The Morning Briefing: There Was Spying and Much, Much More

Good Thursday morning.

“Julian Assange, 47, has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador,” police said.

Developing…

Today’s must read: Why Last Year’s Trump-Russia Pulitzer Was No Prize

There was spying on the Trump campaign. FULL STOP.

Yesterday, an exchange between Democrat Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and AG William Barr during a Senate Appropriations hearing tore the space-time continuum for the institutional left. What appeared to careful observers of the Trump-RUSSIA collusion fable as a simple statement of fact, was an earth-shattering, scandalous, shocking blasphemy to those invested and implicated in the greatest political scandal in American history.

“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr said in a congressional hearing, deliberately or not, playing into claims that Trump’s campaign was unfairly targeted by the FBI. “I think spying did occur.”

Barr’s statement is a fact. A FACT. There is no “claim” to be made about spying because it’s demonstrably true.

The redacted FISA warrant, along with copies of three additional renewals of the warrant, used to SPY on Carter Page are public. The purpose of the warrant is to get the authority to SPY on Carter Page’s communications. The warrant granted the government the ability to SPY not only on Page’s future communications but on Page’s past communications including his time as a volunteer on the Trump team. It also included the authority to obtain the communications of anyone with whom Page communicated. That would probably be folks on the Trump campaign, ergo, SPYING on the Trump camp.

The FISA warrants assert that Page is an agent of a foreign power.

Last night on Twitter, I raised this question:

https://twitter.com/StarChamberMaid/status/1116115144940163072

What “evidence” did the feds have to claim Page was a foreign asset? A special counsel investigation that involved 19 lawyers and 40 FBI agents yielded nothing. I don’t know what was redacted from the memos but Mueller’s team certainly does. Page is a free man; presumably, he’s not a RUSSIAN spy.

And that’s just the FISA spying. There were human assets, Mifsud and Halper, deployed overseas by the ringleader of this operation, CIA’s John Brennan. There were national security letters. This information is all public, so why are the media and the Democrats so shocked?

The narrative now coming from crazy conspiracy theorists who peddled the evidence-less collusion hoax for years is that Barr is simply regurgitating a conspiracy theory himself. The fact that the media and Democrats are melting down is merely a sign that Barr is correct to begin an investigation.

Pelosi says Attorney General Barr is ‘going off the rails’

Cooper: AG should serve country, not president

Will his house be raided in the dark of night? Lawyers for Greg Craig, ex-Obama White House counsel, say they expect him to be charged with foreign lobbying violations

Rep. Matt Gaetz introduces the PENCIL act

Congressional troll-level: epic.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has introduced the PENCIL act to get clown Rep. Adam Schiff (R-Calif.) off of the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) and his security clearance revoked.

The resolution’s title in full is the Preventing Extreme Negligence with Classified Information Licenses. It calls for Schiff’s ousting from the committee because he “can no longer be trusted” and claims Schiff made a series of false statements about Trump.

Schiff has been heavily criticized since Attorney General William Barr revealed that special counsel Robert Mueller did not find a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election.

#BREAKING: Today I filed the “PENCIL Act,” expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that “Congressman Adam Schiff should be removed from the House Intelligence Committee and his security clearance immediately revoked.” pic.twitter.com/1FsMt6NUjr

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) April 11, 2019

As you may remember, Schiff is a dossier/collusion truther who used his position and access to classified material to mumble for the media about Trump being a RUSSIAN asset or something.

“It is the sense of the House of Representatives that Congressman Adam Schiff should be removed from the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House and that his security clearance should be revoked immediately,” the resolution said.

Gaetz was on Tucker Carlson last night to talk about Schiff.

“There are Democrats in Congress who feel betrayed, because like the rest of the country… they were told that there was actual evidence of collusion, that this was going to happen, and a lot of those very Democrats went out on a limb in the campaign, right, and promised their voters that this evidence would be turned up,” Gaetz told Tucker.

“Now we know the whole deal was fake. It was a lie. And really, I think a lot of the narrative has been a cover-up for the fact that under the Obama administration, our intelligence community got so politicized at the upper levels that they allowed political opposition research to justify something that should never happen in this country. And, you’re right, it should never happen from either side.”

No doubt this joker Schiff should be removed from the HPSCI.

Your daily WTF:

Father and son in Illinois sold diseased human remains for profit, federal charges say

Historical picture of the day:

World-renowned British actor Sean Connery, famous for his role as secret agent James Bond 007, relaxes at the River Room of the Savoy Hotel in London, United Kingdom on April 11, 1971, after coming back from the Grave to take his famous Bond role in the United Artists film version of the James Bond story “Diamonds Are Forever.” Connery, 40, later left for Las Vegas where filming for the picture is in progress. The actor last made a Bond film in 1967 and subsequently announced his retirement from playing the character. (AP Photo/Bob Dear)

Other morsels:

Horrible. Deputy’s son arrested in connection to fires at historically black churches

Minnesota arrests 58 in child sex sting during NCAA Final Four weekend

Trump signs orders targeting states’ power to slow energy projects

Great piece. Vaping, smoking, driving, voting. When are you an adult?

Controversial. Obama: You know, it’s not racist to believe that immigrants should assimilate

Ocasio-Cortez rips College Republicans over branding her a ‘domestic terrorist’

Twitter Punts After Being Asked Whether It Will Submit To An Independent Political Bias Audit

Horrible. 234 House Democrats, Two Republicans Co-Sponsor Bill Forcing Schools To Let Male Athletes Compete On Girls’ Sports Teams

Cheap garbage. Thief Makes Off With $21,000 Worth Of Victoria’s Secret Lingerie, Police Say

Oh. Canada plans to end ‘asylum shopping’ by limiting refugee claims

Feds seize $4.5 million Avenatti plane amid tax scandal