Category Archives: popcorn!

Smoking Gun Email Found: Hillary Instructed Aide to Strip Markings Before Sending Classified Data

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send non secure
Last August, when it became known that emails from the intelligence community were somehow making it onto her personal server, more than a few of us wondered, Did Someone in Hillary’s Inner Circle Strip Classified Markings From Her Emails?
That question has been answered thanks to the belated State Department document dump that was executed in the middle of the night.
Among this latest tranche of Hillary’s emails, Fox News picked up on a significant exchange that is –let’s just say — highly problematic.

The latest batch of emails released from Hillary Clinton’s personal account from her tenure as secretary of state includes 66 messages deemed classified at some level, the State Department said early Friday. In one email, Clinton even seemed to coach a top adviser on how to send secure information outside secure channels. Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, has repeatedly maintained that she did not send or receive classified material on her personal account. The State Department claims none of the emails now marked classified were labled as such at the time they were sent. However, one email thread from June 2011 appears to include Clinton telling her top adviser Jake Sullivan to send secure information through insecure means. In response to Clinton’s request for a set of since-redacted talking points, Sullivan writes, “They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax. They’re working on it.” Clinton responds “If they can’t, turn into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure.” Ironically, an email thread from four months earlier shows Clinton saying she was “surprised” that a diplomatic officer named John Godfrey used a personal email account to send a memo on Libya policy after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi.

Hillary, of course, as Secretary of State, had been  explicitly instructed by the State Department on the correct procedures for disseminating secure information.

As Guy Benson notes at Townhall, “State sanctioned at least one top diplomat for disregarding those rules.”
 Mrs. Clinton may have been especially “surprised” at Godfrey’s actions because they came after she’d been issued a dire warning that foreign entities were aggressively targeting State Department officials’ personal, unsecure email accounts. But lest you need reminding, Hillary Clinton exclusively used such accounts to conduct all of her official business — via an improper, unsecure, private server — before and after this urgent red flag was brought to her attention.

(2) “Clinton…has repeatedly maintained that she did not send or receive classified material on her personal account.”  This assertion has been disproven by the more than 1,000 classified emails discovered on her private server, including 66 additions from this batch alone.  Her myriad excuses for this have been debunked piece by piece.

(3) Her final justification — which is legally irrelevant, as Hillary herself has personally attested — is that none of the sensitive material that she wrongfully transmitted through her unsecure server was “marked classified” at the time.  Again, this is meaningless, especially when it comes to highly secret material that she was obligated to recognize and protect as soon as it was produced.  But the email chain referenced above includes an instruction from Hillary Clinton to a State Department aide (who now works on her campaign) to strip classified information — it remains redacted to this day — of its classified markings [“identifying heading”] and “send nonsecure.”

hillary-e-mail2
 Only one such email was found, but note her “matter-of-fact” attitude. This has all the appearance of standard operating procedure for her.
Hillary is so busted.

The only questions now are whether Comey’s recommendation to indict will be heeded by Loretta Lynch, and whether she will continue running even if indicted. There are different opinions on that.

 

 

 

 

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Jesse Ventura Trial Not Going Very Well For Him

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Jesse Ventura may have to get his reputation back some other way – his lawsuit against slain hero Chris Kyle’s widow and children is not going so well.

Ventura’s defamation lawsuit has been playing out in a Minnesota court for a week now as he seeks punish the estate of late “American Sniper” author and former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Ventura is suing Kyle’s widow Taya and his two children because of the damage done to his reputation by a story Kyle told about him in his autobiography.

Chris Kyle, who served in Iraq and had 160 confirmed kills, making him the deadliest marksman in American military history, mentioned Ventura by name as the  person he punched at a bar popular with Navy SEAL personnel in Coronado while promoting his book American Sniper in 2012. Kyle claims Ventura had been loudly and obnoxiously slamming the Iraq War and the troops who fought it, during a wake for Michael A. Monsoor, a Medal of Honor recipient and Navy SEAL who had been killed in action in Iraq. Kyle, having heard enough,  hauled off and decked Ventura. Allegedly.

Witness after witness came forward Tuesday to claim they heard at least part of Ventura’s ranting and saw parts of the fight – although there is a dispute about exactly where it occurred.

Here’s the Today’s Show’s brief synopsis of the case from Tuesday morning.

Via The MN Star Trib:

One saw him take a punch. Another said he saw him on the sidewalk outside a bar. Another saw him leave with blood on his lips.

(Ventura told fellow 9/11 truther and friend Alex Jones on his radio show in January of 2012 that the confrontation never occurred – he had never even  met Kyle nor heard of him before.)

Rosemary deShazo, a friend of Chris Kyle’s who attended the wake, testified that she heard Ventura make a disparaging remark about U.S. Navy SEALs similar to the one Kyle described in “American Sniper.”

“He said, ‘They probably deserved it, they die all the time,’ ” she testified.

Under cross-examination DeShazo conceded that she was paraphrasing Ventura. But when asked by Kyle attorney Leita Walker how confident she was about the quote, she responded, “quite confident, very confident.”

DeShazo is a sister of Laura deShazo, who testified Monday that she saw Ventura punched in the bar.

Rosemary deShazo said she did not see a punch, but recalled Ventura’s remarks because of the context. “Unusual things that are emotional stick in your memory. I remember he offended me, offended people I was with.”

Also present was Debbie Lee, who started an organization called America’s Mighty Warriors after her son Marc Lee, 28, in 2006 became the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq.

Lee, who said she was a close friend of Chris Kyle, testified that Ventura expressed no sympathy to her about Monsoor’s death or the death of her son weeks earlier. She said he only wanted to talk about himself.

“I lost all respect for the man,” she testified.

Lee said she heard Ventura say that Americans don’t belong in Iraq and that President George W. Bush got involved in an unjust war. She said she did not see any physical altercation, but saw Kyle approach Ventura to discourage him from making offensive remarks.

She also said Kyle told her at breakfast the next morning that he had punched Ventura.

Lee also said the Kyles had personally given her $26,000. Taya Kyle testified last week that the money is part of an effort to disperse income from her late husband’s book to veterans’ causes.

John Kelly III, dressed in full U.S. Navy SEAL uniform, testified next and said that he saw Ventura lying on his back on a sidewalk outside McP’s moments after Ventura faced off with Kyle.

Kelly, a special operator 1st class SEAL, said that he had seen Kyle facing Ventura moments earlier, but did not see Kyle punch Ventura.

Kelly admitted he had been drinking heavily, having had 15 to 20 drinks, but that he was certain he had seen Ventura on the ground and that it appeared he had been knocked down.

He said he did not see Ventura get up.

‘He was cool’

Kelly said that earlier in the evening, he had shaken hands with Ventura and told him he’d seen him in the movies. “He was cool,” Kelly said. “He was very engaging, talking about the movies. You’re meeting one of your idols growing up.”

But after about 10 minutes of conversation with Kelly and others on the bar’s patio, Kelly said, the discussion “started getting more political.”

He said Ventura began “bad-mouthing the war” and said that the United States shouldn’t be in Iraq, “killing women and children.”

Kelly started to walk away because he didn’t want to lose his temper, he said. He said it was inappropriate for Ventura to be making such remarks at a wake. “You don’t go to a guy’s wake and bad-mouth,” he said.

Walker, the attorney, asked Kelly for his opinion of Ventura today.

“Worse,” said Kelly. “He’s suing a widow and two babies.”

Kelly said word of the altercation spread quickly in the bar, describing the SEALs as a “sewing circle” in which “members gossip but in a masculine way.”

There’s much more, but you’ll have to read the rest, here.

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Trey Gowdy Scorches IRS Chief: “You don’t have any idea of criminal wrongdoing or not!” (Video)

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South Carolina firebrand Trey Gowdy gave liberals a preview of what the Regime is in for when he chairs the Benghazi special committee, this Fall, at the Oversight and Reform hearing on the IRS scandal, Monday night.

Gowdy is a skilled legal questioner and his mastery was on full display at the hearing entitled, “IRS Obstruction: Lois Lerner’s Missing Emails.” 

He came prepared – more prepared than the 74 year old Koskinen would have liked.

The former prosecutor gave the IRS Chief a primer on something he called “foliation of evidence.”

Via Mediaite:

Gowdy lectured Koskinen on the “negative inference” drawn by the inability of the IRS to retrieve these emails, and said if a taxpayer is being prosecuted by the IRS a jury would look on them with more than a little suspicion.

He pressed Koskinen on how he knows there was no criminal wrongdoing. At one point, Koskinen exasperatedly said he’s relying on “common sense,” at which point Gowdy went off and lectured him, shouting, “You don’t have any idea of criminal wrongdoing or not!”

When Koskinen clumsily tried to absolve the White House  – insinuating that the GOP had wrongly implicated Obama,  Gowdy let him have it:  “You’re repeating a talking point by our colleagues on the other side!”

Can you imagine one of the older Republican  dinosaurs catching on to what Koskinen was doing there –  pushing the Regime’s “conspiracy theory” narrative? They probably would have felt intimidated and backed down. Not Gowdy – he went on the offensive, explaining to Koskinen how Obama and Carney had implicated themselves by making false statements.

Poetry in motion.

Issa: Silencing CIA Employees Is Obstruction And Illegal (Video)

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Rep Darrell Issa, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee appeared on Fox News this morning to talk about the latest revelations in the “phony” Benghazi scandal – aka “the big one.”

Yesterday,  Issa issued two subpoenas to the State Department for documents relevant to the Committee’s investigation into the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya that cost four American lives.

The documents covered by the subpoenas will allow Congressional investigators to understand how the ARB conducted its review and how it obtained testimony from witnesses.  Witnesses interviewed by the Committee have testified that the ARB never asked them about the very issues that the ARB eventually cited as cause to hold four State Department officials accountable for the inadequate security posture in Benghazi.  Those four officials were subsequently placed on paid administrative leave based on the ARB’s recommendation.  Yesterday, the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry outlining some of the concerns expressed to the Committee by witnesses.  The subpoenas also require the State Department to produce 25,000 page of documents to Congress that are currently carted into the Capitol each day, preventing investigators from having full access.

“After ignoring requests for months, the State Department has left no alternative but to issue subpoenas for documents relevant to our investigation,” said Issa. “State Department tactics to delay and impede accountability have exhausted the Committee’s patience. Further subpoenas may also be necessary if the Department is not forthcoming on other requests.”

Rick Folbaum asked Issa the $64, 000 question, “what are officials trying to keep from being made public?”

Issa rattled off the three main components of the scandal (before, during and after) that have never smelled right.

– “Before Benghazi, there were plenty of calls for help that were unheeded…”

– “During the attack they did not call on friends and allies to bring aid…”

– “The constant misleading about what happened. The people deserve the truth on day one”, Issa said, “not an evolving truth that goes on until – actually for as long as it takes for us to prove that they didn’t tell the truth the first time.”

As for the CNN reports that CIA employees are being intimidated into silence, Issa said, “we are aware that there’s a pattern of saying they must coordinate with their bosses before talking to congress. Of course that’s not consistent with the law – and that leads to a general belief that you shouldn’t talk to congress and that happens to be obstruction, and it’s illegal under the statutes.

Via Gateway Pundit

UPDATE:

The Conversation: Report: At Least 5 CIA Employees Forced to Sign Nondisclosure Agreements

Twitchy: ‘No f****** s***’: Atlantic writer decides there might be something to this Benghazi thingy

Streaming Live: House Oversight Cmte. Hears About IRS Targeting Conservative Organizations 9:30 am Eastern

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The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee  is holding a hearing on the IRS political targeting scandal, this morning at 9:30 am. Eastern.

“The IG report indicts IRS for a colossal management failure, but leaves many questions unanswered,” said Chairman Issa.
You can watch the hearing streamed live at http://oversight.house.gov or on CSPAN.

The Committee has invited the following witnesses to testify:

  • Neal S. Wolin, Deputy Secretary, Department of the Treasury
  • J. Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration
  • Lois Lerner, Director of Exempt Organizations, Internal Revenue Service (Pleading the 5th.)
  • Douglas Shulman, Former Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service

Chairman Issa’s opening statement:

Via Liz Sheld at the Conversation: IRS Misses Deadline to Turn over Targeting Documents.

 

SEE ALSO: 

Ace of Spades HQ: IRS Completed Internal Investigation Into Tea Party Targeting Matter in May 2012; Hid Report from Congress

The Conversation: Shulman Visited White House 118 Times During Tea Party Targeting

Juiceboxers Who Visited The WH, Yesterday Suddenly Taking a Hard Line On IRS Scandal

Issa Summons DOJ’s IG Horowitz to Capitol Hill for September Hearing on Fast and Furious

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Hmmm! Gotta say I like the timing of this – Mike Vanderboegh of SSI is calling it a “September Surprise”.

Rep Issa, the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee sent the letter on Friday to the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz, summoning him to Capitol Hill to testify before a hearing on Sept. 11.

Via Kerry Picket of The Washington Times, the letter stated:

“Under normal circumstances, the Department has two weeks to complete this review, which would make its response due by September 4, 2012. It would be regrettable if senior Department officials applied political pressure on you to delay publication of this report. Given the considerable public interest in this case and the Attorney General’s own purported interest in learning the recommendations set forth in your report in order to make important management changes, it is incumbent upon you to release this report as soon as practicable.”

Additional thoughts via David Codrea of Gun Rights Examiner:

The length of time the report has taken to prepare prompted Gun Rights Examiner to observe last December that it had already exceeded the time it took the Warren Commission to produce its report on the John F. Kennedy assassination. Cautions were also raised months back about the selection of Horowitz to replace then-acting IG Cynthia A. Schnedar, who had close ties to Attorney General Eric Holder, when this column pointed out his close ties to Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, identified early on as a person of interest in Fast and Furious by this column and citizen journalist Mike Vanderboegh of Sipsey Street Irregulars.

“We have been told through our sources for some time to be ready for a ‘September Surprise,’” Vanderboegh told his readers yesterday of this latest development. “The idea was to get the OIG report on the record and then, if it was a whitewash, to blow it out of the water with additional documents and witnesses already in the hands of the Issa committee.”

That makes Issa’s warning against delay all the more understandable, and further validates claims made over the weekend to this columnist by a past-proven source that there are “a lot of closed doors” at ATF Headquarters, as Acting Director B. Todd Jones, Deputy Director Thomas E. Brandon, the Chief Counsel’s office and relevant staffers are “poring” over a report said to be over 400 pages long.

It also renews hope that Issa and the Committee will be taking heed of unsolicited public counsel from this correspondent and Vanderboegh to demand the evidentiary work papers used as the basis for report findings, characterized by an adviser in government practices as “hot stuff, that’s for sure.”

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