By BARRY SHAW
In the United States, as layers are peeled off disclosures of gross government abuses that are becoming criminal in nature, the name of Barack Obama is repeatedly being mentioned.
One would have to be either political naïve, or politically biased, not to suspect that the weaponization of the branches of his administration against his political rivals was rampant.
We saw clear signs of this with the IRS going after Obama’s conservative opponents. It is amazing how many computer malfunctions occurred in government agencies from the IRS to the FBI under an Obama Administration. These always resulted in the disappearance of correspondence, emails, and other recriminating documents that, when recovered under duress, showed clear cases of the misuse of power. According to Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Jason Chaffetz, 24,000 emails were destroyed after coming under subpoena by the House Committee. In the case of the IRS under Lois Lerner, their exposure pointed to the U.S. tax authority targeting and harassing political opponents and conservative NGOs.
In this case, President Obama tried to deflect the political nature of his IRS by blaming the corrupt management on “crummy legislation.”
But now, with the shocking revelations of criminal corruption at the highest level of the FBI and Department of Justice over the circumstances that led four judges of the secret FISA Court granting permits to spy on a political rival in the American presidential election, the finger is not only pointing at Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee but at Barack Obama, the man who occupied the Oval Office.
For those unfamiliar with the background, particularly those who follow the American mainstream media that studiously avoid reporting on the biggest scandal in American political history, here are the headline points;
A salacious and unverified dossier, prepared by a foreign agent, and paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign team, was presented by the FBI to the covert FISA Court for a warrant to spy on the Democrats political opponent.
When the FBI applied, four times, for warrants to spy on Trump associates they failed to inform the judge that the information was unverified and game from a foreign agent or that it had been paid for by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to spy on their political opponent. The FBI has an obligation under law to preset verified information without withholding essential facts from the judge. Yet this is precisely what the did.
The scandalous report prepared by Christopher Steele included Russian Anti-Trump disinformation that positioned the presidential candidate frolicking naked in a Moscow hotel bedroom with Russian prostitutes and urinating on a bed once used by Obama. This dossier, prepared by a garbage collection agency, Fusion GPs, who pose as a commercial research and strategic intelligence firm based in Washington DC, was bought and paid for by the DNC and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign HQ to the tune of $12 million, to dig up dirt on Trump. Much of the information contained in this dossier was provided by Russian sources as part of a Russian disinformation campaign against presidential candidate, Donald Trump. Yet, for over the year, the Democrat-supporting media have been beating an empty drum of Trump collusion with the Russians when the collusion was coming from their side of the political divide.
New revelations of uninvestigated Democratic-Russian connections drip almost daily like drops of winter rain.
Adam Schiff, Democratic Deputy ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee was caught on tape responding to Russian pranksters pretending to have dirt on Trump including having naked pictures that Putin had been aware of. Schiff’s response was “We will be back on touch with you to make arrangements. I appreciate you reaching out to us.” When his office was made aware of the hoax their excuse was that Schiff was suspicious of the call.
Then high ranking Democrat, Mark Warner, was exposed in negotiating with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch linked to organized crime to get access to the foreign agent, Christopher Steele. Instead of doing it openly and officially, Warner suggested having the meeting in London. As he texted the lobbyist, Adam Waldman with close ties to Russian oligarchs and the Clintons, in February 2017, “We want to do this right, private in London, don’t want to send a letter yet cuz if we can’t get an agreement, wud rather not have a paper trail.” Digging up dirt on a political opponent must be done covertly, even I you are a high ranking senator.
Carter William Page, an American petroleum industry consultant and, for a brief time, a minor adviser to the Trump election team, became the target of an FBI warrant to a FISA Court based on far-fetched allegations by the same foreign agent Steele who, among other falsehoods, accused him of engineering an unlikely deal in which Page would receive 12% of the value of the proposed sale of Russian petro giant, Rosneft, if the US lifted its anti-Russian sanction imposed after their incursions into the Ukraine. Such a charge was patently ridiculous. There was no guarantee that Trump would lift the sanctions or that a discredited Page would ever persuade Trump to do so. Also, the Rosneft sale would amount to more than $12 billion and the Kremlin, who described Page as “an idiot,” would never have trusted Page to complete such a deal. When the Trump team learned that Page was under investigation by the FBI, they dropped him. After years of investigation by the FBI, Page has not been charged with any treasonous activity.
The shenanigans at the top of the FBI and DOJ are extraordinary. The revelations of intense communications between two illicit lovers, Peter Strzok, a top FBI investigator who not only worked to exonerate Hillary Clinton of clear criminal activities but was also one of the lead investigators in the Trump-Russian collusion farce, and Lisa Page, a top FBI lawyer and a key player in the anti-Trump probe, are mind-blowing.
The link between them is Andrew McCabe, the Deputy Director of the FBI who was forced to resign over the revelations. All three were Clinton sycophants who plotted to defy the will of the American people and attempt sedition to unseat an elected president, with what they called their “insurance policy” in what was considered the “unlikely” event that Trump was elected president.
The public is being entertained with the ongoing release of unclassified FBI documents and text messages between Strzok and Page that has sucked in other culprits in the criminalization of the intelligence agency. One of the revelation has caught former President Obama in a lie, and maybe more.
In the spring of 2016, Obama was asked if the public could have confidence that his Administration would never tamper with any criminal investigation. He answered that “I guarantee that there is no political interference in any investigation by the DOJ, FBI, in any case. Full stop. Period!”
Obama sounded definitive, but recently revealed documents show that this is blatantly false.
In one exchange between the FBI lovers, Lisa Page wrote on September 2, 2016, “POTUS (President of the United States) wants to know everything we’re doing.”
What the FBI was doing was spying on the opposition presidential campaign team based on warrant fraudulently obtained on a salacious and unverified dossier paid for by Obama’s DNC and the Clinton campaign team. A glaring case of political sedition.
And then, on February 7, 2018, another bombshell landed in the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Intelligence Committee meeting when an FBI-CIA whistle-blower gave explosive testimony on Russian criminal networks operating in the United States s they attempted to aid and sustain Iran’s covert nuclear industry when the Obama Administration approved the sale of 20% of American uranium mining rights to Russia. Uranium is used both for peaceful energy and for the less peaceful payload of a nuclear bomb.
The Obama Administration, according to the informant, knew that Putin wanted to get his hands on American uranium. They also knew that Russia was double dealing with Iran, and yet nine Obama agencies, led by Hillary Clinton in the State Department, went ahead and approved the deal.
One of the conditions of the agreement was that the uranium would remain within America, but they remained silent when it was exported first to Canada, then to Europe, and then to unknown destinations.
The informant, William Campbell, represented by lawyer, Victoria Toensing, testified because he was furious that the Russians were bragging of their relationships with the Clintons. He disclosed that when Bill Clinton travelled with a close friend to Kazakhstan, which ended up with mining rights there, it was a shoe-in to get the US deal with the Clintons help. This was enhanced with generous donations to the Clinton Foundation by all concerned. When Campbell asked one of his FBI contacts why the Obama Administration approved the Uranium One sale when the FBI knew that the Russian Rosatom group was engaged in criminal activities he was told, “It’s all politics!”
In truth it was all politics for Obama, and all money for the Clintons.
It is inconceivable that the intelligence provided by a frustrated Campbell to the FBI about the Russian supply of uranium to Iran would not make its way to the decision makers at the highest level of the United States government, meaning Obama and Clinton. It was, after all, critical information they needed to know as they considered the implications of the Uranium One deal. And yet they decided to approve the sale of American uranium to a disreputable Russian agency.
The history of liberty in America is strongly based on correct and ethical governmental procedure. When procedure is corrupted, liberty is in peril.
The consequences for America when their intelligence and justice departments are weaponized for political purposes against a political opponent is anarchy and the death of democracy.
The question needs to be asked, are there going to be consequences for a corrupt political system aided by the FBI and the Department of Justice, abetted by a compliant and sycophantic media?
More details will be forthcoming in the coming days and weeks. The final shoe to fall will be the report by Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice. This report is expected to be delivered within sixty days, and it promises to be devastating.
The consequences for Israel of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry uranium/nuclear collusion with Russia, a triumvirate who knew that Iran was in the loop, an Iran that threatens our survival, could be fatal.
Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
