The Melchizedek Chronicles - What to do about Trump! What is the right thing to do about Trump! Part II

Now that the world, the Democrats, and anti-Trump forces have been betrayed by their own supposed hero, Robert Mueller, with the release of the long-awaited Mueller Report, what next?

The Investigation…

Nearly $25 million

2,800 subpoenas

500 witnesses

40 FBI agents

21 lawyers

The media coverage of the investigation

“Russiagate” has been a news media obsession since Trump’s victory in November 2016. The nonpartisan Tyndall Report pegged the total amount of time devoted to the story on the evening newscasts of ABC, CBS and NBC last year at 332 minutes.

According to a count by the Republican National Committee released Sunday, The Post, The New York Times, CNN.com and MSNBC.com have written a combined 8,507 articles mentioning the special counsel’s investigation.  The cable news networks, particularly CNN and MSNBC, have added hundreds of hours of discussion about the topic as well.

The Mysterious Steele Dossier on Trump

Deep in the background of the two and one-half-year evolvement and completion of the Mueller investigation, dating back to the 2016 campaign for the presidency, there was the highly secret concocting of a mysterious dossier trashing Donald Trump that would become the most notorious counter-intelligent and opposition research project ever undertaken in an American presidential election.  

In August 2015, NBCUniversal made a $200 million equity investment in Buzzfeed.  Along with plans to hire more journalists to build a more prominent "investigative" unit.

In October 2016, Buzzfeed raised $200 million from Comcast TV and movie arm NBCUniversal, at a valuation of roughly $1.7 billion.  Altogether, Comcast and subsidiary NBCUniversal own about a third of Buzzfeed.

Why?

The Steele dossier on Trump

Mother Jones news reported on the existence of the elusive dossier behind the federal investigation of the Trump campaign and Democratic obsession to get Trump and invalidate the 2016 presidential election of Donald Trump on October 31, 2016.

The opposition research conducted by Fusion GPS on Donald Trump was in two distinct operations, each with a different client. The first research operation, from October 2015 to May 2016, was domestic research funded by The Washington Free Beacon, a Republican organization doing background on the GOP primary candidates.

The second operation, from April 2016 to December 2016, was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign. Only the second operation involved the foreign research that produced the Trump dossier.

At least for portions of the months of April and May 2016, the Washington Free Beacon and the Hillary Clinton Campaign/DNC were independently both clients of Fusion GPS.

Note NBCUniversal made substantial purchases of Buzzfeed in August of 2015 and October of 2016.

At some point news media began hearing rumors about the dossier in the middle of 2016 as reported in Mother Jones October 31, 2016.  However, funding information and how the complete dossier was given to the FBI and news media were unknown.

It was not until the end of 2018 that factual information came forth.  The new revelations were contained in an opinion authored by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro December 19, 2018 in a District Court case involving Buzzfeed.

As stated by the Judge, an associate of the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain shared with Buzzfeed News a copy of the unverified, salacious opposition research dossier alleging that Russians had compromising material on President Trump, according to a bombshell federal court filing December 19, 2018.

McCain had strenuously denied being the source for Buzzfeed after it published the entire dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

McCain has acknowledged giving the dossier to the FBI. But, until the opinion of the Judge was released, it remained a mystery what role, if any, his associates might have played in the dossier leaking to the media shortly afterwards.

In November 2016, according to the filing, McCain sent Kramer, a director at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, to London to meet with Steele.

McCain had learned from Sir Andrew Wood, the former British Ambassador to Russia, that Steele had collected damaging information about Trump, according to the filing. Wood was an informal adviser to Orbis, which was retained by Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier.

On Nov. 28, 2016, Kramer met with Steele and later obtained copies of the dossier from Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, the filing states. Kramer then met with Buzzfeed reporter Ken Bensinger on Dec. 29, 2016 at the McCain Institute.

There, "Kramer reviewed with Bensinger what he knew about the dossier and explained that he took the allegations seriously." Then, Kramer showed Bensinger the dossier and purportedly informed him that “some of the information was unverified."

Bensinger left his meeting "with copies of all seventeen memos" authored by Steele, and promptly took the compiled dossier to Mark Schoofs, Buzzfeed’s senior editor in charge of investigative reporting.

Buzzfeed published the entire 35-page dossier under the title “These Reports Allege Trump has Deep Ties to Russia” on January 10, 2017, just before Trump was sworn into office on January 20, 2017.

It was this revelation that led to the Comey firing and the appointment of a special prosecutor.  The history and mystery of the dossier that was never proven accurate is the key question to what happened during Trump's presidency to date.

Justice Department and Congressional Investigations needed

Justice Department and Congressional investigations are needed to finish cleaning up the mess that has plagued the president and denied the people the full attention of their duly elected president.

Many questions remain concerning the development, funding sources, distribution and public release of the dossier as well as the internal actions within the Obama Justice Department and Administration, including those of Attorney General Loretta Lynch, National Security Advisor Susan Rice, CIA Director John O. Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and FBI Director James Comey, along with various Justice Department senior executives, a number of whom have been fired or retired.  

There are always consequences to actions that were intended to mislead the public, slant the news, and punish the innocent and those consequences are on the horizon.  The same is true when politicians violated their oath to the Constitution and ethics which may snare many Democratic senators and congressmen, along with Democratic presidential candidates for president in 2020.

Finally, there is the absolutely horrendous efforts by the news media including Internet news producers and aggregators to blatantly drive the president out of office.  It was never the intent of our Founding Fathers that the first amendment, free speech and protection of the press, should be used to shield news media from unlawful, unethical, immoral and co-conspiratorial practices intended to discriminate against the object of their stories.

If there is any involvement by the media in the unlawful manipulation of the agencies of the government or the public news media resulting in the Mueller investigation the courts should strip the media of protection against liability under the first amendment.  Beyond that, any news organization that violated the Professional Ethical Standards for Journalism should be stripped of White House and Federal government clearance and credentials to all government activities.

Let the President do what he was elected by the people to do so hope can be restored in our nation, the real needs of the people can be met, the abuses and over-reach of the government can be eliminated, and we the people can get what we expect out of our national government.  The time for division must be put behind us and the leadership in solving national and world problems must be our future.  America deserves the chance to prove what makes us better than any other nation in the world, creativity, pride, compassion, care and equality for all.