Investigation Without End

by Mark Steyn
Steyn on the Air
May 22, 2019

https://www.steynonline.com/9406/investigation-without-end

On Wednesday I returned to the Golden EIB Microphone for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence in Broadcasting on America's Number One radio show. You can find a few moments from my guest-hosting stint here. Mr Snerdley, monitoring the show from EIB's Southern Command, Tweeted:

@MarkSteynOnline sets the bar higher and higher for guest hosting on the Rush Limbaugh show. He is just an incredible broadcaster (as well as a great guy) and always a delight to listen to.

It's my privilege to be part of Rush's team. And I owe Snerdley, Ali, Mike and the rest of the gang a huge debt of thanks for standing by me during tough times.

The broadcast began with Trump walking out of a meeting with Schumer and Pelosi after three minutes, and saying he wouldn't be working with Democrats until they stopped investigating him. Good luck with that. I pointed out that the logic of their situation demands investigation without end: first, to distract from the fact that their agenda is nuts - open borders, transgender supremacism, fourth-trimester abortion - and, second, because it is necessary to investigate Trump for "obstructing" their previous investigation of him in order to prevent him investigating the rottenness of the original investigation of him: the counter-intelligence surveillance operation launched by Obama's guys against the Trump campaign. On that last point, here's the second part of that George Papadopoulos interview I referred to, in which we talk about their attempt to frame him for having ten grand in cash and about the tragic miscarriage of his wife:

If you missed Part One of this special two-parter, please click below:

If you're one of that small, brave band who enjoy me on video, I'll be on the telly with Tucker live coast to coast across America tomorrow, Thursday, immediately after the President's rally at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific.

The Mark Steyn Club is celebrating its second anniversary, and I'm thrilled by all the membership renewals. Jordan from Illinois writes:

Congrats on another great year and on your victory vs CRTV. Hope to join you on a cruise one of these days.

Thanks, Jordan. We'll see you shipboard sooner or later. If you're finally getting around to maybe considering perhaps becoming a member at some point in the course of this third year, we'd love to have you with us: for more info, please see here - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. In this birthday month, we are grateful for the support of all our friends around the world - from London, Ontario to London, England, via Longueuil, Londonderry, and Long Beach - and look forward to welcoming many more in the years ahead.

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34 Reader Comments

Josh Passell • May 23, 2019 at 07:28

I've listened to the Papadopoulos interviews twice now, and have followed his advice to read (or start to) his testimony before Congress. Many of us in the Club have already written of our disgust at his treatment by Mueller's goons, which directly cost him 12 days in prison and indirectly may have cost his wife her unborn child.
What strikes me on repeated listening to his story is how early he was targeted as a "mark"--or a "sap" in Sam Spade's terminology. He approached both the Trump and Carson campaigns in mid-to-late 2015 to offer his services; Carson was the first to take him up on that offer. He left his job at the Hudson Institute to pursue a more independent career, preferably in the service of one of these anti-establishment candidates. By March of 2016, Carson's campaign had expired, and Trump's team was hiring; after a Skype interview with then-campaign co-chair, Sam Clovis, Papa D (as I shall now call him) was taken on as an unpaid advisor. Also by this time, he had started working at the shady London Centre of International Law Practice (the LCILP, where international law went unpracticed).
Let's pause and ask where we are. Papa D was a young, well-regarded energy expert and consultant, who had written and spoken on a narrow range of topics, mostly to do with the geopolitics of large natural gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. Not bad for a Greek kid from Chicago, but hardly the stuff of a political mover or shaker. I don't know if Papa D raises the issue in his book, but I wonder if his pro-Trump leanings were known to the LCILP when they first hired him, or if they discovered his political bent only later. As monstrous as we already know this story to be, it could grow even more so if we learn that he was groomed to be the sap before he had any connection to Trump. Was he alone in being surveilled, strung along, set up--or did any volunteer for the "wrong" campaign earn a cross-eyed look? Did someone third-hand mention Papa D to Clovis as an asset to the campaign, only a means to place their own asset in the campaign? By the time of the Mifsud meeting, Papa D's lot was cast. They were going to play him for a sap, even if he was too virtuous--or too thick--to fall for it. (I love, love, love Papa D, but Mark's choice of expression "naively wandering" among the spooks is well-chosen).
We are all rightly furious at how Papa D was treated: he deserves the Presidential Medal of freedom to go along with his presidential pardon. But we ought to get over our fury to keep asking questions. Like "Why?"

Steven Payne • May 23, 2019 at 00:21

Great show today, Mark! So much food for thought that my thought belly is bursting. However, I want to agree with you and what Perry Pattetic said yesterday about the FBI. This notion that "99% of them are the best people on Earth, they keep us safe, blah, blah, blah"? I don't buy it. They didn't keep the Boston marathoners safe, or the Orlando nightclub people safe. Time and time again, people they've been tipped off about go on to commit terrorist acts.
I think they don't really have time to investigate those very closely -- "Are you a terrorist? No? Okay, off you go then and don't forget your gun" -- because they have really important stuff to investigate. Stuff like Martha Stewart talking about stocks and actresses buying their kids' way into college. You know, the stuff that truly threatens us.

Walt Trimmer

Steven Payne • May 23, 2019 at 12:19

I loved Fred the Federal agent's comments about laughing at the "hard working" FBI. One should never forget they are all bureaucrats. Of course, not everyone is aware of all the negative connotations that go with being called a bureaucrat.

Tom Gelsinon

Steven Payne • May 23, 2019 at 17:11

It sure looks like more than one percent of the Bureau are bad actors and incompetent. In any bureaucracy of that size, the percentage must be fairly high. Interesting that you should mention the actresses caught up in the college admissions scam. A disturbing aspect in the case of Lori Loughlin, who decided to plead not guilty after being offered a deal of a short jail sentence, is that the feds, angry at having their offer rejected, charged her with yet another, more serious, crime that carries a 20-year sentence. Outrageous! Why are these doofus celebs being threatened with imprisonment and not just a fine? This prosecutorial overkill (e.g. the arrests of Manafort, Stone, the treatment of Martha Srewart, etc.) really is the stuff of banana republics, only it's here in the good ol' USA.

Paul Courtney

Tom Gelsinon • May 23, 2019 at 20:19

Tom: If the feds have prison beds for these folks (other than the guy who ran the operation), they have too many prison beds. No prior criminal history, no violence, the victim goes to (shudder) UCLA instead of SC? State officials (who have prisons stuffed with actual criminals) need to use all influence to extract fed $$ to build state prisons. And you are exactly right about fed DA's who are giving tv actresses lessons in being petty.

Tom Gelsinon

Paul Courtney • May 23, 2019 at 23:15

And Paddy O'Taliban just got out with only 17 years served. Priorities . . .

Tom Gelsinon • May 22, 2019 at 23:01

Hey Mark,
I listened to a bit of your substitute-host-level excellence earlier today, and while it was an enjoyable experience (a Canadian neighbor kindly translated for me) I noted that you were, on at least two occasions, very dismissive of Tony Bennett's signature song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Bennett is not my favorite singer, and it's not the greatest song, but why the negativity here? The song seems to me similar to "My Kind of Town" and "New York, New York" -- paeans to big places with a big-band backing. What gives? (BTW - great extended interview with Papadopoulos.)

Mark replies:

That's not a big band, Tom, it's a string-heavy orchestra with Bennett shadowed by an insipid piano fill. More here. It's not "negative" to discriminate: There are plenty of good city songs; "I Left My Heart" isn't one of them.

Journolist Tom Gelsinon • May 23, 2019 at 05:32

Spike Milligan did a better job.

Mark replies:

And the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.

Paul G. • May 22, 2019 at 22:52

I think the still photograph at 1:04 of the lead-in to part II actually catches Brennan in the act of shape shifting.

Phil Hopman • May 22, 2019 at 21:48

Watched the whole interview, very informative. What's with his shoes? very distracting.

Mark replies:

In fairness to George, he was expecting a cable-news interview where you're filmed from the chest up.

P. Gao Phil Hopman • May 23, 2019 at 03:48

Heh. Judging by the fit of his suit jacket, perhaps he hadn't expected the 'jacket & tie' expectatations of the 'Steyn Interview' either, and had to borrow one. To say, all club members have been made sensitive over the years to upping the game in classic style for the newer world order, so had a good and jovial laugh when the camera pulled back and saw the sneaks.

Mark replies:

I think not, P. Unlike 99 per cent of his generation, he is a suit-and-tie guy. Since being fingered as a secret agent, he appears to have opted for the same approach to the role as Sean Connery. Except for the shoes...

P. Gao P. Gao • May 23, 2019 at 17:21

heh. We liked the sneakers btw. Genial and comfortable!

AB43 • May 22, 2019 at 20:29

This was written as a comment to the Papadopoulos interview, but you will see that it applies also to the "Investigation without end".
The interview with of George Papadopoulos is very convincing and only professional propagandist of the leftists will claim that he lied . We need more stuff like that to do whatever we can to dispel the lies that the Trump hating media entrenched in the minds of public. But it is not enough that we view it Mark Steyn Club members don't need to be convinced that Mueller investigation is a scam from A to Z.
It seems that the two and half years of incessant hate and lies that were thrown at Trump from all channels of media achieved what was intended. They used the famous BIG LIE dogma of the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels . Not only they publish without stop lies but do whatever they can to muzzle anyone that tries to set the record straight. By repeating the lies over and over they convince themselves that it is true. Just look at Nadler, Schiff , Schumer, Pelosi and rest Dem congress members They look like as bold-faced liars, which they are, but the problem is that they convinced themselves that they are telling the truth. Just as an anecdote, Danny Williams the premier of Newfoundland (2003-2010) quit that after two terms with the third guaranteed and he said after two terms it's time to leave because he will start believing in his own BS. Trump has a very big hill to climb the good economy will not be enough. He may go down same as Steven Harper that believed that he will be elected on his record, CBC and the rest of the leftist media assured that his record will be not even looked at by portraying him as devil incarnate.
I suggest maybe you could devote a little bit time and try to read the book that I just bought. You can get it as eBook for less than $20 Can instantly. It essentially explains the science behind the fact that people, once they made up their mind, they will stick to it and will ignore any information on the contrary. I alluded to it in my message posted in "Steyn in Rush Today" of May 20, one member commented and responded positively. It addresses the reason why very large percentage of the influential people including MSC members refuse to believe that Islam means what it says and writes and does for the last 1400 years. Better believe it the future of western civilization is at stake.
The book that I am talking about is "The Science of Fate": Why Your Future is More Predictable Than You Think by Neuroscientist Dr. Hannah Critchlow. It is real science worthy of Nobel price not the stuff of Al Gore. I ordered it from Blackwell's, it has also been published by Hodder & Stoughton and can be ordered as well guardianbookshop.com , at this moment it is not available at Amazon. It is also available in eBook format at Blackwell's
I believe that this book also provides scientific backup to the philosophical theory of Nietzsche what comes after the "Death of God" it is much easier to comprehend than Nietzsche's writing to enable us to understand the nature of the universe, its history and where it is heading.
The summary ideas contained in this book are covered in an interview of Dr. Hannah Critchlow with Ian Tucker of the Guardian that was published on the internet under the following URL:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/may/11/neuroscientist-dr-hannah-critchlow-science-of-fate-interview?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Thyle Feondulf • May 22, 2019 at 19:45

I too hope to join you on a cruise. I also re-upped my membership. Given that we're in the red this year on account of spending a lot of money to help a family member, my wife is going to be a bit grumpy. But we have to keep up the good fight.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

Mark replies:

Thank you, Thyle. Glad to have you with us, notwithstanding uxorial grumps.

Journolist • May 22, 2019 at 19:23

Wasn't the ACA a 1,000 pager no-one was allowed to read? Surely all Pelosi has to do is to alter the front page, tell a friendly Justice in, say, Hawaii that all the proof for impeachment is within and proceed to the finale?

Walt Trimmer Journolist • May 23, 2019 at 12:23

2000 plus but who's counting?

Todd Lewis • May 22, 2019 at 19:11

I hope it catches on throughout the rest of the media that hasn't lost all credibility and objectivity that the real cover-up taking place is the Democrat's investigation without end ruse. This is so corrosive. I hope it all blows up in the Democrat's faces so that it finally becomes plainly evident to every sane person what real accountability looks like. We can still dream can't we?

Owen Morgan • May 22, 2019 at 19:02

There is something extraordinarily nihilistic about politics now and I suppose it has been in the air for quite a while. Obama was able to exploit Bush Derangement Syndrome right up to his last day in office. Gordon Brown, outgoing Labour PM in Britain in 2010, cursed one of his own supporters as a bigot, for having the nerve to criticize his policies. Trump was not meant to win the 2016 election, so "investigating" his victory ad nauseam is supposedly not only legitimate, but now the only surviving function of government.

In Canada, Trudeau tries to criminalise the opposition media, even though most of the media has been in his pocket for years. In the UK, it's OK to commit common assault on a politician canvassing in the street in advance of an election. If you're a bit averse to physical confrontation, you can do the David Lammy thing and say Conservative Brexit supporters are n*zis (for non-Britons, Lammy is a Labour Member of Parliament and, yes, he really did say that). He left the actual street crime to the hard cases, though, didn't he, so credit for that.

On the other hand, you could adopt the truly moderate approach, as the former Beebyanka man, Gavin Esler did, and merely refer to political opponents as "village idiots" (those would be people who were formerly compelled to contribute to Esler's extortionate ** BBC salary by a licence fee = tax). Vote against the Will of the Bubble? No more voting for you.

Weirdly, these assaults on civilised behaviour and discourse and implicit attacks on democracy itself all come from the Left.

** I don't know what Esler was paid, but I guarantee that it was too much.

Journolist Owen Morgan • May 22, 2019 at 19:52

GB was taken up by the Chomsky/Alinsky crowd before his elevation to financial genius, and probably expected to be looked after, with deplorables always at arms length.

Owen Morgan Journolist • May 22, 2019 at 20:16

Gordon Brown and Obama both benefited from somewhat mysterious influences within their respective universities.

Perry Pattetic Owen Morgan • May 22, 2019 at 21:54

There are many similarities between Obama and Brown, and not just the complexion of their names.
Both are socially inept and "damaged" children of privilege, who were praised as being special and gifted to compensate for their obvious limitations.
That makes them proto-snowflakes.
Their sociopathic natures were not ameliorated by the praise lavished upon them - they became raging, nasty, unsympathetic and narcissistic bullies.
If they were countries, they would be China and Cuba.

Journolist Owen Morgan • May 23, 2019 at 08:07

Does GB know less about finance than BHO about the US Constitution? Is that possible? Question is who is running them?

Journolist Perry Pattetic • May 23, 2019 at 08:15

China, like India is under attack from the Original Silk Roaders. Cuba, like Latin America in general, owes a lot to the Perons who wrote the manual of "How to Succeed by Devaluation". They were part of the BRIC formulation which gave someone a rewarding career.

Journolist Journolist • May 23, 2019 at 11:49

More on BRIC. B is for Brazil which is receiving real refugees from Venezuela's Socialist Dream as well as those from the Southern EU, victims of the Merkel Madness. R is for Russia, also under attack from the "Men from da 'Hood."

Walt Trimmer • May 22, 2019 at 18:57

Mark mentioned that John Walker Lindh is scheduled to get out of Federal prison tomorrow but didn't get to the topic during the show. Lindh represents one of the greatest lacks of imagination in U.S. intelligence history. He was convicted of supplying services to the Taliban and carrying explosives after the U.S. incursion into Afghanistan 18 years ago. He should never have been prosecuted and he was a potential asset that was squandered.

Lindh became infatuated with Islam, learned Arabic in Yemen and went to Pakistan to study in a madrassa long before 9/11. Lindh even met with Osama bin Laden. He was in Kunduz, Afghanistan fighting the Northern Alliance when the Taliban collapsed and he was captured.

2 CIA officers, both former policemen, had just finished interviewing him when the 500 Taliban prisoners rose up in rebellion against the torture and murder being done by war lord General Dostum and his men. Unfortunately, one CIA officer was killed in the uprising. Of the 500 Taliban only 86 survived. Lindh was wounded and stacked with the dying when a CNN Reporter found him.

Neither of the crimes to which he plead guilty occurred within the jurisdiction of the U.S. and both had occurred before the U.S. was involved. The howling mob demanded blood.

Lindh was fluent, had lived the life and had met all the players. The potential to turn Lindh into an American agent, or at least an analyst, to support our effort in Afghanistan by playing on his gratitude for being saved was lost. It may not have been possible to accomplish but the potential was there. Instead, everyone in Washington got to be self righteous and show they were doing something in the wake of 9/11.

What is needed in a situation like this is a non-conformist, perhaps even eccentric, individual that can spot an opportunity; TE Lawrence, Wild Bill Donovan and their like are needed but they are rare commodities. I sometimes believe that Mark thinks of himself as Steyn, Mark Steyn, shaken not stirred but I think he is much more W. Somerset Maugham's WW1 Ashenden. That would fit in with Mark's choices of Tales For Our Time.

Sol Walt Trimmer • May 22, 2019 at 23:51

He got into the topic a bit during the show. He spoke of Ireland granting Lindh citizenship, mentioned his stop some years back at a consular facility in Boston, and said he'd like to ask the guys working there there why Ireland saw fit to grant him citizenship. He also said the sentence was far too lenient.

In order to use him as an asset, wouldn't he need to be on our side? As recently as 2014 he was praising ISIS. Regardless of when the US military action began in Afghanistan, the Taliban was a terrorist group allied with Osama bin Laden, who planned the 9/11 attacks. Responding defensively to a strike by a foreign country is creating the jurisdiction - and retroactively. So I think we're well within our rights to prosecute a defector who has taken up arms with a hostile enemy that has attacked us. Someone in the CIA could have decided to use him, but there's no obligation to do so, and it might have sent a horrible message to the many others like him from western nations that have since gotten their jihad on.

Walt Trimmer Sol • May 23, 2019 at 12:14

Lindh never attacked us. He fought in a foreign army and was captured as an enemy combatant after our entry into the war. His attitude in 2014 could have been shaped by being beaten up in prison and being sent to SuperMax for a couple years. That might have hardened his attitude a little.

As to being on our side he would have to be turned. Lindh spent at least six weeks in our care after being wounded in the leg. That would have provided time to flatter, better living through chemistry, bring in someone to argue that bin Laden was violating the tenets of the Koran, perhaps a dolly bird (although I have my doubts he plays on our team in that sense too.) The CIA was supposed to be good at this stuff, at least until they decided their reason to be was to stage coups against Presidents they didn't like (Thanks Obama!) As to sending a message, clandestine agencies are not supposed to send any messages at all.

We were and are shy on human intelligence. My point was that the prize was great, rounding up bin Laden or Mullah Omar, while the cost was much lower, even if we failed, than the billions we spent. The bigger question is what would you do with Lindh if it failed?

Perry Pattetic • May 22, 2019 at 18:12

Theresa May is surely being blackmailed into her ludicrous contortions in the UK - why else whould she endure the shame?
Trump knows where the London skeletons of the Clinton Dossier are buried, so he is looking forward to his State Visit. I expect the rabble in the FO are hoping that May's firing will lead to a postponement.
Macron, meanwhile, is suddenly an admitted "progressive", as he and the EU meet their Waterloo.
The history of EU voting is a clear warning, though - through corruption and deceit, all votes must be for "ever closer union".

Owen Morgan Perry Pattetic • May 22, 2019 at 20:12

Theresa May loves to sit in an echo-chamber. She apparently cannot cope with even the concept of contrary opinions - never mind their content. Right now, she is dangling offers of thinking about resigning, or even of presenting a non-binding timetable for her possible resignation. No firm date is mentioned. As far as I can see, she plans to stay in Downing Street until the next Ice Age.

Contrary to what Americans think, the UK does have a Constitution. One of its most important provisions is that one government may not bind its successor; that is: any new government may overturn any previously enacted law. The blasted Heath disregarded this principle with his desperate accession treaty to the Common Market. That, in itself, amounted to a very good case for Brexit, since it destroyed the very idea of sovereignty. Heath's entirely appropriate successor, Theresa May, is similarly trying to tie the hands of later British governments in perpetuity, by forcing the UK into supposedly inescapable chains.

In case anyone is wondering, I shall be voting for Brexit (again) in the morning.

Mark replies:

God speed, Owen. Vote early and often.

Perry Pattetic Owen Morgan • May 22, 2019 at 22:04

Jolly good! My postal vote is somewhat delayed and has not arrived.

Parliament has never had the right to surrender its sovereignty. Heath, Major and Brown were acting beyond their lawful powers. Churchill proposed eternal union with France, but this was a ploy to get them to stop selling out to Germany and was never a realistic proposition. Besides, we used to own large parts of France.

Parliament may only govern and legislate in the name of the Sovereign, and it may not cede the Sovereignty of the monarch to any other body.
This is why there is a Queen's (or King's) Speech. "My government.."

Sol Owen Morgan • May 23, 2019 at 00:12

Mark mentioned today that you should listen very carefully when something big suddenly goes into the abyss.

"These populist, nationalists, stupid nationalists, they are in love with their own countries," Jean-Claude Juncker told CNN on Wednesday from his Brussels office.

Owen Morgan Perry Pattetic • May 23, 2019 at 00:22

Yes, I should have said Parliament, not government, although all the most blatant offences against Parliamentary sovereignty have originated in the executive, i.e. Whitehall and Downing Street, not in the chamber of the House of Commons. Latterly, Parliament has conspired in making itself irrelevant (partly a consequence of the fact that so many Parliamentarians are also on the Government payroll).

Adequately to depict Parliamentarians falling over themselves, fighting to avoid any danger of recovering their former sovereignty, needs a new Jonathan Swift.

Journolist Owen Morgan • May 23, 2019 at 08:22

A favorite of Christopher Fildes "Ce que je redis au peuple français — votez Non, votez souvent, encore". The vote that really mattered was in 1945, when the shiny Welfare State was chosen, the Road to Oblivion.

Garry from LSD (Lower Slower Delaware) • May 22, 2019 at 18:11

I listened to Mark for three hours of substitute-host-level Excellence earlier today. As usual, it was a great show! Realizing that everything is a "Social Construct", I say, Mark Steyn for President!!!! Or maybe, king. Anyway, the one without the hat. Thank you Mark for everything you do in this time of impending calamity.