Two 2020 presidential candidates, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) jumped at the opportunity to accuse ordinary Americans of harboring hatred for minorities in the wake of the attack on “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett.
“The vicious attack on actor Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching. I’m glad he’s safe,” Booker said of the attack. “To those in Congress who don’t feel the urgency to pass our Anti-Lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime– I urge you to pay attention.”
Harris had a similar message.
“This was an attempted modern day lynching,”she claimed. “No one should have to fear for their life because of their sexuality or color of their skin. We must confront this hate.”
As it turns out, the “crime” was neither a lynching attempt, nor motivated by race or sexuality. In fact, it was totally made up. Chicago police now believe that Smollett orchestrated the “attack” with two men, his “attackers.” Both are reportedly Nigerian nationals and extras on “Empire.”
Smollett’s story – that bigots yelling “this is MAGA country” beat him, wrapped a rope around his neck, and soaked him in bleach – conformed to the worldview of Harris and Booker perfectly. They believe that America is a fundamentally bad country filled with intolerant racists, and that only the progressive agenda can save America from the backwards people in “flyover country” who would commit a heinous crime like the one Smollett made up.
So they pounced (in the parlance of our times) without waiting for the facts to come to light, despicably seizing on the opportunity to race-bait, and to prove that their worldview is the correct one. They were wrong. Again.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gets a dishonorable mention, too.
“The racist, homophobic attack on@JussieSmollettis an affront to our humanity. No one should be attacked for who they are or whom they love. I pray that Jussie has a speedy recovery & that justice is served. May we all commit to ending this hate once & for all,” she Tweeted.
To be sure, these people do not care about Smollett, or even racism and homophobia. They care about virtue signaling to their idiotic progressive base to score cheap political points.
Fortunately for the Speaker, justice will be served. And Smollett will be on the losing end.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe says that after President Trump fired his boss, FBI Director James Comey, there were discussions within the Department of Justice about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
Last year, the New York Times reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Pelley said.
In a statement released by the Justice Department, Rosenstein said McCabe’s account of a discussion of invoking the 25th amendment was “inaccurate and factually incorrect.”
Trump responded in a pair of tweets later Thursday morning.
The discussions occurred between the time of Comey’s firing in May of 2017 and the appointment eight days later of special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
According to the Times, Rosenstein also suggested that he secretly record Trump in the White House. Rosenstein disputed the account, and a Justice Department official said he made the remark sarcastically. But McCabe told Pelley that Rosenstein’s offer to wear a wire was made more than once and that he ultimately took it to the lawyers at the FBI to discuss.
McCabe, who was named acting director of the bureau after Comey’s firing, launched obstruction of justice and counterintelligence investigations into whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey.
He told Pelley he did so in order to preserve the FBI’s Russian probe in case there was an effort by Trump to terminate it.
“I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground, in an indelible fashion,”McCabe said. “That were I removed quickly, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace.”
McCabe’s comments come ahead of the release of his new book, “The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” due out next week.
In an excerpt of the book published Thursday in the Atlantic, McCabe describes a phone call he received from Trump on his first full day on the job as acting director of the FBI. According to McCabe, Trump told him that he had “hundreds of messages from FBI people [saying] how happy they are that I fired [Comey].”
“You know — boy, it’s incredible, it’s such a great thing, people are really happy about the fact that the director’s gone, and it’s just remarkable what people are saying,” Trump said, according to McCabe. “Have you seen that? Are you seeing that, too?”
McCabe was eventually fired in March 2018, less than two days before he would have collected a full early pension for his FBI career.
Trump has since railed against McCabe dozens of times on Twitter. “He LIED! LIED! LIED! McCabe was totally controlled by Comey – McCabe is Comey!” he exclaimed last April. “No collusion, all made up by this den of thieves and lowlifes!”
Actor Jussie Smollett arrived in Chicago on January 28th. He went out to get fast food at 2 a.m. when he said he was allegedly attacked by two Trump supporters in MAGA hats who recognized him in the freezing cold, beat him, poured bleach on him and put a noose around his neck.
It was -15 to -30 degrees wind chill on Tuesday morning.
Smollett said the mysterious MAGA men poured bleach on his head but bleach freezes at 18 degrees.
The weather on Tuesday was a low of -9 degrees.
Frozen bleach will not pour.
Jessie Smollett said he was assaulted and suffered a cracked rib but condo surveillance video shows Smollett walking past security to the elevator without telling them he had just been attacked by thugs who “beat the hell out of him” and “broke his ribs.”
On Saturday Smollet admitted his rib was not broken.
This was complete crap – just like the rest of the story.
Via Michelle Malkin:
And Jussie was carrying his Subway sandwich when he arrived home — he saved it during the alleged assault!
Jussie Smollett says he was talking to his manager during the assault but he won’t turn over his phone.
The Associated Press reported that police had released images of “persons of interest”from surveillance camerafootage, but were unable to find footage of Smollett being attacked.
The persons depicted in the police video were said to be walking away from the scene prior to 1:45AM.
But Jussie continues to speak out on the alleged late night assault.
On Good Morning America Jussie Smollett accused his doubters of being racist Islamophobes.
“I have to acknowledge the lies, and the hate,” he told “Good Morning America” in an interview with host Robin Roberts that aired on Thursday. “And it feels like if I had said it was a Muslim, or a Mexican, or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me much more. A lot more. And that says a lot about the place that we are in our country right now.”
Police said they will press charges if they discover Jussie lied about the alleged attack.
It can’t come soon enough.
Update: As one might expect, President Trump has chimed in on twitter, where he slammed McCabe for giving Hillary Clinton a pass and accused the former deputy director, who admitted to lying to the DOJ’s inspector general, of giving “Hillary a pass.”
And as Breitbart’s Sean Davis reminds us, Trump’s criticisms are very much justified.
“I was speaking to the man who had just … won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia." Former FBI acting director Andrew McCabe, Sunday on 60 Minutes. https://t.co/IVwcM11BGcpic.twitter.com/m6HwHMOqY9
Trump Jr. took the attack one step further, accusing McCabe of trying to orchestrate a “deep state coup” against his father, before declaring that it’s time that somebody should “investigate the investigators.”
And though Rosenstein has already announced his plans to resign from the DOJ after William Barr has been confirmed, Freedom Caucus leader Mark Meadows is renewing the call for him to resign immediately following McCabe’s revelations.
In his first interview about the Russia probe since he was summarily fired by President Trump just 26 hours before he was set to retire and collect his pension, and while the possibility of criminal charges over his attempts to cover up his leaks to the press, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe sat for an interview with CBS about the early days of the Russia probe.
In an excerpt of the full interview, which is set to air on Sunday, McCabe described how he quickly moved to start the Russia probe a day after meeting with Trump in May 2017 in the days after James Comey‘s firing, over fears that he would soon be fired. After authorizing the investigation into Trump’s Russia ties, McCabe sought to ensure that the investigation – which was eventually rolled into the probe eventually taken over by Special Counsel Robert Mueller – would be on “solid ground” even if he was booted from the FBI.
“I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion that were I removed quickly or reassigned or fired that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace,” McCabe told CBS.
The interview marked the first time McCabe has ever opened up about his thought process when he launched the probe. In his recounting of his conversation with President Trump, McCabe said he felt intimidated by the president.
“I was speaking to the man who had just run for the presidency and won the election for the presidency and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary on the world stage,” McCabe said in an excerpt aired on CBS on Thursday. “And that was something that troubled me greatly.”
He compared Trump’s request that McCabe allow him to visit the FBI – a visit that McCabe suggest would have been well outside the bounds of decorum – to tactics used by Russian mobsters that McCabe had once prosecuted.
“In this moment, I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss named Dimitri Gufield,” McCabe wrote. “The same kind of thing was happening here, in the Oval Office. Dimitri had wanted Felix to endorse his protection scheme. This is a dangerous business, and it’s a bad neighborhood, and you know, if you want, I can protect you from that. If you want my protection. I can protect you. Do you want my protection? The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate.”
Of course, nobody in the mainstream press has pointed out that the timing of McCabe’s decision to launch the probe would suggest that he was looking for leverage to stop him from being fired along with Comey…though, thanks to his decision to lie to the DOJ’s inspector general, that problem swiftly took care of itself.
He also admitted that he launched the investigation without any actual evidence…just partisan hackery.
In a discussion about the interview, McCabe’s interviewer Scott Pelley said McCabe affirmed that there had been discussions about invoking the 25th amendment to remove Trump – something that was the subject of a series of leaks last year…
.@ScottPelley on what McCabe told @60Minutes: "There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment." pic.twitter.com/iVAyrEV4MF
…about a plot allegedly concocted by Rod Rosenstein (Rosenstein, for what its worth, has issued a statement denying McCabe’s assertion that the Deputy Attorney General raised the issue of Trump Administration officials wearing a wire during their talks with the president).
The Deputy Attorney General never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references. As the Deputy Attorney General previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment, nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment.
Finally, the Deputy Attorney General never spoke to Mr. Comey about appointing a Special Counsel. The Deputy Attorney General in fact appointed Special Counsel Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation. Subsequent to this removal, DOJ’s Inspector General found that Mr. McCabe did not tell the truth to federal authorities on multiple occasions, leading to his termination from the FBI.”
The full interview will air Sunday night at 7 pm. But CBS has published an excerpt below:
Smollett gave an interview to ABC’s Robin Roberts that will air on Thursday
In a brief promo video for the interview, he welled up after being asked if he feared for his life
The actor was walking home from a Subway on January 29 when he was attacked
It was 2am when the attackers beat him, poured bleach on him and put a noose around his neck
He arrived home and his friend, Frank Gatson, 60, insisted they call the police
Since then, no footage of the incident has been found and police have no leads
They have also been at odds with the star over his cooperation with their probe
Smollett did not hand over his phone records to prove that he was on a call to his manager at the time of the attack for two weeks
The records he supplied were redacted and police described them as ‘insufficient’
Chicago Police Department launched a frantic hunt for his attackers who he said shouted ‘This is MAGA country!’ after punching his ribs, pouring bleach on him and tying a noose around his necks.
In the weeks that followed, details of the incident have been picked over forensically.
Despite finding video of Smollett before and after the attack, police have not been able to uncover any surveillance footage of the actual incident and they have not been able to identify the suspects.
They released an initial image of two men walking near Smollett on the night of the incident at around the same time but that led to nothing.
They have also pointed out repeatedly that Smollett did not immediately turn over his phone records or his phone to prove that he was on a call with his manager, Brandon Z. Moore, when the attack took place as claimed.
It carries special significance because Moore claims to have heard the attackers calling Smollett ‘Empire f****t n****r’ and shouting: ‘This is MAGA country!’
Within the first few days of the attack, he gave an interview to Variety saying he had heard the slurs but he has not spoken about it since.
On Monday, Smollett finally did hand over his records but they were redacted.
Chicago Police Department described them as ‘insufficient proof’ of the call.
The actor angrily responded that via a representative that he was never told as much and that they were redacted to protect ‘personal contacts or high-profile individuals not relevant to the attack.’
In a statement to DailyMail.com on Tuesday night, a spokesman for the actor said: ‘Jussie is the victim here, which has been stated by the Superintendent of Police.
‘Jussie has voluntarily provided his phone records from within an hour of the attack and given multiple statements to police. Chicago PD has repeatedly informed us that they find Jussie’s account of what happened that night consistent and credible. Superintendent Johnson has been clear from day one that Jussie is a victim.
‘We are continuing to work closely with the Chicago PD and remain confident that they will find Jussie’s attackers and bring them to justice.
‘Any redacted information was intended to protect the privacy of personal contacts or high-profile individuals not relevant to the attack.
‘Chicago Police have not told us that they are rejecting any records, nor have they expressed concerns about the records to us.
‘Therefore, we don’t feel compelled to be bated (sic) into responding to uncorroborated press reports.
‘We are dealing directly with the Chicago Police Department.’
This is nothing new for Jim Acosta.
The CNN hack famously whined about his “life being in jeopardy” at an earlier rally where he was seen taking selfies with Trump supporters.
Argues that blackface Democrats not resigning is “a result of not acting on President Trump’s bigotry”
Steve Watson | Infowars.com – FEBRUARY 8, 2019
A Democrat from Texas, has vowed to impeach the President, attempting to blame Trump over Democrats blacking up in the past.
Rep. Al Green attempted to argue that the refusal of both Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam (D), and the state’s attorney general, Mark Herring (D), to resign after admissions of wearing blackface in the past is Trump’s fault.
Green stated that it “is but a symptom of a greater syndrome that currently plagues our country as a result of not acting on President Trump’s bigotry.”
So to reiterate Green’s logic, some Democrats blacked up in the 1980s, and it’s Trump’s fault they won’t resign now.
Green added that the Democrats are being protected “to a great extent because the Trump presidency has sent a message that you can be immune to the consequences of bigotry, by daring those with the authority and power to constitutionally remove you from office.”
Green kept digging, adding “We no longer stare bigotry down; bigotry now stares us down.”
“Further, an argument that Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring should resign will subject us to accusations of political hypocrisy if we refuse to take on a bigoted president.” Green continued.
“The remedy must be more than talking points about a much-needed conversation concerning bigotry,” Green said in arguing to impeach Trump, adding “We cannot allow bigotry to go unchecked.”
In a weird universe feedback loop, Green’s argument that Trump is to blame for white supremacists going unchecked is exactly what Ralph Northam said before the picture of him in blackface emerged.
“I think it has something to do with what Donald Trump has unleashed. It has something to do with the reservoir that’s underneath our politics that can always be activated at any moment,” argued Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. during a NBC panel discussion earlier in the week.
“Donald Trump has normalized this overt display of racism.” MSNBC political analyst Zerlina Maxwell agreed.
CNN’s David Chalian struggled to explain why President Trump scored 76 percent “somewhat positive” or “very positive” in the cable network’s instant poll. The poll only counted “speech watchers,” Chalian explained, so Trump’s supporters might have been over-represented because they were watching the speech.
CNN seems to be having a tough night. Incidentally, the CBS News viewer poll also clocked in at exactly 76 percent approval for President Trump’s State of the Union address.
President Donald Trump urged Americans to come together to “Choose Greatness” in his State of the Union address on February 5, 2019.
“Members of Congress, the State of our Union is strong,” President Trump said as members of Congress chanted “USA! USA!”
America is on a roll, and the only thing that can stop it is foolish wars, politics, and partisan investigations.
“We must reject the politics of revenge” and work for the “common good,” President Trump said.
“Together we can break decades of political stalemate, we can…build new coalitions.”
“The decision is ours to make. We must choose between greatness or gridlock…vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction. Tonight I ask you to choose greatness.”
“We are just getting started.”
“Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades, and growing for blue-collar workers.”
“Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps.”
“We are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world. Not even close. Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in nearly half a century.”
“African-American unemployment, Hispanic-American unemployment, and Asian-American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Unemployment for people with disabilities has also reached an all-time low. More people are working now than at any time in the history of our country. 157 million people at work.”
“We are a net exporter of energy.”
President Trump focused on Christians’ ability to get off drugs. President Trump highlighted the story of Matthew Charles, the first man to be released from prison in accordance with President Trump’s First Step Act.
Relatedly, President Trump vowed to put the drug cartels out of business. Troops are at the border to meet the caravans. “This is a moral issue. The lawless state of our southern border is a threat…to all Americans,” Trump said.
Democrats live behind walls. Why can’t our country?
“Simply put: Walls work, and walls save lives,” President Trump said.
Women in the Democrat caucus gave a rousing ovation for Trump’s announcement that there are more women in the workforce than ever before. “You weren’t supposed to do that!,” the president joked. “Don’t sit yet, you’re going to like this! We now have more women serving in Congress than ever before.”
“USA! USA! USA!” Congress chanted.
“That’s great,” President Trump said.
President Trump demanded Congress pass a bill “to ban the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.”
“We were born free, and we will stay free,” President Donald Trump vowed.
“America will never be a socialist country.”
“Great nations do not fight endless wars.”
“Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead.”
“Our biggest victories are still to come.”
“We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown. This is the time to re-ignite the American imagination.”
“This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty…that link us together as American citizens, as neighbors, as patriots.”
“I am asking you to choose greatness…We must go forward together…We must keep America First in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny…”
“Thank you, God Bless you, and God bless America,” President Trump said.
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