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Docs Show Obama State Dept's Frenzied Attempt To Undermine Trump Before Inauguration

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New documents released after a court battle reveal that the State Department tried to undercut the Trump administration during the transition from former President Barack Obama, according to conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.

The Tuesday document release implicates some of the highest-ranking Democrats in Congress in the plan.

“Judicial Watch today released 90 pages of heavily redacted U.S. Department of State documents showing Obama State Department officials’ efforts to disseminate classified information to multiple U.S. Senators immediately prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration,” the group’s media release read.

“The information, which included raw intelligence, purported to show ‘malign’ Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Among the senators receiving the classified documents were Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), and Sen. Robert Corker (R-TN).”

Corker was one of the more notable anti-Trump voices among the Republican Senate caucus; he retired in 2018.

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The State Department has long been known as one of the more liberal corners of the U.S. government, mind you, so this isn’t a surprise. What is a surprise is how deep this goes.

“A January 13, 2017, email from Hera Abbasi, a former congressional advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of Legislative Affairs, suggests that the intelligence community was providing ‘raw intel’ to Sen. Warner,” Judicial Watch reported.

“Such an exchange almost certainly would have been coordinated by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI): ‘Yes, that is correct. Warner/raw intel stuff is going thru IC channels.’ (Abbasi previously worked in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and was a 2017 Next Generation National Security Fellow at the liberal Center for a New American Security. Abbasi donated $725 to the Clinton campaign and Act Blue during the 2016 election cycle.)”

Oh, and it gets better. If you’re a Democrat, I mean.

So three days before the inauguration, the principals say this is a major issue.

“Agree this is a priority… and I don’t see why lengthy reviews are required. I would suggest we send up the things that can go immediately, and if there is any concern about specific internal documents, those be adjudicated separately and sent up as a follow-on,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec’s email read.

A few days later, Naz Durakoglu, senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, said in an email that “there is a time sensitivity to these docs.”

Think this couldn’t get any worse?

Here’s part of what’s described as a heavily redacted email by Foreign Service Officer Kerem Bilge on Jan. 13, 2017:

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“**** Please clear the action memo by noon TUESDAY [Jan. 17],” he wrote.

“**** Please clear on the actual package of documents, if you have not done so already, by noon TUESDAY [Jan. 17]. [Emphasis in original]

“I want to get the whole package into the EUR front office today. This means we can get it out of EUR and to M [Undersecretary for Management] on Wednesday [Jan. 18], then H can courier it to the Hill on Thursday [Jan 19].”

If you put more asterisks before it the other party may not take over the White House, no matter what the general election stipulated.

“These documents show how the Obama State Department, staffed by Clinton donors, improperly, and perhaps illegally, rushed classified information to their anti-Trump allies in the U.S. Senate,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.

“The Obama State Department was central to the conspiracy to smear President Trump with Russiagate lies and innuendo. The Justice Department must expand any Spygate criminal investigation to include this agency.”

There’s a lot here that can’t be summarized, but one thing’s for sure: This is something that deserves an investigation. A frenzied attempt to undermine a new administration shouldn’t be trivialized.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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