“When we were investigating Fusion GPS, they were actively involved in working to smear me to obstruct justice, to derail our investigation — and so, I’m gonna hold these guys accountable, and this is just one of many steps we’re gonna continue to take,” continued Nunes.

Nunes filed a $9.9 million federal conspiracy lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia alleging that the Fusion GPS behind the anti-Trump Steele dossier coordinated with another group to file several fraudulent and harassing ethics complaints intended to derail his investigation.

The complaint named Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson and the nonprofit Campaign for Accountability (CfA) said the “smear” tactics kicked into action shortly after Simpson “lied” in his closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017, as well as before the Senate Judiciary Committee in August 2017.

“The bank records produced by Fusion GPS revealed that the Clinton campaign, the DNC and Perkins Coie paid for Fusion GPS’ anti-Trump research,” Nunes’ complaint stated.” (Sara A. Carter, 9/05/2019)

“A conservative watchdog group filed a Freedom of Information Lawsuit against the FBI seeking information about two bureau officials it accuses of being “spies” for former FBI Director James Comey in the White House.

The American Center for Law and Justice, headed by Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, announced on its website Wednesday that the FBI missed a deadline to respond to its July FOIA request and filed its lawsuit in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit seeks a wide array of records, including “all” of Comey’s emails from April 1, 2016, to May 31, 2017.

The FOIA request was made following a report by RealClearInvestigations that explored possible misconduct by Comey for what two U.S. officials described as essentially “running a covert operation against” President Trump starting in 2017 even as he was assuring Trump he was not the subject of any investigation.

Anthony Ferranti (Credit: public domain)

Jordan Rae Kelly (Credit: public domain)

The report said longtime FBI official Anthony Ferrante worked as a cybersecurity adviser on the National Security Council and was sharing information about Trump and his aides back to FBI headquarters. Ferrante, who after leaving the government joined business-advising firm FTI Consulting was hired by BuzzFeed to verify parts of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, now may be tied to an investigation into alleged surveillance abuses by the DOJ and the FBI being conducted by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

After Ferrante left the White House job in April 2017, he was replaced by another FBI official, Jordan Rae Kelly, who signed security logs for Ferrante to enter the White House while he was contracted by BuzzFeed. Kelly left the White House last year and also joined FTI Consulting.

“The indications are those individuals were reporting directly back to James Comey,” Sekulow said on Fox News late Wednesday. “So what he did was he took counterintelligence investigation that was taking place during the presidential campaign, brought it into the White House when the president was sworn in as no longer president-elect but in fact as president.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 9/05/2019)  (Archive)

US Senators Ron Johnson (l) and Chris Murphy (r) make a statement for the media after their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky outside the Presidential Office in Kiev, Ukraine, Sept 5, 2019. (Credit: public domain)

“Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset” and it would be viewed as election meddling and “disastrous for long-term U.S.-Ukraine relations” to bend to the wishes of Trump and Giuliani.

“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 me today, confirming what he told Ukraine’s leader.

The implied message did not require an interpreter for Zelensky to understand: Investigate the Ukraine dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and you jeopardize Democrats’ support for future U.S. aid to Kiev.

The Murphy anecdote is a powerful reminder that, since at least 2016, Democrats repeatedly have exerted pressure on Ukraine, a key U.S. ally for buffering Russia, to meddle in U.S. politics and elections.

And that activity long preceded Giuliani’s discussions with Ukrainian officials and Trump’s phone call to Zelensky in July, seeking to have Ukraine formally investigate whether then-Vice President Joe Biden used a threat of canceling foreign aid to shut down an investigation into $3 million routed to the U.S. firm run by Biden’s son.

As I have reported, the pressure began at least as early as January 2016, when the Obama White House unexpectedly invited Ukraine’s top prosecutors to Washington to discuss fighting corruption in the country.

The meeting promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.

U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, the former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who organized and attended the meetings.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/23/2019) (Archive)

(…) Seemingly closed down, the anti-Trump operatives had a back door into official intelligence channels, the same entrance they’d used for the Steele dossier — the media. A September 5 Washington Post editorial reported that Trump was “attempting to force Mr. Zelensky to intervene in the 2020 U.S. presidential election by launching an investigation of the leading Democratic candidate, Joe Biden.”

Now that the article had sparked interest in a part of the unfolding operation, Atkinson produced another piece of the puzzle. He notified the Senate and House Intelligence Committees on September 9 that he had a whistleblower complaint. Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) Adam Schiff was on relay. That same day, he and two other Democratic committee chairmen announced the opening of an investigation into Trump, Giuliani, and Ukraine. They cited recent press reports, a less than subtle reference to the September 5 Washington Post op-ed. It was the same process used during the Russiagate operation: A report based on a fraudulent document is leaked to the press, which publishes it, and intelligence officials cite it as a pretext to justify starting an investigation.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

Jeffrey Danik and Robert Mueller (Credit: public domain)

“The Department of Justice is seeking former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s text messages and according to government sources, those will play a significant role in understanding the FBI’s probe into both President Donald Trump’s campaign and the bureaus’ handling of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server to send government emails.

Lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to get the text messages during the litany of Congressional investigations that have culminated in Attorney General William Barr appointing Connecticut prosecutor John Durham to investigate the FBI’s handling of the election probe. Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes, R-CA, said his committee was stymied by the FBI when they attempted to retrieve McCabe’s communications.

“The House Intelligence Committee tried to get the McCabe texts in the last Congress, but we were stonewalled,” Nunes told SaraACarter.com on Monday. “This is the kind of issue that really needs more transparency. There’s been too much unnecessary secrecy surrounding the entire Russia investigation- the American people deserve to know exactly what happened.”

The text messages between FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and his then lover FBI attorney Lisa Page were regarded as a trove of information for congressional investigators. Page and Strzok’s text messages were turned over and for the most part – other than the details of the pairs private romantic relationship- to lawmakers during the congressional probes. The lawmakers were able to read the texts as part of the ongoing investigations either in-camera or when certain portions were declassified and made public.

(…)  Judicial Watch also sought the text messages earlier this year. The government watchdog group filed a motion in May to obtain McCabe’s text messages on behalf of FBI supervisory special agent Jeffery Danik.

Danik, who served 28 years in the FBI, filed a motion against the Department of Justice last year for refusing a Freedom of Information Act Request to turn over the texts, as well as McCabe’s FBI emails. Danik had originally filed a FOIA to obtain the communications two years ago.” (Read more: SaraACarter, 9/09/2019)

“Today Michael Flynn and his attorney Sidney Powell returned to federal court for a status hearing before Judge Emmet Sullivan.  Generally status hearings are uneventful; however, this hearing falls on the heels of an explosive filing by Flynn’s defense outlining allegations of serious prosecutorial misconduct; and claims the DOJ is withholding Brady material.

Before getting into the heart of the proceedings, here is Ms. Sidney Powell appearing on Fox News to discuss the events today.  In this interview Ms. Powell confirms something we have previously presented; Rod Rosenstein authorized Robert Mueller to target Michael Flynn Jr. in order to provide leverage for a Flynn guilty plea.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/10/2019)

General Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell (Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

“An attorney for Michael Flynn said in federal court Tuesday she may seek a dismissal of charges against the former national security adviser, citing “egregious conduct and suppression” of exculpatory information in the case.

Prosecutors handling the case had a surprise of their own, telling Judge Emmet Sullivan that they are now reserving the option of recommending jail time for Flynn, instead of just probation. Prosecutors with the special counsel’s team last year recommended that Flynn receive probation without jail time because of his substantial cooperation in several investigations.

But Flynn’s situation has changed dramatically since then. He no longer has to meet with the special counsel’s team since the Russia probe has ended. And in June, he hired a new legal team that has aggressively challenged the government’s investigation of Flynn.

Flynn’s defense attorney, Sidney Powell, told Judge Emmet Sullivan that the legal team has no plans to pull out of a plea deal that Flynn struck with the special counsel on Dec. 1, 2017. Instead, Powell is questioning the basis of the government’s case against Flynn and may seek to have charges thrown out altogether. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/10/2019)

“Since June 6, 2019, immediately upon accepting Mr. Flynn’s defense, new counsel for Mr. Flynn has requested the following information in unredacted form pursuant to Brady and its progeny. Thoroughly stymied in our efforts to obtain this information from the government, despite its obligations to produce it, we necessarily enlist the aid of this Court in enforcing its standing Order.

The 40 Items

1. A letter delivered by the British Embassy to the incoming National Security team after Donald Trump’s election, and to outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice (the letter apparently disavows former British Secret Service Agent Christopher Steele, calls his credibility into question and declares him untrustworthy).

2. The original draft of Mr. Flynn’s 302 and 1A-file, and any FBI document that identifies everyone who had possession of it (parts of which may have been leaked to the press, but the full original has never been produced). This would include information given to Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on January 24 and 25,2017.

3. All documents, notes, information, FBI 302s, or testimony regarding Nellie Ohr’s research on Mr. Flynn and any information about transmitting it to the DOJ, CIA, or FBI.

4. All payments, notes, memos, correspondence, and instructions by and between the FBI, CIA, or DOD with Stefan Halper—going back as far as 2014—regarding Michael Flynn, Svetlana Lokhova, Mr. Richard Dearlove (of MI6), and Professor Christopher Andrew (connected with MI5) and Halper’s compensation through the Office of Net Assessment as evidenced by the whistleblower complaint of Adam Lovinger, addressed in our brief. This includes David Shedd (former Deputy Director of DIA) and Mike Vickers, who were CIA officers; James H. Baker; former DIA Director LTG Stewart; former DIA Deputy Director Doug Wise; and the DIA Director of Operations (DOD). This should also include any communications or correspondence of any type arising from the investigation or alleged concerns about Mr. Flynn that contained a copy to (as a “cc” or “bcc”) or was addressed directly to the DNI James Clapper and his senior staff; to CIA Director Brennan and his senior staff; or to FBI Director Comey, his Deputy Andrew McCabe, and senior staff.

5. The Flynn 302 dated January 19, 2017, mentioned in the Mueller Report.

6. All and unredacted Page-Strzok text messages. Mr. Van Grack’s October 4, 2018, letter asserts: “To the extent the text messages appear to be incomplete or contain gaps, we do not possess additional messages that appear to fill such gaps.” The government should be compelled to identify to whom “we” refers, where the originals are, and whether any of the gaps have been filled or accounted for.

7. All documents, reports, correspondence, and memoranda, including any National Security letter or FISA application, concerning any earlier investigation of Mr. Flynn, and the basis for it. (The existence of these earlier investigations was disclosed in the Mueller Report; see Vol. II at pp. 24, 26.)

8. All transcripts, recordings, notes, correspondence, and 302s of any interactions with human sources or “OCONUS lures” tasked against Mr. Flynn since he left DIA in 2014.

9. The unredacted Page-Strzok text messages as well as text messages, emails and other electronic communications to, from, or between Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, John Carlin, Aaron Rouse, Carl Ghattas, Andrew Weissmann, Tashina Gauhar, Michael Steinbach, and Zainab Ahmad, regarding Mr. Flynn or the FISA applications or any surveillance (legal or illegal) that would have reached Mr. Flynn’s communications.

10. All evidence concerning notification by the Inspector General of the DOJ to the Special Counsel of the Strzok-Page text messages, including the actual text of any messages given to the Special Counsel, and the dates on which they were given. Although the Inspector General notified Special Counsel of the tens of thousands of text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page no later than July 2017—the prosecutors did not produce a single text message to the defense until March 13, 2018.

11. All evidence of press contacts between the Special Counsel Office, including Andrew Weissmann, Ms. Ahmad, and Mr. Van Grack from the departure of Peter Strzok from special Counsel team until December 8, 2017, regarding Mr. Flynn.

12. Unredacted copies of all memos created by or other communications from James Comey that mention or deal with any investigation, surveillance, FISA applications, interviews, or use of a confidential human source or “OCONUS lures” against Mr.Flynn.

13. An unredacted copy of all of James Comey’s testimony before any Congressional committees

14. The James Comey 302 for November 15, 2017, and all Comey 302s that bear on or mention Mr. Flynn.

15. Notes and documents of any kind dealing with any briefings that Mr. Flynn provided to DIA after he left the government.

16. Any information, including recordings or 302s, about Joseph Mifsud’s presence and involvement in engaging or reporting on Mr. Flynn and Mifsud’s presence at the Russia Today dinner in Moscow on December 17, 2015.

17. All notes, memoranda, 302s, and other information about the McCabe-Strzok meeting or meetings with Vice President-Elect or Vice President Pence (these meetings were referenced in the Mueller Report at Vol II, p. 34).

18. All Mary McCord 302s or interviews, including when she knew that Mr. Flynn did not have “a clandestine relationship with Russia.”

19. Any Sally Yates 302s or other notes that concern Mr. Flynn, including treatment of her meetings with FBI Agents on January 24 and 25, 2017, her meetings with anyone in the White House, and the draft 302 of the Flynn interview on January 24 she reviewed or was read into.

20. An internal DOJ document dated January 30, 2017, in which the FBI exonerated Mr.Flynn of being “an agent of Russia.”

21. All information provided by Kathleen Kavalec at the Department of State to the FBI regarding Christopher Steele prior to the first FISA application.

22. Any and all evidence that during a senior-attended FBI meeting or video conference, Andrew McCabe said “First we fuck Flynn, then we fuck Trump,” or words to that effect.

23. The two-page Electronic Communication (EC) that allegedly began the “Russia Collusion” investigation.

24. All information that underlies the several FISA applications, including any information showing that any of the assertions in the applications were false, unverified, or unverifiable.

25. All documents, notes, information, FBI 302s, or testimony regarding any debriefing that Bruce Ohr gave to anyone in the FBI or Department of Justice regarding Christopher Steele.

26. Testimony, interviews, 302s, notes of interviews of all persons who signed FISA applications regarding Mr. Flynn or anyone that would have reached Mr. Flynn’s communications, without regard to whether those applications were approved or rejected.

27. All FISA applications since 2015 related to the Russia matter, whether approved or rejected, which involve Mr. Flynn or reached his communications with anyone.

28. Information identifying reporters paid by Fusion GPS and/or the Penn Quarter group to push “Russia Collusion,” communications regarding any stories about Mr. Flynn, and any testimony or statements about how the reporters were used by the government regarding Mr. Flynn.

29. FBI 302s of KT McFarland, notes of interviews of her or her own notes, and text messages with Mr. Flynn from approximately December 27, 2016, until Flynn’s resignation.

30. Any information regarding the SCO’s and DOJ’s destruction of the cell phones of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (after being advised of the thousands of text messages that evidenced that has been classified or otherwise not available to the public from the published Inspector General Report.

31. Any information regarding eradication of cell phone data, texts, emails, or other information belonging to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page that created the “gap” identified by the IG.

32. Information about any parts of any polygraph examinations failed by Peter Strzok after Mr. Flynn was first the subject of any FBI investigation—authorized or unauthorized.

33. Brady or Giglio material newly discovered by the government (and by the Inspector General in his separate investigations) in the last two years.

34. A full unredacted and copies of the recordings of Mr. Flynn’s calls with Ambassador Kislyak or anyone else that were reviewed or used in any way by the FBI or SCO in its evaluation of charges against Mr. Flynn.

35. All FBI 302s, notes, memoranda of James Clapper regarding Mr. Flynn, and the cell phone and home phone records of Mr. Clapper and David Ignatius between December 5, 2016, and February 24, 2017. Although not previously requested, the government should be compelled to produce:

36. Unredacted scope memos written for the Special Counsel and any requests by Special Counsel that mention Mr. Flynn or his son.

37.All FBI 302s or any notes of interviews of David Ignatius or any other reporter regarding the publication of information concerning Mr. Flynn and/or the reporters contact with James Clapper, Andrew McCabe, John Brennan, Michael Kortan, or anyone in the FBI, DNI, DOD, DOJ, or CIA regarding Mr. Flynn.

38.FBI 302s and interview notes of Jim Woolsey, including notes by SCO members of conversations with Woolsey about Mr. Flynn, Flynn Intel Group, the Turkey project, and his separate meeting with officials of Turkey after the meeting that was the subject of the FIG FARA filing.

39.All communications between Mr. David Laufman, Ms. Heather Hunt and any other member of the National Security Division regarding the FARA registration for Mr.Flynn and FIG and notes, reports or recordings of their interaction with Covington & Burling with regards to the filing and its contents. See Def.’s Resp. to the Ct.’s Order of July 9 & Gov.’s Filing of July 10, Ex. D, July 11, 2019, No. 17-232-EGS

40. Unredacted notes of the (redacted) and Strzok from the interview of Mr. Flynn on January 24, 2017.

In response, Judge Sullivan issues the following order:

(Flynn Motion to Show Cause and Compel/Scribd Document, 9/11/2019)

Senators Ron Johnson and Charles Grassley have a few questions that are put in a letter dated September 12, 2019, to State Department OIG Steve Linick who reviewed a meeting between State Dept officials and Christopher Steele. The review or lack thereof appears to have left them with more questions than answers. Here is a clipping of the relevant part of their letter:

(Grassley/Johnson/Linick Letter, 9/12/2019)

Andrew McCabe (Credit: Lancaster Dems)

“U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu has recommended moving forward with charges against Andrew McCabe, Fox News has learned, as the Justice Department rejects a last-ditch appeal from the former top FBI official.

McCabe — the former deputy and acting director of the FBI — appealed the decision of the U.S. attorney for Washington all the way up to Jeffrey Rosen, the deputy attorney general, but he rejected that request, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The potential charges relate to DOJ inspector general findings against him regarding misleading statements concerning a Hillary Clinton-related investigation.

A source close to McCabe’s legal team said they received an email from the Department of Justice which said, “The Department rejected your appeal of the United States Attorney’s Office’s decision in this matter. Any further inquiries should be directed to the United States Attorney’s Office.” (Read more: Fox News, 9/12/2019)

“U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to U.S. Department of State Inspector General Steve Linick today seeking an explanation as to why his office did not issue a report on its investigation into the October 2016 meeting between Christopher Steele and Orbis Intelligence employee Tatyana Duran, then-Deputy Assistant Secretary Kathleen Kavalec, and then-Special Envoy Jonathan Winer. The senators also seek to understand why the state department OIG did not interview all parties present at that October 2016 meeting.

“We write seeking to understand why the OIG did not issue a report on its investigation and did not interview employees who most likely have relevant information regarding the subject matter of the inquiry,” the senators wrote.

The senators asked the state department OIG about its failure to interview Mr. Winer in light of him introducing Mr. Steele to high-ranking state department officials with direct access to their counterparts at the FBI days before the FBI sought a FISA order to surveil a Trump campaign official.

The senators also learned the state department OIG discovered at least one department official, Mr. Winer, utilized non-official email accounts to conduct official department business, and they have requested an explanation as to why the OIG did not interview Mr. Winer about his use of personal email when he directed others to upload those emails to classified systems within the department.  In addition, the senators learned that the state department OIG determined a department employee may have engaged in anti-Trump political conduct, in violation of the Hatch Act, and the OIG referred that individual to the Office of Special Counsel for Investigation. That Hatch Act investigation is ongoing.

The Office of Special Counsel is the permanent, independent investigative agency for personnel matters in the federal government and is not related to Robert Mueller’s temporary prosecutorial office within the justice department.

The full text of the letter can be viewed here.

Sens. Johnson and Grassley’s May 9, 2019, letters to the state department and the FBI can be viewed here.

(GrassleySenate.gov, 9/12/2019)

(…) On September 13, Schiff subpoenaed [Admiral] Maguire to get the complaint. That same day, he put out a press release about the subpoena, which forced the whistleblower’s complaint into the public for the first time. HPSCI had always treated whistleblower’s complaints with discretion — but the point of the Ciaramella dossier operation was to force the complaint into the public.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: Brendon Smialkowski/Agence France Press/Getty Images)

“State Department investigators probing Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state discovered nearly 600 security incidents that violated agency policy, according to a report the Daily Caller News Foundation obtained.

The investigation, conducted by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, found 38 individuals were culpable for 91 security violations. Another 497 violations were found, but no individuals were found culpable in those incidents.

The investigation concluded Sept. 6, and the report was issued Sept. 13.

(…) The FBI determined that thousands of the emails on Clinton’s server contained some level of classified information. Some of those emails were found to have information classified as top secret, the highest level of classification.

State Department investigators reviewed all of Clinton’s emails, obtained hundreds of statements, and conducted dozens of in-person interviews with current and former State Department officials, according to the report.

Investigators determined personal email use to conduct official State Department business “represented an increased risk of unauthorized disclosure.” Clinton’s use of the private server “added an increased degree of risk of compromise as a private system lacks the network monitoring and intrusion detection capabilities of State Department networks,” the report stated.

Investigators said there was “no persuasive evidence” of “systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”

One reason that investigators were unable to assign culpability in the 497 incidents was because of the duration of the investigation. Many of the subjects of the probe, including Clinton and her circle of aides, has left the State Department by the time the investigation began.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/18/2019)  (Archive)

“Reports that the CIA conducted an emergency exfiltration of a long-time human intelligence source who was highly placed within the Russian Presidential Administration sent shock waves throughout Washington, D.C. The source was said to be responsible for the reporting used by the former director of the CIA, John Brennan, in making the case that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered Russian intelligence services to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election for the purpose of tipping the scales in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump. According to CNN’s Jim Sciutto, the decision to exfiltrate the source was driven in part by concerns within the CIA over President Trump’s cavalier approach toward handling classified information, including his willingness to share highly classified intelligence with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during a controversial visit to the White House in May 2017.

On closer scrutiny, however, this aspect of the story falls apart, as does just about everything CNN, The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have reported. There was a Russian spy whose information was used to push a narrative of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election; this much appears to be true. Everything else that has been reported is either a mischaracterization of fact or an outright fabrication designed to hide one of the greatest intelligence failures in U.S. history — the use by a CIA director of intelligence data specifically manipulated to interfere in the election of an American president.

The consequences of this interference have deleteriously impacted U.S. democratic institutions in ways the American people remain ignorant of — in large part because of the complicity of the U.S. media when it comes to reporting this story.

Oleg Smolenkov (Credit: public domain)

This article attempts to set the record straight by connecting the dots presented by available information and creating a narrative shaped by a combination of derivative analysis and informed speculation. At best, this article brings the reader closer to the truth about Oleg Smolenkov’s role as a CIA asset; at worst, it raises issues and questions that will help in determining the truth.

(…) Every Russian diplomat assigned to the United States is screened to ascertain his or her susceptibility for recruitment. The FBI does this from a counterintelligence perspective, looking for Russian spies. The CIA does the same, but with the objective of recruiting a Russian source who can remain in the employ of the Russian government, and thereby provide the CIA with intelligence information commensurate to their standing and access. Turning a senior Russian diplomat is difficult; recruiting a junior Russian diplomat like Oleg Smolenkov less so. Someone like Smolenkov would be viewed not so much by the limited access he provided at the time of recruitment, but rather his potential for promotion and the increased opportunity for more essential access provided by such.

The responsibility within the CIA for recruiting Russian diplomats living in the United States falls to the National Resources Division, or NR, part of the Directorate of Operations, or DO — the clandestine arm of the CIA. In a perfect world, the CIA domestic station in Washington, D.C., would coordinate with the local FBI field office and develop a joint approach for recruiting a Russian diplomat such as Smolenkov. The reality is, however, that the CIA and the FBI have different goals and objectives when it comes to the Russians they recruit. As such, Smolenkov’s recruitment was most likely a CIA-only affair, run by NR but closely monitored by the Russian Operations Group of the Agency’s Central Eurasia Division, who would have responsibility for managing Smolenkov upon his return to Moscow.

The precise motive for Smolenkov to take up the CIA’s offer of recruitment remains unknown. He graduated from one of the premier universities in Russia, the Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, and he married his English language instructor. Normally a graduate from an elite university such as Maurice Thorez has his or her pick of jobs in the Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Defense or the security services. Smolenkov was hired by the Foreign Ministry as a junior linguist, assigned to the Second European Department, which focuses on Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Baltics, before getting assigned to the embassy in Washington.”  (Read more: Consortium News, 9/14/2019)

The London offices of Orbis Business Intelligence. (Credit: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters)

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said Friday that U.S. officials received as many as six warnings that dossier author Christopher Steele was an unreliable source of information regarding President Donald Trump.

Graham discussed the assessment of Steele during a radio interview with host Sean Hannity, but he stopped short of describing all of the information regarding the former British spy because much of it is classified.

“There’s four events that I’m aware of, five actually, where the system was informed that Christopher Steele was an unreliable informant when it came to Trump,” Graham told Hannity.

“Some of them I can’t tell you yet until we get this stuff declassified. But I think it’s going to be five; it may be six,” the South Carolina Republican added later.” (Daily Caller, 9/14/2019)

Judge Reggie Walton (Credit: public domain)

“A federal judge compared White House involvement in an investigation of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to a “banana republic,” and accused people “at the top” of undermining the “integrity” of the judicial process, new documents revealed Friday.

The chilling statements were disclosed in records obtained by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington in a lawsuit. The attack by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on White House pressure emerged amid mounting controversy over Attorney General William Barr’s manipulation of criminal cases involving allies of President Donald Trump or those he perceives as enemies.

The Justice Department announced Friday that it wasn’t pursuing any criminal charges against McCabe — a frequent target of Trump’s — for allegedly misleading investigators about a leak to the media concerning an FBI probe into the Clinton Foundation.

Walton, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush and serves in the District of Columbia, chided DOJ prosecutors in September for repeated delays in deciding whether to bring charges against McCabe and keeping him under a cloud of suspicion, which he suspected served White House interests.

“I fully appreciate the complexity of the assessment, especially — unfortunately, to be candid — in light of the way by the White House, which I don’t think top executive officers should be doing,” he said, according to a transcript of a discussion when prosecutors requested yet another delay.

“I don’t think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. I just think it’s a banana republic when we go down that road and we have those type of statements being made that are conceivably … influencing the ultimate decision,” Walton said. “I think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive that there is undue, inappropriate pressure being brought to bear.” (Read more: Huffington Post, 2/14/2020)  (Archive)

The White House Press Secretary released the following statement on September 17, 2019:

At the request of a number of committees of Congress, and for reasons of transparency, the President has directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to provide for the immediate declassification of the following materials: (1) pages 10-12 and 17-34 of the June 2017 application to the FISA court in the matter of Carter W. Page; (2) all FBI reports of interviews with Bruce G. Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation; and (3) all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Carter Page FISA applications.

In addition, President Donald J. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (including the FBI) to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction, of James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr.

(whitehouse.gov/briefing, 9/17/2019)

Greg Miller (l) Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, and AAron Blake (r) (Credit: Washington Post)

(…) On September 18, three of the Washington Post’s top collusion conspiracy theory reporters, Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima, and Shane Harris wrote that the whistleblower’s complaint involves “Trump’s communications with a foreign leader” and a “promise” that was made. The release of the transcript would show no promise was made.

On September 19, the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake showed two of the pieces together. He wrote that the complaint dealt with Ukraine and hinted it had to do with foreign aid. “Lawmakers were concerned,” wrote Blake, “that the administration was failing to provide $250 million for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is intended to help Ukraine defend itself from Russia.”

By declassifying the transcript of his call with Zelensky, Trump had gained a step on his opponents. The Steele dossier was made of rumors and whispered accounts of things that never happened, but Ciaramella’s fiction was based on a real dialogue that anyone could now read for themselves to know the truth. Trump’s reluctance to hand out U.S. taxpayer dollars to a foreign government was unlikely to turn supporters against a president who had campaigned on America First. That his adversaries saw it rather as a vulnerability highlighted how far Washington was from the rest of America.” (Read more: Justthenews, 9/27/2020)  (Archive)

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice (DOJ) for records about FBI Special Agent Michael Gaeta, who was the Legal Attaché in Rome who helped circulate the Steele dossier (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-02722)).

The suit was filed after the Justice Department and FBI failed to respond to an August 10, 2018, FOIA requests seeking:

• All records of communications, including emails (using [his or her] own name or aliases), text messages, instant chats and encrypted messages, sent to and from former FBI Legal Attaché in Rome, Special Agent Michael Gaeta, mentioning the terms “Trump”, “Clinton”, “Republican”, “Democrat”, and/or “conservatives.”

• All SF50s and SF52s of SA Michael Gaeta.

• All expense reports and travel vouchers submitted for SA Michael Gaeta.

On August 28, 2018, Bruce Ohr testified before a joint task force of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees that Christopher Steele, author of the Clinton funded dossier, gave two reports from the dossier to Gaeta.

In the July 30 meeting, Chris Steele also mentioned something about the doping — you know, one of the doping scandals. And he also mentioned, I believe — and, again, this is based on my review of my notes — that he had provided Mr. Gaeta with two reports…”

The only thing I recall him mentioning is that he had provided two of his reports to Special Agent Gaeta.

Gaeta reportedly was authorized by then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to meet with Steele at his office in London to receive reports from the dossier

The purpose of the London visit was clear. Steele was personally handing the first memo in his dossier to Gaeta for ultimate transmission back to the FBI and the State Department.

For this visit, the FBI sought permission from the office of Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland, who had been the recipient of many of Steele’s reports, gave permission for the more formal meeting. On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele’s firm, Orbis.

“The FBI is covering up its role in the Russiagate hoax,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch has had to fight the FBI ‘tooth and nail’ for every scrap of information about the illicit targeting of President Trump.” (Read more: September 18, 2019)

“In the days leading up to last week’s release of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff implied that he was unaware of the substance of the allegations in the document, which centered on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Ukraine’s president.

But a report from The New York Times on Wednesday raises news questions about Schiff’s claims.

According to the newspaper, Schiff had a general idea of the substance of the complaint by the time it was filed on Aug. 12. That’s because the would-be whistleblower approached a Schiff aide on the House Intelligence Committee. In turn, the aide directed the individual to the Intelligence Community Inspector General (IC IG), and briefed Schiff on the subject of the complaint.

Schiff and his staff “knew at least vaguely” what was in the complaint when it was filed, according to The Times.

But Schiff played coy for weeks when discussing the mysterious complaint. During his many interviews about the allegations against Trump, he did not reveal that his office had been in contact with the whistleblower or that he had any awareness of the person’s allegations.

(Congresswoman Elise Stefanik/Twitter/9/27/2019)

In a Sept. 19 press conference, he suggested that he did not know what the whistleblower was alleging. He also asserted that he might not even know that a complaint had been filed if Michael Atkinson, the IC IG, had not contacted Congress earlier last month regarding the complaint.

“In the absence of the actions, and I want to thank the inspector general, in the absence of his actions in coming to our committee, we might not have even known there was a whistleblower complaint alleging an urgent concern,” Schiff said during a press briefing on Sept. 19.

Schiff left out the part about his staff member directing the whistleblower to contact the IC IG in the first place.

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/02/2019)

On Sunday, September 30, 2019, Nancy Pelosi appears CBS 60 Minutes and says the following:

“He told me it was perfect, that there was nothing on the call,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” referring to a conversation she had with President Trump before the Trump administration released the transcript.

“But I know what was in the call,” Pelosi continued, before quickly adding, “I mean, uh, it was in the public domain.”
(Read more: Sarah Carter, 9/30/2019)

(Congresswoman Liz Cheney/Twitter/9/30/2019)

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko (Credit: Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

“In an interview with media outlet Hromadske, Prystaiko said Ukraine was an independent state and would not take sides in U.S. politics even if “in theory” the country was in a position to do so. He added that Kiev appreciated the assistance it received from Washington.

Zelenskiy’s office has so far declined to comment on the allegations.

“I know what the conversation was about and I think there was no pressure,” Prystaiko said. “This conversation was long, friendly, and it touched on many questions, sometimes requiring serious answers.”

Trump dismissed the Sept. 12 complaint from the whistleblower within the intelligence community as a partisan hit against him.

Trump had spoken Zelenskiy less than three weeks before the complaint was filed. Trump is due to meet Zelenskiy during a United Nations gathering in New York.

Prystaiko said Zelenskiy had the right to keep conversations with other leaders confidential.

“I want to say that we are an independent state, we have our secrets,” he was quoted as saying in the interview.” (Read more: Reuters, 9/21/2019)

On September 22, 2019, Pompeo and Giuliani appear on the three Sunday news shows, Giuliani also appears on Fox News Sunday.

Giuliani suggests Biden removed Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and approved the new prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko as part of an effort to “frame” Paul Manafort and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election. Giuliani also asserts that the new Prosecutor dropped a case against George Soros’ organization Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC)  for producing information to smear Manafort.

I went there as a lawyer defending his client. I — I have known about this for five months. I have been trying to get people to cover this for five months. So, I knew it would be very, very hard to get this out.

And what I’m talking about, this, it’s Ukrainian collusion, which was large, significant, and proven with Hillary Clinton,with the Democratic National Committee, a woman named Chalupa, with the ambassador, with an FBI agent who’s now been hired by George Soros who was funding a lot of it.

Hillary Clinton meets with Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko in New York, September 2016 (Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

When Biden got the prosecutor fired, the new prosecutor, who Biden approved — you don’t get to approve a prosecutor in a foreign country, unless something fishy is going on.

The new prosecutor dropped the case, not just on Biden’s kid and the crooked company that Biden’s kid work for, Burisma. That was done as a matter of record in October of 2016, after the guy got tanked.

He also dropped the case on George Soros’ company called AntAC. AntAC is the company where there’s documentary evidence that they were producing false information about Trump, about Biden. Fusion GPS was there.

Go back and listen to Nellie Ohr’s testimony. Nellie Ohr says that there was a lot of contact between Democrats and the Ukraine.

The complete interview is here.

Two days after Biden announced his candidacy, Giuliani attempted to call attention to “possible conspiracy (collusion) between DNC and Clinton operatives and Ukrainian officials to set up members of the Trump campaign.”

(Twitter)

Giuliani tweets on March 22 that attention should be paid to “some real collusion between Hillary, Kerry and Biden people colluding with Ukrainian operatives to make money and affect the 2016 election.”

Giuliani also suggests an investigation would show Biden was involved in the 2016 election interference coming out of Ukraine. On Oct. 1, Giuliani wrote in no uncertain terms, “Joe’s wide range of corruption included obstructing an investigation of Dem 2016 election interference.”

(Twitter)

A minute later, Giuliani tweets, “this is corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration” involved an “illegal impact from Ukraine on the 2016 election. I was investigating this as an attorney to vindicate my client. It began and was largely done before Biden announced his run for President”

(Twitter)

On Sept. 19, 2019, Giuliani has an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo:

“The prosecutor was removed because he was investigating the son, and he was investigating Soros’s charity or whatever the hell it was, AntAC. The new prosecutor that came in dismissed both cases,” Giuiliani said. “If you listen to Joe Biden’s tape, he convicts himself. He says, ‘I told the president of the Ukraine, if you don’t dismiss this guy, you’re not going to get your 1.2 billion dollars.’”

Two days after the Sunday morning shows, Giuliani was back on Fox News, this time in an interview with Laura Ingraham, where he took another opportunity to spell out that the investigation into the 2016 election investigation targeted Biden too.

INGRAHAM: But how are you defending him [Trump] by investigating Biden? How — please spell it out for us.

GIULIANI: Because one of the things that the prosecutor that Biden had fired and then the prosecutor that Biden helped to put in, one of the things they did was to dismiss a case against an organization that was collecting false information about Donald Trump, about Paul Manafort, and feeding it to the Democratic National Committee.

INGRAHAM: OK, that explains it to people. I don’t think people understood that.

On Sept.29, Giuliani tells ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, “What the President’s talking about is — however, there is a — load of evidence that the Ukrainians created false information, that they were asked by the Obama White House to do it in January of 2016.” He later added, “This is not about getting Joe Biden in trouble. This is about proving that Donald Trump was framed by the Democrats.”

On October 2, Giuliani appears on Sean Hannity’s show on Oct. 2, asserting that Biden was not the target of his search, but became a part of his investigation nonetheless: “I didn’t go looking for Joe Biden. The Ukrainians brought me substantial evidence of Ukrainian collusion with Hillary Clinton, the DNC, George Soros, George Soros’s company. They put it in my lap. They came and gave me a testimony.” How did that supposedly implicate Biden directly? Giuliani stated, “They – the Ukrainian oligarch, Zlochevskyi, didn’t pay millions for Hunter Biden’s non-existent skill. He paid millions to buy the Vice President’s office, and it was a good deal for Zlochevskyi. He got Hunter Biden off the hook. He got Soros’s company out of jeopardy. … If anybody would care to investigate, they could find everything I just said.”

Secretary Pompeo’s appearance on Sept. 22 with Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan asked Pompeo about Giuliani’s pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden, Pompeo’s response was highly consistent with Giuliani’s allegations that Biden interfered in the 2016 election.

“BRENNAN: I want to also ask you about Ukraine. The President’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is publicly calling for an investigation by the Ukrainian government into Joe Biden, who is, obviously, a– a political opponent of the President. Is it appropriate for the President’s personal attorney to be inserting himself in foreign affairs like this?

POMPEO: If there was election interference that took place by the vice president, I think the American people deserve to know. We– we know there was interference in the 2016 election and if it’s the case that there was something going on with the President or his family that caused a conflict of interest and Vice President Biden behaved in a way that was inconsistent with the way leaders ought to operate, I think the American people deserve to know that.”
Sec. Pompeo on CBS’s Face the Nation, Sept. 22, 2019

“We’re going to see President Zelensky this week. I do hope — I do hope that if Vice President Biden engaged in behavior that was inappropriate, if he had a conflict of interest or entered — or allowed something to take place in Ukraine which may have interfered in our elections in 2016, I do hope that we get to the bottom of that.”

Sec. Pompeo on Fox News Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019

“America cannot have our elections interfered with. And if that’s what took place there, if there was that kind of activity engaged in by Vice-President Biden, we need to know.”

Sec. Pompeo on ABC’s This Week, Sept. 22, 2019

(h/t Just Security, 10/21/2019)  (Archive)

Joe Biden (Credit: Council on Foreign Relations)

“Former Vice President Joe Biden, now a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, has locked into a specific story about the controversy in Ukraine.

He insists that, in spring 2016, he strong-armed Ukraine to fire its chief prosecutor solely because Biden believed that official was corrupt and inept, not because the Ukrainian was investigating a natural gas company, Burisma Holdings, that hired Biden’s son, Hunter, into a lucrative job.

There’s just one problem.

Hundreds of pages of never-released memos and documents — many from inside the American team helping Burisma to stave off its legal troubles — conflict with Biden’s narrative.

And they raise the troubling prospect that U.S. officials may have painted a false picture in Ukraine that helped ease Burisma’s legal troubles and stop prosecutors’ plans to interview Hunter Biden during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

For instance, Burisma’s American legal representatives met with Ukrainian officials just days after Biden forced the firing of the country’s chief prosecutor and offered “an apology for dissemination of false information by U.S. representatives and public figures” about the Ukrainian prosecutors, according to the Ukrainian government’s official memo of the meeting. The effort to secure that meeting began the same day the prosecutor’s firing was announced.

In addition, Burisma’s American team offered to introduce Ukrainian prosecutors to Obama administration officials to make amends, according to that memo and the American legal team’s internal emails.

The memos raise troubling questions:

1.)   If the Ukraine prosecutor’s firing involved only his alleged corruption and ineptitude, why did Burisma’s American legal team refer to those allegations as “false information?”

2.)   If the firing had nothing to do with the Burisma case, as Biden has adamantly claimed, why would Burisma’s American lawyers contact the replacement prosecutor within hours of the termination and urgently seek a meeting in Ukraine to discuss the case?

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have tried to get this information to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) since the summer of 2018, fearing it might be evidence of possible violations of U.S. ethics laws. First, they hired a former federal prosecutor to bring the information to the U.S. attorney in New York, who, they say, showed no interest. Then, the Ukrainians reached out to President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.” (Read more: The Hill, 9/26/2019)

Eric Ciaramella

“If you have read any of the documents that came from Fusion-GPS, Nellie Ohr and Christopher Steele, you will likely find an amazing amount of similarity to the format and writing in this “whistleblower” complaint.

It was obviously written by a Lawfare member.

The complaint is the same structure as the Steele Dossier.  No direct knowledge; no direct evidence to the claims; second-hand gossip, rumors from people who might have known another person to have overheard something, mixed with prior media reports to narrate a story as told by the author. Here is the complaint:

The complaint is based on the July 25th phone call between President Trump and President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.  Here’s the transcript of that call:

The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson.  ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay ‘whistle-blower‘ complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was “blowing-the-whistle” based on second-hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie ‘hearsay‘.

Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.

If the DOJ-NSD exploitation of the NSA database, and/or DOJ-NSD FISA abuse, and/or DOJ-NSD FARA corruption were ever to reach sunlight, current ICIG Atkinson -as the lawyer for the process- would be under a lot of scrutiny for his involvement.

Yes, that gives current ICIG Michael Atkinson a strong and corrupt motive to participate with the Schiff/Lawfare impeachment objective.

Atkinson’s conflict-of-self-interest, and/or possible blackmail upon him by deep state actors who most certainly know his compromise, likely influenced his approach to this whistleblower complaint.   That would explain why the Dept. of Justice Office of Legal Counsel so strongly rebuked Atkinson’s interpretation of his responsibility with the complaint.

In the Justice Department’s OLC opinion, they point out that Atkinson’s internal justification for accepting the whistleblower complaint was poor legal judgment.  [See Here]  I would say Atkinson’s decision is directly related to his own risk exposure:

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/26/2019)

Kurt Volker (Credit: Reuters)

“Kurt Volker, the U.S. special representative to Ukraine, resigned Friday amid fallout from a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump regarding a phone call in July with Ukraine’s president.

Volker was one of five State Department officials that House Democrats said Friday they want to depose as part of an impeachment inquiry of Trump. The whistleblower complaint focuses on Trump’s July 25 phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader.

Beginning earlier this year, Volker served as a liaison between officials in the incoming Zelensky administration and Rudy Giuliani, the Trump lawyer who pushed the Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter.

(…) Volker helped Giuliani set up meetings with Zelensky aides. But the whistleblower complaint also says that Volker and Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union, met with Giuliani in an effort to “contain the damage” to national security.

Volker and Sondland also met with Ukrainian officials to help them understand the “different messages” they were receiving from Giuliani and official diplomatic channels.

Volker, who served as ambassador to NATO under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, joined the Trump State Department in 2017. He was also executive director at the McCain Institute, founded by late Arizona Sen. John McCain.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 9/27/2019)

(Credit: Communities Digital News)

“Attorney General William Barr reportedly listened to an audio recording of the mysterious professor at the center of the special counsel’s probe during a surprise trip last week to Italy.

Barr met with Italian intelligence officials during the trip, The Daily Beast reported citing Italian officials, and John Durham accompanied him. Durham is a federal prosecutor who is leading an inquiry into FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering activities related to the Trump campaign.

A source in Italy’s Ministry of Justice said that Italian officials played a tape for Barr and Durham, according to The Daily Beast. Another source said the Italians showed the U.S. officials other evidence related to Joseph Mifsud, who was once a Maltese diplomat and has held university positions in the U.K. and Italy.

The tape was a deposition that Mifsud gave after applying for police protection explaining why he might be in harm’s way, according to The Beast. The report said Italian Ministry of Justice records show that Mifsud applied for police protection.

Mifsud was scrutinized in the special counsel’s investigation because of his relationship in 2016 with George Papadopoulos, a former Trump campaign aide. Papadopoulos said Mifsud told him during an April 26, 2016 meeting in London that he had learned from Russian government officials that Russia had “dirt” on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the form of “thousands” of her emails.

(…) The special counsel portrayed Mifsud as a possible Russian agent; however, the Malta-born mystery man also has close ties to Western diplomats. He has visited the U.S. State Department and held a position at Rome’s Link Campus University, which has close ties to Western intelligence agencies.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 10/02/2019)  (Archive)

“The Trump-Zelensky transcript contradicts the whistleblower complaint in three notable instances, raising questions about the credibility of the whistleblower and his or her purported White House sources.

First, WB claims that his sources told him that after “an initial exchange of pleasantries” Trump “used the remainder of the call to advance his personal interests.” The transcript shows that the leaders discussed meetings in Poland and DC before ending the call.

Second, WB claims that aside from the cases “purportedly dealing with the Biden family and the 2016 US election … no other ‘cases’ were discussed.” But the transcript shows that Trump and Zelensky talked of a potential probe of Marie Yovanovitch. (misspelled as Ivanovich)

Zelensky: “if you have any additional information that you can provide to us, it would be very helpful for the investigation to make sure that we administer justice in our country” in regards to Yovanovitch.

In the transcript, Yovanovitch’s name is misspelled “Ivanovich” and Zelensky appears to have misstated her title as “Ambassador to the United States from Ukraine.”

WB claims the loading of the call transcript onto a secure system amounted to an abuse of that system since the “the call did not contain anything remotely sensitive from a national security perspective.” The transcript was labeled (properly) “SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN.”

The “SECRET/ORCON/NOFORN.” label was appropriate since the call contained Trump’s views on foreign nations, including Germany, a key U.S. ally. Unauthorized disclosure of such information has the potential to harm national security.

Pelosi kicked off impeachment before the White House released the transcript of the call and before the complaint was made public. As a result, she may not have been aware that the complaint is based on hearsay, some of which has now been contradicted by the call transcript.” (Ivan Pentchoukov @IvanPentchoukov/Twitter, 9/27/2019)

“The U.S. State Department has ramped up its probe into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server usage, with investigators questioning numerous aides of the Obama-era official in recent weeks, according to a report.

On Saturday, the Washington Post reported State Department officials informed up to 130 Clinton aides that they were found to be “culpable” of handling information that was classified lower than they should have been when transmitted through the private server.

Although some former Obama administration officials have attempted to discredit the investigation by accusing the Trump administration of targeting them, one official retorted that “the process is set up in a manner to completely avoid any appearance of political bias.”

“This has nothing to do with who is in the White House,” another official affirmed. “This is about the time it took to go through millions of emails, which is about three and a half years.”

An FBI examination of Clinton’s server found over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed “Secret” and 22 deemed “Top Secret”. An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively classified by the State Department.” (Read more: Breitbart, 9/28/2019)