By Mike Huckabee
November 9, 2021
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THE MORNING EDITION By Mike Huckabee
Good morning! Here are some stories from me that I think you will want to read. Topics include:
- The Durham indictments
- Mexico restrictions eased
- Huck's Hero Salute
- Trump 2024 Decision Info
- A Covid Pill
- Satire
- And much more...
DAILY BIBLE VERSE
Today's Bible verses were recommended by Bill R.
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know[a] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
John 14:6-8
If you have a Bible verse you want to see in our newsletter, please email [email protected].
THE LATEST
1. GREAT REPORTING LAID GROUNDWORK FOR DURHAM INDICTMENTS
While digging around for background information to help flesh out the story told by Special Counsel John Durham’s indictments in the Russia Hoax, we found an amazingly prescient piece by Paul Sperry at REAL CLEAR INVESTIGATIONS from July of 2020.
It connects a number of people now revealed by Durham's indictments as players in the scheme: “dossier” primary sub-source Igor Danchenko, impeachment witness and networker par excellence Fiona Hill, Brookings Institution president Strobe Talbott, British ex-spy and creative writer Christopher Steele, then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and additional “dossier” writer and Talbott brother-in-law Cody Shearer, among others.
Sperry's piece was written before Danchenko had been officially identified as Steele’s primary sub-source,let alone indicted. But Sperry got it right; as he wrote at the time, “The FBI memo is heavily redacted and blacks out the name of Steele’s Primary Sub-Source. But public records and congressional sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirm the identity of the source as Danchenko."
I said recently that we trusted Sperry implicitly as a source and that he had never steered us wrong. This article is a case in point.
It’s almost unbelievable what Sperry was able to "preview" almost a year and a half ago. At that point, Durham had been appointed Special Counsel; it would be up to him to get testimony and documentation and PROVE IT, and then to let the indictments begin. I’ll summarize some of Sperry's most stunning findings.
First, some background on Danchenko, a Russian national who was 42 at the time of Sperry’s report.. Years before Steele hired him to give him whatever dirt he could dig up on Trump, Danchenko had run afoul of the law. He got in trouble multiple times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Notably, one 2013 case against him, for public intoxication, was prosecuted by none other than Rod Rosenstein. Danchenko was released from jail on the condition that he undergo a substance abuse program. His lawyer got permission for him to travel to Moscow “as a condition of his employment,” and Rosenstein had no objection.
In January of 2017, when the FBI interviewed him about the “dossier” –- which agents had already used in October during the campaign to get a warrant against Trump campaign associate Carter Page –- they apparently did not ask him about his criminal past or state of sobriety.
Sperry wrote that the key allegations in the “dossier” were “largely inspired by gossip and bar talk among Danchenko and his drinking buddies, most of whom were childhood friends from Russia.”
Fiona Hill has known Christopher Steele since 2006 and is described as a close friend. She met with him at least twice during the 2016 campaign while he was fishing for anti-Trump information. She was given a “raw, unpublished” copy of the later-debunked dossier by her boss at Brookings, Strobe Talbott, even before BUZZFEED got one. Did any of this come out when she was a witness at Trump’s first impeachment trial? I don’t recall that it did.
Cody Shearer, Talbott’s brother-in-law, had put together his own anti-Trump “dossier.” Sperry added another detail: that through a mutual friend at the State Department, Steele obtained a copy of Shearer’s “dossier” and reportedly submitted it to the FBI to help corroborate his own.
Strobe Talbott appears to have played a key role. In August of 2016, he personally called Steele in London to add his own input to what Danchenko was giving. Steele phoned Talbott just before the November election, and Talbott asked him for the latest “dossier” material to distribute at the State Department. Apparently one of the people Talbott contacted there was John Kerry.
After Trump’s stunning win, the shell-shocked Steele and Talbott strategized how to “handle” the dossier going forward. Chuck Ross at the DAILY CALLER reported around the same time as Sperry’s article about the text messages between the two; this came out in the defamation lawsuit filed in London against Christopher Steele. If you’d like to do a deeper dive into what anti-Trump forces were doing after Trump knocked them in the solar plexus by winning the election, this makes fascinating reading.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/21/christopher-steele-defamation-dossier-trial/
“Dear Strobe,” Steele wrote on November 12, 2016, “I know this is not straight forward but we need to discuss the package we delivered to you the other week, and sooner the better. What you thought of it, what you did with it, how we (both) should handle it and the issue it highlights going forward etc.”
“The package,” of course, is spy talk for "the dossier."
Hill testified that she believed it included disinformation planted by Russian operatives. From Durham’s latest indictment, we now know that it came from “PR Executive – 1,” Clinton ally Charles Dolan.
We recently reported on the persistence with which anti-Trump forces pushed the dossier within bureaucratic circles and also to the media. Ross’s article concurs, saying Steele provided information to the FBI, and to Justice and State Department officials. It seems he was relentless. The plainfiff’s lawyers at Steele’s trial said that “Steele ratcheted up his efforts to put the dossier into the hands of U.S. officials and members of the press after Trump’s surprise election victory.”
Ross also outlines how a copy of the dossier was delivered to Arizona Sen. John McCain. An associate, David Kramer, who served in the State Department under George W. Bush, actually traveled to London to meet with Steele; this meeting was set up by Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia. Kramer brought the dossier back to McCain, who passed it to then-FBI Director James Comey on December 9. Kramer provided a copy to BUZZFEED NEWS in late December.
Keep in mind that this is all happening furiously AFTER Trump has won the election. Can you say “coup”?
Ross also reported on the earlier verdict (same judge) against Steele in the defamation case brought in London by Alfa Bank. This makes interesting reading now in light of Durham’s new, detailed indictments.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/07/08/christopher-steele-alfa-dossier-lawsuit-aven-fridman/
We were right about the defamation suits against Steele being helpful to Durham in building his case. As Ross reported, “The various lawsuits against Steele have provided a roadmap of how the retired spy and his dossier client, Fusion GPS, spread allegations about Trump through the press.”
Fast-forward to the present day, and law professor Jonathan Turley is finding it curious that the Brookings Institution keeps coming up in reports concerning the dossier. “Indeed,” Turley says, “Brookings appears so often in accounts related to the Russian collusion scandal that it could be Washington’s alternative to the Kevin Bacon parlor game.” (You know, “Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon.”) Turley find the layers of connections involving Brookings quite remarkable, saying that “even in the Baconesque world of Washington insiders, it is rare to see a think tank connected on so many levels to a criminal investigation.” Well, what do you expect when it's full of Hillary's friends? This one is a must-read.
2. HUCK'S HERO SALUTE:
A big Huck’s Hero salute to the pastor and congregation of Nashville Light Mission Pentecostal Church. Police report that 26-year-old Dezire Baganda was seated toward the front of the church when he suddenly pulled out a gun and ordered the congregation to stand up. The pastor, who was praying at the altar, quickly dived for Baganda and tackled him, and other church members rushed to help hold him down until police arrived. He didn’t get off a single shot.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/nashville-pastor-tackles-armed-suspect-during-church-service-police-say
News reports didn’t name the pastor, and I didn’t try to look it up, in case he prefers it not beingmentioned. But I hope he knows how much we all admire his courage and appreciate his swift actions.
3. HERE IS WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR:
For all the political prognosticators staring at tea leaves and Magic 8-Balls to try to guess whether former President Trump will run again in 2024, Trump told Fox News he will probably wait until after the 2022 midterm elections to make an announcement. The only clue he gave is that “a lot of people will be very happy,” but that could apply either way.
He also had a lot more to say, and you can read about it at the link.
4. MEMO TO VOTERS:
The message you sent in last Tuesday’s election has obviously not penetrated the skulls of Democrats in Washington. Looks like you’re going to have to send it a lot louder and more clearly in the 2022 midterm elections:
5. RESTRICTIONS EASED:
COVID travel restrictions from Mexico are being eased today, and there's already a miles-long traffic back-up at the border of people waiting to get into the US. Or as that’s known under President Biden, “Monday.”
Personally, I’m shocked to learn that there were any restrictions at all on entering the US from Mexico.
6. A PFIZER COVID PILL
Pfizer claims its new experimental treatment pill for COVID-19 cut hospitalization and death rates among high-risk patients by 90%.
https://www.breitbart.com/news/new-covid-19-pill-cut-hospital-death-risk-by-90/
Now, let’s all pray that former President Trump doesn’t say anything good about it, or else the media will have no choice but to trash it and demand it be banned.
7. THIS IS SATIRE...REALLY:
The Terry McAuliffe campaign blames his loss on its failure to turn out the key 3 a.m. voting demographic:
8. BLACK TREES MATTER:
I should explain why you might see the mocking hashtag “Black Trees Matter.” It’s because Vice President Kamala Harris wants NASA to use satellites to track how many trees are in different neighborhoods and catalog those areas by race to advance “environmental justice.”
If you happen to be black and are living in a terrible environment, I have a much better solution for you than asking NASA to count the trees on your street by satellite. Just stop voting Democrat. That will significantly improve your immediate environment.
9. ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF WHY PARENTS NEED TO STAY INVOLVED:
Not that we need it, but here’s yet another example of why parents need to be involved in their kids’ education to keep them from being indoctrinated with their teachers’ personal political beliefs.
America the Beautiful
This feature returns with images of America's cities, landscapes and people.
HYMNAL: A MIGHTY FORTRESS IS OUR GOD
Listen: https://youtu.be/8XUYZoguhEQ
Today's hymn was recommended by Lois W.
1 A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing;
our helper he, amid the flood
of mortal ills prevailing.
For still our ancient foe
does seek to work us woe;
his craft and power are great,
and armed with cruel hate,
on earth is not his equal.
2 Did we in our own strength confide,
our striving would be losing,
were not the right Man on our side,
the Man of God's own choosing.
You ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is he;
Lord Sabaoth his name,
from age to age the same;
and he must win the battle.
3 And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him.
4 That Word above all earthly powers
no thanks to them abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours
through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever!
Author: Martin Luther
If you have a favorite hymn you want to see in our newsletter, please email [email protected].
For past editions of my morning newsletter, please visit my website here.
For more of my news coverage, visit my website here.
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