelligence just how he is supposed to communicate with Congress, and
so the risk to the whistleblower is retaliation.”

This
is flat-out false. Unlike the quick two-step dance he performed with
Anderson Cooper, Schiff simply says the committee had not spoken to the
whistleblower. Now we know that’s not true.

“Regarding
Chairman Schiff’s comments on ‘Morning Joe,’ in the context, he
intended to answer the question of whether the Committee had heard
testimony from the whistleblower, which they had not,” a committee
spokesman told The Fact Checker. “As he said in his answer, the
whistleblower was then awaiting instructions from the Acting DNI as to
how the whistleblower could contact the Committee. Nonetheless he
acknowledges that his statement should have been more carefully phrased
to make that distinction clear.”

The spokesman pointed to an interview with Schiff by the Daily Beast,
in which he said that he “did not know definitively at the time if the
complaint had been authored by the same whistleblower who had approached
his staff.” But he added that he “should have been much more clear.”

Sept. 19, meeting with reporters at the Capitol

Schiff:
“In the absence of the actions, and I want to thank the inspector
general, in the absence of his actions in coming to our committee, we
might not have even known there was a whistleblower complaint alleging
an urgent concern.”

Here’s
some more dissembling. Schiff says that if not for the IG, the
committee might never have known about the complaint. But his committee
knew that something explosive was going to be filed with the IG. As the
New York Times put it, the initial inquiry received by the committee
“also explains how Mr. Schiff knew to press for the complaint when the
Trump administration initially blocked lawmakers from seeing it.”

Schiff,
however, does qualify that this was a complaint alleging “an urgent
concern,” and it’s not clear whether the initial inquiry had tipped off
the committee staff that it would rise to that level. Still, Schiff’s
phrasing was misleading because he gives no hint that the committee was
aware a potentially significant (“privileged”) complaint might have been
filed.

“As
Chairman Schiff has made clear, he does not know the identity of the
whistleblower, has had no communication with them or their attorney, and
did not view the whistleblower’s complaint until the day prior to the
hearing with the DNI when the ODNI finally provided it to the
Committee,” the spokesman said. “Whistleblowers frequently come to the
committee. Some whistleblowers approach the IG without notice to the
Committee, and some who do go to the IG do not necessarily file a
complaint. However, this was the first whistleblower complaint provided
to the Committee this year that the IC IG determined to be of ‘urgent
concern’ and ‘credible,’ and Chairman Schiff would have raised the alarm
regardless when it was illegally withheld.”

The
spokesman added: “The focus should not be on the whistleblower, but
rather the complaint which the IC IG determined was credible and urgent
and which has been thus far confirmed by the call record released by the
White House and statements by the President and his personal attorney.”

The Pinocchio Test

There
are right ways and wrong ways to answer reporters’ questions if a
politician wants to maintain his or her credibility. There’s nothing
wrong with dodging a question, as long as you don’t try to mislead (as
Pompeo did).

But
Schiff on “Morning Joe” clearly made a statement that was false. He now
says he was answering the wrong question, but if that was the case, he
should have quickly corrected the record. He compounded his falsehood by
telling reporters a few days later that if not for the IG’s office, the
committee would not have known about the complaint. That again
suggested there had been no prior communication.

The explanation that Schiff was not sure it was the same whistleblower especially strains credulity.

Schiff earns Four Pinocchios.

Four Pinocchios

(About our rating scale)

Monday, January 27, 2020

Colorado labor department finalizes new wage rules

By Michael McGrady | The Center Square

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has finalized new rules governing overtime and minimum payment requirements for the state’s workers who are eligible for overtime pay.

According to the department, the 10-month long comment period involved the opinions of more than 1,000 workers and employers. Many testified to the fact that the previous wage order to reform the wage standards in the state was unclear in defining which workers are covered and what the required criteria was to make an employee exempt from the various wage order protections.

“The confusion has made wage disputes more frequent, more prolonged, and more costly for employers and employees alike,” the department said in a press release.

The new Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards (referred to as COMPS) will govern wage requirements moving forward, the department said. The COMPS rules take effect on Mar. 16.

Under the new rules, an employee has to make at least $35,568 per year, starting in July 2020, to be placed on salary by their employer. The previous threshold was $23,660 per year. The rules also mandate that the threshold must increase to the point that in 2024, the salary threshold is $55,000.

“Thus, COMPS will go no further than a level already in use by many and studied extensively. Listening to public comments, CDLE accommodated employers by lowering and slowing the salary phase-in, from the proposed $42,500 for 2020-21 to, instead, $35,568 as of July 2020, then $40,500 in 2021. CDLE also accommodated worker requests to reach the full salary level sooner, in 2024 rather than 2026,” the department said.

Construction workers are now protected under these rules, labor and justice groups say. ACLU of Colorado, too, endorsed the rules that they say will “right past wrongs and make our wage and overtime rules more equitable across gender and races.”

The new wage rules protect all private-sector workers unless under an otherwise exempted employment status. These exemptions include those for business owners and folks who own at least a 20 percent stake in a company or if they are the only employee at a nonprofit organization who receives the highest possible compensation from the company.

Farm laborers are also excluded from the COMPS rules. However, like other employee groups, the farm and agricultural employees were given new break and rest-time protections.

Lawyers, doctors, teachers, highly technical workers, executives, and many managers are excluded from the COMPS rules. Volunteers, live-in staff (a babysitter or nanny; a property manager) are exempt, as are elected officials and their hourly staff, and transportation workers and contractors like taxi drivers.

Ski employees are also not fully covered by the new labor rules. According to the order, ski slope workers who specialize in downhill operations or who serve as food and beverage staff in on-mountain locations are exempt from the 40-hour overtime wage requirements. However, these employees still do qualify for overtime if their shifts exceed 12 hours. Ski lodging and hospitality staff, to note, also are not covered by this partial exemption.

The statewide minimum wage also holds at $12 per hour. Exempted employees from this salary include rare exemptions such as earners who have reduced minimum work requirements.

The state Department of Labor and Employment released the rules amid a new job report showing unemployment rates in Colorado at a historical low.

Sharf: Let’s not make Colorado politicians a ‘super-protected’ class

January 23, 2020 By Joshua Sharf

Every once in a while, even in this cynical age, a piece of legislation comes along that’s so gobsmackingly out of touch, so inventive in its efforts not merely to ignore the spirit of the times, so nakedly clothed in legislative self-interest, that it makes you question the process that led someone to think, “Yes, this is an excellent idea for a state law in Colorado.”
Such a bill is HB20-1121, “Retaliation Against An Elected Official.” The bill summary reads:
“Under current law, there is a crime of retaliation against a judge if an individual makes a credible threat or commits an act of harassment or an act of harm or injury upon a person or property as retaliation or retribution against a judge. The crime is a class 4 felony. The bill adds elected officials and their families to the crime.”
Here’s the thing – harassment is already a misdemeanor, as referenced in the bill text. It’s a Class 3 if it’s routine, and Class 1 if it’s against a protected class. For reference, we’ve got the definition from the Colorado Code as an appendix at the bottom. Some of that behavior is truly reprehensible, and people who engage in it deserve to be punished.
Likewise, we’ve all seen the videos of Trump administration officials being hounded out of restaurants or book stores. Senator Ted Cruz was forced to abandon his dinner at the height of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, much to the amusement of Trevor Noah. None of this is healthy, none of us should want to see it normalized.
But this bill would make all Colorado elected officials a super-protected class by turning the act into a felony. The sentencing guidelines for a class 4 felony in Colorado call for 2-6 years in prison and between $2,000 and $500,000 in fines. Our system already recognizes that judges and the courts are different from lawmakers and legislatures, and that the former need some insulation in order to operate effectively.
Similarly, not all of the behavior listed should rise to the level of a felony. Sections of this law could reasonably be construed to mean vulgar but relatively commonplace behavior. Consider sections 1(b) or 1(h). While some of the other sections describe behavior that could seriously disrupt someone’s life, section (b) refers merely to “obscene language” or an obscene gesture. Section (h) reads: “Repeatedly insults, taunts, challenges, or makes communications in offensively coarse language to, another in a manner likely to provoke a violent or disorderly response,” so you’re out of luck if the senator’s mother was a hamster, or father smells of elderberries.
Again, none of what I (and you, dear reader) have in mind is likely the sort of thing we’d want to model for our kids. But if someone flips off their state senator and calls him an SOB to his face, truth should be a complete defense.
The fact is, Trump largely got elected because senators and congressmen and government administrators – and now, even state legislators – think they’re entitled to special protections and special treatment not accorded to the rest of us. More than that, there is a perception that lawmakers and bureaucrats never really have to bear the consequences of their decisions. I can hardly imagine a piece of legislation that more perfectly embodies that attitude.
The legislation also specific that the offense must be committed upon “An elected official related to the elected official’s duties.” In other words, the intent of the harasser matters in establishing that the harassment was retribution, and not merely pique at Sen. Smith’s erratic driving. You can bet that political activists will be picking over social media posts like baboons delousing each other in order to establish a political motive for bad behavior.
And don’t think some politicians won’t let us know it, for the thinly-veiled purpose of getting us to censor ourselves and our criticisms, lest it be used against us in a court of law.
As it stands now, the bill is scheduled to be heard in the House Judiciary Committee on January 30 at 1:30 PM. It seems a good opportunity to politely but firmly remind these people that they serve at our pleasure, and that they’re not as special as they seem to think they are.

West Slope lawmaker tries to pump the brakes on Colorado wolf reintroduction

Democratic
Sen. Kerry Donovan’s bill would delay wolf management to study and fund
compensation for lost livestock. It would also cancel a plan to bring
back the predators if a “self-sustaining population” is confirmed.

Jan 24, 2020 1:07PM MST
Outdoors

Jason Blevins

@jasonblevins

The Colorado Sun — jason@coloradosun.com

State Sen. Kerry Donovan wants to slow the roll on wolf reintroduction.

The Vail Democrat, who represents seven Western Slope counties, has crafted legislation she hopes to submit on Friday that allows Colorado Parks and Wildlife to manage wolves, but would postpone any reintroduction efforts
until money is found to reimburse ranchers who lose livestock to
wolves. The bill would cancel reintroduction outright if wildlife
officials determine that the state already has a “self-sustaining
population” of gray wolves.

The bill is a detour around a question on November’s ballot that asks voters to direct Colorado Parks and Wildlife to reintroduce about 10 wolves a year
into Western Slope wildlands starting in 2023. Donovan’s legislation
delays possible reintroduction until the last day of 2025, after state
agriculture and wildlife officials work together to measure potential
damage caused by wolves and determine how to pay for lost livestock.

It also comes as wildlife officials have confirmed a pack of six wolves roaming Moffat County in northwest Colorado.

Colorado
state Sen. Kerry Donovan, D-Vail, speaks on Feb. 1, 2019, at a town
hall meeting in Frisco. (John Ingold, The Colorado Sun)

“This initiative allows for a certain amount of conversation,”
Donovan said Friday. “But with an issue as complex as this, which seems
to be in flux with a pack moving into the northwest, I think it’s
appropriate to take the deliberative process the general assembly allows
and apply it to wildlife management in Colorado.”

“This bill should give us a forum for a discussion,” she added, “and I
don’t know if we are having that level of dialogue around what is a
very complex issue for the Western Slope. I don’t think that happens with two opposing campaigns,
which does not always provide the right forum for the discussions and
compromises that these kinds of complicated issues require.”

Donovan’s bill calls for a study group convened by Colorado Parks and
Wildlife and the state’s department of agriculture to develop a report
on the impacts and costs of wolves by Jan. 1, 2022.

Under Donovan’s plan, a “sustainable reintroduction, recovery and
management plan” would include a wide variety of methods — including the
issuance of hunting permits — to promote a sustainable population of
wolves, and minimize damage to livestock and provide compensation to
ranchers who lose livestock to the predators.

“Whatever the method is, we want to make sure the department has full
capability to manage the population with the tools they think are best
suited,” she said.

The compensation issue is tricky for Donovan. It’s an issue that concerns her constituents on the Western Slope, she said.

MORE: Survey shows overwhelming support for reintroducing wolves in Colorado

Her bill, she said, allows cattlemen and wool growers to work with
wildlife officials to craft a system that not only identifies a funding
source for compensating ranchers who lose livestock to wolves but
outlines how ranchers can be reimbursed.

“I could easily see a concept where you take a picture of your cow
that has been killed and send it to us and we’ll send you a check for a
couple hundred dollars. That sounds incredibly reasonable to people who
haven’t run animals in the mountains. But it’s not that easy,” she said.
“I want to make sure we get very realistic scenarios from people who
work in these landscapes, the cattlemen and wool growers.”

A gray wolf. (Photo provided by Grizzly Creek Films)

George Edwards, the executive director of the Montana Livestock Loss
Board, has spent 11 years paying ranchers in Montana for livestock
they’ve lost to wolves, grizzly bears and mountain lions.

In 2008, when Montana estimated there were 497 wolves in the state,
his board paid $87,317 to ranchers who lost 238 animals to wolves,
including 74 cattle, 149 sheep and four llamas. In 2019, with wildlife
officials estimating Montana’s wolf population around 900, he paid $76,108 to ranchers
for 53 cattle, 20 sheep and two horses. For the last three years, his
office has paid record amounts to ranchers as losses from grizzly bears
grow.

Last year the Montana legislature increased his budget to $300,000 from $200,000.

Edwards has visited several states across the West to explain his
state’s compensation program, which pays ranchers market value for each
animal his team confirms was killed by predators.

“It’s interesting to hear ranchers’ perspectives in places like
Northern California. I hear the same thing regardless of where you go.
Once wolves move in, ranchers feel limited in what they can do to
prevent loss,” Edwards said. “Once you have wolves, ranchers know their
losses will grow.”

MORE: Could Colorado see the return of grizzlies, wolves and wild bison? Here’s how Montanans coexist with them.

Donovan’s bill comes the same week that Colorado State University researchers released the results of an online survey of 734 state residents
spread across the Western Slope, the Front Range and Eastern Plains
that shows overwhelming support for wolf reintroduction. Supporters of
the wolf ballot measure say the survey, which compensated people for
participating, shows that wolves unite both urban and rural residents.

But that’s not what Donovan is hearing from the Western Slope. Opponents of the measure have collected resolutions from 29 rural counties across the state opposing the reintroduction of wolves.

“One of the concerns I keep hearing about is that a bunch of city
folks are going to vote to approve wolves and we are going to have to
deal with them,” she said.

Donovan’s bill says reintroduction efforts would be cancelled if
wildlife officials determine there is a “sustainable population” in the
state. So how many is that?

“I’m not going to define that because there are people who are better
versed for that,” Donovan said. “They are going to do the work to find
out what a sustainable population is. We will let science determine what
a sustainable population is.”

Rick Enstrom, a former wildlife commissioner who worked with a wolf study group that crafted a management strategy for the Colorado Wildlife Commission in 2004 that did not support reintroduction, applauded Donovan’s legislative strategy for wolf management.

“It seems pretty sensible to me. These issues are too complex to
solve with a simple ballot measure,” he said. “Hopefully this will calm
everybody down.”

Passage of legislation and a ballot measure could set up a conflict.
Legislation does not automatically override voter-approved initiatives.

“I think we can say history has shown that when a compromise is
reached inside the (Capitol) building that often results in initiatives
being pulled off the ballot,” Donovan said.

Organizers behind the ballot initiative applauded Donovan’s effort to
balance wolf reintroduction with the needs of Colorado’s ranchers, but
they will not support the bill. Rob Edwards with the Rocky Mountain Wolf
Action Fund said they are happy to discuss compensation plans and
proactive measures ranchers can take to prevent predation of livestock.

“What is not acceptable is delaying reintroduction until everything
is worked out,” Edwards said. “We already have this scoped out to the
end of 2023. There is plenty of time for everybody to figure out how to
do this. We don’t need a delay beyond that.”

Not surprisingly, his group doesn’t like the notion that
reintroduction could end if biologists conclude the state has a
“self-sustaining population” of wolves. So how many does he think
qualifies as a sustainable number of wolves?

“North of 500 animals across the western portion of the state,” he
said, suggesting that could be achieved with reintroducing 30 wolves
over three years. “We have a very clear vision for what reintroduction
looks like and how it can be done and what it would result in. Accepting
ambiguity is not our idea of a good way forward.”

Budget Committee Balks At Polis’ Plan To Give Paid Family Leave To State Employees

By Bente Birkeland

January 23, 2020

Gov. Jared Polis gives his second State of the State address, Jan. 9, 2020.

Colorado’s bipartisan Joint Budget Committee has already put the brakes on one of the things Gov. Jared Polis wanted in his State of the State address. The group unanimously voted against his plan to give state workers eight weeks of paid family leave.

Adding that benefit would cost $7.3 million out of the state’s general budget fund.

“Primarily
there’s a disagreement between the executive and legislature about
whether they have the statutory authority to grant this new benefit,”
said Democratic Sen. Dominick Moreno, the vice chair of the powerful joint budget committee.

One
senior staffer for the governor called it a curious decision and was
“saddened by the message it sends to state workers.” A spokesman for the
governor said Thursday’s decision was unfortunate.

“Although
the governor is disappointed that the JBC has now twice denied this
administration’s commonsense approach to support our state employees, we
are hopeful that they will reconsider the importance of our state
employees and provide this important benefit,” said Conor Cahill.

Despite
the committee’s vote, the final budget is far from being approved. All
of the other legislators have yet to weigh in. That debate will likely
happen in March.

“I firmly believe that state employees, and
every single Coloradan, should have access to a paid family leave
program so that no one has to choose between taking time off to care for
a loved one and keeping their job,” said Democratic Rep. Daneya Esgar,
the chair of the JBC. “We had to make a difficult decision due to the
lack of existing authorizing statute and our desire to focus on creating
a statewide program that benefits everyone. I'm hopeful that we will
make meaningful progress this session towards this important goal."

But
Democrats who hold the majority at the capitol don’t agree on the best
way to create a paid leave program. Polis does not support a state run
model, and instead would like the private sector to implement it. The
governor’s comments put him at odds with a plan some Democratic lawmakers have pushed for years and were hoping to finally make a reality this session.

Meanwhile
Republicans and members of the business community have questions about
what a paid leave program would cost businesses and employees.

The issue has also come up for state legislators after Democratic Sen. Brittany Pettersen of Lakewood gave birth to a baby boy last week. Colorado has no explicit provisions in place for a lawmaker
who wants to take parental leave during the legislative session. A
lawmaker does get nearly six weeks of paid time off, after that it’s up
to the discretion of legislative leaders. Pettersen wants to extend
guaranteed parental paid leave to three months during the legislative
session.

Thursday, January 23, 2020

Whistleblower Was Overheard in '17 Discussing With Ally How to Remove Trump

By Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations
January 22, 2020
Barely two weeks after Donald Trump took office, Eric Ciaramella – the CIA analyst whose name was recently linked in a tweet by the president and mentioned by lawmakers as the anonymous “whistleblower" who touched off Trump's impeachment – was overheard in the White House discussing with another staffer how to remove the newly elected president from office, according to former colleagues.

Sean Misko: He spoke with Ciaramella about the need to "take out," or remove, President Trump. Later he went to work for Rep. Adam Schiff's committee.

Center for a New American Security

Sources told RealClearInvestigations the staffer with whom Ciaramella was speaking was Sean Misko. Both were Obama administration holdovers working in the Trump White House on foreign policy and national security issues. And both expressed anger over Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy, a sea change from President Obama’s approach to international affairs.
“Just days after he was sworn in they were already talking about trying to get rid of him,” said a White House colleague who overheard their conversation.
“They weren’t just bent on subverting his agenda,” the former official added. “They were plotting to actually have him removed from office.”
Misko left the White House last summer to join House impeachment manager Adam Schiff’s committee, where sources say he offered “guidance” to the whistleblower, who has been officially identified only as an intelligence officer in a complaint against Trump filed under whistleblower laws. Misko then helped run the impeachment inquiry based on that complaint as a top investigator for congressional Democrats.
The probe culminated in Trump’s impeachment last month on a party-line vote in the House of Representatives. Schiff and other House Democrats last week delivered the articles of impeachment to the Senate, and are now pressing the case for his removal during the trial, which began Tuesday.
The coordination between the official believed to be the whistleblower and a key Democratic staffer, details of which are disclosed here for the first time, undercuts the narrative that impeachment developed spontaneously out of what Trump's Democratic antagonists call the “patriotism" of an “apolitical civil servant."
Two former co-workers said they overheard Ciaramella and Misko, close friends and Democrats held over from the Obama administration, discussing how to “take out,” or remove, the new president from office within days of Trump’s inauguration. These co-workers said the president’s controversial Ukraine phone call in July 2019 provided the pretext they and their Democratic allies had been looking for.
“They didn’t like his policies,” another former White House official said. "They had a political vendetta against him from Day One.”

Impeachment manager Adam Schiff speaks during the impeachment trial of President Trump in the Senate on Tuesday.

(Senate Television via AP)

Their efforts were part of a larger pattern of coordination to build a case for impeachment, involving Democratic leaders as well as anti-Trump figures both inside and outside of government.
All unnamed sources for this article spoke only on condition that they not be further identified or described. Although strong evidence points to Ciaramella as the government employee who lodged the whistleblower complaint, he has not been officially identified as such. As a result, this article makes a distinction between public information released about the unnamed whistleblower/CIA analyst and specific information about Ciaramella.
Democrats based their impeachment case on the whistleblower complaint, which alleges that President Trump sought to help his re-election campaign by demanding that Ukraine’s leader investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid. Yet Schiff, who heads the House Intelligence Committee, and other Democrats have insisted on keeping the identity of the whistleblower secret, citing concern for his safety, while arguing that his testimony no longer matters because other witnesses and documents have “corroborated" what he alleged in his complaint about the Ukraine call.

Hunter and Joe Biden: Subjects of the Ukraine phone call at the center of Trump's impeachment.

AP Photo

Republicans have fought unsuccessfully to call him as a witness, arguing that his motivations and associations are relevant – and that the president has the same due-process right to confront his accuser as any other American.
The whistleblower’s candor is also being called into question. It turns out that the CIA operative failed to report his contacts with Schiff’s office to the intelligence community’s inspector general who fielded his whistleblower complaint. He withheld the information both in interviews with the inspector general, Michael Atkinson, and in writing, according to impeachment committee investigators. The whistleblower form he filled out required him to disclose whether he had “contacted other entities” -- including “members of Congress.” But he left that section blank on the disclosure form he signed.
The investigators say that details about how the whistleblower consulted with Schiff’s staff and perhaps misled Atkinson about those interactions are contained in the transcript of a closed-door briefing Atkinson gave to the House Intelligence Committee last October. However, Schiff has sealed the transcript from public view. It is the only impeachment witness transcript out of 18 that he has not released.
Schiff has classified the document “Secret,” preventing Republicans who attended the Atkinson briefing from quoting from it. Even impeachment investigators cannot view it outside a highly secured room, known as a “SCIF," in the basement of the Capitol. Members must first get permission from Schiff, and they are forbidden from bringing phones into the SCIF or from taking notes from the document.

Sen. Rand Paul: Among the few lawmakers who have publicly demanded that Ciaramella testify regarding the whistleblower's complaint.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

While the identity of the whistleblower remains unconfirmed, at least officially, Trump recently retweeted a message naming Ciaramella, while Republican Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Louie Gohmert of the House Judiciary Committee have publicly demanded that Ciaramella testify about his role in the whistleblower complaint.
During last year’s closed-door House depositions of impeachment witnesses, Ciaramella’s name was invoked in heated discussions about the whistleblower, as RealClearInvestigations first reported Oct. 30, and has appeared in at least one testimony transcript. Congressional Republicans complain Schiff and his staff counsel have redacted his name from other documents.
Lawyers representing the whistleblower have neither confirmed nor denied that Ciaramella is their client. In November, after Donald Trump Jr. named Ciaramella and cited RCI's story in a series of tweets, however, they sent a “cease and desist” letter to the White House demanding Trump and his “surrogates" stop “attacking" him. And just as the whistleblower complaint was made public in September, Ciaramella’s social media postings and profiles were scrubbed from the Internet.
‘Take Out’ the President
An Obama holdover and registered Democrat, Ciaramella in early 2017 expressed hostility toward the newly elected president during White House meetings, his co-workers said in interviews with RealClearInvestigations. They added that Ciaramella sought to have Trump removed from office long before the filing of the whistleblower complaint.

Michael Flynn: Ciaramella and Misko were alarmed by Trump's "America First" foreign policy, outlined by the president's first national security adviser.

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

At the time, the CIA operative worked on loan to the White House as a top Ukrainian analyst in the National Security Council, where he had previously served as an adviser on Ukraine to Vice President Biden. The whistleblower complaint cites Biden, alleging that Trump demanded Ukraine’s newly elected leader investigate him and his son "to help the president’s 2020 reelection bid.”
Two NSC co-workers told RCI that they overheard Ciaramella and Misko - who was also working at the NSC as an analyst - making anti-Trump remarks to each other while attending a staff-wide NSC meeting called by then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, where they sat together in the south auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex.
The “all hands” meeting, held about two weeks into the new administration, was attended by hundreds of NSC employees.
“They were popping off about how they were going to remove Trump from office. No joke,” said one ex-colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
A military staffer detailed to the NSC, who was seated directly in front of Ciaramella and Misko during the meeting, confirmed hearing them talk about toppling Trump during their private conversation, which the source said lasted about one minute. The crowd was preparing to get up to leave the room at the time.
“After Flynn briefed [the staff] about what ‘America first’ foreign policy means, Ciaramella turned to Misko and commented, ‘We need to take him out,’ ” the staffer recalled. “And Misko replied, ‘Yeah, we need to do everything we can to take out the president.’ “
Added the military detailee, who spoke on condition of anonymity: “By ‘taking him out,’ they meant removing him from office by any means necessary. They were triggered by Trump’s and Flynn’s vision for the world. This was the first ‘all hands’ [staff meeting] where they got to see Trump’s national security team, and they were huffing and puffing throughout the briefing any time Flynn said something they didn’t like about ‘America First.’ ”
He said he also overheard Ciaramella telling Misko, referring to Trump, ‘We can’t let him enact this foreign policy.’ “
Alarmed by their conversation, the military staffer immediately reported what he heard to his superiors.
“It was so shocking that they were so blatant and outspoken about their opinion,” he recalled. “They weren’t shouting it, but they didn’t seem to feel the need to hide it.”
The co-workers didn’t think much more about the incident.
“We just thought they were wacky,” the first source said. “Little did we know.”
Neither Ciaramella nor Misko could be reached for comment.

Alexander Vindman: The National Security Council aide leaked to Ciaramella details of the July 25 Trump-Ukraine phone call. Like Ciaramella, Vindman expressed disdain for Trump, co-workers said.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

A CIA alumnus, Misko had previously assisted Biden’s top national security aide Jake Sullivan. Former NSC staffers said Misko was Ciaramella’s closest and most trusted ally in the Trump White House.
“Eric and Sean were very tight and spent nearly two years together at the NSC,” said a former supervisor who requested anonymity. “Both of them were paranoid about Trump."
“They were thick as thieves,” added the first NSC source. “They sat next to each other and complained about Trump all the time. They were buddies. They weren’t just colleagues. They were buddies outside the White House.”
The February 2017 incident wasn’t the only time the pair exhibited open hostility toward the president. During the following months, both were accused internally of leaking negative information about Trump to the media.
But Trump’s controversial call to the new president of Ukraine this past summer -- in which he asked the foreign leader for help with domestic investigations involving the Obama administration, including Biden -- gave them the opening they were looking for.
A mutual ally in the National Security Council who was one of the White House officials authorized to listen in on Trump's July 25 conversation with Ukraine’s president leaked it to Ciaramella the next day — July 26 — according to former NSC co-workers and congressional sources. The friend, Ukraine-born Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, held Ciaramella’s old position at the NSC as director for Ukraine. Although Ciaramella had left the White House to return to the CIA in mid-2017, the two officials continued to collaborate through interagency meetings.
Vindman leaked what he’d heard to Ciaramella by phone that afternoon, the sources said. In their conversation, which lasted a few minutes, he described Trump’s call as “crazy,” and speculated he had “committed a criminal act.” Neither reviewed the transcript of the call before the White House released it months later.
NSC co-workers said that Vindman, like Ciaramella, openly expressed his disdain for Trump whose foreign policy was often at odds with the recommendations of "the interagency" — a network of agency working groups comprised of intelligence bureaucrats, experts and diplomats who regularly meet to craft and coordinate policy positions inside the federal government.
Before he was detailed to the White House, Vindman served in the U.S. Army, where he once received a reprimand from a superior officer for badmouthing and ridiculing America in front of Russian soldiers his unit was training with during a joint 2012 exercise in Germany.
His commanding officer, Army Lt. Col. Jim Hickman, complained that Vindman, then a major, “was apologetic of American culture, laughed about Americans not being educated or worldly and really talked up Obama and globalism to the point of [it being] uncomfortable.”
“Vindman was a partisan Democrat at least as far back as 2012,” Hickman, now retired, asserted. “Do not let the uniform fool you. He is a political activist in uniform.”
Attempts to reach Vindman through his lawyer were unsuccessful.

Fred Fleitz: Former chief of staff to John Bolton says it was obvious the whistleblower was coached in writing his complaint.

fredfleitz.com/Wikimedia

July 26 was also the day that Schiff hired Misko to head up the investigation of Trump, congressional employment records show. Misko, in turn, secretly huddled with the whistleblower prior to filing his Aug. 12 complaint, according to multiple congressional sources, and shared what he told him with Schiff, who initially denied the contacts before press accounts revealed them.
Schiff’s office has also denied helping the whistleblower prepare his complaint, while rejecting a Republican subpoena for documents relating to it. But Capitol Hill veterans and federal whistleblower experts are suspicious of that account.
Fred Fleitz, who fielded a number of whistleblower complaints from the intelligence community as a former senior House Intelligence Committee staff member, said it was obvious that the CIA analyst had received coaching in writing the nine-page whistleblower report.
"From my experience, such an extremely polished whistleblowing complaint is unheard of,” Fleitz, also a former CIA analyst, said. “He appears to have collaborated in drafting his complaint with partisan House Intelligence Committee members and staff.”
Fleitz, who recently served as chief of staff to former National Security Adviser John Bolton, said the complaint appears to have been tailored to buttress an impeachment charge of soliciting the “interference” of a foreign government in the election.
And the whistleblower’s unsupported allegation became the foundation for Democrats' first article of impeachment against the president. It even adopts the language used by the CIA analyst in his complaint, which Fleitz said reads more like “a political document.”
Outside Help
After providing the outlines of his complaint to Schiff’s staff, the CIA analyst was referred to whistleblower attorney Andrew Bakaj by a mutual friend "who is an attorney and expert in national security law,” according to the Washington Post, which did not identify the go-between.

Andrew Bakaj: Whistleblower lawyer worked with Ciaramella at the CIA.

Compass Rose Legal Group

A former CIA officer, Bakaj had worked with Ciaramella at the spy agency. They have even more in common: like the 33-year-old Ciaramella, the 37-year-old Bakaj is a Connecticut native who has spent time in Ukraine. He's also contributed money to Biden’s presidential campaign and once worked for former Sen. Hillary Clinton. He’s also briefed the intelligence panel Schiff chairs.
Bakaj brought in another whistleblower lawyer, Mark Zaid, to help on the case. A Democratic donor and a politically active anti-Trump advocate, Zaid was willing to help represent the CIA analyst. On Jan. 30, 2017, around the same time former colleagues say they overheard Ciaramella and Misko conspiring to take Trump out, Zaid tweeted that a “coup has started” and that “impeachment will follow ultimately.”
Neither Bakaj nor Zaid responded to requests for an interview.

Mark Zaid: This whistleblower lawyer tweeted that a “coup has started” around the same time former colleagues say they overheard Ciaramella and Misko conspiring to remove Trump.

Compass Rose Legal Group

It’s not clear who the mutual friend and national security attorney was whom the analyst turned to for additional help after meeting with Schiff’s staff. But people familiar with the matter say that former Justice Department national security lawyer David Laufman involved himself early on in the whistleblower case.
Also a former CIA officer, Laufman was promoted by the Obama administration to run counterintelligence cases, including the high-profile investigations of Clinton’s classified emails and the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. Laufman sat in on Clinton’s July 2016 FBI interview. He also signed off on the wiretapping of a Trump campaign adviser, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored emails, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance. Laufman’s office was implicated in the inspector general's report detailing the surveillance misconduct.
Laufman could not be reached for comment.
Laufman and Zaid are old friends who have worked together on legal matters in the past. “I would not hesitate to join forces with him on complicated cases,” Zaid said of Laufman in a recommendation posted on his LinkedIn page.

David Laufman: Fellow lawyer defended Mark Zaid on Twitter against attacks by President Trump.

wiggin.com

Laufman recently defended Zaid on Twitter after Trump blasted Zaid for advocating a “coup” against him. “These attacks on Mark Zaid’s patriotism are baseless, irresponsible and dangerous,” Laufman tweeted. “Mark is an ardent advocate for his clients."
After the CIA analyst was coached on how to file a complaint under Intelligence Community whistleblower protections, he was steered to another Obama holdover -- former Justice Department attorney-turned-inspector general Michael Atkinson, who facilitated the processing of his complaint, despite numerous red flags raised by career Justice Department lawyers who reviewed it.
The department's Office of Legal Counsel ruled that the complaint involved “foreign diplomacy,” not intelligence, contained “hearsay” evidence based on “secondhand” information, and did not meet the definition of an “urgent concern” that needed to be reported to Congress. Still, Atkinson worked closely with Schiff to pressure the White House to make the complaint public.
Fleitz said cloaking the CIA analyst in the whistleblower statute provided him cover from public scrutiny. By making him anonymous, he was able to hide his background and motives. Filing the complaint with the IC inspector general, moreover, gave him added protections against reprisals, while letting him disclose classified information. If he had filed directly with Congress, it could not have made the complaint public due to concerns about disclosing classified information. But a complaint referred by the IG to Congress gave it more latitude over what it could make public.
Omitted Contacts With Schiff
The whistleblower complaint was publicly released Sept. 26 after a barrage of letters and a subpoena from Schiff, along with a flood of leaks to the media.

Michael Atkinson: Was the intelligence community inspector general misled by the whistleblower? And was Atkinson "evasive" to congressional investigators?

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

However, the whistleblower did not disclose to Atkinson that he had briefed Schiff’s office about his complaint before filing it with the inspector general. He was required on forms to list any other agencies he had contacted, including Congress. But he omitted those contacts and other material facts from his disclosure. He also appears to have misled Atkinson on Aug. 12, when on a separate form he stated: “I reserve the option to exercise my legal right to contact the committees directly,” when he had already contacted Schiff’s committee weeks prior to making the statement.
“The whistleblower made statements to the inspector general under the penalty of perjury that were not true or correct,” said Rep. John Ratcliffe, a Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee.
Ratcliffe said Atkinson appeared unconcerned after the New York Times revealed in early October that Schiff’s office had privately consulted with the CIA analyst before he filed his complaint, contradicting Schiff’s initial denials. Ratcliffe told RealClearInvestigations that in closed door testimony on Oct. 4, “I asked IG Atkinson about his ‘investigation’ into the contacts between Schiff’s staff and the person who later became the whistleblower." But he said Atkinson claimed that he had not investigated them because he had only just learned about them in the media.
On Oct. 8, after more media reports revealed the whistleblower and Schiff’s staff had concealed their contacts with each other, the whistleblower called Atkinson’s office to try to explain why he made false statements in writing and verbally, transgressions that could be punishable with a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up five years, or both, according to the federal form he signed under penalty of perjury.
In his clarification to the inspector general, the whistleblower acknowledged for the first time reaching out to Schiff’s staff before filing the complaint, according to an investigative report filed later that month by Atkinson.
“The whistleblower got caught,” Ratcliffe said. "The whistleblower made false statements. The whistleblower got caught with Chairman Schiff.”
He says the truth about what happened is documented on pages 53-73 of the transcript of Atkinson’s eight-hour testimony. Except that Schiff refuses to release it.
“The transcript is classified ‘Secret’ so Schiff can prevent you from seeing the answers to my questions,” Ratcliffe told RCI.
Atkinson replaced Charles McCullough as the intelligence community’s IG. McCullough is now a partner in the same law firm for which Bakaj and Zaid work. McCullough formerly reported directly to Obama’s National Intelligence Director, James Clapper, one of Trump’s biggest critics in the intelligence community and a regular agitator for his impeachment on CNN.
Hidden Political Agenda?
Atkinson also repeatedly refused to answer Senate Intelligence Committee questions about the political bias of the whistleblower. Republican members of the panel called his Sept. 26 testimony “evasive.” Senate investigators say they are seeking all records generated from Atkinson’s “preliminary review” of the whistleblower’s complaint, including evidence and “indicia” of the whistleblower’s “political bias” in favor of Biden.

Mary McCord: The Justice Department official worked with inspector general Atkinson during the Trump-Russia probe and now works with Democrats on the impeachment case.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File

Republicans point out that Atkinson was the top national security lawyer in the Obama Justice Department when it was investigating Trump campaign aides and Trump himself in 2016 and 2017. He worked closely with Laufman, the department’s former counterintelligence section chief who’s now aligned with the whistleblower’s attorneys. Also, Atkinson served as senior counsel to Mary McCord, the senior Justice official appointed by Obama who helped oversee the FBI’s Russia “collusion” probe, and who personally pressured the White House to fire then National Security Adviser Flynn. She and Atkinson worked together on the Russia case. Closing the circle tighter, McCord was Laufman’s boss at Justice.
As it happens, all three are now involved in the whistleblower case or the impeachment process.
After leaving the department, McCord joined the stable of attorneys Democrats recruited last year to help impeach Trump. She is listed as a top outside counsel for the House in key legal battles tied to impeachment, including trying to convince federal judges to unblock White House witnesses and documents.
"Michael Atkinson is a key anti-Trump conspirator who played a central role in transforming the ‘whistleblower' complaint into the current impeachment proceedings,” said Bill Marshall, a senior investigator for Judicial Watch, the conservative government watchdog group that is suing the Justice Department for Atkinson’s internal communications regarding impeachment.
Atkinson’s office declined comment.
Another 'Co-Conspirator'?
During closed-door depositions taken in the impeachment inquiry, Ciaramella’s confederate Misko was observed handing notes to Schiff’s lead counsel for the impeachment inquiry, Daniel Goldman – another Obama Justice attorney and a major Democratic donor – as he asked questions of Trump administration witnesses, officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings told RealClearInvestigations. Misko also was observed sitting on the dais behind Democratic members during last month’s publicly broadcast joint impeachment committee hearings.

Rep. Louie Gohmert: Publicly singled out Sean Misko and Abby Grace as Ciaramella's "co-conspirators."

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, Pool

Another Schiff recruit believed to be part of the clandestine political operation against Trump 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.
Last February, Schiff recruited this other White House friend of the whistleblower to work as an impeachment investigator. Grace is listed alongside Sean Misko as senior staffers in the House Intelligence Committee’s “The Trump-Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry Report” published last month.
Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert, who served on one of the House impeachment panels, singled out Grace and Misko as Ciaramella’s “co-conspirators” in a recent House floor speech arguing for their testimony.
“These people are at the heart of everything about this whole Ukrainian hoax,” Gohmert said. “We need to be able to talk to these people."
A Schiff spokesman dismissed Gohmert’s allegation.

“These allegations about our dedicated and professional staff members are patently false and are based off false smears from a congressional staffer with a personal vendetta from a previous job,” said Patrick Boland, spokesman for the House Intelligence Committee. “It’s shocking that members of Congress would repeat them and other false conspiracy theories, rather than focusing on the facts of the president’s misconduct.”
Boland declined to identify "the congressional staffer with a personal vendetta."
Schiff has maintained in open hearings and interviews that he did not personally speak with the whistleblower and still does not even know his identity, which would mean the intelligence panel's senior staff has withheld his name from their chairman for almost six months. Still, he insists that he knows that the CIA analyst has "acted in good faith,” as well as “appropriately and lawfully.”
The CIA declined comment. But the agency reportedly has taken security measures to protect the analyst, who has continued to work on issues relating to Russia and Ukraine and participate in interagency meetings.

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