Operation Nemesis 8.0
Retribution against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

By MG Paul Vallely (US Army, Ret.)

Chairman – Stand Up America US Foundation

May 30, 2020

“For nearly 40 years, the CCP has used globalization and economic incentives to bring other countries under the Communist Party’s influence. CCP infiltration beyond China’s borders runs deep in the political, economic, cultural, and educational spheres. Examples of PRC influence operations include the Confucius Institutes programs, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and telecom giant Huawei. By trapping people and governments within its system of economic interests, the CCP leads them to accommodate its atheist ideology, tolerate its tyrannical rule, and betray the divine.

Misfortune is certain to befall those countries and regions that increased their engagement with the CCP and endorsed it. The path of the CCP virus (also called Coronavirus) as it has spread around the world goes through the countries, cities, organizations, and even individuals that are closely related to the CCP…

The pandemic occurred because of the CCP, and the situation will change when people change their attitudes toward the CCP.”

– from Editorial “Wherever Ties to the Chinese Communist Party Are Close, the CCP Virus Follows“, The Epoch Times, April 26, 2020

Plan VII.  How Did Harvard Fall into the CCP’s Hands?

Threats from Chinese Students Brainwashed by the CCP

Recently, the American government started to pay attention to Chinese students in America.  On the afternoon of May 29, 2020, President Trump announced that the group from Chinese universities with military background is being investigated especially.  Within hours, the Chinese embassy and consulates sent out notice to Chinese students in America that special flights had been arranged for the “qualified” students to fly back home at the beginning of June, e.g., one Shenzhen airline flight was arranged to leave Washington Dulles Airport on June 4th.  The Chinese embassy and consulates also caution Chinese students leaving America to be careful with the content on their lap-top computers and UCBs, etc. because there is excessive check at the U.S Customs.  A retreat has begun.

In an on-line discussion, one Chinese summed up the situation using an analogy: “The CCP leaders sent their children to the Kung Fu master so the children could conquer the top-tier skills; but on the other side, the CCP parents and children have plotted together to kill the master, how wicked is it?”

Currently, there are 360,000 Chinese students studying in universities and colleges in U.S. When accepting these students, the schools may not realize the hidden threats: almost all these students have been deeply brainwashed by the CCP.  For the CCP, one goal of such training is to have students learn the skills to cope with the rising challenges the authoritarian regime is facing.  Another goal is to better prepare the CCP to battle with America.

Ever since elementary school, the CCP has engrained its doctrines of “The Three Deep Loves: Love for CCP, Love for Motherland, Love for People” into each child’s mind.  The concept of the communist party is woven into the concepts of nation and people.  If a person is labeled as anti-CCP, naturally he or she is anti-China, thus becomes an enemy of all Chinese people.  Growing up under CCP’s tyranny, the Chinese students cannot separate the CCP from the Chinese nation or Chinese people.

The CCP also indoctrinates students that “Science has no nationality, only the scientists do”, which legitimizes the intellectual property theft for the sake of the “patriotism”.  Hence, even after graduating from American schools, some Chinese working for American companies or institutes may still consider intellectual property theft as a part of “legitimate patriotism”.

Over the years, Harvard has operated as a training camp for the CCP elites and their children to better prepare themselves for the inevitable US-China war someday.  In the last four decades, nearly all-American educational institutions have been training Chinese students, but all have overlooked the pro-CCP sentiments in these students. To keep America safe and great, there must be a decontamination process for the Chinese Americans who are intoxicated by the CCP’s indoctrinations. The alarming threats from the Harvard-China connection presented here are only the tip of the iceberg.

Harvard President Infected with the CCP Virus

On March 24th, 2020, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow announced he and his wife were both infected with the CCP virus (also known as Coronavirus). On that same day, Harvard had 18 confirmed cases.  Luckily, the Bacow couple recovered in April.

Later, Bacow described his case to Harvard Gazette, “I felt like I was 120 years old almost overnight.” He also described initially being caught off guard. “Well, we’d been very, very careful, and I was a little bit surprised, in truth, because Adele and I had not seen anyone except each other for close to 10 days before we started experiencing symptoms,” Bacow said. “We were completely isolated in the house.” In that interview, Bacow was rather perplexed, could not identify the cause attributing to his infection.

Almost exact one year ago, in March 2019, Bacow visited China during his first international trip after taking the post.  Despite the growing tension between the two nations, Bacow visited Beijing and Shanghai, met with the CCP head Xi and gave a speech at Peking University, where he mentioned Harvard Global Institute as part of Harvard’s engagement with China. “Harvard-China connection highlighted by President Bacow’s visit”, reported Harvard Gazette.

“The pandemic has eyes”, said many Chinese sages.  Several investigative reports by the Epoch Times provided some intriguing facts: it was the close CCP-Harvard connection that brought the viral infection to the Harvard President couple.

Harvard University represents the top elite educational institute in America.  Unfortunately, this unique position also makes it a key victim of the CCP’s infiltration.  In April 2020, an article titled “The End of the Harvard Century” appeared on a magazine on campus called Harvard Crimson. The publication shows that some at Harvard has begun to reflect on how the risky Harvard-China (CCP) cooperation in the last four decades has dragged Harvard downhill.

Opening the Door for the Bloody CCP Tyrant

In the 1980s, Jiang Zemin was just the mayor of Shanghai.  In the spring of 1989, when pro-democracy students were holding large-scale protests at Tiananmen Square and across the country, Jiang hurried to Beijing and privately met with Deng Xiaoping, the CCP head then. Jiang warned Deng that such protests must be suppressed immediately using military force, or else the CCP would be in dire danger.  Deng concurred.

Deng appointed Jiang to execute the massacre at Tiananmen Square on June 4th.  Afterwards, Jiang received a fast-tracked lift to the crown of the CCP head.  In the 90s, still in shock of the CCP brutality, not many Americans were keen on the CCP or Jiang.

This is when Harvard played a key role in opening the door for Jiang.  In November 1997, Jiang Zemin visited the United States. After meeting Clinton, Jiang was given a big stage opportunity at Harvard by Ezra Vogel, Director of Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.  Words went around that Jiang wished to obtain an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard, while Vogel aimed at becoming the next American ambassador in China. Whether that was true, the two for certain synced up well for mutual needs.

Prior to Jiang’s arrival, a large group of pro-democracy activists gathered and formulated 12 questions for Jiang.  They were anxiously waiting for tickets to the event.  Vogel made a pre-registration and auto-drawing rule to block many pro-democracy activists, Tibetans, and Uyghurs.  On the day of the Jiang’s talk, about 4,000+ protesters gathered and chanted outside the venue. Inside, after Jiang’s speech on “Enhancing Mutual Understanding, and Reinforcing Friendly Cooperation”, Vogel allowed three questions.  For the last one, Vogel chose an old American lady, who seemed the least likely to be anti-CCP.  The lady asked, since Jiang considered different opinion as noise and there was a lot of noise outside, how would Jiang handle such noise? After some rambling, Jiang raised both his voice and his hand, “I think my only way is to have my voice louder than theirs.”  That concluded the tyrant’s answer to the “tough question”.  Since then, the Chinese Communist Party’s connection with Harvard became closer and closer.

In 1998 and 2002, Jiang Zemin met with Harvard President Neil Rudeustine and Lawrence Summers in Beijing, respectively. Later, Jiang’s grandson Jiang Zhicheng (English name Alvin) was sent to Harvard.  In 2010, at age of 24, after less than one year of employment at Goldman Sachs, Alvin established his own private equity firm–Boyu Capital. Jiang family was revealed to have accumulated at least $1 trillion in embezzled Chinese funds, and that Alvin has managed to launder half of it overseas.

Operating the Second CCP Party School?

Since 1998, under Jiang and senior officials of Harvard, Harvard Kennedy School has been training CCP officials in a special program tailored for the CCP.  In 2001, Harvard Kennedy School, together with Beijing Tsinghua University and the CCP, jointly launched a “Chinese Public Management Advanced Training Program”.  The website of Kennedy School describes its “China Program” as such:

“Our executive training and workshops focus on providing analytical tools and critical frameworks to Chinese policymakers, senior executives from state-owned and private industry, NGO leaders and others to work more effectively. These programs and partnerships are designed to improve governing capabilities in China and to further Chinese teaching and analysis of public administration and public policy.”

Having trained thousands of CCP political and military officials, Harvard has earned its title ” the second party school of the CCP”. It is reported that at least 200 faculty members at Harvard have worked on CCP-related projects.

Li Yuanchao, the former vice chairman of the CCP, attended such training program at Harvard in 2002.  In October 2009, when Li visited the United States, one of his itineraries was to deliver a speech at Harvard. But there was a much bigger plan than just delivering a speech. Li’s real intent was to promote the CCP’s “Thousand Talents Plan.”

Hooked by “Thousand Talents Plan”

“Thousand Talents Plan” is a talent recruitment plan implemented by the CCP. To put it bluntly, it is to seduce experts and scholars overseas, especially Chinese American experts and scholars, to encourage them to steal overseas science and technology information and give them to the CCP.  In fact, it is to target the Western high-tech and intellectual property.

According to a report from the US Senate in November 2019, the CCP has recruited more than 7,000 scientists and experts in the United States through its “Thousand Talents Plan”. These people illegally brought the science and technologies from the United States to China in exchange for funds or personal rewards.

On January 282020, Professor Charles M. Lieber, the head of the Harvard Chemistry Department, a popular candidate for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was arrested by the FBI because of his involvement in the CCP’s “Thousand Talents Plan”. Lieber, who received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was hired by Wuhan University of Technology as its “strategic scientist”.  Not only did Lieber receive a lucrative salary from the CCP, but he also obtained $ 1.74 million in funding from the CCP to establish a lab in Wuhan. On the same day when Lieber was arrested, another Harvard researcher, Zaosong Zheng, was sued by the United States.  Zheng, a cancer researcher working at a research institute affiliated with Harvard, was suspected of stealing 21 bottles of cancer cell samples.  Zheng admitted that he planned to publish research results in China under his own name after returning to China.  However, he was arrested before boarding the plane home.

Trapped by the Mass Donation

It is reported that since 2012, the CCP has provided 87 American universities with approximately $680 million in the form of gifts or contracts.  Among them, the donations to Harvard University alone amounted to more than $79 million, ranking the first among all universities.  However, this number only accounts for those on the public records, many CCP donations were never publicly registered.  The transaction records show that over the years, Harvard accepted donations from the Chinese communist regime, Huawei, Hanban (the CCP office that operates overseas Confucius Institutes) and ZTE Corporation.

Xiao Jianhua, a corrupt CCP businessman under investigation, donated $10 million to the “Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation” under Harvard Kennedy School in the name of China Poly Group Corporation–a company with deep military background.  But Xiao’s donation does not show in any of Harvard’s public records.  How could Harvard, after receiving such donations, maintain its integrity and independence?

Singing for the CCP

“The Belt and Road (also known as One Belt, One Road) and similar projects have demonstrated the CCP’s geopolitical ambitions. What is even more frightening is that the CCP is preparing for the final battle with the United States with dedication, determination, and nonstop effort.”

– from the book “How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World”

In 2013, the CCP proposed the One-Belt-One-Road Initiative, an ambitious geopolitical plan to dominate the world through economic expansion.  It is also a plan to further isolate America, preparing for CCP’s war against America.  However, Harvard, an independent American educational institute, could not discern the plan’s dire danger to America.  Instead, it quickly became one zesty supporter of the initiative.  Research paper published by Harvard flaunted the program as “Defining China’s Grand Strategy and Future World Order”.

Huawei, CCP’s telecom giant with deep military background has made donations to Harvard, but the actual amount is unknown.  In early 2018, Harvard Business School did a case study on “Huawei: How Can We Lead the Way?”, which was meant to provide strategies for Huawei to take market shares from Apple and Samsung, eventually dominate the world market.

While Meng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei is under house arrest in Canada, her dad Ren Zhengfei, the CEO of the company stated that Meng would unlikely be his successor.  Instead, his younger daughter, Anna Yao, might be. In May 2020, the CCP media highly promoted Anna Yao as “the most beautiful elite’s daughter at Harvard”, “a top student at Harvard computer science”.  Harvard remains the top choice for the children of CCP elites.

Early this year, the CCP’s cover-up and disinformation campaign on the CCP Virus outbreak has left the world in turmoil and distress.  In May 2020, China Press, the CCP’s newspaper published an article quoting Lin Xihong, a Harvard scholar that “Wuhan experience is extremely meaningful, it allows the rest of countries not to start from zero (“http://www.uschinapress.com/2020/0507/1184561.shtml). She stated that Wuhan’s measures, including shelter-in-place, social distancing, field hospitals, wearing masks, testing, and tracing, etc. were all “effective” measures adopted worldwide.

“If there is one important point, that would be we in the world all need to be united.” said Lin.  In particular, she praised many Chinese American organizations for sending a large number of personal protection equipment (PPE) to China at the beginning of pandemic outbreak.

The fact was between January and February 2020, the Chinese consulates called Chinese overseas to buy out all the PPE in the local markets and send them back home. Then these PPE were confiscated at the customs by the CCP.  Later when the world was in pandemic, the rest of the countries found their PPEs in dire shortage.  The CCP turned around and sold PPEs at much higher prices or used masks to exchange for what the CCP needs- “Mask Diplomacy”.  Wonder why Lin did not comment on the worldwide mask shortage after the PPEs went to China?

To safeguard America, American scholars and intellectuals must be awakened to break away from the CCP.  In addition, there must be a decontamination process for the Chinese, especially Chinese intellectuals who are poisoned by the CCP. Otherwise, when and if a war between the two nations takes place, these pro-CCP Chinese in America would become the biggest threat to the national security of America.

Contact: standupamericausa1@gmail.com

Released by the: Stand Up America US Foundation

Hydroxychloroquine, Me, and the Great Divide

By Richard Moss, MD      May 30, 2020

I took hydroxychloroquine for two years.  A long time ago as a visiting cancer surgeon in Asia, in Thailand, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.  From 1987 to 1990.  Malaria is rife there.  I took it for prophylaxis, 400 milligrams once a week for two years.  Never had any trouble.  It was inexpensive and effective.  I started it two weeks before and was supposed to continue it through my stay and four weeks after returning.  But I stopped it after two years.  I was worried about potential side effects of which there are many, as with all drugs right down to Tylenol and aspirin.  These, however, are rare.  At a certain point, I was prepared to take my chances with mosquitoes and plasmodium, and so I stopped.

Chloroquine, the precursor of HCQ, was invented by Bayer in 1934.  Hydroxychloroquine was developed during World War II as a safer, synthetic alternative and approved for medical use in the U.S. in 1955.  The World Health Organization considers it an essential medicine, among the safest and most effective medicines, a staple of any healthcare system.  In 2017, US doctors prescribed it 5 million times, the 128^th most commonly prescribed drug in the country.  There have been hundreds of millions of prescriptions worldwide since its inception.  It is one of the cheapest and best drugs in the world and has saved millions of lives.  Doctors also prescribe it for Lupus and Rheumatoid arthritis patients who may consume it for their lifetimes with few or no ill effects.

Then something happened to this wonder drug.  From savior of the multitudes, redeemer and benefactor of hundreds of millions, it transformed into something else: a purveyor of doom, despair, and unspeakable carnage.  It began when President Trump discussed it as a possible treatment for COVID-19 on March 19, 2020.  The gates of hell burst forth on May 18 when Trump casually announced that he was taking it, prescribed by his physician.  Attacks on Trump and this otherwise harmless little molecule poured in.  The heretofore respected, commonly used, and highly effective medicinal became a major threat to life, a nefarious and wicked chemical that could alter critical heart rhythms, resulting in sudden cataclysmic death for unsuspecting innocents.  Trump, more than irresponsible, was evil incarnate for daring to even mention it.  While at it, the salivating media trotted out the canard about Trump’s nonrecommendation for injecting Clorox and Lysol or drinking fish-tank cleaner to combat COVID.  It was Charlottesville all over again.

Before a nation of non-cardiologists, the media agonized over, of all things, the prolongation of the now infamous “QT interval,” and the risk of sudden cardiac death.  The FDA and NIH piled on, piously demanding randomized, controlled, double-blind studies before physicians prescribed HCQ.  No one mentioned that the risk of cardiac arrest was far higher from watching the Superbowl. Nor did the media declare that HCQ and chloroquine have been used throughout the world for half a century, making them among the most widely prescribed drugs in history with not a single reported case of “arrhythmic death” according to the sainted WHO and the American College of Cardiology.  Or that physicians in the field, on the frontlines, so to speak, based on empirical evidence, have found benefit in treating patients with a variety of agents including HCQ, Zinc, Azithromycin, Quercetin, Elderberry supplements, Vitamins D and C with few if any complications.  Or that while such regimens may not cure, they may help and carry little or no risk.

And so, the world was aflame once again with a nonstory driven by the COVID media.  The HCQ divide within the nation is only a continuation of innumerable divides that have surfaced since the pandemic began — and before.  One will know the politics of an individual based on his position on any number of pandemic issues: lockdowns, sheltering in place, face masks, social distancing, “elective surgery,” and “essential businesses.”  The closing of schools and colleges.  Blue states and Red states.  Governor Cuomo or Governor DeSantis.  Nationwide injunctions or federalism.  The WHO and Red China.  Or, pre-pandemic, Brexit, open borders, DACA, and amnesty.  CBD oil, turmeric, and legalizing marijuana.  Russia Collusion, Trump’s taxes, the 25^th amendment, Stormy Daniels, the Ukraine non-scandal, and impeachment. Or Obamagate. And now HCQ.

HCQ is only another bellwether.  It represents the latest nonevent in a long string of fabricated media nonscandals.  If a nation can be divided over HCQ it can be divided over anything.  It shows neatly, as many of the other non-issues did, whether one embraces the U.S., our history, culture, and constitutional system, or rejects it.  Whether one believes in Americanism or despises it.  It is part of the ongoing civil war, thus far cold, but who knows?  The passions today are no less jarring than they were in 1860.  One would have thought that a man taking medicine prescribed by his physician, even a President, would be a private matter.  But no.  Not today.

We swim in an ocean of manufactured disinformation created by a radical COVID media, our fifth column.  They inflame the nation one way or another based on political whims.  The propaganda arm of the Left, they seek victory at all costs including dismantling the economy, culture, and our governing system.  Is there a curative for the COVID media and their Democrat allies who would destroy a nation to destroy Trump?  He is all that stands between us and them.  Is there an antiviral for this, the communist virus that has infected the nation, metastasized throughout its corpus, and now threatens the republic?

Dr. Moss is a practicing Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, author, and columnist, residing in Jasper, IN.  He has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph available on amazon.com.  Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com.  Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

A prescient question, indeed… In fact, one might argue it has already begun.

http://tmp.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/02/is_a_second_civil_war_coming.html

February 28, 2019

Is a Second Civil War Coming?

By Jeff Lukens

Civil wars are horrendous and bloody affairs. That’s why we should avoid them.  They happen when two sides cannot settle on who runs the country.  When they can’t reconcile the matter through elections, the country falls apart.  When one side does not accept the election results, we have a countdown to a civil war.

This is the thesis put forth by journalist Daniel Greenfield.  It rings true on many levels.

Does the fact that Democrats are rejecting a duly elected Republican president really mean they don’t accept the results of any election they don’t win?  If so, we may be already nearing America’s Second Civil War.

It is no secret that Democrats and Republicans are more ideologically divided than in recent years.  Parts of the country detest the other parts.  Coastal elites dislike flyover country.  The blue states despise the red states, and vice versa.

We may now be near a point comparable to 1860.  Modern Democrats hate President Trump as much as the Democrats of old hated President Lincoln.  Democrats repudiated Lincoln for opposing slavery, and modern Democratic leaders are repudiating Lincoln’s belief that the government is of the people, for the people, and by the people.  Then as now, Democrats are on the wrong side of history.

The average conservative and the average liberal disagree on the vast majority of the issues, and in the few cases where they can agree, each won’t support the other out of sheer tribalism for his side.  Since Democrats can’t win the argument with reason and facts, they try to intimidate us into silence.  While Trump is their focus, we should know that the loathing is really against normal everyday Americans.

The Constitution plays a central role in the disagreement.  On the right are those who believe in its use as a restraint on government that can be altered only by a broad consensus through the amendment process.  Conservatives believe that natural rights are created by God and that government cannot invent or alter them.

On the Left are those who believe in the living Constitution.  This is a notion that the document is outdated and should change easily.  The main method for doing this would be judicial rulings bypassing Congress and the voters.  Basically, they just make it up as they go along.

The Left’s reach is broad.  Leftists have been able to take over schools and indoctrinate our young people.  They have taken over nearly all the news and entertainment media.  The conservative side, conversely, has lost in these areas because it never fights back with the ruthlessness of the Left.

Lawlessness is now reaching across the United States, which the news almost totally ignores.  The same networks that spent two years with wall-to-wall coverage to push the Russia collusion hoax are now refusing to report the documented attempt to remove our duly elected president by means of a Deep State silent coup.

The Left overwhelms the courts with legal actions designed to bog them down so that nothing conservative can be accomplished by Trump.  Democrats will concede nothing without a confrontation.  Lefty goons clash and threaten aggression with open immunity.  They shout down speakers at colleges; they block airports, bridges, and highways.  They take over college buildings, offices, and state capitals, and they terrorize individuals in their homes.  Not only does their violence succeed, but they succeed just by threatening violence.

Democrats threaten the peace by advocating programs intended to deny the rights of average people to speak and worship freely and to defend themselves.  Never mind that millions of Americans are ready to hazard life and limb to preserve these rights.  Moreover, many of them vowed to do so when they served in the armed forces.  When push comes to shove, they will not shy away from defending their families, their homes, their values, and their country.

While leftist liken their behavior to combating tyranny, they are actually combating anyone with whom they disagree.  While their socialist agenda is losing ground with average Americans, leftists are doubling down, assaulting verbally, and sometimes physically, anyone who opposes them.

Ask yourself, why are liberals always angry?  Why are they so vulgar?  Why do they slander and push fake labels like racist, sexist, and homophobic?  Why do they engage in “emotional outbursts” when challenged?  Why are they violent?

The answer is that when they don’t have facts to support their arguments, they must resort to intimidation.  The narrative is designed to keep people in a constant state of fear, thereby forcing rage and violence.  They want us divided by race, class, religion, political affiliation, and more.

All they care about is control, and they will do anything to hold on to it.  They want to keep people poor and in need of government assistance.  The bigger the government, the more power leftists possess.  When we are in need, we are weak.  Divided, we are weak.  When we are weak, we do not fight back.  When we are united, strong, and independent, we think for ourselves and challenge what we are told to believe.

This is a dangerous time.  Americans in 1859 had no idea of the cataclysm that lay ahead for them just a few years later.  Nothing is certain, and hopefully we will avoid a similar disaster.  We may have differences, but America is profoundly good and needs only sensible corrections that reasonable people can agree upon.  We hope and pray that our differences do not escalate into a Second Civil War.

 

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Virus-free. www.avast.com

MAY20

Written by: Diana West
Wednesday, May 20, 2020 6:51 AM  

Back in October, I abandoned an essay I had begun about Andy McCarthy’s book, Ball of Collusion, especially regarding his statement of faith in the so-called Intelligence Community and Mueller Report finding that “Russia” “hacked” the DNC (see below). As many will recall, the evidence for this finding is a redacted draft report submitted to the FBI by a DNC contractor, Crowdstrike.

After the recent release of December 2017 testimony by Crowdstrike co-founder (and Mueller protege) Shawn Henry in which he admits that Crowdstrike had no evidence for this foundational charge, I wondered how we might approach the colossal course correction, news correction, history correction, the admission requires, not to mention the questions it raises about this testimony having remained locked away from public sight for two and half desperate years. After all, this charge — that “Russia” “hacked” the DNC — was the basis of the entire Trump-Russia disinformation campaign that served as the Obama administration cover for its anti-Trump conspiracy.

It was all but universally promoted, set in play and driven by the DNC, the “IC,” the Hillary Clinton campaign, the media complex, and “accepted,” as in the case of Andy McCarthy (as he describes below), on faith by almost all Republicans — even including by the Nunes committee in its final report on Russia and the election in March 2018. (This is more than passing strange given Shawn Henry’s testimony in December 2017 before that same committee.)

This same claim was also the basis of the first line of the attack on the legitimacy of President Trump’s electoral victory and his presidency, his own loyalty to this country, and that of his supporters. It was also one of the conspirators’ primary justifications for the Stasi-like surveillance and subversion of the Trump campaign and White House.

Too much time has passed, too much narrative has been pounded into place. The heat of this particular battle, if not cooled completely, is now out of range. We seem to have abandoned even this well-fortified hill, its strategic importance to the president’s enemies no more. Move on. The history books won’t carry more than the odd footnote, anyway. I don’t expect Andy McCarthy to rewrite any of his books, do you? Time to forget about it, right?

It’s hard.

Below is the top of that old unpublished essay of mine which popped into my mind today:

Midway through Ball of Collusion, I have come upon a ball of confusion I could not pass. It is in Chapters 9 and 10, where the reader arrives at a discussion of what I consider the most vulnerable point of exposure for the anti-Trump conspiracy: the events around and including the release by Wikileaks of the DNC emails which revealed to the American public that Hillary Clinton and the DNC were themselves colluding to rig the 2016 Democratic primary process against Bernie Sanders, among other acts of corruption and hypocrisy.

The identity of the source of these Clinton-crushing emails is still unknown. The approved narrative, repeated incessantly in unison to a point where it resembles something closer to gospel than the line of propaganda that it is is this: (1) Russia “hacked” the DNC and passed the emails to Julian Assange for dissemination by Wikileaks because (2) Putin hated Hillary.

Why do I call this a line of propaganda? Because the evidence for this outrageous claim — that Donald Trump was helped into the presidency by Kremlin cyberattacks on the Democratic Party — is based on a report — a redacted, draft report — issued not by the FBI or other government investigative agency, but by a DNC contractor named Crowdstrike, an IT company heavily capitalized by Google Capital (now Alphabet) with a checkered reputation whose co-founders, including Soviet-born Dmitri Alperovitch and Shawn Henry, have associations with anti-Trump centers of Washington establishment power — the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council (Alperovitch) and Robert Mueller’s FBI (Henry).

In other words, the “hoax” part of the “Russia hoax” starts here. Despite the inadequacy of this evidence, however, Andrew McCarthy accepts and promulgates this same unproven theory that the source of the DNC emails published by Wikileaks was the Russian government’s Crowdstrike-alleged “hack” of the DNC.

We, the People, are to believe that it was “Russia” that “hacked” the DNC server. For one, Andrew McCarthy does, as he points out many times. His rationale? Because the so-called Intelligence Community says so. This may seem incredible at this advanced stage in our national education about the dark arts and seditious nature of the US intelligence world, and especially since McCarthy is referencing the January 6, 2017 ICA, discussed here.

“So, to be clear,” McCarthy writes on p. 179, “I accept, and have always accepted, the intelligence agencies’ conclusion, echoed by Mueller, that Russia was behind the hacking of Democratic email accounts. There are skeptics who do not accept this conclusion, and they are not all crackpots as the media-Democrat complex would have you believe. But I do accept it.”

 

 

This really puts Obamagate in perspective.  It is impossible to believe that Obama himself was not orchestrating this entire political scandal.  As Charles Lipson says, “We still have a lot to learn.”  But if Americans do not understand the importance of what has transpired, and vote according in November, then this country will be in grave peril.

Most important of all, the Obama team and their congressional allies helped launch multiple, full-scale investigations of “Russian collusion” with no solid basis, plenty of contrived “evidence,” and breathless media headlines. It all failed, but not before it damaged Trump’s presidency and the basic tenets of liberal democracy.  It’s an ugly picture, one that goes beyond dirty tricks and the normal bounds of “loyal opposition.” We still have a lot to learn, but we already know a great deal. We know how grave the three scandals were. We know they fit together, forming something much larger. With each new tranche of declassified documents, we see something big and hideous emerging from the Swamp, a political scandal of profound import.

 

What the ‘Obamagate’ Scandals Mean and Why They Matter

 

By Charles Lipson     May 27, 2020

Amid the flurry of details about spying on Michael Flynn, lying to secret courts about Carter Page, leaking classified documents, and more, it’s easy to get lost in the muck. It’s important to stand back, identify the worst abuses, and explain why they matter for American democracy. These abuses didn’t simply follow each other; their targets, goals, and principal players overlapped. Taken together, they represent some of the gravest violations of constitutional norms and legal protections in American history. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, whether you like Donald Trump or loathe him, these violations matter.

Some call this debacle “Obamagate” since the key officials were his appointees and the White House was directly involved. But they got plenty of help. Some came from the permanent bureaucracy, especially in law enforcement and intelligence. Still more came from the mainstream media, which served as conduits for classified leaks aimed at Trump, his campaign, and then his presidency. For over three years, the media’s top story was “Trump colluded with Russia.” When that imploded after the Mueller Report, they moved on to impeachment.

The entrenched elites behind these scandals are the Swamp at its most sulfurous. They spied illegally on Americans and used powerful tools of government to damage the party-out-of-power, its outsider candidate, and then his new presidency. It’s worse than a single surveillance scandal. It’s three huge ones, intertwined. All were abuses of power. Some were crimes.

Scandal No. 1: Massive, illegal surveillance of American citizens, using the database of the National Security Agency

During the second term of President Obama, and perhaps earlier, private firms from outside the government were allowed to trawl through the massive NSA database of phone calls, emails, and text messages. Without any warrants, they spied on vast numbers of American citizens. The public still doesn’t know who did it, who authorized it, or how the metadata was used.

This illegal practice ended in summer 2016 when the agency’s head, Adm. Mike Rogers, learned about it. He stopped it immediately and reported it to the Rosemary Collyer, chief judge of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court. Judge Collyer issued a scathing, heavily redacted report about the illegal activity, but, so far, no one has been indicted.

Scandal No. 2: Spying on the Trump campaign

When NSA surveillance was halted, the Obama administration lost its secret eyes on domestic political activity and especially on the rising Trump campaign. To regain that vision, the CIA and FBI launched new surveillance efforts. Three elements stand out. First, the executive branch, then controlled by Democrats, was determined to spy on the opposition party. Second, much of the spying was conducted by agencies that are limited, by law, to foreign operations. Since their goal was actually domestic surveillance and since that was illegal, they apparently outsourced some of it to friendly foreign governments, who relayed the information back to Washington. Third, since the FBI wanted to spy on Trump aides who were not actually suspected of crimes, they couldn’t get regular warrants. To work around that, the FBI (under James Comey) and Department of Justice (under Loretta Lynch) falsely claimed the targets were foreign spies, making them eligible for FISA warrants. They also tried to entrap them (with help from CIA assets abroad), hoping they would commit illegal acts or say their colleagues had done so.

We know the FBI and CIA did all that, though we still don’t know all the details. We know, too, that the FBI and DoJ used opposition-party research and worthless gossip (the “Steele Dossier”) to gain the secret warrants on Carter Page. The second-ranking official in Comey’s FBI, Andrew McCabe, testified the warrants would never had been issued without the Steele material. Yet the FBI and DoJ never told the court it was unverified and never said who commissioned it.

Before the warrant was renewed, the FBI finally spoke with Steele’s main source, who told them the information was garbage. Instead of telling the court immediately, the bureau simply said the sub-source was truthful and falsely implied he backed Steele. This dunghill of deceit should lead to criminal indictments and major civil suits for damages.

Scandal No. 3: Covering up this spying, continuing it during the new administration, charging that Trump was not legitimately elected, and impeding his presidency with major investigations, based on false charges

After Trump was elected, top officials from the outgoing administration made two fundamental decisions. The first was to hide the earlier spying and continue it during the new presidency, using holdover officials and friendly bureaucrats. The second was to entangle the new administration in a series of sprawling investigations designed to prevent it from governing, even though Republicans had won the White House and both branches of Congress.

The Obama team did whatever it could to bring down the new administration, primarily with accusations Trump had won with Russia’s help. They went even further, saying Trump’s campaign had actively worked with the Kremlin. That’s treason. There was no evidence for it, but the mainstream media, led by the New York Times, Washington Post and all cable news channels except Fox, promoted it nonstop. The implication was clear: Because Trump was elected with help from a foreign enemy, he was not a legitimate president. This accusation has been the leitmotif of Democratic Party messaging and mainstream media coverage for the entire Trump presidency.

Proving these specious accusations was the main task of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, appointed after leaks from Comey. The fired FBI director told Congress his leaks were designed to force Mueller’s appointment. Mueller’s deputy, Andrew Weissmann, appointed a team of virulently anti-Trump lawyers to investigate and prosecute.

From the beginning, the Mueller team should have known, as the FBI did, that the charge of “Russian collusion” was false. Despite a massive, prolonged investigation, the Office of Special Counsel never charged any American (inside or outside the Trump campaign) with helping the Russians during the 2016 campaign. Yet the OSC continued its investigation, hiding exculpatory evidence, trying to catch Trump officials in false statements, and using strong-arm tactics to force confessions. The great prize would be nailing Trump himself. That failed, of course, but, as long as Mueller’s investigation continued, the thunderclouds of legal peril and a fraudulent election hung over the presidency.

The House Intelligence Committee knew the truth, early on, after conducting classified interviews with top Obama officials. The committee, controlled by Republicans in 2017-18, asked Obama’s senior officials in law enforcement, intelligence, and national security if they had any evidence the Trump campaign actually colluded with Russia. Every single one, testifying under oath, said they did not. In public, however, they said the exact opposite. Their false statements to the cameras carried weight because the public assumed, reasonably enough, that these former officials must have seen damning classified evidence. They hadn’t. Still, they spewed devastating anti-Trump messages the mainstream media was eager to broadcast. “Trump-Russia Collusion” was their biggest story for three years. And it wasn’t true.

The whole ruse would be exposed if the secret testimony were released. That’s why Democrats blocked it after they won the House. That’s why committee Chairman Adam Schiff could say, again and again, he had clear evidence Trump colluded with Russia. Similar messages came from Comey, former CIA head John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and others. Secretly, under oath, they acknowledged they had “no evidence of collusion, cooperation, or coordination.” Publicly, they said the opposite. Some called Trump a traitor, a Russian asset, or “Putin’s puppet.” All of them were media darlings. All of them were lying.

Conclusion: What do these three scandals mean, individually and collectively? The first, accessing the NSA database, is the largest violation of basic constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure in American history.

The second, surveillance of the Trump campaign, involves illegally using of the government’s most powerful tools of national intelligence and law enforcement against an opposition political party. These crimes directly attack two pillars of constitutional democracy: (1) elections should be free and fair, not corrupted by the party in power, and (2) law enforcement and intelligence should never be used as partisan instruments.

The third scandal attacks yet another pillar of constitutional democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a new administration. Handing government authority to the opposition party is a hallmark of stable democracy. Much as the Obama administration hated to see Hillary Clinton lose, it was obliged to transfer power seamlessly to Donald Trump. On the surface it did so. Beneath the surface, it erected every obstacle it could.

Obama officials worked especially hard to remove incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Because Gen. Flynn was an experienced intelligence officer, he would surely uncover the surveillance of Trump’s campaign and transition and stop its continuation against the new administration. He had to go. Now we know just how low the Obama administration and Comey FBI sunk to make that happen: spying, unmasking, leaking classified phone calls, discarding FBI protocols to set up an entrapment interview based on a meaningless “legal violation,” and telling Trump directly, as Obama did, not to hire Flynn.

Beyond this destructive mission, Brennan loyalists at the CIA burrowed into Trump’s National Security Council while the FBI tried to plant agents in the White House itself. Most important of all, the Obama team and their congressional allies helped launch multiple, full-scale investigations of “Russian collusion” with no solid basis, plenty of contrived “evidence,” and breathless media headlines. It all failed, but not before it damaged Trump’s presidency and the basic tenets of liberal democracy.

It’s an ugly picture, one that goes beyond dirty tricks and the normal bounds of “loyal opposition.” We still have a lot to learn, but we already know a great deal. We know how grave the three scandals were. We know they fit together, forming something much larger. With each new tranche of declassified documents, we see something big and hideous emerging from the Swamp, a political scandal of profound import.

Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.