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.
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.
source: https://www.strategic-culture.org
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Sixteen
years ago the neoconservatives inside the White House, Washington
swamp, foreign policy establishment, and mainstream media sold the
American people a pack of lies to justify an invasion of a country that
did not attack the United States nor pose a security threat. Despite the
Iraq War proving within months to be a disaster and failing to meet its
objective of locating weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the neocons
mendaciously kept insisting that the bombs were there.