Patterico's Pontifications

10/31/2016

Evidence That Hillary’s Staff Knew In 2011 That Anthony Weiner Was Talking Dirty to an Underage Girl — And My Role in Breaking the Story

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 6:30 pm



The Daily Mail reports that Hillary’s staffers knew in 2011 that Anthony Weiner was exchanging inappropriate messages with underage girls. And, as we’ll see, if you were reading a certain blog (a blog we all know and love!) in 2011, you knew it too!

Hillary Clinton’s staffers knew as early as 2011 that Anthony Weiner had been messaging an underage girl, but they did nothing about it, according to WikiLeaks emails published Monday.

John Podesta – now chair of Clinton’s presidential campaign – and Neera Tanden, another adviser, were forwarded news of an investigation into Weiner’s online contact with a 17-year-old Delaware high school student by Jennifer Palmieri, the current campaign communications director, in June 2011.

At the time he was married to Huma Abedin, another member of Clinton’s inner circle, who is now at the center of fresh FBI investigation into the handling of classified material while Clinton was in office.

The email detailed lurid claims of private messages to an underage girl being investigated by police – and was met with the response ‘oof’ by Podesta.

‘Police on Friday afternoon came to the home of a 17-year-old high school junior to ask her about direct online communications she has had with Rep. Anthony Weiner,’ email read, quoting a Fox News article from the same time.

‘Two officers from the New Castle County Police Department arrived at the girl’s home around 4:30 p.m. and asked to speak with the girl’s mother about the daughter’s contact with Weiner. Another officer appeared at the home a short time later.’

Palmieri forwarded the news article to Podesta and Tanden.

This story is of special interest to me — for reasons you’ll learn in the following passage:

Back in April 2011, the then-teenager openly expressed her love for Weiner, who followed her on Twitter.

In her feed, she expressed her love of married men, according to Patterico.com.

At one point she said: ‘HE IS MINE ALL MINE HE LOVES ME AND NO ONE ELSE ILY ILY ILY!!!’ and added ‘@RepWeiner I’m in love with you’ two days later.

If the name “Patterico.com” sounds familiar, it should. That happens to be the blog you are reading right now. And, as it happens, I am the one who broke the story about Weiner’s creepy conversations with the high school girl in Delaware, in this post, which I followed up with this post.

To make a long story short, the girl — whom I termed “Ethel” to protect her real name — had written the following on her Tumblr blog, quoting her “favorite Congressman” as talking about “cape and tights shit”:

“I came back strong. Large. In charge. Tights and cape shit…” My favorite congressman<3

My post published evidence that the girl’s “favorite Congressman” was Weiner . . . and that Weiner had also used the “cape and tights” line in sexually explicit chats with a grown woman in Las Vegas. I was concerned that this evidence indicated that Weiner might have traded sexually explicit messages with the girl as well. After I published my post, Fox News reporter Jana Winter contacted me on the morning of June 9, 2011, saying: “Hi. I’m a reporter with FoxNews.com. Saw your post about Weiner—got a minute to talk?” She had seen the first post I linked above, and I sent her the second link as well.

Based on my posts, Winter was at the girl’s home later that day . . . when the police showed up to search the girl’s computer. Winter’s story went nationwide — and was the story that, we learned today, was sent to Podesta, which caused him to say: “Oof.”

Incidentally, two days later, I published evidence that there was a discrepancy between different news media reports regarding how many messages the girl had exchanged with Weiner. The evidence suggested the possibility that the New York Times, in reporting that there had been only five direct messages exchanged, had simply taken the girl’s word for it . . . and that, perhaps, there had been others.

Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that, over five years later, all this would become relevant to a presidential election.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

Wikileaks: Donna Brazile Blatantly Leaking More Debate Questions

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:32 pm



Rigged.

Expect a resignation later today, I would guess. (On second thought, they may delay it until after the election as a ploy to try to deny oxygen to the story.)

Presumably even our biased and incompetent news media will manage to ask Hillary whether she received this question. She will lie, of course — and the lie will easily be seen by virtually all onlookers for what it is.

The Attack on Comey Continues: Open Letter from Eric Holder and Others

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:00 am



Last night, news broke on the campaign Web site of Hillary Clinton that several of her political supporters agree with her that James Comey is a big jerk for opening his mouth about the re-opened (that right, lefties, “re-opened”) Hillary email investigation. The twist: these particular political supporters used to work in the Department of Justice. Washington Times:

The Hillary Clinton campaign circulated Sunday night an open letter from former federal prosecutors and Justice Department officials criticizing FBI Director James Comey for his actions in recent days in the Clinton email investigation.

The Clinton campaign website posted the letter, which had more than 90 signatories, the most prominent being Eric H. Holder Jr., the Obama administration’s first attorney general.

First, it’s worth asking: who are these people? Big Media will tell you they are former Department of Justice officials . . . and that’s all Big Media will say. Is there anything else we should know about them? Well, Eric Holder was President Obama’s partisan hack Attorney General. Andrew McCarthy has a great piece on the letter which notes a couple of other names on the list: “Jamie Gorelick (President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general) and Larry Thompson (Comey’s predecessor as President George W. Bush’s deputy attorney general and an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump).” Then there is Stuart Gerson, an acting Attorney General during the Clinton administration; James Cole, an Assistant A.G. appointed by Barack Obama, initially by a recess appointment; Donald Ayer, a Bush-era A.G. who signed a letter in August condemning Trump, and so forth.

Are you starting to see a pattern here? These people are not big fans of Donald Trump.

When you look at the arguments this partisan group makes, it quickly becomes apparent that they are filled with trickery, Hillary Clinton talking points (but I repeat myself), and internal contradictions. Take this key paragraph, for example:

It is out of our respect for such settled tenets of the United States Department of Justice that we are moved to express our concern with the recent letter issued by FBI Director James Comey to eight Congressional Committees. Many of us have worked with Director Comey; all of us respect him. But his unprecedented decision to publicly comment on evidence in what may be an ongoing inquiry just eleven days before a presidential election leaves us both astonished and perplexed. We cannot recall a prior instance where a senior Justice Department official—Republican or Democrat—has, on the eve of a major election, issued a public statement where the mere disclosure of information may impact the election’s outcome, yet the official acknowledges the information to be examined may not be significant or new.

There certainly are a lot of lawyerly qualifications in that sentence, aren’t there? Let me ask this question to these Trump haters: you say you never heard of an FBI official publicly commenting on evidence under these circumstances. Have you even heard of an FBI official withholding public comment under these circumstances? The answer is no, because they have so carefully circumscribed the description that it applies to this situation and this situation only.

Another relevant and related question: how often have we had a candidate for President under federal investigation in the final days of an election? See, Comey is having to make “unprecedented” decisions because he is in an unprecedented situation.

It’s also worth noting that it’s a situation that Comey contributed to himself — because of another unprecedented decision: his decision in July to publicly exonerate the target of an investigation (Hillary Clinton) before charges were ever submitted. And that decision, to all appearances, was prompted by another unprecedented action: Loretta Lynch chatting in a friendly manner with Bill Clinton, the spouse of the target of an investigation, before charges were submitted regarding that target. And, speaking of spouses, we have another unprecedented action here: the target of an investigation (Hillary Clinton) helping to raise half a million dollars for the campaign of the spouse of an FBI official who later supervised the investigation of the target.

So much unprecedented stuff going on there . . . and yet, I don’t recall reading a letter in July or since from these selfsame highly principled defenders of public integrity, complaining about any of these unprecedented actions. In fact, as we will see in the letter’s paragraph, they explicitly refuse to comment on the propriety of Comey’s comments in July. Hmmm. You know, the comments that benefited Hillary Clinton . . . by exonerating her of a crime when, under the language of the statute, she was clearly guilty.

Hmmmmmmmm.

What’s more, as you continue reading their letter, you see that right after complaining about Comey publicly commenting on evidence, these principled folks next complain that Comey is not commenting publicly in enough detail:

Director Comey’s letter is inconsistent with prevailing Department policy, and it breaks with longstanding practices followed by officials of both parties during past elections. Moreover, setting aside whether Director Comey’s original statements in July were warranted, by failing to responsibly supplement the public record with any substantive, explanatory information, his letter begs the question that further commentary was necessary. For example, the letter provides no details regarding the content, source or recipient of the material; whether the newly-discovered evidence contains any classified or confidential information; whether the information duplicates material previously reviewed by the FBI; or even “whether or not [the] material may be significant.”

You can’t have it both ways, partisan hacks. You can’t whine about the fact that Comey is talking about this in the first place, and then complain that he is not saying enough.

Even if those do happen to be the exact talking points of the Hillary Clinton campaign (and they do), that alone does not mean that they make sense.

It’s a partisan hit job by former DoJ officials against a sitting FBI Director. And that in itself seems — say it with me now! — unprecedented.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

P.S. The FBI is investigating the Clinton Foundation too.

Homeless Trump Supporter Confronted By Aggressively Hostile Clinton Supporters

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:48 am



[guest post by Dana]

Last Wednesday morning, a man identifying himself as James Otis, reportedly the heir to the Otis Elevator Company fortune, admitted he took a pickaxe to Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He was later arrested for felony vandalism, and then released after posting $20,000 bail. Obviously unaware that you cannot auction off stolen property, he told reporters that he planned to sell some of the letters from Trump’s name for $1-$2 million and donate all the proceedings to women’s charities. He explained:

“I had to do it – to make myself feel whole and to be part of the democratic process, I had to do the nonviolent action,” Otis said.

He accused Trump of having “derailed the entire election” and said the vandalism was his way of dealing with his anger.

This weekend, after the star had been repaired, a homeless Trump supporter sat guard over it. While there, she posted a number of hand-written signs slamming Hillary Clinton, accusing President Obama of selling out the black community, and complaining about illegal immigrants. The scene quickly turned ugly as the woman was confronted by a taunting and hostile crowd that had gathered. In a very disturbing video, young men and women are seen and heard acting in an utterly deplorable manner. And at the end of the video, the homeless woman is down on the ground. (I’ve read reports that the woman was throwing out her own inflammatory rhetoric, but it was difficult for me to distinguish it from the loud crowd.)

A couple of things to note: After the last debate, Hillary Clinton’s camp hysterically accused Donald Trump of “menacingly stalking” her on stage. What I saw were two people in a fairly tight space, and the hulking 6’3″ 235 lb. Trump paced behind a 5’5″ Hillary Clinton. Not “menacingly stalking” her, but sure, go with your case of the vapors… However, in contrast, if you go to the 2:53 mark of the video below, you can see what it really looks like when a man stalks a woman. And it’s just awful.

A heavyset man with glasses and tattoos then moved in to tear up her signs, leading her to push back at him and fall to the ground.

As she lay prone, some onlookers jeered her with profanity.

“You spewed hate and you got hate,” one man is heard to say. “You got exactly what you were dishing out.”

Given that the media has inundated us with alleged and actual examples of Trump supporters behaving in an unacceptable manners, we have also recently had it confirmed from the Project Veritas videos that Democratic operatives have planted their own agitators at Trump’s rallies with the goal of stirring the pot and fomenting the media narrative of hateful Trump supporters acting out on his inflammatory rhetoric. (Preemptive strike: This does not excuse anyone’s horrid behavior at these rallies where violence has been witnessed and documented.) Yet in the video of the homeless woman, the events don’t appear to be staged as far as the surrounding hostile crowd is concerned. It seems like a group of people who viscerally hate Donald Trump, and by extension, his supporters. They are obviously taking out their anger and hostility on one single woman. If this is representative of Hillary Clinton supporters at large, then I would suggest that, just like Trump, she should be pressured to publicly disavow such actions immediately.

Postscript: Witnesses were disturbed by the lack of police intervention during the incident, and the LAPD responded:

The video prompted angry calls to police asking why they didn’t intervene.

LAPD Officer Tony Im said Friday that the woman incited the crowd with racial slurs and police at the scene “kept the peace.”

He said police will look for the woman to interview her.

“We had a lot of people upset that we didn’t do anything,” Im said. “If she’s a victim, she has a right to come forward.”

Of course, given the madness of this campaign, it may be that the homeless woman was an actress from Central Casting, hired by Democratic operatives to stir the pot. After all, this took place in Hollywood, land of the make-believe. (Preemptive strike: This does not excuse anyone’s horrid behavior toward the woman, which has been witnessed and documented.)

–Dana

10/30/2016

Harry Reid’s Letter To James Comey

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:44 pm



[guest post by Dana]

This seems as good of a time as any to remind readers that Harry Reid really is a nasty piece of work.

As recently as last month, Reid gloated about the false accusation he made against Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign. This in spite of evidence showing that Reid was outright lying. But to a corrupt bastard like Harry Reid, proof means nothing. Only winning. And he has certainly shown that there is no line he will not cross in order to do just that.

This was Reid last month when asked about his Romney accusation:

People bring that up, it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. Why? Because I knew what he had done was not be transparent and forthright about his taxes and to this day he hasn’t released his tax returns. … Did I want to do that? No. I had the information, I tried to get somebody else to do it. I tried to get somebody in the Obama ‘reelect,’ I tried to get one of the senators, I tried to get one of the outside groups, but nobody would do it. So I did it. And with that, like everything, I think in life, here’s something I learned from my father, if you’re going to do something, don’t do it half-assed, don’t play around. With the Mitt Romney stuff, I didn’t play around. …

And when asked about defending an accusation that was proven to be untrue, Liar-Liar-Pants-On-Fire-Reid justified it this way:

“Romney didn’t win, did he?”

Of course there are numerous examples which demonstrate Reid’s dishonesty and seared conscience, so it’s no surprise that in a desperate move, he fired off a letter to James Comey today accusing him of violating the Hatch Act:

untitled

2

And to think that just a few short months ago, Reid had nothing but praise for Comey:

“He’s been a fair, impartial director of the FBI.”

Oh, what a difference an email or two, or 650,000 makes…

In response to an anti-Trump PAC making a similar accusation against Comey, John Sexton explained a Hatch Act violation:

For this to be a violation of the Hatch Act it would be necessary to prove that Comey was not performing his duties as FBI Director but was raising this to impact the election. Obviously this coalition doesn’t have any proof that’s the case but by making the accusation they help the Clinton campaign controversialize the announcement as a partisan act.

Further, although a former White House ethics lawyer also filed a Hatch Act complaint with regard to Comey, a Georgetown University law professor doesn’t think Comey violated it:

I do not think he has committed a crime,” he told the Post, referring to the latest email investigation. (But) I do think he has abused his office.

Perhaps Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Trey Gowdy summed up Reid most accurately.

From Sen. Cotton: “Harry Reid is a disgrace to American politics, among worst men ever in Senate. He can’t go soon enough, and many Democrats privately agree.”

And during an interview with Brett Baier, Gowdy offered this: “Thank God he’s leaving, is my initial reaction. My second reaction is: I did not know Mormons used drugs. And anyone who is capable of sending out that press release has to be under the influence of something.”

–Dana

Your Sunday Evening Chuckle

Filed under: General — JVW @ 7:00 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Yeah, we spend a lot of time at each other’s throats these days, so in the spirit of Halloween Harmony let me pass along this awesomely imagined Tweet courtesy of Occupy Democrats Logic. This will probably get them kicked off of Facebook again.

hillary-weiner

To quote Homer Simpson: It’s funny because it’s true (or at least plausible).

– JVW

Too Good to Check: Trump Offered VP Slot to Christie — and Then Took it Back

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 4:30 pm



Sure, the report is based on anonymous sources, and as such is not really to be trusted . . . but come on. I think we can all agree that, whether you’re a Trump fan or not, it’s just good clean American fun at this point to point and laugh at Chris Christie. So let’s suspend our disbelief, the way we do for an action-packed but implausible Hollywood blockbuster, and enjoy this story for the sheer schadenfreude of it all.

Plus, a lot of it rings true. Why, just listen to the first quoted source in the piece:

“Trump cares about who’s the most loyal and who kisses his a– the most, not who’s the most qualified and what’s the best political decision,” said a source close to the campaign. “If it was up to him, it would have been Christie.”

That’s our Donald all right!

Christie contacted Trump and made his final, impassioned ­appeal on July 12.

“Christie said he thinks he deserves it and he earned it,” a second Trump source said. Convinced, Trump made the ­offer.

Christie “said all the BS that Trump likes to hear, and Trump said, ‘Yeah, sure I’m giving it to you.’”

That didn’t sit well with Manafort, who had arranged for Trump to meet Pence in Indianapolis on July 13, and fly back together to New York the next day for a formal announcement.

After Trump tentatively decided on Christie, Manafort told Trump his plane had a mechanical problem, campaign sources said, forcing Trump to spend another night in the Hoosier State. Pence then made his case to be Trump’s No. 2 over dinner as Trump’s advisers argued that Christie’s Bridgegate troubles would sink the campaign.

“Trump had wanted Christie but Bridgegate would have been the biggest national story,” a third Trump source said. “He’d lose the advantage of not being corrupt.”

Trump agreed to name Pence the next day and broke the news to Christie, saying it would “tear my family apart if I gave you VP,” a source said.

Christie did look particularly grumpy after Pence got the VP nod, but we all figured it was because he lost out. Who knew that he’d actually been promised the job by the Con Artist in Chief himself?

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

Uh-Oh: Weiner Cooperating with FBI on Hillary Email Investigation

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 2:30 pm



Fox News Sunday reported this morning that Anthony Weiner is cooperating with the FBI, which has re-opened (yes, lefties: “re-opened”) the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s classified emails. Watch as Chris Wallace reports the breaking news during the panel segment near the end of the show:

And the news is breaking while we’re on the air. Our colleague Bret Baier has just sent us an e-mail saying he has two sources who say that Anthony Weiner, who also had co-ownership of that laptop with his estranged wife Huma Abedin, is cooperating with the FBI investigation, had given them the laptop, so therefore they didn’t need a warrant to get in to see the contents of said laptop. Pretty interesting development.

Targets of federal investigations will often cooperate, hoping that they will get consideration from a judge at sentencing. Given Weiner’s well-known penchant for lying, it’s hard to believe that a prosecutor would give Weiner a deal based on an agreement to testify, unless his testimony were very strongly corroborated by hard evidence. But cooperation can take many forms — and, as Wallace indicated on this morning’s show, one of those forms could be signing a consent form to allow investigators to review the contents of devices that they could probably get a warrant for anyway. We’ll see if Weiner’s cooperation extends beyond that.

Any way you slice it, it’s not good news for Hillary Clinton.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

Chicago Tribune Columnist Calls On Democrats To Ask Hillary Clinton To Step Down

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:28 am



[guest post by Dana]

In light of Hillary Clinton’s email scandal of the past year and this latest October surprise from James Comey, columnist John Kass at the Chicago Tribune has made the first call for Democrats to ask Hillary Clinton to step down. At this point in time, she has become a liability who runs counter to all that the Democratic party stands for (obviously in words, not deeds):

If ruling Democrats hold themselves to the high moral standards they impose on the people they govern, they would follow a simple process:

They would demand that Mrs. Clinton step down, immediately, and let her vice presidential nominee, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, stand in her place.

Democrats should say, honestly, that with a new criminal investigation going on into events around her home-brew email server from the time she was secretary of state, having Clinton anywhere near the White House is just not a good idea.

What if she is elected? Think of a nation suffering a bad economy and continuing chaos in the Middle East, and now also facing a criminal investigation of a president. Add to that congressional investigations and a public vision of Clinton as a Nixonian figure wandering the halls, wringing her hands.

The best thing would be for Democrats to ask her to step down now. It would be the most responsible thing to do, if the nation were more important to them than power. And the American news media — fairly or not firmly identified in the public mind as Mrs. Clinton’s political action committee — should begin demanding it.

Of course the Democrats won’t ask her to step down, at least not yet. I’m not sure what would actually have to be in the latest batch of emails that would compel them to implore her to step down for the “good” of the party. The Democrats’ bar for acceptable behaviors and activities is already basement-level. Further, there is no way Hillary Clinton, who believes herself owed this moment, would ever consider stepping down. Too much of her “livelihood” would be at stake:

She’ll stick and ride this out and turn her anger toward Comey. For Hillary and Bill Clinton, it has always been about power, about the Clinton Restoration and protecting fortunes already made by selling nothing but political influence.

The Clintons weren’t skilled merchants. They weren’t traders or manufacturers. The Clintons never produced anything tangible. They had no science, patents or devices to make them millions upon millions of dollars.

All they had to sell, really, was influence. And they used our federal government to leverage it.

With the Clintons, it’s never been about what’s in the nation’s best interest, but rather their decision-making determinations have been based upon their own greedy and amoral best interests.

Read the whole thing.

–Dana

New National Tracking Poll Suggests the Trump Surge May Be Happening

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 8:30 am



Caleb Howe published a comprehensive summary of recent polls this morning, generally showing tightening in the race between Trump and Clinton. Since then, today’s numbers from the ABC/Washington Post tracker have come out, and show a (very small) further movement towards Trump, with the race tightening from a two-point gap yesterday to a one-point gap today — a statistical tie:

The Post-ABC Tracking Poll continues to find a very tight race, with Clinton at 46 percent and Trump at 45 percent among likely voters in interviews from Tuesday through Friday, followed by Libertarian Gary Johnson at four percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein at two percent. The result is similar to a 47-45 margin in the previous wave released Saturday, though smaller than found in other surveys this week. When likely voters are asked to choose between Clinton and Trump alone, Clinton stands at 49 percent to Trump’s 46 percent, a margin that is still statistically insignificant.

The tightening of recent days is well shown in this graphic:

wapo-abc-graphic

The tracking poll also gives us one of the first snapshots of voters’ reactions to the FBI re-opening (yes, lefties: re-opening!) the email investigation. Most don’t care, but some do:

A majority of all likely voters say they are unmoved by the FBI’s announcement Friday that it may review additional emails from Clinton’s time as secretary of state. Just over 6 in 10 voters say the news will make no difference in their vote, while just over 3 in 10 say it makes them less likely to support her; 2 percent say they’re more likely to back her as a result.

If you have been looking for a dramatic finish, this poll could be read to suggest that you may just get one.

That lawyerly statement is about as far as I am willing to go, though. I wouldn’t get too excited. Show me evidence that Trump has a chance of winning North Carolina, and then we’ll talk.

[Cross-posted at RedState.]

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