“When ODNI James Clapper walked into the oval office on January 4, 2017, with “tech cuts” (transcript excerpts) from the Flynn/Kislyak phone call, essentially Clapper infected the White House with a paper record that the Obama administration was aware of the FBI investigating the incoming administration.  Re-creating plausible deniability was the primary motive behind the January 5th meeting and the subsequent Susan Rice memo.

Why is it important to understand the duality of purpose for the appointment of the special counsel run by the figure-head (in name only) of Robert Mueller?

…Because from the outset the seventeen Lawfare lawyers who formed the resistance unit operation took control over the DOJ.

That was a large purpose of their installation. The Mueller resistance unit controlled everything, including every impediment to congress.

Despite the fact they should have been aware of this, many individual Senators and congressional representatives now claim they had no idea of this purpose. Setting aside their willful blindness; all that stuff is in the rear-view and only leads to anger in a debate that needs to look forward; the issue now becomes putting indisputable evidence, an actionable trigger, in front of them and forcing a public confrontation. Action. Nothing else matters; drive action.

At the same time, USAO John Durham [and S.P. XXXXX ] are facing ‘irrefutable’ evidence that holds two purposes: (1) undeniable evidence of a very specific cover-up operation that came, purposefully, from the agenda of the resistance unit to throw a blanket over the most serious abuse of power in modern history; and (2) evidence that ‘we the people’ know.

It might seem odd at first, but the knowledge that we know, and possess the evidence to prove beyond doubt, is an insurance policy in the quest for truth and justice. This includes evidence that cannot be ignored even if they disappear the delivery mechanism. The truth has no agenda, and in this case, the truth is a weapon.” (Conservative Treehouse, 8/03/2020)  (Archive)

“Lots of discussions amid multiple circles about what West Texas USAO John Bash might be looking into.  Is he looking back in time into the FISA(702) abuses that took place during the 2016 primary season?…. That would be in addition to the familiar “unmasking” aspect?…  and, if yes, what would that indicate?

Short answer is: no-one is certain.  AG Barr did mention that Bash is looking backward on the unmasking issues beyond the timeline scope of the 2016 presidential election.  That would indicate surveillance “unmasking” and FISA “minimization” would meld because essentially the terms are synonymous depending on the type of intelligence exploitation.

Prior Obama officials were “unmasking” names associated with FBI investigations simply to dirty them up to give fuel to the fraudulent basis of “Trump-Russia”; that’s the political weaponization of intelligence.  This did happen and Bash is cited with authority to review this carve-out of the ongoing DOJ investigation into DOJ/FBI intelligence manipulation.

However, if Bash is going into the issues of the NSA database being exploited for political opposition research via FISA-702 authorities (the intentional extraction of information with intentional non-minimization) well, that’s a more expansive kettle-of-fish than would seem to be possible to fully outline before the November election.

FISC presiding judges Rosemary Collyer (2016) and James Boasberg (2018) have already outlined the continued use of the NSA database for ‘unauthorized’ purposes. [Use Site Search Tool for details]

Is this something that AG Barr would authorize USAO Bash to pursue?… that’s a big question without an answer.  We would hope yes, but think about the scale of that in totality to the interests of DC writ large… Ergo, I’m not confident.

Unmasking and Non-Minimization are essentially the same issues.  The former has to do with actual FBI and intelligence investigations; the latter has to do with using the NSA database to extract information (mostly unlawful use).  Unfortunately, the general belief is that FISA(702) and NSA metadata collection, which includes the ability to review information on all citizens, are critical to national security.

Even with the findings of former NSA Director Mike Rogers about the systemic abuse he was not supportive of shutting the programs down.  So, with that in mind, would AG Barr want to undermine an operational tool that is vital to the function of national security (as defined by the total apparatus) by having a U.S. attorney expose abuses?  See the issue….

Tangentially related to this NSA database aspect, it seems clear the exploitation is not just about targeting political adversaries.   This is about money and power.  While there is no direct evidence the NSA database was being used to make money, the mere fact that Crowdstrike was a contracting agency with access points to a more financially motivating aspect.

Were these “contractors” extracting corporate, business, and financial secrets to sell and or trade and make money?  Is this the ultimate insider trading scheme in Washington DC?  The answer is actually in the question.  What entity would not eventually use that access for this purpose… it is just too easy to make money.” (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 8/03/2020)  (Archive)

Senators Grassley and Johnson write a letter to Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leader Schumer, Senator Mark Warner, and Congressman Adam Schiff:

“It is certainly our goal to eradicate foreign influence from our elections. But your use of this issue to knowingly and recklessly promote false narratives for political purposes is completely contrary to that goal.”

Grassley/Johnson Letter, 8/04/2020

The FBI  raids the offices of Optima Management Group at the One Cleveland Center building. (Credit: Cleveland.com)

“The FBI on Tuesday raided the Cleveland offices of a real estate company tied to a Ukrainian oligarch that owns several downtown buildings.

FBI spokeswoman Vicki Anderson said agents were searching the offices of the Optima Management Group in One Cleveland Center at East 9th Street and St. Clair Avenue. Optima is a conglomerate of companies across the United States that has interests in real estate in Cleveland, including One Cleveland Center, the 55 Public Square building, and the Westin Cleveland Downtown.

(…) Federal authorities in Cleveland have been conducting a wide-ranging probe involving Ukrainian oligarch Igor Kolomoisky that has been ongoing for quite some time. Kolomoisky is a principal of the Privat Group, a large Ukrainian business company, and principals of the company are also part of Optima.

Optima had a much larger presence in Cleveland about a decade ago when it bought several buildings under the leadership of executive Chaim Schochet. Its presence in Northeast Ohio has dwindled in recent years.

Optima also controlled Warren Steel Holdings, a mill northwest of Youngstown that closed in 2016.

Kolomoisky and a fellow Ukrainian billionaire formed PrivatBank in the early 1990s. It became one of Ukraine’s key financial institutions, according to Forbes. The Ukrainian government nationalized the bank in 2016 after an investigation suggested there was large-scale fraud over a decade-long period, Forbes reported.” (Read more: Cleveland.com, 8/04/2020)  (Archive)

“The United States filed two civil forfeiture complaints today in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida alleging that commercial real estate in Louisville, Kentucky, and Dallas, Texas, both acquired using funds misappropriated from PrivatBank in Ukraine, are subject to forfeiture based on violations of federal money laundering statutes.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan for the Southern District of Florida, U.S. Attorney Justin E. Herdman for the Northern District of Ohio, and Special Agent in Charge Eric B. Smith of the FBI’s Cleveland Field Office made the announcement.

The complaints allege that Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Boholiubov, who owned PrivatBank, one of the largest banks in Ukraine, embezzled and defrauded the bank of billions of dollars.  The two obtained fraudulent loans and lines of credit from approximately 2008 through 2016 when the scheme was uncovered, and the bank was nationalized by the National Bank of Ukraine.  The complaints allege that they laundered a portion of the criminal proceeds using an array of shell companies’ bank accounts, primarily at PrivatBank’s Cyprus branch, before they transferred the funds to the United States.  As alleged in the complaint, the loans were rarely repaid except with more fraudulently obtained loan proceeds.

As alleged in the Complaints, in the United States, associates of Kolomoisky and Bogoliubov, Mordechai Korf and Uriel Laber, operating out of offices in Miami, created a web of entities, usually under some variation of the name “Optima,” to further launder the misappropriated funds and invest them.  They purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate and businesses across the country, including the properties subject to forfeiture: the Louisville office tower known as PNC Plaza, and the Dallas office park known as the former CompuCom Headquarters.  The buildings have a combined value of approximately $70 million.

A complaint is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

FBI’s Cleveland Division is investigating the case with support from FBI’s International Corruption Unit, IRS Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  International Unit Chief Mary K. Butler, Senior Trial Attorney Michael C. Olmsted, Trial Attorneys Shai D. Bronshtein and Peter Steciuk, and Law Clerk Robert Blaney of the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrienne Rosen of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida are prosecuting the cases.  The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs has provided substantial assistance in the investigation.

The Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative is led by a team of dedicated prosecutors in the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, in partnership with federal law enforcement agencies, and often with U.S. Attorney’s Offices, to forfeit the proceeds of foreign official corruption and, where appropriate, to use those recovered assets to benefit the people harmed by these acts of corruption and abuse of office.  In 2015, the FBI formed International Corruption Squads across the country to address national and international implications of foreign corruption.  Individuals with information about possible proceeds of foreign corruption located in or laundered through the United States should contact federal law enforcement or send an email to kleptocracy@usdoj.gov (link sends e-mail) or https://tips.fbi.gov/. (Department of Justice, 8/06/2020)  (Archive)

Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley (Credit: JusttheNews)

“A powerful Senate committee chairman has subpoenaed FBI Director Chris Wray and a former State Department official in an intensifying investigation into possible U.S. corruption in Russia and Ukraine and declared there is evidence Joe Biden’s family engaged in a “glaring conflict of interest.”

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson announced the actions Monday, strongly accusing Democrats of levying false allegations against him and other GOP investigators to distract from the evidence his committee has gathered about Joe and Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.

Johnson noted evidence gathered by his committee showed Joe Biden met with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, in April 2014 and within a month the vice president then visited Ukraine and both his son Hunter and the business partner were put on the Burisma board as the firm faced multiple corruption investigations.

“Isn’t it obvious what message Hunter’s position on Burisma’s board sent to Ukrainian officials?” Johnson asked. “The answer: If you want U.S. support, don’t touch Burisma. It also raised a host of questions, including: 1) How could former Vice President Biden look any Ukrainian official (or any other world leader) in the face and demand action to fight corruption? 2) Did this glaring conflict of interest affect the work and efforts of other U.S. officials who worked on anti-corruption measures?”

You can read Johnson’s letter here:

 2020-08-09 RHJ letter re Investigation history purpose goals 1805.pdf

Sources familiar with Johnson’s investigation say the committee has secured testimony from at least one State Department official who worked in Ukraine saying the Bidens’ conduct created the appearance of a conflict of interest and undercut U.S. efforts to fight corruption in Kiev.

Johnson also divulged that late last week he issued a formal subpoena to Wray demanding he immediately surrenders records from the Russia collusion probe that the committee has been seeking for months.

The subpoena gives Wray until 5 p.m. on Aug. 20 to comply and demands all records from the probe known as Crossfire Hurricane, including those provided for a damning report by the Justice Department inspector general.

You can view the subpoena here

 FBI Subpoena 20200806.pdf

(…) Johnson also announced his committee has prepared a subpoena for Jonathan Winer, a former Obama State Department official who had extensive contact with British intelligence operative Christopher Steele, the author of a flawed dossier that helped propel the FBI probe into now disproven Trump-Russia collusion.

“Mr. Winer’s counsel has not responded since Thursday as to whether he would accept service of the subpoena,” Johnson said. “If he does not respond by tomorrow, we will be forced to effect service through the U.S. Marshals. More subpoenas can be expected to be issued in the coming days and weeks.” (Read more: Just the News, 8/09/2020)  (Archive)

“It would be an extreme long-shot if these two documented events were not analogous.

Senator Lindsay Graham asked today (Go Deep), who was the FBI official that delivered a set of false talking points to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) on February 14,2018?

Now we look within the SSCI Russian Active Measures Report… [Page #10, Footnote #25]

(Source Document – Page #10, fn #25)

McCabe may have had someone with him, but records clearly indicate, despite his status of announcing his resignation on January 29, 2018, Andrew McCabe was clearly at the SSCI on February 14, 2018 

UPDATE: TheWarEconomy Confirms (via supplemental)

Andrew McCabe (FBI) and Scott Schools (Main Justice) were at SSCI Feb 14, 2018.

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/09/2020)  (Archive)

“CTH friend, researcher and producer John Spiropoulos helps connect the dots within the operation to cover-up corrupt activity by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, James Baker, Christopher Wray, Dana Boente and the entire special counsel group.

In this video John walks us through the internal evidence showing how the FBI intentionally hid the statements by Christopher Steele’s primary sub-source Igor Danchenko.  The result…. a 34-month cover-up operation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham released the declassified documents on July 17th. [Thank You John Ratcliffe] The documents relate to how the intelligence apparatus conducted surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign in 2016; and ultimately the Trump administration after the inauguration.

The first document [Direct pdf here] is the Washington Field Office (WFO) FBI briefing summary of a three-day interview with Chris Steele’s primary sub-source. The document is highly redacted, but we already know from the IG release what the total content of the briefing revealed. The first interview was conducted on January 12, 2017, during the transition period between administrations. The classification term “SIA” stands for Source Identifying Attribute.

Per Senator Lindsey Graham:

♦ This document not only demonstrates how unsubstantiated and unreliable the Steele dossier was, it shows that the FBI was on notice of the dossier’s credibility problems and sought two more FISA application renewals after gaining this awareness.

♦ The document reveals that the primary “source” of Steele’s election reporting was not some well-connected current or former Russian official, but a non-Russian based contract employee of Christopher Steele’s firm. Moreover, it demonstrates that the information that Steele’s primary source provided him was second and third-hand information and rumor at best.

♦ Critically, the document shows that Steele’s “Primary Sub-source” disagreed with and was surprised by how the information he gave Steele was then conveyed by Steele in the Steele dossier. For instance, the “Primary Sub-source”: did not recall or did not know where some of the information attributed to him or his sources came from; was never told about or never mentioned to Steele certain information attributed to him or his sources; he said that Steele re-characterized some of the information to make it more substantiated and less attenuated than it really was; that he would have described his sources differently; and, that Steele implied direct access to information where the access to information was indirect.

In total, this document demonstrates that information from the Steele dossier, which “played a central and essential role” in the FISA warrants on Carter Page, should never have been presented to the FISA court. (Senate Link)

Here’s the FBI Briefing Summary: [Direct pdf Link]

FBI Interview Release – Chr… by The Conservative Treehouse on Scribd

The inspector general already reviewed this briefing material and explained the content in the IG report on FISA Abuse in December 2019. Here’s the nub of that full review:

The aspect of the primary sub-source deconstructing and undermining the underlying material within the Steele Dossier is critical because ultimately the dossier underpinned the FISA application.

When you recognize the FISA application itself was based on a fraudulent premise; and you recognize the intentional ignoring of the underlying evidence; then the motive behind the FISA becomes clear. The FISA against Carter Page was used as a justification for surveillance of Donald Trump that had been ongoing by Obama intelligence officials.

This context becomes stunningly more important when you look at how the FISA was used by the Mueller investigation to continue its weaponization throughout 2017 and even into 2018. Remember, in July of 2018 long after the source material was debunked, the special counsel office was still telling the FISA court the predication for the FISA application and renewals was valid.

Drive this point home.

This is a key to understanding the scope of how weaponized the Mueller team was.

In July of 2018 the special counsel resistance group was lying to the FISA court in order to protect the cornerstone document that permitted them to weaponize the intelligence apparatus.

This letter was written on July 12, 2018. It is NOT accidental that only a week later, July 21st, the special counsel released the FISA application under the guise of FOIA fulfillment.

Aside from the date the important part of the first page is the motive for sending it. The Mueller team running the DOJ is telling the court in July 2018: based on what they know the FISA application still contains “sufficient predication for the Court to have found probable cause” to approve the application. The resistance unit running the DOJ is defending the Carter Page FISA application as still valid.

On page #8 [Source Document Here] when discussing Christopher Steele’s sub-source, the special counsel group notes the FBI found him to be truthful and cooperative.

This is an incredibly misleading statement to the FISA court because what the letter doesn’t say is that 18-months earlier the sub-source, also known in the IG report as the “primary sub-source”, informed the FBI that the material attributed to him in the dossier was essentially junk.

By July 2018 the DOJ clearly knew the dossier was full of fabrications, yet they withheld that information from the court and said the predicate was still valid. Why?

It doesn’t take a deep-weeds-walker to identify the DOJ motive.

In July 2018 Robert Mueller’s investigation was at its apex.

This letter justifying the application and claiming the current information would still be a valid predicate therein, speaks to the 2018 DOJ needing to retain the validity of the FISA warrant…. My research suspicion is that the DOJ needed to protect evidence Mueller had already extracted from the fraudulent FISA authority. That’s the motive.

In July 2018 if the DOJ-NSD had admitted the FISA application and all renewals were fatally flawed Robert Mueller would have needed to withdraw any evidence gathered as a result of its exploitation. The DOJ in 2018 was protecting Mueller’s poisoned fruit.

If the DOJ had been honest with the court, there’s a strong possibility some, perhaps much, of Mueller evidence gathering would have been invalidated… and cases were pending. The solution: mislead the court and claim the predication was still valid.

♦ The FISA was also released in July 2018 in order to retain the false premise behind it. The copy that was released by the special counsel, through Rod Rosenstein, contained redacted dates because the special counsel needed to hide the fact the FBI (Washington Field Office) had actually used the FISA to catch a leaker of classified intelligence, James Wolfe.

Again, Wolfe’s story is the fulcrum…. tell that story and the House of Cards collapses like the Potemkin village it is. {GO DEEP}

The resistance lawyers in the Mueller team released the same initial FISA application (and first renewal) used to catch Wolfe; they had to release that specific March 17, 2017, copy. However, they had to redact the dates on the document they released because the dates were changed by SSA Brian Dugan to catch Wolfe.

The March 17, 2017, copy of the FISA, an FBI investigative equity, went into Main Justice with the leak trap visible. When the special counsel released the FISA application to Rosenstein for public FOIA fulfillment they had to redact the dates or people would ask questions about why this specific version had different dates than the original.

The March 17, 2017, copy of the FISA application is the only one to date that has been in the public sphere; including reviewed by OIG Michael Horowitz. That’s why when Horowitz originally released his FISA report, the OIG kept the dates redacted and only revealed them after the irrelevance of classification was pointed out.

The March 17th Wolfe copy of the first half of the full FISA application (original and first renewal), is the only copy that has ever been made public. If we were to ever see the modified and unredacted copy the FBI gave to Wolfe, the dates would not match with the actual dates of the application(s). The dates were used as part of the leak trace.

The Mueller team knew the explosive nature of the FBI investigation to catch the SSCI leaker. The Mueller team, with full control over Main Justice, was the group that buried FBI Supervisor Special Agent Brian Dugan’s explosive investigative findings.

Expose the conduct of this group and everything about the insurance policy falls into place:

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/11/2020)  (Archive)

Michael Flynn’s case took center stage again Tuesday, as his attorney Sidney Powell argued to the D.C. Circuit Court that dismissing the case against her client is the judicial and appropriate legal action to take since Justice Department prosecutors had asked for the case to be dismissed.

Stunningly, it appears that there is more evidence that has not been made public in the case of Flynn that led the Department of Justice and Attorney General William Barr to request that the charges be dropped. For Powell and Flynn, the news of new evidence supporting his innocence is significant.

(…) The Justice Department attorney Jeffery Wall, along with Powell argued and answered questions of the panel that was grilling them on all the details of the case. It was during the trial that Wall hinted at the new evidence in support of Flynn.

He told the judges that Barr’s decision to drop the charges against Flynn, was in part, due to information that the DOJ hasn’t yet shared with the public. Wall said, “the Attorney General sees this in the context of nonpublic information from other investigations.”

“It may be possible that the attorney general had before him information that he was not able to share with the court and so what we put in front of the court were the reasons that we could, but it may not be the whole picture available to the executive branch,” he added. “The attorney general made that decision or that judgment on the basis of lots of information. Some of it is public and fleshed out in the motion. Some of it is not.” (Read more: Sara A. Carter, 8/11/2020)  (Archive)

Full hearing:

James Baker (Credit: CNN)

“United States Attorney John Durham has interviewed the former top FBI lawyer during the Russia investigation.

James Baker, who recently was hired by Twitter, met with Durham’s team in recent weeks and was quickly brought back for follow-up questions, a source told CNN.

The report noted that witnesses who have spoken with Durham are unable to figure out who is a major target for prosecution in his criminal inquiry into Russia investigation.

Baker, who became general counsel in 2014 and resigned from the FBI in 2018, defended the Russia investigation and the FBI’s handling of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier. He was involved in the sign-off process of at least the first Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant application that targeted former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

(…) Baker resigned in May 2018 and joined Lawfare, a national security blog affiliated with the Brookings Institution whose editor-in-chief is Benjamin Wittes, a friend of Comey. He later joined the R Street Institute and then CNN as a legal analyst, but he no longer works there. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 8/13/2020)  (Archive)

Hillary Clinton

“Four-plus years after the James Comey-led FBI chose not to file charges against Hillary Clinton, despite evidence she transmitted classified information on an insecure email server, a federal appeals court Friday gave the former secretary of state another legal pass in the case.

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a writ of mandamus requested by Clinton’s lawyers overturning a judge’s order that she submit to a sworn deposition in a Freedom of Information Act case brought by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.

The court ruled that U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth erred in ordering the deposition in the first place.

“Discovery in FOIA cases is not a punishment, and the district court has no basis to order further inquiry into Secretary Clinton’s state of mind,” the appeals court ruled.

Judicial Watch had sought to secure the deposition to explore whether Clinton’s use of the private server to transmit government documents was an effort to evade the legal requirements of the FOIA law.

The group said Friday afternoon it is reviewing whether to appeal.

“We’re disappointed and considering our options,” Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton told Just the News. (Read more: Just the News, 8/14/2020)   (Archive)

Judicial Watch Issues Statement on Appeals Court Decision Blocking Hillary Clinton Testimony

Today I made the following statement about the decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit regarding the request of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s and her former Chief of Staff, Chery Mills to avoid testifying under oath about Clinton’s emails. The court granted Clinton’s request to avoid testimony but denied Mills’.

Today’s extraordinary Appeals Court decision protecting Hillary Clinton from having to obey a court order requiring her to testify about her emails is contrary to longstanding precedent and undermines the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The opinion’s deviation from a long line of earlier mandamus cases creates the appearance of favoritism towards Clinton and undermines the public’s confidence in the fair administration of justice. One need only contrast the DC Circuit’s agony over granting General Flynn mandamus relief with the unprecedented mandamus relief so easily given to Clinton.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton hid her government emails, then stole them when she left office. Her lawyers unilaterally determined what would be returned later. The State Department knew this occurred but tried to game a federal trial court into shutting down Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit before Clinton’s scheme became public. In response, the trial court rightly ordered Clinton to testify about the reasons for her actions and their impact on the public’s right to know. That this was too much for the DC Circuit is a miscarriage of justice.

In addition to today’s political decision, the Justice and State Departments’ continuing efforts to avoid getting to the bottom of Clinton’s email misconduct are a scandal. President Trump should hold Secretary Pompeo and Attorney General Barr accountable for their failures of leadership.” (Judicial Watch, 8/14/2020)

Senators Warner and Rubio of the Senate Intelligence Committee, introduced a bill to handle foreign technology threats. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Johnson/Grassley Letter, 8/14/2020:

(Grassley/Johnson, 8/14/2020)

On September 14, 2020, Warner and Rubio reject their request:

“The Republican and Democratic leaders on the Senate Intelligence Committee rejected a broad request from two Republican Senate leaders seeking access to the panel’s records to assist in their investigation into the Trump-Russia investigators.

Acting Chairman Marco Rubio of Florida and Vice Chairman Mark Warner of Virginia rejected a late August letter from Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who said that they “respect the authority” of the Senate Intelligence Committee to protect its interests, adding that “ultimately, we have the right as United States Senators” to access the records.

“We note that your request of the Committee is made pursuant to Senate Rule 26, but fails to account for the unique authorities and obligations invested in this Committee through Senate Resolution 400 and respected over decades of Senate and Committee practice,” Rubio and Warner responded. “Accordingly, we must reject the absolutist interpretation of Rule 26 that you propose. If this Committee elects to share materials that it has collected and generated in the course of its investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, it will do so pursuant to these long-standing Committee rules, and specifically, the joint agreement of the Chairman and the Vice Chairman.”

Rubio and Warner added: “Independent of whether that agreement is forthcoming, our position on this matter obviously does not preclude you from pursuing your own investigation, using your own authorities, as you see fit, within the confines of your committees’ jurisdictions.”

(Credit: The Political War Room)

“Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, two sources close to the matter tell Fox News.

Clinesmith was referred for potential prosecution by the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, which conducted its own review of the Russia investigation. Specifically, the inspector general accused Clinesmith, though not by name, of altering an email about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page to say that he was “not a source” for another government agency. Page has said he was a source for the CIA. The DOJ relied on that assertion as it submitted a third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Clinesmith is being charged in federal court in Washington and is expected to plead guilty to one count of making a false statement, his attorney Justin Shur told The Associated Press. (Read more: Fox News, 8/14/2020)  (Archive)

United States vs Clinesmith

The following is a transcript of an interview with Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike, that aired Sunday, August 16, 2020, on “Face the Nation.”

MARGARET BRENNAN: We want to turn now to the question of election security, we go to Dmitri Alperovitch, the co-founder and former chief technology officer of CrowdStrike, a cyber-technology company. Good morning to you, Dmitri. I know you have your own shop now. I want to ask you, since you watch this closely, what is the area of concern for you in election 2020?

DMITRI ALPEROVITCH: Well, my biggest concern as a cyber-security expert is, of course, the hackability of our election systems, both from the influence side as well as from the voting perspective. And I can tell you from my experience that voting is the hardest thing to secure when it comes to cybersecurity. It is literally the hardest problem out there. And the only way we know how to do it well and safely is by using paper, whether it be mail-in ballots or whether it be voting in person with a paper record that can be produced by the machine or the paper record of a paper ballot that you can mark up. Those are the safest ways. And the other way, of course, is to drop it off. Something that’s not getting much attention right now with all the focus on mail-in ballots is that all precincts should have drop boxes by the curbside, that people can drive by, walk by and drop off the ballot without using the mail.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It might- it might surprise people that a cybersecurity expert says that that is the best option is to go old school, go paper. But it is that paper route that the president has raised this week saying that it greatly concerns him. He said the biggest risk we have is mail-in ballots, universal- universal mail-in ballots. And he claimed foreign entities could interfere. He rattled off Russia, China, Iran, North Korea with mail-in ballots. What do you make of that statement?

ALPEROVITCH: Well, paper cannot be hacked, however, there is a legitimate concern about logistics. I’m not so much concerned about foreign entities interfering in the paper process, but we do need to make sure that states are prepared to take in the huge number of mail-in ballots that will come in. They’ll be able to do the signature verification that is necessary to make sure that there is no fraud. It can be done. Five states have been doing it for years now, like Oregon, Colorado, and others, but others have not. And we need to make sure they’re ready and they’re preparing now versus the day before the election.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You talk to people in the government now. Why wasn’t there a strategy to do what you just laid out?

ALPEROVITCH: Well, I think we haven’t been preparing for this and a lot of people were assuming that the disease would go away in a few months. Of course, it’s still here and now a lot of people are concerned about voting in person and we need to make sure that they have an opportunity to do so safely.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right. But there wasn’t a federal strategy to have the states do what you just said they should have been doing for the past four years.

ALPEROVITCH: Well, this is hard to do because, of course, the federal government is not in charge of elections.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

ALPEROVITCH: The individual states or even municipalities are in charge of them. So it’s really up to the states to do this well. New Jersey just declared that they will go all mail-in voting in November, and that’s a good thing. But other states need to ramp up their capabilities.

MARGARET BRENNAN: When you said that you were concerned about election infrastructure, the U.S. intelligence community has warned that adversaries are try to access- are trying to access candidates’ private communications and election infrastructure at the state and the federal level. The national security adviser to the president was on this program last Sunday and he said Russia and China are doing this, going fishing essentially on websites and the like. He’s been criticized for mixing apples and oranges. I’m wondering what evidence you have seen as to what Russia and China are actually doing?

ALPEROVITCH: Well, MARGARET, this is very important. There are different ways to interfere in our elections and what we have seen in the past is, of course, the Russians in 2016 hacking into campaigns, hacking into political organizations, and then leaking that information to the public through WikiLeaks and other channels. We have not seen that obviously this year. And that’s a good sign but of course, we still have a few months to go. But then there is the influence operations that they’re conducting and a number of countries are doing that now, China, Iran, as well as Russia, and not just around elections, really continuous on social media through official media channels and even government statements. But the third thing that concerns me personally is really attacks on the infrastructure itself, voter databases, vote tallying systems, vote reporting systems. Those are very, very vulnerable to hacking. And we need to be doing more to protect them. I know CISA, the federal Cyber Security Agency, is doing a lot to scan those systems right now, but more needs to be done.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Very quickly, is there anything people at home can do to make sure their vote gets counted?

ALPEROVITCH: Absolutely, two things. One, everyone can participate not just as a voter, but also volunteer. Election workers are often volunteers so reach out to county election officials, ask if you can help. They’re going to need a lot of help this year because of the challenging situations we have. But most importantly, be patient. This may be the first modern election we have where we may not know who the president is the night of the election or the day after. It may take days for us to actually count all the votes and understand who has won. So buckle up. It may be a long ride.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Indeed. And we are preparing the coffee already here in the news business. Thank you very much, Dmitri, for your perspective. We’ll be right back.

(CBS Face the Nation, 8/16/2020)

“According to reports in November of 2019, U.S Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. One recent quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state notes:

“One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services””. (Link)

It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there appears to be evidence of an extensive CIA operation that likely involved U.K. intelligence services. In addition, and as a direct outcome, there is an aspect to the CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control. In this outline we will explain where corrupt U.S. and U.K. interests merge.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to CIA interests, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok is clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.

By now people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese professor now generally admitted/identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the CIA (John Brennan) to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}

In a similar fashion, the CIA tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets much easier.

One of the more interesting aspects to the Durham probe is a possibility of a paper-trail created as a result of the tasking operations. We should watch closely for more evidence of a paper trail as some congressional reps have hinted toward documented evidence (transcripts, recordings, reports) that are exculpatory to the targets (Page & Papadop). HPSCI Ranking Member Devin Nunes has strongly hinted that very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and yet withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page that also mentions George Papadopoulos. I digress…

However, there is an aspect to the domestic U.S. operation that also bears the fingerprints of the CIA; only this time due to the restrictive laws on targets inside the U.S. the CIA aspect is less prominent. This is where FBI Agent Peter Strzok working for both agencies starts to become important.

Remember, it’s clear in the text messages Strzok has a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA. Additionally, Brennan has admitted Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and it is almost guaranteed the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane” was co-authored from the CIA by Strzok…. and Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Downer.

In short, Peter Strzok appears to be the very eager, profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe, who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.

Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015; at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons.

It was also Fusion-GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskya. A little-reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working double-agents for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S.

Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion-GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting… back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan fell out of a helicopter to his death (just before it crashed).

Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid-2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s handler, it was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where to send her. {Go Deep}

All of this context outlines the extent to which the CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit.

International operations directed by the CIA, and domestic operations seemingly directed by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin]

Recap: ♦Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA), and Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Azra Turk, pretending to be Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI). ♦Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr (CIA, Fusion-GPS). ♦Butina tasked against Trump, and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).

Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer, hired by Fusion-GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate.

All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence; and all of this intended to give a specific Russia impression. This predicate is presumably what John Durham is currently reviewing.

The key point of all that background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ, put a hell of a lot of work into it. Intelligence community work that Durham is now unraveling.

We also know specifically that John Durham is looking at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This is important because it ties into the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the EDVA. From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:

On Tuesday April 15th more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….

The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.

Why the delay?

What was the DOJ waiting for?

Here’s where it gets interesting….

The FBI submission to the Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”

(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative, it would make sense for the FBI to take a keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange; and why the FBI would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.

Within three months of the grand jury the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018. The EDVA sat on the indictment while the Mueller probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and the U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).

As a person who has researched this three-year fiasco; including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16; and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17; this timing against Assange is too coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.

This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election. This claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment; and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from Crowdstrike, a DNC contractor.

The CIA holds a massive conflict of self-interest in upholding the Russian hacking claim. The FBI holds a massive interest in maintaining that claim. All of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also have a vested self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.

Julian Assange is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange has claimed he has evidence it was not from a hack.

This Russian “hacking” claim is ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K intelligence apparatus…. Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.

Now, if we know this, and you know this; and everything is cited and factual… well, then certainly AG Bill Barr knows this.

The $64,000 dollar question is: will they say so publicly?

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/18/2020)  (Archive)

“Former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page called the recent indictment of former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith the “first step on the road to justice” on Tuesday, four years after the feds began spying on Page in 2016 and his life was “overturned.”

Friday was just a first step on the road to justice because it was the first time that I started to see some semblance of justice from the DOJ and FBI with the fact they were acting in accordance with Crime Victims’ Rights Act, a law that was totally avoided and not respected throughout last four years,” Page told “Mornings with Maria.”

Clinesmith is expected to plead guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the investigation into links between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, two sources close to the matter tell Fox News.

“The charging document against Mr. Clinesmith, it really is just the tip of the iceberg in so many ways,” Page said.

“It was false conspiracies and made-up lies paid for by Democrats,” he continued. “I actually sent Mr. Clinesmith a letter in April 2017, you know, to your point about media, there were some media leaks and lies and misrepresentations, on the Rachel Maddow Show on ‘MSDNC,’ and sure enough I get more threatening calls from Oklahoma that night.” (Read more: Fox News, 8/18/2020)  (Archive)

Senators Warner and Rubio of the Senate Intelligence Committee discuss a bill to handle foreign technology threats. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

The Senate Intelligence Committee released a redacted version of the final volume of its report on RUSSIAN ACTIVE MEASURES CAMPAIGNS AND INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION. All five volumes of the report are accessible here.

Volume 5 (pages 941-943) states ADDITIONAL VIEWS OF SENATORS RISCH, RUBIO, BLUNT, COTTON, CORNYN, AND SASSE. Here is their statement (emphasis in original):

(U) Volume 5 of the report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference is the last body of work relating to the Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This final volume brings an end to more than three years of investigative work. Bipartisan professional staff reviewed more than one million documents and interviewed more than 200 witnesses to produce over 1,000 pages of analysis. Volume 5 exhaustively reviews the counterintelligence threats and vulnerabilities to the 2016 election, but never explicitly states the critical fact: the Committee found no evidence that then-candidate Donald Trump or his campaign colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to meddle in the election.

(U) The Trump campaign publicly and repeatedly promoted a policy of improving relations with Moscow which, in some ways, was a view not much different than the effort by the Obama administration to “reset” relations between the two countries. Such a policy does not itself constitute collusion or a counterintelligence threat. Volume 5 includes sections that address foreign policy actions taken by the Trump transition team in line with this policy, not because the Committee found any evidence that these foreign policy actions were the result of collaboration with the Russian Government, but to show that after an exhaustive investigation, allegations of cooperation can be put to rest. Decisions taken were the result of a foreign policy viewpoint, not illicit Russian influence. We feel Volume 5 should have explicitly stated this.

(U) More than three and a half years later, the Trump administration’s record on Russia shows a consistent attempt to cooperate with Russia where possible, while responding firmly to Russia’s nefarious activity worldwide. For instance, under the leadership of President Trump, the administration effectuated the largest expulsion of Russian spies in U.S. history after Russian operatives poisoned Sergei Skripal in London, provided Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine to deter Russian aggression, and led the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty-international agreements that the Russians have been violating for years and wish to preserve.

(U) While this Volume did not find evidence of collusion between President Trump and the Russians, it does detail a stunning accounting of the FBl’s sloppy work and poor judgment. In 2016, the Democratic Party, using a series of arm’s length transactions, hired a foreign citizen to seek out dirt on a political opponent, provided by foreign sources. This Volume confirms that Christopher Steele used information gained from sources in Russia-some with direct ties to the Russian Government. That unverified, uncorroborated, foreign information was then actively circulated with the press to disparage a U.S. political candidate.

(U) Meanwhile, the FBI should have followed the advice of other intelligence agencies to view Steele’s reports skeptically, and the Bureau should have verified the methodology and the information before using it. Instead, the Bureau used the material in FISA applications and insisted on its inclusion in the Intelligence Community Assessment. Other IC agencies wanted to exclude the Dossier from the ICA because they had not verified its sources or its data. All Americans should be deeply troubled that the FBI was willing to accept and use Steele’s information without verifying its sourcing or methodology.

(U) Volume 5 is an important contribution to the historical record from which historians will someday draw. As is evident to those who read all five volumes of the Committee’s report, the Russian government inappropriately meddled in our 2016 general election in many ways but then-Candidate Trump was not complicit. After more than three years of investigation by this Committee, we can now say with no doubt, there was no collusion.

(PowerlineBlog, 8/18/2020)  (Archive)

Joseph Mifsud and George Papadopoulos (Credit: Financial Times Graphic)

(…) The FBI maintains that the years-long Trump-Russia probe was triggered by a single barroom conservation [sic]. Over drinks in London in May 2016, a low-level Trump campaign adviser named George Papadopoulos reportedly told an Australian diplomat that he had been tipped off that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Papadopoulos later told the FBI that the information came from a Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud.

The Senate report, however, casts doubt on this origin story, only going so far as to say Papadopoulos “likely learned about the Russian active measures campaign as early as April 2016 from Joseph Mifsud.” (emphasis added.) Nearly 500 pages later, contradicting itself, the report drops the qualifier: “The Committee found Mifsud was aware of an aspect of Russia’s active measures campaign in the 2016 election and that Mifsud told Papadopoulos what he knew.”

The Senate report contradicts the above passage by dropping the qualifier “likely” hundreds of pages later, below.

The report spends dozens of pages on Mifsud, yet adds no new information to support the suspicion that he had advance knowledge of a Russian interference plot. Instead, the report falls back on vague, equivocal language and insinuation. It describes Papadopoulos’ interactions with Mifsud as “highly suspicious,” and claims that Mifsud “exhibited behavior consistent with intelligence tradecraft” while maintaining “significant ties to the Russian government and business circles.” As with its handling of Konstantin Kilimnik, another supposedly Russian agent, the report ignores Mifsud’s far more extensive public contacts with Western diplomats, including the FBI, CIA, and State Department.

Julian Assange (l) and Kurt Waldman (Credit: public domain)

(…) The Senate report reveals a similar lack of investigative zeal regarding the other key episode that launched Russiagate: WikiLeaks‘ release of stolen Democratic Party emails.

According to the FBI, Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat whom Papadopoulos supposedly spoke to in London, thought nothing of the conversation until weeks later in July 2016, when Julian Assange and WikiLeaks published the first tranche of stolen emails. Downer suspected that Russia was using the website to publish the dirt Papadopoulos had mentioned.

The Senate committee states in its report simply that it “requested but did not obtain an interview with Julian Assange,” the WikiLeaks founder now fighting extradition from Britain to the U.S. A source close to WikiLeaks told RealClearInvestigations that Assange’s U.S. legal team agreed to an interview but that the Senate committee never followed-up on his response. Attorney Adam Waldman, who had served as an intermediary between Assange and the U.S. government, has claimed that the committee’s ranking Democrat, Warner, told him to cut off talks with Assange in April 2017. According to Waldman, Warner was acting at the behest of then-FBI Director James Comey, who reportedly told the Virginia senator to “stand down.” Comey has never commented on the incident.

The Senate report once again relies on speculative language, contending that WikiLeaks “likely knew it was assisting a Russian intelligence influence effort” when it obtained and released Democratic Party emails during the 2016 campaign. It is unclear how the committee arrived at this conclusion. What is clear is that, just like the Mueller team before it, the committee passed up an opportunity to seek answers from the WikiLeaks publisher himself.  (Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 9/21/2020)  (Archive)

“A fantastic catch by Twitter user @15poundstogo highlights a key phrase within the Senate Select Intelligence Committee (SSCI) Russia Report Volume-5, showing how the SSCI allowed those who created the Trump-Russia narrative to avoid questioning:

(SSCI Volume-5 Link, Page 23)

This is a very important detail to underpin the report we shared yesterday about former Dianne Feinstein top staffer Dan Jones attempting to avoid a subpoena from U.S. Attorney John Durham.  [SEE BACKGROUND HERE]  This key highlight from the SSCI is evidence of how the attempted coup against President Trump was coordinated by people outside government and inside government.

Dan Jones left the SSCI prior to the 2016 election and went to work pushing the Trump-Russia narrative through his media contacts.  Jones took over funding Fusion-GPS and Chris Steele in 2017 at the same time Senator Mark Warner took over as SSCI vice-chairman. Dan Jones and Mark Warner coordinated the efforts outside and inside government on the same objective.  The Senate Intel Committee was part of the effort.

As a result of their alignment and common purpose the SSCI didn’t investigate the origin of the Trump-Russia narrative; and instead positioned themselves as a shield to block any investigative inquiry into what took place.  THIS IS A BIG DEAL!

The attempt to remove President Trump from office encompassed all three branches of the U.S. government.

• Executive Branch – FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Dept., and Special Counsel Office.
• Legislative Branch –  SSCI in 2017 and 2018 with an assist from House Intelligence Committee and House Judiciary in 2019 and 2020.
• Judicial Branch – FISA Court 2015, 2016, 2017; Federal Judges (Sullivan, Walton, Howell, Berman-Jackson) in alignment with DC intents in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

How does the office of the United States president; and more importantly a constitutional republic itself; survive a coordinated coup effort that involves all three branches of government; while simultaneously those in charge of exposing the corruption fear the scale of the effort is too damaging for the U.S. government to reveal?

One of the key needs of the corrupt intelligence apparatus was to find a way to stop the incoming administration from exposing their effort; that’s where the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) comes in.

Senator Dianne Feinstein was vice-chair of the SSCI in 2016.  Feinstein’s former chief of staff was Dan Jones.

The post-election plan to protect the intel community would involve using the SSCI institution to cover for prior Obama-era operations. Senator Feinstein was not a good fit for that role, so Feinstein abdicated her position in advance of the next congress in 2017.

In January 2017 Senator Mark Warner took over as SSCI vice-chair after Dan Jones left the SSCI to continue efforts as a freelance operative.   Warner was put into place to carry out the strategic objectives needed to protect the DOJ, NSD, CIA, FBI and ODNI operations against Donald Trump who was now the incoming president-elect.

Keep in mind with control of the SSCI the group inside the legislative branch could control who ran what intelligence agency because they held the power of confirmation; and they could control who would rise to be inspector general within the intelligence community, a position needed if a whistle-blower was to surface.  The SSCI would only allow Michael Atkinson to act as ICIG – That’s because Atkinson was part of the 2015/2016 crew.

Additionally, the SSCI would control intelligence information and assist the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel after the appointment.   The SSCI could work as a sword and a shield as needed.  Which is exactly what happened.

That background, the motive of the SSCI, explains every point of conflict and corruption we have seen from the SSCI toward the White House in the past four years.

Meanwhile Dan Jones went freelance and in 2017 was given $50 million to fund an investigative outfit called the “Penn Quarter Group” and create a new organization called the Democracy Integrity Project.

“Jones told federal investigators that he had raised $50 million from “7 to 10 wealthy donors located primarily in New York and California.” (link)

Jones used both groups to continue selling and pushing the Trump-Russia narrative. Also it was important for those at risk to find an alternate route to keep financing their defense without using Clinton’s legal team within Perkins Coie.

Essentially, in 2017 Dan Jones, through his Penn Quarter Group, took over funding for Fusion-GPS and Glenn Simpson and kept paying Christopher Steele.  The payments to these entities and Steele always looked more like a pay-off to keep their mouths shut. Jones was essentially the bag-man for continued Trump-Russia operations outside government.  Jones’s second job was to keep pushing the Trump-Russia narrative in the media (read more).

What follows hereafter is additional evidence of the SSCI role in the overthrow of a duly elected President Donald J Trump.

MOST OF THE CITATIONS:

The sequence is critical:

1.  Adam Waldman text messages. (release date Feb 9, 2018)

2. Justice Dept. Letter to journalist Ali Watkins (release date Feb 13, 2018)

3.  James Wolfe indictment (release date June 8, 2018)

4.  FISC / Senate Judiciary Letter (public release April 2020 – event date July 12, 2018) The letter from DOJ-NSD (Mueller Special Prosecutors) to the FISC is important.

5.  Carter Page FISA application (release date July 21, 2018)  Only need the first application section. 83 pages of original application.

6.  Government Sentencing Wolfe Case memo and recommendation for upward departure and/or variance. Filed December 11, 2018

7.  Govt. Reply to Defendant (Wolfe) sentencing memo (date Dec 14, 2018)  Govt. Exhibit #13 (two-page attestation is critical).

Misc:

July 27, 2018,  – Wall Street Journal  – Wolfe lawyers threaten SSCI subpoenas.

Dec 11, 2018 – Politico – Senators seek Leniency –

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 10/09/2020)  (Archive)

CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge tweets this exchange that occurred between Kevin Clinesmith and Judge Boasberg during the plea hearing on August 19, 2020.

(Reformatted for an easier read.)

Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleads guilty 1 count false statements, but key exchange goes to intent.

Judge Boasberg: Did you read plus understand this document before you signed it?

Clinesmith: I did your honor.

Judge Boasberg: This document actually sets forth the fact that the government contends occurred here. The act that you actually committed that you agree that what the government sets forth here is in fact true.

Clinemsith: Yes, your honor.

Judge Boasberg: And most specifically that on (garbled-date??) that you intentionally altered an email to add the language plus “not a source” in regard to individual one (Carter Page) plus you knew that (garbled) statement was not in fact true.

(20-second pause)

Judge Boasberg: I’m not sure whether you are conferring with your client, I didn’t hear a response to that question.

Lawyer: I apologize…on mute…give me a second…

Clinesmith: Sir, I, Sir at the time, I believed that the information I was providing in the email was accurate. but I, (stumbles) am agreeing that the information I entered into the email was not originally there. That I inserted that information.

Judge Boasberg: In other words, you agree that you intentionally altered the email to include information that was not originally in the email.

Clinesmith: Yes your honor.

Joseph Mifsud was working with Nawaf Obaid. Obaid worked for the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. He also got Mifsud the job working with CNN’s Freedom Project at Link Campus.

If the Senate Intelligence Committee was using open sources why did they leave those facts out?

ChrisBlackburn/Twitter

Nawaf didn’t need to be in the Mueller Report or the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report. But they felt compelled to leave him in. Why?

Because WE know Mifsud’s full profile.
They also drag Gianni Pittella into the frame…why? They can’t exactly leave him out too.

If they add Obaid and Pittella into the report why didn’t they investigate it?

So, they know there is an accurate profile of Mifsud in play. But they don’t want to contradict the USIC.

The Senate Intelligence Report claims Joseph Mifsud and Olga Polonskaya were using intelligence tradecraft.

Mifsud and Putin’s niece both worked at “Hogwart’s for Spies” in Rome. They both worked for LCILP too.

Significance? LCILP directors also teach intelligence.

(Chris Blackburn@CJBdingo25, 8/23/2020)

“Carter Page appears on Fox News for an interview with Maria Bartiromo to discuss a book he is publishing about the DOJ and FBI targeting him for surveillance and identifying him as “an agent of a foreign government” in 2016 and 2017.

Interestingly, Page notes [@02:56] he had five interviews with the FBI in March of 2017, and he connects those interviews to the possibility of leaks to the Washington Post.  However, it would be interesting to find out the exact dates of those interviews because the FISA application identifying him, leaked by James Wolfe, was delivered to the SSCI on March 17, 2017, as a “read and return” document.  It was after March 17th when the Washington Post wrote the article mentioned by Carter Page.

There is strong circumstantial evidence when the FISA application was delivered to the SSCI on March 17, 2017, that only James Wolfe and SSCI Vice-Chairman Mark Warner reviewed it.  First, it was “read and return”, back to the equity provider, FBI SSA Brian Dugan.  Second, if any other member of the SSCI had reviewed the application it’s doubtful they would have been requesting to review it in December ’17 and early ’18.  Common sense would indicate only Warner and Wolfe saw the application, and Warner never informed the committee of his review; hence their later requests.

Additionally, another unusual aspect to the FISA application delivery surrounds the 2018 letters written by Chairman Nunes (HPSCI) and Chairman Bob Goodlatte (House Judiciary) to presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer, where both chairmen were being blocked by the special counsel from obtaining the FISA application and both were seeking to gain it from the FISA Court.

Collyer informed Goodlatte and Nunes that their request of January 16, 2018, was putting the judicial branch in a precarious position between the executive branch and the legislative branch.

Judge Collyer informed the committee chairman they needed to exhaust all other possible remedies for production prior to requesting intervention by the judicial branch.

However, notably in her return correspondence to the legislative bodies, FISC Judge Collyer never informed Nunes and Goodlatte about the FISA application having previously been provided to the legislative branch in March 2017.

She never mentioned it….. Why not?

One possibility for not informing the legislative branch is that Judge Collyer knew FBI Agent Brian Dugan was using the FISA application as part of his leak investigation, and the need to retain investigative value kept her from revealing the March 2017 delivery.

The original request from Nunes and Goodlatte was January 16, 2018.  The response from Collyer was February 15, 2018, which is really interesting.

On February 9th, the text messages between Senator Mark Warner and Chris Steele’s lawyer Adam Waldman were released.  On February 13th, the DOJ informed Ali Watkins about the court order granting FBI Agent Brian Dugan the authority to capture and review her text messages, phone and email communications.  All of these events are connected.

FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer responded to the January request from the House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte. (full pdf’s below – #1 and #2)

There was an underlying issue not being discussed within the communication – yet visible in the corner amid their engagement. That issue was the possibility SSA Brian Dugan may have modified the FISA documents as part of his leak investigation.

When the Dugan investigative file was then reviewed by the special counsel (due to their primary investigative authority) the Mueller team needed to cover the modification; hence their release of that specific document on July 21, 2018, came with redactions of all dates.

The special counsel would have received this investigative file from Dugan in the middle to end of January 2018.  Around the same time Nunes and Goodlatte were writing letters to Judge Collyer.

This mid to late January time-frame appears to be when Dugan’s file was scrubbed of the direct evidence tying Warner/Wolfe to the leak.  It appears the special counsel then gave Warner a ‘head’s-up’ about the captured text messages that were part of Dugan’s investigation.  Vice-Chairman Mark Warner then coordinated a plausible justification for his communication with Waldman; and in short order, February 9, 2018, those texts were released to diffuse the controversy.

In essence, the FISA documents held by the court *may not be* identical to the FISA documents released by the Department of Justice. With good reason to suspect something was afoot, yet Dugan’s background work was unknown to Goodlatte at the time, Goodlatte was seeking to compare the DOJ copy (taken from Dugan, but he did not know that) with a clean FISC copy.  In hindsight, Goodlatte was on the right trail.

Here are the Collyer responses.

To Chairman Nunes (seeking transcript):

FISA Court Presiding Judge … by The Conservative Treehouse

To Chairman Goodlatte (seeking documents):

FISA Court Presiding Judge … by The Conservative Treehouse

Why didn’t Judge Collyer inform the legislative branch of the prior production to the SSCI?

Why didn’t any other senators -including SSCI committee members- know the FISA application had been delivered for review and return on March 17, 2017?

Was Mark Warner the only senator who knew of the FISA production March 17, 2017?

The motive for Warner to request the FISA application in March, and then seek to leak the content, is easily identifiable.  At the time (early 2017) the political resistance was trying to convince the public that Trump-Russia collusion had happened.  This was an effort to undermine the administration and get a special counsel put into place.

Warner leaking the reality of the FISA application’s existence stirred the media into action because now the media could push a narrative that Trump must be colluding with Russia or there would not be a valid FBI investigation of it…. and the FISA court was validating the issue with their own approval of a FISA warrant.

The leak of the FISA application served to prove there was some measurable validity to the fraudulent claim of Trump-Russia collusion… or else, so the narrative was spun, there would not be an FBI investigation into it.  That’s how the resistance drummed up the need for a special counsel to continue the operation against President Donald Trump.

That’s why Senator Mark Warner wanted to leak the FISA application; and it appears he used SSCI Security Direct James Wolfe to pull it off.

(Conservative Treehouse, 8/25/2020)  (Archive)

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

“Two sources close to the Senate probe tell CBS News that FBI agent Joe Pientka has been interviewed behind closed doors for “multiple hours” by investigators with Senate Judiciary and Senate Oversight/Government Affairs.

In 2018, then Chairman Chuck Grassley first sought Pientka’s testimony but the request was denied until now.

WHY IT MATTERS: Pientka is at the intersection of key events in the Durham investigation. Along with agent Peter Strzok, Pientka conducted the January 2017 WH interview of General Flynn that led to his dismissal.

More recently, declassified records showed Pientka and others used an August 2016 “defensive-briefing” to warn candidate Trump, Flynn Governor Christie about national security threats to gather information on their line of questioning about Russia for the  FBI probe known as Crossfire Hurricane. These events and decision making fall under Durham.” (Read more: Catherine Herridge/Twitter, 8/27/2020)  (Archive)

John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence, has been coordinating with U.S. Attorney John Durham and plans to soon declassify more documents related to the Trump-Russia probe, he said Sunday.

“The question now is, did the FBI have a proper predicate to begin a counterintelligence investigation at all, and that’s the issue that John Durham is looking at, and also the issue that I’m continuing to look at,” Ratcliffe said in an interview on

(…) Ratcliffe said that he is not privy to Durham’s findings, but that he has provided the prosecutor access to intelligence documents needed for the investigation.

“I’m coordinating with him to make sure that he has the intelligence documents that he needs to do his work, and what I don’t want to do is declassify something that might prejudice his work so we’re going to have to coordinate as we go forward,” said Ratcliffe, a former U.S. congressman from Texas.”

Ratcliffe said he has tried to avoid declassifying documents that would “prejudice” Durham’s investigation, though he said he’s “optimistic that I’ll be declassifying additional documents soon.”

(Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/30/2020)  (Archive)

John Ratcliffe also said he has filed multiple “crimes reports” regarding alleged leaks of classified information to the media.

“When I become aware of intelligence community information that is disclosed unlawfully, I do what’s called a crimes report. I’ve done that now on a number of occasions, and so those investigations are moving forward.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 8/30/2020)