Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

It is a wonder of these incendiary times that even as impeachment of a president moves to its ripest phase, trial in the Senate, the acts of sedition that prompted it still go on behind the scenes with no intervention - an epic failure of authority, if there ever was one. And further irony, if ever there was a trial that cried for witnesses, the impeachment case being brought by Mrs. Pelosi is such a hash of fraud, incompetence, and chicanery, that it begs for summary dismissal — so that these seditious caitiffs will not have to answer to the nation.

I speak of the “whistleblower” scheme cooked up by a network of officials who have actively plotted to overthrow the president for three years, as laid out at The Last Refuge website Sunday night: Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson in league with former colleagues from the Department of Justice National Security Division and the Lawfare org — a group dedicated to weaponizing law, in service to the political Left.

As I have averred in this blog as far back as October, Mr. Atkinson’s previous job before being appointed ICIG was counsel (lawyer) to the Department of Justice’s Chief of National Security. During the first half of the election year 2016, that was John Carlin. Mr. Carlin’s job was not just to sign-off on FISA warrants, but to actually write them. It also happens that Mr. Carlin had previously served as chief of staff to Robert Mueller, when Mr. Mueller was FBI Director.

Mr. Carlin signed-off on a March 2016 warrant against Carter Page, under suspicion of being a Russian Spy, when in fact Carter Page was a CIA informant who had been operating in Russia for years to uncover Russian adventures against the USA. CIA Director John Brennan inserted Mr. Page into the Trump campaign to open up Mr. Trump’s campaign to FBI surveillance, since the CIA has no law enforcement powers. The FISA Court’s Two-hop Rule allows a second hop to anyone who communicated with the initial subject of a warrant, which might have achieved surveillance of everyone in the Trump campaign, including the candidate himself. It also would have allowed access to all communications going back for years. This part of the scheme was probably green-lighted by White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice for Mr. Brennan, with President Obama’s approval, for the purpose of helping Hillary Clinton win the election.

John Carlin resigned in September of 2016 when faced with the prospect of having to sign a second fraudulent FISA warrant. He was replaced by DOJ attorney Mary McCord. Among other things, Ms. McCord was involved in engineering the case against General Michael Flynn, as well as the continuing surveillance of the Trump campaign. She resigned in April of 2017. A month later, Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (acting for recused AG Jeff Sessions). Mary McCord then moved to a job at the elephant’s graveyard of federal officials under suspicion of malfeasance: the Georgetown University Law School. Meanwhile Michael Atkinson, who had continued as counsel under Ms. McCord, was shifted to his new job as ICIG.

Since then, somehow, Mary McCord landed a gig as an outside lawyer for Adam Schiff’s House intelligence Committee, to which she remains attached to this day. She is also associated with the Lawfare org that has supplied several other lawyers to Mr. Schiff’s committee and Jerrold Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee. Did Ms. McCord organize the “whistleblower” complaint and coordinate its transmission through Mr. Atkinson’s IG office, with CIA agent Eric Ciaramella acting as the spearpoint for the operation? Did Mr. Ciaramella have direct contact with Ms. McCord in the process? Did Ms. McCord have any part in actually writing the “whistleblower’s” highly legalistic complaint? Did Ms. McCord play any part in the backdating of official forms submitted for the “whistleblower’s” complaint — especially the crucial matter of changing the provision that disallowed second-hand “hearsay” evidence from such a complaint? Isn’t it a pity that the Senate phase of this impeachment may conclude with no testimony from these people?

An additional insult to the public interest went down on Friday when FISA court presiding judge James Boasberg picked one David Kris, former DOJ National Security Division chief (preceding John Carlin under President Obama), to “assist” in reforming FISA court procedures lately discredited by multiple acts of fraud and seditious abuse. Mr. Kris’s conflicts of interest in this endeavor are so rich and dark that they would embarrass a Gestapo Gruppenführer. In October, 2019, he tweeted “Trump has to go.” He was a loud critic of the report issued by Rep Devin Nunes, former chair, now ranking minority member, of the House Intel Committee — a report subsequently proven factually correct about the deceit surrounding RussiaGate — and a fervent supporter of Adam’s Schiff’s dishonest and factually erroneous minority report. He is one of the most active contributors to the Lawfare blog.

The appointment of Mr. Kris has provoked vehement objections for these obvious reasons, yet who and where is the authority to adjudicate it? Apparently in Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who is the only person with any supervisory role over the FISA court. Maybe someone should ask Justice Roberts how this appointment can possibly stand.