December 29, 2019
Former US President Barack Obama is now in severe
legal jeopardy, because the Russiagate investigation has turned 180 degrees;
and he, instead of the current President, Donald Trump, is in its cross-hairs.
The biggest crime that a US President can commit is to
try to defeat American democracy (the Constitutional functioning of the US
Government) itself, either by working with foreign powers to take it over, or
else by working internally within America to sabotage democracy for his or her
own personal reasons. Either way, it’s treason (crime that is intended to, and
does, endanger the continued functioning of the Constitution itself*), and Mr.
Obama is now being actively investigated, as possibly having done this. The
Russiagate investigation, which had formerly focused against the current US
President, has reversed direction and now targets the prior President. Although
he, of course, cannot be removed from office (since he is no longer in office),
he is liable under criminal laws, the same as any other American would be, if
he committed any crime while he was in office.
A December 17th
order by the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court severely condemned the performance by the FBI
under Obama, for having obtained, on 19 October 2016 (even prior to the US
Presidential election), from that Court, under false pretenses, an
authorization for the FBI to commence investigating Donald Trump’s Presidential
campaign, as being possibly in collusion with Russia’s Government. The Court’s
ruling said:
In order to appreciate the seriousness of that
misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural
and substantive requirements that apply to the government’s conduct of
electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Title I of the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA ), codified as amended at 50 USC.
1801-1813, governs such electronic surveillance. It requires the government to
apply for and receive an order from the FISC approving a proposed electronic surveillance.
When deciding whether to grant such an application, a FISC judge must determine
among other things, whether it provides probable cause to believe that the
proposed surveillance target is a “foreign power” or an agent a foreign power.
…
The government has a heightened duty of candor to the
FISC in ex parte proceedings, that is, ones in which the government does not
face an adverse party, such as proceedings on electronic surveillance
applications. The FISC expects the government to comply with its heightened
duty of candor in ex parte proceedings at all times. Candor is fundamental to
this Court’s effective operation. …
On December 9, 2019, the government filed, with the
FISC, public and classified versions of the OIG Report. … It documents
troubling instances in which FBI personnel provided information to NSD[National Security Division of the Department of
Justice] which was unsupported or contradicted by information in their
possession. It also describes several instances in which FBI personnel withheld
from NSD information in their possession which was detrimental to their case
for believing that Mr. [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of
a foreign power. …
On December 18th, Martha McCallum, of Fox News, interviewed US
Attorney General Bill Barr, and asked him (at 7:00 in the video) how high up in the FBI the blame for this (possible
treason) goes:
MACCALLUM: Were you surprised that he [Obama’s FBI Director James Comey] seemed to
give himself such a distance from the entire operation?
“JAMES COMEY: As the director sitting on top of an
organization of 38,000 people you can’t run an investigation that’s seven
layers below you. You have to leave it to the career professionals to do.”
MACCALLUM: Do you believe that?
BARR: No, I think that the — one of the problems with
what happened was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the
executive floors, and it was run and bird dogged by a very small group of very
high level officials. And the idea that this was seven layers below him is
simply not true.
The current (Trump) A.G. there called the former
(Obama) FBI Director a liar on that.
If Comey gets heat for this possibly lie-based FBI
investigation of the US Presidential nominee from the opposite Party of the
sitting US President (Comey’s own boss, Obama), then protecting himself could
become Comey’s top motivation; and, in that condition, protecting his former
boss might become only a secondary concern for him.
Moreover, as was first publicly reported by Nick Falco
in a tweet on 5 June 2018 (which tweet was removed by Twitter but fortunately not
before someone had copied it to a
web archive),
the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign starting no later than 7
October 2015. An outside private contractor, Stefan Halper, was hired in
Britain for this, perhaps in order to get around laws prohibiting the US
Government from doing it. (This was ‘foreign intelligence’ work, after all. But
was it really? That’s now being investigated.) The Office of Net
Assessment (ONA) “through the
Pentagon’s Washington Headquarters Services, awarded him contracts from 2012 to
2016 to write four studies encompassing relations among the US, Russia, China
and India”.
Though Halper actually did no such studies for the Pentagon, he instead functioned as a
paid FBI informant (and it’s not yet clear whether that money came from the
Pentagon, which spends trillions of dollars that are
off-the-books and untraceable), and at some point Trump’s campaign became a target
of Halper’s investigation. This investigation was nominally to examine “The
Russia-China Relationship: The impact on US Security interests.” Allegedly,
George Papadopoulos said that “Halper
insinuated to him that Russia was helping the Trump campaign”, and Papadopoulos was shocked at Halper’s saying
this. Probably because so much money at the Pentagon is untraceable, some of
the crucial documentation on this investigation might never be found. For
example, the Defense Department’s Inspector General’s 2 July 2019 report to the
US Senate said “ONA personnel
could not provide us any evidence that Professor Halper visited any of these
locations, established an advisory group, or met with any of the specific
people listed in the statement of work.” It seems that the Pentagon-contracted work was a
cover-story, like pizza parlors have been for some Mafia operations. But,
anyway, this is how America’s ‘democracy’ actually functions. And, of course, America’s Deep
State works
not only through governmental agencies but also through
underworld organizations. That’s just reality, not at all speculative. It’s been this way for
decades, at least since the time of Truman’s Presidency (as is documented at
that link).
Furthermore, inasmuch as this operation certainly
involved Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and others, and not only top
officials at the FBI, there is no chance that Comey would have been the only high
official who was involved in it. And if Comey was involved,
then he would have been acting in his own interest, and not only in his boss’s
— and here’s why: Comey would be expected to have been highly
motivated to oppose Mr. Trump, because Trump publicly questioned whether NATO
(the main international selling-arm for America’s ‘defense’-contractors) should
continue to exist, and also because Comey’s entire career had been in the
service of America’s Military-Industrial Complex, which is the reason why Comey’s main
lifetime income has been the tens of millions of dollars he has received via
the revolving door between his serving the federal Government and his serving
firms such as Lockheed Martin. For these people, restoring, and intensifying, and
keeping up, the Cold
War, is a very
profitable business. It’s called by some “the Military-Industrial Complex,”
and by others “the Deep State,” but by any name it is simply agents of the
billionaires who own and control US-based international corporations, such as
General Dynamics and Chevron. As a governmental official, making decisions that
are in the long-term interests of those investors is the likeliest way to
become wealthy.
Consequently, Comey would have been benefitting
himself, and other high officials of the Obama Administration, by sabotaging
Trump’s campaign, and by weakening Trump’s Presidency in the event that he
would become elected. Plus, of course, Comey would have been benefitting Obama
himself. Not only was Trump constantly condemning Obama, but Obama had
appointed to lead the Democratic National Committee during the 2016
Presidential primaries, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who as early as 20 February
2007 had endorsed Hillary Clinton for President in the Democratic Party primaries, so that
Shultz was one of the earliest supporters of Clinton against even Obama
himself. In other words, Obama had appointed Shultz in order to increase the
odds that Clinton — not Sanders— would become the nominee in 2016 to continue on and
protect his own Presidential legacy. Furthermore, on 28 July 2016, Schultz
became forced to resign from her leadership of the DNC after WikiLeaks released
emails indicating that Schultz and other members of the DNC staff had exercised
bias against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Hillary Clinton during the 2016
Democratic primaries — which favoritism had been the reason why Obama had
appointed Shultz to that post to begin with. She was just doing her job for the
person who had chosen her to lead the DNC. Likewise for Comey. In other words:
Comey was Obama’s pick to protect Clinton, and to oppose Trump
(who had attacked both Clinton and Obama).
Nowadays,
Obama is telling the Party’s billionaires that Elizabeth Warren would be good
for them, but not
that Sanders would — he never liked Sanders. He wants Warren to get the voters
who otherwise would go for Sanders, and he wants the Party’s billionaires to
help her achieve this (be the Party’s allegedly ‘progressive’ option), so that
Sanders won’t be able to become a ballot option in the general election to be
held on 3 November 2020. He is telling them whom not to help
win the Party’s nomination. In fact, on November 26th, Huffington Post
headlined “Obama Said He
Would Speak Up To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination: Report” and indicated that though he won’t actually say
this in public (but only to the Party’s billionaires), Obama is determined to
do all he can to prevent Sanders from becoming the nominee. In
2016, his choice was Hillary Clinton; but, today, it’s anyone other than
Sanders; and, so, in a sense, it remains what it was four years ago — anyone
but Sanders.
Comey’s virtually exclusive concern, at the present
stage, would be to protect himself, so that he won’t be imprisoned. This means
that he might testify against Obama. At this stage, he’s free of any personal
obligation to Obama — Comey is now on his own, up against Trump, who clearly is
his enemy. Some type of back-room plea-bargain is therefore virtually
inevitable — and not only with Comey, but with other top Obama-appointees,
ultimately. Obama is thus clearly in the cross-hairs, from now on.
Congressional Democrats have opted to gun against Trump (by impeaching
him); and, so, Trump now will be gunning against Obama — and
against the entire Democratic Party (unless Sanders becomes its nominee, in
which case, Sanders will already have defeated that Democratic Party, and its
adherents will then have to choose between him versus Trump; and, so, too, will
independent voters).
But, regardless of what happens, Obama now is in the
cross-hairs. That’s not just political cross-hairs (such as an impeachment
process); it is, above all, legal cross-hairs (an actual
criminal investigation). Whereas Trump is up against a doomed effort by the
Democratic Party to replace him by Vice President Mike Pence, Obama will be up
against virtually inevitable criminal charges, by the incumbent Trump
Administration. Obama played hardball against Trump, with “Russiagate,” and
then with “Ukrainegate”; Trump will now play hardball against Obama, with
whatever his Administration and the Republican Party manage to muster against
Obama; and the stakes this time will be considerably bigger than just whether
to replace Trump by Pence.
Whatever the outcome will be, it will be historic, and
unprecedented. (If Sanders becomes the nominee, it will be even more so; and,
if he then wins on November 3rd, it will be a second American Revolution; but,
this time, a peaceful one — if that’s even possible, in today’s hyper-partisan,
deeply split, USA.)
There is no way that the outcome from this will be
status-quo. Either it will be greatly increased further schism in the United
States, or it will be a fundamental political realignment, more comparable to
1860 than to anything since. The US already
has a higher percentage of its people in prison than does any other nation on
this planet. Americans
who choose a ‘status-quo’ option will produce less stability, more violence,
not more stability and a more peaceful nation in a less war-ravaged world. The
2020 election-outcome for the United States will be a turning-point; there is
no way that it will produce reform. Americans who vote for reform will be only
increasing the likelihood of hell-on-Earth. Reform is no longer an available
option, given America’s realities. A far bigger leap than that will be required
in order for this country to avoid falling into an utter abyss, which could be
led by either Party, because both Parties have brought the nation to its
present precipice, the dark and lightless chasm that it now faces, and which
must now become leapt, in order to avoid a free-fall into oblivion.
The problem in America isn’t either Obama or Trump;
it’s neither merely the Democratic Party, nor merely the Republican Party; it
is instead both; it is the Deep State. That’s the reality; and the process that got us here
started on 26 July 1945 and secretly continued on the American side even
after the
Soviet Union ended and Russia promptly ended its side of the Cold War. The US
regime’s ceaseless thrust, since 26 July 1945, to rule the entire world, will
climax either in a Third World War, or in a US revolution to overthrow and
remove the Deep State and end its dictatorship-grip over America. Both Parties
have been controlled by that Deep State, and the final stage or climax of this grip is now
drawing near. America thus has been having a string of the worst Presidents — and worst Congresses — in US history. This is
today’s reality. Unfortunately, a lot of American voters think that this
extremely destabilizing reality, this longstanding trend toward war, is okay,
and ought to be continued, not ended now and replaced by a new direction for
this country — the path toward world peace, which FDR had accurately envisioned
but which was aborted on 26 July 1945. No matter how many Americans might vote
for mere reform, they are wrong. Sometimes, only a minority are right. Being
correct is not a majority or minority matter; it is a true or false matter. A
misinformed public can willingly participate in its own — or even the world’s —
destruction. That could happen. Democracy is a prerequisite to peace, but it
can’t exist if the public are being systematically misinformed. Lies and
democracy don’t mix together any more effectively than do oil and water.
Eric ZUESSE
American writer and investigative historian
NOTE
* The given official US
definition of “treason” (see top of page 3 there) is “Whoever, owing allegiance to the
United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them
aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason.”
Any US official has sworn to uphold and defend, never to
subvert, the Constitution of the United States, and this is defining the US, itself, as
being the continued functioning of the US Constitution. Treason is thus the
supremely illegal act under US law, the act that violates any US official’s
oath of office. (When treason is perpetrated by someone who is not a US
official, it is still a severe crime, but less severe than it is for any US
official.) The phrase “levies war against them” means war against the
functioning of the Constitution that is their supreme law. “Or” means
alternatively, and “adheres to their enemies” means is a follower of any person
or other entity that seeks to impose a different constitution. “Enemies” is not
defined — it need not be a foreign opponent; it may be a domestic opponent of
the US Constitution. Thus, an American can be an enemy of the United States of
America. In fact, the official definition explicitly refers ONLY to
an entity “owing allegiance to the United States.” (Obviously, that especially refers
to any US official.) This is how a “traitor” is understood, in US law.
Obviously, the worst traitor would be one who committed the treasonous act(s)
while a US official.
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