Sidney Powell (l), General Michael Flynn (c) and Lee Smith

“A lawyer for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said her client was prepared to “audit” the U.S. intelligence community as White House national security adviser.

And that, according to former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell, is partly why federal agents “set up” Flynn.

Flynn, 61, is fighting to dismiss the government’s case against him. He pleaded guilty in December 2017 for lying to investigators about his conversations with Russian diplomat Sergey Kislyak on sanctions on Russia and a United Nations resolution on Israel, but in January, he told the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., that he was “innocent of this crime.”

Powell, who took over Flynn’s defense last summer, told the Vicki McKenna Show on 1310 WIBA Madison on Tuesday that her client was “totally set up” because he threatened to expose wrongdoing by top intelligence officials in the Obama administration.

“He was going to audit the intel agencies because he knew about the billions Brennan and company were running off books,” Powell said, referring to former CIA Director John Brennan.

Powell offered no evidence during the interview to support the claim, but her comments echo the findings of investigative journalist Lee Smith, the author of The Plot Against the President.

During a November interview on Maria Bartiromo’s Insiders on Fox Nation along with Powell, Smith said Flynn was scrutinizing possible misconduct by the U.S. intelligence community.

“In addition to Gen. Flynn’s name being cleared, I hope that his initiative to get to the bottom of what these people were doing — to audit the intelligence community … that’s something else we need to look at again,” Smith said. “As well, his initiative to clean out the deep state.” (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 4/01/2020)  (Archive)

“Stung by new evidence of surveillance errors, the nation’s intelligence court on Friday ordered the FBI to review more than two dozen wiretap applications to determine if they were so flawed as to have led to inappropriate spying on Americans.

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Chief Judge James Boasberg gave the bureau until June 15 to complete the review, moving quickly to react to a Justice Department inspector general’s memo earlier this week that found 29 FISA warrants to spy on Americans contained inaccurate or unverified information in violation of the FBI’s so-called Woods Procedures.

The judge’s order requires the FBI to determine if the errors were material enough to void the already approved warrants.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

(…) The court signaled on Friday additional action may be taken given the widespread problems now revealed about the FBI’s handling of FISA warrants dating back five years. “When problems are identified in particular cases, furthermore, the Court must evaluate what remedial measures may be necessary,” Boasberg wrote.

The FBI said Friday night it would cooperate with the court and noted that since the problems with the Page warrants were revealed it has taken more than three dozen corrective actions to ensure future FISA would meet the standard of accuracy required by the court and the bureau’s rules.

You can read the IG’s memo here.

You can read the ruling here.

(Read more: JusttheNews, 4/03/2020)  (Archive) (Ruling Archive)

(Credit: CNN)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it and the State Department, which is represented by Justice Department lawyers, filed responses opposing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her former Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills’ Writ of Mandamus request to overturn a U.S. District Court order requiring their testimony under oath regarding Clinton’s emails and Benghazi attack records. At the same time, the government argued that it did not engage in “bad faith” in failing to disclose the Clinton non-government email system to Judicial Watch and the court. The briefs were filed on April 3 with the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The filings come in the appeals court’s proceedings concerning Judicial Watch’s lawsuit that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State

Judicial Watch argues that Clinton and Mills “must demonstrate that they have no other adequate means of relief,” which they failed to show. Also, Clinton and Mills do not demonstrate “that the District Court’s order was a judicial usurpation of power or a clear abuse of discretion, or that [Clinton and Mills] have a clear and indisputable right to a writ.” In fact, “the District Court reasonably concluded that Clinton’s previous explanations for using a personal email server are cursory, incomplete, and seemingly at odds with what discovery has yielded to date.”

Judicial Watch further argues that Clinton and Mills are trying to avoid their deposition testimony by relying on, “their status as former high-level government officials.” Clinton and Mills, “do not offer a single case from this Court or any other, holding that former high-level government officials should not be required to follow regular appellate channels to challenge a discovery order.” Particularly in Mills’ case, Judicial Watch notes that they, “identify no case in which a court entertained a mandamus petition to stop the deposition of even a sitting cabinet member’s chief of staff.” [Emphasis in original]

Judicial Watch also argues against Clinton’s argument that she held the server under “claim of right,” when it contained thousands of federal records. Judicial Watch states that unlike other Secretaries of State, like Henry Kissinger, Clinton did not obtain an opinion from State’s Legal Adviser on whether she could take the federal records prior to her departure from State. Clinton’s “claim of right” argument over her server would be like a bank robbery:

A bank robber who stuffs bills into a duffle bag during a robbery may own the bag, but has no “claim of right” to the stolen cash. Is Clinton claiming a legal right to the agency records stored on the server? If so, Petitioners offer no factual or legal support for such a claim. While the server may have been Clinton’s property, the agency records on the server plainly were not.

Though they repeatedly sought to shut down any further inquiry in the lower court proceedings, the State and Justice Departments also argue against Clinton and Mills’ appeal to overturn the order for their depositions:

The government did not seek and thus does not support the extraordinary relief of mandamus due to the unique circumstances of this case.

(Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/06/2020)  (Archive)

…The recent IG report outlining Atkinson’s gross incompetence in the FISA scandal, vis-a-vis the 42 DOJ-NSD Accuracy Reviews, is the atomic shield against the political narrative….

President Trump has sent a letter to congress giving them 30-days advance notice and informing them of the removal of Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson:

The necessary, albeit politically controversial, move comes about two months after President Trump assigned Ric Grenell to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; Grenell is ultimately the acting boss of the overall intelligence community. It is likely DNI Grenell provided some key insight into the sketchy background activity in/around Atkinson’s office, and the overall intelligence apparatus writ large.

Additionally, former congressman Mark Meadows is now President Trump’s Chief-of-Staff; and Meadows has been a critic of those within the intelligence apparatus who attempted a soft-coup twice: Once by special counsel (Russia investigation) Robert Mueller; and once by impeachment (Ukraine investigation) using CIA operative Eric Ciaramella and NSC operative Alexander Vindman.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Also, in the recent FISA review by the OIG the DOJ inspector general specifically identified issues with the “accuracy reviews” conducted by DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel.  Who was that former DOJ-NSD chief legal counsel?  That would be current ICIG Michael Atkinson…

Currently, former CIA Director John Brennan is under investigation for his role in the FBI spy operations against the Trump campaign and administration.  Brennan is being investigated by U.S. Attorney John Durham, an assignment from AG Bill Barr.

Few people have asked why it would take a U.S. attorney to conduct a review of the CIA considering ICIG Atkinson should have been doing that oversight already.  The answer within that non-discussed dynamic points to the reason why Ric Grenell as ODNI was needed.

Intelligence Committee member John Ratcliffe has been nominated for the permanent ODNI role, but his nomination has not been taken up by corrupt Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) Chairman Richard Burr.   Ironically, Senator Burr is now under investigation for insider trading related to his selling of Wall Street stocks prior to the financial collapse due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since our original research into ICIG Atkinson revealed he was part of a corrupt effort to cover-up his own involvement in the FBI operation against candidate Trump, there have been some rather interesting discoveries.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/03/2020)  (Archive)

Mainstream Media mocked Trump for months:

One of the most bizarre and disturbing aspects of President Trump’s nightly press briefings on the coronavirus pandemic is when he turns into a drug salesman. Like a cable TV pitchman hawking “male enhancement” pills, Trump regularly extols the virtues of taking hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat malaria and lupus, as a potential “game changer” that just might cure covid-19.

On Saturday, he even said: “I think people should — if it were me — in fact, I might do it anyway. I may take it. Okay? I may take it.” I’m not only the president of the Hair Club for Men, I’m also a client.

But the evidence that hydroxychloroquine could actually be an effective treatment is, at this point, extremely thin. Might it be some kind of aid in treating the disease, for some patients? Yes, it’s possible. But Trump’s enthusiasm for it is so out of proportion, and so relentless, that one has to ask: What the heck is going on here?

Some people are inclined to believe that Trump must have a financial motive, and the New York Times did report that he owns some stock in Sanofi, a company that makes the name-brand version of the drug. But I doubt that’s what’s at work. Instead, I think there are two reasons Trump is working so hard to convince everyone that hydroxychloroquine is a miracle cure, neither of which are about Trump’s own bank account.

The first is that Trump is listening to all the wrong people. We know that he finds those with advanced degrees extremely intimidating, activating his contempt and envy for experts. So when all the doctors and public health experts and epidemiologists tell him that while we can look into the potential of hydroxychloroquine, there’s no reason to think it’s going to be transformative, it makes him more, not less, convinced that it must be spectacular.

Trump compensates for his own insecurity by working to convince himself and everyone else that the experts don’t know what they’re talking about, and he knows more than them about everything. As he said in an appearance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability.” The scientists standing with him neither burst out in laughter nor began weeping uncontrollably, a tribute to their self-control. (Read more: Washington Post, 4/07/2020)

Anthony Fauci also mocked Trump for months:

The great Covid cover up. After Donald Trump had just announced his support for the use of hydroxycloroquine, Anthony Fauci said this…
“Hydroxychloroquine is not effective in the treatment of coronavirus disease or COVID-19.” #COVID19#COVID pic.twitter.com/qq3JdF2Pf9

— Freyja™ (@FreyjaTarte) April 9, 2024

Interestingly, Fauci’s National Institute of Health published a study in August 2005 discussing the effectiveness of chloroquine against the SARS coronavirus:

“Everything anyone needed to know about the motives and intents of fired Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson is evidenced by his releasing a political statement tonight protesting his termination.

Atkinson doesn’t write a “letter”, his diatribe is not addressed to anyone, it is just a political “statement” designed to be exploited by the same people, for the same intents, as his prior ICIG work product.  This transparently political effort is ridiculous.

Just as pathetic and political as Atkinson’s statement is the statement expressed by current DOJ IG Michael Horowitz on behalf of Atkinson:

…“Inspector General Atkinson is known throughout the Inspector General community for his integrity, professionalism, and commitment to the rule of law and independent oversight.”…

What makes this Horowitz statement so ridiculous, political and hypocritical, is that only four days earlier IG Horowitz was so alarmed at the gross incompetence of Atkinson that he submitted an interim memorandum noting extreme deficiencies in the FISA work product of Michael Atkinson as legal counsel for the DOJ-NSD.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/05/2020)  (Archive)

“Judicial Watch announced today it has obtained new documents from the Department of State containing the telephone transcripts from the evening of September 12, 2012, in which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informs then-Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil that the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi “had nothing to do with the film.”  The documents include previously unreleased telephone transcripts with world leaders about the Benghazi attack.

Clinton’s admission to Kandil was first produced to the Select Committee on Benghazi on October 13, 2015 and publicized on the day of Mrs. Clinton’s testimony, October 22, but court filings in Judicial Watch litigation show that the record was only produced after two federal court judges ordered the State Department to produce more Benghazi-related records to Judicial Watch.  Similarly, Judicial Watch litigation also forced the release of the September 11, 2012 email in which Secretary of State Hillary Clinton informed her daughter by email that the attack had been staged by an “Al Qaeda-like group,” rather than as the result of “inflammatory material posted on the Internet,” as Mrs. Clinton had claimed in her official public statement one hour earlier.

The State Department previously told a federal court that the Kandil document wasn’t responsive to Judicial Watch’s request and resulting lawsuit (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01511)) seeking:

Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to notes, updates, or reports created in response to the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. This request includes, but is not limited to, notes taken by then Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or employees of the Office of the Secretary of State during the attack and its immediate aftermath.

But the State Department then produced this information last month to Judicial Watch.  The records, the State Department told the Court, were found among thousands of new Clinton State Department records supposedly only discovered in December 2015 – again, two months after the key Kandil document was first produced to the Benghazi Committee.

Under court order, the State Department released 11 documents responsive to the Judicial Watch request with large blocks of information redacted. The documents also include phone conservations between Clinton and other foreign dignitaries and heads of state during the period of the deadly terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate.

At 10:08 p.m. on September 11, Mrs. Clinton issued an official State Department press statement, approved by the White House, placing the blame for the attack on an Internet video:

Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.

Yet the next day, in her 3:04 PM September 12 conversation with Kandil, Clinton said:

“We know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film.  It was a planned attack – not a protest.”  Clinton went on to add, “You’re not kidding. Based on the information we saw today we believe that group that claimed responsibility for this is affiliated with al-Qaeda.”

On September 15, in a telephone call with then-Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Amr, Clinton emphatically portrayed the “stupid, very offensive film” as the root cause of the Benghazi violence. Clinton told Amr:

“I have repeatedly, as has the President and other officials in our government, deplored not only the content of this stupid, very offensive film… But we have to exercise more self-discipline… otherwise we’ll be in a vicious downward circle against everyone who has ever felt offended, particularly on the internet….”

Clinton’s telephone call with Amr also contained a curious reference to what the former secretary referred to as a “very successful investment visit led by my deputy Tom Nides, and on the very day they left this series of incidents began to unfold.” According to the Washington Post, Nides, who was deputy secretary for management and resources at the State Department, was at the same time responsible for “communications with donors” to the Clinton Foundation. Nides was also involved in the scandal involving Clinton’s efforts to provide special access to State Department officials for hedge fund clients of her son-in-law, Marc Mezinsky.

In a September 12 call with Afghan President Hamid Kharzi, Clinton says at some point they need to talk about “about religious feelings and insults and defamation.”  Islamists seek to criminalize criticism (“defamation”) of Islam.  The Obama administration worked closely with advocates for restrictions on free speech as part of their Benghazi video pr campaign.

The documents also show that Clinton referenced the “actions of a mob” to Tunisian Prime Minister Jebali on September 14.  Jebali responded that he condemned “these terrorist actions.”

“There are two scandals here.  The first is Hillary Clinton was telling different stories to different foreign leaders about the Benghazi attack – including an admission that it was a terrorist attack,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The second is the State Department’s cover-up of these documents.  The State Department is forcing Judicial Watch to play ‘whack-a-mole’ with Clinton and Benghazi documents.  It is no wonder that two frustrated federal court judges granted Judicial Watch discovery into the Clinton FOIA issues.” (Judicial Watch, 4/06/2016)  (Archive)

It has been so long since the original 2018 congressional request that many people have forgotten what was included in the “Bucket Five” declassification request.

George Papadopoulos is released from prison, December 7, 2018. (Credit: Fox News)

Bucket Five – Intelligence documents that were presented to the Gang of Eight in 2016 that pertain to the FISA application used against U.S. person Carter Page; including all exculpatory intelligence documents that may not have been presented to the FISA Court.

Bucket Five includes transcripts of the FBI wiretap operations using confidential human sources that were run against members of the Trump campaign; including George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

One of those transcripts, from the operation against Papadopoulos was declassified on April 1st, and released last night and today.

(…) ♦ A note of caution…the declassification of documents in/around the core issues of Spygate may indicate a more political approach to sunlight, and not any criminal investigation, at least in part, of the overall IC schemes.  Whatever U.S. Attorney John Durham is looking into (seems targeted to John Brennan) does not appear to be related to a criminal finding of wrongdoing by the FBI actors.   However, don’t be alarmed by that nuance because it has long been visible that the FBI position would boil down to a claim they were hoodwinked by an unknown political agenda within the CIA.

Former FBI Director James Comey has leaned into the “we were duped” approach; but the “we” in that deflection doesn’t necessarily apply to the reality of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s participation.   Comey may have been willfully blind, and incompetent toward his responsibilities, thereby holding plausible deniability as his exit strategy; thus Comey kept all those notes and memos to cover his ass. However, McCabe was not a mere bystander, subject to the manipulation of bad actors within the schemes. McCabe was an active participant, that’s the essential difference between the two.

OK, now on to the transcript as released…

In May 2016 George Papadopoulos was contacted by two members of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), Terrence Dudley and Greg Baker, working out of the U.S. embassy in London. Two American spies working in London put Papadopoulos in contact with their ally/counterpart in the Australian Embassy, Erika Thompson. [ie. ‘unofficial channels’] After meeting with Downer’s aide, Erika Thompson on May 6th, she sets up a meeting between George Papadopoulos and her boss for May 10th.

On May 10th, 2016, Ms Erika Thompson and Mr. Alexander Downer then meet with George Papadopoulos.  After the meeting, Ambassador Downer reports back to the Australian government on his conversation with Papadopoulos. [document release]. It is from this May 10th, 2016, meeting where communication from Downer, July 26th, 2016, is referenced as the origin of Crossfire Hurricane July 31st.

On August 2, 2016, Special Agent Peter Strzok and another agent at the Federal Bureau of Investigation met with Alexander Downer in London to discuss his conversation with Papadopoulos further. Strzok then received reading materials, which he texted about to Lisa Page.

A month later September 2016, the FBI used a longtime informant, Stefan Halper, to make contact with George Papadopoulos, pay him $3k and fly him to London for consulting work and a policy paper on Mediterranean energy issues.  As part of the spy operation, the FBI sent a female intelligence operative (a spy) under the alias Azra Turk to pose as Halper’s assistant and engage Papadopoulos.

A month later, October 21, 2016, the FBI used Papadopoulos as a supplemental basis for a FISA warrant against Carter Page.

(Carter Page FISA Application)

A few weeks after the FBI received the FISA warrant against Carter Page, they ran another operation against George Papadopoulos using a friend as an asset; a wired asset.

The FBI labeled Papadopoulos as “crossfire typhoon”, and ran a confidential human source (CHS #3) recently identified as Jeffrey Wiseman.

Former Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Trey Gowdy, told Maria Bartiromo in May 2019 that he had seen the transcripts of the FBI’s Jeffrey Wiseman operation and those transcripts exonerate Papadopoulos.  WATCH:

(Transcript Video 01:10) Bartiromo: I’m really glad you brought that up; the FBI agents’ discussion with George Papadopoulos. Because when the FBI sends in informants to someone they’re looking at, typically those conversations are recorded right? Those people are wired?

Gowdy: Yeah, I mean if the bureau is going to send an informant in, the informant is going to be wired; and if the bureau is monitoring telephone calls there’s going to be a transcript of that.

And some of us have been fortunate enough to know whether or not those transcripts exist; but they haven’t been made public and I think one in-particular is going – it has the potential to actually persuade people.  Very little in this Russia probe I’m afraid is going to persuade people who hate Trump, or who love Trump, but there is some information in these transcripts that I think has the potential to be a game-changer if it’s ever made public.

Bartiromo: You say that’s exculpatory evidence and when people see that they’re going to say: wait, why wasn’t this presented to the court earlier?

Gowdy: Yeah, you know, Johnny Ratcliffe is rightfully exercised over the obligations that the government has to tell the whole truth to the court when you are seeking permission to spy, or do surveillance, on an American.  And part of that includes the responsibility of providing exculpatory information, or information that tends to show the person did not do something wrong.  If you have exculpatory information, and you don’t share it with the court, that ain’t good.  I’ve seen it, Johnny’s seen it, I’d love for your viewers to see it.

Today the transcript of the Wiseman operation was released.  This is the transcript where Papadopoulos’s friend Jeffrey Wiseman is wired by the FBI for a meeting in Chicago.

Papadopoulos told Wiseman that he knew “for a fact” that nobody on the Trump campaign was involved in hacking the DNC.

The IG report said the FBI tapped Wiseman, referred to as “Source 3” in the report, due to a previous “connection” with Papadopoulos. The report said Wiseman indicated years earlier during an interview for a separate investigation he would be willing to work with the FBI.

After lunch, Wiseman and Papadopoulos traveled to a casino, where they played blackjack. According to the transcript, in addition to discussing Russia and the Trump campaign, Papadopoulos said he had worked for Israeli businesses, “to lobby for them in Washington.”  This conversation appears to be taking place in late October or early November 2016, prior to the election.

Despite all of the surveillance operations against Papadopoulos, the target was not interviewed by the FBI until January 2017. None of the exculpatory information was included in the January FISA renewal or the two subsequent renewals.

It’s likely the FBI will justify not including the exculpatory evidence based on the fact that Carter Page and not Papadopoulos was the primary target of the FISA application.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

With the release of the Papadopoulos transcript, this interview from May 2019 also takes on new context.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/09/2020)  (Archive)

Sen. Chuck Grassley suggests the redacted footnotes contradict IG Report statements. (Crecit: Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

“U.S. intelligence has decided to declassify several redacted footnotes from a recent Justice Department report that will expose more problems with the FBI’s investigation into President Trump’s campaign, including that agents possessed evidence their main informant may have been the victim of Russian disinformation, Just the News has learned.

The previously redacted footnotes are likely to raise new concerns that the FBI ignored flashing red warning signals about the informant Christopher Steele and gave a false picture in briefing materials supplied to Congress.

(…) The unredacted footnotes are expected to provide new data points in the timeline showing when the FBI learned, or should have suspected, that its key evidence suggesting Trump was colluding with Russia was erroneous and how high up those concerns were known, the sources said.

The new information “will make clear the FBI possessed information at multiple levels that undercut the evidence it was using to sustain a collusion investigation” and will be specific enough to renew a debate in Washington over “whether the FBI intentionally ignored red flags or simply was blinded by ambition from seeing them clearly,” one source with direct knowledge said.

The evidence could also raise new questions about whether statements made to Congress during the Russia probe were false or misleading, and whether the intelligence community’s official assessment that Vladimir Putin was solely trying to help elect Trump was contradicted by some evidence in FBI files, the sources said.(Read more: JusttheNews, 4/09/2020)  (Archive)

George Papadopoulos is ordered to report to prison on November 26, 2018. (Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“A newly declassified transcript from the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe reviewed by CBS News shows a recorded conversation between former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos and the bureau’s confidential human source turned up no evidence of coordination between the campaign and Russia.

The 90-page, lightly redacted transcript between Papadopoulos — who is identified by the code name “Crossfire Typhoon,” or CT  — and the bureau’s confidential human source, or CHS, captures the October 23, 2016 conversation.

Papadopoulos does boast about setting up “a meeting with…  (t) President of Egypt and Trump,” according to the transcript, and says that he had made “a lot of cool [connections] and I’m going to see what’s going to happen after the election.”

The recorded conversation was documented in the December Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.

Of the October 23, 2016 transcript, Horowitz wrote, “Papadopoulos did not say much about Russia during the first conversation with Source 3, other than to mention a “friend Sergey…[who] lives in…Brooklyn,” and invite Source 3 to travel with Papadopoulos to Russia in the summertime.”

The date on the transcript reflects that the FBI was using a confidential source to gather intelligence about the former campaign aide less than three weeks before the presidential election. Within days of the Papadopoulos recorded conversation, the FBI Russia team, known as “Crossfire Hurricane” had also secured a surveillance warrant for Page to investigate alleged coordination between the Trump team and Moscow.

(…) Earlier this month, CBS News was first to report that transcripts of a separate conversation, on October 31, 2016, showed that Papadopoulos denied to an FBI confidential source that the campaign was involved in the circumstances surrounding the hack of the Democratic National Committee’s email system, calling the idea “illegal.”

However, Horowitz also noted in his report that “Case Agent 1” had said of a similar recorded conversation with Papadopoulos in September 2016, “the Crossfire Hurricane team’s assessment was that the Papadopoulos denial was a rehearsed response and that he did not view the information as particularly germane to the investigation of Carter Page.” (Read more: CBS News, 4/25/2020)  (Archive)

“Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson asked that four footnotes be unredacted in the IG FISA abuse report. The footnotes at issue are: Footnotes 302, 334, 342* and 350. The letter states that the classified footnotes contradict information in Horowitz’s report that appears to have misled the public.

The contradiction can be found in footnote 334 recently unredacted. @JohnWHuber highlights it here:

(Twitter)

All but one of the footnotes (342*), were mostly unredacted and released by the DOJ on April 10, 2020.  Senator Grassley’s office then responds with a letter:

“The “central and essential” evidence used to justify invasive surveillance of an American citizen in the FBI’s probe into Russian interference was, itself, an example of Russian interference, according to once-secret footnotes declassified at the urging of two U.S. Senators. The footnotes, part of the Justice Department Inspector General’s postmortem of the FBI’s flawed operation to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, were released just hours after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) renewed their push for transparency. The senators expect a fuller declassification in the coming days.

The footnotes reveal that beginning early on and continuing throughout the FBI’s Russia investigation, FBI officials learned critical information streams that flowed to the dossier were likely tainted with Russian Intelligence disinformation. But the FBI aggressively advanced the probe anyway, ignoring internal oversight mechanisms and neglecting to flag the material credibility concerns for a secret court. Despite later intelligence reports that key elements of the FBI’s evidence were the result of Russian infiltration to undermine U.S. foreign relations, the FBI still pushed forward with its probe. It would eventually spill over into the years-long special counsel operation, costing taxpayers more than $30 million and increasing partisan divisions – all based on faulty evidence. In the end, the special counsel concluded that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia.

“For years, the public was fed a healthy diet of leaks, innuendo and false information to imply that President Trump and his campaign were part of a Russian conspiracy to spread disinformation. The FBI’s blind pursuit of the investigation, despite exculpatory and contradictory information, only legitimized the narrative. The mounting evidence undercutting this narrative should have stopped the investigation early in its tracks. Instead, it took several years and millions in taxpayer dollars to conclude that the allegations were baseless,” Grassley and Johnson said.

“Had FBI leadership heeded the numerous warnings of Russian disinformation, paid attention to the glaring contradictions in the pool of evidence and followed long-standing procedures to ensure accuracy, everyone would have been better off. Carter Page’s civil liberties wouldn’t have been shredded, taxpayer dollars wouldn’t have been wasted, the country wouldn’t be as divided and the FBI’s reputation wouldn’t be in shambles.

“It’s ironic that the Russian collusion narrative was fatally flawed because of Russian disinformation. These footnotes confirm that there was a direct Russian disinformation campaign in 2016, and there were ties between Russian intelligence and a presidential campaign – the Clinton campaign, not Trump’s.”

The IG report detailed how the FBI’s application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Page relied heavily on an unverified dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele on behalf of Fusion GPS, which was conducting opposition research for the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. According to Footnote 302, in October 2016, FBI investigators learned that one of Steele’s main sources was linked to the Russian Intelligence Service (RIS), and was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer.  However, the FBI neglected to include this information in its application, which the FISA Court approved that same month. Two months later, investigators learned that Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, told a Justice Department attorney that he assessed the same source “was a RIS officer who was central in connecting Trump to Russia.” In January, the FISA warrant was renewed.

Footnote 302 – Redacted

Footnote 302 – Unredacted

Footnote 334 – Redacted

Footnote 334 – Unredacted

Footnote 350 states that, in 2017, the FBI learned that intelligence reports “assessed that the referenced subset [of Steele’s reporting about the activities of Michael Cohen] was part of a Russian disinformation campaign to denigrate U.S. foreign relations.”

That same footnote states that a separate report, dated 2017, “contained information … that the public reporting about the details of Trump’s [REDACTED] activities in Moscow during a trip in 2013 were false, and that they were the product of RIS ‘infiltra[ing] a source into the network’ of a [REDACTED] who compiled a dossier of information on Trump’s activities.”

Footnote 350 – Redacted

Footnote 350 – Unredacted

An Exposé On How Hollywood And The Mainstream Media Manipulate The Multitudes By Spreading Propaganda Throughout Their Content.

The Out Of Shadows Documentary Lifts The Mask On How The Mainstream Media & Hollywood Manipulate & Control The Masses By Spreading Propaganda Throughout Their Content. The Goal Is To Wake Up The General Public By Shedding Light On How We All Have Been Lied To & Brainwashed By A Hidden Enemy With A Sinister Agenda.

Uploaded under “Fair Use” to allow others access to the content for evaluation and investigation. The choice to accept or believe is yours. . All Credit To The Out Of Shadows: Go to the site for additional information. https://www.outofshadows.org/

****ABOUT US****
The Out Of Shadows documentary lifts the mask on how the mainstream media & Hollywood manipulate & control the masses by spreading propaganda throughout their content. Our goal is to wake up the general public by shedding light on how we all have been lied to & brainwashed by a hidden enemy.

This project is the result of two years of work made by a team of professionals. Patriots made this documentary with the sole purpose of getting the truth out there.

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#Godwins Original Source – outofshadows.org/
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🔥 THE SATANIC ANTIHUMAN OFFWORLD CULT – PUR EVIL ARCHONS
—->>>>
https://rumble.com/v26gcr6-the-satanic-antihuman-offworld-cult-pur-evil-archons.html
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🔥 REPTILIAN DEMONIC SHAPESHIFTER EXPOSED – CULT & OCCULT – ADRENOCHROME IS THEIR MAIN DESIRE
—->>>>
https://rumble.com/v23h5t8-reptilian-demonic-shapeshifter-exposed-cult-and-occult-adrenochrome-is-thei.html
–
🔥 THE RED SHOE CLUB – PUR SATANIC EVIL
–>>>
https://rumble.com/v1ldc2v–the-red-shoe-club-.html
–
OPERATION PAPERCLIP –
THE SECRET INTELLIGENCE PROGRAM
–>>>>
https://rumble.com/v1q2pne-operation-paperclip-the-secret-intelligence-program.html
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OPERATION PAPERCLIP -> CIA: MK ULTRA & HOLLYWOOD, PEDOPHILIA & Walt DISNEY
—->>>>
https://rumble.com/v1xmhpw-operation-paperclip-cia-mk-ultra-and-hollywood-pedophilia-and-walt-disney.html
—>>[
– UK’s Hidden Shadows (Inspired By Out Of Shadows)
–>>
https://rumble.com/v1lae0j–uks-hidden-shadows-inspired-by-out-of-shadows.html
–
SNORKEL AT LITTLE JAMES ISLAND DISNEY SAYS –
Episode 194 with HonestWalterWhite
—>>>
https://rumble.com/v27c1a8-snorkel-at-little-james-island-disnes-said-episode-194-with-honestwalterwhi.html
–
💥 WALT DISNEY EXPOSED IN DETAIL, MK ULTRA & CLUB 33 💥
—->>>>
https://rumble.com/v2e9j9c–walt-disney-exposed-in-detail-mk-ultra-and-club-33-.html
–
OPERATION PAPERCLIP -> CIA: MK ULTRA & HOLLYWOOD, PEDOPHILIA & Walt DISNEY
—->>>>
https://rumble.com/v1xmhpw-operation-paperclip-cia-mk-ultra-and-hollywood-pedophilia-and-walt-disney.html
–
💥 SATANIC PEDO NAZI WALT DISNEY EXPOSED
–>>
https://rumble.com/v1kkzzb-satanic-pedo-nazi-walt-disney-exposed.html
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🔥 FOLLOW the WHITE RABBIT – THE SECRETS PRINCESS DI KNEW and STILL KNOWS – THE REPTO QUEEN EXPOSED
—->>>
https://rumble.com/v223wcy–the-secrets-prinses-di-knew-the-repto-queen-exposed.html
————————————————
🔥 MISSION STATEMENT: To #SaveOurChildren is OUR MAIN MISSION –
Every exposed PEDO is one less

Sally Yates testified before a Senate committee on May 8, 2017. (Credit: Andrew Harrer/Getty Images)

“Another unredacted footnote pertained to the FISA signoff by then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, noting that her approval provided the requisite authorization required under Executive Order 12333, Section 2.5, which requires that the attorney general “has determined in each case that there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” The unredacted footnote, number 293, reads:

“Her signature also specifically authorized overseas surveillance of Carter Page under Section 705(b) of the FISA and Executive Order 12333 Section 2.5”

During congressional testimony on Aug. 31, 2018, Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch, highlighted the unusual nature of the Page FISA application process and the unusual roles of McCabe and Yates, who provided approvals of the Page FISA before regular FBI and DOJ approvals had been obtained:

“There were individuals, all the way up to the Deputy Director and the Deputy Attorney General on the DOJ side, who had essentially given their approval to the FISA before it got to that step in the process. That part of it was unusual, and so I didn’t consider my review at that point in the process to be substantive in nature,” Anderson told congressional investigators.

A major problem with the issuance of the Page FISA was that information had been provided to the FBI indicating that Page had previously worked with or on behalf of another agency, likely the CIA. That information, if provided to the Office of Intelligence (OI) or the FISA court, would have made it significantly more difficult for the FBI to claim that Page was “an agent of a foreign power.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 4/16/2020)  (Archive)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it served a subpoena, authorized by a DC federal court, on Google to produce all Clinton emails from a Google account believed to contain former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s emails. Platte River Networks’ IT specialist Paul Combetta reportedly used the Google account to transfer Clinton’s emails from a laptop to a Platte River server, then used BleachBit to remove any traces of the emails from the laptop. Judicial Watch’s subpoena seeks all Clinton emails from her time at State, January 21, 2009, to February 1, 2013. Google is requested to produce the emails by May 13.

The Google subpoena comes in a Judicial Watch’s lawsuit that seeks records concerning “talking points or updates on the Benghazi attack” (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)). Judicial Watch famously uncovered in 2014 that the “talking points” that provided the basis for Susan Rice’s false statements were created by the Obama White House. This Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit led directly to the disclosure of the Clinton email system in 2015.

During an August 2019 federal court hearing, U.S District Court Judge Royce Lamberth raised concerns about Clinton’s Gmail cache and ordered Judicial Watch to “shake this tree” on the issue. Judge Lamberth noted that Senator Grassley released:

…a report in which he had some very troubling information about a guy named Combetta who had been one of the contract employees on the Clinton emails, and he and the Senator who Chairs the Homeland Security Committee released in the Senate this report Friday, and the gist of it was that Combetta had said, I guess, that he had created a dummy email account with all of the Hillary Clinton emails in it in a different name, and the FBI had investigated that to see whether or not the Chinese had ever hacked into it. They have determined that the Chinese hadn’t, but that the FBI never told the State Department about that account and that the emails that were not given over to State could have been obtained from that account, but the FBI never told State about it. So it leaves out in the open whether there are these other emails that State could have obtained but nobody ever bothered to tell State about them. I don’t know the status of that and I’m sure you don’t either, but that did occur to me that would be a problem for me as to whether an adequate examination of that circumstance occurred and, assuming that Combetta deleted them, as he said he did before he took the Fifth, I guess, whether or not the server that they were on or the — or whoever maintained the server, whether they can be reconstructed from — by that …

Just last week, the Senate’s – Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees released documents revealing that Clinton IT aide Paul Combetta copied all but four of the missing emails to a Gmail account that does not appear to have ever been reconstructed and searched. The court thinks Judicial Watch ought to shake this tree.

On March 2, 2020, Judge Lamberth granted Judicial Watch’s request to subpoena Google for relevant documents and records associated with Clinton’s emails during her tenure at the State Department.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/15/2020)  (Archive)

Twitter user/deep diver Undercover Huber reviews some of the more interesting footnotes declassified and released today by ODNI and DOJ.  His Twitter thread carries the before and after footnotes, we are just posting the unredacted copy. Starting with footnote 17:

17. Steele said MI6 gave consent to him working with IG

21. IG did not review all material collected under FISA

63. CHS operations were NatSec extraterritorial (needs higher approval per FBI manuals)

164. USG agency not running Mifsud as asset, but no derogatory info either

166. A “senior intelligence official” was present at a meeting on July 27 2016, providing the FFG information on Papadopoulos (likely in London)

205. Evidence Chris Steele lied by denying he thought he was an official CHS, as payments to him had CHS’s “Payment Name”

208. A 2015 report written by FBI’s TOCI Unit on 10 Russian oligarchs noted between Jan-May 2015 “5 of these had their intermediaries contact Steele”. These were “outreach efforts” by Steele with the Oligarchs. Gaeta was AWARE of these efforts and Oligarch contacts!

211. “Sensitive source” reporting from June 2017 indicated that a “person affiliated” with Russian Oligarch 1 (Oleg Deripaska) was “possibly aware” of Steele’s election investigation as of early July 2016

214. Confirmation none of Steele’s sources from his time at MI6

244. Info about Person 1 (assessed as being Sergei Millian), still heavily redacted

253. A number of these reports do not appear in the BuzzFeed published dossier – e.g. 132, 137 and 139.

253. Steele report “139” (not published by BuzzFeed), says that “Person 1 [Sergei Millian] was forced to lie low abroad following his/her exposure in the western media and was currently in [redacted]”….

253. …Report 139 being about Person 1 (Sergei Millian) suggests Steele kept giving reports to FBI/Gaeta AFTER being terminated by an FBI CHS as Millian was only identified in the WSJ in early 2017. Also, Steele appears to know Person 1’s location

276. The FBI wanted FISA surveillance in place on Page before Mon Oct 17 due to his upcoming travel to the U.K and South Africa.

293. Sally Yates authorized overseas surveillance of Carter Page.

296. MI6 said Steele was only in a “moderately senior” position, which contradicted the “high ranking” position suggested by Steele to the FBI.

301. Person 1 info still redacted 🤔

302. Person 1 had contact with suspected Russian intelligence persons and entities

328. During a London meeting with MI6, Bill Priestap (who authorized opening the CH probe) “may have made a commitment to MI6 not to document [MI6s] views on Steele as a condition for obtaining the information”

The FBI DID NOT WANT anything derogatory in writing🚨

334. Steele’s Primary Sub Source did NOT view his/her contacts as a “network of sources, but rather as FRIENDS with whom he/she has conversations about current events & government relations”

339. Page/Sechin meeting allegation came from a source linked to RUS intel 🚨

342. In late Jan 2017, FBI aware that Russian intel may have targeted Steele’s company Orbis [redacted] and research all publicly available information about it [redacted].

342. By early June 2017 US Intel Community report indicated two persons affiliated with Russian intelligence were aware of Steele’s election investigation in early July 2016 [Note: one of these may be the same person linked to Oleg Deripaska mentioned in FN211]

347. FBI received info in early June 2017 that revealed there were [long redaction] “personal and business ties between the sub-source and Primary Sub Source; contacts between the sub-source and an individual in the Russian Prez Admin in June/July 2016….” 🚨 [Note: Smolenkov?]

350. FBI received a report on Jan 12 2017 giving inaccuracies in Steele’s reporting. Nothing else new unredacted from the previous release.

Note: Wording and timing strongly suggests this came from the British government and was given to then NSA Michael Flynn’s office.

368/377. Like Sally Yates, Dana Boente and Rod Rosenstein authorized overseas surveillance of Page.

372. This is first direct evidence that FISA material collected after the 3rd improper FISA (renewal 2) has been sequestered as ordered by the FISA court.

379. FBI conducted PHYSICAL searches under the Page FISA (which appear to have taken place on July 13 and July 29 2017, after the final FISA was authorized). The FBI did not meet minimization procedures, which it disclosed to the FISC nearly two years later 🚨

389. The ODNI/DOJ are *still* redacting the words “Russian-based” for some reason. Someone really doesn’t want people to know whether the “Primary Sub Source” was really Russian-based or not 🤔

464 & 484. Appears to repeat the similar new info on Mifsud as FN164

526. More details on the National Security nature of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the use of extraterritorial CHS’s

(Credit: Undercover Huber @JohnWHuber with before/after footnotes, 4/15/2020)  (Archive) (Footnotes PDF)

(…) “Despite multiple reports in 2017 warning that claims in an anti-Trump dossier were ‘false’ and ‘part of a Russian disinformation campaign,’ the FBI continued to rely on the Democrat-funded opposition research to spy on a Trump campaign aide. The once-classified details contained in footnotes of the Justice Department Inspector General’s postmortem of the FBI’s flawed spying operation were unmasked at the repeated urging of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.),” Grassley released Wednesday night.

“Earlier this month, the Justice Department provided the senators with a partially-declassified version of three footnotes following their January request, but key information detailing exactly when the FBI became aware of exculpatory intelligence reports remained redacted. The new material, provided with the assistance of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, sheds new light on the remaining redactions as well as additional information that was previously classified in the IG report,” the release continues.

Details in the footnotes reveal the FBI knew the dossier wasn’t credible before applying for FISA renewals on at least one Trump campaign official. This information was also known before the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Adding insult to injury, Russian intelligence officials were aware of Steele’s investigation into the Trump campaign in July 2016. This information helped Russia with disinformation campaigns against the United States.” (Read more: TownHall, 4/16/2020)  (Archive)

Declassified footnotes DNI by Katie Pavlich on Scribd

Twitter writer Undercover Huber @JohnWHuber makes a few interesting discoveries in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s recently released set of Carter Page’s FISA warrant applications.

Undercover Huber/Twitter

“More proof Rep Adam Schiff’s FISA memo was deliberately misleading about “narrow use” of the Steele dossier to spy on Carter Page.

Also EXCLUSIVE: the FBI/DOJ FISAs *heavily relied* on reporting attributed to “Source E” / “Person 1” (Sergei Millian) for probable cause.

Let’s compare yesterday release of a more declassified set of @carterwpage FISA warrant applications with Adam Schiff’s memo again

Reminder: Schiff and staff had full, clear text access to all the unredacted FISAs before they wrote their memo in Jan 2018.

Schiff’s Memo claimed the FISAs:

“…made only narrow use of information from Steele’s sources about Page’s specific activities in 2016, chiefly his suspected July 2016 meetings in Moscow with Russian officials.”

“Narrow use” of Steele’s sources, and just for the Moscow trip:

Schiff also claimed that only a “specific sub-section” of the FISA applications referred to “Steele’s reporting” (the section that discusses the allegation that Page met secretly Igor Sechin and other Russian officials in Moscow in July 2016).

This “specific sub-section” of the FISA starts at p.15 (Section III,B)

This is where the FISA first *appears* to mention Steele, and rely on his dossier reporting about Page’s alleged meetings in Moscow with Igor Sechin and others – or the “narrow use”, according to Schiff.

Until yesterday’s release, it was hard to 100% disprove Schiff’s memo just from the FISA itself. You could rely on the 2019 IG report, but Schiff can claim he didn’t know the IG’s findings when he wrote his memo.

Not true: Schiff knew he was lying at the time, in Jan 2018.

Section II, p.10 of the FISA was partially redacted in the original release in July 2018. But Schiff knew what was under these black lines – he had full access at the time he wrote his memo. Okay, what do they say?

The latest declassification reveals *for the first time publicly* that Section II, p.10 said that:

“[Carter] Page…has been identified by source reporting as an intermediary with Russian leadership” in “a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” to influence the 2016 election.

A “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation” with Page and “Russian leadership” is **literally cut and pasted from the Steele dossier**

And specifically, the source is “Source E”, referred to as “Person 1” by the IG report (referring to Sergei Millian).

That’s a major problem for FBI/DOJ:

—FBI/DOJ submitted this FISA, which relies on Person 1 as a key source, on Oct 21 2016

—The FBI had opened a counterintelligence case on Person 1 for their alleged links to Russian intel *before* the FISA, likely between Oct 3-12 2016

You read that right.

The FBI claimed a Collusion “conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and Russia in a secret FISA warrant application relying on a source they were supposedly investigating for having links to Russian intelligence which they didn’t disclose to the court.

—Schiff knew on Jan 18 the FISA relied on the Steele reporting to claim a “conspiracy of co-operation” between the Trump campaign (using Page) & Russia

—Schiff made up a claim of “narrow use” and hid this fact

—FBI/DOJ also hid the evidence that could refute this

—The FBI/DOJ used Steele’s “source reporting” to claim a “conspiracy” between the Trump campaign and Russia, relying on Source E/Person 1/Millian 🚨

—At the time they wrote this FISA they now claim they also had a CI investigation into Source E/Person 1/Millian🤔

Oh, and this is now the second time it’s been proven that the FBI/DOJ literally *cut and pasted* entire phrases and sections out of the Steele dossier and put them into the Page FISA warrant applications. So much for “narrow use.”

And of course, the media [and fact checkers] almost entirely bought into Schiff’s spin about “narrow use” of the dossier.

Examples:
NYT

FactCheck dot org

Politifact

Steele defender @DavidCornDC weighed in of course:

None of these guys have corrected their prior reporting, or more importantly, questioned whether they should rely in the future on documented fraudster and liar Adam Schiff for information, given his clearly intentional misrepresentations about the FISA warrants.

UPDATE:  Case Agent 1 is in a lot of trouble

In this Oct 2016 FISA, the FBI alleged there was a “well developed conspiracy of co-operation”, involving Carter Page working with Paul Manafort to collude with Russian leadership (sourced to Person 1/Millian from the dossier) (Read update: UndercoverHuber @JohnWHuber, 4/17/2020)  (Archive)

Jonathan Finer (Credit: Council on Foreign Relations)

“An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named another former official from Kerry’s State Department for alleged involvement in circulating the dossier. The magazine reported that Kerry’s chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer, obtained the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually decided to share the questionable document with Kerry.

Finer received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an “old friend.” Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.” (Read more: Breitbart, 4/21/2020)  (Archive)

John Brennan is nominated for the CIA director’s position and appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a hearing in 2013. (Credit: Jason Reed/Reuters)

By: Jeff Carlson @themarketswork

A John Brennan thread touching on some of his 2016 actions – mostly in his own words.

Brennan used unofficial intelligence from unofficial channels and then fed this information repeatedly into the FBI as a tactic to push the FBI into starting a Counterintelligence Investigation.

Brennan Testimony:

“Sometime this summer, there was information that the CIA had that was shared with the Bureau. But it wasn’t the only period of time where such information was shared with the Bureau.”

February 4, 2018 on Meet the Press:

“The CIA and the Intelligence Community had collected a fair amount of information in the summer of 2016 about what the Russians were doing on multiple fronts. And we wanted to make sure that the FBI had full access to that.”

Brennan Testimony:

“We were uncovering information intelligence about interactions and contacts between U.S. persons and the Russians. And as we came upon that, we would share it with the bureau.”

Brennan Testimony (Responding to Gowdy):

“I know that there was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials.”

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper personally confirmed foreign intelligence involvement during congressional testimony in May 2017:

Brennan Testimony:

“I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign was shared with the bureau [FBI].”

Brennan on Maddow:

“Any time we would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI…we were picking things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there…”

Brennan established a Task Force to investigate:

Maddow: “So, it’s an intelligence-sharing operation…”

Brennan: “Right. We put together a Fusion Center at CIA that brought NSA and FBI officers together with CIA to make sure that those proverbial dots would be connected.”

February 4, 2018 on Meet the Press:

Brennan: “The FBI has a very close relationship with its British counterparts. And so the FBI had visibility into a number of things that were going on involving some individuals…”

Brennan’s “intelligence” served as the basis for the FBI Counterintelligence Investigation:

“I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons…and it served as the basis for the FBI investigation.”

Brennan stated that he briefed the Gang of Eight. Brennan had already informed the Obama WH:

“Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept congress apprised of these issues…In consultation with the White House, I personally briefed the full details.”

But there’s a problem. Devin Nunes told us on April 22, 2018:

“There was no intelligence that passed through the Five Eyes channels to our government…We now know that there was no official intelligence that was used to start this investigation.”

Brennan on his knowledge of the Steele Dossier:

Brennan: “I know that there were efforts made by the Bureau to try to understand whether or not any of the information in that was valid, but I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of it.”

Todd: “When did you first learn of the so-called Steele dossier and what Christopher Steele was doing?”

Brennan: “I had heard just snippets about it…I did not see it until later in that year. I think it was in December…it did not play any role whatsoever in the [ICA]”

But during a CNN Interview with Clapper a slightly different story was told:

Clapper: “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.”

And Meadows indicated that Brennan knew of the dossier in Aug ’16 during Q&A of Lisa Page:

Meadows: “We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid…Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware of [dossier]?”

Brennan’s ICA was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Trump.

Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.

Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama on the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in early Jan 2017.

Gowdy asked Brennan about unmasking:

Gowdy: Have you ever requested that a U.S. person’s name be unmasked?

Brennan: Yes I have.

***

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

Brennan: I don’t know. Maybe it’s ringing a vague bell…

Gowdy: On either Jan 19th or up to noon on Jan 20th did you make any unmasking requests?

Brennan: I do not believe I did.

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

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

(Read more: Jeff Carlson, themarketswork/Twitter, 4/18/2020)  (Archive)  (The Epoch Times, 4/21/2020)

Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (r) and the committee’s vice chairman Senator Mark Warner speak to the media about the committee’s findings and recommendations on threats to election infrastructure, March 20, 2018. (Credit: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

“After Trump’s surprise election, then-President Obama directed “CIA Director John Brennan to conduct a review of all intelligence relating to Russian involvement in the 2016 election and produce a single comprehensive assessment.” With Brennan at the helm, the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and FBI compiled a report for Obama, which the FBI insisted include the now-discredited Christopher Steele dossier.

Other intelligence leaders objected, and as the committee report explained, the disagreement “was ultimately resolved by including the information as Annex A, a two-page summary attached only to the most classified version of the ICA.” The report explained the NSA was not involved in the discussion or the decision to include the Steele dossier in the annex, but then-FBI Director James Comey insisted that Steele’s “intel” be included, although he “was agnostic as to whether it was footnoted in the document itself, put as an annex.”

Significantly, in tracing this history of the decision to include the Steele dossier in the intel report, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence noted that “the FBI didn’t want to stand behind” Steele’s reporting.

But the FBI did stand behind Steele reporting to federal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court judges four times: once months earlier, and then mere weeks after the FBI opted to only summarize the dossier in the annex to the ICA report because the agents didn’t “want to stand behind” the reporting. As Inspect General Michael Horowitz found, and as the recent additional declassifications of the FISA applications prove, the Steele dossier was indispensable to the FISA surveillance applications. Yet “the FBI didn’t want to stand behind” it!

Nonetheless, and without a hint of self-reflection, Comey has pointed to yesterday’s Senate report as exoneration. Those who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election “were professionals,” Comey tweeted.

(Read more: The Federalist, 4/21/2020)  (Archive)

Devin Nunes (Credit: public domain)

“A top Republican said a criminal referral sent to the Justice Department last year relates to the 2017 intelligence community assessment on Russian election interference.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, spoke about the assessment on Tuesday after the Senate intelligence panel released its 158-page bipartisan report defending the assessment that was released in the waning days of the Obama administration.

The California congressman told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs that it was “suspect” the U.S. intelligence community put it together in a matter of several weeks, at the behest of former President Barack Obama. Referring to what he called “Obama’s dossier,” Nunes noted that his panel, when he was chairman, determined the “tradecraft was not up to snuff” and said he stands by his determination in the face of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s much different conclusion.

The lead GOP investigator revealed that one of the several criminal referrals he sent to the Justice Department last year, which were related to the Trump-Russia investigation, had to do with the intelligence community assessment. He said it focuses on “whether or not intelligence was manipulated for political purposes.”

Nunes’s assertions run counter to what the Senate intelligence panel wrote in its report. The heavily redacted report said Senate investigators found no evidence of political pressure to reach a specific conclusion and determined the assessment by the CIA, FBI, and NSA “presents a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 U.S.

(Read more: The Washington Examiner, 4/21/2020)  (Archive)

(…) Accusing the intelligence community of improper “analytic tradecraft” in analyzing Russia’s strategic intentions is an extremely grave indictment for a congressional oversight committee to make. In my opinion, there is no question the House Intelligence Committee is right for the reasons in its 2018 report and other subsequent findings.

The House committee found the intelligence community assessment violated protocols for drafting such assessments. This major finding shows why America needs strong legislative oversight over the intelligence services.

For example, although the protocols require intelligence community assessments to be “community products” and vetted with all intelligence agencies and analysts with equities in a given subject, only three intelligence agencies were asked to draft this assessment: the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI.

With the 14 other intelligence agencies left out, the three participating agencies included only two dozen “handpicked” analysts. Other intelligence agencies working on this issue, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, were excluded.

In addition, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed the actual drafting of the intelligence community assessment was done by three close associates of former CIA Director Brennan, who has proven to be the most politicized intelligence chief in American history.

Contrary to common practice for controversial intelligence community assessments, Brennan’s team allowed no dissenting views or even an annex with reviews by outside experts.

These were extraordinary violations of intelligence community rules to ensure that analysis is accurate and trusted. The Senate committee reports ignored these foundational violations.

The Senate Intelligence Committee report falsely claims that “all analytical lines are supported with all-source intelligence” and that analysts who wrote the intelligence community assessment consistently said they “were under no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions.”

House Intelligence Committee staff members found the opposite. They told me there was conflicting intelligence evidence on Russian motivations for meddling in the 2016 election.

More gravely, they said that CIA Director Brennan suppressed facts or analysis that showed why it was not in Russia’s interests to support Trump and why Putin stood to benefit from Hillary Clinton’s election. They also told me that Brennan suppressed that intelligence over the objections of CIA analysts.

House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election.

Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment.” (Read more: Fox News, 4/22/2020)  (Archive)

On May 12, 2020, Ed Henry confirms Fred Fleitz’s findings:

“The FBI’s top lawyer was torn over what to do when FBI Director James Comey asked in 2016 whether he should inform Congress that the bureau was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.

FBI General Counsel James Baker had been told that FBI agents discovered between 600,000 and 1 million emails on disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop relating to Clinton. The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee’s top aide, Huma Abedin, was married to Weiner, who was being investigated for sending illicit texts to an underage girl.

Baker, who left the FBI in May 2018, told author David Rohde that he felt like the “fates had thrown him a hundred-mile-an-hour fastball.”

Baker “believed it was likely that the FBI could find new evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton,” Rohde wrote in his recently released book, In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State.”

“She wins the election, we go to DOJ, and we recommend that they indict her before she becomes president,” Baker said, describing his nightmare scenario. “That’s not a good place for the country. That’s not a good place for the FBI.”

Baker also worried that the bureau’s credibility would be damaged if Comey did not inform Congress.

“I thought, ‘What is best for the law enforcement and judicial system?’” he said. “I said, ‘I thought the director had an obligation to notify Congress.’ Director Comey agreed with my advice.” (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 4/24/2020)  (Archive)

“Judicial Watch announced today it received 138 pages of emails between former FBI official Peter Strzok and former FBI attorney Lisa Page.

The records were produced to Judicial Watch in a January 2018 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a December 2017 request for all communications between Strzok and Page (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-00154)).

(…) The documents also include several emails in which Strzok forwards Russiagate-related news articles to Page and other FBI officials. On January 1, 2017, Strzok forwarded to Moffa and another unidentified official a New York Times article titled “Trump Promises Revelation on Hacking”. The article discusses President-elect Donald Trump’s skepticism about U.S. intelligence assessments of Russian hacking relating to the 2016 election. Strzok cut-and-pasted a quote from the article in which Trump said, “I don’t care what they say, no computer is safe. I have a boy who’s 10 years old; he can do anything with a computer. You want something to really go without detection, write it out and have it sent by courier.” The article mentions that Trump said new information would be coming out the following Tuesday. Strzok then says in his cover note, “I think the Tuesday surprise is all the stuff [redacted] told him during the CI [counterintelligence] briefing. He DID mention the stuff about his son and the computer password …” A redacted FBI agent replies to Strzok, but the reply is also redacted. Another FBI agent then responds, “To be accurate he called it a code word not a password. Ha!” Strzok replies, “Funnies.”

On December 15, 2016, Strzok forwards to Page an article from the Daily Mail which states that a former British diplomat, Craig Murray, claimed to have received emails that were stolen from the DNC and John Podesta. Murray said he received the emails near the grounds of American University in Washington, DC. The article says the emails were from an inside DNC source, not Russians. Strzok writes in his cover note to Page, “Shaddy sh*t at AU…;)”.

On December 21, 2016, Strzok forwards to Page a link to a Defense One article about Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election. Strzok cut-and-pasted a quote from former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell in which Morell says, “To me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of 9/11.”

On December 26, 2016, Strzok forwards to Moffa and an unidentified Washington Field Office agent a Bloomberg article titled “Trump Aide Partnered with Firm Run by Man with Alleged KGB Ties.” The article reports that Trump adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, having partnered in 2016 with Subu Kota, a man who pleaded guilty in 1996 to selling stolen biotech material to an FBI agent posing as a Russian spy. Strzok forwarded the article to Page, saying, “See, look, I’m sharing… ;)”

On January 4, 2017, Strzok forwards to Page a 14-page white paper by the Congressional Research Center entitled “Conducting Foreign Relations Without Authority: The Logan Act.” He had previously sent the same file to Office of General Counsel attorney Trisha Anderson and to Priestap.

In a January 4, 2017, email thread a redacted official in the FBI’s Operational Technology Division emails Strzok and Page: “The AD [Assistant Director] of Cyber is apparently bringing up the idea of [redacted]. [Redacted] just messaged me after being pinged by SF [likely the FBI’s San Francisco office]. He asked why this was coming up again, and he wants to talk to me about it next week. Any recommendation on how to deal with this?” Pages replies, “Why don’t you let Pete or Bill or I reach out to the AD of Cyber to let him know how we got here [redacted]. It might then be worth [redacted].” The official responds, “Perfect. That works for me and you can mention that OTD brought it to you. My initial recommendation was for the AD to reach out to you two, but I can only assume that message did not reach him.”

On January 9, 2017, in an email with the subject line “USIC report,” [U.S. Intelligence Community] Strzok tells Page and a redacted official “Per D’s request on Friday, NYO received a single copy of the influence report from ODNI’s [redacted]; it is being maintained in the CD SAC’s safe for PEOTUS [president-elect of the United States]/senior staff.”

On January 10, 2017, Strzok emails Page, Moffa, Priestap and Jennifer Boone to say, “Per Rich [presumably Richard Quinn, formerly with the public affairs office], CNN to publish C material today between 4 and 5. Page replies: “We have lots of details from kortan [Asst Dir Michael Kortan of public affairs]. He will brief at the 3:45.” Strzok responds: “Can I maybe get a read out vis a vis relationship with Brits etc?”

These new emails show that Strzok and his Obama FBI colleagues knew almost immediately that McCain likely leaked the infamous dossier,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The emails also show that senior FBI officials had contempt for President Trump and gossiped about its counterintelligence briefing to him. The FBI under Comey and McCabe was a train wreck and, given the ongoing cover-up of these docs, the agency hasn’t improved much.” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/24/2020)  (Archive)

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

“New court documents filed under seal include significant exculpatory information about Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former National Security Adviser, an FBI official familiar with the situation told The Federalist on Friday. The new documents, which were filed under seal by the Department of Justice Friday, allegedly include exonerating evidence about Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about his conversations with foreign diplomats as Trump’s top incoming foreign policy adviser and is currently attempting to withdraw his plea, as well as evidence of malfeasance by the FBI during its investigation of Flynn.

According to the FBI official who spoke to The Federalist, FBI general counsel Dana Boente led the charge internally against DOJ’s disclosure of the new materials. Boente, who briefly served as acting Attorney General after Trump became president, personally signed off on one of the federal spy warrants against former Trump campaign affiliate Carter Page. The new documents, which were filed under a protective order by DOJ on Friday, will reflect poorly on the FBI, the official told The Federalist. It is not clear when, or even if, those documents will be unsealed and made available to the public for review.

Because the documents were filed under seal, The Federalist has not been able to review them independently. Neither the Department of Justice nor the White House responded to requests for comment about the newly filed court documents or their legal or political implications. Trump has reportedly been weighing whether to issue a pardon for Flynn.” (Read more: The Federalist, 4/24/2020)  (Archive)

Michael Flynn Jr. (l) with his father Lt. General Michael Flynn. (Credit: ABC News)

“The criminal case against Michael Flynn imploded Friday. First, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia provided Flynn’s legal team with documents discovered by an outside review of the Flynn prosecution — documents withheld for years. Then, Sidney Powell, the attorney who took over Flynn’s defense nearly a year ago, filed new documents in the case, revealing a secret “lawyers’ understanding” not to prosecute Flynn’s son if the retired lieutenant general pleaded guilty.

(…) When a defendant cuts a deal with the government and agrees to cooperate and testify against a co-defendant or others, under Giglio those other defendants are entitled to learn the benefit of the plea agreement. But the email excerpts above suggest as Powell argued in her latest filing, that the lead prosecutor, Van Grack, “made a side deal not to prosecute Michael G. Flynn [Jr.] as a material term of the plea agreement, but he required that it be kept secret between himself and the Covington attorneys expressly to avoid the requirement of Giglio.”

Those emails also distinguish Flynn’s case from the run-of-the-mill criminal case in which a defendant seeks to avoid a plea agreement because of a side deal. Courts regularly dismiss such challenges because the terms of the plea agreement expressly provide that there are no other agreements beyond those set forth in the written plea agreement. As typical, Flynn’s plea agreement included such a provision, as seen below.

But Flynn’s case is different for two reasons. First, the emails attached as Exhibits 1 and 2 in Friday’s filing provide evidence of a side agreement — something lacking in most criminal cases. Second, the emails suggest the government intended to bind itself to this commitment via a “lawyers’ understanding” and omitted the term from the written plea agreement for an improper purpose — to avoid the constitutionally mandated disclosures. Thus, in this case, the side agreement implicates the integrity of the judicial process and suggests prosecutorial misconduct.” (Read more: The Federalist, 4/27/2020)  (Archive)

“In a supplement to the defense motion to dismiss [pdf here] we discover some of the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct turned over by the DOJ to the Flynn defense. Specifically Lt. General Michael Flynn’s plea was based on a threat against Michael Flynn Jr. if his father didn’t sign the plea.  This will very likely get the plea dismissed.

Because the exhibits had to be filed under seal, they are heavily redacted; however, Flynn’s defense counsel, Sidney Powell, has asked the court to release & unredact the full content of the exhibits so the world can see the coercion behind the corrupt plea agreement.

The Mueller prosecution team lead by Brandon Van Grack put the agreement and threat in writing, but they also made a deal with the former defense team to hide the terms in an effort to cover-up their misconduct.  Coercion to force a plea is unethical and unlawful.

The full filing is here.

Today’s filing by Sidney Powell proves what Conservative Treehouse originally outlined in April 2019.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/24/2020)  (Archive)

👇KEY POINTS OF INTEREST👇

2:00 Deep-dive into the entire investigation of FISA abuse and Crossfire Hurricane

29:15 The culpability of the media

40:52 Breaking down the “mess” created by a string of massive COVID 19 relief bills

Just how is it that some media have gotten away with calling “Spygate” a conspiracy theory?

With the DOJ IG Report footnotes, new revelations about FISA abuse, and disappearing Steele dossier records, what do we now know about the potential weaponization of the US Intelligence community against the Trump campaign?

And, what’s Kimberley Strassel’s prescription for dealing with the “mess” she argues has been created by the unprecedented COVID 19 spending bills?

In this episode, we sit down with Kimberley Strassel, a columnist and member of the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board. She writes a weekly Potomac Watch column, and she is also the author of “Resistance (At All Costs): How Trump Haters Are Breaking America.”

This is American Thought Leaders 🇺🇸, and I’m Jan Jekielek.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Chuck Grassley gives an opening statement before swearing-in Attorney General William Barr to testify, May 1, 2019. (Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press)

“Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) wrote to Attorney General William Barr asking the Department of Justice (DOJ) to produce a number of documents related to information from Christopher Steele’s primary source who ultimately contradicted Steele’s reporting.

In DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz’s report on FISA abuse, Steele’s main source of information was identified as the “Primary Sub-source.” IG Horowitz’s report found that the FBI heavily relied upon this information to obtain FISA warrants to surveil Carter Page even though:

• the Primary Sub-source’s information substantially undercut Steele’s subsequent reporting; and
• the FBI interviewed the Primary Sub-source at least three times and internally deemed the individual to be “truthful and cooperative.”

Further, the FBI made it appear to the FISA court that the Primary Sub-source’s information corroborated Steele’s reporting and did not bring up credibility issues uncovered during the FBI’s interviews with the Primary Sub-source.

As the Senate Judiciary Committee continues to investigate FISA abuse, Graham requested DOJ produce the following documents:

1) All documents and communications related to the FBI’s interviews with the Primary Sub-source in January, March, and May 2017, including the “lengthy written summary” of the Primary Sub-source’s January 2017 interview memorialized by the Supervisory Intel Analyst and Case Agent 1  and the two-page Intelligence Memorandum circulated by the Supervisory Intel Analyst in late February 2017 to Bill Priestap and other Counterintelligence Division officials, discussing “aspects of the Primary Sub-source’s interview.”

2) The complete February 15, 2017, email exchange between Peter Strzok, Bill Priestap and others, in which Strzok stated that “recent interviews and investigation, however, reveal [Steele] may not be in a position to judge the reliability of his sub-source network.”

3) The complete March 31, 2017, email exchange between individuals identified in the OIG Report as the “OI Attorney” and the “OGC Attorney” regarding the second FISA Renewal Application and the Primary Sub-Source’s credibility.

4) The complete email exchange between the Supervisory Intel Analyst and the OGC Attorney in March 2017 referenced in Footnote 389 of the OIG Report.

5) The “analytical documents prepared by, or with the assistance of, the Supervisory Intel Analyst after the Primary Sub-source interview” that “identified inconsistencies between Steele and the Primary Sub-source regarding some of the information contained in Reports 94 and 95.”

The full text of Graham’s letter can be found HERE.

(Senate Judiciary Committee, 4/27/2020)  (Archive)

Twitter     (Transcript)

(Senate Judiciary Committee – FISA Investigation)

Catherine Herridge: On new records, motion to dismiss, Judge Sullivan sets first deadline within days: “GOV shall file a response to Mr. Flynn’s sealed motion by no later than 12:00 PM on 5/4/2020 and Mr. Flynn shall file his reply by no later than 12:00 PM on 5/6/2020.

“President Trump on Monday did not rule out the possibility of bringing his former national security advisor Michael Flynn back into the administration if the retired general is exonerated.

“I will only say this: I think that General Flynn is a wonderful man. He had a wonderful career and it was a disgrace what happened to General Flynn,” Trump said during Monday’s coronavirus task force briefing.

“Let’s see what happens now. But what happened to General Flynn should never happen again in our country,” Trump said.

(Read more: JusttheNews, 4/27/2020) (Archive)

“Former US Attorney was on with Howie Carr again this week and he dropped some more bombshells about the current investigation of the investigators involved in removing President Trump and his team from office.

DiGenova discussed the Durham investigation and said at the 5:30 mark that Durham is building a conspiracy case and anyone who lied to the court will be indicted for obstruction of justice charges:

The bottom line is this, it’s unfolding and what’s happening is, what Durham is actually doing is he’s painting a picture and not everyone of these acts is going to be a specific separate crime. But they are going to be, what’s called overt acts in a conspiracy. One to defraud the United States government. One to deny the civil rights of Trump and Flynn and Page and a bunch of other people.

At the 8:55 mark diGenova drops another bomb when discussing the notes that were released today that show the government was actively working to frame General Flynn:

DiGenova: You know Baker is now working with Durham. James Baker the former General Counsel.

Carr: He’s flipped?

DiGenova: Who was a target, is now understandably cooperating because he was looking at a boat load of criminal charges. Once these notes were discovered, and by the way, these were the notes that [FBI Director] Chris Wray and Dana Boente did not want turned over.

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 4/28/2020) (Archive)

A Federal judge denies Roger Stone’s request for a new trial on April 16, 2020. (Credit: Reuters)

“The DOJ on Tuesday unsealed several search warrants in the Mueller deep state investigation and set up of Roger Stone.

The newly released documents offer a more detailed version than was previously known of how former special counsel Robert Mueller and other federal investigators aggressively collected evidence on Roger Stone in their corrupt and criminal probe of the Trump campaign and administration – reported CNN.

The Mueller team knew before the investigation was launched that there was no collusion with Russia.

Roger Stone sent us this statement tonight following the release of the warrants:

STATEMENT OF ROGER STONE ON RELEASE OF SEARCH WARRANTS

April 28, 2020

The Search warrants ordered released today by U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper proves the baseless over-reach of the Mueller witch hunt and exonerate me from the crazed left-wing media charges of Russian collusion, Wikileaks collaboration and the receipt and dissemination of stolen e-mails, false narratives that ruined my life for the last 3 years. Although there are private communications contained in the warrants, they prove no crimes. I have no trepidation about their release as they confirm there was no illegal activity and certainly no Russian collusion by me during the 2016 Election. There is, to this day, no evidence that I had or knew about the source or content of the Wikileaks disclosures prior to their public release.

Nearly every day, I would turn on the news and open the papers and read that I had committed treason against our great country, that I would be charged with espionage, trafficking in stolen e-mails and other cyber-crimes. Ultimately, despite the colonoscopy into my life, the Muller investigation could not find what the media wanted and insisted was there or that I did anything wrong in the 2016 election of my friend, President Donald Trump. Although I was not part of his formal campaign, I worked hard-and legally-to help elect the President.

The search warrants and the affidavits used to support them released today clearly demonstrate the overreach of the Mueller investigation. Prosecutors and FBI investigators alleged, under oath, to several federal judges and magistrates that they had probable cause to investigate me for outrageous crimes for which they had and found no evidence. In the early days of the Mueller inquisition, the crimes they tried to pin on me were: “Conspiracy Against the United States” “Foreign Contribution Ban” “Fraud and Related Activities in Connection with Computers” “Wire Fraud” “Aiding and Abetting” “Unauthorized Access of a Protected Computer” “Accessory After the Fact” just to name a few. All of this based on nothing more than the exercise of my First Amendment rights and my public Twitter feed.

When my attorneys argued the warrants and affidavits were nothing more than a collection of conclusory statements, the Judge in my case sided with the Mueller inquisitors. We forcefully argued that the warrants and the affidavits lacked evidence and only contained supposition. There were no factual allegations supporting the issuance of the warrants. They were clearly based on misrepresentations by the FBI and the Muller team.

The uncharged conduct- crimes the Mueller dirty cops said they had probable cause to secure the warrants- particularly relied upon the assumptions the Russian state was responsible for hacking of the DNC. The Government admitted in discovery in my trial that they relied on a redacted draft memo from Crowdstike- hardly an unbiased or credible source and the Government admitted the FBI never inspected the DNC servers. Screenshots of a computer server are like photos of a murder weapon-they cannot be examined. The sur-reply filed by former Assistant US Attorney Jonathan Kravis claiming the Mueller investigators had additional proof that the Russians hacked the DNC, included none of the alleged proof and was a fraud upon the Court. I was barred by Judge Jackson from proving this at trial through the production of forensic evidence and the testimony of experts such as former NSA Russia specialist and Technical Director, Bill Binney.

The much-publicized raid and exhaustive 13- hour search of my home and office yielded no evidence used against me at trial. When no evidence of Russian collusion, collaboration with Wikileaks, receipt or dissemination of stolen e-mails- including the stolen e-mails of John Podesta – was found, I was charged with lying to Congress even though there was no underlying crime to lie about and the Trump campaign’s interest in the already announced Wikileaks disclosures was a matter of public record. Testifying voluntary I had no intent or motive to lie as the matters I am charged with lying about were already in the public domain.

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 4/28/2020)  (Archive)

The DOJ released the following documents on April 28, 2020. Twitter user and document sleuth Brennan’sOrangeJumpsuit dives in:

(DOJ FOIA Release 4/28/2020) (h/t Brennan’sOrangeJumpsuit@15poundstogo)

“Interesting timing all things considered…. Michael Flynn removed and replaced his prior legal defense counsel, Covington & Burling, after asserting their ineffective and legally conflicted representation. (NOTE: former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is a partner at Covington & Burling.)  As a result of Sidney Powell taking over the Flynn defense, his prior counsel was supposed to turn over all client materials and evidence in the case.

After some recent jaw-dropping revelations in the case; which may include evidence highlighting how the FBI participated in framing Michael Flynn; and certainly contains evidence of an unethical prosecutorial agreement with the former defense counsel, to coerce a guilty plea by threatening to arrest Michael Flynn Jr; suddenly today Covington & Burling discover an additional 6,800 pages of evidence they conspicuously omitted.

The timing is very sketchy and Judge Sullivan does not appear amused.  After receiving the supplemental notice of case material transfer (full pdf below) Judge Sullivan issues an order to the Covington law firm to re-re-review all of their case files and file a notice of compliance by Monday May 4th.

Judge Sullivan has been very favorable to the position of the justice department throughout the case, but it appears even he is starting to question all of these “unintentional” miscommunications and material coincidences that paint a very challenging picture for the prosecution to explain.

Here’s the filing from the Covington law firm where they attempt to explain their new discovery and why they failed to present this material over the past ten months.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/28/2020)  (Archive)

“The first of the sealed documents provided to the Flynn defense have been unsealed.  The documents include emails between FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, his FBI counsel Lisa Page, as well as FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI Agent Joe Pientka in the lead-up to the January 24, 2017 interview of Michael Flynn.

This specific release is the court filing of five pages that were initially turned-over to the Flynn defense team last Friday. [The pdf is here]  (There are an additional 11 pages of documents from another production earlier today; those are not in this release.)

The documents today also include handwritten notes taken by FBI counterintelligence chief William “Bill” Priestap; which show him both questioning and outlining the purpose of the interview: to remove National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

(Above written notes transcribed)

According to the Priestap notes it appears the position of the FBI on January 23, 2017, was that Michael Flynn had violated the Logan Act by having a conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on December 29, 2016, prior to the inauguration.

This was a ridiculous position, there was no violation of the Logan Act; however, it was this position from which the questioning the next day, January 24 2017, would be based.

The next page of notes discusses the “Afterwards”:

The redactions are likely “the transcript“; where the FBI has the transcript of the call between Michael Flynn and Ambassador Kislyak.   The redaction would be continued to protect the source of the material (“sources and methods”).

Interestingly, on the second day, the actual day of the interview, it appears Bill Priestap had second thoughts and was questioning the goal of the interview: “I thought about it last night and I believe we should rethink this”…

FBI Asst. Director for Counterintelligence Bill Priestap then asks the question: “what is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?”

The premise of “wrongdoing” vis-a-vis a Logan Act violation was ridiculous.  As the incoming National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn would be talking to many counterparts throughout the globe.   Even Priestap started to realize what they were doing was “playing games.”

Here’s the full release.

[…] Multiple officials confirmed to Just the News that the author of the notes is William Priestap, the now-retired FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and the ultimate supervisor for fired agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia probe.

[…]  A special prosecutor is reviewing DOJ’s and the FBI’s handling of the Flynn prosecution, which led to the former Trump adviser and retired general pleading guilty to lying to the FBI under a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia case.

Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell filed a court motion last week saying new evidence has emerged showing Flynn was “framed” and his conviction should be dismissed. The officials said the notes are part of that new evidence and had been withheld from Flynn’s defense team for years even though they were potential evidence of innocence.

More evidence is being produced in the next few days that will further illuminate the FBI’s conduct in the case that is now at the center of the DOJ investigation, officials said.  (more)

Keep in mind, the Mueller special counsel knew this all along…

Keep in mind, former DAG Rod Rosenstein knew this all along…

Also, keep in mind, current FBI Director Chris Wray and current FBI Legal Counsel Dana Boente knew this all along…

These documents have been inside the DOJ and FBI for more than three years; while they prosecuted him and drove his family into bankruptcy.” (Conservative Treehouse, 4/29/2020)  (Archive)

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

Bill Priestap (Credit: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Getty Images)

“A senior FBI official’s handwritten notes from the earliest days of the Trump administration expressed concern that the bureau might be “playing games” with a counterintelligence interview of then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to get him to lie so “we could prosecute him or get him fired.”

The notes and other emails were provided to Flynn’s lawyers under seal last week and released Wednesday night by court order, providing the most damning evidence to date of potential politicization and misconduct inside the FBI during the Russia probe.

The notes show FBI officials discussed not providing Flynn a Miranda-like warning before his January 2017 interview — a practice normally followed in such interviews — so that he could be charged with a crime if he misled the agents, the officials said.

“What is our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?,” the handwritten notes of the senior official say. The notes express further concern the FBI might be “playing games.”

Multiple officials confirmed to Just the News that the author of the notes is William Priestap, the now-retired FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and the ultimate supervisor for fired agent Peter Strzok, who led the Russia probe.

You can download and read the notes here:
 FlynnFBINotes.pdf

(…) The handwritten notes suggest the FBI official had a concern about the way his bureau was approaching the interview with Flynn.

“I agreed yesterday that we shouldn’t show Flynn [REDACTED] if he didn’t admit • I thought @ it last night, + I believe we should rethink this,” he wrote.

Later he added: “If we’re seen as playing games, WH will be furious • Protect our institution by not playing games.”

The notes hint that some in the FBI might have believed giving Flynn the normal warning or allowing him the courtesy to see a transcript of his calls with Russians to refresh his recollection was “going easy” on the new Trump national security adviser.

“I don’t see how getting someone to admit their wrongdoing is going easy on him,” the official wrote to himself.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 4/29/2020)  (Archive)

Andrew Weissmann (Credit: public domain)

“One of special counsel Robert Mueller’s top prosecutors said he believes the Justice Department is trying to “soften the blow” of a presidential pardon for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.

Andrew Weissmann, a former Justice Department official who was known as Mueller’s “pit bull” during the Russia investigation, said President Trump has “no business” pardoning his former adviser and took another shot at the outside prosecutor whom Attorney General William William Barr ordered to review the government’s case against Flynn:

“I was in the Department of Justice for over 20 years, and I think the way I look at this is from the parochial point of view of what I think the department is doing, which I think the department is trying to soften the blow and make it politically easier for the president to pardon Gen. Flynn. The disclosure of documents from a purported neutral team that is reviewing the Flynn case, it seems kind of laughable to me,” Weissmann told MSNBC anchor Nicolle Wallace on Thursday.”

(Read more: Washington Examiner, 4/30/2020)  (Archive)

“Former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s memo authorizing Robert Mueller’s anti-Trump investigation was riddled with conspiracy theories lifted straight from the bogus dossier of Christopher Steele, a newly released, less redacted version of the memo shows. The memo, portions of which were declassified on April 30, 2020, specifically targeted former Trump campaign affiliates Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, and one individual whose identity is redacted.

(Mueller’s team did not find sufficient evidence.)

The Aug. 2, 2017 scope memo, which was provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to the Senate Judiciary Committee following requests from Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., cited Steele dossier collusion conspiracy theories about Manafort and Page.

Rosenstein ordered Mueller to investigate allegations that Page “committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election[.]” The same language was used to justify the targeting of Manafort.

Rosenstein’s memo also peddled discredited legal theories about the Logan Act, a 1799 law criminalizing political speech by American citizens that has never been successfully prosecuted, to justify investigations of former White House National Security Adviser (NSA) Michael Flynn. The scope memo directed Mueller to investigate allegations that Flynn “committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian officials during the period of the Trump transition.” (The Federalist, 5/06/2020)  (Archive)