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In saying this Russia’s favorite Congressman sounds just like Randy Credico. Julian Assange said it, I believe it, and that’s good enough for me.
“Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said in recent interview that he does not believe Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee or other Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, based on a denial offered by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The congressman’s belief is contrary to the public conclusion of United States law enforcement and intelligence agencies.”
“I know they didn’t hack the DNC,” Rohrabacher told political commentator Mark McKinnon in an interview for Showtime’s political show The Circus. “I went to the guy who received the DNC emails, Julian Assange, and talked to him personally, and he assured me it wasn’t and that they had proof,” the congressman said.
Asked if he trusted Assange over US intelligence, Rohrabacher said he did: “If you take a look at what evidence has been coming of this investigation, people have a lot of questions about our top law enforcement and intelligence services.”
“Rohrabacher’s comment refers to an August 2017 trip he took to visit Assange at Ecuador’s London embassy, where the self-described radical transparency advocate has been confined since 2012 after rape charges were lodged against him in Sweden. Following the trip, Rohrabacher floated a proposed deal where President Donald Trump would pardon Assange of any potential US crimes in exchange for Assange providing evidence he claims to possess showing the Russians did not hack the DNC or other Democratic targets.”
FN: Manafort?
The alt Righter Chuck Johnson paid for this particular field trip to meet Assange. Notably Assange has presented no such evidence. It’s not clear how he could prove it wasn’t the Russians anyway. In Assange’s poise as a ‘radical transparency advocate’-though as we see in (chapter-) he actually had been expressing his desire for a GOP victory-not just Trump and this was before Trump became the nominee-at least since 2014 and arguably sooner-he claims not to know who his sources are. If that were so he’d have to admit that it could be the Russians. How could he prove the negative that it definitely wasn’t?
“This is not new ground for Rohrabacher. The 30-year congressional veteran’s reported contacts with Russian operatives and frequently expressed affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin have won him the sobriquet “Putin’s favorite congressman” and helped land him in a tight reelection fight against Democrat Harley Rouda in a normally Republican-leaning district in California’s Orange County. In 2012, the FBI reportedly warned Rohrabacher that Russian intelligence agents were trying to recruit him as an asset. During the 2016 campaign, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was recorded privately speculating that “Putin pays” the congressman along with then-candidate Trump. Rohrabacher has met with various figures involved in the Trump-Russia scandal, including Natalia Veselniskaya, the Russian attorney whom the Trump campaign believed would deliver dirt on Clinton at the infamous June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. He was interviewed last year by the House Intelligence Committee about matters believed to include his contacts with Russian operatives.
In a stunner the GOP is refusing to release Rohrbacher’s transcripts from his interview before House intel. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’ testimony will also be withheld.
“House Intelligence Committee Republicans voted on Friday against releasing interview transcripts of one of their House GOP colleagues that Democrats consider significant for the panel’s now-shuttered Russia probe.”
“Two sources told The Daily Beast on Friday morning that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee wanted their GOP colleagues to disclose an account given to the panel by Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), who is considered the Republican legislator closest to the Kremlin.”
“The Republicans are trying to conceal from the voters their colleague Dana Rohrabacher’s Russia investigation testimony,” said a committee source familiar with the issue. “There were highly concerning contacts between Rohrabacher and Russians during the campaign that the public should hear about.”
The fact that DWS’ testimony is being withheld doesn’t exactly hide the fact that her testimony is also pretty inconvenient to Trump and his GOP loyalists.
If anything she said could be used against the Democrats or somehow suggest problems with the Russia probe the transcripts would be released.
“As well, two sources said the Republicans denied release of an interview given to them by Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chaired the Democratic National Committee in 2016 when Russian military intelligence infiltrated the organization’s servers and exfiltrated for publication a large trove of internal communications.”
“She has no objection to it being released,” said Wasserman Schultz spokesperson David Damron.
“The Republicans also voted against releasing interviews from the Russia probe with several pivotal former intelligence officials. They include James Comey, the FBI director President Trump fired; John Brennan, the ex-CIA director whose security clearance Trump stripped; and Michael Rogers, who this year stepped down as the head of the National Security Agency. The three men presided over the January 2017 intelligence assessment that stated Russia interfered in the 2016 election.”
UPDATE: The Democrats vowed in late October, 2018 to release it if they took over Congress which they did, of course. So far as I’m aware that testimony has till not been released. There are a lot of things the Dems promised to do we’re still waiting on-in fairness they have a very long list but even so that calls for more not less urgency and haste.
A Comey House interview was released on December 8, 2018.
End of UPDATE
The capriciousness of the GOP here is outrageous. Not only do they not release these transcripts they don’t even offer the thinnest pretext. It’s like they just go through them and anything they think will be unhelpful to Trump they simply refuse to release. Can there be any doubt of the urgent need for a real Congress rather than Trump’s personal obstruction force?
“On Friday morning, the panel, which is sharply divided along partisan lines, voted to release 53 interview transcripts from the Russia investigation. Those transcripts now go to the office of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats for a declassification review. Sources were unclear on the precise timing of the review but one anticipated that the transcripts could be released as soon as two days from now.”
Yeah this was written on September 28-well over two weeks ago.
The Democrats directly pressed Nunes on the timing and it’s what he didn’t say that’s so revealing.
“Mike Quigley, an Illinois Democrat on the committee, said in a statement that he “directly asked Chairman Nunes whether the timing of this decision was directed by the White House or the President’s legal team.” Nunes, Quigley said, “refused to answer.”
FN: Off topic but I’m happy to say Quigley has now come out for an impeachment inquiry. In a few chapters in this book I’ve criticized him for seeming rather impeachment phobic so that kind of tells you where the momentum is in the Dem caucus right now.
“Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, called the withheld interviews a “further subterfuge” masquerading as transparency from Trump’s allies on the panel.”
Schiff also noted they refused to ‘all unredacted transcripts’ to Mueller as we saw in more detail in (chapter X).
“Schiff added that the Republican majority again refused to subpoena documents and information Democrats have sought in the probe. They include records and testimony from Deutsche Bank concerning possible Russian money laundering, the phone records of Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, and Twitter DMs between WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, the Russian military-intelligence persona known as Guccifer2.0 and Trump campaign allies.”
20 days my friends. Just 20 days before November 6 and we can begin to #MakeAmericaLegtimateAgain.
UPDATE: The Democrats vowed in late October, 2018 to release it if they took over Congress which they did, of course. So far as I’m aware that testimony has till not been released. There are a lot of things the Dems promised to do we’re still waiting on-in fairness they have a very long list but even so that calls for more not less urgency and haste.
A Comey House interview was released on December 8, 2018.
FN: This is an interesting interview Mike regarding Comeygate. On page 40 Comey basically gives the definition of a ‘perjury trap’ in what he thought he could get from interviewing Clinton.
Note that Trump never testified to Mueller and many of the GOP co-conspirators have spoken derisively of ‘perjury traps’ and process crimes’-Roger Stone, Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn have all complained of being setup by ‘perjury traps.’
But Comey is happy to say that he saw his interview with Clinton-something Trump wasn’t made to do-as an opportunity for if nothing else a perjury trap. Comey-unlike Bill Barr regarding ‘President Trump’s obstruction-didn’t think that perjury is irrelevant unless you can prove the underlying crime.
Rohrbacher, Russia’s favorite Congressman, is gone-they’ll have to find other GOP co-conspirators which shouldn’t be so hard as the party has already largely become the Party of Russia.