“Ex-FBI Director James Comey’s original statement closing out the probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email server was edited by subordinates to remove five separate references to terms like “grossly negligent” and to delete mention of evidence supporting felony and misdemeanor violations, according to copies of the full document.
Comey also originally concluded that it was “reasonably likely” that Clinton’s nonsecure private server was accessed or hacked by hostile actors, though there was no evidence to prove it. But that passage was also changed to the much weaker “possible,” the memos show.
The full draft and edits were released on the website of Senate Homeland and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), providing the most complete public accounting to date of Comey’s draft and the subsequent edits.” (Read more: The Hill, 01/04/2018)
The front cover of New York’s Daily News on October 29, 2016, just days before the election. (Credit: New York Daily News)
“Judicial Watch revealed today that there are at least 18 classified emails in the 798 documents recently produced by the State Department from the FBI’s investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s illicit email system. The emails were found on the laptop of Anthony Weiner, who is the estranged husband of former Clinton aide Huma Abedin.
Abedin was Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. Weiner is a disgraced former congressman and New York mayoral candidate who pleaded guilty to transferring obscene material to a minor. Abedin kept a non-State.gov email account on Hillary Clinton’s notorious email server that she used repeatedly for government business.
There are five new classified emails among 147 new Abedin work-related documents released by the State Department on Friday, December 29, 2017.
Thirteen emails containing classified information were also found on the Weiner laptop computer that had already been released to the public. This classified material includes discussions about Saudi Arabia, The Hague, Egypt, South Africa, Zimbabwe, the identity of a CIA official, Malawi, the war in Syria, Lebanon, Hamas, and the PLO.
On two occasions, classified material was sent by Abedin on her clintonemail.com account to Weiner’s laptop (sent to “Anthony Campaign”) on November 25, 2010. The email discusses an upcoming call with Prince Saud of “expected WikiLeaks leaks.” Abedin sent classified information the following day to Weiner’s laptop concerning a call that “Jeff” (presumably then- US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman) had with United Arab Emirates Prime Minister Abdullah bin Zayed.
The Weiner laptop also contains classified material from Abedin’s Blackberry. A July 9, 2011, email contained classified information regarding a then-upcoming call between Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. On November 25, 2011, classified information was sent regarding Feltman’s notes on the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs impression of the Hamas- Palestine Liberation Organization talks. On May 4, 2012, additional classified material from the BlackBerry backup was sent.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 1/04/2018)
“The Justice Department has launched a new inquiry into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics or other illegal activities while Hillary Clinton served as secretary of State, law enforcement officials and a witness tells The Hill.
FBI agents from Little Rock, Ark., where the foundation was started, have taken the lead in the investigation and have interviewed at least one witness in the last month, and law enforcement officials said additional activities are expected in the coming weeks.
The officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the probe is examining whether the Clintons promised or performed any policy favors in return for largesse to their charitable efforts or whether donors made commitments of donations in hopes of securing government outcomes.
The probe may also examine whether any tax-exempt assets were converted for personal or political use and whether the foundation complied with applicable tax laws, the officials said.
One witness recently interviewed by the FBI described the session to The Hill as “extremely professional and unquestionably thorough” and focused on questions about whether donors to Clinton charitable efforts received any favorable treatment from the Obama administration on a policy decision previously highlighted in media reports.
The witness discussed his interview solely on the grounds of anonymity. He said the agents were from Little Rock and their questions focused on government decisions and discussions of donations to Clinton entities during the time Hillary Clinton led President Obama’s State Department.
The FBI office in Little Rock referred a reporter Thursday to Washington headquarters, where officials declined any official comment.
Clinton’s chief spokesman, Nick Merrill, on Friday morning excoriated the FBI for re-opening the case, calling the probe “disgraceful” and suggesting it was nothing more than a political distraction from President Trump‘s Russia controversies.
“Let’s call this what it is: a sham,” Merrill said. “This is a philanthropy that does life-changing work, which Republicans have tried to turn into a political football. It began with a now long-debunked project spearheaded by Steve Bannon during the presidential campaign. It continues with Jeff Sessions doing Trump’s bidding by heeding his calls to meddle with a department that is supposed to function independently.” (Read more: The Hill, 1/04/2018)
How vast was the Great COVID Cover-up? Well, my investigation has recently discovered government officials from 15 federal agencies knew in 2018 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was trying to create a coronavirus like COVID-19.
Peter Daszak and Anthony Fauci (Credit: New York Post)
These officials knew that the Chinese lab was proposing to create a COVID 19-like virus and not one of these officials revealed this scheme to the public. In fact, 15 agencies with knowledge of this project have continuously refused to release any information concerning this alarming and dangerous research.
Government officials representing at least 15 federal agencies were briefed on a project proposed by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
This project, the DEFUSE project, proposed to insert a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus to create a novel chimeric virus that would have been shockingly similar to the COVID-19 virus.
For years, I have been fighting to obtain records from dozens of federal agencies relating to the origins of COVID-19 and the DEFUSE project. Under duress, the administration finally released documents that show that the DEFUSE project was pitched to at least 15 agencies in January 2018.
What does this mean?
It means that at least 15 federal agencies knew from the beginning of the pandemic that EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology were seeking federal funding in 2018 to create a virus genetically very similar if not identical to COVID-19.
Disturbingly, not one of these 15 agencies spoke up to warn us that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had been pitching this research. Not one of these agencies warned anyone that this Chinese lab had already put together plans to create such a virus.
Ralph Baric surrounded by lab equipment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Credit: Jeremy M. Lange/TIME)
Peter Daszak concealed this proposal. University of North Carolina scientist Ralph Baric, a named collaborator on the DEFUSE project, failed to reveal that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had already proposed to create a virus similar to COVID-19.
And now we know that 15 agencies heard the proposal and when each agency discovered that COVID-19 was strangely similar to DEFUSE’s proposed virus creation, not one agency head stepped forward to warn the public that the virus might be man-made and therefore already adapted to transmit freely among humans.
Not surprising to some of us, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was not only briefed on Wuhan’s desire to create this virus, NIAID was actually listed as a participant in the initial DEFUSE pitch. Fauci’s Rocky Mountain Lab was named as a partner alongside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the proposal.
These documents also reveal that a scientist whose lab has received millions of dollars from EcoHealth was also part of the original plan to create these chimeric coronaviruses. This researcher, Ian Lipkin, also later became one of the authors of “Proximal Origins,” a journal paper commissioned by Fauci and National Institutes of Health head Francis Collins to throw shade on anyone arguing that the virus might have come from the lab. Yet, Ian Lipkin never revealed to the public the DEFUSE proposal.
“An Australian investigative journalist who is a retired police detective said Tuesday he has been asked to provide the FBI with details about multiple allegations of mishandling millions of dollars contributed to the Clinton Foundation by the Aussie government.
“I have been asked to provide the FBI with further and better particulars about allegations regarding improper donations to the CF funded by Australian taxpayers,” Michael Smith told LifeZette.
At the center of Smith’s complaints are former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, and multiple Australian government officials, including senior diplomat Alexander Downer, that government’s high commissioner to the United Kingdom.
(Credit: Michael Smith)
(…) The materials Smith is giving the FBI focus on a 2006 memorandum of understanding between the Australian government and the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI). Smith claims the foundation received a “$25M financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception” as a result of actions by Bill Clinton and Downer, who was then Australia’s minister of foreign affairs.
Also included in the Smith materials are evidence he believes shows “corrupt October 2006 backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability of a $15 million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian government after an agreement was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or associates.”
(…) A third complaint concerns what Smith describes as “the $10 million financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception between April 1, 2008, and Sept. 25, 2008, at Washington, D.C., New York, New York, and Canberra Australia involving an MOU between the Australian government, the “Clinton Climate Initiative,” and the purported “Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute Inc.” (Read more: Lifezette, 1/16/2018)(Archive)
“A much-hyped memo that shows alleged government surveillance abuse during the 2016 campaign has been released to the public and cites testimony from a high-ranking government official who says the FBI and DOJ would not have sought surveillance warrants to spy on a member of the Trump team without the infamous, Democrat-funded anti-Trump dossier.
Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released the memo Friday. The White House responded by saying the memo “raises serious concerns about the integrity of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI to use the government’s most intrusive surveillance tools against American citizens.”
Fusion GPS, was paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign through law firm Perkins Coie. It included salacious and unverified allegations about Trump’s connections to Russia.
The memo, which has been at the center of an intense power struggle between congressional Republicans and the FBI, specifically cites the DOJ and FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, saying the dossier “formed an essential part” of the application to spy on him.
(…) The memo states that in December 2017, then FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe testified that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” from the FISA court “without the Steele dossier information.” (Read more: Fox News, 2/02/2018)(Archive)
HAASS: Before I call—I just want to put one other issue on the floor before I get another question or two, which is Ukraine. This administration, unlike the administration you worked in, decided to provide limited defense articles to Ukraine. Do you think that was a wise decision? And more broadly, do you see any scope for any sort of a deal on eastern Ukraine?
BIDEN: The answer is yes, I think it was a wise decision. But then again, I was pushing that for two years before we left, so. And the reason is I think the more you up the ante, the cost to Russia for their aggression—I mean, as you all know, and you know this better than anybody, you know, the one big lie going on about Ukraine back in—and the rest of Russia is that no Russian soldiers are engaged. They’re not dying. No body bags are coming home, et cetera. Because there’s overwhelming opposition on the part of the body politic in Russia for engagement in Ukraine in a military sense.
Do I think they’re—I think the Donbas has potential to be able to be solved, but it takes two things. One of those things is missing now. And that is I’m desperately concerned about the backsliding on the part of Kiev in terms of corruption. They made—I mean, I’ll give you one concrete example. I was—not I, but it just happened to be that was the assignment I got. I got all the good ones. And so I got Ukraine. And I remember going over, convincing our team, our leaders to—convincing that we should be providing for loan guarantees. And I went over, I guess, the 12th, 13th time to Kiev. And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t.
So they said they had—they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to—or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said—I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.
Well, there’s still—so they made some genuine substantial changes institutionally and with people. But one of the three institutions, there’s now some backsliding.
HAASS: The courts.
BIDEN: They’re—and the—yes. And they had made that commitment that they wouldn’t do that.
In Sidney Powell’s supplemental motion to withdraw General Flynn’s plea on January 29, 2020, the following email was included as an attachment and is from NYT journalist Mark Mazzetti who writes then Flynn attorney, Robert Kelner, suggesting Joseph Pientka was pressured by Andrew McCabe to change his original Flynn 302 report and it is in IG Horowitz’s FISA report. In response, Kelner forwards the email to Mueller prosecutors, Brandon Van Grack and Zainab Ahmad, calling it “disturbing” and asks to discuss it further the next day.
Andrew McCabe is escorted by U.S. Capitol police. (Credit: Getty Images)
“FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was forced to resign Monday, just as the House Intelligence Committee is expected to vote on the public release of a classified memo this afternoon revealing extensive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse under the Obama administration, sources told this reporter.
McCabe apparently lashed out to his colleagues when he was told he would be asked to resign, according to sources. FBI Director Christopher Wray viewed the four-page memo on Sunday, sources familiar with the discussions said.
McCabe, who is facing three federal inquiries for conflicts-of-interest during his time at the FBI, is one of the numerous names mentioned in the classified memo detailing FISA abuse, according to sources who reviewed the memo.
The federal inquiries into allegations against McCabe, who was expected to resign in March, are based on documents and interviews conducted by this reporter over the past year and range from sexual discrimination to improper political activity.
McCabe, a central figure in the ongoing Russia investigation against Trump, is also part of the Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s ongoing review into the FBI’s handling of former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to send classified information.
Current and former FBI officials said McCabe’s resignation is the beginning of more resignations to come.
“There are people lining up in the bureau to go after McCabe,” said a former FBI official, with knowledge. “There will be a clean up at the Bureau of his cronies.” (Read more: Sara A. Carter, 1/29/2018)
“A Silicon Valley charity gave $500,000 to a nonprofit group founded by a former Senate staffer who is working with Fusion GPS and Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.
The Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), which has received significant funding from tech industry billionaires, gave the donation in 2018 to Advance Democracy Inc., a Virginia-based 501(c)(3) group, according to a database the recipient group runs.
A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found that Advance Democracy shares the same address as The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP), another nonprofit group started by a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer for California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Daniel Jones.
Mystery surrounds both of Jones’s operations. The identities of both groups’ donors have largely been kept secret, as Jones has avoided revealing his backers.
The secrecy would appear at odds with Advance Democracy’s website description that it is an “independent, non-partisan organization that promotes accountability, transparency, and good governance in the United States and around the world.
(…) Jones, who worked for Feinstein on the Senate Intelligence Committee through 2015, allegedly told one associate that his operation worked as a “shadow media organization” with the U.S. government, TheDCNF previously reported. He also took credit for planting anti-Trump stories in the press.
Hours before a scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to follow President Trump’s nationally televised State of the Union address on Tuesday night, porn star Stormy Daniels issued a signed statement addressed “To Whom It May Concern” that denied an alleged affair with Donald Trump.
“The fact of the matter is that each party to this alleged affair denied its existence in 2006, 2011, 2016, 2017 and now again in 2018,” the signed statement reads. “I am not denying this affair because I was paid ‘hush money’ as has been reported in overseas-owned tabloids. I am denying it because it never happened.”
The alleged affair came to prominence in early January when the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s longtime attorney Michael Cohen negotiated a secret $130,000 payment to secure Daniels’ silence shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
The White House dismissed the story as “old, recycled reports.” Cohen also released a statement signed by “Stormy Daniels” denying there had been an affair and calling reports of a payment “completely false.”
The celebrity magazine In Touch subsequently published a transcript of an interview it said Daniels gave in 2011. The reporter, Jordi Lippe-McGraw, who spoke with Daniels according to In Touch, confirmed to the Washington Post that the transcript was an accurate reflection of their May 2011 phone interview.
Tuesday’s statement came as Daniels has been cashing in on her new-found notoriety, with sold-out shows at strip clubs, an appearance at the AVN awards show in Las Vegas known as the “Oscars of Porn,” as well as on national media including Inside Edition in addition to Jimmy Kimmel Live! Daniels is also scheduled to appear Thursday on The View.
(…) The authenticity of the signed statement was confirmed Tuesday by Daniels’s representative Gina Rodriguez.
The statement ends abruptly. “I will have no further comment on this matter,” it reads and then concludes with a promotional message: “Please feel free to check me out on Instagram at @thestormydaniels.” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1/30/2018)(Archive)
“Against a newly discovered likelihood the Robert Mueller investigation began under false pretenses; and against the backdrop that FBI surveillance and wiretaps were obtained through materially (intentionally) false representations to the FISA court; and against the backdrop the original Flynn plea judge (Contrereas) was also the approving FISA judge; and that judge ‘was summarily recused’ from the case; and against increasing evidence that Mike Flynn was set up by a terminal animus, and politically-motivated investigative rogue unit, operating within the FBI; and against surfacing IG Horowitz evidence that FBI investigators manipulated (lied on) their FD-302 interrogation documents; and understanding those falsified 302’s were used in the Mueller/Flynn charging document…
…Special Counsel Robert Mueller now asks for postponement of sentencing:
Both parties did not ‘request‘ a postponement; both parties ‘agreed‘ to a postponement. The motive for the request (Mueller) is entirely divergent from, yet complimentary to, the motive to agree to the request (Flynn).
It is not coincidental that Brandon L Van Grack is the signatory to the delay request by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s request to the new Judge, Emmet G Sullivan.
If, as has been reported, Inspector General Michael Horowitz now has evidence the FBI manipulated their FD-302 (interrogation and questioning) documents, as also admitted by FBI agent Peter Strzok in related matters regarding Clinton…
…and those manipulated or falsified FBI 302’s (containing FBI investigative notes of Michael Flynn’s questioning during the January 2017 interview), were used in the actual Flynn charging documents.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 1/31/2018)
“Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to “subpoena” emails, phone records and other documents from lawmakers and staff on a Republican-led House committee during a tense meeting earlier this year, according to emails reviewed by Fox News documenting the encounter and reflecting what aides described as a “personal attack.”
The emails memorialized a January 2018 closed-door meeting involving senior FBI and Justice Department officials as well as members of the House Intelligence Committee. The account claimed Rosenstein threatened to turn the tables on the committee’s inquiries regarding the Russia probe.
“The DAG [Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein] criticized the Committee for sending our requests in writing and was further critical of the Committee’s request to have DOJ/FBI do the same when responding,” the committee’s then-senior counsel for counterterrorism Kash Patel wrote to the House Office of General Counsel. “Going so far as to say that if the Committee likes being litigators, then ‘we [DOJ] too [are] litigators, and we will subpoena your records and your emails,’ referring to HPSCI [House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence] and Congress overall.”
A second House committee staffer at the meeting backed up Patel’s account, writing: “Let me just add that watching the Deputy Attorney General launch a sustained personal attack against a congressional staffer in retaliation for vigorous oversight was astonishing and disheartening. … Also, having the nation’s #1 (for these matters) law enforcement officer threaten to ‘subpoena your calls and emails’ was downright chilling.”
The committee staffer noted that Rosenstein’s comment could be interpreted as meaning the department would “vigorously defend a contempt action” — which might be expected. But the staffer continued, “I also read it as a not-so-veiled threat to unleash the full prosecutorial power of the state against us.”
(…) “A DOJ official told Fox News that Rosenstein “never threatened anyone in the room with a criminal investigation.” The official said the department and bureau officials in the room “are all quite clear that the characterization of events laid out here is false,” adding that Rosenstein was responding to a threat of contempt. ” (Read more: Fox News, 6/12/2018)
Devin Nunes and Nancy Pelosi (Credit: public domain)
“Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday called for the removal of Rep. Devin Nunes over a controversial classified memo accusing the FBI and Justice Department of surveillance abuses.
Members of the panel have been publicly arguing over whether the document, drafted by the House intelligence committee chairman was altered between being approved by GOP panel members and when it was sent to the White House for further review.
“Chairman Nunes‘ deliberately dishonest actions make him unfit to serve as Chairman, and he must be immediately removed from this position,” Rep. Pelosi wrote in a letter to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan. “As Speaker, put an end to this charade and hold Chairman Nunes and all Congressional Republicans accountable to the oath they have taken to support and defend the Constitution and protect the American people.” (The Washington Times, 2/01/2018)(Archive)
Devin Nunes (Credit: Brendan Smialowski/Agence France Presse/Getty Images)
“The long-awaited House Intelligence Committee report made public today identifies current and former top officials of the FBI and the Department of Justice as guilty of the felony of misrepresenting evidence required to obtain a court warrant before surveilling American citizens. The target was candidate Donald Trump’s adviser Carter Page.
The main points of what is widely known as the “Nunes Memo,” after the House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), have been nicely summarized by blogger Publius Tacitus, who noted that the following very senior officials are now liable for contempt-of-court charges; namely, the current and former members of the FBI and the Department of Justice who signed off on fraudulent applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court: James Comey, Andy McCabe, Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Ro[d] Rosenstein. The following is Publius Tacitus’s summary of the main points:
The dubious but celebrated Steele Dossier played a critical role in obtaining approval from the FISA court to carry out surveillance of Carter Page according to former FBI Deputy Director Andy McCabe.
Christopher Steele was getting paid by the DNC and the FBI for the same information.
No one at the FBI or the DOJ disclosed to the court that the Steele dossier was paid for by an opposition political campaign.
The first FISA warrant was obtained on October 21, 2016 based on a story written by Michael Isikoff for Yahoo News based on information he received directly from Christopher Steele — the FBI did not disclose in the FISA application that Steele was the original source of the information.
Christopher Steele was a long-standing FBI “source” but was terminated as a source after telling Mother Jones reporter David Corn that he had a relationship with the FBI.
The FBI signers of the FISA applications/renewals were James Comey (three times) and Andrew McCabe.
The DOJ signers of the FISA applications/renewals were Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein.
Even after Steele was terminated by the FBI, he remained in contact with Deputy Attorney General Bruce Our, whose wife worked for Fusion GPS, a contractor that was deeply involved with the Steele dossier.
From what Michael Isikoff reported in September 2016 it appears that the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence (as well as the FBI) are implicated in spreading the disinformation about Trump and Russia. Isikoff wrote:
“U.S. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an American businessman identified by Donald Trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior Russian officials — including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the Republican nominee becomes president, according to multiple sources who have been briefed on the issue.
But U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.”
Who were the “intelligence officials” briefing the select members of the House and Senate? That will be one of the next shoes to drop. We are likely to learn in the coming days that John Brennan and Jim Clapper were also trying to help the FBI build a fallacious case against Trump, adds Tacitus.” (Read more: Consortium News, 2/2/2018)
Josh Campbell appears on CNN to discuss his recent resignation from the FBI. (Credit: CNN screen grab)
“Josh Campbell penned a New York TimesOp-Ed on Friday, claiming he was leaving the FBI because of “relentless attacks on the bureau,” but on Monday he proved his column was disingenuous by quickly signing with CNN.
CNN named Campbell the network’s new law enforcement analyst, according to TVNewser and he will reportedly start immediately. However, industry insiders are quick to point out that deals with on-air analysts don’t simply appear out of thin air, especially over a weekend, so CNN and Campbell were presumably in cahoots before he tried to pin his departure from the FBI on attacks that “undermine not just America’s premier law enforcement agency but also the nation’s security.”
Campbell, who was special assistant to former FBI Director James Comey, penned his essay amid increased scrutiny on the FBI from Republicans following the release of Rep. Devin Nunes’, R-Calif., memo.
“I am reluctantly turning in my badge and leaving an organization I love,” Campbell wrote in the Op-Ed. “A small number of my current and retired colleagues have said that we should simply keep our heads down until the storm passes. I say this with the greatest respect: They are wrong.”
It’s safe to assume that most of his “current and retired colleagues” don’t have cushy gigs as a CNN commentator waiting for them. He now joins a significant number of outspoken Trump critics employed by CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents.
(A snippet of Grassley’s letter)
Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based. “Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said. (Conservative Treehouse, 2/02/2018)
Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff said Friday that he was surprised to find out that an article he wrote about Carter Page prior to the election was used to obtain a spy warrant against the former Trump campaign adviser.
The revelation, which was made in a memo released by the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, “stuns me,” Isikoff said in an episode of his podcast, “Skullduggery.”
The four-page memo alleges that the DOJ and FBI submitted inaccurate and incomplete information in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant against Page. The spy warrant was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.
One “essential” part of the application was the uncorroborated Steele dossier, according to the memo. And an article that Isikoff wrote for Yahoo! News on Sept. 23, 2016 that was based directly on the dossier was “cited extensively” in the application.
Isikoff was shocked, he said, because his very article was based on information that came from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier. He said it was “a bit beyond me” that the FBI would use his article in the FISA application. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 2/03/2018)
The House Intelligence Committee releases the “Nunes Memo” on February 2, 2018, identifying current and former top officials at the FBI and the Department of Justice who misrepresented evidence required to obtain a court warrant before surveilling American citizens. Two days later, Fran Townsend, Victoria Nuland, and Mike Morell appear on Face the Nation with guest host Margaret Brennan to discuss how the release of the memo and how it could impact national security.
William D.Campbell worked as an informant for federal authorities investigating Vadim Mikerin, a Russian official in charge of US operations for Tenex, a unit of Rosatom. (Credit: TenamUSA)
“An FBI informant connected to the Uranium One controversy told three congressional committees in a written statement that Moscow routed millions of dollars to America with the expectation it would be used to benefit Bill Clinton‘s charitable efforts while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quarterbacked a “reset” in U.S.-Russian relations.
The informant, [William] Douglas Campbell, said in the statement obtained by The Hill that he was told by Russian nuclear executives that Moscow had hired the American lobbying firm APCO Worldwide specifically because it was in position to influence the Obama administration, and more specifically Hillary Clinton.
Democrats have cast doubt on Campbell’s credibility, setting the stage for a battle with Republicans over his testimony.
Campbell added in the testimony that Russian nuclear officials “told me at various times that they expected APCO to apply a portion of the $3 million annual lobbying fee it was receiving from the Russians to provide in-kind support for the Clintons’ Global Initiative.”
“The contract called for four payments of $750,000 over twelve months. APCO was expected to give assistance free of charge to the Clinton Global Initiative as part of their effort to create a favorable environment to ensure the Obama administration made affirmative decisions on everything from Uranium One to the U.S.-Russia Civilian Nuclear Cooperation agreement.”
APCO officials told The Hill that its support for the Clinton Global Initiative and its work with Russia were not connected in any way, and in fact involved different divisions of the firm. They added their lobbying for Russia did not involve Uranium One but rather focused on regulatory issues aimed at helping Russia better compete for nuclear fuel contracts inside the United States. (Read more: The Hill, 2/07/18)
“U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a majority staff reportWednesday titled “The Clinton Email Scandal And The FBI’s Investigation Of It,” along with text messages between two agents that shed light on the investigation. The report details the congressional investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s involvement with their investigation of Secretary Clinton’s private server.
The report outlines how information available to the committee at this time raises serious questions about how the FBI applied the rule of law in its investigation. The majority staff report found that:
The FBI did not use a grand jury to compel testimony and obtain the vast majority of evidence, choosing instead to offer immunity deals and allow fact witnesses to join key interviews.
There were substantial edits to former FBI Director James Comey’s public statement that served to downplay the severity of Secretary Clinton’s actions, and that the first draft of the memo was distributed for editing two months before key witnesses were interviewed.
Director Comey stated that he had not consulted with the Justice Department or White House, when text messages among FBI agents involved in the investigation suggest otherwise. Two key investigators discuss an “insurance policy” against the “risk” of a Trump presidency, and “OUR task.”
Messages discuss “unfinished business,” “an investigation leading to impeachment,” and “my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.” The messages strongly underscore the need to obtain still-missing text messages and other information regarding the FBI’s actions and investigations into the Clinton email scandal and Russian involvement in the November 2016 election.
Senior FBI officials—likely including Deputy Director Andrew McCabe— knew about newly discovered emails on a laptop belonging to former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner for almost a month before Director Comey notified Congress.
“As part of their continued efforts to conduct oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) discovered a partially unclassified email sent by President Obama’s former National Security Advisor (NSA) Susan Rice to herself on January 20, 2017 – President Trump’s inauguration day.
(…) Grassley and Graham have asked Ambassador Rice to answer a set of questions by February 22, 2018 so the committee may further assess the situation. The full text of their letter is below.
Dear Ambassador Rice:
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a constitutional duty to conduct oversight of the FBI and the broader Department of Justice. Part of that duty involves ensuring that law enforcement efforts are conducted without improper political influence. Accordingly, the Committee has been investigating the FBI’s relationship with Christopher Steele during the time his work was funded by Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee, as well as the FBI’s reliance on his unverified third-hand allegations in the Bureau’s representations to courts.
As part of that effort, the Committee sent a request to the National Archives for records of meetings between President Obama and then-FBI Director Comey regarding the FBI’s investigation of allegations of collusion between associates of Mr. Trump and the Russian government. In response, the Committee received classified and unclassified versions of an email you sent to yourself on January 20, 2017 – President Trump’s inauguration day. If the timestamp is correct, you sent this email to yourself at 12:15pm, presumably a very short time before you departed the White House for the last time.
In this email to yourself, you purport to document a meeting that had taken place more than two weeks before, on January 5, 2017. You wrote:
On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.
That meeting reportedly included a discussion of the Steele dossier and the FBI’s investigation of its claims.[1] Your email continued:
President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book”. The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.
From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.
The next part of your email remains classified. After that, you wrote:
The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.
It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation. In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed “by the book,” substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed “by the book.”
In order for the Committee to further assess the situation, please respond to the following by February 22, 2018:
Did you send the email attached to this letter to yourself? Do you have any reason to dispute the timestamp of the email?
When did you first become aware of the FBI’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia?
When did you become aware of any surveillance activities, including FISA applications, undertaken by the FBI in conducting that investigation? At the time you wrote this email to yourself, were you aware of either the October 2016 FISA application for surveillance of Carter Page or the January 2017 renewal?
Did anyone instruct, request, suggest, or imply that you should send yourself the aforementioned Inauguration Day email memorializing President Obama’s meeting with Mr. Comey about the Trump/Russia investigation? If so, who and why?
Is the account of the January 5, 2017 meeting presented in your email accurate? Did you omit any other portions of the conversation?
Other than that email, did you document the January 5, 2017 meeting in any way, such as contemporaneous notes or a formal memo? To the best of your knowledge, did anyone else at that meeting take notes or otherwise memorialize the meeting?
During the meeting, did Mr. Comey or Ms. Yates mention potential press coverage of the Steele dossier? If so, what did they say?
During the meeting, did Mr. Comey describe the status of the FBI’s relationship with Mr. Steele, or the basis for that status?
When and how did you first become aware of the allegations made by Christopher Steele?
When and how did you first become aware that the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded Mr. Steele’s efforts?
You wrote that President Obama stressed that he was “not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective.” Did President Obama ask about, initiate, or instruct anything from any other perspective relating to the FBI’s investigation?
Did President Obama have any other meetings with Mr. Comey, Ms. Yates, or other government officials about the FBI’s investigation of allegations of collusion between Trump associates and Russia? If so, when did these occur, who participated, and what was discussed?
Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham have released a heavily redacted, yet very revealing copy of their criminal referral against ex-British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dubious dossier we now know was parlayed into a FISA warrant by Trump-hating operatives at the Justice Department. Grassley and Graham tell us that, while working on a second dossier for Clinton opposition research firm Fusion GPS, Steele was being fed information directly from the Obama State Department and from Clinton allies as well as his usual, sketchy Russian sources. That’s right, teams Clinton and Obama were working with a foreign spy to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump. […]
The Grassley-Graham memo goes on to say “it’s troubling enough that the Clinton campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but [worse] that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele’s allegations. It raises huge additional concerns about his credibility.” […]
You should be scared. And disgusted.
In a letter released Monday, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) outed the FBI for attempting to suppress the release of new revelations about the Steele dossier.
In the same letter, Grassley and Graham say that Steele, penned a separate memo on then-candidate Donald Trump, based on information given to him by a Hillary Clinton contact and unnamed Obama State Department official.
According to Fox News’ Ed Henry, the memo suggests Steele misrepresented his findings to the FBI.
“The Grassley memo tonight now goes on to say that in fact the FBI then went back after learning that Christopher Steele misrepresented things and did talk to the media–the FBI never disclosed that to the FISA court and kept going back for renewals of the surveillance warrant and didn’t say to the court look things have changed, we no longer think he’s reliable–he lied to us and spoke to the media,” reported Henry. (Read more: Gateway Pundit, 2/9/2018)(Archive)
The facts will make the American people question how this could ever happen in our country.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett and former U.S. attorney Joe DiGenova reacts to newly released FBI text messages on ‘Hannity.’
Michael Cohen claimed he was not reimbursed by Donald Trump or his organization for hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a 2018 letter to federal authorities, contradicting his recent grand jury testimony.
Michael Cohen (Credit: TheImageDirect.com)
The bombshell document, exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com, could throw a wrench in the works of prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against Trump over the payments.
Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and the star witness in the case over which Trump reportedly faces imminent arrest, claims that Trump got him to pay $130,000 to Daniels to keep her quiet about her alleged affair with the real estate mogul, just days before the 2016 presidential election.
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony to Congress given a year later. Cohen said under oath that Trump ‘asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair,’ and that ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.’
He says Trump reimbursed him with personal funds, and later pleaded guilty to violating federal campaign finance law over the hush money.
After canceling today’s session, the grand jury has been asked to return at noon Thursday, when prosecutors ‘may present one more witness,’ a court official told DailyMail.com.
The letter appears to be in direct conflict with Cohen’s sworn testimony to Congress given a year later.
Cohen said under oath that Trump ‘asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair,’ and that ‘Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign.’
But in a February 8, 2018 letter to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Cohen’s attorney Stephen Ryan wrote: ‘Mr. Cohen used his own personal funds’, and that ‘Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed Mr. Cohen for the payment directly or indirectly.’
The letter was written in response to an FEC probe launched after complaints of campaign finance violations, lodged by Paul Ryan and the organization Common Cause. (Read more: The Daily Mail, 3/22/2023) (Archive)
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee who has been leading a congressional investigation into President Trump’s alleged ties to Russia, had extensive contact last year with a lobbyist for a Russian oligarch who was offering Warner access to former British spy and dossier author Christopher Steele, according to text messages obtained exclusively by Fox News.
James Wolfe on Capitol Hill in 2017. (Credit: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
(…) The Summer of 2018 was the fork in the road for the DOJ and FBI.
Attorney General Jeff Session was recused, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein was in charge and the Mueller investigation was ongoing. That was when the DOJ made a decision not to prosecute Wolfe for leaking classified information. DC U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu signed-off on a plea deal where Wolfe plead guilty to only a single count of lying to the FBI.
If the DOJ had pursued the case against Wolfe for leaking the FISA application, everything would have been different. The American electorate would have seen evidence of what was taking place in the background effort to remove President Trump. We would be in an entirely different place today if that prosecution or trial had taken place.
Three 2018 events revealed the Wolfe issue:
Event One – On February 9th, 2018, the media reported on text messages from 2017 between Senate Intelligence Committee Vice-Chairman Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer, a lobbyist named Adam Waldman.
Event Two – Four months after the Mark Warner texts were made public, on June 8th, 2018, another headline story surfaced. An indictment for Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Security Director James Wolfe was unsealed on June 7th, 2018.
Event Three – Slightly less than two months after release of the Wolfe indictment, another headline story. On July 21st, 2018, the DOJ/FBI declassified and publicly released the FISA application(s) used against former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
♦ Later on December 14th 2018 a fourth albeit buried public release confirmed everything. The FBI filed a sentencing recommendation proving it was the Carter Page FISA that was leaked by Wolfe:
A prosecution of Wolfe would have exposed a complicit conspiracy between corrupt U.S. intelligence actors and the United States senate (SSCI). Two branches of government essentially working on one objective; the removal of a sitting president. The DOJ decision not to prosecute Wolfe for leaking the classified FISA application protected multiple U.S. agencies and congress.
In 2018 DAG Rod Rosenstein could not prosecute James Wolfe without exposing ‘seditious‘ activity within the U.S. government itself. Not pretend sedition or theoretical sedition, but an actual pre-planned subversive operation with forethought and malice.
The 2018 decision in the Wolfe case is critical. That’s the fork in the road. If the Wolfe prosecution had continued it would have undoubtedly surfaced that key government officials and politicians were working together (executive and legislative).
A Justice Department letter to journalist Ali Watkins advising her of a records seizure is released four days after the Waldman-Warner texts are released:
“The longtime head of public affairs at the FBI — who was a confidant of former director James Comey — is planning to retire, Fox News has learned.
A notice went out this week for a retirement get-together for Michael Kortan scheduled for Feb. 15. Since 2009, Kortan has served as assistant director for public affairs, an influential job that controlled media access. He also served under former director Robert Mueller, now leading the Russia probe.
(…) It’s unclear whether the retirement was long-planned or in any way precipitated by recent events. The FBI emphasized he was finishing 33 years of service.
“After Comey became director in September 2013, Kortan helped facilitate regular on-the-record briefings with beat reporters, a departure from previous directors.”
Kortan also was front and center during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and especially in July 2016 — coordinating media coverage and handing out copies of Comey’s public statement recommending against criminal charges in the investigation into mishandling of classified information.
Kortan joins a growing list of key officials leaving the FBI amid Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s probe into the bureau’s Clinton email investigation. (Read more: Fox News, 2/08/2018)
“The former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations reportedly requested to unmask over 260 Americans in her last year in office with no explanation.
Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of State for “unmasking” and other records tied to Obama’s United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power relating to the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-00300)). Unmasking refers generally to the practice of political appointees obtaining the identities of American citizens referenced in intelligence surveillance of foreign nationals.
On September 20, 2017, Fox Newsreported that Power unmasked over 260 persons in her last year as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in an attempt to uncover associates of President Trump. She “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,” even seeking “information in the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration.”
On October 13, 2017, Power testified behind closed doors about this matter to the House Intelligence Committee. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, who also sits on the Intelligence Committee, stated that “Her testimony is they [the unmasking requests] may be under my name, but I did not make those requests.”
“Unmasking and then illegally leaking the names of Trump team members caught up in foreign intelligence gathering would have been an incredible, but unsurprising abuse by the Obama administration. Was the Clinton-DNC dossier also used as justification to abuse intelligence data to ‘unmask’ American citizens to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Donald Trump?” asked Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And why is the Tillerson State Department stonewalling Judicial Watch’s FOIA investigation into this potentially illegal conduct by its agency employees?”
Separately, in a response to a FOIA request, Judicial Watch was told by the National Security Council (NSC) in May 2017 that the materials regarding the unmasking by Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of “the identities of any U.S. citizens associated with the Trump presidential campaign or transition team” have been removed to the Obama Library.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 2/16/2018)
“Following Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three entities behind a Russian “troll farm” said to have meddled in the 2016 U.S. election (admittedly, with zero impact), two people familiar with both the ads purchased by Russians on Facebook and the “troll farm” in question have refuted Mueller’s narrative over the course of four days. Indeed, things don’t seem to be going well for the Russia investigation, which started out with serious claims of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin and has been reduced to CNNdiving through the garbage of a Russian troll farm.
About that troll farm…
Adrian Chen, staff writer for The New Yorker – who first profiled the indicted Russian troll farm in 2015, sat down with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, where he proceeded to deflate Mueller’s big scary indictment to nothing.
“Tried to tamp down the troll farm panic on @chrislhayes show last night,” Adrian Chen tweeted. “It’s 90 people with a shaky grasp of English and a rudimentary understanding of U.S. politics shitposting on Facebook.”
(…) “The problem for the Troll Farm indictment is according to legal and court records in St. Petersburg, it existed only as registered on paper. There were no bills, no payroll, no employees. It didn’t exist in 2016 for it to be involved in the US election.
Both indictments in US Federal Courts by Robert Mueller shows why both trials were nonstarters on evidence long before it becomes a problem for him. Mueller needed a case where no defendants would show up. The evidence the FBI has was fabricated by the group Shaltai Boltai that Mueller is indicting. Their blog is where the only real evidence of the St Petersburg Troll Farm exists and Shaltai Boltai brags about creating it. This is the information Adrian Chen used for his story and the evidence used by Mueller in the February indictment.
Mueller must know all this. He just never expected to get called out on it by the Russians he indicted showing up for their day in court.
Mueller is going to have a huge problem using Shaltai Boltai to prove the Internet Research Agency even existed. From a foundational article by Scott Humor at the Saker.is entitled “A Brief History of the Kremlin Trolls, “the Internet Research Agency which existed only on paper, ceased to exist in 2015. It was liquidated and merged with a construction retail company called TEKA.” Humor lays the facts on the table and left little need for any extra research on the matter.
Humor notes the results of the court case in which an NGO pushed to get legal recognition of the troll farm as a working business in St Petersburg was thrown out by the courts. The woman they brought to sue for back wages could not even show the company existed. Why the Evidence Mueller has for the Indicting 13 Russian Nationals is Fraudulent
Since the St Petersburg Troll Farm didn’t exist in the same time and space as the 2016 election, what is Mueller proposing? Do the Russians time travel? Inter-dimensional portals? Is he some kind of meta-data truther like a few of his supporters in the private Intel Community?” (Read more: OpEdNews, 7/21/2018)(Archive)
That statement from Susan Rice’s lawyer denying knowledge of a FISA warrant, and justifying the efforts of Rice, Comey, and Obama to hide intelligence from the Trump administration is…. very Bill Clinon-esque.
The letter admits that all parties to the meeting – Yates, Comey, Rice, and Obama – knew of the substance of the communications of members of Trump’s team BEFORE and AFTER the election. Obama sought guidance on the topic. He knew. They all knew.
President Barack Obama meets with, from left: Kathryn Ruemmler, Lisa Monaco, and Susan E. Rice (Credit: Pete Souza/White House Flickr photo)
“There was no discussion of Christopher Steele or the Steele dossier.”
This leaves open the possibility that the allegations within the Steele dossier were discussed.
The reason that Rice memorialized the meeting on the day of Trump’s inauguration? “Because that was the first opportunity she had to do so.”
Doubtful she couldn’t find time to write a 5-minute e-mail in two weeks. And convenient that it was sent on inauguration day.
Rice drafted the memo “upon the advice of the White House Counsel’s Office.” How to hide motives? Trigger attorney-client privilege. What’s the advice she was given? We’ll never know.
“Rice was not briefed on the existence of any FBI investigation into allegations of collusion between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia” “briefed” This is not a denial of Rice’s knowledge of the investigation – just that she was never formally briefed on it.
What an awkward sentence. What “fact” is she referring to? Nobody knows because it’s unknowable. She never says Rice learned of the investigation itself from Comey’s testimony.
“Rice was not informed of any FISA applications sought by the FBI in its investigation.” What about FISA applications sought by the DOJ? Yates signed off on an application – she was in the meeting with Rice.
“Rice was not informed of any FISA applications sought by the FBI in its investigation.”
John Bolton appears at a Viktor Pinchuk Foundation event in Ukraine on September 18, 2017. (Credit: Viktor Pinchuk Foundation)
“Former White House national security adviser John Bolton pocketed $115,000 from Ukrainian steel oligarch Viktor Pinchuk’s foundation shortly before entering President Donald Trump’s White House as national security adviser, a position first held in the Trump White House by General Michael Flynn. Bolton’s unpublished manuscript reportedly accuses Trump of wanting to withhold military aid to Ukraine, but Trump denies this had anything to do with a Quid Pro Quo situation. Democrats are clamoring to call Bolton as a witness in Trump’s Senate impeachment trial regarding his alleged pressuring of the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged corruption in the country’s oil and gas industry. Ukraine’s president Zelensky adamantly denies that Trump pressured him.
Former Bush UN ambassador Bolton served as Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. Bolton is known as a rabid neoconservative interventionist. President Donald Trump fired Bolton and cited his opposition to Bolton’s establishment foreign policy views, accusing Bolton of undermining his negotiations with the North Korean regime.
The neocon wing strongly supports the U.S. funding and arming of Ukraine to challenge Russian leader Vladimir Putin, an oil exporter who is hated by the Washington foreign policy establishment.
A financial disclosure shows that Bolton accepted $115,000 from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation for a pair of speeches in September 2017 and February 2018.
At the former speech in Kiev, Bolton sat on a panel and basically expressed that the national security establishment would not allow Trump to become unconventional on policy, stating, “The notion that [Trump’s presidency] is going to represent a dramatic break in foreign policy is just wrong. Calm down, for God’s sake.”
John Brennan (l), James Clapper (c) and Admiral Mike Rogers testify at House hearing on worldwide cyber threats in September 2015. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Former CIA Director John Brennan’s insistence that the salacious and unverified Steele dossier was not part of the official Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election is being contradicted by two top former officials.
Recently retired National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers stated in a classified letter to Congress that the Clinton campaign-funded memos did factor into the ICA. And James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence under President Obama, conceded in a recent CNN interview that the assessment was based on “some of the substantive content of the dossier.” Without elaborating, he maintained that “we were able to corroborate” certain allegations.
In a March 5, 2018, letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Adm. Rogers informed the committee that a two-page summary of the dossier — described as “the Christopher Steele information” — was “added” as an “appendix to the ICA draft,” and that consideration of that appendix was “part of the overall ICA review/approval process.”
His skepticism of the dossier may explain why the NSA parted company with other intelligence agencies and cast doubt on one of its crucial conclusions: that Vladimir Putin personally ordered a cyberattack on Hillary Clinton’s campaign to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Rogers has testified that while he was sure the Russians wanted to hurt Clinton, he wasn’t as confident as CIA and FBI officials that their actions were designed to help Trump, explaining that such an assessment “didn’t have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources.
(…) In another departure from custom, the report is missing any dissenting views or an annex with evaluations of the conclusions from outside reviewers. “Traditionally, controversial intelligence community assessments like this include dissenting views and the views of an outside review group,” said Fred Fleitz, who worked as a CIA analyst for 19 years and helped draft national intelligence estimates at Langley. “It also should have been thoroughly vetted with all relevant IC agencies,” he added. “Why were DHS and DIA excluded?”
Fleitz suggests that the Obama administration limited the number of players involved in the analysis to skew the results. He believes the process was “manipulated” to reach a “predetermined political conclusion” that the incoming Republican president was compromised by the Russians.
Former Australian Prime Minister Alexander Downer (Credit: public domain)
“The Australian diplomat whose tip in 2016 prompted the Russia-Trump investigation previously arranged one of the largest foreign donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable efforts, documents show.
Former Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer’s role in securing $25 million in aid from his country to help the Clinton Foundation fight AIDS is chronicled in decade-old government memos archived on the Australian foreign ministry’s website.
Downer and former President Clinton jointly signed a Memorandum of Understanding in February 2006 that spread out the grant money over four years for a project to provide screening and drug treatment to AIDS patients in Asia.
The money was initially allocated to the Clinton Foundation but later was routed through an affiliate of the charity known as the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), officials said. Australia was one of four foreign governments to donate more than $25 million to CHAI, records show.”
(…) “Downer, now Australia’s ambassador to London, provided the account of a conversation with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a London bar in 2016 that became the official reason the FBI opened the Russia counterintelligence probe.
But lawmakers say the FBI didn’t tell Congress about Downer’s prior connection to the Clinton Foundation. Republicans say they are concerned the new information means nearly all of the early evidence the FBI used to justify its election-year probe of Trump came from sources supportive of the Clintons, including the controversial Steele dossier.” (Read more: The Hill, 3/05/2018)
Lindsey Graham (l) and Chuck Grassley (Credit: public domain)
“The Senate Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham joined the growing chorus of Republican Congressman calling for the appointment of a second Special Counsel.
Inspector Generals have no prosecutorial power. But they can refer individuals for prosecution.
IG’s can place federal employees under oath.
But IG’s lack subpoena power over non-federal employees. This means that federal employees who come under OIG investigation can stymie the process by simply resigning.
The DOJ Inspector General specifically lacks authority to investigate misconduct by DOJ attorney-prosecutors, who under the current arrangement answer only to Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
These limitations are meaningful – as noted by Congressman Trey Gowdy:
There are twenty-four witnesses outside the reach of the Inspector General…
Probably more. Consider the number of Obama Administration officials now out of federal employ.
However, as I noted previously, prosecutorial power may already be in place – as recently described by AG Jeff Sessions:
I have appointed a person outside of Washington, many years in the Department of Justice, to look at all the allegations that the House Judiciary Committee members sent to us – and we’re conducting that investigation.
And Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd in an earlier letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte:
The Attorney General has directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues raised in your letters.
These senior prosecutors will report directly to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General.
These senior prosecutors are separate from the Inspector General and his team. More here.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA), Deborah Sines (Credit: Twitter)
(…) Deborah Sines was an assistant US attorney assigned to be the lead prosecutor in the Seth Rich murder case. Her post-retirement interview with Michael Isikoff for his podcast “Conspiracyland” added to our understanding of the cover-up, as refined in a deposition conducted by Ty Clevenger.
Sines discussed her comments that she gave to Michael Isikoff (noted below) and confirmed that they were true but then states that she should not have said those thingsand she would not be able to provide more information on the statements. She confirmed that the FBI did examine Seth Rich’s computer and that she met with an FBI Agent and a prosecutor from the Mueller gang.
The truth, battered for years, will out.
This indicates that there should be a form 302 floating around with information from the discussion with the FBI and Mueller gang and also it confirms that Mueller did not mention this in his report.
A new “declassification” of heavily censored (“redacted”) Seth Rich documents (which, as noted above, the FBI crucial years denying they even possessed) does seem to include a write-up of this meeting titled “Sensitive Matter – Meeting with AUSA [Assistant US Attorney].”
The meeting took place on March 15, 2018 at the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia between an FBI special agent, an AUSA, likely Sines, and an attorney with Mueller’s Special Counsel office, Heather Alperino. A trifecta of cover-up.
These pages distinguish between Seth Rich’s personal laptop, which an unknown person took to an unknown house, where it suffered a redacted fate, and Seth Rich’s work laptop, which the assistant US Attorney and redacted others are aware of as being in the possession of the FBI. The AUSA requested a “forensic image” of the laptop.” (Read more: Diane West, July 9, 2021)(Archive)
James Comey (l) and Andrew McCabe (Credit: The Associated Press)
“Fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may have just thrown former FBI Director James Comey under the bus – perhaps intentionally.
Recall that McCabe was fired for, among other things, an “improper media disclosure.” In other words leaking.
In a Saturday morning appearance on CNN with host Michael Smerconish, Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley suggested that McCabe’s statement following his firing “immediately” raised a flag, which may lead to serious consequences for his former boss. McCabe’s statement reads in part:
“The OIG investigation has focused on information I chose to share with a reporter through my public affairs officer and a legal counselor. As Deputy Director, I was one of only a few people who had the authority to do that. It was not a secret, it took place over several days, and others, including the Director, were aware of the interaction with the reporter.”
Turley notes “There was one line in the case statement last night that I immediately flagged. Because he said that he had authority to do this and he conferred with the director – the director at the time was James Comey.”
“Now, the problem there is that James Comey said under oath that he never leaked information and never approved a leak,” said Turley. “So, if the Inspector General believes this was a leak to the media, it raises serious questions about Comey’s previous testimony and could get him into serious trouble.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/18/2018)
“The veracity of the Steele dossier is once again a topic of intense debate following the Justice Department’s release of secret warrants that the FBI used to monitor former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. The four applications, which were obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), show that the bureau relied heavily on the dossier, which was funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC, to obtain the warrants, which accused Page of being a secret Kremlin agent.
But not only do many of the allegations in the dossier remain unverified, there is reason to doubt the credibility of a major source for the 35-page document, including for claims that the Kremlin has blackmail material on President Donald Trump and about Page’s alleged involvement in a collusion conspiracy.
According to the recent book “Russian Roulette, Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS, believed that Millian was a “big talker” who overstated his links to Trumpworld.
“Had Millian made something up or repeated rumors he had heard from others to impress Steele’s collector? Simpson had his doubts. He considered Millian a big talker,” write authors Michael Isikoff and David Corn, who are good friends with Simpson.
Millian is both Source D and Source E in the dossier, according to The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In the 35-page document, Source D alleged that the Russian government is blackmailing Donald Trump with video of a sexual tryst with prostitutes at a Moscow hotel room. Source E described an alleged “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation between them and the Russian leadership.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/24/2018)
“In 2018, both the Department of Justice Inspector General and FBI Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe had “made an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and lacked candor − including under oath − on multiple occasions.”
However, internal FBI documents indicate the Department of Justice, under Attorney General Jeff Sessions, decided to give McCabe the benefit of the doubt and credit for his years of devoted service in deciding not to charge him with a crime.
The documents, obtained by the watchdog Judicial Watch, appear to show that the case against McCabe was closed on March 20, 2018, about the time he was fired from the FBI. But the decision not to charge him was not announced publicly.” (Read more: Sharyl Attkisson, 8/09/2019)
A snippet from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility’s report on Andrew McCabe.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on Friday reportedly joked about the Russia investigation at a high-dollar retreat on Martha’s Vineyard and told Democratic donors to “buckle up.”
Warner reportedly joked to donors that he might reveal sensitive information known only to him and Special Counsel Robert Mueller who’s investigating the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia.
“If you get me one more glass of wine, I’ll tell you stuff only Bob Mueller and I know. If you think you’ve seen wild stuff so far, buckle up. It’s going to be a wild couple of months,” he reportedly said, which was understood as a joke.
Warner, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was at a dinner for over 100 guests as part of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s (DSCC) annual Majority Trust retreat, Politicoreported.
Department of Justice Office of Inspector General (DOJ OIG) logo
DOJ OIG Announces Initiation of Review
Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced todaythat, in response to requests from the Attorney General and Members of Congress, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will initiate a review that will examine the Justice Department’s and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) compliance with legal requirements, and with applicable DOJ and FBI policies and procedures, in applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) relating to a certain U.S. person.
As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.
If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider including other issues that may arise during the course of the review. (Source: Press Release Document)
(…) “As you are aware, I have asked the Department’s Inspector General, Michael E. Horowitz, to review certain matters that you and some members of your committees have raised in recent and previous letters. In addition to his ongoing investigation, the Inspector General has now confirmed that he has opened a review into the Department’s compliance with certain legal requirements and Department and FBI policies and procedures with respect to certain applications filed with the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”
(…) “To carry out these duties, Title 5 of the United States Code provides the Inspector General with broad discretion and significant investigative powers. The office currently employs approximately 470 staff, a significant number of whom are lawyers, auditors, and investigators who may exercise wide discretion on matters under their jurisdiction. If the Inspector General finds evidence of criminal wrongdoing, he may refer it to a United States Attorney who can then convene a grand jury or take other appropriate actions. To be clear, the Inspector General has the authority to investigate allegations of wrongdoing, collect evidence through subpoena, and develop cases for presentation to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General for prosecution or other action. The Inspector General also may, under appropriate circumstances, make information available to the public even if no criminal or disciplinary action is recommended. In contrast, this type of information would not normally be publicly available after the conclusion of a traditional criminal investigation.”
(…) “As noted in Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd’s November 13, 2017 letter to the House Committee on the Judiciary, I already have directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues previously raised by the Committee. In that letter, Mr. Boyd stated:
“These senior prosecutors will report directly to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, as appropriate, and will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel.”
Specifically, I asked United States Attorney John W. Huber to lead this effort. Mr. Huber is an experienced federal prosecutor who was twice confirmed unanimously by the Senate as United States Attorney for the District of Utah in 2015 and 2017. Mr. Huber previously served in leadership roles within the U.S.Attorney’s Office as the National Security Section Chief and the Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney. He has personally prosecuted a number of high-profile cases and coordinated task forces focused against violent crime and terrorism. This work garnered commendations from the highest levels of the Department over the course of two administrations.” Letter, 3/29/2018)
“Greg Brower, an FBI assistant director and head of the Office of Congressional Affairs, stepped down last Friday after a year on the job. In the role, Brower was on the receiving end of a pack of congressional probes into the law enforcement agency’s conduct.
The decision, a “tough” one he made of his own accord, Brower said, follows other high-level departures from the bureau as FBI Director Christopher Wray assembles his own team of close advisers.
“It was tough but I had an offer I couldn’t refuse from a great law firm,” Brower said in an interview Thursday. “It was very gratifying to be a part of that team. I could not be more proud of how people work and how committed they are to the mission.”
Brower was appointed to the position by then-FBI director James Comey in March of 2017 after serving as the bureau’s deputy general counsel. He will join the lobbying and law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a shareholder in the litigation department.
The work in the legislative affairs office has heated up during Brower’s tenure, as the fallout from Comey’s firing by President Donald Trump has fanned a growing mistrust of the FBI among some lawmakers and spurred a round of congressional investigations.
Not long before Brower’s departure, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee slapped the Justice Department with a subpoena for documents related to a trio of recent controversial decisions made by the FBI, including the move in 2016 to not charge Hillary Clinton after the probe of her email server and the internal recommendation by an FBI office to fire former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
In response, Wray said last week that the pace of document production for congressional inquiries at the bureau was “too slow” and doubled the number of FBI staff responsible for reviewing the records.” (Read more, CNN, 4/06/2018)
“The House GOP campaign arm suffered a major hack during the 2018 election, exposing thousands of sensitive emails to an outside intruder, according to three senior party officials.
The email accounts of four senior aides at the National Republican Congressional Committee were surveilled for several months, the party officials said. The intrusion was detected in April by an NRCC vendor, who alerted the committee and its cybersecurity contractor. An internal investigation was initiated and the FBI was alerted to the attack, said the officials, who requested anonymity to discuss the incident.
However, senior House Republicans — including Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) — were not informed of the hack until POLITICO contacted the NRCC on Monday with questions about the episode. Rank-and-file House Republicans were not told,
(…) The hack was first detected by an MSSP, a managed security services provider that monitors the NRCC’s network. The MSSP informed NRCC officials and they, in turn, alerted Crowdstrike, a well-known cybersecurity firm that had already been retained by the NRCC.” (Read more: Politico, 12/04/2018)
“A key DIA official from within the White House National Security Council has resurfaced today as reports show Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been hired by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to assist on issues surrounding counterintelligence and counterterrorism.”
John Lausch (Credit: Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune)
♦U.S. Attorney John Lausch was brought on by AG Jeff Sessions to coordinate investigative document releases to congressional oversight. Specifically, Lausch has been assigned as the point of contact for discussion with congress. This move keeps Federal DOJ Prosecutor John Huber (IG Horowitz’s investigative partner) away from political engagement, and allows Huber to continue culling through potentially criminal evidence without political concerns.
♦Remember, previously the Eastern District of Virginia attorney, Dana Boente, was identified as being a problem for the ‘small group’ of co-conspirators during their activity. Following the firing of AAG Sally Yates, April 2017, Boente was put in charge of the DOJ National Security Division. Acting Attorney General Boente granted IG Horowitz previously denied access to oversight within the DOJ-NSD. After Jeff Sessions confirmation Boente remained in charge of the DOJ-NSD.
Near the end of 2017 Dana Boente left Main Justice and then resurfaced late in January 2018 when FBI chief legal counsel James Baker was outlined as being a key participant in the 2015, 2016, 2017 anti-trump operation. Baker was removed from all responsibilities and replaced with Boente. Mr. Boente remains the current chief legal counsel of the FBI serving under Christopher Wray.
♦The Head of the FBI Counterintelligence Unit is E.W. “Bill” Priestap. In ’15, ’16, and 2017 Priestap was Peter Strzok’s boss. Text messages between Andrew McCabe’s former office lawyer, Lisa Page, and FBI Agent Peter Strzok, during the DOJ/FBI operations against candidate Trump, showed multiple examples of the ‘small group’ working around Priestap.
♦Responding to the initial results of an NSA FISA audit – on April 28th, 2016, NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers shut down the DOJ-NSD and FBI access to the NSA database based on 702(16) “about” search inquiries. When the full audit was completed, October 2016, Admiral Rogers informed the FISC court of serious FISA search violations, breaches, extraction of raw intelligence information and misrepresentations by FBI and DOJ officials to the FISA court.
Ezra Cohen-Watnick (Credit: public domain)
♦Back to Today’s News – The IG Horowitz and Prosecutor Huber investigation is ongoing; the FBI has Dana Boente as chief legal counsel; Bill Priestap remains in place as head of Counterintelligence; and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions has added former DIA official Ezra Cohen-Watnick to “advise Mr. Sessions on counterintelligence” matters.
♦2017: […] “Washington got its first real look at Cohen-Watnick when he was identified as one of two White House sources who provided House Intelligence chairman Devin Nunes with evidence that former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the “unmasking” of the names of Trump associates in intelligence documents.” (The Atlantic, 7/23/2017)
I think everyone can see how each of these moves and shifts relates to the larger matters at hand. It is obvious Mr. Cohen-Watnick is part of the dynamic to capture all those who participated in the scheme to destroy the Trump presidency.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/11/2018)
“A retired U.S. Army colonel was charged in an indictment filed today for his alleged role in a foreign bribery and money laundering scheme in connection with a planned $84 million port development project in Haiti.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, Acting U.S. Attorney William D. Weinreb of the District of Massachusetts, Assistant Director Stephen Richardson of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division and Special Agent in Charge Harold M. Shaw of the FBI’s Boston Field Office made the announcement
Joseph Baptiste, 64, of Fulton, Maryland, was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the Travel Act, one count of violating the Travel Act and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in an indictment filed in the District of Massachusetts.
The LinkedIn page of Joseph E. Baptiste (Credit: LinkedIn)
(…) “Baptiste described two prior instances in which he had helped make payments to Haitian government officials to obtain a license to operate in Haiti. The first was with a telecommunications company for which Baptiste indicated that he and his affiliates had secured a license to build a cellular network in Haiti, and which Baptiste had earlier described to UC-1 as one of Baptiste’s most successful personal investments. Baptiste said he had used a Haitian company to facilitate to government officials for the telecommunications deal, much in the same way he was offering UC-1 the ability to use Maryland non-profit 1 to faciliate payments to government officials in connection with UC-1’s investment in the Port Project. Baptiste went on to describe setting up a company known as PromoCapital to enable a power company to develop a power plant in Haiti. Baptiste contended that Maryland non-profit 1 was involved in facilitating payments for the power plant project.
17. …In addition, as a show of his access to prominent officials in Haiti, Baptiste displayed on his cellular phone an email from two American political consultants whose services he was apparently marketing to a candidate for the Haitian presidency.
Above are just a few of the highlights. This affidavit from Special Agent Garett Trombly is a must read. In order to understand the full scope of this case and just how corrupt the players are, you must read the full affidavit. It is 17 pages, but well worth the read!
CLINTON CONNECTION: The telecommunications company he is referring to is Digicel – the company involving Dennis O’Brien (Clinton’s lap dog) and the Clintons. My source has previously confirmed to me that they continue to receive monthly kickbacks on this.” (Read more: Corey’s Digs, 4/12/2018)
“U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told President Donald Trump last week that he is not a target of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, according to a source familiar with the probe.
After the April 12 conversation with Rosenstein, Trump told advisers that he was not inclined to seek the ouster of either man since he is not the target of Mueller’s probe.”
(…) “Under Justice Department policy, a target is someone who is believed to have committed a crime and is likely to face charges, while a subject is someone whose conduct is within the scope of an investigation, said Lisa Kern Griffin, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at Duke University School of Law.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Trump is a subject of the probe.
Griffin said the assurance from Rosenstein is not significant because the president could yet become a target of the investigation.
“It is possible to progress from being a subject to being a target if the necessary substantive and structural support emerges later,” she said.” (Read more: Reuters, April 19, 2018)
“In his interview with George Stephanopoulos, fired FBI Director James Comey says that he did not inform President Trump that the Steele Dossier was funded by the DNC because it “wasn’t necessary for my goal.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you tell him that the Steele dossier had been financed by his political opponents?
COMEY: No. I didn’t — I didn’t think I used the term “Steele dossier.” I just talked to him about additional material.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did — but did he have a right to know that?
COMEY: That it had been financed by his political opponents? I don’t know the answer to that.
I — it wasn’t necessary for my goal, which was to alert him that we had this information.”
“Judicial Watch Director of Investigations Chris Farrell discusses the DOJ inspector general’s report that outlines exhaustive political corruption. OIG release #1 proving former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe authorized leaks to the media, then lied to FBI investigators in an effort to cover them up.”
(…) “The (Go Deep) summary outline looks like this: The FISA-702(17) ‘About Queries’; the political opposition research of Fusion-GPS, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson; the DOJ officials and FBI officials; the U.S. State Department and U.N Ambassador Samantha Power; the Clinton-Steele Dossier and Christopher Steele; the FISA Title-1 surveillance warrant; and the unmasking by former Senior White House officials: Lisa Monaco and Susan Rice.
The FBI group was participating in a plan to exonerate Hillary Clinton. That same FBI group was simultaneously conducting opposition research on candidate Donald Trump and the larger construct of his campaign team. Those FBI officials were allied by entities outside official government structures. The ‘outside group’ were “contractors”. It is likely one of the contractors was Fusion-GPS or entities in contact with Fusion-GPS. (Go Deep)
The contractors were using FBI intelligence databases to conduct opposition research “searches” on Trump campaign officials. This is where the use of FISA-702(16)(17) “To/From” and “About” queries comes in. (Go Deep) This FISA abuse was the allowed but unofficial process identified in early 2016 by NSA internal auditors.” (Read More: Conservative Treehouse, 04/14/2018)
“One of Robert Mueller’s pivotal trial witnesses told the special prosecutor’s team in spring 2018 that a key piece of Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine known as the “black ledger” was fabricated, according to interviews and testimony.
The ledger document, which suddenly appeared in Kiev during the 2016 U.S. election, showed alleged cash payments from Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
“The ledger was completely made up,” cooperating witness and Manafort business partner Rick Gates told prosecutors and FBI agents, according to a written summary of an April 2018 special counsel’s interview.
In a brief interview with Just the News, Gates confirmed the information in the summary. “The black ledger was a fabrication,” Gates said. “It was never real, and this fact has since been proven true.”
Gates’ account is backed by several Ukrainian officials who stated in interviews dating to 2018 that the ledger was of suspicious origins and could not be corroborated.
If true, Gates’ account means the two key pieces of documentary evidence used by the media and FBI to drive the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative — the Steele dossier and the black ledger — were at best uncorroborated and at worst disinformation. His account also raises the possibility that someone fabricated the document in Ukraine in an effort to restart investigative efforts on Manafort’s consulting work or to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.” (Read more: JustTheNews, 2/06/2020)(Archive)
Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (left) Hillary Clinton (right)
“The Hillary Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee allegedly used state chapters as strawmen to launder as much as $84 million in an effort to circumvent campaign donation limits, and the Federal Election Commission ignored complaints exposing the practice, a lawsuit filed Monday claims.
The Committee to Defend the President (CDP), a political action committee formally known as Stop Hillary PAC, filed its complaint with the FEC in December 2017 with the claims that the Hillary Victory Fund (HVF) solicited cash from big-name donors, and allegedly sent that money through state chapters and back to the DNC before ending up with the Clinton campaign.
As first reported by Fox News at the time, the CDP alleges in its complaint that about $84 million was funneled illegally from the DNC through state party chapters and back into the war chest of the Clinton campaign. The political action committee claims that even though the FEC acknowledged receipt of the complaint and claimed that an investigation would be conducted, the needle has barely moved. (Read more: Fox News, 04/16/2018)
“Comey called out Obama and Lynch in his new book, A Higher Loyalty, set to come out on Tuesday. In it, he defends the FBI’s top brass and counterintelligence investigators charged with probing Clinton’s use of a private email server and mishandling of classified information, reports the Washington Examiner, which received an advanced copy.”
Comey says that multiple public statements made by Obama about the investigation “jeopardized” the credibility of the FBI investigation – seemingly absolving Clinton of any crime before FBI investigators were able to complete their work.
“Contributing to this problem, regrettably, was President Obama. He had jeopardized the Department of Justice’s credibility in the investigation by saying in a 60 Minutes interview on Oct. 11, 2015, that Clinton’s email use was “a mistake” that had not endangered national security,” Comey writes. “Then on Fox News on April 10, 2016, he said that Clinton may have been careless but did not do anything to intentionally harm national security, suggesting that the case involved overclassification of material in the government.”
“President Obama is a very smart man who understands the law very well. To this day, I don’t know why he spoke about the case publicly and seemed to absolve her before a final determination was made. If the president had already decided the matter, an outside observer could reasonably wonder, how on earth could his Department of Justice do anything other than follow his lead.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 4/16/2018)
Zero Hedge reports, “Comey also describes a September 2015 meeting with AG Lynch in which she asked him to describe the Clinton email investigation as a “matter” instead of an investigation.
“It occurred to me in the moment that this issue of semantics was strikingly similar to the fight the Clinton campaign had waged against the New York Times in July. Ever since then, the Clinton team had been employing a variety of euphemisms to avoid using the word ‘investigation,’” Comey writes.
“The attorney general seemed to be directing me to align with the Clinton campaign strategy. Her “just do it” response to my question indicated that she had no legal or procedural justification for her request, at least not one grounded in our practices or traditions. Otherwise, I assume, she would have said so.
Comey said others present in the meeting with Lynch thought her request was odd and political as well – including one of the DOJ’s senior leaders.
“I know the FBI attendees at our meeting saw her request as overtly political when we talked about it afterward. So did at least one of Lynch’s senior leaders. George Toscas, then the number-three person in the department’s National Security Division and someone I liked, smiled at the FBI team as we filed out, saying sarcastically, “well you are the Federal Bureau of Matters,” Comey recalled.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 4/16/2018)
(…) House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Florida, along with ten other colleagues sent the letter Wednesday to Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray criminally referring former FBI Director James Comey, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for their involvement in the investigations into President Trump and alleged violations of federal law. FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his paramour FBI lawyer Lisa Page, whose anti-Trump text messages obtained by the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, were also included in the referral.
“We write to refer the following individuals for investigation of potential violation(s) of federal statutes,” states the letter obtained by this reporter. “In doing so, we are especially mindful of the dissimilar degrees of zealousness that has marked the investigations into Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, respectively. Because we believe that those in positions of high authority should be treated the same as every other American, we want to be sure that the potential violations of law outlined below are vetted appropriately.”
The criminal referral also raises significant concerns regarding the Steele dossier, and the “presentation of false and/or unverified information to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in connection with the former Trump aide Carter Page warrant application to conduct surveillance through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).” Page worked as a volunteer advisor for the Trump campaign and the information in the dossier was used in bulk by the FBI to obtain the warrants to spy on him.
“Accordingly, we refer to DOJ all DOJ and FBI personnel responsible for signing the Carter Page warrant application that contained unverified and/or false information for possible violation(s) of 18 USC 242 and 18 USC 1505 and 1515b,” the criminal referral states. It refers to a letter drafted by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to Sessions this March.
(…) The congressional members also are referring former presidential candidate Clinton for her role in the dossier, assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele, who was hired by a cutout, now embattled research firm Fusion GPS. After months of investigations by Congress, it was eventually discovered that the dossier was paid for by the Hillary Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee. However, the campaign did not reveal that they had allocated money to pay for the research on their disclosure forms, according to congressional members and news reports.
“A lawyer representing the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee paid Washington firm Fusion GPS to conduct research that led to the Steele dossier, according to an October 24, 2017, report in The Washington Post,” the letter states. ” Accordingly, for disguising payments to Fusion GPS on mandatory disclosures to the Federal Election Commission, we refer Hillary Clinton to DOJ for potential violation(s) of 52 USC 30121 and 52 USC 30101.”
(…) As for Strzok and Page, the two FBI employees at the center of the Congressional investigations, the lawmakers seek the criminal referral based on the pairs “interference in the Hillary Clinton investigation regarding her use of a personal email server,” as reported.
The lawmakers point to a Jan. 22, The Wall Street Journal article regarding the Justice Department’s second release of text exchanges between Strzok and Page, and revealed that the texts “show the FBI also eliminated evidence that Mrs. Clinton compromised high-level communications.”
“The report provides the following alarming specifics, among others: ‘Mr. Strzok texts Ms. Page to tell her that, in fact, senior officials had decided to water down the reference to President Obama to ‘another senior government official,” the criminal referral states referring to the article.
Other recent documents obtained by congressional investigators also suggest possible coordination by Obama White House officials, the CIA and the FBI into the investigation into President Donald Trump’s campaign. According to those documents, the senior Obama officials used unsubstantiated evidence to launch allegations in the media that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election.” (Read more: Sara Carter, 4/18/2018)
(…) “Given the squads of lawyers and the platoon of FBI agents at Mueller’s command, the footnotes show a surprising reliance on media accounts as evidence of consequential claims – an echo of the FBI’s FISA warrant, which used a Yahoo News article to substantiate allegations in the Steele dossier. In discussing whether Trump had ordered his White House counsel to fire Mueller, the report cites the same Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman article in the New York Times not just once or twice, but in four footnotes in a row.
To establish the crucial claim that “On July 22, 2016, the day before the Democratic National Convention, WikiLeaks posted thousands of hacked DNC documents revealing sensitive internal deliberations,” the special counsel turns not to the investigative prowess of the FBI, but relies instead on a Washington Post story by Tom Hamburger and Karen Tumulty. “WikiLeaks releases thousands of documents about Clinton and internal deliberations,” which is the citation found in footnote 20, Volume II.
The special counsel wrote that “On December 10, 2016, the press reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had ‘concluded that Russia interfered in last month’s presidential election to boost Donald Trump’s bid for the White House.’” To establish this, Mueller’s team cites a Guardian article by Damien Gayle. The Guardian, in turn, attributes its claims to the New York Times and the Washington Post. They, in turn, cite anonymous sources. Why does the special counsel resort to hearsay thrice removed to make any claim when he had every investigative tool at his disposal?
A sample of the media footnotes appearing in the Mueller Report.
Sometimes the references are such shoddy clip jobs that the media accounts cited undercut the very point they are meant to buttress. Take footnote 16 of the report’s second volume. The body text being footnoted reads, “The press also reported that foreign policy advisor Carter Page had ties to a Russian state-run gas company.” The first citation is to a Bloomberg article making that claim. But then the footnote goes on to cite a September 2016Politico article by Julia Ioffe, headlined “Who Is Carter Page?” Ioffe wrote that in doing her reporting she “quickly discovered” that Page “was known by neither Russia experts, nor energy experts, nor Russian energy experts.” In other words, the thrust of Ioffe’s article was the exact opposite of the point it was being used to validate. And the footnote misspelled Ioffe’s name.
The Mueller team does cite many primary sources – especially FBI interviews – but in some cases those sources merely offer opinions instead of evidence. One example is the report’s section dealing with Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was fired after misleading the administrations about a conversation with the Russian ambassador. A footnote informs us that Flynn “told White House officials that the FBI had told him that the FBI was closing out its investigation of him,” but that John Eisenberg, a deputy White counsel, “did not believe him.”
Let’s pause for a second and consider what the footnote appears to tell us, but doesn’t: Eisenberg’s incredulity aside, did the FBI tell Flynn it was closing out its investigation of him or didn’t it? By citing Eisenberg’s disbelief, the special counsel suggests that Flynn was lying to his fellow White House officials. But what Eisenberg believed settles nothing – he was in no position to know what the FBI had or had not told Flynn.
What about the two FBI agents (one of them the ubiquitous Peter Strzok) who interviewed Flynn? The special counsel could have questioned them separately, asking each under oath whether they had told, suggested, hinted, or in any other way made Flynn to believe he was off the hook. In this case, the sources Mueller chooses not to question are more telling than the ones he does cite.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 7/23/2019)
“Eleven GOP members of Congress led by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) have written a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Attorney John Huber, and FBI Director Christopher Wray – asking them to investigate former FBI Director James Comey, Hillary Clinton and others – including FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, for a laundry list of potential crimes surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Recall that Sessions paired special prosecutor John Huber with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz – falling short of a second Special Counsel, but empowering Horowitz to fully investigate allegations of FBI FISA abuse with subpoena power and other methods he was formerly unable to utilize.
The GOP letter’s primary focus appears to be James Comey, while the charges for all include obstruction, perjury, corruption, unauthorized removal of classified documents, contributions and donations by foreign nationals and other allegations.
The letter also demands that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein “be recused from any examination of FISA abuse,” and recommends that “neither U.S. Attorney John Huber nor a special counsel (if appointed) should report to Rosenstein.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 04/19/2015)
“Emails reviewed by Fox News from February 2016 suggest the FBI and DOJ worked together to craft a response to a key development in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, amid newly raised Republican concerns about a “concerning level of coordination” between the two agencies during the probe.
The emails concern the period after 22 messages with “Top Secret” information were found on the former secretary of state’s personal email server.
Republican Rep. Mark Meadows cited them in a letter earlier this week claiming former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to Congress – in which he downplayed FBI-DOJ coordination on the Clinton case – may be at odds with documents suggesting “frequent” coordination.
Comey specifically said in public testimony that he did not coordinate with the DOJ for his July 2016 public recommendation not to pursue charges against Clinton. Meadows, however, pointed to a series of messages he claims indicate potential coordination at several “crucial moments of the investigation” – including the July statement and the period in February. While the FBI is part of the Justice Department and communication between the two agencies is inevitable, Meadows’ letter also suggests some at the FBI were concerned about the perception it was not acting independently in a politically explosive case.” (Read more: Fox News, 04/19/2018)
“Today House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Ca.), House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) issued the following statement:
“We have long argued former Director Comey’s self-styled memos should be in the public domain, subject to any classification redactions. These memos are significant for both what is in them and what is not.
Former Director Comey’s memos show the President made clear he wanted allegations of collusion, coordination, and conspiracy between his campaign and Russia fully investigated. The memos also made clear the ‘cloud’ President Trump wanted lifted was not the Russian interference in the 2016 election cloud, rather it was the salacious, unsubstantiated allegations related to personal conduct leveled in the dossier.
The memos also show former Director Comey never wrote that he felt obstructed or threatened. While former Director Comey went to great lengths to set dining room scenes, discuss height requirements, describe the multiple times he felt complimented, and myriad other extraneous facts, he never once mentioned the most relevant fact of all, which was whether he felt obstructed in his investigation.” (Read more: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, 04/19/2018)
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe appears before Congress. (Credit: Elyse Samuels Bastien Inzaurralde/Washington Post)
“The Justice Department inspector general referred its finding that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe repeatedly misled investigators who were examining a media disclosure to the top federal prosecutor in D.C. to determine whether McCabe should be charged with a crime, according to people familiar with the matter.
The referral to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office occurred some time ago, after the inspector general concluded McCabe had lied to investigators or his own boss, then-FBI Director James B. Comey, on four occasions, three of them under oath.
It was not immediately clear how the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office responded to the referral, or whether prosecutors there are conducting their own investigation or believe criminal charges are appropriate. A referral to federal prosecutors does not necessarily mean McCabe will be charged with a crime.
Loretta Lynch, speaks at a press conference on April 28, 2014. (Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty)
“Congressional lawmakers made a criminal referral Wednesday to the Department of Justice Attorney General Jeff Sessions against former senior-level Obama administration officials, including employees of the FBI connected with the unverified dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as those involved in the warrants used to spy on a former Trump campaign volunteer, this reporter has learned. The lawmakers also made a criminal referral on former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and threats made by her DOJ against the FBI informant, who provided the bureau with information on the Russian nuclear industry and the approval in 2010 to sell roughly 20 percent of American uranium mining assets to Russia.”
(…) “Lynch was referred after concerns were made regarding her decision to threaten with reprisal the former FBI informant, William Douglas Campbell, who first came forward in 2016 with insight into the sale of the Canadian firm Uranium One, which controlled nearly 20 percent of uranium mining interests in the United States, as previously reported.
Campbell had filed a lawsuit in Maryland federal court in 2016 against the Russian companies he was employed with and which he had kept tabs on for the FBI. He was asking for the return of the money he had to launder out of his own paychecks and had sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the DOJ for information on his case. After the DOJ received the FOIA request and the lawsuit was filed, his lawyers were advised by personnel from the Justice Department that prosecutors in the Fraud Section of the Justice Department under Lynch, demanded the withdrawal the lawsuit. According to a letter written by Campbell’s previous attorney, the DOJ threatened to destroy Campbell’s reputation and prosecute him for violating a non-disclosure agreement he had signed with the FBI.
The criminal referral on Lynch is regarding “potential violation(s) of 18 USC 1505 and 1515b,” according to the letter.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 04/19/2018)
“At least two of the memos that former FBI Director James Comey gave to a friend outside of the government contained information that officials now consider classified, according to people familiar with the matter, prompting a review by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog.
Of those two memos, Mr. Comey himself redacted elements of one that he knew to be classified to protect secrets before he handed the documents over to his friend. He determined at the time that another memo contained no classified information, but after he left the Federal Bureau of Investigation, bureau officials upgraded it to “confidential,” the lowest level of classification.
The Justice Department inspector general [General Michael Horowitz], is now conducting an investigation into classification issues related to the Comey memos, according to a person familiar with the matter. Mr. Comey has said he considered the memos personal rather than government documents.
Mr. Comey gave four total memos to his friend Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor who is now a professor at Columbia Law School, people familiar with the matter said. Three were considered unclassified at the time and one was classified.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 04/20/2018)
“The Justice Department’s inspector general has referred Andrew McCabe to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., for a possible false-statements prosecution. It was big news this week. But the story of how the FBI’s former deputy director lied to investigators, repeatedly, is mainly of interest to him. It is the story of what he lied about that should be of interest to everyone else.
He lied about leaking a conversation in which the Obama Justice Department pressured the FBI to stand down on an investigation of the Clinton Foundation.”
(…) “Yes, McCabe shouldn’t have leaked, and it is even worse that he wouldn’t own up to it. But what was his leak about?
It was about more Obama-administration scheming to rig the election for Hillary Clinton.
The tense conversation McCabe had on August 12, 2016, was with a Justice Department official the IG report identifies only as the “Principal Assistant Deputy Attorney General (PADAG).” That post was then held by Matthew Axelrod, top aide to Sally Yates, Obama’s deputy AG eventually fired by Trump for insubordination. Lisa Page told the Wall Street Journal that the PADAG was “very pissed off” because the Justice Department had learned that the FBI’s New York office was “openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe.”
Yup, the campaign stretch-run was upon us, and the oh-so-non-partisan Obama Justice Department was fretting that Mrs. Clinton could be toast if the public heard about yet another criminal investigation.” (Read more: National Review, 04/13/2018)
On April 22nd, 2018, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the origin of the counterintelligence operation (July 2016) against the Trump campaign.
This interview follows a mid-April FBI release of “some information” about the original “electronic communication” (EC) documents that underpinned the origin of the FBI operation. The first half of the interview contains stunning information about how the raw intelligence product within the EC did not come through official intelligence channels.
The origin of the 2016 counterintelligence operation, which was specifically started by CIA Director John Brennan sharing his ‘raw intelligence product’ with the FBI, was not an official product of the U.S. intelligence community. Brennan was NOT using official partnerships with intelligence agencies of our Five-Eyes partner nations; and he did not provide raw intelligence -as an outcome of those relationships- to the FBI.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/12/2018),
“After the publication of Disobedient Media’s coverage of ‘eclectic scholar’ Joseph Mifsud’s unexamined ties to UK intelligence officials, this author was contacted by Chris Blackburn, a UK Political Analyst focusing on International Relations and Security, whose Twitter post instigated this writer’s research into the matter.
Chris Blackburn’s initial Tweets on the matter included of a photograph showing UK Joint Intelligence Committee member Claire Smith and Joseph Mifsud together at LINK Campus in Rome, where they collaborated on a training program involving Italian military officials. Disobedient Media was able to confirm the photograph’s authenticity, finding that the program was organized by the London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD), which Mifsud directed. The event took place in 2012 – a significant date because, at that time, Claire Smith was a member of the UK intelligence security vetting panel.
(Credit: Disobedient Media)
As Blackburn informed us, there is more to this story than is told by that single photograph, or by the October 2017 photograph of Mifsud standing with UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. The following discussion took place electronically.
(…) “When Joseph Mifsud’s name was leaked by The Washington Post as being the ‘professor’ named in George Papadopoulos’ court papers, bloggers and journalists took to Twitter to try to understand who he was. Everyone was looking for connections to Russia. They quickly found them. The London Centre for International Law Practice (LCILP) had been working on hosting financial sanctions workshops, and LINK Campus in Rome and the London Academy of Diplomacy (LAD) had provided a vehicle for Mifsud to make connections with Russian universities and academics.”
“Before the story broke, I had heard of the London Centre for International Law Practice (LCILP) where George Papadopoulos and Mifsud both worked. The relatively new legal firm had been trying to move into the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) sector in the UK. They had done some research into ISIS territorial gains in the Middle East and wrote a widely circulated report on the group. They also hosted a few seminars with [UK] Foreign Office types on terrorism. LCILP had also tried to reach out to a couple of Bangladeshi activists working on the Bangladesh War Crimes Tribunals. I didn’t think much of it, but I couldn’t ignore it. Why would a suspected Russian intelligence front try to engage with Bangladesh’s War Crimes Tribunal from London?”
“I quickly found that LCILP’s director Peter Dovey had been a left-wing solicitor and set up a legal entity called the Police Station Defence Service (PSDS) along with Nagi Idris, another LCILP director, and an American-Mexican called George San Martin. George San Martin had been a major figure in left-wing activism in the US. The FBI should have found that.”
“While other researchers were looking into Mifsud’s academic links to Russia, I decided to conduct a more wide-ranging investigation. The London Academy of Diplomacy was being built up in the press as a shady operation. It wasn’t. British diplomats and Foreign Office ministers often visited LAD. Sir Tony Baldry, Alok Sharma MP and former Foreign Secretary William Hague all visited LAD or spoke at their conferences.”
“The Commonwealth and various governments, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, sent their diplomats to train there. Nabil Ayad, the founding director of LAD, had built up the academy as a respectable powerhouse in London’s diplomatic community. Counter-intelligence investigators would only be concentrating on Mifsud’s high-frequency contacts and associations. They would be examining people he worked with on a regular basis. As an academic working in diplomacy, Mifsud would have thousands of contacts. FBI investigators would be looking for intelligence ties.”
“Mifsud worked with diplomats and NATO allies, so they would need to know the potential damage he had caused. I found that two of Joseph Mifsud’s closest colleagues, who the FBI would have designated as high-frequency, were Claire Smith and Gianni Pittella. They had followed him between LAD, Stirling University and LINK Campus in Rome. Claire Smith was a former member of Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC). As a team, Smith and Mifsud trained Italian law enforcement on intelligence at LINK Campus in Rome. LINK Campus’ ties to the Italian Foreign Ministry and intelligence agencies had been quickly skimmed over by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Buzzfeed and The Guardian.”
Italian politician Gianni Pittella at Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign launch in Philadelphia, July 2016, “calling Donald Trump ‘a virus’ which needed to be stopped, while his close collaborator Mifsud was supposedly helping Trump’s campaign to conspire with Russia.” (Credit: Corriere Della Sera)
“Gianni Pittella has known Mifsud for a while. They met at the European Parliament and have collaborated on numerous projects together. In July 2016, Pittella gave a rousing speech at Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign launch in Philadelphia, calling Donald Trump ‘a virus’ which needed to be stopped, while his close collaborator Mifsud was supposedly helping Trump’s campaign to conspire with Russia. If the FBI had been doing a proper investigation into Joseph Mifsud, these two connections should have raised red flags immediately.”
“If Mifsud was working with western intelligence agencies that would be rather pertinent in an espionage scandal. Italian journalists have been slow to pick up the story, but they are now calling LINK Campus the ‘007 university’ because Vincenzo Scotti, a former Italian Foreign Minister, and director at LINK University, has been trying to defend himself from suggestions he’s in Russia or the CIA’s pocket.”
“The venue for the alleged acts of treachery involving Papadopoulos and Mifsud – LINK Campus Rome – should have set alarm bells ringing for the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigators. The CIA has a long history of working there. David Ignatius of The Washington Posteven wrote about a CIA-sponsored event he attended at LINK Campus in 2004.” (Read more: Disobedient Media, 4/23/2018)
Hillary Clinton on the 2016 presidential campaign trail. (Credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
“The press continues to feed the dying Russia collusion conspiracy theory, spending Friday’s news cycle regurgitating Democrat talking points from the just-filed Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act lawsuit against the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, and Russia.
Yet the mainstream media took no notice of last week’s federal court filing that exposes an $84 million money-laundering conspiracy the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign executed during the 2016 presidential election in violation of federal campaign-finance law.
That lawsuit, filed last week in a DC district court, summarizes the DNC-Clinton conspiracy and provides detailed evidence from Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings confirming the complaint’s allegations that Democrats undertook an extensive scheme to violate federal campaign limits.” (Read more: The Federalist, 04/24/2018)
“Heading into the 2018 midterms, with Democrats hoping to take back the House of Representatives and even make a run at the Senate, the party has spent more than $2 million worth of campaign resources on payments to Hillary Clinton’s new group, Onward Together, according to Federal Election Commission filings and interviews with people familiar with the payments.
The Democratic National Committee is paying $1.65 million for access to the email list, voter data, and software produced by Hillary for America during the 2016 presidential campaign, Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokesperson for the DNC, told The Intercept. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has paid more than $700,000 to rent the same email list.
Clinton is legally entitled to rent her list to the party, rather than hand it over as a gift, but in 2015, Barack Obama gave his email list, valued at $1,942,640, to the DNC as an in-kind contribution. In 2013 and 2014, OFA had similarly made in-kind contributions exceeding $3.4 million for uses of the list that cycle.
Obama’s list was at one point considered to be the most valuable in politics and raised more than twice as much money for the 2012 Obama campaign as Clinton’s did for hers in 2016. The DNC agreement with the Clinton campaign calls on the debt-ridden organization to fork the money over to an entity of Clinton’s choosing, which wound up being Onward Together, the operation she formed after her campaign ceased to exist.” (Read more: The Intercept, 4/25/2018)
“Judicial Watch today released 281 pages of newly uncovered emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the U.S. Department of State sent and received over her unsecure, non-“state.gov” email system. The emails, dated 2010 through 2013, contain classified information and detail collusion between the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Foundation.
Ten emails contain classified information redacted “in the interest of national defense or foreign policy,” including confidential sources, and concern Israel and the Middle East. Most of the emails include exchanges with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The emails show Hillary Clinton conducted classified and sensitive negotiations about the Israel-Arab conflict on her unsecure, non-governmental server.
A document labeled “plan” was completely redacted as classified.
A November 2012 email chain discusses the “Mid East” and includes then-Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan, Blair as “aclb” and Clinton.
Another November 2012 email chain discusses the “Mid East” and includes Sullivan, Clinton’s office manager Claire Coleman, Blair and Clinton.
A November 2012 email chain fully redacted is titled “Mid East Peace” and includes Blair, Clinton, Obama’s Special Envoy to the Middle East David Hale as “haledm2@state.gov,” Sullivan and Blair’s Chief of Staff and former Downing Street aide Catherine Rimmer.
In an April 2011 email exchange between Blair, Clinton and Sullivan concerning “Israel,” Blair says he “had another long session with BB [Netanyahu].”
A May 2011 exchange concerns “Israel” and includes Blair, Clinton and Sullivan.
A May 2011 email concerns “Palestinians” and includes Blair, Clinton and Sullivan. Blair says, “I’ve also sent you a paper.”
A June 2011 email regarding “Israel” includes Blair, Sullivan and Clinton. Blair says, “Saw Israeli PM. Put the concept of a Q statement. He was receptive. Palestinians interested too. I know there are discussions also you guys are having. And the French initiative….”
In a July 2011 email – with several national security redactions – written by Blair to Clinton and Sullivan, Blair says, “I saw BB….. Molcho [chief negotiator in the Israeli negotiating team with the Palestinians] will speak to David Hale. I can see Cameron and Sarkozy with David…. I saw Egyptians….”
A September 2010 email exchange is titled “Info for you,” and includes Sullivan, Blair and Clinton. Blair writes that he just spent three hours with Netanyahu, and Sullivan, using his Sprint BlackBerry, he writes “We have pitched this to [redacted].”
These new classified and other emails appear to be among those that Clinton had attempted to delete or had otherwise failed to disclose. The documents are part of the November 2017 accelerated schedule of production ordered by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg. The State Department must now complete processing the remaining documents by September 28, 2018. There were 72,000 pages recovered by the FBI in its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit email server. The State Department’s original production rate would have put the completion date into 2020.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 04/25/2018)
“Much of the messaging is disjointed because of the one-sided capture. However, some information is decipherable and very interesting.
FBI Head of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap, Peter Strzok’s boss, features heavily in convos. This makes sense since the perspective in the release is from Strzok’s side of their communications. The name “Jen” also figures prominently and appears to be a person within the FBI Counterintelligence Unit that Strzok views as a competitor of sorts.
Important Note – It definitely appears Page and Strzok were using joint G-Mail account. Notes to “clear GMail” indicates they were using a running draft to talk at length about ongoing activities. [This is also a common tactic of terrorist group communications]”
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has pushed back the estimated completion date of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to its communications with the security firm that examined the Democratic National Committee’s hacked servers to October.
The Washington Free Beacon submitted the FOIA request in July 2017 with the FBI seeking all communication between the bureau and CrowdStrike, Inc., the California-based cyber security firm that examined the DNC’s servers following the infiltration that led to the release of John Podesta’s emails. The FBI said in December the documents should be available by March.
The FBI, which was never granted access to the DNC’s servers for inspection, instead relied on the third-party firm that was brought in by the DNC for information regarding the compromised network who concluded that Russia was behind the hack.
The FBI previously awarded an unrelated $150,000 contract to CrowdStrike in July 2015. Details and communications between the firm and the bureau regarding that past contract were requested as part of the FOIA.” (Read more: The Washington Free Beacon, 04/28/2018)
Lindsey Graham appears with Maria Bartiromo on April 29, 2018. (Credit: Fox News)
“Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday called for an investigation into corruption within the Department of Justice, while slamming former FBI Director James Comey and the Clinton email investigation.
“We should have a special counsel looking at DOJ corruption, looking at how the [Steele] dossier was given to the court,” Graham, R-S.C., told Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Comey had a bias against President Trump when the former FBI director said he turned over an unclassified memo to a friend with the intent of getting it to The New York Times.
Comey, while testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee last summer, said he leaked accounts of the conversations he had with Trump, hoping it would lead to the appointment of a special counsel.
“He made a decision … to try to press the system to appoint a special counsel. If that doesn’t show a motivation and a bias against President Trump, I don’t know what would,” Graham said.” (Video: Fox News, 4/29/2018)
Bob Goodlatte (Credit: Bill O’Leary/ Washington Post/Getty Images)
“Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday raising issues related to some of the claims laid out by a scathing inspector general report on Andrew McCabe, the fired FBI deputy director.
“I have serious concerns that the Department, during the Obama Administration, attempted to obstruct justice by attempting to inappropriately terminate an FBI investigation on the Clinton Foundation,” Goodlatte wrote. “Under the facts laid out by the DOJ Inspector General (IG), it is shocking to hear that the Obama Department of Justice may have allowed politics to dictate what cases should or should not be pursued.”
The IG report, released last month, concluded that McCabe made leaks to the media that were designed to combat the perception that he had a conflict of interest in overseeing dual FBI investigations related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, including one related to the Clinton Foundation and another related to her use of a private email server.
McCabe’s disclosure recounted his version of a conversation with a DOJ official about the investigation, in which McCabe says he pushed back on concerns about FBI agents taking “overt steps” during the presidential campaign.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “a senior Justice Department official called Mr. McCabe to voice his displeasure at finding that New York FBI agents were still openly pursuing the Clinton Foundation probe during the election season. … The Justice Department official was ‘very pissed off,’ according to one person close to McCabe, and pressed him to explain why the FBI was still chasing a matter the department considered dormant.”
Goodlatte and other Republicans have seized on the findings in the report, saying it shows that the Obama-era DOJ, led by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, may have been putting pressure on the bureau to end the Clinton probes.” (Read more: The Hill, 5/01/2018)
“Judicial Watch today released 894 pages of new State Department documents, including previously unreleased email exchanges in which former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was sent additional classified information through her unsecure clintonmail.com email account by top aide Huma Abedin. The Abedin emails also include repeated instances of Clinton’s detailed daily schedules being sent to top Clinton Foundation officials at unsecured email addresses.
The records were produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Abedin. The records were obtained in response to a court order from a May 5, 2015, lawsuit filed against the State Department (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)) after it failed to respond to a March 18, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking:
All emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013 using a non-“state.gov” email address.
The new documents included 29 email exchanges not previously turned over to the State Department, bringing the known total to date to at least 317 emails that were not part of the 55,000 pages of emails that Clinton turned over to the State Department. These records further appear to contradict statements by Clinton that, “as far as she knew,” all of her government emails were turned over to the State Department.
The emails show classified information was sent through the clintonemail.com account:
In a December 21, 2009, email, Clinton top national security and foreign policy staffer Jake Sullivan forwarded an email to Clinton’s unsecured email account containing classified information heavily redacted under FOIA exemption B1.4(D) – “Information specifically authorized by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy … Foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.” Clinton then forwarded the email, concerning the climate change accord, from her unsecured email account to Abedin’s unsecured email account with the message, “Pls print.”
And, on December 24, 2009, Clinton sent an unsecured email from HDR22@clintonmail.com to then-Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson. The classified email, asking Carson to “Pls review the memcon of my call w [French] FM Kouchener [Redacted].” Information in this message was blacked out using FOIA exemptions B1.4(B) – “Foreign government information” and (D).
On January 17, 2010, five days after the massive Haitian earthquake, former Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper emails Hillary Clinton’s then- deputy chiefs of staff, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin, to ask if they can do a conference call to discuss Haiti. Clinton Foundation officials Laura Graham and Doug Band are also provided the call-in information for the conference call. (Author Peter Schweizer would later describe in his book “Clinton Cash” how the Obama administration, during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. taxpayer-funded reconstruction contracts for Haiti to flow through the Clinton Foundation.) “
Neo-Nazi leader, Arsen Avakov (left center), posts on his FB page, “a meeting with US Ambassador Marie Jovanovich @USEmbassyKyiv discussed urgent issues of ensuring fair and transparent elections, security and preventing provocations at polling stations during voting.” ((Credit: Yulia Babich/Twitter))
“The orthodox American political-media narrative blames “Putin’s Russia” alone for the new US-Russian Cold War. Maintaining this (at most) partial truth involves various mainstream media malpractices, among them lack of historical context; reporting based on unverified “facts” and selective sources; editorial bias; and the excluding, even slurring, of proponents of alternative explanatory narratives as “Kremlin apologists” and carriers of “Russian propaganda.” An extraordinary example appeared on May 1, when Jim Sciutto, CNN’s leading purveyor of Russiagate allegations, tweeted that “Jill Stein is…repeating Russian talking points on its interference in the 2016 election and on U.S. foreign policy.” To the extent that Sciutto represents CNN, as he does almost nightly on air, it is useful to know what this influential network actually thinks about a legitimate third party in American electoral democracy and its presidential candidate. And also about many well-informed Americans who have not supported Stein or her party but who strongly disagree with CNN’s orthodox positions on Russiagate and US foreign policy. No less important, however, is the highly selective nature of the mainstream narrative of the new Cold War, what it chooses to feature and what it virtually omits. Among the omissions, few realities are more important than the role played by neofascist forces in US-backed, Kiev-governed Ukraine since 2014. Not even many Americans who follow international news know the following, for example:
§ That the snipers who killed scores of protestors and policemen on Kiev’s Maidan Square in February 2014, thereby triggering a “democratic revolution” that overthrew the elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, and brought to power a virulent anti-Russian, pro-American regime—it was neither democratic nor a revolution, but a violent coup unfolding in the streets with high-level support—were sent not by Yanukovych, as is stillwidely reported, but insteadalmost certainly by the neofascist organization Right Sector and its co-conspirators.
§ That the pogrom-like burning to death of ethnic Russians and others in Odessa shortly later in 2014 reawakened memories of Nazi extermination squads in Ukraine during World War II has been all but deleted from the American mainstream narrative even though it remains a painful and revelatory experience for many Ukrainians.
§ That the Azov Battalion of some 3,000 well-armed fighters, which has played a major combat role in the Ukrainian civil war and now is an official component of Kiev’s armed forces, is avowedly “partially” pro-Nazi, as evidenced by its regalia, slogans, and programmatic statements, and well-documented as such by several international monitoring organizations. Congressional legislation recently banned Azov from receiving any US military aid, but it is likely to obtain some of the new weapons recently sent to Kiev by the Trump Administration due to the country’s rampant network of corruption and black markets.
Marie Yovanovich’s partial testimony regarding her friendship with Ukrainian neo-Nazi, Arsen Avakov. Also pictured (l) is Andriy Biletsky, leader of the Azov Batallion and seen in the photo (r) with Avakov. (Credit (now banned on Twitter): @UkraineLiberty)
§ That stormtroop-like assaults on gays, Jews, elderly ethnic Russians, and other “impure” citizens are widespread throughout Kiev-ruled Ukraine, along with torchlight marches reminiscent of those that eventually inflamed Germany in the late 1920s and 1930s. And that the police and official legal authorities do virtually nothing to prevent these neofascist acts or to prosecute them. On the contrary, Kiev has officially encouraged them by systematically rehabilitating and even memorializing Ukrainian collaborators with Nazi German extermination pogroms and their leaders during World War II, renaming streets in their honor, building monuments to them, rewriting history to glorify them, and more.
§ Or that Israel’s official annual report on anti-Semitism around the world in 2017 concluded that such incidents had doubled in Ukraine and the number “surpassed the tally for all the incidents reported throughout the entire region combined.” By the region, the report meant the total in all of Eastern Europe and all former territories of the Soviet Union.
Americans cannot be faulted for not knowing these facts. They are very rarely reported and still less debated in the mainstream media, whether in newspapers or on television. To learn about them, Americans would have to turn to alternative media and to their independent writers, which rarely affect mainstream accounts of the new Cold War. One such important American writeris Lev Golinkin. He is best known for his book ‘A Backpack, A Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,’ a deeply moving and highly instructive memoir of his life as a young boy brought to America by his immigrant parents from Eastern Ukraine, now the scene of tragic civil and proxy war. But Golinkin has also been an unrelenting and meticulous reporter of neofascism in “our” Ukraine and a defender of others who try to chronicle and oppose its growing crimes.(Many of us seeking reliable information often turn to him.)
(Stephen F. Cohen was a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. He died from lung cancer on September 18, 2020, at the age of 81. He will be greatly missed.)
(…) “Government transcripts indicate Richman was sent talking points about the FBI’s handling of the Clinton investigation. Those talking points attempted to compare and contrast Clinton’s use of an unsecured personal server exclusively for government business with the case of retired Gen. David Petraeus, who shared classified information with his biographer and mistress Paula Broadwell, as well as the case brought against the late Sandy Berger. The former national security adviser under President Clinton pleaded guilty to the unauthorized removal and retention of classified material from the National Archives.
Since Richman’s time at the bureau, Republican lawmakers have taken interest in his role – specifically in helping Comey leak the contents of at least one memo documenting his private discussions with President Trump to the media, after Richman left the bureau. Richman first emerged last year during Senate testimony as the former FBI director’s contact for getting that information out to the media, to kick-start the Russia special counsel investigation.”
(…) “In an email, Fox News asked Richman a series of questions about his work for Comey as an SGE, including if he worked unpaid between June 2015 and February 2017, and if he engaged with the media about the Clinton email case or other bureau matters at the request of FBI personnel including Comey.
Fox News also asked whether Richman volunteered to media outlets that he was working for Comey as a special government employee when he gave interviews about the Clinton probe. Richman did not respond Wednesday to the email questions. The FBI also has not responded to questions submitted Wednesday by Fox News.
During his Senate Intelligence Committee testimony in June 2017, after his firing, Comey did not volunteer that Richman was also an FBI employee. During a recent interview on Fox News, Comey said “it wasn’t relevant” because Richman left the FBI in February 2017. Comey said he had no other special government employees, and Richman’s job dealt with terrorist communications as well as law enforcement data.” (Read more: Fox News, 5/03/2018)
“Two top F.B.I. aides who worked alongside the former director James B. Comey as he navigated one of the most politically tumultuous periods in the bureau’s history resigned on Friday.
One of them James A. Baker, was one of Mr. Comey’s closest confidants. He served as the F.B.I.’s top lawyer until December when he was reassigned as the new director, Christopher A. Wray, began installing his own advisers. Mr. Baker had been investigated by the Justice Department on suspicion of sharing classified information with reporters. He has not been charged.
The other aide, Lisa Page, advised Mr. Comey while serving directly under his deputy, Andrew G. McCabe. She was assailed by conservatives after texts that she had exchanged with the agent overseeing the investigation into links between President Trump’s campaign and Russia were made public. In the messages, they expressed anti-Trump views but took aim at Hillary Clinton and other political figures as well.
The decisions by Mr. Baker and Ms. Page to leave the bureau were unrelated. Mr. Baker said in a telephone interview that he would be joining the Brookings Institution to write for Lawfare, its blog focused on national security law.” (Read more: New York Times, 5/04/2018)
Senators Dick Durbin, Robert Menendez and Patrick Leahy (Credit: public domain)
“In 2018, Democratic Sens. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Dick Durbin of Illinois, and Pat Leahy of Vermont sent a letter to the Ukrainian general prosecutor accusing him of trying to “impede cooperation” with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into collusion by the Trump campaign.
“On May 2, the New York Times reported that your office effectively froze investigations into four open cases in Ukraine in April, thereby eliminating scope for cooperation with the Mueller probe into related issues,” the senators wrote to General Prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko. “The article notes that your office considered these cases as too politically sensitive and potentially jeopardizing U.S. financial and military aid to Ukraine.”
The senators also specifically add that it would be a mistake for Lutsenko to drop the investigations “in order to avoid the ire of President Trump.”
Senator Chris Murphy (Credit: public domain)
The letter also appears to dangle U.S. support for Ukraine as a reason for the country to continue cooperating with the investigation, stating, “In four short years, Ukraine has made significant progress in building [democratic] institutions despite ongoing military, economic and political pressure from Moscow. We have supported that capacity-building process and are disappointed that some in Kyiv appear to have cast aside these principles.”
Meanwhile, Democratic Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy delivered a similar message to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky earlier this month, warning that Democratic support for the country could dwindle if he complied with the president’s requests to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I told Zelensky that he should not insert himself or his government into American politics. I cautioned him that complying with the demands of the President’s campaign representatives to investigate a political rival of the President would gravely damage the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on in Washington these days, and support for Ukraine is one of them,” Murphy told The Hill’s John Solomon.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 09/25/2019)(Archive)
U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III (Credit: public domain)
“A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking “unfettered power” and are more interested in bringing down the president.
“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller’s team. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”
Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted “scope memo,” a document outlining the scope of the special counsel’s Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought.
Manafort’s attorneys argue the special counsel does not have the power to indict him on the charges they have brought – and seemed to find a sympathetic ear with Ellis.
The Reagan-appointed judge asked Mueller’s team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005.
The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not “arise” out of the special counsel probe – and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.
“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” he said.
Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo – and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.” (Read more: Fox News, 5/04/2018)
“Lisa Page, the anti-Trump FBI lawyer who was once part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, has resigned from the bureau according to a media report.
Also departing from the bureau is James Baker, another FBI lawyer who was reassigned in December 2017 amid controversy surrounding him and the Steele dossier.
Mr. Baker is said to be joining Lawfare, a national security blog affiliated with the Brookings Institution, according to The New York Times, which first reported the departures late Friday.
It is not clear if Ms. Page has another position lined up, but the Times report said she resigned “voluntarily.” (Read more: Washington Times, 5/08/2018)
“The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it allowed House Intelligence Committee members to view classified documents about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.
Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.
House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”
“Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has just dropped a sunlight grenade into the prosecution of Michael Flynn with a jaw-dropping request letter (full pdf below) to FBI Director Christopher Wray. [Judiciary Link Here]
Within the letter Chairman Grassley outlines a prior briefing from fired FBI Director James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and contrasts the false presentations of Comey -regarding Michael Flynn- against recently known evidence.
Additionally, Grassley is requesting: the transcription of the phone call(s) intercepted by the FBI between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak; the FD 302’s written by the FBI in their interview with Michael Flynn; and testimony from Special Agent Joe Pientka, likely the second FBI agent who was partnered with Peter Strzok for the Flynn interview.
The name of the second FBI agent was previously unknown, and it’s likely Chairman Grassley outed the name for a very specific reason. This is a BIG shot across the bow.
Previously the Justice Department was refusing to provide any information to the committee pertinent to Grassley’s requests, citing the ongoing investigation. However, the Senator is now outlining his request against the backdrop of the Judge in the Flynn case demanding the Special Counsel turn over all exculpatory information.
Judge Contreras was presiding judge on the initial guilty plea, then “was recused”. Judge Sullivan took over and demanded the DOJ turn over all exculpatory evidence.
It is important to remember – there is a widely held belief that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the FBI agents (Strzok and Pientka) to shape their FBI reports of the interview (FD-302’s) to assist a “Flynn lied” narrative.
Broward County, Fla. election officials Jerry Pollock, left, Mayor Ilene Lieberman and Supervisor of Elections Dr. Brenda Snipes examine ballots. (Credit: J. Pat Carter/The Associated Press)
(…) “The 2018 mid-terms are looming on the horizon, and bad news continues to follow the troubled Congresswoman. On Friday, May 11, 2018, Broward Circuit Judge Raag Singhal ruled that Broward County Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes broke state and federal election laws by destroying the paper ballots needed for a recount in Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s 2016 Democrat primary.
The fuss began when Tim Canova, a law professor who ran against Wasserman Schultz in the 2016 Democrat primary, was alerted to possible voting irregularities, and he filed a public records request to inspect the ballots. Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes asked him to pay $71,868.87 to prepare the documents, and as a result, Canova filed a lawsuit for the records.
Dr. Snipes illegally destroyed the paper ballots, according to the ruling by Judge Singhal, and Canova’s lawyer said the state’s attorney should investigate the case for possible criminal sanctions. Wasserman Schultz has not been accused of any involvement in the destruction of the ballots, but Mr. Canova was concerned about voting irregularities in the primary.
Tim Canova plans to oppose Wasserman Schultz again in the 2018 mid-term elections when he will run as an Independent. As reported by Politico, Florida Governor Rick Scott is aware of the ruling against Broward County Election Supervisor Brenda Snipes, and his office released a statement revealing plans to monitor Supervisor Snipes’ office in the next election for Wasserman Schultz’s House seat.” (Read more: Inquisitor, 5/16/2018)
General Michael Flynn (Credit: Molly Riley/UPI/Newscom)
“The contradictions of former FBI director James Comey keep piling up. The latest came Friday when Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley provided new evidence that Mr. Comey told Congress a different story last year about the truthfulness of former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn than Mr. Comey is now telling the public.
In a letter to the FBI and the Justice Department seeking documents, Mr. Grassley relates that Mr. Comey “touched on” the Flynn case before the Judiciary Committee on March 15, 2017. A “career, non-partisan law enforcement officer” was present and took notes. “According to that agent’s contemporaneous notes,” Mr. Grassley writes, “Director Comey specifically told us during that briefing that the FBI agents who interviewed Lt. General Michael Flynn, ‘saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying.’”
Mr. Grassley says this contradicts Mr. Comey’s “public statements during his current book tour denying any memory of those comments,” and that Mr. Comey “led us to believe during that briefing” that “the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute [ Mr. Flynn ] for false statements made in that interview.”
The House Intelligence Committee has released a transcript of Mr. Comey saying the same thing about Mr. Flynn, so this is the second time Mr. Comey has been contradicted on the point. In December Mr. Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI, and the question is whether special counsel Robert Mueller pressured him to plead to a crime he didn’t commit. Attorney John Dowd asks the same question in a nearby letter and says Congress should seek the 302 forms filed by FBI agents who did the interviewing.” (Read more: The Wall Street Journal, 5/13/2018)
“In 2009, when Mueller ran the FBI, the bureau asked Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to spend millions of his own dollars funding an FBI-supervised operation to rescue a retired FBI agent, Robert Levinson, captured in Iran while working for the CIA in 2007.”
(…) “Deripaska’s efforts came very close to success,” said David McGee, a former federal prosecutor who represents Levinson’s family. “We were told at one point that the terms of Levinson’s release had been agreed to by Iran and the U.S. and included a statement by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pointing a finger away from Iran. At the last minute, Secretary Clinton decided not to make the agreed-on statement.”
(…) “The FBI had three reasons for choosing Deripaska for a mission worthy of a spy novel. First, his aluminum empire had business in Iran. Second, the FBI wanted a foreigner to fund the operation because spending money in Iran might violate U.S. sanctions and other laws. Third, agents knew Deripaska had been banished since 2006 from the United States by State over reports he had ties to organized crime and other nefarious activities. He denies the allegations, and nothing was ever proven in court.
The FBI rewarded Deripaska for his help. In fall 2009, according to U.S. entry records, Deripaska visited Washington on a rare law enforcement parole visa. And since 2011, he has been granted entry at least eight times on a diplomatic passport, even though he doesn’t work for the Russian Foreign Ministry.”
(…) “Mueller’s indictment of Manafort makes no mention of Deripaska, even though prosecutors have evidence that Manafort contemplated inviting his old Russian client for a 2016 Trump campaign briefing. Deripaska said he never got the invite and investigators have found no evidence it occurred. There’s no public evidence Deripaska had anything to do with election meddling.”
(…) “Two months before Trump was elected president, Deripaska was in New York as part of Russia’s United Nations delegation when three FBI agents awakened him in his home; at least one agent had worked with Deripaska on the aborted effort to rescue Levinson. During an hour-long visit, the agents posited a theory that Trump’s campaign was secretly colluding with Russia to hijack the U.S. election.
Deripaska laughed but realized, despite the joviality, that they were serious,” the lawyer said. “So he told them in his informed opinion the idea they were proposing was false. ‘You are trying to create something out of nothing,’ he told them.” The agents left though the FBI sought more information in 2017 from the Russian, sources tell me. Waldman declined to say if Deripaska has been in contact with the FBI since Sept, 2016.” (Read more: The Hill, 5/14/2018)
“A WikiLeaks volunteer and friend of Chelsea Manning agreed to cooperate with the US Justice Department and appear in front of an Alexandria, VA grand jury in exchange for immunity [in May 2018], reports the Daily Beast.
“I decided to cooperate in exchange for immunity,” said David House – a computer science graduate and political activist who previously refused to testify against Julian Assange in 2011, only to be subpoenaed last May for an encore appearance in front of a grand jury that’s been investigating the WikiLeaks founder for almost nine years.
“You know, I’m walking around on the street out here. I’m not in an embassy,” he added.
House spoke briefly with prosecutors and then testified for about 90 minutes in front of the grand jury, he said. “They wanted to know about my meetings with Assange, they wanted to know broadly about what we talked about,” he recalled. Prosecutors seemed particularly interested in the potential for collateral damage in some of Assange’s leaks. The identities of some American collaborators were exposed in Assange’s release of State Department cables and Army field reports from Afghanistan, which triggered internal debate and led to the departure of some of WikiLeaks’ key staffers early on. –Daily Beast
“They showed me chat logs in which I was arguing vehemently with him about releasing documents that would leave people vulnerable and put people’s lives at risk,” said House. “That was the only thing they put in front of my face that made me think, ‘This may be what they’re going after him for.’”
Chelsea Manning, meanwhile has refused to comply with a March 5 subpoena in the same case – making good on a vow to fight the subpoena in court.
“I am not going to contribute to a process that I feel is dangerous and could potentially place me in a position where I am forced to backtrack on the truth,” Manning told the New York Times.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/02/2019)
Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General Logo (Credit: public domain)
“Multiple subjects of a report on the Justice Department’s handling of a 2016 investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email use have been notified that they can privately review the report by week’s end, signaling the long-awaited document is nearing release.
The report is likely to reignite the volatile debate over the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s handling of the Clinton probe, and it will put Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, in a familiar place—taking aim at members of the law enforcement community.
Those invited to review the report were told they would have to sign nondisclosure agreements in order to read it, people familiar with the matter said. They are expected to have a few days to craft a response to any criticism in the report, which will then be incorporated in the final version to be released in coming weeks.
Mr. Horowitz told lawmakers last month he expected to issue the report in May, but Tuesday’s notification is the first indication that Mr. Horowitz has largely completed his inquiry. Congressional committees are expected to review the report in coming weeks. (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 5/16/2018)
American Center for Law & Justice Logo (Credit: public domain)
“We have just uncovered a stunning revelation about the extent to which the Clinton State Department colluded with the Clinton Foundation. Despite what Hillary Clinton told the American people, there was no firewall.”
(…) “These documents, only now being uncovered through our FOIA request and subsequent litigation, show extensive communications exchanged between Clinton or her senior staff at State Department and Doug Band – a senior aid at the Clinton Foundation and creator of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).
In recent court filings, the State Department has revealed that more than 8,700 documents exist in Cheryl Mills’ and/or Huma Abedin’s files which contain the single search term, “Doug Band.” It is possible, and indeed likely, that each document consists of several pages placing the number closer to 18,000 pages or more.
The ACLJ has also learned through our litigation that another 22,000 documents exist in Cheryl Mills’ and Huma Abedin’s files (not including attachments) mentioning or referring to the Clinton Foundation or a related term referencing the foundation.
This information alone serves as overwhelming evidence of the corruption that occurred within the State Department during the time Hillary Clinton served as Secretary of State. The documents also confirm that Secretary Clinton intentionally lied to the American people and misled the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during her confirmation hearings for Secretary of State. On several occasions, Secretary Clinton assured the Senate that she would maintain a complete separation between her two worlds – the foundation and any donors hoping to obtain favors and her operation of the State Department. In fact, she informed the Senate that as early as January 2009, steps had already been taken to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Absolutely no such steps appear to have ever been taken.
Indeed, in just the most recent 89 pages of documents produced by State which mention Doug Band, it is clear that Band served as a liaison for Clinton donors looking for favors and official acts from the Clinton-run State Department.
From requests for Secretary Clinton’s appearance at social events and fundraisers to requests for special consideration for government positions (Brock Johnson) and at least 5 ambassadorships (a diplomatic official of the highest rank), Doug Band was the guy to contact; and he had a direct line to Secretary Clinton and her senior staff. If a foundation donor needed help with a visa application in light of a prior criminal conviction or experienced complications with international travel, they contacted Doug Band and, within minutes of receiving their request, Doug Band would forward the request/favor to Huma Abedin or Cheryl Mills.
In fact, when other government employees or officials couldn’t get a hold of Secretary Clinton or her staff, they emailed Doug Band for a response.”
(…) “Brock Johnson later tipped off Cheryl Mills about a “Significant FOIA” request in 2012 that requested information about “the number of email accounts of, or associated with, Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the extent to which those email accounts are identifiable as those of or associated with Secretary Clinton.” The Inspector General found that the State Department then falsely stated that there were “no records responsive to your request,” when in fact numerous officials knew about Secretary Clinton’s private email address. To be clear, Johnson tipped off Cheryl Mills about the FOIA request that would have first publicly uncovered Secretary Clinton’s email scandal; instead the State Department covered it up for months longer. And Johnson obtained his job as a “favor” to the Clinton Foundation.” (Read more: American Center for Law and Justice, 5/23/2018)
(…) “It was a little after midnight on May 4, 2016. FBI lawyer Lisa Page was texting her paramour, FBI counterespionage agent Peter Strzok, about the most stunning development to date in the 2016 campaign: Donald Trump was now the inevitable Republican nominee. He would square off against Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ certain standard-bearer.
The race was set . . . between two major-party candidates who were both under investigation by the FBI.
In stunned response, Strzok wrote what may be the only words we need to know, the words that reflected the mindset of his agency’s leadership and of the Obama administration: “Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE.”
MYE. That’s Mid-Year Exam, the code-word the FBI had given to the Hillary Clinton emails probe.”
(…) “When Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s shameful Arizona tarmac meeting with former President Clinton becomes a scandal in late June, she tries to mitigate the damage by announcing an intention to accept whatever recommendation the FBI makes. Lisa Page spitefully texts Peter Strzok. “And yeah, it’s a real profile in couragw [sic], since she knows no charges will be brought.”
That was July 1. The very next day, the FBI does its just-for-show interview of Mrs. Clinton. Three mornings later, July 5 (at the start of the work week after Independence Day), Comey holds his press conference to announce that, of course, no charges will be brought.
To accomplish this, he effectively rewrites the classified-information statute Clinton violated; barely mentions the tens of thousands of official government business emails that she destroyed; claims without any elaboration that the FBI can see no evidence of obstruction; and omits mention of her just-concluded interview in which — among other things — she pretended not to know what the markings on classified documents meant.
On the very same day, the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome travels to London to interview Christopher Steele, who has already started to pass his sensational dossier allegations to the bureau. And with the help of CIA director John Brennan and British intelligence, the FBI is ready to run a spy — a longtime CIA source — at Carter Page in London on July 11, just as he arrives there from Moscow.
With the pressure to finish MYE in the rearview mirror, Hillary Clinton looked like a shoo-in to beat Donald Trump. By mid September, Lisa Page was saying as much at a meeting in Deputy Director McCabe’s office. But Strzok was hedging his bets: Maybe “there’s no way [Trump] gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Soon, as the campaign wound down, the FBI and the Obama Justice Department were on the doormat of the FISA court, obtaining a surveillance warrant on Carter Page, substantially based on allegations in the Steele dossier — an uncorroborated Clinton-campaign opposition-research screed. Meanwhile, the FBI/CIA spy was being run at George Papadopoulos, and even seeking a role in the Trump campaign from its co-chairman, Sam Clovis.
“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley isn’t backing down as the Justice Department rebuffs his repeated attempts to speak with the FBI agent whose interview with Michael Flynn was used to indict the ex-national security adviser in the Russia probe.
“This is no ordinary criminal case,” Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote in a June 6 letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. “Congress has a right to know the full story and to know it now.”
Grassley is pressing his request anew after the DOJ once again rejected his bid to speak with FBI Agent Joe Pientka and to obtain the FBI’s records of the interview.
(…) But Republicans on Capitol Hill are seeking more information about that interview as recent revelations have raised questions about the guilty plea itself. They say former FBI Director James Comey in fact indicated to lawmakers that FBI agents did not believe Flynn intentionally lied about the talks with Russia’s ambassador.
“Contrary to his public statements during his current book tour denying any memory of those comments, then-Director Comey led us to believe during that briefing that the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he intentionally lied about his conversation with the Ambassador and that the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute him for false statements made in that interview,” Grassley wrote in May to Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd (Credit: Wikipedia)
In that letter, Grassley requested the FBI’s so-called “302” documents memorializing their interview with Flynn and other supporting documents, including the agents’ notes. He also asked for a transcribed interview with Pientka, the FBI special agent who interviewed Flynn with fellow agent Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump text messages later led to his dismissal from the Russia probe.
Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd, in a May 29 letter to Grassley, declined the requests.
“Whatever Mr. Corney may have said and whatever Mr. Flynn’s demeanor, the evidence in the public record proves beyond any reasonable doubt that Mr. Flynn knowingly made false statements about contacts with the Russian ambassador,” Boyd said.
(…) In a letter sent Friday to Rosenstein, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the records should be provided to all committee members “and designated staff” rather than just the so-called “Gang of Eight” — which refers to Republican and Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress as well as top lawmakers from the intelligence panels.
“Your continued refusal to permit Members of Congress and designated staff to review the requested documents is obstruction of a lawful Congressional investigation,” Nunes wrote.
Asked about the letter, however, a DOJ official said Rosenstein is currently “representing the United States in a brief unrelated visit to a foreign nation, one of America’s key intelligence partners,” indicating he would plan on responding during the previously scheduled briefing on Thursday.
“He, along with the FBI Director and DNI Coats, look forward to the further briefing and again presenting responsive documents to Chairman Nunes and the rest of his colleagues in the Gang of 8 meeting scheduled for Thursday of this week,” the official said.” (Read more: Fox News, 5/29/2018)(Archive)
(…) “If Joseph Mifsud truly is a Russian agent, it is odd that neither the Western intelligence agencies he snookered nor the U.S. government is acting as if he is.
For instance, the FBI interviewed Mifsud in Washington, D.C., between Feb. 8-12, 2017, less than two weeks after its first interview with Papadopoulos, on Jan. 27, when he admitted to meeting Mifsud and talking about Hilary Clinton emails.
Mifsud was in Washington to speak at the large annual conference for Global Ties U.S., an organization that has been a partner of the U.S. State Department for over 50 years. Several State Department officials also spoke at the conference. France’s ambassador to Washington, Gerard Araud, was one of several foreign envoys to the United States who lectured at the 2017 event.
So why did the FBI not arrest Mifsud? The State Department declined to comment when RCI emailed to ask why it did not prevent its officials from appearing at an event with a “Kremlin-linked” figure who was key to Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election.
Joseph Mifsud (left) appears with British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, at a Conservative Party fundraiser outside of London on October 19, 2017. (Credit: public domain)
If Mifsud was a Russian spy, it’s unclear why after Papadopoulos’ July 27, 2017 arrest that no U.S. intelligence officials warned their European partners that they were hosting a foreign agent on their territory.
Mifsud met with many senior British politicians, even after the FBI knew of the Downer conversations, and had interviewed Papadopoulos under oath. Mifsud met Alok Sharma, then a Foreign Office minister for Asia/Pacific, and now minister of state for employment, “a couple of times” at least, including at a fundraiser Oct. 19, two weeks after Papadopoulos’ Oct. 5 guilty plea.
At that same fundraiser, Mifsud was photographed next to Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary, the most senior intelligence official responsible for running MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, and Government Communications Headquarters, the UK equivalent of America’s National Security Agency.
The office of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, declined to comment when RCI emailed to ask if it alerted the UK government about Mifsud after Papadopoulos’s arrest. British government agencies did not respond by press time to requests for comment about whether the UK had been warned by its U.S. partners about Mifsud before the foreign secretary and other senior politicians mingled with an alleged Russian agent.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 5/30/2018)
****
Disobedient Media’s Elizabeth Vos dives even deeper:
“Over the last few months, Professor Joseph Mifsud has become a feather in the cap for those pushing the Trump-Russia narrative. He is characterized as a “Russian” intelligence asset in the mainstream press, despite his declarations to the contrary. However, evidence has surfaced that suggests Mifsud was anything but a Russian spy and may have actually worked for British intelligence. This new evidence culminates in the ground-breaking conclusion that the UK and its intelligence apparatus may be responsible for the invention of key pillars of the Trump-Russia scandal. If true, this would essentially turn the entire RussiaGate debacle on its head.
To give an idea of the scope of this report, a few central points showing the UK connections with the central pillars of the Trump-Russia claims are included here, in the order of discussion in this article:
Mifsud allegedly discussed that Russia has ‘dirt’ on Clinton in the form of ‘thousands of emails’ with George Papadopoulos in London in April 2016.
The following month, Papadopoulos spoke with Alexander Downer, Australia’s ambassador to the UK, about the alleged Russian dirt on Clinton while they were drinking at a swanky Kensington bar, according to The Times. In late July 2016, Downer shared his tip with Australian intelligence officials who forwarded it to the FBI.
Robert Goldstone, a key figure in the ‘Trump Tower’ part of the RussiaGate narrative, sent Donald Trump Jr. an email claiming Russia wanted to help the Trump campaign. He is a British music promoter.
Christopher Steele, ex-MI6, who worked as an MI6 agent in Moscow until 1993 and ran the Russia desk at MI6 HQ in London between 2006 and 2009. He produced the totally unsubstantiated ‘Steele Dossier’ of Trump-Russia allegations, with funding from the Clinton campaign and the DNC.
Robert Hannigan, the head of British spy agency GCHQ, flew to Washington DC to share ‘director-to-director’ level intelligence with then-CIA Chief John Brennan.
Each of these strands of UK-tied elements of the Russiagate narrative can be substantially dismantled on close inspection. This untangling process leads to the surprising conclusion that UK intelligence services fabricated evidence of collusion in order to create the appearance of a Trump-Russia connection.
This trend begins with Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese scholar with an eclectic academic history who Quartzdescribed as an “enigma,” while legacy press has enthusiastically characterized him as a central personality in the Trump-Russia scandal. The New York Times described Mifsud as an “enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia”, citing his regular involvement in the annual meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, a Russian-based think-tank, as well as three short articles he wrote in support of Russian policies.
Mifsud strongly denied claims that he was associated with Russian intelligence, telling Italian newspaper Repubblica that he was a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Clinton Foundation, adding that his political outlook was “left-leaning.” Last month, Slate reported Mifsud had ‘disappeared’, as did some of the other figures linking the UK to the Trump-Russia scandal. This aspect will be discussed in more detail below.
To contextualize Mifsud’s eclectic academic career in terms of intelligence service, it is helpful to note that research undertaken by this author and Suzie Dawson as part of the Decipher You project has repeatedly shown the close ties – an outright merger in many cases – between the intelligence community and academia. This enmeshment also takes place with think-tanks, NGOs, and in the corporate sphere. In this light, Mifsud’s brand of ‘scholarship’ becomes far less mysterious.
Mifsud’s alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud’s LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor’s name and biography had been removed from the campus’ website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for “years.”
WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: “[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this photo.”
The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: “…Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy.” The event is listed as taking place in October 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.” (Read more: Disobedient Media, April 4, 2018)
Claire Smith stands with Joseph Mifsud on the left side of the back row. (Credit: Geodiplomatics)
“The bridge to the Russia investigation wasn’t erected in Moscow during the summer of the 2016 election.
It originated earlier, 1,700 miles away in London, where foreign figures contacted Trump campaign advisers and provided the FBI with hearsay allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, bureau documents and interviews of government insiders reveal. These contacts in spring 2016 — some from trusted intelligence sources, others from Hillary Clinton supporters — occurred well before FBI headquarters authorized an official counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016.
The new timeline makes one wonder: Did the FBI follow its rules governing informants?
Here’s what a congressman and an intelligence expert think:
“The revelation of purposeful contact initiated by alleged confidential human sources prior to any FBI investigation is troublesome,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), an ally of President Trump and chairman of a House subcommittee that’s taking an increasingly aggressive oversight role in the scandal, told me. “This new information begs the questions: Who were the informants working for, who were they reporting to and why has the [Department of Justice] and FBI gone to such great lengths to hide these contacts?”
Kevin Brock agrees that Congress has legitimate questions. The retired FBI assistant director for intelligence supervised the rewriting of bureau rules governing sources, under then-director Robert Mueller a decade ago. Those rules forbid the FBI from directing a human source to target an American until a formally predicated investigative file is opened.
Brock sees oddities in how the Russia case began. “These types of investigations aren’t normally run by assistant directors and deputy directors at headquarters,” he told me. “All that happens normally in a field office, but that isn’t the case here and so it becomes a red flag. Congress would have legitimate oversight interests in the conditions and timing of the targeting of a confidential human source against a U.S. person.” (Read more: The Hill, 6/01/2018)
(…) “Priestap revealed a surprising level of detail regarding the composition of the team involved in Mid-Year Exam. As Priestap described it, the team comprised three differing but intertwined elements: the filter team, the primary team, and the senior leadership team.
Rick Mains (Credit: Linked In)
Below Strzok and Moffa was a day-to-day investigative “filter” team of approximately 15 FBI agents and analysts that was overseen by Rick Mains, a supervisory special agent who reported directly to Strzok and Moffa. Joining the team were two DOJ lawyers from the Eastern District of Virginia and two attorneys from the DOJ’s National security Division (NSD) who, according to Priestap, were “heavily engaged.” According to testimony from Page, John Carlin, who ran the NSD, was receiving briefings on both investigations directly from McCabe.
The primary team was small, consisting only of Strzok, Moffa, Mains, and, to varying degrees, Moyer. Mains reported to Strzok and Moffa, who, in turn, along with Moyer, provided briefings to Priestap.
The senior leadership team was more fluid, consisting of higher-level officials who provided briefings and updates to Comey, McCabe, or both. In addition to Priestap, Strzok, and Moffa, frequent attendees included Moyer (“sometimes, but not always”); Page (“usually included”); deputy general counsel Trisha Anderson (“sometimes, but not always”); Comey’s chief of staff, Jim Rybicki (“most, if not all of these”); and general counsel Baker (“often in those meetings”).
According to Priestap, Mains was never involved in the senior leadership meetings. Priestap described Mains’ role as being “in charge of the investigative team, the working level, all the day-to-day stuff.”
“[While] we asked his opinion on all kinds of things, we didn’t want him to be tied up in all those other meetings because he needed to advance the investigation. Somebody’s got to ride herd on all the people doing the work,” he said.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/29/2019)
“Another unsourced leak of a congressional hearing transcript to The Epoch Times highlights the testimony of former FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.
Unfortunately, the transcript is not provided, and there is no explanation as to why the transcript is not provided; however, one quote seems interesting.
The question surrounds why congressional leadership, including the Gang-of-Eight, were not briefed about the opening of a counterintelligence operation into a presidential campaign. The investigation began on July 31st, 2016. Congress was not notified until early March 2017.
Rep. Jordan: I guess what I’m asking, Mr. Priestap, is who made the decision not to brief Congress in this particular instance?
Mr. Priestap: Mr. Comey.
This answer seems to be directly contradicting the March 20, 2017, testimony of FBI Director James Comey. Watch [the] first 3:00 minutes, ending with: ”because of the sensitivity of the matter.”
So in open testimony Comey said congress was not notified upon the advice of the Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. However, in closed testimony Bill Priestap says congress was not notified because of a decision by FBI Director James Comey. (Conservative Treehouse, 2/01/2019)
Andrew McCabe (l), Lisa Page and Peter Strzok (Credit: The Daily Caller)
“Text messages sent between Strzok and Page, which were first obtained by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, suggest that McCabe was a preferred line of direct communication for Strzok. These same texts indicate that both Strzok and Page frequently met directly with McCabe. Priestap admitted he did not know the frequency of such meetings:
Mr. Brebbia: “Would they frequently meet with then Deputy Director McCabe without you being there?”
Mr. Priestap: “No. I have no idea of the frequency in which that might have occurred. But while responsible for this case, I couldn’t drop the thousands of others cases and matters, issues I was responsible for. And so I had numerous regular meetings outside of the office with other U.S. Government entities, what have you.
“And as a result, in this particular case, Pete would often be a point person if I was, for example, half the day at the Central Intelligence Agency, and things came up, they could go direct — ‘they’ meaning my 7th floor, EAD, deputy director, would know they could go straight, of course, with Pete.
“So I would think — I have no idea of the exact numbers, but these meetings absolutely would have occurred without me.”
A report published by Horowitz in June last year, which reviewed the FBI’s investigation of the Clinton email case, included the notable statement that several witnesses had informed the IG that Page “circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap’s or Steinbach’s knowledge.” Steinbach, who was the executive assistant director and Priestap’s direct supervisor, left the FBI in early 2017.
Page’s role as special counsel to McCabe has been described by former FBI general counsel James Baker in congressional testimony as being both unique and undefined.
“I expected them [Page and McCabe] to report back to me about important things. And I had leave it to both of their discretion to figure out that — what important was, I know it’s kind of vague. But that was how we were supposed to try to work it out,” Baker told lawmakers on Oct. 3, 2018. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/29/2019)
(…) “President Donald Trump suggested in August last year that Clinton’s emails were obtained by China.
The president was likely responding to a report released days earlier by the Daily Caller, citing two anonymous sources, claiming that a Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington area obtained nearly all of Clinton’s emails. The firm received Clinton’s emails in real time using a code embedded on a private, unauthorized email server she used for government work while she was secretary of state, the report alleged. Fox News confirmed the Daily Caller report, citing two anonymous sources. It isn’t clear if the Fox sources are different from those used by the Daily Caller.
Kable and Chappell served as section chiefs at the bureau’s counterintelligence division alongside Strzok during the early days of the Clinton-email investigation. Both Kable and Chappell have expertise in Chinese espionage, a factor which, if the media reports about China are true, may have initially contributed to their selection for the Clinton-email team.
Kable led investigations against “known and suspected Chinese intelligence officers in the U.S.” for a year and five months starting in 2009, according to an FBI promotion notice and his LinkedIn profile. While little is known about Chappell’s time at the FBI, he was cited among experts on Chinese espionage in a Fox News article published two weeks after the start of the Clinton-email probe. Executive Assistant Director Randall Coleman, the senior most official overseeing the email probe, is also cited in the article, as well as the related FBI press release.
Despite playing a prominent role in the investigation, Kable’s name isn’t mentioned in Horowitz’s otherwise voluminous and exhaustive report (pdf) on the handling of the Clinton-email investigation. Chappell, who met the ICIG and worked in counterespionage, also isn’t mentioned in the report. The FBI wouldn’t confirm whether Chappell still works for the bureau.
With the exception of Comey, every person in the chain of command above Strzok was replaced at different points during the Clinton-email investigation. On Dec. 9, 2015, Comey moved Kable out of FBI headquarters to the Washington field office, ending his term on the Clinton-email probe.
Bill Priestap (Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)
Two weeks after Kable’s departure, Comey appointed Bill Priestap to serve as assistant director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, replacing Randall Coleman, who held the same position until Dec. 21, 2015. A month later, Comey appointed Andrew McCabe to replace Mark Giuliano as deputy director, and the following month, Comey appointed Michael Steinbach to replace Giacalone as the executive assistant director for the National Security Branch.
If Kable was the fourth person present at the meeting when Rucker told FBI about the email metadata anomalies, Strzok would be the only official who learned of the ICIG lead and remained on the Clinton-email investigation until it was concluded.
Priestap, who arrived six months after the ICIG anomaly referral, told lawmakers on June 5 last year that he didn’t know Frank Rucker, the ICIG investigator, and that he was never informed of the referral on the anomalies in the metadata in Clinton’s emails. Strzok reported to Priestap.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/29/2019)
“Jim Wolfe, a longtime former director of security at the Senate Intelligence Committee, was indicted and arrested Thursday night for giving false statements to FBI agents during their investigation into leaks of classified information to the media.
According to the Department of Justice, Wolfe lied to FBI agents back in 2017 “about his repeated contacts with three reporters, including through his use of encrypted messaging applications.”
Wolfe is also accused of making false statements about providing “non-public information related to matters occurring before the [Senate Intelligence Committee]” to two additional reporters.”
Samantha Power (Credit: Lee Jin-man/The Associated Press)
“James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, expressed doubt on Thursday at former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power’s claims about her role in unmasking Americans’ identities in intelligence reports.”
“…It was revealed in October that Power made 260 unmasking requests during her final year in office, a rate that far surpassed her previous rate of unmaskings.”
(…) “Power told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in an interview in October that others in government made the unmasking requests under her name.
Asked about Power’s explanation by Hewitt, Clapper suggested that it is cause for concern.
“If that happened, if people usurped the authority to request unmaskings, would that concern you, Director Clapper?” Hewitt asked.
“Yeah, it would,” said Clapper.
“I don’t know quite how that would happen, you know, because the only way you can make an unmasking request is that you have authorized access to the report in question in the first place.”
“So I don’t know how that, quite how that would work,” he added.”
Department of Justice Office of Inspector General Logo (Credit: public domain)
“The long-awaited watchdog report on the FBI and DOJ’s Hillary Clinton investigation during the 2016 presidential campaign will be released next Thursday, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Horowitz said “we anticipate releasing the report on June 14, 2018.” That day is also President Trump’s birthday.
The inspector general also told committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in the letter that he has accepted the invitation to testify about the report on June 18, meaning his scheduled appearance before the committee is being delayed again.” (Read more: Fox News, 6/07/2018)
Judge Emmet G. Sullivan (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/National Law Journal)
“Judicial Watch announced a federal court ordered a hearing for Thursday, October 11, 2018, on a motion to compel testimony about the email practices of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The order was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.
(…) “In 2016, Hillary Clinton was required to submit, under oath, written answers to Judicial Watch’s questions. Clinton objected to and refused to answer questions about the creation of her email system; her decision to use the system despite warnings from State Department cybersecurity officials; and the basis for her claim that the State Department had “90-95%” of her emails. Judge Sullivan is considering Judicial Watch’s motion to compel answers to these questions.
In her responses sent to Judicial Watch and the court on October 13, 2016, Clinton refused to answer three questions and responded that she “does not recall” 20 times concerning her non-government clintonemail.com email system. She preceded her responses by eight “general objections” and two “objections to definitions.” The words “object” or “objection” appear 84 times throughout the 23-page document submitted to the court and Judicial Watch.
Judge Sullivan will also hear arguments on Judicial Watch’s motion to compel testimony from former State Department Director of Information Resource Management of the Executive Secretariat John Bentel (who asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer 87 questions at his deposition) and Judicial Watch’s motion to unseal the audiovisual recordings of all depositions. Judicial Watch took the testimony of key Clinton aides and State Department senior officials, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, but the videotapes of the depositions are currently under seal.” (Judicial Watch, 6/13/2018)
(…) “FBI Director Wray lost all credibility in June of 2018 when he participated in a structured press conference intended to diminish the IG report on the institutional issues with the FBI. It was then obvious Wray was committed to the institutional cover-up of gross misconduct by former and current DOJ and FBI officials.
At the conclusion of that June 14, 2018, press conference an earlier unscheduled meeting on January 3rd, 2018, between Christopher Wray, Rod Rosenstein and House Speaker Paul Ryan then began to make a lot more sense.
During that January 2018 meeting FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and House Speaker Paul Ryan formed an alliance against HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes.
January 3rd, 2018 – WASHINGTON DC – Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Chris Wray made an unannounced visit to Speaker Paul Ryan’s office Wednesday as the Justice Department grapples with an increasingly hostile faction of House Republicans demanding documents related to the bureau’s Russia probe.
Rosenstein was spotted entering Ryan’s office, and a spokesman for the speaker confirmed that Rosenstein and Wray had requested the meeting. A second person familiar with the meeting said it was related to a document request issued over the summer by House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes. (more)
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report:
“The IG report has destroyed the credibility of the Department of Justice and the FBI. It confirms what Judicial Watch has investigated and revealed for nearly two years. The Obama DOJ/FBI investigation of Clinton was rushed, half-baked, rigged, and irredeemably compromised by anti-Trump and pro-Clinton bias and actions. As Judicial Watch uncovered the Clinton email scandal, it is outrageous to see a politicized FBI and DOJ then so obviously refuse to uphold the rule of law.
The IG report details repeated DOJ/FBI deference to Hillary Clinton, her aides and their lawyers. Americans should examine the report and judge for themselves whether the over-the-top deference to Hillary Clinton can be explained as anything other than political, especially from agencies that at the same time were actively collaborating with the Clinton campaign’s Fusion GPS to spy on and target then-candidate Trump. The IG report details how at least five top FBI agents and lawyers exchanged pro-Clinton and anti-Trump communications. The IG shares the concerns of Judicial Watch and millions of Americans that this bias cast a cloud over the credibility of the Clinton email and Russia investigations.
As Judicial Watch has demonstrated through its independent investigations and lawsuits, there is more than enough evidence that Clinton knowingly and intentionally mishandled classified information while using a non-government email system to conduct government business.
Will the Sessions Justice Department now do the right thing and conduct a Clinton email investigation properly? Or will it let James Comey and Loretta Lynch have the last word on Hillary Clinton’s evident email crimes?
In the meantime, Judicial Watch will continue its ongoing FOIA lawsuits and investigations into the Clinton email scandal and the related Obama administration cover-up.
Judicial Watch has numerous lawsuits and document productions regarding the issues raised by the IG, including the conduct of Andrew McCabe, the Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting, the Strzok-Page communications, the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton, and DOJ collusion with the Clinton campaign.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who was appointed by President Obama, has been investigating allegations of wrongdoing within the federal law-enforcement agencies since January 12, 2017. Horowitz opened a separate investigation into James Comey on April 20 over classified information stemming from his memo leaks.
Horowitz previously released a report stating that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was dishonest with investigators about how sensitive information from the agency ended up in The Wall Street Journal in 2016, which was the basis for his termination and criminal referrals by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last May. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who met with former President Bill Clinton just days before Hillary’s FBI interview, was also a subject of Horowitz’s report.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 6/14/2018)
“Foreign actors” obtained access to some of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified as “secret” — according to a new memo from two GOP-led House committees and an internal FBI email.
Fox News obtained the memo prepared by the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, which lays out key interim findings ahead of next week’s hearing with Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The IG, separately, is expected to release his highly anticipated report on the Clinton email case later Thursday.
The House committees, which conducted a joint probe into decisions made by the DOJ in 2016 and 2017, addressed a range of issues in their memo including Clinton’s email security.
“Documents provided to the Committees show foreign actors obtained access to some of Mrs. Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified ‘Secret,’” the memo says, adding that foreign actors also accessed the private accounts of some Clinton staffers.
The memo does not say who the foreign actors are, or what material was obtained, but it notes that secret information is defined as information that, if disclosed, could “reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the national security.” (Read more: Fox News, 6/14/2018)
“House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy warned the DOJ and the FBI on Sunday that Republicans will come after them if they choose not to comply with subpoena requests.
Gowdy told “Fox News Sunday” that House Speaker Paul Ryan led a meeting with FBI and DOJ officials on Friday night and “made very clear there’s going to be action on the floor of the House this week if FBI and DOJ do not comply with our subpoena request.”
“Paul Ryan led this meeting. You had Devin Nunes, Bob Goodlatte, myself and everyone you can think of from the FBI and the DOJ, and we went item by item on both of those outstanding subpoenas,” Gowdy explained. “We’re going to get compliance or the House of Representatives is going to use its full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance.”
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray were present at Ryan’s meeting, according to Gowdy. (Read more: Daily Caller, 6/17/2018)
(…) “The Obama Justice Department and FBI spin on intent takes no account of the 800-pound gorilla in the room: The only reason officials were put in this position of compromising intelligence was that their boss, Clinton, established an improper communications network. And, again, she perfectly well understood that this was a monumental security breach.
It was not just a matter of whether any single transmission was an intentional flouting of the rules. It was, more significantly, a matter of erecting a renegade network for the systematic conduct of the State Department’s most sensitive work — including communications with the president and other top national-security and foreign-policy officials.
And observe how perverse this is: The Justice Department and FBI’s crimped construction of intent and knowledge enabled Clinton — the person singularly responsible for creating the problem — to escape liability on the ground she could not be held responsible for poor decisions by her staff. Investigators reasoned that the secretary of state was one of the nation’s highest government officials, who was more often than not receiving, not sending, sensitive information, and who was inundated by so much information that she had no choice but to rely on underlings to make judgments about what information could safely be sent to her.
It is a classic in the Clinton genre: rules-don’t-apply-to-me sense of privilege causes mess; subordinates blamed for mess; Washington looks the other way. If the FBI thought it was tremendously important that Clinton was on the receiving end of most (but not all) classified emails (inference: it was not her fault that people who should have known better sent her secret intelligence), how could it not have been even more important that Clinton imposed a non-secure, non-government server on her subordinates’ ability to communicate with her?
Remarkably, even blinding themselves to critical evidence was not enough to bury the case. In order to conclude that there was no prosecutable offense, the Obama Justice Department and FBI still had to rewrite the applicable statute (the Espionage Act, codified in Section 793 of the federal penal code). That’s because, for all the supposed obsession about whether investigators had enough evidence of criminal intent, the law does not actually require such evidence — if one is an official who has been schooled in the handling of national defense secrets, gross negligence will do.
The IG obligingly confines this aspect of his perfunctory assessment to a footnote (number 124):
Even though Section 793(f)(1) does not require intent, prosecutors told us that the Department has interpreted the provision to require that the person accused of having removed or delivered classified information in violation of this provision possess knowledge that the information is classified. In addition, based on the legislative history of Section 793(f)(1), the prosecutors determined that conduct must be “so gross as to almost suggest deliberate intention,” be “criminally reckless,” or fall “just a little short of willful” to meet the “gross negligence” standard.
In other words, the Justice Department added proof elements that are not in the statute. The Espionage Act literally says that if you are a government official who has been entrusted with sensitive information, you are guilty if you either willfully cause its transmission to an unauthorized person or place (Section 793(d)), or are grossly negligent in permitting it to be removed from its proper custody, transmitted to an unauthorized person, or lost, stolen, or abstracted (Section 793(f)(1)).” (Read more: National Review, 6/19/2018)
“The media has focused almost exclusively on the conclusion of the Justice Department inspector general’s report on the FBI’s handling of the Clinton email probe, which found bias did not impact the probe, as well as the lack of any newly announced indictments or criminal referrals. The goal of course being to downplay the negative findings of the report.
At the same time, the press gave, at most, passing mention to the statement Attorney General Jeff Sessions simultaneously released. But his statement and the findings of the report make one thing clear: This isn’t over.
Here’s why. Throughout the 568-page report, the IG highlighted several areas meriting additional investigation. And Sessions said the report “reveals a number of significant errors by the senior leadership of the Department of Justice and the FBI during the previous administration,” and stressed “this is not the end of the process.”
John Huber (Credit: public domain)
United States Attorney John Huber continues his work in cooperation with the IG to review certain prosecutorial and investigative determinations made by the Justice Department in 2016 and 2017. Based on his review of the report and his own investigation, Huber will provide recommendations as to whether any matter not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation required further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of Special Counsel.”
Put simply: There is still much to be done and much to come. What is likely over is the possibility the Justice Department will re-investigate Clinton for mishandling of classified information, or prosecute her. That’s a good thing. Clinton is done. While she may never face justice in a court of law, perhaps losing the presidency is a more prescient and proper punishment.
Peter Strzok (Credit: Saul Loeb/Agence France Presse/Getty Images
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed Thursday that embattled anti-Trump FBI official, Peter Strzok, no longer has his security clearance.
This news comes just days after Strzok’s attorney confirmed that the agent was escorted out of FBI headquarters following the bombshell Inspector General’s report on the bureau’s mishandling of the Clinton email investigation.
In an interview with radio host, Howie Carr, Sessions said, “Mr. Strzok, as I understand, has lost his security clearance.” Despite losing his clearance, the Attorney General said it was his “understanding” that Strzok remained on the FBI’s payroll, but that he wasn’t sure.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 6/22/2018)
“Former Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik is unlikely to face any legal consequences for tipping off Clinton campaign manager John Podesta to a release of Hillary’s emails, experts tell the Daily Caller.
Kadzik’s conduct in the DOJ was described by Michael Horowitz’s IG report as constituting “poor judgment.” According to last week’s IG report, Peter Kadzik was trying to get his son hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign while Kadzik himself was part of the investigation into Clinton’s private server.
He also emailed Clinton’s 2016 campaign chair, John Podesta, with a “heads up” on when the some of her emails would be released publicly.” (Read more: Daily Caller, 6/21/2018)
Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Loretta Lynch (Credit: World Tribune)
“The FBI had little problem leaking “unverified” dirt from Russian sources on Donald Trump and his campaign aides – and even basing FISA wiretaps on it. But according to the Justice Department’s inspector general, the bureau is refusing to allow even members of Congress with top security clearance to see intercepted material alleging political interference by President Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch.
That material – which has been outlined in press reports – consists of unverified accounts intercepted from putative Russian sources in which the head of the Democratic National Committee allegedly implicates the Hillary Clinton campaign and Lynch in a secret deal to fix the Clinton email investigation.”
(…) “True or false, the material is consequential because it appears to have influenced former FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to break with bureau protocols because he didn’t trust Lynch. In his recent book, Comey said he took the reins in the Clinton email probe, announcing Clinton should not be indicted, because of a “development still unknown to the American public” that “cast serious doubt” on Lynch’s credibility – clearly the intercepted material.
If the material documents an authentic exchange between Lynch and a Clinton aide, it would appear to be strong evidence that the Obama administration put partisan political considerations ahead of its duty to enforce the law.
The information remains so secret that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz had to censor it from his recently released 500-plus-page report on the FBI’s investigation of Clinton, and even withhold it from Congress.”
(…) “The contents of the secret intelligence document — which purport to show that Lynch informed the Clinton campaign she’d make sure the FBI didn’t push too hard — were included in the inspector general’s original draft. But in the official IG report issued June 14, the information was tucked into a classified appendix to the report and entirely blanked out.
“The information was classified at such a high level by the intelligence community that it limited even the members [of Congress] who can see it, as well as the staffs,” Horowitz explained last week to annoyed Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight authority over Justice and the FBI.” (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 6/26/2018)
“A bipartisan proposal to empower and protect whistleblowers across the federal bureaucracy was signed into law yesterday. The Whistleblower Protection Coordination Act permanently extends a program requiring each inspector general office to designate an official focused on whistleblower protection issues. The law was introduced by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Ranking Member Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.).
“It’s not always easy to figure out how to disclose waste, fraud or abuse in government when there are so many different rules governing different agencies. Empowering coordinators across the federal government will give whistleblowers a clear, confidential resource to make sure they are informed and equipped to lawfully carry out their patriotic duty to shine a light on inefficiencies or misconduct in government,” Grassley said. “This law represents an important step for keeping faith with the American people, but there is always more to do to protect whistleblowers.”
The Whistleblower Protection Coordination Act permanently extends the program requiring a dedicated official in each inspector general office focused on whistleblower protection issues. The bill changes the title of these officials from ombudsman to “Whistleblower Protection Coordinator” so that potential whistleblowers better understand the role of this position, and it authorizes them to more actively promote whistleblowing to employees in their agency. Under this new bill, the coordinators will be tasked with assisting inspectors general in productive communications with other stakeholders, like the Office of Special Counsel and congress. They will also be able to better help the inspectors general strengthen their own roles in investigating reprisal and whistleblower disclosures. The legislation also requires additional reporting to congress on actual steps taken to hold accountable those who retaliate against whistleblowers. (Senate Judiciary Committee, 6/26/2018)
Jim Jordan (l) and Mark Meadows. (Credit: public domain)
“The House Judiciary Committee approved for the first time a resolution Tuesday demanding that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein turn over all requested documents regarding the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation during the presidential election after seven days or face possible impeachment or contempt.
The decision to move forward with the resolution came after a year of battles with the Justice Department and FBI to turn over requested documents. The committee voted on party lines 15-11 to pass the resolution directing Rosenstein to comply within the next seven days or face the consequences.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who has been one of the lawmakers at the front lines of the committee’s investigation, said the resolution is the result of the frustration felt among lawmakers conducting oversight. He noted that it will be up to House Republican leaders to decide whether or not to take it to the full House for a vote.
“If they don’t comply with the resolution they know the remedies the House has, contempt and impeachment,” said Jordan. “If we don’t get that information entitled to us, everybody knows that we’ll do what we have to do to get it done.”
Jordan and Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., were the authors of the resolution. Both members have criticized Rosenstein and the FBI for failing to deliver documents. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-CA, has also been fighting the Justice Department for documents and has threatened as well to hold Rosenstein in contempt or impeachment if they are not produced.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 6/26/2018)
“During the closed door testimony, Strzok was asked by a Republican investigator with the committee if his affair made him “vulnerable to potential recruitment” by “hostile intelligence service[s].”
“I don’t think I would characterize it that way,” Strzok said. “I think it is not so much any particular action as it is the way that action might be used to coerce or otherwise get somebody to do something.”
Strzok said his extramarital affair did not make him vulnerable, nor did it “have any power in coercing me to do anything other than obeying the law and doing honest, competent investigation.”
However, it is common knowledge in the intelligence community and FBI that an extramarital affair is “a sure way to make you a target through blackmail and makes one susceptible to recruitment by foreign intelligence agencies,” said a former intelligence official, who spent nearly 30 years oversees.
“It’s an important question and one that should have been asked and investigated,” said the intelligence official. “Affairs are the number one way to get compromised.”
Strzok was defiant during the questioning regarding Page, saying he would absolutely not give in to blackmail by anyone who would attempt to do so. He said he had not been blackmailed or coerced by anyone but if he had he “would immediately go report that to my superiors and see how they wanted to follow up…But it is—I absolutely would not have been vulnerable or even let alone consider any sort of recruitment attempt.” (Read more: Sara A. Carter, 3/14/2019)
“The Justice Department and Hillary Clinton’s legal team “negotiated” an agreement that blocked the FBI from accessing emails on Clinton’s homebrew server related to the Clinton Foundation, according to a transcript of recently released testimony from last summer by former FBI special agent Peter Strzok.
“Under questioning from Judiciary Committee General Counsel Zachary Somers, Strzok acknowledged that Clinton’s private personal email servers contained a mixture of emails related to the Clinton Foundation, her work as secretary of state and other matters.
Were you given access to [Clinton Foundation-related] emails as part of the investigation?” Somers asked
“We were not. We did not have access,” Strzok responded. “My recollection is that the access to those emails were based on consent that was negotiated between the Department of Justice attorneys and counsel for Clinton.” – Fox News
Strzok added that “a significant filter team” was employed at the FBI to “work through the various terms of the various consent agreements.”
“According to the attorneys, we lacked probable cause to get a search warrant for those servers and projected that either it would take a very long time and/or it would be impossible to get to the point where we could obtain probable cause to get a warrant,” said Strzok.
(…) Later in his testimony last summer, Strzok said that agents were able to access “the entire universe” of information on the servers by using search terms to probe their contents – saying “we had it voluntarily.”
“What’s bizarre about this, is in any other situation, there’s no possible way they would allow the potential perpetrator to self-select what the FBI gets to see,” said former Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz – former chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee until 2017 and current contributor to Fox News. “The FBI should be the one to sort through those emails — not the Clinton attorneys.“
Chaffetz suggested that the goal of the DOJ was to “make sure they hear no evil, see no evil — they had no interest in pursuing the truth.”
“The Clinton Foundation isn’t supposed to be communicating with the State Department anyway,” said Chaffetz. “The foundation — with her name on it — is not supposed to be communicating with the senior officials at the State Department.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/15/2019)(Strzok Transcript)
“Former FBI official Peter Strzok told Congress in 2018 that he deleted “personal” communications he had with his mistress, former FBI attorney Lisa Page.
“As a fact of the matter, following the — at some point, I — you know, it was related to personal reasons — deleted all those,” Strzok told lawmakers on June 27, 2018, according to a transcript of the testimony released Thursday.
“But they were the personal communications, not the work ones,” added Strzok, who acknowledged having an extramarital affair with Page.
Aitan Goelman, an attorney for Strzok, told The Daily Caller News Foundation on Thursday that Strzok deleted the messages before he was removed from the Mueller team.
“Pete deleted personal communications from his personal iPhone before and unrelated to these investigations,” said Goelman, who added in a follow-up comment that the deletions were made prior to July 27, 2017, when Strzok was kicked off the Mueller probe.
“Attorney General Rosenstein testified DOJ attorneys briefed him on the FISA application and told him something different than what “reports” are claiming!
Rod Rosenstein couldn’t say that he read the FISA application that he signed. He only affirmed that he had been briefed on it by DOJ attorneys.
People have been cogitating about what Rosenstein meant when he said that his understanding of the FISA application is different than what has been said in published reports. Those reports come from eyewitnesses who have read the FISA application, including Republicans in Congress.
The Conservative Treehouse suggests that this may indicate that the DOJ attorneys lied to Rosenstein. Not only that, they did it because Rosenstein answered to Trump and Trump was the target of a counterintelligence operation. In other words, they will be very difficult to prosecute.
First, the public information about the FISA application is: the Nunes memo; the Schiff memo; and the Grassley memo. All direct sourced from the actual application. Second, all members of the House and Senate intelligence committee have been allowed access to the “full and unredacted” FISA application since April 6th, 2018. So there is no way for Rosenstein to hide behind the customary opaque nature of this specific FISA issue to congress. In short, he can’t lie about it.
Deputy AG Rosenstein is essentially saying he was mislead by “a team of attorneys from the Department of Justice.” That’s a fanciful way of saying the DOJ-NSD briefing officials lied to him about the content of the reauthorization application.
OK, so in response we might initially say: ‘well if they lied to you, then prosecute them damnit’…. and our voices would be righteous. However, the weasels have an out that President Obama helped create….
Remember the Susan Rice, James Comey, James Clapper and Loretta Lynch meeting in the Oval Office that Rice wrote down in her inauguration day memo-to-self? Remember the “by the book” instructions.
Well, it would be “by the book” for the DOJ-NSD officials to lie to the Deputy AG about a counterintelligence operation, if the Deputy AG was within linear authority to the subject or target of the counterintelligence operation. They are allowed to lie to him.
“Inspector General Michael Horowitz is currently investigating how the FISA processes and FISA Court was used by the DOJ and FBI to conduct surveillance on Trump campaign. Additionally, congress is requesting several witnesses appear before hearings to discuss their involvement in the events around the 2016 presidential election and the use of the intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government to influence the outcome.
However, to gain an idea of how the FISA inquiry is likely to end; perhaps it is worthwhile to look at how the IG viewed, and constructed, the last report (full pdf below). Within the content of the released report it becomes obvious the Obama DOJ and FBI constructed a dual system of justice. Political ideology determines which process to follow.
This is the second in a four part series of reports on the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the investigation of Hillary Clinton by the FBI and Justice Department. Part one is here. Part three and four follow.”
(…) “Over 640,000 people have read the IG report from our SCRIBD link alone. Tens of millions more have likely read parts or the majority from other links to the report. In essence, unlike all prior aspects of the government hiding material, a much larger percentage of the American population is currently awake and holding direct knowledge of what has taken place.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 7/05/2018)
Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Ed O’Callaghan (l) and Associate Deputy Attorney General Scott Schools (Credit: CNN)
“Scott Schools, the Department of Justice’s senior-most career attorney and a top aide to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, will step down to take a job in the private sector, the department announced this week.
As associate deputy attorney general, Schools is Rosenstein’s main adviser. Before Rosenstein, Schools was an aide to former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.
Schools is also one of the few top DOJ officials who is regularly briefed on the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.” (Read more: Business Insider, 7/5/2018)
“Amid a series of documents released by the Senate Judiciary Committee (See here) there is a rather alarming letter from the DOJ to the FISA Court in July 2018 that points toward an institutional cover-up. (Letter]
Before getting to the substance of the letter, it’s important to put the release in context. After the FISA Court reviewed the DOJ inspector general report, the FISC ordered the DOJ-NSD to declassify and release documents related to the Carter Page FISA application.
In the cover letter for this specific release to the Senate Judiciary and Senate Intelligence committees, the DOJ cites the January 7, 2020, FISA court order:
Keep in mind that prior to this release only the FISA court had seen this letter from the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD). As we walk through the alarming content of this letter I think you’ll identify the motive behind the FISC order to release it.
First, the letter in question was sent by the DOJ-NSD to the FISA Court on July 12, 2018. It is critical to keep the date of the letter in mind as we review the content.
Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application. The DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.
However, it is within the justification of the application that alarm bells are found. On page six the letter identifies the primary participants behind the FISA redactions:
As you can see: Christopher Steele is noted as “Source #1”. Glenn Simpson of Fusion-GPS is noted as “identified U.S. person” or “business associate”; and Perkins Coie is the “U.S-based law firm.”
Now things get very interesting.
On page #8 when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the DOJ notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.
This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.
Let’s look at how the IG report frames the primary sub-source, and specifically notice the FBI contact and questioning took place in January 2017 (we now know that date to be January 12, 2017):
Those interviews with Steele’s primary sub-source took place in January, March and May of 2017; and clearly the sub-source debunked the content of the dossier itself.
Those interviews were 18-months, 16-months and 14-months ahead of the July 2018 DOJ letter to the FISC. The DOJ-NSD says the sub-source was “truthful and cooperative” but the DOJ doesn’t tell the court the content of the truthfulness and cooperation. Why?
Keep in mind this letter to the court was written by AAG John Demers in July 2018. Jeff Sessions was Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein was Deputy AG; Christopher Wray was FBI Director, David Bowditch is Deputy, and Dana Boente is FBI chief-legal-counsel.
Why would the DOJ-NSD not be forthcoming with the FISA court about the primary sub-source? This level of disingenuous withholding of information speaks to an institutional motive.
By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?
It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.
In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.
This letter justifying the application and claiming the current information would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 DOJ needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant…. My research suspicion is that the DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority. That’s the motive.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/17/2020)(Archive)
Peter Strzok (l) and Louie Gohmert (Credit: public domain)
“A member of the House Committee on the Judiciary said during a hearing Thursday that a government watchdog found that nearly all of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails were sent to a foreign entity and that the FBI didn’t follow-up on that finding.
“It was going to an unauthorized source that was a foreign entity unrelated to Russia,” he added.
Gohmert said the ICIG investigator, Frank Rucker, presented the findings to Strzok, but that the FBI official did not do anything with the information.
Strzok acknowledged meeting with Rucker, but said he did not recall the “specific content.”
“The forensic examination was done by the ICIG and they can document that,” Gohmert said, “but you were given that information and you did nothing with it.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/12/2018)
“Page steadfastly maintained there was no bias present in either the Clinton-email investigation or the Trump–Russia investigation on the part of anyone within the FBI or the DOJ, and went to some lengths to illustrate that, in general, FBI personnel don’t like most of the people they tend to investigate.
At the same time, Page repeatedly and openly admitted to placing a greater emphasis and weight on the Trump–Russia investigation than the Clinton-email investigation:
“If you were weighing resources with respect to which poses a graver threat to national security, which is more, frankly, important, there is no doubt—at least in mine or anybody else’s mind that I know—that the Russia investigation posed an incredible threat to national security, and whether we got into the Weiner laptop simply did not.”
Page returned to this topic several times:
“The notion that there might be more emails that have not previously been seen that existed on Hillary Clinton’s email server just simply don’t even enter into the realm of the same room of seriousness. The Clinton investigation involved activities that had taken place three years prior. It’s an entirely historical investigation.”
“In the assessment of the Counterintelligence Division, they still don’t even come close to the threat posed if Russia had co-opted a member of a political campaign.”
Although Page admitted to a personal dislike for Trump, she also admitted to a less-than-favorable view of Hillary Clinton, noting that while she didn’t like then-candidate Trump, she “wasn’t particularly fond or favorable toward Secretary Clinton. Page summed her position up thusly: “I mean, given a Trump-Clinton race, yes, I was supporting Clinton, but I was not a particularly big fan of hers.” (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)
(…) “Page staunchly maintained that any briefings given to the White House were always about the “Russian active-measures effort” and were not in relation to “Crossfire Hurricane,” the FBI’s name for its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump–Russia allegations.
Brennan admitted during congressional testimony that his intelligence helped establish the FBI counterintelligence investigation:
“I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred.”
This admission is important, particularly since Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) had previously disclosed that no official intelligence was used to open the FBI’s investigation.
Brennan’s role was highlighted again during testimony, as one representative questioning Page questioned her in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text message: “What are you doing after the CH brief?” CH almost certainly referred to “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Page was asked specifically about an event that occurred on the same day:
John Brennan (l) and Harry Reid (Credit: public domain)
“It’s the same day that Director Brennan is briefing Harry Reid, is why I ask. And so what you’re saying is you were unaware that Director Brennan was briefing Harry Reid that same day?”
Page said she was unaware of Brennan’s briefing to Reid. She was then asked the following:
“You give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan is giving a brief. It’s not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on-one, from what we can tell, a one-on-one briefing with Harry Reid at that point. And it becomes apparent, based on your text messages and based on Director Comey’s emails, that you all are aware that that conversation took place. Were you aware that Director Brennan had a briefing with Harry Reid and that you expected a letter from Harry Reid?”
Page noted that she remembered the letter sent by Reid, but seemed confused as to Brennan’s involvement and possible knowledge of the Steele dossier. Worth noting is that while some within the FBI likely had parts of the dossier in July, the counterintelligence investigative team didn’t receive it until mid-September during a trip to Rome, where they met personally with Steele.
The representative, who was clearly aware of the disparity in timing, focused on precisely how Brennan might have been aware of the dossier in August:
Unidentified Representative: “So what you’re saying is, is that you had no knowledge of these potential unverified memos prior to the middle part of September in your investigation?”
Page: “That is correct, sir.”
Rep.: “OK. So on Aug. 30, you and Peter are going back and forth, and you go, ‘Here we go.’ If you’ll look at 9:44:50 on August the 30th, you go, ‘Here we go.’ And it’s referencing [the New York Times report] ‘Harry Reid Cites Evidence of Russian Tampering in the U.S. Vote and Seeks FBI Inquiry.’ Now, what happens is, and what I guess gives me a little bit of concern is, if you drop down, that if you drop down to the same day, August 30th, 9:45, it says, ‘The D’—which I assume means director—’said at the a.m. brief that Reid had called him and told him that he would be sending the letter.’
Page: “OK.”
Rep.: “So you get a brief that says, well, we got the letter, but it’s almost like it’s a coordinated effort between Harry Reid and the FBI director, because obviously, he’s briefing you.”
After a bit of back and forth, Page responded, “I don’t know what Harry Reid was told or why or what the purpose of Brennan [was.]”
The representative pressed on:
“Why would Director Brennan be aware of things that the FBI was not aware of at this particular point, when it actually would potentially involve, according to Peter Strzok’s word on January 10th of 2017, an unverified salacious set of memos?”
And then the big reveal:
Unidentified Representative: “We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then, obviously, we’re going to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]?”
Page: “Yes, sir. Because with all due honesty, if Director Brennan—so we got that information from our source, right? The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did, because the first time we—”
Rep.: “We do know there are multiple sources.”
Page: “I do know that. I do know that the information ultimately found its way lots of different places, certainly in October of 2016. But if the CIA as early as August, in fact, had those same reports, I am not aware of—I’m not aware of that and nor do I believe they provided them to us, and that would be unusual.”
Rep.: “Were you aware that Christopher Steele had conversations or multiple conversations with Fusion GPS and others outside of just working special intel for you?”
Page: “As of August of 2016, I don’t know who Christopher Steele is. I don’t know that he’s an FBI source. I don’t know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life. So let me just sort of be clear. When the FBI first receives the reports that are known as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele’s handler in September of 2016 at that time, we do not know who—we don’t know why these reports have been generated. We don’t know for what purpose.”
A bit later in the discussion, the representative asked another question:
Rep.: “So you don’t know whether it’s a coordinated effort to get you those documents or not at that point in September?”
Page responds, “Coordinated by whom, sir?
Rep.: “Anybody, other than a confidential human source saying, ‘Listen, I’ve got reason to be concerned and bring it to you.’ It could be coordinated by the CIA. It could have been coordinated by Fusion GPS. You don’t know.”
Page: “At the time that we received the documentation, no. What we have is the preexisting relationship with the source and the reliability of his prior reporting.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)
“The role of Moffa, currently a deputy assistant director at the FBI, may have been greater than previously understood. Page noted that most of the FBI personnel involved in the Clinton and the Trump–Russia investigations were separate from each other—they worked on one investigation or the other.
Strzok and Moffa, both from the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, worked on both investigations, as Page noted:
“Really, it’s the people that met with Jim Comey. Those are the only people that were really the same with respect to both teams. So it’s the same general counsel, the same deputy general counsel, me, Mr. McCabe, Dave Bowdich. The EAD for National Security Branch changed, but that was just because of regular personnel turnover.
“Bill Priestap was the same. Pete was the same. Jon Moffa was the same. But other than that, all of the rest of the personnel were, to the best of my knowledge—there could have been one or two—but all of the rest of the personnel on the Clinton team and the Russia team were different.” (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)
(…) “Page also repeatedly noted a tension between the FBI and DOJ, noting that the DOJ was far more cautious in their approach to matters and was ultimately responsible for the decision not to prosecute in the Clinton case.
Another aspect that developed in the dynamic between the DOJ and the FBI was pressure from the department to place additional people into the FBI’s investigation. Page noted that “as soon as the planning started to begin to interview some of the more high-profile witness, not just Mrs. Clinton but also Huma Abedin, Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan, and her sort of core team, the department wanted to change the sort of structure and the number of people who were involved.”
In particular, David Laufman, a deputy assistant attorney general and head of counterintelligence for the DOJ’s National Security Division at the time, pushed extensively to be present for the higher profile interviews. As Page noted, this quickly spiraled into a problem for the FBI:
“Once we started talking about including David, then the U.S. Attorney’s Office also wanted to participate in the interviews, although they had participated in virtually none by that point. And so, then the U.S. Attorney’s Office was pushing to have the AUSAs [Assistant U.S. Attorney], who were participating in the Clinton investigation, also participate.”
“And so now, all of a sudden, we were going from our standard two and two to this burgeoning number of people.”
Apparently, Laufman felt so strongly that he went to his boss, George Toscas, the deputy assistant attorney general in the National Security Division, who then approached McCabe directly.
The DOJ’s ongoing influence was felt in other ways as well. Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, both fact witnesses, were allowed to attend Clinton’s interview as her attorneys. As Page admitted, “I would agree with you, that it is not typically appropriate or operationally necessary to have fact witnesses attend the interview.”
The decision to allow attendance of fact witnesses during Clinton’s interview came from the DOJ, although Page said she wasn’t certain who had made the decision. She noted that the FBI protested the move but were overridden, so the decision must have come from a senior level within the DOJ.” (The Epoch Times, 1/21/2019)
(…) “Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who served as special counsel to Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe during the time of the Clinton investigation, noted during her testimony in July 2018, that the DOJ was intimately involved in the investigation.
“Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step, other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction of the Justice Department,” Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.
Comey had also hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation in his July recommendation, stating that “there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially regarding intent.”
Intent is a requirement of several statutes the FBI was looking into. But intent is specifically not a factor under the charge of gross negligence—contained within 18 U.S. Code § 793(f)—a fact that was brought up by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) during Page’s testimony:
John Ratcliffe (Credit: CSpan)
Rep. Ratcliffe: Okay. And that’s — I think, when you talk about intent, that’s certainly true under part of 18 793(f), but it sounds like you all just blew over gross negligence.
Ms. Page: We did not blow over gross negligence. We, in fact — and, in fact, the Director — because on its face, it did seem like, well, maybe there’s a potential here for this to be the charge. And we had multiple conversations, multiple conversations with the Justice Department about charging gross negligence.
Page made clear during her testimony that the DOJ had decided that due to “constitutional vagueness” a charge of gross negligence would not be supported without accompanying proof of intent—a seemingly oxymoronic position:
Rep. Ratcliffe: Okay. So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory, but when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —
Ms. Page: That is correct.
Rep. Ratcliffe: — bring a case based on that.
Trouble Defining Intent
The word “intent” drove the entirety of the FBI’s investigation into the Clinton email server.
It appears, however, that there were differing understandings of the word “intent” within the FBI. Trisha Anderson, the No. 2 lawyer at the FBI, told investigators that what she viewed as intent was “an email that the Secretary sent saying, I set up this server for the purpose of sending unclassified information for my convenience, even though I know it’s not a secure system.”
Page viewed the situation somewhat differently, agreeing they were looking for “an intent to do an act which is in violation of the law’s central command.” As she told investigators, the FBI “couldn’t find any indicia of knowledge that she knew that these [classified emails] shouldn’t be traversing her server.”
In Anderson’s understanding, she was looking for a prosecutable reason behind the establishment of the server itself. Page, however, was looking at whether Clinton knew which emails should not have traveled through the private server.
Meanwhile, Bill Priestap, head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division and who was officially in charge of the Clinton investigation, said during testimony that he thought the “number of instances is absolutely a proper consideration” in establishing intent.
According to Ryan Breitenbach, who was the House Majority Counsel at the time of Priestap’s interview, the State Department had identified 22 top-secret emails and 1,300 classified emails on Clinton’s email server. As Breitenbach noted to Priestap during testimony, “I think there might be many who would question whether people in this room would still be in this room if we had hit 1,300 emails on our personal Gmail service.”
DOJ Not Willing to Charge This
Michael Steinbach (Credit: CSpan)
Priestap was shown an email sent from an unknown individual in the FBI general counsel’s office to Priestap’s former boss, Michael Steinbach, which contained a chart of “available statutes for prosecuting the former Secretary of State.” Gross Negligence was specifically excluded from the chargeable statutes available to the FBI. Priestap, who had not previously seen the document, expressed concerns that this might have hindered the work of FBI investigators.
Mr. Breitenbach: We see in this chart that DOJ is not willing to charge this, meaning 18 U.S.C. 793(f). My question is going back to those draft affidavits. If DOJ is not willing to charge this statute, why would the FBI in an affidavit use this statute as predication to obtain a search warrant if this statute is never going to be prosecuted?
Mr. Priestap: So I — I don’t know who put this together and used this language.
Mr. Breitenbach: Well, someone in the FBI general counsel’s office.
Mr. Priestap: Yeah. No. No. I trust you. But I don’t know why they, again, put it together. I don’t know why they used this language, ‘DOJ not willing to charge this.’
My attitude is that if there is a Federal criminal statute still on the books, then, you know — and we think there may or might be a violation of that, we still have to work to uncover whether, in fact, there was.
The prosecutive history of a particular statute isn’t going to affect — I sure hope it does not affect the fact-finder’s work.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/25/2019)
“Page testified that as soon as they received the Steele dossier in September, they “set about trying to prove or disprove every single factual statement in the dossier.” Page noted that “to the best of my knowledge, we were never able to disprove any statement in it.”
This seems somewhat odd given that Comey told congressional investigators the Steele dossier still wasn’t verified as of May 2017. Additionally, her assertion doesn’t appear to address the generally debunked claim that Cohen was in Prague.
In response to Page’s comments, clarification was requested.
Unidentified Representative: “Ms. Page, are you talking about the Woods file?”
Page: “I’m not talking about the Woods file. I’m talking about a separate effort that was undertaken in order to try to verify for investigative purposes, not for purposes of the FISA, but a separate effort undertaken to try to validate the allegations contained within the Steele reporting.”
It quickly became apparent that this document hasn’t been seen by congressional investigators. One representative, who noted he has seen the Woods file, was clearly unaware of this file’s existence.
This discussion quickly led into another area—an Oct. 18, 2016, email from Strzok containing the subject line “Re: Dragon FISA.”
Page quickly noted that she couldn’t discuss the matter in an unclassified setting—but would be able to discuss the matter with congressional investigators in a classified setting.
“The Dragon FISA was referenced in an article by John Solomon in The Hill:
“In one email exchange with the subject line ‘Crossfire FISA,’ Strzok and Lisa Page discussed talking points to get then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to persuade a high-ranking DOJ official to sign off on the warrant.”
“Crossfire Hurricane” was one of the code names for four separate investigations the FBI conducted related to Russia matters in the 2016 election.
“At a minimum, that keeps the hurry the F up pressure on him,” Strzok emailed Page on Oct. 14, 2016, less than four weeks before Election Day.
Four days later, the same team was emailing about rushing to get approval for another FISA warrant for another Russia-related investigation code-named “Dragon.”
On August 29, 2018, The Daily Caller News Foundationreports, “The FBI refuses to disclose whether or not it met with senior members of the Intelligence Community Inspector General on the subject of foreign intrusion of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server.
An FBI spokeswoman refused to confirm if Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) officials — including Frank Rucker, its chief investigator — briefed top bureau officials about evidence of penetration of Clinton’s private server by a Chinese government intelligence operation. “We have no comment,” she told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Earlier Wednesday, an FBI spokesman released what appeared to be a categorical statement about the Clinton server: “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised,” the FBI stated.
The statement does not address a central aspect of The DCNF’s reporting, which was that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an “anomaly” they found in 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails. The report is based on an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter. The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/29/2018)
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page arrives for a closed door hearing with the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees, Friday, July 13, 2018. (Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)
On January 11, 2019, Jeff Carlson writes of his exclusive access to the July 13, 2018 transcript of Lisa Page’s testimony to a joint congressional committee and she is asked why the FBI didn’t meet with Mr. Rucker and the ICIG team to further investigate the “anomaly” found embedded in Clinton’s private server:
“During one exchange, one of the representatives questioning her noted, “We have information from the inspector general of the intelligence community … that there were anomalies that would suggest that there were copies of every email going to a third party. … Is this news to you
Page admitted it was and noted it was “completely baffling to me.”
She was then asked the obvious question: “Why would the investigative team not have had multiple interviews with Mr. Rucker, who brought it to the FBI’s attention originally?”
Page responded by saying the following:
“My understanding is that the IC IG [Intelligence Community Inspector General] did refer the existence of the server to the FBI, but that was because of the existence of classified information on that server, not because of any anomalous activity, not because of potential intrusion activity. Because it’s not my understanding that the IC IG conducted any sort of forensic analysis like that.”
The questioning continued:
“So what you’re telling me, it would surprise you to know today that, if there were anomalies, that the inspector general’s forensic team found those before it was referred to the FBI?”
Page responded:
“To the extent that a foreign government or even a criminal outlet had had access to Secretary Clinton’s private email server, that would have been something we cared very much about. And it’s my understanding that there was no evidence that would have supported that kind of conclusion.” (Read more: Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)
“An internal chart prepared by federal investigators working on the so-called “Midyear Exam” probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails, exclusively reviewed by Fox News, contained the words “NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this” next to a key statute on the mishandling of classified information. The notation appeared to contradict former FBI Director James Comey’s repeated claims that his team made its decision that Clinton should not face criminal charges independently.
Fox News has confirmed the chart served as a critical tip that provided the basis for Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe’s explosive questioning of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page last year, in which Page agreed with Ratcliffe’s characterization that the DOJ had told the FBI that “you’re not going to charge gross negligence.” A transcript of Page’s remarks was published Tuesday as part of a major document release by the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins.
The document, entitled “Espionage Act Charges – Retention/Mishandling,” contained a list of several criminal statutes related to the mishandling of classified information, as well as a list of all the elements that prosecutors would need to prove in order to successfully prosecute a case.
Among the statutes listed are 18 U.S.C. 793(d), which covers the “willfull” retention of national defense information that could harm the U.S.; 18 U.S.C. 793(f), which pertains to “gross negligence” in the handling of classified information by permitting the information to be “removed from its proper place of custody”; and 18 U.S.C. 1924, listed as a misdemeanor related to retaining classified materials at an “unauthorized location.”
Listed directly below to the elements of 18 U.S.C. 793(f) were the words: “NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this; only known cases are Military, cases when accused lost the information (e.g. thumb drive sent to unknown recipient at wrong address.)
“Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page admitted under questioning from Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe last summer that “the FBI was ordered by the Obama DOJ not to consider charging Hillary Clinton for gross negligence in the handling of classified information,” the congressman alleged in a social media post late Tuesday, citing a newly unearthed transcript of Page’s closed-door testimony.
(Credit: Twitter)
Page and since-fired FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, who were romantically involved, exchanged numerous anti-Trump text messages in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, and Republicans have long accused the bureau of political bias. But Page’s testimony was perhaps the most salient evidence yet that the Justice Department improperly interfered with the FBI’s supposedly independent conclusions on Clinton’s criminal culpability, Ratcliffe alleged.
“So let me if I can, I know I’m testing your memory,” Ratcliffe began as he questioned Page under oath, according to a transcript excerpt he posted on Twitter. “But when you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to —”
Page interrupted: “That is correct,” as Ratcliffe finished his sentence, ” — bring a case based on that.” (Read more: Fox News, 3/13/2019)
“Former FBI attorney Lisa Page has reportedly told a joint committee of the House of Representatives that when FBI counterintelligence official Peter Strzok texted her on May 19, 2017 saying there was “no big there there,” he meant there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It was clearly a bad-luck day for Strzok, when on Friday the 13th this month Page gave her explanation of the text to the House Judiciary and Oversight/Government Reform Committees and in effect threw her lover, Strzok, under the bus.
Strzok’s apparent admission to Page about there being “no big there there” was reported on Friday by John Solomon in the Opinion section of The Hill based on multiple sources who he said were present during Page’s closed door interview.
Peter Strzok (Credit: ABC News)
Strzok’s text did not come out of the blue. For the previous ten months he and his FBI subordinates had been trying every-which-way to ferret out some “there” — preferably a big “there” — but had failed miserably. If Solomon’s sources are accurate, it is appearing more and more likely that there was nothing left for them to do but to make it up out of whole cloth, with the baton then passed to special counsel Robert Mueller.
The “no there there” text came just two days after former FBI Director James Comey succeeded in getting his friend Mueller appointed to investigate the alleged collusion that Strzok was all but certain wasn’t there.
Robert Parry, the late founder and editor of Consortium News whom Solomon described to me last year as his model for journalistic courage and professionalism, was already able to discern as early as March 2017 the outlines of what is now Deep State-gate, and, typically, was the first to dare report on its implications.
Parry’s article, written two and a half months before Strzok texted the self-incriminating comment to Page on there being “no big there there,” is a case study in professional journalism. His very first sentence entirely anticipated Strzok’s text: “The hysteria over ‘Russia-gate’ continues to grow … but at its core there may be no there there.”(Emphasis added.)
Courage at The Hill
Lisa Page (Credit: Getty Images)
Solomon’s article merits a careful read, in toto. Here are the most germane paragraphs:
“It turns out that what Strzok and Lisa Page were really doing that day [May 19, 2017] was debating whether they should stay with the FBI and try to rise through the ranks to the level of an assistant director (AD) or join Mueller’s special counsel team. [Page has since left the FBI.]
“‘Who gives a f*ck, one more AD [Assistant Director] like [redacted] or whoever?’” Strzok wrote, weighing the merits of promotion, before apparently suggesting what would be a more attractive role: ‘An investigation leading to impeachment?’ …
“A few minutes later Strzok texted his own handicap of the Russia evidence: ‘You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.’
“So the FBI agents who helped drive the Russia collusion narrative — as well as Rosenstein’s decision to appoint Mueller — apparently knew all along that the evidence was going to lead to ‘nothing’ and, yet, they proceeded because they thought there was still a possibility of impeachment.”
Solomon adds: “How concerned you are by this conduct is almost certainly affected by your love or hatred for Trump. But put yourself for a second in the hot seat of an investigation by the same FBI cast of characters: You are under investigation for a crime the agents don’t think occurred, but the investigation still advances because the desired outcome is to get you fired from your job. Is that an FBI you can live with?”
The Timing
As noted, Strzok’s text was written two days after Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017. The day before, on May 16, The New York Times published a story that Comey leaked to it through an intermediary that was expressly designed (as Comey admitted in Congressional testimony three weeks later) to lead to the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Hmmmmm.
Had Strzok forgotten to tell his boss that after ten months of his best investigative efforts — legal and other—he could find no “there there”?
Comey’s leak, by the way, was about alleged pressure from Trump on Comey to go easy on Gen. Michael Flynn for lying at an impromptu interrogation led by — you guessed it — the ubiquitous, indispensable Peter Strzok.
In any event, the operation worked like a charm — at least at first. And — absent revelation of the Strzok-Page texts — it might well have continued to succeed. After Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein named Mueller, one of Comey’s best buddies, to be special counsel, Mueller, in turn, picked Strzok to lead the Russia-gate team, until the summer, when the Department of Justice Inspector General was given the Strzok-Page texts and refused to sit on them.” (Much more: Consortium News, 7/23/2018)
(…) “Another issue that was brought up several times was the famous Strzok text regarding the “Insurance Policy”:
“I want to believe the path you threw out in Andy’s office—that there is no way he gets elected—but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
Page confirmed that “Andy” referred to Deputy FBI Director McCabe. Page was reminded that the text was sent just 15 days after the FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016. While Page attempted to provide an explanation, it came across as less than convincing:
“What this text reflects is our sort of continuing check-in almost with respect to how quickly to operate, what types of tools to use, trying to be as quiet as possible about it because we knew so little about what—whether this was true or not true or what was going to come, because this is, as you said, so nascent in the investigation, and then ultimately trying to balance that against my view, in this case, which was we don’t need to go at a total breakneck speed, because so long as he doesn’t become president, there isn’t the same threat to national security, right.”
Perhaps realizing she’d been less than perfectly clear, Page attempted to clarify her position, noting, “This reflects, ‘Let’s be reasonable, let’s not, you know, throw the kitchen sink at this because he’s probably not going to be elected, and so then, we don’t have quite as horrific a national security threat than we do if he gets elected.’”
In fairness to Page, at a later point in the interview, she did manage to provide a somewhat more coherent explanation:
“He’s making an analogy here so my suggestion is, let’s not, you know, throw the baby out with the bathwater, let’s sort of be a little bit more cautious with respect to our investigative steps because if he’s not president, this plays as less of a threat to our national security.
“And he is saying, no, we have to, you know, do what we have to do in order to get to the bottom of this because it is like an insurance policy. There is no actual insurance policy. He is making an analogy.” (The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)
(…) “Still another issue mentioned with some frequency were two potentially related texts:
“And we need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting”; and
“We need to lock in [redacted] in a formal, chargeable, way.”
Again, Page confirms that “Andy” is indeed a reference to McCabe. Notably, that text was sent the day after Comey had been fired by Trump. Unfortunately, a certain level of clarity remains lacking as FBI counsel was limited to noting that “the decision to open the case was not about who was occupying the director’s chair.” She continued in a somewhat confusingly with, “if I was able to explain in more depth why the director firing precipitated this text, I would.”
One representative kept pursuing the question from multiple angles, asking, “Was that a fear that someone other than McCabe would eventually be put into that slot?” Page again consulted with counsel and noted she couldn’t answer that question.
The representative made the logical observation, “Well, that leads at least some of us to conclude that it may have been an obstruction-of-justice case.” Page responded, “That’s a reasonable inference, sir, but I cannot, sort of, confirm that that’s what we are referring to.”
The dialogue continued:
Unidentified Representative: “So the firing of Jim Comey was the precipitating event, as opposed to the occupant of the director’s office?”
Page: “Yes, that’s correct.”
Rep.: “Well, other than obstruction, what could it have been?”
Page: “I can’t answer that, sir. I’m sorry.”
Rep.: “Is there anything other than obstruction that it could have been?”
Page: “I can’t answer.”
Page maintained that the second text was a separate matter from the first—but time may have been a factor as it occurred in the days preceding Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. Page also claimed not to know exactly what it pertained to:
“My suspicion is, we have either been interviewing some witness or have been getting kind of closer to some target, either we’ve already had interviews or we haven’t.
“What this is suggesting is, like, we need to start thinking about locking in whomever in a way that might be able to support charges. … My suspicion is that we have somebody who we think is lying. … To the extent we want to be able to charge them for lying, we need to lock them in in a formal way, in a way in which we will be able to support those charges.”
The issue of obstruction came up several times, including a notable exchange that took place during the second day of testimony:
Unidentified Representative: “Were there discussions about opening an obstruction-of-justice case or any other case against Donald Trump prior to the firing of Jim Comey on May 9th of 2017, as reflected in the Comey memos?”
FBI legal counsel: “Congressman, to the extent that goes into the equities of the ongoing investigation that the special counsel is now conducting, I will instruct the witness not to answer.”
Normally, this line of questioning ends with inferences having to be made, but, in this case, what appears to be an honest error on the part of Page hinted firmly at the true answer:
Rep.: “I don’t want any of the details. I just want to know whether there was a discussion about the possibility of opening that prior to the firing of the director.”
Page: “Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the timeframe you have described.”
Rep.: “OK. Then—”
Page: “I think. One second, sir.”
[Discussion off the record.]
Page: “Sir, I need to—I need to take back my prior statement.”
Rep.: “Which one?”
Page: “Whatever the last thing I just said was. Sorry. That there were no discussions of obstruction, yeah. That is—I need to take that statement back.”
Rep.: “So there were?”
Page: “Well, I think that I can’t answer this question without getting into matters which are substantively before the special counsel at this time.”
Rep.: “Well, I think you’ve just answered it by not answering it. Was Andy McCabe privy to those same conversations?”
Page: “I can’t answer this substantively, sir. I’m sorry.”
Rep.: “Well, were these related to some charges, whether obstruction or other charges, potentially against Donald Trump?”
Page: “I can’t—I can’t answer that question, sir, without getting into the substance of matters that are now before the special counsel.”
Rep.: “Again, I think you’re answering it by not answering it.”
At a later point in testimony, this issue was potentially further clarified:
Rep.: “Comey has admitted that he told the president, I think, that he wasn’t under investigation during that timeframe.”
Page: “That is not inconsistent, sir. … Somebody could not be under investigation, but there still could be discussions about potential criminal activity, and that is totally consistent with FBI policies and would not be unusual with respect to any investigation.”
This provides a perfect explanation as to why Comey refused to tell the press that Trump wasn’t under investigation—and the nature of the text messages.
The FBI hadn’t placed Trump under any formal investigation—but they were keeping their ability to do so open, and Acting FBI Director McCabe may have been planning to initialize a formal investigation before a permanent director could be appointed.
A question worth asking: What happens if an interim FBI director opens a formal investigation into a sitting president during a highly politically charged time? Is it then difficult, perhaps impossible, to appoint someone other than McCabe as a new FBI director, especially given Comey’s recent firing? (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)
(…) “At several points, Page noted a frustration on the part of the FBI in relation to the speed with which the DOJ was moving in the FISA spy warrant-application process.
When questioned about the need to move swiftly, Page noted, “There was an operational reason that we were pushing to get the FISA up, which I am not at liberty to discuss.” Upon further questioning, Page tried to provide slightly more clarity: “We had an operational reason that we wanted to get this thing up quickly with respect to the subject himself.”
According to Page’s testimony, she first learned of plans to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page approximately a month before the FISA was granted on Oct. 21, 2016.
Stuart Evans testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance on June 27, 2017. (Credit: CSpan)
Page disclosed that Deputy Assistant Attorney General Stu Evans was the person within the DOJ who was in charge of the entire FISA process, but notably, the FBI chose not to tell Evans that they had opened a counterintelligence investigation:
“We were so concerned about the fact that we were opening this investigation and we were so concerned about leaks that we were literally individually making decisions about who to tell and who not to tell, because we were trying to keep it so closely held.”
According to Page, the only DOJ official they told was Toscas, the deputy assistant attorney general in the National Security Division. Without forewarning to the FBI, Toscas informed Evans in August 2016—possibly earlier—of the FBI’s newly opened investigation.
The text in question was from Aug. 10, 2016, and was paraphrased by one of the congressional representatives:
George Toscas (Credit: Fox News)
“I remember what it was, Toscas already told Stu Evans everything. Sally called to set up a meeting.”
“Sally” is affirmed in the conversation as referring to Deputy AG Sally Yates.
Page was emphatic that this discussion didn’t have anything to do with the actual FISA but instead reflected the FBI’s concern that increasing numbers of people were learning of their investigation.
Notably, Toscas reported to Carlin, the head of the NSD, whose actions before the FISA court in relation to his presentation of the government’s proposed 2016Section 702 certifications, strongly suggest he was also aware of the FBI’s investigation. Carlin appears to have been aware of the FBI’s later FISA preparations, as well.
The congressional representative then asked the following question:
“What you’re saying is when the director briefed the White House 2 days prior to that, on August the 8th, or prepared for it, actually briefed him on the 10th, that it had nothing to do with any campaign. Even though George Toscas and Stu Evans knew about it.”
Normally, when a member of the FBI uses the word “director,” they would be referring to the FBI director. In this case, while not made absolutely clear in the transcript, it appears “director” refers to CIA Director John Brennan, who had been discussed in the preceding comments relating to Brennan’s briefing of Reid.
From Brennan’s congressional testimony, we know that he had briefed the White House at some point in early August 2016, prior to Aug. 11:
“In consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in election to congressional leadership, specifically Senators Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, Dianne Feinstein and Richard Burr; and to Representatives Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Devon Nunes and Adam Schiff between 11 August and 6 September.”
Page responded to the question: “Sir, I would be shocked. I would truly be stunned to discover that the director had briefed the president on the substance of our investigation or even the existence of our investigation. I would be—I can’t say it didn’t happen, I wasn’t there, but I would be stunned to discover that.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/11/2019)
John Carlin and John Brennan speak at the Center for Strategic & International Studies on September 19, 2016. (Credit: YouTube)
(…) “John Carlin was an assistant attorney general and head of the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD). He had previously served as chief of staff to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.
Carlin announced his resignation the day after he filed the government’s proposed 2016Section 702 certifications. This filing would be subject to intense criticism from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) following disclosures made by then-National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers. Significant changes to the handling of raw FISA data would result.
Carlin was succeeded by Mary McCord–who would later accompany acting AG Sally Yates to see White House counsel Don McGahn about Trump’s national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn.
Page was asked at several points regarding influence from political appointees. At one point in the discussion, she singled out Carlin—and what she had to say proved interesting:
“I do know that at least John Carlin, for example, who is a political appointee, was kept abreast of the sort of investigative activity that was going on. And the only reason I know this is because when there was conflicts between us and DOJ, John might call over to—John Carlin might call over to Andy McCabe, and sort of make his team’s pitch, and then Andy would, you know, sort of the back-and-forth would go on. So it is clear that John had, was getting some sort of briefing, but he was not, it was, it never occurred by the FBI, which is, in my view, atypical.”
In response to a question asking who was McCabe’s direct counterpart at the DOJ on the investigation, Page responded, “it would have been John. It was either John Carlin or George Toscas who would have, who would have reached out to Mr. McCabe.”
The congressional staffer who was doing this particular line of questioning appeared to attempt to mitigate the information just revealed by Page:
“Numerous witnesses have confirmed to us that George Toscas, a career prosecutor, was in charge of the day-to-day operation of DOJ on this investigation. And that Carlin and other political folks above him had briefings certainly, so they had knowledge but didn’t have input in the investigation.”
“Do you have any personal knowledge of John Carlin, Loretta Lynch, Sally Yates, or other political appointees at the DOJ issuing orders on how to conduct the Midyear investigation?” Page was asked.
Page answered that she had “no personal knowledge of that.” Despite the attempts to shift the conversation, these admissions are notable.
Carlin was a very senior official within the DOJ. He was also Toscas’s boss. It was Toscas who was contacted by New York prosecutors (possibly former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara) involved in the Anthony Weiner investigation regarding the Clinton emails found on Weiner’s computer. In response, Toscas contacted McCabe, his counterpart at the FBI, ultimately forcing McCabe to inform Comey of the existence of Clinton emails on Weiner’s laptop.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/21/2018)
“On July 13th, 2018, an indictment was filed by Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III.
This author is responding to the indictment because it features claims about Guccifer 2.0 that are inconsistent with what has been discovered about the persona, including the following:
Evidence was found over 500 days ago relating to the Guccifer 2.0 persona that showed they had deliberately manipulated files to have Russian metadata. We know the process used to construct the documents was not due to accidental mistakes during the creation process.
The original template document that Guccifer 2.0 used has been identified. It is also the source of the presence of Warren Flood’s name and can be found attached to one of Podesta’s emails (it has RSIDs matching with Guccifer 2.0’s first couple of documents).
The Trump opposition research, which CrowdStrike claimed was targeted at the DNC, apparently in late April 2016, isn’t what Guccifer 2.0 actually presented to reporters. It also didn’t come from the DNC but was an attached file on one of John Podesta’s emails – not the DNC’s. This specific copy appears to have been edited by Tony Carrk shortly before it was sent to Podesta. The fact that Guccifer 2.0’s initial releases were Podesta email attachments was even conceded by a former DNC official.
It appears that Guccifer 2.0 fabricated evidence on June 15, 2016, that coincidentally dovetailed with multiple claims made by CrowdStrike executives that had been published the previous day.
Guccifer 2.0 went to considerable effort to make sure Russian error messages appeared in copies of files given to the press.
Evidence – which Guccifer 2.0 couldn’t manipulate due to being logged by third parties – suggests he was operating in the US.
Additional evidence, which Guccifer 2.0 would have been unlikely to realize “he” was leaving, indicated that the persona was archiving files in US time zones before release, with email headers giving him away early on.
Virtually everything that has been claimed to indicate Guccifer 2.0 was Russian was based on something he chose to do.
Considering that Guccifer 2.0 had access to Podesta’s emails, yet never leaked anything truly damaging to the Clinton campaign even though he would have had access to it, is highly suspicious. In fact, Guccifer 2.0 never referenced any of the scandals that would later explode when the DNC emails and Podesta email collections were published by WikiLeaks.” (Read more: Adam Carter, Disobedient Media, 7/15/2018)
(…) Tony Podesta, longtime lobbyist in DC, and founder of the Podesta Group, was indicted in 2017 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Shortly thereafter, the Podesta Group closed up shop. Then, in July 2018, according to Tucker Carlson, Special Counsel Robert Mueller offered Tony Podesta immunity to testify against Paul Manafort, who had worked with the Podesta Group in a public relations campaign for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, founded by three senior members of the pro-Russia Party of Regions – and who had been indicted on bank and tax fraud charges. Paul Manafort was sentenced to 7-1/2 years in prison. Meanwhile, Tony seems to have skated into the wind, without any confirmation as to whether an immunity agreement actually took place.
A Sampling of Tony Podesta’s Art Collection of Children
In addition to Tony’s own collection of disturbing art surrounding children, his manager, as well as artists they bring into their exhibits, are equally disturbing. One such exhibit included artwork by ArtAngel, founded by Roger Took, a convicted pedophile in the worst degree imaginable.
Some refer to Tony as a “provocative artist,” while others find the idea of children being clothless and bound to be incredibly disturbing.
The Podesta brothers are close friends with Marina Ambramovic, a Serbian performance artist and film producer who is best known for her provocative, and to some – disturbing, art exhibitions and spirit cooking parties. Abramovic’s book “Spirit Cooking with Essential Aphrodisiac Recipes” was released in 1996, utilizing ingredients such as fresh sperm milk, breast milk, and fresh morning urine. The spirit cooking festivities typically include feasting on replicas of full-size bodies with edible ingredients that give the effects of oozing blood and tissue. It seems to be a Hollywood hit.
In one exhibit she was preparing, she painted the words in what appears to be actual blood, onto a wall, stating “With a sharp knife, cut deeply into the middle finger of your left hand. Eat the pain.” On another wall she painted the words, “Fresh morning urine sprinkle over nightmare dreams.”
In an email from June 2015, Marina emailed Tony about attending a spirit cooking dinner at her place, and asked if his brother would be joining him, signed “all my love, Marina.”
The Podesta Group and Amber Ready, Inc.
In May 2009, Amber Ready, Inc., selected the Podesta Group as their agency of record to be their PR company, covering all media relations, and building a campaign to promote Amber Ready’s cell phone technology. The program enables parents to create, store and lock their children’s Alert profiles in parent’s wireless phones so that if a child goes missing, police can transmit the Alert Profiles in minutes via Amber Alert. Then-Principle of the Podesta Group Ed Rothschild stated: “Working with AMBER Ready to help inspire nationwide support for their innovative child safety solution should prove to be very exciting and gratifying.”
David Resch (left), Howard Marshall (center) and Scott Smith (right) (Credit: Linked In)
“Three of the top cybersecurity officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation are retiring from government service, according to people familiar with the matter—departures that come as cyberattacks are a major concern for the country’s security agencies.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials warn that the country is at a “critical point” facing unprecedented cyber threats, including Russia’s ongoing attacks on the American political system. The retirements also come as the FBI is facing regular criticism from President Donald Trump and his supporters, and is working to attract and retain top cyber talent.
Scott Smith, the assistant FBI director who runs the Bureau’s cyber division, is leaving this month. His deputy, Howard Marshall, also left in recent weeks. Mr. Marshall has accepted a job at Accenture , a consulting firm that is expanding its cybersecurity portfolio. Mr. Smith is also expected to move to the private sector.
David Resch, executive assistant director of the FBI’s criminal, cyber, response and services branch, is departing the bureau as well. Mr. Resch, who was named to his senior post by FBI Director Christopher Wray in April, supervised Mr. Smith and Mr. Marshall.
Additionally, Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the FBI’s national security branch, has decided to leave for the private sector. And Jeffrey Tricoli, a senior FBI cyber agent who oversaw a Bureau task force addressing Russian attempts to meddle in U.S. elections, left last month for a senior vice president position at Charles Schwab Corp. , the Journal reported last week.
The FBI confirmed the departures. One U.S. official said more people are expected to leave, declining to provide additional names. (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 7/19/2018)
“With the exceptional help of John Spiropoulos we investigate a conflict completely ignored by media and congress. Peter Strzok, the FBI’s lead Investigator in the Clinton email investigation, never intended to investigate the laptop before the election. The evidence, in his own words, is in the report by the Inspector General. In addition, the IG report includes a jaw dropping contradiction regarding the investigation of the laptop. Strzok says one thing; the FBI’s computer experts say another. It calls into question the entirety of the laptop investigation.
There is a great deal of inconsistent application of law surrounding the DOJ/FBI investigative authority during 2015 and 2016. There is also a great deal of fatigue surrounding discussion of those inconsistent applications. Contradictions, inconsistency and obtuse justifications are as rampant in our midst as the political narratives shaping them. Perhaps that’s by design.
Reading Chapter 11 of the IG Report reinforces an acceptance that not only is there a need for a special counsel, but there is a brutally obvious need for multiple special counsels; each given a specific carve-out investigation that comes directly from the content of the Inspector General report. This issue of the handling of the Weiner/Abedin laptop screams for a special counsel investigation on that facet alone. Why?
Well, consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):
Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.
The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”
Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.” (pg 388)
The key takeaway here is two-fold. First, the laptop is in the custody of the FBI; that’s important moving forward (I’ll explain later). Also, specifically important, FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5]
Note: “OTD was able “to do some amazing things to rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop.”
OK, you got that?
Now lets look at the very next page, #389 (again, emphasis mine):
(…) The FBI determined that Abedin forwarded two of the confirmed classified emails to Weiner. The FBI reviewed 6,827 emails that were either to or from Clinton and assessed 3,077 of those emails to be “potentially work-related.”The FBI analysis of the review noted that “[b]ecause metadata was largely absent, the emails could not be completely, automatically de-duplicated or evaluated against prior emails recovered during the investigation” and therefore the FBI could not determine how many of the potentially work-related emails were duplicative of emails previously obtained in the Midyear investigation. (pg 389)
See the problem? See the contradiction?
Strzok is saying due to some amazing wizardry the FBI forensics team was able to de-duplicate the emails. However, FBI forensics is saying they were NOT able to de-duplicate the emails.
Both of these statements cannot be true. And therein lies the underlying evidence to support a belief the laptop content was never actually reviewed. But it gets worse, much worse… (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 7/20/2018)
(Note From the Editor: Conservative Treehouse has granted us permission to share more of their work than what Fair Use would normally allow. We thank them for their generosity and excellent, investigative work. Please don’t stop reading here, there is a lot more to their story.)
Researcher and Paul Combetta aka Stonetear whistleblower, Katica@GOPPollAnalyst, tweets to Rep. Louie Gohmert after a combined House Judiciary and Oversight Committee hearing. Katica’s tweet was in response to a question Gohmert posed to Peter Strzok regarding a “foreign entity” found on Clinton’s private server, when a forensic analysis was done by the Intelligence Community’s Inspector General’s office.
The forensic analysis revealed nearly all of Clinton’s emails were automatically forwarded to an unknown email address (not Russia). Gohmert said the ICIG investigator, Frank Rucker, presented the findings to Strzok, but that the FBI official did not do anything with the information.
Here is a clip of Louie Gohmert’s exchange with Peter Strzok regarding Clinton’s emails sent to an unauthorized source:
Katica discovered in Part 3 of the FBI Vault report, mention of an unknown email address on Clinton’s server and tweets her findings to Representative Louie Gohmert:
Katica’s tweet to Representative Louie Gohmert (Credit: Twitter)
Katica then tweets: “FBI Vault part 3, page 61: The hackers then used the password to modify the users gmail/yahoo account to auto-forward to [redacted]. “
FBI Vault Part 3, page 61
Katica continues, “One common theme with hackers is they create an email account relatively close to the ID of the person they hacked. Huma: My email address is misspelled…and clintonmail has never been hacked. Part 3, page 89.”
FBI Vault Part 3, page 89
The FBI report also states, in February 2011, several State employees were victims of Yahoo and Gmail phishing attacks and Clinton’s private server was affected.(Read more: Katica@GOPPollAnalyst/Twitter, 7/22/2018)
(Timeline editor’s note: Katica constantly amazes us with her discoveries and is one of the few researchers willing to do the painstaking work of reading the Clinton FBI reports, making sense of them and then posting her findings to the public. Her work is invaluable for those seeking documented details.)
“In an unprecedented move, the Department of Justice has released 412 pages of top-secret documents related to surveillance conducted against former Trump campaign chairman Carter Page.
The documents include an October 2016 application and three renewal applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants taken out against Page.
The New York Times and other news outlets obtained the applications through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“The FBI believes Page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the Russian government,” reads the FISA application.
“As discussed above, the FBI believes that Page has been collaborating and conspiring with the Russian government,” reads the initial FISA application, dated Oct. 21, 2016. The Justice Department and FBI obtained three additional FISAs in January, April and June 2017.
The application also says that the FBI had probable cause to believe that Page engaged in “clandestine intelligence activities” and is an agent of a foreign power.
Republican and Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence previously released highlights from the documents. A memo released by Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has revealed that the Justice Department and FBI relied heavily on the Democratic-funded Steele dossier in the FISA applications.
The dossier is the first piece of evidence cited in the FISA application section laying out the allegations that Page coordinated with Russian government officials on election-related “influence activities.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/21/2019)( Carter Page FISA Docs)
“Last month, during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, it was revealed for the first time that “[f]ormer British spy Christopher Steele visited the State Department in October 2016 and briefed officials there about his work on the infamous anti-Trump dossier.” During questioning of President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, committee Chairman Richard Burr disclosed that “[b]ased upon our review of the visitor logs at the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department, briefing officials on the dossier in October 2016.”
Nuland, who in June 2016 had authorized the FBI to meet with Steele in London, denied attending the October 2016 meeting with Steele. She also “said in previous interviews that she and other State Department officials referred the dossier to the FBI,” but as The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross noted, “Burr’s revelations suggest the agency maintained interest in Steele and his report much longer than previously known.”
Saturday’s release of the FISA applications now exposes a new troubling detail: The DOJ sought the FISA surveillance order based on the information provided “by the U.S. Department of State” “in or about October 2016.” When considered in light of last month’s revelation that Steele had met with State Department officials in October, it now appears that the Obama administration’s State Department bore equal responsibility for presenting the FISA court unverified hearsay to justify spying on the Trump campaign. (Read more: The Federalist, 07/23/2018)(Archive)
Importantly, The released version appears to be from the FISA Court. Note the stamp of the Court Clerk on the first page.
Although heavily redacted, much information appears to be contained within.
You should consider the redactions acts of self-preservation by the DOJ rather than reflections of National Security concerns.
You can find the Page FISA Applications here, here and here. Embedded version below.
The first link is to the FBI Vault (you can download). The second link is to the New York Times pdf version. The third is a Scrib’d upload courtesy of the Conservative Treehouse.
For any who doubted assertions the Steele Dossier was the primary means to obtain the Page FISA Warrant doubt no longer.
As we’ve long-said, the Steele Dossier was a primary component of evidence the FBI presented to the FISA Court.
The four FISA Judges are now known with certainty. We’d previously narrowed down the list:
FISA APPROVED BY 5 Depts.
* FBI
* State Department
* CIA
* Defense Department
* Director of National Intelligence
* NSA
Check out the NAMES:
1- Comey
2- McCabe
3- Brennan
4- Clapper
5- O’Sullivan
6- John Kerry
7- Blinken
8- Carter
9- Susan Rice pic.twitter.com/caNzHwE8z4
Those innocuous surface FISA dates being redacted (no reason to redact dates on documents being released) really kicks up my suspicion there is more than one version of the *original* application… [And I am not alone.] pic.twitter.com/tGCBubszBP
"The target of this application is Carter W. Page…The status of the target was determined in or about October 2016 from information provided by the U.S. Department of State."
FBI represented to a federal judge that investigators knew for certain that Carter Page met w/ Igor Sechin and Diveykin. Except, the FISA app acknowledges this intel came from Steele dossier. And FBI has acknowledged dossier was not verifieid. https://t.co/7ZstgwlVOhpic.twitter.com/NDYvBIhXB0
Steele actually told the FBI he was frustrated with FBI procedures and said that Comey's re-opening of the Clinton e-mail investigation after the Weiner laptop was discovered (in late October 2016) was a distraction and would influence the 2016 election. pic.twitter.com/WWh0YcQRzU
The subject of the FISA Application, Carter Page, had a reaction:
Even more shocking than the civil rights abuses inherent in today's initial FISA abuse documents and its testament to @Comey & Co's very poor "legal" judgment is the complete ignorance it shows regarding Russia. Will discuss with @jaketapper on @CNNSotu: https://t.co/Oy5WlcYyE8
“It has long been known that the Clinton campaign and DNC paid Steele to compile the dossier. Media outlets have also reported, though, that the FBI did not compensate Steele. For instance, the Washington Post ran a story asserting, based on “several people familiar with the arrangement,” that Steele “had reached an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the election for the bureau to pay him,” but “[u]ltimately, the FBI did not pay Steele.” In another article, the Washington Post again claimed Steele was “not being paid as an informant,” but added that he may have been reimbursed for some travel expenses.
Those reports now appear questionable: The FISA applications state that Steele (identified as Source #1), “has been compensated” “by the FBI.” The redactions, though, leave open the question of how much and whether any of the payments compensated Steele for investigating the Trump campaign.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2018) (Archive)
“The newly released FISA applications also confirm a fourth significant fact: To obtain the surveillance warrant, the DOJ and FBI relied on unverified hearsay from sub-sources (i.e., Steele’s sources) of unknown reliability.
While the government may rely on unverified information provided by an informant who has a history of providing reliable information, to establish probable cause with evidence coming from a source of unknown reliability, the government must corroborate that information. The FISA applications make no mention of corroboration of the sub-sources’ claims concerning Page’s purported conversations with two Russian agents.
Further, the FISA applications reveal that the DOJ only established Steele’s reliability, not that of “sub-sources.” But as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy first highlighted in February 2018:
The only reliability that counts is the reliability of the factual informants, not of the investigator who purports to channel the informants. The judge wants to know why the court should believe the specific factual claims: Was the informant truly in a position to witness what is alleged, and if so, does the informant have a track record of providing verified information? The track record of the investigator who locates the sources is beside the point. A judge would need to know whether Steele’s sources were reliable, not whether Steele himself was reliable.
While we do not know what lay behind the redacted portions of the applications, it seems clear from the placement, context, size of the blackouts that the FBI did not include information in the application either establishing the sub-sources’ reliability or detailing any efforts to corroborate Page’s claimed collusion with the Russian agents.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2018)(Archive)
(…) George W. Bush nominated Rosemary Collyer to D.C. federal court and Michael Mosman to the District of Oregon. Ann Conway was a George H.W. Bush pick to the Middle District of Florida. Ronald Reagan tapped Raymond J. Dearie to take a seat in the Eastern District of New York. FISA court judges are appointed by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and the conservative Roberts named all of them to those [sic] position. Roberts was nominated to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush.
The highly redacted warrants on Page were publicized Saturday. Authorities believed he worked as an agent of the Russian government. You can read the 412-page behemoth here, or you can read our breakdown for the most important details.
“The FISA applications further exposed the extent to which the DOJ relied on unverified media reports to support their request for court-ordered electronic surveillance of Page. Contrary to Democrat claims that the applications’ reliance on a Yahoo News article was passing, the FISA documents detailed the Yahoo News article’s assertion that a “well-placed Western intelligence source,” told the news organization that Page met with the Russian agents in July.
Just as statements from unverified “sub-sources” could not establish probable cause, unverified newspaper articles could not either. The DOJ, however, did not limit itself to repeating the Yahoo News article’s claims, which the public later learned had also originated from Steele. The FISA application also cited two other media reports.
One was apparently Josh Rogin’s Washington Post opinion article, which reported claims that Trump campaign members “worked behind the scenes to make sure [the GOP]’s platform would not call for giving weapons to Ukraine to fight Russian and rebel forces.” The DOJ also relied on an article from August 2016—likely the Michael Crowley Politicopiece—that “opined that while the reason for [Trump’s] shift [in Russian policy] was not clear, [Trump]’s more conciliatory words, which contradict [the GOP]’s official platform, follow [Trump]’s recent association with several people sympathetic to Russian influence in Ukraine, including foreign policy advisor Carter Page.”
There are two fundamental problems with this portion of the FISA application. First, as the Washington Examiner’s Byron York explained, the GOP platform narrative the Washington Post and Politico pushed was extremely misleading. Second, when I asked Page whether he participated in the GOP Russia platform debate, the former Trump advisor responded with an emphatic “NEVER,” and shared this excerpt from his defamation lawsuit against a media conglomerate:
Plaintiff, Dr. Page arrived on Delta flight 5353 at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at 1:36 p.m. on July 18, 2016, the same day that the Washington Post published the following report: ‘Trump campaign guts GOP’s anti-Russia stance on Ukraine’. (Delta Air Lines flight confirmation attached as Exhibit 19(a)) Dr. Page played no role whatsoever in the drafting of the 2016 Republican party platform.
The FISA applications create the false impression that Page was involved with the GOP platform debate. The DOJ then used that misleading inference to support its claim that Page was a foreign agent.” (Read more: The Federalist, 7/23/2019)(Archive)
Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper admitted in a CNN interview Saturday that former President Obama instigated the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump and those in his orbit.
Speaking with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Clapper let slip:
“If it weren’t for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.”
“Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have been notified they may be asked for testimony as part of the criminal trial of a veteran Senate staffer accused of lying to the FBI while working for the panel.
Attorneys for James A. Wolfe sent letters to all 15 senators on the committee, notifying them that their testimony may be sought as part of Mr. Wolfe’s defense, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Wolfe, who for nearly 30 years served as the director of security for the intelligence committee, was arrested last month and charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with reporters while the bureau was conducting an investigation into leaks of classified information to journalists. Mr. Wolfe wasn’t charged with leaking any information.
Mr. Wolfe’s defense lawyers are considering calling the senators as part of the proceedings for a variety of reasons, including as potential character witnesses and to rebut some of the allegations made by the government in the criminal complaint, these people say.
If senators declined to appear voluntarily for either a deposition or at trial, they could be subpoenaed. That action could spark a legal battle over a constitutional provision that gives lawmakers certain immunity and privilege for actions undertaken as part of their official duties, as well as over how much national security information can be disclosed in open court.” (Read more: Wall Street Journal, 7/27/2018)(Archive)
Michael Cohen leaves Federal court, Aug. 21, 2018, in New York. (Credit: ABC News)
The Fact
September 19, 2017 and October 25, 2017: In closed-door meetings with the House and Senate intelligence committees, Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, testifies that he had no foreknowledge of the Trump Tower meeting and didn’t know if Trump did either. (Axios, 8/23/2018)(Michael Cohen opening statement)
The Plot Begins
July 5, 2018: Maggie Haberman reports Michael Cohen hires ex-Clinton lawyer, Lanny Davis – Mr. Cohen has made moves to separate himself from Mr. Trump (The New York Times, 7/05/2018)
July 6, 2018: “Tell Early, Tell It All, Tell It Yourself”: Can the Clinton Defense Save Michael Cohen? Cohen’s new attorney, Lanny Davis, thinks the truth will set his clients free—which could be bad news for Donald Trump. (Vanity Fair, 7/06/2018)
July 8, 2018 – “Why Am I Going to Continue to Be Silent?”: Michael Cohen Is Ready to Kick Off the Lanny Davis Era (Vanity Fair, 7/08/2018)
July 25, 2018 – Michael Cohen is no longer a ‘punching bag’ for Donald Trump’s defense strategy, Lanny Davis says – He also said Cohen “has more truth to tell.” (CNBC, July 25, 2018)
Two days later, more of Cohen’s “truths” are told to CNN and the Washington Post, anonymously, of course. Gee, who could this source be?
It was the natural progression of the plan for this fake news story in order to continue the Russiagate narrative and their efforts to impeach Trump.
The Lie
July 27, 2018: CNN and the Washington Post report that Cohen was willing to testify to special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew of the Trump Tower meeting in advance. (CNN, 7/27/2018) When The New York Post called Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, at the time to confirm the report, Davis spoke as an anonymous source and said it was accurate. (The New York Post, 8/23/2018)
July 27, 2018: The Washington Post – using an “anonymous source” they now admit was Davis, peddled the same story that “Cohen had told associates that he witnessed an exchange in which Trump Jr. told his father about an upcoming gathering in which he expected to get information about Clinton,” however the Post didn’t say Trump Jr. told Sr. it was the Russians.
August 21, 2018 – The Senate Intelligence committee finally responds to the CNN report because it conflicts with Cohen’s previous testimony. We’re curious as to why it took them nearly a month to respond.
“…What we can say is that we recently re-engaged with Mr. Cohen and his team following press reports that suggested he had advance knowledge of the June 2016 meeting between campaign officials and Russian lawyers at Trump Tower. Mr. Cohen had testified before the Committee that he was not aware of the meeting prior to its disclosure in the press last summer. As such, the Committee inquired of Mr. Cohen’s legal team as to whether Mr. Cohen stood by his testimony. They responded that he did stand by his testimony.
We hope that today’s developments and Mr. Cohen’s plea agreement will not preclude his appearance before our Committee as needed for our ongoing investigation.” (Senate Intelligence Committee, 8/21/2018)
The next day, Davis taunts Trump, obviously unaware of the Intel committee’s press release.
August 22, 2018: Cohen’s lawyer claims the flip happened because of the Trump-Putin meeting (Vox, 8/22/2018)
August 22, 2018: Lanny Davis: Michael Cohen Has Information About Trump That Would Be “Of Interest” To Special Counsel Mueller (Real Clear Politics, 8/22/2018)
August 22, 2018: Michael Cohen Lawyer Lanny Davis Begs for GoFundMe Donations to ‘Truth Fund’ (Newsweek, 8/22/2018)
August 22, 2018: “I believe that Mr. Cohen has direct knowledge that would be of interest to Mr. Mueller that suggests — I’m not sure it proves — that Mr. Trump was aware of Russian government agents hacking illegally, committing computer crimes, to the detriment of the candidate who he was running against, Hillary Clinton,” Davis said in a Wednesday interview with PBS NewsHour.
Davis finally catches up and realizes the lie has placed his client in the precarious position of having to reappear before the Senate Intelligence committee and explain his now questionable testimony. Only then does Davis backpedal from his “confident assertions” that Cohen would share information with Mueller’s investigators.
(Credit: CNN)
August 23, 2018: Davis, speaking on the record, apologized for confirming something he did not know to be true. “I regret that I wasn’t clear enough to The Post. I should have been more clear. I could not independently confirm the information in the CNN story,” he said. “I’m sorry that I left that impression. I wasn’t at the meeting. The only person who could confirm that information is my client.” (The New York Post, 8/23/2018)
August 25, 2018: President Trump tweeted about Davis’s stunning 180 on the Cohen claims, writing: “Michaels Cohen’s attorney clarified the record, saying his client does not know if President Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting (out of which came nothing!). The answer is that I did NOT know about the meeting. Just another phony story by the Fake News Media!” — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2018
August 26, 2018, The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Davis said in an interview that he is “no longer certain about claims he made to reporters on background and on the record in recent weeks about what Cohen knows about Trump’s awareness of the Russian efforts.”
Davis told the Washington Post that he cannot confirm media reports that Cohen is prepared to tell special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that Trump had advance knowledge of the 2016 Trump Tower meeting –(Washington Post, 8/26/18)
August 27, 2018:- Lanny Davis Says He Was A Source For CNN’s Trump Tower Story (Buzzfeed, 8/27/2018)
Lanny Davis talks to members of the media during a news conference on Jan. 10, 2015, in Philadelphia. (Credit: Joseph Kaczmarek/The Associated Press)
“Davis also walked back an idea he widely circulated after Cohen’s guilty plea that Trump knew about Russian hacking of Democratic emails in advance – which he has mentioned numerous times in recent interviews, “repeatedly touting his client’s potential value to Mueller.”
Four days later and Davis takes it all back.
Asked Saturday how confident he was that Trump knew about the hacking before it became public, Davis said: “I am not sure. There’s a possibility that is the case. But I am not sure.”
Davis said that in discussing the hacking allegations last week, he should have emphasized his lack of certainty. He said he raised the idea that Cohen might have information about Trump’s knowledge because he had a strong feeling that might be the case. –WaPo
“I was giving an instinct that he might have something to say of interest to the special counsel” about hacking, Davis said. In retrospect, he said, “I am just not sure.”
In response to the Washington Post’s original July 27th article:
“I should have been more clear — including with you — that I could not independently confirm what happened,” Davis said, adding perhaps the most difficult four words for an attorney to utter: “I regret my error.”
In the past week, when asked directly by CNN’s Anderson Cooper whether there was information that Trump knew about his son’s meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya beforehand, Davis said, “No, there’s not.”
In a statement Saturday, a CNN spokeswoman said, “We stand by our story, and are confident in our reporting of it.” –WaPo
We wonder how many people donated to Cohen’s “GoFundMe” campaign assuming he had the goods?
We wonder if Podesta ever let Davis crisis manage Hillary Clinton’s email scandal?” (Zero Hedge, 8/28/2018)
“On my honor I give you my word I will not mention to anyone my involvement. ” — Michael Cohen lawyer Lanny J Davis to Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podesta https://t.co/8pydGMaYerpic.twitter.com/i7pfYdJbxL
(Timeline editor’s note: I decided to create a mini-timeline for this story because it is the most egregious example to date of how a fake story is born. I was reminded of the dozens of so-called journalists listed in the original email timeline, who were so ready and willing to tee-up stories in Clinton’s favor. Also, who can forget the MSM’s willingness to tout Donald Trump during the primary, at the Clinton campaign’s request?)
SOTN has both written and posted many articles over the years seriously questioning the official narrative surrounding Watergate. It never made any sense as the exposé below clearly indicates. Now we know why!
For those who do not have the time to read the entire post, the following excerpt from this bombshell exposé says it all in just a few sentences. The full version does draw one conclusion, however, about President Nixon that SOTN completely disagrees with. It’s more likely that Nixon would use highly classified Pedogate info to gain political advantage; and quite unlikely that he was involved in any way with pedophilia…although anything is possible.
In 1972, Rothstein arrested one of the five Watergate burglars, CIA operative Frank Sturgis. During a subsequent two-hour interrogation, he discovered the truth about Watergate. The burglars sought something they nicknamed “The Book” which listed the Democrat and Republican politicians who accessed child prostitutes, their sexual proclivities, the amounts they paid to rape kids, and such.
The official Watergate explanation is that the Republicans broke into Democratic National Committee Headquarters to obtain information about their election strategies. People who lived through Watergate typically comment with a frown, “that never made sense.” Rothstein’s experiences make better sense of why Nixon conspired to quash the Watergate investigation, why he suggested the investigation posed a threat to national security, why his personal secretary destroyed Oval Office tape recordings after they were subpoenaed, and why his own Vice President issued a pardon…
The critical point is: Why would Nixon’s high-level GOP operatives ever risk exposing themselves with such a perilous political scheme and criminal Watergate break-in. No matter what the truth is, this deep insider’s back story about Watergate rings entirely true.
The main message, of course, that was sent by Deep State to the entire U.S. political establishment was that Pedogate was strictly off-limits as far as opposition research was concerned. And, that only the Shadow Government could use Pedogate as a weapon in the politics of personal destruction. Anyone else attempting to would go down like Nixon…faster than the Hindenburg crashed and burned.
In October 2016, I presented at a Trauma and Dissociation conference in Seattle, USA. Following my talk, one attendee approached me in the hotel lobby where my fellow presenters sat at their merchandise stalls. “All this!” she shouted while sweeping her arm across the sideshow alley of over-priced books, stickers and fridge magnets, “All this – is shit! You have the real stuff! Where’s your book?!” Tears welled in her eyes. “Write a book! Please write a book!”
Yes, I have the real stuff. I’m not some arrogant academic pretending to understand what it’s like to be a victim of the most heinous crimes. I lived it. I spent my developmental years trapped in a mind control labyrinth. I then spent my adult years navigating a way out. I eventually achieved what few victims have, true integration. I may therefore declare with authority what does and does not work.
I prefer the term ‘victim’ to ‘survivor’ because the latter implies my ordeal is over. My ordeal will likely never end. As Dr Reina Michaelson warned, “Fiona, I think this is a life sentence.” I serve a life sentence for crimes committed against me, with the full knowledge and blessing of the Australian government. I am constantly harassed by police, paid agitators, pedophile payroll academics and journalists, DID sleeper cells, perpetrator relatives, fake victims, fake advocates, professional social media trolls, and retired intelligence community thugs hired to do the dirty work of the VIP pedophiles who dare not overtly attack me since that would attract media attention to their role in the international child trafficking operation.
Recovery from extreme abuse begins with realising the true nature and extent of international child trafficking. In 2015, a certain journalist wrote favourable articles about me concerning my Sydney press conference. I subsequently phoned and asked him to investigate and publish my full story. If only one mainstream journalist published my testimony against Antony Kidman, I reasoned, it would blow the international child trafficking network wide open. During this call, he relayed a conversation he once had with “a couple of spooks” who told him that all senior politicians are pedophiles because that is how they are controlled. He asked me if that was my story.
“That’s exactly right. That’s consistent with my experience,” I tried to contain my excitement. “The mainstream media has long documented the CIA’s involvement in drugs and weapons trafficking, right?”
He agreed, noting there had just been another story about that in the mainstream press.
“Well then, is it so hard to imagine they are also involved in trafficking children – which is far more lucrative than guns and drugs? ASIO and the CIA work together to traffic children between Australia and America. They’re the ones who trafficked me.”
The journalist promised to consider my request, bearing in mind he had a young family and publishing my story would surely place them at risk. But he never got back to me. A short time later, he suddenly developed a rare and aggressive form of cancer. I called him, expressed my condolences, and we chatted for a bit. At the end of the conversation, I mentioned I was considering writing a book. I asked him to clarify and elaborate on what he told me of his encounter with the “spooks”.
“I never said that,” he bluntly asserted.
I sighed in resignation… It was over. There went my last chance at breaking into the mainstream media. There went years of building rapport and credibility with mainstream journalists. Years of investigating other abuse cases and passing my findings on to television and newspapers. Years of driving journalists around the district to meet the victims themselves. Years of results in other cases. The Gold Coast Hogtie Doctor story went international, with Neville Davis being permanently banned from practising medicine in Australia (although, that doesn’t stop him setting up shop in Thailand). Gary Willis’ 20-year child abuse spree ended with a permanent ban on his teaching for the NSW education department (although, that didn’t stop him from working for Education Queensland, at Tallebudgera Primary School). And NSW police were forced to do a mop up investigation of Daruk Boys Home after sensational headlines about a victim having his penis cut off went global (although, they left out the bit where Daruk boys were trafficked to VIP pedophiles at Kings Cross child brothels).
I had come so close. My 2015 press conference was statistically the most popular story on the Sydney Morning Herald website that day, even though their computer technicians refused to list it as the most viewed article. The USA National Inquirer intended to run a front-page story about Antony Kidman being a pedophile, until they received a vicious letter from Nicole’s lawyers. A journalist and her photographer husband flew up from Sydney to interview me for a major Australian magazine – until Nicole, who had lucrative contracts with Sydney’s media outlets, took a “Scientology approach to managing” me. Finally, a UK journalist travelled around the country interviewing me and two other victims of Antony Kidman for the Daily Mail Online, until one of the victims (whose parents were Antony Kidman’s personal friends), was threatened and subsequently withdrew last minute.
Despite everything the pedophile network threw at me, my story still got out there, such that if you Google Antony Kidman’s name, the words ‘child abuse’ soon follow. Once Nicole Kidman’s PR team shut down my mainstream media exposure, by drawing on Kidman’s lucrative contracts with every Australian media outlet, I turned to the internet. Armed with a simple meme app and a talent for lyric writing, I launched my own social media campaign. I spent years in front of the computer, communicating with hundreds of victims and supporters, many fake, many genuine. I hit the conspiracy theory jackpot when David Icke featured an enormous photograph of me and my story on his Australian speaking tour.
My tactics worked. Online articles about Nicole Kidman, where the pubic was free to leave negative comments, were followed by streams of intelligent attacks on her orchestrated stardom. I realised my impact when Kidman’s PR team paid a newspaper and a morning television show to feature an article tellingly titled, ‘Shame on you, Australia. Stop hating on Nicole Kidman.’ People don’t hate Nicole as an individual. They hate what the Harvey Weinstein scandal later highlighted: that Hollywood rewards something other than an ability to sing, dance or act. Hollywood rewards loyalty to their pedophile system.
But no amount of alternative media success can match a complete break into mainstream. So, I admitted defeat. I stopped posting and even checking my sites.
Days before the 2016 US Presidential Election, I received a barrage of texts from old friends asking if I was okay. People started inquiring about our family’s welfare. I had no idea what was happening. Then I checked my blog site. A spike of 100,000 views in one day stemmed from an article that activist group Anonymous published about my being trafficked to American VIPs. They used my story to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and expose her involvement in a child sex trafficking ring. The Clinton Foundation was a front for the trafficking of children including Haiti earthquake victims. Bill and Hillary’s trafficking network implicated her campaign chairman John Podesta. Podesta and his brother Tony were staying in a villa owned by UK politician Sir Clement Freud, near British child Madeleine McCann when she disappeared in Portugal. Clement was Sigmund Freud’s grandson who was outed in mainstream British media as a pedophile. John and Tony Podesta perfectly matched the identikit images Scotland Yard released of Madeleine’s abductors.
Pedogate, as the scandal became known, surfaced when Wikileaks released emails from John Podesta’s account in October 2016. The emails notably outed Hillary Clinton as a self-confessed “Molech” worshipper, and captured politicians ordering children for pedophile parties using fast-food code words. The White House, for instance, made a massive ‘fast food’ order, contravening policy dictating all food be prepared onsite using raw ingredients to counter the security risk posed by externally prepared foods. The trafficked kids were held in transit cellars within local Washington DC businesses, including a restaurant where a drag entertainer was caught on tape boasting about raping and killing kids. Clean FBI and NYPD officers made multiple attempts to charge Clinton and other VIP members of the trafficking ring, but their efforts were typically thwarted by those above them in the chain of command.
Mainstream media giants launched a cover-up campaign against the leaked Podesta emails. The likes of CNN (founded by one of my pedophile rapists, Ted Turner) successfully drew the public’s attention from what was contained in the emails, to who might have leaked them and spread ‘fake news’. Clinton herself never addressed or denied the emails contents. The emails were in fact leaked by US intelligence community staff who opposed organised pedophilia. Mainstream journalists who reported the truth of the matter were promptly fired. Dozens of Clinton staff and associates met untimely deaths, in quick succession. So Pedogate was discredited as ‘fake news,’ despite NBC’sJune 11, 2013 televised report regarding Hillary Clinton using her position as U.S. Secretary of State to cease an investigation into child sex trafficking within the State Department.
Pedogate reached the public via social media. YouTube featured interviews with credible witnesses who testified to the existence of an international child sex trafficking operation involving US politicians and the CIA. That was when I noticed retired NYPD Detective James Rothstein. The Pedogate ring, he explained, was the same network he investigated for 35 years. Rothstein observed, the perpetrators were doing everything in their power to shut the Pedogate story down. He predicted the perpetrators would successfully bury it, like every other time their network was almost exposed.
Rothstein explained that the NYPD was no ordinary state police force, but a leading investigative agency with national and international offices. Back in 1966, Rothstein became the first police detective assigned to investigate the prostitution industry. He soon discovered the underground sexual blackmail operation that compromised politicians with child prostitutes. ‘Human Compromise’ is the term he uses for this honey-trap process. Rothstein and his colleagues found that up to 70 percent of top US government leaders had been compromised. The CIA conducted the human compromise operation, while the FBI’s task was to cover it up.
James Rothstein was alerted to an identical VIP pedophile ring operating in the UK, when British Intelligence consulted him regarding the Profumo Affair. MI6 agents visited Rothstein in New York to extract what he knew about British politicians and other VIPs having sex with child prostitutes. This was part of their effort to cover up the true pedophile nature of the Profumo scandal.
Rothstein found the international pedophile rings are connected, and that their members meet at various world locations where each destination catered for a different type of degenerate sexual proclivity, including satanic themed abuse.
Rothstein and his colleagues encountered fierce resistance to the investigation and prosecution of members of the child trafficking operation. His investigative journalist contacts at the New York Times and Washington Post could not get stories about the VIP pedophile ring printed. All police, FBI, customs and IRS officers who pursued the VIP pedophile network above street level had their careers subsequently destroyed.
Rothstein’s attempts to arrest key perpetrators were continually thwarted. The choice example is when he served the head of the CIA’s human compromise operation, Tippy Richardson. According to pedophile turned police informant Ben Rose, in November 1971, Tippy Richardson, businessman Leonard Stewart (from OPEC, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and a surgeon named Dr Chesky, raped and murdered three boys aged 14 to 15 years in Rose’s apartment on East 64th Street in New York City. The New York State Select Committee on Crime subsequently served subpoenas on both Tippy Richardson and Leonard Stewart. When served, Richardson said that because he worked for the CIA, the subpoena would be withdrawn under the National Security Act by the time Rothstein and his colleague returned to their offices. It was.
In 1972, Rothstein arrested one of the five Watergate burglars, CIA operative Frank Sturgis. During a subsequent two-hour interrogation, he discovered the truth about Watergate. The burglars sought something they nicknamed “The Book” which listed the Democrat and Republican politicians who accessed child prostitutes, their sexual proclivities, the amounts they paid to rape kids, and such.
The official Watergate explanation is that the Republicans broke into Democratic National Committee Headquarters to obtain information about their election strategies. People who lived through Watergate typically comment with a frown, “that never made sense.” Rothstein’s experiences make better sense of why Nixon conspired to quash the Watergate investigation, why he suggested the investigation posed a threat to national security, why his personal secretary destroyed Oval Office tape recordings after they were subpoenaed, and why his own Vice President issued a pardon which protected him from prosecution for any crimes he had “committed or may have committed or taken part in” as president. If Nixon’s crimes included pedophilia, that would make perfect sense.
I am confident President Richard Nixon and his good buddy ‘the Reverend’ Billy Graham were named in the Watergate pedophile records, because I was sex trafficked to both men as a young child.
When I spoke with James Rothstein, he said he had not heard that Nixon was a pedophile, but that he certainly knew from multiple victims Reverend Billy Graham was a rampant pedophile. Rothstein also told me that during his investigations he became aware of an identical child sex trafficking ring in Australia involving Prime Ministers’ Although he never directly investigated it himself, he said Peter Osborne who worked in Australian intelligence knew the details. He also confirmed that Australian politicians and other VIPs attended international child brothels.
Another voice to surface in the wake of the Pedogate scandal was Dutch banker Ronald Bernard. Bernard shed further light on the people and system behind the international child trafficking network during a series of interviews with an Irma Schiffers. Bernard said he worked in international finance and high-end money laundering for 12 years. There he discovered that political power does not reside with publicly elected representatives, but with the world’s 8,000 to 8,500 wealthiest individuals who exercise power behind the scenes and who routinely manipulate the media. These people, he explained, sit at the top of a power structure that resembles a pyramid. Directly beneath them sits the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Below the BIS sit the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank. Below them sit the Central Banks, which are illegally created private banks which oversee the commercial banking system of their respective countries. Below these sit the multinational companies. Finally, below these sit the countries’ governments.
Bernard said the wealthiest 8,000 to 8,500 people created the BIS in 1930. Since the world’s richest individuals are too young to have helped establish the BIS 88 years ago, he must be referring to banking dynasties like the Rothschilds. In a Chapter titled, ‘Banking and the World’s Biggest Business,’ the book Dope, Inc.: Britain’s Opium War Against the U.S. (Kalimtgis, Goldman & Stienberg, 1978) lists the Rothschilds as one of the nine family dynasties responsible for the modern drug industry which, they assert, “is run as a single integrated world operation, from the opium poppy to the nickel bag of heroin sold on an inner-city corner.” The current global drug trade was established by the British Crown during the Opium Wars, when P&O steam lines were founded to transport the drugs, the HSBC bank was established to launder the proceeds, and the ‘court Jews’ (Rothschilds) were employed to financially manage the operation. Apparently, little has changed, and the same operation has simply been expanded.
There must have been some truth to the content of Dope Inc. because its revelations resulted in the HSBC bank losing its license to operate in the USA. The book also inspired law enforcement officials to swap their assumption that drug trafficking consisted of pockets of independent criminal activity, for the fact it is a global network coordinated by the CIA, with proceeds laundered through banks and funneled into the CIA’s covert, terrorist operations.
This is the very system Ronald Bernard described. He said his own laundering operation dealt with governments, multinationals, terrorist organisations, and secret services. Secret service agencies, he specified, do not serve and protect a people or country as the public expect. Instead, they are all criminal organizations that trade in drugs, weapons, and children. According to Bernard, the wealthy elites controlled their employees by compromising and blackmailing them – just like James Rothstein said.
The best way to understand the child trafficking industry is to trace the history of the drug trafficking industry. As you read Dope Inc., cross out each occurrence of the word ‘drugs’ and replace it with the word ‘kids’ – this will give you a picture of the child trafficking network that victimised me. Like the drug trade, the child sex trafficking industry is run by the very same people as a single integrated world operation. At the top of this sit the wealthy elite who maintain control by ensuring only blackmailed, compromised politicians, military brass, and government officials occupy leadership. The secret services, including ASIO, the CIA and British Intelligence, coordinate the child trafficking and human compromise operation, receive the victims procured via the little men, train these into suitable assets, and transport the victims nationally and internationally to service VIP pedophiles.
Australia is in the process of two federal investigations, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, and the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. Only one of these investigations has shed any light on the global child trafficking network I personally reported to the Child Abuse Royal Commission. On 5 April 2018, the newly appointed head of AUSTRC (Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre) told the ABC News:
I thought coming from the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission that I had a pretty good handle on serious and organised crime side. I didn’t appreciate the depth and breadth of involvement with private entities and banks. I didn’t appreciate how many industries it does actually touch. There’s a misperception that money laundering is a victimless white-collar crime that’s probably just looking at tax avoidance – and it’s not. It’s criminal entities using financial institutions here and nationally to move criminal funds around our country and our financial system overseas and it has a massive impact on everyday life; whether that’s child exploitation, serious and organised crime, drug importation – it all involves money laundering.
Australia’s Commonwealth Bank was subsequently fined 700 million dollars for near 54,000 breaches of anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing laws, including the laundering of proceeds from child sex trafficking, and the channeling of funds into overseas terrorist organisations. So, my very own bank, which wooed my kiddie custom with a green tin money box painted to resemble a building, simultaneously facilitated my child abuse. (The Millennium Report, July 30, 2018) (Archive)
“A new release from the FBI Vault on the Hillary Clinton email investigation reveals the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop containing Clinton emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) was never reviewed for intrusionprior to the 2016 election.”
“From this page (15): The day after the 2016 election Peter Strzok is asking the FBI forensics data lab to run an intrusion analysis of Huma Abedin’s laptop hard drive.”
“From This Page (17): The day after the election the FBI is requesting data forensics to identify intrusions into the Huma Abedin laptop. Special instructions include the forensics lab to keep a list of anyone who sees this information, keep track of the FBI personnel doing this work, and tell the case agent who they are.
Then comes the kicker….
Item 4.4: “List any previous efforts to analyze this evidence”: “None”
The FBI never looked at the Anthony Weiner/Huma Abedin laptop, which contained 100% of Clinton emails and blackberry text messages, for intrusion or security breaches PRIOR TO the election.
REMEMBER THE IG REPORT? Reading Chapter 11 of the IG Report the content of the Inspector General report as it relates to the laptop device. Consider this from page #388 (emphasis mine):
Midyear agents obtained a copy of the Weiner laptop from NYO immediately after the search warrant was signed on October 30.
The laptop was taken directly to Quantico where the FBI’s Operational Technology Division (OTD) began processing the laptop. The Lead Analyst told us that given the volume of emails on the laptop and the difficulty with de-duplicating the emails that “at least for the first few days, the scale of what we’re doing seem[ed] really, really big.”
Strzok told us that OTD was able “to do some amazing things” to “rapidly de-duplicate” the emails on the laptop, which significantly lowered the number of emails that the Midyear team would have to individually review. Strzok stated that only after that technological breakthrough did he begin to think it was “possible we might wrap up before the election.” (pg 388)
FBI Agent Peter Strzok, the lead investigative authority in the Hillary Clinton MYE (Mid-Year-Exam), is explaining to the IG how they were able to process an exhaustive volume of emails (350,000) and Blackberry communications (344,000) in a few days; [Oct 30 to Nov 5, 2016]
Now, how does that square with the laptop being turned over to FBI forensics on November 9th, 2016?”
“The media narrative surrounding FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s firing has been framed, almost exclusively, around his political text messages. Given the nature of the media participation in the events, this is not surprising. However, Strzok’s text messages have no bearing on his firing.
In March 2018 the DOJ Office of Inspector General announced an ongoing review of how the DOJ and FBI used FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) as a weaponized tool against their political opposition.
“As part of this examination, the OIG also will review information that was known to the DOJ and the FBI at the time the applications were filed from or about an alleged FBI confidential source. Additionally, the OIG will review the DOJ’s and FBI’s relationship and communications with the alleged source as they relate to the FISC applications.” (pdf link)
Two months later on Monday May 21st, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein added a significant DOJ mandate to the Inspector General review. Rosenstein expanded the original FISA review to include looking at whether officials within the intelligence community may have unlawfully used human intelligence assets to “spy” or “surveil” the Trump campaign:
“The Department has asked the Inspector General to expand the ongoing review of the FISA application process to include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.” (link)
Part of that ongoing IG review surrounds FBI Affidavits presented to the FISA Court (FISC) and whether those affidavits were fraudulent; thereby misleading the court. FBI Agent Peter Strzok is the primary affiant swearing to the truthfulness and fullness of the information that underlines the FISA application (ie. Woods Procedures) . We know Peter Strzok lied and misrepresented information to the court.
In addition to violating the Woods Procedures, FBI Agent Peter Strzok likely falsified, manipulated and shaped FD-302 investigative notes in both the Hillary Clinton and Michael Flynn interviews. His own text messages with DOJ Special Counsel Lisa Page highlight that Peter Strzok was very familiar with manipulating evidence by the narrative he could/did write in his 302 submissions.
Senator Chuck Grassley and Christopher Wray (Credit: public domain)
Within the letter Chairman Grassley outlined a prior briefing from fired FBI Director James Comey to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and contrasts the false presentations of James Comey and by extension Peter Strzok, regarding Michael Flynn, against recently known evidence.
Additionally, Grassley requested:
♦the transcription of the phone call(s) intercepted by the FBI between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Kislyak;
♦the FD 302s written by the FBI in their interview with Michael Flynn;
♦testimony from Special Agent Joe Pientka, likely the second FBI agent who was partnered with Peter Strzok for the Flynn interview.
The name of the second FBI agent was previously unknown, and it’s likely Chairman Grassley outed the name for a very specific reason. This is a BIG shot across the bow.
Previously the Justice Department was refusing to provide any information to the committee pertinent to Grassley’s requests, citing the ongoing investigation. However, the Senator was outlining his request against the backdrop of the Judge in the Flynn case demanding the Special Counsel turn over all exculpatory information.
Judge Contreras was presiding judge on the initial guilty plea, then “was recused”. Judge Sullivan took over and demanded the DOJ turn over all exculpatory evidence.
Judge Contreras was presiding judge on the initial guilty plea, then “was recused”. Judge Sullivan took over and demanded the DOJ turn over all exculpatory evidence. (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)
Senator Grassley outlines the February 15th, 2017, briefing provided by James Comey to the committee:
(…) “Like the Flynn interview itself, that briefing was not transcribed. Also like the Flynn interview, there are notes taken by a career, non-partisan law enforcement officer who was present. The agent was on detail to the Committee staff at the time.
According to that agent’s contemporaneous notes, Director Comey specifically told us during that briefing that the FBI agents who interviewed Lt. General Michael Flynn, “saw nothing that led them to believe [he was] lying.” Our own Committee staff’s notes indicate that Mr. Comey said the “agents saw no change in his demeanor or tone that would say he was being untruthful.”
Contrary to his public statements during his current book tour denying any memory of those comments, then-Director Comey led us to believe during that briefing that the agents who interviewed Flynn did not believe he intentionally lied about his conversation with the Ambassador and that the Justice Department was unlikely to prosecute him for false statements made in that interview. In the months since then, the Special Counsel obtained a guilty plea from Lt. General Flynn for that precise alleged conduct.”
It is important to remember – there is a widely held belief that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the FBI agents (Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka) to shape their FBI reports of the interview (FD-302s) to assist a “Flynn lied” narrative.
There is a great deal of debate surrounding the guilty plea as an outcome of a carefully constructed and coordinated plan by FBI and DOJ officials to target Flynn.
The letter continues:
(…) “The Department has withheld the Flynn-related documents since our initial bipartisan request last year, citing an ongoing criminal investigation. With Flynn’s plea, the investigation appears concluded.
Additionally, while we are aware that the Special Counsel’s office has moved to delay Lt. General Flynn’s sentencing on several occasions, we presume that all related records already have been provided to the defense pursuant to Judge Sullivan’s February 16, 2018 order requiring production of all potentially exculpatory material. Thus, although the case is not yet adjudicated, the Committee’s oversight interest in the underlying documents requested more than a year ago now outweighs any legitimate executive branch interest in withholding it. So too does the Committee’s interest in learning the FBI agents’ actual assessments of their interview of Lt. Gen. Flynn, particularly given the apparent contradiction between what then Directory Comey told us in March 2017 and what he now claims.”
Then comes the hammer:
(…) “In addition, please make Special Agent Joe Pientka available for a transcribed interview with Committee staff no later than one week following the production of the requested documents.”
Regarding the “widely held belief” that Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe told the FBI agents (Strzok and Pientka) to shape their FBI reports of the interview (FD-302’s) to assist a “Flynn lied” narrative. As Nick Falco points out evidence of that is within the most recenttext messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:
♦January 23, 2017, the day before the Flynn interview, Lisa Page says: “I can feel my heart beating harder, I’m so stressed about all the ways THIS has the potential to go fully off the rails.” Weird!”
♦Strzok replies: “I know. I just talked with John, we’re getting together as soon as I get in to finish that write up for Andy [McCabe] this morning.” Strzok agrees with Page about being stressed that “THIS” could go off the rails. (Strzok meets with Flynn the next day.)
♦Why would Page & Strzok be stressed about “THIS” potentially going off the rails if everything was by the book?
BECAUSE IT WASN’T!
♦February 14th, 2017, there is another note about the FBI reports filed from the interview.
Peter Strzok asks Lisa Page if FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is OK with his report: “Also, is Andy good with F-302?”
Lisa Page replies: “Launch on F 302.”
And we know from their discussions of manipulating FBI reports a year earlier,inside the Hillary Clinton investigation – that Peter Strzok has withheld information, and manipulated information, through use of the 302 reports:
(Timeline editor’s note: With special thanks to Conservative Treehouse for allowing us to post their well documented research to the timeline. We have decided to post this piece in full. Please visit their website and read more of Sundance’s work. His team is an organized group of super sleuths who are putting this maddening puzzle together, piece by piece.)
Lawless insider trader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tears up President Donald Trump’s ‘State of the Union 2020’ speech. (Credit: BBC)
Members of Congress come across a lot of information in the course of their official duties. Can they use “insider information” to make a quick buck by buying and selling stock at opportune times?
The answer to this question is a resounding and unequivocal no. Statutory law forbids it, and even if it did, Congress has always had the constitutional power to discipline its Members.
In mid-November 2011, CBS’ 60 Minutes ran a story alleging that Members of Congress were using insider information to benefit on stock trades. The story provoked a furor among the public, leading to the enactment of the STOCK Act, which President Obama signed into law on April 4, 2012. The act had several effects, but the most notable was that it explicitly stated that Members and congressional employees “are not exempt from the insider trading prohibitions arising under the securities laws…” (§4(a)). Additionally, it amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, to specify each Member or employee “owes a duty” when in receipt of “material, nonpublic information” obtained as a result of their public office (§4(b)(2)).
Although the STOCK Act amended the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, in the lead up to its enactment, there was some debate over whether Members and staffers were exempt from anti-insider trading law. For instance, in February 2012, when the House passed the STOCK Act, Representative Rob Woodall of Georgia said, “The STOCK Act has been characterized … as to prevent insider trading by members of Congress, as if members of Congress are allowed to participate in insider trading today, and they are not.” Similarly, when the Senate passed the STOCK Act, The Wall Street Journalreported:
Robert Khuzami, head enforcement official at the Securities and Exchange Commission, said in testimony late last year that it is possible that insider-trading laws do, in fact, apply to members of Congress.
But he said it is possible that a federal judge could disagree with him and strike down an insider-trading case. As a result, he said it would be easier to prosecute an insider-trading case against a lawmaker if Congress approved legislation to make it clear that lawmakers have a duty to keep private the nonpublic information they hear in Congress about legislation and policy changes that could affect markets.
The dispute over whether congressional insider trading could be prosecuted before the passage of the STOCK Act aside, adopting it was a way for Congress to attempt to restore public trust amidst public indignation. You could dismiss that as a mere show, but maintaining the confidence of the public is critical for a healthy democracy. Even if it was possible to prosecute congressional insider trading before the STOCK Act, with both it and other laws in force today, it is unambiguous that Members of Congress may not engage in insider trading, whether the information they obtain is from their public office or their private life.
(Members are required to publicly report on their annual financial disclosure forms all stocks that are owned, purchased or sold. Such transactions should be reported within 30 days and “in no case later than 45 days” afterwards (§6(a)). The Act also required that the reports be posted on the House and Senate websites (§8(a)) This allows the public and the media to check whether a Member has been engaged in any suspicious activity in the securities markets.)
In addition to statutory law against insider trading, each Chamber has a constitutional right to discipline its own Members, officers, and staff. Both the House and Senate ethics rules provide ample room to punish insider trading—and, arguably, did so even before the passage of the STOCK Act. Both the 2008 edition of the House Ethics Manual and the 2003 edition of the Senate Ethics Manual note that individuals under their respective Chambers’ jurisdictions may be disciplined for violations of the Code of Ethics for Government Service. This code admonishes public servants, “Never use any information gained confidentially in the performance of governmental duties as a means of making private profit.” Aside from specific references to the Code of Ethics for Government Service, each Chamber has broad rules requiring Members and staff to act at all times in ways that do not dishonor their Chamber, and each of the ethics manuals contain a discussion on the various ways the House and Senate can discipline for behavior that is not otherwise explicitly forbidden. The House and Senate could impose different kinds of penalties, including fines and, for Members, expulsion from office if 2/3 of the Chamber votes to do so. Any discipline imposed by one of the houses of Congress would be separate from prosecution by the Justice Department. Sanction by a Member’s chamber is an additional form of punishment that a private citizen would not face.
Aside from the discipline that Congress or the criminal justice system might pursue, there is always the court of public opinion. Members of Congress are always responsible to their constituents, who always have the right to turn an incumbent out of office at the next election, for whatever reason. Beyond having a right to defeat an unworthy incumbent, it is not even too much of a stretch to say that the people must do so. As James Garfield, then a U.S. Representative, wrote in April 1877:
[N]ow, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand those high qualities to represent them in the national legislature.
Garfield’s admonition reminds of the power that citizens have to hold their elected officials accountable—remember it any time a scandal in Congress bubbles up. (Congressional Institute, 8/16/2018)(Archive)
(…) The law does not provide for a criminal penalty, but violators can face substantial fines.
Some supporters of the Stock Act thought it clearly banned the buying or selling of stocks based solely on information members of Congress learn about on the job, because it brought them under that “relationship of trust or confidence” rule — namely, their duty to the public. But that concept has never been tested in court, and some former SEC officials have said they doubt that members of Congress have a duty of confidentiality.
But even if that approach of the insider trading law clearly did apply to Congress, bringing a criminal case would be difficult for prosecutors because of the immunity provided by the Constitution’s speech or debate clause.
“They’ll never be [able to] prosecute anybody for this, if they have to penetrate a committee to find out if that’s where the information came from. That’s speech-or-debate protected territory,” said Stan Brand, a Washington lawyer and former U.S. House general counsel.
Members of Congress can nonetheless be prosecuted for insider trading when the information they act on comes from a company, not through the legislative process. Former Rep. Chris Collins, a New York Republican, was sentenced to 26 months in prison in January after he admitted revealing inside knowledge to his son about a drug company’s stock that was likely to fall. Collins learned of the information because he served on the company’s board. (Read more: NBC News, 3/20/2020)
“Judicial Watch today released two batches, 184 pages and 45 pages, of newly uncovered emails of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the U.S. Department of State sent and received over her unsecure, non-“state.gov” email system. Five emails contain classified information.
Judge James Boasberg (Credit: public domain)
(…) “The documents are part of the accelerated schedule of production ordered by U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg, which requires the State Department to complete processing by September 28, 2018, the remaining documents of the 72,000 pages recovered by the FBI in its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s illicit email server. These new classified and other emails appear to be among those that Clinton had attempted to delete or had otherwise failed to disclose.
On June 7, 2011, Clinton received classified information on her non-secure email account from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, which Blair also forwarded to Jake Sullivan, about Blair’s Middle East negotiations with Israel, the Palestinians and the French
On January 26, 2010, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff Jake Sullivan sent classified informationvia his unsecure Blackberry to Huma Abedin’s State Department email account that he’d earlier sent to Clinton’s and Abedin’s non-secure @clintonemail.com email accounts about U.K. negotiations with Northern Ireland.
On October 28, 2010, Clinton exchanges information with her friend Marty Torrey – a congressional aide – who asks Clinton in an email if she would advise that Torrey meet with former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Clinton responds through her non-secure email account approving the meeting and notes that she is emailing him from Hanoi, Vietnam.
An email chain dated April 8, 2010, which contains a memo from Sid Blumenthal to Hillary Clinton related to the change of government in Kyrgyzstan, contains information classified “confidential” and is redacted as “foreign government information” and “foreign relations or foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources.” Blumenthal urges Clinton to “develop relations” with the new government in Kyrgyzstan.
All of this suggests to me the necessity for the State Department to assert itself and take the lead in developing relations with the new government.
A January 26, 2010, email to Hillary Clinton from her deputy chief of staff, Jake Sullivan, is classified “confidential” and contains a “call sheet” that Clinton received prior to placing a call to Northern Ireland political leaders. It appears that the redacted portions contain the names of particular members of Sinn Fein who were invited to a particular meeting and the expectations of either themselves or other foreign ministers for the outcomes of that meeting.
A June 13, 2009, email to Clinton from Sullivan with the subject line “Northern Ireland” is classified “confidential” and nearly completely redacted. The particular subject details are unclear.
Abedin emails Clinton about “Invites for the week” in an undated email (but apparently written before November 1, 2011, the day Clinton’s mother died, because her mother is one of the invitees – probably written in early 2009, based on the period most of these emails seem to have been written), and notes that she (Clinton) has a “George Soros lunch from 1-3 in Southampton.”
On October 20, 2010, lawyer Lanny Davis writes Clinton an email saying, “Thank you H for who you are and what you do,” followed in the exchange by another with “PS. I swear you look younger and better every time I see you, Good night dear Hillary. Lanny.” Mr. Davis is currently a lawyer for Michael Cohen.
In an undatedemail, Blumenthal emails Clinton about State Department management issues suggests that Joseph C. Wilson “should be spoken with for his view of dept, personnel…is shrewd.” Wilson is a former ambassador to Gabon who went on to become an Africa consultant and deal-maker.
“These classified Hillary Clinton emails that she tried to hide or destroy show why it is urgent that the DOJ finally undertake an honest criminal investigation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These emails show how the prior sham investigation by the Comey-Strzok-McCabe-Lynch crowd was a joke. It is past time for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to order a new investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 8/16/2018)
“The FBI has been dealt a major blow after a Washington DC judge ruled that the agency must respond to a FOIA request for documents concerning the bureau’s efforts to verify the controversial Steele Dossier, before it was used as the foundation of a FISA surveillance warrant application and subsequent renewals.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/The National Law Journal)
US District Court Judge Amit Mehta – who in January sided with the FBI’s decision to ignore the FOIA request, said that President Trump’s release of two House Intelligence Committee documents (the “Nunes” and “Schiff” memos) changed everything.
Considering that the FBI offered Steele $50,000 to verify the Dossier’s claims yet never paid him, BuzzFeed has unsuccessfully tried to do the same to defend themselves in a dossier-related lawsuit, and a $50 million Soros-funded investigation to continue the hunt have turned up nothing that we know of – whatever documents the FBI may be forced to cough up regarding their attempts to verify the Dossier could prove highly embarrassing for the agency.
“But then the ground shifted,” writes Mehta of Trump declassifying the House memos. “As a result of the Nunes and Schiff Memos, there is now in the public domain meaningful information about how the FBI acquired the Dossier and how the agency used it to investigate Russian meddling.”
The DOJ also sought to distinguish between the Steele Dossier and a synopsis of the dossier presented to both Trump and then-President Obama in 2016, however Mehta rejected the attempt, writing “That position defies logic,” while also rejecting the government’s refusal to even say if the FBI has a copy of that synopsis.
“It remains no longer logical nor plausible for the FBI to maintain that it cannot confirm nor deny the existence of documents,” Mehta wrote.
“It is simply not plausible to believe that, to whatever extent the FBI has made efforts to verify Steele’s reporting, some portion of that work has not been devoted to allegations that made their way into the synopsis. After all, if the reporting was important enough to brief the President-elect, then surely the FBI thought enough of those key charges to attempt to verify their accuracy. It will be up to the FBI to determine which of the records in its possession relating to the reliability of the Dossier concerns Steele’s reporting as discussed in the synopsis.”
“This ruling represents another incremental step in revealing just how much the FBI has been able to verify or discredit the rather personal allegations contained in that synopsis derived from the Steele dossier,” said Brad Moss, a lawyer pressing the lawsuit for the pro-transparency group, the James Madison Project. “It will be rather ironic if the president’s peripheral actions that resulted in this ruling wind up disclosing that the FBI has been able to corroborate any of the ‘salacious’ allegations.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 8/18/2018)
(…) “The signing process by the FBI director appears to be more of an official act than any sort of actual review. Anderson testified that each day, the director might receive 15 to 20 FISAs to sign, with each containing large amounts of documentation.
“[They’re] very thick. It’s not unusual for the Director to receive a stack this tall. I’m indicating about a foot and a half between my hands here, for the benefit of the reporter,” she said.
Anderson testified that the director was allotted 20 minutes in which to review the entirety of the day’s FISA applications—not 20 minutes per FISA.
Mr. Baker (House Majority Investigative Counsel): “And you said just a minute ago — I thought you said that the Director has 20 minutes set aside to review all the FISAs?”
“Even during normal circumstances, Anderson noted that she did not view it as her primary responsibility to provide any verification or fact-checking of the FISA applications. According to Anderson, FISAs would typically return from DOJ inspection with a cover note that “summarized the FISA,” and unless an issue had been identified by the cover note, she typically wouldn’t read the actual application “because of the time pressures involved and the sort of very-last-stop-in-the-process nature of the review.” Anderson also testified that the only way she would be aware of the legal predicate for probable cause would be through the DOJ cover note.
Anderson told investigators that her direct supervisor, Baker, had personally read and reviewed the Page FISA, lending her additional confidence in the review process. However, according to Baker, he had only read the “factual section” relating to probable cause and had not read or reviewed any other section, including the Woods file.
The Woods file, which provides facts supporting the allegations made in a FISA application, is attached to every application and is provided by the originating FBI agent in each case.
Baker, during questioning as to why the FBI failed to disclose the political motivations of dossier author Steele to the FISC, testified that this fact should have been vetted during lower levels of preparation.
“So the people filing the FISA application and the people who checked the Woods file to verify that the way this works is that they would not have had any information that was derogatory about Source #1 at the time that this was submitted,” Baker said.
“That there might exist in the files of the FBI or in somebody’s memory some interaction that might be derogatory and that it didn’t make it into the files I don’t know that that happened or didn’t happen. That kind of thing in theory, in theory could happen. So, but the people responsible for this FISA should have believed that that was accurate at the time and should have had documentation to support that assertion.”
Sally Moyer (Credit: Patsy Lynch/Daily Mail)
However, Sally Moyer, who was a unit chief at the Office of General Counsel, told lawmakers that only the originating agent and the supervisory special agent in the field actually look at the Woods file during the preparation of a FISA application:
Mr. Somers: “So you don’t — do you review the Woods’ file?”
Ms. Moyer: “No.”
Mr. Somers: “Did you review the Woods’ file in the Carter Page application?”
Ms. Moyer: “No.”
… Mr. Somers: “Okay. So beyond the case agent, who looks at a Woods’ file?”
Ms. Moyer: “The supervisory special agent in the field.”
Mr. Somers: “In the field. But no one else out of the field of that chain looks at a Woods’ file in general?”
Ms. Moyer: “That is correct, except both of those individuals sign the Woods’ form indicating that the facts are true and accurate and that they have documents to support those facts.”
Moyer told investigators that “the person that’s signing the application is relying on the individuals who have signed the Woods form that they have the Woods file.” Moyer stipulated that in some cases, the supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters who is signing off on an application might choose to review the Woods file, but that it was not done for the Page FISA.
Mr. Somers: “Do you know if that happened in the case of the Carter Page?”
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, (r) joined by committee counsel Robert Parmiter on the House subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, Nov. 18, 2015. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/The Associated Press)
(…) Much of the questioning of Moffa was done by Robert Parmiter, the chief counsel for the Republican staff on the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee. He asked Moffa about August 2016 text messages between Moffa and FBI agent Peter Strzok, who was putting together a meeting to discuss the initial organization of the investigation. Even at that early date, Strzok specified that they needed to discuss the use of “CHS” and “liaison.”
Parmiter asked about the acronym CHS: “What does that stand for?”
Moffa replied: “Confidential human source.”
When Parmiter asked Moffa whether Christopher Steele was a CHS, Moffa went off the record to confer with his bureau-provided counsel, Robert Sinton. When they came back on the record, Moffa answered the question: “Yes.”
That was merely confirmation of what had been known for some time — that Christopher Steele was an official informant expecting to be paid by the FBI for his dossier information. Moffa also confirmed that Steele’s status as a CHS had eventually been revoked. Moffa had been at a meeting where “closing” Steele as a Confidential Human Source was discussed, but Moffa declined to answer questions about what Steele did to lose his CHS status.
Steele was hardly the only CHS used in the FBI’s investigation. It has been widely reported that a retired Cambridge professor, Stefan Halper, was a CHS — we’ve all been lectured not to use the word “spy” in describing him.
And now the New York Times has put in print what was long suspected, that the woman Halper presented to George Papadopoulos as his “assistant” was actually something else altogether. “Azra Turk” was an FBI asset sent across the Atlantic with a mission to get incriminating information out of Papadopoulos. It’s not clear whether she counted as a CHS herself, or whether she was an “investigator” with some other official status at the bureau.
So the question remains: Other than the woman whose cover name was Azra Turk (and whose official position may or may not have been as a CHS), were Steele and Halper the only Confidential Human Sources used against the Trump campaign? It doesn’t appear so.
Moffa was asked in the closed-door Capitol Hill interview, “How many CHSs did you have working on this investigation at the time?”
Moffa again conferred with his counsel off the record.
“Okay,” he replied, back on the record. “So I legitimately do not know the total number of CHSs. That’s an operational side decision, but I also don’t want to imply to you that I don’t — I’m not aware of any CHSs, right. So that’s what we were just talking about. But I legitimately can’t tell you the overall number that are engaged. I just don’t know it.” (Read more: National Review, 5/3/2019)
“A Pentagon whistleblower claims that a Department of Defense official inappropriately incentivized investigators to target him, according to documents sent to Congressional lawmakers and obtained by the Daily Caller.
The security clearance of Adam Lovinger, a Trump-supporting, 12-year Pentagon analyst, was revoked after he questioned why politically connected contractors and FBI-informant Stefan Halper, who spied on the Trump campaign for the bureau, received well-paid contracts to conduct “inherently governmental functions.”
Through a Statement of Reason (SOR) response, drawn up by his lawyer Sean Bigley, Lovinger claims Jim Baker, the Department of Defense’s Director of the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), targeted him through several tactics, one of which was recommending two military officers for prestigious military medals as motivation to look into Lovinger as the target of a classified leak probe.
One of the investigators Baker assigned to the probe, ONA Chief of Staff Cmdr. Anthony Russell (USCG), received a “Recommendation for Award of the Defense Superior Service Medal.” Russell, according to Lovinger’s SOR, was the architect of two national security inquiries targeting Lovinger.”
(,,,) “Russell’s investigation of Lovinger, however, seemed retaliatory even to Washington Headquarters Service General Counsel James Vietti, when Lovinger was up for a senior directorship at the National Security counsel and his superiors stopped the process.
Vietti told Russell in an e-mail on January 17, 2017, that his probe “could look like you’re trying to interfere with or hinder his advancement in some way—and that the e-mail would be sent after he complained (I think I’m recalling this correctly) that Mr. Baker violated the Hatch Act.”
(..) Russell was not the only military officer reporting to Baker who was instructed to investigate Lovinger and to be nominated by Baker for a military medal. Baker designated Marine Lt. Col. Brian Bruggeman as investigating officer of the probe against Lovinger back on January 12, 2017.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/24/2018)
“House lawmakers interviewed an FBI official on Friday, part of an ongoing congressional investigation into the bureau’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.
A congressional source confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Judiciary and Oversight Committees met privately with FBI official Jonathan Moffa at the end of the week — the latest in a line of interviews conducted by the joint task force looking into the FBI’s controversial handling of the inquiry into the former secretary of state’s unauthorized server.
Moffa was mentioned in an April letter sent to Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who took note of emails from February 2016 that suggested Justice Department coordination with the FBI before ex-FBI Director James Comey publicly recommend in July that no charges be brought against Clinton, who was then a candidate for president.
In the letter, first reported by Fox News, Meadows pointed to emails found on Clinton’s server with “Top Secret” information that indicated Comey may have misled Congress when he testified that there was no DOJ-FBI coordination at “crucial moments of the investigation.” One of those emails from an unidentified senior Justice Department official sent to Peter Strzok, the former FBI official who led the Clinton probe and was recently fired for his anti-Trump texting; Moffa, an official in the FBI’s criminal division and the bureau’s Office of General Counsel; and members of the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia, discussed being “kept in the loop as [a] response is drafted.”
The Judiciary-Oversight joint task force also reportedly set up interviews with at least three other FBI officials earlier this summer, including with Bill Priestap, the assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division, and Michael Steinbach, the former head of the FBI’s national security division, and John Giacalone, who preceded Steinbach.
Despite protests from across the aisle, the GOP-led task force isn’t done yet. According to Bloomberg, lawmakers will privately interview former top FBI lawyer James Baker on Aug. 30. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 8/26/2018)
Adam Lovinger (l) and Stefan Halper (Credit: public domain)
(…) “When [Adam] Lovinger raised concerns about DoD’s misuse of Stefan Halper in 2016, he did so without any political designs or knowledge of Mr. Halper’s spying activities,” Bigley told SaraACarter.com. “Instead, Mr. Lovinger simply did what all Americans should expect of our civil servants: he reported violations of law and a gross waste of public funds to his superiors.”
And for that, Bigley said, Lovinger has paid the ultimate price in his 12-year career as a strategist in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. According to Bigley, shortly after Lovinger began reporting and asking questions about suspicious contracts given to Halper and others, including one person closely associated Chelsea Clinton, his security clearance was suspended. Later, on April 3, 2018, the DoD’s Washington Headquarters Services Director Barbara Westgate sent a letter to Lovinger indefinitely suspending him from duty and pay status after his clearance was removed in March. The letter stated, “The purpose of this memorandum is to notify you that I am proposing to indefinitely suspend you from duty and pay status in your position as a Foreign Affairs Specialist.”
(…) “Bigley suspects it was more than the Clinton-connected contracts adding, “Mr. Lovinger unwittingly shined a spotlight on the deep state’s secret weapon – Stefan Halper – and threatened to expose the truth about the Trump-Russia collusion narrative than being plotted: that it was all a set-up.”
Halper’s Ties to Russian Officials Raise Serious Questions
Halper has had a long career and worked in government with several GOP administrations. At 73, the elusive professor spent a career developing top-level government connections–not just through academia but also through his work with members of the intelligence apparatus.
Those contacts and the information Halper collected along the way would eventually, through apparent circumstance, become utilized by the FBI against the Trump campaign. But, it was during his time hosting the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar at the University of Cambridge where Halper shifted from a professor and former government consultant to FBI informant on the Trump campaign.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/27/2018)
(…) “Ohr testified at multiple points that he simply transmitted information from Steele and from Simpson to the FBI, but did nothing to attempt to verify its accuracy. Ohr knew that Steele held a bias against Trump. He was also fully aware that Fusion GPS was engaged in opposition research—his wife was part of the ongoing effort. Ohr also testified that although he didn’t know Fusion was employed by the Democratic National Committee (DNC), he was aware “they were somehow working associated with the Clinton campaign.” From his testimony:
Q: “Who were Steele’s sources?”
Ohr: “I don’t know.”
Q: “How did you vet those—how did he vet those sources? How did Fusion GPS vet those sources?”
Ohr: “I think—I don’t know the specifics. The fact that my wife was looking at some of the same figures, like Sergei Millian, suggests that that was one way they were trying to vet the information.”
Ohr attempted to make clear his concerns—his reason for passing Steele’s information directly to the FBI—but his logic appeared somewhat one-sided:
Ohr: “I think any attempt by a foreign power to gain influence over a Presidential campaign would be troubling.”
Q: “But that does not include Steele relying on Russians to provide dirt on Trump?”
Ohr: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question … I think my understanding is that what Steele was finding out was investigating the links, the national-security threat posed by Russian Government officials attempting to gain influence over the Trump campaign.”
Q: “He was relying on foreign nationals for that information?”
Ohr: “I don’t know who he was getting it from.”
A bit later in Ohr’s testimony, an interesting exchange took place, during which Ohr admitted that the information he had provided to the FBI on the behalf of Steel and Simpson wouldn’t be admissible in court:
Q: “So tell me all of the questions, cross-examination-like questions, that you asked Chris Steele about the source of his information.”
Ohr: “I knew—he would not give me the source of his information, so I couldn’t get it.”
Q: “How much of what Chris Steele told you would have ever come out in a courtroom?”
Ohr: “I’m not sure it would have. It was source information. It was hearsay.”
Steele had no direct connections to his sources of information and everything Steele listed in the dossier was provided to him second- or third-hand. Which creates evidentiary problems:
Q: “I’m guessing you never talked to the sources or sub-sources.”
Ohr: “That is correct.”
Q: “Well, Mr. Ohr, that information would never see the inside of a courtroom, because you can’t cross-examine it. You can’t find out who, if anyone, really is the source of that. Do you agree?”
Ohr: “Yes. But this is not evidence in a courtroom. He is providing information from—this is source information.”
Q: “Best-case scenario, it’s double hearsay. Worst-case scenario, we don’t have any—it could be quintuple hearsay, right?”
Ohr: “I think—I don’t know. It definitely is hearsay, and it was source information, which is what I was telling the FBI.”
Q: “I guess what alarms me about this fact pattern is all the way in December of 2016, a guy named Comey was referring to the information as unverified. That’s in December of 2016.”
“Ohr often struggled to explain why he got involved as an intermediary between the FBI and Steele and Simpson in the first place:
Q: “You got the world’s premier law enforcement agency investigating a fact pattern. Chris Steele already has a handler, already is in contact with the FBI; and you allow the person hired by the DNC to dig up dirt on a Presidential candidate to talk to you directly and use you as a conduit. We’re just trying to figure out why you let that happen?”
Ohr: “I took the information. I thought the information might be important, and I wanted to get it to the FBI. It seemed the only way to do it.”
Q: “What information would Glenn Simpson have that the Bureau couldn’t get or already have?”
Ohr: “I don’t know exactly what the FBI had access to, and I know Glenn Simpson was also gathering information. So more information is better. The FBI is in a position to decide whether the information is useful or credible.”
Toward the beginning of Ohr’s interview, he was questioned in regard to precisely who he had brought Steele’s information to within the FBI:
Q: “Who at the FBI did you pass it on to?”
Ohr: “Well, at that point I had—I believe I met with Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and some people from the Department’s—Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and I gave them the information that I had received.”
And a notable point was made:
Q: “Can you see how it might be troubling? You just called the names of two people, neither of whom I think are with the Bureau, one who was mentioned unfavorably in an IG report, both of whom had, at least from my standpoint, an unprecedented amount of animus or bias towards one of the candidates, and you are getting information from someone hired by the DNC and funneling it to the lead agent on the Russia investigation. Can you possibly see how that might be troubling to people?”
Ohr: “Yes.”
Ohr also admitted that his actions represented an unusual pattern of behavior for him:
Q: “Are there other cases where you recall taking information from fact witnesses and passing it on to the Bureau?”
Ohr: “I don’t recall specific instances, but whenever I—over the years, as I’ve talked with people who are, you know, experts or have information one way or another on transnational organized crime, including Russian organized crime, I take their information, and if it looked like it—if there’s anything there, I would pass it to the FBI.”
Q: “I’ve been out of it for about 8 years, so you help me if I’m wrong, but a stick, or thumb drive, would be physical evidence for which a chain would exist if it were ever needed in court? And you made yourself part of the chain?”
Ohr: “Yes.”
Q: “Can you think of other instances in your career since 1991 where you made yourself part of a chain of custody?”
Ohr: “Not—I don’t remember getting any other sticks or anything like that, so—”
Q: “And you can’t think of a single case where you inserted yourself into a chain of custody other than this one?”
Ohr: “That’s right.”
Q: “I guess my colleagues are wondering why. Why this one?”
(…) “Last year, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence issued dueling memos about the Russia investigation. The release of Ohr’s testimony backs up then-chair Devin Nunes’ memo. Nunes’ memo explained that, after the FBI fired Steele as a source, he continued to feed Ohr intel, with the FBI interviewing Ohr to document the communications with Steele. Ohr confirmed that that is exactly what occurred.
Ohr’s testimony also refuted Schiff’s Democrat’s response memo. In that memo, Schiff called Nunes’ “reference to Bruce Ohr misleading,” stating that the Republican “misleads about the timeframe of Ohr’s communications with the FBI.” Schiff then claimed Ohr informed the FBI of the information Steele had shared with him in late November 2016—weeks after the election, and more than a month after the court approved the initial FISA application.
But as his just-released testimony made clear, Ohr contacted McCabe shortly after his July 30, 2016, meeting with Steele, and conveyed the details of that tête-à-tête to McCabe. Steele continued to provide Ohr with information on Trump. Ohr then passed those details on to Strzok and Lisa Page. Th[is] occurred well before Steele’s firing and the first FISA court order.
Ohr’s testimony has helped to clear up this dispute and others, but unfortunately there are many more questions left unanswered.” (Read more: The Federalist, 3/11/2019)
Bruce Ohr arrives to testify before the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees on Aug. 28, 2018. (Credit: Chris Wattie/Reuters)
“Senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr testified Tuesday that prior to obtaining the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page, the FBI was aware that former British spy and anti-Trump dossier author, Christopher Steele was biased against then-candidate Trump. He also stated that the FBI knew that his wife, Nellie Ohr was working for Fusion GPS, the now-embattled research firm which was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC to compile the dossier with Steele. This, according to Congressional sources with direct knowledge of Ohr’s closed-door deposition.
Ohr stated during his hours-long testimony that the FBI failed to disclose this pertinent information to the nation’s secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) when it sought an application to spy on Page. The FBI also failed to disclose that when it sought the application, it was using senior Justice Department official, Bruce Ohr as a cut-out for a source the bureau had terminated.
Ohr had also communicated with senior members of the FBI, including former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, FBI attorney Lisa Page, and former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok, at the bureau but stated that his superiors at the Justice Department were not aware that he was being used as a source for the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign, according to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com.
“When it comes to the dossier, the hours of testimony from Bruce Ohr only further confirm how wrong the FBI operated,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told this news outlet. Jordan would not give details on the testimony but stated that Ohr’s deposition was a necessary part of the investigation and getting to the truth.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/28/2018)
“And now we learn, from testimony that is still being kept secret from the public, that Ohr admitted to Congress last year that he also took Russia information that his wife, Nellie, assembled against Trump on a computer drive and delivered that to the FBI in 2016 — a revelation that has raised fresh concerns in Congress about a possible conflict of interest.
Nellie Ohr worked for Fusion GPS and, for a time, worked on the same Clinton-financed Russian research project as Steele, according to the testimony.
DOJ ethics rules forbid department officials from working in cases where a spouse has a financial interest, a prohibition that Bruce Ohr said he knew about when he forwarded his wife’s evidence to the FBI.
The way Ohr described it, his wife’s research was like an additional dossier assembled from Fusion GPS research to augment what Steele was separately providing the FBI.
“She (Nellie Ohr) provided me with a memory stick that included research she had done for Fusion GPS on various Russian figures,” Ohr told congressional investigators.
“And the reason she provided that information to me is, my understanding was, it related to some of the same — it related to the FBI’s Russia investigation. And she gave me that stick to give to the FBI.”
Ohr’s revelation about his wife adds yet another example of people connected to the Clinton machine flooding the FBI with anti-Trump Russia research during the 2016 election.
Steele’s dossier was the opening salvo. A document sent to the State Department by Clinton proteges Cody Shearer and Sidney Blumenthal was another. A thumb drive given by Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman to FBI general counsel James Baker was a third. Simpson’s thumb drive given to Bruce Ohr was a fourth. And Nellie Ohr’s thumb drive would be a fifth. At least three of those work products — those from Steele, Shearer/Blumenthal and Nellie Ohr — resemble what many people might consider a dossier.” (Read more: The Hill, 2/21/2019)
(…) “Steele’s biases against then-candidate Trump have been reported in the media. Ohr testified that he relayed these to the FBI prior to the election.
“Prior to the election, when I spoke with Chris Steele, I got the sense he was very alarmed by this information, which I think he believed to be true. And so I definitely got the impression he did not want Donald Trump to win the election,” Ohr said in his testimony.
“I don’t recall the exact words. I definitely had a very strong impression that he did not want Donald Trump to win, because he believed his information he was giving me was accurate, and that he was, as I said, very concerned, or he was desperate, which is what I then told the FBI,” Ohr said.
Ohr later testified that he informed the FBI of Steele’s bias, along with details of his wife’s employment with Fusion GPS—and Fusion’s political mandate—prior to the Oct. 21, 2016, FISA application made on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page:
Q: “So the record is clear, what the Department of Justice and the FBI was aware of prior to the first FISA application was your relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, your wife’s relationship with Christopher Steele and Glenn Simpson, Mr. Steele’s bias against Donald Trump, Mr. Simpson’s bias against Donald Trump, your wife’s compensation for work for Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, correct?”
Ohr: “Right. So just, again, to reiterate, when I spoke with the FBI, I told them my wife was working for Fusion GPS. I told them Fusion GPS was doing research on Donald Trump. You know, I don’t know if I used the term opposition research, but certainly that was my—what I tried to convey to them. I told them this is the information I had gotten from Chris Steele. At some point, and I don’t remember exactly when, I don’t think it was the first conversation, I told them that Chris Steele was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected.”
It turns out that Ohr personally told Deputy FBI Director McCabe of his concerns about possible bias during the initial August 2016 meeting:
Q: “So in August of 2016, you tell Andy McCabe that you’re concerned because your wife works for Fusion GPS and that’s where you’re getting the information?”
Ohr: “I wanted Mr. McCabe to know that there was a possible, you know—that the—”
Q: “Conflict of interest—”
Ohr: “—of interest or appearance thereof, yeah.”
Q: “So there’s a possible conflict of interest in August of 2016 before a FISA warrant is actually initiated?”
Ohr: “I think I did not mean to say conflict of interest. What I would say is that in evaluating any information that I transmitted to the FBI, I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias—”
Q: “So you believe there was the possibility of bias?”
Inspector General Intelligence Community Logo (Credit: public domain)
“The FBI refuses to disclose whether or not it met with senior members of the Intelligence Community Inspector General on the subject of foreign intrusion of former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s private server.
An FBI spokeswoman refused to confirm if Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) officials — including Frank Rucker, its chief investigator — briefed top bureau officials about evidence of penetration of Clinton’s private server by a Chinese government intelligence operation. “We have no comment,” she told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Earlier Wednesday, an FBI spokesman released what appeared to be a categorical statement about the Clinton server: “The FBI has not found any evidence the servers were compromised,” the FBI stated.
The statement does not address a central aspect of TheDCNF’s reporting, which was that the ICIG briefed top bureau officials on three separate occasions to warn the FBI of an “anomaly” they found in 30,000 in-bound and outgoing emails. The report is based on an intelligence official with direct knowledge of the matter. The anomaly showed a code embedded in Clinton’s server was producing in real time a “courtesy copy” to a third party.
The third party was a Chinese state-owned company based in Northern Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C., and was part of an ongoing Chinese government intelligence operation, according to two separate sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
According to one source, the last ICIG briefing was held in June 2016 about a month before former FBI Director James Comey stated that he did not recommend any indictment of Clinton for mishandling classified materials.
“Numerous congressional sources are telling SaraACarter.com that after Department of Justice official Bruce Ohr’s explosive closed-door testimony on Tuesday, lawmakers are gearing up to call his wife, Nellie Ohr, in for questioning regarding her work with the now-embattled research firm, Fusion GPS. Congress is also seeking access to Bruce Ohr’s text messages and emails with top FBI officials.”
(…) “Nellie Ohr, a Russia expert who was hired by Fusion GPS in 2016 to investigate the Trump campaign, received multiple large sum payments from the research firm, according to a U.S. official, with direct knowledge of the payments.
The payments from the DNC and Clinton campaign were made through the law firm Perkins Coie, which represented both clients. The research firm also hired former British spy Christopher Steele, who was friends with the Ohrs and who compiled the now infamous and unverified anti-Trump dossier. Steele was not only paid by Fusion GPS for his work but according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, he was also being paid by the FBI from Jan. 1. 2016 to Nov. 1, 2016.
The U.S. official did not disclose the amount of money paid to Bruce Ohr’s wife through Simpson’s firm, but said it “was not chump change, that much I can say.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 8/28/2018)
Rep. John Ratcliffe speaks about Bruce Ohr’s testimony to Congress with Sean Hannity. (Credit: Fox News)
“Sources told Fox News that Ohr’s contacts included Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who acknowledged meeting with Ohr in congressional testimony last month. Strzok once played a leading role in Mueller’s inquiry and was recently fired from the bureau over anti-Trump text messages he sent a colleague with whom he was having an affair.
Fox News also reported that Ohr claimed to have met with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Strzok’s one-time mistress, former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and Joe Pientka, an FBI agent who reportedly interviewed former national security adviser Michael Flynn with Strzok.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., noted that Ohr additionally mentioned Andrew Weissmann, who was the chief of the DOJ’s criminal fraud division, according to the Washington Post. Fox News‘ Catherine Herridge reported Thursday that Weissmann was “kept in the loop” about the dossier, Steele, and Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier.
During his testimony in closed-door testimony before the joint task force of the Judiciary and Oversight committees, Ratcliffe claims Ohr said at least one of these officials signed off on a FISA warrant application seeking the authority to spy on Page. To this individual, Ratcliffe advised: “I would retain a really good lawyer.”
“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s security clearance has been revoked at her request, the State Department told lawmakers, according to a letter made public Friday.
Clinton’s clearance was withdrawn on Aug. 30, according to a letter from the State Department to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), which he released.
Five others associated with Clinton, including longtime aide Cheryl Mills, also had their clearances revoked on Sept. 20, according to the letter. The aides were known as “research assistants,” which allowed them to keep their clearances after their time at the department concluded.
The move comes almost a year after Grassley asked the department to investigate and review whether Clinton’s aides still had security clearance.” (Read more: Politico, 10/12/2018)
“Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.
In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:
(National Security Division) FOIA consulted (Office of Intelligence) … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.
Edward Baumgartner (Credit: Twitter/Business Insider)
“In an effort to bolster the Steele dossier, Fusion GPS, the firm that commissioned the infamous report, tapped one of its contractors to investigate a Russian businessman accused of hacking Democrats’ computer systems.
But that contractor, a Russia expert named Edward Baumgartner, came back with something that was perhaps disappointing to Fusion GPS. According to an internal Fusion GPS report obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation, Baumgartner’s Russian sources painted the Russian, Aleksej Gubarev, in largely positive terms. Unlikely, the sources claimed, had Gubarev taken part in the hacking operation, as former British spy Christopher Steele claimed in his dossier.
“Our interviews of people familiar with Gubarev paint a picture of a relatively well-known person in the IT sector with an entirely positive reputation as a successful self-made entrepreneur,” reads the five-page report, which was provided as evidence in a lawsuit that Gubarev filed against BuzzFeed News.
“Our sources were uncertain about Gubarev’s alleged ties to the hacking and collection of compromising material on Trump. Their lack of certainty is entirely understandable given the highly secretive nature of intelligence work, on the one hand, and the technical difficulty of establishing someone’s potential ties to hacking.”
A lawyer for Gubarev pressed Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch about the Baumgartner report during an Aug. 30, 2018, deposition. Fritsch confirmed Baumgartner, a Fusion GPS contractor who speaks Russian, filed the report, which is labeled “PRIVILEGED & CONFIDENTIAL.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/15/2019)
“Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and current special prosecutor in the Russia case, once was hauled before the nation’s secret intelligence court to address a large number of instances in which the FBI cheated on sensitive surveillance warrants, according to evidence gathered by congressional investigators.
For most of the past 16 years, Mueller’s closed-door encounter escaped public notice because of the secrecy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
But thanks to recent testimony from a former FBI lawyer, we now have a rare window into documented abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and how the courts handled the matter.
(…) Trisha Anderson, who recently stepped down as the FBI’s principal deputy general counsel, told House investigators late last year in an interview that early in Mueller’s FBI tenure, nearly two decades ago, the FISC summoned the new director to appear before the judges to address concerns about extensive cheating on FISA warrants.
“It preceded my time with the FBI but as I understood it, there was a pattern of some incidents of omission that were of concern to the FISA court that resulted in former Director Mueller actually appearing before the FISA court,” Anderson told Congress.
(…) Other sources who worked for Mueller at the time told me the court’s concerns arose in 2002 and 2003 — shortly after America was stunned by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks — when the FISC learned the FBI had omitted material facts from FISA warrant applications in more than 75 terrorism cases that dated back to the late 1990s.
(…) Mueller told the court the FBI had created a new system called the Woods Procedures — named for the FBI lawyer who drafted them — to ensure FISA warrant applications were accurate and did not omit material information, according to Anderson’s congressional interview.
“My understanding is he committed to the court to address the problem and then that the series of reforms that we implemented, including the use of the Woods form, were the direct result of his engagement before the FISA court,” Anderson told Congress.
Mueller does not appear ever to have publicly addressed his appearance before the FISC. But once, in follow-up written answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he acknowledged there was a period in which the FBI was caught filing inaccurate FISA warrants.
“Prior to implementation of the so-called Woods Procedures there were instances where inaccurate information was provided by FBI field offices and headquarters personnel to the Court,” Mueller wrote to senators in 2003.
A declassified FISC order from 2002 gives a glimpse into how serious the omissions were: In one case the FBI failed to tell the court that the person they were seeking a FISA warrant to surveil was, in fact, one of their own informants.
The court expressed concern that “misinformation found its way into the FISA applications and remained uncorrected for more than one year despite procedures to verify the accuracy of FISA pleadings.” (Read more: The Hill, 2/06/2019) (Archive)
Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing last night that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.
In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:
(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)
(…) “In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a memo criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.
Judicial Watch recentlyfiled a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court seeking the transcripts of all hearings related to the surveillance of Carter Page.
“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Perhaps the court can now hold hearings on how justice was corrupted by material omissions that Hillary Clinton’s campaign, the DNC, a conflicted Bruce Ohr, a compromised Christopher Steele, and anti-Trumper Peter Strzok were all behind the ‘intelligence’ used to persuade the courts to approve the FISA warrants that targeted the Trump team.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 8/31/2018) (Conservative Treehouse, 8/31/2018)(Archive)
“Judicial Watch revealed that the Justice Department admitted in a court filing that the FISA Court never held hearings on the FISA applications for former Trump advisor Carter Page.
Judicial Watch said that, in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, the Justice Department (DOJ) admitted in a court filing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) spy warrant applications targeting Carter Page, a former Trump campaign part-time advisor who was the subject of four controversial FISA warrants.
“It is disturbing that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance courts rubber-stamped the Carter Page spy warrants and held not one hearing on these extraordinary requests to spy on the Trump team,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement.
In the filing the Justice Department finally revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court held no hearings on the Page FISA spy warrants, first issued in 2016 and subsequently renewed three times:
National Security Division FOIA consulted Office of Intelligence … to identify and locate records responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request…. [Office of Intelligence] determined … that there were no records, electronic or paper, responsive to [Judicial Watch’s] FOIA request with regard to Carter Page. [Office of Intelligence] further confirmed that the [Foreign Surveillance Court] considered the Page warrant applications based upon written submissions and did not hold any hearings.
In February, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee released a memo criticizing the FISA targeting of Carter Page. The memo details how the “minimally corroborated” Clinton-DNC dossier was an essential part of the FBI and DOJ’s applications for surveillance warrants to spy on Page.
Congressional testimony by Trisha Anderson highlights unusual process used by FBI and DOJ to obtain FISA warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Trisha Anderson, the Principal Deputy General Counsel for the FBI and head of the National Security and Cyber Law Branch, signed off on a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application on former Trump campaign advisor Carter Page—before it went to FBI Director James Comey—despite admitting not having read it.
Anderson, whose division was also assigned the Mid-Year Exam—the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server—was responsible for legal oversight of the FBI’s FISA process, and provided a final sign-off before FISA applications were sent to the FBI Director level. Anderson, who supervised the FBI attorneys involved in FISA applications, including the Page FISA, characterized her role as being “involved at a supervisory level within the legal chain of command.”
Although she did not voluntarily reveal the information, she admitted during questioning that she was the individual responsible at the senior executive service (SES) level for signing off on the original Carter Page FISA application:
Mr. Breitenbach: You had mentioned earlier that all FISAs have to be signed off, have an approver at an SES level. In OGC? Or is that anywhere inside the FBI?
Ms. Anderson: In NSLB, in my particular branch.
Mr. Breitenbach: In NSLB?
Ms. Anderson: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Mr. Breitenbach: Okay. Who was that SES approver for the Carter Page FISA?
Ms. Anderson: My best recollection is that I was for the initiation.
In her Aug. 31, 2018, testimony, a transcript of which was reviewed for this article, Anderson described her role in the FISA process as “a backstop” whereby she would serve as “a last check in the process to ensure that all necessary elements of the FISA package were present and that it met the basic requirements of probable cause.”
However, there appears to be significant latitude in the “backstop” review process. According to Anderson, the Department of Justice (DOJ) attached a “cover note” that identified potential issues, if any, for her to review with every FISA application. If no issues were identified by the DOJ, then according to Anderson, there would be no need for her to read the FISA application:
Ms. Anderson: [So] there typically would be a cover note that would summarize the FISA. That cover note is generated by DOJ. And because of the time pressures involved and the sort of very-last-stop-in-the-process nature of the review, the SES review, that’s done, I wouldn’t read a FISA unless there were some sort of issue that was identified based on the cover note.
Mr. Breitenbach: You are, though, reviewing for the sufficiency of probable cause —
Ms. Anderson: After many people have reviewed that assessment. And so, as I mentioned, this was essentially a backstop to all of the other processes and the rigor that had been applied by DOJ attorneys and by FBI investigative and legal personnel.
Despite its politicized nature and obvious sensitivity, it appears that no issues were identified in relation to the Page FISA as Anderson testified that she had not read the FISA application, only the DOJ cover note:
Mr. Breitenbach: Does that mean you read the FISA —
Ms. Anderson: No.
(…)
Mr. Breitenbach: Okay. So you did not read the FISA, but you would’ve been familiar then with at least part of the FISA with regard to the legal predication for probable cause in the FISA in order to be able to sign it?
Ms. Anderson: I would be familiar based on the cover note, yes.
Mr. Breitenbach: On the cover note. Okay. So —
Ms. Anderson: In the case of the Carter Page FISA, I was generally familiar with the facts of the application —
Mr. Breitenbach: Okay.
Ms. Anderson: — before I signed that cover note.
Anderson claimed that in the case of the Page FISA, her approval was “more administrative in nature” because “all necessary approvals, including up through and including the leadership of the FBI and the leadership of the Department” had been obtained by the time the Page FISA came to her desk for sign-off.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/07/2019)
“A key player in the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation of Donald Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign was Trisha Anderson, who, at the time, was the No. 2 lawyer at the agency’s Office of General Counsel.
Despite having no specific experience in counterintelligence before coming to the FBI, Anderson was, in some manner, involved in virtually all of the significant events of the investigation.
Anderson told members of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees in August last year during closed-door testimony that she was one of only about 10 people who had known about the Trump–Russia investigation prior to its official opening.
A transcript of Anderson’s testimony, which was reviewed for this article, reveals that she had read all of the FBI’s FD302 forms detailing information that the author of the Steele dossier, former British spy Christopher Steele, had provided to high-ranking Department of Justice (DOJ) official Bruce Ohr.
Anderson also told lawmakers that she personally signed off on the original application for a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page without having read it. The FBI relied heavily on the unverified information in the Steele dossier—which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee—to obtain the FISA warrant.
Anderson also was part of a small group of FBI personnel who got to read then-FBI Director James Comey’s memos about conversations he had with President Donald Trump.
Besides the investigation into Trump, Anderson also was involved in the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton for sending classified information using a private server.
Anderson’s testimony reveals that she received the original referral from the inspectors general for both the State Department and Intelligence Community on Clinton after hundreds of classified emails had been found on her server.
Her testimony also raises questions as to whether then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict of interest.
Lawmakers also questioned Anderson about whether she advised Comey against making a public announcement that the FBI had reopened its investigation into Clinton following findings on the laptop of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) because Comey would have been “responsible for getting Donald Trump elected.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 3/08/2019)(Trisha Anderson transcript, 8/31/2018)
“A nonprofit group linked to Fusion GPS and partially funded by George Soros worked in recent months with a technology company implicated in a scheme to use fake Russian bots during Alabama’s special Senate election.
The groups, the Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP) and New Knowledge, partnered before the 2018 midterms to track alleged Russian disinformation networks, a website the organizations collaboratively run shows.
Both organizations have links to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), which is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election, as well as possible Trump campaign collusion.
SSCI provided New Knowledge with data from various social media companies as part of an investigation into Russian disinformation networks, according to a report New Knowledge released Dec. 17. Two days later, news broke that New Knowledge’s chief executive was involved in a self-described “false flag” operation in the special election for a Senate seat in Alabama, as was another staffer who was the lead author on the Senate report.
TDIP is also linked to the Senate Intelligence panel. Its founder, Daniel J. Jones, was previously a staffer for Democrats on SSCI. He was also in contact in early 2017 with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of SSCI. As part of TDIP’s own Trump-Russia investigation, the group hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier.
The extent of Warner’s contacts with Jones remains unclear.
The collaboration between TDIP and New Knowledge, which has not been previously reported, involved a dashboard set up at the site, Disinfo2018.com [no longer works], which tracked “social media disinformation networks — to include suspected foreign state-actors — conducting information warfare against the American public prior to the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.”
Jonathon Morgan (Credit: Yonder, formerly New Knowledge)
The project appears similar to Hamilton 68, a dashboard operated by the Alliance for Security Democracy. Jonathon Morgan, the founder of New Knowledge, helped create Hamilton 68 and has appeared frequently in the media to discuss Russia’s disinformation efforts.
In an interview with BBC, Morgan claimed Russians were behind #ReleaseTheMemo, the hashtag used to call for the release of a memo from House Intel Republicans that questioned the FBI’s reliance on the unverified Steele dossier to obtain surveillance warrants against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
But New Knowledge and Morgan are now known for their tactics during the December 2017 Alabama special election.
The New York Times published a damning exposéDec. 19, 2018, showing New Knowledge operatives targeted conservative Alabamans with fake Facebook pages intended to sow doubt about Roy Moore, the controversial Republican candidate.
George Papadopolous (l) and Joseph Mifsud (Credit: public domain)
By: Margot Cleveland
(…) “Papadopoulos’ sentencing memo reveals new evidence that further indicates the FBI’s goal in Crossfire Hurricane was to investigate Trump—not Russia’s interference with the presidential election.
In the memo, Papadopoulos’s lawyers detailed the FBI’s January 27, 2017, questioning of their client, explaining that for two hours, Papadopoulos answered questions about professor Joseph Mifsud, Carter Page, Sergei Millian, the “Trump Dossier,” and others on the campaign. According to Papadopoulos, “[t]he agents asked George if he would be willing to actively cooperate and contact various people they had discussed.” Papadopoulos said he would be willing to try.
Yet when Mifsud—the Maltese professor who in late April 2016 told Papadopoulos that the Russians had “dirt on Hillary” in the form of “thousands of emails”—visited the United States just two weeks later to speak at a State Department-sponsored conference, the FBI didn’t even bother to have Papadopoulos reach out to his former colleague.
Instead, the FBI questioned Mifsud, then in the special counsel’s sentencing memorandum blamed Papadopoulos for the government’s inability “to challenge the Professor or potentially detain or arrest him while he was still in the United States.” According to Mueller’s office, Papadopoulos’ “lies also hindered the government’s ability to discover who else may have known or been told about the Russians possessing ‘dirt’ on Clinton,” and prevented the FBI from determining “how and where the Professor obtained the information [and] why the Professor provided information to the defendant.”
(…) “Why didn’t the FBI wire Papadopoulos and arrange for him to meet with Mifsud during the State Department conference? What would be more natural than Papadopoulos, who had spent months in London communicating with Mifsud and working at Mifsud’s London Centre of International Law, attending the professor’s speech at the February 2017, Washington D.C. Global Ties conference and inviting him for dinner or drinks? Then Papadopoulos could steer the conversation to the Russia hacking and Mifsud’s earlier comment about Russia having “thousands of emails.” (Read more: The Federalist, 9/5/2018)
Andrew McCabe (Credit: Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)
“Federal prosecutors have for months been using a grand jury to investigate former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — an indication that the probe into whether he misled officials exploring his role in a controversial media disclosure has intensified, two people familiar with the matter said.
The grand jury has summoned more than one witness, the people said, and the case is ongoing. The people declined to identify those who had been called to testify.
The presence of the grand jury shows prosecutors are treating the matter seriously, locking in the accounts of witnesses who might later have to testify at a trial. But such panels are sometimes used only as investigative tools, and it remains unclear if McCabe will ultimately be charged.
A spokesman for U.S. attorney’s office in D.C., which has been handling the probe, declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for McCabe.” (Read more: Washington Post, 9/6/2018)
Two possibilities: Either DHS called the PLO to get a job reference as part of the vetting process, or it didn’t vet even the people it hires to vet immigrants She posted to public social media continuously about her true allegiance and goal to “root the resistance in Palestine” pic.twitter.com/moI7QY4tzu
Newja Ali was promoted this year. Asked about it, DHS said “USCIS strongly condemns antisemitism & the use of violent rhetoric in any form,” adding that its vetting officers are unbiased & polite
Reached by phone, Ali said she is still employed &
to “mind your fucking business” pic.twitter.com/ipWh2EHEy6
(…) It is not merely NARA’s referral to the DOJ and Ferriero’s apparent bias that suggests a political motive, however: It is the reality that even if the documents were classified, Trump has the right to access them and NARA could have worked with the former president to set up a secure location for his presidential papers, which is precisely what Ferriero and the NARA did with Barack Obama.
In 2016, before President Obama left office, he rented a private facility in Hoffman Estates to serve as a storage place for his presidential papers, and by October of 2016, while he was still in office, shipments of artifacts from his presidency began arriving at the suburban Chicago storage facility. A year later, the Chicago Tribune reported that after the National Archives and Records Administration had worked with the former Democrat president to ship his documents to the Chicago suburb, where they were stored and kept secured, Obama decided not to retain a paper archive at his presidential museum, “meaning they would be shipped back to Washington once a decision [was] made on where to keep them permanently.”
The Obama documents — both classified and unclassified — remained in Hoffman Estates well into 2018, as evidenced by a letter of intent executed between Ferriero on behalf of the National Archives Trust Fund and the Obama Foundation. Among other things, the letter of intent memorialized the Obama Foundation’s agreement to “transfer up to three million three hundred thousand dollars ($3,300,000) to the National Archives Trust Fund (NATF) to support the move of classified and unclassified Obama Presidential records and artifacts from Hoffman Estates to NARA-controlled facilities that conform to the agency’s archival storage standards for such records and artifacts.”
The only difference between the Hoffman Estates’ storage of the Obama presidential records that began in 2016 and the Mar-a-Lago storage of Trump’s presidential records was that the documents were technically within the possession of NARA. But even though the documents were legally the property of NARA, Obama still had the right to access the records, including the classified documents.
So if upon receiving the 15 boxes of documents back from Trump, NARA had legitimate concerns about the security of Mar-a-Lago — a strange worry to hold given that the Secret Service must safeguard the location to protect Trump and his family — a bureaucracy committed to the country and safeguarding her artifacts would have worked to arrange for the documents to be preserved under the auspices of NARA control in a location chosen by Trump, as it had done with Obama.” (Read more: The Federalist, 8/15/2022)(Archive)
“The Obama Foundation stored classified documents in an abandoned furniture warehouse, according to a 2018 letter from the Obama Foundation to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
The letter, available on the Obama Foundation website and dated Sept. 11, 2018, reveals that the Obama Foundation not only acknowledged possessing classified documents but also admitted that they kept them in a facility that did not meet NARA standards for the storage of those documents.
Media reports confirm that the Obama Foundation had rented space from Hoffman Estates to store these documents, and extended their original lease for four more years back in August.
“While no firm date has been announced for the completion and opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Library near the University of Chicago, its future contents will stay in Hoffman Estates for four more years,” the Daily Heraldreported. “Village board members unanimously approved an extension to the special-use permit that enables landlord Hoffman Estates Medical Development LLC to lease the 74,200-square-foot former Plunkett Furniture store at 2500 W. Golf Road to the National Archives and Records Administration through Dec. 31, 2026.”
This means that, as the debate over the supposedly classified documents at Mar-a-Lago is unfolding, the Obama Foundation is, at this very moment, storing classified documents in unused retail space in the suburbs of Chicago.” (Read more: PJ Media, 9/22/2022)(Archive)
Alison Spann of the Hill discusses Alexander Downer’s close ties to the Clintons on the Laura Ingraham show. (Credit: Fox News)
“George Papadopoulos suggested on Monday that former Australian diplomat Alexander Downer was sent by an “organization or entity” to meet with him in London during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“The notion that Downer randomly reached out to me just to have a gin and tonic is laughable. Some organization or entity sent him to meet me,” Papadopoulos wrote on Twitter.
“For the sake of our republic and the integrity of this investigation, I think it’s time Downer is as exposed as Christoper Steele,” he continued, referring to the former British spy who wrote the dossier accusing the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia.”
(…) “Downer has given only one interview about his interaction with Papadopoulos.
He told The Australian in April that the Trump aide said Russians may have derogatory information about Clinton. He said that Papadopoulos did not mention emails and did not use the word “dirt” to describe the information. He also claimed to have passed the information along to others in the Australian government. The information was eventually shared with the FBI, which opened its counterintelligence investigation into possible collusion on July 31, 2016.
Downer’s claims about his interactions with Papadopoulos also ended up in the hands of State Department officials, sources have told The Daily Caller News Foundation.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/11/2018)
Judicial Watch announced today that it has sued the U.S. Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for all emails the FBI found on the laptop of disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner.
In October 2016The Washington Postreported that the FBI obtained a warrant to search the emails found on a computer used by Weiner that may contain evidence relevant to the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
In light of that report, on December 12, 2016, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request to the FBI, seeking all emails seized pursuant to the search warrant. The FBI denied the request and Judicial Watch appealed. The FBI has not acted on the appeal. Judicial Watch then filed a second FOIA request on September 29, 2017, to which the FBI has not responded.
Weiner is the incarcerated husband of former Clinton top aide Huma Abedin. He was convicted of having sexually explicit communications with teenage girls. In October 2016, FBI investigators from its New York field office discovered Abedin’s emails on Weiner’s laptop, including data indicating the emails went through Clinton’s non-“state.gov” email system.
A separate Judicial Watch lawsuit already uncovered at least 18 classified emails from the Clinton server on the Weiner laptop
“The Anthony Weiner laptop-Clinton email cover-up by the Obama DOJ and FBI is central to uncovering the corrupt politicization of those agencies,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The same FBI that provided cover for Hillary Clinton was going full bore against then-candidate Trump and this lawsuit aims to uncover the full truth about that corruption.”
RealClearInvestigations’ reporter Paul Sperry recentlyreported that “only 3,077 of the 694,000 emails [found on the Weiner laptop] were directly reviewed for classified or incriminating information. Three FBI officials completed that work in a single 12-hour spurt the day before Comey again cleared Clinton of criminal charges.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 9/11/2018)
Admiral Michael Rogers appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 5, 2016. (Credit: CSpan3)
Former National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers on Tuesday disputed a report published in May 2017 alleging that President Donald Trump asked him to push back against the FBI’s collusion investigation.
“I’ve never had a discussion with collusion with the president of the United States,” Rogers said at an event held at George Mason University, according to CBS News.
“I’ve never been directed to do anything, coerced — any time I had a discussion I felt I was able to say, ‘Hey, here’s my view on that.’”
The Washington PostreportedMay 22, 2017, that Trump separately asked Rogers and Dan Coats, the director of the office of national intelligence, to push back against the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
The alleged request came after then-FBI Director James Comey testified that the bureau was investigating whether members of the Trump team conspired with the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Citing multiple anonymous sources, WaPo reported that Rogers refused to comply with Trump’s request. The newspaper also reported that a senior NSA official wrote a memo detailing the interaction between Trump and Rogers.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/12/2018)
Another cybersecurity expert at the FBI is headed for the private sector.
Trent Teyema, the FBI’s section chief for cyber readiness and chief operating officer of the bureau’s Cyber Division, has been named senior vice president and chief technology officer for the government-focused wing of Parsons Corporation.
The move comes as a number of cybersecurity experts at the bureau have left their positions over recent months. In July,the Wall Street Journal reported that a number of top-ranking cybersecurity officials were leaving for various roles in the private sector.
The FBI’s cyber readiness team works to educate enterprises on various cyberthreats and coordinate information-sharing initiatives. During his time at the bureau, Teyema helped establish the FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, which is responsible for investigating cyber threats that pose the most harm to the country.
Teyema also spent time as the director of cybersecurity policy at the National Security Council from 2010 to 2011. (Read more: Cyber Scoop, 9/13/2018)
Lisa Page arrives on Capitol Hill July 16, 2018, to participate in an interview with the House judiciary and oversight and reform committees. (Credit: Michael Reynolds/EPA-EFE)
By: John Solomon
To date, Lisa Page’s infamy has been driven mostly by the anti-Donald Trump text messages she exchanged with fellow FBI agent Peter Strzok as the two engaged in an affair while investigating the president for alleged election collusion with Russia.
Yet, when history judges the former FBI lawyer years from now, her most consequential pronouncement may not have been typed on her bureau-issued Samsung smartphone to her colleague and lover.
Rather, it might be eight simple words she uttered behind closed doors during a congressional interview a few weeks ago.
“It’s a reflection of us still not knowing,” Page told Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) when questioned about texts she and Strzok exchanged in May 2017 as Robert Mueller was being named a special prosecutor to take over the Russia investigation.
With that statement, Page acknowledged a momentous fact: After nine months of using some of the most awesome surveillance powers afforded to U.S. intelligence, the FBI still had not made a case connecting Trump or his campaign to Russia’s election meddling.
Page opined further, acknowledging “it still existed in the scope of possibility that there would be literally nothing” to connect Trump and Russia, no matter what Mueller or the FBI did.
“As far as May of 2017, we still couldn’t answer the question,” she said at another point.”
(…) “Jeff Carlson has assembled a strong and in-depth outline covering most of the weaponized intelligence agencies and how they related to “spygate” – SEE HERE –
However, there has also been a strong suspicion that most of the corrupt origination activity would never surface.
The downstream ramifications to the institutions of our IC apparatus would be too destructive. What follows below is the story that will never reach sunlight officially.
When reading the Department of State (DoS) letter today, I cannot avoid reviewing the information against the backdrop of known DoS corrupt political activity that extends beyond the Clinton emails scandal. For this explanation, here’s the excerpt that matters:
Forget Clinton’s motives for a moment. We all know her “request” was a proactive measure due to the likelihood her clearance was going to be forcibly revoked. Requesting the removal avoids multiple political and logistical issues of her security file being damaged by a forced revocation. The request is transparent in motive; so lets get beyond the surface issue.
The “researchers” who Secretary Clinton designated is the topic of interest; and the redacted identifications therein are telling. The Executive Order referenced is HERE. The subsection [Sec. 4.4 (a)(2)] involves:
Sec. 4.4.Access by Historical Researchers and Certain Former Government Personnel.
(a) The requirement in section 4.1(a)(3) of this order that access to classified information may be granted only to individuals who have a need-to-know the information may be waived for persons who:
(1) are engaged in historical research projects;
(2) previously have occupied senior policy-making positions to which they were appointed or designated by the President or the Vice President; or
(3) served as President or Vice President.
Essentially what this tells us is that Secretary Hillary Clinton used her authority to waive the ‘need to know‘ limit on the people she listed. In essence, she gave unlimited access to her “researchers” for an unspecified reason.
When I see the wording, immediately I think of two distinct reasons for Clinton to grant her researchers with top-level security access to classified information: (1) to participate in searches of FISA databases (ie. ‘queries’); and (2) to make unmasking requests for any results within those search query results.
Keeping in mind these appear to be State Department access / authorized researchers. The DoS is one of the intelligence authorized access portals. (FBI, DOJ-NSD, NSA, CIA, DoD are others.) In short, Clinton ‘researchers’ would have access to compartmented intelligence gathering systems, ie. FISA intelligence systems.
Now, remember all of the ‘unmasking requests’ attributed to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Powers? Hundreds of them. Ambassador Samantha Powers is a top-level official, for Obama a cabinet level official, within the Department of State.” (Read much more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/12/2018)
“Judicial Watch today released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries centering on talks within the DOJ/FBI allegedly invoking the 25th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.
The records show that, following a September 21, 2018, report on Rosenstein suggesting he would wear a wire to secretly record Trump and his discussions on using the 25th Amendment, Rosenstein sought to ensure the media would have “difficulty” finding anyone in the DOJ to comment and a concerted effort within the DOJ to frame the reporting as “inaccurate” and “factually incorrect.”
The records show DOJ officials had also discussed characterizing Rosenstein’s reported offer of wearing a wire to record Trump as merely “sarcastic.”
Additionally, the records show DOJ Public Affairs officer Sarah Isgur Flores, after conferring with other top DOJ officials and Rosenstein’s office about her email exchange with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman, waited 12 hours to forward the email exchange to DOJ Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had referred to Whitaker as the president’s “eyes and ears” in the DOJ.
Justice Department public affairs officer, Sarah Isgur Flores (r), is hired by CNN as a political editor in early 2019. (Credit: YouTube/CNN)
The records obtained by Judicial Watch include a September 21, 2018, email from Assistant U.S. Attorney (DOJ/NSD) Harvey Eisenberg to Rosenstein informing the DAG that Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima had called inquiring about a New York Times report on the 25th Amendment/wire discussion, Rosenstein responds:
“Thanks! Hopefully, we are being successful, and the reporters are having difficulty finding anybody to comment about things. [Remainder of email redacted.]” Apparently in response to the redacted portion of Rosenstein’s reply, Eisenberg responds, “I’m aware. Besides letting you know, [redacted]. My best to you and the family.” Rosenstein replies, “I don’t mean about me. [Redacted.]”
( ) …an email first obtained by The Federalist shows Chris Schneck from DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, known as “I2O,” writing Antonakakis on September 25, 2018, with the subject line of “Mueller case.” While redactions prevent a full understanding of the email, the “Mueller case” subject line and Schneck’s “great work” closer indicate the DARPA-funded Georgia Tech researcher was assisting Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The only apparent pending Mueller case at the time of the email appears to have been the special counsel’s case against the 12 officers of the Russian military intelligence organization known as GRU, who had been indicted two months earlier and charged with crimes related to the hacking of the DNC’s emails in 2016.
While DARPA’s September 25, 2018 email to Antonakakis about his “great work” regarding the “Mueller case” does not mention the DNC hack, a “chat log” for the DARPA Rhamnousia project shows the Georgia Tech researchers discussing both the DNC hack and GRU. One text reads: “For FBI to give a heads up to the DNC in fall 2015, this means that the attack was active for many months before.” In another message, one of the researchers jokes that if GRU sends the Russian beauty Annet Mahendru after him, he’s “giving up” his colleagues.
Moreover, another email reviewed by The Federalist reveals that Dagon told Durham’s team that the “entire set” of “Rhannousia chat logs” were “pertinent to” the Special Counsel’s investigation.” Those chat logs, in addition to involving chats between Dagon and Antonakakis, included conversations involving, or about, two other DARPA-connected individuals, Angelos Keromytis and Tejas Patel—both of whom were included on the September 25, 2018 email about the “Mueller case.” (The Georgia Tech emails obtained by The Federalist also established that Durham’s team sought to question Keromytis about his time at DARPA.)
The extensive redactions in the “Rhannousia chat logs” make it impossible to assess whether Antonakakis and his colleagues were working on the DNC hack or investigating the identity of Guccifer2.0 for the “Mueller case” against the Russian GRU agents. But if so, it raises serious questions, the foremost of which is: Why did DARPA claim no DARPA-funded researchers assisted the FBI’s or Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the DNC hack?
If Antonakakis assisted Mueller in the DNC hack investigation, as these various documents suggest, it raises a second significant question: Did Rodney Joffe provide Antonakakis the data necessary to conduct an attribution analysis of the hack? (Read more: The Federalist, 4/21/2022)(Archive)
“Rick Ledgett recently joined the new advisory board of Halkuyt [sic] Cyber, the specialist subsidiary of the upscale British corporate intelligence firm Hakluyt. The unit, which opened discreetly in 2015, is headed by Nicholas ‘Nick’ Bidmead. A member of the US Chamber of Commerce, Ledgett will help develop Hakluyt Cyber’s business in the US and Canada.
In June this year, Ledgett also became an advisor to the cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks. After retiring from the NSA in 2017, he joined the board of M&T Bank. He is also an advisor to Polaris Alpha, Peter Cannito’s firm, which was acquired in May by the infrastructure protection giant Parsons, and to QiO Technologies, a cloud security and data mining company.
Ledgett is also a member of the Alliance for Securing Democracies (ASD), a pressure group founded in response to the hacking of the Democratic Party in 2016. Both Republican and Democratic iconic senior officials including Michael Chertoff and John Podesta, who was targeted by hackers in 2016, are members of the pressure group.
At Hakluyt Cyber, which employs a number of former interceptions staff of Five Eyes alliance member states (IOL 789), Ledgett will work with two British technical interceptions heavyweights, Iain Lobban, who headed GCHQ, Britain’s equivalent of the NSA, from 2008 to 2014, and his former number two, Andrew France. Lobban and France are also in high demand in the cyber sector. Iain Lobban is an advisor to C5 Capital, the fund established by Andre Pienaar, as well as to the cryptology start-up SQR System and Standard Chartered Bank (IOL 757), while Andy France advises Darktrace, Deep Secure, Prevalent AI, RedQ and Telstra (IOL 807, IOL 767). (Intelligence Online, 9/26/2018)(Archive)
“The House Intelligence Committee voted on Sept. 28 to release the transcripts of 53 interviews conducted during the committee’s investigation of Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election.
The interviews include high-level officials of the Obama administration, such as former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice.
The list (pdf) also includes people from President Donald Trump’s circle, including his son, Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, and former campaign chair Corey Lewandowski.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 9/28/2018)
Eight years after its informant uncovered criminal wrongdoing inside Russia’s nuclear industry, the FBI has identified 37 pages of documents that might reveal what agents told the Obama administration, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others about the controversial Uranium One deal.
There’s just one problem: The FBI claims it must keep the memos secret from the public.
Their excuses for the veil of nondisclosure range from protecting national security and law enforcement techniques to guarding the privacy of individual Americans and the ability of agencies to communicate with each other.
(…) “I was the reporter who first disclosed last fall that a globetrotting American businessman, William Douglas Campbell, managed to burrow his way inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear giant, Rosatom, in 2009 posing as a consultant while working as an FBI informant.
Campbell gathered extensive evidence for his FBI counterintelligence handlers by early 2010 that Rosatom’s main executive in the United States, Vadim Mikerin, orchestrated a racketeering plot involving kickbacks, bribes and extortion that corrupted the main uranium trucking company in the United States. That is a serious national security compromise by any measure.
The evidence was compiled as Secretary Clinton courted Russia for better relations, as her husband former President Clinton collected a $500,000 speech payday in Moscow, and as the Obama administration approved the sale of a U.S. mining company, Uranium One, to Rosatom.
The sale — made famous years later by author Peter Schweizer and an epic New York Times exposé in 2015 — turned over a large swath of America’s untapped uranium deposits to Russia.
Mikerin was charged and convicted, along with some American officials, but not until many years later. Ironically, the case was brought by none other than current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — a magnet for controversy, it turns out.
But the years-long delay in prosecution mean that no one in the public, or in Congress, was aware that the FBI knew through Campbell about the Russian bribery plot as early as 2009 — well before the Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved Uranium One in fall 2010.
Since the emergence of Campbell’s undercover work, there has been one unanswered question of national importance.
Did the FBI notify then-President Obama, Hillary Clinton and other leaders on the CFIUS board about Rosatom’s dark deeds before the Uranium One sale was approved, or did the bureau drop the ball and fail to alert policymakers?
Neither outcome is particularly comforting. Either the United States, eyes wide open, approved giving uranium assets to a corrupt Russia, or the FBI failed to give the evidence of criminality to the policymakers before such a momentous decision.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/01/2018)
Stefan Halper (l) and Adam Lovinger (Credit public domain)
(…) “Judicial Watch is representing Adam Lovinger, a former ONA analyst who claims he was fired because he raised questions about contracts awarded to Halper and to a friend of Chelsea Clinton’s. The conservative watchdog group is seeking ONA records related to Lovinger’s security clearance, which was revoked months after the 12-year ONA veteran began raising questions about the contracts.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton questioned whether the Pentagon was aware that Halper was spying on the Trump campaign.
“Americans want to know if the Defense Department was working with the corrupt FBI, DOJ and other Obama agencies to spy on Donald Trump in an attempt to destroy his reputation,” Fitton said in a statement. “Our new lawsuit against the Defense Department will help determine to what extent it was helping to finance any Spygate targeting of President Trump.”
It is unclear if ONA funds were used to finance Halper’s efforts to meet Trump campaign officials. But as The Daily Caller News Foundation first reported in March, Halper used academic papers to approach at least one Trump campaign adviser.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/02/2018)
Kyle Freeny (l) and Brandon van Grack (Credit: LinkedIn/MSNBC)
“Two Justice Department prosecutors assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller‘s ongoing investigation are leaving the office to return to previous postings.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, confirmed in an email to The Hill that Kyle Freeny and Brandon Van Grack are leaving the probe.
The two prosecutors had worked on the criminal cases involving former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to CNN.
Van Grack recently left the probe to return to the agency’s national security division while Freeny will remain on until mid-October before returning to the agency’s criminal division.
Carr said that Van Grack will continue to contribute to the special counsel investigation “on specific pending matters that were assigned to him during his detail.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/02/2018)
“A former top FBI lawyer acknowledged he was personally involved in the warrant application to surveil then-Trump campaign aide Carter Page and confirmed other “unusual” steps taken in the FBI’s Russia probe in 2016, during a closed-door congressional interview.
“I was aware of the [Russia] investigation,” James Baker told House investigators in October. Fox News has confirmed details of the transcript which is still under government review before its public release.
Baker said he was briefed on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant “as time went by” and recalled how he got involved early in the process. The warrant relied heavily on the unverified anti-Trump dossier, which was financed by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign via the law firm Perkins Coie.
“I don’t want to see it at the end, like when it is about to go to the director [for] certification, because then it is hard to make changes then,” Baker told House investigators when Republicans controlled the chamber. “So I wanted to see it when it was gelled enough but before it went through the process and before it went to the director. I wanted to see it and I wanted to read it because I knew it was sensitive.”
Fox News confirmed the Baker transcript also includes the following exchange with investigators regarding his involvement in the surveillance application:
Question: “So that is why you took the abnormal or unusual step in this particular situation because it was sensitive?”
Baker: “Yes.”
Question: “So you actually got involved because you want to make sure that, what?”
“Former top FBI lawyer James Baker gave “explosive” closed-door testimony on Wednesday detailing for congressional investigators how the Russia probe was handled in an “abnormal fashion” reflecting “political bias,” according to two Republican lawmakers present for the deposition.
Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., told Fox News. “This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That’s extremely troubling.”
Meadows claimed the “abnormal” handling of the probe into alleged coordination between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign was “a reflection of inherent bias that seems to be evident in certain circles.” The FBI agent who opened the Russia case, Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page and others sent politically charged texts, and have since left the bureau.
Baker, who had a closely working relationship with former FBI Director James Comey, left the bureau earlier this year.
The lawmakers would not provide many specifics about the private transcribed interview, citing a confidentiality agreement with Baker and his attorneys. However, they indicated in broad terms that Baker was cooperative and forthcoming about the genesis of the Russia case in 2016, and about the surveillance warrant application for Trump campaign aide Carter Page in October 2016.” (Read more: Fox News, 10/03/2018)
“[James] Baker served as the FBI’s general counsel when the bureau investigated the Trump campaign and Hillary Clinton’s use of an unauthorized private email server. During two days of testimony on Oct. 3 and Oct. 18, he told lawmakers that he believed even toward the end of the Clinton investigation that she should have been charged over her “alarming, appalling” mishandling of classified information.
He argued with others, including then-FBI Director James Comey, about the issue all the way toward the end of the investigation, but was ultimately persuaded that Clinton should be exonerated.
“My original belief … after having conducted the investigation and towards the end of it, then sitting down and reading a binder of her materials, I thought that it was alarming, appalling, whatever words I said, and argued with others about why they thought she shouldn’t be charged,” Baker told lawmakers.
As of October 2018, nearly two years after the Clinton probe concluded, Baker still believed that the conduct of the former secretary of state and her associates was “appalling” with regard to the handling of classified information.
(…) As general counsel, Baker advised senior FBI leaders on the legal aspects of key investigations and served as the liaison with the Department of Justice (DOJ). In testimony, he detailed a series of unusual steps he took in the Trump-Russia investigation, including serving as the conduit between Perkins Coie—the firm working for the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)—and the FBI.
Baker left his position as general counsel in early January 2018 and then resigned from the FBI in early May 2018.” (Read more: Epoch Times, 1/18/2019)
Larry Klayman (l) and Dennis Montgomery (Credit: public domain)
On the same day House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes gave a press conference disclosing that President Trump had been under “incidental surveillance,” attorney and FreedomWatch chairman, Larry Klayman, sent a letter to the same committee, imploring them to pursue the claims and evidence presented under oath at a Washington DC FBI Field Office by his client, CIA/NSA whistleblower Dennis Montgomery, who Klayman claims “holds the keys to disproving the false claims that there is no evidence that the president and his men were wiretapped.”
When Montgomery attempted to deliver this information through the appropriate channels, he was met with closed doors.
(…) “Montgomery left the NSA and CIA with 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information, much of which is classified, and sought to come forward legally as a whistleblower to appropriate government entities, including congressional intelligence committees, to expose that the spy agencies were engaged for years in systematic illegal surveillance on prominent Americans, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, 156 judges, prominent businessmen such as Donald Trump, and even yours truly. Working side by side with Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence (DIA), James Clapper, and Obama’s former Director of the CIA, John Brennan, Montgomery witnessed “up close and personal” this “Orwellian Big Brother” intrusion on privacy, likely for potential coercion, blackmail or other nefarious purposes.”
(…) “After Montgomery was turned away as a whistleblower, he came to me at Freedom Watch. With the aid of the Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, who I had come to respect and trust over the years of my public interest advocacy, we brought Montgomery forward to FBI Director James Comey, through his General Counsel James Baker. Under grants of immunity, which I obtained through Assistant U.S. Attorney Deborah Curtis, Montgomery produced the hard drives and later was interviewed under oath in a secure room at the FBI Field Office in the District of Columbia. There he laid out how persons like then-businessman Donald Trump were illegally spied upon by Clapper, Brennan, and the spy agencies of the Obama administration. He even claimed that these spy agencies had manipulated voting in Florida during the 2008 presidential election, which illegal tampering resulted in helping Obama to win the White House.
This interview, conducted and videoed by Special FBI Agents Walter Giardina and William Barnett, occurred almost two years ago, and nothing that I know of has happened since. It would appear that the FBI’s investigation was buried by Comey, perhaps because the FBI itself collaborates with the spy agencies to conduct illegal surveillance. In landmark court cases which I filed after the revelations of Edward Snowden, the Honorable Richard Leon, a colleague of Judge Lamberth, had ruled that this type of surveillance constituted a gross violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
Deborah Curtis, the DoJ attorney who helped Montgomery receive a grant of immunity, also served on Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation team.
Here is the relevant testimony in James Baker’s transcript release:
“Could the impeachment scandal have been prevented if the now-fired U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman had followed up on Ukrainian allegations about Joe Biden and his family in 2018?
That’s the tantalizing question raised by emails from fall 2018 between an American lawyer and the chief federal prosecutor in Manhattan that were obtained by Just the News.
The memos show that well before Ukrainian prosecutors reached out to Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s lawyer, in 2019 to talk about the Bidens and alleged 2016 election interference they first approached Berman’s office in New York in October 2018 via another American lawyer.
Bud Cummins (Credit: public domain)
The memos show Little Rock, Ark., lawyer Bud Cummins, a former U.S. attorney himself, reached out at least five times in October 2018 to Berman seeking to arrange a meeting with then-Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko.
Lutsenko, who emerged as a key figure in the impeachment scandal, wanted to confidentially share with federal prosecutors in New York evidence he claimed to possess that raised concerns about the Bidens’ behavior as well as alleged wrongdoing in the Paul Manafort corruption case.
“Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko is offering to come to the U.S. meet with high-level law enforcement to share the fruits of investigations within Ukraine which have produced evidence of two basic alleged crimes,” Cummins wrote Berman on Oct. 4, 2018, one day after the two had talked on the phone about the allegations.
The allegations included that Joe Biden had “exercised influence to protect Burisma Holdings” after his son Hunter and his son’s business partner Devon Archer had joined the Ukrainian gas company’s board of directors and “substantial sums of money were paid to them,” Cummins wrote.
Devon Archer, far left, with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, far right, golf in the Hamptons 2014.
(…) “The allegation by Prosecutor General Lutsenko et al is that the US ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, Biden and Kerry made conclusions about who were the good guys and the bad guys in local government. They believe Biden and Kerry were influenced by payments to Hunter Biden and Devon Archer to influence certain decisions, particularly those benefitting Burisma,” Cummins wrote, relaying the allegations from the Ukrainian officials.
In addition, Cummins told Berman that Lutsenko had evidence that a ledger found in Ukraine in 2016 alleging to show payments to Manafort from a Russian-backed political party in Ukraine was doctored and the U.S. knew the evidence was corrupted. The emergence of the ledger caused Manafort to resign as Trump’s campaign chairman in August 2016, and eventually led to his conviction on money laundering and tax charges.
“The second allegation above is that the Embassy and FBI willfully pressured Ukrainian officials to falsify evidence to be leaked to the media about Manafort to affect the outcome of the 2016 election,” Cummins wrote Berman. (Read more: JustTheNews, 6/23/2020)(Archive)
Attorney Ty Clevenger files a FOIA request with the NSA in November, 2017 for the communication records of Seth Rich. Here are the specific documents Clevenger requests:
The NSA responded to Ty Clevenger in a letter dated October 4, 2018 stating:
It is not clear if the Seth Rich documents found by the NSA are connected to Julian Assange because there are many other names listed in the FOIA request that could be connected to the documents.
Judge Royce C. Lamberth (Credit: Charles Dharapak/The Associated Press)
“Judicial Watch announced today that in his opening remarks at a Friday, October 12 hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth strongly criticized the U.S. Department of State, stating, “The information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the [Clinton email] search and… what we now know turned out to be the Secretary’s email system.”
Turning his attention to the Department of Justice, Judge Lamberth said that he was “dumbfounded” by the agency’s Inspector General report revealing that Cheryl Mills had been given immunity and was allowed to accompany former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her FBI interview:
I had myself found that Cheryl Mills had committed perjury and lied under oath in a published opinion I had issued in a Judicial Watch case where I found her unworthy of belief, and I was quite shocked to find out she had been given immunity in — by the Justice Department in the Hillary Clinton email case. So I did not know that until I read the IG report and learned that and that she had accompanied the Secretary to her interview.
(In an April 28, 2008ruling relating to Mills’ conduct as a White House official in responding to concerns about lost White House email records, Judge Lamberth called Mills’ participation in the matter “loathsome.” He further stated Mills was responsible for “the most critical error made in this entire fiasco … Mills’ actions were totally inadequate to address the problem.”)
Lamberth also complained that the Justice Department attorney representing the State Department was using “doublespeak,” and playing “word games.”
The hearing had been ordered by Judge Lamberth regarding a request from Judicial Watch for testimony under oath from Clinton, Mills and several other State Department officials regarding the State Department’s processing of Judicial Watch’s FOIA request and Clinton’s emails. The State Department still opposes all of Judicial Watch’s requests for additional discovery into the Clinton email scandal.
Judge Lamberth said he was relieved that he did not allow the case to be shut down prematurely, as the State Department had requested.
The case started with a motion for summary judgment [seeking to close the case] here and which I denied and allowed limited discovery because it was clear to me that at the time that I ruled initially, that false statements were made to me by career State Department officials and it became more clear through discovery that the information that I was provided was clearly false regarding the adequacy of the search and this – what we now know turned out to be the Secretary’s email system.
I don’t know the details of what kind of IG inquiry there was into why these career officials at the State Department would have filed false affidavits with me. I don’t know the details of why the Justice Department lawyers did not know false affidavits were being filed with me, but I was very relieved that I did not accept them and that I allowed limited discovery into what had happened.
Ron Johnson (l) and Christopher Wray (Credit: Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)
“Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson is calling on FBI Director Christopher Wray to hand over documents related to a former FBI lawyer’s meeting during the 2016 campaign with an attorney that represented the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign.
The meeting was revealed during a congressional deposition that former FBI general counsel James Baker gave on Oct. 3. Baker told lawmakers that in September 2016 he met with Michael Sussmann, a partner at Perkins Coie.
As the lead law firm for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC, Perkins Coie hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn hired Christopher Steele, the author of the infamous dossier alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
Sources familiar with Baker’s testimony say he testified that Sussmann provided him with documents related to Russian hacking of Democrats. He also testified that the meeting was unusual.
Republican lawmakers have questioned why Baker was meeting with a top Democratic lawyer at a crucial point in the campaign. Baker was interviewed as part of an investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Russia probe, as well as the Steele dossier.
Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Reform Committee, is also asking Wray for FBI notes of interviews, known as 302s, conducted with Bruce Ohr, a Department of Justice official who met numerous times before and after the election with Steele. Ohr’s wife also worked for Fusion GPS while the firm was investigating President Donald Trump.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/13/2018)
Onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page filed a defamation lawsuit Monday against the Democratic National Committee and a law firm that represented them.
The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal Oklahoma court against the DNC, Perkins Coie, and Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann, is about obtaining “justice,” Page said.
“It goes beyond any damages or any financial aspects,” Page told Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night. “There have been so many lies as you are alluding to, and you look at the damage it did to our democratic systems and institutions of government back in 2016. I’m just trying to get some justice in terms of getting some disclosure.”
Michael Sussmann (Credit: Perkins Coie)
Elias represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, and hired Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. Fusion GPS is the same firm that commissioned former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele who authored the so-called “Trump dossier” that contained scandalous and unverified claims about President Trump’s ties to Russia and was used by the FBI to help obtain the authority to spy on Page.
According to the dossier, Page was the Trump campaign’s intermediary to Russia and proposed disclosing stolen DNC emails via WikiLeaks, among other claims. Page has vehemently denied the allegations about him in the dossier.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 10/15/2018)
“Hunter Biden shows himself to be a real first son-of-a-gun in the latest embarrassing personal video leak for President Biden’s scandal-scarred offspring.
A naked Hunter casually waves around a handgun and even points it at the camera while cavorting with a nude hooker in a swank hotel room, according to a video provided to The Post by the nonprofit Marco Polo research group.
The cavalier clip of Hunter Biden holding the apparently illegally obtained weapon emerged amid the rash of mass shootings — and random gun violence in major cities — that included 11 incidents on Saturday and Sunday alone that left at least 15 people dead and 61 injured across the U.S., data shows.
It also came just days after his dad called on Congress to pass new gun-control measures to stem the slaughter, declaring in a televised, primetime address last week that “the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute.”
(…) Hunter Biden recorded the video on Oct. 17, 2018, according to Radar Online, which first revealed its existence. The outlet and a Post source described his companion in the video as a prostitute.
Five days earlier, he bought a .38-caliber handgun in Delaware, Politicoreported last year.
In order to make the purchase, Hunter Biden answered “no” to a question that asked, “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” Politicoreported last year. (Read more: The New York Post, 6/06/2022)(Archive)
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards (Credit: public domain)
“A senior official working for the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has been charged with leaking confidential financial reports on former Trump campaign advisers Paul Manafort, Richard Gates and others to a media outlet.
Prosecutors say that Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, a senior adviser to FinCEN, photographed what are called suspicious activity reports, or SARs, and other sensitive government files and sent them to an unnamed reporter, in violation of U.S. law.
Banks file SARs confidentially in order to tip off law enforcement to potentially illegal financial transactions. The unauthorized document disclosures, which began last October, are said to have provided the basis for 12 news articles published by an unnamed news organization.
Edwards is being charged in the Southern District of New York with one count of unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports and one count of conspiracy to make unauthorized disclosures of suspicious activity reports, both of which carry a maximum five years in prison.
The charges are the latest indication of the Trump administration’s efforts to root out alleged leakers within the government, something that prosecutors emphasized in announcing the charges on Wednesday.” (Read more: The Hill, 10/17/18)
Judge Dabney Friedrich Stephen (Credit: Stephen J. Boitano/The Associated Press)
“A Washington federal judge on Thursday ordered special counsel Robert Mueller’s team to clarify election meddling claims lodged against a Russian company operated by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to Bloomberg.
Concord Management and Consulting, LLC. – one of three businesses indicted by Mueller in February along with 13 individuals for election meddling, surprised the special counsel in April when they actually showed up in court to fight the charges. Mueller’s team tried to delay Concord from entering the case, arguing that the Russian company not been properly served, however Judge Dabney Friedrich denied the request – effectively telling prosecutors ‘well, they’re here.’
Concord was accused in the indictment of supporting the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian ‘troll farm’ accused of trying to influence the 2016 US election.
On Thursday, Judge Freidrich asked Mueller’s prosecutors if she should assume they aren’t accusing Concord of violating US laws applicable to election expenditures and failure to register as a foreign agent.
Concord has asked Dabney to throw out the charges – claiming that Mueller’s office fabricated a crime, and that there is no law against interfering in elections.
According to the judge’s request for clarification, the Justice Department has argued that it doesn’t have to show that Concord had a legal duty to report its expenditures to the Federal Election Commission. Rather, the allegation is that the company knowingly engaged in deceptive acts that precluded the FEC, or the Justice Department, from ascertaining whether they had broken the law. –Bloomberg
On Monday, Friedrich raised questions over whether the special counsel’s office could prove a key element of their case – saying that it was “hard to see” how allegations of Russian influence were intended to interfere with US government operations vs. simply “confusing voters,” reports law.com.
During a 90-minute hearing, Friedrich questioned prosecutor Jonathan Kravis about how the government would be able to show the Russian defendants were aware of the Justice Department and FEC’s functions and then deliberately sought to skirt them.
“You still have to show knowledge of the agencies and what they do. How do you do that?” Friedrich asked.
Kravis, a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, argued that the government needed only to show that Concord Management and the other defendants were generally aware that the U.S. government “regulates and monitors” foreign participation in American politics. That awareness, Kravis said, could be inferred from the Russians’ alleged creation of fake social media accounts that appeared to be run by U.S. citizens and “computer infrastructure” intended to mask the Russian origin of the influence operation.
“That is deception that is directed at a higher level,” Kravis said. Kravis appeared in court with Michael Dreeben, a top Justice Department appellate lawyer on detail to the special counsel’s office. –law.com
“The U.S. government revealed in court filings Friday that the FBI used multiple confidential informants, including some who were paid for their information, as part of its investigation into former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
“The FBI has protected information that would identify the identities of other confidential sources who provided information or intelligence to the FBI” as well as “information provided by those sources,” wrote David M. Hardy, the head of the FBI’s Record/Information Dissemination Section (RIDS), in court papers submitted Friday.
Hardy and Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys submitted the filings in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for the FBI’s four applications for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against Page. The DOJ released heavily redacted copies of the four FISA warrant applications on June 20, but USA Today reporter Brad Heath has sued for full copies of the documents.
Hardy’s declaration acknowledged that the confidential sources used by the FBI were in addition to Christopher Steele, the former British spy who authored the infamous anti-Trump dossier.
“This includes nonpublic information about and provided by Christopher Steele, as well as information about and provided by other confidential sources, all of whom were provided express assurances of confidentiality,” Hardy wrote, referring to information disclosed in the four FISA applications.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/20/2018)
Nellie Ohr and Serhiy Leshchenko (Credit: public domain)
“Eight months before Fusion GPS hired Steele, Simpson had hired Nellie Ohr to work for his firm as a researcher in October 2015.
Nellie Ohr told congressional investigators that part of her work for Fusion GPS was to research the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, including campaign associate Carter Page, early campaign supporter Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Trump’s family members, including some of his children.
Email communications between her and her husband, Bruce, show that she routinely sent him and several other DOJ officials articles on Russia. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie’s employment with Fusion GPS.
Nellie Ohr told congressional investigators that Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament, served as “a source of information” and acknowledged that she then used that information in following up and formulating her opposition research.
Leshchenko, along with Artem Sytnyk, the director of Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, was responsible for publicly disclosing the contents of the Ukrainian “black ledger,” which implicated Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, to the media.
Nellie Ohr arrives for a closed door hearing before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees on October 19, 2018. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(..) “According to a transcript of an Oct. 19, 2018, closed-door testimony, which was reviewed by The Epoch Times, Ohr acknowledged to congressional investigators that she worked as an independent contractor for “various agencies in the United States Government.”
Ohr testified that she worked for the CIA’s Open Source Works (OSW) division. She also revealed that prior to her work for the CIA, she worked for Mitre, which is funded by the U.S. government and interacts with various intelligence agencies.
Ms. Ohr:Starting in 2000, I did some part-time contracting for Mitre, which is a contract —
Rep. Jordan:I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.
Ms. Ohr:Mitre. Mitre Corporation, which in turn had contracts with U.S. Government clients.
Rep. Jordan:Got it.
Ms. Ohr:Through most of 2008. And then starting in 2008, I worked for Open Source Works.
Mitre Corporation is a “not-for-profit company that operates multiple federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs).” In other words, Mitre is a government-funded enterprise that conducts research for the U.S. government.
Of greater interest was Ohr’s employment as an independent contractor for OSW, the CIA’s internal open source division.
Ohr’s Work for the CIA
The CIA describes OSW as a division that uses open-source information to produce intelligence products.
“[Open Source Works] was charged by the Director for Intelligence with drawing on language-trained analysts to mine open-source information for new or alternative insights on intelligence issues,” states an unclassified Nov. 16, 2010, CIA report headlined “Russia: Security Concerns About Iran’s Space Program Growing.”
Ohr told congressional investigators that she began working for Open Source Works in 2008, but provided no time-frame for her end date. Her profile on LinkedIn, however, provides some indication that she may have remained employed with Open Source Works through 2014.
From 2000 to 2014, Ohr lists herself on her resume as a “Linguist/Research Analyst – Self-employed.” But she also concurrently lists her 2013-2015 employment with Plessas Experts’ Networks as an “Expert/Content Creator.”
Ohr told congressional investigators that she intentionally did not list any agencies on her resume when working as an independent contractor for the U.S. government:
Rep. Meadows:So I have one follow-up. Have you ever submitted a resume that would list any of those agencies on that resume?
Ms. Ohr:No.
Rep. Meadows:So no resume that would indicate that you did work for those agencies on a resume?
Ms. Ohr:My resume stated that I was an independent contractor doing work in support of U.S. Government.
Rep. Meadows:But normally there is a sentence or two right after it on what they did. And so what I’m saying is, did — in those resumes, and for example, like with Mitre, we do work with the CIA, NSA whoever —
Ms. Ohr: I do not explicitly name those agencies in a resume.
“The wife of a Justice Department official who worked for Fusion GPS during the 2016 campaign told Congress in 2018 that one of her tasks at the opposition research firm was to research President Donald Trump’s children, including their business activities and travel.
(…) Ohr, a trained Russian linguist, also detailed some of the topics she worked on for Fusion GPS, which was hired by the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Trump.
One area of focus was Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s two oldest children.
“But in terms of actually performing research, did you begin to break out President Trump’s family in terms of Melania Trump, all of his children? Were you doing independent research based off of each family member?” one lawmaker asked Ohr.
“I did some,” Ohr said. “As I recall, I did some research on all of them, but not into much depth.”
“How about Donald Trump Jr.? Did you do more in-depth research on Donald Trump Jr. than some of the others?” she was asked.
“I’m afraid it was relatively superficial. It was,” adding that, “I looked into some of his travels and you know not sure how much detail I remember, at this point.”
“Ivanka Trump?”
“I looked into some of her travels,” said Ohr.
The goal was “to see whether they were involved in dealings and transactions with people who had had suspicious pasts.”
Nellie Ohr also testified that she investigated any links between Russian oligarchs and the Trump real estate empire.
It is unclear whether Ohr shared any information that she gathered working for Fusion GPS with her husband, who served as associate deputy attorney general until he was reassigned in December 2017. There is also no indication that Ohr’s research of the Trump children wound up in the dossier, which the FBI used to obtain surveillance warrants against Carter Page.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/30/2019)
“According to a recent FBI indictment, several American white supremacists were allegedly radicalized by and received training from Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which receives funding from the current government of Ukraine as well as the U.S. government. The group has also received weapons from the Israeli government.
In an undated photo posted to their since-deleted Instagram account, RAM members pose in skull masks. (Credit: ProPublica)
The indictment, filed in Los Angeles, California last month, asserts that four American members of the “Rise Above Movement” (RAM) — RAM co-founder Robert Rundo as well as Robert Boman, Tyler Laube and Aaron Eason — had “violently attacked and assaulted counter-protestors” at several white nationalist and white supremacist events throughout the U.S., including the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last year.
The named individuals are alleged to have “used the Internet to coordinate combat training in preparation for the events” and to have celebrated “their acts of violence in order to recruit members for future events.”
Court documents refer to RAM as a “white supremacy extremist group” while the group self-represents as “a combat-ready, militant group of a new nationalist white supremacy/identity movement.”
The recent indictment gives special attention to Rundo’s more recent activities, particularly his trip to Europe earlier this year where he traveled to Germany, Ukraine, and Italy “to meet with members of European white supremacy extremist groups.” The FBI became aware that one of the individuals with whom Rundo had met during this trip was Olena Semenyaka, a leader of the International Department for the National Corps, a Ukrainian political party that was formed as an offshoot of the Azov Battalion in 2016.
The affidavit detailing Rundo’s meeting with Semenyaka, signed by FBI agent Scott Bierwirth, states that “the Azov Battalion is a paramilitary unit of the Ukrainian National Guard which is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology and use of Nazi symbolism.” It then adds that Azov Battalion “is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations,” such as RAM.
Olena Semenyaka, (top left) and on the right in an interview with UATV. (Credit: public domain)
In other words, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion is suspected by the U.S. government of both training and radicalizing violent white supremacist groups based in America. This is particularly troubling when one considers the fact that the U.S. government directly enabled the Azov Battalion’s growth and prominence. Now, it seems that those actions have translated into troubling domestic consequences for the United States.” (Read more: “FBI: Neo-Nazi Militia Trained by US Military in Ukraine, Now Training US White Supremacists/Whitney Webb, 11/09/2018)(Archive)
At the same time the FBI learned of American white supremacists traveling to Ukraine and training with the neo-nazi Azov Battalion, the American Foreign Policy Society hosted neo-nazi, Andriy Parubiy, inside the U.S. Senate on July 2, 2018.
A year later in October 2019, US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch testifies about her long relationship with Ukrainian neo-nazi official, Arsen Avakov.
Avakov (left center) tweets on March 21, 2019: “Meeting with US Ambassador Marie Yovanovich (right center) discussed urgent issues of ensuring fair and transparent elections, security and preventing provocations at polling stations during voting.” (Credit: Yulia Babich/Twitter)
Hunter Biden (Credit: clipping from video found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.)
“The Secret Service allegedly tried to intervene in a 2018 incident where President Joe Biden’s daughter-in-law Hallie Biden threw Hunter Biden’s gun in a trash can near a high-end grocery store and it briefly disappeared, according to a report from Politico.
Amid the incident, which occurred on Oct. 23, 2018, Secret Service agents allegedly tried to obtain the paperwork involving the gun sale from the owner of the store that Hunter bought the item from, Politicowrote, citing two sources.
The store owner, Ron Palmieri, reportedly refused to give the paperwork over. Palmieri was allegedly worried that the agents wanted the paperwork so they could hide Hunter’s ownership information in case the missing weapon was used in a crime, Politico noted.
He eventually gave the papers to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, And Explosives (ATF), as it oversees federal gun laws.
“Palmieri refused to hand over the transaction record to the Secret Service agents because such records fall under the purview of the ATF,” Politico noted. “The Secret Service agents left without the records, according to the people familiar with the case. Later that day, the ATF arrived at the store to inspect the records.”
Prior to the Secret Service’s alleged involvement, Hallie told Hunter that she tossed the gun, prompting him to demand she return for it. Upon returning, Hallie realized the gun was missing from the trash can, according to Politico. She told the grocery store, who then contacted police.
Delaware police began investigating because the grocery store was across from a high school. The FBI also arrived on scene as it was – and still is – investigating Hunter, according to Politico.
(…) Eventually, the .38 revolver was returned by an elderly man who often looked through garbages to collect recyclables. No one was charged in the incident, Politico noted.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 3/25/2021)(Archive)
Twitter sleuth @FOOL_NELSON adds another interesting perspective to this story:
“Look man, it’s like they say, guns don’t kill people, people do . . . One time I popped a whole rock of crack in my mouth and started to chew it because it was sitting next to a piece of trident” – Hunter Biden one month before buying a gun (9/3/18) https://t.co/thxmeDJEIbpic.twitter.com/aYIpbTE8Gn
“Sally Moyer was FBI unit chief in the Office of General Counsel (counterintelligence legal unit within the FBI Office of General Counsel). Moyer reported to an unnamed section chief, who reported to Trisha Beth Anderson, who was deputy legal counsel to James Baker.
Ms. Moyer is responsible for the legal compliance within the FBI counterintelligence operations that generated FISA applications:
A review of the transcript clarifies a few aspects:
First, the DOJ/FBI team, “the small group”, specifically the legal officials who were ultimately participating in the process that permits politicization and weaponization of government intelligence systems, was also the exact same legal group who reviewed (and approved) the internal inspector general report which outlined their activity.
In essence, the DOJ/FBI bureaucratic corruption is so widespread, the corrupt officials involved are the same people who are the decision-makers in the amount of sunlight the Office of Inspect General is allowed to put forth. Now the disconnect between the OIG executive summary and the body of content material makes sense:” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 5/21/2019)
Robert Mueller (Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
“Special counsel Robert Mueller appears to be locked in a dispute with a mystery grand jury witness resisting giving up information sought in the ongoing probe into alleged Trump campaign collusion with Russia.
It’s unclear exactly what the two sides are fighting over, but the case appears to resemble a separate legal battle involving an associate of Trump ally Roger Stone, Andrew Miller, who is fighting a Mueller subpoena. Miller’s lawyers are using the case, slated to be argued at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals early next month, to mount a broad legal assault on Mueller’s authority as special counsel.
In the more shadowy case, which involves an unknown person summoned before a grand jury this summer, the D.C. Circuit on Monday set a separate round of arguments for Dec. 14.
The case traveled in recent months from U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, back down to Howell and back up again to the appeals court with most details shrouded in secrecy, another indication that much of Mueller’s activity is taking place behind the scenes and is rarely glimpsed by the press or public.” (Read more: Politico, 10/24/2018)
The recently released redacted version of the Mueller Report. (Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“A former FBI attorney who worked on the Russia investigation told Congress last year the bureau learned information about dossier author Christopher Steele “that might bear on his credibility as a source.”
Trisha Anderson, the former principal deputy general counsel, said in a closed-door interview that meetings were held at the FBI with then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and the team working on the investigation to discuss Steele, a former MI6 officer who investigated President Donald Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC.
Steele provided information from his dossier to the FBI, State Department and members of the press.
“There were meetings with Mr. McCabe about the Russia investigation that involved discussions of the various reports that were generated by Chris Steele that we had received, both with respect to the content of the reports as well as what we had learned about Christopher — we, I’m sorry — the FBI investigative team had learned about facts that might bear on his credibility as a source,” Anderson said in the Oct. 31, 2018 interview, a transcript of which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“And what were those facts? You had mentioned the contents. More specifically, what were these discussions about? But start with the credibility issues,” a congressional staffer asked Anderson.
Anderson did not say when the meetings occurred. Nor did she say what the possible credibility issues might have been.
When asked for further details, an FBI attorney intervened to say that Anderson could not answer more questions because they “pertain to matters that are being looked at by the special counsel and its investigation.”
At some point after relying on Steele as a confidential source, FBI officials were told that Steele was working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC to investigate Trump. The former British spy had been hired in June 2016 by Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm.
(…) The Justice Department’s office of the inspector general is reportedly investigating the FBI’s use of Steele as a source as part of a broader probe into possible abuse of the FISA system. The New York Timesreported on Friday that intelligence community officials determined at some point in 2017 that some of Steele’s allegations were either likely wrong, or based on exaggeration by Steele’s sub-sources.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 4/26/2019)
“President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday, replacing him with a loyalist who has echoed the president’s complaints about the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference and will now take charge of the inquiry.
Mr. Sessions delivered his resignation letter to the White House at the request of the president, who tapped Matthew G. Whitaker, Mr. Sessions’s chief of staff, as acting attorney general, raising questions about the future of the inquiry led by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
Mr. Whitaker, a former college football tight end and United States attorney in Iowa, and a onetime Senate candidate in that state, has previously questioned the scope of the investigation. In a column for CNN last year, he wrote that Mr. Mueller would be going too far if he examined the Trump family’s finances. “This would raise serious concerns that the special counsel’s investigation was a mere witch hunt,” Mr. Whitaker wrote, echoing the president’s derisive description of the investigation. Mr. Mueller has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for documents related to Russia.” (Read more: The New York Times, 11/07/2018)
(…) “The Cause of Action Institute, a conservative watchdog group, filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit for Comey’s Gmail correspondence involving his work for the bureau.
The Justice Department responded that there were an eye-popping 1,200 pages of messages for Comey and his chief of staff that met the criteria.
Justice released 156 of them but refused to hand over seven emails because they would “disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions.” And another 363 pages of emails were withheld because they discussed privileged agency communications or out of personal privacy concerns.
Cause of Action’s CEO slammed the former top G-man for minimizing the work he did using his private account. “Using private email to conduct official government business endangers transparency and accountability, and that is why we sued the Department of Justice,” said John Vecchione.
“We’re deeply concerned that the FBI withheld numerous emails citing FOIA’s law enforcement exemption. This runs counter to Comey’s statements that his use of email was incidental and never involved any sensitive matters.”
(Credit: The New York Post)
“In one email on Oct. 7, 2015, Comey seems to recognize the hypocrisy of the FBI investigating Hillary Clinton’s email practices while he’s exchanging FBI info on his own private account because his government account was down.
Two days after complaining that his “mobile is not sending emails,” Comey asked an aide that the testimony he was to deliver to the Senate be sent on his private account — calling it an “embarrassing” situation.
“He [aide] will need to send to personal email I suppose,” Comey wrote. “Embarrassing for us.”
Lisa Rosenberg, executive director of Open the Government, a nonpartisan coalition that advocates for government transparency, said Comey’s practice of using personal email while investigating Clinton reeks of a double standard.
“It’s just so transparently hypocritical to have one standard for a person you are investigating and an entirely different standard for yourself when you are the one who’s enforcing the law,” Rosenberg said.” (Read more: New York Post, 11/09/2018)
“Judicial Watch announced that U.S. District Court Judge Emmett G. Sullivan ruled that within 30 days Hillary Clinton must answer under oath two additional questions about her controversial email system.
In 2016, Clinton was required to submit under oath written answers to Judicial Watch’s questions. Clinton objected to and refused to answer questions about the creation of her email system; her decision to use the system despite warnings from State Department cybersecurity officials; and the basis for her claim that the State Department had “90-95%” of her emails.
After a lengthy hearing on Wednesday, Judge Sullivan ruled that Clinton must address two questions that she refused to answer under-oath: “Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com system, including who decided to create the system, the date it was decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up, and when it became operational.”
“During your October 22, 2015 appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails “were in the State’s system” and “if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do so.” Identify the basis for this statement, including all facts on which you relied in support of the statement, how and when you became aware of these facts, and, if you were made aware of these facts by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of these facts.”
“The Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion Wednesday supporting President Trump’s appointment of Matt Whitaker as acting attorney general, despite criticism from Democrats who have questioned his qualifications to oversee the Russia investigation.
In its opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel said that the president’s appointment of Whitaker to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was consistent with the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (VRA) of 1998.
“This Office previously had advised that the President could designate a senior Department of Justice Official, such as Mr. Whitaker as Acting Attorney General,” the OLC said, noting that Whitaker has been serving at the Justice Department “at a sufficiently senior pay level for over a year.”
But a senior Justice Department official said this week that when reviewing Whitaker’s appointment, the OLC had to research back to 1866 to find a similar instance where a non-Senate confirmed individual sat as acting attorney general. The Justice Department wasn’t created until 1870, though an attorney general existed prior to that.” (Read more: Fox News, 11/14/2018)
“…The [MSM] coverage suggests Giuliani reached out to new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team this summer solely because he wanted to get dirt on possible Trump 2020 challenger Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in that country.
Politics or law could have been part of Giuliani’s motive, and neither would be illegal.
But there is a missing part of the story that the American public needs in order to assess what really happened: Giuliani’s contact with Zelensky adviser and attorney Andrei Yermak this summer was encouraged and facilitated by the U.S. State Department.
Giuliani didn’t initiate it. A senior U.S. diplomat contacted him in July and asked for permission to connect Yermak with him.
Then, Giuliani met in early August with Yermak on neutral ground — in Spain — before reporting back to State everything that occurred at the meeting.
That debriefing occurred Aug. 11 by phone with two senior U.S. diplomats, one with responsibility for Ukraine and the other with responsibility for the European Union, according to electronic communications records I reviewed and interviews I conducted.
When asked on Friday, Giuliani confirmed to me that the State Department asked him to take the Yermak meeting and that he did, in fact, apprise U.S. officials every step of the way.
“I didn’t even know who he [Yermak] really was, but they vouched for him. They actually urged me to talk to him because they said he seemed like an honest broker,” Giuliani told me. “I reported back to them [the two State officials] what my conversations with Yermak were about. All of this was done at the request of the State Department.”
So, rather than just a political opposition research operation, Giuliani’s contacts were part of a diplomatic effort by the State Department to grow trust with the new Ukrainian president, Zelensky, a former television comic making his first foray into politics and diplomacy.
Why would Ukraine want to talk to Giuliani, and why would the State Department be involved in facilitating it?
According to interviews with more than a dozen Ukrainian and U.S. officials, Ukraine’s government under recently departed President Petro Poroshenko and, now, Zelensky has been trying since summer 2018 to hand over evidence about the conduct of Americans they believe might be involved in violations of U.S. law during the Obama years.
The Ukrainians say their efforts to get their allegations to U.S. authorities were thwarted first by the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, which failed to issue timely visas allowing them to visit America.
Then the Ukrainians hired a former U.S. attorney — not Giuliani — to hand-deliver the evidence of wrongdoing to the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, but the federal prosecutors never responded.
The U.S. attorney, a respected American, confirmed the Ukrainians’ story to me. The allegations that Ukrainian officials wanted to pass on involved both efforts by the Democratic National Committee to pressure Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election as well as Joe Biden’s son’s effort to make money in Ukraine while the former vice president managed U.S.-Ukraine relations, the retired U.S. attorney told me.
Eventually, Giuliani in November 2018 got wind of the Ukrainian allegations and started to investigate.
As President Trump’s highest-profile defense attorney, the former New York City mayor, often known simply as Rudy, believed the Ukrainian’s evidence could assist in his defense against the Russian collusion investigation and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/20/2019)(Archive)
“FBI and CIA sources told a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter that they didn’t believe a key claim contained in the “Steele Dossier,” the document the Obama FBI relied on to obtain a surveillance warrant on a member of the Trump campaign.
The Post‘s Greg Miller told an audience at a [November] event that the FBI and CIA did not believe that former longtime Trump attorney Michael Cohen visited Prague during the 2016 election to pay off Russia-linked hackers who stole emails from key Democrats, reports the Daily Caller‘s Chuck Ross.
“We’ve talked to sources at the FBI and the CIA and elsewhere — they don’t believe that ever happened,” said Miller during the October event which aired Saturday on C-SPAN.
“We literally spent weeks and months trying to run down… there’s an assertion in there that Michael Cohen went to Prague to settle payments that were needed at the end of the campaign. We sent reporters to every hotel in Prague, to all over the place trying to – just to try to figure out if he was ever there, and came away empty.” -Greg Miller
Ross notes that WaPo somehow failed to report this information, nor did Miller include this tidbit of narrative-killing information in his recent book, “The Apprentice: Trump, Russia, and the Subversion of American Democracy.”
Miller also admits that the dossier’s broad claims are more closely aligned with reality, but that the document breaks down once you focus on individual claims.
Steele, using Kremlin sources, claimed in his dossier that Cohen and three associates went to Prague in August 2016 to meet with Kremlin officials for the purpose of discussing “deniable cash payments” made in secret so as to cover up “Moscow’s secret liaison with the TRUMP team.”
Cohen’s alleged Prague visit captured attention largely because the former Trump fixer has vehemently denied it, and also because it would seem to be one of the easier claims in Steele’s 35-page report to validate or invalidate.
Debate over the salacious document was reignited when McClatchy reported April 15 that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence Cohen visited Prague. No other news outlets have verified the reporting, and Cohen denied it at the time.
Cohen last denied the dossier’s allegations in late June, a period of time when he was gearing up to cooperate with prosecutors against President Donald Trump. Cohen served as a cooperating witness for prosecutors in both New York and the special counsel’s office. –Daily Caller
Cohen’s attorney and longtime Clinton pal Lanny Davis vehemently denied on August 22, one day after Cohen pleaded guilty in his New York case – that Cohen had never been to Prague, telling Bloomberg “Thirteen references to Mr. Cohen are false in the dossier, but he has never been to Prague in his life.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 12/16/2018)
“FBI agents raided the home of a recognized Department of Justice whistleblower who privately delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a government watchdog, according to the whistleblower’s attorney.
The Justice Department’s inspector general was informed that the documents show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One, a document reviewed by The Daily Caller News Foundation alleges.
The delivered documents also show that then-FBI Director Robert Mueller failed to investigate allegations of criminal misconduct pertaining to Rosatom and to other Russian government entities attached to Uranium One, the document reviewed by TheDCNF alleges. Mueller is now the special counsel investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election.
(…) Sixteen agents arrived at the home of Dennis Nathan Cain, a former FBI contractor, on the morning of Nov. 19 and raided his Union Bridge, Maryland, home, Socarras told TheDCNF.
Federal Magistrate Stephanie Gallagher (Credit: public domain)
The raid was permitted by a court order signed on Nov. 15 by federal magistrate Stephanie A. Gallagher in the U.S. District Court for Baltimore and obtained by TheDCNF.
A special agent from the FBI’s Baltimore division, who led the raid, charged that Cain possessed stolen federal property and demanded entry to his private residence, Socarras told TheDCNF.
“On Nov. 19, the FBI conducted court authorized law enforcement activity in the Union Bridge, Maryland area,” bureau spokesman Dave Fitz told TheDCNF. “At this time, we have no further comment.”
Cain informed the agent while he was still at the door that he was a recognized protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act and that Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz recognized his whistleblower status, according to Socarras.
He legally gave Congress about the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One,” the whistleblower’s lawyer, Michael Socarras, told TheDCNF, noting that he considered the FBI’s raid to be an “outrageous disregard” of whistleblower protections.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 11/29/2018)
Donald Trump (L) shakes hands with Hillary Clinton during the town hall debate at Washington University on October 9, 2016, in St Louis, Missouri. (Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
By: John Solomon
(…) “Both the DOJ’s inspector general and multiple committees in Congress are investigating whether the FBI properly handled the Trump-Russia collusion case or whether it fell prey to political pressure and shoddy investigative work, as congressional Republicans and President Trump himself claim.
The FBI has an obligation to submit only verified information to support a FISA warrant.
If the FBI failed to perform the sort of due diligence required to ensure that Steele’s expertise on Russia was reliable and that his dossier was verified, it would mark a massive failure in the FISA process.
There are growing warning signs that the FBI may have rushed its due diligence on Steele’s Russia work product, perhaps in part because it had enjoyed an earlier successful relationship in a corruption case involving European soccer.
My sources tell me that FBI counterintelligence analyst Jon Moffa recently told congressional investigators in a transcribed interview that the bureau was still trying to verify the Steele dossier when it was submitted as evidence for the FISA warrant.
“Our work on verifying facts of the FISA would have been — facts of the reporting would have been ongoing at the time the FISA was generated,” Moffa told House investigators, according to the transcript.
Moffa’s statement isn’t the only red flag.
From my earlier reporting, we know that former FBI lawyer Lisa Page told Congress this past summer that in May 2017 — seven months after the FISA warrant was issued, and nine months after the Russia probe was started — the FBI had not corroborated the main allegation in Steele’s dossier about collusion between Moscow and the Trump.
And former FBI Director James Comeytestified in June 2017 that the dossier was considered unverified and salacious.
Yet it was used as evidence to justify the FBI spying on the campaign of a duly-elected GOP presidential nominee’s campaign, even though it started as political opposition research paid for by the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s campaign.” (Read more: The Hill, 11/19/2018)
“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., revealed the existence of a “fourth bucket” of information related to potential misconduct by the FBI that he wants declassified.
On his way out as chairman, as Democrats will take control of the House next year, Nunes said his panel’s investigation into the Justice Department and FBI is largely complete. Still, he said the public release of these “buckets” would help give his efforts a sense of “finality.”
Speaking with anchor Maria Bartiromo on her Fox News program “Sunday Morning Futures,” Nunes said the first of three “buckets” were the Russia-related documents President Trump walked back from declassifying earlier this year.
The last tranche of documents, he said, pertains to emails showing knowledge about withholding information from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
“The new fourth bucket that we’re asking to be declassified now is — for months we have been reviewing emails between FBI, and DOJ, and others that clearly show that they knew about information that should have been presented to the FISA court,” he said. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 11/19/2018)
“Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said Tuesday that House Republicans plan to hear testimony on Dec. 5 from the prosecutor appointed by former Attorney General Jeff Sessions to probe alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation.
Meadows, who is chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Government Operations, told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that it’s time to “circle back” to U.S. Attorney General John Huber’s investigation with the Justice Department into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged any improper activities.
“Mr. [John] Huber with the Department of Justice and the FBI has been having an investigation – at least part of his task was to look at the Clinton Foundation and what may or may not have happened as it relates to improper activity with that charitable foundation, so we’ve set a hearing date for December the 5th,” he told Hill.TV during an interview on Wednesday.
Meadow’s said the committee plans to delve into a number of Republicans concerns surrounding the foundation, including whether any tax-exempt proceeds for personal gain and whether the Foundation complied with IRS laws.
Sessions appointed Huber last year to work in tandem with the Justice Department to look into conservative claims of misconduct at the FBI and review several issues surrounding the Clintons. This includes Hillary Clinton’s ties to a Russian nuclear agency and concerns about the Clinton Foundation.
Matthew Whitaker (l) and Robert Mueller (Credit: CNBC/Getty Images)
“Much of the focus on President Trump’s appointment of Whitaker to temporarily replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been on the possibility of Whitaker removing Mueller, a move that would undoubtedly spark public outrage and trigger full-scale investigations by Democrats, who are poised to take control of the House in January.
But federal regulations offer Whitaker, now acting attorney general, broad authority with respect to the special counsel that extends beyond the ability to remove Mueller, giving him the ability to curtail the probe in ways that would not necessarily become public knowledge until after the Russia investigation is over.
Whitaker has the power to weigh in on any major steps in the probe, such as the issuance of new subpoenas and indictments.
Should he remain at the helm of the Justice Department until the conclusion of the investigation, it will be up to Whitaker to decide which portions, if any, of Mueller’s final report are submitted to Congress or released to the public.
“He has a lot of authority, starting with his authority to remove Mueller if he finds he has good cause for doing so under the relevant regulation,” said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor. “There are both hard and soft powers that the relevant regulation gives to the acting attorney general.”
Whitaker has assumed oversight of the probe from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at a critical point in the investigation, as the special counsel reviews Trump’s written answers to questions about potential collusion between his campaign and Moscow in 2016 and mulls further steps in his scrutiny of longtime Trump ally Roger Stone.
There are no outward signs of Whitaker limiting the probe. In a court filing Monday, Mueller’s team signaled that their authorities remain intact following the leadership shuffle at the Justice Department. Sessions submitted his resignation at Trump’s request on Nov. 7, and Whitaker was named acting attorney general that same day.” (Read more: The Hill, 11/23/2018)
Appearing behind bars in the meme include Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Bill Clinton, John Podesta, Loretta Lynch, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, James Clapper and James Comey.
Paul Manafort (l) and Julian Assange (Credit: public domain)
By: Margot Cleveland
“On TuesdayThe Guardian ran an exclusive claiming that “Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and visited around the time he joined Trump’s campaign.” According to The Guardian, Manafort met with the WikiLeaks’ founder at the embassy three times—in 2013, 2015, and in spring 2016.
While acknowledging that the purpose of the claimed meeting is unknown, The Guardian implies Manafort’s supposed March 2016 secret rendezvous concerned WikiLeaks’ role in releasing the hacked Democratic National Committee emails. “The revelation could shed new light on the sequence of events in the run-up to summer 2016, when WikiLeaks published tens of thousands of emails hacked by the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency,” The Guardian wrote.”
(…) “what is clear is that The Guardian’s story was read round the world. Major media outlets quickly regurgitated the tale that “Manafort held secret talks with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange around the time he joined Trump’s campaign.”
The timing of Tuesday’s story suggests a concerted effort to craft a new Trump collusion narrative. Just the day before, in a court filing, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team claimed Manafort violated his plea agreement by lying to federal agents “on a variety of subject matters” that would be detailed later in a sentencing submission.
Manafort, who pleaded guilty earlier this year in a Washington D.C. federal court to two criminal counts related to foreign lobbying, denies lying to the FBI or the special counsel’s office, but The Guardian’s story now gives the public cause to imagine that Manafort’s purported prevarication concerned his supposed meeting with Assange in March 2016.
Tuesday also saw CNN contributor Carl Bernstein furthering the narrative that Manafort served as the Russia connection. According to the former Watergate reporter, Mueller’s team is investigating a 2017 meeting between Manafort and the Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno. Bernstein reported that “according to a source with personal knowledge of the matter,” the special counsel is inquiring whether Manafort discussed WikiLeaks or Assange when he met with Moreno.
While CNNacknowledged that Moreno had previously stated that his 2017 meeting with Manafort involved a group of Chinese investors hoping to privatize the country’s electrical services, the goal of Bernstein’s source seems clear: to connect Manafort to Assange. That goal coincides with the story pushed by The Guardian’s two unnamed sources.
Here, the public would be wise to remember that The Guardian’s story represents the third attempt to connect the Trump campaign to the Russian hacking of the DNC emails in an effort to convince the American public that the Republican presidential candidate colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election.” (Read more: The Federalist, 11/28/2018)
(…) “In a Nov. 29DOJ press release, three executives including Abul Huda Farouki were charged “for their roles in a scheme to defraud U.S. military contracts in Afghanistan, engaging in illegal commerce in Iran, and laundering money internationally.” Farouki was the CEO of Anham, a defense contractor based in the United Arab Emirates
This wasn’t the first time Farouki or his company have been involved in allegations of misconduct. In a 2013 article by The Daily Caller, headlined “Clinton Donors Get a Pass on Shady Contracting,” Farouki and his company were highlighted:
“In June 2011, the Defense Department’s Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released a scathing report on a defense contracting company called Anham. The title of the report and its conclusion were the same: ‘Poor Government Oversight of Anham and Its Subcontracting Procedures Allowed Questionable Costs to Go Undetected.’”
The article then asked a simple question: Given prior violations, how was Anham able to secure an $8 billion contract in Afghanistan that “allowed it to illegally ship supplies through two Iranian border crossings and a seaport controlled by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard?”
Huma Abedin appears to Farouki’s right at a Tomorrow’s Youth Organization Gala event in Washington, DC on October 21, 2010. (Credit: public domain)
The $8 billion contract, along with the illegal shipment of supplies, being cited in the 2013 article appear to be exactly the same violations being alleged in the 2018 DOJ indictment. So why weren’t Farouki and his company charged with these same, known violations back in 2013?
The answer may lie within Farouki’s many connections to the Democratic Party. The Daily Caller notes that Farouki is a longtime donor to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), and donated to Obama for America in 2008. But Farouki’s closest ties lie with the Clintons and their Foundation.
“A case has been bouncing between the Washington, D.C. District Court and Circuit Court of Appeals at a breakneck pace since it was first filed in August. Pretty much everything about it has been under seal, though, so there’s no certainty on the issues involved. Whatever they may be, and whomever the person is, the court will address them in two weeks. The D.C. Circuit announced Friday that they will be hearing oral arguments in the case on December 14, in a closed session.
Law&Crime has previously reported on the mysterious legal battle that appears to be going on between Special Counsel Robert Mueller‘s office and an unidentified grand jury witness.
This latest development comes two weeks after the unknown appellant filed a 6,487-word brief in the case.
Speculation has been rampant as to what the case is about. Is it a challenge to Mueller’s authority like those brought by Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller or Concord Management? Is it something else altogether?
“The evidence continues to mount that during the Obama administration, the FBI used George Papadopoulos as a prop to legitimize launching its investigation into the Donald Trump campaign. While the FBI claimed it initiated Crossfire Hurricane on July 31, 2016 in response to reports that Russian-linked individuals told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, that story seemed shaky from the start.
Since then, text and email messages between former MI6 spy and Fusion GPS dossier author Christopher Steele and twice-demoted Department of Justice attorney Bruce Ohr raised the possibility that information Steele fed the FBI through Ohr was the true justification for the the FBI targeting the Trump campaign. A Wednesday tweet from Carter Page gives further credence to the suggestion that the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded Steele dossier served as the basis for the FBI’s interest in the Trump campaign.
In his tweet, Page included a screen grab of a July 2016 text message from Washington Post reporter Damian Paletta asking the former Trump campaign advisor about his supposed meeting in Moscow with Igor Sechin, and another meeting Page reportedly had with “a senior Kremlin official—Divyekin—and he said they have solid kompromat on Clinton as well as Trump.”
The details in Paletta’s text mirror the information contained in the Steele dossier memorandum dated July 19, 2016. The July 26, 2016, date of the text indicates Steele must have shared his supposed intelligence with the Washington Post reporter around that time. Here are relevant sections in the dossier memorandum, below.
It is difficult to fathom that Steele would share the details of his dossier with a reporter but not with his long-time friend Ohr when Steele met with Bruce and his wife Nellie on July 30, 2016 in Washington D.C. Yet, in his memorandum on the Russian investigation, incoming House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff claimed “Steele’s reporting did not reach the counterintelligence team investigating Russia at FBI headquarters until mid-September 2016, more than seven weeks after the FBI opened its investigation, because the probe’s existence was so closely held within the FBI.”
A second detail from this week’s reporting on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation adds further evidence to the fraud the FBI pushed in pointing to Papadopoulos as the basis for the Russian probe. Papadopoulos’ purported Russian connection was a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud, who supposedly told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on Clinton. However, as I noted previously, in February 2017—more than six months after the FBI launched their investigation into the Trump campaign—Mifsud spoke at a State Department-sponsored function in Washington D.C., at which time the FBI interviewed him. Mifsud later returned to Italy and disappeared.” (Read more: The Federalist, 11/30/2018)
Dmitry Peskov (Credit: Pavel Golovkin/The Associated Press)
(…) And as if the media needed more evidence that the Trump Tower Moscow controversy has already been litigated in the public eye, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday offered a quick reminder when he showed two of Cohen’s emails to a group of reporters, confirming a 15-month old report that Cohen had reached out to him to ask for help with facilitating the project (none was offered, and the project was eventually abandoned), the Daily Mail reported.
As a reminder, here’s what Peskov and Cohen said about Cohen’s ‘contact’ with the Kremlin at the time (per CNN). Cohen has since admitted to lying about the talks ending in January 2016, and has instead claimed that they continued – with the president’s involvement at times – until the summer of 2017.
“This email said that a certain Russian company together with certain individuals is pursuing the goal of building a skyscraper in the ‘Moscow City’ district, but things aren’t going well and they asked for help with some advice on moving this project forward,” Peskov said. “But, since, I repeat again, we do not react to such business topics — this is not our work — we left it unanswered.” He added: “We cannot discuss with President Putin hundreds and thousands of different requests, which, by the way, come from a variety of countries.”
Cohen revealed Monday that he had made the overture to Moscow at a point well into Trump’s presidential campaign.
“The Trump Moscow proposal was simply one of many development opportunities that the Trump Organization considered and ultimately rejected,” Cohen said in a written statement.
“In late January 2016, I abandoned the Moscow proposal because I lost confidence that the prospective licensee would be able to obtain the real estate, financing and government approvals necessary to bring the proposal to fruition,” he added. “It was a building proposal that did not succeed and nothing more.” (Read more: Zero Hedge, 11/30/2018)
Bernard Sansaricq is no ordinary man, who once held the position of president of the senate of Haiti in 1994, as well as the former senator of the republic of Haiti in both 1991, and 1997. He is a man of honor, courage, and loyalty, supercharged with the fiery of a lion, in his fight for justice. Not only has Bernard spent the better part of his life fighting for the people of Haiti, he spent tireless months campaigning for President Trump, while exposing what the Clintons have done to his native country.
(…) Bernard has one of the most remarkable stories, and is a true living testament to what the Clintons are capable of. In this 48-min interview, Bernard speaks about his native land, what it has evolved into throughout the years, those involved in the corruption, what is happening in Haiti today, and closes with a special message to President Trump, who is the one person Bernard believes can help to dismantle the corruption. Anyone who listens to him speak, will feel his heart, his soul, and his fight for justice.
This is the first in a series of upcoming interviews with Bernard, as the people of Haiti continue their fight to remove President Jovenel Moise, their corrupt officials, and get justice for what the Clintons have done, and continue to do. (Corey’s Digs, 12/5/2018)(Archive)(Corey’s Digs Haiti Archive)
(Timeline editor’s note: The original video in this article was removed by YouTube but a copy is archived that won’t appear for us so we are leaving the archive link for you to copy and paste. Remove spaces between hyphens then copy and paste.)
408,567 views Oct 12, 2016
Former Haitian Senate President Bernard Sansaricq weighs in on the Clinton Foundation’s Haitian relief effort controversy.
h/t @seacaptim
Pembroke Pines, Florida
Bernard Sansaricq Obituary
Obituary published on Legacy.com by Boyd-Panciera Family Funeral Care – Pembroke Pines Chapel on Aug. 4, 2023.
Broward County, Florida resident, Bernard Sansaricq, 79, passed away on July 11, 2023, due to complications with his liver, with his beloved family by his side.
Bernard was born May 17, 1944, in Les Cayes, Haiti, to Louis A. Sansaricq and Marie Anne Odette De Catalogne. After graduating from Bordentown Military Institute in 1963, he went on to study business administration at Pace University in New York. Bernard was a passionate advocate for human rights and an experienced politician on the international stage. He rose to become one of Haiti’s top leaders and President of the Haitian Senate. In 2010, he ran for U.S. Congress in Florida’s 23rd congressional district. Even in his later years, he remained very active in the political scene. Aside from his devotion to family and politics, Bernard was an animal lover and consistently donated to the ASPCA.
He is predeceased by his parents and his brother, Robert. Bernard is survived by his two daughters from his first marriage, Pascale Wilder (husband Todd) and Sandra Lynch (husband Tom); his current wife of 37 years, Alejandra Sansaricq, as well as his step-children, Jean-Pierre, Monique, and Nicole Mouakar (husband Elvis). In total, he had six grandchildren, Brittany, Alexa, Shane, Brooke, Natalia and Sofia, and two-great-grandchildren, Monaco and Milan. He is also survived by his siblings, Gerard and Michele, and many other nephews, nieces, cousins, and loving relatives of the Sansaricq and De Catalogne family.
“Today on Face The Nation Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Vice-Chairman Mark Warner describes how his committee is working with Robert Mueller; including: (a) several criminal referrals (Cohen was one); and (b) the sharing of congressional transcripts so Mueller (the team, not the person) can cross reference statements given to him with testimony given to the SSCI.
Tell me again how letting SSCI Security Director, James Wolfe, off the hook for leaking classified intelligence to the media, including the Carter Page FISA application, was not to cover for SSCI members instructing Mr. Wolfe to carry out those leaks.
For several years, and with increased urgency at each discovery/admission, CTH has been highlighting how the SSCI was part of the 2015, 2016, 2017 plan to eliminate Donald Trump (Spygate), and later remove President Trump (insurance policy).
The most recent series of events by Robert Mueller is a quid-pro-quo to cover for the SSCI involvement. This is not confirmational bias against the SSCI; this is factual evidence of the SSCI’s corruption. Please understand the basic issue here. The SSCI is complicit with the overall scheme – and Robert Mueller, via a plan of mutual benefit and coordination, is trying to protect that from surfacing.
(…) “Remember, those SSCI Senators (Vice-Chair Mark Warner, Dianne Feinstein and senior staffer Dan Jones etc.) were coordinating with Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign allies; and were direct participants in “Spygate” and the insurance policy known as the special counsel.
This is one of the reasons why it is likely, damned near certain, that senior SSCI senators instructed James Wolfe to leak information, including the March 17th copy of the Carter Page FISA application, and that is why Rosenstein and Mueller let James Wolfe plea to a much lesser one-count crime of lying.
Remember when SSCI senator Dianne Feinstein released the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson’s testimony so that all of downstream participants could coordinate their stories? Oh, how quickly we forget.
It is near certain that Feinstein gave up her Senate Intelligence Vice-Chair position following the 2016 presidential election because there was an inherent political risk for any intelligence-oversight Democrat in relation to the FBI’s Trump operation, “spygate”. Feinstein’s staffer, Dan Jones, then paid Fusion-GPS $50 million to continue the efforts.
Remember Oleg Deripaska’s lawyer/lobbyist Adam Waldman having secret text messages with new SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner relaying communication from Christopher Steele that Senator Warner wanted to keep quiet?
Adam Waldman texting Senator Warner about Chris Steele and outlining how Feinstein’s former senior staffer Dan Jones was coming to see him.
(link)
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is as corrupt and complicit within the entire Spygate fiasco as the DOJ and FBI. That’s why Mueller and Rosenstein (small group) are working to protect the Senators and staff just like they protect the corrupt officials in the DOJ and FBI. Mueller’s entire operation is structured around this type of scheming cover-up.
This is Deep State (via Mueller/Rosenstein) fighting President Trump; and trying to blunt the declassification weapon he holds. Nothing more.
Michael Sussmann (l) and James Baker (Credit: Perkins Coie/public domain)
“Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice seeking records of all meetings in 2016 between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and the Perkins Coie law firm. The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reportedly paid Fusion GPS to create the “salacious and unverified” Clinton-DNC anti-Trump dossier.
The lawsuit cites a specific media report that FBI top lawyer Baker met with Perkins Coie lawyers to discuss allegations of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. The meeting reportedly took place weeks before the 2016 election and before the FBI secured a controversial FISA spy warrant targeting then-candidate Trump’s campaign.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the DOJ failed to respond to an October 9, 2018, FOIA request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice(No. 1:18-cv-02617)) seeking:
All records concerning any and all meetings between former FBI general counsel James Baker and one or more attorneys from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm during 2016.
On October 4, 2018, Fox News reported that Baker told congressional investigators that Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann “initiated contact with him and provided documents and computer storage devices on Russian hacking.” The contact was made in late 2016 as federal investigators prepared a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
At the time, Perkins Coie had hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig into President Trump’s background. Fusion GPS paid British ex-spy Christopher Steele to compile the anti-Trump dossier, memos from which were shared with the FBI in the summer of 2016.
The DNC and Clinton campaign’s funding of the unverified dossier was revealed in a memo from House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes which was disclosed publicly on February 2, 2018.
According to an October 24, 2017, report, Perkins Coie lawyer Marc E. Elias retained Fusion GPS in April 2016 on behalf of the Clinton campaign and DNC: “The Clinton campaign and DNC, through the law firm, continued to fund Fusion GPS’s research through the end of October 2016, days before Election Day.” Fusion GPS gave Steele’s dossier and other research documents to Elias.
“The real collusion scandal is the hand-in-hand effort by the Clinton campaign and the Obama DOJ/FBI to spy upon and destroy Donald J. Trump,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The FBI, pulled by the troika of Comey/McCabe/Strzok, became an arm of the Clinton campaign. And our new lawsuit aims to get to the bottom of the massive scandal.” (Judicial Watch, 12/03/2018)
Glenn Simpson (l) and Chuck Grassley (Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)
“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is drawing parallels between the false testimony that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen gave to Congress in 2017 and the “extremely misleading” statements made by the founder of the firm that commissioned the infamous Steele dossier.
“I hope that the Justice Department is handling all these instances of false statements to Congress with the same level of seriousness they treated Mr. Cohen’s,” Grassley, an Iowa Republican, wrote Monday in a letter to Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
Cohen pleaded guilty on Nov. 29 in the special counsel’s investigation to lying to Congress in 2017 about the extent of his attempts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Cohen admitted he lied about how long he worked on the project, which was ultimately scuttled in June 2016.
Grassley accused Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of Fusion GPS, of possibly lying during his Aug. 22, 2017 testimony when he claimed that his firm was not working for a client to investigate President Donald Trump after the 2016 election.
“So you didn’t do any work on the Trump matter after the election date, that was the end of your work?” Simpson was asked in his deposition.
“I had no client after the election,” said Simpson.
“As we now know, that was extremely misleading, if not an outright lie,” Grassley asserted in his letter to Blumenthal.
Grassley noted that a former Senate staffer named Daniel Jones told the FBI in March 2017 that he hired Fusion GPS and former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier, after the election to continue an investigation into Trump’s possible ties to Russia. (Read more: Daily Caller, 12/04/2018)
“The only remaining FBI counterintelligence official at the center of all Spygate and Clinton investigation issues is departing. The enigma man, E.W. “Bill” Piestap is retiring from the FBI. Bill Priestap is the FBI Asst. Director in charge of all counterintelligence operations. Priestap was FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s boss; he was also at the epicenter of the story surrounding every action taken by the FBI in the Clinton investigation and the Trump campaign investigation.
Bill Priestap (Credit: public domain)
Bill Priestap was copied on every email of consequence including the writing of the Clinton exoneration talking points delivered by FBI Director James Comey. Priestap was the central figure on the FBI side of both Clinton and Trump operations. “Bill” is mentioned in hundreds of text messages sent by Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
In short, Bill Priestap was everywhere – except where you would most likely expect to find him, in media discussion. The timing seems curious though the Wall Street Journal goes to great lengths to describe the timing as a mere happenstance due to his 20-year service anniversary and the opportunity to retire with full benefits:
WASHINGTON—A top FBI official who helped oversee two politically sensitive investigations related to the 2016 presidential campaign is retiring from government service.
Bill Priestap, who currently serves as assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s counterintelligence division, will leave his post by the end of the year. Mr. Priestap, a 20-year veteran of the bureau, worked on organized crime and drug cases in Chicago before rising through the national security ranks of the agency after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Mr. Priestap’s retirement is unrelated to the controversies over the handling of the 2016 investigations, according to a person familiar with the matter. He “became eligible to retire and has chosen to do so after 20 years of service,” the FBI said in a statement.
The federal government allows some employees, including FBI agents, to retire with full benefits if they are 50 or older and have at least two decades of service.
During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Priestap was one of several officials at the center of two politically volatile probes: the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information, and a counterintelligence inquiry into whether associates of then-candidate Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government.
After Mr. Priestap’s departure, none of the high-ranking bureau officials involved in the two investigations will remain with the bureau. FBI director James Comey was fired by President Trump last year, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was later dismissed by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions over his contacts with the media, days before he was eligible to retire with benefits.
Peter Strzok, the chief of the counterespionage section, left the FBI this year after it emerged that he had sent disparaging text messages about Mr. Trump.
Top bureau officials, especially those with national security experience, are in high demand in private-sector fields like cybersecurity, defense contracting and private intelligence. Mr. Priestap’s future plans aren’t known. (read more)
(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)
(…) Priestap was so important that during FBI Director James Comey’s March 20th, 2017congressional testimony Director Comey told congress it was Bill Priestap who recommended that congressional oversight should not be notified of the ongoing counterintelligence operations. Priestap’s instruction was so important that despite the rules violation FBI Director Comey followed his recommendation and kept congress in the dark.
On June 5th, 2018, FBI Director of Counterintelligence E.W. “Bill” Priestap testified to a joint session of the House Judiciary and House Oversight committees.
The hearing was a matter of strong public interest. Mr. Priestap was questioned for approximately seven hours. However, journalist Olivia Beavers covering for The Hill dropped a detail that seemed rather curious:
(…) Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), however, said he felt that Priestap didn’t say anything that would indicate there was “political bias that motivated the Hillary Clinton email investigation.”
Priestap “completely” backed up everything that Comey said, according to a source familiar with his testimony.
Only three lawmakers — Jordan, Meadows and Krishnamoorthi — attended the hearing, which took place on the first day after a week-long recess.
Priestap’s interview comes after the joint House investigation stalled for months after being first announced. (more)
On the home-front: FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap is married to Sabina Menshell a self-employed “consultant” with a history of donations to Democrat candidates, specifically to Hillary Clinton.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/04/2018)
BREAKING: Joe Biden unwittingly financed Hunter Biden’s participation in an escort ring tied to Russia.
Joe Biden wired $100,000 to Hunter from Dec. 2018 through Jan. 2019, the same timeframe he spent 30k on escorts tied to .ru email addresses.https://t.co/HI1t8ndDB6
(…) “What’s wrong with you?” Hunter told the Washington Examiner shortly after this story was published.
There is no suggestion in these messages that Joe Biden knew what his son was spending his support payments on.
Hunter Biden disclosed in text messages with a woman named Eva, the go-between who served as his primary point of contact for UberGFE, that his accounts were temporarily frozen at one point because his attempted payments to her “girls” with Russian email accounts were too much of a “red flag” for his bank. Eva refers to him as Robert in the messages, which is his birth name.
Hunter Biden’s text exchange with “Eva,” his primary point of contact for the Russian-linked escort agency UberGFE on Feb. 27, 2019. (Credit: Washington Examiner)
A 2020 Senate report by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) said: “Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries,” and records note some of these transactions are linked to what “appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”
The report said Hunter Biden “sent thousands of dollars” to people either involved in “transactions consistent with possible human trafficking” or “potential association with prostitution.” Some of the women “subsequently wired funds they have received from Hunter Biden to individuals located in Russia and Ukraine.”
Grassley and Johnson sent a 2019letter to the director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network requesting “all Suspicious Activity Reports” tied to Hunter Biden and his businesses. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 6/27/2022)(Archive)
“Judicial Watch announced today that, in a ruling excoriating both the U.S. Departments of State and Justice, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth has ordered both agencies to join Judicial Watch in submitting a proposed schedule for discovery into whether Hillary Clinton sought to evade the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by using a private email system and whether the State Department acted in “bad faith” by failing to disclose knowledge of the email system. The decision comes in a FOIA lawsuit related to the Benghazi terrorist attack.
Lamberth ruled:
“… the Court ORDERS the parties to meet and confer to plan discovery into (a) whether Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email while Secretary of State was an intentional attempt to evade FOIA; (b) whether the State Department’s attempts to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and (c) whether State has adequately searched for records responsive to Judicial Watch’s requests.”
Terming Clinton’s use of her private email system, “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency,” Lamberth wrote in his MEMORANDUM OPINION:
“… his [President Barack Obama’s] State and Justice Departments fell far short. So far short that the court questions, even now, whether they are acting in good faith. Did Hillary Clinton use her private email as Secretary of State to thwart this lofty goal [Obama announced standard for transparency]? Was the State Department’s attempt to settle this FOIA case in 2014 an effort to avoid searching – and disclosing the existence of – Clinton’s missing emails? And has State ever adequately searched for records in this case?”
***
At best, State’s attempt to pass-off its deficient search as legally adequate during settlement negotiations was negligence born out of incompetence. At worst, career employees in the State and Justice Departments colluded to scuttle public scrutiny of Clinton, skirt FOIA, and hoodwink this Court.
Turning his attention to the Department of Justice, Lamberth wrote:
“The current Justice Department made things worse. When the government last appeared before the Court, counsel claimed, ‘it is not true to say we misled either Judicial Watch or the Court.’ When accused of ‘doublespeak,’ counsel denied vehemently, feigned offense, and averred complete candor. When asked why State masked the inadequacy of its initial search, counsel claimed that the officials who initially responded to Judicial Watch’s request didn’t realize Clinton’s emails were missing, and that it took them two months to ‘figure [ ] out what was going on’… Counsel’s responses strain credulity.” [citations omitted]
The Court granted discovery because the government’s response to the Judicial Watch Benghazi FOIA request for Clinton emails “smacks of outrageous conduct.”
Citing an email (uncovered as a result of Judicial Watch’s lawsuit) that Hillary Clinton acknowledged that Benghazi was a terrorist attack immediately after it happened, Judge Lamberth asked:
Did State know Clinton deemed the Benghazi attack terrorism hours after it happened, contradicting the Obama Administration’s subsequent claim of a protest-gone-awry?”
(Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/The Associated Press)
“A controversial and classified document, alleging potential misconduct by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, resurfaced on December 7, suggesting lawmakers may press Lynch about the memo during her own deposition.
While the contents of the document remain classified, media leaks suggest it includes an email from the then-chair of the Democratic National Committee Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Leonard Benardo of the Open Society Foundations, the nonprofit organization run by billionaire Democratic fundraiser George Soros. The email shows Lynch assured Clinton-campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s unauthorized access to the private email server would not “go too far.”
(…) Comey said the document was one of the factors that led him to break from established protocol and announce the exoneration of Clinton in a press conference. During his transcribed deposition (pdf) on Capitol Hill on Dec. 9, Comey answered questions about the document to both a Democrat and a Republican.
“[I’ve] tried to be very careful in public comments about this. There was material that had not been verified that I believed if it became public, would be used to cast doubt on whether the Attorney General had acted appropriately with respect to the investigation,” Comey said in response to a question from Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) about the document on Dec. 9. “I don’t think I’m allowed to go beyond that in characterizing that material.”
“So far as I knew at the time, and still think, the material itself was genuine, which is a separate question, though, from whether it was what it said was accurate,” Comey added in response to a question from Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).
Comey had previously written about the document in his book, explaining that he made the exoneration announcement because of a “development still unknown to the American public” that “cast serious doubt” on Lynch.
During his testimony, Comey agreed disclosing information in the document to the public would “have caused some to question the objectivity of the Department of Justice (DOJ).”
According to Comey, Lynch and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates were briefed on the contents of the document. The FBI then interviewed Lynch about the matter, although he was not present, Comey said.
If, since last year, the FBI or lawmakers had found a way to verify the accuracy of the document, it would prove that Obama administration officials at the highest level were using their power to further a political agenda. The finding could be especially devastating since it could implicate the head of the Justice Department, an entity traditionally independent of The White House and politics.
Lynch’s actions are behind three of the main reasons that Comey cites for announcing that no charges will be brought against Clinton. The usual protocol is for the Justice Department, not the FBI, to make a determination about bringing charges. Neither the FBI nor the DOJ announces details of investigations that do not result in prosecution.
Comey said he decided to make the announcement because of the way Lynch’s tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton could be perceived. Lynch had also told Comey to refer to the Clinton investigation as a matter.
The FBI would go on to interview Clinton on July 2, five days after the tarmac meeting. According to Ratcliffe, Clinton was never asked about the tarmac meeting during the FBI interview.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/09/2018)
Jimmy Dore explains how the Democratic National Committee’s lawsuit against Wikileaks, is a threat against freedom of the press and our First Amendment rights.
The Department of Justice files a sentencing memo in the case against the Security Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe. Wolfe pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators about his media leaks and frequent contacts with journalists. The DOJ did not charge Wolfe with leaking classified intelligence despite their initial charging documents that outlined evidence therein.
Chairman Richard Burr speaks while flanked by ranking member Sen. Mark Warner and Sen. Dianne Feinstein during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on August 1, 2018. (Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
“Three current or former leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are urging that one of the panel’s former aides escape prison time for lying amid an investigation into leaks related to the ongoing probe of the Trump campaign and possible collusion with Russia.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and former Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are encouraging a federal judge not to put the committee’s former security director, James Wolfe, behind bars for a series of false statements he admitted giving to the FBI during the leak investigation.
“Jim has already lost much through these events, to include his career and reputation, and we do not believe there is any public utility in depriving him of his freedom,” Burr, Warner and Feinstein wrote in a letter Wolfe’s defense attorneys submitted Tuesday to U.S. District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The request could expose all three senators to criticism because they have been harsh critics of leaks of classified information and are now seeking leniency for a former colleague who pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his contacts with reporters.” (Read more: Politico, 12/11/2018)(Archive)
“Department of Justice investigators were unable to recover text messages Peter Strzok and Lisa Page sent during their short tenure on the special counsel’s investigation, according to a report released Thursday by the DOJ’s office of the inspector general (OIG).
(…) The new OIG report focuses mostly on a five-month gap in messages between Strzok and Page. When investigators began looking at Strzok and Page’s FBI-issued phones, they found no messages from Dec. 13, 2016, to May 17, 2017, the same day Mueller was appointed special counsel.
The FBI chalked the missing text messages up to a glitch that affected the message retention system on many FBI-issued phones. Government forensic analysts were able to recover many texts from the missing period. The OIG did not dispute the FBI’s claims about why the messages were missing from the phones.
The phone Strzok used while he was on the Mueller team was inspected by a records officer with the special counsel, who found no “substantive” messages on the device. Page’s device was only recovered by the inspector general in September. It had been reset to factory settings July 31, 2017.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/13/2018) (OIG Report, December 2018)
Petr Aven (rt) and Mikhail Fridman file a defamation suit in the United States on October 3, 2017. (Credit: Reuters)
“There is an ongoing defamation lawsuit between Alfa Bank principals Mikhail Fridman, Peter Aven, German Khan, and FusionGPS. The three allege that FusionGPS defamed and harmed them in commissioning “Memo 112” of the now infamous Steele dossier, which purports that the three were collaborating with Vladimir Putin, and accuses another lower level Alfa bank employee of criminal misconduct at the behest of Putin.
Within a filing in the FusionGPS case, is an attachment from a related appeal that Fridman, Aven, and Khan filed in litigation they also brought against Orbis (Steele’s company). The filing includes written answers provided by Orbis in matters before the court in the UK. On page 76, is a courtesy copy of a British High Court Filing involving Christopher Steele and Orbis.
Orbis is asked why Perkins Coie needed the information in the memo about Alfa Bank. The response is quite alarming. Orbis answers (emphasis ours) “Fusion’s immediate client was law firm Perkins Coie, LLP. It engaged Fusion to obtain information necessary for Perkins Coie, LLP to provide legal advice on the potential impact of Russian involvement on the legal validity of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential Election. Based on that advice, parties such as the Democratic National Committee and HFACC Inc. (also known as “Hillary for America”) could consider steps they would be legally entitled to take to challenge the validity of the outcome of the election.”
There are serious implications to the testimony. What Orbis is certifying to the UK court, is that when Perkins Coie hired FusionGPS in June of 2016, they did so with the expectation that FusionGPS would provide the information they would need to challenge the validity of the 2016 election, based on Russian interference. The only problem is that FusionGPS was retained by Perkins Coie much earlier than what is purportedly the start date of the now infamous Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence investigation. The FBI asserts that the Crossfire Hurricane investigation began in late July of 2016, based on a tip about George Papadopoulos meeting with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer. The entire premise of that investigation is now under its own scrutiny in the John Durham probe.
Marc Elias addresses the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court Dec. 5, 2016. (Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)
As UncoverDC will detail in a moment, there was near-constant communication between Elias and FusionGPS principals throughout the duration of the engagement. Marc Elias, when questioned in front of the HPSCI in December of 2017, never mentions a word about Russian interference as he is probed about the odd retention of FusionGPS. From the transcript, we learn that Elias was initially approached by FusionGPS. FusionGPS told Elias that they had done research into candidate Trump for another client, and would be able to assist Perkins Coie in providing information that would be beneficial to the Clinton campaign and DNC. As the questioning continues, Trey Gowdy asks Elias specifically whether Simpson told him that there was information pertaining to Russia. Elias leaves his answer somewhat open-ended:
“When confronted by detractors, the Clinton Foundation often uses a common line of defense: The charity is one of the most scrutinized in history and no one has found anything wrong with it.
But state regulatory filings suggest that may not be true.
In December 2005, for example, the Utah Division of Consumer Protection flagged missing information in the Clinton Foundation’s federal tax filing with the IRS, known as a form 990. The state regulator specifically flagged money spent on professional fundraisers and consultants that were excluded from the required section of the filing.
The state regulator urged the charity to file “an amended IRS form 990 reporting professional fundraising/consultant fees on line 30.” In particular, officials questioned nearly a half-million dollars in consultant fees about which it wanted more detail.
The foundation’s tax filing for the year in question, 2004, showed zero dollars spent on the required line for fundraising consulting expenses, even though other documents filed with the IRS identified more than $400,000.
The review was standard for a charity seeking a license to operate in Utah. The response regulators got back, however, was not so standard: Former President Clinton’s charity declined to make the change, even though Utah was suggesting the foundation’s federal tax form was incomplete or misleading.
“The problem that the Foundation faces is the enormous expenses and undertaking it would be to amend its 990,” a law firm representing the Clinton Foundation wrote back.
“Given that obstacle, the Foundation has no choice but to withdraw its application to register to solicit the public in Utah.”
In lay words, the cost of properly informing the IRS and complying with federal tax law was too much, so the foundation just ditched its Utah licensing request. There is no record of amended 2004 tax form by the charity, which means Utah’s concerns about possible missing information for the IRS wasn’t addressed at the federal level.
Foundation officials confirm the episode but said they believed they did not mislead the IRS because other parts of their submission included fundraising consulting expenses in a category called “Other Expenses.” “Our 2004 Form 990 is complete by IRS standards as we fully disclose fundraising expenditures in Part II – Other Expenses,” the foundation said in a statement emailed to me.
The Utah episode, though a decade old, and other state regulatory issues involving the Clinton Foundation are gaining new attraction because they are included in thousands of pages of documents gathered in a whistleblower submission filed last year by a firm composed of former federal law enforcement investigators, called MDA Analytics LLC.
That submission made with the IRS and eventually provided to the Justice Department in Washington and to the FBI in Little Rock, Ark., alleges there is “probable cause” to believe the Clinton Foundation broke federal tax law and possibly owes millions of dollars in tax penalties. That submission and its supporting evidence will be one focus of a GOP-led congressional hearing Thursday in the House.
The foundation strongly denies any wrongdoing. But it acknowledges its own internal legal reviews in 2008 and 2011 cited employee concerns ranging from quid pro quo promises to donors, to improper commingling of personal and charity business.
Another of the issues the foundation’s own lawyers flagged: a culture of noncompliance.
Some issues with compliance are clear in a review of more than 2,000 pages of state regulatory filings and actions involving the foundation that were included in the whistleblower submission.
For example, the foundation entered into a consent decree in 2002 in Mississippi in which it admitted it had raised money in the state without a proper license. The foundation says it was simply an oversight, paying a small fine in the hundreds of dollars.
But the charity potentially engaged in false statements for years later, inaccurately declaring in numerous states that it had never been subject to an adverse regulatory action — while failing to disclose the Mississippi violation.
The whistleblower submission to the IRS identified more than 100 state forms in which the foundation inaccurately answered. The foundation conceded the errors to me but suggested they were akin to minor traffic violations, pointing to a column by a tax expert two years ago that made such a case.
Likewise, in 2008, the Clinton Foundation’s AIDs charitable arm had its license to collect donations in Massachusetts involuntarily revoked for failure to file the necessary paperwork.
Foundation officials blamed that action on paperwork failing to keep up with changes in the group, which altered its name and eventually spun off from the foundation. State regulators weren’t told the old group’s name had been allowed to expire.
The records also show the foundation received multiple deficiency notifications and had its license expire once in the state of Georgia, usually because of late paperwork. (Read more: The Hill, 12/06/2018)
Joe Biden called Hunter in December 2018 saying he wanted to talk to him after reading a New York Times story about Hunter’s dealings with the Chinese oil giant CEFC
Files on Hunter’s abandoned laptop previously disclosed by DailyMail.com show that he struck a deal with the Chinese company worth millions of dollars
The Times’2018 story pointed out CEFC’s chairman Ye Jianming had been arrested in China and his lieutenant Patrick Ho had been convicted of bribery
Hunter accidentally recorded himself referring to Ho as the ‘spy chief of China’
After seeing the story online, Joe called Hunter and left a voicemail
‘I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear,’ Joe said in the voicemail
The message flies in the face of the president’s repeated denials that he ever discussed Hunter’s overseas business dealings with his son
“A court in Ukraine has ruled that officials in the country violated the law by revealing, during the 2016 presidential election in the United States, details of suspected illegal payments to Paul Manafort.
2016, while Mr. Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign, anti-corruption prosecutors in Ukraine disclosed that a pro-Russian political party had earmarked payments for Mr. Manafort from an illegal slush fund. Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign a week later.
The court’s ruling that what the prosecutors did was illegal comes as the Ukrainian government, which is deeply reliant on the United States for financial and military aid, has sought to distance itself from matters related to the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.
(…) After President Trump’s victory, some politicians in Ukraine criticized the public release by prosecutors of the slush fund records, saying the move would complicate Ukraine’s relations with the Trump administration.
In Ukraine, investigations into the payments marked for Mr. Manafort were halted for a time and never led to indictments. Mr. Manafort’s conviction in the United States on financial fraud charges related to his work in Ukraine was not based on any known legal assistance from Ukraine.
Two Ukrainian members of Parliament had pressed for investigations into whether the prosecutors’ revelation of the payment records, which were first published in The New York Times, had violated Ukrainian laws that, in some cases, prohibit prosecutors from revealing evidence before a trial.
Both lawmakers asserted that if the release of the slush fund information broke the law, then it should be viewed as an illegal effort to influence the United States presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton by damaging the Trump campaign.
The Kiev District Administrative Court, in a statement issued Wednesday, said that Artem Sytnik, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the agency that had released information about the payments, had violated the law. The court’s statement said this violation “resulted in meddling in the electoral process of the United States in 2016 and damaged the national interests of Ukraine.”
The court also faulted a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, Serhiy A. Leshchenko, who had commented on Mr. Manafort’s case and publicized at a news conference materials that the anti-corruption bureau had already posted on its website.
Mr. Leshchenko said he would appeal the ruling, and that the court was not independent and was doing the bidding of the Ukrainian government as it sought to curry favor with the Trump administration.” (Read more: The New York Times, 12/12/2018)(Archive)
(Judge Rudolph Contreras suddenly recuses himself from the Flynn case on December 7, 2017. (Credit: public domain)
“A federal judge overseeing the case of Former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is demanding to see the FBI’s first interviews with the retired three-star general after explosive information contained in a sentencing memo released Tuesday night revealed that senior FBI leadership suggested he not have a lawyer present, nor warn him that his interview was subject to penalties if he failed to provide all the answers, according to the 178 page Defendants memorandum submitted to the court.
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ordered Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office Wednesday night to turn over all the government’s documents by mid-day Friday. The exculpatory documents requested by Sullivan include any memorandums regarding Flynn’s case because of the extraordinary circumstances of the information, according to Sullivan’s request. Further, Sullivan is also requesting any documentation regarding the first interviews conducted by former anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka -known by the FBI as 302s- which were found to be dated more than seven months after the interviews were conducted on Jan. 24, 2017, a violation of FBI policy, say current and former FBI officials familiar with the process. According to information contained in Flynn’s memorandum, the interviews were dated Aug. 22, 2017.
FBI Supervisory Agent Jeff Danik told SaraACarter.com Sullivan must also request all the communications between the two agents, as well as their supervisors around the August 2017 time-frame in order to get a complete and accurate picture of what transpired. Danik, who is an expert in FBI policy, says it is imperative that Sullivan also request “the workflow chart, which would show one-hundred percent, when the 302s were created when they were sent to a supervisor and who approved them.”
“The bureau policy – the absolute FBI policy – is that the notes must be placed in the system in a 1-A file within five days of the interview,” said Danik, who added that handwritten notes get placed into the FBI Sentinel System, which is the FBI’s main record keeping system. “Anything beyond five business days is a problem, eight months is a disaster.”
“In a case of this magnitude there is no question what is going on,” said Danik. “These agents went in the White House and had a case with a possible witness of his stature and didn’t write it up until almost eight months later? That is is unconscionable – it’s not fair to the defendant and absolutely goes against FBI policy.” (Read more: Sara Carter, 12/13 2018)
Lawrence Doyle (l) and John Moynihan testify to the House Oversight Committee on December 13, 2018. (Credit: CSpan)
December 13, 2018 was a day of anticipation for many that were waiting to hear from US Attorney John Huber about his findings on the Clinton Foundation. However, US Representative Mark Meadows, and financial analysts John Moynihan, and Larry Doyle all suggested he was not present at the hearing due to ongoing investigations into the Clinton Foundation. Interestingly, Moynihan and Doyle stated they sent documents to Huber’s office three times because his office stated they “misplaced” the documents. Meanwhile, they are confident that the FBI in Little Rock is in fact investigating the Clintons, and even have photos of the IRS and FBI loading a 757 plane with boxes of Clinton Foundation documents. When taking all of this information into consideration, it suggests that the investigation into the Clinton Foundation may have always resided with the FBI in Little Rock, and Huber may not even be involved in those specific investigations. It’s difficult to say at this point. One thing is for certain, it has been kept very quiet and without leaks.
On the same day as the hearing, It was later reported that Huber had been attending a media round table in Utah with FBI Special Agent in Charge Eric Barnhart, to alert the public to victims of child exploitation, and discussed other topics on gangs, drug activity, and violent crimes. Both Barnhart and Huber reported that offenders are likely to commit the same crimes after being released from even lengthy prison terms and the best treatment efforts. Huber stated that his office takes on some of the worst cases you can imagine, and one particular case involved 600 images of child pornography. He had this to say about it:
600 images of child pornography translate to 600 victims who have been raped, sodomized, and otherwise exploited for sexual gratification. That’s why these crimes are serious… this isn’t looking at a dirty magazine… this is harming children, exploiting them and passing on those images and videos.
It’s supply and demand, and there’s a great demand. I don’t know what we do as a society to cure that problem, to lessen that problem, but it is a growing demand and it’s ever present, and our children are, unfortunately, the fodder and the currency in that world.
The House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on the Clinton Foundation proceeded without Huber. Tom Fitton from Judicial Watch, Associate Professor of Law Phillip Hackney, and outside whistleblowers and financial analysts Larry Doyle and John Moynihan, were all in attendance to testify. Doyle and Moynihan had been meticulously working on the Clinton Foundation financials and taxes for three years, and had submitted documents to the FBI in Little Rock, as well as several jurisdictions on both local and state levels. Their testimony provided some key information. As of December 20th, the transcript and video currently remain on c-span, but may one day be scrubbed. Corey’s Digs has preserved the video, should it ever need to be resurrected.
Key takeaways from the testimony of Moynihan and Doyle, per c-span transcript (type errors included):
• “We sent our appeal in with a FOE COE – photo copy of the FBI and IRS removing boxes from the Clinton Foundation after they brought a 757 down and taken the materials out of the Clinton Foundation in Little Rock, Arkansas. We sent that to demonstrate that your letter coming from Atlanta doesn’t reconcile with what’s going on in Little Rock.”
• “It was an open and ongoing investigation he couldn’t comment on. That would indeed indicate there’s an investigation.”
• “He stated (Clinton Foundation CFO Andrew Kessel) very specifically, and it took us both off guard, I’ve been doing this a long time, but when someone says, I know where all the bodies are buried.”
• “Overall it might have been 40% by our calculations, ended up going to programs, and 60% was administrative.” (This refers to the amount of CF funds that went to administrative, which is generally 15% for non-profits.)
• “Mr. Doyle, you said from $400 million to $2.5 billion might be subject to taxation. So you’re saying, worst case is in your opinion $400 million were improperly used in a charitable foundation named the ‘Clinton Foundation’, is that correct?” Doyle: “Yes.”
• “They were brokering money and brokering pharmaceuticals. They were an agent of money through these donors. They would take a fee, and broker the money and broker relationships with pharmaceutical companies. By the same token, they were brokering the pharmaceuticals and taking some.”
• “Our conclusions, in the interest of time, are this – foreign agent. The Foundation began acting as an agent of foreign governments throughout its life and continues to do so. As such, they should have registered under FARWA. The auditors acknowledged this fact and conceded in formal submissions that it did not operate as an agent.”
• Meadows: All right, so who approved the 501-C-3 status for the Foundation? Moynihan: Would have been the IRS. Meadows: Do you have the document? Moynihan: We have it. We’ve got the determination letters. Meadows: It was approved for what? Building a library or? Moynihan: The initial approval was simply for library. Meadows: Who modified it? Moynihan: We saw no modifications to the articles of incorporation. …. In order to go forward the application has a schedule G that asks you if CHAI is a successor organization to a previous one, so you have the library, then you have this CHAI running unapproved. You gotta get approved….. They go and make an application, and on the form schedule G, when it’s asked, is this a successor operation, they specifically and affirmatively answered no. That is a misrepresentation because it’s the same people doing the same thing.”
“The Clinton Foundation operated as a foreign agent ‘early in its life’ and ‘throughout it’s existence’ and did not operate as a 501c3 charitable foundation as required by its and is not entitled to its status as a nonprofit, alleged two highly qualified forensic investigators, accompanied by three other investigators, said in explosive testimony Thursday to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
John Moynihan and Lawerence W. Doyle, both graduates of the Catholic Jesuit College of the Holy Cross and former expert forensic government investigators, gave their shocking testimony before congress based on a nearly two-year investigation into the foundation’s work both nationally and internationally. They were assisted by three other highly trained experts in taxation law and financial forensic investigations. The forensic investigators stressed that they obtained all the documentation on the foundation legally and through Freedom of Information Request Acts from the IRS and other agencies.
(…) Doyle and Moynihan have amassed 6,000 documents in their nearly two-year investigation through their private firm MDA Analytics LLC. The documents were turned over more than a year and a half ago to the IRS, according to John Solomon, who first published the report last week in The Hill.
“The investigation clearly demonstrates that the foundation was not a charitable organization per se, but in point of fact was a closely held family partnership,” said Doyle, who formerly worked on Wall Street and has been involved with finance for the last ten years conducting investigations. “As such, it was governed in a fashion in which it sought in large measure to advance the personal interests of its principles as detailed within the financial analysis of this submission and further confirmed within the supporting documentation and evidence section.”
(…) The Clinton Foundation “began acting as an agent of foreign governments ‘early in its life’ and throughout its existence. As such, the foundation should’ve registered under FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act),” he said. “Ultimately, the Foundation and its auditors conceded in formal submissions that it did operate as a (foreign) agent, therefore the foundation is not entitled to its 501c3 tax-exempt privileges as outlined in IRS 170 (c)2.”
Doyle, who was also outlining a litany of violations by the foundation, noted that currently there are approximately 1.75 million nonprofits in the United States that annually generate nearly 2 trillion dollars, which is 9 percent of the U.S. GDP.
“Who’s minding the store, looking out for the donors and minding the rule of law,” said Doyle.
“On that note, we followed the money so we made extensive spreadsheets of their revenues and expenses, we analyzed their income statements and we did a macro-review of all the donors, which is a very (jumbled) sort of foundation,” said Doyle. “Less than 1/10th of one percent of the donors gave 80 percent of the money. So we follow the money.”
Moynihan added that the foundation “did pursue programs and activities for which it had neither sought nor achieved permission to undertake.”
Particularly, he noted the case of the Clinton Presidential Library in 2004. He noted that the foundation’s role before and after the library was built was a misrepresentation to donors “of the approval organizational tax status to raise funds for the presidential library programs therein. In these pursuits, the foundation failed the organizational and operational task 501c3 internal revenue code 7.25.3.”
Additionally, Doyle stated that the foundation’s intentional “misuse of donated public funds.” He stated that the foundation “falsely attested that it received funds and used them for charitable purposes which were in fact not the case. Rather the foundation pursued in an array of activities both domestically and abroad.”
“Some may be deemed philanthropic, albeit unimproved, while other much larger in scope are properly characterized as profit-oriented and taxable undertakings of private enterprise again failing the operational tests philanthropy referenced above,” Doyle said.” (Read more: Sara Carter, 12/14/2018)
The U.S. Department of Justice files a response to the defense sentencing memo of James Wolfe; the indicted security director of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Govt. Exhibit #13 is critical (scroll to the bottom of the document).
Michael Flynn arrives at Trump Tower for meetings with President-elect Donald Trump January 4, 2017 in New York. (Credit: Timothy A. Clary/Agence France Presse/Getty Images)
“The Special Counsel’s Office released key documents related to former National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn Friday. Robert Mueller’s office had until 3 p.m. to get the documents to Judge Emmet Sullivan, who demanded information Wednesday after bombshell information surfaced in a memorandum submitted by Flynn’s attorney’s that led to serious concerns regarding the FBI’s initial questioning of the retired three-star general.
The highly redacted documents included notes from former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe regarding his conversation with Flynn about arranging the interview with the FBI. The initial interview took place at the White House on Jan. 24, 2017.
The documents also include the FBI’s “302” report regarding Flynn’s interview with anti-Trump former FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka when they met with him at the White House. It is not, however, the 302 document from the actual January, 2017 interview but an August, 2017 report of Strzok’s recollections of the interview.
Flynn’s attorney’s had noted in their memorandum to the courts that the documents revealed that FBI officials made the decision not to provide Flynn with his Miranda Rights, which would’ve have warned him of penalties for making false statements.
“The agents did not provide Gen. Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. 1001 before, during, or after the interview,” the Flynn memo says. According to the 302, before the interview, McCabe and other FBI officials “decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport.”
The July 2017 report, however, was the interview with Strzok. It described his interview with Flynn but was not the original Flynn interview.
Apparent discrepancies within the 302 documents are being questioned by many former senior FBI officials, who state that there are stringent policies in place to ensure that the documents are guarded against tampering.
(…) In the redacted 302 report Strzok and Pientka said they “both had the impression at the time that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was lying.” Information that Flynn was not lying was first published and reported by SaraACarter.com. (Read more: SaraACarter, 12/14/2018)
After the 2018 mid-terms, and in preparation for the “impeachment” strategy, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler hired Lawfare group members to become House committee staff.
Chairman Schiff hired former SDNY U.S. Attorney Daniel Goldman (link), and Chairman Nadler hired Obama Administration lawyer Norm Eisen and criminal defense attorney Barry Berke (link). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi then hiredDouglas Letter as House General Counsel – all are within the Lawfare network.
Nancy Pelosi announces Douglas N. Letter to be the new General Counsel of the House of Representatives on December 28, 2018. (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)
Barry Berke, left and Norm Eisen, right – pictured exiting the HSCI scif with Jerry Nadler on the same day Pelosi’s “Impeachment Inquiry” Resolution was released on October 29, 2019.
In the last month many people have surmised that Pelosi and Schiff moved to utilize the Ukraine/NSC impeachment angle *after* the Mueller angle for impeachment ran into trouble. However, CTH research (widely criticized in 2018) doesn’t reflect the Whistle-blower impeachment plan as an ‘add-on’. Instead, what we see is the use of the HPSCI; and the use of embeds within National Security Council staff; by design. The Schiff events of today were always part of a prior planned design.
Daniel Goldman (Credit: MSNBC)
Only two committees hired Lawfare staff in 2018: Judiciary (Eisen & Berke) and HPSCI (Goldman). This evidences a 2018 plan to use the Judiciary and HPSCI for the impeachment process as designed by the Lawfare contractors. This design is also outlined in the year of public advice from the mother-ship, Lawfare.
They impeachment crew always planned to use the House Intelligence Committee; and they always planned to use activated sleeper cells within the National Security Staff. None of this is organic; none of this current action was contingent upon a Trump phone call. The whistle-blower approach was always going to be used; the only issue was: ‘how’?
That sets the context for the slick moves by Pelosi and Schiff’s Lawfare team. The contracted legal staff within House Intelligence Committee produced a House “Impeachment Inquiry” resolution to be voted on tomorrow.
By all appearances, the impeachment crew is following a legal strategy. Leading with Nadler (Mueller) in the HJC was part of that forethought. Berke and Eisen would then go after the Mueller evidence (grand jury, 6e material). Whether Judge Beryl Howell was/is in-on-it; and whether the DOJ staff tanked the oral arguments on purpose; is up for debate… but the plan was always thus.
Once, Barry Berke and Norm Eisen gained Judicial impeachment validation from a federal judge, that’s where Chairman Schiff and Daniel Goldman come in. Goldman is the Lawfare contractor leading the questioning and framing the House impeachment inquiry approach through the use of the HPSCI rules that are useful in their secrecy.
The primary point is: none of this process-flow is accidental. There is a design evident in an activity that is only visible in hindsight.
Why does this matter?
Because if we can see the visible House plan; and if we accept the deliberate process it has taken to carry it out; then why would we assume there isn’t a similar plan for the Senate?” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, October 30, 2019)
The investigative reporter who broke the first story based on allegations from Christopher Steele offered a surprising assessment of the former British spy’s infamous dossier, which alleges a vast conspiracy of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
“No,” Isikoff responded in an interview released Saturday.
“You would not?” asked Ziegler.
“No,” Isikoff repeated.
Isikoff’s views about the dossier are significant because of his central role in advancing the narrative that the Russian government conspired with Trump associates.
Isikoff is the journalist who wrote the Sept. 23, 2016 article at Yahoo! News laying out Steele’s allegations that Trump campaign adviser Carter Page met secretly in Moscow with two Kremlin insiders. Isikoff’s co-author, David Corn, is the only other reporter to have written about Steele’s claims prior to the 2016 election.
Isikoff and Corn are two of a small handful of reporters who met during the campaign with Steele. The former British spy put the dossier together while working for Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm that investigated Trump on behalf of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
The FBI cited both the dossier and Isikoff’s article in four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants to spy on Page. Republicans have accused the FBI of abusing the FISA process by relying heavily on the unverified Steele dossier and failing to reveal that the Clinton team and DNC funded the salacious report.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/17/2018)
“Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack filed a cover letter attempting to explain the reason for the Flynn interview on January 24th, and the official filing of the interview notes (FD-302) on February 15th, and then again on May 31st. To explain the delay, he claims the report “inadvertently” had a header saying “DRAFT DOCUMENT/DELIBERATIVE MATERIAL” (screen grab)
What the special counsel appears to be obfuscating to the court is that there was factually a process of deliberation within the investigative unit, headed by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, surrounding the specific wording of the 302 report on the interview.
Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack is attempting to hide the length of the small group deliberations. It seems he doesn’t want the court to know Andrew McCabe was involved in shaping how the fd-302 was written.
We know there was a deliberative process in place, seemingly all about how to best position the narrative, because we can see the deliberations in text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok: See below (note the dates):
The text message conversation above is February 14th, 2017. The Michael Flynn FD-302 was officially entered into the record on February 15th, 2017, per the report:
Obviously the interview took place on January 24th, 2017. The FD-302 was drafted on January 24th, and then later edited, shaped, and ultimately approved by McCabe, on February 14th, then entered into the official record on February 15th.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 12/17/2018)
(…) “The continued and proven failures of the Steele dossier matter. Not only was it used in obtaining the Page FISA warrant, but was also used in intelligence-community documents provided to Obama and his administration.
Former CIA Director John Brennan has claimed he never used the dossier in the Intelligence Community assessment. That claim was later disputed by his co-author, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who said on CNN that “some of the substantive content, not all of it, but some of the substantive content of the dossier, we were able to corroborate in our Intelligence Community assessment from other sources in which we had very high confidence to it.”
“In a March 5, 2018, letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, Adm. Rogers informed the committee that a two-page summary of the dossier—described as ‘the Christopher Steele information’—was ‘added’ as an ‘appendix to the ICA [Intelligence Community Assessment] draft,’ and that consideration of that appendix was ‘part of the overall ICA review/approval process.’”
In August, Brennan did an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that was discussed in an Epoch Times article, “Did Brennan Admit to Using Reverse Targeting to Spy on the Trump Campaign?” During that interview, Brennan repeatedly stated his knowledge of Russian contacts with U.S. citizens. Maddow pursued his conclusions from those contacts:
Maddow: While you were in office as CIA director, before you left on inauguration day, did you conclude that U.S. persons were successfully leveraged in that effort?
Brennan: No.
The look of shocked surprise on Maddow’s face was notable at Brennan’s denial that the Russians had successfully engaged Americans to obtain their goals.
The Steele dossier, written by a British national and former MI6 agent, was used by both the FBI and the CIA and a summary of the document was provided directly to Obama. And yet, for all the weight attached to this document, most of its assertions have never been proven to be factual, many have been proven to be false and it remains unverified to this day.
Which is perhaps fitting for a document that had its origination as something to be used by Hillary Clinton to challenge the election in the then-unlikely event she lost.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 12/18/2018)
“While testifying last year at a closed-door House Oversight Committee hearing last June, Comey said Lynch had pressured him to minimize the significance of the Clinton email probe – an encounter which he says left him questioning her impartiality, and – along with Lynch’s clandestine tarmac meeting on a hot summer’s day in 2016 – contributed to his decision to hold a July 2016 press conference announcing the FBI’s conclusions.
“The attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation, but instead to call it a matter, which confused me and concerned me,” said Comey. “That was one of the bricks in the load that led me to conclude, ‘I have to step away from the department if we’re to close this case credibly.'”
Lynch, meanwhile, told congressional House Oversight and Judiciary committees on December 19: “I did not. I have never instructed a witness as to what to say specifically. Never have, never will.”
“I didn’t direct anyone to use specific phraseology.When the Director asked me how to best to handle that, I said: What I have been saying is we have received a referral and we are working on the matter, working on the issue, or we have all the resources we need to handle the matter, handle the issue. So that was the suggestion that I made to him,” Lynch added – telling lawmakers that she was “quite surprised” to hear how Comey would later describe the conversation “because that was not how it was conveyed to him, certainly not how it was intended.”
Former attorney general Loretta Lynch stonewalled Congress July 12, 2016, on the details of the Hillary Clinton email case, refusing to get into the specifics of her decision not to prosecute for mishandling classified material. (Credit: CSpan)
“Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Congressional lawmakers in closed door testimony that despite the DOJ having approved the FBI warrant and renewals to spy on Carter Page, she did not recall the applications, did not remember the details contained in the applications or the circumstances surrounding conversations about the warrant, according to testimony reviewed by SaraACarter.com.
Lynch “appeared to have amnesia” during her testimony that she delivered in December before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, said one congressional official, who had knowledge of the hearing. The official said Lynch’s closed-door testimony on Page, a former Trump campaign volunteer, left lawmakers with more questions than answers.
(…) Goodlatte Questions Lynch on Carter Page
…under questioning from House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, she listed the standard detailed procedures of what is required from the Attorney General when the FBI files for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Warrant to spy on an American.
“By statute, the Attorney General is the final signatory on the FISA applications,” stated Lynch to the committee. “By regulation, the signatory authority has been delegated – shall I say shared—with the Deputy Attorney General and the head of the national security division as long as the people in those positions are presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed.”
Lynch on Page
“I don’t have any recollection of being briefed on the Page application either. And I don’t have a recollection of signing it, said Lynch.”
So she knows the rules and regulations but when asked in more detail about the process of approving the FBI’s application on Page she freezes.
Goodlatte, who was then the chairman of the committee, asked Lynch: “Is that what happened to the Carter Page case?”
“I wasn’t involved in the processing of the Page FISA and I can outline the process for you but I don’t have personal (knowledge) of it,” she said.
Confounded Goodlatte says “no, no, it is just not clear to me, the Attorney General has a role, you often rely upon others to supplement your work in fulfilling that role. Did you have a role in that or were you briefed?”
“I don’t have any recollection of being briefed on the Page application either. And I don’t have a recollection of signing it,” said Lynch in response.
Goodlatte then asks Lynch if she recalls signing any of the renewal applications to continue spying on Page.
“I don’t have a recollection of being involved in the FISA for Mr. Page at all,” she says.
Goodlatte then goes on to ask: “were you briefed about the relevance of Mr. Page’s FISA warrant with regard to this broader Russia investigation?”
Again, Lynch fails to have any memory of anything Page.
“I don’t have a recollection of a briefing of that type, no,” said Lynch.
Goodlatte then asks: “When did you first hear the name Carter Page?”
Lynch: “Again, it would have to have been like late spring of 2016 or so in this context. I don’t recall I knew of him from other sources or not.” (Read more: Sara Carter, 3/04/2019)
“US cyber-security experts have blamed Russia for meddling in American elections since 2016. Now it has emerged that authors of a Senate report on ‘Russian’ meddling actually ran a “false flag” meddling operation themselves.
A week before Christmas, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report accusing Russia of depressing Democrat voter turnout by targeting African-Americans on social media. Its authors, New Knowledge, quickly became a household name.
Jonathon Morgan (l) and Ryan Fox (Credit: Medium/New Knowledge)
Described by the New York Times as a group of “tech specialists who lean Democratic,” New Knowledge has ties to both the US military and intelligence agencies. Its CEO and co-founder Jonathon Morgan previously worked for DARPA, the US military’s advanced research agency. His partner, Ryan Fox, is a 15-year veteran of the National Security Agency who also worked as a computer analyst for the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). Their unique skill sets have managed to attract the eye of investors, who pumped $11 million into the company in 2018 alone.
Morgan and Fox have struck gold in the “Russiagate” racket, which sprung into being after Hillary Clinton blamed Moscow for Donald Trump’s presidential victory in 2016. Morgan, for example, is one of the developers of the Hamilton 68 Dashboard, the online tool that purports to monitor and expose narratives being pushed by the Kremlin on Twitter. The dashboard is bankrolled by the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy – a collection of Democrats and neoconservatives funded in part by NATO and USAID.
It is worth noting that the 600 “Russia-linked” Twitter accounts monitored by the dashboard are not disclosed to the public, making it impossible to verify its claims. This inconvenience has not stopped Hamilton 68 from becoming a go-to source for hysteria-hungry journalists, however…
New Knowledge’s victory lap was short-lived. On December 19, a New York Times story revealed that Morgan and his crew had created a fake army of Russian bots, as well as fake Facebook groups, in order to discredit Republican candidate Roy Moore in Alabama’s 2017 special election for the US Senate.
Judge Roy Moore (Credit: public domain)
Working on behalf of the Democrats, Morgan and his crew created an estimated 1,000 fake Twitter accounts with Russian names, and had them follow Moore. They also operated several Facebook pages where they posed as Alabama conservatives who wanted like-minded voters to support a write-in candidate instead.
In an internal memo, New Knowledge boasted that it had “orchestrated an elaborate ‘false flag’ operation that planted the idea that the Moore campaign was amplified on social media by a Russian botnet.”
It worked. The botnet claim made a splash on social media and was further amplified by Mother Jones, which based its story on expert opinion from Morgan’s other dubious creation, Hamilton 68.
Scott Shane (Credit: public domain)
Ultimately, Moore ended up losing the race by a miniscule 1.5 percentage points – making his opponent Doug Jones the first Democrat to represent Alabama in the US Senate in over 25 years.
Things got even weirder when it turned out that Scott Shane, the author of the Times piece, had known about the meddling for months, because he spoke at an event where the organizers boasted about it!
Shane was one of the speakers at a meeting in September, organized by American Engagement Technologies, a group run by Mikey Dickerson, President Barack Obama’s former tech czar. Dickerson explained how AET spent $100,000 on New Knowledge’s campaign to suppress Republican votes, “enrage” Democrats to boost turnout, and execute a “false flag” to hurt Moore. He dubbed it “Project Birmingham.”
Reid Hoffman (Credit: Wikipedia)
The money for the venture came from a $750,000 contribution to AET by Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and a big Democrat donor. Once that emerged, Hoffman offered a public apology for his connection to the shady operation, but insisted that he didn’t know what his money was going towards.
“I find the tactics that have been recently reported highly disturbing,” Hoffman said in a statement.
“For that reason, I am embarrassed by my failure to track AET — the organization I did support — more diligently as it made its own decisions to perhaps fund projects that I would reject.”
As for Shane, he told BuzzFeed that he was “shocked” by the revelations, but had signed a nondisclosure agreement at the request of AET, so he could not talk about it further.” (Read more: Russia Today, 12/29/2018)
“The defensive briefing, after all, is a procedure that is often given to presidential candidates, elected officials and even U.S. businesses that have either been unwittingly approached by foreign actors attempting to gain trust and befriend those in position of influence.
The briefing allows the government to protect the candidates, specifically if there is substantial information or knowledge to suggest that someone has targeted an unwitting American for information. If the FBI or intelligence agencies suspect foreign adversaries may be trying to penetrate a presidential campaign, as those FBI and DOJ sources suggested in testimony to lawmakers, it would then be required to warn those affected, a senior former intelligence official told SaraACarter.com.
Why? Because foreign adversaries like China and Russia for example, and even allies, will attempt to glean information – or favor – from unwitting persons with access to senior level officials. The access can assist those nation’s own national interest or provide access for intelligence collection.
In the case of Trump, the FBI gave only a general counterintelligence briefing but did not provide information to the campaign that the FBI believed there were specific counterintelligence threats. For example, the FBI’s concern over campaign advisors George Papadopolous, Carter Page and then concerns over former national security advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.“It is an essential task of the FBI and the intelligence community to give a defensive briefing to a presidential candidate when a foreign adversary is attempting to penetrate or make contact with someone in the campaign,” said a former senior intelligence official. “If the FBI and DOJ were so concerned about Carter Page and (George) Papadopolous why didn’t they brief Trump when he became a candidate? The fact that they didn’t is very revealing. If they gave defensive briefing to the Clinton campaign then I think we have the answer.
Bruce Ohr’s 268-page testimony, released last week by Georgia Rep. Doug Collins reveals the machinations of the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign and the players involved. Ohr’s testimony coupled with testimony provided by former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, which has not been released but reviewed by this reporter, along with former FBI General Counsel James Baker’s testimony reveals a startling fact: everyone appeared to say they were concerned the Russian’s were penetrating the Trump campaign but no one at the DOJ or FBI authorized a defensive briefing.” (Read more: Sarah Carter, 3/14/2019)
BuzzFeed Editor in Chief Ben Smith at a 2012 event with The Guardian. (Credit: Thos Robinson/Getty Images)
“A federal judge in Florida on Wednesday ruled in favor of BuzzFeed News in a defamation lawsuit over the outlet’s publication of the infamous and unverified Steele dossier.
The defamation lawsuit, filed Feb. 2, 2017, focused on allegations made in the final memo against Alexis Gubarev, a Russian tech executive with companies in Cyprus.
In a memo dated Dec. 13, 2016, Steele alleged Gubarev used his web hosting companies to hack into Democrats’ computer networks using viruses, bots and malware.
Gubarev vehemently denied the allegation, and after filing his lawsuit, BuzzFeed issued an apology and scrubbed his name from the version of the dossier published online.
Ben Smith, the editor of BuzzFeed, issued a statement claiming vindication in the case.
“As Judge Ungaro affirmed in her ruling, a key principle underlying the First Amendment is that the public has a right to know about actions taken by its government,” Smith said. “As we have said from the start, a document that had been circulating at the highest levels of government, under active investigation by the FBI, and briefed to two successive presidents, is clearly the subject of ‘official action.’” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 12/19/2018)
During a break in the testimony of Christine Blasey-Ford, Sheila Jackson Lee discretely passes along an envelope to Ford’s attorney, Michael Bromwich on September 28, 2018. (Credit: public domain)
“Multiple Trump campaign officials were the subjects of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigations, a Democratic lawmaker said in a closed-door hearing late last year.
If what Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, says is true, the scope of the FBI’s FISA efforts for its counterintelligence investigation into President Trump’s 2016 campaign and its ties to Russia span far wider than previously known. So far, it is only confirmed that the FBI obtained FISA warrants targeting onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
During a hearing on Dec. 19 with former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the transcript of which was released on Monday, Jackson Lee mentioned three other individuals.
“I want to talk about the spring, summer, and autumn of 2016. Carter Page, at the time, was suspected of being a Russian asset; George Papadopoulos had told the Australian ambassador that Russians had Hillary [Clinton] emails; Paul Manafort had been named Trump campaign manager; Michael Flynn was Trump’s chief national security adviser and foreign policy adviser and, just yesterday, had a continuance in his sentencing,” Jackson Lee said. “One thing that all of these persons had in common was that each was the subject of a FISA Court investigation, which we now know, and all were directly connected to Trump. As attorney general, you had the authority to oversee FISA application process. Is that correct?”
Lynch replied “yes,” after which Justice Department lawyer Bradley Weinsheimer cut in to say Jackson Lee’s question “potentially gets into possibly classified information and also equities in an ongoing investigation.
(…) There has been talk in recent weeks about further steps taken to record members of Trump’s campaign, including Papadopoulos. Former Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said on Sunday that the FBI withheld “game changer” transcript material about Papadopoulos from the surveillance court when filing applications targeting Page.
In an interview Friday, former FBI general counsel James Baker, who claims to have taken a leading role in overseeing the Page FISA warrant applications, was asked point-blank if the bureau used an unverified dossier to surveil anyone else. Claiming to be unfamiliar with what the government has revealed, Baker opted not to confirm nor deny it.
“I don’t think I should comment on that. I don’t know what else the government has confirmed,” Baker said on MSNBC. “I don’t want to confirm or deny anything about other potential FISA applications.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 5/21/2019)
“A federal court refused to unseal government documents that permitted the FBI to raid the home of a reportedly recognized whistleblower who, according to his lawyer, delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a presidentially appointed watchdog.
The U.S. District Court of Maryland’s Chief Magistrate Judge Beth P. Gesner, a Clinton appointee, also sealed her justification for keeping the documents secret in a single-page Dec. 20 order.
On Nov. 15, federal Magistrate Judge Stephanie Gallagher authorized the raid on Dennis Cain’s Union Bridge, Maryland, home. She sealed the government documents justifying it.
The Daily Caller News Foundation asked Gallagher on Nov. 29 to unseal the documents, noting that Cain’s attorney has said his client, a former employee of an FBI contractor, is a recognized whistleblower. The documents should be released in light of “an urgent public interest” surrounding the case, TheDCNF wrote.
Attorneys and experts who defend government whistleblowers told TheDCNF the court should disclose whether prosecutors told Gallagher that Cain was a protected whistleblower under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act.
Cain enjoyed his whistleblower status as early as last summer when he handed over documents to Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, according to Cain’s lawyer, Michael Socarras. Horowitz instructed a top aide to personally hand-deliver the documents to the House and Senate intelligence committees, the attorney said.
The documents reportedly show that federal officials failed to investigate potential criminal activity regarding the Clinton Foundation and Rosatom, the Russian company that purchased Uranium One. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 1/27/2019)
“In one text to his late brother Beau’s widow, Hallie, – with whom he was romantically involved at the time – Hunter referred to Jill as a “selfish silly entitled c**t.”
He also admitted he had told the now-First Lady to “go f**k yourself” and ridiculed her teaching skills during a row just after Christmas in 2018.
The bitter showdown came as Hunter’s penchant for crack cocaine and wild sex sessions with call girls was reportedly spiraling out of control.
Text messages appear to show that Jill, 71, supported Hallie, 47, in pushing for him to seek inpatient rehab treatment.
Hunter Biden is seen smoking drugs while on a detox in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in January 2019. (Credit: Biden laptop/The Sun)
Most of the texts were found on a bombshell Apple iPhone backup found on Hunter’s infamous “laptop from hell.”
They were handed to The Sun by Marco Polo, an organization led by a former White House staffer, which is investigating the laptop.
(…) In one of many toxic texts he sent her in 2018 as their relationship crumbled, Hunter told Hallie: “F**k my step mother for always being as much of a selfish silly entitled c**t as you.”
But despite their rocky relationship, at times Hunter did have positive things to say about Jill.
In a text sent to his dad on the evening of December 26, 2018, he wrote: “Love you dad it’s my fault mom is right I over react and she is only worried about me and I promise to try to be more understanding I love you tell mom I love her and I’m sorry I say mean things I don’t mean them.” (Read more: The Sun, 7/8/2022)(Archive)
Clinton and Kerry: Architects of chaos in Syria. (Credit: Department of State)
“In 2012, the CIA initiated a one billion dollar arm-and-equip operation to fund the so-called “moderate rebels” united under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA). A classified Defense Intelligence Agency memo distributed across Obama administration channels in August of that year warned that jihadist forces emanating from Iraq aimed to exploit the security vacuum opened up by the US-backed proxy war to establish a “Salafist principality in eastern Syria” — an “Islamic State,” in the exact words of the memo.
Referring to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s Syrian affiliate by its name, Jabhat al-Nusra, before Western media ever had, the DIA emphasized the close ties the group had fostered with Syria’s “moderate rebels”: “AQI supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning, both ideologically and through the media. AQI declared its opposition to Assad’s regime from the beginning because it considered it a sectarian regime targeting Sunnis.”
The memo was authored under the watch of then-Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who was convicted this year of failing to register as a foreign agent of Turkey — an extremely ironic development considering Turkey’s role in fueling the Syrian insurgency. Predictably, the document was ignored across the board by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, heavy weapons were flowing out of the U.S. Incirlik air base in Turkey and into the hands of anyone who could grab them across the Syrian border.
As early as February 2013, a United Nations independent inquiry report concluded, “The FSA has remained a brand name only.” The UN further issued a damning assessment of the role of the United States, UK and their Gulf allies in fueling extremism across Syria. “The intervention of external sponsors has contributed to the radicalization of the insurgency as it has favored Salafi armed groups such as the al-Nusra Front, and even encouraged mainstream insurgents to join them owing to their superior logistical and operational capabilities,” the report stated.
How ISIS overran large swaths of territory in northeastern Syria and established its de facto capital Raqqa is scarcely understood, let alone discussed by Western media. That is partly because the real story is so inconvenient to the established narrative of the Syrian conflict, which blames Assad for every atrocity that has ever occurred in his country, and for some horrors that may not have ever taken place. Echoing the Bush administration’s discredited attempts to link Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda, some neoconservative pundits hatched a conspiracy theory that accused Assad of covertly orchestrating the rise of ISIS in order to curry support from the West. But the documented evidence firmly established the success of ISIS as a byproduct of the semi-covert American program to arm Assad’s supposedly moderate opposition.” (Read more: Consortium News, 12/27/2018)
Bob Goodlatte and Trey Gowdy recommended a second special counsel to continue their work in March 2018. (Credit: Andrew Harrer / Bloomberg)
“The outgoing Republican committee chairmen in charge of a year-long probe of how the FBI and Justice Department handled investigations into the Trump campaign’s alleged Russia ties and Hillary Clinton’s emails once again called for a second special counsel to look into such matters in a letter to top administration and congressional officials summing up their work.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., sent their letter to acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. In it, they encouraged them to pick up where the House panels left off and “continue to identify and eliminate bias” at the federal law enforcement agencies “so the public can trust the institutions to make decisions solely on the facts and the law and totally devoid of political bias or consideration.”
“Our 2016 presidential candidates were not treated equally,” Goodlatte and Gowdy wrote in a statement accompanying the release of the letter. “The investigators in both investigations were biased against President Trump.”
The House GOP leaned heavily on details in an inspector general report released earlier this year to make their arguments about bias having infected the FBI and DOJ’s proceedings. The IG’s report found that while certain individuals, such as former top FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok, displayed clear personal bias against Trump, there was no evidence that the conclusions of the investigations themselves were biased.” (Read more: Chicago Tribune, 12/28/2018)
“A Silicon Valley charity gave $500,000 to a nonprofit group founded by a former Senate staffer who is working with Fusion GPS and Trump dossier author Christopher Steele.
“As part of their continued efforts to conduct oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Chairman of the Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) discovered a partially unclassified email sent by President Obama’s former National Security Advisor (NSA) Susan Rice to herself on January 20, 2017 – President Trump’s inauguration day.
“Emails reviewed by Fox News from February 2016 suggest the FBI and DOJ worked together to craft a response to a key development in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, amid newly raised Republican concerns about a “concerning level of coordination” between the two agencies during the probe.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report:
“An internal chart prepared by federal investigators working on the so-called “Midyear Exam” probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails, exclusively reviewed by Fox News, contained the words “NOTE: DOJ not willing to charge this” next to a key statute on the mishandling of classified information. The notation appeared to contradict former FBI Director James Comey’s 
(…) “Another issue that was brought up several times was the famous Strzok text regarding the “Insurance Policy”:
(…) Tony Podesta, longtime lobbyist in DC, and founder of the Podesta Group, was indicted in 2017 for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Shortly thereafter, the Podesta Group 
“Judicial Watch today announced that in response to a Judicial Watch 
By: John Solomon
(…) “The continued and proven failures of the Steele dossier matter. Not only was it used in obtaining the Page FISA warrant, but was also used in intelligence-community documents provided to Obama and his administration.
“A federal court refused to unseal government documents that permitted the FBI to raid the home of a reportedly recognized whistleblower who, according to his lawyer, delivered documents pertaining to the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One to a presidentially appointed watchdog.
