FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE 31 Jan. 2018 | Print |

FRUIT OF THE POISONOUS TREE

31 Jan. 2018

Dear Friends and Patriots,

            We’ve all been watching the unfolding saga of the so-called Trump Dossier.  We know a lot of truths of the story.  We know the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign funded Christopher Steele, a retired British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) officer, to build an operations research package to use against Donald Trump, just in case his campaign was to take off and cause Mrs. Clinton any concern.  We all know how that turned out, don’t we?

            There are at least three congressional committees and subcommittees looking into the Trump Dossier.  By the end of this week we’ll all have a pretty good idea of the scope of evidence gathered that proves the dossier nothing more than an ops research hit job on President Trump.   Democratic Party shills like Congressman Adam Schiff like to prattle on about how much of the dossier has been proven true, but what we’re likely to confirm soon is it has some degree of truth, but whatever truths are there are wrapped around some huge falsehoods. 

            If you wonder why there’s so much intensity attached to finding out all the details of the Trump Dossier, you need to understand the concept of the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree.   That concept is an outgrowth of the legal Exclusionary Rule, where evidence material to an investigation can be ruled inadmissible.  In this case, if evidence gathered is based on something demonstrably false, e.g. the Trump Dossier, then that evidence can be excluded from legal consideration in any subsequent legal action.  The effort now is to find every material aspect of the Trump Dossier that proves it was known to be false, but was used despite that knowledge to develop evidence to be used against its intended targets.  All of that evidence becomes the “fruit.”

            We’re on the cusp of knowing for certain the Trump Dossier was used in whole or in part to justify a FISA warrant that allowed surveillance of Donald Trump and his campaign.  If that’s the case, then the dossier can be assigned the status of the poisoned tree and anything it was used to justify can be completely excluded as ill-gotten evidence.   That means all the wire-tap evidence gathered from Trump Tower should be ruled as inadmissible.  A lot of the findings of the Mueller investigation can be relegated to the status of vicious rumors and innuendo.  In other words, the house of cards built against Donald Trump based on the notion of collusion with Russians will completely collapse.  The poisoned tree will ensure that.

This whole scenario is reminiscent of things in the past.   Democrats like to bring up Watergate and say this is a scandal that should cause the impeachment of President Trump.  But the parallel I reference is the Valerie Plame incident and investigation led by Patrick Fitzgerald.  The parallel even extends to one specific person – former FBI Director James Comey.  It was James Comey who engineered the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald as the special investigator in the Plame case, and it was Comey who engineered the appointment of Robert Meuller to investigate President Trump’s supposed ties to the Russians. 

You all recall the Plame case.   Valerie Plame was a CIA analyst who was supposedly “outed” during G. W. Bush’s presidency.  There was a huge outcry by Democrats, who said the outing was not just illegal, but was something that put many lives in jeopardy.  Few people seemed to understand the truth that Valery Plame was a Washington-based Langley operative who rarely left town.  The press made her out to be a field operative, but her best known field work was on the after-hours party circuit in Washington.  Even though it was common knowledge to anyone who paid attention that she worked for the CIA, when it was convenient for certain anti-Bush-Cheney people, Plame was outed.  The outing was a remark made by someone in the Bush administration who was quoted on background in an article by Robert Novak that was published in the Washington Post.   It’s true that such identifications of intelligence officers is against federal law.  It’s true that such things shouldn’t be allowed to occur with impunity.  The outing set wheels in motion that are eerily similar to the current dust-up over the Trump Dossier.

The most egregious aspect of the Fitzgerald investigation was that on the very first day the investigation started the team was informed the background source of the outing was none other than Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.  But, instead of calling up Armitage and just asking him if he did it, the investigators decided they had to make a show of it and interview a lot of people and produce “findings.”  In the course of that unnecessary process the team interviewed Lewis “Scooter” Libby, one of Vice President Cheney’s closest assistants and advisors.  Something Libby said garnered a charge that he lied under oath, and he was tried and sent to prison for lying to the FBI.  Yes, Libby was sent to jail for a process crime, even though the whole focus of the investigation was supposed to be on who outed Valerie Plame.  As for Armitage, he never seemed to get touched by anyone.  He was never tried for the law he broke.  Libby went to jail and Armitage went forward with his career.

There’s a bit of another issue that regards James Comey.  He was the one who took down that major financial crime figure we all know as Martha Stewart.  And what was Martha Stewart’s heinous crime?  Wasn’t it insider trading?  Nope, it wasn’t.  It was lying to the FBI.   Martha Stewart was put in jail thanks to the same man Scooter Libby was, and for the exact same charge.  Are you beginning to see how all these dots connect?

            Getting more current, it was Comey that went after Gen. Michael Flynn.  If everyone’s suspicion proves true it’ll be conclusively proved that the FBI obtained their wiretap warrant from a FISA court based on the Trump Dossier.   It was those wiretaps that gave the FBI the questions they used to entrap Gen. Flynn; questions and answers by Flynn that substantiated the charge that he lied to the FBI.  Comey and his key henchmen assailed Flynn and threatened him with a trial and imprisonment for his flagrant violation of a sacred federal law.   Gen. Flynn finally made a plea deal.  He was running out of money and the FBI was threatening to target his son.  So now, Gen. Flynn is out of the picture and is our latest variant of Scooter Libby and Martha Stewart; the latest victim of James Comey and his odd need to punish people who would ordinarily escape any legal system notice.

            Today we wait to see what the now-famous Nunez memo will say.  We wait to have all our suspicions and common-sense beliefs confirmed.  I predict that will be the outcome.  But, there’s another outcome that troubles me.  I’m bothered by the notion that justice in the highest reaches of our government has become so perverted that a person like James Comey can become the Director of the FBI and good people like Libby, Martha Stewart, and Gen. Flynn have to worry lest they ever run afoul of him.   It’s inconceivable to me that Comey’s odd and flawed character wasn’t known long ago.  I find it very conceivable that he was a known quantity, and was specifically chosen to head the FBI because his peccadillos were well known to those who needed just those qualities at the top of the FBI to commit the crimes we all know were committed.

            The poisonous tree isn’t dead yet.  There are many roots of that tree still entwined within the FBI and Justice Department.  If it’s not completely eradicated the tree might just grow back and create more fruit.  We may find ourselves in some future time once again realizing a poisonous tree has thrived within our government and once again have to prove the tree exists to eradicate all the false evidence it may create.

            One day we’ll look back on this time and realize just how close our republic came to its destruction.  If all goes well, this entire episode is going to unravel and a lot of people will be implicated.  Some may even go to prison.  The damage they’ve created is incalculable, but will be repaired given enough time and the right emphasis.  But, what’s going to guarantee we dodge the next bullet of this kind?  What’s our guarantee against the next conspiracy and plot against the rule of law?  What will keep us safe?  We may not have those answers now, but we better keep asking those questions until we do.

In Liberty,
Steve

P.S.     While we’re at the business of being bothered, why don’t we become bothered about the fact people go to prison for lying to the FBI, but it appears senior FBI officials can lie to Congress all day, every day and nothing much ever happens.  There’s something about the concept of justice that seems missing.  Or, is it just me?  After all, all branches of government are covered under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001(a), which is the guiding authority.  Yeah, I know.  It IS just me, isn’t it?