Seeing Some Trees in the Forest of Babble

Clarice Feldman:

The hypnotic babble of the media beguiles otherwise intelligent people into believing that Russia colluded with President Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, that Trump forced Ukraine into investigating Hunter Biden and did something, we can’t say what, to be impeached, and that thousands of poor Kurds are being displaced because we pulled some hundreds of our troops from the Syrian-Turkish border. Rational, fact-based analysis shows all this to be untrue, but breaking through this hazy thinking is not an easy task. Maybe because that’s the true aim: eradicating reason totally. In chaos the most nutty rule.

I’m far from home in Hawaii this week and worried how — given the time difference and circumstances — I’d be able to report on the inspector general’s report on the origins of the “Russian Collusion” fandango. News accounts earlier this week indicated it would finally be released this Friday. We are now told that it may be another two weeks before we see it. Most explanations are that the agencies involved in the illegal snooping are warring about the content. (As you may recall, they softened the summary findings in the first one, which were at times at variance with the Horowitz specific findings, particularly on the effect of the bias of the investigators.) I think otherwise. I think it was delayed because of newly acquired information obtained by Attorney General William Barr and Prosecutor John Durham.

Crossfire Hurricane

Most particularly, the two men recently returned from Italy where they met with the mysterious “Maltese professor” Joseph Mifsud and obtained from him two BlackBerrys. I believe that Mifsud was working with the coup plotters to set up a pretext for the spy operation and, if so, the BlackBerrys apparently given to him by them should prove the case. (We learned of their existence and the Justice Department’s obtaining them in a motion filed by Lt. General Michael Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, demanding the data in them in the discovery process.)

Mr. Mifsud, a university professor and well-traveled lecturer, told George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, in London in April 2016 that Moscow owned thousands of Hillary Clinton emails. When the news reached the FBI in July, agent Peter Strzok initiated the probe. The FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller have always contended that Mr. Mifsud was a Russian asset. Mr. Mueller’s final report made no mention of the numerous associations Mr. Mifsud maintained with Western diplomats and intelligence figures.

Mr. Papadopoulos contends Mr. Mifsud was a Western agent sent to entrap him.[snip] The motion says: “Michael T. Flynn requests the government be ordered to produce evidence that has only recently come into its possession… This information is material, exculpatory, and relevant to the defense of Mr. Flynn, and specifically to the “OCONUS LURES” and agents that western intelligence tasked against him likely as early as 2014 to arrange — unbeknownst to him –‘connections’ with certain Russians that they would then use against him in their false claims. The phones were used by Mr. Joseph Mifsud.”

“OCONUS LURES” is an FBI acronym for an operation to lure a person back to the U.S.

Information from Ukraine

It is also possible that the report is weighing information from Ukraine, which the prior administration blocked from transmission to the Congress and Department of Justice. more here