• Tag Archives Clinton

  • When cheaters are caught red-handed

    Posted on by Azrael 1 Comment

    Americans have always been for “fair play” and against cheating. It’s rooted in our heritage.

    When pro athletes are caught using steroids or tilting the odds, the fans are not amused. It’s why “Deflategate” was such a big deal. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was fined and suspended for four games this season over improper inflation of footballs in a 2015 playoff game.

    In 2008, baseball fan and fashion designer Marc Ecko underscored his own disdain for cheating in a big way. After bidding $752,467 at auction for the 756th home run ball hit by Barry Bonds that shattered the record of 755 held by Hank Aaron, Mr. Ecko conducted an online poll to determine the ball’s fate.

     Fans had three options: Donate the ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame as is; put it into the Hall with an asterisk, since Bonds was suspected of using steroids, or shoot it to the moon. Almost half of 10 million voters urged him to place an asterisk on the ball. So Mr. Ecko did, using a laser.

    The ball wound up in a glass case in Cooperstown, a reminder that even though Mr. Bonds is one of the greatest hitters of all time, he, uh, cheated. So the record is tainted.

    Likewise, the idea that someone is gaming the political system does not sit well with most folks, especially if you get caught.

     This is why CNN was forced to cut ties with contributor Donna Brazile after it was revealed that she had cheated by feeding questions to the Clinton campaign before Mrs. Clinton’s town hall appearance on CNN on March 13.

    CNN announced Ms. Brazile’s resignation on Oct. 14, three days after WikiLeaks released a stolen email exposing the leak, according to the DailyCaller.com. Another email shows she leaked a question to Clinton campaign chief John Podesta before a March 6 debate.

    Like many before her, Ms. Brazile, who became the chair of the Democratic National Committee in July, had gone seamlessly from Democrat political operative to a TV network role. The classic example is ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who was Bill Clinton’s director of communications and senior adviser for policy and strategy and who gives sweetheart interviews — to Democrats. The major networks, with the exception of Fox, are indistinguishable from the Democratic Party’s public relations staff. Meanwhile, surveys show public trust in the media at an all-time low. Coincidence?

    Liberal bias in this election cycle has been so blatant that even non-news junkies are shaking their heads. Ms. Brazile’s departure was one small step toward integrity, with countless more to go if the media are going to recover a shred of credibility.

    Americans hate cheating. The Bernie Sanders movement grew out of the notion, however misguided, that the “rich” on Wall Street are cheating everyone else. That, and an itching to redistribute other people’s earnings to the Free Stuff Army. Bernie’s supporters are still justifiably sore that WikiLeaks revealed how Clinton backer and then-Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz conspired to cheat him in the primaries.

    The Trump movement took flight on the notion that America’s ruling elites are cheating the country in a variety of ways, from recklessly importing millions of illegal aliens to making a sport of taxing the already besieged middle class, and lying the whole time about their motives.

    For sheer chutzpah, it’s hard to top Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, who met with Bill Clinton on an airplane and then let Hillary Clinton off the hook despite her “reckless” use of her private email system as Secretary of State.

    Now it’s come to light that Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, a repeated Clinton donor and close friend of campaign chief John Podesta, is involved with the probe of Clinton adviser Huma Abedin’s emails.

    Oh, and this: In an email from Mr. Kadzik to Mr. Podesta titled, “Heads up,” Mr. Kadzik offered “likely questions” that would be asked during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in May 2015 into Mrs. Clinton’s misusing a private email server to conduct State Department business.

    See any conflict here?

    Meanwhile, Democrats have filed lawsuits in federal courts in four battleground states alleging that because Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have urged citizens to volunteer for poll watching, it amounts to “a campaign of voter intimidation.”

    Really? This comes from the same folks whose Justice Department under President Obama threw out intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party, whose baton-wielding thugs were caught on video threatening voters at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.

    Source: When cheaters are caught red-handed – Washington Times




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  • FBI Clinton Foundation probe finds ‘avalanche’ of corruption evidence

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    An FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation is likely to lead to an indictment unless the Justice Department interferes, two sources familiar with the probe told Fox News.

    The Clintons are accused of running a pay-for-play operation out of the State Department that favored donors to their charity – a charge they have denied.

    But the feds are ‘actively and aggressively pursuing this case,’ Fox’s Brit Hume said Wednesday, and they have an ‘avalanche’ of evidence.

    A Wall Street Journal report says the FBI’s pursuit of the case is rooted in recordings of a suspect in a different corruption case who spoke about the Clinton Foundation’s alleged dirty dealings.

    The FBI, lead by James Comey, is ‘actively and aggressively pursuing this case,’ the sources said. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s Justice Department keeps telling the FBI to stand down, a second report revealed

    The FBI's pursuit of the case is rooted in recordings of a suspect in a different corruption case who spoke about the Clinton Foundation's alleged dirty dealings

    The FBI, under the leadership of director James Comey, believed those conversations were enough to move forward with the probe, the Journal says. Justice Department prosecutors disagreed because the source was not an employee of the Clinton Foundation.

    They considered the talk to be hearsay and did not think it would be enough to sway a grand jury.

    Fox is now reporting that federal investigators have collected ‘a lot of’ evidence, including Wikileaks emails to and foundation officials.

    The law enforcement agency has at least four other investigations open that involve the Clintons and their close friends, as well.

    Source: FBI Clinton Foundation probe finds ‘avalanche’ of corruption evidence | Daily Mail Online


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  • Hacked email appears to show DOJ official tipping Clinton campaign about review

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    An email released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday appears to show a senior Justice Department official sending information about the State Department’s review of Hillary Clinton’s emails to her presidential campaign — a move that comes as the Justice Department is under increased scrutiny for its handling of the email investigation.

    Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Peter Kadzik, who essentially serves as the Justice Department’s lobbyist to Congress, sent the email in question to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta from a private Gmail account on May 19 last year with the subject line, “Heads up.”

    “There is a (House Judiciary Committee) oversight hearing today where the head of our Civil Division will testify,” he wrote. “Likely to get questions on State Department emails.”

    “Another filing in the (Freedom of Information Act) case went in last night or will go in this am that indicates it will be awhile (2016) before the State Department posts the emails,” he added.

    The exchange is one of tens of thousands of emails stolen from Podesta’s Gmail account and published by WikiLeaks in recent weeks. CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of any of the emails, and the Clinton campaign has so far declined to verify individual emails.

    The Department of Justice declined to respond to questions regarding the email, and Clinton campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Palmieri, who was among the officials to whom Podesta forwarded the email in 2015, also declined to comment when asked by a reporter aboard Clinton’s campaign plane.

    The email plays into Republican candidate Donald Trump’s long-running narrative that Clinton and her entourage belong to a corrupt political elite seeking to exert influence at the Justice Department. Over the summer, days before the FBI announced it had completed its investigation into the private server, Bill Clinton met with Attorney General Loretta Lynch aboard her government plane, sparking accusations of a conflict of interest.

    Trump was quick to raise the Kadzik email during a campaign rally in Florida Wednesday afternoon, calling Kadzik “a close associate of John Podesta.”

    “These are the people that want to run our country, folks,” Trump said to a chorus of boos. “The spread of political agendas into Justice Department — there’s never been a thing like this that has happened in our country’s history — is one of the saddest things that has happened to our country.”

    The legal filing referenced in the second part of Kadzik’s email had been submitted to the court a day before Kadzik sent it, and had already been reported on in the media. But Kadzik’s phrasing, and his decision to write from his personal email account, gives the impression he was passing the information along as an informal tip, not knowing whether it had been filed.

    …

    Podesta later forwarded Kadzik’s note to Clinton’s other senior campaign staff with the comment, “Additional chances for mischief,” though it wasn’t clear to whom or what he was referring.

    The conversation suggests Kadzik may have felt inclined to keep Podesta informed about developments at the Department of Justice that related to the fledgling campaign. The FOIA case in question involved the State Department, not the campaign, and Podesta was not directly involved in the legal proceedings.

    Kadzik previously worked for Podesta as a lawyer, and additional emails released by WikiLeaks suggest the two men were friends. For example, in January, Kadzik and his wife emailed to wish Podesta a happy birthday and invite him to dinner next time he was in town. Kadzik’s wife, Amy Weiss, worked in the White House in the late 1990s when Podesta was then-President Bill Clinton’s chief of staff.

    It’s unclear how Kadzik learned of the FOIA filing, which was submitted by Department of Justice attorneys representing the State Department in ongoing lawsuits.

    …

    The stolen email is one of several published by WikiLeaks in recent weeks that raise questions about the coziness between the Clinton campaign and government officials.

    Last month, the group published an email in which Brian Fallon — a former spokesman for the Department of Justice now working for the Clinton campaign — indicated he has spoken with “DOJ folks” about pending FOIA litigation.

    And on Wednesday, an email emerged showing communication between a State Department spokeswoman and top Clinton aides about how the State Department would respond to reports about the former Secretary’s emails. This particular exchange was from March 1, 2015 — one day before Clinton’s private server was first revealed by The New York Times, and about a month before the official launch of her presidential campaign.

    The spokeswoman outlined the State Department’s response to the upcoming report, indicating that the press office had incorporated input from the Clinton aides.

    Source: Hacked email appears to show DOJ official tipping Clinton campaign about review – CNNPolitics.com


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