House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. walks through Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 24, 2017. Nunes said Friday that Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump, volunteered to be interviewed by committee members. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The House Intelligence Committee held a hearing of some sort today billed as “Lessons from Mueller Report: Counterintelligence Implications of Vol 1”. I can’t tell you much about it other than it seems like National Review’s Andy McCarthy, who has been the sole glimmer of sanity on that site in regards to the whole Russia hoax, went in unprepared for what awaited and got his ass handed to him.

Notable; The GOP's handpicked witness, Andy McCarthy, undercut the Trump line repeatedly. -Said he doesn't believe FBI was working to damage Trump camp or acting “in bad faith” on Carter Page FISA

-Said Obama took steps to counter Russian interferencehttps://t.co/dS6rsVOGRg — Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) June 12, 2019

So … in the #HPSCI hearing. Expert witness McCarthy: I have not fully read volume 2 of the Mueller Report

Expert witnesses Anderson and Douglas: We've never read Steele dossier — Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 12, 2019

Bad start for Andrew McCarthy Opening remarks include falsehood by saying conclusion of Mueller Report is “no evidence of a conspiracy.” Chairman Schiff’s opening remarks correctly stated: “The failure to establish conspiracy did not mean the absence of evidence of conspiracy.” — Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) June 12, 2019

BREAKING: In (LIVE) hearing, Schiff trapped A. McCarthy into conceding/stipulating 1) FBI never tried to make it known during 2016 campaign that Trump under investigation (thus wasnt really gunning for him) & 2) the Obama ICA was correct that Putin ordered hacking to help Trump — Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) June 12, 2019

Be all that as it may, Ranking Member Devin Nunes did a great job pointing out exactly what the Mueller repoort is.

Here we are, more than two years since Democrats from this committee publicly claimed to have “more than circumstantial” evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to hack the 2016 elections, and more than two years since they read false allegations from the Steele dossier into the Congressional record at an open hearing of this committee. After that, the American people were subjected to endless hysteria by the media, Democrats, and anonymous intelligence leakers. Seemingly every day the media triumphantly published a supposed bombshell story, often based on classified documents the reporters had not actually seen, which purportedly proved that President Trump or some Trump associate was a treacherous Russian agent. Democrats on this committee regularly joined cable news pundits in denouncing the traitors. Eventually the Democrats became convinced that the Mueller report would finally rid them of the sinister president who had the audacity to defeat Hillary Clinton. The entire scheme has now imploded and the collusion accusation has been exposed as a hoax. One would think the Democrats would simply apologize and get back to lawmaking and oversight. But it’s clear they couldn’t stop this grotesque spectacle even if they wanted to. After years of false accusations and McCarthyite smears, the collusion hoax now defines the Democratic Party. The hoax is what they have in place of a governing philosophy or a constructive vision for our country. The Democrats assembled us today to analyze the shoddy political hit piece known as the Mueller report. It’s written in the same spirit, and with the same purpose, as the Steele dossier, which was once championed by Democrats on this committee, but which they rarely mentioned after it was exposed as yet another Democrat-created hoax. Unfortunately for Democrats, the Mueller dossier, as I call it, either debunked many of their favorite conspiracy theories or did not even find them worth discussing. These include: Mueller’s finding that Michael Cohen did not travel to Prague to conspire with Russians. No evidence that Carter Page conspired with Russians. No mention of Paul Manafort visiting Julian Assange in London. No mention of secret communications between a Trump Tower computer server and Russia’s Alfa Bank. And no mention of former NRA lawyer Cleta Mitchell or her supposed knowledge of a scheme to launder Russian money through the NRA for the Trump campaign. Insinuations against Mitchell originated with Fusion GPS chief Glenn Simpson and were first made public in a document published by Democrats on this committee. The real purpose of the Mueller dossier, however, was to help Democrats impeach the president in the absence of any evidence of collusion. Thus the report includes: A long litany of ordinary contacts between Trump associates and Russians, as if a certain number of contacts indicate a conspiracy even if no conversations actually created or even discussed a conspiracy. Excerpts from a voicemail from Trump attorney John Dowd that the Mueller team selectively edited to make it seem threatening and nefarious. No comment on the close relationship between Democrat operatives at Fusion GPS and multiple Russians who participated in the June 9, 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. In fact, no comment on Fusion GPS at all. No useful information on figures who played key roles in the investigation such as Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, or Christopher Steele. No useful information about the many irregularities that marred the FBI’s Russia investigation. Furthermore, the Mueller dossier cites dozens of articles from the reporters and publications that were most responsible for perpetuating the Russia hoax. Thus Mueller produced a perfect feedback loop: intelligence leakers spin a false story to the media, the media publishes the story, Mueller cites the story, and the media and the Democrats then fake outrage at Mueller’s findings. In sum, Mueller relied on a mass of reporting whose central narrative—that the Trump campaign colluded with Russians to hack the elections—is false. And the Democrats spread a hoax claiming Trump is a Russian agent, but it was later discovered that the only people who colluded with Russians were the Democrats, who paid for the Steele dossier, which relied on Russian sources.

…shoddy political hit piece known as the Mueller report. It’s written in the same spirit, and with the same purpose, as the Steele dossier…

That’s it in a nutshell.

While Mueller was sort of constrained by actual facts in Volume I, which was, as Nunes points out, an exercise in refuting basically every Russia story that appeared in the media, in Volume II, the report embraces dubious legal theories that are eerily reminiscent of the Enron and Arthur Andersen cases…because Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann almost certainly wrote it.

The fact that no one in the media is talking “collusion” or “Russia” anymore…except Juan Williams

2020 voters will have to face the ugly reality that @realDonaldTrump is president only because Russia twisted the 2016 race. @thehill @thehillopinion https://t.co/vWOL7Ku12S — Juan Williams (@TheJuanWilliams) June 10, 2019

is a dead giveaway that they all know just how fraudulent the allegations were and they want to avoid the stench of that fraud once the Department of Justice IG, Michael Horowitz, and Barr’s special prosecutor looking into the Russia hoax, John Durham, render their reports. Innocent people were trashed in the press by shameless leaks from within the FBI and intelligence community and, it seems, from within Mueller’s office. A president was deprived of a year and a half of his first term. The nation lost two years. Political divisions were created that will never heal. And all for what?

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