On Sunday, September 8, 1974, President Gerald Ford addressed the nation from the Oval Office to announce his decision to “grant a full, free and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed.” Now, some 52 years later, Barack Obama has to be wondering whether he will be extended comparable grace from the Oval Office.
As the headline of this post suggests, Obama has reason to be apprehensive. All roads do lead to the former president. The subhead is my own, but the headline above I borrowed from “The SCIF”—a “Digital Operator • Creator • Intelligence Researcher”—whose work has been repeatedly re-posted by President Donald Trump, including a post from Thursday, January 29:
“President Trump’s legal team exposing the 2020 Election Fraud at the Georgia State Farm Arena pulling suitcases full of alleged fraudulent ballots from under tables after the election center was shut down, running the same stacks of ballots over, and over, and over, all throughout the night until Biden was ahead, stealing the election from President Trump.”
The SCIF comments, “This is exactly why the FBI raided the election center today in Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia. This is only the beginning. Prosecutions are coming.” The fact that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard joined the FBI suggests the Trump administration means business.
If further proof of intent is needed, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Quiñones has convened a grand jury to investigate government surveillance of the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election and the subversion of his presidency thereafter. The primary target here is former CIA Director John Brennan, but he is not the ultimate one. As President Trump has said out loud, “The leader of the gang was Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama.”
The FBI’s Peter Strzok thought so too. Charged with directing “Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s imagined collusion with Russia, Strzok resented outside interference and expressed his frustration to lover Lisa Page, On August 5, 2016, while texting with Page, Strzok quoted an unnamed power player, likely Brennan, as saying, “The White House is running this.” On August 15, Strzok memorialized the aspirations of all involved. “There’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk,” he texted Page. “It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
As president, Obama was no Trump. His leadership style was, as one aide aptly phrased it during the Libya intervention, to “lead from behind.” Although immersed in leftism since childhood, Obama never left the shallow end of the pool. What mattered more was that he be seen striking the right pose, finding the right groove, spinning the right narrative. He is not a serious man, never was. If he is ever indicted, Obama’s amorphous persona may be his best line of defense.
Even more evasive than Obama was his national security advisor, Susan Rice. Thanks to one of Rice’s clumsier deceptions, we know about an unusual meeting that took place in the White House on January 5, 2017.
In conference with Obama was his national security team including all the usual suspects: the FBI’s James Comey, Brennan, Biden, Rice, DNI James Clapper, and acting attorney general Sally Yates. Following the meeting, Obama asked Yates and Comey to stick around along with Rice, his trusted scribe and factotum. Obama had a reason for singling out Comey and Yates. Unlike the others, they were staying on in their jobs. They had plans to discuss. Two weeks later, on the very day at the very moment Trump was being inaugurated, Rice sent to “self” a peculiar email about the January 5 meeting. It read:
“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.’ The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.”
Senators Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham saw right through the smokescreen. “Despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’” the good senators responded to Rice upon discovering the email, “substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book.’”
There is no “book” that justifies what Comey and pals did in the weeks immediately following this meeting while Obama was still president.
Would that “book” by any chance be Rules for Radicals? Imagine how hard it would be to find an impartial judge and venue for THAT trial.
He said by “the book” – now WHICH BOOK? I would expect they have an extensive BOOK to cover their LIES and CORRUPTION!