Before he turned against Donald Trump, pled guilty to fraud charges, and sentenced to three years in prison, Michael Cohen was the president’s personal lawyer who was the focal point of a fake news story that sent those peddling the Russian collusion myth into overdrive. Granted, many stories published by various publication alleging Russian collusion did the same thing over a period of two years, only to be utterly embarrassed by the Mueller investigation’s report, which completely exonerated Trump and his staff of colluding with the Kremlin. For the Left, it’s a punch to the gut. The game plan was to impeach the president based on a damaging Mueller report. That’s not going to happen, as the Senate is bound to kill any push to remove Trump from office. It’s always been pie-in-the-sky. The magical unicorn that cannot be caught—and the Left is still addicted to the chase of trying to catch it. It will never happen. Even prior to the report, there was zero evidence that Trump or his officials had colluded with the Russians. Even 18 months ago, the evidence file to corroborate this ludicrous allegation was empty. It was a liberal pipe dream. It was straight trash—and half the country knew it. The other half, still bitter, enraged, and befuddled over Trump’s shock 2016 win, held onto this to the bitter end. Some still do. We’ll discuss them in another post later today, but for now, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, is filing a lawsuit against McClatchy, who said Trump’s then-personal lawyer Michael Cohen, was in Prague to meet Russian officials during the 2016 election.
Yet, while this new Red Scare was gathering, the media seemed to just blithely look past, or report and not care, about the fact that it was the Clinton campaign and the DNC who paid for the dossier. That infamous Trump dossier, which has been proven to be a fabrication in light of the Mueller report, was a Clinton-funded campaign opposition research project that utilized former and current Kremlin sources. All of this was collected and compiled by former MI6 spook Christopher Steele. Oh, and said document was allegedly used to secure a spy warrant against former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page. It was virtually unverified. It sounds like there’s more of a case of Russian collusion on the Democratic side, but hey—there are two separate sets of rules. We all know that. Nunes was investigating these developments. The media slammed him and the GOP. And now he’s out to hold those who peddle fake news accountable. He discussed his $150 million lawsuit against McClatchy on Hannity last night (via Real Clear Politics):
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Devin Nunes is now preparing to send eight criminal referrals to the Attorney General William Barr over the alleged misconduct during the Trump- Russia investigation. Also just breaking now Devin Nunes has filed a $150 million lawsuit against McClatchy News and alleging conspiracy to derail the Clinton-Russia probes.
Congressman joins us now with the very latest. Let's start with your lawsuit. Well, is the same McClatchy that said that Michael Cohen was in Prague when Michael - I knew where Michael Cohen was. His son is a great athlete. His son, he was in Los Angeles with his son. Well, let's just say showing off his son's great talent. He never was in Prague and they doubled down on stupid, but that's all they wanted.
REP. DEVIN NUNES (R-CA), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER: And they did that twice, Sean. So, they had dozens and dozens of stories, so a couple of reporters there were the biggest perpetrators of the Russia hoax. And don't forget, they also targeted the National Rifle Association. They targeted a lawyer Cleta Mitchell. So, all of this was done in concert while they were slandering and attacking me and defaming me, attacking Republicans and the whole time they were getting this information from someone.
And so, part of the lawsuit here is not only that they need to retract everything that they did against me, but they also need to come clean with the American people, retract all of their fake news stories and so this is part of the broader cleanup. So, remember a few weeks ago I filed against Twitter that they are censoring conservatives. McClatchy is one of the biggest, the worst offenders of this, but we're coming after the rest of them. I think people are just beginning to wake up now that I'm serious.
I'm coming to clean up all of the mess. So, if you're out there and you lied and you defamed, we're going to come after you.
HANNITY: Well, I would add to the list. You know the cowardly shift. You know I've offered him an hour on the show, And I have a dossier on Schiff.
NUNES: I can't sue.
HANNITY: But I had him in his own words documented. I offered him three hours on radio and one hour here.
NUNES: I don't know why he doesn't take it up, but he doesn't want to take.
I guess he's afraid.
HANNITY: I've got a tape of him colluding with the Russian or somebody believed to be a Russian that had compromising materials or naked pictures of Trump. And you know he was hyperventilating on the phone call didn't know it was a hoax.
NUNES: And don't forget even after that the staff, the Democratic staff followed up. So, the media ignored. That's another thing that they ignored.
So, there is two things that happened to this right. You had fake news stories that were very slanderous that have got to be wiped away and cleaned off the Internet. And at the same time, you had that they would take these stories and ignore them like the fact that you had staffers here that were attempting to collude with Russians, Democratic staffers colluding with the Russians trying to get information on Donald Trump. I mean that really happened and it's went largely unreported except by a very few in the conservative media.
HANNITY: And we also had the Hillary bought and paid for dossier. Real Russian collusion paid for to influence the election. Now we've got the - we've got evidence. Ukraine - the Ukrainian officials on them with evidence and a tape Joe Biden bragging they fired him. I don't have a lot of time I want to get to the criminal referral issue. I know you begin with eight but there might be more. What can you tell us and how soon?
NUNES: Yes. So, to simply put, there is five that are straightforward. So, five on lying, leaking, obstructing Congress. Those are five specific names. There are three. One is a global leak referral. So, remember there has been, I mean everybody knows about general leak between General Flynn and the Russian Ambassador. We don't know that that's ever been investigated but there is about a dozen others. So, we're referring all those to make sure that they get the proper sunlight put on them and transparency so that they can be followed up on.
The other two I think are more difficult that involve conspiracy. I think there were a bunch of people who wanted to be the next Watergate Deep Throat within the FBI and DOJ and they were leaking, and they were proud to do it and they were all conspiring together and that's what we're asking the DOJ to look into.
HANNITY: If we don't hold them accountable for this abuse of power. This is corruption at the highest levels to first influence and help one candidate over another and then literally up an election to the American people. It will happen again and again. We'll lose the republic. Holding them accountable is key. Thank you, Congressman.
And that’s a whole other mess entirely: the alleged FISA abusesthat occurredunder Obama.
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