“I was within in a really smart universe of people that did not think this report should be made public. I didn’t think it was going to change anyone’s mind and resolve anything and for once in my life, I was right. It’s resolved nothing,” Gowdy said Friday on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.”

TRUMP CAMPAIGN GOES ON POST-MUELLER ATTACK AGAINST ‘OBAMA-ERA DOJ AND FBI,’ WARNS ‘JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED’

“You’re going to have two more years of investigations. They’re not going to go forward with impeachment because that’s dicey. But they are going to go forward with investigations on four or five difference House committees. The verdict will be rendered in November of 2020.”

On Thursday, Attorney General William Barr released a version of the Mueller report with redactions that showed investigators did not find evidence of collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia. It did not come to a conclusion on the topic of obstruction of justice.

Gowdy was not surprised by any information that came to light from the report’s release and criticized Barr for sharing the report in the first place.

KELLYANNE CONWAY, AFTER MUELLER REPORT’S RELEASE, SAYS PRESS APOLOGIES ARE IN ORDER

“I was not surprised because this report was not written for the public. It was written for the attorney general and it was the attorney general and a whole bunch of my Republican former colleagues that thought it would be a neat idea to share an oppo (sic) research piece on someone who is not indicted. The department of justice doesn’t do research papers. They either issue indictments or they do not,” Gowdy told Cavuto.

“Clearly he didn’t have enough evidence on collusion and what I would say with respect to Mueller is if you have enough on obstruction, then charge him and let a jury of 12 decide whether or not your evidence carries the burden of persuasion.”

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trey-gowdy-mueller-report-release-resolved-nothing2020-will-deliver-verdict

The post Trey Gowdy: Mueller report release ‘resolved nothing;’ 2020 will deliver ‘verdict’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Special counsel Robert Mueller was able to complete his investigation because President Donald Trump let him, the president asserted Thursday afternoon, in his first public reaction since Mueller’s report was released hours earlier.

“I had the right to end the whole Witch Hunt if I wanted,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “I could have fired everyone, including Mueller, if I wanted. I chose not to. I had the RIGHT to use Executive Privilege. I didn’t!”

Trump was initially mum after Mueller’s report into Russian interference during the 2016 election went public Thursday morning, declining to answer questions from reporters as he left the White House for his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

His supporters stayed on message throughout the day, however, asserting that the report exonerated the president of any malfeasance. The redacted report does not establish that Trump coordinated with Russia to win the election, but it did reveal multiple instances where the president tried to thwart investigations into 2016.

Trump has long decried the probes as an illegal, partisan “witch hunt” against him. Following Attorney General William Barr’s March 24 release of a four-page summary of the 448-page report, Trump heralded the investigation as a total exoneration, wanting to flip the script by investigating Democrats and federal officials who advanced the probe.

Brad Parscale, campaign manager of the Trump reelection campaign, maintained in a statement Thursday that the report completely absolved the president. He furthered a claim by Barr that spying occurred on the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, portraying the president as the true victim.

“Now the tables have turned, and it’s time to investigate the liars who instigated this sham investigation into President Trump, motivated by political retribution and based on no evidence whatsoever,” the statement said.

But on Thursday afternoon, the president’s tone changed tack toward maintaining his own innocence.

“‘Donald Trump was being framed, he fought back. That is not Obstruction,’” Trump tweeted, quoting Fox News’ Jesse Watters.

In a separate tweet later Thursday, Trump continued distancing himself from Russian interference in the election, saying it occurred while Barack Obama was president. Trump falsely said Obama did not respond to the threats of Russian meddling, though the FBI did investigate links between Russia and Trump months before the election.

“Anything the Russians did concerning the 2016 Election was done while Obama was President,” he wrote. “He was told about it and did nothing! Most importantly, the vote was not affected.”

Source: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/trump-shut-down-mueller-1282645

The post Trump: I could have shut it all down first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

We observed the Lord’s Supper in the auditorium here in Tyler last evening, conducted by Mr. Stan Roberts and Mr. Tony Brazil. Several visitors have already arrived for the Holy Day weekend and many more are arriving today. To see a calendar of planned events, look at page 23 in the latest edition of the TCW magazine.

Right up front, we’d like to ask for urgent prayers on behalf of Mr. Lee Cline of Montana. After conducting a Passover service he collapsed with what has been diagnosed as a leaking aorta. Doctors give him no more than a couple of days at most, and Mr. Cline has declined a major invasive surgery that comes with no guarantees. Mr. and Mrs. Cline are members of longstanding, and both have been enthusiastically helpful every year at the Feast of Tabernacles at Lake Tahoe.

Only a couple of days ago we learned of the sudden and shocking death of Mr. Trevor Smith of Scotland. He’s been a primary organizer and Minister for our English feast site in Kendal, Cumbria, along with Mr. Anthony Miles. Mr. Miles tells us that there is sufficient help for the feast to go on as planned in Kendal, Cumbria. But Mr. Smith’s unexpected passing has left his family in a state of shock and grief, and we hope they’ll be remembered in your prayers.

While the flames still raged, we saw the burning Notre Dame Cathedral used to illustrate what is happening in France and across Europe. Cathedrals are frequented by tourists, but not so much by parishioners. Christianity, or what passed for it, has been rendered all but illegal and replaced by socialist dogma, and not only in France. What really takes the cake is that the pope has been the one pushing open borders, making refugees a religious sacrament and trying to meld Catholicism with Islam. The video of him kissing the feet of the Sudanese delegation in Rome was, shall we say, a breach of traditional protocol, and it’s not the first time.

Parisians were traumatized by the vision of the burning steeple of Notre Dame leaning, then crumbling through the gutted roof. Almost immediately French President Macron pledged that the landmark would be rebuilt, regardless of cost. French billionaires went public to pledge millions to the cause. But there has been a smoldering anger over EU policies and official indifference to economic concerns in France. The “yellow vest” protests and riots have shut down Paris’ popular boulevards and lucrative tourist hot spots every weekend for months over a “social emergency,” officially acknowledged by Macron last December. Now the yellow vest crew is outraged about the quick response to spend whatever is necessary to restore the Cathedral while their concerns are ignored. The protests/riots are expected to grow in size and intensity. What happens this weekend will be a clue. But that is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to economic and social trouble brewing all across the European Union. If and when Britain succeeds in its long awaited exit from the EU, things will get even worse.

Here at home the dishonest news media is writhing around the clock over the release of the long-awaited Mueller Report. Anchors and their panels of experts, up to nine at a time, nod at each other like a bunch of rear window bobble heads over the OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE direction they’ve all taken. They don’t even seem to notice that the RUSSIAN COLLUSION charge they’ve been stoking since President Trump’s inauguration was completely fabricated, not to mention the thousands of network hours dedicated to non-existent “evidence.” Even the legal team of Trump-haters and forty FBI agents could establish nothing of the sort after issuing 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, and interviews with some 500 witnesses. Over a half million articles have been published alleging Trump/Russia collusion. Tens of millions of taxpayer dollars were expended while the whole nation and the rest of the world waited expectantly for the hammer to fall on the President.

The fraudulent media assured their audiences that President Trump would be forced to resign in disgrace, a theme that has not relented to this day. They don’t even seem to notice that the whole premise of the weighty investigation has been knocked out from under them. And that by a corrupt team of lawyers who wanted nothing more than to end the Trump presidency. No, they haven’t missed a beat. Now they’ve got a “pattern of behavior” they want to use for impeachment.

So let’s get this straight. The original accusation has been proven totally false. The falsely accused Trump saw the country and his presidency hobbled by fake news and a non-stop drumbeat for his ouster. He lashed out, threatening to use his Constitutionally legitimate power to put an end to the whole charade. It would have been a perfectly reasonable response, and probably should have been done. But his aids and advisors, ever cautious about repercussions and ramifications, talked him out of it. The fact that he talked seriously (probably ranted and raved, as did many of us) about putting an end to the nonsense means that he should be impeached for obstruction of justice. If he had fired everybody in sight it would in fact have been obstruction of an INJUSTICE. But here we are, nearly three years into this made-up story and it dominates all other concerns on earth, as far as the fraudulent media is concerned. As the Bible predicted, “Truth has fallen in the streets.”

Maybe this wouldn’t be such a big deal if President Trump wasn’t the only bulwark standing between us and socialist rule, and the United States the only nation in all of Western civilization that has not (yet) completely sold its soul to global warming, open borders, big government mandates and anti-God claptrap. If the American Constitution should get revoked and the U. S. follows in the path of the other emasculated nations descended from Abraham, it will be an enduring curse that will contribute to lawlessness, squalor, wars, dare we say tribulation, worldwide.

Mark

Source: http://www.intercontinentalcog.org/fridayupdates.php

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – 19 April 2019 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

No wonder Donald Trump was so angry.

No wonder he wanted to stop the Mueller investigation.

He didn’t collude with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

He knew he was innocent.

And almost three years ago he foresaw that a biased fishing expedition by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his liberal lawyers would undermine his ability to govern and provide Democrats and the liberal media with an endless supply of damaging political ammo.

Now that Attorney General William Barr released the redacted Mueller report, the whole world knows that Mueller completely exonerated Trump of collusion with Russia.

Mueller was unable to decide whether the president was guilty of obstruction of justice. But the desperate Democrats in the House and the disappointed fake journalists over at CNN don’t care that Mueller found Trump guilty of no crime.

They’ll spend the next 20 months parsing the Mueller report’s footnotes and milking the unanswered question of obstruction for every possible drop of political poison they can find.

By noon on Thursday CNN’s all-liberal panel of eight Trump-hating pundits and legal experts like Jeffrey Toobin already were back to their usual tricks.

They spent half the morning spinning the importance of the inconclusive “obstruction” part of Mueller’s report and trashing Attorney General Barr as a shill for the president.

Dana Bash and crew showed no sympathy for the unfair, incorrect, and deranged assault they and their soulmates at MSNBC, The New York Times, and elsewhere have subjected Trump to for three years.

You’d think Toobin and a few of the others would have been pleased to find out that the president of the United States did not collude or conspire with the Russians to fix the 2016 election.

Instead, ignoring how wrong they were about everything, they were excitedly talking about how the Mueller report’s examples of presidential obstruction attempts could serve as a handy road map to impeachment for House Democrats.

Some CNN panel members, to their shame, were visibly disappointed that Trump was saved by several staffers who had the good sense and ethics to refuse to do what he asked of them.

According to the Mueller report, there were ten examples of Trump trying to get control of the Russia investigation.

They included firing FBI Director James Comey, urging Trump’s useless Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “re-recuse” himself, and trying to get various staffers to lie or not cooperate with Mueller.

The facts surrounding those presidential attempts to interfere are not in dispute.

But the president never fired anyone, even though he had the Constitutional power to do it, and he never obstructed Mueller from doing his work.

The White House even turned over millions of documents and the president waived his right to use executive privilege.

If any of his White House staff had followed the president’s requests concerning the Mueller investigation there might have been a legitimate case for obstruction.

But they ignored him. And they did exactly what they are supposed to do — they kept the boss from making a serious mistake.

I say bravo to the president’s staff for saving his butt. They did their job. They protected President Trump from himself.

As the president’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said Thursday, the president reacted to the Russia collusion charges the way any innocent man would react to a frame up.

President Trump had every right to be outraged and frustrated by Mueller’s investigation, which he always knew was a Democratic witch hunt.

If he never colluded with anyone in the first place, as Mueller has proved to the satisfaction of everyone except maybe Rachel Maddow and Adam Schiff, it’s hard to see how the president could be guilty of the crime of obstruction.

If anything, the only thing President Trump was guilty of was trying to obstruct injustice.

Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Reagan, is a Newsmax TV analyst. A syndicated columnist and author, he chairs The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Michael is an in-demand speaker with Premiere speaker’s bureau. Read more reports from Michael Reagan — Go Here Now.

Source: https://www.newsmax.com/reagan/trump-mueller-report/2019/04/19/id/912481/

The post Trump’s Obstruction of Injustice first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“We’re accepting apologies today, too, for anybody who feels the grace in offering them,” she said before criticizing the way the press handled the issue.

On Twitter, Conway singled out The New York Times, which she said should print a “16-page apology.”

Conway, who served as Trump’s 2016 campaign manager, said the report dispelled concerns that the president unfairly beat former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the last presidential election.

“Was there intent to collude? Was there an intent to commit a crime? Was there an intent to conspire with Russians? Was there intent to steal the election from poor old Hillary Clinton, I’m sure for whom most of you voted?”

She also accused the press of helping to spread a lie over the past two years. “And so intent matters and I know you want to cherry-pick one line here or one line there because the big lie that you’ve let fly for two years, it’s over, folks,” she said.

MEDIA OUTLETS PAN AG BARR BEFORE RELEASE OF REDACTED MUELLER REPORT

Conway took a jab at congressional Democrats who spent much of their time focusing on the Russia issue. Holding up a blank sheet of paper, Conway said, “this is the success of the Democrats in the first 100 days in Congress.”

The post Kellyanne Conway, after Mueller report’s release, says press apologies are in order first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Yahoo News’ Michael Isikoff, an early public conduit for Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, now says the former British spy’s sensational Russia collusion charges lack apparent evidence and are “likely false.”

As Election Day loomed in September 2016, Mr. Isikoff was the first Washington journalist to write about Mr. Steele’s memos. He focused on Mr. Steele’s contention that Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page met with nefarious operatives of Russian President Vladimir Putin during a publicly announced trip to Moscow in July 2016.

As reported by the Daily Caller, Mr. Isikoff this month told Mediaite columnist John Ziegler: “When you actually get into the details of the Steele dossier, the specific allegations, we have not seen the evidence to support them, and in fact, there is good grounds to think that some of the more sensational allegations will never be proven and are likely false.”

Mr. Isikoff is best friends with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, who hired Mr. Steele in May and June 2016 with money funneled through a law firm from the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Isikoff was one of a handful of mainstream journalists who met with Mr. Steele in Washington as arranged by Mr. Simpson.

Mother Jones magazine’s David Corn wrote the second Washington dossier story based on an interview with Mr. Steele, who acknowledged he was desperate to stop the Trump campaign and prompt the FBI to ratchet up its investigation.

Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn would team up on a March 2018 best-selling book, “Russian Roulette.” It told Mr. Steele’s story in a favorable light amid a narrative on Moscow’s direct election interference by hacking Democratic Party computers.

The book helped Mr. Steele attract a large liberal following on social media that loyally attested to the dossier’s accuracy.

Mr. Steele also had a big fan in Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, who read his charges at a March 2017 hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Mr. Schiff assumes the committee’s chairmanship in January. Republicans speculate that he will continue to collect and research Fusion GPS’s anti-Trump memos.

It has been 31 months since Mr. Steele submitted his first dossier memo in June 2106 to Fusion GPS; 30 months since the FBI opened an investigation that came to rely heavily on his work; 27 months since Mr. Isikoff wrote the first dossier story; 24 months since BuzzFeed posted the entire dossier; 24 months since the House and Senate intelligence committees opened their separate probes; and 19 months since special counsel Robert Mueller took charge of the Trump-Russia investigation.

The Washington Times looked at Mr. Steele’s core collusion charges to see how they have stood up:

⦁ Accusation: The Trump campaign was a partner in an “extensive conspiracy” with the Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election.

Today: There is no confirmed public evidence. No Trump person has been charged in such a conspiracy. Mr. Mueller’s office informed President Trump that he isn’t a target.

⦁ Accusation: Then-Trump attorney Michael Cohen secretly traveled to Prague in August 2016 and met with Putin aides to organize cash payments to hush up hackers who infiltrated Democratic Party computers.

Today: There is no confirmed public evidence. Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to tax evasion charges and is cooperating with Mr. Mueller, still vehemently denies he ever went to Prague. No court filings indicate he has any knowledge of Trump collusion, and he has said he doesn’t.

McClatchy news service has published two stories asserting that Mr. Mueller has evidence Cohen went to Prague.

Fusion’s Mr. Simpson told Congress that Cohen could have traveled to Prague by way of a yacht and Russian aircraft.

Daniel Jones, a former Senate Democratic aide, told the FBI in 2017 that he had amassed $50 million from wealthy donors to keep investigating Mr. Trump. He said he hired Fusion GPS and Mr. Steele.

⦁ Accusation: Carter Page met with two Putin operatives and discussed a brokerage fee in return for pushing an end to U.S. sanctions on wealthy Russians and businesses.

Today: Pro-Russia energy investor Mr. Page embarked on perhaps the most suspicious course of action when he traveled to Moscow to deliver a public college speech in July 2106. He once worked in Moscow as a Merrill Lynch banker.

The FBI wiretapped him for one year based largely on the dossier. No evidence has emerged publicly that he ever met with Putin people or discussed bribes. He has told the FBI and Congress that he didn’t. He has not been charged.

⦁ Accusation: Mr. Page and campaign chairman Paul Manafort worked as a team to coordinate election interference with the Kremlin.

Today: No public evidence to support this scenario. The two say they don’t know each other and have never spoken. Manafort stands convicted of tax fraud and other charges. Mr. Mueller has made no court filing that indicates he is involved in a Russian election conspiracy.

Manafort attorney Kevin Downing filed a court paper saying he asked Mr. Mueller for any evidence of his client talking to Russian government officials. There was none, the attorney said.

⦁ Accusation: Mr. Trump actively supported ongoing computer hacking.

Today: No public evidence.

⦁ Accusation: The Trump “team” paid Russian hackers.

Today: No public evidence. Mr. Mueller brought indictments against the Russian intelligence officers who did the hacking and stole emails released by WikiLeaks. There is no indication that the funding came from Trump people.

⦁ Accusation: Mr. Trump maintained an eight-year relationship with Kremlin operatives in quid pro quo intelligence-sharing.

Today: No public evidence.

⦁ Accusation: Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev, owner of computer server provider XBT Holding, hacked the Democrats under pressure from Moscow intelligence.

Today: No public evidence. Mr. Gubarev’s attorneys say no U.S. authority has asked to interview him. The Mueller indictment against Russian hackers doesn’t mention XBT.

A U.S. District judge dismissed Mr. Gubarev’s libel lawsuit against BuzzFeed but not because the dossier is true. The judge ruled that BuzzFeed, which had published the unverified memos, was protected from libel because the FBI and intelligence agencies were using the dossier in their probes.

Mr. Gubarev is suing Mr. Steele for defamation in a London court. Mr. Steele has signed declarations saying his allegations needed to be investigated further.

‘Absolute dynamite’

In “Russian Roulette,” Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn paint a favorable portrait of Mr. Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence in London.

“Steele was the heart of the operation. … Steele, who possessed a phenomenal memory, was a master of vacuuming up huge amounts of information and analyzing material,” they wrote.

The book says Mr. Steele relied heavily on a Russian “collector” who traveled to Moscow and learned supposed dirt on candidate Trump.

“Two weeks or so later, Steele flew to meet his chief collector in a European city,” the book says. “As Steele listened and took notes, he could scarcely believe what he was hearing. His collector, relaying what he had been told by his contacts, informed Steele that the Russians had been targeting and cultivating Trump for years and had even gathered kompromat on him, specifically tales of weird sexual indiscretions that the collector said ‘were an open secret’ in Moscow.

“Steele was horrified. ‘I thought I had heard and seen everything in my career,’ he told associates. Steele immediately notified Simpson. He had ‘absolute dynamite,’ Steele said, mentioning the sexual kompromat,” the book says.

Mr. Steele would include in the dossier’s June 20 memo a tale of Mr. Trump engaging in sex with Russian prostitutes at Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton hotel. Mr. Trump has denied this and told The Washington Times in April 2017 that the FBI’s reliance on Mr. Steele was a “disgrace.”

“Russian Roulette” was somewhat guarded in endorsing Mr. Steele’s sex charge: “As with Steele’s first report, none of the sources in the memos were identified. Steele later told associates one of the sources for the information was the paramour of a Kremlin insider. In short, it was pillow talk.”

In an interview this month, Mediaite’s Mr. Ziegler asked Mr. Isikoff whether the Steele dossier “has been somewhat vindicated.” Mr. Isikoff said, “No.”

The Times asked Mr. Isikoff which Steele allegation he has come to doubt. He declined to answer, saying he was waiting for Mr. Mueller’s report “like everybody else.”

Mr. Trump tweeted: “Michael Isikoff was the first to report Dossier allegations and now seriously doubts the Dossier claims. The whole Russian Collusion thing was a HOAX, but who is going to restore the good name of so many people whose reputations have been destroyed?”

Five Trump campaign figures have been convicted of crimes not directly related to any Russia election collusion, which was Mr. Mueller’s main task assigned by the Justice Department. Each report of a plea deal has spurred speculation among liberal pundits and politicians that Mr. Trump is doomed.

⦁ George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign volunteer, pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about when he joined the campaign and met with a Maltese professor in London. The professor told him he heard that Moscow owned thousands of Hillary Clinton emails. It may have been a reference to 30,000 emails during her tenure as secretary of state that she ordered destroyed.

Papadopoulos has said he never acted on the gossip and never met any Russians. He said he believes the FBI wiretapped him and assigned at least one spy to try to entrap him.

⦁ Paul Manafort was convicted in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, of tax fraud, bank fraud and failure to disclose foreign bank accounts. He pleaded guilty in a D.C. federal court to witness tampering and conspiracy to defraud the United States.

⦁ Rick Gates, Manafort’s onetime business partner, pleaded guilty to making false statements and conspiracy against the United States.

⦁ Retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about intercepted phone calls he conducted with the Russian ambassador during the Trump transition.

⦁ Cohen pleaded guilty to tax evasion on income from a taxicab business, lying to a bank and campaign finance offenses. He later said he lied to Congress about when negotiations ended with the Kremlin on building a Trumphotel.

No court filings indicate that any of the five participated in or witnessed collusion with Russia.

Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/30/michael-steeles-russia-dossier-donald-trump-fails-/

The post Dossier fails the test of time; Trump-Russia collusion claims now called ‘likely false’ first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.