Samantha Power votes March 2, 2016 to approve the toughest sanctions on North Korea in 20 years. (Credit: Seth Wenig/The Associated Press)

(…) “It turns out that Power — the diplomat whose authority inexplicably was used to unmask hundreds of Americans’ names in secret intelligence reports during the 2016 election — engaged in similar Trump-bashing on her official government email, according to documents unearthed by an American Center for Law and Justice lawsuit. The conservative legal group is run by Trump defense attorney Jay Sekulow.

The discovery could add a new dimension — a question of political bias — to a long-running congressional investigation into why Power’s authority was used to unmask hundreds of Americans’ names in secret National Security Agency intercepts during the  election. That practice of unmasking continues to grow today.

Power’s barbs toward Trump started as early as the GOP primaries, when she used her email to connect Oskar Eustis, the artistic director at the Public Theater in New York, with oft-quoted think tank scholar Norman Ornstein, the memos show.

“Oskar, Norm will explain our political system, in a way that will fleetingly make it seem rational, though maybe not after Trump and Sanders win NH,” she wrote, predicting the future president and upstart socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would win the esteemed New Hampshire primary.

After Trump stunned the world with his general election win over Hillary Clinton, the observations of Power and those emailing her on her official government account turned more vitriolic.

“I am discouraged and frightened. Electing a right-wing president is something, but such a morally repugnant bully!” read a Nov. 14, 2016, email to Power from a sender whose name the State Department redacted for privacy reasons. The email referred to former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon as “an avowed racist” and predicted, “The worst is coming.”

There is no evidence in the released documents that Power responded or chastised the sender for using government email for such political animosity.

But there is ample evidence she engaged in similar Trump-bashing.

In December 2016, for example, when sent a news story about Trump’s effort to communicate a new policy direction for the U.N., Power snarkily replied: “This reflects the lack of understanding of history.”

When Trump announced his intent to withdraw the U.S. from a global climate deal, Power emailed a colleague: “Lord help us all.”

And when a routine diplomatic issue with Japan arose in late November 2016, Power emailed another colleague: “It is unreal how the Trump dynamic has changed things.”

Perhaps most telling are Power’s efforts to arrange media interviews and speeches during her final days in office, clearly aiming to counter the incoming president’s agenda and fan the narrative that Trump might be dangerously soft on matters involving Russia and mercilessly hard on immigrants.” (Read more: The Hill, 6/26/2019)

(Credit: Esquire)

“The Obama administration distributed thousands of intelligence reports with the  unredacted names of U.S. residents during the 2016 election.

During his final year in office, President Obama’s team significantly expanded efforts to search National Security Agency intercepts for information about Americans, distributing thousands of intelligence reports across government with the unredacted names of U.S. residents during the midst of a divisive 2016 presidential election.

The data, made available this week by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, provides the clearest evidence to date of how information accidentally collected by the NSA overseas about Americans was subsequently searched and disseminated after President Obama loosened privacy protections to make such sharing easier in 2011 in the name of national security. A court affirmed his order.

The revelations are particularly sensitive since the NSA is legally forbidden from directly spying on Americans and its authority to conduct warrantless searches on foreigners is up for renewal in Congress later this year. And it comes as lawmakers investigate President Trump’s own claims that his privacy was violated by his predecessor during the 2016 election.

(…) “The searches ultimately resulted in 3,134 NSA intelligence reports with unredacted U.S. names being distributed across government in 2016, and another 3,354 reports in 2015. About half the time, U.S. identities were unredacted in the original reports while the other half were unmasked after the fact by special request of Obama administration officials.

Among those whose names were unmasked in 2016 or early 2017 were campaign or transition associates of President Trump as well as members of Congress and their staffers, according to sources with direct knowledge.

The data kept by ODNI is missing some information from one of the largest consumers of NSA intelligence, the FBI, and officials acknowledge the numbers are likely much higher when the FBI’s activity is added.” (Read more: Circa, 5/3/2017)

“A trove of emails and handwritten notes from Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr exposes the continuous contact and communication between the DOJ attorney and anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steele, according to notes and documents obtained by SaraACarter.com. The emails and notes were written between 2016 and 2017.

The notes and emails also reveal that Ohr was in communication with Glenn Simpson, the founder of the embattled research firm Fusion GPS, which was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and DNC to hire Steele.

In one of Ohr’s handwritten notes listed as “Law enforcement Sensitive” from May 10, 2017, he writes “Call with Chris,” referencing Steele. He notes that Steele is “very concerned about Comey’s firing, afraid they will be exposed.” This call occurred months after FBI Director James Comey testified before the House Intelligence Committee and revealed for the first time that the FBI had an open counterintelligence investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign and alleged collusion with Russia.”

(…) “The documents from March 2017, reveal how concerned Steele is with Grassley’s committee and the letter from the senator’s office seeking answers from Steele on the dossier.

In June 2017, Steele tells Ohr,  “We are frustrated with how long this re-engagement with the Bureau and Mueller is taking.  Anything you can do to accelerate the process would be much appreciated.  There are some new, perishable, operational opportunities which we do not want to miss out on.”

In October 2017, Steele notes that he is concerned about the stories in the media about the bureau delivering information to Congress “about my work and relationship with them.  Very concerned about this.  People’s lives may be endangered.”

And in November 2017, Steele, who is trying to engage with Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel, writes to Ohr saying, “we were wondering if there was any response to the questions I raised last week.”

Ohr responds by saying, “I have passed on the questions (apparently to the special counsel) but haven’t gotten an answer yet.”

Steele then says,  “I am presuming you’ve heard nothing back from your SC (special counsel) colleagues on the issues you kindly put to them from me.  We have heard nothing from them either.  To say this is disappointing would be an understatement!  Certain people have been willing to risk everything to engage with them in an effort to help them reach the truth.  Also, we remain in the dark as to what work has been briefed to Congress about us, our assets and previous work.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/16/2018)

Charles McCullough (Credit: Fox News)

“In either late 2015 or early 2016, the IC inspector general, Chuck McCullough, sent Frank Rucker and Janette McMillan to meet with the FBI in order to detail the anomaly that had been uncovered. That meeting was attended by four individuals, including Strzok, then-Executive Assistant Director John Giacalone, and then-Section Chief Dean Chappell. The identity of the fourth individual remains unknown, though Moffa, who also met with the IG at various times, is a possible candidate. Charles Kable, who also met with the ICIG at several points, is another possible candidate.

Priestap testified that he had not been briefed on the Clinton server anomaly by Strzok, noting “this would have been a big deal.”

“I am not aware of any evidence that demonstrated that. I’m also not aware of any evidence that my team or anybody reporting to me on this had advised me that there were anomalies that couldn’t be accounted for. I don’t recall that,” he said.

Priestap’s admission that this was all new information to him, prompted an observation from Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) that Strzok appeared to be exercising significant investigative control:

Mr. Meadows: “It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?”

Mr. Priestap: “Peter and Jon, yeah.”

As Meadows noted during testimony, this matter still had to be officially “closed out” by the FBI before the official closing of the Clinton investigation. Strzok personally called the IC inspector general within minutes of Comey’s July 5, 2016, press conference on the Clinton investigation, telling him that the FBI would be sending a “referral to close it out.”

Meadows seemed genuinely surprised that Strzok had apparently kept this information successfully hidden from Priestap, noting, “I’m a Member from North Carolina, and you’re saying that I have better intel than you do?” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/31/2019)

Blumenthal appears on MSNBC  on May 13, 2016. (Credit: MSNBC)

Sid Blumenthal is a Clinton confidant, reporter, and Clinton Foundation employee in the years Clinton is secretary of state. The interview will remain secret until it’s mentioned in a September 2016 FBI report.

The FBI identified at least 179 out of the over 800 emails that Blumenthal sent to Clinton containing information in an intelligence memo format. The State Department determined that 24 Blumenthal memos that contained information currently classified as “confidential,” as well as one classified as “secret”  both currently and when it was sent.

Blumenthal tells the FBI that the content of the memos was provided to him from a number of different sources, including former US government officials and contacts, as well as contacts within foreign governments.

(In one email to Clinton, Blumenthal mentioned intelligence that he said came from an active US official, but apparently the FBI doesn’t ask him about this. The FBI report also will not mention emails in which Clinton sent Blumenthal classified information, despite him having no security clearance.)

Blumenthal’s memos contained a notation of “CONFIDENTIAL”  in all capital letters. He claims this meant the memos were personal in nature and didn’t refer to the US government category of classified information at the “confidential” level.

Blumenthal claims he was not tasked to provide this information to Clinton, but he sent the emails because he thought they could be helpful. (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/2/2016)

The State Department’s inspector general Steve Linick issues a report claiming that the department “repeatedly provided inadequate and inaccurate responses to Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] requests involving top agency officials, including a misleading answer to a request three years ago seeking information on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email use.”

Politico states the new report also points to “a series of failures in the procedures the office of the secretary used to respond to public records requests, including a lack of written policies and training, as well as inconsistent oversight by senior personnel.”

According to the report, “These procedural weaknesses, coupled with the lack of oversight by leadership and failure to routinely search emails, appear to contribute to inaccurate and incomplete responses.”

CREW’s Logo (Credit: CREW)

One important flawed department response was a letter sent to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) in May 2013 after the organization asked for details on email accounts used by Clinton. State’s response to CREW was, “no records responsive to your request were located.” The report says the inspector general’s office “found evidence that [Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills] was informed of the request at the time it was received and subsequently tasked staff to follow up.” However, according to the report, none of those officials appear to have reviewed the results of the search done in the department’s files, and there was “no evidence” that those staffers who did the search and responded to CREW knew about Clinton’s private email setup.  CREW followed up last year by saying it never received any final response to its FOIA request.

The AP Logo (Credit: The Associated Press)

Other flaws pointed out by the inspector general’s report include extreme delays in other cases, such as an Associated Press FOIA request for Clinton’s schedules that was pending without substantive response for five years.

Politico also filed a FOIA request for legal and ethics reviews of former President Bill Clinton’s paid speeches. That request was pending for four years before the department began producing records.

The Gawker Logo (Credit: Gawker Media)

Another failed response involved a Gawker request for emails that former Clinton adviser Philippe Reines exchanged with 34 news organizations. Politico reports “that request initially received a “no records” response from [the] State [Department], even though State has now found 81,000 potentially responsive emails in its official files. At a court hearing last month, a government lawyer would not concede that the no-records response was inadequate.” (Politico, 1/7/2016)

(…) Starting on page 122 of Part 23 in the FBI Vault File concerning the mishandling of classified information by Hillary R. Clinton, a letter to Comey at his FBI headquarters address dated Jan. 10, 2016 begins with the following subject identified:

The letter opens directly:

“The purpose of this letter to you as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is to provide evidence which should lead to the conviction of former Secretary of State Hilary [sic] Clinton for lying to a Congressional House Committee investigating the situation surrounding what happened September 11, 2011 [sic]…I watched her lie in her testimony.”

Then it gets into matters long the focus of Senator Chuck Grassley’s interest:

“Additionally, this letter should provide evidence of criminal actions by Hilary [sic] Clinton and her personal and official staff, including some, who were also acting under the pay of other persons and organizations such as the Clinton Foundation and its partners in this crime against United States National Security. This evidence should also be used to convict those senior, major and minor employees of the United States directly involved in knowingly permitting or assisting and attempting to delay and block a Federal investigation of this case.”

Though asked by the whistleblower to confirm receipt of this lengthy letter and supporting documents, Comey and his office apparently did nothing.

An Unscheduled Follow-Up Visit

Comey’s inaction only increased interest on the part of the State Department whistleblower who made a trip to the Washington, D.C. F.B.I field office on Jan. 27, 2016, scant days before pivotal primaries began for Democrats and presidential contenders.

Record of the meeting is contained in Part VI of the FBI Vault File on Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of Classified Information, starting on page 11.

The internal F.B.I. memo says the visitor:

“…explained to writer he had sent evidence of Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified documents to the F.B.I. Director earlier in January 2016, but when he called to confirm receipt he could not do so and therefore wanted to make sure the information was received by the right people at the F.B.I., specifically the “task force” working on the Clinton email.scandal.”

Courageously, the visitor:

“…explained he was a long-time government employee and had previously worked for many years at the Department of State. He provided a resume and a U.S. Foreign Service Employee Evaluation Report to prove his bonafides.”

According to the F.B.I. report, the informant:

“…did not go into detail as to what the evidence was as he had provided other types of documents explaining the evidence to the unclassified level he could.”

He offered to be interviewed in a S.C.I.F. so he could talk at a higher classification level to further explain other evidence he had.

All other documents [he] provided …are being attached in a 1-A for further review by the appropriate personnel reviewing this matter.”

So, exactly what did the F.B.I. and Justice Department do thereafter? Presumably, John Durham has followed this trail and briefed Bill Barr.” (Read more: American Thinker/Charles Ortel, 10/06/2020)   (Archive)

Paul Manafort (Credit: ABC News)

“A recently declassified government document suggests the FBI opened its most recent investigation of Paul Manafort in January 2016, two months before President Trump hired the lobbyist as a senior official in his campaign. The revelation is prompting new questions about why the bureau did not provide the GOP candidate with a defensive briefing.

The information about the start of the Manafort probe was contained in footnote 332 of a spreadsheet that FBI analysts constructed analyzing the lack of corroboration for Christopher Steele’s now infamous dossier alleging Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election, an allegation that has since been disproven.

The spreadsheet was declassified earlier this month, revealing the FBI found little to no corroboration for Steele’s allegations against Trump but nonetheless used the dossier to support a FISA surveillance warrant to spy on the Trump campaign through adviser Carter Page.

The information in the footnote and spreadsheet states an “opening EC” or electronic communication was generated in the Manafort probe on Jan. 13, 2016, and by August 2016 “Manafort is an active subject of a money laundering and tax evasion criminal case out of Washington Field Office.”

 Steele SpreadsheetManafortProbeReference.pdf

 SteeleSpreadsheetManafortProbeFootnote.pdf

The timing suggested in the spreadsheet is consistent with an account from Ukrainian prosecutors, who revealed last year they were summoned on short notice to Washington by the Obama White House for a series of meetings in January 2016 during which Justice Department officials pressed them to find evidence against Manafort and his work for the Ukrainian Party of Regions. The prosecutors also stated the Obama DOJ officials asked the Ukrainians to drop their investigation of the Hunter Biden-related Burisma Holdings gas company and let the FBI take it over.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson last week wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking for verification of the claim in the spreadsheet and demanding to know why Trump wasn’t given a courtesy warning before he hired Manafort if in fact the probe into the lobbyist started in January 2016 like the spreadsheet stated.

Presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton, have gotten defensive briefings over the years when an issue involving national security concerns affects their campaigns.

“What steps, if any, did the FBI take to alert the Trump campaign about its investigation into Manafort when he joined the Trump campaign in March 2016?” Johnson wrote. Wray has yet to respond. (Read more: Just the News, 10/26/2020)  (Archive)

(Charles McCullough (Credit: Fox News)

“Some of the information that passed through Hillary Clinton’s private email server was so sensitive that high-level officials examining the account had to get special security clearance before they could proceed with their probe, NBC’s Ken Dilanian reported on Tuesday.

That is according to an intelligence official familiar with the probe into the former secretary of state’s “homebrew” server, which is being led by the intelligence community’s inspector general, Charles McCullough.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has also been looking into whether classified material was mishandled during Clinton’s tenure at the State Department from 2009 to 2013.

Some of the emails found on Clinton’s account — according to a letter McCullough sent to senior lawmakers on January 14 and obtained by Fox News and other publications — contained intelligence so sensitive that it has since been allocated to a special access program (SAP) designation.

SAPs are designed to safeguard information deemed more sensitive than even “top secret.”

“The special access program in question was so sensitive that McCullough and some of his aides had to receive clearance to be read in on it before viewing the sworn declaration about the Clinton emails,” Dilanian reported.” (Read more: Business Insider, 1/21/2016)

“As Donald Trump began his meteoric rise to the presidency, the Obama White House summoned Ukrainian authorities to Washington to coordinate ongoing anti-corruption efforts inside Russia’s most critical neighbor.

The January 2016 gathering, confirmed by multiple participants and contemporaneous memos, brought some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators face to face with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).

White House Visitor Access Records 1/19/2016

The agenda suggested the purpose was training and coordination. But Ukrainian participants said it didn’t take long — during the meetings and afterward — to realize the Americans’ objectives included two politically hot investigations: one that touched Vice President Joe Biden’s family and one that involved a lobbying firm linked closely to then-candidate Trump.

U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, then a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington tasked with organizing the meeting.

Telizhenko, who no longer works for the Ukrainian Embassy, said U.S. officials volunteered during the meetings — one of which was held in the White House’s Old Executive Office Building — that they had an interest in reviving a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions.

(…) Telizhenko said he couldn’t remember whether Manafort was mentioned during the January 2016 meeting. But he and other attendees recalled DOJ officials asking investigators from Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) if they could help locate new evidence about the Party of Regions’ payments and its dealings with Americans.

“It was definitely the case that led to the charges against Manafort and the leak to U.S. media during the 2016 election,” he said.

That makes the January 2016 meeting one of the earliest documented efforts to build the now-debunked Trump-Russia collusion narrative and one of the first to involve the Obama administration’s intervention.” (Read more: The Hill, 4/25/2019)  (Archive)

Eric Ciaramella shakes hands with President Obama. (Credit: public domain)

On January 19, 2016, Eric Ciaramella chaired a meeting of FBI, Department of Justice and Department of State personnel, which had two main objectives:

1.       To coerce the Ukrainians to drop the Burisma probe, which involved Vice President Joseph Biden’s son Hunter, and allow the FBI to take over the investigation.
2.       To reopen a closed 2014 FBI investigation that focused heavily on GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort, whose firm long had been tied to Trump through his partner and Trump pal, Roger Stone.

That is, contain the investigation of Biden’s son and ramp up the investigation of Paul Manafort.

According to White House logs, the attendees at the January 19, 2016 meeting in Room 230A of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building were:

Eric Ciaramella – National Security Council Director for Ukraine

Liz Zentos – National Security Council Director for Eastern Europe

David G. Sakvarelidze – Deputy General Prosecutor of Ukraine

Anna E. Iemelianova (Yemelianova) – Legal Specialist, US Embassy Kyiv and US Department of Justice’s Anti-Corruption Program.

Nazar A. Kholodnitsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor

Catherine L. Newcombe – attorney in the Criminal Division, Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, with the U.S. Department of Justice

Svitlana V. Pardus – Operations, Department of Justice, U.S. Embassy, Ukraine.

Artem S. Sytnyk  – Director of the National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine

Andriy G. Telizhenko, political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington DC

Jeffrey W. Cole – Resident Legal Advisor at U.S. Embassy Ukraine, presumed to be FBI

(The American Thinker, 12/06/2019)  (Archive)

Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko (l) and Joe Biden pose for the media prior to meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2016. (Credit: Michel Euler/Reuters)

“In January 2016, top Ukrainian corruption prosecutors and officials from Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ) met in Washington, according to an April 26 article by The Hill.

The meeting, which was reportedly billed as “training,” apparently also touched on two other matters—the revival of a closed investigation into payments to U.S. figures from Ukraine’s Russia-backed Party of Regions and the closure of an ongoing Ukrainian investigation into Burisma.

According to The Hill’s reporting, the Ukrainian Embassy confirmed that meetings were held, but said it “had no record that the Party of Regions or Burisma cases came up in the meetings.”

A Jan. 22, 2016, NABU press release confirmed that NABU Director Artem Sytnyk was in Washington from Jan. 19 to 21.

At the same time as the NABU meeting with Obama officials, Vice President Biden also met with senior Ukrainian officials. On Jan. 21, 2016, Biden met with Poroshenko, the president of Ukraine. According to the White House release, the two leaders agreed “to continue to move forward on Ukraine’s anti-corruption agenda.”

Biden shakes hands with Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in Biden’s ceremonial office in Washington DC, June 15, 2016. (Credit: The Associated Press)

Just six days earlier, on Jan 15, 2016, Biden had met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, promising to commit $220 million in new assistance to Ukraine that year.

Notably, several months later, Sytnyk and Ukrainian Member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko would publicly disclose the contents of the Ukrainian “black ledger” to the media, which implicated Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The revelation would force Manafort from the campaign.

Leshchenko also served as a source for various individuals, including journalist Michael Isikoff and Democratic National Committee (DNC) operative Alexandra Chalupa. In addition, Leshchenko served as a direct source of information for Fusion GPS—and its researcher, former CIA contractor Nellie Ohr.

Another Ukrainian-related meeting also took place in January 2016 when Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American, informed an unknown senior DNC official that she believed there was a Russian connection with the Trump campaign. Notably, this theme would be picked up by the Clinton campaign in the summer of 2016. Chalupa also told the official to expect Manafort’s involvement in the Trump campaign.

Alexandra Chalupa (Credit: public domain)

How Chalupa knew to expect Manafort’s involvement with the Trump campaign in January remains unknown, but her forecast proved prescient, as Manafort reached out to the Trump campaign shortly after, on Feb. 29, 2016, through a mutual acquaintance, Thomas J. Barrack Jr. According to Manafort, he and Trump hadn’t been in communication for years until the Trump campaign responded to Manafort’s offer.

As The Epoch Times previously reported, on May 30, 2016, Fusion GPS contractor Nellie Ohr sent an email to her husband, high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, and three other DOJ officials to alert them of the discovery of the “Reported Trove of Documents on Ukrainian Party of Regions’ ‘Black Cashbox.’” It was this discovery that led to Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign in August 2016.

On Aug. 14, 2016, The New York Times published an article alleging that payments to Manafort had been uncovered from the Party of Regents’ “black box”—the 400-page handwritten ledger released by Leshchenko. The article proved to be a fatal blow for Manafort, who resigned from the Trump campaign just days later. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 4/26/2019)

(Credit: Fox News snip)

“Laura Ingraham raised a series of questions Wednesday night about the impeachment whistleblower’s ties to the Biden family and what the person knew about Hunter Biden’s dealings with Ukrainian gas company Burisma as far back as 2016.

According to an “Ingraham Angle” investigation, State Department emails from May 1, 2019 show that New York Times reporter Ken Vogel inquired about a 2016 Obama White House meeting with Ukrainian prosecutors.

Vogel wrote that he planned to report that a State Department official attended the meeting on Jan. 19, 2016 “with Ukrainian prosecutors and embassy officials,” where U.S. support for prosecutions of Burisma Holdings in the United Kingdom and Ukraine was discussed. Vogel asked about “concerns that Hunter Biden’s position with the company could complicate such efforts.”

Ingraham said White House visitor logs for Jan. 19, 2016 showed that “numerous” Ukrainian officials were at the White House on the day Vogel claimed there was a meeting about the Bidens and Burisma.

“[The story] was never published. We asked Ken Vogel why nothing ever came of it but he didn’t respond. The New York Times‘ director of communications did, also refusing to answer our questions about why the story never ran, instead noting that Vogel’s request for comment was ‘consistent with their news-gathering process.’ Got it, nothing to see here,” said Ingraham, noting that the email from Vogel came just one week after former Vice President Joe Biden announced his presidential run.” (Read more: Fox News, 1/23/2020)  (Archive)

Samantha Power (Credit: Forbes)

“Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, was ‘unmasking’ at such a rapid pace in the final months of the Obama administration that she averaged more than one request for every working day in 2016 – and even sought information in the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, multiple sources close to the matter told Fox News.

Two sources, who were not authorized to speak on the record, said the requests to identify Americans whose names surfaced in foreign intelligence reporting, known as unmasking, exceeded 260 last year. One source indicated this occurred in the final days of the Obama White House.

The details emerged ahead of an expected appearance by Power next month on Capitol Hill. She is one of several Obama administration officials facing congressional scrutiny for their role in seeking the identities of Trump associates in intelligence reports – but the interest in her actions is particularly high.

In a July 27 letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the committee had learned “that one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration.”

The “official” is widely reported to be Power.

John Brennan (l) and Trey Gowdy (Credit: CSpan)

During a public congressional hearing earlier this year, Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy of South Carolina pressed former CIA director John Brennan on unmasking, without mentioning Power by name.

Gowdy: Do you recall any U.S. ambassadors asking that names be unmasked?

Brennan: I don’t know. Maybe it’s ringing a vague bell but I’m not — I could not answer with any confidence.

Gowdy continued, asking: On either January 19 or up till noon on January 20, did you make any unmasking requests?

Brennan: I do not believe I did.

Gowdy: So you did not make any requests on the last day that you were employed?

Brennan: No, I was not in the agency on the last day I was employed.

Brennan later corrected the record, confirming he was at CIA headquarters on January 20. “I went there to collect some final personal materials as well as to pay my last respects to a memorial wall. But I was there for a brief period of time and just to take care of some final — final things that were important to me,” Brennan said.” (Read more: Fox News, 9/20/2017)

Tony Carrk (Credit: US News)

An internal review of Clinton’s private paid speeches is conducted by campaign aides, in an effort to survey the political damage her remarks could cause if they ever became public. The review is conducted by Clinton’s research director Tony Carrk. On this day, Carrk sends the results of the review to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta and other Clinton aides. His email consists of dozens of pages of potentially politically damaging quotes from Clinton’s speeches. It will get released on October 7, 2016 when WikiLeaks starts publishing emails from Podesta’s private email account. Clinton will confirm the authenticity of the email two days later.

Below are some notable revelations from Carrk’s email:

• Clinton said that with everybody watching “all of the back room discussions and the deals… you need both a public and a private position.”
• Clinton said she had to leave her phone and computer in a special box when traveling to China and Russia, but there is evidence she sent at least one email from Russia.
• Clinton admitted it was against the rules for some State Department officials to use BlackBerrys at the same time she used one.
• Clinton said when she got to State Department, employees “were not mostly permitted to have handheld devices.”
• Clinton asked why the computers of a fugitive whistleblower were not exploited by foreign countries “when my cell phone was going to be exploited.”
• Clinton said that her department officials “were not even allowed to use mobile devices because of security issues.” (Wikileaks, 10/7/2016)

“Recent hacked documents have revealed an international network of politicians, journalists, academics, researchers and military officers, all engaged in highly deceptive covert propaganda campaigns funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), NATO, Facebook and hardline national security institutions.

This “network of networks”, as one document refers to them, centers around an ironically named outfit called the Integrity Initiative. And it is all overseen by a previously unknown Scotland-based think tank, the Institute for Statecraft, which has operated under a veil of secrecy.

The whole operation appears to be run by, and in conjunction with, members of British military intelligence.

Simon Bracey-Lane (Credit: AFP News)

(…) “On December 11, Kit Klarenberg of Sputnik Radio entered the covert propaganda mill’s neo-gothic offices. As soon as he identified himself as a journalist, he was angrily ejected by an Institute for Statecraft staffer named Simon Bracey-Lane.

“You need to leave right now!” Bracey-Lane barked at Klarenberg. “You haven’t arranged to see us! Go! Right now! Please leave immediately! Leave!”

Bracey-Lane is a 20-something British citizen with no publicly acknowledged experience in intelligence work. But as Klarenberg noted, there are some unusual details in the young staffer’s bio.

In 2016, Bracey-Lane appeared out of nowhere to work in Iowa as a field organizer for the Bernie Sanders campaign for president.

“I spent a year working, saving all my money, just thought I was gonna go on a two month road trip from Seattle to New York and I thought, you know what? I’m gonna stay and work for the Bernie Sanders campaign,” Bracey-Lane told a reporter for AFP on January 27, 2016.

He said that after he decided to work for Bernie, he first went to England to “get a visa and get everything legal,” then came back to join the campaign in earnest.

Bracey-Lane also claimed to AFP, “I’m not sure there’s a place for me in British politics… I’ve never been struck by an urge to work in my own political system.”

However, a February 1, 2016 profile of Bracey-Lane by Buzzfeed’s Jim Waterson said the Brit-for-Bernie “was inspired to rejoin the Labour party in September [2015] when Corbyn was elected leader. But by that point, he was already in the US on holiday.”

It is clearly odd for Bracey-Lane to tell one reporter that he had never had any interest in British politics, while claiming to another that he had been eager to support Corbyn before he joined the Bernie campaign. What’s more, as Klarenberg reported, Bracey-Lane went on to establish a get-out-the-vote effort for various progressive politicians and parties in Britain’s 2017 general election, gaining inside access to a wide array of campaigns.

The contradiction in Bracey-Lane’s narrative raises serious questions about his real role on the Bernie campaign, as does his suddenly transition from progressive politics to a staff position at a military-backed propaganda farm that waged a covert information war on Corbyn and other left-leaning politicians across the West.” (Read more: The Grayzone Project – Inside the Temple of Covert Propaganda, 12/17/2018)

Andrew McCabe (Credit: Pete Marovich/Getty Images)

“FBI Director James B. Comey has named Andrew McCabe as the Bureau’s new deputy director. Mr. McCabe most recently served as the FBI’s associate deputy director. As deputy director, Mr. McCabe will oversee all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities and will serve as acting director in the director’s absence.

Mr. McCabe joined the FBI in 1996. He began his career in the New York Field Office, where he focused on organized crime. Throughout his career, Mr. McCabe has held leadership positions in the Counterterrorism Division, the National Security Branch, and the Washington Field Office.

“Andy’s 19 years of experience, combined with his vision, judgment, and ability to communicate make him a perfect fit for this job,” announced Director Comey.

Mr. McCabe will assume this new role on February 1, 2016, when current Deputy Director Mark Giuliano retires from the FBI after 28 years of service.” (FBI Press Release, 1/29/2019)

(Credit: Judicial Watch)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it has received 47 pages of records from the Department of Justice, including email exchanges between fired FBI official Peter Strzok and FBI attorney Lisa Page revealing that FBI officials used unsecured devices in discussing how the U.S. could improve the sharing of sensitive data with the European Union top executive governing commission.

The documents also reveal that high-ranking FBI officials were not properly read-in to top secret programs.

(…) “The newly obtained emails came in response to a May 21 order by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton to the FBI to begin processing 13,000 pages of records exchanged exclusively between Strzok and Page between February 1, 2015, and December 2017. The FBI refuses to timely process the records and will not complete review and production of all the Strzok-Page materials until at least 2020.

James Baker (Credit: public domain)

In a January 30, 2016 email exchange sent entirely over unsecure devices, top former FBI officials including General Counsel Jim Baker, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Strzok, Page, unidentified individuals from the DOJ’s National Security Division and NSA General Counsel Glenn Gerstell, discuss a draft document with the subject line: “Revised IC Safe Harbor Letter (from [redacted] using [redacted] iPad).”

Baker notes in the exchange that he is attempting to work on the document using his smartphone: “So it is not possible to read the redlines on my smartphone. If you are still at the office, can you please save the redline version as a PDF and then resend? Thanks.”

Also, in the exchange, Strzok writes to Page:

IC Safe Harbor refers to a European Commission data-sharing arrangement with the United States that allowed for the transfer of personally identifiable information from the EU to the U.S. The arrangement was invalidated by the European Court of Justice after disclosures of NSA surveillance operations by Edward Snowden. The court ordered that a new, stronger version of the arrangement be reached by January 31, 2016.

Five hundred million Yahoo! accounts reportedly were hacked in 2014. And, “a different attack in 2013 compromised more than 1 billion accounts. The two attacks are the largest known security breaches of one company’s computer network.” According to IT experts, the iPad is also notoriously insecure from hacking.

In a February 5, 2016, email Strzok indicates to Page that at least two, and possibly more, top FBI officials had not been properly “read-in” to top secret, compartmented programs. Those included McCabe and Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Bill Preistap. It is indicated Page needs some read-ins as well.

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 9/13/2018)

Center: HILLARY CLINTON and BARACK OBAMA, ringleaders. Counterclockwise from top left: JOSEPH MIFSUD, Maltese professor/Western intelligence operative; STEFAN HALPER, academic and CIA operative since 1970s; GLENN SIMPSON, founder of Fusion GPS; CHRISTOPHER STEELE, former MI6 now private contractor; BRUCE OHR, then-top-level DOJ executive who conspired with Brennan, Simpson, Steele, and his wife Nellie; NELLIE OHR, CIA asset who covertly passed along fictional dirt on Trump from Simpson, Steele, and her husband Bruce to Brennan; MARC ELIAS, Deep-State lawyer for Obama, Clinton, and the DNC, laundering money from them to Simpson; JAMES COMEY, then-Director of FBI; JOHN BRENNAN, then-Director of CIA; LISA PAGE, FBI counsel and secret lover of Peter Strzok; SENATOR HARRY REID, then-Democratic Leader; PETER STRZOK, CIA/FBI liaison; GEORGE PAPADOPOULOS, Trump campaign; CARTER PAGE, Trump campaign; BILL PRIESTAP, head of FBI Counterintelligence. (Credit: Chalet Reports)

Larry C. Johnson writes:

“I was chatting last night with a retired CIA colleague, a person well connected to many folks still working at our former employer, and he dropped a bombshell–he had learned that John Brennan set up a Trump Task Force at CIA in early 2016.

This is definitely something Prosecutor John Durham should explore. A “Task Force” normally is a short term creation comprised of operations officers (i.e., guys and gals who carry out espionage activities overseas) and intelligence analysts. The purpose of such a group is to ensure all relevant intelligence capabilities are brought to bear on the problem at hand.

While a “Task Force” can be a useful tool for tackling issues of terrorism or drug trafficking, it is not appropriate or lawful for collecting on a U.S. candidate for the Presidency. But Brennan did it, so I’m told, and it had the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper.

The Task Force members were handpicked. The job was not posted. Instead, people were specifically invited to join up. Not everyone accepted the invitation, and that is now a problem for John Brennan. If those folks are talking to Durham’s folks then Brennan’s days are numbered.

Brennan reportedly took it upon himself to recruit foreign intelligence organizations, such as MI-6, the Aussies, the Italians and the Israelis, to help in spying on Trump and his campaign. He sold it as a “counter-intelligence” mission citing his fear that Trump was a Russian puppet. And these foreign services agreed to help. But they did more than passive collection. They helped create and implement covert actions, such as entrapping Michael Flynn as a foreign agent and cultivating and ensnaring George Papadopoulos.

The case officers on the task force managed the tasking and monitoring of actions with the foreign services. This included travel overseas. The Task Force also apparently was involved in working with Ukraine to help manufacture intel that could be used against Paul Manafort. The point is, this Task Force was working furiously on a broad front to go after Donald Trump and his campaign team. Most importantly, there is documentary evidence on specific task officers were directed to carry out. And there are also financial records–e.g., money was spent to fund travel overseas and to pay cooperating assets.

I think Durham’s investigators will discover that Azra Turk, the honey pot sent to a meeting with George Papadopoulos, was a member of the Brennan Task Force. It also is highly likely that elements of this task force played a key role in the drafting of the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian Interference in the US Presidential Election.”  (Read more: Sonar21/Larry C. Johnson, 10/26/2019)  (Archive) 

The American Thinker writes of a secret trip Brennan takes to Moscow in March 2016.

“The Russians say he did, and while some might say, well, these are the same Russians who helped put together the Steele dossier filled with “salacious and unverified” material, and may once again be playing with us, there is evidence that Brennan, the man who voted for communist Gus Hall for president, did make the trip in March 2016 for purposes unknown:

“It’s no secret that Brennan was here,” claimed Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov. “But he didn’t visit the Foreign Ministry. I know for sure that he met with the Federal Security Service (the successor agency to the Soviet KGB), and someone else.”

No further remarks clarify what Brennan was allegedly doing in Moscow or what he discussed with the FSB. Syromolotov insists it had nothing to do with Russia’s withdrawal from Syria.

Sputnik News, a Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlet, quotes CIA Director of Public Affairs Dean Boyd as affirming that Brennan did, in fact, discuss Syria during the visit. “Director Brennan,” he allegedly said, “reiterated the US government’s consistent support for a genuine political transition in Syria, and the need for [President Bashar] Assad’s departure in order to facilitate a transition that reflects the will of the Syrian people.”

The website GlobalSecurity.Org goes into somewhat more detail about Brennan’s Moscow trip without clearing up confusion about what the purpose of the trip might have been:

News of the CIA chief’s visit to the Russian capital was first made public on Monday by a Russian foreign ministry spokesman and subsequently confirmed by the CIA.

“It’s no secret that Brennan was here,” the Interfax news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Syromolotov as telling journalists in Moscow.

He added that the visit was not linked to Moscow’s decision to start withdrawing military forces from Syria, which President Vladimir Putin announced on March 14.

Dean Boyd, director of the CIA’s Office of Public Affairs, confirmed Monday that Brennan visited Moscow.

“Director Brennan traveled to Russia in early March to emphasize with Russian officials the importance of Russia and the Assad regime following through on their agreements to implement the cessation of hostilities in Syria,” said Boyd.

He added that Brennan “also reiterated the U.S. government’s consistent support for a genuine political transition in Syria, and the need for Assad’s departure in order to facilitate a transition that reflects the will of the Syrian people.”

Now, there are plenty of legitimate reasons for a CIA director to make a trip to Moscow, but when a Russian deputy foreign minister says he didn’t visit the Foreign Ministry itself but did visit the KGB’s successor, the Federal Security Service (FSB), it raises some eyebrows.

Consider that John Brennan is a Trump-hating perjurer who lied to Congress about secret surveillance. He is the crown prince of a Deep State fiefdom that has its own agenda. The end justifies the means in their world, and Brennan may have been up to his eyeballs in developing that “insurance policy” against a Trump victory.” (The American Thinker, 4/24/2018)  (Archive)

Brennan appears on MSNBC  May 16, 2018 to discuss the task force he set up:

Interesting comment by John Brennan on the Trump-Russia investigation, who talks about a “Fusion Cell” that he assembled of agents and officers between FBI, CIA, and NSA for sharing information between them, to make a collective effort to connect all the dots. pic.twitter.com/yd2OZfrWpK

— Nick Carroll (@LibertyAndTech) May 16, 2018

(Timeline editor’s note: This is an estimated date for the start of Brennan’s task force. If you look at the late 2015/early 2016 timelines as a whole, January 30, 2016 fits in the middle of the Spygate/intelligence operations that were occurring at the time.)