The hottest hashtag on Twitter is 12 years in the making, and frankly that’s far too late.
But hey, better late than never, right?
Last week’s cascade of revelations that the entire Trump–Russia narrative and Mike Flynn case, among other shenanigans falling out of Washington, D.C., over the past four years, weren’t just garbage but garbage cooked up and spread by the top levels of the Obama administration, to be summed up in one catchy hashtag, has the potential to change American politics in fundamental ways.
We know that prosecutions are afoot, and we know indictments are coming. We know that some of those indictments will be handed down to people with famous names.
We know already that #Obamagate is the correct name for the mess unfolding before us, thanks to the summary of a meeting held on Jan. 5, 2017, provided by the former president’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice. The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland follows that story:
Then came the January 5, 2017, meeting in the Oval Office where Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper briefed President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Russia-related issues.
Rice later wrote an email to herself on January 20, 2017 — Trump’s inauguration day and her last day in the White House — purporting to summarize that meeting. “On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election,” Rice wrote, “President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.”
According to Rice, “President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book.’ ” But then she added a significant caveat to that “commitment”: “From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.”
The next portion of the email is classified, but Rice then noted that “the President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.”
At the time Obama suggested to Yates and Comey — who were to keep their posts under the Trump administration — that the hold-overs consider withholding information from the incoming administration, Obama knew that President Trump had named Flynn to serve as national security advisor. Obama also knew there was an ongoing FBI investigation into Flynn premised on Flynn being a Russian agent.
Yet, rather than direct his team to provide the president-elect a briefing on the Russia investigation as it related to Flynn, Obama suggested it would be appropriate to withhold such information from the Trump administration.
That is just what Comey did. The following day, Comey provided “an ostensibly similar briefing about Russian interference efforts during the 2016 campaign,” and then “[a]fter that briefing, Comey privately briefed Trump on the most salacious and absurd ‘pee tape’ allegation in the Christopher Steele dossier.”
Rice’s memo puts to bed the question about what Obama knew and when he knew it. The answers are, obviously, everything and all along.
The post Welcome to #Obamagate, Everybody! appeared first on LewRockwell.
The daily news and opinion site LewRockwell.com was founded in 1999 by anarcho-capitalists Lew Rockwell and Burt Blumert to help carry on the anti-war, anti-state, pro-market work of Murray N. Rothbard. Visit https://www.lewrockwell.com