February 8, 2022 – New evidence shows Fed gov colluded with Fusion GPS to frame Trump

(…) A document uncovered in a court case in D.C. with Fusion GPS shows that the company was working on nearly every piece of information eventually used by the Mueller gang to take down President Trump.  (Link to court documents.)

The below documents were provided to the courts in the above case where the defendants were suing Fusion GPS for libel.

This second document provides similar data along with the dollar values of their projects totaling more than $1 million.

We learned from the inventory of Fusion GPS projects that they were involved with Crowdstrike who was first reported as the experts claiming Russia had stolen the DNC’s emails back in 2016.  This lie was kept in place by the Mueller gang for years as the excuse to look into the Trump – Russia collusion.

Fusion GPS was involved in the Alfa Bank story that turned out to be a lie, the Carter Page story that was a lie since Page was working for the CIA, the Paul Manafort story, and the Papadopoulos story.  All of these stories and individuals were used by the DOJ and the Mueller gang as a means to harass and attempt to have President Trump removed from office.  Every one.

Fusion GPS also lists as projects, the “Trump kids”.   (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 2/o8/2022)  (Archive)

February 11, 2022 – The CIA collected info on President Trump

“On Friday, Special Counsel John Durham filed a motion relating to a defense firm’s potential conflict of interest in the Michael Sussmann case. The conflict itself is certainly intriguing, with Sussmann’s lawyers at Latham & Watkins LLP (Latham) having represented potential witnesses in the case, including Perkins Coie, former Perkins Coie (and Clinton Campaign general counsel) Marc Elias, the Hillary Clinton Campaign, and Hillary for America.

The issue that made more noise, however, was Durham’s disclosure that Rodney Joffe – a contractor with deep ties to the Clintons, and what appears to be a deep hatred for Trump – had exploited Executive Office of the President of the United States data he obtained from a “sensitive arrangement” with the U.S. Government to damage President Trump. Here is our initial post on the topic.

And here is the talented Lee Smith providing a great explanation on Tucker:

.@LeeSmithDC says he keeps hearing people comparing the scandal to Watergate when it doesn’t compare to Watergate at all. We are talking about some of the most secure communications in government been Surveiled by political operatives. pic.twitter.com/f22h5V92vV

— The Dirty Truth (Josh) (@AKA_RealDirty) February 15, 2022

Yet the data from the Executive Office of the President wasn’t all that Joffe had obtained. He also collected domain name system (DNS) internet traffic pertaining to a healthcare provider; Trump Tower; and Trump’s Central Park West apartment building.

Yesterday, February 14, Sussmann’s attorney’s disputed the Durham filing – to an extent. They said Sussmann provided the CIA with Executive Office of the President data from “when Barack Obama was president.”

(…) According to Durham, Joffe and his associates manipulated that data to make it seem like Trump, and those in Trump’s world, had suspicious interactions with internet protocol (IP) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider. They then combined those allegations with the Alfa Bank hoax materials (the subject of Sussmann’s Fall 2016 meeting with then-FBI General Counsel James Baker).

This damaging information, purporting to demonstrate at least circumstantial evidence of Trump/Russia collusion, was presented on February 9, 2017 to what Durham describes as U.S. Government “Agency-2.”

That agency was the CIA. We know for sure that Sussmann met with the CIA General Counsel. We learned in January 2022 that, if Sussmann is to be believed, there were two other CIA employees at that meeting.

In other words, a Clinton supporting contractor (Joffe) obtained sensitive information (perhaps unlawfully) about the Office of the President of the United States (Trump), manipulated the information, passed it to a DNC/Clinton lawyer (Sussmann), who then delivered it to the CIA.” (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 2/15/2022)  (Archive)

February 11, 2022 – Unredacted Mueller Report docs reveal he considered charging Donald Trump Jr. and Roger Stone

February 11, 2022 – New Durham filing: Rodney Joffe monitored Trump’s internet traffic and exploited the Executive Office of the President

To put this in context, Joffe is the tech executive who claims to have been offered a top job in a Hillary Clinton administration. He funneled the info from his spying operation on Trump to Michael Sussmann, Clinton’s campaign lawyer. pic.twitter.com/rGOiGLZgPf

— Hans Mahncke (@HansMahncke) February 12, 2022

More from Techno Fog:

Clinton allies used sensitive data from the Office of the President to push false Trump/Russia claims to the CIA

Why did they risked jail to link Trump to Russia?

Maybe because the origin of their fraud was the “Russian hack” of the DNC.https://t.co/AS39mvGHgB

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) February 12, 2022

This wasn’t limited to the Office of the President of the U.S.

They also exploited data from Trump Tower, another Trump building, and a “healthcare provider.”

More on the conflict of interest re: Joffe lawyers and Sussmann lawyers. ht @HansMahncke pic.twitter.com/n9SGbrC4J9

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) February 12, 2022

Kash Patel:

February 11, 2022 – Hillary ramps up public appearances and fans can pre-order a cool “dad hat” with the words “But Her Emails” for just $30

“Hillary Clinton is ramping up her public appearances ahead of the 2022 midterm elections as President Joe Biden’s popularity continues to plummet, even among Democratic voters.

Next week, for example, the twice-failed presidential candidate is expected to speak at the New York State Democratic Party Convention. Clinton, who used to command public speaking fees of more than $200,000 per hour, will address party leaders at the Sheraton Hotel in Times Square, according to CNBC.

Next month, Hillary will celebrate International Women’s Day by hosting a live virtual event with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and “other special guests to be announced.” She also recently touted some new merchandise available for purchase on the website of her political action committee, Onward Together.

For just $30, Hillary fans can pre-order a cool “dad hat” with the words “But Her Emails” printed on it, a reference to the catchphrase that was briefly popular among left-wing social media users circa 2016. (Read more: Washington Free Beacon, 2/11/2022)  (Archive)

February 11, 2022 – Durham motion to investigate a conflict with Sussmann’s attorney, Latham & Watkins, could be about their top attorney, Kathryn Ruemmler, Obama’s “fixer”

(…) When I wrote about the Durham motion to investigate potential conflicts of interest between Michael Sussmann and his attorney, the law firm of Latham & Watkins, I focused on the core point, which was that Hillary’s campaign, acting through the Perkins Coie law firm, spied on Trump.  Bongino, though, had a few more subtle points to make.  You can watch his video here, of course, but here are the two main takeaways:

First, I  missed something very important in Durham’s motion.  Here’s what Durham wrote at paragraph 5: “The Government’s evidence at trial will also establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (DNS) Internet traffic pertaining to …”

What Bongino caught is that Durham wrote “among the Internet data … was domain name system … Internet traffic.”  That strongly implies that DNS information, which simply means sites accessed, isn’t the only information involved.  It’s possible that Durham can show that there are other internet data that the Hillary camp exploited, things such as emails or shared documents.

Second, Bongino thinks the real bombshell in this is that Durham is warning Sussmann that Latham & Watkins is a very dangerous law firm to have representing him.  The reason is that one of the top Latham & Watkins attorneys is a gal named Kathryn Ruemmler or, as Bongino calls her, “The Fixer.”  He points out that Ruemmler has her finger in every single corrupt pie baked during the Obama administration.

Before moving to Latham & Watkins, Ruemmler was Obama’s White House counsel and ran interference for him.  But before that, she worked on the Enron case with Andrew Weissmann, the man who really ran the Mueller “investigation.”

After leaving the White House, Ruemmler represented George Nader, a convicted pedophile who set up meetings between Trump people and representatives of the United Arab Emirates.  He eventually pleaded guilty to having helped the UAE put millions of dollars illegally into Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign.  Ruemmler also represented Susan Rice.  Rice was the one who sent a memo to self on her last day in the White House assuring posterity that, when the Obama administration was spying on people, it was doing everything “by the book.”

Bongino believes that both Obama and, probably, Biden knew about the spying.  Ruemmler’s job, as always, will be to keep Obama clean.  As a power partner at Latham & Watkins, she can be expected to force the “Sacrifice of Sussmann,” if need be. (Read more: American Thinker, 2/16/2022)  (Archive)

February 14, 2022 – Ukrainian ultra-nationalists add former diplomat, Andrii Telizhenko to a potential target list due to his knowledge of Clinton and Biden criminal networks in Ukraine

“A Ukrainian former diplomat who exposed corrupt Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden networks, and who warned Americans about a Russian agent of influence, is now on what appears to be an assassination list.

After working for years with the Obama White House and a Clinton-aligned lobbying firm working for the Burisma gas company, Andrii Telizhenko became a source for Senate Republicans in 2019-2020.  He helped expose some of Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings in Ukraine and their dangers to American national security policy.

Telizhenko had been one of many witnesses who provided evidence to joint Senate committee investigation of Hunter Biden, the Burisma gas company, and corruption impacting US government policy.

Telizhenko’s revelations prompted Senate Democrats to accuse him of being a Russian disinformation agent, and ultimately for partisan bureaucrats to trick the Trump Administration into sanctioning him as a Russian asset in the last days before Biden took office. Two of Telizhenko’s accusers, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) pushed the Russian disinformation in the discredited Steele Dossier.

Now that wrongful partisan action was used to put Telizhenko on what many Ukrainians consider a kill list.

The list appears on a website that Ukrainian ultranationalists use to dox and track people they consider pro-Russian. Ukrainians understand it to be a kill list in the event of armed conflict with Russia.

(…) Telizhenko fell afoul of Democrat partisans in the US Treasury and State Department bureaucracies after he began exposing Hillary Clinton’s corrupt networks relating to Ukraine, and to Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian gas company.

He said he learned of the networks between 2013 and 2019 while serving as a Ukrainian diplomat, working with the Obama White House and the office of then-vice president Joe Biden, and State Department; and working for a Clinton-affiliated lobbying group called Blue Star Strategies. The lobby shop had a contract with Burisma while he was a contractor there.

Telizhenko was one of many witnesses who helped a joint investigation by the Senate Homeland Security Committee and Finance Committee, chaired at the time by Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA).  Democrat defense of then-candidate Joe Biden caused the Republicans under Johnson and Grassley to issue their own staff report, which discussed Telizhenko’s testimony and email and WhatsApp messages he produced as evidence.

Democrats were fine with Telizhenko until he exposed Hunter Biden. Then they called him a Russian agent.

“The Obama administration and the Democrat lobby shop Blue Star Strategies had consistent and extensive contact with Andrii Telizhenko over a period of years,” the Johnson-Grassley report said.

Telizhenko told me that his involvement with the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton’s team began in 2013, during the Revolution to overthrow the pro-Putin regime of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014. He said he was coordinator of international relations for the Maidan movement and worked with the US Embassy in Kyiv between 2010-2014 to remove Yanukovych and his government.

“Yet despite these well-documented contacts with Democratic officials, Democrats have attempted to impugn this investigation for having received some Blue Star-related records from him. … Democrats have claimed that Telizhenko is involved in a Russian disinformation campaign,” according to the senators’ staff report.

“In doing so, they conveniently have ignored their own long history of meeting with Telizhenko and his year-long for a Democrat lobby shop. If Democrats are concerned that Telizhenko presents any risk of advancing disinformation, it is notable that the Ranking Members [Democrat Senators Gary Peters (D-MI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)] have not expressed any curiosity about his work with the Obama administration or Blue Star Strategies.” (Read more: Center for Security Policy, 2/14/2022)  (Archive)

February 2022 – Swedish telecom, Ericsson, who controls America’s connection to Emergency Services, admits they funded and bribed ISIS in Iraq

(Michael Rae Khoury @Vltra_MK/Twitter, 3/04/2022) (Archive)

February 14, 2022 – Page 119 of the 2019 DOJ OIG FISA report says the FBI debunked Alpha Bank claims by early February 2017

(More from footnote 259) The Supervisory Intel Analyst told us that he factored the Alfa Bank/Trump server allegations into his assessment of Steele’s (dossier) reporting.” NOTE: always pays to read the footnotes

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) February 14, 2022

Page 119 has been “intentionally left blank” until now…

(Timeline editor’s note: Page 119 in the IG FISA report is blank, so we’re curious if it was released or leaked to Ms. Herridge. Also, oddly, Ms. Herridge works for CBS News and there are no available reports about this story on their website. It’s also suggested that Ms. Herridge has been tweeting about additional notes regarding Durham’s latest filing and Page 119 could part of that.)

February 16, 2022 – Clintonworld member, Marc Elias, takes over Black Lives Matter

“Black Lives Matter filings reveal prominent Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and another longtime ally of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have taken on key roles in the charity amid scrutiny over its leadership and finances.

Elias, best known for his funding of British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s discredited anti-Trump dossier while he served as Clinton’s 2016 campaign general counsel, appears to be representing the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation through his recently formed Elias Law Group. BLM’s national organization repeatedly lists the Elias firm as one of its addresses and states in its short-year 2020 Form 990 that its books were now in the care of the Elias Law Group.

Additionally, Minyon Moore, a longtime top ally of both Bill and Hillary Clinton, is now listed as part of BLM’s board of directors in the charity’s filings.

It’s not clear when BLM’s relationships with Elias Law Group and Moore began.

Black Lives Matter filed a charitable organization registration statement earlier this month with the New Mexico attorney general’s office, listing addresses for BLM in Arizona and Oakland, California, but says BLM’s “other address” is “c/o [courtesy of] Elias Law Group” in Washington, D.C.

BLM also filed an annual registration renewal fee report with the California attorney general this month, with the filing saying multiple times that one of its addresses was “c/o Elias Law Group.” The filing also states BLM’s “books are in the care of … the organization” that is “located at … c/o Elias Law Group.”

“The latest filing’s addition of partisan lawyer Marc Elias confirms the group is more political than charitable,” Scott Walter, the president of the Capital Research Center, a conservative investigative nonprofit group, told the Washington Examiner. “But it also suggests that finally some left-wing heavyweights have begun to deal with the embarrassing mess made by a major activist group the institutional Left has failed to, pardon the term, police.” (Read more: Washington Examiner, 2/16/2022)  (Archive)

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Rosie Memos shares a clue:

Why would BLM need Marc Elias to represent them? He’s a Democrat party elections lawyer🧐 Oh that’s right BLM was a cover to fund DNC.
cc: @TheLastRefuge2 https://t.co/O1eaAZhkTb

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) February 17, 2022

February 17, 2022 – Durham says no basis to strike ‘factual background’ from filing, denies intent to ‘politicize’

“Special Counsel John Durham on Thursday said that there is “no basis” to “strike” any part of his recent filing, despite a motion from Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann to do so.

Durham pushed back against claims that his office “intentionally sought to politicize” the case, and instead, defended the “additional factual detail” he included, which he argued is “central to proving” Sussmann’s “alleged criminal conduct.”

Sussmann’s legal team on Tuesday filed a motion demanding that the court “strike” portions of Durham’s Feb. 11 filing, including the section titled “Factual Background,” claiming the sections would “taint” the jury pool.

Durham, in a new filing Thursday night, urged the court to “deny the defendant’s motion.”

“As an initial matter, defense counsel has presumed the Government’s bad faith and asserts the Special Counsel’s Office intentionally sought to politicize this case, inflame media coverage, and taint the jury pool,” Durham’s filing states.

“That is simply not true,” Durham states, noting that his Feb. 11 filing “included two paragraphs of limited additional factual detail in its Motion for valid and straightforward reasons.”

“First, those paragraphs reflect conduct that is intertwined with, and part of, events that are central to proving the defendant’s alleged criminal conduct,” Durham wrote.

“Second, the Government included these paragraphs to apprise the Court of the factual basis for one of the potential conflicts described in the Government’s Motion, namely, that a member of the defense team was working for the Executive Office of the President of the United States (“EOP”) during relevant events that involved the EOP,” Durham wrote.

Durham added: “If third parties or members of the media have overstated, understated, or otherwise misinterpreted facts contained in the Government’s Motion, that does not in any way undermine the valid reasons for the Government’s inclusion of this information.”

“In light of the above, there is no basis to strike any portion of the Government’s Motion,” Durham wrote, adding that the government intends to file motions in which it will “further discuss these and other pertinent facts to explain why they constitute relevant and admissible evidence at trial.” (Read more: Fox News, 2/17/2022)  (Archive)

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Techno Fog writes:

Here’s why Sussmann is likely to fail.

Sussmann was trading on his name – former DOJ lawyer, purported cybersecurity expert – to convince the FBI to open an investigation.

He knew his reputation was material to what the FBI would do with the (false) Alfa Bank info.

— Techno Fog (@Techno_Fog) February 17, 2022

February 17, 2022 – The checkered past of the FBI cyber contractor who ‘spied’ on Trump

Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations

Long before FBI computer contractor and Clinton operative Rodney L. Joffe allegedly trolled Internet traffic for dirt on President Trump, he mined direct-marketing contact lists for the names and addresses of unwitting Americans to target in a promotional scam involving a grandfather clock.

Not just any clock, mind you, but a “world famous Bentley IX” model, according to postcards his companies mailed out to millions of people in the late 1980s claiming they’d won the clock in a contest they never entered. There was just one hitch: the lucky winners had to send $69.19 in shipping fees to redeem their supposedly five-foot mahogany prize.

Tens of thousands of folks forked over the fees, only to discover the grandfather clock that arrived was nothing as advertised. It was really just a table-top version made of particle board and plastic and worth less than $10. Some assembly was required.

The scheme generated thousands of complaints, sparking federal and state investigations. Joffe and his then-California partner, Linda M. Carella, were eyed by federal postal authorities and several state attorneys general for allegedly operating a multi-state mail-order scheme. Joffe settled several state lawsuits by agreeing to refund hundreds of thousands of dollars mainly to elderly victims, according to several published reports at the time.

Joffe and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment. But in a phone interview, Carella told RealClearInvestigations that Joffe ran the operation. “I was just the secretary, the receptionist,” Carella, 76, said from her home in Florida, where she is now retired. She did say she picked up the returned postcards and checks from mailboxes.

Carella said she quit after the investigation: “I said I don’t want anything more to do with this … I have not seen Rodney since then.” But Joffe pressed on with his direct-mail marketing business before packing up for Arizona a few years later. Federal and state tax lien records reveal Joffe — who also sent out mailers for skin care and other beauty products — owed more than $110,000 in back taxes on his property in Los Angeles in 1995.

Joffe’s checkered past now has national security ramifications after the South African-born computer expert was outed as a key player in Special Counsel John Durham’s ongoing Russiagate probe. To date he has not been charged with a crime. But in a September indictment of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, and a court filing last week, Durham has suggested that Joffe (identified as “Tech Executive-1”) was at the center of an effort to monitor President Trump’s communications and then share the information with Clinton associates.

Former prosecutor and assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the credibility issues that cropped up from Joffe’s early career raise questions about how he managed to pass an FBI personal background check and obtain the government’s highest security clearances, although he noted that such background checks were often ridiculed in the bureau as “a joke.” In addition, the federal mail-order probe involving Joffe’s companies might not have raised serious red flags since the case was opened decades earlier and was settled without any charges or judgments against Joffe.

The FBI declined comment.

Another part of the answer as to why Joffe’s past remained buried may involve how successfully he appears to have reinvented himself during the 1990s.

He relocated then to Phoenix from Los Angeles and changed the name of his mass-marketing firm American Computer Group to “Whitehat Data Services.” Instead of targeting consumers, he developed a reputation as a cyber-security expert and, ironically, a champion of consumers battling abusive direct-marketers and spammers.

Perhaps it was a sign of his redemption. But Joffe soon joined the board of PlasmaNet Inc., a marketing network that until recently operated FreeLotto.com, an online sweepstakes game. PlasmaNet has had to pay millions of dollars in fines for deceptive advertising. Echoing the grandfather clock scam, PlasmaNet led consumers to believe they won free prizes when in fact they had to pay $14.99 a month to claim them. RCI has learned that FreeLotto.com was a customer of UltraDNS, an Internet resolution company founded by Joffe. Business incorporation records show Joffe remains a PlasmaNet director.

A decade later, Joffe moved to Washington, where he eventually landed lucrative security-related contracts with the FBI and Pentagon requiring top secret clearance.

In 2006, Joffe joined Neustar Inc., a Beltway computer contractor that, among other things, secures and maintains Internet servers for federal agencies, including the White House. This high-level position gave the alleged former grandfather clock wheedler access to a proprietary archive of Internet traffic records – both public and nonpublic – known as “DNS logs.” These logs reveal the back-and-forth pinging that computers and cellphones generate when they communicate with Internet servers, including ones transmitting emails.

It also put him in the same orbit with political VIPs. Joffe started advising not only FBI brass but White House officials, including President Obama, on cybersecurity matters. By 2016, his access to proprietary internet logs became of interest to operatives for the Hillary Clinton campaign, who appear to have offered him a plum job in a Clinton presidency for help on an opposition-research project against Donald Trump. (Shortly after Clinton’s loss to Trump in November 2016, Joffe said in an email: “I was tentatively offered the top [cybersecurity] job by the Democrats when it looked like they’d win. I definitely would not take the job under Trump.”)

One of those operatives was ex-Clinton attorney Sussmann, indicted by Durham last fall in connection with allegations of lying about his work on the project for the campaign.

In the indictment and recent court filings that widen the case, Durham accused Joffe of exploiting Neustar’s nonpublic data to monitor Trump’s Internet activities even after the 2016 election – through early 2017. He shared the sensitive information with Sussmann, who in turn gave it to the CIA. The prosecutor said Joffe mined data from Trump Tower, Trump’s Central Park West apartment building and even the Executive Office of the President “for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump.”

According to court papers, Joffe cherry-picked data to create a “narrative” that Trump was secretly communicating with the Kremlin as part of the Clinton campaign’s effort to make the GOP nominee look like he was compromised by Russia, a foreign adversary. Before the election, Joffe led a team of computer researchers vying for a major Pentagon contract to link Trump to Russian Alfa Bank through private DNS logs. He handed off their findings to Sussmann who fed the data to the FBI to drive an investigation and bad press against Trump.

“The data was highly manipulated,” said Robert Graham of Atlanta-based Errata Security, an independent cyber forensics expert who examined the logs and debunked the link at the time. He suspects Joffe and his biased crew set out to invent a connection between Trump and Russia.

“A link between Trump and Alfa Bank wasn’t something they accidentally found, it was one of the many thousands of links they looked for,” he added. “The purpose was to smear Trump.”

Though Graham as a Clinton supporter shares Joffe’s disdain for Trump, he said the suspicious server data were easily explained as innocent spam traffic. Graham noted that Trump didn’t even have control over the domain in question: trump-email.com. It was created by a hotel marketing firm that inserted Trump’s name in the domain.

“Hints of a Trump-Alfa connection have always been the dishonesty of those who collected the data,” Graham said.

Even though Joffe encouraged Sussmann to present the server data to the FBI as possible evidence of foreign espionage, he privately confessed to his reseachers in an August 2016 email obtained by Durham that the host for the trump-email.com domain  “is a legitimate valid [marketing] company” – Boca Raton, Fla.-based Cendyn. “We can ignore it,” Joffe said, “together with others that seem to be part of the marketing world.” He urged his team to keep searching for data that would “give the base of a very useful narrative.”

In previous statements, lawyers for Joffe and the researchers he recruited have said they had no political ax to grind but were monitoring Trump to track a credible national security threat related to Russia. But Joffe’s lead researcher – Manos Antonakakis of the Georgia Institute of Technology – revealed in one email obtained by Durham that “the only thing that drives us is that we just don’t like [Trump].” Other emails, released this week by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that Antonakakis believed even the most salacious – and debunked – rumors in the Clinton-commissioned Steele dossier.

Recent court filings indicate Durham and his prosecutors aren’t buying their “concerned patriot” defense. Some see a crime in exploiting high-security government contracts for political purposes.

“In my opinion, Joffe is someone who should be indicted and probably will be,” former FBI official Swecker said in an RCI interview.

“As I see it,” Swecker explained, “Joffe, who worked for Neustar at the time, had a contract with either the Executive Office of the President or the [presidential] transition team, and he used information gleaned from his contractual relationship to provide that private information to the Clinton campaign. Depending on the actual facts on the ground, it could constitute mail or wire fraud, and if it were an actual government contract, perhaps fraud against the government – that is, the Executive Office of the President.”

Added Swecker: “There could be other criminal statutes [invoked] as well” — including conspiracy — “but to me, the key issue is his contractual relationship. He also engaged researchers at Georgia Tech who were working on a government contract and being paid by the U.S. government.”

In a public statement, a spokesman for Joffe argued that the then-Neustar executive had authority to mine the White House data: “Under the terms of the contract, the data could be accessed to identify and analyze any security breaches or threats,” including concerns about Russian interference in the election.

Joffe Internet Firms in Durham’s Sights

While not charged with a crime, Joffe, despite being subpoenaed, does not appear to be actively cooperating with Durham’s investigation. He does not show up on a discovery document recently filed by Durham listing people interviewed by investigators or the grand jury. Asked if Joffe has received a target letter, his attorney Steven Tyrrell did not answer. On Twitter, Joffe has removed all his tweets dating back to 2014.

Sources told RCI that Durham’s office is looking closely at Washington-based Neustar – which Joffe left in September following Sussmann’s indictment – and two Internet firms Joffe operated while still working there: Packet Forensics and Vostrom Ventures, both of which are controlled by Vostrom Holdings Inc. and also have offices in the greater Washington area.

Durham’s investigators have interviewed several current and former employees at all three companies, and obtained thousands of pages of subpoenaed documents from them, recent court filings reveal. In September 2016, Sussmann billed Neustar for “communications regarding confidential project,” a reference to Joffe’s mission to find a “secret hotline” between Trump and the Kremlin via Alfa Bank’s servers. That Sussmann billed Neustar for this work suggests a level of involvement by the company that has not been explained.

A month earlier, Joffe had tasked employees at his two small Internet startups to search for any Internet data (including private DNS holdings) reflecting potential connections or communications between Trump or his associates and Russia. Joffe emailed them a five-page dossier – the “Trump Associates List” – to guide their queries. As RCI first reported, the list included highly personal information on Trump campaign advisers Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. Steve Bannon appears to have been added to the list later as another target, the emails released by Judicial Watch reveal.

Packet Forensics reportedly landed a recent Pentagon contract to manage a large chunk of Internet domains owned by the military. The bid was awarded the day Joe Biden was inaugurated president. The massive cyberspace will allow Joffe’s firm to set up dedicated digital infrastructure, including servers and software, to comb through private Internet traffic for the purported purpose of monitoring suspicious activity.

Joffe’s company also sells wiretapping equipment that allows federal authorities to spy on private web-browsing through fake Internet security certificates, instead of real ones that websites employ to verify secure connections. Once installed, Packet’s device lets agents see an individual’s online transactions without obtaining a warrant.

Over the past decade, Packet Forensics has landed almost $40 million in federal contracts, according to publicly disclosed contract information. Joffe’s firm counts the FBI and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, among its customers. The contracts generally involve cybersecurity. Joffe monitors the computers of government officials for threats, including as it turns out, even investigators in the office of Justice Department watchdog Michael Horowitz, recent court filings reveal.

State incorporation records show that Joffe has created more than two dozen startups across 20 states, some of which have no employees, revenue or even offices.

‘Friends in High Places’

Joffe’s second-act success in government seems rooted in a simple fact: “He has friends in high places,” proferred a career Justice Department official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, pointed out that Joffe personally advised President Obama on cybersecurity and other issues, and was also close to former FBI Director James Comey.

Secret Service entrance logs reveal Joffe visited the White House several times during the Obama administration. And in 2013, Comey gave Joffe an award recognizing his work helping agents investigate a cybersecurity case. Sources told RCI that Joffe has also worked as an FBI informant on various cybersecurity cases opened by the bureau over roughly the past 15 years.

Sussmann’s attorneys have pointed to that acclaim to explain why Sussmann trusted the findings from Joffe he shared with the FBI. “Far from being a stranger to the FBI, [Joffe] was someone with whom the FBI had a long-standing professional relationship of trust and who was one of the world’s leading experts regarding the kinds of information that Mr. Sussmann provided to the FBI,” Sussmann’s lead defense lawyer Sean Berkowitz of Latham & Watkins said in a court filing last year.

A recent court paper filed by Durham in the Sussmann case suggests he may be looking into Joffe’s relationship with the FBI. The document, which discloses information to Sussmann’s lawyers as part of the discovery process, reveals that a criminal grand jury in D.C. has obtained “approximately 226 emails from within the FBI’s holding involving a company founded by [Joffe].” Durham does not identify the company, but sources told RCI it is Packet Forensics. The 226 emails were generated in 2016 alone. All told, the FBI has a total of approximately 17,000 emails that reference Joffe’s company – and those are just from a search of the bureau’s unclassified files.

Durham said that his investigators are “also conducting other searches and communicating with other government agencies regarding [Joffe’s] companies.”

The 67-year-old Joffe is commonly described as an award-winning and highly respected computer expert. But colleagues say he is more of an operator.

Graham said he’s “a quite average” computer programmer and network analyst. “He’s more of an executive than an operations guy.”

In a 2015 promotional video by Neustar, Joffe disclosed that his real gift is recruiting other experts, making phone calls to people in high places, and providing the resources needed for projects.

“I’m not the smart guy in the room. I’m really the dumb guy that carries the bags – but fortunately in those bags, I have a lot of money,” Joffe said with a grin. “So my role has really been carrying the bags of money to help whenever I can when folks in the [cyber-security] community want things. I’m really happy to be able to do that kind of thing.”

“So those are the things I really do,” he added. “I’m not really good at actually understanding spam and finding that. I’m not any of those things. I couldn’t have an intelligent conversation about the techniques and methods used.” (RealClearInvestigations, 2/17/2022)  (Archive)

(This and all other original articles created by RealClearInvestigations may be republished for free with attribution.)

February 18, 2022 – National Archives official who notified DOJ in Trump probe admits he didn’t do the same with Clinton’s deleted emails

“The official who triggered the federal probe into former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents opted against doing the same concerning Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

David Ferriero, who served as the director of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) from November 2009 until he retired this past April, said in a February letter to House Oversight Committee leadership that his staff had started communicating with the Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier this year.

In January, Trump returned 15 boxes of documents from his time in office to NARA after the agency notified him the material belonged to the federal government.

“Because NARA identified classified information in the boxes, NARA staff has been in communication with the Department of Justice,” Ferriero wrote in his Feb. 18 letter.

(…) However, Ferriero said he took a different approach in 2015 when Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Neb., who at the time chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked whether NARA had notified the DOJ about its investigation into the deletion of Clinton’s emails during her time as secretary of state.

“The Federal Records Act requires that when a deletion occurs, the head of the agency in question must notify the Archivist, and with the help of the Archivist, initiate an action through the Attorney General for the recovery of those records,” Grassley wrote on Sept. 4, 2015.

“Will you now request the Attorney General initiate an action for recovery for the 15 missing emails and potentially other federal records that may have been deleted by Secretary Clinton.”

In response, Ferriero said NARA didn’t believe it was necessary to notify the DOJ about the missing emails.

“In light of the ongoing activities, reviews, inquiries, and litigation described above, in which the Department of Justice reportedly is actively involved, we do not believe that it is appropriate or necessary at this time for NARA to request that the Attorney General initiate an action,” he wrote to Grassley.

Ferriero’s letter included a timeline of events that showed NARA first learned of Clinton’s emails in March 2015, several months before the DOJ reportedly began its review of Clinton’s handling of potentially classified national security information. NARA never notified the DOJ about its own review into Clinton’s email usage, according to the timeline.” (Read more: Fox News, 8/11/2022)  (Archive)

February 24, 2022 – General Flynn OMB complaint reveals a FISA warrant was obtained to spy on him

“As first reported by Tracy Beanz of UncoverDC and Adam Carter of The Washington Pundit, some stunning details were included in Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn’s (Ret.) recent complaint with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seeking $50 million for “unjustifiable, outrageous, and malicious prosecution.”

(…) Attached to the OMB complaint was a summary of the allegations of the political targeting and the weaponization of the power of the United States federal government by the FBI, DOJ, Obama administration officials (some held over into the Trump administration), up to and including President Barack Obama, and then-Vice President Joe Biden themselves—to “get Flynn” at all costs. A detail that seemed to escape the notice of many was the revelations that the FBI had obtained surveillance warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court or “FISC”) in order to spy on Gen. Flynn’s electronic communications as part of the now-discredited Trump-Russia Collusion Investigation.

The day after the news broke, Tracy Beanz discussed the impact of the FISA warrants on the Dark To Light podcast with Michael Opelka. The ramifications for Gen. Flynn are apparent. During the time the FISA warrant(s) were issued—as well retroactively back six months—the FBI would have unfettered access to any of Gen. Flynn’s electronic communications without his knowledge or need to notify him after the fact. Independent journalist Harold Finch pointed out that due to the FISA “Three Hop Rule,” the FBI would also have free rein to surveil the electronic communications of anyone Gen. Flynn messaged and anybody those individuals messaged. This potentially included all the members of the Trump campaign and transition team, including President Trump himself. Additionally, Flynn family members, business associates, government contacts, advisors, even journalists, and their sources who Gen. Flynn may have interacted with, and many others could potentially be surveilled due to the FISA Three Hop Rule.

Another revelation in the filing should raise the antennas of those who have followed Spygate closely. The OMB complaint specifically accuses FBI Special Agent Joseph “Joe” Pientka of having “made multiple false statements to the [FISC] in order to secure surveillance warrants.” For those unaware, Joseph Pientka was the other FBI agent in the room besides Peter Strzok during the infamous Jan. 24, 2017, meeting with Gen. Flynn in the White House. This meeting was the basis for the charges of Making False Statements to Federal Investigators brought by the Mueller Special Counsel Office (SCO) as part of the Russia collusion hoax. (Read more: UncoverDC, 5/24/2022)  (Archive)

February 24, 2022 – General Flynn files $50 million claim against feds in prelude to lawsuit

“Former Trump national security adviser, retired general alleges “malicious prosecution,” “political motivation” and “abuse of process” by FBI, DOJ, the Obama White House and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

In a prelude to a formal lawsuit, former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn has quietly filed a $50 million claim against the FBI and Justice Department for “malicious prosecution” related to the now-discredited Russia collusion investigation.

The notification, known as a Form 95 Civil Claim, obtained by Just the News, was filed Feb. 22. It names the DOJ, FBI, U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C., Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office and the Executive Office of the President as potential defendants and alleges former President Barack Obama and the FBI had a vendetta against him that biased their actions.

“Of all of President Trump’s appointees, the Obama White House hated Flynn the most,” the filing noted as it laid out a long list of irregularities in his case it said proved political interference inside the FBI.

Beginning in July 2016, “the FBI began to express disdain for candidate Donald J. Trump and began to consider ways in which it could hamper Donald Trump as candidate or as President, were he to win the 2016 election,” the filing alleges.

“As part of these efforts, the FBI began to target Flynn,” it claims. “Flynn was no stranger to the FBI and its leadership, many of whom considered Flynn to be a personal enemy of the FBI and the success of their own FBI careers.”

Flynn, according to the form, is seeking “compensatory damages including but not limited to lost past and future earnings/revenue, emotional distress, lost opportunity to be President’s National Security Advisor, significant restraints of personal liberty, attorney fees/expenses and court costs in defending against malicious prosecution, abuse of process, false arrest.”

In a supplemental filing accompanying the notification, Flynn and his lawyer Jesse Binnall make a detailed claim that there was a “political motivation” behind the prosecution of the former Trump adviser on a charge of lying to the FBI.

Flynn, a three-star Army general who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, initially pled guilty to the charge and agreed to cooperate with Mueller’s probe, then requested to withdraw his plea when belated exculpatory evidence emerged showing the FBI did not believe he had lied to agents, who actually tried to shut down the case but were overruled by superiors. Flynn was eventually pardoned after DOJ lawyers asked that his charges be dismissed.

Binnall said Flynn is prepared to sue if DOJ rejects the claim.

“For years government bureaucrats and left-wing agitators believed they could attack General Flynn with impunity. No more,” he said. “If you wrongfully attack an American hero, then you should be held to account.

“This Federal Tort Claims Act Action is just the beginning of that accountability. Lt. General Michael Flynn will no longer be the pincushion of the radical left.” (Read more: JusttheNews, 5/15/2022)  (Archive) (Flynn FTCA, 2/24/2022)  (Flynn FTCA, Additional Sheets)

February 24, 2022 – Facebook reverses policy and allows praise of neo-Nazi Ukrainian Azov Battalion, if it fights Russia

“Facebook will temporarily allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, The Intercept has learned.

The policy shift, made this week, is pegged to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and preceding military escalations. The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members. Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle: Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich; its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements; and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].” With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault?

According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”

The materials stipulate that Azov still can’t use Facebook platforms for recruiting purposes or for publishing its own statements and that the regiment’s uniforms and banners will remain as banned hate symbol imagery, even while Azov soldiers may fight wearing and displaying them. In a tacit acknowledgment of the group’s ideology, the memo provides two examples of posts that would not be allowed under the new policy: “Goebbels, the Fuhrer and Azov, all are great models for national sacrifices and heroism” and “Well done Azov for protecting Ukraine and it’s white nationalist heritage.” (Read more: The Intercept, 2/24/2022) (Archive)

(Timeline editor’s note: According to recent statements by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, extreme right, white supremacist militias are considered the number one threat to America’s national security. So it’s odd they are now to be accepted and cheered for their continuous attacks on the Russia friendly citizens in Ukraine since 2014.)

February 28, 2022 – Hillary Clinton: “We have to make sure that within our own country, we are calling out people giving aid and comfort to Putin and siding with autocrats against the global cause of democracy.”

We have to make sure that within our own country, we are calling out people giving aid and comfort to Putin and siding with autocrats against the global cause of democracy. pic.twitter.com/6R11vmtkKP

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 28, 2022

(Archive)

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