3. Primary Election Roundup

Tuesday, there were primary elections in Georgia, Arkansas and Alabama, runoffs in Texas and a House Special Election in Minnesota. Let’s begin with the most important news of all:

https://redstate.com/carcand/2022/05/24/sarah-huckabee-sanders-wins-arkansas-governor-gop-primary-n569427

In their infinite wisdom, the good people of Arkansas voted for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to be the GOP Gubernatorial candidate by over 83%. (By the way, as an indicator of how reliable polls are this year, she was at 56% going into voting day.) I’m sure she’ll be the best Governor of Arkansas in a generation. She still has to beat Democrat Chris Jones in November. I don’t want to jinx it, but I feel good about her chances, especially considering that in their primaries, Sarah got nearly 288,000 votes to Jones’ 69,000.   

And now, for the less important races…

In Georgia, former President Trump saw a rare loss for one of his endorsements with Gov. Brian Kemp easily defeating Trump-backed David Perdue by about 3-1. But Trump-endorsed NFL legend Herschel Walker won a 69% landslide to challenge uber-leftist Sen. Raphael Warnock.

In Georgia’s 14^th Congressional District, Democrats have tried everything from deplatforming Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to accusing her of insurrection to trying to keep her off the primary ballot. Yet, her race was called when she was in the lead by over 70% with 44% of votes counted. There’s virtually no chance she will lose that seat in November, which means Nancy Pelosi will likely be looking up at her as she works on fixing America as part of the House majority. Incidentally, I notice that even a conservative-leaning paper like the New York Post refers to MTG as “far-right.” Isn’t it funny how we never hear any Democrats described as “far-left,” even if they’re openly socialist?

In Texas, Trump-endorsed Attorney General Ken Paxton crushed a challenge from George P. Bush, winning his primary by over 2-1. The media had framed this as a test of whether the “Bush dynasty” still reigned in Texas. I suspected that the “Bush dynasty” has long been something that lives only in the imaginations of media yakkers who haven’t actually talked to a Texas Republican in 20 years, and this proves it.

In Texas’ 28^th Congressional District runoff, incumbent Democrat Rep. Henry Cuellar declared victory, even though with 94% of the vote counted as of this writing, it’s too close to call yet. He’s slightly ahead of genuinely far-left challenger Jessica Cisneros, who is endorsed by Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC and various radical left groups, and would be the latest “Squad” member if elected. Cuellar is a DC dinosaur: the last remaining pro-life House Democrat, and he spoke up against open borders. For that reason, “progressives” want him replaced with another looney leftist.

The closeness of the primary vote shows how out of touch activist Democratic primary voters have become with the general population, since that district has been trending red with most thinking people rejecting the crime, drugs and devastation wrought by Biden’s willful failure to secure the border. If Cisneros does somehow eke out a win, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cuellar runs an independent or write-in campaign. But that would split the Dem vote in what’s looking like a red wave year, good news for Republican Cassey Garcia, who won her runoff with 57% of the vote. Hopefully, the angry leftists will have delivered a safe Dem seat to the GOP. 

In Alabama, Katie Britt and Mo Brooks (who had Trump’s endorsement but lost it) will have a runoff for the GOP nomination for Richard Shelby’s Senate seat.

For the latest numbers on other Tuesday races, click this link:  

https://redstate.com/redstatestaff/2022/05/24/live-election-results-georgia-alabama-texas-minnesota-and-arkansas-n568988

4. Political dirty tricks in Michigan

You’d think that after her ham-handed mishandling of the pandemic that crushed her state’s economy and its people’s rights, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would be running for the hills rather than for reelection. But lo: a “miracle” seems to have occurred that will give her a distinct advantage. The Michigan Bureau of Elections has ruled that half of her 10 GOP challengers, including all the presumptive frontrunners, are ineligible to appear on the ballot.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/disaster-strikes-michigan-gop-candidates-challenging-gov-gretchen-whitmer

The reason is that they failed to produce enough valid petition signatures because too many of the signatures were fake. Now, some are saying this smells like a filthy Democrat dirty trick in which people who submitted petitions deliberately filled them with fake names to sabotage the other party. But why would anyone think that Democrats would sink so low as to try to undermine our democracy by rigging an election? That’s a “big lie,” when we know that blue states have the cleanest, most transparent, most trustworthy elections ever. And Gretchen Whitmer is the “kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.”

Okay, Google, does that pass muster with you?

5. Declaring war on parents

If you think it was outrageous that the National School Board Association wanted the DOJ to treat parents upset over the teaching of Critical Race Theory as domestic terrorists (it was, and even more outrageous that the feds are actually doing it), that wasn’t the original idea.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/nsba-letter-called-national-guard-military-deployed

An independent investigation by the NSBA found that an earlier draft of the letter to the government called parents who speak out at school board meetings "plotters who are targeting schools and educators" and asked that the Army National Guard and military police be deployed to monitor school board meetings. Talk about declaring war on parents! 

And in an extremely related story, Texas just became the 20^th state to officially withdraw from the NSBA, out of 29 that originally distanced themselves from the group.

https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2022/05/24/losing-influence-the-texas-school-board-association-ditches-the-national-school-board-association-n569062

6. Sussmann trial, Day 7: Durham uncovering top-down scheme

On Tuesday, Day 7 of the Michael Sussmann trial, FBI agent Curtis Heide shed light on how Bureau officials got the idea that Sussmann’s “evidence” about the phony Alfa Bank scandal came from the ‘Justice’ Department.

He said it was his own fault.

In a document drafted the day of Sussmann’s visit by Heide and fellow agent Allison Sands, he said “the DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE provided the FBI with a white paper that was produced by an anonymous third party.” This document served as confirmation that an investigation had been opened into the later-debunked allegation.

Heide said the DOJ reference was “a mistake in our paperwork.”

Quite a mistake. When asked by the prosecution how it could’ve been made, Heide said, “I honestly don’t know.”

Recall Monday’s testimony, in which another agent, Ryan Gaynor, testified that the Bureau was shielding Sussmann’s identity from investigating agents, in a procedure called “close hold.” Though this is often considered appropriate, field investigators for this case were frustrated that they couldn’t know the identity. So for all they knew, it WAS the Department of ‘Justice’ that delivered the goods, not just some “anonymous third party,” and such a misinterpretation surely influenced the way they handled the evidence.

Text messages introduced by the prosecution underscore this problem. “We really want to interview the source of all this information,” Heide wrote to Gaynor on October 3. “Any way we can track down who the guy is and how we’re getting this information?”

There wasn’t. They were flying blind. Gaynor told him only that headquarters was looking at it.

Heide happens to be the subject of an internal FBI “investigative inquiry” for allegedly “not identifying exculpatory information as it pertained to one of the Crossfire Hurricane investigations.” His case is still pending. The allegation involves classified information that was left off a FISA application for a warrant to spy. When asked by the prosecution on Tuesday if he’d intentionally withheld such evidence from the Crossfire Hurricane team, he denied that.

Recall that FBI official Kevin Clinesmith was charged and pleaded guilty to altering a document used in the FISA application for a surveillance warrant on Carter Page. We don’t know if the allegation against Heide applies to the same application.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/24/fbi-agent-testifies-in-michael-sussman-trial-about-mistake/

There’s something important to note in the earlier testimony given by Robby Mook, about Hillary personally green-lighting the plan to break the unverified Alfa Bank story in the media. Jim Trusty, a former ‘Justice’ Department official who’s now a DC lawyer, explained to the NEW YORK POST that this fits with other testimony from Mook and Marc Elias saying they were unaware Sussmann planned to also take it to the FBI. Trusty calls this strategy “Protect the Queen.” As in, Queen Hillary. It goes like this:

First, as we’ve said, taking phony evidence to the FBI to gin up an investigation of a political opponent –- or of anyone –- is very serious. It’s a crime, whereas taking it to the media might just be called “political dirty tricks,” completely unethical but not necessarily leading to a perp-walk. Hillary’s accomplices need to keep her out of jail. So by admitting she knew they leaked to the MEDIA, as opposed to the FBI, they’ve gone just to the line, admitting what they have to, but stopping there.

Trusty said Mook and Elias have suggested Hillary was “shocked, shocked by Sussmann going to the FBI.”

We don’t buy it. It makes no sense for Sussmann to GO BEHIND HER BACK to the FBI and then bill her for the meeting!

Trusty put it similarly: “Legal representation simply does not work that way. You don’t ‘free-lance’ a visit to the FBI while billing your client for the time.”

So Mook and Elias can stick to their untenable story and pretend she wasn’t aware, but we know she was. Still, this tenuous testimony might work, especially if Sussmann’s case is being heard by a custom-made equivalent of the O.J. jury. All they need is one excuse, however feeble, to let him off. Heck, maybe billing Hillary was just a mistake in the paperwork. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Trusty called it “a fig leaf [for] any partisan jurors who want to acquit.”

But only those in an extreme state of partisan denial will still believe Hillary wasn’t behind that little trip to the FBI.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/22/clinton-campaign-aides-try-to-protect-the-queen-at-sussmann-trial/

TechnoFog is doing some outstanding summaries of the testimony, and for Tuesday, he starts with Trisha Anderson, who in 2016 was an FBI general counsel reporting directly to James Baker. She’s asked to read her memo from Sussmann’s visit, which says, “No specific client, but group of cyber academics talked with him about research.”

Then Anderson is presented with an email dated June 16, 2016, concerning a meeting to be held later that day and including SUSSMANN, the CEO of the DNC, James Trainor of the FBI’s Cyber Division, and SHAWN HENRY of CrowdStrike. This meeting takes place two days after the June 14 announcement by the DNC that it had been a victim of Russian hacking and over a month before the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) said it, too, had been hacked by Russians.

Soooo...Durham appears to be going somewhere with the story about the DNC’s Russian “hack” and CrowdStrike. As you know, CrowdStrike never turned over the DNC hard drive to the FBI, and the FBI, amazingly, never pressed them about it. To this day, there’s been no evidence that Russia hacked the DNC, or the DCCC. Someone gave the emails to WikiLeaks, but Julian Assange maintains it was not Russia, or any “state actor.” Yet the “Russian hack” was used to help validate the false Trump-Russia “collusion” story. Sussmann is a common element.

TechnoFog also has more very interesting detail on Heide’s testimony. Heide said Bill Priestap (he of the curious memory lapses on Monday) had made it clear, the FBI’s 7^th Floor –- including Director Jim Comey –- was demanding a full field investigation be opened. Heide viewed this as inappropriate, but it was “not an option.”

“In order to open a full field investigation,” Heide said, “we would need specific and articulable facts that a threat to U.S. national security has occurred or there’s been a violation of federal law.” But they were ordered to do it anyway, when nothing was found to substantiate the allegations in the Alfa Bank “white paper,”

Heide also testified that there was another confidential human source besides Sussmann supporting the Alfa Bank story. But this was apparently a media person (!), not a cyber expert. TechnoFog speculates that it was David Corn.

Next witness: Jared Novich, former business partner of Rodney Joffe. He testified that Joffe called and asked him to research some information regarding Trump and Russia. He did it, but said he’d never been asked to do something “very political” like this –- it “felt like opposition research.” The project was called “Crimson Rhino” and involved a list of names, home addresses, spouses, workplaces and personal email addresses. Carter Page’s name was on it. Joffe wanted “a 90-day history of data.” Spying, straight up.

https://technofog.substack.com/p/how-fbi-hq-hamstrung-the-alfa-bank?token

This is getting more fascinating by the day.

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